YOUR MEETING WITH FM ESPINOSA AT UNGA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MEXICO 002766 SIPDIS FROM AMBASSADOR PASCUAL FOR THE SECRETARY E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/08/2019 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR PHUM SNAR KCRM MX SUBJECT: YOUR MEETING WITH FM ESPINOSA AT UNGA Classified By: Ambassador Carlos Pascual. Reason: 1.4 (b),(d). ¶1. (SBU) Madam Secretary: Thanks to your leadership and the energy provided by the President's visit to Mexico in August we are off to a good start in broadening our discussion with Mexico on Merida and other priorities. President Calderon and his key civilian, military and security agency officials have been working closely with us in fleshing out the framework of a new invigorated agenda, and building a joint structure for overseeing its implementation once our two governments have agreed. Calderon's personal commitment has been manifest in the active engagement of his government and the rapid progress we have made on a number of fronts. Your meeting with Foreign Secretary Espinosa will take us one step further in realizing the vision that the President set forth in Guadalajara for a modern bilateral relationship that will help us forge a closer partnership with our southern neighbor. -------------- The Serious Obstacles on the Way -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Building that modern relationship will not be easy given the difficult political and economic terrain that Calderon faces in his remaining three years in power. The economic recession, a large and widening budgetary gap aggravated by an inefficient tax structure and fast dwindling oil revenues, and the bureaucratic and administrative leg irons of a top heavy political system will complicate Calderon's efforts to enact needed reforms. The leading political parties are all rife with factions, including the President's National Action Party (PAN),and several of the best political players are already focused on the 2012 Presidential elections. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI),coming off an unexpectedly strong showing in the July Congressional elections, is taking advantage of its re-ascendancy on the national stage in negotiations with the government on the budget. ¶3. (C) Calderon will meet the challenges head on but his tendency to surround himself with party loyalists whom he trusts will get him into trouble. His state of the union message at the beginning of September was well-aimed to retake the political initiative with a bold ten-point agenda. But signs of his political Achilles' heel emerged immediately after, in his mishandling of a key cabinet reshuffle. With his choice of a little known but controversial PAN insider to replace Medina Mora in the critical Attorney General slot, Calderon has set back prospects for long-overdue legal reform, opened new avenues for the opposition to attack him, and complicated the task of fixing his human rights problem. The misstep does not reflect uncertainty or a lack of clarity within his trusted circle on where he wants to take Mexico, but it is indicative of the kinds of obstacles we are likely to face in the months ahead. ¶4. (C) In my initial meetings with Mexico's political and economic elite, including outside of a Mexico city that is a world in itself, I was struck by the country's contradictions. It is clearly a country with incredible resources, and a well-educated elite supportive of close ties with the United States that aspires to retain a leading role in the region and assume a more important position on the world stage. At the same time, there are clear obstacles to realizing this future: crushing poverty and inequality, organized crime and an ineffective police structure, unchecked private and obsolete public monopolies, a faltering public education system, and a bureaucracy that hinders needed reforms and dilutes the contribution of some very talented people. The United States was the only foreign country recognized in Calderon's state of the Union, a positive reference to our close cooperation. The rest of the world focus was on Mexico's growing importance: its position in the UN Security Council, its emergence as a key player in the G-20, its leadership on climate change. To be successful we have to use the power and energy behind Mexico's aspirations to encourage its leaders to address difficult long-standing problems. -------------- Hints of Change Within the Military -------------- ¶5. (C) The encouraging thing is that there are signs everywhere, in every part of Mexican society, that people are coming to understand that things will have to change. MEXICO 00002766 002 OF 004 General Galvan, head of the Secretariat of Defense (SEDENA), is an impressive military man with an appreciation for where the Mexican military forces are and how they have to change. Historically, SEDENA has been a hermetic institution closed to the Mexican public and suspicious of the United States. Galvan, however, is committed to Calderon's vision of a more modern Mexican state and a closer relationship with the United States. Our ties with the military have never been closer in terms of not only equipment transfers and training but also the kinds of intelligence exchanges that are essential to making inroads against organized crime. ¶6. (C) Human rights remains a sensitive subject for the Mexican military as well as the U.S. Congress. SEDENA retains the prerogative to investigate and adjudicate cases implicating military officials of abuses against civilians; its investigations are lengthy and not transparent, prompting criticism from both U.S. and Mexican human rights NGOs. We use a variety of opportunities -- conferences, seminars, and training -- to help professionalize the Mexican military and promote greater respect for human rights both institutionally and in the context of its operations. Earlier this month, we opened up a dialogue with SEDENA's Human Rights Directorate and SRE with a view to obtaining more information on specific cases involving human rights abuses that once provided should enable us to be more responsive to U.S. congressional concerns. -------------- Pushing the Human Rights Envelope -------------- ¶7. (C) Our engagement on human rights issues goes beyond outreach with the military. USAID secured in July an agreement to provide the UN's Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) with the $1 million Congress earmarked for support of its office in Mexico. That office, in turn just signed an agreement with SEDENA that provides for its making an assessment of SEDENA's training programs and monitoring its human rights performance. More recently, when DRL's Senior Advisor Michael Kozak led a delegation from the Department for consultations on bilateral and trilateral (including Canada) human rights consultations with the Mexican SRE on September 9-10, I took the opportunity to discuss the need for greater transparency on human rights issues particularly in connection to the Merida Initiative and Congressional concerns about military abuses. SRE's Under Secretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo assured us that Mexico shares our commitment to greater human rights respect and some of our frustration over the military's past record of non-transparency on human rights cases. He saw in our newly minted dialogue with SEDENA an opportunity to obtain the kind of information on specific cases that Congress is looking for. Separately, we have expanded our own dialogue directly with Mexican human rights NGOs. I hosted a reception for several human rights NGOs in connection to Ambassador Kozak's visit. On September 17, I hosted a roundtable for twelve of Mexico's most prominent human rights NGOs that gave them an opportunity to air their concerns about human rights and enabled us to establish a framework for future cooperation. -------------- Meeting its Economic Challenges -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Recent data shows encouraging news for the Mexican economy with many economists revising upward their 2009 and 2010 growth forecasts. In his annual "State of the Union" speech, President Calderon suggested that the recession had touched bottom, and presented his plans for continued economic reforms and proposals for increasing the country's competitiveness. To close a looming fiscal gap due to falling oil production/prices and the recession, Calderon sent Congress a budget that proposes tax hikes and program cuts many analysts regard as responsible, but they will likely restrain growth and competitiveness, and they will face a touch reception in the opposition-dominated Congress. Mexico needs to adopt serious energy reform that would contemplate private investment if it hopes to revitalize its oil sector but domestic political constraints do not bode well for progress on this item nor, for that matter, for whittling away at monopolies in the telecommunications and other key sectors. Meanwhile, Calderon has stressed his commitment to Mexico assuming leadership on climate change on the world stage but has not moved on this agenda in a significant way MEXICO 00002766 003 OF 004 at home. Mexico seeks to diversify its trade to a wider array of countries (presently over 80 percent of Mexico's exports go to the U.S.) but recognizes the U.S. will remain its dominant partner for the indefinite future. We will both need to explore better ways to strengthen border security while facilitating the legal movement of our citizens and goods in seeking to create a border that meets the requirements of the 21st century. -------------- Building on Security Cooperation -------------- ¶9. (SBU) We have made great progress on expanding our bilateral security and law enforcement relationship through the Merida Initiative. From a cold start, we have broadened and deepened cooperation to include functional working groups and, by early 2010, a bi-national implementation office. Strong, attentive leadership and excellent inter-agency relationships have helped produce real results. The first phase of Merida focused heavily on supporting Mexico's efforts to confront drug trafficking organizations. Now, we recognize the limitations on confronting criminal groups without the effective institutional backing to support the lasting disruption of these elements. We must help Mexico build its most key institutions with seamless integration of operations, investigations, intelligence, prosecutions, and convictions. We also need to develop new programs to build an intelligence capability, foster the Federal Police's own institutional development and training capacity, promote swifter implementation of judicial reform, and prompt greater inter-institutional coordination and cooperation. Moreover, with many of our federal programs well underway, we should broaden our focus to include work at the state level. The GOM is wary of such a devolution of energy and resources, but there is a growing and clear understanding of the key role states play in security in Mexico, and an understanding among many officials that without good state institutions, the federal government has nowhere to land when it deploys. ¶10. (C) The speed of implementation is improving but still slow, due to delays in moving money between USG agencies, a sluggish contracting process, and the highly complex nature of the projects at hand. The GOM remains suspicious of anything that smacks of conditionality, and is at times reluctant to make changes it sees as USG mandated. Nevertheless, we have made a strong start, and there is joint recognition of the work that still needs to be done. As we move ahead, we should make sure to maintain a cooperative and open rapport with our Congress, such as briefing it on Mexico's illicit crop estimates that puts these reports into a larger context of our efforts on the ground. We should also be sure not to overly narcoticize our bilateral relationship at the expense of helping Mexico become a more secure, more equal, and more democratic partner. -------------- Building Resilient Communities -------------- ¶11. (SBU) The recession and its impacts on economic growth and remittances has underscored the importance of ensuring that communities see a net benefit from establishing a culture of lawfulness and endorsing the rule of law. A key test will be to stem the flow of potential recruits for the cartels. If young people find their options to be unemployment or joining the cartels, efforts to undermine the cartels will be defeated through new recruits. With Mexico taking a lead on this element, U.S. assistance will help leverage support for greater community involvement and the development for a culture of lawfulness, as well as addressing socio-economic aspects of the conflict. We will also support Mexican efforts to engage Mexico's broader civil society with a view to drawing on its insights on the quality and effectiveness of security operations to win the support of the communities they are supposed to protect. ¶12. (C) We have just begun to write a new chapter in the rich history that chronicles the U.S.-Mexican relationship. For Mexico to realize its goal of becoming a modern, fully democratic and prosperous state, it will need to overcome a number of serious obstacles in terms of its political, economic, and societal underpinnings. Given our stakes in this quest, we need to look for every opportunity possible to help Mexico meet these challenges. To that end, we have identified four pillars for the U.S.-Mexican relationship: 1) respect for rule of law; 2) resilient communities responsive MEXICO 00002766 004.2 OF 004 to the needs of its members; 3) competitiveness; and 4) institutional reform. Your meeting with Secretary Espinosa avails us an opportunity to embrace this ambitious agenda and pursue the full realization of the potential our reinvigorated relationship holds out for the citizens of both of our countries. Visit Mexico City's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/mexicocity and the North American Partnership Blog at http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/nap / WILLIARD