U.S. Drug Czar to Tour Chiapas


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U.S. Drug Czar Tours Mexico Anti-Drug Efforts

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. anti-drug czar Barry McCaffrey arrived in
Mexico Tuesday for a two-day tour of anti-narcotics efforts and talks to
improve "an imperfect but growing cooperation" between the two countries.

McCaffrey told reporters he was due to visit southern Mexico, where the
Mexican government has concentrated its drug interdiction efforts in an
operation to seal off its borders, seas and airspace to Colombian cocaine.

"The drug issue continues to be a major area of partnership between these
two great nations," McCaffrey said on arrival at Mexico City's airport.
"It's an issue that brings enormous suffering to the people of these
nations."

The White House drug czar's visit came just weeks before President Bill
Clinton is due to decide which countries are cooperating in the fight
against drugs, in a controversial process called "certification."

Some two-thirds of the cocaine consumed in the United States passes
through Mexico and its drug cartels are considered by U.S. law enforcement
officials to be more powerful now than the Colombian mob was in its
heyday.

While Mexico has never been decertified, a measure that could result in
sanctions, the process is usually accompanied by a fierce debate in the
U.S. Congress about high-level corruption in the United State's southern
neighbor, with which it shares a 2,100-mile border.

But McCaffrey said he was not in Mexico to discuss certification. "That's
the responsibility of the U.S. Secretary of State," he said. "I'm here to
continue working on cooperation."

He said he would be holding talks with Mexican officials Wednesday,
including Attorney General Jorge Madrazo, Foreign Minister Rosario Green
and the ministers of defense, health and the interior.

He added he would Thursday tour the southern states of Guerrero and
Chiapas and the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, where the Mexico's
Attorney General's Office (PGR) and the Mexican Army and Navy have
concentrated efforts to stop the entry of drugs.

"Operation Sealing Off" now involves a total of 20,291 police, PGR agents,
and Navy and Army personnel, Madrazo said recently in presenting Mexico's
plans for narcotics fighting during 2000.

The operation is mainly concentrated on the southern border with Guatemala
and the Yucatan peninsula, which in recent years has become a major
landing point for Colombian cocaine.

Mario Villanueva, a former governor of Quintana Roo on the eastern edge of
the peninsula, is currently in hiding after being accused by the PGR of
working for a drug cartel.

McCaffrey said corruption was a "huge problem" on both sides of the
border. "There is no question in my own mind that the most menacing aspect
of the international drug cartels is corruption," he said.

The operation also focuses on the Sea of Cortez, a strip of water between
the Baja California peninsula and the coast of Sinaloa and Sonora states.
In 1999, it was extended to cover the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Both the United States and Mexico hold presidential elections this year
and McCaffrey said a major responsibility of both incumbent
administrations would be to pass on to their successors an effective
partnership in the fight against drug trafficking.

There will be no time out for the next two governments," he said.

Copyright 1999 Reuters.

 
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