[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.
____________________