The longstanding dispute over land claimed by the indigenous Wixárika people in Jalisco flared up yesterday when residents of a town in Bolaños took 15 federal, state and municipal officials hostage for nine hours.
The incident took place early yesterday morning after the officials arrived in the Wixárika town of San Sebastián Teponahuaxtlán.
But when they failed to deliver documentation regarding the allocation of funds to a social program intended to help solve the territorial conflict, Wixárika representatives suspended the meeting, according to one report.
Wixárika spokesman Ubaldo Valdez said the government representatives arrived with nothing, after which a Jalisco state cabinet secretary was told they would not be leaving until the matter was resolved.
However, Jalisco Interior Secretary Roberto López played down the incident on Twitter, claiming that the officials were not being held against their will but were meeting with a communal assembly under indigenous laws and customs, known as usos y costumbres.
The meeting was a follow-up to agreements that were reached last month after blockades cut off access to 35 communities and closed schools and health clinics.
At the heart of the issue is more than 10,000 hectares of land that was granted to ranchers more than 100 years ago. But the Wixárika, also known as Huichol, claim it is their ancestral territory.
They have won several court judgments but confrontations with ranchers have hampered restitution of any of the land.
The indigenous community has demanded state and federal authorities to guarantee the restitutions ordered by court rulings and address deficiencies in health, education and security. Representatives say their protests will continue until they recover their lost territory.
A Mexican dancer has won a prestigious international prize considered the Oscar of ballet.
Isaac Hernández, the principal dancer for the English National Ballet, was awarded the Benois de la Danse prize at a ceremony held yesterday in the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia.
The 27-year-old Jalisco native was nominated for the best danseur award for his performances in Don Quijote with the Rome Opera Ballet, in which he worked under the artistic direction of legendary Russian ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, and La Sylphide, with the English National Ballet.
Hernández is the first Mexican to win the coveted prize.
After the ceremony, the dancer posted a photo of himself holding the award outside the historic theater on his Twitter account with the caption, “Everything is possible!”
President Enrique Peña Nieto congratulated Hernández for his achievement via his own Twitter account.
The recognition further enhances the reputation of the young dancer who last November won the award for best male dancer at the United Kingdom’s National Dance Awards.
According to Hernández’s press office in Mexico, the dancer said that it was an honor and a source of great pride to represent Mexico on the world stage.
“. . . Being the first Mexican in history to win this important prize is proof that everything can be achieved if we persevere with our dreams. I dedicate this achievement to the entire Mexican public who is always with me, to all those people who have been part of my life and my journey and to all those who have supported me, believed in me and motivated me to be better as a person and as a professional,” he said.
The Benois de la Danse prize was founded in 1991 and is named after the Russian artist and ballet stage designer Alexandre Benois.
The award seeks to recognize “the tireless work, professionalism, discipline, virtuosity and passion” of the best dancers in the world, according to the Benois prize website.
Prizes are also awarded for best ballerina, lifetime achievement, choreography, composition and design.
London-based Hernández will return to Mexico in August to present his ballet gala Despertares at the National Auditorium in Mexico City.
Teachers from six states set up camp in front of the building housing the Secretariat of the Interior (Segob) in Mexico City yesterday after a chaotic day in the capital.
From 9:00am yesterday, members of the dissident CNTE union set up roadblocks at various access points to the city, while thousands marched to protest against the 2013 educational reform. Chaotic traffic conditions were reported in various parts of the city.
The teachers are demanding dialogue with the federal government but their ultimate aim is for the reform — which includes compulsory teacher evaluations — to be repealed.
At the toll booth marking the entry point to the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway, a confrontation between protesters and police left three officers injured.
Teachers threw backpacks, sticks and stones during the clash while the police retaliated with the use of tear gas.
Yesterday’s protests affected more than 12,000 businesses and resulted in the loss of 36 million pesos (US $1.76 million) in revenue, the Mexico City business chamber Canacope said.
The capital’s Public Security Secretariat said that around 3,500 teachers arrived in Mexico City on 47 buses, although the CNTE had anticipated that as many as 12,000 teachers would arrive.
Teachers from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, México state and Mexico City arrived at the Segob building at around 4:00pm.
One CNTE member from Guerrero told the newspaper El Universal that in addition to anger at the government over the educational reforms, Mexicans are fed up generally with the current situation in the country.
“That hartazgo [feeling of being fed up] is going to be noticed when it’s time to elect a president,” Salvador López said.
Among the teachers’ demands is the reinstatement of almost 600 teachers who were laid off when they refused to write evaluation tests.
“Carry on teachers, to victory, we will only get ahead with the triumph of our president Andrés Manuel López Obrador . . .” one protest participant said.
Protests continued today in front of the Mexican Stock Exchange building, leading authorities to bolster security at the site.
In addition to the Mexico City protests, CNTE teachers have occupied public locations in Oaxaca and blocked access to that city’s airport and central bus station.
A week-long strike in Oaxaca spread to Guerrero, Michoacán and Chiapas and teachers have vowed that it will continue until the government agrees to restart negotiations.
The federal Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) warned yesterday that it would dock the pay of teachers who missed classes but the protesters have remained defiant and CNTE members have previously shown that they are prepared to be patient.
A 2016 teachers camp set up around La Ciudadela Park in downtown Mexico City remained in place for three months.
Mexico is now the sixth most visited country in the world, the tourism secretary said yesterday, explaining that the upsurge in violent crime has not had an impact on visitor numbers.
“So far it [tourism] hasn’t fallen. It’s grown every year. International tourism [in Mexico] is growing at 12% annually, whereas in the world it’s growing at 7%,” Enrique de la Madrid told Milenio Television.
He also said that crime hasn’t deterred domestic tourists from visiting Mexico’s beaches, magical towns and largest cities.
The tourism industry contributes to 8.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) and generates 10 million jobs, or one in every 10 in the country, the tourism secretary said.
A record 39.3 million foreign visitors came to Mexico last year, an increase of 4.2 million compared to 2016. While here, they spent just over US $21.3 billion.
Paradoxically, 2017 was also Mexico’s most violent year in at least two decades, with more than 29,000 homicides.
De la Madrid said that around 60% of foreign visitors to Mexico come from the United States, while Canada is the second largest source country. He added that Mexico needs to attract more visitors from China and Europe to continue the strong growth in the sector.
But de la Madrid also highlighted the importance of domestic tourism, explaining that for every tourism peso spent in the country, 85 centavos are spent by Mexicans.
“There are 97 million of us [Mexican tourists] and we estimate that we make around 237 million trips [annually]. National tourism is the most important [market for the industry] and we have to complement it with international tourism,” he said.
With that in mind, the tourism secretary said that protecting the nation’s tourism destinations from crime was one of Mexico’s biggest challenges and, along with promoting tourism and combating safety misconceptions, should be a priority.
De la Madrid also defended a video he circulated via his social media accounts Saturday in which he urged young people to oppose “a closed [economic] model that turns its back on the world” and shared some reflections that he said he hoped would help them “make the best decision,” presumably at the ballot box on July 1.
He said that he made the video with his own funds, on his day off, and without any equipment from the Secretariat of Tourism.
De la Madrid also said that the video wasn’t a personal attack on leading presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador but rather the economic model he proposes.
“It worries me that Mexico will no longer be a country that’s part of the world, a closed and excluding Mexico in which nobody is going to do well. I tell young people that what’s at stake are their next 65 years,” he said.
Uncertainty generated by the electoral process has had a negative impact on investment in Mexico’s tourism sector, the president of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) said yesterday.
“Planned investments for the second half of the year have been halted because [investors] want to know what’s going to happen, they want to be certain there will be political and financial stability . . . .” Gloria Guevara Manzo said in an interview during the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association.
New hotels and new airline routes have been put on the back burner while the funds allocated to them have been diverted elsewhere, she continued, raising concerns about the continuation of the progress the national tourism industry has experienced over the last few years.
Without naming candidates’ names, Guevara asserted that if the country were to adopt a protectionist stance in its relations with the United States, the result would be a “disaster.”
“We need them and they need us. It would have an impact on tourism, on employment and would significantly increase poverty. We must be careful. It has been a recipe for disaster in countries that have established protectionist policies,” continued Guevara, who is Mexican.
Instead of going down the protectionist route, whoever wins the presidential election should forge a strong alliance with business owners and work with the private sector in order to create more jobs and encourage the industry’s and the country’s economic growth, she said.
“There’s too much at play for Mexico in this election, and it is fundamental to have the right policies.”
Opinion polls and forecasts suggest it is highly likely that the leader of the leftist Morena party, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will win the July 1 presidential election.
Originally from Guadalajara, Jalisco, Guevara was named president of the WTTC last August. Between 2010 and 2012, she served as secretary of tourism under president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.
Tariffs on cheese (and other products) coming in and on metals going out.
A range of retaliatory measures against the United States’ metal tariffs took effect today, including 20% duties on U.S. pork, apples and potatoes.
Other measures Mexico imposed include 20-25% tariffs on cheese and bourbon and duties of up to 25% on steel products.
The Economy Secretariat (SE) published a full list of the U.S. products that will be affected by the new protectionist measures in the government’s official gazette, with tariffs ranging between 5% and 25%. Some further tariffs will come into force on July 5.
The Mexican peso dropped to its weakest level since February 2017 following the government’s announcement, to trade at more than 20 to the US dollar.
Many of the products targeted are produced by exporters in states that are politically important to United States President Donald Trump.
News agency Reuters said that the retaliatory tariffs could “have political implications in some hotly contested races” in the United States midterm elections in November, in which the Republican Party is seeking to maintain control of both houses of Congress.
Pork-exporting Iowa is one example of a state that could be hurt by the Trump administration’s decision and the ensuing tit-for-tat measures. Bourbon-producing Kentucky and cheese-producing Wisconsin are others.
United States’ pork exports to Mexico were worth more than US $1 billion last year, according to government data, and between 2010 and 2017, 89.2% of all pork exports to Mexico came from the U.S.
Mexico is the second biggest market for United States’ pork exports and one-third of all pork consumed domestically comes from north of the border.
Jim Heimerl, an Ohio pork producer and president of the U.S. National Pork Producers Council, said the 20% tariff on pork legs and shoulders eliminates his country’s ability to compete in the Mexican market.
“The toll on rural America from escalating trade disputes with critically important trade partners is mounting,” he wrote in a statement. “This is devastating to my family and pork producing families across the United States.”
Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said that Mexico would now “surely” look to import more pork from Europe. He also said that the products to which the new tariffs apply were chosen to limit the impact on inflation.
Heriberto Hernández, president of the Mexican Association of Pork Producers (OPORPA), said that he supports the government’s decision and didn’t expert Mexican pork prices to go up because “there are a lot of alternatives” to U.S. suppliers.
Other countries that export pork to Mexico have been allocated a collective tariff-free quota of 350,000 tonnes that will remain in effect until the end of this year.
However, one Mexican producer disagrees with Hernández’s assessment that pork prices won’t rise.
“We believe that the meat [price] will go up 15, 16% and I think that it could have an impact on consumption, reduce consumption, and that’s what worries me the most,” said Víctor Manuel Ochoa, CEO of Mexico’s largest pork producer, Granjas Carroll.
In a radio interview this morning, foreign trade undersecretary Juan Carlos Baker rejected any claim that the tariffs amount to revenge on the United States, charging instead that Mexico was simply acting within its rights.
“In no way is this [tariff list] publication revenge . . . It’s a measure that Mexico has a right to in accordance with the trade agreement to compensate for the damage caused by the [United States’] tariffs, which they set under the alleged argument of national security,” he said.
If the United States removes its tariffs, Mexico will do the same, Baker added.
The tariff dispute has further complicated already contentious and prolonged NAFTA negotiations and created further uncertainty about the future of the trilateral agreement. Canada also strongly condemned the measures and announced its own retaliatory tariffs.
But both U.S. neighbors are opposed to that possibility and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reaffirmed their commitment to reaching a new trilateral deal in a telephone conversation last week.
Trade with the U.S. is particularly important to Mexico because about 80% of its exports go to its northern neighbor whereas only around 16% of U.S. exports come to Mexico.
Two-way trade is worth US $600 billion annually but the U.S. has a deficit with Mexico of around US $65 billion, which Trump has argued is evidence of unfair trade between the two countries.
Security forces at the scene of this morning's attack on police.
Seven people are dead and at least three wounded after two violent confrontations in Jalisco yesterday and today.
Armed civilians attacked a state police patrol this morning in Bajío de San José, Encarnación de Díaz, the state Attorney General’s office said. Occupants of two vehicles opened fire on the police, who returned the fire and killed seven of the attackers.
Two others were able to flee the scene.
No police were hurt in the altercation but two patrol vehicles were damaged in the gunfire.
The municipality’s public security chief was arrested in March on suspicion of collusion with criminal groups and participating in the January kidnapping of two people by a municipal police patrol.
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There were no fatalities in yesterday’s incident Ciudad Guzmán but three people were hurt after a protest by relatives of missing persons turned violent when it was allegedly infiltrated by some 300 individuals not connected with the protest.
The demonstrators were marching in the southern Jalisco town near the road to neighboring Colima when the so-called infiltrators joined in.
But soon after they circled a Navy patrol truck, trapping the personnel inside, and began damaging the truck with sticks, stones and other objects.
Meanwhile, the original protesters, who had arrived from other communities in several buses, decided to return home, their demonstration having been co-opted.
Shortly after, the hapless and trapped marines were rescued by another group of federal security forces who fired weapons into the air to disperse the attackers.
Unofficial reports said three people were wounded in the process.
The vandalized navy vehicle was left with cracked windshields and punctured tires and painted with the initials “CJNG,” those of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Attackers painted ‘CJNG’ on hood of navy patrol truck.
No arrests were made but the Jalisco Interior Secretary said personnel with the Jalisco Coordination Group had started investigating the incident.
The navy and local police remained on high alert.
Municipal officials said the navy has had an intermittent presence in Ciudad Guzmán over the past few months but residents have made no complaints of abuses.
That is not the case in the neighboring municipality of Zapotiltic, where marines have been accused of arbitrarily detaining a 17-year-old boy. He has not been seen since January.
A Chihuahua mine has resumed operations after a partial shutdown due to security concerns.
The Canadian mining company Pan American Silver said increased patrols on access roads by authorities had improved the security situation at the Dolores mine, allowing transportation of diesel fuel, cement and other supplies to the mine.
Workers at the silver and gold mine had been warned by allegedly criminal elements not to travel on the road that connects the mine in Madera with Yepachi, Sonora.
The company said it would increase the use of its private landing strip to move people to and from the mine site until the situation returns to normal.
The firm thanked the federal and state governments for their support and quick response in restoring safety on the access roads and said it was committed to continuing to work with them.
The slowdown in operations affected underground and open-pit mining and leach pad expansion, the company said, but production of silver and gold continued at normal rates due to a large reserve of ore stockpiles.
As a result, Pan American does not expect the partial shutdown to have an effect on 2018 production.
The state Attorney General’s office said it will maintain patrols around the Dolores mine to ensure the safety of mine personnel.
The Cocula dump, where the students' bodies were said to have been burned.
A federal court has ordered the creation of a truth and justice commission to undertake a new investigation into the case of 43 students who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014.
Three judges of the Tamaulipas-based First Collegiate Tribunal made the decision unanimously yesterday based on the conclusion that the original investigation by the federal Attorney General’s office (PGR) was flawed.
The investigation “was not prompt, effective, independent or impartial on the part of the PGR, as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ precedent and the protocols adopted by the United Nations demand,” the ruling said.
The judges also criticized the PGR for failing to follow up leads that suggested that federal security forces were complicit in the students’ disappearance and for not examining evidence that people arrested in connection with the crime were tortured.
“There is no sign that they even explored the lines of investigation that signaled participation of personnel from the Mexican Army or the Federal Police . . . And on top of that it also appears that they have not investigated the torture, which implies that the personnel to which those acts are attributed have not been investigated, among them, members of the Mexican Navy.”
The court said the truth commission will be made up of victims’ families and their representatives and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) who will together direct and oversee the work of PGR prosecutors.
The decision adds legal weight to a position long argued by critics of the investigation and effectively orders the government to scrap its entire case and start anew.
According to the government’s “historic truth” — presented by former attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam on January 28, 2015 — the 43 students of the Ayotzinapa teacher training college were killed by a local drug gang after being handed over by corrupt municipal police.
Their bodies were later incinerated in the Cocula municipal dump and remains were discarded in a local river, Murillo said.
But journalists, activists, international experts, victims’ relatives and others rejected that version and questioned the role of the army in the students’ disappearance.
The New York Times said in a report published today that the government’s version never really explained the motive for the violent abductions, which left six people dead and a further 40 injured at the scene where the missing students were stopped in buses they had commandeered. The remains of only one student were identified.
Mass protests followed the students’ disappearance and the investigation into the case is widely regarded as the single biggest failing of the Enrique Peña Nieto-led government.
In accordance with the court’s ruling, the victims’ representatives and the CNDH will determine the lines of investigation to be followed in the new probe and may also call on national and international experts and human rights groups to contribute to the new investigation.
The PGR personnel who participate in the commission’s probe must not have been involved in the original investigation and the inclusion of any PGR forensic experts must be approved by the victims’ representatives and CNDH members, the court said.
The ruling also stipulated that members of the commission will have “free and immediate access” to all places where “there are motives to believe” that the disappeared students or their remains are or were, or where evidence that provides information regarding their whereabouts could be found “including places subject to military jurisdiction.”
The decision also called on President Peña Nieto to “give instructions to all the secretariats and departments that make up his cabinet so that, within the framework of their respective responsibilities, they provide their support and other aptitudes that the aforementioned commission requires to achieve its task.”
The court’s directive stemmed from an injunction filed by five defendants who accused the government of using torture against them in order to extract confessions.
The detained men’s claim is consistent with a United Nations (UN) report published in March which said that 34 people were tortured in connection with the investigation into the students’ disappearance.
PGR staff as well as personnel from the Federal Police and Navy Secretariat were involved in the process, the UN said.
Massive protests followed the 2014 disappearance of the 43 students.
The judges upheld the defendants’ injunction request and ruled that the investigations into the five men’s alleged crimes must be redone. The ruling, however, doesn’t allow for their release from custody.
The court said that new investigations into those who have been arrested must be carried out by independent experts in accordance with procedures established by the Istanbul Protocol, which provides guidelines for the investigation and assessment of people who have alleged that torture was used against them.
The court also submitted that victims’ families should be afforded compensation of 500,000 pesos (US $24,500) as a “partial advance so that the victims can meet their most pressing economic needs.”
Mario Patrón of the Centro Prodh human rights organization — which is representing the families of the missing students — described the ruling as a “massive blow for the government” and said that he couldn’t think of an historic precedent for the move.
The court said the order to create a truth commission was precipitated by an “unprecedented incident” and gave the government 10 days to comply.
But legal experts, including Chilean lawyer Francisco Cox, who participated in an international investigation into the case, questioned whether the government would even make an effort to carry out the measures given that it is nearing the end of its six-year term.
In a statement, the PGR responded to the decision by contending that the judges “do not recognize the separation of powers and the faculties of prosecution, investigation and criminal proceedings that correspond to the Attorney General’s office in accordance with article 21 of the constitution.”
The federal agency also said it would carry out an analysis of the ruling in order to determine what legal action it might take against it.
It could appeal the decision in the Supreme Court but given that the federal court ruling is definitive, the newspaper Milenio reported, it is unlikely it would be overturned.
Internet provides a convenient marketplace for illegal drugs.
Three marijuana brownies for 100 pesos (US $5) or 10 grams of pot for the same price are among a range of offers from people selling drugs online in Mexico, including social networks such as Facebook.
Other substances available on the internet include 2C-C, 2C-E, LSD, proscaline and DOC — all synthetic, psychedelic drugs — as well as mescaline, according to a report by the anti-drugs division of the Federal Police.
Mexicans who purchase illicit drugs online are typically aged between 17 and 32, don’t have criminal records, are from the middle and upper classes and have the technical know-how to hide their real identity, the report said.
Payments are usually made with debit or credit cards, via online money transfers or using cryptocurrencies after bank or personal details are exchanged in private messages.
The drugs are then delivered to the customers either using courier companies or via personal meetings between sellers and buyers that commonly take place in cars, shopping malls or subway stations, among other locations.
Some transactions take place between individuals — who sell small quantities of drugs — and their friends and acquaintances in Facebook groups and marketplaces, often using fake profiles specifically created for the purpose.
Paola, a 23-year-old university student, told the newspaper El Universal that she sells marijuana brownies via a Facebook profile and delivers them personally to her customers at stations on the Mexico City Metro.
She said she has been selling her product on Facebook for more than a year and that her earnings help her to cover her educational expenses.
Another vendor, also a student, told El Universal that she has been selling marijuana online for almost six years and also offers workshops teaching students how to make their own cannabis-based products.
However, it’s not just opportunistic individuals who are taking advantage of the convenience and ease of selling drugs on the internet.
The Federal Police have also detected that there are organized crime groups selling drugs online.
The groups operate in Mexico City, México state, Querétaro, Puebla, Oaxaca, Jalisco, Nayarit, Guanajuato, Sinaloa and Quintana Roo but ship to every state in the country and even to other countries such as the United States, Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile and Peru.
Drugs available on social media or the dark web.
The drugs are shipped with meticulous care to avoid detection and ensure that they arrive at their destination. Because the quantities sent are often small, detection is even more difficult, the Federal Police report said.
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has also identified Mexican criminal groups including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel as vendors of synthetic drugs in the United States via websites located on the so-called dark web.
At a meeting held in Mexico City in April, the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) warned that online drug sales are on the rise and that over the past 10 years 700 new psychoactive drugs have been detected and 400 of them are available on the dark web.
Apart from purchasing the illicit substances online, drug consumers also use Facebook and forums on other websites to rate the products they have purchased and consumed.
“This is [high] quality . . . it arrived in less than 24 hours . . . Mark definitely knows how to make his customers happy,” one consumer recently wrote in a closed group created to sell drugs on the popular social network.
