Venezuelans leaving the country to seek a livelihood in a place of refuge [UNHCR UNHCR].

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REPORT SRA 2020

May 2020

PRESENTATION

The Covid-19 pandemic has radically altered safety assumptions around the world. The emergence of the coronavirus moved from China to Europe, then to the United States and then to the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Already economically damaged by its dependence on commodity exports since the onset of the Chinese slowdown, Latin America was suffering from the successive restrictions of the different geographical areas, to finally enter also into a production and consumption crisis and a health and labor catastrophe. The region is expected to be one of the hardest hit, with effects also in the field of security.

This annual report , however, focuses on American regional security in 2019. Although in certain aspects it includes events of early 2020, and therefore some first effects of the pandemic, the impact of the pandemic on issues such as regional geopolitics, states' budgetary difficulties, organized crime or citizen security are left for next year's report .

To the extent that in recent months other developments that affected security in 2019 proved to be somewhat transitory, Venezuela remained the main focus of regional insecurity during the past year. In report we analyzed the return of Iran to the Caribbean country, after first China and then Russia preferred not to see their own economic interests harmed; we also noted the consolidation of the ELN and part of the ex-FARC as Colombian-Venezuelan binational groups.

In addition, we highlight the progress in the first time that Hezbollah has been identified as a terrorist group by several countries and we provide figures on the fall of Russian arms sales to Latin America and on the relatively low commercialization in the region of the defense material produced by Spain. We also quantify the contribution of Latin American troops to UN peacekeeping missions, as well as the success of Bolsonaro and the failure of AMLO in the evolution of homicides in Brazil and Mexico. Regarding drug trafficking, 2019 saw the first coca crop eradication operation in the VRAEM, the most complicated area of Peru in the fight against drug trafficking.

CONTENTS

SUMMARY EXECUTIVE

Latin America's largest insecurity hotspot persists in Venezuela

EXTRAHEMISPHERIC PRESENCE

Iran returns to Venezuela as a last resort after the end of credits from China and Russia

Emili J. Blasco

ISLAMIST TERRORISM

The designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist throughout the Western Hemisphere brings together strategies

Mauricio Cardarelli

GUERRILLAS

ELN and ex-FARC have 1,700 troops in Venezuela, with one-third local recruits

María Gabriela Fajardo

ARMS IMPORTS

Russia became an important arms supplier for Latin America, but its sells have dropped

Peter Cavanagh

ARMS PURCHASES

Spanish arms exports to Latin America, below the peak of 2015 

Álvaro Fernández

PEACE MISSIONS 

Latin America contributes only 3% of the contingent of UN peacekeeping missions

Jaime Azpiri

PUBLIC SAFETY

Bolsonaro reduces homicides by 19.2% and López Obrador sees them rise by 2.5%.

T. Dias de Assis, M. Kropiwnicka

NARCOTRAPHIC

Peru eradicates coca plants for the first time in the VRAEM, Shining Path's area of action

Eduardo Villa Corta