Guarding the south: Mexico's crime-ridden border with Guatemala starts to get some long overdue attention.

Mexico's southern flank constitutes a porous, crime-ridden third border of the United States.

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The problem is that both President Fox and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge concentrate on the U.S.-Mexican frontier, while neglecting the Mexican-Guatemalan

For instance, in a speech late last year in New Mexico, Fox cited "an urgent need to guarantee respect for human rights on our borders, prevent more deaths in the desert, and wage an all-out battle against those who threaten, extort or attack migrants."

The outrage mounts when poor Mexicans, often abandoned by human smugglers known as coyotes, perish in the sizzling Arizona desert or run afoul of overzealous U.S. Border Patrol agents. It would be impossible to ignore the 371 deaths at the U.S. border reported last year by Mexican authorities, and any law-enforcement officer who abuses an immigrant should be held strictly accountable.

Yet even as Fox and Ridge home in on the U.S.-Mexican border, they ignore the dangerous conditions besetting Mexico's southern frontier.

These conditions, however, are recently gaining greater attention, and top officials from the two nations met along the Mexico-Guatemala border in late March to get a handle on the situation. There are only four official crossing points, but observers count a minimum of 29 heavily used illegal crossings.

RICH IN RESOURCES, MIGRANTS

Chiapas abounds in oil, natural gas, water, hydropower, archeological treasures, grazing land and fertile soil. At the same time, this South Carolinasized state has the nation's lowest percapita income (US$6,253), its highest illiteracy rate (23%), most dwellings without electricity (21%) and with earthen floors (41%).

The poverty is especially harsh among Maya Indians who make up one-fourth of the 4 million Chiapans. Conditions are even worse in the contiguous Guatemalan areas. Ethnically similar to Chiapans, Guatemalans often cross into Mexico to work. Like people from scores of countries, some Guatemalans steal into Mexico as part of a journey to reach the United States. Many of these newcomers take their lives in their hands.