Mexico now embracing U.S. training in drug war

[ilbegone]

Mexico now embracing U.S. training in drug war

Oct. 29, 2009
Mexico City Bureau

SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico - At a police academy ringed by brick walls and razor wire, dozens of American agents are helping to train Mexican police recruits as part of a $1.4 billion U.S. aid project aimed at helping Mexico fight its drug cartels.

The program, which opened without fanfare in July in the central city of San Luis Potosí, marks a major change for Mexico, which is sensitive about foreign meddling and has long resisted large-scale U.S. training of its police and soldiers.

"This is really historic," said Noe Sánchez, academic director at the academy. "We've never had this kind of international cooperation before."

The United States has pledged to help Mexico in a battle against drug cartels that began in December 2006, when President Felipe Calderón ordered the military to crack down on smugglers in northern and central Mexico. More than 10,000 people have died in drug-related violence since then.

Efforts to improve the skills of police, long seen as corrupt and poorly trained, represent about $4.5 million of the first $400 million that Congress approved for Mexico and Central American countries under the Mérida Initiative this year.

The training programs also represent one of the first tangible signs of U.S. help: Much of the aid in the first year of the initiative is in the form of helicopters, X-ray trucks and computer systems that have to be built and tested first.

Since classes began July 20, a total of 81 U.S. law-enforcement officers have come to Mexico to team-teach in three-week shifts.

Working with instructors from Mexico and other countries, the trainers have graduated 2,052 federal police, and an additional 1,051 are taking classes now.

On Tuesday, the Mexican government gave The Arizona Republic a rare glimpse of the U.S. trainers in action.

Israel Barajas, a U.S. marshal from Houston, watched as his students fanned out in a public park to practice tailing a suspect.

"These kids are excited, they want to learn," Barajas said.

The training program focuses on teaching investigative skills - interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence and intelligence-gathering - to a newly created force, the Federal Police. More than two years ago, the leader of that force, appointed to a new Cabinet position, took the best people from federal law enforcement and formed the new agency. A March 2008 constitutional amendment gives these police more autonomy to investigate crimes, freeing up Mexico's prosecutors, who traditionally directed such investigations, to focus on their court cases.

The training program is funded by the U.S. State Department and run by Kaseman LLC, a Chantilly, Va.-based logistics company.

It brings in FBI agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, U.S. marshals, Drug Enforcement Administration agents and detectives from city police departments, as well as police from Colombia, Spain, Canada, the Czech Republic and other countries.

The foreigners are paired with Mexican police and teach classes of 30-40 students.

In one classroom, Paul Lewenthal, an ICE agent from San Diego, was teaching cadets how to plan an investigation. Down the hall, students in surveillance class were learning to operate digital cameras donated by the U.S. government.

In another room, DEA Agent Ray Bruno of El Paso looked over students' shoulders as they took notes on the history of intelligence-gathering.

Every two weeks, the program flies in assistant U.S. attorneys who run a mock-trial exercise.

The cadets are put on the witness stand and cross-examined about a case they have studied: a jewelry-store robbery.

The trainers are trying to get Mexican police ready for U.S.-style oral trials, which Mexico plans to phase in over the next eight years. Currently, most trials in Mexico are conducted through an exchange of written briefs, a process that can take months or years.

To measure the program's success, the Federal Police have instituted periodic "confidence checks" that combine performance evaluations, drug testing, reviews of officers' finances and a background check.

Colombians make up the bulk of the other foreign instructors.

Many are graduates of similar U.S. training efforts in Colombia, where a U.S.-backed effort has helped counter leftist rebels and drug traffickers.

"We're hoping these students can learn from what we've gone through," said Ariel Lozano of the Colombian National Police.