ASSISTANT SECRETARY BROWNFIELD'S CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY ON NARCOTICS AND U.S.-MEXICO RELATIONS

FROM:  THE STATE DEPARTMENT 

The Future of U.S.-Mexico Relations

Testimony

William R. Brownfield

Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs

Statement Before the House Foreign Affairs Committee

Washington, DC

May 20, 2014

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Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss our important partnership with the Government of Mexico. Through this unprecedented partnership forged between our two governments over the past seven years, great progress has been made in strengthening the capacity of Mexico’s justice sector to counter organized crime and protect our shared border. And working in partnership with the Peña Nieto administration, we are continuing our strong collaborative efforts with the Government of Mexico to advance our shared citizen security objectives.
In 2008, at the start of the Merida Initiative, drug cartel-related violence in Mexico had been increasing dramatically, corruption was a threat to rule of law, and Mexican institutions were not able to deal effectively with the impunity of these powerful criminal networks. The people of Mexico had little confidence in their institutions, and the unmitigated flow of illicit money and narcotics clouded the prospects of Mexico’s licit economy. 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.

Since 2008, our assistance under the Merida Initiative has helped advance Mexico’s implementation of these reforms. To date, the U.S. government has delivered approximately $1.2 billion worth of training, capacity building, and equipment. By no means do we go it alone: the Government of Mexico has contributed billions of its own resources, outpacing our own, to our shared security goals. And because our assistance is designed jointly with the Government of Mexico, many programs form integral parts of Mexico’s justice sector reforms and enjoy a high level of sustainability.

Our partnership with Mexico has demonstrated results, through it we have: helped advance the transition to the accusatory justice system through the training of over 8,500 federal justice sector personnel; augmented the professionalization of police units by providing training to more than 22,000 federal and state police officers, 4,000 of which are federal investigators; improved the capacity and security of its federal prisons, supporting the expansion of secure federal facilities from five with a capacity of 3,500 to 14 with a capacity of 20,000; provided civic education and ethics training to more than 700,000 Mexican students; and improved the detection of narcotics, arms, and money at the border, reaching nearly $3.8 billion in illicit goods seized. In addition, since 2009, Mexico has apprehended more than 70 senior and mid-level drug trafficking organization (DTO) leaders, notably Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, significantly disrupting all major Mexican DTOs. These are noteworthy outputs that, with continued collaboration and political commitment, will help enhance security for citizens on both sides of the border.

The 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 21^st 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, is the basis for our security cooperation with the Peña Nieto Administration going forward.

When President Peña Nieto took office in December 2012, he and his Administration took a close and deliberate look at the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship, including our security cooperation. After a careful review, the Government of Mexico has committed to continuing our collaboration on security issues under the four-pillar Merida framework, with a sharper focus on crime prevention and rule of law. The Peña Nieto Administration has laid out its long-term plans for improving citizen security through its ten-point security strategy that includes crime prevention and effective criminal justice, police professionalization, transforming the prison system, promoting citizen participation and international coordination on security, transparent statistics on crime rates, coordination among government authorities and regionalization to focus efforts, and strengthening of intelligence to combat crime. These elements track well with the planning and direction of the work that I manage, International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) programming, which aims to help build professionalized and credible civilian security.

In recent months, we have reached agreement with the Government of Mexico on areas of programmatic focus for our security cooperation under Merida. We have launched a robust process for getting security assistance programs green lighted that consists of joint executive level meetings between INL Mexico and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) and the Ministry of Government (SEGOB). Since November 2013, 78 projects, totaling more than $430 million have been approved through this process. These projects span all four pillars of Merida with a focus on bilateral priority areas – assistance to the states in law enforcement capacity building, support to the Government of Mexico’s efforts on its southern border strategy, and justice sector reform.

In seeking to further justice sector reform, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) has demonstrated commitment to advancing the transition to the accusatory justice system and recently agreed to several programs supporting this transition at the federal and state level. We will continue building the skills of prosecutors, investigators, and experts, enhancing the technical capacity of courtrooms throughout the country to handle oral trials, and helping to train law school students in crucial oral trial skills. Additionally we are working with the PGR’s criminal investigation arm, akin to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, to enhance its human and technological capacity to pursue complex investigations.

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, 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 but expanding it to reach all of Mexico’s 31 states and the Federal District. Some programs will be regional in their application, enhancing cooperation between law enforcement officials in neighboring states as they implement reforms. Contending with transnational crime and violence against communities takes collaboration and partnerships. And that is why, in addition to regional training academies, we are supporting task forces at the state level to better develop and share police intelligence, augmenting local capacity to combat criminal organizations.

Building on the Peña Nieto Administration’s agenda for police professionalization, we will 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 recruitment, training, discipline and promotion. Drawing upon expertise here at home, U.S. Federal, state, and local partners will help to advise their Mexican counterparts on policing standards and best practices, and facilitate regional working groups that integrate state, local, and federal entities. Police professionalization, greater observance of civil and human rights, and greater trust among the Mexican public in its police will result.

Greater border security capacity, along Mexico’s northern and southern borders is also a significant bilateral priority. Our governments have committed to further enhancing the Government of Mexico’s ability to interdict illicit narcotics, arms, and money as well as strengthen control of porous border areas. Using the train the trainer method to multiply the impact of our assistance, we have already provided specialized training for police, military, and Mexican Customs officials that address advanced border security and import/export processing techniques and methodologies. On Mexico’s southern border, we expect that our assistance programs will help to improve communications among Mexican law enforcement, immigration, and community officials, increasing their interoperability and capacity to share information to adapt to evolving criminal tactics. This is important to Mexico’s national security and it is to ours as well. It goes without saying that strengthening Mexico’s capacity to control its border with Belize and Guatemala, which Mexico is already taking steps to do, will improve security on our own southern border.

In addition to new programs that we expect to have underway in the year ahead, we continue to build on the success of several ongoing programs. For example, Mexico’s federal corrections system continues to be a recognized international leader in corrections reform, with eight federal facilities already certified by the independent American Correctional Association. 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.
We will also 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 Peña 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 (FIU) personnel, sophisticated financial analysis software, and the accompanying computer hardware. Given the expanded responsibilities of the FIU under the new anti-money laundering legislation passed in late 2012, we are providing additional support for upgrades and expanding their data center.

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 throughout Mexico, professional ethics education for the federal and state police as well other public officials, and informs citizens on the process for reporting crime and collects feedback on their experience of reporting crime through on-site monitors at local public prosecutors’ offices in Mexico City.

These examples of past, current, and future security collaboration with Mexico are just that, examples. 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. This is the path toward secure and safe communities and secure and safe economies. Our work with Mexico over the past seven years has achieved far reaching results and I am confident that our collaborative efforts will continue.

Thank you, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel and other distinguished Members for your time. I look forward to answering any questions you might have.

STATE DEPARTMENT STATEMENT TO CONGRESS ON SECURITY IN LATIN AMERICA

The following excerpt is from the U.S. State Department website:
Security Challenges in Latin America
Testimony William R. Brownfield
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Statement Before the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs of the House Appropriations Committee
Washington, DC
March 29, 2012
As prepared
Chairwoman Granger, Ranking Member Lowey, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for your invitation to discuss security threats in the Western Hemisphere as well as our efforts to address them. I am pleased to be with you today.

Let me begin by describing the security challenge as we see it in the INL Bureau. The persistently high homicide and crime rates throughout Central America, the Caribbean, and the horrific reports of violence inside Mexico, are symptoms of a broader climate of insecurity throughout the region. Crime and violence are exacerbated by widespread poverty and unemployment. This is brought into greater focus as criminal organizations react to the increasing pressure placed on their operations by governments in the region with support from the United States. These threats undermine and pose profound challenges to good governance, citizen security, and the rule of law. And absent these fundamental principles, transnational crime, gangs, and other illicit activity can flourish in many countries, threatening stability and public security.

To counter these threats, this Administration has advanced an integrated approach of U.S. assistance programs, from traditional prevention, law enforcement and counternarcotics programs, to anti-corruption, judicial reform, anti-gang, community policing, and corrections efforts. We are transforming our relationship with foreign partners by moving from the traditional donor-recipient relationship to one built on equal partnerships that involve shared responsibility and accountability. In each of our initiatives, we work hand in hand with host nation officials and our partners in the U.S. government, as well as with other donors, such as Colombia, to strengthen the justice sector institutions, including the judiciary, police and corrections. We coordinate our efforts with others in the U.S. government who work with communities, civil society, and the private sector, recognizing that security solutions require a whole of society approach. We have learned that this is the only way to bring long-term stability to countries threatened by crime and violence. Governments must have the ability, and in fact, have the responsibility to protect their citizens, to deal with crime and violence so that these issues remain or become law enforcement problems, not national security threats. This is a long-term strategy that has proven to be effective.

The Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), Mérida Initiative, Colombian Strategic Development Initiative (CSDI), and Caribbean Basin Security Initiatives (CBSI) embrace this approach. They are partnerships in which governments have collaborated with the United States on the development of joint programs and initiatives that are aimed at protecting citizens and strengthening the institutions responsible for ensuring citizen safety.

Support for Central America
Today, some 95 percent of the cocaine from South America destined for the U.S. transits the Central America/Mexico corridor. With these activities comes violence: Battles between criminal groups for territory and transit routes; clashes between criminals and law enforcement; and violent crime fuelled by drug consumption, all with the ultimate motive of making a profit. In 2008, anticipating that Mexico’s efforts to challenge cartels would result in the movement of trafficking routes elsewhere, the U.S. government formed a partnership with Central American nations to enhance their security capacity. CARSI is the resulting program.

Applying our overall strategy and lessons learned through the years, CARSI works to increase the capacity of law enforcement to combat drug traffickers and provide public security, support prevention efforts targeting at-risk youth and those living in communities susceptible to crime and recruitment by gangs and traffickers, and strengthen justice sector institutions. While CARSI prioritizes the so-called “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, where the levels of crime and violence are most severe and stability most threatened, the program is leveraging our assistance throughout the region to improve citizen security.

Thanks to support from this Subcommittee and your Senate colleagues, our government has already committed approximately $231 million in INCLE funding for technical assistance and training for CARSI between Fiscal Years 2008 and 2011, and, with your approval, we are seeking to dedicate an additional $85 million for CARSI under the INCLE account in Fiscal Year 2012. Our request for Fiscal Year 2013 continues our work at $60 million, at an assistance level that matches programming goals for each fiscal year with the actual capacity of our partners to absorb that assistance.

Our programs are starting to see results. In a relatively short period of time, crime rates have decreased in municipalities where we are providing targeted training, equipment, and support. For example, in Lourdes, El Salvador – where INL has a Model Police Precinct – crime rates have dropped 40 percent over the past year. We have similar model precinct programs in Guatemala and are starting others in Honduras. Our support to law enforcement is also gaining traction, with specialized vetted units, overall police reform efforts, and targeted training with our partners from Colombia and Mexico in Central America.

Governments in the region are increasingly recognizing the need to invest in their own security and are passing new laws on taxes to support investments in citizen security programs, judicially authorized wiretapping programs, extradition, and asset forfeiture. Change is slow to take hold, however, as corruption and impunity remains widespread. We are working to accelerate our programs to achieve even more results, including standing up a full-fledged Narcotics Affairs Sections in San Salvador and Tegucigalpa, and enhancing levels of coordination and planning across the interagency to identify opportunities and de-conflict programs as necessary.

The regional nature of transnational crime and the violence it spurs has also prompted an unprecedented international effort to support citizen security efforts in Central America, including through the Group of Friends of Central America. We are working together with the Central America Integration System (SICA), joined by common principals, to address
our common challenges.

Mérida/Mexico
In Mexico we continue to see shocking news reports of killings and violence; however, the Government of Mexico, with assistance from the United States through the Mérida Initiative, has had some significant results. The resources you have provided to the INL Bureau, approximately $1.1 billion in INCLE funds for Mérida since its inception, have helped the Government of Mexico, together with its United States partner departments and agencies, to continue turning the tables on the cartels. Funds appropriated in Fiscal Year 2012, approximately $249 million, along with our request for Fiscal Year 2013, $199 million, will ensure continued and sustainable progress. Through bilateral law enforcement cooperation, 47 high value targets have been arrested or removed in Mexico, including 23 of Mexico’s top 37 most wanted criminals, since December 2009. This aggressive and coordinated approach to dismantle and disrupt the drug cartels has included an institutional focus on all elements of the justice sector and civil society. The Government of Mexico, through our Mérida Initiative is transforming Mexico’s security forces and has strengthened Mexican government institutions in order to confront trafficking organizations and associated crime, and maintain public trust and citizen security.

Through the Mérida Initiative, the mobility of Mexico’s security forces has increased significantly. Thanks to your support, the United States has already delivered eight Bell helicopters to Mexico’s Army (SEDENA), three Black Hawk helicopters to Mexico’s Navy (SEMAR), and four Black Hawk helicopters to Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Security (SSP) and its Federal Police. As a practical example of the initiative’s impact, Mérida provided Black Hawks were responsible for enabling Mexico’s high profile operations against the La Familia cartel in Michoacán in December 2010, and another operation against Los Zetas in Nuevo Leon in September 2011. Neither of these operations would have been possible without the air mobility provided and well trained Mexican personnel traveling onboard.

In another example, Mérida Initiative training, provided through U.S. agency implementers, has reached more than 52,000 federal police, justice sector officials, and state police officials providing lessons on leadership, accountability, and management. As a result of our professionalization training, and the Government of Mexico’s revolutionary reforms, the new cadre of security officers and officials is more impervious to coercion and corruption by transnational criminals and the federal government in Mexico now has its own polygraph capacity to vet personnel through two certified federal and 15 state polygraph centers.

The Mérida Initiative has also illustrated the importance of syncing our assistance in equipment and training for the government of Mexico with programs that enable Mexican communities to work more closely with government entities to improve their security. We have found that when material resources, training, and community programs complement each other, the outcome is more successful and more sustainable. Through one Mérida program, for example, our partners at USAID have delivered over 40 small grants to nongovernmental organizations that have resulted in programs for at-risk youth and other programs that reduce violence against women, improve mental health, strengthen community cohesion, and improve education. Another program through Mérida has provided classroom lessons on the culture of lawfulness and ethics to more than 600,000 students and 14,000 teachers, in some 7,000 separate schools located in 24 Mexican States.

As is the case in other parts of the hemisphere, our strategy through Mérida was not singularly focused on dismantling the cartels, but rather a long term institution building strategy in our partnership with the Government of Mexico.

Colombia: An Exporter of Regional Security
Best practices learned over decades in Colombia have informed our overall hemispheric strategy. As a follow-on to Plan Colombia we have continued our partnership with the Government of Colombia to fortify the gains made over the past decade. We developed a program called the Colombia Strategic Development Initiative (CSDI), which supports the Colombian Government’s National Consolidation Plan. Today, CSDI provides for civilian institution building, rule of law, and alternative development programs, along with security and counternarcotics efforts in those areas where poverty, violence, and illicit cultivation or drug trafficking persist and have historically converged. We are supporting these endeavors with significantly reduced resource levels; however, continued resources will be needed to sustain and consolidate our gains.

For example, our Fiscal Year 2013 request represents more than an $18 million reduction from our Fiscal Year 2012 INCLE enacted, and a $62 million reduction from Fiscal Year 2011 INCLE enacted. We’ve worked closely with our Colombian partners to ensure that this is not misinterpreted as a reduction in priority or partnership, but rather the appropriate evolution of our joint efforts -- where we once led assistance efforts to now supporting Colombia’s sustainment and nationalization of those efforts.

Our efforts in Colombia are paying dividends regionally as well. With the capacity that the Government of Colombia built over the years, Colombia is now bolstering efforts to address similar security concerns elsewhere in the region. Colombia today is no longer just a recipient of security assistance but an exporter of it. Since 2009, the Colombian National Police (CNP), our closest partner in promoting citizen security throughout the region, has trained some 10,000 police from across Latin America in areas such as criminal investigation skills, personal protection, and anti-kidnapping among other critical law enforcement disciplines. Colombia’s participation in improving security and reducing instability throughout the hemisphere by providing needed training is an enormous return on our investment in that country, and is precisely the type of regional approach to security promoted by Secretary Clinton. This is a positive trend, one which we firmly believe will continue with additional partners and with ownership by governments of the region.

Support for Caribbean Nations
The deleterious effects of drug smuggling, gangs and violent crime are also adversely affecting many countries in the Caribbean, including transnational criminals returning in a limited nature to air, maritime, and terrestrial routes in the Caribbean to traffic illicit products. Accordingly, in 2009, President Obama launched the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, which like our other initiatives, is a collaborative endeavor undertaken in partnership with various United States departments and agencies, as well as the nations in the region.

Citizen security is the single most important issue confronting the Caribbean as narcotics-driven crime and violence have reached epidemic proportions, threatening the safety and security of United States and Caribbean citizens alike.

CBSI, like each of our other major partnerships, aims to increase stability and improve security, and applies a whole of government approach to the challenges confronting Caribbean nations. We have committed $48 million in INCLE funds during the first two years of CBSI for programs and equipment to support our Caribbean partners, and we expect to commit an additional $30 million in INCLE funds for Fiscal Year 2012, with your support.

Our Fiscal Year 2013 INCLE request of $21 million will allow us to continue to support programs that strengthen Caribbean partner nation capabilities in the areas of maritime security, law enforcement, information sharing, border and migration control, transnational crime, and criminal justice.

Specifically, our programs seek to increase regional cooperation of our Caribbean partners to share law enforcement data, including ballistics imaging, airport passenger manifests, and fingerprinting, through software and training. Technical assistance will increase the ability of our partners to combat financial crimes and money laundering, while equipment and training for law enforcement personnel target narcotics trafficking on land and sea. These efforts seek to strengthen national and regional security systems throughout the Caribbean before the threats of illicit trafficking and transnational crime worsen.
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 Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Lowey, I have focused my prepared remarks today on the programs we are administering to support our partners in the Western Hemisphere for a reason. As you know well, the challenges to secure and safe societies in the hemisphere are vast, and insecure societies host the majority of criminals whose crimes directly threaten our nation’s security. We recognize that there is no easy fix for these problems, and we will continue to evaluate our progress and adjust our approaches as these complex and dynamic threats evolve. We focus largely on regional programs because they provide the platform for several nations to coordinate their strategy and ensure a unified capability to addressing their shared challenges. Regional programs also allow us to multiply the impact and value of our assistance by syncing up with the contributions made by each government in the region. While these programs represent our major mechanisms for addressing threats to security in the Western Hemisphere, they are by no means our only mechanisms. We have ongoing bilateral programs – some robust like in Peru and Haiti, and some less so, in other countries in the hemisphere.

In Peru for example, where our bilateral counternarcotics relationship has been reinvigorated by an eager and supportive administration there, we have programs to increase capacity of law enforcement and programs to support a significant coca eradication effort. This is going to be an important area for us to watch closely, and I look forward to further discussions with the Subcommittee as our partnership there continues to evolve. And in Haiti, where perhaps the absence of strong and capable government institutions had been the most striking in the Western Hemisphere, INL supports programs to improve the capacity of law enforcement as well as the judicial sector. It is also worth noting that we are working very diligently to engage our friends in the region, particularly those with recognized competency in particular areas, to strengthen the capacity of not just others countries within the Western Hemisphere, but across the globe.

Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Lowey, thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss and share with you the work we are doing to address these challenging threats to the security of the people of the Western Hemisphere. I look forward to your questions.