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- <text id=90TT1418>
- <title>
- June 04, 1990: World Notes:Mexico
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- June 04, 1990 Gorbachev:In The Eye Of The Storm
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 65
- World Notes
- MEXICO
- Government by Terrorism?
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> At dusk last Monday, Norma Corona Sapienz, 38, president of
- the State Commission for the Defense of Human Rights in
- Culiacan, on Mexico's Pacific Coast, was driving home from work
- when three men in a pickup blocked her path. She tried to flee
- on foot. Suddenly gunfire rang out, and five bullets tore
- through the prominent attorney's back, killing her instantly.
- </p>
- <p> The assassination was hardly unusual. Drug trafficking has
- led to a spate of killings. However, in Mexico much of the
- violence is the work of corrupt police officials, who often
- operate under the guise of stepped-up narcotics enforcement.
- Despite President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's official
- condemnations of political corruption, complaints about savage
- human- rights abuses in Mexico have increased dramatically
- since he took office in 1988. In a report released in Mexico
- City two weeks ago, the Dominican Center for Human Rights
- declared that more than 100 summary executions took place
- during the first 14 months of Salinas' administration.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-