[Senate Hearing 113-148]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 113-148
SECURITY COOPERATION IN MEXICO: EXAMINING THE NEXT STEPS IN THE U.S.-
MEXICO SECURITY RELATIONSHIP
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE
AND GLOBAL NARCOTICS AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 18, 2013
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California BOB CORKER, Tennessee
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania MARCO RUBIO, Florida
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
TOM UDALL, New Mexico JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut RAND PAUL, Kentucky
TIM KAINE, Virginia
Daniel E. O'Brien, Staff Director
Lester E. Munson III, Republican Staff Director
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE
AND GLOBAL NARCOTICS AFFAIRS
TOM UDALL, New Mexico, Chairman
BARBARA BOXER, California JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut MARCO RUBIO, Florida
TIM KAINE, Virginia JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
RAND PAUL, Kentucky
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Brownfield, Hon. William R., Assistant Secretary of State for the
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs,
U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC....................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Feierstein, Hon. Mark, Assistant Administrator for Bureau of
Latin America and the Caribbean, United States Agency for
International Development, Washington, DC...................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Jacobson, Hon. Roberta S., Assistant Secretary of State for
Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S. Department of State,
Washington, DC................................................. 3
Prepared statement........................................... 4
O'Neil, Dr. Shannon K., Ph.D., senior fellow for Latin America
Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, NY............ 24
Prepared statement........................................... 26
Steinberg, Nik, senior researcher, Americas Division, Human
Rights Watch, New York, NY..................................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Udall, Hon. Tom, U.S. Senator from New Mexico, opening statement. 1
Wood, Dr. Duncan, Ph.D., director, Mexico Institute, Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC....... 35
Prepared statement........................................... 37
(iii)
SECURITY COOPERATION IN MEXICO: EXAMINING THE NEXT STEPS IN THE U.S.-
MEXICO SECURITY RELATIONSHIP
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere and
Global Narcotics Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Udall
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Udall, Murphy, and Kaine.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO
Senator Udall. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on
Western Hemisphere and Global Narcotics Affairs to order. Thank
you very much.
Today we are meeting to examine the next steps in the
United States-Mexico security relationship; an important
relationship that has grown stronger over the last decade. We
have made real progress in working together and in addressing
the destructive drug trade in the region. Our nations do not
just share a border, we also share a history and culture that
goes back centuries. In New Mexico and other border States, we
value this shared history and the cultural exchanges that
continue to grow and develop.
So it is with a shared sense of purpose that we should work
with Mexico to address the violence caused by drug cartels and
also the underlying judicial and economic reforms that will
prevent drug cartels from eroding society further in the
future.
We should be clear. The Mexican people and the Mexican
nation are strong. While the violence is most reported in the
news media, there are positive developments under way. Mexico
has a growing economy and middle class. Many of its regions and
cities have crime rates comparable to most U.S. cities and
States. Furthermore, the people of Mexico have embraced
democracy, with several peaceful transfers of power between
competing political parties in recent years.
But serious problems remain for the new administration in
Mexico. Between December 2006 and November 2012 there were more
than 60,000 deaths related to drug trafficking. According to
some estimates, nearly 6,000 more deaths have occurred in the
last 6 months. The numbers are staggering and especially for
neighboring U.S. States like New Mexico and Arizona.
In order to address drug trafficking and violence in
Mexico, the United States announced the Merida Initiative in
2007. Since then Congress has appropriated over $1.9 billion to
support it. In addition, Mexico has invested nearly $47 billion
to improve security and public safety. The Merida Initiative
seeks to address violent crime in Mexico by focusing on four
pillars: one, disrupting the operational capacity of organized
criminal groups; two, institutionalizing reforms to sustain the
rule of law and respect for human rights; three, creating a
21st century border; and four, building strong and resilient
communities.
Reform of the criminal justice system in Mexico is of
paramount importance. According to some estimates, only 13
percent of all crimes are reported in Mexico due to fear of
reprisal and lack of confidence in the authorities. As a
result, Mexico has made it a goal to develop a more adversarial
system, with prosecutors and defense attorneys, with new rules
of evidence and criminal procedure to ensure that the rights of
victims and defendants are respected. The United States,
including the Department of State and the USAID, have been
working to help Mexico at the state and federal level to help
make this transition.
Despite these efforts, reform has been slow. Judicial
reform has only been fully implemented in three states and is
partially implemented in nine. So there is a lot of work to do.
In addition to judicial reform, there are new initiatives
from President Pena Nieto's administration, for example the
proposed gendarmerie, which may replace the military security
role in some cases, and efforts to address criminality through
preventive programs such as improving education and economic
opportunities for regions torn apart by years of violence. I am
looking forward to discussing how these efforts will impact
United States cooperation with the Mexican Government and
hearing more about your assessment of these changes.
Today we have two very knowledgeable panels to speak about
the next steps in the United States-Mexico security
relationship. In the first panel we are joined by Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roberta
Jacobson; Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, William
Brownfield; and Assistant Administrator for USAID's Bureau of
Latin America and Caribbean, Mark Feierstein.
In the second panel, we will be joined by Dr. Shannon
O'Neil, the senior fellow for Latin American Studies at the
Council on Foreign Relations. We are also joined by Dr. Duncan
Wood, who is the director of the Mexico Institute at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Nik
Steinberg, the senior researcher in the Americas Division of
Human Rights Watch.
Thank you to all the panelists for joining us today. Now I
will turn to any of my--Senator McCain I don't think is here
yet, so he may make a statement when he comes in. I don't know
if you have a brief statement, Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. No.
Senator Udall. OK. Well, why don't we start with our
witnesses--start, Roberta, with you. Because when we scheduled
this we did not know we were going to have a vote at 3 o'clock,
so if you try to keep to your 5 minutes I think that will give
us--if you each keep to 5 minutes, and then we will, of course,
have your statements in the record, and then we can get into
questioning. So thank you very much for that, and please go
ahead.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERTA S. JACOBSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Jacobson. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and, Mr.
Chairman, thank you for being here. We are delighted to be here
today. I will keep this very short. The full statement is
submitted for the record and I will try and cut it further as I
go.
I really appreciate the opportunity to testify today about
a relationship that President Obama has described as one of the
largest and most dynamic relationships of any two countries on
Earth. I have had the pleasure of working on Mexico during a
fascinating and productive time in our relationship, initially
as Director of Mexican Affairs, later as the Deputy Assistant
Secretary covering North America, and now as the Assistant
Secretary. I know firsthand the breadth and the complexity of
this relationship, but I am also very lucky to have the best
possible partners in Assistant Secretary Brownfield and
Assistant Administrator Feierstein, both of whom I have known
for many years.
The United States and Mexico share one of the world's most
vibrant and mutually beneficial economic relationships. Mexico
is our second-largest export market and third-largest overall
trading partner. We sell more to Mexico than we do to Brazil,
Russia, India, and China combined.
To increase competitiveness, foster economic growth and
innovation, and explore ways to partner for global leadership,
Presidents Obama and Pena Nieto announced on May 2 the
establishment of a high-level economic dialogue. We hope to
hold the first meeting of that group later this year. To
increase trade flows, modernize border infrastructure and
border management is essential. At the May meeting the two
Presidents also reaffirmed their commitment to the 21st century
border management initiative established to improve
infrastructure, facilitate secure flow of legitimate commerce
and travel, and strengthen law enforcement.
In 2012 Mexico was our second-largest supplier of imported
crude oil, the largest export market for United States refined
petroleum products, a growing market for United States natural
gas exports. We have negotiated and signed the U.S.-Mexico
Trans-Boundary Hydrocarbons Agreement to provide a cooperative
framework and greater legal clarity for the development of
reserves that cross our border. And President Obama is
committing to working with Congress to pass legislation to
implement that agreement, and we look forward to working with
the Senate to move that ahead.
Since the Merida Initiative was announced in 2007, our
cooperation with Mexico has centered on the recognition that we
share responsibility for transnational criminal networks and
for protecting our citizens. Under Merida, the U.S. Government
has delivered about 1.2 billion dollars' worth of training and
equipment. But it has also proved crucial to supporting the
Mexican Government's efforts to build its rule of law
institutions and reform the justice sector. Moreover, it has
been an important element in the transformation of the
bilateral relationship and the cooperation that we have.
One in ten Americans, more than 30 million people, is of
Mexican heritage. A robust Mexican-American community in the
United States contributes to our culture, our values, our
politics, and our social structures. Some 20 million Americans
travel to Mexico every year for tourism, business, or study,
and Mexico is home to the largest expatriate community for
American citizens in the world, more than 1 million. These ties
bring us together as families, as neighbors, as friends, and
they contribute to our mutual understanding.
During President Obama's visit to Mexico, he announced the
creation of a bilateral forum on higher education, innovation,
and research, which will begin meeting this year to develop a
shared vision on education cooperation. Through this and
President Obama's 100,000 Strong in the Americans Initiative,
we encourage Mexican students to study in the United States,
just as President Pena Nieto did.
We have growing cooperation with Mexico on global and
regional issues at the United Nations, at the OAS, and at other
multilateral venues. Our common interest in the environment and
clean energy is promoted through the Energy and Climate
Partnership of the Americans and Mexico will host a ministerial
on that subject in the fall.
I want to thank you for being here and for your time today,
and I look forward to your support as we strengthen our
engagement with Mexico in the future.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Jacobson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Assistant Secretary Roberta S. Jacobson
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and members of the committee, thank
you for the opportunity to testify to the Western Hemisphere
Subcommittee on ``Security Cooperation in Mexico: Examining the Next
Steps in the U.S./Mexico Security Relationship.'' President Obama
described the relationship between the United States and Mexico as
``one of the largest and most dynamic relationships of any two
countries on earth.'' The United States relationship with Mexico is
indeed unique in that it touches the daily lives of so many Americans
and Mexicans.
I have had the great pleasure to work on Mexico at crucial stages
in our relationship--initially as Director of the Office of Mexican
Affairs, as Deputy Assistant Secretary covering North American affairs,
and now as Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs. I know
firsthand that our relationship with Mexico is broad, complex, and
relevant, filled with a dynamic mix of challenges and opportunities.
Today I would like to review our progress with Mexico to strengthen our
shared economic potential, our collective security, and our people-to-
people ties.
When President Obama met with President Pena Nieto in Mexico on May
2, the two Presidents spoke again of their commitment to bilateral
partnership and built on the positive personal relationship they
established at their first meeting in November 2012 in Washington. They
agreed to take new steps to strengthen our economic relationship,
enhance shared competitiveness, and create new trade, investment, and
employment opportunities. The Presidents reaffirmed their commitment to
collaborate on citizen security based on shared responsibility and
mutual respect. They highlighted efforts to increase the connections
between our peoples that enrich the culture and prosperity of both
societies. The Presidents also reviewed our cooperation on global and
hemispheric issues. Their discussion highlighted the extraordinary
benefits we realize from our relationship that often do not make the
daily headlines, but are profoundly relevant to our daily lives and to
our future.
economic and energy engagement
The United States and Mexico share one of the world's most vibrant
and mutually beneficial economic relationships. Our economic links are
the linchpin of our overall relationship. We are partners in an
integrated enterprise whose success depends on us working together.
Given the high degree of intra-industry trade, much of what we import
consists of U.S. exports to Mexico processed further in Mexico. U.S.
companies have more than $91 billion invested in Mexico, while Mexican
companies are increasing their investment in the American economy,
currently nearly $27.9 billion.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of our trade
relationship with Mexico. In 2012, two-way merchandise trade reached
nearly $500 billion and services trade was $39 billion in 2011. Mexico
is our second-largest export market and third-largest overall trading
partner. We sell more to Mexico than we do to Brazil, Russia, India,
and China combined. The United States is Mexico's largest trading
partner. Together with Canada, Mexico and the United States comprise
one of the most successful and competitive economic platforms in the
world today. We have taken steps to strengthen that trading
relationship. Last October, the United States and eight other countries
welcomed Mexico (and Canada) to join the negotiations for the Trans-
Pacific Partnership (TPP). TPP is a high-standard, 21st century trade
agreement that includes countries from one of the fastest-growing
regions in the world.
To increase competitiveness, foster economic growth and innovation,
and explore ways to partner for global leadership, Presidents Obama and
Pena Nieto announced on May 2 the establishment of a High-Level
Economic Dialogue (HLED). We plan to hold the first meeting later this
year. We will organize the dialogue around three broad themes:
promoting competitiveness and connectivity; fostering economic growth,
productivity, and innovation; and partnering for regional and global
leadership.
The HLED will increase cooperation in sectors that connect our
economies, including transportation, telecommunications, and energy,
and promote greater two-way investment. The dialogue will stimulate
entrepreneurship and innovation, encourage the development of human
capital, and examine regional and international initiatives, including
our engagement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation forum, and the G20.
Given the massive flow of goods and people across our shared
border, modernizing border infrastructure and border management is
essential. At their May meeting, President Obama and President Pena
Nieto reaffirmed their commitment to our 21st Century Border Management
Initiative. At the April meeting of the initiative's Executive Steering
Committee, senior representatives of both governments encouraged
projects and initiatives that will improve infrastructure, facilitate
the secure flow of legitimate commerce and travel, and strengthen law
enforcement along the border.
Our energy relationship with Mexico is a critical component of
North American energy security. In 2012, Mexico was our second-largest
supplier of imported crude oil, the largest export market for U.S.
refined petroleum products, and a growing market for U.S. natural gas
exports. President Pena Nieto has made energy reform a priority, and if
it is successful, Mexico could attract international investment and
expertise to reverse the decline in its oil production.
We have negotiated and signed the U.S.-Mexico Transboundary
Hydrocarbons Agreement. By establishing a cooperative framework and
greater legal clarity for the development of reserves that traverse the
U.S.-Mexico maritime border, it would benefit both the United States
and Mexico. In his meeting with President Pena Nieto, President Obama
committed to working with Congress to pass legislation to implement the
Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement. Senators Wyden and Murkowski
recently introduced S. 812, legislation which authorizes the Secretary
of the Interior to implement the Agreement. We look forward to working
with the Senators to move this important legislation forward.
In Mexico, the Pena Nieto administration is pursuing a broad reform
agenda with a focus on economic development. In just 6 months, Mexico
passed major reforms in labor, education, and telecommunications. The
Mexican Government announced plans for further reforms of energy,
fiscal, and financial policy. Provided the implementing legislation
accompanying these reforms leads to meaningful policy change, as is
likely, these changes have the potential to reshape our neighbor's
economic landscape and expand our economic engagement with Mexico.
security cooperation
Since the Merida Initiative was announced in 2007, we have based
our cooperation with Mexico on the recognition that our countries share
responsibility for combating transnational criminal networks and for
protecting our citizens from the crime, corruption, and violence they
generate. Our unprecedented cooperation reflects our mutual respect and
our understanding of the tremendous benefits our two countries can
produce through collaboration. Our strong partnership improves citizen
safety by fighting drug trafficking, organized crime, corruption,
illicit arms trafficking, money laundering, and demand for drugs on
both sides of the border.
Our Merida partnership is organized around four pillars:
Disrupting the capacity of organized criminal groups;
Institutionalizing reforms to sustain rule of law and
respect for human rights;
Creating a 21st century border; and
Building strong and resilient communities.
We are strengthening institutions, especially police, justice, and
civil society organizations; expanding our border focus beyond
interdiction of contraband to include facilitation of legitimate trade
and travel; and building strong communities resistant to the influence
of organized crime.
Since the inception of the Merida Initiative, the U.S. Government
has delivered about $1.2 billion out of $1.9 billion worth of training
and equipment. The Merida Initiative has provided crucial support to
the Mexican Government's efforts to build the capacity of its rule of
law institutions and reform the justice sector, while enhancing the
bilateral relationship and extent of cooperation between the U.S. and
Mexican Governments. Our Mexican partners have invested at least $10
for every dollar we have contributed to our Merida goals in Mexico. The
U.S. contribution is vitally important.
U.S.-Mexico bilateral engagement has been transformed over the last
10 years, and the Merida partnership is an important component of this
broader evolution in the relationship. President Pena Nieto and his
team have consistently made clear to us their interest in continuing
our close collaboration on security issues, most recently during
President Obama's visit. The Merida Initiative continues to provide a
comprehensive, flexible framework under which our partnership can move
forward to the benefit of both Americans and Mexicans.
people-to-people ties
The people-to-people ties that bind Mexico to the United States are
strong and deep, and they enrich both countries. One in 10 Americans--
more than 30 million people--is of Mexican heritage. A robust Mexican-
American community in the United States contributes to our culture, our
values, our politics, and our social structures. Some 20 million
Americans travel to Mexico every year for tourism, business, or study.
The cities and towns along our common border are interconnected. Mexico
is home to the largest expatriate community of American citizens in the
world--more than 1 million people. These ties bring us together as
families, neighbors, and friends, and contribute to our mutual
understanding.
During President Obama's visit to Mexico, we announced new
initiatives to use people-to-people links to build a stronger bilateral
relationship. The Presidents announced the creation of a Bilateral
Forum on Higher Education, Innovation, and Research to promote mutual
prosperity, expanded opportunity, job creation, and the development of
a 21st century workforce in both countries. The Forum, which will begin
meeting this year, will bring together government, academia, and civil
society to develop a shared vision on educational cooperation. Through
President Obama's ``100,000 Strong in the Americas'' initiative, we
encourage Mexican students to study in the United States, just as
President Pena Nieto did. We also want to facilitate American students
to study abroad in the hemisphere, including in Mexico, and greater
academic mobility between our two countries. These initiatives will
strengthen educational institutions in both countries, just as Mexico
begins to implement its education reforms.
President Obama also spoke in Mexico of his administration's vision
for comprehensive immigration reform that respects our tradition as a
nation of immigrants, but also a nation of laws; reform that recognizes
the need to strengthen border security, but also to strengthen legal
immigration. Although comprehensive immigration reform would affect
Mexico more than any other country, President Pena Nieto publicly
recognized that it is a U.S. domestic issue. Our border is more secure
than it has ever been and illegal immigration attempts into the United
States are near their lowest level in decades. Mexico announced its
intention to improve border security along its own southern border, at
least in part to reduce the flow of migrants who seek to transit Mexico
on their way to the United States.
new opportunities for drug demand reduction in mexico
We are working together on new opportunities for drug demand
reduction in Mexico. The Pena Nieto administration has made demand
reduction one of the principal pillars of its crime and violence
prevention program, with the objective of modernizing and expanding its
addiction diagnosis and treatment capabilities.
The United States and Mexico will be able to apply this approach to
three areas of demand reduction policy--professionalizing addiction
treatment counseling, improving Mexican capacity to research and
develop addiction prevention and treatment methods, and expanding the
prevalence and use of drug treatment courts.
global engagement and cooperation
We are increasing cooperation with Mexico on global and regional
issues. Mexico is an important player on the world stage--demonstrated
by its hosting of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in 2010 and the
G20 summit in 2012. Mexico joined the Wassenaar Arrangement, a
multilateral export control regime, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group
nonproliferation regimes. Mexico has made great advances on its own
strategic trade controls--something we welcome from a major trading
partner--and hosted the plenary meeting of the Global Initiative to
Combat Nuclear Terrorism in May. We engage closely with Mexico on these
issues.
Our common interest in the environment and clean energy is another
area of growing cooperation. Since the 2010 U.N. climate negotiations
in Cancun, the United States and Mexico have maintained a high level of
engagement. Mexican leadership has been critical to successful outcomes
on a range of important environmental issues. We engage closely on the
responsible and environmentally sound development of unconventional gas
resources, as well as wind energy development, energy efficiency,
cross-border electricity trade, a bilateral renewable energy market,
and low-emissions development. We cooperate closely under the Energy
and Climate Partnership of the Americas, for which Mexico will host the
next Ministerial in the fall. President Obama also discussed with
President Pena Nieto in May our interest in working with Mexico to
engage with Central American partners in facilitating a robust regional
electricity market.
conclusion
When President Obama spoke to Mexican youth on May 3, he recognized
the new, emerging Mexico that is strengthening its democracy through
greater participation by civil society, creating new prosperity and
enabling millions to rise from poverty, and courageously confronting
challenges to its own security. He also outlined the potential of
greater engagement by the United States with Mexico across the spectrum
of our shared interests. President Obama challenged each of us to ``do
more to unlock the potential of our relationship.'' I believe we are on
the right path to do that--renewing our commitment or expanding
initiatives that have served us well, and forging a new path where we
see new opportunities.
I thank the members of the subcommittee for your time today. By
calling this hearing, you acknowledge the importance of the U.S.-Mexico
bilateral relationship and the prominent role Mexico plays in our
economic well-being and our security. I look forward to your support as
we strengthen our engagement with Mexico and I am happy to answer any
of your questions.
Senator Udall. Thank you very much.
Let us proceed with Mr. Brownfield.
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM R. BROWNFIELD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE FOR THE BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW
ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Brownfield. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Kaine. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today
to discuss United States-Mexico security cooperation under the
Merida Initiative.
Senators, we do not start our discussion of Merida at point
zero. Since our two governments agreed in 2007 that we share
responsibility for the security threats affecting Mexico and
agreed to cooperate in solving them, as Roberta just said, the
United States has delivered $1.2 billion in support and
assistance to professionalize Mexico's law enforcement and to
build capacity under the rule of law, with this committee's
strong support.
The Mexican Government for its part has invested more than
10 dollars for every dollar contributed by the United States to
these shared challenges. And we have had an impact. More than
8,500 justice sector officials and more than 19,000 federal,
state, and local police have received training under Merida,
the vast majority of it in Mexico, at Mexican training centers,
but some of it here at home, where special skills or
instruction are found at institutions like our International
Law Enforcement Academy in Roswell or the New Mexico
Corrections Department outside of Santa Fe, where more than 390
Mexican corrections officials have developed advanced skills.
The training we provide has shown results. Secure federal
prisons in Mexico have increased from 5 to 14 and their quality
has increased even more. The U.S. Government has provided 100
million dollars' worth of inspection equipment, resulting in
more than $3 billion in illicit goods seized in Mexico--a
return on our investment of 3,000 percent.
More than 50 senior members of drug trafficking
organizations have been removed from the streets of Mexico and
more than 700,000 Mexican students have received civic,
education, and ethics training under the Merida Initiative.
This subcommittee should take great pride in its support for
the Merida Initiative and what it has accomplished for both the
American and Mexican peoples.
Senators, a new President of Mexico was inaugurated last
December. As with all new governments, the Pena Nieto
government came to office determined to formulate its own
national security strategy and place its own stamp on the
United States-Mexico bilateral relationship. The new government
has sent some clear signals on the direction it wishes to go.
It wants a single point of contact in the Mexican Government to
coordinate Merida Initiative programs and operations, and
greater focus on crime prevention and economic and social
development. It wants greater engagement by Mexican state and
local government and a sharper focus on human rights. It wants
to strengthen the Mexican Attorney General's Office,
professionalize the police, and build a new gendarmerie to lift
the policing burden from the armed forces.
Mr. Chairman, I have no problem with these signals. They
are logical, they are coherent, they are good ideas. There are
a number of details yet to be defined, but what we have now is
fully consistent with our strategic approach to the Merida
Initiative, where we support the four pillars, shift focus from
equipment to training, and transition from federal to state and
local institutions.
As the President said in Mexico City 6 weeks ago, it is the
Government of Mexico that decides how we will cooperate in
Mexico. We have made an unprecedented and historic start to
cooperation under the Merida Initiative during two different
administrations in both Mexico and the United States. I expect
to report even more progress to this subcommittee in the months
ahead.
Thank you, Senators, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brownfield follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador William R. Brownfield
Chairman Udall, Senator McCain, and members of the subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. In every
society, citizen security underpins economic stability and allows
trade, investment, energy development, and education exchanges to
flourish. The partnership forged between the United States and the
Government of Mexico over the past 6 years under the Merida Initiative
exemplifies how strengthening citizen security supports these broader
objectives. We have worked together to strengthen the capacity of
Mexico's justice sector to counter organized crime and its violent and
corrupting effects. Now is an excellent opportunity to recognize our
shared accomplishments, acknowledge the common challenges we face, and
look forward to the progression of our partnership.
development of the merida initiative
The Merida Initiative was conceived in 2007 in an effort to enhance
collaboration against the drug trade and build more effective justice
sector institutions in Mexico. At the time of the program's inception,
cartel-related violence had been increasing dramatically and corruption
was a threat to rule of law. Mexican institutions were ill-equipped to
deal with the challenges they faced. In 2008, Mexico took the important
first step of passing constitutional reforms to overhaul its entire
justice sector including the police, judicial system, and corrections
at the federal, state and local levels. Mexico's institutional reforms
and its objective of building strong institutions that its citizens can
depend on to deliver justice provided a foundation for U.S.
cooperation.
Our Merida resources have helped advance Mexico's implementation of
these reforms. Since the inception of Merida, the United States
Government has delivered about 1.2 billion dollars' worth of training,
capacity-building, and equipment. By no means did we go it alone: For
every $1 of foreign assistance that America invested in our shared
security goals, the Government of Mexico dedicated at least $10 of its
own. Because our assistance was designed jointly with the Government of
Mexico, many programs formed integral parts of Mexico's justice sector
reforms and today enjoy a high level of sustainability.
Our partnership with Mexico has demonstrated results. With our
assistance, the Government of Mexico has: Augmented the
professionalization of police units by providing training to more than
19,000 federal and state police officers, 4,000 of which are federal
investigators; built a stronger legal framework through the training of
over 8,500 federal justice sector personnel; improved the detection of
narcotics, arms, and money, reaching almost $3 billion in illicit goods
seized; expanded secure incarceration at the federal level from five
facilities with a capacity of 3,500 to 14 facilities with a capacity of
20,000; and provided civic education and ethics training to more than
700,000 Mexican students. Since 2009, Mexico has apprehended more than
50 senior and mid-level drug trafficking organization (DTO) leaders,
significantly disrupting all major Mexican DTOs.
In line with Mexico's evolving capabilities, the Merida Initiative
has undergone several planned transitions. These include: (1) a
transition away from major equipment assistance intended to increase
the government's reach toward additional training and capacity-building
for personnel; and (2) a shift from focusing assistance on federal
institutions to an increasing emphasis on state and local government
capabilities. The Merida Initiative continues to be structured around
the four pillar framework: (1) Disrupting the operational capacity of
organized crime; (2) institutionalizing Mexico's capacity to sustain
the rule of law and protect human rights; (3) creating a 21st century
border; and (4) building strong and resilient communities. This
framework, combined with the shift toward training and an emphasis on
building capacity at the state and local level, will be the basis for
our security cooperation with the Pena Nieto administration going
forward.
the merida initiative in 2013 and beyond
Deliberations between our governments on how to proceed under the
Merida Initiative have been productive and comprehensive. President
Pena Nieto and his administration are committed to continuing our close
collaboration on security issues under the four-pillar Merida
framework, with a sharper focus on crime prevention and rule of law.
The Pena Nieto administration has proposed a security strategy which
includes strengthening the Attorney General's office, revising the
practice of pretrial detention to better protect human rights,
establishing a Commission for the Prevention of Crime, and creating a
National Human Rights Program. The strategy also focuses on police
professionalization by seeking to create a career professional service,
consolidating police certification and vetting, elaborating protocols
for police action, and creating a national training plan for police.
These elements track well with the planning and direction of INL
programming under the Merida Initiative for professionalized and
credible civilian security.
We continue to build on the success of several ongoing programs.
For example, Mexico's federal corrections system is now a recognized
international leader in corrections reform, with eight federal
facilities already certified by the independent American Correctional
Association. Mexico has begun to offer corrections officer training to
its Central American neighbors, and the first class of Central American
(Guatemalan) corrections officers graduated from Mexico's academy in
July 2012. The reforms already underway, including the creation of an
objective prisoner classification system and the construction of new
facilities, are making great strides. Mexico's success in reforming the
corrections systems at the federal level can serve as the launching
point for supporting similar reforms at the state level, where
significant challenges remain. We will support Mexico in assessing
state facilities and in its efforts to undertake similar reforms at the
state level.
To help Mexico build policing capacity for its communities, we are
putting in place the building blocks to expand police training to the
state and municipal level. We have strengthened police academies in the
states of Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo Leon, and Puebla by providing
equipment and training materials, enabling them to serve as the
backbone for training programs and to conduct regional training. We are
building our joint state training program around this regional
structure. This will not only enable us to provide training more
effectively, but will enhance cooperation between law enforcement
officials in neighboring states as they implement reforms.
Building on the Pena Nieto administration's agenda for police
professionalization, we are prepared to work with the Government of
Mexico to enhance and professionalize existing law enforcement
institutions to develop federal standards for Mexican officials in the
areas of training, discipline training, and promotion. We would partner
with the Mexican Government to provide international experts in
policing standards and best practices, and facilitate regional working
groups that integrate state, local, and federal entities to derive
Mexico-specific standards. These standards would be designed to further
police professionalization, facilitate greater observance of civil and
human rights, and foster trust among the Mexican public in its police.
On rule of law, we will focus on supporting Mexico in its
transition to an accusatorial justice system, build on our efforts with
the federal judiciary, and help to improve effectiveness in case
management and court administration. Mexico's ambitious effort to
reform its justice system by 2016 is in mid-stream and requires
sustained focus and resources.
Complementary to our assistance at the institutional level, we will
also continue to support local communities by promoting behavioral
changes for improving rule of law from the ground up, such as through
our Culture of Lawfulness program. This program offers a civic
education curriculum to schools in 29 of the 31 states in Mexico.
To enhance our bilateral efforts to build a 21st-century border, we
will continue to offer capacity-building support to Mexican law
enforcement agencies involved in border security, further enhancing
their ability to interdict illicit narcotics, arms, and money. We have
offered specialized training for police and Mexican Customs officials
that address advanced border security and import/export processing
techniques and methodologies. This training is designed to produce a
cadre of instructors who can then provide training within their home
agencies, multiplying the effect of our initial investment. We are
prepared to support Mexico in their efforts to strengthen the southern
border, an area the Pena Nieto administration has prioritized.
We will continue supporting Mexico's efforts to improve
information-sharing among its agencies involved in the fight against
money laundering and illicit finance, a priority area for the Pena
Nieto administration. Enhanced Mexican interagency coordination will
lead to more prosecutions and cash seized. We have already provided
funding for the training of the Financial Intelligence Unit's (UIF)
personnel, sophisticated financial analysis software, and the
accompanying computer hardware. Given the expanded responsibilities of
the UIF under the new antimoney laundering legislation passed in late
2012, additional support may be needed to provide upgrades and expand
their data center.
conclusion
We are currently forging a new way ahead for the Merida Initiative
with President Pena Nieto and his team. The discussions and
collaboration have been frank and positive and the conversation is
ongoing. Building strong and able justice sector institutions capable
of dealing with organized crime and the accompanying violence and
corruption, is a difficult and long-term endeavor. It takes years of
dedicated and sustained work across numerous institutions and sectors,
the political will to affect change, and the resources and stamina to
see it through. Over the course of the Merida Initiative, the U.S.-
Mexico bilateral security relationship has proven steadfast and
collaborative while including some notable transitions and changes
along the way. Our support to Mexico over the past 6 years has achieved
positive results, and I am confident that our collaborative efforts can
continue.
Thank you, Chairman Udall, Senator McCain, and members of the
subcommittee, for your time. I will do my best to address your
questions.
Senator Udall. Thank you very much.
Let us proceed now with Mr. Feierstein.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARK FEIERSTEIN, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR
BUREAU OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, UNITED STATES AGENCY
FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Feierstein. Mr. Chairman, Senator Kaine, thank you for
the opportunity to discuss USAID's contributions to the Merida
Initiative. It is a real honor to testify with my colleagues
from the State Department. I think it is accurate to say the
collaboration between our three Bureaus has never been
stronger.
Mr. Chairman, in Latin America and the Caribbean USAID is
increasingly focused on helping the region's governments to
reduce crime and violence. This is a matter of national
security to the United States, as my colleagues have just
noted, as well as economic and political imperative to the
affected countries. Crime and violence are a severe drain on
private and public investment in the Americas and the leading
constraint to economic growth in some countries. Criminal
activity is also arguably the greatest threat to democracy in
some nations.
Given the importance of reducing crime, we have made tough
choices and managed in a period of tight budgets to maintain
and even increase our funding for Merida programs. USAID's
collaboration with the Mexican Government in this area has
three principal goals: to improve the effectiveness of the
judiciary; to bolster the capacity of communities to reduce
crime; and to protect and defend human rights. To achieve these
goals, we operate in a genuine partnership with Mexico, jointly
designing and implementing programs.
Five years ago, Mexico began a transition from the written,
inquisitorial criminal justice system to the more open and
transparent oral accusatorial system. USAID support of that
transition at the state level ranges from helping to develop
new laws, policies, and regulations to training judges,
prosecutors, and public defenders. Later this year we plan to
double the number of states where we support this training.
The transition to the accusatorial system is already
proving effective. Preliminary data suggest that in states
undergoing the reform acquittal rates have decreased, judges
are imposing longer sentences for serious crimes, and pretrial
detention has been reduced.
Strengthening the justice sector is vital to ensure that
crimes are properly investigated, the accused treated fairly,
and the guilty appropriately sentenced. Ideally, however, we
can help avert that youth ever having to enter the legal system
in the first place. Like its neighbors, Mexico has embraced
preventative actions to reduce crime and violence. President
Pena Nieto has launched a national crime prevention strategy
with funding commitments of $9 billion.
To support the Mexican Government's crime prevention
efforts, USAID is testing approaches in three cities affected
by drug-related violence and other criminal activity, Ciudad
Juarez, Monterrey, and Tijuana. In each city we are partnering
with local organizations and drawing on international expertise
to develop models for safe urban spaces, provide job skills for
at-risk youth, and improve the capacity of the government to
keep citizens safe.
One of the keys to success of our Merida activities has
been the extent to which the private sector has supported our
programs. For example, we partner with companies like Cisco,
Intel, and Prudential to train youth from tough neighborhoods
for jobs in technology and construction.
Many of the approaches we draw upon are from the United
States. Through an agreement with Los Angeles, USAID has been
sharing that city's proven gang reduction and youth development
tools with officials in Latin America. Last week a deputy mayor
of L.A. met with government officials and civil society leaders
in Mexico City and Monterrey to share the keys to L.A.'s
success in reducing criminal gang activity.
Among the segments of society most affected by crime and
drug trafficking are human rights defenders and journalists.
USAID is helping the Mexican Government to protect journalists,
citizen bloggers, and others who expose crime and corruption.
Last year we trained more than 150 Mexican journalists and
human rights professionals on practices, tools, and
technologies to protect themselves and their work.
To increase law enforcement's awareness of international
human rights standards and practices, we are also helping to
train federal and state police. This year 250 officers earned
master's certificates in human rights with USAID's support.
Citizen activism is key to raising awareness and mobilizing
action on the defense of human rights. So we are collaborating
with Mexican organizations on campaigns to support the
implementation of the government's human rights reforms and
educate citizens about their rights.
Mr. Chairman, we are encouraged by steps that Mexico has
taken to reduce crime and violence, but we also recognize that
defeating the powerful cartels and reducing other factors that
contribute to crime will take time. USAID is prepared to
continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Mexican
Government and civil society in this endeavor. Their success
will make the United States safer as well.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Feierstein follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Feierstein
Chairman Udall, Ranking Member McCain, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the U.S. Agency for
International Development's (USAID) contributions to the Merida
Initiative and to receive your advice and counsel.
It is an honor to testify with my colleagues from the State
Department, Assistant Secretaries Roberta Jacobson and William
Brownfield. Collaboration among our Bureaus has never been stronger.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID is increasingly focused
on helping the region's governments to reduce crime and violence. This
is a matter of national security for the United States, as my
colleagues have just noted, as well as an economic and political
imperative for the affected countries. Crime and violence are a severe
drain on private and public investment in the Americas and, according
to studies by USAID and the Inter-American Development Bank, the
leading constraint to economic growth in some countries. Criminal
activity is also arguably the greatest threat to democracy in some
countries in the region, corrupting governments, restricting citizen
engagement, and undermining freedom of the press.
In Mexico, USAID's collaboration with the Government on citizen
security has three principal goals: to improve the effectiveness of the
judiciary; bolster the capacity of communities to reduce crime; and
protect and defend human rights. To achieve these goals, we operate in
a genuine partnership. Every one of our programs is designed,
developed, and implemented jointly with our Mexican counterparts. And
our activities are coordinated with the State Department and other U.S.
agencies to make for a comprehensive approach to crime reduction. And
even in a time of tight budgets, we have nevertheless been able to
increase and maintain our funding for Merida security programs.
Five years ago, Mexico began a legal transition from the written
inquisitorial criminal justice system to the more open and transparent
oral accusatorial system. USAID's support of that transition in 12
states ranges from helping to develop new laws, policies and
regulations and train judges, prosecutors, lawyers and public defenders
in the new criminal justice system. We are also helping the Mexican
Government to create and strengthen institutions essential to the
reform, such as internal training units, victims' assistance centers,
alternative dispute resolution offices and pretrial services units. To
prepare the next generation of Mexican lawyers and judges to
effectively perform their functions under the new criminal justice
system, we are assisting Mexican bar associations and law schools to
develop their curriculum.
Later this year, we plan to double the number of states where we
are providing training and technical assistance. Our programs
complement Mexico's significant contribution to the reform process,
including building new courtrooms, providing infrastructure and
staffing and expanding training and capacity development.
The transition to the new system is already proving effective. A
review of the process in five states has found a marked decrease in
pretrial detentions, longer sentences assigned for serious crimes,
reduced case backlogs and stronger alternative dispute mechanisms and
victims assistance units.
Strengthening Mexico's justice sector institutions is vital to
ensure that crimes are properly investigated, the accused are treated
fairly, and the guilty appropriately sentenced. Ideally, however, we
can help avert that youth ever have to enter the legal process in the
first place. Like its neighbors, Mexico has embraced preventative
actions to reduce crime and violence, such as economic investments in
communities and social programs designed for youth most susceptible to
joining gangs. In February, President Enrique Pena Nieto launched a
national crime prevention strategy, with funding commitments totaling
$9 billion.
To support the Mexican Government's crime prevention efforts, we
are testing innovative approaches in three of the cities most affected
by narcorelated violence and other criminal activity: Ciudad Juarez,
Monterrey and Tijuana. In three communities in each city, we are
partnering with local organizations and drawing on international
expertise to develop new models for safe urban spaces, providing life
and job skills for at-risk youth, increasing educational opportunities,
improving the capacity of all levels of government to keep citizens
safe and empowering communities to address the root causes of crime and
violence. We will jointly evaluate the effectiveness of these
activities with the Mexican Government as it considers their broader
application across the country.
One of the keys to success of our Merida activities has been the
extent to which the private sector has assisted in implementing our
programs. For example, we have partnered with companies like Cisco,
Intel, and Prudential to train youth from tough neighborhoods for jobs
in the growing fields of technology and construction.
To truly ensure the sustainability of our efforts, we are
increasingly supporting local organizations at the forefront of the
effort to reduce crime and violence in Mexican communities. Such
organizations as the Chihuahuan Business Foundation and Citizens
Committed to Peace are bolstering their communities by, providing
educational and professional counseling services, setting up after
school programs and offering support services to youth and families
affected by narcorelated violence and other criminal activity.
Many of the approaches that we and our Mexican counterparts draw
upon are from the United States, which have achieved dramatic
reductions in crime in the past two decades. Through an agreement
signed last year with Los Angeles, USAID has been sharing that city's
proven gang reduction and youth development tools with officials in
Mexico, as well as in Central America. Last week, a deputy mayor of Los
Angeles met with Federal Government officials in Mexico City and with
local authorities and civil society leaders in Monterrey to share some
of the keys to Los Angeles's success in reducing criminal gang
activity, including community policing models and tools to assess the
extent to which individual youth are at-risk of joining a gang.
Among the segments of society most affected by crime and drug
trafficking are human rights defenders and journalists. Through the
Merida Initiative, USAID is helping the Mexican Government to protect
journalists, citizen bloggers, and others who expose crime and
corruption. We are benefiting from lessons learned from nearly a decade
of investments to enhance similar protection mechanisms in Colombia.
Last year, we trained more than 150 Mexican journalists and human
rights professionals on practices, tools, and technologies to protect
themselves and their work, and we plan to reach hundreds more in the
coming years.
To increase law enforcement's awareness of international human
rights standards and practices, we are helping to train federal and
state police and the staff of the Mexican Government's new victims
assistance unit. This year, over 250 officers earned master's
certificates in human rights with USAID's support.
Citizen activism is key to raising awareness and mobilizing action
on the defense of human rights. So we are collaborating with Mexican
organizations on campaigns to support the implementation of the
Government's human rights reforms, including a groundbreaking
Constitutional Reform that strengthens Mexico's human rights commission
and elevates the country's international human rights commitments to
the same level as their national laws.
Mr. Chairman, we are encouraged by many of the steps that Mexico
has taken to reduce crime and violence. But we also recognize that
defeating the powerful cartels and reducing other factors that
contribute to crime will take time. We are prepared to continue to
stand shoulder to shoulder in support of the Mexican Government and
civil society in this endeavor. Their success will make the United
States safer.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
Senator Udall. Thank you. I really appreciate you staying
on time so we can focus on questions.
Senator Kaine, I appreciate you being here and if you would
like to start the questioning, go ahead here.
Senator Kaine. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. It is great to
be with each of the witnesses. I have looked forward to this
hearing.
Maybe a nontraditional starting question. If this was a
hearing in the Mexican Congress and it was on the United
States-Mexico security relationship, where it stands today,
what do you think the testimony would be of Mexican
governmental officials in the new government about what they
would expect from the United States? We have heard very good
testimony. I am a fan of each of your agencies and the work
that you are doing about things that the United States is doing
with Mexican institutions, funding and others, to strengthen
them. What do you think we would be hearing as the testimony
from Mexican gubernatorial counterpoints or counterparts or
agency heads about things that they would hope that we would
do, in addition to fund programs on Mexican soil?
Mr. Brownfield. May I defer to you?
Ms. Jacobson. I would be delighted.
Thank you, Senator. You know, I think one of the first
things I should say is one of the things you won't hear any
more, because the dialogue with Mexico I think has changed
significantly and all of my counterparts remember how often we
heard from our Mexican counterparts that we were not doing
enough and we were not doing it fast enough. It was a really
serious problem at the beginning of the Merida Initiative, in a
country where, frankly, we did not have much experience, if
any, in foreign assistance. Setting things up to get things
working in the right way and doing that jointly at every step
with the Mexicans took us longer than we would have liked.
I think that has changed dramatically. I think the delivery
of so much of our assistance has made a big difference, so I
don't think we would be hearing as much complaint about
slowness to deliver.
I do think that we would hear that they want us to remain
engaged in many of the areas that we are, in particular pillar
two and pillar four, if you will, of the Merida Initiative,
which focuses on building institutions, police, justice,
penitentiaries--and my colleagues have talked about that and
the importance of that--and that pillar four, which frankly was
a little slow to come on line, which is building those
resilient communities.
If I could, as a fan of the AID programs that work in
communities in Tijuana and Monterrey and in Ciudad Juarez, I
think those programs have shown really dramatic changes, and I
do think our Mexican counterparts want more of that, of the
work in communities, and are going to work to try and replicate
some of the successes.
So I think some of the areas that they have particular
eagerness to work in are well within the Merida Initiative, but
may get a little bit more attention and they might like to
accelerate some of those.
Senator Kaine. Thank you.
Other perspectives on that question? Secretary Brownfield?
Mr. Brownfield. I will just offer one additional point,
Senator, to an excellent answer by Roberta. It's based upon my
own personal experience during 3 years in Colombia from 2007 to
2010, when in essence what was happening, in an earlier
sensitive bilateral relationship, United States support for
Colombia under Plan Colombia, was that after a certain period
of time the issue that we were talking about was how to
Colombianize the effort, which is to say how to do less direct
involvement and participation by the United States Government
and have the Colombian Government do more of these things
themselves.
History proved this was a positive development. What this
meant was the institutions, the organizations, the agencies in
Colombia, were able to take on these responsibilities
themselves, thanks to, in no small measure, the support, the
equipment, the training, the capacity-building that they had
received from us. It would not surprise me at all that this
will become much of the dialogue between the United States and
Mexico in the coming years. Mexico is not Colombia. They are
two very different countries, different histories, different
cultures, different approaches, different relationships with
the United States. But the logic is as we begin to see success
in this cooperation, in this shared endeavor, we will see quite
logically the Government of Mexico saying: These are things
that we will do, these are decisions for us to make, these are
areas where we would expect to be doing on our own these
functions. I would say that is a healthy thing, not an
unhealthy thing.
Senator Kaine. Mr. Feierstein.
Mr. Feierstein. Sure, thank you. Just very briefly, I would
suspect that the Mexicans would underscore that they are
emphasizing, as Roberta did, both pillars two and four, and
that USAID is being responsive to those requests. As I note in
my statement, we are about to double the number of states that
we are working in. We are currently working in 11; we are
looking to work in 20 states, training prosecutors, judges,
public defenders, and other operators in the judicial system.
I think they would also probably suggest that they are
pleased with our efforts to work more closely with Mexican
organizations. This is something we are trying to do globally
as an agency, is channel more funds through local
organizations, rely less on United States contractors, and we
are starting to do that with Mexican NGOs, Mexican human rights
groups.
I anticipate also that they would be pleased with our
responsiveness to their desire to learn more from various U.S.
cities, particularly Los Angeles. There is real interest in
Mexico, in Central America, and elsewhere about the success
that L.A. has had in reducing gang activity, and we have been
able to send the deputy mayor from L.A. to Mexico last week and
he has been able to share some of the lessons they have
learned.
So I would hope that the Mexicans would recognize our
responsiveness to their needs and their priorities.
Thank you.
Senator Kaine. Another question if I could, Mr. Chair. This
is a general question that I would like to hear the perspective
of panel two on as well. The Mexican economic track record has
had some pretty spectacular success in recent years. Secretary
Jacobson talked a bit about it. Whether you measure it by
trade, the openness of trade, the growth of the middle class,
the purchase of consumer goods, the whole series of things that
are happening are pretty positive.
I would assume that kind of as you think about that pillar
four, the resilience of communities, increasing economic
standard of life both creates resources to deal with problems,
but also shows young people that they have a path to success
that is not involving criminal activity, and that also may even
create sort of a more demanding populace. My sense is sort of
the more economically positive people have it, the more they
want to demand a government and a set of civil institutions
that sort of protect the success that we are achieving.
If you could talk a little bit about that, that economic
arc that Mexico is on and how it bears upon this resilient
communities pillar four in the Merida Initiative, that would be
great.
Ms. Jacobson. I think you have got it exactly right,
Senator. I think that the virtuous circle that we are sort of
all trying to reinforce with the community programs and with
the economic development has a huge impact on what happens on
fighting transnational crime. We have seen that everyplace.
Those two things are inextricably linked. If there is no
optimistic future for young people, if they don't have access
to education, if there is not economic growth, then the lure of
the criminal organizations is just that much greater. They may
not go away completely during good economic times, but they
certainly are easier to encourage kids to stay away from.
But I also think that we have learned that constraints to
growth become much, much more difficult when you have a severe
security situation. We know that investors look at the security
situation. We know that companies have to build into their
bottom line what they have to pay for private security if the
state is not providing it.
So I think one of the things that was not as well
understood perhaps at the beginning of our engagement with
Mexico, although we certainly learned it, as Bill underscored,
in Colombia, is the engagement of the private sector in this
battle. It cannot be just the government's responsibility and
it cannot even be just civil society or NGOs. It has to be with
the private sector, and I think AID has done a lot in that
regard.
But the other thing that I think has happened in Mexico is
a real understanding of the next set of economic reforms that
really does bring Mexico into the kinds of growth rates that
are going to make a big dent in their social structure and the
ability to fight transnational crime. We have all been saying
to some extent in the 20 years since NAFTA was passed and
implemented that the other part of the economic reforms did not
all get made. Free trade agreements only take you so far. Now
this government in only 6 months in office has already passed
labor reform. They have passed education reform. They are
focusing now on fiscal reform, on financial reform, on energy
reform. Those are the kinds of things that are going to sort of
lay down those roots in economic growth and provide, I think,
the next great leap forward for the Mexican system, and also
are really an important part of fighting crime and improving
the security situation.
Senator Kaine. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Udall. Thank you. Thank you for those answers. One
of the most important next steps in the United States-Mexico
security cooperation is the transition to an adversarial system
in Mexico. I remember when I was State attorney general and we
used to share back and forth with Mexico trips to visit with
law enforcement officials across the border. They were very
interested in our adversarial system, and, in fact, I think I
loaned one of my prosecutors to them for a couple of months
because they wanted to learn more about the system.
We know it is going to be very complicated, requiring
judges, lawyers, police officers, detention officials, and it
is going to take some real political will to do this. I was
wondering, during President Obama's visit with President Pena
Nieto was this issue discussed? Do you believe that Mexico's
plans to accelerate judicial reforms are on track? And if not,
what needs to be done to get them back on track?
Ms. Jacobson. I am just going to start that off real
quickly, to say that I thank you for your recollection, Mr.
Chairman, of loaning a prosecutor to Mexico. The Western States
in particular and the Western attorneys general have been just
stalwart supporters of that transition in Mexico. Without the
resources of State prosecutors going to Mexico, helping to
train folks, working with the bar association in Mexico,
working with law schools, none of this could be done.
But the Mexicans have given themselves a pretty short
window. This constitutional reform passed in 2008. It is
supposed to be completed by 2016. They do have a long way to
go. So I think President Pena Nieto's acceleration of that
process is most welcome.
He did talk about it with the President when President
Obama was in Mexico. He talked about, in particular, what he
had seen happen in the state of Mexico when he was governor and
the way in which, as Mark said, the way in which it really did
open the system up; open it up for scrutiny by the public in a
much more transparent way and reduce pretrial detention, and
also keep many cases from ever getting to court because they
could be resolved through alternate means.
So I do think there is a lot of work still to be done. But
we are pretty optimistic that this is a high priority.
Mr. Brownfield. We will do a tag team here, Mr. Chairman. I
reinforce and concur with everything Roberta has said,
including, by the way--and this has happened since you left
your prosecutorial responsibilities--within the last 3 months I
have signed an MOU with the current attorney general of the
State of New Mexico formalizing this relationship and your
State's willingness to provide prosecutors for specific
training and specific programs in Mexico.
We have in essence, ``we'' the United States Government,
have divided responsibility for support on this particular
issue, with my side, State INL, managing the Federal Government
side of this reform and Mark's people handling the State and
local side, because, to remind us all, Mexico, like the United
States of America, is a federal system. Ninety percent of all
courts, cases, and law enforcement is performed at the state
and local level.
We have provided some degree of training through the
Department of Justice to 8,500 prosecutors in the Federal
Attorney General's Office. We have worked with the Government
of Mexico to establish basic law enforcement and police
standards that would be applicable throughout the entire
country. And as the new government, now not so new government,
has organized its own efforts into its five regions where it
attempts to do reforms and support for its national security
policy, we have tracked onto those regions, placing an adviser
and working a specific regional strategy for each one.
I am actually optimistic on this, Mr. Chairman. I am not
saying we won't hit some bumps in this road to 2016, but I am
saying right now you are hearing from a fairly optimistic
person.
Dr. Feierstein, over to you.
Mr. Feierstein. Thank you. I think I would share the
optimism as well, but just underscore what a daunting task it
is. Mexico is really undergoing a judicial revolution to make
this transition to the accusatorial system in just a matter of
a few years. It requires a whole range of training. I noted the
training for judges, prosecutors, public defenders that we are
doing. We have also been sponsoring judicial exchanges. A
number of judges have come to the United States to see how the
U.S. system operates. We have been working with law schools to
help them to reform their curricula because it means that
students who are now about to enter the legal field have to
learn a whole new curriculum.
It requires as well support for NGOs to help them to
educate the public. The public needs to understand what the
system is about, what their rights are. I think initially there
was some skepticism both among the public and among judges and
lawyers. We think that is changing as people start to see how
the system operates. They are seeing some of the early results.
I noted that we are seeing that cases are being resolved more
quickly, acquittal rates are coming down. As long as those
results continue, I think we will continue to see strong
support from the Mexico public and from those operating in the
judicial system.
Having said that, this is, as Bill Brownfield noted, a
Federal system. There are some states that are moving very
quickly. Others are moving more slowly. And we are prepared to
provide the support to those states that have the political
will and putting in the resources necessary to make this
transition.
Thank you.
Senator Udall. So it sounds to me like they are making
significant progress, but some states are going slower. Are
they on track to do it all in 2016 or are you going to have a
few laggard states? What is your judgment there, Mark or
Roberta?
Mr. Feierstein. I hate to make predictions, especially in
the context of a hearing like this. But certainly there is a
constitutionally imposed deadline that all the states are
required to meet. This new administration, the Pena
administration, is clearly committed to help the states reach
that goal by 2016. And we are prepared to provide whatever
support we can to help them achieve that.
Senator Udall. Great. Thank you.
Senator Murphy.
Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you for this hearing.
I am sorry that I missed some of your testimony, but I read
most of it. One of the things I was struck by in reading the
testimony is that a lot of our assessment of success here, a
lot of the measurements that we use, are couched in terms of
the number of dollars spent, the number of individuals that we
have trained, journalists, prosecutors, human rights advocates,
officers.
So I wanted to ask a deeper question about how we assess
performance of the Merida Initiative as it exists today, but
the larger security relationship going forward. We have other
metrics available to us. You have the simple one of levels of
violent crime. But I guess my question is, As members of this
committee what should be the measurements--and I will put the
question first to you, Secretary Jacobson--should be the
measurements that we look to?
Is measurement of violent crime enough? And if not, what do
we look to in between just the mere measurements of dollars and
personnel trained and then that final number, which is the
number of Mexicans that are victims of the violent crime that
we are trying to stop? Is there something in between that we
can look to to try to judge the month to month, year to year,
success of this relationship?
Ms. Jacobson. Thank you, Senator, and thanks for being
here. I think you ask a really important question and frankly
one which I with my partners here have been wrestling since the
beginning of the initiative, because we know that you cannot
start down this road without knowing what success looks like
and what you are going to look at as measurements.
I think, in fact, there are things that we need to look at
in between. Some of them are good measures, some of them are
partial at best, some of them have to be taken sort of over
time to see trend lines. I will let Bill and Mark talk a little
bit about what each of their particular programs are using.
But there are measures that we have used in this region for
a long time in looking at drug cartels and drug trafficking,
things like seizures of drugs. But seizures of drugs are at
best a very imperfect measure. They either mean that the cops
are doing a much better job and they are seizing a lot more
drugs or they mean that a lot more drugs are going through a
territory in the first place.
So what you want to do is you want to put together a lot of
different measures. You also want to know--and I think Mark and
I have talked about this particularly as we look at communities
and their resilience--how do people feel about their
institutions? Do they have more confidence in them? Is the
system stronger and more responsive to them?
Some of this should be done in public opinion surveys over
time, but probably takes a longer amount of time for both
people to feel more confident in the system, as Mark was
referring to it, and also to have those results kind of
translate back into the community.
But we know that some of it is also a question of how many
cases are actually prosecuted and taken all the way to trial,
what is the conviction rate, how many cases don't ever come to
trial because they are settled? So depending on the program, we
have different kinds of metrics. When we are doing equipment,
whether it is nonintrusive inspection equipment or helicopters,
that may be a lot easier to measure. Are they using them for
what they were designed for? Bill talked about how much has
been seized in programs that are designed to look at cargo or
travelers and see whether contraband is being brought in of any
sort--weapons, guns, money.
So there are lots of different measures. We have developed
metrics with the Mexican Government for individual programs.
But I think we do owe both you all and the taxpayers, as well
as our colleagues and the Mexicans, interim looks at how we are
doing. And we have done that with GAO and others as we have
gone along, but still a work I progress.
Mr. Brownfield. If I could just add a little bit to that,
Senator Murphy. Your question is right on the mark and I would
submit that what has happened, which is logical and coherent
and inevitably happens in this sort of program, is the first 2
or 3 years are metrics or what I would call inputs, which is to
say what have we delivered? How many aircraft, how many
vehicles, how much equipment? Or for that matter, how many
individuals have been trained? And you hold us pretty intensely
to a standard of wanting to see material after you have
appropriated the funds getting down there where it can do some
good.
We are now in year 6 of this joint shared effort between
the United States and Mexico, and the metrics obviously have to
shift to another level. That is what I guess I would call
outputs. You put your finger on one: What is the homicide rate?
What is the violence rate? That would obviously be a pretty
clear indication that we are having an impact.
There are others, some of which Roberta has mentioned:
conviction rates or numbers of arrests, which would tell you
the police are actually doing their job or the prosecutors are
actually doing their job. There is seizures and interdictions,
which would suggest those who are manning the borders or
monitoring the highways are doing their job. There is a
numerical issue in terms of how many police are on the street
today, federal as well as state or local? Or if corruption is
an issue, how many corrupt officials have been removed? Just
give us the number. Is it 10? is it 1,000? is it 10,000? That
is a useful number to know.
In the case of financial crime and money-laundering, we can
measure how much has been taken out of the system. In other
words, we do have a series of metrics which should make
logical, coherent sense to everyone, which answers the
question, What is the impact that we are getting from the $1.6
billion that has so far been appropriated by Congress to
support the Merida Initiative in terms of the funds that I
manage?
Dr. Feierstein.
Senator Murphy. Dr. Feierstein, the question of inputs and
outputs is not one that USAID is unfamiliar with. I know you
deal with this question all the time.
Mr. Feierstein. We are very much familiar with it. Thank
you very much. I appreciate the question.
First in the area of judicial reform, we are looking at
five particular metrics. They are: are cases being resolved?
Are more cases being resolved? How fast are they being
resolved? Are acquittal rates moving lower? Are sentences
tougher for serious crimes? And is pretrial detention coming
down?
To the extent that we can move, help move those five
metrics, in the states undergoing the reform, we would consider
that a success.
In the cities where we are helping to reduce crime and
violence and supporting activities, for example, with at-risk
youth, we have a program with Vanderbilt--and we also have one
with Vanderbilt University in Central America--where we are
able to look at the impact of our programs in the cities, in
the communities where we are operating, and also look at
comparable communities, so we get a sense of the impact of our
programs, are they working to reduce crime, are they not, and
if they are working which of the activities are most successful
and leading to those reductions.
The goal of our programs--the value of USAID's program
actually is not about the size of the budget. What we can put
into Mexico is quite modest and, as I noted in my statement,
the Mexicans are prepared, the Mexican Government is prepared,
to invest $9 billion in prevention. What we are trying to do is
help them to develop certain models that they can then take to
scale. We are confident with Vanderbilt University we will be
able to figure out what is working, what is not working, and
what can the Mexicans then take the scale.
Thank you.
Senator Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Udall. Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. The one last question that I was going to
ask this panel is just--and it has already been alluded to
really--is the USAID experience and all of your experience in
Colombia--you know, Colombia was synonymous with violent crime,
horrible security challenge. ``Medellin'' called up all these
images. I am not sure we have told the story to the American
public as much as we possibly should, not that there aren't
still challenges in Colombia, but the significant investment
that we made through Plan Colombia has been accompanied with
some really dramatic reductions in crime and increases in
economic activity and political stability.
So I am sort of curious, since USAID was so much on the
front lines of Plan Colombia, what are lessons to extract from
that success, acknowledging the different culture that had been
mentioned by Secretary Brownfield earlier. But what are some of
the lessons to extract from that success as we go forward into
continuing the Merida Initiative?
Mr. Feierstein. Thank you, Senator. It is a great question
and I will start off and then defer to my colleagues, who know
Colombia very well as well.
I think first in Colombia you had real political will. The
entire society came together, all political parties, civil
society, the private sector, and understood that they had to
make a concerted effort to defeat drug trafficking, to defeat
the guerrillas, and it required a whole range of activities to
do that.
Second, they were prepared to invest their own resources.
It is true the U.S. Government invested a lot, but the
Colombians themselves invested millions and millions. President
Uribe passed a security tax. Beyond the efforts at the national
level in Colombia, I think we have also seen some very
innovative local leadership. You mentioned Medellin. They have
had a terrific series of mayors, Bogota as well, and they have
been able to introduce some pretty innovative ways to reduce
crime and violence, focusing on creating appropriate urban
spaces, investing in at-risk youth, and a whole range of other
activities.
The Mexicans and others have taken real interest in the
Colombian experience. In fact, we have been able to sponsor
some exchanges. We had some officials from Medellin in Mexico.
So I think there is an awful lot to learn from Colombia.
Now we are trying to institutionalize that relationship
through what we call trilevel cooperation, basically working
with Colombia and third countries, and Mexico is among those
countries who we help to work with the Colombians.
Thank you.
Mr. Brownfield. We will go down in reverse order for this
answer.
Senator--and I will offer you my six lessons learned as I
attempted near the end of my tenure in Colombia to answer just
that question: What have we learned here that could be
applicable elsewhere? Mark has already alluded to several of
them.
One, there must be a degree of consensus, both in the
country and between that country's government and us, as to
what are we attempting to accomplish here? What is the
objective? If you don't have that consensus, if you don't have
that agreement, you will eventually fail. It is just
inevitable.
Second, you need to identify your partners. Maybe there are
no partners, but there are usually others in the international
community, whether governments or international organizations
or international financial institutions or NGOs. Who else is
interested in the issue and willing to work to address those
threats and problems?
Third, you must think in I would call it almost sequential
or a transitional mode. In other words, what you might be doing
on day one is very certainly going to be different from what
you will be doing at the end of 5 years or 6 years. You have
got to have a concept. In Colombia the concept was heavy on
security at the start and then ratchet down on security and
begin to build up on the developmental side, operating on the
assumption that you cannot do a lot of developmental work if
your people are just going to get whacked when they are out in
the field because there is no security. Every country is
different. Figure what the transition is.
Fourth, some degree of flexibility. There is no plan ever
in the history of the human race that was so perfect that it
required no adjustment, no change, no modification in the
course of its development. We learned that lesson many times
the hard way in Colombia and we will undoubtedly have to apply
that lesson in any other country in the world.
Fifth, assume at some point, because you, the United States
Congress, will force us to do it, that we must eventually
nationalize. If you continue to see that it is the United
States Government doing all the program, spending all the money
and doing all of the operations, eventually you will say: Are
we ever going to see an end to this?
That gets me to the sixth and final lesson, and that is
have some sense of what the end game is. If end game is
perfection, we will never get there, at least not--well not in
this world. We have to have some sense, ideally some consensus,
as to what we are prepared to say is the point where we have
successfully reached a sustainable relationship that does not
require a continued substantial investment of the taxpayers'
money.
Dr. J.
Ms. Jacobson. The only short sentence I would add to that
is I do think that the American taxpayers should be pleased
with the fact--and Mark and Bill have both alluded to it--that
the assistance that we provided to Colombia over these many
years in some ways is having really a multiplier effect or is
being repaid in some respects by the extent to which Colombians
are now able the help their neighbors on some of the things
that they learned and did right and only they can really convey
much more effectively than we can, whether it is in Mexico,
Central America, or the Caribbean.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Senator Kaine.
As predicted, our 3 o'clock vote has gone off and we are
almost halfway through it at this point. So I just wanted to
thank all three of you for your service. We very much
appreciate your attendance here today. I think you gave
excellent, excellent testimony and I think really taught us a
lot about what is happening down there.
This panel will be excused and the second panel--we are
expecting to be back here about 4 o'clock is what we are
predicting at this point. So thank you very much and we will be
in recess until 4 p.m.
[Recess from 3:07 p.m. to 4:11 p.m.]
Senator Udall. Welcome. Thank you very much for being here
today. We really appreciate it. We are very glad you
accommodated us on the vote. As you know, we interrupted panel
one and panel two with a vote. So thank you for being here.
What we are going to do is do your--I have already done an
opening statement. If Senator Kaine wants to do a brief one at
the beginning here, we can do that. But do your statements and
keep them to 5 minutes, and then have questions and discussion.
Hopefully, we are going to get you out of here about 5 o'clock.
So that is the plan.
Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Just real quick, Mr. Chair. I am thrilled to
have the panel here. I came out and apologized to them all,
because I have the best excused absence ever at 4:30, which is
I have a meeting with the Mexican Ambassador to the United
States. So I think, given the topic, I wanted to tell you, too,
as well. I want to hear the opening statements, then I will
have to duck. But these are great witnesses and I am sure they
are going to have good things for us to hear.
Senator Udall. Well, thank you very much. Being on the
Western Hemisphere Committee, that is right along the line of
duty there. So it is great to hear that.
Why don't we start, Dr. O'Neil, with you and then we will
move down with Mr. Steinberg and then Dr. Wood.
Thank you. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF DR. SHANNON K. O'NEIL, PH.D., SENIOR FELLOW FOR
LATIN AMERICA STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, NEW YORK,
NY
Dr. O'Neil. Thank you very much, Chairman Udall, Senator
Kaine. Thank you so much for this opportunity to testify today
on this important issue of our bilateral security relationship
with Mexico.
The United States-Mexico security cooperation, led by the
Merida Initiative, is vital and must continue. Building on the
lessons of the past 5 years, the United States should work with
Mexico to implement the programs envisioned in the current
framework, and in particular prioritizing Mexico's judicial
reform, its state and local level training and initiatives, and
modernizing the United States-Mexico border.
During his campaign, Enrique Pena Nieto promised to shift
the country's current security strategy away from combating
drug trafficking toward reducing violence. But during his first
6 months, we have seen more continuity than change in this
strategy. His plan maintains a role for the armed forces and
calls for creating a firmer legal basis for the military's
public security role. He has said that he will continue to push
through the judicial reform that was begun in 2008. He has also
promised to build on community-based programs such as Todos
Somos Juarez in Ciudad Juarez, expanding and prioritizing
broad-based crime prevention efforts.
Some strategic changes are planned. The government has
announced that it will create a new national gendarmerie, a
40,000-person force. It has also begun the process of
centralizing control and command of the security apparatus
under the Ministry of the Interior, beginning with folding in
the autonomous federal police force back under this wing. These
centralizing tendencies will also affect the United States-
Mexico cooperation, requiring all joint programs to be
channeled through this ministry.
The government has also announced that it will consolidate
the over 2,000 local police forces into 31 state-level
commands.
It is still somewhat unclear what these announcements will
mean in reality. For instance, many question whether the
gendarmerie will ever come to pass, or whether Pena Nieto will
fare better than President Calderon in his efforts to replace
the local police forces with state-level forces.
For the United States, these announcements will change how
law enforcement and other agencies work with Mexico on security
issues. But this most recent articulation by the Mexican
Government should not be seen as the last or permanent word on
United States-Mexico security cooperation. Instead, it should
be considered as part of an ongoing discussion and evolution in
the relationship.
So, recognizing that, the United States should prioritize
three areas. The first is judicial reform, as long-term
sustainable security will only exist in Mexico when it has a
strong civilian-based rule of law and is able to take on and
punish all types of criminal activity. In 2008 Mexico passed a
wide-ranging package of constitutional and legislative reforms
to transform the justice system, introducing oral trials, the
presumption of innocence, an adequate defense, strengthening
due process, and establishing alternative arbitration
mechanisms and plea bargaining.
All told, these reforms should increase transparency and
accountability and improve justice more generally.
With President Pena Nieto's backing, United States
resources can help achieve this transformation, creating or
remodeling courtrooms, training or retraining Mexico's over
40,000 active lawyers and judges, and revamping law school
courses and materials to prepare the next generation of justice
officials.
Second, U.S. security should continue to move beyond the
federal level, focusing on state and local challenges. This
support should involve not only expanding training and
professionalization of local police, but should move beyond the
classroom to help develop systems of standards, police
procedures, evaluation mechanisms. As most of Mexico's federal
or local police forces, they lack elements as basic as manuals
that lay out standard practices.
Finally, the United States should prioritize the
modernization of the United States-Mexico border. This means
expanding roads, bridges, express lanes for trusted travelers,
as well as increase the number of U.S. Customs and other
officials and staff at the main ports of entry. These
investments are vital for security, helping keep out illicit
goods and people. But upgrading the border has the added
benefit of facilitating legal trade, which supports U.S.
companies and an estimated 6 million U.S. jobs.
These outlined initiatives, many already part of the Merida
framework, have a greater chance of reducing violence in Mexico
as they will help strengthen police forces, court systems, and
local communities. In the end, Mexico's security will depend on
the actions and decisions of Mexico. But there is much the
United States can do to help or hinder the process, and a
justice and locally based approach to United States security
assistance will help Mexico establish more effective and
longlasting tools for combating crime and violence.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. O'Neil follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Shannon K. O'Neil
Chairman Udall, Ranking Member McCain, and distinguished members of
the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere and Global Narcotics Affairs,
thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the important issue
of our bilateral security relationship with Mexico. Given our deep
economic, personal, and community ties, Mexico's safety and security is
vital to our own. A strong and safe Mexico will have positive benefits
for the United States, while a dangerous Mexico will have repercussions
far beyond the southern U.S. border.
refocusing u.s.-mexico security cooperation
U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, led by the Merida Initiative, is
vital and must continue. But Mexico's political landscape has changed
under the Enrique Pena Nieto government, and the United States must
adjust its strategy and support accordingly. Building on the lessons of
the past 5 years, the United States should work with Mexico to
implement the nonmilitary programs envisioned in the current Merida
framework, in particular supporting and prioritizing Mexico's ongoing
judicial reform, training police officers at the state and local
levels, investing in local community and youth-oriented programs, and
modernizing the U.S.-Mexico border.
the merida initiative after five years
The Merida Initiative was launched in 2007 under the George W. Bush
administration, which promised $1.4 billion over 3 years to ``support
Mexico's law enforcement in the fight against organized crime.'' The
Obama administration revised and expanded Merida's mission, moving from
a heavy emphasis on military equipment to a more comprehensive
bilateral strategy that seeks to reduce the role and influence of
organized crime. The initiative now encompasses four priorities (called
pillars): disrupting the operational capacity of organized crime,
institutionalizing the rule of law, creating a 21st-century border to
speed the flow of legal commerce and stop that of illegal goods, and
building strong and resilient communities that can stand up to criminal
intrusions. The main problem today is not Merida's design but its
uneven implementation, with the gains in some areas offset by minimal
progress in others.
Together Mexico and the United States have been most successful in
removing drug kingpins. In the last few years Mexican authorities have
captured or killed the majority of the most-wanted drug traffickers and
substantially disrupted the operations of Mexico's best-known criminal
networks. Many of these high-profile arrests resulted from bilateral
intelligence and operational cooperation.
Advances have been made as well in strengthening the rule of law,
most notably the expansion and professionalization of the federal
police. But progress has been slight beyond this particular law
enforcement body, which represents just 10 percent of Mexico's police
forces. The United States has also provided support for justice reform.
Though a set of 2008 constitutional and legislative reforms set in
motion a fundamental transformation of Mexico's court systems, the
implementation of these changes has been slow, so much so that many
worry the shift will not occur by the 2016 deadline, leaving Mexico's
judicial future uncertain. On a practical level, rising crime and
violence have exposed the weak capacity of the current justice system.
With fewer than 20 percent of homicides ending in convictions, impunity
reigns, providing a weak legal deterrent to a life of crime.
Initiatives to modernize the border and build resilient communities
(pillars three and four of the Merida Initiative) are further behind.
Though some innovative border management programs, such as the Customs
Trade Partnership Against Terrorism--which helps trusted businesses
avoid extensive border checks--have improved efficiency, the overall
tenor of U.S. policy has been to increase barriers, slowing flows of
legal commerce. Financially, investment in border crossings and
infrastructure has not matched the exponential increase in trade
crossing the border each year. Investment has lagged not only for new
construction, but also for basic maintenance on existing
infrastructure, leading to overwhelmed and at times downright dangerous
facilities (the San Ysidro border crossing roof collapsed in 2011,
injuring 17 people). Stressed infrastructure has also led to traffic
jams lasting up to 8 hours, and has cost billions of dollars in trade
losses, without drastically discouraging or disrupting illegal flows.
The building of ``resilient communities,'' too, has been limited.
The pillar's ambitious objectives of addressing the underlying
socioeconomic and community factors behind rising crime rates have not
yet moved beyond pilot programs in Ciudad Jurez and a few other places.
Finally, though talking often of coresponsibility in the drug war,
the United States has done little to address the domestic factors that
affect Mexico's security. The illegal flow of weapons and money
southward continues unabated, and U.S. drug consumption remains high.
(The 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that just under
9 percent of Americans over the age of 12 used illegal drugs in the
past month.)
changing realities on the ground
As the U.S.-Mexico security cooperation strategy has evolved, so,
too, have the realities on the ground. The most drastic shift is the
rise in violence. When the Merida Initiative was signed in 2007, there
were just over 2,000 drug-related homicides annually; by 2012, the
number escalated to more than 12,000. Violence also spread from roughly
50 municipalities in 2007 (mostly along the border and in Sinaloa) to
some 240 municipalities throughout Mexico in 2011, including the once-
safe industrial center of Monterrey and cities such as Acapulco, Nuevo
Laredo, and Torreon.
This increase in violence is not just the direct result of drug
trafficking. Criminal organizations have diversified into numerous
illicit businesses, including kidnapping, robbery, human trafficking,
extortion, and retail drug sales, and as a result prey more directly on
the local population. One recent survey found that over 40 percent of
Mexicans reported that they or a family member had been a victim of a
crime in the past year.
Mexico's politics have also changed. On December 1, 2012, Enrique
Pena Nieto became President, bringing the Institutional Revolutionary
Party's (PRI) back into Los Pinos, Mexico's White House. During his
campaign, he promised to shift the country's current security strategy
away from combating drug trafficking toward reducing violence.
Throughout his first 6 months however he has been somewhat slow to
define the details of his new security approach, though the general
announcements reflect more continuity than change. Pena Nieto's
National Development Plan maintains a role for the armed forces, and in
fact calls for creating a firmer legal basis for the military's public
security role. He has said he will continue to push through the
judicial reform begun in 2008. He has also promised to build on
programs such as Todos Somos Juarez, expanding and prioritizing broad-
based crime prevention efforts.
Some strategic changes are planned. The government has announced it
will create a new national gendarmerie, a 40,000 member force. It has
also begun the process of centralizing control and command of the
security apparatus under the Ministry of the Interior, beginning with
folding the autonomous Federal Police back under its wing. These
centripetal tendencies also will affect U.S.-Mexico cooperation,
requiring joint programs to be channeled through this same Ministry,
ending the decentralized engagement between U.S. and Mexican agencies
and agents that occurred during the Calderon administration. The Pena
Nieto government has also announced it will consolidate the roughly
2,000 local police forces into 31 state-level commands--something the
Calderon administration tried but failed to do.
It is still somewhat unclear what these announcements will mean in
reality and on the ground. For instance Mexican officials have said
that members of the new gendarmerie will march in this year's September
Independence Day parade; yet at the same time, the force was not
mentioned in the government's recently released National Development
Plan, nor adequately provided for in last year's federal budget,
leading many to question whether it will ever come to pass. There are
questions, too, about the centralization of the local police into
state-level forces, as many cities and states may push back on
relinquishing control of their security forces.
u.s.-mexico security cooperation going forward
These announced changes will lead to some shifts in how U.S. law
enforcement and other agencies work with Mexico on security issues.
Within the United States there are worries that these changes will
stifle cooperation, and in particular the flow of information--
especially sensitive intelligence--that has been important in many of
the successful operations and takedowns of recent years. But the most
recent articulation by the Mexican Government should not be seen as the
last or permanent word on the future of U.S.-Mexico security
cooperation. Instead, it should be considered as part of the ongoing
discussion and evolution in the relationship that has happened, that is
happening, and that will continue to happen in the coming months and
years. The challenge for the United States is to work with the new
Mexican administration and legislative branch in ways that are both
congruent with their objectives, and that also enable both countries to
push past the current limits on security cooperation and
implementation. As the consequences of the changes in the operational
relationship become clear, there will likely be both the desire and the
opportunity to adapt bilateral and operational strategies, and the
United States should be prepared to take advantage of these openings to
focus and refocus bilateral efforts.
U.S. assistance will undoubtedly remain a small portion of the
overall security spending in Mexico, as it should be. But with the
funds that the United States does dedicate, it should prioritize
civilian (versus military) law enforcement institutions, and focus on
four areas. The first is judicial reform, as long-term sustainable
security will only exist when Mexico has a strong civilian-based rule
of law, and is able to take on and punish all types of criminal
activity.
In 2008, Mexico passed a wide-ranging package of constitutional and
legislative reforms that, if and when enacted, will fundamentally
transform Mexico's judicial system. The new legal framework introduces
oral trials, the presumption of innocence, access to an adequate
defense, and strengthens due process. It also establishes alternative
arbitration and plea bargaining options to help streamline the legal
process, helping prosecutors to prioritize their time and resources
more strategically. It bolsters investigation and prosecution tools
against organized crime, making it easier to tap phones and to hold
suspects, effectively suspending habeas corpus for especially serious
crimes.
All told, the reforms promise to change the basic nature of the
system and the role of its main actors--judges, prosecutors, police,
defense attorneys, defendants, and victims--in ways that should
increase transparency and accountability and improve justice more
generally. But, with the deadline for the reform's implementation set
for 2016, not enough has been done yet to make this design a reality.
At the federal level the government still needs to pass unified penal
and criminal procedure codes, and a majority of states still have huge
hurdles to climb. In the roughly one-third of Mexico's states that have
implemented at least in part the new judicial framework, initial
studies show the new systems are faster in resolving cases, better at
prioritizing serious crimes, able to limit pretrial detentions, and
lead to tougher sentences for the convicted. With President Pena
Nieto's backing, U.S. resources can help Mexico achieve this
transformation, creating or remodeling courtrooms, training or
retraining Mexico's roughly 40,000 active lawyers and thousands of
judges, and revamping law school courses and materials to prepare the
next generation of judicial system officials.
Second, U.S. security support should continue to move beyond the
federal level, focusing U.S. resources and programs in Mexico on state
and local efforts, as this is where violence and insecurity are most
concentrated and devastating. A shift to the local level would also
enable policymakers and U.S.-supported programs to recognize and
address the varying nature of the violence. In cities such as Ciudad
Juarez, local gangs today are perhaps as threatening as transnational
drug cartels.
This more local focus will involve expanding the training and
professionalization courses available to state and local law
enforcement. It should move beyond classes to greater support for the
development of systems of standards, police procedures, and evaluation
mechanisms for Mexico's local law enforcement, as most of Mexico's
police forces lack elements as basic as manuals that lay out standard
practices. Drawing on known national and international accrediting
agencies and programs such as the Commission on Accreditation for Law
Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), the International Association of
Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, and the Commission
on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the United States can be
useful in helping Mexico define and set these guidelines, to which
officers can then be held accountable.
In addition, these joint U.S. and Mexican local efforts should
concentrate on realizing the so-far-neglected fourth pillar of the
Merida Initiative, which calls for building resilient communities.
Mexico has seen many instances of innovation in places hit hard by
violence, including the business community's involvement in creating a
new state police force in Monterrey, and the security roundtable in
Ciudad Juarez that brings together civil society leaders,
businessowners, political officials, and local, state, and federal law
enforcement to address the security threat. Meeting often on a weekly
basis, these interchanges have helped to slowly build the trust so
lacking in many of these communities, and to cultivate a close working
relationship between law enforcement officers and those they protect--
something largely missing in Mexico, yet vital to a longer term peace
and safety.
In practice, this reorientation will mean more funding for the U.S.
Agency for International Development's (USAID) community projects and
youth programs, as well as INL's training of state and municipal police
(as opposed to just federal-level officers).
Finally, the United States should prioritize the modernization of
the U.S.-Mexico border. This means expanding its roads, bridges, and
FAST lanes (express lanes for trusted drivers), as well as increasing
the number of U.S. customs officers, agricultural specialists, and
support staff that man the ports of entry. The estimated cost of these
necessary investments would also be relatively small, with the U.S.
Customs and Border Patrol estimating the need for some $6 billion over
the next decade. These investments are vital for security, helping to
keep out illicit goods and people. Upgrading the border has an added
benefit, as it will facilitate legal trade, where consultants estimate
losses in the tens of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of
jobs, due to long border wait times and distances between ports of
entry.
The outlined initiatives--many already part of the Merida
framework--have a greater chance of reducing violence in Mexico, as
they will help strengthen police forces, court systems, and local
communities. The border improvements, moreover, will benefit both the
U.S. and Mexican economies, which can have indirect positive effects by
providing greater legal opportunities to young people. In the end,
Mexico's security will depend on the actions and decisions of Mexico.
But there is much the United States can do to help or hinder the
process. A transition to a justice and a more local level and
community-based approach to U.S. security assistance will help Mexico
establish more effective and long-lasting tools for combating crime and
violence.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Dr. O'Neil.
Let us move to Mr. Steinberg now.
STATEMENT OF NIK STEINBERG, SENIOR RESEARCHER, AMERICAS
DIVISION, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, NEW YORK, NY
Mr. Steinberg. Chairman Udall, Senator Kaine, thank you for
the opportunity to address this committee. My name is Nik
Steinberg and I am the senior researcher in the Americans
Division at Human Rights Watch.
In recent years the public security strategy pursued by the
Mexican Government has led to one of the worst human rights
crises in Latin America in decades. In December 2006, then-
President Felipe Calderon deployed the military to confront
Mexico's powerful and violent cartels. The strategy, which he
called a war on drugs, led to a dramatic increase in serious
abuses by security forces.
For example, we documented the systematic use of torture by
soldiers and police in five states, including the routine use
of waterboarding, electric shocks, and beatings to obtain
intelligence. Despite unimpeachable evidence of these and other
abuses, Calderon spent virtually his entire Presidency
vigorously denying that they had occurred. Instead, he falsely
claimed that 90 percent of the victims of drug-related violence
were criminals. While in his final year in office he
reluctantly conceded that abuses had occurred, he continued to
insist that they were isolated.
For their part, prosecutors consistently neglected to carry
out even the most basic steps to investigate these abuses. As a
result, virtually none of the soldiers and police responsible
were punished for their crimes.
The strategy also failed to stop an alarming increase in
violence and dismantle cartels. By the government's tally, more
than 70,000 people were killed in drug violence during the
Calderon years, and out of roughly 620,000 people who were
detained in counternarcotics operations, nearly 500,000, 80
percent, were released for lack of evidence or on bail.
Since President Pena Nieto took office, we have seen a
shift in the government's willingness to acknowledge the abuses
that occur. In February 2013, for example, Human Rights Watch
released a report documenting widespread abuses by Mexican
security forces. The day we released the report, the Pena Nieto
administration acknowledged that more than 26,000 people had
been reported to government officials as disappeared or
missing, a number never before made public.
Two weeks ago I was in the Mexican state of Coahuila, which
is across the border from Texas and is among those hardest hit
by drug violence. The Governor there told me that more than
1,800 people had disappeared in his state alone. Yet in only
one case have prosecutors' efforts led to the conviction of
those responsible.
While I was there, Mexico's Deputy Attorney General came to
meet with relatives of the disappeared. In a public address, he
told them that Mexico is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis,
to which the government's response has been grossly inadequate.
While acknowledging these problems is a positive step, Pena
Nieto has yet to put forward a concrete plan to address them. A
critical question is, How will this administration's security
strategy be different from its predecessors? Until now, Pena
Nieto has not answered that question, nor has his government
shown meaningful progress in prosecuting any of the hundreds of
abuses documented by Human Rights Watch.
As the main supplier of illicit weapons and destination for
drugs trafficked through Mexico, the United States has a shared
responsibility for tackling Mexico's organized crime problem.
The United States has taken an active role in these efforts
through the Merida Initiative, which has channeled almost $2
billion to Mexico since 2007. Fifteen percent of that
assistance is supposed to be conditioned annually to Mexico's
ability to meet a set of basic human rights requirements. Yet,
despite unequivocal evidence that Mexico has not met these
requirements, the Obama administration has repeatedly released
the conditioned funds.
So what can the U.S. Government do to address this crisis?
While it is true that Mexico faces huge challenges, the
willingness of the Pena Nieto administration to acknowledge
those problems and change course presents a unique opportunity.
The United States should seize it by taking an approach that
recognizes respecting human rights as a fundamental part of,
rather than an obstacle to, improving public security.
That means sending a clear message that the only way to
dismantle Mexico's powerful cartels is not through torture or
killings, but rather through comprehensive investigations that
can prosecute vast, sophisticated criminal networks. That will
require training security forces who understand that cutting
corners on rights will only exacerbate the climate of
lawlessness in which cartels thrive, and training prosecutors
who have the ability and the will to investigate criminals and
abusive security forces alike. And it requires enforcing the
human rights conditions set by the U.S. Congress for Merida
assistance, whose fulfillment is in the interest of both
countries.
I thank you for your time and look forward to answering any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Steinberg follows:]
Prepared Statement of Nik Steinberg
Chairman Udall, Ranking Member McCain, and distinguished members of
the committee, thank you for this opportunity to address the
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere and Global Narcotics Affairs on the
critically important issue of the United States-Mexico security
relationship. My name is Nik Steinberg and I am a senior researcher in
the Americas division at Human Rights Watch.
My testimony today will be divided into three parts. The first will
set out the widespread human rights violations committed by Mexican
security forces with near complete impunity over the past 6 years of
the ``war on drugs.'' The second will analyze the Pena Nieto
administration's response to the human rights crisis it inherited.
While the new administration has acknowledged the unprecedented scale
of abuses and the shortcomings of its predecessor's overall public
security strategy, it has demonstrated little progress in the
investigations into those abuses or reforms to the policy that produced
them. The third and final part will ask how the U.S. can play an active
role in helping Mexico create a less abusive, and more effective,
public security strategy, which is in both countries' interest.
widespread abuses and impunity in mexico's ``war on drugs''
In December 2006, then-President Felipe Calderon deployed Mexico's
military to confront the country's powerful and violent cartels. The
strategy produced a dramatic increase in serious abuses committed by
security forces, virtually none of which have been adequately
investigated and prosecuted.
Enforced Disappearances
Human Rights Watch has documented approximately 150 cases of
enforced disappearances during the administration of President Calderon
(Dec. 2006-Dec. 2012)--cases in which we found compelling evidence that
state agents had participated in the crime. These crimes have been
perpetrated by members of all branches of the security forces: the
Army, the Navy, and the federal and local police. In some cases, such
as a series of more than 20 enforced disappearances by Navy personnel
in June and July 2011, the common modus operandi of the crimes, the
scale of the operations, and the inconsistent official accounts suggest
the crimes may have been planned and coordinated. In more than 60 of
the 149 cases, we found evidence that state agents collaborated
directly with organized crime groups to disappear people and extort
payments from their families.
The enforced disappearances documented by Human Rights Watch do not
represent all of the cases in Mexico since 2007. On the contrary,
official statistics leave little doubt that there are hundreds, if not
thousands, more. For example, Mexico's official National Human Rights
Commission (Comisin Nacional de los Derechos Humanos) has registered
nearly 2,500 disappearances in which evidence points to the involvement
of government officials.
Prosecutors and law enforcement officials consistently fail to
search thoroughly and promptly for people reported missing or to
investigate those responsible for the disappearances. All too often,
officials blame the victims and tell families it is their
responsibility to investigate. What limited steps prosecutors take are
undermined by recurring delays, errors, and omissions. The inept or
altogether absent investigations exacerbate the suffering of the
families, for whom not knowing what happened to their loved ones is a
source of perpetual anguish. Making matters worse, families of the
disappeared may lose access to basic social services that are tied to
the victim's employment, forcing them to fight slow, costly, and
emotionally draining battles to restore essential benefits such as
child care.
Torture
Human Rights Watch has obtained credible evidence of torture
committed by state agents in more than 170 cases across five states.
The tactics we documented--which most commonly included beatings,
asphyxiation with plastic bags, waterboarding, electric shocks, sexual
torture, and death threats--are used by members of all security forces.
The apparent aim of such tactics is to extract information about
organized crime, as well as to elicit forced confessions that not only
accept guilt but also a posteriori conceal the abuses by security
forces leading up to and during coercive interrogations.
Authorities responsible for preventing torture have been at best
passive observers, and at worst active participants, in grave abuses.
Prosecutors travel to military bases to take detainees' confessions in
coercive conditions; medical examiners fail to document obvious signs
of physical abuse; and judges admit testimony that defendants allege
was obtained through torture without first investigating the
allegations.
Neither civilian nor military prosecutors adequately investigate
and prosecute cases in which there is compelling evidence of torture.
Officials rarely apply the Istanbul Protocol, a critical tool for
detecting the physical and psychological effects of torture, and
routinely fail to conduct basic steps critical to thorough and
impartial investigations. Instead, prosecutors too often reflexively
dismiss victims' allegations of torture as a cynical ploy by criminals
to evade punishment. As a result of this chronic lack of investigation,
cases of torture are not punished, abusive security forces continue to
use tactics that violate civilians' rights, and a climate of impunity
flourishes, which undermines broader public security efforts.
Extrajudicial Killings
Human Rights Watch obtained credible evidence in 24 cases that
security forces committed extrajudicial killings, and in most of these
cases took steps to conceal their crimes. These killings fall into two
categories: civilians executed by authorities or killed by torture; and
civilians killed at military checkpoints or during shootouts where the
use of lethal force against them was not justified. In the majority of
these cases soldiers and police tampered with crime scenes, either to
falsely present victims as armed aggressors or to cover up their
excessive use of force. And in some cases, our research strongly
suggests that security forces manipulated crime scenes to present the
false appearance that extrajudicial executions by soldiers were in fact
killings carried out by rival drug cartels. Furthermore, in more than a
dozen cases, families of the victims of killings told Human Rights
Watch they had been pressured by the Army to sign settlements agreeing
to abandon all efforts to seek criminal punishment for soldiers, in
exchange for compensation.
Shootouts between criminal groups and security forces, as well as
between rival gangs, lead to many casualties in Mexico. However,
evidence of coverups by security forces and the complete lack of
investigations into the overwhelming majority of killings cast serious
doubt on the government's claims that most violent deaths are the
result of confrontations. In the rare instances in which investigations
into such killings are opened, justice officials fail to take basic
steps to identify those responsible, such as conducting ballistics
tests or questioning soldiers and police involved. In addition, rather
than question official reports--many of which are marred by
inconsistencies and contradicted by witness accounts--prosecutors
accept security forces' reports as fact and overlook evidence of
excessive use of force or torture leading to death.
The Use of Military Jurisdiction to Investigate and Prosecute Alleged
Abuses
One of the main reasons military abuses persist in Mexico is
because the military personnel who commit them are virtually never held
accountable. And they go unpunished in large part because most cases
are investigated and prosecuted in the military justice system, which
lacks basic safeguards to ensure independence and impartiality.
Mexico's Secretary of Defense wields both executive and judicial power
over the Armed Forces. Military judges have little security of tenure
and may fear that the Secretary will remove them or sideline their
careers for punishing military personnel. And there is virtually no
public scrutiny of, or access to, information about what actually
happens during military investigations, prosecutions, and trials. The
result is near total impunity for members of the military: while the
Military Attorney General's Office opened nearly 5,000 investigations
into alleged human rights violations committed by soldiers against
civilians from January 2007 to April 2012, in only four of those cases
were members of the military convicted (two of which are under appeal).
A series of rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and
Mexico's Supreme Court have called on Mexico to end this practice. The
Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued four rulings to Mexico from
2009 to 2010 in which it stated that under no circumstances should
military jurisdiction apply to any human rights violations committed by
the military against civilians. In July 2011, Mexico's Supreme Court
ruled that Mexico's courts are obligated to comply with one of those
decisions: the November 2009 Inter-American Court judgment in the
enforced disappearance case of Radilla Pacheco v. Mexico. That ruling
stated that, ``Regarding situations that violate the human rights of
civilians, military jurisdiction cannot operate under any
circumstance.'' In another landmark decision in August 2012, Mexico's
Supreme Court ruled that the killing of an unarmed man by soldiers at a
military checkpoint should be prosecuted in civilian jurisdiction,
declaring that the article of the Military Code of Justice used to
claim jurisdiction over human rights cases was unconstitutional.
In spite of these rulings, efforts to reform the Military Code of
Justice in Mexico's Congress have been met with stiff resistance.
Meanwhile, unlike his predecessor, President Enrique Pena Nieto has not
sent a proposal to Mexico's Congress to reform the military justice
system. Nor were plans to pursue such a reform included among the
myriad commitments Pena Nieto and other elected officials made in the
Pact for Mexico (Pacto por Mexico), which set out key legislative
priorities for the new government. The military has stated that it will
continue to claim jurisdiction over cases of alleged abuses until its
justice code is reformed. In the meantime, the practice of
investigating such abuses remains unchanged, as do the results: the
majority of complaints of human rights violations by soldiers continue
to be sent to the military justice system, where they still go
unpunished.
Calderon's Response
In spite of unimpeachable evidence of enforced disappearances,
torture, extrajudicial killings, and other abuses, President Calderon
spent virtually his entire Presidency vigorously denying that any human
rights violations had occurred. Instead, he falsely claimed that 90
percent of the victims of drug-related violence were criminals, and
said that reports of abuses had been fabricated by narcos in order to
undermine the reputation of Mexico's security forces. It was not until
his final year in office that Calderon reluctantly conceded that abuses
had occurred. Nevertheless, he continued to insist--contrary to all
evidence--that they were isolated incidents, and did not put in place
policies to ensure that those responsible for the abuses were brought
to justice.
Beyond producing horrific abuses by security forces, Calderon's
``war on drugs'' also failed to halt an alarming rise in violence, or
dismantle the drug-trafficking organizations that pose a serious threat
to Mexico's national security. By the government's tally, more than
70,000 people were killed in drug violence during the Calderon years,
rising from over 2,500 in 2007 (his first full year in office) to a
peak of nearly 17,000 in 2011. Meanwhile, of approximately 620,000
people who were detained in counternarcotics operations, nearly 500,000
(roughly 80 percent) were released for lack of evidence or let out on
bail. (In Mexico, people charged with organized crime or other serious
offenses cannot be released on bail, meaning that those granted bail
could only have been charged with minor crimes, not connected to
organized crime.)
the pena nieto government: a new approach?
Since President Pena Nieto took office in December 2012, we have
seen a shift in the government's willingness to recognize some of the
serious human rights abuses committed by security forces in the ``war
on drugs'' and, more broadly, the need to change Mexico's
counternarcotics strategy. In February 2013, for example, Human Rights
Watch released a report documenting widespread disappearances carried
out by Mexican soldiers and police. The day we released the report, the
Pena Nieto administration acknowledged that more than 26,000 people had
been reported disappeared or missing to government officials during the
previous administration--a number that had never previously been made
public--and pledged to implement many of our recommendations, such as
the creation of a national database of the disappeared.
Two weeks ago, I was in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila,
which is across the border from Texas, and is among those hardest hit
by drug violence. The Governor, Ruben Moreira, told me that more than
1,800 people had disappeared in his state alone. In only one of those
cases have those responsible for the crime been convicted. While I was
in Coahuila, Mexico's deputy attorney general for human rights, Ricardo
Garcia Cervantes, visited the state to meet with relatives of people
who have been disappeared. In a public address, he told the families
that Mexico is in the midst of ``a humanitarian crisis,'' to which he
said the government's response until now has been grossly inadequate.
While acknowledging these problems is a critical step, the Pena
Nieto administration has yet to put forward a concrete, comprehensive
plan for how to remedy them. One of the critical questions that must be
addressed is: How will the Pena Nieto administration's security
strategy be different from its predecessor's? For example, how will it
build a professional, accountable federal police force, rather than yet
another corrupt and ineffective one? How will it strengthen anemic
efforts to implement a nationwide overhaul of Mexico's broken justice
system, and prevent counterreforms that would allow some of the most
pernicious practices of the old system--such allowing confessions
obtained through torture to be admissible in court--in through the back
door? Until now, the Pena Nieto administration has provided no clear
answers to these questions.
Nor, in the time since this administration took office, have
federal, state, or military prosecutors demonstrated meaningful
progress in the investigation and prosecution of any of the hundreds of
cases of disappearances, torture, and executions documented by Human
Rights Watch. These include cases in which we have provided evidence
that not only identifies the specific security force involved, but also
the individual units responsible for the abuse.
the role of the united states
As the main supplier of illicit weapons and the main destination
for the drugs trafficked through Mexico, the U.S. has a shared
responsibility for addressing Mexico's organized crime problem. The
U.S. has played an active role in collaborating with Mexico's
counternarcotics efforts, primarily through the Merida Initiative,
which has channeled approximately $2 billion to Mexico since 2007.
Fifteen percent of that assistance is supposed to be conditioned
annually to Mexico's ability to meet a set of basic human rights
requirements, which include ensuring that military personnel who commit
alleged abuses are investigated and prosecuted in civilian courts.
Yet despite unequivocal evidence that Mexico has failed to meet the
requirements, the Obama administration has repeatedly allowed the funds
to be released. As justification, the State Department has argued that
Mexico has demonstrated progress toward meeting the requirements as
well as greater engagement which, while positive, are not the standards
set by the law, nor do they reflect the reality in Mexico. The only
frank questioning of whether these requirements have been met has come
from Members of the U.S. Congress, who have rightly asked what the
purpose is of the U.S. establishing human rights requirements if the
government is not going to enforce them.
Making matters worse, confronted with one of the worst human rights
crises in the hemisphere in decades, the Obama administration has
consistently offered uncritical support for Mexico's ``war on drugs.''
On multiple occasions, President Obama expressed admiration for
Calderon's ``bravery'' in confronting cartels, without once expressing
concern publicly about the widespread abuses being committed by Mexican
security forces, or for Calderon's rhetoric blaming the victims for the
abuses they suffered. In a state visit to Mexico in April 2013 to meet
with Pena Nieto, Obama again neglected to express public concern about
human rights violations by security forces.
So what can the U.S. Government do to address these serious abuses,
and the broader public security problems that persist to this day?
While it is true that Mexico is facing extremely powerful cartels,
endemic corruption, and near total impunity for those who commit
crimes, the willingness of the Pena Nieto administration to reform its
public security approach presents a genuine opportunity to address
significant flaws in Calderon's ``war on drugs.'' The U.S. should seize
this opportunity by taking a proactive role in working with Mexico to
craft a new strategy that recognizes that respect for human rights is a
fundamental part of--rather than an obstacle to--improving public
security. Both the U.S. and Mexico should send a clear message that the
way to dismantle powerful cartels is not through arbitrary arrests and
torture, but rather through comprehensive investigations, which lay the
groundwork for prosecuting vast, sophisticated criminal networks.
To achieve that goal, Mexico will need to train security forces who
understand that cutting corners on rights will only exacerbate the
climate of lawlessness in which cartels thrive. And it will need to
train prosecutors who have the capacity and will to investigate violent
criminals and abusive security forces alike. Meanwhile, the U.S. will
need to candidly evaluate Mexico's progress toward meeting the human
rights requirements contained in the Merida Initiative, and withhold
funds when those benchmarks are not met.
Not only will such a shift in strategy reflect the shared values of
the U.S. and Mexico, but it will also advance the immediate goal of
improving security while curbing abuses, which is in both countries'
interest.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to answering any questions
you may have.
Senator Udall. Thank you for your testimony.
Please proceed, Dr. Wood.
STATEMENT OF DR. DUNCAN WOOD, PH.D., DIRECTOR, MEXICO
INSTITUTE, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS,
WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Wood. Thank you very much, Chairman Udall, Senator
Kaine.
I would like to begin by stating that we are still in the
early stages of the Pena Nieto administration's implementation
of its security strategy, so our evaluation can only be
somewhat partial at best. However, even though there are still
insufficient details available to the general public, there are
clear lines developing within the strategy and they provide us
with a point of entry into the analysis.
Thus far we can identify two central themes to the Mexican
Government's strategy that stand out above all the rest. The
first of these is coordination. The government has identified
that one of the major failings of the Calderon administration
was its failure to properly and adequately coordinate the
actions of the diverse security agencies in Mexico. That is why
upon taking office President Pena Nieto took the immediate step
of centralizing security decisionmaking power into the
Secretaria de Gobernacion, the Interior Ministry, under the
leadership of Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, bringing the office of
public security under his purview.
But the coordinating tendency is not limited just to
structural changes in the administration. Much higher levels of
coordination between all government ministries and between the
federal and state governments has emerged as a central feature
of this government. This coordinating theme is to be seen most
clearly in the operation of the Pacto por Mexico, a
coordinating mechanism between Mexico's major political parties
that has achieved considerable success thus far in getting
reforms passed through the Congress that includes 34 different
proposals relating to security policy.
The second major theme of the administration's security
strategy is violence and crime reduction. The government is
touting the role that will be played by the ministry of
prevention and citizen participation under the leadership of
Under Secretary Roberto Campa within the Interior Ministry.
Coordination is again a central element here.
The national program for the social prevention of violence
and crime is based on close coordination between nine different
government ministries. Although details are still not clear,
the goal of this government agency is to invest heavily in
social programs and citizen engagement strategies at the local
level in high-risk communities. Building on the successful
experience of cities such as Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and now
Monterrey, the government is developing a range of social
programs that seek to both reduce immediate violence levels and
prevent youth from entering into organized crime.
When we examine Pena Nieto's administration's security
strategy at a closer level, we should take note of several
other approaches that stand out, and a number of them have been
mentioned already. First of all, there is the creation of the
much touted gendarmerie, which will be a paramilitary style
police organization. Its final size is really not clear. We
seem to be getting different messages from the Mexican
Government about that. It will be used largely as a rapid
reaction force in those areas of the country where local and
state police are either failing or absent.
Second, there is once again the discussion of the idea of
the unified command structure, the mando unico, for police
forces. The idea is to bring together the multiple police
forces in each of Mexico's states under one unified command
structure. It is an idea that was attempted under the Calderon
administration and it has returned as part of the pacto pro
Mexico, that political mechanism, and we are waiting to see how
it will be implemented.
At the same time, the government has recognized that
different regions of the country have divergent security needs
and has thus divided up Mexico into five security zones, each
of which will be treated accordingly. This is where the
government faces its biggest threat in the short term,
understanding the diversity of Mexico's public security
challenges cross different zones and implementing actions that
will bring down violence levels. Already the government has
been able to report drops in homicides, but there is
considerable skepticism in Mexico over the official numbers and
it is unclear if this is a long-term trend or just a short-term
drop.
The impact of the change in security strategy by the Pena
Nieto administration on United States-Mexico relations has been
marked. Since the elections of last July, there has been a
process under way of gaining mutual understanding, with United
States authorities trying to find areas of overlap and common
interest with their Mexican counterparts. Of course, the
process really only began in earnest with the beginning of the
new administration in December, and since then there have been
many comments by U.S. personnel that it is much more difficult
to communicate and talk substantive issues with the new Mexican
security team.
Much-publicized decisions by the Mexican Government to halt
ongoing cooperation has also proved an irritant. It is my
understanding the process of feeling each other out is still
very much under way.
But we can point to a number of areas where we can expect
fruitful collaboration. First in the area of prevention and
violence reduction, there is ample room for continued
cooperation similar to that which took place under pillar four
of the Merida Initiative. The work of rebuilding communities,
of investing in social programs, of engaging in civil society
and crime prevention and the justice system, has attained
significant success in places such as Baja California, and the
experience of working with U.S. agencies there provides a model
for future efforts.
Second, there is likely to be receptive attitude from the
Mexican authorities with regards to the issue of policing
standards. As the process of unifying police commands across
communities in Mexico continues and as police
professionalization remains a key topic, there is much that the
United States has to offer.
Third, the creation of the gendarmerie will likely involve
the secondment or permanent transfer of military personnel into
the new force. In order to avoid the pitfalls of having troops
adopt a policing function, there will be a need to retrain
these elements.
Beyond this, money-laundering will be a key issue. Mexico's
new anti-money-laundering laws will require immediate
implementation, and the United States and Mexico could
cooperate very fruitfully on that issue.
On intelligence-sharing, I perceive a more difficult road
ahead. Trust issues in the absence of mutual understanding,
combined with a centralization of power over security policy
and the Interior Ministry, mean that the progress of the past 5
years is by no means guaranteed. At this point in time it is
vital that we adopt a long-term perspective, that patience and
good judgment prevails, and that we do not burden the new
relationship with the expectations of the old.
Thank you for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Wood follows:]
Prepared Statesment of Dr. Duncan Wood
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is a
privilege to join you today.
I have been asked to cover a number of issues related to Mexico's
evolving security situation today and would like to begin by stating
that we are still in the early stages of the Pena Nieto
administration's implementation of its security strategy so that our
evaluation can only be somewhat partial at best. However, even though
there are still insufficient details available to the general public,
there are clear lines developing within the strategy, and they provide
us with a point of entry into the analysis.
Thus far we can identify two central themes to the Mexican
Government's strategy that stand out above all the rest. The first of
these is coordination. The government has identified that one of the
major failings of the Calderon administration was its failure to
properly and adequately coordinate the actions of the diverse security
agencies in Mexico. That is why, upon taking office, President Pena
Nieto took the immediate step of centralizing security decisionmaking
power into the Secretaria de Gobernacion (Interior Ministry), under the
leadership of Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, bringing the office of Public
Security under his purview. But the coordinating tendency is not
limited to structural changes in the administration. Much higher levels
of coordination between all government ministries, and between the
federal and state governments has emerged as a central feature of this
government. The coordinating theme is to be seen most clearly in the
operation of the Pacto por Mexico, a coordinating mechanism between
Mexico's major political parties that has achieved considerable success
in getting reforms passed though the Congress and includes 34 different
proposals relating to security policy.
The second major theme of the administration's security strategy is
violence reduction. The government is touting the role that will be
played by the Ministry of Prevention and Citizen Participation
(subsecretaria de Prevencion y Participacion Ciudadana), under the
leadership of Under Secretary Roberto Campa, within the Interior
Ministry. Coordination is a central element here: the National Program
for the Social Prevention of Violence and Crime is based on close
coordination between the Ministries of the Interior, Social
Development, Health, Education, Economy, Employment, Communications and
Transport, Agrarian Development and Finance. Although details are still
not clear, the goal of this government agency is to invest heavily in
social programs and citizen engagement strategies at the local level in
high-risk communities. Building on the successful experience of cities
such as Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and now Monterrey, the government is
developing panoply of social programs that seeks to both reduce
immediate violence levels and prevent youth from entering into
organized crime.
I mention Monterrey for three reasons. First, it was discussed
recently in a piece by The Economist magazine that focused on the
central theme of rebuilding and maintaining the social fabric. Second,
it is the marquee program that is being touted by the government and
highlights the administration's goal of coordination. Monterrey
involves close collaboration between the Federal Government, the
government of the state of Nuevo Leon, the municipal government,
business and civil society groups. Third, it highlights the tie in
between these social programs and the remaking of state-level police
forces. The Fuerza Civil is a new police force for Nuevo Leon that has
been in the making since 2011, and the government sees this as an
example to be followed by the rest of the country.
When we examine the Pena Nieto administration's security strategy
at a closer level, we should take note of several other approaches that
stand out. First, there is the creation of the much-touted gendarmerie,
a paramilitary style police organization whose final size is unclear
(somewhere between 10-50 thousand), which will be used as a rapid
reaction force in those areas of the country where local and state
police are failing or absent. Second, there is once again the
discussion of the idea of the unified command structure for police
forces, the mando unico. The idea here is to bring together the
multiple police forces in each of Mexico's states under one unified
command structure, to ensure better coordination, professionalization
and the implementation of common standards. An idea that was attempted
under the Calderon administration, it has returned as part of the Pacto
por Mexico, and we are waiting to see how it will be implemented.
At the same time, the government has recognized that different
regions of the country have divergent security needs, and has thus
divided up Mexico into five security zones, each of which will be
treated accordingly. This is where the government faces its biggest
threat in the short term--understanding the diversity of Mexico's
public security challenges across different zones and implementing
actions that will bring down violence levels. Already the government
has been able to report drops in homicides but there is considerable
skepticism in Mexico over official numbers and it is unclear if this is
a long-term trend or just a short-term drop.
Judicial reform and penal reform are also key elements in the
government's overall approach. Continuing, and accelerating the
implementation of the judicial reforms of 2008 is a priority according
to leading government representatives. The deadline for implementation
is 2018, but the urgency of a properly functioning court system is more
urgent than ever. Although tens of thousands have been sent to trial
over the past 6 years, only a small percentage has been incarcerated,
and the public has almost no faith in the operation of Mexican justice.
Just as urgent is a reform of the prison system--of those who have been
convicted and have gone to prison many have escaped, and those who have
stayed in jail have continued to play a role in organized crime
activities. However, there is little sign as yet that the government is
ready to take on a wholesale reform of the prison system.
The impact of the change in security strategy by the Pena Nieto
administration on U.S.-Mexico relations has been marked. Since the
elections of last July, there has been a process underway of gaining
mutual understanding, with U.S. authorities trying to find areas of
overlap and common interest with their Mexican counterparts. Of course
the process really only began in earnest with the beginning of the new
administration in December, and since then there have been many
comments by U.S. personnel that it is much more difficult to
communicate and talk substantive issues with the new Mexican security
team. Much publicized decisions by the Mexican Government to halt
ongoing cooperation have provided an extra irritant. It is my
understanding that the process of ``feeling each other out'' is still
very much underway.
However, we can point to a number of areas where we can expect
fruitful collaboration. First, in the area of prevention and violence
reduction, there is ample room for continued cooperation, similar to
that which took place under Pillar IV of the Merida Initiative. The
work of rebuilding communities, of investing in social programs, of
engaging with civil society in crime prevention and in the justice
system has attained significant success in places such as Baja
California and the experience of working with U.S. agencies there
provides a model for future efforts. Second, there is likely to be a
receptive attitude from the Mexican authorities with regards to the
issue of policing standards. As the process of unifying police commands
across communities in the states of Mexico continues, and as police
professionalization remains as key topic, there is much that the U.S.
has to offer. Third, the creation of the gendarmerie will likely
involve the secondment or permanent transfer of military personnel into
the new force. In order to avoid the pitfalls of having troops adopt a
policing function, there will be a need to train these individuals in
policing, criminal justice, and investigation techniques. Again, the
U.S. has significant and important experience in this area.
Beyond these areas, counter-money-laundering actions and
intelligence gathering and sharing continue to provide potential areas
for collaboration. Mexico's new anti-money-laundering laws require
immediate implementation--over the past 5 years, a mere 83 individuals
were convicted of money laundering in Mexico, while we know that more
than $10 billion is laundered a year within the country. The movement
of money back from the United States is an issue that needs to be
addressed and high-level talks are needed on that issue. On
intelligence-sharing I perceive a more difficult road ahead. Trust
issues and the absence of mutual understanding, combined with the
centralization of power over security policy in the Interior Ministry,
mean that the progress of the past 5 years is by no means guaranteed.
At this point in time it is vital that we adopt a long-term
perspective, that patience and good judgment prevails, and that we do
not burden the new relationship with the expectations of the old.
Last, I have been asked to comment on the recent visit by President
Obama to Mexico, to meet with President Pena Nieto. There can be little
doubt that the visit was a huge success, both in terms of building a
relationship with the Mexican President on a personal level, and in
convincing the Mexican public that the relationship with the United
States is a positive one. In particular, the speech given by the
President at the National Anthropological Museum received very
favorable press and attention. On a more substantive level, the
agreements between the two Presidents on education and the economy have
injected new vigor into bilateral affairs, helped greatly by the
optimism over the prospects for immigration reform here in Washington.
Already we are seeing benefits in terms of spill over into other
areas--the upcoming Inter-Parliamentary Group meetings in Washington in
the fall, as well as the bilateral talks on energy scheduled for
October, promise to further revitalize the relationship.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. I am, of
course, at your disposal to answer any questions you might have on my
testimony.
Senator Udall. Thank you, and thank all three of you for
that excellent testimony there.
All three of you are in the unique position of not
representing a United States or Mexican interest and you are
able to take a more nuanced look at the challenges facing
United States-Mexico security cooperation. In your honest
opinion--and I know you have talked about this a little, but I
thought we would get into it in a little more depth--do you
believe that we have made progress in our shared efforts to
strengthen the institutions and combat drug cartels in Mexico?
Whoever wants to jump in first, that is fine.
Dr. O'Neil.
Dr. O'Neil. Thank you. I do think we have made progress.
When we look back at the last 5, 6 years of the Merida
Initiative, some almost $2 billion spent, in part it is the
monetary commitment to work with our neighbor, which was not
there before the Merida Initiative, when less than $40 million
a year was spent on security aid.
But perhaps more important than the money is the contacts,
the back and forth. So we have agencies talking to agencies,
agents talking to agents, working with each other and helping
Mexico work through a problem, which, as my colleagues here
have said, is a coresponsibility. It is a problem that crosses
the border and involves both countries.
I think the challenge is today is now with the new
administration there and a new administration here in the
United States, is how do we continue and how do we build on the
good that has happened there, but also perhaps some of the
areas where we have not made as much progress as we would like.
When you look at the four pillars of the Merida Initiative,
there has been significant progress on the taking down of the
kingpins. There has been some progress on the institution-
building, particularly at the federal level and the police.
There is much more, I believe, that can be done on that level,
particularly moving from the federal level to the state and
local level and, as I mentioned in my testimony, moving into
the justice reform and really helping this country push that
over the finish line, which is supposed to be 2016, just 3
years from now.
Then I would also like to say, on the last two pillars, the
modernizing of the United States-Mexico border as well as the
building of community resilience, I think there is a lot the
United States can do, continue to do and deepen on that side.
The benefit of those two is it helps strengthen communities
that cross the border, particularly since so many Mexicans in
Mexican-Americans have family ties, community ties, as well as
economic ties. So strengthening the border helps those
families, those communities, as well as helps our larger
economy.
Senator Udall. Thank you.
Mr. Steinberg. I think possibly the institution and the job
in Mexico that still requires the greatest amount of work is
the job of building prosecutors, both at the federal and the
state level, who can investigate crimes. Mexico has a 98-
percent impunity rate and I think that is being generous.
Now, to your question of whether the United States
cooperation on building prosecutors at the federal and state
level has actually succeeded, I think perhaps best to quote
here from the current Attorney General of Mexico, Murillo
Karam, whose word that he uses to describe the state of the
federal prosecutor's office, the Attorney General's office that
he inherited, is ``desmantelada,'' which is more or less ``in
shambles.'' That is the way he describes the office.
That is very much borne out by the experience that we have
had in working with cases that we follow to see if the
investigation is advanced or not. So I think that the biggest
lacuna in the investment of building a justice system and the
rule of law in Mexico is training prosecutors that know how to
do the very basic job of investigating cases. What we have seen
is families who are affected by these crimes do more to
investigate the cases than prosecutors. In other words, it is
not rocket science, it is not that they do not know how to do
it; it is that there is a lack of will.
I think if we scale up from this, that is very much
reflected in the advance of the justice reform in general. I
know that it is something that Mexico needs, that on paper is a
beautiful reform. It is beautifully written. And where we see
it faltering is in the implementation. Three of thirty-two
states have fully implemented the justice reform at the state
level.
The ones that have advanced the most are the ones that have
also seen the greatest counterreforms that bring the worst
practices of Mexico's old justice system in through the back
door. So I think there needs to be a very frank accounting of
the lack of progress, not for lack of effort on the United
States side, but in terms of producing investigators,
investigative police and prosecutors in Mexico that can put a
dent in the huge wall of impunity that exists right now.
Thank you.
Senator Udall. Do you think with this new--I guess they put
a deadline in of 2016 to achieve a lot of these reforms. Are
they going to make it? My sense is you think very few of the
states will make it.
Mr. Steinberg. Well, you know, I guess the message would be
we want them to make it, but we want them to do it well. So the
states that have made it--let us use Chihuahua, which is the
first state to have crossed the finish line. Chihuahua had the
unfortunate luck of being the state that was the most advanced,
that then was hit with the most dramatic wave of violence. So
the system was immediately inundated and overwhelmed. What our
experience has shown us in Chihuahua is that to implement the
justice system in a state that was experiencing unprecedented
levels of violence produced the effect that many citizens
living in that state said: The problems that we have are
generated from the new justice system and it is the fault of
the Attorney General who is implementing it and the prosecutors
who are not doing their jobs, and this is for criminals.
So there is a huge risk in that Mexico is trying to
implement what even in normal circumstances would be an
incredibly complicated reform to its justice system, at a time
when the country is experiencing its greatest wave of violence
in decades. So they need all the help they can get, and I think
the essence--we have made this point with USAID, we have said
this to the Embassy in Mexico. We think that it is important to
generate a couple models of states that perhaps are not in as
dire a situation as Chihuahua was when they implemented it, and
show that actually the justice reform, if implemented properly
is good for public security, it is good for convicting
criminals, and it is good for protecting the innocent. And we
do not have a model like that yet.
Senator Udall. Thank you.
Dr. Wood.
Dr. Wood. Thank you. I think that undeniably the experience
of the last 6 years or so has been incredibly useful and
incredibly fruitful. I was living in Mexico for all of that
time until December of last year and the attitude in Mexico was
that we were entering a new phase of security collaboration
between the United States and Mexico. On the issue of security,
this was an issue that had been taboo up to this point. It was
extraordinary, the leap forward that was made over the past few
years.
But there was a certain degree of hubris at work as well. I
think that people believed that this was a change that was
permanent, that could not really be turned back. I think it was
a belief that things had changed forever in Mexico, just based
upon the experience of the Calderon administration.
What we have seen over the past 6 months is that, in fact,
the Calderon administration was the anomaly, I would say, that
this willingness to enter into a very, very active, very open
security relationship with the United States, is something that
we should not expect to continue in the future. It does not
mean that we should not be optimistic about security
collaboration between the two countries. On the contrary, I
would say that the experience of the past 6 years showed the
new administration that there is a lot to be gained from
cooperation with the United States, not just in terms of
equipment and training, et cetera, but in terms of having a new
vision on security.
The idea is that, as Shannon mentioned in terms of the
resilient communities, which is something that really came out
of the discussions between the two countries, had a huge impact
in places such as Ciudad Juarez, is having a very positive
impact right now in the city of Monterrey. Nobody is saying
that that will solve the problem of security in those places,
but it has to be an integral part. The government has embraced
that under the new administration.
Information-sharing and intelligence-sharing were crucial
over the past 6 years in securing the arrest or targeted
killings of leaders of organized crime. And the trust that was
built up between individuals was seen as being a very, very
crucial element.
Now, every time that we talk about Mexico I think there is
a tendency to oversimplify things. So people say that
everything was great in terms of cooperation under the Calderon
administration and now things are not so good. I think we have
to adopt a much more nuanced approach, and that is to say that
what we are finding right now is that the United States
Government and the Mexican Government are trying to find areas
in which they can both work together, in which they are both
comfortable.
That really depends upon approaching the new Mexican
administration in the way that they want to be approached. That
is a difficult conundrum to solve because it is a much more
closed communication strategy, if you will. They are not nearly
so forthcoming with what they want to work together on. So the
people that I have spoken to in U.S. Government on the ground
tell me that it is really a question of, would you like to talk
about this? would you like to talk about that? and then once
you get a more positive response you then pursue it.
So this is going to take time, I think. As a good friend of
mine always says with Mexico, lower your expectations and adopt
a long-term perspective, and I think things are going to work
out pretty well. But it really is a process right now of
getting to know each other again.
Senator Udall. Do you think that President Obama's trip and
then his subsequent meeting down there with President Pena
Nieto, did that move things along or were we running into the
same kind of problems that you are talking about here?
Dr. Wood. I think that the visit itself was an undisputed
success. It was a huge success. You saw the very positive press
that came out of it. But more importantly than that and more
important than any of the agreements that came out of that,
that visit, I think was the personal relationship that is
developing between the two Presidents, which allows for a level
of trust.
But just as important as that I would say is the series of
meetings that took place in the weeks prior to the visit, where
you saw senior Mexican politicians and Mexican Government
representatives coming up here to Washington. Folks over at the
State Department would say: It seems like every week is Mexico
week right now, because there were always a steady stream of
Mexicans who were here.
In particular, I would point to the visit by Minister of
the Interior Osorio Chong, which was crucial in exposing him to
the way in which things are done here in Washington, to
understanding the willingness to cooperate. That is something
which I think will bear fruit in the long term.
Senator Udall. Thank you.
Mr. Steinberg, you have focused on some of the key human
rights issues that still need to be addressed in Mexico. Do you
believe that the current plan put forward you the Mexican
Government will adequately meet the needs of the Mexican
people, and what in your opinion are the aspects missing from
the Mexican plan to help improve the human rights conditions in
Mexico?
Mr. Steinberg. In terms of the difference between the new
government and the old government, as I outlined in the
testimony, certainly this government, unlike its predecessor,
is acknowledging the scale of the problem that they have
inherited. We do not have to, when we meet with this
government, convince them that human rights are an issue,
abuses of human rights are an issue that they need to deal
with. They are aware of that.
Where I think the approach of the new government has been
lacking is that so much of the government's plan--and this
comes from our meetings with the Home Minister, Osorio Chong,
with the Attorney General, Murillo Karam, with Governors in
some of the states that have experienced the most serious
increase in human rights abuses--is geared toward preventing
human rights abuses in the future. In other words, the line is:
What can we do to develop and train security forces so they do
not disappear more people, torture more people, kill more
people?
What they do not seem to have grasped yet, because it is
not in any of the plans, is that the most effective way to
prevent human rights abuses is to show security forces that
there are consequences when they step out of line. Until now
there is no element in any of the human rights plans that the
government has put out--and it has put out a lot of them; they
have a whole chapter in their national development plan that
deals with it--is a plan for investigating and prosecuting the
enormous backlog of abuses that this government has, including
new abuses from this administration.
Let me just give you one statistic that I think captures
it. Mexico's military attorney general's office, which is
responsible for investigating all of the abuses that are
committed by soldiers against civilians--that is a problem in
itself; it should be in the civilian justice system; I will
leave that alone for now. They have a backlog, we obtained
through Freedom of Information requests, of more than 5,000
cases open--now, these are the cases where people are brave
enough to come forward and denounce the abuses; it is a small
slice of the pie--into serious abuses by soldiers against
civilians.
Of those cases, only four have resulted in convictions of
soldiers. So 4 out of 5,000, and those are the 5,000 that are
reported. That is a huge deficit, and until this administration
starts to send the message to security forces, new gendarmerie
or old, army, navy, federal police, local police, it will not
be able to prevent human rights abuses going forward, and we do
not see that element in their plan.
Senator Udall. The 5,000 cases, how old are those?
Mr. Steinberg. Those are all from 2007 to midway through
2012. So they are all from the previous administration.
Senator Udall. OK.
Mr. Steinberg. So we have been asking--we have many public
information requests in. They take many months to get back. So
we hope to have updated numbers, but that is just that period
through mid-2012.
Senator Udall. Dr. O'Neil, your recent book ``Two Nations,
Indivisible: Mexico and the United States and the Road Ahead,''
focused on the many challenges and opportunities facing Mexico.
One such challenge and opportunity was leveraging the middle
class of Mexico. You noted the growth of this economic
demographic, but also pointed out that this new middle class
is, ``decidedly an urban phenomenon.''
In your opinion, how should the Mexican Government focus
its efforts to stimulate economic development in rural areas,
the border regions, and what role should North American
Development Bank play to help stimulate improvements?
Dr. O'Neil. Thank you. This has been one of the big
transformations, this growth of the middle class in Mexico, and
it is something that this government is thinking a lot about.
You look at their economic policies and there they are much
clearer than perhaps the security policies we have been talking
about, and they are quite ambitious. So we see reforms have
passed, labor reform, education reform, telecommunications
reform, the financial reform that is going through the system,
and the President talking about an energy reform as well as a
tax reform, all in this year.
What Mexico needs to do to really stimulate this middle,
that will then stimulate their GDP growth more broadly, they
need to do long-term things like take on their education
system, which is quite weak. They have started to do this, but
this is a long, long road. They need to invest in
infrastructure. They are far behind in terms of roads,
railroads, ports, airports, particularly as they see, I would
say justifiably so, particularly as they see their future
linked to the United States, to the manufacturing and the
production that happens on both sides of the border, supporting
companies and workers on both sides of the border.
Infrastructure is vital to make them more and more competitive
vis-a-vis other nations like China, Brazil, Europe, or even
Canada. When we think about the way that this works, it is
important that they increase their infrastructure to boost
their economy.
The other thing that they struggle with are the
concentrated economic sectors, the monopolies, the oligopolies,
that make prices for average Mexicans much higher than they
should be, but then also hurt competitiveness of companies that
operate on their side of the border as well as on our side of
the order.
So these are big issues that affect not just urban
citizens, but will also affect the rural areas. Connecting the
rural areas better to urban centers or to the United States
will make a huge difference. That also carries over to the
border that you mentioned, and how to make the border more
efficient, more competitive, will help the companies that are
located there and that are located on both sides of the border,
not just on the Mexican side of the border, but on the United
States side of the border.
This is now an often-repeated statistic, but I think it
bears repeating one more time, because what we have seen is a
transformation in the way the United States and Mexican
economies
are linked. So today, for the products that come in from
Mexico, so
that are, ``made in Mexico,'' on average almost 40 percent of
that product was actually made in the United States by United
States workers. So that interconnection is something that is
good for companies on both sides, but workers on both sides.
So working with the infrastructure on the border to speed
the transit, to facilitate the transit, will help people, but
also the economies on both sides, benefiting us both.
Senator Udall. Do you have any thoughts on the North
American Development Bank?
Dr. O'Neil. Today the Development Bank has been quite
limited in its mandate, to environmental focus, to some other
infrastructure focuses. I do think there is a role that this
can play, a much broader role. When you look at reports from
our government, official reports on what is needed at the
border, the investment is there, but it is not a huge amount of
investment. It is somewhere probably in the order of $6
billion, $8 billion, over the next decade, that would really
make a difference.
I do think the North America Development Bank can play a
role in this, in helping build the infrastructure on both sides
of the border and speed this. This is a place where we could
invest not a huge amount of money, but have a huge outsized
return.
Senator Udall. Thank you.
Shifting a little bit to immigration and the debate around
immigration, we have heard a lot in that debate about how we
need to secure our border. I agree that a secure and efficient
border is an important objective. With regards to our shared
border and our efforts as part of the Merida Initiative to
create a 21st century border, do you believe that it is
possible to completely shut down the border and completely
prevent the transit of drugs through such a border?
Dr. O'Neil. In thinking about the border and security at
the border, you need to think about both the costs and the
benefits. When you look at a bit of historical perspective and
you think about the border that we had known as the Iron
Curtain, the amount of money that was spent there, the troops
that were put there, the no man's land put between there, the
concertina wire and everything else to keep people, the shoot
to kill orders on one side of the border, and you still saw a
few thousand intrepid souls get over that border each year.
So the idea of securing the border 100 percent seems
unfeasible. It is particularly unfeasible when you are thinking
about someone that is not a country that is isolated from you
ideologically, commercially, and the like, but is one of the
United States most important trading partners--the idea of
closing this down.
So what we should be thinking about is how to better secure
the border in the sense of diminishing the flows of bad things
while facilitating the flows of good things, and what that
tradeoff might be. That to me is a better framework for
securing America's future.
Senator Udall. Dr. Wood, do you have thoughts on that?
Dr. Wood. Yes, just a couple of followup points. I think
that in terms of your question about rural areas in Mexico,
particularly in the north, there is a looming question, a
looming crisis there in terms of water issues. I mean, it is a
controversial issue in the bilateral relationship already.
I was in the state of Chihuahua a couple of weeks ago,
actually last week, and the drought there is a major crisis.
You see the same thing in the state of Coahuila, across the
north of the country. This is really driving a lot of the
hardship that is taking place in agricultural communities in
the north of the country.
That is something that I think we really need to work with
on the bilateral basis with the Mexicans. It is an issue that
obviously hits border communities on the United States side of
the border, and this ties directly into questions of migration,
not just across the border, but of Mexicans moving from rural
areas into the cities, of young Mexican men in particular being
the fodder for organized crime units.
Agriculture has suffered in Mexico over the past 20 years.
A lot of Mexicans blame the NAFTA for that. It is not the NAFTA
that is to blame. It is actually a lack of investment in the
sector. Some areas of agriculture have actually benefited. You
look at the pork industry, for example, in Mexico, which has
boomed in recent years because standards have been raised,
largely thanks to the work of economic integration with the
United States and with Canada.
But there really does still need to be significant
investment in the agricultural sector.
With regards to the border, I would say that I am 100
percent in agreement with what Shannon has said here. There is
dramatic and urgent need for investment in border
infrastructure. Mostly we tend to think about border crossings.
That is something which I think is absolutely right. The payoff
that we will get for each dollar invested in improving the flow
of goods across the border will be enormous, much more than any
other area I would say right now in the bilateral relationship.
And that really is the umbilical cord of our economic
relationship with Mexico. We need to invest heavily in that, in
line with what the Mexican Government is going to do as well.
They have already expressed an interest in doing that.
In terms of security of the border, hitting at your
original question, it is intriguing. How many terrorists have
we actually captured trying to cross the border from Mexico?
How effective has the border been in stopping undesirable goods
and people crossing over? Building a wall is clearly not the
answer when you see how many people are actually tunneling
underneath the wall. It has become a matter, almost a matter
for joking in our circles, the sophistication of the tunnels
that extend underneath the border and the ways in which
organized crime, human traffickers, are able to get their goods
and people across the border, underneath the border.
There is another issue as well about the border I would
like to point to, which is that I think it is urgent that
people here in Washington visit the border and understand what
it means to be a border community, and to understand the
questions of quality of life. When you look at how long the
lineups are at the border and what the impact that has upon the
environment just in terms of emissions levels from trucks and
cars waiting there for hours to cross the border, the economic
cost of it, not just upon those people trying to get their
goods across the border, but upon the local communities there,
that is something which I think needs to be experienced
firsthand to really understand why this is an urgent issue.
Thank you.
Senator Udall. Thank you very much. I think your suggestion
of visiting the border is a good one. I am sure all three of
you have done that no doubt.
Just a final question, going back to drug cartels. Among
the drug cartels currently fighting in Mexico, which cartel in
your opinion poses the biggest threat to United States and
Mexico interests, and which ones are seeing their power wane in
light of pressure from Mexican authorities?
Dr. O'Neil. The back and forth of the drug cartels and who
is on top and who is down is quite fluid. One thing we have
seen with the approach of Calderon and the United States in
directly confronting them is a fragmentation of these groups
from perhaps a handful, half a dozen, to now dozens. So this is
a pretty fast-moving target.
There are some groups that are much more focused less on
moving drugs and now on other businesses, things like extortion
and human trafficking and contraband and the like. Particularly
you hear a lot about the Zetas, a quite violent group located
in many parts of Mexico, but along the border across from
Texas, that, though hit quite hard, are still incredibly
important, incredibly dangerous, and really prey on the Mexican
population. And they are important for Mexico, particularly
important for Mexico, but also for the United States, as there
is some evidence that they have strong ties into the United
States, money-laundering, businesses, and the like.
What I would say before we start thinking is it this group
or is it that group, because some of this is moving around so
much, is that this threat of organized crime more generally in
Mexico is what is the national security threat to Mexico and to
the United States. This country, which is so linked to our own,
if it does well it has huge payoff for the United States, and
if it does poorly the repercussions for the United States reach
far beyond the Southwest border of the United States.
So moving forward, as we think about what to do, helping
them with these long-term institution-building, creating a
justice system that can punish the guilty and free the
innocent, creating police forces that local communities can
actually trust rather than fear, creating programs that help
local communities stitch back together the social fabric that
is often been rendered by whether it is crime or immigration or
the like, those are things I think we should be thinking about
in the United States and trying to work with Mexico on. And
then we can take on whatever the name of the particular group
that's preying on citizens in both places.
Senator Udall. Thank you.
Mr. Steinberg.
Mr. Steinberg. First I would like to build on a point that
Dr. O'Neil made, which is that we really cannot talk about
these as drug trafficking organizations any more, because we do
not have the luxury of dealing with groups for whom that is
even their majority interest. In fact, organized crime in
Mexico now is in basically every single illicit industry, with
the exception until
now, from what we have seen, of the trafficking of nuclear
materials, which means that they are involved in extortion,
money-laundering, trafficking of migrants, trafficking of
children, prostitution, you name it.
The challenge of confronting organizations like that is
that the arm of their influence often reaches into state
agencies and government. This is I think a critical point to
make in this hearing, which is that oftentimes we think of
organized crime on one side of the line and the state on the
other. What makes work in Mexico so challenging today--and we
see this even in cases that we document--is that you have
organized crime working hand in glove with state agents, and
this is not only at the local level.
We have 70 cases in this report of people who were
disappeared by state agents and handed over to cartels, who
later were probably executed. So this is hand-in-hand work.
The last point I would like to make, point I would like to
make, is that I would be very wary of pointing to certain
cities as success stories where the violence has gone down,
because there are many narratives that we can construct in
order to tell why the violence has decreased, for example in a
place like Juarez or Tijuana, and one of them is that one of
the organized crime groups that was battling for supremacy in
those places succeeded in controlling that space and the other
backed down.
For every city or state where violence has decreased, there
is another where it has increased. Juarez goes down, Torion
goes up. Monterrey goes down, Veracruz heats up. So the
violence and Mexico, I think we have to see it as an epidemic.
In one place it may cool down, but overall the situation of
capture of territory and of control of every aspect of daily
life is very real.
Thank you.
Senator Udall. Thank you.
Final thoughts, Dr. Wood?
Dr. Wood. Yes. I think to answer the question we have to
ask another question: What is it we are trying to achieve here?
Are we trying to stop the flow of drugs or are we trying to
reduce violence levels in Mexico to make it a more governable
and a country that is governed by the rule of law, I would say?
If we ask that question, then I think that there is no doubt in
my mind that it is the Zetas who pose the biggest threat to
Mexico, just in terms of the fact that you look at what is
taking place in the state of Talmalpais right now and there is
a complete absence of the rule of law. The fact is that we do
not even know what is going on there because journalists are
too terrified to report on it.
I think that this is one of the issues that we really do
need to work on, to try to get a clearer idea of what is
happening in that state just across the border from the United
States, and to ask the question of how we can actually have a
positive impact upon that. Some of that work can take place at
the border, but a lot of it has to take place with the Federal
Government. I think we are really waiting right now for the
Mexican Federal Government to come up with a strategy for
Tamalpais.
Overall, I would say that is the biggest challenge in the
long term to Mexico, is to overcome the culture of impunity and
to reestablish the rule of law, not just in terms of criminal
law and justice, but in terms of the economic rule of law
throughout society as well. I would say that is really where we
should be focusing our efforts.
Thank you.
Senator Udall. Thank you.
Well, let me just say in conclusion that I think this has
been an excellent panel and I think your testimony has helped
us really look at the challenges and look at what faces us and
be able to come up with some realistic, good, solid, solid
solutions to what is going on and know where we need to push.
I also want to thank your organizations and your service to
them. I think each of your organizations adds so much to the
public discussion, and your dedication to them and the work
that you do, it helps us I think here in the Senate kind of
move in the right direction.
So with that, we are going to leave the record open for one
week, and the subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you very
much.
[Whereupon, at 5:02 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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