Fugitive Mexico Governor Denies Drug Allegations Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Fugitive Mexico Governor Denies Drug Allegations 12:37 a.m. Jun 14, 1999 Eastern MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - In the first sign in two months he is alive, fugitive Mexican state governor Mario Villanueva Sunday insisted allegations he had ties to drug lords represented political revenge.'' In an interview with Proceso news magazine, Villanueva reiterated from an undisclosed hide-out that he was innocent of drug charges but that he could not defend himself in court because justice was not objective in Mexico. ``I have nothing to do with drug-trafficking. I have not the slightest doubt that what's happening to me is revenge for my (political) ideas,'' Villanueva told Proceso. The magazine agreed not to identify Villanueva's location or to say when the telephone interview took place with the former governor of the southeastern state of Quintana Roo. International police force Interpol has been hunting Villanueva in dozens of countries since he disappeared from under the noses of Mexican police just days before handing over the governor's sash to his successor in April. Mexican authorities accuse Villanueva of allowing the Juarez cocaine cartel to turn the long, cove-studded shores of his Caribbean state into a significant smuggling route for drugs heading to the United States. Anti-drug officials say Villanueva also allowed the tourist resort of Cancun, a lagoon-backed island in the north of the state visited by some two million Americans every year, to become a major money-laundering center. But Villanueva claimed the charges against him arose because of his support for ``hard-line'' politicians Manuel Bartlett and Roberto Madrazo, both aspiring to be the candidate of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the 2000 presidential elections. The PRI has clung to the Mexican presidency since 1929 and will hold primary elections for the first time this year to pick a candidate for 2000. Villanueva said PRI politicians who got out of line in the past could expect to be barred from powerful positions. However, he claimed the game had become much more brutal, as shown by the assassination of PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio during the 1994 campaign. Villanueva said he felt President Ernesto Zedillo had been irritated by his support for Bartlett, ex governor of Puebla state, and Madrazo, current governor of Tabasco state. Zedillo may also have taken exception to Villanueva's demand that the PRI become more democratic and also to his decision not to let a brother of Zedillo's set up a construction company in Quintana Roo, the fugitive said. Villanueva said he wanted to stand trial but only if he could be guaranteed a fair hearing. ``At the moment, the conditions don't exist for that to be the case,'' he said. ``I dream that the next government, even if it's the opposition, carries out true justice and that not only in my case but in the case of many other Mexicans, they let us defend ourselves according to the law, that justice doesn't get mixed up with politics and we have an end to lynchings and revenge.'' Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. ================================================================= 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-06.19.99-04:11:32-29189