Pubdate: Thu, 19 Feb 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Note: William Brownfield, assistant secretary of state for 
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), met with 
the U-T Editorial Board recently to discuss INL programs, drugs and border rel

BATTLING CRIME THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS

Q: You're in town to talk about an agreement with San Diego Police 
Department. Tell us about that.

A: I'm responsible for the United States government's overseas 
programs on drugs and other international crime such as cyber, 
financial, money laundering, trafficking persons, firearms and so 
forth. As well as supporting rule of law and law enforcement institutions.

Q: When you talk about narcotics, how do you separate domestic from 
international?

A: Obviously we don't in terms of impact.

But I am not permitted by law to spend money on programs inside the 
United States. I do not do domestic law enforcement. What we have 
been trying to do for the last four years is build partnerships with 
state and local law enforcement and other criminal justice 
institutions. In California we've got a number of very good partners.

The California Department of Corrections, the attorney general of 
California and her office, the California Highway Patrol and a couple 
of municipal police departments. I have come to San Diego to talk to 
the police department about reaching some sort of agreement with us.

We are offering the opportunity to engage in programs with law 
enforcement outside of the United States. Although it's not 
necessarily the case, the logic for the San Diego Police Department 
would be engaging with Mexico. But it could be further down into 
Central America as well.

My promise would be that the Police Department of San Diego would 
engage as they wish, when they wish, when they have personnel 
available, when they have training slots open to permit foreign law 
enforcement to come into their academies and training centers.

We would absorb all costs up to and including salary costs.

We will pick them up as well when they deploy on overseas missions.

This is good for the department as well as for us. For us, we have 
highly skilled police and their training mechanisms that are 
available to work with overseas law enforcement. But for them, my 
argument is we are working at the root of the issues that are 
affecting the citizens in San Diego on their streets and in their 
communities. Whether it's drugs or gangs or trafficking in people.

Whether it's moving firearms, whether it's cyber, whether it's 
financial crime and money laundering, that they are able to engage 
the San Diego Police Department in those countries and with those 
police departments where they have direct and immediate impact on 
what they're working.

Q: Give us an example of a mission.

Are you talking about permanent posting of San Diego police somewhere abroad?

Or are you talking about specific missions where they go and come 
back? I know that New York City has people stationed in Europe permanently.

A: Missions can be in either of two directions. NYPD has been one of 
our partners formally for the past two years.

And informally now going on more than 10. Their informal arrangement 
started with Haiti. The New York Police Department is one of only two 
in the U.S. that has a large contingent of Haitian-American police officers.

For the past 10 years, the New York Police Department have deployed 
on long-term training missions, groups of either six or four 
bilingual Creole and obviously English-speaking police officers.

They have 50 or 60 in the entire police force.

What they're doing is breaking out at any given time, roughly 10 
percent of their Creole speaking police officers. They did deploy for 
missions of four to five months.

Now this is kind of the maximum that we would ever ask of a local 
police force. In Haiti they do basic training.

They do both formal instruction and they pair up with Haitian police 
and patrol with them. Speaking their own language and providing them 
guidance, recommendations, suggestions on how to do modern community 
policing. Most of our deployed missions are matters of a couple of weeks.

And they do a specific course or a training mission.

Q: Have you found any countries that are not receptive to the idea? 
Who say, "No, we don't want your cops down here"?

A: Oh, without a doubt.

I have little doubt that I could name about 50 countries in the world 
that would say we have no particular interest in engaging with the 
United States of America in any way, shape or form. There are some 
where we have engaged in the past, and no longer do. Venezuela comes to mind.

There are some places where we engage but we have to do it, because 
of the inherent sensitivity of the issue, very low profile.

I'll offer an example I believe has been a major success.

Over the last seven years we have assisted in standing up, training 
and equipping a police force in the West Bank of Palestine. We have 
done it with the concurrence of the Palestinian Authority, not Gaza. 
I want to be clear: We do not do anything at all in Gaza. But in the 
West Bank, we do it with the support obviously of the Palestinian 
Authority, which is responsible for their own policing.

And with a complete concurrence of the government of Israel. We 
operate in that zone of overlap between what the Israeli government 
is prepared to tolerate and what the Palestinian Authority wants.

On some issues that overlap gets very narrow.

But we have stayed within that zone for the last seven years.

Over the last five years or so, there have been a lot of troublesome 
issues, but we have not heard of things such as Intifada, massive 
riots or mass protests in the West Bank. One reason is the 
Palestinian Authority now has a competent domestic police apparatus 
that is able to maintain some degree of control and civil order.

Even in difficult times.

Q: What about the broader aspects of U.S. drug policy, the mixed 
messages from the U.S. government on drug policy particularly as it 
relates to marijuana.

You've got the White House in essence conceding the legalization of 
marijuana in states that have voted to legalize it. What is the view 
of the American government toward marijuana?

A: Remember that the I in INL stands for international. So where I am 
directly engaged is overseas as opposed to domestic.

That said, there is an international component to this issue.

The United States of America is a party to, has ratified the three 
international drug control conventions, the '61 convention, the '72 
convention and the 1988 convention. The '61 and the '88 conventions 
specifically list marijuana and cannabis as on their annex of 
prescribed most dangerous substances. We are, by the terms of the 
conventions, obligated to take steps to prevent the use or misuse of 
marijuana. Those conventions have been ratified by more than 180 
governments in the world.

The United Nations works principally on consensus. The likelihood of 
finding a consensus of those 180 plus governments for a new set of 
conventions, is pretty much zilch.

If you think there's a disparity of views on drug control in the 
U.S., multiply that by a factor of about 10. In some countries 
overseas they are still executing drug traffickers for the simple 
crime of trafficking in drugs.

And other countries, they have legalized entire categories of product.

Internationally. the formula that I am trying to support on behalf of 
the U.S. government, is a four-part formula. First, we all agree to 
respect the integrity of the three conventions. Because it's going to 
be impossible to change them. Second, use the flexibility that is 
inherent in these conventions. They have an exception for federal 
constitutional systems for example. They do permit governments to use 
their scarce law enforcement resources in the way that they think is 
best. They allow some flexibility and discretion as long as the 
objective is to limit and eventually prevent the misuse of drugs.

The flexibility is in the conventions. Third principle is tolerance 
for other governments that will pursue their own national drug 
control strategies. Accepting that different countries have different 
realities.

And the fourth principal is, regardless of our position on 
prohibition versus legalization, let us all agree that those 
transnational criminal organizations that traffic in the product for 
profit and use violence and blood as their means of penetrating and 
establishing market share, that we are all in agreement that we will 
resist and combat them.

Q: Give us your view of the state of control of the international 
border with Mexico.

A: It is an improving picture in my opinion.

The border is more modern in terms of the equipment they have 
available for it. Much more modern than it was in 2007 when we 
started this cooperative effort. Second, I will say that the border 
is better served today because we no longer look at the U.S.-Mexico 
border as just one single border.

They're actually two. And the second one is located at the border 
between Mexico and Central America, specifically Guatemala and 
Belize. And the fact that we are working and cooperating on that 
border is a positive thing.

Third, I believe that the law enforcement institutions on the Mexican 
side of the border are better trained and better equipped than they 
were in the past. Fourth, I believe that communication and 
cooperation between U.S. entities and Mexican entities is better 
today than it was seven years ago. All of that is good news. All of 
that should produce an improving picture in the years ahead.

I am not suggesting that the problem is solved.

There is more work to be done. If we think in terms of a 10-year 
video instead of a snapshot, I believe you'll see that the video is 
telling a better story.

For a longer version of this Q&A transcript visit us online at 
http://utsd.us/1G4EspC
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom