MACHINE-GUNNER UPDATE - HANDZ UP GRINGOS

Surely this is an alternative universe where April Fool's Day is now April Fool's Month and this is a complete photo-shop creation. The statue is so graphically violent, unwelcoming and unpleasant. Public art doesn't need to be all sweetness and light but this is a very key position in town. Whether it's "greeting" visitors at the pier, also where younger people practice their band music, or even were to be moved to La Cancha as an example for children playing games or practicing art, it is ill-advised. It reminds me of those horrible carvings in Merida of the conquistador stomping on the heads of the Indian natives, or of a bunch of statues in Spain of Santiago graphically murdering the Moor. Those are centuries old art/propaganda. Have we come no further than brutality and weaponry? Who are the decision-makers??! Do the locally born people like this statue and it only seems offensive mostly to gringos? It's incomprehensible to me that this is being placed where tourists from anywhere first enter a town! Mind boggling. Zih is much better than this. It seems like some of the public art in Zih "wears out" or disappears after some period of time, hopefully this one will go away very quickly.
Susan