POINTLESS U.S.-MEXICO SPAT

The rift between Mexico and the United States on how best to combat drug
traffic threatens to further damage already strained relations between the
two countries.

Mexico is quixotically seeking extradition of U.S. narcotics agents who
carried out a money-laundering sting operation named Casablanca on Mexican
soil. President Clinton has countered with a soothing call for an end to
accusations among countries damaged by the production, transit or
consumption of drugs.

An annual conference of U.S. and Mexican officials this week in Washington
can help heal the rift. In the longer run, Mexican officials fed up with
drug-sting operations by foreign agents must deal with the fact that
drug-related corruption has reached intolerable heights in Mexico, posing a
threat to the nation's security. If Washington is angered by Mexico's
complaints, it should consider how Americans would feel if the situation
were reversed.

It was the U.S. Congress that began the finger pointing with an
ill-conceived annual certification process grading Latin American countries
on their effort to combat the drug trade, with penalties for countries found
wanting. What justifiably irks Latin American governments is that the
certification process seeks to set the United States above the fray, an
improbable position for a country whose own record on combating the drug
menace is a flop.

In the war on drugs "no country can become the judge of others," Mexican
President Ernesto Zedillo has properly observed. There is enough blame to go
around.

Zedillo has been under heavy pressure from the Mexican public and a Congress
dominated by opposition parties to strongly and openly protest the so-called
Casablanca sting, in which U.S. agents working in the United States and
Mexico nabbed Mexican bankers in a drug-money laundering scheme. Tit-for-tat
squabbling over the sting and the extradition request will lead nowhere and
could do harm to last year's bilateral extradition agreements between the
United States and Mexico, which greatly improved cooperation in criminal cases.

The search for answers goes on in a number of Latin American countries. "We
need international resources to fight drug traffickers," says Peru's
President Alberto Fujimori. "We need money to change to alternative crops,"
adds Hugo Banzer, the Bolivian president.

Beneath all the questions, rhetoric and politicking, however, lies the
dismal fact that the world is losing the battle against illegal drug use and
trafficking. President Clinton is correct when he says that blaming the U.S.
drug market diverts attention from the surging power of the narcotics
cartels. Bickering about who is at fault won't resolve the problem.

This is far from the first time that high officials of Mexico and the United
States have spoken with acrimony about bilateral problems. But the issue of
drugs should not become the rock on which the relationship founders. Mexico
and the United States should be trading in goods and cooperation, not insults.

Copyright Los Angeles Times

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett