Mexican Fires Back With an Attack on U.S. Policies

As if to turn the tables after recent U.S. criticism of the Mexican government, Mexican Foreign Minister Bernardo Sepulveda on Monday attacked U.S. policies on Latin America’s foreign debt, Central America and drug traffic.

Sepulveda, speaking to a gathering of journalists and academicians at a luncheon here sponsored by UC San Diego, gave a sweeping overview of Mexican foreign policy concerns and a lengthy defense of Mexico’s economic policies.

The talk was Sepulveda’s first major speech since witnesses at a U.S. Senate hearing last month lambasted the Mexican government for its economic performance, alleged widespread election fraud, corruption and failure to control drug traffic into the United States. The Senate hearings drew a sharp response from the Mexican government, which called them slanderous.

On Monday, Sepulveda characterized the hearings as “ill-founded wishes to intervene in our domestic affairs.”

Drug Fight

The foreign minister, who delivered his speech in English, repeated his government’s contention that fighting drug traffic in Latin America requires a reduction in U.S. narcotics consumption. Mexico has come under fire from U.S. drug control officials for failing to stamp out marijuana and opium cultivation inside its borders as well as traffic of cocaine, marijuana and heroin into the United States.

Sepulveda said a solution would come only by “fighting (narcotics) production centers, its sources of financing, its distribution and most important, drug addiction.”

He pointedly offered Mexico’s help to the United States in controlling the use of “crack,” or rock cocaine.

Sepulveda also criticized the U.S. government for treating the debt problem as a question of purely dollars and cents between banks and the debtors.

“The political handling of the debt problem, repeatedly demanded by the Latin American governments, has not yet found a proper answer from the United States,” Sepulveda asserted.

Long-Term Debt Relief

Although he declined to elaborate on the design of such a political solution, Mexican economic experts have concluded that long-term debt relief would require U.S. government support for reduced interest rates.

Mexico owes more than $96 billion to foreign banks and has repeatedly sought to reduce its payments, which currently amount to about $1 billion a month.

In Central America, where the United States and its allies are at odds with Marxist-led Nicaragua, Sepulveda emphasized the need for a “peaceful settlement to the regional conflict without foreign intervention or violations of the international order.”

Such language is generally taken as a criticism of support by the Reagan Administration for the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras. Mexico heads an effort by eight Latin nations, the so-called Contadora group and its support group, to forge an agreement on a peace treaty in Central America.