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CNN Saturday Morning News

Senate Committee to Meet With Mexico

Aired April 14, 2001 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a historic joint meeting with its Mexican counterpart next week. Immigration, trade, and illegal drugs are among the issues discussed.

And for more insight on the meeting and the issues, Delal Baer joins us from Washington. She's in charge of the Mexico Project and is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Hi, Delal.

DELAL BAER, MEXICO PROJECT: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about this historic meeting here, and we definitely have to talk about Senator Jesse Helms. He's definitely a fireball when it comes to Mexico. What do you expect from him during this meeting?

BAER: Well, Senator Helms is famous for being one of the most severe critics of Mexico, and particularly of the over 70-year rule of the then-PRI. Once the PRI was defeated, I think Senator Helms probably has the attitude that it's time to extend an olive branch of good will to the new Mexican government, to help Mexican democracy prosper and flourish.

And I think he's there on a friendly mission.

PHILLIPS: Well, I'll definitely want to talk about Vicente Fox and PAN in a minute -- PAN.

But let's talk about the drug situation for a moment. I was reading last week Mexican cartels are banding together, saying that they are thinking about joining one mega-cartel. Sounds pretty scary, and I'm just wondering if this will definitely be a major issue in this meeting.

BAER: This happens in every drug-producing country. No sooner do you knock off one major drug kingpin than two or three will spring up. And then in the aftermath of that, it's not unusual for them to try and form some sort of alliance. So this is more of the same. Mexico has been facing these issues for many, many years.

The real key issue here is whether or not the United States and Mexico under the new Fox government are going to be able to push the boundaries of cooperation, antidrug cooperation, and the other very important question is whether or not Mexico will be able to get a grip on drug corruption and cleaning up its law enforcement and judicial institutions.

Mexico is very conscious of the fact that the weapons that it has are faulty weapons. It doesn't have a very effective police force. And they're working very hard to do that. But it's extremely difficult to clean up a situation like that overnight. I'm sure that will be a topic of conversation.

PHILLIPS: Well, Delal, there's been talk that the U.S. military could become more involved. What do you think? Do you think that could happen?

BAER: Well, the U.S. military certainly wouldn't become more involved in Mexico. That is virtually -- that would be very surprising to me. I would not be surprised to see some sort of training, stepped-up training program for the Mexican military, because the Mexican military has been involved in Mexico's antidrug efforts simply because the federal police of Mexico are not reliable, and the military is viewed as somewhat more reliable.

And so we have engaged over the past five years or so in a stepped-up training program for special forces for Mexico, and there has been some coordination of intelligence and -- but the United States military would never take an active role in Mexico. I think that would be -- well, it would be truly historic if it were to occur.

PHILLIPS: Very good. Well, I know there's a lot to talk about with regard to Vicente Fox and the strengthening of his economy. Will you come back and join us again so we can talk more about this?

BAER: Of course, thank you so much, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Delal Baer from CSIS, thanks again.

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