Restaurant’s pandemic survival story was years in the making

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March 8, 2022

La Olla de la Pagoda — Campeche's La Olla de La Pagoda was a focal part of its community before the pandemic, and that helped it survive COVID's economic downturns. photos by Underhemp Balloo

The pandemic has taken its toll — on lives, on the economy, on businesses. But as society reemerges, it is starting to be clear that some businesses were better placed to survive than others.

In many cases, businesses that were a focal part of their community have managed to hold tight, and are now coming back stronger than ever. In Mexico’s south, in the heart of Campeche, is one such business: La Olla de la Pagoda.

Located just outside Campeche’s historic center, this restaurant at the heart of its community is leading the way in demonstrating how social and environmental responsibility can be amplified effectively and with humanity.

A veritable institution in the capital city, it opened in 1993 when Adriana Richaud and Carlos Lara moved here from the municipality of Hopolchen. Looking to save money to send their daughter to school, they began La Pagoda as a worker’s canteen, serving affordable, high-quality meals. Today their daughter Lol-Be Lara Richaud runs La Pagoda with an attention to service and detail rarely surpassed in the city.

We often speak in earnest about the value and significance of neighborhood restaurants to the community in which they exist, but it’s rare for them to achieve true synergy between establishment and community in the way that La Pagoda has.

La Olla de la Pagoda, a veritable institution in Campeche, was opened in 1993 by Adriana Richaud and Carlos Lara.

At no point was this more evident than at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which saw a freefall in the fortunes of the global hospitality industry.

Reflecting on the pandemic, Richaud says, “It was especially difficult when the [downtown] center was closed to the public, because people weren’t allowed to move around and no circulation meant no business for us, which naturally affected us a lot.”

However, demonstrating their continual adaptability and innovation, La Pagoda’s team bucked the negative trend and prevailed, switching to a delivery-only service in order to keep themselves afloat. It would turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Before they had even formally announced any changes, they were contacted by locals about deliveries, such was their value to their horde of regulars. And now these days, alongside the frequently packed tables again inside the building, a fleet of La Pagoda delivery drivers can be seen in barrios throughout the city at all times of day, zipping meals off to eagerly awaiting households.

“It was odd,” Richaud says. “We expected the pandemic to affect us as adversely as it did many other businesses in the city. In fact, though, what we saw was a real elevation in the number of people who wanted to try our food: the delivery was what got the business off the ground again.”

And La Pagoda is aware of and honors their role within the city: they are exemplary members of Campeche’s Empresa Verde (Green Business) program due to its disposable waste reduction techniques and the fact that the team separates for collection the waste it generates.

Their limes, lettuce heads and carrot peelings are either fed to animals or composted down to contribute quality soil for growing fruits and vegetables, which are then harvested and reinserted into the restaurant chain. Through such actions, La Pagoda contributes to a series of circular economies in which the end of one product’s life cycle can act as a springboard for the cycle of another.

On top of this, La Pagoda prioritizes sourcing ingredients from local producers: the vegetables in dishes such as its Pechuga a La Pagoda and its traditional Mayan poc chuc dish come from the local market. Their locally-sourced horchata de coco is creamy enough to rival any in the city.

“It is a rare privilege to be able to work alongside a business that — at its heart — is driven by values that they and the rest of the Empresa Verde scheme would like to see reflected at a societal level,” Yvette Griffiths of the Empresa Verde program says. “And to pair environmental and community responsibility with high-quality service and food that never fails to impress? That’s the golden formula.”

In an industry where recognition often bypasses establishments that quietly serve their community for years, La Pagoda is a rare gem of enduring success. And in a time of turmoil for the hospitality industry globally, the business is harnessing the power of community and family values to continue building on the strength of 30 years of experience.

If nothing else, maybe the pandemic has taught us how to shape real values-led businesses that will stand the test of time and crisis.

Shannon Collins is an environment correspondent at Ninth Wave Global, an environmental organization and think tank. She writes from Campeche.

11 bodies found in clandestine graves in Sonora

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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Investigators at the site of the hidden graves in Sonora.

Eleven bodies were discovered in clandestine graves in Sonora just a few kilometers from the United States border on Sunday and Monday.

Search collectives formed by the relatives of missing people led authorities to the graves on a stretch of desert near a garbage dump in San Luis Río Colorado, across the border from Yuma, Arizona.

Investigators used backhoes to uncover the remains of nine men and two women.

The search collectives were accompanied by security forces and investigators to recover the bodies, clothing and some personal items belonging to the victims.

The state Attorney General’s Office said the bodies were “badly decomposed” but would be identified through genetic and forensic tests. Relatives of missing people can have their DNA samples taken to compare them to the DNA of the victims.

There are more than 98,000 missing people in Mexico. Most are thought to have been killed by drug cartels and their bodies dumped into clandestine graves.

The government has struggled to identify even the bodies that have been found: some 52,000 await identification and Deputy Interior Minister Alejandro Encinas conceded in December that the government doesn’t have the capacity to guarantee the identification of bodies and ensure they are returned to their families.

The president of the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED), Carmen Rosa Villa Quintana, said in November that Mexico faced a “forensic crisis,” while the committee she leads concluded that an inadequate security strategy, poor investigations into missing person cases and impunity were key factors in the persistence of abductions in Mexico.

With reports from Tribuna de San Luis and AP

Continued use of clenbuterol to fatten cattle addressed by new law

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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A proposed law intended to clamp down on the use of a steroid-like synthetic drug to fatten cattle and other livestock has reached the federal Senate.

Giving clenbuterol to farm animals is illegal, but politicians and scientists agree that it’s an open secret that that drug is used in Mexico’s ranching sector, according to a report by the newspaper El País.

A bill that would reform the Animal Health Law to stipulate greater vigilance of the sector was presented in Congress in 2018 and has finally been passed to the upper house for revision. The outcome of the Senate’s consideration of the proposed law is unclear, El País said.

It seeks to mandate increased supervision of ranches, slaughterhouses and meat distribution centers via collaboration between the ministries of Agriculture and Health. The objective is to sanction anyone guilty of using clenbuterol to fatten farm animals as well as people or companies that have contact with such animals at other points along the supply chain.

Between 2002 and 2017, only four sentences were handed down for using the drug to promote weight gain in cattle, according to the Federal Judiciary Council.

Morena party Senator Nancy Sánchez, a leading proponent of the proposed law, told El País that a lot of meat contaminated with clenbuterol comes out of “clandestine abattoirs” in rural and suburban areas.

The drug is also given to pigs and poultry, she said, explaining that consumption of contaminated meat has a negative impact on human health.

Inadvertent consumption of clenbuterol is especially harmful to young and elderly asthma sufferers who use that drug to treat the disease because it can cause excessive amounts of it to build up in their bodies, El País said. The drug has also been linked to heart conditions and cancer.

Health problems associated with clenbuterol intoxication have been detected in Jalisco, which El País described as “one of Mexico’s cattle fattening epicenters.”

“The substance is deposited in the flesh of the animal but also in the liver and eyes, and all that is eaten in Mexico,” the newspaper said.

Mexican athletes including boxer Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez have blamed Mexican meat for drug tests they failed when clenbuterol was detected in their urine.

Athlete Guadalupe González tested positive for a steroid similar to clenbuterol. She claimed it was from eating Mexican meat.

Athletes including American football players were warned in 2016 to mind their meals while in Mexico due to the high risk of inadvertently ingesting beef and chicken containing the drug, while a 2017 study by the National Autonomous University detected clenbuterol in 29 of 433 samples of raw and cooked meat.

José Zorrilla, a livestock researcher at the University of Guadalajara, told El País that the detection of clenbuterol in meat is made difficult by the fact that similar substances, such as zilpaterol, are legally used to fatten animals.

“That really complicates the identification … of clenbuterol, which continues to be used because it’s effective and cheap,” he said.

“Zilpaterol and other substances that aren’t harmful for humans were authorized at the start of the century, but the companies that make it limited sales to ranchers,” Zorilla said.

“… Those who didn’t have access to it sought out alternatives such as clenbuterol. These substances have to be mixed well and controlled in animal feed and specialized teams are needed for that. The companies that sell it [zilpaterol] don’t want the product to be discredited – that’s why they didn’t provide access to all the ranchers, only those who have the technology and sufficient control.”

Zorrilla said the use of clenbuterol is less of a problem in the north of the country than other parts of Mexico.

“The preference for fatty meat in the north has avoided this [practice] to some extent and in those states there is a lot of export [of meat] to the United States, which must have its respective health record,” he said.

Enrique López, an official with the Mexican Association of Meat Producers, played down the clenbuterol problem, but nevertheless acknowledged that up to 30% of Mexican meat sold locally could be contaminated.

He expressed his support for greater vigilance of the industry, as the bill proposes.

“In a corral of 3,000 or 4,000 head [of cattle] they take samples from 60 or 70 animals,” López said, referring to random inspections by agriculture sanitation authority Senasica.

“If that’s not enough, do more inspections. We’ve always asked lawmakers for more funding for Senasica and for sanitary safety in general. And also for [health regulator] Cofepris, which is in charge of [health inspections at] municipal markets,” he said.

Sukarne, a Culiacán-based company that is Mexico’s largest meat exporter, suggested that greater vigilance of its suppliers was unnecessary. It told El País that its meat passes all established health controls, allowing it to ship to the United States, Canada, Asia and Africa.

“Mexican meat that comes from the formal industry doesn’t contain clenbuterol,” the company said in a statement.

With reports from El País

Police suspended after assaulting woman during arrest in San Miguel de Allende

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato police brutality victim — Estefanía Monserrat García Sánchez, 18, filed a complaint against San Miguel de Allende's municipal police on Monday.

At least one male and three female police officers who were filmed assaulting various people on Sunday in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, during an arrest — including that of an 18-year-old woman who suffered visibly serious injuries before being taken into custody — have been suspended.

A phone camera video filmed by spectators at the arrest shows one of the officers arresting a woman on the ground while a group of about 10 unarmed people who appear to be on a night out stand close by, watching, filming and at times trying to intervene.

At one point, a brawl breaks out, and at least three officers can be seen beating people with batons and kicking them. The woman on the ground is violently grabbed by her hair.

“They’re not doing anything to them … asshole police,” people can be heard shouting in the video.

It’s not clear how many people were arrested in the incident. But one of the alleged victims, Estefanía Monserrat García Sánchez, 18, presented a complaint against the officers in a wheelchair on Monday.

Watch this video on YouTube

Spectators can be heard in the video telling the officers that they are being filmed.

Her brother, Andrik García Sánchez, told the newspaper La Jornada that his sister was hit in the head, face, throat and mouth.

“She can’t eat solid foods. We have to blend food because they damaged the inside of her mouth and she uses braces.” He also said that police attacked his sister brutally enough for her to lose consciousness and wake up in a patrol car, spitting up blood, for which he says an officer in the car yelled at her, telling her that she was staining the vehicle.

Estefanía later had to pay 500 pesos (US $23) to be released from custody.

The incident began soon after the woman had been in a cantina that evening in the city’s historic center, along with eight friends. Security personnel had thrown everyone out because there were underage customers inside. The police were called to the area due to reports that people were vandalizing cars.

Mayor Mauricio Trejo Pureco said he was committed to securing justice and that the officers had been suspended.

“… even if the arrest was justified, the way in which these citizens were detained is totally reprehensible. They violated all the rules and protocols regarding the use of force,” he added.

An independent human rights prosecutor in Guanajuato, PRODHEG, opened a complaint against the municipal police department, in which Estefanía participated.

PRODHEG’s lead attorney, Vicente Esqueda Méndez, said the victims’ human rights could have been violated.

With reports from El Queretano and La Jornada

Competition commission urges rejection of electrical reform

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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cfe — The reform would give the Federal Electricity Commission 54% of the market.

The Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) has recommended against the approval of the federal government’s proposed electricity reform, which would guarantee 54% of the market to the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

Cofece said in a statement Monday that it had submitted an opinion to Congress advising it not to pass the constitutional bill, which requires the support of two-thirds of lawmakers to become law.

The opinion “reiterates the importance of maintaining and strengthening an electricity model based on competition, accompanied by the regulation elements necessary to safeguard the public interest.”

The proposed reform, sent to Congress last October, would also get rid of the independent National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) and the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE).

Cofece warned that the bill “unequivocally” renounces the current electricity generation and supply model, seeking to replace it with an “industrial model” that is “vertically integrated and operated by an unregulated state monopoly.”

Such models have been abandoned in many countries due to their “inefficiency, inability to meet demand, high cost and negative impact on public finances,” it said.

The competition watchdog also warned that the model proposed would establish a monopoly in the entire electricity sector value chain; create a monopsony in the purchase of electricity in which the CFE is the sole buyer; improperly transfer regulatory and public policy responsibilities to the CFE; and eliminate mechanisms designed to achieve “fundamental objectives,” such as supervision of the reliability of the electricity system, improvement of service and promotion of investment in more efficient and cleaner generation technologies.

If passed, the reform would severely limit the participation of private, renewable companies that were able to enter Mexico’s electricity market due to the previous government’s energy reform.

Cofece added that the bill doesn’t outline mechanisms to ensure that electricity generated and dispatched in Mexico both by the CFE and private companies “is the least costly.”

“A change such as that proposed would delay the exit from the market of older, polluting and inefficient power plants,” the commission said.

“It would also discourage the installation of new projects that could operate with technologies that are more efficient and friendlier to the environment,” it said.

“… The proposed paradigm shift would cause an increase in costs along the value chain of the electricity industry, which would cause an increase in rates that would harm the wellbeing of consumers and the competitive position of companies,” Cofece said.

“… In summary, the proposal would compromise the efficient functioning of the sector in general and its ability to meet present and future needs. That would negatively affect both consumers and companies, the country’s competitiveness and … economic growth.”

The competition commission is the latest in a long list of critics of the proposed electricity reform, which is expected to be put to a vote sometime later this year. Among the others are the United States government, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Mexico, the European Union’s ambassador to Mexico and the Mexican Solar Energy Association.

Mexico News Daily

Tijuana journalist believed killed over stories about drug traffickers

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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Baja California Attorney General Iván Carpio Sánchez said Martínez’s attackers suspected he wrote stories about CJNG activity in the newspaper *Zeta*.

Authorities are saying a murdered photojournalist in Tijuana was targeted because his killers suspected he’d written stories about narco leaders in his own neighborhood.

Margarito Martínez, who was shot three times in front of his Sánchez Taboada neighborhood house on January 17, had recently been put under protection because he’d received threats from a former police officer, the newspaper El Universal reported at the time.

Baja California Attorney General Iván Carpio Sánchez said Martínez’s attackers suspected him of publishing stories in the newspaper Zeta about the activities of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) in Sánchez Taboada.

“They thought that Margarito Martínez could perhaps be the person behind certain publications, in various portals and media,” Carpio said. “He was not the one who wrote for publication; his activities were as a photojournalist.”

He added that the murderers suspected Martínez of leaking information on underground websites.

murdered Mexican photojournalist Margarito Martínez — Martínez’s killers also believed that the photojournalist maintained underground websites that reported on narco activity, Carpio said.

“They thought he was responsible for managing various clandestine information pages … Recently, we have seen incognito authors leak information on the identities and work of people who live in the criminal world,” Carpio said.

He named the alleged orchestrator of the murder as Christian Adán “N” and said the suspect had paid 40,000 pesos (US $1,870) to José Heriberto “N” and Manuel “N” to carry out the killing. Carpio added that the Baja California Attorney General’s Office had obtained a video of the killing filmed by José Heriberto “N.”

Six journalists have been murdered this year, a list that doesn’t include the killings of a former television host in Mexico City and the founder of a now-defunct Tijuana news portal. Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism, according to the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.

Resolution for the murder of any journalist or activist in Mexico remains unlikely: impunity reigns in more than 90% of their murder cases, Deputy Human Rights Minister Alejandro Encinas said in December. In cases where the culprits were identified, almost half were local officials, he said.

With reports from Milenio

Court ruling halts 3 sections of Maya Train on environmental grounds

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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Maya Train planned route — The planned route of the Maya Train. Fonatur

A federal court has suspended environmental permits issued for the first three sections of the Maya Train railroad, ruling that all work approved by that authorization must stop.

The decision, which the newspaper Reforma reported as “unappealable,” affects the sections between Palenque, Chiapas, and Escárcega, Campeche; Escárcega and Calkiní, Campeche; and Calkiní and Izamal, Yucatán.

Three judges voted unanimously to suspend Environment Ministry (Semarnat) permits granted to the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) that allowed the alteration of 800 hectares of forest land across 25 municipalities in Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatán. They didn’t specify the length of the suspension.

Fonatur is managing the construction of the US $8 billion, 1,500-kilometer railroad, one of the government’s most important infrastructure projects.

The court’s ruling, which was handed down two weeks ago but not made public at the time, came in response to a legal challenge filed by residents of the four states through which sections 1, 2 and 3 are slated to run.

“The suspension entails the cessation of all work derived from” the Semarnat authorization “that involves deforestation or places native animals and vegetation at risk,” its decision said.

“The responsible authority [Semarnat] must take appropriate measures so that … [Fonatur] stops” such work on sections 1, 2 and 3 of the railroad, the court said.

Fonatur awarded four contracts worth 48.95 billion pesos (US $2.3 billion) to build the sections. A consortium controlled by billionaire businessman Carlos Slim secured one of the contracts.

Other courts have issued injunctions against the Maya Train project, but the government has challenged them and succeeded in having them revoked. It says the railroad is on schedule to begin operations in late 2023.

Given that the latest ruling is not open to appeal, it is unclear how the government will seek to overcome it so that work on the first three sections of the project can proceed in a timely fashion. Fonatur has asked the federal court for clarification on whether all work, or just some of it, must stop, Reforma reported.

The government is also facing opposition to work on section 5 of the railroad, which will run between Cancún and Tulum in Quintana Roo. A protest was held Sunday at a site near Playa del Carmen where trees have been cut down to make way for the tracks, while a petition against the project on change.org had attracted almost 69,000 signatures by early Tuesday afternoon.

A group of citizens and civil society organizations has filed complaints against Fonatur with environmental protection agency Profepa over environmental damage caused by work on section 5, which allegedly occurred before an environmental impact study had been completed.

“Profepa is asked to exercise its actions of inspection and verification in the affected area, due to the clearing of Mayan forest with heavy machinery,” the group said in a statement.

“Said inspections and verifications must demonstrate the existence of environmental impact authorizations and change of land use authorizations … issued by Semarnat. … We emphasize that the Maya Train mega-project requires studies and authorizations before … construction,” it said, adding that in their absence, Profepa should suspend work on section 5.

With reports from Reforma

After fleeing war in Ukraine, Mexico not an attractive option

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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repatriation flight to Mexico from Ukraine — The repatriation flight that brought Omar Aviña and Iryna Volkova to Mexico on Friday. Photos by SRE

A couple evacuated from Ukraine by the Mexican government said that Mexico isn’t an option as a place to settle due to concerns about violence.

Omar Aviña, 32, from Jacona, Michoacán, and his Ukrainian fiancée, Iryna Volkova, 26, were in Kyiv when the Russian invasion began. They spent the first night in Iryna’s apartment, but when the windows were shaken by explosions, they sought refuge in the subway, where they stayed for six days.

“We feared for our lives. You could hear the planes flying low and the surrounding explosions, and everything was shaking — the ground, the windows. We heard … the sirens, which are still stuck in my mind,” Aviña said.

The couple fled Kyiv on Wednesday morning on a bus organized by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry and crossed the border to Romania on Thursday.

In Romania, they were evacuated from Bucharest with 79 other people on a Mexican Air Force plane and arrived in Mexico on Friday. Volkova was only able to leave with basic items such as her laptop, documents and some clothes, she said.

evacuees to Mexico from Ukraine — At left and center, Iyrna Volkova and Omar Aviña.

She said that her family was still in danger.

“I’m very worried for my family. They live in the south of Ukraine in a small city that was bombed yesterday [Friday] … My heart isn’t at peace … but I know that they will remain strong and will fight, and I will help them in any way I can,” she said.

However, speaking while on the evacuation flight, Aviña said that despite escaping immediate danger, living in Mexico wasn’t an option for the couple.

“Probably we’re going to move … We’re not going to live in Mexico or Ukraine, that’s for sure. We have to establish ourselves properly somewhere. We’re going to see whether [that will be] in the United States, Switzerland or China because we are planning to have children,” he said.

The couple met while studying in China in 2020 but left due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While in Kyiv, Aviña saw news from Mexico of as many as 17 people killed at a wake in San José de Gracia, Michoacán, he said. “It makes you think a lot. They shot, like, 17 … Zamora and Jacona [other municipalities in Michoacán] are the same … The violence is heavy there; the situation is complicated,” he said.

Last week in Jacona, a body was found buried under stones, a former soldier and his partner were shot in a taxi and a young man was killed in cold blood while eating at a food stand, the news site Debate reported.

With reports from Debate

War in Ukraine and inflation seen as hindrances to tourism this year

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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A Moscow-Cancún Aeroflot flight is baptized last November to mark the resumption of the route after a seven-year hiatus. The war in Ukraine will likely mean fewer flights to Mexico from Russia.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and high inflation will have an adverse impact on tourism in Mexico this year, according to the head of an industry group and an academic.

Braulio Arsuaga, president of the National Tourism Business Council (CNET), said Monday that Mexico’s tourism sector is already feeling the effects of the conflict in Ukraine and high inflation, which has increased the cost of holiday packages and air travel, among other tourism-related expenses.

Noting that tourism activity has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic-induced downturn, Arsuaga said that 2021 was a “complicated” year for the sector and 2022 is also shaping up to be “very difficult.”

“When a lot of [tourism] companies did their forecasts we didn’t have the omicron variant or a war,” the CNET chief said during a virtual press conference.

Francisco Madrid, director of the Center of Research and Tourism Competitiveness at Anáhuac University in Mexico City, told the same press conference that the war in Ukraine “obviously” has the potential to affect tourism in Mexico.

Tourism industry leader Arsuaga: last year was ‘complicated.’ This year is shaping up to be ‘very difficult.’

“The tourist flows from Russia, about 65,000 people last year, and Ukraine, 20,000 people, are expected to disappear,” he said, although President López Obrador said late last month that Russian airlines will not be prohibited from flying into the country.

Madrid also raised concerns about the impact of inflation on tourism, and asserted that a full recovery from the downturn is still some way off, noting that spending by international tourists in 2021 – US $19.8 billion – was 19.4% below 2019 levels.

Some 31.8 million international tourists came to Mexico last year, a 31.2% increase compared to 2020, but the figure was still 29.2% below 2019 visitor numbers. Former Tourism Minister Enrique de la Madrid said in 2018 that international tourist numbers could reach 50 million by 2021, but that prediction obviously didn’t anticipate the global spread of the coronavirus from early 2020.

Asked whether the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) – which will open north of Mexico City later this month – will aid the tourism recovery, Arsuaga suggested it wouldn’t, at least in the short term.

“The AIFA is a very small airport with a view to growing,” he said, noting that only three airlines – Aeroméxico, Volaris and VivaAerobús – have announced they will use the airport for a “few flights.”

With reports from El Economista and El Financiero

AMLO gets up at 5 am every day to prevent violence against women

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MND Staff

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March 8, 2022

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On the eve of International Women’s Day, President López Obrador declared that he gets up at 5:00 a.m. every day to prevent violence against women.

“We are against violence and how could we not be against violence against women,” he said at his morning press conference Monday.

“Of course we are; we’re fighting for that every day. That’s why I get up at five in the morning every day – so that there’s no violence, to protect life, because the most important human right is the right to life,” López Obrador said.

The president and members of his cabinet attend a security meeting at 6:00 a.m. weekdays to discuss the latest incidents of violence and the government’s security strategy.

Femicides – the killing of women and girls on account of their gender – increased 2.7% last year to 1,004, while thousands of other women were victims of murder, rape and domestic violence.

The government has been criticized for not doing enough to combat gender-based violence, but López Obrador told reporters that people who claim that his administration is anti-women are guilty of distorting the truth.

“It’s a vile manipulation. By who? By those who don’t agree with the process of transformation we’re carrying out,” he said.

AMLO, as the president is best known, has been accused of having a woman problem, partially because he maintained his support for a would-be Morena party gubernatorial candidate in Guerrero despite that person – Félix Salgado – facing accusations of rape.

He was also criticized by women’s groups and others for erecting a three-meter high metal barrier around the National Palace in anticipation of last year’s International Women’s Day march in Mexico City. Critics dubbed the barrier “a macho wall of shame,” but the government insisted it was a “wall of peace” to prevent confrontation and damage to historic monuments.

López Obrador said Monday that the government has information that some groups intend to commit acts of vandalism and violence during Tuesday’s International Women’s Day march in the capital.

“I call on women who are going to protest tomorrow … to not resort to provocations and … violence. … We have information that they’re preparing … [to use] sledgehammers, blowtorches and Molotov cocktails,” he said.

“… That’s not defending women, it’s not even feminism. It’s a completely conservative, reactionary stance against us, against the policy of transformation,” López Obrador said.

There are “groups with other political purposes” that plan to participate in the march alongside feminist groups that are “legitimately fighting in favor of women,” he said.

“They’re seeking to confront us; they would like to vandalize the [National] Palace and the cathedral to project the image of a Mexico in flames because they don’t agree with the transformation we’re carrying out.”

This year’s women’s march in Mexico City is scheduled to depart the Angel of Independence monument at 4:30 p.m. and conclude in the zócalo, the central square adjacent to the National Palace and Metropolitan Cathedral. Marches will also be held in many other cities across the country, including Guadalajara, Monterrey and Puebla.

With reports from El Universal