When It Comes to Mexico, Helms and Weld Have Plenty to Talk About

Amusing as it might be, the battle between Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and William F. Weld isn’t likely to shed much light on the most difficult questions dividing the U.S. and Mexico.

Mexico, in fact, figures only faintly in the fisticuffs over President Clinton’s effort to send Weld there as U.S. ambassador. Helms doesn’t care for Weld’s brand of socially moderate Republicanism, and Weld--who resigned last week as Massachusetts governor--may see a spat with Helms as his ticket to leadership of GOP centrists. Ear-biting may ensue, but it’s more likely to be over the direction of the Republican Party than the course of America’s relations with its troubled southern neighbor.

Which is too bad. There are plenty of tough questions to ask about Mexico, particularly relating to drugs. Five months ago, amid intense controversy, Clinton certified that Mexico was fully cooperating in the drug war--despite a corruption scandal that found its anti-drug czar on the payroll of its most powerful cocaine trafficker. Now the administration is looking at a Sept. 1 deadline for reporting to Congress on whether the Mexican government is stiffening its efforts against the Mexican drug syndicates that control two-thirds of the cocaine shipped into the U.S.

Is Mexico making progress? In Washington, the most reliable place to look for an answer is the office of Thomas A. Constantine, a New York career cop now running the Drug Enforcement Administration. During the debate over Mexican certification, Constantine distinguished himself by candidly detailing the tide of drug corruption engulfing Mexico. While most administration officials groped for roses in the thorns, Constantine said bluntly: “There is not one single law enforcement institution with whom DEA has a really trusting relationship.”

Now Constantine can see some glimmers of progress. After the arrest in February of Gen. Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, Mexico’s anti-drug czar, the Mexican government dismantled its drug enforcement agency and launched new, specially trained units under its attorney general. Constantine gives those efforts a cautious seal of approval--to the point where the DEA has again begun to carefully compare notes with the new Mexican units.

“There are certain units that have been developed that show promise, will, integrity and cooperation,” he said. “And we have begun to share information with them.”

Constantine finds tangible evidence of that “will” in the death last month of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the leader of the Juarez syndicate who kept Gutierrez on his payroll. “If you look back,” Constantine said, “as recently as a year ago, [Carrillo] would purposely go to open locations in Juarez to show that he was untouchable.”

But after Gutierrez’s arrest, Constantine says, Mexican police brought “tremendous” pressure on Carrillo--who died last month in the aftermath of massive plastic surgery.

These are positive signs, but still thin reeds in a stiff wind. Constantine knows enough about the eventual contamination of earlier Mexican law enforcement reorganizations to remain sober about this one. “It’s a long haul,” he said, “and it’s in an environment that is tentative at best.”

He also knows that in Mexico, law enforcement officials have sometimes assailed one drug cartel to advantage another, and he is waiting to see whether Mexico will use the disruption created by Carrillo’s death to assault not only his surviving operation but his rivals, particularly the Arellano Felix organization that controls the California cocaine trade. “It’s got to be comprehensive pressure,” Constantine said.

For those in Washington closely watching Mexico’s performance, frustration continues to shadow progress. The Justice Department says that last year Mexico extradited its first Mexican national to the U.S. on drug charges--but about 25 extradition requests are still pending. Joint U.S.-Mexican task forces intended to combat drug smuggling in several key border regions remain moribund over concerns about leaks to drug smugglers and the Mexican refusal to allow the DEA agents involved to carry weapons across the border. Corruption remains endemic.

With all of these questions still swirling, the real issue Helms ought to be contesting with Weld and the administration is how to induce more sustained cooperation from Mexico. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) have offered one idea: suspend the law that requires the administration to certify the reliability of Mexico and other foreign nations in the drug war. In its place, they called for a new multilateral alliance against drugs with Latin and South American nations.

The Senate last month rejected that two-part plan, but with support from Clinton, it’s likely to eventually resurface. Dodd and McCain are right that the certification process generates enormous tension with Mexico. But in this instance the price of peace is too high.

Decertification may be a blunt weapon, but like the proverbial 2-by-4, it does seem to catch its targets’ attention. “I think [certification] is of value if it can be applied with reason,” Constantine said in careful but precise dissent from the administration. After decertification--which requires the cutoff of foreign aid--Colombia has pushed much harder against the cocaine cartels, he says. And even the threat of decertification has moved Mexico: “I don’t think the timing of that pressure [on Carrillo] was coincidental,” he added dryly.

Just as important may be the pressure that certification places on our own government. As Tim Golden demonstrated in a recent jaw-dropping expose in the New York Times, American investigators have for years seen through drug corruption in the Mexican government; most of the time, policy-makers didn’t want to hear it. At least once a year, certification makes them listen.

With the U.S. economic and political investment in Mexico so great, the instinct to look away is almost primal. It’s not reassuring that the administration hasn’t involved the DEA in the September report on Mexico’s performance. If Helms drops his absurd effort to read Weld out of the GOP, perhaps he could ask the would-be ambassador about that at his confirmation hearing.

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears in this space every Monday.