On Wednesday, President López Obrador criticized the Austrian response to his request to borrow Moctezuma's headdress.
Mexico will once again ask Austria to return the elaborate headdress that is believed to have belonged to the Aztec emperor at the time of the Spanish Conquest, President López Obrador said Wednesday.
Speaking at his regular news conference, the president acknowledged that efforts to have the penacho de Moctezuma (Moctezuma’s headdress) returned to Mexico have gotten nowhere, but asserted that his government is in the process of lobbying for the recovery of stolen art and cultural artifacts that belong to Mexico.
“We have to keep insisting that the penacho be returned to us and that everything that has been stolen that belongs to Mexicans is returned to us … [from] all countries,” López Obrador said.
The headdress – made of feathers from the quetzal and other birds – is on display at the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna.
Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, AMLO’s wife, met with the president of Austria in October 2020 and – armed with a letter from her husband – asked that the European nation lend the penacho to Mexico for exhibition during 2021, the bicentenary of independence from Spain.
A modern copy of the headdress is displayed in the National Museum of Anthropology and History, in Mexico City. Thomas Ledl / CC BY-SA 4.0
López Obrador recalled that Austria rejected the request, arguing that the headdress wouldn’t withstand the long journey to Mexico.
“This meeting that Beatriz had with the president [Alexander Van der Bellen] was very unpleasant, … she tells me that he didn’t have much knowledge [of the penacho]. He was surrounded by men and a woman who feel they are the owners of the penacho. … They’d barely started talking about the issue and they were already saying no,” he said.
“… Beatriz very kindly said goodbye … and we didn’t continue with the issue because there was this refusal. It’s a very arrogant, high-handed attitude and there is no justification,” López Obrador said.
“… We weren’t even suggesting … that they return it to us [for good], that it’s ours, no. It was to exhibit it,” he said.
The president said he hoped Austria would change its way of thinking and allow the penacho to come back to Mexico.
“There are things in the relationship with Austria that are exceptional,” he added. “During the government of president Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico was the first country that condemned the Nazi invasion of Austria; there’s recognition for that.”
Los Pochos dancers from carnival celebrations in Tenosique, Tabasco. The dance dates back to pre-Hispanic times. David Oliva
Mexico has one kind of carnival celebration, similar to what you’d see elsewhere in the world, but another kind is uniquely Mexican.
Are you looking for an experience similar to those in New Orleans or Rio de Janeiro? Head to Mexico’s coasts: notable celebrations from Veracruz to the Yucatán Peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico side and in Mazatlán and Baja California on the Pacific side will satisfy your need for glitz, large parades and a massive party atmosphere. But there are others too, Mexico’s more “authentic” carnivals, celebrations that often feature a rural, indigenous flavor.
Now, even Mexico’s biggest, glitziest celebrations are still way smaller than many carnival celebrations in the Old World and New. Why is that?
The conquistadors introduced the tradition along with all its other folk religious celebrations in the early colonial period. Most of these were adopted and shaped one way or another by rural and urban populations, but the popularity of carnival became something of a headache for the colonial masters.
Carnival is a time to set aside social conventions, including subservience to crown and church. Masks and costumes provided anonymity and allowed the disenfranchised to make fun of norms and the authorities themselves.
These sorts of glitzy carnival celebrations are more typical in Mexico’s coastal cities. Rubén Naíl
This would not do, so campaigns to stamp it out began in the 17th century. By the 18th, it was mostly eliminated in the cities, where enforcement was strongest, but not so much in isolated rural communities.
With the country’s independence in the 19th century, there were initially no efforts to bring it back. Many religious folk festivals were frowned upon by Mexico’s Liberal movements eager to banish the colonial past.
Yet, remnants of carnival, mostly as balls for the rich, survived. It eventually experienced a comeback in coastal cities, probably due to contact with other countries with more robust traditions.
Mazatlán was first to reestablish carnival in 1898, taking an annual mock battle between dock and warehouse workers and shifting the focus to colorful costumes to keep the violence down.
However, the idea of a simulated battle never really disappeared: throwing projectiles such as empty eggshells filled with confetti and spray foam are still an integral part of celebrations.
These modern coastal carnival celebrations have what you would expect: large parades, extravagant costumes, queens (and sometimes kings) and lots of partying, as well as the same problems — alcohol-fueled public disturbances and overt sexuality that has sometimes caused controversy.
A participant in Zacapoaxtla costume firing a mock rifle with real gunpowder in Huejotzingo, Puebla. Leigh Thelmadatter
To counter some of this, versions for children have been created.
Besides Mazatlán, the largest, most important coastal carnivals take place in Veracruz city (the second largest), Ensenada, La Paz. Mérida, Cozumel, and Campeche city. They continue to grow more popular on both coasts as more communities sponsor them, looking for a slice of the domestic tourism they generate.
But such carnivals have not taken off in the interior cities, not even Mexico City. Masks, costumes and social rule-bending abound in these other celebrations too, but that’s pretty much all they have in common with their coastal cousins.
These other celebrations can be found in about 225 central and southern Mexican communities, where Catholicism was introduced before the religious feast was purged. These events are very local, with traditions distinct to each town or small region. Local dances and musical styles (especially with wind instruments) dominate. They may involve bullfighting, charreada (rodeo), horse racing, story reenactments and even fishing tournaments.
Indigenous influence can be seen in many of these celebrations, especially in the dances. In the center of the country, they often include the huehues, literally “old men,” as well as adapted rituals meant to ensure good crops for the upcoming growing season. Costumes are influenced by local traditions, with bull-themed ones in Veracruz and monkey-themed ones in Chiapas.
The largest and best-known of these carnivals is that in Huejotzingo, Puebla, where just about the entire town participates. This celebration, which starts on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, mostly revolves around a “reenactment” of the 1862 Battle of Puebla.
CARNAVAL DE HUEJOTZINGO 2020 | MARTES PARTE 2
Huejotzingo, Puebla’s carnival celebration in 2020 with parade costumes loosely evoking the Battle of Puebla.
The residents of the four oldest neighborhoods are given roles: two represent the invaders — the French (known as zuavos or zapadores) and the turcos (Turkish mercenaries) — and the other two the Mexican defenders, known as the zacapoaxtlas and the indios.
It is not historically accurate by any means but rather consists of a large number of mostly men (women were permitted to participate only somewhat recently) running around in garish costumes with fake rifles that explode real gunpowder. Alcohol figures in here as well, so accidents can and do happen. It all makes for a wildly chaotic scene with smoke and noise filling the air for three days and nights.
In Mexico City, carnival has and has not disappeared. Yes, there are small celebrations of the rural type to be found, but that is because until the 20th century, areas like Santa Martha Acatitla, Santa Cruz Meyehualco and San Lorenzo Tezonco were isolated rural areas. Now that these are urban areas, elements of modern carnival celebrations have crept in, especially in the costuming, the addition of carnival royalty and the musical choices.
Whichever your preference, attending a carnival celebration in Mexico is highly recommended; just keep your head and, as always, stay safe.
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.
Two trailers whose brakes failed caused two separate accidents in Morelos on Wednesday morning, leaving at least seven people injured, one seriously.
The accidents took place on the Mexico City-Acapulco highway around 10:45 a.m. just one kilometer away from each other, on the outskirts of Cuernavaca.
Both drivers fled after the crashes, the newspaper Milenio reported. The federal highways agency Capufe temporarily closed the highway in both directions.
More than 15 vehicles were affected in the accidents. The first completely destroyed various vehicles and damaged others. The second crash took place moments later.
Both accidents were on the Paso Exprés, a 14 kilometer section of the highway opened in 2017. In the last five years, more than 300 serious road accidents have been recorded on the stretch of highway, claiming more than 100 lives, the newspaper El Sol de Cuernavaca reported.
There were no fatalities in either of the accidents.
The average number of new coronavirus infections reported each day in Mexico has decreased by more than 20,000 over the last three weeks, according to the Reuters COVID-19 tracker.
The seven-day average for daily case numbers was 16,817 after 18,309 new infections were reported Tuesday. That’s a 12% decline compared to a week earlier, a 35% reduction compared to February 8 and a 54% drop compared to the start of February.
January was the worst month of the pandemic for new cases with over 960,000 recorded as the highly contagious omicron strain spread rapidly. Mexico’s accumulated case tally is currently 5.43 million, of which 62,404 infections are estimated to be active.
The seven-day average for COVID-19 fatalities is currently 403, an 8% drop compared to a week ago and a 10% reduction compared to the start of the month. The official death toll is 316,492, the fifth highest total in the world.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday that the intensity of the pandemic in Mexico had been on the wane for a month, asserting that there has been a “drastic reduction” in case numbers in all 32 states.
López-Gatell said that the national hospital occupancy rate in COVID wards didn’t exceed 50% during the entire fourth wave of the pandemic, a situation he attributed to the reconfiguration of hospitals to increase their capacity to treat COVID patients and the fact that the vast majority of the adult population is vaccinated.
The national vaccination rate among adults is over 90%, and no state has a rate below 70%, the deputy minister said. The coronavirus point man also said that 69% of adults aged 60 and over have had a booster shot.
Booster shots are currently being administered to younger adults, including those aged 18 to 29 who live in Mexico City.
A television host from Veracruz has become the sixth media worker to be murdered so far this year.
The body of Michell Pérez Tadeo, 29, better known as Michell Simón, was found on Monday by workers fighting a fire on the Picacho-Ajusco highway near Santo Tomás Ajusco, 30 kilometers south of Mexico City.
Pérez, the single mother to a four-year-old girl who called herself a “happy mom,” had been reported missing three days earlier.
The actress and model from Coatzacoalcos worked principally in sports coverage for the Veracruz channel Olmeca TV and moved to Mexico City in 2013. She was studying to be a sports presenter and worked on the program Hoy Fútbol (Football Today) on Aym Sports and on the radio channel Grupo Acir. She also collaborated with Fox Sports, TV Azteca and Televisa.
Pérez took strong positions on women’s rights issues: last year, she posted “Ni Una Más” on social media, meaning not one more, a popular phrase used to call for an end to femicides.
Jan Albert Hootsen of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said he doubts Pérez was killed for her work. “For now, we are not seeing the case as an attack on the press, since apparently the victim was not practicing journalism at the time. Rather, it has the characteristics of a femicide,” he said.
It is Mexico’s 13th most violent municipality in terms of homicides per capita, but there are signs that the security situation is improving in Cajeme, Sonora.
There were 30 homicides in the Yaqui Valley municipality in the first 22 days of February for an average of 1.36 murders per day.
Evidently, a lot still needs to be done to bring peace to the municipality, which includes Ciudad Obregón, but this month’s daily murder count is 22% lower than the average in January, when there were 54 homicides in total, and 47% lower than the average during October, the worst month for homicides in 2021 with 79.
The decline in murders comes after a new security strategy involving all three levels of government was announced earlier this month.
In an interview with the newspaper Milenio last Wednesday, Mayor Javier Lamarque boasted that there had been a streak of three days this month with no homicides.
However, the federal government’s daily homicide reports for the first 22 days of February indicate that while there have been seven days this month without a murder in Cajeme, the longest streak without homicides is only two days.
Before this month, according to Milenio, not even one day in more than two decades had passed without a murder. Mexico News Daily was unable to verify that seemingly remarkable claim.
Violence in Cajeme, and many other Sonora municipalities, is largely generated by a turf war between criminal groups affiliated with notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was released from prison in 2013, and other groups controlled by Los Chapitos – the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
Lamarque said the new security strategy, which is reviewed and tweaked every morning, is starting to yield results.
“We’ve made significant progress this year. … On February 15, … there were zero homicides,” the mayor said.
“We’re starting to have a sustained decrease,” Lamarque said, adding that the murder data supports his belief that “we’re on the right path.”
There is “intense coordination between the federal government, the state and the municipality,” he said, explaining that they share intelligence and collaborate on security operations and law enforcement.
Lamarque said that dialogue and agreement between authorities is easier because the Morena party holds power in Cajeme, Sonora and nationally.
“We’re people working on a project [to transform Mexico] out of conviction. Of course the president .. is who leads at a national level, here in Sonora it’s the governor [former federal security minister Alfonso Durazo] and I’m part of the project,” he said.
“… We’re at the helm of our municipality to direct security, growth, development and wellbeing … within the framework of the political project that the president of the republic represents.”
Carmen Aristegui described the president's latest claims as 'madness.'
President López Obrador’s long-running battle with the media shows no sign of abating.
He renewed his attack on Carmen Aristegui on Tuesday, prompting the prominent journalist to accuse him of using “confrontational discourse” to divide and inflame the people of Mexico.
Speaking at his regular news conference, López Obrador reasserted that Aristegui is opposed to him and biased toward his political opponents, whom he refers to collectively as “the conservatives.”
“Without a doubt she is aligned to the conservative group and we’re against that conservative bloc, which we believe has been the cause of the misfortune of the Mexican people,” he said.
AMLO charged that because Aristegui opposes him she is also against “a movement of millions of Mexicans who want to carry out a transformation in the country.”
López Obrador and another of his favorite targets, Carlos Loret.
The president compared her to Carlos Loret de Mola, another well known journalist he frequently criticizes and with whom he is currently engaged in a war of words.
His latest attack on Aristegui came two weeks after he accused her of misleading people during her long media career. The journalist responded to that claim by saying it was regrettable that the president was seeking to use his “very powerful word” to destroy reputations.
On Tuesday, she reaffirmed that she is neither partial toward nor biased against López Obrador, and described the president’s claim that she is against millions of Mexicans as “madness.”
Aristegui also renewed her criticism of the president for using public resources to attack journalists and media organizations at his weekday press conferences.
“What the president of the republic is doing … with his strength, his power, his mandate, the resources of all of us … is engaging in confrontational discourse that seeks to, and manages to, divide and inflame,” she said during her radio program.
“This country doesn’t deserve to be poisoned; we already have a lot of historic poison, poison that of course is still here with the many grievances of all kinds that exist in this country,” Aristegui said. “Deliberately continuing to inflame the population … is frankly regrettable, to say it mildly.”
López Obrador has been widely criticized for his verbal attacks, and those of his government, on journalists, newspapers and other media outlets that are critical of his administration.
Press freedom advocacy group Article 19 said in 2019 that López Obrador’s “stigmatizing discourse” against the media “has a direct impact in terms of the … risk it can generate for the work of the press because [his remarks] permeate in the discourse of the rest of society and can even generate attacks.”
Six journalists have been murdered in Mexico so far this year, prompting an expression of concern from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Mexico’s top tourist destinations are bracing for an influx of tourists over spring break, but are still expecting fewer than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The head of the hotel association in Cancún, Puerto Morelos and Isla Mujeres, Jesús Almaguer, predicts that 20,000 spring breakers will visit Quintana Roo this year. But the number will depend on the confidence of travelers’ families.
“We hope the number goes up, but everything depends on the confidence they have in the destination … it’s more a case of generating confidence in the parents, who pay for the trip,” he said.
“Unfortunately, times are not like before when we reached 90,000 or 100,000 tourists in the season … at the moment we are at 79% hotel occupancy [within COVID limitations],” he added.
Spring break travelers have traditionally been good for the industry although they are thriftier than most. Each is expected to spend US $200 during the entire stay, vastly less than the $1,500 that visitors to the region spend on average.
Meanwhile, some tourist businesses in the region are less focused on disposable income and more interested in welcoming a different kind of tourist. The president of the Hotel Association of Tulum, David Ortiz Mena, said the destination was looking for a quieter breed of visitor. “Spring break tourism can generate certain consequences … party and fun, contrary to what Tulum promotes,” he said.
Although spring break numbers may be down, meetings and conferences are likely to generate numbers as high as 90% of pre-pandemic levels this year, according to the Quintana Roo director of conferences and weddings tourism.
In the north, Baja California is hopeful for a strong spring break period since the latest coronavirus stoplight map upgraded the state’s risk level from orange to green.
The change was applauded by business groups for the boost it will provide the tourist industry but questioned by some in the health sector.
But despite the risk of coronavirus infection and fears over security, Mexico is still the most popular spring break destination for U.S. tourists, according to the travel site Upgraded Points. The site collated Google Trends search data over the past 12 months and found that Mexican hot spots were the most searched for destinations in 25 U.S. states.
Cancún was the most sought after destination in 16 states; Puerto Vallarta came top in seven; and Cabo San Lucas was top of the list in two.
In regional terms, Cancún was the top destination for U.S. travelers from the Midwest, while Puerto Vallarta was the most desired vacation city for people in the western United States.
Spring break dates range from late February to mid-April, but most of the week-long holidays are in March.
The big winner: retailers will have to turn to Pemex to supply gasoline.
Gasoline retailers and other private companies are effectively being required to purchase fuel from the state oil company Pemex because the federal government isn’t renewing import permits and has shut down some privately owned fuel storage terminals.
Two experts cited by Reforma said that the Energy Ministry (SENER) isn’t renewing private companies’ fuel import permits when they expire. The newspaper reported that there were just 88 valid import permits as of February 1, whereas there were over 1,000 in December 2018.
Alicia Zazueta, director of the oil sector firm eServices, said that several more permits will expire this month.
Gas station chain Total México, energy infrastructure company IEnova and Toyota are among the companies whose permits will expire this year. Permits to import gasoline, diesel, fuel oil and aviation fuel are all at risk of not being renewed, Zazueta said.
SENER’s refusal to renew the permits has left foreign companies “very disappointed,” she said, adding that the situation affects their growth strategies in the Mexican market.
The government policy of permit nonrenewal is affecting both importers who can’t bring fuel into the country and retailers who depend on them for product.
Zazueta said that there will be less investment in the retail fuel market as a result of the ministry’s rejection of import permit extensions.
“The [energy] market is actually closing completely to Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission,” she said.
The government is also pursuing an electricity reform that would guarantee 54% of the market to the state-owned utility.
Zazueta said that companies’ inability to import fuel will affect consumers because there will be less competitiveness between gas stations.
Mauricio León, an associate with the law firm Sánchez Devanny, said that in addition to not renewing existing permits, SENER is not granting any new ones.
BP and Vitol are among the companies without valid import permits, he said, adding that the companies’ inability to bring fuel into the country will eventually lead to shortages.
Further complicating some companies’ situation is the closure of their fuel storage terminals by the Energy Regulatory Committee. Three privately owned facilities were shut down in August and September last year.
One affected company is Houston-based Monterra Energy, which announced Monday that it will sue Mexico for US $667 million.
For many expats in Mexico, expat Facebook groups and forums are valuable tools that help new residents find their way as they create new lives in a foreign country.
This is especially true if they don’t speak or read much Spanish. They’re a way to learn about local news and find out what’s going on. They help find out where to buy horseradish or pickles, rentals or a seamstress, the quickest/best/cheapest/most reliable place to get a COVID test.
They also help locate like-minded people and build community.
But there’s a dark side that’s being talked about more and more: why do these expat pages attract so many negative comments and interactions? Why has the atmosphere in some groups become so toxic?
Have you have been a target of angry or rude remarks online? Or have you said something online that was interpreted as overcritical or offensive? Are they caused by trolls, lack of courtesy, legitimate differences of opinion, or something else? What triggers these exchanges, which sometimes put expats off using such forums?
Mexico News Daily wants to find out how prevalent this behavior is and explore why. To help do so, readers are invited to complete the following survey.
