Mexico’s Tough Drug Czar Loses His Job

Mexico’s controversial drug czar, Javier Coello Trejo, was removed from his post Monday after repeated charges that federal anti-narcotics police under his authority committed widespread human rights abuses.

Coello, 42, was named Monday night as federal attorney general for the consumer, a position that officials portrayed as a promotion but which, in reality, is far less powerful than his old job.

As deputy attorney general since December, 1988, the robust, chain-smoking Coello has overseen the Mexican Federal Judicial Police assigned to combatting narcotics production and trafficking. Heroin poppy and marijuana crops are grown illegally in Mexico, and the country is a major transshipment route for U.S.-bound South American cocaine.

During Coello’s tenure, Mexican police have seized a record 75 tons of cocaine and jailed drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, reputedly the top cocaine supplier to the U.S. West Coast.

American officials have lauded Coello’s aggressiveness in fighting narcotics trafficking and his close cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“He’s been great. This is a blow,” said a U.S. official. “The whole success of the large cocaine seizures can be attributed to his planning and management of these operations.”

But at home, politicians and human rights activists have been far more critical of Coello’s leadership. Half a dozen governors have protested violence committed by the Federal Judicial Police in their states, as has the National Human Rights Commission, created by President Carlos Salinas de Gortari last June.

The U.S.-based Americas Watch human rights group issued a report in June charging that “federal narcotics police are accountable for a large number of cases of murder, torture and abuse of process in Mexico today. Extortion and robbery are also frequent elements of federal police operations.”

And last month, in special hearings before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Relations, Deputy Asst. Secretary of State Sally G. Cowal said that “chief among our human rights concerns in Mexico is mistreatment of detainees by Mexican police, particularly the Mexican Federal Judicial Police . . . (which) has traditionally enjoyed considerable immunity from prosecution for its human rights abuses.”

Rights activists applauded Coello’s removal but said the government must go further to restructure the police and judicial system, particularly to eliminate the use in court of confessions extracted in police custody. They said they believe Coello was removed to ease international criticism of Mexico as the government tries to negotiate a free trade agreement with the United States.

A government source said Coello is to be replaced by Jorge Carrillo Olea, an army colonel who has been serving as director general of national security.