AMLO embraces 'blame US' narrative for migration crisis
Mexico's president invited 11 LatAm leaders for a migration summit, which ultimately provided a platform for Cuba and Venezuela blaming the US blockade/sanctions for a crisis of their own making.
AMLO invited 11 regional leaders to Palenque in Chiapas state for a tour of the impressive Mayan ruins and a chat on resolving the regional migration crisis. Many of the government photos showed AMLO in his element, palling around with regional despots Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba.
The Mexican president used the “Meeting for a Fraternal Neighborhood and Well-Being” on Oct. 22 to promote an expansion of his tree planting program (Sembrando Vida) throughout the region, even though results have not been audited and sources working with migrants in the region say there’s no proof of any results.
It ended with a predictable call to end the U.S. blockade on Cuba and sanctions on Venezuela as the solution for solving the migration crisis. Maduro – who has overseen more than seven million citizens giving up on the country – even “committed himself” to resolving the crisis in less than a year with the lifting of sanctions.
AMLO started the summit by claiming the objective was the protect migrants’ rights – part of his usual discourse of moral superiority. But Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena outlined the real summit objectives and its interpretation on the real reasons for migration:
“First, the main structural causes of migration or of political, economic and social origin and the negative effects of climate change.
“Second, external factors such as the unilateral coercive measures of an indiscriminate nature, negatively affect entire populations and, in large measure, the most vulnerable persons and communities.”
Omitted from the declaration was any mention of political repression, human rights abuses or gross economic mismanagement – factors prompting more than seven million Venezuelans to flee the country.
AMLO followed up the next day in his press conference with another full-on defense of Cuba, promising to lobby President Biden at the APEC summit on ending the blockade. (AMLO will now attend the November summit in San Francisco after previously pledging to boycott over the attendance of Peru, whose president he doesn’t recognize.)
The president also returned to another of recent hobby horses: demanding the U.S. government send money to Latin America – specifically, his tree-planting scheme, which is supposed to slow migration – rather than Ukraine. He ranted on Monday:
“It’s not possible that they send so much money for weapons, to feed and maintain wars and that they don’t invest in attending to the causes that give rise to migration. It’s advanced, without doubt, with President Biden, but it lacks and needs a clear definition, not this zig-zagging”
Is Nicaragua weaponizing migration?
Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega did not attend the summit, though AMLO held out hope he would attend the next one. But his country, which has expelled migrants since a totalitarian crackdown on dissent started in 2018, has become a jumping off point for migrants arriving from other countries such as Cuba and Mauritania. Independent Nicaragua media reported Saturday that 27 passenger jets had arrived in Managua from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, over the previous 48 hours. New organization Confidencial estimated as many as 5,949 passengers could have arrived.
Former Nicaraguan diplomat Arturo McFields Yescas has said in an interview that the government has “weaponized” migration to cause chaos in the United States and force negotiations on sanctions against the increasingly totalitarian regime. He points to the abundances of flights between Cuba and Nicaragua operated by Venezuelan airline Conviasa. There’s also a policy of scrapping visa requirements for citizens of “failing” countries in Africa and beyond.
Mexico restricts migrants’ access to flights – or does it?
AMLO often speaks of Mexico helping migrants and chastises the U.S. Republicans as un-Christian for their border and migration policies. But he routinely does deals with the United States on migration enforcement. But the foreign ministry (SRE) this week announced new policies stating that migrants can only take domestic flights if they “carry the corresponding visa prior to leaving their country of origin to be able to board any flight with Mexico as the destination.”
BUT … The SRE revised its policies on Saturday, saying anyone requiring a visa to enter Mexico and “transiting Mexico’s international airports” must have a visa. Any migrant boarding a flight for Mexico would require a visa presumably making the measure moot.
Migrants arriving in southern Mexico have been able to obtain appointments (presumably via coyotes and drug cartels) for entering the United States through the CBP one application, despite geolocation restrictions limiting use to Mexico City and points north. Mexican immigration officials have accepted proof of appointments for passage through checkpoints. The visa decision follows a court ruling overturning restrictions on selling bus tickets to migrants.
AMLO attacks judicial branch
AMLO’s allies in Congress dealt a severe blow to the judicial branch by extinguishing 13 public trusts worth 15 billion pesos. ($825 million.) The measure now goes to the senate. It marked an escalation in the president’s attacks on the judicial branch after the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled against his schemes to militarize public security, weaken the autonomous electoral authority and declare his pet projects “national security” priorities.
AMLO has repeatedly attacked the Supreme Court as bloated with overpaid justices. But an analysis by sociologist Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez showed Mexico places mid-table in rankings of legal systems across the hemisphere. The president insisted cutting the public trusts wouldn’t impact judicial proceedings. But the high court issued a statement saying the trusts paid for employee benefits, along with operating costs.
Judicial branch employees took to the streets in protest, burning AMLO in effigy. The MORNEA-run CdMx government sent riot police to confront them – after Sheinbaum promised the unit would be scrapped after her election in 2018.
AMLO, meanwhile, resorted to his usual trolling. “I with it would last longer,” he quipped. “We’ll no longer have the surprise of criminals being released.” (AMLO has previously battled with the court over his preference for pre-trial detention remaining in place, effectively eliminating any presumption of innocence.) “They’re there to free (narcos) and white collar criminals. They don’t impart justice; they’re employees of a minority,” AMLO continued.
He also resorted to his old standby when defending his daft decisions: doubling down on moral superiority and a supposed moral authority, while insisting the people protesting were “manipulated.” He insisted: I’m the “guarantee” that judicial branch workers won’t have their wages or benefits touched. AMLO continued
More army public trusts created
AMLO has eliminated public trusts (fideicomisos) through his administration for everything from funding film production and scientific research to providing relief after natural disasters. But he’s never touched military fideicomisos. The lower house of Congress created three new trusts this week, which will be operated by SEDENA and SEMAR (the navy) for tourism purposes.
Congress reporter Juan Ortiz says one of the fideicomisos will receive 10 billion pesos annually in revenues – ostensibly to “improve migration services” and “promote tourism.” Tourists and visa applicants will pay $51 each with the money funding the operations of the Tren Maya. A SEDENA-run company will manage the fideicomiso.
The other two fideicomisos will benefit SEDENA and SEMAR respectively “to strengthen the airport system under their coordination.” SEDENA built and operates the AIFA airport north of Mexico City and is constructing the Tulum airport, which is expected to open in December. (SEDENA also operates the Chetumal and Palenque airports.) SEMAR now controls the main Benito Juárez Mexico City international airport. A 9% tax on private airport operators – whose facilities include Cancún, Monterrey, Guadalajara and Tijuana – will fund the two trusts.
AMLO to railway operators: restore rail passenger service or else
AMLO has put a priority on restoring passenger rail service: building the Tren Maya, finishing a Mexico City-Toluca train started by President Enrique Peña Nieto and restoring the interoceanic corridor in Oaxaca and Veracruz. He’s announced freight projects, too, including the rebuilding of a railway between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Guatemala border, which had been wiped out by a 2005 hurricane. (The project would make climbing atop trains easier for migrants, who have to make their way to the town of Arriaga, Chiapas, 175 miles inland).
Now AMLO has given an ultimatum to Mexico’s railway operators: restore passenger service or the army will do so by presidential decree. Mexico has had no passenger rail trains since service was scrapped 1998 – spare El Chepe, which traverses the Copper Canyon.
Vulcan materials threatened with expropriation
AMLO once again threatened Vulcan Materials, saying he will decree its 5,900-acre property and port near Playa del Carmen – where it operates a rock quarry – a national protected area if the Alabama-based company does not accept his offer to sell. The president is offering between 6 billion and 7 billion pesos for the site, a proposal Vulcan has declared inadequate, according to Bloomberg. He said ominously:
“If there’s no response, if they don’t want to help, that is going to be their decision. Six or seven billion pesos will be deposited … and we’re going to issue the decree. … Look at what they did.” (Showing a video at the mañanera). “Let’s see if they can do that in Florida. Why don’t they do it there?”
The attack on Vulcan and ginning up outrage of supposed environmental degradation deflects from AMLO’s own questionable ecological actions with the Train Maya, which tore through sensitive ecosystems. He attacks critics of the Train Maya as “pseudo environmentalists,” who he’s accused of staying silent on the long-standing operations of a rock quarry. It also came as a photo of the train’s negative impact won international attention.
AMLO accuses US ‘agencies’ such as the DEA of “weakening” Mexican institutions
Fresh off accusing the DEA of “fabricating” charges against former defense secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, AMLO returned to his conspiratorial tone – alleging US “agencies” were undermining Mexico. He said Thursday:
“I know that the US government, its agencies to be more precise, yes, the government because there was an ambassador during Calderon’s (administration)” – presumably ambassador Carlos Pascual – ”who declared that they didn’t trust the Mexican army, that they trusted the Navy because in the Calderón government they allowed an agreement so that United States organizations or agencies intervened in Mexican matters and they acted, they were the ones that gave orders. And they wanted to do the same with the army, but couldn’t, so since there’s been a series of attacks against the army.”
Human rights undersecretary resigns to join Sheinbaum campaign
Alejandro Encinas, the human rights undersecretary and point man on the Ayotzinapa truth commission – formed by AMLO to investigate the disappearance of 43 students at the hands of cops in cahoots with drug cartels – resigned this week to join the Claudia Sheinbaum campaign. He leaves in disgrace, but with AMLO’s full backing: the team of international expertsinvestigating the Ayotzinapa case left Mexico, saying the army impeded their investigation. The army also spied on Encinas with Pegasus spyware on his mobile. (AMLO defended the army afterward and insists, despite evidence to the contrary, that his government doesn’t spy.) His departure laid bare the supposedly left-leaning government’s lack of seriousness on the human rights file, too – especially with the families of Mexico’s missing, rebuking an attempt by the government to undercount the disappeared. Diego Peterson Farah wrote of Encinas’ departure in the Guadalajara newspaper El Informador:
“With the departure of Alejandro Encinas, any attempt by the López Obrador government to be or appear leftist ended. … “Encinas’ stint in government is the living portrait of the left that never was, of López Obrador’s turn toward militarization and the priísta populism against which left-wing leaders fought so hard.”
AMLO threatens former Ayotzinapa special prosecutor
Along with forming a truth commission upon taking office, AMLO appointed a special prosecutor for the Ayotzinapa case. But the prosecutor, Omar Gómez Trejo, resigned last September after it became clear the army was obstructing the investigation. He subsequently left the country. AMLO, once again defending the army – which provides the context for his comments above on US agencies supposedly undermining Mexico – mused last week about prosecuting Trejo.
“The investigation didn’t advance,” AMLO claimed. “There was a pact of silence, not only of criminals, but authorities, which was transferred to our government.” AMLO has insisted SEDENA handed over all requested information and that the arrests of some soldiers
For his part, Gómez Trejo said in an interview last month: “The best investigation that this country has had in years was dynamited.”