13 DECEMBRE 2010
Je serai bref. Les terroristes des FARC annoncent la prochaine libération de 5 otages. Le nouveau président Santos donne toute latitude à leur complice, l’ex-sénatrice Piedad Cordoba, pour en organiser la logistique, exigée par les criminels.
La dame au turban a pourtant été exclue du Sénat par la justice colombienne pour ses liens avérés avec cette guérilla sanguinaire.
La mafia de l’ex-président Samper, financé par le cartel de Cali à hauteur de six millions de dollars lors de son élection en 1994, reprend du poil de la bête : Piedad Cordoba, et la nouvelle avocate générale,Vivian Morales, ont appuyé sans relâche ce sinistre ancien chef de l’Etat, interdit de séjour aux USA…
Que cherche Juan Manuel Santos ?
Sur le comportement du président Santos depuis son election, je dirais honnetement que je suis un peut « perdu » !
Son comportement, ses decisions politiques, ses nouvelles relations avec Hugo (à ce sujet je suis surpris que depuis plusieurs semaines, plus rien ne filtre sur le contenu des disques dur saisis à Mono Jojoy ! inquiétant non !) ou bien seulement es ce une manoeuvre audacieuse du gouvernement Colombien ! pour aboutir à quoi !
Redonner à l’enturbanée une bouffée d’oxygène pour mieux et une nouvelle fois « humilier » la Colombie et valoriser le terrorisme.
Et dire que cet homme a été un des bras droit fort et de confiance du gouvernement Uribe.
Je ne sais plus quoi penser…………..
Et je suis meme décu…………
Nous verrons bien…
je ne suis pas sur que Santos ait la quelconque intention de laisser Piedad Cordoba humilier la Colombie. Si elle parvient à faire libérer les otages, tant mieux pour eux, mais voyons si elle parvient a, une fois encore,les utiliser comme moyen de pression sur le gouvernement. Je doute qu’elle y parvienne.
Quant aux relations avec Chavez, elles ne sont pas au beau fixe du tout, mais Santos ferme gentiment sa gueule en public car la situation passée etait intolerable du point de vue des echanges commerciaux bilateraux. On ne peut pas dire que Santos se soit « écrasé » face à Chavez et face à Cordoba. Ce n’est absolument pas l’image qu’il donne…
Je dirais plutot qu’il est pragmatique
Dans le bassin de l’Orenoque et de l’Amazone, les pecheurs aux gros poissons carnivores donnent du « fil » au poisson apres qu’il ai pris l’appat, le laisse « courir » le temps d’avaler l’appat (et l’amecon) pour mieux le pieger.
« yves » : Now you know …more about Colombia and …French
poor meddling in Africa.
The French just sold out the Ivory Coast to Islam last week.
Congratulations to a most intelligent government !
Puissent ces infos ci-dessous nous rassurer sur les politiques
long-terme poursuivies par Santos et d’autres pays cités ici
et …non-cités ici !
Sur le sujet même de l’article de Mr Thomet, j’ai tendance à
me ranger sur les avis de « jean-philippe » et « jose ».
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Security and Defense: A Fix-it Firm for Ailing Nations
By Yaakov Katz – Dec11, 2010
–
Hugo Chavez may see it rather differently. But CST, founded by
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yisrael Ziv, refers to it as a consulting agency.
What is Global CST? The short answer is that it depends on whom
you ask.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claims it is a group of mercenaries
who work for the Israeli government, operating throughout Latin
America by establishing militaries which conduct operations for Israel.
The company, however, refers to itself as a consulting agency that
provides advice and services for political leaders around the world
facing critical challenges.
A review of Global’s operations by The Jerusalem Post, including a series
of interviews with former employees and contractors, reveals a firm that
has succeeded in doing what not many others have – becoming one of
the leading consulting companies, not for militaries or companies but for
countries. Something of a McKinsey for nations.
Global CST was founded by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yisrael Ziv, the former
head of the IDF Operations Directorate, in 2007. A longtime paratrooper,
Ziv was commander of the Gaza Division and joined the General Staff in
2003, serving until shortly before the Second Lebanon War in 2006.
Its concept is quite simple. Invited mostly to countries facing acute
national security problems, Global creates a multistep plan that, as a
first stage, aims to solve the acute threat, and then moves on to
large-scale national/civil plans with the objective of strengthening the
country’s economy, for example, to prevent a resurgence of crime
or terrorism.
Take Afghanistan.
Alongside its security and civil divisions, Global also maintains an
agriculture branch. In 2008, its agriculture branch manager created
a plan, that was adopted by the US military, to teach 600 families
how to grow high-quality vegetables instead of opium.
The same model was applied in Colombia, one of the first countries
advised by the company and a place where it continues to work.
Global entered Colombia in 2007 amid the country’s growing disarray
as it faced a powerful drug industry and an expanding terror network
led by the revolutionary FARC.
“Global is about combining national security and civil growth,” Ziv has
been known to tell his employees, many of them former senior officers
in the IDF, Israel Police and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).
Another project was in Guinea, where the company assisted the
government in building a $10 million water purification plant to provide
12 million liters of water a day for residents of the capital city of
Conakry. The idea was to improve the quality of life.
“For the Guinea government this project was of critical importance,
since it helped the government meet it’s national objective of providing
electricity and water for all citizens in light of the fact that unpurified
water was one of the main causes of death in Africa,” a former
contractor who worked on the project said.
CEO of Global is Maj.-Gen. (res.) Meir Klifi, until 2009 Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu’s military aide. Other employees include former
Tel Aviv police chief David Zur and Col. (res.) Lior Lotan, a former
senior officer in the IDF’s elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit.
A former top executive was Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser,
formerly head of Military Intelligence’s Research Directorate and
today a deputy director-general in the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.
The company is active in close to a dozen countries on three continents.
Recent news reports have put it in Mexico, Peru, Guinea and a number
of countries in Europe. Zur runs a subdivision called GLS which is
currently advising Brazil on security issues ahead of the 2016
Olympic Games.
The model Ziv and his cadre of top employees came up with in most
cases includes training special forces to be able to counter the most
immediate threat, usually of a terror or criminal nature. The next step
involves a comprehensive analysis of the country’s geopolitical and
strategic standing and its economic problems, culminating in a long-
term plan aimed at overall economic and security revival.
While it sounds pretty ambitious, the model
has succeeded in several countries.
ONE KNOWN example, written widely about in the international
media, is Colombia.
In September, the Colombian military struck a deadly blow to FARC
and killed one of its top leaders, Mono Jojoy, in a raid on his jungle
camp. The operation was a political and military victory for new
President Juan Manuel Santos, the former defense minister, who took
office in August and has led a crackdown on the rebel group, which is
at its weakest in decades.
Just a few years ago, this would have been difficult to achieve.
While the Colombians were launching dozens of military operations,
they were not causing FARC serious damage, since the military did
not adapt itself to fight guerrilla warfare and was using conventional
means, very similar to the way Israel fought Hizbullah in the summer
of 2006.
When Global came into the picture in 2007, one of its first steps was
assisting in the reformation and training of Colombia’s Special Forces
to enable them to launch effective operations against FARC deep in
the jungle.
In 2008, for example, Ziv was reported to have been instrumental
in helping launch Operation Jaque, which resulted in the freeing of
15 hostages from FARC rebels, including former Colombian
presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
Global CST, which refused to cooperate with this article, did
however stress that 100 percent of the credit for the operation
belonged to the Colombian security services.
It then moved on to build a comprehensive plan for homeland s
ecurity, aimed at creating national and civil resilience to prevent a
resurgence of the terror group and to weaken the drug trade.
According to a UN report this year, drug traffickers have begun
to focus their operations in neighboring Ecuador, after Colombia
successfully regained control of most of its territory.
“The idea is to create security by training and teaching security
forces how to crack down on terrorist or criminal elements, but
also in creating national and economic resilience by, for example,
creating alternatives for cocaine growers,” a top former Israeli
security official who has worked with the company said.
In other countries, the focus was on establishing a strong intelligence
apparatus and teaching the military and government how to
effectively collect intelligence and translate it into effective operations.
In still other places, the work was mostly training the political
leadership to identify strategic challenges independently and
without assistance.
In most cases, the work can take up to four years.
In Colombia, Global is assisting in formulating a plan to get Chinese
banks to invest $7 billion in erecting a cross-country railroad that
will expedite the export process along the Pacific Coast.
This could enable Colombia to improve relations with neighboring
countries by offering them the use of the system for exports. This is
of particular importance in light of reports of a rise in tensions
between Colombia and Venezuela.
GLOBAL’S WORK can be diplomatically tricky and, in May, the
company was reported to have been fined NIS 90,000 for deviating
from the permit it was granted by the Defense Ministry and signing a
contract with the government of Guinea to set up and train a dignitary
protection force.
In all cases, the company first receives approval from the Defense
Ministry’s Export Licensing Authority, known as API.
What happened in Guinea started off with a request by then
president Moussa Dadis Camara to help him solidify his new
government and transform the country from a dictatorship to
a democracy.
Global submitted a request to the Defense Ministry and, after
receiving approval, visited Guinea and began drafting a security-
civil-economic rehabilitation plan, which included the water
purification plant. The security angle was to first establish and
train an elite force for protection of the president, who was
under threat of assassination.
After submitting the final request, a team from Global traveled to
Guinea to sign the contract, which it did after receiving confirmation
by phone that API had approved the request. The problem was
that while the request had been approved, the company had yet to
officially receive it in writing.
In the end, the company was not fined but was instructed by API
to hold a seminar for employees to review export regulations.
It also never followed through with the security side of the deal due
to French pressure on the Foreign Ministry, but continued to work
in Guinea on civilian issues.
Defense Ministry officials familiar with the Guinea affair claim that it
was blown out of proportion and that the mix-up was due to a
technical mistake by Global, which signed the contract before
actually receiving the written approval.
Nevertheless, in a market saturated with defense contractors, what
makes Global unique is that it does not sell weaponry but knowledge.