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TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9084
INFO RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE

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2009-11-19 17:08:00
09MEXICO3278
Embassy Mexico
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

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DE RUEHME #3278/01 3231708
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 191708Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY MEXICO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9084
INFO RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM KCRM SNAR ECON MX
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MEXICO 003278 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
D FOR PIPER CAMPBELL, EDWARD MEIER; WHA FOR ROBERTA JACOBSON; 
WHA/MEX FOR ALEX LEE, COLLEEN HOEY, MARY STICKLES 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM KCRM SNAR ECON MX
SUBJECT: SECRETARY LEW: YOUR VISIT TO MEXICO 
 ¶1. (SBU) Jack: We are extremely grateful for your visit and 
confident you will leave with a solid appreciation of the challenges 
Mexico faces as it confronts the drug cartels, deals with the 
effects of the global recession, and struggles to consolidate 
democracy and the rule of law.  Most importantly, you will see how 
strong our partnership has grown as a result of helping the Calderon 
administration shape its strategic approach to these challenges in a 
spirit of mutual responsibility.  Building on the Secretary's 
meeting with Foreign Secretary Espinosa this past September, we have 
made significant progress in fleshing out the framework for our 
cooperation with Mexico in the context of the Merida Initiative.  As 
you prepare for Hill briefings, your meetings here with President 
Calderon and Foreign Secretary Espinosa, with experts on economic 
competitiveness, with senior law enforcement and  military policy 
officials, with civil society leaders, and with our country team, 
will provide you with insights into the progress USG-Mexican 
cooperation has produced to date and the potential it holds for the 
future.  We welcome the opportunity to engage on the Quadrennial 
Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) and to review some of the 
management challenges Mission Mexico faces in pursuing our 
priorities. 
 
 
The Way Ahead on Merida 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Our engagement with the Mexicans to cooperate beyond the 
current Merida initiative has produced excellent results.  We now 
have a four pillar strategic framework that has been blessed in 
principle by the two secretaries and operationalized through the A/S 
level by both governments.  NSC Senior Director Restrepo and INL 
PDAS McGlynn joined me last week in leading a second high-level 
inter-agency discussion with the Mexicans focused on 
institutionalizing the rule of law (pillar 2) and creating strong 
and resilient communities (pillar 4).  As with our earlier 
discussion on disrupting drug trafficking organizations (pillar 1) 
and building a modern border (pillar 3), the Mexicans are engaging 
with us in a serious exercise to deepen and extend our cooperation. 
The challenges are quite clear: a top heavy bureaucracy that resists 
interagency cooperation, a traditional military that looks 
suspiciously at "interference" by civilian authorities, and high 
levels of violence and corruption, particularly along our common 
border.  The Mexicans have agreed to conduct a bi-lateral assessment 
mission in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez at the end of November, which 
should help us focus on priority areas for beyond Merida: better 
civilian-military links on operations along the border and better 
interagency cooperation that will allow effective operationalization 
of intelligence. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Mexico continues to face high levels of violence in Ciudad 
Juarez and other parts of the country as its military and law 
enforcement institutions sustain their pressure on the drug cartels. 
 Mexican officials appreciate the contribution unprecedented 
cooperation with the U.S. has made to its progress in combating 
organized crime.  At the same time, our Mexican interlocutors have 
conveyed frustration with the perception that delivery on our 
assistance programs is lagging.  It bears noting, however, that a 
number of our key programs - such as our contribution to the Police 
Secretariat's facility in San Luis Potosi that aims to train up to 
9,000 federal police over the next year - are well underway. 
Meanwhile, we expect to deliver on a major ticket item - four Bell 
helicopters - before the end of the year, and an additional three 
Black Hawks in mid-2010.  As the pace of delivery on assistance 
picks up, we intend to shine greater light on the Mexico's own 
efforts, as the GOM invests seven times more than the U.S. Merida 
budget. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Going forward, we will transition away from delivery of 
expensive hardware such as helicopters, planes, and other costly 
equipment to sponsoring extensive training and technical assistance 
programs to foster stronger law enforcement and judicial 
institutions.  Mexico adopted major justice reform in 2008.  In 
essence, Mexico seeks to transition from an antiquated and corrupt 
inquisitorial justice system to a modern, transparent, accusatorial 
framework, recognizing the presumption of innocence as a 
constitutional right, and oral trials as the primary mechanism for 
administering justice.  Implementation over the next seven years 
poses monumental challenges.  We look to provide training to key 
players in the Mexican judicial system at both the federal and state 
level.  With regards to Mexican law enforcement institutions, we 
have focused to date on working with agencies at the federal level 
given our more advanced relationship with and trust in those 
entities.  However, we are seriously working to develop our efforts 
at both the state and local level where Mexico's law enforcement 
organizations face resource constraints and are fraught with 
corruption.  Tijuana has enjoyed some recent successes by creatively 
structuring its state and local law enforcement institutions.  We 
intend to apply some of the lessons learned in Tijuana to help the 
GOM meet the challenges it faces in Ciudad Juarez.  For President 
 
MEXICO 00003278  002 OF 003 
 
 
Calderon there is no higher short-term priority that reducing the 
grotesque levels of homicides, kidnappings, and drug trafficking in 
this critical border city. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The GOM has deployed over 45,000 soldiers and 5,000 
federal police around the country to face down the drug cartels. 
These entities, together with the local police, can only achieve so 
much absent a capacity to collect and operationalize intelligence on 
the cartels.  Presently, Mexico's efforts are severely handicapped 
by the lack of professional intelligence expertise and a lack of 
trust both within and among institutions that is essential to 
facilitate timely sharing of actionable intelligence.  By working 
with the federal, state, and local authorities in Juarez to create a 
genuine task force model, we seek to give cops, soldiers, and 
prosecutors that missing but essential informational capacity. 
Doing so would greatly enhance GOM abilities to disrupt DTOs in the 
short-term and provide a foundation for the improved interagency 
cooperation needed throughout the justice sector in the long-term. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Human rights remain a crucial element of our dialogue with 
the Mexican government.  Presently, we draw down U.S. DOD funded 
programs to sponsor seminars, conferences and exchanges that promote 
greater human rights respect.  Recently, the GOM signed an MOU with 
the UN's Human Rights Office in Mexico that opens the door to 
working more closely with the Mexican military (SEDENA) to promote 
human rights respect.  Both the Mexican Foreign Ministry and SEDENA 
have reluctantly conveyed a willingness to meet with us formally to 
exchange information on human rights issues.  However, SEDENA is 
still wary of speaking to specifics on cases the human rights 
community and Congressional staffers have raised.  Meanwhile, we 
have opened a robust dialogue with the Mexican human rights 
community in an effort to address its concerns, particularly in 
connection with military judicial transparency, protection of human 
rights defenders, improving mechanisms to prosecute abuses, and 
setting benchmarks for human rights progress. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) You should use your lunch with senior law enforcement and 
policy officials to stress our commitment to continued cooperation 
in the context of the Merida Initiative and beyond.  We expect 
SEDENA and SEMAR will each send at least one representative to the 
lunch.  It would be helpful to underscore the centrality of human 
rights and your ongoing dialogue with Congress, raising as well the 
need for all GOM agencies (not just SEDENA) to prosecute the cartels 
in accordance with the rule of law.  You will want to reinforce our 
understanding that beyond Merida cooperation will transition to 
focus primarily on strengthening institutions, particularly at the 
state level, and building the Mexican capacity to collect and 
operationalize intelligence. 
 
 
Calderon's Embrace of Economic Competitiveness 
 
¶8.  (U) Mexico is still reeling from the impact of the global 
economic crisis and the resulting downturn in the United States, its 
largest trading partner.  According to the Finance Secretariat, 
Mexico's GDP is expected to contract by 6.8 percent this year.  The 
Calderon Administration projects optimistically that the Mexican 
economy will bounce back next year and grow 3 percent in 2010.  To 
do so, Mexico will depend greatly on the United States' recovery, 
the NAFTA, and export-led growth.  However, President Calderon's 
chief economic goal looks beyond a recovery; he wants to make 
inroads into eradicating poverty in Mexico, currently at 47 percent 
but on the rise over the last year.  Therefore, President Calderon 
has called for making Mexico and North America more competitive.  In 
Mexico, he has urged for congressional and private sector 
cooperation in increasing competition and reforming the labor, 
finance, energy, and telecommunications sectors.  As for North 
America, his Administration is already working with its NAFTA 
partners to make standards and regulations more compatible.  In 
addition, Calderon has called for the United States and Mexico to 
develop an aggressive infrastructure plan along the shared border as 
well as increase measures to facilitate cross-border trade. 
 
¶9.  (U) At last week's APEC Summit in Singapore, Calderon spoke 
frankly about Mexican frustrations with a U.S. trade relationship 
that has become entrapped in trade disputes such as trucking, with 
little vision on advancing the joint competitiveness of our two 
economies.  Protectionism, he pointed out, is the biggest obstacle 
to recovery and warned that the United States and others are being 
tempted to raise tariff and non-tariff barriers to protect their 
domestic producers and labor markets.  Both sides are attempting to 
resolve these disputes and avoid damaging our overall strong 
bilateral partnership.  At a breakfast meeting with some of Mexico's 
leading economic policy makers, economists, and businessmen, you 
will discuss prospects for Mexico's enhanced competitiveness in the 
North American and global markets, while examining how Mexico's 
security challenges impact these efforts. 
 
 
MEXICO 00003278  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
Tapping Your Leadership on Management Issues 
 
¶10.   (SBU) We appreciate your leadership on the Quadrennial 
Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) and look forward to seeing 
how Mission Mexico can contribute to the Secretary's initiative.  We 
believe Foreign Secretary Espinosa would welcome the opportunity to 
learn more about what the QDDR involves.  The Mexican Government has 
disparate and weak strategic planning processes.  Resources are more 
often tied to personal relationships than to well- conceived 
objectives.  Spending is frequently reactive and vestigial patronage 
structures impede policy makers looking beyond a 3-4 year horizon. 
However, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has come under pressure to 
control budget increases, particularly when it comes to 
contributions to international organizations. 
 
¶11.  (U) We would also like to take advantage of your visit to 
discuss some of our own managerial challenges.  Mission Mexico 
comprises Embassy Mexico City, nine constituent posts and thirteen 
Consular Agencies.  Mexico has 2553 staff, of which State has 1608. 
Thirty-one agencies are represented at Post.  Consular staffing 
continues to grow, with an additional 28 officer positions projected 
by 2012.  MRV fee collections remain a critical source of funding 
for consular positions and other Mission activities, although the 
number of visa applications fell in Mexico last year.  The Merida 
Initiative continues to add USDH and LES positions in FY10. 
Right-sized staffing will rise to 2846 by 2014.  Management 
staffing, however, is strained because it has not grown at the same 
rate as the State Program and other agency personnel it supports. 
WHA's Bureau Strategic Plan included two management positions in an 
effort to address this shortfall, but additional LES positions are 
needed as well. 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Meanwhile, violence in northern Mexico has reached 
previously unthinkable levels, disrupting employees' everyday lives 
and affecting post morale.  In October 2009, I met with Under 
Secretary for Management Pat Kennedy to request danger pay for 
employees at all posts in Mexico, except Consulate Merida.  Embassy 
Mexico has also asked OBO for permission to purchase land for a new 
embassy compound (NEC).  Mexico City's NEC project, once scheduled 
for 2009, has been pushed back to 2017, but the embassy hopes to 
take advantage of low real estate prices and current market 
availability.  A NEC would eliminate security vulnerabilities 
inherent to the current location and consolidate staff in one safe, 
secure compound. 
 
 
 
¶13.  (SBU) You are visiting Mexico at a critical juncture in its 
history.  President Calderon has clearly decided that his legacy 
will rest on confronting organized crime and promoting greater 
security for his citizens.  We have a clear national interest to 
contribute to that vision. Calderon, in defiance of traditional 
Mexican foreign policy, has bet on a genuine partnership with the 
U.S. in pursuit of these objectives.  We enjoy an historical 
opportunity to help Mexico realize its full potential as a stable, 
prosperous, democratic neighbor.  In the process, we can tackle our 
shared challenges both in terms of combating criminal threats and 
enhancing our competitiveness as a region.  Your visit will 
reinforce the importance we attach to cooperation with Mexico and 
should assist you in making the case to Congress for the appropriate 
resources to continue this work. 
 
PASCUAL