Lines of military vehicles rode into Acapulco, Guerrero, on Friday as part of an effort to bolster security in that area. Carlos Alberto Carbajal
The Mexican military is incapable of planning and executing special forces operations with the United States army, according to a leaked document.
Neither the Mexican army nor the navy has that capacity, the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena), the Ministry of the Navy (Semar) and the United States Northern Command said in an analysis prepared in January.
The report was stolen from Sedena’s IT system by the Guacamaya hacking group and obtained and reviewed by the media outlet Latinus.
The Mexican armed forces lack the “codified roles and responsibilities” needed to carry out joint tasks with the U.S. military, the report said.
The document also said that there is limited capacity for Mexican and U.S. special forces to communicate with each other in a secure way during operations and training exercises.
The Northern Command, one of 11 unified combatant commands of the United States military, is concerned about the limitations of the Mexican army and navy and believes that their members need immediate training to raise their standards to U.S. levels, the report indicated.
The document paints a different picture to that presented by Mexican and U.S. officials at high-level security talks in Washington last week. Officials including Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sang the praises of the bilateral security collaboration since a new security pact formally called the Bicentennial Framework took effect late last year, although they did acknowledge that challenges remain and more needs to be done to enhance the partnership.
The leaked document outlines solutions and proposals so that “level 1” units of the Mexican army and navy have the capacity to successfully plan and execute joint special forces missions by 2029, Latinus said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard speaks at the high-level security talks in Washington last week. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores
Among the capacities Mexican special forces are slated to develop is the ability to “neutralize weapons of mass destruction.”
Another leaked document among the six terabytes of data stolen from Sedena servers indicates that the United States wants Mexico’s military to strengthen its cybersecurity in order to better detect and respond to such threats.
“By the year 2028, Sedena and Semar will have advanced capacities … to monitor, detect, respond to and recover from cyber-threats,” states a document jointly prepared by the Mexican and U.S. military.
If the Mexican military had such capacities now, the massive data theft committed by “hacktivist” group Guacamaya could have perhaps been prevented.
President López Obrador has downplayed the seriousness of the security breach, asserting that he didn’t expect any negative consequences from it.
However, the hacking incident itself is a major embarrassment for the government, and security analyst Alejandro Hope warned in an opinion article that “it’s possible that there is highly sensitive information among the extracted documents – national security information that isn’t and shouldn’t be in the public domain.”
The apparent planning and operational deficiencies of the Mexican military would appear to fit into that category.
President Lopez Obrador said at his daily press conference on Monday ANDREA MURCIA /CUARTOSCURO.COM
The construction of a stretch of the Maya Train railroad in Quintana Roo and Campeche is in doubt due to the opposition of local landowners, President López Obrador said Monday.
The president told his morning news conference that the section between Chetumal, Quintana Roo, and Xpujil, Campeche, might not be built if an agreement can’t be reached with the leaders of five ejidos, or communal parcels of land.
“Along the stretch from Xpujil to Chetumal, there are five ejidos where the leaders, not the campesinos … don’t want the train to pass,” López Obrador said.
“Or they do want it, but they’re conditioning [construction of the railroad] on the Ministry of Communications and Transportation paying them compensation from when the Escárcega-Chetumal highway was built,” he said.
A map of the under-construction Maya Train. The section being opposed is located along the beige horizontal line running across the bottom half of the map.
The president raised doubts about their claim because the highway was built in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“It’s a claim from more than 50 years ago, half a century ago. We’ll have to see whether the ejidos were already established then,” López Obrador said. “We have to see whether [the ejido leaders] are right.”
López Obrador indicated that the government wouldn’t meet the ejido leaders’ demand if it determined their claim wasn’t valid.
“The maxim that a problem that is resolved with money isn’t a problem used to prevail … because the budget wasn’t considered money of the people, it was thought to be the government’s money. No, the budget is the people’s money, and it’s sacred money that has to be looked after,” Lopez Obrador said. “ None of this ‘you’re not going through here if you don’t give me this much,’ that can’t be done, that’s corruption, let it be clear.”
López Obrador questioned the morality of the ejido leaders, asserting that they’re attempting to personally profit from the situation.
“It’s not … our adversaries [causing the problem] here; it’s another kind of thing. It’s part of the entrenched corruption, and we have to put an end to it, we have to banish corruption,” he said.
López Obrador also said that if compensation is owed due to the construction of the highway it will be paid accordingly but not to the ejido leaders. The money could be used to make improvements to the five parcels of land in question, he said.
If an agreement isn’t reached and blockades that impede construction are erected, there will be no railroad between Xpujil and Chetumal, López Obrador bluntly declared.
If an agreement isn’t reached and blockades impeding construction are erected by opponents, there will be no railroad between Xpujil and Chetumal, López Obrador said.
“It will be known who was responsible for stopping the project; it’s as clear as that,” he added.
Earlier in his press conference, the president noted that the government has overcome other challenges to the US $10 billion railroad, which will link cities and towns in five southeastern states and is slated to open in 2023.
“We already freed up about 1,000 kilomters, it’s known as right of way,” López Obrador said.
“We have already freed up Palenque, Escárcega, Campeche, Mérida, Cancún, Tulum – we already resolved [problems with] the most difficult stretch, the Cancún-Tulum stretch, where they wanted to strike us out because there are a lot of interests,” he said.
There was – and is – significant opposition to the Cancún-Tulum stretch of the railroad because the government’s decision earlier this year to reroute it means that large swaths of Mayan jungle have to be cut down.
Opponents of the project – dubbed pseudoenvironmentalists by the president – also say that the the tourism, commuter and freight railroad’s construction and operation poses risks to wildlife, the Yucatán Peninsula’s subterranean waterways and the area’s many archaeological assets.
September 19 was the busiest day, with 146,837 passengers passing through the airport’s two terminals despite an earthquake that day.
Passenger numbers are almost back to prepandemic levels at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM). Galo Cañas Rodríguez/Cuartoscuro
More than 3.86 million passengers used the airport last month, a figure just 1.2% lower than in September 2019, the lowest negative differential recorded this year.
A total of 29,935 planes arrived at and departed from the airport, an average of 129 passengers on each flight.
AICM reported that the three busiest routes in September were those between the capital and the cities of Cancún, Guadalajara and Mérida.
It said that Monday September 19 was the busiest day, with 146,837 passengers passing through the airport’s two terminals. A powerful earthquake occurred the same day, but it didn’t affect the airport’s operations.
With over 3.8 million passengers last month, the cumulative total for 2022 rose to just over 33.71 million. That figure is 9.6% lower than that recorded in 2019’s first nine months.
In 2019, a record 50.3 million passengers used AICM.
Twenty-three Mexican and foreign airlines use the Mexico City airport, according to information on the AICM website. Among the international carriers are Air Canada, American Airlines, Colombia’s Avianca, Japan’s ANA and British Airways.
The federal government declared earlier this year that both AICM terminals have reached saturation point.
The government opened a new airport – the Felipe Ángeles International Airport – north of the capital in México state in March, but the number of passengers and airlines currently using the facility is dwarfed by the number using AICM.
Medical students enrolled at the UBBJ Tlalpan campus protested in downtown Mexico City, with signs asking the government to provide a physical campus location and teachers for the courses. Medicoblastos / Facebook
President López Obrador frequently insists that citizens have the right to protest, but one high-ranking government official last week advised disgruntled students to cease the public airing of their grievances and warned them they could become victims of “scandals” they create themselves.
Students who attend Benito Juárez García Universities for Well-Being (UBBJ), which were opened by the current government, have protested in recent months due to a range of shortcomings at their campuses including a lack of teachers and classrooms, and poor quality infrastructure.
Protests have been held in several states including Yucatán, Guerrero, Baja California and Oaxaca.
In Mexico City, students who study medicine at the UBBJ Tlalpan campus on the capital’s southside took their complaints to the National Palace last Thursday, where they denounced the government’s inattention to their plight.
At a protest outside the seat of executive power, students held up placards with messages such as, “[studying] Medicine online isn’t medicine,” “We demand quality facilities” and “At UBBJ we’re surviving, not learning.”
The students say that some of their required classes haven’t been offered due to a lack of teaching staff and that the building that houses the Tlalpan UBBJ campus – a former kindergarten school – is inadequate and was damaged in last month’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake.
Their ire was chiefly directed at Raquel Sosa Elízaga, a seasoned academic who has been head of the government’s well-being universities since the first campuses were established in 2019.
Sosa agreed to meet with the students but showed little sympathy toward them during an address at the UBBJ Tlalpan campus last Friday.
The UBBJ system director, Raquel Sosa Elízaga. Video screenshot
“Don’t be idle, don’t just go out to the street and protest, you’re better off doing useful work,” she told the students.
“… I’m not afraid of you going out to protest because I lived many years of my life doing that,” Sosa said before advising students to have more “discretion” about their grievances.
“Who would like the medical history of their family to be [publicly] exhibited? Raise your hand. Who wants a person’s illness to be published in the newspaper Reforma? … Would you allow your family’s clinical history to be published in Reforma? Yes?
The students responded in the affirmative to the third question, with one woman saying she would agree to the publication of personal medical information if it served the greater good.
A professor reportedly retorted that students took their complaints about the Tlalpan campus to the media because “you didn’t do your job.”
Continuing with her analogy, Sosa “invited” students to “expose the clinical history” of their family members in interviews with the media, but warned them not to subsequently take privacy violation complaints to the government.
“He or she who causes scandals will be a victim of them,” she charged.
The students appeared unintimidated by the unspecified threat, and spoke openly of their dissatisfaction with their experience at the government-run university when given the opportunity to address Sosa.
Activists shared video from Thursday’s protest on Twitter.
“I’m Arturo, a first year student. I’m angry because of the six subjects we should be taking, we’re only studying two and they’re online,” the budding doctor said. “Why? Because there are no teachers.”
Arturo asserted that medicine students were destined to become “unprepared doctors” if the university didn’t address the situation.
“We’ll probably treat you in the future. Would you like an unprepared doctor to be treating you?”
A female student assured Sosa that their protests are not politically motivated and demanded solutions.
“We’re not acting as a political party and we’re not lazy. We didn’t go to the [National] Palace because we don’t have anything to do. We don’t see willingness from the authorities to provide the professors that are needed or adequate facilities. … We need solutions. That’s why we .. [took our complaints] to the media. If there was a response, we wouldn’t have reached that point,” she said.
A man wrapped in a Venezuelan flag waits in Mexico City’s Central del Norte bus station, where many Venezuelan and Haitian migrants are currently seeking transit to Ciudad Juárez and Tamaulipas, en route to the U.S. Moisés Pablo Nava / Cuartoscuro.com
The United States has begun expelling Venezuelan migrants to Mexico after the neighboring countries reached a new immigration agreement last week.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)announced Oct. 12 that “effective immediately, Venezuelans who enter the United States between ports of entry, without authorization, will be returned to Mexico.”
The Associated Press and Reuters reported that expulsions of Venezuelans have already begun.
The DHS said in a statement that the “joint actions with Mexico” were designed to “reduce the number of people arriving at our southwest border and create a more orderly and safe process for people fleeing the humanitarian and economic crisis in Venezuela.”
The announcement of the deal came less than a month before midterm elections in the United States at which the Democratic Party – portrayed as being weak on immigration by its rivals – runs the risk of losing control of Congress.
The DHS said Oct. 12 that “almost four times as many Venezuelans as last year attempted to cross our southern border, placing their lives in the hands of ruthless smuggling organizations.”
“…The actions the United States and Mexico are announcing today are intended to address the most acute irregular migration and help ease pressure on the cities and states receiving these individuals,” the department said.
The DHS said that the U.S. government’s “comprehensive effort to reduce the irregular migration of Venezuelans also includes a new process to lawfully and safely bring up to 24,000 qualifying Venezuelans into the United States.”
A man recently expelled from the U.S. stands on the Mexican side of Tijuana’s El Chaparral border crossing with his phone and a bag of belongings, on Saturday. Omar Martínez Noyola / Cuartoscuro.com
“The United States will not implement this process without Mexico keeping in place its independent but parallel effort to accept the return of Venezuelan nationals who bypass this process and attempt to enter irregularly.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said that “these actions make clear that there is a lawful and orderly way for Venezuelans to enter the United States, and lawful entry is the only way.”
“Those who attempt to cross the southern border of the United States illegally will be returned to Mexico and will be ineligible for this process in the future. Those who follow the lawful process will have the opportunity to travel safely to the United States and become eligible to work here.”
The Mexican government noted in its own statement last week that the United States program is for Venezuelans who arrive to that country by air rather than by crossing the land border, and that it is based on the “Uniting for Ukraine” scheme, under which Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion have been able to enter the U.S. to live and work for a period of two years.
The Mexican government also said that the United States had accepted its request to “substantially increase” visas for workers from Mexican and other countries in the region, indicating that there was a precondition for its agreement to accept Venezuelans.
“The United States has announced it will grant 65,000 additional H2-B visas for temporary non-agricultural workers, of which 20,000 will be allocated to people from Central America and Haiti,” the federal government said.
With regard to the DHS announcement on expulsions, the government said it would “temporarily” allow “some people of Venezuelan nationality” to enter Mexico via the northern border.
Mexico has been accepting migrants expelled under the Donald Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy and the COVID-related Title 42 provision, but “Venezuelans who crossed illegally into the United States were often allowed to stay because it was difficult to send them back to Venezuela or Mexico,” Reuters reported.
A U.S. immigration official reviews the passport of an undocumented Guatemalan migrant at government office in Florida. The U.S. has promised to grant 65,000 additional visas for non-agricultural temporary workers this year, many of which are designated for people from Central America and Haiti. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Citing two unnamed U.S. officials, the news agency said that as many as 1,000 Venezuelans per day could be expelled to Mexico under the new agreement. About 300 were sent to Mexico after the deal was announced, the sources said.
The Associated Press reported that the United States expelled Venezuelans via several border crossings on Oct. 13. The news agency said it was informed of the expulsions by Catholic Church shelters in the border cities of Matamoros Ciudad Juárez and Piedras Negras.
“The people are very angry, very annoyed,” said Francisco Gallardo, a priest and director of the Casa del Migrante shelter in Matamoros, where some 120 Venezuelans arrived on last week.
“They’re surprised, they want answers and we don’t know what to tell them,” he said.
Yadimar, a young pregnant Venezuelan woman, and her husband were expelled from El Paso to Ciudad Juárez.
“They didn’t ask us anything. They put a bracelet on us and sent us back,” she told Reuters.
“We’re on the street. We don’t even have money to pay for a place to stay.”
In Mexico City, the director of a group that assists Venezuelan migrants told Reuters that “we’ve been overwhelmed by the news” that those who are apprehended after entering the U.S. illegally will be returned to Mexico.
Lizbeth Guerrero predicted that many Venezuelans who are already in Mexico will continue to the northern border and attempt to enter the U.S. because they have nothing to return to at home, where poverty and crime are major problems.
United States data shows that over 150,000 Venezuelans were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border between October 2021 and August 2022, compared to just under 48,000 in the 2021 U.S. fiscal year.
Rosa María González, a National Action Party deputy who heads up the migrant affairs committee of the lower house of Mexico’s Congress, called on the U.S. government to issue more visas to Venezuelans because Mexico’s labor market can’t accommodate all those who have arrived here.
If Venezuelans can’t find a job here and can’t seek asylum in the United States they are at risk of becoming prey for violent crime gangs, she said.
“They make more money out of migration than they do from drugs,” the lawmaker said.
Quintana Roo had its busiest September ever in terms of airline passenger arrivals.
More than 1 million people flew into the Caribbean coast state’s three airports last month, the Quintana Roo Tourism Promotion Council (CPTQ) reported without citing an exact figure.
The state’s busiest airport is that in Cancún, followed by those in Cozumel – an island off the coast of Playa del Carmen – and Chetumal, the Quintana Roo capital.
A new army-built commercial airport is slated to open in Tulum in 2023.
Exceeding 1 million air arrivals in September is especially significant as the month is traditionally the worst for tourism in Quintana Roo. The high number of incoming travelers is welcome news for tourism-oriented businesses that were hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and associated restrictions.
The CPTQ said in a statement that the 1 million + passengers arrived on 7,100 flights from 101 cities in 25 countries. Quintana Roo’s wide range of tourist attractions and “air connectivity” to Mexican and foreign cities spurred the influx of visitors, the council said.
The Quintana Roo economy is heavily dependent on tourism, but the sector has faced a range of challenges in recent years including the pandemic, violent crime and the annual arrival of sargassum, a brown seaweed that sullies the state’s white sand beaches and turquoise waters.
A jaguar metate (grinding stone) made of sculpted basalt rock by Juan Pérez’s El Caminchín workshop just outside San Lucas Evangelista, Jalisco.
YouTube video blogger Luigi Medina is dangerous. Don’t believe me? Watch one of his videos about interesting sites in the “Magic Circle” around Guadalajara, and you’ll find yourself possessed by a mysterious force to climb into your car — and off you go!
Case in point: I thought I knew about all the artisans hidden away in the little towns surrounding Lake Cajititlán — located 25 kilometers due south of Guadalajara — but Medina’s video blog introduced me to two more creative souls I couldn’t resist visiting.
The first is a sculptor of basalt rock named Juan Pérez. I believe he is badly misnamed, as “Juan Pérez” is the Mexican equivalent of John Doe. But this Juan Pérez is an amazingly talented artist, not at all your average man on the street.
Pérez’s workshop, called Taller El Camichín, can be found just outside San Juan Evangelista, along the south shore of Lake Cajititlán.
Juan Pérez’s El Caminchín workshop, on the road leading to San Lucas Evangelista, Jalisco.
I went there on a Sunday, and, even though the workshop was closed, neighbors said, “No hay problema! We will call him.”
A few minutes later, Juan Pérez drove up and welcomed us with a big smile.
San Lucas is famous for its molcajetes (mortars and pestles for making salsa) and metates (flat stones for grinding grain), both hand carved from the local basalt rock. Inside El Caminchín, we saw plenty of these, but also a collection of imaginative creations that told us, “Here can be found a true artist.”
I asked Pérez how he became a sculptor. “My parents,” he told me, “were farmers, and they wanted me to follow in their footsteps, but I’d go over to visit my uncle, who sculpted basalt.
Another Juan Perez creation: a basalt chair featuring rattlesnakes with personality.
“I started out making caballitos (little horses), and after that, I let my imagination run wild. The truth is that I’m no good at copying. Whatever I make has to come out of my own head.”
Then Pérez showed me what’s in his head: a chair made of rattlesnakes — yes, a full-sized chair carved out of a big block of basalt rock. “I’m delighted when I get ideas like this,” he said.
He immediately began describing each individual snake in his creation in great detail.
“These two snakes are sleepy; they can hardly keep awake. These other two are in love. They’re full of passion; just look how happy they are!” he said. “Now, this other snake is angry she has no mate and she’s all alone.”
The walls of Juan Pérez’s workshop are covered with awards.
Pérez’s walls are covered with awards.
“A lot of my sculptures ended up in England,” he told me. “A young Brit who called himself Simon would come to my studio twice a year, and he would carry off all my innovations. Every time I came up with something new, he wanted it.”
Pérez showed me a photo of an elegant sort of bird feeder where birds can also drink water. Pérez said that Simon loved this piece, bought it and then asked for its name, which he would need for registering it and for going through customs.
Pérez told him, “Well, I think I’m going to call it El Huevo Loco (the Crazy Egg).”
View of Lake Cajititlán from the malecón (boardwalk) at Cuexcomatitlán.
“But,” he continued, “I was just joking, and then I said to Simon, ‘Please help me to give it a real name.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘No, no, this one is going to be called El Huevo Loco, and that’s all there is to it!’ And he took that piece off to England and some Germans bought it, and then later they published a book and decided to put my Huevo Loco right on the cover. Later, they sent me a copy. It’s one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen.”
One day, Pérez told me, a Mexican architect who designs houses in tourist areas saw this book, loved the concept and asked him, “Can you make me sinks that look like this?”
“So,” said Pérez, “I ended up making forty bathroom sinks for him. I made them deeper, of course, and with a hole for the drain. So he set them in a base made of mesquite wood and sent me pictures, and you can’t believe how beautiful they look!”
Taller el Camichín is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day, and the mobile phone of this far-from-ordinary Juan Pérez is 331-384-3900.
Noemí Enciso and her daughter. The artisan started Eco Arte Cuexco three years ago.
The second of these artisans who had previously escaped my attention is Noemí Enciso, who carries out her creative endeavors in the little town of Cuexcomatitlán, located at the west end of Lake Cajititlán.
Noemí told me she learned from her bisabuelo (great-grandfather) how to weave tule (also called tule in English), a reed or bulrush that grows everywhere in Lake Cajititlán. Long ago, he used to make sopladores (hand fans used to keep a fire going) and petates (sleeping mats that were also used as burial “coffins.”)
When she grew up, Noemí married and started a family, but her husband abandoned her, and she ended up in the home of her grandparents, who were weaving reeds to make chairs. They encouraged her to learn the skill.
When opportunities later came along to learn more weaving techniques, she took advantage, even following the teachers around.
Manuel Enciso (Noemí’s father) demonstrates techniques for weaving a chair seat.
“It was necessity that forced me to learn how to do this, but afterward it was pure pleasure: I love it!”
Thanks to her craft, Naomí Encisco was able to raise her children, and soon she began teaching her skills to others, starting her own business called Eco Arte Cuexco.
“We make handicrafts and also hold workshops on ecological themes,” she said.
She works with three other women and her father, weaving tule reeds from Lake Cajititlán as well as rattan, palm fronds and lianas, to make chairs, lamps, jars, picture frames, and all kinds of baskets colored with natural tints like cochineal.
A living room decorated with creations by Eco Arte Cuexco.
Eco Arte Cuexco was chosen to decorate the terraza (terrace) of Guadalajara’s widely acclaimed Santo Coyote Restaurant. And foreigners living around Lake Chapala have found out what she and her friends do, “so our work is being carried off to lots of faraway places,” she said.
“Believe it or not, you can now find our work at a hotel in Dubai.”
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.
“Weaving magic for over 17 years,” says this ad for Eco Arte Cuexco.
Over 200 characters from the Star Wars universe will be marching in Mexico City on Saturday 501st Legion Mexican Garrison/Twitter
Mexico City will experience its first Star Wars parade on Saturday morning at 10:00 when Stormtroopers, Sith Lords, Imperial Pilots and Darth Vader look-alikes from across the galaxy arrive and march down Reforma Avenue.
The event is organized by the Mexican chapter of the 501st Legion, a global fan club with 14,000 members, some of whom have even been cast as extras in the films.
The Star Wars franchise includes nine films (with two more planned) that tell the tale of galaxies won and lost over several centuries, with a cast of characters that have invaded pop culture across the world.
The first film, written and directed by George Lucas, was released in 1977 and has spawned television shows, books, theme parks, and video games as the fan base has exploded in the decades since.
The Mexican Garrison has 200 members, all of whom plan to be in attendance at the parade, along with diehard fans from seven other countries.
The chapter hosted a Star Wars march, referred to as “training day” by members, for the first time in 2017 in Guadalajara, and since then they have held them in Monterrey and Campeche as well. Similar marches are planned for the future throughout Mexico.
While only legion members can participate in the parade (in full costume), fans are welcome to attend dressed up as their favorite characters.
Hidalgo's Tourism Minister Elizabeth Quintanar Gómez speaks at a ceremony to pass on hosting of the event next year from Oaxaca to Hidalgo. Carolina Jiménez Mariscal/Cuartoscuro
International buyers and sellers, domestic vendors and state tourism ministries converged on this year’s national Pueblos Mágicos Tianguis (The Magical Towns Bazaar) in Oaxaca on Wednesday. The fair broke a record for exhibitors — 2,200 domestic and international exhibitors in total.
Thirty-two international buyers and 28 tourism ministries also participated.
The Pueblos Mágicos, or Magical Towns, program — a federal initiative begun 21 years ago in the hopes of encouraging the decentralization of tourism in Mexico from just its beaches and biggest cities — promotes certain of the nation’s small towns under the premise that they are the repositories of cultural, social and artistic traditions vital to the country’s fabric.
The program helps towns with the designation to become more attractive to both Mexican and international tourists. Winning the designation gives Pueblos Mágicos access to federal funding and promotional resources that might not otherwise be available to them.
The four-year-old fair was first held in 2019 in Pachuca, Hidalgo, and is an outgrowth of the older National Festival of Pueblos Mágicos.
This year’s event was held at the Oaxaca Cultural and Convention Center in Oaxaca city. The capital of the state of Oaxaca, Oaxaca city is one of Mexico’s most emblematic small cities.
The state’s art and food was on full display, alongside representatives from many other Magical Towns. Fifty traditional cooks from different regions set up food stands to feed the hundreds of visitors, and representatives from the 132 Pueblos Mágicos promoted their locations with regional crafts and music, giveaways and promotional materials.
Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat Hinjosa assured the crowds that tourists are currently ooking for unique experiences. “… and this is what Pueblos Magicos represent: a celebration of the diversity and the grandeur of each region.”
Federal Tourism Secretary Miguel Torruco Marqués told the crowds that, for towns with the distinction, economic activity increases by 8% annually on average.
The federal government is continuing to invest further in such initiatives, he said, in programs such as Rutas Mágicos de Color (Magical Routes of Color) — which makes funds available to Pueblos Mágicos for infrastructure and construction projects to improve urban spaces.
As part of the program, the Ministry of Agricultural, Territorial and Urban Development (Sedatu) has carried out 144 public works projects between 2019 and 2022, with an investment of more than 3.2 billion pesos, Torruco said.
Officials also used the fair to announce a new agreement between Mexico’s northern states, in which they promised to support and promote tourism in their region as a whole. Signatories to the agreement included the states of Nuevo León, Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Baja California, Sonora, Baja California Sur, Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí.
Federal officials also used the event to announce that the fair has gone international: 2022 was also the first year that a version of the fair was held outside Mexico — in Barcelona, and officials revealed that in addition to holding the fair next year in Hidalgo, a version of the fair would also be held in Los Angeles, California, home to the largest Mexican population outside of Mexico.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard speaks at Thursday’s high-level security talks. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores
Combating the smuggling of weapons and fentanyl will remain a priority for Mexico and the United States over the coming year, Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Friday after attending high-level security talks in Washington a day earlier.
Speaking at President López Obrador’s morning press conference, Ebrard said that the year-old security agreement between Mexico and the U.S. – the Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health and Safe Communities – is already yielding results, but acknowledged that more needs to be done to stop the southward flow of weapons and the northward flow of fentanyl and other drugs.
He said that Mexico and the United States are working together to combat the production of fentanyl, an activity in which powerful Mexican criminal organizations such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel are engaged.
“We have a common plan for 2023, which is to drastically reduce the trafficking of weapons to Mexico and … to increase controls on precursor chemicals and the movement of fentanyl [to the United States],” Ebrard said.
The foreign minister offered a summary of the “fruits” of the bilateral security agreement, as presented in Washington during the high-level security dialogue in which he, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero and other high-ranking Mexican officials exchanged views with U.S. officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
Ebrard highlighted that Mexican and U.S. authorities have seized over 32,000 firearms and 17 million rounds of ammunition over the past year, preventing them from reaching the hands of organized crime members in Mexico.
“This figure means homicides and femicides, or potential homicides and femicides,” he said, referring to the number of confiscated weapons. “It’s not a cold figure.”
Ebrard also said that over 5 tonnes of fentanyl pills, 154 tonnes of methamphetamine and 94 tonnes of cocaine were seized over the past year.
A car passes through a scanner at the San Ysidro border port between the U.S. and Mexico. U.S. Customs and Border Protection
“If we hadn’t worked together, these tonnes [of drugs] – which could poison thousands of people – would have arrived in the United States,” he said.
“… Mexico is confiscating more cocaine than the United States,” Ebrard added.
The foreign minister said that the security agreement also contributed to a 9.2% decline in homicides in Mexico in the first nine months of the year. Kidnappings and robberies have also declined, he said.
Ebrard said that Mexico proposed 20 measures to U.S. officials to strengthen the fight against arms trafficking. One proposed measure is for the United States to increase checks of vehicles heading to Mexico from that country.
Ebrard said that Mexico is “respectfully” asking the United States to help stop the flow of weapons from 10 counties in Arizona and Texas that have been identified as leading sources of firearms smuggled across the border.
He asserted that United States authorities should be checking vehicles leaving that country with the same thoroughness as they check those entering the U.S.
“What comes in is important but so is what goes out,” Ebrard said. “That’s essentially what we’re saying.”
The foreign minister highlighted that the military and the National Guard check vehicles on the Mexican side of the border.
National Guard checkpoints on highways near the border are one tool the federal government uses to check incoming vehicles. Twitter @GN_Carreteras
At a press conference with U.S. officials in Washington on Thursday, Ebrard declared that the Bicentennial Framework “is working,” even though a range of bilateral security challenges remain.
“There is still a way to go. This doesn’t mean that everything has been solved. But the most important indicator is that for the first time in the last few years we have seen a reduction in the homicide rate in Mexico,” he said.
For his part, Secretary of State Blinken said that officials at Thursday’s high-level meeting looked at progress toward “three main goals” that were established in accordance with the bilateral security agreement – “protecting our people, preventing transborder crime [and] pursuing criminal networks.”
“We’ve made significant progress, reflected in unprecedented investments, legislation [and] law enforcement action. And these efforts have already made a tangible difference in the lives of Mexicans and Americans,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials on stage at the Washington, D.C., event. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores
“Today’s discussion focused on the areas where we need to make even more progress, such as redoubling our efforts to combat the threats of fentanyl production and trafficking, arms trafficking, and the exploitation of migrants.”
The secretary of state also highlighted the United States’ broader cooperation with Mexico, and declared that the partnership between the two countries is in great shape.
“Across the bilateral, the regional, and global cooperation, we have I think one of the strongest – if not the strongest – partnership we’ve seen, certainly in my experience,” Blinken said.
In a joint statement, the Mexican and U.S. governments said they “remain committed to an enduring partnership based on mutual trust and respect for each country’s sovereignty and independence.”
“The Bicentennial Framework reaffirmed our commitment to take concrete actions on both sides of the border to address the shared security challenges affecting our communities, including human trafficking and smuggling, violence and illicit firearms, as well as substance use disorder and illicit drugs,” they said.
“The United States and Mexico recognize our shared commitment to uphold the rule of law through enhanced law enforcement cooperation and protect our communities from transnational criminal organizations.”
The two countries committed to pursuing 13 “actions” over the next year, among which were “commit to and implement an action plan to prevent the consumption and trafficking of synthetic drugs, specifically fentanyl and methamphetamines” and “prepare a collaborative report on arms trafficking to identify routes, organizations and tactics used to traffic firearms.”
