FUNDING REQUEST FOR DS - RESIDENTIAL SECURITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 GUATEMALA 000144

SIPDIS

FOR DS/IP/OPO AND DS/IP/WHA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ASEC
SUBJECT: FUNDING REQUEST FOR DS - RESIDENTIAL SECURITY

REF: 04 GUATEMALA 2801


1. This is an action request to DS for residential security
funding in the amount of $45,000 to locally purchase 85
single B&W camera and single monitor systems to protect our
staff in their homes from a serious and increasing crime
threat.


2. THE PROBLEM - One typical scenario (see others below),
too frequently within our approved residential zones, unfolds
like this - - On a street in a nice neighborhood of
single-family homes, a well-dressed man rings the doorbell of
a home typical to the area. At this home surrounded by a tall
wall, he tells the occupant that he is there to leave an item
for the homeowner, naming him or her, from a known and
reputable company. A family or staff member goes to the door
and, upon opening a small viewing doorway or partially
opening the door, finds that they are confronted with a
handgun. Under a valid threat of death, the door is opened
completely and the well-dressed man enters. He then opens
the garage door, admitting a car full of his confederates,
both male and female, who are usually armed with long guns.


3. Once in the house, the assailants gather the occupants,
rough them up or beat them, perhaps commit sexual assault
against females of any age, and tie everyone up. Since they
have likely entered into the walled home without being
noticed by neighbors (who are behind their own walls),the
villains are at liberty to explore, abuse, rob and ravage at
will. Two horrifying hours or so after it all began, the
robbers simply open the garage door and, using their own
vehicle and perhaps the homeowner,s car, quietly drive off
with the occupants, most valued possessions.


4. The victims eventually untie themselves and assess the
damages. The panic is over, temporarily. The victims often
decide not to report the crime to the local police or
prosecutor. While the criminals took their time ransacking
the home and threatening the occupants, they also made a
point of identifying each person, using their now-stolen IDs.
The threats were not veiled - - &Call the police and we will
return. We know who you are, where you live, we have
pictures of your kids and know where they go to school. We
will kill you.8 The victims also know that active duty
police officers are at times involved, or at least complicit,
in these crimes. (NOTE: There have been shoot-outs between
on-duty police and off-duty police committing these kinds of
crimes. The inability of the police, prosecutorial system
and judicial system to investigate and resolve such crimes
has been well documented in other Embassy reporting.) The
victims, fearing for their own safety, decide not to report
the crimes. Frequently, some time after the robbery, the
victim will receive a call from one of the culprits to remind
them that those who invaded the home have not forgotten.


5. HOW DO WE KNOW? Although the victims do not make reports
to the police, they do want to talk. Several local NGOs
focus on crime in Guatemala and collect some data. Others,
including many AmCit residents, report assaults to the
Embassy. Often, these crimes are reported via neighborhood
grapevines. None of these channels provide reliable
statistics, but they leave no doubt that these robberies are
occurring.


6. OTHER SCENARIOS ) The well-armed and organized criminal
gangs who roam the streets looking for residential targets of
opportunity do not limit themselves to the scenario above.
Variations include catching a victim as they arrive at or
depart from the property and, under threat of death, force
them to take the robbers inside where the scenario above then
unfolds. Cutting the grass or pruning the shrubbery outside
of the home,s security wall is risky business. Order a
pizza? Better make sure that the pizza man is not being held
at gunpoint before opening the door. Going to visit friends?
Hope that they are not being robbed. Culprits have
intercepted visitors to one home, split the family (holding
some hostage) and forced one family member at gunpoint back
to their own home to conduct a robbery there. Worse yet are
groups, with active duty police officers involved or at least
with people dressed as police, coming to the home, ringing
the bell and stating they have a warrant to be served.
&Open the door or we will break it down! You are going to
jail (not pleasant given the local jail conditions) if you
don,t open this door!8 Fixed guard? This is a risk worth
its own paragraph.


7. FIXED GUARDS ) The Wrong Response to the Criminal
Methodology. The guard business in Guatemala averages over
100% turnover yearly, making management, training and the
development of loyalty difficult. A bored, minimum wage and
poorly educated guard, regardless of instructions, will open
the door and talk to a neighboring guard or the cute maid
across the street, or just look around. The organized
criminal element looks for any opportunity to access the
home, and a guard, armed or not, opening a door is a great
opportunity. The guard simply becomes another victim and the
criminals now have another weapon. The residential area of
La Canada in Zone 14 is generally thought to be the safest
gated community of our approved residential zones. La Canada
includes homes of many diplomatic personnel, numerous foreign
missions and the residences of wealthy business people. But,
this has not stopped the crimes there. Shoot-outs have
happened, drug smugglers have been busted, pedestrians have
been robbed and home invasions have occurred. Recently, a
group of people, well armed and dressed like police, disarmed
a fixed-post guard and entered a home of an AmCit to rob and
ransack it. Luckily, the homeowners were not at home.


8. PROBING ) It is hard to determine the amount of probing
when we live in a country where doorbell ringing is done to
find work, ask for handouts, sell fruit or provide knife
sharpening service. But, we do believe there is a
substantial amount of criminal probing. Recently, a Mission
employee in La Canada reported the arrival of an &alarm
company8 that claimed to need to check the system and change
the code. The occupant refused to come to the door and the
person outside began asking questions like &Which embassy
does this house belong to?8 This is typical of the sort of
event our mobile patrols respond to quickly. They seek to
identify the person involved, although even those with
criminal intent may appear legitimate.


9. OUR CURRENT PRECAUTIONS ) RSO averages one residential
security notice to all staff, in one form or another, every
60 days. These usually entail reminders about good
residential security procedures and updates on new criminal
tactics. Post conducts yearly refresher briefings during our
annual cascade system meetings that involve all official
staff. RSO and residential security is the most prominent
topic at official AmCit town hall meetings. Twice annually,
RSO provides a security training course in Spanish that is
open to all household staff, drivers, gardeners and anyone
else who might occupy our official AmCit,s residences.
Participation is always high. RSO staff, with complete Post
Management support, tightly enforces our ResSec program.
Rarely is there any resistance to our requirements, and
contractors have learned that we have exacting standards.
Post and RSO have made a point that incoming staff should
strongly consider apartment life given the crime risks and
have offered assistance to current staff members who want to
switch to an apartment for security reasons. (NOTE:
Guatemala is an LQA post, so staff members find their own
housing. In our earthquake-prone environment, we also limit
the number of staff in any single apartment building or
neighborhood.) Our ResSec staff responds immediately to all
issues or concerns about any element of the program. Our
mobile patrol service, utilizing a group of police dedicated
to the Embassy (and trained by RSO over years),is an
integral part of the protection provided to our staff and
they repeatedly respond well to issues they find on patrol or
are called to address. We have also used the Surveillance
Detection team at times to supplement our other security
measures in residential areas, given the critical risk our
staff face here.


10. GUARD COSTS - A fixed-post guard at today,s contract
rate costs $10,587 yearly for a 24-hour position, plus the
costs associated with the guard,s supervision and outfitting
a reasonable guard post. A 12-hour guard at nighttime will
not protect family members when they are most at risk. On
average, Post housing includes 80 single-family homes (many
employees at this post have families with young children who
are at home much of the day). At the listed rates, it would
cost at least $845,000 yearly to provide fixed-post guards at
each of these single-family homes. Even at that high cost,
these guards will not provide an effective deterrent to the
kind of crime we confront. For these reasons, we propose
applying a DS facility guideline to our residential issues:
the utilization of reliable and less expensive technical
means to replace manned positions whenever possible.


11. PROPOSAL ) Residential security begins at the perimeter
wall, not once criminals are already on the property. The
EAC at our critical-threat crime post has discussed this
proposal on several occasions. We agree that the most
effective, cost-sensible, reasonable and prudent method to
increase our personnel,s safety is to give them the ability
to see outside the wall before opening the door. Because of
the layout of most of our homes, the only practical way to
accomplish this is to mount a camera outside of the wall and
place a monitor inside the home near the interior door. A
CCTV system would give the occupant critical information
about what is going on outside of the gate without the risks
of having a minimum wage, often disinterested, fixed guard
make decisions that impact the occupant. (NOTE:
Airphone-type systems are not practical due to their limited
field of view.) Modern, simple CCTV systems are inexpensive
and reasonably reliable. Post can manage the installation
and maintenance using current RSO ResSec staff, with the
support of GSO personnel. Post desires DS funding to locally
purchase 85 single B&W camera systems, with single monitors,
to be installed on each single-family home occupied by
official staff. The entire RSO is in full agreement with
this proposal.


12. ACTION REQUEST ) Post requests DS funding in the amount
of $45,000 to locally purchase eighty-five (85) single B&W
camera systems, with single monitors, including all required
cabling, power sources and mounting brackets.


13. COST FOR INACTION ) We are doing everything we can to
manage the serious risks of serving the USG at this
critical-threat crime post and appreciate the Department and
DS,s continued support. The total cost of cameras and
monitors is nothing compared to the cost of the potential
human tragedy, lost productivity, demoralization,
investigative measures and recovery should one of our staff
or a family member find themselves in their own invaded home,
beaten, robbed or worse.

HAMILTON