Announcer: This is WASHINGTON WEEK IN REVIEW, for Friday, June 12th, 1998.

Now here's moderator, Ken Bode.

BODE: Good evening and welcome to WASHINGTON WEEK.

Kosovo is on everybody's radar screen this week. Kosovo where we see
weapons are plentiful, where they're cheap and where they're in use. And
where the major powers face some very big decisions. Also on the
international scene, the first United Nations conference in nearly a decade
dealing with drugs and what should we focus on: cutting supply or reducing
demand.



Those stories tonight on WASHINGTON WEEK and with me to talk about them are
the reporters and columnists who cover them: Gloria Borger, from US News
and CBS News; Tom Gjelten from National Public Radio; Alan Murray of The
Wall Street Journal; Gwen Ifill of NBC News; and from Rome, back home for
where she--where she covered the war zone around Kosovo, Sylvia Poggioli of
National Public Radio.



Analysis: United Nations' international conference on drugs

KEN BODE, host: All right. Tom Gjelten, the United Nations' international
conference on drugs. Lots of ideas but very little agreement. We do this
about once every decade and it's curious to me that you come together that...

Mr. TOM GJELTEN (National Public Radio): Mm-hmm.

BODE: ...infrequently. Why don't they treat this as a summit conference
where they get the differences ironed out in advance and don't go in there
and fight about them when they get there?

Mr. GJELTEN: Well, the point of coming to the United Nations is to promote
your own country's agenda--your own country's political agenda and look
good back home. So that would be a lot to ask these politicians, just like
politicians in Washington. This was the second UN special session on drugs
since--1990 was the--was the last one. That one went largely unnoticed.
This one got a lot of attention largely because it was the debut of a new
UN drug czar, a very bold Italian by the name of Pino Arlacchi who says,
believe it or not, that he thinks we can end production of heroin and
cocaine within 10 years. A lot of us might scoff at that, but Pino Arlacchi
comes to this position with a certain amount of credibility. He's a proven
Mafia fighter and he says he has t--a plan to do it by--basically by
eradicating the crops that go into the production of cocaine and heroin.

Nevertheless, there was, as you say, a lot of acrimony at this session.
Debates between countries that supply the drugs--for example, Colombia and
those, like the United States, who consume them, about who's to blame for
the world's enormous drug problem. President Clinton goes up, he's the
opening--opening speaker. He says we should have no more finger-pointing.
We should all cooperate. Of course, who does more finger-pointing on the
drug issue in the world than the United States? Afterall, the United States
is the only country that actually puts out a report card saying how other
countries are doing in their performance against drugs. So it very quickly
deteriorated into a debate, precisely what President Clinton said he was
not--he did not want to see happen.

BODE: Well, where would be the targets, Tom, if we said, `We're going to
eliminate the supply'? Afghanistan was one of the targets that they--that
they talked about and Burma. Why not go after the supply there?

Mr. GJELTEN: Indeed. That makes a lot of sense. Those are the two countries
that account for 80 percent of the cocaine and heroin that are produced.
And what Pino Arlacchi wants to do is start right there. Basically by
showering those regions where the crops are produced with money for
alternative development--factories, roads, schools and so forth. He wants
to spend up to $1/2 billion a year on this. The problem is, as you can
guess, Afghanistan and Burma are both ruled by regimes right now which we
regard as very repressive. The Talibans are radical, Islamic movement in
Afghanistan who treat women terribly. Burma's under a very repressive
military government. The United States, for one, does not want to see
millions and millions of dollars going to governments that we find
reprehensible.

Mr. ALAN MURRAY (The Wall Street Journal): Tom, part of the backdrop for
this speech is a--is a spat between the United States and Mexico...

Mr. GJELTEN: Right.

Mr. MURRAY: ...over a string operation that the United States ran,
involving Mexicans and didn't warn the Mexican officials in advance. Did we
make a mistake here or can we not trust the Mexicans when we're working on
these drug issues? What's the...

Mr. GJELTEN: It depends on what--on what--by what criteria you judge it.
From a law enforcement point of view, it was great: 150 people arrested, a
money-laundering chain broken up. From a diplomatic point of view, it was a
fiasco. The United States authorities involved in this did not inform their
Mexican counterparts it was going to happen and where you would...

Ms. GLORIA BORGER (US News & World Report; CBS News): How do...

Mr. MURRAY: Is that because they were afraid it would leak out if
they--they told them?

Mr. GJELTEN: It was precisely because they don't quite trust their Mexican
counterparts.

Ms. BORGER: So how does that affect the relationship, then? Here you are
ostensibly having the same goals, right?

Mr. GJELTEN: Well, the--in the--in the--in the months since this has
happened, US and Mexican officials have been working this out. The foreign
minister of Mexico was in Washington this week to meet with Madeleine
Albright, the secretary of state. There's a lot of repair to be done.

BODE: Tom, very quickly. There was a big two-page ad in The New York Times
this week...

Mr. GJELTEN: Right.

BODE: ...by--sponsored by George Soros' organization, raising the question
of legalization of drugs very obliquely. Talk about that.

Mr. GJELTEN: Tacitly. Legalization was not mentioned. The--the text of the
ad, which was actually an open letter to the UN secretary-general,
basically just criticized our current approach without suggesting an
alternative. But if you look at the people who signed the ad, some of whom
were very prominent--former UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar,
George Schultz, who was Ronald Reagan's secretary of state. If you go
through the list, you see that a lot of the people on the list in fact do
support legalization, decriminalization. Now George Soros has made this one
of his pet projects and when he makes something a pet project, he's got a
lot of money to spend on it, but as you can see from the people on the ad,
there are a lot of important people out there who think we should be
reviewing this whole drug policy.

BODE: OK. Tom, thank you very much.

Checked-by: Richard Lake