MEXICAN SOLDIERS GIVEN U.S. ARMY TRAINING AS NARCOTICS-BUSTERS

Fort Bragg, N.C.

The U.S. Army is providing training to Mexican soldiers for the first time,
creating an elite counter-narcotics unit that U.S. officials say has become
the leading force in Mexico's fight against international drug trafficking.

The program, started 18 months ago, includes training 1,067 Mexican
officers a year at more than a dozen bases across the United States,
according to U.S. officials. In addition, the CIA is giving extensive
intelligence courses to a group of about 90 Mexican officers who will
become part of the new counter-drug force, according to military and law
enforcement agencies.

As a result of the programs, Mexicans make up the largest group of foreign
soldiers receiving U.S. military instruction. The growing ties between the
two militaries are a sign of how counter-drug efforts in the hemisphere
have replaced wars against leftist guerrillas as the common ground for
armed forces redefining their missions since the end of the Cold War.

U.S. and Mexican officials said they turned to the Mexican army because of
rampant corruption among Mexico's civilian law enforcement agencies.

Officials involved in the program acknowledge that to secure Mexican
participation they agreed to forgo formal U.S. monitoring of the
performance of groups that receive U.S. training. The Mexican military also
has a long history of corruption, much of it drug-related, and human rights
abuses.

The programs reflect an upsurge in U.S. anti-drug aid to Mexico. from 10
million in 1995 to $78 million last year, according to the State
Department. About 60 percent of the cocaine on the streets of the United
States has been shipped through Mexico and across the 2,000 mile
Mexico-U.S. border, according to law enforcement officials.

Mexican Army Takes Lead

Mexican and U.S. officials say they envision the Mexican military taking
the lead in antinarcotics efforts only in the short run, until police and
civilian authorities have the means to confront powerful drug cartels. One
senior Defense Department official involved in the program said promoting
the Mexican military's involvement was necessary to avoid "the complete
criminalization of their state."

According to U.S. military officials, Mexican officers are being trained at
17 U.S. bases, in courses ranging from officer training at the U.S. Army
School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Gal, to helicopter instruction at
Fort Rucker, Ala., and intelligence at Bolling Air Force Base in
Washington, D.C.

The most specialized of the field training is provided at Fort Bragg by the
U.S. 7th Special Forces Group. A total of 252 Mexican army officers have
taken the 12-week course over the past 18 months. Another 156 officers are
scheduled to be trained this year. Their curriculum includes helicopter
assault tactics, explosives, rural and urban warfare, and intelligence
gathering.

The graduates ate the backbone of a new elite Mexican unit, the Airmobile
Special Forces, known by its Spanish acronym GAFE.

Colonel Ed Phillips, commander of the 7th Special Forces Group, told
reporters that the training Is expressly counter-narcotics, because we are
not allowed to do" counter insurgency training. But other U.S. officials
acknowledge that the tactics taught are similar to counter insurgency
methods imparted in training of Latin American officers during the Cold
War.

Rapid Reaction Groups

These elite troops return to Mexico to train rapid reaction groups there.

In the past year, according to a senior Pentagon official, the number of
100 man units in the Mexican Army has risen from 12 to 42.

In addition to the training of officers, the United states has provided the
Mexican military with 73 Huey UH-1H helicopters and four C-26 airplanes for
surveillance. Mexico also has purchased two U.S. Knox-class frigates,
according to the White House drug office.

The helicopters are part of a foreign assistance package that is subject to
stiff congressional scrutiny and can only be used for counter-drug
activities. However, the funds for training the special forces, $28 million
in 1997, are provided under a provision that gives the Defense Department
wide discretion in spending the money in support of counter-drug
activities, with no congressional oversight.

In 1996, with Mexican drug trafficking organizations growing in strength
and rivaling the traditional Colombian cartels for primacy in the U.S.
market, then secretary of Defense William Perry asked the Mexicans to allow
military training.

Examples abound of drug related corruption in the Mexican military. Last
year, Mexico's anti-drug czar, army General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was
arrested and charged with protecting and aiding Amado Carrillo Fuentes, at
the time one of Mexico's most important drug traffickers. Last September
two U.S.-trained pilots who were part of an elite air interdiction force
were among 18 members of an anti-drug unit arrested for using a government
airplane to transport cocaine from the state of Chiapas to a private hangar
in Mexico City.