El Salvador fears Mexico drug cartel violence overflow--BBC
molly
British Broadcasting CorporationBBCHome
22 December 2010 Last updated at 07:42 ET
El Salvador fears Mexico drug cartel violence overflow
By Julian Miglierini BBC News, El Salvador
Police officer detains suspected gang member in San Salvador (December
2010) El Salvador is watching to see if its own gangs form alliances
with the Mexican cartels
Continue reading the main story
Related stories
* Gang strike paralyses El Salvador
* Salvador Church condemns violence
* Gangs target buses in El Salvador
From a giant billboard in the Salvadorean capital, a man with a
defiant attitude shows off a slogan on his shirt: "No one can
intimidate El Salvador," it reads.
The ad - part of a government-funded anti violence campaign - holds a
special significance at the time when many worry that an overflow of
Mexico's drug violence could soon hit this small Central American
nation.
The first one to raise the alert was President Mauricio Funes himself,
last April.
"We have information that they [the cartels] have entered El Salvador
with exploratory purposes," President Funes said.
Because of what he described as the "effectiveness" of Mexican
President Felipe Calderon's policies, the cartels were looking at new
bases for their operations, he added.
Since then, security forces have been watching closely to see if
criminal organisations like the Zetas - one of Mexico's most violent
cartels - are deploying in Salvadorean territory.
The cartels' possible collusion - or confrontation - with local gangs
is also being monitored.
Douglas Garcia Funes from the Salvadorean national police says
intelligence suggests that gang members are already "being used by or
are operatives for the transport of drugs and money towards the United
States, passing through Mexico".
In a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, this
is a sobering scenario.
It could bring more chaos to an already violent country, many
Salvadoreans say - and the government seems to be bracing for the
worst.
"We are certainly worried, and that is why we want to act in a
preventive manner," Hugo Martinez, El Salvador's foreign minister,
told BBC News.
Tougher stance
Continue reading the main story
Who are the "maras"?
* Juvenile gangs, known as "maras", first emerged among
Salvadorean migrants in the United States in the 1980s, mainly in
cities like Los Angeles
* Many of them were deported, and the gangs spread to El Salvador,
Honduras and Guatemala
* Two of the most notorious - the "Mara Salvatrucha" (also known
as MS13) and the "18th Street" - have a presence in the US, Mexico and
Central America.
* "Maras" have initiation rituals (known as "brincadas" in
Spanish), which can involve would-be members being repeatedly beaten
or taking part in crimes like robberies, which "certify" them as
members
* In pictures: Life inside an El Salvador jail
The presence of the gangs known as "maras", born among Salvadorean
migrants in Los Angeles in the 1980s, is believed to be the largest
contributor to those soaring rates.
Some estimates say that about 15,000 young men and women belong to one
of the gangs. In some families, a third generation of gang members is
now developing.
The maras have strong territorial control in some areas of the country
and practice what they call "social cleansing" - they wipe out petty
crime, but ask for money from locals in exchange for protection, and
engage in widespread criminal activity.
A retired gang member, who prefers not to be named, says that
belonging to a "mara" gives young, poor Salvadoreans a sense of
vindication against the larger society.
"People are scared, are afraid of what a gang member can do, like
stealing or killing," he says.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
They leave a beheaded body in one site and the head is buried five
kilometres away”
End Quote Israel Ticas Forensic investigator
"That is what being part of a 'mara' is about."
The maras are not new to El Salvador, but an incident in June marked a
turning point.
Gang members set fire to a small bus in the capital, killing 17
people. The government branded it a "terrorist act".
Soon afterwards, the government proposed a tough "anti-mara" bill that
makes it a criminal offence to belong to a gang or contribute to gang
finances by paying extortion fees.
In addition, more than 6,000 soldiers - almost half of the army's
manpower - have been deployed in hotspots around the country including
border crossings, jails and areas with a strong "mara" presence.
This tougher stance was seen by many as preparation for the threat of
Mexican cartels moving in to El Salvador.
Cruelty
The person who knows most about violence in El Salvador may well be
Israel Ticas, a forensic investigator from the security ministry.
Soldiers patrol in El Salvador More than 6,000 soldiers have been
deployed in hotspots around the country
He is the sole official in charge of the exhumation of bodies buried
in clandestine graveyards by the gangs.
He has already unearthed more than 38 of these graves around the
country - and he believes there are dozens more still to be found.
The walls of his office in the capital are covered with pictures of
the bodies, many of them too hard to digest for a casual observer.
They show men and women tortured, beheaded, mutilated; the violence
seems to reach unimaginable levels.
And, says Mr Ticas, the cruelty is only getting worse.
"In the last few years, the gangs have become more sophisticated" in
the way they bury their victims, he says.
"They hide [the bodies] better and it is harder for us to find them -
now they leave a beheaded body in one site and the head is buried five
kilometres [three miles] away."
It is hard to imagine how violence in El Salvador could go any further
- and that is why many fear that the arrival of foreign organised
criminal groups would be a nightmare come true.
molly
http://nationalinterest.org/print/blog/the-skeptics/the-mexican-trickle-down-effect-4614
The National Interest
Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org)
Source URL (retrieved on Dec 23, 2010):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/the-mexican-trickle-down-effect-4614
The Mexican Trickle-Down Effect
| More [1]
|
December 22, 2010
Ted Galen Carpenter [2]
Guatemala’s government has just declared a “state of siege” to deal
with the growing power of Mexican-based drug cartels in its territory.
Indeed, officials argue [3] that one northern province has been
“overrun” by the traffickers.
It is yet another indicator that the aggressive drug war that
Washington and Mexico City have embraced is having perverse effects.
The developments in Guatemala, along with the rising death toll in
Mexico itself (now topping thirty thousand [4] since President Felipe
Calderón declared war on the drug cartels in December 2006), overwhelm
the much-touted successes, such as the recent killing of Nazario
Moreno González [5], the charismatic leader of the violent La Familia
gang.
There is already evidence that Mexico’s drug-related corruption and
violence is seeping northward into the United States [6]. But that
plague is spreading even more rapidly into Mexico’s small Central
American neighbors.
That shift raises the interesting question of whether it is an
unintended or intended consequence of President Calderón’s crackdown
on the cartels. Wall Street Journal columnist Mary O’Grady and other
experts suspect that such an outcome may be the real motive—or at
least one of the key motives—underlying his strategy. According to
O’Grady [7], “Mexico seeks to raise the cost of trafficking so that
the flows go elsewhere.” And, one might add, so that at least some of
the violence accompanying the drug trade also goes elsewhere.
There is little question that, whether intended or not, Calderón’s
antidrug offensive is causing the cartels to become much more active
in places outside of Mexico, especially in Central America. After
investigating developments in Mexico’s southern neighbors, Washington
Post reporters William Booth and Nick Miroff conclude [8] that the
drug cartel violence quickly spilling south into Central America “is
threatening to destabilize fragile countries already rife with crime
and corruption.” Other experts reach similar conclusions. David
Gaddis, chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration,
contends [8] that the Mexican organizations are moving into countries
“where they feel, quite frankly, more comfortable” than they do in
Mexico.
There is ample evidence to back up such pessimistic assessments. El
Salvador’s murder rate, already one of the higher ones in the world,
jumped another 37 percent in 2009. That increase was due almost
entirely to increased fighting among drug-trafficking organizations.
El Salvador’s defense minister, David Munguía Payés, states bluntly
[8]: “The more pressure there is in Mexico, the more the drug cartels
will come to Central America looking for a safe haven.” In September,
Salvadoran police discovered [9] $9 million in cash buried in oil
drums on a ranch. $9 million is a sizable sum—especially in a country
as poor as El Salvador.
Furthermore, the turf fights that have so plagued Mexico are now being
played out with much greater frequency and ferocity in Central
America. And the same gruesome trophies, especially severed heads, are
now showing up with greater frequency as well. Rival cartels are
establishing a strong presence in several Central American countries.
The Zetas, arguably Mexico’s most ruthless and violent drug faction
(composed of rogue military special forces personnel that the United
States helped train), have reportedly set up recruitment and training
camps in Guatemala. Several trafficking organizations have created
bases of operation in both Guatemala and Honduras to facilitate drug
shipments northward by sea and air.
Corruption, a long-standing problem in Central American states as it
is in Mexico, is reaching new heights as the cartels consolidate their
beachheads. Since late 2008, four high-level figures, including two
national police chiefs and a former president have been arrested and
warrants are out for two former interior ministers who are now
fugitives.
Central American political leaders are alarmed at the growing presence
of the Mexican cartels in their countries, and they are pressing
Washington for greater assistance. Costa Rican President Laura
Chinchilla wants [10] the United States to offer an antidrug-aid
program specifically for Central America. That region is already
included in the multiyear, multibillion-dollar Mérida Initiative that
President George W. Bush launched in 2007. But most of that aid has
gone to Mexico, not Central America. “We don’t want to be seen as an
appendix of the Mérida Initiative,” President Chinchilla stated. “We
want a plan for Central America.”
But even most supporters of the Mérida Initiative concede that the
plan’s beneficial impact on Mexico has been meager, at best. It is not
clear why Chinchilla and other Central American leaders assume that
the results of a similar aid program would be better in their region.
Her call sounds more like a cry of desperation than a well-considered
strategy.
The sense of desperation is understandable, though. The potential
destabilizing impact that the cartels could have in Central America is
even worse than the potential in Mexico. Despite its many—and rising—
problems, Mexico has had more than eight decades of political
stability. Central America’s history is exactly the opposite, with
numerous rebellions, military coups, bloody civil wars and societal
upheavals.
It was only a little more than two decades ago that the Reagan
administration feared that the entire region could be aflame with
revolutionary convulsions. Indeed, that fear was the driving force
that caused Washington to support a series of brutal dictatorships in
Guatemala, undermine the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua,
and strongly back El Salvador’s beleaguered government against a
radical insurgency. Central America was at or near the top of
Washington’s national-security agenda. The relative calm in the region
since the early 1990s has caused that memory of earlier turmoil to
fade. But if the Mexican cartels deepen their presence in Central
America, that precarious equilibrium could come to an end, and do so
with stunning speed.
In addition to the much weaker political institutions in Central
America compared to Mexico, those smaller countries lack Mexico’s
other institutional bulwarks. Both the overall economies and the
business communities are not nearly as strong. Other nongovernmental
organizations, the foundation of vibrant civil societies, are far less
numerous and influential. The law-enforcement agencies are even more
corrupt and ineffectual than their Mexican counterparts. While the
failed-state scenario is increasing with respect to Mexico, it is
still unlikely. But the cartels have a much greater ability to produce
that result—or at least create a full-blown narcostate—in any or all
of the Central American countries.
It is not certain whether Felipe Calderón anticipated that possible
outcome as a consequence of his own war against the cartels. But he
certainly should have recognized that danger. At best, Calderón’s
strategy is inadvertently creating alarming problems for Mexico’s
small neighbors. At worst, he did anticipate that development, but
chose to adopt a cynical “beggar thy neighbor” strategy in the hope of
deflecting at least a portion of Mexico’s drug war problems southward.
Either way, the spreading corruption and violence in Central America
is creating an alarming situation.
The Obama administration needs to conduct an immediate review of
Washington’s antidrug strategy, including the Mérida Initiative, south
of the border. Clearly, the current approach is merely causing the
problem of drug violence and corruption to metastasize.
More by
Source URL (retrieved on Dec 23, 2010):
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/the-mexican-trickle-down-effect-4614
Links:
[1] http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=nationalinterest
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/ted-galen-carpenter
[3] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704862604576030093277276336.html
[4] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gYxrDNrE8sce-O5NXh0pP33app3w?docId=5b62112f618e43dd98424a59ad22604f
[5] http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j665CXWVHZh5BBrDc_jF0QzQkn6A?docId=CNG.9c07eaad5245857f7c88d2bb772e1f0c.1191
[6] http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/mexico-bleeds-over-the-border-4464
[7] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405350025715082.html
[8] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/26/AR2010072605661.html
[9] http://dailycaller.com/2010/09/04/salvadoran-police-find-9m-in-cash-in-oil-drum/
[10] http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2010/08/17/costa_rica_wants_us_anti_drug_program_for_centam/
sito negron
State Dept. Official Discusses Central American Drug Trafficking
Region a corridor for shipping illegal drugs, Jonathan Farrar tells House panel
Central America, Mexico and the Western Caribbean have become the principal corridor through which transnational drug trafficking groups move some 92 percent of the South American cocaine shipments that enter the United States, says Jonathan Farrar, the U.S. State Department’s deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).
In his prepared testimony for a U.S. House of Representatives panel November 9, Farrar said the drug trafficking groups also use this corridor to move large amounts of heroin north to Mexico, then into the United States andCanada.
Farrar said that over the past decade, Colombian and other drug syndicates and “aspiring local groups” have consolidated their dominance of the drug trade in Central America, fueling an increase in overall crime, violence and corruption that is eroding the region's “fragile” democratic institutions.
“With its limited law enforcement capacity and porous borders, traffickers find Central America a relatively low-risk operating environment and a convenient base of operations for pre-positioning shipments to Mexico,” Farrar told the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
In response to these drug trafficking threats, Farrar said INL works to enhance the affected countries’ maritime and land interdiction capacities.
For example, he said his bureau helped in the transfer of decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard cutters to Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua and provided training on operations and maintenance. INL has also assisted each country in strengthening its border inspection stations, particularly at key chokepoints along the Pan-American Highway.
Farrar also said his bureau trains and equips counternarcotics police and prosecutors to ensure that interdiction operations are followed up with criminal investigations and prosecutions. Prosecutions leading to convictions are the final objective of an effective interdiction program, he said.
Another initiative, Farrar said, is the signing of U.S.-bilateral maritime cooperation agreements with all of the Central American governments except El Salvador to facilitate operational coordination. Costa Rica, the first in the region to sign a bilateral agreement, later collaborated with the Netherlands to develop a Caribbean Regional Maritime Agreement. That agreement is not yet in force.
The United States, Farrar indicated, will pursue a bilateral maritime agreement with El Salvador in the coming year.
Given the pervasiveness of the drug threat and the lack of resources throughout the region, Farrar said Central American countries “need to work together, share their assets and information, and institute standardized control regimes. To accomplish these goals, countries need to modernize how they fight crime, remove obstacles to extradition, sustain political will, and build public confidence and support for reform and a strong anti-drug effort.”
The U.S. government, said Farrar, is not “operating under any illusion that stopping the flow of drugs by way of Central America to the United States will be easy. Each country faces many obstacles to creating an effective interdiction program and there are even more barriers impeding effective inter-governmental cooperation.”
But Farrar added that the United States sees “genuine commitment at the presidential level” in most of the affected countries in the region and “will work to reinforce that commitment. Ongoing momentum for regionalization will help to encourage counternarcotics cooperation and will also open a window for productive U.S. engagement.”
For additional information on U.S. policy in the region, see The Americas.
Following is the text of Farrar’s prepared statement before the subcommittee:
(begin text)
Testimony by
Jonathan Farrar
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
U.S. Department of State
before the House International Relations Committee
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
November 9, 2005; 1:30 p.m.
Rayburn 2172
Drug Trafficking in the Transit Zone of Central America
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. The Department of State welcomes this hearing as a timely opportunity to discuss the importance of Central America in the international fight against illicit drugs and in the context of U.S. drug control strategy.
My fellow panelists will discuss in detail the flow of illicit drug shipments through the Central American isthmus, emerging trends, key trafficking groups and the interdiction and enforcement efforts to address those threats. I would like to outline how the U.S. Government is assisting our partner nations in the region to confront drug trafficking and transnational criminal activity.
Introduction
In the past month, the United States, Mexico and Central America have suffered devastating blows by the same natural forces of destruction. What many do not realize is that we face an "unnatural" force of destruction as well, the criminal undercurrent moving hundreds of tons of illicit drugs through Central America and its surrounding waters on their way to the United States. Today, Central America, Mexico, and the Western Caribbean have become the principal corridor (using maritime, land and air routes) through which transnational drug trafficking groups move some 92 percent of the South American cocaine shipments that enter the United States, as well as large amounts of heroin, north to Mexico then into the United States and Canada.
As we have seen around the world, countries on smuggling routes are inevitably plagued by rising drug consumption, increased rates of youth crime and violence, narco-related corruption, and a host of other ills associated with the drug trade.
Central America is a region of small, developing nations, including some of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Despite justice sector reform initiatives in several of the states, the region's criminal justice systems are not equipped to address transnational organized crime and are vulnerable to intimidation or corruption. Drug abuse is escalating throughout the region, as we have seen in other drug transit countries around the world. Because these nations have weak border controls generally, as one government increases enforcement in one area, traffickers can too easily shift to neighboring countries and to other means of transport.
Over the past decade, Colombian and other drug syndicates and aspiring local groups have consolidated their dominance of the drug trade in Central America, fueling an increase in overall crime, violence, and corruption that is eroding the region's fragile democratic institutions. With its limited law enforcement capacity and porous borders, traffickers find Central America a relatively low-risk operating environment and a convenient base of operations for pre-positioning shipments to Mexico.
While drug trafficking is the most serious of the transnational crime threats in the region, Central American governments also wrestle with trafficking in firearms, alien smuggling and trafficking in persons, and money laundering. Many also face serious domestic criminal problems, notably those related to the growing presence of youth gangs. While these gangs are not yet involved in large-scale drug trafficking, the potential is there. Central American countries are ill-equipped to fight them.
Current Interdiction Programs
The majority of the US-bound drug shipments are smuggled directly to Mexico by maritime conveyance -- fast boats, fishing vessels and containers. A portion is offloaded in Central America and continues by land through Mexico to the U.S. INL's programs in the region enhance these countries' maritime and land interdiction capacities. For example, we facilitated the transfer of decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard cutters to Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua and provided training on operations and maintenance. INL has also assisted each country in strengthening its border inspection stations, particularly at key chokepoints along the Pan-American Highway. Finally, INL trains and equips counternarcotics police and prosecutors to ensure that interdiction operations are followed up with criminal investigations and prosecutions. Prosecutions leading to convictions are the final objective of an effective interdiction program.
In addition, we have signed bilateral maritime cooperation agreements with all of the Central American governments except El Salvador to facilitate operational coordination. Costa Rica, the first in the region to sign a bilateral agreement, later collaborated with the Netherlands to develop a Caribbean Regional Maritime Agreement (signed, but not yet in force). We will pursue a bilateral agreement with El Salvador in the coming year.
Air Interdiction
While air smuggling from South America into the region was once the major problem, the 2005 Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement estimated that less than eight percent of the cocaine movement in 2004 went by air. However, traffickers continue to make use of air deliveries for cocaine into staging areas in northern Guatemala for overland transport into Mexico, and tracking of unregistered air traffic suggests they may be increasing the use of air routes in 2005. Also, traffickers use air for smuggling heroin, which has a higher value per pound.
The United States has established a hemispheric radar system to track the movements of suspected trafficker vessels and aircraft. Through the Cooperating Nation Information Exchange System (CNIES), U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) provides this data to appropriate host nation authorities for the detection and monitoring of suspect drug trafficking aircraft and vessels.
These efforts have successfully interdicted drug shipments intended for the U.S. market. For example, Guatemalan law enforcement recently acted on information provided by the U.S. to capture an aircraft carrying 450 kilograms of cocaine. Three suspects were arrested.
Although the systems we have in place are a major step forward, Central American states do not have the aircraft, command and control, support structure, or radar/tracking infrastructure to participate in a robust regional aerial interdiction program.
Other Programs in the Region
Through regional projects and training, we maximize funding and promote better sub-regional cooperation and information exchange. The establishment of the new International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador will be of tremendous benefit to the governments of Central America and provide us a location for regional training in the isthmus.
Panama is of particular strategic importance in Central America. Panama is an international transportation hub, home to the Panama Canal and the Colón Free Zone, the world's major "flag state" for ship registry, and a major financial center, making it a desirable venue for laundering drug proceeds. Panama serves as the "bridge" between the Andean producing/trafficking zone and the Central American transit zone. Counternarcotics assistance is provided to Panama under the Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI) program.
Central American programs fall under the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INCLE) budget. Guatemala is INL's largest INCLE program in Central America and also acts as the regional "hub" that provides technical support to neighboring countries. INL's Guatemala program will provide training, equipment, and other support to the government's counternarcotics and law enforcement efforts. Projects for El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Belize are funded out of the INCLE Latin America Regional Account. INL scaled back some of its planned Central American institution building and interdiction programs due to budget priorities elsewhere over the last several years.
USG Programs
INL seeks to leverage available resources and build on efforts that promote cooperation and communication, and that have a "multiplier effect." To this end, our Central American programs are coordinated closely with other USG and regional initiatives.
Some major program areas include:
-- Anti-smuggling. INL and DHS have established a series of freight tracking, border inspection systems and port security projects. Once these are linked, the regional governments will be able to effectively track the movement of people, vessels, cargoes, etc.
-- Maritime: The regional maritime agreement, complemented by INL/USCG-supported maritime programs, should disrupt and eventually deter maritime trafficking.
-- Intelligence and Information Sharing are critical to the prospects for effective regionalization. INL is reviewing the longstanding Joint Information Coordination Centers (JICC) program to see how it can be improved to meet new needs. The "Center for Drug Information" (CDI), sponsored by the International Drug Enforcement Conferences (IDECs) in Mexico City encourages daily exchange of information.
-- Investigations: DEA's reorganization of its Central America and Mexico Country Offices, together with the reenergizing of the IDECs, has helped to promote regional investigations. INL complements this effort through support to special investigative units.
-- Anti-Money Laundering: Working with other US Government agencies and international organizations, INL has mounted a comprehensive program to construct Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Terrorist Financing (AML/CTF) programs in the six Central American countries. INL has funded programs to assist the Central American countries in drafting AML/CFT laws and implementing regulations and in establishing FIUs, and to provide a wide range of AML/CFT training to police and regulatory officials in the region. Five of the six Central American countries have now set up an AML/CFT legal and regulatory framework and functioning Financial Intelligence Units (FIU). Also, our work has led to the removal of Panama and Guatemala from the Financial Action Task Force's non-cooperative countries list in 2001 and 2004, respectively.
-- Demand Reduction: All of the countries are seeing increases in domestic drug consumption. This is a productive area for inter-governmental collaboration.
Much of INL's training is conducted regionally to develop parallel capabilities and promote networking. This is the approach we plan to take at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador. Similarly, we have funded training and a broad array of projects for the region through the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Organization of American States (OAS).
We will explore public-private sector partnerships to address a range of criminal activities from anti-smuggling to youth gangs, encourage joint investigations, and promote regional approaches to demand reduction and drug treatment.
Corruption remains one of the most significant factors inhibiting progress in many areas, including effective law enforcement. While governments throughout the region are now confronting the issue -- including prosecution of high-level figures -- institutional reforms are essential to an effective solution.
The Administration, including INL, is working on a number of levels to ensure that Central American governments take action against corruption. First, we are ensuring that these governments accept clear international commitments for tackling corruption, and we are working diplomatically to see these commitments moved to action. We are working with the OAS to monitor implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption and are encouraging governments to adopt and implement the more comprehensive commitments found in the relatively new UN Convention Against Corruption. Panama, Honduras, and El Salvador have already ratified the UN Convention, which enters into force on December 14, 2005, and all other Central American governments, with the exception of Belize, have signed.
Second, where the political will is ripe, we are providing bilateral assistance to help these countries meet their commitments and take effective anticorruption actions. While USAID programs provide the bulk of USG bilateral assistance in this area, limited INL funding has been used to implement Culture of Lawfulness programs and to assist Nicaraguan authorities to pursue anticorruption cases, which includes placement of a DOJ Anticorruption Resident Legal Advisor in Managua since May 2004.
Another important aspect of the fight against corruption involves denying safe haven to corrupt actors. President Bush issued Presidential Proclamation 7750 in January 2004 to deny entry into the U.S. to corrupt foreign officials. The Proclamation is a tool to implement the "No Safe Haven" policy, adopted by OAS leaders at the January 2004 Special Summit of the Americas, and reaffirmed by OAS member states in the Declaration of Quito in June 2004. Hundreds of past and present corrupt actors from Central America and around the world have been denied entry using legal authorities available under various provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Proclamation has specifically been useful to target those who are known to be corrupt but who cannot be denied entry under any other legal authorities, and whose corruption has been so egregious that it has had a serious adverse effect on key U.S. national interests. In cases where the Proclamation has been utilized in Central America, it has served to get the attention of senior levels of host governments, demonstrate firm U.S. commitment to meaningful anti-corruption measures and underscore the importance of combating corruption to protect fragile legal and law enforcement institutions.
Regionalization
Given the pervasiveness of the drug threat and the lack of resources throughout the region, Central American countries need to work together, share their assets and information, and institute standardized control regimes. To accomplish these goals, countries need to: modernize how they fight crime, remove obstacles to extradition, sustain political will, and build public confidence and support for reform and a strong antidrug effort.
The Central American Regional Integration System (SICA) is a European Commission-like body that includes an array of sub-commissions to address issues ranging from culture to science. The Central American Permanent Commission for the Eradication of Production, Trafficking, Consumption and Illicit Use of Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances, or "CCP," is the entity charged with coordination on counternarcotics. UN Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), OAS/CICAD, Spain and the United States are technical advisors to the CCP. By regionalizing their efforts and developing a regional action plan, the governments hope to improve their ability to obtain international financing and donor support. DEA, the United Nations and OAS/CICAD are working to assist the CCP in establishing a Central American regional chemical control system.
There are a number of other sub-regional bodies and programs that can contribute to improving cooperation against narcotics trafficking:
-- Operationally, the Central American Chiefs of Police and the International Drug Enforcement Conference (IDEC) are very much involved in inter-governmental coordination on interdiction and investigations.
Other Criminal Threats
In the complementary area of justice sector development, INL will focus on the institutional obstacles to law enforcement effectiveness, notably: corruption, lack of legal provisions for use of modern investigative techniques, dysfunctional government personnel systems, entrenched criminal groups, and lack of public support/confidence.
While the United States has traditionally focused on combating the major transnational criminal organizations based in Colombia and Mexico, we are also concerned about the rapid expansion of criminal youth gangs in the United States as well as in Central America. Youth gangs and other loosely-organized criminal groups engage in a broad range of activities, from drug distribution, to kidnapping, to contract killings. Because of their structure, their extensive criminal activity, their operation in multiple countries, the large number of minors involved in the groups (that fall under laws covering minors which limit investigation, prosecution and penalization options), and other factors, these gangs are very difficult to combat. Concerted inter-governmental action needs to be taken to ensure that they do not become the next generation of drug/crime cartels. Our strategy recognizes that addressing youth gangs effectively in the long-term requires us to support approaches encompassing both law enforcement and prevention, recognizing that countering gang activity is a function of both deterrence and providing other opportunities to youth. Anti-gang training will be highlighted at the new ILEA in El Salvador.
Internally, each country faces a growing culture of crime that is undermining weak democratic institutions and eroding public confidence. Based on a successful model in Mexico and Colombia, El Salvador has launched "Culture of Lawfulness" projects -- a school-based program that has been successful in helping teenagers understand the importance of the rule of law, ending corruption and abuse of authority in government, and in resisting the lure of drugs, gangs, and violence. A parallel program for police is also being initiated in Guatemala, and we plan to begin work -- together with the OAS -- in other countries as well.
Conclusion
The U.S. Government is not operating under any illusion that stopping the flow of drugs by way of Central America to the United States will be easy. Each country faces many obstacles to creating an effective interdiction program and there are even more barriers impeding effective inter-governmental cooperation.
Traffickers continue to grow richer and more powerful at a rate faster than the governments can develop and implement strategies to counter them. They will continue to find Central America a relatively low-risk operating environment.
The deterioration of public security in the region is putting public pressure on governments to take at least some visible action against gangs and corruption. The U.S. will continue to support measured action to combat criminal gang activity, but with full respect for human and civil rights and rule of law.
We see genuine commitment at the presidential level in most of the countries in the region and will work to reinforce that commitment. Ongoing momentum for regionalization will help to encourage counternarcotics cooperation and will also open a window for productive US engagement.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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Gordon Housworth
The southeasterly thrust of the Zetas in force into Central American states is different.
Agreed, that Guatemala, Panama and El Salvador to name some of the most challenged Central American states have long been transit paths for narcotics -- a path that only increased with the relative success of US interdiction in the Caribbean -- but now a weak Guatemalan state is being challenged by a superior force.
Were I an enterprising Zeta, I would reach for the Guatemalan Army’s Directorate of Intelligence, D-2 (Dirección de Inteligencia Militar, D-2) and/or the Presidential General Staff (Estado Mayor Presidencial, EMP). Under military direction, D-2 is Guatemala's largest intelligence agency and is responsible both for domestic and foreign intelligence operations and had spent some effort in identifying and infiltrating paramilitary groups. D-2 could make anyone or any rank or standing disappear; it’s capacity for ruthlessness exemplified by the “30/70” policies of bullets and beans in which Civil Affairs programs offering agricultural development for the majority were balanced by liquidation for the remainder. There is also “La Cofradía” (Brotherhood) comprised of serving and retired military intelligence officers to which attention should be paid.
The Guatemalan military has a “tanda” characteristic in which a horizontal loyalty is built among a class of military academy graduates that persists throughout their careers. One of the most enduring of these networks was “El Sindicato” (Union) led by none other than General Otto Pérez Molina. If one could penetrate a tanda, the effect would continue to expand as that group of officers matriculated upward.
Guatemala nearly became a narcostate in a recent national election.