Testimony
of Geoff Thale
Program
Director of the Washington Office on Latin America
Before
the
House
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee
on the Western Hemisphere
Hearing
on
“Central
America and the Merida
Initiative”
May
8, 2008
.
Introduction
I am the Program Director of the Washington Office on Latin America
(WOLA). I oversee all of our programs
related to Central America, and I direct our program on youth gangs, citizen
security, and human rights in Central America. I have been at WOLA for almost thirteen
years, and I have worked professionally on issues of human rights, democracy,
and development in Central America for more
than twenty years. I appreciate this
opportunity to testify before the Western Hemisphere subcommittee about crime
and violence in the region, the U.S.
interests that are at stake, and how we should work with governments and civil
society to respond to these serious problems.
The Washington Office on Latin
America is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that monitors human
rights and social justice issues in Latin America, and that advocates for U.S.
policies that support human rights, democratization, and social justice in the
region. For almost thirty-five years, WOLA has monitored issues of human rights
and democracy in Latin America, and has provided information and analysis to
Congressional offices, the Administration, and the general public about
conditions in the region and the impact of U.S. policy.
In particular, WOLA has followed
issues of crime, violence and citizen security in Central
America since the early 1990s.
As the civil wars that racked the region in the 1980s came to an end,
WOLA believed that establishing the rule of law and supporting the creation of
professional, apolitical police forces that provided security to citizens while
respecting due process and human rights was one of the most crucial challenges faced
by the nascent democratic governments of the region. The public security forces that had been in
place in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala since at least the 1950s
had been under the control of the armed forces, rather than of civilian
governments, had enforced order without respect for the rule of law or due
process, and were deeply implicated in human rights abuses. These forces needed to be reformed, if not
replaced.
Peace agreements in Central America called for the reform and
re-establishment of the police, as part of the re-founding of a democratic
state. The United
States, concerned for human rights and democracy, and
eager to see stability in Central America
after the war and violence of the 1980s, made a major commitment to support
police reform. WOLA, working with civil
society partners in the region, monitored the reform process, and advocated with
Central American governments, the U.S. government, and the
international community for policies that would help consolidate effective and
rights-respecting police forces in the Central American countries.
Out of our work on citizen
security and police reform, WOLA has developed experience and expertise in the
problems of crime, violence, and citizen security in Central
America. Today, I would
like to testify about the broad spectrum of violence that Central America
faces, and about the Merida Initiative, the three year U.S. government proposal that includes a Central
American component under which the U.S. government would help its
governments in the region address problems of crime and violence.
As you know, following
discussions with the Presidents of Central America, and the regional Central
American Integration System, or SICA, last October, the Bush Administration has
asked for $50 million in Fiscal Year 2008 supplemental funding for the Central America component of the Merida Initiative. In February
2008, it asked for an additional $100 million as part of the Foreign Operations
Appropriation bill for fiscal year 2009.
In my testimony, I will examine
the kinds of crime and violence that Central America
confronts, and ask whether or not the programs funded under the Merida
Initiative, are the right response to the problem of crime and violence in the
region.
Central
America confronts at least three major types of crime and violence
today: drug trafficking, organized crime
groups, and youth gangs. The Merida
Initiative takes an important step in recognizing that crime, violence and
insecurity are problems for our neighbors in Central
America, and that it is in our national interest to help governments
in the region address them. It is also to
be commended for recognizing that civilian institutions – the police, the
judiciary, the social service system – are the key institutions in responding
to the problems of crime and violence, and that neither the U.S. military, nor
Central American militaries, ought to play any major role in confronting these
problems. In a region where the military
has too often been involved in civilian institutions, it is an encouraging sign
that the military is given no role in the Central America
portion of the Merida Initiative.
While the diagnosis is right, the
specifics of the Merida proposal in terms of how
to address those problems in Central America are
nonetheless flawed. These flaws can and
should be addressed, to make the Merida Initiative more helpful and
constructive in dealing with crime and violence in Central
America.
·
On drug trafficking, the Merida Initiative
focuses too heavily on supporting interdiction efforts that are not likely to
succeed in stemming the flow of drugs so long as U.S. consumption remains strong. It does take some first steps in assisting our
neighbors in Central America in controlling
the arms trafficking that makes weapons available to drug traffickers, but
could do more.
·
On other forms of organized crime -- the
criminal groups, many of which emerged from the security forces and
paramilitary groups that operated during the civil wars of the 1980s, that run
smuggling rings, car theft operations, kidnapping operations, and so on -- the
Merida Initiative ought to do more to assist Central American governments in
investigating and prosecuting these groups. (The CICIG, the UN-sponsored International
Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala,
is a model for this, and needs to be strongly supported.) This requires a focus on financial crimes
units, money laundering, and anti-corruption investigations.
·
On youth violence, the Merida Initiative promises
to implement the comprehensive five point plan for youth gang violence that the
U.S. announced last year, including an emphasis on prevention, not just on law
enforcement. That’s a positive and
important step. But more resources need
to be invested in the prevention side, and the law enforcement funding
concentrates too much on the transnational aspects of youth gang violence,
while the fundamental problem that youth violence poses in Central
America is domestic, not transnational.
Across the board, the Merida
Initiative is to be commended for its focus on strengthening law enforcement,
criminal prosecution, the judiciary, and the prison system. At the same time, the
law enforcement funding is flawed. It is not built on a comprehensive vision of
police reform, and it risks throwing good money after bad.
WOLA urges the Congress, as it
considers the Merida Initiative, to address these problems.
Is the Merida Initiative, in relation to
Central America, the right response to the
problems of crime and violence in the region?
The Administration Request
The supplemental request of $50
million includes $16.6 million for counter-narcotics and border security
programs, about $3.3 million of which are for small arms control programs. It provides almost $21 million for law
enforcement and police training programs, including some $5 million for youth
violence prevention programs. And it provides
about $8 million for institutional strengthening of the courts, the attorney
generals’ offices and the prison system.
For fiscal 2009, the Administration requests $100 million. The request more than doubles the
counter-narcotics funding to $40 million, increases the law enforcement funding
modestly, and almost triples the funding for institution building. The Bush Administration is likely to request
a third year of funding when the President submits his final budget in January
of next year.
The Problem of Crime and Violence
in Central America
There is no question that crime,
violence, and citizen insecurity are major issues in Central America, of grave
concern to Central Americans, and of concern to the U.S. The region is experiencing a variety of
forms of criminal activity, from common crime to gang violence, to organized
crime and drug trafficking. These forms
of crime are related, but they are not all the same. They each need to be addressed in their own
terms. A U.S. assistance program should
address three distinct but related kinds of criminal activity --- drug
trafficking, other forms of organized crime, and youth gang violence.
Drug trafficking, in which
Central America serves as a conduit for drugs in transit to the United States, is driven by the apparently
endless U.S. demand for
drugs, and by the institutional weakness and corruption in Central
America that allows traffickers to move their product with
impunity.
It’s important to understand that
drug trafficking is not the only form of organized criminal activity in Central America. Other forms of organized crime
flourish as well. Contraband smuggling,
extortion, kidnapping, auto theft, bank robbery, and various types of fraud are
serious problems in the region. In many
countries, the criminal groups that carry out these activities include former
members of the security services and ex-military officials, whose
counter-insurgency activities mutated into criminal behavior, taking advantage
of the ties these individuals and groups had developed with a range of
government officials. This kind of crime
flourishes because of the institutional weakness of the police and the criminal
justice system, and the penetration of these groups into state structures, as
they seek to protect and extend their criminal activity.
In addition to drug traffickers
and to other organized criminal groups, there are youth gangs, like MS-13
and the 18th Street
gang. These gangs grow in a climate
where opportunities for youth are limited, and social programs scarce, and
where law enforcement responses have been both heavy-handed and
ineffective.
Youth gangs in Central America
are sometimes portrayed as transnational criminal enterprises; research that
WOLA and our colleagues in Central America have conducted suggest that most
youth gangs are local, sometimes regional groups that engage in inter and intra
gang crime, in extortion, in murder for hire, and sometimes as mules for drug
traffickers. But they don’t organize or
lead drug trafficking, contraband smuggling, or other forms of crime. They are a serious problem; at the same time,
they are primarily a domestic citizen security problem, requiring effective
local and national efforts. Although
some gang cliques have cross-border links, gangs are not fundamentally a
transnational problem. As the UN Office
on Drugs and Crime noted in their 2007 study on crime and development in
Central America, noted, “[T]he spectre of ‘mega-gangs’ responding to a single
command structure and involved in sophisticated trafficking operations, does
not, at present, seem to have been realized, as least so far as drug
trafficking is concerned. It is likely
that gang members are preoccupied with more local, neighborhood issues.”
What Kind of Response is Needed
Each of these problems requires distinct,
specific responses.
Combating drug trafficking
requires going after the corruption, money laundering, and political influence
that major drug traffickers exert in Central America, while addressing the
problem of demand in the United States that fuels drug trafficking, and the
weapons that flow from the United States to Central America and fuel violence. In Central America, domestic drug abuse
levels are far lower than they are in the United States, but drug abuse is a growing
problem that governments need to address.
Fighting other forms of
organized crime requires efforts to end impunity and corruption by
organized criminal groups, many of them with a history of connection to state
security services. CICIG in Guatemala
is a model for how to do this.
Youth violence requires a
comprehensive governmental response that includes a serious focus on violence
prevention and intervention programs, along with a re-thinking of police
strategies. Best practices in the United
States and in Latin America all suggest that nationally funded, but locally
designed and community based approaches that involve schools, community
agencies and local governments, along with the police, in designing appropriate
youth violence prevention programs are the most effective strategies in keeping
young people out of gangs, and in reducing the violence and criminality
associated with them. We at WOLA are
about to publish a study looking at effective community based violence
prevention programs in both Central America and the United States, and drawing
lessons from them about what is effective.
While each of these problems
requires some specialized responses, all of them have one thing in common: they demand long-term investment in the
institutional strengthening of the police, the public prosecutor’s office, the
courts, and the prisons. That
institutional strengthening must include the development of a culture that
respects human rights and due process. Unless
these institutions are strengthened, made more reliable, and more effective, no
anti-crime strategy is going to have enduring results. The Merida Initiative can and should
contribute to that process of institutional strengthening.
Success in addressing these
problems should be measured not by tons of cocaine captured, or by the number
of youth gang members arrested, or even by the number of drug kingpins
captured, but by whether institutions are stronger and more effective. If they
are, then we can expect to see real progress in reducing the levels of violence
and impunity and in the more easily quantifiable areas that I just mentioned
over the long term.
Does the Merida
Initiative meet these criteria? Does it
address the specifics of each problem, while supporting the institutional strengthening
of police, prosecutors, judicial system, and prisons, and strengthening respect
for human rights?
In the area of drug
trafficking, the Merida Initiative falls short. In a region trapped between
the major production centers in the Andes and the major market in the United
States, drug trafficking is going to be
a major and ongoing problem Addressing
the problem in Central America will depend in large part on whether the United States
makes a domestic effort to address the problem of drug demand.
The funding that the initiative
provides to detect smuggling and build up drug units will not have an enduring
effect in reducing the supply of drugs on the streets of the United States, and no one should
have illusions about that. If we accept
that fact, then the question is if the Merida Initiative will assist Central
American governments in effectively pursuing the major traffickers, money
laundering, and corruption that all make drug trafficking possible. That is an achievable goal, and one to which
we should aspire.
While there is nothing wrong with
the investment contemplated in the Administration’s request for border
security, training of customs officials, etc., fighting drug-related corruption
and going after drug kingpins in Central America
requires a greater emphasis on financial crimes units, and on anti-corruption
initiatives. The initiative provides
funding for specialized anti-drug investigation units, but, as I will discuss
below, these types of units have a very troubled history in Central
America, and I am doubtful they can be effective unless they are
part of a broader process of institutional police reform.
The Initiative does provide
funding and technical assistance for steps to better control the flow of light
arms in Central America. Clearly, this is a positive, though modest,
step.
In fighting other forms of
organized crime, evidence shows that a commitment from the highest levels
of government to the fight against corruption is central to success in
dismantling organized criminal groups that have links to and influence over
elements of the police, the prosecutor’s office, and the judiciary. Sometimes
these groups have political influence as well, and they may pressure elected
officials who help them gain favors, or influence investigations.
The most significant step forward
in Central America in combating these groups was
the decision by the Guatemalan government to ask outside investigators to take
the lead in investigating and urging criminal prosecutions of these groups. The Guatemalan government of former President
Oscar Berger reached an agreement with the United Nations to create an
international group, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala,
or CICIG. The Guatemalan government
recognized that criminal groups, many with a history of connections to the
military, security services, and some government officials, often exerted
political pressure, or made threats, that halted investigations and allowed
them to act with impunity. CICIG with
its staff drawn from the ranks of the international community was designed to
be immune to these pressures. It will be
able to investigate prototypical cases, promote prosecutions and work with the
Attorney General’s office. It will recommend
to the government reforms in the criminal code, investigative structures, etc.,
to strengthen Guatemala’s
ability in the future to go after these criminal groups.
The U.S. and other donors have been
very supportive of the CICIG, both politically and financially. (Representatives
Engel, Berman and Burton
organized a letter last week to the U.S. Attorney General seeking technical
assistance for the CICIG, and the Justice Department is now in conversations
with UN staff about their needs.)
The new President of Guatemala,
Alvaro Colom, has been publicly supportive. What remains to be seen is how the
CICIG’s investigations advance, whether the Guatemalan government continues to
back them in their investigative work and whether their recommendations about
reforms are championed and then implemented by the new government. Ultimately, Guatemala’s Attorney General will
be responsible for taking the cases developed by the CICIG and moving them
through the criminal justice system; the success of the model will be measured
by what the Attorney General and his staff do.
The Merida Initiative does not
directly address Central American governments’ will or capacity to fight
organized crime. More needs to be done
in this area. (Honduras, for
example, is confronting a major debate about corruption and the ability of the
attorney general to investigate corruption.)
Whether through the Merida Initiative or through other efforts like the
CICIG, the United States needs to support governments that are committed to
fighting corruption, providing them political support and technical assistance.
In the area of youth violence,
the Merida Initiative is built around the Administration’s comprehensive
anti-gang strategy, announced in 2007, which includes both prevention and
effective rights-respecting policing, as elements of its integrated program. It
provides funding for prevention programs as well as for law enforcement. There is some evidence that SICA, the Central
American Secretariat for Regional Integration, has taken some steps to outline a
comprehensive plan. U.S. support for Central American
anti-gang programs through the Merida Initiative should support comprehensive
programs with an appropriate balance between prevention and policing. A program that focuses only on policing, even
on smart and effective policing, will be incomplete and ineffective.
Merida takes some important steps in the
right direction. It provides funding for
prevention as well as for policing. At the same time, the funding for youth
violence prevention programs is clearly inadequate. In the supplemental request, the
Administration seeks $5 million, or 10% of the funding request, for prevention
programs. In the second year, the dollar
level goes up – from $5 million to $7.5 million, but falls as a share of the
total request, going from 10% down to 7.5%,
This is far too little. The evidence from programs in places as
different as northern Virginia and Los Angeles County is that a substantial investment
in youth violence prevention pays off.
But the investment must be real.
In Central
America, youth violence prevention programs have been seriously
underfunded. Good work has been done by
local NGOs and church groups and by international NGOs funding, like the work
my colleague Harold Sibaja has done in Guatemala, and is now launching
more regionally. USAID has supported solid programs in Guatemala and El Salvador, and is now expanding
its support for model programs in the region, and this is to be commended. Some European donors have supported violence
prevention programs as well. But these programs can reach only a small number
of the at-risk youth in the region. What
is really needed is a serious commitment on the part of Central American
governments themselves to fund and support community-based youth violence
prevention programs.
But Central American governments
themselves have done far too little in investing government resources into
youth violence prevention. In El Salvador,
for example, most government-backed programs are carried out with international
rather than domestic government funding.
In Honduras,
the government’s main program for at-risk youth is starved for resources. The U.S. and the international
community need not only to fund more but to strongly encourage governments in the
region to take on this challenge.
We strongly recommend that the
Merida Initiative, over its three year lifetime, ought to provide about a third
of its total funding to violence prevention efforts in Central
America. And the U. S. government ought to work hard to convince
Central American governments to adopt and fund these efforts out of national
budgets as the Merida
funding comes to an end.
On the policing side, there are
clearly measures that can and should be taken to strengthen the ability of
police to respond to youth violence in targeted and effective ways. For a number of years, Central American
governments have pursued a “mano dura,”
or “heavy hand” strategy that has involved massive detentions of young people
that police thought might be involved in gang activity. This approach, fraught with civil liberties
and due process problems, has done little to reduce gang violence. In fact, many local gang cliques, in response
to these policing techniques, have become more clandestine and more organized
in their activities. Central American
governments need to shift from a single-minded emphasis on heavy-handed
policing to a more balanced and comprehensive approach that includes a more
sophisticated approach to policing. In
recent years, the rhetoric of Central American governments has shifted away
from mano dura approaches, and talked
more about prevention and smarter policing.
Now they need to put their money where their mouth is.
A new policing approach would
target criminal activity (particularly extortion and homicide), rather than
targeting young people or gang members per se.
It would be built on effective investigative techniques, and on
carefully controlled police intelligence.
And it would be coordinated with community based violence prevention
programs (as do some of the most successful gang violence reduction programs in
the United States, like the
Gang Intervention Program in the Colombia
Heights neighborhood of Washington DC, or World
Vision’s Community Mobilization Initiative in Falls Church, Virginia.) Some of the proposals in the Merida
Initiative for Central America offer training, technical assistance, and
equipment that could be helpful to Central American police forces in responding
effectively to gang violence, especially if they are incorporated as part of
broader processes of institutional police reform.
But the police training programs
in the Central America portion of the Merida Initiative focus too heavily on
the transnational aspects of gang violence – on support for a regional
fingerprint database, on stationing of FBI agents with experience in gang
violence in the U.S. in embassies in Central America, and on training Central
American police in transnational gang issues.
Most youth gang related crime in Central America
is domestic, rather than international.
That is, it involves homicides, extortion, assault, and other crimes
which are not fundamentally transnational in nature, but which threaten citizen
security in Central America. The
police training programs should be re-oriented to support more effective
strategies in confronting the major problems that gangs actually cause in Central America itself.
In general, the approach to police training in the Merida Initiative, whether
for drug trafficking, organized crime investigation, or youth gangs, is
misconceived.
The police training proposed
focuses heavily on creating specialized police units, whether criminal
investigation units, anti-drug units, or anti-gang units. But experience with police training in
Central America suggests that such units are easily undermined or corrupted,
unless they are developed in the context of a broader process of institutional
police reform, and the Merida
Initiative needs to take this into account.
One need only look back to the special anti-drug unit of the Salvadoran
National Civilian Police, developed, trained and funded by the United States
starting in the late 1980s, whose entire membership was involuntarily retired
in the first half of the 1990s, and who occupied their offices and refused to
leave until they got pensions they
considered adequate. Or to the
Guatemalan police’s anti-drug unit, supported by the United
States, whose leadership was arrested for involvement in
drug trafficking while at a training course in Quantico, Virginia.
(This unit had replaced an earlier, U.S.-trained anti-drug unit which was
disbanded in 2002 after a scandal involving corruption and allegations of
involvement in extra-judicial executions.)
Notably, the Central America portion of
the Merida Initiative appears to offer no support for inspector generals,
internal affairs units, citizen complaint centers, or other internal and
external control systems.
Broad institutional police and
justice sector reform requires time and political commitment on the part of the
governments of Central America, not just a commitment by the United States. Governments ought to have a clear analysis of
what is needed in institutional reform and a comprehensive plan about how to
move forward. The United States
ought to support and complement that plan, rather than supporting piecemeal
reforms that may not be sustainable. A Central American regional plan that will
deserve U.S.
support in the context of the Merida Initiative should deal with crime and
violence, including youth violence, through a focus on prevention and support
for plans for institutional police, prosecutorial and judicial reform. We
should expect that our partners in Central American governments have, and have
made public, comprehensive analyses of the problems and challenges that their
police face, and how they plan to address those problems. Our support ought to fit within that plan.
Interest in the problem of
citizen security in Central America is growing
broadly in the international community.
The European Union, the government of Spain,
and several others are interested in working with Central
America to address the problems of crime and violence in
constructive ways. This offers a real
opportunity for the United States,
working with colleagues in Europe and governments in Central
America, to develop a coordinated approach based on a
comprehensive plan for public security reform.
Some specific aspects of the
police assistance will undoubtedly be helpful, but the police programs get a
disproportionate share of the resources and do not appear to support or
complement a clear plan for institutional police reform. In fact, more than 20% of the assistance
for Central America is targeted for still
unspecified equipment, communications support and training for Central American
police forces; no specific proposal has yet been developed. Despite several recent studies suggesting
that Central American police have little or no ability to protect crime scenes or
handle evidence, there are no evidence training programs offered (in contrast
to the Mexico program). There is no
support provided for developing witness protection programs, despite a clear
need for these programs. And there is no
support for the development of financial crimes or money laundering
investigative capacity, despite the importance of this to transnational and
organized crime investigation.
The Initiative does fund the International
Law Enforcement Academy, or ILEA, and the ILEA can be helpful in offering
training and helping strengthen effective policing. As we have noted before, the history of US police training in Latin
America is such that we believe the ILEA ought to be as
transparent as possible; we urge the State Department to publish the ILEA
curriculum, make information available about who is being trained, and create a
civil society advisory council to help monitor the institution.
Summary:
The Merida Initiative correctly
identifies crime and violence as major problems in Central
America. But WOLA believes
many of the specific funding priorities are misplaced. We urge the Congress to re-shape the
initiative. The U.S. should put a greater emphasis on reducing
demand for drugs at home, and prioritize criminal investigation in Central America that targeted drug kingpins and the
corruption and financial crimes that enable them to operate. On other forms of organized crime, there
ought to be a greater emphasis on anti-corruption initiatives, and on the model
that the CICIG, the UN-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala,
offers to the region. On youth violence,
there ought to be substantially more resources for violence prevention; this is
a critical and underfunded area. At the
same time, the anti-gang law enforcement training and support ought to be
re-focused, to concentrate on the most serious problems in Central
America itself. Finally,
the law enforcement funding ought to be re-conceived, in the context of a
broader support for comprehensive police reform in Central
America.