Comparing Intelligence Democratization in Latin America: Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador Cases

Resumen

AbstractThis article aims to contribute to the understanding of the intelligence democratization process in new democracies comparing three South American countries: Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina. With a background of authoritarian legacies (‘political police’ style intelligence agencies controlled by the military) under particular political circumstances and changing strategic environments, these countries experienced disparate trajectories, prescriptions, and outcomes in their efforts to reform their intelligence communities. Drawing on new institutionalism, historical moments and relevant events shaping the dynamics of intelligence democratization are highlighted for each case, depicting failures and successes, and identifying drivers of change. AcknowledgementsThis paper was first presented at the IPSA-ECPR (International Political Science Association – European Consortium for Political Research) Joint Conference, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil, 16–19 February 2011. I am most grateful to Tom Bruneau, Marina Caparini and Peter Gill for their very helpful comments on the text.Notes1 Thomas Bruneau and Cris Matei, ‘Intelligence in the Developing Democracies: The Quest for Transparency and Effectiveness’ in L.K. Johnson (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010) p.771.2 C. Maldonado, ‘Dilemas Antiguos y Modernos en la Inteligencia Estratégica en Sudamérica’, Security and Defense Studies Review 9/1–2 (2009) pp.50–1. For an account on legislation, see José M. Ugarte, ‘América Latina, Actividad de Inteligencia y su Control. El Estado de la Cuestión’, paper prepared for the 2010 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, Toronto, Canada, 6–9 October 2010. Also see José Manuel Ugarte, Actividad de Inteligencia y Democracia en América Latina (Madrid: Editorial Académica Española 2011); and C. Sancho Hirane, ‘Democracia, Política Pública de Inteligencia y Desafíos Actuales: Tendencias en Países de Latinoamérica’, Inteligencia y Seguridad: Revista de Análisis y Prospectiva 11 (2012) pp.67–102.3 Refers to when the police and their investigations against organized crime predominate and have ‘strategic intelligence’ range; Maldonado, ‘Dilemas Antiguos y Modernos en la Inteligencia Estratégica en Sudamérica’, p.50.4 K. O'Connell, ‘Thinking about Intelligence Comparatively’, Brown Journal of World Affairs 11/1 (2004) p.189; Peter Gill, ‘Knowing the Self, Knowing the Other: The Comparative Analysis of Security Intelligence’ in L.K. Johnson (ed.) Handbook of Intelligence Studies (NY: Routledge 2006) pp.82–90.5 Len Scott and Peter Jackson, ‘Journeys in Shadows’ in L. Scott and P. Jackson (eds.) Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century: Journeys in Shadows (London: Routledge 2004) p.21.6 F.C. Matei and T. Bruneau, ‘Intelligence Reform in New Democracies: Factors Supporting or Arresting Progress’, Democratization 18/3 (2011) pp.602–30.7 Gill, ‘Knowing the Self, Knowing the Other’, pp.88–9. See also the map for theorizing and researching intelligence developed by Peter Gill and Mark Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure World (Cambridge: Polity Press 2006).8 Matei and Bruneau, ‘Intelligence Reform in New Democracies’.9 Erving Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situations of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (NY: Doubleday 1961). Other authors used Goffman's concept, for example, regarding military bureaucracy. K.E. McCoy, ‘Beyond Civil–Military Relations: Reflections on Civilian Control of a Private, Multinational Workforce’, Armed Forces and Society 36/4 (2010) p.679.10 Priscila Carlos Brandão, Serviços Secretos e Democracia no Cone Sul: Premissas para uma Convivência Legítima, Eficiente e Profissional (Niterói: Editora Impetus 2010). L.P. Markowitz, ‘Unlootable Resources and State Security Institutions in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan’, Comparative Political Studies 44/2 (2011) pp.156–83; this author used the process-tracing method. See also Amy Zegart, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS and NSC (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1999).11 ‘Decisions taken in the past, established ways of thinking and routines [that] impact on the present’, J. Beyer, ‘The Same or Not the Same – On the Variety of Mechanisms of Path Dependence’, International Journal of Social Sciences 5/1 (2010) p.1.12 T.C. Boas, ‘Conceptualizing Continuity and Change: The Composite-Standard Model of Path Dependence’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 19/1 (2007) pp.33–4.13 Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen, ‘Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies’ in W. Streeck and K. Thelen (eds.) Beyond Continuity. Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005) pp.1–39. Other modes are displacement, drift, and exhaustion.14 Conversion means that institutions ‘[A]re redirected to new goals, functions, or purposes … as a result of new environmental challenges, to which policymakers respond by deploying existing institutional resources to new ends’; ibid., p.26.15 Layering ‘[I]nvolves active sponsorship of amendments, additions, or revisions to an existing set of institutions. The actual mechanism for change is differential growth; the introduction of new elements [that] crowd out or supplant by default the old system’; ibid., p.23.16 Constituting branching points, triggering events that initiate processes of institutional or policy change; J.W. Hogan and D. Doyle, ‘The Importance of Ideas: An A Priori Critical Juncture Framework’, Canadian Journal of Political Science 40/4 (2007) pp.883–910.17 James Mahoney, ‘Conceptualizing and Explaining Punctuated versus Incremental Change’, paper prepared for the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 2–5 September 2010, p.9.18 T.G. Falleti and J.F. Lynch, ‘Context and Causal Mechanisms in Political Analysis’, Comparative Political Studies 42/9 (2009) pp.1154–6.19 Ibid., p.1151.20 Ibid., p.1159.21 Tulia G. Falleti, ‘Theory-Guided Process-Tracing in Comparative Politics: Something Old, Something New’, American Association of Political Science Newsletter, Fall 2006.22 Eduardo E. Estévez, ‘Argentina's Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century/After Twenty-Five Years of Democracy’, paper delivered at the 51st International Studies Association Annual Convention, New Orleans, 17–20 February 2010.23 Bruneau and Matei, ‘Intelligence in the Developing Democracies’, p.771.24 See Peter Gill's typology of security intelligence services, P. Gill, ‘Securing the Globe: Intelligence and the Post-9/11 Shift from “Liddism” to “Drainism”’, Intelligence and National Security 19/3 (2004) pp.468–70.25 Bill Mc Sweeney, Security, Identity, and Interests: A Sociology of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999) p.20.26 See D. Pion-Berlin, ‘Latin American National Security Doctrines: Hard- and Softline Themes’, Armed Forces and Society 15/3 (1989); J. Patrice McSherry, Incomplete Transition: Military Power and Democracy in Argentina (NY: St Martin's Press 1997).27 Alain Rouquié, The Military and the State in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press 1987) p.327.28 Ibid., p.330.29 Ibid., pp.328–9; also see Rafael Correa, Ecuador: De Banana Republic a No República (Buenos Aires: Debate 2010) pp.35–7.30 Rouquié, The Military and the State in Latin America, p.362.31 T.C. Bruneau, ‘Ecuador: The Continuing Challenge of Democratic Consolidation and Civil-Military Relations’, Strategic Insights 5/2 (2006); B. García-Gallegos, ‘El 20 de Abril: Presente y Pasado de un Proyecto Militar Corporativo’, Iconos. Revista de Ciencias Sociales 23/September (2005) p.95.32 Juan Pablo Pitarque, ‘An Armed Forces Anomaly: Key Ingredients to Ecuador's Democratic Consistency’, Council on Hemispheric Affairs-COHA, Washington DC, 4 August 2010 < http://www.coha.org/an-armed-forces-anomaly-key-ingredients-to-ecuador%E2%80%99s-democratic-consistency/>.33 Eduardo Toche Medrano, Guerra y Democracia: Los Militares Peruanos y la Construcción Nacional (Lima: DESCO-CLACSO 2008) p.142.34 Rouquié, The Military and the State in Latin America, p.313.35 Ibid., pp.330–1.36 Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR), ‘Los Períodos de la Violencia’ in Informe Final, vol. I, 1 (Lima: CVR 2003) p.56.37 Fernando Rospigliosi, Montesinos y las Fuerzas Armadas: Cómo Controló Durante una Década las Instituciones Militares (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos 2000) p.193.38 For a historical perspective of the last century, see Luis A. Romero, A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica 2006).39 The United Kingdom refers to them as the ‘Falkland Islands’. De facto president Lieutenant-General Leopoldo Galtieri's order to recover the Malvinas by military means took place on 2 April 1982.40 See Wolfgang Heinz, ‘Determinants of Gross Human Rights Violations by State and State-Sponsored Actors in Argentina 1976–1983’ in W.S. Heinz and H. Frühling (eds.) Determinants of Gross Human Rights Violations by State and State-Sponsored Actors in Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina (1960–1990) (Den Haag: Kluwer Law International 1999) pp.593–737.41 An example is the participation of SIDE personnel in the clandestine detention center known as ‘Automotores Orletti’. See Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), ‘Justicia por los Crímenes de la Dictadura’ in Informe sobre la Situación de los Derechos Humanos en Argentina 2007 (Buenos Aires: CELS 2007) footnote 37.42 See Martin Edwin Andersen, Dossier Secreto: El Mito de la Guerra Sucia (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta 1993) pp.222–6.43 This part is based on an unpublished paper by this author: ‘Intelligence in Peru: The Tortuous Quest for Democratization’, June 2010.44 Rospigliosi, Montesinos y las Fuerzas Armadas, p.190.45 Ibid., p.191.46 Legislative Decrees No. 270 and No. 271 of 1984.47 See Sentencia Fujimori, ‘Capítulo V. El Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional’, Corte Suprema de Justicia de la República, Sala Penal Especial, EXP. N° A.V.19–2001 Parte II–Capítulo V–p.259.48 Rospigliosi, Montesinos y las Fuerzas Armadas, p.146.49 Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR), ‘Las Fuerzas Armadas’ in Informe Final, vol. II, 1.3 (Lima: CVR 2003) p.272 and ss.50 Ibid., p.248.51 Abimael Guzmán, leader of Shining Path, was captured on 12 September 1992.52 Rospigliosi, Montesinos y las Fuerzas Armadas, p.117.53 Legislative Decree No. 746 of November 1991 and Decree-Law No. 25,635.54 E. Obando, ‘La Reestructuración de la Inteligencia en Perú: Sus Avances y sus Problemas’, Inteligencia y Seguridad, Revista de Análisis y Prospectiva 5 (2008–2009) pp.55–6. For a study on Montesinos's bribes see John Mcmillan and Pablo Zoido, ‘How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru’, CESifo Working Paper No. 1173, April 2004 < http://ssrn.com/abstract = 520902>.55 Rospigliosi, Montesinos y las Fuerzas Armadas, p.202; Carlos Basombrío, ‘La Inteligencia como Erosionador de la Democracia: El Caso Montesinos’ in FLACSO-Chile, Reporte del Sector de Seguridad en América Latina y el Caribe (Santiago de Chile: FLACSO 2007) p.133.56 CVR, ‘Las Fuerzas Armadas’, pp.354–5.57 Law No. 27,351 of October 2000.58 In 2009 after trial, Fujimori was found guilty of human rights violations. See Jo-Marie Burt, ‘Guilty as Charged: The Trial of Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori for Human Rights Violations’, The International Journal of Transitional Justice 3/3 (2009) pp.384–405.59 Law No. 27,479 of 11 May 2001.60 Supreme Decree No. 065 of 2 June 2001.61 L.J. Laplante, ‘The Peruvian Truth Commission's Historical Memory Project: Empowering Truth-Tellers to Confront Truth Deniers’, Journal of Human Rights 6/4 (2007) pp.448–9.62 See Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR), ‘La Década del Noventa y los Dos Gobiernos de Alberto Fujimori’ in Informe Final, vol. III, 2.3 (Lima: CVR 2003) appendix, pp.130–58; Also see J. Robles Montoya, ‘El Accionar del Grupo Colina como Deformación de las Actividades de Inteligencia’, AA Inteligencia 1/2 (2008) pp.10–19.63 See P. Heymann and J. Ellis, ‘Reforming Intelligence in Peru. An International Effort to Promote Change’, Harvard Review of Latin America 2/1 (2002) pp.26–9; also Andrés Gómez de la Torre Rotta, ‘Peru: Frustrations in Attempts to Reconstruct its Intelligence System’ in R. Swenson and S. Lemozy (eds.) Intelligence Professionalism in the Americas, revised ed. (Washington, DC: Joint Military Intelligence College's Center for Strategic Intelligence Research 2004) pp.200–3.64 ‘Inteligencia Sin Espejismos’, Caretas, No. 1722, Lima, 23 May 2002.65 Arturo Vigil Dávila, ‘Así Se Produjo el Arrasamiento del Sistema Nacional de Inteligencia. Gobierno de Toledo Desapareció Arma de Inteligencia y el Irreemplazable Curso de Inteligencia Estratégica’, Reporte Perú, May 2009.66 See G. Costa, ‘Two Steps Forward, One and a Half Steps Back: Police Reform in Peru, 2001–2004’, Civil Wars 8/2 (2006) p.221; also Gómez de la Torre Rotta, ‘Peru’, p.190.67 Obando, ‘La Reestructuración de la Inteligencia en Perú’, pp.59–63.68 Gino Costa replaced Rospigliosi until January 2003; later Rospigliosi returned to the post (July 2003–May 2004).69 Comisión Especial de Reestructuración de la Policía Nacional del Perú, ‘Informe de la Comisión Especial de Reestructuración de la Policía Nacional del Perú’, Ministerio del Interior, Lima, 22 February 2002.70 Reform accomplishments included police professionalization, establishment of neighborhood boards to improve police-community relations, creation of a ministerial Office of Internal Affairs, legislation on disciplinary system, and creation of the National System of Citizen Security for participation in crime prevention. See Costa, ‘Two Steps Forward, One and a Half Steps Back’, pp.215–30.71 According to Legislative Decree No. 370 of 1986, the Ministry of the Interior's organic law, DIGIMIN is responsible for the direction, coordination, and centralization of the information of the police forces and political authorities and for the production of intelligence.72 Jorge Serrano Torres, ‘Comentario Invitado’ in R. Swenson and S. Lemozy (eds.) Democratización de la Función de Inteligencia – El Nexo de la Cultura Nacional y la Inteligencia Estratégica (Washington DC: National Defense Intelligence College Press 2009) pp.xlvii–xlviii.73 ‘Informe de la Comisión de Reestructuración Integral de las Fuerzas Armadas’, El Peruano Diario Oficial, No. 7972, Lima, 20 April 2002, pp.221639–43.74 For a detailed description of the defense reform agenda, see Carlos Basombrío and Fernando Rospigliosi, La Seguridad y sus Instituciones en el Perú a Inicios del Siglo XXI. Reformas Democráticas y Neomilitarismo (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos 2006) pp.17–44.75 Toche Medrano, Guerra y Democracia, p.283.76 See J. Robles Montoya, ‘¿El Gobierno Tiene Inteligencia?’, IDEELEMAIL No. 316, 27 September 2003; and ‘CNI: SIN Inteligencia’, IDEELEMAIL No. 350, 19 March 2004.77 Gómez de la Torre Rotta, ‘Peru’, p.196.78 A. Gómez de la Torre Rotta, ‘¿Quién Vigilará a Nuestros Vigilantes? (Reinventando a Juvenal ante el Foro de Roma en Perú y Sudamérica)’, Inteligencia y Seguridad, Revista de Análisis y Prospectiva 5 (2008–2009) p.46.79 Basombrío and Rospigliosi, La Seguridad y sus Instituciones, p.327.80 Obando, ‘La Reestructuración de la Inteligencia en Perú’, pp.67–8.81 See ‘Pleno del Congreso Aprobó Informe de Inteligencia con 14 Meses de Atraso. Fuga de Información de la Marina a Empresas Privadas’, El Comercio, 17 October 2008.82 Obando, ‘La Reestructuración de la Inteligencia en Perú’, p.65.83 Serrano Torres, ‘Comentario Invitado’, p.xlii; translation by the author.84 See National Security Law of 1979.85 García-Gallegos, ‘El 20 de Abril’, pp.101–2.86 Jaime Castillo Arias, ‘La Cultura Nacional y su Influencia en la Estructura de Inteligencia Nacional en el Ecuador’ in Swenson and Lemozy, Democratización de la Función de Inteligencia, p.107. Castillo Arias, an Ecuadorian colonel, was then Assistant Director of the Army Intelligence Directorate.87 See Natalia Leon Galarza, Ecuador: La Cara Oculta de la Crisis. Identidades Políticas y Protesta en el Fin de Siglo (Buenos Aires: CLACSO 2009) Introduction.88 See M.E. Andersen, ‘Ethnic Politics, Defense, and Security in “Latin” America’, Joint Force Quarterly 58/3 (2010) pp.19–21, based on anthropologist Brian Selmeski.89 Juan Carlos Ruiz and Rocío Pachón, ‘Seguridad en Ecuador: Paradojas, Ambivalencias y Disyuntivas’ in R. Sánchez et al., Seguridades en Construcción en América Latina I: El Círculo de Colombia, Brasil, Ecuador, Panamá y Venezuela (Bogotá: Centro Editorial Universidad del Rosario 2005) p.76.90 See Alejandra Ruiz-Dana, ‘Peru and Ecuador: A Case Study of Latin American Integration and Conflict’ in S. Rafi Khan (ed.) Regional Trade Integration and Conflict Resolution (NY: Routledge 2009).91 Ruiz and Pachón, ‘Seguridad en Ecuador’.92 M. Jaskoski, ‘Ecuador and Peru: Army for Rent, Terms Negotiable’, Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies Spring (2009) p.46.93 Adrian Bonilla and Cristina Camacho, ‘El Sistema de Inteligencia Ecuatoriano y su Contexto Político’, FLACSO-Ecuador, REDES 2001, Research and Education in Defense and Security Studies, Washington, DC, May 2001.94 Ibid.95 Fredy Rivera Vélez, ‘La Inteligencia Ecuatoriana: Tradiciones, Cambios y Perspectivas’, in F. Rivera Vélez (ed.) Inteligencia Estratégica y Prospectiva (Quito: FLACSO-Ecuador/SENAIN 2011) p.54.96 Fabián Tobar B, ‘La Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia en Apoyo a las Políticas de Seguridad y Defensa en el Ecuador ante las Nuevas Amenazas’, Master's Thesis, IAEN (Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales), Quito, 2007, p.86 < http://repositorio.iaen.edu.ec/handle/24000/104>. The author is an Ecuadorian military officer.97 Daniel Pontón, Policía Comunitaria y Cambio Institucional en el Ecuador (Quito: FLACSO-Ecuador/Abya Yala 2009) pp.64–9.98 National Defense Organic Law No. 74 of 19 January 2007; Armed Forces Social Security Law No. 82 of 31 July 2007; Law No. 75 of 22 January 2007 amending the Armed Forces Personnel Law.99 Decree No. 305 of 3 May 2007.100 For more on this, see the interesting article by Michael Shifter and Adam Siegel, ‘Colombia and Ecuador in 2009: The Rocky Road to Restoring Relations’, EFE Anuario Iberoamericano 2010, 23 March 2010 < http://www.thedialogue.org/page.cfm?pageID = 32&pubID = 2321>.101 Chris Kraul, ‘Ecuador Military Meets Match’, Los Angeles Times, 2 May de la Comisión de y Verdad Caso Quito, Maldonado, ‘Dilemas Antiguos y Modernos en la Inteligencia Estratégica en Sudamérica’, Decree No. of March See Informe de la Comisión de y Verdad Caso Comisión de la Informe de la Comisión de la Ecuador 2010. Sin Verdad No Justicia (Quito: Comisión de la Ibid., by Decree No. of February in 1 October See de Inteligencia el de El 4 October de a la Seguridad Pública y del by President Rafael to the National Decree No. of 17 January See y la El Comercio, 20 January El Comercio, 20 January Rivera Vélez, ‘La Inteligencia This part is based on an unpublished paper by this author: ‘Intelligence Democratization in and June a revised was as ‘Intelligence The Case of in and K. (eds.) Intelligence and the (Washington, DC: University Press National – forces – and Security Police See Priscila Carlos Democratic Control of Intelligence in in T. Bruneau and S. (eds.) to Democratic Control and University of Press 2007) Eduardo E. Estévez, and Legislative of the Intelligence System in in H. L. Johnson and (eds.) the Intelligence (Washington, DC: 2005) L. and of Political in Latin American See La Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta 2006) The of the military of La by the por la took place on 23 January Decree No. of January Decree No. of March Decree No. of February For more see McSherry, Security and Social in Journal of World Studies for and National of 22 was Decree No. of See ‘La para el July also La 2 July Argentina of the Republic on its of Security Council Security United 31 2001, < The of in the of a political and that the of President De la was and de March ‘El de en La 12 June a Democratic Control of Intelligence International Center for Harvard Law See ‘El Servicio de Inteligencia February See ‘La a La 19 October J. ‘El de un para la Actividad de Inteligencia del Estado en la Security and Defense Studies Review See also a la Inteligencia Los una de Inteligencia’, Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, REDES 2001, Washington, DC, May See Eduardo E. Estévez, of the Democratization of Intelligence in in – for Transitional paper prepared for the European Consortium for Political Research Conference, September For example, see and en la La 2 May Corte Suprema de Justicia de la February Alejandra ‘Las por un February Decree No. of 22 February For more see Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), de Defensa y Control in Informe sobre la Situación de los Derechos Humanos en Argentina 2007 (Buenos Aires: CELS Also see ‘El en el y de la Penal por la Inteligencia en la de March See del Estado de la de de 1 March on the Malvinas and on strategic military intelligence was from in See José M. Ugarte, de Inteligencia’, La 14 Estévez, and Legislative of the Intelligence System in See Jaime y Actividad en la Comisión la La 11 August Alberto Inteligencia November Desafíos a la Defensa y la Seguridad: El en las El Caso Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, REDES 2002, August 2002, See y Cultura 22 and La legacies and in and institutional of the new see and Memory and in of Political Change: and in Comparative in P. and K. (eds.) and University of Press 2004) G. Path and Democratic Journal of Theoretical Politics See José M. Ugarte, ‘La de la Actividad de Inteligencia y de la Inteligencia en América paper prepared for the 2009 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, de Brazil, June See Andrés de la Torre Rotta, de in Rivera Vélez, Inteligencia Estratégica y on E. E. is an in intelligence and security – police and security – and a of the de Estudios y Políticas in Argentina. to the Intelligence and Intelligence and the University is a to World Police and Inteligencia y Seguridad