The protest against the appointment of a new director at CIDE.
Against the wishes of students and a large group of academics, the interim director of a prestigious Mexico City-based public university and think tank has been appointed to the position on a permanent basis.
José Antonio Romero Tellaeche, an economist, was appointed director of the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) for five years after a unanimous vote to ratify his permanent tenure, announced María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, director of the National Council of Science and Technology.
The vote, in which seven external academics participated, took place Monday. Álvarez-Buylla’s claim that the vote was unanimous was disputed.
Romero has been rejected by students due to his dismissal of academics since taking the reins of the university as interim director in August and his declaration that CIDE has become a “neoliberal” institution. He was also criticized for describing students as “sponges” that only absorb what their professors want them to.
President López Obrador is a fierce critic of what he describes as Mexico’s “neoliberal period” – 1982 to 2018 – and claims his government is carrying out the “fourth transformation” of the country. He said Monday CIDE had “moved to the right” and that the government’s wish was for “chieftainships” in academia to come to an end.
CIDE is considered one of Mexico’s top think tanks, according to Wikipedia.
Álvarez-Buylla said Monday “CIDE is an institution of the Mexican state and must adhere to the new realities.”
After his appointment, Romero pledged to manage the university in a “democratic” way and committed to establishing an environment of “stability, freedom and plurality.”
“… It’s necessary to establish new lines of research … that propose … solutions to outstanding problems,” he said, indicating that he wanted to take the university in a more pragmatic direction.
While Romero said he was committed to democratic administration of the university, the voices of students and many academics were apparently not heard during the process to designate him as director.
Students have been protesting against his leadership since he became interim director, and occupied CIDE’s Mexico City campus and declared an indefinite strike after his permanent appointment on Monday. They also prepared a petition calling for his dismissal and launched legal action aimed at stopping his appointment as permanent director. They remain hopeful they will receive a court ruling in their favor.
“This person has a unique way of thinking and he wants to impose it [on the university]. What we’ve seen [so far] is just a taste of what he could do to the institution, that’s why we won’t let him,” Ramón, a student, told the newspaper El Universal.
“We’re fighting for a CIDE that conforms to the international and national vanguard, and to the needs of society.”
José Antonio Aguilar, a CIDE academic, suggested that Romero himself was not the problem but rather “the intervention of political power in universities.”
“That’s the central problem causing the CIDE crisis,” he said. If that’s the case, the interim and then permanent appointment of Romero added fuel to the fire.
A large number of CIDE academics and administrative staff expressed their preference for the appointment of Vidal Lleranas, a former federal deputy, over Romero. In an internal assessment process, the former achieved a score of 8.98 while the latter scored 7.29.
However, CIDE academics and staff, via the university’s permanent Academic Assembly, claimed their views weren’t taken into account. They also said there were other irregularities with the appointment process. One was the refusal to allow a CIDE academic council observer into the meeting on Monday at which the vote took place.
Academics also expressed support for the protesting students. “We call on the authorities to respect their right to peaceful protest,” they said in a statement.
After seeing Chalpultepec, Central Park is nothing special, a TikToker reported.
New York’s world famous Central Park pales in comparison Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park, an Australian TikToker said, to the acclaim of Mexican viewers.
“For those that don’t believe me that Central Park is the lame version of Chapultepec, I’m going to show you my videos so you see,” user @itBends said, in a stylized video.
She then showed clips taken in Central Park and complained that the only food she found there were pretzels, which she said were “the driest thing in the world, more like cardboard than food.”
In a mocking tone, she added that the New York park had lots of grass, a bridge, people drinking and playing music, and skyscrapers which she said “the Reforma [avenue in Mexico City] has a lot of.”
The TikToker concluded that Central Park was worthy of one star, having left her hungry.
@itBends’s select public seemed to agree with her. “Most people don’t value it [Chapultepec], and TV and Hollywood hypnotizes them to think that all of the best things are in the USA, when the coolest things are here [in Mexico],” replied Gustavo Chavez.
Yaxum Cervantes Gali also attested to the Mexico City park’s superior offering: “Chapultepec: museums, fountains, lakes, giant heads, food, monuments, a castle, a zoo. Central Park: a bridge and some pretzels.”
Central Park opened its gates in 1858. Meanwhile, news website Animal Político reported that trees in Chapultepec date back to the 15th century.
Chapultepec is the biggest park in Latin America and at 686 hectares is more than double the size of Central Park.
Police officers sometimes face threats or forced recruitment into criminal gangs.
Police officers, at least one member of the National Guard and a prison guard have fled to Tijuana in recent months to escape the tentacles of organized crime.
The newspaper El Universal visited a migrants’ shelter in the northern border city where approximately 10 police officers, a guardsman and a female prison guard took refuge after fleeing notoriously violent states such as Guanajuato, Guerrero and Michoacán.
They left their homes to avoid death or forced recruitment by criminal groups, the newspaper said. Most if not all traveled to Tijuana to seek asylum in the United States.
The director of the shelter, who wasn’t identified for security reasons, said police and other internal migrants flee their homes because no one protects them in the face of threats from organized crime. He said that an auxiliary part of the shelter has been set aside for such people, some of whom travel to Tijuana with their families.
One such person is Alicia, a former prison guard, who left Michoacán almost a year ago with her children, a nephew and her mother. She gave up her job to save her life and that of her family, El Universal said, adding that she planned to seek asylum in the United States.
“I was very good at what I did, it was my vocation,” Alicia said. However, being a prison guard is “almost a death sentence,” she said.
“… We proudly wear a uniform that exposes us, it’s not fair,” Alicia said.
She explained that she had to quit her job because inmates were pressuring her to allow them to receive drugs, as other guards did. Because some of her colleagues allowed drugs to flow into the jail, Alicia said, the prisoners felt like they had the right to tell her what to do.
In the middle of last year, about six months after she left her job at the prison, Alicia and her brother were abducted from their home by members of a criminal group that operates in their town, El Universal said, without identifying the group or the town. The aim of the armed men was not to kill them but force them to work for them.
“We’re going to send you to train,” Alicia recalls the men telling her and her brother after they were taken to a hilltop they were beaten. They were released but armed men subsequently monitored their movements for weeks. Alicia began to plan her escape.
She told El Universal that she didn’t want to travel north by bus out of fear that criminals would stop it and set the passengers on fire. She waited until she was no longer being followed and traveled with her family to an airport – presumably that in the state capital Morelia – to take a flight to Tijuana.
While Alicia and some of her family members escaped the violence that plagued their town, her sister remained at home and was abducted earlier this year. She remains missing.
Alicia told El Universal she hopes she and her family can have a future without threats in the United States. The newspaper didn’t say whether they have filed an application for asylum.
“… I didn’t want to leave [Michoacán], I wanted to stay. My boss at the prison gave me a letter of recommendation in case I wanted to return one day but [with the way things are] how can I? [How can I go back] if they abducted my sister, my mom is almost dying of sadness and my brother and I were almost killed?”
Former beauty queen Emma Coronel, wife of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The wife of the convicted drug trafficker and former Sinaloa Cartel chief Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was handed a three-year jail sentence in a United States court on Tuesday after she requested leniency from the judge.
California-born dual citizen Emma Coronel Aispuro, 32, was on trial on charges of drug trafficking and financial crimes, and faced the possibility of life imprisonment.
She pleaded guilty in June to three counts of conspiring to distribute illegal drugs, conspiring to launder money and of engaging in financial dealings with the Sinaloa Cartel. She also admitted to aiding her husband’s audacious escape from a maximum security prison in México state in 2015.
Federal prosecutors had asked for a lenient four-year prison term, considering that she would also be forfeiting US $1.5 million as part of her sentence.
The former beauty queen has nine-year-old twin daughters with Guzmán, who was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in July 2019 on charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy, kidnapping and murder.
Coronel pleaded for mercy from U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras at the hearing on Tuesday.
“With all due respect, I address you today to express my true regret for any and all harm that I may have done, and I ask that you and all the citizens of this country forgive me,” she said in Spanish through an interpreter.
She added she feared a harsh sentence due to her husband’s infamy.
“Perhaps for this reason you feel there is a need for you to be harder on me, but I pray that you do not do that,” she said.
Federal prosecutor Anthony Nardozzi said Coronel’s involvement in the organization was minor. “While the overall effect of the defendant’s conduct was significant, the defendant’s actual role was a minimal one. The defendant acted primarily in support of her husband,” he said.
Nardozzi added that after her arrest she “quickly accepted responsibility for her criminal conduct.”
Coronel’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, who also represented Guzmán in 2019, said she deserved leniency. “She met Joaquin Guzmán when she was a minor. She was 17 years old, and she married him on her 18th birthday … I’m not sure that she could ever go back home,” he said.
Judge Contreras said he took Coronel’s background into consideration, and weighed up the well-being of her daughters in the sentence, given their father’s imprisonment.
“Good luck to you,” Contreras told her as the hearing concluded. “I hope that you raise your twins in a different environment than you’ve experienced today.”
Coparmex said the base salary should gradually increase to 228.75 pesos (US $10.65) a day by 2024.
The national minimum wage should be increased by 8% in 2022, the Mexican Employers’ Federation (Coparmex) urged this week.
Coparmex proposed bumping minimum daily pay to 172.87 pesos (US $8.06), up from the current 141.70 pesos ($6.60).
The business group suggests reaching 228.75 pesos ($10.65) per day in 2024 through gradual increases, at which point two earners in a family of four could bring the family above an established standard for well-being.
More than 14 million Mexicans — 24.9% of the workforce — earned the minimum wage in October, according to figures from the National Statistics Institute (INEGI).
Coparmex claimed that if the 2024 target is reached, two people working in a family could “meet their food needs, but also cover essential needs for transportation, personal care, education, clothing and recreation.”
It added that the increases would have to be adjusted and kept in line with any rises in inflation.
The National Minimum Wage Commission is required to announce an increase to the daily minimum wage by December 31, which will take effect January 1. The minimum wage, one of the lowest in the Americas, was raised 15% from 123.2 pesos at the start of this year.
In the United States, the lowest legal pay is $7.25 per hour, more than the daily rate in Mexico. President López Obrador has complained that the minimum wages of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are higher than that of Mexico.
Stacey Ravel Abarbanel's family lore claimed that Pancho Villa invaded Columbus, New Mexico in 1916 to kill her grandfather, Sam Ravel, left.
From early on in life, filmmaker Stacey Ravel Abarbanel recalls learning about her family’s unique connection to Pancho Villa.
When the Mexican revolutionary raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9, 1916 — the only time in the 20th century that the continental United States was attacked by a foreign army — family lore held that one of his motivations was to kill Abarbanel’s grandfather, Sam Ravel.
A Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, Ravel became a prominent merchant in Columbus. During the Mexican Revolution, some say, Villa was Ravel’s client for a weapons deal that misfired. Abarbanel grew up with chilling narratives about the resulting raid.
Although her grandfather was out of town that day, his brothers Arthur and Louis were both present. Arthur claimed he was injured, detained by the Villistas, then miraculously escaped with his life.
Abarbanel explores her family’s role in the narrative of Columbus in her new film UnRaveling.
Pancho Villa circa 1910-1920. University of California, Riverside, Special Collections
“I think my family was incredibly lucky that day,” Abarbanel said. “My grandfather Sam was very fortunate he was not in town …”
Several weeks ago, it made its world premiere at the Doc LA film festival, where it won the best mid-length documentary award. It was most recently streamed at the Hanukkah Film Festival on November 28.
Villa himself appears in archival photos and footage, and Abarbanel travels to Columbus in 2020, during the annual commemoration in March, days before the first COVID-19 case in New Mexico and the state’s subsequent shutdown.
“The most interesting part of the narrative is how the people in the border region continue to tell, to this day, what happened in the raid,” she said. “They very much have their own way … they really keep this narrative alive for themselves.”
She filmed a unique group of equestrians who travel hundreds of miles from Mexico for the commemoration each year — the Cabalgata Binacional Villista. One member of the group — Ignacio Montoya, who was born in the U.S. and who has worked for American companies in Mexico — says in the film that the group “unite[s] all frontiers.”
“What a dramatic and beautiful moment that is,” Abarbanel said of the Cabalgata. “It runs contrary to a lot of people’s perceptions of the border.”
The Cabalgata Binacional Villista at the 2020 commemoration of the Villa raid into Columbus.
“So often,” she added, “you read really kind of negative news stories about conflict. In this case, you see the border in a really different light.”
Abarbanel originally chronicled her family story in a 2019 article for Tablet magazine entitled “Pancho Villa and My Grandfather.” She then decided to make it into a film.
She wrote the screenplay and produced it with Jeff Swimmer directing. A key step came when she encountered historian William McGaw’s archive of interviews with people from the American Southwest — including her late uncles Arthur and Louis.
“To me, it struck gold,” Abarbanel said. “It was pretty remarkable hearing them telling stories firsthand.”
That included Arthur saying that he was injured during the melee.
“Obviously, it’s something we all heard,” Abarbanel said. “He himself said a bullet whizzed by his ear … it speaks to how family lore gets passed down, accurate or not.”
UnRaveling’s creator Stacey Ravel Abarbanel at the border wall in Columbus, New Mexico.
Throughout the project, Abarbanel had to unravel differing versions of the story — including about why Villa might have targeted her grandfather in the first place.
“Of the stories that get told about my grandfather Sam,” she said, “all are in the context of an arms deal that went wrong. There are various versions I can find … I have no way of knowing which version of the story is true.”
And, she said, “I always try to be very clear with everyone when I hear people repeating this story. A lot of people in reputable history books, serious historians, present many reasons [why] Villa raided the town.”
At that point, her grandfather had been in Columbus for nearly six years, and in the U.S. for over a decade.
Originally from eastern Europe, he had landed in America on September 11, 1905, on a ship that docked at Galveston. Abarbanel describes his narrative in the American Southwest as differing from perceptions that Jewish immigration to the U.S. was centered in New York.
“In the 19th and early 20th century, there were a small number of individuals, Jewish immigrants, who made their homes in the Southwest, including my grandfather,” she said. “They lived their lives very differently … In the case of my grandfather, he came here a Yiddish speaker, but he and his brothers had to learn English and Spanish.”
Arthur and Louis Ravel inside Sam Ravel & Brothers store.
In Columbus, Sam was soon running or helping to run several businesses — the Commercial Hotel, the town’s first movie theater and a general store. Eventually, he saved up enough money to bring both of his brothers there.
The general store became a family enterprise where a visitor could get everything from milk to bullets.
“[Sam Ravel] arrives in November 1910, right around when most historical perspectives [date] the start of the [Mexican] Revolution,” Abarbanel noted. “Columbus was a very small town. It had a border crossing with the international town of Puerto Palomas.
“What little I was able to glean from his business dealings is that a major part … was doing business in Mexico. In 1914, he delivered goods down there to revolutionaries … He was arrested. The U.S. government intervened to get him out.”
According to the film, the goods included firearms — a Colt pistol plus three rifles — as well as 180 rounds of ammunition. Another controversial arms deal allegedly took place two years later between Ravel and Villa in the lead-up to the raid on Columbus.
Regardless of why Villa attacked the town, the early morning hours of March 9, 1916, were terrifying for the population of Columbus — including the Ravel family.
UnRaveling - Teaser
The trailer for the documentary UnRaveling.
As Arthur relates in the oral history recording, his brother Louis hid under the bed while he himself was apprehended by the Villistas. They demanded that he take them to Sam.
But Sam was in El Paso for a medical appointment. They did not believe him.
Although the Villistas killed a total of 19 Americans, they spared Arthur’s life while hunting for his brother. Ultimately, U.S. forces drove out Villa’s men, killing 75 of them.
The government of President Woodrow Wilson subsequently ordered a military force led by General John Pershing into Mexico to find Villa. The influx of troops created a boomtown in Columbus and briefly made it the state’s largest city.
Yet Pershing returned months later after a failed pursuit.
Arthur says in the recording that while the family did business with other revolutionaries, it never did so with Villa.
“My uncle sort of disavowed that the Ravels had any dealings at all with the Villistas,” Abarbanel said. “It’s very, very likely they did do business with the Villistas.”
Even if the details remain hard to pin down, Abarbanel’s film fulfills its title goal of unraveling a family mystery.
“All I really want for the film is to reach as big and broad an audience as possible,” she said. “It’s just at the beginning of the screenings of the movie. I hope it continues for a long time.”
Rich Tenorio is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily.
President López Obrador at his Tuesday morning press conference. Presidencia de la República
Almost two-thirds of Mexicans support President López Obrador, a new poll indicates.
Conducted by the polling firm Mitofsky for the newspaper El Economista, the poll found 65% approval for the president, his highest rating since April 2019.
The only month since López Obrador took office in December 2018 when he had a higher approval rating was February 2019, when it hit 67%.
The president’s popularity has been trending upwards in recent months after reaching a 2021 low of 57% on the monthly El Economista poll in July.
His approval rating rose one point to 58% in August, jumped five points to 63% in September and increased another point to 64% last month before adding an additional point in November.
Among the six most recent presidents, López Obrador has the second highest approval rating after three years in office. Only Carlos Salinas, widely considered one of Mexico’s most corrupt presidents, had a higher approval rating – 77% – halfway through his six-year term.
The results of the poll, conducted over the internet with more than 34,000 respondents, showed that AMLO, as the president is best known, finds his strongest support among campesinos, or small-plot farmers. Almost 83% of campesinos said they approved of the president’s performance, while 72% of informal sector workers – such as street vendors – said the same.
Businesspeople and professionals expressed the lowest levels of approval at 47.6% and 50.3%, respectively.
Poll results also show that López Obrador has at least 60% support in 22 of Mexico’s 32 states. His approval rating is 50-59% in eight states and 40-49% in two – Jalisco and Querétaro.
The survey posited that a lot of the problems AMLO inherited from previous governments persist and asked respondents how much longer the president needs to solve them.
Those polled were given four options. The most popular was “he needs to finish his six years before he is judged,” with 43.7% of respondents choosing it, followed by “he will never achieve it” (26.8%); “he already managed to improve the country” (24.1%); and “he needs one more year before being judged” (2.1%).
Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, the president's son, owns Rocío Chocolate, a brand that appears to have business dealings with Húgo Chávez, though Chávez denies any connection.
President López Obrador’s adult sons and a childhood friend of one of them are at the center of a new investigation that raises yet more questions about Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life), the federal government’s tree-planting employment program.
Published by six media organizations including the news magazine Proceso and the digital newspaper Aristegui Noticias, the investigation focuses on cacao entrepreneur Hugo Chávez Ayala, his involvement in Sembrando Vida and his connection to a cacao plantation in Tabasco owned by Andrés Manuel López Beltrán and the president’s two other sons from his first marriage.
Chávez, a prominent exporter of high quality cacao, agronomist and primary school classmate of López Beltrán, was named as the technical director of Sembrando Vida when López Obrador first announced the program in late July 2018.
The 35-year-old entrepreneur, a neighbor of López Obrador and his family when they lived in Villahermosa in the 1990s, never officially took up that position, but he was also appointed to the program’s advisory board, made up of 20 experts in fields such as agro-ecology and community development. Through that role – and as “unofficial” technical director –he was central to the design of Sembrando Vida and its implementation, especially in Tabasco, according to the investigation.
When he announced the creation of Sembrando Vida at an event in the Lacondona jungle of Chiapas, López Obrador made it clear that the program would support the planting of cacao trees.
Hugo Chávez Ayala, a Sembrando Vida program advisor and ‘unofficial’ technical director is a friend and possible business associate of the president’s son, Andrés Manuel López Beltrán.
“The cacao tree takes three years to produce. What I want is to have 1 million hectares [of fruit and timber-yielding trees] in production before my government ends. Let cacao trees produce,” he said.
Less than four months later, López Beltrán applied to register a new chocolate brand – Rocío Chocolate, a move that marked the beginning of his career as a premium chocolate entrepreneur.
In addition to being a childhood friend of López Beltrán, Chávez told the reporters who conducted the Proceso/Aristegui Noticias investigation that since 2014 he has advised the presidents’ sons on the production of cacao at their 49-hectare property, located in the Tabasco municipality of Teapa.
AMLO’s sons inherited a 16-hectare property from their mother, Rocío Beltrán Medina, when she died in 2003, and subsequently received 32.5 hectares of adjoining land from two uncles. The cacao for Rocío Chocolate is grown on the property.
According to the investigation, Chávez, as a key Sembrando Vida official, promoted the planting of cacao trees in Tabasco, even though local farmers, via a consultation process, ranked the cultivation of 25 other kinds of trees as higher priorities.
“In Sembrando Vida the producers of each state must decide by consensus which trees will be prioritized by the program,” the investigation said.
But Chávez allegedly ignored that rule and at least encouraged, if not demanded, the cultivation of cacao trees in Tabasco. It is unclear whether he predicated inclusion in Sembrando Vida on agreement to plant cacao trees, but would-be beneficiaries were certainly pressured to do so, the investigation indicates.
Chávez subsequently made personal financial gains from the planting of such trees, and stands to make more in the future: he sold 2 million cacao tree seeds to the Sembrando Vida program and entered into commercial arrangements with growers to purchase cocoa beans for his company Agrofloresta Mesoamericana.
There appears to be a clear conflict of interest given that a Sembrando Vida official gained personally – and will continue to profit – from the program.
Sembrando Vida beneficiaries in Tabasco told the investigation they felt an obligation to sell their future cocoa bean harvests to Chávez given that his company was offering a higher price than others, provided agro-ecology training to them and paid for their organic certificates, which cost between US $3,900 and $4,900 and must be renewed annually.
“… We can only sell to Hugo,” one producer said bluntly. “We’re raw material partners but not partners of the company,” said another, who charged that Chávez is the big winner from the arrangement.
“It’s the only option for now,” said the cacao producer, who like other Sembrando Vida participants is paid a monthly stipend of 5,000 pesos (US $230).
Chávez visits cacao producers in Tabasco.
Chávez didn’t deny that he expected to benefit from the production of cacao in Tabasco through the Sembrando Vida scheme.
However, he said most of the cocoa grown in the Gulf coast state will go to the “conventional market” because his company only exports high-quality cacao known as cacao fino de aroma. Chávez also asserted that his suppliers have the right to participate in the Sembrando Vida program.
“The increase in the production of cacao is very beneficial for the entire [chocolate making] chain from producers, fermenters and industrialists,” Chávez said, although many cacao trees have died due to inadequate conditions for their cultivation and/or Tabasco growers’ lack of knowledge about them.
He also said that he has promoted the cultivation of other crops in Sembrando Vida, such as coffee, cinnamon and rubber.
Theinvestigation said some people in Tabasco were forced to cut down trees so they could participate in Sembrando Vida. Several other reports have also highlighted deforestation caused by the scheme, which President López Obrador describes as the world’s largest reforestation program.
The president was aware of Chávez’s business interests when he asked him to be the Sembrando Vida technical director and appointed him to the program’s board, according to the report.
Although Chávez has advised the president’s sons on the production of cacao, he denies having any commercial relationship with them.
“However, the links between his company and Finca [farm] El Rocío are eye-catching,” the investigation said.
It noted that in a video conference in September, Chávez introduced his company’s team and the first person he presented was the most senior member.
That person, an agronomist who has worked for Agrofloresta Mesoamericana for seven years, promptly said that he was in charge of Finca El Rocío, a declaration at odds with Chávez’s claim that he has no commercial relationship with AMLO’s sons.
The agronomist, identified by the investigation only as Isabelo, said that he and Chávez “began together on Finca El Rocío seven years ago.”
In addition, the investigation said, cacao that won an award at the International Chocolate Awards 2018 and which the Agrofloresta Mesoamericana website presents as its own was grown at the López Beltrán property.
Vista aérea de la Finca El Rocío, de 48.85 hectáreas, propiedad de los López Beltrán
An aerial view of Finca El Rocío
“This recognition also made it visible that Agrofloresta Mesoamericana employees are part of the production [team] for those cocoa plantations. In addition, both Agrofloresta Mesoamericana and Rocío Chocolate share the same photographs and videos on their websites and social media,” the investigation said.
Chávez simply said, “They’re very pretty images and we have permission to use them.”
“The webpage of the Fine Chocolate Makers Association also says that Agrofloresta Mesoamericana uses cacao from Finca El Rocío and some restaurateurs assert that they’ve bought Finca Rocío cacao from Agrofloresta Mesoamericana. Hugo Chávez insists that it’s the people, [not him], who are confused,” the investigation said.
The implication that Chávez has a business relationship with Andrés Manuel López Beltrán and the president’s other sons from his first marriage is that all of them have benefited, and stand to benefit, financially from Sembrando Vida’s support – and Chávez’s backing in particular – of cacao cultivation in Tabasco. The president – the nation’s self-appointed corruption fighter in chief – has made it clear that he won’t tolerate any of his family members benefiting directly or indirectly from his government.
The Proceso/Aristegui Noticias investigation also said that López Beltrán and Chávez used the same contact person on applications for an organic certificate for Finca Rocío. That contact was Fabiola López Fócil, an Agrofloresta Mesoamericana employee.
The investigation also raised questions about the legal status of López Beltrán’s company, saying that a Mexico City Rocío Chocolate store failed to issue invoices after five purchases were made between May and November.
“Experts consulted assert that it’s unusual to not issue an invoice immediately and that it could be evidence of irregular tax registration,” it said.
The investigation also said that the packaging of Rocío chocolate doesn’t contain all the legally required information. The company is apparently registered in New York rather than Mexico, and has its main office in Delaware, a corporate tax haven, the report said.
Reporters’ attempts to seek comment from López Beltrán about their investigation were unsuccessful.
Another “eye-catching” detail, the investigation said, is that Finca El Rocío is guarded by state police. Reporters sought to use transparency laws to obtain information about why Tabasco police are providing protection for the property, but the police put a five-year embargo on such details.
López Obrador responded to the Proceso/Aristegui Noticias investigation at his regular news conference on Monday, labeling it “deceptive” and “without foundation.”
“… [My sons] have never accepted support from the government and have nothing to do with the Sembrando Vida program,” he said.
The president rejected claims that Chávez, whom he acknowledged as an “agronomist friend of my sons,” was responsible for the creation or design of Sembrando Vida.
“This program came out of here, this head,” AMLO said, referring to his own brain. “Like the seniors [pension] program came from here,” he added, pointing to his heart.
The president charged that the intention of the investigation – on which Notas Sin Pautas, Meganoticias, Emeequis and Connectas also collaborated – was to “stain” him and his family.
“… What they suggest in their report is not true and I also want to clarify that Proceso and Carmen Aristegui [the journalist who founded Aristegui Noticias] have never been in favor of our movement. They say it’s because they’re independent, while I hold that they are independent but independent of the people,” López Obrador said.
“… They’ve never done journalism in favor of the [common] people, I want to make that clear. … It’s thought these pseudo-objective, pseudo-progressive, pseudo-independent media organizations have links to us but they don’t, … there’s no affection [for the government],” he said.
Aristegui responded to the president, asserting that her media company is neither in favor nor against his “movement” – the ruling Morena party that swept him to power in 2018.
“This space [Aristegui Noticias] is simply a space for journalists,” she said.
“And I would send one last message to President López Obrador: you know that I respect you, I respect your long battle to reach the presidency of the republic but sereno moreno!” Aristegui said, using a proverb to urge him to calm down.
“Read the report and we’ll talk later. And you tell me if the business activity of your sons is something to worry about or not.”
Magdalena Tequisistlán residents damaged the road to Asunción Tlacolulita over a land dispute, cutting off the main supply route to the town.
Part of a road to an isolated village in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, recently paved through a federal public works program, was destroyed by rival villagers on Sunday due to a conflict over land, cutting off another eight rural communities.
A group of people from Magdalena Tequisistlán left an impassable trench in the road to Asunción Tlacolulita, preventing its 700 inhabitants from accessing the highway 20 kilometers away. Tequisistlán is closer to the highway, which is the only route to Tehuantepec at 50 kilometers away.
The two villages have a long running agrarian dispute over 250 hectares of land. Rural disputes of this kind are common in Oaxaca.
The conflict resurfaced in September when inhabitants of Tlacolulita began to carry out road widening works, without requesting prior consent. In response, Tequisistlán residents blockaded the highway.
That argument was resolved after federal authorities helped mediate the situation, but the conflict flared up again last week.
One Tlacolulita resident said the obstruction caused urgent difficulties: “These actions represent an attack on transport channels that undermine the free movement of food and medicine for our families, formed mostly of elderly people.”
“We categorically hold this group of community members responsible for any type of aggression that our families in Asunción Tlacolulita may suffer,” added another resident.
Village authorities have requested the support of the state government, the the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) and the Agrarian Attorney General’s Office to help restore access to the highway.
The road was laid as part of the Ministry of Transport’s Paving Rural Roads to Municipal Capitals program.
The balloon crash landed near the La Legua-Teotihuacán highway on Monday.
A hot-air balloon crash landed near the Teotihuacán archaeological ruins in México state on Monday, injuring nine people, four of whom were over 60.
The accident occurred around midday in the community of Atlatongo, close to the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon.
The operating company Volare was forced to land the balloon, which was carrying 15 sightseers including two foreign tourists, due to a technical fault amid unfavorable flying conditions, but lost control as it approached the ground.
Five women and four men were injured and taken to a hospital in Axapusco. Two of them were later transferred to a hospital in Mexico City.
The injuries included concussion, broken bones, sprains and loss of lower body movement.
Globo aerostático aterriza de forma incorrecta en San Juan Teotihuacán, #Edomex, y al menos nueve turistas extranjeros resultan lesionados.
Al parecer la falta de pericia del piloto y el mal clima provocaron el incidente.
The hot-air balloon was partially destroyed after it came down on the side of the La Legua-Teotihuacán highway. Security officials said that when they arrived the balloon was deflated and the basket was detached.
“Given the difficulties, he [the pilot] had to descend precipitously and fell brushing the branches of a tree on the side of the road, between the La Garita area and the road to the community of San Isidro,” a police report said.
Volare hasn’t yet confirmed the cause of the accident, the newspaper Milenio reported.
