What was Mexico’s second largest lake now a cemetery of abandoned fishboats

April 22, 2021

Dried up bed of Lake Cuitzeo, Michoacán.

Drought has dried up what was Mexico’s second-biggest lake, destroying a once thriving fishing economy in Michoacán.

At Lake Cuitzeo, 30 kilometers from the state capital Morelia, fishboats now lie on the lake’s dry bed, which has become a shortcut for motorists.

The dearth of water also creates frequent and prolonged dust clouds which reach municipalities 20 kilometers away in Guanajuato. That affects the health of residents in nearby communities, causing allergies, respiratory illnesses and gastrointestinal complications from the bacteria they transport, according to the State Health Ministry.

The more than 300-square-kilometer lakebed is located in the Michoacán municipalities of Huandacareo, Chucándiro, Copándaro, Álvaro Obregón and Zinapécuaro.

Julieta Gallardo Mora, honorary president of a foundation committed to conserving the lake, says its deterioration started in 1941, and authorities have made no effort to stop it.

“The first blow was when the Cointzio dam was built in 1941, which meant that two-thirds of Lake Cuitzeo was removed,” she said.

Gallardo added that the first noticeable impact was the disappearance of fish, starting with the chirostoma, which is native to the lakes of Jalisco and Michoacán, followed by white fish and other water life.

“Cuitzeo should have 800 million cubic meters of water, but today it doesn’t even have 200. That’s the scale of the problem,” she said.

According to government estimates, the fishing yields just 5% of what it used to in the 1990s and of the 19 species of fish documented in 1975, only six remain.

State Environment Secretary Ricard Luna said deforestation and the building of two highways 30 years ago, which split the lake into three parts, have contributed to its demise.

A researcher at the Michoacan University of Saint Nicholas of Hidalgo (UMSNH), Alberto Gómez-Tagle, identified water demand in the state capital Morelia and waste from pig farms and industrial waste from factories, which are dumped into the lake, as other factors.

Huandacareo Mayor Celedonia Guzmán Herrera said that although mayors from the region have presented projects to rescue the lake, federal authorities have not intervened, and deterioration of the fishing industry had caused a surge in migration to the United States.

She insists that municipal authorities do not have the resources to restore the lake, and called on the Ministry of Environment and the National Water Commission to initiate a plan that municipal authorities have presented to them.

Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles said the lake’s rescue should be tackled jointly by federal and state authorities and the 15 municipalities which surround the lake.

He warned that to clean up the wastewater that reaches it would require at least 3 billion pesos (US $150 million), which he said can only be provided by the federal government.

Academics from UMSNH, fishermen and activists have created a petition on change.org calling for the government to rescue the lake and restore its economic activity. The petition had gathered almost 28,000 signatures by Thursday.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)

Environmental commission asks CFE to reduce fuel oil use to ease air pollution

MND Staff

April 22, 2021

Due to high levels of contamination in Mexico City and surrounding areas, the Environmental Commission of the Megalopolis (CAMe) asked the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) to reduce the use of fuel oil at its power plant in Tula, Hidalgo.

The commission requested Thursday that the CFE cut by 30% its use of fuel oil, a highly contaminating energy source.

CAMe also asked Pemex to reduce activities at its oil refinery in Tula due to the high levels of pollution in the Valley of Mexico, which triggered the first atmospheric emergency alert of 2021.

A lack of rain and wind has created favorable conditions for the accumulation of pollution in the metropolitan area.

The quality of air at a testing station in Tultitlán, a México state municipality that is part of that area, was deemed to be extremely poor on Wednesday night due to the high levels of ozone and small particles.

Horacio Riojas, a researcher at the National Institute of Public Health, warned that the contamination can trigger flare-ups of respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

CAMe ordered that the circulation of many vehicles be suspended between 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. on Thursday in the Valley of Mexico due to the air pollution. It also advised people not to exercise or carry out vigorous activities from 1:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.

In addition, CAMe advised citizens to continue to work from home to reduce traffic, to avoid the use of aerosols and to reduce the use of fuels such as gas at home.

According to Mexico City authorities, the quality of air in Mexico City and the broader metropolitan area ranged from acceptable to bad at 11:00 a.m. Thursday. Air pollution posed a moderate-to-high risk to health, they said.

Source: Reforma (sp), Animal Político (sp)

Sonora search brigade locates hidden grave/crematorium

MND Staff

April 22, 2021

Smoke rises from the pit in which bodies had been deposited.

A still burning clandestine grave containing human remains was found by a citizens’ search brigade on Wednesday in Guaymas, Sonora.

The Madres Buscadoras, or Searching Mothers of Sonora, is a group of around 200 people that have taken up the search for the missing victims of drug cartels in the absence of official efforts. They revealed the find at a makeshift garbage dump the community of San José through a live transmission on Facebook.

A dozen graves and more than 30 bodies have been found in the area since 2018.

In the transmission, members of the group showed the improvised crematorium where smoke was rising. They believe that the pit, more than one meter deep, was built by a criminal organization to dispose of its victims.

The group’s founder, Cecilia Flores Armenta, told media at the scene that the search party was guided there by the smell of “burning fat.”

An estimated 85,006 people have disappeared since 2006, according to the federal government. Seventy-six percent of cases are concentrated in Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nuevo León, Sonora, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas.

From 2018 to March 2021, 1,606 clandestine graves with 2,736 bodies were found; 38% of the bodies were identified and 23% returned to the relatives of the victims.

Source: Sin Embargo (sp)

Vatican envoy’s trip to Aguililla a pointed message to Mexico’s bishops

MND Staff

April 22, 2021

The Vatican's nuncio to Mexico Franco Coppola.

The Vatican’s envoy to Mexico has chastised the country’s bishops for being estranged from the faithful, according to a religion expert.

In an interview with the newspaper Milenio, Elio Masferrer said that Archbishop Franco Coppola, apostolic nuncio to Mexico, “read the riot act” to bishops at a recent meeting of Catholic Church leaders.

Coppola told them that their administration of the church has become a disaster, Masferrer said. The papal nuncio gave the bishops “a pull on their ears,” telling them that it’s not their job to be “comfortably seated” in their offices, he said.

Masferrer also said that Coppola has openly told Mexican bishops that they do nothing for the Catholic community. He recalled that Pope Francis also criticized Mexican bishops for being more concerned with worldly matters than their diocesan communities.

Masferrer said that Catholic Church in Mexico needs to commit itself more to the nation’s millions of believers and those who suffer the most. He advised church leaders to follow in the footsteps of Salvador Rangel, bishop of the Chilapa-Chilpancingo diocese in Guerrero, who is well known for facilitating dialogue and seeking truces between feuding narcos.

The aftermath of a Cartel Jalisco New Generation assault on the Aguililla municipal seat on March 31. — The aftermath of a Jalisco New Generation Cartel assault on the Aguililla municipal seat on March 31.

“If Christ died on the cross for going into Jerusalem to speak with his disciples, the bishops have to follow that model,” Masferrer said.

Coppola, an Italian who has been nuncio to Mexico since 2016, will practice what he preaches when he travels to the violence-stricken municipality of Aguililla, Michoacán, to celebrate Mass.

He will travel to Apatzingán on Thursday at the invitation of Apatzingán Bishop Cristóbal Ascencio García.

According to a statement issued by the diocese, Coppola will travel the 84 kilometers from Apatzingán to Aguililla by land without private security on Friday so that he can offer blessings to the people and communities along the way, including El Aguaje, where state police were attacked by drones on Tuesday.

Michoacán police reopened the Apatzingán-Aguililla highway earlier this week after it was affected for months by blockades set up by criminal groups.

Coppola is scheduled to meet with Aguililla families affected by violence on Friday morning before officiating at a Mass at a local school. Later in the day, he will attend a lunch in his honor offered by the Aguililla community.

In short, he will have plenty of opportunities to get up close and personal with the locals and thus set a powerful example to the bishops he criticized for being too distanced from their parishioners.

Source: Milenio (sp)

US travel advisory a setback to recovery of tourism: Foreign Affairs

MND Staff

April 22, 2021

The international arrivals gate at Mexico City airport.

The Foreign Ministry has expressed concern over the U.S. government’s recommendation to its citizens to avoid travel to Mexico.

In a statement released Wednesday night the ministry warned of a “bilateral impact on the reactivation of tourism and connectivity with the North American region.”

Citing Covid-19 and crime in a handful of states, the U.S. State Department raised its travel advisory to level 4 on Tuesday, or “Do not travel.” At least 115 other countries have been increased to level 4 status this week.

In 2019 over 173 million tourists traveled between Mexico and the United States, 81 million of whom were Mexican. In that year Mexican tourists spent more than US $8 billion in the United States, while U.S. travelers spent close to $27 billion visiting their southern neighbor. A combined 775,249 airline flights crossed the border.

“With the U.S.A. we are united by a complex common border and a diversity of natural markets which together with Canada form one of the biggest supply chains in the world,” the statement read. “Restricting productive travel for business and tourism by inhibiting the flow of travelers between the two countries represents a loss for the two economies, in the interior, along the border and in the cruise market,” it continued.

The Foreign Ministry pointed to the success of Mexico’s vaccination efforts. “Faced with the pandemic, Mexico has promoted universal inoculation and international cooperation in access to vaccines. Proof of this is in the biosafety and vaccination measures, which have placed it among the 15 countries with the highest application of vaccines against Covid-19, building international confidence and certainty.”

The latest U.S. travel advisory on Mexico reads, “Do not travel to Mexico due to Covid-19. Exercise increased caution in Mexico due to crime and kidnapping. Some areas have increased risk … The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a level 4 travel health notice for Mexico due to Covid-19, indicating a very high level of Covid-19 in the country.”

The advisory warns specifically against travel to Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán and Sinaloa due to crime and to Tamaulipas due to crime and kidnapping.

Other countries raised to level 4 travel advisory by the U.S. State Department this week include the UK, Canada, France, Israel and Germany.

Additional advice for people traveling to Mexico and specific information about the security situation in each of the 32 states can be found on the State Department website.

Source: El Universal (sp), Reuters (en)

Environmentalists say López Obrador’s climate proposal is throwback to the past

MND Staff

April 22, 2021

President López Obrador and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in 2019 celebrating expanding the Sembrando Vida program to address Central American migration.

Proposals that President López Obrador presented Thursday at this week’s Leaders Summit on Climate are not serious, based on ideology more than reality, and hark back to decades past, according to three environmentalists.

On top of that, a senior U.S. official on Wednesday rejected the notion that immigration reform could be tied to a reforestation plan in Central America.

Speaking at the two-day summit being hosted virtually by United States President Joe Biden, López Obrador said on Thursday that Mexico will discontinue exporting crude oil and use its reserves to meet domestic demand for fuel. In addition, he indicated that hydroelectric plants are being upgraded to reduce the use of fuel oil or coal in electricity production.

But the central message of the president’s remarks to the summit was an invitation to President Biden to support the expansion of Mexico’s Sembrando Vida program (Sowing Life) in southeastern Mexico and Central America by planting 3 billion trees and creating 1.2 million jobs.

“We will cover our financial responsibility and commit ourselves to help with the productive and social organization, and you, President Biden, could finance the Sowing Life program in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.”

López Obrador offered “a complementary proposal” in which participants could apply for a temporary work visa from the U.S. once they had spent three years planting trees. After another three or four years they could obtain residency in the U.S. or dual citizenships, he suggested.

“Migration, as we all know, is not resolved with coercive measures, but rather with justice and well-being. In addition, you, President Biden, are a sensitive man and you know that the migrant’s desire to work and get ahead is key to the development of nations. Great nations have been made with migrants, with these exceptional beings. It’s a matter of organizing the flow of migrants and channeling them humanely and with practical judgment,” López Obrador said.

The president announced on Sunday his intention to propose the immigration-tree planting scheme and ask Biden for the U.S. to legally and financially support the expansion of Mexico’s tree-planting employment program.

For environmentalists in Mexico, the climate change aspects of the president’s proposals are old and outdated.

In an interview with the newspaper Reforma, the research coordinator at the Mexican Center for Environmental Law said the proposal to increase energy generation with hydroelectric plants dates back to the 1960s.

“It was in the ’70s when the development model was focused on the fossil fuels sector,” Anaid Velasco added. “That’s why I believe that with these proposals, we’re going back to the beginning.”

Velasco asserted that the federal government has abandoned plans to support a transition to clean, renewable energy in Mexico.

Indeed, the government has legislated to make it more difficult for private, renewable companies to operate in the Mexican energy market.

Daniel Chacón, director of energy at the Mexico Climate Initiative, told Reforma that López Obrador’s proposals are not serious.

Even when there is no drought — more than 70% of the country is currently in drought — hydroelectric plants generate no more than 17% of the energy Mexico needs, he said. Chacón also said that hydroelectric plants can cause problems such as flooding and water shortages.

The worst aspect of the proposals, he added, is that the president believes that future generations will need to continue using oil. That view is at odds with the global push to phase out the use of fossil fuels, Chacón said.

Last May, a NASA report on its satellite monitoring revealed that five Pemex refineries were among the world’s top polluters for sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions.

The environmentalist said that Mexico is currently only refining 584,000 barrels of oil per day but is generating 200,000 barrels per day of fuel oil (obtained during the refining process), which has been used by the Federal Electricity Commission to generate electricity despite the high levels of contamination it causes.

“What’s going to happen when we refine 2 million barrels per day? There will be 600,000 barrels of fuel oil per day, but they banned fuel oil as fuel for ships, so I believe that they’re planning to burn it in the thermal power stations as was done in the past,” Chacón said.

“They’re advising the president poorly. … They’re making decisions based more on ideological or political points of view than on reality,” he said.

Sergio Rivera, director of the environmental organization Calixaxan, said the proposal to extend the tree-planting scheme to Central America cannot be taken seriously.

He warned that the program won’t help to contain migration, as López Obrador claims it will, and questioned its reforestation credentials. Sembrando Vida has in fact been accused of encouraging deforestation.

“They’re paying 5,000 pesos [US $250] a month to farmers who are only looking for money; that’s their only interest, and the proof is that they’ve deforested plots of land [to qualify],” Rivera said.

According to Reforma, the United States is not interested in López Obrador’s proposal to extend Sembrando Vida to Central America.

Reforma quoted an unnamed high-ranking United States official as saying that the U.S. won’t consider migration reform and climate change as a joint issue.

“This is not a conversation about migration but rather a conversation about climate change,” the official told international journalists at a briefing on the agenda for the Leaders Summit on Climate.

“We’re not focused on the interaction of issues. For us, the climate agenda must be considered by itself, on its own merits.”

Source: Reforma (sp)

Puppetry duo brings rural communities entertainment, emotional support

Leigh Thelmadatter

April 21, 2021

Ángel Ledezma onstage, acting as a narrator.

It sounds like a hippie’s dream, traveling around Mexico in a van, giving puppet shows to rural children to pay the bills.

“To do theater is a lifestyle choice,” says Sandra Reyes, who with Ángel Ledezma forms A Escena Teatro. For 20 years, they have been driving around rural Mexico, continuing a long but vanishing tradition of traveling shows.

Reyes and Ledezma met working with a more conventional theater group called Trasluz. After it dissolved in the 1990s, it was Ledezma’s idea to look into puppetry, but Reyes was quite hesitant at first.

Reyes had loved the stage since she was a small child, following her father when he performed with his band. But she was unsure that she could shift her acting skills from her body to an inanimate object, nor did she have the skills to make the puppets. However, she says “…when I began to animate the puppets and tell stories with them, I fell in love.”

Basically, A Escena’s training as puppeteers has been on the job. They began by traveling to wherever there were workshops on the making and working of puppets, which led to traveling performances.

Reyes and Ledesma on stage with a puppet. The two do not hide themselves during performances, but Reyes says that they “melt” into the background.

The focus on travel has been important because “we became convinced that art and culture are rights for children, and we saw performing arts productions were limited to larger cities.”

There are still many places in Mexico where the mass media and the internet do not reach — highly isolated communities deep in rugged mountains. The lack of connectivity and infrastructure leaves a large gap in cultural services, one that A Escena tries to fill.

That means many days and hours on winding mountain roads in a van filled to the brim with everything they need. From their base in Puebla, they have visited many parts of Mexico and even abroad, although their work is concentrated in the center of the country into Oaxaca.

Driving back mountain roads can be dangerous but rewarding as well. Some are so narrow and in poor condition that only one car can pass at a time. They have had run-ins with paramilitary groups and decided to cut back travel in some of the most dangerous areas of the country.

But even this aspect of rural Mexican travel can have its silver lining. Reyes says that when they get stopped at military checkpoints by soldiers who want to know what is in the van, their faces cannot help but soften when they are confronted by a myriad of puppets. The pair also gets to take in some of the most beautiful natural scenery in the country.

However, their main reward is performing for their audiences. Their plays are original works written by Ledezma. The puppets are the stars, but the puppeteers are visible onstage.

Finger puppets created during a workshop as part of the Sueños a Mano program.

Reyes states that there are cultural differences among children in Mexico. Those from warmer climates tend to be more engaging, and those from colder climates more reserved. Perhaps a little shocking is that children from the border areas tend to encourage conflict and even violence with their shout-outs during shows. Reyes attributes that to the violence they live with on a daily basis.

Even after the pair have left, they receive letters and drawings from children about how the shows affected them.

Although the shows are important, the Reyes found that they were not enough. A Escena has added workshops for the making and working of puppets for the same children that they perform for. Several years ago, Reyes took a workshop on art dolls by master craftswoman Mayra René which not only introduced her to new techniques to create more sophisticated pieces, it also focused on the importance the human figures can have even outside of a stage.

The experience led her to create a new project called Sueños a Mano (Dreams by Hand). The project’s first workshop was working with parents and other relatives of people who have disappeared in southern Veracruz. It resulted in 14 dolls, many with embroidered “tattoos” that the participants used to express their feelings. Reyes hopes to exhibit the collection soon.

Bringing culture to marginalized communities requires ingenuity even in the best of times. With a pandemic, the challenge increases exponentially. Previously, all of their equipment was loaded into a truck and performances took place in kiosks and other public spaces. With these cordoned off, Reyes and Ledezma decided to make the van itself the stage to allow them to perform anywhere they were welcome, even if just at individuals’ homes. This innovation brought them a new round of attention from both cultural authorities and Mexican media.

For all the importance that creativity has in this “lifestyle choice,” there are practical reasons why Reyes and Ledezma have been able to do this work for over 20 years: first, the two have an exceptionally good working relationship. Reyes stresses that there is no romantic involvement, but the respect and trust they have for each other as artists is very evident. She is the stronger performer, and he is the writer and “lander” of projects.

Ledezma performing at a rural hospital (pre-pandemic) in Puebla.

Perhaps more importantly, they manage the financial ups and downs of show business better than most performance organizations, making sure that there are funds set aside to take advantage of the next opportunity, and, of course, get by when a pandemic strikes.

Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.

National Guard offers victims 1 million pesos to withdraw charges against guardsmen

MND Staff

April 21, 2021

National Guardsmen at a crime scene in Nuevo Laredo.

The National Guard offered 1 million pesos (US $50,300) to the families of two people killed in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, earlier this month in exchange for withdrawing charges against the security force who were involved in the deaths.

According to a report by the news website Animal Político, the army has also offered large sums of money to the family members of people killed by soldiers in recent months.

Published Wednesday, the report said the wife of Jorge Alberto Rivera Cardoza, a 42-year-old man who was shot dead by a member of the National Guard on April 8 as the security force was involved in a car chase, and family members of Martha Leticia Salinas Arriaga, who died after she was struck by the car Rivera was driving when he was killed, were both offered 1 million pesos.

To receive the money, they were asked to sign documents to authorize the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to close its investigation into the case.

After two men were killed by the army in Nuevo Laredo in February and March, and a Guatemalan man was shot dead by a soldier in Chiapas last month, the family members of the victims were also offered payments in exchange for dropping charges, Animal Político said.

“They offered me a million not to make a [criminal] complaint,” said Viridiana Promotor, the widow of Rivera, with whom she had two children.

She said she was in a government morgue waiting to receive the body of her slain husband when she was approached by a person in uniform who identified himself as a member of the National Guard and three other people who said they were officials with the Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (CEAV), a federal agency.

Promotor said she attended several meetings with them and ended up signing the documents they asked her to sign. She said she was confused, didn’t know what she was signing and was led to believe that she would go to jail if she didn’t follow their instructions.

“They implied that if I reported [the guardsmen to authorities] I would go to jail for reporting them,” Promotor told Animal Político. “… I did what they told me to do because I thought I had to do it so they would give me the body,” she added.

Animal Político said that family members of Salinas, the pedestrian struck by Rivera’s car, also signed documents that authorized the withdrawal of charges against members of the National Guard.

But after burying her husband – who worked at a customs processing office in Nuevo Laredo not far from where he was killed – Promotor regretted her decision and didn’t attend an appointment at FGR offices at which she would have received a check for 1 million pesos.

“I want justice to be done, for those who did it [killed Rivera] to pay,” she said.

Promotor said her husband wasn’t involved in any illegal activities and there was no reason for him to be shot.

“Instead of helping us, they’re killing our family members, who are innocent people. My husband wasn’t involved in anything bad,” she said.

However, according to witnesses, guardsmen planted drugs, a firearm and two-way radios in Rivera’s car to make it appear that he was a criminal.

Promotor questioned why the National Guard would offer her 1 million pesos if in fact her husband was a criminal. She has now sought assistance from the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Commission to seek justice in the case and determine the identity of the guardsman who shot her husband and why he did what he did.

“… The question of why has affected me. Why [did it happen] if he wasn’t involved in anything bad. There is no explanation, I can’t give an answer,” said Promotor, who is concerned about how she will be able to support herself and her two young children in the absence of her husband.

Animal Político said it asked the National Guard why it had offered the payments to Promotor and the family of Salinas but didn’t receive a response.

There are also questions about why the army offered payments to the family members of a 26-year-old man and a 20-year-old man who were recently killed by soldiers in Nuevo Laredo. The army accused the former of being armed and the latter of acting aggressively prior to his death, even though he was traveling to an ultrasound appointment with his wife when he was killed, according to the Animal Político report.

The report said it was unknown how many cases have been resolved by offering payments to family members of victims, how much money the National Guard and the army have paid out and how many guardsmen and soldiers have avoided investigation.

However, the news website said it was able to determine that the army has compensated 187 victims in the last 10 years via an “opaque process that avoided the intervention of other institutions.”

Michael Chamberlin, a former director of compensation at CEAV, said he never witnessed money being paid out in exchange for people agreeing to drop charges against security force members.

“The law says that [people] have a right to truth, justice and compensation. I never saw a case like this,” he said, referring to the money offered to the families of Rivera and Salinas. “It should not be allowed to be like this.”

Source: Animal Político (sp)

Is going home to get a vaccine ‘jumping the line’?

Sarah DeVries

April 21, 2021

Mexican television presenter Juan José Origel was mocked for getting a Covid shot in the US. How should expats feel about getting vaccinated in their home country?

Since writing my article last week about the slow-moving pace of the vaccine roll-out in Mexico and the travesty of ignoring or otherwise swatting away private healthcare workers, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ethics of traveling home to my country to get the jab myself, as it seems that it could be a while if I decide to wait it out here.

Not all of the responsibility for the slow rate down here is carried by Mexico. The powers that be aren’t all-powerful gods, and they can’t simply make vaccines appear out of nowhere if shipments are delayed, canceled or otherwise unexpectedly unavailable or late.

Add to that the country’s fame for not being even close to the most efficient when it comes to distributing public goods and services, and it’s hard to have much faith that we’ll be on the other end of this pandemic anytime soon around here.

All that said, there’s some good news. In my state of Veracruz (as well as in Chiapas, Nayarit, Tamaulipas, and Coahuila; other groups of states are set to follow shortly), for example, it was announced that all teachers and school personnel of any sort — public and private — will be receiving their first shots this week. All of them. This week.

It sounds too good to be true, but I pray that it’s not. In my particular university town, teachers and other school workers account for a sizable portion of the population. This means that many of those who are younger and wouldn’t otherwise be eligible for the vaccine until what will very likely be next year will get their shots. Granted, they’ll be inoculated with the single-dose Chinese Cansino vaccine, which comes in at only a 65.7% effectiveness, but hey: that’s better than the 0% those of us without the vaccine are looking at.

Well done, Mexico. Credit where credit is due. I’m still upset about private medical workers, but I’m not a “throw the baby out with the bathwater” kind of girl. I’ll take incremental, maddeningly frustrating, halting change and improvement over no improvement at all.

I do have a few questions: will it only be for those actively employed? What if they were working at one of the many private schools that has since shut their doors, as unable to survive as the other million-plus businesses during what has now been a one-year-plus-long closing?

Furthermore, does the government have a list of everyone who works in a private school and is therefore eligible? I ask because they didn’t have a list of private healthcare workers, which as Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum explained, was the reason that so many private health personnel were left out (this in spite of AMLO’s doubling-down on his insistence that, no, really, they should “wait their turn”).

Further investigation (from me) has revealed that the SEP will be the ones to determine those who are currently in the system. Boy, do I hope they’ve got more updated records of their people than the Ministry of Health does.

Despite all this, I refuse to fall victim to total cynicism. I am totally willing to concede (and do hope) that we may all be pleasantly surprised. And for now, I’m cautiously optimistic: all of the personnel at my daughter’s private school will be receiving their vaccines this week. That’s a lot of under-40 people, after all! Great!

But back to my own decision. Like many well-off Mexicans have been doing, I want to go to the United States (of which, to be fair, I am a tax-paying citizen) in order to get vaccinated sooner rather than later. This is a unique privilege that I have and, consequently, the root of some very real existential guilt. As much as I try to convince myself that it’s not something I should feel guilty about at all, here we are.

From what I can observe, most people who are well-off do not waste their time feeling guilty about taking advantage of the many privileges they have because they don’t see themselves as responsible for the absence of privilege in others. I don’t either — at least not directly — but I do recognize my place in a system that benefits some and hurts others, and that’s the part that’s so hard for me to ignore.

The truth is that after all these years, I am still at a stage where I feel like a bit of a fraud. I’ve always felt like an imposter on the privileged “team,” and it feels as if I’m being disloyal by arriving in Mexico and suddenly finding myself on the side that always wins when I know so deeply what it feels like to lose.

It seems easy for most, at least from what I can tell, to shrug their shoulders and see only the positive side: they’ll be vaccinated, and by virtue of that, they’ll help in the collective effort to have as many people vaccinated in their communities as possible, period. It’s an attitude I’m trying hard to cultivate.

Logically, they’re right. Me denying myself just on principle is stupid. It’s not going to help anyone else — and actually might hurt them if I were to later contract and then pass on the coronavirus.

But I’m not going to pretend that it’s a totally selfless move. My impending trip both squarely places a tick on one side of the inequality scale and adds one more vaccinated person to the community, which helps us collectively.

Do I need it much more than others? No, I do not. I’m healthy, young-ish and do not need (but very much want) to go out much.

Even before the pandemic hit, I had no office to go to, no school or clinic or store. It’s been hard for me the way it has for everyone, but it has by no means been disastrous in the way that it has been for so many others.

What right do I have when others do not? I both do and don’t feel good about it. Seriously, y’all…at my most existentially angsty, I’m basically Chidi from The Good Place.

In the end, like many of my fellow well-off hosts, I will very likely go to the U.S. for a vaccine as I try my best to quiet the childish and anxious insistence that my doing so is unfair.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com.

INAH denounces construction project in protected archaeological area

MND Staff

April 21, 2021

Mexico's historical preservation agency reported to México state authorities about illegal construction on private land at the protected Teotihuacán site.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) filed a complaint on Tuesday against an illegal construction project on land that is part of the Teotihuacán archaeological site in México state.

Work on a construction project believed to be an amusement park has been suspended twice by Teotihuacán Archaeological Zone (ZAT) authorities, but builders have returned, according to site director Rogelio Rivera Chong.

The project is being built on private land in Oztoyahualco, an area that is known as the “old city” because it is believed that the Teotihuacán settlement began there.

Rivera told the newspaper Reforma that there are bases of some 24 pre-Hispanic structures on the site that haven’t been excavated.

Sergio Gómez, an INAH archaeologist, said that renowned researchers have “acknowledged the … importance of the place [Oztoyahualco] to explain the origins of Teotihuacán,” which is now a popular tourism site with two large pyramids.

Construction scaffolding found on the land parcel in Oztoyahualco. — Construction scaffolding found on the parcel of land in Oztoyahualco.

“In several parts of this area, there are openings that are mistakenly thought of as caves. However, it is known with complete certainty that they are old mines where the Teotihuacán people extracted the tezontle [a kind of volcanic rock] with which they built the great city,” he said.

According to Rivera, illegal construction is underway on at least three privately-owned lots in Oztoyahualco, which is part of zone B of the Teotihuacán site. The largest project — that which is believed to be an amusement park — is being built on a 7-hectare parcel owned by former Mexico City police chief René Monterrubio, who was also mayor of San Juan Teotihuacán between 2013 and 2015.

Rivera said that Monterrubio has failed to file the required paperwork to regularize the project — even though all construction in zone B is ostensibly prohibited — after it was suspended by ZAT authorities on two separate occasions in March. Asked about speculation that Monterrubio intends to build an amusement park on the Oztoyahualco land, the Teotihuacán site director responded:

“Some businesspeople in the region believe that the visitor comes [to Teotihaucán] to have fun and needs an amusement park. I don’t know if the intention is to build a recreational park; Mr. Monterrubio didn’t say that, the people say that.”

Rivera noted that INAH has previously rejected a proposal to build a Ferris wheel at Teotihuacán because it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the existing landscape must be preserved.

As a result of INAH’s complaint, which was filed with the México state Attorney General’s Office, it is expected that state police will investigate and request further documentation from the institute to support its grievance. The filing of the complaint came after Teotihuacán researchers wrote to INAH to ask it to intervene to stop the destruction and alteration of pre-Hispanic heritage at Oztoyahualco.

The researchers implored INAH to act urgently to offer all its legal support to the ZAT authorities in order to stop the construction.

“We know that since approximately a month ago, several projects and constructions began at this place … [due to] the scant supervision by INAH,” said the March 29 letter sent to INAH director Diego Prieto and other high-ranking officials.

INAH also owns property in the area, but according to the researchers it, too, has been subjected to “destruction and looting.”

“… In recent years clandestine and illegal construction has increased exponentially [at Teotihuacán], even on the immediate boundaries of zone A, damaging the archaeological heritage …” the letter said.

A petition calling for an end to destruction of the Teotihuacán archeological zone was launched on the website change.org and attracted more than 12,000 signatures of support before it closed.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Universal (sp)

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