13 massacred in Oaxaca in decades-old dispute over land

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July 17, 2018

Remains of a truck that was set on fire during yesterday's attack in Oaxaca.

Thirteen people from a community in the Sierra of Oaxaca were killed, one was wounded and at least five are missing following a massacre by residents of a neighboring community yesterday.

The attack was allegedly perpetrated by residents of San Lucas Ixcotepec against their neighbors from Santa María Ecatepec in a land dispute that has been going on for years, said the Oaxaca Attorney General’s office.

Some 25 residents of Ecatepec had traveled to the disputed area in a truck to work on the land when they were ambushed, it said. The truck was set on fire and burned in the process.

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Attorney General Rubén Vasconcelos said there had been a resolution in favor of one of the two communities but the conflict continues regardless. They don’t accept the resolutions, he said of such disputes.

State police have assumed responsibility for security in the region with 43 officers.

Santa María Ecatepec has three outstanding conflicts with neighboring communities. That with Ixcotepec is over the ownership of 3,660 hectares of forest land. Another dispute is over 9,775 hectares and the third concerns 4,409.

State authorities say there are 364 such conflicts over land ownership outstanding.

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

Sargassum invasion continues on beaches in Quintana Roo

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MND Staff

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July 17, 2018

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A truck is loaded with sargassum on a Quintana Roo beach.

Sargassum is still washing up on the beaches of Quintana Roo and the invasion is expected to continue intermittently until the beginning of August, according to the state government.

Subtropical Storm Alberto left tonnes of the brown seaweed on beaches in seven municipalities of the Caribbean coast state in late May, to which authorities responded with a federally-funded 62-million-peso (US $3.3 million) removal project.

Clean-up efforts, carried out by hand and with the help of light machinery, removed 13,000 cubic meters of sargassum between June 22 and July 6 but after some respite last week, more sargassum is now arriving.

“Last week was very quiet. This week we have a bit more sargassum again and we will probably have this pattern sporadically throughout the month of July and maybe early August, according to the satellite images we have,” state Tourism Secretary Marisol Venegas told the newspaper Reforma.

Venegas said that a report by the University of South Florida indicated that the masses of seaweed currently afflicting the Quintana Roo coast form in the north of Brazil before moving northwards through the Atlantic Ocean to Mexico.

Former Cancún Hotels Association president Carlos Gosselin said that “practically the entire Caribbean is contaminated by sargassum.”

He told Reforma that authorization is being sought to place barriers in the sea to prevent the seaweed from washing up on beaches, adding that the large quantities that have been arriving recently are “atypical.”

Fernando Orozco, director of Tulum National Park, said there are machines that have the capacity to remove sargassum from the sea before it reaches the shore but authorities have not yet approved them for use.

Apart from sullying the appearance of beaches, sargassum also emits a foul odor when it decomposes, meaning that it is a double whammy for Quintana Roo’s tourism sector.

Source: Reforma (sp), Sipse (sp)

IMF cuts its 2019 economic growth outlook for Mexico to 2.7%

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MND Staff

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July 16, 2018

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its 2019 growth forecast for the Mexican economy from 3% to 2.7% due to prolonged uncertainty surrounding the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

In its latest World Economic Outlook Update, the IMF also said that “the recently announced and anticipated tariff increases by the United States and retaliatory measures by trading partners” could “depress medium-term growth prospects both through their direct impact on resource allocation and productivity and by raising uncertainty and taking a toll on investment.”

Mexico struck back swiftly after the United States announced that it would impose 25% and 10% duties on steel and aluminum, introducing its own tariffs on a range of U.S. products including pork, apples, some steel products, a range of cheeses and bourbon.

Despite introducing tit-for-tat measures on their neighbor, both Mexico and Canada also reaffirmed their commitment to reaching a new NAFTA deal but the United States hasn’t expressed the same level of support. President Donald Trump has even suggested that separate bilateral agreements could be sought with the two countries.

The IMF warned generally that “an escalation of trade tensions could undermine business and financial market sentiment, denting investment and trade.”

It also cited uncertainty about “the policy agenda” of Mexico’s new government as an additional factor that it considered in its downgraded growth forecast.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the July 1 presidential election in a landslide and he and his prospective cabinet have subsequently sought to calm fears surrounding the incoming administration’s economic plans.

Future finance secretary Carlos Urzúa has been particular outspoken, reassuring investors that the 2019 budget will keep the nation’s finances under control and stressing that the independence of the central bank will be respected.

In the week after López Obrador’s election, the peso recorded its biggest single-week gain in more than six years and analysts partially attributed the currency’s strong performance to the efforts to quell economic concerns. The new president will be sworn in on December 1.

For 2018, the IMF maintained its growth forecast for Mexico at 2.3%.

The intergovernmental organization also maintained its global growth projection for both 2018 and 2019 at 3.9% but noted that “the expansion is becoming less even, and risks to the outlook are mounting.”

For the wider region of which Mexico is part — Latin America and the Caribbean — the IMF is predicting 1.6% and 2.6% growth for 2018 and 2019 respectively. The former forecast was cut by 0.4% and the latter by 0.2% compared to April figures.

The IMF will announce its next World Economic Outlook Update in October.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Environmental group prepares criminal complaint over Tijuana sewage

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MND Staff

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July 16, 2018

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Waters off Tijuana are polluted by a sewage treatment plant.

A binational environmental group is preparing a criminal complaint against the Baja California state government for negligence in the discharge of sewage from a Tijuana treatment plant that pollutes waters off the coasts of both Mexico and the United States.

Paloma Aguirre, coastal and marine director for Wildcoast, told the newspaper Reforma that the complaint will be made collectively in the names of Baja California residents and that separate legal action will also be initiated across the border.

Aguirre charged that the Tijuana wastewater treatment plant, known as San Antonio de los Buenos, or Punta Bandera, is dumping 1,750 liters of untreated sewage into the Pacific Ocean per second.

She said that in addition to causing environmental damage, the pollution also poses a risk to human health.

A recent study by the organization Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación Ambiental (Border Project for Environmental Education) found that the wastewater discharged by the Punta Bandera plant exceeds permitted fecal coliform levels by as much as 12,000%, or 120 times the legal level.

In March, the Californian cities of Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and San Diego jointly filed their own lawsuit against the United States section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) and its contractor, Veolia Water North America, charging that they repeatedly failed to take measures to address “devastating pollution discharges” in violation of U.S. law.

A San Diego border patrol agents’ union has also said that it will file a complaint over Tijuana’s pollution.

More than 50 border agents fell ill last year due to exposure to contaminants while working in the vicinity of the border.

For its part, the Tijuana office of the state Public Services Commission (Cespt), which operates the treatment plant, said in a statement that it is lobbying the federal government and organizations including the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the IBWC to obtain funding that would allow it to increase capacity.

An investment of around 1.5 billion pesos (US$79.7 million) is needed to upgrade the plant and four pumping stations, Cespt director Germán Lizola Márquez said.

However, he added, a study must first determine exactly what needs to be done, adding that the first stage of the 10-million-peso analysis is slated to be completed in October.

Sewage from the Punta Bandera plant has been contaminating ocean waters and beaches on both sides of the border for years.

Pollution in the Tijuana river, including viral pathogens, toxic waste and chemicals, also runs into the ocean, further angering politicians and residents of southern California.

Imperial Beach Mayor and Wild Coast executive director Serge Dedina has been particularly critical of Mexican authorities for failing to stem the tide of sewage and other contaminants flowing across the border.

Source: Reforma (sp)

There were more soldiers on the streets than ever last year

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MND Staff

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July 16, 2018

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The federal government deployed 52,807 soldiers to fight Mexico’s notorious drug cartels last year, the highest number in the 12-year war on drugs, statistics show.

The record deployment was spread across several states in various regions of the country.

The Secretariat of Defense sent more than 6,000 soldiers to Guerrero, where criminal groups such as the Guerreros Unidos, Los Ardillos and Los Rojos operate. The southern state is one of Mexico’s poorest and most violent and is also a large opium poppy producer.

In Jalisco, the main target of a deployment made up of 5,535 soldiers was the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which was allegedly responsible for torturing and killing three film students near Guadalajara in March of this year.

The same cartel was blamed for an attack in May on Luis Carlos Nájera, the former attorney general of Jalisco who is now the state’s labor secretary.

In 2017, the army was also sent to carry out public security duties in Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and San Luis Potosí among other states.

Former president Felipe Calderón launched the military-based crime-fighting strategy shortly after he took office in December 2006 by sending 6,500 troops into his home state of Michoacán.

During 2007 — his first full year in office — 45,000 soldiers were deployed across the country.

The size of the deployment was increased to 48,650 in 2009 as the number of soldiers, marines and Federal Police losing their lives in confrontations with organized crime continued to grow.

That number was maintained until the end of Calderón’s six-year term in 2012.

The highest concentration of troops during the National Action Party (PAN) administration was in the northern border city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, which had been considered the most dangerous city in the world.

During 2013 — current President Enrique Peña Nieto’s first full year in office — the number of deployed troops shrank to just over 34,500 but the number grew by more than 50% over the following years to reach the 2017 figure.

With more than 29,000 homicides, 2017 was also the most violent year in at least two decades while more than 200,000 people have been murdered in the 12 years since the crackdown on cartels began, leading many observers to conclude that the war on drugs strategy has failed.

In addition, more than 30,000 people are missing and federal security forces, including the army and navy, have been suspected of being involved in enforced disappearances and other human rights abuses.

The disappearance of 43 students in Guerrero in 2014, a massacre that left 22 civilians dead in Tlatlaya, México state, the same year and the abduction this year of 23 people in Tamaulipas are among the cases in which the role of the military has been called into question.

The incoming Andrés Manuel López Obrador government has said that it plans to gradually withdraw the military from public security duties on the nation’s streets.

The next government’s strategy — which also proposes better training, pay and conditions for police — was applauded by a security collective earlier this month, which said that the measures are in accordance with what national and international organizations have recommended.

Source: Milenio (sp)

There will be no more spying on opponents, president-elect declares

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César Hernández

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July 16, 2018

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López Obrador and his wife, Beatriz Gutiérrez: they were trailed by federal spies.

There will be no more internal spying on opposition politicians, incoming president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Saturday, recalling that he was tailed for years by federally-employed spies.

There will be no more Center for Investigation and National Security (Cisen) either, following its dissolution as part of the new government’s austerity measures.

The newly-appointed public security secretary, Alfonso Durazo Montaño, announced the move on Saturday.

“Cisen disappears because it has been discredited due to the political use that was made of it,” Durazo said.

The incoming secretary said a new organization, the National Intelligence Agency, will replace it.

López Obrador told reporters that the new agency will not perform espionage operations.

“There will be no more spying on the opposition . . . what we suffered for years, when I was opposition. When I was in Tabasco . . . there was a car parked in front of my house, day and night, watching. If I went to the market with my wife, there they were behind me; if we went to the movies, there they were, watching the movie too,” he said.

The new president explained that Cisen employees will be transferred to other areas where they will continue investigations against organized crime.

López Obrador added that he personally has known many Cisen agents for years: “Imagine, 30 years [as the opposition], many of them are ready to retire.”

Of the new intelligence agency, he affirmed that phone tapping would come to an end and that the private lives of everyone will be respected.

“[The National Intelligence Agency] will be tasked with looking after national security and providing information about criminal organizations; it will no longer use government resources to spy.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

Senator named to human rights post will conduct Ayotzinapa probe

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César Hernández

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July 16, 2018

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Encinas: will conduct investigation into the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students.

México state senator and longtime leftist politician Alejandro Encinas will head up a probe into the Ayotzinapa case as the new undersecretary of human rights at the Interior Secretariat, or Segob.

“We are committed to investigating and finding out what really happened to the youths from Ayotzinapa . . .” López Obrador said on Saturday.

The probe will be conducted in collaboration with international organizations, he said. Among them will be the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

“The doors of the country will be open . . . there are going to be zero obstacles, the truth in the Ayotzinapa case will be known and justice will be served.”

Forty-three students of the Ayotzinapa teacher training college in Guerrero disappeared during a night of violence in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014. It remains unclear what happened, but evidence shows that municipal officials and police were involved. The students would have graduated last Friday.

López Obrador also announced that a series of forums intended to curb surging violence will begin August 7 in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.

The meetings will take place throughout the country between August and October, and will include the participation of international organizations.

“We want to invite not only [non-governmental] organizations and religions, but authorities too,” the president-elect said. The secretaries of National Defense and the Navy will participate, as well as relatives of victims of crime.

“We can’t go on like this, there’s too much suffering. We are going to listen to everyone. There are no limits, nothing will be ruled out. There are no boundaries. Everything will be discussed.”

López Obrador said he has asked for help from the United Nations with regard to human rights and accountability in the fight against corruption.

Source: Milenio (sp), Sin Embargo (sp)

Mexico trade supports 566,000 jobs in California: study

By

Tony Richards

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July 16, 2018

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Trade with Mexico supports more than 566,000 jobs and US $26.8 billion in foreign exports in California, according to a new study.

Carried out by the World Trade Center San Diego and the University of California’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, the study found that Mexico is California’s largest export market.

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1994, those exports have grown 311%.

The Cali Baja mega-region, a binational economic zone which takes in the Baja California municipalities of Tijuana, Tecate and Mexicali and the counties of San Diego and Imperial in California, has a manufacturing sector that directly employs 418,300 workers who make medical devices, semiconductors, aerospace parts and audio and video equipment.

Fifty-one per cent of trade in the region is in services, including computer system design, scientific research, software publishing and data publishing.

“It is clear that the cross border economic relationship plays a critical role in the Cali Baja mega-region in spurring economic growth, advancing technology and enhancing lives on many levels,” said Melissa Floca, associate director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies.

World Trade Center executive director Nikia Clarke said that for every 10 jobs a U.S. multinational creates in Mexico it creates 25 in the U.S.

Source: CNS (en)

Geological fault thought to have caused collapse of 4 houses in Tijuana

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César Hernández

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July 16, 2018

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One of the Tijuana houses that collapsed on Saturday.

A geological fault in Tijuana appears to have caused the collapse of four houses on Saturday, and damage to several others.

Residents of the Reforma neighborhood of the border city first noticed cracks in the walls of their homes two weeks ago. On Friday, when the cracks started to grow larger, they notified municipal authorities, who ordered the evacuation of 11 homes after an inspection revealed there was a high risk they would collapse.

By Saturday, a total of 22 homes had been identified as being at risk and their occupants evacuated. Later in the day, four of the dwellings collapsed.

The municipality issued a statement saying a natural geological fault was responsible.

The area has been cordoned off by local officials to avoid casualties and prevent looting and electrical and water services have been suspended.

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

CDMX borough chief issues plea for help from federal forces as insecurity worsens

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MND Staff

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July 16, 2018

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A Mexico City borough chief has requested assistance from the army and the navy to combat insecurity in the capital’s historic center and inner suburbs.

In a letter sent to an army commander on June 19, Cuauhtémoc borough chief Rodolfo González said insecurity was a growing problem in the capital’s central core, specifically citing the occurrence of “extrajudicial killings, extortion, drug trafficking, people trafficking and kidnapping” among other crimes.

González said that the local Cuauhtémoc government “lacks the command and security forces to effectively confront the situations of insecurity that have arisen in recent days and weeks.”

He added that it was ready to work with the Mexico City government and security authorities of the federal government “to guarantee basic security conditions to the almost five million people who travel through, work in, visit or live in the borough of Cuauhtémoc.”

The newspaper Milenio reported today that residents and shopkeepers in the north of Mexico City’s historic center lobbied borough authorities to seek the assistance of federal security forces.

“For us the citizens, it is very complicated to report [a crime] at the Attorney General’s office because [by doing so] we become the objects of revenge from those we identify as our aggressors. Publicly reporting [a crime] puts us at a double risk. That’s why we ask for your support . . . and that security is provided to us. We are afraid,” their plea said.

In an April 13 letter sent to a navy vice-admiral, González referred to the interest expressed by “a group of shopkeepers” that the navy collaborate with local authorities in the “monitoring, surveillance and containment” of crime in Mexico City’s historic center.

“Today, we reiterate and formalize that proposal,” the letter said.

González also said that if the navy, in carrying out intelligence and operational work, detects “infiltration, collusion or links” of Cuauhtémoc government personnel with criminal groups, they should immediately be referred to the relevant authorities.

The borough chief pointed out that a lot of buildings of national importance — such as the National Palace, Supreme Court, Metropolitan Cathedral and Senate — are located in Cuauhtémoc, underscoring the need to ensure that it is not overrun with crime.

Beyond the historic center, González said that the neighborhoods of Morelos, Roma and Condesa also require special attention to combat the presence of organized crime and curb the incidence of muggings.

Mexico City recorded its most violent first four-month period of any year of the past two decades with 382 intentional homicides between January 1 and the end of April while a report released last year said that there are 20,000 places where drugs are bought and sold in the capital.

In an interview earlier this month, González stressed that all three levels of government needed to collaborate to combat crime in the capital and charged that the organized crime groups that operate in Mexico City are transnational.

The borough chief also urged Mexico City mayor-elect Claudia Sheinbaum to consider the proposal to seek federal security assistance in order to regain control of the capital.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp), El Heraldo de México (sp)