Mexico Military
Says 34 May Be
Linked to Drugs

Chronicle News Services

Mexico City

Mexico's armed forces have admitted that 34 military men have been placed
under investigation this year for alleged ties to drug dealersan admission
of a corruption probe that has widened since the arrest in February of the
general who had been the country's drug czar.

The acknowledgment late Sunday came after the respected weekly magazine
Proceso reported that top military officials were being investigated for
copying

computer files about antidrug operations. The report named generals and
other top officers who in the past six years were allegedly given cars,
pigs, farm machinery and other expensive gifts from drug lords.

It was a stunning revelation in a country where, until recently, less was
known about the secretive army's generals than the elusive drug capos they
were supposed to be chasing. Opposition legislators called for a fullscale
investigation yesterday.

The army's antinarcotics role has been stepped up since 1994, when
President Ernesto Zedillo took office, and analysts said the new scandal
highlighted the risks he is running in putting soldiers instead of police
on the front line of the drug war.