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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | September 2007 
US, Mexico Near Deal on Anti-Drug Aid Package
 Alfredo Corchado & Laurence Iliff - The Dallas Morning News
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 |  | The two sides have finished the technical part of the conversations and have a broad agreement on what the program of cooperation will look like.
- Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa |  | |
Mexico City – U.S. and Mexican negotiators have agreed on key areas of an estimated $1 billion counternarcotics aid package and are immersed in the delicate stage of negotiating how joint law enforcement operations and intelligence sharing will be carried out, senior officials told The Dallas Morning News.
Three senior Mexican officials – Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora and Public Security Minister Genaro García Luna – all stressed in interviews that the anti-drug plan being negotiated is aimed at the "co-sharing" of responsibilities in an effort to stop illegal drugs from moving north and to keep weapons and drug cash from heading south. The News also spoke with U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza, who echoed the sentiments.
Any agreement must be approved by Congress, however, and passage is not assured, especially with tensions over immigration.
Ms. Espinosa said the two sides "have finished the technical part of the conversations" and "have a broad agreement on what the program of cooperation will look like."
"There have been some very intense consultations at the political level," she said. "There's a strong political will to make this a strong cooperative effort. We have found that the U.S. government understands and has the view that what we're looking for is to create a partnership to fight against a common enemy."
The counternarcotics plan – under negotiation since March and first reported by The News in May – is aimed at "significantly" enhancing U.S. aid to bolster Mexico's telecommunications capability and its ability to monitor its airspace and especially its coastal waters, where about 85 percent of all smuggling takes place, Mr. Medina Mora said.
The assistance is designed to enable Mexican law enforcement to take on drug traffickers equipped with advanced weapons, electronic monitoring systems and aircraft, said Mr. Medina Mora and Mr. García Luna. The aid will also strengthen programs aimed at training Mexico's police and periodically testing them to weed out corrupt elements.
Both sides, Mr. García Luna said, will be setting "benchmarks to measure success."
A full agreement is expected to be reached by both governments in the next several weeks, followed by a possible announcement by Presidents Bush and Felipe Calderón at Mr. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, a meeting still under negotiation, sources close to the talks said. The proposal would then be sent to each country's Congress for final approval.
Ms. Espinosa said that thorny issues of cross-border operations, or, as she put it, "actions within Mexican territory" and "intelligence sharing ... will be decided by the Mexican government as well as by the commitments the U.S. government is willing to make."
Mexico has long been sensitive to perceived U.S. meddling in its territory.
What has changed from previous negotiations, the Mexican and U.S. officials said, is the level of trust between the two sides and the seriousness of the threat posed by powerful drug-trafficking organizations to Mexican political stability.
"The level of cooperation today is not reflected in the shared problem that we have," said Mr. Medina Mora. "This is something that can be fought together. Therefore, we believe we are dedicating tremendous numbers of resources, including military."
Mr. Calderón's government has deployed nearly 30,000 troops in at least six states in recent months as part of a broad crackdown on drug-trafficking groups.
Mr. Medina Mora said that, contrary to some published reports, the aid package may not include eavesdropping equipment to use against drug traffickers. "We need more equipment," he said, "but it's not an essential component in our talks with the United States."
U.S. officials expressed optimism that the aid package would be viewed in Congress as an issue of border security and not suffer the same fate as the failed comprehensive immigration reform, which died in the Senate this summer despite Mr. Bush's backing. Mexico's tenuous security situation and its impact on U.S. cities seem to be winning allies in Washington with some members who opposed the immigration package, officials said.
"I'm more optimistic because we're talking about security, an issue that is of critical importance to both our governments," said Mr. Garza, the U.S. ambassador. "From the U.S. perspective, this should be of national interest. A safer Mexico will go a long ways toward our having a safer and more secure border."
Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, president of the newly formed Peschard-Sverdrup & Associates, a political consultant firm dedicated to U.S.-Mexico issues, said the stakes are high for the U.S. government.
"If this plan is viewed as just a counternarcotics effort, then I think the United States is way too shortsighted and missing the point," he said. "This is an investment in Mexico's security," which will help Mexican authorities "better confront the security threats of the 21st century," he said.
Such threats include potential terrorist cells and transnational criminal organizations such as the paramilitary cartel enforcers the Zetas and the Central American gang the Maras, he said.
Meanwhile, a concerted effort is under way by both governments to influence U.S. and Mexican public opinion. On Thursday, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report said that Mexican drug cartels have "expanded their reach to almost every region of the United States."
Proceeds from drug sales ranged from $8 billion to $23 billion in 2005, the report said, money used by kingpins to corrupt law enforcement officials at all levels, a problem that "persists within the Mexican government and challenges Mexico's efforts to curb drug trafficking."
The report called for increased cooperation between the countries and more cross-border operations, including allowing, on a case-by-case basis, "U.S. law enforcement personnel to board and search Mexican-flagged vessels on the high seas suspected of trafficking illicit drugs without asking the government of Mexico for authority."
Critics of the aid plan have said it is little more than window dressing. Mexico already spends billions of dollars on law enforcement and yet police remain corrupt and poorly trained.
Andrés Rozental, a former ambassador who now has a consulting firm, noted that Mexico has a nearly trillion-dollar economy and that the government is flush with oil money from crude exports to the U.S.
"Not only is it not worth it, it is not necessary," he said of the plan.
The real point of the aid is symbolic, he said, a way for the U.S. to accept its share of responsibility for the drug problem because of U.S. consumption.
Nationalistic sentiments, which have sometimes hindered cooperation in the past, may no longer be the hurdle they once were, especially on the issue of security, Mr. Rozental said. Heightened public concern about the threat posed by drug-trafficking organizations means that people are willing to accept greater U.S. involvement in the drug fight. Mr. García Luna, the public security minister, said the agreement represents a new way of doing business between Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials.
"More than money," Mr. García Luna said, "this is about shared responsibility."
acorchado@dallasnews.com; liliff@dallasnews.com |
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