U.S. Copters Used Against Uprising, Mexico Confirms

The Mexican government diverted helicopters, including some provided by the United States, from their normal duties intercepting drug traffickers to support its campaign against rebels in the southern state of Chiapas, officials said Friday.

Interdiction efforts appeared to collapse as a result, at least temporarily, a Mexican helicopter pilot and Western diplomats said.

A pilot who normally works for the Mexican attorney general’s office intercepting drug-trafficking planes in the north of the country said this week that he and many other pilots had been reassigned to Chiapas once the uprising began.

“Now the narcos (drug traffickers) will be able to work as they please,” said the pilot, who declined to be named.

He said anti-narcotics efforts had been suspended since Jan. 2, the day after the rebels launched their uprising.

Diplomats said it appeared that interdiction efforts had indeed fallen off sharply during the uprising.

A Mexican government official, who declined to be named, confirmed that the helicopters had been used but not in combat roles.

It was not clear how many of the helicopters diverted from drug interdiction belonged to the Mexican government and how many were on loan from the United States.

Use of the U.S. helicopters was discontinued Thursday, a U.S. official said Friday.