Mexico the Hunters Become the Hunted

By Pico Iyer

When reports first emerged that Victor Cortez Jr., a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, had been tortured by policemen in Guadalajara, any words of Mexican repentance were drowned out by shouts of resentment. Mexico City's most influential newspaper, Excelsior, ran a cartoon showing two skunks, one labeled "DEA," the other "drug traffickers." An editorial asserted that the very presence of American intelligence-gathering agents created a "stinking sewer." Both the governor and the attorney general of Jalisco state, where the detention had taken place, flatly denied all charges of torture. And the country's Defense Minister, General Juan Arevalo Gardoqui, spoke for many of his compatriots when he said Mexico had no need of outside help.

Last week, however, the office of Mexican Attorney General Sergio Garcia Ramirez virtually conceded that mistreatment had indeed taken place. It named eleven Jalisco police officers suspected of "abusing authority and inflicting injuries" in the Cortez case. At the same time, though, Mexico sent a sharp note to Washington contending that Cortez had overstepped his authority. Angered by the charge, U.S. officials replied that Cortez had acted in accordance with well-known and accepted DEA practices. They bitterly pointed out that none of the eleven officers had yet been arrested. Above all, they found Mexico's continuing show of defensiveness offensive. Said one Administration official: "We're getting pretty sick and tired of the way the Mexicans are acting."

The mishandling of Cortez has already overshadowed all the gestures of goodwill exchanged by President Reagan and Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado in Washington three weeks ago. It has also highlighted the dangers that DEA agents face in Mexico, where police officers often regard their undercover allies from the U.S. as meddlesome intruders. Washington, in turn, views many of its local colleagues as potential enemies who have been corrupted by the very criminals they are supposed to be battling. "It's ! gotten a lot worse down there now," says one U.S. law-enforcement official, "because the agents aren't sure who to trust."

The contentious issues were given new fuel by last week's Mexican report. It found fault with the Jalisco police, but also charged irregularities on Cortez's part. The American agent was first stopped on Aug. 13 because the 1986 Ford Cougar he was driving had improper license plates. At Cortez's side, the report claimed, was Antonio Garate Bustamante, a former Guadalajara police officer who had been jailed on charges of extortion but was later cleared. Inside the trunk of the car was a semiautomatic rifle and an UZI submachine gun, both of which are illegal in Mexico. To make matters worse, Cortez had no identity papers on his person to prove his DEA status. The report conceded that contusions were found on Cortez's body three hours after his release but omitted any reference to the agent's claims that he had been tortured with electric shocks.

The disturbing case was by no means the first attack on U.S. narcotics officers in Guadalajara, Mexico's third largest city. In October 1984 gunfire peppered a DEA agent's car while it was parked in front of his Guadalajara home. Four months later another U.S. drug buster, Enrique Camarena Salazar, was abducted in the same city. His corpse was found the following month in a plastic bag. While dozens of police officers were dismissed or jailed in the wake of the murder, Washington claims many other suspects remain at large. U.S. officials say Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, a drug lord believed to have been involved in the execution, still sends regular shipments of cocaine across the border.

As in all 43 countries in which they operate, DEA agents in Mexico work under tight legal constraints. The 30 or so agents, most of them Mexican Americans, are not allowed to make arrests, seize illicit drugs or even question suspects. Though formally attached to the U.S. embassy, they mainly work undercover with paid informers. Much of the time, they are relatively powerless. Says one enforcement officer: "Intelligence is the only game we play down here. For example, some Chicago families have direct links with the Durango Mafia. We listen to the street talk and occasionally we get a report that so many k's (kilograms) are coming up." At that point the Americans pass on the information to Mexican police and hope, often vainly, for the best. "It is not unknown," says a U.S. official, "for DEA agents to give the name of someone to Mexican cops and then learn the guy was tipped off and has gone underground."

In the face of such problems, Washington has been considering pulling its agents out of Mexico altogether, and some Mexicans have indicated that they would not be sorry to see them go. "Mexico forcefully rejects any attempt to violate its sovereignty in the pursuit of narcotics traffickers," said Senate Leader Antonio Riva Palacio. In practice, however, American drug agents seem unlikely to leave Mexico, where they have operated since the 1930s. The U.S. needs Mexican help in fighting the incoming flow of drugs, and Mexico needs the goodwill of its northern neighbor to cope with the Latin American country's $98 billion foreign debt. "It's a marriage without divorce," says one U.S. policymaker, of relations between the uneasy neighbors. "That's why we have to find a way to work things out."

In the meantime, the DEA agents are growing increasingly weary of their dangerous and often fruitless Mexican duty. That deepening sense of frustration was recently voiced by one drawn DEA man who was counting the days until he could leave. "In some places," the agent complained, "you have to work your tail off, but at the end of the day you know you've accomplished something. Not here. I just want to get out."

With reporting by Ricardo Chavira/Washington and Harry Kelly/Mexico City