Mexico: Sniping Over the Border

First came the huge traffic jams along the U.S.-Mexican border–called the “Yankee Blockade” by Mexican tabloids–as U.S. officials searched for kidnaped Drug Enforcement Agency Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar, 37. Then the head of the DEA, Francis M. Mullen Jr., who was leaving the agency to join a Connecticut-based security-consulting firm, strained relations between the two countries further by charging that Mexican police permitted a prime suspect in the Camarena case, Drug Kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero, to slip out of the country.

Perhaps in response to Washington’s pressure, Mexican police detained a former Mexican security officer and two former policemen for questioning–only to release them four days later. DEA officials suggested that the arrests had been made only for show; the new DEA chief, Robert Lawn, even accused Mexican police of a role in Camarena’s kidnaping. With so much sniping across the border, the Mexicans tried to salvage their image. In a national television appearance, Defense Secretary Juan Arevalo Gardoqui declared, “We are fervent and passionate fighters against the (narcotics) traffic.”