FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Thank you, Ambassador Hughes and congratulations to the very first graduates of the International Law Enforcement Academy.

I bring with me today the best wishes of the President of the United States. President Clinton, together with the leaders from your countries, met at the San Jose Summit and pledged to establish this academy. They met this past May, just seven months ago and pledged to begin international law enforcement training in this hemisphere before the year was out.

You are the first results of that accord. It confers a special status upon you and a special obligation to share what you have learned here with your colleagues back home. You are the pioneers. You are the trail blazers which is only fitting, considering the history of the nations of this hemisphere. We all come from very young nations, compared to the national histories of the old world.

We are, literally, the new world, the descendants of pioneers of another sort who broke with tradition-bound Europe to establish new, forward looking societies. The pioneers of the new world, from Simon Bolivar to George Washington, cherished democracy as the great legacy of the new world, one that creates special responsibilities for law enforcement.

There is nothing easier than to enforce the law in a repressive society. The hard job, our job, is to enforce the law in a free society and to protect our citizens while scrupulously respecting their rights in a democratic society. That is one of the founding principals of the International Law Enforcement Academy. It is a principal we must adhere to as we engage the enemy.

The criminals, who threaten our freedom in profound ways of their own. They threaten the lives and property of our citizens. They threaten the lives and the integrity of our police, prosecutors and judges. They could, if allowed to prevail, threaten the foundations of democracy itself.

For a new world, this hemisphere has had a long, painful history with organized, criminal activity, particularly with narcotics traffickers. No societies have paid a higher price. Our police throughout the hemisphere have paid with their lives. Our young have paid with lives lost to drug addiction. In the past, the narcotics cartels and others could count on the differences among nations to get away with murder. They could always count on different jurisdictions, different laws, different rules of evidence, different languages, different procedures. They could count on all these differences to divide us. What they have not counted on is our common purpose. They have not counted on us perfecting our investigative techniques together. They have not counted on us developing anti-crime strategies together in the classrooms and applying them in the field.

In short, they have not counted on the establishment of an international law enforcement academy in this hemisphere. This academy will grow into a permanent home in our hemisphere and a shared resource for all of us. It will grow into a center to which many of you will return not just to learn, but to teach.

You all have a lot to offer to your fellow law enforcement officers back home, but also to each other, regardless of country. By learning from one another, we can help make life a lot harder for the criminals whether they are trafficking in narcotics or other contraband. Whether they are money launderers or murderers, the work of the academy will increase the risk for the outlaws.

I have been in law enforcement for my entire career, beginning as a young police cadet in the New York City Police Department to my current position in Washington. In the course of my career, I have had the privilege of working with police and prosecutors from all over the world, Japan, Europe, Central America, South America, the Caribbean.

Sure, we had differences, but our common ties were much stronger. None of us got into law enforcement to get rich. None of us got into law enforcement because it was safe. None of use got into law enforcement to spend more time with our families. No, we got into law enforcement for other reasons, lots of other, admirable reasons.

One central reason was pride, pride in our country, pride in our community, pride in our uniform, pride in the law, pride in ourselves and pride in bringing the law breakers to justice. There is nothing, nothing better than catching a criminal in the act. That's a point of pride among police the world over.

Pride is an interesting thing. It can't be bought. It can't be sold. It can't even be murdered. It is passed from one generation of law enforcement officials to another. And it has no borders. Pride among law enforcement professionals is a shared commodity. It recognizes no boundaries. It is a weapon in the arsenal of democracy. It is a potent, unifying force that we share.

Today, you have a lot to proud of. You are the first, the very first in what I trust will be a long line of law enforcement professionals to put the criminals on the run, to make your colleagues and your country proud, to make this hemisphere a model of law enforcement learning and cooperation and to make the world a safer place. Once again, congratulations to you all.