Acid attack victim faces years of recovery after inadequate medical attention

Earthquake damage at the monastery of San Juan Bautista in Tlayacapan, Morelos.

It has been 25 years since 14 monasteries dating from the 16^th century became a World Heritage Site in Morelos and Puebla, an anniversary that is being celebrated this month by the secretaries of Culture in the two states, along with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

But the occasion is marred by the condition of the complexes two years after the massive 2017 earthquake devastated central Mexico.

The monasteries were inscribed onto UNESCO’s list on December 17, 1994. Eleven are located in the small state of Morelos, and three in Puebla. Collectively they are known as the 16th-century monasteries on the slopes of the volcano Popocatepetl on what is called the Route of the Convents.

The monasteries employed an architectural model adopted by the evangelizing Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians which would influence similar construction in colonial Mexico. The religious institutions were essentially built as fortresses as the indigenous populations had not yet been completely subdued.

One important aspect of the monasteries is the atriums with their “open chapels,” open archways to allow for the saying of mass to the large number of indigenous who would gather in the open-air atrium. These were built first, with the rest coming later.

The monasteries functioned nearly non-stop until the 19^th and early 20^th century, until anti-clerical politics and laws closed cloisters down and expropriated them. By the 21^st century many had been converted into museums or other public spaces.

The earthquake on September 19, 2017 affected all of these monasteries. Centered in nearby Axochiapan, Morelos, the quake heavily damaged or destroyed architectural elements such as bell towers, cupolas, apses, vaulted ceilings, walls and even entire wings. The falling debris wrecked irreplaceable murals, other artwork, religious icons, organs, bells, altars and pews.

Shortly after, federal and state authorities announced efforts to study and restore all of the complexes, along with many other historical sites damaged in the region. By September 2019, authorities admitted the effort was proceeding slowly. One reason was that reconstruction requires the use of historically accurate materials and techniques, often the piecing together of fragments that had been all but crushed.

The goal for the reconstruction of the buildings is not only to recreate what was, but to be sure that they can withstand future earthquakes.

The extent of the damage and the challenges reconstruction pose were presented in a three-part documentary by INAH and the Morelos State Radio and Television Institute for the anniversary.

The 14 monasteries are San Mateo Apóstol y Evangelista in Atlatlahucan, the Cuernavaca Cathedral, Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Hueyapan, Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Oaxtepec, Santiago Apóstol in Ocuituco, La Natividad in Tepotztlan, San Juan Bautista in Tetela del Volcán, San Juan Bautista in Tlayacapan, San Guillermo in Totolapan, San Juan Bautista in Yecapixtla, Inmaculada Concepción in Zacualpan de Amilpas, Francisco de Asis in Calpan, San Miguel Arcangel in Huejotzigo and La Asunción in Tochimilco.

Sources: La Jornada de Oriente (sp), El Universal (sp), Excélsior (sp)

Thieves make off with half a million pesos’ worth of orchestra’s instruments

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December 18, 2019

The Oaxaca orchestra whose instruments were stolen. — The Oaxaca orchestra whose 36 instruments were stolen.

Thieves in Oaxaca’s Sierra Mixe stole musical instruments from a children’s orchestra last week, triggering protests by the indigenous children and their parents to demand justice and the return of their instruments.

The trumpets, clarinets, saxophones, piccolos and other instruments of the orchestra in San Pedro y San Pablo Ayutla, comprised of 80% student musicians, were stolen from their school after a performance to celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe on December 12.

The 36 instruments were valued at 500,000 pesos (US $26,000).

“They stole our soul and our history,” said orchestra director Pablo Vásquez Ramírez.

In response, Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat said the instruments will be replaced.

To help out and raise funds for the Ayutla musicians, a children’s orchestra in San Lorenzo Cacaotepec held a concert at the Children’s Museum of Oaxaca on Tuesday.

“To steal instruments is to cut off the wings of a musician, so we’re supporting them so they can buy new instruments,” said orchestra director Benjamin Bautista.

Sources: Milenio (sp), 24 Horas (sp)

Ex-president Calderón protected Sinaloa Cartel, accuses Morena lawmaker

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December 18, 2019

Morena Deputy Delgado accused former president of protecting cartel. — Morena Deputy Delgado: 'it proved costly for Mexico.'

Former president Felipe Calderón protected the Sinaloa Cartel while in office between 2006 and 2012, charges a lawmaker with Mexico’s ruling party.

Mario Delgado, leader of the Morena party in the lower house of Congress, accused Calderón of providing protection to the cartel formerly led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán through his security secretary, Genaro García Luna, who was arrested in the United States last week on charges that he accepted bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel.

The result of the protection afforded to the cartel was “a spiral of violence and criminality” that continues to this day, Delgado told a press conference on Tuesday.

The lawmaker also charged that Calderón launched the so-called war on drugs shortly after he took office in late 2006 to distract people from the “huge” fraud in the presidential election the same year.

President López Obrador narrowly lost the vote in an election he claims was rigged in Calderón’s favor.

“He used the war as a distractor so that the country would forget that he stole the 2006 election,” Delgado said.

“. . . It turned out to be extremely costly for us,” he added before repeating his claim that Calderón protected the Sinaloa Cartel.

“. . . Maybe that protection provided certain balances but in the end complicity with crime . . . turned out to be extremely costly. There were thousands of deaths and disappearances in the last 12 years, violence and blood, all to help a criminal group,” Delgado said.

Calderón last week denied any knowledge of García’s alleged collusion with the Sinaloa Cartel but he has not responded to the accusations made by the Morena leader.

Delgado said the current government’s security strategy is completely different to that followed by Calderón and his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, citing the creation of the National Guard and “very aggressive social investment” as key differences.

The López Obrador administration also aims to avoid the use of force whenever possible, a strategy epitomized by the decision to release one of El Chapo’s sons in Culiacán, Sinaloa, in October rather than engage in a direct conflict with the Sinaloa Cartel.

The new strategy “will yield positive results,” Delgado said, charging that the high levels of violence currently plaguing Mexico are the “last swipes of the tail of a system in which there was complicity between the government and some criminal groups.”

The federal government no longer “makes pacts with crime,” the lawmaker said.

“. . . What we have to do, from my point of view, is let the federal government’s strategy mature,” Delgado added, emphasizing that the number of National Guard members on the ground will double to 120,000 next year.

“The capacity of the Mexican state to be in territories where crime has gained a lot of ground is being recovered.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

US updates travel warning, adding 5 municipalities to danger list

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December 18, 2019

Gómez Palacio, Durango, has been taken off the US warning list.

Municipalities in Sonora and Zacatecas were added to the list of places the United States Department of State recommends U.S. citizens not travel in its updated 2019 Mexico Travel Advisory, while two were given the green light.

Municipalities to avoid that were not listed as such on the 2018 advisory include Empalme, Guaymas, Obregón and Navojoa in Sonora and Fresnillo, Zacatecas.

San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, and Gómez Palacio, Durango, were removed from the list.

As with the advisory issued in November 2018, U.S. citizens are advised not to travel to the states of Colima, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas.

High levels of crime were cited as reasons for avoiding those states, while kidnappings were also seen as a threat in Tamaulipas.

Eleven states remain in the Level 3 category, which advises U.S. citizens to reconsider traveling to them due to crime. They are Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Jalisco, México state, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Sonora and Zacatecas.

Although federal Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo reported on Tuesday that Guanajuato has recorded the highest number of murders in the country so far this year, a representative at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City told Mexico News Daily that Guanajuato was “not experiencing that crisis” during the period the State Department collected its data.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Heraldo de México (sp)

14 die in truck-van collision near Zapotlanejo, Jalisco

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December 18, 2019

The accident scene in Jalisco Wednesday morning.

An accident on the Guadalajara-Lagos de Moreno highway near Zapotlanejo, Jalisco, left 14 people dead and 12 seriously injured on Wednesday morning.

Nine people were killed at the scene in the collision between a van and a truck and five more died in hospital.

The accident occurred around 5:00am Wednesday morning when a passenger van collided with a truck hauling wooden beams. The van burst into flames, which ignited the wood.

Two of the most seriously injured were airlifted to a hospital in Guadalajara and the others were taken in ambulances to medical centers in Tapatitlán.

The van was traveling from San Felipe, Guanajuato, to Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit. The driver of the van was among the dead, as were five of the minors on board.

Sources: Informador MX (sp), Debate (sp)

Large numbers of police uncertified and poorly paid; forces short on numbers

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December 18, 2019

Durazo, left, and López Obrador during a report on security.

A new federal government report reveals that large numbers of Mexico’s police are uncertified and poorly paid, and that every state force in the country is short on numbers.

Presented by Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo on Tuesday, the report shows that at the end of September, only 12 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities had police forces in which more than half of the officers were certified.

Certification is conferred on officers who have passed confidence tests, completed initial training and are performing to their expected level.

Of the 20 entities where fewer than half of police officers were certified, Jalisco was in the worst position. Just 2.7% of its state police were certified at the end of September.

Fewer than 15% of police in state forces in Tlaxcala, Baja California Sur and Mexico City were certified, while in Puebla, Sonora, Nayarit, Chiapas and Guerrero, fewer than 30% of officers are qualified.

At the other end of the scale, more than eight in 10 state police in Baja California, Guanajuato and Colima were certified, while 96.4% of officers were certified in Querétaro, the highest of any state.

Stressing the importance of certification, Durazo said it wasn’t possible to combat organized crime with “uniformed crime.”

President López Obrador suggested that cleaning up state forces was needed to get rid of corrupt and uncertified police.

The federal report also revealed that police in five states are paid less than 10,000 pesos (US $525) per month on average.

Officers in Tabasco were the worst paid at the end of September, receiving average monthly salaries of 6,331 pesos.

Officers in Oaxaca earn 8,598 pesos a month, while those in Baja California Sur, Tlaxcala and Mexico City make between 9,200 and 9,900 pesos. Police in most states earn between 13,000 and 18,000 pesos.

San Luis Potosí police were the best paid in the country, earning 21,090 pesos a month on average, followed by those in Sonora, who earn 19,687 pesos. Guanajuato Governor Diego Sinhue announced last week that police in his state will receive salaries of 24,400 pesos per month starting in January, which will make officers there the best paid in the country.

The report also showed that every state police force in the country has fewer officers than it should based on international per-capita standards. Baja California and Sinaloa have the biggest shortfall: both have 2.6 fewer officers per 1,000 residents than they should.

Only Mexico City’s force has more officers than those recommended by international standards.

López Obrador said that federal authorities are working on a plan to improve police salaries at the state and municipal levels and address the officer shortfall.

Meanwhile, Durazo acknowledged on Wednesday that 2019 has been a “difficult year” in terms of security, explaining that the government has not achieved the results it would have liked.

“However, we’ve substantively improved the instruments of the state to combat insecurity and without them it would be impossible to aspire to guaranteeing adequate conditions for peace in the short term,” he said.

Official statistics show that Guanajuato has been the most violent state this year, with more than 3,000 intentional homicides.

Murder numbers increased in 16 states, including Mexico City, Jalisco, Nuevo León and Michoacán, but went down in the other 16.

Among the states with fewer homicides this year than 2018 are Quintana Roo, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Baja California, Baja California Sur and Tamaulipas.

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

Illegal Chinese market biggest threat to Mexico’s jaguars: conservationists

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December 18, 2019

There's a black market for jaguar body parts.

The black market is the biggest threat facing jaguars in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, according to the National Jaguar Conservation Alliance (ANCJ).

ANCJ biologist Rodrigo Medellín Legorreta said that in recent years the illegal Chinese market for jaguar parts has taken its toll on the animal’s populations in Latin America.

“This year . . . one of my groups that monitors jaguar activity informed me of a regrettable act: a jaguar we were tracking . . . was found without its head or claws, which indicates that illegal trade has unfortunately reached us,” he said.

He said jaguar teeth are used to make jewelry, the bones are employed in Chinese medicine and the pelts are used to make clothing or rugs.

During a press conference ANCJ members said that although Mexico has made advances in jaguar conservation efforts, the country still needs to take actions to protect the endangered animal.

They asked the federal government not to reduce the budget for environmental funds and requested that Finance Secretary Arturo Herrera assess the application for the funds, which help with species conservation and habitat protection.

They also said that increased awareness among the public and private businesses is needed to generate change and remove the jaguar from the endangered species list.

The ANCJ is a group of 60 specialists from over 40 institutions that have dedicated themselves to the conservation of the big cats in the last 15 years. The organization will publish a study in 2020 that cites Mexico as a leader in jaguar research and conservation in Latin America.

There are some 4,800 wild jaguars in Mexico according to a study published last year. The number was up 20% compared to estimates made eight years earlier.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Two more anchors found in search for ships sunk by Hernán Cortés

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December 18, 2019

Divers measure one of the anchors found off Veracruz. jonathan kingston/inah

Underwater archaeologists have found two more anchors off the coast of Veracruz that could belong to ships scuttled by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1519.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said in a statement that the characteristics of the large iron anchors suggest that they date back to the 16th century. Archaeologists believe that the anchors either belonged to Cortés’ ships or other Spanish ships that moored off the coast of Veracruz later in the same century.

A team led by INAH archaeologist Robert Junco found the anchors in the Gulf of Mexico north of the port city of Veracruz.

Cortés scuttled 10 of his 11 ships in the area to quell a rebellion, leaving his men with no option but to accompany him on his expedition inland to the Mexica city of Tenochtitlán.

Junco explained that the discovery was made 300 meters north of where a 15th-century anchor with a crosspiece made out of oak from northern Spain was found in 2018.

The anchors were found in the waters off Villa Rica. jonathan kingston/inah

Both anchors are larger than that found last year: one is 3.68 meters long and 1.55 meters wide, while the other is 2.6 meters by 1.43 meters. Unlike the 2018 discovery, there was no wood attached to either of them.

INAH said the anchors were found at depths of between 10 and 15 meters and were buried in between one and 1.5 meters of sediment. Both are in good condition as they were protected by the sediment that covered them. They were reburied and left in situ in accordance with archaeological protocols, INAH said.

Christopher Horrell, a United States archaeologist participating in the project to search for Cortés’ sunken ships, said the design of the anchors was consistent with those made in the 16th century.

Junco said it was not clear if the three anchors belong to the same historical time but added that their alignment to the southeast suggested that they were anchored in the port formerly known as Villa Rica, which protects ships from northerly and northwesterly winds.

The archaeologists said they will next explore 15 sites where they believe they could find even more anchors.

If anomalies detected by magnetometers on the seafloor are anchors, Junco said, “it would reaffirm the hypothesis that we are in the port that was [known as] Villa Rica . . . or the other assumption that we’ve found the place where Cortés’ fleet was sunk . . .”

The project to search for Cortés’ ships began last year off the coast of Actopan, Veracruz. This year is the 500th anniversary of the Spanish conquistador’s arrival in the land that would become Mexico.

Descendants of Cortés and Aztec emperor Moctezuma II met in Mexico City last month to mark the 500th anniversary of their ancestors’ first meeting.

Mexico News Daily

Pemex freed from rules governing wholesale fuel pricing

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December 18, 2019