The Myth that No Place in Mexico is Safe

By Sylvia Long­mire
Mexdata.info

Thanks to the bloody drug bat­tles being waged on a daily basis in so many Mex­i­can cities and towns, the coun­try has acquired a ter­ri­ble rep­u­ta­tion as a travel des­ti­na­tion in the last few years. While some areas in Mex­ico def­i­nitely need to be avoided by tourists, there are sev­eral areas where this rep­u­ta­tion is com­pletely undeserved.

But before we get into the dis­cus­sion of spe­cific areas in Mex­ico and their rel­a­tive safety, it’s impor­tant to under­stand why cer­tain areas are so dan­ger­ous, and the fac­tors that need to be taken into account when con­tem­plat­ing travel to Mexico.

As most peo­ple know, Mex­ico is in the mid­dle of a drug war. The unprece­dented blood­shed is a result of turf bat­tles between drug car­tels, as well as rival­ries within car­tels. The turf in ques­tion is usu­ally one of two places: a highly val­ued drug traf­fick­ing cor­ri­dor into the United States, also known as a plaza, and cities or towns where drugs are brought into Mex­ico from out­side the country.

Con­trol of these key loca­tions is cru­cial for the suc­cess of a cartel’s busi­ness oper­a­tion. In order to main­tain con­trol of these loca­tions, car­tels are will­ing to con­duct assas­si­na­tions of pub­lic offi­cials, com­mit mass mur­ders and dis­mem­ber­ment, and kid­nap and tor­ture those who wrong them.

The two most noto­ri­ous plazas at the moment are Ciu­dad Juárez in the State of Chi­huahua, and Tijuana in the State of Baja California.

The U.S. State Depart­ment has made clear in recur­ring travel alerts that non-essential travel by Amer­i­can cit­i­zens to cer­tain areas should be deferred. More specif­i­cally: “The U.S. Mis­sion in Mex­ico cur­rently restricts non-essential travel within the state of Durango, the north­west quad­rant of Chi­huahua and an area south­east of Ciu­dad Juarez, and all parts of the state of Coahuila south of Mex­i­can High­ways 25 and 22 and the Alamos River for US Gov­ern­ment employ­ees assigned to Mex­ico.  This restric­tion was imple­mented in light of the recent increase in assaults, mur­ders, and kid­nap­pings in those three states.”

Unfor­tu­nately, when Amer­i­cans and other for­eign­ers hear about all these travel warn­ings — and are unfa­mil­iar with the nuances of the secu­rity sit­u­a­tion in Mex­ico — they some­times tend to get the impres­sion that all of Mex­ico is a war zone. This is cer­tainly not the case, as there are numer­ous places in Mex­ico that have been untouched by the drug war.

Mex­ico is well known as an afford­able travel des­ti­na­tion and for its all-inclusive beach resorts. For­tu­nately, the major­ity of these tourist locales remain safe for Amer­i­can and other for­eign trav­el­ers. In fact, Baja Cal­i­for­nia Sur — the home of the famous Cabo San Lucas and the other Los Cabos — is one of the safest places in Mex­ico, as it isn’t con­sid­ered a strate­gic loca­tion for any of the drug car­tels. Part of the safety fac­tor is that many of the resorts in the Cabos are all-inclusive, mean­ing that guests never have the leave the resort grounds for food or entertainment.

Other pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tions include Aca­pulco, Can­cun, and Cozumel. These places have occa­sion­ally appeared in the news as sites of drug-related shootouts and other vio­lent inci­dents, and Aca­pulco was actu­ally at the cen­ter of a turf bat­tle for sev­eral years. How­ever, it’s very impor­tant to note that these vio­lent inci­dents occurred sev­eral miles away from tourist areas and resorts, and in no way affected the safety of tourists stay­ing at those resorts. News reports don’t usu­ally pro­vide that help­ful context.

In addi­tion to the more well-known tourist des­ti­na­tions, there are dozens of other places in Mex­ico that cater to vis­i­tors who enjoy beaches, Mayan and Aztec ruins, and eco-tours. While too numer­ous to name indi­vid­u­ally, most of these sites remain beau­ti­ful — and safe — places to enjoy.

The most impor­tant thing any poten­tial busi­ness vis­i­tor or tourist to Mex­ico can do is arm him or her­self with good infor­ma­tion about spe­cific des­ti­na­tions. The U.S. State Depart­ment travel site for Mex­ico (http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_970.html) is a great place to start. One should never hes­i­tate to con­tact a U.S. Con­sulate in Mex­ico if ques­tions about the safety of a par­tic­u­lar loca­tion arise.

Mem­bers of the mil­i­tary should be extremely dili­gent when plan­ning any travel to Mex­ico, as cer­tain loca­tions have been offi­cially declared off-limits by the Depart­ment of Defense, and oth­ers require com­mand approval prior to travel.

Above all, trav­el­ers to Mex­ico and any other unfa­mil­iar for­eign travel des­ti­na­tion need to exer­cise com­mon sense. Try to blend in. Don’t wear things that scream “I’m Amer­i­can!” or “I’m an easy tar­get!” Don’t wear flashy jew­elry. Try to learn a few use­ful words in Span­ish. While you’re not likely to be tar­geted in Mex­ico by the mere fact that you’re a tourist, you can still become the vic­tim of com­mon crime by not exer­cis­ing com­mon sense.

The vio­lence in Mex­ico is not likely to escape our minds — or our head­lines — any time soon. But that doesn’t mean that Mex­ico is no longer a viable option for rest and relax­ation at an afford­able price. It sounds almost corny, but it can’t be said enough that you need to know before you go. Arm your­self with good infor­ma­tion about your des­ti­na­tion, and enjoy the great things that Mex­ico still has to offer.

http://www.mexidata.info/id2492.html

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I am an intel­li­gence pro­fes­sional with eight years of mil­i­tary law enforce­ment expe­ri­ence, six years of ana­lyt­i­cal expe­ri­ence cov­er­ing Latin Amer­ica, and over four years of ana­lyt­i­cal expe­ri­ence cov­er­ing Mex­i­can DTOs and bor­der vio­lence issues. This blog is designed to inform read­ers about cur­rent bor­der vio­lence issues and pro­vide analy­sis on those issues, as well as detailed focus on spe­cific bor­der top­ics. By apply­ing my knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence through this blog, I hope to sep­a­rate the wheat from the chaff…that is, dis­pel rumors prop­a­gated by sen­sa­tion­al­ist media report­ing, explain in layman’s terms what is going on with Mex­i­can DTOs, and most impor­tantly, WHY vio­lence is hap­pen­ing along the US-Mexico border.

Sylvia Long­mire is a for­mer Air Force offi­cer and Spe­cial Agent with the Air Force Office of Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions, where she spe­cial­ized in coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence, coun­teres­pi­onage, and force pro­tec­tion analy­sis. After being med­ically retired in 2005, Ms. Long­mire worked for almost four years as a Senior Intel­li­gence Ana­lyst for the Cal­i­for­nia State Ter­ror­ism Threat Assess­ment Cen­ter, pro­vid­ing daily sit­u­a­tional aware­ness to senior state gov­ern­ment offi­cials on south­west bor­der vio­lence and sig­nif­i­cant events in Latin Amer­ica. She received her Master’s degree from the Uni­ver­sity of South Florida in Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Stud­ies, with a focus on the Cuban and Guatemalan rev­o­lu­tions. Ms. Long­mire is cur­rently an inde­pen­dent con­sul­tant and free­lance writer.  Her web­site is Mexico’s Drug War; she is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to Examiner.com; and her email address isspooky926@gmail.com.