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243326
2010-01-12 22:35:00
10MEXICO45
Embassy Mexico
CONFIDENTIAL
10MEXICO3468|10TIJUANA1275
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TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM SNAR ECON KCRM MX
C O N F I D E N T I A L MEXICO 000045 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 2020/01/12 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM SNAR ECON KCRM MX
SUBJECT: Tijuana Bilateral Assessment 
 REF: TIJUANA 1275; MEXICO 3468 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Carlos Pascual, Ambassador, DOS, EXEC; REASON: 1.4(B), 
(D) 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY AND NEXT STEPS: One of the early fruits of the new 
security policy coordination mechanism with Mexico has been an 
agreement to focus our joint efforts on the border cities where the 
most violence occurs and where the DTOs have carved out the 
greatest operating space. As part of this effort an unprecedented 
joint team representing all U.S. and Mexican law enforcement 
agencies traveled to Tijuana and San Diego to conduct an assessment 
of security and review opportunities for increased bilateral 
cooperation. In its two-day visit the team came away with the 
following key judgments: 
 
 
 
-- Presidential focus: The joint assessment and increased 
cooperation on the border is greatly helped by the express support 
of President Calderon. 
 
 
 
-- Mexican interagency coordination is improving both in Tijuana 
and the DF, yet it is still too tied to personalities and 
under-institutionalized. 
 
 
 
-- Judicial prosecutions lagging: Frustration in Tijuana is rising 
over the inability of the federal judiciary to produce convictions. 
 
 
 
-- Social fabric strained: The recession, ineffective schools, and 
the transient nature of Tijuana's population work in the DTOs' 
favor. The GOM is not certain how to integrate Pillar IV (Build 
Strong and Resilient Communities) into its broader drug strategy 
and is still uncomfortable with NGOs. 
 
 
 
-- Assistance requests modest: Mexican interlocutors identified 
discrete areas where they believe the USG can help: some 
technology, lots of intelligence sharing, limited equipment 
(armored cars, ballistic vests), training (aimed at managing police 
forces rather than how to do operations), and support to vetting 
processes. 
 
 
 
-- State and local forces are critical (and weak): State and local 
law enforcement know their beat better than federal counterparts 
and must be included in the equation if public security is to 
improve. They are rich in manpower, institutionally weak, and 
easily corrupted; they must be made more effective. 
 
 
 
-- Task force model: The San Diego meeting drove home the utility 
of the task force approach to investigations. The GOM will be 
receptive to exchanges and visits on this key model -- and perhaps 
also to detail more staff to task forces stateside. 
 
 
 
-- Centrality of Control de Confianza: The importance of vetting 
and internal controls was made clear by U.S. entities and GOM 
officials accepted this premise. 
 
 
 
-- Strategic communications: Both sides agreed that there is a 
crying need to change the perception of the outside world with 
regards to Tijuana, and to change the perception of the citizens of 
Tijuana about law and order. Public diplomacy efforts have been 
weak to date and must be a key part of any program. 
 
¶2. (SBU) NEXT STEPS: We will wait to see what comes out of the 
assessment of Ciudad Juarez/El Paso and then develop an interim 
program to support the needs of the GOM in taking back the Tijuana 
and Juarez DTO corridors. We will have a preliminary joint plan to 
present to the Policy Coordination Group in late January and a more 
focused plan to present to the High Level Group in February. NAS 
and AID will conduct more detailed assessments by Training, 
Judicial, Civil Society, IT, and Control de Confianza program 
coordinators once the Juarez/El Paso assessment is completed, and 
begin to look at specific programs which could be quickly 
implemented. A critical first step will be to place a full-time 
program coordinator in each city to manage the emerging programs. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
 
 
BILATERAL TEAM CONCEPT 
 
---------------------- 
 
 
 
¶3. (SBU) High-level bilateral discussions over the past several 
months have produced agreement to focus on targeted cooperation in 
frontline Mexican border cities. We have agreed to pilot new 
cooperative strategies initially in Tijuana/San Diego and Ciudad 
Juarez/El Paso. Our joint objective is to demonstrably degrade drug 
trafficking organizations (DTOs), decrease violence, recognize and 
disseminate current best practices, and build models readily 
applicable elsewhere in Mexico. The GOM has insisted that we 
approach the assessments in a balanced fashion with issues on both 
sides of the border acknowledged and factored in as we develop new 
programs. 
 
 
 
¶4. (SBU) A GOM-USG bilateral assessment team, chaired by the 
Ambassador and CISEN Director General Valdes, traveled to Tijuana 
December 3 and San Diego December 4. The Mexican delegation was 
comprised of high-ranking representatives from CISEN, PGR, SEMAR, 
SEDENA, SRE, Hacienda, and SSP. The U.S. delegation included USAID, 
DHS, ICE, CBP, OPAD, DAO, ODC, FBI, State, NSC, and ConGen Tijuana. 
In both locations we focused on law enforcement in the morning and 
civil society in the afternoon. In setting the scene for the team, 
the Ambassador asked for particular focus on sharing best practice, 
relationships between the military and the three levels of 
government, and seeking ways to better use real-time intelligence 
to guide operations. Valdes emphasized co-responsibility in 
confronting a transnational threat running from Colombia to the 
U.S., noted the southbound flow of arms and cash, and underscored 
the direct interest of President Calderon in the endeavor. 
 
 
 
TIJUANA SECURITY IMPROVING BUT FRAGILE 
 
-------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶5. (SBU) Baja California Norte Governor Jose Osuna Millan  hosted 
the bilateral team December 3 in Tijuana.  SEDENA and SEMAR 
regional commanders, state SSP, state PGR, Tijuana Public Security 
Secretary Julian Leyzaola, and representatives from the Governor's 
office participated in the discussions. The Governor's technical 
secretary led with a briefing on the situation on the ground. Baja 
California Norte beats the Mexican average on education, employment 
and GDP per capita but as a migrant entry point and an industrial 
city of working parents, its social fabric is strained. The 
proximate cause of the spike in violence was Mexican success 
against leaders of the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO), which 
splintered and saw Sinaloan rivals move in, sparking a fight to 
control border crossing routes. After a terrible 2008, violence in 
Baja California Norte state subsided somewhat in 2009, with 
Tijuana's share of Mexico's total killings dropping from 11% to 4%. 
High impact crimes including kidnapping, car theft, and homicide 
are down significantly. Yet the turnaround is not complete, and 40 
police had died statewide through early November, close to the 49 
officers lost in 2008. NOTE: Just after the bilateral team visit, a 
 
truce between elements of the AFO disintegrated, unleashing a new 
wave of killings (ref A). END NOTE. 
 
 
 
¶6. (SBU) Governor Osuna said Mexican forces had launched an 
offensive against the DTOs via the Baja California Coordination 
Group (state and federal SSP, state preventative police (PEP), 
CISEN, SEDENA, SEMAR, state and federal PGR). He said his main 
effort was building up state government institutions.  Control de 
confianza measures coupled with firings of corrupt cops were 
cleaning up the police corporations, with 83% of state and local 
operational police forces now vetted. DTOs, he said, still 
infiltrate the forces, but with a continuous review process, there 
is less room for impunity and responsive performance over time is 
gaining public confidence. 
 
 
 
¶7. (SBU) A single academy, Osuna said, now trains state and local 
police. 7,000 applicants applied in the last year but only 10% 
gained entrance. If police reform efforts were beginning to bear 
fruit, the governor said the next focus would need to be on 
deficiencies in the judicial system ("I want to put a judge in 
jail," he said, to demonstrate that judicial corruption was not 
beyond the law.) The Governor thanked USAID for support to the 
state's justice reforms and noted that he had signed cooperation 
agreements with 14 U.S. state attorneys general under a 
USAID-funded program to increase cooperation between Mexican and 
U.S. states. Baja California Norte, he said, will begin the 
transition from inquisitorial to accusatory trials in 2010 in the 
Mexicali judicial district. Other districts will follow after the 
appropriate training. 
 
 
 
¶8. (SBU) Further briefings were offered by the State Security 
Director, Municipal Security Chief Leyzaola, and SEDENA General 
Alfonso Duarte who oversees overall interagency coordination 
between the military and federal, state, and local forces. The GOM 
shifted a planned meeting away from the Unidad de Inteligencia 
Tactica Operativa (UNITO), a fusion center concept the GOM is 
implementing in multiple regions, either because the center is not 
yet up and running or for simple lack of space. There did not seem 
to be a central location where coordination takes place but rather 
a virtual system that was largely personality driven. 
 
 
 
REQUIREMENTS AND REQUESTS 
 
------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶9. (SBU) State-level SSP presented proposals to improve the 
performance of Mexican forces: better coordination of operations 
and information-sharing between Mexican agencies and cross-border, 
a more robust security force presence and better equipment for all 
forces, more drug treatment centers on both sides of the border, 
advance warning of repatriation to Mexico of prisoners freed from 
U.S. prisons, and U.S. notification of border incidents to the 
Mexican C4 (Command, Control, Communications, and Coordination) 
system in time for the Mexicans to react. The key ask from 
Municipal Dirctor Leyzaola was for equipment (primarily vests and 
armored cars), and training in professionalism and leadership. 
 
 
 
¶10. (SBU) The Governor made limited appeals for USG assistance. He 
noted he had asked California Governor Schwarzenegger in an October 
meeting to share biometric data of prisoners being released and 
repatriated to Mexico, and for coordination at the point of 
repatriation on the border. He suggested a road along the southern 
side of the border fence to facilitate patrols and positive control 
of the borderline. He spoke positively of a "culture of legality" 
in the U.S. and noted that the drug fight is not just about 
confronting the cartels but must include programs to prevent 
addiction in schools. Finally, he asked for help turning around 
 
Mexico and Tijuana's perception problem, stating that Brazil is 
more violent than Mexico, Detroit is more violent than Tijuana, and 
California plays more narcocorridos than Mexican radio stations. He 
asserted that USG travel alerts that warn U.S. citizens not to 
visit Baja California severely damage tourism and the economy.  A 
weak economy creates a fertile recruiting ground for the cartels. 
He asked for our help in turning around the image of Tijuana as a 
violent and unapproachable place. 
 
 
 
C-4 CENTER A GLORIFIED CALL CENTER 
 
---------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶11. (SBU) The team visited Tijuana's C-4 center later in the day. 
The C-4 is primarily a call center for emergency calls and does not 
have a strong analytical component. It handles city 911 calls 
(5,200 per day), and includes federal police and military liaison 
officers with links to the SSP's countrywide Plataforma Mexico data 
base. A filtering overlay has reduced hoax calls from 50% to 30% of 
total volume and a center in Mexicali fields state-wide anonymous 
tip (denuncia) calls. The 911 and denuncia numbers both receive 
calls regularly from U.S.-based callers, which as of mid-2009 can 
be made from the U.S. toll-free. An SMS/text message-based add-on 
interface is planned for 2010. 
 
 
 
SAN DIEGO LAW ENFORCEMENT SESSION 
 
--------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶12. (SBU) Acting U.S. Attorney Kevin Kelly hosted the December 4 
meeting in San Diego, with participation by San Diego-based ICE, 
FBI, CBP/Border Patrol, DEA, ATF, San Diego Police Department 
(SDPD), Chula Vista Police Department, San Diego Sheriff's 
Department, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD), Joint Task 
Force-North, and the Mexican Consulate. The meeting moved 
thematically from U.S. federal interagency coordination to state 
and local law enforcement cross-border coordination, intelligence 
architecture and cross-border information sharing, cross border 
investigations, and ICE's Border Enforcement Security Task Force 
(BEST). DG Valdes remarked he had never seen such a profusion of 
USG partners for Mexican efforts, nor a cross-border law 
enforcement gathering on this scale. 
 
 
 
U.S. Federal Interagency Coordination 
 
 
 
¶13. (SBU) Kelly began with an outline of the Southern California 
region he represents: 141 miles of border, 6 Ports of Entry with 
many interstate transportation links, 7% of the U.S.-Mexico border 
but fully 60% of the border population. Drug caseloads Kelly said, 
are up 60% in fiscal year 2009 and the district sees more drug 
cases than California's three other districts combined. A 
well-situated crossroads for trade, the San Diego area is also 
suffering cartel creep, as pressure in Mexico pushes DTO leaders 
and operations north across the border. In response, agencies in 
the area have created numerous task forces to facilitate the 
collection, analysis, and dissemination of information across 
jurisdictions, agencies, and borders. 
 
 
 
¶14. (SBU) Agencies also assign officers as border liaisons to work 
with Mexican counterparts. CBP briefed on a prime example of a 
tunnel discovered using tunnel detection equipment made available 
by NORTHCOM's Joint Task Force-North to identify a seismic anomaly 
one kilometer west of the Otay Mesa port of entry. CBP's sharing of 
this information with Mexican counterparts led to a USG and GOM 
operation to take down the tunnel simultaneously at both ends 
 
before the smugglers could finish construction. 
 
 
 
State and Local Law Enforcement Cross-Border Coordination 
 
 
 
¶15. (SBU) SDPD briefed on programs to train local police in 
Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada using a train-the-trainer approach. 
This kind of training on culture of lawfulness, community policing, 
and intel-led operations creates channels for information-sharing 
between SDPD and Mexican counterpart forces. SDPD reps also attend 
the funerals of slain Tijuana police to build trust and show 
support for their colleagues. The Los Angeles Police Department 
(LAPD) runs one of the largest international police training sites 
in the U.S. In addition to the skills imparted, these programs too 
are a huge boost to trust and inter-operability. 
 
 
 
Intelligence Architecture and Cross-Border Intel Sharing 
 
 
 
¶16. (C) OPAD stressed the critical role of vetting to give agencies 
the confidence to share information. Participants agreed that often 
cross-border liaison is built around a relationship between 
counterparts and is not institutionalized in the positions 
themselves. DEA stressed the burden assumed by Mexican officials 
receiving information from the USG, saying that they have lost 
Mexican colleagues because of information they shared. GOM 
interlocutors throughout the assessment stressed the need for 
greater intel sharing to guide operations south of the border. U.S. 
participants agreed this is key, but added a note of caution that 
intelligence alone will not turn things around. Intelligence is an 
input -- it does not direct operations and it does not reform 
institutions. 
 
 
 
Cross-Border Investigations 
 
 
 
¶17. (SBU) The FBI field office described its approach to 
cross-border violence cases (primarily kidnappings). Critical 
elements include border liaison officers, proactive 
information-sharing, and a multi-agency task force focused tightly 
on kidnappings and extortion (and not straying into gang/DTO 
territory). When asked whether drug and other violence could really 
be disaggregated, the FBI rep agreed that complete separation of 
related crimes was not possible, but said steps such as co-locating 
task forces help integrate the law enforcement community while 
maintaining the discrete focus of individual task forces. The 
briefer offered a recent example where a dual-national was 
kidnapped on the Mexican side. Her family notified the FBI, which 
collected information from an informant who knew of a kidnapping 
crew operating in Mexico. FBI disseminated the lead to Mexican 
counterparts through its border liaison and Mexican police 
apprehended the crew and freed the hostage. 
 
 
 
¶18. (SBU) Border Enforcement Security Task Force: The Mexican 
delegation specifically requested a briefing on ICE's Border 
Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST). BEST is the only task force 
in San Diego with an embedded Mexican official, a promising 
approach also in use at EPIC. 
 
 
 
Closing Comments 
 
 
 
¶19. (C) The Ambassador closed by drawing out a few key lessons. To 
address these law enforcement challenges requires multiple agencies 
with multiple talents. Task forces, as cross-cutting entities, 
 
bridge jurisdictions and build trust. Intelligence and information 
collection function on several levels. In a rough cut, he laid out 
a continuum: community tips and information drawn from beat cops; 
tactical information derived from, for example, humint and judicial 
wiretaps; information on high value targets; and both intelligence 
and analysis on the operations of DTOs.  Establishing such a 
framework on intelligence could also inform the architecture for 
sharing intelligence.  Different aspects of intelligence sharing 
would require different protocols for sharing, disseminating and 
protecting information. He underscored that the issues covered in 
the day's discussion would only bear fruit when brought back to 
specific cases. The imperative to solve a case drives USG and the 
GOM to cooperate across the border and successful case establishes 
goodwill, durable communications channels, and an example for use 
in subsequent actions. 
 
 
 
CIVIL SOCIETY SESSIONS OPEN A DOOR 
 
---------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶20. (SBU) The team met with academics and non-governmental 
organizations (NGOs) in separate meetings at the Autonomous 
University of Baja California (UABC) and the University of 
California-San Diego (UCSD). In Tijuana, the GOM organizers did not 
seem to understand the focus of Pillar IV.  They brought in three 
academics working on immigration issues, who stressed that 
deportees are cannon fodder for the cartels and described GOM 
support to deportees. They said that unemployment in the state has 
tripled from two percent to seven percent in the economic downturn 
and is providing a boon to DTO recruiters, but did not have 
suggestions on how to turn the situation around. 
 
 
 
¶21. (SBU) Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow presided 
at the UCSD session, which was a much more varied and comprehensive 
exchange with NGO, business, and academic leaders. California NGOs 
and non-profits described their activities south of the border and 
speakers urged the GOM to strengthen NGOs rather than mistrust 
them. DG Valdes remarked that in the late 1990s, he was tasked with 
analyzing the "threat" from NGOs and came away with a strong 
appreciation for their ability to strengthen civil society. The 
Chamber of Commerce explained their efforts for several years have 
been on the Tijuana-San Diego metro area as one economic block. 
Chamber members include business people from both sides of the 
border, and their investment/trade promotion trips also represent 
both cities. 
 
 
 
¶22. (SBU) COMMENT: This part of our evolving strategy has been the 
most uncomfortable for the GOM. Civil society organizations are 
often vocal in their criticism of the federal government, including 
the security strategy. What the GOM saw in San Diego was a strong 
and uniform support for Mexico. Academics, business, city and civil 
society leaders all echoed their interest in expanding cooperation 
in all sectors to the benefit of both sides. The message was "do 
not fear us, but let us be part of the solution to our common 
problems." END COMMENT. 
 
 
 
PASCUAL 
PASCUAL