BajaNews
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Amid drug war, Mexico less deadly than decade ago
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02...
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
The Associated Press
February 7, 2010
MEXICO CITY -- Decapitated bodies dumped on the streets, drug-war shootings and regular attacks on police have obscured a significant fact: A falling
homicide rate means people in Mexico are less likely to die violently now than they were more than a decade ago.
It also means tourists as well as locals may be safer than many believe.
Mexico City's homicide rate today is about on par with Los Angeles and is less than a third of that for Washington, D.C.
Yet many Americans are leery of visiting Mexico at all. Drug violence and the swine flu outbreak contributed to a 12.5 percent decline in air travel
to Mexico by U.S. citizens in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, a blow to Mexico's third-largest source of foreign income.
Mexico, Colombia and Haiti are the only countries in the hemisphere subject to a U.S. government advisory warning travelers about violence, even
though homicide rates in many Latin American countries are far higher.
"What we hear is, 'Oh the drug war! The dead people on the streets, and the policeman losing his head,'" said Tobias Schluter, 34, a civil engineer
from Berlin having a beer at a cafe behind Mexico City's 16th-century cathedral. "But we don't see it. We haven't heard a gunshot or anything."
Mexico's homicide rate has fallen steadily from a high in 1997 of 17 per 100,000 people to 14 per 100,000 in 2009, a year marked by an unprecedented
spate of drug slayings concentrated in a few states and cities, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said. The national rate hit a low of 10 per
100,000 people in 2007, according to government figures compiled by the independent Citizens' Institute for Crime Studies.
By comparison, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have homicide rates of between 40 and 60 per 100,000 people, according to recent
government statistics. Colombia was close behind with a rate of 33 in 2008. Brazil's was 24 in 2006, the last year when national figures were
available.
Mexico City's rate was about 9 per 100,000 in 2008, while Washington, D.C. was more than 30 that year.
"In terms of security, we are like those women who aren't overweight but when they look in the mirror, they think they're fat," said Luis de la
Barreda, director of the Citizens' Institute. "We are an unsafe country, but we think we are much more unsafe that we really are."
Of course, drug violence has turned some places in Mexico, including the U.S. border region and some parts of the Pacific coast, into near-war zones
since President Felipe Calderon intensified the war against cartels with a massive troop deployment in 2006. That has made Ciudad Juarez, across the
border from El Paso, Texas, among the most dangerous cities in the world.
"The violence, homicides and cruel and inhuman assassinations, which fill the pages of our media, make us feel that there has been much more violence
since this war against drug trafficking," said Bishop Miguel Alba Diaz of La Paz, a vacation city at the tip of the Baja California peninsula.
Mexico's violence is often more shocking than elsewhere in Latin America because powerful cartels go to extremes to intimidate the government and
rival smugglers.
In just one week in December, the severed heads of six police investigators were dumped in a public plaza, kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva died in a
two-hour shootout with troops at a luxury apartment complex in a resort city and gunmen slaughtered the family of the only marine killed in that
battle.
In the new year, it's become even more grotesque. Three weeks ago, a victim's face was peeled from his skull and sewn onto a soccer ball. Days later,
the remains of 41-year-old former police officer were divided into two separate ice chests.
Authorities say the vast majority of victims are drug suspects, but bystanders, including children, sometimes get caught in the crossfire.
Mexico has the same problems with corrupt police, gang violence and poverty as other Latin American countries with higher homicide rates. So why the
decline in murders?
Experts say while drug violence is up, land disputes have eased. Many farmers have migrated to the cities or abroad and the government has pushed to
resolve the land disputes, some centuries old.
During the height of the Zapatista uprising in the mid 1990s - a rebellion fueled by land conflicts - southern Chiapas state had a rate of nearly 40
per 100,000 people with 1,000 homicides a year. By 2008, that fell to 8 per 100,000 people with 364 killings.
De la Barreda attributes the downward trend to a general improvement in Mexico's quality of life. More Mexicans have joined the ranks of the middle
class in the past two decades, while education levels and life expectancy have also risen.
Critics of Calderon's drug war say his frontal assault on cartels is giving Mexico a reputation as a violent country but doing little to stop the drug
gangs' work.
"It's a bad international image that affects foreign tourism and foreign investment," said Jose Luis Pineyro, a sociologist at Mexico's Autonomous
Metropolitan University who has studied the drug war.
Drug violence has encroached on the resort towns of Zihuatanejo, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta and Cancun. The millions of foreign tourists who visit each
year are almost never targeted, but a handful have gotten caught in the crossfire. In 2007, two Canadians were grazed by bullets when someone fired
into a hotel lobby in Acapulco. In January, a Canadian couple was shot and wounded in a robbery attempt just outside Zihuatanejo.
The U.S. State Department travel alert says dozens of U.S. citizens living in Mexico have been kidnapped over the years, and warns Americans against
traveling to the states of Chihuahua and Michoacan.
Chihuahua, home to Ciudad Juarez, had a horrifying homicide rate of 173 per 100,000 in the city of 1.3 million, or more than 2,500 murders last year.
Michoacan, famed for its Monarch butterfly refuge, Day of the Dead celebrations and picturesque colonial capital, is now also widely known as the
place where five heads rolled across a dance floor. Drug violence is blamed for many of the state's 660 killings last year.
But in many parts of Mexico, villages are more tranquil than ever - a fact that retired nurse Marilyn Wells struggles to drive home with her American
friends back home in LeMars, Iowa.
"'We're OK, there's no problem,'" Wells said she tells friends about the home she bought four years ago in Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of the
Baja California peninsula. "I don't feel any less safe down here than I did before."
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The Gull
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I'm sure there is a logical explanation for all of these figures. Like Wash DC being 3X more dangerous than Mexico City.
�I won\'t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.� William F. Buckley, Jr.
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by The Gull
I'm sure there is a logical explanation for all of these figures. Like Wash DC being 3X more dangerous than Mexico City. |
I think this is a reference to the streets, Gull. Not Congress. 
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Hook
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Washington DC has always been a dangerous place. Three times more dangerous than DF? Who can say?
Most of the Mexican press discounts the crime figures released by the Mexican Government as way underreported; not to mention the amount of violent
crime that goes completely unreported by victims.
Not sure about this "......according to government figures compiled by the independent Citizens' Institute for Crime Studies." Sounds like a group
funded by the government.
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Woooosh
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I think we can all agree that in general, much crime in Mexico does go unreported. I don't think murders fall into that category though.
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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arrowhead
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| Quote: | Originally posted by The Gull
I'm sure there is a logical explanation for all of these figures. Like Wash DC being 3X more dangerous than Mexico City. |
I have your logical explanation: the person who wrote the article is a marooon who does not even understand the geography.
Mexico, D.F. is a federal district which is part of a greater MSA. The MSA is basically the entire state of Mexico (called EDOMEX). The homicide rate
for the Mexico MSA is 16.8 per 100,000. Now look at the Washington MSA, which includes parts of Maryland and Virginia, The homicide rate for the
Washington MSA is 9.7 per 100,000.
What the author did was equivalent to taking the homicide rate in Beverly Hills and saying it was representative of Los Angeles County.
No soy por ni contra apatía.
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Bajahowodd
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If correct, with respect to DC and DC Metro, somebody ought to be awfully ashamed.
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The Gull
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It is probably correct, regardless of the protestations of the "knowledgeable ones" who spout that underreporting and geography explains a PER CAPITA
difference.
DC has always been a bad place, Dennis, but just out of view of The Mall.
�I won\'t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.� William F. Buckley, Jr.
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wessongroup
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AP story by Alexandra Olson
Mexico City is on par with Los Angeles
1/3 Washington D.C. homicide rate
Mexico’s 1997 17/100,000
Mexico’s 2009 14/100,000
Venezuela 40-60/100,000
Honduras
El Salvador
Guatemala
Colombia 33/100,000
Mexico City 2008 9/100,000
Washington D.C. 2008 31.4/100,000
Los Angeles City 2008 10/100,000
Would say the numbers are good, as to the other .... good review by editorial staff
[Edited on 2-8-2010 by wessongroup]
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k-rico
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These numbers are suspicious not only because of the problem of under-reporting the number of murders, but also because they are reported as a ratio
to the total number of people.
Who knows how many people are in Mexico? I've read estimates of Tijuana's population that vary by a factor of 2.
The significant factor is the rate of change. That's what people "feel".
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wessongroup
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Believe that is how homicide statistic are reported.. stated in incident per 100,000, as for their validity I looked up the United States numbers..
The report indicates that the data came from Mexico City, I'm not sure how to go about verify those numbers... along with the other Countries which
were quoted in the article
Must say, that compared to some of the other Countries Mexico is pretty tame.. if one can believe the stats
Will agree with population changes within a City.. agricultural areas become ghost towns in the fall and winter and come back alive in with spring
planting
Not sure about Tijuana.. would think it has become somewhat more stable with the economy linked with assembly of product.. but, don't really know ..
have not been here long enough to really comment on that
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k-rico
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More stable? Are you kidding? It's the fastest growing metro area in Mexico. Nobody knows how many people are here except that it's more than
yesterday.
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Bajahowodd
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Rico- Just wondering if you have any stats from credible sources to back you up. As an ignorant gringo, living NOB, given the fact that the recession
has eliminated untold numbers of jobs, is this population bubble the result of repatriated Mexicans, or what? Just doesn't make sense to me that
Mexicans and Central Americans are still streaming Norte.
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wessongroup
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Meant the job market.. if they need workers all the time.. that is stability from a bankers view point, you can bank on it.. hence the continued
growth of Tijuana.. stability.. if it weren't stable, it would not be bankable..
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tripledigitken
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Bajahowodd
Rico- Just wondering if you have any stats from credible sources to back you up. As an ignorant gringo, living NOB, given the fact that the recession
has eliminated untold numbers of jobs, is this population bubble the result of repatriated Mexicans, or what? Just doesn't make sense to me that
Mexicans and Central Americans are still streaming Norte. |
Baja smugglers’ use of boats rising rapidly
By Leslie Berestein, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Monday, January 25, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.
On any given night, small fishing boats from Mexico are puttering up the San Diego County coast, unlighted and so dangerously overloaded with human
cargo that their hulls are barely above water.
Until recently, the smuggling of illegal immigrants into the United States by sea was a phenomenon mostly associated with the Florida Straits, long a
corridor for boats and rafts loaded with immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere attempting an often fatal trek toward
Miami.
The deaths of two immigrants after an overcrowded smuggling vessel capsized off Torrey Pines State Beach on Jan. 16 highlighted the area’s status as a
maritime corridor for the illicit traffic of people and drugs. The two victims, a man from Mexico and a woman from Guatemala, are the first known
maritime smuggling fatalities in San Diego County.
“It was totally predictable,” said Wayne Cornelius, director emeritus of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of
California San Diego. “People always underestimate the determination of the migrants themselves, and the creativity of the professional people
smugglers.”
Border experts and immigration authorities concur that as land smuggling routes have become harder to penetrate because of tighter border enforcement,
smugglers have come up with new options. Those involve not only Pacific routes but the Gulf Coast of Texas.
Immigration authorities say there are cells of Mexican smuggling organizations that dedicate themselves to the maritime human smuggling trade, a trend
that has grown dramatically in this region over the past three years.
As authorities have responded with more sea patrols, including roaming U.S. Customs and Border Protection powerboats and increased Coast Guard
vigilance, smugglers have become bolder. In recent months, suspected smuggling boats have been found abandoned onshore in southern Orange County, said
Mike Carney, deputy special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego.
Smugglers are also taking their human cargo as far as 25 miles out to sea, crossing open ocean in small fishing boats called pangas — 20- to 30-foot
wooden craft that are not sturdy enough for such voyages.
Since 2007, the frequency and cost of maritime smuggling between Baja California and San Diego County has spiked. From fiscal 2007 to 2009,
apprehensions in boat-related smuggling incidents off San Diego County increased from 35 to 152. The pace has picked up over the fall and winter
months, with 138 illegal immigrants arrested since Oct. 1.
The average price of the trip has gone from about $2,000 — common even a year ago — to as much as $5,000, making it one of the most expensive ways to
be smuggled from Mexico, according to ICE investigators. That is more than the average rate paid to be smuggled through a port of entry and double the
going rate for crossing the border on foot.
There seems to be a perception among immigrants that entering illegally by sea is safer than crossing by land and that there is less risk of getting
caught, said Alberto Díaz, a spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in San Diego.
“We can only speculate that they (the smugglers) are telling them it’s a safer option than crossing through the mountains and the desert,” Díaz said.
“Perhaps they think it’s safer, more effective, not as much vigilance as in the border zone. But there are other risks, as we saw in this terrible
incident. There is no guarantee.”
San Diego is not the only place seeing an increase in these incidents. While Florida remains the key destination of maritime smugglers, Border Patrol
officials in eastern Texas are reporting an uptick in human and drug smuggling along the Gulf of Mexico as traffickers, trying to circumvent border
enforcement and highway checkpoints, attempt to get their cargo north toward Houston.
“They have gotten as close as the shoreline and as far out as 40 nautical miles,” said Joe Treviño, a supervisory agent with the Border Patrol’s Rio
Grande Valley Sector. “I’d say the increase is fairly recent, due to our tactical infrastructure. It is pushing them to get a little more desperate.”
Smugglers there try to blend in with the local fishing industry, Treviño said. Human smugglers often have immigrants cross the river into Texas first,
then get them to boats and ferry them up the coast to avoid detection. Drug smuggling boats come straight up from Mexico.
Carney, of ICE in San Diego, said there has also been an increase in maritime drug smuggling locally.
“Generally, the cells that get involved in alien smuggling by boat, once they perfect their craft, they move into smuggling drugs,” Carney said.
Like the land routes used for smuggling drugs and people, the sea smuggling routes are controlled by drug cartels that collect a fee from human
smugglers who use them, Carney said.
Maritime smuggling has existed off the San Diego County coast, but incidents were infrequent, Carney said. A few years ago, immigration authorities
were observing a small number of human smuggling arrests involving recreational boats, often beat-up older vessels that tried to blend in with summer
boat traffic.
Since then, smugglers have moved over to using pangas, and the pace has picked up. There are launching sites as far south as Ensenada, Carney said,
the most notorious of which is Popotla, a fishing and artisan village near Rosarito Beach. Sometimes, the uninhabited Coronado Islands are used as a
second staging area before the trek north, Carney said. Rather than try to blend in during the day, they travel at night, attempting to land before
dawn.
The boats are too small for the loads they carry; the panga that capsized Jan. 16 had about two dozen people on board, authorities said. They run on a
single outboard motor and are ill-equipped, often lacking lights, working radios or appropriate flotation devices. They also usually lack food and
water for anything beyond a quick run up the coast.
A panga this month was found drifting about five miles off Point Loma, its passengers dehydrated and disoriented. They had been lost at sea for two
days, said Lt. Josh Nelson of the U.S. Coast Guard in San Diego.
“It’s safe to say they (smugglers) are not concerned with safety,” Nelson said.
Immigration authorities have devoted resources to fighting maritime smuggling in recent years, including increased patrols by U.S. Customs and Border
Protection’s Marine Interdiction Unit, which works with other federal and local authorities.
Smugglers who are caught are being prosecuted, including two men who were on the boat that capsized at Torrey Pines. Both are Mexican citizens, and
they face federal smuggling charges.
This is the first time the California coastline has been such a focus of federal law enforcement activity since the Prohibition era, when bootleggers
ran alcohol up the coast as far as Northern California, said Cornelius at UCSD.
As long as there is demand, human and drug smugglers will continue their trade, Cornelius said. And like on land, no one knows how many maritime
smuggling attempts have been successful.
“The only cases that we know about are those in which there have been apprehensions,” he said. “We have no idea how many landings have been made
undetected.”
Leslie Berestein: (619) 542-4579; leslie.berestein@uniontrib.com
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Bajahowodd
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Thanks, Ken. I guess it's more of a "stupid is as stupid does" thingy. Just have to wonder how absolutely desperate those poor people must be, to
endure the arduous trip Norte in such a down economy.
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k-rico
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Bajahowodd
Rico- Just wondering if you have any stats from credible sources to back you up. As an ignorant gringo, living NOB, given the fact that the recession
has eliminated untold numbers of jobs, is this population bubble the result of repatriated Mexicans, or what? Just doesn't make sense to me that
Mexicans and Central Americans are still streaming Norte. |
"According to the 2005 census, the Tijuana metropolitan area was the sixth-largest in Mexico, with a population of 1,483,992, and one of the fastest
growing cities in Mexico."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tijuana
Number 69 on the list of the world's fastest growing cities:
http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/urban_growth1.html
"Currently, the Tijuana metropolitan area is the sixth-largest in Mexico, with a population of 1,483,992. The San Diego-Tijuana Metropolitan Area is
the 14th largest metropolitan area in North America, at 4,922,723. It is one of the fastest growing cities in Mexico."
http://www.worldmapfinder.com/En/North_America/Mexico/Tijuan...
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k-rico
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Bajahowodd
Thanks, Ken. I guess it's more of a "stupid is as stupid does" thingy. Just have to wonder how absolutely desperate those poor people must be, to
endure the arduous trip Norte in such a down economy. |
as if the poor people from the south even know that there is a recession in the US. They've always been broke and hungry.
[Edited on 12-6-2010 by k-rico]
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by k-rico
haha, as if the poor people from the south even know that there is a recession in the US.
hoho, you're funny.
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Yeah....freakin hilarious. I guess if times were better, they'd be coming ashore in a yacht.
oooops....maybe they are.
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