Beyond Borders

MEXICAN TROOPS AIDING SMUGGLERS, SAYS REPORT

Border Drug War Backfiring

A report outlining hundreds of incursions into the
United States by Mexican armed forces over the past 10 years supports
what many officials have known for a long time: The corruption once
thought endemic only to Mexico's police forces has spread to its military.

The Daily Bulletin reported Sunday on a Department of Homeland
Security document that outlines 216 incidents since 1996 where Mexican
military personnel crossed the U.S.-Mexican border and were spotted or
confronted by the Border Patrol.

Additionally, a map bearing the seal of the president's Office of
National Drug Control Policy, dated 2001, shows the locations of 34 of
those incursions spread across the southwest United States.

The documents are a striking reminder that steps intended to bolster
official action in the drug war can backfire in unexpected ways.

During the past decade, Mexico's military has become involved with
anti-drug efforts to a greater degree than ever before, a trend
furthered by President Vicente Fox in 2001, when he disbanded the
nation's federal judicial police, saying it was too corrupt to
successfully fight drug trafficking.

However, while the Mexican armed forces once had a better reputation
for avoiding corruption than the nation's police departments, the huge
amount of available bribes means many soldiers and high-ranking army
officials are now on the payroll of the cartels, according to a report
from the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit policy and
research organization.

Dozens of officers, including several generals, have been tried for
crimes related to drug trafficking in the past 10 years. In 1997, Gen.
Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was accused of using military resources to
target one drug cartel at the behest of another. He was later
sentenced to 71 years in prison.

Ironically, involving the military in Mexico's drug war has done
little to slow the production of illicit drugs or their movement into
the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration's seizures of
heroin, cocaine and marijuana have remained relatively steady during
the past five years.

"Available data indicate that Mexico's supply of marijuana and heroin
to the United States has not changed substantially; transport of
cocaine through Mexico to U.S. cities also appears to have remained
relatively stable," the nonprofit's report found. "Furthermore,
Mexican cartels are responsible for a growing trade in
methamphetamines."

Deserters from Mexico's military are known to work for drug cartels,
including a paramilitary unit called Los Zetas -- a U.S.-trained
anti-narcotics force connected to violence as far north of the border
as Dallas.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security did not return calls
for comment Monday.

Mexican officials contacted by the Daily Bulletin denied that the
military has crossed the U.S. border at all in the past 10 years,
except on occasions when units got lost in the desert.

Rafael Laveaga, a spokesman for the Mexican consulate in Washington,
D.C., said the incursions recorded by the Border Patrol could have
resulted from drug smugglers using bogus uniforms to disguise themselves.

But T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council,
discounted that idea.

"On many instances, (officers) can confirm that these are Mexican
military units," Bonner said. "There's corruption there. The drug
lords have been able to buy the military and police, and it makes it
difficult for us to cooperate."

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said he was shown a report by the Border
Patrol in 2001 that detailed incursions by military units. His
complaints to the State Department and Mexican ambassador were brushed
off, he said.

"The military is as dirty as any other part" of the government,
Tancredo said. "They're part of the cartels, or many are. It's all got
to do with money and drugs -- and it's bad."