Mexico City has ramped up Covid testing but the number of people being tested is still low.
Mexico needs to spend at least 6.4 billion pesos (US $283.4 million) on Covid-19 testing kits in order to have the capacity to reach the average testing rate of the 37 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to a Mexico City think tank.
The Center of Economic and Budget Research (CIEP) said in a report that level of investment is needed just to buy the testing kits. Additional money would be required to perform the tests and process them in laboratories.
The CIEP noted that Mexico has the lowest testing rate among OECD nations.
The per capita testing rate in the United Kingdom is more than 30 times higher than Mexico’s rate while that of the United States is about 23 times higher. The testing rates in Spain, Italy and Germany are 20, 16 and 13 times higher.
Active coronavirus cases as of Sunday. milenio
Testing rates in the two other Latin American OECD countries, Chile and Colombia, are 11 and four times higher, respectively, than that of Mexico.
The CIEP report said the federal government’s “immediate policy response” to the coronavirus crisis should focus on ensuring that there are enough kits to test widely.
But Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s coronavirus czar, has said that the government is not interested in testing Mexicans en masse because doing so would be “useless, impracticable and very expensive.”
Despite its low testing rate, Mexico has recorded more confirmed Covid-19 cases than all but six other countries in the world.
The federal Health Ministry reported on Sunday that Mexico’s accumulated case tally had increased to 344,224 with 5,311 new cases registered.
Only the United States, Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa and Peru have recorded more confirmed cases, according to data complied by Johns Hopkins University.
Covid-19 deaths reported as of Sunday. milenio
Sunday’s spike in case numbers came a day after the Health Ministry reported that it had registered 7,615 new coronavirus cases, the highest single-day total reported since the beginning of the pandemic.
Just under 9% of the more than 344,000 confirmed cases – 30,478 – are considered active.
Data presented at Sunday night’s coronavirus press briefing showed that 821,922 Covid-19 tests have been performed in Mexico, of which 394,156 came back negative. The results of 83,542 tests are not yet known and are thus considered suspected cases.
Based on known results, the positivity rate in Mexico is 47%, meaning that almost one in every two people tested has been confirmed to have Covid-19. The positivity rate is much higher than most other countries because Mexico is focusing its testing efforts on people who have coronavirus-like symptoms.
The Health Ministry also reported on Sunday that it had registered 296 additional Covid-19 deaths, lifting Mexico’s death toll to 29,184.
Mexico ranks fourth in the world for Covid-19 deaths behind the United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom. Based on confirmed cases and deaths, Mexico’s fatality rate is 11.4 per 100 cases, much higher than the global rate of 4.2.
Mauri and Kenneth Karger: their relationship with Mexico is over.
I am ending a 20-year relationship with Mexico and that is very sad for me. It’s kind of like the end of a marriage. At some point, the relationship turns so sour that one of the parties has to leave. In this case, it is me.
What makes this even more sad is the fact that I love Mexico. I love its natural beauty, from the desert, to the mountains to the pristine beaches. My family has loved it all. But most importantly, we have loved the Mexican people. Our relationships are more like family than even friends. I have personally invested millions of dollars in your country. But I give up. Your government clearly does not want me any longer.
I want to make it clear that I am not here to lecture Mexico. I am not here to tell it what to do or how to do it. It is simply not my place to do so. I am only letting Mexico know why our relationship failed and maybe, if it so desires, not to have so many future failures. Let me share with you my story.
Two decades ago, my brother and his wife bought a beautiful property in San Miguel de Allende and established roots. Deep roots. He built a beautiful home, two casitas, hired full-time staff whom he considers family, and started giving back to his community. He, and particularly his wife Kelly, started a dog rescue program for all the starving street dogs around town. They have rescued hundreds of animals from starvation and abuse and set up a spay neuter program second to none. Why? It’s part of what our mother taught us: give back to your community. This is part of our DNA.
While all of this was happening in San Miguel, I went to work in Quintana Roo. I bought a derelict house on the ocean in Puerto Aventuras and put 10 million pesos into it to restore it to glory. I also bought beach property around Mahahual, 20 hectares on Lake Bacalar and a 2,000-hectare ranch that had been abandoned near Chetumal. We then went to work.
Thugs at the gates.
We hired seven full-time employees to work the ranch, protect the property from poachers (we have deer, tapirs, jaguar and puma just to name a few of the animals we protect). There is a 500-hectare lake on the ranch as well and poachers were gillnetting with 100-meter nets and destroying the fishery for generations to come. We stopped that from happening. Birds have returned and fish now abound. We gave back to nature and the community.
Our workers who come and go each day are well paid and fed breakfast and lunch. Our foreman lives full-time in a house we built for him and his lovely family. They all get health insurance, he gets a truck to drive, free gas, free food, free cell phone, and internet. Basically everything is paid for and he gets to use his salary as discretionary income. It’s a great deal for him but it also works great for us. It is a true win-win for all of us.
And how have I been treated? Not well. My ranch has been invaded twice. Once with 10 men and guns threatening to kill all the workers if they did not leave immediately. We called the police. What did they do? Nothing. Nothing at all. It took one year and over 2 million pesos to correct the wrong and get my ranch back from the thugs. Why would your system treat honest people like this? It is truly beyond me.
I have another property that I am fighting an invasion on and have been doing so for over three years. Sure I have won the battles in court so far but they are still on my property and I have spent over 200,000 pesos on lawyers. Will I win? Yes but I have no desire to keep fighting this battle. Mexico requires me to keep spending money simply to hold on to those things that I have already bought and legally paid for. Does this seem insane only to me?
My brother in San Miguel was attempting to return home from a drive to Puerto Vallarta where he has a beachfront lot. On his way home, he was stopped at a cartel roadblock and robbed. When they attempted to steal his vehicle also, he did a high speed escape past a burning bus back to Puerto. He and his wife then had to fly home and have a driver get his vehicle back home for him. In what universe does this make sense? An honest citizen or visitor cannot travel down a major highway safely?
It gets far worse in my opinion. My neighbor who owns a nearby ranch was in Tamaulipas two years ago buying some cattle from local ranchers who were fleeing from the cartel. These poor ranchers had lost everything and were simply trying to sell what they could and escape, leaving their homes, ranches and other possessions behind. While my friend Jacob was there, word came that another cattle buyer on the adjoining ranch had been kidnapped and they were possibly coming for Jacob. He immediately left the ranch and went back to Quintana Roo.
A cartel convoy on a Mexican highway in 2018.
Mexico has turned over entire states to the cartel. If I told someone that I could not drive from Texas to Mississippi because Louisiana had been taken over by criminals, they would look at me as if I had two heads. Never would the U.S. allow criminals to take over a highway much less an entire state. If a cartel attempted to set up a roadblock on a highway in the U.S., a SWAT team of snipers would kill them all within an hour.
Jacob’s sister and her son were killed along with many more recently in northern Mexico by the cartel. Murdered — no, not murdered, more like slaughtered — without cause and so far Mexico has done very little to right this horrible wrong. I guess President López Obrador’s philosophy of hugs not guns seems to be prevailing. You have to understand how strange this all sounds to Americans. We are to hug murdering thugs instead of shooting them? Sorry, but I had rather send them to hell that very day.
I think the final straw that broke the camel’s back came last year when Monex stole over 20 million pesos from our accounts. We had money in the account one month and the next month, bank employees had stolen every peso. Many newspapers and TV networks reported that 158 accounts and nearly 800 million pesos had been robbed from the accounts of Americans and other foreigners. For many of these people, it was their life savings.
Did bank officials from Monex get arrested and prosecuted? No, they did not. Has Monex replaced the stolen money in full to those depositors? No, for the most part they have not. In fact, my brother and I have yet to receive one peso of the money stolen from us by the bank. Sure we have filed criminal charges and civil actions but it might be many years before the Mexican government forces this criminal bank, Monex, to reimburse our funds.
We even hand delivered a letter to López Obrador himself begging for help. Nothing happened. A low level bureaucrat called us and explained he had been handed the complaint from a superior but it really wasn’t in his jurisdiction and he had no idea why it was handed down to him. He promptly did nothing.
This is why I fear López Obrador is worse than corrupt; he is incompetent. Maybe he can just give Monex a hug and then they will give us back the money they stole. If you want to see further details on this massive crime and cover up, check out bancomonexfraud.com.
No more high hopes for López Obrador.
I have another friend who is a pilot of private jets in Mexico. He and his family were on vacation in San Antonio, Texas, when his 12-year-old daughter opened the door on their rental car and accidentally scratched the adjoining car. The owner of that car jumped out and started verbally abusing my friend, Esteban, and his daughter. Esteban assured him that he had insurance and would pay for any damages. This did not appease the guy.
He threatened physical violence against Esteban’s daughter. Esteban called 911 and was shocked when the police showed up in less than three minutes, listened to what Esteban had to say and then handcuffed the man and took him off to jail for making threats. Esteban told me this would never happen in Mexico. But it should. Mexico deserves better than it is getting.
I had great hopes for López Obrador after Peña Nieto proved to be pretty much a failure. As I expressed those hopes to my Mexican friends about AMLO taking office, they almost all universally would shrug their shoulders and say, “We shall see. We have been promised all of this before.” Their attitude reminded me of a Robert Earl Keene song that goes like this: “The road goes on forever and the party never ends.” Except here we have to change the lyrics to “The road goes on forever and the corruption never ends.” As I wrote earlier, I really don’t believe López Obrador is corrupt. I think his office is worse: incompetent.
My brother is a lawyer by trade. He talks about the difference between a first world country versus a third world country. He always says it is mis-defined. People think that a country is third world if it is poor. This is not true. It is third world if rule of law and more specifically, honoring contracts and enforcing them is the true measure of a country’s status. Does Mexico honor contracts? Not in the least.
Property rights are destroyed by invasions that take years to resolve and the sanctity of bank accounts and the security of those deposits mean nothing in Mexico. Even notaries and public registries falsify property sales and say no leans exist when in fact they do. You only find out after the purchase. These are not isolated incidents in Mexico.
The municipality of Tulum, by rule of guns not law, seized boutique hotels and beach properties and threw their true owners out on the whim of a corrupt politician for personal gain. Property rights meant nothing and in the three or so years after these Tulum thefts, properties have still not been returned to the rightful owners. What a travesty of justice. Even when these sorts of travesties are recognized, the Mexican legal system does nothing to correct the errors.
Unprecedented levels of violence.
We really believed Mexico was changing 20 years ago. New auto plants, more hotels, more jobs and a true middle class starting to arise. We had hope and I think the Mexican people had hope too. But in the last five years we have witnessed the rise of the cartels stealing oil, cattle, avocados and anything else available, the rise of violence in unprecedented levels and the failure of the Mexican government to actually change anything. The only thing that changed was the slogan: hugs not guns. This is true insanity on a national level.
I wish I could say that I left Mexico in better shape than I found it. For my properties, this is true. But for Mexico in general it is not. I wish I could effect change but I can’t. I don’t get to vote, I don’t get to express an opinion to politicians or government workers and no one really cares what I have to say. The only protest afforded me is with my feet and I choose to leave.
I hope and pray that Mexico finds its way out of the pit it has dug. The Mexican people deserve better than what they are getting. They deserve hope, justice, fairness, and honesty. Right now, they are getting none of these.
The writer is a retired dentist from Fort Worth, Texas.
Damage to a pre-Hispanic aqueduct at an archaeological site in Texcoco, México state, is irreparable, says a director at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
According to media reports, farmers from the town of Santa Catarina del Monte damaged part of the Caño Quebrado aqueduct at the site commonly known as Los Baños de Nezahualcóyotl (The Baths of Nezahualcóyotl) while building a new road between their town and agricultural land.
After inspecting the damage caused by heavy equipment, México state INAH chief Luis Antonio Huitrón told the newspaper Reforma that it appears to be “irreversible.”
He explained that parts of the aqueduct have been removed or displaced and said that it was lucky that only one section – 143 square meters in total – was damaged.
Although reports have blamed Santa Catarina farmers, Huitrón said that the perpetrators have not yet been identified and it is unclear why heavy machinery had been used at the site, formally known as Tetzcotzinco.
“At this time, we don’t know the intention of this action. However, it seems to be related to an activity that has been increasing in the entire … Tetzcotzinco area, … which is the irregular construction of homes,” he said.
Huitrón added that INAH is working with Texcoco authorities to increase legal protections to ensure that all construction in and around the archaeological site is prohibited.
The damage to the ancient aqueduct, built while Nezahualcóyotl – known as the poet king – was the ruler of the city-state of Texcoco in the 15th century, triggered an outpouring of anger on social media.
The damaged aqueduct is the “most important” pre-Hispanic hydraulic engineering infrastructure in Mexico, Enrique Ortiz García, a Mexican history enthusiast, said on Twitter.
Nezahualcóyotl, who ruled Texcoco from 1429 to 1472, used the Baños de Nezahualcóyotl site as a retreat and meditation place as well as a center for astronomical observation, according to INAH.
It includes several stone structures and baths, and is considered one of the most important archaeological zones in México state.
Roasted weeping milk cap mushrooms in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca. UNAM Biology Institute
The rainy season is upon us and if you live anywhere near a forest in Mexico, you may have the chance to try some local delicacies — wild mushrooms.
Mushrooms aren’t usually associated with Mexican cuisine, but in reality, Mexico comes second after China in the number and variety of wild mushrooms consumed. The Spanish word hongo does not distinguish between mushroom, fungus, or yeast, although most Mexican edible fungi do correlate with the English notion of mushroom.
Only a small percentage of Mexican wild mushrooms are edible, with 350 species documented so far, but biologists Roberto Garibay Orijel and Amaranta Ramírez Terraza of the National Autonomous University (UNAM) estimate that there are at least 400.
Twenty-eight of Mexico’s 32 states have at least some edible mushrooms, but the most variety and consumption are concentrated in the central plateau from Jalisco to Veracruz, the Sierra Madre del Sur (Chiapas and Oaxaca) and some northern areas such as Chihuahua and Durango. There are very few edible species to be found in the Yucatán and the deserts because of the environment.
Edible wild mushrooms have been an important seasonal food in Mexican forests since the pre-Hispanic period. But the Spanish had no interest in them, so their use became relegated to rural, indigenous communities.
Mushrooms for sale at a traditional market in Acaxochitlán, Hidalgo. UNAM Biology Institute
Interestingly, Mexico’s most famous edible fungus, huitlacoche (unappetizingly called “corn smut” in English), is not popularly considered an hongo/mushroom, but rather has a cultural value all its own. The three most popular mushrooms commercially sold in Mexico, button, seta, and shitake, are non-native.
Garibay and Ramírez state unequivocally that knowledge of edible wild mushrooms is with those populations who live where the mushrooms grow. The season when most are available is short, generally in July and August. When conditions are right, wild mushroom collectors with generations of experience, hongeros, get to work.
Traditional markets in mountain towns and villages can fill with mushrooms in all shapes, sizes, and sometimes bright colors. The only urban markets that seem to carry them, often spottily, are in Mexico City. Markets such as Merced, San Juan, and Jamaica are good bets as are those on the edges of the metro area. There has been research to develop cultivation techniques with some species, but so far there has been no investment for the next steps to commercialize native Mexican mushrooms.
It cannot be stressed enough that wild mushroom collecting should be done by experts only. As in the rest of the world, confusing poisonous and edible mushrooms is a real danger. Almost all cases of mushroom toxicity in Mexico occur when less knowledgeable people collect mushrooms for their own consumption. There have been a few cases where those who should know better have suffered ill effects, especially in Chiapas, Hidalgo, and Puebla.
Researchers at UNAM and other facilities are trying to find out why, with several theories. Mushroom poisonings are rare but have prompted some local authorities to prohibit collection and sales, and federal health authorities discourage it. On the flip side, there have also been efforts to educate people about edible and poisonous mushrooms where problems have occurred.
Despite these issues, the consumption of wild mushrooms has taken on new prominence in the past 15 years. States with various edible species have annual ferias de hongos (mushroom fairs) but none this year due to Covid-19). Chefs in gourmet restaurants, especially in Mexico City, prize wild mushrooms and other buyers in the city’s markets have to compete with them.
An indigo milk cap mushroom in Valle de Bravo, México state. UNAM Biology Institute
Although still strong in parts of the country, knowledge and use of wild mushrooms are in danger. They have already disappeared in many areas such as northeast Mexico and the Baja. The main reasons for this are the disappearance of the cultures that depended on this food source and the substitution of cultivated mushrooms for wild ones in the cuisine.
Ecological issues related to wild mushrooms include over-harvesting, especially those which are popular and/or are valued in gourmet markets. More important, says Garibay, is the loss of suitable habitat to clandestine logging and the replacement of native forests with avocado groves.
So what should you do if you want to try wild mushrooms for the first time? Garibay and Ramírez strongly recommend that you ask first in your local markets and restaurants specializing in local food, especially if you live in a mountainous, forested area. Restaurants may have specials with mushrooms or may be able to point you to a vendor.
If you buy for your kitchen, take the time to talk to the vendor, explaining that it is your first time. While all of the vendor’s mushrooms will be edible, some may cause allergic reactions or intestinal problems for novices. Choose only one species to eat at a time and eat moderately to learn which are right for you. The vendors will also tell you how best to cook them for maximum enjoyment.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 17 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture. She publishes a blog called Creative Hands of Mexicoand her first book, Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta, was published last year. Her culture blog appears weekly on Mexico News Daily.
Governor Alfaro: federal health ministry's actions 'politically motivated.'
Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro has accused Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell of allocating a “red light” to his state on the federal government’s coronavirus risk “stoplight” map because “he felt like it.”
Jalisco is one of nine states that will switch from “orange light” high risk to “red light” maximum risk on Monday, joining nine states that are already red.
In a Twitter post on Friday night, Alfaro claimed that the decision to revert Jalisco to red was politically motivated.
“There are things that have no remedy. Hugo López-Gatell is continuing with his political agenda. His impulses have already cost Mexico a lot of lives. He doesn’t understand that the pandemic is a serious matter. We take one step forward and he takes it upon himself to spoil everything again,” he wrote.
Alfaro also claimed that the deputy minister, the government’s coronavirus point man, changed the criteria for determining which stoplight color each state would be allocated without advising governors.
“He puts us in red because he feels like it,” he wrote. In a separate tweet, Alfaro claimed that there are people within the federal cabinet who are continuing to seek “confrontation” with his government.
Jalisco’s regression to “red light” status came a week after the governor himself warned that he would shut down the state economy if coronavirus cases and hospital admissions continued to increase.
Meanwhile, Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López also expressed discontent with López-Gatell, asserting that he has presented incorrect coronavirus data for the Gulf coast state.
The governor was caught on video making the remark Friday during a visit to a temporary hospital.
“I told the president yesterday that I can’t [put up] with Gatell. I don’t know where he gets some of his numbers from,” Governor López said.
Tabasco has recorded more than 16,500 confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic and 1,546 deaths. The state currently has the lowest availability of general care hospital beds in the country, with 85% already in use.
Demand for oxygen has increased along with the coronavirus.
Medical oxygen is proving scarce in Tabasco, presenting a daunting challenge for family and friends of coronavirus patients who need breathing assistance while being cared for at home.
Refilling an oxygen tank, if you can find one and know where to go for more, can cost upwards of 1,000 pesos (US $44).
José Alberto Carrera traveled 50 kilometers from Macuspana to Villahermosa to fill an oxygen tank for a friend, El Universal reports. After standing in line for two hours, his request was declined as he did not have the necessary paperwork documenting proof of residency, and he was forced to go home empty-handed.
Among the 20 people queued up was Alejandro, who had been waiting since dawn to refill an oxygen tank for a sick relative. The cost of doing so was overwhelming, but he said his family member was improving.
Tabasco residents have also taken to social media to look for oxygen, hoping to network through Facebook. Tanks purchased online can cost between 3,800 and 8,500 pesos (US $169 to $377).
All three oxygen companies in Tabasco have sold out of tanks, and now they are only available for rental. Rogue suppliers offer oxygen to sick customers but at double or triple the normal retail price.
Tabascos Health Minister Silvia Roldán Fernández said that many people who are infected with the coronavirus prefer to be treated with oxygen at home over being hospitalized, a method of treatment she does not recommend. “You are at greater risk, and yes you might be more comfortable,” she said, “but life is life. There are many young people who have decided to do that and who have died in their homes.”
The head of Tabasco’s Office of Consumer Protection (Odeco), Pedro Aldecoa Calzada, says that the state is monitoring companies who sell, rent and refill oxygen tanks.
“We do routine inspections and have sanctioned more than 40 companies for consumer abuse, but people need to have a culture of reporting in order for us to investigate those cases and verify claims,” he says.
The Jalisco Attorney General’s Office reported yesterday that 23 bodies and four bags of remains were discovered on July 13 in a clandestine grave in the municipality of El Salto, just blocks from the police station and 33 kilometers southeast of Guadalajara.
The corpses were buried on a farm in the El Pedregal neighborhood. To date, only three bodies have been identified.
The case is being investigated in collaboration with Jalisco’s missing persons unit.
In the past 18 months, 428 bodies have been discovered in hidden graves across the state, with 215 found between January and May of this year alone.
The majority of victims were found near Zapopan, Tlajomulco and Tlaquepaque.
Missing persons activist groups, including Jalisco’s Families United for the Disappeared, were invited by the police to assist in the discovery of the El Salto mass grave. The group stated that the 23 bodies were unearthed intact, which would help in identifying them.
In Jalisco, 9,413 people have been reported missing, according to the state’s database.
Since 1964, 73,249 people have gone missing in Mexico, and bodies have been discovered in 3,978 clandestine graves, the Ministry of the Interior (Segob) reported last week. That number has increased by 11,564 since January, the National Search Commission (CNB) reports.
Jalisco ranks fifth in Mexico for homicides, with a murder rate of 37.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.
The hapless lawyer, center, and the upset judge, top right, in a screenshot of the hearing held via Zoom.
Virtual meetings via Zoom or other platforms have become de rigueur in the era of the coronavirus pandemic, but social distancing need not come at the cost of social decorum as a lawyer who attended a virtual meeting in his underwear found out.
The attorney logged in to a Zoom hearing with a judge and all was fine until he stood up and his computer’s camera revealed that he was clad in a button-down shirt and boxers, despite an attempt on his part to cover the lens.
The visibly upset judge called him out.
“Counselor, you are not wearing pants [and] you are in court,” admonished the judge.
“I am wearing pants, your honor,” replied the young lawyer, unconvincingly.
A video of the scantily clad lawyer’s hearing has gone viral on social media, garnering more than 228,000 views.
Judge María del Carmen Cruz Marquina of Tamaulipas later said that it was the first time a lawyer had appeared before her without pants, but stated that court proceedings were not affected by the attorney’s wardrobe choice.
“I must tell you that the lawyer is a very serious and professional person. I believe it was an accident,” the judge said. “These are the circumstances of the new normal to which we are all adapting.”
A video showing heavily-armed Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) members alongside a long convoy of armored vehicles is under analysis to determine whether it is authentic, Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said Friday.
An approximately two-minute-long video posted online on Friday shows some 75 masked gunmen dressed in military fatigues and wielding high-caliber weapons.
Filmed on a dirt road in a rural location, the frightening footage also shows about 20 armored vehicles – some of have been modified to include gun turrets – emblazoned with the CJNG initials and “special forces” or “elite group.”
As a camera films the lengthy procession of vehicles, gunmen shout “pura gente del señor Mencho,” or “only Mencho’s people,” among other remarks.
El Mencho is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the fugitive leader of the CJNG and Mexico’s most wanted drug lord.
I was wondering when we would see another public act of communication by the CJNG, two weeks after the attack on Harfuch
This one, taken yesterday in the Jalisco Sierra as I’m told, is more than clear in its message toward the fed gov: You come after us, and we will strike back. pic.twitter.com/Xnii4z5P8S
When and where the video was filmed is unclear but some social media users claimed that the gunmen were in Tomatlán, a coastal municipality south of Puerto Vallarta.
Following the release of the footage, Security Minister Durazo said on Twitter that the “propaganda video attributed to a criminal group” is being analyzed in order to confirm its authenticity and determine when it was filmed.
“Regardless of that, we declare that there is not any criminal group with the capacity to successfully challenge federal security forces,” he said in a second tweet, adding that the video only added credence to that assertion.
Nevertheless, Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst for the International Crisis Group, says the video sends a clear message to the federal government: “You come after us, and we will strike back.”
Release of the video comes after a visit to Jalisco by President López Obrador.
Ernst said on Twitter that the release of the video doesn’t necessarily change the nature of the relationship between the CJNG and the government, writing that “rather than a declaration of war … it’s primarily geared at guarding the status quo at a crucial time” when federal authorities have to define their “future posture” toward the powerful criminal group.
“It’s an episode in a much wider sequence of negotiation of power … Displays of violence in this context aren’t new. The degree of the production is.”
Gabriel Guerra, a political analyst and columnist for the El Universal newspaper, described the video as “truly worrying.”
“While its authenticity has to be established, it speaks of an armed capacity comparable to or greater than that of many guerrilla groups. Everyone will see different things; what I see is an enemy of the Mexican state and all of us,” he wrote on Twitter.
Security analyst Alejandro Hope told El Universal that the video “speaks of the state’s territorial control problem.”
“They [the CJNG] move about in large convoys announcing who they are because they don’t fear the authorities,” he said.
Hope noted that it’s not the first time that military-style vehicles with gun turrets and large numbers of sicarios, or hitmen, have appeared in cartel videos whose main purpose is to show off their significant firepower to both rival criminal organizations and the government.
Indeed, some videos have shown as many as 60 armored vehicles and between 100 and 150 sicarios, he said.
The CJNG is “not the biggest criminal group we’ve seen,” Hope said, adding that the Zetas – a cartel founded by former army commandos – used to be “more intimidating.”
However, the analyst said that the latest CJNG video – it has released many – is testament to the cartel’s immense firepower and manpower, and shows that it has militarized. Militarization of criminal groups, however, is not a new phenomenon in Mexico, Hope said, adding that emblazoning a cartel’s name on its vehicles is not new either.
Citing its ongoing turf war with the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel in Guanajuato and the attack on García, the Mexico City police chief, Hope said the CJNG has shown in recent months that it is prepared to increase its aggression against both rival criminal groups and authorities.
The release of the video is part of the cartel’s “escalation of confrontation” approach, he said.
After the attempt on García’s life – which didn’t result in the police chief’s death but killed two of his security detail and a bystander – Hope said the government has an obligation to respond to such a “brutal” attack and charged that it should allocate “extraordinary resources” to “deal with the unprecedented security matter.”
But López Obrador says his administration will continue with its non-confrontational security strategy, which aims to bring peace and tranquility to Mexico by addressing the root causes of violence, namely poverty and lack of opportunity.
Ports are 'enclaves of corruption,' says President López Obrador.
The military will assume control of Mexico’s customs offices and ports, President López Obrador announced Friday as efforts to eliminate corruption continue at ports of entry.
“Land and maritime customs (offices) are going to be in the charge of the army and the navy to ensure safety and avoid the introduction of drugs,” López Obrador said Friday at a press briefing in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico’s busiest port. “Ports and customs have long been enclaves of corruption,” the president stated.
The move is just another step in the president’s reliance on the military to keep the peace. In addition, López Obrador has charged the military with building a new airport in Santa Lucia to serve Mexico City, as well as the construction of social welfare agency bank branches.
Mexico’s head of customs, Horacio Duarte, said the military will work in coordination with agents under his charge in order to prevent illegal drugs, guns and cash from entering the country and to enforce the payment of duties on taxable goods at the country’s 49 borders and 116 maritime ports.
Duarte said that annual customs revenue amounts to some 900 billion pesos, around US $40 billion.
López Obrador’s order comes despite the fact that Mexico’s Congress had frozen an initiative that would assign control of the country’s ports to the navy. It also violates legal statutes dictating that customs officials be civilians, Duarte said.
The military’s presence at borders has done little to staunch corruption at ports of entry, where corruption is rampant. Reforma reports that criminal organizations were able to bring a variety of illegal goods into Tamaulipas in 2017 by paying a US $300 fee to customs agents. Larger illicit shipments were allowed to pass after gangsters paid a bribe of some US $2,000.
Customs officials need to be on the alert for contraband in any form, Duarte said, including imports to the country that are deliberately undervalued to minimize tariffs.
