MEI BULLETIN



                    U.S. GOVERNMENT SHOULD DECERTIFY ITSELF


For President Ernesto Zedillo the annual Petroleum Day Ceremony of March
18
was an ideal occasion to give voice to his concerns more about the
international politics of drugs than about Pemex's administration of
petroleum.  There, in Monterrey, the President would say the most
memorable
words to date of his Administration: those special interests who would try
to intimidate the Mexican Government with threats "do not know Mexican
history nor do they know the national character of the Mexican."

        While en route to the refinery outside Monterrey where 800 people
would hear speeches affirming the preeminence of the State in the oil and
gas industry,  a Mexican observer of the international scene made a
telling
analysis of the drug problem in U.S.-Mexican relations:

        "It's impressive to realize how intelligent and politically
correct
drugs and drug dealers are.  While they are in Mexico and other countries
of Latin America they know how to corrupt officials along the entire range
of authority, from mere border guards to the top anti-drug czars, from
privates to generals, from clerks to cabinet ministers.  They do this very
efficiently, and only with great effort and embarrassment is the
corruption
of these officials detected and punished.

        "In contrast, in the United States, drugs and drug lords are so
sophisticated that they know how to go directly to the final consumer
without getting near a DEA agent, much less a border patrol official, air
controller, or, heaven forbid, U.S. Senator.

        "Seen from this perspective, there is a terrible double standard
being applied to Mexico:  the U.S. readily puts into question the
efficiency of the Mexican political-administrative-police system in the
matters of drug enforcement while, at the same time, keeping absolute
silence about even the existence of a comparable problem in the U.S. It's
as if the U.S. Government were lending protection to the drug lords
themselves by covering up their successes in corrupting U.S. local, state
and federal officials.

        "For its failure to see or acknowledge this problem, the U.S.
Government is not doing its share in the war on drugs.  President Zedillo
should give the U.S. Government 90 days to respond with a positive
program,
not only to acknowledge the problem but to do something about it.  Failure
on the part of the Americans would be met by sanctions that the Mexican
Government knows perfectly well how to apply."