Panel II Of A Joint Hearing Of The Crime And Drugs Subcommittee Of The Senate Judiciary Committee And The Senate Caucus On International Narcotics Control

Statement

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SEN. DURBIN: We're now going to move to the second panel of witnesses and complete the hearing. As these witnesses are taking their place at the witness table, I'm going to give you a brief bio for each in the interest of saving some time.

Our first witness will be Professor Denise Dresser, who's been a professor of political science at the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico since 1991. She is a contributing editor at The Los Angeles Times, writes a political column for the Mexican newspaper Reforma and the news weekly Processo. I hope I pronounced that correctly. Professor Dresser is the author of numerous publications on Mexican politics and U.S.-Mexican relations. She has taught at the highly regarded Georgetown University and the University of California at Berkeley. She has a doctoral degree in politics from Princeton University and a bachelor's degree from El Collegio de Mexico. I hope that's close.

Professor Dresser, thank you for traveling so far to join us today.

We also have as a witness Jorge Luis Aguirre -- close? -- founder and director of LaPolaka.com, the most popular electronic newspaper in the state of Chihuahua. Mr. Aguirre was born in the state of Chihuahua in Mexico and has worked as a journalist for three decades and has a law degree from Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez. I majored in French. Mr. Aguirre was forced to flee from Juarez late last year because of his work as a journalist and is currently living in seclusion in El Paso. The topic of today's hearing has affected his life personally in a way that most of us can only imagine.

I ask that the witnesses, if they wouldn't mind standing, to accept to oath before their testimony. So if you wouldn't mind, both please stand. (Witnesses are sworn in.)

Professor Dresser, would you please -- your written statement will be part of the record and now if you would give us your oral statement, please.

MS. DRESSER: Chairman Durbin --

SEN. DURBIN: You need to turn on the microphone in front of you there. Okay?

MS. DRESSER: Thank you.

Chairman Durbin, honorable members of the committee, I welcome the opportunity to speak about Mexico's efforts to combat drug trafficking and organized crime.

As has been said earlier today, at the helm of an increasingly visible and active army, President Felipe Calderon has declared a war against drug trafficking and the organized crime networks it has spawned. Given the increasingly lawless conditions of the country he inherited, Calderon had little choice but to act and he is to be commended for doing so, because my home has become a place where too many people die, gunned down by a drug trafficker or assaulted by a robber or shot by an ill-trained police officer or kidnapped or strangled by the member of a criminal gang.

Now, dealing with this problem that Calderon took on has not been easy, because the surge of drug trafficking in Mexico reflects a painful paradox. The government's drug efforts are undermined by the corrupting influence of the drug trade, yet the drug trade cannot survive without the protection of compromised elements within the government itself. As a result, it frequently becomes difficult to distinguish those charged with smuggling from the smugglers themselves. Mexico is a place where, if you are the victim of a crime, the last person you call is a police officer.

In the face of police corruption, Calderon has turned to the military to take on the anti-drug effort, but the bringing of soldiers out of the barracks and moving them around the country at will is also a cause for concern. Given its expanded role, the military is becoming the supreme authority, in some cases the only authority, in parts of some states, and greater militarization is also leading to corruption within an institution that has turned into the last credible beachhead in Mexico's long-standing battle.

What we've seen is that over the past decade, Mexico's transition to democracy has cast a glaring light on our precarious, uneven and limited rule of law. Cases of official corruption abound and the credibility of public institutions has suffered when those proven guilty have eluded punishment. As a result, impunity runs rampant. Imagine living in a country where 75 percent of crimes are never reported due to lack of trust in the authorities, and where 98 percent of crimes are never resolved or punished.

So while President Calderon's efforts are to be applauded, they must also be accompanied by comprehensive efforts that entail more than soldiers on the streets. The prospects for a more stable, less insecure Mexico will be contingent on the government's capacity to enact a major overhaul of the judiciary and law enforcement apparatus. It will be dependent on the government's political will to confront corruption at the highest levels of the political system, something the president has been reluctant to do.

Otherwise, it will not matter how many troops are trained, how many weapons are shipped and how many helicopters are bought. Colombia has spent over $5 billion in U.S. aid with mixed results -- more security, but no end to the drug production.

So the lesson is clear: One of the main objectives of the war that the Mexican government is fighting should not only be the destruction of the drug cartels but also the construction of the rule of law in Mexico. And I would urge you to face what has undoubtedly become a shared bilateral challenge with honesty, realism and determination, and that would entail a recognition of U.S. responsibilities, an understanding of what the U.S. has done and failed to do vis-a-vis Mexico.

As has been said, Mexican drug traffickers buy arms that the U.S. sells. Over 2,000 weapons cross the border on a daily basis and many of them are sold in an illegal fashion. Mexican drug traffickers provide cocaine that U.S. users demand. Over 35 million American citizens are drug users.

Mexican drug traffickers have been able to set up distribution networks across over 200 U.S. cities because very little has been done to stop them.

So in the face of an increasingly dire situation, the U.S. can help by providing more anti-narcotics operations within its own borders of the sort announced by Attorney General Eric Holder several weeks ago. The U.S. can help, as has been suggested here by Terry Goddard, on clamping down on money laundering and financial flows that have enabled people like Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman to amass a billion-dollar fortune and enter the Forbes list.

The U.S. can help by addressing the demand for drugs in its own cities, and President Obama's recent remarks in this regard are most welcome. The U.S. can help by cooperating more and not less on security matters, and, in this regard, it's worrisome that the funds channeled to the Merida Initiative were reduced recently.

Finally, I think the U.S. government and its people need to understand that this war cannot be waged effectively if the demand for drugs here is not stymied. To believe that it can be won without dealing with drug consumption and demand-driven forces in the U.S. is to believe that one can stop an earthquake or a hurricane. For every drug trafficker that is caught, another one will emerge in his place.

Indeed, Mexico is paying a very high price for our inability, and I think we recognize this, to construct a prosperous, dynamic, inclusive, lawful country in which citizens aren't propelled into illicit activities in order to survive and criminals are not protected by the government itself. But we are also paying a very high price for American veracity. Ours is a shared problem that will require shared solutions. Ours is a joint struggle that will demand if not the audacity of hope, at least the audacity of understanding that the time has come to make the neighborhood, our neighborhood, safe again.

Thank you very much.

SEN. DURBIN: Thank you, Professor Dresser.

Mr. Aguirre, I understand that you're going to rely on an interpreter, and we invite you now to submit your oral testimony.

MR. AGUIRRE: Chairman Durbin and Chairman Feinstein, members of the subcommittee and members of the caucus, I thank you for inviting me to testify firsthand about some of the suffering and death that people who live along the border between the states of Chihuahua and Texas face on a daily basis.

It must be difficult for you to get an inside view of the belly of beast from here and to understand the devastating corruption that devours Ciudad Juarez, where violence has erased all authority and government from the map and replaced it with the dictatorship of the crime underworld.

Starting a few months back, the government of Chihuahua allowed the state to be converted into an instrument of organized crime. Press freedom is threatened by a terrifying dilemma: "Plata o Plomo," meaning accept a bribe or face a bullet.

I am exiled from my country and am staying in El Paso with my wife and two children legally on a temporary visa because of this violence. Thanks to God and the hospitality of this blessed country, which really cannot be underestimated, I am still alive.

The story of my exile began on November 15, 2008, when Armando Rodriguez, a friend and journalist at El Diario was shot dead outside his home. That night, when I was driving to Armando's wake in my pickup truck, my cell phone rang. I was at a busy intersection and waiting for the light to turn green, so I took the call. Recalling the conversation still scares me.

"Jorge Luis Aguirre?" asked a man with an eerie voice.

"Yes," I say.

"You're next, son of a" -- (inaudible).

I almost went into a state of shock. I didn't know if it was sweat or a cold chill that was running through my body. I thought I was going to be riddled with bullets right there.

I looked around, expecting to see rifles pointed at my head, but I didn't see anything. The cars started moving and I accelerated to turn around to head back home. On the way, I called my wife and without even telling her any of this, because I didn't want her to worry, I asked her to pick me up on a quiet road where I would be waiting on foot. I told her to bring our sons as well. That night we crossed the border in my wife's car and thankfully saved our lives.

Weeks later, I confirmed the source of the threats. Victor Valencia, a representative of the governor of the state of Chihuahua, had sent people to warn me to "tone down" my criticisms of the prosecutor, Patricia Gonzalez -- I mean, the Chihuahua's attorney general, because if I didn't, he was going to kill me using the Juarez drug cartel's preferred method of kidnapping followed by execution.

In early December, Victor Valencia called and threatened the woman who had passed along his messages before. She is a U.S. citizen and lives in El Paso. Valencia told her that Patricia Gonzales was very upset with me and that she was going to come after me and her in El Paso to kidnap us and murder us in Juarez. For obvious reasons, my return to Juarez would be a death sentence. I would likely face fire from AK-47s upon crossing the border into Mexico.

I am sure you are wondering what has happened in Juarez since I received these threats -- nothing. In Mexico, it's an aggravated crime to investigate these serious political offenses. Those who try to investigate them can lose their jobs or be executed. Impunity rules. There has been no order or government for many years now. In the desert, either criminals or innocent people -- women, men, teenagers and children -- die, sometimes buried alive.

Today I live in exile in a foreign country in order to avoid being murdered for my work as a journalist. I left my office, my house, my friends and several years of my life dedicated to work. In contrast, those who persecuted me are still in their government positions, using public money to try to attain their objectives of becoming a representative, mayors of Juarez or governor of Chihuahua.

On a daily basis, ordinary citizens in Juarez are condemned to die, to be kidnapped, to be assaulted, to suffer extortion or to be exiled at any moment. Who can help them if they are persecuted and threatened? Criminals, police and politicians are often one and the same. People are more afraid of the police than the drug cartels.

The press has been silenced both by force and through self- censorship. My exile is a taboo subject in Chihuahua. It is not mentioned by legislators, political parties, ombudsmen or the press. The violence in Juarez crossed the border into the United States a long time ago. For this reason, I continue to live in hiding in El Paso. Every day I pray with my wife because God has kept me alive.

Sometimes I look at the mountains of Juarez and dream -- like many people -- of a city that is no longer a paradise for drug cartels but a safe and dignified place where I can live with my family.

God bless America. God bless Mexico. And God bless Ciudad Juarez. Thank you.

SEN. DURBIN: Mr. Aguirre, thank you very much. It took a lot of courage for you to come here today and we appreciate it.

MR. AGUIRRE: Thank you.

SEN. DURBIN: Your heartfelt testimony puts a human face on numbers and political policies, and I thank you for your courage in being here today.

I'd like to ask both of you -- we've had a lot of discussions here about the drugs -- the demand in the United States. I thought Attorney General Goddard was honest and candid with us about that issue. We talked about the cash. I want to speak about the guns for a moment.

I'd like to ask each of you, what does the average Mexican think about the role of the United States in supplying all these guns to the drug cartels? Do they believe that the United States is doing everything that it can to try to lessen this traffic in weapons that is headed into Mexico, giving these drug cartels an arsenal of modern weapons -- many of them military weapons -- that they can use to terrorize the people -- the innocent people, like, Mr. Aguirre and others.

Professor Dresser?

MS. DRESSER: I think that if you asked any Mexican today about the role of the U.S., in multiple regards -- not only the weapons -- the response would be you are not doing enough. We are waging a war that is demand driven. We are waging a war that we are paying a very high price for, and yet over the past years there seems to have been very little effort in terms of curbing demand, stopping the flow of drugs across the border, dealing with money laundering, and so on.

Too frequently, all the blame is placed on Mexico. And it's clear that drug trafficking has built upon a country with weak institutions and an infiltrated state. But at the same time, there is a perception that we would not be waging this war were you not one of the largest consumers of drugs in the world.

So I think there's a perception today of -- a need for the U.S. to understand its own responsibilities and own up to them. I think Mexicans feel that at every hearing they are deservedly bashed in some areas but that too much blame is placed on Mexico's shoulders, in the context of a country that has many less resources to deal with this issue than you do in terms of intelligence, courts, law enforcement -- that Mexico is struggling to keep up with this tidal wave but that not enough is being done north of the border.

Mr. Aguirre, I'd like to ask you the same question. Since you have been a victim of this violence and these threats, how do people in Juarez and the people that you speak to in Mexico view the role of the United States in this whole troubled time, whether it's the demand for drugs, the money that's flowing back into Mexico, or the weapons flowing into Mexico, or the coyotes bringing people illegally into the United States, how do the Mexican people view our nation in this context?

MR. AGUIRRE: Excuse my English. I really --

SEN. DURBIN: No, that's fine.

MR. AGUIRRE: -- want to speak in Spanish.

SEN. DURBIN: That's fine.

MR. AGUIRRE: (In Spanish.)

INTERPRETER: He says that Mexico needs a lot of support from the U.S. and people think that it's not enough at the moment. And in the state of Chihuahua there is not an actual government. The government of Chihuahua is not actually governing the -- what is going on.

And the actions that are taken by Felipe Calderon, the president of the nation, are having a huge impact in the state, but people wants the U.S. to take care that it doesn't get corrupted as well, because usually what happens in this kind of situations in Mexico is that one comes and takes off the other but then gets corrupted and does the same.

So people wants the U.S. to take care that it does not happen with the army the same that is going on with the local law enforcement, and also that the politicians are so corrupted and so -- and are the same as the cartels and people wish the politicians to be punished as well.

SEN. DURBIN: Thank you.

Senator Feinstein.

SEN. FEINSTEIN: I'd like to thank you both very much for testifying.

And Mr. Aguirre, you are a very brave man and I thank you for that. And you have made a friend of me, and anything I can do to help you, I certainly will. And I think I could say that for the other members of this committee, the members that are here right now and those that aren't. I've read about you in the newspapers and just very pleased to know that there are people like you in the world. So be strong.

MR. AGUIRRE: Thank you.

SEN. FEINSTEIN: We will take some action. I think there is no question that we're at a time of real escalating conflict with the Mexican drug cartels.

Professor Dresser, you're right about the demand problem. We are the cause. We have the demand problem and we need to pay attention to that as well.

It becomes very difficult because the only proposals we're given to consider are, on one hand, legalize drugs and, the other hand, keep going the way we're going. For a government, the legalization of narcotics -- when you see what they can do to an individual and have watched the legalization in other countries -- is very difficult. So we are searching for a path there.

I think this -- the prior panel has been very helpful. Senator Durbin has pointed out, I think, some very good steps that we can take, and we will look into those and try to take. But I would hope that you would continue to give us your thoughts and your ideas in writing, if necessary, or by phone.

And, Mr. Aguirre, I would just hope that you would stay in contact with us, and any information you have to provide us, we'd be very happy to receive.

So thank you both very, very much.

SEN. DURBIN: Thank you, Senator Feinstein.

Senator Sessions.

SEN. SESSIONS: Thank you very much.

I just would repeat that I am proud of Mexico and that they are beginning to confront this systemic problem. It threatens the integrity of the entire Mexican government. People's lives are at stake.

Don't you think, Mr. Aguirre, that -- well, I'll ask your opinion. How do you feel about Mr. Calderon and the increased effort that they're making against the cartels? Wouldn't you agree that his life may be in danger -- and a lot of other people who are executing that -- but they are attempting to do so and making some progress?

MR. AGUIRRE: (Through interpreter.) I believe Calderon is the first president of Mexico who is trying to make a safe and lawful country. And I really hope that he can actually change back the security and that criminals have taken of the government -- the power that criminals have taken of the government.

I believe, of course, that his life is in danger, as well as all of the people that is involved in this drug war -- including honest journalists that are trying to do our work honestly -- and people in general that are every day threatened and killed.

I believe it's a lot of cultural things -- issues that Mexico has to change its point of view about America and see it is an ally rather than an enemy, as well as America should see Mexico as a neighbor and an ally instead of a backyard disposal.

SEN. SESSIONS: Well, thank you. I agree with that. I was active in a Mexican-American interparliamentary for a number of years, chaired that for a while. And it got better over the years, but I think it was sort of a blame-America conference for a while there. And we had some really good times and learned some of the frustrations that Mexico deals with. But I think we need to get a way from blame and see how we can work together to be successful in this common effort.

My personal view, having been a federal prosecutor that prosecuted international drug smuggling cases out of Mexico and Colombia and Haiti and all over the world, actually, and have studied the issue some, I believe the best thing we can do is to aggressively prosecute and eliminate the cartel groups that are in the United States selling the drugs and collecting the money, sending it back to fund these groups.

And if they don't get guns from the United States they'll get them from them own military. They'll steal them from other countries. They'll buy them -- there's markets out there. The problem really isn't the guns; the problem -- it's a part of it, but the real problem is that this group is attempting to continue an illegal operation in Mexico and they will intimidate and kill people who try to stop them. And we need to be as helpful as we can be.

We sent a, you know, nice, I think, a billion-plus dollars now to the -- our joint effort. I hope that that will be successful. We have a common problem and we need to work together to solve it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a very good panel.

SEN. DURBIN: Thank you, Senator Sessions.

Those who follow this committee will not be surprised to know that Senator Sessions and I may see issues a little differently. (Laughter.) And so for the record, I would like to say guns are a problem. Guns are a serious problem.

The fact that literally thousands of guns are flowing from the United States into Mexico every day is arming these drug cartels so that they can kill Mr. Aguirre's colleague and threaten his life and force his family out of the country.

SEN. SESSIONS: I would just say, Mr. Chairman -- this is in response -- there are already guns in Mexico. They can get guns from South America. They can get them from their own military. The American guns are already there. We have a constitutional right in America to keep and bear arms and we're not changing our constitution.

SEN. DURBIN: I would just say --

SEN. SESSIONS: So I just would say that the -- why are people being killed at such an extraordinary rate across the border in Mexico so much higher -- hundreds of times higher than in the United States where we have guns too?

SEN. DURBIN: May I respond?

SEN. SESSIONS: Yes, you --

SEN. DURBIN: I recognize the right of American citizens to defend themselves, to use guns legally for sporting and hunting. That is part of America's Constitution, as decided by the Supreme Court. It is part of the American experience. We are different than some other countries. That's the way we see it when it comes to firearms.

That does not allow us to aid and abed criminal conspiracies in neighboring countries by shipping thousands of firearms every day with impunity, to ignore our laws and policies that is making life dangerous for people living south of the border. We have a responsibility, and to ignore it by saying, well, if we weren't irresponsible, somebody else would be irresponsible is cold comfort to people living in a country where 6,000 innocent people were killed last year, mainly because of American firearms and the insatiable American appetite for drugs.

That's the way I feel. I disagree with the senator from Alabama, but I wanted to put it on the record.

SEN. SESSIONS: I don't think it's all our fault.

SEN. DURBIN: I never said it was.

Before I begin, I'd like to place in the record written statements from the following organizations and individuals: Border Network for Human Rights, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Conference of Western Attorneys General, Fraternal Order of Police, International Union of Police Association, Major County Sheriffs, Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, National Association of Police Organizations, National District Attorneys Association, National Narcotics Association, National Sheriff's -- Narcotics Officers' Association, National Sheriffs' Association, Washington Office on Latin America, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt and San Diego Police Chief Bill Lansdowne.

Without objection, they'll be included in the record.

If no further comments, I'd like to thank those who attended.

Again, Professor Dresser, thank you for your fine testimony.

Mr. Aguirre, thank you for your courage in coming here today. You've given us perspective on this issue that we couldn't have from anyone else.

At this point, this session will stand adjourned.

The witnesses may receive written statements and we ask to give prompt reply. Thank you.

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