Tamaulipas state prosecutors told a judge Monday that they have ample evidence that 12 state police officers participated in the killings of 19 undocumented migrants whose charred bodies were found inside a truck on the side of the road in Camargo on January 22.
The judge agreed, and the officers, who participated in their arraignment via videoconferencing from jail in Ciudad Victoria, will stand trial on charges of premeditated homicide, abuse of authority, and falsifying evidence.
The victims’ bodies were found in a small Camargo community after an anonymous call. Although only 16 of the 19 have been identified, authorities believe all the victims were migrants hoping to reach the United States. Fourteen have so far been identified as Guatemalan and two as Mexican.
The case attracted much attention in Guatemala and ended up involving Guatemalan consular officials in Mexico.
State prosecutors said they can prove that the officers altered the crime scene, removing spent ammunition shells from the scene, and provided false information that suggested that the killings had taken place elsewhere. Initial reports had said that the truck showed no evidence of taking gunfire, although the bodies all had gunshot wounds.
However, prosecutors said, the truck had actually been shot at 113 times.
In addition, they said, there were other contradictions they did not specify between the official reports filed by the officers, the sttorney general’s own investigations and accounts given by other officers who had knowledge of the incident.
Prosecutors said their case is built on evidence from geolocation and call records, expert analysis and video surveillance footage. They also said they believe that other officers may have been complicit in the killing.
In a related note, the National Immigration Institute (INM) earlier this month fired eight employees in its Escobedo, Nuevo León, office after determining that one of the two vehicles found burned at the Camargo crime scene had been confiscated in a separate case in December, in which Escobedo police raided a home where 66 foreign migrants were being held captive.
Escobedo Police Chief Hermengildo Lara told the newsmagazine Proceso earlier this month that he had turned over the confiscated vehicle and the 66 migrants to INM officials, which prompted federal officials to make inquiries as to how the vehicle ended up in Camargo.
According to the INM, its internal affairs department conducted an investigation and found that after the vehicle was turned over to its office in December, the eight fired employees did not follow required administrative protocols regarding seized vehicles and incorrectly allowed it to be released from custody.
Suspension of flights from Canada could mean 1 million fewer tourists.
Canada’s three-month suspension of flights to Mexico will inflict further pain on the ailing Mexican tourism industry, which suffered its worst year in living memory in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and associated restrictions.
A report by the newspaper Milenio gives an idea of the impact the suspension of flights from Canada – Mexico’s second largest source country for tourists after the United States – will have on the tourism sector by looking at a range of statistics about Canadians’ travel habits during the past two years.
According to the Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT), 3.67 million air travelers from Canada came to Mexico in 2019, an average of about 306,000 per month. As a result of the pandemic, the number fell 50.6% in 2020 to 1.81 million, an average of about 151,000 Canadian tourists per month.
Based on an average of those statistics, Mexico will miss out on tourism revenue from some 685,500 Canadians who could have been expected to travel here if flights weren’t suspended between January 31 and April 30.
Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco said last week there could be up to 791,000 fewer tourists as a result of the coronavirus prevention measures announced by the Canadian government, which also includes mandatory hotel quarantine for people entering Canada, and that tourism sector revenue could drop by US $782 million.
Cancún has been the most popular destination for Canadian visitors.
However, statistics published by Milenio suggest that the number of Canadian travelers who don’t come to Mexico between February and April will in fact exceed 1 million. Canadian airlines brought 1.48 million passengers between February and April 2019 and 1.05 million in the same period of 2020 even as the coronavirus was spreading around the world.
The flight suspension affects the most popular month for travel to Mexico from Canada as well as the fourth and fifth most popular months.
SCT data shows that Canadian airlines brought almost 557,000 passengers here in March 2019 and just over 539,000 in January of the same year. December was the third most popular month for Canada-Mexico travel with more than 537,000 passengers followed by February and April with just under 524,000 and about 403,500, respectively.
Four of the five Mexican destinations that will be most affected are coastal resort cities. Cancún, Quintana Roo, received more than 331,000 passengers from Canadian cities last year – a 63% decline compared to 2019 – while the Mexico City airport ranked second with more than 180,000.
The third most popular destination was Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, where almost 134,000 travelers touched down in 2020. Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, ranked fourth with more than 53,000 travelers from Canada, while Huatuclo, Oaxaca, ranked fifth with 19,500 Canadian arrivals.
As Torruco indicated, Mexico is set to miss out on hundreds of millions of dollars of tourism revenue during the three-month flight suspension. Canadians spent US $1.33 billion here in 2019, a figure that accounted for 6.3% of tourism revenue. Canadians spent an average of $1,084 while in the country, 22% more than the average tourist.
The Mexican government has called for the suspension to be lifted as soon as possible in order to prevent “a profound economic crisis in the North American region” but it appears extremely unlikely that Canada, which also placed a halt on travel to Caribbean countries, will make any changes as new, more contagious strains of the coronavirus remain a threat to public health.
The United States’ requirement for incoming travelers to present a negative Covid-19 test result and quarantine on arrival also deals a blow to the tourism sector in Mexico but air travel between the neighboring countries remains active.
Guadalupe José Medina's shoeshine business makes him 300 pesos a day, the absolute minimum amount that will feed his family. Photos by Joseph Sorrentino
On a good day, before the pandemic set in, José Mejía Morales earned between 150 and 200 pesos (about US $7.50–$10) selling peanuts and chapulines (roasted grasshoppers) from his two buckets.
“Now, there are days when I earn nothing, when there is no income,” says the Cholula, Puebla, street vendor.
His chapulines, he claims, are the best because they’re caught in the wild. His peanuts are also the best because they come from Chiapas. He calls himself a chapulinero — a person who sells chapulines, and corrected me when I called him an ambulante (mobile vendor) and told me he’s an itinerante — an itinerant worker. Ambulantes, he explained, have a specific spot from which they sell their products, while itinerantes roam the streets, selling their wares.
He’s roamed the streets in Cholula for 30 years now, carrying his buckets “from the pyramid to the center. I work six, seven hours a day, sometimes nine or 10. I work every day,” he says.
A couple of blocks away, across from Tlachihualtépetl, Cholula’s pyramid, José Felix Huítzil Guerro stands in front of the stall he’s had for 32 years, one of many that occupy one side of a small park. Like all the stalls there, his features goods that tourists are interested in: sombreros, along with a variety of Cholula souvenirs. Because of the pandemic, the municipal government is now restricting the days he can work.
“Now, there are days when I earn nothing,” says vendor José Mejia Morales about his business selling snacks on Cholula’s streets.
“We can only work Monday to Friday,” he said.
Only three or four people a day stop by his stand now, whereas before he could expect to see 40 or 50.
“Tourism is down,” he said. “We live on tourism, and if there is none, there is no money. I don’t know how much longer we can survive.”
He’s been forced to accept financial help from his children who work in Puebla.
“It is difficult to accept their help,” he admitted, “but I have no other choice.”
All businesses in Cholula are hurting.
Ascención Alcántara Vásquez used to average 2,000 pesos a day in sales. Now there are days when he only comes home with 100 pesos.
The municipal government closed nonessential stores for a couple of weeks in January and allowed only takeout at restaurants. Stores have recently reopened but only on weekdays. Restaurants still offer takeout and on weekdays can put a few tables out on the sidewalks. And while these businesses are struggling, most have websites allowing them to sell a few things and earn a few bucks. People like Mejía and Huítzil — itinerantes and owners of small stands — have no such options.
Mejía works in what’s known as the informal economy — the sector occupied by street vendors, young men washing windshields at intersections and people who sell flowers from wheelbarrows or tamales from small carts. Like Mejía, they earn a few dollars a day and try to scratch out a living. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have an impact on Mexico’s economy.
It’s estimated that nearly 60% of Mexican workers are employed in the informal economy and contribute about 30% to Mexico’s gross domestic product. If they’re unable to earn a living — and it’s clear that that’s becoming increasingly difficult — it’s certainly going to impact Mexico’s economy.
Mejía said that in normal times, if he didn’t have money, he would exchange things with other itinerantes and sometimes with stores.
“Maybe we can exchange for bread or tortillas with stores,” he said, “but with the pandemic, that is more difficult. I eat only one [type of] food a day now, maybe a vegetable or nopal (cactus).”
Guadalupe José Medina Tima also works in the informal economy. He’s a boleador — someone who shines shoes — and he works six days a week in the park in Cholula’s center. He carries his shoeshine box, the one bearing the name “Andy” — his daughter’s name — through the park for 11 or 12 hours a day.
With the Covid-19 pandemic bringing hard times, José Felix Huítzil Guerro has been forced to accept financial help from his children in Puebla.
“I earned 500 pesos a day before the pandemic,” he said. “Now I earn about 300. I need 300 pesos to survive, and that’s what I’m doing now: surviving.”
The 300 pesos he makes supports his wife and two young children. He’s aware of the virus and the need to wear a mask but doesn’t always do so.
“I am not afraid of the virus,” he said. “For sure, we will all die. If we do not die from the pandemic, we will die from hunger.”
Vendor stalls line another section of the park, most of them offering ice cream and candy.
“Galletas Santa Clara are very popular,” says Ascención Alcántara Vásquez, who has sold candies and cookies there since 1987. “Also, camote poblano and borrachitos nuez.”
Before the pandemic took hold, he’d sell to about 100 people on Saturdays.
[wpgmza id=”288″]
“The majority were from other countries,” he said. “There was a lot of tourism. Now, tourism? Nothing. International tourism? Nothing. Now maybe 10 or 20 people and they’re almost all Mexicans.”
Like all the others I interviewed, Alcántara’s income has dropped off dramatically.
“On a Saturday, I would earn 2,000 pesos on average,” he said. “Now, maybe 100 pesos, maybe 500.”
Although the federal government has done very little to help outside of some loans to businesses, Alcántara said that Cholula’s municipal government is doing what it can to help and he greatly appreciates it.
“They gave us 4,000 pesos once,” he said. “They might do it again, but I do not know how much or when. The government is not charging for lights, for trash, for cleaning the streets. [And] they gave us some rice and beans.”
Despite the aid, he continues to struggle.
This empty park was once filled daily with tourists.
“Before, I would go to a restaurant to eat. Now, I bring my own food. I cannot buy shoes, clothes. What we earn now is to eat and nothing more.”
Although the municipal authorities have helped people like Alcántara, they’ve done nothing for intinerantes like Mejía.
“We get nothing from the government, not even water,” he complained. “I have to buy my own mask, my own gel.”
Mejía takes precautions as he totes his buckets through Cholula because he knows how dangerous the virus can be. His mother died of Covid-19 in November, followed soon after by his father and his wife.
“Of course I am afraid,” he said. “The fear is the virus, but the bigger fear is not having any kind of help and not having a vaccine or a cure. The fear is not having any food. It is for this that we work every day … for food. It is a question of getting food daily. Mexicans do not buy food for the week, we buy food for the day. That is our battle: to get food for the day.”
Joseph Sorrentino, a writer and photographer, is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily. More examples of his photographs and links to other articles may be found at www.sorrentinophotography.com He currently lives in Chipilo, Puebla.
Masks should be obligatory in all federal and state facilities, say 400 signatories to a letter to the president.
More than 400 academics, scientists, writers, lawmakers and others have signed a letter to President López Obrador that proposes making face masks mandatory on federal and state-owned property among other measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Published by an organization called Propuestas para México (Proposals for Mexico), the letter – entitled Our Only Grand Project Must be to Save Lives – offers seven recommendations to the president.
It calls for the government’s so-called “mega-projects,” such as the new refinery on the Tabasco coast, the Maya Train on the Yucatán Peninsula and the new Mexico City airport, to be temporarily suspended so that a portion of the resources allocated to them can be redirected to the purchase of proven Covid-19 vaccines in order to immunize the entire population.
The letter says that another portion of those funds should go to scientific research and innovation, which are “essential to produce vaccines in Mexico, not just against the virus that causes Covid but also in anticipation of other pandemics that will undoubtedly appear in the future.”
It proposes that the government’s General Health Council guarantee and supervise the rollout of vaccines to ensure that people who need them the most get them first and they are not used for political purposes, and recommends that the progress of the vaccination campaign be published on a daily basis on a publicly accessible website.
Making masks mandatory is not a restriction on freedom but a means of protection for everyone, says Alma Maldonado.
The penultimate proposal is that “the use of face masks become obligatory in all federal and state facilities” and that high-quality masks be distributed to people who need them.
Finally, the letter says the government should develop a quarantine program for people arriving in Mexico from countries with high numbers of cases and require incoming travelers to present a negative Covid-19 test result.
Alma Maldonado, an academic and one of four leaders of Propuestas para México, tweeted on Monday that making masks mandatory on government property, as the letter proposes, doesn’t restrict people’s freedoms – as López Obrador argues – but “protects all of us.”
She noted that the letter is supported by many academics at the National Autonomous University, the Metropolitan Autonomous University and the National Polytechnic Institute, “many of whom voted for López Obrador.”
Maldonado encouraged members of the general public to add their name to the letter at the Propuestas para México website, a call already heeded by thousands.
The publication of the letter came as López Obrador returned to his morning press conferences on Monday after recovering from his own Covid-19 illness. He appeared unmasked at the presser and promptly declared that he wouldn’t begin wearing a mask to help slow the spread of the virus.
“According to what the doctors say, now I’m not contagious,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s coronavirus case tally and Covid-19 death toll continue to rise, although the numbers reported so far this month represent a decline compared to January.
The Health Ministry reported 3,868 new cases on Monday, pushing the accumulated tally to almost 1.94 million, while an additional 531 fatalities lifted the death toll to 166,731.
It occurred to me that I’m not the only one who’s cold; temperatures all over Mexico have been unusually chilly these last few weeks.
With mornings in the mid-40s, friends in Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta wailed about having to bundle up; mountain towns like Guanajuato and San Miguel have seen a spike in heater sales; and in Mazatlán and Guadalajara folks are buying long-sleeve shirts, sweatpants and even — shockingly! — socks.
What better time to take advantage of this cold spell and make some soup? Soon enough the warm weather will return, and hot soup, no matter how delicious, will be the furthest thing from your mind.
A good stock is the foundation for many a good soup. And while it’s undeniably easier to buy packaged chicken or vegetable stock, a homemade version will be richer and full of more complex flavors.
Stock is easy to make (see basic recipe below), keeps in the freezer and is well worth your time. Think of it as a “building block;” you want to make it basic, with a simple flavor profile. Then you can add other seasonings or spices depending on the recipe you’re using it with.
Making your own chicken stock is so worth the effort.
Chicken Stock
Four pounds of chicken to four quarts of water will produce a good, flavorful stock; adding more chicken will make a richer, deeper stock.
4-8 pounds (1.8 to 3.6kg) chicken parts (wings, bones, breasts, legs)
4 qts. water
2 large yellow onions, diced
4 carrots, diced
4 celery stalks, diced
8 crushed cloves garlic
2 large sprigs parsley
Optional: 2 packets unflavored gelatin, dissolved in ½ cup cold water
Combine everything in a large stockpot and simmer gently over low heat for 90 minutes.
Strain, cool, then transfer to containers and refrigerate until chilled, about 6 hours. Skim off and remove any fat and scum.
Refrigerate up to 5 days or freeze up to 6 months. If stock is thin even after being refrigerated, add gelatin solution, bring to a boil until fully dissolved, then refrigerate again or freeze. — seriouseats.com
Potato Cheddar Soup with Jalapeños
2 jalapeños, seeded & sliced thinly
2 limes, halved
Salt and pepper
Large pinch of granulated sugar or drop of honey
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 large onion, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
½ tsp. chile powder, plus more for garnish
2½ lbs. potatoes, peeled, cut in 1-inch cubes
1 quart vegetable broth
2 cups grated cheddar (8 oz.), plus more for garnish
½ cup whole milk
½ cup heavy cream
3 scallions, white and light green parts, thinly sliced
Chopped cilantro, for serving
Put jalapeño slices in a bowl and add enough lime juice to cover. Add a pinch of salt and sugar; set aside. In large pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and celery. Sauté until lightly golden and soft, about 10 minutes.
Add garlic and chile powder. Sauté 1 minute more. Add potatoes, broth and 2 tsp. salt; bring to a simmer. Cook until potatoes are very tender, 30-40 minutes.
Using a blender or food processor, purée the soup, adding water as needed. Return soup to pot, reduce heat to medium-low. Add cheese, milk and cream. Simmer gently, stirring, until cheese melts, 1-2 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper. Top each bowl with pickled jalapeños, a drizzle of pickling liquid, pinch of chile powder, scallions, cilantro and more cheddar.
Heat oil and butter in large saucepan, add garlic and onions. Sauté until softened. Add zucchini, chiles and tomatillos, stirring till coated. Add stock, bring to boil, then cover, turn heat to low and simmer 20 minutes till zucchini is tender. Tear tortillas into pieces and add to pan; stir in lime juice and cilantro.
Using blender or food processor, purée soup till smooth. Return to pan, heat and add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve topped with a dollop of crema, cilantro leaves and pinch of crumbled chips.
Creamy Mushroom Soup
Browning the mushrooms well is the secret to the richest flavor.
Melt butter in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and cook, only turning them carefully a few times, until liquid evaporates and mushrooms are very well-browned, about 12 minutes. Add onion, cook 3 minutes more. Add garlic, then flour. Continue cooking and stirring.
Add sherry/wine and cook until reduced by about half, scraping browned bits from bottom of pan. Add milk, stock and bay leaves; stir to combine. Bring to low simmer, cook 20 minutes. Remove bay leaves.
Pureé soup in a blender or food processor. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately, garnished with minced herbs and a drizzle of olive oil.
A sprig of basil makes for the perfect finishing touch.
Mimi’s Mexican Chicken Soup
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves, garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 qt. chicken stock
1/3 cup fresh lime juice
1 boneless cooked chicken breast, shredded
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup chopped tomatoes
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
Salt & pepper
In large saucepan, heat oil and sauté onion, garlic and bell pepper until softened, 3-4 minutes. Add stock, bring to a boil. Add lime juice, chicken meat and rice; bring to boil again. Add tomatoes and cilantro; turn off heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Electricity generated by the CFE would take precedence over all others.
Contravening global trade deals, hurting private investment, damaging consumers and betraying climate change commitments all at once is quite something. Yet Mexico’s populist president is set to pull off this unlikely feat with his proposed law to overhaul the country’s electricity market.
A leftwing nationalist whose economic views are anchored in the 1960s, President López Obrador has a vision for energy which is state-led and fossil fuel-powered. He has ordered the building of a US $8-billion refinery in his home state of Tabasco at a time when oil majors around the world are shedding such assets amid declining demand. He has poured scarce government resources into the ailing state oil company Pemex in a quixotic attempt to boost crude production, while sidelining foreign investors who can do the job more efficiently.
Now the Mexican president is turning his guns on another of his pet hates: private sector participation in the energy market.
His proposed law would give preference to the state electricity utility CFE, sending its power to the national grid ahead of private generators, even if it is more expensive and more polluting. It would reverse parts of a pioneering 2013-2014 energy reform which obliged the Mexican grid to take the cheapest power first, benefiting consumers and lower-cost private generators, many of whom have invested in renewables.
The government argues that a leading role for the CFE would guarantee a stable, secure supply of electricity and stop what it claims are perverse hidden subsidies which benefit private operators at the expense of the state. Its claims do not stand up to scrutiny.
According to Mexico’s business lobby group CCE, the proposed law opens the door to an expropriation of the $17.6 billion of private investment in the power sector and would raise costs for consumers and business. Lawyers who have studied the text say it could violate Mexico’s trade commitments to the U.S. and Canada under the USMCA pact and contravene provisions of the CPTPP trade deal with Asian nations. Greater use of the CFE’s fossil fuel-powered generating capacity would make it even harder for Mexico to keep climate change commitments under the Paris accord.
Ominously for López Obrador, Mexico’s Supreme Court struck down this week a decree from last year which attempted to give priority to the CFE in the power market, ruling it unconstitutional. Yet the government’s response was to insist on the need for its proposed new law.
Whether or not the legislation passes — and López Obrador has a majority in Congress and has fast-tracked the bill — the proposals say a lot about the worrying direction Mexico is taking. Voters gave López Obrador and his Morena alliance an overwhelming mandate in 2018 because they wanted an end to rampant corruption, a reduction in violent crime, and a greater focus on the poor and forgotten.
What they got is a president who sets an example of personal probity with an austere lifestyle, but who has failed to reduce murders, grow the economy, respect institutions or control coronavirus effectively. Mexico now has the world’s third highest Covid-19 death toll, partly because its leader consistently played down the pandemic.
With results like these, López Obrador should be worried about the verdict of Mexican voters at midterm elections in June. In the meantime, the Biden administration should lose no time in reminding Mexico of its international obligations on trade and climate change.
The Querétaro Congress has recognized the tireless work of a primary school teacher who has continued to teach students in the state’s Sierra Gorda region during the coronavirus pandemic.
Salvador Olvera Marín, known affectionately as Maestro Chava, received a state government award last Thursday after his work teaching kids in Querétaro’s north caught the attention of officials.
With schools across the country closed due to the pandemic, Olvera, a teacher in the municipality of Pinal de Amoles, decided to install a chalkboard on the back of his pickup truck and take classes to students stuck at home without the means to study because they don’t have a television and/or a computer to access televised and online educational content.
“I didn’t expect this,” he told the newspaper El Universal, referring to the award.
“… This strengthens our work [as teachers]. It’s not about thinking that I achieved this or that or as goes the saying ‘become famous and then go to sleep.’ On the contrary, I think that more commitment is needed because there will be more eyes on our work. I’m not worried [about recognition], what interests me is that the students are making progress, improving in their learning,” Olvera said.
Maestro Chava on the road in Querétaro.
The teacher, a 38-year-veteran of the profession, said the parents of many children in the Sierra Gorda have low levels of education and as a result are not in a position to help their offspring with their schoolwork.
He said that if students were left to their own devices during the pandemic without the means to study, their education would stagnate.
“They need accompaniment [in their education]. It’s good to teach them how to learn to learn but not in such a drastic way as now with the health emergency,” Olvera said. “… It’s good to teach them to be autodidacts but not like this [without classes].”
Querétaro Education Minister José Carlos Arredondo Vázquez described the work of Olvera and that of another teacher whose commitment to education amid the pandemic was recognized last Thursday as “heroic.”
“Education … is like a blank canvas. Every day and every moment … we have the possibility of creating a great work of art and … [that’s what] these two extraordinary teachers are doing,” he said.
Beauty pageants would become ineligible for public funding under new law.
Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies approved a measure this week that if approved by the Senate will characterize beauty pageants and other such gender-based competitions based on appearance as symbolic violence against women.
The lower house voted to add a provision to the General Law of Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence, adopted in 2007 and intended to combat gender-based violence. The bill was approved with two votes against and six abstentions and now goes before the Senate.
The law, which Amnesty International and other organizations have claimed has not had much effect on the prevalence of violence against women in Mexico, does not currently include “symbolic violence” as a category of such violence. It only covers physical, psychological, sexual and economic violence.
If the bill passes the Senate, contests, elections, competitions and other types of events that promote gender stereotypes and that evaluate the physical form of women or girls would be considered symbolic violence. As such, government institutions would not be allowed to distribute financial resources to nor publicize those events.
“Promoting the competition among women based on their physical attributes promotes sexist and ‘macho’ patterns that stigmatize, objectify, and minimize the role women play in our society,” says the bill’s text.
If passed, the law would not make such contests illegal but simply prohibit the government from supporting them in any way, Deputy Frida Esparza Márquez told the digital newspaper Animal Político.
“In general, these events are organized and financed by state or municipal governments supposedly to promote tourism and traditions and customs. It’s a true contradiction that the state promotes a form of symbolic violence,” she said.
As evidence of the problem, Márquez pointed out that in 2019, for example, Jalisco allocated 4 million pesos towards combatting violence against women, giving 3.85 million pesos to 11 municipalities.
Yet in the same year, she said, five Jalisco municipalities alone spent 8.48 million pesos on beauty contests.
The bill defines symbolic violence as “the expression, transmission or broadcasting by any media, whether privately or publicly, discourses, messages, or stereotypical patterns, signs, values, icons, and ideas that transmit, reproduce, justify, or normalize the subordination, inequality, discrimination, and violence against women in society.”
Also included in the bill are provisions that would target “media violence” — meaning the promotion of gender stereotypes or glorification of the exploitation, humiliation or discrimination against women via print, broadcast or digital media — as well as gender-based political violence and “obstetric violence,” in which medical professionals conduct procedures or make medical decisions for pregnant or postpartum women without consent.
'Dinosaur' candidates, some of whom are even 'unpresentable,' according to one analyst.
Opposition parties seeking to wrest control of the lower house of Congress from the ruling Morena party are fielding candidates who are political “dinosaurs” and have nothing new to offer, according to three experts.
The National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), which have formed a three-party alliance to contest the June 6 election, have announced some of the plurinominal, or proportional representation, candidates they hope will become federal deputies in a renewed lower house in which Morena and its allies no longer have a majority.
The PAN, a conservative party that is currently the main opposition force, and the PRI, which held power for most of the 20th century as well as the six years prior to President López Obrador coming to office in late 2018, have faced the most criticism over their proposed candidates.
Among the names put forward by the former are Margarita Zavala, wife of former president Felipe Calderón, an ex-lawmaker and a 2018 presidential hopeful; Santiago Creel, interior minister in the 2000-2006 government led by former president Vicente Fox and an ex-senator; Gabriel Quadri, a minor party candidate in the 2012 presidential election; Cecilia Romero, a former lawmaker and PAN national president; and Francisco Ramírez, a former Guadalajara mayor, governor of Jalisco and interior minister in the first year of Calderón’s 2006-2012 term.
The PRI, which has a tarnished reputation due to the myriad scandals in which it has been embroiled over the years, has proposed its own list of recycled candidates. They include Alejandro Moreno, PRI national president and a former governor of Campeche; Ildefonso Guajardo, economy minister in the 2012-2018 government of former president Enrique Peña Nieto; Rubén Moreira, a former governor of Coahuila and ex-secretary general of the PRI; Carolina Viggiano, the current secretary general of the PRI; and Tereso Medina, a PRI-affiliated union leader and former deputy.
The Democratic Revolution Party looked beyond its own dinosaurs for candidates such as Edna Díaz, a former world taekwondo champion.
In contrast, the PRD has proposed more grassroots candidates without previous close ties to the party, among whom are Edna Díaz, a former taekwondo champion, and Andrea Rocha, a defense lawyer.
In addition to describing the PAN and PRI candidates as dinosaurs, political experts who spoke to the newspaper El Universal said the names put forward by the two parties are representative of cronyism, a practice of which López Obrador has long accused his political adversaries of being guilty. They also suggested the parties should have sought candidates among the wider citizenry rather than among people already well-entrenched in their ranks.
Sara Sefchovich, a renowned sociologist, writer and National Autonomous University academic, said the candidates proposed by the opposition parties don’t offer voters a viable alternative at the ballot box.
“In my opinion, the problem is that they’re only looking after themselves, guaranteeing themselves a job. … They’re not really offering an alternative, an opposition to which citizens can turn. They’re the same old people and their reputation precedes them – not in a good sense,” she said.
Sefchovich said that she would love to see Morena lose its majority in the lower house but for that to happen “respectable candidates” are needed and some of those put forward by the opposition parties don’t meet that criterion. Specifically citing Moreira, who led a Coahuila government tainted by corruption allegations, some of the candidates are “unpresentable,” she said.
The academic charged that Morena, which was founded by López Obrador and has provided a new political home for many people with previous links to other parties, is also fielding poor candidates, adding that could help the tripartite opposition bloc known as Va Por México (Go for Mexico).
“Imagine an electoral ballot on which you have to choose between a Moreira or a Noroña. It gives you the chills,” Sefchovich said, referring in the latter case to Gerardo Fernández Noroña, a controversial deputy with the Labor Party, a Morena ally.
“… That’s the way things are for citizens,” she said.
Salvador García Soto, a political scientist and columnist, contended that the PAN and the PRI are sending a very negative message with their candidate choices, asserting that they fall well short of citizens’ expectations. He said that the parties appear to be betting on the theory that political experience among its candidates will help their alliance prevail but charged that they have instead created the impression that they don’t have any new emerging leaders.
One lesson the PAN and the PRI should have learned from their respective losses at recent presidential elections is that they need to be “more open to the citizenry, young leaders and new faces in politics,” García said.
“That is … what the people demand but far from that they’re betting on the same old people who had their opportunity at their own time,” he said.
García said the candidates put forth by the PAN and PRI only serve to support López Obrador’s claim that the opposition is morally bankrupt.
Political scientist Crespo: The parties are self-absorbed with their own people.
“ [The PRI and the PAN] are not up to the level that the citizens are demanding of the opposition parties, and not up to the level that the country and democracy need, which is to find a counterweight to the presidential power … of López Obrador,” he said.
José Antonio Crespo, a political scientist at CIDE, a Mexico City university, said the candidates “don’t excite people because there’s nothing new – there are no fresh people.”
Citing recent polls, he said that Morena has an advantage going into the June 6 election and suggested that the candidates put forth by the opposition coalition won’t do anything to weaken the ruling party’s upper hand.
However, Crespo noted some people will likely vote for Morena’s rivals even though their candidates don’t inspire enthusiasm simply because they want the lower house to be an obstacle to, rather than an enabler of, the president’s agenda.
However, he predicted that Morena and its allies will prevail and maintain their majority.
“The [opposition] parties aren’t doing things right, they’re self-absorbed with their own people. … I believe they’re not sending a good message,” Crespo said.
The news website Sin Embargo described the candidates put forward by the opposition parties as “spent cartridges” and noted that the selections are not reflective of the “internal transformation” they claim to have carried out to make themselves more competitive in light of the landslide victory achieved by López Obrador and Morena at federal and state elections in 2018.
A new law went into effect in Ecatepec, México state, on the weekend ruling that horses and donkeys can no longer be used to haul trash, a bid to end a longstanding practice that continues to this day even in some urban neighborhoods.
Mayor Fernando Vilches Contreras said the new law aims to end the exploitation and abuse of horses and donkeys. Ecatepec will have zero tolerance for those attempting to flout the new law, which prohibits using animals to haul or carry waste of any kind. Waste hauled by animals to Ecatepec’s landfill will not be accepted, he said.
With these changes, he said, “… from this day forward, we take a vanguard step toward the protection of the rights of living beings.”
The equines have been heretofore used to haul all kinds of refuse, including household trash and landscaping waste. Their owners, known as carretoneros (haulers), number in the hundreds in Ecatepec and have been accused of overworking the animals with little regard to their care. Animal welfare organizations such as Defensoría Animal had been calling on Vilches to end the practice in his municipality since at least 2018.
Since that year, eight horses used in four neighborhoods to collect garbage have been seized by the city’s environmental office due to their maltreatment by carretoneros.
The animals were rehabilitated at municipal facilities for Ecatepec’s mounted police and at the Ehécatl Ecological Park, and then sent to live at equine sanctuaries in México state and Puebla.
