MEXICO CHECKS ITS DIRTY LINEN

With considerable fanfare, Mexico's attorney general announced two weeks
ago the arrest of drug baron Alcides Ramon Magana. A former Mexican
federal policeman, he allegedly helped move 200 tons of Colombian
cocaine, worth $2 billion, into the U.S. between 1994 and 1996. Then,
last week, U.S. and Mexican agents cooperated to arrest nearly 300
members of an unrelated major drug ring.

The takedown of a megacrook like Magana or of a sprawling international
drug outfit invariably catches the attention of Americans. But those
high-profile cases distort the banality and breadth of a less-noticed
problem in Mexico: corruption of police and public officials. It chokes
Mexican society like a thick smog, affecting even the country's lowliest
citizens.

More typical than the huge, headline-grabbing drug cases is the story of
Eduardo Gallo. A year ago, frustrated with lower-level police bumbling
and corruption, he shut down his consulting business to launch his own
probe into the kidnapping and murder of his daughter. Gallo took matters
into his own hands because he had reason not to trust the police in his
home state of Morelos: In 1998, the commander of Morelos'
anti-kidnapping unit had been arrested--on kidnapping and murder
charges, no less.

Countless lower-profile cases like Gallo's are the scourge of Mexico.
They are the reason citizens roll their eyes at talk of halting
corruption. Yet since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994--and quite
likely because of it--Mexico has made slow but steady inroads. That
trend may accelerate under President Vicente Fox, the first opposition
president in 71 years. Just by his victory last year, Fox ended the
former ruling party's tradition of burying the misdeeds of the outgoing
administration, as if they hadn't occurred.

That custom actually began to fade under the preceding administration of
Ernesto Zedillo. He had to deal with the 1994 murders of presidential
candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and the secretary general of the ruling
political party--in addition to the role in all of this of Raul Salinas,
brother of former President Carlos Salinas. Raul was also accused of
mysteriously amassing a huge fortune.

After the implementation of NAFTA in 1994--and with Mexico under intense
scrutiny by U.S. media and investors--Zedillo had no choice but to
investigate the entire mess to try to restore foreign confidence in the
country's institutions.

These probes led Zedillo to overhaul electoral practices, which
ultimately caused his own Institutional Revolutionary Party to lose the
presidency, its majorities in both houses of Congress, the mayoralty of
Mexico City and several key governorships.

Enter Vicente Fox, an opposition leader who came to the presidency with
a strong popular mandate to end corruption. As one U.S. State Department
official said, "Mexican society, the people, are sick and tired of
living in a country that takes corruption as a way of life."

Shortly after his inauguration, Fox named Francisco Barrio to the new
cabinet-level post of anti-corruption czar. Barrio began his tenure with
a bang: He fired 43 of the 46 directors of customs offices throughout
the country. His patron Fox also sent Congress a package of stiffer
penalties for corrupt civil servants. Under Fox, Mexican investigators
also are working more closely with their American counterparts to
extradite criminals between the two countries.

Fox's most durable contribution to the war against corruption may be his
insistence on "rendicion de cuentas," a concept that historically has
meant little to Mexican government officials. It translates to
"accountability."

Even so, news last week revealed how much clean-up work Fox has ahead of
him. It turns out someone at the presidential mansion ordered a $440,000
cache of linens, towels and other luxury items worthy of Buckingham
Palace.

An embarrassed Fox ordered an immediate investigation--giving his
anti-corruption czar something else to look into.