TIJUANA SLAYINGS REFLECT GROWING DRUG-LINKED VIOLENCE

CRIME: A Mexican border official and businessmen are shot outside a
hotel.

A Mexican border official and a businessman were killed in Tijuana
this week, renewing concerns about increasing drug-related violence in
the border region.

The assassinations happened late Tuesday, the same day a police
reporter from a Tijuana newspaper said four armed men threatened him
while he was driving on a freeway.

Investigators have not identified a motive and no one has been
arrested, as is the case in most drug-related slayings in Mexico.

Rafael Avila Valenzuela, 34, was legal counsel for Grupo Beta, the
Mexican border-patrol agency. Avila and Fidel Guzman, 36, were gunned
down outside the Conquistador hotel. Witnesses said two men armed with
AK-47s drove by and opened fire, according to Marcia Coronado, a state
police spokeswoman in Tijuana. Police recovered more than 100 bullet
casings, most of them from AK-47 weapons, she said.

The two gunmen fled in a blue Chevrolet Astro Van with California
license plates driven by a third man, witnesses told police.

In the past five years, Mexican drug smugglers increasingly have
become more aggressive. With the Colombian cartels loosening their
grip, Mexican smugglers now control the illegal-drug market in the
Southwest United States.

Along the Southwestern border, the number of people arrested while
trying to smuggle drugs across the border has increased from 594 in
1994 to 4,795 in 1998, according to Drug Enforcement Administration
statistics.

As the smugglers battle for turf, there has been increased violence
along the border. In Tijuana, a record high of 600 people were slain
last year.

"These (killings) are all the work of drug traffickers. Unfortunately,
this is now part of the Baja California reality," said Jesus
Blancornelas, a Tijuana weekly newspaper editor who survived an
assassination attempt two years ago. "People are furious because state
and federal police agents don't act. They're scared they will get
caught in the cross-fire one day."

Blancornelas is an editor of Zeta, a weekly newspaper noted for its
accurate portrayal of drug activity in Tijuana. In November 1997, he
narrowly escaped being shot by men with ties to the Arellano Felix
drug cartel. His bodyguard was killed.

Another journalist, Fernando Barroso, may have been a target Tuesday -
in addition to Avila and Guzman. Barroso covers drug trafficking,
assassinations and auto thefts for Frontera, a Tijuana daily newspaper.

In their report to police about Tuesday's incident, Frontera editors
said the gunmen were trying to intimidate Barroso while he was driving
along Via Rapida, a major highway in Tijuana. The men fired their guns
into the air and followed the reporter to the Frontera offices, they
said.

The newspaper, which opened in July, is part of the chain Editores del
Noroeste, which is owned by a Mexican family that has pledged not to
bow to political or criminal pressures to bend the truth in its coverage.

But Blancornelas doubted the drug-trafficking connection.

"I believe this was an isolated traffic incident," Blancornelas said.
"If this had been the work of drug smugglers, they would have shot to
kill."