国际英语新闻:Mexican president unveils reform bill to fight organized crime

MEXICO CITY, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced Thursday a 10-point reform bill that will unify Mexico's multi-layered police forces and stop collusion between government officials and local gangs, a move to defuse nationwide anger over the abduction and possible massacre of 43 students.

The anti-crime plan, which will be submitted to Congress for approval on Monday, came after the 43 students at a teachers college went missing on Sept. 26 after being handed over by police to a local gang in the violence-ridden city of Iguala. Massive marches were held over their disappearance.

Beginning his address by referring to the mass abduction and likely killing of the 43 students, Pena Nieto said: "Two months ago, Mexico suffered one of the ... cruelest, inhuman and barbaric attacks from organized crime."

The penal system's failure, he said, stems partly from local, state or federal agencies passing the responsibility of fighting crime onto each other.

The president proposed establishing a unified police force in charge of each of the country's 32 states so as to relax the complex divisions between which offenses are dealt with at federal, state and local levels.

Once the reforms are in place, he said, "nobody will be able to use the complex system of penal agencies as an excuse to shirk their responsibilities."

Four of Mexico's most troubled states -- Guerrero, Michoacan, Jalisco and Tamaulipas -- will be the first to put the measures into effect, Pena Nieto said.

On Sept. 26, the students were ambushed and shot at while traveling in a van. Six were killed. Jose Luis Abarca,mayor of Iguala, has since been arrested by police and placed in a high- security prison, after prosecutor accused him of collaborating with a local drug gang and ordering the detention of the students by local police, who turned them over to gang gunmen.

The extent of collusion between authorities and criminals in Guerrero and the rampant violence in Mexico have sparked widespread protests against the Pena Nieto administration.

Also on Thursday, 11 charred bodies, some of which were decapitated, were found by the side of a dirt road near the southern Guerrero town of Chilapa, located 330 km southwest of Mexico City and just 40 km from the Ayotzinapa Teachers College where the missing students were enrolled in.

Investigators said the victims were between the ages of 19 and 26 and appeared to have been slain by assault rifles, such as an AK-47.