Western Hemisphere Firearms Treaty Signed

Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo joined President Clinton on Friday in launching a hemisphere-wide arms pact that Clinton said will help “fight the unlawful trade in guns that contributes to the violence associated here in America with drugs and gangs.”

The two presidents witnessed the signing of the treaty by the ambassadors of the 34 countries that are active members of the Organization of American States, or OAS.

The ceremonies in the ornate headquarters of the OAS provided a symbolic climax to the two-day visit of the Mexican president, who basked in praise from Clinton earlier in the day.

Extolling Mexico’s political reforms and continuing recovery from its severe economic crisis, Clinton said: “It’s not for me to say, but if I were a Mexican citizen, I would be very pleased with the performance of Mexico and its economy and its markets over the last several weeks” as financial instability has convulsed much of the world.

For Zedillo, the arms treaty represented a diplomatic triumph.

Mexican officials have long complained that gun-running, especially from the United States, has exacerbated their drug and crime problems, and he first proposed the pact almost a year ago. Its quick adoption by the usually slow-moving OAS was hailed by observers of the group as a record.

The treaty requires the countries of the Western Hemisphere to license the export and import of firearms, mark weapons with serial numbers at the time of manufacture and cooperate with each other in the suppression of illegal arms shipments. Legal arms imports and exports, however, would not be curtailed.

Although a handful of U.S.-Mexican agreements were signed as well, the visit, Zedillo’s second to Washington as president, was largely a time for him to burnish his own image and that of Mexico.

The Yale-educated Zedillo speaks English fluently and made the case for his country’s progress in democracy, economic health and the war on drugs to audiences as varied as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the viewers of Larry King’s Cable News Network interview program.

But Zedillo failed to meet with critics in Congress, such as Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Paul Coverdell (R-Ga.), who insist that Mexico has failed to cooperate fully with the United States in the war on drugs. Unless it changes course, they contend, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright should punish Mexico early next year by refusing to certify it as cooperative in the drug fight, a ruling that would result in economic sanctions.

Mexican Ambassador Jesus Reyes Heroles said his government was having trouble scheduling meetings with members of Congress, both because of the brevity of Zedillo’s trip and because senators and representatives were rushing to leave town after Congress adjourned.

According to Thomas “Mack” McLarty, President Clinton’s special consultant on Latin America, Zedillo briefed Clinton on the Mexican political situation at a private White House dinner Thursday night. On Friday, the drug war issue evidently took up a good deal of time at a special meeting between the two presidents and members of their cabinets at the White House, administration officials said.

Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the administration’s anti-drug czar, told reporters that he and Mexican Atty. Gen. Jorge Madrazo Cuellar reported to the presidents on the progress they were making on developing a joint drug-control strategy by the end of the year.

“We think we’re on track,” McCaffrey said. “It seems to many of us that 1997 and ’98 may well turn out to be the turning point in our fight against drugs in the United States and Mexico.”

Zedillo used his forum at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to praise the North American Free Trade Agreement as beneficial to the U.S. and Mexico and to deplore Clinton’s recent failure to win congressional approval for so-called fast-track authority to negotiate new trade agreements.