ADVANCING OUR COMMON SECURITY AT THE SANTIAGO SUMMIT

THE WHITE HOUSE
OFFICE OF THE PRESS SECRETARY
SANTIAGO, CHILE
For immediate release
April 18, 1998
FACT SHEET

The Summit leaders at the Santiago Summit discussed the importance of strengthening their partnership to combat the new transnational threats to security facing the region including such as the production, and distribution, and abuse of narcotics, illegal arms trafficking andthe breakdown of the rule of law and arms trafficking terrorism. To combat these threats and to strengthen the hemisphere’s common security, the leaders agreed to the following:

Narcotics

• The Summit leaders launched a Multilateral Counter drug Alliance to better organize and coordinate efforts in the hemisphere to stem the production and distribution of drugs. The The comprehensive counter narcotics strategy pursued by the United States has yielded impressive results throughout the hemisphere. The Summit of the Americas builds on those successes by defining a new hemispheric alliance against drugs. A centerpiece of this alliance will be a mechanism to mutual evaluation mechanisms each member country’s progress in achieving their agreed counter narcotics goals negotiations for which will begin next month in Washington. that OAS members will begin to negotiate in detail beginning in early May 1998, under the auspices of the OAS Inter-American Anti-Drug Commission (CICAD). The Summit leaders also agreed to:

1. Increase cooperation in areas such as the collection and analysis of data, standardization of systems that measure illicit consumption;

2. Encourage the developments of campaigns to foster greater social awareness of the dangers of drug abuse for individuals, the family and society as well as community participation plans;

3. Improve and update cooperative mechanisms to prosecute and extradite individuals charged with the traffic in narcotics and other related crimes;

4. Establish or strengthen existing, duly trained specialized units responsible for requesting, analyzing and exchanging information on money laundering and assets used in criminal activity;

5. Reinforce international and national control mechanisms to impede the illicit traffic and diversion of chemical precursors;

6. Continue to develop their national and multilateral efforts in order to achieve full application of the Hemispheric Anti-Drug Strategy;

7. Enhance their national policies to prevent illicit drug consumption at the community level, in schools and by the most vulnerable groups, such as children and young people;

8. Develop appropriate treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration programs with a view to alleviating the social effects, human suffering and other adverse effects associated with drug abuse;

9. Eliminate illicit crops through the increased support of national alternative development programs as well as eradication and interdiction.

• Illegal traffic in firearms and explosives also poses a common threat to the hemisphere's public safety and democratic institutions. To meet this threat, the Summit leaders called for the rapid ratification and entry into force of the Inter-American Convention to Combat the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition Explosives and Related material which President Clinton will send to the Senate for ratification upon his return. This Convention will help ensure effective international cooperation to prevent and combat illicit transnational traffic in firearms and ammunition, while establishing or strengthening systems to enhance the tracing of firearms used in criminal activity. The US will complete implementation within 60 days of the OAS model regulations on commercial arms transfers.

• To prevent, combat and eliminate the common threat of terrorism, the Summit leaders agreed to encourage states that have not yet done so to sign, ratify or accede to, the international conventions related to terrorism and convene, under the auspices of the OAS, the Second Specialized Inter-American Conference to evaluate the progress attained and to define future courses of action for the prevention, combat and elimination of terrorism.

Building Confidence and Security Among States

• To continue to promote regional dialogue, transparency in arms transfers and defense policy and mutual confidence, the Summit leaders charged the OAS to follow up on and expand topics relating to confidence and security building measures with the goal of a Special Conference on Security within the framework of the OAS to be held, at the latest, at the beginning of the next decade.