INDIANS SAID TO BE HURT BY EXPANDING DRUG TRADE IN NORTHERN MEXICO

MEXICO CITY - The plight of indigenous peoples in northern Mexico, where
authorities have been largely incapable of stemming the swelling drug
trade, became apparent after a recent massacre of two families near the
Pacific port of Ensenada.

Fermin Castro, a Pai Pai Indian, was the target of the Sept. 17 attack, in
which 18 men, women and children were gunned down at a ranch near Ensenada,
a popular resort city in Baja California state 50 miles south of the U.S.
Border.

Authorities believe Castro headed one of a growing number of small
independent smuggling bands that popped up in the long-sought organization
of the Arellano Felix brothers were forced to adopt a lower profile.

Members of the Pai Pai and other Indian groups are believed to have become
involved in the drug-trade due to lack of economic opportunity, local
residents say.

Local authorities say Ensenada's geography is well suited for drug-trafficking.

"This is an efficient corridor. Sometimes they come up through the Gulf and
ship over dirt roads to the Pacific, or from the Pacific to the Gulf. They
land drugs in planes. They stand offshore in ships and small boats bring
the drugs into shore," Gen. Jose Luis Chavez, the state representative of
the Attorney General's Office, said in an interview last week.

Castro, who was shot in the head and remains in a coma, was born in the Pai
Pai Indian community of Santa Catrina, in the Trinidad Valley southeast of
Ensenada, according to the respected Tijuana weekly newsmagazine Zeta.

In its this week's edition, Zeta reported other indigenous communities in
Baja California state are asking Gov. Hector Teran to stop abuses by local
police in Maneadero, a coastal town just south of Ensenada.

Bernardino Julian Santiago, the local representative of an indigenous
organization that represents migrants from the southern state of Oaxaca,
said some police officers are supplying clandestine drug houses, known as
"picaderos."

In a letter to Teran sent earlier this month, Julian said his people were
tired of reporting police abuses to the Attorney General's Office, and
would take justice onto their own hands if the governor did not intervene.

Teran was unavailable for comment Saturday.

In a Saturday article, the Mexico City daily La Jornada said the indigenous
people of the Batopilas area in the northern state of Chihuahua have been
pushed to become involved in the drug trade.

The daily quoted a Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Francisco Chavez, the
head of a local human rights organization, as saying that local authorities
have profited from inducing the local Indians into growing drugs.

Chihuahua's indigenous population, which includes Tarahumara, Tepehuanes
and Raramuri Indians, is estimated at around 60,000.