COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Violence in Central America
Remarks of H.E. Jose Guillermo Castillo
Ambassador of the Republic of Guatemala
I would like to thank the Chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as the Chairman and ranking member of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, for holding this briefing and for the cordial invitation to participate as a special guest, and brief the Subcommittee on an issue of common interest that poses a serious threat to our countries and to the safety and security of their citizens. I hope this type of inter-governmental cooperation will extend past this room and translate into concrete and positive action for the benefit of all our neighboring countries.
Central American nations have suffered from increased violence in recent years prompting a growing concern about the region's security. The problem is particularly acute in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras and is of great interest to Mexico and the United States. Indeed, it was a central issue discussed by both President Oscar Berger of Guatemala and President Felipe Calderón of Mexico in their separate bilateral meetings with President Bush during his recent visit to Latin America.
Both leaders called for a comprehensive regional approach to the threats posed by illicit trade and youth gangs, particularly their trafficking in drugs, people and weapons, and the links between the two phenomena. The power of these forces not only undermines the governability of Central American nations and jeopardizes the lives of their citizens, but it is also highly detrimental to the region's economic development.
My purpose today is to:
(a) Highlight our view of the serious vulnerabilities and threats the region is facing
(b) Share with this Subcommittee some of the actions being taken in response to these problems, and
(c) Discuss the agreement signed between the United Nations and the Government of Guatemala to create an Independent International Commission to End Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).
Central American nations are vulnerable to this growing violence chiefly for four reasons: (1) their location, (2) the street gangs that have emerged in our nations; (3) the easy access to weapons that originally flowed in during the internal armed struggles in countries like mine, and (4) the high proportion of adolescents in our nations' populations.
Location, location, location - and drug trafficking
Central America's geography makes it the transportation corridor from southern drug-producing countries to the north's largest drug-consuming market. These trafficking routes, once used to transport guns and contraband during internal regional conflicts, evolved into transportation corridors for drugs.
The yearly drug market's value has been estimated at $60 billion. Not surprisingly, drug lords in our countries are exceedingly wealthy. Indeed, their resources often exceed the resources available to combat them. There is strong evidence, moreover, that these groups have infiltrated public institutions, and in some cases even exercise control over local governments. In recent years in fact, there has been growing concern that drug lords might be interested in openly financing political campaigns or running for office themselves.
While Guatemala chiefly provides a trafficking route for drug lords, in recent years poppy plantations have spread in the country as well. This is simply because the war on drug production in Colombia has increased the incentives to produce elsewhere. In 2006, for example, more than 27 million poppy plants were destroyed in Guatemala. The poppy plantations are in remote and inaccessible areas on the border with Mexico. There is no indication that the plants are being processed into heroin in Guatemala, but the international nature of the business clearly requires additional cooperation between all the nations involved.
In his book ILLICIT: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy, Moisés Naím, the editor of Foreign Policy magazine, remarks, "Governments can't do it alone. Anti-trafficking strategies based on government action alone are doomed to founder on government's inherent limitations - national frontiers and bureaucratic processes - that traffickers have so adeptly turned to their advantage . Illicit trade is a bigger problem than any one country, police force, or military or spy agency can tackle alone. This holds true for powerful governments that have the capability to intervene outside their own borders as much as it does for less powerful and more resource-constrained nations . It requires legal, police, and intelligence cooperation across borders . And it makes it crucial that we find ways to equip governments for the fight."
Few of the drugs that cross Central America are intended for local consumption (less than 10%). But the economic power of the drug lords, their infiltration of government agencies, regional poverty coupled with the allure of easy money, and the violence that these illegal activities generate are undermining the basis of our societies and our ability to deal with these problems.
Street gangs, weapons, and youngsters
Gangs and gang members are a serious threat to public security in some communities in Central America, Mexico and the United States. Many analyses have been written on this complex problem, but there is little consensus on its causes or its scale. Estimates for gang membership in Central America vary from 70,000 to 305,000. In the case of Guatemala, the estimates range from 14,000 to more than 100,000. While the number of gangs in Guatemala exceeds 300, the two most significant are 'Mara Salvatrucha' (MS13 gang) and Mara 18 (18th Street gang) and both have operations stretching from the United States to Nicaragua. In Central America, the countries most affected by the gangs are El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. There is a clear need here too, for more coordination to deal with this problem.
There is no doubt that weapons which originally flowed in during internal armed struggles are now accessible to the gangs or that the high proportion of youths in our countries tends to make the gang violence problem more acute. In the case of Guatemala, for example, 70% of the population is under 29 years of age and 50% under 15. Most gang members are male but an estimated 10% are female.
The evidence suggests that gang members are involved in street crimes, assassinations, extortion and drug distribution. The typical entry age is 13, but there are known cases of children as young as 8 involved in assassinations. Organized crime and gangs have found that using young children to commit crimes works to their benefit, because an adolescent under 18 cannot be prosecuted.
Some studies claim that the gangs are organized in unrelated cells (clicas) that do not have international connections. However, a recent study conducted by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) based on interviews with former gang members, indicates that their organization is far more complex. The study shows the pyramid in which these groups operate:
1. There is a connection at high levels between gang members and organized crime and drug traffickers. Most analysts do not believe that there is a direct ascension from neighborhood gangs to organized crime, but it is nonetheless believed that some narco-bosses work closely with leaders of the most sophisticated transnational gangs.
2. Transnational gang leaders, especially MS13 and 18th Street, oversee well-connected cells with extensive communication networks that are linked to extortion, arms and drug distribution in neighborhoods where they operate. The recent indictment in Maryland, where gang members serving prison time in El Salvador directed fellow gang members in Maryland to commit violent crimes including murder, is an example of the extent of these networks.
3. Cell members (national) are in charge of collecting "war taxes," extorting small businesses, bus and taxi drivers, distribution trucks and others.
4. Neighborhood gang members who are not members of 18th Street or MS-13 nonetheless imitate them.
5. Youths are at risk due to territorial or family contact with gang members. The lives of youths aged 8 to 18 are characterized by several risk factors, making them susceptible to joining a gang.
National and international steps taken to combat the problem
There is a need to strengthen three areas of action to battle this problem.
a) Gather more intelligence on gang leaders and bring them to justice.
b) Expand programs to help members who want to leave a gang, people who usually risk their lives to do so.
c) Bolster prevention mechanisms in youth centers and schools, among other locations.
The governments of Central America, Mexico and the United States recognize that the fight against an international problem requires international solutions. The only answer to a cross-border problem is a cross-border solution, so cooperation among our countries is imperative.
Last year the Central American Integration System (SICA) created a special 'Security Commission' to articulate the regional security agenda. It is made up by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Interior from all our countries. This Commission has already held dialogues with their counterparts in Mexico and the U.S.
Guatemala will chair the Commission this semester and we expect to have a regional working agenda before the end of the year.
The Guatemalan government has been working in three main security areas:
The first has been to press for changes in legislation dealing with international crime. Some of these changes include (1) the adoption of measures to control money laundering and the financing of terrorist activities; (2) updating criminal codes to reflect today's crimes and (3) toughening penalties for several illegal activities, including trafficking in persons. In 2007, moreover, Guatemala adopted a law against organized crime that gives authorities the ability to conduct covert operations and eavesdropping to obtain information that helps brings criminals to justice. In 2004 Guatemala deposited the 'United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime' and its three protocols: (the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children; the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air; and the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and trafficking in fire arms, their parts and components).
The second is the creation of The National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF) that was approved by our Congress on September 18, 2006 and has Q40 million (US$6 million) assigned for its initial operation. The Institute is an autonomous entity that will be in charge of processing scientific proof to support criminal cases presented in Court. Congress is currently in the process of electing the Director of the Institute, who by July 15 will be named. Among many other heinous crimes, this Institute for example will also help in prosecuting the violent and grisly murders of women.
So far, impunity has been a tremendous problem in criminal case trials due to the lack of undisputable proof against suspected criminals. The vulnerability of the system is due mostly to the fact that it relies upon testimonial proof, which can be easily dismissed; therefore the percentage of cases that end up with a full conviction is very low. It is expected that the possibility of having concrete scientific proof will provide the elements to reverse this situation, but then again international cooperation in establishing the different laboratories and in training the needed personnel, will be essential to do away with impunity.
The third area is the creation of The Independent International Commission to End Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG)
Building on the achievements of the U.N. Mission to verify implementation of the peace accords that followed the armed conflict in Guatemala, the agreement on the 'Independent International Commission to Combat Impunity in Guatemala' was signed last December between the Guatemalan Government and the United Nations.
The practices that characterized the armed conflict left severely weakened institutions. Specifically, counterinsurgent groups created structures within the state by which they could conduct their operations. The control these structures had over the population was responsible for human rights violations and the creation of strong networks of corruption and organized crime.
With the end of the armed conflict and the changes that followed, these structures went gradually into clandestine operational mode. The networks used to traffic arms and contraband became structures that facilitated the operations of more lucrative illicit operations like drug trafficking.
The traffickers are believed to be involved in using violence to stop political, social and judicial processes that affect their interests. Our governments are engaged in a fight against powerful and well-funded groups, and the government of Guatemala believes that CICIG is a fundamental tool to initiate investigative processes against these groups, as well as to support and strengthen the local institutions that are responsible for security and justice.
The main purpose of the Commission is to help strengthen the institutions in charge of investigation and prosecution of the illegal and clandestine groups that operate in the country. Its core functions will be, on one side, the investigation of the existence of parallel structures, their activities, operations, and sources of financing, as well as their possible relationship with institutions or individuals within the government. On the other side, the Commission will work towards the formulation of public policies to eradicate this problem.
Moreover, the Commission will be entitled to promote criminal prosecution of members of these groups and will be able to act as second plaintiff in these processes; in particular by contributing evidence to help build solid cases that could be truly paradigmatic and in which prosecution and conviction would establish an important precedent in our judicial system.
This new agreement with the UN was created on the basis of the initial agreement (CICIACS) signed in 2003 between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala and the Secretary General of the UN. This initial agreement was declared unconstitutional by our Constitutional Court in 2004, and therefore the Guatemalan Government decided to elaborate a new one to create this commission.
In February of this year the new proposal was sent from our Administration to the Guatemalan Congress for approval. The Foreign Affairs Committee in our Congress, in turn, sent the proposal to the Constitutional Court for an official opinion. The opinion was formally issued on May 16th 2007, and it not only gave a green light to the creation of the Commission but it also provided a legal interpretation on how the Commission should operate as well as the scope of its work.
Most of the political parties in the Guatemalan Congress have supported this commission. The FRG and Unionista parties are the two main ones that oppose its creation. Congress is in recess now, and it has been difficult to convoke an extraordinary session to approve CICIG.
Our Executive Branch, through the office of the Vice President, is leading efforts to lobby for CICIG's prompt approval. The Commission has strong support from most sectors in civil society and the press, and we welcome statements of support from members of this committee.
We are pleased that the U.S. Department of State has remarked: "We applaud the Berger government for undertaking this ground-breaking and promising initiative and continue to seek ways to support CICIG."
I thank the Chairman, the Ranking Member and representatives Burton, Engel, Fortuno and Mack for the letter to the Guatemalan Congress in support of the approval of this Commission. I also thank the members of the Senate for Resolution No. 155 approved on May 1, 2007, presented by Senators Dodd, Biden, Bingaman, Leahy and Durbin. We would welcome as well any initiatives by members of this committee that might help lead to adoption of CICIG.
The Government of Guatemala believes that CICIG is a new stepping stone in the fight against illicit activities in the world, and the support of the international community in the success of this Commission can serve as an example to other regions in the world that suffer from similar problems.
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