80 years ago…
If I’d thought about it, I would have posted yesterday on Alvaro Obregon’s assasination, 17 July 1928. Tom Buckley, of the Mexico City News — which is FINALLY available on-line — does an excellent job in reviewing the fall-out from that seminal event in Mexican history:
The assassin, José de León Toral, was immediately set upon by the shocked and angered crowd. He was savagely beaten, but one of the congressmen present managed to calm the aggressors, convincing them that Toral must be taken alive in order to uncover the plotters behind the president-elect’s murder.
The resulting interrogation – after the threat of torture to his family – revealed that Toral, a Catholic fanatic, was a member of the Religious Liberty Defense League, a radical group implicated in a previous attempt to kill Obregón.
The alleged conspirators in the failed attempt to kill Obregón in November 1927 – Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez, Humberto Pro Juárez, Luis Segura Vilchis and Juan Tirado Arias – had been friends of Toral. When they were executed upon the order of then-President Plutarco Elías Calles – Toral was eager to take revenge.
Obregon is an intriguing figure, practically unknown outside Mexico, but as a policial genius, should probably be up there with (less kindy remembered ) contemporaries like Mussolini or Lenin. Not that Obregon couldn’t be an SOB (he was a ruthless, self-taught general with no compunction about having enemies slaughtered, or assasinated when necessary), but had a sense of humor (he claimed his severed arm was found because of his personal greed. He joked he’d sent a subordinate out with a gold peso and waited for the arm to come crawling off the field to grab it).
His biography, the “rags to riches” story of an orphan who, by pluck, luck (and the timely invention of a garbanzo harvester) was a self-made millionaire would have earned him a spot in the local histories of his native Sonora. Having grown up among the Mayo and Yaqui peoples (for a time, he taught school in the indigenous communities), he recruited irregular units for the Constitutionalists, while reading German military manuals and teaching himself the art of modern warfare. His photographic memory aided not only his learning curve, but — extremely unusual among people with that particular gift — he was able to synthicize his knowledge in new situations. Like battlefields.
Having recruited indigenous irregulars, Obregon also created fighting units out of radical farmer and labor groups, earning him the trust of the Mexican “left”. Coupled with his known business acumen and ties to U.S. business leaders (among others, he’d done some business with Herbert Hoover, back during the First World War, when Hoover was in charge of stockpiling food for European relief efforts) made him “acceptable” to the United States, which had problems with the ultra-nationalist Venustiano Carrenza.
On top of all that, Obregon was something of an intellectual — he wrote maudlin poetry — and won over the theorists, eventually settling on a Socialist path for the Revolution, though with support of conservatives like Jose Vasconcellos.
Although he had to overthrow Carrenza to attain the presidency (stolen in the 1920 election) and faced a short revolt at the end of his term, Obregon’s term in office marked the beginning of post-revolutionary Mexico. There was genuine worry that his second term (thanks to a constitutional change in the Presidential term of office, and some fancy legal manouvers) might lead to a new dictatorship. His murder kept Plutarcho Elias Calles in power (though not in office) for several years as a not-so-behind the scenes arbitrator, but with the result that the Mexican system — and political stability — would continue, and the Revolution could move on to a more creative path and economic development.
We have nothing to fear… but gasoline prices
Patrick Osio, Jr., HispanicVista.com:
…a study conducted by the San Diego Association of Governments and California Department of Transportation, “Economic Impacts of Wait Times at the San Diego-Baja California Border,” indicated that “a 45-minute northbound border crossing delay costs the San Diego-Baja California (Tijuana-Tecate-Rosarito-Ensenada) economy $2.5 billion each year. Every additional 15-minute delay adds another $1 billion. So a 2 1/4-hour crossing delay, now fast becoming the norm, means a regional economic loss of $8.5 billion a year.”
On November 2007, the tables were turned, Americans and other countries tourists in great numbers stopped visiting Baja due to security scares. …
The US and Mexican press had a field day sensationalizing the events for several months, which in turn greatly affected tourism and Baja’s economy as over 40 percent of the Baja coastal region depends on tourism. Baja has experienced the economic pain that also punctuates for them the great binational economic interdependence.
Now it seems that despite the media fervor in reporting and sensationalizing Mexico’s problems with drug capos, Americans are flocking back to Baja. Why?
Saving money, trumps fear. Gasoline prices now over $4.50 a gallon in San Diego is available anywhere in Baja for around $2.55 a gallon. And the stampede of US trucks buying diesel fuel at $2.20 a gallon versus over $5 a gallon in San Diego, has caught Baja shorthanded an unable to keep up with the demand. Once again the economic interdependence is evident.
Here kitty, kitty, kitty….
An endangered ocelot drinks from a water hole at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. A remote camera was placed at the water hole to record what animals use it. There are fewer than 100 ocelots remaining in the United States, all in far South Texas (Photo, National Fish and Wildlife Service). Full story in the Harlingen (Texas) Valley Morning Star.
Doing time … Texas and Mexico
Grits for Breakfast (see the comment below) corrects my data. I don’t have the data on the number of Mexicans in local jails, or in juvenile facilities, but it is still a much smaller percentage than in the U.S. Grits also cut through the shit, very nicely, noting that the U.S. can afford (or perhaps chose to spend its tax money on) criminalizing socially unacceptable behavior (like public intoxication or narcotics use) that is dealt with more informally in Mexico.
No wonder Texas wants to violate international court orders, and execute foreigners. With a total population of 23,507,783 (2006 estimate), the number of state prisoners is 71,812. There are also about 9,000 in the various Federal detention centers in the state (and no figures on the numbers in contract concentration camps for aliens). Mexico, with a population of 120,000,000 has a total of 217,457 prisoners in the 442 institutions, which include six federal facilities.
In other words, about 3.4 percent of Texans are in the slammer, compared to 0.018 percent of Mexicans. The Texans have to move out the foreigners, even if it means violating several international agreements and risk further shredding of United States credibility around the world, just to make room and bring those numbers down somewhat.
Not that being in a Mexican prison is such great shakes. According to Health Secretary José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, seventy-five percent of Mexican convicts have AIDS. I got that figure from an article in Milenio (14-July… but lost the link somehow), and asked Scott Hensen, at “Grits for Breakfast” the well-respected Texas justice system website, if the Mexican figures sounded right to him.
He thought the AIDS claim may mean exposure to HIV virus. Given Córdova Villalobos’ reluctance to take the common sense steps against HIV used by his predecessor (Julio Frenk Mora), convicts may not have access to condoms. Mexicans, and Mexican convicts, are more likely to have sexual relations with persons of the same gender than north of the border, and there is more likelihood these relations are consensual than they are in U.S. prisons (where rape is a huge problem… not that prison rapes don’t also happen in Mexico) … and sex in prison is not forbidden. Mexico, like other civilized countries, allows for conjugal visits, including same-sex partners.
Scott also mentioned tattoos as a vector for spreading HIV: unclean needles. My assumption has always been that Mexicans don’t go in for tattoos nearly as much as people in the U.S. do, but I don’t know much about tattoos, or convict culture (come to think of it, I know more Mexicans who have been in U.S. prisons, than have been in Mexican ones), so I can’t speculate.
Mexico has traditionally had a relatively low HIV infection rate, so even if the Health Secretary is talking about HIV exposure, and not AIDS (the reporter may have gotten the story slightly wrong), it’s worrisome. But, even if exaggerated, it makes sense that the poorest, and sickest of Mexicans are the ones who end up in prison (just as they do anywhere else). As to the very low incarceration rate, I haven’t come up with any definitive theory to explain it.
A few thoughts, though. In the U.S., every anti-social act is made a crime, and people turn to the police to handle criminal matters. Mexicans, by and large, don’t trust the police (and never have, at least not for the last 400 or so years), seeing them as protectors of the status quo and of wealth, and not of the people. And anti-social acts are dealt with informally.
“Bribes” to the traffic cop punish the offending driver; annoying drunks get the crap kicked out of them by their cousin (I once saw an 80-year old man whipping — with his belt — his drunken grandson for shaming the family… in Mexico City, no less!), or restitution is made for theft, or the offender is run out of the town — or neighborhood.
There used to be (actually, there still is) an American who talked on the travel message boards about his apartment being robbed when he lived in Mexico City. He used to harp on Mexican dishonesty, and “cowardice” because his neighbors did nothing. I happened, accidentally, to hear rumors later about this American, from people who had worked with him and knew about this “robbery.” I can’t confirm it, but apparently, the landlord — at the neighbors’ request — removed the anti-social element from their midst.
In Cuernavaca, when I lived there, a homeowner who was tapping illegally in the water-main (to the detriment of his neighbors) found his front yard dug up and his water cut off. The aggrieved neighbors did not call the police, they called a backhoe operator.
AND… I once had a student who worked as a factor, and told about having to figure out how to handle the paperwork for a customer who needed to use his receivables as collateral on his own kidnapping. He had shorted his workers’ paychecks, and — again, rather than go to the law — they took an alternative dispute resolution method. They kidnapped the guy and held him until he worked out the payroll problem.
When I hear or see in the papers where somebody has been murdered — and it’s not obviously a narco-hit — I wonder if someone isn’t taking those alternative justice disputes to extremes. It happens. But not with the approval of the State, and not in violation of international law.
If you fund it, they will come (up with a rationale)
Is it just me, or have others noticed the sudden rash of stories from Mexico that are peripheral to the “military/police v narcotics exporter” stories, but still involve narcotics… and suggest remedies that require funding?
The scandal goes back a while, but CISEN (the Mexican version of the CIA) Director Guillermo Valdés — who was already in hot water for spying on Congressional delegates — or rather sub-contracting the illegal data gathering to a bunch of of college kids) popped up in the British newspaper Financial Times:
In one of the frankest admissions yet from a leading authority of the scale of the problem confronting Mexico, Guillermo Valdés, head of Cisen, the government’s intelligence organisation, told the Financial Times and a small group of foreign media recently: “Drug traffickers have become the principal threat because they are trying to take over the power of the state.”
Mr Valdés said the gangs, which have grown wealthy from the multibillion-dollar drugs trade, had co-opted many members of local police forces, the judiciary and government entities in their efforts to create local structures to protect their business.
Those efforts, he said, could now also be targeting federal institutions such as Congress itself. “Congress is not exempt . . . we do not rule out the possibility that drug money is involved in the campaigns [of some legislators],” said Mr Valdés.
It’s been assumed that CISEN’s illegal snooping was looking for dirt on PEMEX privatization opponents, and — since it looks like a deal is coming down to settle the PEMEX issue, Valdés just looks like an idiot. Ana-Maria Salazar has it right:
The President of the Senate, Santiago Creel demanded the CISEN present proof. However, the Secretary of Gobernación Juan Camilo Mouriño late Monday evening commented that there is no evidence of this infiltration and he underlined his respect for the legislative branch. (This does not bode well for Valdés. I agree with the Director of the CISEN that drug trafficking cartels have infiltrated political campaigns. Why would organized crime not attempt to do this!! However, to mention this to a foreign newspaper and not expect that the legislators would not demand evidence….well this is spraying gasoline to the fire..)
Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if some legislators did take “campaign contributions” from narcotics exporters… it’s no more illegal than campaign contributions are from any other private source… Unlike the United States, such funding is called by it’s correct name: corruption of public officials. At any rate, it’s a matter for the Elections Commission, which has its own prosecutors. Certainly not for CISEN.
But, as the Financial Times reported, Valdes’
…comments come as George W. Bush, US president, this month signed into law the Merida Initiative, an aid package that will provide $400m of anti-narcotics assistance to Mexico this year. The aid, an open recognition by the US government that things south of the border appear to be deteriorating rapidly, will provide Mexican authorities with helicopters, training and surveillance equipment, among other things. It is believed that Cisen will receive only about $20m of the assistance.
I’m not sure things “south of the border are deteriorating rapidly” (or even slowly)… but there is that $20M to be divved up, and the Financial Times is owned by Rupurt Murdoch, so you can’t expect the story not to have a pro-Bush slant somewhere.
ALSO apparently seeking to tap into funds are the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Health. Today, Josefina Vázquez Mota, the Education Secretary, issued a report on drugs and gangs in the schools. Shocking: Seven percent of students have relatives that use narcotics of one kind or another, and a whopping 28% have seen drugs being sold. Not using them, mind you. Just think they’ve seen them being sold. However, with the claim that 12.2 percent of students between the ages of 15 and 19 probably should be given some attention. Most of the drug use by students is either marijuana or amphetamines. And, I’d rather see the money spent on students than on spies, natch.
Health Secretary Angel Córdova Villalobos ALSO issued a report on drug use, this one on drug use by convicts. Córdova Villalobos is claiming 95% of convicts (federal and state) are drug users. The word in the headline was “Adictos” (Milenio, 13-July-2008, but somehow I lost the link) which makes it sound much more alarming. I’ll have more to say on the report tomorrow — not specifically on the allegations of drug use, but on convicts in general. I wanted to check out some other facts, and check with the experts first.
I have been worried by the Merida Iniative funding for a number of reasons… one of which has been the likelihood that real social reforms in the country will take a back seat to a military/police/prison paradigm as has happened in the United States when it comes to narcotics. Violence has escalated since the Calderon Administration chose this method of dealing with what hasn’t been particularly a Mexican problem. My “inner Mexican” — who believes everything is a “complot” — worries that three separate claims appearing at once — involving the legislature, the schools and the prisons — is an attempt to create a Mexican “drug user problem” that really isn’t all that serious, but justifies sending in the troops. On the other hand, it may be a good thing, and a signal that the “Merida Initiative” funding is going to be spent on something more useful and effective in the long-term… like treatment, political reforms and safe schools.
PAN giving up on PEMEX privatization?
The national PAN leader, Germán Martínez, accepted the proposal presented by the PRD temporary president Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, to sit down and discuss the possibility of a new energy reform packet. Acosta Naranjo stated a couple of days ago that President Calderon´s proposal will simply not pass, therefore the PAN, PRI and the PRD need to sit down and hash out a new proposal. German Martinez said that his party would not participate in any dialogue that is an excuse to postpone the passing of an energy reform bill.
In other words, PAN is still posturing, but is accepting the inevitable, and has not been able to convince enough PRI deputies to buy off on their original re-financing plan, and will have to incorporate large parts of the original PRD suggestions (mostly reforms that undo the changes in PEMEX’s restructuring under Carlos Salinas, which spun off subsidiaries within PEMEX and started bleeding out the companies operaing and exploration funds).
What do women want?
Martha Sanchez, a “specialist with the Social Investigations Institute” of the Natn’l. Univ. of Mexico, said that the migration of Mexican females will continue to increase despite increased border vigilance and the unemployment crisis in the United States.
According to the 2007 Natn’l. Employment Poll, the main motivation for female emigration is because of employment. 47% of those emigrants left to seek jobs, 6% already had one, 31% did so for family reunification and the balance for other reasons.
(Originally in El Financiero, 13 July 2008, translation from M3 Report, published by the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers. While it likes to publish murder and mayhem reports, it’s not a bad source for short translations of Mexican and Central American news reports)
Amateurs!
The local gangsters are getting sloppy. Attacking a couple of rivals at 4:40 in the morning (guaranteed to lose them support among the neighbors) is bad enough, but trying to set off a car bomb in front of an empty house is just plain stupid (14-July-2008, El Debate de Sinaola — my translation):
Outside [one] house a car was set on fire with two gas tanks in its interior. Apparently, the gangsters were attempting to blow their way into the house, which had been previously closed by authorities.
Some of the neighbors took refuge in the safest places in their houses during the attack, to “avoid a tragedy during something that seemed out of this world.”
The Federal Minister has already filed charges against the unknown assailants for property damage, but I expect these geniuses are going to end up rolled in a blanket and tossed out at the side of the highway somewhere. Heads optional — incompetent gangsters are a danger to everyone.
Another industry moves south
At a Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing yesterday, DPS [Texas Department of Public Safety] officials said that restrictions on pseudoephedrine purchases dramatically declined after the Legislature required stores to keep the product behind the counter in 2005.
But a reduction in domestic production doesn’t mean demand for meth has declined, just that the supply is coming from elsewhere – mostly from Mexico. According to the Brownsville Herald (“Officials fear new meth epidemic after record setting bust,” June 28), police recently captured a 211 pound shipment of meth heading north from Mexico through the Rio Grande Valley, spotlighting an ironic trend where Mexican cartels have become the primary beneficiaries of the new law
Mexico has been closing down meth manufacturing plants, and trying to control the import of pseudoephenidrine, but apparently, just making a substance illegal — or even using police to stop the manufacture of it — does nothing to control demand. It does, however, create a demand for police agencies, which seems to be the whole point.
If “drug abuse” is an issue, the U.S. will just have to try something else.
Sunday readings 13 July 2008
Nothing specifically Mexican today, but a few stray pieces from around Latin America.
Doing the job Americans won’t do: Mercenaries in Iraq:
Latin America, says Adam Isacson, director of programs at the Center for International Policy, is a predictable site for U.S. mercenary companies to recruit personnel. In “what other region of the world are you going to find reasonably westernized people with military experience, in some cases with combat experience, who will work for low wages, who speak a language that a lot of our own military personnel speak,” he asks, noting that the U.S. Army is about a quarter Latino and that Latin America accounts for about 40% of U.S. military training programs worldwide. “It’s their natural ground to find people with military experience for whom $1,000 a month is a lot of money.”
A more plausible scenario from Colombia than the “made for TV rescue tale”:
The Colombian government has vehemently denied that it paid any money to obtain the release of the hostages. The Uribe administration claimed that the unidentified “reliable source” quoted in the Swiss radio report was none other than Swiss envoy Jean Pierre Cotard and immediately set out to discredit him. However, in their attempt to discredit Cotard, they also validated his credibility as someone who would know such information.
On July 6, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos accused Cotard of providing the FARC with almost $500,000 in funding. Santos claimed that emails in the laptop of the late FARC commander Raúl Reyes suggested that Cotard was responsible for delivering the money to FARC envoys in Costa Rica where it was later seized. Santos did not make the alleged email public and did not explain why the Colombian government had approved Cotard’s role as a negotiator the week before the hostages were liberated if it believed he was affiliated with the rebel group. Ultimately, whether or not the alleged email exists—and if so, whether it does link Cotard to the FARC—it is evident that Cotard has been in a position to obtain sensitive information related to the hostage saga and his comments cannot be summarily dismissed—if he is indeed the “reliable source” quoted by the Swiss radio station RSR.
No way out? Alex Fernández Muerza for Consumer Eroski, translated by “Machetera” gives us The Straight Dope About Oil (and Renewables)
ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil) is a network of organizations in more than 20 countries dedicated to the study of peak oil – the moment at which maximum oil production is reached and afterwards begins its decline. Its Vice President, Pedro Prieto (Madrid, 1950), doesn’t mince words: he stresses that no more than three decades worth of oil remain, insists that the energy situation in Spain is dire, that the days of gas and nuclear power are numbered as well, and insists that the defenders of renewable energy are well removed from reality. In his opinion, without a reduction in the consumption of energy and a radical change in the present development model, it’s impossible to tackle the approaching energy and social crisis.
A Spanish-language interpreter in Postville, Iowa battled with his own ethical decisions about how to stay neutral during the largest single-site raid in U.S. history. He says nothing could have prepared him for the prospect of helping our government put hundreds of innocent people in jail. Federal court interpreter Erik Camayd-Freixa spoke with Sandip Roy about the experience in New American Media:
Echoing what I think was the general feeling, one of my fellow interpreters would later exclaim, “When I saw what it was really about, my heart sank.”
Then began the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see, because cameras were not allowed past the perimeter of the compound (only a few journalists came to court the following days, notepads in hand). Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment. They sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.
They appeared to be uniformly no more than five feet tall, mostly illiterate Guatemalan peasants with Mayan last names (Tajtaj, Xicay, Sajché, Sologüí). Some were in tears; others had faces of worry, fear, and embarrassment. They all spoke Spanish, a few rather laboriously. It dawned on me that, aside from their nationality, which was imposed on their people in the 19th century, they too were Native Americans, in shackles.
Making lemonade…
There’s no way the “News Divine” tragedy can be undone, and the political ramifications are going to be felt for years (Joel Ortega, the District’s police chief, was a fixture in PRD officialdom, but his career appears to be over. Marcelo Ebrard — who was police chief under AMLO — was also fired after a police operation gone wrong, but that involved Federal Police, and the heavy handed attempts to “spin” the situation into an anti-AMLO campaign backfired. However, this disaster involved civilians and the metropolian police departments and Ebrard can expect his opponents to try making political hay out of News Divine should he run from President in 2012). Still, as with the Loboombo disaster (a nightclub fire in October 2000, that killed 22 mostly young adults and led to major changes in the fire and safety codes, as well as more funding for the fire department), there is a consensus for progressive actions to prevent a repeat of the disaster.
Crackdowns on underage drinking has been relatively popular. When I was in High School (yes, electric lights had been invented by then, but not the internet) there was “nothing to do” and kids would go drinking (and the police would come by and arrest us) — but it was outdoors (a park conveniently stradding the county line) and local police hadn’t started “responding in force” to all violations. Besides, the cops were related to half of us, and other than a stern lecture from your parents (or taking the car keys away) not much was going to happen.
While the U.S. is more tolerant of police intervention than it was back then, they are less likely to respond in force to minor incidents like underage drinking parties (I hope). In Mexico, where nobody really likes the police to begin with, they’ve always had to use overwhelming numbers — which is what started the whole “New’s Divine” mess. The kids ran for the exits, which were blocked by the police, and people panicked.
And, in neighborhoods like Nuevo Atzacoalcos, the kids with “nothin’ to do” have nowhere to go… not really. So — maybe this is a solution. A step in the right direction, anyway (11-July-2008 Milenio, my translation):
The News Divine Discoteque will re-open its doors in the next few weeks. Twelve people,nine of them minors, lost their lives in what will reopen as a free facility for youths, sponsored by the Federal District government.
The District government hopes to recover from the damage inflicted on dozens of youths during the the 20 June failed Unipol operation.
Chief of Government Marcelo Ebrard, announced the decision after a Youth Institute (Instituto de la Juventud) survey of teenagers in Nuevo Atzacoalcos, where the disco was located, of what type of youth center they wanted at the site. The survey indicated 24 percent of females, and 21 percent of males wanted a Cultural Center, while 33 percent of females and 38 percent of males nighttime entertainment activities.
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, the facility will be open from 14:00 to 21:00, offering youths from 12 to 17 music, snacks, soft drinks and flavored waters – but no alcohol. Services are free of charge. Security will be provided by a parent’s committee.
New’s Divine is the first building to be part of a new project. Four young architects are designing a prototype for the facility, which, while maintaining the original structural integrity, includes besides the disco, multiple-use rooms for recreational activities, sports and cultural workshops, are included.
To avoid over-concentration at any one site, twenty more similar facilities are planned.
Instituto de la Juventud Director Javier Hidalgo, confirmed to MILENIO that the Capital government will be organizing “safe nights” in different parts of the capital where alcohol is not sold, overseen by a parent’s security committee.
To construct these “Youth Recreation Centers” the capital government hopes to use seveal abandoned movie theaters, as well as two nightclubs closed by the local government. One of these clubs, near Metro Insurgentes is for the lesbian-gay community.
“Underage kids are prohibited from having fun, simply because no private business will sponsor alchohol-free dances. Providing recreation is the important thing, which is something the capital government can do,” Hidalgo said.
As an ex-kid (yeah, it’s been a long time, but I vaguely remember the experience), one suggestion. The parents’ security teams should work the clubs across town from their kids. I’d hate to be the girl who kissed the boy whose mother would tell my mother. And, for lesbian-gay kids either need really cool moms, or some other arrangement is going to be necessary.
Think global, act local
It’s a little ironic that it’s the conservatives in Mexico who are pushing the BIG GOVERNMENT PROJECTS these days while the socialists are looking at smaller, neighborhood solutions. Or, in this case, socialists in partnership with the Commies!
Don’t get me wrong … there is no way to spend time in Mexico without seeing the very real consequences of climate change, and human-caused environmental damage. There’s no way to deny that the Valle de Mexico didn’t experience climate change as the water and trees were removed over the past few centuries. And, air pollution dramatically changed the climate (not for the better) over just the past 40 years or so.
I’m excited about the innovations being used to undo some of that damage — subway expansion, strict emissions controls for autos and factories, “green” buses and taxis — but the Valle is never going to be a lake with a few islands, surrounded by forests, again. Greenpeace complained that the national (big government) tree planting program isn’t all it’s cracked up to be … mostly pointing out that the trees are mostly cacti, and are not replacements of timber trees. So be it, at least there’s trees (and in a snarky aside, I’d point out that protesting with a bunch of cardboard coffins made me wonder how many trees died to support their protest).
How much support a “big government” push like the tree planing campaign will have in the long run I don’t know. It made a good start, according to press reports, like this one from AFP:
More than nine million trees were planted in Mexico as part of a day-long campaign against deforestation, the environment minister said Monday.
The day of tree-planting took place on Saturday and aimed to compensate for the 316,000 hectares (780,000 acres) of forest that are lost annually to illegal exploitation, Environment Minister Juan Elvira said.
Mexicans were able to “plant 9,345,000 trees of various types,” said Elvira, adding that 507,000 citizens had participated across the country.
Mexico is the fifth leading country in the world in terms of deforestation.
The government launched an ambitious reforestation project in 2007, when 250 million trees were planted, with a goal of 280 million for 2008.
The environmental group Greenpeace has criticized the government, saying it has done little to prevent illegal logging and that deforestation was likely to continue.
Of course, that gets the media attention. A smaller project, from Itzapalapa, is also putting more greenery into the Valle, and… at the same time… a few pesos in people’s projects. Not the way socialists and commies are supposed to do things (Jornada, 11-july-2008 article by Rocío González Alvarado. My translation):
From what until last year was a trash-filled empty lot surrounded by asphalt, poor families in Iztapalapa, members of the civic associatin, Comparte, are harvesting their first fruits of their own labor, part of an urban agriculture program promoted by the Mexico City government.
The Itzapalapa garden in one of twenty-one projects which seek to recver and improve idle land within the metropoli. Rooftops and traffic islands, as well as gardens, have been planted with fruits, herbs and vegetables, as well as medicinal plants and ornamentals, all being grown without chemical fertilizers.
Very different from the smells that emananted from the plot when it was full of trash and garbage, the 400 squared meters in San Miguel barrio smell of cilanto, epazote, mint, rue and oregano, intersperced between the rows of tomatos, tomatillos, radishes, carrots, chard and spinach.
Since last November, professionals, workers and housewives have had free use of eight meter by one and a half-meter wide plots of soil to grown their own frutis, medicinal plants or herbs, either on their own, or in combination with others.
“We didn’t know anything about gardening, but we had a workshop, and decided to give it a try. At first it was difficut, having to clear the land, and prepare the soil,” said Comparte member, Irma Díaz. Although the most difficult time was the rainy season, the results have been satisfactory, she added.
Production is tiny: five kilos of radishes, ten of tomatoes per month, but it’s enough to supply the ten families that participated, and has even created a “mini-market” for vegetables at prices well below theose in the markets.
Pedro Ponce Javana, who oversees the urban agriculture program for the Department of Rural Development, said twenty-one similar projects in Álvaro Obregón, Cuauhtémoc, Cuajimalpa and Iztapalapa Delegations are in development. His program, Sederec, has invested five million pesos in fifteen projects which will benefit 750 families.
Interviewed at the Itzapalapa site, he said the project plans to recuperate unused land and encourage use of space around schools, factories, parks and traffic islands, as well as using balconies and rooftops to grow healthy foods, like vegetables and fruit, as well as ornamental, medicinal and aromatic hurbs. An addition to health benefits, this should help save the environment, as well as providing a major social benefit.
Sederec director, Rosa Márquez Cabrera, said she is counting on support from Universidad Autónoma Chapingo [the Federal Agricultural University] experts to make the project a success. She added that the program is working with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Cuban government, and indicated an interest in international agreements on sustainable food development.
She said that Mexico City was the first place in the country to try a program of this sort, which has proven practical and popular in other countries, especially in Europe.
mexfiles.net 