CITY OF PANAMA – The head of the United States Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, warned Latin American military commanders this Friday in Panama of the need to unite to confront threats against democracies carried out by autocratic governments.
“Our enemies wake up every day trying to replace us, trying to replace democracy, but the democracy team I’m seeing is much stronger than our autocracy enemies,” Richardson said without mentioning any country specifically.
Richardson’s statements were made at a police academy in Panama City, at the closing of a competition as part of joint exercises in which soldiers and special forces from nearly twenty American countries participated, including the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
That of democracy “is a powerful team working across the board to ensure a free, secure and prosperous Western Hemisphere,” Richardson said.
“During this exercise they competed against each other, but they worked together so that when we meet during a crisis, and the crisis is going to happen, we are not meeting each other for the first time,” he added.
At the end of the event, attended by the president of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, the US military officer evaded answering the press’s question about whether Nicaragua’s alliances with Russia and China posed a danger to the region.
Source: With information from AFP
