Mayor Valenzuela addresses members of the police department on Sunday.
The municipal police chief and a deputy have been dismissed in Comondú, Baja California Sur, after officers went on strike Saturday to protest the kidnapping of six of their colleagues.
Armed civilians nabbed the police officers early Saturday morning while they were on patrol. They were found beaten later in the morning in Villa Morelos, about 20 kilometers from where they were taken.
In response, the Comondú police department went on strike, demanding that Mayor Walter Valenzuela Acosta address a series of problems afflicting the force.
Striking police occupied municipal police headquarters in Ciudad Constitución, where they displayed signs demanding a response to insecurity in the municipality.
Two days before the officers’ kidnapping, armed men entered police headquarters in nearby Ciudad Insurgentes, where they helped themselves to the contents of the armory.
Mayor Valenzuela met with police on Sunday, later announcing that an agreement had been reached and that police chief Rusbiel Jabadilla Arista and the deputy chief had been dismissed.
He said the dismissal was intended to avoid putting police personnel at risk.
Jabadilla, who served 18 years in the navy, had been appointed to the chief’s position on January 29.
Comondú, located in the center of the state, has a population of about 75,000.
A caravan of around 1,500 migrants from Central America and Cuba left Tapachula, Chiapas, Saturday to begin the journey to the United States border.
In contrast with past cohorts, the migrants formed the caravan inside Mexican territory, the National Immigration Institute (INM) said.
Before leaving Tapachula, Cuban migrants accused INM personnel of deliberately delaying the delivery of visas to allow them to travel legally through Mexico, while Central Americans charged that agents demanded bribes in order to speed up the visa process.
After a 12-hour walk in temperatures as high as 38 C, the caravan reached the municipality of Huehuetán on Saturday afternoon where the migrants rested until resuming their journey today, bound for Huixtla.
Federal Police are accompanying the caravan in order to avoid accidents or other incidents on the highway.
Members of the newest caravan rest in Huehuetán, Chiapas.
Thousands of migrants have entered Mexico in recent months to travel to the United States, drawing the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has described the caravans as an “invasion.”
Earlier this month, the United States government announced that it would return asylum-seeking migrants to Mexico via a second border crossing to await their immigration court hearings.
President López Obrador has pledged that his government will treat migrants humanely while they are in Mexico and more than 10,000 people have been granted visas that allow them to work and access essential services.
However, there are reports that Mexican immigration officials at the northern border have extorted asylum seekers.
According to a report by the news website Vice that was based on the testimonies of 10 migrants, officials have demanded as much as US $3,500 from asylum seekers in order to access certain points of entry to the United States so they can add their names to a waitlist for an appointment with U.S. authorities.
On March 14 – the day after the Vice report was published – López Obrador said his government was investigating corruption by customs and immigration agents.
“The government is full of corrupt practices, it has been for a long time. But we are cleaning it, we will end corruption,” he said.
Thousands of migrants have been stranded in Mexican border cities such as Tijuana as they wait for the opportunity to plead their cases for asylum.
The United States government has introduced a “metering” system that limits the number of cases immigration authorities will hear on a daily basis, spurring some migrants to attempt to cross the border illegally.
“Qué bonito es Chihuahua.” So goes the refrain in the popular Mexican folk song El Corrido de Chihuahua written by Pedro de Lille.
Although he was singing about the entire state, the sentiment is true about the city itself. Squeezed between the vast desert to the north and west, the mahogany-toned peaks of the Sierra Nombre de Dios in the east, and punctuated by a series of rolling hills throughout the city, Chihuahua is far more than just a starting point for a trip to Copper Canyon on the famous train, El Chepe.
Here, art and architecture combine with plenty of revolutionary history to give a unique insight into norteño culture.
Modernization has spread rapidly through Chihuahua over the past 40 years, from the manufacturing plants producing automotive and mechanical parts for export, to American style malls and plazas that line Periférico de la Juventud along the western edge of the city. But despite the growth, much of the historical center retains its colonial and revolutionary period charm.
As with a trip to many Mexican cities, a visit to Chihuahua starts in the central square, Plaza de Armas. The 18th-century baroque style Catedral de Chihuahua dominates the square with its two grand towers imposed against the azure-blue sky.
Chihuahua’s Plaza de Armas and the cathedral.
Around the plaza, a microcosm of Chihuahuan culture emerges. Shoe shiners line the outskirts of the plaza, polishing up the dusty leather boots of men wearing plaid shirts, weather-worn jeans, oversized belt buckles and cowboy hats in a throwback to Chihuahua’s ranching heritage.
In the fountain in front of the cathedral, children play with youthful exuberance, running through the water without a care in the world. Locals sit around on the benches of the plaza, waiting for loved ones, passing the time, or just breathing in the life of the town. Far away from the traffic and chaos of the Periférico, life seems to slow down a bit here.
Large-scale murals and urban artwork adorn many of the buildings in central Chihuahua. Among them are an impressive recreation of Mexican photographer Héctor García Cobo’s iconic photograph of Chihuahuan muralist and revolutionary David Alfaro Siqueiros in a Mexico City prison, and a greater-than-life-sized mural of — you guessed it — a chihuahua dog high on the side of an office building just off Plaza de Armas.
Taking a stroll down Calle Libertad, Chihuahua’s palm tree-lined pedestrian boulevard, young couples pop in and out of fashionable clothing and shoe stores, interspersed with fast food chains and ice cream shops. Here, modern design and historical architecture meet, with many of the trendy stores housed in buildings more than a century old.
Near the end of Calle Libertad sits Casa Chihuahua, once the site of Mexican independence leader Miguel Hidalgo’s jail cell. Built on the location of a former Jesuit college, the building now hosts the Chihuahua State Heritage Museum, highlighting Chihuahua’s environmental diversity and cultural heritage. Inside, three circular rooms celebrate the desert, plains, and mountains of Mexico’s biggest state, with panoramic images and giant screens playing clips of the state’s natural areas.
In adjoining rooms, displays contain information on Chihuahua’s artistic history, including filmmakers and actors, musicians and artists that have called Chihuahua home. In the basement, a gallery hosts rotating art exhibits from some of Chihuahua’s and Mexico’s leading artists. Just behind the gallery space, the museum holds the cold, dark former jail cell of Miguel Hidalgo.
A mural is a tribute to a dog that shares the city’s name.
From the pedestrian area of Calle Libertad a short walk south leads to Paseo Simón Bolívar, named after the Venezuelan revolutionary leader popular throughout Latin America. Among the leafy green parks and popular restaurants and cafes of the broad avenue, more of Chihuahua’s architectural history and design is present.
A significant number of buildings along the Paseo were built as mansions for the elite class in the period just before the Mexican Revolution began.
One of the finest examples is Quinta Gameros, which now hosts a regional museum. Although the facade was built in art nouveau style, the building contains almost as many architectural styles as it’s had owners. Manuel Gameros Ronquillo, the original owner of the mansion, went to France with his wife in the early 1900s to find a style of house that they liked.
Upon returning from France, Gameros Ronquillo’s wife passed away in 1904, before construction of the house could begin. Nonetheless, Mr. Gameros started building in 1907.
By 1910, construction was just about finished, combining elements of late baroque, beaux arts, and second empire architecture along with art nouveau. However, the Mexican revolution broke out, and revolutionary forces took control of Quinta Gameros. Gameros Ronquillo was forced to flee to El Paso, never having lived in his mansion.
Inside, an expansive lobby spreads out and a cedar staircase straight ahead leads to an elaborate stained glass window made by Tiffany’s in New York. On the ground floor, the dining room, bedrooms and living areas contain period furniture from the Requena collection, donated to the museum by Pedro Fossas Requena, the grandson of the creator José Luis Requena.
The former Federal Palace is now the Casa Chihuahua Museum.
Upstairs, art exhibits from Mexican photographers, artists and sculptors adorn the walls. In the rear of the building, an open courtyard leads to a small cafe and gift shop.
In contrast to the extravagantly decorated Quinta Gameros, Quinta Luz, the former home of Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Mexico’s famous revolutionary leader, and his wife Doña Luz Corral, is much simpler. The pale pink palace was converted to the Historical Museum of the Mexican Revolution following the death of Sra. Corral, who lived in the mansion until her passing in 1981.
On the main floor, the remnants of Villa and Corral’s living area include a small kitchen and a Spanish style bathroom. In a courtyard toward the back of the museum sits Pancho Villa’s bullet-riddled 1922 Dodge roadster, which he was driving when he was assassinated as he headed back to his hacienda in Hidalgo del Parral in 1923.
Along the back wall of the museum a complex mural spreads out, portraying many of the main characters of the Mexican Revolution, including Francisco Madero, Venustiano Carranza and of course Pancho Villa himself. Both bright and dark at the same time, the mural rivals many of the more famous works of art from around Mexico.
Upstairs, historical artifacts from the Mexican Revolution grace each of the rooms. An array of weaponry, from sabers and swords to rifles and cannons used by both the federal army and the revolutionary forces demonstrate the type of firepower both sides had.
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Newspaper clippings and black and white photographs from the era tell the story of the division del norte’s exploits as Pancho Villa led his troops around Mexico in his quest to overthrow the government of the day.
Rooms dedicated to Mrs. Corral and the many visits she received over the years from politicians and celebrities complete the collection of the history of the revolution and the house.
As evening falls in Chihuahua, the light of the setting sun casts its fiery red tones upon the side of the Sierra Nombre de Dios. The warm glow spreads over the city, and beyond the art, history and architecture of this noble and royal city, the beauty of the desert shows its glory. Pedro de Lille was right, Qué bonito es Chihuahua.
The body of Sinaloa sports reporter Omar Iván Camacho was found under a bridge on Sunday evening in the municipality of Salvador Alvarado. He had been beaten and tortured.
According to friends and family, the 35-year-old journalist disappeared around 10:00am after he covered the inauguration of a local baseball league in the city of Guamúchil, after which he did not reply to messages and calls.
Nearly nine hours later, at around 7:00 pm, Camacho’s remains were found near the community of La Escalera. His body showed signs of torture and a severe head injury.
Camacho worked as a sports reporter for Noticiero Altavoz and ran his own website dedicated to sports news. The journalist also taught English at a local school.
He is the fifth journalist to be murdered so far this year, following the killing of Santiago Barroso Alfaro in his home in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora. Ten journalists were murdered last year in Mexico.
Human rights undersecretary Alejandro Encinas told reporters today that the federal government will implement new protective measures for journalists and human rights advocates and allocate an additional 75 million pesos (US $3.93 million) in funding to the program, which received 125 million pesos last year.
Encinas said 790 people are currently in the protection program, of whom 292 are journalists and the rest human rights workers. Most are concentrated in just 10 states.
Chinese retailer Miniso plans to open 92 new stores in Mexico this year, increasing its presence to a total of 200 stores.
The company said the new store openings were part of a larger push to expand into new markets in Latin America, in addition to reinforcing its presence in Panama, Colombia and Mexico.
The low-cost retailer and variety store chain has also attracted the interest of significant investors. In February, Grupo Sanborns announced that it had reached an agreement to invest in the company.
“Miniso has been a success since it was introduced [to the Mexican market] in 2016,” said marketing director César Medina.
Although Miniso has not yet reached Baja California or Sonora for logistical reasons, he said, it has stores in central Mexico, the Bajío region and in Monterrey, the three areas where it first opened.
It has since expanded into the Riviera Maya, Mérida, Oaxaca and Chiapas. “At our current pace, we are opening a new store every two weeks,” Medina said.
The company said each of its Mexican stores sees an average of 1,500 shoppers per day, 29% of whom make a purchase. That number is on the rise, along with the number of Mexican businesses interested in opening local franchises.
Last week, the company launched a new marketing campaign called “Efecto Miniso.” The 25-million-peso program is giving away nearly 20,000 stuffed animals, and asks recipients to take photos with their new stuffed companions and share them on social media.
Sales of stuffed animals account for 10% of Miniso’s total sales in Mexico.
A tourist from the United States was attacked by a shark last week while swimming at a beach in Troncones, Guerrero.
According to local media reports, 32-year-old Alex Wilton was swimming about 20 meters from shore at around 5:30pm last Thursday when a shark bit him on his right leg, leaving a gash about 20 centimeters long.
The man’s girlfriend and others at the beach helped him out of the water and took him to a private clinic in Zihuatanejo for treatment.
Cresencio Reyes Torres, mayor of La Unión de Isidoro Montes de Oca, the municipality where Troncones is located, said Wilton returned to the United States yesterday and that he was in good health.
The mayor denied that local authorities and tourism operators had tried to conceal information about the attack as was reported by some media outlets.
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“. . . I couldn’t say anything about it because I didn’t have precise information so my wife went to see the patient . . . and that’s why today I can offer an opinion . . .” Reyes said.
The mayor added that he didn’t expect a downturn in tourism as a result of the shark attack, explaining that local authorities will take steps to protect beach users by employing lifeguards, erecting signs to warn tourists to take precautions and possibly placing shark nets off the coast.
According to local fishermen, this is the season for cool ocean currents, which bring bull sharks closer to shore. In response, some hotel operators are urging authorities to monitor local waters to avoid further attacks.
A surfer from the United States was killed by a shark in an attack in Troncones in April 2008 and the next month, a Mexican surfer died after being bitten by a shark at a beach in Pantla, a community about 20 kilometers north of Zihuatanejo.
Mexico's export growth placed it ahead of Canada last year. el economista
Mexico overtook Canada to become the 12th largest exporter in the world last year, statistics show.
The value of exports from Mexico increased by 10.1% in 2018 to US $450.92 billion, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), while its Canadian counterpart, Statistics Canada, said that Canadian exports totaled US $449.85 billion, an increase of 6.9% compared to 2017.
It marks the first time that the value of Mexican exports has exceeded that of Canada.
With total exports of just under US $2.5 trillion, China was easily the world’s biggest exporter last year, according to World Trade Organization (WTO) data.
The United States and Germany were the second and third biggest exporters, with total foreign sales of US $1.66 trillion and $1.55 trillion respectively.
Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Hong Kong, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Belgium took out positions 4th to 11th.
The biggest contributors to Mexico’s export earnings were cars, petroleum, computers, auto parts, trucks, electrical conductors and televisions.
Mexico achieved strong export growth in 2018 even as tough negotiations to reach a new North American trade agreement continued to take place, creating uncertainty about the future of its relationship with its largest trading partner, the United States.
The leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada finally signed a new trade pact on November 30 but it won’t take effect until it has been ratified by the legislatures of the three countries.
Luis Donaldo Colosio at the Tijuana rally where he was murdered on March 23, 1994. (Archive)
Twenty-five years ago today, Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, presidential candidate for the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was assassinated at a campaign rally in Tijuana, Baja California.
Only one man, Mario Aburto Martínez, was convicted of Colosio’s murder. He was sentenced to 42 years in prison.
But millions of Mexicans doubted or outright rejected that he was the mastermind of, or even committed, the crime.
Twenty-five years later, people continue to deny that Aburto is the true culprit. Most fingers instead point at the PRI – an inside job against a candidate who was trying to shake things up a little too much and made some powerful enemies in the process.
On March 23, 1994, Colosio arrived in Tijuana on the campaign trail for that year’s presidential election, which he was almost certain to win.
Colosio, left, and then-president Salinas.
According to journalists covering the campaign, the rally in the poor Tijuana neighborhood of Lomas Taurinas at which Colosio was shot was not originally on the candidate’s itinerary for that day.
At around 4:00pm, Colosio arrived – without an excessive security entourage – at the venue that would host the rally.
He appeared to be in a good mood, smiling and greeting the people who had gathered to hear him speak. Just over an hour later, he was shot twice, first in the head and seconds later in the abdomen.
The 44-year-old candidate was rushed to a Tijuana hospital but hours later he was pronounced dead.
A man – supposedly Aburto – was arrested at the scene of the crime but many people believe that a different man – the real Aburto – was convicted of the crime. In other words, the killer was replaced with an innocent man.
After a long and seemingly comprehensive investigation – and a confession by Aburto – the federal government declared that the 22-year-old was the sole culprit, although many people suspected that there were two gunmen.
Candidate Colosio at a campaign rally.
Miguel Montes, the first of five special prosecutors who worked on the case, believed that Aburto had not acted alone based on the fact that Colosio was shot twice and that the bullets had apparently come from different directions.
Four other men, including former police officer Vicente Mayoral Valenzuela and Jorge Antonio Sánchez Ortega, an intelligence agent for the now-disbanded Center for Investigation and National Security (Cisen), were arrested in connection with the assassination.
But the hypothesis that more than one person was responsible for the murder was abandoned after Aburto admitted that he acted alone.
Building the case against him, authorities established that Aburto suffered from borderline personality disorder, a condition they contended contributed to his actions.
Olga Islas de González Mariscal took over responsibility for the investigation in July 1994 after Montes resigned and five months later she declared that Aburto had indeed acted alone.
Another theory regarding Colosio’s murder is that organized crime was responsible.
Guillermo González Calderoni, a former police commander, said in a 1998 television interview that the Arrellano-Félix Cartel was responsible for the murder.
A total of 29 different versions of events involving organized crime were considered by the federal attorney general’s office, including one that Colosio’s campaign was funded by Colombian drug money or by now-convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
According to three versions of events, Aburto had links to drug trafficking organizations.
However, authorities said there was insufficient proof to substantiate any of the organized crime hypotheses.
Yet another theory contends that Colosio’s own party was involved.
On March 6, 1994, Colosio gave a speech in front of the Monument to the Mexican Revolution in Mexico City in which he spoke of social problems in Mexico and said that corruption and impunity existed within the PRI.
Colosio’s family at a procession in his memory in his Sonora home town.
“I see a Mexico that is hungry and with a thirst for justice, a Mexico of mistreated people . . . women and men afflicted by abuses of the authorities or by the arrogance of government offices . . . I declare that I want to be the president of Mexico to lead a new stage of change in Mexico,” he said.
The speech is considered the moment in which Colosio broke ranks with then president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and signaled that he would take the party and the country in a different direction.
Following the speech, there was speculation that Colosio would be replaced as the PRI’s candidate by former cabinet secretary Manuel Camacho Solís. However, just 17 days after the controversial speech, Colosio was murdered.
Ernesto Zedillo, Colosio’s campaign manager, was chosen as the new PRI candidate and went on to win the election and serve as president until the year 2000.
The theory that the PRI was the mastermind of Colosio’s murder – and that president Salinas perhaps even ordered it – is the most widely believed by Mexicans.
The candidate’s father, former PRI senator Luis Colosio, maintained until his death in 2010 that people in power were responsible for his son’s death.
But authorities ultimately concluded that the political motive for the crime was not supported.
According to Laura Sánchez Ley, a journalist who has investigated the Colosio case for years and wrote a book about it, Aburto wasn’t the man authorities painted him to be.
Sánchez said that she concluded that Aburto most likely wasn’t “the crazy man” that authorities said he was.
She also said she received information showing that the government used shocking tactics to coerce Aburto’s family into confessing that they knew that he planned to kill Colosio.
“It turns out that during the days after the murder, Mario Aburto’s family started to be terrorized by the Mexican government so that they would confess that they knew that Mario would commit the murder . . . Authorities physically and sexually abused the younger girls in the family, they started to terrorize them at night by shooting at their house,” she said.
Sánchez, along with the anti-graft group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), with which she collaborates, won a legal battle late last month that enabled the 25-year-old investigation into Colosio’s murder to be declassified.
She said there are “a lot of contradictions” in the information contained in the 10,000-page file that calls the official version of events into question.
“There were contradictions in the declarations” made by witnesses, Sánchez said, explaining that seven of nine police officers who made statements weren’t at the scene of the crime.
“There were contradictions in the big truths” proffered by authorities that “make you reconsider how certain the truth that they told us [really] is,” she added.
At President López Obrador’s daily press conference yesterday, United States reporter Jovanny Rivera Huerta shared a letter written by Aburto’s parents, who fled to the U.S. after Colosio’s murder.
“They ask you to re-open the Colosio case. The have a lot of faith in your word and in the transparency you have given the government and the country,” he said.
The president accepted the letter and said that he would read it and pass it on to other officials to see “what comes of it from a legal point of view.”
López Obrador urged authorities to keep investigating the case before declaring “I’m really sorry and I always regret the murder . . .”
Colosio’s family were among about 100 people who marched in his memory today in his home town of Magdalena de Kino, Sonora. The parade was headed by his son, Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas and his family and two of the assassination victim’s sisters.
Royal Dutch Shell will begin importing fuel into Mexico via land and sea routes this year to supply its gas stations across the country.
Murray Fonseca, Shell’s Latin America sales director, told the news agency Notimex that the company will start bringing gasoline into the country by rail before the middle of the year and that deliveries by ship are expected to begin in the second half of the year.
Fonseca said that Shell has 31 oil refineries around the world as well as its own storage facilities and means of transport
“. . . We seek to integrate [our operations] and that’s what we’ll do in Mexico at some point,” he said.
Shell has been operating in Mexico since September 2017 but selling gasoline supplied by Pemex.
In addition to bringing its own fuel into the country, Shell plans to open another 100 to 200 gas stations in Mexico before the end of the year to take its total number of outlets to between 300 and 400.
Both company-owned gas stations and franchises will be among the new openings.
Fonseca said that Shell’s sales in the 11 Mexican states where it operates have increased and that the entry of the new federal government hasn’t had any effect of the company’s expansion plans.
“We’re still very interested in Mexico, it continues to be a very important country [for Shell] . . . We’ve said that we’re going to invest more than US $1 billion in the next 10 years if conditions are maintained.”
Easter is expected to bring more tourists this year.
Hoteliers in the resort destination of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, are looking at the April Easter vacation period with optimism as a result of bookings that are already higher than last year’s numbers.
The vice-president of the local hotel association explained that occupancy rates last year peaked at 70% during Easter week, but reservations so far for the same period this year are at 76%.
Although the holiday period overlaps with that of foreign visitors, particularly Canadians, Jesús García Mendoza said most visitors will be national, traveling from Monterrey, Mexico City and the central Mexico region of El Bajío. Not only are they the most numerous but they spend the most.
García warned that highway blockades could have a negative impact on the destination’s positive early numbers and asked for state authorities to help avoid situations that could affect an otherwise successful Easter vacation period.
