Why San Miguel de Allende is an “island” in the state with the most murders in Mexico and how it became a world tourist destination
Among the picturesque streets of San Miguel de Allende, one has to dodge the hundreds of tourists who take selfies in front of the beautiful corners of this municipality in the center of Mexico.
The cobbled avenues, its art galleries, charming restaurants and colorful houses have made this place a paradise for any instagrammer.
Also that of thousands of foreigners, especially retirees Americans, who have made this municipality their second or even first home, attracted by a pleasant climate and prices much lower than those of their country.
Because the fame of San Miguel has transcended borders. Last year, was distinguished as the best city in the world by the magazine Travel + Leisure and readers of the tourism industry Condé Nast Traveler.
However, it is striking that not many kilometers away and in the same state of Guanajuato are some of the municipalities considered to be the most violent in Mexico. This is, in fact, the entity in the country where the most homicides were recorded last year.
How does this paradise for tourism manage to escape the wave of violence that is hitting some neighboring areas?
Foreigners and security
Sitting in a restaurant in the central square of San Miguel de Allende, American Malcolm Halliday savors something as Mexican as Aztec soup.
In front of him, a group of tourists photographs the striking neo-Gothic cathedral that stands It has become the symbol of the city. “It’s like the Disney castle”, says a gaping boy.
Halliday arrived in San Miguel almost five years ago, attracted by the cultural life. “I love the city and the atmosphere. In the US we also have violence in some cities, but the truth is that we don’t have much of a problem here,” he tells BBC Mundo in correct Spanish.
Louise Gilliam, also an American and a resident of San Miguel, agrees. “In all my time here, I have never experienced any violence. I lived in Chicago, in New York , in Los Angeles… And he was careful not to go to the dangerous areas. Wherever you go, you will find crime if you are not careful”, he assures in English. to settle in the center of Mexico.
“Many foreigners are surprised. They think that when it gets dark, they can’t go out here. It is a paradigm that they bring, and then they see the reality. It’s like giving them the confidence that sí we are part of Mexico, but not at the same time”, tells BBC Mundo Tania Castillo, Director of Tourism of San Miguel de Allende.
But the municipality, which in its day was one of the key stages of the Mexican War of Independence and which hosted some of the meetings of conspiracy in the fight against the Spaniards, has not always been an attraction for tourists.
At the beginning of the 20th century, in fact, was on the verge of becoming a ghost town due to the various armed conflicts that hit the region. It was in the years 16 Y 40 that artists and promoters began to arrive who founded art schools and galleries that were attracting American students and expats.
According to the person in charge of tourism in San Miguel, what today makes it one of best destinations in the world is its architecture and multitude of temples, its gastronomic, artistic, vineyard and luxury hotel offerings, together with the lifestyle that “mixes the cosmopolitan with the life of small Mexican towns,” he says.
“An island” in Guanajuato
In a patrol carried out by the municipality together with the police to know the security situation, the local agent Esteban López says that most of his actions are “minor reports” to deal with cases of people who argue or drink alcohol in the street.
“Let’s imagine that we are like an island. Then , everything bad happens around”, he summarizes to BBC Mundo.
Esteban López, police officer of San Miguel de Allende, assures that his actions usually be for minor reports.
Indeed, only a few 52 km away from San Miguel, there is one of the 50 most violent municipalities in Mexico, where the government deployed a strategy to reduce the number of homicides, as is the case of Celaya or León, and whose murder figures are up to 017 higher times.
But the main reason why San Miguel escapes the process of violence in Guanajuato is because it is not located in the hydrocarbon extraction corridor that crosses part of the state.
“The The milking of these ducts is what generates the violence for the control of this illegal market. San Miguel is close, but it does not go through there”, points out the security expert Víctor Sánchez.
This diagonal, also known as the “Bermuda Triangle”, is made up of fifteen of municipalities through which the pipelines of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) that transport fuel throughout the country pass.
Although in the past they were mainly dominated by the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, the arrest of their leader, “el Marro”, in 900 caused him to lose strength in the majority of municipalities that are now disputed with cells of the Sinaloa cartel, Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) or Nueva Plaza.
Although, in addition to its geographical location, there are some peculiarities of San Miguel’s infrastructure that could make it less attractive to criminal groups.
“Its architectural characteristics nicas prevent it from being a city with certain development plans. When a municipality does not have highways, it does not have a supply center and it is not a collection center for materials that have to be receiving trucks, it does not have the necessary infrastructure for distribution of prohibited things“, says its mayor, Mauricio Trejo.
“We are a bubble within the state”, he says proudly.
No disputes between cartels
According to Sánchez, another key factor to explain the absence of violence is that “there is no open dispute between various criminal organizations, such as we do see in other municipalities. The region from the center to the north (from Guanajuato), where San Miguel is, is an area completely controlled by the CJNG.”
And according to the expert, this leads to two hypotheses. The first: that as in so many tourist corridors, criminal groups sell illegal products such as drugs on a small scale, taking advantage of the presence of tourists and foreign residents.
“The criminal organization is interested in not driving away those buyers with high purchasing power. If there starts to be violence in the area, tourists will stop coming”, stresses.
The second hypothesis, linked to the previous one, is that “Since there is an important monetary flow, businesses such as hotels or restaurants with cash operations can lend themselves to being money laundering points for the organization that controls the municipality and, therefore, they also want to keep it peaceful so as not to call the attention of authorities”.
The mayor, however, denies the presence of the CJNG or any other organization in San Miguel de Allende.
“We have not detected interference from any criminal group. We have not been pressured or threatened by any group”, states emphatically.
“However, drug dealing issues that can occur in the municipality are attacked by the Municipal Police and drug addiction complaint and prevention programs,” he acknowledges. “But the profile of the tourists we have is different, they come here looking for culture.”
Some of these tourists, like Aarón González from Mexico City, believe that everything is due “to agreements between the authorities and the groups, because obviously they cannot have complete control, and the government cannot control them either. Or maybe he can, but he is not interested because there are interests
and they prefer to have their arrangements”, he says sitting on a bench in the central park and enjoying mariachi music with his wife when night falls.
Several neighbors who wanted to keep their names anonymous mentioned to BBC Mundo the existence of practices of extortion, pressure or “floor collection” towards merchants in the municipality.
“I had a friend with a little business, but she thought of selling there, and today he no longer has a business, nor is she. They told her that she either paid for her place or nothing for her. They give you money if you enter the business, but then you have to pay back. He didn’t pay, and that’s what they did to him”,
says Paula Colunga from her ice cream stand [hielo con jarabe de sabores] in front of the cathedral.
But the mayor assures that no merchant has informed him that they are currently suffering extortion. “It may be that they still feel that offense from when they were charged, although when we entered [al gobierno municipal] we detected that most were not due to criminal groups but to corrupt authorities, who have already been fired [despedidos] or are under investigation”, he tells BBC Mundo.
Security strategy
For Mayor Trejo, is his municipal security strategy which explains why San Miguel de Allende avoids the violence that permeates much of Guanajuato.
Among other factors, it stands out having an advanced C4 surveillance center, as well as the training and compensation of the local police, “the best paid in the state and one of the best all over the country”, he assures.
“We also help each other with nearby municipalities to avoid the ‘cockroach effect’ arises and that, every time there is an operation in a nearby city Ana, let the criminals come to San Miguel to take refuge”, he explains.
For security analyst Víctor Sánchez, however, “it would be difficult to attribute a case of success in San Miguel to the action of the authorities, because if it depended on it, it would have sought how to replicate it in neighboring citiesas where security is a major failure”.
Instead, it insists that the real reasons lie in issues beyond the role of the city council, such as the absence of rival criminal groups in the municipality, its mere geographical location or that, due to the high concentration of foreigners and tourists, “it works better if it is pacified”.
But the presence of foreigners of more than 60 nationality s -around the 10% his 180.000 inhabitants- has also had another effect in San Miguel de Allende , as in so many cities that live this reality: the increase in rents and many services such as bars and restaurants.
“For many people it is not an economic problem, but maybe for those who originally lived here it’s challenging because everything is going up in price. Let’s see… I can’t cure all the problems,
I’m taking advantage of life here”, he says raising shoulders the American Malcolm Halliday. Malcolm Halliday, an American, acknowledges that the presence of foreigners made the prices for the local population.
Although as usual, this arrival of people with more purchasing power also has advantages. As Paula, the ice cream vendor, acknowledges, Mexicans who work for foreigners in the municipality usually receive better wages. “It is wrong for me to say it, but it is so. Mexicans, on the other hand, the less we pay people, the better”.
Another San Miguel
The thousands of foreigners who live in San Miguel de Allende also leave another mark on the municipality. They are the founders of dozens of NGOs that bring from education to dental health to neighbors with the greatest needs
Because, far from the beautiful architecture and luxury hotels frequented by tourists, San Miguel hides a very different reality as soon as one moves away a few minutes from the historic center to more rural neighborhoods.
San Miguel has become an important point of attraction for US retirees.
According to data from the Mexican Ministry of Welfare, more than 44% of Sanmiguelenses live in conditions of “moderate poverty”. Other 4% do so in poor extreme age. Almost two out of every ten houses do not have drainage.
Jazmín Yanet Ramírez proudly shows BBC Mundo the house she opened earlier this year in the community of San Miguel Viejo, an area of unpaved streets in where tourists have not lost anything.
“The people who come to the center of San Miguel do not realize that we are in the surroundings, that, to be honest, we haven’t been there for a long time. that area because there are many tourists… It’s a shame, because not all of us can enjoy it the same way”,
regrets. There is another San Miguel beyond the “rooftops” frequented by foreigners.
She says that she and her husband no longer have to sleep in the same room as their three children as before. That they no longer get wet when it rains nor are they afraid that the roof will blow away in the wind. In the absence of drainage, her new home has a small septic tank and a rainwater collection system.
Her house was built by Casita Linda, an NGO financed by American residents of San Miguel that in the last two decades has helped 130 families of the town.
Louise Gilliam, from Casita Linda, in front of the house built for Jazmín Yanet Ramírez and her family.
“It is a cliché to say that you want to give something back to the municipality that welcomes you, but it is a very honest way of putting it. It is a way to help people” , Louise Gilliam, president of the organization with almost 10 years of life in San Miguel.
“Life here is good. The weather is perfect, it is less expensive to live here… I tell my children who are in Texas to sell their house and come here”, she replies when she is asked about how insecurity influences her life.
“I will never return to the United States”, she ends up convinced.
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