Monday, August 29, 1988/The Battalion/Page 9
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Illegals linked to border drug trafficking
WASHINGTON (AP) — Seve
ral months ago, two Border Pa
trol agents were lying in ambush
on the muddy banks of the Rio
Grande River when they saw two
men wading through the water
from Mexico.
The agents called on them to
stop, the two pulled out weapons,
a gunbattle ensued and one of tAe
aliens was killed. The other fled,
dropping 40 pounds of mari
juana.
The incident, recounted by
Texas Border Patrol agent
George Gunnoe, underlines the
dosely intertwined tasks of inter
dicting drugs and illegal aliens.
“Smuggling aliens and drugs
go hand-in-hand,” said Hugh J.
Brien, chief of the Border Patrol,
which is the paramilitary enforce
ment arm of the Immigration
and Naturalization Service.
Last year, the agency inter
cepted more than 60 percent of
the drugs caught along the south
western border: 209,281 pounds
of marijuana, 12,813 pounds of
cocaine and some 50 pounds of
heroin, according to figures sup
plied by the INS.
The rest of the drugs was ap
prehended mostly by the Cus
toms Service, according to Cus
toms figures.
The Border Patrol also
stopped some 1 million illegal
aliens, down from the 1985 high
of 1.8 million.
But Brien pointed out that
only about 7,000 of those inter
cepted along the border were
caught with drugs — and some
were American smugglers.
“Most of these aliens are de
cent people trying to better them
selves,” Brien said.
Ironically, the patrol is the only
government unit taking part in
an interagency anti-drug effort
without earmarked funding.
The INS is working to change
that and hopes to get some $60
million if Congress passes a drug
enforcement bill later this year.
Counting on those funds to
augment its $210 million budget,
the Border Patrol has begun a
drive to recruit 1,000 additional
agents to patrol the 2,000-mile
U.S.-Mexico border against aliens
and drugs.
Of the agency’s 3,600 agents,
2,900 are on that border and the
rest on the Canadian front.
“We’re ideal for this job,”
Brien, a naturalized American of
Irish origin, said. “We’re on the
border, we know the terrain, our
agents are the best trackers
around and they all speak Span
ish.”
Since 1986, when the patrol
was included in an interagency
campaign to interdict drugs, the
number of its narcotics seizures
has more than doubled.
Seizures were up to 2,751 in
1987.
From last October through
April, the patrol intercepted
2,236 drug shipments from Mex
ico.
Brien, as well as officials from
other drug agencies, believes the
increased seizures are due partly
to increased trafficking by smug
glers pushed inland by the air
and naval cordon that the Coast
Guard has imposed along the
Gulf of Mexico.
The U.S-Mexico border still ac
counts for about one-third of the
cocaine entering the United
States and 40 percent of the mari
juana, according to the Drug En
forcement Agency.
Much of the cocaine is flown
from Colombia to Mexico, where
it is hidden in safehouses along
the border until smugglers pick it
up, Gunnoe said.
The traffickers often use illegal
aliens as couriers in return for
getting them across the border,
he added.
One of the methods used by
the smugglers, especially in the
Arizona area, is mule trains.
Typically, Brien said, a train
will consist of nine or 10 mules,
each carrying 200-300 pounds of
drugs, accompanied by four to six
outriders ai med with Soviet-
made AK-47 automatic rifles.
1 As a result, the Border Patrol
has issued its agents M-16 rifles.
The agents • patrol on foot,
horseback, light aircraft and all-
terrain vehicles.
They also use sensors and low-
light television cameras to mon
itor the border, Brien said.
“We don’t have Star Wars tech
nology” like the Coast Guard’s
balloon-mounted radars, Brien
said, but the Border Patrol has 25
assets the other agencies don’t:
Belgian Malinois dogs especially
trained to sniff out drugs and
people.
Regents
Disputes challenge
Mexican land reforms
(Continued from page 3)
wanted to build the parking garage
without infringing on any green
space,” McKenzie said.
Regent Weisenbaker said, how
ever, that A&M is running out of
room for parking and the golf
course is a good solution to the prob
lem.
The Board rejected the site earlier
because they preferred to keep new
construction west of Bizzell Street.
The Board has still not come to
any final decisions concerning the
location of the southside parking ga
rage and the golf course site is still
under consideration.
If the site is approved the garage
will be built on the site of the golf
course club house, the parking lot
and the first tee, Weisenbaker said.
As a result, the first tee will be
moved and a new club house will be
built in one corner of the proposed
garage, he said.
The garage will primarily serve
about 1,200 sftudents living in the
new five-dorra complex in Parking
Annex 24.
Parking locations
Garages and temporary parking
lots will hopefully provide the long
term answer to the parking crunch,
the Regents said. Duncan Field is
one of the lots being considered for
temporary parking.
A special committee on parking
formed by the Board to evaluate the
parking situation on the A&M cam
pus presented its findings to the Re
gents on July 11.
Robert Smith said it is important
to develop a parking system that
provides convenient, secure and af
fordable parking. This includes pro
viding a bus service for day students
who are not able to park on campus,
he said.
Mary Miller, assistant vice presi
dent for finance and operations, said
the existing parking system provides
16,688 parking spaces. About 20 to
30 thousand permits are sold each
semester, she said.
Miller, who has been involved
with the parking and planning com
mittee for six months, said the addi
tion of parking garages will help, but
the loss of about 2,000 spaces be
cause of 1988-89 construction will
have to be dealt with now.
The solution, Miller said, is to
construct temporary parking lots on
Duncan Field, adjacent to Olsen
Field and around the southside
aparment area. The lots will be con
structed with gravel at a cost of $300
per space, she said. The proposed
lot on Duncan Field would not be
used during bonfire construction,
she said.
Miller also said that, depending
on locations chosen for proposed
parking garages, A&M could gain
up to 5,000 parking spaces.
A&M will gain 2,000 spaces from
the construction of the northside
parking garage, she said.
Two additional parking structures
remain to be constructed, Miller
said.
Building purchase
Chancellor, Perry L. Adkisson, an
nounced Julj 13 that A&M decided
to act on a recurrent offer to pur
chase the unfinished Woodbine
building behind the Hilton on East
29th Street.
Adkisson said that A&M has been
offered the building several times
before, but the price has never been
right.
Purchasing this building would
relieve quite a bit of space in at least
three buildings on the main campus,
he said.
James Bond, deputy chancellor
for legal and external affairs, said a
feasibility study, costing $14,000, is
being done on the builing now.
Bond said that there is about 80-
90,000 usable square feet in the six-
story building and it would be a
great place for administrative and
other offices.
Completion and move-in costs.
Bond said, would probably be about
$4.5 million.
The building was originally to be a
multiple-occupancy building with a
bank on the ground floor, but the
plan fell through and the building
became an investment property
aimed at multiple-occupants, he
said.
GOMITAN, Mexico (AP) — Land
disputes that sparked more than 120
killings in the southernmost Mexi
can state of Chiapas in the past six
years present a challenge to pro
posed reform policies of President
elect Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
Salinas, who will take office in De
cember, has pledged to bring more
democracy to Mexico and rid the
country of rural land bosses or caci
ques, Indian for “chief,” who are
known to Chiapas residents as pow
erful political forces.
Over the years, such caciques —
who have traditionally been mayors,
businessmen and other community
leaders — have wrested not only
votes and land but also lives from the
state’s inhabitants.
“The problem is not only about
land. We have to have justice with
our peasants,” Patrocinio Gonzalez
Garrido, Salinas’ choice for gover
nor of Chiapas, told the Dallas
Times Herald in Sunday’s editions.
Gonzalez campaigned for his six-
year post, promising to protect the
state’s peasants and indigenous peo
ple and end the rule of the caciques.
Farmland has always been scarce
in Mexico — only 15 percent is
deemed arable. Since the Mexican
Enrollment plan
Provost Donald McDonald told
the Board on July 18 that the enroll
ment management plan is working.
Enrollment, however, will still
pass the 40,000 mark this fall for the
first time, McDonald said. He antic
ipated a fall enrollment of 40,280.
The plan, he said, calls for limit
ing the size of the incoming fresh
man class to 6,600.
Of (he 14,818 applicants for this
fall, 8,588 were automatically ad-
dmitted based on their high school
ranks and Scholastic Aptitude Test
scores, he said.
One thousand, eight hundred and
seventy-six of the nearly 15,000 ap
plications were under special review
and the 3,320 remaining applica
tions w;ere either late or denied.
Total A&M enrollment is ex
pected to peak at 43,185 in 1991 and
then drop back to the goal of 41,000
by 1993, McDonald said.
Revolution, more than 260 million
acres of expropriated or newly de
veloped land has been distributed to
3.5 million peasants through land
reform programs.
But in the pine-covered moun
tains, vast jungles and fertile valleys
of Chiapas, there is added racial and
class tensions between the state’s in
digenous groups and the mestizo
population, between independent
peasant unions and the government,
and among the various branches of
government-sponsored, peasant la
bor groups.
But by far the most violent clashes ^
have involved the landless peasants >•
— most of them Indians — and the
caciques.
“The last nine years have been a
nightmare for the state,” Gonzalez
said. “What we have in Chiapas is a
conflict between the people and the -
government. They are strong here
because they have been able to link ?'
themselves with the political forces.”
While the caciques’ political clout
generally has diminished through
out Mexico in recent years, it has
strengthened since 1979 in Chiapas.
“Caciques last as long as the gov
ernment and the people want,” Gon
zalez said. “And if our government
has the support of the people, we
will have enough power to put them
aside.”
But some peasant leaders are
skeptical that the ruling Institutional
Revoluntionary Party, or PRI, will be
able to rid the state of their former <■
political allies.
“We don’t expect anything to
change,” said Luis Lopez, the state
leader of CIOAC, an independent •
peasant organization linked to the
Mexican Socialist Party. “That’s just
election talk.”
CIOAC leaders, who claim a
membership of 8,000 mostly land
less peasants in Chiapas alone, argue
that the problem is rooted in the
continued existence of large land-
holdings, many owned by govern
ment-supported caciques, and by the
acquiescence of the PRI-affiliated
peasant groups.
But others, such as Jose Felix
Frias, the state manager for the fed
eral agrarian reform minister, say
“there is simply no more land to be
had.”
Besides huge landholdings that
have proved impossible to expropri
ate, Chiapas also has an abundance
of land organized into ejidos, com
munally owned property in which
each member has the right to farm a
parcel of government land. The
land may be passed on to the chil
dren of an ejido member but may
never be sold.
PARK and RIDE
Bus Operations
845-1971
Park and Ride Lot
and Overflow Visitor Parking
LOT 61 V
TOWER
LOT 62
[a Maria Stop
LOT 60
South Stol
North Stop
East Stop
(HENSEL. COLLEGE VIEW AND
COLLEGE AVE )
ACADEMIC ROUTE
ACADEMIC EAST ROUTE
RUDDER ROUTE
***** COTTON BOWL ROUTE
EXPRESS
^ OFF-CAMPUS BUS STOPS
The Intercampus Shuttle System is a FREE service provided
year round on all University business days.
Buses run from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday thru Friday. The Cot
ton Bowl Route will run from 6:30 am to 1:00 am.
Buses stop at designated stop signs and bus stops.