DRUG KING'S BOLD ESCAPE SENDS FOX A MESSAGE

Cartels Display No Fear Of Mexican Leader's Hard Line

MEXICO CITY -- It had all the markings of a Hollywood prison break: Corrupt
guards. A power outage. A getaway in the back of a truck.

But the Friday night escape by a lethal drug kingpin known as Joaquin "El
Chapo" Guzman was painfully real for the government of President Vicente Fox.

Experts say the perfectly orchestrated escape sent a direct message to the
fledgling presidency about the reach of Mexico's drug traffickers. The
message arrived at a particularly delicate time, with the Fox
administration striving for a tough new stance against criminal
organizations. In just six weeks, the Bush administration must decide
whether to recommend that Mexico be "certified" as a partner in the war
against drugs.

Now, "the Mexican government has to do something spectacular in the next
few weeks to give the United States a justification for certification,"
said Jorge Chabat, a Mexico City university professor who keeps an
authoritative watch on international drug trafficking.

"We're going to see more clashes between the Mexican government and
organized crime," he said. "This is probably the beginning of a war between
the Mexican state and drug traffickers."

Legal observers point out that Guzman's departure from a maximum-security
prison outside Guadalajara coincided with a Mexico Supreme Court ruling
issued just 24 hours earlier. The precedent-setting ruling makes it easier
for the government to extradite criminals to the United States.

Guzman, who was serving a 20-year sentence for illegal association, wasn't
targeted for extradition to the United States. But other traffickers,
including several under indictment in U.S. federal court in San Diego, are
in jeopardy of being sent across the border.

Extradition is a terrifying prospect for drug traffickers, who fear hard
time in U.S. prisons. It also is the subject of intense controversy among
law-abiding Mexicans, who see extradition as an affront to the nation's
sovereignty.

But Fox, in an interview before he took office, said he favored the
extradition of Mexicans accused of drug trafficking. "Drug trafficking
needs punishment. Big punishment," he said.

In recent days, Fox has backed up those strong words with action. In
addition to the 700 federal police now patrolling Tijuana in search of the
leaders of the deadly Arellano Felix cartel, he sent at least 500 federal
police to the Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa, the epicenter of drug
trafficking in Mexico. A wave of killings there has claimed 80 lives in the
past two months.

"Lots of messages are being sent and received right now, about the
extradition decision, about Fox's capacity to crack down on organized
crime," said John Bailey, a professor of government at Georgetown
University and author of a recently published book, "Organized Crime and
Democratic Governability."

"If the decision by the Fox government is to take a harder line, then I
would expect to see more violence," he said.

Some speculate the violence may already have begun.

The governor of Chihuahua was almost killed last week when a 30-year-old
woman rushed past his bodyguards and fired a .38-caliber revolver into his
head.

Miraculously, Gov. Patricio Martnez survived the assassination attempt. He
was taken to Phoenix, where bullet fragments were removed from his skull.

The woman, who was described as mentally unstable, refused to talk about
her reasons for the shooting. But because Chihuahua is the undisputed
headquarters of the powerful Juarez cartel, some people immediately
suspected that drug traffickers were behind the attack.

Chihuahua. Tijuana. Sinaloa. Guadalajara.

"I think there are some lines between the dots," Bailey said.

Guzman, who headed the Sinaloa cartel, was once considered one of Mexico's
most powerful and violent traffickers. Just before his 1993 arrest, he was
the alleged target of an assassination attempt by the Arellano cartel at
the Guadalajara airport. But instead of killing Guzman, the shooters killed
Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo as his car pulled up to the terminal.

Guzman, who has been accused but never convicted of multiple homicides,
"was typical of the Sinaloa crowd. He was vicious," said a retired law
enforcement official who declined to be named for fear of retribution.

Experts speculate Guzman paid millions of dollars in bribes to escape the
maximum-security prison. The fact that he could raise that kind of money
shows "he hasn't been abandoned by the organization," the law enforcement
source said.

Prison officials said that on Friday, Guzman stripped off his prison
uniform, donned street clothes and slipped out the doors of the prison.

The prison's closed-circuit video system jammed during his escape. And
nearby residents reported a six-hour blackout in the pre-dawn hours on
Saturday.

The warden has been arrested, along with 33 guards.

"All the prison bars and millions of pesos in security systems won't work
if prisoners walk out through the doors," said Jorge Tello, a deputy
minister of public security. "Someone has said Mr. Guzman 'didn't escape.
They took him out.' And they are right."