‘No more wasteful spending:’ airport dissidents take fight to court

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June 5, 2019

The army's construction equipment at the ready in Santa Lucía.

A group opposed to wasteful government spending had a big legal victory this week: a federal court issued an injunction ordering the suspension of construction at the site of the federal government’s new airport.

And the stage is set for a lot more legal battles in the weeks, months and possibly years ahead.

The #NoMásDerroches (No More Waste) Collective has filed 147 separate injunctions that could hold up or threaten construction of the new airport at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base in México state.

Made up of civil society organizations, law firms and more than 100 citizens, the collective’s goal is a review of the legality of the cancelation of the new Mexico City International Airport (NAIM) and to ensure that the Santa Lucía project has all the necessary permits.

“The unjustified cancelation of the NAIM in Texcoco has cost Mexicans hundreds of billions of pesos [and caused] the disappearance of 46,000 direct jobs as well as the loss of legal certainty and confidence of national and international companies to continue investing in our country,” the collective said in a statement.

“. . . The project to build a civil international airport at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base doesn’t solve the saturation problem that currently exists . . . represents a significant risk for air security and in addition lacks the necessary technical, financial, legal and economic studies.”

The injunction issued by a federal administrative court stipulates that the suspension of construction will remain in force until such time as the federal government proves that it has all the necessary environmental permits.

“With this decision, the federal judicial power once again demonstrates to citizens that it is a real counterweight to hasty and unjustified decisions of the executive power, and generates an important precedent,” the #NoMásDerroches collective said.

It added that it will continue to seek legal recourse not just against the Santa Lucía project but also “any other infrastructure project that leads to the destruction of ecosystems and possible violations of human rights.”

That would indicate it could initiate legal action against the new oil refinery in Tabasco and the Maya Train project on the Yucatán peninsula, both of which could pose environmental threats.

Among the collective’s members are Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, the Mexican Employers Federation and the Mexican Human Rights Commission.

In response to the ruling, Communications and Transportation Secretary Javier Jiménez Espriú said that work at the airport can’t stop because it hasn’t even started, adding that he expected that an environmental impact study for the project will be completed by the end of the month.

President López Obrador also said that no work has yet started but added, “all the same we’re going to respect the decision of the judge.”

Opponents of the government are “going to put obstacles [in the path of] everything – injunction after injunction – but we’re going to comply with the law and there’s not going to be any problem,” he declared.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)

How to find your way through the massive Mercado de la Merced

By

Andy Hume

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June 5, 2019

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Crayfish, corn husk smoked fish and cleaned and cured chicken intestines at the pre-Hispanic food stand.

At Mercado de la Merced, just outside of Mexico City’s Colonia Centro, the subway exits directly into the market, just outside the booth of the Brotherhood of Veracruz Witches, where you can receive a spiritual cleansing at the foot of both Jesus Christ and Holy Death.

It’s not a bad idea to approach Merced Market’s massive, intimidating maze with a freshly cleansed soul, but it can be hellish to navigate on your own.

The neighborhood now called La Merced has been a major center of commerce for centuries. The current market was completed in 1957 and is second in size only to Central de Abasto, yet still considered the largest “retail market” in Mexico City.

Merced consists of seven buildings, with construction that covers 88,000 square meters and space for 5,525 merchants, and that isn’t even including the thousands of street vendors that veritably swallow up the buildings in the surrounding tianguis. The “roving market” tianguis tents are so thick you can’t even see the buildings from certain vantage points.

The largest building, the Nave Mayor, runs three blocks between Rosario and Cabaña streets, with the main entrance just to the right of the Parish of Saint Thomas chapel on Cabaña, but to properly get your bearings and see as much as possible, we recommend a route beginning at one of the annex buildings.

A look down the market stall at Mercado de la Merced. — A look down the market stalls at Mercado de la Merced.

La Merced’s chief complex consists of four markets – Produce, Sweets, Flowers (now mainly clothing and housewares) and Meats. The scene in front of the meat market – bicycles zipping by, huge trucks maneuvering, and mobs of individuals with fresh cuts in plastic bags – is by no means calm, but you can clearly see the entrance on San Ciprian just north of Carretones.

There’s nothing to fully prepare you for the enormity of this market experience. But diving in under the main entrance sign you can acclimate quickly to the sounds and smells of La Merced. The hanging meats, stacks of pressed pork and piles of offal blend for a locker room smell appropriate to this devotedly macho landscape.

Hollers of, “Hey güero! Hey skinny, what do you need?” will help keep you on your toes snaking through traffic as a boy with pork rinds in his hair barrels toward you with a handcart. The carts, stacked to double the height of their drivers, somehow find passage through the corridors, the drivers often shirtless under their aprons. The floor, slick with grease and blood, would be an embarrassing place to fall.

Foot traffic moves at its own organic nimble pace, so there’s not much time to ogle, but there are plenty of beautiful meats and fresh cheeses to see as you make it through the lane and eventually find yourself heading underground past the heaps of homemade moles into a quieter tableau of customized aprons and pink and blue baby bassinets.

Continuing back upstairs and you’re in the main market building – the big show – still bustling but much less intense than the meat room. Towering bundled banana leaves, huge packages of corn husks and tomatillos stacked 10 crates high. Pepper and lime specialists hawk massive stockpiles of the regular fare, as well as some of the rarer specimens that can be hard to find outside of Merced.

Here you can see the black cracked and peeling paint on the ceiling, a remnant of the 1998 fire that ravaged two-thirds of the building. Take a right through the nopal skinners, mechanically scraping the spines from cactus leaves and tossing the sale-ready product into perfect piles. The smell of fresh cactus and herbs is a welcome palate cleanser.

Tacos with french fries and a little help from Ronald McDonald at Tacos McTeo. — Tacos with french fries at Tacos McTeo.

Right outside you can peak on to Rosario Street with huge trucks inching through, barely missing toes, in the tightly packed, open-air tianguis mayhem.

Continue through nopal row and you’ll come to the northeastern corner of the building, Puerta 1 and the pre-Hispanic and, let’s say, uncommon foods: maguey worms, grasshoppers and tiny crayfish. The cleaned and cured chicken intestines are a particular specialty here. They taste, well, just like chicken, like a heavily concentrated fatty chicken bullion.

Take a left on Anaya to the other corner of the market, to the famed food stalls, for a trip through some of the best tastes of Mexico all packed together in a single 200-meter row. Seafood and chicken caldos, bright red cow’s stomach stew, huaraches and quesadillas, and the rainbow of corn prepared every way you can imagine.

Don’t sweat the choices too much — nearly everything’s good through here; it’s more a matter of what you’re in the mood for. Try some blood sausage tacos or a bowl of wonderfully porky pozole. At Puerta 16 is the legendary McTeo’s, the claimed inventor of french fry tacos. A double tortilla campechano with longaniza sausage and steak, topped with fresh fried potato sticks and grilled nopales, will fill you up quick.

Back out to Anaya Street (where you came in), take a left, and just past Cabaña Street you’ll find the Mercado de Dulces with bees swarming the chunks of sugared fruits, pumpkins and sweet potatoes on the street. Enter into the throbbing nerve of the Mexican sweet tooth with lollipops the size of probably someone’s head and bins of assorted candies to fuel an army of hyperactive child warriors. Yet somehow the simple, multicolored marshmallows appear to be the most popular.

From here you can wander for days in the labyrinth of Mercado de la Merced. It’s a city unto itself with hidden subterranean video game parlors and an enormous boxing gym that pops up out of nowhere in an otherwise abandoned part of a parking garage.

Find your bearings and meander through. Just maybe leave the pets at home, as there’s rumored to be a 50-kilo rat subsisting on dogs and cats somewhere in the bowels of the market.

• Mercado de la Merced’s main building is located between Cabaña and Rosario and Calle Gral. Anaya and Cd. Rosario in Merced Balbuena, Mexico City; open 6:00am to 7:00pm seven days a week.

This is the 13th in a series on the bazaars, flea markets and markets of Mexico City:

Terminal 3 at Mexico City not enough to relieve saturation, airlines warn

By

MND Staff

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June 5, 2019

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Construction of a third terminal at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) won’t be enough to solve its severe saturation problem, according to the chief of a regional airlines association.

“New infrastructure is always positive but there are several problems at the AICM,” said Luis Felipe de Oliveira, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association.

“There is no way to increase [the number of] runways and the connection between the three terminals is not ideal,” he added, explaining that airport congestion is a huge problem.

The third terminal will help, de Oliveira said, “but it won’t solve the problem.”

Gerardo Ferrando, CEO of the Mexico City Airport Group, announced in April that a master plan for a third terminal was being drawn up and predicted that it will open next year. He also said that the possibility of a fourth terminal was being analyzed.

The federal government has allocated more than 4 billion pesos (US $204.3 million) for upgrades at the AICM and is also planning to revamp the Toluca airport and build a new 80-billion-peso airport at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base north of the capital.

De Oliveira was critical of the three-airport plan, stating that the distance between the facilities will mean that “connectivity is lost” and that passengers will be dissuaded from using Mexico as a hub for flights to other destinations.

“We have a lot of doubts, we know that the decision has been made, we want to work together with [the government] but unfortunately the decision won’t help Mexico to be better connected,” he said.

Even construction of a high-speed rail link between the AICM and Santa Lucía won’t be enough to ensure continued aviation growth, de Oliveira said.

The government is pursuing a three-airport plan after canceling the partially-built US $13-billion Mexico City airport at Texcoco, México state.

President López Obrador says his plan will be cheaper and relieve congestion at the Mexico City airport more quickly, but some aviation experts contend that it will be impossible for the AICM and the Santa Lucía airport to operate simultaneously because they are too close together.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Bulls and other animals deserve better from mankind

By

Sarah DeVries

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June 5, 2019

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A Mexican bullfight — The bull didn't ask for this.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

On a bus to another city a couple of months ago, the animated film about a peaceful, flower-loving bull named Ferdinand played on the screens.

In the movie, he runs away from a bull-raising ranch and is adopted by a little girl on a farm where he lives a blissful, peaceful existence. After an unfortunate bee sting causes him to inadvertently destroy a nearby city’s flower festival, he’s returned to the ranch where he convinces the other animals to escape once he makes them believe they will die if they fulfill their wishes of becoming great fighters, and that no alternative fate awaits them.

Toward the end, he’s roped into a fight with a famous matador, who ends up sparing him after Ferdinand himself decides not to kill the bullfighter when he has the chance. In a familiar trope, the victim becomes the merciful powerful, and he returns to his enchanted life on the farm with his friends.

My husband’s grandfather was a big fan of watching bullfights on TV, and during the time we lived close by and spent nearly every Sunday with them, I regularly ruined the experience for him with my snarky encouragement of the bulls.

If forced to choose, of course, I’ll always say a human’s life is worth more, but it’s hard to feel sorry for bullfighters who are knowingly risking their lives with the goal of taking away the life of an animal that didn’t ask to be there.

Really, I was insufferable.

As a little girl, I’d read the story of Ferdinand, and it has always stuck with me. Growing up in a mid-sized city in Texas during the 80s and 90s, bullfighting was hardly a part of my reality, but whenever the topic of animal rights would come up (and it often did — my grandmother was an ardent vegetarian), I’d think of the unfairness of that poor fictional animal being forced into fights that he didn’t want.

I didn’t think too much about the issue specifically until, as a teacher at an American school in Querétaro, one of the required books in a literature class I taught was Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.

In speaking about it, Hemingway said that his initial goal was to describe the perfect bullfight. The book was by no means an appropriate choice for ninth-graders, but it did at least force me to examine why people might be intrigued by a bullfight: humans seem to seek out witnessing dangerous, heart-pounding experiences, and what’s more terrifying and thrilling than watching a 2,000-pound animal charge someone?

Still, though, you’d think we could find something that didn’t necessarily result in the death of at least one of the participants.

In Mexico, bullfighting seems to be on the way out in an increasing number of states, the use of circus animals has been banned and frequent challenges to cockfighting and other morally questionable forms of entertainment at the expense of animals abound.

Major cities now have vegetarian and vegan restaurants and laws against animal cruelty, though not always enforced, are on the books.

My own relationship with animals is complicated. I was a vegetarian for years, but stopped twice: once when I first moved to Mexico, unwilling to face the prospect of turning my nose up at what my hosts would surely be offering.

When I realized that actually being a vegetarian in Mexico is perfectly acceptable (and having given an ethics class that required research about animal rights), I abandoned animals-as-food a second time. I started eating meat again, however, after my daughter was born, having decided to test the extent to which it would give me more energy in the face of scant sleep and a poor and haphazard diet.

It didn’t really, but I’d gotten into the habit of eating it again, and have yet to renew my own personal ban.

Basically, I’m a hypocrite. Especially when it comes to animals, though, we all are. We scoff at stories from China of dogs being sold for meat, but why is that worse than killing other animals for meat? And besides, it’s not like everyone treats dogs well here either, with even the ones with homes being relegated to a life of isolation on roofs when the owners figure out that dogs don’t simply train themselves to behave in ways that humans desire.

I eat a slab of pork, from an animal much smarter than my own pets, with my loved and cared-for dogs sitting at my feet. I don’t encourage the use of animals for entertainment, and certainly not their torture and killing for our viewing pleasure.

But am I that much more ethical when I freely choose to eat animals that have been raised and killed on my behalf?

We humans, really, are just the worst.

What do we owe the animals in our care, especially the animals that would not choose to be in our care if they had the choice? When it comes to our diets, I don’t have the answers.

I know in my heart that our system of raising them for food is not right, not because eating something that was alive is wrong, but because our way of getting them is just not fair competition, and causes a host of other environmental problems to boot. But I certainly don’t have a roadmap for turning around our current system.

At the very least, we can continue our march toward making the outright abuse of animals for entertainment and profit illegal. Mexico has done a lot toward this goal, but still has a way to go. There are real Ferdinands (and Fidos) out there counting on us!

Let’s throw in some Meatless Mondays, and we’ll be on our way.

Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz.

The army fights narcos on one hand — and saves turtles on the other

By

Madison Koen

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June 5, 2019

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Fighting against the extinction of the world’s remaining sea turtles on the Pacific coast has become a priority for the Mexican army — right along with fighting narcos and providing security.

In the last six months, the army safeguarded 11,000 turtle eggs and released 8,600 sea turtles into the sea in the state of Guerrero, where sea turtle eggs are often prized as a delicacy and eaten along with the endangered animal’s flesh.

Major Roberto Godoy Gómez, the instructions and operations chief for a sea turtle conservation campaign in Pie de la Cuesta, explained that the army’s mission is twofold: to maintain a physical presence on the state’s shores to rescue turtles and to educate a generation of young people to have greater respect for the environment.

“We are trying to create a culture [of environmental consciousness] in such a way as to leave conservation strategies deeply imprinted in society. Before, we had a very high incidence of turtle egg pillaging, but now it is down to almost nothing; we have significantly decreased the threat to the turtles.”

The major said the army makes visits to elementary, secondary and high schools in the state’s coastal regions and invites students to witness the releasing of baby turtles into the sea.

Major Godoy, responsible for saving turtles.

Typical programs include information about the sea turtles’ life cycle and their importance in the environment to generate environmental consciousness from an early age so that students will choose to willingly assist in conservation efforts rather than partake in what has long been seen in the region as a tasty snack.

“The truth is that there is much more to be gained from protecting them than eating them, because neither their eggs nor their flesh is of great benefit to us.”

Source: Milenio (sp)

Politicians, analysts criticize AMLO’s decision to pass on G20 summit

By

MND Staff

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June 5, 2019

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Peña Nieto and Russia's Vladimir Putin enjoy a moment at a G20 conference.

President López Obrador has come under fire from politicians, analysts and others for his decision not to attend the G20 leaders’ summit in Osaka, Japan, later this month.

The president announced yesterday that he won’t travel to Japan because he doesn’t want to be drawn into a “direct confrontation” between the United States and China.

“. . . They’re probably going to deal with the issues of the trade war, with which I don’t agree,” López Obrador said.

He previously indicated that he was too busy attending to national matters to travel abroad and frequently quips that “the best foreign policy is domestic policy.”

Since taking office on December 1, López Obrador hasn’t traveled outside Mexico at all whereas his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, went on 10 international trips in his first six months as president.

AMLO should stay home and avoid embarrassing Mexico: Quadri. — AMLO should stay home and ‘save us a lot of embarrassment:’ Quadri.

López Obrador told reporters yesterday that his “modest contribution” to the summit will be a letter about the problems of inequality in the world.

“That’s what [international] meetings should be for, they’re the meetings that are needed . . . [inequality] is what causes the deterioration of the environment, it’s what causes migration, it’s what causes insecurity and violence, this is the issue that has to be dealt with . . .” López Obrador said.

He explained that Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard and Finance Secretary Carlos Urzúa will represent Mexico at the G20 summit on June 28 and 29.

Politicians, analysts and other commentators contend that López Obrador’s absence will be a lost opportunity to build support for Mexico just as President Donald Trump is threatening to impose new, incrementally increasing tariffs to pressure the country to do more to stop flows of undocumented migrants across the northern border.

Among lawmakers that criticized the president’s decision was Laura Rojas, a federal National Action Party deputy and member of the lower house’s international relations committee.

“In the middle of an attack on Mexico by Trump, the president decides not to go to the G20, a space that he could take advantage of to speak with him in person and build support from other leaders for our country. Mexico will pay the costs of AMLO’s lack of international vision,” she wrote on Twitter.

Zavala: 'Not a time to fail in foreign policy.' — Zavala: ‘Not a time to fail in foreign policy.’

Margarita Zavala, a former first lady and independent presidential candidate, said succinctly: “Mr. President, you should go. These are not times to fail in foreign policy.”

León Krauze, a columnist for El Universal and The Washington Post, also took to Twitter to take aim at López Obrador’s decision to absent himself from the annual meeting that brings together the leaders of the world’s largest economies.

“How does this help Mexico’s interests? Does the president really think that vanishing from the international stage builds better conditions for the country?” he wrote.

“In his hour of greatest diplomatic need, one in which Mexico needs to persuade the big actors of the world to support the country in the face of Trump, and to help strengthen Central America, AMLO delegates the responsibility of going to the G20. He’s the president of Mexico. Not Ebrard. Not Urzúa.”

Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican ambassador to China and consul general in Austin, Texas, said “Mexico could take advantage of its presence in the G20 to obtain the support of the world in the face of Trump’s onslaught.”

López Obrador “would easily achieve it,” he claimed. “However, staying away allows Trump to continue attacking [Mexico] . . . in the international arena. Mexico will become irrelevant.”

Others took a more humorous approach to assessing López Obrador’s decision.

“Don’t forget to quote [former president] Benito Juárez, president. Your little letter will surely fascinate the G20 heads of state,” said Puebla lawyer Javier Lozano.

Gabriel Quadri, a minor party candidate in the 2012 presidential election, wrote on Twitter:

“I insist: it’s a good thing that [the president] isn’t going to the G20. He will save us a lot of embarrassment and he will lavish us with a letter that will surely be another entertaining pearl.”

The claim that López Obrador could embarrass Mexico on the international stage is supported by an assessment of his foreign policy knowledge made by María Cristina Rosas, a well-known academic and author of a book about the new North American trade agreement.

“AMLO is not interested in foreign policy. He’s profoundly ignorant of international relations,” she said.

Just before López Obrador announced that he won’t attend the Osaka summit, Rosas declared:

“If he doesn’t go to the G20, the rating agencies will assess us poorly and international companies’ mistrust [of Mexico] will be greater, which would be catastrophic . . .”

Source: El Universal (sp), BBC Mundo (sp)

Development bank is another federal agency that dines well

By

Simon Schatzberg

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June 5, 2019

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Employees at Nafin dine well. — Employees at Nafin eat well.

Like the federal scientific agency Conacyt, a development bank owned by the Mexican government is enjoying expensive gourmet meals, as well as overpaying for some products, despite the government’s austerity measures.

According to the copy of a contract obtained by El Universal, Nacional Financiera, or Nafin, paid 2.79 million pesos (US $143,000) for catering services for its employees.

Five companies bid on the contract, which was awarded to Pigudi Gastronómico. It also provides catering to Conacyt.

The products Nafin acquired through Pigudi include smoked salmon at 1,496 pesos (US $76) per kilogram and serrano ham at 590 pesos US $30) per kilo. Pigudi also supplied the development bank with 350 six packs of domestic beer, all sold at a considerable markup over consumer prices.

Other delicacies included 14 kinds of cheese, “top-quality” low-gluten quinoa, prawns, chistora sausage and fresh Chilean salmon, washed down with Perrier mineral water (or beer).

The most expensive were six packs of Sol, for which Nafin paid 140.63 pesos each, 38% more than the beer costs in grocery stores.

So far in 2019, Pigudi has been awarded contracts to provide catering for three other government agencies in addition to Nafin and Conacyt: the National Free Textbook Commission, the Doctor Manuel Gea González General Hospital and the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs.

According to the Conacyt contract, obtained by El Universal last month, it pays 15.7 million pesos a month to Pigudi for a catering service that includes a chef and nutritionist.

The agency’s director said in response that the meals were a labor right, not a luxury.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Guatemala denies that US military will help patrol border

By

César Hernández

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June 5, 2019

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The government of Guatemala has refuted a report published last week by the The Washington Post that said United States Homeland Security personnel would help Guatemalan border agents control the movement of migrants.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said his country would not accept troops from the U.S. or any other country.

“There have been proposals” regarding military cooperation on migration issues, he said, adding that “there has been some civilian and military cooperation [with the United States] but that is different from deploying troops.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Sandra Jovel said “there was confusion” and the only agreements reached with the United States were with regard to collaboration in fighting drug and human trafficking.

However, there are U.S. troops in Huehuetenango, working on infrastructure, health and education projects.

The Post report stated that the deployment of U.S. troops would focus on that region, which borders the Mexican state of Chiapas.

Huehuetenango has some of the highest emigration levels in Guatemala.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Toll charges suspended for cars between Colima and Manzanillo

By

César Hernández

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June 5, 2019

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The Cuyutlán toll plaza: no more charge for passenger vehicles.

Tolls have been suspended for passenger vehicles on the Colima-Manzanillo highway by order of President López Obrador.

During a stop yesterday in Colima to kick-start several social programs aimed at students, the elderly, the disabled and unemployed youth, the president said he heard complaints about the tolls while he was campaigning for last year’ s election.

Commuters traveling from Almería to their jobs in Manzanillo have had to pay 130 pesos every day at the Cuyutlán toll plaza to travel just five kilometers.

” . . . I have news for you,” López Obrador said. “I asked the communications and transportation secretary . . . to talk to the concession holder . . . who agreed to stop charging vehicles traveling through that plaza.”

The president said the operator has a 60-year concession to operate the toll plaza, but there were “problems with complaints.”

López Obrador said he planned to talk with the concessionaire that same day and that starting Wednesday passenger vehicles would not pay tolls at Cuyutlán.

Source: El Occidental (sp), Milenio (sp)

Judge issues injunction, halts move to arrest former Pemex CEO

By

Simon Schatzberg

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June 5, 2019

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A federal judge has granted an injunction to former Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya Austin, definitively suspending an arrest warrant issued for him.

Judge Luz María Ortega Tlapa ruled Wednesday that the crimes of which Lozoya is accused do not merit preventative incarceration, and that the former CEO may remain free until his trial ends.

Ortega also granted injunctions to members of Lozoya’s family, protecting them against any arrest warrants that may be issued relating to the case.

The warrant for Lozoya had been issued by another judge on May 26 in connection with Pemex’s 2014 purchase of a fertilizer plant from steelmaker Altos Hornos de México.

Ortega’s ruling does not protect Lozoya from arrest for other possible crimes.

Alonso Alcira, owner and president of Altos Hornos, was arrested on May 28 in Mallorca, Spain, and faces extradition to Mexico for charges relating to the fertilizer plant.

Pemex paid Altos Hornos US $475 million for the plant in 2014 as part of a strategy to promote domestic fertilizer production and reduce dependence on imports. But according to an investigation by the current government, the plant was worth no more than $50 million.

Bank accounts belonging to Lozoya and his family remain frozen, and Lozoya has been barred from holding public office for 10 years for failing to fully disclose information about his assets.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Milenio (sp)