Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.
Five articles on page A3 of a daily newspaper began as follows:
* The special investigations unit has been referred to as in after a man was shot and a second man broke his jaw during an arrest...
* A woman described as armed and dangerous is needed by police in a very home invasion robbery...
* A man barricaded himself within a house for nearly an hour when attacking another man with an axe...
* A man tried to lure a fourteen-year-recent into his truck...
* A young man is clinging to life when being shot in the head at a west-end community centre during a brazen afternoon shooting...
From June through December, 2006, and of course well into 2007, foreign governments issued initially travel advisories, then outright advice against traveling to Oaxaca as a result of of purported rampant violence and safety considerations, and again additional recently warnings about civil unrest and violence during this southern Mexico city of concerning 400,000, a mecca for tourists. New York, Chicago, L.A. and Toronto remained immune from such government wrath...oddly thus as long as whereas residents in large Canadian and Yankee cities are frequently subjected to street violence, no tourist was targeted or injured during months of Oaxacan unrest.
The excerpts from the City Page referenced above are not from a Oaxaca newspaper, but rather from The Toronto Star, April 8, 2007, within the midst of arguably one in every of the foremost tranquil and peaceful family weekends of the year, Easter.
There are a number of opinions on why false and misleading info is disseminated about occurrences in Third World countries, and in this case Mexico (more specifically Oaxaca), whereas truth based mostly reports from First World countries in the Western Hemisphere, take Canada for example, don't lead to, for one thing, government advisories.
Western governments have a history of paternalistic attitudes towards their citizens dating to the amount of colonization. It continues to date. Maybe more importantly, during the 20th century civil liability has become a priority, more so within the US than in Canada in terms of claims for monetary damages arising out of allegations of negligence perpetrated by governments against voters: "You had information regarding civil unrest and the chance of injury, so why didn't you warn me against traveling to Oaxaca?"
What's a Western consul, resident in Oaxaca, to try to to or suggest to their principals in Mexico City, Washington or Ottawa? Especially when local and international media, every with its own agenda, report incidents of unrest and every now and then violence? Does governmental due diligence include checking the veracity of reports of targeting or injury to tourists, and when there are no such reports, ought they embrace some such reference to their findings in their warnings? Should this writer haven't stated that no tourist was injured, when in fact there was a report of a tourist who elected to run alongside a march with his video camera, apparently inadvertently receiving a little bit of mace or pepper spray in his face, then smiling and laughing it off when questioned by reporters? Should we have a tendency to demand additional particulars from our governments upon that we have a tendency to are expected to rely? Ought to we maybe request comparative statistical knowledge when advisories are issued, concerning injury to innocents in Canadian and Yankee cities of comparable size to that of Oaxaca?
Mexico, with totally different legal and political systems each historically and in modern times, would appear to have a totally different perspective towards protecting its citizenry traveling abroad, a minimum of to Canada and the US, and definitely the central will not seem to own the identical legal liability concerns, not having developed a British common law system that gives residents important rights regarding claims of negligence.
Maybe the Mexican government ought to begin to issue travel advisories based upon reviewing newspapers, wire service and internet reports, and first hand accounts of violence against voters of Western cities:
"Violence erupted against innocent folks, a number of whom could have been Mexican tourists, in at least five separate incidents over Easter weekend in Toronto. We have a tendency to urge our voters to exercise extreme caution ought to they dare to take care of their existing travel plans to that half of Canada." While arguably misleading, at least the facts would be accurately stated. We have a tendency to would then see how much pressure would be delivered to bear by Canada, and how fast, upon Mexico to retract its warning. The Mexican government would then have received a smart lesson on how to use diplomacy to convince foreign governments to be a lot of detailed, accurate and cautious in issuing advisories.
Before the critics and skeptics jump on the plain gap in reasoning and fallaciousness of the analogy, they must analysis whether or not or not the Mexican government issued travel advisories regarding Toronto, Ontario or Canada, within the face of the 2 incidents bearing the closest similarity in recent memory to the Oaxacan unrest...the Oka reserve uprising and also the Dudley George killing with associated conflict.
The foregoing should not be relied upon by anyone considering traveling outside of their home country, and therefore the article's intent is not to influence anyone's travel plans nor to opine regarding any government laws, rules, laws, policies or procedures.
*Author's update: Since the foregoing article contains historical information, I've taken the freedom of examining a lot of recent news pages, the front page of the identical Toronto Star, online version, for the Greater Toronto Area, from May 28 and Might thirty one, 2009, and for April seventeen, 2010. Dare to compare with headlines from mainstream Oaxaca media? Take into account the following:
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