HELMS, GILMAN CALL MEXICO NON-COOPERATIVE ON DRUGS

WASHINGTON -- The chairmen of the House and Senate foreign relations
committees accused Mexico on Thursday of unsatisfactory cooperation
with U.S. counter-narcotics efforts and said relevant U.S. laws should
be applied against that country.

"The situation is Mexico continues to deteriorate rapidly," said House
International Relations Committee chairman Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y.,
and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C.

Gilman and Helms outlined their views to Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright in a letter sent less than a week before the State Department
is due to issue its annual report on the counter-narcotics performance
of drug transit and drug source countries.

The process involves an examination of 26 countries, and those found
not to be fully cooperative can be subject to economic penalties.

In the letter, Gilman and Helms do not specifically ask that Mexico be
"decertified" as non-cooperative but their respective spokesman said
both recommend that designation.

"The letter lays out the case for decertification," said Marc
Thiessen, a Helms' spokesman.

The two chairmen said the Clinton administration has "failed to apply
the law faithfully" against Mexico for many years.

"We respectfully call your attention to the following salient facts:
Mexico's counter-narcotics efforts are hamstrung by over-centralized
decision making, by astonishing inefficiency and by rank and file law
enforcement corruption," they said.

They added that there has been "no major progress in uprooting the
drug cartels that do business with virtual impunity in Mexico."

The State Department declined immediate comment but Albright signaled
a month ago that Mexico will be fully certified this year as it has
every year since Congress ordered annual reviews of drug problem
countries in 1986.

During a visit to Mexico on Jan. 16, Albright said U.S.-Mexican
cooperation on drug matters was at a "very good level."

"Our problems are not as much with each other as they are with those
who are trying to undermine what we are trying to do," she said.

A 1999 State Department report on drug trafficking patterns worldwide
said well-entrenched trafficking 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."

Last year, 28 countries were evaluated by the State Department as part
of the certification process. Most countries were fully certified and
a few were decertified but were spared economic penalties on national
security grounds.

Only Afghanistan and Burma were decertified without a national
security waiver. But economic penalties were not imposed against them
because both are already under comprehensive sanctions for reasons
unrelated to drug trafficking.