Third Regular Session Of Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, January 22-24, 2003, San Salvador, El Salvador

10:45 A.M. EST

Real Audio of Briefing

MR. DENIG: Good morning, and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. As you know, since September 11th of 2001, the United States Government has been working closely with allies and friends to counter the problem of global terrorism on as many fronts as possible. Today, we will be focusing on cooperative efforts in the Western Hemisphere as we look forward to the Third Regular Session of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, which will take place in El Salvador January 22nd to 24th, in other words, next week. The United States delegation will be led by Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner, who was just here on Tuesday to brief on counterterrorism efforts.

I am delighted to welcome three panelists to today's briefing: immediately to my left, Ambassador Roger Noriega, the United States Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States; then in the middle, Ambassador Margarita Escobar, the Permanent Representative of El Salvador to the Organization of American States; and to the far left, Ambassador Cofer Black, the Coordinator of the State Department's Office for Counterterrorism. Each one of them will have a brief statement, and after that we'll be glad to take your questions.

Ambassador Noriega.

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here to provide, really, some of the basics about CICTE, a primer on CICTE. This organization, the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, was conceived in the mid-1990s in the wake of the two bombings in Argentina in 1992 and 1994. It was established formally in 1999 with the United States as the chair, with Bolivia as the vice-chair. It is also important to note that at this meeting in El Salvador, the chair will probably pass to El Salvador and we're very excited about the leadership we can expect from El Salvador, which will also host this upcoming meeting.

In the wake of September 11th, as a matter of fact as the attacks were actually continuing, the OAS sprang into action to work with us to confront this deadly threat against the United States and against, really, the entire world and to our common security.

As you all know, Secretary Powell was in Lima, Peru, at a meeting of the OAS on September 11th. Immediately, the OAS expressed its solidarity with the United States and approved an Inter-American Democratic Charter, which is a statement of political values and, ironically, the very values that were under attack on that day. So the importance of the OAS is very clear to us all. Also in the wake of the attacks, the member-states, states party to the Rio Treaty, invoked the Rio Treaty, saying that that attack against the United States constituted an attack against all of the parties to the Rio Treaty.

Then the work began in earnest, and CICTE was really the organ that coordinated this counterterrorism work. Argentina was a very active vice-chair with us of CICTE. Colombia chaired a working group on money laundering controls. El Salvador chaired a group. As a matter of fact, Ambassador Escobar chaired the group on developing a very ambitious, concrete work plan for CICTE for 2002-2003. Peru also chaired a very critical working group of CICTE on border controls.

The organization CICTE, the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, has really transformed itself into a groundbreaking body; an example for other regions of the world to follow. Building on the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism, which was also approved in June, 2002, CICTE will assist other member-states so that we're better able to cooperate on the important tasks that are before us in very practical, concrete ways in terms of law enforcement cooperation, border controls, enhancing the controls of the financing of terrorist groups.

The meeting that will be held in El Salvador is also important in that it will, in a very specific way, mandate the OAS CICTE Secretariat, a small secretariat, to enhance its works on financial and border controls and also on information sharing between member-states -- among the member-states.

The delegation of the United States to the CICTE meeting in El Salvador will be headed US Customs Service Commissioner Robert Bonner. Ambassador Cofer Black also will be a key member of that delegation. The United States is absolutely committed to a very productive meeting, and of course, will continue to be very active, remain very active along with the new chairman, El Salvador, in the CICTE's work.

CICTE is part of the global war on terrorism that few people notice. But as you know, it's a very important part of that. It is an instrument for applying the rule of law against criminal groups who are conspiring to do our people harm. And therefore, it's just as important as the other even more dramatic examples of cooperation to fight terrorism.

Thank you very much.

AMBASSADOR ESCOBAR: Thank you. Good morning. I'm very pleased to be here with you this morning and I thank you for this kind invitation to join this conference and speak a little bit about what comes ahead in the Third Regular Session of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism to be held in El Salvador next week.

As Ambassador Noriega just explained the background of this special committee of the Organization of American States, at this point I would like to make three points very quickly and then we can go in the questions if you have any.

As we approach, also, to the Special Conference on Security in Mexico in May, the member-states of the Organization of American States are very much aware and very much united in determining those threats to our security. One of those threats, indeed, is terrorism, and it has been defined as such: a threat not only to our democracies, but to our social and economic development, harming, therefore, our own people. So therefore for us, it's important to detect and combat terrorism with all the institutional framework that we have in the Organization of American States, and that will be one of the first things that we're looking for after the meeting in San Salvador is the strengthening of the institutional structure of the OAS to combat terrorism and its links with money laundering, drugs trafficking, illegal trafficking of weapons and other forms of organized crime.

The second thing that we hope to achieve is to renovate our political commitment to combat threats that are here, and as well as emerging threats that are very much related, also, to terrorism as they are international terrorist groups -- one example.

Another objective and purpose of this meeting will be to continue implementing the work plan that has been designed and approved by member-states with the help of the Secretariat of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism under the leadership of Dr. Steve Monblatt, who is here with us today, and the chair of CICTE, Stephanie Kinney.

What are the major issues in that work plan? We are dealing with sharing of information and cooperation, border controls, and financial controls to detect through financial intelligence units in our own countries the -- and prevent the financing of terrorism, whatever the origin.

El Salvador is prepared to welcome all the delegations from member-states and the press, of course. We need to understand that terrorism is the antithesis of democracy. We need to understand that the methods that they used are not, are not methods of a civilized world. I believe that the member-states are well committed to achieving a very fruitful dialogue of the heads of delegations that will be also concentrated into aspects. One will be the strengthening of corporations to combat terrorism, and the second issue will be emerging threats.

From our point of view, from El Salvador's side, we are going assume this important task and responsibility for the next year and follow up doing the work that the United States has done to form alliances and coalitions to combat terrorism and to coordinate among the 34 member-states of the Organization of American States. We are committed to do our best. Our Foreign Minister, Maria Eugenia Brizuela De Avila, is directly working on all these issues and she will be the person that will continue in the leadership of the effort to carry on at this -- to this point.

Thank you.

MR. DENIG: Thank you, Madame Ambassador.

Ambassador Black.

AMBASSADOR BLACK: Thank you very much. I would like to thank Ambassador Escobar and Ambassador Noriega for their support of the counterterrorism mission. We're looking very much forward to the meetings in El Salvador.

The United States has a very high and keen interest in these meetings. We're currently engaged in a global war on terrorism. It takes us working with our partners around the world to the four corners of the world. This war, as the American President has said, is likely to go on for a considerable period of time.

We need, in the Americas, to make sure that we're rededicated and we're in communication with each other. We're very supportive of CICTE. We think it is a great medium whereby we and the Americas can communicate officially in terms of looking at ways to interdict financial support for terrorists, ways to consider that we can prevent the movement of terrorists across the borders in a partnership mode, and also looking at information structure. This is a medium to exchange information. It's also a medium whereby the United States can provide information that it collects in other areas of the world and can share its expertise with its partners. We're very gratified that the Customs Commissioner will be coming to lead the American side in the delegations.

This is very important work. I don't think the absence of problems is indicative of the fact that we can rest easily. This is a global war on terrorism, it continues, and we will put pressure on the terrorists. As we have seen in the past, an example of al-Qaida in Afghanistan, they've relocated -- tended to relocate from areas in which the pressure has been put on them.

We, under the umbrella of CICTE, need to effectively exchange information to keep those that move out of other areas from coming to the Americas here. We're determined to work with our partners here in the hemisphere, to support them, to provide expertise and insights when we have it, and it's very important for everyone to appreciate that it is the expertise of the individual nations that make up CICTE that provides the edge to defend against movement of terrorists across the borders and to prevent them from conducting acts of terrorism.

Thank you.

MR. DENIG: Thank you, Ambassador Black. We would ask you now to focus your questions on the upcoming meeting of the Inter-American Committee and on international cooperative efforts against terrorism, and again, would ask you to use the microphone and identify yourself and your organization.

Questions? We'll start right up front, here.

QUESTION: My name is Milton Roqelle (ph) from Voice of America. I have a couple of question. The first, what is the degree of cooperation expected from Latin American countries that are not so, let's say, sympathetic, with USA? This, for me, is a very important issue, particularly if you paid attention to ideological lines.

And a second question would be how CICTE could handle this situation and would handle the situation in the three-border region -- Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil -- as you gather* lately?

AMBASSADOR BLACK: Well, you'd have to tell me which countries aren't sympathetic with the United States. (Laughter). On the issue of terrorism, we have noted and have been gratified to note not only sympathy with the United States, who are confronting the threat of terrorism, but solidarity. And I can tell you that we're convinced in what we see in the daily work not only of the OAS, but of CICTE, that this is a widely held view among the member-states. And we're really counting on all of our neighbors to recognize that this is not something that they are doing for the United States, but it is particularly important because we're doing it for our Inter-American community, for our neighborhood, for our world.

The economic impact, alone, is something that has to grab the attention of every country in the world. But aside from that, the values that we all share, even if we don't agree on every aspect of politics or ideology, the values, the fundamental values that we share, are what's at stake when we're talking about dealing with the terrorist threat.

So we're convinced that we will continue to be able to count on countries to work with us and note with some satisfaction that the Western Hemisphere has really stepped up to the plate and we can count on the member-states to work with us in promoting these measures that are important to our common security and our common -- and the well- being of our people.

AMBASSADOR ESCOBAR: Let me just add one more issue. I think it's important for you to know that the enemy is terrorism and we are united to combat terrorism, to detect it. And for that, we do have a very strong commitment, a hemispheric commitment to work united, to cooperate with each other, to share information, to provide technical support when needed, to strengthen the Secretariat of CICTE, precisely to provide member-states that are in a weaker position to give them the tools to detect and combat terrorism. So I just want to point out that this is a position of all the countries to defend our democracies from the threat of terrorism and that is a very strong bond among the 34 member-states.

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Well, I'd like to just comment very briefly in support of my colleagues. I think it's very important to appreciate oftentimes we spend our time talking about politics. You read newspapers and talk about political parties and commonality of views and differences of views. When it comes to counterterrorism, my professional experience has been, and certainly is current to this time, that we're all in this fight together, we're all on the same side attempting to protect our people, doing everything we can to do that to protect innocent people from the scourge of terrorism.

I have always felt that I've had nothing but support from all of our partners, and likewise, they can count on our support. It's a noble cause. It's one with tremendous pressure. And I think the officials in the Americas that deal with these subjects have my gratitude and my admiration.

In terms of the tri-border area, we had excellent meetings in Buenos Aires and in the tri-border in the middle of December. I recall it was something like the 19th of December, we met representatives from Argentina who were hosting in Buenos Aires as well as Brazil and Paraguay.

We certainly developed a commonality of view that we need to look into the links, the financial links of terrorists in the region. The American side was particularly concerned about Hezbollah and the movement of funds and we wanted to, as partners in the Americas, look at and come up with a common view where there are other groups that were utilizing this financial link.

I envision CICTE, particularly, to be instrumental in a channel in which we, the countries of the Americas, can come up with new training regimes and support and have it be a central entry point for any country that needs assistance or training or needs to reach out, in the hemisphere sense, to the other countries on the topic of counterterrorism. I think it's a very good one. Counterterrorism is a team sport. It embraces -- it brings in partners and friends, and in that and in success in us achieving our objective, which is the defense of our people, innocent people, from terrorists whose objective is to intimidate and to kill. To say again, I think it is noble work we seek to prevent incidents of this type that we see so often around the world on television from coming to the Americas.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Good morning. I'm Jose Puertas from France Presse. I have very fine words about the solidarity and the unity in these efforts but, as you well know, there are different views in some countries regarding what the response to the terrorism is. For instance, Cuba is still in the State Department list of states that allegedly support or sponsors terrorism, and there's many countries individually that have good relations with Cuba. Some of them have very friendly relations with Cuba. Fidel Castro has just attended the inauguration of Lula in Brazil and Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador. And we know he's a very good friend of Hugo Chavez, who he visits frequently.

The question that my colleague wanted to pose, I guess, and that you sidestepped a little bit, I think, is: Does this kind of relation with Cuba represent in any way a threat to the security of the hemisphere?

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Well, I thought I answered the question adequately, but you're always asking follow-up questions, Jose. But that's fine. It gives me the opportunity to explain a little bit about that.

We stand by the judgments we make vis-à-vis Cuba. And my colleagues have made it very clear, as a matter of fact, that the Cuban Government has provided false leads to US officials who are busy trying to defend our country and defend our institutions and work with our neighbors around the world to confront this threat against terrorism and do not have the resources or the time to be sent on wild goose chases by the Cubans. Try to translate that into Spanish!

But the point is that Cuba has demonstrated that it is not interested in being a productive partner. The other countries that have relations, many of which we count as good friends, with Cuba, other countries that we have normal trade and political relationships with and that those countries do turn around and have relations with Cuba, that's their business.

We would hope that they would share with us our commitment to fight terrorism and encourage Cuba to do the same. We know that some of the countries who do normal commerce with Cuba also criticize Cuba for harboring terrorists from their countries and giving them safe harbor. So they -- the fact that they disaggregate those facts I don't think is an obstacle to our cooperating with these other countries, the third countries, to confront the threat of terrorism; that we stand by our judgment on Cuba, but have noted that countries that count themselves as commercial partners to a certain extent, and even friendly to Cuba, nevertheless have cooperated in very real ways with the United States to confront terrorism, and we count on that sort of support.

QUESTION: Thank you. Just to follow up --

MR. DENIG: And your name was?

QUESTION: Oh, okay. Excuse me. Sonia Schott, Globovision Venezuela. Just to follow up what my colleague said, how to expect solidarity and cooperation with countries like Venezuela who is facing now a deeply political crisis?

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Well, the political situation in Venezuela, the domestic political situation in Venezuela, doesn't necessarily preclude that country from cooperating with us against terrorism.

We have made very specific requests of the Venezuelan Government with respect to this sort of threat. I would rather not go into details on that, but it's something that we have dealt with in a realistic, tangible way with the Venezuelans directly. And we continue to expect a level of support from them in this global war on terrorism. It's something we expect of, really, all of our neighbors. And in a very real way, we see that sort of support at the OAS.

What CICTE is, I want to note, is a policy-coordinating body looking for best practices, coordinating training, sharing information. And it is a very productive body in that regard. And it's that sort of organization. It's not an operational organization. I would also add that we have, as do all countries, bilateral relations and bilateral agendas that we pursue with countries in the hemisphere, some of whom are more directly affected by the terrorism threat; for example, Colombia.

And we pursue these agendas with them on a bilateral basis, as well. And you can rest assured that the terrorism issue is one that we raise with many countries in the region in a bilateral way, as well as cooperating through the OAS and through CICTE.

MR. DENIG: I will take the lady back there.

QUESTION: Me?

MR. DENIG: Yes.

QUESTION: Maria Ellena Matteus, El Universal-Venezuela. The US Government put together a list of international terrorist organizations and questions to be for the Ambassador of El Salvador. Ambassador Escobar, is this list shared by the hemisphere? Do you agree that the -- if the FARC and the ELN are terrorist organizations, for example?

AMBASSADOR ESCOBAR: Well, I think that question is better addressed to Ambassador Noriega because, as you mention, it's not a list by the OAS. At the OAS, we don't deal with lists. What we do is a collective, as Ambassador Noriega said, it's a collective body, an institutional organization that seeks common policies and common practices for all. And that is the most important benefit of working together to combat terrorism.

As Ambassador Black was saying, the counterterrorism efforts cannot be carried out by one country only. This must go through the collective approach and the cooperation approach. And that's what we do at CICTE, precisely that.

QUESTION: Don't you need to -- don't you think that it's a good idea to start by identifying what you are fighting against? And then I would transfer my question to Ambassador Noriega.

AMBASSADOR ESCOBAR: I cannot answer that question because I cannot speak on behalf of the 34 countries. And that's why I'm insisting that they way work is with common policy and common ways to address and tackle, in essence, and combat terrorism.

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: The list that we produce is a list that the United States uses for its purposes under our law. We don't expect, and I would hazard to say we don't even really want, other countries to involve themselves into our generating that list. That is a judgment that we make under our law based on our criteria, based on information that's available to us, singularly. So the list is a US list.

But Ambassador Escobar is exactly right. The OAS task is to respond in practical ways to confront how these criminal bands of various kinds, some of which may have been identified on a list and some that may still be nascent and emergent, to interrupt the way they do business, to cut off their financing.

We did produce an Inter-American Convention against Terrorism. We did not go about defining what terrorism was because this would be an extraordinarily complicated task for a lot of reasons. But what we did instead was work to mobilize against the way the terrorists do business. And you look the UN conventions, for example, that don't say that this is terrorism and that this is -- or that this is what terrorism is and this is against the law.

Instead, what it does is, in a practical way -- these UN conventions and the OAS convention -- is say these are activities and methods and practices of terrorist organizations, typically, and we're confronting them. They're prohibited and we move to apply the rule of law to sanction them.

So it isn't necessarily the case that we have to define terrorism or say, you know, name an organization as terrorist organization to confront it. If you go about making it tough for people to do business in a clandestine way, if you organize yourself to look at -- to avoid money laundering, which is sometimes supporting terrorist organizations and sometimes supporting drug organizations and sometimes those groups are involved in both of those things.

So the way is we go at it practically to make this sort of clandestine activity harder and harder, and that's what our policies are seeking to do.

MR. DENIG: The lady in the middle here.

QUESTION: Hi, yes. I'm Maria Pena from EFE News Services. I have a two-part question for any of you. You've been talking about your objectives in sort of general terms. You know, we know that, you know, most of the countries in this hemisphere are committed to fighting terrorism both in their countries and abroad. But what do we expect concretely from that meeting in El Salvador? Are you expecting major announcements? A new task group? Any concrete results from that meeting? That's my number one question.

And then the other part to it is, when you talk about fighting terrorism, you have to have a starting point from which to work on. If, for instance, you were just saying that that's just a US list and that no other country should be either supporting it or doing something with it, but you do have to have a starting point. You do need to identify countries like in Colombia where you have, you know, President Bush has linked those organizations to drug trafficking, as a source of funding for terrorism. So you must have a starting point, and I was wondering if you could address that a little bit more, you know, accurately in that respect.

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Jump in if you want.

AMBASSADOR BLACK: Let me try and answer your question for you. I will speak to you from the counterterrorism standpoint. I will also blend in, perhaps, an answer to one of the other questions.

We have to remember that we're looking for commonality -- those factors that we do have in common that we share. What we do have in common is a regard and determination to defend the Americas from terrorism. There are aspects that we can share that enhance each individual country and enhance our position in the hemisphere and together; that is, the provision of training, identification of what type of training would be the most useful in the counterterrorism sense, what would be the best way to interrupt financial terrorist links from the Americas to countries in other regions of the world.

CICTE is a vehicle such as the OAS is a vehicle. It's a vehicle of commonality. It is a way to come together in a collective sense so that we can identify the needs and we can try to fill them in a prioritized fashion. Each country can look to its own definitions of terrorism, as well as to its own domestic rank-ordering prioritization of the terrorist threat. What we are attempting to do here is to give the communications, to give the wherewithal so that the services and the countries in the hemisphere can communicate effectively, can share lessons learned, can interact in a effective way.

From the American standpoint, I fully expect that the Commissioner would be looking to devote additional resources to this medium. It is an entry point. The way we would envision it would be an entry point so that we can assist our partners looking at the terrorist problem in the hemisphere sense.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Arshad Mohammed for Reuters

QUESTION: The object is for --

QUESTION: (Inaudible) that we can expect (inaudible)?

AMBASSADOR ESCOBAR: Well, I think you're right on the issue of you must have a starting point and it's very clear where we are. Our starting point is our commitment to combat terrorism in a collective manner by means of sharing of information, traveling documents that can not easily be duplicated, and stopping the free movement of terrorists in our hemisphere.

Then we can look at issues of detecting of financial transactions that these criminal organizations might use to help, or to foster, or whatever, terrorist activities; to be organized, to respond within our own constitutional frameworks and according to the rule of law, and according to international standards to be able to respond in a coherent and cooperative manner to combat these terrorists wherever they are or whatever their origin.

And that's not a simple thing to do, as you can imagine. It involves people coming from intelligence agencies, it involves other international institutions, it involves the banks, the banking and financing systems of the country. So that in itself is not only a good start, but is, if you think about it, so much in concrete results that we're dealing with and that we expect to strengthen in San Salvador.

It's not going to start in San Salvador. It has already begun within the framework of the OAS. We just want to follow up as to where we are and what more needs to be done. This is a long-term -- this is not an issue that you can count and number it "one, two and three." Some of the things aren't tangible. Some of these things will require more training and expertise. But the important thing is that we must be -- and we are working to be -- ready institutionally and in the Inter-American system to prevent these acts from happening, as well as drug trafficking that so much damage causes to our societies, or money laundering that so much damage also causes to all of us.

So all of these things are the kinds of particular objective that we are following, and they are very complex.

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Sure. I just wanted to emphasize -- you'll be able to look at the documents and our work plan that CICTE has developed and you'll see that we've focused on concrete methods of confronting people moving across the borders that we aren't aware of; making sure that governments are applying appropriate, rigorous standards on producing travel documents; that they are cooperating in a practical way on the movement of commerce across our borders so that you can find specific ways to identify, sort of, safe sorts of cargo, but go after the high risk shipments and that sort of thing; sharing of information, training personnel to do the work. We have a program of training airport security in the Caribbean, for example, that the US is funding in practical ways, looking at how each of these countries go about applying the rule of law. What I mean by that is having rigorous standards for who's doing business in their countries, who is moving across borders, what sort of financial transactions are going on and are they structured in a way that is apparently designed to evade detection.

And these are technical, complicated things. So when we talk about the solidarity and the commitment, it isn't that we haven't gotten down to the nitty-gritty. In point of fact, we have. But that commitment, the political commitment is essential if you're going to have people adopt the right policies and then have these governments put the financial resources behind them. And that requires political will. And it requires the normal dialogue, the routine dialogue that we all have, so that we can hold one another accountable, frankly, and to do those practical, nitty-gritty things that are needed to ferret out illicit activity: terrorism, drugs, other criminal activities.

MR. DENIG: Okay. We have just a few more minutes. We'll take the gentleman back there.

QUESTION: You mentioned strengthening the Secretariat. I was wondering exactly what you mean by that. Does the Secretariat have its own budget? I mean, the OAS budget is extremely tight, so are you going to increase the budget? What specific measures are you planning to discuss or take in San Salvador to strengthen the Secretariat so that it can do some of these very ambitious things that you are talking about? That's the first question.

The second question, just -- I was wondering, following up on the idea of Venezuela collaborating on this war on terrorism that Ambassador Noriega mentioned. You mentioned that you have made very specific requests to Venezuela. I understand you can't be more specific. But did you get adequate response or did you get the kind of false leads that Cuba has been giving you?

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Well, without getting too much into that diplomatic exchange on the second question, it's something that we're going to continue to work on with Venezuela. But I don't want to characterize it beyond that. I don't think it would be healthy to do that.

With respect to the Secretariat, it's a rather small operation which we're comfortable with at this point, but it's going to have to ramp up. We are talking about additional personnel to a certain extent, additional resources. And there will be an announcement, I hope not just from us but from other countries, about the financial commitment. Governments like El Salvador and Uruguay have actually assigned full-time personnel there to work and animate that organization.

We're not looking for some top-heavy operational activity in the Secretariat, but we have very professional leadership there, and Steve Monblatt, who used to be the Deputy Counterterrorism Coordinator for the US State Department, is the head of the Secretariat and is organizing a team and identifying his needs. And one of the things that we will be pressing for is that more countries make some specific financial contributions so that the CICTE will have sufficient resources.

At this point, frankly, the CICTE, as my understanding, has sufficient resources to carry out its current work plan. But that's going to have to ramp up, both the resources as the workload increases, and I think there's a political will to do that.

QUESTION: The budget?

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: I don't exactly know what the budget is.

STEVE MONBLATT: For this year it's a hair under $400,000.

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: So just $400,000 now, but that doesn't count the personnel that are assigned full time from a couple of countries, including the United States, and there will be significant additional contributions announced.

QUESTION: Do you know how much?

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Well, I think we have to save a little something for them to say in El Salvador. (Laughter.)

MR. DENIG: This is our last question. The lady here.

QUESTION: My name is Maria Luisa Rossel, Peru. I wonder what's the perception of the CICTE regarding the last decision of the Peruvian Government to change some antiterrorist laws that were established during the former president, former President Fujimori in 1992? Some people believe that this will open or this will give an opportunity to prisoners, terrorists that are in jail, about around 800, to claim for new trials.

I don't know if you are aware of this and if you will discuss this in the next meeting in El Salvador. Thank you. And this is for Ambassador Noriega.

AMBASSADOR NORIEGA: Oh. Well, I was -- you were doing so well until the end. (Laughter.) I was looking over this way. Yeah, I know. I shouldn't have looked. I -- the head faked it.

This is something, of course, we're well aware of, but the answer's rather simple to the question you asked, which is that CICTE has not focused on that, really. I think the consensus among the member-states is that CICTE should remain, more or less, a technical body of experts on that level. And that's why our representative to the CICTE meeting isn't Secretary Powell, or for that matter, Ambassador Black, but it's Commissioner Bonner, because that's what they are going to be focusing on at that meeting, although he's more than just a technical fellow -- I don't mean to diminish him in any way -- but to have a practical focus for CICTE as a body, somewhat along the lines of where CICAD, the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission, is.

It's a technical body that will look at cooperation at that level, not at a political level. There are organizations within the Inter-American system that could address that issue: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights may be hearing from someone; the Inter-American Court or whatever others have been involved in those kinds of political issues. But we think those issues are better off addressed in the political bodies, if at all, because they are essentially internal issues.

MR. DENIG: Thank you very much, Ambassadors. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.