MEXICO CITY - Mexicans don't just venerate lost loved ones in their traditional Day of the Dead festival.

In a bizarre ritual they poke savage fun at the rich and powerful with make believe death notices.

While Mexicans hold vigils in cemeteries and make offerings to lure their forebears back from the afterlife for a brief encounter, newspapers across the country publish imaginary epitaphs for politicians, captains of industry and film stars.

The epitaphs, known as calaveras (skulls), are composed in doggerel verse and accompanied by macabre vignettes portraying people they satirise in death masks, or just plain dead.

Few of Mexico's movers and shakers escape the biting wit of the calaveras, carried in illustrated supplements by all leading newspapers on Friday.

But this year in the wake of the Sept 11 attacks on the United States, Mexico's satirists of death have President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Saudi-born militant Osama Bin Laden firmly in their sights.

Depending on the political orientation of the paper, the tone of the epitaphs varies from playful to solemn to downright brutal.

Left-wing newspaper La Jornada gave President Bush pretty short shrift.

"Thinking himself Superman and moved by lasting obstinacy, he launched an ineffable attack against Afghanistan. But Satan, in his anger, cut short his project, he sent him a present in a rush basket and George Bush, the president died after being afflicted with anthrax."

BLAIR MEETS HIS MAKER

Tony Blair, whose cadaverous frame is draped in a Union Jack flag and is clutching a scythe in one hand, is also mercilessly dispatched to the other world by La Jornada.

"Enough of your false oratory, said the grim reaper to the Briton, with this messianic tone you want to recreate the history of your monarch Victoria, because it is colonialism more than terrorism that the "war" has caused and together with your ally you must come with me right now."

But Bin Laden gets off comparatively lightly at the hands of La Jornada, a newspaper whose anti-American views earned it the nickname "The Baghdad Daily" among conservatives at the height of the 1991 Gulf War.

"The angels of death are searching everywhere for this creation of the CIA known as Bin laden ... Bush the elder and Reagan who built up Osama died in their beds and fancy that."

Mexican President Vicente Fox, whose trademark cowboy boots made him a sitting target for cartoonists, was not spared.

Fox has had a disappointing first year in office and has so far failed to advance his reform agenda through an opposition-dominated Congress.

Even leading members of his right-wing National Action Party (PAN) are lukewarm about him.

"The President already left us and now he has hung up his boots. He is missed by his cabinet, embroiled in intrigue ... The members of the PAN also weep for him but with tears of joy," said Mexico City daily La Cronica.

The sharpest barbs went to Finance Minister Francisco (Paco) Gil Diaz whose plans to impose a value added tax on food and medicine have been met with howls of protest.

"In his Finance Ministry Paco Gil is transformed into a cadaver. A dead woman from there, venomous and vengeful, does not want to bury him until he has paid VAT," said conservative daily Reforma in its epitaph. - Reuters