Payasos: Mexican Clowns Take to the Streets to Demand Peace

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: BBC




                               Payasos March in Protest of Violence with their Union

May 21, 2018         
Additional Material from: efe.com

In January, the US state department prohibited US government employees from traveling to the state of Guerrero, including Acapulco. It warned of armed groups "operating independently of the government in many areas of Guerrero.  Members of these groups frequently maintain roadblocks and may use violence towards travellers," the advice said. 

About 50 clowns demonstrated with their relatives and friends, to demand that the violence that threatens the inhabitants of Acapulco, in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, be stopped. Clowns dressed in white marched down a central street in the Mexican resort of Acapulco on Monday May 7 demanding an end to the city's crime wave.

With their faces painted and carrying signs reading "peace", they said that they were "tired of so much violence". They complained that they were losing business because residents no longer threw parties out of fear of becoming targets of crime.

During their protest on the main avenue of the tourist area of ​​Acapulco, the clowns wore white costumes that contrasted with their makeup and their colored balloons that formed the word peace.

"We want peace, we are tired," said the clown Tallarin de la Sopa Aguada, to the local press when questioning the high levels of violence in Acapulco, considered one of the two most violent cities in Mexico, according to official statistics.

     As Acapulco struggles to shed violent image in April, 100 people were killed in the resort city.

The clowns said they had been particularly shocked by the murder of a juggler earlier this year. They said that the rise in crime had spread terror in the city which had made it hard for them to make a living. The  juggler was killed in a housing unit in Acapulco and also that levels of violence have caused them to lose employment opportunities.

Officials said they had recorded almost 50 more murders in the first three months of 2018 than in the same period last year. Most of the murders are believed to be related to warfare between rival criminal gangs in the region.

Acapulco, renown tourist mecca and port of southern Mexico, ended 2017 as the most violent city for women in Mexico with 144 murders, according to data from feminist organizations.

The Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice pointed to Acapulco in March as one of the most dangerous cities in the country, along with the tourist municipality of Los Cabos, in the state of Baja California Sur.

Acapulco was once a glamorous destination popular with Hollywood stars but the high number of homicides has put off many tourists.

Paramedics in the city have told the BBC they struggle to deal with the amount of violence they see as part of their jobs.

Federal police and soldiers were deployed to the resort in December 2014 but have so far failed to quell the violence.