An artist and women’s rights activist was murdered in Ciudad Júarez, Chihuahua, late Friday night, sparking outrage and protests on the weekend.
Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre, 26, disappeared Friday night after leaving a bar to return to her home in downtown Juárez on her bicycle.
Chihuahua prosecutors announced on Sunday morning the discovery of a woman’s body in the downtown area. Messages and posts on social media quickly confirmed that it was that of Cabanillas.
A clothing designer, painter and active member of a women’s collective, Cabanillas was active in women’s rights initiatives.
The activist’s friends and family reported her missing on Saturday. Her body was found later that day with bullet wounds to the chest.
The murder sparked protests in Juárez on Sunday, when family, friends and women’s rights activists demanded justice.
A large police presence at the rally prompted protesters to denounce their absence at the time of Cabanillas’s murder.
They placed a pink cross at the site where her body was found in the hope that her murder would not go unpunished or be forgotten.
AMLO, right, and Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat inspect the new road.
President López Obrador inaugurated a new concrete road in Santos Reyes Yucuná, Oaxaca, on Saturday, praising it as a “work of art” built by residents rather than business.
In a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the seven-kilometer stretch of road, the president said that in the past “companies took the money, [then] the rain came and took the road,” suggesting that damage to the new road was unlikely, it being 20 centimeters thick.
Local women were decked out in traditional dresses, colorful ribbons and bright flowers to celebrate the opening of the 30-million-peso (US $1.6-million) project in what statistics show is Mexico’s poorest community.
AMLO, as he is commonly known, said the money was given directly to the community, since “people are rooted in their communities,” adding that the direct investment eliminates the need to migrate, as it reactivates the economy and creates jobs.
“It’s an example for all to follow. It’s possible if there’s honesty. Honesty is the great wealth of the villages of Oaxaca and of many villages in Mexico,” he said.
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He promised that all the municipal seats in Oaxaca will have concrete roads.
“You all know how to do it. In the past they said you didn’t have the technical ability, but your ancestors built [the Zapotec and Mixtec cities of] Monte Albán and Mitla. The Mixtecs are the best builders in the whole world . . .” he said.
“This weekend we inaugurate five, there are still 25 to go, consider them inaugurated. They are works of art.”
Transportation Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú said that another 20 roads will be finished in the next few months.
“The goal is not just to connect populations that were excluded before today, but to create sources of employment,” he said. “Their hands are drawing the new map of Mexico onto their land with love.”
National Guardsmen prevent migrants from crossing bridge into Mexico.
The first migrant caravan of 2020 was poised to enter Mexico Monday morning but the federal government was resolved to stop Central Americans from traveling through the country to seek asylum in the United States.
Some 3,000 mainly Honduran migrants arrived at the southern border with Guatemala early on Monday morning to attempt to enter the country and continue their journey northward.
The large contingent of men, women and children said a prayer and sang the Honduran national anthem before crossing the Rodolfo Robles bridge in a human chain to reach the entry point to Mexico in the town of Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas.
A metal barrier and more than 60 members of the National Guard dressed in riot gear met the migrants, preventing them from leaving the Guatemalan border town of Tecún Umán.
The Central Americans sat down on the bridge and said they were prepared to wait until Mexican authorities allowed them to enter, the newspaper Milenio reported.
“We just want them to let us cross, we’re not going to cause problems,” said one migrant identified only as José Antonio.
“We’re trying in the proper way, we don’t want to” cross illegally, he said.
Today’s attempt to cross into Chiapas comes after the National Guard on Saturday slammed shut a metal fence that reads “Welcome to Mexico” as a large contingent of migrants tried to force their way into the country. The border reopened on Sunday but few migrants crossed, the Associated Press reported.
Facing ongoing pressure from the United States government, Mexican authorities are determined to stop migrants from traveling en masse through the country to the northern border, and have said that they will not issue transit visas to allow them to do so.
“The Mexican government has made clear they are not offering any visa that could be used to travel north, and that anyone traveling without proper documentation will be detained, sending a strong signal to the Trump administration that the Mexican government is doing its part to ensure that the members of the caravan don’t reach the U.S. border,” said Maureen Meyer, director for Mexico and migrant rights at the Washington Office on Latin America.
The Mexican government last year deployed the National Guard to stop undocumented migrants from traveling to the northern border after United States President Donald Trump threatened to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican goods if the country didn’t do more to halt arrivals.
A human chain of migrants on the bridge at Ciudad Hidalgo.
While Mexico is resolved to stop them, many of the migrants are equally determined to get to the United States and have indicated that they are prepared to barge their way into Mexico if they are not granted free passage.
“I’m asking President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to allow us free passage, we don’t want to stay in Mexico, our goal is to reach the United States,” 23-year-old Honduran Brayan Pineda told the newspaper El Universal.
As thousands of migrants before him have already said, Pineda explained that he was forced to leave Honduras due to poverty, violence and a lack of support from the government.
“The authorities are not concerned about supporting the talent of young people, buying books and notebooks for schools or medicine for hospitals; they concern themselves with buying weapons and tear gas bombs to repress the people,” he said.
In an attempt to persuade people like Pineda to abandon their plans to seek asylum in the United States, the Mexican government says that it will provide work opportunities to migrants who qualify for asylum.
“We have more than 4,000 jobs available there along the southern border, and of course shelters and medical attention — everything — but on offer is work in our country,” López Obrador said on Friday, stressing that the same opportunities are available to Mexicans looking for work.
The National Immigration Institute and the Secretariat of the Interior said in a joint statement Sunday that 1,087 migrants who entered Mexico legally over the weekend at border crossings in Chiapas and Tabasco were given information about the state-sponsored tree-planting program Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) and the apprenticeship scheme known as “Youths Building the Future.”
However, “in the majority of the cases” migrants would be returned to their countries of origin “should the situation merit it,” the two departments said.
Fearing deportation and a return to the very situation they fled, many migrants are determined not to register with Mexican authorities unless they are promised the same transit visas that the government has issued in the past.
López Obrador has pledged that his government will respect the rights of migrants but has also stressed that he wants to maintain a good relationship with the United States and avoid a trade war with Mexico’s most important commercial partner.
Fulfilling both commitments is proving to be a difficult balancing act for the president, who has come under fire for his government’s increasingly hardline treatment of migrants.
Claudia León, coordinator of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Tapachula, described the roundup of migrants over the weekend with uncertain promises of employment as “de facto detention” that could violate their rights.
In the middle of last year, López Obrador said the government would make it easier for migrants to get jobs in factories on the northern border while waiting for the opportunity to seek asylum in the United States but getting there currently appears nigh on impossible for the members of this year’s first migrant caravan.
A wall collapsed in Oaxaca after a 5.3-magnitude tremor occurred Thursday in Ciudad Ixtepec.
The first of three nationwide earthquake drills planned for 2020 will be carried out at 11:00am on Monday.
The Civil Protection agencies of various states have met in recent weeks to coordinate the event, and ask the public to participate in the exercise in order to be better prepared for the real thing.
The seismic alarm will sound at 11:00am in Mexico City after a message stating that it is just a drill, which in central Mexico will be based on the hypothetical conditions of a magnitude-7 quake with an epicenter in Acambay, México state.
Mexico City Civil Protection officials said evacuation operations and internal protocols will be initiated after the alarm sounds.
The drill will be conducted by 22,000 police officers, 60 paramedics and over 30 search and rescue personnel with the support of 20 motorcycle patrols, 12 ambulances and four special rescue units.
The Mexico City Metro will participate in the drill, but service will not be interrupted, authorities said.
The transportation system said in a press release that it has an action protocol for earthquakes, in which all departments “work in a strategic, coordinated and ordered manner with the objective of safeguarding the physical integrity of users and workers.”
In México state, which is not equipped with the seismic alert system used in Mexico City, the alarm will sound from the speakers of the C5 security systems in 20 municipalities.
Mexico is located in one of the most seismically active regions in the world. The Pacific, Cocos, Caribbean, North American and Rivera tectonic plates all interact in the area and cause frequent seismic activity.
A new terminal building and other upgrades are scheduled at the Oaxaca tourist destination.
A new “world class” terminal building is scheduled to open at the airport in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, in 2022.
Federal authorities will invest at least 327.5 million pesos (US $17.5 million) in the 7,702-square-meter facility.
At a meeting with a federal transport official on Thursday, Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat Hinojosa said the new airport terminal will attract greater investment and more tourists to Puerto Escondido, which he described as one of the three most important tourist destinations in the state.
The construction and operation of the terminal will also create well-paid jobs for residents of the Pacific coast resort town, he said.
For his part, the general director of Airports and Auxiliary Services – a government corporation responsible for the management, operation and development of airports – said that a builder for the project will be sought via a tender process in the second half of this year.
Óscar Arguello Ruiz said that close collaboration between the federal and Oaxaca governments has been instrumental in getting the terminal project off the ground.
Designed by the architect Alberto Kalach, the terminal will make use of solar energy and boast other environmentally-friendly and sustainable features. A new parking lot is also planned and several other parts of the airport will be upgraded.
The number of passengers using the facility grew exponentially during the past decade.
Almost 408,000 passengers passed through the airport in 2019, a 516% increase compared to 2010 when just over 66,000 people used the facility. Passenger numbers increased 35% last year compared to 2018.
Revenue generated by visitors to Puerto Escondido also increased in 2019, according to the Oaxaca Secretariat of Tourism, rising 13.5% to 1.61 billion pesos (US $85.6 million). The growth came despite average hotel occupancy levels of just 32.1%.
Mummies at the El Carmen Museum. The bodies have never been identified.
Mummies are not uncommon in Mexico, especially in the arid north of the country. They have been found from pre-Hispanic and colonial-era burials and occur naturally, usually in above-ground burials such as crypts.
The most famous are in the city of Guanajuato, and have drawn tourists to the municipal cemetery for decades, especially after a campy movie in the 1972 pitted lucha libre wrestling legend El Santo against undead versions of them.
Mummification is very rare in wetter climes, but under the right circumstances it can still happen. The most famous example of this in Mexico City is at the El Carmen Museum in the fashionable neighborhood of San Ángel in the south of the city, distinguished by the tile cupolas overlooking Avenida Revolución.
This building is one of very few left in the Valley of México that date from the 17th century and is only a remnant of what it once was. Established in 1615 as the San Ángelo Mártir College, a theology school for men, it originally had various buildings and cultivated lands, but these disappeared after the Reform Law closed all the monasteries in 1858.
The church kept its original function, but the former monastery was used as a jail and a barracks before finally becoming the El Carmen Museum in 1938.
The tiled cupolas of the El Carmen Museum.
The museum is divided into 10 sections with the permanent collection dedicated to the life of the Discalced Carmelites that ran the monastery and school.
However, the most popular section by far is the mortuary chapel, located underneath the main altar in the church.
How the mummies got there is not exactly known. Stories about their origin vary, but one thread in common is that their existence came to light when Zapatista troops found them during the Mexican Revolution. One version of the story states that the Zapatistas brought them into the monastery building, but this is not likely.
More credible versions state that the Zapatistas found them while tearing up the floors looking for treasure, or they were moved here from a nearby church.
Another widely accepted theory is that they are the bodies of Juan de Ortega y Valdivia and his family, who helped to finance the construction of the crypt but the bodies have not been positively identified. They wear both men’s and women’s clothing, but it is possible that they were dressed after they were exhumed.
“They are a very important part of the cultural heritage because they provide much historical information about how people lived in the past, especially in Mexico in the 19th century,” Daniela Alcalá Almeida, spokesperson for the museum, told the EFE news agency. The bodies can provide information about the economic situation of the time and what the people died of.
The mummies are in very good condition because of the environment of both the crypt and the mortuary, which impede the flow of oxygen that helps in the deterioration of the corpses. The mummification process was helped by the dry conditions that prevent much of the normal decomposition.
Alcalá Almeida emphasizes that it is a kind of microclimate that promotes the conservation of the bodies. “If they were taken to another place, they would suffer changes that would not be positive.”
The mortuary crypt was used by the Discalced Carmelites for monks when they died, as well as important donors to the San Ángelo Mártir College. Monks’ bodies were removed after seven years, and their bones transferred to an ossuary. This was not the case with donors, who would stay in the crypt.
The mortuary chapel was located under the main altar of the church, a prestigious location for burial. Its prime location is underscored with frescos on the ceiling, which are in good condition, and with ceramic tile on the floor. The first paintings here were done on the upper parts of the walls and then on the ceiling vaults.
All are in the Baroque style of the 17th century, evidenced by the use of full shapes and round curves. Their good condition is surprising given the fact that while they have been cleaned on several occasions, they have never been restored professionally.
On-street parking will not be an option for the winner.
With the presidential plane still unsold after almost a year on the market, President López Obrador has floated a new idea to offload the luxuriously-outfitted Boeing 787 Dreamliner: hold a raffle.
The National Lottery could raffle the plane off by selling six million tickets at 500 pesos (US $27) a pop, López Obrador told reporters at his regular news conference on Friday.
“That’s 3 billion pesos [US $160.6 million],” the president said, explaining that the amount raised would cover the estimated US $130-million value of the plane.
López Obrador added that the prize would include the cost of operating the Dreamliner for one or two years.
He said that rules would be put in place to prevent the winner from selling the plane for less than its value, charging that “it would be very regrettable if it was sold off cheaply.”
It’s a big plane.
Asked who came up with the raffle idea, the president declined to name names but said it originated within the government. He brushed off criticism from opposition lawmakers for not having sold the plane already, declaring that it’s not a tamal de chipilín, a corn cake prepared with the leaves of the chipilín legume.
Some opposition political parties ridiculed the raffle idea, while a lawmaker with the Institutional Revolutionary Party suggested that it should be put to use by the armed forces or health authorities.
National Action Party spokesman Juan Carlos Romero Hicks described the raffle idea as offensive to the people of Mexico and declared that López Obrador “needs to grow up.”
Later Friday, Communications and Transportation Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú told reporters in Oaxaca that he wasn’t aware of the idea to raffle the plane off, but didn’t think much of the plan. Asked whether it was feasible, he responded: “No, I don’t think so. I think that there are other, more immediate [options].”
However, by that time Twitter users had already made the raffle idea a trending topic.
The Associated Press reported that people wondered where they would park the plane if they won it and suggested that it could be used for boozy trips to the United States to watch the Super Bowl. Turning the plane into a taco restaurant was another popular idea.
Keeping the plane on the ground would certainly be a much cheaper option for any potential raffle winner – especially after the end of the one or two-year period in which López Obrador said that operational costs would be covered.
According to a report by the newspaper El Financiero, just filling the Dreamliner’s fuel tank costs 1.47 million pesos (US $78,700).
Once pilots’ salaries and storage and maintenance costs are factored in, the new owner of the plane would likely be forking out 5.23 million pesos (US $280,000) a month, the report said.
The lottery is one of five options under consideration to extract financial or material benefit from the plane, which was purchased for US $218 million in 2012 but not delivered until February 2016.
López Obrador, who takes commercial flights and has vowed never to set foot on the Dreamliner, said the other options are to sell it to a single buyer, sell it to a collective of companies, trade it to the United States for medical equipment or rent it out for US $15,000 per hour.
The president said the government received an offer of US $125 million this week but couldn’t accept it because it was below the United Nations valuation of $130 million.
Used by former president Enrique Peña Nieto for 214 domestic and international flights, the 80-seat aircraft has a full presidential suite with a bedroom and private bathroom. Reconfiguring it for commercial use, which would entail increasing the number of seats to about 300, is not financially viable, according to experts.
One doesn’t have to travel to China or even the United States to experience the dawn of the Year of the Rat next week: it can be done right here in Mexico.
Even though Mexico never attracted the numbers of Asian immigrants that the U.S. has, they have been arriving since the early colonial period and have made an impact.
Asian immigration to Mexico started with the Manila Galleons, which connected Mexico with Asia through the Spanish colony of the Philippines. Some came as free immigrants while others came as slaves.
The ethnic breakdown of this immigration is impossible to determine precisely as most Asians (then and now) are colloquially referred to as chinos (Chinese). For example, the famous dress called the china Poblana of Puebla was most likely from India.
A wave of Chinese came as guest workers in the late 19th century, when Mexico needed cheap labor to build its railroads and to develop farmlands, especially in hot, arid Baja California. This brought many Chinese, almost entirely men, to the north of the country as well as Mexico City.
A Chinese New Year costume contest takes place Sunday at the Angel of Independence monument in Mexico City.
The most famous Chinatown to appear in the north was La Chinesca in Mexicali, which still has an ethnic Chinese population of about 10,000. La Chinesca is famous for its subterranean passages that in the past not only connected opium dens and brothels but provided relief from the extremely high temperatures of the desert. It was the largest Chinatown in northern Mexico until it was recently surpassed by Tijuana, which boasts a population of about 15,000.
Both cities host cultural events related to the New Year, sponsored by local community organizations, along with the Chinese consulates. In Tijuana, these events will be based at the Centro Cultural Tijuana starting the evening of January 24. In Mexicali, there are various performances of lion and dragon dances including one in front of the Asociación China Mexicali starting at 11:00am on January 25.
Mexico City does not have the country’s largest or most visible Chinese ethnic community, but its New Year celebrations are the largest and best promoted. The historic base of Chinese identity is a neighborhood called the Barrio Chino, consisting of just two blocks on Dolores street, just south of the Alameda Central in the historic center.
In the last 10 years or so, city tourism officials have worked to make the area more attractive to visitors, adding Chinese-style decorative elements in the public spaces in and around Barrio Chino.
However, unlike Chinatowns in New York and San Francisco, don’t expect to hear people speaking Chinese or even look very Asian. This is because almost all the residents and business owners here are of mixed heritage. Chinese immigration to Mexico has been heavily restricted since the Mexican Revolution, and recent immigrants have moved mostly to areas outside the city center.
Chinese New Year celebrations are promoted heavily by the city and attract very large crowds to the very small area, as they are curious to see dancing dragons and lions. This year, Barrio Chino’s main events are on January 25, starting at 10:00am and continuing until 8:00pm.
In addition to traditional parades and fireworks in Chinatowns, the Chinese government and various Chinese cultural associations have coordinated to take advantage of annual New Year’s celebrations to promote Chinese culture and China itself.
The Chinese Embassy, along with the Centro Cultural de China en México, has organized over 40 events with 20 Mexico-based organizations. In Mexico City alone, they include a photographic exhibit at Reforma 222 (January 15 to February 2), a children’s painting and drawing contest at the Museo Nacional de las Culturas (January 16 to February 23) and China Cultural Week at the Autonomous University of Nayarit (February 7-14). Music and dance performances will be held in the capital, Tijuana and Mexicali and even more at the Confucious Institutes in Mexico City, Mérida, Monterrey and Chihuahua.
Huatulco is one of eight destinations earmarked for maintenance spending.
The National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) will spend just over 1.1 billion pesos (US $58.9 million) this year on maintenance at eight tourism destinations.
The Pacific coast resort cities of Ixtapa, Guerrero, and Huatulco, Oaxaca, will receive almost half that amount, according to a Fonatur report.
Just over 510.9 million pesos will be used to carry out roadwork, upgrade drainage and sewage systems, improve street lighting and clean up public spaces. The funds will also be used to build wastewater treatment plants in the two cities, improve irrigation networks and maintain street furniture, among other projects.
Fonatur said that 46% of its 2020 maintenance budget was going to Ixtapa and Huatulco because infrastructure is run-down in both cities, making them less attractive than other tourism destinations.
The other 54% of maintenance financing will be allocated to the Baja California Sur resort cities of Los Cabos and Loreto, Nayarit, Marina Cozumel and Cancún in Quintana Roo, and Playa Espíritu, a beach town on the southern Sinaloa coast where a new tourism project is being developed.
All eight destinations were developed by Fonatur as planned tourism projects, and the federal agency retains responsibility for their upkeep.
The two Quintana Roo destinations will get just under 254.5 million pesos to upgrade deteriorating infrastructure, while those in Baja California Sur will share 258 million pesos.
The remaining 83.7 million pesos will go to Nayarit and Playa Espíritu. Funding for the latter destination will be used to install new electricity infrastructure and build pumping stations, water canals and beach access paths.
The projects at the eight destinations will ensure that they have infrastructure in good working condition, Fonatur said, adding that tourists and residents alike will benefit from improved services.
Airports at the seven of the eight destinations saw combined passenger arrivals in excess of 33.4 million last year.
Almost 25.5 million passengers flew into Cancún in 2019, a 1.1% increase over 2018 numbers, while arrivals at the Los Cabos International Airport rose 6.9% to 5.6 million.
Airports in Loreto, Tepic, Ixtapa and Huatulco all received more passengers last year than in 2018 but arrivals declined 5.7% to just over half a million in Cozumel.
However, it wasn’t all bad news for tourism on the Caribbean sea island located off the coast of Playa del Carmen: cruise ship passengers increased 18% in 2019 to an all-time record of 1,461,778.
One of 22 houses that were set on fire in Madera, Chihuahua.
As many as 150 armed men invaded a town in the Sierra Tarahumara of Chihuahua on Thursday night, torching 22 houses and seven vehicles.
According to residents, the men arrived in Las Pomas, a community in the municipality of Madera, in a convoy of 50 vehicles.
Jesús Manuel Carrasco Chacón, head of the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office (FGE) in the state’s western region, said the men were armed with assault weapons and attacked both Las Pomas de Arriba and Las Pomas de Abajo, which are different parts of the same town.
The FGE said in a statement Friday that there were no deaths, injuries or kidnappings during the attack but Carrasco subsequently said that several people had been abducted. Residents claimed that people were also killed but the FGE official said that information had not been confirmed.
One hundred soldiers and state police were deployed to Las Pomas on Friday but they made no arrests. The FGE said that the military will remain in the area to guarantee the safety of citizens and to carry out an air and land search for the perpetrators of the attack.
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The Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels are currently engaged in a turf war over Madera and the surrounding region. A clash in Las Pomas in October left two people dead and forced the closure of schools in six Chihuahua communities amid the ongoing threat of violence.
The Juárez Cartel formerly controlled Madera, according to a report by the news magazine Proceso, but a cell of the Sinaloa Cartel led by Francisco “El Jaguar” Arvizu launched a campaign to seize the municipality in 2017.
Chihuahua authorities said Friday that it was unclear who had carried out Thursday night’s arson attack. However, the newspaper La Jornada reported Saturday that it appeared that the perpetrators were members of La Línea, a criminal gang with links to the Juárez Cartel.
Federal authorities allege that the gang is responsible for the November 4 massacre of three women and six children belonging to a Mexican-American Mormon family. The attack occurred in Bavispe, a northeastern municipality of Sonora that borders Chihuahua.
