[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H8147-H8148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



[[Page H8147]]


                NAFTA'S IMPACT ON AMERICA'S DRUG PROBLEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, let me also add my congratulations and 
thanks to Keith Jewell, who has served as chief in our Office of 
Photography for so many years, for his distinguished service, for his 
courtesy, for his good humor, for all the years that he has served 
here, and we wish him very well in his future endeavors. We hope he 
will stop back many times to see us.
  Mr. Speaker, today I would like to call upon the Clinton 
administration to convene a very high level working group, reporting 
directly to the President, to address the ever more serious and growing 
illicit drug trafficking problem facing us from Mexico, Central 
America, and South America.
  This drug scourge is truly crippling our Nation: every one of our 
neighborhoods, every town, every city, 80 percent of the crime in this 
country, the burglaries, the robberies, murder, 80 percent of the 
people in our prisons and our local jails, all related to the drug 
problem.
  Recently, three penetrating articles appeared in publications across 
the country that detailed the magnitude of this assault on civilized 
society. One of them appeared in the Nation magazine on July 10, 1995, 
written by Andrew Reding, entitled ``The Web of Corruption: Narco-
politics in Mexico.''
  He talks about the problem not just being a Mexican problem, of 
course, but a problem for our country as well. He then points out that 
integration of our continent's economies, formalized by the North 
American Free Trade Agreement, is increasingly binding our fates. He 
talks about the importance of a populous, unstable Mexico corrupted by 
narco-dollars threatening to subvert prospects for regional economic 
expansion. He adds that economic integration requires a common 
political currency, starting with democratic accountability and a rule 
of law.
  Then this past Sunday, in the New York Times, on July 31 and then 
yesterday, Monday, there were two superb articles summarizing the 
Mexican connection growing as the chief cocaine supplier to our 
country. In the article on Sunday and yesterday, the authors expressed 
a concern that the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement 
[NAFTA], got caught up in collusion by our Government with the 
Government of Mexico to not deal with the growing drug problems in 
order not to jeopardize the passage of that treaty.
  The article says that both the Clinton and Bush
   administrations kept the problems of drugs and corruption from 
jeopardizing the trade accord and the new economic partnership that it 
symbolized. A senior official for international drug policy in our 
government was quoted in the article as saying, ``People desperately 
wanted drugs not to become a complicating factor for NAFTA and there 
was a degree of illicit activity that was just accepted.''

  ``What a shame for us as a country,'' the article states. It talks 
about a community just south of our border in Ciudada Juarez, Mexico, 
where the bodies of police informants, people who want to try to help, 
turn up around this sprawling border city, their mouths sometimes 
stuffed with one of the fingers that they might have pointed at drug 
traffickers. if you try to be an honest citizen, if you try to help, 
you can be sure that you will be shot for your desire to try to deal 
with this critical issue.
  As Mexico's political and economic ties to the United States have 
strengthened, American demand for illegal drugs has helped a new 
generation of Mexican traffickers to consolidate their power, carving 
out an ever-larger share of the world's drug trade and posing a growing 
threat on both sides of the border.
  If we do not do something both in the southern United States and in 
Mexico, Mexico will take over from Colombia in a few years as the 
traffickers' headquarters of choice, undermining democracy, undermining 
commercial development and, in fact, undermining the very free trade 
agreement that was supposed to be helped out by wiping out this drug 
trafficking.
                              {time}  1845

  American officials, who once trumpeted Mexican cooperation in 
fighting drugs, now worry that the Government of Mexico has lost 
control of most of its police. When the authorities located a leading 
cocaine trafficker last month after his rented Learjet crashed as he 
flew to a wedding in Guadalajara, they needed army troops to capture 
him. The city's federal police commander and most of his deputies were 
on the trafficker's payroll, and while America's officials lavishly 
praised Mexico's cooperation in fighting drugs under the prior 
President, Mr. Salinas, growing evidence indicates that protection for 
the traffickers reached high into his administration.
  I urge the American people, I urge President Clinton, to read these 
articles I am going to put into the Record. Let us get serious. Let us 
deal with a real war on drugs in this country. It is ripping our Nation 
apart.
  (The articles referred to are as follows:)

               [From the Nation magazine, July 10, 1995]

              Web of Corruption--Narco-Politics in Mexico

                           (By Andrew Reding)

       The Tijuana cartel is one of three powerful border cartels 
     that manage the multi-billion-dollar business of 
     transshipping cocaine from Colombia's Cali cartel and heroin 
     from Southeast Asia and Pakistan into the United States. At 
     one end of the border, in Matamoros, the Gulf cartel 
     dominates the eastern delivery routes into Texas. The Juarez-
     based Chihuahua cartel, run by Amado Carillo Fuentes, 
     dominates the central border. At the other end, strategically 
     straddling the busiest of all border crossings, the Tijuana 
     cartel dominates Pacific delivery routes. To defend this 
     coveted turf from rivals, the Arellanos have hired what 
     amounts to a private army, ranging from federal and state 
     police to members of San Diego gangs.
       This is not just a Mexican problem but a U.S. one. 
     Integration of the continent's economies, formalized by the 
     North American Free Trade Agreement, is increasingly binding 
     our fates. A populous, unstable Mexico corrupted by narco-
     dollars threatens to subvert prospects for regional economic 
     expansion, overwhelm U.S. capacity to absorb immigrants, add 
     to budget deficits with expensive bailouts and, as 
     demonstrated by the harm inflicted on the dollar by the 
     plunge of the peso, undermine our global stature and standard 
     of living. Economic integration mandates a common political 
     currency: democratic accountability and the rule of law.
                [From the New York Times, July 30, 1995]

          Mexican Connection Grows As Cocaine Supplier to U.S.

                            (By Tim Golden)

       Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.--The bodies of police informants 
     still turn up around this sprawling border city, their months 
     sometimes stuffed with one of the fingers they might have 
     pointed at drug traffickers.
       As Mexico's political and economic ties to the United 
     States have strengthened in recent years, American demand for 
     illegal drugs has helped a new generation of Mexican 
     traffickers to consolidate their power, carving out an ever 
     larger share of the world's drug trade and posing a growing 
     threat on both sides of the border.
       ``If we don't do something, both in the southern United 
     States and in Mexico, Mexico will take over from Colombia in 
     a few years as the traffickers' headquarters of choice,'' the 
     United States Ambassador to Mexico, James R. Jones, said. 
     ``It will undermine democracy. It will undermine commercial 
     development. It will undermine free trade.''
       American officials who once trumpeted Mexican cooperation 
     in fighting drugs now worry that the Government has lost 
     control of most of its police. When the authorities located a 
     leading cocaine trafficker last month after his rented 
     Learjet crashed as he flew to a wedding in Guadalajara, they 
     needed army troops to capture him. The city's federal police 
     commander and most of his deputies were on the trafficker's 
     payroll, officials said.
       While American officials lavishly praised Mexico's 
     cooperation in fighting drugs under Mr. Salinas, growing 
     evidence indicates that protection for the traffickers 
     reached high into his Administration. Those directly 
     implicated in taking bribes include former federal police 
     commanders and two of the administration's three drug 
     enforcement directors.
       American officials say huge amounts of drug money have 
     flowed into Mexico's tourism, transportation and construction 
     industries, helping to fuel the speculative rise of the 
     economy until last year. Without offering details, a senior 
     F.B.I. official, James Moody, asserted recently that many of 
     the state-owned companies privatized under Mr. Salinas had 
     been bought by traffickers.
       The bursts of violence that have attended the traffickers' 
     rise have led many Mexicans to fear that their country is 
     sliding toward the sort of terror that the Medellin cocaine 
     cartel unleashed on Colombia during the late 1980's and early 
     1990's. 

[[Page H8148]]

       In the last three years, the victims of drug-related 
     shootings have included the Roman Catholic Cardinal of 
     Guadalajara, a crusading police chief of Tijuana, two former 
     state prosecutors and more than a dozen active and retired 
     federal police officials.


                   trade pact helps all entrepreneurs

       Law enforcement officials say more and more drug cargoes 
     are moving through Mexico into the United States as part of 
     the widening flow of legal commerce between the two 
     countries.
       Clinton Administration officials insist that the 19-month-
     old trade agreement has not quickened the flow of drugs 
     through Mexico. But United States Customs Service officials 
     acknowledge that the smugglers are moving more of their drugs 
     into the United States taking advantage of rising truck 
     traffic and a falling rate of inspections.
                                                                    ____


                [From the New York Times, July 31, 1955]

         To Help Keep Mexico Stable, U.S. Soft-Pedaled Drug War

                            (By Tim Golden)

       Concerned for Mexican stability and the fate of the North 
     American Free Trade Agreement, officials said, the United 
     States often exaggerated the Mexican Government's progress in 
     the fight against drugs, playing down corruption and glossing 
     over failures.
       Above all, though, American officials said they were kept 
     in check by the desire of the Clinton and Bush 
     Administrations to keep problems of drugs and corruption from 
     jeopardizing the trade accord and the new economic 
     partnership it symbolized.
       ``People desperately wanted drugs not to become a 
     complicating factor for Nafta,'' said John P. Walters, a 
     senior official for international drug policy in the Bush 
     White House. ``There was a degree of illicit activity that 
     was just accepted.''
       Mexican and American officials also acknowledged that at 
     least half a dozen top-level traffickers, including the man 
     now considered Mexico's most powerful cocaine smuggler, Amado 
     Carrillo Fuentes, were arrested during the Salinas Government 
     and quietly freed by corrupt judges or the police.
     

                          ____________________