Message to LA Times From Rosarito Mayor Hugo Torres Chabert

I wish the Obama administration would recognize the effort we are making in cleaning up our cities, our police forces, our state and country. Certain elements in the US government have reacted very quickly in telling people not to come to Mexico, talking only about the problems we have and that we have a lot of narcos.

We do, but you have more over there in the United States. Our criminals sell the drugs wholesale, you distribute them retail and the amount of money handled by U.S. distributors is probably 10 times as much. There has to be some recognition of that aspect.

For our city in particular, the travel warning is very important, as is recognition by the United States of what we're doing to fight trafficking. The US warning was issued after they saw some of the drug traffickers killed among themselves.

We have had lots of killings between traffickers. Ninety-six percent of the killings we have had in our area are between traffickers and that also happens in New Orleans or Baltimore or other cities with high crime rates. But all of a sudden, there is a campaign to stay away from Mexico.

In Rosarito, we have lost about 70% of tourists since the middle of last year. It had already dropped at the beginning of last year, but by mid-year, when the leader of the Arrellano Felix cartel was taken to the United States, the group was left headless and two guys wanted to get control and they started killing each other.

We haven't had any tourist or visitor caught in any crossfire in 20 years. We have 20million visitors a year in Baja California, so really the risk is not there for a tourist. I would really like the travel advisory to be investigated. They put it on because of what they read in the press and that's not exactly what happens here.



Hugo Torres
htorres@hotelrosarito.com.mx