Pubdate: Tue, 17 Apr 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Ginger Thompson

SENATORS LED BY HELMS MEET WITH MEXICAN LEADER

MEXICO CITY, April 16 -- Jesse Helms, who is the powerful chairman of the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who has embodied the tensions and 
distrust that have long divided the United States from Mexico, began a 
good-will visit here today aimed at demonstrating support for this 
country's new government.

At the start of the three-day visit, Mr. Helms, Republican of North 
Carolina, and other members of his panel met privately with President 
Vicente Fox.

The delegation is to meet several high-level Mexican officials on Tuesday. 
At the end of the trip, they will meet members of the Mexican Senate's 
Foreign Relations Commission. That will be the first time, Mr. Helms has 
said, that members of a United States congressional committee hold an 
official meeting on foreign soil with foreign counterparts.

American and Mexican officials have said they do not expect initiatives to 
be announced as a result of the meetings. Participants have expressed hope 
that the visit will be the start of new relationships between legislators.

But across this country, the visit is being viewed as a stunning example of 
how international attitudes toward Mexico have changed since July, when Mr. 
Fox became the first opposition politician in 71 years to win the 
presidency away from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

For much of Mr. Helms's 27 years in office, he has been a staunch critic of 
Mexico. He had dismissed its efforts to fight drug traffic as inadequate, 
and he had accused the government of corruption. Since Mr. Fox's election, 
however, Mr. Helms's views have softened.

On his visit, he is widely expected to express support for policies and 
programs he had long opposed, including expanding the North American Free 
Trade Agreement, suspending the United States program to certify that 
countries are cooperating in fighting the drug trade and establishing new 
guest worker programs.

The population of Mexican workers in Mr. Helms' home state has surged in 
recent years, and growers in North Carolina are among the most vocal 
advocates for expanding guest worker programs.

In a newspaper column two months ago in a Mexican daily, Reforma, Mr. Helms 
said his attitudes had never been anti-Mexico, but rather opposed to the 
policies of the long-governing party, the PRI. He urged officials in both 
countries to "set their eyes on the future, not the past."

"Mexico and the United States should not only be good neighbors," the 
senator wrote, "they should be better partners and friends. We have an 
opportunity to build that kind of relationship with the election of our new 
presidents. All the members of the U.S. Senate — from the left, the right 
and center — want to help them be successful."

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a political expert at the Autonomous 
Technological Institute of Mexico, said Mr. Helms's positions on Mexico had 
"turned 180 degrees."

Although there are concerns that some Mexican legislators would take the 
opportunity of Mr. Helms's visit to denounce his past criticisms, Mr. 
Fernandez urged the Mexican Congress to put aside past rancor and take 
advantage of Mr. Helms's new fondness.

"In the last two decades, Helms has been considered a kind of wall of 
contention that blocked any attempts at improving cooperation between both 
nations," Mr. Fernandez said. "Now, that wall of contention has become one 
of the most attentive, most powerful listeners we have in Washington."

Other senators on the visit include Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of 
Delaware, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, John Ensign of Nevada and 
Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, all Republicans.
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