DRUG WOES LAID AT PRI'S FEET

Challengers Link Corruption To Ruling Party

A report by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration lays out the key
features of Mexico's multi-billion-dollar drug trade with the United States.

It cites the rugged, difficult-to-patrol 2000-mile border, vast isolated
areas ideal for growing illicit crops and "powerful organized criminal
groups that exploit weaknesses in (Mexico's) law-enforcement and judicial
systems."

Each of the three major candidates in the Mexican presidential race that
culminates with the July 2 election have addressed the issue of
vulnerability more directly than the diplomatically worded DEA declaration.

The candidates acknowledge that their country faces an enormous problem
with corruption and among government officials who have sold themselves to
drug traffickers and seldom been called to account.

"To be successful in the battle against corruption and impunity, we have to
change the attitude of public servants and citizens," declared Francisco
Labastida, candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Labastida asserts a righteous determination to root out corruption. But as
a lifelong member of the PRI who has held positions in several
administrations, Labastida's professed zeal for reform has made him the
target of mocking criticism.

"How can this plague be eradicated by the same system that has governed us
for 70 years, a system that in the last two decades has let the problem
grow worse by covering up for and even working with the traffickers?"
demands Vicente Fox, candidate of the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

During a nationally televised debate last month, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the
candidate of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, offered an
even more cutting assessment of Labastida's anti-corruption credentials.

"The PRI equals corruption, and corruption equals the PRI," Cardenas claimed.

North of the border, officials from the DEA and other federal agencies
tread softly around the topic even as they privately acknowledge their
frustration that corruption penetrates all levels of Mexican government.

"I'm not sure that a change in the hierarchy would necessarily have much of
a trickle-down effect, because some of the problems are so entrenched at
the local level," said one government official in Arizona who asked not to
be identified.

Like many law-enforcement officials on both sides of the border, the
official said the ultimate solution lies in curbing the American appetite
that every year sucks billions of dollars' worth of cocaine,
methamphetamine, heroine and marijuana across the border into the U.S.

The publisher of the leading newspaper in the state of Sonora, which shares
the international border with Arizona, says Mexico would be able to mount a
more credible offensive against the narcotraficantes if the PRI is tossed
out of the presidency next month.

"There would be a much better chance of reducing the problem with a new
government," said Jose Santiago Healy, publisher of El Imparcial, which has
endorsed Fox.

The tendency of American officials to be suspicious of their Mexican
counterparts has even reached Labastida, who from 1987 to 1993 was governor
of Sinaloa, one of the states where drug traffickers have been most active.

In 1998, the Washington Times cited a secret CIA report claiming that
Labastida collaborated with the traffickers.

Labastida, who was Mexico's Interior Minister at the time, angrily denied
the report. He said a top aide was assassinated by drug traffickers who
were enraged at his efforts against them. And he said threats on his life
became so great that he was forced to leave the country, taking the
position as Mexico's ambassador to Portugal.

A year earlier, the New York Times published a report that said former
Sonoran Gov. Manlio Fabio Beltrones had created "a haven for smugglers who
transport vast quantities of narcotics into the United States."

Beltrones denounced the paper and denied the report, which cited unnamed
U.S. government sources.

Mexican political scientist Denise Dresser, writing in the weekly magazine
Proceso, described Labastida as "a good man surrounded by bad men."

Reach the reporter at Jerry.Kammer@ArizonaRepublic.com or (602) 444-8185.