Mexico Proposes Federal Police Plan Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Mexico Proposes Federal Police Plan By Adolfo Garza Associated Press Writer Tuesday, November 17, 1998; 7:46 p.m. EST MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A proposal by President Ernesto Zedillo to combat rampant crime by creating a national police agency may be doomed before it is formally presented to Congress. Mexico has local police forces but has no unified federal law enforcement agency. Zedillo's administration proposed the agency Monday as part of a major anti-crime package, which also calls for tougher sentences. The move follows a crackdown on crime announced in August aimed at halting a four-year wave of thefts, kidnappings and murders. The program aims to weed out corrupt officers while improving police training and pay, goals it shares with many failed programs of the past. It also aims to increase the number of investigative police. The government said in August that Mexico City was averaging 700 crimes involving a weapon every day in 1997. The crime wave has driven away business and led to travel warnings by the U.S. Embassy. Congressional legislators said Tuesday the administration was taking the wrong approach with the national police plan. ``Creating a national police would pave the way for a return to an authoritarian rule,'' independent Sen. Adolfo Aguilar Zinser said. Rather "than protecting citizens, the new police agency ``would be used to exercise a more centralized political control, and to try to dissuade dissident voices,'' he said. The plan must be approved by Congress before it becomes law. The proposal was to have been presented to the Senate on Tuesday, but its introduction has been indefinitely delayed. The proposed national police would bring together several federal law enforcement agencies, including immigration inspectors, customs and highway police. (c) Copyright 1998 The Associated Press ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-11.19.98-20:44:24-27516