Asia, Security

Guarding the Games

At eight o’clock on the morning of 25 November, 27,000 Philippine policemen and women went on alert ahead of the 30th Southeast Asia Games. At a press briefing from Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Camp Crame, the spokesman for the Security Task Force, Police Brigadier General Bernard Banac, explained the practical implications of an alert this size. Leaves are cancelled or denied and overtime prepared for the multitude of officers required to secure the Games scheduled from 30 November through 11 December. Though the official figure of cops assigned to the Games was subsequently reduced to 19,767, they come from six federal agencies and countless local counterparts. The large size of the Security Task Force (STF) is a reflection of the scope of security challenges in the Philippines in general.

Less than three years since the Battle of Marawi, terrorism in the Philippines remains enough of a concern that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will play a significant role in guarding the Games. What Brigadier Banac did not mention was that special operations support often accompanies security preparations for events of this type and will come from a variety of sources. AFP Special Operations Command will certainly bolster the PNP Special Action Force for contingencies; as will other participating nations that will demand direct involvement with security of their citizens. Though it hasn’t been publicly acknowledged, world-class counterterrorism units from Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia are almost certainly involved with response planning if not actually deployed in the Philippines. Together, the combined forces of the STF and regional Special Operations Forces is a significant deterrent but it may not be enough.

Scope of the Problem

Securing the 30th Southeast Asian Games is a massive and expensive undertaking. The Games are taking place at 46 venues in four “clusters” spread across several provinces and thousands of kilometers. Four police regions – Ilocos, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and Metro Manila – form the core of the STF. They are in turn supported by the AFP, the Bureau of Fire Protection, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Office of the Civil Defense, and the Metro Manila Development Authority, as well as local agencies from the four venue clusters. Recycling security measures used for elections, the PNP announced a ban on guns, sirens, blinkers, and “unauthorized motorcycle escorts” in and around the venues. These are significant expressions of state power, the management of which would be a significant bureaucratic challenge in the most developed of nations. In the poor, diverse, and criminally violent Philippines, it a daunting task.

Unsurprisingly, the largest effort by far is in the Metro Manila region. The National Capital Region Task Group of the STF consists of 17,734 of the total force structure. Though Manila is clearly the biggest and most visible venue and the most symbolically important, this leaves a scant 2000 personnel to guard and manage the remaining venue clusters in Subic, Clark, and “Other Areas” which includes significant events in La Union, Batangas, Laguna, and beyond. The Coast Guard contingent responsible for guarding the surfing events at La Union and other water sports in Subic and Zambales accounts for fully half of that number; a lopsided disposition that adds security concerns to the growing list of complaints about the Games.

Whatever the reason for the perceived (and real) dysfunction of the event, guarding the Games is a massive interagency – and international – security challenge.

Problems with the Games began well before the 30 November opening ceremony. Construction delays and shoddy work led to some events taking place in half-finished venues. There were reports of incomplete paint jobs, lack of lighting, and in the case of the first football qualifier, a stadium without a scoreboard or enough working toilets. Transportation and accommodation of athletes however provoked the loudest protests as several teams waited hours for transportation and were then forced to squeeze into accommodations designed for half their number. The Cambodian team became briefly famous for forcibly occupying their hotel’s conference room after being told there were no guest rooms for them. Ever active in the Philippines, social media exploded with comparisons to the disastrous Fyre Festival in the Bahamas and the hashtag #SEAGames2019Fail trended on Twitter.

Guarding Games

President Duterte is sensitive to the fact these complaints reflect poorly on the Philippines as a whole. Perhaps feeling pressure, he announced on 28 November that the military, not the police or a civilian planning committee, would organize future events of this type. In Duterte’s words, he prefers AFP planning because “they think structurally.” This is an unsurprising reaction from Duterte who has been predisposed to military administration for some time. In 2018, he placed the Customs Bureau under the AFP after elements of the former were involved in drug smuggling. At times he put the AFP and PNP at odds, encouraging the military to prevent corruption by blocking PNP officers from entering casinos. He has a pattern of appointing retired generals in positions of bureaucratic power. Eight of his Cabinet principals are retired generals as are 46 appointed to lower level offices. This includes the former Chief of Defense that serves as Director of the Security and Safety Cluster within the Southeast Asia Games Organizing Committee. With government in Manila largely in the hands of former AFP generals, it is difficult to pin the Games’ shortcomings on the failings of civilian planners.

Whatever the reason for the perceived (and real) dysfunction of the event, guarding the Games is a massive interagency – and international – security challenge. Despite their best efforts however, the Philippine agencies tasked with security have limited funding and lack spare capacity. A number of powerful and longstanding insurgencies occupy the AFP in the country’s south while a well-armed criminal class empowered by the drug trade and enabled by entrenched corruption hampers the PNP’s ability to surge for the Games. The Philippine Coast Guard, charged with protecting the water sports, is well known for not having the budget to leave the pier. These obstacles are endemic to the Philippine government and are not likely to go away no matter how much “structural thinking” President Duterte manages to apply to guarding future games.

Lino Miani, CEO Navisio Global LLC

Lino Miani is a retired US Army Special Forces officer, author of The Sulu Arms Market, and CEO of Navisio Global LLC.

Asia, China

How the Pro-Democracy Election Victory Could Calm Hong Kong

This article has been republished with permission from our partner, Stratfor. The original version was first published in Stratfor’s WORLDVIEW and can be found here.

Nearly 3 million of Hong Kong’s 4 million registered voters expressed their disapproval of the city’s current government in a decisive local election on Nov. 24 that reduces the Hong Kong authorities’ political potency and also gives the opposition and protest movement a mandate to push against Beijing’s control. In theory, the huge electoral victory gives only a marginal political boost to the opposition in an institution that is otherwise heavily tilted in favor of the pro-establishment forces and ultimately controlled by Beijing. Nevertheless, the opposition now has much stronger backing to promote its pro-democracy agenda.

The Big Picture

Hong Kong voters went to the polls for the first time since the city’s latest political crisis began in an election to select local representatives. The vote, coming six months into a protest movement that has gripped Hong Kong, amounted to a referendum of the city’s Beijing-backed leadership. An overwhelming victory for pro-democracy candidates significantly altered Hong Kong’s political landscape and dealt the current government a blow, weakening the key pillar Beijing relies upon to exercise control.

See China in Transition

According to Hong Kong’s Registration and Electoral Office, opposition pro-democracy parties won 77 percent of the 452 total seats up for grabs, giving them control of 17 of the city’s 18 districts. This is a sharp reversal of the pro-establishment’s near-dominance of the district councils (those groups held 70 percent of total seats and controlled all districts since 2015). The record-high turnout of 71 percent, compared with the 40 percent average for previous district council elections, reflects high political awareness among the city’s residents, who were energized by the protest movement and undeterred by street battles between protesters and the police leading up to the election and the strong security presence during Hong Kong’s only direct and democratic election.

A Symbolic Landslide

The district councils traditionally hold little political power beyond decisions over local community affairs. But six months of persistent — and increasingly violent — protests effectively transformed this year’s election into a proxy battle along partisan lines, with the defeat of the pro-establishment camp apparently weakening a key pillar of governance supporting Beijing’s control in the city. The result also energizes the opposition, boosting its prospects in next year’s Legislative Council elections and could give it as many as 117 additional seats on the 1,200-member election committee that will choose Hong Kong’s chief executive in 2022. Even with the momentum from the district council vote, it’s unlikely the opposition will be able to capture a majority in either the Legislative Council or on the election committee.

But the results do send a clear measure of the strength of societal approval for it to pursue pro-democracy measures. Ultimately this means the central government will be forced to address opposition demands in some fashion or risk drawing an even stronger reaction on the streets as well as more international scrutiny. The number of opposition candidates who take seats in the local councils, however, will also lead to political impasses with the Beijing-friendly city administration over community affairs, likely leading to gridlock over local enforcement for years to come.

Despite the strong performance by opposition candidates, the raw vote totals do not necessarily translate into a sweeping popular endorsement of the protest movement, especially its more violent elements. The opposition candidates won 57 percent of the total popular vote, an improvement from their average 40 percent share of vote totals in the previous two district elections in 2011 and 2015, but not a dramatic one. Critically, this year’s election outcome will not appease the city’s more radical protesters, whose confrontations with authorities have persisted largely irrespective of the city’s political process. But the strong performance of pan-democracy politicians could restore the prominence of the protest movement’s more moderate voices.

What Could Happen Next

The local election results could effectively infuse the city’s political institutions with the spirit of Hong Kong’s street battles. The election may also provide a window of temporary respite in Hong Kong, but it likely will not last much more than a matter of days or weeks. Several major developments in the near future could signal whether the election result will lead to spikes in protest activity or whether the opposition’s demands will be channeled into political action, even as the broader protest movement is set to stay. Here are the signs to watch.

What the Protest Movement Does Next: Protest-related violence notably ebbed on election day, reflecting a degree of unity in the protest movement. One test of that unity will be whether the opposition’s electoral gains will help moderate protest groups and pan-democracy leaders discourage the more radical elements in the movement from resuming their violent tactics. It also raises the question of how the election results will be used as leverage to push forward the protesters’ demands. In particular, a scheduled protest on Dec. 8 by the Civil Human Rights Front will be important to monitor. What happens surrounding that protest will show whether protesters of all stripes can maintain a collective front on the pro-democracy demands. Another key question is whether the radical wing of the movement will maintain the peace as it did over election weekend or whether there is a quick return to disruptive action.

The loss of legitimacy suffered by its ally at the Admiralty will effectively force Beijing to choose between offering concessions to Hong Kong’s moderates or taking the risk of energizing the radicals.

How Hong Kong Authorities Respond: Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she and her government would “seriously reflect” on the Nov. 24 results, but ultimately, Beijing will determine how she and her government respond. As happened in 2003, when mass protests led to a similar defeat of pro-establishment forces and the resignation of several key officials, the election results will almost certainly cause more fissures within the administration and possibly prompt a few officials to resign. There is also a possibility that Lam’s administration could make political concessions to try to appease moderate protesters. Anything short of those gestures, however, will only deepen the political crisis.

What Beijing Does Next: The Chinese central government has issued no official responses to the election outcome beyond making convenient accusations, blaming “outside interference” for the result. Nonetheless, the loss of legitimacy suffered by its ally at the Admiralty will effectively force Beijing to choose between offering concessions to Hong Kong’s moderates or taking the risk of energizing the radicals. Thus, it may find the more expedient course of action will be to isolate itself from the mess by scapegoating the Hong Kong authorities and forcing the resignation of some Cabinet officials — and possibly even Lam herself. Beijing may even go as far as to influence the Hong Kong authority to pursue an inquiry of police actions during earlier protests — a key demand of protesters that the Admiralty rejected out of hand. Beijing certainly doesn’t want whatever concessions it grants to further embolden the protesters and the pro-democracy movement. But its more hard-line alternatives — especially the disqualification of a few of the recently elected pro-democracy candidates — would immediately inflame protests and push a resolution of the city’s crisis even further away.

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Latin America, Politics

Venezuela’s Bad Neighborhood

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The last few years in Latin American politics ushered in a wave of political upheavals from Chile to Honduras to Venezuela, and most recently Bolivia. Though the causes that sparked the manifestations differed across the hemisphere, Venezuelan involvement appears to be a common thread in the northern reaches of the continent. In a region that struggles to establish liberal democracies with fully-functioning economies, the socialist government in Caracas has an existential need to avoid isolation. It pursues this objective by destabilizing neighbors it views as ideological rivals and undermining the political opposition in socialist-leaning capitals. The governments of Ecuador and Colombia have both complained directly and repeatedly to the Maduro Administration about its meddling in political protests but their concerns have fallen on deaf ears. Despite crippling inflation and a contested political atmosphere, Caracas continues to see Latin America as a bad neighborhood to be managed.

Regional Problems

The complaints emanating from Colombia and Ecuador are a natural response to apparent Venezuelan meddling in their politics. During popular protests in Ecuador last month against suspension of fuel subsidies, President Lenin Moreno accused his predecessor, exiled former President Rafael Correa, of working with Venezuela to destabilize the Ecuadoran government. Specifically, Moreno accused Correa of “igniting” the protests using Venezuelan and Cuban agitators paid to fuel the protests. Indeed, many of those arrested were in fact, Venezuelan and Cuban, suggesting a more international conspiracy than a fuel-price hike would normally trigger. More ominously, the arrest of 17 Cuban and Venezuelan “spies” caught shadowing and photographing President Moreno’s convoy suggests those countries have a very high-risk tolerance for intervening in the affairs of their neighbors.

Colombia also has its concerns about Maduro’s political meddling. In an explosive speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September, Colombian president Iván Duque denounced Maduro for support to drug trafficking and transnational terrorism. In addition to having similar complaints about Venezuelan nationals sparking violence at protests, Duque was referring to the more sinister threat posed by thinly-veiled Venezuelan government support to ELN and dissident factions of FARC. According to documents leaked from the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebín), and the Operational Strategic Command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (CEOFANB), there is a well-known and growing relationship between Venezuela’s armed forces and these groups. Among other things, the documents revealed the Venezuelan military supports the activities of Colombian guerillas it calls “red groups.” Trained by the military, these red groups can be directly integrated with ELN and FARC and can provide intelligence support to Venezuelan military planning for war with Colombia. One document addressed to the Sebín Director of Counterintelligence shows an ELN presence in nearly every state in Venezuela, a force the Colombian military believes to number 2000 guerillas.

Global Linkages Venezuela

Venezuelan meddling in the affairs of its neighbors is almost certainly not a new phenomenon. Maduro’s relationships with other irredentist regimes like Cuba, exacerbate the threat he presents to the region. His relationships with global powers Russia and China are a problem for the United States and therefore tied to issues of global imporance. The deployment of a People’s Liberation Army (Navy) hospital ship to Venezuela in early 2018 and Washington’s reaction to it illustrate this point. As troubling as a PLA(N) presence in the Caribbean may seem to the Pentagon however, Russia has far more robust economic and military interests in the stability of the Maduro regime.

Russian oil companies are a critical factor in preventing the slow collapse of productivity by Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA. Long the economic lifeline of the Maduro regime – and the Chavez regime before that – PDVSA’s decline, and Russia’s relationship with it, gives Moscow tremendous leverage over Maduro and his foreign policy. A Venezuela-friendly neighborhood is certainly good for Russia’s military sales program which had been at a low ebb after the April 2016 election of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK) in Peru and later Ivan Duque in Colombia. In PPK’s case, he set the conditions for corruption investigations associated with previous administrations’ purchase of Mikoyan fighter aircraft, Mil helicopters, and associated support packages. For his part, Duque demonstrated an early willingness to review the peace agreement with FARC, a move that threatened to reduce its influence and that of its Russian sponsor.

Hidden Hand

Apart from Venezuela, Moscow remains a primary supplier of hardware and expertise to Nicaragua and Cuba among others and uses those countries as enablers and staging areas for the conduct of active measures like those affecting Ecuador. According to a white paper released in May 2019,[1] “Russia seeks to undermine the consolidation of the region as a group of pro-U.S. states, and in the process, distract the U.S. and weaken its strategic position in the Western hemisphere.” Russia does this by propping up friendly regimes and manipulating the politics of others as part of its larger strategy.

As U.S. Senator Rick Scott said during an interview for Brazilian newspaper: Folha de S. Paulo, “Russia and China are in all Latin American countries, but not to help. They want to control.” In many ways, this is a replay of conditions seen during the Cold War when the Soviets used proxies to drive wedges between rival governments and indigenous or marginalized political groups. Many of those groups are still notoriously underserved by their governments and represent a tremendous potential for resistance. Venezuela, which exerts influence on all the countries around it, has both the political will to develop this potential and a well-developed capacity to do so. The ability to see Moscow’s hand behind Venezuela’s machinations however is not so clear. For its own reasons, the Maduro regime seems content acting as a Russian enabler in the region if not an outright proxy for Moscow’s interests. How long those roles remain unchanged in the face of Venezuela’s continuing decline is certainly something its neighbors will watch.

[1] Though this white paper, titled: “Russian Strategic Intentions”, is not an official publication of the U.S. Department of Defense, it is signed by the Deputy Commanding General of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and includes chapters written by numerous U.S. Military and Intelligence Community officers writing in their official capacity.

Dino MoraDino Mora is an experienced Intelligence and Security Operations Specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the international affairs industry. His expertise includes Intelligence Analysis/Reporting, Counterintelligence, TESSOC threats, Tactical, operational and strategic Assessment/Planning, Counterinsurgency, Security Training & Team Leadership. He has extensive experience in NATO multinational operations and intelligence operations. Multilingual in Italian, English, and Spanish. He graduated from the Italian Military Academy.

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