Despite cartels and climate change, the Rarámuri keep Easter tradition alive

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April 29, 2021

A Rarámuri woman in Cusárare enjoys Holy Week festivities. all photos by Matt Reichel

Drumming is heard in the distance like a war cry. It is a pounding, trancing rhythm set amidst an otherwise quiet scene.

A few gusts of wind blow sand swirls around a large, somewhat empty courtyard. This area soon fills with vivid colors — women and young girls in elaborate ruffled patterned dresses. The drumming intensifies.

The courtyard soon reveals the drummers, men and boys moving in swift procession. The leaders at the front don bandanas around their heads and a bow and arrow adorned with raccoon skins. Behind them are young men in hoodies and sunglasses with kerchiefs around their faces.

Some of them hold intricately painted swords. Their expressions are stoic and focused. The procession stops just outside the church as groups of the vibrantly dressed women gather swiftly inside a striking church, a misión filled with intricately designed murals.

Prayers are said, and then as quickly as they entered, the group filters out of the church. The drumming picks up pace, and intensity once more, as the procession of both men and women flows out into the village again, this time with wooden statues of Jesus and Mary thrown over the shoulders of the pack in front. Jesus is dressed in a flannel shirt with a backward baseball cap, much like many of the town’s millennials.

Women and girls gather in church during the celebrations to say prayers and leave carrying statues of Jesus and Mary. — Women and girls gather in church during the celebrations to say prayers.

This is a typical scene during Santa Semana or Easter Holy Week, in Cusárare, located near the rugged Copper Canyon in Chihuahua.

Cusárare is one of many Tarahumara or Rarámuri villages that celebrate the religious holiday period throughout Mexico. The celebrations combine traditional cultural practices, pre-Hispanic traditions and Catholicism.

“It is among the most important festivals for the indigenous people of Chihuahua,” says Jaime Aventura, a Rarámuri reporter for the state government and a tour guide. Holy Week in the mountains of northern Mexico is a spectacle to witness. Outside the famous Copper Canyon is this network of vibrant indigenous communities who celebrate Easter unlike anywhere else.

Rarámuri means “runners on foot.” This group is most famous for being endurance runners, having won ultramarathons wearing nothing but sandals made out of tires. They are also known for maintaining their traditions, identity and customs. The group is insular with some members still living isolated in caves in the northern mountains.

According to local anthropologist Guillermo Ortiz, “their population is approximately 75,000 in the mountains. It is over 100,000, including those who have moved out to cities.”

In recent years, an increasing number of the population has moved to urban areas like Creel for employment due to climate change’s impacts on their farming capabilities or due to violent drug trafficking. Working for cartels has sometimes been necessary for survival.

Men will prepare for the celebrations by marking their skin with speckled white spots. This signifies Earth.

During Holy Week, the Tarahumara will dance from dawn to dusk to the rhythm of the drum, which they will play exhaustively without rest. The dances signify a clash between good and evil.

With each footstep, they believe they are weakening the Devil and thanking God. There are references to Christ’s death, crucifixion and resurrection. Here, Judas is burned.

Santa Semana is a time for the group to be close to God.

Distance plays a role in how the traditions are maintained.

“Each community’s customs have changed depending on how remote they are,” says Aventura. “Places further away from mestizo areas keep more of the old traditions alive, versus communities near population centers that fall under greater influence from the mainstream Catholic church.”

Some of the more remote mountain villages closed their doors completely this year to outside visitors because of the pandemic.

Almost 75 km away, a similar but different scene plays out. Various communities around Norogachi travel from deep around the Sierra Madre mountains for a large collective Santa Semana celebration. The men here dress in traditional costumes — a tagora, or a long, white cloth tied at the waist that’s subtly patterned at the edges, revealing only a slight covering of the legs.

The tagora links together with a long ribbon, a kovera they wear around their head.

At the beginning of Easter weekend, the participating males will prepare for the celebrations by marking their skin with speckled white spots. This signifies Earth. In Norogachi, one group begins dancing rhythmically.

This same group kicks off the procession with various village members. As the day progresses, different groups join the march until hundreds of people have filled the town square.

The procession scene is vibrant and full of various characters, the dancers, drummers, flautists and captains with flags. The front of the line includes a village woman who bears a large banner of Jesus, a man wearing a large conical hat resembling a piñata, and various mestizo ladies carrying crosses made from palm branches and statues of Mary and Jesus. The remainder of the village, the women, follow the dancers and drummers in colorful streams.

The procession walks around the town repeatedly with more and more members joining. Some of the men start to gather firewood for large bonfires. The evenings are cold, and the fire is necessary to keep dancing and drumming.

A wrestling match where the chamucos, representing the righteous are pitted against the morocos, the devils. — A wrestling match where the *chamucos*, representing the righteous, are pitted against the *morocos*, the devils.

And the dancing is endless. It goes into the night and the days that follow. At nighttime, the dancers look zoned out, but their bodies move relentlessly through the unending beat. They essentially have danced themselves into a trance. Families at home will cook continuously, making hundreds of corn tortillas to ensure the dancers are fed.

Their primary source of strength comes in the form of a cigarette or a can of Tecate beer. According to villagers in Cusárare, “beer gives the participants energy” and “more of a kick to continue dancing.”

Villagers also drink jugs of homemade corn beer called tesgüino.

As sunrise envelops the valley, the dancers retreat for a brief rest. The courtyard is strewn with visiting community groups who are still asleep, empty cans of Tecate and the remaining burning embers of the bonfires from the night before. Outside visitors, mostly media and some domestic tourists, congregate at Hostal de Elba, located in the middle of town.

Later that morning in Cusárare, the same courtyard appears empty at first, but the drumming is intense as ever.

The doors this time to the misión are closed. Similar to the day prior, the courtyard eventually starts to fill with the same vividly dressed women. They gradually shift to a hillside overlooking an expansive acre of farmland as the procession of drummers makes its way into this field.

Rarámuri celebrations combine traditional cultural practices, pre-Hispanic traditions and Catholicism.

It’s time for the penultimate event of the Santa Semana celebrations: the lucha, or the ultimate struggle. This is a throwdown — a symbolic display of good versus evil, with evil being pushed out.

In the most traditional celebration, villages would be split into groups — chamucos, representing the righteous, and morocos, the devils.

For 10 minutes, villagers clasp each other’s backsides and wrestle while an excited crowd cheers and overlooks. The scene is chaotic — multiple matches going on, stumbling bodies succumbing to the pressure of weight and limbs and legs being thrown down on the sand.

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Dust is thrown up in the air constantly, and the scene becomes progressively blurrier. Some of the matches appear friendly and full of laughs; others settle or create new scores.

Once again, as quickly as the prayers started and ended, so does the fight. The villagers gradually clear out of the fields and stream back outside the church’s main square to engage in vibrant chatter. After days of dancing and processions, there is not a hint of fatigue on anyone’s face.

The men and boys rush back to drumming. They walk around the town for one final spectacle, a testament to their most celebrated religious celebrations, their resilience and their strong ties to their culture.

It is a magnificent end to another spiritual year, and they can finally rest.

Mexico News Daily

Storm collapses roof over Mexico City’s Templo Mayor

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MND Staff

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April 29, 2021

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Heavy rain and hail in Mexico City on Wednesday night caused the collapse of a roof that partially protected the Templo Mayor archaeological site in the capital’s historic center.

However, only minor damage was reported to the temple complex, a popular tourism site that served as the main ceremonial center in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán.

The 250-square-meter metal roof fell on the House of Eagles, a structure that features carved relief sculptures that depict warriors in procession and blood-letting rituals.

The Culture Ministry said Thursday that the damage to the structure was “minor, recoverable and restorable” and that repairs would begin immediately. President López Obrador also promised that the House of Eagles, where Aztec rulers made preparations for their own deaths, would be repaired.

Leonardo López Lujan, the head archaeologist at Templo Mayor, said on Twitter that the collapse of the roof was a “dramatic” event. He said he was relieved that major damage to the interior of the House of Eagles and its adornments, among which are remnants of painted murals, was avoided.

“I’m not superstitious, but blessed be Tezcatlipoca!” López wrote, referring to an Aztec deity associated with providence and sorcery.

Wednesday night’s rain and hail also caused minor flooding in parts of Mexico City. The capital’s central square, located near the Templo Mayor site, was blanketed in white by hail, which began falling at about 8:00 p.m. There was also lightning and strong wind that toppled trees in several Mexico City neighborhoods.

Source: Reuters (en), Milenio (sp)

CJNG launches new attacks in Michoacán; self-defence forces fight back

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MND Staff

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April 29, 2021

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The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) clashed with self-defense forces on two separate occasions in Michoacán on Wednesday, but there were no reports of casualties.

According to a report by the newspaper El Universal, the CJNG went on the offensive in the neighboring municipalities of Tocumbo, Tingüidín and Los Reyes.

Residents reported the presence of armed men in a convoy of at least 20 vehicles emblazoned with the CJNG initials.

In Santa Inés, a community in Tocumbo, the cartel members forced motorists out of their vehicles and stole them. At least two people took to social media to warn others to avoid the town.

After stealing several vehicles, the CJNG members were intercepted by self-defense force groups and a confrontation ensued.

The gangsters subsequently directed their convoy to Tingüidín, located about 15 kilometers east. There, the CJNG clashed with more self-defense force members and federal forces, El Universal said.

“We’re screwed. These assholes are well-armed, … let’s get out of here,” said one Tingüidín resident. The man fled his home with his family in his pickup truck and a short time later they began to hear gunfire. Fearful that they would get caught in the crossfire, the family took shelter in a warehouse.

The gunfight lasted for almost an hour but authorities said there were no injuries or deaths, only material damage. Michoacán police, accompanied by municipal officers from Los Reyes and Peribán, deployed to Tingüidín but there were no reports of any arrests. The cartel members reportedly fled to Cotija, a Michoacán municipality that borders Jalisco.

The CJNG has previously carried out numerous attacks in the same area of Michoacán. Eleven people were killed during clashes between the CJNG, the Cárteles Unidos and security forces in Los Reyes, Cotija, Tocumbo and Tingüindín last December.

The Jalisco cartel, generally considered Mexico’s most powerful and violent criminal organization, is seeking to increase its influence in many states, including Michoacán. It is engaged in a bloody turf war with the Cárteles Unidos in Aguililla, Michoacán, which has forced many residents to flee the Tierra Caliente municipality.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Campeche’s elections could be a bellwether for the nation’s political future

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Shannon Collins

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April 29, 2021

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Eliseo Fernández's campaign for governor billboard. The buzzword in all Campeche's political campaigns this year is "cambio" (change).

“Total Change,” reads one campaign billboard.

A nearby competitor riffs along: “More Change.”

Then, across the road, a differently colored poster calls for “True Change.”

Finally, just when you think you couldn’t be surprised by infinitesimal jazz-like variations on declarations of change, here comes yet another party, this time advertising “Better Change.”

Welcome to Campeche’s 2021 electoral cycle, in which, to steal Edward Murrow’s line about the Vietnam War: “anyone who isn’t confused really doesn’t understand the situation.”

The PRI, PAN, and PRD coalition candidate Christian Castro Bello is aiming to maintain PRI power in Campeche.

On sale in Campeche this 2021 electoral season is wall-to-wall change, in which the main prize is the governorship of the state, held by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) since time immemorial.

PRI hegemony notwithstanding, new political waves are sweeping through this quiet political backwater, waves which also represent broader national tendencies and might give some clues into Mexico’s political future.

Contextually, it is important to note that when President López Obrador, or AMLO, was elected three years ago, Campeche was not one of the state seats in contention and, as such, did not fall to the vast Morena wave which swept all before it in 2018.

As such, the 2021 electoral cycle will serve a twofold purpose: first, as a watermark for gauging whether the Morena project has retained its overwhelming grassroots support and can therefore continue its strong trajectory. Second, it’s a test case for understanding whether the traditional parties of the PRI, the National Action Party (PAN) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) have experienced a recent temporary setback or whether they are in fact faced with a crisis that imperils their very existence.

In fact, the traditional parties from across the political spectrum have, in an unprecedented move, joined together in an alliance for the current electoral cycle and are the only coalition not running on a platform of change.

Instead, their campaign is fueled by oblique talk of “defending Campeche,” intimating that Morena and its gubernatorial candidate, Layda Sansores, are outsiders intent on ransacking the state for their own political ends. Indeed, though Sansores is demonstrably from Campeche, she has had an opportunistic political career in which 30 years with the PRI later led to her flitting between almost all other parties at different junctures.

Sansores’ campaign notwithstanding, the unspoken message behind the coalition’s nebulous slogan of defense is that Campeche is and always has been a PRI state. Morena’s increasing influence brings with it the kind of seismic change that threatens all traditional power structures in the state, and for the PRI and its traditional supporters, there is much at stake to be lost.

These strange anti-Morena political bedfellows are in fact not unique to Campeche; they are fielding candidates across the country.

In Campeche, Christian Castro Bello is the figurehead for the coalition, although as the nephew of previous governor Rafael Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas, who is now president of the PRI, Bello faces unsurprising charges of nepotism.

Of course, the raison d’être of the PRI and its almost entire political platform tends to be regarded by independent political commentators as that of maintaining its established hegemony — nothing further. Accordingly, many see the alliance as a desperate political move by all three parties in an attempt to reestablish political purchase, traditional enemies banding together in the face of a common nemesis: the new Morena kid on the block.

Viewed from a national perspective, it thus comes as little surprise that the battleground seems set between AMLO’s Morena and the traditional parties.

Yet, there is a third contender, who — whatever your opinion of him — has altered the language of the political rulebook. Enter, stage left, the curious figure of Eliseo Fernández Montufar.

Morena candidate Layda Sansores hopes to continue the national Morena electoral wave.

Of the three contenders, Fernández is perhaps the most renegade. He has established his own political playbook, breaking with all received opinions on how to run campaigns in Mexico.

Take a stroll and you may see him pasted on a billboard holding an eagle, or you may have seen him boxing his way through a video, to name two of his more heavy-handed campaign choices. Moreover, where Morena and the coalition have poured money into traditional campaign methods, Fernández has focused primarily on boosting his image through social media as an appeal to modernization. He’s also used Everyman strategies, going from community to community, personally filling and fixing roads by hand — something old school political apparatchiks would consider well beneath them.

But therein is the point.

A quick scroll down Fernández’s Twitter page will reveal a plethora of photographs of an affable man of the people, grinning alongside the residents of locales all over Campeche. The man definitively and defiantly does not lack for energy or footfall.

But, above all, what makes Eliseo — and he is largely known by his first name — unique is how he has eschewed party political structures and, with support and funding from the Movimiento Cuidando, is undertaking his campaign for governor largely by himself.

A defector from the political party structure would rarely be a threat to the hegemony of the traditional parties at the best of times, but Fernández’s term as the mayor of the city of Campeche (albeit on a PAN platform) means that he already has at least a social media-proven track record of hard work and delivery for the people.

Current polls suggest that Morena and Eliseo Fernández are the real heavyweight contenders facing off for the governorship. This begs the question of whether the midterm elections in states across Mexico will see the beginning of a broad political sweep for Morena or the seeds of pushback against government populism.

Whatever the way of it, the upcoming June elections in this quiet backwater of Mexico’s tropical south are likely to be a much bigger indicator of the country’s political future.

Shannon Collins is an environment correspondent at Ninth Wave Global, an environmental organization and think tank. She writes from Campeche.

Contracts without tenders, an invitation to corruption, hit record numbers

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MND Staff

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April 29, 2021

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government contracts — Contracts awarded without tender are indicated in red, those with public tender in green and by invitation in orange. imco

Federal government spending on contracts awarded without a competitive tendering process hit a record high in 2020, according to a public policy think tank.

The Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (Imco) said in a new report that the government spent almost 205.2 billion pesos (US $10.2 billion) on directly awarded contracts last year.

“The constitution and purchasing laws establish that public purchases must be carried out through public tendering except in exceptional cases. Despite this, almost one of every two pesos spent by the federal government in 2020 was contracted through direct adjudication or restricted invitations. The processes established as the exception have become the rule in federal government contracting,” the think tank said.

Imco, which analyzed data on the government’s online transparency platform CompraNet, said the amount represents 43.3% of all money spent on government contracts in 2020. The figure is up from 29.5% in 2017, 34.9% in 2018 and 38.9% in 2019.

“In the second year of this administration, this figure [43.3%] broke a historical record, exceeding any other type of contracting,” Imco said.

The outlay on contracts that were awarded following a public tendering process accounted for 39.9% of total spending in 2020, the think tank said, while the percentage of resources allocated to contracts awarded following an invitation-only tendering process was 3.1%. The other 13.7% of the total outlay was spent on contracts awarded via other processes not specified by the report.

“This is the first time that the resources allocated to contracts directly awarded by the federal government are higher than [the amount allocated] to contracts [awarded] through public tendering,” Imco said.

The percentage of government resources spent on contracts awarded via an open, competitive tendering process has been on the wane since 2018, the final year of the administration led by former president Enrique Peña Nieto.

The figure declined from 65.2% in 2017 to 57.7% in 2018 and 46.1% in 2019 before falling to 39.9% last year.

Public tendering is the contract awarding process that “most promotes competition,” because it allows a higher number of participants and favors lower prices through competitive bidding, Imco said.

The growing number of directly awarded contracts — 80.9% of all government contracts were awarded that way last year, according to Imco — is a “red light for competition” and “represents a corruption risk,” the think tank said.

The corruption risk comes about because “the absence of objective criteria to select contractors opens spaces in which the decision [to award a contract] could be influenced by unlawful agreements,” Imco said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Exodus from Aguililla: families flee death threats and extortion, head north

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MND Staff

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April 29, 2021

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Residents are fleeing cartel violence and crime, including death threats, extortion and being forced to serve as human shields.

The Catholic Church is issuing letters of recommendation to residents of Aguililla, Michoacán, to support their future claims for asylum in the United States as they flee violence and crime in the embattled municipality.

Parish priest Gilberto Vergara said the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Aguililla — where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Cárteles Unidos are engaged in a bloody turf war that has intensified in recent months — has issued 85 such letters this week, which serve as proof that residents’ lives are in danger due to the violence.

The Diocese of Apatzingán issued 50 to 60 letters of recommendation to Aguililla residents last week, he told the newspaper Milenio.

Residents can present the letters directly to United States immigration authorities, Vergara said. “It’s a kind of guarantee that they’re from here [Aguililla] and that their lives and those of their families are in danger.”

An exodus from Aguililla, located in the notoriously violent Tierra Caliente region, is underway, he said.

Some 200 families have fled the area in the last three weeks, El Universal reported, to escape violence, extortion and death threats. Some people are staying with family, some are in church-run shelters and others have already headed to the United States, said priest and activist Gregorio López Gerónimo.

Aguililla has become a ghost town, he said. He claimed that the authorities are in cahoots with the criminals, who he described as “beasts” and “soulless beings.”

One person who asked the Catholic Church for a letter for him and his family was an elderly farmer identified only as Luis. He said the CJNG had forced him to join a human shield outside the army’s Aguililla base to stop it from carrying out operations and threatened to kill his wife and other members of his family if he didn’t obey.

He and his family have lived their entire lives in El Aguaje, an Aguililla community where the CJNG paraded an armored “narco-tank” in broad daylight last month and attacked state police with explosive-laden drones last week. The same cartel also kidnapped and presumably killed his daughter and nephew a year ago, he said.

The rancher and lime producer took advantage of the visit of the Vatican’s ambassador to Mexico to Aguililla last week to get his family out of the municipality. Archbishop Franco Coppola, papal nuncio to Mexico, was able to travel to Aguililla by road from a neighboring municipality because security forces set up several checkpoints on the 84-kilometer Apatzingán-Aguililla highway, which was reopened early last week after being blocked by organized crime for months.

According to Vergara, criminals continue to set up blockades on the highway at night.

Fleeing Aguililla was the only way to avoid being murdered, said Luis, who had cattle and a lime orchard in El Aguaje and used to export his products. He fled with just 200 pesos and a few essentials.

He and other members of his family will seek work as jornaleros, or day laborers, in other parts of Michoacán to raise the money they need to travel to the northern border to seek asylum, he said.

“We’ve left our home, our land and an entire life of work to look for a calmer life because it seems that our luck has run out,” he said. “… We can no longer put up with this violence that screws us over every day. … I managed to take a few things to survive and [received] God’s blessing that the Vatican’s envoy gave us.

“… The CJNG took everything from us, even courage.”

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

‘Dogtores,’ a colonia for homeless dogs in Puebla

By

MND Staff

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April 29, 2021

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A university in Puebla has created a colonia for homeless dogs, providing them with food, a small house, water, shade and medical care.

Students, professors and administrative staff at the Technological University of Tehuacán (UTT) created the colonia “Dogtores,” a play on Mexico City’s Colonia Doctores, to improve animal welfare, create awareness around animal abuse and prevent formation of gangs of street dogs.

The idea came about in 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic, and is being promoted by around 20 volunteers, who have been in charge of looking after the animals and providing them with food.

The dogs also receive attention from vets who monitor their health, and supply them with vaccines.

At the moment Dogtores houses seven canines that also help to protect the nearly empty campus, where in-person classes are yet to be reinitiated.

Source: Municipios Puebla (sp)

Oaxaca city airport reopens after four-day blockade by students

By

MND Staff

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April 29, 2021

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Teacher training students have ended their protest at the Oaxaca city airport. — Teacher training students have ended their protest at the airport.

The Oaxaca city airport reopened Thursday morning after teacher training students ended their four-day blockade.

The protesters restored access after coming to an agreement with the state government.

Ninety-one domestic and international flights were canceled and more than 6,000 passengers were affected during the closure.

The blockade was lifted after the director of the state Institute of Public Education (IEEPO), Francisco Ángel Villarreal, promised to respond to the students’ demands, acting on the orders of Governor Alejandro Murat.

The key demand, to guarantee graduates automatic job placements, was agreed in principal through the IEEPO’s commitment to “guarantee the hiring and job stability of graduates.”

“The agreements recognize and respect the autonomy of teacher training colleges … and avoid the imposition of curricula,” Villarreal said.

State education representatives and students met Tuesday night for nine hours, wrapping up at 7:00 a.m. Wednesday with high expectations for an end to the impasse.

That morning National Guardsmen were prevented from accessing Covid-19 vaccines destined for 117,000 state education workers, before an agreement was negotiated with the protesters to allow access to the medication.

During the last two weeks the teachers in training have set fire to the offices of the state education authority, hijacked transit buses and blockaded roads and highways.

Governor Murat, who resolved another blockade in Puerto Escondido on Tuesday, maintained that disputes can only be ended by peaceful means. “With social issues, and especially with young people, we are never going to use public force … In my government dialogue is the only way,” he said.

Sources: El Universal (sp) NVI Noticias (sp)

What will Kansas City Southern’s merger mean for railroads in Mexico?

By

Carlisle Johnson

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April 29, 2021

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Mexico's recent history involves protectionist disputing of foreign contracts in the petroleum industry. How will the government react to the Kansas City Southern merger further consolidating foreign concessions in Mexico's railroad system?Cluster Industrial

The haunting, fading Doppler effect of a receding train whistle on a hot summer night is romantic, even though it is saying goodbye.

Mexico’s train whistles are tooting hello these days as a good old-fashioned donnybrook is breaking out, now that there are two highly qualified foreign bidders for Kansas City Southern (which holds Mexico’s foreign route concessions).

The first bid, for US $25 billion, came from a Vancouver company, the second US $33.7 billion from a Montreal enterprise. Both bids are tangible support that at some time in the future Canada, Mexico and the United States will be a dominant economic, if not political, entity.

First Coca-Cola and beer — now Dutch, then aviation — now American. And railroads next?

I’m a train buff and have ridden the rails in China and the United Kingdom, as well as Romania, Ecuador, Peru, Czechoslovakia, Canada and, of course, Mexico and Guatemala.

In Mexico, on a trip from California to Mexico City and Guatemala, I even toasted a cheese sandwich on the locomotive’s boiler of the president’s train as I shared the engineer’s cabin with an oilcan-bearing, pinstriped-overalled veteran.

I showed the trackside ragamuffins how to turn Guatemala’s outsized one-Quetzal coin into a mini-Frisbee before we derailed.

Mexico’s President López Obrador is a train buff too, having already pledged that he will retire to his family farm in Palenque, Chiapas, the new loading point for the Refugee Special known unaffectionately as The Beast, which passes north close enough to the United States border to tempt fate.

Enough of nostalgia, except to hope that future train buffs may have the opportunities that I’ve had. On to investment dynamics.

Turning to my eight years as an analyst for investment in Latin America, I’d dismiss the economic risk of investing in railroads in Mexico. Developing nations need railroads.

But this does leave political risk, which is high, not just for Mexico, but for the United States as well. As a recent Reuters article points out, the most recent permitted railroad merger of size in the U.S. was in 1994.

This leaves Mexico, whose distant train history includes a 1930s nationalization of foreign-owned railroads and whose more recent history involves disputing foreign contracts in the petroleum industry.

So, how far does AMLO’S railroad buff-ness go?

Carlisle Johnson writes from his home in Guatemala.

Freedom of information agency challenges biometric data registry

By

MND Staff

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April 29, 2021

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The national transparency and data protection body Inai is challenging a new law that requires telecoms companies to gather users’ biometric data, and will argue before the Supreme Court that it violates privacy rights and is unconstitutional.

The law, which passed on April 13, aims to reduce crimes like extortion and kidnapping by making it more difficult for criminals to remain anonymous when purchasing new mobile phones.

Telecoms companies are now required to collect customers’ fingerprints or eye data for a national database, which would then be available for use in criminal investigations.

Last week, a judge stopped part of the law from taking effect, saying it would put customers at risk if they refuse to share personal data because their cellphone connection would be cut. The parts of the law stipulating the creation of the registry remain in effect.

The Mexico Internet Association has said the registry would violate human rights and cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars to implement.

“The prosecution of crimes is an issue that should concern us all and the state is responsible for ensuring the safety of the inhabitants, but this cannot and should not be a sufficient reason to restrict freedoms and human rights,” said Adrián Alcalá Méndez, an Inai commissioner.

President López Obrador, no admirer of autonomous bodies such as Inai, criticized the action, framing it as a move by telecoms companies against regulation in their industry rather than a defense of individual rights.

“These telecoms companies that are very powerful … are bringing a campaign before autonomous agencies and judges. We have to review this because if not the state is going to keep serving a rapacious minority,” he said.

“They are also very hypocritical because for a phone contract they ask for the same data,” he added.

Contrary to what the president said, biometric data has not been required in the past.

While 155 countries around the world maintain cellphone user registries, only about 8% require biometric data, mainly for prepaid SIM card users, according to global telecoms industry lobby GSMA.

Sources: Reuters, Milenio (sp)