MEXICAN WAR ON DRUGS MAY CATCH BREAK

Clinton Backing Expected Even Amid DEA Criticism

WASHINGTON - Mexico this year is expected to avoid a repeat of fractious
congressional debates over its counter-drug efforts, despite a critical
assessment of Mexico's progress by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Congress has wearied of the on emergency funding for Colombia,
congressional officials say.

Mexico is expected to win President Clinton's.

But the DEA, in a recent analysis obtained by The Dallas Morning News ,
complained that Mexico made little or no progress last year on about a
half-dozen areas of contention.

Mexico's government fumbled efforts to cleanse its police of corruption,
refused to guarantee the safety of U.S. agents working in Mexico and
complicated U.S. efforts to block traffickers by air and by sea, according
to the secret DEA review.

Mexico also has failed to capture leading drug kingpins and appears
uncooperative on some extradition matters, the DEA document said.

"To date, no major Mexican drug traffickers have been extradited to the
U.S.," the review said.

White House officials, however, say greater cooperation with Mexico has led
to increased drug seizures along the Southwest border, on the high seas and
in Mexico itself.

Mexico recently announced it was more than doubling its counter-drug budget
to about $450 million a year, with much of it dedicated to an interdiction
effort along the country's southern border.

Mexico's efforts are starting to pay off, White House drug czar Barry
McCaffrey said.

"The traffickers are starting to respond, . . . moving into the Caribbean,"
he said.

Mexico remains the main route for cocaine entering the United States, U.S.
analysts say. About 55 percent of the cocaine bound for the United States
in the first half of 1999 passed through or near Mexico, according to a new
analysis by the National Drug Intelligence Center, a Justice Department
agency.

That's down from 59 percent in 1998. Traffickers increasingly turned to the
Caribbean, the route for about 42 percent of U.S.-bound cocaine, the
intelligence center said.

Administration officials say their concern has focused increasingly on
Haiti's growing role in the drug trade.

"It looks to me as if the Haitian law enforcement, judicial system,
political system, in terms of confronting the drug cartels, is in a state
of rapid collapse," Mr. McCaffrey said.

Still, DEA officials and congressional allies want to keep the heat on
Mexico.

House Discussion

Led by one of Mexico's harshest critics, Republican John Mica of Florida, a
House panel is scheduled to study Mexico's performance at a hearing
scheduled for Tuesday.

Among other issues, the panel will discuss the slaying Sunday of Tijuana's
police chief and recent death threats reportedly issued by Mexican
traffickers against U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Two other congressional critics of Mexico also recently called on the
administration to rebuke Mexico.

"There has been no major progress in uprooting the drug cartels that do
business with virtual impunity in Mexico," said a letter signed by Sen.
Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y. Both are influential
leaders on foreign affairs.

Even a Clinton administration official startled the Mexican government with
tough commentary last week. Jeffrey Davidow, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico,
with what Sicily has been for the Mafia.

He later backed off, saying that Mexico was just one center of narcotics
trade.

Despite the tough talk, congressional aides The House even voted in 1997 to
overturn Mr. Clinton's decision to endorse Mexico's work against
traffickers.

Besides a blow to international standing, loss of certification also bars
some foreign aid, although Mexico receives little U.S. money.

Attention Turned

This year, however, Congress is focused on a White House proposal to spend
$1.6 billion on battling traffickers in South America, where the cocaine
trade originates. Administration officials hope Congress will approve
emergency aid for Colombia by April.

"Colombia is really sucking the energy out of the congressional agenda,"
said Eric Farnsworth, a former White House policy-maker on Latin America.

Focus could shift if Mexico suffers another major embarrassment, such as
the 1997 arrest of its drug czar on corruption charges. That incident
helped stoke heated debate in Congress for several years.

Congressional debate faded last March. Key lawmakers instead passed a bill
that targeted the assets of drug kingpins.

One Republican leader recently mused that the issue of certifying Mexico
hadn't even arisen in planning for this year's session.

"It's curious . . . because in recent years we've had some controversy
about Mexico," said House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Irving.

Even the DEA, under acting Administrator Donnie Marshall, appears less
confrontational in its dealings with Mexico, some congressional aides say.

The DEA has spotlighted Mexico's growing role in the drug trade, partly
because of the agency's lead role in fighting traffickers - and partly
because of bad blood between the DEA and its Mexican counterparts.
Relations between the DEA and Mexico never recovered from the torture and
death of a DEA agent in the mid-1980s at the hand of Mexican traffickers
and reportedly with the complicity of government officials.

Within the administration, former DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine was
an outspoken critic of Mexico

Some Positive Signs

The recent DEA assessment, meanwhile, acknowledges that cooperation from
the Mexican Navy led to the seizure of 28 metric tons of cocaine in the
Pacific last year.

Mexico in 1999 also sent the first of its citizens to the United States for
trial on narcotics charges, the DEA said.

But the agency said Mexico put undue restrictions on U.S. agents wanting to
search Mexican vessels. Mexico also appeared to be manipulating the
extradition process to keep suspects in its courts, the agency said.

Mexico has reorganized its federal police forces, firing more than 1,400 of
its 3,500 officers since 1997, the DEA reported. But many of the accused
officers have been rehired in other police jobs, the agency noted.

The agency again leveled some of its sharpest criticism at Mexico's refusal
to explicitly allow U.S. agents to carry guns in Mexico.

Most DEA agents have limited diplomatic immunity from prosecution in
Mexico. But Mexico's government has refused to say publicly that DEA agents
may carry guns.