Pubdate: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 Source: Arizona Republic (AZ) Copyright: 2001 The Arizona Republic Contact: http://www.arizonarepublic.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24 Author: Tessie Borden, Republic Mexico City Bureau DRUG-WAR BOOK GETS NOTICE MEXICO CITY -- Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda put on his academic's hat this week to attend the release by journalist Jean-Francois Boyer of a new book, "The Lost War Against Drugs: Narcodependency in Today's World." It was more attention than most new books get in Mexico. The Wednesday release at the French Institute for Latin America featured a debate on the book's major points by well-known Mexican researchers and journalists, among them Boyer; Julio Hernandez Lopez, columnist for the left-leaning daily La Jornada; Raymundo Riva Palacio, editor of the weekly Milenio magazine; and Luis Astorga, social studies researcher at National Autonomous University of Mexico. But the star was the Sorbonne-educated Castaneda, the academic who managed to move beyond the ivory tower to the Mexican halls of power to shape President Vicente Fox's foreign policy. Published by Grijalbo Mondadori, Boyer's book states that, after the demise of large cartels such as Cali and Medellin, smaller organizations emerged in several countries. Two of these regional organizations, the rival Tijuana and Juarez cartels, turned Mexico into a narco-state by making deals with politicians as early as 1985, Boyer says. In return for investing their illegal gains in Mexico, whose coffers were empty thanks to corruption and external debt, then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's government agreed to turn a blind eye to traffickers' activities. Major architects of the deal, Boyer says, were Salinas' father and brother, who is in jail now for money laundering, and one of his presidential aides. That initial pact has been replaced by more recent agreements, Boyer writes. Boyer doesn't limit his accusations to members of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, which lost the presidency to Fox and his National Action Party (PAN) last year. He identifies Ernesto Ruffo Appel, Fox's border czar, as a "narco-governor" in the pocket of traffickers during a tenure as governor of Baja California Norte. Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, who headed the PAN during the 1994 elections, is also on Boyer's list as a lawyer for known money launderers. On Wednesday, Castaneda called Boyer's book one of the most important works on the drug war. "This book tells what I would call a story of new wine in old bottles," he said. "Inter-national narcotics trafficking is today one of the most lucrative enterprises in the world, grossing between $150 billion and $400 billion a year." The book's most important lessons, according to Castaneda, are that interdiction policies have not led to scarcer and more expensive drugs, but instead have caused explosive production of better-quality drugs; that drug organizations have used governments and mirrored big business in developing networks, taking advantage of a communications revolution that has made borders porous; and that the destruction of large cartels simply gave rise to smaller, more flexible groups that dwarfed the profits of larger predecessors. Boyer says it remains to be seen whether the Fox government will make significant strides against the cartels. But he points to two recent "symbolic decisions" as promising signs: to allow extradition of accused drug dealers sought by the U.S. government and to allow the Mexican Attorney General's Office to reopen an investigation into alleged money laundering by the Salinas family. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens