A group of people displaced from Jerez, Zacatecas, due to violence protested outside the National Palace on Thursday to demand federal government intervention that will allow them to return home.
Municipal authorities said in late February that more than 10,000 residents of 18 communities in Jerez had been displaced due to a turf war between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel.
A former resident of the small town of Palmas Altas told Televisa News that he and other displaced people traveled to Mexico City to ask for help from the federal government. Benjamín Carrillo said that it’s too dangerous for residents to return home without a permanent deployment of government security forces.
“It’s very dangerous, you can’t walk around in the communities,” he said.
“We’re asking our president for help, for him to approve the entry of soldiers into the mountains where we live,” said another of the displaced persons who wasn’t identified for security reasons.
Before the mass exodus from Jerez, a significant number of residents were abducted and never seen again. The bodies of some were found in government morgues, another protester told the newspaper Milenio.
“We have a lot of missing people, [it started] more than a year ago,” he said. “We support President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and that’s why we came because we have faith in him and that he will help us, offer security, put military bases, or something in the communities.”
The residents, who say state authorities have done nothing to help them, hoped to personally put their plea to the president, but were unable to secure a meeting.
At a press conference later on Thursday, residents said that their inability to return to their homes placed their peach harvest at risk and meant they can’t plant other crops at the correct time.
They also said that their homes have been looted and that their tractors and pickup trucks have been stolen, although some displaced people, accompanied by security forces, returned to their homes last month to collect the possessions they left behind when they escaped in haste early last year.
Zacatecas Governor David Monreal said earlier this month that he didn’t know when displaced Jerez residents would be able to go home.
“I wish I had the answer, not even [Barack] Obama has it,” he said, using a phrase popularized by López Obrador when the former U.S. president was in office.
“It’s a very tricky issue. If there was a specialist in the world, a wizard, a fortune-teller who could tell us, … we would have already hired him,” he said.
Carrillo, the former Palmas Altas resident, chastised Monreal for his declaration. “The governor told us that not even Obama knows … [when we can go home], it angers us; how is it possible for a leader to make these kinds of remarks?”
The anatomy of a book mailing the author made in 2016: the parcel spent 25 days in Mexico and four in the US before reaching its Oklahoma addressee.
Mailing a package with Mexico’s postal service is always an adventure. You walk into a Correos de México post office with a box properly addressed and ready to go, confident you will get in and out of there quickly.
“You want to mail this?” asks the post office clerk.
“Well, yes, of course!”
“Sorry, it’s not wrapped.”
“Not wrapped? It’s taped!”
The postal service’s main office in Mexico City, known as the Postal Palace, opened in 1907. Mail service here often seems stuck in that era.
“Tape is forbidden. You need to use wrapping paper and string.”
Six months later, you walk into the same post office with a box wrapped in brown paper only to discover that wrapping paper is out, string is no longer allowed and tape is in.
I once walked into a post office in Jamaica with a coconut, upon which I had stuck an address label and a stamp.
“Sorry, this coconut needs to be wrapped.“
“This coconut has already been wrapped by Mother Nature,” I replied, “No box could give better protection.”
In Jamaica, I actually managed to convince them to send my coconut au naturel, while in Mexico, I don’t think I’d have a chance. However, what I need to send by mail here is not coconuts but books.
The first few times I mailed off a book, it was in a sturdy brown envelope. No problems with tape, wrapping paper or string; off went my envelope without a hitch. Then one day, I walked into our local post office, ready to send another one.
“Disculpe, what is inside this envelope?”
“Un libro [a book].”
“Very sorry, señor. A book cannot be mailed in an envelope. You have to use a box.”
While I appreciated Correos’ concern about the fragility of books, I found I now had a problem.
A check of several shops suggested that nowhere in Guadalajara could I purchase a box close to the size of the book written by my wife Susy and me: Outdoors in Western Mexico. All the boxes were much, much too big.
As a result, I became a box maker, handcrafting custom-made boxes for people in far-flung places who, for some reason, wanted a book about hiking near Guadalajara — with the understanding, I should add, that the book would take at least a month to arrive … about as long as it would take a burro to carry it to the border, I calculated.
One day, something unbelievable happened. We received a book from a friend, sent from right here in Mexico — via Correos, mind you — and it was in an envelope! Off we went to the post office, envelope in hand, where we were told, “You are wrong. This book is not in an envelope, señor, it is in a sobre acolchado (bubble-wrap envelope). Con esos no hay problema [those are not a problem].”
“It makes perfect sense in Correo-speak,” I told Susy.
So ended my box-making career, happily, and our next book went to the post office in one of those “non-envelopes” lined with bubble wrap.
This time, however, we were told that the price of sending books had suddenly increased. “It will now cost you twice as much,” the friendly clerk told us, “but you will be happy to learn this new price includes tracking.”
The book had been sent on February 9, so the next day, I fired up the computer, went to correosdemexico.gob.mx and entered the tracking number.
The postal service’s reputation for slowness is the subject of several internet memes. This one says, ‘Me waiting for my package from Correos de México.’
“No information can be found about this item,” was the reply. At the right were options, including one for “online chat.”
“OK, let me see if I can chat about this,” I said to myself. So I filled in all the boxes on my screen with the requested information and pressed “send.”
Instantly, everything I typed vanished.
I tried again: same result. But then I noticed a tab saying, “I would like Correos to call me.”
Although I was by now exasperated, I was still plenty stubborn, so I typed in my phone number, and this time “send” worked.
Now comes the part you may not believe: exactly one minute after I pressed “send,” our phone rang, and, yes, it was an employee of Correos — it really was! — asking me to explain my problem. Once I got over the shock, I told my story.
“When did you send your package?” asked the Correos rep.
“Yesterday.”
“Paciencia, señor. It takes two days for the data to enter our system.”
“So I should check it tomorrow, Thursday?”
“Bueno … mm … better if you check it next Monday.”
I did and got the same old “no info” message, not only on Monday but also during that entire week and the one following. There was no sign that my package had ever been mailed. However, 13 days later, on February 22, the tracking site suddenly announced that my parcel existed and was now in Mexico City. Hallelujah!
Unfortunately, from then on, the website tracked the book lying around in Mexico City all the way until March 5, when it finally went off to the United States. Then, after only four days in the U.S., the book was delivered to the addressee in Oklahoma. Time for another hallelujah!
So my package took a full month to go from Jalisco to Oklahoma, and, thanks to tracking, I know that it spent 25 days of that month languishing south of the border.
Recently, the number of volumes in our series of books increased to three, just a wee bit too heavy and bulky to squeeze into an envelope, no matter how many bubbles it has. So we were forced to go back to using boxes … but should we use wrapping paper, string or tape?
We decided to go to the post office with all of the above, figuring we surely had every angle covered, but that’s when we ran into … the Abbreviation Sanction.
It all began when the Correos lady pointed to my name in the return address. It said, “J. Pint.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
Don’t blame this Mexico City postal employee for your slow delivery. She’s just an innocent letter carrier.
“My name,” I replied, puzzled.
“Your name is jota [the word for the letter J]?”
“No, it’s John.”
“A-ha!” she cried like a cat pouncing on a mouse: “¡Una abreviación! ¡Está prohibida!”
“Abbreviations are not allowed?”
“Of course not; you have to rewrite the whole thing again.”
All this struck me as odd, but the next time I took a package to the post office, I double-checked the return address to make sure that it had no abbreviations of any kind. This time, however, the Correos lady pointed at the label showing the addressee.
“What’s this: Charlotte, NC?”
“Charlotte, North Carolina, but NC is the U.S. Postal Service-approved, two-letter postal code, whose use is obligatory in the U.S.A.”
“Por favor! This is Mexico! How do I know NC is not Corea Del Norte [North Korea]?”
“Gulp!”
With that, the wily señorita had put me in my place. I certainly wouldn’t want my books going off to Charlotte, North Korea!
Addressing my next package, I tried to avoid abbreviations which, I soon realized, lurk everywhere, not unlike the masked superhero The Shadow. Some are so familiar that we hardly think of them as abbreviations: Mr., Dr., Jr., but, I am sure that not one of them would escape the eagle eye of Correos!
So, here’s the reality of mailing a package in 2022. Imagine you want to send a missive to the following address:
Mrs. R. Bumstead
1622 UNESCO St.
St. Pauls, NC 28384
USA
‘What am I supposed to do with these?’ If you use postal abbreviations, who knows where your package may up — maybe Korea, said one Correos de México clerk.
1622 United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization Street
Saint Pauls, North Carolina 28384
United States of America
In my mind’s eye, I can see that package being returned to sender by the U.S. Postal Service with the admonition: “Address too long! Please use abbreviations!”
However, paso a paso, step by step, I am learning all the requirements, prohibitions and various tricks involved in sending a package via Correos de México.
Yes, I know just about everything, except the name of that infinitely patient, slow-walking burro that apparently still carries our mail all the way up to the border.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, since 1985. His most recent book is Outdoors in Western Mexico, Volume Three. More of his writing can be found on his blog.
'Evolve and leave behind your meddlesome obsession disguised as good intentions,' said the letter penned by President López Obrador and colleagues.
The European Parliament (EP) condemned the harassment and killing of journalists and human rights defenders in Mexico Thursday, drawing an extraordinarily blunt reply from the president’s office that likened European lawmakers to sheep.
The federal government responded by accusing European lawmakers of “corruption, lies and hypocrisy” and describing them as misinformed sheep following the lead of its adversaries.
With an overwhelming majority of lawmakers voting in favor, the EP approved a resolution Thursday that said that attacks against journalists and human rights defenders, including environmental defenders and indigenous people and communities, are “dramatically rising” in Mexico.
It noted that Mexico has long been the most dangerous and deadliest place for journalists outside an official war zone, and that it was the most dangerous country in the world for journalists for a third consecutive year in 2021, according to Reporters Without Borders.
In that context, the EP called on authorities to investigate the murders of journalists and human rights defenders “in a prompt, thorough, independent and impartial manner.”
It also noted “with concern the systematic and tough critiques used by the highest authorities of the Mexican government against journalists and their work” and called on authorities to “refrain from issuing any communication which could stigmatize human rights defenders, journalists and media workers, exacerbate the atmosphere against them or distort their lines of investigation.”
The EP specifically called out President López Obrador, saying that he has “frequently used populist rhetoric in daily press briefings to denigrate and intimidate independent journalists, media owners and activists.”
“… The rhetoric of abuse and stigmatization generates an atmosphere of relentless unrest towards independent journalists,” it said.
It is the first time that the EP has passed such a resolution directed at a foreign government. United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also expressed concern about violence against journalists in Mexico, although he didn’t directly criticize the president.
The federal government responded with a statement issued by the president’s office late Thursday.
“To the members of the European Parliament, enough corruption, lies and hypocrisy,” it began, adding that it was regrettable that the lawmakers have “joined like sheep the reactionary and coup-mongering strategy of the corrupt group opposed to the fourth transformation,” the government’s self-anointed nickname.
“… Mexico has ceased being a land of conquest and, like few times in its history, libertarian principles of equality and democracy are being enforced. No one is repressed here, freedom of speech and the work of journalists is respected. The state doesn’t violate human rights as occurred in previous governments, when you, by the way, maintained complicit silence,” the government told the European parliamentarians.
“… If we were in the situation you describe in your pamphlet, our president wouldn’t be supported by 66% of citizens,” it said, citing a new opinion poll.
“… Inform yourselves and read the resolutions presented to you well before you cast your vote. And don’t forget that we’re no longer anybody’s colony. Mexico is a free, independent and sovereign country. Evolve, leave behind your meddlesome obsession disguised as good intentions. You’re not the world’s government,” the statement said.
López Obrador on Friday called the EP resolution “libelous” and “completely false,” and revealed that he, communications coordinator Jesús Ramírez and “other colleagues” wrote the response on their way to Tapachula, where the president’s Friday morning press conference was held.
He also said that arrests have been made in all but one of the murders of journalists this year, although he only acknowledged five.
On Thursday, López Obrador asserted that his government is protecting journalists before claiming that his adversaries are using the murders of such people to “weaken” his administration.
“We have special protection for journalists,” he said, referring to the government program designed to prevent violence against those deemed to be at risk.
“… Those being murdered are humble journalists doing their work in different parts of the country, the journalists at the service of the magnates don’t have any risk. … There is a campaign against the government I represent taking advantage of this regrettable situation; they’re looking for a way to weaken us,” López Obrador said.
Dylan's kidnapper, identified as Margarita N, will serve her sentence in the same prison where she has been in custody since August 2020. File photo
A woman who abducted a toddler in June 2020 from a San Cristóbal de las Casas open-air market has been sentenced to 37 years and six months in prison.
Dylan Esaú’s kidnapper, identified by authorities as Margarita N., was also ordered to pay a fine of 521,280 pesos (US $25,000), according to the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office.
She will serve her sentence in the same prison where she has been in custody since her arrest in August 2020.
The child was recovered on August 13, 2020, in a rural Chiapas community in the municipality of Cintalapa, where Margarita had been keeping him. Authorities found him in good health and gave him back to his mother.
Dylan was taken from the Mercosur market on June 30, 2020, after his mother, who worked there as a vendor, sent him with his five-year-old sister to meet their grandmother, who was working at another stall in the market.
Video surveillance caught two children leading Dylan, in foreground, away. One later told authorities that the kidnapper had paid them to do so.
Video surveillance showed two children approaching Dylan and luring him away to a woman later identified as Margarita.
When authorities tracked down the children, one of them, a young girl, told authorities that Margarita had said that Dylan was her son and paid them 200 pesos to bring him to her.
Authorities said they found evidence of Margarita hanging around the market for two days before the kidnapping.
Officials said that Margarita told police after her arrest that she had kidnapped the boy because she could not have children of her own and was hoping to convince her ex-husband to reunite with her.
In the weeks following his abduction, Dylan’s mother held several demonstrations in San Cristóbal and Tuxtla Gutiérrez and even petitioned President López Obrador, saying that the search for Dylan was going too slowly.
The investigation ended up exposing an unrelated child-trafficking ring in San Cristóbal and resulted in the rescue of 23 kidnapped children.
Dylan and his mother reunited in August 2020. Chiapas attorney general’s office
Only four airlines will initially use the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), which will open north of Mexico City later this month, and the only international flight will be to and from Caracas, Venezuela.
Volaris, VivaAerobús and Aeroméxico will operate four flights each per day between the army-built AIFA and other Mexican airports starting March 21, while Venezuelan state-owned airline Conviasa announced it will fly to and from Caracas once a week on Mondays, although at present its website is only accepting bookings for March 21.
The newspaper Milenio calculated that if all of the scheduled 86 flights per week to and from the AIFA are full, a total of just under 712,300 passengers will use the airport in the space of a year. That figure would represent just 30% of the goal of 2.4 million passengers in the first 12 months of operation.
The airport, built on an Air Force base some 50 kilometers north of the capital’s downtown in México state, is aiming to reach 5 million passengers in 2024, a goal it needs to attain to break even, but has so far been unable to lure any major foreign airlines.
Among the barriers to attracting them is that neither a rail link to the AIFA from central Mexico City nor new road infrastructure have been completed.
In addition, questions remain about the viability of the AIFA, the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) and the Toluca International Airport operating simultaneously due to their proximity to each other.
A new airspace plan has been drawn up, but experts cited by Milenio questioned whether it will be viable once flights to and from the AIFA increase. The then-head of the International Air Transport Association, Alexendre de Juniac, said in 2019 that the simultaneous operation of the airports will be “complex” and “challenging.”
Fernando Gómez Suárez, an air transport expert, noted that the AIFA was built to relieve congestion at the AICM – which the federal government declared last week had reached saturation point –but the relief, at least in the short term, will be minimal with just four airlines offering limited services at the new airport.
If the AIFA were to relieve 30% of the pressure on the AICM it would have to be used by 15 million passengers annually based on 2019 passenger numbers at the latter airport – 50.3 million – or almost 11 million based on numbers for 2021, during which just under 36 million people used the AICM.
The AIFA is slated to have a maximum capacity of 19.5 million passengers in it its initial 2022-32 phase of operations, meaning that a 30%, or even higher, easing of pressure on the AICM appears possible, but that doesn’t look likely until many more airlines shift operations to the new facility.
“There will be those who say that [new] airports start like this, slowly, but … the AIFA should be starting with a large volume of passengers because that’s what the infrastructure was built for,” Gómez said.
“The primary motive was not to have a new airport but to … [reduce pressure on] the AICM, which is showing signs … of saturation,” he said.
Last week’s saturation declaration might counteract airlines’ reluctance to use the AIFA because it could lead to a new, reduced cap being imposed on flight numbers at the AICM. But it is not known when such a limit might take effect.
The planned modernization and expansion of the Toluca airport, located about 60 kilometers southwest of central Mexico City, is also designed to ease pressure on the Mexico City airport, but it is unclear when that project might be completed.
Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Dramaretska has unsuccessfully sought defense aid from Mexico.
I am puzzled by the comments over non-action by Mexico regarding Ukraine. It is perfectly consistent with the bedrock of Mexico’s foreign policy, which was explained to me by a senior official in Mexico’s foreign office: “Don’t get involved.”
Sounds like George Washington in 1796.
Perhaps because Mexico has so often been coveted, from Spain to Japan, the policy is psychologically logical, but must change.
Mexico is the largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world, and with that comes an explicit responsibility. Whether the president of Mexico is an isolationist or not, non-alignment no longer cuts it. Mexico is capitalist and mostly Christian, so the Ukraine issue is clearcut.
The problem is President López Obrador, who reminds one of the circus act where the huge, heavily padded actor pedals a tiny bicycle faster and faster until he inevitably falls over, to laughter.
Sending a support mission to the new president of Peru, waiving environmental protections on the Maya Train, hugs not drugs are all fast pedaling that will end in tip-over.
It’s time for Mexico, with 120 million Spanish speakers, to step up to reality and assume a leadership role.
Carlisle Johnson writes from his home in Guatemala.
On Thursday afternoon, armed men intercepted and killed Aguililla Mayor César Valencia, seen here giving a thumbs-up at a May 2021 campaign event. Courtesy
The mayor of the notoriously violent municipality of Aguililla, Michoacán, was murdered in an armed attack Thursday, while five men were killed in a gunfight in Nuevo Parangaricutiro in the same state.
Mayor César Arturo Valencia Caballero was driving his pickup truck after attending a meeting with state and federal officials when his vehicle was intercepted by armed men, according to a report by the newspaper El Economista. The Green party mayor was shot three times, twice in the chest and once in the neck. Paramedics confirmed his death upon arrival at the scene of the crime.
The attack occurred at approximately 4:15 p.m. Thursday near a soccer field in Aguililla, a municipality in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Cárteles Unidos have been engaged in a long-running turf war. The army retook control of Aguililla and neighboring municipalities a month ago, but Thursday’s attack shows that violence remains a problem.
Michoacán Governor Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla condemned Valencia’s murder in a Twitter post and said he had given instructions for a thorough investigation into the crime.
In a subsequent media interview, he described Aguililla – where CJNG leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes was born – as a “very complicated” area, but added that authorities had not received any reports of a threat against the mayor, who took office last September.
State police, the National Guard and the army responded to a Thursday morning gunfight in and around the municipal palace of Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro. Twitter @FiscaliaMich
“We’re going to continue supporting Aguililla; the federal government and the state government are supporting a pacification plan in the area,” he said.
Local priest Gilberto Vergara warned of the risk of other mayors in the Tierra Caliente region being targeted in armed attacks. Criminal groups are no longer seen in the area due to the presence of the army, “but that doesn’t mean they’re not there,” he said.
Fifteen mayors in Michoacán and 93 across the country have been murdered since 2000, according to Rubén Salazar, director of risk analysis firm Etellekt.
Hours before Valencia was killed, a gunfight between presumed members of the CJNG and the Cárteles Unidos in and around the municipal palace of Nuevo Parangaricutiro, 100 kilometers northeast of Aguililla, left five men dead. The latter group fired weapons from armored vehicles colloquially known as monstruos (monsters).
The Michoacán Attorney General’s Office (FGE) reported the deaths and also said that 32 people in possession of firearms were arrested.
The FGE said in a statement that state police, the National Guard and the army responded to the confrontation, which began around 8:00 a.m. Thursday in the town of Nuevo San Juan Parangaricutiro, 14 kilometers west of Uruapan.
It said that a criminal group – it didn’t specify which – had taken control of the municipal palace before the clash occurred. Security forces seized a total of 43 firearms, 15 explosive devices and tactical equipment, the FGE said.
“Investigations are continuing in order to determine the circumstances in which the events occurred,” it said.
In Guadalajara, kidney disease patients and their supporters demanded access to immunosuppressants and other life-saving drugs.
People with kidney problems and kidney transplant recipients have faced a shortage of medications in the public health system for the past five years, and the situation appears to be getting worse.
According to patients’ testimonies cited by Radio Fórmula, there is a shortage of mycophenolic acid, sirolimus, tacrolimus and ciclosporin, which are all immunosuppressants used by kidney transplant recipients. There is also a shortage of some drugs used by people on dialysis, and the price of others is prohibitive in many cases.
Cero Desabasto (Zero Shortage), a group that monitors the availability of medications in the public health system and pressures the government to keep up the supply, reported that kidney transplant patients lodged 157 complaints about the lack of medications in the second quarter of last year. Shortages have been reported at public hospitals in Mexico City, México state and Jalisco.
Mexico City resident Paola Jaguey, whose body rejected a transplanted kidney because she couldn’t access the medications she needed, said that shortages began in 2017 but were limited to some hospitals.
“Now the shortage is at a national level,” Jaguey said.
Patients without functional kidneys have to undergo dialysis three times a week, a time-consuming procedure with significant health risks.
Ileana Durán — a 39-year-old, two-time transplant recipient who has had kidney problems since she was nine — also said that shortages began in 2017, before worsening the following year.
“This isn’t a new issue. We’ve been seeing it for five years. I never lacked anything before, maybe [the medications] were of a lower quality, but they were available. Today they’re not,” she said.
Durán, who created a network that helps kidney patients get the medications they need, said that the problem has been raised with lawmakers but no progress has been made. Kidney patients are “completely forgotten,” she said.
Protests against the shortages were scheduled to be held Thursday – World Kidney Day – in several states, including Jalisco, Puebla and Baja California.
At a protest outside the federal Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City, Paola Soria, 29, told the newspaper Reforma that her body rejected the kidney she received from her mother because she couldn’t get the drugs she needed from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), a major health care provider.
As a result of losing the kidney last year, Soria has to undergo dialysis at least three times a week. She said that the medication she needs to take to avoid anemia while on dialysis isn’t available at her local IMSS hospital on the south side of Mexico City and she thus has to pay for it out of her own pocket.
Daniel Pérez, another of the approximately 30 kidney patients at the Mexico City protest, said that he feared he would lose the kidney his father gave him two years ago due to the lack of immunosuppressants.
He said that the IMSS La Raza hospital in the capital was unable to fill his prescription for an immunosuppressant on six occasions last year. “It costs 4,000 pesos [US $190] a jar, and I need two jars a month,” Pérez said.
Children with cancer, whose parents have protested on countless occasions in recent years, have been the most visible victims of drug shortages, but HIV patients and adult cancer patients, among others, have also faced difficulties in getting the medications they need.
In 2020, the author rode the Chihuahua al Pacifico touring line, aka "El Chepe," and disembarked in El Fuerte, Sinaloa. chepe.mx
It was 2019 when I arrived at El Fuerte, Sinaloa, with the plan of taking El Chepe, the train more formally known as the Chihuahua al Pacifico, across the 650 kilometers that covers the Copper Canyon.
That night, I stayed in the heart of town at the Posada del Hidalgo, a hotel believed to be the site of the real El Zorro’s house. The porter guided me through cavernous, wood-paneled rooms adorned with ferns and yuccas and woven textiles.
El Zorro, whose name in Spanish means “the fox,” was based on Joaquín Murrieta, a forty-niner and charro (cowboy) whose existence is disputed. But some of the reported incidents of his life are emblematic of the times. He encountered prejudice and hostility in the miner camps; according to one story, his wife was raped by American miners who were jealous of her husband’s success.
Like his fictional counterpart, he was a celebrated vigilante but with an important difference: unlike the character, sanitized for American readers with “noble” European blood, Murrieta was a Mexican born on the border with Sinaloa in the Sonora desert.
At sunset, the hotel staged a Happy Hour featuring a fat, masked and caped Zorro who waved his arms around and recounted his acts of insurrection against the new colonialists, the Americans. Through a jungle of potted plants, I saw him in the courtyard as a mariachi band drowned out his act.
A version of the legendary masked vigilante El Zorro entertains guests at the Posada del Hidalgo hotel. Posada del Hidalgo
I bypassed the bar and headed for town.
Behind the smooth stones of the central plaza, an alley led to a smaller plaza dotted with kiosks and locals sitting on stools, lunching on fried chicken. I sat on an orange plastic chair at a yellow plastic table with a fan and a fly trap above me.
At the next table sat a young Mexican couple, Julio and María, who wanted to practice their English. They were surprised to see a solitary white woman traveling in Sinaloa but were glad to tell me about their country.
“The people are poor here,” Julio started, pulling grilled meat off the bones and licking his fingers. “The drug trade mostly affects the indigenous people.”
Julio was intelligent and articulate about a subject that occupies the thoughts of many Mexicans: drug trafficking and the correct response to it.
“There is no welfare system in Mexico, so what are people supposed to do? Drug cartels pay mountain farmers to grow crops, process the harvest, guard the estates. They provide jobs for young guys who want to feed their families.”
The Posada del Hidalgo in El Fuerte, Sinaloa. Posada del Hidalgo
Put like this, working for a narcotraficante seems a reasonable choice.
Both Julio and María had the sleek plumpness of young Mexicans on a low income. The folds of flesh amplified their inherent sweetness of nature. But Mexicans are suffering from an obesity epidemic and a diabetes emergency, affecting the poorest of the poor. In Mexico City, I had seen rich Mexicans sipping smoothies, toned and sleek and sophisticated. For the rest, Coca-Cola is often more available than fresh water.
But everyone talks about the evils of the cartels.
“We’ve had the finger pointed at us,” Julio continued. “But it’s not just us, it’s the U.S. Every time someone in New York buys a gram of cocaine, they are buying guns for the cartels. They want the drugs. They keep the business going.”
“Ordinary Mexicans are good people,” added María. “We have to live side by side with the cartels. We keep quiet.”
“Keep your head down and you will live longer,” said Julio, swigging from a bottle of Coca-Cola.
In El Fuerte, cartels make their presence clear: threatening signs have been put up in public, and in 2019, criminals fired upon El Fuerte’s police headquarters.
In other words, the code of silence was best not broken. You want to survive, you keep your mouth shut. I turned back to Julio and María, who happily consumed their liquid crack, and asked if they knew any narcos.
“You’ll see them in Suburbans and Hummers,” he said. “They drive 4x4s because they can go on any road and fit a lot of people. As a truck driver myself, if I go down roads where the narcos have settlements, I will see their security guards and they will stop me. They’ll ask what I’m doing, ask how long I’m going to be in the area. They’ll take down my license plate. Then they know that if they see me again, they can leave me alone. I’ve never had a problem with the narcos.”
As for the police, he explained that narcos are receiving weapons directly from the United States.
“High-capacity weapons. They have the money to buy them. Our local police are given an old gun with five bullets. ‘I’m not getting paid enough’ is their response to policing the cartels. ‘I want to go home tonight.’
“So when the government sends them to kill a narco, the narco asks, ‘Who sent you?’ The cops say, ‘Our captain.’ The narco says, ‘Well, OK. Let’s go kill him. And here’s some money for telling me.’”
Later, back in my vaulted chamber of the hotel, the night drew in, and the sinuous streets that circle the Posada del Hidalgo lit up with sound systems piled into the cabs of dusty pickups. Young people made a desultory cruise of the town.
Poppy farming in Sinaloa. Fernando Brito/mexicoviolence.org
Having realized that I’d lost my phone charger, I came out to buy a replacement at the local Oxxo, the spearhead of American-style consumerism. A huge container truck lumbered past in the distance, carrying its product to the furthest reaches of the state.
The darkness of the Mexican night was scintillating, and I could understand the youths’ quest for adventure. As I got further from the main plaza, a gleaming, white Toyota SUV 4×4 parked on the corner drew my attention. It was incongruously new and expensive, yet its occupants were inexpensively dressed indigenous men. They sat motionless, watching the other trucks coast past.
There was some force beneath their inertness that could explode at any moment. I felt conflicted as I always do in the presence of danger. Should I approach it, appease it, stroke it like a dog? Or walk away?
Together with Chihuahua and Durango, Sinaloa comprises the golden triangle of Mexican states where the narcotics trade has coalesced. Until the 1990s, the farmers here had been living above the subsistence level, selling their surplus corn to buy farm equipment, pickup trucks and materials for their houses.
Then, in 1994, came NAFTA, which put them in direct competition with U.S. corporate agriculture — followed by 10 years of drought.
The only new trucks in town are those owned by farmers of the only export crop left to grow.
Lilian Pizzichini is the English author of four works of biography and memoir, the latest being The Novotny Papers (2021). She has taught creative writing in prisons and universities, worked in journalism and is now writing the travel memoir Ancona/Zadar. Find out more about her on her Instagram page.
The anchor was uncovered by construction on the Progreso malecón.
An enormous anchor has been unearthed in Progreso, Yucatán, the state’s most important port city.
The anchor,which is three meters long, has an arm span of two meters and weighs approximately 1.5 tonnes,was first spotted Tuesday in the malecón (seaside promenade) area of Progreso, which is currently being upgraded. It was uncovered by heavy machinery after paving was removed.
A citizen reported the find to authorities and experts from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) cordoned off the site on Wednesday before removing the anchor.
The newspaper Diario de Yucatán reported that it’s believed that it belonged to a steamboat of the kind that used to arrive in Progreso some 100 years ago.
Progreso Mayor Julián Zacarías Curi said on Twitter that the anchor will be cleaned and restored by the relevant authorities in order to identify any engraving that might indicate its origin.
“The history our beloved port holds is invaluable,” he wrote, adding that the anchor was found during remodeling work on the malecón.
INAH Yucatán chief Eduardo López Calzada said that researchers will carry out tests to determine the approximate age of the anchor. He noted that it is an admiralty anchor, also known as a fisherman anchor.
Among other artifacts that have been unearthed during public works projects in Mexico are a gold ingot apparently lost by Spanish conquistadores when they were fleeing the pre-Hispanic city of Tenochtitlán in 1520, and relics related to a “new fire” ceremony carried out by the Mexica people every 52 years to mark the beginning of a new calendar cycle.
