18 February 2005
Terrorism Threatens Latin America, Caribbean, says U.S. Official
Homeland Security's Hutchinson urges unified response to threat
By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- The United States and its partners in the Americas need to stay vigilant against the terrorist threat in Latin America and the Caribbean, says Asa Hutchinson, under secretary for border and transportation security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Speaking February 17 at a counterterrorism conference in Trinidad and Tobago, Hutchinson said the United States and Mexico are on guard for potential movement of terrorists. The two countries are coordinating their efforts through the U.S.-Mexico Border Partnership accord, which spells out a 22-point plan for specific actions to ensure the secure flow of people and goods across the two countries' mutual border.
Hutchinson added that in the Caribbean, the U.S. State Department is conducting a "needs-assessment program" that focuses on protecting "key infrastructure" from attack.
In Central America, the United States supports a variety of anti-smuggling initiatives, and, in South America, the Bush administration is working closely with its partners -- Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay -- in the "3+1 Group," to improve border security against terrorism and other transnational crimes in that region, said Hutchinson.
In his remarks to an anti-terrorism committee of the Organization of American States (OAS), Hutchinson said, "We know that terrorists in our hemisphere are increasingly engaged in narcotics and weapons smuggling, and money laundering, as a means to fund their criminal agendas."
Nearly as many innocent civilians were murdered in 2004 by three terrorist organizations in Colombia as fell victim to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Hutchinson told the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE). The committee was meeting in Trinidad and Tobago’s capital city of Port of Spain for its fifth annual conference.
During the conference, Hutchinson announced that the United States had pledged an additional $1.6 million to strengthen and expand counter-terrorism coordination in the Western Hemisphere, bringing the total U.S. contribution to $5 million for CICTE since the 9/11 attacks.
As part of its anti-terrorism effort, Hutchinson said the United States has taken steps to improve transportation security, and he urged CICTE members to "work with us in this critical area."
Hutchinson encouraged all CICTE members to join the United States in meeting International Civil Aviation Organization standards for aviation security (including 100 percent baggage screening) and travel document issuance and handling. He also urged them partner with the Group of Eight's Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative, which spells out guidelines for strict national controls of shoulder-fired missiles, known as MANPADS, which can bring down civilian aircraft.
In addition, he called on CICTE members to increase coordination on maritime security.
Hutchinson also stressed the importance of cutting off terrorist financing. The U.S. government, he said, has designated 40 foreign terrorist organizations and 397 individuals as threats to the United States, a step that leads to freezing their assets and criminalizing acts that constitute material support of terrorism.
International cooperation has led to 700 terrorist-related accounts blocked around the world, with 106 of those accounts frozen in the United States, said Hutchinson. He added that the United States funded a $5 million regional training program to combat money laundering in the Caribbean.
Hutchinson said the United States recognizes that the "ultimate success of the global counterterrorism campaign hinges, in large part, on two factors: sustaining and enhancing the political will of states to fight terrorism, and enhancing the capacity of all states to fight terrorism."
Therefore, "we must continue to expand cooperation, speak out against terrorism, defend our critical infrastructure, cyber-systems, and international commerce, and marshal our resources to raise our counterterrorism capacity," he said.
During the CICTE meeting, the United States and the 33 other member states of the OAS adopted a declaration that calls for increased regional cooperation against terrorism.
In its "Declaration of Port of Spain," the OAS members said that terrorism, "in all its forms and manifestations, whatever its origin or motivation, has no justification whatsoever and constitutes a grave threat to international peace and security."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=February&x=20050218122115AEneerG0.9030268&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
