January 28, 2005
By Francis Harris
UK Independent
Mexico angrily condemned the United States yesterday for telling American citizens that they risked life and liberty on tourist trips to the south because of a war between heavily armed drug dealers.
The Mexican interior secretary, Santiago Creel, told the country's leading morning television show that American officials would be summoned to hear his country's protests.
America had expressed some legitimate concerns, he said, but had gone "too far, without a doubt".
He continued: "Why didn't they say anything a week ago?" He was referring to a meeting he had then with Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security.
The state department travel advisory did not urge Americans to avoid the affected area of northern Mexico altogether, but it employed unusually strong language.
"Violent criminal activity, including murder and kidnapping, in Mexico's northern border region has increased," it said, adding that some US citizens had already become victims of the drug "war".
The advisory noted that Mexican policemen might have become participants in the war. Some accounts have suggested that assailants have been wearing full or partial police uniforms.
The drug war was sparked by the arrest of gang leaders, which triggered a struggle for control of the crime cartels.
Mexican troops have been deployed in northern border towns.
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