For years, Mexico's military has been perceived as being above the corruption
that plagues the nation's police forces and government agencies. No more.

The armed forces says 34 military men have been placed under investigation
this year for alleged ties to drug dealers an admission of a widening
corruption probe since the arrest in February of the general who had been
Mexico's drug czar.

The acknowledgement came after a respected weekly magazine reported Sunday
that top military officials were being investigated for copying computer
files about antidrug operations. The military confirmed the report in a
statement to The Associated Press on Monday.

The disclosure is remarkable for Mexico, where for decades the military has
been portrayed as an oasis of ethics in a desert of corruption.

``I think it's part of a general shift, which I think is positive,'' said
Roderic Camp, a Tulane University professor who studies the Mexican military.

``I think it's part of the political reform and also the real concern with
corruption, particularly drugrelated corruption,'' he said. ``And the
military isn't going to be able to hide that anymore.''

Brig. Gen. Jose Enrique Ortega Iniestra, the military spokesman, said in the
statement that the investigation of the 34 officers or former officers
``shows the Defense Ministry's commitment to fight drugs.''

``The Mexican military has always denounced and will denounce whoever breaks
the law regardless of hierarchy or condition,'' he said.

On Monday, he would not take phone calls, and no one in the military's press
office would discuss the matter or give their name.

Usually it has taken an extraordinary event to bring military corruption to
light.

When two men were charged with the 1985 murder of American drug agent Enrique
Camarena, U.S. federal prosecutors claimed the former defense secretary and
other top officials took payoffs to ignore drugrunning. Mexico denied it.

In 1992, six officers including two generals allegedly were protecting a
drug shipment in the southeastern state of Veracruz when they got into a
shootout with drug agents trying to intercept the shipment. Seven federal
police officers were killed.

The new accusations have come quicker, and were brought without a public
event a firefight or the murder of a U.S. agent that made them impossible
to keep quiet.

Brig. Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was arrested less than a month after he
took office as drug czar, when authorities found him living in an apartment
owned by the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Mexico's top drug lord.

Prosecutors accuse him of ties to Carrillo stretching back to the seven years
in which he was regional commander in the western city of Guadalajara. At the
time he had arrested several of Carrillo's rivals, advancing his career and
helping Carrillo's business.

The new allegations date to April 2, when according to the news magazine,
Proceso, a colonel and a captain copied secret files from the computer of the
defense secretary.

The documents, Proceso reported, indicated that a recently retired general
and at least five colonels had ties to leading drug smugglers.

Among the files, Proceso reported, was information about drug corruption in
the military in Guadalajara, a letter to the president about Rebollo's
arrest; and a tip from a U.S. Embassy official to the Mexican government that
The Miami Herald was about to publish an article about drug corruption in the
military.

Proceso said among the documents was a proposal from Carillo offering not to
sell drugs in Mexico, to bring in money and to help catch minor smugglers if
the military would let him operate in peace and keep half his possessions.

The revelations are a blow to the military and to President Ernesto Zedillo,
who has increasingly used the military in traditionally civilian activities
such as police work and antidrug operations.

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