[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 32 (Thursday, March 13, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2234-S2236]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE DECISION TO CERTIFY MEXICO

  Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, the decision by the administration to 
certify Mexico as an ally in the fight against narcotics raises a 
broader issue. In my judgment, it is time to

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reach several difficult but obvious conclusions about United States 
policy toward Mexico and our bilateral relations. Indeed, perhaps, if 
there was a contribution offered by the unfortunate decision to certify 
Mexico in the war against narcotraffickers, it is the growing sense in 
the United States of the need for a moment of honest reflection about 
Mexican-American relations. In short, it is time to simply tell the 
truth about Mexico.
  Mexican-American policy in these years has been based, in my 
judgment, on three broad deceptions, deceptions not only of ourselves 
but, perhaps more importantly, of the Mexican people themselves. 
Deceptions which I recognize have been made, sometimes, with the best 
of intentions. The United States has understood that some historic 
injustices create particular sensitivities in Mexico. There is always 
the need to account for nationalist pride and the obvious concern of 
internal interference. But not telling the truth to our own people, or 
to the people of Mexico, allows the Mexican people to avoid dealing 
with the realities of their own country. This conspiracy of silence 
about the realities in Mexico prevents the United States from 
constructing real policies to defend our own interests, and hampers our 
ability to work with Mexico in protecting its own interests.
  These three deceptions are, in my judgment, convincing the American 
people that Mexico is, in fact, making the transition to a vibrant 
democracy; that Mexico has a genuinely free economy; and, finally, that 
Mexico is, indeed, participating in waging a war on narcotics. I 
believe that an analysis of these assumptions will establish that none 
of them are true.
  First is the question of the Mexican economy. In 1993, in an effort 
to support the North American Free-Trade Agreement, the American people 
were told that if only Mexico had access to the American market, then 
Mexico would complete its historic transition to a free and open 
economy. I understood the reasons to support NAFTA. A free-trade 
agreement for North America makes sense. But a condition precedent of a 
North American Free-Trade Agreement is that each of the participants 
genuinely has a free and an open economy. Therefore, this Congress 
could not have affirmatively accepted the treaty without being 
convinced that Mexico, like Canada and the United States, would accept 
the rules of a market economy.
  The simple reality is that in 1997, despite assurances to the 
contrary, Mexico retains strong elements of a centrally directed 
economy, officially controlled and unofficially corrupt. The most 
important elements of the Mexican economy are either under state 
sponsorship or government control, including banking, finance, and 
petroleum. The result has been, predictably, anemic growth which 
stimulates increased migration and denys the Mexican people real 
economic opportunity.
  Last year, 1.2 million young Mexicans attempted to join the national 
work force, only to find employment available for a fraction of those 
seeking work. Since the 1980's, irregular or low levels of growth in 
the economy have been the exception in the region. Throughout that 
decade, annual growth in Mexico, the GNP, averaged 1 percent. In some 
years in the 1990's it grew, but the results were uneven for the people 
themselves.
  The reasons are clear. It is not enough for the national leadership 
to declare Mexico a free economy. Making pledges to the United States 
in order to get access to NAFTA accomplishes nothing if the 
fundamentals of a free economy are not established. Most obvious is the 
need to allow the development of a free trade union movement. But, 
indeed, Mexico will conclude the 20th century as one of the last 
nations in our hemisphere to still not permit the development of 
independent trade unions.
  The results are declining real wages of a magnitude of 70 percent in 
the last 20 years, a minimum wage which decreased by 13 percent in 1995 
and fell by an additional 11 percent in 1996.
  A free economy means a free market for labor. Real competition 
requires that people can engage in collective bargaining. Similarly 
frustrating to the development of a free economy in Mexico has been the 
failure to privatize important sectors of the economy. In September of 
1995, the Mexican Government announced the sale of 61 petrochemical 
plants that would be open to the free economy and to foreign 
investment. It was an attractive response to the promise of NAFTA. On 
October 13, 1996, the Mexican Government reversed its policy and has 
maintained Government control over this vital center of the Mexican 
economy.
  As a result of this failure to permit the free exchange of labor, 
foreign investment, and privatization, Mexico is one of the few 
countries in the world where, because of declining wages, life 
expectancy has leveled off and may actually be declining.
  The Mexican peso, because of a failure to adequately control both 
debts and the currency, literally collapsed in 1994, requiring $40 
billion of external financing from the United States and other 
international institutions. And in 1997, the international community 
faces the same prospect, because the peso is, again, overvalued and, 
again, facing downward pressure.
  The first simple truth, therefore, is we need to be honest with 
ourselves, investors, and the Mexican people. The promise of 
establishing a free market in Mexico, the ending of state-sponsored 
industries, has not been kept. Words do not suffice. The promises mean 
nothing. Mexico remains a state-controlled and directed economy where 
market forces are not allowed to operate. And for whatever price that 
may hold for American investors, or Mexico's new trade partners in 
NAFTA, the price is principally borne by the Mexican people themselves, 
who, despite their labors and their sacrifices and their desire to free 
their economy, are on a downward spiral of opportunity and living 
standards.
  The second truth concerns the promise of democracy in Mexico. For 7 
decades, the Mexican people have been victimized by a one-party 
authoritarian state. It is self-perpetuating and it is not a democracy 
under any contemporary definition. Successive Mexican administrations 
choose the next government. Power has been maintained through 
corruption and outright electoral theft. As recently as 1988, Mexico's 
ruling PRI party had to resort to outright fraud to guarantee the 
election of President Carlos Salinas. In 1994, the leading presidential 
candidate was assassinated, with credible allegations that elements of 
his own party conspired in the assassination because of his opposition 
to electoral reforms that might have fulfilled elements of the promise 
of democracy.
  The level of corruption and denial of democratic freedoms has not 
involved simply the presidency, but almost every level of government. 
This includes disputed state elections throughout the 1980's and during 
this decade. In at least four recent gubernatorial elections the 
opposition PAN party ultimately took control or demonstrated a strong 
presence because of court challenges and public opposition.
  In 1996, despite promises of electoral reform, the PRI majority in 
the Mexican Congress placed restrictions on electoral procedures and 
public financing that greatly restricted the ability of opposition 
parties to participate in, and have a chance of succeeding in, Mexican 
elections.
  Promises of electoral reform in Mexico have simply not been realized. 
Access to the media, public finance, and control of government 
institutions to the advantage of the ruling party have all gone without 
change. Despite public protests and international challenges which have 
resulted in some successes in state gubernatorial elections, the simple 
truth is the 20th century will end without Mexico having experienced 
the peaceful transfer of power from the ruling party to the opposition. 
That, Mr. President, is a contradiction of any claim that Mexico is 
operating under contemporary standards of democratic elections.

  Mexico has not been alone in having difficulty making the transition 
from one-party government to a competitive pluralist system. What makes 
Mexico different is that, unlike in Japan or Italy which had similar 
monopolies on power in the postwar period, but whose governments bore 
American encouragement and sometimes criticism, there has been a 
conspiracy of silence about the realities of Mexican politics and its 
economy.
  Those who remain silent or fail to inform our people or the Mexican 
people of the truth of their national experience bear responsibility.

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  There are, indeed, many victims of the realities of Mexican politics. 
The failure to democratize has caused just as much suffering as the 
loss of economic opportunity. Suffering which forces thousands of 
Mexicans to migrate or live with the downward spiral of the Mexican 
economy.
  In 1996, Amnesty International's annual report accused Mexican 
security forces of outright human rights abuses including the murder 
and torture of leftist rebels. They also uncovered the use of torture, 
and the many disappearances which have occurred throughout the areas of 
conflict. The Mexican media are no less a target. Journalists have been 
intimidated, abducted, and even killed, with cases as late as 1995 
still unresolved.

  Public financing of the media, the corruption of journalists, and the 
monopoly of government power still distorts the view of the Mexican 
people about their own country and its problems, with predictable 
results. The Mexican people are unable to express themselves equally 
through the media, and are unable to gain control of their own lives 
through the electoral system. They face a declining standard of living 
because of the monopoly of government power in the economy, and are 
tragically, but predictably, now involved in guerrilla operations in 
fully eight of Mexico's states.
  Third and finally, Mr. President, is the truth about narcotrafficking 
in Mexico. Not only is it true that the Mexican people are paying an 
extraordinary price for the failure to develop a genuine market 
economy, and democratic institutions, but they, together with the 
American people, are paying an enormous price for the failure to 
control or even cooperate in controlling illegal drugs.
  The administration has been asked a simple question: Is, or is not 
Mexico an ally in the fight against narcotrafficking? The 
administration has answered by explaining that we have to consider the 
past difficulties in Mexican-American history. They have responded that 
Mexico is an increasing source of American investment. Those, Mr. 
President, were not the questions.
  The question is this: Is, or is not Mexico cooperating? The simple 
truth is that the highest levels of the Mexican Government have been 
corrupted and are, at a minimum, working at cross-purposes with the 
U.S. Government in controlling the flow of narcotics.
  Indeed, the administration's own reports conclude that fully two-
thirds of all of the cocaine entering the United States is being 
transshipped through Mexico. The State Department has concluded that 
Mexico is now the most important location in the Western Hemisphere for 
the laundering of narcotics funds.
  On March 1, we learned that General Gutierrez, the drug czar of 
Mexico, was himself arrested for complicity and conspiracy with drug 
traffickers.
  Mr. President, the decision to certify Mexico as an ally in the war 
against narcotics was a decision to protect the Mexican Government from 
criticism. It was the wrong decision. The simple truth is that every 
day, in every way, Mexican officials are permitting the transshipment 
of narcotics to our country. New laws to stop the laundering of funds 
in Mexican banks have not been enforced. Not a single Mexican bank has 
had to alter its operations to comply with new legislation.
  Of the 1,250 police officers dismissed for corruption because of 
narcotics in Mexico, not a single officer has been prosecuted.
  Despite 52 outstanding extradition requests to send corrupt officials 
to the United States, not one has been complied with. Indeed, not a 
single Mexican national has been extradited to the United States 
because of drug-related charges.
  Most discouraging of all, the head of the DEA, Thomas Constantine, 
concluded before this Congress:

       There is not one single law enforcement institution in 
     Mexico with whom the DEA has an entirely trusting 
     relationship.

  Mr. President, there were times during the cold war, indeed times 
during moments of national peril when the United States needed to 
compromise an honest look at the world because of issues of national 
security. The end of the cold war has ended that time.
  We need to honestly assess our relationship with Mexico. We need to 
tell the American people the truth about the state of Mexican 
democracy, its economy, and its fight against narco-trafficking. Change 
will never come without the truth. Ending the certification process 
will begin that national debate in this Chamber.
  I urge the Senate to reject the administration's conclusion, which 
cannot be borne out by the facts. Let us tell the truth about Mexico.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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