AT U.N., MEXICO DISMISSES CLINTON CALL FOR END TO CRITICISM

UNITED NATIONS, June 897President Clinton today urged drug-producing
and drug-consuming countries to stop blaming each other for the
international narcotics trade and join in a concerted effort to reduce
from 190 million the number of people worldwide who use illegal drugs.

But in a reminder of the disagreements that trouble even nominal
allies in anti-drug efforts, Clinton's call to stop "pointing fingers"
was brushed aside by Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo. He rebuked the
United States sharply for allegedly violating his country's laws with
an undercover money-laundering operation that has become a major
diplomatic dispute between the two neighbors.

Clinton made his plea to presidents, prime ministers and cabinet
officers of 150 nations attending a U.N. drug conference. The
president also announced a $2 billion, five-year media campaign that
would target American youth with the message that "drugs destroy young
lives, don't let it destroy yours."

In his keynote speech, Clinton tried to steer around traditional
arguments about whether illicit drug traffic is more the fault of
largely Third World countries that derive great profits by producing
the raw materials of drugs such as heroin and cocaine or industrial
states such as the United States with enormous numbers of addicts.

"The debate between drug-supplying and drug-consuming nations about
whose responsibility the drug problem is has gone on too long,"
Clinton said. "Let's be frank -- 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. . . . Drugs are every
nation's problem, and every nation must act to fight them -- on the
streets, around the kitchen table and around the world."

But the nods of approval that greeted Clinton's appeal did not
disguise the fact that some of the countries participating in the
conference -- particularly in Latin America and Asia -- are places
where some senior officials are engaged in protecting illicit drug
trafficking and where, as apparently was the case in Mexico, suspicion
between U.S. and local law enforcement officials frequently hampers
effective cooperation.

While Clinton praised Zedillo both for taking the lead role in
initiating the conference and for Mexico's recent anti-trafficking
successes, the Mexican president, who spoke immediately after Clinton,
responded with words unmistakably aimed at the United States.

"We have the right to demand a balanced strategy," Zedillo said.
"Balanced so that each country assumes that in the fight against drug
trafficking, we are all co-responsible, with the same rights and
obligations. We must all respect the sovereignty of each nation so
that no one can become the judge of others; and no one feels entitled
to violate the other countries' laws for the sake of enforcing its
own."

Zedillo was apparently referring to a sting operation revealed last
month, code named Operation Casablanca, in which U.S. narcotics agents
conducted a covert investigation inside Mexico and then lured Mexican
bankers to a fake casino in the United States. In the aftermath, some
150 people were arrested, $110 million was seized, and three Mexican
banks were indicted in the United States.

The decision by U.S. authorities to conceal the operation from Mexican
officials has touched off a wave of intense anger in Mexico. Mexico
has called for the extradition of U.S. customs agents involved in the
sting. The situation has been aggravated by publication in Mexico of a

letter to Zedillo from Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.)
expressing "deep disappointment" over the Mexican attitude and
accusing Mexico of "broken promises" in the drug war.

Later Clinton and Zedillo met in an effort to smooth over differences
about the operation and issued a joint statement saying that combating
drugs is "best accomplished through improved cooperation and mutual
trust, with full respect for the sovereignty of both nations." James
Dobbins of the National Security Council said there had been no
discussion of extradition of U.S. agents and added that Zedillo told
Clinton that the Mexican attorney general's office was investigating
to determine whether U.S. authorities had broken any Mexican laws.

Acrimony over Operation Casablanca overshadowed other parts of
Clinton's message, which included the large anti-drug publicity
program. U.S. officials said Congress will be asked to provide $175
million of the $2 billion, with the rest coming from businesses and
philanthropies.

The conference is set to take up for discussion a controversial plan
for anti-narcotics efforts evolved by Pino Arlacchi, the chief U.N.
counternarcotics official. The plan would induce farmers in nine
drug-producing countries to switch to legal crops.

However, U.S. officials have made known that the United States almost
certainly would refuse to give money to at least two of these
countries: Myanmar, formerly Burma, because of its repressive regime,
and Afghanistan, where Muslim fundamentalists have repressed women's
rights.

In what appeared to be a recognition that U.S. opposition is
irreversible, Arlacchi, in talking with reporters, said there were no
plans to give these two countries large amounts of money until they
made fundamental political changes. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the president
of the Taliban, which controls much of Afghanistan, addressed the
conference today without addressing this point.

President Ernesto Samper of Colombia, another country that would
receive funds under the Arlacchi plan, said in his address that no
country had done more than his to combat the international drug trade.
Samper's U.S. visa was revoked two years ago because of evidence he
took $6 million from the Cali cocaine cartel for his 1994 election
campaign.

"No other country has done more, and under more lonely circumstances,"
Samper said, adding that drug trafficking "once and for all" had to be
recognized internationally as a multilateral problem.

Checked-by: (trikydik)