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Drug trade threatens Mexico's democracy, McCaffrey says
Copyright © 1999 Nando Media Copyright © 1999 Reuters News Service
MEXICO CITY (May 31, 1999 11:48 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com)
- Mexico's democracy faces an enormous threat from corruption
caused by the illegal drugs trade, U.S. anti-drug chief
Gen. Barry McCaffrey said in a published report on Monday.
"Enormous, enormous. (The threat is) more serious than the Germans in World War II," McCaffrey told Reforma daily in an interview published in Spanish. But he said Mexico could turn things around. "If you have honest elections, if people can kick out corrupt (officials) from their posts, why wouldn't we expect Mexico to build a system that will do away with drug cartels?"
McCaffrey also stressed the importance of respecting national sovereignty in cross-border cooperation in fighting the drug trade, in what has often been a tense relationship between the Mexican and U.S. governments.
"You can't violate Mexican sovereignty more than Canadian or French sovereignty," he said. Mexican authorities bristled last year when U.S. agents conducted the "Casablanca" sting operation against Mexican banks accused of laundering drug money without informing their Mexican counterparts.
Like other Latin American countries, Mexico has also resented the White House's annual certification every March of its anti-drug efforts, saying the process is one-sided.
Mexico has also said the existence of the world's biggest drug market in the United States thwarts its efforts to combat the flow of Colombian cocaine across its porous 2,000-mile (3,200-km) northern border.
Some U.S. politicians counter that there is too much corruption among many senior Mexican officials. Mexico's drug-fighting credentials were tarnished in 1997 when the head of its anti-drug policy, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was arrested on charges of having links with a powerful narcotics gang. McCaffrey himself endorsed Gutierrez's appointment and said he did so based on information supplied by U.S. and Mexican security forces.
"The Mexican president himself decided that this guy was a very aggressive, successful and brave soldier. And our intelligence services said that," McCaffrey said in the interview with Reforma.
"They were mistaken. And so what? We will make mistakes again. But that won't stop me working with Mexico," he added.
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