http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centreda ... 025376.htm
Posted on Thu, Jun. 30, 2005

Sister cities cope with Mexican violence
ABE LEVY
Associated Press
LAREDO, Texas - Laredo resident Beatriz Palacios used to cross into Mexico to go shopping in Nuevo Laredo. But those days are over.

"The way I heard it in the news, they kill people left and right in the middle of the day," she says. "Every day tops the other one. It sounds like a Bruce Willis movie. I would never go there - not now."

Drugs and murder threaten the historic bonds between this Texas border town and its sister city in Mexico, Nuevo Laredo.

More than 70 people have been murdered in Nuevo Laredo this year, compared with 65 for all of 2004, in a spasm of violence blamed on Mexican crime organizations fighting to monopolize the drug trade.

The bloodshed has Laredo worrying about a spillover of the violence and struggling to protect its own image.

"We have to remember that what's happening is happening in another country," Laredo Mayor Betty Flores said earlier this month. "We keep having to prove to people we are part of the United States."

At the same time, Flores has asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry for help for Laredo, and he responded by sending extra state troopers and promising to speed approval of a $1.2 million grant for a new 911 communications system.

Whether the recent bloodshed has spilled over into Laredo is a matter of dispute. The mayor, in her letter to the governor, said it has, and the sheriff agrees. But Laredo police have said that the spillover is no worse than usual.

Since January, Laredo has had 14 homicides compared with 15 for all of 2004. Laredo police said that in only two cases were there any suspicions the slayings were connected to the Nuevo Laredo drug trade. And those suspicions proved unfounded in one of those cases, while the evidence was inconclusive in the other, police said.

Laredo and its sister city in Mexico sit on the banks of the Rio Grande River, about 150 miles south of San Antonio. The U.S. side has about 200,000 people, the Mexican side more than 500,000.

The two cities flew the same Spanish flag some 250 years ago, and to this day, many residents have relatives, conduct business and attend social events on the other side of the river.

"Laredo has always had a tumultuous past, simply because it's on the border," said Jerry Thompson, history professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo. "But certainly this is a new chapter and a more violent chapter than in recent decades."

Police on both sides of the border assure residents that the violence is limited to the warring drug gangs. But residents fear they may be victims of collateral damage.

Flores said she is confident the violence will subside because of the Mexican government's efforts, which have included sending federal forces to take over for the police in Nuevo Laredo.

The livelihood of people like Alfredo Ferrera depends on law enforcement's success.

The 43-year-old driver of a horse-drawn buggy was offering tourists $10 rides along the main plaza in Nuevo Laredo but had no customers by midday and was nowhere near meeting his normal income of $200 a week.

"Maybe I'll be a waiter," he said.

Other tourist spots in Nuevo Laredo have been suffering. Senor Frog's, a popular eatery, closed earlier this month. Across the street, El Dorado Bar and Grill is considering its options, said manager Julio Cesar Arreola.

"There are generations of families who come here," he said from behind an empty bar overlooking a vacant dining room. "Six months ago this restaurant used to be full."

Laredo commerce, especially its stores and its healthy trucking business, has has been mostly unaffected so far. But the hotel industry has taken a hit, with weekend stayovers dropping by half in recent weeks, said Fernando Mendiola, president of Laredo's hotel-motel association.

Flores, who grew up in Laredo, would rather people identify Laredo with things like the Miss Texas USA Pageant, which culminated last weekend with both Laredos serving as its hosts.

This year, the two cities have celebrated their shared birthday of 250 years together with events that recall the days when the river, national allegiances and the drug trade did not divide them. A dove-shaped bumper sticker has been popping up on cars with Mexican and U.S. license plates.

In Spanish it says, "Peace in the two Laredos."