Bush Meets with Salvadoran, Honduran Presidents in New York
US State Department : Scott Miller : September 19th 2006

Link:
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=September&x=20060919131302ASrelliM0.4638483

Summary:
In President Bush’s recent visit to the UN, he held a meeting with Salvadoran President Tony Saca and Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Among the items discussed was El Salvador’s interest in cooperating with the US in combating transnational gangs, namely MS-13. President Bush is reported to have been very interested in increased cooperation and noted the problem threatens both the US, El Salvador, and the region as a whole.

Analysis:
I have commented on the need for increased cooperation between Central and North American States in the past. For example, as illegal aliens are detained entering the country, it is not all together clear to me, how we identify gang members. I know we have identified members because of their tattoos. What is not clear is how do we identify someone who may have no tattoos but was fingerprinted because of gang affiliation in El Salvador? Do the Salvadorans have an electronic finger print system that we can access? Otherwise, we would have no way of knowing a persons true identity and affiliations, unless they were foolish enough to tell the border patrol during questioning. I see cooperation between the U.S. and El Salvador helping with this problem in several key areas.
• Criminal intelligence sharing and criminal intelligence training, this could be a data base that captures data on known gang members in both the U.S. and El Salvador, and training on how and what information to capture.
• Biometrics, this would help in the identification process of gang members who may be using an alias and have no tattoos. I’m not sure how much biometrics are used in Salvador. However, given the relatively modest law enforcement budgets; I assume they don’t have it. We could help out by providing some level of IT and biometric support to their intelligence collection efforts. The information collected would then be shared with U.S. and regional authorities.
• Prison support, many of their prisons are virtually run by the gangs, and gangs continue to direct activity outside in the neighborhoods. The prisons in El Salvador, being the heart of the gang, could probably be better controlled by Salvadoran authorities. US expertise and resources could help in this area.
• Education program support, this targets youth to dissuade them from joining gangs, and goes to the roots of the problem. I know Salvadoran authorities recognize the usefulness of this and already have programs to do this. We could probably lend more resources to the effort.