|
The report issued
in January 2009 by the Joint Forces Command presented
Mexico as a country that might face sudden collapse,
and this quickly stirred up controversy in both countries.
What is your take on the challenges that Mexico is facing
with regard to the rule of law?
First I think it’s important to clarify that the report
was done by an individual who is a student, I don’t
believe that that was an official position of the U.S.
military or the joint forces command. In terms of the
challenges that you find in Mexico, I think President
Calderon has expressed them extremely well. He did that,
in fact, yesterday during his address. He identified
the need of citizens to have a better sense that they
can live their life in peace, and that they are free
from the dangers of the drug cartels and kidnappings,
of extortion and theft. And in order to do that, society
must be based on the rule of law. That means disrupting
the drug cartels, going after their heads and disrupting
the operations. This means making the investments that
are necessary in the institutions of rule of law: a
federal police force that is effective and reliable,
and beginning to transform state and municipal polices
as Monterrey has already begun to do. (One must also)
undertake judicial reforms to follow up on the constitutional
changes that were passed in 2008. These are not simple
issues, they take a long time. But it is an agenda that
needs to be pursued with patience and determination,
but also with haste because it’s important to give the
people of this country a sense that progress is being
made.
The number of executions in
Mexico during 2008 was 10% higher than the total number
of coalition force casualties in Iraq since the beginning
of the Iraq war as of yesterday. And in 2009 the pace
is running 50% higher than 2008. Do you think Mexico
is winning the fight against organized crime?
I think collectively that Mexico, the United States
and other countries in the hemisphere are winning the
struggle against organized crime. I think it’s important
to keep putting it in the context of the hemisphere,
because that is the kind of challenge that we face.
In some ways this is like a water balloon: if you grab
one piece of it, the water will move to other places,
so you have to have the capabilities of working all
around. And one of the things that I think is important
between Mexico and the United States right now is that
we are committed to building up the capabilities in
both of our countries, because there are things that
the United States needs to improve as well. So we need
to improve in the United States, Mexico needs to improve
as well, together we need to operate more effectively
in the region, we need to be able to reinforce the efforts
that we are making in Colombia and throughout the Caribbean.
The issue of statistics is important. We need to use
statistics as a guide to help us indicate where the
problems are and what’s getting better or worse. There
are others who play other games with statistics and
they’ll say that if you look at the homicide rates in
Mexico they are only slightly higher than in the United
States. For example the homicide rates in New Orleans
in 2007 were higher than the homicide rates in Ciudad
Juarez in 2008. The homicide rates in Medellin were
even far, far higher at one point. What does that tell
us? It tells us that that there are localized problems
in places. But if you just deal with those localized
problems you don’t get success if you don’t also deal
with the wider institutional issues that I was referring
to before. So yes, there is a need to be able to focus
attention in areas where problems arise. Yes, we have
to recognize that when we strike against organized crime,
organized crime is going to respond. But at the same
time if we do this in the context of strategy, then
we can have greater confidence that we are moving forward,
so that when we see those statistics potentially go
up in places, we can put it in a context and understand
it, and know why and when those statistics may take
a negative turn and how to be able to get them under
control.
You recently mentioned that
Mexico should aim to have the Army off the streets,
and that the long-term solution lies within the civilian
police. However right now see the citizens see the army
as Mexico’s last line of defense. Do you have any recommendations
as to how to implement this transition to civilian enforcement
when there is increasing evidence of the penetration
of drug cartels in police forces?
First to go back and clarify what I said. I did not
say that the Army should not have a role in the struggle
against the cartels. I said that President Calderon
has said that it is not a long-term solution; I was
reinforcing the point that he said that the long-term
solution has to be for civilian law enforcement entities
to be responsible for the administration of the rule
of law for civilians. It is understandable that the
Army has been forced to play the role it’s had to play,
because there hasn’t been a degree of confidence, especially
in the state and municipal police. But as President
Calderon has said, it was necessary to bring them in,
it’s also necessary to find a way to facilitate their
evolution and movement to the role that the Army should
play, which is to protect and reinforce the defense
of the Mexican State. And in order to do that, it is
going to take investments in building a federal police
force that can take on cross-state responsibility for
tackling organized crime. But also, building up state
police, municipal police, and that will take time. So
a critical issue in the short-term is how to work with
the Army to improve its capabilities and practices that
it can function and operate in a way that is more consistent
and flows into a civilian rule of law strategy, because
armies are not trained to be investigators and prosecutors.
And so, how do you do that in the short term, how to
build up the civilian institutional capabilities so
that the Army can go back to its original role, as I
said before.
Many in Mexico believe that
the battle against drugs in the U.S. is not being fought
as hard as it is being done in Mexico. For example,
Terry Goddard, Arizona Attorney General, said in March
during an audience in Capitol Hill said that “we are
not winning the war against drugs in the U.S.” Can you
explain why this is not the case, and what the U.S.
is doing against consumption as well as in the fight
against drug cartels that operate in the U.S.?
I would disagree with the characterization. And I
would say that the United States is fighting and struggling
hard, and this is an issue that has attracted the attention
of the President of the United States, it has attracted
the involvement and engagement of the Secretary of Homeland
Security, of the Attorney General, it’s had the direct
involvement of Secretary Clinton on the foreign affairs
issues. Even in the visits that you see today of governors
coming and engaging with their Mexican counterparts,
and my colleagues who have come from Washington D.C,
the Director of the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, the Border Czar who was appointed by Janet Napolitano
to work on these border issues for the Department of
Homeland Security, Alan Bersin is also here. We are
engaged in way which is whole, full and systematic.
And we are looking at American cities and what is driving
the demand for drugs. How to be able to address that
more effectively with changed and improved policies
that range from treatment to different ways of thinking
about the penalties that are imposed on drug users.
We have had a very active engaged policy on cracking
down on arms trafficking, and looking at how we get
better information on who the sources of those arms
are. We have been engaged in a very serious way on being
able to control the flow of arms from the United States
to Mexico, to be able to ensure that we can capture
them, and then engaging with our Mexican counterparts
in strategies on how to do that more effectively. Can
we do more? The answer is always yes. We always have
to be trying to do more because these are serious issues.
But if the question is, is the United States serious
about it? The answer is: Absolutely! We are engaged
at every level from the president down.
I think one of the misconceptions
arises from the fact that you see a lot of headlines
in Mexico about the captures of drug lords, but we don't
read about the ones captured in the U.S.
That may be, but what you see in the United States is
the systematic enforcement of laws and regulations to
crack down on a day-to-day basis, on the capabilities
of organized crime to operate and to be able to strip
away from organized crime both the products that they’re
trying to sell as well as the cash and the arms that
they get from them. And you see that in law enforcement
actions that are taking place throughout the country
on a basis that just don’t make the headlines, but in
the end, the real test is going to be whether we can
transform these issues from the main headlines to, in
fact, the implementation of the rule of law. When we
also have the capacity on a day-to-day law enforcement
basis to crack down, so that capturing a capo no longer
becomes something which is a novel issue for the news.
That we show that we have the capability of controlling
organized crime. That would really be an indication
of success.
The vast majority of assault
weapons with which the Mexican drug cartels overpower
police forces in the country are brought into Mexico
from the U.S. Various U.S. authorities have promised
that this traffic will be stopped, without apparent
results. What else can the US do to curtail this traffic?
I think first of all it is important to recognize
that a significant share of the arms that are coming
to Mexico come from the United States. There is debate
about what the percentage is, but the fact is that it’s
very high and it’s something that has to be taken seriously,
and we have to address it. Whether or not we are making
progress, that's open to debate, but I think one of
the best indications of progress we're going to be able
to get when we have the capacity to systematically have
numbers that show us what arms are captured, where they’re
coming from, and give us also the capability to follow
up with that information in order to use that for investigations,
for the prosecutions (of traffickers). And so aspects
of progress that are being made are building up the
information of databases here within Mexico, within
the SSP, and within the Procurator General's office,
there's a greater capacity of being able to consolidate
that information of arms seizures, and used in an effective
prosecutorial way. The other thing that will be introduced
in December is a version of what is called in the United
States “E-Trace,” which is a database system that allows
the serial numbers of arms that are sold in the country,
and where they were last sold. That kind of information
will allow us to develop patterns that will allow us
to more effectively investigate and prosecute these
individuals.
How do you compare the Merida
Initiative, in terms of amounts as well as types of
assistance, with Plan Colombia? Can the U.S. help more,
nd what would Mexico need to do to?
The Merida Initiative is fundamentally different from
Plan Colombia in this sense: the Merida Initiative began
with Mexico. It was a Mexican policy strategy that came
from here. It was based on Mexico's desire to fight
the drug cartels and institute the rule of law. In that
context, Mexico proposed that the United States make
strategic investments that help complement the Mexican
investments that are being made on this program. The
Mexican government has not asked the United States to
focus attention on investments on the economic and social
issues that are an integral part of Plan Colombia. These
are issues that the Mexican government has said are
its own responsibility. In that sense, we in the United
States completely respect those decisions on the part
of Mexico. It is an appropriate decision given the resources
that Mexico has available. 0ne of the things that the
Mexican side recognizes is that what happens on employment,
on socioeconomic conditions at a community level also
has an impact on security and the incentives that individuals
face, and the ability that cartels have to operate effectively.
I think that’s one of the reasons why we saw in President
Calderon’s presentation yesterday at the “Informe” such
a focus on the linkages between the economic and social
issues, and security issues.
So basically what you’re saying
is that Mexico has not requested assistance in these
other issues, and it merely needs to ask.
No, I’m not saying that Mexico needs to ask. What
I’m saying is that Mexico has decided that its strategy
is to look for American investments that strategically
leverage the capabilities that Mexico has, and that
there are aspects of support and assistance and engagement
that may be more appropriate for the United States to
provide for an economy in a country the size and scale
of Mexico.
In Mexico there is a dichotomy:
if you ask the population that is more educated, or
the population in the north of the country “would you
like the U.S. to help more?” The answer would be: “Yes.”
But if you ask the politicians, the population that
is less educated, or in the central and south of Mexico,
they will say “no” for reasons of national sovereignty.
Do you see that? How can you face that situation when
such a close and important neighbor is in trouble but
it can’t bring itself to ask for more help?
It’s important to keep in mind that we’re in this
together. In global terms Mexico's a relatively rich
country. This is not one of the poorest of the poor
countries that needs a major focus of external assistance.
Mexico has the capacity to borrow from international
organisms for issues like infrastructure development
and job creation. And so, the role for the United States
here is not to be engaged with Mexico in ways that it
might be in a developing country, but to exchange information
and resources as friends.
Finally, I just have to ask
about the status of the bill to legalize illegal immigrants
in the United States.
President Obama spoke about it most definitively and
authoritatively. He said it has to happen. We have a
very difficult and challenging political season with
health-care, energy, climate and financial regulation
reform. His plan and proposal is that early next year
the immigration reform bill should be introduced because
it’s the right thing to do, and a necessary thing to
do for both economies and both people.
|
