AMERICANS KNEW SIX YEARS AGO OF MASS GRAVES UNCOVERED ON MEXICAN BORDER BUT
REFUSED TO ACT

American authorities knew six years ago of the mass graves now being
uncovered along the Mexican border but refused to act because Mexican
police and drug traffickers were thought to control the secret cemeteries,
it was claimed yesterday.

"We knew the locations of the ranches, but we couldn't do anything about
it," former US special agent Phil Jordan told the Dallas Morning News.

"You can't turn to Mexico's federal police because they are the ones who
buried some of the people."

Jordan ran the Drug Enforcement Agency's El Paso Intelligence Centre in
Texas just over the border from where up to 200 bodies, including 20
Americans, are believed to be buried.

All were victims of drug wars. Some were US informers.

Jordan said at least some graves near Ciudad Juarez were first dug under
the supervision of Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, former head of Mexico's Federal
Security Directorate, or DFS. The DFS, now disbanded, was linked to the
1985 torture and murder of DEA special agent Enrique Camarena.

While at the DFS, Aguilar protected drug traffickers, DEA agents say.

He was gunned down in Cancun in 1993 over differences with his boss, Amado
Carrillo Fuentes, who was then head of the powerful Juarez drugs cartel.

Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo has long acknowledged that drug
corruption is a serious problem, but he has said the Mexican government has
made great strides in cleaning up its law enforcement agencies.

US and Mexican agents began digging this week for bodies thought to be
buried at ranches outside Ciudad Juarez, a sprawling border town and one of
the main gateways for illicit drugs bound for the United States.

Five bodies had been recovered by Wednesday night.