Armed with sticks, citizens attack municipal offices.
Twelve local police and municipal employees remain hostages of residents of a Guerrero town who went on the rampage Monday to demand the delivery of promised services.
Some 600 people from Pueblo Hidalgo occupied municipal offices in San Luis Acatlán, demanding the municipal government follow through with promises to spend 13 million pesos (US $677,000) on infrastructure and social services.
They arrived in San Luis Monday afternoon, armed with sticks and demanding a meeting with Mayor Agustín Ricardo Morales. When they were told the mayor was not present, the group attacked government buildings, took police officers and other government employees hostage and seriously injured one local official, who was rushed to a hospital in Acapulco.
The unhappy citizens went on to loot the police station, taking as many as 19 firearms and 135 rounds of ammunition, four police cars and other items. The hostages are being held in Pueblo Hidalgo.
Víctor Figueroa, one of the group’s leaders, told the digital news service Sin Embargo that Mayor Morales had broken a promise he had made in March to spend 10 million pesos on infrastructure improvements and to distribute 3 million pesos to town councils in the municipality.
Angry citizens make off with a police vehicle.
In an interview with the newspaper El Sur, Morales said he had been forced to sign the aforementioned agreement when the same group kidnapped him for two days in March.
The agreement, he said, “isn’t valid, because it was signed under pressure.”
“Of course, we’re going to ask that the law be applied,” he said. “Such barbarism can’t go unpunished, especially the attacks on workers and public servants.”
Morales also accused the protesters of being supporters of an opposition candidate who lost the 2018 mayoral election.
“They’re upset because their candidate, Adahir Hernández from the Citizens’ Movement, didn’t win, and they still haven’t gotten over it,” he said.
The mayor says that he has been open to dialogue with the protesters, but the law prevents him from meeting their demand to be given money in cash.
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In an interview with El Universal, protester Samuel Laureano Linares denied that they were demanding money in cash.
Rather, Linares said, the group is demanding to be allowed to participate in and supervise infrastructure projects. He added that for many years local officials have stolen parts of the municipal budget and built low-quality infrastructure.
The semi burns after this morning's accident in Morelos.
A semi-truck lost its brakes and collided with more than a dozen vehicles on the Mexico City-Cuautla highway on Wednesday morning, killing at least six people and injuring 21.
According to Federal Police, the truck lost its brakes around 8:30 this morning near Tetelcingo. When the driver realized that his brakes weren’t working, he attempted to alert other drivers by flashing his lights, but lost control of the truck and crashed into 15 other vehicles on the highway before hitting a building and coming to a halt.
Emergency services arrived at the scene from the municipalities of Ayala, Yecapixtla and Cuautla and transported 17 people to nearby hospitals. A pregnant woman in critical condition was flown by helicopter to the Cuernavaca General Hospital, while firefighters spent an hour putting out the fire in the runaway truck.
The driver of the semi, which was carrying a load of rebar, was able to escape his vehicle before it caught fire. He was placed under arrest at the scene.
Morelos Public Works Secretary Fidel Giménez Valdez told reporters that the government will expropriate a property near the highway to build a runaway truck ramp to prevent future accidents of this kind.
“The state government is going to expropriate the land to build the ramp,” he said. “The Communications and Transportation Secretariat will provide the resources and carry out the project.”
Giménez added that an emergency escape ramp has been needed in the area for the past 30 years, but the project has been delayed by a local landowner who is demanding 10 times the market price for a property with highway frontage.
Police reopened circulation on the Mexico City-Cuautla highway at 11:00am.
The sinking of Mexico City has reached the point that the historic center is at a lower level than the deepest part of Lake Texcoco, according to a hydraulic engineer who participated in a seminar on Mexico City’s water supply.
“Lake Texcoco was the lowest point in the Valley of México, and now the zócalo is below the level of the lake,” said Fernando González Villarreal, a researcher at the Engineering Institute of the National Autonomous University.
González said the sinking, which has been a constant since the mid-19th century, is caused by the exploitation of the aquifers under Mexico City. The aquifers are replenished with water at an average rate of 25 cubic meters per second, about half the rate at which water is extracted from them.
“The problem is that the sinking isn’t even, and in some places there are different levels of sinking,” he said. “That means broken pipes, buildings leaning to the side, and it makes repairs and maintenance very expensive.”
In some areas, the city is sinking as much as 40 centimeters a year — up to as much as 10 meters over the course of the last century.
González thinks that some kind of drastic action — likely costing as much as 20 billion pesos (US $1 billion) a year for the next 15 years — needs to be taken to address the issue. Such action could include finding alternative sources of water, artificially replenishing aquifers or rebuilding the city’s waterworks, parts of which are as much as 100 years old.
“It’s in very bad shape, and we need to do a lot of work to reduce all the leaks,“ he said. “We also need, in my opinion, to recharge the aquifers artificially.”
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said her administration takes the water problem seriously, and that more resources are being directed towards improving hydraulic infrastructure.
“An issue as important as the issue of water, we shouldn’t see it as a conflict, but rather as an opportunity for collaboration,” she said. “And this is a message of collaboration: we may have differences on some issues, but here, we are in a community, working together to help Mexico City move forward.”
A group of citizens and municipal councilors took control of the offices of the municipality of Zaachila in central Oaxaca this week to demand the resignation of the mayor.
A diverse cross-section of the municipality’s residents, including taxi drivers, merchants, politicians and other residents gathered in front of the municipal palace Monday evening to demand a meeting with Cástulo Bretón Mendoza to insist that he address widespread problems.
In response, the mayor fled through a back door. Upon learning of the his escape, outraged residents occupied the municipal palace and symbolically placed official government notices of closure at different points around the building, insisting that the municipal council strip the mayor of his powers and hold special elections to elect a new one.
Residents and local politicians say that since Bretón took office, he has been deaf to citizens’ petitions to fix serious issues in Zaachila, including the collapse of drinking water and drainage pipes in several neighborhoods and interruptions in public transportation service.
City councilor Leticia Coroneal said the mayor often fails to show up for work and that when he does, his office is closed to residents. She added that Bretón “finances are a mess” and that he has hired friends and family members for top positions in the municipality.
However, rising crime might have been the final straw for fed up residents. On Sunday morning, police found the body of a woman who had been beaten to death in her home. No arrests have been made.
Coroneal said residents are angry over the lack of action against crime and insecurity.
A Oaxaca state government official said that state authorities will try to mediate the conflict between residents and the mayor.
For two days, United States President Donald Trump tweeted and spoke about a secret immigration deal with Mexico beyond the agreement the two countries reached last Friday.
“. . . It will be revealed in the not too distant future and will need a vote by Mexico’s legislative body!” he tweeted on Monday, adding that if “approval is not forthcoming, tariffs will be reinstated!”
However, the White House didn’t provide any other details, and Mexico denied that there was a hidden part of the deal, provoking skepticism about whether it really did exist.
But now the agreement appears to have been partially revealed – unintentionally — by the U.S. president.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Trump removed a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket.
“Right here is the agreement . . . It’s very simple. It’s right here. And in here is everything you want to talk about. Done. It’s done. It’s done,” Trump said, adding that it was “the agreement that everybody says I don’t have.”
The U.S. president said he wouldn’t reveal what the document said because he wanted to allow Mexico to reveal it “at the right time.”
In response to reporters who asked for details, Trump said he would like to show them the agreement but added “you will freeze action on it, you will stop it, you will analyze it . . .”
The latter part of the president’s claim – journalistic analysis – quickly proved to be prophetic.
Although Trump didn’t disclose the details of the deal himself, a photographer for TheWashington Post managed to take a shot of the document that reveals some of its contents.
To improve readability, the photographer, Jabin Botsford, flipped the photo before posting it to his Twitter account. Then came the media scrutiny.
Ebrard tells a press conference Mexico might have to face a negotiation over ‘safe third country.’
The Post reported that the document deals with some kind of “burden sharing” involving “refugees,” which indicates that it is most likely a “safe third country” agreement.
However, the newspaper noted that it was “curious” that the presidents of United States and Mexico hadn’t signed the deal “given the gravity of the topic.”
The text of the apparent deal indicates that Mexico would be obliged to enact it if it fails to stem the flow of migrants through the country to the United States border.
“If the United States determines, at its discretion and after consultation with Mexico, after 45 calendar days from the date of the issuance of the Joint Declaration, that the measures adopted by the Government of Mexico pursuant to the Joint Declaration have not sufficiently achieved results in addressing the flow of migrants to the southern border of the United States, the Government of Mexico will take all necessary steps under the domestic law to bring the agreement into force with a view to ensuring that the agreement will enter into force within 45 days.”
Although the document appears to be signed by Alejandro Celorio Alcántara, a deputy legal adviser in Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, as well as Marik String, acting legal adviser in the U.S. State Department, Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said later yesterday that Mexico has not yet committed to implementing a “safe third country” agreement.
However, he acknowledged that the United States will likely ask for a such a deal if it deems that after 45 days Mexico has made insufficient progress in stemming the flow of migrants.
If that should occur, the agreement would have to be approved by lawmakers – thus explaining Trump’s tweet – and probably negotiated with other countries in the region.
“It would be applied if we fail, and if we accept what they tell us,” Ebrard said.
The foreign secretary said that Mexico would prepare itself “in the best possible way for the negotiation that will occur in 45 days if the measures adopted don’t have the results we expect.”
Ebrard’s comments and the text of the document Trump produced indicate that the agreement’s application is largely contingent on Mexico’s National Guard failing to reduce illegal immigration.
As part of the agreement to stave off tariffs threatened by Trump, Mexico agreed to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border with Guatemala.
It also agreed to accept the return of migrants who have sought asylum in the United States as they await the outcome of their claims.
While Mexico has agreed to bolster security, Ebrard stressed that last week’s negotiations didn’t set a specific migration reduction target.
He also said that any future negotiations would be limited to migration issues – that is, the possible application of a “safe third country” agreement.
The imposition of tariffs would not be on the table, Ebrard said, contradicting the claims made by both Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Mexico has long opposed the introduction of a “safe third country” scheme, which would force Central American migrants to seek asylum in Mexico rather than in the United States.
Ebrard said that United States officials had strongly pushed for such a deal, stating that for much of the negotiations “it seemed like it was third safe country agreement or tariffs.”
Although Mexico appears to have committed to implement a “safe third country” scheme should its efforts to reduce migration fall short of United States’ expectations, the legal official who seemingly signed the agreement in question indicated that it wasn’t a done deal as claimed by Trump.
Celorio said the government would come up with variations, or alternatives, to present to the United States.
After putting forward “a range of concepts” that were rejected by the United States last week, the Mexican government will now have time to “prepare more, present them with better options,” he said.
A reporter at a daily newspaper in Tabasco was shot dead in front of her house Tuesday night in Huimanguillo.
Municipal authorities said two men on a motorcycle approached Norma Sarabia around 9:30 last night and addressed the reporter by name before shooting her several times and fleeing.
Sarabia was a correspondent for Tabasco Hoy in Huimanguillo, one of the most violent municipalities in the state. She also collaborated with other Tabasco media, including Diario Presente, El Sol del Sureste and Diario Avance.
Police are investigating whether the attack was related to Sarabia’s work as a journalist or as a teacher in a local school.
Tabasco Hoy editorial director Héctor Tapia told the news agency EFE that Sarabia had expressed fear about working in Huimanguillo.
“More than once, she made comments about being afraid, about how difficult it was in Huimanguillo with the insecurity, and that she had received threats,” he said. “Eventually we decided she should stop signing her articles.”
Tapia added that the killing has shocked the newspaper’s staff and has left them feeling vulnerable.
Sarabia had worked at the newspaper for about 15 years covering crime and violence, everything from car accidents to homicides and kidnappings. In the months before her death, she covered at least a dozen murders, chronicling the rising violence in the area around Huimanguillo, much of which is related to organized crime and fuel theft.
Sarabia had previously reported being threatened in 2014 after covering the death while in custody of a former police officer accused of involvement in kidnappings.
Sarabia is the 14th journalist killed in Mexico since President López Obrador took office in December, and the first woman journalist to be killed, according to the organization Reporteras en Guardia.
She is also the second journalist to be killed this year in Tabasco, after radio host Jesús Eugenio Ramos Rodríguez was killed in Emiliano Zapata on February 9.
Kidnapping and murder victim, 22-year-old Norberto Ronquillo.
Mexico City police are under investigation for their allegedly slow response to a kidnapping case in which the victim was killed, and for possible collusion with the perpetrators of the crimes.
Norberto Ronquillo, a 22-year-old student originally from Chihuahua, was kidnapped on June 4 after leaving the Pedregal University in southern Mexico City. His body was found in forested land in the borough of Xochimilco on Sunday.
The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (PGJ) has ordered an immediate and exhaustive investigation into the conduct of officers from the police’s anti-kidnapping unit who were assigned to the case.
Ronquillo’s family claim that in the 72 hours after he was kidnapped police failed to properly investigate the case. Officers also allegedly failed to correctly secure the crime scene.
Ronquillo was intercepted by another vehicle after leaving the university in his car last Tuesday night, security camera footage shows. He was then abducted and placed in a second vehicle used by the kidnappers.
A mother’s grief: Norelia Hernández is overcome during a march to demand justice for her kidnapped son.
Shortly after, Ronquillo’s family received a telephone call demanding the payment of a 5-million-peso (US $261,500) ransom.
On Wednesday, the family transferred 500,000 pesos to the kidnappers but didn’t receive any response.
According to Attorney General Ernestina Godoy, Ronquillo was killed just hours after he was kidnapped.
However, the Institute of Forensic Sciences said an autopsy showed that he wasn’t killed until the day before his body was discovered, meaning that he was held captive for four days.
The cause of death was suffocation.
Godoy said “we have some very solid lines of investigation and as part of the inquiry there will be [a review] of the conduct of all the officers” involved in the case.
Attorney General Godoy released information that conflicted with autopsy findings.
“Everyone involved is subject to investigation, we’ll do everything in our hands [to ensure that] that this act doesn’t go unpunished . . .”
One officer has already been interviewed by the PJG for allegedly failing to correctly secure the car in which Ronquillo was traveling before he was kidnapped.
One line of investigation is based on a theory that the kidnappers were friends or acquaintances of Ronquillo and knew that he came from a wealthy family.
Security camera footage revealed that the kidnappers appeared to know the route he would take after leaving his university. Security footage also allowed authorities to map the route they took after the kidnapping occurred.
Two properties that were possibly used as safe houses have been identified and are under investigation.
Ronquillo’s family has called for the federal Attorney General’s Office to assume responsibility for the case due to the slow, and perhaps criminally complicit, response of Mexico City authorities, while the rector of the Pedregal University said the incident must serve as a wake-up call for authorities.
“What we’re asking of the authorities is to act correctly, in this case we believe that vital time was lost. We want Norberto’s case to . . . serve as an example so that [the authorities] do what is necessary to save someone’s life. We don’t want more cases [like this] in the city,” Armando Martínez said.
The new migration agreement between Mexico and the United States will further stretch the limited resources of already overwhelmed migrant shelters, says a shelter director in Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
A key part of the deal reached by the two countries last Friday is Mexico’s agreement to accept the return of all migrants seeking asylum in the United States as they await the outcome of their claims.
“Those crossing the U.S. southern border to seek asylum will be rapidly returned to Mexico where they may await the adjudication of their asylum claims,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said yesterday.
“We’ve seen this before, we were able to do this to the tune of a couple of hundred people per day, we now have the capacity to do this full throttle,” he added.
Héctor Silva, director of Casa Senda de Vida (Path of Life House) in Reynosa, said that shelters will be unable to cope with the increased arrival of migrants under the so-called “Remain in Mexico” plan.
“If they send us a greater number of migrants, we’ll have a bigger problem that we won’t be able to solve. That’s what the governments should think about, not making political or tariff agreements . . . They’re dealing with people,” he said.
Silva said that funding provided to the country’s migrant shelters from the federal government is insufficient, explaining that “we’re surviving with donations.”
The Casa Senda de Vida is currently housing 520 migrants, he added, a figure that is more than double its capacity of 250.
“We’ve improvised dormitories in tents. It’s not fair that because of political matters or agreements between countries that we [have to] provide attention that is not dignified for any human being,” Silva said, adding that turning people away is not an option.
“We’ve had temperatures of up to 45 degrees and . . . heavy rain. Governments should consider that we’re dealing with human beings who have come from suffering in their countries of origin and even here, they have to go hungry.”
Another critic of the new migration pact is Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastélum.
He said the agreement – which allowed Mexico to stave off tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump – doesn’t provide clear protocols for attending to migrants who arrive in northern border cities.
“We’re back to the same thing, we don’t have clear operational rules, how’s it going to work, we don’t have any information . . . and there’s confusion,” Gastélum said.
The mayor added that he hoped his government could sit down with federal authorities to establish protocols that set out the responsibilities of the municipality in attending to migrants and those of the state and federal governments – including the funding they will provide.
“I’m waiting for them to turn around and see Tijuana . . .”
AMLO's approval rating in August and November 2018 and March and June 2019. el universal
President López Obrador’s approval rating has dropped but he remains a highly popular leader, a new opinion poll shows.
A survey published today by El Universal shows that 72.7% of respondents approve of López Obrador’s performance as president, a decline of 6.7% compared to the newspaper’s previous poll in March.
Just over six months into his six-year term, López Obrador was given an overall rating of 7.33 out of 10, whereas in March he scored 7.7.
The president’s management of education and governance issues as well as his crusade against corruption were considered the most positive aspects of his performance.
However, 50% of all poll respondents disapproved of López Obrador’s management of migration problems.
Asked to identify the federal government’s greatest achievement, 21% of respondents cited the implementation of social programs while 20% mentioned the crackdown on fuel theft.
One in 10 respondents regarded the combating of corruption as the government’s biggest accomplishment but a higher percentage – 12% – said there had been no notable achievement.
Just over 16% said the López Obrador administration hasn’t made any significant errors since taking office last December, while 10% cited the government’ security strategy as a mistake.
However, the government has expressed confidence that the centerpiece of its security plan, the newly-created National Guard, will be effective in reducing the high rates of violent crime plaguing the country.
Just over 8% of poll respondents said that the government had erred in its implementation of social programs, 7% cited cuts to the health sector as a mistake and 5.6% were critical of the management of the economy.
The survey found that 55% of respondents believe that López Obrador will fulfill his campaign promises while 15% said he won’t, a 5% increase compared to the previous poll.
An even higher percentage – 65% – said Mexico will improve during the current administration but the figure represents an 8% decline compared to March. Just over 12% of respondents said the country will get worse during López Obrador’s six-year term.
Nine in 10 people said López Obrador should tell United States President Donald Trump to stop his verbal attacks on Mexicans, while 61% said they supported the government stopping undocumented migrants from entering the country.
As measures are implemented to tighten the southern border as a result of an agreement with the United States, Mexico will help provide jobs for Central American migrants entering the country from Guatemala, the president said.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador told his morning press conference today that his administration’s corruption clean-up campaign has freed up funding and economic resources necessary to deal with the migration crisis.
“That is the importance of not permitting corruption and decadence in government; now that we need additional resources, we have them. We do not have to ask for credit because the finance department has the resources we need.”
The president suggested that some of the migrants could find work within in Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life), the federal government’s ambitious program to plant timber and fruit trees on one million hectares of land in rural Mexico.
Alternatively, López Obrador said that migrants might find opportunities as workers in the federal government’s plan for earthquake reconstruction in Oaxaca, or at the new oil refinery in Dos Bocas, Tabasco.
He said he had instructed his cabinet to broaden federal programs in the region to provide more sources of employment for migrants.
The president offered an assurance that all migrants arriving in Mexico will receive humanitarian treatment from authorities.
The president’s remarks come just days after the Mexican government’s last-minute agreement with the United States to deploy the National Guard to the country’s southern border and allow migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to remain in Mexico while awaiting a decision from authorities.
Calling the agreement “an interesting challenge,” President López Obrador said the Mexican people and investors are content because the pact not only avoided a financial crisis for Mexico, it will strengthen the peso.
“We are always going to look for agreements, opt for dialogue and, with hard work, succeed in developing the region.”
