From: Michael Hoover <hoov-AT-freenet.tlh.fl.us>
Subject: M-I: Milt Shapiro <mshapiro-AT-amaretto.worldbank.org>: RICH JET-SKI (fwd)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 97 19:37:49 18000


Forwarded message:
> Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 23:19:53 -0400
> From: sweinste-AT-juno.com (scott weinstein)
> --------- Begin forwarded message ----------
> From: Milt Shapiro <mshapiro-AT-amaretto.worldbank.org>
> Subject: RICH JET-SKI AS POOR MOURN IN ACAPULCO 
> Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 09:13:53 -0400 (EDT) 
>
>     Copyright 1997 by Reuters
>     Mon, 13 Oct 1997 17:20:58 PDT
> 
>          ACAPULCO, Mexico (Reuters) - Five days after Hurricane
> Pauline whipped through the Mexican resort of Acapulco, rich
> tourists jet-skied around the bay while poor residents scrabbled
> for food and water.
>          Wealthy visitors were soaking up the sun Monday at the
> luxury high-rise hotels facing the bay, practicing aerobics in
> freshly scrubbed swimming pools and sipping frosted margaritas.
>          A few blocks away, thousands of city residents were mourning
> their scores of dead, salvaging what little they could from
> their ruined homes, and searching for clean water and food.
>          As the hotel guests enjoyed lavish buffets, the poor
> scrabbled to grab rotten muddy food thrown into the street by
> crews clearing up the wrecked central open-air market.
>          ``It's always the same here. The rich get taken care of
> first and the poor are always last,'' said Javier Arredondo, a
> 32-year-old TV and radio repairman who lost his home in the
> sprawling Renacimiento neighborhood.
>          Arredondo said he had only received one half gallon
>  of fresh water in the past three days. Like other locals, he
> said they recognized the importance of cleaning up the
> beachfront to keep tourists happy -- and badly needed dollars
> coming in.
>          ``But if we all starve or die of disease, who will work for
> the tourists?'' he asked.
>          On the beachfront Costera Miguel Aleman avenue, crews of
> streetsweepers and army troops Monday were scooping up the
> remaining mud that had invaded the tree-lined street from the
> slum-filled mountains above.
>          Jet-skis buzzed around Acapulco Bay. Some visitors said they
> were taking sight-seeing tours -- not of cliff-divers or smart
> shops, but of the devastation.
>          In the hotels themselves, life was back to normal except for
> an advisory to tourists to limit their use of water so that
> other parts of the city could get what was left over.
>          The Hard Rock Cafe and Planet Hollywood were open for
> business and the discotheques also planned to stay open.
>          ``It's like two worlds in one here,'' said Martin Walker, a
> 42-year-old executive for a mining company based in Indiana,
> Pennsylvania.
>          ``When you ride in from the airport, you see the mud and the
> ruin, then when you are in the confines of your hotel, you are
> in a world of your own.''
>          A few blocks up the mountainside from the hotel towers,
> which block the view of the bay for many local residents,
> Pauline's destruction was all too visible.
>          Entire neighborhoods were still covered with mud and debris,
> only a handful of homes had clean drinking water and the
> thousands of homeless people complained that they were getting
> little help.
>          At an emergency shelter for the homeless in Renacimiento, a
> crowd of angry people accused local leaders of the ruling
> Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of hoarding relief
> supplies and handing them out to supporters.
>          ``Tell the people in Mexico and other countries who are
> sending help that we thank them, but none of it has gotten to
> us,'' said Juan Araujo Diaz, a 46-year-old salesman.
>          Behind Araujo, food, clothing and housing supplies sat
> untouched in neat stacks while officials took everyone's names
> and wrote down where they lived.
>          One shelter worker, who did not wish to be identified, said
> relief supplies had not yet been handed out because authorities
> wanted to be sure they went to those who most needed them.
>          But delays and accusations of favoritism were angering
> residents. Private water trucks, which were mobbed by thirsty
> families in the past few days, Monday carried a military guard
> armed with an automatic rifle on each truck.
-- 





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