[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
THE INTERNATIONAL EXPLOITATION OF DRUG WARS AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 12, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-66
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
70-663 WASHINGTON : 2011
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
RON PAUL, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
CONNIE MACK, Florida GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
TED POE, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DAVID RIVERA, Florida FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
ROBERT TURNER, New YorkAs
of October 5, 2011 deg.
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
RON PAUL, Texas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DAVID RIVERA, Florida
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Mr. Eduardo Garcia Valseca, kidnap victim........................ 8
Mr. Douglas Farah, senior fellow, International Assessment and
Strategy Center................................................ 15
Mr. Eric Farnsworth, vice president, Council of the Americas..... 34
Andrew Selee, Ph.D., director, Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson
Center......................................................... 40
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Mr. Eduardo Garcia Valseca: Prepared statement................... 10
Mr. Douglas Farah: Prepared statement............................ 19
Mr. Eric Farnsworth: Prepared statement.......................... 37
Andrew Selee, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.......................... 43
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 66
Hearing minutes.................................................. 67
The Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas: Washington Post article entitled ``For Kidnap
Victim, Tranquility Taken,'' by David Montgomery, dated August
12, 2009....................................................... 68
THE INTERNATIONAL EXPLOITATION OF DRUG WARS AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT
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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o'clock a.m.,
in room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana
Rohrabacher (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Rohrabacher. This hearing of the Oversight and
Investigations Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee is called to order.
I am Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and I will have a short-
or a medium-sized opening statement, and opening statements
from the other members who are here, including the ranking
member Carnahan. We will then hear from our witnesses, and then
we will proceed to have questions after the testimony of each
witness.
And I would ask--if indeed your testimony can be
summarized, that would be nice. And then we would proceed to go
into greater detail during the question and answer part of the
hearing.
Today I am reminded of a friend who is not with us. I am
reminded of Constantine Menges, who worked with me in the White
House and over the years warned us about many of the dangers
that threatened the security of the United States of America,
and the safety of our people. Constantine passed away, and we
miss him very much.
We invited his wife Nancy to testify today, because she
picked up his work and his research, but she was unable to join
us.
Yesterday, of course, revealed something that Constantine
Menges warned us about many years ago, and that was foreign
involvement in Mexico, and in a way that did indeed threaten
the security of our country and the safety of our people.
Yesterday it was revealed that Federal agents had foiled a plot
by Iranian officials who were seeking to recruit a Mexican drug
cartel to kill Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States.
The idea was to bomb a Washington restaurant, and not only
would the Saudi Ambassador clearly have been killed, but there
would have been many other victims as well. This case--and I
quote,
``This case illustrates that we live in a world where
borders and boundaries are increasingly irrelevant, a
world where individuals from one country sought to
conspire with a drug trafficking cartel in another
country to assassinate a foreign official on United
States soil.''
And that was a quote from FBI Director Robert Mueller.
This kind of linkage between foreign enemies and drug
traffickers, as well as other domestic criminals, is not new.
It has been growing for years, and nowhere is that more evident
than in Mexico, right next door to the United States. And that
is beginning to have a real and dangerous repercussion here in
our own country. So today we look at the foreign elements that
are engaged in Mexico and how that might affect not only the
people there but also the safety and security of the United
States.
Jayne Garcia Valseca is an American citizen who, along with
her husband Eduardo, was the victim of a brutal abduction in
Mexico. She was released a few days--after a few days, but he
was held for 7 long months during which he was tortured and he
was shot. In 2008, he was recovered alive after the payment of
a substantial sum, a substantial ransom.
The likely perpetrators of this crime, which is not, again,
just against this particular family, but is being experienced
throughout Mexico and in other countries in Latin America, the
perpetrators of this crime and the continuing crime against
these other folks south of the border, were members of the
Popular Revolutionary Army--that is the EPR--or one of its
splinter groups.
The EPR is a Marxist insurgency with ties to FARC--that is,
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia--which is both tied
to the drug trade and backed by anti-American regimes,
especially that in Venezuela.
So there is more at work south of our border than just
crime for profit. There is an international threat to the
stability and the safety of our entire hemisphere. There is
also crime and terrorism, of course, being perpetrated for
political motives, and those political motives are basically
those people with an anti-American agenda.
So we have both criminal elements mixing with political
elements, and taking advantage of international borders in
order to facilitate their crimes in another country. Yet,
looking into the Valseca case, I found little cooperation
between the Mexican and American law enforcement organizations.
Yesterday we saw evidence that there was cooperation, at
least when trying to save the life of a Saudi Ambassador. But
what we need to ask ourselves is: Do we need to have that same
sort of cooperation in breaking this threat and eliminating
this threat to the hemisphere that I just described? which is
the cooperation between criminal elements on a transnational
basis.
So, however, in the Valseca case, when we looked into it,
even though we have spent billions of dollars to fight the drug
cartels, which was supposedly aimed at establishing a level of
cooperation between the Mexican Government and Mexican law
enforcement, and law enforcement in the United States, we did
not see the level of cooperation and we didn't see the
cooperation that should have been expected. And we will hear
more about that later on in the testimony.
The problem may or may not, however, be solely or even
primarily with the Mexican Government. As recent hearings by--
with other Foreign Affairs subcommittees, they have shown that
the United States Government has a myopic focus on drug
cartels, which has blinded us to larger, more strategic threats
in Latin America, which may or may not be drug cartels, may be
criminal cartels that are allied with various ``revolutionary
movements.''
Well, that turmoil that these alliances have created, that
turmoil is moving northward, and we need to understand that.
And what happened yesterday should underscore that for all
of us. Perhaps the exposure of the Iranian assassination plot
by a DEA undercover agent posing as a drug cartel gangster will
now alert us to the danger that we face, the same sort of
kidnappings that the Valseca family has gone through, the
hardship and actually in many cases the death of a loved one,
in this case the torture of a loved one, and, of course, the
taking of a large sum of money and destroying the financial
ability of a family. That happened in Mexico. That could be
happening here and will be happening here, and we will be
anxious to hear from Eduardo about the details of that danger.
Among these threats that we face are forces from outside
Latin America, including Hezbollah, which is, of course, backed
by Iran, and a growing Chinese influence working through left
wing regimes that in turn use ``revolutionary groups'' to
spread their own power and influence.
Our first witness, Eduardo, who will put a human face to
this growing danger will be with us. Then, our other witnesses
will put Mr. Valseca's experience into a larger strategic
concept.
Those witnesses are Douglas Farah, a senior fellow at the
International Assessment and Strategy Center, where he
specializes in research, writing, and training on transnational
criminal organizations and armed groups. He has spent most of
his career covering conflicts around the world after graduating
with honors from the University of Kansas with degrees in both
Latin American studies and journalism.
In 1985, he was named bureau chief for United Press
International in El Salvador. And we seem to remember that El
Salvador was quite a different place then than it is today, and
hopefully it won't go back to what it was then.
Covering the civil war there, he distinguished himself, and
he has also written for The Washington Post, the Boston Globe,
the U.S. News & World Report, The Financial Times, Foreign
Policy, and The Journal for International Security Affairs. He
is author of ``Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network
of Terror,'' written in--published in 2004, and ``Merchant of
Death: Victor Blout and the New World Order,'' published in
2007.
Eric Farnsworth is the vice president of the Council of the
Americas. He holds an MPA in international relations from
Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He has worked for the
Department of State and in the White House Office of Special
Envoy to the Americas from 1995 to '98. Between his government
service and his current position, he was the managing director
of Manatt Jones Global Strategies LLC.
Mr. Farnsworth has authored or co-authored articles in the
American Interest, Americas Quarterly, Current History, the
Journal of Democracy, and Latin American Policy.
And, last, Dr. Andrew Selee is the director of the Mexico
Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars, with a Ph.D. in policy studies from the University of
Maryland, a master's degree in Latin American studies from the
University of California at San Diego. San Diego--that is good.
There we go. We will talk about that later. [Laughter.]
Maybe Eduardo can talk to us about the sun, surfing, and
San Diego, but we will leave that for another occasion--in
Latin American studies, and from Washington University in St.
Louis.
Before joining the Wilson Center, he was an adjunct
professor at Johns Hopkins University from 2006 to the present,
professional staff for the House of Representatives right here
in 1999 and 2000. He is the author of ``Shared Responsibility:
U.S.-Mexico Policy Options for Confronting Organized Crime,''
and he was co-editor of the Wilson Center for last year.
So we have some very fine witnesses, and I would ask my
ranking member if he would proceed with his opening statement.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief, but
I want to thank you for putting this hearing together. We
didn't know just how timely this was going to be when this got
started, but it certainly is.
And to our witnesses, thank you for being here, sharing
your experiences and your expertise with the committee.
The international drug trade continues to plague countries
throughout the world, but--and the U.S. is not immune from
that. My home state of Missouri, right in the very heartland of
the country, continues to be plagued by a multitude of problems
associated with meth. It continues to be one of the hardest hit
states in the country year after year.
According to the National Drug Intelligence Center's 2010
national drug threat assessment, methamphetamine availability
in the U.S. is directly related to methamphetamine production
trends in Mexico, which is the primary source of
methamphetamine consumed in the U.S.
There have been numerous reports of other types of drugs,
including heroin, cocaine, imported from Latin America that are
infiltrating our communities. Last year, Missouri saw an
increase in reported deaths from highly potent, low cost forms
of heroin. According to the NDIC's 2011 report, increased
Mexican heroin production, coupled with increased
transportation of South American heroin, has likely contributed
to increased heroin availability in some U.S. markets,
including Missouri.
We are faced with a difficult problem that clearly has the
potential for getting even worse. Over the past several years,
legislation has been enacted to address domestic production and
consumption of meth and other drugs. However, we also need to
ensure that we are addressing this problem from all angles.
Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars
to address drug-related problems in Mexico and throughout Latin
America. We need to ensure these programs are operating
efficiently and in our best interest here in the U.S.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses here today.
Thank you, and I will yield back.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. And we now have Judge
Poe, who adds a great deal to this committee, because he was
not only a Member of Congress, but also someone who is deeply
involved with the criminal justice system at the very top level
in terms of being a judge from Texas. So I am sure you have
some insights for us, Your Honor.
Judge Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The drug war is bloody,
it is costly, and it is bloody and costly not only in Mexico
but the United States as well. A thousand people die each month
in drug dealing violence in Mexico. And the United States, I
think because Mexico is our neighbor and our partner, we should
be just as concerned about Mexican nationals being murdered as
we are about Americans that may be murdered by the drug
cartels.
Meanwhile, the United States sends five times as many drug
dealers to prison as it did 30 years ago, but the worst may be
yet to come. Terrorists and drug cartels have a mutual enemy--
the United States. Our police and our military do the best to
stop the drug cartels from smuggling drugs into our country. I
have been to the Texas-Mexico border many times, but the border
still is an area that is poorest in certain places, and the
drug cartels have their way at several places in between the
legal ports of entry.
They actually control the turf. The United States doesn't
control the area. Mexico doesn't control the area, the drug
cartels control the area, and we have to deal with the reality
of this truth. We must continue our multi-agency effort to go
after the terrorists, and everyone in the Treasury Department
to the Department of Defense is involved in finding these
folks, weeding them out, tracking them down, and bringing them
to justice.
The drug cartels, they are all in it for the money. They
don't have a political philosophy. They have a philosophy of
greed, and they will do anything to make money. And it is not
just in the drug trafficking--kidnappings, extortions, theft,
anything that will bring money into their criminal enterprise
they are willing to do, and they are willing to do so at any
cost, including violence.
A weak United States is great--a great area--turf, I should
say, for the terrorists who plan and can carry out greater
attacks if the United States wasn't watching them. It is
interesting that a scenario, say, in the group of worldwide
terrorists joining the drug cartels is something that is not
out of the question. And we have seen that yesterday.
Yesterday's scenario was somewhat different, because
terrorists normally operate not from state sponsorship of
terrorism but cells that are across borders. And yesterday, if
the truth comes out that it was the Iranian Government that was
behind the assassination of the Saudi Ambassador and killing
Americans in the process, that puts a new light on terrorism.
So we should deal with Iran, but we should also understand
that the people involved in this assault, this attack on the
Saudi Ambassador, on American soil, are willing to work with
criminal enterprises--the drug cartels--who are glad to do
anything for a buck.
It is important that we understand deal with the reality of
Ahmadinejad and his willingness to destroy the United States,
Israel, the West, how his mischief is throughout the Middle
East, and the fingers of Ahmadinejad are in much--are in many
of the countries that are now having turmoil in the Middle
East.
Although Iran was unsuccessful at this time to create as I
call an assault, an attack on the United States, thanks to the
good work of law enforcement agents in the United States, and
apparently in Mexico as well, that doesn't mean they won't try
again. But the narco-terrorists' proven ability to come across
to the United States at will make them an attractive partner
for Iranian Government terrorists. This is an example of how
the drug cartels in the poorest border of the United States
they cross daily are a threat to the United States.
I personally think that we should specifically make the
drug cartels of foreign terrorist organizations, specifically
the Zetas, but we have to be realistic. We did, thanks to our
law enforcement, were able to thwart this, but the will to
commit crimes against the United States by terrorist states,
such as Iran, working with the drug cartels, has not
diminished.
I think the Iranians are only going to continue to keep
trying, especially if there is no consequences for a failed
attempt on the United States. If this action by the terrorist
from Tehran would have been successful, it would have been
interesting to see what the United States would do. But this is
still a serious threat, and it remains so, and should not be
diminished because we were able to stop this attack on the
United States.
So we need to understand what resources the United States
has that they are not using against their drug cartels. I think
we ought to treat them in a more serious--more seriously than
we really are--have been treating them for the last numerous
years.
And just a few weeks ago before this very subcommittee we
heard testimony arguing that it is the drug cartels, and not
Islamic terrorist groups, that are the number one threat to the
United States. I repeat: It is the drug cartels, not Islamic
terrorist groups, that are the number one threat to this
nation. We must deal with that fact.
It really doesn't make a difference who is number one or
number two. They are both bad, and they are a joint terrorist
criminal enterprise that are willing to work together. They are
the new axis powers of evil--the Iranian terrorists working
with the drug cartels. And you gentlemen have the answers, and
we are looking forward to hearing from you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Your Honor.
And I understand Ms. Bass has no opening statement, or
would you like to say----
Ms. Bass. Let me just very briefly----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Congresswoman Bass, you are welcome to
take as much time as you would like.
Ms. Bass. Oh, thank you. I will be very brief, because I am
very interested in the witnesses. And, you know, as I think
about what is going on right now in Mexico, and then, of
course, spilling over into our borders, I recall the whole drug
wars that were going on in the early '80s in Colombia and in
South America.
And the level of violence that we are seeing in Mexico
today just doesn't seem to be compared to what happened before.
And maybe you will address that. Maybe I just don't recall, but
this is just a level of violence to me that almost seems, you
know, in comparison, and the viciousness in comparison to what
we saw in Baghdad, you know, a couple of years ago.
One thing, though, that I was not aware of that the
chairman was speaking about is some of the political
relationships. So I was not aware of that in terms of
connections with the Chavez regime or other regimes in South
America, and so perhaps you can talk about that. I do remember
those relationships in South America. I don't remember--I am
not aware of those relationships in Mexico.
So hopefully through your testimony you can address some of
the comparisons with South America and also the political
relationships.
Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. That was a very
thoughtful opening statement.
Just one note from the chairman. I grew up in Southern
California, and which means that I have a very special place in
my heart for Mexico. And I lived with a Mexican family for 3
months when I was younger. I spent a lot of time on the beach
in Mexico and up in the hills drinking Muscao with the
caballeros and all that goes along with the beach scene in
California.
And I will have to tell you that when I see the turmoil and
the agony that is going on south of the border now it brings--
and it should bring tears to the eyes of anyone who cares for
these people. They are wonderful people. Mexican people have
always been wonderful to my family and wonderful to all of the
Americans that I know.
And to see them going through the turmoil and the agony
where tens of thousands of their people have been murdered--
tens of thousands--there is a cloud of oppression over these
people's heads every minute of the day realizing that these
gangsters and these monsters are around them, and that their
family is in grave jeopardy.
We need to make sure that we understand this isn't just
statistics, and it is not just the people of the United States,
but it is those wonderful people in Mexico. But if we don't do
our best to help and solve that problem, it will impact on us,
and the danger and the turmoil is heading in our direction.
What happened yesterday, or what was exposed yesterday, with a
plot by a foreign government, in this case the Iranians, to try
to hire these gangsters from Mexico in order to commit a
violent crime in the United States, this is just the tip of the
iceberg.
And our first witness today, Eduardo Garcia Valseca, will
put a human face to the suffering that is going on and the
personal suffering that it caused one family. But we have to
multiply that by millions of families in Mexico who are so
suffering and so much in danger and are crying out for us to
join with them to solve this problem and eliminate the danger
from their lives and also from our future, if that is the way
it is.
Eduardo, would you proceed and give us your story, and then
I would like to ask Jayne, his wife, to join us during the
question and answer session, if she has something to add to
that testimony. Eduardo, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF MR. EDUARDO GARCIA VALSECA, KIDNAP VICTIM
Mr. Valseca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and honorable
representatives. Thank you for inviting me to share my
testimony at this very important and timely hearing.
I am a Mexican citizen, now a resident of the United States
of America. On June 13, 2007, my American wife and I were
kidnapped from our ranch in central Mexico. My wife was
released, but I was held for ransom for 7\1/2\ months. I was
held in a small box and tortured brutally, both physically and
mentally, barely surviving the ordeal.
My kidnappers, after beating me and even shooting me twice,
sent photos to my wife to pressure her into paying a multi-
million dollar ransom. This was an amount we didn't have. My
wife requested that the FBI assist in the investigation of our
case, but the Mexican authorities denied that request. Although
my wife and I have cooperated completely with the Mexican
Federal authorities, there has never been a proper
investigation.
There have been thousands of kidnaps in Mexico in the past
5 years. In many of these cases, arrests have been made, but
not in our case. There are only two reasons why the current
Mexican administration would turn a blind eye to our
kidnappers--because they choose to continue their long-standing
position of tolerance of criminal terrorist groups like this,
or because they are members of the Mexican Federal police
implicated in our kidnapping.
According to the members of the Federal police, our
kidnappers are members of the Mexican Revolutionary Army,
terrorists with international ties. They have committed more
than 200 kidnappings in the past 20 years, raising millions and
millions of dollars. In almost all of these cases, there has
been absolutely impunity.
Since the appearance of these armed revolutionary groups in
Mexico, there has been a position of tolerance by the Mexican
Government. Their acts of terror, attacks with explosives,
kidnappings, have gone largely unpunished. It is also possible
that the criminals who kidnapped me are somehow closely related
to the Federal authorities. Police also mimic the MO of these
revolutionaries knowing they will then go unpunished.
My wife is not the only American to have been victimized by
this group of terrorists. This group continues to kidnap,
victimizing, even a former Mexican Senator and Presidential
candidate. They currently have yet another victim.
The Federal authorities told my wife the following, that
this terrorist revolutionary army with international links
numbering in the thousands, with cells in every state, they
have attacked several Sears, Citibanks, Banamex locations, and
Pemex pipelines with the use of explosives.
This group has already infiltrated the Mexican political
system with members holding political office in many states.
They have ties to the Venezuela Government, former Cuban
agents, former ETA members from Spain, who trained them in use
of explosives. They have ties to criminal organizations in
other Latin American countries. It is suspected that there are
members who are American citizens.
The members of these terrorist organizations have Marxist
tendencies and are driven by an ideology with a hatred toward
the United States and all capitalists.
It should be noted that as soon as my wife and I went
public with our story, the Mexican authorities denied any
mention of the event. Having the world know that they have been
tolerating acts of terror targeting Americans and American
companies, among others, could have serious implications.
After all that I have experienced and learned since my
kidnapping, I beg that you increase the U.S. involvement in
Mexico. The Mexican Government, military, and police are
infected with corruption. Any official statistics of crime
coming from Mexico are completely unreliable and manipulated.
The vast majority of criminal acts, including kidnappings, are
never even reported.
Please investigate this armed revolutionary terrorist group
with known international links before they have a chance to
damage on a bigger scale.
I am very sad to say that Mexico, your neighbor, and the
country of my birth, has become an international criminal
paradise.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Valseca follows:]
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you for your testimony, Eduardo. I
am just--before we go to the other witnesses, let me just ask
you, when you were kidnapped, how much did you weigh? And how
much did you weigh after being kept in that box, that stone
box?
Mr. Valseca. My regular weight, sir, is about 160 pounds,
and when I came out of the box I was barely around 82, 83
pounds. And they destroyed my left leg, they shot me with a .45
pistol, and they made a huge damage into my liver that I am
still suffering from it. They broke my ribs, they shot me also
on the arm. They thought that I was lying.
But the interesting thing about all of this, sir, is that
the authorities in my country, they have absolutely no interest
in investigating it. They only thing they asked me, the
federal--the chief of the Federal police flew his private jet
to Austin, Texas, to tell me to be quiet. That is all I have
heard from them.
They have never, including Senerro that was kidnapped, they
have never asked me to talk to him or for him to talk to me.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, Eduardo, we will go into that during
the question and answer period. But I thought it would be
important for us all to understand, as we are talking about
this ``problem or challenge'' that we face, we are talking
about human beings who are suffering, our neighbors. We are
talking about our next-door neighbors, and that is why we
should look at the people of Mexico, our wonderful people who
live next door, and they are going through agonies like this.
And so behind the statistics, and behind the plans that our
Government has, are some real-life suffering of human beings
who deserve our attention.
And we will go on now to our other witnesses.
Mr. Farah?
STATEMENT OF MR. DOUGLAS FARAH, SENIOR FELLOW, INTERNATIONAL
ASSESSMENT AND STRATEGY CENTER
Mr. Farah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
committee, for the opportunity to testify today on this
important topic. As the chairman noted, yesterday the Justice
Department announced that it stopped the plot by the Iranian
Government using special Quds force operatives to assassinate
the Saudi Ambassador in the United States, and carry out other
attacks on U.S. soil.
I have been looking at this relationship between
transnational organized crime and terrorist organizations for
some time, and what makes this plot so different is the
allegation that the Quds force operative was seeking to hire an
assassin from the Zetas, the notorious Mexican drug trafficking
organization, to carry out that hit.
This is significant for many reasons. As my written
testimony describes, there are multiple alliances forming
across Latin America among transnational criminal
organizations, drug trafficking structures, terrorist groups in
criminalized states, that present a significant and perhaps
unprecedented challenge to the U.S. national security from that
region.
The allegation that Iran, a criminalized state which
sponsors Hezbollah, one of the world's premier terrorist
organizations, which is dealing with the Zetas, a non-state
drug trafficking organization that controls key access points
to cross the U.S. border regularly, is surely a perfect storm.
This possibility--a hostile state using special forces and
proxy agents to engage criminal organizations for operations
inside the United States--has long been downplayed and
sometimes ridiculed by policymakers, yet the signs of this type
of gathering storm have been evident for some time, including
possible collaboration on the transportation of WMD components.
The choice of Mexico as the recruitment stage for these
activities is no surprise, given its proximity to the United
States and attention to other matters the government there is
engaged in. Other designated terrorist organizations, such as
the FARC in Colombia and its multiple front groups and allies,
in outlined in my written testimony, and the Basque
separatists, ETA organizations, and others, have also set up
shop in Mexico.
Among the cases that indicate the different threats that
run through Mexico are those of Jameer Nasr, arrested in
Tijuana, Mexico, in July 2010 and reportedly charged with
setting up the Hezbollah network in Mexico, a concern later
validated by the Tucson, Arizona police.
In the case of Jamal Youssef, who according to a 2009
indictment in the U.S. Southern District of New York was a
former Syrian military officer arrested in Honduras, seeking to
sell weapons to the FARC, weapons he claimed that came from
Hezbollah and were provided by a relative who was residing in
Mexico.
There is no evidence that I am aware of showing that the
Mexican Government supports these activities of extra-regional
actors or condones them. In the case of Mr. Nasr, the Mexican
authorities had him under surveillance and arrested him,
showing little tolerance for the establishment of this type of
foreign terrorist entity on its soil. They also appear to have
helped in yesterday's case.
Rather, the government struggles with a host of intractable
problems, and these activities and alliances are largely under
the radar and, given the scarce resources, not a priority. But
Mexican DTOs--the drug trafficking organizations, both in the
United States and Mexico, are often analyzed as entities
operating only in Mexico or geographically contiguous regions
that directly affect their specific cocaine-related endeavors.
Yet these groups, particularly the Sinaloa cartel, are part
of a large and expanding web of alliances that now have
operational access to Mexico through the drug trafficking and
other transnational criminal activities. It includes not only
designated terrorist entities and drug trafficking
organizations, but state actors including state sponsors of
terrorism.
Mexican drug trafficking organizations are key gatekeepers
along an extensive network of highly adaptable criminal
pipelines, both organizational and geographical in dimension.
These pipelines ultimately breached the southern border of the
United States thousands of times a day.
The established presence of Hezbollah in Latin America, a
designated terrorist entity that operates as a proxy for Iran,
is an important factor and one that raises the possibility of
an exchange of knowledge, technology, and lessons learned with
the FARC as well as Mexican drug trafficking organizations.
As the chairman noted, China's growing presence, including
control of four key ports in Mexico, through which extensive
movement of precursor chemicals and significant money
laundering operations occur, is another significant factor in
the transnational criminal activity in Mexico.
Mexico is a key part of China's comprehensive strategy to
expand its influence throughout Latin America and the western
hemisphere, in direct challenge to America's vital interest in
long-held preeminence in the region. This strategy is already
unfolding across a multi-dimensional framework in political,
ideological, military, economic, and other realms.
These relationships among criminalized states and non-state
proxies have real and important consequences within and beyond
drug trafficking. There is growing concern that Hezbollah is
providing technology for the increasingly sophisticated narco
tunnels now being found along the U.S.-Mexican border, which
strongly resemble the types Hezbollah uses in Lebanon.
Numerous former intelligence and law enforcement officials
have publicly discussed the appearance in recent years of
arrested gang members entering the United States with Farsi
tattoos and other items that could indicate Hezbollah
influence. Within this context, it is interesting to note
Iran's concerted effort to push into Mexico and solidify
government-to-government ties and trade alliances.
Since 2009, several senior level Iranian delegations have
visited Mexico, the first such envoys since the Shah was
overthrown in 1979. The Iranian Ambassador in Mexico has taken
an unusually activist role, including being the lead public
Iranian voice in accusing the CIA of assassinating Neda, the
pro-democracy activist gunned down by Iranian security forces
during the anti-regime demonstrations.
As a joint DHS-State Department symposium concluded
recently, the confluence of illicit networks and corruption in
an enabling environment can facilitate not only the movement of
drugs, arms, stolen, and pirated goods, and traffic persons,
but also the smuggling of terrorist weapons of mass
destruction, WMD materials, and other dangerous weapons and
technologies that threaten global security.
The Mexican drug trafficking organizations are well-armed
violent structures already at war with the state and are at the
nexus of a variety of threats from facilitating the possible
transport of WMD components to allies with terrorist groups and
hostile nation states who wish to harm our homeland. The reason
is obvious: If harming the United States is the ultimate goal,
the positioning of hostile actors and structures as close as
possible is imperative.
While Mexican drug trafficking organizations pose a
significant threat in and of themselves, they are part of a
much broader network of entities that raise the threat level
exponentially.
In answer to Congresswoman Bass' earlier comments--and it
is in my written testimony--I think the clearest indication of
the alliances that are developing there is this book Guerra
Periferica y el Islam Revolucionario, Asymmetrical Warfare and
Revolutionary Islam, which is a book written by a Spanish
ideologue whose basic premise is that weapons of mass
destruction are a viable, legitimate use against the United
States to destroy the empire.
This was adopted as official military doctrine by the
Government of Venezuela after--with its close ties with Iran,
and it has been published as a pocket-sized book for all of the
officer's corps to carry around with them, memorize, and study.
It has also been transmitted to the Bolivian military. The
Government of Ecuador has so far refused to do that.
And the U.S. Government is now translating it. They were
unaware of this book for a considerable period of time, and
they are now I think aware of it.
On the issue of violence, I think if you look at the period
of Medellin----
Mr. Rohrabacher. I tell you what we will do.
Mr. Farah. I am sorry.
Mr. Rohrabacher. During the question and answer period, we
will have--go right ahead and finish that point.
Mr. Farah. I apologize. The homicide rate in Medellin
during the worst of the time there--1988, '89, '90--was about
400 people per 100,000. It has never reached that level in
Mexico. I think Andrew may know better than me on that, but it
has never reached that level.
The average around the world is 10. The U.S. homicide rate
is five per 100,000, and Canada is one per 100,000. So 400 is
extraordinary.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Farah follows:]
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Actually, you will find that as chairman I
try to be as generous as I can with--we do have to move on, but
I actually made a little statement, too, so thank you for
letting me do that.
Mr. Farnsworth, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF MR. ERIC FARNSWORTH, VICE PRESIDENT, COUNCIL OF
THE AMERICAS
Mr. Farnsworth. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good
morning to you and members of the subcommittee. It is a real
privilege to have the opportunity to appear before you.
Yesterday's dramatic news notwithstanding, Latin America is
a region transformed from Cold War days when politically
motivated violence led to untold pain and suffering across the
hemisphere. Out of that difficult period, however, came a
hemispheric commitment to democracy, a commitment that was
formalized exactly 10 years ago last month with the signing of
the Inter-American Democratic Charter in Lima, Peru.
The hemispheric commitment to democracy is a recognition
that strong democracies with strong institutions provide the
fairest means of governance. As a result, they offer the best
inoculation to Latin American societies against the scourge of
political violence, much of which flared in previous decades as
a result of the perception that authoritarian political and
economic systems were exploitative and unfair.
At the same time, however, nations where democratic
institutions and state control are weak or threatened can
become incubators for criminal activities--and we have heard
already about that this morning--creating permissive
environments that can be exploited by those intent on pursuing
extra legal activities.
An example of such a scenario is the tri-border region of
South America, a somewhat lawless region joining Argentina,
Brazil, and Paraguay, that has been linked to fund raising for
extra legal global actors, including Hezbollah. Criminal
enterprises, primarily smuggling operations, provide ill-gotten
gains that can then be used to fund terrorist activities
abroad.
Elsewhere in Latin America, the situation is less clear cut
perhaps. For many years, the Government of Colombia, for
example, exercised only cursory control, if any, over much of
the country. The lack of state control was exploited by the
FARC, the ELN, and other guerrilla movements, allowing them the
freedom to build contacts with other extra-regional
revolutionary groups, including Spain's ETA, links with Cuban
intelligence and others.
As the Government of Colombia has effectively taken the
fight to the guerrillas over the past decade, political
violence has been dramatically reduced and the guerrillas have
increasingly sought safe haven in neighboring countries. They
have also turned to criminal enterprises, making common cause
with drug traffickers as a means of survival.
In the case of Colombia, links between the two came in
later years as the political insurgency became effectively
degraded by the Government of Colombia. There is no doubt that
permissive environments can attract global mischief-makers and
that the drug trade, by undermining the effectiveness of, and
public confidence in, democratic institutions can lead to such
permissive environments.
Central America is perhaps the best example in this regard.
The region has become one of the most dangerous on earth--
according to a recent Senate report, more violent even than
Mexico. After a generation of bipartisan efforts to midwife
democracy to Central America--and, Mr. Chairman, you were a
leading voice in that effort--the institutions of these mostly
young, fragile democracies are being hollowed out, corrupted by
the drug traffickers and their allies.
Impunity is rampant, and the police and security forces in
several countries have been penetrated by the drug gangs.
Violence is a daily reality for far too many citizens of the
Central American region. We should be working with these
nations, with purpose and resolve, to ensure that the
inclination to politically motivated violence does not arise.
So, too, with Mexico. As in Central America, at this point
we do not see a pattern of politically motivated violence
engendered by the cartels. Rather, we see the cartels fighting
each other and the Mexican security forces to maintain control
over lucrative drug transit corridors into the United States.
The cartels prefer either a weak state or a state that
turns a blind eye to their activities. They do not appear to
want to overthrow the state at this point, nor are they using
violence to support one political party or political actor over
another.
Nonetheless, their activities are undermining the
institutions of the state, both in Mexico and in neighboring
countries, particularly Guatemala, which has become a safe
cross-border sanctuary for Mexican drug cartels. As well,
certain drug trafficking groups in Mexico, in particular the
Zetas, have served as guns for hire with others involved in the
drugs trade.
And to the extent that they are now also willing to offer
their services and firepower, not just to other drug
traffickers but also to outside groups, including the al Quds
force, as has been alleged, this would be a new development and
a cause for concern. With this in mind, it is vital that we
work in tandem with democratically elected leaders across the
region to address these issues to help ensure that criminal
activities do not blossom into a politically motivated effort.
This includes, of course, an emphasis on vetting and
professionalization of police and security forces and a focus
on the entire administration of justice. I would argue, in
fact, that such cooperation with Mexico was, in part,
responsible for our success in taking down yesterday's alleged
plot.
At the same time, of course, we can do a better job in this
country to reduce the demand for drugs, which is driving much
of the insecurity impacting the region. I would like to see a
renewed public campaign, for example, including new media,
which potentially would reach more of the target audience that
defines drugs, much as the way diamonds, for example, have been
defined out of Africa in the blood diamonds trade. I think
there is no reason, for example, why we can't link drugs to
conflict and death in Mexico and Central America.
We can also think creatively about ways to support our
democratic allies in our common fight by considering the
transfer of excess equipment, as appropriate, from the
downsizing effort in Iraq that is now underway. In particular,
mobility and communications equipment would be useful for a
region with vast unpoliced and underresourced areas.
At the same time, I believe we also must do a better job
working to prevent the supply of firepower into the region.
Otherwise, criminals will begin to--will continue to have
access to such firepower that can challenge the ability of the
state to control its own territory, which is one of the key
indicators of a failing state and the means by which
politically motivated ends can begin to take root.
For the most part, drug traffickers and others involved in
illegal activities prefer weak states which allow them to
conduct their affair unmolested. They don't seek to overthrow
states. Nonetheless, by their destabilizing presence and
ability to generate large sums of untraceable cash resources,
they do have the potential of supporting such groups as in
Colombia, to the extent such groups may seek to find common
cause.
And as we saw just yesterday, they also have the potential
to be used as hired muscle by those with extra-regional
connections. And in this regard, I believe the best antidote
remains for cooperation with Latin America nations as they
consolidate and build upon the democratic gains of the past.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you again for the
opportunity to appear before you, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Farnsworth follows:]
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
Dr. Selee.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW SELEE, PH.D., DIRECTOR, MEXICO INSTITUTE,
WOODROW WILSON CENTER
Mr. Selee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the
ranking member. Thanks for the opportunity to testify.
I also want to recognize Chair Ros-Lehtinen of the
committee, and the ranking member Berman, who have a great
commitment to the relationship with Mexico and Latin America.
The chairwoman is actually hosting a dinner on U.S.-Mexico
relations tonight.
And I especially want to acknowledge Eduardo Garcia Valseca
and Jayne for their courage in coming here to testify. They
have gone through, you know, one of the most horrible
experiences that anyone could imagine, and to have the courage
to come here--and they have also been in the news talking about
this, trying to make people aware of what has gone on, and so
that takes enormous, enormous courage.
You know, this hearing couldn't be more timely, given the
events yesterday, what we found out yesterday, and I think it
is important to know this is the first attempt we know of of
trying to link terrorism and the cartels, the first we know of,
and it failed.
And I think there are two lessons here that are important
to take away. One is that we need to be vigilant--the reason
for this hearing--it is important to keep this on our radar
screen. It is important for the U.S. and Mexican Governments to
be talking about this, as we have been, and perhaps to put it
up a notch in our conversations, our bilateral conversations.
And, secondly, the cooperation worked in this case. This is
a case where there was a common interest. The U.S. Government
is monitoring terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and Mexico is
also monitoring it, because the Mexican economy--you know, not
only are they trying to be good neighbors, but they are also
concerned about what would happen if there ever were a
terrorist attack from Mexico. Hugely in Mexico's interest.
The borders and boundaries are irrelevant, as the chairman
said earlier, for crime. But states remain incredibly relevant,
and cooperation among states, for trying to disrupt those
criminal networks. And so to the extent that we can continue to
work with our partners in the region, I think this is
fundamental for trying to interrupt these criminal networks.
Let me say that Mexico has seen a sharp rise in crime over
the past 3 years. Some of this represents a rise in homicides
because of seven criminal organizations that have been fighting
with each other, often called ``cartels.'' They primarily get
their income from illegal narcotics smuggling into the United
States, but some of the rising crime is by other groups--
kidnapping rings, smaller smuggling organizations, extortion
gangs and local thugs, who proliferated in the environment of
violence created by the large groups.
And what we have seen is an increase in these smaller
groups out there. Sometimes they are supported by the large
cartels. It is their folks who are allowed to do this. And
sometimes they are simply freestanding folks who are taking
advantage of the perceived climate of impunity.
There is little, if any, real evidence yet of foreign
influence in these criminal enterprises, large or small, except
of course that the largest and best organized groups are
transnational organizations and operate in multiple countries.
Cocaine appears to represent about half of the illegal
narcotics income of the large Mexican trafficking
organizations, according to a recent Rand study.
This means that these groups work closely with suppliers in
Colombia, transshipment specialists in Central America, and of
course U.S. gangs, mafia organizations, and other distributors
who distribute the narcotics in the United States. And there
are $6-$9 billion in illegal drug sales, according to the Rand
study, that come back from U.S. consumers of illegal narcotics
back to Mexico every year.
As they say, we have seen the enemy, and it is us in this
case. I mean, this is $6-$9 billion a year. This is the Rand
study. The U.S. Government manages slightly higher numbers, but
this is based on a market study of the narcotics.
There are also--and it is worth saying--Mexican-led
immigrant smuggling rings that specialize in non-Mexicans. The
Zetas have gotten into this business, Central Americans,
Cubans, South Americans, Chinese, Iraqis, and others. And there
is, of course, in addition to the smaller kidnapping rings that
do most of the kidnapping, there is the group that Eduardo was
talking about, which is an excision from the EPR, from the
Popular Revolutionary Army, which has done a number of
kidnappings and continues to operate with impunity in Mexico.
This is a Mexican-run organization, but obviously they do
have ties abroad, much as the smugglers. I mean, Mexican-run
organizations, but with ties abroad.
There is no evidence to date of operational ties between
terrorist organizations, I say again, and the Mexican cartels
or the Mexican turrett has been used successfully by terrorist
organizations. However, we should be aware that in the
underworld of illegal enterprises these groups may well be in
contact with each other. It would be surprising if they
weren't.
And if the U.S. and Mexican Governments, in fact, in
monitoring these links--and it is probably one of the greatest
unheralded successes of cooperation to date, and one we may
want to consider upping a notch in terms of our cooperation.
And let me finish by pointing to four challenges. They are
developed more in the written remarks, but I just point them
out very quickly. There are four things that we could be doing
better in our relationship with Mexico to deal with organized
crime.
First is developing a strategic plan for intelligence
sharing that goes after the most violent groups first, and that
look at the kind of violence that particularly affects citizens
like Eduardo and Jayne and others, and the kind of violence
that specifically is affecting civilians. And there are certain
kinds of violence that are worse than others.
I mean, it is all bad, but there are certain things that
really affect the life of people who are outside the business.
And we can help the Mexican authorities do this, if the Mexican
authorities are open to it, which I think they are. I think it
is something that they want to be doing.
Secondly, we can do a better job of mapping the trafficking
organizations in the United States. We don't really have a
critical mapping on how they organize once they get across the
border. They try to keep their heads down in the United States.
They are much less violent on this side of the border, much,
much less violent. So we could do a great--a much better job of
that, and also following their money trail in the United
States, again, the $6-$9 billion that flows southward to Mexico
every year.
Third, we could do much more to support reforms of the
police, prosecutor, and courts. One of the things that would be
particularly helpful, by the way, is--and we have put money in
there, if I am not mistaken--is a police database that actually
fingerprints, does retina scan--does fingerprint, voice
recording, and retina scan of all police in the country.
It is something that partially exists, but not completely,
because that way when police do collaborate with organized
crime groups the Mexican Government can identify them, which
right now is very hard to do. They are working on it, but a lot
more to do. There is a lot more we can do to protect
journalists, civic leaders, and elected officials, who are
standing up and being courageous and denouncing violence, and a
lot more we can do to invest in communities that are under
stress.
And, finally--we can talk about this later if you'd like--
there is a lot more we can do on this side in terms of curbing
demand of narcotics, which is a long-term challenge. But we
actually do know some of the things that work, and it would be
good to actually be investing in some of the things that work
to bring down demand. That is a domestic challenge for us as a
country, and this is a public health challenge for us, but it
would do a great deal to actually help our neighbors to the
south as well.
Thank you.
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, thank you all very much for your
testimony today. And I will begin the question session here,
and I would like to start out with Eduardo. Eduardo, you
believe that your kidnappers were not just Mexican nationals
from the city next door who have gotten out of hand. This isn't
a situation, as far as you're concerned, with just domestic--
you know, a domestic problem for Mexico.
Why do you believe that there--was there some indication
that you have that either while you were being held or in your
investigation into the crime against you since then, that would
lead you to believe that there was a foreign element involved
in this other than Mexico? I would ask your wife Jayne to join
us, please.
Mr. Valseca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I was held in
that box, one day I got just overwhelmed with the abuse, and I
told the guy who made me call him ``el jefe'' that to go ahead
and kill me. And the first words that I can read on his lips,
because he was very careful not to have a voice, so I wouldn't
recognize his voice, were English words. he said----
Mr. Rohrabacher. English words.
Mr. Valseca. English words. That he got automatically, in
the moment that I told him, ``Go ahead and kill me,'' he got
very, very vicious and mean. And he went and grabbed a gun and
he put a gun in my mouth, and he told me, not in loud words,
but he called me son of a bitch and mother fucker and all kinds
of things without speaking loud.
When I came out, sir, and I had the opportunity to talk to
Ron Lavender--this is an American who was kidnapped in Acapulco
from the same group--I had--my wife and I had a chance to talk
to him for about 2\1/2\ hours privately.
And he--I said to him that--explains what I am just sharing
with you, and he said, ``I am certain he is from California. He
is from your state.'' And he said, ``I am certain that at least
three or four members of this group, they speak perfect English
from the east coast of United States.'' So this is not
something that was out of my imagination. It is something that
I proved with another victim, and we are certain that they are
English speaking. And so that is why we know that they are
international groups.
My wife just reminded me that one of the things, you know,
that also tells you--Mexicans have a large lunch and a very
light dinner. That is cultural. In the United States, it is the
other way around. You have a very short--a very short time for
lunch and then you have a large dinner when you get home.
Well, the way they treat me was always a very small lunch
in terms of the--it was just a salad, which in the Mexican diet
people don't eat salads, you know? So it was always a salad,
and the dinner was always bigger portion. So that is very, very
American. So those things, but the most important thing is Ron
Lavender.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. And, Jayne, if you could move your
microphone up there. So you know that those--so those people
who were involved in this kidnapping--and we are talking
about--what level of kidnapping is taking place now? How many
families are going through what you went through in Mexico?
Ms. Valseca. Well, it is important to understand that the
EPR was sort of the parent group, if you will, and it has
splintered through the years, over the past, say, 20 years. So
now you have many different cells that share a similar ideology
and way of working. But all of these cells, and specifically
the one that had Eduardo, they demand multi-million dollar
ransoms. They rarely accept less than $1 million. As a matter
of fact, in many cases they have received $40-, $35-, $25
million in one ransom payment.
They typically--this cell alone typically kidnaps two
victims per year, and they hold them for a minimum of 6 months.
One of the victims--as a matter of fact, the previous victim,
the one before Eduardo was kidnapped, was held for almost 2
years. And they collected a multi-million dollar ransom.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And you are convinced that these are,
number one, not Mexicans, or at least----
Ms. Valseca. Not exclusively Mexicans.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. At least the leadership is
not Mexican. And what makes you think that there is a
connection of--number one, these are--they may well be
Americans, as you have just testified, or they--there was some
indication that they may have been permitted to operate out of
another country rather than the United States--Venezuela or
Cuba or such? Do you have information about that?
Ms. Valseca. Yes. Well, that information came directly from
the Federal authorities in Mexico, and was expressed to me in
private meetings. And this goes all the way to Genaro Garcia
Luna himself. They have probably regretted telling me those
things at this point. They never imagined we would go public
with our story.
But what was expressed to me very clearly by all of these
people was that this was a terrorist group with international
links. And I asked which countries those links were to, and
they didn't mention them all, but they did say that there were
suspected former Cuban agents, links to the Venezuelan
Government, links to the FARC, links to the United States'
members that were suspected to be from the United States, and
it went on from there.
ETA from Spain, they--and I asked why that would be, and
they said that they were members of ETA who had taken refuge in
Mexico, hiding, and that they had joined forces with this group
and others like them and shared their information on how to
build explosives, among other things.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I am going to let Mr. Carnahan have his
shot, and then we are going to do a second round as well after
Judge Poe also has his shot. But let me just note, what we are
talking about here now is there are criminals in every country,
which we know, and there are criminal networks in every
country, but we now know that the drug cartel networks have
been with this $6-$9 billion that we send--are sending the
criminal elements in Mexico every year with our purchases of
drugs, that we do know that there are--that criminal web, you
might say, or organization exists.
We also know that there are terrorists who are
ideologically driven to hate the West, and especially hate the
United States and hate our way of life. And so what we have are
two elements now that we seem to be seeing as being in some way
intertwined in their activity to be mutually reinforcing. Let
us just note where the international or the foreign government
connection comes into is this and should not be missed.
The terrorist element that now is intertwined with criminal
networks, those terrorists have been given--from day one have
been given support from governments that find them--that are
headed by people who share their hatred of the West, and of the
United States.
So if you have a government that hates the United States,
it would not be any way inconsistent for the heads of that
government to permit terrorists and actually provide terrorists
with not only a safe haven but a means of support, a place to
come and a safe haven, and there is indication, as we know--and
I will ask the witnesses to comment on this after--on the
second round--that terrorists have been given safe haven, and
criminals have been given safe haven, in Venezuela. And we know
that.
There is--and our witnesses may want to comment on that.
And if these same terrorists are tied into an international
criminal ring, there is where you have this connection, and it
is very consistent.
We had in Cuba for years--certain criminals were permitted
to escape from the United States and given safe haven in Cuba.
And I remember there was a fellow from the United States who
actually was a guy who bilked a lot of people out of his money,
he ended up in Cuba for 20 years. And his name will come to me
by the end of this hearing--Robert Vesco, there you go.
So here you had Robert Vesco, a recognized international
criminal, who was given safe haven in Cuba, very openly over
those--well, how about all of the other criminals that we don't
know their name? Robert Vesco comes to mind, but what about all
of those people at the next level who make their money by
kidnapping people?
And maybe Robert Vesco stole about a couple hundred million
dollars. He is at--maybe we know about him, but what do we--if
they are willing to take the Robert Vescos in, who spent, I
might add, an enormous amount of time while in Cuba becoming an
in-between to the drug cartels and various networks, what about
the other people there? Are the Robert Vescos involved? Are
they the English speakers that Eduardo is talking about who
threw him into a tiny box and almost destroyed his life? And
who would do him harming now if they could get to him?
So we have this--what I guess we call--we have the evil--
axis of evil as the Judge--maybe we should call it the evil web
or the evil network that now is operating in our hemisphere, as
close to us as Mexico. And if we don't do anything about this,
we can--I am--let me just note, there is no doubt that it will
start spreading across the border.
And what happened yesterday indicates that the type of
violence that we have been predicting would spread across our
border is on the way, and we need to go and start focusing on
this and doing something about it before it starts doing
something about us as individuals.
Mr. Carnahan, you may proceed, and you have got as much
time as you would like.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of you
again. I am not going to be able to stay for the second round,
so I am going to try to get in three areas to cover. First, for
the Valsecas, thank you for being here and sharing your
incredible story and for being forthright. I think it is really
helpful.
You mentioned talking to another victim and some of the
similar patterns. Have you, or do you know of anyone else who
has really analyzed these kidnappers for--is there a similar
pattern there in terms of what they do, how they do it, that
could be helpful in really targeting how we deal with that?
Ms. Valseca. I have a copy of a PowerPoint presentation
that was shown to me within days of Eduardo's kidnapping. It
was shown to me by Mexican Federal authorities, and I do have a
copy of that, and I could provide it to American authorities,
whoever needs to see that. And it has names, pictures, an
outline of all the--of all of the documented previous victims,
not--it doesn't include all of them, because so many of those
people many years ago didn't even report these cases to the
authorities. But I can provide all of that, yes.
Mr. Carnahan. If you could----
Ms. Valseca. And there is a very, very well documented MO.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you. If you could--if you want to
provide that to the committee, I think that would be a great
addition to the record for this hearing. Thank you.
Secondly, we have a very active group back home where I am
from. It is the St. Louis Interfaith Community on Latin
America. They have been--they had submitted a question for the
hearing today about the Merida Initiative and wondering what is
the return on that U.S. investment, given the rise in violence,
the increase in cartels, the continuing drug trafficking
problems? I would ask the other three witnesses to just give me
their quick take on that. Mr. Farah?
Mr. Farah. Thank you. I think the Merida Initiative is
badly needed. I think--I don't deal so much directly with
Mexico, as Andrew and others do. I think the biggest failing,
in my mind, is the incredible lack of resources allocated to
Central America, which is allowing the entire back door of
Mexico to stay open.
When you look at the territorial control of the Zetas in
Guatemala, more than 40 percent of the Guatemala national
territory is now under Zeta control. Sinaloa cartel's deep
roots in Honduras, the ongoing struggle and the money
laundering activities in El Salvador, they are facing, as you
squeeze Mexico a little bit on our side, the rest of the stuff
is just flooding into Central America.
So I would say in the Merida Initiative the biggest
weakness to me, outside of what specifically goes to Mexico, is
the non-factoring in of the balloon effect, which we know so
well, and this stuff rolling south in ways that are utterly,
utterly destroying Central America, in ways that are very hard
to describe.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you. Mr. Farnsworth?
Mr. Farnsworth. Thank you, sir. No, I completely agree. I
think Merida Initiative is a good initiative. It is solid. If
anything, it was conceived to be a national initiative for
Mexico instead of the regional initiative that Doug is talking
about. Central America has been added to that secondly, but
probably should have been part of the initial package that may
have also needed to include some of the Andean region as well.
The second thing is there have been reports that some of
the assistance promised under Merida have been delayed in
arriving, whether it is equipment or other things. But I think
the successes are real in that intelligence cooperation has
dramatically improved, training has occurred, for the Mexican
authorities, necessary and important work. And I think we saw,
again, some of the results of that yesterday, fortunately. That
is not to say that it is a perfect program. It is not. But I
think it is a very timely and important initiative.
Mr. Carnahan. Okay. Dr. Selee?
Mr. Selee. Always good to hear from old friends in St.
Louis. Actually, I know some of the people involved there. It
is--I would agree with what they have both said, which is I
think Merida has been very, very important in stimulating
particularly bilateral cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico.
It has been absolutely fundamental in getting us to share
intelligence, getting us to talk about shared responsibility
for the first time seriously and consistently, and to recognize
that this is as much our issue as Mexico's. And this is our
money. It is their weak rule of law, right? I mean, this is
really a coming together of our appetite for illegal narcotics
with Mexico's really weak institutions.
Merida is really just starting to flow. I mean, the money
is really just starting to flow. The most important part of
Merida, as far as I am concerned, is whatever we can do--in
terms of the funding part of it, what we can do to help Mexico
build their institutions for the long term, the court systems,
and they have some really good court reforms going on.
But we need to nurture those, together with the Mexican
Government, and we can't do it. We can help the Mexican
Government do it, help some of the Mexican states, police
reform, prosecutorial reform, creation of intelligence
databases, like the one on the police. I think those are
critical, building the institutional structure in Mexico.
Mr. Carnahan. And my third area I wanted to follow up with
you, Dr. Selee, the fourth item of your challenges, you
mentioned curbing demand of narcotics in the U.S. I mean, that
number, that $6-$9 billion number is really staggering. Can you
address some of those initiatives? Has anyone done--who do you
think has done the best work in terms of evaluating and
focusing on what that should look like?
Mr. Selee. Some of the people worth looking at--the people
that were involved in the study, Peter Reuter, Jon Caulkins,
Mark Kleiman, who was not involved int eh study, but Mark
Kleiman has done some very good work, and he is the----
Mr. Carnahan. You are talking about the Rand study.
Mr. Selee. The Rand study, yes, exactly. Kleiman wasn't--
Reuter and Caulkins were involved in the Rand study, with a
couple of other folks. I don't Kleiman was. But they have all
done similar work together on looking at what is effective in
terms of drug policy. And I think recognizing--I mean,
realistically, we are not going to get rid of drug addiction in
this country.
I mean, unfortunately, it is--there are some real limits to
this. But in terms of what drives the drug trade in Latin
America, and in Mexico, and drives the violence, and in terms
of the worst health issues in the United States, there is a set
of chronic users of hard drugs who spend--who are actually most
of that $6-$9 billion.
We are talking about half of the profits of the Mexican
cartels are probably cocaine, from what they have discovered
from the Rand study. About 20 or 25 percent is marijuana, and
25-30 percent is methamphetamines and heroin.
Of the hard drugs, the sort of shorthand that they tend to
use is that 80 percent of the profits are generated by 20
percent of the users. You know, you have to look at some of the
more--I am not a drug policy specialist, so I can't, you know,
guarantee that is exactly right. But it is sort of a shorthand
there.
I mean, we are talking about 20 percent of the people who
use hard drugs drive most of this trade. Most of these folks
are in the criminal justice system. And so there is some
thinking of things like Project Hope in Hawaii, which takes
people who are already in the criminal justice system--I am
sure the Judge and Congressman Poe knows this well--it takes
people who are already under judicial supervision and gives
them incentives to stay off narcotics.
Instead of sort of sending them back to jail, it does sort
of short-term--you know, immediate short-term reactions if they
aren't clean. And those kind of things give people an ability
to get off drugs. About 90 percent of the people who actually
get off drugs don't go through rehabilitation. People who are
addicts actually get clean on their own. And so creating
incentives in the criminal justice system for people who have
been hooked for a while doesn't always work, but it has a much
higher success rate than other things we have done.
And there are things in prevention we can do as well.
Montana has done some things on meth prevention that seem to be
fairly successful. So there are models out there. It is worth
looking at them.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Carnahan. Let us
just note that it may or may not have been the drug cartels
that kidnapped Eduardo. They may well have had nothing to do
with narcotics or----
Mr. Carnahan. I think they didn't, right?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. So it is a--what you are talking
about, it is all interrelated, but even if we eliminated that
there might be an increase in kidnapping, because these are
evil--there are evil people in the world, and what we are
talking about today are evil human beings and how they use
their activity.
And one guy who has dealt with evil human beings all of his
life--[laughter]--trying to thwart them is the good judge from
Texas. Judge Poe, you may proceed.
Judge Poe. That is right, Mr. Chairman. I feel like Luke
Skywalker sometimes fighting the forces of evil. But thank you
for being here.
Eduardo, you are a man to be admired. I have here the
Washington Post article and your photograph and how you
suffered through this. You are a remarkable man, and you have
married, obviously, a remarkable woman. And I thank you both
for coming forward and talking about this dastardly deed.
Mr. Chairman, I would like unanimous consent to submit the
Washington Post article of August 2009 into the record.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Without objection.
Judge Poe. I want to just ask you all a few questions. This
happened in Mexico. Is the same group operating in the United
States and kidnapping in the United States and taking folks to
Mexico? Jayne?
Ms. Valseca. I don't have any information in that regard. I
don't think so, although, of course, it can't be disregarded
that it is suspected that there are American members of this
group. But it also is worth noting that in the case of the
former Mexican senator and Presidential candidate Diego
Fernandez de Cevallos, it is a perfect match as far as the MO
goes.
It is highly suspected, even at the highest level in the
Mexican national authorities, that this was committed yet again
by the same group that had Eduardo. And in a communication to
the press, following his release after the kidnapping, they
have now started calling themselves the Network for Global
Transformation.
Judge Poe. There are anecdotal instances that I have heard
from local sheriffs on the Texas border of Mexican nationals
living in the United States being kidnapped and taken back to
Mexico for ransom. And then, of course, extortion rings, the
same thing--Mexican nationals or Americans of Hispanic descent
in the U.S. being extorted for money with the--if they don't
pay, then they--some relative in Mexico is going to be harmed.
I am starting to hear sporadic comments by local law
enforcement that that is occurring. Like all crimes like this,
people who are threatened and the victims do not cooperate with
law--they don't want to report it, because they are afraid of
their own lives.
I will talk about the ultimate result of all of this is
that drugs come to the United States. The United States has a
demand. I think there was a study yesterday that said that 9
percent of Americans are chemically dependent, so much so that
they are not hirable, they can't get a job because they are
chemically dependent.
If that is true, 10 percent of the United States is
dependent on some chemical, and makes them non-productive, that
is a tragedy. On the long range, we, as a society, must make a
social change about our addiction to chemicals, whatever they
are, because there is a demand, so there is a source.
Let me ask this question, Mr. Farnsworth. Do you think,
just kind of yes or no, should we look to the drug cartels,
like the Zetas, and label them a foreign terrorist
organization? And then deal with them that way with more laws
that we have that are available, or should we just not do that
yet?
Mr. Farnsworth. I would say not yet. I would like to see
more evidence that they are actually linked up. What happened
yesterday is not an encouraging sign in that regard. So, but as
of now, I think that they remain guns for hire, without much of
a political agenda. And I agree with your earlier comments that
they are really in it for the money, and whether that is
kidnapping, people trafficking, drug trafficking, other bad
things, they are doing it primarily for the money, not for
political change, as far as I see them.
Judge Poe. The situation with the Iranian Government
operative, that is my opinion, and the Zeta cartel, which
they--obviously was not, thank goodness. Is that a link--
foreign terrorist organizations, whether it is Hezbollah or
whoever, working through Mexican drug cartels to do harm in the
United States, is that something that we are going to see, or
we have been seeing more of? This is just one incident that was
captured?
Mr. Farnsworth. It is certainly something that we have to
watch very, very closely. I completely agree with that. And I
guess it is too early to know if this is a one-off or if it is
a pattern.
Judge Poe. One other thing since my time has expired. When
I was in Colombia, it was interesting that the Colombians blame
a lot of their problems not on the United States but on Mexico,
and the Mexican lack of law enforcement. The Mexican drug
cartels are now going to Colombia, and they are competitors
with the local drug dealers. They had some pretty harsh words
for the nation of Mexico.
Last question, and I am going to ask you questions later at
another subcommittee, Mr. Farah, so--just so you know, because
I value your expertise. Give me a--when we talk about Mexico,
what is the state of the state of Mexico? We hear everything
that it is a failed state to ``Ah, it is a tourist's
paradise.'' You know, we hear all of that in between. What is
your opinion, Mr. Farnsworth? I am going to ask you, Doctor.
Mr. Farnsworth. Well, thank you, sir. I think the state of
Mexico is a democracy that remains in transition. It certainly
has some problems, and the drug issues I would put front and
center. But it is a healthy democracy. It is a country with
economic growth that is creating jobs, so I wouldn't agree with
either extreme, that it is a paradise for tourists or that it
is a failed state. I would say that the truth lies in between,
and I would say that it is evolving.
The government I think is doing relatively well under some
very, very difficult circumstances, not to say, again, that the
government is perfect or has done everything perfectly right.
But I do think that under some very trying circumstances they
have done relatively well.
I do think, however, that this new element that was
introduced yesterday is potentially worrisome, and that would
change the dynamic somewhat to certainly if this were proven to
be more than just a one-time occurrence, and I think that is
something that we have to watch very closely.
Judge Poe. Just to follow up before I let Dr. Selee answer
this question, do you agree or is your opinion that the Mexican
Government helped cooperate, to some extent, in thwarting this
plot? Mr. Farnsworth?
Mr. Farnsworth. Yes, I do.
Judge Poe. Okay.
Mr. Farnsworth. Yes.
Mr. Selee. You know, I actually agree with what Mr.
Farnsworth says. I mean, I think Mexico is a country that has
gone through a democratic transition over the past 10 years,
10, 12 years. It is trying to build a rule of law. It is hard
to do when you have organized crime groups with billions of
dollars at their disposal, trying to subvert that.
And I think this is, you know, where Mexico is today,
trying to become a modern, successful, prosperous democracy. In
some ways it is moving ahead as we become more of a middle
class society than it ever has, which is good. There is some
growth there. It has become a manufacturing economy. There are
some things--the Supreme Court has become relevant. I mean,
there are some good things you can talk about, but at the same
time, when you get down to the local level, there is a real
attempt to subvert rule of law. And it is hard in places where
organized crime wants to operate to get around that.
If you look at the overall crime rate, you know, Mexico has
much less--has a much lower homicide rate than Brazil does,
much lower than Colombia does, about half of Brazil actually,
maybe a little bit--maybe it is not quite that anymore, but it
is at least--it is not--Brazil not double, at least it is very
close to that, one and a half times higher homicide rate. We
don't think of Brazil as a failed state.
That said, if you go to Acapulco, Ciudad Juarez, Monterrey,
right now, which are all major cities in Mexico--Acapulco, a
tourist destination; Monterrey, the industrial capital of
Mexico; Ciudad Juarez, a major city on the border--the homicide
rate is incredibly high, right? And it has been very hard to
control this.
There have been some successes. Tijuana, nearby San Diego,
is actually doing better than it has done in years. They were
able to get the organized crime rings under control, so there
are some successes here. Juarez has actually gotten marginally
better as well. I mean, at least homicides are down. It is less
open. It is less in the street. Individual civilians seem less
at risk than they were a couple of years ago, though it is
still bad.
But there are some places that are still, you know, among
the worst in the world, and that is--that tells you there is an
inability to completely enforce the rule of law in a way that
citizens expect.
Judge Poe. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I will give the other two witnesses a
chance to answer that last question, Mr. Farah, and then
Eduardo.
Mr. Farah. Well, I think that Mexico is exactly in
transition. I think that you see these huge spikes in specific
areas, because I think what we often don't understand is how
important geographic control is to narcotics trafficking
organizations or transnational organized crime. They need
specific roots and specific places in order to move their
product.
And one of the things I think that I have been looking at a
lot in my research, both for the U.S. Government and privately,
is that what you are seeing increasingly--and the Zetas I think
are a perfect example of this--is more and more you see the
same--or different criminal organizations and terrorist
organizations using the same pipelines to move products.
If you want to move 30 illegal Chinese across Venezuela
into Mexico, or 30 AK-47s or 30 kilos of cocaine, you pass the
same checkpoints, the same choke points along the way. So you
are operating with the same small group of people who control
that transnational pipeline.
And I would also like to say just briefly on the kidnapping
issue--you know this well--if you look at what happened right
after the Central American wars, what did both the unrepentant,
unregenerate far right and the Communist Party and other groups
do immediately? They went into kidnapping.
They would train in kidnapping. They went to the ETA for
training, as these groups have done. And the premier group for
sponsoring this type of kidnapping now across the region are
all tied to the FARC, and I think that that is one of the
incredible misunderstandings or lack of understandings we have
about the FARC is the Colombian Government has done better in
pushing them to the margins of Colombian political life.
They retain an incredibly vibrant transnational
organization and front group structure. It goes to Mexico,
Venezuela, Brazil, many other places, and those groups are
trained specifically in how to kidnap, how to negotiate, and
how to raise--and this group that you are talking about, the
global transformation, directly tied to the FARC.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So you are suggesting that this kidnapping
cartel, for lack of a better description, is not tied to the
drug cartel in the sense that they may have different roots.
And, in fact, when you think about it, it is a totally
different type of a criminal activity in the same way that
there is a different profession in the legal professions, too,
where you have to have different expertise to kidnap people and
to extort money from their family as compared to transporting
drugs and selling it and then getting the money laundered.
Mr. Farah. It is a specialization, without a doubt.
Mr. Rohrabacher. It is a specialization.
Mr. Farah. And the FARC, and particularly the Communist
Party, the remnants of the Communist Party in El Salvador,
remnants of the Sandinista government, or what was the hardline
Sandinista that never demobilized, as well as factors on the
far right that maintain exactly the same structures they did
during the war, are masters at that. And I think it--the
effects are being felt across Latin America in ways that we
often find incomprehensible, but they are not that hard to
understand.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, that is fascinating. And, Eduardo,
did you have a comment for Judge Poe's last question?
Mr. Valseca. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to share
that the comment about Tijuana is doing better was a very good
article just 2 or 3 days ago in The Washington Post. And one of
the most important reasons Tijuana is doing better is because
they have a lot of American enforce helping them to grab these
guys.
I think that the Mexicans alone, they are not capable of
doing--they don't have the manpower. They don't have the will
of doing it. The corruption is tremendous. And it is thanks to
the enforcement of the United States right on the border, and
they were really suffering because they were not making any
money anymore. These people were going somewhere else. And
thanks to the authorities of the United States, that is a good
proof why we need so much the support of the United States.
This is the only way that we can do better is by sharing that.
And another thing I want to share with you is that my son
lives in California, my older son, that you met, and he went to
Mexico. He is in the film industry, and he was taking a film
about, you know, what happens in Mexico with most--we have 7
million people in Mexico in poverty, and they come to the
United States like a dream to come across illegal and get a job
here, of cutting people's grass or whatever.
And he came filming this guy--the real person that is
leaving his family and coming to the United States, saying bye
to his mother and all of--the whole thing. The incredible part
was--and he shared with me--when he came to Laredo, crossed
into Texas, it is totally controlled by Zetas.
And when I asked him, ``Where is the police?'' he laughed
at me. He says, ``That is the business of the police.'' There
are like a hundred Zetas with machine guns and with very good
pistols, brand new, and a very sophisticated way of
communicating, and $300 apiece, I mean, each illegal Mexican
who comes across. And he said there are thousands of illegals
coming across.
Each one of them have to give $300 or they won't come
across. If you try to play smart, they kill you right there.
And the police knows about this thing is going on, and they
control certain areas of the border. They know about it; they
don't do a thing about it. So that is what I want to share with
you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Thank you. And we have been
joined by Congressman Rivera, which you may proceed with your
line of questioning. Then, we will have one more round of
questions after Congressman Rivera's.
Mr. Rivera. Thank you very much. I am sure we have
exhausted the topic throughout the hearing, but there is just
one item that I would like to try to focus in one if--and if
you could provide some insight into someone called El Chapo
Guzman. Mr. Selee, can you tell us, who is El Chapo Guzman?
Mr. Selee. He is the reputed leader of the Sinaloa cartel,
the largest drug trafficking organization in Mexico.
Mr. Rivera. What is it called?
Mr. Selee. The Sinaloa cartel.
Mr. Rivera. And that is the largest in Mexico.
Mr. Selee. Yes.
Mr. Rivera. And do we know----
Mr. Selee. I think certainly.
Mr. Rivera [continuing]. His whereabouts or his latest
activities?
Mr. Selee. I mean, media reports put him in Durango, in the
state of Durango, in northern Mexico. But to be honest, I don't
have any intelligence myself on that. I mean, that is what you
hear from people who follow this in Mexico, from good
reporters. He is in a rural area of Durango. But, again, I
can't--you know, I have no independent confirmation of this.
Mr. Rivera. And media reports as to also relatives of his,
his son, for example, and presence in Bolivia, have you heard
of any connection between Bolivia and El Chapo Guzman's drug
cartel?
Mr. Selee. I have not, to be honest, but obviously these
are transnational networks. I am sure they do have
relationships in Bolivia and Peru and Colombia and Ecuador and
elsewhere, you know, as well as in Central America----
Mr. Rivera. Mr. Farah?
Mr. Selee [continuing]. As well as throughout the U.S.
Mr. Farah. I spent a great deal of time working on Bolivia,
and I think it is--El Chapo Guzman's son actually crashed an
aircraft there. So, and according to internal intelligence
reports, there is--I think that he has been there. They have a
fairly robust structure. I don't know if he is still there. I
don't think he is a permanent fixture there. I think he moves
around a lot. But I think that given their transnational spread
that they have--they are--he maintains operational control in
the southern----
Mr. Rivera. And you said his son crashed an aircraft in
Bolivia. When was that?
Mr. Farah. I would have to go back and look. I think 2009,
2010. It was fairly relatively recently.
Mr. Rivera. So a few years ago. That aircraft--he survived
the crash, I assume.
Mr. Farah. All I have seen is a brief intelligence report
that said he crashed it, and I assume he survived, yes. It
didn't say he perished in it.
Mr. Rivera. Because I had also heard that previous to that
crash that he was taking flight lessons. That is where he was
learning to fly was in Bolivia. What do we--do we know of any
cooperation between members of the Bolivian Government and drug
cartels narco trafficking?
Mr. Farah. I think the case of General Sanabria, who was
just convicted in a Miami court and sentenced to 14 years, the
former head of the Counter Narcotics Police, is clear evidence.
I think if you look at the structure that he ran inside the
Bolivian Government, it goes up very high.
I think if you look at the internal reporting that went on
between members of the Bolivian law enforcement community and
their superiors, including ministers in the cabinet where they
warned that these things were happening and were ignored, I
think that there is ample evidence that very senior levels of
the Bolivian Government are deeply involved, at least
protecting drug trafficking, if not sponsoring it.
Mr. Rivera. And any other--this conviction, did the
conviction have--do you know if the conviction had anything to
do with the relationship between his activities in the Bolivian
Government and Mexican drug cartels?
Mr. Farah. In this particular case, what he was tried for
was not that. It was a shipment that went out through Chile to
Panama and then to Miami where he talks explicitly about the
support he is receiving from the Bolivian Government and his
ability to move large sums for specific amounts of money, or
large amounts of cocaine for specific amounts of money. In that
particular case, I am not aware of any tie to Mexico.
Mr. Rivera. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I am going to ask a couple more questions,
or at least have a bit of discussion here, and then we will
close up hopefully before noon.
So today what we have heard is that there seems to be
networks that seem to be meshing, evil networks that seem to be
meshing into something that is turning into a nightmare for
honest people, not only in Mexico but could well turn into a
nightmare for the people of the United States as well.
Underscoring that was yesterday's revelation that a foreign
government, terrorist government, was attempting to utilize--
hire a drug cartel gangsters to commit an assassination here in
the United States.
If that sort of thing becomes prevalent, we could face the
same enormous challenge--and other countries--where honest
judges are murdered, where honest generals are murdered, where
honest police officers are murdered, and others are corrupted.
And we have to put ourselves in the position of these people.
People do not understand that if someone comes up to you in
Mexico and says, ``We will give you $50,000 a month, or we are
going to kill your family, you make the choice,'' how difficult
a decision that would be for even an honest person to do that.
That is the type of incredible pressure that is going on.
We need to recognize that this meshing of the networks
between a criminal network and a terrorist network may well be
happening. Mr. Farah's observation that the type of kidnapping,
international kidnapping, that--how this perhaps relates
actually to the modus operandi of terrorist and ideological
groups, based on the Marxist philosophy anyway, more than fits
just simply what the drug cartels are doing. That was very
insightful and something that should help members of this
committee in how we judge what is going on.
Mr. Selee, let me just note about your observations about
drug use and the resources that are available. I personally
don't believe that we should be putting people in jail in the
United States for consuming whatever substance they want to
consume. I think it is a waste of our money, when there are
other people in the United States who are being victimized by
rapists, murderers, et cetera. We need a criminal justice to
focus on them.
But with that, then there is some argument that even if you
just do that that would bring the price of drugs down, if
people were now no longer facing these criminal penalties, et
cetera. However, I don't necessarily buy that part of the
argument, and I would suggest that there are other ways of
dealing with the drug problem that we have not tried.
And, for example, we--I would think that drug testing is
something that we played around with for a while, and they
never, as a society, decided that drug testing was the way to
go. And it seems to me that as long as we are testing people
for drugs, but not for a criminal penalty, meaning that they
are discovered--if you have drug testing within certain
professions, and you discover someone who is involved with
drugs, that is legal to do that, because it is not self-
incrimination, unless you plan to prosecute that person for
using those drugs.
But certainly drug testing, if we discover people are using
drugs, we can put impediments in the way of people. For
example, young people who would like to get driver's licenses
should have to test, maybe in their gym classes in high school,
before they can get a driver's license. Not to put them in
jail, but to make sure they don't get their driver's license.
That may deter the use of drugs dramatically among young
people.
For example, drug testing should be required of airline
pilots, truck drivers, cab drivers, et cetera, et cetera,
because drugs do affect people's ability to do their job. And
in their job, if there is a life--people's lives are at stake
by their job, they should be drug tested.
But, furthermore, perhaps if someone is, you might say,
dining at the public largesse, meaning receiving government
stipends of some kind, whether they are--whether it is
scholarships or whatever they are, or welfare payments, that
perhaps drug testing should be required before someone receives
government largesse.
If we indeed have that kind of commitment, frankly, I think
that would be a great deterrent than our current system of
simply locking--trying to lock people up.
Mr. Selee. Can I just clarify something, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
Mr. Selee. I completely agree with you, actually. I would
not suggest locking more people up. In fact, I think we lock up
too many people for consumption, which makes no sense. And I
don't think I explained myself well. I mean, I am not saying we
should lock up more people. There is a high correlation between
people who have addictions to hard drugs who are already in the
criminal justice system, often for other sorts of crimes, not
only drug-related crimes, but often for robbery and other
things.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Mr. Selee. In terms of probation, what Project Hope does
and other experiments like this, South Dakota does this
actually on drunk driving, interestingly enough, with people
who are on probation, make sure they stay clean as long as they
are in the system. And they actually have a very high success
rate in getting people to stay clean, creating the incentives
to help them get off drugs, so they don't commit crimes again
and they stop using heavy drugs.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes, I would----
Mr. Selee. If we can focus on that population,
surprisingly, that is already in the criminal justice system,
surprisingly, we can be fairly effective at getting rid of a
large set of consumers of----
Mr. Rohrabacher. And if we are talking about $6-$9 billion
going into the hands of criminal elements, that is an
overwhelming challenge for a country like Mexico, and even an
overwhelming challenge for people in the United States I might
add.
So I think we have covered some really--some good ground
here, and let me--before I finish up, one last question or two,
but, Congressman Rivera, do you have anything else? I found
Congressman Rivera's focus on Bolivia interesting. And would
someone like to comment on that? Because we focused so much on
Mexico, and Bolivia and Venezuela and Cuba are national
entities that we need to--obviously need to pay attention to as
well. Mr. Farnsworth?
Mr. Farnsworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I do want to
congratulate you for this hearing and the timeliness of it, but
also for bringing the human dimension, the human element into
these discussions--very important.
I think it highlights the fact that the narcotics trade is
truly regionwide, and that strategies to address it really have
to be conceived in that type of manner. And if we break them
down to a bilateral issue or even a subregional issue, we find,
as we did when we focused on Mexico with Merida, that it is
like a balloon. You push on one side and it bubbles out
somewhere else, and that is what is happening in Central
America.
It doesn't help in the Bolivia context, for example,
however, that the government has kicked out the DEA and has
intentionally tried to change the relationship with the United
States in the way that, frankly, is against some U.S.
interests, I would argue, in trying to address some of these
very difficult issues.
So it does go to the point that when there are governments
in the region that are cooperative with us and we can be
cooperative with them, it lends to a much greater level of
success, as we have seen in Colombia, as we have seen with
Peru, as we have seen with some of our other friends and allies
in the region.
And when there are leaders who may democratically elected,
and may be serving at the behest of their people, who
nonetheless take a different view on these issues, whether it
is through production of some of these substances or serving as
safe havens or transit points, or what have you, it
immeasurably complicates these issues.
So I think that points out a very important aspect, and I
am glad you raised the question. Thank you for allowing me to
address it.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. And let us note, again, we--this
hearing was meant to focus on foreign governments' influence on
these issues. A foreign government can--their involvement means
a lot. I mean, for example, if a foreign government simply
gives safe haven, let us suggest that Eduardo believes that
perhaps the people who kidnapped him were Americans, you know,
from the United States, but the chances of those Americans
actually operating in Venezuela rather than in the United
States may be very high.
If in Venezuela they determine that their job is to bring
down--that the government feels some sort of kinship with those
who would bring down the Mexican Government and replace it with
a radical left wing government, they would then provide a safe
haven.
When I mentioned Robert Vesco--and thank you for reminding
me what his name was--Rivera knew what that--knew Robert Vesco
very well. But Robert Vesco was given safe haven for decades in
Cuba--decades--and he was deeply involved, we now know, in
helping the international drug cartels and was actually--I
remember there was some intercept that suggested that there was
a dispute and he was going to become the arbiter of the
dispute, which shows you his deep involvement.
And why did Fidel Castro permit a guy like Robert Vesco,
right? Money and Fidel Castro thinks this is a good way to
bring down the United States, so it couples his financial
interest with his ideology. And I think that--so as we close
today, we are talking about and this seems to be revealing, you
might say, a network, an evil network, and an evil meshing of
two different groups.
And between the terrorists and the drug cartel, and what
goes along with that, that meshing is a national government's--
other government's involvement, because of their ideological
desire as well as their desire for money. So I think we have
reached the point where there--we have demonstrated that there
is a correlation between these factors and why there is a
correlation between these factors.
We will perhaps have another hearing on this issue in the
near future, and I think that it is worth us to document what
is going on in Bolivia and what is going on in Cuba, what is
going on in Venezuela, that will lead to the horrible crime
that was committed against this family and how this family
represents thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of other
families who have been victimized by this criminal element that
is now part of, as we say, an evil meshing and an evil network
that threatens the--eventually will threaten the United States.
So thank you all very much. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
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Article submitted for the record by the Honorable Ted Poe, a
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