Pubdate: Thu, 01 Feb 2001
Source: Alameda Times-Star (CA)
Copyright: 2001 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
Contact:  P.O. Box 28884 ,Oakland, CA 94612
Fax: (510) 208-6477
Website: http://www.timesstar.com/

PRESIDENT FOX WILL CHALLENGE MEXICAN POLICE, PROSECUTORS

TIJUANA, Mexico -- A week after announcing a crusade against drug 
smuggling, President Vicente Fox took on the nation's law enforcement 
system Wednesday, pleading with all Mexicans to help keep police and 
prosecutors honest.

Traveling to one of the nation's most violent cities, Fox urged Mexicans to 
report common crimes and announced a citizens' program to scrutinize the 
law enforcement system in an effort to restore faith in the nation's 
crime-busters.

Many crimes go unreported in Mexico because citizens have little faith that 
they will be investigated fairly. Those that are reported are largely 
ignored -- even when there is a wealth of evidence -- and even traffic 
police are known for holding people on false charges and demanding bribes.

Cases that do go to trial can spend years working their way through a 
corrupt judicial system, and even prosecutors with the best intentions are 
held up by a lack of resources.A promise of change

On Wednesday, Fox promised to change all that.

After pledging to fight organized crime and drug smuggling a week ago, Fox 
announced another phase of his crime-fighting program. It includes opening 
up the files of law enforcement offices to the public, giving people a look 
at what police and prosecutors are doing to fight crime.

"Let's build a new relationship between the authorities and society: a 
government that fulfills its responsibility, and a society that evaluates 
and participates," Fox said.

Fox also pledged to release future crime statistics on a timely basis -- 
something many previous governments didn't do -- and give police and 
prosecutors better tools to do their jobs.A change of attitudes

Most of all, though, he asked Mexicans to change past apathetic attitudes 
and denounce crime and corruption.

"Denouncing crime eliminates the possibility that it can take place in the 
dark," he said.

Past attempts to fight corruption in the nation's law enforcement have 
largely failed in the face of an entrenched culture of bribery and 
disrespect for the law.

Fox chose to announce the program in Tijuana because it has the country's 
highest record of violent crime, aides said. It is also the home of the 
notorious Arellano Felix drug gang.

On Jan. 24, Fox traveled to Culiacan, another city near the Pacific coast 
plagued by drugs and violence, to declare a nationwide war on narcotics 
trafficking and organized crime.

He promised a complete overhaul of the nation's corrupt prison system and 
strict adherence to a Mexican Supreme Court ruling that removed the last 
barriers for extraditing Mexicans for trial in the United States.

However, past attempts at fighting the country's growing drug trade have 
largely failed due to widespread corruption. A few weeks after being 
appointed Mexico's drug czar in 1996, former Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo 
was jailed for taking bribes from a drug cartel.
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