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 Travel & Outdoors | May 2007 
Warnings Urged for Mexican Travel
 Charles Rusnell - Edmonton Journal
Edmonton - Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay should issue a more realistic warning to Canadian tourists about the dangers of travelling in Mexico and the critical flaws in its justice system, says a Canadian man who claims he paid bribes to get out of a Mexican jail.
"It is time MacKay told the truth to the Canadian public - Mexico is a dangerous place," Peter Kimber said. "A simple travel advisory doesn't do it."
Kimber, 45, of Mission, B.C., said he spent 30 months in a Mexican prison after he was falsely accused of fraud.
He said he was forced to pay three bribes to Mexican officials before he was finally released. He was extradited from Mexico last month.
Kimber was reacting to the latest incident in Mexico in which a 34-year-old Grande Prairie man died after suffering serious injuries at a posh Cancun resort. The Mexican official in charge of the investigation said Jeff Toews was the victim of an alcohol-induced accident. His family has alleged he was beaten and questions the quality of the investigation conducted by Mexican police.
"How many more incidents of people being killed or falsely imprisoned in Mexico do there have to be before he (MacKay) wakes up?" Kimber said Thursday. "The government is putting trade and money before the well-being of its people."
MacKay's media relations office declined to comment on Thursday.
There have been several high-profile cases in recent years in which Canadians vacationing in Mexico have been murdered. In several of those cases, the families have been sharply critical of both the Mexican police investigation and the lack of support they received from the Canadian government.
In the most prominent of those cases, the same official who is conducting the investigation in the Toews case alleged that two single mothers from Thunder Bay, Ont. - Dr. Cheryl Everall and Kimberley Kim - were suspects in the gruesome murder of Domenic and Nancy Ianiero in Cancun in February 2006. The two women have professed their innocence and have lobbied MacKay to help clear their names.
Kimber said he will join forces with Everall and Kim to raise public awareness about corruption within the Mexican justice system.
Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Dan McTeague also called for MacKay to provide Canadians with more information about Mexico.
crusnell@thejournal.canwest.com |
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