In an attempt to secure the beaches of Cancun and Tulum, Mexico, recently hit by armed attacks attributed to petty drug traffickers, the Mexican authorities have created a group of 1,400 National Guard agents called the “tourist battalion”. It is an integrated security force whose mission is to strengthen surveillance in the Caribbean tourist region, around the resort town of Cancún. This special police will be operational from Thursday, December 2.
The creation of this “tourist battalion” comes a few days after a shooting in a large hotel in Cancún. On November 4, armed men invaded the beach of a hotel, killed two people and sowed panic among the customers, who remained barricaded for several hours inside the hotel. The authorities described the facts as “clashes between two rival gangs of drug traffickers”.
This is not an isolated event: there is a real escalation of violence on the Mayan Riviera, the region of the Caribbean coast of Mexico. The destinations most frequented by tourists, Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, are also the most affected by these clashes between criminal gangs, which compete for the territory, contrasting violently with the idyllic image that is sold of the region. Shortly before the events of Cancún, a month ago, in Tulum, a shooting in a bar resulted in the deaths of two tourists.
The creation of this security force by the actors of the tourism sector is greeted with a form of relief. We are witnessing a very gradual revival of tourist activities and still very precarious due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And violence is seen as another scourge that can turn everything upside down. “It’s a big step forward, says Toni Cháves, president of the Riviera Maya Hotels Association. The authorities are responding to our request and our concern following the various recent security incidents. We know these are complex issues that won’t go away overnight.. “
“1,400 more agents? Of course that will help! The hotel industry is delighted to see the National Guard arrive to protect tourists.”
Toni Chávesto franceinfo
In the rest of the country, no one is kidding themselves about the effectiveness of this measure. The agents are arriving on the beaches as reinforcements, when there are already more than 5,000 soldiers and about the same number of local police officers deployed in the region, who have not been able to cope with the growing power of the groups. drug traffickers. Moreover, specialists believe that national guards who patrol the beaches will not necessarily have a very significant impact on the dismantling of criminal organizations.
Many in Mexico see this tourist battalion as a continuation of the militarization of the country, which has not led to any concrete results in the fight against violence, and therefore ultimately an admission of powerlessness by the government.