1997 Congressional Hearings
Intelligence and Security

Congressional Testimony before the

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Threat from International Organized Crime and Terrorism

October 1, 1997

Louise Shelley

Professor, American University

Director, Center for Transnational Organized Crime and Corruption, American University

My testimony today will be in two parts. The first, based on an article in the September 1997 issue of the Foreign Service Journal will address the need for a coordinated national policy to address transnational organized crime. Transnational organized crime is rapidly becoming a major foreign policy concern. Ever more branches of government are involved in the control of the problem. Furthermore, transnational organized crime and drug trafficking have become major priorities of international organizations as the United Nations and the European Union.

The second part will focus on recent successes in American-Russian cooperation to fight organized crime. The lessons learned from these accomplishments can be applied for future work with the Russians and have applicability to other countries.

Part One

Every day the front pages of major newspapers carry incredible news stories about different crime groups operating on an unprecedented scale in almost every region of the world. The money laundering of the Mexican drug traffickers, the bombings and contract killings executed by Russian crime groups and large scale alien smuggling to American shores by Chinese crime groups are striking in their brazenness. Are these stories a new form of media sensationalism or should these separate stories be analyzed together as part of a larger problem?

Media attention to transnational organized crime exceeds that devoted to the problem by policy makers at the national and international level. Yet, transnational organized crime will be one of the major problems facing policy makers in the 21st century. It will be a defining issue of the 21st century as the Cold War was for the 20th century and Colonialism was for the 19th. No area of international affairs will remain untouched as political and economic systems and the social fabric of many countries will deteriorate under the increasing financial power of international organized crime groups.

National security will be threatened by continuing trade in nuclear materials. Large scale arms smuggling will fuel regional conflicts. The human costs of large scale drug trafficking and illegal alien smuggling will be observable in an ever larger number of source and the destination countries. The proliferation of international prostitution and pornography rings will have serious social and health consequences. The costs of illicit timber trade, trafficking in rare species and nuclear materials have as yet unappreciated costs for the global environment. The massive profits of the diverse transnational organized crime groups, laundered in international financial markets, will undermine the security of the world financial system. Industrial competitiveness of legitimate businesses will be undercut by organized crime involvement in industrial and technological espionage.

Colombian drug traffickers link up with Nigerian crime groups who provide couriers for European deliveries. Shipments are routed through Eastern Europe or the former USSR, minimizing the risks of detection. Proceeds of this crime may be laundered through four different countries before reaching their final destination in an offshore haven in the Caribbean. Law enforcement will be fortunate if they can dismantle any of this chain of illicit conduct.

Transnational organized crime will proliferate in the next century because the crime groups are among the major beneficiaries of globalization. Benefitting from increased travel, trade, telecommunications networks and computer links, they are well positioned for growth. The IMF recently estimated that the proceeds of the drug trade now contribute 2% of the world's economy. If the money from tax evasion and other illicit activity is added, the total is several times larger. Organized crime groups in the next century will control an even larger share of the world's economy because the illicit share of the world's economy grows annually. Illegal businesses are highly profitable and remain untaxed.

The impact of transnational organized crime is not uniform. Organized crime can destabilize even major economies such as Japan and Italy, as the 1990s has shown, but the costs are even more devastating for transitional states. Organized crime groups often supplant the state in societies in transition to democracy, their representatives assume key positions in the incipient legislatures which need to craft the new legal framework for the society. Key officials are targeted by the international crime groups. Judges, often with salaries under $500 a month, and police who earn even less, are highly susceptible to bribes. Cabinet ministers cost more but are worth the investment.

The former Communist states with collapsing economies, weak governments and limited law enforcement have been fertile ground for the growth of organized crime. The rise of organized crime in the successor states to the former Soviet Union and its international expansion has attracted the most attention but their experience is far from unique. Many countries in Eastern Europe face serious organized crime problems. China, with a long history of domestic crime groups (triads) is increasingly acknowledging the pervasiveness of these groups in the booming economy of Southern China and their inroads in other regions.

International organized crime groups are the reverse of legitimate multi-national corporations. Most major multi-national corporations are based in the industrialized world and market to the developing world, whereas transnational organized crime groups are largely based in developing countries and market to the developed world. Extremely profitable, they are even harder to regulate than the multi-national corporation whose activities span countries, and their growth has been prolific. Furthermore, the incentives for control are not there. Many countries lack economic alternatives and crime groups become dominant economic and political forces. Off-shore banking centers thrive in such settings, drawing money steadily from countries with powerful crime groups and eager tax evaders. High level corruption also impedes action against these groups. Lack of harmonized legislation and the absence of mutual legal assistance treaties makes it impossible for foreign powers to effectively act against the crime groups.

Divergent law enforcement policies among nations also contribute to the transnational character of organized crime. Groups rapidly shift their operations to regions where they can more easily elude authorities. The recent alarm bells sounded by South Africa's leadership, a country with no previous history of organized crime, reveals that transnational crime groups have quickly moved to exploit the country's weakened law enforcement and its strategic location. The most successful crime groups also respond rapidly to changes in law enforcement capacity. As American training programs have helped Moscow airport officials spot drug couriers, drug traffickers have shifted their couriers' routes to other airports where personnel now lack such trained eyes.

Transnational Organized Groups Defy Easy Generalizations

International organized crime organizations are based on every continent. While they are usually most active in the regions closest to their home country, they are increasingly operating across continents, forming strategic alliances with local groups as needed.

The following analysis of organized crime in the former USSR, Colombia and Italy illustrates the diversity and complexity of transnational organized crime. Contrary to popular stereotypes that organized crime groups develop in a particular environment, these three case studies reveal that international groups can emerge under a variety of political and economic conditions including a collapsing super-power, the less developed region of a major G-7 industrialized country, or a once democratic developing country. There is no form of government immune from the development of a transnational criminal organization, no legal system presently capable of fully controlling the growth of transnational organized crime and no economic or financial system able to resist the temptation of profits at levels and ratios disproportionately higher than the licit system offers.

Our challenge is to use results of this analysis as a new way to approach policy making.

Policy solutions cannot be simplistically homogeneous. They must target the specific crime problems of a particular country and region. Moreover, joint strategies with a particular country are feasible only where corruption has not decimated domestic law enforcement and the state bureaucracy.

Former USSR

Post-Soviet organized crime has emerged on the international arena with an intensity and diversity of activities unmatched by other transnational crime groups. Organized crime groups number in the thousands because they often consist of looser network structures rather than more rigid hierarchical structures as are known in the prototypical organized crime family. While many crime groups specialize in a particular area such as drug trafficking, prostitution rings, gambling or weapons smuggling, post-Soviet organized crime has a full range of illicit activity as well as large scale penetration into the presently privatizing legitimate economy.

Post-Soviet organized crime exploits the market for illicit goods and services (prostitution, gambling, drugs, contract killing, supply of cheap illegal labor, stolen automobiles) and extorts legitimate businesses. It also includes such diverse activities as illegal export of oil, valuable raw materials, smuggling of weapons, nuclear materials and human beings.

Organized crime groups exploit the privatization of the legitimate economy by investing illicit profits in new capital ventures, establishing accounts in banks that have little regulation or do not question the source of badly needed capital. They utilize both historic or new trade routes to move illicit goods.

The unusual coalition of professional criminals, former members of the underground economy, members of the Party elite and the security apparatus defies traditional conceptions of organized crime groups even though much of their activity is conducted with the threat of violence. Their ranks contain highly trained specialists (such as statisticians and money launderers) not readily available to other transnational crime groups.

The penetration of organized crime into the state exists from the municipal to the federal level as organized crime finances the election of candidates and members of the newly elected Russian parliament as well as those of other CIS states. Russian organized crime groups have supplanted the state by providing protection, employment and social services no longer available from the government.

The successor states of the former Soviet Union have neither the legal infrastructure nor the law enforcement apparatus capable of combating organized crime. Endemic problems of corruption impede domestic efforts to combat the problem or cooperative bilateral and multi-national efforts to combat groups based in the former USSR.

Italy

Italian organized crime consists of four major groups all based south of Rome. The mafia or Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Neapolitan Camorra, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta and the lesser known Sacra Corona in Apulia have all become international actors in organized crime. The Sacra Corona, based along Italy's eastern Coast has recently benefitted from the conflict in Bosnia and the absence of controls in Albania by trafficking in arms, drugs and human beings.

The four groups have changed dramatically in the past two decades. While once the poor relations of their American cousins, the international drug trade of the 1980s and 1990s transformed their existence permitting them to accumulate significant capital. As major beneficiaries of the central state's public works program for the South, they were able to move into large scale construction projects. They are now major investors in the highly profitable Italian tourist industry owning large resorts and hotel complexes. They have also moved into Italy's dynamic entrepreneurial sector acquiring numerous food manufacturers and producers of consumer items.

Traditional crime families continue to dominate Italian groups. They lack the specialists within their ranks found in Russian and Colombian groups. This has worked to their disadvantage in laundering their proceeds. Much of it has been invested domestically, permitting the Italian government in recent years to freeze $3 billion in organized crime assets during its crackdown on organized crime activity in the early 1990s.

Like in Russia, Italian organized crime has penetrated to the core of the political process.. Several parliamentary members have been mafia representatives and a symbiotic relationship exists between the mafia and local government in the south. The criminalization of the Italian state has deprived Italy of power commensurate with its role as a major economic power.

The recent attempt to fight the mafia has been a costly effort in both human terms and economic resources. The Italian state has made significant inroads against organized crime through new anti-mafia legislation, the establishment of a national Anti-mafia investigative board, laws against money laundering, and the implementation of a witness protection program which has led to the emergence of hundred of pentiti (mafia turncoats) and the freezing of the illegal proceeds of these crime groups. By penetrating the organization through the legal process, its financial basis and its men of honor, the state has weakened several of the organized crime groups. But the Italian government has had difficulty sustaining the drive against organized crime, a prerequisite to the reduced penetration of organized crime into the Italian state.

Colombia

Colombian organized crime, the Medellin and Cali cartels emerged in the 1970s and almost from their inception they were international organizations. At first, drug traffickers from Colombia supplied cocaine to other criminal groups such as La Cosa Nostra and Mexican and Cuban gangs. With the profitability of cocaine, these traffickers decided to run their own smuggling and distribution operations. Their producers were the less developed countries of Latin America and in the initial stages their primary market was the United States. In the 1980s, expansion into European markets occurred following alliances with Italian crime groups. Ties have been also formed with the Nigerian mafia and Chinese triads and more recently links with Eastern European and post-Soviet organized crime groups.

The Colombian cartels have moved far from their origins in street level crime. More than many international crime groups, their membership has shown a capacity to adapt to the global environment and retain the professionals needed for their expansion. High level professionals work for the cartels providing expert advice on logistics, money laundering, and investments.

Before organized crime became such an integral part of the Colombian economy, the Colombian government was one of the most stable democracies in Latin America. In Colombia, organized crime groups spend large sums on financing electoral campaigns at the local and national level; major drug figures have campaigned for public office. Presently, the government and its legal institutions have been seriously undermined by corruption and violence. Current President Samper stands accused of accepting substantial campaign contributions from drug traffickers.

Billions of cartel profits have been returned to Colombia raising prices of farms and urban real estates. A certain percentage is also returned for development of narcotics production. Yet the capital from organized crime activity has not led to industrial development nor a developed diversified economy. A significant share of the cartels' proceeds remain abroad, laundered into banks, foreign real estate, securities and businesses throughout the world.

Organized Crime and Foreign Policy

No easy conclusions can be drawn from these three case studies. Nor do they lead to obvious solutions. The unfortunate conclusion is transnational crime groups now operate in diverse environments on such a scale affecting political, economic and social development of countries on every continent. The threat of transnational organized crime to American interests is increasingly recognized by President Clinton and both Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress. The result of this high level interest is increasing pressure on American diplomats to address this issue. It is not a problem that can be left solely to lawyers and law enforcement professionals. Transnational organized crime, and the closely associated problem of corruption, will flourish unless more attention is consistently paid to these problems.

A coherent and consistent initiative must be developed by the White House, NSC, CIA, State, Justice and Defense Departments in coordination with Congress that can then be translated into action by foreign service personnel overseas. Foreign service personnel of diverse specializations, in their training and their daily activities, must consider the impact of transnational organized crime as a policy issue. Consular officers must decide whether visa applicants are associated with organized crime. Are the financial documents presented real or do they represent front companies established to gain entry into the United States? For US AID personnel, how do you promote democratization and multi-party elections when the media is being bought up by organized crime and infiltrating the electoral process? How do you protect foreign assistance programs from endemic corruption? As an administrative officer, how do you ensure the integrity of firms working with the embassy when organized crime groups control construction firms?

As an economic or commercial officer, how can you assess financial risks and the economic situation when illicit trade flows are a significant share of the economy and undermine the integrity of the banking system? What kind of information is necessary if the U.S. government is going to certify a country for its anti-narcotics efforts? As a political officer, how do you address the stability of a government penetrated by organized criminals? What can a USIS officer say about democracy when the host country's democratic potential is being destroyed at its foundations by corruption and crime?

Transnational organized crime also affects American political and commercial interests. How can political and military officers ensure our national security when organized crime groups are trafficking in weapons and nuclear materials? How do you deal with high level officials who are closely tied to organized crime? How can you defend our commercials interests when organized crime groups are pirating American software and videos on a massive scale? How can you advise investment to visiting businessmen when previous investors have been threatened by organized crime?

All of these questions must be considered by those in the field on a consistent basis if we are to operate an effective foreign policy. Working groups at the embassy level, incorporating officers from different branches of the foreign service, can help provide the integrated approaches which are needed to address the problem.

The containment of transnational organized crime does not, however, depend solely on our activities or on those of any single country. American experience in fighting organized crime should be a sobering lesson for all those who would encourage other countries to be more aggressive in fighting organized crime. Even our highly trained, efficient and honest federal law enforcement equipped with the necessary legal tools have been unable to eliminate international drug trafficking or our domestic organized crime problem.

Only bilateral and multilateral efforts can work effectively against transnational organized crime. For the strength of transnational organized crime is also its weakness. While it can exploit international gaps in legislation and enforcement, crime groups can also be weakened by coordinated actions taken by foreign countries. Its networks are brutal but fragile. The freezing of foreign bank accounts, the detention of suspects overseas and the denial of visas can circumscribe organized crime groups' ability to act.

Organized crime is a cancer affecting every region of the world, but it assumes different forms in diverse societies. Just as colonic cancer requires different treatment from leukemia, strategies to fight organized crime must be targeted at specific regions or groups. Efforts to fight organized crime must be more broadly based than just money laundering considering the full dimensions of the problem.

A successful policy must also seek international harmonization of legislation in the areas of crime, banking, securities law, and customs practice to reduce the opportunities for criminal activity and to minimize the infiltration of transnational organized crime groups into legitimate businesses. Extradition treaties and mutual legal assistance agreements among the broadest number of signatories will make it harder for transnational criminals to elude authorities. Monitoring of human rights must be broadened to include the violations committed by transnational crime groups such as trafficking in human beings, labor violations and intimidation of the press. Assistance programs must help empower citizens to fight organized crime because the development of civil society and accountable government is the strongest safeguard against the rise of organized crime. A component of any such program should be strengthening the local judiciaries, ensuring adequate salaries, materials and security for court personnel. Greater contact is needed between foreign judges and law enforcement personnel and their American counterparts.

The international community must act bilaterally and through regional and international organizations, understanding that it will never be able to achieve fully consistent policies and enforcement that will significantly suppress transnational organized crime. Coordinated legislative and law enforcement efforts need to be established because in their absence transnational crime threatens to undermine existing democracies and preclude the transition to democracy in many transitional states.

Globalization is here. The proliferation of transnational organized crime is the most negative consequence of this phenomenon. Containment of organized crime must be a national priority and a new policy concern for the foreign service. Failure to address the problem in a coherent and sustained fashion will have long-term negative consequences for the United States and the international community.

Part Two

Seventeen months ago, I came before this Committee and gave a negative assessment of the problem of Russian organized crime. Since that time, the organized crime problem has not declined but the state's willingness and capacity to combat it has increased significantly. This is not because there is a new campaign against crime but because the programs that Congress has funded have sown seeds that are now bearing fruit.

Two forthcoming meetings show that Russian-American cooperation is much broader than just in the law enforcement area. Furthermore, it reveals support at the highest levels of the Russian government to combat crime and to allocate their own financial resources to address the problem. To put it colloquially, "they are putting their money where their mouth is." In the past few weeks, I can barely keep up with my faxes and e-mails from Russia as the Russians push the cooperation agenda ahead rapidly.

On Friday, I leave with a group of five specialists--prosecutors from the Department of Justice, FBI, INS and Customs to participate in a Russian-American round table on "Trafficking and Exploitation of Women and Children" at the Duma, chaired by V.Iliukhin, the powerful head of the Committee on State Security. The sponsorship of the round table by the Committee on State Security and the Committee on Women and Children reflects a broad based coalition in parliament to address this important issue.

Members of the Russian-American organized crime study center, funded with Congressional money, are co-sponsors of this unprecedented meeting. They report that a parliamentary decision has been taken to ensure that this is only the first step of the process. Full scale parliamentary hearings follow in December. To highlight the importance of this parliamentary action, you may remembers that the first major effort to combat organized crime in the US occurred in the 1950s when congressional held hearings on organized crime. That political will to fight organized crime is being mustered.

The Russian-American organized crime study center in Irkutsk, also funded with congressional money, has just last week received signed authorization from Attorney General Skuratov to host a strategic planning meeting in November to develop a coordinated Asian strategy on to combat organized crime and corruption. The Russians will pay the expenses of all visitors to the meeting from the United States and invited guests from China, Japan, Korea and Mongolia. Our center will contribute logistical assistance and the congressionally funded Asia Foundation is facilitating the contacts with the governments in Asia.

Let us look how we got to this point. Neither the Russians nor we could have achieved these results alone.

It is not as if Mr. Iliukhin and Attorney General Skuratov suddenly turned into willing crime fighters. They have always been committed to this. What is new is that we have found ways for our two country's to work together creatively. By combining intellectual and financial resources and the contacts we share around the world, we are developing policies that will allow us to achieve results in combating transnational organized crime. Much of this effort has been funded with Congressional money used in highly creative ways.

In Spring 1994, the MacArthur Foundation asked me to develop a program to deal with organized crime in Russia. Their program's philosophy was that scholars could be turned into effective activists. American colleagues could be coupled with their Russian counterparts to achieve valuable results. With a two-year grant of $100,000 from MacArthur and a small addition from AID, the organized crime study centers in Russia were born.

The Russian organized crime study centers based un universities function as advocates for change with their colleagues. They conduct research, analyze the problems and translate research into policy. They hold seminars, meet with the press and try and generate popular will to combat the phenomenon. My Russian colleagues are individuals of remarkable courage, intelligence and dedication. In the last couple years, we have gone through a shared process of transformation from scholars and teachers to instruments of change.

Department of Justice and State officials in Moscow invited to the seminars of our centers quickly realized that this program was working. These highly pragmatic and creative government officials, in particular The FBI's legal attache, became center advocates in the Moscow embassy working group on crime and corruption and at the Coordinator's office for Assistance to the Newly Independent States. They urged the government to assume the project from MacArthur which had provided only seed money.

The project was a round peg in a square hole. It was not strict law enforcement training, it was not economic reform nor a standard human rights NGO. It fit nowhere precisely but at the same time epitomized American foreign policy objectives to work with Russians as partners to promote democracy, respect for rule of law and free markets.

The mechanisms to fund this project took over eight months and at times I and my Russian colleagues wondered if the program would ever be funded. Eventually, AID, the Justice Department, and State, under the good auspices of Ambassador Morningstar's office, combined their resources to fund the centers. Once the government gave its good house keeping seal of approval to this project, cooperation on the Russian side began to move with breakneck speed.

In June and July, I traveled to Russia and visited the Asian parts of Russia with my colleague from Asia Foundation. Research done by the centers in Vladivostok and Irkutsk told us that Russia's crime groups were collaborating with their Asian counterparts. Five Russian-Mongolian groups were operating across the border and large scale criminal activity was underway in the Russian Far East with crime groups from many Asian countries.

A well equipped new training institute for prosecutors has just opened in Irkutsk, Siberia to train personnel for Russia east of the Urals. Siberia does not evoke images of remoteness for nothing. The energetic director of the new institute, a consultant to our center, is eager to combat the integration of Russian crime groups with their counterparts in Asia. But he lacks the contacts to mount a regional strategy. By partnering the crime centers with Asia Foundation, forty years of building ties with Asian leaders could be harnessed to rapidly bring a needed planning meeting to fruition.

We had credibility in Irkutsk. Over two years ago when the center was founded, I met with the regional prosector now Russia's Deputy Attorney General. Last year, the organized crime study center held a seminar in Irkutsk with the procuracy and police. The Department of Justice sent its representative from Moscow and a senior prosecutor from Washington participated. The results were positive. The director of the newly established procuracy institutes final words to us were "This is the first blini (pancake) and we hope not the last."

Last week the Attorney General of Russia authorized the financing of the conference and is sending the Deputy Attorney General of Russia to chair the strategy session in the beginning of November. This has been done with the faith that Asia Foundation will find top Asian prosecutors to attend. The credibility needed on both sides for this to occur is the result of years of work and cooperation laid painstakingly over time. It is the result of Russians determining what they need and asking the Americans to be their partners in realizing our common objectives.

What did congress support that contributed to this success?

Some of the successes stem from programs not generally associated with crime fighting. For example, the crucial role of USIA in this activity is rarely acknowledged. The leaders of the Russian-American organized crime study centers in Moscow, Ekaterinburg and Irkutsk have all visited the United States on USIA funded programs, two of them for extended periods as visiting scholars under IREX and ACTR. The new ideas they have brought back and their ability to convince their colleagues that we are worthwhile partners have been invaluable in advancing the anti-organized crime agenda behind the scenes.

The Duma round table if the vice-chair of the Committee on State Security had not benefitted from a USIA sponsored educational trip. Cooperation with the Chair of the Committee of State Security and the Attorney General was easier because my advisor my year at Moscow State University on IREX and Fulbright fellowships is a key advisor to the Duma Committee Chair and the Attorney General. When I was introduced to Mr. Iliukhin, I had credibility with my Russian colleagues because my former advisor explained "we helped train her." The seeds of these accomplishments were laid decades ago by Congress that funded a scholar to study the "Theoretical Development of Soviet Criminology." From this experience comes the language skills, cultural understanding and the contacts that are invaluable today.

Crucial to understanding the centers' potential were the Justice personnel stationed in the field who understood the cultural and political environment. The provision by the government of the finest American legal specialists to the meetings organized by Russian colleagues provided credibility to our Russian partners and illustrated the value of cooperation.

Creative members of the embassy and in the Coordinator's office spent endless hours trying to figure out how to fund a worthy program that fit into no one's budget. Resources were combined in original ways. The partnership of American University's Crime Centers and Asia Foundation paired organizations with long term relationships, experience and trust in the region. The results have been achieved because Americans are not supporting particular individuals but the process of institution building in Russia. Our Russian colleagues have formed broad coalitions to support these efforts. Our assistance is not perceived as promoting a particular part of the Russian political scene but the overall goals of our countries to fight crime together.

What are the lessons learned from this effort?

l.

These lessons are of paramount importance in Russia but are also translatable in other countries as we develop cooperative efforts to fight organized crime.:

1) Rely on local initiative to help analyze the problem and determine strategies that will work in that environment. Scholars can be effectively turned into activists. Often they are key advisors to high government officials and can help move the policy agenda.

2) Need to work and support NGOs which can provide the unusual partnerships that will prove effective in fighting crime'

3) We must empower our colleagues to address the crime problem through training, academic exchanges, visitor programs and limited subsidies to conduct research, produce needed publications and seminars.

3) We must work with colleagues who represent a range of political views. We need to support the diversity of views needed in a democracy rather than a particular clique we have adopted as "reformers."

4) Need to find and work with courageous, dedicated and intelligent people who are able to develop strategies appropriate to their political and social context.

5) Research is needed to establish sound policies, identify problems and target training.. As the great murdered Italian judge Falcone said, "we could effectively fight the Cosa Nostra when we understood it." The Russian experience has taught us the same lesson.

6) Need to build long-term relationships. Policies must not be based on parachuting in experts. We need to be on the ground working with our colleagues and provide continuity.

7) It is better to use smaller amounts of money consistently over time than large one-time efforts that are not sustained. Need to be there for the long haul developing relationships such as we have done for decades with our Italian colleagues.

9) Need to partner organizations that have established credibility and acquired experience to enhance effectiveness.

10) Need Department of Justice personnel permanently on the ground to assess the situation and build long-term relationships.

11) Need to combine American resources in creative ways. Need to reward our administrators who come up with creative solutions. A Coordinator's office is invaluable in assuring the coordination and leveraging of American resources.

12) Need to support a variety of activities in addition to law enforcement training if we are to reach the different parts of government that one needs for a coordinated effort to fight crime. The role of the USIA is immeasurable and insufficiently recognized in achieving these results by providing new ideas and fostering cooperation with the United States.

How do we sustain this incredible momentum?

1) We must be there for the long haul. A minimum of five years must be assured to begin to see the fruits of this collaboration. Moderate amounts of funding used judiciously can lead to effective long term cooperative strategies. We must not bombard our colleagues now and not provide them assistance at later stages.

2) We must target our training efforts with Russian colleagues helping us to focus our efforts in appropriate directions.

3) We must continue to broaden the partners that we and Russian colleagues. The collaborative strategy with Asian counterparts must be maintained and expanded to other areas.

4) We must work with the parliament, the Ministry of Interior, the Procuracy, the Presidential Administrations, NGOs and the press.

5) We must continue to work with Russians as equal partners remembering that we are there at their invitation.