Lee - 4-30-2011 at 06:44 PM
''You are twice as likely to be murdered in Alta California as in Baja California Sur. What the sensational headlines don't tell you is that much of
Mexico is just as safe as your own backyard.''
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/29/...
ecomujeres - 4-30-2011 at 07:48 PM
Thanks for sharing Lee! Reason may still win out. I'm sharing this on Facebook and with other friends who are afraid for us being in BCS or even
Baja in general.
And you might want to fix your link above. Only part is active so it doesn't go to the right place.
Lee - 5-1-2011 at 06:52 AM
(Thanks for the head's up -- couldn't get the link to work either so here's the print out.)
Risk in visiting Mexico is low, if you take care
Christine Delsol, Special to The Chronicle
Christine Delsol / Special to The Chronicle
Colorful Cabo Pulmo is a resort town in Baja California Sur, a Mexican state that has never seen the levels of violence of its northern neighbor.
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Daily headlines about shootouts, mass graves and beheadings have put one question ahead of all others for travelers considering a trip to Mexico: Will
I be safe?
The short answer is yes, if you choose your destination wisely.
In the escalating violence that has racked Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the country's drug-trafficking
organizations in December 2006, the Baja peninsula hit the no-go list early on because Tijuana was the first flash point. U.S. tourists have avoided
the entire peninsula in droves.
In fact, Baja California Sur has never seen the violence that shook its northern neighbor, in a region 900 miles distant. You are twice as likely to
be murdered in Alta California as in Baja California Sur. What the sensational headlines don't tell you is that much of Mexico is just as safe as your
own backyard.
The common wisdom about sticking to tourist destinations, though, has been undermined in the past year by drug-related shootouts in Acapulco, a hand
grenade in a popular nightclub in a wealthy Guadalajara neighborhood and muggings and shootings near Mazatlan's cruise port. The violence has moved
closer to tourists, which is unnerving at best and dangerous at worst.
The targets are still rival cartel members, government authorities and journalists. Drug traffickers would prefer to avoid the heat that comes with
incurring the wrath of the United States or disrupting the tourist industry, because it interferes with their bottom line. The organizations have come
down hard on members who commit indiscriminate and widely publicized acts of violence such as the Falcon Lake shooting and disappearance of U.S.
citizen David Hartley in September.
So why is the violence creeping closer to tourists now? The reasons are many and complex, but boil down to a perhaps inevitable progression of turmoil
within the country's drug-trafficking network that has been simmering for more than a decade.
The drug gangs are not targeting tourists now any more than they ever were. And despite headlines that make it sound as if the entire country were in
flames, the spectacularly grisly violence that feeds the country's death toll takes place primarily in nine of Mexico's 31 states (32 including the
Federal District).
In January, the Mexican government released the first comprehensive database of drug-related deaths. In addition to the alarming numbers in those
states - 2010 murder rates ranging from 40 to 297.5 deaths per 100,000 population in states along the U.S. border and those where marijuana and heroin
are produced - much of the country has modest homicide rates.
The deadliest states are Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango, Guerrero, Baja California (Norte), Sonora, Tamaulipas, Nayarit and Michoacan. Elsewhere, it's a
more palatable rate of 1 to 29 per 100,000. Mexico City's drug-related homicide rate, for example, was 7.4 per 100,000. To put it into perspective,
Washington, D.C.'s homicide rate was 24 (down from 31.5 in 2009). California's rate for 2009, the latest year for which the FBI's Uniform Crime Report
is available, was 5.3; the U.S. national average was 5.0.
If you're looking for the safest places in Mexico, Yucatan and Tlaxcala states had less than 1.5 deaths per 100,000 population in 2010 - comparable to
Minnesota and Vermont.
Puebla, Queretaro, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Chiapas, San Luis Potosi, the Federal District (Mexico City), Tabasco, Zacatecas
and Guanajuato also recorded single-digit rates.
That's a whole lot of Mexico.
This article appeared on page M - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/29/...
wessongroup - 5-1-2011 at 07:33 AM
That is a bit much, planning a vacation by death statics...
wessongroup - 5-1-2011 at 08:35 AM
thanks ridge, amazing how that works...
Lauriboats - 5-1-2011 at 09:30 AM
Great to see some good news on Mexico travel for change.
ELINVESTIG8R - 5-1-2011 at 09:37 AM
I told the head cheese where I work that I will no longer be going to Mexico to conduct investigations for them unless they give me a million dollar
life insurance policy with a written and notarized guarantee that they would pay any ransom demand if I was taken by kidnappers. I used to go into
several Mexican states where the drug corridors are located where tourists usually do not go. Many times I have gone where I need to get to on
horseback or four-wheel drive vehicles. It’s a huge probability that the people I contact and/or their family members are involved in the drug or
kidnapping trade.
Pretty soon there will not be a place to go on a picnic in Mexico where the stench of rotting human flesh will not be in the air.