BUILDING TRUST WITH MEXICO

In Mexico City yesterday John Ashcroft announced
he had recently learned that "the border is a line that unites us."
Although this is his first visit to Mexico as attorney general of the
United States, he will be pursuing a remarkable bilateral dialogue
that began early in the terms of President Bush and Mexico's new
president, Vicente Fox.

When Mr. Fox and Mr. Bush met in Mexico last February, Mr. Fox placed
the status of three million Mexican immigrants, working illegally in
the United States, squarely on the table. In April, Mr. Ashcroft and
Secretary of State Colin Powell met in Washington with Mexico's
interior minister, Santiago Creel, and foreign minister, Jorge
Castaneda, and talked at length about the same subject.

Two weeks later, Mr. Ashcroft spoke with Adolfo Aguilar Zinser,
Mexico's special adviser to the president on national security, and a
team from the office of Mexico's attorney general about cross-border
trafficking in narcotics and arms and other forms of organized crime.

What was unprecedented about these exchanges was the degree to which
cooperation seemed a real possibility rather than a diplomatic phrase
employed to mask perennial differences in perennially touchy bilateral
relations. For Mexicans, the question was framed in another way: Would
the Americans actually trust our government enough to cooperate openly
and fairly? And, the good start between the governments
notwithstanding, what Mr. Ashcroft will see during his stay will be
mixed: good reasons to grant that trust and many reasons to withhold
it.

Interestingly, after a five-month honeymoon with our first government
in 70 years that is not dominated by the longtime ruling party, we
Mexicans share with the United States the same question about our
elected officials: to trust or not to trust.

Facing this question is, oddly enough, progress. For years, the answer
was all too clear. Indeed, our national security adviser, Mr. Aguilar
Zinser, put it unequivocally: "If I belonged to the F.B.I., I would
not trust the Mexican police." His candor is one of the reasons to
trust him and, in general, to trust the officers that came to power
with Vicente Fox on Dec. 1, 2000. They act in good faith, have nothing
to hide and are eager to obtain results.

In this respect the difference with Mexico's previous governments is
overwhelming. In the 70 years during which the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (if such a thing is possible), known as the PRI,
held virtually uncontested national power, each administration had to
hide the mistakes and corruption of its predecessor. It could hardly
afford to be trustworthy. Mr. Fox's government has in this respect cut
with the past, demonstrating to a nation one of the great advantages
of having different parties in power.

With candor comes another virtue that was seldom seen during the PRI
years: instead of blindly following the presidential gospel,
high-ranking officers are freer now to see the world as it really is.
They no longer feel that lying is the only way to keep a job or earn a
promotion, so they are willing to admit mistakes and acknowledge
limits that previously were denied. And, last but not least, they are
more than willing to change things and demonstrate results. They have
quickly absorbed the first democratic lesson: You cannot keep power by
doing nothing.

There are also reasons for doubt. One is inexperience. Mexico's new
leaders have surveyed the PRI's legacy and admit that Mexico and its
government have great defects, but they have yet to display the
necessary know-how to correct them.

Not knowing how to do something is not by itself a great problem. But
ignorance, or inexperience, becomes malignant when coupled with the
conviction that for every problem there is always a simple solution
demanding nothing more than common sense and good faith to achieve
results. As a candidate, Mr. Fox inspired voters with precisely this
hubris, telling them that he would need "15 minutes" to resolve the
simmering conflict in Chiapas and convince the Zapatista rebels to
rechannel their energies. He has had five months and a half, and peace
is not an inch nearer, thanks to an equally rebellious Mexican Congress.

The PRI's sad legacy, which propelled Mr. Fox to power, may yet
discredit his promises. In 70 years a complex and treacherous web of
interests developed. It is no simple task to tackle this, and Mr. Fox
does not have the men and women needed to do it. In a country that has
97 million people, you cannot make great changes by appointing 50 at
the highest level and leaving the rest untouched.

We Mexican citizens are wondering along with the United States. We
still don't know if trust is deserved, but we are slowly realizing the
obvious: There is no other option. This is the only government we
have, we chose it, and it must work. Perhaps John Ashcroft and the
rest of the Bush administration will eventually reach the same
conclusion: they have to trust Mr. Fox and his administration, because
that is the only way in which things can work at all.