By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The White House made public yesterday its annual "report card" on the drug-fighting performance of narcotics problem countries around the world and, as expected, gave high marks to Mexico and Colombia.
Twenty-four countries were evaluated and all but four were "certified" as fully cooperating with U.S. counternarcotics efforts. The only changes from last year involved Paraguay and Nigeria, which were elevated from "decertified" to "certified."
The evaluation focuses on countries which are drug sources or serve as transit points for traffickers, or both.
The White House decisions were announced in congressional testimony by Rand Beers, the State Department's top counternarcotics official.
Countries that are decertified can be subject to economic penalties. Cambodia and Haiti were decertified but were not subjected to sanctions because of national security reasons. Their status remained unchanged from 2000.
Consistent with last year's findings, Afghanistan and Myanmar, also known as Burma, were decertified without a national security waiver. But in both cases, the question of economic penalties does not apply because they are under U.S. sanctions for other reasons.
In addition to Mexico, Colombia, Nigeria and Paraguay, the other certified countries were the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Jamaica, Laos, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam.
Meanwhile, the State Department issued a report on the illicit drug situation that encompasses countries subject to the certification process and others as well.
The report said there are "unprecedented opportunities" for U.S.-Mexican counterdrug cooperation but that success depends on Mexico's ability to combat institutional corruption.
"Corruption of the law enforcement sector by drug trafficking organizations remains a serious institutional problem," it said.
On the plus side, the report said an aggressive eradication program coupled with drought in the principal drug cultivation areas of Mexico resulted in record low levels of opium poppy production.
On Colombia, the world's largest producer of cocaine, the report said a U.S.-backed aerial eradication program was successful last year, treating some 47,000 hectares of coca and 9,000 hectares of opium poppy. A hectare is about 2.5 acres.
The report added that the eradication program appeared to be having an impact, noting that coca cultivation growth rates have slowed substantially. Between 1997 and 1999, coca cultivation increased by 19 percent, 28 percent and 20 percent, respectively, but the increase was down to 11 percent last year, the report said.
As for the certification process, Mexican President Vicente Fox has been an outspoken critic.
"Certification is more than an affront to Mexico and to other countries. It is a sham that should be denounced and canceled," Fox said last year.
He wants an alternative process that would end the U.S. "unilateral approach" and substitute a cooperative process involving producers and consumers, the largest of which is the United States.
Beers told a Senate panel Wednesday that Colombian coca production increased last year ahead of a U.S-funded crackdown, but the rise wasn't as sharp as in previous years.
''This estimate may - may - indicate that the explosion of coca that has ravaged Colombia recently is finally peaking," Beers said.
President Bush has given Fox his blessing for Mexico's counterdrug policy. He said during a visit to Mexico Feb. 16 that he planned to tell U.S. lawmakers that Fox "will do everything in his power to root out the drug lords and to halt drug trafficking as best as he possibly can."
Bush, hoping to please Fox, endorsed a move in Congress to set aside the certification process, but the lawmakers failed to act ahead of yesterday's deadline. Proponents hope to take action before the March 2002 deadline.
Afghanistan was decertified for another year even though U.N. drug control officers reported two weeks ago that the ruling Taliban militia had virtually wiped out opium production since banning poppy cultivation in July.
The State Department report acknowledged the Afghan effort but said that as of the end of 2000, it was too early to make an assessment of its effectiveness.
