All Quiet on the Southern Front
11 Sep 2003

by Deroy Murdock

CANCUN, Mexico – Visualize palm trees, sunshine, 93-degree temperatures and humidity somewhere between heavy-handed and downright autocratic. Now picture coats, ties, briefcases and diplomatic passports.

This tropical playground is not its usual self this week. Consider the two dozen black-uniformed federales standing near the airport´s exit. They line up beside a police vehicle as one of their colleagues slops lunch rations onto the plates they clutch in their hands.

As the World Trade Organization´s 5th Ministerial Conference gets under way here from now through September 14, Cancun has morphed from carefree beach town into a buttoned-down summit venue.

Hefty, gray lizards peer up from Paseo Kulkulkan, the sole road from the airport to the Zona Hotelera, the Hotel Zone that houses posh resorts, Margaritaville and the Coco Bongo nightclub, one of many. Policemen likewise watch this highway. Their vehicles create obstacles around which a Transportes Chihuahuenses bus carries conferees into town.

Pastel-colored, stucco-covered hotels - - with lilting names like Oasis Playa and Casa Turquesa - - abut the road. How supremely relaxing.

Before things get too tranquil, however, several more uniformed officers emerge as the bus rounds a bend. This time, they are atop a rising behind which the sands stumble into the sea. No more than half a mile into the Caribbean, four Mexican warships patrol the azure waves just off of Playa Ballenas (Spanish for ¨Whale Beach¨).

Along the way, our bus is barred from driving right up to several hotel entrances. Instead, conference participants alight at the roadside, then lug their gear to the front doors of their respective hotels and resorts.

This, of course, scarcely qualifies as hardship, especially compared to the bone-grinding poverty that, one hopes, global free trade will alleviate. But this does illustrate the Mexican authorities´ intense attention to security. And who can blame them, given this spot´s potential for an international terrorist spectacular and the bad habit of eco-freaks and tradeophobes to trash summit sites from Seattle to Quebec to Genoa?

The ride into the Zona Hotelera is disappointingly peaceful. Before flying in, I told friends that I planned to attend the WTO´s trade discussions and annual tear gas tasting party. About the strongest thing one whiffs around here, however, is the aroma of sizzling fajitas.

Just as Miami Beach is a long barrier island closely paralleling mainland Florida, Cancun juts slightly into the Caribbean and away from the rest of Mexico. Two bridges connect these areas or, this week anyway, separate them. The WTO´s members, guests and the journalists who watch them are here beside the tide line while the indignation coordinators and their minions are stuck on the Yucatan Peninsula. They are about three miles away, as the seagull flies, but might as well be in Tijuana for all the impact they are having here, at least thus far.

Still, officials are taking no chances.

Mayor Juan Garcia Zalvidea has banned jet-skis and parasailing around Cancun during the WTO confab. Just outside my hotel window, two Mexican gunboats - - smaller than those battleships floating in the Caribbean - - ply the adjacent Bahia de Mujeres (Bay of Women). As a small raft approaches the shore, one of the gunships revs its engine and closes in. The swift gray vessel makes it abundantly clear that the dinghy was not invited to this party.

Meanwhile, the area around the Cancun Convention Center - - the WTO´s chief meeting site - - overflows with cops, some of whom have rows of riot shields at the ready. Metal, rust-colored ramparts temporarily divide streets, hotels and gathering spots from each other.

How odd that we build barriers so we can discuss how to tear them down.

New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.