From right-wing NY SunIn Mexico City, Few Cheers for Giuliani
April 11, 2005
MEXICO CITY - When this crime-ridden capital city announced it was bringing in Mayor Giuliani and his private consulting firm to advise its police, it was big news not only in New York and Mexico but all over the world. "Giuliani to the rescue" was the headline in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Followed by legions of cameras, Mr. Giuliani spent a day-and-a-half in January 2003 touring Mexico City's danger and tourist zones, protected by a motorcade of a dozen bulletproof sport utility vehicles, 400 officers, and a helicopter. "He was mobbed and cheered and was a tremendous hero," Michael Hess, a top Giuliani aide, told The New York Sun.
Two years later, the cheering has stopped. In January 2005, Mexico City's new police chief, Joel Ortega, told local reporters, "I am no fan of Giuliani." Far from the 67% drop in homicides achieved during Mr. Giuliani's mayoralty in New York, which was touted in a Giuliani Partners press release announcing its Mexico City contract, the homicide rate in Mexico's capital slipped less than 1% in 2004. Kidnappings in which the victim is driven from ATM to ATM to withdraw money are on the rise, with some security firms saying Mexico is now rivaling Colombia as kidnapping capital of the world.
The Giuliani team ended up being paid less than the $4.3 million that was widely reported as the price for the work, and it was not hired for a follow-up project to implement its recommendations. In interviews with the Sun, several former Mexican police officials and current officers were sharply critical of the Giuliani effort, though Mr. Hess said he considers the project "very successful."
(snip)
"We weren't necessarily in the same symphony," said Monica Rojas, who worked closely on the project as the deputy director of the statistics department of the Mexico City police department. "Each side had a different interest," she said, speaking by telephone in Spanish from Barcelona, Spain, where she now lives. "The ideas and the concepts they conveyed to us, but they never explained how to achieve them."
"They were not prepared, not at all," said another former Mexico City police official who worked closely with the Giuliani team, Antonio Rendon. "They weren't consultants, they were retired policemen. And they were trying to organize another police force, but not with a methodology or a clear idea."
Mr. Rendon, who is now director of Mexico operations for Kroll, a private security company, said that late payments from the Mexicans to the Giuliani group exacerbated problems. "The relationship started to become a bit tense," he said. "They were not really looking forward, it was, 'where's the money?'"
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http://www2.nysun.com/article/11973
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