A farmer shows off his long corn cobs in Jala, Nayarit.
The grower of the world’s largest corn cob is farmer Jesús Nazario Elías Moctezuma, who won the annual corn cob competition in Jala, Nayarit, in December.
The winning cob measured 39.5 centimeters long, beating out the next largest by only a half centimeter.
In addition to the contest, the event hosted a gastronomical exhibition in which the star of the show was the grain that has been a staple of the Mexican diet since long before the arrival of the Spanish.
The executive director of the Mexican Corn Tortilla Foundation, Rafael Mier, said the competition is an initiative for promoting production and distribution of the large species of corn, as lack of demand threatens its existence.
“This [species] produces an excellent corn that can be used to make atoles, tortillas, sopes, tlacoyos and even pozole, among other suggestions,” he said, adding that local authorities are working to recuperate the species.
“A number of organizations have united to achieve this, such as the National Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research Institute (INIFAP), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Mexican Corn Tortilla Foundation,” he said.
The 2016 winner with 45-centimeter cobs.
Mier has worked to save a number of endangered corn species, such as his 2016 campaign to save the Toluqeño palomero strain, which is used to make popcorn.
Studies by the Mexican Biodiversity Commission (Conabio) have shown that the maize species produced in Jala is characterized by its long lifecycle, height of the plant and above all the size of its cob, considered to be the biggest in the world.
The plants grow as tall as four to five meters and produce cobs longer than 30 centimeters on average, while some as long as 60 centimeters have been reported.
The species is grown elsewhere in Nayarit and in neighboring states like Jalisco and Sinaloa, but does not grow as large in those places as it does in Jala, which winner Elías Moctzezuma praised for the fertility of its soil.
Macolm Madsen was last seen in Puerto Vallarta in October 2018.
Justice appears unlikely in the case of a Canadian man who disappeared in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, more than a year ago despite the best efforts of his daughter to assist Mexican authorities.
Malcolm Madsen, a 68-year-old snowbird from Sutton, Ontario, who spent winters living in a treehouse on the Jalisco coast, was last seen on the night of Saturday October 27, 2018, in the Ándale restaurant and bar in Puerto Vallarta.
Security footage filmed inside the bar shows Madsen sitting at a table with a woman who his daughter Brooke Mullins identifies as his 43-year-old Mexican girlfriend, Marcela Acosta Ramos.
The footage shows Madsen leaving the table at one point and in his absence, the woman believed to be Acosta is seen preparing a substance that she would soon put into his drink. After Madsen returns, the couple are seen in close conversation before the woman opens her fist and drops what appears to be a powder into his margarita glass. She then stirs the drink with a straw.
Edited and condensed footage posted online by the newspaper Toronto Star shows Madsen sipping from his glass nine times in a 13-minute period before the woman repeatedly stops him from drinking more by pulling the straw away from his mouth.
Madsen and his girlfriend, Marcela Acosta.
Footage also shows Madsen and the woman leaving the bar together. The Canadian was never seen again.
On November 1, 2018 – five days after the disappearance – Brooke Mullins received a Facebook message from a friend of her father who said that he couldn’t reach him at Los Chonchos, a beach town south of Vallarta where Madsen lived when in Mexico.
Mullins tried to contact her father by calling him and sending messages to his cell phone and Facebook account. However, all her attempts to get in touch went unanswered.
Mullins told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that she was not initially worried because she knew her father had poor internet and phone reception.
However, after hearing from friends and neighbors a few days later that Madsen hadn’t been seen at his home all week, the situation became one of “full panic,” she said. Her father was reported as missing but local police didn’t appear to take the case seriously, Mullins said.
“They thought maybe he wandered off or was taking a break from his life,” she said. “They were not interested at all.”
Mullins told the CBC that she was informed by Canadian authorities that there was little they could do because the investigation fell under Mexican jurisdiction.
“I’m not satisfied with the help I received from Canada, and I’ve spoken to everyone you could possibly imagine,” she said in a December interview. “I am not content with the way the Mexican government has dealt with this. I do not feel like anyone is interested or cares.”
Frustrated by the apparent police inaction after her father was reported missing, Mullins traveled to Jalisco in November 2018 to see what she could discover for herself.
A week after her father was last seen at the Ándale bar, the Ontario woman said the bar owner allowed her, her lawyer and a few of Madsen’s friends to review the security footage. Mullins said she “felt physically ill” after watching the video in which her father’s drink appears to be spiked. “There was that physical reaction of realizing how serious this really was.”
Mullins said she took the footage to police but an officer accused her of “doctoring” it.
By accessing GPS coordinates sent to her father’s email account, Mullins also discovered that Madsen’s Toyota van had traveled to several different locations on October 27 and 28, 2018.
What happened to Malcom Madsen? Watch shocking last known footage before he disappeared
She said the data – automatically sent to her father’s email address by GPS provider Trackimo – shows that Madsen’s van went to a shopping mall early in the evening of October 27, a remote jungle-like area north of Puerto Vallarta three hours later and a marina in the early hours of October 28 before returning to Acosta’s home.
The data is at odds with a statement Acosta reportedly made to police that the van had been in her garage all night. Mullins said that Acosta also told police that she and Madsen left the Ándale bar early because Madsen was drunk. Acosta claimed that she and Madsen slept at his home in Los Chonchos and that the next morning, he got up, packed his bags and left never to be seen again.
Along with the bar footage, Mullins took the GPS evidence to police believing that it would help them solve the case.
“I honestly felt like I was almost divinely guided. I just thought I had everything. You know, I thought how could they not see how damning this is and get involved?” she told CBC.
However, Jalisco authorities failed to make any progress in the case and there have been no arrests, the news website Vallarta Uno reported on January 10. The website said that Marcela Acosta contradicted herself about the last time she saw Madsen in a statement to the Jalisco Attorney General’s Office but noted that neither she, nor anyone else, faces charges.
Vallarta Uno also revealed that Mullins submitted a series of emails to police that provided an insight into the relationship between Madsen and Acosta. The latter would frequently ask Madsen for money and to buy cars and real estate for her, the website said.
In July 2018, Acosta sent an email to Madsen (who was in Canada at the time) to tell him that she, her mother and her son were sick and for that she reason she needed to continue withdrawing money using a bank card he had given her. Madsen reportedly responded that he had no problem with her withdrawing money when she needed to.
In other emails, Acosta asked Madsen to buy a house for her in Vallarta so that she could rent it out, threatened to withdraw all the money from his account and accused him of giving her a disease. Madsen told Acosta that he was going to buy her a restaurant but turned down her request to purchase a house in Vallarta, telling his girlfriend that she could rent out his property in Los Chonchos and keep the revenue it generated.
In addition, Vallarta Uno said that lawyers hired by Mullins discovered that Madsen made a call on October 27 to a man named Gabriel who operated a water taxi that the Canadian would use to travel between Vallarta and Los Chonchos. It is the last known call that the Canadian man made.
Although there have been no arrests, Vallarta Uno said there are a number of suspects in the case including Acosta’s son and brother, who may have been driving Madsen’s van on the night of his disappearance.
However, with little progress having been made, Mullins stood before a court in Ontario in late November to ask for her father to be declared dead. The court upheld the request.
Mullins and her lawyers hope that authorities in both Mexico and Canada will treat a suspicious death more seriously than a missing person case, CBC reported.
“It was very hard,” Mullins said, referring to her decision to ask the court to declare that her father was dead. “I’ve been holding on to that 15% still that he might be alive somewhere out there being held . . . But I do know he’s gone.”
An artisan works on one of the pieces of whimsical folk art.
The government of Oaxaca is taking legal action to protect the colorful artisanal wooden figurines called alebrijes from plagiarism and piracy by Chinese producers.
Oaxaca Economy Secretary Juan Pablo Guzmán said that a request has been sent to the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) to enforce a protection order for the folk art.
The registration called geographical indication will safeguard the Oaxacan heritage from inauthentic imitations.
“The IMPI has received the project sent by the government of Oaxaca for geographical indication for alebrijes, by which the wooden figurines carved by artisans would be protected at the national and international levels so that they won’t be subject to plagiarism and piracy,” he said.
The legal instrument will bring artisans better remuneration and worldwide prestige for their work, which will be protected and recognized across the globe, Guzmán said.
The government is working to protect textiles and the red and black clay pottery styles unique to the state in the same way, so that they also receive industrial protection from the IMPI.
“In Oaxaca artisans face problems such as competition from foreign products, primarily Chinese ones that are sold at lower prices and put them at a disadvantage, but also the fact that some foreigners take the models of the folk art and pirate them,” he said.
He added that the protection protocol aims to help with the production and commercialization of artisanal products, as well as advise artisans on intellectual property issues so that their creations and ideas are not stolen by others.
The daycare where children contracted food poisoning.
As many as 70 young children suffered food poisoning at an IMSS daycare in Guadalajara, Jalisco, on Tuesday.
They are believed to have taken ill after eating tainted panela cheese they were served at lunch at the daycare, operated by the Mexican health service.
Showing severe symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, the children ranging in age from a few months to 4 years old were taken to several IMSS clinics in the city but were later reported to be in stable condition.
IMSS authorities have come under fire for allegedly attempting to keep the incident quiet by hiding information from firefighters sent to the school and using the institute’s own ambulances to transport the children, instead of involving organizations such as the Red Cross and the Guadalajara Green Cross health service.
But the institute emphasized that it followed emergency medical protocols with regard to the detection of symptoms, provision of medical services, notification of parents and the transportation of the children to medical facilities.
Not all of the affected children showed symptoms severe enough to require emergency medical care, and some parents were called to come pick them up at the daycare.
“My daughter was not taken to the emergency room, but they’re telling me she has diarrhea, so I’ll have to take her to the doctor,” said Nancy Barraza, a mother of children in the institute’s care.
IMSS authorities said that an investigation into possible negligence is being conducted and that it will take disciplinary measures if necessary.
Senator Gómez Urrutia, financially successful union leader.
Like father, like son: mining union boss and ruling party Senator Napoleón Gómez Urrutia has amassed a fortune during a controversial career that included 12 years in self-exile in Canada after he was accused of embezzling US $55 million.
Now, son Napoleón Gómez Casso and his accumulation of wealth are in the spotlight after a report by W Radio journalist Carlos Loret de Mola revealed that he is the founder of two companies that appear to be in a prime position to take advantage of decisions made by his father in the Senate.
The report, entitled Emperor Napoleón and prepared by journalists Arelí Quintero y Miguel Castillo Chávez in collaboration with W Radio, details some of the dealings of both men and calls into question the legitimacy of the wealth they have acquired.
Despite having never worked as a miner, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia inherited the leadership of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers in 2001 after the death of his father Napoleón Gómez Sada, commonly known as Napo, who was at the helm of the union for 40 years.
Five years later – amid the 2006 Pasta de Conchos mine disaster in Coahuila in which 65 miners lost their lives – the government of then-president Vicente Fox launched an investigation into Gómez Urrutia, known as Napito, after 20,000 workers accused him of embezzling US $55 million from the union.
The Fox administration withdrew its recognition of Gómez Urrutia as union leader and Napito subsequently packed his bags and departed for Canada. However, the move didn’t put an end to his union leadership: while living in Vancouver, Gómez Urrutia continued to direct the union and was re-elected as president and secretary general twice.
Loret de Mola reported that despite being a union leader all his life, Napito and his and family have acquired multimillion-dollar assets both in Mexico and abroad. Gómez Urrutia continues to live a life “full of luxuries,” the report said.
Just months after he inherited the leadership of the mining union, Napito purchased a home in the upmarket Mexico City neighborhood of Lomas de Chapultepec for US $1.3 million, Loret de Mola said.
In 2015, Gómez Urrutia sold another Mexico City home located in the Florida neighborhood to a company owned by him and his son, Alejandro Gómez Casso.
The house was estimated to be worth 30 million pesos (US $1.6 million at today’s exchange rate) but was sold to the company Napale for just 2.8 million pesos, Loret de Mola said, a figure less than one-tenth its real value.
Gómez Urrutia also owns a colonial-style home in the town of Tepoztlán, Morelos, valued at about 60 million pesos and his wife, Oralia Casso Valdéz, purchased an apartment in Vancouver for almost CAD $2 million, or about US $1.5 million.
The senator’s 60-million-peso home in Morelos.
Loret de Mola said he has public records that show that the total value of the real estate owned by Napito and his wife is approximately 150 million pesos (US $8 million).
He also said he had obtained proof that Casso Valdéz is a frequent shopper at high-end department stores including Harrods in England, Saks Fifth Avenue in the United States and Holt Renfrew in Canada.
After Gómez Urrutia had been at the helm of the mining union for 17 years, and while he was still in Canada, an interesting political opportunity came his way. The septuagenarian was chosen by the now-ruling Morena party to stand as a plurinominal, or proportional representation, Senate candidate in the 2018 election.
With Mexicans supporting Morena and its presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador in their tens of millions, Gómez Urrutia had no problem securing a seat in the upper house. He returned to Mexico in late August 2018 to take up his position without fear of arrest on embezzlement charges because his new role afforded him immunity from prosecution.
President López Obrador, as well as many labor organizations around the world, has said that Gómez Urrutia was unfairly persecuted by past governments for political reasons.
The union leader is now “one of the most powerful figures in the Mexican Senate,” Loret de Mola said, adding that the federal government has designated him the “spearhead of new unionism.”
Almost a year ago, Gómez Urrutia presented a new labor federation he founded that unites 150 unions and is seen as pro-government. The International Confederation of Workers will fight for the rights of a labor movement that was oppressed by past “neoliberal governments,” he said when presenting the umbrella organization in February 2019.
Since becoming a senator, Gómez Urrutia has also been a member of the upper house’s mining and energy committees, memberships that his son appears to be trying to exploit.
Loret de Mola reported that just two months after his father was sworn in as a senator, Napoleón Gómez Casso created his own mining company called Exploraciones Rhino.
Gómez Casso began business maneuverings that appear designed to benefit from Gómez Urrutia’s position in the government just five days after López Obrador won the July 1, 2018 election in a landslide that swept Napito into the Senate.
On July 6, 2018, Gómez Casso created a company called Abstract Energy Holding, Loret de Mola said, adding that it was registered as a solar panel and energy generation firm. The company, 98.5% of which is owned by Napoleón Jr, is a shareholder of Exploraciones Rhino, the report said.
Loret de Mola pointed out that in the space of just four months after López Obrador’s victory at the 2018 election, Gómez Casso created two companies in two industries that his father could influence by developing new laws or modifying existing ones.
Under the subheading The Crown Prince, Loret de Mola said that Polo, as Napoléon Jr. is known to his friends, has long used social media to show off his wealth to the world.
At the age of just 21 in 2009, Gómez Casso purchased a home in San Antonio, Texas. By the age of 32, Polo had publicly boasted about the ownership of at least 31 cars, some of which were expensive racing or luxury models, seven motorcycles, two quad-bikes and six high-performance bicycles.
He frequently speaks of his purchases of luxury cars and his experiences driving them in online forums and even set up a YouTube channel to show off his assets, Loret de Mola said, adding that the channel has recently been set to private.
Among Gómez Casso’s purchases are cars made by Audi, Mercedes Benz, BMW and Porsche and Ducati motorcycles.
In a separate piece published today by the newspaper El Universal, Loret de Mola encapsulated the position that Senator Gómez Urrutia now finds himself in.
“With the inheritance of a union from his father and the business dynamic of his son, Senator Napito completes the trifecta: union power, political power, economic power.”
The first big school shooting — Columbine — happened in 1999, the year I was a senior in high school. It was blamed on all manner of things: Marilyn Manson, violent video games, absent or clueless parents, the lack of mental healthcare.
Notably, many scoffed at the idea that the prevalence of guns might be even partly to blame, or that the country’s own habit of killing its enemies might influence people’s feelings of justification for violence.
Learning about a school shooting is always sad, but it’s especially shocking when it happens where you don’t expect it: not just a school in Mexico, but a private school in Mexico.
I’ll expose my own prejudice here and admit that I was especially surprised that this took place at a private school made up of mostly well-off students. I think many would have expected something like this at a public school, a place, perhaps, with more seemingly “troubled” students.
But wealth and privilege don’t necessarily buy mental health, and sometimes the combination of above-average access to all manner of resources and freedom with private suffering can lead to tragedy.
I’m familiar with this kind of school: I worked at one for five years. The students were mostly the children of successful business people, industry leaders and politicians. My first year there, I had a student that I liked a lot but who, some days, seemed visibly troubled. He was bigger than most of his classmates, and stranger, and was no doubt picked on away from the eyes of the teachers.
One day as I was circling the room, I saw him showing a hammer in his backpack to another student. He then took it out and pretended to hit someone with it. I told him to put it away and notified the administration and the on-site psychologists, who called his parents right away. It wasn’t a gun, but it very well might have been a weapon.
I’ve written here about guns before, and reflected on how strange it was that with such violence in the country, there was such a shortage of American-style mass shootings. I hypothesized that the generally higher sense of social cohesion in Mexico might be partly to thank.
I don’t think there’s any one cause to what happened. I don’t think it was video games. I don’t think it was an admiring emulation of the country’s narcos. This kid had obviously been suffering, and needed help, and didn’t get it when he needed it.
I don’t blame his caretakers (with the information we have so far, at least) or the school. Indeed, we still don’t know a lot about his young life. But I do believe we should take this as a wakeup call, not just for ensuring that weapons don’t make their way into our schools, but that all children know they have a trusted adult they can turn to in the places where they spend most of their time.
I also don’t think “technology” is the cause, but I do believe that a growing obsession (along with the rest of the world) with personalized, single-user devices has made some of that social and civic cohesion that Mexico is famous for — that way of paying close attention to each other — fade. It’s not that we mean to ignore each other, least of all our children; it’s that these now essential devices are very specifically designed to demand our attention as much as possible.
There’s a reason that so many tech executives send their children to luddite schools and keep hand-held screens out of their homes and their children’s pockets.
Paying attention to people is hard, and sometimes boring, and increasingly awkward as we become more accustomed to interacting with typed words and emojis instead.
We don’t know a lot about this child. We know that he seemed to be fine on the surface. We know that he lived with his grandparents, having lost his mother a few years earlier. Strangely, nothing has really been said about the father, who presumably was absent from the start.
Would anything have been able to stop it? Certainly the backpack checks on the way into school that were rejected earlier in the school year would have, but that doesn’t get to the root of the problem. What was this child going through? Would anything have been able to help him as an individual? How many others like him are there?
The truth is that mental illness is easy enough to keep secret, especially in our distracted world. We need to make sure that every child has an adult that they can count on.
Mass shootings aren’t easy to predict, but the need for emotional and mental support is.
Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz.
Please don't pee on the escalators, Metro authorities ask.
Fully one-quarter of escalator breakdowns on the Mexico City Metro are caused by people urinating on them, according to authorities.
The deputy manager of mechanical installations, Fermín Rafael Ramírez Alonso, said that Tacubaya and Chabacano are among the stations most affected.
Ramírez urged users not to urinate on escalators or other Metro installations, because of the damage it causes.
He said that other causes for breakdowns include excessively heavy loads, running on the stairs, imbalance on the stairs and objects falling between them.
“There are even users who cut the stairs with knives or other sharp objects, of which we have examples in Tacubaya,” he said.
The Metro will spend 270 million pesos (US $14.3-million) to repair 55 escalators — 25 by the end of 2020 and 30 more by the end of 2021.
Of these, 13 are in the Tacubaya station. They are the most structurally complex in the system and are already undergoing repairs.
Ramírez said the 55 escalators to be repaired this year are located on Lines 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9, and all have been in service well past their suggested lifespans.
“On Lines 4, 3 and 7 there are 49 escalators that are 31 to 38 years old. Grupo Comet [Engineering Services] recommends that the lifetimes of the escalators be no more than 20 years,” he said.
He said that in previous years there were only two companies contracted to maintain the escalators, but now there are five.
The transit system announced in March last year that the organization would begin checking all escalators over 33 years old in order to avoid accidents after eight people were injured on an escalator in the Mixcoac station on Line 5.
The Boeing 787 has been valued at US $130 million, but the state development bank is owed more than that for its initial purchase.
The presidential plane is coming back to Mexico after failing to sell during the nine months it spent in a hangar in the United States.
The general director of state development bank Banobras, which purchased the Boeing 787 Dreamliner for US $218 million in 2012, told reporters at the presidential press conference that the plane will return to Mexico from the Southern California Logistics Airport in the coming days.
“We’re going to relaunch the effort [to sell it] and the Mexican government has decided that the plane will return to Mexican territory,” Jorge Mendoza Sánchez said, explaining that it will be put on display at an upcoming government auction.
Once in Mexico, the plane will be housed in the old presidential hangar at the Mexico City airport and maintained by the Secretariat of National Defense.
Since the plane was relocated to the United States, 42 potential buyers have been identified, 12 expressed interest in purchasing the plane and six made offers, two of which were above its estimated value, Mendoza said.
Plenty of leg room here.
However, a sale never occurred and all the while maintenance and storage costs continued to add up.
Air Force Commander Manuel de Jesús Hernández said that keeping the plane in California had cost the government 28 million pesos (US $1.5 million).
For his part, President López Obrador revealed that he offered the plane to the United States government in exchange for payment in kind with ambulances and medical equipment. However, there was no response from U.S. authorities, he said.
The president said that once the plane is back in Mexico, the government will look at three different options to recover part of its initial cost: continue with the effort to sell it to a single buyer, try to sell it to a collective of up to 12 purchasers or rent it.
López Obrador said the government has already entered into talks with some business owners with a view to selling the plane before reaffirming his commitment to not use it himself (since taking office, the president has only taken commercial flights).
However, Mendoza said the government still owes Banobras 2.7 billion pesos (US $143.7 million) for the purchase of the plane, meaning that even if it sells for its estimated worth, the revenue will not cover the debt with the state development bank.
Photos of aircraft that will be sold were exhibited at Tuesday's press conference.
President López Obrador announced that the government will auction off 19 airplanes and nine helicopters belonging to seven government departments in an open call for bids that will close on January 31.
“Luxury airplanes that have nothing to do with the reality of poverty that exists in our country [are] a reflection, an expression of how there were two worlds: that of the people and that of the governing class, two distinct spheres,” he said in his morning conference on Tuesday.
“The government employees thought themselves kings; they were like a creole monarchy and they lived lives of luxuries and privileges. That’s why we’ve decided to sell these planes,” he said.
He said that only airplanes and helicopters that serve the public, such as air ambulances and military planes, will remain in government service, “but not [those] for transporting government employees, because they abused them, they used planes to go play golf.”
The head of the state development bank Banobras, Jorge Mendoza, said Tuesday that the 28 planes and helicopters are just the first set of government aircraft that will be auctioned off. He said that there will be 72 in total — 33 planes and 39 helicopters — belonging to eight government departments.
The 28 planes and helicopters up for bidding in January were used by departments such as the National Water Commission (Conagua), the state oil company Pemex and the Secretariat of Communication and Transportation (SCT).
“The process will be divided into two stages: the first begins today [and] concludes on January 31; the second stage begins on February 19, when interested parties will be invited on the part of authorities, and the final ruling will be announced on February 27,” Mendoza said on Tuesday.
He said the government is hoping to recuperate 2.5 billion pesos (US $133 million) through the sale of the aircraft and added that the United Nations will watch over the proceedings to ensure transparency and that they aren’t sold off at low prices.
Justice for the massacre of nine members of a Mormon family in Sonora in November will serve as an example that crime committed during the administration of the current government will be punished, President López Obrador said on Sunday.
Speaking to residents of the small Mormon community of La Mora after meeting with the family members of the victims of the November 4 attack, López Obrador said that his government’s first goal is to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice.
The investigation “is progressing and there will be justice,” López Obrador said.
The president said he had agreed to meet again with the victims’ family members in two months and that he would subsequently return to Bavispe, the Sonora municipality where the massacre occurred, to present a plan for regional development, including road improvements.
“We’re going to return because a proposition has been made . . . Firstly, justice – those responsible must be punished, there must be no impunity, [this case] must be an example of he who commits a crime is punished,” López Obrador said.
“. . . We’re going to continue meeting so that these unfortunate events are not forgotten . . . I, as president of Mexico, would like to be . . . with all the families of victims, all those who suffer in Mexico due to insecurity and violence.”
The president also said that a monument will be erected to commemorate the lives of the nine dual United States-Mexican citizens – three women and six children – who lost their lives when the vehicles in which they were traveling on a remote dirt road outside La Mora were ambushed.
An agreement had been reached with municipal and Sonora authorities to put up a monument “where these lamentable and painful events took place,” López Obrador said, adding that it will also recognize those who risked their lives to help the victims and survivors of the attack.
“So that we exalt this, the true solidarity: he who is willing to give his life for another,” he said.
In addition, the president reiterated his commitment to combat insecurity by addressing the root causes of violence – such as poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity – rather than by using force against criminal groups, a strategy that failed to curb violence during the two previous governments led by Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto.
“We have to achieve the pacification of Mexico, not like . . . in other times just with the use of force. Now there is a new way that I think will yield results . . .nobody is bad from birth,” López Obrador said.
Loretta Miller, grandmother of four of the children who were killed, said that she was happy with the outcome of the meeting with López Obrador but Julian LeBarón, a relative of the victims and an anti-violence activist, called for an investigation into authorities in Chihuahua, asserting that there are state police that are involved in criminal activities.
“. . . What’s happening with the police that turn their weapons at the community and murder women and children? This is the extent of the problem,” he said.
