Claiming lack of respect, AMLO calls for ‘a pause’ in Mexico-Spain relations

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February 10, 2022

Spain "categorically rejected" statements made by President López Obrador at his Wednesday morning press conference. — The Spanish government "categorically rejected" statements made by President López Obrador at his Wednesday morning press conference. Presidencia de la República

President López Obrador on Wednesday advocated a “pause” in relations between Mexico and Spain, but clarified Thursday that he was referring to a “respectful protest” rather than a diplomatic “rupture.”

He told reporters at his morning news conference Wednesday that Mexico’s relations with Spain and Spanish companies – several of which invest in Mexico’s energy sector, which the government wants to overhaul in favor of the state – are strained.

In 2019, López Obrador called for the king of Spain to apologize for the conquest of Mexico, but the Spanish government “vigorously” rejected the request. He has railed against Spanish energy companies such as Iberdrola and Repsol, accusing them of abusive business practices in Mexico.

The president said he believed that a pause in Mexico-Spain relations would benefit the people of both countries. He asserted that Mexico has been “looted” for years due to “economic-political promiscuity in the leadership of the governments of Mexico and Spain.”

“… So it’s worth giving ourselves some time, a pause. Maybe when the government changes, relations will be reestablished,” López Obrador said.

“… We’re going to give ourselves time to respect each other so they don’t see us as a land of conquest. We want to have good relations with all the governments and people of the world but we don’t want them to rob us.”

The president’s remarks were rejected by the Spanish Foreign Ministry in a terse statement.

“The government of Spain categorically rejects criticisms made by the president of Mexico … in recent days against Spain and Spanish companies,” it said.

The statement also said that Spain and Mexico are “strategic partners” united by “deep human, cultural, historic, linguistic and economic ties.”

“Spain is the second largest [foreign] investor in Mexico and has 7,000 companies in the country. Spanish investment is above 70 billion euros,” it said. “… Spain will always work to maintain the best relations with Mexico and strengthen the ties with … [its] people. The government wants relations based on mutual respect, as do Spaniards and Mexicans, without these kinds of statements.”

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares sought to downplay the importance of López Obrador’s comments given that they were made “in an informal context in response to a journalist’s question.”

They don’t “constitute an official position or statement,” he said, adding that it was unclear what the president meant.

AMLO aimed to clarify his remarks – described as “diplomatic vandalism” by one former Mexican ambassador to the United States – at his Thursday morning press conference.

“Now, with this Spain thing, Mexican internationalists felt offended because I suggested the pause. They say, ‘That doesn’t exist in foreign policy language.’ Well they’re right but how was it understood? Very well, and if it wasn’t I’m explaining it now. It’s not a rupture of relations and it’s not against the Spanish people. It’s nothing more than a respectful, fraternal protest for the abuse and offenses committed against the people of Mexico and our country,” he said.

Speaking in Belgium, Albares said that López Obrador’s latest remarks had clarified Mexico’s position, before pledging that “the Spanish government will defend the Spanish people, the good name of Spain and its companies in any circumstance and against anyone.”

The Mexican government appears intent on keeping its Spanish counterpart busy. López Obrador renewed his attacks on the Spanish firms Iberdrola, Repsol and OHL on Thursday, reaffirming that they “abused our country and our people.”

Speaking to the newspaper El País after the president’s remarks on Wednesday, a foreign trade analyst with the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a Mexico City-based think tank, said it was “unwise” for López Obrador to “risk our diplomatic stability with Spain and place investment in the country in doubt, particularly at a time when we’re trying to drive an economic recovery.”

The trade analyst, Ana Bertha Gutiérrez, said that investment is “fundamental for economic growth, job creation and … to improve the living conditions of the [Mexican] population.”

Juan Carlos Baker, a trade negotiator for the previous federal government, said that remarks such as those made by AMLO don’t benefit either the diplomatic or the business relationship with Spain.

“I think that [the president] is making it clear that [foreign] investment and operations in this country are not well-thought-of, which is concerning, because what the country needs is investment, growth and to attract projects that are seeking a place to set up … [to take advantage of] nearshoring,” he said.

Another threat to investment in Mexico is the government’s proposed electricity reform, which would guarantee over half the electricity market to the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission and thus limit the participation of private companies that generate renewable energy in Mexico.

The planned constitutional reform, which requires two-thirds congressional support to become law, has been criticized by the United States government, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Mexico, and the European Union’s ambassador to Mexico, among others.

With reports from El País, Reforma and El Universal

Here’s how Arizona’s plan to sate its thirst will harm the Gulf of California

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Omar Vidal and Richard Brusca

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February 10, 2022

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Between Punta Chueca & Bahia Kino, Gulf of California — UNESCO included the Gulf of California in its List of World Heritage Sites in Danger. Richard Brusca

We fell in love with the Gulf of California at first sight — the sea in northern Mexico that, in 1539 a Spanish explorer named Francisco de Ulloa baptized in honor of his boss, the conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Ours is a deep, unconditional love born on both sides of the Mexico-United States border, one that has been nourished during the five decades we have roamed through the intertidal, coastal and offshore realms of this mighty sea, a sea that renowned French explorer Jacques Cousteau long ago called, “the world’s aquarium.”

It is a love grounded on what we know about the Gulf of California (also called the Sea of Cortés), but also on what we still do not know, and sadly may never know. Our quest for knowledge about this sea has been an unforgettable journey in which we have joined scores of students and friends, fishermen, professors and scientists, conservationists, politicians and business people from Mexico and the United States.

Together, we have witnessed the damaging impacts of human excess and the pervasive effects it has had on this sea’s rich, unique natural resources — and on the well-being of its local coastal communities. Overfishing, illegal fishing, nonsustainable tourism, coastal urban and agricultural development, aquaculture, corruption, organized crime, pollution, climate change and the government’s neglect all imperil this sea.

Because of these menaces, UNESCO included the Gulf of California in its List of World Heritage in Danger in 2009.

The most pervasive threat to this beloved sea has been, and continues to be, harmful fishing practices, particularly the widespread use of gillnets and bottom trawls — two of the most destructive fishing methods ever developed on the planet.

Vaquita in Gulf of California — French explorer Jacques Cousteau called the Gulf of California “the world’s aquarium.”

These two non-selective fishing tools have for many years decimated marine wildlife populations and now threaten many species with extinction, in the Gulf and throughout the world. The most conspicuous victims may be the vaquita porpoise, the totoaba (a fish in the croaker family), and several species of sea turtles. But the profound destruction to seabed communities, mostly smaller animals, is still barely understood.

Overfishing has also repeatedly collapsed the sardine industry — in 1992, 1998, 2004 and 2013 — once one of the most important in Mexico and one dependent upon a fish that is crucial in the food chain for many ocean species, as well as an important source of local employment.

Now another insidious menace looms over the Gulf of California, which, if it materializes, will add even more pressure to the unique and fragile ecosystems already under siege — particularly in the northern Gulf of California.

The odd difference this time is that this clear and present danger is being championed by the governor of Arizona, a state which was once part of Mexico but that the U.S. seized after the conflicts of 1836 and the 1846–1848 American intervention — along with California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Texas. It makes up a total of two million square kilometers.

Governor Doug Ducey and Arizona legislators want to create another environmental and financial mess by building multiple desalination plants on some of the most pristine coastlines left in Sonora, from Puerto Libertad and Desemboque to Puerto Peñasco in the northeastern Gulf of California. They want to remove the salt from seawater to deal with Arizona’s ever-growing demand for fresh water, an idea that could have unknown but probably huge negative impacts on the resources and environmental services upon which tens of thousands of Mexicans in this region rely.

The idea is to produce up to 200,000 acre-feet per year of desalinated water from multiple plants along the coast of Sonora. The water would be delivered to farmers in Baja California by pipeline and canal.

Gulf of California — Desalination produces toxic brine that can damage coastal and marine ecosystems. Francesco Bandarin/Creative Commons

That delivery would offset some of the U.S. legal requirement to allow 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water to flow to Mexico annually, thus freeing up an annual 200,000 acre-feet of river water for use in Arizona.

Arizona’s Central Arizona Project (CAP) has estimated construction costs at between $4.5 and $4.9 billion, and annual operation costs at $293 million and $319 million. Staggering figures by any measure, and in this case, in order to recover just 13% of Mexico’s annual river allotment.

There is something fundamentally wrong with this picture.

Desalination removes salts from water and produces toxic brine that can damage coastal and marine ecosystems. It can disrupt seagrass ecosystems, reefs and soft-sediment communities.

In most desalination processes, every liter of potable water produced leaves about 1.5 liters of brine polluted with chlorine and copper — which not only can be toxic but also increase seawater temperature, salinity and turbidity, all of which might injure sea life and force fish to migrate.

The intake pipes for such systems suck in thousands of marine creatures during every day of their operation, impacting aquatic biodiversity and killing huge amounts of plankton, fish eggs and larvae and a myriad of other organisms that are key to the marine food chain sustaining life on the oceans. Gov. Ducey’s planned sites are all situated along a well-documented migration route for larval and juvenile coastal fishes, many of which are important commercial species.

NASA image from space of Gulf of California — A NASA image of the Gulf of California.

Also important to consider is the environmental impact of the needed infrastructure for such a project, such as getting highways and massive electrical delivery to the remote sites.

Desalination by reverse osmosis (the planned technology) is one of the most expensive and energy-demanding processes known, and that’s without mentioning the carbon released into the atmosphere from the generation of all that energy.

In fact, it’s likely that new fossil fuel power plants would also need to be built to supply the enormous energy needs of these desalination facilities.

The negative impacts of desalination plants have been documented in other parts of the world, particularly in the Mediterranean Sea, a semi-enclosed sea in many ways similar to the Gulf of California.

We don’t know about you, but we are not welcoming Governor Ducey’s plans to desalinate the Gulf. There are just too many unknowns about his plans, particularly how he would avoid further damage to a sea that is already under heavy pressure from other human activities.

We believe there are far less expensive and less environmentally threatening ways to capture 200,000 acre-feet of water annually in Arizona. These include banning grass lawns in this desert environment, requiring golf courses to use only recycled (but treated/gray) sewage water, more efficient capture of rainwater to recharge water tables, shifting away from water-intensive crops like cotton and alfalfa in Arizona and a dozen other simple, proven practices.

Bahia Kino — Bahía Kino in Sonora. Richard Brusca

May we ask, Governor Ducey: why don’t you follow this more sensible, sustainable path — one that will not cost billions of Arizona taxpayer dollars, and one that would do no further harm to the “world’s aquarium.”

Richard C. Brusca is a research scientist at the University of Arizona, former executive director of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and author of over 200 research articles and 20 books.

Omar Vidal, a scientist, was a university professor in Mexico, is a former senior officer at the UN Environment Program and former director-general of the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico.

Supreme Court halts Veracruz port expansion on environmental grounds

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MND Staff

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February 10, 2022

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The Supreme Court (SCJN) has halted the Port of Veracruz expansion project on environmental grounds in a ruling that protects the Veracruz Reef System (SAV).

Justices ruled unanimously on Wednesday that the federal Environment Ministry (Semarnat) violated the human right to a healthy environment by authorizing the expansion of the port without having previously analyzed “each of the different environmental impacts the project … could cause.”

They also determined that the ministry didn’t act in accordance with “the best available scientific information” and that “the project and the works linked to the same were analyzed in a fragmented way.”

The court’s ruling came in response to an injunction request filed by the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) on behalf of Veracruz residents.

“CEMDA filed this injunction, together with the community, to protect and contribute to the conservation of the Veracruz Reef System, as well as the reefs and the services they provide, since they are key to the well-being of the people living in the Veracruz-Boca del Río-Medellín region,” said Xavier Martínez Esponda, the center’s technical operations director.

The SCJN ruling annuls the authorization for the port’s expansion and orders a complete re-evaluation of the project’s environmental impacts and determination of the consequent viability of the project, said Earthjustice, a United States-based environmental nonprofit organization that submitted an amicus brief in support of CEMDA’s lawsuit.

“The decision indicates that the country’s highest court supports making the environmental principles of prevention and precaution much more ingrained in the decision-making process of infrastructure projects,” the organization said in a statement. “It signals to authorities and investors that it is more expensive to not completely evaluate their projects with accuracy than to comply in time and form with the Environmental Impact Assessment.”

Earthjustice also said that the ruling will “protect the vulnerable reef, home to sea turtles and other critical ecosystems, that is globally recognized as a UNESCO biosphere reserve and Ramsar Wetland of International Importance.”

The SCJN ruling stated that “the protection of wetlands is a national and international priority that has led our country to issue a strict regulation of this ecosystem and … any analysis made in relation to wetlands must be guided by a criterion of maximum precaution and prevention.”

The SCJN instructed Semarnat to draw up a plan for the protection and restoration of the reef affected by the port expansion project. The project could resume at some point in the future as long as the expansion avoids adverse impacts to the SAV. CEMDA said in a statement that “the case is a precedent that will transform the way in which Semarnat and state authorities carry out environmental impact assessments in the country.”

The SAV is the largest reef system in the central region of the Gulf of Mexico and hosts the greatest biodiversity of species in the western region of the same body of water.

With reports from Animal Político

Army drives Jalisco cartel out of stronghold in Aguililla, Michoacán

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MND Staff

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February 10, 2022

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Soldiers stand at the entrance to Aguililla, in a photo shared by the National Defense Ministry on Wednesday. — Flooding an area with soldiers, as the Ministry of Defense did in Aguililla, Michoacán in 2022, can dampen cartel violence but at the cost of many lives, Dalby said. (Sedena)

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has fled Aguililla, Michoacán, after the army entered the notoriously violent Tierra Caliente municipality on Tuesday.

Members of the powerful criminal group escaped via the mountains and headed to the port city of Lázaro Cárdenas, according to a report by the newspaper Milenio.

The CJNG has been involved in a turf war with the Cárteles Unidos in Aguililla and the broader Tierra Caliente region since early 2021.

Milenio reported that Aguililla was surrounded by government security forces on Wednesday. Vehicles entering the municipality were inspected by soldiers with the aim of detecting drugs and weapons.

The Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) said in a statement Tuesday that the army, National Guard and Michoacán state police had entered Aguililla to carry out operations aimed at strengthening the rule of law in the region.

Jalisco New Generation Cartel improvised tank — The army captured 21 vehicles, including this improvised armored tank with the words “Mencho Special Forces.” Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera is the CJNG’s leader. Sedena/Twitter

Sedena said that it fulfilled that objective in 43 localities in the municipalities of Aguililla, Buenavista, Coalcomán and Tepalcatepec.

As a result, residents were able to return to their homes and crops were able to be harvested and commercialized, the ministry said.

It also said that the security forces “liberated” three main roads and seized more than 150 kilograms of marijuana, firearms, ammunition, 23 improvised explosive devices, 21 vehicles (including some that were armored) and tactical equipment.

The community of El Aguaje – where the CJNG has paraded armored vehicles and carried out a drone attack against police – had been a virtual ghost town due to the presence of the feuding criminal organizations, but several businesses opened after the army’s arrival, Milenio said.

Residents who spoke with the newspaper warned that the criminals — and the violence they generate – would return if the army leaves the region. Locals have long been calling for a military intervention to combat organized crime.

During a visit to Aguililla last April, the Vatican’s then-ambassador to Mexico, Archbishop Franco Coppola, said that organized crime flourishes where the state is absent, while residents accused the army — which has a barracks in the town — of doing little to combat the cartels.

The Associated Press reported in November that the army had largely stopped fighting the cartels in Aguililla and surrounding areas. Instead, soldiers were guarding dividing lines between cartel territories so that they wouldn’t encroach on each other’s turf, the news agency said.

Criminal groups seek to control the Tierra Caliente region and other Michoacán municipalities because of the opportunities to extort lime producers, cattle ranchers, avocado farmers and operators of iron ore mines.

Violence in Tierra Caliente municipalities has displaced thousands of people since President López Obrador took office in late 2018, many of whom have sought asylum in the United States.

With reports from Milenio

Mexico-US working group will encourage clean energy development

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MND Staff

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February 10, 2022

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President López Obrador and U.S Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry met in Mexico City on Wednesday. Twitter @lopezobrador_

Mexico and the United States have agreed to form a working group to collaborate on the fight against climate change.

After a lengthy meeting between President López Obrador and United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry in Mexico City on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard announced an agreement to create the U.S.-Mexico Climate and Clean Energy Working Group.

Via the group, which will involve key agencies in both Mexico and the United States, the two countries will determine what actions they can take together to mitigate climate change, Ebrard told reporters.

López Obrador’s office and the United States Embassy in Mexico later issued similar statements on the objectives of the working group.

“During the bilateral meetings … the delegations of both countries reiterated the commitment to act swiftly and ambitiously on five lines of action for the purpose of combating the effects of climate change,” the president’s office said.

Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry in conversation on Wednesday. Twitter @mebrard

The U.S. statement said the policy focus areas of the working group will include: accelerating renewable energy development including solar supply chains; tackling methane emissions from oil and gas, waste, and agriculture; reducing transportation emissions through electrification and other strategies; eliminating deforestation and supporting nature-based solutions; and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

NDCs are efforts by individual countries to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

“The two sides … agreed to meet in the next 30 days to consider opportunities for rapidly enhancing clean energy deployment,” the U.S. statement said.

Mexico’s statement said that López Obrador had stressed to Kerry that the priority of his government is to put an end to corruption. In that context, the president “highlighted the urgent need to modify the current electricity scheme in Mexico.”

The Mexican Congress is set to vote as soon as next month on a proposed electricity reform that would guarantee 54% of the electricity market to the fossil fuel-dependent, state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and thus limit the participation of private renewable firms.

The United States has raised a range of concerns about the planned constitutional change, arguing that it will have a negative impact on U.S. investment in Mexico, hinder U.S.-Mexico joint efforts on clean energy and climate and adversely affect Mexican consumers and the Mexican economy.

The U.S. statement said that Kerry and Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar “raised the significant concerns the Biden-Harris Administration has about Mexico’s current energy-sector proposal and the imperative to bolster open and competitive economies, consistent with USMCA,” the North America free trade agreement.

The USMCA prohibits favoring national companies, including state-owned ones, over firms from the other partner countries.

In an interview with news agency Reuters, Kerry said the talks with Mexican officials were “very constructive” and the two sides “found an enormous amount to agree on” vis-à-vis the benefits of using renewable energy.

With regard to Mexico’s energy sector plans, “we expressed concerns that we not run up against the USMCA,” the U.S. climate czar said.

“[We said] that it’s important to have reforms that are going to be — and I think [López Obrador] wants this — that reforms will not act as a hindrance to an open and competitive market,” Kerry said.

“The key … is attracting investment and participation,” he told Reuters.

Any loans provided by the U.S could be used to modernize CFE hydroelectricity plants, like La Yesca in Nayarit. CFE

In earlier public remarks, Kerry said the U.S. government was ready to be “as helpful as we can be” in promoting the use of electric vehicles and renewable energy in Mexico. He said that the U.S. government is willing to offer financial and technological help to expedite the country’s efforts to combat climate change but stressed that “we respect completely the sovereignty of Mexico.”

“Mexico can play a vital, extraordinary role in our efforts to combat the climate crisis,” the envoy said. “… Working together, North America can become the world’s leading clean energy economy.”

López Obrador, who has promoted the continued use of fossil fuels while pinning his environmental credentials to the government’s reforestation efforts, said Tuesday that Mexico would ramp up its clean energy production if the United States supports the endeavor by providing low-interest loans.

Any loans provided by the United States could be used to fund the modernization of CFE’s aging hydroelectricity plants.

The president said Tuesday that he was committed to strengthening the CFE and guaranteeing that power prices don’t increase excessively. The federal government is also upgrading Pemex’s six existing refineries and building a new one on the Gulf coast in Tabasco. In addition, it recently reached an agreement to purchase Shell Oil Company’s share of the jointly-owned Deer Park oil refinery near Houston, Texas.

As part of López Obrador’s quest to reach national self-sufficiency for fuel – and to bolster his environmental credentials – the state oil company intends to slash crude oil exports this year and end them in 2023.

But there is skepticism that Pemex will be capable of refining all of its own crude given its poor operating and safety record, and López Obrador’s commitment to meaningful action on climate change has been called into question.

Mexico took second place in the Climate Action Network’s “Fossil of the Day” award at last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, “for pumping more, not less, money into the fossil fuel industry, building oil refineries, and delaying policies aimed at carbon emissions reductions.”

With reports from Milenio and Reuters

Aeroméxico announces 2 flights daily at Mexico City’s new airport

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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Aeroméxico announced Wednesday that it will begin operating at the new Mexico City airport in April with two flights per day to cities in Mexico’s southeast.

The Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), located about 50 kilometers north of downtown Mexico City in México state, will open in late March.

Aeroméxico said it will operate two flights per day from AIFA to Mérida, Yucatán, and Villahermosa, Tabasco.

“Our customers will have the flexibility … to fly from these two cities to AIFA or AICM,” the airline said in a statement.

AICM is the current Mexico City airport, located about 10 kilometers east of the capital’s historic center.

Aeroméxico said its decision to use AIFA was made after analyzing the needs of its customers. It had indicated late last year that it wasn’t planning to operate out of the new airport, built by the army on the Santa Lucía Air Force base.

CEO Andrés Conesa said the airline is in the final stage of a “profound process of restructuring and transformation that will allow us to emerge strengthened and take decisions like this for the benefit of the connectivity of our country, … our customers and the creation of jobs.”

Aeroméxico is the third airline to announce it will operate at AIFA after Volaris and VivaAerobús.

Volaris announced in October that it will operate daily flights to and from Tijuana, Baja California, and Cancún, Quintana Roo, starting March 21. VivaAerobús will fly to Monterrey, Nuevo León, and Guadalajara, Jalisco, starting the same date.

Airport departure fees will be more than 60% lower at AIFA than at AICM. Domestic passengers will pay 245 pesos (US $12) while those flying internationally will be charged 466 pesos (US $23).

With reports from Forbes México

Ex-minister takes issue with AMLO over accusation regarding Quintana Roo quarry

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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A former federal environment minister has hit back at President López Obrador after he accused her of being responsible for environmental damage caused by a quarry on land near the coast in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo.

Julia Carabias, environment minister during former president Ernesto Zedillo’s 1994-2000 government, accused the president of endangering the safety of environmentalists via his “unjustified and frequent defamation” of many such people including herself.

At his February 1 press conference, López Obrador noted that a permit for a quarry in the Caribbean coast resort city was granted to the company Calizas Industriales del Carmen (Calica) at the end Zedillo’s six-year term.

He expressed disbelief that a permit for a quarry across 400 hectares of land “in paradise” had been granted.

“I’m being informed and I’m going to confirm that it was Julia Carabias, the environment minister and … great defender of the environment” who authorized the permit, López Obrador said.

“Just imagine granting a permit to extract construction material [limestone] … 1,000 meters from the beach, the Caribbean, the turquoise sea, one of the most beautiful areas in the world. [It was] always double talk and double standards. That is no longer permitted,” he said.

The Environment Ministry (Semarnat) said in a statement last Thursday that Fedro Carlos Guillén Rodríguez, the former head of the National Institute of Ecology – which was part of Semarnap, as the Environment Ministry was formerly known – was in fact responsible for granting the permit to Calica and did so in the “record period of 36 days.”

The ministry said that mining beneath the water table caused “serious environmental damage such as the definitive and unrecoverable loss of the subsoil, alteration of the pressure of the aquifer … [and] the risk of collapses and fracturing of the subsoil.”

It also said that the operation of the quarry affected water quality, superficial and subterranean drainage, the natural landscape and local ecosystems.

In a statement published online, Carabias said that the history of the case involving Calica and the quarry permit it was granted was “extremely complex” and that López Obrador’s version of events was a “clumsy” simplification of the facts.

The Environment Ministry’s statement contributed to the “confusion and disinformation by alleging … that the only competent authority to authorize those permits … was Semarnap and no local authority had that kind of power,” she wrote.

In a lengthy statement, Carabias noted that the Quintana Roo government in fact authorized the expansion of the quarry site across two properties known as La Adelita and Corchalito in 1996.

She also acknowledged that quarrying “is legal in our country” and that “environmental legislation has instruments to prevent environmental damage, such as the assessment of environmental impact.”

Environmental authorizations are not “unconditional or eternal permits,” she wrote.

“They’re not blank checks. Each authorization … fixes precise conditions that regulate the operation of each project in a way that the impacts on the environment are minimized,” Carabias said.

“In case of non-compliance authorities can suspend the operation or revoke authorization at any time. … Semarnap, at the time, acted in accordance with the valid legal framework and the authorization was legal,” she said, adding that the federal environmental protection agency Profepa partially shut the quarry down in 2018 due to a breach of environmental conditions.

“… With regard to the questioning of the president and the federal government about my actions at the helm of Semarnap it’s timely to say … that it’s precisely thanks to the [current] environmental legislation (which emerged and was strengthened between 1987 and 1996) that the authorization granted in 2000 is public and transparent and therefore can be the object of an informed debate that allows us to seriously evaluate environmental management,” Carabias wrote.

She said that “the unjustified and frequent defamation of many environmental defenders” by the president at his morning press conferences – “as he has done on this occasion to me” – represents a threat to “our physical safety.”

Defamed environmentalists who contribute to public programs “in very complex and unsafe areas” where the government is not present are particularly vulnerable, Carabias said.

Scores of environmental defenders have been killed in Mexico in recent years, making the country one of the world’s most dangerous for environmentalists. One of those killed since López Obrador took office in late 2018 opposed a thermal power plant in Morelos that the president supported.

In addition to launching broadsides at environmentalists, AMLO also frequently attacks sections of the press, an oratorical modus operandi that has been blamed for encouraging hostility toward – and even physical assaults on – journalists who are critical of the government.

Carabias advised the president to stop his verbal attacks on environmentalists and cease “placing at risk those of us who work for Mexico with the sole interest of defending nature and human rights.”

“I don’t have double standards, as he slandered me,” she added. “I have always acted according to my principles and within the framework of legality.”

Mexico News Daily

Stalemate between Otomis and feds holds 23,000 folk art pieces hostage

By

Leigh Thelmadatter

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February 9, 2022

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INPI building Mexico City — The National Institute of Indigenous People's building on Avenida Mexico-Coyoacan in Mexico City.

If you go by the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) building on Avenida México-Coyocán in Mexico City, you will not see any government workers there, but rather signs and activists and even some handcrafts and Chiapas coffee for sale.

After months of protests in front of the building, on October 12, 2020, the Otomis of the Emiliano Zapata-Benito Juárez People’s Revolutionary Union simply took over INPI’s offices. Since then, none of the federal agency’s staff have been inside.

Such occupation of federal buildings is certainly nothing new in Mexico, but there is a plot twist: the fate of an irreplaceable collection of 23,000 pieces of Mexican folk art.

The people who have taken over the building are principally those that live in Mexico City, with roots in Santiago Mexquititlán, Querétaro. Starting in the 1960s, waves of indigenous Otomis and Mazahuas have been migrating to the capital from México state, Querétaro and Michoacán for both political and economic reasons.

Life in the city has not been easy for them, and many took over abandoned lots and earthquake-damaged buildings and made them their homes. For decades, they have fought with city authorities to remain in a number of these places, including in the regentrifying neighborhood of Roma. They’ve also struggled to get government-sponsored housing constructed on these lots.

folk art collection - INPI building, Mexico City — Two examples of the collection’s items kept in specialized storage: indigenous rattles and an antique lacquered plate from Chiapas.

In the summer of 2020, it looked like they were making progress when the city moved to expropriate four lots of land to build such housing. But then the pandemic struck, halting everything.

Frustrated with what looked like yet another stalling tactic, the Otomis began protesting at offices of INPI, whom they believe should be more intimately involved in the matter.

When talks with the city broke down yet again in the fall, the Otomis voted to take over the building on Columbus Day.

Few might have cared about an office building, and indeed the occupation drifted along for more than a year. However, a recent interview by INPI head Adelfo Regino in January changed that by bringing attention to a collection of folk art housed in the building.

This is not just any collection of Mexican folk art: the collection of the National Museum of Arts and Folk Industries (MNAIP) is the first national collection of Mexican folk art in Mexico itself.

Founded in 1951, it brought together pieces dating as far back as the 17th century, began competitions to expand the collection with examples from living traditions, and is credited with bringing back handcraft traditions in several states that nearly disappeared.

Unfortunately, its building in Mexico City’s historic center was heavily damaged by the 1985 earthquake. Efforts to keep it open succeeded until 1998, when it closed for good.

Possession of the collection remained in federal hands and eventually became the property of INPI with the name of Acervo de Arte Indigena (Indigenous Art Heritage), despite the fact that most pieces are made by those of mixed heritage.

However it does have more work by indigenous peoples than many other collections.

INPI has a small museum in the north of Mexico City, where some pieces are exhibited, but the vast majority have been warehoused in facilities at the Mexico City office building, with specialized rooms conditioned for maximum preservation.

The importance of the collection is not generally known by the public, but the pieces have been available for viewing by researchers and museums both in Mexico and abroad. But since October 2020, INPI staff and other specialists have not been allowed to enter or work with the collection, raising concerns about its safekeeping.

Some of that concern is that there will be plundering of the collection, not because of anything this Otomi group has done but because such things have happened in Mexico before.

mexico city squatter homes — Two examples of unoccupied buildings in Mexico City that migrant Otomis took as squatters.

But the main problem, according to Regino and several experts, is that the collection’s environment needs to be monitored at least daily for temperature and humidity. The occupying Otomi group has locked the specialized warehouse areas, put tape on the doors and more to keep any accusations of theft away.

And so no one has gone into these rooms for over a year. That means that no one knows the conditions of the pieces inside.

Regino’s alarm has caught the attention of folk art experts such as Sol Rubín de la Borbolla (son of the founder of MNAIP) and scholar Marta Turok. It’s also generated accusations hurled at President López Obrador of failing to protect the collection.

In the meantime, the Otomi and INPI have traded accusations of neglect. INPI blames any possible damage to the collection on being blocked from it, but the Otomis put the responsibility onto INPI for ignoring their demands and not paying the power bills, resulting in various outages.

The indigenous protesters also accuse Regino of “criminalizing” their rights to protest, with INPI making a formal complaint to the city for the taking over of the building.

The day after Regino’s interview with the newspaper Reforma, the Otomi group held a press conference to demand meetings with INPI directors and other experts about the collection. It is not yet known if there has been any progress on this front.

Although the fate for the four lots of land in Mexico City (Londres 7, Guanajuato 200, Calzada Ignacio Zaragoza 1434 and Zacatecas 74) were the spark for the takeover, the list of demands has grown.

They now include a halt to renovations in the Otomi hometown of Santiago Mexquititlán and a halt to the Maya Train project in Yucatán.

The standoff continues.

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.

Ex-federal police commander gets 10 years in US for cocaine trafficking

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MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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A former federal police commander who had collaborated closely with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other United States authorities was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a U.S. federal court on Wednesday for trafficking cocaine.

Iván Reyes Arzate, known as La Reina (the Queen), pleaded guilty to drug trafficking conspiracy in October. He will only serve a further eight years behind bars, having already spent two years in prison awaiting trial.

Reyes described himself to the judge as “a man who does not run away from his responsibilities.” The judge expressed surprise that the prosecutors didn’t demand a longer sentence.

However, prosecutors assured the judge that Reyes wasn’t a collaborating witness. Reyes worked in the same period as ex-security minister Genaro García Luna, who is accused of taking multimillion-dollar bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. García is in the U.S. awaiting trial, which is expected to begin in October.

Reyes’ lawyer, Mark DeMarco, argued that five years would be an appropriate sentence given the length of previous punishments handed down to corrupt public servants.

As the former commander of the police force’s sensitive investigative unit (SIU), Reyes collaborated with a criminal group called El Seguimiento 39, which trafficked cocaine and marijuana to the United States on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas.

In October, Reyes admitted that he gave information to traffickers in 2016 in exchange for bribes. As the SIU commander, he learned that the U.S. investigators were tracking El Seguimiento 39 and accepted a US $290,000 bribe from criminals for information.

In 2016, he provided information that led to the torture and murder of a DEA informant in Miami. Reyes was at the meeting where the murder was planned, and along with two other people charged US $3 million for the information.

United States Attorney Breon Peace said in October that Reyes, who turned himself into U.S. authorities in 2017, and was convicted and jailed on a separate conspiracy charge in 2018, “forged a deplorable alliance with drug traffickers and betrayed not only the people of Mexico he was sworn to protect but also his law enforcement partners who put themselves at risk to disrupt the [El Seguimiento 39] cartel.”

Ray Donovan, the DEA special agent in charge of the criminal investigation, said in October that Reyes offered criminals a perfect environment. “Reyes Arzate turned a blind eye toward drug traffickers, enabling criminal enterprises to operate with impunity, while serving as a commander in the Mexican Federal Police … DEA and our law enforcement partners worked tirelessly to isolate and identify this bad seed and bring him to justice,” he said.

With reports from Milenio and Infobae

More teachers protest, this time in Zacatecas over unpaid salaries

By

MND Staff

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February 9, 2022

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striking teachers in Zacatecas city — Striking teachers in Zacatecas city on Tuesday.

Striking teachers in Zacatecas took over government offices in the state capital on Wednesday one day after 5,000 members of the SNTE teachers union protested there.

The newspaper Sol de Zacatecas reported Wednesday morning that members of the SNTE took over government offices in the Zacatecas city Palace of Government building and took control of the headquarters of the Ministry of Finance and Education there. The newspaper also reported that teachers around the state had taken control of tax collection offices in several municipalities. On Wednesday afternoon, the state Finance Ministry announced on Twitter that only 19 of 58 remained open to the public.

The striking teachers are demanding a missing fortnightly salary payment for the second half of January and the payment of a bonus. One of the leaders of the protest, Óscar Castruita, the director of SNTE’s Section 58, said the money had been sent by federal authorities but then disappeared.

“Eight days have passed, and the second half of January has not been paid,” he said. “The unfortunate thing for everyone is that the single national compensation bonus has not been paid either. Where are the resources that the Treasury sent through the SEP [Education Ministry] to pay the bonus?”

Zacatecas Governor David Monreal said the state was in an economic crisis. He blamed his predecessors for not putting salaries under the direct responsibility of federal authorities and said the government hadn’t sent Zacatecas officials 500 million pesos (US $24 million) to cover the state’s debts.

SNTE Zacatecas leader Oscar Castruita — On February 1, strike leader Oscar Castruita called for Zacatecas city teachers to stop working. Students in conventional public schools in the city have been without classes since February 2.

The state is also facing an security crisis: at least 18 homicides were recorded there on Saturday, the highest daily count for murders for any state so far this year.

However, Zacatecas isn’t the only state where educators are dissenting. In Michoacán, members of the CNTE teachers union tried to block train tracks near Uruapan on February 1. They plan to march again in that city on Thursday.

Teachers have also been protesting in Hidalgo since January and are demanding 196 million pesos (US $9.6 million) in bonuses. They blocked streets and highways in Pachuca on February 3.

In Guerrero, students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college — the school attended by the 43 young men who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014 — attacked National Guardsmen with a semi-trailer at a toll booth on February 4.

In reaction to the Guerrero protests, President López Obrador called for non-violent demonstrations. “You have to fight for ideals, not for destruction. There should be no rebel without a cause,” he said at his Monday morning press conference.

With reports from Reforma, El Sol de Zamora and El Sol de Zacatecas