Despite violent image, Reynosa tries to bring tourists back

REYNOSA - Jose de Azul Vasquez leaned against the wall inside his open-air taqueria with his arms folded.

It was lunchtime on a recent weekday, but few customers had visited the 61-year-old taco vendor at his shop, within sight of the soldiers stationed at the international bridge that enters Reynosa's downtown.

Visitors from north of the border have dropped significantly ever since reports of violence in Mexico have escalated in recent years and the U.S. government has warned travelers about crossing into Mexico.

"For a long time, no one has come," Vasquez said in Spanish. "They don't want anything to do with it."

Reynosa has felt the pinch of widespread violence caused by suspected drug cartels across Mexico, but not to the same scale as the mayhem that has infected Ciudad Juarez, where more than 1,100 people have been killed this year - 37 just this last weekend.

"We have the same problems as any city in the world with 1 million people has," said José de Jesús Robinson, Reynosa's director of tourism and commerce.

A Reynosa native, Robinson left the city about a decade ago to promote Mexico for the country's tourism board in Miami and later worked in a similar position for the city of Monterrey. He remembers what it was like in his home city a decade ago.

"You couldn't even walk on the streets on the weekends," he said, referring not to street violence but rather to crowds of visitors. "We know we can bring these people back."

But the tarnished image has cost the city many of its precious visitors, many of whom came to dine in local restaurants, shop in downtown stores and patronize the relatively inexpensive dentists and pharmacies here.

Tina Martinez Salazar works in a downtown pharmacy across the street from Carl's Jr., the first business that greets southbound visitors when they cross the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge.

The pharmacy's business from U.S. visitors has dropped significantly in recent years as local media reports of street violence have given pause to many in the Rio Grande Valley, she said.

"They scare them," Salazar said. "The downtown is very quiet."

By Reynosa's standards, at least. The centro remains alive with the chatter of pedestrians, the screech of taxi tires and the pleas of beggars looking for spare change.

"There are no problems," Salazar said.

Still, Mexican cities near the Valley have received their share of street attacks this year.

As recently as Thursday, a firefight broke out between the Mexican military and unidentified gunmen in the streets of Matamoros, wounding several people, including at least one solider and two civilians.

Five days earlier, on Oct. 11, gunshots broke out at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, though there were no reports of injuries.

In August, a municipal police officer was gunned down at a taqueria in downtown Reynosa, Mexican media reported.

Two months earlier, in June, the wrapped corpse of Ramiro Torres Hernández, a 24-year-old McAllen man who managed a local Burger King, was found in the trunk of a car on the eastern outskirts of Reynosa, near Rio Bravo. He had been tortured and shot execution-style.

And on back-to-back days in January, street violence between federal police and suspected drug cartel members broke out in Reynosa and neighboring Rio Bravo, killing two officers and three suspected cartel members.

Fernando Miranda Guerrero, who heads the Tamaulipas State Police's homicide investigations in Reynosa, said his agency has investigated about 30 killings this year. In Hidalgo County, the sheriff's office has investigated 22 homicides this year.

In 2007, Miranda said his agency conducted about 40 homicide investigations.

"It's not like in Tijuana or Sinaloa," Miranda said in Spanish. "There, there are deaths every day. Here, it's still quiet."

But the Rio Grande represents not just a boundary between two nations, but also a line between culturally different attitudes toward authority, Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said.

"In the United States, we have a very strong presence of the rule of law," he said. "In Mexico, it's only mentioned."

The recent attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey and reports of killings across Mexico prompted the U.S. Department of State on Tuesday to renew its travel alert for tourists.

"These conditions are widely known and reported on here in Mexico, as well as in the U.S. border region, but many tourists and business people are less aware," Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said in a statement. "The travel alert does not advise Americans to avoid travel to any region or city, but it does describe risks."

The outlined risks have not changed from past alerts. The potential exists for kidnapping, getting injured should street violence break out and being harassed or followed by criminals while driving in Mexico, according to the latest alert.

And while Reynosa is not subject to the daily street attacks that have become synonymous with Ciudad Juarez, government officials believe that could change at any time.

"The situation in northern Mexico remains fluid," according to the new travel alert. "The location and timing of future armed engagements cannot be predicted."

For Robinson, the tourism director, combating Mexico's negative image and rebuilding local tourism is one battle he's willing to face.

"The authorities from the U.S. say the whole frontier is dangerous," he said.

He readily acknowledges the problems his city faces with unbridled growth in the past decade. And the amount of illegal activity that passes through area continues to be a problem for both sides of the Rio Grande, Robinson said.

But he was quick to emphasize that violent outbreaks in Reynosa, at least, are less frequent than foreigners may believe.

At his office at Reynosa's International Business Center on the city's far west side, a handwritten list hanging on a board outlines all the new events to draw tourists.

Robinson showed his excitement for all the city has planned in the coming weeks.

Just one week ago, the 1,000-seat auditorium down the hall from Robinson's office hosted ballet performers from St. Petersburg, Russia, who performed Swan Lake as part of the annual Tamaulipas International Festival. An orchestra from The Netherlands is set to perform Tuesday night.

The city also is getting ready to host the Big River Festival, a joint effort with Los Caminos Del Rio, a Valley-based environmental advocacy group, that will take place Nov. 1 on the Rio Grande, between Anzalduas County Park near Mission and La Playita park in Reynosa. Other events in November include a motorcycle rally and an international wakeboarding competition on the river.

Reynosa also has plans to revitalize its downtown within the next two years to encourage street vendors. The idea is to create an atmosphere similar to what one finds on the main street in nearby Nuevo Progreso, which still hosts thousands of Winter Texans who flock there every year.

"Even though we still have problems, we are still in the fight," Robinson said.