Pubdate: Mon, 30 Sep 2002
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2002 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author:  Ricardo Sandoval,The Dallas Morning News

U.S.-MEXICO ALLIANCE AGAINST DRUGS STALLS

Blacklisting Of Baja Hotel, Other Conflicts Stalling Cooperation

ROSARITO, Mexico - It was supposed to be an example of how well the United 
States and Mexico were waging the war together on illegal drugs.

Instead, Rosarito's Oasis Hotel and Convention Center, on a wide swath of 
smooth beach 15 miles south of Tijuana, represents one of the cracks that 
have emerged on the unified front against traffickers.

Last winter, the Oasis and seven other Baja California companies allegedly 
run by the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug organization were blacklisted. 
American officials - led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and 
the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets - were so convinced 
that the hotel laundered drug money that they openly warned Americans 
against visiting or investing in the hotel.

Nine months later, no further legal action has been taken by American 
authorities. And Mexican officials still have no charges pending against 
the hotel.

The unilateral U.S. action is allowed under the so-called Kingpin Act of 
1998. It calls for economic sanctions against firms that U.S. investigators 
believe to be fronts for traffickers. Americans are threatened with fines 
for doing business with companies on the kingpin list.

But the Oasis action has galled many Mexicans who believe the U.S. 
government is unfairly branding foreign companies without publicly stating 
evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

The Oasis' California-based lawyers called it an alarming lack of due process.

FRED GREAVES / SPECIAL TO DMN

Jeanne Maxwell watches her grandchildren play in the pool at the Baja's 
Oasis Hotel. Some Americans have said they're ignoring the threat of fines 
for visiting the blacklisted hotel.

Some American visitors to the hotel railed against what they called an 
arbitrary action and said they would ignore the threat of fines. (U.S. 
officials said that it is not practical to fine everyone who stays at the 
hotel and that kingpin designation is meant to prevent Americans from 
investing in the hotel or extending it credit.)

Even some American law enforcement officials - while convinced that the 
hotel is indeed a drug-money laundering front - said privately that action 
against the Oasis was perhaps premature since it was not followed by quick 
criminal indictments.

Calls to officials in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign 
Assets were not returned.

The binational disconnect over the Oasis is one of several recent 
disagreements that have stalled U.S.-Mexico law enforcement cooperation. 
Mexican officials are still smarting over recent comments from the DEA that 
Mexico has not done enough and is vulnerable to narco-terrorism, despite an 
impressive string of drug arrests and knocking the Arellano Felix family 
from the trafficking pinnacle.

Hotel crippled

The net result of this dispute is that the Oasis is crippled.

The hotel, with its white Taj Mahal-like domes and arches, has been a 
fixture here for 15 years. Although many considered it too loud a structure 
- - misplaced on a rustic Mexican beach - the Oasis was a player in a 
thriving tourism industry in Rosarito, a busy beach resort dominated by 
weekend tourists from California, and Fox Studios' Baja. Titanic is among 
the Hollywood blockbusters that have been filmed here.

But right after the U.S. government's kingpin action, Fox Studios stopped 
housing visiting employees at the Oasis. Hotel operators said they had to 
return $450,000 in deposits from dozens of American companies that withdrew 
convention reservations. At last count, 70 people - almost half the 
full-time staff - have been laid off.

American individuals still come for the ample, tidy pools and a prized 
stretch of beachfront. But Oasis managers said business is down by half 
from a year ago. Upkeep on the grounds is slipping; paint is chipping and 
bathroom fixtures are leaking; and lights throughout the complex flicker 
with increasing frequency.

No formal charges

Despite the public words against the hotel, no formal drug money-laundering 
charges have been filed against the Oasis. U.S. law enforcement officials 
said they're gathering more evidence against the owners.

The Oasis appears to have received the kingpin tag because of Miguel 
Aguirre Galindo, who is the son of the principal owner and who was indicted 
two decades ago in California on drug charges, a DEA official said. U.S. 
drug agents say he is a ranking operative in the Arellano Felix organization.

"So charge them, or get off their backs," said David Burriel, a visitor 
from Northern California who recently stopped at the hotel for a break from 
an overland tour of Baja, and said he had no idea there was such a stigma 
on the hotel.

"If our country is so worried about drug money corrupting people, why 
aren't we going after big banks in our country? Why worry about this modest 
hotel, when we have corruption of Enron proportions that are far more 
dangerous to our country?"

Oasis owners, through their lawyers, insist that no one from the U.S. 
government has ever contacted them to discuss the kingpin designation.

Who is alleged kingpin?

"We don't even know who the alleged kingpin is here," said Charles 
Goldberg, a San Diego-based lawyer for the Oasis. "We've requested 
documentation and reports, but no one has explained the government's action 
to us. ... All we know is that this has been a terrible burden for the 
hotel and its employees."

Mr. Goldberg promised a lawsuit, soon, to get the hotel off the 
government's dirty-money list.

While the case against the Oasis advances slowly, it has quickly opened up 
other areas of discord between U.S. and Mexican soldiers in the drug war.

The two countries agree that cooperation in the fight against traffickers 
is unprecedented and that anti-crime gains made by Mexican President 
Vicente Fox are concrete.

But the DEA fears Mexico may be unjustifiably at rest after the death 
earlier this year of drug baron Ramon Arellano Felix and the arrest of his 
brother, Benjamin. The void, drug agents fear, may be filled by emerging 
drug lords more willing to resort to Colombia-style narco-terrorism to keep 
pushing drugs through Mexico.

Already one gang in Mexico City put local politicians on a hit list - and 
assassinated some police officials - before federal authorities moved in to 
arrest its leaders, including a middle-aged woman dubbed "Ma Baker."

Can't rest in drug war

"The war on drugs is not really a war. Wars eventually end. This is more 
like a battle that never ends," said an American law enforcement official, 
who asked not to be identified. "It's like taking out the garbage. You do 
it one day, and by the next, the trash has built up and you have to take it 
out again. ... Mexico can't rest."

Mexican authorities agreed the drug fight is not over, but they rejected 
the notion that they face an imminent narco-terrorism threat.

The United States has every right to discuss narco-terrorism, said Patricia 
Olamendi, the ranking anti-trafficking official in Mexico's Foreign 
Ministry, in a recent talk with reporters. "But ... saying that 
narco-terrorism is taking root here [is] to me adventuresome and worsens 
the perception of a climate of insecurity."

Ms. Olamendi was reacting to recent comments by DEA chief Asa Hutchinson 
that Mexico could be as vulnerable to narco-terrorism as Colombia. His 
remarks came soon after U.S. drug czar John Walters had praised Mexico for 
actually having done more of late to fight trafficking than the United States.

Amid the sharp Mexican reaction, Mr. Walters - whose official title is 
director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy - met 
privately with Mr. Hutchinson. Mr. Walters emerged saying that he and Mr. 
Hutchinson were on the same page as their Mexican counterparts and that the 
DEA chief had been misquoted.

"We all agree that the game is not over," Mr. Walters said in a recent 
interview in Tijuana. "But what the Mexican government has done is put up a 
tough, engaged effort."

Mexico "has gone after different organizations on as many levels as 
possible and destabilized them," he said.

More DEA agents

Despite assurances that Mexico is battling traffickers, the DEA is moving 
ahead with controversial plans to bolster its presence in Mexico. The 
agency soon will assign 17 new agents to smaller U.S. consular offices in 
Mexico, near the border, where there is no American law enforcement 
presence. The justification is the unending fight against the thousands of 
smugglers who, despite the Mexican crackdowns and U.S. vigilance, move tons 
of drugs across the border and onto American streets.

The intensifying war on drugs was the last thing on the mind of Janel Noa 
as she lounged by a large pool at the Oasis. While her children splashed 
and screamed with delight in a baby pool, Ms. Noa said she was sad the 
hotel was crumbling in the wake of the U.S. government's action. "It's been 
a great place for the kids," Ms. Noa said. "The warning not to come here 
doesn't bother me. Everyone here has been kind to us, and the rates are 
good for a family. Besides, why are we so worried about this hotel? Wasn't 
Las Vegas built by the Mafia? Look how well it's doing."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom