MEXICO'S DRUG WAR DRAWS IRE, PRAISE

Law Enforcement:While Clinton lauds the nation's efforts,frontline agents
are less sanguine,and other issues play indirect roles.

Mexico City-As U.S.drug czar Barry McCaffrey held a joint news
conference with Mexican officials a few months ago to praise Mexico's
efforts in the war on drugs, an American official in the audience winced.

The official is privy to U.S. intelligence on the drug war in Mexico
and he did not agree with McCaffrey's glowing assessment. "We're
getting our butts kicked," he said.

Every year by March 1, under a 1986 law, the president must certify to
Congress whether the 31 designated countries where illegal drugs are
produced or transported "fully cooperated" in the drug war the
previous year.

A failing grade could trigger a cutoff of U.S. aid and earn the
offending country a spot on the list of so-called pariah countries
like Afghanistan and Iran. The administration can, however, waive
economic sanctions if doing so is in the national interest.

The annual ritual is known as certification.

By most measures, 1998 was a dismal year in Mexican efforts to fight
drug trafficking. Seizures of cocaine, marijuana and heroin fell
appreciably, and drug arrests and investigations were down. No major
druglords were arrested.

Drug Enforcement Administrator Thomas Constantine told senators
Wednesday that Mexico is losing the drug war and that Mexican drug
traffickers' penetration of the U.S. has increased dramatically. He
did not say, however, that Mexico should be decertified.

Constantine and other U.S. officials say they are especially
frustrated by the government's failure to combat official corruption,
even within elite units specially trained or monitored by U.S. law
enforcement, the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

This month, drug and money-laundering charges against the Amezcua
brothers of Guadalajara, the alleged methamphetamine kingpins who were
nabbed by the Mexican police last year, were dismissed.

The Mexican government, meanwhile, recently balked at extraditing to
the United States suspects ensnared in a U.S.Customs money-laundering
investigation.

Mexico threatened to bring Customs agents to trial for conducting at
least part of the probe on Mexican soil, supposedly without the
knowledge of Mexican authorities. The government has since dropped its
threat.

Despite this record, the Clinton administration is expected to certify
Mexico as an ally in the drug war, prompting critics, including U.S.
drug agents, to question the effectiveness of the law.

"It's a sad story," said a former federal drug agent in the U.S. with
extensive knowledge of the drug war in Latin America. "And it doesn't
really matter what the facts are when you have taken and politicized
the whole situation."

Every year, certification comes under attack from critics, including
the Mexican government, as arrogant and hypocritical, given America's
appetite for illegal drugs. Every year, the process exposes the schism
between U.S. administration officials, who are among Mexico's biggest
cheerleaders, and frustrated U.S. drug agents, who fight the drug war
every day.

On the border, U.S. drug agents insist privately that certification is
a farce, with politics and economics influencing the decision far more
than a country's track record the previous year.

Independent Mexico watchers tend to agree.

George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in
Williamsburg, Va., echoed the sentiments of several analysts who argue
that implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement five
years ago rendered the certification process meaningless in regard to
Mexico. In the view of these analysts, Mexico became too important a
trade partner to be decertified by any U.S. administration.

Last year, mutual trade between the U.S. and Mexico increased 11
percent to nearly $175 billion, putting Mexico neck-and-neck with
Japan as America's second-largest trading partner.

"I think the president and his aides realize Mexico is no paragon of
virtue in the drug issue," said Grayson, a professor of government.
But, he added, "You would complicate bilateral relations if you
decertified. Better to keep more lines of communication open. You have
bigger fish to fry in Mexico, and the bigger fish lie in trade,
investment and the condition of the Mexican economy."

U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., a key player in certification, agreed
that "massive economic activity" complicates the process.

"On the one hand, you have data that says (Mexico has) not met the
stipulations of this law," Coverdell, chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said.

"And on the other hand you have a community that is, at the upper
levels, obviously endeavoring to struggle with this."

Coverdell said he saw no easy solution, because of the scope of the
drug problem. American officials estimate that two-thirds of the
Colombian cocaine sold in the United States comes through Mexico.

Mexico also is a major producer of marijuana heroin and
methamphetamines.

Last year, Mexico, according to official figures, spent $770 million on the
drug war. In fiscal 1997, according to the Washington Office on Latin
America, the State and Defense departments spent about $83 million on
counternarcotics efforts in Mexico.