Mexico: Rich Jet-Ski while Poor Mourn Dead


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit


    Copyright 1997 by Reuters
    Mon, 13 Oct 1997 17:20:58 PDT

         ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - Five days after Hurricane
Pauline whipped through the Mexican resort of Acapulco, rich
tourists jet-skied around the bay while poor residents scrabbled
for food and water.
         Wealthy visitors were soaking up the sun Monday at the
luxury high-rise hotels facing the bay, practicing aerobics in
freshly scrubbed swimming pools and sipping frosted margaritas.
         A few blocks away, thousands of city residents were mourning
their scores of dead, salvaging what little they could from
their ruined homes, and searching for clean water and food.
         As the hotel guests enjoyed lavish buffets, the poor
scrabbled to grab rotten muddy food thrown into the street by
crews clearing up the wrecked central open-air market.
         ``It's always the same here. The rich get taken care of
first and the poor are always last,'' said Javier Arredondo, a
32-year-old TV and radio repairman who lost his home in the
sprawling Renacimiento neighborhood.
         Arredondo said he had only received one half gallon
 of fresh water in the past three days. Like other locals, he
said they recognized the importance of cleaning up the
beachfront to keep tourists happy -- and badly needed dollars
coming in.
         ``But if we all starve or die of disease, who will work for
the tourists?'' he asked.
         On the beachfront Costera Miguel Aleman avenue, crews of
streetsweepers and army troops Monday were scooping up the
remaining mud that had invaded the tree-lined street from the
slum-filled mountains above.
         Jet-skis buzzed around Acapulco Bay. Some visitors said they
were taking sight-seeing tours -- not of cliff-divers or smart
shops, but of the devastation.
         In the hotels themselves, life was back to normal except for
an advisory to tourists to limit their use of water so that
other parts of the city could get what was left over.
         The Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood were open for
business and the discotheques also planned to stay open.
         ``It's like two worlds in one here,'' said Martin Walker, a
42-year-old executive for a mining company based in Indiana,
Pennsylvania.
         ``When you ride in from the airport, you see the mud and the
ruin, then when you are in the confines of your hotel, you are
in a world of your own.''
         A few blocks up the mountainside from the hotel towers,
which block the view of the bay for many local residents,
Pauline's destruction was all too visible.
         Entire neighborhoods were still covered with mud and debris,
only a handful of homes had clean drinking water and the
thousands of homeless people complained that they were getting
little help.
         At an emergency shelter for the homeless in Renacimiento, a
crowd of angry people accused local leaders of the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of hoarding relief
supplies and handing them out to supporters.
         ``Tell the people in Mexico and other countries who are
sending help that we thank them, but none of it has gotten to
us,'' said Juan Araujo Diaz, a 46-year-old salesman.
         Behind Araujo, food, clothing and housing supplies sat
untouched in neat stacks while officials took everyone's names
and wrote down where they lived.
         One shelter worker, who did not wish to be identified, said
relief supplies had not yet been handed out because authorities
wanted to be sure they went to those who most needed them.
         But delays and accusations of favoritism were angering
residents. Private water trucks, which were mobbed by thirsty
families in the past few days, Monday carried a military guard
armed with an automatic rifle on each truck.
 
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