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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2006 
Crime-Wracked Mexican State Wants Loan to Buy Guns
 Reuters
| | A policeman runs during a shootout in the streets of Acapulco, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, January 27, 2006. Wracked by violent drug crime and too poor to arm its police properly, the Mexican state of Guerrero is seeking a $24 million bank loan to buy more guns and security equipment. (Reuters/Estela Molina) |
Mexico City - Wracked by violent drug crime and too poor to arm its police properly, the Mexican state of Guerrero is seeking a $24 million bank loan to buy more guns and security equipment.
The local government plans to use the credit, approved by its Congress, to get guns, communications gear and police cars for the most cash-strapped parts of Guerrero, one of Mexico's poorest states, the state government said on Friday.
"We want to seek a credit line to acquire transportation and arms," a state government spokesman said.
Guerrero, whose craggy hills hide numerous marijuana and poppy fields, is home to the Pacific resort of Acapulco, which is grappling with a wave of killings between rival drug gangs.
Local police are hampered by a lack of good roads in much of the southern state, nestled between the Sierra Madre mountain range and the Pacific Ocean.
"It's much more complicated in isolated municipalities that don't have a road infrastructure, that don't have arms or the equipment to combat crime," Guerrero Governor Zeferino Torreblanca told Reuters.
"We want to have 250 million pesos (around $24 million) with a credit line that enables the 81 town councils to have a comparable set of arms," he said.
Acapulco has suffered an explosion of drug violence in recent months that marks a low point in the city's slow fall from grace since the 1950s, when the Hollywood set flocked to frolic on yachts and in seaside villas.
Drug smugglers are increasingly using bays and coves near Acapulco to land cocaine from Colombia and then take it overland to the United States.
A report in January by a security think tank called Acapulco the country's fifth worst city for the number of crimes committed per person -- a poorer record than even Mexico City, one of the world's most dangerous capitals.
While the federal government is fighting what President Vicente Fox has called "the mother of all battles" on drug gangs, Guerrero is taking some of its own measures including a purge of police forces and the move to buy weapons on credit.
Torreblanca, who aims to broaden Guerrero's taxpayer base to boost future revenues, said he was also planning to seek credit lines to fund new roads, jails and hospitals. |
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