Tip on Suspected Graves a Sore Point in Mexico : Diplomacy: U.S. officials believe 4 Jehovah’s Witnesses are buried at site. But police in Jalisco state have yet to act on information.

U.S. officials have given the Mexican government information to locate a grave near Guadalajara that allegedly holds the bodies of four American Jehovah’s Witnesses killed by a drug lord in 1984, but Mexican officials have yet to act on the tip, U.S. officials said Friday.

The information, gleaned from two witnesses in the Enrique Camarena murder trial in Los Angeles, was passed on to the Mexican government about three months ago, according to a source.

But a Mexican official responded that his government never received “information” from the Americans. Rather, the Mexican government was told that American officials had this information and wanted to come search for the reported grave site themselves.

“This was not a request for Mexico to act in its territory, but a request that the United States be able to bring in surveillance aircraft and sophisticated equipment to survey the area themselves to see if there was any truth to these allegations,” the Mexican official said. “That was not acceptable to us.”

The site, south of Guadalajara in Jalisco state, also is believed to contain the bodies of several Mexicans killed in drug feuds.

Some American officials interpret Mexico’s inaction as foot-dragging in retaliation for the prosecution of Mexican citizens for the February, 1985, torture killing of U.S. drug enforcement agent Camarena in Guadalajara. The trial has been an ongoing source of friction between Mexico and the United States.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman refused to comment on the matter.

In Washington, Drug Enforcement Administration chief Robert C. Bonner said that in the investigation of the Camarena murder, the “DEA uncovered information concerning the alleged location of the graves of four American missionaries murdered in Guadalajara in 1985. DEA has cooperated with the government of Mexico concerning the whereabouts of the grave site. DEA remains hopeful that the government of Mexico will act upon this information. . . .”

The extremely sensitive issue highlights the often conflicting interests of DEA officials who are prosecuting the Camarena case in Los Angeles and American officials based in Mexico.

This conflict arose over the 1990 kidnaping of Mexican Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain, acquitted by a federal judge in Los Angeles this week on charges that he administered drugs to Camarena while he was being tortured. Alvarez Machain’s abduction was arranged by DEA officials and operatives in Los Angeles, apparently without the prior knowledge of American officials in Mexico.

Many Los Angeles DEA officials do not trust Mexican law enforcement agents and want Americans to be present when the Guadalajara grave is excavated. American officials in Mexico seem more concerned with recovering the four bodies and preserving their relationship with Mexican drug and diplomatic officials.

Some American officials in Mexico consider the Mexicans’ delay in investigating the site an internal political problem. Officials in Jalisco “are waiting for orders from Mexico City; they know this is a hot issue,” a source said.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses--Ben and Patricia Mascarenas and Dennis and Rose Carlson--were killed Dec. 2, 1984. The murders are unsolved.

According to U.S. government documents, two witnesses in the Camarena trial, Rene Lopez Romero and Ramon Lira, participated in the abduction of the missionaries. Lopez and Lira were low-level employees of Ernesto Fonseca, a Guadalajara drug lord. The missionaries apparently knocked on Fonseca’s door without knowing whose house it was. Fonseca became convinced the Americans were DEA agents and ordered their abduction, a government document states.

It says the four were interrogated and tortured, then shot at the grave site “a 5- to 10-minute drive” south of Guadalajara. Lopez and Lira, witnesses in the U.S. government’s case against Alvarez Machain and Ruben Zuno Arce, also implicated high-level Mexican officials in Camarena’s death.

Times staff writer Ronald Ostrow in Washington contributed to this report.