Graft Seen as Blow to Mexico’s Drug War

Recently uncovered evidence of corruption pervading some Mexican law enforcement units has dealt a “major setback” to the drug war in Mexico, a senior Clinton administration official told a Senate panel Wednesday.

The testimony by Thomas A. Constantine, chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, came just as President Clinton is expected to again certify Mexico as a cooperative partner in the fight against a booming international drug trade.

Although Constantine avoided passing judgment on certification, which has become an annual occasion for cross-border tension and reconciliation, he and other U.S. officials raised questions about Mexico’s drug-fighting record in the past year.

“There are numerous conditions in Mexico today that, unfortunately, have allowed the organized criminal drug-trafficking syndicates to grow even stronger than I predicted a few years ago,” Constantine said. “It is almost as if members of the [Mexican drug] organizations have little to fear except the slim possibility that they will be extradited to the United States to face justice.”

Constantine, in written and oral testimony, listed a number of major suspected traffickers who appear to operate with virtual impunity. And he warned that the traffickers have gained such influence within key Mexican counter-narcotics units that future attempts by U.S. agencies to share sensitive intelligence “will depend on elimination of corruption” in those units.

Seizing on such remarks, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) pressed a State Department official to explain why Mexico should be termed an ally in the drug war despite its failure to extradite any major drug suspects to the United States.

“Somewhere there’s a hang-up,” Feinstein said.

Rand Beers, assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, replied, “I would have to say we’re not happy [or] satisfied with where we are on the extradition issue.”

The hearing before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control underscores how the certification process, in which the United States evaluates the counter-narcotics merits and demerits of 28 countries, produces a volatile combination of politics, diplomacy and law enforcement.

Countries that are not certified as allies in the anti-drug crusade face economic sanctions, a threat many Mexicans view as harsh and sanctimonious given the huge U.S. markets for cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine.

Clinton has until Monday to announce whether he will certify Mexico and the other countries, but the president telegraphed his intentions about Mexico earlier this month. In a meeting with Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo in the Yucatan Peninsula, Clinton praised the Zedillo administration’s courage in confronting the drug trade and corruption and said the country should not be penalized.

Those statements gave little comfort to congressional critics, who in past years have mounted unsuccessful efforts to overturn the president’s certification of Mexico.

On Wednesday, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the drug oversight panel, criticized what he called “several years of happy talk” by U.S. and Mexican officials who have promoted certification. What the two countries need, he said, are results.

“At this point, it would appear that the best efforts--if that is what they are--of Mexico and the United States are flat-out failures,” Grassley said.