Thread: FEAR GRIPS THE MEXICAN BORDER!!!

Fear grips the Mexican border
Surge in violence scaring away Baja volunteer efforts
By Catherine Cheney, Staff Writer
Posted: 06/19/2008 11:11:17 PM PDT


Meanwhile, Director Jonotan Lopez Sanchez read an e-mail from Corazon de Vida, an organization that coordinates efforts to clothe, feed, and shelter the youth of Baja California.

Many Corazon de Vida volunteers come from the South Bay.

"We need to cancel our visit," the e-mail read in Spanish.

"Many people are afraid of crime and as a result we cannot get enough people to help."

Sanchez leaned back in his chair, knowing the orphans will feel the absence of the four-dozen volunteers scheduled to visit Saturday.

He said that fear of violence has led many nonprofits to put off their trips.

"Right now most of the orphanages here are getting cancellations from big groups because they have fears of the border violence," he said.

George Perez is the man who sent that e-mail, one of many over the past few months letting directors know that "it will be another lonely day" in Mexican orphanages.

Perez and Sanchez agree that volunteers - most of them from the Los Angeles area - misunderstand the nature of border violence.

"The violence is
basically between the groups involved with the drug trade," Sanchez said. "It doesn't target the people who come here to work and volunteer."
Dave Peters of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Torrance is leading a mission to Tecate this weekend.

Peters said the church usually sends 60 to 80 volunteers across the border each year, but now, only 48 are going.

"It's tragic," he said. "Less work gets done. Less people are ministered to. It affects everybody down there, and the people we serve, on the lowest end of the economic latter, get affected the most."

George Sada has also had problems convincing South Bay residents to cross the border. Sada runs Rancho la Paloma, a ministry that provides assistance to volunteer and religious groups operating in northern Baja.

"It is the media that blows things out of proportion and scares people," he said. "Too many people treat this area as a vacation extension of San Diego and it is not."

Sada said there is a major difference between traveling as a tourist by yourself and traveling with a volunteer group that knows the area.

"It is a different country with different rules," he said. "But if you are aware of where you are and what surrounds you, you should not have much to be concerned with."

Anna-Kari Johnson of the First Lutheran Church in Inglewood said fewer volunteers may mean more violence.

"Crime rises from disparity," she said, "and this kind of work addresses that disparity and makes the world a more safe and peaceful place."

On April 14, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning: "Violent criminal activity fueled by a war between criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative narcotics trade continues along the U.S.-Mexico border."

Sanchez said that because of the dramatic decrease in volunteers, this is the first time in his eight years as director of Casa de Paz that he has had to consider turning some orphans away.

A 14-year-old girl at Casa de Paz who was abandoned by her parents as an infant said she feels like a true daughter of Sanchez and his wife.

"They treat us well here," she said. "But there are so many of us, and that is why we need the volunteers. They bring us food and play with us and it is much better when they are here."

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_9643400

TS77

They report on this like it's a new problem!

"It is a different country with different rules," he said. "But if you are aware of where you are and what surrounds you, you should not have much to be concerned with."

That doesnt sound very encouraging. The State Department needs to put out a permanent travel warning to anyone entering Mexico.

I have noticed that even game shows that offer prizes for Mexican vacations will never say Mexico anymore. They all disguise it and call the vacation package by some other exotic name other than Mexico. No one wants to go there anymore.

Why would anyone do anything to support this nation. Free or not free you would not catch me anywhere near Mexico.