President López Obrador will visit the hometown of convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán tomorrow to inaugurate one government project and formally announce two more.
The president told reporters at his daily press conference that he will travel to the former Sinaloa Cartel chief’s native Badiraguato, a mountainous municipality 80 kilometers north of the Sinaloa capital Culiacán, to open a new stretch of highway that runs to Guadalupe y Calvo, a municipality in Chihuahua.
López Obrador said he will also announce the establishment of a new public university in Badiraguato that will specialize in forestry, explaining that the region has a lot of potential in the sector.
“Thirdly, the Sembrando Vida [Sowing Life] program is going to go ahead,” he added, referring to the government’s ambitious tree-planting project.
“We’re going to plant [trees] in the region, 50,000 hectares just next to Badiraguato . . .”
López Obrador said the program will create 20,000 permanent jobs in the sierra region of Sinaloa and Chihuahua.
Asked about Guzmán’s conviction on drug trafficking charges Tuesday in a New York federal court, López Obrador said yesterday that it was a lesson that a life of crime and easy money doesn’t bring happiness.
Today, he said, Badiraguato shouldn’t be stigmatized just because El Chapo grew up there.
“Towns mustn’t be stigmatized, you can’t stigmatize Atlacomulco because the so-called Atlacomulco group is from there,” López Obrador said, referring to Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) politicians, including former president Enrique Peña Nieto, who hail from the México state municipality.
“Badiraguato is a town with history, a lot of people who deserve respect live there,” he added.
The leftist political veteran, who last month said that the drug war is over and arresting drug lords is no longer a priority, explained that the aim of the new government projects and programs in Badiraguato and the country as a whole is to provide options for citizens – especially young people – to earn an honest living and not be tempted into a life of crime.
“We’re seeking to regenerate public life,” López Obrador said.
Source: Reforma (sp)
