U.S., MEXICO INK PACTS FOCUSING ON OIL, DRUGS

Highlevel meeting opens in Washington

By Cragg Hines
Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
Chronicle reporter David Ivanovich contributed to this story.

WASHINGTON The United States and Mexico signed agreements Thursday
designed to help oil drillers and hurt dope dealers.

The pacts were formally agreed to as highlevel U.S. and Mexican officials
opened two days of meetings. President Clinton and President Ernesto
Zedillo of Mexico began their part of the session with a private dinner at
the White House on Thursday night.

Both nations hope that a treaty amendment allowing temporary extradition of
criminal suspects will help to stem rampant drug trafficking along the
1,800mile border.

"This protocol is a major step forward for both Mexico and the United
States in dealing with persistent and dangerous offenders who know no
boundaries to their crimes and who try to use legal loopholes to their own
advantage," said Attorney General Janet Reno, who signed with Mexican
Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar.

While the agreement could apply to any criminal, the amendment to the
current U.S.Mexico extradition treaty was drafted with drug traffickers in
mind.

A Justice Department statement said that a prisoner already charged or
convicted in one country could be sent to the other country for trial and
then returned to the original jurisdiction to stand trial or serve a sentence.

James Dobbins, chief of the Latin American section at the National Security
Council, said the provision was intended "to ensure that criminals wanted
on both sides of the border could be tried on both sides of the border
before the evidence went stale."

The provision is subject to Senate ratification as well as legislative
approval in Mexico.

Clinton's drug czar, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, also announced that the
two nations will sponsor a conference next March in El Paso to explore ways
to reduce demand for drugs, which is primarily a problem in the wealthier
United States.

The petroleum measure is actually a 20yearold bilateral maritime boundary
treaty which the Senate, at the urging of oil companies, finally got around
to ratifying last month.

The pact, signed by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Mexican
Foreign Secretary Jose Angel Gurria Trevino, establishes the procedure for
settling U.S.Mexico boundary disputes in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thomas F. "Mac" McLarty III, Clinton's special adviser on Latin America,
said he had been in Houston earlier this week and was confident drilling
"investment is going to go ahead and start to take place while this process
continues."

Petroleum industry representatives expressed relief at the signing.

"It's grown more and more important as the industry has moved out into
deeper and deeper water," said Larry Wooden, public affairs manager for the
Houstonbased Shell Exploration and Production Co.

Wooden said that water was up to 10,000 feet deep or almost two miles
on leases adjacent to the disputed zone.

"It would probably be an area of increasing contentiousness, and it's
important to get some certainty," Wooden said.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service leases out blocks in the Gulf's
federally controlled waters to producers, who pay royalties to the federal
government.

The government, however, has offered substantial tax breaks for oil and gas
development in the deep waters of the Gulf, encouraging producers to push
farther and farther out. And deepwater drilling has been encroaching on
the legally uncertain area.

Clinton and Zedillo will meet again today at the White House and then go a
few blocks to the Organization of American States headquarters to sign a
hemispheric agreement to combat gun smuggling, which Mexico contends is a
key element in the illicit drug industry.

Zedillo opened his first visit to Washington in two years with a speech in
which he expressed hope that Clinton would eventually win broad trade
negotiating authority which Congress refused to give him in the waning
session.

Zedillo said Latin American leaders have "tremendous expectation and hope
that `fast track' be approved so a start can be made on negotiating" a
freetrade agreement for North and South America.