Pemex’s alleged silence about fuel shortages has drawn a strong rebuke from the governor of Michoacán.
In a series of tweets, Silvano Aureoles yesterday urged the state oil company and the federal government to provide answers in light of gasoline shortages in his and various other states around the country.
He criticized Pemex CEO Octavio Romero Oropeza for not responding to official requests for information regarding the fuel shortages, which he described as rude and showing “a lack of respect.”
“We demand to know with certainty and in a timely manner when and how we will be able to restore normal fuel distribution,” he said in the tweet.
Aureoles said the state government has helped the public transportation sector by providing security for dedicated tankers delivering fuel.
The governor observed that while he supports the federal government’s fight against fuel theft, the strategy was poorly executed and should not have adversely affected economic activities or the livelihoods of citizens.
Michoacán has been one of the states most affected by the fuel crisis, a result of President López Obrador’s closure of pipelines in a strategy to combat fuel theft.
State officials say gas shortages have had a severe impact on the economy.
There were two casualties in a collision between two cargo trucks in Veracruz yesterday, but there were few survivors among the cattle being shipped in one of them.
An undetermined number were either stolen or butchered on site.
One person died and another was injured in the collision on the La Tinaja-Cosoleacaque highway.
Unofficial sources told the newspaper El Universal that Central American migrants were traveling in one of the trailers involved. They fled the scene to avoid being arrested.
While they fled, neighbors arrived and helped themselves to the livestock inside the trailer.
Several animals were pulled from the wreck and taken away. At least one was butchered right there at the accident scene.
🚨SAQUEO EN VERACRUZ 🚨 Un camión que transportaba ganado en la autopista se accidentó en el tramo de las Tinajas–Cosoleacaque, situación que aprovecharon los pobladores de la zona para abrir las puertas del tractocamión y robar. pic.twitter.com/CFoDU3gcIy
Dozens of people were caught on camera Saturday helping themselves to fuel at an illegal pipeline tap in México state, as gasoline shortages continue to frustrate motorists in several parts of the country.
Footage that circulated on social media showed a large group of people frantically filling containers with gasoline in a field next to a highway in Acambay, a municipality around 90 kilometers north of Toluca.
México state is one of more than 10 states affected by gasoline shortages that the federal government has explained are the result of President López Obrador’s decision to close several major petroleum pipelines as part of the strategy to combat fuel theft.
Late Saturday afternoon, the México state Secretariat of Security reported via Twitter that police had attended the site of the illegal tap and were guarding it as they waited for the arrival of personnel from Pemex. No arrests were reported.
A video posted to Twitter by security officials showed a stream of fuel in the field where the pipeline tap occurred which, according to the newspaper El Financiero, was at least one kilometer long.
López Obrador spoke yesterday about the incident and urged people not to “tarnish themselves” by protecting huachicoleros, as fuel thieves are colloquially known.
“They punctured one of the pipelines and told people: ‘[come and] get gasoline, there’s gasoline here,’ and some people were there with buckets, collecting it. I call on people to not play ball with these crooks. Even if they say, ‘there’s gasoline here, make the most of it,’ [I call on people] not to protect these criminals [but] to act with honesty . . .” he said.
“[I urge] he who wants to earn an income to approach the social program coordinators in the state governments. There is information so that work and income can be had without the necessity of . . . stealing. It’s preferable to leave children in poverty than to dishonor them. We have to raise the moral standards of public life in Mexico,” López Obrador added.
Speaking at an event in México state at which he announced higher pensions for senior citizens, the president reiterated his claim that fuel theft costs the government 65 billion pesos (US $3.4 billion) a year.
“That money is now going to be used for the benefit of the people, that’s why I call on all citizens to move forward together. There are inconveniences . . . there are lines at gas stations and people are worried . . . but if you continue to support me, if you have confidence that this will be resolved, between all of us we’re going to feel very satisfied to have put an end to fuel theft,” López Obrador said.
The president told reporters this morning that the pipeline between Tuxpan, Veracruz, and Mexico City, which was repeatedly “sabotaged” last week, resumed service at 11:00pm Friday.
López Obrador said the pipeline, one of the most important in the country, is transporting 170,000 barrels of fuel a day, adding that supply will “soon” return to normal.
Federal security forces, including the military, are now guarding seven pipelines and will be deployed to protect five more, army General Arturo Velázquez said at the president’s daily press conference.
In total, just over 5,000 members of the army, navy and Federal Police have been deployed to anti-fuel theft operations across the country.
Asked whether he feared for his life as a result of implementing the anti-theft strategy, López Obrador responded:
“He who fights for justice has nothing to fear. I’m a human being, I have fears like all human beings but I’m not a coward.”
Esto hoy en #Acambay … siguen los sabotajes para presionar la posición de #Pemex. Imagínense que era un negoció próspero de Miles de MDP… tienen para toda esta guerra. pic.twitter.com/sPZuwPASUZ
Pemex tanker trucks will be joined by those of private companies to transport fuel.
Private trucking companies will provide 3,500 tanker trucks to transport gasoline to states affected by the current shortage, the National Chamber of Trucking (Canacar) has announced.
Pemex yesterday approved a strategy developed by Canacar to speed up the supply of gasoline.
In a statement, Canacar said that “in the next 48 hours, a strategic plan that strengthens the distribution of fuel by highway will be implemented.”
Tanker trucks will begin operating “24 hours a day, seven days a week, with the protection of the Federal Police,” it explained.
The government has committed to providing 8,300 police officers and 1,400 vehicles to guarantee security, Canacar said. The 3,500 private tanker trucks will be supplied by 150 companies.
“The 150 companies . . . are ready to provide professional and efficient service to immediately restore . . . fuel distribution in affected areas,” Canacar said.
Pemex has committed to making its fuel terminals more efficient and to speed up the loading and unloading of trucks.
The state oil company is making greater use of tanker trucks to distribute fuel because the federal government has closed several major pipelines as part of a strategy to combat fuel theft.
But the changed distribution method has caused fuel shortages at gas stations in more than 10 states because Pemex has been unable to transport product quickly enough in its own tankers.
The National Trucking Chamber said that a working committee made up of representatives of different divisions of Pemex, the Federal Police, the railway industry and Canacar will be formed to monitor the new distribution strategy, “recognizing that some pipelines will be opened gradually, either intermittently or permanently.”
The Tijuana hospital that is subject of a health alert.
Health authorities in the United States have warned against having surgery at a Tijuana hospital after some U.S. residents were diagnosed with infections caused by an antibiotic-resistant form of bacteria.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Level 2 alert Wednesday stating that it had received reports of serious drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections in U.S. residents who had operations in the northern border city.
“All of the travelers with this particular infection had an invasive medical procedure performed in Tijuana. Most (but not all) of them had weight-loss surgery. About half of those infected had their surgery done at the Grand View Hospital,” the CDC said.
“CDC recommends that travelers to Tijuana, Mexico, not have surgery at the Grand View Hospital until the Mexican government can confirm that the drug-resistant form of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria is no longer there,” it added.
CDC medical officer Dr. David Ham said that there are 11 confirmed cases of Pseudomonas infections, nine of which occurred between August and November 2018.
“Based on information provided by the CDC, the Mexican government has closed the Grand View Hospital until further notice,” the CDC said.
However, on Thursday night, that assertion appeared to be incorrect, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
It said that people could be seen coming and going from the facility, located on an upscale residential street near the border, and there was no obvious sign that the hospital had been closed by the government.
According to the CDC, “infections caused by . . . Pseudomonas are rare and difficult to treat in the United States.”
Dr. Benjamin Talei, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, told NBC Los Angeles that a lack of hygiene is usually the cause of such infections.
“[Surgical teams] do not clean the body perfectly or the instruments, and with liposculptures they are passing a piece of metal inside the body,” he said.
“With this bacteria you can lose a hand, you can have a lung infection, it can be very serious,” Talei added.
The CDC said that “Pseudomonas infections of the blood, lungs (pneumonia), and after surgery can lead to severe illness and death.”
Héctor Rivera Valenzuela, a Baja California health official, confirmed that there had been a contamination of operating rooms at the Grand View Hospital but said that surgeons were not to blame.
“The problem wasn’t the surgical technique or the capacity of the doctors . . .” he said.
Thousands of United States residents travel to Mexican border cities each year to undergo medical and dental procedures that cost much less than in the U.S.
However, the CDC and other U.S. medical professionals warn that there are significant risks in traveling abroad for medical treatment.
Looking to shed weight gained over the Christmas holidays? There’s an event designed with that in mind next week in Tultepec, México state.
And participants will receive two free tamales — presumably low-fat.
The municipality better known for its fireworks industry (and related explosions) is organizing the first ever Tamal Race to promote physical activity and family harmony.
Scheduled for January 20 at 8:00am, the 10-kilometer race will be open to 200 participants.
There will be no prize for finishing first. Instead, all runners will receive two “recovery tamales.”
The municipal physical culture and sports secretary, Gerardo Ramírez Hernández, told the newspaper El Universal that giving tamales to those looking to lose weight was not a contradiction.
The main goal of the Tamal Race is to promote healthy habits among the families and groups of friends of Tultepec, “and to start the year with the best attitude.”
Ramírez said the only requirements are to be in good spirits and have a good attitude.
Did reducing gasoline imports contribute to the current shortage?
Mexico has significantly reduced gasoline imports from the United States since Andrés Manuel López Obrador was sworn in as president on December 1, according to a United States research firm.
The period in which they were cut back partially coincides with the current widespread fuel shortage that the government has explained is the result of López Obrador’s decision to close several major petroleum pipelines as part of the strategy to combat fuel theft.
A report published yesterday by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) cited data from Houston and New York-based ClipperData which shows that under the new government, seaborne gasoline imports from the United States’ Gulf Coast have averaged around 350,000 barrels a day.
The number represents a 28% decline on the quantity of U.S. gasoline imported in December 2017 and January 2018 when former president Enrique Peña Nieto was in office, according to ClipperData.
During the first 10 days of January, a period in which the fuel shortage progressively spread and worsened, gasoline imports from the U.S. Gulf Coast dropped further, averaging about 254,000 barrels a day, a 33% decline on last month and a 45% decline on January 2018 imports.
The WSJ said that, according to industry analysts and government officials, the decline is the result of fewer orders for American gasoline as well as congestion at Mexico’s Gulf Coast ports.
Forty foreign oil tankers were stranded at the Veracruz and Tuxpan fuel terminals yesterday, where they were waiting to unload several million barrels of gasoline.
According to shipping experts, the tankers are unable to offload their cargo because port storage facilities are full due to the closure of petroleum pipelines.
A Pemex spokeswoman said the slowdown in U.S. gasoline imports in January was due to seasonal factors, noting that December is usually the month when gasoline is most in demand in Mexico.
But the decline in imports between December and January is over four times greater than that recorded over the past four years when, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the month-on-month slowdown averaged 8%.
There are other factors that appear to be contributing to the prolonged fuel shortage.
The WSJ said the shortages have “laid bare the inefficiencies of Mexico’s refineries.” According to Pemex figures, the nation’s six refineries operated at a daily capacity of 46.1% last year through November.
The situation has also “raised questions about the new administration’s reversal of steps taken by the previous government to begin importing light crude, necessary for mixing with Mexico’s heavy Maya crude at refineries to produce gasoline.”
A person familiar with oil imports to Mexico told the WSJ that all Mexican tenders for U.S. light crude have halted.
Monserrat Ramiro, a commissioner on Mexico’s Energy Regulatory Commission, said the current crisis is the result of years of insufficient investment in logistics infrastructure such as storage tanks, pipelines and fuel terminals.
López Obrador, who has pledged to “rescue” Mexico’s oil sector by upgrading existing refineries and building a new one on the Gulf Coast in Tabasco, has said repeatedly that the current gasoline shortage is due to logistics rather than a lack of supply.
Responding to a question today about the WSJ story, he said, “It’s not true,” and suggested the newspaper was not reliable.
Published yesterday afternoon, the story triggered intense debate on social media about the root cause or causes of the gasoline shortage.
Many social media users posted the story as evidence that López Obrador, commonly known as AMLO, had created the shortage crisis on purpose by cutting imports. But one of two WSJ journalists who wrote the article said that the story doesn’t support that claim.
“A lot of Mexican Twitter is retweeting this story as proof that AMLO caused the gasoline crisis on purpose by cutting imports of U.S. fuel and light crude, and is using the huachicol crackdown as a pretext . . .that’s NOT what the story says,” Robbie Whelan wrote.
In an earlier tweet, he wrote: “Mexico’s gasoline supply is paralyzed by closed fuel pipelines, but there are other factors: Pemex refining and downstream infrastructure are a mess, AMLO has stopped importing U.S. light crude, and January daily import volumes are down 45% from 2018.”
John M. Ackerman, a law professor at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) and husband of federal Secretary of Public Administration Irma Eréndira Sandoval, wrote to Whelan on Twitter, stating that “official data on Mexican imports are not out yet,” charging that the WSJ “article is based on speculations and data provided by a little known shipment company.”
Whelan responded that “we wouldn’t have cited ClipperData if we weren’t confident in their data and if we hadn’t checked their claims against observations (not speculation) of industry sources.”
Carlos Bravo Regidor, a political analyst and associate professor at CIDE, a research university in Mexico City, supported Whelan’s position.
“Is it a story about huachicol crackdown as a smoke screen? No. Is it a story about the deliberate creation of a crisis? No. To me, it is a story about unforeseen logistical complications (incompetence, in brief),” he wrote on Twitter.
Descendants of Zapata present the president with a sombrero.
President López Obrador declared today that 2019 will be the year of Emiliano Zapata, a mustachioed, charro hat-wearing hero of the Mexican revolution.
The president told reporters at his morning press conference that he had decided to dedicate this year to Zapata to commemorate the centenary of his death and to recognize his role in the armed struggle that lasted from 1910 to 1920.
All of the federal government’s stationery will feature Zapata’s name, López Obrador said, adding that the best homage that will be paid to him “is that the government, which arose from the people and through democratic elections, will respond to the demands of Mexicans, especially . . . the humblest people.”
Descendants of the revolutionary, who was killed near Ciudad Ayala, Morelos, in 1919, were on hand to hear the president’s declaration.
Jorge Zapata González, a grandson of the revolutionary, said that he was confident that López Obrador would be a president who embodies his grandfather’s ideals.
“Finally, the people of Mexico and their critical awareness have awoken and together we’re going to rebuild Mexico, which was handed to us bleeding and in tatters, with thousands of missing persons and looted by corruption at all levels,” he said.
“The people of Mexico and the Zapatistas are with you, you’re not alone . . . Viva México, cabrones!”
Emiliano Zapata, nicknamed the Caudillo del Sur, was the leader of the Liberation Army of the South that fought to overthrow former president Porfirio Díaz and for land reform.
The Mexican revolution ended Díaz’s 30-year rule as president in 1911 but fighting continued for nine more years as competing factions sought to take power and exert control.
Recently, Alfonso Cuarón was awarded best foreign language film and best director at the Golden Globes for Roma. He is fittingly being praised for both technical features and the powerful stories Roma tells about daily life in Mexico in the 1970s.
The film, however, contains other subtle but important elements that have been largely ignored by critics so far.
Two of these elements are Mexico’s political context in the early 1970s and the ongoing conditions that have characterized domestic workers’ lives since. The main character of Roma is Cleo (played by Yalitza Aparicio), a domestic worker based on a woman named Liboria Rodríguez (known as Libo) who worked for Cuarón’s family when he was a child.
Cuarón situates Roma’s characters amid significant historical events: the fight of some Mexicans for social progress and their opposition to a political, authoritarian regime that worked to maintain its privileges through various means.
One of these means is exemplified in the film by the character Fermín — Cleo’s boyfriend (played by Jorge Antonio Guerrero) who belongs to the paramilitary group Los Halcones (The Hawks).
We know now by various direct sources and United States government declassified documents that high-ranking Mexican government officials secretly organized, financed, trained and armed various groups, including Los Halcones, to help quash social movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Cleo, domestic worker in the film Roma.
Los Halcones were composed of around 2,000 young men, aged 18 to 29, distributed in squads of 200 members each.
The squads’ leaders were middle-class university students who, for their participation, received free education, weekly stipends and the promise of a bright future in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
The assailants and hitmen were gang members and working class and unemployed young men. They were paid half of what the leaders received.
Los Halcones were also trained by Mexican military and police personnel who, subsidized by USAID, had previously received training at the International Police Academy in Washington.
On June 10, 1971, around 10,000 demonstrators, mainly students, marched to demand improvements to Mexico’s democratic, economic and social conditions.
In Roma, Cleo and others pass these demonstrators on their way to a furniture store. They also pass, in a depiction of real life, a long row of riot police trucks and idle police officers, while Halcones patiently wait at the corner.
Armed with canes and M1 and M2 rifles, Halcones attacked demonstrators, producing the second bloodiest event in modern Mexican history (El Halconazo), only after the Tlatelolco massacre of October 1968.
It is estimated that around 120 people were killed and hundreds more injured, including children, women and seniors. Although the military and uniformed police knew beforehand about the attack, they stood by and did nothing.
Fermín belongs to the second-tier group of Los Halcones. In the hotel, he confesses to Cleo: “I owe my life to martial arts [to Halcones]. I grew up with nothing, you know?”
Portraying the real Halcones youth, Fermín’s participation offered him certain social mobility but only in exchange for committing atrocities.
Some young men’s allegiance to Los Halcones and their corrupt decisions were thus mediated by class aspirations, ideology and violence.
Los Halcones’ violence also manifested in gender violence. This is depicted in Roma when Fermín dismisses his paternity and threatens to beat Cleo and their unborn daughter if she insists on looking for him.
Moreover, despite his low-class background, Fermín ends the scene yelling “gata” at Cleo, an upper class-based insult aimed only at domestic servants, reflecting the latter’s low ascribed social status.
A second element that has not been widely discussed, which Roma touches on, is the historical conditions of domestic workers.
As of June 2018, there were 2.2 million domestic workers in Mexico. Around 95% are women, mostly young and middle-aged (some are even children).
In 2010, 58% of indigenous women in the Monterrey, Nuevo León, metropolitan area were domestic workers. Many migrated from the countryside to the city. This means that, as indigenous migration researcher Séverine Durin asserts, domestic work is strongly shaped by ethnicity.
It is not a coincidence then, that Cuarón’s former nanny Libo or the characters Cleo and Adela in Roma are (young) indigenous women.
Mexican laws do not offer domestic workers the same rights and benefits that other workers enjoy, such as paid sick days and holidays. They can also be dismissed without warning at any time.
Only as recently as December 2018, the Mexican Supreme Court determined that it is unconstitutional for employers to deny domestic workers access to social security, meaning mainly access to public health services.
It is commonplace for domestic workers to face low wages, long working hours and no holidays. Some also experience humiliation, mistreatment and discrimination for speaking their indigenous language, wearing traditional clothes, practising cultural customs and for their physical traits.
Others experience forced confinement or sexual abuse by the men of the family or teenage sons. Yet, domestic workers are expected to thank their employers for the “opportunity” to have a job.
Only one in 10 women file a complaint when they encounter a problem with their employers.
Domestic workers with children also need to make extraordinary arrangements for their own children to be taken care of, meaning prolonged separation many times while they take care of other families’ children. Their caring and affection not only become commodified, but also dislocated.
Some employers consider domestic workers as “part of the family.” However, uneven power relations, class differentials, discrimination and racism make them not really part of the family.
Cuarón mentioned that he was forced to recognize several decades later, and only after he started working on Roma, that Libo was, first, a woman, and second, an indigenous woman. He then realized that Libo belongs to a “world of affective needs, a world of sexual desires,” and also to “a more dispossessed group, a world of injustice.”
In Roma, the family members are unaware of the domestic workers’ social and personal lives.
When Cleo is taken to the delivery room, the grandmother, Teresa, is asked by a nurse about Cleo’s second last name, her date of birth and if she has insurance. But Teresa cannot answer those questions.
Cleo picks up after the family dog, feeds the family, prepares the kids for school, puts them to bed, washes and irons the family’s clothes and cleans the house. Still, the grandmother ignores everything about Cleo despite living in the “same” house (usually, domestic workers sleep and even eat apart from the family).
Cleo is “part of the family” but she is not really part of the family.
Overall, Roma contains various stories that subtly unveil different forms of violence: poverty, social exclusion and gender-based violence promoted by sexist and misogynistic forms of masculinity.
Moreover, domestic workers’ quiet but endless work, which in Roma takes over half of the film, hinders uneven power relations mediated by class, gender, age, affection, ethnicity, race and the urban/rural divide.
These factors intersect to maintain domestic workers, mainly (indigenous) women, in subordinate positions. They are conveniently imagined as “part of the family,” but they are never really part of the family, neither in Mexico, nor in Canada, nor anywhere else in the world.
CORRECTION: The earlier version of this article stated that in 2010, 58% of indigenous women were domestic workers. It should have indicated that the statistic referred to indigenous women in the Monterrey, Nuevo León, metropolitan area.
Clouthier, center, during discussion on the national guard.
A deputy leader of Mexico’s ruling party warned yesterday that the creation of a national guard under the command of the army could lead to the military deciding who the next president and government would be.
And it appears people in the right places were listening. Federal Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo announced today that President López Obrador had decided that the National Guard should have a civilian command.
“I’m clearly in favor of a civilian command, not a military command . . .” Tatiana Clouthier said during a public debate in the Chamber of Deputies.
However, the deputy leader of the Morena party in the lower house of Congress added that if it’s the military that is ultimately chosen to head the new security force, it should only be given a three-year mandate, not five years as proposed.
“. . . Having five years of military command would be [as good as] saying that it’s the military command that’s going to end up deciding who will govern us for the next six years [from 2024] in this country. I refuse to support that prelude,” Clouthier said.
Two weeks before he was sworn in as president on December 1, Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced a new national security plan whose central element was the creation of national guard under the control of the army.
Jan Jarab, the Mexico representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that the national guard proposal doesn’t provide any guarantees that human rights violations committed by the armed forces in the past won’t occur again.
Speaking in the Congress yesterday, he also said that a proposal to give the national guard the authority to investigate crimes was concerning.
Jarab added: “Since the deployment of the armed forces to carry out security tasks, violence in the country has skyrocketed . . .This doesn’t seem the optimal way to achieve security.”
He urged lawmakers to be “thoughtful” in their consideration of the national guard proposal and to act in strict accordance with Mexico’s international human rights commitments.
The head of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) proposed the creation of a new civil force to combat the high levels of violent crime plaguing Mexico.
“We can’t place the direct protection of rights, within our constitutional system, in [the hands of] military bodies or structures,” Luis Raúl González Pérez said.
Secretary Durazo said today that López Obrador had taken on board the different opinions about the leadership of the national guard.
“The president has listened with great interest to the different arguments presented by the people of Mexico and now in these forums organized by the Chamber of Deputies . . .” he said.
Durazo asked lawmakers to modify the original initiative in order to create a national guard with a civilian command but with the same levels of discipline and training as the armed forces.
The secretary said the new force would be the responsibility of the Secretariat of Public Security, not the Secretariat of National Defense as previously proposed.
Clouthier celebrated the move on Twitter. “Great,” she wrote, attaching a video of Durazo’s announcement to her post.
