Mexican Drug Certification Faces Attack

Congressional critics of Mexico’s anti-drug record mounted a last-ditch effort Wednesday to overturn President Clinton’s recent certification that the U.S. neighbor is a full partner in the battle against the international narcotics trade.

Despite the offensive by key House Republicans, it remained likely that Mexico would dodge the embarrassing prospect of decertification in the drug fight--and the economic sanctions that would go with it. A legal deadline for Congress to reverse Clinton’s decision on Mexico is expected to lapse this weekend without action in the House or the Senate.

In a related development, Mexican and U.S. officials announced the extradition of a Mexican drug trafficker. In the past, Mexico’s failure to extradite major drug figures to the United States had fueled criticism that the country should not be certified as a drug-fighting partner.

Tirso Angel Robles, who had escaped to Mexico from California’s Terminal Island correctional facility earlier this decade, was turned over to U.S. officials Tuesday. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a frequent critic of Mexican drug-enforcement efforts, hailed the action as “an important step forward by the government of Mexico.”

But the extradition announcement did not stop Republican critics from launching attacks on Mexico. Rep. John L. Mica of Florida, who chairs a subcommittee that deals with drug policy, teamed up with Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, chairman of the International Relations Committee, to announce legislation to withdraw certification of Mexico’s drug-fighting efforts--and to extend the deadline for such a vote by 30 days to give the two lawmakers time to muster support.

“Let there be no mistake,” Gilman said. “The annual drug certification issue is still in play.”

A spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said the speaker is considering whether to push for the Mica-Gilman proposal.

Overturning Clinton’s certification of Mexico would require approval by both houses of Congress. So far, those pushing to overturn certification do not appear to have the votes.

Still, they could cause discomfort for the Clinton administration and the Mexican government by focusing on how Mexican drug syndicates have bred corruption and violence and reaped immense profits from shipments to this country of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs.

On Wednesday, Mica took testimony from a former U.S. Customs Service agent who already has proved controversial on both sides of the border. William F. Gately told the panel of allegations uncovered during a recent U.S. drug investigation that potentially implicated Mexico’s secretary of defense in an illicit money-laundering scheme.

Gately said he forwarded the information--backed up by audio and video tapes of discussions between an informant, bankers and drug traffickers--to his superiors and told them the allegations merited further investigation.

“In Mexico,” Gately charged, “there is no line which can be drawn to separate the police from the prosecutors and the prosecutors from the Mafia, the politicians from the Mafia.”

Jose Antonio Zabalgoitia, a spokesman for the Mexican embassy in Washington, said Gately “is a source of dubious credibility” and called his charges “hearsay.”

By his own admission, Gately was involved in internal disputes within the Customs Service over the investigation, known as Operation Casablanca. He retired recently after being abruptly transferred to another Customs post.

Whether credible or not, Gately’s accusations gave Mexico’s critics ammo to continue their campaign to decertify the country. Mica said he plans to follow up on Gately’s testimony and pursue other leads.

The Clinton administration was unmoved by the 11th-hour stirring of congressional opposition.

“The president’s position is that Mexican cooperation has been demonstrated and, where there is a very serious drug problem, they are doing all they can and have taken concrete steps in very specific terms to work with us, at both leadership and operational levels,” said Bob Weiner, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Policy.

As Mica and his allies push their decertification bid, others in Congress want to overhaul the entire process of certification. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Phil Gramm (R-Texas) have introduced a bill that would exempt Mexico and certain other countries from the annual certification review, provided they document progress periodically and work closely with the United States.

Under the certification law, countries that do not receive the annual stamp of approval could face U.S. economic and trade sanctions. Mexico has long criticized the law as biased and unproductive.