Tijuana florist responds to violence by adorning city with bouquets of flowers

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August 17, 2022

Flowers carry message of peace in Tijuana.

After last week’s intense violence in Baja California, a florist in Tijuana had a message for the city: peace, and she spread it with flowers.

The owner of María Se Llama Mi Amor attached floral bouquets to utility poles across the city last Saturday in response to a wave of organized crime violence that engulfed the city and the country last week. They were the kind of bouquets one might buy for a loved one or purchase for a centerpiece of a dinner party but these were wrapped in brown paper bearing the words peace and paz.

On Friday of last week and into Saturday morning gangs of criminals took to the streets of Tijuana, Mexicali, Rosarito Beach, Tecate, and Ensenada to light vehicles on fire, force passengers off public transportation and generally sow terror in the local population. Authorities said the violence was the result of a supposed conflict between two criminal groups, Los Chapos and Los Mexicles. The resident population was told to get off the streets and shelter in place, and Saturday morning found the streets of Tijuana abandoned except for the soldiers patrolling.

The owner of the Tijuana flower shop decided that if she wasn’t going to sell any of her pre-made bouquets in the aftermath of such violence she could put them to better use as an inspiration for the city’s residents. She posted images to Instagram on Saturday of the bouquets around the city saying, “There are more of us who are good than bad,” calling on fellow residents to do something kind and try to make the world a better place.

There were reports of other good deeds as well. Some people offered transportation to help others get to work given that public transportation had been halted, and others opened their homes to people who couldn’t return to their own.

Authorities said 17 members of Los Mexicles were in custody after the intense gang battle, in which 11 people were killed in the region.

With reports from Telemundo 20, El Universal and San Diego Union-Tribune

Oxxos burning: Cartel terrorists demonstrate their firepower

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Kelly Arthur Garrett

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August 17, 2022

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An Oxxo store burns during last week's narco attacks.

If I go out my front door in San Luis Potosí and walk in any direction — north, south, east or west — I’ll hit an Oxxo convenience store in five minutes,10 max. According to Google maps, there are 15 Oxxos within a 1.5-kilometer radius of my address. It may be I live in an especially Oxxo-rich corner of the country, but with more than 20,000 of them nationwide, I’m no outlier.

That’s not necessarily a good thing. You won’t find much in the way of groceries at an Oxxo that isn’t ultra-processed or over-sugared or both. The kids running the place act overworked and underpaid. The stores themselves are ugly and usually clash glaringly with the surrounding architecture. Inside, they seem intentionally designed for maximum discomfort.

Still, the beer and soft drinks are reliably ice cold. Cigarettes, if you’re still into them, are well-stocked. Any Oxxo will handle your utilities payments for a nominal commission. They’re usually open when most other retailers are closed. And, as mentioned, they’re dependably close by. Oxxos are our neighbors.

Which is why last week’s terror attacks in the neighboring states of Guanajuato and Jalisco evoked more than the usual fear and despair. Armed gang members assumed to be members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel blockaded thoroughfares, cleared out and burned up public transit vehicles, stopped private cars at random to set them on fire as the driver and passengers fled, and put dozens of convenience stores ablaze, mostly Oxxos, as well as some pharmacies and gas stations. This was no distant gangland battle or cordoned-off cop-criminal confrontation. For many, it was happening right around the corner.

Of course, innocent bystanders, in the wrong place at the wrong time, can get caught up in criminal violence. In this case, though, innocent bystanders were precisely the targets. The attack was planned with them in mind. It was coordinated, long-lasting and horrific.

Those experiencing it in real time, without the hindsight we have now, didn’t know what was going on, though they could no doubt deduce by default that it was gang-related. They had no way of knowing how long it would last, how bad it would get, and what was coming next. That’s part of the terror.

A friend texted me Tuesday from Irapuato, a medium-sized city in the state of Guanajuato that was especially hard hit, with some 20 Oxxos set ablaze there. She was bed-ridden with a flu or cold and got her information about what was happening all around her from local internet sites and social media contacts, which she relayed to me. Unsure what to do, she decided to stay where she was, pull the blankets over her head, and wait it out.

A wise decision. The terrorists never approached private homes. And the stores they destroyed were not mom-and-pop tienditas but Oxxos owned by the giant FEMSA corporation, the main bottler and distributor of Coca-Cola in Mexico. Plus, they never hurt anybody. (Which was not the case in unrelated gang violence two days later in Ciudad Juárez that left at least 10 dead, two of them in an Oxxo in that Chihuahua border city.) In Irapuato, you were safe in your home, even if it didn’t feel that way.

In the calm after the storm, the general public resorted to type, citing the event as proving the veracity of what they were saying all along. Thus, supporters of President López Obrador blamed “conservatives” (meaning all who oppose him) for undermining his security policies. His opponents pointed to the president’s failure to tame the cartels, citing specifically his approach of favoring alternatives to trying to out-firepower them. That policy is much pooh-poohed but little understood, perhaps because few can get past the unfortunate label he put on it — “Hugs, Not Bullets” — which may be the most self-defeating slogan since “Defund the Police.”

So we turn to the security experts, who presumably have less political skin in the game than the partisans. There’s general agreement that the terror strike was a show of power, reminding authorities that “we’re here, we’re violent, get used to it.” It’s also assumed by the punditry that the action was in response to — or triggered by — a recent (failed) attempt by the army to nab two capos by attacking a high-level cartel meeting.

Some of the knowledgeable observers go further. Noting the earlier capture of one of the most wanted drug lords, Rafael Caro Quintero, they sense that hugs are out and high-level busts are back in. The criminal organizations sense that policy change as well, and the U.S. support in the Caro Quintero arrest only ups the stakes. Last week’s attacks, in this view, sent the message that with such a shift, there will be blood.

Many security experts think it’s worth it. Their fear is that criminal control of large sections of major cities has become the new normal, a form of surrender.

That concern was underscored when Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero pleaded with the narcos to spare innocent citizens after her own city suffered similar fiery violence later in the week. Her intent may have been laudable, but her wording — “We ask you to collect on your bills from those who owe them, and not from families, not from working citizens” — sounded a lot like acknowledging that the old mafia practice of extorting business owners under the threat of bodily harm was established and accepted in Tijuana. (She later said she meant no such thing.)

So if the message was aimed at the authorities, why were innocent civilians terrorized? Why didn’t they attack an army base, or a government building? The answer, says security analyst Alejandro Hope, is efficiency.

“This kind of action is repeated frequently around the country because it doesn’t require much effort or resources,” Hope wrote in El Universal. “Just a few armed guys can stop a car or bus, get rid of the people in it and set it on fire and the whole process takes less than a minute. The same goes for setting a store on fire.”

Key to success for the narcos are the roadblocks, which prevent the cops or soldiers from reaching the perpetrators. Emergency anti-roadblock equipment has worked in the past, Hope says, but for some reason have been abandoned.

Bring them back. Focus more on damage control. I don’t know if there’s been polling on the issue, but my guess is that most residents of Mexico will agree on the following: If you can’t crush organized crime, do a better job of protecting us from it.

Kelly Arthur Garrett has been writing from Mexico since 1992.

Government sets new education plan in motion with pilot in 960 schools

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MND Staff

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August 17, 2022

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students in classroom — The existing model criticized for not having been conducive to high academic achievement.

The federal government’s new curriculum model will be implemented in 960 public schools in a pilot program that will commence on October 29.

Education officials said Tuesday that the new model has provisions for teacher training and gives teachers the opportunity to co-design education programs. They also said that it allows for the development of national education strategies and will entail an “administrative transformation” of the education sector.

The new model was developed over a period of 18 months in consultation with a range of stakeholders including teachers, students, parents, indigenous people and civil society organizations. It will eventually be implemented in all preschools, primary schools and secondary schools across Mexico. The pilot program will run in 30 schools in each of the 32 federal entities.

Presenting the new education model alongside other officials, Education Minister Delfina Gómez said it was carefully designed to ensure that it brings real and lasting change to the nation’s schools. The model promotes democracy, respect for legality, self-determination and the exercising of one’s political and social rights, said Gómez, who will soon step down as education minister to contest the 2023 México state gubernatorial election as the candidate for the ruling Morena party.

According to the Ministry of Public Education (SEP), education reforms enacted by previous governments over the past 30 years fostered inequality, racism and classism. In a document outlining the new education plan, the ministry said the existing model has caused many students to leave school early and hasn’t been conducive to high academic achievement.

SEP described it as “patriarchal, colonial, scientific, Eurocentric, homophobic and racist.”

It has imposed a “hegemonic model of citizenship,” which is contrary to “a healthy life and the democratic sense,” it said.

According to SEP, Mexican schools must reclaim their roles as institutions that educate citizens to “live and co-exist in a democratic society.”

Under the new curriculum model, teachers will have “professional autonomy … to decide … their didactic exercise,” the ministry said. Schools will become “spaces where students learn values, knowledge and skills in a critical, active and supportive way.”

In summary, reported the Reforma newspaper, the new education model is characterized by its promotion of a community rather than global outlook, its elimination of concepts considered to be neoliberal (a dirty word, according to President López Obrador) and its support for teachers’ educational autonomy.

Marx Arriaga, SEP’s director of educational materials, has already overseen a process to develop new textbooks that confine neoliberalism to the dustbin of history. Teachers have played a key role in that process.

Arriaga said earlier this year that the new curriculum model will place much greater emphasis on sharing and the common good than pitting individual students against each other. The model will be “libertarian” and “humanist” and put an end to racism in the education system and “standardized tests that segregate society,” he said in late April.

With reports from El Universal and Reforma

Body of Canadian tourist found in Puerto Vallarta along with distraught son

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Lydia Carey

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August 17, 2022

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The complex where a Canadian tourist died.

The remains of a Canadian man were found in a vacation rental north of Puerto Vallarta alongside his 5-year-old son who was crying and in shock while lying next to his father’s decomposing body. The body was found in the Vilanova subdivision in Jarretaderas, Nayarit.

The man, 44-year-old John Poulson, was found by his neighbor, also Canadian, who was contacted by Poulson’s ex-wife when she couldn’t get in touch with him by telephone from her home in Canada. According to reports, Poulson hadn’t been seen since August 7.

A terrible smell greeted the neighbor who went to the home to inquire. Inside, he found the air conditioning running, the lights off and Poulson’s body in his bedroom, his young son lying beside him.

Authorities said the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Officials have not announced an official cause of death. The boy is now in the care of the neighbor while authorities await his mother who was traveling to Mexico from Canada to collect him.

With reports from Noticias PV and Tribuna de la Bahía

Strengthen rule of law, end impunity the way to stop violence: advocacy group

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MND Staff

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August 16, 2022

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Strengthening the rule of law and ending impunity is crucial to combatting violence in Mexico, according to a senior official with the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

In an interview with the El Universal newspaper, the research and advocacy organization’s vice president for programs, Maureen Meyer, said militarized security strategies have failed and that the current government needs to rethink its non-confrontational “hugs, not bullets” approach to combatting violence.

The question that needs to be asked, she said, is: “What changes can [President] López Obrador implement [to improve] security and strengthen the rule of law?”

Meyer – who lived in Mexico between 2001 and 2020 and led WOLA’s Mexico program for 14 years – told El Universal that one of the reasons why there is so much violence here is impunity, which has remained stubbornly high despite the government’s commitment to eradicating it.

“You can kill someone with impunity because there are no consequences,” she said, adding that public security efforts have to be accompanied by the investigation and prosecution of criminals.

Asked whether the militarization of public security was the right way to respond to the security crisis – López Obrador announced last week that he would issue a decree to transfer responsibility for the National Guard from the civilian Security Ministry to the army – Meyer said evidence showed it wasn’t.

Studies show that the use of the military to carry out public security tasks “hasn’t worked,” she said, noting that “violence hasn’t declined.”

Former presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto both used the military for public security tasks, as has López Obrador, although the current president asserts that his strategy is different because he instructs the armed forces to avoid confrontations with criminal groups wherever possible.

Meyer reiterated that militarization “hasn’t been effective in attending to security problems in Mexico.”

Instead, it has generated “more concerns,” she said. “Police and the military are not interchangeable. They have different training, different roles and there are a lot of risks at a human rights level.”

Indeed, members of the armed forces have been accused of committing human rights abuses while carrying out public security tasks across the country. In a report published earlier this year, Human Rights Watch noted that the National Human Rights Commission received 3,799 complaints of military abuses between 2013 and 2020. Extrajudicial killings are among the alleged abuses.

Meyer asserted that López Obrador is on the “wrong track” with his plan to put the National Guard under army control, highlighting that the proposal goes against the constitution, which was modified to create the security force under civilian leadership.

As for the “hugs, not bullets” approach, not confronting criminal groups “hasn’t been an effective strategy either,” she said.

The strategy – a kind of militarization-lite approach – needs to be rethought, the WOLA VP said.

On the one hand, the government needs to decide what the role of the military is when it comes into contact with organized crime, Meyer said.

(López Obrador controversially said in May that his government looks after criminals by avoiding armed confrontations.)

On the other hand, Meyer said, the government needs to work out how to strengthen civilian police forces, including state and municipal ones. Mexican police – especially members of municipal forces – are generally paid poorly and lack training. Many haven’t passed confidence tests, and numerous police forces have been disarmed due to suspected collusion with criminal groups.

Federal authorities need to think about how to achieve “better coordination between the three levels of government to confront the security crisis … we’re currently seeing in [northern] border cities and Guanajuato,” Meyer said, referring to recent outbreaks of violence in Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana and several Guanajuato municipalities. .

She also said the government’s security strategy has not clearly defined the role of prosecutor’s offices in the fight against violence, which remains at extremely high if not record levels.

“Since Calderón launched his [militarized] war against drug trafficking [in 2006], … what has really been lacking is [direction about] how to continue implementing the justice system and strengthen the rule of law in Mexico,” Meyer said.

She also noted that a recent survey conducted by the national statistics agency INEGI showed that the perception of insecurity among citizens is on the rise.

“There’s a generalized perception of insecurity in Mexico that is concerning and which shows that there is a need to rethink the federal government’s current security strategy,” Meyer said.

Despite that, the entire country isn’t plagued by violence, she stressed, noting that the latest statistics show that violence remains concentrated in certain states and municipalities.

With reports from El Universal

Petition platform joins fight against international water distributor

By

Lydia Carey

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August 16, 2022

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water rights protest in Puebla — The activists come from multiple towns in the Valley of Mexico, listed on the sign seen here.

Indigenous communities from the Cholula Valley region and the communities near Mexico’s two most famous volcanoes — Iztaccihuatl and Popocatépetl — are demanding that the multinational water company Bonafont leave their land immediately.

The latest salvo in a longstanding debate about who has rights to water — international companies or local communities — was fired by a group called Pueblos Unidos of the Cholulteca Region, which has put out a call to the international community on the activist platform SumofUs.org, asking it to help them remove a Bonafont plant from the area where they live.

The group cites environmental damages that they say are due to the company’s presence there, including contaminated water.

The Bonafont brand belongs to the French company Danone, also known as Dannon in the United States. The Bonafont brand is sold in Mexico and Brazil.

Mexico currently faces extreme drought in much of the country, and the Valley of México where these indigenous communities live is constantly under the threat of running out of water as the populations of Mexico City, Puebla, Toluca and other metropolitan areas continue to demand the region’s water.

Mexico is consistently listed by several sources as one of the five biggest countries for bottled water consumption.

The activists said in their statement on SumofUs.org that they believe that last year’s sinkhole in the municipality of Santa María Zacatepec was caused by the overexploitation of the area’s aquifers. An area 126 meters across in spots and 45 meters deep collapsed in May 2021, destroying the surrounding cropland and a house nearby. The area became something of a tourist attraction until studies by the Environmental Ministry determined that the area was continuing to sink and was unsafe.

Community protesters took over a Bonafont water plant at the beginning of this month, hosting a press conference where they displayed samples of dirty water from the area’s rivers. They also blamed Bonafont for illnesses in the communities and for the drying up of the area’s wells.

Although the company was forced to stop extracting water from the area in March 2021, Pueblos Unidos wants the Bonafont plant removed from the area, saying it represents for them “the company’s plunder from other territories that they are now storing in the Cholulteca region,” which they say they cannot permit.

With reports from La Jornada del Oriente, Desinformemos and El Financiero

Cost of rail link to new Mexico City airport doubles to 25 billion pesos

By

MND Staff

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August 16, 2022

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The train will link the Buenavista station with AIFA.

Expanding a train line that will take people from downtown Mexico City to the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) will cost twice what was originally planned, the newspaper El Universal reported Tuesday.

The paper obtained what it called classified information revealing the cost of the suburban train project has increased from 12.48 billion pesos (US $626.7 million) to 25 billion pesos (US $1.26 billion).

The cost projections were updated on June 1 by the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT), El Universal reported.

The expansion of the suburban train line that currently runs northward from the Buenavista station in central Mexico City to the Cuautitlán station in México state will include six new stations and a terminal at AIFA, which opened in March after being built by the army.

The new tracks, which will come off the Lechería station, will allow travelers to reach the new airport from the center of the capital in 45 minutes, a fact that a train-riding President López Obrador proudly proclaimed in a video posted to social media in December. Such a trip will cover approximately 50 kilometers, and El Universal reports it will take just 39 minutes.

According to a report in Mexico Business News, only 14% of the expansion works were complete when AIFA opened on March 21 on the site of the Santa Lucía military base in Zumpango, state of México. That report added that the new train line isn’t expected to go into operation until approximately September 2023. (El Universal’s reporting on Tuesday did not provide a projected opening day.)

The train line is expected to carry a lot of passengers to the new airport, since driving there can be a headache, with early reports of journeys from 90 minutes to 2½ hours from central Mexico City. In April, Mexico News Daily’s Lydia Carey wrote about her travails of getting to AIFA from the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City, writing “several signs pointed us in one direction, yet GPS took us in another” in one area and “signage was nil” in another. The trip ended up taking 1 hour and 45 minutes.

As for the rail line extension, El Universal noted that if the total cost of the work is considered — including operation and maintenance costs — then the cost of the project skyrockets to 35.6 billion pesos (US $1.8 billion), which is 2.8 times more than initially planned.

Part of the reason for the increase was “due to the use of two parallel tracks, instead of one,” according to a letter from a Ferrocarriles Suburbanos’ representative to the SICT, according to El Universal. Ferrocarriles Suburbanos is the concessionaire of the current Buenavista-Cuautitlán line.

The project will connect the Lechería station to AIFA through a length of 23 kilometers of double electrified track, three elevated viaducts, nine vehicular crossings, two railway bridges over the Grand Canal, 10 pedestrian crossings and four intermediate stations (plus two more in a second stage). Seven contracts have been awarded to do the work.

With reports from El Universal

Summer school in Zacatecas teaches kids how to avoid getting shot

By

MND Staff

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August 16, 2022

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Students take cover on the floor during mock gunbattle in a Fresnillo school.

Kids attending summer school in Zacatecas are learning math, Spanish, drawing and … how to dodge bullets.

Primary school-aged children attending the “My Vacation in the Library” program in the city of Fresnillo recently put their books and pencils down to learn what to do should they find themselves caught in the crossfire of a gunbattle. Municipal police officers taught the class, which included a simulated shootout during which the kids put their newfound knowledge to use.

A video posted to social media shows kids dropping to the floor and lying on their chests as fake gunshots ring out. Summer school teachers assist the students while the police officers watch and offer advice. The teachers sing during the drill, apparently to calm the students down.

There was a mixed reaction to the bullet-dodging tutorial on social media, with some internet users criticizing the course and others saying that sadly such instruction is needed.

En Fresnillo, enseñan a niños en curso de verano a cómo actuar ante una balacera. pic.twitter.com/hybCOGpy0K

— Contacto Informativo (@vaskezomar302) August 13, 2022

“It shouldn’t be [necessary] but under the circumstances in which we live in Mexico, it might be a good thing to know what to do in a similar situation,” one Twitter user said. “I’m speechless. How terrifying! But it’s our Mexican reality,” said another.

A statistic reported by the El Universal newspaper provides support for those who believe there is a need to teach kids what to do if they find themselves in a place where bullets are whizzing through the air: four boys and girls have been killed in crossfire in Fresnillo this year.

In addition to participating in the shootout drill, the summer school attendees took part in an activity in which they pretended they were police or forensic experts inspecting a crime scene. They collected mock evidence and cordoned off an area where a hypothetical abduction occurred, according to a report by the Infobae news website. Through the role-play, students learned ways in which they can help prevent the crime of kidnapping.

Located 60 kilometers north of Zacatecas city, Fresnillo has been plagued by violent crime in recent years. Mayor Saúl Monreal said last year that “the municipality has been overtaken” by organized crime activity.

“The municipality does not have much capacity [to deal with crime]. I have said so a thousand and one times,” he said in January 2021.

According to a recent public security survey, two-thirds of adult residents of Fresnillo feel unsafe in their city.

With reports from El Universal and Infobae

Thousands celebrate 100th anniversary of Mennonites’ arrival in Mexico

By

MND Staff

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August 16, 2022

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Mennonite 100th anniversary celebration, Chihuahua — Mennonites from other Mexican states and from Paraguay, Bolivia and Canada attended the celebration just outside Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua. Photos from Facebook

One of Mexico’s oft-forgotten groups, the Mennonites, closed celebrations for the 100th anniversary of their settling in Mexico on Sunday.

Thousands attended the festivities, which began last Wednesday outside Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua. The state is home to some 90% of the Mennonite community in Mexico. There are also smaller groups in Durango, Campeche, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Quintana Roo.

Events at the celebration included history lectures, a parade, theater, music, a rodeo and business expos.

Mennonites from other Mexican states and from Paraguay, Bolivia and Canada attended, as did representatives from the consulates of Canada, the U.S. and Germany. “Today more than ever we are proud to be Mennonites and proud to be Mexicans,” the master of ceremonies said.

Cuauhtémoc Mayor Elías Humberto Pérez Mendoza told attendees that, over a century, the city had successfully combined three cultures: Mennonite, mestiza (mixed European and indigenous ancestry) and indigenous Rarámuri.

The Anabaptist Christian group originally from Europe was previously based in Canada before a nationalistic climate in their adopted home pushed them to leave the country and settle in Mexico at the beginning of the 2oth century.

The religious sect acquired a 100,000-hectare land grant in Chihuahua from the government of Álvaro Obregón, and in 1922, Mennonite families first arrived by train in their thousands.

Historian Peter Rempel said the Mennonites’ departure from Canada was spurred by anti-German sentiment at the time, which led to discrimination against the ethnically Germanic group. Military conscription in Canada for the First World War also conflicted with their philosophy of pacifism.

Life today in Mexico’s Mennonite communities remains largely conservative, but the use of automobiles has become the norm and Spanish and English are spoken alongside Plautdietsch, an old Germanic language.

Mexicans outside of Chihuahua will also be able to honor the Mennonites’ anniversary: the Bank of México has created a commemorative 20-peso coin bearing the image of a Mennonite family in traditional dress.

With reports from Diario

Mexico seeks advice from US, German companies to rescue trapped miners

By

MND Staff

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August 16, 2022

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Soldiers arrive at the mine site August 3 to assist with the rescue.

The federal government will ask two foreign companies for advice about how to go about rescuing 10 miners who have been trapped in a flooded coal mine in Coahuila since August 3.

National Civil Protection chief Laura Velázquez said Tuesday that the government will seek help from a German firm and another in the United States, neither of which she named.

“We’ll speak with them today to find out who can give us the best opinion, … taking the conditions of this mine into account. They’re two companies that will give us an opinion to determine the most precise [rescue] actions,” Velázquez told President López Obrador’s morning news conference.

The Civil Protection chief noted that the request for international help came from the families of the trapped miners, who are camped out at the flooded El Pinabete mine in the municipality of Sabinas.

“We’re attending to their basic needs so that their stay at the mine and their wait are a little calmer,” Velázquez added.

The 10 miners became trapped when the mine flooded after excavation work caused a tunnel wall to collapse 13 days ago. Authorities have used pumps to extract water, but levels in three wells rose suddenly on Sunday as water from an abandoned adjacent mine called Las Conchas apparently leaked – or gushed – into the El Pinabete mine.

The abrupt increase in the water levels hampered rescue efforts, which authorities say require low levels to proceed safely. Heavy rain fell at the mine site on Monday, further complicating the rescue work.

The El Pinabete mine is just 400 meters from the Sabinas River in an area of subterranean springs. With the rainy season underway, there is a risk that more water will enter the mine via the water table, the newspaper Reforma reported.

Velázquez announced Monday that concrete will be injected into the mine to seal off inundated wells from the adjacent mine and thus prevent more water flowing into El Pinabete, but that work hasn’t yet begun. The official said she will provide additional information about the plan on Wednesday.

For his part, López Obrador called on the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to investigate a concession granted for the mine during the 2000-2006 government led by former president Vicente Fox.

“The concession for this mine was issued by Fox and … in a strict sense, the concession shouldn’t have been granted. How can a concession be granted next to a flooded, canceled mine? The FGR has to do an investigation about this regrettable incident,” he said.

The president highlighted that his administration hasn’t granted a single mining concession since it took office in late 2018. Past “neoliberal governments,” in contrast, issued permits for mines totaling 120 million hectares, he said.

It is a claim the president has made several times but the figures don’t match with those of the Ministry of Economy, which says mining concessions cover 16.84 million hectares of Mexico’s territory.

With reports from Reforma