World Notes MEXICO

Mariana Rodriguez Villegas' assailants were anything but subtle. After stopping her on a Mexico City street two weeks ago, the four men held her at gunpoint and gave her a blunt message for her employer, writer Jorge Castaneda, one of the fiercest critics of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's government: Lay off or die. Three days later, after the young secretary identified one of her menacers as a former police agent, a fifth thug threatened her life as well.

The Rodriguez episode is the latest in a string of abuses that have aroused concern over Mexico's human-rights record. Salinas, on tour in Tokyo, immediately telephoned Castaneda to offer sympathies and sent a letter to the liberal daily La Jornada promising to pursue the culprits. But at the same time, an editorial in the government newspaper El Nacional suggested that Castaneda, an ally of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who ran a close second to Salinas in the fraud-tainted 1988 presidential race, had caused the threat against himself by consorting with the opposition.

The incident has aroused questions about whether the government is permitting such abuses -- or has lost its authority to stop them. Some analysts suggest the threat against Castaneda may have come from someone wanting to hurt the Salinas administration.