The News
Mexico consents to flyover by US drones
BY OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY – The Mexican government said Wednesday it has allowed U.S. drones to fly over its territory to gather intelligence on drug traffickers, but insisted the operations were under its control.
The country’s National Security Council said in a statement that the unmanned aircraft have flown over Mexico on specific occasions, mainly along the border with the U.S., to gather information at the request of the Mexican government.
The flights expand the U.S. role in the drug war, in which Americans already have been training Mexican soldiers and police as well as cooperating on other intelligence.
“When these operations are carried out, they are always done with the authorization, oversight and supervision of national agencies, including the Mexican Air Force,” the council said.
It said Mexico always defines the objectives, the information to be gathered and the specific tasks in which the drones will be used and insisted that the operations respected Mexican law, civil and human rights.
The drones “have been particularly useful in achieving various objectives of combating crime and have significantly increased Mexican authorities’ capabilities and technological superiority in its fight against crime,” the council said.
The drone operations, involving U.S. military aircraft, were first reported Wednesday by The New York Times.
The flights were quickly criticized by some Mexican politicians, who have often been sensitive to the involvement of U.S. agencies on Mexican soil.
Sen. Ricardo Monreal of the leftist Labor Party said having U.S. drones flying over Mexico is “unconstitutional and it violates national sovereignty.” He issued a statement accusing the government of being “too submissive to the neighbor to the north” and said Mexico’s Senate was never informed of the drone operations.
Last week, the Mexican Senate voted to summon Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukhán, to talk about allegations that U.S. agents allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico as part of investigations into drug trafficking.
Mexican Sen. Luis Alberto Villareal said direct U.S. involvement “violates trust and undermines national sovereignty.”
More than 35,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderón launched a stepped-up offensive against the cartels in late 2006.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection – which operates four smaller drones above the U.S.-Mexico border region – said it has flown at least one of those into Mexico. In July 2009, the agency sent an Unmanned Aerial System, or drone, into Mexico to help investigate the murder of CBP Agent Robert Rosas, who was shot and killed while he was on a routine patrol near San Diego, CBP spokesman Juan Munoz-Torres said.
“At the request of the U.S. Government and concurrence of the Government of Mexico, the (drone) was flown in Mexico airspace to support law enforcement officers assigned to search and apprehend Agent Rosas’ murder suspects who fled into Mexico near the border town of Campo, California,” Munoz-Torres said. “The UAS ceased operations and returned to the U.S. once several investigative leads materialized.”
Munoz-Torres said his agency does not conduct routine drone surveillance in Mexico but that there is no prohibition against the U.S. asking Mexico for permission to fly drones over its territory.
Mexican and American officials said that their cooperative efforts had been crucial to helping Mexico capture and kill at least 20 high-profile drug traffickers, including 12 in the last year alone. All those traffickers, Mexican officials said, had been apprehended thanks to intelligence provided by the United States.
Still, much of the cooperation is shrouded in secrecy. Mexican and American authorities, for example, initially denied that the first fusion center, established over a year ago in Mexico City, shared and analyzed intelligence. Some officials now say that Mexican and American law enforcement agencies work together around the clock, while others characterize it more as an operational outpost staffed almost entirely by Americans.
Mexican and American officials say Mexico turns a blind eye to American wiretapping of the telephone lines of drug-trafficking suspects, and similarly to American law enforcement officials carrying weapons in violation of longstanding Mexican restrictions.
Officials on both sides of the border also said that Mexico asked the United States to use its drones to help track suspects’ movements. The officials said that while Mexico had its own unmanned aerial vehicles, they did not have the range or high-resolution capabilities necessary for certain surveillance activities.
One American military official said the Pentagon had flown a number of flights over the past month using the Global Hawk drones – a spy plane that can fly higher than 60,000 feet and survey about 40,000 square miles of territory in a day. They cannot be readily seen by drug traffickers – or ordinary Mexicans – on the ground.
But no one would say exactly how many drone flights had been conducted by the United States, or how many were anticipated under the new agreement. The officials cited the secrecy of drug investigations, and concerns that airing such details might endanger American and Mexican officials on the ground.
Lt. Col. Robert L. Ditchey, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that “the Department of Defense, in coordination with the State Department, is working closely with the Mexican military and supports their efforts to counter transnational criminal organizations,” but did not comment specifically on the American drone flights.
Similarly, Matt Chandler, a Homeland Security spokesman, said it would be “inappropriate to comment” on the use of drones in the Zapata case, citing the continuing investigation.
Though cooperation with Mexico had significantly improved, the officials said, it was still far from perfect. And American officials acknowledged there were still internal lapses of coordination, with the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Administration at times unaware of one another’s operations.
More than anything, though, officials expressed concern about reigniting longstanding Mexican concerns about the United States’ usurping Mexico’s authority.
“I think most Mexicans, especially in areas of conflict, would be fine about how much the United States is involved in the drug war, because things have gotten so scary they just want to see the bad guys get caught,” said Mr. Selee of the Wilson Center.
“But the Mexican government is afraid of the more nationalistic elements in the political elite, so they tend to hide it.”
http://www.thenews.com.mx/index.php/mexico/M01-7967.htm
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