The 2020 murder of Homero Gómez González, a world-renowned monarch butterfly activist in Michoacán, brought attention to dangers faced by environmental activists in Mexico. Now, Gómez will be the subject of a new Netflix series honoring his work.
Gómez’s brother, Amado Gómez González, announced that the series had begun filming on Wednesday from the municipality of Ocampo, Michoacán, where he currently serves as mayor.
Homero Gómez was often called “the butterfly guardian” because of his work in Ocampo’s El Rosario butterfly sanctuary, and most agree that he was killed for was his conservation work there. The new series will also be named El Guardián in honor of his work.
A local from the Ocampo community, Gómez was a dedicated defender of the area’s migratory monarch butterfly population and their habitat, which spans almost 140,000 acres across Michoacán and México states and hosts over a billion butterflies each winter along their migratory journey back to the United States and Canada.
Butterflies at El Rosario sanctuary in Michoacán.
Gómez denounced the organized crime groups that used the forest for illegal logging, avocado farming, and other illicit activities and worked with local groups and communities to reforest much of the land devastated by logging in the sanctuary. He was an outspoken critic of anyone that harmed the sanctuary as well as a champion for those who worked in the forests, defending their rights to just working conditions. In the end, most people believe his activism was behind his murder, but his death is still considered unsolved.
Gómez disappeared on the afternoon of January 13, 2020, after leaving a regular meeting at the sanctuary. Local authorities and community members searched in vain for him for the next 16 days, pressured by the state Human Rights Commission, whose spokesperson Mayte Cardona said that Gómez was “surely affecting the interests of the people illegally logging in the area.”
After it was announced that he was missing, Gómez’s family received several calls claiming that he was being held for ransom, claims that authorities assessed to be false. His body was found on January 29 at the bottom of a 6-meter-deep well. While at first authorities said that there were no signs of torture on the activist’s body, they later confirmed that he had suffered a trauma to the head before drowning at the bottom of the well. Forensics reports confirmed that Gómez had been dead for at least two weeks. Despite interviewing over 50 local police officers suspected of being involved in the crime, no one was prosecuted for his murder.
Now Netflix will pay homage to the man, his life, and his activism in the new series, a point of pride for the Ocampo community, for Gómez’s family and the entire country, as messages across social media have relayed in the past several days.
Google announced the new investment at their Google for Mexico event in Mexico City on Thursday. Google México
Google announced Thursday that it will invest 200 million pesos (US $9.9 million) in training for women in Mexico’s southeast over the next three years.
The training will help 2,300 women develop their digital skills in order to improve their work prospects. The money comes from the technology company’s charitable arm, Google.org, and will be placed in a fund to be managed by International Youth Foundation, a non-governmental organization which has experience working with vulnerable communities in Mexico.
The funds are in addition to 40 million pesos (US $2 million) Google had already committed to the training of women in Mexico’s southeast, which includes states such as Tabasco, Yucatán and Quintana Roo.
The new funding was announced at Thursday’s Google for Mexico event, held in Mexico City. Florencia Sabatini, Google’s director of communications in Spanish-speaking Latin America, said it was the company’s biggest ever investment in women in Mexico.
The Mexican government is investing billions of dollars in the region to spur economic development, mainly via large infrastructure projects such as the Maya Train railroad, the Dos Bocas refinery and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec trade corridor.
Forensic investigators at a grave site in Michoacán.
Authorities in Michoacán have recovered the remains of 22 people from clandestine graves in Villamar, a municipality in the state’s northwest.
The number of bodies found in the community of Los Negritos increased from 20 to 22 Thursday. The Michoacán Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Friday that bone remains of two people were located Thursday night. The first of the human remains – those of four men and two women – were discovered on agricultural land on June 18.
State government secretary Carlos Torres Piña said Thursday that some of the bodies were buried recently while others had been in the graves for many years. The remains, none of which have been identified, have been transferred to a government morgue for autopsies and forensic identification testing.
While it is clear that a criminal organization has been disposing of bodies in Los Negritos, the identity of that group hasn’t been established.
Michoacán was the second most violent state in the first five months of 2022 with 1,204 homicides. The state’s Tierra Caliente region, where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Cárteles Unidos are engaged in a battle for supremacy, is particularly notorious for violence. Villamar is located near Michoacán’s northwestern border with Jalisco, about 40 kilometers west of Zamora, which was the most violent city in the world last year, according to a study by a Mexican non-governmental organization.
In our everyday speech, we use sayings naturally — without ever considering that their literal meaning would be incomprehensible for a foreigner learning the language. Are you in a downpour? Then it’s raining cats and dogs. Will you care for two matters on the same trip? Then you are killing two birds with one stone. Did you accidentally reveal a confidential tidbit? Then you let the cat out of the bag.
In the same way, Mexican Spanish is littered with colorful sayings whose literal meaning may perplex you. Let’s unpack seven common sayings, so that they will be at your ready command.
1. Hay pa’ aventar pa’ arriba.
Literal meaning: There is [enough] to throw upwards.
The airspace above your home or workplace is infinite. Suppose you were to begin tossing some of your belongings skyward. When would it fill up? Never! That’s the idea behind this clever local saying. If you have an excess of something, then the sky’s the limit.
Example:
Después de la boda, todos nuestros amigos nos mandaron las fotos que sacaron. Ahora hay pa’ aventar pa’ arriba.
(After the wedding, all of our friends sent us the pictures they took. Now we’ve got pictures coming out of our noses.)
2. Entre menos burros, más olotes.
Literal meaning: The fewer donkeys, the more corn cobs.
Did fewer guests than expected show up at your dinner party? Don’t fret. Look at the bright side. There’s more food and drink for everyone else! That’s the basis for this barnyard wisdom. If your party of 12 just became a party of eight, fire off this optimistic adage — even if it is a little “corny.”
Example:
A: No vinieron los Vargas.
B: Entre menos burros, más olotes.
A: The Vargas family didn’t show up.
B: Great! There’s more for us.
3. Se cree la divina garza.
Literal meaning: He thinks he’s the divine heron.
Ever met someone who thought they were God’s gift, better than everyone else? Mexican actress María Félix once boasted:
Yo no me creo la divina garza; soy la divina garza. (I don’t think I’m God’s gift; I am God’s gift.)
These animals are similar, but not the same.
4. Dar el gatazo
Literal meaning: to give the cat a slap.
According to an article on the website of the Mexican Radio Institute (IMER), this phrase is a derivative of dar gato por liebre. This literally means to give a cat instead of a hare. In most Spanish-speaking countries, this saying is applied when a salesman gives us the switcheroo and sells us inferior goods. The implication is that our intention was to buy a hare, but the salesman sold us a cat instead. Mexicans took the gato from the phrase to form this phrasal verb, which means “to look like.” In other words, even though the item being discussed is not the original, it could pass for it.
Esta refacción no es Toyota original, pero da el gatazo.
(This part is not genuine Toyota, but it could pass for it.)
5. Un ojo al gato, y el otro, al garabato.
Literal meaning: One eye on the cat, and the other on the meat hook.
Imagine the scene at home in the kitchen back in our grandparents’ day. There’s no refrigeration. The meat hangs from above on a hook, called a garabato, thus out of the reach of rodents. But watch out for the family cat! An agile leap could be the end of the family meal. Clearly, the meat had to be protected from multiple dangers. This saying, then, means that we shouldn’t focus on just one possible threat, but rather, remain on high alert for anything that may happen. For example, a friend may leave your home late at night in a bad rainstorm and have to traverse a dangerous neighborhood to get home. You might say to him in parting:
Amigo, está lloviendo fuerte y hay muchos rateros por aquí. Así que, un ojo al gato, y el otro, al garabato.
(Hey, buddy, it’s raining hard and there are a lot of thieves around here. So be on high alert!)
6. Quedarse como el perro de las dos tortas
Literal meaning: to end up like the dog with two sandwiches.
What a dilemma! A dog loiters just in front of a stand where tortas, hoagie-like sandwiches, are sold. Suddenly, a stroke of fortune comes his way when two tortas fall to the ground. Upon which of the two does he pounce? This one? That one? This one? Before he decides, other animals rush in for the steal; he is left with nothing. This saying is applied when indecision and perhaps a little greed leave us empty-handed.
Sometimes you only get one chance.
Example:
Pedro comenzó a noviar con Ariana y Selena al mismo tiempo. ¡Pobrecito! Quedó como el perro de las dos tortas.
(Pedro started dating Ariana and Selena at the same time. The poor guy ended up with neither one!)
7. Aquí solo mis chicharrones truenan.
Literal meaning: Here only my pork rinds thunder.
Picture yourself back in the day, ready for the family meal. On the menu is chicharrón, or pork rinds. Who gets first dibs? The father, of course. He selects the largest and crunchiest piece. When he tears it in two, according to this saying, it thunders. Nothing captures macho authority better than this. It means: I am the only one in charge here. For example, a family may be discussing possible vacations destinations. Frustrated and angered by the lack of consensus, the father may finally blurt out:
¡Ya basta! ¡Vamos a Cancún! Aquí mis chicharrones truenan.
(That’s enough! We are going to Cancún. I am the only one in charge here.)
Lee Jamison has lived and worked in Latin America for more than 25 years and is a resident of Mexico. He operates the site insiderspanish.com and is the author of the book My Burning Tongue: Mexican Spanish available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon.com. He has also written guides on the Spanish spoken in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama.
Local leaders celebrate the re-certification of Río Lagartos beach in Yucatán as a Playa Platino. Facebook / Playa Platino Río Lagartos
The Mexican Institute of Standardization and Certification (IMNC) has re-certified seven Yucatán beaches for the excellence of their environmental and social standards.
The Río Lagartos, Celestún, Telchac, Sisal, Cancunito, San Felipe and El Cuyo beaches, which have all been part of the IMNC’s beach improvement program since 2019, will maintain their “platinum beach” (Playas Platino) certifications. Four of the beaches are located in the state’s biosphere reserve and another two in state reserves.
Certifying beaches is a part of the state and Governor Mauricio Vila’s efforts to attract more tourism, care for the state’s coastal areas, to increase jobs in local communities and improve the region’s economy.
Yucatán hosts over 3 million tourists a year, most of whom come to enjoy the beautiful white sand beaches and warm Caribbean waters. Programs like IMNC’s draw international attention to the region as a destination and state authorities believe that this along with other infrastructure projects, such as the new cruise ship port in Puerto Progreso as well as the Tren Maya, will bring an even greater number of tourists to Yucatán state in 2023.
The Playas Platino program judges beaches on their trash reduction efforts, tourism facilities, security, accessibility and signage. In order to maintain the standard needed to gain re-certification, groups on each beach, made up mostly of local women, have organized beach clean-ups, local spay and neuter campaigns, and tourism training.
To be considered clean the beaches must be free from solid waste, dangerous waste, oil or derivatives of petroleum, and feces. Celestún and Telchac beaches both reduced contamination on their beaches by 88%, Sisal beach by 74%, Cancuncito by 93%, San Felipe beach by 87%, and El Cuyo by 71%.
Travelers have reported long wait times at baggage claim, immigration and other services at AICM.
Passengers at Mexico City International Airport (AICM) are facing long wait times to collect their luggage, get through immigration and board taxis at both terminals.
The newspaper Reforma published a report on the delays Thursday, saying there was chaos at the airport and that passengers have been most annoyed by long waits at barrage carousels.
Juan Luis, who flew into AICM from Miami, told Reforma he waited for almost two hours for his luggage to appear “without any explanation” as to the reason for the delay. “The security guards get annoyed if you complain,” he said.
Martha, who traveled to Mexico City from Atlanta, said she waited for over an hour for her luggage. “We believe it’s an excessive amount of time and … [the airport staff] are rude,” she said.
Some travelers have taken to social media to complain, like Twitter user @SaupartS who shared photos of long lines and said he waited more than 90 minutes for a taxi at the end of June. Twitter @SaupartS
Passengers who flew in from San Antonio recounted similarly long waits at the baggage carousel.
Reforma reported that travelers are also facing long waits in immigration and taxi queues. Demand for taxis has recently increased as drivers for ride-hailing apps such as Uber are now prohibited from collecting passengers at AICM, although the ban has generally not been enforced.
Authorities and airlines have blamed each other for the delays passengers have faced to collect their luggage, Reforma said. An official with the Federal Civil Aviation Agency said the long wait times were perhaps the product of a lack of airline staff on the ground at the airport.
But airline sources said that AICM operates the baggage carousels and has caused delays by directing luggage from as many as four flights to the same one at the same time. One airline source directed blame at customs. “Almost everything is customs’ fault. They don’t have enough personnel or [X-ray] machines,” the source said.
Airport employees said that inspections of luggage immediately after it has been taken off a plane by navy personnel – who are responsible for security at the airport – and sniffer dogs have also contributed to delays in getting baggage into terminals.
An airport security employee told Reforma that delays at immigration have been caused by slow computers and lengthy questioning of some incoming passengers. “That causes long lines,” the employee said.
The high number of passengers that use AICM is also a factor in the long wait times people experience as they move through different parts of the airport. The federal government declared in March that both terminals had reached saturation point, and the opening of the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) north of the capital has so far done little to alleviate the pressure.
The heavy traffic isn’t limited to passengers in the terminal buildings: runways and the airspace surrounding the airport are also congested, leading to an increase in aborted landings, or go-arounds, this year, including two very close calls – one on May 7 and another four days later.
The president called the Reforma report exaggerated, but acknowledged that AICM is overcrowded.
Asked about the airport chaos at his regular news conference on Thursday, President López Obrador claimed that the problems were exaggerated by Reforma and suggested that the focus on them is aimed at damaging his government.
“The Mexico City airport has been saturated at other times and … there wasn’t the same dissemination [of information] as now,” he said.
The president did, however, acknowledge that some passengers have faced delays. He said that changes carried out at the airport, including putting the navy in charge of security, have caused longer wait times, but defended marines’ presence at the facility, considered the most important airport in Latin America.
“There was contraband, the arrival of drugs [before the navy took charge],” López Obrador said. “… The airlines don’t help [with the delays] and [there are] other issues,” he said.
AMLO also acknowledged that too many planes are using the airport, but getting airlines to use AIFA instead is proving to be a challenge. “There is some resistance from airlines to move to the Felipe Ángeles airport,” he said.
“The Felipe Ángeles airport is a great airport. It’s already a functional airport and it will be the best airport in Mexico soon, with a lot of flights, but we’re in a process of transition. So, that’s what’s happening. And [the issue] is very politicized … [but] we’re already taking steps [to alleviate pressure at AICM] and we’re going to finish putting things in order.”
A reforestation project is underway at the El Rosario monarch butterfly sanctuary in Michoacan that will see the planting of 1 million trees, as authorities try to reverse the damage done to the sanctuary and surrounding area by illegal logging.
El Rosario is just one of the smaller sanctuaries that are part of the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve which hosts 14 major butterfly colonies (although each year the number of colonies varies) that fly in each winter from the United States and Canada. The butterflies that winter here — more than 1 billion — are key pollinators, important for every ecosystem they pass through on long their migration route. The biggest threat to their 4,000-kilometer yearly trek is loss of habitat, which this kind of project attempts to mitigate.
The reforestation and other activities will take place from July 1-14 and involve all the municipalities in the vicinity, said mayor of one of them, Amado Gómez González of Ocampo. The campaign will also celebrate Mexico’s national tree day (July 8) in hopes of teaching those in attendance about the importance of reforestation and the loss of habitat for the monarch butterflies — one of the area’s greatest tourism attractions and a vital element of the area’s ecosystem.
Gómez said that increased police presence has meant a 70% drop in illegal logging in the last five years, adding that three illegal loggers were caught by police just last week. Some of the logging is carried out by local citizens for firewood and farming as much of the land is not owned directly by the government but still in the hands of ejidos and small communities.
Other areas of the forest, where once communities had a presence and certain control, have become a no man’s land that is witness to crime, extortion, and illegal avocado farming by organized crime groups.
Gómez reported that in the more central areas of the sanctuary they have seen a loss of up to 40% of trees to illegal logging and in areas distant from human contact and surveillance that number can rise to 80%. Beside being an important green lung in this part of the country, the sanctuary and surrounding forest is also responsible for 30% of the region’s water, which includes water sent to Mexico City.
Gómez called on state officials to take a portion of the money that it charges the capital for that water and spend it on the maintenance of the sanctuary.
Huy Fong foods has temporarily shuttered production of their Sriracha sauce due to a chile shortage. Steven Depolo CC BY 2.0
Mexicans know and love their salsas. For a foreign-made chile sauce to impress a Mexican, it has to be quite extraordinary.
“In my opinion,” says Guadalajara genetics researcher Bertha Ibarra, “Sriracha sauce is exactly that: a salsa picante with a special taste all its own. I love it!”
So do thousands of others all around the world, but hardship is now on the horizon for Sriracha lovers: the Thai-Vietnamese hot sauce — made in California, by the way — is now in short supply and could soon vanish altogether due to northern Mexico’s serious drought problem.
According to a report on National Public Radio, Huy Fong Foods, the company that produces Sriracha chile sauce, sent a letter to its wholesale customers in April that regretfully stated that they will have to stop making Sriracha sauce for a few months.
Much of northern Mexico is currently experiencing drought. Conagua
“Currently, due to weather conditions affecting the quality of chile peppers, we now face a more severe shortage of chile,” the letter says. “Unfortunately, this is out of our control, and without this essential ingredient, we are unable to produce any of our products.”
The problem? Red jalapeño peppers, which Huy Fong requires for making Sriracha sauce, can only grow in the southwestern United States or in northern Mexico. And right now, the whole area is suffering from drought.
“These red jalapeños,” says Dr. Guillermo Murray-Tortarolo, who researches climate extremes at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), “are only grown during the first four months of the year, and they need very controlled conditions, particularly constant irrigation.”
“The already difficult conditions were pushed over the limit by two consecutive La Niña events. And the dry season has not only been intense but also remarkably long,” he added.
Chiles galore are no more.
According to the international news organization Quartz, Huy Fong was once among the 10 fastest-growing U.S. businesses, making over US $1 billion a year in global sales. But, says Quartz’s Roberto A. Ferdman, when founder David Tran, who was born in Vietnam, arrived in Los Angeles back in 1980, he was both jobless and hot-sauce-less.
“Tran found it near impossible to find a spicy additive worthy of his palate. The Southeast Asian community in Los Angeles, he soon realized, was suffering from the same hot sauce withdrawal.”
Within months, Tran arrived at his personal rendition of the Thai sauce, Sriracha, reportedly first produced by Thanom Chakkapak in the town of Si Racha, Thailand. Her original version is called Sriraja Panich and is still made in Thailand today.
David Tran’s recipe employs fresh (not dried) hybrid jalapeño peppers, vinegar, sugar, salt and garlic and is packaged in clear bottles with a rooster logo and a green cap.
David Tran holds a bottle of his iconic hot sauce.
Is David Tran’s Sriracha about to become extinct? Weather experts reply that northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S. are now suffering the driest climate they have seen for 1,200 years.
A new report in the journal Nature Climate Change says that the last such drought took place in the 1500s and lasted for decades.
“We have a society that’s relying on there being the amount of water there was in the 1900s,” said the chief author of the report, Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“But now, with the number of water molecules available to us declining, it really is time for us to get real about how much water there is for us to use.”
The red jalepeño peppers used in Huy Fong Foods’ Sriracha sauce need constant irrigation, says Guillermo Murray-Tortarolo, a climate researcher at UNAM.
The conclusions reached by Williams and the report’s coauthors are based on tree rings.
Data was sampled from dead trees, live trees and even from wooden beams at archaeological sites on Native American land. The researchers were able to study periods of drought going all the way back to A.D. 800, when the Toltecs were just beginning to create an empire in Mexico.
Williams was able to identify several megadroughts over this long period of time. The most important was a drought that took place in the study area in the late 1500s and lasted for 23 years.
These discoveries open up the possibility that this new drought may last decades.
Israel gets most of its irrigation water and 25% of its drinking water from recycled wastewater. Shutterstock
“What should we be doing?” I asked Murray-Tortarolo.
“Fortunately, we have great examples provided by several countries that are pioneers in the field of water conservation,” he said. “Australia, Singapore, Namibia, South Africa and Kuwait have all successfully learned to treat their wastewater and reuse it. Other countries, such as Brazil and India, have initiated mega projects to alleviate these sorts of problems.”
“But I would say the champion in recycling water is Israel,” Murray-Tortarolo explained. “The country only receives 500 millimeters of rain every year (in comparison, the state of Sinaloa gets 800), and 60% of Israel is desert.”
According to him, the Israelis recycle 90% of their water, giving it a second and third use. The country’s water use is so efficient, he said, it’s succeeded in growing roses in the desert. “In fact, around 25% of Israel’s drinking water comes from recycled water, an excellent example of what can be achieved,” he said.
Is the Sriracha sauce shortage a climate change canary in the coal mine?
“The Israelis have actually increased the amount of water in their rivers, and they’re even exporting water to nearby countries,” Murray-Tortarolo said.
Climate change is affecting us, he said, and with it comes an increase in the intensity, duration and recurrence of drought in Mexico. The effects are going to get worse and worse and more and more expensive for Mexican farmers and ranchers, as well as city dwellers.
“This is a key moment to start redesigning our national water distribution systems and thus avoid worse scenarios,” Murray-Tortarolo said. “Naturally, this will require important investment both in raw material and human capital, but the cost of adaptation now will be much less than the losses we could suffer if the water shortage catches us unawares. Right now is the time to start recycling water!”
If we don’t, we may end up losing a lot more than Sriracha sauce.
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.
While some areas of Jalisco are relatively safe, others are known for violent crime and gang activity.
If you want to know which stretches of highway to avoid in Jalisco, you’d be better served checking social media than looking at the United States government’s Mexico travel advisory, although doing the former might put you off travel altogether.
The U.S. Department of State’s current advisory says that violent crime and gang activity are common in parts of Jalisco and advises U.S. government employees that they must not travel within 12 miles (19 kilometers) of the Jalisco-Michoacán border, on Federal Highway 80 south of Cocula and on State Highway 544 between Mascota and San Sebastián del Oeste.
According to a report by the newspaper Informador, social media users have identified 14 other dangerous stretches of highway in Jalisco. A map published by Informador shows all 17 high risk stretches of highway. They are:
State Highway 307 between San Cristóbal de la Barranca and Zacatecas.
Federal Highway 23 between Guadalajara and Colotlán.
Federal Highway 15 near La Barca, Tizapán and Tuxcueca.
State Highway 215 between Jalostotitlán and Teocaltiche.
Federal Highway 23 near Bolaños and the border with Zacatecas.
State Highway 414 near Quitupan.
Federal Highway 205 between Yahualica, Teocaltiche and Zacatecas.
Federal Highway 54 near the Jalisco-Colima border.
State Highway 429 between El Grullo and Ciudad Guzmán.
The Guadalajara-Tepic highway (15D) in the stretch approaching Santa María del Oro, Nayarit.
State Highway 205 near the border with Zacatecas.
Federal Highway 80 between Cañadas de Obregón and San Juan de los Lagos.
State Highway 405 near Mazamitla.
The road between Chiquilistlán and Tapalpa.
State Highway 604 between El Refugio and Ahualulco.
State Highway 544 between Mascota and San Sebastián del Oeste. (The same highway continues to Puerto Vallarta.)
Federal Highway 80 between Acatlán and Cocila.
Las carreteras en los límites entre #Jalisco y #Michoacán son señaladas como riesgosas por la presencia de grupos delictivos, y nosotros en una investigación especial que hoy publicamos en web y en la versión impresa hablamos y detectamos esto. https://t.co/WOBGhudbYypic.twitter.com/rCrE5YV6ZX
Informador also published the accounts of several motorists who have had frightening experiences on Jalisco highways. Josue’s pickup truck was stolen by armed men who cut him off with two vehicles when he was traveling to Michoacán from La Barca, a municipality near Lake Chapala.
“Eight men got out with AK-47s and handguns,” he said, adding that he was forced into one of their vehicles and taken to La Barca, where he was dropped off. “We saw two police vehicles [on the way to La Barca] and I thought there would be a shootout but … [the police] just let us pass.”
Tomás was traveling on State Highway 604 with his family when he was cut off by armed men. “Pointing their weapons at us they approached and asked us to identify ourselves. One of them recognized us and shouted that we were acquaintances. They got in their cars and left,” he said.
Julián, a motorcyclist, was traveling toward Yahualica when he was cut off by two pickup trucks on a bridge. “Armed men asked me where I was going. Then they said, ‘We suggest that you go back, for your own safety,’” he said.
The archbishop of Guadalajara and the bishop of Zacatecas also recently found themselves in scary situations while traveling in Jalisco. Both men were stopped at organized crime roadblocks in the north of the state.
“They demand you say where you’re coming from, where you’re going, what your job is, what you’re doing,” said Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega, the archbishop.
Zacatecas Bishop Sigifredo Noriega Barceló said it was the first time he had encountered an organized crime checkpoint.
“We were going from Huejuquilla to Tenzompa. … What struck me was that it wasn’t the National Guard or the army [who stopped us]. They were people from one of the crime groups. … “Of course fear is present. We take the [safety] measures that everyone takes [but] there’s no special protection [for bishops],” he said.
Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro denied the existence of organized crime roadblocks in his state.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro asserted Tuesday that there are no organized crime checkpoints on the state’s highways. “Freedom of passage is guaranteed in this state,” he said. “There is no … roadblock on any highway in Jalisco, it’s as clear and blunt as that.”
Alfaro said he was surprised that Cardinal Robles chose to recount his experience to reporters rather than file a complaint with authorities. “We have profound respect [for the archbishop but] we’re very surprised he made a media statement and not a formal complaint,” the governor said.
Arturo Villarreal Palos, a University of Guadalajara security researcher, described Alfaro’s remarks as “unfortunate,” saying that he demonstrated a lack of empathy with Robles and other victims of highway violence, who often don’t report their experiences due to fear of repercussions.
The academic said the governor needs to acknowledge that a problem exists and work with federal authorities to stop it. Villarreal noted that criminal groups set up roadblocks both to demonstrate they have control of a particular area and to stop undesirables from entering.
Unofficial checkpoints can be found in many other states including Sinaloa, where reporters and officials were stopped by armed men while traveling to one of President López Obrador’s events during his tour of the northern state in May.
López Obrador subsequently said there are people in some parts of the country – “not just Sinaloa” – who think that they must “take care of a region” by stopping vehicles and ensuring that weapons aren’t brought in. He has rejected a United States government claim that criminal organizations control “ungoverned areas” that account for about one-third of Mexico’s territory.
Yucatán Governor Mauricio Vila pets dogs at an event to announce the state's first public veterinary hospital. Twitter @MauVila
The pets of Mérida, Yucatán, will soon have first-class facilities for both health emergencies and regular check-ups. The city government, in conjunction with state officials, is planning a 15-million-peso (US $750,000) public veterinarian hospital, the first of its kind in southeastern Mexico.
The new hospital will include doctors offices, a surgical area, overnight housing for pets, recovery and quarantine areas, and offer adoption services to the local community.
The new hospital comes as a part of Declaración Mérida 2050, an agreement signed in February of 2019 between Governor Mauricio Vila and Mérida Mayor Renán Barrera to improve the state capital. Also part of the agreement’s long-term vision is the planting of hundreds of trees within the city limits, improving mobility and transportation, lowering the cost of public transportation, and repairing the city’s failing water distribution system.
Governor Vila has frequently made the well-being of animals part of his political tenure, proposing and passing a mistreatment of animals bill when he was in Congress, creating an Animal Protection Unit and the city’s first public veterinarian services when he was mayor of Mérida and now, as governor, working with Yucatán’s Attorney General’s Office to create a special animal protection unit.
… y un trato digno a los animales de compañía y en situación de abandono con:
✅ Área de hospital con módulos de vacunación, consultorios y quirófano; así como estancia canina, áreas de adopción, cuarentena y de recuperación. (2/3) pic.twitter.com/LC3uQzoH3J
The governor shared renderings of the proposed veterinary hospital on Twitter.
“We hope to continue creating consciousness about the treatment [of animals] in order to make Yucatán a peaceful and harmonious place for all,” said the governor.
Mayor Barrera said the building of the new veterinarian hospital was just one more step in creating the kind of city Mérida’s residents want — a place that’s inclusive, sustainable and humane.
“For a long time our administration, in collaboration with residents, civil institutions, activists, and the general population, has been prioritizing the well-being and responsible ownership of animals,” Barrera said.
The new hospital will be located in the southern-central part of the city, according to Vila, so that even residents with few economic resources will be able to access and use the services that will be offered there.
