FOCUS : Ruling Won’t Touch Off Wave of Kidnapings, Bush Says

President Bush used one of his periodic question-and-answer sessions with Latino journalists recently to pledge that there will no “wave of kidnapings” of foreigners wanted by U.S. authorities.

The President tried to soothe ruffled Mexican government sensitivities after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling a few days earlier that U.S. agents in foreign countries had the right to abduct people sought by authorities.

Outraged Mexican officials initially denounced the ruling as “invalid” and “unacceptable.” But they backed off after Bush Administration officials reassured them that the decision does not signal a concerted campaign to abduct suspects abroad.

“We have made very, very clear to the Mexican government that we will not be in a mode of reaching out and taking back everybody who’s offending the United States,” Bush said during a June 19 session with eight Latino reporters at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach.

“I’m not one who second-guesses the Supreme Court of the United States. On the other hand, I am one who recognizes that if governments around the world think the United States is going to move in and grab people, it makes it extraordinary difficult to conduct relations.

“I can understand the international furor.”

But the President stopped short of guaranteeing that a kidnaping such as the 1990 abduction of Mexican physician Humberto Alvarez Machain will not recur.

“I gotta be careful that I don’t condone in any way what this person was accused of,” Bush said. “To sit there and watch an American be tortured. . . . I’m sorry, this President finds that most offensive.”

Alvarez Machain was kidnaped in Mexico and brought to Los Angeles to stand trial for his alleged role in the 1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena near Guadalajara. The physician has been accused of keeping Camarena alive while Mexican drug traffickers tortured him to find out what the agent knew of their operations.

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision regarding Alvarez Machain, ruled that U.S. agents had the authority to unilaterally seize a foreign national and bring him to the United States for trial even though this country has signed an extradition treaty and has pledged to respect the sovereignty of other countries.

The ruling clears the way for Alvarez Machain to stand trial. He is being held by federal authorities in Southern California in lieu of $10 million bond.

Before taking questions from reporters, the President went out of his way to praise Mexico’s efforts in the war against drugs, describing its assistance to U.S. officials as “extraordinary cooperative.”

He also said U.S. relations with Mexico have been the best in recent memory, primarily because of the close relationship he has sought with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

On another subject, Bush said he favored the establishment of free enterprise zones as the best remedy to help Latinos in riot-scarred Los Angeles.