Authorities from the indigenous community of Capulálpam de Méndez, Oaxaca, announced that they won a writ of amparo in a case against a Canadian-owned mining company operating in the town.
Communal representative and Mayor Carlos Ramón Martínez Pablo said that the town sued for amparo (protection of constitutional rights) in 2015, claiming that the company had obtained permits to exploit local mineral and precious metal deposits from the federal Secretariat of Economy without first consulting the community.
“The ruling recognizes that the indigenous community was founded before the Mexican state and therefore has the right to federal justice as established in the second article of the constitution,” Martínez said.
He added that the ruling confirmed that the mining company, Continuum Resources Mexico, also violated International Labor Organization regulations dealing with the rights of indigenous communities.
Released along with the judicial ruling was an order for closure of the mine issued by the federal environmental protection agency.
Capulálpam de Méndez, one of Mexico’s 121 Pueblos Mágicos, or Magical Towns, is located in the Sierra Juárez mountain range in the north of Oaxaca.
The region’s varied vegetation zones, including extensive tracts of cloud forests, have contributed to Mexico’s being ranked among the world’s 17 megadiverse countries by Conservation International.
The head of Capulálpam’s office of communal goods, Netzar Arreortua, said that over 50 kilometers of mining construction in the area, including tunnels and shafts, have drained nearly all of the region’s aquifers, a fact that has been verified by the National Water Commission.
According to Archivaldo Santos, spokesperson for the Oaxacan Territory Defense Collective, there are over 330 active mining concessions in the state that were authorized without due process during the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto and which are being fought in court.
Zaldívar, left, and Gertz Manero will lead a new probe into mystery of the 43 students' disappearance.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar and Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero will work together to seek justice in the case of the 43 students who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014.
President López Obrador said on Tuesday that after he met with the parents of the missing Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College students last week, he sent a letter to both men proposing that they meet with the parents on a monthly basis.
Zaldívar and Gertz accepted the proposal and the first meeting is scheduled for March 5, he said.
Finding out the truth about what happened to the 43 presumably deceased young men, and their whereabouts, is the overriding objective of the Mexican state, López Obrador told the two men in his letter.
“Nothing nor no one should prevent the clarification of the facts and the delivery of justice,” he said.
“Thus I ask you courteously, and with complete respect for the autonomy of the [judicial] power … to address … this demand for justice in a coordinated way,” López Obrador wrote.
Speaking at his regular news conference on Tuesday, the president claimed that there is a “pact of silence” among those involved in the abduction and presumed murder of the students.
“We’re asking those who participated in these incidents to speak because there is a pact of silence. It cannot be that we that we don’t know what happened if more than 100 people participated,” he said.
According to the former federal government’s official version of events – the so-called “historical truth” – the students were killed by members of the Guerreros Unidos gang after they were handed over to them by corrupt municipal police on September 26, 2014.
After killing the students, who they allegedly mistook as members of a rival gang, the Guerreros Unidos gangsters burned the bodies in a municipal dump and scattered the ashes in a nearby river, the past government said.
However, the “historical truth” has been widely questioned both within Mexico and internationally, and the former government was heavily criticized for its handling of the case.
A march for justice for Ayotzinapa, one of hundreds that have been held since 2014.
Independent experts offered varying opinions about the alleged burning of the bodies.
Some concluded that there was no fire at the Cocula municipal dump, others determined that there was not a blaze of sufficient intensity to incinerate the bodies, while another team said that there was evidence of a large, controlled fire which indicated that it was possible that 43 bodies were burned there.
Many people who reject the past government’s version of events suspect that the army played a role in the students’ disappearance and that their bodies may have been burned in military incinerators.
López Obrador, whose government created a super commission to conduct a new investigation, has also rejected the “historical truth” but his administration has made little progress in its own probe.
He said Tuesday that people involved in the disappearance of the students will be offered “protection, amnesty and rewards” if they agree to speak with authorities “because it’s a matter of the state.”
“The Ayotzinapa case is a priority of our government. … We can’t rest if we don’t clarify the … matter and a lot of other things, but this is a special issue,” López Obrador said.
“Those who are in prison, those who already left, they can help us,” he said, referring in the latter case to the approximately 80 suspects who have been released due to a lack of evidence or because they were tortured during the interrogation process.
“It’s not just a matter of justice and helping the families, it’s a matter of humanism,” López Obrador said.
In his letter to Zaldívar and Gertz Manero, the president predicted that if all three branches of government – the executive, the legislative and the judiciary – work together, they will be successful in breaking the “pact of silence” that has lasted for so long.
We mustn’t “prolong impunity,” López Obrador wrote. “[We must] deliver justice and demonstrate that we are authentic representatives of a social, democratic and law-abiding state.”
Deputies in Chiapas have raised the retirement age to 60.
Lawmakers in Chiapas have voted in favor of raising the retirement age for government workers from 52 to 60 and increasing their pension fund contributions from 3% to 13% of their salaries over a period of 10 years.
Twenty-four deputies supported the modifications to the Chiapas State Workers Social Security Institute Law (ISSTECH) while seven opposed the changes. The other nine members of the 40-seat unicameral legislature didn’t attend Tuesday’s extraordinary session at which the vote was held.
The new retirement age will only apply to public servants who start working for the Chiapas government after the modified law takes effect.
According to the newly approved legislation, government workers who wish to retire at 60 and access their pension must have completed 35 years of service – an increase of five years for men and seven years for women.
If they don’t fulfill that requirement, they will have to continue working until they reach that length of service, or turn 65, in order to be able to access their government pension.
Deputies who voted in favor of changing the law said that the pension system was designed when life expectancy was just 55 or 60 years. However, life expectancy is now 75 for men and 78 for women, they said, citing data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
Many public servants are retiring at an age when they could continue to be productive workers for many years to come, the lawmakers said.
Workers contributions to their pension funds will increase gradually over the coming decade to reach 13% in 2031.
The modifications to the ISSTECH will ensure the viability of the pension system moving forward, according to the lawmakers who voted in favor of the changes.
However, Institutional Revolutionary Party deputies who voted against the changes said that the modifications were to the detriment of the hard-won rights of government workers.
Mario Santis Gómez said that improvements in public health and longer life expectancies shouldn’t be used as justification to increase the burden on older people. He also contended that increasing pension contributions to 13% – a 333% increase over the current 3% – is excessive.
After the modifications were approved, the Chiapas government led by Morena party Governor Rutilio Escandón stressed that workers’ rights will be respected and that not one of the conditions of those already employed by the state will be altered.
Some of the police arrested in connection with Ayotzinapa in 2014.
Suspects arrested in connection with the 2014 disappearance of 43 students in Iguala, Guerrero, but released from preventative custody due to a lack of evidence or because they were tortured during the interrogation process could be responsible for a recent increase in violence.in the same municipality.
Without referring to them explicitly, state Public Security Secretary David Portillo Menchaca insinuated that former municipal police officers and suspected members of the Guerreros Unidos crime gang are the likely perpetrators of a wave of attacks in Iguala in recent weeks. One was against spectators at a bullfight in the community of Zacacoyuca on February 2 that left one person dead and two others wounded.
Twenty-one municipal police officers were released from prison in September and several presumed Guerreros Unidos members, including a man suspected of formerly being the gang’s Iguala operations chief, were released the same month.
According to the former federal government’s publicized version of events, referred to as the “historical truth,” the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College were killed by Guerreros Unidos members after they were handed over to them by corrupt municipal police on September 26, 2014.
Portillo told a press conference that there is reason to believe that “some people” who recently left prison are now seeking to reassert their influence over an area they once controlled.
“There are lines of investigation. Some of them point to … people who have left prison … who want to position themselves in Iguala,” he said.
Portillo added that it was possible that another criminal group – he didn’t say which – had moved into Iguala, triggering a violent response from the Guerreros Unidos.
“They are lines of investigation that are being followed up. We’re ready to carry out [security] operations, together with the National Guard and the Secretariat of National Defense [the army],” he said.
The release of the municipal police officers and the suspected members of the Guerreros Unidos gang was slammed by the federal government.
Human Rights Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas described the acquittal of the former as a sign of the “wretchedness and rot” of Mexico’s justice system.
After the release of Gildardo “El Gil” López Astudillo, who was allegedly the chief of operations of the Guerreros Unidos in Iguala at the time of the students’ disappearance, Encinas said that there would be a federal investigation into the judges responsible for his acquittal and that of other suspects in the Ayotzinapa case.
Federal authorities alleged that López sent a message to his superior, Sidronio “El Chino” Casarrubias Salgado, days after the young men went missing that read: “They’ll never find them, we turned them into dust and threw them into the water.”
The incriminating text is congruent with the past government’s “historical truth,” which the current federal administration has rejected.
In that version of events, the Guerreros Unidos burned the bodies of the 43 students at a municipal dump and scattered their ashes in a nearby river.
Drug dealers in Tijuana are more likely to be killed than go to jail.
Official statistics show that police arrested 12,308 people in possession of illegal drugs in the northern border city between June 2016 and August 2019, a period that coincides with the first three years of the operation of the new accusatory criminal justice system.
Many were in possession of quantities of narcotics – most commonly methamphetamine and marijuana – well above established personal use limits. More than a third of those detained had previously been arrested, some as many as 13 times.
Yet not a single person among the more than 12,000 arrested was convicted of drug trafficking.
Only one in 10 of those arrested appeared before a judge and just 182 people – 1.5% of the total detained – received prison sentences. However, they were found guilty of drug possession rather than trafficking, and accordingly received lighter sentences.
In the courts of Tijuana, it appears that there is no “real fight” against drug trafficking, according to an investigative report published by the newspaper El Universal. The low conviction rates have allowed the border city to come close to becoming the drug dealing capital of Mexico, the report said.
“The [criminal justice] system has collapsed,” said one judge who asked not to be identified.
Judges and prosecutors alike say that one of the main reasons why cases against suspected drug dealers fail is because irregularities are detected in their arrest and/or the official reporting of their detention, something that is frequently cited as justification for the release of alleged criminals.
For their part, police in Tijuana say that judges are favoring the human rights of criminals over those of their victims.
“It’s the Achilles heel of our laws and the citizens affected,” said municipal police supervisor Francisco García. “It turns out that the person who burglarized my house has more rights than me.”
However, illegal arrests and the alleged preferential treatment of suspected criminals are not the only reasons why so many drug dealers have been returned to the streets of Tijuana.
Tijuana police busted 12,000 suspects but few were convicted.
The high number of drug-related cases in the city and a lack of resources in the justice and prison systems means that many cases aren’t even heard in court and when they are, judges often impose fines rather than custodial sentences.
Many experts say that the new justice system, not just in Tijuana but across Mexico, is akin to a revolving door.
“The justice delivery chain in Tijuana is broken,” said the report, which is part of an investigative journalism project on the northern border that is supported by the International Center for Journalists.
One person who serves as a typical example of the thousands who didn’t face any legal consequences after they were arrested in possession of drugs is a man identified only as Federico. The factory worker (and alleged dealer) was detained in possession of 36 grams of methamphetamine wrapped in 91 separate packages.
The amount is 900 times higher than the 40 milligrams that the General Health Law permits for personal use. Nevertheless, law enforcement authorities in Tijuana failed to present sufficient evidence to prove that Federico was a drug dealer.
Two days after his arrest, he was released on the condition of abstaining from the use of drugs, maintaining employment and not absconding.
Federico’s story is “systematically repeated” in Baja California courts, the investigative report said, adding that “suspected drug dealers enter [custody] but leave without severe penalties … leading Tijuana into a spiral of violence that appears to have no end.”
In the same three-year period in which the vast majority of people found in possession of drugs got off scot-free, there were 6,190 homicides in Tijuana, official statistics show.
The vast majority of deaths in Tijuana, including the murders that continue to plague the city, are related to drug trafficking, said Tijuana-based state prosecutor Jorge Álvarez.
Federal Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo pointed out in December that there were more homicides in Tijuana last year than in any other municipality in the country.
Former Tijuana police chief Mario Martínez said that between 80% and 85% of the insecurity problems in the city are linked to drug trafficking.
The fact that most people caught in possession of drugs are released in 48 hours is “sad” and a “mockery,” he said.
Security and law enforcement officials say that the most common victims of homicides are drug dealers caught in the middle of confrontations between rival cartels that operate in Tijuana. Their turf war plays out on the city’s streets, on corners where drugs are sold and in parks.
Accordingly, in areas where the arrest rate for drug possession is high, so too is the murder rate. Most victims are aged between 25 and 35.
One of them was Federico. When he was released, authorities predicted that he would go back to drug dealing and eventually be killed, the investigative report said, adding that “the death sentence was fulfilled.”
Federico was found dead on December 27, 2019 in a Tijuana picadero, as places where addicts shoot up drugs are colloquially known. Six days before the discovery of his body, the factory worker-cum-dealer was beaten to death in a Tijuana neighborhood next to the one where he lived, according to local authorities.
His death, the investigative report said, is proof that crime moves much faster than justice in the northern border city, a hub of drug trafficking, violence and impunity.
From humble beginnings the International Guitarfest has grown into one of Zihuatanejo’s largest festivals, and this year’s edition promises another splendid selection of six-string talent.
Now in its 17th year, it all started when five expats and two Mexicans decided the Pacific coast town’s music options were limited and chose to inject some culture into the local scene. The International Guitarfest has grown tremendously since then, with 1,200 people attending opening night last year.
The festival, which runs for a full week in early March, has seen numerous changes in venues, from its inception at local watering hole Rick’s Bar to its current wide-ranging form at various bars, restaurants and resort hotels in both Zihua and neighboring Ixtapa.
Guitarfest evolved from primarily local talent to a 60/40 mix of local and international, with performers coming from as far away as Japan, Germany, Berlin, the United States, Canada and of course Mexico. Genres range from country to rock to classical and jazz. Perhaps most famous of all, duo sensation Carolyn Wonderland and Shelly King from Texas headlined in 2010 but there have been many other memorable acts and crowd favorites over the years.
The festival is entirely run by volunteers — a small committee at the early stages and then a much larger group once the festival is underway. They handle everything from accommodation, transport and food to sales of t-shirts and other paraphernalia as well as CDs by the artists themselves.
I caught up with Heidi Nygard, director of the festival for the past five years. Nygard first became involved by donating two rooms to visiting artists at her bungalow in Playa La Ropa and gradually worked her way through the ranks doing whatever needed to be done. I wanted to know how the artists who perform are chosen.
“In the beginning,” Nygard explained, “we advertised in trade magazines, and although we received thousands of submissions many were not the caliber we wanted. To save time we developed our website and used social media to promote the search for musicians. The result was fewer submissions but an incredible pool of talent to draw from. People have been known to book their vacations around the event.”
There are rules as to how many times an artist can return to perform. “The goal is for every five artists returning, six others have to be new. In addition, most of the artists compose their own music, with the exception of some classical guitarists, and all are recording artists, too.”
This year the festival includes three popular local artists — Jossy Gallogos, Carlos Uribe and Jose Luis Cabo. Returning from past years is the ever-popular Lipbone Redding from the U.S. (The complete lineup of artists can be found on the website.)
The International Guitarfest runs from March 7-14. Tickets vary in price and can be purchased at the events, while the Platinum Pass, which runs for US $120, can be bought online. All gala dinner shows must be reserved in advance.
The carnival in Veracruz will feature five different parades.
Veracruz is ready to kick off its 96th annual carnival with dances, concerts, giant robotic floats and even a parade at sea in the coastal city February 19-25.
Parades are the heart of the modern version of this festival of excess leading up to Ash Wednesday, which begins the six-week penitence Catholics observe before Easter.
With dance troupes, baton twirlers, drum groups, floats and squads of costumed characters, the Veracruz carnival is fun for the whole family.
The 30 floats and 50 dance troupes registered for this year’s parades will feature everything from traditional dances to colorful plumed headdresses to characters from Star Wars.
Between February 22 and 25 five parades will cavort to and from Veracruz and Boca del Río along the Manuel Ávila Camacho coastal boulevard. The five-kilometer parade will last about 3.5 hours.
This year’s theme for the parades is iconic cities and destinations around the world. The float for the queen of the carnival is inspired by Cairo, Egypt, and the king’s float is based on Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The floats all feature robotic elements, lights, elevators and other special effects. Even more spectacular will be the four monumental animatronic figures so large that they must be transported with heavy equipment.
A giant robotic samurai warrior and a three-meter-tall King Kong are among the gargantuan figures unique to this festival.
Bleachers along the parade route will provide space for 120,000 revelers, including spaces for people with disabilities. Tickets for the bleachers cost 90 pesos (US $5) on Saturday and Sunday, February 22 and 23. There is no charge on Monday, February 24, and on the 25th they’ll cost just 10 pesos.
The Veracruz carnival has stood out in recent years for its nautical parade. A total of 500 people, both residents and tourists alike, will board five boats to sail around the bay entertained by salsa dancers and the festival’s king and queen.
The nautical parade is free of charge, but places on the boats are given on a first-come-first-served basis, so hopeful attendees will have to arrive early to get a spot. It is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on February 22.
The carnival will also feature such traditional events as the coronations of the king and queen, as well as the quema del mal humor (burning of the bad mood), a ritualistic torching of a giant likeness of a derided figure or theme in the community.
It will also feature concerts by such renowned artists as Banda El Recodo, Emmanuel y Mijares, Gloria Trevi and Mario Bautista, and there will be a joke battle as well.
The concerts will be held on the Macro Plaza, on the malecón (coastal boulevard), and all are free of charge.
Although the Veracruz Carnival is now a family affair, it wasn’t always so. Carnival in the city actually dates back to the 18th century, when raucous troupes of dancers tore through the streets to the rhythm of Cuban music.
They displayed mojigangas, figures that satirized the dominant classes, and often behaved in manners deemed too licentious for the public sphere. It sometimes got so out of hand that, for example, during the reign of Emperor Maximilian, the festival was ordered to take place inside dance halls.
The celebration in its current form began in 1925, when the first organizing committee and the parade-style festival as it is now known were created.
The coordinator of the CRAC-PF force said that a deal was struck with officials from the DIF family services agency at a meeting last Thursday.
“We were asked not to continue preparing the children [as community police],” Bernardino Sánchez said.
He added that the CRAC-PF, which operates in the municipalities of Chilapa and José Joaquín de Herrera, made a commitment to stop the children’s training as long as the 29 demands it put forth are met.
Directed to both the Guerrero and federal government, the demands include a visit from President López Obrador to formally endorse the community police force, the cancellation of 66 warrants issued for the arrest of CRAC-PF members, the release of imprisoned colleagues and a guarantee for the education of children who live in Chilapa and José Joaquín.
David Sánchez, another CRAC-PF coordinator, said that the community police force has given state authorities a week to show that they are prepared to meet the demands.
A meeting with DIF Guerrero president Mercedes Calvo, wife of Governor Héctor Astudillo, is scheduled for this Thursday to review the progress made, the newspaper Milenio reported.
David Sánchez said that the CRAC-PF has shown its willingness to keep its side of the bargain and that it’s up to authorities to do the same.
He stressed that the children who were in training to become community police – some of whom are as young as six – were not being prepared to become sicarios, or criminal hitmen.
“They’re being prepared to defend their family, their mother, their little brother and the town,” Sánchez said.
“For us, as indigenous people, in accordance with our traditions and customs, teaching our children so that they know how to defend themselves is a right because if we don’t teach them, later they [crime gangs] will kill us. … Will the government defend them? We’ve already seen that it won’t,” he said.
Ten indigenous musicians were killed in Chilapa last month, allegedly at the hands of members of the Los Ardillos crime gang, which has attacked communities in the region on numerous occasions in recent years.
Go fly a kite in Tequisquiapan this week and next.
The skies of Tequisquiapan, Querétaro, will be filled with colorful kites both big and small over the next two weekends during the town’s fifth annual kite festival.
Designated a Magical Town by tourism authorities and just a few hours north of Mexico City, Tequisquiapan is a popular weekend getaway for residents of the country’s capital, many of whom make the trek to sample the region’s renowned wines and cheeses.
But the next two weekends will be dedicated to reviving the inner child whose heart soars along with the kite held aloft by the breeze.
There will be workshops at which festivalgoers can make their own kites, as well as many pre-made kites of all colors, shapes and sizes for sale. Festival organizers will also fly super-sized kites to wow attendees of all ages.
Aside from the entertainment overhead, children will have fun on the ground, too, with the puppet shows, bouncy castles, face painting, clowns and other activities planned for the weekends.
But don’t worry, grown-ups. The festival is to be held at the Cava Bocanegra cheese cellar, site of the Festival Viva El Queso cheese and wine festival, so there will be lots of food and alcoholic beverages as well.
Live music is also featured, and the festival is pet friendly so the whole family can go.
The festival will be held from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on February 15 and 16 and the following weekend, on the 22nd and 23rd. Tickets cost 75 pesos (US $4) and can be bought upon entering the festival (cash only). Kids under 1.2 meters enter free.
Deputy Muñoz (in wheelchair) with migrants in Tapachula.
A senior lawmaker with the ruling Morena party has described a migrants’ station in Tapachula, Chiapas, as “a prison in disguise.”
Porfirio Muñoz Ledo made the remark after visiting the federally run Siglo XXI migrants’ station on Monday as part of a delegation of federal deputies.
The lawmaker, an outspoken critic of the government’s increased enforcement against mainly Central American migrants who enter Mexico via the southern border, also asserted that the facility – used to house (and detain) migrants as they await either deportation or permission to remain in or travel through Mexico – was spruced up in preparation for the deputies’ visit.
“When we went in, it smelled of paint; they painted it a few hours before. … It’s a farce,” he said.
Drawn from several parties, the nine deputies who visited the migrants’ station agreed that an urgent law change is needed to ensure that neither child migrants nor their parents are held in migrants’ centers after being detained by authorities.
National Action Party (PAN) Deputy Laura Angélica Rojas Hernández said that migrant families should be housed at facilities operated by the family services agency, known as the DIF. More funding should be allocated to the agency to allow it to improve its infrastructure, she said.
Rojas said that the aim of the federal delegation, whose members met with representatives of the UN Refugee Agency, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) and non-governmental migrant advocacy organizations, was to learn more about the migration phenomenon firsthand.
She said that Comar statistics showed that asylum requests in Mexico had increased from just 1,200 in 2013 to 70,000 last year.
“That places very significant pressure on institutions,” the lawmaker said.
Rojas added that National Immigration Institute (INM) data shows that the number of undocumented migrants who crossed into Mexico in Chiapas last year increased to 170,000 from just under 94,000 in 2017 and just over 130,000 in 2018.
The PAN deputy said that authorities need to reduce the time it takes to process applications for legal admission, pointing out that some migrants have to wait between six and eight months.
Rojas also said that the INM and Comar need to work together more closely and that infrastructure at migrants’ stations needs to be improved. They were built to house men but now also accommodate children and teenagers, some of whom are unaccompanied, she said.
Citizens’ Movement Deputy Jacob David Cheja said that responding to the migration phenomenon on the southern border is a priority because it’s a humanitarian, rather than a partisan, issue.
Verónica Juárez Piña of the Democratic Revolution Party said that the General Migration Law must be brought into line with the General Children’s Law because minors’ interests must be respected and that includes not detaining them in migrants’ centers.
The federal government agreed to ramp up enforcement against migrants in the middle of last year to avert a threat from United States President Donald Trump to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican goods.
