Mexico Seeks a Better Image in Drug War : Media: TV and newspaper ads in the U.S. feature the grieving family of Mexican drug agent slain on duty.

The Mexican government launched a $1 million advertising campaign Thursday, designed to overcome what a diplomat called Americans’ “confusion and misperception” about Mexico’s role in combatting illegal drug traffickers.

The campaign, featuring ads on network television and in some newspapers, highlights emotional footage of the grieving family of a Mexican drug agent who was killed in the line of duty last year. The war on drugs, the advertisements say, is “everybody’s war.”

The highly unusual move came after Mexicans had been stung by a television mini-series about the slaying of a U.S. drug agent in Mexico and by U.S. intelligence reports that drastically raised estimates of Mexican marijuana production.

The approach appears to be a deliberate counterpoint to the NBC series, which focused on the involvement of Mexican officials in the 1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique S. Camarena.

A senior Mexican diplomat, Javier Trevino, said the decision to launch the campaign was taken after the broadcast of the six-hour docudrama, which he said had created significant “misperceptions” about Mexican law enforcement.

Although the Bush Administration has publicly praised the Mexican government for its anti-drug efforts, a recent State Department document also reported that Mexico is now the world’s leading producer of marijuana and a major conduit for the movement of cocaine. It called attention to “continuing indications” of corruption among anti-drug officials.

Such criticism has given new life to congressional efforts to punish Mexico for what some lawmakers believe are inadequate efforts in the anti-drug arena, with Congress now debating whether Mexico should be officially certified as having “cooperated fully” in the effort.

At a briefing Thursday at the Mexican Embassy here, the minister for narcotics affairs, Gustavo Gonzalez Baez, left no doubt that his government was angered by the certification process, calling it a “very useless and a source of interference.”

At the same time, Gonzalez complained that under a joint U.S.-Mexican anti-drug agreement, the Mexican government should have been warned of a recent U.S. satellite surveillance. The surveillance produced a Bush Administration report that Mexico’s marijuana crop is 10 times larger than previously estimated.

Despite their obvious concern, Mexican officials insisted Thursday that the advertising campaign was not intended as a response to the Bush Administration or to Congress.

Instead, diplomat Trevino said: “We felt it was important that the people of the United States understand what Mexico has done (in the war on drugs). A lot of people are risking their lives.”

The advertisements, produced for $950,000 by Burson-Marsteller, a Washington-based communications firm, note that nearly 100 Mexican soldiers and policemen have been killed while carrying out anti-drug efforts in the past 15 months.

Mexico’s anti-drug campaign, led by President Carlos Salinas Gortari, has devoted 60% of the budget of the Mexican attorney general’s office to the war on drugs. At times, about 25% of the armed forces were assigned to anti-drug duties, Mexico says.

The “increased commitment” has brought “substantial results,” including the arrests of thousands of traffickers and seizures of tons of cocaine and marijuana, the advertisements declare.

The advertising campaign highlights the story of Mario Enrique Lopez Sanchez, an officer of the Mexican Federal Police who was gunned down last November after heading up a marijuana eradication operation in the state of Michoacan.

Showing a close-up image of a grieving Mario Lopez Jr., the ads declare: “Mexico has made a commitment to fighting the world war on drugs.

“How big is that commitment?,” they continue to a background of mariachi music. “Just ask Mario Lopez.”