R 072022Z JAN 09

FM AMEMBASSY PANAMA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2817

S E C R E T PANAMA 000015

SUBJECT: PANAMA: NEW MOGJ MINSTER LAYS OUT PLANS

REF: PANAMA 00008

Classified By: Ambassador Barbara J. Stephenson for

reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

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Summary
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¶1. (C) Security has become the government's weak

spot, newly appointed Minister of Government of
Justice Dilio Arcia told the Ambassador December
19. He described plans to address gang violence,
including tougher sentences and implementation
of community policing initiatives. In discussing
the FARC presence in the Darien, Arcia said that
increased mobility for GOP police forces was key,
as Panamanian forces could not arrive quickly
enough to confront FARC incursions. He also
spoke about the need to improve governance in the
Darien. He reaffirmed GOP policy that the U.S.
should not have a permanent physical presence in
the Darien, and forcefully asserted his and the
President's authority to decide on any increase in
temporary presence or qualitative change in the
nature of USG presence. He and his Vice Ministers
described recent outreach to the Embera Indians,
following a FARC incursion into their autonomous
comarca. They also discussed forthcoming equipment
upgrades, including the arrival of helicopters in
February and March.

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It's the Crime, Stupid!
----------------------

¶2. (C) Dilio Arcia, who was appointed Minister of

Government and Justice on November 18 replacing
Daniel Delgado, met with the Ambassador and EMBOFFs
on December 19, together with Vice Minster of
Public Security Rodrigo Cigarruista and Vice
Minster of Government Severino Mejia. Arcia said
that his top priority was to develop and implement
policies to confront the crime wave affecting the
country. He complained that the political
opposition was using the security issue to
politically weaken Martin Torrijos' government and
Balbina Herrera's presidential campaign. He said
security had become the "weak spot" of the
government. Arcia complained that Panama was being
overwhelmed by the effects of "Plan Mexico."
(Comment: Arcia was referring to the Merida
Initiative. End Comment.) He said foreign drug
traffickers were hiring local gangs to kill people
as a result of lost drug shipments seized by the
authorities in Panama. He said the MOGJ, the
Supreme Court and the Attorney General's Office
were working together on an anti-gang strategy,
that would focus on combating illegal weapon
possession. The MOGJ proposed an increase in the
penalty for weapon possession to four-six years, so
that preventive detention could be used against
offenders. (Note: Under the current Penal Process
Bridge Law, which is in effect until the judicial
system switches over to the new adversarial law
system, preventive detention can only be requested
for crimes that carry a prospective sentence of
four years or more. The current sentence is two-
four years. End Note.) Arcia said this will allow
gang members caught with guns to be investigated
for other crimes while in detention. He said the
police needed to focus on the retail sale of
drugs, the main source of funds for the gangs.

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Community Policing
------------------

¶3. (C) Arcia also asserted that the MOGJ was

interested in implementing community policing
programs. He emphasized getting NGOs and business
groups to work with the police, citing a pilot
program in the province of Veraguas he said
had been successful and an existing program called
"Vigilant Neighbors." He also praised the Integral
Security Program (PROSI), which is an IDB-funded
crime prevention program that focused on building
up recreational infrastructure in poor, gang prone
neighborhoods. He also stressed the need to bring
in other elements of the GOP, like the Ministry of
Education and the Ministry of Social Development to
help develop a coordinated GOP strategy to prevent
kids from finding their way into gangs. Arcia
complained that prisoners were continuing to run
their criminal operations from prison, and
said he would like to see a program to build new
prisons that were smaller and easier to control and
improve the old ones.

--------------------------------------------
To Forward Deploy, or Not to Forward Deploy?
--------------------------------------------

¶4. (C) Asked by the Ambassador about the Darien,

Cigarruista said Panama was primarily a transit and
R&R zone for the FARC, though he also noted the
57th Front charged tolls for cargo being smuggled
into the Darien. Arcia said Panamanian police
forces needed greater mobility to be able
to deal with the FARC effectively. He said even if
the security forces heard about incursions, they
could not get to the scene quickly enough to do
anything about it. He asserted that with the
National Frontier Service (SENAFRONT) police's
separation from the Panamanian National Police
(PNP), Panama would now have a permanent presence
along its borders, noting that 350 new police
graduates would make it possible to keep
SENAFRONT police deployed on the borders, and not
bring them into Panama City to reinforce the PNP,
as had often happened in the past. Arcia said the
plan was to concentrate large groups of SENAFRONT
police in a few places, and then respond quickly by
helicopter to any reports of incursions. Mejia
said the Darien was a big, tough area to patrol and
that it could only be patrolled by helicopters and
boats. He said that to be effective, SENAFRONT
needed to deploy closer to the border and that to
do so they needed helicopter lift capability. Asked
by the Ambassador if SENAFRONT would then be moved
closer to the border, Cigarruista said they would
not/not be deployed on the border, but would
observe and react from bases further back. Mejia
stressed that the GOP had great cooperation with
Colombia, and that the GOC would help them. Arcia
interjected that the situation was far from
imminent hostilities, noting that the main threat
from the FARC was their use of Panamanian territory
for R&R, drug trafficking and kidnappings. Mejia
agreed, noting the FARC was not looking to start a
two-front conflict, while Cigarruista noted that
Panama also did not want a regional conflict. He
said the GOC would support them, but that the
answer would be the extension of Panama's effective
control over its own territory. Arcia said the
extension of effective governance was the key, and
that the GOP was going as far as to consider the
development of new towns in the Darien as a
solution to the difficult challenge of providing
essential services in such a thinly populated area.

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Need any Help?
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¶5. (C) EMBOFF asked about the deployment of

SOUTHCOM Joint Planning Assistance Team (JPAT) and
Counter Narco-Terrorist (CNT) training teams
currently in-country to the Darien to support the
development of SENAFRONT. (Note: These teams are
currently forbidden by the GOP to train SENAFRONT
police in the Darien, thought they are permitted
limited "technical assessment" visits. All USG
training for GOP police deployed to the Darien
takes place in training areas closer to Panama
City. End Note.) Arcia said the GOP did not want
a permanent U.S. physical presence in the area that
might create misunderstandings. Mejia said an
increased U.S. presence depended on SENAFRONT
Director Commissioner Frank Abrego. Arcia
immediately and forcefully cut Mejia off, and said
Abrego could recommend such a change to him, the
Minister, or directly to President Torrijos, but
could not/not decide this on his own. Arcia
justified this assertion of authority by saying
that he was a lawyer, and wanted to make sure
everything was "legal".

--------------------------------
Taking Care of the Little People
--------------------------------

¶6. (C) Arcia said they had met with indigenous

leaders in the Darien (Embera) to assure them they
would not be abandoned by the GOP, following a
recent FARC incursion in their territory (see
reftel). He said the President himself had gone to
Puerto Indio to meet with the Gran Cacique of the
Embera and had promised that the GOP would have a
presence in their areas. Mejia said the MOGJ would
train the Embera "police" - traditional Embera
figures who help maintain internal order in the
Embera semi-autonomous comarcas - to get
intelligence for them, and would set up meetings
for them with SENAFRONT police to increase
cooperation. Arcia said they had explained to the
Embera that despite their semi-autonomy in their
comarcas, they were Panamanians under the security
responsibility of the President. He said a GOP
official in the past had decided to withdraw the
police from the comarcas, but that following the
recent incursion, the Embera were ready to
cooperate with the GOP.

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New Equipment on the Way
------------------------

¶7. (C) Cigarruista said that the MOGJ was

refurbishing 5 Bell-212 helicopters, and the first
one would be delivered on March 1, after which two
more would be delivered each month and a half. He
also said that another new helicopter the MOGJ
had bought would be delivered on February 15. He
said two new boats would also arrive in February
for the National Aero-Naval Service (SENAN). Mejia
noted that SENAN assets, especially the helicopters
would be used for multiple missions, including
search and rescue, moving teachers into remote
areas, disaster relief, and flying foreign
dignitaries, in addition to law enforcement.
Cigarruista said Panama had an immediate need for
helicopters, especially for maritime patrol and
border support. He added that Panama was buying six
small target acquisition radars that had sea
and air capability for $4.5 million. He said they
also planned to use radars of the Panama Canal
Authority (ACP) that could see 180 n.m. into the
sea and air. He said the ACP was only using 30% of
its radar capacity, so the SENAN would be able to
use them as well. Mejia said the MOGJ was
interested in acquiring mobile computers for the
police to give them the information to "enact a
plan," and not just react to crime. Cigarruista
noted that the MOGJ was working on a computer
system to amass crime data that could then be
used to target areas of high crime in real time,
similar to the COMPSTAT program used by U.S. law
enforcement agencies. He said the MOGJ needed
assistance to bring in experts to train their
personnel in how to interpret the data so they
could use it effectively.

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Comment
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¶8. (C) Arcia's embrace of community policing is

a welcome change from Delgado. Arcia is in many
ways the anti-Delgado, focusing on urban crime and
community outreach, while Delgado framed the issue
as a choice between democracy and law and order,
and did not really care what civil society thought.
Arcia has been quoted in the papers calling for
NGOs and community involvement in the fight against
crime. This brings the MOGJ in line with Post, as
we are both now focused on urban police reform and
anti-gang programs. While the reason for Arcia's
embrace of community policing might be to help
undo some of the political damage Delgado and
Torrijos himself did, it is a further step towards
institutionalizing the idea of community policing
as the best way to respond to Panama's crime/gang
problem.

¶9. (S//NF) This meeting also reinforced the fact

that MOGJ does not have operational control of the
security forces in Panama. While Arcia was quick to
point out that Abrego could not decide on increased
cooperation with the U.S. on his own,
he added a telling line that he had to check with
him - or the President. In reality, it is Torrijos
and the National Intelligence and Security Service
(SENIS), under Erik Espinosa and his deputy Javier
Fletcher, who really control the operations of the
security services. The confusion shown here among
Mejia and Cigarruista about how far forward the
SENAFRONT would deploy indicates they might not be
the ones who would decide. The heads of the PNP,
SENAFRONT and the SENAN all report directly to
Torrijos, who then delegates operational control
and oversight for major operations to Fletcher.
Under Delgado MOGJ had the political weight to
challenge Espinosa/Fletcher, but under Arcia this
influence is likely to wane. The real mission of
the MOGJ is to administer these services and buy
supplies, a limited mission in which the MOGJ's
effectiveness is highly questionable. Post will
continue to coordinate training issues with the
MOGJ and the service chiefs in parallel, but high
level planning for law-enforcement operations will
continue to be done through Fletcher or the service
chiefs.

STEPHENSON

(Edited and reformatted by Andres for ease of

reading.)