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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2006 
Drug Violence Hits Tourist-Heavy Acapulco
 Ioan Grillo - Associated Press
| | A municipal policeman patrols the Papagayo beach in the resort city of Acapulco, Mexico. In the past, Acapulco, the granddaddy of Mexican tourist towns was hardly touched by the gangland carnage prevalent in other parts of the country. But this year, the city of more than 720,000 has been shaken by a wave of violence, with 15 execution-style slayings, four grenade attacks on police stations and a major January 27 shootout. (AP/Gonzalo Perez) |
Acapulco, Mexico — Ana Galeana was arranging geraniums at her Acapulco flower stall when heavily armed men in a convoy of jeeps opened fire on a police checkpoint across the street.
When she and her 5-year-old daughter finally emerged from hiding behind a crate of roses, four gunmen were dead, several policemen were seriously injured and bullet holes scarred the church and storefronts along one of the main avenues into the resort town.
"When you think of Acapulco you imagine beaches and discos, not a war zone," said Galeana, 25, pointing at a gaping bullet hole in her wooden stall.
In the past, the granddaddy of Mexican tourist towns was hardly touched by the gangland carnage seen elsewhere in the country. But this year, the city of more than 720,000 has been shaken by 15 execution-style slayings, four grenade attacks on police stations and the Jan. 27 shootout.
Federal investigators link the violence to a turf war between drug gangs in northern Mexico for lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.
The bloodshed in Acapulco poses one more headache for President Vicente Fox, whose administration already has been rattled by drug-related violence on the U.S. border. Acapulco lies on a major drug route to the United States, and Mexicans worry for the nation's nearly $12 billion foreign tourism industry.
"The Mexican government has let the violence spiral out of control and now it's gone from the border to Acapulco," said the University of Miami's Bruce Bagley, an expert on drug violence. "This is very serious. We are talking about the potential loss of $1 billion-$2 billion."
The bloodshed does not appear to have deterred visitors yet. So far this year, Acapulco's hotel occupancy is up 9 percent from the same period last year, a trend that could break last year's record of nearly 6 million visitors, said Teresa de Jesus Rivas, Acapulco's tourism director.
The resort also has benefited from Hurricane Wilma, which walloped Mexico's Caribbean coast in October. Many vacationers, especially spring breakers, have switched from Cancun to Acapulco on the Pacific.
U.S. citizens, the majority of foreign visitors, have not been victims, although a State Department advisory warns travelers to Acapulco to "be vigilant in their personal safety."
Bernadette Feazell, 58, a native of Waco, Texas, who runs a bed-and-breakfast in Acapulco, said tourists have little to fear _ as long as they watch out for the jeeps.
"If you see someone in a Jeep Liberty and they're young and they have no hair, then you get out of the way," Feazell said, sitting in her house with a stunning view of Acapulco's bay. "People here will now move out of the path of a Jeep Liberty faster than a fire truck."
The government has sent more than 200 federal paramilitary police to Acapulco, and soldiers have raided several luxury houses, finding arsenals of automatic rifles and grenades and large bundles of cocaine and marijuana. Federal Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca says municipal police, who used to be under-prepared or in league with traffickers, now are confronting the criminals.
Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado said tourists are protected, but he fears for his personal safety because drug gangs increasingly are targeting public officials. In July, a former state attorney general was killed in a drive-by shooting outside a famous Acapulco hotel.
"We are all worried about our safety," Salgado said. "Narco-violence is something that threatens the whole world."
Salgado belongs to the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, which took control of the state last year after more than seven decades of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
The advance of democracy in Mexico has broken old alliances and created power vacuums in many areas of public life. Another destabilizing factor is law enforcement itself. Each arrest of a kingpin, such as alleged Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cardenas in 2003, unleashes more violence as aspiring traffickers fight for drug routes.
Police now are bracing for retaliation if the Fox administration succeeds in extraditing top suspects to the United States for trial.
Javier Ruiz, a criminal lawyer in Acapulco, said TV footage of the Acapulco firefight left him with mixed feelings.
The violence was disturbing, but seeing the cops win the shootout was inspiring, he said.
"In Acapulco we have always thought of the city police as being useless," he said. "For a moment we saw them as heroes." |
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