Is third time the charm for AMLO’s energy reforms?

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June 24, 2021

lopez obrador — The president has come up with another strategy to alter energy regulations to favour state-run companies.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. President López Obrador has taken that old adage to heart. His government spent most of last year trying to alter energy regulations to favour his cherished state-run oil and energy national champions and undo a landmark 2013 reform.

When those efforts were suspended in the courts, he attempted legislative changes this year. Predictably, those, too, ran into legal challenges.

His latest attempt has come via the modification of foreign trade and customs rules. Experts say the maneuver will limit the import and export of hydrocarbons in defiance of Mexico’s constitution, U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and WTO rules, undermine Mexico’s competitiveness and hurt major players like Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil.

The measure was quietly published in the official gazette, the record of legal government notices, earlier this month. It means firms other than so-called state productive enterprises — namely oil company Pemex and electricity utility CFE — will lose the flexibility to import and export hydrocarbons in different parts of the country.

Previously, companies such as Chevron that operate fuel-storage terminals or other infrastructure could import the hydrocarbons and clear customs at their facilities rather than having to use official customs posts.

However, now only state enterprises will be allowed to import or export hydrocarbons through such alternative locations.

AMEXHI, the Mexican hydrocarbons association, had no immediate comment. The move will restrict companies to ports, border crossings and other official customs posts, said Christopher Ávila, vice-president of the hydrocarbons commission at Coparmex, the employers’ confederation.

“This affects storage capacity and competitiveness, especially for oil products,” he said, and gives Pemex an “excessive and undue” competitive advantage.

Eduardo Pérez Motta, a former head of Mexico’s antitrust authority, went even further:

“This is a totally discriminatory decision, it’s uncompetitive,” he said.

López Obrador has made strengthening Pemex and the CFE the cornerstone of his energy policy and wants to halt oil exports in order to focus on domestic refining to achieve his goal of fuel self-sufficiency. He has promised he will not increase fuel prices, which are widely watched by consumers.

But the move — which will probably face legal challenges — creates uncertainty as to the operation of fuel storage terminals and other infrastructure, noted Campa & Mendoza, a law firm.

“Given that only Pemex may be granted these authorizations, are we facing a ‘forced sale’ of assets in favor of the state productive enterprise? With respect to new authorizations, the new rules may affect exploration and production projects that require the LDA [a special export permit] to export crude oil or natural gas directly from its offshore facilities,” it said.

One source in the hydrocarbons industry who asked not to be named said:

“It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck and sounds the same as other measures designed to use decrees to restore to Pemex what for decades it has failed to achieve … the ability to continue to compete under norms and industry rules … There are companies who are considering challenging this disposition through injunctions.”

As well as injunctions, firms could consider investor-state or state-to-state dispute proceedings under the USMCA. The move could be challenged under WTO rules on the grounds that the new measures constitute a barrier to trade, Ávila said.

We shall see whether the rule survives — or if the courts send López Obrador back to the drawing board once again.

Ecotourism ranch offers welcome getaway in a pandemic era

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Joseph Sorrentino

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June 23, 2021

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Aguilar helps his rider navigate some treacherous ground. — Jorge Gutiérrez helps a rider navigate a creek. All photos by Joseph Sorrentino

I swore I was done with horses after riding one for 16 long, exhausting hours during the pilgrimage to Amatlán in 2019.

I went on that pilgrimage as part of my project to document a year’s worth of pilgrimages, ceremonies and other events in San Gregorio Atlapulco, a neighborhood in the borough of Xochimilco in Mexico City. It was supposed to take a group of eight of us around seven hours to reach Amatlán — a significant enough trek — but we got lost four times in the mountains and lost again in a couple of small pueblos as thunderclouds threatened. The unenjoyable ride took 24 hours, and when I finally dismounted, every part of my body ached.

I know the cliché about getting back on the horse, but the thought of actually doing it brought back some rather unpleasant memories.

Then I met Ignacio Aguilar Gómez, who owns Haras Atlixco, which advertises “Ecotourism by Horse.” Despite my misgivings, I decided to, well, get back on the horse when he invited me to take a ride. I’m glad I did.

Haras Atlixco is located in Valle de Atlixco, about a 20-minute drive from the center of Atlixco. José Ignacio Aguilar Fernández, Aguilar’s son and the site’s manager, served as my tour guide.

José Ignacio Aguilar gives instructions to a guest.

The property is a 150-acre hacienda, built by the family in the 1800s. Part of the original construction, which originally had cattle and a dairy, has been kept, including the main house, the dairy, horse sheds and a small chapel.

“My father started the ecotourism site about 10 years ago,” said Aguilar. Three or four acres on the property are set aside specifically for ecotourism. “Ecotourism is where there are no large cities. It is in the rural areas, to be in contact with nature … It is something different from what people are used to.”

They offer three ecotourism packets. The shortest, at 500 pesos , lasts an hour. The two-hour ride costs 600 and the longest, 2 1/4 hours, is 700 pesos (about US $35).

“It is a ride with a guide who takes care of the people for the entire time,” Aguilar said. “The maximum number is 10 people, the minimum is two, but if one person shows up, we will take them but charge a little extra.” It’s best to make a reservation at least a day in advance.

Anyone not familiar with riding horses is given basic instructions that last around 20 minutes. If a person wants to ride but is still wary, “We can use a rope to guide the horse,” he said.

Before getting on our horses, he gave me a tour of the hacienda.

The dairy still is a working one, and the sheds house 50 or 60 horses (they also board them). They also have some huge greenhouses.

“We grow tomatoes that we sell to the United States,” he explained. “We also have campgrounds that people can rent and a place that if someone wants to have a large fiesta, we can do that. If it is just a couple who want to come and enjoy the hacienda, we can do that. People can come and just have a picnic.”

Our final stop was the chapel. Given my previous experience with riding a horse, I thought about saying a quick little prayer there, but the door was locked; I wasn’t sure if that was a bad sign.

I must have looked a little concerned because he assured me I’d be all right. “We make sure the horses are ready to ride safely and without any problems,” he said.

We headed out on the two-hour ride with four other people, including Jorge Gutiérrez, a friend of Aguilar’s who sometimes works as a guide.

We rode through rows of greenhouses, the plants inside heavy with tomatoes, and when we left the property, we crossed a two-lane road — with Aguilar and Gutiérrez making sure everyone got across safely — and through a collection of small houses. Then the land opened up.

Haras Ecotourism, Atlixco, Puebla. — Employees enjoy a break at the Atlixco, Puebla, ecotourism ranch.

Hills rose in the distance and, initially, everything was brown. But then we entered a lush, green meadow where a stream ran swiftly on one side. Butterflies flitted among the flowers and small plots of corn. We passed two small waterfalls and trees with huge, beautiful, exposed roots. Along the way, Aguilar and Gutiérrez often burst into song, clearly happy to be on the trail again. They had surprisingly good voices.

Gutiérrez stuck close to me as I (mostly) brought up the rear. I must have still looked a little apprehensive because he told me, “We have never had a problem, no injuries.” I silently vowed to make sure I wasn’t the first and am happy to say that I wasn’t.

On the return trip, we could see in the distance what most people believe is an unexcavated pyramid with a small chapel on top. It’s located at the edge of Atlixco.

We made it back to the hacienda after almost 2 1/2 hours in the saddle. I admit to feeling a little sore, but a delicious meal — Aguilar said it’s the best barbacoa around — and a cold beer took care of that.

Currently, there’s no restaurant on site, and if a group wants food it’s ordered from nearby restaurants. There are plans to build a restaurant and some cabañas.

Like virtually everything else, Haras Atlixco has been affected by Covid.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, we had strict restrictions,” Aguilar said. “People had to wear masks. Now, things have loosened a little, and when we are outside riding, it is not necessary to use a mask. With things closed [due to the pandemic], people looked for something different. They looked for alternatives, and many of them looked for this.”

I took a taxi to the site, and the driver used GPS, which is usually accurate, but we ended up on a narrow dirt road, at the end of which was a locked gate. The GPS indicated a seven-minute walk to the hacienda, so I got out and started walking until a young man told me it was private property. He vaguely pointed in the direction where he said Haras Atlixco was located, saying it was a 15-minute walk.

I returned to the main road. and when I saw two workers, I asked them if they knew where Haras Atlixco was.

“Señor,” I was told, ”I know this area well. There is no such place. There is nothing here.”

There always seems to be an adventure within an adventure for me. Fortunately, I was able to call Aguilar, who showed up on an ATV.

If you’re considering a visit, it’s probably best to call for clear directions.

Haras Atlixco is located in Prados el León, 74360 Atlixco, Puebla. The phone number is 222-199-4328. Or you can contact them via their Facebook page.

Joseph Sorrentino, a writer, photographer and author of the book San Gregorio Atlapulco: Cosmvisiones and of Stinky Island Tales: Some Stories from an Italian-American Childhood, is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily. More examples of his photographs and links to other articles may be found at www.sorrentinophotography.com He currently lives in Chipilo, Puebla.

British-Mexican activist was murdered, Oaxaca attorney general confirms

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MND Staff

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June 23, 2021

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The British-Mexican activist who disappeared in Oaxaca on March 26 was murdered, state officials said.

Claudia Uruchurtu, 48, went missing after a protest outside government headquarters in the Mixteca municipality of Asunción Nochixtlán, where people had gathered after a local resident was beaten. According to Uruchurtu’s relatives, witnesses saw her being grabbed and pushed into a car.

State Attorney General Arturo Peimbert Calvo confirmed that the woman would not be found alive. “She was killed. The victim of an extrajudicial execution, after being a victim of forced disappearance … we are only looking for the body,” he said.

The Attorney General’s Office has formally connected the former mayor of Asunción Nochixtlán, Lizbeth Victoria Huerta, to the crime along with three other members of her administration. Another six arrest warrants have been issued.

Oaxaca police detained Huerta and two other government officials on May 7 for their alleged connection to the kidnapping.

Much of Uruchurtu’s activism centered on denouncing acts of corruption and political repression of the Huerta administration, relating to nepotism and lavish personal spending. “She became a very inconvenient person for the mayor,” Uruchurtu’s family said.

The Attorney General added that officials were confident justice would be done. “A lot of progress has been made. We have practically identified all the intellectual and material participants in the crime, and we have detained those who are likely responsible, but it will be up to the judges to adjudicate responsibly on this issue that has hurt the community so badly,” he said.

Uruchurtu’s family had pressured authorities to investigate her disappearance, lobbying the British foreign ministry, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for justice. The family said Uruchurtu had denounced Huerta before state authorities for embezzlement of public resources before her disappearance.

The protest on March 26 from which Uruchurtu disappeared started after a businessman went to the mayor’s office to demand a bill owed to him by the local government, when he was beaten and suffered a skull fracture.

With reports from El País, Jornada and Milenio

International organizations launch website to aid identification of human remains

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MND Staff

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June 23, 2021

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Three international organizations launched an online platform on Tuesday to aid the identification of human remains found in Mexico.

The Mexico Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Mexico and Central America delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the German development agency GIZ launched the website identificaciónhumana.mx (Human Identification).

“In Mexico there is a forensic emergency recognized by the authorities themselves. One of the main difficulties in combatting it is the lack of a technical consensus in human identification practices,” the organizations said in a statement.

In that context, the organizations said they joined forces to create a digital platform that “seeks to promote a technical and multidisciplinary discussion … [aimed at] the mass identification of unidentified deceased people.

The Spanish language website includes detailed information about the process to recover and identify bodies, which are often found in mass graves in Mexico.

Written by academics and forensic activists, the information seeks to “document best practices in matters of forensic identification to reduce delays and provide certainty to families,” the organizations said.

Finding and identifying missing persons is “a daily challenge that requires effective and coordinated search mechanisms as well as high-quality forensic processes that make provision for the participation of families,” they said.

“… The serious challenge Mexico faces in forensic matters requires appropriate collaboration between institutions involved in the search for [missing] people as well as the participation of experts, academia, collectives and families,” the organizations said, adding that sufficient human, material and economic resources are also needed.

While the creation of a website that provides advice about the body identification process appears on the surface to be positive news, the fact that it is needed is evidence of just how dire the situation in Mexico is in terms of the accumulation of unidentified corpses. That such a site is required also amounts to a damning assessment of Mexican forensic authorities, who have failed to identify tens of thousands of bodies found in recent years.

“There are currently about 39,000 unidentified bodies in forensic medical services [morgues] or buried anonymously in public cemeteries in the 32 states,” the international organizations said.

“The figure of 39,000 unidentified deceased people should be sufficient reason to critically review the functioning of the forensic system,” said Maximilian Murck, director of a GIZ project aimed at strengthening the rule of law in Mexico.

“One of the main rule of law tasks in Mexico is to draw up and implement pragmatic solutions for mass human identification,” he said.

Missing people’s rights – including their right to an identity – must be guaranteed by the state, said OHCHR Mexico representative Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado.

However, authorities in a majority of Mexican states don’t have the capacity to identify all of the deceased bodies in their morgues, Spanish newspaper ABC said in a report. Homicide numbers increased significantly after former president Felipe Calderón launched a militarized war on drug cartels in late 2006 and continued to rise during the governments led by Enrique Peña Nieto and Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The international organizations noted that there are more than 80,000 missing persons in Mexico, adding that it can be assumed that the bodies of many of those people are among the 39,000 unidentified corpses.

They said they were hopeful that the information contained on their new website “will be useful for the different actors that participate in the search and identification of people.”

With reports from EFE and ABC

Once powerful teachers’ union boss tried to hide US $6mn in European bank

By

MND Staff

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June 23, 2021

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Elba Esther Gordillo, former head of SNTE teachers' union — Former SNTE teachers' union head Elba Esther Gordillo was arrested in 2013 for embezzlement, tax fraud and money laundering but cleared in 2018.

A former teachers’ union boss who was absolved of corruption charges in 2018 tried to hide US $6 million in a bank in Andorra in 2012, according to the newspaper El País.

The Spanish newspaper published an investigation on Tuesday that said Elba Esther Gordillo, president of the SNTE teachers union between 1989 and 2013 and secretary-general of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from 2002 to 2005, attempted to deposit the funds in the Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA) in April 2012.

Gordillo, a once highly powerful and influential figure in Mexican politics who is widely seen as corrupt despite being absolved of embezzlement and organized crime charges in August 2018, reportedly told BPA that the money was an inheritance from her mother, a teacher in rural indigenous communities in Chiapas who passed away in 2009.

El País said that Gordillo, who also served as a PRI deputy and senator, planned to transfer the $6 million to Andorra through a Dutch firm controlled by Fidemont International Corporate & Trust Services.

In an attempt to convince BPA of the legal origin of the funds, the former union boss widely known as “La Maestra” (The Teacher) provided the bank with copies of her passport, her mother’s will and documents that showed where the money had previously been held.

Elba Esther Gordillo — One reason the Banca Privada d’Andorra didn’t allow Elba Gordillo to open an account was because of her ‘inexplicable wealth.’

But BPA’s money laundering prevention committee ruled against allowing Gordillo to open an account after analyzing news stories about her “inexplicable wealth,” said El País, which obtained confidential bank documents.

“The bank also highlighted, according to an internal document, the ‘lack of transparency’ in the management of [monetary] assistance received by the SNTE during the governments of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988–1994), Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000), Vicente Fox (2000–2006) and Felipe Calderón (2006–2012).”

BPA noted in a document justifying its decision not to allow her to open an account in order to avoid damage to its reputation that she owned many properties and had “great wealth” in Mexico that was “generated by her political position.”

El País noted that Gordillo’s attempt to open the account came 10 months before she was arrested in México state on charges of embezzlement, tax fraud, organized crime and money laundering. She was accused of embezzling some $200 million from the SNTE. With 1.6 million members, the SNTE is the largest union in Latin America.

Gordillo spent almost five years in custody awaiting trial following her 2013 arrest before being transferred to home detention in Mexico City’s affluent Polanco neighborhood in December 2017. She was released from house arrest upon being cleared in August 2018, and the federal Attorney General’s Office returned three seized properties and other confiscated possessions to her in 2019.

El País said it was told by Gordillo’s lawyer, Marcos del Toro, that his client had never tried to open an account in Andorra and doesn’t have any money in the tiny principality. “We don’t know if somebody tried [to open an account] in her name,” he said.

San Diego home Elba Esther Gordillo put on sale in 2019. — The property at center is a San Diego home Gordillo bought through relatives and paid for in cash, according to official records.

El País also said that a court in Andorra has been investigating for the past eight years whether Gordillo is linked to an account at another Andorran bank that contains just under $605,000. The holders of the account, which allegedly contains ill-gotten money, are the Mexican siblings Álvaro and Laura Victoria Quintana Díaz. The former was a financial advisor for the SNTE.

Del Toro said that Gordillo has no knowledge of investigations against her in Andorra and denies any connection to the money held in the account.

With reports from El País

Cartel war or general chaos: the killing spree in Reynosa, Tamaulipas

By

Victoria Dittmar

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June 23, 2021

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Victims of Saturday's shootings in Reynosa.

Though the motive for the rampage in the northern border city of Reynosa that left scores of civilians dead remains unexplained, security experts point to three possible scenarios: a war within the Gulf Cartel, a political settling of scores, or a mere desire to sow chaos.

Speaking at a press conference on June 21, President López Obrador blamed “armed commandos” for the violence and ordered that an investigation be opened into the string of shootings in Reynosa that has left at least 19 dead.

The attacks in Reynosa, which sits on the Mexico-U.S. border in the state of Tamaulipas, took place in under two hours on Saturday, with people seemingly targeted at random by gunmen traveling in vans, according to local media outlet Elefante Blanco. Those killed included nurses, shopkeepers, taxi drivers, students and construction workers.

Four armed men – presumed to have been among those carrying out the violence – died in a shootout with authorities, Elefante Blanco reported. Two women who had allegedly been kidnapped by the gunmen were rescued.

While Reynosa is a major criminal hotspot on the border and regularly sees shootouts between gangs, violence on this scale had not been seen for at least four years.

1. Gulf Cartel showdown

Reynosa, along with other border cities such as Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo, has long been a bastion for the Gulf Cartel. This major criminal group has enjoyed a period of stability in northeastern Mexico after the weakening of the Zetas, its main rival.

However, the Gulf Cartel has not been able to avoid the fragmentation that has weakened so many of Mexico’s principal criminal groups. According to Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an expert on U.S.-Mexico affairs at George Mason University in Virginia, the Gulf Cartel’s control of criminal economies at the border is being contested by a number of rivals.

“Today, we cannot speak of just one Gulf Cartel faction at the border, they don’t operate in a cohesive manner … there are various groups,” Correa-Cabrera told InSight Crime.

“There is also the presence of various groups previously associated to the Zetas … many of them are not just dedicated to drug trafficking but also kidnapping, extortion, oil theft and piracy,” she explained.

One of the Zetas’ notable splinter groups is the Northeast Cartel, which has steadily gained ground in northeastern Mexico over the last three years and has aggressively challenged the control of the Gulf Cartel.

These clashes have left a bloody trail. In late April, the Northeast Cartel allegedly killed and burned the bodies of eight people linked to the Gulf Cartel in the town of Camargo, 75 kilometers west of Reynosa. In March, the two criminal groups fought a running battle for an entire day between the municipalities of Matamoros and Rio Bravo.

With fighting between the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel has been reported in Reynosa since 2017, it is likely the recent shootings are connected to this dispute or another of the Gulf Cartel’s feuds.

“One possibility is that [the events in Reynosa] were linked to protecting territory,” said Marisol Ochoa, a Tamaulipas security expert at Mexico’s Iberoamericana University, in an interview with InSight Crime.

2. Political realignment

Another hypothesis is that the shootouts were due to the recent political upheaval seen in Tamaulipas.

The state’s governor, Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, is a fugitive. Having had his political immunity stripped, he faces a warrant for his arrest on charges of ties to organized crime. Back in 2004, an investigation indicated that, while running to be mayor of Reynosa, he had allegedly received bribes from the Gulf Cartel in exchange for protection.

The National Action Party, to which García belongs, recently lost its majority in Tamaulipas’ legislature, which may have forced criminal groups to try and seek leverage and forge new agreements with politicians.

“The well-known participation of security authorities in criminal acts in Tamaulipas indicates that organized crime has always counted on a degree of protection … The current political realignment could be creating instability,” Correa-Cabrera told InSight Crime.

3. Create climate of fear

Ochoa also suggested to InSight Crime that the violent rampage could have been due to a third, simpler option. According to her, these actions were not necessarily part of some calculated plan but simply sought to dispel any sense of security among the population.

“[The events in Reynosa] appear to have been improvised; 14 civilians died who were not involved [in organized crime] … it was a very disorganized operation. It’s not necessarily clear what settling of scores may have taken place here,” said Ochoa.

As Reynosa has undergone a recent period of relative stability without many violent acts of this magnitude, an armed group may have been seeking to create conflict.

“Sowing fear among the general population is also a tool for criminal groups,” Ochoa told InSight Crime.

Reprinted from InSight Crime. Victoria Dittmar is a writer with InSight Crime, a foundation dedicated to the study of organized crime.

Vote on investigating ex-presidents for corruption to cost 500 million pesos

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MND Staff

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June 23, 2021

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INE-approved-referendum-ballot on whether to prosecute Mexico's past presidents — The referendum ballot, finalized earlier this month by the National Electoral Institute, was drawn up by the Supreme Court.

A referendum on whether five past presidents should be investigated for corruption will cost approximately 520 million pesos (US $25.7 million), according to the National Electoral Institute (INE).

A vote will be held on August 1 at which citizens will be indirectly asked whether they support the investigation of Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto for possible acts of corruption while they were in office between 1988 and 2018.

The Supreme Court granted approval for the referendum last October, and the Congress subsequently backed the proposal put forward by President López Obrador. The Supreme Court also drew up the question that will appear on ballot papers.

“Do you agree or not that pertinent actions be carried out, in accordance with the constitutional and legal framework, to undertake a process of clarification of political decisions taken in past years by political actors aimed at guaranteeing justice and the rights of possible victims?”

Electoral councilor José Roberto Ruiz Saldeña said the consultation’s cost will be covered by savings generated by the INE. “… It could vary slightly, up or down,” he said, explaining that the cost has not yet been definitively determined.

Five past presidents discussed in Mexico referendum question — The five presidents in question, from left to right: Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón, Enrique Peña Nieto.

The INE asked the Chamber of Deputies for almost 1.5 billion pesos (US $74.2 million) to hold the referendum, but the lower house of Congress refused to approve such a large figure. The electoral authority had planned to set up some 104,000 voting tables, but due to a lack of resources, it will only install about 57,000, Ruiz said.

“All the material left over from the June 6 elections [that] can be reused, such as permanent ink [for marking voters’ thumbs] and pencils, will be distributed to the [voting] tables,” the INE councilor said.

López Obrador frequently rails against his predecessors, accusing them of corruption and all other manner of wrongdoing, but he has indicated that he doesn’t support prosecuting past presidents because he prefers looking to the future rather than dwelling on the past. However, he has remained adamant that citizens must be given the opportunity to have their say on the issue.

A poll published last August found that an overwhelming majority of Mexicans believe that former presidents and other ex-officials who committed crimes while in office should face justice.

Responding to a remark from Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum that the August 1 vote will be the “most democratic exercise in the history of the country,” Fox — who was president from 2000 to 2006 — disagreed. He tweeted on Wednesday that the referendum will actually be “the biggest nonsense in the world.”

Calderón, Fox’s successor, said last year that if López Obrador has proof that he committed corruption, he should take it to the federal Attorney General’s Office instead of holding a referendum.

“… If he doesn’t have proof or specific accusations, … he should stop harassing me and respect my rights like any other citizen,” he said.

On Tuesday, he retweeted a post by former chief electoral regulator Luis Carlos Ugalde.

“… Instead of throwing away 505 million pesos, … we should demand that the government present complaints when there is evidence of corruption. The August 1 consultation is a farce,” the tweet read.

With reports from El Universal

Mayor-elect arrested on suspicion of killing candidate in Veracruz

By

MND Staff

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June 23, 2021

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veracruz murder — The victim and winner of the election, left, and the murder suspect, his campaign manager.

The mayor-elect of Cazones de Herrera, Veracruz, has been arrested for planning the murder of his party’s original candidate for the June 6 elections.

The man, identified only as Omar “N,” was campaign manager for Citizens Movement candidate René Tovar, who was shot and killed on June 4 when he resisted abduction from his home. One other person was wounded in the attack.

Tovar was posthumously elected two days later with his name still on the ballot, and Omar “N” was set to assume the role in his absence.

The state Attorney General’s Office believed that contradictions in the suspect’s police statements were grounds to pursue prosecution.

President López Obrador confirmed the connection between the victim and the accused at his morning news conference. “We are in the process of finding out whether one of the candidates in Veracruz — one of the possible people involved according to the investigations — was his campaign manager,” he said on Wednesday.

“We don’t want those horrors,” he added.

The electoral season for the June 6 vote was the most violent on record. Risk analysis firm Etellekt, which tracks election campaign violence, reported that there were 1,066 acts of aggression against politicians and candidates between September 7, 2020 and June 6, a 38% increase compared to the 2017–2018 electoral season, when a total of 774 such incidents were recorded.

One-hundred and two of the incidents were homicides; 36 of the victims were aspiring candidates.

Veracruz was the most dangerous place to run for office by some distance, where 152 acts of aggression were recorded. The second most dangerous was Puebla, with a considerably lower count of 100 such incidents.

The governor of Veracruz had attempted to maintain pre-election peace just before the killing, with the deployment of more than 5,000 security forces throughout the state.

With reports from Infobae and Milenio

Debunking fake news to become a regular feature of AMLO’s press conference

By

MND Staff

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June 23, 2021

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AMLO fake news — The president displays the kind of 'fake news' he will debunk, in this case a rumor about his son buying the Cruz Azul soccer team.

Debunking fake news — or what the federal government classifies as such — is set to become a regular feature of President López Obrador’s morning press conferences.

The president, who frequently declares he has “other information” when confronted with media reports with which he doesn’t agree, said Wednesday that a government official will present and disprove fake news on a weekly basis at his pressers, which are held every weekday morning at the National Palace in Mexico City.

“… We’re going to have … someone from the government who tells us the lies of the week; a who’s who in the lies of the week in order to combat fake news,” he said.

“There are some [media outlets] that will always take first place, the gold medal, but we’ll be exposing them here and informing the people because there are those who swallow all [the fake news],” López Obrador said. “… We’re going to have this section once a week.”

He said he got his idea for the fake news exposé sessions after hearing of a rumor spread on Twitter that one of his sons was going to buy the Mexico City-based Cruz Azul professional soccer team.

“A message came out on Twitter a few days ago that one of my sons was going to buy the Cruz Azul stadium, the team actually. And a famous person put it [on Twitter], right? … I remember that for a long time they showed one of my sons with a car, a Ferrari, but it wasn’t him. Our adversaries really are very immoral; I’ve always said it,” he said.

The president suggested that his adversaries — whom he often describes as “conservatives” or “elites” — should watch his daily news conferences so that they can avoid being manipulated by fake news. He claimed earlier this week that there was a “very powerful campaign of manipulation,” or a “dirty war,” against his government and the ruling Morena party in the lead-up to the June 6 elections, especially in Mexico City, where the opposition won nine of the 16 boroughs.

“… You have to be [properly] informed,” López Obrador said Wednesday. “We’ll be here making all the fake news known and clearing things up …, even though there are conservative people who don’t want to watch the morning news conference or even see us,” he said.

“… That’s why they’re manipulated. Because if they watched my news conferences, they would have information about what’s [really] happening, but [if they don’t watch], they’re left only with the information that their media gives them,” the president said.

With reports from Reforma

Sargassum is piling up on Quintana Roo beaches and more is expected

By

MND Staff

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June 23, 2021

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Brigades collect sargassum from Playa Marlin in Cancún.

Large amounts of sargassum continue to plague many beaches in Quintana Roo, although the overall situation in the Caribbean coast state has improved considerably over the last week.

There are 22 beaches with excessive amounts of the smelly seaweed and 15 with abundant quantities, according to the Quintana Roo Sargassum Monitoring Network, which published an updated map on Wednesday morning. There were 47 beaches with excessive quantities of sargassum on Tuesday of last week.

The latest map shows that eight beaches in the Tulum area and all those located on the east coast of Cozumel have excessive amounts of sargassum as do Playa Aventuras, Punta Esmeralda and Playa El Recodo in Playa del Carmen and Nizuc Playa Coral in Cancún. Other beaches in Cancún have abundant, moderate or very low quantities.

The navy said in its daily sargassum report on Tuesday that the arrival of abundant quantities was expected in the south of Quintana Roo, affecting the coastline between Mahahual and Tulum. Lesser quantities were expected to wash up on beaches in Solidaridad, the municipality where Playa del Carmen is located, and on Cozumel.

Experts at the University of South Florida said that sargassum in the Caribbean Sea was at a “historical record” in May and that large quantities could wash up on beaches throughout the 2021 sargassum season, as occurred in 2018.

Quintana Roo beachgoers cross sargassum barriers to reach the water earlier this month.

The navy, which leads efforts to remove sargassum from the sea before it reaches beaches, last week identified more than 2,000 tonnes of the weed off the coast of Quintana Roo.

Governor Carlos Joaquín acknowledged Monday that authorities’ capacity to stop the arrival of sargassum on the state’s famous white sand beaches has been affected by weather conditions.

“[It’s been] impossible to stop the brown tide when the wind is strong and the sea is crashing with so much force, as has been happening in recent days,” he said.

Large swells allow the seaweed to breach anti-sargassum barriers and prevent the navy’s sargassum-gathering vessels from going to sea, Joaquín said.

There are many difficulties in the quest to stop sargassum from washing up on beaches, the governor said. “It’s like trying to control or stop the winds during a storm or hurricane,” he said.

Joaquín said that progress has been made, citing the installation of barriers and the construction and use of sargassum-gathering vessels, among other measures, but the seaweed has recently arrived in such large volumes that it appears no work has been done. The governor also said that about 16,000 tonnes of sargassum has been cleared from beaches so far this year and approximately 700 tonnes has been removed from the sea.

Quintana Roo Sargassum Monitoring Network map 6-23-2021 — The latest map published by the Quintana Roo Sargassum Monitoring Network on Wednesday. Red indicates beaches with excessive amounts.

But a coalition of environmental and tourism groups wants the authorities to do more to address the sargassum problem, circulating a petition to that end that declared that “we are drowning in sargassum!”

“The predictions are that the amounts arriving in 2021 may be larger” than in 2018 or 2019, the petition said.

“If this isn’t handled immediately, the environment, public health and the local economy are in grave danger,” said the coalition, made up of 29 groups including the Cancún Hotel Association and the Mexican Center of Environmental Law.

“Tonnes of sargassum piling up and decaying on beaches has contributed to erosion, which wipes out sea grasses and marine life, deteriorates coastal water quality and seriously affects the coral reefs of Mexico’s Caribbean,” it said.

Environmentalists have also warned that if sargassum collected from beaches and the sea is simply sent to landfills to rot, the weed – which emits sulfuric acid and arsenic once removed from water – could contaminate aquifers and supplies of fresh water.

Very little sargassum reached Quintana Roo beaches prior to 2014 but very large quantities of the weed have arrived annually since then. Climate change, pollution from fertilizers and changing ocean flows and currents are among the factors cited for the increased quantities, much of which floats up to the Caribbean sea from the Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of South America.

Hauling away collected sargassum in nets. — Sargassum is gathered and bagged in nets on one of the navy’s sargassum gathering vessels.

The annual arrival of sargassum is considered a deterrent to tourism in Quintana Roo, but that sector is currently recovering strongly from the pandemic-induced downturn.

Joaquin said on Twitter that 506 flights landed or took off from airports in the state over the weekend, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. The reactivation of tourism in Quintana Roo, and in states such as Baja California Sur and Yucatán, has been blamed for a recent increase in coronavirus case numbers.

“We’re recovering our tourism so be doubly careful,” Joaquin wrote on Twitter. “Use a face mask, [keep] a healthy distance [from others] and wash your hands. The vaccine doesn’t make you immune from #COVID19.”

With reports from AP and El Economista