See Mexico and die
A man suspected of an assisted suicide in Mexico pleaded not guilty to drug charges.
Jeff George Ostfeld is accused of smuggling an animal tranquilizer into the U.S. Authorities suspect it was used in the death of Jennifer Malone.
Her body was found in a Nuevo Progreso hotel.
Authorities say Ostfeld was carrying the animal tranquilizer when U.S. officials stopped him at the Progreso International Bridge.
Ostfeld was charged with importing a controlled substance and intent to distribute.
Suicides tend to be rare in Mexico, and when a foreign tourist dies under any circumstances, it tends to be newsworthy, but this is the first I heard about this particular incident.
In Mexico, you go to the doctor to find out what medication to use, not to obtain permission to use it. That includes both man and beast… purchasing veterinary medication, like most human medication, does not normally require a prescription. And, because some animal tranquilizers are fatal to humans, there was something of a scandal when it was discovered that Australians, British and New Zealanders were organizing day trips into Tijuana to purchase these tranquilizers, with the goal of ending their lives.
These buyers were part of some “death with dignity” movement in those countries … mostly elderly, well-heeled people with terminal illnesses (or with spouses with terminal illnesses). Publicity about these death tourists (and complaints from authorities in their home countries about having to prosecute cancerous grannies) put pressure on Mexican health regulators to crack down on veterinary pharmacists who obviously weren’t selling tranqs for owners of neurotic Great Danes and nervous horses. Like the guys who hung up signs in their windows saying “Australians Welcome”… ie., buy your one-way ticket here.
Given Mexican government sensitivity about it’s image abroad, the last thing it wants are tourists planning a one-way trip, and leaving a corpse for the Secretariat of Foreign Relations to deal with.
Although assisted suicide is illegal in Mexico, it’s unlikely to be prosecuted (and patients with terminal illnesses are often left with more than enough medication on hand for any “accidental” overdoses… a friend of mine still had a stash of heroin in her bathroom medicine chest, left behind by the visiting nurse for her grandmother who had died a few months previously of a painful terminal disease). Or particularly investigated. This case might be.
First off, it involved not just a United States citizen, but a young woman, with no apparent terminal disease, although she was being treated for severe depression. Secondly, Ostfeld apparently videotaped the death (which sounds really creepy to me). The fact that he intended to sell the left-overs (to an Australian and a Brit) — which is what he is being charged with in the United States — plays into the agenda of those who argue that liberalizing drug laws will encourage irresponsible foreigners to create problems in border towns. And — it goes without saying — the Mexicans resent the idea that Mexico equals drugs and death.
… the only possible choice:
Vote somebody, or nobody
I haven’t much commented on the 5th of July congressional and municipal elections. With less than 10 days until the election — which will have a very low turnout (expected to be only 30 percent) — I don’t expect any major surprises.
The Calderon Administration, and PAN would like to make narcotics a campaign issue, but it hasn’t caught on like economic issues. Despite that, NarcoGuerra Times, Michael Reyolds (“July Dogs”) new sub-blog (associate blog?… not sure what to call it) –nmeant to focus specifically on “the drug wars and related subjects from North America, Mexico, Central and South America,” — has a better election overview than I could write at this point:
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) … is currently leading in the polls with 37% of likely voters. Calderon’s PAN comes in at 33%. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) lags with 16%. Lopez Obrador … is stumping for candidates from two smaller leftist groups–Convergencia and the Workers Party (PT).
The PRD might have done well in this election but spent the past six months in an internal pissing-match between its left-wing and right-wing. The rightists won taking charge of the party. So Lopez Obrador, supported by the PRD left faction, took a walk along with his “Legitimate Government”–a shadow cabinet combined with state and municipal organizations–and hooked with Convergencia and the PT. The PRD hasn’t recovered from this.
The Mexican Legislature, both its Senate and House, are pretty much equally divided between PAN, PRI, and PRD. At this date PAN has a few more senators and representatives. The PRI and PAN ussually ally on important issues. That gives the over two-thirds of the votes, leaving the PRD out of the game. On July 5 the PRD would have to more than double its number of legislators to put the brakes on the right-wing governance. That isn’t in the cards.
Then there is the mounting “none-of-the-above” movement–primarily a “netroots” campaign that’s gaining traction. Voters are being urged to strike off all the names on their ballot, simply file it blank, or stay home. Right now this bloc is polling at 11%. Expect to see this number climb.
A few thoughts, mostly in response to more “U.S.-centric” Mexico writers about the elections.
A PRI victory (probably not a sweep, but PRI should be the majority party once again) is not a bad thing for the left. I won’t go into a long history of the PRI here (other than note it DID NOT control Mexico for 70 years, as U.S. reporters — echoing Jesse Helms — are prone to write. The PRI wasn’t even founded until 1948, though it included most — but not all — of the cadres included in the old PRM). I will point out that the PRI lost credibility when it moved to a generic “Washington Consensus” economic policy, but has always been a socialist party.
With Party Chair Beatriz Parades re-emphasizing the party’s socialist heritage, and dissatisfaction among those that are going to vote with the present economic situation, a PRI plurality in the Chamber and the Senate will be more likely to turn to the socialist PRD and the smaller parties for support in achieving a majority.
Felipe Calderon is going to be a lame duck, no matter what happens.
It’s PAN that seems to be falling apart. While the PRD at least is grouped around the same ideological concepts (socialism in some form or another), PAN is a mixture of free-market capitalists (what in Mexico are known as “liberals”), big business types, the conservative wing of the Catholic Church (including the hierarchy) and fascists. The “pragmatists” and “pietists” (for want of a better term) have been fighting for control of the party, and the prospects for a united party are dim. At this point, attempts to push Calderon’s chosen successor (Josefina Vasquez Mota) seem more an attempt to find an acceptable compromise between the competitors. Vasquez will have a plurinomal Senate seat, and she will be getting a lot of press, but whether she’ll be accepted by the party base remains an open question. Remember that Fox pushed Santiago Creel after the midterm elections in 2003, only to see Felipe Calderon nominated after fierce party in-fighting.
I don’t think the projected 16% for PRD is out of line, or unusual, given the party’s history. Much has been made on another English-language site about the PRD’s “circular firing squad” and internal dissent, but that’s normal for what has always been a coalition of competing smaller leftist organizations and theorists… which normally only has about 15% of the vote, anyway. The third of the vote received by AMLO in the 2006 Presidential election never meant the PRD had a third of the voters, and –given the outcome of that election — many of AMLO’s supporters have given up on electorial politics altogether (or are independent voters, waiting for a worthwhile candidate).
The smaller AMLO-philic parties may or may not survive. How much support AMLO still has is hard to assess, given that he is largely frozen out of the media, and his supporters — the poor and the young — are both hard to count, and unlikely to vote unless they have a strong candidate to back. And, like Barack Obama’s backers, much of the AMLO support is under the radar, organzied by techno-saavy geeks which isn’t likely to be followed by the traditional media.
The results of the null vote are going to be interesting. Already, the parties, and the controlling Elections Commission, are talking about “reforms”. Much of the “null vote” movement — as well as the high abstention rate seems to be based in dissatisfaction with the party system, as controlled by the Commission. In an attempt as fairness, the system rigidly controls party propaganda, and for practical reasons, benefits the status quo. And makes the elections plainly dull.
Sexual revolutionary
Juan Carlos Caballero Vega said that social inequality and injustice in contemporary Mexico might justify taking up arms once more against the government.
“If that happens… if there is a necessity (for a new Revolution) I’ll be there. If God grants me life,” said Pancho Villa’s former chauffer, at celebrations making his 109th birthday. By all means, “I hope that God allows me to arrive at the centenary of the Mexican Revolution”, which begins 20 November 2010.
Caballero, born 24 June 1900 in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, joined Villas Division de la Norte at the age of 14, bringing himself to the Centaur of the North’s attention with his honesty. Asked why he wanted to join the army, young Juan Carlos said, “to meet girls.” It must have worked… he attributes his longevity to an active sex life.
.
He’s been at it a long, long time now. Horny teenagers aren’t rare at any time, but a horny teenager with a car was practically unheard of in 1914. While Villa accepted Cabellero’s claim that he knew how to use a rifle, the Centaur of the North was a bit skeptical of the boy’s claims that he knew how to drive. Bemused by the kid’s moxie, arranged a driver’s test. Juan Carlos passed … and Villa, always one to make use of the talent around him, had a new staff chauffeur.
Cabellero did more than drive and cruise for girls. He had that rifle for a reason; taking part in the raid on Columbus New Mexico (16-March 1916) which he claims was retribution for being sold bad ammunition by Columbus merchants.
Photo: EFE
By late 1916, even Cabellero recognized the Villa’s revolution was a lost cause. Villa had turned on the Constitutionalists (his theoretical allies) which had turned the Revolution into a civil war by this point.. Leaving with the legitimate excuse that his mother needed him (he told Villa he’d dreamed she’d died), he was given a few gold Centarios and returned to Chihuahua to give the money to his family, and made his way north to Pennsylvania, where he found work in an auto body shop and taught gymnastics. He was long out of it by the time Villa (along with the chauffer and several others) were gunned down in the retired revolutionary’s Dodge Sedan leaving Hidalgo de Parral in June 1923.
After the Revolution, Juan Carlos returned to Mexico, settled down somewhat — married and raised six children. He outlived his first wife, and his second, a slip of a girl of 60 he met at the Monterrey Lion’s Club facility where he still lives when he was a spry 99 year old widower.
Given the old boy’s readiness to return to the battle, perhaps its just as well he – like Villa himself – has been pensioned off. He is one of the last recipients of a 1600 peso monthly stipend for Revolutionary veterans.
On his 107th birthday, he was asked about the pension. “It helps me eat, which keeps me alive. And, being alive, I can love, which is what keeps me alive.”
American Idol — for how long?
Despite Chilean President Michelle Bachelet’s description of U.S. President Barack Obama as an “idol” in her nation, Obama’s remarks at Monday’s meeting (22-July)between the two American presidents indicates that this administration suffers the same cultural tone-deafness towards Latin America that has affected all United States administrations.
“I’m interested in going forward, not looking backward,” said Obama, who has pledged to reinvigorate ties with Latin America, after what his advisors believe was neglect during the previous Bush administration.
“I think that the United States has been an enormous force for good in the world. I think there have been times where we’ve made mistakes,” Obama said in the Oval Office.
“But I think that what is important is looking at what our policies are today, and what my administration intends to do in cooperating with the region.”
Obama was asked by a Chilean journalist whether he would apologize for past CIA operations in the region, like an apparent [sic!!!] US-backed coup attempt in Chile in 1973.
(Agence France-Press, sombrero tip to The Latin Americanist)
While there is probably little point in quoting the Spanish-born U.S. philosopher George Santayana’s observation that “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it,” Mr. Obama — who is known for his rhetorical skills — might want to reconsider HOW he phrases his responses, and how they will be received everywhere south of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande River.
Of course, having spent several years immersed in Mexican history, there’s a temptation to see those who say they’re not interested in “looking backwards” as a threat to my livelihood. But, it’s not only Mexicans (or foreign writers living in Mexico) who see “looking backwards” as essential to any attempt to move forward.
Mexicans may be more obsessed with their history than some other Latin Americans, but it is in “looking backwards” that people assess policy and judge foreign administrations. The building blocks of Latin American thinking are the made of our past… much as our buildings are.
What Mr. Obama said to Doctor Bachelet was not just ignorant, it was insulting. Dr. Bachelet is herself a victim of those United States policies and actions that led to the 11 September 1973 tragedy, to her father’s torture and death, to her own torture and exile.
For the President of a nation that has not “moved forward” from another 11 September… and invaded two other countries(and is still there), created an internal security apparatus that has severely damaged Latin American-United States relations, and is still pursuing policies that are rejected (sometimes violently) by Latin American citizens… this smacks of the same “do as I say, not as I do” attitude that has soured United States relations with Latin America for the last 200 years.
Doctor Bachelet has — to her enormous credit — “moved forward” with her own life, and her country-men and women — to their enormous credit — have emerged from the disaster of that 11 September. But they were only able to “move forward” by coming to grips with their past, by “looking backwards”.
Michelle Bachelet is an extremely gracious lady, responding as she did to Mr. Obama’s remarks. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, not as suave and sophisticated as the Chilean counter-part also showed good manners when dealing with Obama… presenting, not some list of demands or statement of what particular policies must be implemented to restore traditionally amiable relations between his country and the United States… but a history book.
Chavez at least made Eduardo Galleano’s “Open Veins” a minor best seller for a few weeks, which is all to the good, but doesn’t seem to have seeped into the consciousness of the State Department, or the President.
As a Mexican historian, I have noted Obama’s “good intentions” are likely to be interpreted much as Woodrow Wilson’s were. And Wilson — another moralist with soaring rhetoric — has gone down in Mexican history as the worst villain ever to occupy the White House (with the possible exception of James Knox Polk). Mexico has “moved forward” from the Wilson Administration, but incompletely. Until the United States accepts its own responsiblity for the disasterous Huerta administration (as it only begrudgingly does to its part in gun running and money laundering that fuel the narcotics trade) will there be a concerted effort to see the United States as an honest partner.
It’s ironic (and writing history requires a taste for irony): Latin American cultures are based on a synthesis of the past (here in Mexico, several thousand years of it) and our histories are all about a struggle between the past and the present. Yet, the president of a nation with only a few hundred years of history (and a president and a nation greatly admired by many) fails to understand his own nation’s history and traditions in this part of the world are still relevant to us.
If the United States wants “free trade” agreements with Latin American nations, the mistakes of the past need to be acknowledged, dealt with honestly and corrected. If the United States wants better relations with Chile, it needs to acknowledge its role in what happened in 1973. If it wants better relations with Mexico, it needs to acknowledge its role in… everything from the 1803 Burr Conspiracy to its money laundering and gun running today.
Before one builds, one lays a foundation. And, the foundation for decent relations in the hemisphere does not lie in burying the past, but in exposing it, using the stones — as the temples were used here in Mexico — to build a new, and stronger structure.
The short quote from Santayana’s 1905 “The Life of Reason” is incomplete. The full paragraph, which Mr. Obama might want to ponder is as follows:
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.
Your instincts… and perhaps your intentions… are good, Mr. Obama. But your country has learned nothing.
So gay!
Maybe because there were Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Pride parades across Latin America (and the rest of the world) last weekend, there are a few gay-related themes to Latin American news now.
In Bolivia, where the weird assasination plot against Evo Morales was thwarted, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the hitmen hired were neo-Nazis formerly employed by the Irish private security firm that guards Shell Oil facilities in that northern European republic. What makes it sooo gay is that Shell. Irish hitmen wannabes, Bolivian separatists, and wandering Hungarian Nazis all ended up working for Eduardo Rosza Flores a gay Muslim ultra-rightwing Marxist Croation terrorist.
Father Alberto Cutié, who left the Roman Catholic priesthood (and his lucrative TV show) after photos appeared in TVNotas of the priest making nookie with a woman he has since married in a civil ceremony, is now said to be gay, gay, gay. According to José Linares, Cutié is covering up his relationship with Leonardo (no last name)… lots of salacious details about Padre Alberto caught with his pants down follow. As does the intriguing tidbit that Linares is a FORMER producer from the Catholic Church network, PAX-TV, who was fired from Cutié’s program.
Linares claims the paparrazi photos of Cutié and his now-wife (as well as the marriage itself) are a clever ruse to throw the media off-track, sound a little dubious, but there are some intriguing details that give the story some plausibility: Cutié was a Catholic priest (and whoever heard of a handsome priest?) and Ricky Martin is one of his neighbors.
And… Hello, Buenos Aires! South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, mentioned as a possible Republican Party presidential candidate in 2012, disappeared last week… allegedly heading for the Appalachan Trail. Sanford’s disappearance led to all kinds of speculation, and questions about his ability to govern, but he has reappeared… on a flight from Argentina. While the Governor is planning to hold a press conference later today, there are all kinds of rumors about what the Governor was doing in Argentina, and why he was traveling alone, without his wife or staff aware of his whereabouts.
Seeing that the Governor is a conservative white Republican, naturally, the rumors involve Latin …. uh.. “male bonding”. On the other hand, South Carolina is famous for people who can’t read maps, and maybe the Governor just mistook Argentina for Appalachia…
Perverse, I know, but I watched the Gov’s live press conference. After several minutes meandering through a discussion of his student travel days, tearing up talking about his father-in-law and dragging Jesus into the whole thing, he fessed up he was having an affair with a “person” in Argentina. He did use the pronoun “her” once, which probably does mean female. Why are U.S. political scandals so boring?
Send lawyers and scanners … not guns and money
Under a new agreement signed Monday, border crossings between Mexico and the United States should be better scrutinized than before… although we’re told the process (involving more scanning equipment and dogs) should allow the process to move relatively rapidly.
Erin Kelly at the Arizona Republic mentions that in addition to “biometric-identification technology, mobile X-ray units and upgraded license-plate readers, as well as inspection equipment to screen all rail traffic into Mexico,” one important innovation that should ease one legitimate border traffic hassle:
To encourage cross-border tourism, Mexico and the U.S. are working on a customs form that would be recognized by both nations so tourists and businesses engaged in trade don’t have to fill out two separate forms.
Jeff Bliss for Bloomberg, fleshes out the Arizona Republic story with emphasis on other security measures, including:
… state and local police in patrol cars will be given access to federal databases so they can check if suspects they pull over are linked to drug cases.
In addition, U.S. authorities and Mexican police will jointly monitor cars carrying weapons or money as they cross the border to deliver their contraband to cartel chiefs.
Two of the big items — searching for cross-border tunnels from Mexico into the United States — and cracking down on gun running into Mexico might involve new technology, but are old, old problems, going back to the beginning of the Border Patrol.
El Paso historian Leon Metz (reprinted in Scott Parks’ “Chinese In Mexico” blog) writes:
… since the Chinese were denied legal entry into this country [after 1882], they commenced slipping in by way of Mexico, and thereafter walked north.
During this period a resident Mexican could cross north across the international line with no delays and no papers. Hence, the initial U.S. Border Patrol arose. In popular and local parlance, they were usually referred to as “Chinese Immigration Agents.”
… this period of years, 1870-1910, stories constantly and steadily arose of tunnels under the Rio Grande, and tunnels meandering through various areas and regions, houses and businesses. The only reason for these tunnels was to smuggle Chinese into the country.
Attempts to control gun-running in the early 20th century, as I wrote in Gods, Gachupines and Gringos, wss also responsible for an innovative bureaucratic response:
Where Mexican women had always accompanied the army, and in the Revolution were to serve as soldiers and officers, the United States had always reserved uniformed service for men. In the thinking of the time, women were afforded special protection, and it was improper for a man to touch a woman. Women in those times did not seem to have legs—at least they were never mentioned in polite conversation. Women, both in the United States and in México, wore long skirts. The customs service was unable to stop the arms traffic by 1910, and they knew that Mexican and Mexican-American women were crossing the border with rifles, pistols, and even hand grenades tied to their unmentionable, untouchable legs. President Taft, after some uncomfortable discussions with his advisers and with great reluctance, authorized training and hiring the first female uniformed service personnel in the United States—female customs agents.
And, in passing, it might be noted that the head bureaucrat when it comes to border security and customs is a female, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano… who was asked by a Mexican reporter why the United States wanted to crack down on smuggling into Mexico. Napolitano said “There is shared responsibility going both ways,” which doesn’t really answer the question, to my thinking… not completely, anyway.
Mexico doesn’t HAVE to control the narcotics going north, and the United Nations Charter of Human Rights states that people have a right to emigrate if they so desire. The Consitutiton of the United States gives people the right to bear arms, and is intrepreted as giving just about anyone the right to buy them. The Juarez Doctrine says countries should stay out of each others internal affairs… which comes down to this. If the U.S. wants Mexico to prevent narcotics (and people) from moving north, then the United States has to prevent cash and guns from moving south.
Mexico produces and/or manufactures (or, when it comes to cocaine, imports) more than enough narcotics to meet its own very small internal demand. The United States has more than enough weapons to meet its internal needs (and wants) and what it does inside its own borders with the narcotics or weapons is their own business.
Mexico is chosing to make narcotics use a non-criminal issue, and focus manpower and firepower on narcotics exporters. The U.S. … which has many, many more users choses to treat use as a criminal issue (which is the country’s internal affair, and none of Mexico’s concern), but until now has done almost nothing to control firearms exports. That IS Mexico’s concern, and a quid pro quo is well in order.
Rocky and Bullwinkle… and Chapo
Maybe the Calderon Administration’s “war on drugs” is working… though not in the way the United States and others would like.
Since instituting a “surge” against drug cartels, President Calderon’s plans are working, only to relocate the cartel’s operations to the Bahamas or US. A series of Department of Justice studies have concluded that … American gangs are co-opting Mexican cartels to traffic cocaine and marijuana. …
Gang violence has also spiked in Canada. This is “directly related” to crackdowns in Mexico, according to Pat Fogarty, a senior member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, interviewed in this week’s Economist. A spate of recent arrests in Mexico has disrupted the cocaine distribution chain to Vancouver, forcing street dealers to secure their supplies. “The price goes up and the guns come out,” states Fogarty.
(Sean Goforth, Foreign Policy Blogs: Mexico)
Next thing you know, we’ll be reading about Dudley Doright being in the pay of Snidely “Chapeaux” Whiplash and Inspector Fenwick being relieved of his command.
BONUS MEXI-TRIVIA. Dudley Do-right is perhaps another example of a U.S. attempts to creating a Mexican ally for U.S. policy that went sideways. A 1976 history of Mexican animation by Jesús de León records that Producciónes Animadas Gamma SA — which did the animation for Jay Ward Productions grew out of an early 1950s project headed by U.S. animator Robert Thompkins and paid for by the United States to produce anti-communist propaganda films.
The Mexicans didn’t take anti-commie propaganda all that seriously, and more to the point, it didn’t pay all that well. Ernesto Terrazas left Thompkins’ propaganda factory to start Gamma as a commercial enterprise… and producing the animation for that great subverter of American children, Jay Ward Productions: creators of Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris Badinov, Natasha Fatale… and Dudley Do-right.
Did Bullwinkle tunnel under the border?
Declare victory and go home
In an article on growing media (and other) complaints about human rights abuses, Frontera Norte/Sur notes that the Obama Administration is among the most enthuasiastic backers of the Calderon Administration’s use of military troops as policemen in the “war on (some) drug (dealers to the exclusion of others)”. However, at the end of the article is this interesting observation from the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute.
Criticizing the focus on supply-side, law-enforcement strategies promulgated by the US and Mexican governments, author Hal Brands contended that the anti-drug Merida Initiative launched by the two nations was unfolding at the expense of drug abuse prevention and treatment programs. While still supporting prohibition, Brands underscored the absence of effective anti-corruption and anti-money laundering initiatives.
Citing the failure of drug crop eradication programs in Colombia, Brands noted the persistence of poverty in Mexico, the gutting of social programs, the lack of economic and social development alternatives, and the uncontrolled rise in the cost of living south of the border as other important factors needing consideration. The drug dilemma is a complex one, Brands concluded, and a problem that requires comprehensive solutions.
Well, of course “crop eradication” doesn’t work… farmers need to farm something, or otherwise are going to either emigrate or simply work around the problem. If carrots paid as much as poppies, farmers would grow carrots. But carrots are never going to pay as well, so why not just pay the farmers what they WOULD make for poppies for thier carrots. And toss in a few health clinics, schools, movie theaters, shopping malls to make life worth living in the campo. Or pay them to NOT farm anything (call it biosphere protection, or use carbon credits, if what amounts to bribery offends your tender conscience). It’s cheaper than soldiers, prisons and caskets.
Speek English
What a bunch of morans… (Sombrero tip to “Wonkette.com“).
What water?
Rick Blaine wasn’t the first gringo to open a business catering to tourists and expats in a tropical seaport without full knowledge of the infrastructure. Mazatlan — unlike Casablanca — isn’t in the desert, it is in a dry region and one might come for the beaches, and the ocean — you don’t come here for the waters. Or waste it.
We’re at the tail end of dry season. While it’s efficient (and common in Latin America) to have a gravity fed water system, when the water level drops (as it has over the dry season), the pressure in the water lines drops… and — with my tank not refilling itself — eventually it will run dry. And did.
My house was built on top of the land-lady’s house, so the system — while simple and elegant — is not failsafe. Once her cistern on the ground floor fills, it pushes water to a tank on my back porch that provides water to her system. When her tank fills, it pushes water to my tank… which means, when my tank goes dry, I can generally fill a couple of buckets for basic things like flushing the toilet and wash the dishes. Oh, I might have to use a bucket to take a shower, but that’s not so bad.
But… and wouldn’t you know it, it’s when I have gringo visitors who expect everything to always work… there wasn’t enough enough water in the lines to even fill the cistern. Not that I feel singled out — twenty colonias in Mazatlan had no water last week. Thanks to a tropical storm and a rented electrical pump, I have running water again, for now.
Water… and having enough water… is a chronic problem in Mexico (and most of the world). Mexico City is not the only place to have experienced exponential growth, which coupled with an aging water system, and increased demand has meant serious shortages.
Here in Sinaloa, as elsewhere, there are conflicting demands between agricultural industrial and consumer use. Mining and agriculture is the mainstay of the Sinaloan economy, and without water, there is no agriculture and no mining. Photos of dessicated dead cattle are standard fare in the local newspapers this time of year. Besides the obvious water users, like the local brewery and canneries there isn’t an industrial process that doesn’t require huge amounts of water… and, it’s industrial and agricultural production that allowed Mexico to enjoy a middle-class lifestyle: we have flush toilets, and wash our bodies, our dishes and our clothes (not to mention floors and the dog) like people north of the border (maybe a little more… Mexicans have a fetish about clean floors).
Certainly, no one is going to begrudge people the advantage of flush toilets, or a daily shower, but it’s hard NOT to notice that in places like Mazatlan — with a booming tourist industry — there is even a greater strain on our limited resources. Resource allocation is sometimes bizarre. The hotel swimming pools had all the water they needed (a few meters from the ocean) but twenty colonias (including mine) had no water at all.
Which is a problem, when you have visitors for a week from North of the Border. Our NoB friends expect life to be “turn-key” (or… maybe in this case…” turn-tap”) so while they may not expect you to wash the dishes, or wash the dog for a couple of days, they freak when expected to wash in what you’ve collected from the air conditioner’s condensation (which, the June temperature being slightly above that of Minneapolis is expected to run 24/7 — though I won’t get into the over-extended electrical system here).
We’ve had our first rainy season storm, so I do have water again, and the Picachos dam project is supposed to provide enough water to meet demand for the next several years. Whose demands, though? There are regular protests from the communities that are being flooded by the new dam, to the consernation of our north of the border visitors and “ex-pat community” . And, that water will have to be paid for.
To those NoB, having the taps run dry is just inconceivable. Even though — like a lot of NoB visitors, my houseguest was wary of drinking tap water (assuming there had been tap water), something about not having any must work psychologically to make people extra thirsty. Buying water — by the half-liter bottle, seemed to be his major shopping activity. Besides having adopted the Mexican attitude that an empty bottle is a usable item (like refilling it from the 18-liter garrafon sitting on the kitchen counter and sticking it in the refrigerator if cold water was the issue), buying water is damned expensive. My garrafon is normally delivered — 12 pesos (which is about what a liter of bottled water costs) and I could afford to buy one a day for a few days if it really became necessary (though with my regular delivery guy overwhelmed by demand, I had to lug a garifon home seven blocks from the neighborhood distributor… still cheaper not paying for delivery, but I’m over 50 and those suckers are heavy).
Industrial use, agriculture, tourism, consumerism… all require water. And, any way it’s captured is going to cost money. Writing in Truthout.com (and picked up by “Raw Story” as if it was something new, was Lisa Bokov-Ellen’s article on attempts to privatize water sales throughout Latin America. There were serious riots throughout Argentina when water systems were privatized (leading to four presidents in one month) and control of natural resources is the friction point for political and social upheaval throughout the world.
The United States and Canada have been particularly fortunate in having a
Bellagio Resort, Las Vegas
water-rich environment, but even in places like Phoenix, or Los Angeles or … by all means… Las Vegas… you haven’t had to pay full price for your water… yet. Whether it should be a commodity is not the only question. What is “fair price” for basic use — and is a tuna cannery or an auto plant somehow more essential than a cattle farm or bean field… or a tourist attraction? Should those of us who just want to wash our dishes have to spend a morning waiting for the delivery man’s truck because the tourists bring in foreign exchange? Who decides?
And, if you came for the waters… are you misinformed as to the real price?
Hortensia Bussi de Allende, D.E.P.
Hortensia Bussi Soto de Allende (22 July 1914 – 18 June 2009), the widow of Chilean President (and victim of neo-liberalism) died peacefully during an afternoon nap Thursday in her native Valparaíso.
Salvador Allende and Hortensia Bussi, 1970
Although she might have been somewhat surprised at the comparison, she had more in common with Eva Duarate than just having met her future husband — and the future president of her country — while working as a volunteer during an earthquake relief campaign. Like Evita, “Tencha” would be the symbolic figurehead of an on-going mostly working class Latin American movement founded in a attempt to remove foreign control from their nation’s economic life, and to bring the workers into the government. And as “primera dama,” like Eva Peron, her active participation in building a social services network and fomenting worker’s charities won her the adulation of the poor.
People forget sometimes that Juan Peron was overthrown by the far right — with the support of the Church and foreign business interests. As was Salvador Allende. But whereas Peron was not a democratically elected leader, never viewed as a champion of democracy*and Eva — having died before his overthrow — was only a symbolic ghost, Salvador Allende’s widow was very much alive, and involved physically in the restoration of her nation’s honor and dignity.
Following Salvador Allende’s overthrow and murder, she was hustled out of Santiago to Valparaíso for a secret burial of the martyred president. Facing death threats, she was granted political asylum by Mexico and flown there in a private plane five days after the coup.
As it had for Spaniards after 1936, Mexico City became the true capital of Chilean cultural and intellectual life after 1973, the mother of democratic Chile being the indefatigable — and unrepentant — Bussi.
From her Mexico City home, Bussi traveled the globe for the next fifteen years, always under threat from Chilean agents, and usually under an alias, to meet with heads of state and other leaders in her campaign to restore democracy to Chile. The nation’s return to sanity was due largely, in President Michelle Bachelet’s words on Bussi’s 94th birthday to her “enormous commitment, yesterday and today, to our democracy.”
* rabidgandhi (see the comments) is correct. Peron was elected in 1945, 1951 (overthrown in September 1955) allegedly because he was assuming dictatorial powers. Upon his return from exile, he was elected to a third term in 1973, but died within a few months of assuming office. Fairly or not, however, his governing style has never been viewed as democratic.
mexfiles.net 