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Mexico security threat hangs over Pan American Games

by Reuters
Tuesday, 11 October 2011 20:19 GMT

* Mexico deploys 11,000 police for the event

* Host state hit by increasing violence

* Authorities say have detected no threats from gangs

By Rachel Uranga

MEXICO CITY, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Mexico hosts its first major sporting event in a generation this week, anxious to prove it has not lost control of security during a drug war that has killed more than 44,000 people in five years.

About 11,000 federal, state and local police are being deployed to protect athletes from 42 countries and the tens of thousands of spectators expected at the Pan American Games starting on Friday in the western city of Guadalajara.

It is the largest international sports event that Mexico has staged since the soccer World Cup in 1986, when it had yet to acquire the reputation for sickening violence and lawlessness the conflict with the drug cartels has brought.

"The eyes of the world are on Guadalajara, on Mexico. We can't skimp on the necessary security forces," said Jose Ramon Salinas, a spokesman for Mexico's federal police.

A successful games in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state, could help allay concerns that Mexico is a dangerous place for tourists and investors. But any outbreaks of violence during the two weeks of sport will only inflame those fears

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Full coverage of drugs war: http://link.reuters.com/wam89p

Political risks in Mexico: [ID:nRISKMX]

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Thousands of armed officers are already patrolling the athletes' village in the colonial-era city, monitoring nearly three dozen sporting facilities, and scanning cars for explosives. Cars will be checked coming in out of venues.

"There should be enough (security) to keep the venues and athletes safe," said Scott Stewart, analyst at the Stratfor intelligence firm. "But they can't completely lock down the whole Guadalajara area."

Mexico's security forces have good reason for caution. In 2010, homicides doubled in Jalisco to almost 600, about half of them in Guadalajara, which is home to 4.5 million people.

Earlier this year, the U.S. consulate in the city warned of "a marked escalation of criminal activity." It banned U.S. government officials from traveling after dark between the city and its main airport and urged U.S. visitors to follow suit.

NO THREATS DETECTED

The showcase for talent in the Americas ahead of the Olympic Games will see nearly 6,000 athletes compete in 28 Olympic disciplines plus a number of other sports.

Jalisco state is ruled by President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party, whose hopes of holding on to the presidency in 2012 have been hit by the drugs violence since he sent in the army to fight the cartels in late 2006.

Initially concentrated on the U.S. border, the bloodletting has spread south and towards the interior, and Mexicans were aghast when a top flight soccer match was canceled in August due to a shootout just by the stadium. [ID:nN1E77K003]

Mexican officials -- who have spent nearly ${esc.dollar}750 million building venues, created a sprawling intelligence center and installed 650 security cameras - say they want no repeat of the shooting at the soccer match in the northern city of Torreon.

No one was killed, but fans had to dive for cover and players scurried to the dressing room when armed men blew through a military checkpoint and opened fire on police.

"We haven't detected any (threats)," Salinas said of the Pan American Games. "All three levels of the government are completely coordinated. Security is 100 percent."

"If anything happened, it would be a public scandal," said Gustavo Miramontes, a University of Guadalajara professor of sports training and psychology.

The police presence in Guadalajara will be barely half the number at the last Pan American Games, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2007.

Despite rising lawlessness in Jalisco, the home of mariachi music and tequila, levels of violence there are well below the much larger Rio, which in 2007 was in the midst of an ultimately successful bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

A year before it was host, Rio's murder rate was 46 per 100,000 residents. In Jalisco, it stood at 12 per 100,000 last year. (Additional reporting by Carlos Pacheco in Mexico City and Henry Romero in Guadalajara; Editing by Kieran Murray)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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