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| MEXICO MURDERS | |
 December 6, 1999 
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Barry McCaffrey, recently a former DEA official has been quoted as saying Americans knew where the bodies were buried roughly since the early '90s and didn't go get them because some of the same agencies they had to work with were some of the people responsible for putting the bodies there. Your reaction. BARRY MC CAFFREY: It's hard to imagine that. Look, there's an enormous threat to Mexico. Violence and corruption. Thank God we've got Louis Freeh and the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the border patrol, federal agencies that are equipped and trained to do this kind of work. Attorney General Madrazo who is now working with our own FBI, is trying to confront one of the major threats to Mexican national security. That is going to involve partnership. That's really what you're seeing in action right now.
JORGE MADRAZO CUELLAR: I think that our relationship is working. It's actually really very good between the FBI and the PGR - the DEA and the PGR, the Customs officials and my office -- the attorney general institution. I think that we have recovered a lot of confidence. We are doing a very good job. Ciudad Juárez is only one example. During this year of 1999 we have worked together in four major operations. Ciudad Juárez is the last one, but we work in the southwest operation, in the impunity operation. I think that the results are very good. |
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RAY SUAREZ: Did you have to spend some time in negotiation before American officers were able to come over -- setting ground rules for whether they would be armed, what sort of operations they would take part in?
RAY SUAREZ: General McCaffrey, last week the president said that what you see happening now in Mexico -- cocaine loads growing dramatically, marijuana interdictions and shipments up and the violence is all part of a spillover affect from Colombia, that efforts the on cracking down on drug gangs are starting to put too much heat on them and that traffic is moving north. What do you think of that suggestion?
RAY SUAREZ: And Attorney General Madrazo, what do you think about the President's suggestion that you're seeing a spillover from Colombia?
RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Attorney General, General McCaffrey's remarks would reflect that he realizes that there's an American component to this problem, that it's America's hunger for the drug that is giving you the transshipment point status. Do you think that Mexicans ,in the streets of your cities, those reading your newspapers in the morning, understand that at our highest levels maybe that's part of policy, but that Americans in the street don't realize our drug problem affects your country? JORGE MADRAZO CUELLAR: I think that we have an important understanding of what is happening with drug trafficking. I think that most Mexicans understand that we have to fight against consumption but also against production and distribution of drugs. So this is an integral phenomenon. And we have to fight against all pieces of this phenomenon. |
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JORGE MADRAZO CUELLAR: Yes, I think that we are suffering that problem in Mexico, and the cocaine problem is increasing not at the level of the states but we have some problems in major cities in the south border and also in the north border on consumption of cocaine. So we have to tackle very quick that problem. RAY SUAREZ: Barry McCaffrey, in the most recent round of certification, Mexico was certified as an operating partner of the United States in the war on drugs, but during those same hearings that resulted in the certification, chief of operations of the DEA said there was still a lot of information, sensitive information, that he felt very uncomfortable sharing with his Mexican counterparts. What do you do about that? Has it improved?
RAY SUAREZ: Will they south of the border have instituted a new police force to take the place of some old structures? Can you tell the attorney general tonight that you have greater confidence that your DEA chief of office remarks weren't necessarily reflective of the whole administration? BARRY MC CAFFREY: We don't listen to what people say. We watch what they do. What you're seeing happening right now on the ground in Mexico is Louis Freeh, thank God for the FBI, is cooperating fully with Mexican law enforcement authorities. We have no option. We're going to protect the two nations. We have to work patiently as partners against this enormous threat to both nations. |
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| Corruption in the police | ||||||||||||||||||||
| RAY SUAREZ: And Attorney General Madrazo, do you something
closer to a handle on the corruption that's been plaguing your police
forces in recent years?
RAY SUAREZ: In your own press, Mr. Attorney General, you've been accused of compromising your country's sovereignty by allowing United States law enforcement officials to work on your soil. Our two countries have had a sometimes difficult history. How do you respond to your critics in Mexico?
RAY SUAREZ: And finally, Barry McCaffrey, with the seizures up, do we also have to assume that there are loads getting through along with these huge loads of cocaine and marijuana that are being found?
RAY SUAREZ: Barry McCaffrey, Attorney General Madrazo, good to talk to you both. JORGE MADRAZO CUELLAR: Thank you very much. BARRY MC CAFFREY: Good to be here. |
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RAY
SUAREZ: We're joined now from Mexico city by Mexico's Attorney General
Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, and by General Barry McCaffrey, director of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy. He joins us from the Eisenhower
Executive Office Building in Washington.
RAY
SUAREZ: So, Mr. Attorney General, is the size of the American delegation
down there and the kind of assistance that they're giving to your own
drug police a sign that that partnership is working? 
JORGE
MADRAZO CUELLAR: We have been collecting information and intelligence
along the last weeks in order to discover the precise points, the spots.
I think that that week really was very important for the success of
this operation. 
BARRY
MC CAFFREY: Well, you know, most Americans when they talk about drugs
are referring to cocaine. Clearly more than half of the cocaine in t
world now is produced in Columbia and the rest of it in two other Latin
American nations, Bolivia and Peru. We are a giant engine sucking drugs
through Mexico into the United States. We spend $57 billion a year on
it. And that's really the source of the problem. It generates enormous
levels of violence and corruption on both sides of that border. There's
two pieces we're working. One, we've got to cooperate with Mexico. There's
100 million of them, they're our second biggest trading partner. And
they're also serious about this. The other piece of the action, though,
the most important part of the national drug strategy is we have to
reduce the number of Americans consuming these drugs. There's four million
of us who are chronically addicted. That's the heart and soul of the
problem. 
JORGE
MADRAZO CUELLAR: Well, it is not easy to understand what is going on
in Colombia. But let me stress that in Mexico during 1999 we have established
very important records and seizures of marijuana and cocaine -- the
most important in history more than 13,000 Mexicans are working everyday
on a daily basis in order to seal our territory, our land, our coast
and our air space in order to divert the cocaine shipments. We don't
like cocaine in Mexico, so we are working very hard with the army and
with the navy and of course cooperating very much with our U.S. partners.
RAY
SUAREZ: In many countries in the past that have become transshipment
points, like Mexico, a domestic drug problem has grown up where there
sometimes wasn't one before. Are you seeing that in Mexico? 
BARRY
MC CAFFREY: Well, I mean we've gone from literally no cooperation probably
in the 1980s after this terrible situation in Mexico with the murder
of Pomerana, and the subsequent abduction of a Mexican citizen. Today
the reality of it is the coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Mexican
navy, do cooperate against drugs. There is a massive training cooperation
going on. We do share intelligence. There's no question, as President
Zedillo and Attorney General Madrazo will note, that there's a huge
problem threatening Mexican democratic institutions. In my view, in
our view, we're going to have to work as partners with Mexico respectfully
and patiently in the coming 20 years to do something about it.
JORGE
MADRAZO CUELLAR: Yes, we are working very hard on cleaning the house.
We have to provide results to our society and we have to dismiss all
people who have misconducts or are committing crimes in the police forces.
Let me say that during the last two years, we have put 2,000 police
officers out of the corporation. We have prosecuted criminal charges
against 354 people. I think that we have to clean the house, to clean
the police force and to provide results. I think we are succeeding step
by step.
JORGE
MADRAZO CUELLAR: I think that opinion is part of democracy so I have
to respect the pluralism of opinions, but I must say that we have been
working under the frame of the treaty that we have celebrated with the
United States, the bilateral instrument. So every operation is in accordance
with law. Let me say that the FBI operation, the assistant that would
have requested the FBI, is only with the experts. No police of the FBI
is working or Mexico, only experts, medical forensics and anthropologists.
BARRY
MC CAFFREY: Oh, there's no question. Look, Ray, we probably use 11 metric
tons of heroin a year in the United States. We seize maybe a ton or
two at best. We seize about 100 metric tons of cocaine - we meaning
the world law enforcement authorities. It's almost impossible to end
drug addiction in America by working on the interdiction piece. What
you have to do is work in cooperation with the international authorities.
There is a Vienna Convention to which we're all signatories. You have
got to try and confront these international criminals wherever they
are. We're doing that, not just on FBI-Mexican police, but we're talking
precursor chemical controls, money laundering, asset seizure, extraditions.
Both nations, Mexico and the U.S., are extraditing criminals to the
other country. That's the first time in our history that's happened.