Pubdate: Sun, 08 Apr 2001
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.uniontrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386

DEFEAT THE CARTEL

Make That A U.S.-Mexico Priority

A dozen years of frustration in trying to counter the Tijuana-based 
narco-trafficking cartel known as the Arellano Felix Organization leave one 
conclusion obvious:

This criminal cancer infecting both sides of the Southwest border won't be 
eliminated until doing so becomes a top priority in Mexico City and Washington.

At present, Mexico's traditionally weak law enforcement and criminal 
justice institutions simply aren't up to the challenge of overcoming a 
hugely wealthy and brutally intimidating criminal enterprise like the AFO. 
Mexico's new president, the refreshingly and courageously reformist Vicente 
Fox, knows his government doesn't have a chance against his country's drug 
cartels unless he can first attack law enforcement's institutional corruption.

To Fox's great credit, he's trying. Several recent arrests, including that 
of a former chief of the binational drug task force, serve notice that Fox 
is sincere and determined. But he faces huge odds.

Building honest, professional law enforcement institutions takes many 
years, if not decades. Yet, Mexico cannot wait years or decades while its 
drug-cartel empires destabilize the country, distort its economy and wreck 
Mexico's aspirations for achieving an indispensable rule of law.

The answer must be urgent help from the United States. The Bush 
administration must recognize that cross-border narco-trafficking cannot be 
contained, let alone reduced, without effectively attacking Mexico's 
predatory drug cartels, starting with the AFO.

And the AFO cannot be defeated and its leaders apprehended and brought to 
justice unless Mexico and the United States work ever more closely together.

The closer alliance now required should include U.S. advice and technical 
assistance in helping Fox reform Mexico's police agencies. It should 
include renewed efforts to foster effective sharing of intelligence, which 
won't happen unless Mexico's police first become less prone to penetration 
and corruption by the drug traffickers.

No less important for Washington, the Bush people will need to understand 
the grim threat posed all along the Southwest border by the AFO and its 
attendant violence and corruption.

Finally, an effective counterattack against the Tijuana cartel will also 
require renewed leadership at the local level.

The days of Alan Bersin wielding authority as Janet Reno's designated 
border "czar" are long gone. But the Bush White House and Justice 
Department should be thinking very carefully about what is needed in a U.S. 
attorney here to mobilize the region's law enforcement resources for an 
effective assault on the AFO.

A dozen years of the Arellano Felix Organization's criminal depredations 
ought to be more than enough. It's time to restore the rule of law.
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