MEXICAN BATTALION TIED TO DRUGS

Government Holds 48 Soldiers, Could Disband Entire Unit

MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican government may dismantle a 600-soldier army
battalion based in northwestern Sinaloa state after discovering evidence
linking dozens of its members to narcotics trafficking.

"A unit can no longer function after being contaminated like this one,"
Mexico's defense minister, Gen. Gerardo Vega Garcia, said during an
interview on national television late Monday night. "The unit will probably
be disbanded and something else formed to replace it."

A search of the 65th Infantry Battalion's barracks has uncovered stashes of
cash and marijuana, Vega Garcia said. He added that 48 soldiers have been
detained on suspicion of protecting growers of marijuana and opium poppies,
the raw material for heroin, in the mountainous region they patrolled.

Three of them, including a lieutenant who is being sought after fleeing
authorities, have already been formally charged with drug-related offenses,
Vega Garcia said. Tests have found that 40 of the detained soldiers had
illegal drugs in their systems, he added.

"It was proved that some of the members of the base of operation there did
not comply with their duty to fight drug trafficking," Vega Garcia told the
Televisa network. "This is a shameful matter that cannot be passed over."

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense refused to give further
information about the narcotics investigation or Vega Garcia's comments.

His televised interview, a rarity for a top Mexican military official, was
aimed at responding to charges leveled by human rights groups last weekend
that the entire battalion had been held incommunicado since Oct. 3 at its
base in Guamuchil, about 680 miles northwest of Mexico City.

Some human rights activists, citing reports from the soldiers' wives, had
charged that many members of the battalion had been tortured.

Vega Garcia denied those allegations but said any evidence of mistreatment
would be investigated.

The 48 detainees have been transferred to a military prison in the resort
city of Mazatlan, according to press reports in Guamuchil. Trucks filled
with soldiers, mattresses and other supplies left the barracks Tuesday,
said Sergio Lozano of Noreste de Guamuchil, a local newspaper.

Sinaloa, on Mexico's Pacific coast, is sometimes called the country's
cradle of drug trafficking. The state has a long tradition of illicit
marijuana and opium poppy cultivation and is the birthplace of many of the
country's most famed drug barons. The region suffers from high levels of
revenge killings related to the illegal narcotics trade, which
traditionally has relied heavily on corrupt authorities.

A three-person delegation from the National Human Rights Commission, an
autonomous government agency based in Mexico City, arrived in Guamuchil on
Tuesday to investigate the charges of abuse. The agency had been called in
by Sinaloa's Human Rights Commission, which complained that it had been
denied access to the barracks last weekend. "We will make no comment until
the investigation is finished and a recommendation formulated," national
commission spokesman Miguel Angel Paredes said.

Rafael Cabrera, an investigator with the Sinaloa rights commission, said
the wives of soldiers started calling the agency's office on Saturday.

"Most were not allowed to see their husbands, and the few that were
permitted into the barracks under very restricted conditions reported signs
of severe beatings," he said.

Cabrera added that the women who contacted the commission refused to
identify themselves for fear of reprisals.

"The vast majority live in the residential compound beside the barracks, so
the pressure on them is enormous," Cabrera said of the soldiers' wives.
"This is not just any institution they are dealing with."

Calls to the barracks Tuesday were met with a curt refusal to provide
information, even on how many soldiers remained inside.

Narcotics-related corruption has long plagued the Mexican military, which
plays a central role in drug interdiction and eradication. The Mexican army
is charged with finding and destroying the marijuana and opium poppy fields
that dot the rugged mountains along the country's Pacific and Gulf coastlines.

Mexico's anti-narcotics effort has become increasingly militarized because
the federal police force that spearheads the operation also has proved
corrupt. The militarization has been criticized by human rights groups that
say troops have often treated local peasants brutally during anti-narcotics
sweeps.

In 1997, Mexico's newly appointed anti-narcotics czar, army Gen. Jose de
Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was arrested. Gutierrez, now serving a long prison
sentence, was convicted of protecting a cocaine-smuggling gang operating
out of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso.

In his televised interview Monday, Vega Garcia defended the military's
anti-narcotics effort, pointing out that soldiers have been credited for
the eradication of two-thirds of all marijuana and opium poppy plants
destroyed each year.

"Who could replace us? Who else could do this work?" he asked.