U.S. WANTS DRUG TREATY TO REPLACE CERTIFICATION

Clinton administration, tired of annual debate, seeks pact creating
hemispheric alliance and penalty mechanism. Mexico, other nations oppose
current process as unilateral.

WASHINGTON--The Clinton administration, weary of the bruising annual debate
with Congress over whether to certify that Mexico and other nations are
cooperating in the war on illicit drugs, wants to drop that process
altogether and replace it with an international treaty.

A Western Hemisphere treaty on drugs has been discussed for several years.
For the first time, however, the administration has said it regards the
treaty as a substitute for certification--rather than an extra weapon in
the drug fight.

"I hope in five years the United States, as one of 31 or 30 countries, has
become part of a multinational attack," said Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the
White House anti-narcotics czar. "As we do, that will bury the
certification process."

The proposed anti-drug treaty would create a Western Hemisphere alliance to
fight the production and transportation of drugs and set up a secretariat
to make sure that alliance members complied with its provisions. The treaty
will have a prominent place on the agenda when President Clinton and other
Western Hemisphere leaders meet at the Summit of the Americas in Santiago,
Chile, in April.

The certification system was slipped into the Reagan administration's
omnibus anti-drug law in 1986 by members of Congress who believed that a
weapon was needed to pressure other countries into preventing the
production or transshipment of drugs on their territory. The measure was
barely noticed in news reports at the time but has since become one of the
most controversial aspects of American drug policy.

The prospects for dropping certification are uncertain. There is still
strong support for it within Congress, which has the power under the law of
reversing the president's certification ruling within 30 days.

It will take time for the United States and the other Western Hemisphere
countries to work out a tough treaty that might persuade Congress that
there was an effective substitute for the process. But the willingness of
McCaffrey--who is highly respected by Congress--to talk for the first time
about burying certification means that the administration is convinced that
an alternative to the combative system must be found.

Any change in the certification system would come too late to head off this
month's certification report card and a probable repetition of last year's
battle over Mexico. Under the law, the State Department must certify by
March 1 every year whether countries that produce or transport drugs are
cooperating fully with the United States to halt the trade. Countries that
fail to win the department's approval are subject to a cut in U.S. foreign
aid and other sanctions.

The department certified Mexico last year, as it had in the past. Refusal
to do so would have created a foreign policy mess, humiliating Mexico,
damaging its cooperation in the anti-drug effort and poisoning U.S.-Mexican
relations on many issues.

Even so, many members of Congress berated the administration for the
decision. As evidence that Mexico had failed as a cooperative partner in
the drug fight, they cited endemic corruption and the shocking allegation
that Mexico's federal anti-narcotics czar had actually been on the payroll
of a drug cartel.

Some State Department officials and members of Congress insist that
certification has worked well, in the sense that it has pressured some
countries to become more aggressive in their anti-drug campaigns.

But it has generated resentful anger every year as foreign countries
bristle at the prospect of the United States sitting in judgment of them
and issuing a public report card. Moreover, it has created tension between
the White House and members of Congress who feel the administration
certifies some countries for fear of offending them. The administration and
some influential members of Congress feel that these tense side effects far
outweigh the good that comes out of the process.

Mexican officials have consistently opposed the process as unilateral and
inappropriate. Among those in favor of scrapping the certification process
is Sen. Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), who describes the nation's strategy in the
international battle against drugs as flawed.

"Instead, the United States should adopt a multilateral approach," he wrote
in the current issue of the Harvard International Review. Coverdell, a
former Peace Corps director, is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and, according to his staff, has
been in close contact with McCaffrey about the proposed international
treaty. Coverdell has scheduled a subcommittee hearing just before the end
of this month to review the certification process and discuss alternatives.
The administration is expected to release this year's decisions on
certification shortly before then.

But it will not be easy to persuade Congress to drop certification in favor
of an international treaty. Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), for example,
insists that there is no reason to abandon the present system even if an
international anti-narcotics treaty is signed.

"I'm willing to work on an international level," he told a conference of
diplomats, journalists and drug specialists recently. "But don't mess with
our [certification] law. It's going to get tougher."

Because of this kind of opposition, Indiana Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, the
ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, believes
that ratification of an international treaty will not be enough to
sidetrack the certification process. Hamilton, who recently called the
process "nuts" for discouraging cooperation instead of enhancing it,
insists that Congress must overhaul the system substantially. Hamilton and
some Democratic allies would like to change the law so that the president
would no longer have to issue an annual public assessment of each country
but would still have the authority to impose sanctions on any nation deemed
uncooperative.

Advocates of a Western Hemisphere anti-narcotics treaty believe it could
replace the certification process because all members of the alliance would
pledge full cooperation in the war on drugs. To fulfill its mission,
however, the treaty would need a strong secretariat with authority to
punish countries violating its provisions. That may prove a bottleneck.

The administration proposed the treaty at the first Summit of the Americas
in Miami in 1994. The leaders agreed unanimously, but it has been difficult
since then to work out details of how to enforce a treaty. In a report to
Congress in September, the State Department acknowledged that persuading
other governments to agree on the proposed treaty's mechanisms remained "a
tough sell." But the administration still hoped to obtain "a comprehensive
commitment to implementation" at the Santiago summit in April.

Copyright Los Angeles Times