 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. We're now proceeding to the second part of the program, which is a panel discussion on some of the issues raised by General Fraser and going beyond and looking at other aspects of US relations with Latin America, the challenges, and the key issues to be examined. And we are extremely fortunate to have with us a panel of outstanding experts, gentlemen with a very broad experience in the region. Our first panelist is Ambassador John Mesto, who has been just about everything. He's ambassador to the Organization of the American States, US ambassador to Venezuela to Nicaragua, was senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council, career foreign service officer. He's currently director in the Miami-based US Education Finance Group and is a member of several important boards. Ambassador Mesto will be followed by Mr. Carl Meacham, who is Senator Lugar's professional senior staffer for Latin America and is the most senior Republican staffer in US Congress who deals with the region. Mr. Meacham has been special assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Commerce and at one time worked at the State Department Cuban Affairs Bureau and at the US Embassy in Madrid. And then finally, we're very fortunate to have with us acting deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Kevin Whitaker. Mr. Whitaker is the director of the Office of Andean Affairs, which is one of the most important offices within the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Also a career foreign service officer has served in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela and was also deputy chief of mission in Caracas between 2005 and 2007. As in the case of General Fraser, we'll have time for questions and answers. Each of the distinguished members of the panel will give a very brief presentation outlining his views of the current challenges to US policy in the region, key issues. And then we'll have some discussion among the panelists and plenty of time from questions from the ladies and gentlemen of the audience. Thanks very much, Ambassador Meacham. Thanks, Peter, for the introduction. Pleasure to be here. I'm glad that you have put together this particular presentation. The title of General Fraser's remarks was non-traditional challenges, appropriate. Those challenges are non-traditional because of the region's political realities, which offer a variety of situations. Our hemisphere has all elected democracies, except, of course, for Cuba, with, I would say, several gradations of democracy. One, the countries are doing well, though with institutional problems of many types, including rule of law problems and corruption problems and institutional problems that are typical of elected democratic governments. Then there are countries that are making it with many institutional problems, including deep rule of law and corruption problems. And then there are borderline, close to authoritarian situations with scant separation of powers, near impossible rule of law, corruption, little transparency and accountability. And then you put onto that various levels of economic development, and you have a mixed hemisphere, quite a mixed hemisphere. I would only add that there are only two geographic regions of the world where you have to be a democratically elected government in order to be a member of the organization. One is the European Union, and the other is the Organization of American States. And that is important as frustrating as the Organization of American States can be with regard to dealing with the real world issues. Now, we heard a broad review of the command's responsibilities. US national security, which is number one for any military command, let us not forget. That's what Congress appropriates money for. And General Frazier put the emphasis on maritime environments, which are under his authority. Engagement with militaries throughout the hemisphere. Improving security. And by the way, we don't talk about security much and we talk about citizen safety. That's the big, and I'm sure that Kevin Whitaker will have something to say about that, and stability within the hemisphere's partner states. And then the command's humanitarian role, which is a disaster relief role, which are really, really important. And I would like to add a little postscript to that piece, and that's this. And maybe it'll be challenging and provoke some questions. I would suggest the record of US military engagement in the Western Hemisphere, which would be the command, plus military assistance and particularly training since the 1960s, has resulted in a hemisphere of democratically elected governments. A hem, with the exception of Cuba, a hemisphere where there is now civilian control of the military. In spite of all the bumps on the road, somebody will mention Honduras, I'm sure, and that would be an interesting subject to talk about, but maybe not here today. I'd like to say something about the new definition of security, that is, a citizen safety. And you heard from General Frasier, that's part of the whole, this holistic US government effort under the Obama administrations. And the issue for the command, the peace for the command therein, is illicit trafficking and everything that goes with illicit trafficking, criminal organizations, narcotics flow, trafficking of persons, gangs, maras, setas, et cetera, et cetera. And the general mentioned, he talked about the balloon. There is an axis of insecurity, I would, I just thought of that last night as I was thinking of it, of insecurity. And if you choose criminality, that comes as a result of relative successes in Mexico, and I was just in Guatemala recently, Guatemala is really struggling. The Washington Post had an article two days ago about the Northern Triangle, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize, the role of criminal organizations. And that, of course, penetrates through the Central American isthmus, through Panama, which has become a major transshipment point, and of course, up from the Andes, through drugs, through Venezuela, on to Europe and the Caribbean, drugs up the maritime, routes north and south by land, and down, and when you take into consideration the Peruvian and the Bolivian additional production out through Brazil and into Europe. So what does that translate into as far as a command is concerned? So what do you do about that? And again, we saw the approach outlined here. The first thing that the command does is to do what the command has been doing traditionally over the years. Working in partnership with the region's military organizations through a variety of vehicles, engagement, training, exercises, bilaterally, sub-regionally, regionally. And that process goes on. Now some may say, gee whiz, this is same old stuff. Well, I would submit that that sort of engagement constant, deliberate, organized, accompanied by resources, by the way, I don't think there are sufficient number of resources, but that's to do it, are really, really important in order to strengthen legitimately military establishments that again, are in turn support democratically elected civilian governments. And number two, and I would submit that that is part of a broad definition of US national security. And the second piece of that would be what the command does in terms of humanitarian aid and disaster relief. And I would argue that that role is really a very, very important one in this hemisphere. It is a manifestation of US strength. It makes the United States exceptional in the region. And why is that? Because the US military is the biggest and it's the best. And you saw how the response was in Haiti. That combination of discipline and organization and wherewithal and ability to plug in not only the United States, but with other military entities and civilian entities and the United Nations. That is of huge importance in disaster relief and humanitarian affairs. So we saw the example in the Haiti earthquake. And we're gonna see more of that because the region is one that is prone to natural disasters and from time to time, human disasters as we saw in the Gulf, have we seen in the Gulf of Mexico recently. The additional thing that the command does is peacekeeper training. And that is important in today's world when you look at where peace forces are deployed. These are constructive roles for the military establishments in the Western Hemisphere and the command has been a key part of that. What is needed in my view, what is needed is more on the humanitarian side. I would like to see General Frazier mentioned the USN Comfort, more medical missions. One, USN Comfort over what, over two years, three years. United States should be doing much more than that. And perhaps with a winding down resource requirements and other parts would be able to pay more attention to that need in the neighborhood. Sometimes there are comparisons made to what the United States does, comparisons with what the Cubans do in terms of the deployment of their medical missions. We have a lot more that we can count on. The military also has something called med-readies in which they, and every American ambassador in the field knows about them in which military comes in, does an exercise and does health inoculations and examinations and a variety of other things. Those are important. The civic action part. In other words, if you choose the soft side of the US military establishment, no better place in the world to make that map than in our neighborhood, the Western Hemisphere. What else is needed, I think with regard to the illicit trafficking piece, more and better cooperation with some players beyond the Western Hemisphere, the countries, the establishments of the countries where there is a huge illicit narcotics consumption. And I would submit, and I'm sorry that Arturo Sarucan had to leave, the Mexican ambassador, I would suggest a fresh look at Mexican, Central American, US cooperation for the Northern Triangle of Central America, which is very, very troubling. The paten is very, it's a real threat to stability and security broad gauged. Yes, we have monies flowing through Plan Merida and the Central American pieces, and I'm sure there will be a reference to that. But what you see with the Southern Command is what you get. I submit it's very important, it has been for years, and it will continue to be as a manifestation of United States power in South of the United States, particularly in the Caribbean and in Central America and in the Northern part of South America, for the reasons I have just outlined. Thank you. Thank you very much, John. Carl Meacham? Great, thank you, Peter. It's great to be here. This is the right time, I think, to entertain lots of the questions that we're gonna be talking about today. It was great to hear the general talk about what his priorities are and his views of his role in the region are. I think that my presentation today is gonna focus more on how we see these priorities from the legislative branch. Broadly through the years, a central but unanswered question in our relationship with countries in the region is how the US can safeguard its security and at the same time play an appropriate and effective role in strengthening cooperation on a host of regional issues, from security to trade to human rights to democratic governance with the countries of the region. Complicating matters in this regard is that the environment in the region has changed with ideological diversity of leadership with Brazil struggling to play a dominant role in the region's affairs and with a weak OAS giving way to the strengthening of other groupings like UNASUR and we're seeing this meeting today on the Venezuela issue. The context for the United States to operate in the region has definitely become more challenging. But in the interest of brevity and in keeping with the theme of today's discussion, I'm gonna provide my views on the two key challenges that I believe are the most important for our security in the region. The first being, and I know that this is probably outside of the issues that the general focus is in particular, but I think that this touches clearly on these issues. The first being US-Mexican security cooperation and the second one, which many folks here tried to ask questions about, which I think is clearly an issue under his jurisdiction, which is the sanctuary that the Venezuelan have provided to Colombian terrorist groups and looking forward and the implications that the collapse of Venezuela's economy would have in the region. I'm gonna start with Mexico first. By conservative estimates, more than 6,500 people died during last year because of drug-related homicides. While in January, this January marked the bloodiest month on record with nearly 800 homicides country-wide and these deaths continue. The escalation of violence is fueled in part by competition for profits generated by illegal drug consumption in the United States and by the illicit flow of weapons and money to cartel operations. According to the government of Mexico, which has defined organized crime as the country's greatest threat, the current surge of violence reflects the success of the government's offensive against drug trafficking organizations, a perception shared by relevant U.S. agencies. As rival organizations battle each other for control of lucrative trafficking routes into the United States, most of the violence occurs between and among drug trafficking organizations. Nevertheless, police officers, journalists, and politicians have become more frequent targets. While the January 22 massacre of 15 teenagers and Suelth Aquinas highlighted the victimization of innocent civilians. Criminality has also extended itself to extortion, robbery, and kidnapping, affecting innocent people throughout Mexico and making security the number one concern of Mexican citizens. Currently, the U.S. government denies that the increase in drug trafficking related violence in Mexico has resulted in a significant spillover of violence into the United States. But as one U.S. embassy official remarked to me during a recent visit to Mexico, there's no doubt that the Mexican organized crime would not be a successful in moving drugs into the United States without distribution networks, safe houses, and ways to launder money in the United States. So in other words, the problem is already in the United States and it's not simply a border issue. But even without evidence of spillover violence, the United States has an important stake in Mexico's challenges. According to a 2010 assessment by the National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican drug trafficking organizations represent the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States. Mexico is a major transit country for cocaine and source country for heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine. Strengthening and institutionalizing cooperation on border security issues, intelligence sharing, and the support of Mexican efforts to reform law enforcement are the best ways to protect U.S. security from the threats posed by organized crime in Mexico and by those who work with them in the United States. Strong U.S.-Mexico cooperation through the Merida Initiative is vital to our common aim of defeating the drug trafficking organizations. Today, and this is, as the general mentioned, broadly in the region, today transnational cooperation has become more vital both to confronting the drug cartels and to handling broader challenges in the bilateral relationship. In that respect, I thought that maybe the general could have talked about these issues as it relates to his areas of jurisdiction, because I believe that you can't really talk about Central American drug trafficking or the drug trafficking that we see out of the northern part of South America without really talking about Mexico, because as he stated, they're all sort of related. Second point, Venezuela. One week ago, Colombia's permanent representative to the OAS presented photos, videos, satellite images, and testimonies as evidence that 1500 guerrillas enjoy protection on 14 camps along the Venezuelan border with Colombia, alleging that Ivan Marquez, a member of the FARC's high command is also based in Venezuela. More importantly, the Colombian government has stated repeatedly that attacks on Colombia are orchestrated from these very camps and by individuals that roam within Venezuela's boundaries. Allegations of Venezuelan complicity with the FARC are not new. I'm sure you're all familiar. In December of 2004, the FARC's international spokesman, Rodrigo Granda, was captured in Venezuela. In March of 2008, Colombia took out a FARC camp headed by Raul Reyes, two kilometers inside Ecuador, a ally, a video posted by a Spanish journalist on YouTube shows that guerrillas in La Gavarra, a village in the Guastualdito area of Venezuela's Apura region, and the list goes on and on. In response, rather than provide evidence to the contrary or commit to do something about this issue, President Chavez has broken ties with Bogota and has announced once again, preparations for war and with it, a cessation of oil shipments to the United States. Colombia's allegations are serious and they should be pursued by relevant international institutions. The general said this and we support that. If Colombia's accusations are found to be true, Venezuela would be in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 and anti-terrorism measure past two weeks after 9-11 and clearly be in violation of the Democratic Charter of the OAS. If these accusations are demonstrated, it will be hard for the international community to brush over the implications of such a find on the collective security of the region. It is also important given present company, a lot of folks from the military here, to note that the president or President Chavez's permissiveness with regard to harboring terrorist organizations is having on his military. Venezuela's military which has been accused of providing support and weapons to groups who are involved in the drug trade is not only viewed as turning a blind eye to terrorist organizations present in Venezuela, but also as a heavily politicized institution no longer capable of fulfilling its full constitutional duties on behalf of all Venezuelans. As a result of President Chavez breaking off ties with Colombia, which many saw as a ploy to deflect the very credible Colombian accusations, numerous reports point to divisions within the Venezuelan military. Some analysts confirm that support for Mr. Chavez is less than previously expected and that internal infighting even among pro-government elements are probably greater than anticipated. Other analysts point to very low levels of operational readiness, despite the purchase of Russian and Chinese weapon systems. I'll summarize this as much as I can here. Last point here, big point. The effect felt by the economic, I'd say spiraling in Venezuela is an issue of importance here because its implosion matters to the rest of Latin America, especially Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua who stand to lose large subsidies from Caracas. Chavez's decade long attempt to create a block of like-minded countries around the region is clearly at risk due to his mismanagement. The issue here is simple. If he cannot support or if these countries do not receive the support of Chavez, the chaos that could happen within these countries can spill over into more instability in the region. A good example there being the money that President Chavez sends to Venezuela, if and out to Cuba, if Cuba is not able to receive this funding, this obviously could create chaos within Cuba leading to a refugee crisis which would obviously end up being of concern to our friends in South Florida. In short, the further deterioration of conditions of Venezuela due to its own incompetence and cooperation could end in dangerous confrontations within Venezuela and have serious consequences for the Venezuelan people and the stability of Venezuela's neighbors and the interests of the United States. So I leave you with these two ideas. I look forward to your questions and comments in the Q&A, thank you. Thanks Carl. Kevin Whitaker. Good morning. Thank you all for being here today and thanks for this opportunity Peter to having set for having set this up. Let me put this in the context that from a State Department policy perspective, the overall theme of non-traditional threats by first starting off with the four pillars that we're trying to focus on and execute policies with respect to in Latin America. First of all, institutionality, increasing the institutionality of democratic government, citizen safety has been alluded to a number of times here, protection for the environment and providing opportunity, more and better opportunities for all. And if I bore into those a bit because there's a lot there, but I wanna keep it in the context of non-traditional threats and talk about the institutionality of democratic government. What we have seen in Latin America generally, particularly in the Andean region, is deterioration of institutions in general, but particularly of political parties. Political parties in several of these countries have atomized political parties which once commanded ruled, were able to achieve election and ruled for long periods of time are now mere shadows of their former selves. We take it as a given that in order for democratic government to succeed, it's important to have sound political parties with clear ideologies that stand for something. To the extent that these don't exist, you provide the space for personalistic based populist oriented governments which don't have that sort of solid base and can lead to some deleterious effects in the future. This has sort of two implications for the discussion here today. One, I think that our government has made a policy decision to provide support for democratic development. I would commend to you the secretary of speech in Krakow recently where she gave a speech at the community of democracies and underlined this commitment. There's a role for our military in this to continue with our theme. Obviously the armed forces throughout Latin America are important institutions and potentially institutions that are supportive of democratic government. We have seen over the course of careers of old guys like John Mesto and I an evolution. There was a time when mere support for the notion of democracy was a bridge too far for the armed forces in the region. We've seen a time where human rights concerns were of deep concern in the region. And we've seen concern and continue to see concerns about the role of the armed forces in the economy and how they fit in in terms of private sector. Our armed forces can play an important role in providing training. It's an example and working in a collaborative way in a collaborative way with their colleagues in the region to ensure that the armed forces plays an appropriate role in the development of that democratic institution. Going back to the four pillars, citizen safety is an important one. Carl alluded to the fact that we have a shared responsibility here. And this is a point that I would like to underline. When you look to General Frazier's map, we had a lot of dope going this way and dope going that way. And all of that is completely true. And what wasn't included there was the bulk cash and arms coming from the United States, going from the United States to the region. We have a responsibility here. The Secretary has spoken very clearly on that point and we're gonna seek to engage in a collaborative way as a partnership with our friends and partners in the region to ensure that all of these issues are addressed in a holistic way. Another issue that was raised here is the role of the military in providing law enforcement training. This is for us, for Americans, a somewhat controversial notion because I think we're all aware that our armed forces are forbidden by law from executing roles in the law enforcement sphere and except under the most exceptional circumstances. So it is a little paradoxical for us to be providing training and assistance and direction to armed forces in the region with respect to how they might better support the law enforcement institutions. It may well be that the better answer here is to reinforce the law enforcement institutions themselves. And this is, and one of the things that we've come to realize over the course of the last several years or the last decades is that it isn't simply a matter about the police force, it's the whole pyramid of judicial, there have to be cops on the streets, crimes have to be investigated, there has to be a judicial system to deal with them effectively and promptly, and there has to be a penitentiary system to provide incarceration and rehabilitation. So it needs to be viewed as a whole and not simply as we need more people with guns on the streets. Final point I'll make is on, I mentioned opportunity is one of the pillars. We have sought to encourage mechanisms to provide the ground for inclusive growth in the hemisphere. The general mentioned that, unfortunately, Latin America has one of the most unequal growth patterns in the world. Ginny coefficients in many countries are really shockingly unequal. I would commend to you pathways to prosperity. It's a program that we've instituted at the State Department. It's really a partnership that we're engaging in. The idea behind it is to provide a forum for individuals and corporations that have succeeded throughout the hemisphere to share their knowledge and share their capacity and provide the knowledge base for their experiences to be replicated elsewhere. This is very much a two-way flow. The first partnership pathways to prosperity, first pathways meeting that was held in New York, there was more information being transmitted by non-U.S. actors by far than by U.S. actors. And this importantly gets us away from the very old-fashioned notion and I would argue ultimately unsuccessful notion that dumping lots of development assistance into Latin America is ultimately going to achieve durable economic success there. So with that, I will leave it at that and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you here today. Thanks very much, Kevin. Thanks to all our panelists. I'm not a participant in the panel, but I certainly agree with, especially with points raised on the citizen security issue of the importance of the strengthening and reform of civilian police, judicial reform, the rule of law, the holistic approach, the ability of the judicial system to protect citizens' rights, human rights, civil rights, and the importance of interregional and international cooperation on these issues, which I think are long-term needs in Latin America and should be an important goal of U.S. cooperation as well. Well, there's lots to discuss. We have three experts here and I'd be very anxious for your, very interested in your comments and welcome participation from our audience. Please, if you could again, please identify yourself by your name and affiliation and feel free to ask your questions. Thank you. Sir. Good morning, gentlemen. John Garcia, Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Last year, the United States signed a defense agreement with Colombia and Brazilian President Lula da Silva called President Obama to express his concern that this defense agreement was creating tension in the region. However, earlier this year, Brazil signed their own defense agreement with the United States. My question is, why the shift in Brazil's position to allowing the United States to presence in Latin America? Thank you. I would address that question to the government of Brazil. All I can do is I can speak most authoritatively about the Colombian one and the Colombian agreement simply codified existing authorities, permissions and so it really was just sort of summing together in one place a lot of the authorities that we already had. We have explained this pretty thoroughly to our friends and colleagues in the region. The Secretaries of State and Defense wrote two letters to their counterparts in the region explaining it. We're kind of done in terms of explaining what's going on there. With respect to Brazil, the Brazil agreement actually is slightly different and it is more limited in scope, which is consistent with what the Brazilians were interested in. Look, we're interested in having a positive agenda with our armed forces colleagues throughout the hemisphere. If the Colombian model, which is broader and somewhat more intense and somewhat more intricate is what the Colombians are interested in and the Brazilian model is somewhat less so than we have the flexibility and the intentionality to execute it in those ways. Good morning, Bruce Graham from Textron. I wanna shift a little bit from the military to the commercial and economic impact. How do you see the approval of the FDA with Columbia, how it might shift and provide other sources of focus of income and stability in Colombia? Hugely important. And so I can speak because I no longer am with government. It is just incomprehensible that the United States of America hasn't seen fit through our Congress to approve this FDA. I mean, we all know the reasons why there are internal political reasons in our own country for the FDA not being passed. I would commend the administration for continuing to push for it. It's a bipartisan piece. It always was. All the FTAs are bipartisan pieces, but they're always vested interests at play. What I tell my Latin American friends, my Colombian friends and my Panamanian friends is the bureaucracy of our democracy and the politics of our democracy are messy. And in the case of this one, I'd like to remind that it took about what, eight, nine years for the Chilean FTA to get from completion of negotiation to final approval early in the in President Bush's administration. I think it's gonna get done, but it would be really good for the interests of the United States for it to get done as rapidly as possible. And in the meantime, other countries are doing FTAs and eating not our lunch, but maybe our medienda or part of our medienda in these matters. That's a snack. Jim Olson, I'm an independent consultant right now. A couple of the panelists mentioned it as far as the responsibility that the United States has with the illegal trafficking. Still seems to me that the center of gravity to use a military term is still with the users that are predominantly within our country. Why has that not been a focus more? And I'd like to address that as far as reducing the whole scope of the problem and the challenges and the insecurity challenges that result from the trafficking. That's a tough question for somebody from the State Department to answer. But it's a shame we don't have somebody from ONDCP here. So I will try to challenge, channel just looking right at this fella. So what I'd say to that is it seems to me that Mr. Kurt Likowski has defined a kind of approach which is very much focused on addressing the demand side part of the equation. And you're perfectly right in drawing the linkage between what the Secretary, what Secretary Clinton said about shared responsibility and the very important responsibility that we have in the United States with respect to our own citizens who are users. Another aspect of this, folks mentioned, I think it was General Frazier who mentioned that there's growing markets in Brazil, in Western Europe, in Eastern Europe. And there are indications that the traffickers are looking very seriously at the growing middle class, classes that exist in India and China. And so this is gonna be very much a worldwide plague and it just underlines the importance of a global and a holistic approach to it. Well, our belief has been that this is an issue that requires cooperation from trafficker, from the, with the trafficking countries, the consuming countries and the producing countries. We can't really stop the problem without having that kind of very, how would you say, a comprehensive approach in relationship. Kevin mentioned how this issue is growing and growing and growing. What we probably would wanna see more of is broader types of agreement and involvement in the region if we're talking about the region, but the general also alluded to the fact that this is an issue that also is going to Africa and to Europe and it's sort of stems from this region. So we want to be able to broaden these relationships. I think the Caribbean Basin Initiative is a good framework, terribly underfunded. It has to be much more aggressive than that. I think we need many more assets to deal with the trafficking issue. There's been a lot of focus on the source side of it, but we have to do better on the trafficking side of it. Having the Merida Initiative come up two years ago is great, but it's late. Boy, was it late. We need to see more of that. We also, we're talking about the Caribbean side and the assets there and it makes a difference in dealing with the GOFAS, but you also have to deal with the East Pacific. And you talk to anybody in the Coast Guard and they'll tell you that they're trying hard and they're catching a lot of drugs and bad guys, but that the universe out there is much bigger than what we think. So we need to continue that. Hopefully we can get other countries to join in with our efforts and really pony down with the money necessary to fight this problem. General Frazier talked about his number one issue being illicit trafficking of all sorts and he's absolutely right. What more can should we in the United States do? First of all, we have a holistic US government policy approach, but we've had that for a while through Democratic and Republican administrations, but there is no recourse, it has to continue. The huge consumption problem in our own country and the huge amount of money generated and arms generated, that speaks for itself. Are we doing enough? Will we have the political will to deal with it? Will we have the bureaucratic will to deal with it? Will we have the societal will to deal with it? Is a question we should be asking ourselves constantly. Thirdly, from the point of view of what the command can do, I would think that the command can, with regard to the new consuming countries or the increased consuming countries, that leaves a lot of room for a lot more engagement and cooperation and creativity. Let me say one word of praise for the organization of American states. It's CCAD, the Inter-American Commission Against Narcotics, which does an awful lot of horizontal cooperation with minimal amounts of money among people who deal with these issues. We need a lot more of that, and until we dedicate sufficient resources for a more cooperative international effort, we're gonna fall short. Trying to put into context the mission that the general explained and then particularly political situations, I think Carl, you've referred to, I would take the case of Venezuela and having Ambassador Meister here is important. On the humanitarian side, one of the early things that President Chavez had to face was a massive landslide that created a tremendous amount of deaths in the northern part of Caracas and at the beach front of, essentially, of close to Caracas. The United States offered help. The help was put together, ships were sailing on the way to help, and President Chavez, under the advice of Cuban President Castro, decided not to accept the help. On counter narcotics, every effort has been made to do joint operations, to do tracking, to improve the kind of information that's generated in that kind of tracking information, and none of that has happened. On, you know, harbouring terrorists, obviously there is very little chance of getting any help. There are growing reports about Russian and fellow Russian mafia spending more time in Venezuela trying to get a hold at the source of cocaine that they want to traffic or they want to have a greater role in trafficking in Western Europe. At what point, Ambassador Mesto, and also, I would probably not put it in Kevin's plate, as I think you'd be very cautious, at what point does the famous Mesto doctrine, that one that said, look not at what Chavez says, but what he does, actually calls to question that now he's doing stuff that everybody should call attention to, and as I mentioned to the general, helping a country whose institutions are weak, or weakened by all these threats, it's one thing, but what happens when you have a country that's actually allied with those non-traditional threats? I guess that question was dedicated to me. I think, Pedro, you have put your finger on, obviously, a very, very important issue in the Western Hemisphere today. You started with talking about humanitarian assistance, which the United States did provide to Venezuela back in 1998, as I recall, 1999, December of 1999. And we provided about $12 million worth of aid. We had Huey helicopters and Chinooks flying all around the Vargas and the Caracas area for, oh, six weeks. And we had all sorts of military personnel in. They did a good job, and President Chavez was grateful, and said so publicly at that time. And ours was the biggest, the U.S. was the biggest cooperation. Yes, President Chavez resisted. First, the Venezuelan government said yes, and then it said no to the arrival of the U.S. engineers to work in conjunction with Venezuelan engineers to open up the road. That was very much debated. I mean, it was very much criticized in Venezuela back then. But there's the issue of sovereignty and reasons why. Now, with regard to what has been exposed, not exposed, but laid out by General Frazier in terms of the challenge, the trafficking situation in the hemisphere, and there is an issue that goes beyond just the United States of America. It's an issue that goes to, as Kevin just mentioned, increased consumption, more widespread consumption of cocaine in particular that flows out of the Andes and flows in several directions to several destinations. One would think, one would think that in today's interdependent globalized world that the countries whose security and wellbeing and public health are threatened by this movement would want to work in concert. You have South American countries, you have European countries. In addition, you have the countries through which it flows. I can assure you that the Central Americans and Mexico are very much interested in this sort of thing, but we need a much larger effort in my view. Merida begins it. We need to get just more attention to the region. As I said in my remarks, the Northern Triangle of Central America is really a danger zone. One would think that Brazil, the second largest consumer of narcotics after the United States would be more interested. One would think that Spain, with the largest per capita consumption would be more interested. There is a crying need for more international cooperation and dealing with the real world situation. Now, I do believe in multilateralism as weak as it sometimes manifests itself, but with political will and leadership and more political will and more leadership, all the countries in question should be able to get their arms around this. And I think that there is a role for the United States Congress. It's just lovely being in retirement. I can tell everybody what to do. To demand, not only of our own government, but of their homologous, the parliamentarians with whom they deal, they're Europeans, they're Latin Americans, they're all sorts of people, to bring that argument to them. It's a societal challenge in addition to being a political challenge. Thank you, Thomas Costa, National Defense University. I'd just like to put a couple of ideas here that I think we are, some we are responding to and some I don't think we are paying attention. When I listen to the briefing here and you see not just in his briefing, but in all the messages that are coming out of self-comp that the attention is on trafficking, I think is an institutional reaction for a political preference and also for a political narrative that we do on the strategy against drugs that is interdiction is our preference. And it's quite amazing the capacity that we have in this country, especially when we receive foreign gas here, not being able to respond what is that this country does in terms of drug prevention and recuperation, because it's not a federal government role to do that. Perhaps you, I just did this recently, you have to kind of burrow in inside of nowhere or Main Street, United States to see both what is drug consumption and also what's been done on the drug problem that you don't see the federal government. I mean, it's not the federal government label is. It's families, communities, insurance companies and small assistance when you have this reaction. So it's very difficult to say, oh, these are the numbers. This is what the federal government's doing. So I think that's a major issue. What Southcom is doing is just reacting to our preference and say interdiction is the problem. It's quite interesting to say that, well, there are other segments that we are not really paying attention. The comment that we are having huge productions of coca leaf but not necessary production of cocaine in some places, it means that we may have a traffic of coca leafs in the region, I don't know, is it moving from one place to the other? That's a second type of problem. And I think that the huge concerns that we have in the burning issue, I think in the case of Mexico and also revealed by the case of Jamaica is not interdiction is the tacit political facts that you have in many places regarding the drug or regarding organized crime. And I think that this is the burning issue regarding our relationship with Mexico. I'm not saying that it's an issue of federal government, it's an issue of state government or local government. Even the local government, if a small community celebrates some type of tacit pack against violence, that changed the flow of the drug presence or the organized crime presence. So that's the second aspect that I think the state has something to say and international relations have something to say. And third, I think is if we go look at AIDS, the 20, 30 year reaction to AIDS, in many countries, if we were to expect the state to react, the state to be the leading edge in the fight against AIDS, we would be nowhere. Because in fact, in some of the countries, what we would expect from a state to do it, they wouldn't be doing it. So it's, I agree with the ambassador, is a reaction from society. But it's very difficult for one state to command reaction from society in another state. But I think we could start in this country reviewing what is the narrative of drug prevention and drug recuperation, because it's happening. But it's not a very well articulated message that we put out there, thank you. Well, yeah, I would just say on the issue, the figures are pretty clear in so far as how much money we're spending on consumption, on prevention. I would just ask you to look at some of the states. We get information, my boss represents Indiana, we get a lot of information about what the governor's doing to deal with the meth problem that exists in Indiana. And it's pretty clear. So I would sort of question that a little bit. I think there is a lot of information out there. There's a lack of coordination, but there's a lot of information about what different states are doing. I think you'd get the same thing in New York State, and in California, and a lot of the Midwestern states right now are doing very active state government, promoted campaigns against a lot of drugs. So I would look at that. I think that it isn't coordinated. I think on that, we would agree. Well, I think this is the issue of the message, but it's very difficult to articulate the message. Is that something? Right, I don't know if you remember in the 80s we had just say no, we had a message. I think right now, even though there isn't that clarity in that one sort of TV message, there are a lot of states that are doing a lot of interesting things and effective things. But the point that I wanna focus on that I think you've really made, that you've addressed very clearly, is the erosion of the state and the relationship that the state and drug trafficking has in certain countries of the region, which I think should also be addressed by some of our government folks. I don't know if it's solely the responsibility of Southcom. I think Southcom does a pretty good job with a lot of the things that it does. But I think that this portion of the erosion of the state and what we can do as a government, and I think you probably can elaborate on more of that, is it really the key issue? And that's why we have the problems that you saw in Jamaica, problems that a lot of folks think are coming in places like Dominic and Republic, where we really need to start paying attention and putting more resources. Just to follow up. Sure, we do talk a lot about interdiction because interdiction is a highly quantifiable item and we do do our PowerPoints or some departments do their PowerPoints. But I think we all of us in this room know that it's the three-legged stool and actually we do it in a pretty effective way in places like Columbia and Peru where you have eradication, interdiction, and alternative development. And in a couple of places this has come together and provided a durable, different sort of situation that has in turn permitted people to move away from on a long-term basis to move away from cultivation. In San Martín, in Peru, in Meta Macarena, in Columbia. And of course it's not just those three items that has to be followed through. It revolves around the question ultimately of government presence. One of the things that our Colombian colleagues learned in Meta Macarena is it's not enough to have the army there. You actually need to have one, two, three agencies of government that are physically present in a durable way for people to draw the conclusion that yeah, there's something different going on here. It's also a highly social phenomenon. There was a very interesting study done by Bob Grisoni about the types of individuals who engage in coca growth. And to summarize, it's really people who've been moved in who've been forced to move into areas who are the ones who are most difficult to turn away from that lifestyle. Folks who live in an area have ties there, go to the towns, deal with their brethren in a social way. They want to get out of illegal traffic, even if it means less remuneration. So it's really that whole of government approach that we need to execute here more effectively. Just one last comment is this is really the underlying theme behind the Colombian Strategic Development Initiative that Embassy Bogota in a coordinated interagency way is trying to execute in that country. Thank you very much, Maria Berliner with Latin Intelligence Corporation. Looking at the Latin America that is, meaning the real life situations that the ambassador mentioned, the political will and the erosion of the state, collusion and corruption in Latin America are structural. The levels of corruption at the government level and the private level, from looking the other way to actually taking the money and not running and stay there, I think it's a significant factor that need to be considered in any policy towards the region. I would like to know what is the position of the panel or the view of the panel as to what are we doing besides putting the names of the people in the deny persons list. Thank you. You know, I agree with you. I think that corruption is a significant problem in the region. It is a significant problem in other regions as well and how societies deal with that is gonna be a measure of their success going forward. It is very interesting phenomenon in Italy these days where the young actually came together and are rejecting the payment of payoffs to the mafia. It's a great example, but what underlies it is the development of political will and because without political will and without people saying, no, I'm not gonna do that anymore. I know this is wrong and I'm not gonna do it anymore than all of the training programs or more cops on the streets or more and better and more efficient judicial systems and better penitentiary. None of those things will matter without the political will that underlies it and a refusal to permit it, a refusal to tolerate it anymore. What was particularly encouraging to me about that was that the initiative came from the youth. This gave it one thing it shows that we have hope for the future and secondly, it provides durability because the youth almost by definition are gonna live longer than the rest of us, but eventually they won't. Just the last comment on that, yeah, it can't just be the civil society even though I think the civil society needs to be asking for these things and pushing for these things, but there also has to be leadership within the government and we've seen governments do that under adverse circumstances like in Mexico where you're having a very difficult struggle going on there but you do see a lot of government officials saying enough's enough and there's consequences for this kind of corruption. The difficulties come in places like Venezuela where you really do have a group of folks that actually are in government jobs that are profiting from this kind of corruption and that it's not lucrative for them to stop this kind of behavior. That's really where we have the hardest part. I mean, how do we deal with a government who is corrupt and doesn't want to stop being corrupt and the implications that that has not only for their democracy but also for our security in the region. So I think you put your finger on the right issue. Hopefully people like Kevin will listen to people like me and the legislative branch say, we gotta do more of this. Yeah, not him, he's out of the game. On the contrary, I speak for the point of view of a citizen of the United States who is as concerned as you are and as Kevin and Carl are obviously. And I come from a country that, we have our experience with corruption. Corruption is an infirmity of the democratic systems across the board. And it's even a bigger problem in authoritarian systems. But we deal with it. We deal with institutionally and we gotta keep plugging away at it. And I think it can be done. I think the examples mentioned, I think Mexico is one that is moving forward. I am not pessimistic about it. I think that in a globalized world, we are making more and more progress. It takes political will. It takes pressure on the part of legislators. It takes leadership on the part of our executive branches and it takes pressure on the part of our citizens. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you all for having come. I'd like to thank, at the same time, Rolls-Royce North America for its sponsorship of this series. And I would like all of us to thank our distinguished panelists for their fine presentations. Thanks everybody.