U.S. Certifies Mexico Drug Cooperation

President Clinton rejected objections from Congress and formally declared Friday that the Mexican government is fully cooperating in the war on drugs, citing significant improvements in the past year.

That congressionally required certification came less than two weeks after Mexico’s top anti-narcotics official was arrested because of his alleged ties to drug traffickers and despite strong warnings from top U.S. drug enforcement and other officials about widespread narcotics-related corruption in the Mexican government.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who made the announcement for the administration, said President Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico has shown that his country is determined to do better in battling drugs. She said he has also demonstrated “political courage of the highest order” by facing up to the corruption in his government and by firing his chief drug official.

“The arrest of Mexico’s drug czar for corruption is shocking confirmation of the problems that exist, but it is also a sign of precisely the kind of progress and cooperation that we’re trying to encourage,” she said.

Friday’s announced certifications were part of an annual review of the drug-fighting efforts of 32 countries that are traditional centers of narcotics production and transit. The review is required under a law enacted by Congress in 1986.

Six countries were denied certification on Friday: Colombia, Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), Iran, Nigeria and Syria.

Three other nations--Belize, Lebanon and Pakistan--were not certified as cooperating in the anti-drug effort, but the economic sanctions that could be imposed under the law were waived on grounds of “vital national interests.”

Albright stressed that Mexico’s certification hardly means all is well. “Six Mexican attorneys general and five drug czars have come and gone in the last five years, without making major headway against drug barons,” she said. “This is a tremendous problem.”

The current U.S. approval comes with “firm expectations,” she added, that the Mexican government will promptly meet specific objectives, including handing over more drug lords who also face charges here, uprooting corruption and putting into better effect a money laundering law.

Clinton planned to call Zedillo to warn him that he cannot keep certifying Mexico unless it meets these conditions and makes measurable progress in the drug battle, a senior White House official said.

Saying that “America’s main share of the problem is demand,” Albright also noted that the United States itself plays a major role in “illegal narcotics and the violence they breed [that] are as deadly to children on the streets of Sao Paulo and Bangkok as they are in New York or Los Angeles.”

The decision on Mexico followed a week of intense lobbying by members of Congress, including many Democrats, against certifying the United States’ southern neighbor. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has pledged to lead a bipartisan campaign to overturn the president’s decision with congressional action.

Opponents have argued that Mexican drug cartels continue to operate unfettered, that money-laundering legislation passed by the country last year is inadequate and that corruption is so pervasive within the government and law enforcement forces that there is little hope for progress.

“I believe the decision to certify Mexico as fully cooperative in our anti-drug efforts is a mistake,” Feinstein said in a statement. “I now intend to work with my colleagues to prepare and submit a resolution to disapprove this decision in Congress.” Feinstein and 39 other senators, including Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), signed a letter opposing certification.

It was unclear how Clinton’s decision would influence the campaign. But the bipartisan opposition is clearly formidable and much more active than last year.

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called Clinton’s decision “a fraud.” “I believe that a bipartisan majority in Congress will overturn the president’s certification of Mexico. I will work to help make it happen,” he said.

In Sacramento, Gov. Pete Wilson said in a statement that Clinton “ignores the law and defies the facts” in certifying Mexico. “Events in Mexico and the testimony of the Clinton administration . . . demonstrate that the president’s certification decision could not have possibly complied with the law.”

In testimony before a congressional panel earlier this week, Robert Gelbard, assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said: “There clearly is a major corruption problem at all levels.”

Thomas Constantine, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the arrest of drug chief Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo in Mexico had so deeply compromised U.S.-Mexican anti-narcotics efforts that “everything is absolutely frozen.” He argued that unless Mexico ends the practice of allowing organized-crime bosses to work freely, no real improvement can be expected.

But in explaining the administration’s reasons for certifying Mexico on Friday, Gelbard cited positive developments in the last year, including: the extradition of three Mexicans to face narcotics charges in the United States; Mexico’s passage of a money laundering law; the Mexicans’ eradication of record quantities of drug crops and their improved relationships with U.S. law enforcement agencies and the military.

“We feel that the net results . . . today compared to a year ago today, very clearly show much stronger Mexican cooperation with the United States,” Gelbard said.

For example, Mexico last year expelled Juan Garcia Abrego, who had been making multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Mexico to the United States for years. Abrego was put on trial and sentenced by a U.S. federal court to 11 consecutive life terms and fined $128 million.

The arrests of Gutierrez and 36 of his alleged partners, Gelbard added, “gives us confidence . . . that they are prepared to take action against corruption and, in fact, they did it on their own.”

Some Mexican American activists in Orange County applauded the administration’s decision, but they said Mexico must do more to stop the drug trade.

“It’s a major, growing economic force and political force that has to be dealt with in Mexico,” said Art Montes, president of the Santa Ana chapter of League of United Latin American Citizens. “I think the certification should come with a warning label. That would be the clearest sign that [the drug trade] is no longer going to be tolerated.”

John Palacio, a Santa Ana management consultant who has been active in LULAC and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he also agreed with the certification.

But Palacio said other countries might question what right the United States has to judge them. “Washington tends to put a lot of conditions on countries,” he said. “But look at our own country. Are we doing enough to fight drugs in our country? Some people on the outside would say no, because we’re the consumers.”

“It’s a tough call, but once you’ve considered all the implications, I think the Clinton Administration made the right decision,” said Jess Araujo, a San Clemente attorney and past president of the Orange County Hispanic Bar Assn. “Otherwise, you’d send the wrong signal to the Mexican government. You want to encourage them to continue to weed out the bad people.”

The United States has been criticized as inconsistent for certifying Mexico but not Colombia, which was denied for the second year in a row.

“The president’s decision to deny certification to Colombia was a result of our concern that corruption remains rampant at the highest levels of the Colombian government and that senior officials are failing to cooperate with us in the fight against drugs,” Albright said.

Colombia is the primary source of most of the cocaine on U.S. streets and in recent years has also provided an increasing amount of heroin. Most of the cocaine, however, is believed to reach the United States through Mexico.

Ambassador Juan Carlos Esguerra of Colombia lamented Friday’s decision, saying it is “demoralizing for his country.”

“It seems that Colombia has become a scapegoat in the fight against narcotics trafficking, which is clearly an injustice for my country,” Esguerra said.

Times staff writer Sam Fulwood III contributed to this report.