Pubdate: PubDate: Feb.14, 1999 Source: Oakland Tribune (CA) Copyright: 1999 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers Contact: 66 Jack London Sq., Oakland, CA 94607 Website: http://www.newschoice.com/newspapers/alameda/tribune/ Page: 9 U.S. BRUSHES OFF MEXICO NARCOTICS TRAFFIC EVALUATION Drug Seizures Numbers Drop, Less Arrests WASHINGTON As the Clinton administration weighs its annual evaluation of Mexico's cooperation in fighting illegal drugs, U.S. officials admit privately that by most statistical measures, the Mexican record looks especially bad this year. Drug seizures by the Mexican police have fallen significantly. Nearly all of the most important Mexican narcotics traffickers identified last year remain at large. The promised extraditions of some Mexican drug suspects to the United States has not materialized, and drug enforcement programs have been rocked by a series of public conflicts between the two governments. Yet even as President Clinton embarks on a brief visit to Mexico starting Sunday, his aides have neither despaired of such facts nor spent much time analyzing them. "There is a difference between cooperation and success," the State Department spokesman, James Rubin, argued last week. While their cooperation might not be having much effect on the problem, he suggested, Mexican officials "are cooperating more closely with the United States at virtually every level than ever before." The fervor with which administration officials are praising Mexico's record - even before studying the assessments being collected from various government agencies - underscores how for Mexico the yearly "certification" process has become more of a joint public-relations campaign aimed at the Congress than an objective appraisal. "This is not about what Mexico has done," one administration official said, speaking on the condition that he not be identified. "This is about convincing the Hill that whatever Mexico has done is enough." Administration officials said their evaluation, which is ex pected by the end of the month and mandated by a 1986 law for countries where drugs are produced or transported, is particularly counterproductive in Mexico. To observe the law strictly and possibly impose the economic penalties it contemplates, they argue, would be to place a strategic and comp I e x relationship at risk for just one of the many interests that the United States has in Mexico. And Mexican officials have done their best to underscore that risk. "I don't even want to think what decertification would provoke," Mexico's ambassador to the United States, Jesus Reyes Heroles, said in an interview. "The equilibrium that underlies our relationship with the United States would be undone." Many analysts of Mexican politics describe such warnings as overblown. Moreover, aides to a half-dozen Washington legislators who have played leading roles on the drug issue say Mexico's decertification is unlikely. The aides, speaking on the condition they not be identified. said they expected a formal endorsement of Mexico's efforts from the administration and then an energetic congressional effort to override that endorsement. But they added that they see no clear sign that they will be any more able to reverse the certification than they were last year. when a Senate motion disapproval gathered only votes. - --- MAP posted-by: derek