CHILE: 2005 COUNTRY REPORT ON TERRORISM

UNCLAS SANTIAGO 002522

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR S/CT - RHONDA SHORE, S/CT -- ED SALAZAR; STATE
PLEASE PASS TO NCTC: RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PTER PREL PGOV ASEC CI
SUBJECT: CHILE: 2005 COUNTRY REPORT ON TERRORISM

REF: STATE 193439


1. Below is the 2005 Country Report on Terrorism for Chile.
Embassy point of contact is Stephanie Acosta-Mikulasek
(acostamsm@state.gov; mikulaseks@state.sgov.gov;
56-2-330-3394).

GENERAL ASSESSMENT


2. The Government of Chile generally supports U.S.
counterterrorism efforts. They have taken an active interest
in the potential activities of Islamic extremists connected
to the Tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay and
their links to the Free Trade Zone in Iquique, Chile. Chile
also continued its support of U.S. counterterrorism efforts
in various international forums, including serving as chair
of the UN's al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions committee last
year. Chile hosted the Third Ministerial Conference of the
Community of Democracies in 2005, at which then-Minister of
Interior Jose Insulza emphasized the importance of security
as part of democracy building. Chile is a signatory to the
Asuncion Declaration of 2003, and President Lagos has joined
other South American leaders in condemning terrorism and drug
trafficking. This declaration also expressed solidarity with
Colombia in its domestic fight against terrorism.


3. The money-laundering statute enacted by the Chilean
Congress in December 2003, law 19.913, includes terrorist
financing. With this law, the government's ability to freeze
and seize assets was expanded, although the new provisions
have yet to be applied in a criminal case. It remains
unclear how the statute will operate in practice or how
swiftly Chile will be able to take action against identified
terrorist assets. This same legislation created a Financial
Intelligence Unit ("Unidad de Analisis Financiero" or UAF) to
investigate suspicious transactions reported by private
financial institutions. However, the Constitutional Tribunal
ruled some of the UAF provisions to be unconstitutional,
which led to the launch of a heavily handicapped UAF in April

2004. Slow efforts are underway to amend the laws within the
bounds of the Constitution so that the UAF would have more
investigative authority.


4. While Chile officially condemns terrorism and terrorist
organizations, there is evidence of some private support
among small groups in Chile for terrorist organizations such
as Hizballah, anti-U.S. Islamist groups, FARC and anti-U.S.
Bolivarian groups.


5. The current extradition treaty between Chile and the U.S.
is more than 100 years old. The U.S. and Chile continue to
have exploratory meetings to update the treaty, but progress
has been slow. Meanwhile, Chile has not been responsive to
extradition requests made by the Department of Justice. In
2005, only one expulsion case was successfully concluded from
Chile to the U.S. In addition, Chile's extradition requests
from its neighbors have been equally unsuccessful. For
example, Argentina recently denied Chile's extradition
request of Patriotic Front leader Galvarino Apablaza Guerra,
one of the key perpetrators of the 1993 "softball" bombing.

SANCTUARY ASSESSMENT


6. No declared acts of terrorism occurred in Chile in 2005.
Officials appear to be informed of potential terrorist
sympathizers residing in Chile. Chilean action to eliminate
terrorist sanctuary has been incremental and in accordance
with their judicial proceedings. Chile's cooperation with
the U.S. is dependent on the particular individual or entity,
and largely depends on the legal basis of the case. The
government pays relatively little attention to the issue of
weapons of mass destruction.

TERRORIST GROUPS


7. The Chilean government has offered no formal support to
known or suspected terrorist organizations or individuals.
However, because Chile does not officially recognize Iran's
Hizballah as a terrorist organization, Hizballah is permitted
to function as a charitable organization in northern Chile.

FOREIGN GOVERNMENT COOPERATION


8. Chilean law enforcement agencies were consistently
cooperative in investigating cases linked to international
terrorism. In the past, all investigations had to be
directly related to prosecutable criminal offenses. However,
new legislation passed in 2005 allows intelligence-gathering
to occur outside of the context of a specific case. The
plainclothes investigative police ("Policia Investigaciones
de Chile" or PICH) continued to investigate several terrorism
cases, but no prosecutions were developed. Chile's National
Intelligence Agency ("Agencia Nacional Inteligencia" or ANI),
established in October 2004, is an analytical body, largely
reliant on PICH and the uniformed police, "Carabineros," for
operations. By law, the Chilean military is prohibited from
actively seeking terrorist intelligence information and must
submit any information it obtains to ANI.


9. The U.S. continued to support capacity-building in 2005.
Personnel from PICH, Carabineros and ANI received
counterterrorism training, equipment and even funding to
improve their capabilities to combat terrorism and coordinate
with U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In May
2005, approximately 70 Chilean judges received training on
intellectual property rights (IPR) and the link between IPR
violations and possible money laundering schemes. Chile's
designated counterterrorist reaction force "GOPE" (Grupo
Operacion de Policia Especial),an approximately 450 person,
nationwide unit of the Carabineros, received some USG-funded
operational training, but continues to grapple with limited
resources.


10. In 2005, Chile took active measures to combat terrorist
activity regionally. The Carabineros sent a modest force to
assist the Argentinean security services during the Summit of
the Americas held in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Combined U.S.
and Chilean counter-surveillance and observer teams were
present throughout the Community of Democracies Ministerial
held in Santiago.


11. Chile is a party to all of the 12 international
conventions and protocols relating to terrorism.
KELLY