INTERVIEW-MEXICO GOVERNOR SAYS 'TRY ME IF YOU MUST

CHETUMAL, Mexico, - The outgoing governor of Mexico's top tourism state,
Quintana Roo, said on
Friday he was prepared to stand trial but was entirely innocent of
allegations linking him to Mexico's most fearsome drug cartels.

Mario Villanueva, whose state goes to the polls on Sunday, told
Reuters it would be "ridiculous" if the United States paid heed to
what he called "lies" about his drug ties in deciding whether to
recertify Mexico as an ally in the war on narcotics.

"I've become (Mexico's) most famous governor because of the slander,
for my infamy unfortunately," Villanueva said in the state capital
Chetumal, 280 miles (400 km) south of the beach resort of Cancun on
the eastern edge of the Yucatan peninsula.

"The things they have published about me are all lies, I have no links
to drug-trafficking. When I say I am at the disposition of the
authorities, it's for whatever they decide. If the authorities decide
at some point the investigation requires judicial action ... I am
prepared to confront that.

"I am available. What I want is to be investigated, to have the truth
prevail and to clear my name," he added.

Sitting in his office at the governor's hangar at Chetumal airport
before flying to Mexico City, Villanueva said claims he had allowed
traffickers to turn Quintana Roo's long, cove-studded Caribbean coast
into a major drug route were slanders planted by political enemies.

The governor produced a report written by unknown foes, alternately
chuckling or fuming over its claims that he was a cocaine addict and
an alcoholic in the pay of narcos.

Villanueva said he had proof but did not name the political forces
allegedly behind a "campaign of defamation."

"It's a political problem," he said, noting he had long adopted a
relatively independent stance as a member of President Ernesto
Zedillo's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled
Mexico since 1929.

Amicable and eager to talk, Villanueva said he was disturbed by
reports the White House would like to have his head on a platter to
boost its case for not blacklisting Mexico in the annual drug
certification process, to be decided by the U.S. Congress next month.

"Imagine if they destroy a (Mexican) governor in order to achieve
certification, the dead drug traffickers will laugh in their graves,"
he said. "It's ridiculous."

"It would be lamentable if they hurt me simply because of affirmations
in the media or because of false information, and I tell you, they are
false, lies; they are slanderous and defamatory. I cannot accept being
a reason for certification."

Villanueva said that when he steps down on April 5 to make way for
whoever is elected on Sunday, he would prefer to be remembered for
making tourism thrive -- 2 million Americans visit Cancun each year --
while achieving political stability.

After almost 32 years in public service as deputy, senator, governor,
mayor of Cancun and senior PRI official, he said he planned to take
things easy after he is out of office.

"I would like to have a ... sabbatical period, look after my wife and
my young daughter ... and then become an observer of national
politics, read a little, travel a little."

Would he remain in Chetumal, the slightly rundown administrative
capital of Quintana Roo?

"That depends on my boss. My wife is my boss," he said.

"But it's not very healthy for an ex-governor to remain in Chetumal
for perhaps the first months or even year after leaving office because

they'll start unearthing your defects."