Restless in Rosarito

I don’t always agree with Maggie Drake (“Maggie’s Madness”)’s support for using military troops as police in Baja California, but as she wrote last Sunday, the residents in Rosarito see the Army as their only defense against a situation not of their making:

After Mass this morning, we were invited by friends in Rosarito who were participating in the March for Peace to accompany them. Of course, we had to sort of stand on the sidelines since we are not allowed to become involved in anything political. There had to have been over 500 people marching. After the march, the organizers met up with Mayor Torres, everyone else dispersed, but we were taken on a tour of the other side of the Highway and got a first hand glimpse of the the Mexican Army and Federal police patrolling the area.

These people want more Army troops on a permanent basis, and the truth is, they really do blame the Americans for providing the market for the drugs. They openly spoke of everything from extortion, the “Gentlemen’s Clubs”, kidnapping fears and corruption – and they are fed up. Organized crime here has become such a hydra-headed monster, it is so far beyond even what the United States experienced with prohibition.

Many of them were bitter that the tourists had stopped coming. These people felt that for a long period of time while the tourists were coming, they were being abused by the criminal element, yet they had to keep smiling and living in danger when Americans were sucking down the cervezas on the beach not even slightly aware of what they were going through. Many of these people were very angry.

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