NO TRUCE IN DRUG-BLAME WAR AT U.N.

Mexico Dismisses Clinton Call for End to Criticism

UNITED NATIONS, June 8—President 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,
codenamed 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.

© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

Checked-by: Richard Lake