The Death of a Mexican Cardinal

Even if the incident itself had not been so shocking, the death of Guadalajara’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, gunned down with five other people in a drug shootout at that Mexican city’s international airport, would have resonated here in the Los Angeles area.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, who knew Posadas well, described him Tuesday as a man who tried in his own quiet way to help resolve problems that affect the large Mexican community here, such as organizing education programs to convince Mexican migrant workers that illegal entry to the United States is much riskier, and less profitable, than they might think. Ironically, he was also an outspoken advocate for gun control and a fierce critic of the drug traffickers whose violence inadvertently cost him his life. Investigators are looking into whether the cardinal was an innocent victim caught in a cross fire or a deliberate target.

The senseless violence that claimed Posadas exemplifies the predicament Mexico faces in the international war against drug trafficking. While that country does not suffer drug abuse to the same extent the United States does, its streets have become battlefields where innocent people are being hurt. Mexico’s drug problem is mostly a result of geography. It is situated right between the South American countries that produce illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin and the nation that remains the largest consumer.

In spite of increasingly close collaboration between the United States and Mexico in the fight against drug trafficking, and the successes of the Mexican government in jailing big-time drug dealers like Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo and seizing large quantities of drugs, the sheer size and spectacular profitability of that illicit business have made it all but impossible for the two countries to win final victory. That is frustrating, but it should not be used as an excuse to declare cross-border cooperation a failure.

Recently some critics of the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement even suggested that drug trafficking is a reason to rethink NAFTA. By loosening the movement of legitimate goods across the U.S.-Mexico border, some experts warn, NAFTA could make it easier for drug smugglers to get their dirty products across the line, hiding it in shipments of legitimate products. That is undoubtedly true, but it is also a distraction from the main problem--the demand for drugs in this country. Until the United States does more to reduce that demand, through abuse prevention programs or other workable means, drug trafficking will exist whether there is free trade across the Mexican border or not.

By promoting even closer international cooperation between the United States and Mexico, NAFTA could help fight the drug war. It would give both countries a greater incentive to cooperate closely on border interdiction and to otherwise coordinate their anti-smuggling strategies.