U.S.-MEXICO DRUG STATEMENT TINGED BY ACRIMONY

Narcotics: Controversial sting operation is alluded to in comments by
presidents at U.N. special summit.

UNITED NATIONS--After exchanging barbs in public over a controversial U.S.
sting operation on Mexican soil, President Clinton and Mexican President
Ernesto Zedillo met in private Monday and issued a statement pledging
"improved cooperation and mutual trust with full respect for the
sovereignty of both nations."

But the statement contained no American apology for Operation Casablanca,
the money-laundering sting, nor any Mexican promise to refrain from
attempting to prosecute U.S. operatives who carried it out on Mexican
territory.

Obviously prompted by bickering between the governments over the three-year
sting, Clinton told a special summit of the U.N.

General Assembly that the argument between countries that produce drugs and
countries that consume drugs "has gone on too long" and must end.

"Let's be frank," Clinton said, "this debate has not advanced the fight
against drugs. Pointing fingers is distracting. It does not dismantle a
single cartel, help a single addict, prevent a single child from trying and
perhaps dying from heroin."

But Zedillo, in a speech tinged with bitterness over the covert U.S.
operation that led to the indictment of 26 Mexican bankers last month, said
that, in the war on drugs, all countries "must respect the sovereignty of
each nation."

"No one country can become the judge of others," he said. "No one should
feel entitled to violate the laws of other countries for the sake of
enforcing its own."

Zedillo, hailed by Clinton and other leaders for conceiving the idea of the
special session on how to combat narcotics, was clearly referring to
Mexican charges that U.S. agents broke Mexican law by staging the operation
within Mexican territory.

* * * Clinton and Zedillo then met with aides briefly and alone for 25
minutes in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, finally issuing a two-page statement
that alluded to the operation without naming it. The two presidents, the
statement said, "agreed to strengthen mechanisms in their countries to deal
with anti-drug and money-laundering efforts and to improve cooperation,
communication and information exchange between both governments."

At a news conference, U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno defended the secrecy of
the operation as a means to protect the American operatives. "It is not a
matter of disrespect," she said. "It is a matter of trying to . . . conduct
an investigation . . . while at the same time protecting the lives of the
agents involved."

Twenty-nine heads of state and government are to address the General
Assembly before its 185 members on Wednesday adopt a declaration committing
themselves to "strategies to reduce both the illicit supply and demand of
drugs." The declaration was worked out in a year of preparatory meetings
guided by Pino Arlacchi, a U.N. undersecretary-general who is executive
director of the U.N. Office for Drug Control. Arlacchi, a former Italian
senator who led his government's campaign against the Mafia, insists that
the war on drugs can be won if consuming countries reduce demand and
producing countries encourage alternative crops for farmers who now sell
narcotic plants to the drug cartels.

U.S. officials are wary of some of Arlacchi's ideas because of the
potential cost and because he has proposed funding of alternative crop
projects in Myanmar, the former Burma, now ruled by a repressive military
regime, and Afghanistan, a country largely ruled by the Taliban Islamic
fundamentalists, who have deprived women of many rights. The two countries
produce 90% of the plants used in the illegal opium market.

But the declaration due for adoption Wednesday avoids specifics, calling
instead for "cooperation in alternative development" and for a significant
reduction in opium poppy and coca plant cultivation by 2008.

This generalized proposal let Clinton, despite misgivings among some of his
aides about the details, tell the General Assembly, "We will do our part in
the United States to make this goal a reality."

* * * Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug
Control Policy, told a news conference that the United States is
"absolutely supportive" of Arlacchi's "visionary thinking." But the
American anti-drug czar added that the detailed plan for putting in force
the U.N. anti-narcotics strategy "is not on the table yet."

Delegates to the special session of the General Assembly were surprised to
find an open letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan as part of a two-page
advertisement in the New York Times. The letter, whose signatories included
many prominent figures such as former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez
de Cuellar and former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, contended
that "the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse
itself."

Although those who signed did not call directly for legalization of drugs,
they insisted that "persisting in our current policies will only result in
more drug abuse, more empowerment of drug markets and criminals and more
disease and suffering."

Copyright Los Angeles Times