Threats to Security in the Western Hemisphere

Thank you, General Freeman. I’m delighted to address this group of distinguished military officers and other officials from throughout the Americas. Today, October 20, is an interesting day in military history. Exactly 59 years ago, General Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines at the head of an Allied invasion force that went on to liberate those islands from abject tyranny and brutality.

We have all seen the picture of the General wading ashore at Leyte. First, we think of it as an example of a soldier fulfilling a promise he made on behalf of his nation to liberate a freedom-loving people -- a promise that at times during that immense struggle seemed all but impossible to achieve. But we may also think of it as a defining moment in a period of extremely rapid change for the world. Three days after MacArthur landed, the largest and last great naval battle in history began in Leyte Gulf. Two days after that, the Japanese Fleet lay in ruins. Four months later, Manila was secured, and in less than a year, the war was over.

Somewhat suddenly, military and civilian officials not unlike those of you gathered here, found themselves trying to establish a democracy in a vast and complex nation that had little democratic heritage. Before long, they also had to deal with a dramatically changed security environment where the threats were completely different than those to which they were accustomed. Does any of this sound familiar? As Mark Twain said, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

At that time, military and civilian officials from many nations worked together to handle the new peril faced by the West. The same is happening today -- both around the world and in our hemisphere. We are in the midst of a new era with different threats and we must work together to defeat those challenges, and to renew the fight for liberty, democracy and human rights.

Our policy agenda in the Hemisphere is broad: it places emphasis on promoting democracy and human rights, strengthening democratic institutions, advancing trade and investment as engines for economic growth and job creation; reducing poverty through strengthening education, health and other basic services; fighting corruption; protecting citizens from international and home-grown terrorists, drug traffickers, money launderers, and international crime organizations, particularly those that traffic in humans.

All of these areas have a common thread, and it leads directly to the issue of security. Each problem represents the failure of government at some level. Failures like these can build upon each other, making the situation exponentially worse. We increasingly find that problems that used to be discreet and separate from the issue of security, are now linked and directly affect national and regional stability. HIV-AIDS is one example. This used to be a concern primarily for health officials, but HIV-AIDS now threatens nations’ economies and militaries, and will lead to further instability.

Official corruption used to be regarded by some as tangential or unrelated to national defense. There is an unmistakable correlation between government corruption and drug trafficking, money laundering, and other forms of organized crime. These, in turn, contribute to the erosion of human rights, the rule of law, democracy, and economic prosperity. Many problems that used to be considered individually, such as environmental disputes, health-related issues, migration flows, narcotics trafficking, and trafficking in persons, among others, must now be viewed as integral to national security and stability. We have gone from a world where we assess our safety based on how we handle one large danger to one in which we must handle numerous, individual concerns.

This is why institutions like the Inter-American Defense College play such a valuable role. In your 46 weeks here, you will have the chance to step back from the daily tasks of running a military or government unit, and focus instead on the big picture of where these threats come from, how they inter-relate, and how they can be confronted.

Our adversaries are different from those we confronted in the past. At the Pentagon, they’re looking at this closely, and so are we. The Defense Department’s Office of Force Transformation, which conceptualizes future threats, has made some interesting observations. They see the general trend of violence devolving from the state level to the individual level, such as terrorists. This change is directly linked to two other trends: globalization and the movement from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. These trends have resulted in a much more inter-connected world with unprecedented freedom of movement and significant interdependencies for those who take part.

Globalization entails the relatively free flow of ideas, capital and people. It also requires good governance: transparency and the rule of law are essential. If you chart out where Western militaries have been engaged in the last ten years, you see what has been called a “governance gap” of failed states. These nations have invariably resisted the freedom and improved governance that must ultimately be associated with growing global political and economic interdependence.

What are the specific threats we are confronting? One of the most significant challenges to the security of the Western Hemisphere stems from illegal narcotics trafficking. It is clear that there is a link among terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminal groups. In turn, corruption undermines political, economic and social development.

Consequently, we are providing training and technical assistance to nations throughout the Americas. We help countries strengthen their border controls, and develop stronger law enforcement and financial regulation standards. The U.S. provides approximately $1 billion in counter-narcotics assistance each year, most of which is focused on the Western Hemisphere. Much of this aid assists military and law enforcement in improving their capacity to fight the scourge of illegal drugs, while respecting human rights and the rule of law. One has only to look at the record-breaking drops in coca and opium poppy cultivation in Colombia to see the advantages of close and determined cooperation on counter-narcotics.

In addition to the illegal narcotics trade, trafficking in human beings is another security risk. We are extremely concerned about the countless lives that have been shattered by this criminal activity. Over 3,000 people a year are kidnapped in Colombia by terrorists and criminals for ransom or political motives. More startling is that thousands more are children who are trafficked to fight and die on the front lines of these terrorists’ wars against peace and democracy. Colombia is not alone -- around the globe, men, and mostly women and children are being bought and sold in an underground market of modern-day slavery.

Trafficking in persons also goes hand-in-hand with the illegal sex trade. As President Bush said in his address to the United Nations last month, “There is a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable…Those who create these victims, and profit from their suffering, must be severely punished…And governments that tolerate this trade are tolerating the worst form of slavery.”

To confront these trans-border crimes, our federal law enforcement agencies are developing closer relationships with select, specialized law enforcement units in other countries. These units are carefully vetted to ensure integrity and enable the sharing of sensitive information. By working together and sharing data and resources, our nations’ law enforcement agencies have become much more effective.

The spread of HIV-AIDS also jeopardizes our security. It knows no borders. The disease preys on younger people ages 25-44 who are in the most economically productive times of their lives. Heavily-affected countries in Africa report that between one-quarter to one-half of their militaries might be infected. If unchecked, this infectious disease will rapidly create a lost generation whose absence will cripple their country -- its development, its economic growth -- leaving it more vulnerable to conflict and a breakdown in security.

SARS is another example of how unexpected new health threats can emerge. The SARS crisis underscored how easily and rapidly diseases can move across borders. SARS also demonstrated how biological threats, whether they are derived from natural causes or are man-made, have been still dealt with primarily by public health officials. The need of these first responders to coordinate activities with the rest of the national and international security apparatus is critical. A strong defense against biological challenges must involve global disease surveillance, and multilateral cooperation on research, prevention and treatment.

This Administration has consistently approached the global spread of HIV-AIDS as a severe and urgent crisis. We are strongly committed to help turn the tide against AIDS. Last January, President Bush announced the historic $15 billion, 5-year plan that is expected to deploy over $2 billion in the first year and steadily increase expenditures over the next 4 years. The plan will focus a significant amount of resources on the most afflicted countries, including two of those in the Caribbean -- Haiti and Guyana.

Accordingly, a new Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator has been created at the State Department to oversee all U.S. international assistance to support prevention efforts, treatment programs, and care initiatives.

While we face these new global challenges, several positive trends are also underway. Democracy, human rights and the rule of law have progressed significantly. In 1982, Freedom House considered seven of the twenty-nine nations it followed in the Hemisphere to be “not free.” Today, there are only two: Cuba and Haiti. Nine states that were deemed to be “not free” or “partially free” are now free. Perhaps most impressively, Nicaragua, which struggled under years of Marxist rule, is free and today has soldiers in Iraq helping to build a democracy there. They are joined by soldiers from the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, and the United States. Great progress has been made, but this should not lead us to complacency.

Freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and fundamental labor rights -- all of which are critical to democracy -- still remain vulnerable to attack. Cuba is the worst offender, but in nations such as Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala and Haiti, there have been incidents of repression: labor leaders, human rights defenders and journalists have been murdered. Venezuela sought to dismantle many of the country’s key democratic institutions, including its leading labor union, the media and the national university system.

I know all of us in the Americas are closely following the situation in Bolivia. We regret the circumstances including the loss of life that led to ex-President Sanchez de Lozada’s resignation. We call upon all parties to work together to safeguard a democratic and constitutional transfer of power. The events of the past week have underscored the need for all Bolivians to work together to strengthen democratic institutions through peaceful dialogue and constitutional means. It is now the responsibility of Bolivians to take steps to end political polarization and to guarantee respect for human life and the rule of law.

In discussing menaces to the Hemisphere, I would be remiss if I didn’t give special mention to Cuba. Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism, and has been active in exporting terror throughout the Americas. In the last year alone, we have detected 18 Cuban spies in the U.S., and have given them one-way tickets back to Havana. The U.S. is often asked to justify its embargo on Cuba, but a much better question would be to ask how the dictator of Havana justifies his continued enslavement of the Cuban people. He has spurned repeated opportunities to ease the embargo, made no effort to improve the plight of his people, and just last spring threw 75 peaceful members of the opposition into jail after show trials. As President Bush announced this month, Cuba must change, and we, with the support of other democratic countries, are undertaking new initiatives to hasten the arrival of a new, free, democratic Cuba.

Throughout the Americas, we stand with those who seek to defend and bolster democracy. We will never turn our backs on those who fight for democracy and human rights, and we are undertaking a systematic effort to bolster democracy around the globe.

We have joined with scores of countries throughout the Hemisphere and around the world, in forming the Community of Democracies. The Community is a diverse group of nations at different developmental stages and with different cultures that recognize democracy is the best tool to bring stability to a country and region, the best vehicle to foster economic development, and the most effective system to protect and provide for the needs of the citizenry. The Community is not a bureaucracy; it has no headquarters or secretariat. Rather it is a flexible, effective mechanism for bringing democracies together to address challenges, talk about best practices, and undertake initiatives to bolster democracy. I would like to acknowledge particularly the contributions to this effort by the Government of Chile, a founding member and the host of the next Community of Democracies Summit in 2005.

We have also been collaborating closely with other countries on the concept of creating a democracy caucus in the United Nations. The objective of the Community of Democracies is not simply to convene meetings, but to increase the coordination among democracies to help advance democratic principles. The United Nations is a natural forum for those principles to be reaffirmed. British Prime Minister Tony Blair summed up the objective in his speech to a Joint Session of the U.S. Congress: “We need to say clearly to United Nations members: ‘If you engage in the systematic and gross abuse of human rights in defiance of the UN charter, you cannot expect to enjoy the same privileges as those that conform to it.” A democracy caucus will both strengthen the United Nations and bolster the common bonds and values which tie together democracies.

We will also continue to work through multilateral organizations like the Organization for American States to promote democracy and human rights. The OAS has served as an important catalyst for cooperation in the Americas. Two years ago, the OAS approved the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which effectively makes preservation of democracy in the Western Hemisphere the business of all OAS countries. To re-energize the Hemisphere’s broader agenda, countries in the region have agreed to hold a Special Summit of the Americas in January. The focus will be on economic growth, social development, and democratic governance. We hope this summit will produce specific commitments and timelines to move forward on the critical issues of support for small and medium-sized business, accountability for results in education, and making government more transparent.

Moreover, we have high expectations for the Special Conference on Hemispheric Security that will begin shortly in Mexico City. We hope this will result in a strong, clear, final declaration that embodies our common approach to security -- one that recognizes the new security environment and deals with the issues I have raised here.

Several years ago, the National Intelligence Council of the Central Intelligence Agency released an unclassified report, “Global Trends 2015.” The report alerted policymakers to the new set of global challenges such as environmental degradation, migration flows, the spread of infectious diseases, narcotics trafficking, and trafficking in persons, and urged that these be taken seriously, and preventative action be undertaken. This Administration has certainly heeded this call and has devised appropriate policies working closely together with other countries and regional and multilateral organizations.

In closing, I want to reiterate my support for the students and faculty here at the Inter-American Defense College. I have a great deal of respect for those of you here who have devoted your lives to defending your nations and the liberties of your countrymen.