MEXICAN DRUGS GRAVE CAUSES RIFT AT US BORDER

Relations between Mexico and the United States have grown increasingly tense
since the two sides began digging up the bodies of victims of drugs wars
from a site near the border. There are now strong suspicions that the
Mexican police played a major part in the killings.

At least six bodies have been found as work continued on the four sites near
Ciudad Juarez, just south of the border from El Paso, Texas.

Arturo Gonzalez Rascon, the attorney for the state of Chihuahua where the
diggings are taking place, conceded: "It is possible that state and federal
security forces could be involved in this."

Law enforcement authorities believe that as many as 100 bodies, including
many informants and possibly 22 Americans, may be recovered. Five people
have been taken into custody at the Mexican ranch, La Campana.

Senators in Mexico have attacked the foreign minister for allowing the FBI
to take a major role in the investigation, and for allowing recovered bodies
to be taken to the US for forensic examination. "Doesn't Mexico have the
capacity to perform autopsies?" a senator asked. "Doesn't Mexico have the
capacity to do excavations?"

The FBI director, Louis Freeh, and the Mexican attorney general, Jorge
Madrazo Cuellar, have jointly appeared at the scene to try to ease the
tensions. The US has been aware of the existence of the graves for some
time, but it only told the Mexicans at the last minute because of the
possibility that some of their security forces were involved.

Some Mexican politicians, including the presidential candidate, Cuauhtemoc
Cardenas, are unhappy about what they saw as a violation of the country's
sovereignty. They objected to what they saw as the US portrayal of drugs as
a Mexican export rather than an American problem financed by American money.

Mr Freeh said information about the graves had come from a number of
informants, not one as previously reported. It was confirmed that the main
informant was a former Mexican police officer who had worked for the Juarez
drugs cartel.

Mexico's own drugs tsar, Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, an army general, was
exposed as being in the pay of the Juarez cartel in 1997. And the former
head of what was then called the federal security directorate, Rafael
Aguilar Guajarado, was also believed to have been hired by the head of the
cartel, Amado Carillo Fuentes.

These last two are now both dead. Mr Guajarado was murdered in Cancun in
1993 and Mr Fuentes died while undergoing plastic surgery to change his
appearance in 1997, sparking some of the infighting that was believed to
have led to much of the bloodshed.

In that light, Mr Cuellar made no apology for working with the FBI. "What
affects sovereignty is not attacking criminal organizations," he said. "We
are not going to leave one corner of Mexico to the sovereignty of the drug
traffickers."

The FBI has been assisting with DNA identification of the victims. Families
of those who have disappeared in the past five years have been gathering,
hoping for information.