Southcom, Partners Prepare to Respond to Natural Disasters

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

MIAMI , June 22, 2012 – Putting lessons learned from the 2010 earthquake response in Haiti into practice, U.S. Southern Command has entered this year’s hurricane season ready to provide timely, effective aid should another disaster strike the region, command officials reported.

“We remain deliberately prepared,” Southcom commander Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser reported to Congress in the lead-up to hurricane season, which kicked off this month.

“As we look at the hurricane season, we prepared for that, not only within our own headquarters, but with our partners in the region,” Fraser said.

Southcom’s area of responsibility, which includes Central and South America and the Caribbean, is no stranger to natural disasters. The largest earthquake recorded worldwide in the 20th century occurred in 1960 in Valdivia, Chile. Mount Pelee’s 1902 eruption in Martinique caused more than 30,000 deaths, and the 1985 Nevada del Ruiz eruption and mudslide in Colombia killed 25,000 people. Major flooding in northern Venezuela in 1999 left more than 20,000 dead.

Haiti has been tormented throughout its history with cyclones, hurricanes, tropical storms, torrential rains, floods and earthquakes. Haiti’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January 2010 left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. That disaster sparked the Southcom-led Operation Unified Response mission in support of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Relief.

At the peak of that mission, Joint Task Force-Haiti included 22,000 service members -- 7,000 land-based and the rest operating aboard 33 Navy and Coast Guard vessels, 262 fixed-wing aircraft and 57 helicopters. They reopened the heavily damaged international airport at Port-au-Prince, repaired port facilities and delivered 2.6 million bottles of water, 2.9 million food rations, 17 million pounds of bulk food and 149,000 pounds of medical supplies into Haiti.

The task force also provided one of the largest medical outreach efforts in history, with humanitarian and engineering support continuing long after the six-month disaster response in Haiti concluded.

The mission proved to be a “tremendous learning experience” for Southcom that underscored the importance of close interagency and non-governmental cooperation, Army Maj. Gen. Gerald W. Ketchum, Southcom’s director of theater engagement, told American Forces Press Service at the organization’s headquarters here.

The response effort led to revisions in the command’s disaster response plan, increases in its disaster-response capabilities and expanded disaster-preparedness outreach across the region, Ketchum reported.

Coincidentally, the Southcom headquarters was getting a demonstration of a new computer-networking tool to promote collaboration in the event of a natural disaster the very day Haiti’s earthquake hit. The All Partners Access Network, initially introduced at U.S. Pacific Command, provides a standardized platform for coordinating efforts between the various interagency, non-governmental organization, international and military responders. The scenario being used to demonstrate the APAN system was a notional hurricane hitting Haiti and taking out its emergency response command-and-control capabilities.

But based on real-life events, the Southcom staff quickly took the demonstration live and hundreds of organizations began using APAN to coordinate a faster and more efficient relief response that saved lives. Southcom is now using the system as part of an improved framework for military support to civilian-led disaster relief operations, Fraser noted in his command’s 2012 posture statement.

Meanwhile, Southcom is collaborating with regional partners to increase their ability to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. Fraser described a three-part effort through Southcom’s humanitarian assistance program, disaster preparedness projects and annual humanitarian assistance exercises.

Last year, those efforts included building disaster-response warehouses, wells, potable water systems and emergency operations centers, he said. In fiscal year 2011, Southcom also conducted 169 projects designed to increase disaster preparedness in Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

In addition, the command supports the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, a regional effort to increase disaster resilience and response capabilities among the 18 Caribbean nations involved.

A new project Southcom sponsored in the wake of the Haiti earthquake involves forward-staged kits that provide disaster-response teams with essential services, including potable water, hybrid renewable power, communications and situational awareness.

“Past experience has demonstrated that one of the biggest challenges in providing an effective response is the ability to accurately assess the situation on the ground after communications go down and transportation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed,” Fraser noted in his commander’s blog.

Pre-positioned Expeditionary Assistance Kits, or PEAKS, developed in partnership with the National Defense University, “enable decision makers to gain a better understanding of how best to deploy relief efforts,” he said.

The kits underwent a joint capability technology demonstration last year at Soto Cono Air Base in Honduras, less than a year after the program’s inception, Fraser noted. Joint Task Force Bravo in Honduras, Southcom’s main expeditionary organization, and members of Honduras’ military and civil-relief agencies, put the kits to the test under realistic field conditions.

Meanwhile, Fraser emphasized the importance of training to ensure the Southcom staff is prepared to support USAID, the lead federal agency for international disaster response, if called upon. This includes a joint operations course it hosts, with classes presented by USAID.

“This recurring training guarantees that when disaster strikes, U.S. Southern Command is ready to assist,” Fraser said.

And to ensure regional nations are as prepared as possible for disasters when they occur, many Southcom-sponsored exercises incorporate disaster-response scenarios or training activities that enhance capabilities and cooperation, Ambassador Carmen Martinez, Southcom’s civilian deputy to the commander, explained.

The Fuerzas Aliadas Humanitarias annual exercise series, sponsored by Southcom and executed by U.S. Army South, helps bring together regional militaries, civilian disaster management agencies and first responders to train in disaster relief and recovery efforts. The 2011 exercise, held in Trinidad and Tobago and Guatemala, included 640 participants from 27 nations to practice the national and international response to an imaginary earthquake.

Martinez credited these efforts with building partner-nation capability, noting that no U.S. military forces were called on during last year’s hurricane season to provide support.

“I think that is the direct result of the constant training and exercising and assisting of these nations, that they were able to take care of things themselves,” she said. “And I think that’s a real tribute to the host nations. But it is also a tribute to the programs that U.S. Southern Command has conducted in the region.”

Panetta Reaffirms Partnership, Friendship With Chile

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

SANTIAGO, Chile  – In talks here today with his Chilean counterpart and the nation’s head of government, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta discussed ongoing and emerging issues, from drug trafficking to cyber security, that the countries plan to address as partners.

During this first visit to the country as defense secretary, Panetta met with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and Defense Minister Andres Allamand at the Ministry of Defense in Chile’s capital and largest city, Santiago.

“The United States and Chile are neighbors, we are friends, and we have built a longstanding defense relationship founded on mutual respect, shared values and the goal of advancing peace and stability in this hemisphere and beyond,” Panetta said during a joint press conference this afternoon with Allamand.

“This shared goal has been the focus of my meetings throughout Latin America,” the secretary added, “and it was the focus of my meetings today with President Pinera and Minister Allamand.”

Chile is the third South American country Panetta has visited this week, after successful meetings with counterparts and officials in Colombia and Brazil.

In today’s meeting, Panetta said, he and Allamand continued a discussion that began last month in Washington, in which they considered how to enhance collaboration in areas of key interest to both nations.

The areas include enhancing the security capacity of nations in the hemisphere, countering illicit drug trafficking, meeting humanitarian needs, working together on issues like cyber security, confronting those who would undermine the stability of the nations, and examining defense institutional reform.

An example of the U.S.-Chile common effort to confront narcotics trafficking is called Operation Martillo, a multinational and interagency drug-interdiction effort to shut down illicit trafficking routes on both coasts of the Central American isthmus.

“Chile is making an important contribution to this effort,” Panetta said, “and earlier today the United States announced that, as part of Operation Martillo, our forces conducted a major drug bust off the coast of Panama, seizing $362 million worth of cocaine.”

The secretary commended the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service who were in the lead in that effort, with the support of the U.S. Southern Command.

“These are the kinds of results that strong partnerships can deliver,” he added.

“Today’s operation shows how important it is for countries in the region to cooperate and work together to confront these kinds of threats,” Panetta said, “and build even stronger mechanisms of regional security cooperation.”

Another example is the ongoing effort to strengthen regional security cooperation, the secretary said, “particularly as we look ahead to this year’s [October] Conference of the Defense Ministers of the Americas in Uruguay, which both the minister and I will be attending.”

Panetta and Allamand also discussed cooperation in humanitarian assistance and disaster response coordination.

“This initiative I believe will improve our ability to respond to natural disasters by creating a framework to share information, share expertise and deliver the capabilities that we absolutely need to help save lives for our people more quickly and more effectively,” Panetta said.

Chilean officials clearly understand what it means to respond to natural disasters, he added, and Chile’s critical lessons learned must be shared with the rest of the hemisphere.

“I commend Chile’s leadership in helping advance this proposal,” the secretary said, “and I look forward to working with them to try to make this a reality.

Panetta noted Chile’s success in helping those who suffered in Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and tsunami, and in December 2011 the hundreds evacuated from a massive forest fire that raged through Torres del Paine Park in Patagonia, one of the country's most popular national parks, destroying more than 21,000 acres.

“I commend the Chilean government and the Chilean people,” Panetta said, “because they are an inspiration to the United States and the world in overcoming adversity and emerging even stronger.”

Chile and the United States share more than a hemisphere, he said.

“We also share the Pacific Ocean, and we are both Pacific nations,” he said, adding that the security and prosperity of both nations depends on the Asia Pacific region.

“That’s where many of the key challenges and opportunities in the 21st century lie,” the secretary said.

Panetta detailed the Defense Department’s new defense strategy for 2020 and Chile’s important role.

Allamand said Chile was the first country in South America to sign a free-trade agreement with the United States, and that his nation is in the final stages of drafting its first national defense and security strategy.

Between Chile and the U.S., the defense minister said, “we share a lot of principles, in terms of what is the needed [for] a safer world.”

“ … We share concerns about the risks of what are called the new threats to security such as drug trafficking, organized crime, civil attacks, terrorism and arms proliferation,” he said.

“We agree on the importance of the Pacific and the need to safeguard the value of peace on regional and global levels,” Allamand added. “And we agree that in the future the global security of the world demands cooperation and innovative alliances among all countries.”

Panetta said the U.S.-Chile defense relationship in many ways is a fulfillment of the Defense Department’s new strategy.

“It is exactly the kind of partnership we need under the strategy to help advance global peace and global security,” the secretary said.

“So I’m very grateful to the minister and to the president and to the Chilean people for their friendship, for their shared commitment to building a safer world for the future,” he added.

“We are one family in this hemisphere, una famiglia, as we say in Italian,” Panetta said. “And like any family, we must work together to give our children a better life, a more secure life, and protect our people.”

Secretary: U.S., Latin America Face Common Challenges

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, April 23, 2012 – Latin America figures prominently in the Pentagon’s new defense strategy as an increasingly capable region that shares common challenges with the United States, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said today.

Panetta is on his first trip to South America as defense secretary with visits planned in Colombia, Brazil and Chile. He has visited the region before as CIA director, as a member of Congress and as chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton.

One goal of the defense strategy, Panetta said, is to build innovative partnerships and alliances that will strengthen relationships in places like Europe, Africa and Latin America.

“The purpose of this trip is to engage in consultations with a number of our partners in this part of the world, trying to promote innovative security partnerships in the region,” he told reporters traveling with him.

Latin America is a key region, the secretary added. Its countries are neighbors in this hemisphere “and we face some common challenges,” he said.

Among those challenges are narcotics trafficking and its spread to Africa, terrorism, cyber security, and the ability to provide humanitarian assistance, he said.

“One of the things these countries are doing is developing their own regional security [as well as] doing outreach with their security development,” Panetta said. “So that’s something we want to review and try to help them with.”

Partnerships in the region will include joint training, exercises, technology sharing and other kinds of assistance.

On this trip, the secretary said, the focus will be on old and new partners.

“I will be in Colombia where we have worked for a long period of time, even since I was in the Congress, trying to provide assistance to them, particularly with regard to narcotrafficking,” Panetta said, going after the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, called the FARC.

“Colombia, to its credit, has done a tremendous job in going after the FARC,” he added, which at one point numbered 20,000, but now has about 8,000 members.

Many countries in the region look to Colombia for lessons learned over a decade, he said.

In the emerging power of Brazil, Panetta said, “I want to build on the U.S.-Brazil Defense Cooperative Dialog” that President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff agreed this month to commence.

There, he said, “We’ll be looking at defense trade, scientific research, technology sharing, logistics cooperation and cyber security.”

The secretary then will visit Chile, which Panetta said is “doing a great job in developing regional security. We’ll get a chance to see some of their exercises up close and their developing capabilities.”

During this trip, Panetta added, “we’ll really try to develop a key part of our new defense strategy, which is to … reinforce some very innovative partnerships in a very important region of the world that represents a key security interest for the United States.”

Panetta Visit to Expand South American Defense Ties

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 23, 2012 – During his first visit to South America as defense secretary, which starts today, Leon E. Panetta will meet over the next week with military officials in Brazil, Colombia and Chile, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said.

The secretary “is looking to expand defense and security cooperation with three important countries in the region and, increasingly, in the world,” Little added.

Panetta will travel to Brasilia and Rio de Janiero in Brazil, Bogota in Colombia, and Santiago in Chile.

This trip follows a late-March visit by Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Fla., and then to Brazil and Colombia.

In Brazil Dempsey met with Defense Minister Antonio Celoso Amorim and top-ranking military official Gen. Jose Carlos de Nardi in Brasilia, and in Bogota with Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon Bueno and Gen. Alejandro Navas, commander of the Colombian Armed Forces.

For Panetta, one set of discussions in South America will focus on partnering with Brazil, Chile and Colombia to help build capacity for the military to assist civil authorities in such Central American nations as Guatemala, El Salvador and Belize, a senior defense official told reporters in a background briefing on Friday.

“The challenges these countries face are towering compared to their own capacity to deal with them,” he said, adding that Brazil, Chile and Colombia already are significant contributors to building partner capacity.

Colombia, for example, offers capacity-building assistance in 16 countries inside and outside the region, including Africa.

Colombian service members have trained more than two dozen Mexican helicopter pilots and now train police in Honduras and Guatemala. The nation also provides assistance in nondefense areas like justice reform, the official said.

Also in the region, in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake and tsunami in Haiti, thousands of U.S. and Brazilian military personnel worked together to provide life-saving relief to the Haitian people. It was the largest combined operation of U.S. and Brazilian military forces since they fought together as allies in World War II.

“We could have done better in Haiti if we had glued together the system in advance to provide for more effective defense support to civil authorities,” the official said.

“By collaborating with [all three countries],” he added, “the United States can get down to specifics about which country will be conducting specific initiatives and what kinds of initiatives, so together we can ensure the investment we’re making … is as efficient and effective as possible.”

During an April 9 meeting in Washington, President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff established the U.S.-Brazil Defense Cooperation Dialogue and announced that Panetta and Amorim would hold the first meeting this week in Brazil.

The DCD will help bolster cooperation between DOD and Brazil’s Ministry of National Defense, and between the nations’ militaries, the White House said in a statement.

Beyond the Western Hemisphere, the Defense Department is looking to Colombia and Brazil, both of which already have deep ties to Africa and now provide assistance there, to help U.S. Africa Command with peacekeeping and other efforts there.

“Africa typifies the situation we’re in, where the United States has limited capacity to help build partner capabilities,” the defense official said.

“Brazil and Colombia … are stepping up to the plate. Let’s collaborate with them, establish a dialogue between their militaries and Africom so we’re working in mutual support in an informed, cooperative way,” he added.

Panetta will also seek to expand the range of defense collaborations, including traditional military efforts such as training, exchanges and joint exercises.

“Clearly we still have plenty to talk about in continuing to support the Colombians in their efforts against [the narcoterrorist group FARC, for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia]to talk about counternarcotics,” the official said.

Panetta also will discuss new challenges like cyber security and defense support to civil authorities that offer opportunities for collaboration.

In 2014 Brazil will host the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, World Cup tournament in Rio de Janeiro, and two years later that city will host the 2016 Olympic Games.

“We know in the United States how to provide defense support to civil authorities, to law enforcement or to help prepare for the kinds of challenges these world-class sporting events can attract,” he said, “so we’re going to share expertise [and] talk about the kind of dialogue that will help nations get prepared.”

He added, “In the context of limited resources of the United States for defense … we have an opportunity to partner together with other nations so they become security exporters.”

Panetta, Little said, sees Brazil, Chile and Colombia “as increasingly important players on the regional stage and also in terms of their leadership roles internationally.”

All have made progress in terms of their economies, their militaries and their political situations over the last several years, he added.

“These three countries are on the upswing in many areas and it’s time for us to enhance our already strong cooperation with all three,” Little said.