The bay at Rincón de Guayabitos, a popular destination in Nayarit.
A gunfight in Rincón de Guayabitos, Nayarit, Saturday morning alarmed residents and, according to unofficial reports, shut down federal Highway 200.
Exploding grenades and gunfire could be heard throughout the town during at least 20 minutes, according to local media reports. The shooting began at the Los Ayala intersection on Highway 200 at about 9:20 a.m.
One report said the battle was between narcos, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Another said a National Guard patrol encountered armed hitmen belonging to a gang known as La Empresa, who opened fire on soldiers.
Fuerte balacera en Rincón de Guayabitos, y autoridades de aquel estado no han dicho nada…. pic.twitter.com/X3f90O11GJ
— Diego García 》 Reportero (@DiegoGarciaH) March 20, 2021
The only official announcement has been a message by the state Ministry of Security that federal security forces, including the National Guard, and Compostela municipal police are at the scene.
An association of private medical laboratories has called on the federal government to crack down on companies and people selling fake Covid-19 test results to international travelers.
The Mexican Council of Medical Diagnosis Companies (Comed) said fake test results are being sold in hotels and airports and called on the health regulator Cofepris to identify and sanction those guilty of the practice.
A negative test result is required to travel to various countries including the United States and Canada.
“Fake test [results] are easily detected and those responsible for issuing them must be sanctioned immediately. People traveling internationally can and must do legal tests performed by authorized and serious laboratories that provide service to airports and hotels,” Comed said.
“… This illegal trafficking [of fake results] only promotes greater spread of the virus at the time of a serious health emergency and the appearance of new variants of SARS-CoV-2.”
Comed also called on the government to work with social media companies to identify people selling and buying fake Covid-test results online.
Daniel Uribe, CEO of GenoBank.io, a company that provides secure digital wallets to store DNA data, told the newspaper El Universal that security features on Covid test results issued by the government and authorized labs should be increased to avoid falsification.
He said test results should have QR codes that allow them to be certified, explaining that would avoid fraud by phony laboratories and everyday citizens won’t be able to falsify results.
“There are people who sell tests with false negatives, that’s why it’s important … to improve security features on the results of diagnostic tests,” Uribe said.
He also said that unreliable Covid-19 testing kits that are sold on the black market are a concern in both Mexico and the United States.
Guillermo Máynez Gil, general director of Comed, said that eight laboratories are already using blockchain technology to ensure that their Covid tests results are not vulnerable to falsification or other illegal practices.
This Cancún lab was conducting tests without authorization.
There are 129 laboratories, hospitals and research centers with federal government authorization to conduct Covid tests but there is a lack of effective regulation of testing in Mexico.
El Universal reported that there are no standardized testing controls in Mexico’s main tourism destinations.
“The airports and hotels chose the laboratories with which they work and in all cases it’s said they are certified by health authorities; However, there is not a regulator at a national level that supervises the … tests that are applied to tourists,” said the newspaper, which spoke with authorities in Oaxaca city, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco
It noted that a laboratory in Cancún where a group of Argentine tourists were supposedly tested was shut down by Quintana Roo authorities on Thursday. Many of the tourists tested positive for Covid in Argentina after traveling home with negative Covid results provided by the now-shuttered lab.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Monday that the lab, Marbu Salud, wasn’t authorized to perform Covid tests.
El Universal said that about 80 hotels in Los Cabos have their own testing stations where antigen rapid tests are performed whereas tourists in Oaxaca city that need a negative Covid test result in order to travel home have to seek out a testing location on their own.
However, there is no official list of authorized labs in Oaxaca where foreigners can get tested, the newspaper said.
Lilzi Orcí, president of the Los Cabos Hotel Association, said hotels in that destination are working with authorized labs, noting that international guests are normally tested two days before their return flights. El Universal was not able to verify Orcí’s claims that the hotels are working with authorized labs.
In Puerto Vallarta, 16 hotels offer free antigen testing and 32 offer antigen and PCR testing at a special price, El Universal said. That city’s tourism trust has also published a list of authorized Covid testing providers.
Covid-19 tests are also performed by authorized providers at many airports across the country including those located in Oaxaca, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco and Mexico City.
Jorge Monroy’s murals enliven public buildings in Jalisco. This one, The Influence of Technology on Medicine, can be seen at the University of Guadalajara Medical School.
Near the end of 2008, I heard a rumor that someone was painting an extraordinary mural inside the foyer of the Guadalajara Chamber of Commerce. That someone turned out to be artist Jorge Monroy, whose gorgeous watercolors graced the Sunday edition of the newspaper El Informador for some 44 years.
Since then, I have followed Monroy’s career as he created more and more magnificent murals at the Guachimontones Museum, the University of Guadalajara, the Jalisco Water Commission headquarters and the city’s Civil Hospital, just to name a few sites.
And now here I am in 2021, back in the Cámara de Comercio (Chamber of Commerce) with him, looking at a now-expanded, 68-square-meter mural. Previously called Under the Wings of Mercury, the work is now entitled The Origins of Guadalajara.
“The people in charge here,” the artist told me, “really liked the three-panel mural I did 12 years ago, and since there was a lot of space on both sides of it, they asked me to add a fourth panel, which I painted during the last few months. This bigger mural was dedicated last night, February 11, by the governor of Jalisco and lots of other dignitaries.”
I believe Monroy was asked to add this new panel because of the typical behavior of people who walk into the Chamber of Commerce foyer.
Tlaloc Reigns Over Chapala graces the city’s water commission building.
The first thing they do is glance at the mural. Then they stop and take a second look. And once they do that, they’re hooked. Their eye is caught by some iconic building or monument they know very well, and then it gets drawn in by the fascinating little details that the artist has slipped into the painting in a most subversive way, one scene smoothly blending into the next with no jarring change.
“This mural needs no explanation,” Monroy told me. “I’m just inviting people to take a leisurely walk through the streets of Guadalajara.”
Now the expanded mural is even more seductive: the new panel on the left once again presents persons or places we know, interspaced with fascinating images we don’t expect.
In the upper left corner of the new panel, we see some of the Spaniards who tried and tried to found Guadalajara in the 16th century: Cristóbal de Oñate, his brother Juan and the indomitable Beatriz de Hernández. These individuals could generate all sorts of images in a visitor’s mind because there were three earlier attempts to found Guadalajara, each of them fraught with disaster.
But if Mexico’s second city stands where it does today, it is mostly thanks to Hernández, who could not only fight in battle but also knew how to stop a gang of men from squabbling and force them to make a decision.
In the mural, behind Hernández, is Antonio Alcalde, known as “The Friar with a Skull.” It is said that Alcalde got that nickname when he was the abbot of the monastery of Valverde in Spain.
Monroy finished this new panel despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
One evening, a group of hunters knocked at the monastery gate, among them the king of Spain.
“We were lost in the woods,” said the king, “and we want to spend the night here.”
Since the king’s visit was unexpected, his majesty ended up sleeping in an austere room adorned by nothing else but a grinning human skull.
“The next morning,” says Monroy, “the king was back in his palace, and the order of the day was to designate a bishop for Mexico. Immediately, the king said, ‘We will send the friar of the skull.’ The king, it seems, had been impressed by the abbot’s wisdom and simplicity. Although he didn’t remember the abbot’s name, he did remember that skull.”
Years later, in Mexico, it was Alcalde who transformed the backwater community of Guadalajara into an important city, founding, for example, its first hospital in 1787 and its first university in 1792. He also brought in the first printing press, which you can see in the mural, just below his upraised hand.
By the way, the features of Alcalde do — for the first time in a mural — actually reflect the true image of the famed friar. We know this based on a recently discovered contemporaneous painting.
Monroy with his newly completed mural, now entitled The Origins of Guadalajara.
To the left of the printing press, Monroy told me, are representatives of the Cascanes, Chichimecas and other indigenous peoples who received the Spaniards with unrelenting all-out war but who were finally pacified by Franciscans like Antonio de Segovia, whom you can see just below Beatriz Hernández.
“He walked about among the most ferocious tribes with a little wooden box hanging from his neck that contained an image of La Virgen de Zapopan, and he somehow got these tribes to lay down their arms, permitting Guadalajara to be founded where it is now in 1542,” he said.
“To the right of the press we see Juan de Somellera, who founded the Chamber of Commerce 135 years ago,” he added. “At the bottom of the panel, there are wagons transporting tequila and handicrafts, while just above them is the train which came to Guadalajara in 1888, allowing its products to be transported throughout Mexico and the U.S.A.
“Finally, at the lower right, we have the recently completed light train that crosses the city — and in the corner, at the request of the Chamber of Commerce, a tribute to online shopping. So as you see, even the internet has found its way into my mural!”
I asked Monroy how he got interested in painting.
“As a child,” he said, “I couldn’t resist drawing everything I could see, from sunflowers to Superman. As a result, I eventually entered the Escuela de Artes Plásticas at the Universidad de Guadalajara. I became a painter … and I knew I would probably die of starvation, so I also became a vegetarian, studied yoga and prepared myself for a life of austerity.”
The mural Eternal Light, on display at Guadalajara’s Infinity Funeral Home.
Instead of expiring in a garret, Monroy managed to keep himself alive by painting watercolors and was even able to marry and raise a family. He has also succeeded in traveling abroad for months on end and always returns to Guadalajara with a portfolio full of acuarelas (watercolors).
“In all these years,” he said, “I’ve never suffered an artistic crisis; my enthusiasm has never diminished. Whatever I see, I want to paint — that’s my problem.”
Jorge Monroy may call it a problem, but to us who savor his exquisite paintings, it is a gift, and truly one of those gifts that never stops giving.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Monroy’s sketch of Friar Antonio de Segovia, who is said to have single-handedly pacified the indigenous population of west Mexico.
Detail with Beatriz Hernández, who influenced the founding of Guadalajara in its present site. Behind her is Antonio Alcalde, diocese bishop in the 1700s.
This detail represents the production and sale of handicrafts.
“I’ve never had an artistic crisis,” says Monroy of his prodigious lifetime’s output. “Whatever I see, I want to paint — that’s my problem.”
The Airbus A320 sits with its nose on the tarmac in Puerto Vallarta Thursday.
A VivaAerobus aircraft lining up to take off from Puerto Vallarta International Airport Thursday afternoon sustained a nosegear collapse, forcing the airport to close temporarily while a maintenance check was conducted on the plane.
None of the 127 passengers and crew on board flight 4343, which was bound for Monterrey, Nuevo León, was hurt, the airline said. In accordance with the airline’s safety policies, all were evacuated via slides.
The passengers were transferred to another flight to Monterrey.
It was the first landing gear failure in the discount airline’s operating history, according to the aviation publication Aerotime Hub.
The nosegear collapse occurred as the Airbus A320 was backtracking on the runway in preparation for takeoff and made a 180-degree turn to line up, according to Aviation Herald.
The Mexican airline, based out of Monterrey, uses 43 Airbus A320 planes that have an average of 4.5 years of service in VivaAerobus’s fleet, according to Aerotime Hub, which also said that the aircraft in question was 15 years old.
“We regret the inconvenience that this incident has caused and reaffirm our commitment to security on each of our flights, our company’s No. 1 priority,” VivaAerobus officials said in a statement Thursday
A body tightly wrapped in plastic bags and left on a park bench in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, on Thursday is believed to be that of a criminal gang leader who split from the powerful Jalisco New General Cartel (CJNG) in 2017.
The body was dumped in Jardín Hidalgo, a leafy public square in the center of Tlaquepaque, a municipality that is part of the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
One of two signs, held in place by knives stabbed into the corpse, identified the man as “the traitor El Cholo,” nickname of Carlos Enrique Sánchez Martínez, presumed leader of the Nueva Plaza Cartel.
Vice World News reported that Sánchez was a former top lieutenant of the CJNG but broke from that organization around 2017 to create the Nueva Plaza. The two gangs and other criminal groups are involved in a turf war in Guadalajara for control of the methamphetamine industry, Vice said.
Before the body’s discovery, a video surfaced on social media of Sánchez seated in front of six heavily armed masked men who are believed to be members of the CJNG.
A video was released before the discovery of the body. It is believed to show El Cholo surrounded by CJNG hitmen.
In the video, a handcuffed Sánchez claimed to be collaborating with Mexico City Police Chief Omar Harfuch García, who was wounded in an attack in the capital last June that was allegedly perpetrated by CJNG gunmen.
García denied the claim in a Twitter post, saying he would not be distracted by “false messages” of criminals.
Sánchez – possibly reading remarks scripted by the CJNG – also claimed he had the support of two police commanders in Guadalajara. Both commanders were stood down on Thursday pending an investigation.
Referring to the video, Jalisco Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez said: “This material confirms the existence of an orchestrated strategy to destabilize the state by an organized crime group.”
He also said that “everything indicates that it’s … Carlos Sánchez Martínez, nicknamed El Cholo.”
Solís said the video could be used as evidence for the crimes to which Sánchez confessed. The attorney general said that some of the characteristics of the body found in Tlaquepaque matched those of Sánchez but stressed that the corpse had not been formally identified.
People with history of severe allergies should avoid the Pfizer shot.
Mexico could see a third wave of the coronavirus, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell warned Thursday as the country’s official Covid death toll approached 200,000.
“There could be a third wave, a lot of countries already had three waves, we’ve only had two until now. There are countries that have already had four waves,” he told the Health Ministry’s Thursday night coronavirus press briefing.
Mexico had a sustained first wave of Covid that peaked in the middle of last year and a worse second wave in late 2020 and early 2021.
López-Gatell said that case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths have been on the wane for six weeks but could spike again.
Virus mitigation measures cannot be relaxed until three-quarters of the population have immunity to Covid through infection or vaccination, he said.
Although the fierce second wave that afflicted the country in December and January has receded, Mexico continues to record thousands of new coronavirus cases and hundreds of Covid deaths every day.
The Health Ministry reported 6,726 new cases on Thursday, pushing the accumulated tally to 2.18 million, and 698 fatalities, lifting the official death toll to 196,606.
About 3.4% of the Mexican population has been vaccinated with at least one shot while 0.5% of the country’s 126 million citizens have received two. About 4.9 million vaccine doses had been administered by Thursday night, according to Health Ministry data.
López-Gatell said the government’s vaccination program won’t conclude until 2022 but estimated that up to 50% of the population already has antibodies against Covid due to infection.
(A group of National Autonomous University researchers estimates that the real number of Mexicans who have had Covid could be as high as 59 million, a figure that accounts for almost half of the country’s population.)
The deputy minister said that once 75% of the population has immunity via infection or vaccination, transmission of the coronavirus will be improbable.
López-Gatell sought to allay fears about getting an anti-Covid jab, saying there is no increased risk of adverse reactions for people with existing medical conditions. There is, however, a risk of adverse reactions among people with a history of severe allergies who receive the Pfizer shot, he said.
They should be inoculated with one of the other vaccines, López-Gatell said.
Mexico has so far used the Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sinovac and Sputnik V vaccines and is expected to start administering doses of China’s CanSino Biologics shot soon.
López-Gatell noted that the World Health Organization has indicated its support for continued use of the AstraZeneca vaccine – its use has been suspended by some European countries while they investigate the development of blood clots among a small number of recipients – and said that Mexico is in talks to acquire doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Janssen vaccine.
He also said Mexico will receive shipments of AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines via the intergovernmental Covax initiative.
Rafts on the Suchiate River provide one means of crossing the border between Mexico and Guatemala.
The federal government announced Thursday that the southern border with Guatemala and Belize would close on Friday to nonessential traffic as part of measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic. It also said the closure of the Mexico-U.S. border was extended for another month.
“To prevent the spread of Covid-19, Mexico will impose restrictions on land travel for nonessential activities at its northern and southern border starting March 19, 2021,” the Foreign Affairs Ministry (SRE) said on Twitter.
“In addition, the government of Mexico will implement sanitary control measures in the north and south of the country. The restrictions on nonessential travel and the health measures will remain in force until 23:59 on April 21, 2021.”
The closure of the southern border comes as a growing number of Central American migrants – encouraged by United States President Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House – attempt to travel to the U.S. via Mexico to seek asylum. More than 100,000 migrants were apprehended by United States border agents in February, an increase of 28% over January numbers.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Thursday night that the closure of the southern border to nonessential traffic was related to the increase in migrant flows from Central America.
Speaking at the Health Ministry’s coronavirus press briefing, the government’s coronavirus czar stressed that the border was not closing completely.
“It’s simply a collaboration with … Guatemala, Belize and other Central American nations … to have a reduction in mobility for nonessential activities,” he said.
Although restrictions on travel across the northern border have been in place for the past year, Mexico had not previously limited travel across the border with Guatemala and Belize.
The federal government ramped up enforcement against migrants when former United States president Donald Trump threatened to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican goods if it didn’t do more to stop flows of people to the Mexico-U.S. border.
But Mexican and U.S officials denied that there was any migration deal included in the vaccine agreement.
Before the SRE made its announcement, the United States said it was extending restrictions on travel across its its land borders.
“To prevent the further spread of Covid-19, and in coordination with our partners in Canada and Mexico, the United States is extending the restrictions on non-essential travel at our land borders through April 21, while ensuring continued flows of essential trade and travel,” the Department of Homeland Security said.
A security operation in Zacualpan is believed to have triggered Thursday's attack.
Gunmen killed 13 police officers in an ambush in México state on Thursday in what was apparently a revenge attack for a security operation against the Familia Michoacana drug cartel two days earlier.
Eight state police and five investigative officers attached to the México state Attorney General’s Office were killed in the attack Thursday afternoon in Coatepec Harinas, a municipality about 120 kilometers southwest of Mexico City.
According to the newspaper Milenio, members of the Familia Michoacana perpetrated the attack in retaliation for a joint state-federal security operation on Tuesday in Zacualpan, a México state municipality 40 kilometers south of Coatepec Harinas.
Intelligence sources told the newspaper that 125 police, 20 soldiers and 28 marines carried out an operation in the community of Gama de Paz and seized three vehicles allegedly stolen by cartel members.
In one of the vehicles, the security forces found a notebook containing information about the location of cartel bases as well where halcones, hawks or lookouts, were deployed.
The security personnel saw alleged Familia Michoacana cartel members in Gama de Paz but the latter fled and there were no arrests or loss of life.
México state Security Minister Rodrigo Martínez-Celis Wogau called Thursday’s ambush an “affront to the Mexican state” and pledged to respond with “total force and the support of the law.”
Members of the National Guard, the army and the navy were deployed to Coatepec Harinas following the ambush.
The attack was the deadliest on police since 14 state officers were killed in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán in October 2019.
Ninety-nine police officers have now been killed in Mexico this year, according to a count by Causa en Común, a government watchdog with a particular interest in public security.
At least 524 officers were killed in 2020, making last year the deadliest year for police since the organization began tracking murders of police in 2018.
The vaccination of five inmates at a prison in Cozumel, Quintana Roo, has triggered debate over whether criminals should be given priority over other citizens when it comes to inoculation against Covid-19.
Prisoners aged 60 and over at the Social Reintegration Center on the Caribbean Sea island were given shots against the infectious disease this week as part of a National Human Rights Commission campaign to encourage state governments to give early vaccine access to people in jail.
Marco Toh, president of the Quintana Roo Human Rights Commission, spoke out in favor of the campaign, saying that the inoculation of prisoners, who often live in cramped conditions that can fuel the spread of viruses, is necessary to guarantee their right to health. They should not be discriminated against, he said.
Lenin Amaro, president of the Riviera Maya chapter of the Business Coordinating Council, also said that the Cozumel prisoners had the right to be vaccinated.
“We mustn’t lose our human sense. It doesn’t matter that they’re prisoners if they’re older than 60,” he said, pointing out the national vaccination strategy gives priority to seniors, millions of whom have already received shots.
“… They’re twice as vulnerable because they’re over 60 and all locked up in the same place,” Amaro said.
Mario Machuca, head of a tourism workers association in Cancún, took a less sympathetic view.
“From my point of view the strategy is not bad but it’s not the most appropriate one either,” he said.
“The entire public and private health sector should be prioritized first followed by the economic sector taking into account waitstaff, hotel staff, chefs and all people who go to work every day and are exposed to the virus,” Machuca said.
Sergio León, president of the Cancún chapter of the Mexican Employers Federation, was skeptical about whether prisoners should be given precedence over non-frontline health workers.
“I believe that all people involved in health care, whether in direct contact [with Covid patients] or not should be considered a priority [for vaccination],” he said.
Social media users also weighed in. One quoted by the newspaper Milenio questioned why inmates were being vaccinated ahead of people who pay taxes and “behave well.” Another criticized the vaccination of prisoners while there are thousands of health workers who still haven’t received a shot.
President López Obrador has rejected a United States government claim that criminal organizations control “ungoverned areas” that account for about one-third of Mexico’s territory.
The commander of the United States Northern Command made the claim Tuesday at a U.S. Department of Defense press conference in response to a question about the situation on the Mexico-U.S. border.
“I would say that [the recent influx of migrants to the border] is a symptom of a broader problem that … manifested itself over the last year or so. …Two major hurricanes, Covid, instability created by transnational criminal organizations, all of these are indicators and reasons why people want to leave Central America, South America and Mexico to come to our nation,” General Glen D. VanHerck said.
“… Counternarcotics, migration, human trafficking, they’re all symptoms of transnational criminal organizations who are operating oftentimes in ungoverned areas – 30% to 35% of Mexico – that is creating some of the things we’re dealing with at the border,” he said.
“And so, we need to take a whole-of-government look at that problem. I think it’s a national security imperative that we must look at.”
At his regular news conference on Thursday, López Obrador dismissed the general’s territorial control claim as untrue.
“But we respect the opinion of everyone,” he added. “We’re going to continue having good relations with the United States government, we’re not going to argue with the United States government. [President Joe Biden] is very respectful with us.”
According to the news magazine Proceso, it was the first time since the 2006-2012 presidency of Felipe Calderón that a high-ranking United States military leader publicly enunciated the scale of the Mexico’s drug trafficking and territorial control problem.
However, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has acknowledged the sway cartels hold in Mexico, and the U.S. drug market.
“Mexican TCOs [transnational criminal organizations] are the greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States; they control most of the U.S. drug market and have established varied transportation routes, have advanced communications capabilities, and hold strong affiliations with criminal groups and gangs in the United States,” the DEA said in its 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment report.
It said that Mexican cartels continue to control lucrative smuggling corridors, primarily across the United States’ southwestern border.
“The two largest organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), show signs of expansion in Mexico, demonstrating their continued influence even compared to other Mexican TCOs,” the DEA said.
“These TCOs expand their criminal influence by engaging in business alliances with other organizations, including independent DTOs [drug trafficking organizations], and working in conjunction with transnational gangs, U.S.-based street gangs, prison gangs, and Asian money laundering organizations.”
In addition to the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG, the DEA identified seven other Mexican criminal groups that have a significant drug trafficking impact on the United States.
They are the Beltrán Leyva Organization, the Northeast Cartel/Los Zetas, the Guerreros Unidos, the Gulf Cartel, the Juárez Cartel/La Línea, the Familia Michoacana, and Los Rojos.
Mexico has long been considered to have a territorial control problem, especially in rural areas where there is evidence that cartels control large swathes of land in several states.
