Mexico kicks off bicentennial celebrations

Mexico City, Sep 16 (IANS/EFE) Mexico has kicked off its bicentennial celebrations with a huge parade and a spectacular fireworks show marking the 200th anniversary of its independence from Spain, amid an escalating drug war.

At 11 p.m. Wednesday, President Felipe Calderon walked out onto the balcony of Mexico City’s National Palace with the country’s flag in hand and delivered the famous “Grito de Dolores” to a packed Zocalo, Mexico City’s massive main square.

In addition to the tens of thousands of people in the Zocalo, hundreds of thousands more congregated along the Paseo de la Reforma, the capital’s main thoroughfare, and showed their national pride by echoing Calderon’s three shouts of “Viva Mexico” (Long Live Mexico).

Prior to the “Grito” — a re-enactment of priest Miguel Hidalgo’s call to arms in 1810 — a 20-metre-high, eight-tonne, Mexican version of the Colossus of Rhodes was raised in the middle of the Zocalo.

That figure of an insurgent carrying a broken sword in his hands was meant to symbolise the massive effort to rebuild the country after the independence struggle.

The festivities were held despite fears of a reoccurrence of the independence day attack in the western city of Morelia in 2008, when eight people were killed and dozens were injured when assailants tossed hand grenades into a huge crowd of revellers.

The capital’s downtown - where the main celebration occurred - was under the close watch of 40,000 police and federal security forces. Two people were arrested in that metropolis in possession of 12 shotgun cartridges and a large packet of nails, while six others were detained in Cancun with rifles, pistols and grenades.

In some parts of the country particularly hard hit by drug-related violence, especially the northern border states, the independence festivities were moved up, scaled back or cancelled entirely.

Battles among rival drug cartels and the security forces’ operations against the gangs have claimed more than 28,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006, when Calderon took office.

Mexico, which got freedom Sep 16, 1810, customarily begins celebrating the anniversary a day early.

That peculiarity dates back to the 19th century, when dictator Porfirio Diaz, who ruled Mexico for 31 years, moved up the “Grito de Dolores” by a few hours so the party would coincide with his birthday Sep 15.

–IANS/EFE