THE
BUDAPEST INTERNATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ACADEMY TURNS TEN:
And Why It’s More Vital Than Ever
05/13/05
It's housed in the
former barracks of the Royal Hungarian mounted police, deep in the heart
of historic Budapest. Chances are, you've never heard of it. But for
the past decade, it has helped make your communities safer and our world
more secure.
It's the International
Law Enforcement Academy, or ILEA, in Budapest, Hungary—a
global training ground for police executives and criminal justice
leaders from across Eastern Europe and much of Asia that's run by
the FBI and the Hungarian government with the help of many partner
nations and agencies.
On 5/12,
Director Mueller joined government ministers and agency heads, national
chiefs
of police, and diplomatic officials from 26 nations in celebrating the
tenth anniversary of the Budapest ILEA. We've just posted his remarks
at the anniversary ceremony and
his comments later that day at a Ministerial
Summit.
In both speeches,
the Director made it clear why we value ILEA—and the thousands
of international colleagues who have trained there—more than
ever: because it builds important bridges in an age where
crime and terrorism freely cross borders, a time when, he says, terrorists
can "plan in Europe, finance their operations in North America,
train in the Middle East, and carry out attacks anywhere in the world."
A few ways
ILEA has made a difference to this nation and many others:
- By building
partnerships that pay off down the road when cases need to
be solved across borders. Like the relationships forged at ILEA
between the
U.S. and Hungary that helped lead to the arrest in South Florida
of Andras Lakatos, the so-called "banker to the Hungarian
underworld."
- By promoting
the "growth of stable governments that respect the rule of law" through
an intensive eight-week program that teaches ethics, leadership,
how to fight public corruption, and more.
- By creating
law enforcement leaders who "bring their knowledge and expertise
back to their home countries, raising the caliber of every law enforcement
agency" and lifting the overall professionalism of the
global law enforcement community.
Referring
to a classic line from a Robert Frost poem, "Good fences make
good neighbors," the Director said: "That sounded
like good advice in the 20th century, when walls between neighbors
and nations seemed like a logical way to ensure our safety. But within
the 21st-century global law enforcement community, dividing walls mean
less security, not more....Today, good bridges make good neighbors."
Here's to another
decade of building "good bridges" at the International Law
Enforcement Academy in Budapest!
Links: Director's
remarks | ILEA website | FBI
Training website
