WikiLeaks to target Mexico, narcotics

By Diana Washington Valdez \ El Paso Times
Posted: 11/30/2010 04:17:34 AM MST

WikiLeaks, a whistleblowing online site, obtained 2,836 U.S. documents related to Mexico and 8,324 documents related to narcotics -- both areas of great interest to the border region.

However, the public will have to wait to learn what most of those cables contain because WikiLeaks does not plan to release all 251,287 of its leaked documents at once.

The site is coordinating the release of documents, mostly U.S. diplomatic cables, with selected major U.S. and international media partners. As of Monday, only 272 cables had been released.

The first leaked documents about drugs alleges that a relative of a high-level Afghanistan official was suspected of having links with drug lords who are involved in the opium trade, and the U.S. government ignored the information to avoid disrupting its relations with the Afghan government.

Another cable that mentions narcotics alleges that Brazil's federal police, acting on U.S. tips, arrested suspected terrorists but charged them with drug-related crimes to deflect attention from counterterrorist operations.

The Brazilian government has denied this, according to WikiLeaks.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a news conference Monday in Washington that she would not comment on the contents of the leaked documents.

"There have been examples in history in which official conduct has been made public in the name of exposing wrongdoing or misconduct," Clinton said. "This is not one of those cases.

http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_16738709/