Avoiding danger is a survival skill that
enables people to move forward in their lives. The need for
security is what spurs people to change their habits and
environment whenever it becomes necessary. It is what pushes people
to seek stable salaries, to buy houses, and to raise families.
Societies also seek security so that their
people can live in peace, do business, and realize their individual
dreams. Yet they cannot do this unless they are able to adapt to
changes. There is an old saying that a 1,000-mile detour begins
when your car has a leaky radiator and a flat tire. A reluctance to
respond to changing conditions was partly responsible for what
happened to the United States on September 11, 2001.
Today, we are more conscious of threats in
the world around us. However, there is a long road before us in
preparing to confront them. The Chief of the United Nations'
Counterterrorism Commission, Ambassador Inocencio Arias of Spain,
said--after the attacks on the commuter rail lines in Madrid this
year--that you could repel terrorist acts 49 times, but the 50th
time, the terrorists would succeed. Of course, terrorism is one kind of
threat: There are others of different types and intensities.
In a
Special Conference on Security that took place last year in Mexico,
representatives from the Organization of American States (OAS)
identified eight categories of threats, some direct, others
indirect. Besides terrorism, they include conflicts between states,
weapons build-ups, transnational crime, arms trafficking, natural
disasters, attacks on public health, and poverty. Natural disasters
occur fairly constantly, but even as wars between states are
disappearing somewhat, terrorism and crime are becoming more
prevalent.
No
country--not even the United States--has been sufficiently equipped
to confront emerging threats, such as illicit drug traffic,
terrorism, or weapons of mass destruction that have fallen into the
wrong hands. The United States has had to reorganize its security
policies because its strategy of blocking external aggression with
nuclear arms during the Cold War mainly offered a defense against
state-sponsored threats--without much internal protection.
Laws
that were enacted after the U.S. Civil War, approximately 130 years
ago, prohibit collaboration between the Army and local police
forces. At the same time, the specialized functions of national
agencies responsible for law enforcement did not facilitate
information sharing with local police forces under the control of
mayors and city councils.
Since 9/11, the U.S. government has
established the Department of Homeland Security to help coordinate
intelligence exchanges and centralize control over such law
enforcement agencies as the U.S. Border Patrol, Coast Guard, and
the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet, even though
our government is trying to reorganize and strengthen internal
security mechnisms, we as citizens see the need to balance them
with our tradition of civil liberties as guaranteed by the
Constitution.
Internal reforms are one thing, but we
North Americans also realize that we live in a neighborhood. We
know that the road to a more secure America is one that is reached
by helping our neighbors to be more secure as well. Unfortunately,
Latin America is more vulnerable to both direct and indirect
threats.
The Regional Puzzle
Latin America's population continues to
grow rapidly. In fact, the number of its inhabitants has tripled in
the last 40 years. Young people looking for work are abandoning
rural areas for cities--where there are still not enough jobs.
Family and state monopolies still pervade many countries and
restrict the creation of new businesses and, as a consequence, the
creation of new jobs.
With
less education and professional training than citizens of
industrialized nations, nearly half of the region's inhabitants
live on less than $2 per day. In Mexico, one million persons join
the work force every year--to find approximately 200,000 new jobs
waiting for them.
Street gangs have appeared and expanded
among populations of youths who abandoned their countries and
families during the conflicts of the 1980s, and also among children
who have grown up in broken (or informal) homes. These individuals
have found identity, culture, and socialization in lives of crime.
Now the problem affects all of North America--particularly the
United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Weak
justice systems in some of these countries are barely able to cope
with the situation.
Today, press reports tell us that there
are 14,000 gang members in Guatemala; 10,000 in El Salvador; 36,000
in Honduras; and--according to figures from 1997--800,000 (from
30,000 different gangs) in the United States. The bigger gangs communicate with each
other across borders and, if they were better organized, would
constitute a formidable stateless army.
Lucrative drug trafficking persists in
South America's Andean ridge, despite efforts to reduce demand and
eradicate primary drug crops. Local terrorist groups like the FARC
(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), ELN (National Liberation
Army), and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia support
themselves by moving drugs in order to control territory as well as
production areas. FARC deserters have indicated that their group
has largely abandoned its political ideals: Its reason for existing
has gradually changed from promoting revolution to enriching
individual leaders through narcotics sales.
These groups are naturally opposed to
advances in establishing state authority and the rule of
law--especially in the countryside where they operate. As a result,
they have deployed some of their units across borders into Brazil,
Ecuador, and Venezuela. In Central America, they exchange drugs for
arms left over from 1980s conflicts. In the background, human
trafficking has increased substantially between Mexico and the
United States, China and Ecuador, and from Brazil through Venezuela
to Europe.
Finally, geopolitics is beginning to
affect the interests of each country in the hemisphere. For many
decades, Cuba and the Soviet Union were the only hostile
protagonists. However, that ended with the collapse of the Soviet
bloc. Even so, a new menace supported by petroleum wealth is
emerging in Venezuela--a populist, nationalist president who dreams
of reviving Fidel Castro's plans of propagating Cuba-style
governments throughout the region.
Venezuela's New "Citizens"
Venezuela's Hugo Chávez has become
the new leader of the Latin American left. He is the driving force
behind the Foro de São Paulo--a group of leftist parties and
insurgent organizations from all over the world. Last year, he also
introduced the Bolivarian Congress, a similar organization, but
with members exclusively from South America. Their objectives
include reducing North American influence in the hemisphere and
halting the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Venezuela also may be the source of
another problem--identity laundering. Evidence can be found in
recent campaigns offering citizenship to some 500,000 foreigners
("Misión Identidad") ostensibly to pack voter lists with
persons favorable to President Chávez in light of the August
15 referendum on his rule. Besides Colombians and Brazilians, there
have been numerous Arab and Chinese names among those reported as
new citizens in Venezuela's Gaceta Oficial.
Undocumented migrants from the Middle East
and China--among others--had been living in the Tri-Border region
between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay; that is, until the police
from these countries began to pursue smugglers and organizations
with suspected links to Middle Eastern terror groups like Hezbollah
and Gamaa al-Islamiyya. Some of these people could have been among
those who emigrated to Venezuela.
Two
years ago, when General Marcos Ferreira resigned his position as
chief of Venezuela's Border Patrol, he told the press that his
government had laundered the identities of hundreds of Colombians
and Middle-Easterners described as "Syrians."
Progress Through Cooperation
By
and large, countries of this hemisphere have made slow and steady
progress against terrorism, drug trafficking, transnational crime,
and even gangs. After the terrorist attack of 9/11, OAS member
states invoked the Rio Treaty of Mutual Assistance (1947) and went
on to establish the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism of
2002. Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay formed the Counterterrorism
Dialogue 3+1, which promoted intelligence exchanges, as well as
coordination among border police forces to control crime and
smuggling in the Tri-Border region.
The
Financial Working Groups of the Caribbean and of South America are
multinational efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist
financing. In Central America, countries like El Salvador and
Honduras have promoted mano dura (firm hand) laws to control
growing gang activity.
However, more needs to be done. Despite
the "Smart Borders" initiatives involving Canada, the United
States, and Mexico, airports, seaports, and entry points are
generally vulnerable in Latin America and the Caribbean. We need to
help each other create similar smart borders between other
countries, strengthen inspection of cargo containers, help protect
each nation's principal infrastructure, improve responses to
natural disasters, and strengthen cooperation in law enforcement at
the international level.
None
of this is cheap. The United States has invested millions of
dollars in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.
Even today, we have only enough inspectors to check 1 percent to 2
percent of all of the 20,000 cargo containers that arrive in our
ports today. Through pre-inspection procedures in countries of
origin and other methods, we are trying to improve that rate
substantially.
Each
year, the United States receives 600 million travelers, students,
and legal workers. In 50 ports of entry we use biometric technology
such as digital fingerprinting and facial recognition to verify
identities in seconds. Yet some 1.2 million people enter the United
States annually without passing through these established
entryways.
Costa Rica's Critical Role
Thanks to its venerable democratic
institutions and concern for the welfare of its citizens, Costa
Rica has been an oasis of tranquility in the hemisphere. However,
drug trafficking routes from South America to North America pass
right through this beautiful country. The prosperity that Costa
Rica enjoys in comparison to the rest of Central America makes it a
prime target for organized crime. Its tranquility also makes it a
desirable destination for migrants seeking sanctuary to escape
instability and unemployment in their own countries.
Costa Rica has a population of about 4
million people and a gross domestic product (GDP) of $15 billion.
Even a country the size of Peru, with a $61 billion GDP, does not
have the resources necessary to adequately protect its population.
Obviously, they need to choose affordable options and learn to work
together to multiply our relative strengths. Policymakers in the
United States are also aware that they cannot adequately protect
their own citizens without contributing to the security of the
hemisphere in a cooperative way.
Conclusion
Besides death and taxes, change is
inevitable. From that perspective, we should realize that the world
we knew during the Cold War is now much different. Bipolar threats
have retreated, to be replaced by more fragmented cancers. As one
of my colleagues Cresencio Arcos, the Director of International
Affairs for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, likes to say,
"the viper bites those who don't wear boots." While taking
advantage of the age of globalization, we need to invest some
effort in protecting ourselves from the troubles that come with
it.
Stephen Johnson is Senior Policy
Analyst for Latin America in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis
Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
This speech was presented on September 28, 2004, to students and
personnel of the Manuel María de Peralta Foreign Service
Institute at the Ministry of Foreign Relations in San José,
Costa Rica.