Academics & Research

Program halts trips to Northern Mexico

Escalating gang-related violence in Mexico has some Texas universities canceling study-abroad programs and field trips to the country.

Mexico is on pace to make 2010 it’s most lethal year since a military crackdown on drug cartels began.

UH Assistant Vice Chancellor for International Studies and Programs Jerald Strickland said that while his department will certainly discourage students from traveling to Northern Mexico, the school would not restrict study abroad programs farther south.

“Until recently, and to the best of my knowledge, nothing has gone on at all down south of Mexico City,” Strickland said. “So we did not recall our student who was in Cuernavaca, but rather he returned at the end of the program on April 15.

“Until now, we have been comfortable sending students to the Kukulcan program, but have not been comfortable sending students to Monterrey, for instance.”

The Kukulcan program is located in Cuernavaca, where the killing of the leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel has caused a power struggle.

Sol Education Abroad is one of the companies affiliated with UH that offers study abroad programs.

Sol Director Esteban Lardone said the company believes its Mexico program based in Oaxaca to be very safe for students.

“Oaxaca City is over 1,500 miles away from the border, where all the violence is going on,” Lardone said.  “A lot of the citizens of Oaxaca don’t even know that there’s a drug war going on.”

Lardone said he blames the media for blowing violent incidents on the U.S.-Mexico border out of proportion, citing a report by the State Department saying only 669 of the 45 million Americans to visit Mexico from the time period of January 2005 to December 2007 had died “non-natural” deaths, a survival rate of 99.9 percent.

However, on April 12, a confidential State Department report given to lawmakers and obtained by the Associated Press revealed that from January to March of this year, 3,365 people have been killed in drug-related violence.  Since 2006, more than 23,000 people have been killed.

And while the border region is where the majority of the violence occurs, southern states like Oaxaca are not completely protected. The Latin American Herald-Tribune reported that on March 25 in Tuxtepec, a city just 130 miles north of Oaxaca City, nine people, including seven civilians, were killed in a shootout between gunmen and the military.

Mexico has joined Kenya, Mali and Nepal, three countries UH also offers as study abroad destinations, on a list of countries with travel warnings published by the State Department over the last 12 months.

“India is on the State Department travel warning list; we travel in India all the time,” Strickland said. “Regarding the alerts and even some of the warnings on the Department of State Web site you’ll find countries that will surprise you. But there are sections of these countries that you’d consider safe, and others where it’s not so safe.”

Ultimately, Strickland said he and the international studies department “don’t control the lives of students,” and that though students are free to travel wherever they wish, they may not be allowed to enroll through UH in courses taken in a location the university does not endorse.

“All you can do is get the best advice you can and make your own decisions,” Strickland said. “But as far as university sponsorship, we’re very, very careful.”

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