A future marine salutes during yesterday's Independence parade in Mexico City.
Just as Sunday’s “cry of independence” from the National Palace in Mexico City was markedly different from years past, so was Monday’s Independence Day parade.
The parade commemorating the 209th anniversary of Mexican Independence celebrated the ideals and actions of the government of President López Obrador instead of exalting the military might of the country’s armed forces.
There were also two firsts for women in the military.
The show kicked off with 15 paratroopers landing in front of the presidential balcony of the National Palace. Among them was Cecilia Canto, the first female paratrooper to take part in an Independence Day parade.
A float carrying seniors celebrated senior citizens’ social programs.
Of special significance this year was the presence of the National Guard, the security force that is the centerpiece of López Obrador’s strategy to suppress historic levels of violence.
But it was the president’s so-called Fourth Transformation, the 4T, that was the focal point of the one-hour and 40-minute parade, and what the administration sees as its achievements to date.
Floats representing the previous transformations of Mexico — Independence, Reform and the Revolution — preceded displays glorifying the new one, beginning with a representation of the government’s efforts to curb petroleum theft.
Then, some 40 minutes after the parade began came the contingents of soldiers and sailors. As they circled the zócalo, F-5 Tigers and other military planes and helicopters flew overhead.
With the contingents of Mexican military marched visiting soldiers from Argentina, Chile, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Poland.
Tanker trucks marked the government’s defense against pipeline theft.
According to official reports, 13,111 people, 416 vehicles, 74 airplanes and helicopters, 218 horses, 155 dogs and 68 charros or horsemen participated.
Organized crime behind military attacks: retired officers.
Recent acts of aggression by citizens towards soldiers could have been ordered by organized crime groups, according to retired military generals.
Clashes between residents of states such as Michoacán, Guerrero and Querétaro and the Mexican army have become increasingly common in recent months.
Examples include an attack on September 7 by residents of the Queretaro municipality of San Juan del Río, who threw stones at soldiers after they arrived at a location where a train was being looted, and two incidents in Michoacán late last month in which military personnel were assailed with firearms, shovels and brooms.
According to Benito Medina Herrera, a former army general who is now a federal lawmaker for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, it is possible that at least some of the acts of aggression towards soldiers were ordered by criminal groups.
He said that in some parts of the country, gangs order women and children to confront the army when their interests are threatened because they know that soldiers won’t retaliate against them.
“. . . They take advantage of those circumstances in order to be able to confront the armed forces . . .” Medina said.
“In other places, I believe there are families . . . that are involved in organized crime or crime in general and they go out to defend [their interests] . . .” he added.
José Francisco Gallardo, a retired general who is now a professor at the National Autonomous University, agreed with Medina that citizens’ aggression towards soldiers could be linked to organized crime.
He described attacks on the army as “demeaning” for soldiers and charged that they don’t have sufficient training to deal with them.
Gallardo also said that there is a lot of discontent among soldiers because they are forced to carry out public security tasks. He claimed that there have been almost 1,000 desertions since the new government took office in December.
The drone attack on oil installations in Saudi Arabia won’t affect gasoline prices in Mexico, President López Obrador said on Tuesday.
“. . . Despite the upward adjustments to crude prices . . . we’re protected and I can say to Mexicans that there will not be variations in gasoline prices, we’re going to continue to maintain the commitment that fuel prices won’t go up in real terms,” López Obrador told reporters at his morning news conference.
The price of WTI crude rose 14.7% to US $62.90 per barrel on Monday two days after Saturday’s pre-dawn attack on facilities owned by Saudi Aramco, the Middle East nation’s state-owned oil company.
The coordinated strikes on the company’s facilities disrupted about half of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity, or 5% of daily global supply. Authorities were forced to cut oil output by 5.7 million barrels per day as a result of the attack, for which Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility.
Ricardo Sheffield Padilla, head of the consumer protection agency Profeco, explained that prices at gas stations in Mexico will remain stable because the Secretariat of Finance (SHCP) has the power to increase or decrease gasoline subsidies and a stimulus scheme that is designed to alleviate the burden of the IEPS excise tax applied to each liter of fuel.
López Obrador said that officials from the SHCP and the state oil company Pemex will meet today to discuss the situation in the Middle East and its effect on petroleum prices.
“. . . On the one hand, the price increase benefits us because we sell crude oil abroad but as we are buyers of [foreign] gasoline and diesel, it can [also] harm us,” he said.
Parents of Ayotzinapa students still wonder where their children are, five years later.
The release of 21 municipal police officers detained in connection with the disappearance of 43 students in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014, is a sign of the “wretchedness and rot” of Mexico’s justice system, according to human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas.
He told a press conference on Sunday that the decision of Judge Samuel Ventura Ramos to absolve the officers is an “affront to the victims, to their parents and to justice.
“It’s a mockery of justice because it feeds silence and complicity . . .” Encinas added.
The undersecretary also said that the judge’s ruling is an affront to the investigative work currently being carried out by the federal government to determine exactly what happened to the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College.
Encinas said that Ventura didn’t follow a legal precedent that establishes that in cases where evidence was obtained through the use of torture, people accused of committing a crime must be subjected to a new investigative process rather than being acquitted.
Undersecretary Encinas: judge has made a mockery of justice.
The judge ordered the officers’ release on the grounds that statements they made to prosecutors in the previous government were obtained by illegal means, including torture.
Encinas accused Ventura of hypocrisy, stating that while he exonerated the police because of the torture to which they were subjected, he didn’t assign any responsibility to those who allegedly committed the torture.
The judge’s ruling gave precedence to the interests of the alleged perpetrators of crime over the rights of its victims, the undersecretary charged.
“The judge interpreted the law with a lot of laxity . . . He didn’t impart justice and caused serious damage to the search for truth,” Encinas said.
The previous government’s “historical truth” – that the students were intercepted by corrupt municipal police and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos crime gang who killed them and burned their bodies in a municipal dump – has been widely rejected.
Encinas’ criticism of Judge Ventura and the Mexican justice system came a week and a half after he slammed the same judge for the release of Gildardo López Astudillo, who was allegedly the plaza chief in Iguala of the Guerreros Unidos gang at the time of the students’ disappearance.
Declaring that the release of the key suspect set “a very grave precedent,” Encinas announced on September 4 that the government would ask the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the Federal Judiciary Council to investigate officials and judges responsible for granting freedom to López Astudillo and others who were arrested in connection with the case.
On Sunday, Encinas applauded the decision of the FGR to launch investigations into former attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam – who first announced the “historical truth” – as well as former Criminal Investigation Agency chief Tomás Zerón and former Ayotzinapa investigation chief José Aarón Pérez.
They are “ex-officials who must be held accountable by the Attorney General’s Office,” he said.
Several thousand guardsmen are stationed in areas with relatively low rates of violence.
The deployment of the National Guard doesn’t match Mexico’s security needs, according to two experts.
More than 56,000 members of the new security force have now been deployed to 150 regions across the country. Just over 9,000 guardsmen are stationed in México state while more than 3,000 are deployed to each of Michoacán, Jalisco, Oaxaca and Mexico City.
But a report in the newspaper El Universal pointed out that in six other states – Zacatecas, Querétaro, Yucatán, Campeche, Baja California Sur and Tlaxcala – the number of National Guard members is disproportionately high considering the number of homicides committed in those states so far this year.
Yucatán, for example, has 673 guardsmen but there have only been 18 murders, while Campeche has recorded 36 homicides but has 479 troops.
Querétaro, where there were 116 homicides between January and July, is home to more National Guard members than Tamaulipas, a state plagued by violence generated by the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas.
According to Ricardo Márquez Blas, a security expert and former high-ranking official in the National Security Commission, some of the guardsmen deployed to states with low or relatively low numbers of homicides should be sent to “other areas where the crime rate is higher” such as municipalities in Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Jalisco and Michoacán.
“There is no reason to standardize” deployment numbers because “the regions are different,” Márquez said. “An adjustment has to be made, a made-to-measure approach [is needed] for each case.”
The discrepancy between the areas where National Guard members are deployed and where they are needed is even more marked at a municipal level, El Universal said.
Just over 1,000 National Guard troops were deployed to the southern Veracruz municipalities of Minatitlán, Coatzacoalcos and Cosoleacaque in April after 13 people were killed at a bar in Minatitlán but 770 were subsequently withdrawn, leaving just 289 guardsmen in the area when an attack on a Coatzacoalcos bar, which claimed the lives of 30 people, occurred late last month.
Security analyst Alejandro Hope agreed with Márquez that National Guard should not be deployed uniformly because different parts of the country have different security needs.
Sending troops to Yucatán, Campeche and Querétaro is a “waste,” Hope said, charging that they should be in states such as Michoacán, Jalisco, Guanajuato and Veracruz, where turf wars between rival crime groups have caused violent crime rates to surge.
“This scheme will have no effect in reducing violence . . . The National Guard is not where the homicides are [happening],” he said.
“There’s no logic in the deployment, all of the regional contingents are going to have the same number of elements [500] and I don’t believe that the same number is needed everywhere,” Hope added.
The security analyst contended that “institutional inertia” is guiding the government’s deployment of the National Guard, explaining that guardsmen are being sent to locations where there are existing facilities from which they can work and in which they can be housed.
Hope also claimed that the National Guard – an “intermediate security force between the police and the armed forces” – is not designed to combat violent crime.
“Normally [such a force] is used for territorial control purposes [and] is mainly deployed to rural areas and small towns,” he said.
The Puente de Calderón is 60 meters long and was constructed in the 17th century.
In the 17th century, anyone heading east from the city of Guadalajara would soon come to one of the most strategic points along the ancient Camino Real: the massive bridge over the Calderón river.
In 1811 this bridge was the site of an important battle for Mexican Independence. Father Miguel Hidalgo had only recently launched the rebellion against Spain and now at the Puente de Calderón he would face an army of 6,000 royalists. However, the history books tell us that Hidalgo had as many as 100,000 fellow rebels with him: how could he possibly lose?
Well, lose he did, but before getting into that, it’s important to understand why Hidalgo and many others wanted independence. Whereas some countries like Britain and France treated their far-off colonists relatively well, Spain had set up a bizarre system of class discrimination backed by rigid laws.
Spaniards born in Spain were at the top of the pyramid and indigenous people — many of them enslaved — were at the bottom. In between were meztizos (a mixture of the two) and criollos, children of Spaniards who were born not in Spain, but in the new world. Spain’s harsh laws for Mexico stipulated, for example, that only Spaniards born in Spain could carry arms, ride a horse or become a lawyer or a college teacher.
Most people in Mexico were confined to “vile occupations” and were obliged by law to dress in white shirts and trousers, straw hats and sandals. On top of this, anyone not born in Spain was obliged to pay a “head tax” simply for being an Indian, meztizo or criollo.
Mural in Chihuahua depicting the execution of Miguel Hidalgo.
So it is easy to see how Hidalgo had accumulated an “army” of between 80,000 and 100,000 bodies. He had, after all, declared war on the gachupines (contemptuous term for Spaniards) in his Grito or Shout for Liberty on September 16 and had issued a decree abolishing slavery and the head tax on December 6.
Now, on January 16, 1811, he had promised, according to Diana Serra Cary of Historynet, that the following day he would “breakfast in Guadalajara, dine at the Bridge of Calderón and sup in Mexico City!”
Although he had 95 cannons, most of Hidalgo’s so-called troops were armed with nothing more than lances, wooden swords, farm tools and slings which Hidalgo himself had taught them how to make and use.
The next day, January 17, the rebels, under the command of Ignacio Allende, were massed on the south side of the river and the royalists, led by General Felix Calleja on the north.
Curiously, in Western Mexico, a Traveler’s Treasury, writer Tony Burton says that the very opposite orientation is shown on the plan of the battleground depicted in hundreds of textbooks and museums around the country, where the north arrow points directly south, despite the fact that “a copy of the corrected map was supplied to the Guadalajara museum (by Burton) as long ago as 1988.”
The battle raged for six hours and then artillery fire (some say a grenade) hit one of the independence fighters’ ammunition wagons. This blew up in a tremendous explosion, which set the dry brush in the area on fire. The blast and blazes spooked the untrained rebel army and they ran for their lives, with the Spaniards right behind them, of course.
Reenactment of the battle shows Indians wearing white as required by law.
As it says in an inscription on the bridge, “The father of the country, Don Miguel Hidalgo . . . ran into bad luck at this spot on January 17, 1811.”
Bad luck indeed. Allende, furious over the outcome of the battle, actually took Hidalgo prisoner and tried to head for the United States, hoping for help from President James Madison, but both rebel leaders were caught by the royalists en route, executed and beheaded.
It appears that Hidalgo, at age 58, was killed by a firing squad. It is said that his last words were “”Though I may die, I shall be remembered forever; you all will soon be forgotten!”
If you go to visit the Calderón Bridge you can mull over these fleeting, fascinating moments of history while you wander about the surrounding ecopark, which covers 140,000 square meters and features roofed picnic tables, grills, toilets, snack bar, a giant artificial waterfall, an adrenaline-raising hanging bridge, five zip lines totalling 711 meters in length, a small lake with boats and several kilometers of footpaths.
If walking around the place heats you up, you can cool off simply by standing in the spray of two giant water jets in the river, commemorating Mexico’s bicentennial.
While cooling off, think about this: considering that it cost millions of pesos to build and furnish this ecopark, it just might be the world’s biggest monument to a victory by the enemy. Talk about openmindedness — ¡Viva México!
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In addition to being a historical monument, Puente Calderón could also be called the gateway to Los Altos, located in the northeastern “finger” of the strangely shaped state of Jalisco. It’s called Los Altos because the altitude is typically over 1,800 meters (1.12 miles) above sea level.
The ecosystem there is rather unique: mostly flat grassland, but just about the time you’re ready to pronounce it “boring,” you discover that this prairie land is cut by the deep and dramatically beautiful 150-kilometer-long Río Verde Canyon, dotted with majestic waterfalls and numerous hot springs.
If the canyon is not enough, you can also find extensive archaeological ruins at Teocaltitán and some 850 “horizontal petroglyphs” at Presa de la Luz. As for food, highlanders pride themselves on their tasty carnitas, and to wash down the meat, visitors can take their pick of locally produced tequilas which some say are Mexico’s best, thanks to the red, iron-rich soil of the grasslands.
The Calderón Bridge Ecopark is located 23 kilometers east of Guadalajara and is open 7:00am to 7:00pm, with an entrance fee of only 10 pesos. To get there, point your navigator at “Puente de Calderón Ecologico Park.” Since it may have as many as 5,000 visitors on Sundays, I suggest you enjoy the place on a weekday.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Deputy Delgado: amnesty law stands a good chance of passing.
President López Obrador sent to Congress on Sunday a proposal for an amnesty law that would exonerate women imprisoned for having an abortion and young people convicted of drug offenses, among others.
Mario Delgado, leader of the ruling Morena party in the Chamber of Deputies, said in a statement that the amnesty law would also pardon doctors and other medical personnel who performed abortions, indigenous people who were incarcerated without having access to an adequate legal defense and political and conscience prisoners “accused of implausible crimes.”
Young people convicted of small-scale drug dealing or who committed offenses after being threatened by criminal groups would also benefit from the law, Delgado said, as would those who turned to crime because of economic hardship. The law also extends to people found guilty of non-violent robberies.
The lawmaker explained that repeat offenders and people convicted of murder, kidnapping or other serious offenses won’t be eligible for release from prison under the terms of the proposed law.
“Amnesty will benefit those who are in prison for minor offenses, not those who inflicted serious damage on people,” Delgado said, adding that the federal Attorney General’s Office will closely monitor the law’s use to ensure compliance with its provisions. The Interior Secretariat will determine who is eligible for amnesty as a political prisoner, he said.
The Morena party deputy said the amnesty law will offer the opportunity of “social reintegration” for prisoners, many of whom are economically disadvantaged and lack literacy and other basic skills.
He said the amnesty bill has popular support and given that López Obrador’s Morena party leads a coalition with a majority in both houses of Congress, its approval is all but assured.
Officer Quijano found US $1,600 in cash and turned it in.
Mexico City police have been recognized for their honesty upon returning lost bags containing large amounts of cash to their rightful owners.
Officer Aristeo Quijano Acosta discovered a backpack containing over US $1,600 outside a bank last week in the affluent neighborhood of La Granada.
“On September 10 around 11:55am, while making my rounds, I noticed a backpack left in the main doorway of the bank,” said Quijano.
Upon opening the bag, Quijano found $1,684 and a U.S. passport.
The backpack’s owner was found and contacted through social media. The 25-year-old U.S. citizen was grateful to the police for returning his mislaid possessions.
It was not the first time this year that Mexico City police have been acknowledged for such honesty.
In May, an officer identified as A. Labra Díaz found a satchel containing over 50,000 pesos at the Buenavista Metrobus station.
Like Officer Quijano, Labra reported the discovery, and the bag was eventually returned to its rightful owner.
“I proudly congratulate him and thank him for his honesty,” said Metrobus general manager Roberto Capuano in a tweet on the transit system’s official Twitter account.
At least 500 people were evacuated from their homes in a México state community early Sunday morning because of a leak from a gasoline pipeline caused by an illegal tap.
The break occurred in the the Tuxpan-Poza Rica-Azcapotzalco pipeline in the community of Ejido Calvarios, in the municipality of Acolman.
México state police say they found the leak during a routine patrol on Sunday morning when it was sending a jet of gasoline 20 meters into the air.
State Governor Alfredo Del Mazo posted on Twitter that at least 500 people were evacuated from their residences in the area as a preventative measure.
Civil Protection officials said there had been no reports of injuries or gasoline poisoning.
Pemex officials said they had controlled the leak by Sunday evening.
What are doctors and teachers to do to comfort patients and students during trying times? Raise their voices in song, according to two professionals in Sonora.
Dr. Diego Ismael Leyva Cervantes sang the piece entitled Recuérdame, from the Disney Pixar film Coco, to a pediatrics patient at an IMSS hospital in Ciudad Obregón.
IMSS director Zoé Robledo tweeted a video of the performance with the message, “Another proud member of the IMSS family!”
Reaction to the video was mixed, with many praising the doctor for his vocal talent and dedication to his child patients, while others decried medication and staff shortages and other problems in the IMSS health system.
At a primary school in Guaymas, meanwhile, a teacher was recorded singing and dancing in order to distract her young students from a nearby gun battle that broke out between the National Guard and presumed criminal elements.
No te pierdas el video 📽del doctor Diego Ismael Leyva Cervantes, residente de Pediatría en el HGR1 de Cd Obregón, Sonora @Tu_IMSS, quien le canta a uno de sus pequeños pacientes.
Independence Day celebrations at Plutarco Elías Calles primary school were interrupted by the shootout, provoking fear in students as they were forced to take cover on the floor.
The shootout began around 11:20am on Friday, causing frightened parents to rush to the school to confirm the safety of their children.
Violence has been on the rise in Sonora, where there is currently a 40% deficit in police numbers, according to National Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval, and nearly a 50% increase in homicides so far this year.
