RIGHTS GROUP REPORT FAULTS MEXICAN ARMY'S CONDUCT IN DRUG WAR

CULIACAN, Mexico -- The steady drumbeat of complaints against
Mexico's army is expected to continue Tuesday, when Amnesty
International is scheduled to release a report raising allegations of
extrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary detentions against
soldiers engaged in the nation's drug war.

The report, which meshes with earlier examinations by Human Rights
Watch and Mexican human rights groups, accuses soldiers of torturing
25 police officers in Tijuana in March to coerce them to confess to
links to organized crime. It says a man arrested by soldiers in
October 2008 in Ciudad Juarez was found dead of a cerebral
hemorrhage. It says two brothers from Ciudad Juarez were led away
from soldiers the next month and never seen again.

In only one of the five cases raised by Amnesty did the army
acknowledge some responsibility. It involved the deaths of three men
detained by the army in Nuevo Laredo in March. The Ministry of
Defense has detained 12 soldiers and charged them in connection with
the men's disappearance and deaths.

"Amnesty International recognizes the serious challenge to public
security facing the Mexican government and its responsibility to
protect the population and integrity of state institutions," the
report says. "The organization understands that law enforcement
duties in such situations are difficult and dangerous for those
charged with improving public security conditions. Nevertheless,
crime cannot be fought with crime."

The State Department in August issued a report saying that
accusations of army abuses had risen sixfold in the two years since
President Felipe Calderon's offensive against drug cartels began in
2006. The report, however, concluded that Mexico was taking measures
to address the problem and that American counternarcotics assistance
should not be held back as a result of the allegations.

"All in all, what we've been trying to do is approach this in a
constructive way, not get into a judgmental and finger-pointing
mode," Carlos Pascual, the American ambassador to Mexico, said in an interview.

He said bilateral initiatives were under way to address the issue,
including meetings between American military lawyers and their
Mexican counterparts.

In August, Mr. Calderon said that the government was engaged in a
"scrupulous effort to protect human rights" and that he knew of not
"a single case" in which authorities did not respond to allegations
against the military.

The American government has complained that the opaque nature of
Mexico's military justice system makes it difficult to know whether
the Ministry of Defense is taking accusations against soldiers seriously.

"It's been extremely difficult to get a consistent and transparent
response from the military," Mr. Pascual said. "It's extraordinarily
difficult to have a sense of how big the problem may be and where
there may be false allegations and where there may be real ones."