The music festival returns for its fourth year to Guadalajara. (Corona Capital Guadalajara Twitter)
Corona Capital Guadalajara music festival, a spin-off of the Corona Capital in Mexico City (founded in 2010), returns for its fourth year from May 20-21 at VFG Arena.
The impressive international lineup of 33 bands includes Imagine Dragons, The Chainsmokers, Charlie Puth, Interpol, Pixies, Foals and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
Corona Capital Guadalajara was recognized by Billboard Magazine as one of the 50 best musical festivals in the world last year.
In addition to the headliners, this year’s program will feature a range of alternative/indie, R&B and rock musicians: Idles, Helado Negro, the pianist Regina Spektor, Melody’s Echo Chamber and Thundercat.
Pre-sale tickets for Citibanamex cardholders will go on sale on Feb. 15 starting at 2 pm on Ticketmaster, while the sale for the general public will start on Feb. 16. Ticket prices range from 1,980 pesos (US $104) to 3,320 pesos (US $175).
Antonio López Vega with one of his canvas works at his workshop in the La Cochera Cultural Center of Ajijic. López is one of a pair of artist brothers who tell the resort town's history through their art. (Photos: Leigh Thelmadatter)
Put the two side-by-side and you might not believe they are related, never mind near-twins artistically: Antonio López Vega has a bohemian, almost-hippie look to him, while younger brother Jesús looks like an everyday local businessman. But both have been instrumental in Ajijic’s artistic history.
Born in the 1950s, the brothers grew up in a very different world. They were two of eleven children born to a trumpeter and carpenter and his wife in what was a rural village.
From a young age, both hustled to obtain resources for their family. Boys at that time roamed the lakeshore and mountains to collect firewood and find work helping local fishermen.
Jesús and Antonio came to know the area like the back of their hands, discovering petroglyphs and other pre-Hispanic artifacts, which fascinated them. This interest was bolstered by stories that their grandmothers and other elders told them of gods and legends of pre-Christian Chapala.
The most important legend related to the lake goddess Michicihualli and the culebra, a rare phenomenon when a waterspout rises up from the lake then smashes into a mountainside.
Such stories remain an integral part of their lives.
Mural by Jesús López Vega on the wall of his gallery in Ajijic.
As idyllic as it sounds, such an environment is not exactly conducive to producing professional artists. But Ajijic had one unusual advantage: the relatively few foreign writers and artists that found their way here felt a sense of responsibility to the local population.
American Neill James founded several educational programs for children in the mid-20th century, but the most successful of them by far was a program of art classes. Jesús and Antonio were among the early graduates in the 1970s and two of the reasons why Ajijic’s mural scene is still dominated by local painters.
Some of James’ graduates, like Jesús, were able to start careers with what they learned from her program. Others, like Antonio, received scholarships to study art at what is now called the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato.
There, Antonio earned a degree in art, which led to a position sketching archaeological work at Chichén Itzá in the early 1980s. Afterward, he went to Mexico City, where he survived selling his work on the street. An award from the Salón Nacional got the attention of galleries and museums, as well as a stint teaching back in San Miguel de Allende. But before the end of the decade, he was homesick and returned to Ajijic.
The two brothers’ lifetimes are strongly marked by the massive changes that the Lake Chapala area has experienced. Their memories include the construction of the main highway on the north shore, as well as the massive influx of foreigners since. They also remember the introduction of electricity, which they remember met with some resistance as residents did not like being unable to see the night sky.
Interestingly, neither expressed animosity to foreigners directly to me, and a fluent Jesús even offered to do the interview in English.
The aim of the brothers’ work is to preserve the essence of their childhood Chapala, using surrealist and allegorical imagery, rather than landscapes or other realism (a la Diego Rivera). Their differences come in each brother’s execution. Jesús’ work is a little more naïve, often with a halo effect around his figures. Antonio’s show various influences from his time in academia and other parts of Mexico.
Both work in various media: metal etching, wood and stone sculpture and ceramics, but their most influential work is on canvas and murals in the Chapala area.
Jesús is behind one of Ajijic’s most impressive, multifaceted murals, “Birth of Teo-Michin-Cihualli,” situated in the stairwell of the town’s cultural center. It features the lake goddess in various aspects, along with several figures from Mexico’s history. Antonio’s “Mural Dedicated to Water” can be seen along a stretch of the north shore highway.
Both have works in collections all over the world, thanks to Ajijic’s international population, but Antonio’s work has more reach in Mexico.
Both have a passion for research, artifacts and documentation. They started with the stories from their childhood, as Jesús notes that “… fewer local families are passing down oral tradition to their children.”
They believe that the stories are also important to foreign residents, so that “…they can appreciate the area in which they live as a unique and vibrant place,” Jesús says.
Research into local history and lore is essential to both brothers’ work. Here are copies of colonial-era documents for Jesús’s project to tell the story of Ajijic’s founding.
Jésus has been working for years on a project to document both the indigenous and Spanish foundations of Ajijic, with an eye toward the town’s 500th anniversary in 2031.
The brothers’ documentation efforts are a combination of academic text, fiction, poetry, illustration and painting. They are even producing their own artisanal books.
They have also collected artifacts in the region, particularly concerned about the petroglyphs they discovered as children. As land development takes over more of the mountains, “… The rocks become ‘trapped’ on private property and become little more than ornamentation for owners instead of community heritage,” Antonio says.
One piece that has been rescued is Tepayotzin(“sacred turtle rock” in Nahuatl), now available to the public on Ajijic’s boardwalk.
Despite all their similarities, the two men work separately in different environments. Neither inherited their parents’ property. Jesús lives and works in his Galería de Arte Axixic on the west end of town. Antonio lives at the semi-communal La Cochera Cultural Center, where he found refuge after coming back to Ajijic.
Both appreciate the opportunities that James’ program gave them and pay it forward. Jesús teaches with the same program, now sponsored by the Lake Chapala Society. Antonio set up classes at La Cochera, focusing on children in neighborhoods in the mountains.
Although both are successful at a time when art is booming in Ajijic, it is still difficult to make a living as more artists move in and compete for the attention and money of the same tourists and foreign residents.
The brothers’ work not only maintains the prestige of Ajijic art, it also serves as a reminder of the community’s heritage as chaotic development establishes ever-more gated communities, specialty stores and restaurants here, increasing the area’s cosmopolitan and international flair.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
Adán Augusto López lashed out at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) for its directive. (Adan Augusto López Twitter)
Interior Minister Adán Augusto López has rejected a directive from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on the use of preventive detention.
In a ruling made public in late January, the Costa Rica-based court said that Mexico violated the rights of personal freedom and presumption of innocence in a case involving three men who were arrested on the Mexico City-Veracruz highway in 2006 on organized crime charges and held in pre-trial prison for over 2 1/2 years before they were absolved.
Seven judges sit on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IAHCR)
The IACHR consequently ordered the Mexican state to take a range of measures, among which was to “adapt” the country’s “internal legal system” with regard to the use of preventive detention. The court specifically ordered the elimination of a form of pre-trial detention known as arraigo.
Mexico’s Supreme Court (SCJN) ruled in November that current mandatory pre-trial detention arrangements – as set out in the constitution – were valid except in cases in which alleged perpetrators are accused of tax fraud, smuggling and tax evasion via the use of phony invoices.
During a visit to Tlaxcala last Friday, López charged that the IACHR demonstrated a lack of respect for Mexico in making its preventive detention order.
“It’s nonsense for the Inter-American Court to place itself above the constitution and it disrespects the Mexican state. There can be no power above the Mexican state, which among other things is the guarantor of social, political and economic stability in this country,” the interior minister said.
Ricardo Mejía Berdeja, former deputy for public security, explains the government’s position that eliminating mandatory pre-trial detention would lead to impunity at a September 2022 press conference. (Galo Cañas Rodríguez / Cuartoscuro.com)
López noted on Friday that the measure – which applies to people accused of serious crimes such as homicide, rape and kidnapping – “was declared constitutionally valid by the Supreme Court” with the exception of “crimes relating to tax fraud.”
No court can “force the Mexican state to modify the constitution,” the interior minister declared, adding that the 106-year-old document is “one of our sources of pride as Mexicans.”
Miguel Carbonell, a lawyer and director of his own legal studies center, took a different view on the regional court’s preventive prison directive, saying that the IACHR had set an “extremely important precedent that obliges us to modify this aberration provided for in the constitution since 2008.”
“For the first time in history, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has declared unconventional an article of the Mexican constitution. It will have to be modified as soon as possible and I hope that those who voted in favor of this reform in 2008 feel ashamed,” he wrote on Twitter.
The increase came as a surprise to many motorists. On the Mexico-Toluca highway, the toll increased from 97 to 105 pesos. (Crisanta Espinosa Aguilar / Cuartoscuro.com)
The federal government has lifted tolls on the federal highways it operates by almost 8%.
The Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) announced a 7.82% increase effective Tuesday.
It said in a statement that the hike is equal to inflation in the period between December 2021 and December 2022. SICT noted that tolls on the federal network of highways hadn’t increased for a year.
The ministry also said that tolls on federal highways operated separately by the National Infrastructure Fund and the federal highways agency Capufe would increase on March 1.
The objective of the increase in tolls, SICT said, is to maintain “economic balance” in road projects given that the revenue they generate is “used in the management, operation, conservation and maintenance of highways.”
One toll that increased on Tuesday was that for the Mexico City-Toluca highway. It rose from 97 pesos to 105 pesos, a hike that surprised some motorists, according to a report by the newspaper El Universal.
Part of the federal Durango-Mazatlán highway, completed in 2013. (Gob MX)
The Reforma newspaper reported that the toll for the Capufe-operated Cuernavaca-Acapulco highway will rise from 543 pesos to 586 pesos on March 1, while that for the Mexico City-Cuernavaca highway will increase from 126 pesos to just under 136 pesos.
In Mexico’s north, the cost of traveling on the Durango-Mazatlán highway is set to rise to about 721 pesos, an increase of over 50 pesos compared to the current toll.
A migrant lives on the streets of Ciudad Juárez near the U.S. border. (Photo: Cuartoscuro)
Mexico has rejected a move by the United States to reactivate the Remain in Mexico policy, under which asylum seekers must wait in Mexico while their U.S. claims are processed.
The Biden administration has pledged to end the program, which the Trump administration introduced in 2019. The policy is currently suspended, after being terminated and reinstated several times due to contradictory rulings by U.S. courts.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Biden had the right to terminate the program. However, in December, a federal judge ruled in favor of a lawsuit brought by states including Missouri and Texas, which argued that the Department of Homeland Security had failed to show the policy was ineffective.
After U.S. authorities notified Mexico of the intention to reinstate the program, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry (SRE)issued a statement on Monday, strongly opposing the plan.
“Faced with an attempted implementation of this policy for the third time, the Government of Mexico, through the Foreign Affairs Ministry, expresses its rejection of the U.S. government’s intention to return persons processed under this program to Mexican national territory.”
The statement points out that 74,000 people entered Mexico under the Remain in Mexico policy under President Trump, compared to 7,500 people under President Biden.
A Customs and Border Protection officer detains migrants crossing into the U.S. (Photo: CBP)
Although the Remain in Mexico policy is officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), it has been criticized by human rights groups for forcing migrants to wait in dangerous border cities where they are vulnerable to exploitation by criminal groups.
The SRE’s statement does not give specific reasons for Mexico’s decision. However, it concludes by saying that Mexico “reaffirms its recognition of the new, orderly, safe, regular and humane access routes for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Ukraine and Venezuela to the United States labor market.”
The latter refers to anew immigration plan announced by the Biden administration in January. Under the new protocol , up to 30,000 Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans and Haitians per month will be allowed to enter and work in the U.S. for two years, providing they pass all relevant checks and do not cross the border illegally. Similar measures were already in place for Ukrainians.
Mexico has committed to accepting up to 30,000 migrants per month expelled under this scheme.
However, questions remain about migrants from other countries, particularly Central Americans. Even while Remain in Mexico has been suspended, the U.S. has continued to expel many of these asylum seekers to Mexico under pandemic-era public health regulations known as Title 42.
Like Remain in Mexico, Title 42 has been subject to multiple contradictory U.S. legal rulings. Although a federal judge ordered its termination in November, the Supreme Courtgranted a stay in December after several U.S. states argued their services would be overwhelmed by a sudden influx of asylum-seekers allowed to stay in the U.S. to await processing of their claims
A wall of shipping containers in Ciudad Juárez attempts to deter migrants from crossing into Texas. A number of border states have expressed concerns about the federal government removing barriers to detained asylum seekers waiting in the U.S. while their claims are processed. (Photo: Cuartoscuro)
The Biden administration has expressed its opposition to Title 42 but says its hands are tied due to the Supreme Court ruling, and the U.S. continues to implement the policy.
If both Remain in Mexico and Title 42 are terminated, the U.S. will either have to allow asylum seekers to remain in the country while their claims are processed, or make other arrangements to remove them.
After the SRE rejected Remain in Mexico’s reinstatement, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told Reuters that the program “has always been contingent on the government of Mexico’s willingness to accept returns” and that the Biden administration would keep trying to terminate the policy through the courts.
The Wixárika are Mexico's oldest indigenous culture that maintain traditions dating to before the conquest. (Photo: Government of Mexico)
The Wixárika — Huichol in Spanish — are the oldest surviving indigenous culture in Mexico who continue to practice their religious beliefs and traditions as their ancestors did centuries ago.
They live in the Sierra Madre Occidental in the central west of Mexico, mainly in the state of Nayarit, where they are a majority ethnic group.
The rugged mountainous terrain provides a natural barrier to acculturation, but their unique culture is now endangered by mining, peyote harvesters and peyote tourism.
Their religious beliefs, based on animism and shamanism, permeate every aspect of their lives: their artwork, rituals, dance, music and even their clothing. Three elements central to those beliefs are deer, maize and peyote.
The Wixárika are divided into five autonomous communities, each with their own religious authority called the mara’akate — a shaman priest — responsible for preserving and teaching their religious traditions.
I asked INAH archaeologist Gibrán de la Torre why the Wixàrika migrated to the Sierra Madre region of Mexico 500 years ago and where they came from.
Gibrán de la Torre is an archaeologist with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). (Photo: Sheryl Losser)
“We don’t know,” he told me. “We have found Wixárika artwork from A.D. 450 in Sinaloa. However, there are no Wixárika in Sinaloa today.”
The Wixárika’s highly valued artwork is created by pressing colorful threads or beads into wax. De la Torre said that “the traditional artwork always tells a story — stories of their ancestors, stories about their beliefs, stories about everyday life. The ‘commercialized’ artwork [of the younger generation] does not tell a story.”
He pulls up a picture of a beaded bowl on his computer.
“This was given to the [late 19th-century Norwegian explorer] Carl Lumholtz, who lived with the Wixárika for several years. It was created by a shaman priest and tells the story of Lumholtz’s dog, and longtime traveling companion, who had just died. It was given to Lumholtz to ease his pain and sorrow over the loss of his companion.”
Lumholtz’s book, Unknown Mexico, published in 1902, chronicles his five years among the indigenous tribes of the western Sierra Madre and is considered the anthropological and archaeological bible for understanding Wixárika’s history and traditions.
De la Torre then shows me several photos of traditional Wixárika artwork and points out the prominently displayed peyote plant in the mosaics.
Wixárikas in Mezquitic, Jalisco, receiving vaccinations in September. Through the centuries, the indigenous group has interacted with the modern world but also maintained its pre-Hispanic traditions. (Government of Jalisco)
“The peyote is a very important sacred symbol. Most traditional artwork will contain the peyote, sometimes along with the deer and maize.”
The Wixárika believe that the Blue Deer god helps them find their way in life but that the deer only reveals himself when you can cross the narrow bridge between ordinary life and the world beyond. Consuming peyote, they say, will remove all fears and negative thoughts, allowing you to communicate with the gods. If you can do that, the deer will appear and transform your life.
Deer, maize and peyote are all connected in the Wixárika belief system. The maize cannot grow without deer blood; the deer cannot be sacrificed until after the peyote hunt.
The peyote hunt happens in Wirikuta — “where the sun is born” or “where the world originated” — located in the desert area of the Sierra de Catorce in San Luis Potosí, where the peyote grows. This is also the site of their religious ceremonial center.
The hunt, made twice a year and led by a shaman, is a 400-km trek for the Wixárika, following the same sacred path as their ancestors. Along the way, they stop at sacred rivers, streams and caves, where the shaman ingests peyote and makes offerings to the gods.
Upon reaching Wirikuta, the traditional sacred ceremony begins. When a peyote cactus is found, the pilgrims ritually throw spears at it — the heart of the deer god.
An indigenous member of the Wixárika people in rural San Luis Potosí collects peyote, which is an important part of their culture and daily life. (Iván Stephens/Cuartoscuro)
The peyote is shared with the pilgrims, and the mitote — a shared vision — begins, sometimes while dancing in a circle. Additional peyote is then gathered to take back to their communities for other rituals.
Unfortunately, in the last 30 years, Wirikuta, and the peyote, has become endangered: in 2010, Canadian mining company First Majestic Silver acquired rights to reopen a colonial-era silver mine in the Sierra de Catorce. National and international NGOs, prominent Mexicans, environmental and indigenous rights groups have joined with the Wixárika in opposing the mine’s reopening.
Although Wirikuta is located within a natural protected area (ANP), the Wixárika’s appeals to the Mexican government to protect this sacred land were to no avail. The mining project is currently paused, awaiting environmental impact studies.
De la Torre doesn’t believe there is much that can be done to protect the sacred site.
“This is not their [the Wixárika’s] land. They don’t even live on the land. They have no protections under the law.”
Mining is not the only threat.
In 2009, First Majestic Silver bought mining rights in Real de Catorce, a mining ghost town located within the Wixárika’s sacred land. The Wixárika believe mining would threaten the area’s ecosystem, putting the peyote that grows there in jeopardy. (Photo: Rafael Saldaña/Creative Commons)
Peyote harvesters make a living, though illegal, by harvesting and selling it. De la Torre says, “Some have begun drying the peyote plant, grinding it up and selling it as mescaline. They harvest large quantities of peyote, depleting the crop.”
In the 1970s, the writer Carlos Castaneda — then a student at the University of California in Los Angeles — popularized peyote, and since then, “peyote tourists” have been coming to San Luis Potosí in increasing numbers searching for their own recreational mystic journey.
The Wixárika are careful to rebury the roots and place offerings on top so that the peyote will regenerate, but outsiders don’t know how to properly harvest it, and they destroy the cactus’ roots, meaning the peyote won’t grow back.
Under the best of circumstances, it takes 10 to 15 years for the plant to rebound after being harvested.
“The peyote is disappearing,” de la Torre says. “The Wixárika must walk further and further to find the plants.”
The only legal protection the Wixárika have is the right to consume peyote as part of their religious ceremonies.
Wixárika peyote collectors on the pilgrimage to the sacred Wirikuta site. Each carries a basket they’ll fill with the hallucinogen. (Photo: Johannes Neurath/INAH)
I asked him whether anything can be done.
“I don’t think so. If the peyote disappears, their culture disappears. We have hundreds, maybe thousands of cultures in Mexico that have disappeared,” he said.
“The world is changing around these tribes. They either transform their culture, or their culture will die.”
Sheryl Losser is a former public relations executive and professional researcher. She spent 45 years in national politics in the United States. She moved to Mazatlán in 2021 and works part-time doing freelance research and writing.
Originally from Monterrey, Fabrizzio Ulloa now lives and studies in Switzerland. (Prix de Lausanne Twitter)
Monterrey dancer Fabrizzio Ulloa Cornejo won first place in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne 2023, an international classical ballet competition held in Switzerland since 1973. Ulloa is the first Mexican to ever win this award.
“I almost fainted. I was shocked because it was something I always dreamed of and I always took it lightly and never really thought it could happen,” Ulloa said in a phone interview with Debate newspaper.
Fabrizzio Ulloa performs at Prix de Lausanne 2023. (Inbal)
This year’s award was special, since it was given to two dancers. Ulloa shared the prize with Spanish dancer Millán de Benito, age 15.
The competition, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, is focused on young dancers (15 to 18 years old) who seek to pursue a professional career in classical ballet.
This year’s contest took place from Jan. 29 to Feb. 4, beginning with 82 candidates, of whom only 22 moved on to the finals. Amongst the finalists was 18-year-old Amaury Zanete Pérez, another Mexican ballet dancer.
Ulloa was a student at the Inbal Higher School of Music and Dance of Monterrey and in 2021, he also won first place in the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) Junior Category. In this year’s competition, he participated as a student of the Basel Theater Ballet School in Switzerland, where he currently lives.
The winners (eleven in total) will receive a one-year scholarship to study at any school or ballet company of their choice that is partnered with the Prix de Lausanne.
The Mexican government is sending 150 people to assist following the disaster. (Marcelo Ebrard Twitter)
A Mexican Air Force (FAM) plane bound for Turkey took off Tuesday morning with a delegation to support rescue efforts after earthquakes devastated southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday.
“Following instructions from President López Obrador, a Mexican Air Force plane with rescue teams and specialists will leave in the next few hours,” Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard tweeted Monday night.
Members of the Mexican army, marines and others are on their way to the site of the earthquakes. (Gob MX)
Ebrard also shared photos of rescue dogs joining the mission and of marines wearing helmets like that worn by Frida, Mexico’s beloved rescue dog, who became famous for locating victims after the Sept. 19 2017 Mexico City earthquake. Frida died in November at age 13.
Defense Minister (Sedena) General Luis Cresencio Sandoval said Tuesday morning during López Obrador’s press conferencethat 150 people are traveling with the rescue and support delegation including soldiers, marines, members of the Mexican Red Cross and foreign ministry personnel.
The professional non-profit “Topos” rescue brigade will also be sending members to aid in the search and rescue efforts.
As of Tuesday, the Mexican Embassy in Turkey had no record of any Mexican citizens affected by the earthquakes.
The planned Tulum Airport site showed evidence of major clearing work already done when this photo was taken in December. The project has not yet been given approval by the Environment Ministry, although it was granted provisional approval by law. (Photo: Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
Friday was the last day of a period of public input on the environmental impact for the proposed construction of Tulum Airport, but some local activists are saying that the inclusion of comments from the process is a sham, given that construction work on the site already reached the 20% mark in the month before the consultation opened on Jan. 9.
President Lopez Obrador announced the 20% figure himself in December at his daily press conference, an assertion that appears to be backed up by photos taken by the news agency Cuartoscuro in December of a long swath of cleared land on the site, and heavy machinery sitting on cleared land.
Animal Político has reported that the project as planned will result in 1.3 million trees being felled at the site to make way for the airport, as well as a military base to be located onsite.
The Defense Ministry (Sedena) is slated to build both the airport and the military base in the Quintana Roo municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, not far from Tulum, on parcels of land owned by the military and the federal government.
The military air base and the airport, which President López Obrador recently announced would open in December of this year, will have the capacity to receive 4 million passengers per year. For reference, that’s a bit less than a tenth of the number of passengers that moved through the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) in 2022 and nearly eight times less than the 30 million that passed through Cancún International Airport in the same year, according to Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport figures.
Ángel Sulub Santos, an indigenous Maya and member of the U Kúuchil k Ch’i Community Center in the Felipe Carrillo Puerto, told Animal Político that the government “isn’t asking if [they] want or if [they] don’t want the airport. The public consultation does not guarantee the people’s right to prior, free and informed consent. It is not a mechanism for effective participation.”
The Mexican army’s military engineers were deployed in Tulum last March to work on the Mayan Train. Critics say it also set up them up to work on the Tulum airport project, although it hasn’t been fully approved yet. (Photo: Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)
Aáron Siller, director of the southeast regional office of the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) agreed. He told the news outlet that the request for public commentary amounts to nothing more than a simulacro (a sham).
“Let’s imagine that the public consultation determines that it is not the ideal place for the construction of the airport: it will not be possible to relocate it, and there has already been an environmental, social and cultural impact [in the community]. This is a simulated consultation.”
Siller also criticized the request for citizen input as a process not accessible to the local population, saying it requests commentary on a highly technical document that is difficult for the general public to understand, requires Internet access to see it, and is in Spanish despite the fact that a large part of the population in the area speaks only the Mayan language.
Work was able to begin on the project before the public input process started because of a presidential decree that has allowed the government to declare López Obrador’s flagship projects to be of public interest and national security, and thus subject to provisional approval while the project goes through the regular permitting process.
“A project can’t be evaluated in five days,” Siller said.
The local population and the scientific community have another concern: the environmental damage that will be caused by the airport’s construction. It is being built on top of the Holbox Fracture Zone and over a karstic system with underground rivers.
The public consultation does not guarantee the people’s right to prior, free and informed consent. “It is not a mechanism for effective participation […].” says local activist Ángel Sulub Santos. (Photo: Maya Goded Colichio))Moreover, the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, is located near the project site. The environmental and noise pollution caused by the airport could cause serious damage to the aquifer, the subsoil, migratory birds, and other species that inhabit the jungle, Santos said.
“It is not just about the airport but about what is generated around it in terms of environmental, social and cultural impacts,” he said.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña Hernandez, seated at front, second from left, attracted attention when she remained seated when AMLO began a speech during a ceremony marking the 106th anniversary of the Mexican constitution. (Cuartoscuro)
President López Obrador declared Monday that he was “very pleased” and proud that the chief justice of the Supreme Court (SCJN) didn’t stand up before he delivered an official address in Querétaro on Sunday.
Norma Piña, who last month became the first ever female chief justice of the SCJN, remained seated when other officials rose to applaud López Obrador before he gave a speech marking the 106th anniversary of the Mexican constitution.
Speaking at his regular news conference on Monday, the president said Piña may have been tired or simply didn’t want to stand up to acknowledge his presence.
“I was very pleased — very, very pleased because that wasn’t seen before; the court justices used to be employees of the president,” said López Obrador, who has been highly critical of Mexico’s judiciary.
“… Since the rule of Porfirio Díaz the division of powers, the balance between the powers was spoken about but in reality the power of powers was the executive,” he said.
“When had a chief justice ever remained seated at a ceremony like that? That fills me with pride because it means we’re carrying out changes, it’s a transformation. It’s no longer the president who gives orders to [Supreme Court] justices, and it’s also a lie when, in an exaggerated way, a dictatorship or tyranny is spoken about.”
López Obrador’s remarks contrasted with those of his communications chief, Jesús Ramírez, who posted a photo of a seated Piña to Twitter on Sunday and wrote that it was “unfortunate that not everyone respected the protocol of the ceremony.”
In her own address on Sunday, Piña said that “judicial independence isn’t a privilege of judges,” but rather “the principle that guarantees the proper administration of justice.”
