Baby Boomer Peace
For
6-12-15
It’s dangerous being an American
no matter where in the world they can be found.
A factual statistic about an American in danger abroad isn’t always the
whole story. Sometimes you have to look beyond
the statistics.
I have a handful of regular
readers of my column that like to write to tell me that I’m in grave danger
travelling and living in Mexico. They
like to report to me the latest killings throughout the country. This last week every major news outlet was
warning Americans not to go to Mexico because it was being reported that 99
Americans were homicide victims there in 2014. Even that got my attention so I
decided to do some research.
I called the State Department in
DC and spoke with someone who would not identify himself over the phone. He told me that the State Department puts out
facts and figures on its website and it is up to the media on how they want to
report them. I asked him how many of the
99 homicides in Mexico were to dual-citizen Hispanics with American passports
and he said that the names of the victims are confidential. I then went to the State Department’s website
and found that of the 99 homicides, seventy three (73) were committed in border
towns where drug cartels battle each other for turf. Tijuana lead the list with
twenty (20) Americans murdered in 2014 followed by Juarez (14), Rosarita
Beach/Ensenada (6), Mexicali (2), Ciudad Victoria and Matamoros (12), Nogales
(4) and the remaining fifteen of the 73 in small Mexican/American border towns
in the States of Baja, Sonora, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas.
Of the remaining twenty six (26)
homicides one was in Cabo San Lucas, two in Puerto Vallarta and four in Cancun
and other than three in Guadalajara (Mexico’s second largest city) the remainder
were in little towns in Mexican States where I wouldn’t expect any everyday American
to visit much less live.
I was amazed that not one
American was a victim in Mexico City (second largest city in the world) or San
Miguel de Allende. San Miguel de Allende
is literally an American/Canadian city in the State of Guanajuato which is just
a gorgeous. It would rival any tony New
Mexico or Arizona city. The State itself,
especially the city of Guanajuato with all its underground rock lined streets
is a real treasure. Guanajuato is a
must-be-seen-to-be-believed destination.
It is old, nestled in the mountains and just….beautiful).
I couldn’t find the circumstances
of the deaths in Cancun or Cabo but since I live part time in Puerto Vallarta,
in the State of Jalisco. Therefore I was
quite concerned about the two murders of Americans there. I also live in the State of Nayarit near San
Blas. No Americans murdered or kidnapped
in either location. I also spend a great
deal of time in the State of Sinaloa where my well educated girlfriend
lives. She is an English professor and
follows the new and politics closely. Culiacan
is an upwardly mobile and mostly middle class city yet is rated 16th
in the world, just behind Baltimore, for the most murders per 100,000 citizens;
Most Americans have heard of the Sinaloa drug cartels. Well, Culiacan is the capital of Sinaloa yet
not one American was injured or kidnapped there. What surprised me also was that Mazatlán,
also in the State of Sinaloa and the playground for cartel members, had zero
American fatalities as well. If
Americans in Mexico are such targets then Mazatlán, San Miguel de Allende, San
Carlos, (an Americanized city much like La Paz and Los Cabos but directly east
and on the mainland) and even heavy expats at breathtaking but smaller places
like Zihuatanejo and Huatulco (known for their very large multi-million dollar
homes would be of the highest suspected targets for Americans. Yet, on the State
Departments own figures by location, zero fatalities.
I found that the two that were
murdered in Puerto Vallarta were an elderly couple in their 80’s who had lived
there for nearly thirty years and owned many rental properties. According to the official statement by the
local authorities, they were known to keep large amounts of cash in their
home. Two young men were arrested and
convicted of the murders. They were 21
and 23 years old and had been tenants of the victims at one time. Their intent was robbery but unfortunately
the victims were home and put up a struggle to their ultimate detriment.
According to many sources on the
internet there are well over a million Americans visitors to Mexico each year
and that doesn’t count the daily back and forth across the border for cross
border employment. I checked on how many
Americans live full-time in Mexico and I found it hard to believe it was as low
as 300,000 because the Philippines rack up the same number, but in Puerto
Vallarta alone, between Canadians and Americans, including Time Share
ownerships, homes and condos, there are over one million ownerships in that one
city alone. There are nearly 900,000
Americans living abroad around the world.
I would have guessed more.
Crime happens everywhere. Just as we see the violence in Mexico being
reported here, Mexico also reports the violence happening in the United
States. Mexican news spends a good
percentage of its local news reporting to the news in the United States. I was surprised at how much they watch what
is going on up here. Almost everyone in
Mexico has a relative in the United States.
They’re invested. The upper and
middle class Mexicans will not go to Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis and New
Orleans for fear of being murdered. All
four cities are listed in the top fifty dangerous cities in the world. The Mexican people think that there is war
going on in the United States. It is the
very poor and rural peoples of Mexico that try to sneak into the USA, not the
well-to-do. I watch the San Diego news
every day and despite twenty murders there in 2014 I never hear any of our
media reporting the killings of Americans in Tijuana. Therefore I have to believe that most if not
all of those American casualties are dual citizens tied to the drug industry. If you have a US passport and die in another
country, it is reported to the Department of State. If those killed were everyday Americans those
murders would be direly reported along with film of the funerals. It would be news that would lead every
newscast.
I will continue to drive and fly
to Mexico. It is absolutely gorgeous
there and I feel safer walking the streets of San Blas and Puerto Vallarta at
midnight than I do walking the streets of San Diego at 10pm. Americans are at risk everywhere in the world
but when you start using probability you’re more likely to get hit a second
time by lightning on the anniversary day of the first strike, than being a
homicide victim in Mexico. By the way,
I’m not exactly planning any trips to any major American inner-city any time
soon either. I’ve been to many places in
my lifetime and if an American wants to survive anywhere in the world, much
less Mexico, it just boils down to being low key, aware and not being in the
wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing. That even goes for Encinitas.
