DISTRUST ON DRUGS MARS U.S. MEXICO TIES

'Mass Grave' Dispute Stirs Emotions on Both Sides; Are Estimates Inflated?

The discovery of a clandestine cemetery for what may be victims of drug
violence in the wild west border city of Ciudad Juarez, has exposed the
mutual distrust and suspicion that lie at the heart of Mexican U.S.
relations whenever illicit drugs are the issue.

Earlier this week, Thomas J. Pickard the deputy director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, told U.S. reporters an informant had said a number
of bodies of drug violence victims were believed to be buried in mass
graves near Ciudad Juarez, which is across the Rio Grande from El Paso,
Texas. The resulting newspaper stories, relying on estimates that more than
100 people had been reported missing in recent years in the area, suggested
that scores of bodies would quickly be uncovered.

The FBI sent 65 agents to Juarez, in coordination with Mexican officials,
to help with the exhumations. Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo later
said his office was working on the "hypothesis" that more than 100 people,
including 22 Americans, could be buried there. Since 1997, Ciudad Juarez,
which apart from being the capital of Mexico's booming export zone
manufacturing business is also headquarters of the violent Juarez drug
cartel, has suffered a wave of murders and abductions as traffickers fought
for control of the drug business after its head, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, died.

Since 1990, at least 196 people, most of them involved in or touched by the
drug trade, have disappeared in the Juarez and El Paso area; many are
presumed to have been kidnapped by corrupt Mexican police in the pay of
drug traffickers, says an organization made up of relatives and friends of
the missing. In hindsight, U.S. and Mexican of officials appear to have
erred in giving the impression that many of the missing would be found in
the mass graves. Relatives of the missing have flocked to the scene waiting
for word about their loved ones. But after five days of digging and probing
with sophisticated FBI electronic equipment that had been used to find mass
graves in Kosovo, searchers have found the remains of only six people. U.S.
officials fear that if few bodies turn up, anti American sentiment in
Mexico could swell, allowing nationalist leaning politicians to claim that
the U.S. had slandered their country with visions of killing fields.

Some politicians are already taking that tack. "They are using a few facts
to construct a myth, " says Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, an independent senator.
"What's true is that there are six or seven bodies, what's myth is that
there are hundreds of dead." The White House is concerned enough to put out
the word that administration officials should play down expectations about
how many bodies would be found and how quickly. "Everybody here has been
very careful not to say how many bodies there are," an FBI official said.
"The number of people who are missing is getting confused with the number
of people who are likely to be found."

But the world wide attention given to the reports has already created a
public relations nightmare for Mexico just a week before President Ernesto
Zedillo is to meet with President Clinton in Washington. Many Mexican
officials feel that it is the first shot in the battle Mexico faces in
Washington every March when the administration braves a congressional hue
and cry to "certify" Mexico as an ally in the war against drugs. "We are
seeing the winter offensive against certification a month and a half early"
says one Mexican official, expressing a common view. U.S. officials are
watching developments with optimism and apprehension. Administration
officials, who favor certifying Mexico, say Mexico 's cooperation in this
case is unprecedented and will help mute complaints that Mexican law
enforcement officials are corrupt.

The Mexicans, officials say, participated for some time in the
investigation and kept it secret until the FBI was ready.

In a show of approval, FBI Director Louis Freeh plans to visit Juarez today
to visit one of the sites and to meet with Mexican Attorney General Jorge
Madrazo.

"Certification is fully cooperating, and this is my definition of being
fully cooperative," said a State Department official. Yet some in the
administration fear a backlash. "The operating assumption is that more
bodies [including some Americans] will be found, but nobody is willing to
place a definitive number on that," said the FBI official.