OAS ANALYSIS HOLDS HOPE FOR DRUG POLICY

WASHINGTON - Western Hemisphere nations this week will judge their
strengths and weaknesses in fighting drugs under an Organization of
American States analysis that some hope eventually could ease a
source of tensions in U.S.-Mexican relations.

Thirty-four experts will report to an OAS commission the results of
the organization's first country-by-country drug study of the
Americas, known as the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism, or MEM.

Some U.S. and Latin American officials hope the MEM eventually will
replace the U.S. drug certification system, under which this country
annually judges other nations on their cooperation in fighting drugs.
Those seen as not doing enough can face sanctions.

That process has infuriated Mexico and other nations, who view it as
condescending, an assault on their sovereignty and hypocritical,
considering that the United States is the leading consumer of illegal
drugs.

"If the MEM gets the credibility that we think it will, it will
weaken the [need for] the unilateral certification," said Claude
Heller, the Mexican ambassador to the OAS.

Among the main U.S. advocates of MEM is Barry McCaffrey, head of the
White House drug policy office.

"It will become increasingly apparent to the most thoughtful policy
people in the administration of the hemisphere that our national
interests are better served by this evaluation mechanism than by the
former system of a series of binational confrontations," McCaffrey
said in an interview.

But the certification process cannot be changed without Congress'
approval, and some lawmakers are skeptical about the multilateral
system.

"I welcome any effort to make countries, including the United States,
take the need for a counter-drug policy seriously, but I'm concerned
about the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism because it looks like it
could be a gimmick to water down accountability, and nobody needs
that," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the
Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.

Rep. John L. Mica (R., Fla.) said certification was merely a form of
assuring that beneficiaries of U.S. financial support were helping
fight drugs.

"Would I let an international organization or another state decide
whether a country should get financial aid, trade benefits or
international assistance from the United States? When you think about
it, the idea is almost farcical. No way," said Mica, chairman of the
House Government Reform subcommittee on criminal justice, drug policy
and human resources.

Officially, the MEM system is unrelated to certification. At a 1998
summit, hemispheric leaders asked the OAS to create a system for
judging progress on a range of drug issues and to improve cooperation.

The OAS set up a panel of experts - one from each active member state
- - to examine data provided by the countries. Those experts have
prepared a draft report for each country, plus a hemispheric report,
that will be presented to the OAS's Inter-American Drug Abuse Control
Commission.

The commission will spend the coming week reviewing and possibly
modifying the reports. The hemispheric report probably will be
released Friday; individual country reports are not expected to be
released until January. All the reports will be submitted to
hemispheric leaders at their next summit April 20-22 in Quebec City,
Canada.

Alberto Scavarelli of Uruguay, who chairs the experts' panel, said
the MEM's importance was that it allowed countries to work together
to fight drugs in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

He said the United States would have to make up its own mind on the
usefulness of the MEM, but he hoped it eventually would render the
certification system unnecessary.