SALINAS PROBE SOUGHT IN MEXICO

Ex-president's brother accused of taking millions in drug
money

MEXICO CITY - Mexican opposition leaders have renewed calls for an
investigation into possible links between former president Carlos
Salinas and Mexican and Colombian drug bosses.

The saga of the ex-president grew this week after Swiss authorities
confiscated $135 million from Swiss bank accounts of his brother Raul,
claiming the money came from drug payoffs.

Chief investigator Valentin Roschacher said the Swiss police case
shows that, ``conservatively speaking,'' Raul Salinas pocketed more
than $750 million during his brother's presidency.

The Swiss findings have opened old wounds in Mexico.

PRISON GARB

Four years after his term ended, Carlos Salinas remains Mexico's most
hated man, according to polls. Salinas dolls, dressed in prison garb
and adorned with dollar signs, are sold at street corners in the capital.

Salinas has been in voluntary exile since 1995, living in Montreal,
Dublin and now, reportedly, Havana. Allegations that his government
was linked to Colombian cocaine, shipped through Mexico to the United
States, have never gone away.

Now, on the heels of the Swiss findings, Andres Lopez Obrador, leader
of the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), says the
Mexican government must investigate the former president's use of
so-called discretionary funds.

``We're talking about close to a billion dollars here,'' Lopez Obrador
told reporters Wednesday. He accused Salinas of making exorbitant
payments to top bureaucrats during six years in office. ``There has to
be political will to get to the bottom of this matter, to bring
(Carlos) Salinas back to Mexico and, above all, to confiscate his
ill-gotten funds,'' he said.

Critics said President Ernesto Zedillo should be embarrassed that
foreign authorities investigated facts ignored by his own officials.

Independent Senator Adolfo Aguilar said the government's reputation is
at stake.

``The (attorney-general's office) has to demonstrate whether the
government of Mexico is incompetent or corrupt,'' he told a press conference.

Mexican authorities recently tried to question the ex-president about
his brother's alleged ties to the drug cartels and the late Colombian
drug boss Pablo Escobar. Officials from the attorney-general's office
reportedly failed to find him at his last known Dublin address.

Salinas is best known to Canadians for the North American Free Trade
Agreement he signed with Canada and the United States. At the time,
former prime minister Brian Mulroney called him a ``great democrat.''

Since then, the New York Times has published accounts that
intelligence information allegedly linking Salinas' government to drug
traffickers was ignored by a White House eager to see NAFTA passed by
Congress.

IN JAIL

Raul Salinas has been in a Mexico City jail since February of 1995,
charged with illicit enrichment and masterminding the political murder
of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, top official from his own PRI, the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Last week, government prosecutors filed their final report on the
murder case, asking the judge for a guilty verdict and a 50-year
sentence. The verdict is expected early next year.

The investigation into charges of illegal enrichment is not
complete.

Yesterday, the attorney-general's office said it would question three
of Mexico's most prominent business leaders and former top-ranking

bureaucrats in connection with the Swiss findings against Raul Salinas.

These people, implicated in drug-trafficking by witnesses in the Swiss
investigation, are a veritable Who's Who of Mexico's business,
political and military elite of the past decade. They include
ex-presidents Jose Lopez Portillo and Miguel de la Madrid.

Business leaders fear investors will conclude all high-profile
Mexicans are involved in the drug trade.

``What we are asking is that Mexico not be judged simply based on an
isolated incident,'' said Armando Araujo, National Confederation of
Business, Services and Tourism president.

In a letter from his jail cell, Raul Salinas accused the Swiss of
trying to ``present an international image of Mexico as a
narco-state.''


Checked-by: Rich O'Grady