SURVEY OF GERMAN LANGUAGE NEWSPAPERS

"GOOD MARKS FOR POOR PERFORMANCE; CLINTON PRAISES MEXICO FOR ITS
'PHANTOM-STRUGGLE' AGAINST DRUGS"

Under the above headline, The Swiss Tages Anzeiger
(http://www.tages-anzeiger.ch/) Washington correspondent Thomas Ruest
criticizes in remarkably blunt fashion the imminent decision to commend
Mexico for its efforts as 'off the mark', since 'it is a country through
which two thirds of Columbia's US-bound cocaine passes, and where tons of
heroin are produced for the US market.' In reality, he says, Mexico has
shown, according to US figures, a poorer performance in 1998 than in the
previous year: 'fewer drugs seized; no big fish caught, and fewer
prosecutions completed despite the peak level of drug industry
trafficking'. The Mexican authorities even failed to step in when 'Big
Brother CIA serves them up addresses of the Mexican Mafia on a silver
platter.' US sources name corruption - not lack of police personnel or
high-tech equipment - as the main reason for the failure to press
investigations.

Clinton ignored all that on Monday when he said Mexico "would not be
punished" for its poor results in the war on drugs. Even before his visit,
the government had clearly indicated that Mexico would be commended as a
'reliable partner' in the struggle. The opposite, the refusal to recognize
Mexico's 'good will', would have meant its decertification and led to a
Senate decision to impose far-reaching trade sanctions. 'Such a boycott
would have torpedoed the Nafta free trade agreement'. As Mexico's
ambassador Jesus Reyes Heroles warned, such an ambiguous exercise as
decertification could only 'disturb the balance of mutual relations'.

Thus it is that the Clinton administration makes a new and subtle
distinction between 'cooperation' in the war on drugs and 'success'. In
other words, the Clinton administration is ready to honor 'good will' even
where it is not supported by solid evidence. This ambiguity guts the annual
distribution of 'censures' in the war on drugs. The process, which
represents a kind of impeachment for states with a drug problem, proves to
be a blunted weapon in the struggle itself. For the judgment and the
associated sanctions tell us nothing about the success achieved in the war
on drugs, but are to be understood, rather, as a general political
affirmation of bilateral relations.

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