http wikileaks org plusd cables 10MEXICO83_a html Canonical ID 10MEXICO83_a Subject SCENESETTER FOR THE OPENING OF THE DEFENSE BILATERAL WORKING GROUP WASHINGTON D C FEBRUARY 1 From Mexico Mexico City To ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE Central Intelligence Agency Defense Intelligence Agency Department of Homeland Security Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration Washington Federal Bureau of Investigation Mexico Mexico City National Security Council RHMFISS CDR USNORTHCOM PETERSON AFB CO RHMFISS CIFA WASHINGTON DC Secretary of Defense Secretary of State United States Southern Command Miami Original Classification SECRET Current Classification SECRET Previous Handling Restrictions -- Not Assigned -Archive Status -- Not Assigned -Type TE Locator TEXT ONLINE Reference s -- N A or Blank -Executive Order E O -- Not Assigned -Markings -- Not Assigned -Enclosure -- Not Assigned -Concepts -- Not Assigned -TAGS Criminal Activity KCRM Mexico MX Political Affairs--External Political Relations PREL Political Affairs--Government Internal Governmental Affairs PGOV Political Affairs--Human Rights PHUM Social Affairs--Narcotics SNAR Office -- N A or Blank -Document Character Count 18084 Date 2010 January 29 20 49 Friday S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 05 MEXICO 000083 SIPDIS PASS TO DOD OSD STOCKTON PASS TO DEPT NSC E O 12958 DECL 2020 01 29 TAGS PGOV PREL PHUM SNAR KCRM MX SUBJECT Scenesetter for the Opening of the Defense Bilateral Working Group Washington D C February 1 DERIVED FROM DSCG 05-1 B D Classified Secret 1 SBU Summary The inauguration of the Defense Bilateral Working Group DBWG on February 1 comes at a key moment in our efforts to deepen our bilateral relationship and to support the http wikileaks org plusd cables 10MEXICO83_a html Mexican military's nascent steps toward modernization On the heels of our bilateral joint assessments in Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana as well as the GOM's move to replace the military with the Federal Police as lead security agency in Juarez the DBWG can help ensure that the GOM stays focused on making the kinds of institutional improvements - including greater attention to human rights and broader regional participation - that are needed to bolster its effectiveness in the immediate fight against organized crime and to position it to become a twenty first century military in one of the leading democracies in the region End Summary 2 SBU The DBWG is an important component of our overall bilateral Merida strategy for 2010 We ended 2009 with an unprecedented commitment from the Mexican government to work closely with us on an ambitious effort to move beyond a singular focus on high value targets and address some of the institutional and socio-economic constraints that threaten to undermine our efforts to combat the cartels A truly joint effort to implement a new U S -Mexico strategy is yielding stronger organizational structures and interagency cooperation on both sides and a deeper understanding of the threat posed by the drug trafficking organizations In the coming year we will help Mexico institutionalize civilian law enforcement capabilities and phase down the military's role in conducting traditional and police functions The DBWG will also provide a vehicle for Washington to brief the GOM on the importance of human rights issues to U S security policy thus reinforcing a new formal Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue with the GOM that will include SEDENA and SEMAR Political and Economic Context ----------------------------------------- 3 SBU It is a challenging moment to address some of the institutional weaknesses that dot the Mexican political landscape and which periodically impede our larger efforts President Calderon has entered the last three years of his six-year term facing a complicated political and economic environment His National Action Party PAN emerged seriously weakened from a dramatic set-back suffered in the July congressional elections and was unable to recoup any real momentum during the last legislative session Calderon's bold plan for ten ambitious areas for reform announced in September has yet to translate into politically viable initiatives His personal popularity numbers have dropped driven largely by massive economic contraction and a public sense that there is little strategy to create new and sustainable jobs Overall Calderon's approval ratings are still well above 50 percent sustained largely by his campaign against organized crime Increasingly Mexicans realize that combating DTOs is a matter of http wikileaks org plusd cables 10MEXICO83_a html citizen security and thus support a tough stance Yet the failure to reduce violence is also a liability 4 SBU Meanwhile the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party PRI is in the ascendency cautiously managing its illusory unity in an effort to dominate the twelve gubernatorial contests this year and avoid missteps that could jeopardize its front-runner status in the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections With a MEXICO 00000083 002 OF 005 strategy best described as political pragmatism PRI insiders indicate that the party is unlikely to support any major reform efforts over the next several years - no matter how necessary that could be publicly controversial Slow economic recovery and budgetary pressures are reducing government resources and complicating the government's ability to balance priorities and come up with a compelling and sustainable narrative that ties the fight against organized crime to the daily concerns of most Mexicans Mexico's rapidly declining oil production a projected six to seven percent GDP contraction in 2009 a slow recovery in 2010 and a 47 percent poverty rate all present difficult challenges for the Calderon administration in 2010 Still we see no softening of the administration's resolve to confront the DTOs head on Security Challenges ------------------------- 5 C Calderon has aggressively attacked Mexico's drug trafficking organizations but has struggled with an unwieldy and uncoordinated interagency and spiraling rates of violence that have made him vulnerable to criticism that his anti-crime strategy has failed Indeed the GOM's inability to halt the escalating numbers of narco-related homicides in places like Ciudad Juarez and elsewhere - the nationwide total topped 7 700 in 2009 - has become one of Calderon's principal political liabilities as the general public has grown more concerned about citizen security Mexican security institutions are often locked in a zero-sum competition in which one agency's success is viewed as another's failure information is closely guarded and joint operations are all but unheard of Official corruption is widespread leading to a compartmentalized siege mentality among clean law enforcement leaders and their lieutenants Prosecution rates for organized crime-related offenses are dismal two percent of those detained are brought to trail Only 2 percent of those arrested in Ciudad Juarez have even been charged with a crime http wikileaks org plusd cables 10MEXICO83_a html 6 S The failure to reduce violence has focused attention on the military's perceived failures and led to a major course change in January to switch the overall command in Ciudad Juarez from the military to the federal police The military was not trained to patrol the streets or carry out law enforcement operations It does not have the authority to collect and introduce evidence into the judicial system The result arrests skyrocketed prosecutions remained flat and both the military and public have become increasingly frustrated The command change in Juarez has been seen by political classes and the public as a Presidential repudiation of SEDENA When SEDENA joins you at the DBWG it will be an agency smarting from the very public statement of a lack of confidence in its performance record in Juarez 7 C Below the surface of military professionalism there is also considerable tension between SEDENA and SEMAR SEMAR succeeded in the take down of Arturo Beltran Leyva as well as with other major targets Aside from the perceived failure of its mission in Juarez SEDENA has come to be seen slow and risk averse even where it should succeed the mission to capture HVTs The risk is that the more SEDENA is criticized the more risk averse it will become The challenge you face in the DBWG is to convince them that modernization and not withdrawal are the way forward and that transparency and accountability are fundamental to modernization There is no alternative in today's world of information technology MEXICO 00000083 003 OF 005 8 C The DBWG is just one mechanism for addressing the challenge of modernization SEDENA's shortfalls are at times quite noticeable and serve for dramatic charges on human rights and other grounds We have actively sought to encourage respect for the military's role in Mexican society and tread carefully with regard to the larger theme of military modernization What SEDENA and to a lesser extent SEMAR need most is a comprehensive interactive discussion that will encourage them to look holistically at culture training and doctrine in a way that will support modernization and allow them to address a wider range of military missions This is where the DBWG can help 9 C Currently the military is the lightening rod for criticism of the Calderon Administration's security policies We are having some success in influencing the GOM to transition the military to secondary support functions in Juarez Still the GOM's capacity to replicate the Juarez model is limited They simply lack the necessary numbers of trained federal police to deploy them http wikileaks org plusd cables 10MEXICO83_a html in such numbers in more than a few cities There are changes in the way that the military can interact with vetted municipal police as we have seen in Tijuana that produce better results But in the near term there is no escaping that the military will play a role in public security 10 C Military surges that are not coordinated with local city officials and civilian law enforcement particularly local prosecutors have not worked In Ciudad Juarez a dramatic increase in troop deployments to the city early last year brought a two-month reduction in violence levels before narcotics-related violence spiked again The DTOs are sophisticated players they can wait out a military deployment they have an almost unlimited human resource pool to draw from in the marginalized neighborhoods and they can fan complaints about human rights violations to undermine any progress the military might make with hearts and minds 11 SBU SEDENA lacks arrest authority and is incapable of processing information and evidence for use in judicial cases It has taken a serious beating on human rights issues from international and domestic human rights organizations who argue with considerable basis in fact that the military is ill-equipped for a domestic policing role While SEDENA has moved to address human rights criticisms its efforts are mechanistic and wrapped in a message that often transmits defensiveness about bringing a hermetically sealed military culture into the twenty-first century The military justice system fuero militar is used not only for a legitimate prosecutorial function but also to preserve the military's institutional independence Even the Mexican Supreme Court will not claim civilian jurisdiction over crimes involving the military regardless of whether a military mission is involved Fortunately the Mexican military is under increasing pressure to change on a number of fronts A recent Inter-American Human Rights Court ruling found Article 57 of Mexico's code of military justice which effectively allows the military to keep all violators within its own justice system violate Mexico's constitution and mandated improvements in the way cases involving alleged human rights abuses by the military are handled A report issued by Amnesty International in December noted that complaints to the National Commission on Human Rights against the military increased from 367 in 2007 to over 2000 from 2008-June 2009 MEXICO 00000083 004 OF 005 Change on the Horizon --------------------------- http wikileaks org plusd cables 10MEXICO83_a html 12 SBU Calderon has undertaken serious reforms since coming to office but he also must tread carefully in dealing with the Mexican military With our help he has refined his anti-crime strategy and made significant progress in a number of important areas including inaugurating a new Federal Police command and intelligence center establishing stronger vetting mechanisms for security officials and constructing information-sharing databases to provide crime fighting data to various federal state and local elements Calderon also has recognized that the blunt-force approach of major military deployments has not curbed violence in zones like Ciudad Juarez and has replaced SEDENA forces with Federal Police officers as the lead security agency in urban Ciudad Juarez 13 C These steps reflect the GOM's willingness to respond to public pressure and to focus on building strong civilian law enforcement institutions that are necessary for sustained success against organized crime in Mexico Indeed Public Security Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna has sought to raise the standards of his Federal Police so it is capable of gradually replacing the military's role in public security through improved hiring training and vetting practices With new authorities granted under federal police reform legislation passed last year including a broadened wire-tapping mandate the SSP is well-placed to significantly expand its investigative and intelligence-collection capabilities The GOM is exploring new ways to bring local and state police up to standards to support the anti-crime fight Federal judicial reform has been slower in coming but the Attorney General's Office PGR is looking to modernize as an institution For example PGR created with USG assistance the Constanza Project Justicia Para Todos a $200 million dollar initiative designed to transform PGR's culture in part by promoting transparency training attorneys to build stronger cases and digitizing files in order to incorporate a paperless system less susceptible to corruption 14 C USG assistance has been crucial to these efforts and we are looking ahead to ensure that we help Mexico build its most key institutions with seamless integration of operations investigations intelligence prosecutions and convictions Joint assessment missions -- one to Tijuana and San Diego and one to Ciudad Juarez and El Paso - were designed to further guide our bilateral efforts and address one potential weakness -- the dysfunctionally low level of collaboration between Mexican military and civilian authorities along the border The Tijuana assessment was completed December 3-4 and Ciudad Juarez's January 14-15 Mexico also has agreed to explore a task force model for joint intelligence and operations and Mexico's intelligence civilian intelligence service CISEN has been charged with overseeing such efforts We need to develop new programs to build a greater http wikileaks org plusd cables 10MEXICO83_a html intelligence fusion capability and continue to support the Federal Police's own institutional development and training capacity and swifter implementation of judicial reform Moreover with many of our federal programs well underway we are broadening our efforts to include work at the state level Military Modernization Key ----------------------------------MEXICO 00000083 005 OF 005 15 S In this context it is absolutely necessary that we intensify our efforts to encourage modernization of the Mexican military General Galvan Galvan head of SEDENA is an impressive military man with an appreciation for the uncomfortable non-traditional challenges facing the Mexican military forces But he is also a political actor who has succeeded at least in part by protecting the military's prerogatives and symbolic role His experience provides him with little guidance on how to manage change and modernization against a backdrop of criticism and often vitrolic accusations Historically suspicion of the United States has been a prime driver of a military bureaucratic culture that has kept SEDENA closed to us We believe Galvan is committed to at least following orders when it comes to Calderon's vision of a more modern Mexican state and a closer relationship with the United States Our ties with the military have never been closer in terms of not only equipment transfers and training but also the kinds of intelligence exchanges that are essential to making inroads against organized crime Incipient steps towards logistical interoperability with U S forces are ongoing related to Haiti relief SEDENA for the first time and following SEMAR's lead has asked for SOF training We need to capitalize on these cracks in the door Any retreat on engagement on our side will only reinforce SEDENA's instincts to revert to a closed and unaccountable institution 16 C Our engagement on human rights in the DBWG must also be carefully structured Presentations from the U S side on how human rights play into our conduct of military and security policy will be constructive It will be useful to transmit to SEDENA the kinds of systemic human rights concerns that arise in Washington But neither SEDENA nor SEMAR will engage in a dialogue on human rights in the DBWG That will be reserved for the ad hoc meeting of the Bilateral Human Right Dialogue with Paul Stockton scheduled for Mexico City on February 12 17 C SEDENA and SEMAR still have a long way to go toward http wikileaks org plusd cables 10MEXICO83_a html modernization The DBWG can go a long way in addressing a number of key points We have seen some general officers in Tijuana for example who are looking for ways to build links between units in the field and local prosecutors but this has not been done systematically It needs to be encouraged Encouraging the Mexican military to participate more actively in the international arena such as through greater security cooperation outreach to Central America and Colombia and even with limited participation in regional humanitarian ops to possibly peacekeeping will also be key to helping the military transition from a mentality of Protecting the Revolution to a more active dynamic and flexible force SEDENA and SEMAR share the parochial risk-averse habits that often plague their civilian counterparts in Mexican law enforcement agencies While the Navy's capture of Beltran Leyva may up the ante and encourage innovation by competition between security services both SEDENA and SEMAR have serious work to do on working more effectively and efficiently with their security partners FEELEY Powered by TCPDF www tcpdf org This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu
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