U.S. CERTIFIES MEXICO AS DRUG WAR ALLY

Colombia also gets nod, showing priority on keeping relations

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton Friday certified Mexico and Colombia as
fully cooperative allies in fighting illegal drugs, even though most hard
drugs flooding the United States come from those countries.

The president's declaration illustrates the extent to which Washington's
paramount interests, from regional stability to trade, influence its annual
assessment of the drug threat posed by foreign countries.

Congress, which has 30 days to overturn the ruling, has never rejected a
presidential certification.

On Capitol Hill, two senators who led a failed attempt last year to
overturn Mexico's certification dropped their opposition, and the House
speaker, Dennis Hastert, signaled that he was not seeking a fight with the
administration over the issue.

The senators, Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., and Dianne Feinstein, D- Calif., were
muted compared with their demeanor last year.

They joined six Republicans in sending a letter Friday to Clinton urging
the White House to incorporate new standards for evaluating Mexico's
cooperation, including prosecution of the leaders of smuggling operations
and extradition of traffickers wanted in the United States.

"The government of Mexico has taken steps to improve its law enforcement
cooperation," the letter said. "But far more, we believe, needs to be done."

Senate aides said there was little chance that opponents of certification
could muster a majority to reverse Clinton's decision, much less a
two-thirds vote to override a presidential veto of any reversal.

Sens. Feinstein and Coverdell had other reasons for avoiding a fight over
drug policy. Feinstein, her aides say, does not believe that a divisive
floor battle would be fruitful. Coverdell is the chairman of a U.S.-Mexico
legislative conference in Atlanta this spring and does not want to anger
participating Mexicans.

The administration's decision is likely to run into sharper opposition in
the House, where Rep. John L. Mica, R-Fla., is to hold hearings next week.

"I'm hearing more and more members of Congress express dismay about
Mexico's performance," said Mica, who predicted that the administration was
"in for a very rough time on Capitol Hill."

"The situation has gotten worse rather than better," Mica said. "I'm really
concerned (the Mexicans) may be on the verge of losing control of their
country. You could have the creation of another narco-terrorist state. When
it's along our border, you have a very serious problem."

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., an ally of the White House,
said he will oppose Clinton's decision. "The law requires that we
objectively assess what the Mexican government has done over the past year,
not put our hopes in what progress may come in the future," he said.

But Clinton pledged unstinting support for Mexican President Ernesto
Zedillo's efforts to crack down on the drug trade.

"As I certify to Congress today, Mexico is cooperating with us in the
battle for our lives," Clinton said in a speech in San Francisco, "and I
believe the American people will be safer in this, as in so many other
ways, if we fight drugs with Mexico rather than walk away."

Of 28 countries evaluated in the drug scorecard this year, the only ones
Clinton chose to punish with economic sanctions were Myanmar and
Afghanistan, which together supply 90 percent of the world's opium.

Certification has become an annual, angst-ridden rite since Congress
enacted a law in 1986 requiring the president to evaluate the level of
counter-narcotics cooperation of countries deemed to be major producers or
transit points for the lucrative worldwide drug trade.

In theory, decertification disqualifies a country from receiving American
economic aid or multilateral development loans. But Washington already has
frosty relations with Afghanistan and Myanmar and provides no direct aid.

Four other countries -- Cambodia, Haiti, Nigeria and Paraguay -- were
judged not to have done enough to staunch the flow of drugs smuggled
through their territory. But sanctions against all of them were waived in
the U.S. national interest, largely because of their political and economic
fragility in moving toward democratic rule.

Although Haiti is a significant shipment point for cocaine and other drugs
smuggled into the United States, the State Department said the sanctions
mandated by decertification would mean eliminating American programs
propping up the battered Haitian economy.

Twenty-two other countries identified with drug production or trafficking
were certified by Washington on the grounds that their governments were
grappling with the problem.

They include Pakistan, which reduced opium cultivation by 26 percent last
year, and Peru and Bolivia, where cultivation of coca leaf, the raw
ingredient for cocaine, fell 26 percent and 17 percent respectively.

Mexico remains the primary transport route for Colombian cocaine smuggled
into the United States, as well as a major source of heroin, marijuana and
methamphetamine and a center for laundering drug money, the State
Department said.