There is like no chance for an innocent tourist or foreign resident to be murdered in Mexico... or so implies Frank Koughan, executive editor of the Burro Hall website and a former producer for CBS News' "60 Minutes."

In a recent blog post, Koughan, who for nearly three years has lived in Queretaro on mainland Mexico, repeated the point: That the vast majority of the 7,000 or so people murdered in Mexico during the past 16 months were involved in the illicit drug trade or worked for law enforcement agencies fighting the narco war.

Koughan cites U.S. State Department records from January 2005 through 2007. They show that 669 Americans died "non-natural deaths" in Mexico during a period in which Mexico received about 45 million visits by U.S. citizens. "Based on these numbers," Koughan writes, "the survival rate for Americans in Mexico would appear to be 99.9986%."

Many of those deaths were the result of accidents such as car crashes and drownings -- Cabo beaches are notorious for the latter during the hurricane season -- and some were listed as suicides.

As for murders, those State Department figures list 126, which Koughan states is "just slightly less than the 45,000 killed north of the border during the same period.... So while your chances of not dying here may be 99.9986%, your chances of not being murdered here are 99.9997%."

And finally, in over 20 years, not one innocent tourist or foreign-born resident of Rosarito has been the victim of narco or other types of gang violence.

SEE THE FULL ARTICLE AT:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2009/03/xxxx.html