Clinton adviser vows review of border tragedy
Official meets with family of slain teen

By WILLIAM E. CLAYTON JR.
Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON President Clinton's antidrug adviser said Tuesday
that the federal government should "flatout guarantee" a
thorough scrutiny of the military's role in border antidrug
efforts, in view of the May 20 shooting of a young South Texan by
a Marine.

A group from Redford, where Esequiel Hernandez was shot to death
while tending his family goats, visited with antidrug adviser
Barry McCaffrey, a White House aide, and an assistant secretary
of defense Tuesday.

The Hernandez incident "needs to be investigated and what I told
these people is, we will investigate it," McCaffrey said. "(The
military unit) will end up reviewing their rules of engagement,
their training, their command and control.

"We view (the Hernandez shooting) as a tragedy and we will try to
ensure that this kind of incident doesn't happen again.

"That ought to be a flatout guarantee by the U.S. armed forces
who participate in supporting local law enforcement," McCaffrey
said.

The Redford delegation demanded dissolving the military unit
involved in the shooting, a congressional investigation of the
death and greater coordination between the Border Patrol and the
communities in which it works.

"We are glad that they have heard us," Belen Hernandez, the
victim's sister, told reporters in front of the White House.
"They show interest. They say they will help us."

The Rev. Mel La Follette, a retired Episcopal priest helping the
family, said they were "assured that attention will be given to a
number of problems we have pointed out" related to military
assistance to antidrug efforts.

"At the moment, we are quite pleased with the way our trip is
going," La Follette said.

The leader of a Marine unit involved in antidrug surveillance
fired on Hernandez. The Marines said Hernandez had fired his
rifle twice before he was fired on.

McCaffrey said the conversations with the relatives and friends
of Esequiel Hernandez "were a very painful and moving experience
for me. . . . They were enormously sincere and hurt by the
incident. . . . They also don't feel they were adequately heard
out. And I am sympathetic to that viewpoint."

Letting the group's concerns be heard "should clearly be the
response of government in general," McCaffrey said.

The antidrug adviser said he has consulted with Defense
Secretary William Cohen and military leaders "and we are all
committed to learn from this tragedy."

Jesus Valenzuela, a cousin of the victim, told reporters the
family wants the U.S. military to withdraw totally from border
antidrug work. The military "is not a force to prevent the
problems of the border," he said, "and we run the risk of losing
our lives."

His wife, Diana, said, "We have the immigration (service) and
they are enough, without having the military. . . . The military
is for fighting wars. They don't know the community involved."

McCaffrey said the military's role in detection and monitoring
drug traffic near the border involves a relatively small number
of "primarily support elements."

In nine years of intense drug efforts, only one other shooting
has occurred, he said.

Maria Jimenez, director of the American Friends Service
Committee's project involving immigration, said the Redford
group's visit to Washington "obviously touched a nerve. They
(federal officials) have been careful to listen. The response was
good. They have given a highlevel priority to this."

While the group from Redford visited federal officials, the
Senate Appropriations Committee approved funding to hire 1,000
more Border Patrol agents and improve customs facilities on the
border.

Approximately twothirds of the new agents will be in the Marfa,
Del Rio, Laredo and McAllen sectors of the patrol, Sen. Kay
Bailey Hutchison, RTexas, said in a statement.