From a distance the object bobbing in the bay looked like a coconut or a buoy, but when it was washed up on the beach it proved to be a human head.
”It wasn’t pretty,” said Jose Vargas, who joined the crowd that had gathered. He was shocked but not surprised by the sight. ”This kind of thing happens in Acapulco these days.”
Acapulco — the once glittering resort — is earning a reputation as the latest stage for an escalating turf war between Mexico’s main drug cartels.
Sporadic assassinations began last year, alongside a trickle of lower-profile murders. Now the violence is intensifying to the point that every day there is at least one death thought to be associated with the war. ”We have been seeing the violence get worse, and everything indicates [it is] going to carry on,” the head of the state police, General Juan Heriberto Salinas, said.
Two drug cartels — one run by Joaquin ”El Chapo” Guzman of the Los Pelones, and the other by Osiel Cardenas of the Los Zetas — are vying for control of routes for smuggling South American cocaine to the United States.
The cartels have been fighting it out ever since Cardenas was captured in 2003 and El Chapo decided to make a bid for his rival’s territory. The violence was concentrated in northern -cities on the Texas border, but Acapulco is now one of the hottest turfs. Authorities believe the rancour of the battle goes deeper than greed. ”They are probably personal issues,” says Salinas. ”Human passions are resolved with bullets.”
But in Acapulco the police have also been involved in much of the highest-profile violence, something the general accepts implies that the authorities are infiltrated by the drug traffickers.
The most dramatic episode was a furious battle at a crossroads in January between about 60 municipal police and a small caravan of heavily armed traffickers from El Chapo’s group. The shooting lasted almost an hour. When it was over, four traffickers lay dead.
In April two heads were hung in front of a government office at the same crossroads, one belonging to a policeman who had been in the combat. A sign read: ”Learn some respect.”
As a well-connected city in an otherwise underdeveloped stretch of coastline, in a state where isolated sierras provide cover for the production of marijuana and opium paste, Acapulco is no stranger to traffickers. For years locals have told stories about cocaine washing up, with some telling of cargoes calmly smuggled into Acapulco city itself.
Members of the local elite remember how in the 1980s Colombians with large amounts of money of dubious origin seduced the jet set with their worldly charm and fabulous parties.
A few years ago these were replaced, they say, by a rather less sophisticated and largely Mexican group. Working-class local women began turning up in exclusive shops to kit out their new homes, paying with large wads of cash.
At first, a society figure said, the newcomers were ignored, but that changed when the violence took off and they are now seen at the best social events. ”People are scared that if they don’t invite them there could be reprisals.”
The authorities are accused of doing nothing, and locals scoff at the anti-drug operations dubbed ”Safe Mexico”. They say the crackdown has had little impact beyond pushing local drug dealers to be more discreet.
The programme was first mounted in the north with the inclusion of the army, but was toned down for Acapulco for fear of frightening away the tourists that are its legal lifeblood.
Acapulco today survives as a resort for the lower-income armies from -Mexico City. Locals, meanwhile, are getting ever more frightened of being caught in the crossfire. Delia Polanco spent the January shootout cowering inside her flimsy kiosk with her teenaged daughter. ”We lay trembling,” she recalled. ”If they have to fight their war, why don’t they do it somewhere else.”
Back on the beach many holiday-makers say that, despite the turf war, they will return to the city. ”We’ve been coming here all our lives,” Desire Rojas (22) said. ”Whatever they say about Acapulco, for me it is still the best.”
Salinas said: ”I believe we can professionalise the police force, dignify what it does and get the situation under control. But, I wouldn’t like to speculate when this might happen.” — Â