FOX VOWS DRUG 'WAR WITHOUT MERCY'

MEXICO CITY - Pizza and women. Drives in the country whenever the mood
strikes, guards on the payroll. A decent wine list, whites properly chilled
in contraband ice. What more could a murderous drug lord ask from his
maximum security prison?

But apparently all that was not enough for Joaquin Guzman, a violent little
brick of a man known as El Chapo, who left it all behind last weekend. The
reputed former head of the notorious Siniloa drug cartel reportedly paid
millions in bribes to guards, and maybe the prison warden, and rode out of
the maximum security Puente Grande prison hidden in a laundry truck. In his
wake, Guzman, who had been in jail since 1993 on a 20-year sentence for
drug trafficking, left a slew of nagging and embarrassing questions, mainly
this: Is Mexico really so utterly and hopelessly corrupt that one of the
country's most notorious convicts could live like, a king in jail, then
just walk away?

"All the prison bars and millions of pesos spent on security systems are
useless if prisoners leave through the door," said Jorge Tello Peon, the
country's chief public security. "What happened ... is proof of the
capacity of corruption, or rather structural corrosion, of national
institutions by organized crime, particularly drug traffickers."

Guzman's spectacular escape has triggered a national soul-searching about
the depth of corruption within law enforcement and the best way to clean it
up. President Vicente Fox has renewed his vow to crack down on drug
traffickers, promising more extraditions to the United States and tougher
prison conditions in Mexico. Fox has said he wants to end a culture in
which drug traffickers can buy their way out of prosecution, and those
unlucky enough to go to jail "live like masters."

In a speech Wednesday in Guzman's home state of Sinaloa, Fox vowed to
redouble his efforts to curb drug traffickers and all forms of organized
crime, saying, "Today I reaffirm our war without mercy against the
pernicious criminal mafias."

Fox pledged a "great reform" against crime "so every family can sleep
peacefully, so we all can live without fear of going out into the street,
without assaults or humiliation, without the fear of losing everything at
the hands of the criminals."

Fox didn't offer any specifics, but said he thought "public insecurity"
could be cured only by a two-pronged approach against criminals and against
the poverty and despair that can lead to crime.

Guzman's escape came a week after Fox's government ordered an investigation
of corruption at the prison and a week after the Mexican Supreme Court
issued a ruling clearing the way for more extraditions to the United
States. Guzman, who is wanted in the United States on drug charges, also
fled on the same day he reportedly was to have been moved to a higher
security area of the prison in Guadalajara.

Whether the timing was a coincidence, or a decision by Guzman and his
colleagues that things were getting too hot for comfort, is unclear.
Interior Minister Santiago Creel, the country's top security official, told
reporters, "We're seeing some reaction precisely to the progress we've made
in the last few weeks."

Clearly, however, Guzman's case and the arrest of the prison warden and
questioning of 33 guards suggest how deep corruption runs. And this week's
all-out manhunt to rearrest Guzman is an attempt by Fox's government to
prove wrong the country's worst fears about the government's impotence in
the face of rich and powerful drug traffickers.

As hundreds of officers searched for Guzman, human rights officials
described Mexico's lax prison conditions and the ability of rich inmates to
buy whatever they wanted - from illegal drugs to their freedom. They said
the problem has existed for years and was ignored by the government.

"We know that the structure of public security in this country is sick from
top to bottom," said Marti Batres Guadarrama, a member of Congress.