The country could use a few more judges, report suggests.
Mexico’s deficiencies in security and justice coupled with high levels of corruption have landed the country in 60th place on the 2020 Global Impunity Index (GII).
The index measures systems of security, justice, the protection of human rights and structural capacity to come up with its ranking.
Authored by researchers at Puebla’s University of the Americas, the index rates 69 countries with the highest impunity worldwide. The only countries with higher impunity rates than Mexico are Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Guyana, Paraguay, Azerbaijan, Algeria, Morocco, Honduras and Thailand.
In the last report, compiled in 2017, Mexico ranked 66th out of 69 countries, while in the 2015 report it ranked 58th out of 59. But that doesn’t mean that Mexico is getting better, it actually means that the rest of the world is getting worse, researchers say. The improvement in position this year is “the result of changes in the position of other countries, rather than the implementation of effective actions to strengthen the rule of law and guarantee access to justice or protect human rights,” the report says.
One concrete step that Mexico needs to take is to increase the number of judges, the report concludes, which would help improve justice administration capacity. The IGI found that of the countries surveyed, the global average is 17.83 judges per 100,000 people. Mexico has just 2.17 judges per 100,000. The country with the least impunity, Slovenia, has 42.77 judges per 100,000.
And although Mexico has a high number of police officers compared to other countries with 347.76 police officers per 100,000 inhabitants, more officers does not translate into effective policing.
Police and justice system budgets need to be dramatically increased in order to improve both infrastructure and professionalism, the IGI found.
Presidents López Obrador inherited high levels of crime and corruption, the report says, and penal reforms have depressurized Mexican prisons, but they lose effectiveness when not coupled with a solid justice and public safety system.
On the positive side, the report praises Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit, which investigates financial crimes.
The countries with the lowest rates of impunity are Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sweden.
Data used in the study was compiled in 2018 and 2019.
More than 1,000 indigenous Tzotzil people have been forced to flee their homes due to violent attacks in Aldama and Chenalhó, Chiapas.
Men, women, children and the elderly have sought shelter this week due to renewed violence over a long-disputed, 60-hectare plot of land. Some have set up camps in the mountains to escape the gunfire while others are sheltering in sports stadiums or in private homes.
Adama’s conflict is with an armed group from Chenalhó that has continued for more than four decades. In October 2017, more than 5,000 Tzotzil people took refuge in 11 different camps without access to toilets or running water while the government did nothing to intervene, according to the National Human Rights Commission.
Yesterday, a contingent of 200 National Guard and state police officers were dispatched to the area to prevent violence after one man was killed and another injured in the exchange of gunfire, with each side of the conflict accusing the other of armed attacks.
Gunfire drove 80-year-old Adama resident María Méndez Ruiz to flee with other families to a house in the mountain town of Chivic, but her husband, Mariano Jiménez, 81, could not join her as his health is too frail. She fears he may die as he has nothing to eat.
More than 15 families, mostly women nursing infants, have taken refuge in a 20-square-meter house where they lack food and clothing. Some are also sick with colds.
Rosa Jiménez, who lives near the border with Chenalhó, fled to protect her five children: “Almost all night there are shots and the children are scared. I had to flee to find a safe area. In the mountains we are cold, there is a lot of suffering,” she said.
High-caliber gunfire forced Doña Julia López, her husband, daughter and her two grandchildren to leave their home, and they can still hear shots ring out from where they are sheltered. “We cannot spend the night quietly with our children, we are quite scared,” she told El Universal through tears.
Mariana, another of the displaced women, called on President López Obrador to intervene on behalf of the Tzotzil people, especially for the children who are suffering and have nothing to eat.
On July 30, Chenalhó and Aldama officials ratified a non-aggression pact but have chosen not to respect its terms. Fighting between the two communities resumed last week and is intensifying.
On Wednesday morning residents of Chenalhó took the body of the man who was killed to the state government building in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. They placed his coffin mounted on a stretcher alongside banners calling for justice for the 20 people they claim Aldama residents have murdered since the conflict between the communities began.
State Government Secretary Ismael Brito Mazariegos asserts that the government continues to maintain “a serious and responsible dialogue with both parties” as it searches for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Yesterday, a group of armed men wearing masks and dressed in military fatigues and carrying assault rifles released a video demanding the release of two Chenalhó leaders who were detained last year. “The state government wants to pass our legitimate territorial right from Santa Martha to Aldama, and through political means it wants to fix this problem,” a man told the camera. “We know well that it won’t be solved through political means but through legal means, justice and equity.”
Calderón: president not interested in justice; 'he wants a lynching.'
Former president Felipe Calderón has accused President López Obrador of using ex-Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya as an “instrument of revenge and political persecution” after the erstwhile state oil company chief accused him of acting corruptly while in office.
His claim came after the leaking to media outlets on Wednesday of a document submitted to the federal Attorney General’s Office in which Lozoya – currently awaiting trial on corruption charges – accused him, former presidents Enrique Peña Nieto and Carlos Salinas Gortari and several other former officials of illicit conduct related to government dealings with the Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht.
Calderón, who Lozoya accused of approving the sale of ethane to an Odebrecht subsidiary at a heavily discounted price, wrote on Twittter:
“The illegal and showy management of the [Lozoya] case confirms that Lozoya (with the blackmail of having his mother imprisoned) is used by López Obrador as an instrument of revenge and political persecution. He’s not interested in justice but rather lynching [by] making ridiculous accusations” against me.
The president said last Friday that he had forgiven Calderón for “stealing” the presidency at the 2006 election but the long-standing acrimonious relationship between the two men doesn’t appear likely to warm any time soon.
Ricardo Anaya, a former National Action Party (PAN) lawmaker who was the party’s candidate in the 2018 presidential election, also spoke out after it came to light that Lozoya had accused him of receiving a 6.8-million-peso (US $306,500 at today’s exchange rate) bribe in exchange for supporting the former government’s 2013-14 structural reforms, including the controversial energy reform that ended a 75-year state monopoly in the sector.
In a video message, Anaya described the accusation against him as “completely false” and “truly absurd.”
He noted that Lozoya accused him of receiving the bribe money in the carpark of the Chamber of Deputies in August 2014 but highlighted that he wasn’t even a deputy at that time.
“In addition to being corrupt, Lozoya is very bad at lying,” Anaya said.
The former PAN lawmaker, who also served as the party’s national president between 2015 and 2017, said he would initiate legal action against Lozoya for “moral damage.”
“I’ll do it because I am certain that there is no support at all for the vile lie that Lozoya has invented against me,” he said. “I don’t care how long it takes me; I will defend my honor and continue fighting to change Mexico.”
Querátaro Governor Francisco Domínguez and his Tamaulipas counterpart Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, both former PAN senators, also rejected Lozoya’s claim that they received bribes in exchange for supporting the previous government’s reforms.
Domínguez described Lozoya’s accusation as an “unprecedented vile deed” and “libel,” and asserted that the words of a “confessed criminal” cannot be trusted.
Speaking alongside López Obrador at a press conference Wednesday, the governor distanced himself from the actions of his personal secretary, whom he fired on Monday after a video surfaced showing him accepting 2.4 million pesos in cash when he was a Senate official.
“I removed him from his position, … for my part, I don’t have anything to fear, nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide. In my life I have always faced up [to accusations against me], today won’t be an exception,” Domínguez said, pointing out that he was a supporter of energy reform long before the previous government’s presented its initiative.
“Mr. Emilio Lozoya has sought to involve me … in acts of corruption. He has only provided words which are worth as much as his standing – nothing.”
García Cabeza de Vaca of Tamaulipas wrote on Twitter: “I will not allow them to use me for electoral purposes nor to hide the country’s serious problems. I will respond with resolve to the lies of the confessed criminal Lozoya.”
The pumping station that was shut down in protest by Yaquis.
Members of the Yaqui tribe closed the Rio Yaqui aqueduct in Sonora for 12 hours Tuesday night, leaving 80% of Guaymas and neighboring Empalme without water.
As a result, Sonora’s Water Commission (CEA) announced it would file a complaint against whoever was responsible, and that it considers leaving thousands without water during a health emergency a criminal act.
CEA executive Sergio Ávila Ceceña said protesters arrived at a pumping station number two, turned off the water and then relinquished control of the station in the morning without incident.
“We don’t have the authority to remove anyone, much less by force, nor do we have the faculty or the capacity to do so,” Ávila said. “As of now, we do not have names. Obviously the people who arrived did not identify themselves with a voter ID, they only stated that they came from of the Yaqui ethnic group,” he explained.
Water supply to Guaymas and Empalme is gradually being restored, officials said.
Yaqui tribal leaders were looking to pressure Guaymas Mayor Sara Valle Dessens to intervene in their dispute with the federal government as they seek compensation for ceding tribal land for the construction of various infrastructure projects.
They are also seeking to force the federal government to fulfill social development commitments for its eight Yaqui towns: Cócorit, Bácum, Vícam, Pótam, Tórim, Huírivis, Ráhum and Belem.
Last week protesters blocked federal Highway 15 and railway tracks in Sonora, stranding 2,176 rail cars.
Adelfo Regino Montes, head of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, was sent to Sonora by President López Obrador to negotiate with the Yaquis, who have demanded the presence of Sonora Governor Claudia Pavlovich Arellano and Mayor Valle at talks.
Powerful leaders are fond of corruption investigations as a method for eliminating rivals. Instead of low political score-settling, they suggest an appeal to the moral high ground. Think of Xi Jinping’s sweeping purges. Or Vladimir Putin’s imprisonment of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s top oligarch, on fraud and tax charges.
Mexico’s populist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, appears to have taken a leaf from their book. Like Messrs Xi and Putin in the early days, he has made the campaign against corruption a signature theme, and the main targets have been political opponents.
In his boldest move to date, López Obrador has called upon two former presidents from opposition parties, Enrique Peña Nieto and Felipe Calderón, to testify in a scandal over alleged bribes paid by the state oil company Pemex. Emilio Lozoya, a former Pemex chief executive facing charges of money laundering, is cooperating with prosecutors. Almost daily, salacious leaks from what is said to be his testimony fill the Mexican press.
Let there be no mistake: a clean-up of Mexico’s political system is long overdue. For decades, corrupt politicians of all stripes have accumulated great wealth by milking a system that is rotten even by the low standards of the region. Transparency International’s annual corruption perceptions index ranks OECD nation Mexico in 130th place, tied with Mali and Myanmar.
But the way in which López Obrador has pursued his anti-corruption crusade has raised multiple red flags. Testimony from a confidential investigation is drip fed to the media almost daily, conveniently offering the president an opportunity to comment on a process that should be sub judice. The most explosive allegations so far compromise opposition politicians, while evidence of corruption within López Obrador’s government has gone mostly unpunished.
Manuel Bartlett, the powerful head of the state electricity company, denied accumulating a string of undeclared properties. He was exonerated in a probe conducted by a minister who was herself accused of accepting a plot of land from the city government and acquiring several properties while on an academic’s salary. (She denies wrongdoing).
The timing of the Pemex case is fortuitous. López Obrador’s opinion poll ratings were slipping, hurt by his disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic and by one of the emerging market world’s worst recessions. Voters in next year’s midterm elections threaten to rob him of his congressional majority.
“The priority right now is to distract from what is going on in the country, which is all very negative,” said Andrés Rozental, a former deputy foreign minister and now senior adviser at a non-governmental organization in the U.K. “It’s a circus for the people.”
So far, the strategy seems to be working. López Obrador’s popularity has begun to pick up as the Lozoya allegations knock the world’s third-highest coronavirus death toll off the front pages. The opposition is in disarray: a leading conservative governor has dismissed his private secretary after the man appeared in a video purporting to show him counting bundles of Pemex cash.
Calderón has not commented directly on the allegations but has accused López Obrador of waging a campaign of political persecution against him. Peña Nieto has not spoken publicly.
But improving his ratings and keeping his majority are not enough for López Obrador. His real aim is to remake Mexico, sweeping away the free-market, pro-business policies of the past four decades and replacing them with a vision of state-led development from the 1960s, epitomized by a reinvigorated Pemex.
“López Obrador’s political agenda is clear: he will go after the period of Mexican history he considers an aberration,” said Thomas Shannon, a former top U.S. state department official who is now co-chair of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington.
Key to this agenda is a reversal of the historic reforms passed under Peña Nieto, which opened oil exploration to foreign investment and weakened the hold of the powerful teachers’ union over hiring. If López Obrador can show that bribes greased the passage of the reforms, he can destroy their legitimacy.
“He wants to totally discredit the energy reforms and the education reforms,” said Raymundo Riva Palacio, a leading Mexican political commentator, of the Pemex corruption probe. “This is totally political.”
Former presidents, from left, Salinas, Calderón and Peña Nieto.
In a document submitted to the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) last week, former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya accuses three ex-presidents as well as former government ministers and federal lawmakers of corruption, much of which was allegedly linked to the payment of bribes by Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht.
The 63-page document — submitted to the FGR on August 11 and leaked to media outlets on Wednesday — makes explosive accusations against ex-presidents Enrique Peña Nieto, Felipe Calderón and Carlos Salinas Gortari as well as former cabinet ministers including Luis Videgaray and José Antonio Meade and several former National Action Party (PAN) lawmakers including two who are currently serving as state governors.
Lozoya, who was at the helm of the state oil company between late 2012 and early 2016 – the first half of the previous government’s six-year term, accuses Peña Nieto and Videgaray, the former president’s longest-serving finance minister, of leading a bribery scheme whose aim was to ensure that the previous government’s legislative agenda passed through Congress.
He said he was told by the two men in early 2013 that he would be required to deliver large sums of money to opposition party lawmakers to ensure the passage of the 2013-14 structural reforms, in particular the energy reform that opened up the sector to private and foreign companies.
“I was mainly involved in the approval of the energy reform delivering, through third parties, certain resources in transparent bank bags and [other] bags to senators who were members of the energy committee in the Senate and a federal deputy,” Lozoya wrote in the document, explaining that the money came from bribes paid by Odebrecht in exchange for lucrative contracts.
Former cabinet minister Videgaray, left, and one-time presidential candidate Anaya.
Lozoya said that Videgaray gave him specific instructions about who was to receive bribes.
According to the ex-Pemex CEO, who is currently awaiting trial on corruption charges, six former PAN lawmakers (five senators and one deputy) received payments in exchange for their support of government legislation.
They were Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, the current governor of Tamaulipas; Francisco Domínguez, the current governor of Querétaro; Ricardo Anaya, a former federal deputy and PAN national president who was the party’s candidate in the 2018 presidential election; Salvador Vega Casillas; Ernesto Cordero; and Jorge Luis Lavalle Maury, a close collaborator of one of the men seen receiving money in the YouTube video.
Lozoya claimed that a group of four former PAN lawmakers including the two current governors acted as a virtual criminal racket by demanding US $50 million for their support of the government’s reforms.
The former Pemex chief said he met with the lawmakers in his office on several occasions on the instructions of Videgaray.
“Their demands amounted to … US $50 million in order to vote in favor of the energy reform. … They asked for appointments and took contractors close to them so that they would be given Pemex contracts. The mentioned legislators had a very aggressive attitude; they even threatened to boycott the energy reform if they didn’t receive their bribes,” Lozoya wrote.
The former oil company chief also accused Peña Nieto and Videgaray of fraud and embezzlement and depicted himself as a victim of their corruption.
“The president and the … finance minister used me to create a criminal conspiracy aimed at enriching themselves, not only by [taking] government funds, but also by extorting money from individuals and companies [and engaging in] fraud and deceit,” Lozoya wrote.
He also claimed that Calderón, Peña Nieto’s predecessor, had a cosy relationship with Odebrecht.
Lozoya wrote that Calderón’s government “put together solid schemes of corruption,” particularly with Odebrecht subsidiary Braskem, a petrochemical company.
He said the relationship between Calderón, who represented the PAN, and Braskem was so close that the former signed a more than 20-year-long contract with the latter authorizing Pemex to sell the Brazilian firm ethane “with an inexplicable discount of approximately 25%.”
Ex-PAN senators Domínguez, García and Lavalle. The first two are currently governors of Querétaro and Tamaulipas.
“In addition, he decided to give such importance to this illicit act that damaged the wealth of the nation that … he invited [Brazilian] president Lula da Silva to the signing of said contract” in 2010, Lozoya wrote.
He said that José Antonio Meade, who served as a minister in both the Calderón and Peña Nieto governments, and José Antonio González Anaya, his successor at Pemex and a Peña-era finance minister, were involved in the scheme to sell ethane to Braskem at a reduced price. Both men were on the Pemex board when the deal was struck.
A lot of PAN politicians received “large sums of money” in connection with the ethane deal, Lozoya said.
Odebrecht and its former CEO Marcelo Odebrecht – convicted and imprisoned on corruption charges – had a close relationship with the Mexican government for a decade, Lozoya said.
“It wasn’t a bribe-contract-bribe relationship. It was a deeper relationship. It was about exercising influence over the president of the republic and the legislature” he wrote.
Carlos Salinas, widely considered one of Mexico’s most corrupt presidents, was also involved in the corruption linked to Odebrecht, Lozoya said, accusing the former leader of acting on behalf of PAN lawmakers even though he represented the once-omnipotent Institutional Revolutionary Party.
The former Pemex chief also accused the ex-president, in office from 1988 to 1994, of influence peddling to try to secure Pemex contracts for his son.
Many of the former officials accused by Lozoya, including Calderón, Meade and Ricardo Anaya, quickly rejected the claims against them.
The leaking of the document comes after Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said on August 11 – the date Lozoya’s document was submitted to the FGR – that the ex-Pemex CEO had indicated that some US $10 million in bribes paid by Odebrecht was used to fund Peña Nieto’s 2012 election campaign as well as pay off lawmakers for their support.
The FGR said it had launched an investigation into the leaking of the document, whose veracity it confirmed.
Lozoya, who was extradited to Mexico from Spain last month, is awaiting trial on charges related to his role in the Odebrecht corruption as well as Pemex’s purchase of a fertilizer plant in 2015 at an allegedly vastly inflated price.
FGR prosecutors have formally accused him of receiving a payment in excess of US $3 million from the president of Altos Hornos de México, which sold the plant to the state oil company.
Lozoya and Peña Nieto don’t have much reason to smile at present.
In the document he submitted to the FGR, Lozoya said that Peña Nieto and Videgaray negotiated the purchase price with the plant owner and that the two men intimidated him into signing off on the deal.
“It was evident that Luis Videgaray Caso had a personal interest in getting the deal done, either because he would obtain some possible illicit benefit, or to pay off favors from the past,” he wrote.
Lozoya, who has been given protected witness status and was not remanded in preventative custody, is one of two high-ranking members of the Peña Nieto government currently awaiting trial on corruption charges. The other is former cabinet minister Rosario Robles, who allegedly participated in the embezzlement scheme known as the “Master Fraud.”
President López Obrador has described the Lozoya case as “very important” because it will help to shed light on the corruption committed by past government officials. He said last week that Peña Nieto and Calderón should both testify in the case.
“The attorney general has disclosed that two ex-presidents are involved in possible acts of corruption. So what comes next is that they should be called to give evidence and Mr. Lozoya should present proof.”
Hurricane Genevieve was bringing high winds and intense rain to Baja California Sur Thursday morning, as it moved northwest parallel with the state’s Pacific coast.
Effects of the Category 1 hurricane were felt Wednesday and into the early hours of Thursday in Los Cabos on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula.
According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, Genevieve was 160 kilometers west-northwest of the tip of the Baja Peninsula with maximum sustained winds of 120 kilometers per hour at 8:00 a.m. local time. The cyclone was traveling northwest at 19 kilometers per hour. Genvieve will remain a hurricane through most of Thursday, forecasters predict, before deteriorating into a tropical storm as it moves over cooler water.
The hurricane warning that was in effect for the area between Los Barriles and Todos Santos has been replaced with a tropical storm warning for Los Barriles to Cabo San Lázaro.
Rains in the area have been nearly incessant since the predawn hours of Wednesday. Flooding temporarily closed the highway between San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, and one resident of Cabo San Lucas reported that his rain gauge overflowed at 254 millimeters. Another 50 to 100 millimeters of rain are expected to fall today bringing totals in some areas to 305 millimeters.
An automated observation site near the Cabo San Lucas Marina reported a wind gust of 74 kilometers per hour. Landslides were reported in several areas, several lamp posts were toppled by the winds overnight and people attempting to drive through flooded areas had to be rescued.
Genevieve has generated waves of eight to 10 meters high to pound Baja’s coast. Beaches and ports in Los Cabos have been closed since Tuesday.
Erick Santillán, director of Civil Protection for Los Cabos, said the hurricane was 60 kilometers from the peninsula at its closest point.
An estimated 8,500 tourists are in Los Cabos. On Tuesday, the airport reported 34 domestic and international flights were canceled.
Residents are encouraged to remain in their homes until the tropical storm warning is lifted.
So far, the only casualties reported due to the hurricane are a 15-year-old tourist from Nuevo León and the 30-year-old lifeguard who tried to save her from drowning in Cabo San Lucas Bay.
Public schools in Mexico are currently beginning to impart at least a fraction of the education they otherwise would to their students through educational public television programming.
As Jack Gooderidge wrote a few weeks ago, it’s a good enough effort in our current pinch, but not sustainable or likely impactful long-term. Especially at the lower levels, the purpose of school is just as much about learning to get along with other human beings as it is about learning to read and write.
Private schools, meanwhile, are trying to avoid bankruptcy as scores of families stop paying as a result of their own drastic decreases in income. Others have stopped simply because it doesn’t make economic sense to continue paying for a service that, by definition, cannot be given even close to the extent it’s intended to be. Thirty percent of private school students from last year have simply not re-enrolled, and 25% of private schools are at risk of closing permanently.
So far my daughter has had one day of class (there were apparently technical difficulties on the second day). Today will be the third day, and my first day “at school” with her since she was with her dad the previous two.
I’m a little worried about how it’s going to work. She’ll have around three hours a day of video-conferencing classes, and from what I can tell, either I or her father will need to be there actively participating for most of it.
We also need to get things set up each day: supplies must be bought or gathered and organized (and there are a lot of supplies — it’s first grade, after all); our own schedules must be cleared during that time.
The tablet we bought a few years ago is apparently not up for the job, which means she’ll need to be, when she’s with me, on my computer until we can find or afford another solution. As you know, I work as a writer and translator, and am also in the process of launching a new business. I need my computer, especially when she can be busy with something else for a few minutes.
On top of it, we’re paying the regular full price for her education even though we’ll mostly be imparting it to her in our respective homes while also trying to maintain our regular jobs. We’ve both been lucky enough to keep doing our jobs from home, but how does one both work and serve as elementary school teacher at the same time?
While she’s enrolled now in an excellent school, it’s new to all of us: we signed her up for it back in February when it was clear that her current school had every intention of continuing to raise already-high prices each year — now it feels like that happened in another world!
(The decision to move her came after the director said to me, in the most polite way possible of course, that if I was not OK with the price hikes, then I was welcome to send her somewhere else as there was a long line of families waiting to enroll their children in her place. Is it petty to feel a sense of cosmic justice at this point?)
The above are fairly bourgeoise problems. Many families are facing the exact same issues as we are, so at the very least we have the comfort of not being alone in our struggles. A lot of families, too, are facing far greater problems. Knowing that ours pale in comparison to those of many others keeps us from whining too much, because even though the situation is far less than ideal, at least we’ve got these expensive, inconvenient options.
Many families simply do not, and will slip through the cracks to join the crowd that was struggling with all their might to get their basic needs met even before the pandemic started. Forget education: they need food and safe housing. While valiant efforts are being made by inventive and selfless volunteers to serve this population, many children will simply continue to go without.
It’s hard, in general, to be selfless and generous when you’re struggling, and even those who’ve managed to weather the economic fall-out are likely struggling mentally and emotionally, not an ideal state of mind for being available for rescuing anyone.
In the end, I’m not too worried about my own daughter’s specific situation, other than the general sadness of her not being able to socialize and play with other kids. I worked as a teacher for many years and feel confident in my ability to educate her myself if need be, SEP paperwork or not. I’ve always had the possibility of homeschooling stored away in the back of my mind anyway, as I’d like us to be able to travel in the future without worrying too much about an official school year calendar. They’re simply not the circumstances I was imagining.
These are hard times. None of us knows when all of this will end, nor what things will look like when it finally does. What exactly, and how will we rebuild? In those moments between sighing heavily and pinching the bridge of our noses while we squeeze our eyes shut, when we can let got for a bit and think of creative solutions, let’s not forget to write them down. We’ll need all the ideas we can get.
Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz.
The responsibilities of Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, the government’s chief coronavirus strategist, could soon be significantly broader.
Under a Health Ministry proposal, the Federal Commission for Protection Against Health Risks (Cofepris) – Mexico’s most important health sector regulatory body – and 12 other health agencies including the National Addictions Commission and the National Blood Transfusion Center will come under the control of the department headed up by López-Gatell.
The coronavirus point man, a Johns Hopkins University-trained epidemiologist, is the head of the Health Ministry’s department of prevention and health promotion.
However, it does not yet appear to be an entirely done deal that López-Gatell will take the reins of Cofepris, which is responsible for approving the use and consumption of medications, food, beverages, dietary supplements and pesticides among other duties.
The newspaper Reforma reported that there is opposition within the federal government to the Health Ministry’s proposal, which has been sent to the National Commission for Regulatory Improvement for approval.
The newspaper said it saw an internal government document that was critical of the proposal, pointing out that regulatory bodies similar to Cofepris in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Colombia are decentralized, independent organizations.
The document, whose exact origin was not divulged, said that if Cofepris came under Health Ministry control, the risk of mismanagement and conflicts of interest in its daily operations would increase.
The regulator’s transparency, confidentiality, independence and impartiality could all be adversely affected, the government document said.
It warned that international bodies such as the World Health Organization could downgrade their rating of Cofepris if it were to be subjugated to Health Ministry control.
The document also said that international “collaboration and authorization schemes” could be adversely affected because Mexico’s importation and exportation of medicines, food and other products that could pose health risks must comply with strict quality and hygiene controls. The implication is that those controls could be compromised if Cofepris is not completely autonomous.
There is also opposition to the Health Ministry’s proposal from several opposition party lawmakers.
Martha Tagle, a federal deputy with the Citizens Movement Party, said that Cofepris’ independence is guaranteed by law and therefore its status cannot be changed via an “internal Health Ministry agreement.”
Reforma reported that Institutional Revolutionary Party deputies Ana Lilia Herrera Anzaldo and Frinné Azuara Yarzábal intended to oppose the Health Ministry proposal on the floor of the Congress.
National Action Party (PAN) Senator Martha Márquez said that the move to put the regulator under the control of López-Gatell was yet another attack on the autonomy of independent government bodies.
Josefina Salazar, a PAN deputy, made her thoughts clear on the Health Ministry proposal in a Twitter post.
“In a move of doubtful legality, they want to turn Hugo López-Gatell into a ‘super deputy minister,’ causing some entities … such as Cofepris to lose autonomy. [It would give] more power to the official responsible for the disastrous management of the pandemic in Mexico,” she wrote.
Fernando Belaunzarán, a deputy with the Democratic Revolution Party, described the plan as a “great gift” to the deputy minister but added that the move would have “grave consequences.”
In an ironic tone, he wrote on Twitter that the coronavirus czar should be given a cake with 60,000 candles because Mexico has almost recorded that number of Covid-19 deaths while López-Gatell has been in charge of the pandemic response.
Miguel Ángel Toscano, a former Cofepris chief, said it would be a “disaster” and “a backward step” to subordinate the regulator to the deputy minister’s department.
“It’s criminal ignorance, … I regret the absurd decision to say the least. While the [rest of the] world strengthens their health authorities, in Mexico they are undermined [and] overpowered. They’re bound to political decisions, not technical ones.”
In Chiapas, sugary drinks can be easier to find than bottled water. marcos arana
Nobody in the world drinks more Coca-Cola and other sugary drinks than the residents of Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost and poorest state.
According to a 2019 study by the Chiapas and Southern Border Multidisciplinary Research Center (Cimsur), residents of the southern state drink an average of 821.25 liters of soda per person per year.
Broken down, the immensity of the quantity seems even more astonishing: every man, woman and child in Chiapas drinks an average of 3,285 — yes, three thousand two hundred and eighty-five – 250-milliliter cups of soda a year, according to the study.
The Cimsur study found that the sugary drink consumption rate in Chiapas is more than five times higher than the national rate of 150 liters per person per year.
Residents of the United States drink an average of 100 liters of soft drink a year, the study found, while the global average is 25 liters, just 3% of the consumption level in Chiapas.
Marcos Arana, a researcher at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition, described Chiapas as the “epicenter” of Mexico’s “soft drink consumption epidemic.”
Consumption of refrescos, as soft drinks are known, is particularly high in the Los Altos region, where the majority of residents are indigenous people who mostly live in rural towns and villages.
Coca-Cola, which has a bottling plant in San Cristóbal de las Casas, is the undisputed “king of kings” in the region’s soda market.
According to the Cimsur study, among the reasons why Coca-Cola and other refrescos are so popular in Chiapas are marketing campaigns in indigenous languages – mainly Mayan – and limited access to clean drinking water.
In a 2018 report, The New York Times said that some neighborhoods in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Los Altos’ regional hub, have running water just a few times a week, forcing many households to buy additional water from tanker trucks.
Coke’s status is such that it is used as an offering in traditional rituals. marcos arana
“So, many residents drink Coca-Cola, which … can be easier to find than bottled water and is almost as cheap,” the report said.
Similarly, Arana, the medical researcher, told BBC Mundo that “Coca-Cola is the most available product in Los Altos.”
“One has to walk a greater distance to buy tortillas or anything else,” he said. “The number of points of sale is excessive, there is no control, and prices are reduced by up to 30%.”
The discount effectively eliminates the federal tax of 1 peso per liter on sugary drinks, which was imposed in January 2014 as part of efforts to reduce consumption and associated health problems such as diabetes and obesity.
Arana said the widespread availability of cheap soda as well as advertising that specifically targets vulnerable Chiapas residents have created an addiction in many people who now see sugary beverages as an everyday necessity rather than a luxury or treat. A 2016 study found that 3% of babies in Chiapas are given Coca-Cola by their mothers when they should only be drinking breast milk, he said.
Unsurprisingly, diabetes is a major problem in Chiapas, claiming more than 3,000 lives in the state per year, according to the Times report.
Jaime Page Pliego, the author of the Cimsur study, told BBC Mundo that he heard from residents of Tenejapa, a municipality near San Cristóbal, that diabetes and heart disease were not a problem there until the construction of a paved road to the town that allowed the easy distribution of soft drinks and junk food.
It’s now customary for Tenejapa residents to drink two or three liters of Coca-Cola while on their lunch break from working in the fields, he said.
Page added that when he asks chiapanecos, as residents of the southern state are called, why they drink so many soft drinks, he usually hears the same answers: “Because I like it; it fills me up; I miss it when I don’t drink it; I can’t stop drinking it.”
“Even diabetics … acknowledge that they keep drinking it. … They can’t imagine life without soft drinks. It’s truly a tragedy,” he said.
Soda, and especially Coca-Cola, has also been given a role in the religious lives of indigenous Mayan people in Chiapas.
Page explained that Coke has replaced pox, a corn and sugar cane liquor, as an offering to the Gods in some traditional indigenous ceremonies and rituals.
Welcome to Tenejapa, Coca-Cola country. marcos arana
“Especially in … healing rituals, [alcohol] was substituted with a soft drink [Coke], which has a sweet smell similar to pox,” Page said. “It has become the main offering for the nutrition of the gods.”
The elevation of the humble Coke to religious artifact has increased its prestige to a point that a person who is offered a different soft drink at a social or political gathering may consider it a slight.
“He who offers Coca-Cola has a good status in the community. If he offers another refresco in areas where this brand dominates, he is seen” in a poor light, Page said.
Arana told BBC Mundo that in order to reduce consumption of sugary drinks in Chiapas, more needs to be done to educate communities about the risks associated with their consumption. He also said that traditional foods and beverages, such as the corn drink pozol, need to be promoted more and that access to water must be guaranteed.
In addition, the researcher said that steps should be taken to reduce the availability of Coke and other soft drinks.
“If the authorities do something like canceling the concession for the production of Coca-Cola in the area or at least [force the company] to reduce the volume of production, it will encourage a more positive future” and help to lessen the addiction to sugar, Page said.
Santiago López Jaramillo, Latin America director of the International Council of Beverage Associations, said the council wants to work with Mexican authorities to address problems associated with excessive soft drink consumption.
