MEXICO TURNS TO HIGH-TECH TOOLS IN WAR ON DRUGS

Program could cost up to $500 million over next 3 years

The Mexican government revealed a high-tech strategy yesterday to wage ``a
total war against drug trafficking,'' including new satellite surveillance,
X-ray detection systems and high-speed navy patrol boats.

Interior Secretary Francisco Labastida Ochoa, a likely presidential
candidate who is responsible for domestic security, said key government
departments had spent 10 months developing the plan to fight the drug
scourge, which he said ``constitutes the gravest threat to our national
security.''

The announcement came just weeks before the March 1 deadline when President
Clinton must inform Congress whether Mexico and 27 other countries have
fully cooperated in the war on drugs. Getting a failing grade on the
certification scorecard could lead to financial sanctions, and at the very
least would create a major diplomatic rift between the United States and
Mexico after a year of strained relations over drug-related disputes.

Labastida joined Defense Secretary Enrique Cervantes Aguirre in disclosing
the new strategy, highlighting the growing role of the Mexican military in
the anti-drug campaign. Officials showed off some of the new equipment,
including a 10-ton truck with a hydraulic X-ray arm that can detect drugs
or weapons in any vehicle.

Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar said five of the trucks will be
installed at critical points on Mexico's southern border with Guatemala as
well as at Nuevo Laredo and Mexicali on the U.S. border. Eight more rigs
will be added during the year, he said, along with smaller X-ray machines
that reveal hidden weapons and drugs stashed in clothing and body cavities.

In all, the program calls for spending as much as $500 million in the next
three years.

Madrazo, who has daily control of the drug war, said Mexico ranks first
worldwide in eradication of illicit crops, especially marijuana and
poppies. He said 44,730 people had been arrested in Mexico on drug charges
since December 1994, when President Ernesto Zedillo took office.

Madrazo also said the anti-drug police will add 24 helicopters to the
eradication program, bringing the fleet to 64, with greater reliance on
satellite images to detect illegal crops.

Labastida said the strategy includes greater emphasis on intercepting
cocaine and other drugs heading into Mexico from the south, denying South
American traffickers a key transit route for cocaine into the United States.

The program relies heavily on cutting-edge technology, which Navy Secretary
Jose Ramon Lorenzo Franco said is essential since the traffickers are
diversifying their routes and using high-tech tools themselves.

In response, Lorenzo Franco said, the navy is building eight gunships
equipped with helicopters and high-speed boats to combat the increasing use
of quick coastal drops on the Caribbean coast.

After their presentations, the officials declined to answer questions. It
was not clear whether any U.S. or other foreign assistance is supporting
the new strategy, as has been the case in previous Mexican anti-drug
programs, such as a year-old money-laundering initiative.

Repeated incidents of high-level corruption, including the arrest of the
country's previous anti-drug czar on trafficking charges and allegations of
military involvement in drugs, have prompted angry complaints by some U.S.
politicians that Mexico is not doing enough to fight drug trafficking.