MEXICO IS A WORLD `HEADQUARTERS' FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS

U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow has always been a straight shooter, and he
was telling the truth when he characterized Mexico as a "world headquarters
of drug trafficking."

But it was not a very diplomatic thing to say, and the timing was bad,
coming just as President Clinton is about to certify Mexico as a cooperative
partner in the war on drugs.

"The fact is that the world headquarters of drug trafficking is in Mexico.
And that's the truth. Just as the headquarters, the control center, of the
Mafia is in Sicily," Davidow told Mexican alumni of the University of
Southern California.

Davidow added that Colombians, Dominicans and Russians also were involved in
the drug trade. And he was quick to point out that cooperation between U.S.
and Mexican law enforcement agencies had "greatly increased."

But this did not mollify outraged Mexican officials who demanded that he be
rebuked for "insulting the dignity" of his host country.

In his defense, Davidow did not say anything not already said by the State
Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and various members of
Congress.

In fact, the very day he said it, two of our most influential lawmakers in
the foreign policy sphere were complaining of "no major progress in
uprooting the drug cartels that do business with virtual impunity in
Mexico."

House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y.,
and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., sent a
letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright saying Mexico's anti-drug
efforts were hamstrung by astonishing inefficiency and rampant corruption.

It's not that Mexico doesn't cooperate with U.S. law enforcement. President
Ernesto Zedillo has doubled his drug-fighting budget for 2000 and has taken
considerable political heat for allowing U.S. agents to violate Mexican
sovereignty by staging raids south of the border.

But Zedillo's predecessors were tainted by drug scandals, and those at the
forefront of Mexico's drug war keep getting busted for links to traffickers.

Five years ago, when Carlos Salinas was president, his brother Raul was
accused of taking millions of dollars in kickbacks from drug cartels.

Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu was general secretary of the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party while his brother Mario was raking in
bribes from traffickers.

Carlos Salinas now lives in exile in Miami. His brother, Raul, is serving
what amounts to life in prison for plotting the murder of former
brother-in-law Massieu. And Massieu's brother committed suicide in New
Jersey while under house arrest for allegedly laundering drug money.

Just last week, unidentified gunmen shot and killed the chief of police in
Mexico's northern border city of Tijuana. His murder is presumed to be
drug-related.

And the former governor of the state of Quintana Roo, on the lam for 10
months, threatens to expose a wider web of corruption if he is brought to
trial on charges of helping drug smugglers.

In a report to Congress last year, now-retired DEA chief Thomas Constantine
said "little effective law enforcement" had allowed Mexico's drug cartels to
flourish. And leaks by corrupt Mexican cops not only jeopardized joint
investigations but also the lives of U.S. agents.

The State Department's 1999 report on drug trafficking says,
"Well-entrenched organizations based in Mexico have built vast criminal
empires that produce illicit drugs, smuggle hundreds of tons of South
American cocaine and operate drug distribution networks across the
continental United States."

The DEA says two-thirds of Colombia's cocaine now reaches the United States
though Mexico. It also is a major producer of heroin, marijuana and
methamphetamines.

Mexico's human rights record is equally egregious. In the words of U.N.
rapporteur Asma Jahangir, "Urgent preventive steps must be taken to protect
the security and lives of innocent civilians who suffer at the hands of the
police, the armed forces, the paramilitary and armed opposition groups."

But Mexico has never been "decertified," meaning a loss of U.S. loans and
trade. When it comes to the second largest market for U.S. goods after
Canada, our concerns about drugs and human rights cannot interfere with
commerce.