March 26th, 2004
By John Rice, Associated Press

Photo: Charles Milton, one of the six Britons rescued from a cave is escorted by Mexican soldiers in Cuetzalan de Progreso, Mexico Thursday, March 25, 2004. (AP Photo / Joel Merino)

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Six rescued British cavers at the center of a political dispute were taken to an immigration detention center for questioning on Friday and politicians accused the explorers of violating Mexican sovereignty.

But a day after the six were rescued from a water-blocked cavern, Mexican cavers defended their British colleagues and ridiculed the controversy over the presence of the foreign soldiers.

"Many of our athletes are soldiers and go to train in other countries. That does not make them spies," a top Mexican mountain climber, Ricardo Torres Nava, said on Mexico's top morning television news show on Friday.

British and Mexican divers helped the six trapped but unharmed cavers out of the Alpazat caverns, some 175 kilometers (110 miles) northwest of Mexico City, and the men were taken to a hospital for checks before being driven to Mexico City on Friday.

Their bus drove quickly past reporters into the immigration center compound in eastern Mexico City.

Word that four of the men were British soldiers - and the fact they at first turned down local help - created days of controversy in Mexico, whose government demanded Britain explain what they were doing.

Mexican law requires a special visa for scientific explorations and bans foreign military exercises.

Photo: A British caver arrives for questioning by Mexican authorities at the Iztapalapa immigration center in Mexico City March 26, 2004. A group of 13 cavers, most members of the Combined Services Caving Association, are at the center of a diplomatic spat after six of them became trapped underground for a week. The Mexican government is upset it was not told in advance of their presence. (REUTERS / Henry Romero)

A British Ministry of Defense description of the trip by the Combined Forces cave club as an "official military adventurous training expedition" fed the uproar in the Mexican press.

Mexico's Senate on Thursday issued a summons for Interior Secretary Santiago Creel testify about the cavers' immigration status. Sen. Laura Alicia Garza complained there had been a "flagrant violation" of national sovereignty.

However a page within the Web site for the government's own Mexican Tourism Board, www.visitmexico.com, promotes cave exploration in the Cuetzalan area as a form of tourism "for experimented (experienced) speleologists."

Mexican explorers said Friday that the British had been exploring the cave system for 18 years, routinely publishing their findings and posting them on the Internet.

"The explorations have never been secret," said Ramon Espinasa, president of the Mexican Society of Subterranean Exploration and a participant on earlier expeditions with the British. He said the British were merely helping map the caves.

Javier Vargas, a caver from the National University mountain climbing association ridiculed local press reports that the British might have been seeking uranium or other minerals.

"Uranium doesn't come from that kind of rock," he said, and to get any uranium, "you would have to process tons of rocks."

Torres said many foreign cave explorers come to this cave-riddled country: "Mexico is the Himalayas of all speleology."

On Thursday night, Assistant Interior Secretary Armando Salinas said the 12-man caving team "will be placed in the custody of immigration authorities" while officials determine if they violated their travel visas.

"Their stay was legal as tourists, but there are indications that their activities were not of this type," Salinas said.

As a safety precaution, half of the caving team was above ground when waters rose on March 17, trapping their compatriots, who had brought supplies to cope with such problems, including ground-penetrating radios.

One of those rescued, Jonathan Sims, said the team was never in danger and would have preferred to just wait underground for the water to runoff so that they could walk out without assistance.

"Everything went as planned," Sims said. "We thought we might have a problem with the (water) so we put in a plan, we had food in there, communications."

Each explorer was given sandwiches and fruit drinks upon being rescued and all were reported to be in good health. They joked that they wanted beer and said they were looking forward to seeing their loved ones.

Before the rescue Thursday, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department expressed "profound concern" that the explorers had failed to seek permission to enter the country for scientific explorations.

A diplomatic note demanded a "detailed explanation of the type of activities" the group was carrying out "and about the objectives of their investigation."

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