Clinton Begins Visit to Smooth Ties to Mexico

MEXICO CITY — President Clinton arrived here Monday for the first presidential visit to this capital in almost two decades, as many of his Cabinet members met with Mexican counterparts to sign a host of agreements on bilateral matters ranging from money laundering to building new bridges--literally--between the two countries.

Before leaving the White House, Clinton made it clear that he hoped his visit will alleviate some of the tensions between the two countries over such issues as drugs and immigration.

“We share one of the broadest and deepest relations of any two nations on Earth,” he said. “Beyond the 2,000-mile border that joins us, beyond the strong bonds of trade that benefit both our peoples, we must cooperate as never before to find common solutions to common problems.”

In advance of Clinton’s arrival, Mexican Foreign Secretary Jose Angel Gurria Trevino and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright chaired the annual meeting of the Binational Commission--a conference of those members of the two Cabinets who deal with U.S.-Mexican issues.

Later, in a separate meeting of a high-level contact group set up to address one of the most contentious of those issues--the multibillion-dollar cross-border trade in illegal narcotics--senior Mexican and U.S. Cabinet officials spent more than two hours detailing extensive new cooperation between the two countries.

A Clinton administration official said U.S. and Mexican deputy defense secretaries unveiled a drug-fighting package that will deliver four C-26 U.S. surveillance aircraft, 50 UH1H helicopters and $8 million in parts to the Mexican armed forces this year. Mexico already has received 23 helicopters, they reported.

U.S. and Mexican treasury officials at the meeting, which was chaired by U.S. anti-drug czar Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey and Mexican Atty. Gen. Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, reported that the U.S. also has delivered computer hardware and software to combat money laundering and arms trafficking, the administration official added.

Clinton will take another step toward reinforcing cooperation when he meets with Mexico’s President Ernesto Zedillo today. The two leaders are expected to sign a document assessing the threat of drug trafficking to both countries.

After Monday’s meetings, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns added that Albright had promised the Mexican government $6 million to help it build a new government counter-narcotics agency. Mexico unveiled the agency last week to replace the anti-drug force formerly headed by Gen. Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, who was arrested Feb. 18 on charges related to drug corruption.

The Binational Commission sessions and contact group meetings served as a warmup to the presidential visit and were designed to create a mood of good feeling despite some of the issues that divide the two countries. The two Cabinets at the commission conference did not even make a show of conferring before signing the latest batch of agreements. They were signed after the ceremonial opening of the conference and just before the delegations split into smaller, closed-door sessions.

The agreements, which covered a raft of issues of relatively minor importance, included pacts on an increased exchange of information on drug-money laundering, free transportation for Fulbright fellows, protection for migratory birds, noninterference with radio frequencies used by firefighters along both sides of the border, the start of construction of the new Los Tomates bridge over the Rio Grande between Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros in Mexico, and the reopening of a reconstructed old bridge between Brownsville and Matamoros.

The atmosphere of the public opening session of the commission was warm and optimistic. But Gurria did not hide two of Mexico’s main grievances--the annual U.S. certification process that forces Mexico to go through the humiliating exercise of proving it is a cooperative partner in the war on drugs, and the new U.S. immigration law that Mexicans fear will hurt many of their compatriots living in the United States.

“It would be a tragedy for both our countries,” Gurria said, “that drug traffickers would benefit while our governments are involved in a sterile and irritating exercise of allocating blame.”

On the issue of immigration, however, he expressed the hope that a Mexico-U.S. study of migration, due to be completed next month, will clear the air and contribute to “better-informed discussions” on the matter.

Another contentious issue--a standing request by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for its agents stationed in Mexico to carry arms for self-protection--came up at a joint Albright-Gurria news conference. Zedillo flatly denied that request in an interview with several U.S. correspondents here Friday. “The answer is no,” he said. “No further discussion.”

Asked about the controversy Monday, Albright said she hopes to resolve it during this week’s meetings and added: “They face dangers. We must ensure their safety.” But Gurria told reporters that he would not contradict his president.

The Mexican foreign minister then quickly changed the subject to an issue many Mexican law enforcement agents see as the flip side of the drug trade: the illegal smuggling of U.S. arms into Mexico, often along the same routes used by Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.

“The trafficking in arms is a concern to both countries,” Gurria told a Mexican journalist who had asked whether his government would continue to pressure U.S. officials to crack down on the arms trade. And in her speech opening Monday’s commission sessions, Albright indicated that Mexico has succeeded in keeping the issue on the agenda this year.

She referred to “the hydra-headed evil of drugs, corruption, money laundering, illegal arms trafficking and organized crime,” and U.S. and Mexican officials then discussed ways to expand cooperation between the U.S. Treasury Department’s Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents and Mexican law enforcement on the arms trade.

In the closed-door sessions, Mexican officials reported that they have seized an average of 10,000 illegal firearms a month since 1994, a Clinton administration official said.

“A lot of gun-smuggling activity in Central and South America, in Mexico and in the Caribbean comes out of the United States,” the official said, adding that the U.S. agreed to provide Mexico with Spanish-language software on arms smuggling that will link Mexican investigators with ATF databases.

Upon his arrival in Mexico City, Clinton conferred with Gurria and then took a two-hour tour with Zedillo of the renowned National Museum of Anthropology, which houses some of the most magnificent sculptures of the Mayan, Aztec and other pre-Columbian civilizations.

One heavily tattooed male statue with pierced earlobes reminded Clinton of a famous American. “Dennis Rodman,” Clinton said, after gazing at the statue.

The president was not welcomed by everyone here. Several hundred students, militant leftists and pro-Castro demonstrators carrying homemade banners proclaiming “Clinton, Get Out” protested near the American Embassy.

Some burned American flags. Riot police with helmets, shields and truncheons kept them from gathering too close to the embassy.

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this report.