Americas Quarterly

to harness the vast potential of public-private sector cooperative ventures. We have created a staff structure and engagement plan to tap into these private sector resources and combine their goodwill efforts with our outreach programs. As an example, we use the U.S. Navy’s global outreach program, Project Handclasp, to transport materials donated by the U.S. private sector, such as ambulances, school supplies, high-nutri-tion meals, and children’s bicycles and distribute them when Navy ships pull into ports.

We have also sent a new type of Navy vessel on a seven-month voyage into the Caribbean and Central American region. This converted car-ferry with enormous cargo space will carry a wide variety of training teams and their gear. This unique crew and vessel will pull into our partners’ ports and train local counterparts on small boat and engine repair, port security operations, seamanship and navigation, and various other security cooperation fields. Our hope is to repeat and expand the capabilities of this voyage each year as part of our commitment to long-term security partnerships.

Southern Command has also created a unique and dedicated group of experts to assist the region’s militaries in human rights. Several nations in Latin America are still dealing with a not-so-distant history darkened by abuses committed by uniformed militaries, militias and guerrilla groups. We sponsor a Human Rights Initiative that has created a consensus document on human rights, and through which the militaries of eight nations and a multinational organization have committed to advance institutional respect for human rights and promote a zero-tolerance environment for violations. We support development of doctrine, education and training programs, internal control systems, and civil-mili-tary outreach efforts by military and security forces. We also have proposed a Center for Excellence in Human Rights that will allow us to expand our human

rights program to collaborate with an array of agencies and organizations in public-private partnerships and to extend the reach of these critical efforts. The proposal, approved by the Department of Defense and the President, is currently before Congress.

More Than a Facelift

Meeting today’s and tomorrow’s challenges requires organizational change for U.S. Southern Command. This change needs to be much more than mere cosmetic surgery: it needs to be real change that matches the unique threats and opportunities of the twenty-first century. We are currently working toward redesigning the entire command into a leading interagency security organization, with interagency, multinational and private sector partnering as core organizing concepts. Given the worrying security trends in this hemisphere, the transformation of Southern Command into a more capable and comprehensive security organization is a critical step in a needed transformation of the greater U.S. security apparatus.

Only through building new, capable relationships inside and outside government, on both the domestic and international fronts, will we be able to match our strategic outlook to effective unified action. Only through a robust commitment to partnering will we be able to gain and maintain the critical regional friendships we need for the security of our hemisphere. For better or for worse, we’re all in this together. Collectively, the nations of the Americas are better poised to confront the “worse” that the future holds in order to bring about the “better:” a stable, prosperous and secure future in this special part of the world that we share.