Dead fish on the shore of the Laguna de Chautengo.
Large numbers of fish have died in a Guerrero lagoon in recent days, leading local fishermen to appeal to authorities for financial support.
The Laguna de Chautengo, located on the Pacific coast in the Costa Chica region of the southern state, is currently awash with five to six tonnes of dead fish.
Fisherman have blamed the mass die-off on the presence of lime and other substances that are used to clean shrimp ponds in the lagoon.
Fisherman have called on federal and state authorities to provide aid given that their income has dried up.
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The ecology director of the government in Florencio Villareal, the municipality where the lagoon is located, told reporters that the die-off affects several communities including Chautengo, Pico del Monte, Llano de la Barra and Tamarindos. Fish have died in the lagoon in previous years but not on the scale that has occurred recently.
“It’s very probable that we’ll need some state subsidies, even … temporary employment [opportunities] because the economy of the locals has been affected,” Adame said.
He said the municipal government has provided food aid but more help is needed. The ecology official also said that a scientific study is needed to determine what caused the fish to die. Once that is established, steps can be taken to resolve the problem, Adame said.
The Laguna de Chautengo is not the only body of water in Guerrero where large numbers of fish have recently died. Fishermen in the Tierra Caliente municipality of Ajuchitlán del Progreso have denounced the death of thousands of mojarra in the Las Garzas dam.
Fishermen say the National Water Commission is responsible for the ecocide because they have not properly managed the dam’s water and it has consequently dropped to a critical level.
Ana Cecilia Jara Ettinger rejects President López Obrador's claim that there aren't enough doctors.
A week after leading medical associations rejected the federal government’s plan to hire some 500 Cuban doctors, Mexican doctors continue to insist that there is a surplus rather than a shortage of doctors.
President López Obrador announced May 9 that more than 500 Cuban doctors would come to work in Mexico “because we do not have the doctors we need.”
The heads of 30 medical colleges, associations and federations subsequently issued a statement to express their “profound disapproval” of the government’s plan, saying that it was justified by a supposed rather than real shortage of doctors.
Unemployed doctors have now launched a social media campaign to highlight that they are ready and willing to work but unable to find a job. More than 1,300 doctors have already joined the #AquiEstamos (Here We Are) campaign, according to organizers.
Its most prominent leader is Ana Cecilia Jara Ettinger, a young doctor who has been trying to find a position in the public health system for two years.
“The president of Mexico just said that we don’t have specialist doctors in Mexico and because of that we need to hire Cuban doctors,” she said in a video posted to social media.
The genetics specialist bluntly rejected the claim. “There are no jobs. There is not a single position in which I can work,” Jara said.
“This is just in genetics, the specialty of the future in the United States and Europe but in Mexico there are no jobs,” she said.
Jara, who studied medicine at the National Autonomous University and undertook research in Israel and Italy, said her fellow graduates in specialities such as gynecology and pediatrics are also unable to find work.
“The president says the jobs are in rural areas. I have a lot of friends who want to return to their cities, to their home towns to practice. Where are the jobs?” she said.
“If you say there are no doctors in Mexico I can tell you there are a lot of doctors and a lot of specialists, we’re on waiting lists for years and years to get a job,” Jara said.
She called on other unemployed doctors to join the #AquiEstamos movement.
“You can fill out the form on our webpage so the president knows where we are, how many we are, what [area of medicine] we dedicate ourselves to and where jobs are urgently needed,” Jara said. “There is talent in Mexico, of course there is. We have a lot of doctors and we are looking for work.”
Jara, who has indicated that she is prepared to leave Mexico City if she can find a job, said in a subsequent video that more than 1,300 doctors had registered – “doctors who have been waiting for a position and are willing to go and work.”
She also said the #AquiEstamos campaign has generated a lot of hate against doctors and her in particular. In a Twitter post, the doctor – daughter of former Michoacán governor Salvador Jara – rejected claims that she has links to a political party.
On Tuesday, Health Minister Jorge Alcocer echoed remarks made by López Obrador, saying that there are jobs available for doctors in rural parts of the country.
However, Mexican doctors are unwilling to work in remote areas and for that reason the government decided to hire Cubans, he said.
Alcocer said doctors cite insecurity as the main reason why they don’t want to work in rural areas of the country but claimed that they’re not interested in living in remote areas. “They’re forgetting … the right patients have to be attended to wherever they are,” he said.
Jara told the newspaper Reforma that out-of-work doctors are in fact looking for work outside major centers, but it appears that few have had any luck.
“I’ve looked in Sonora [and] in Michoacán because I’m from there,” she said. “We’ve gone to … the states, we’re not all looking to work in Mexico City, which is very saturated,” said the doctor, who claims that someone has to die or retire for a position to open up.
“… Having years of training is not a guarantee [to find a job], … there is no place for us, but there is for Cubans,” Jara said.
President Biden will host the summit in Los Angeles in June but President López Obrador might be a no-show.
It is supposed to show that the United States is back in its own neighbourhood. Yet three weeks before its opening, the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles threatens to expose Washington’s weakness in the region.
President López Obrador of Mexico, the United States’ most important ally in Latin America, has dropped a bombshell by vowing not to attend the triennial heads of government meeting unless the U.S. invites Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — something the Biden administration had previously ruled out.
Caribbean nations backed López Obrador’s position, as did Bolivia. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro has still not decided whether to go and Argentina is wavering. Iván Duque, president of Latin America’s fourth-biggest economy, Colombia, could end up being the most important invitee.
“We’re in crisis mode now and it’s really embarrassing,” said Ryan Berg of the Americas Program at the Washington-based think tank CSIS.
“I cannot believe that we are three weeks out [from the summit] and we are where we are,” said Rebecca Bill Chavez, director of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.
The U.S. has announced a partial relaxation of Trump-era restrictions on Cuba and dispatched a team to Mexico to bend López Obrador’s ear. But the struggle to persuade a key ally to attend what should be an indispensable meeting has already underlined America’s weakness.
China, by contrast, has been rapidly growing trade, investment and influence as it pursues Latin America’s abundant supplies of key commodities such as soy, copper and lithium.
Berg contrasted the troubled preparations for Los Angeles with a smoothly run Chinese virtual summit with Latin American and Caribbean foreign ministers in December, which agreed to a three-year action plan.
Beijing has been making diplomatic hay from the disagreement over who should attend. shutterstock
The row over summit attendance disguises a bigger problem: the lack of an ambitious agenda. Latin American officials complain that the Biden administration has not yet advanced anything comparable to the bold proposal for a Free Trade Area of the Americas floated by Bill Clinton in 1994, the last time the U.S. hosted the summit.
Beijing has been making diplomatic hay from the U.S.’s woes. The Chinese foreign ministry quickly supported Mexico’s argument that Los Angeles should not “be reduced to a ‘Summit of the United States of America’” adding: “Instead of benefiting Latin America . . . the U.S. has brought Latin America wanton exploitation, wilful sanctions, inflation, political interference, regime change, assassination of politicians and even armed aggression.”
China has already bought goodwill through US $130 billion of state bank loans to Latin America and the Caribbean over the past 15 years and $72 billion of corporate acquisitions over the past decade. Following a successful bout of vaccine diplomacy during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now promoting its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, which at least 20 Latin America and Caribbean nations have joined.
Washington has belatedly started to circulate proposals for the summit, which may include harnessing the financial firepower of institutions such as the Development Finance Corporation and the Inter-American Development Bank to help the region exploit nearshoring opportunities, said Cynthia Arnson, outgoing Latin America director at the Wilson Center in Washington. “If there is one way to rescue the summit it is to provide that kind of bold initiative.”
Whether even a successful meeting in Los Angeles can stem China’s inexorable advance in Latin America is questionable.
Among its trump cards, Beijing — unlike the Biden administration — prefers to talk business rather than criticize governments over democracy, human rights and corruption.
“The United States is rather like the Vatican,” said one top Latin American diplomat. “It’s very difficult to be accepted, you have to follow lots of rules, go to confession and you may still end up being damned, rather than going to paradise.
“The Chinese on the other hand are like the two well-dressed young men who knock on your door and ask you how you are feeling. They say they also believe in God and want to help. It’s the Mormon strategy.”
Médica Sur was at the top of a list of Mexico's 54 best hospitals.
The United States magazine Newsweek has rated a private hospital in a southern borough of Mexico City as Mexico’s best hospital for a second consecutive year.
In alliance with the German market and consumer data company Statista, the magazine ranked hospitals in 27 countries for its World’s Best Hospitals 2022 index.
Médica Sur, located in the borough of Tlalpan, ranked No. 1 in Mexico with a score of 94.37. Seven of the other nine hospitals in Mexico’s top 10 are also located in the Mexico City metropolitan area.
The scores are based on three data sources: online surveys completed by medical professionals, patient experience surveys and key performance indicators for hospitals.
Behind Médica Sur in second place was the ABC Medical Center in Santa Fe, a business district in the capital’s southwest. The private hospital achieved a score of 93.36 and was the only other Mexican hospital with a score above 90.
In third place and ranking first among Mexico’s public hospitals was the Siglo XXI National Medical Center in the central borough of Cuauhtémoc. The hospital complex, which includes several specialist hospitals, is operated by the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), a large public health care provider. It achieved a score of 82.45.
Rounding out the top 10 were the Observatorio ABC Medical Center in the Álvaro Obregón borough of Mexico City; the IMSS La Raza National Medical Center in the Azcapotzalco borough; the Ángeles Hospital in Lomas, México state; the Guadalajara Civil Hospital; the Christus Muguerza High Specialty Hospital in Monterrey; the Dr. Manuel Gea González General Hospital in Tlalpan; and the Español Hospital in the Mexico City borough of Miguel Hidalgo.
Those hospitals were allocated scores between 76.99 and 81.54.
Newsweek compiled a list of Mexico’s 54 best hospitals, 16 of which are in Mexico City. Other cities with hospitals on the list include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Ciudad Juárez, Puebla, Mérida, Hermosillo, Cancún, Aguascalientes, Tijuana and Querétaro.
The Hospitales Ángeles network, which has 25 hospitals in Mexico, has seven hospitals among the best 54, while IMSS has 12.
Médica Sur and the ABC Medical Center in Santa Fe were the only two Mexican hospitals rated among the 250 best in the world by Newsweek. They were among 100 hospitals in the unordered 151-250 cohort.
A group of medical experts who collaborated with Newsweek and Statista on the index said that hospitals around the world had to adapt quickly to new and existing challenges amid the coronavirus pandemic.
David Bates, chief of general internal medicine and primary care at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said the world’s leading hospitals were able to remain strong amid the pandemic “largely by attracting the best people, those who are focused on developing new approaches to care and making care better.”
Mexican authorities reconfigured many hospitals to better handle the influx of COVID-19 patients, but the public health system nevertheless struggled to cope at times, such as amid the second wave of infections in late 2020 and early 2021.
Some critics, such as the bureau chief of Bloomberg News in Mexico, claimed that the public health system was woefully unprepared to deal with the pandemic, which has claimed over 324,000 lives in Mexico, according to official data.
“Mezcal is such an innate part of the Potosino heritage and history," says state mezcal tour guide Augurio Alejandro Hernández López. Photos by Augurio Alejandro Hernández López
Mexico’s most famous drink is, of course, mezcal, which everyone knows originated in…San Luis Potosí?
Though more than 70% of mezcal is produced in the state of Oaxaca, recent years have seen an upsurge in mezcals of exceptionally high quality from elsewhere in the country, most notably San Luis Potosí.
To those in the know, however, this is nothing new: San Luis Potosí has an illustrious heritage of mezcal production, which carried on until Mexico’s revolutionary period, when it fell into underproduced obscurity.
But San Luis Potosí is one of 12 Mexican states of designated origin, and the state and the drink were thrust back into the media spotlight in 2019 in the wake of Mezcal Júrame, a mezcalería opened in the 1990s that won a medal in the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles México selection competition that year. It won medals at the competition for the next two consecutive years — in 2021, it won a gold medal.
Júrame is an award-winning mezcal from San Luis Potosí.
Produced using the wild agave salmiana in the Potosino highlands at La Flor mezcaleria, Júrame honors the connection between the land, the producers, and the consumers of mezcal. The wild agave is at the mercy of the seasons; if there are no rains, there will be no crop, and the plant takes between six and 10 years to mature, meaning patience is built into every facet of production.
Unlike tequila, mezcal is rarely subject to industrial processes and is mostly produced by artisans who have handed the idiosyncrasies of their methods down through generations. A village in a mezcal-producing region may contain a number of production houses, also known as palenques, each with its own unique spin on the process.
The piña, or heart of the agave plant, is roasted for up to three days underground over a pit of hot rocks (giving it that all-important intense smokiness). The resulting product is crushed, mashed, and left to ferment. The liquids are then collected from the fermented mash and distilled — the end result is “the elixir of the gods.”
There are now a number of famed mezcal brands in San Luis Potosí; Júrame sits alongside other brands like Mezcal Derrumbes and Mezcales de Leyenda on the international spirits scene.
San Luis Potosi’s high altitude and high mineral content give its mezcal a unique flavor.
But what is it that sets Potosino mezcals apart from other states?
Simply put, it is the quality of production and the terroir (the environment and topography of a region that imparts flavor onto a drink). San Luis Potosi sits at a high altitude with little rainfall to water the agaves but high mineral content, which gives the mezcal its unique flavor.
The quality of the land also speaks to generations of producers tending the agaves, meaning that mezcal in San Luis Potosí is more than simply a drink; it is a link to a part of the Potosino identity dating back hundreds of years.
The mezcal in San Luis Potosí is at the heart of a culture, and with an increasing national and international recognition of its quality comes the opportunity to share the culture and values that make San Luis Potosí unique.
Augurio Alejandro Hernández López is a professional tour guide who also works at the San Luis Potosí Ministry of Culture.
“It’s a fascinating topic,” he says, the enthusiasm bright in his eyes. “Mezcal is such an innate part of the Potosino heritage and history. It continued to be produced after the revolution here, but mostly for local consumption.
“We also used to produce table wines… But a few years ago, there was a significant resurgence in local mezcal made by traditional methods, many of which started winning national prizes, beating the Oaxacan mezcals that had been the more recent winners.”
Of all of these, says Hernández, the maker Mezcal Campanilla is the best. Brewed in a mezcalería that’s over 200 years old in the Palmar community of Mexquitic de Carmona, the skill and knowledge required to elaborate this finest of drinks has been handed down from generation to generation.
In some ways, traditional mezcal making hasn’t changed much since its original heyday in San Luis Potosi 100 years ago.
Remarkably, what’s currently considered a national icon was only a few years ago felt to be a drink of poor quality that had various run-ins with the authorities — who were intent on closing down both production and premises.
Infamous no longer, Mezcaleria Campanilla is now a highly sought brand both nationally and internationally, as fashion-savvy consumers pursue an authentic drink suddenly back in the limelight.
The fame its success story has brought to this little community on the altiplano is not just about validation or economics, it also means that the young people of Mexquitic de Carmona are no longer leaving town for the cities or for the USA. Now that there is a functioning, successful industry in town, they and the town have a future.
Sure, it’s about the mezcal, but it’s also about a social future for the townspeople.
San Luis Potosí used to be thought of as cowboy country. Now, it’s synonymous with high-quality, highly desirable mezcals.
Shannon Collins is an environment correspondent at Ninth Wave Global, an environmental organization and think tank. She writes from Campeche.
Jonathan Ochoa Rentería disappeared on May 7. His wife Fernanda Meraz posted a video online begging his captors for mercy and his safe return.
Families of people who have disappeared in the northern state of Sonora are appealing to criminal organizations to return their missing loved ones, a phenomenon that one expert attributes to a loss of trust in authorities.
Many of the pleas for the return of missing family members are made in messages and videos posted to social media, some of which have gone viral. In some videos, family members claim that criminals got the wrong person when they abducted their missing loved one.
One such person is Fernanda Meraz, whose husband disappeared earlier this month. “I’m not going to judge you, I just ask you to do your work well and properly investigate the people [you kidnap] so that you don’t make mistakes, kill innocent people … [and] leave more children, wives and parents crying,” she said.
“I beg you to finish finding out what you want to know and return him to me. He’s not the person you’re looking for,” Meraz said. “… Think about the parents, wives and children [of any future victims]. … Don’t make them go through pain like ours, because I don’t wish it on anyone.”
Kidnapping victim Christian Mojíca Jiménez’s family, who also made an appeal to his captors, also turned to Madres Buscadores, a civilian missing persons search group.
According to María Elena Morera, president of the government watchdog group Causa en Común, people are appealing to crime gangs because they no longer have confidence in the authorities to search for and locate their missing loved ones.
Another factor encouraging the practice is that it has worked on occasions. The newspaper El Universal reported that messages thanking criminals for returning their loved ones have also appeared on social media.
One Sonora municipality where forced disappearances are common is Caborca, which borders the U.S. state of Arizona as well as the Gulf of California. Several people were murdered in the city of Caborca during a night of terror in February and at least nine residents were abducted.
Mothers and wives issued pleas for their missing sons and husbands to be returned, and in several cases, they apparently found sympathetic ears. The Sonora Attorney General’s Office reported on February 20 that five young men abducted days earlier had returned to their homes.
Maria Elena Morena, the president of the watchdog group Causa en Común, said people are making direct appeals to criminals because they lack faith in authorities.
The mother of Jesús Alberto Grijalva, a mine worker abducted in April, also achieved her objective in issuing a plea to her son’s abductors.
“From the bottom of my heart, please return him, he doesn’t have anything to do with crime. His two children are waiting for him. … By the precious blood of Christ, have compassion for this mother, for his wife,” she begged in a video posted to Facebook on April 27.
Five days after her public plea, Jesús appeared safe and sound.
Morera, who is also a member of the evaluation committee of the National Anti-Kidnapping Coordination, told El Universal that it’s unacceptable that the authorities are not helping Caborca residents find their missing loved ones.
“It’s very serious that in Caborca, which has a National Guard barracks and soldiers a few minutes away, they’re not capable of giving a response to people,” the Causa en Común chief said.
“And now videos of people begging criminals to return their children are appearing. It would seem that the [family members of the] victims have more confidence in the criminals returning them than trust in the authorities,” Morera said.
“If this isn’t resolved quickly, it could cause people to start arming themselves and trying to solve their own problems,” she said, referring to a practice that is already common in some parts of Mexico, such as Michoacán and Guerrero.
Defense Minister Luis Cresencio presents crime report on Tuesday.
A range of high-impact crimes have declined in Mexico City since the current federal government took office in late 2018, National Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval reported Tuesday.
The army chief presented a graph at President López Obrador’s morning press conference that showed that human trafficking, robberies on public transit, kidnappings, vehicle theft, extortion, home burglaries and homicides all declined between December 2018 and March 2022.
Referring to the most recent data, Sandoval said there were 7,856 reports of high-impact crimes in Mexico City in March.
He presented another graph that showed there were 1,396 homicides in the capital in 2019 – the first full year that both López Obrador and Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum were in office – before murders declined to 1,128 in 2020, a 19% drop, and 919 last year, an 18.5% year-over-year drop.
The trend is on track to continue this year, with 145 homicides in the first three months of 2022.
Sandoval noted that Mexico City ranks 10th among the 32 federal entities for total homicides between December 2018 and March of this year with 3,681 murders.
Guanajuato ranked first with over 9,500 followed by Baja California and México state, which recorded almost 8,500 and nearly 8,000 homicides, respectively.
On a per capita basis, Mexico City – which has a population of some 9.2 million people across its 16 boroughs – was the 22nd most violent entity with 40 homicides per 100,00 people. Colima ranked first in that category with 248 murders per 100,000 residents followed by Baja California and Chihuahua, with 225 and 184, respectively. The national average was 79.
Sandoval also presented data that showed that 44% of homicides, vehicle thefts and drug trafficking offenses in Mexico City since the federal government took office occurred in just three boroughs.
Iztapalapa, a sprawling, densely populated borough in eastern Mexico City, registered 9,874 reports of those crimes between December 2018 and March 2022, or just over 20% of the total. Gustavo A. Madero, the capital’s northernmost borough, recorded 6,488 incidents of the three crimes, while Cuauhtémoc, which includes the historic center, registered 5,084.
A 2017 investigation found that there were some 20,000 locations in Mexico City where illegal drugs are bought and sold.
Sandoval reported that Mexico City currently has over 80,000 police and that the boroughs with the highest crime rates have the highest number of officers. He said that 3,777 soldiers and air force officers, 2,094 marines and 2,840 National Guard members operate in the capital as well.
Their efforts have resulted in cocaine confiscations totaling 5,713 kilograms, easily ahead of the second most seized drug, which was marijuana with 1,236 kilos taken off the market.
Among the other drugs seized were methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin, while 431 firearms have been confiscated since López Obrador was sworn in as president.
Sandoval also highlighted that over 1,800 people were arrested in drug busts in Mexico City between December 2018 and the middle of this month.
The president welcomed the decline in crime rates in the capital.
“The security results here in Mexico City are very good,” López Obrador said. “I’m pleased because of the tranquility, the peace that is guaranteed in the capital of the republic.”
An indigenous protester in the La Montaña region of Guerrero calls for an end to violence in his community. His poster says, "Enough of the kidnappings."
The death of two indigenous leaders in Guerrero has again drawn attention to the government’s negligent protection of indigenous communities targeted by criminal groups throughout Mexico.
In a Facebook post, the Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata Indigenous and Popular Council (Cipog-EZ) announced that members Lorena Chantzin Paxacuasingo and Marcos Campos Ahuejote were found dead after they were reported missing on May 6. The Cipog-EZ blamed Los Ardillos, a local criminal group known for extorting and kidnapping leaders of the community.
Community members and activists sounded alarm bells about the Ardillos’ plans to expand into El Ocotito valley in October 2021, but authorities did little in response. Warnings about an attack came to fruition in January 2022, when a confrontation between the Unión de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Estado de Guerrero (UPOEG), an indigenous self-defense group, and Los Ardillos left four community members dead.
In response to the attacks and several disappearances of Nahua indigenous community members, Cipog-EZ organized a series of protests and roadblocks in March 2022, demanding that the government provide better security and protection for their communities, calling attention to the high levels of impunity for criminal groups in Guerrero.
Indigenous community leaders from Chilapa, Guerrero, Lorena Chantzin and Marcos Campos.The killings are only the most recent in a series of attacks on the state’s indigenous communities. In January 2020, the Ardillos murdered 10 indigenous musicians in Chilapa. A self-defense group from the Nahua community circulated videos of children armed with heavy-duty weapons in response to attacks, claiming them as the newest recruits in the battle against the Ardillos.
The video spread widely on social media and garnered international attention, triggering criticism from President López Obrador and state governor Héctor Antonio Astudillo Flores. Despite the reaction, the situation has barely changed nearly two and a half years later.
InSight Crime analysis
In more isolated parts of Mexico, indigenous communities have become targets of constant and systematic oppression by local criminal groups, as exemplified by the Ardillos’ targeting of the Nahua community.
While the Ardillos have been a constant criminal presence in the mountainous region of Guerrero for two decades, their business has shifted, and they have become increasingly reliant on local communities for income. The group once oversaw poppy cultivation and heroin trafficking, forcing members of local communities to work in the fields for them, according to complaints made by victims to police in 2019.
But since the decline in demand for heroin, the Ardillos have relied on extortion, kidnapping and illegal mining. Again, local community members have to pay up or be recruited to work for the groups.
There is little hope of this changing anytime soon. According to a 2020 report from the International Crisis Group, security forces seldom intervene in Guerrero, essentially allowing criminal organizations free rein to construct laboratories, cultivate drug plantations and extort community members and businesses.
And the Nahuas in Guerrero are not alone in this fate. In the Sierra Tarahumara, a mountain range crossing the northern state of Chihuahua, the Rarámuri indigenous community and several others have suffered at the hands of organized crime for years. Illegal timber harvesting, poppy cultivation, land seizures and illegal mining have all blighted the lives of Rarámuri members, displacing hundreds and killing dozens.
The war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has impacted indigenous communities across the northern states of Durango, Nayarit, Zacatecas and Jalisco, according to an April 2021 investigation by the newspaper El País.
Chihuahua Rarámuri community leader Isidrio Baldenegro was one of several indigenous activists who fought illegal natural resource extraction by cartels and paid with their lives.Yet the government has not made this a security priority. In February 2021, the Interior Ministry’s Commissioner for Dialogue with Indigenous Peoples received a letter from the Huichol indigenous community in northern Mexico.
“Our communities have witnessed shootings, gunfights and battles … proving not only uncertainty but also affecting innocent people who call this area their home since before these groups arrived,” read the letter.
That same month, then-governor of Zacatecas Alejandro Tello called for help from López Obrador due to an “epidemic of violence” against indigenous communities.
Yet when questioned directly in January this year about a plan to help these communities, López Obrador dismissed the topic, instead praising indigenous groups for having “less violence” due to allegedly having less “disintegration of families” and preserving “values and customs.”
Reprinted from InSight Crime. Henry Shuldiner is a writer with InSight Crime, a foundation dedicated to the study of organized crime.
The accident occurred at the Santa Cruz Cuauhtenco fair near Toluca. Twitter
Five people, including two children, were injured Sunday night when part of a fireworks “castle” fell into the crowd during a fair near Toluca, México state.
A video posted to social media shows one of the castle’s “crowns” detaching and plummeting toward attendees of the Santa Cruz Cuauhtenco fair in Zinacantepec, which borders Toluca. It landed among screaming fairgoers who were watching “the burning of the castle.”
México state Civil Protection authorities said a 29-year-old man and two children aged five and seven were taken to a Toluca hospital for treatment for unspecified injuries. Two other people received medical attention at the site of the accident.
Castillos pirotécnicos, or fireworks castles, are popular attractions at fairs and other celebrations in Mexico and fireworks-related injuries and deaths are also relatively common.
— Qué Poca Madre 🇲🇽 (@QuePocaMadre_Mx) May 16, 2022
The moment when the fireworks castle collapsed and was captured on video.
A castillo fell at a 2018 event in Zumpango, México state, injuring four people, while five people were killed the very next day when 11 kilograms of fireworks exploded in close vicinity to people attending a religious celebration in Tequisquiapan, Querétaro.
In even worse fireworks-related disasters, 42 people were killed in an explosion at a fireworks market in Tultepec, México state, in 2016, while at least 24 people died during or shortly after four blasts in the same municipality in 2018.
Located about 40 kilometers north of downtown Mexico City, Tultepec is considered Mexico’s fireworks capital due to the large number of fireworks that are made and sold there.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldivar during his visit to Santa Martha Acatitla women's prison last week in Mexico City.
Criminal suspects in Mexico can spend as long as 10 to 15 years in prison awaiting trial but it is not a practice that has the support of the chief justice of the Supreme Court. In fact, Arturo Zaldívar wants to see change.
Zaldívar has spoken out before against the frequency with which accused criminals are sent to prison for pretrial detention, where they often languish for years without being convicted of any crime.
“In Mexico, there is an abuse of preventative prison,” he said after a historic visit to a Mexico City women’s prison last week.
Zaldívar said pretrial detention should be the exception rather than the rule, used when the accused is a flight risk or there is a danger that evidence will be destroyed or witnesses’ safety will be placed at risk.
Zaldivar said that his visit to the prison could be the catalyst for a change in the way preventative prison is used.
His remarks came after he visited the Santa Martha Acatitla women’s prison in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa last Wednesday
Zaldívar, the first sitting Supreme Court chief justice to visit a prison, met with some 220 inmates, among whom was former cabinet minister Rosario Robles, who is accused of involvement in a government embezzlement scheme known as the “Master Fraud” but is yet to face trial almost three years after she was jailed.
The chief justice told a press conference that between 60% and 70% of prisoners at Santa Martha Acatitla haven’t been convicted of the crimes of which they are accused. “I confirmed the vices of the Mexican criminal system that I’ve been pointing out for a long time,” Zaldívar said of his visit.
The justice, who clashed with President López Obrador last year over a Supreme Court ruling against preventative custody for people accused of certain crimes, said the use of pretrial detention by judges needs to be reviewed. Clearer criteria must be established, he said, adding that lengthy legal processes that leave people in jail for 10 or 15 years without being sentenced must be eliminated.
Rosario Robles, a cabinet minister under president Enrique Peña Nieto, has been held in preventative custody at Santa Martha Acatitla prison since 2019. File photo
According to Mexican laws, pretrial detention shouldn’t exceed two years, but it often lasts much longer due to the nation’s sluggish and overburdened justice system. According to government figures quoted by the NGO Human Rights Watch in 2018, there were 80,000 people in Mexican prisons awaiting trial, about 41% of the total prison population.
Zaldívar’s prison visit came after he received a letter from inmates asking for the opportunity to present their cases of injustice to him.
It also came after the stepdaughter of the federal attorney general’s brother was released from the Santa Martha Acatitla prison more than 500 days after she was jailed on charges of “homicide by omission” for allegedly failing to provide adequate medical care to her stepfather. The case of Alejandra Cuevas was one high-profile example of a person being kept in prison for an extended period of time despite a lack of evidence to prove his or her guilt.
Zaldívar acknowledged that some prisoners face charges for crimes that have been fabricated. “It’s something that is extremely painful — fabricated crimes, violations of due process, the failures of prosecutor’s offices, judges and police,” he said.
Family members of an inmate at Santa Martha Acatitla protesting outside the prison.
The chief justice asserted that his visit could be the catalyst for a change in the way preventative prison is used.
“I told the women that there could be results from this visit,” Zaldívar said before calling on judges to be more sensitive and to consider the impact their rulings have on the people involved in the cases they hear.
The number of crimes that warrant preventative custody has increased in recent years as the government seeks to combat insecurity, which is a major problem in many parts of the country. Fuel theft, corruption and home burglaries are among the crimes that have been added to the list.
Paola Zavala, a lawyer and specialist in societal reintegration for former prisoners, told the newspaper El País that imprisonment is seen as an easy fix to crime – even though impunity in Mexico remains rife – but doesn’t reduce violence.
“In the face of social problems – prison,” she said. “The demand for justice in Mexico has been reduced to jail because it’s the easy way out for lawmakers, but it doesn’t solve violence.”
Zavala described Zaldívar’s prison visit as an important step toward the establishment of an improved justice system in which judges don’t rely so heavily on preventative prison.
“All the judges and all the lawmakers should go [to a prison] to see with their own eyes where they are sending people,” she said.
