World Notes MEXICO

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.

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.