Bluff and drug stuff

Panic spread over the weekend in the Mexican central city of Cuernavaca (about one hour from Mexico City). An email from a supposed drug gang circulated among the inhabitants and the thousands tourists and students who are used to spend the weekend there. The message recommended people to stay at home because two gangs could have taken the street to fight to death. “We might confuse you with our enemies”, they said.

The weekend was unusually quiet, very few people took the risk to go out in a city that has faced an increasing violence since the killing of drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva by Mexican special forces and the rise of two rival factions for the control of drug routes between Cuernavaca and Acapulco. Of course nothing happened. The nightclubs (some of them controlled by the gangs!) have not made as much revenue as usual. But the gangs did not fight in the streets.

It poses the problem of media exposition. In an interesting analysis in El Pais, Maria de las Heras talks about the role of media in a kind of psychological terrorism in Mexico.

PS: just on the same topics, Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared that 90% of the people killed during the drug war (since 2006) are criminals. And 5% are soldiers and police officers. Which means that about 5% are civilians who had nothing to do with this drug war. And gossips will wonder which classification army and police drug dealers belong…