[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 125 (Thursday, September 18, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H7532]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  MEXICO'S PERFORMANCE FIGHTING DRUGS

  (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, recent news reports out of Mexico indicate 
that a counter-drug radar surveillance site in southern Mexico 
monitoring drug-laden flights from Colombia into Mexico may have 
actually been a nest of drug support, not drug suppression. All the 
Mexican officials at the site were arrested for drug trafficking 
related offenses.
  The Mexican radar base was part of the Mexican attorney general's 
anti-drug operations to stem the flow of more than 70 percent of the 
drugs entering the United States, much of it from Colombia. Our DEA's 
concern about no one to deal with in confidence in Mexico was more 
fully illustrated by these latest arrests. Mexico's own DEA leader 
himself was arrested earlier this year.
  The Clinton administration reported to Congress this week on 
Mexico's, and I quote, ``improved'' performance fighting drugs, a 
promised report used to respond to congressional efforts to decertify 
last March. Congress did not buy the administration's earlier ``fully 
cooperating'' drug rating given Mexico, and will not buy more fluff 
this time either.
  The contrast last March was especially vivid in light of the 
decertification of Colombia, whose real, incorruptible antidrug cops, 
fighting and dying in the war on drugs, actually took down the powerful 
Cali and Medellin cartels, and are not helping move drugs north.

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