BIG OVERHAUL FOR MEXICO'S POLICE FORCE

President-Elect To Try To End Rampant Corruption

Mexico City - President-elect Vicente Fox's top aides announced a
plan yesterday to transform radically Mexico's corrupted police and
judiciary and to demilitarize its anti-narcotics programs.

The proposal includes a new public security system that would unify
and professionalize Mexico's many police forces. It also would create
a federal prosecutor general's office to replace the police and
judicial functions of the long-troubled attorney general's office.

The prosecutor general also would oversee a new FBI-style Federal
Agency of Investigations, which would replace the attorney general's
ineffective and discredited Federal Judicial Police.

Former federal prosecutor Jose Luis Reyes and Sen. Francisco Molina,
the two aides who presented the sweeping plan at a news conference,
are expected to be given top law-enforcement posts in the next
government after Fox becomes president Dec. 1.

Both men cautioned that the proposals will be honed and refined in the
coming months, and most will need the approval of Mexico's next
Congress. Fox's National Action Party significantly increased the
number of seats it holds in both houses of Congress in the July 2
election, but lacks a majority.

Among the more controversial proposals yesterday were plans to
gradually diminish the role of the army in the war against the wealthy
and powerful Mexican mafias that smuggle some 60 percent of the
Colombian cocaine sold in the United States. After four years, the
multibillion industry has begun to corrupt even the army -- one of the
nation's few professional institutions.

Molina suggested that the Mexican army had assumed too much of a
police role in the drug fight.

``There are certain areas that definitely have resulted in successes,
and one must recognize it,'' Molina said, praising the military's role
in eradicating marijuana and opium fields and intercepting cocaine
shipments on land and sea.

But unlike in Colombia, where he said drug trafficking is linked to
guerrilla movements trying to destroy the state and thus is a national
security issue, he said, ``In Mexico it is fundamentally a problem of
violence linked to criminal organizations.'' And that, he said, is
best dealt with by civilian police.

``In Mexico, undoubtedly what we have to strengthen is precisely the
credibility of our police forces, fiercely eliminating the corruption
that is there and professionalizing the forces that we have,'' Molina
said.

While quashing rumors that Fox plans to ``disband'' the entire
attorney general's office -- discredited after years of scandals
brought down one top law-enforcement official after another -- the
advisers said their plan will fundamentally transform it.

In effect, Reyes said the attorney general's office will be replaced
by the office of the Federal Prosecutor General, which will prosecute
federal crimes uncovered by the Federal Agency of Investigation. Reyes
said the agency will ``have some characteristics similar but not
identical to the FBI.''

He stressed that the new federal prosecutor ``will enjoy clear
autonomy'' from the president, who will merely propose a candidate for
the job.