Mexico City, Oaxaca vote to ban single-use plastics

The legislature of Mexico City voted on 10 May to ban the "use and distribution" of disposable plastics in the capital from 2020. Almost all members voted to gradually enforce the ban, intended to reduce the mountain of trash the city generates daily. Similar measures being enacted across Mexico typically affect items like bags, straws, styrofoam trays or coffee lids. Mexico City would allow shops to hand out bags if these could degrade entirely within 90 days of disposal, though it was not clear if such bags presently exist in Mexico. The measure will include coffee capsules from 2021, Milenio reported. The state of Puebla also voted on 24 April to ban disposable plastics from 2020, first enforcing the measure in the state capital Puebla, with a population of 1.6 million. Both states would complement the bans with informative campaigns. The southern state of Oaxaca and eastern state of Tabasco have also approved restrictions. Oaxaca voted a gradual ban in early April, with enforcement beginning in government offices, which could no longer buy, use or distribute throwaway plastics, the website Prensa Latina reported on 15 April. Greenpeace in Mexico estimated in early 2019 that the country produced some 10,000 tonnes of plastic trash daily.

Plastic straws, bag production "falling" in Mexico

A spokesman for the plastics sector in Mexico recently said "more than 60 per cent" of manufacturers of plastic straws had disappeared in the country, due to falling demand and anti-plastic campaigns. Aldimir Torres, president of the National Association of Plastic Industries (ANIPAC) told a conference in early April that some 80 initiatives were targeting plastics products in Mexico, but insisted the sector believed recycling remained the best way to curb pollution by plastics, El Financiero reported. He said bag makers in Mexico were now working at between "30 and 70 per cent capacity," and the sector had already shed 8.5 per cent of its workers, for falling demand. Hidalgo and Guerrero became two more Mexican states in late March to legislate against plastic products. State lawmakers in Hidalgo voted to give shops 180 days to implement a plastics ban approved in 2018, the website Xataka México reported. In Guerrero, legislators reformed the state's trash disposal laws to forbid "the use of" plastic bags and "provision" of single-use items like straws, cutlery and styrofoam trays, Xataka reported. It was not immediately clear when this would happen and whether or not the ban covered selling the items.

Mexican state starts enforcing plastics ban

The state of Tamaulipas in north-eastern Mexico began enforcing a ban on the sale and distribution of plastic bags on 1 January, following a vote by the state legislature in September 2018. The ban was on the distribution of bags that did not contain at least 30 per cent degradable material, though press and agency reports did not specify if businesses could make or access such bags. Reports suggested authorities would not yet fine offending outlets in the state's 43 districts, stating there would be inspections initially to verify compliance. Tamaulipas became the fourth state in Mexico (after Querétaro, Veracruz and Baja California Sur) to restrict plastics or plastic bags, as papers reported Durango, Sonora, Nuevo León and Mexico City as working on similar restrictions. The legislature of the state of Quintana Roo on the Caribbean was also considering amending local laws to restrict or ban plastic bags and straws, La Jornada reported on 7 January.

Industrialist says anti-plastic campaigns in Mexico "hitting" sector

Public campaigns in Mexico against straws and plastic bags were changing consumption patterns and "hurting" the industry, a sector spokesman was reported as saying on 22 December. Aldimir Torres Arenas, head of the National Association of Plastic Industries (ANIPAC), said campaigns like the Environment Ministry (SEMARNAT)'s "Fine Without a Straw" were hitting firms' revenues "by 10 and up to 30 per cent" and one firm had already shut, the daily Publimetro reported. He said "we recognize there is a solid waste problem reaching our forests, streets and seas," referring to massive worldwide accumulation of trash on land and seas. But he warned curbing consumption would affect jobs, and said packacing represents "47 per cent of the national GDP." Plastic, he said, was a "technological marvel" and costly resource that should not be wasted. The daily gave 650 as the average number of plastic bags a Mexican uses every year, and reported sales of plastics to be worth $30 billion a year.

Mexico state votes to curb plastic packaging, straws

The legislature of the northern Mexican state of Coahuila voted on 17 December to ban the distribution and use of plastic bags, polystyrene packaging and straws in that state from 2020, in a bid to curb massive plastic pollution, newspapers and the Notimex agency reported. The norm, an amendment to the state's Law on Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection, was to specify in time sanctions for offenders and propose biodegradable alternatives to the plastic subject to the ban, the broadcaster Televisa reported on 19 December. The regional newspaper Vanguardia observed that the norm should enter into force in late 2019 or early 2020, and given its eight-month adaptation period, curbs should start taking effect by September that year. It expressed doubts however that people would respect the ban.

Ban curbs plastic bag use in Mexican city

Restrictions on the use of carrier bags in Querétaro, a district north-east of Mexico City, have caused a drop of "up to 30%" in business for regional manufacturers, the local Diario de Querétaro reported on December 19, citing an industry spokesman. Venancio Pérez Gómez said a municipal ban had "hit" the five or so firms making bags in the state of Querétaro "by 20 or 30%" in 2018, as "shops have stopped buying." Gómez, head of the plastic makers' association Clúster de Plásticos Querétaro, observed however that the sector as a whole had grown by six to seven per cent over 2018. The same newspaper had reported in early September an 80% drop in bag distribution in shops following the ban. It cited the city's chief environmental officer Martha Patricia Vargas Salgado as giving the previous level of bag consumption in the city as "two million bags," without further details. The city, she said then, was discussing with industry improving environmental norms for permitted bags like trash or bin bags.

Christmas brings trash to Mexico City

Mexico City authorities estimated the city would generate about 4,200 tons of trash on Christmas Eve in addition to roughly 12,800 tons the megalopolis produces daily, Excelsior reported on 25 December. Mexico City has in past years had problems disposing of its daily household waste, which includes significant amounts of plastic, very little of which is separated at source. An environmental officer from the city's Venustiano Carranza sector, Elena Cortés, observed that much of this extra waste would consist of electronic components and batteries, which she stated had to be disposed of correctly and taken to recycling centers. According to one study cited in Excelsior, every resident of Mexico City used on average 12.6 batteries a year. The city and its environs are estimated to have about 20 million inhabitants. Ahead of Christmas, the city government and its Environment office launched a campaign urging people to reduce their trash, especially by avoiding excess packaging and ribbons for presents, the Diario de México reported on 20 December, citing Notimex. The campaign pointed out that people generated 30 per cent more trash over Christmas and 35 per cent of that consisted of packaging. In normal conditions, Mexico City reportedly produces 12,816,000 tons of trash daily, according to the 2013 Solid Waste Inventory. The city's website examines in parts the reasons for "so much waste" being produced in the Mexican capital.

Bike rentals expand in Mexico City, now fourth network worldwide

The mayor of Mexico City praised the city's bicycle rental system on its fifth anniversary on 16 February, and boasted that the network was now the fourth biggest in the world, after Hangzhou, London and Paris. The city has taken a range of measures in past years to cut traffic and pollution, including boosting public transport and promoting residential property in the city center, which would reduce commuting. Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera was speaking at the ECOBICI rental system's expansion into a third, southern sector of the city, Benito Juárez. He said the city now had 444 bike stations and 6,500 bicycles operating in 42 neighbourhoods or colonias. "We are going to keep reinforcing and pushing for bicycle use in Mexico City," Milenio cited him as saying. The ECOBICI rental system estimated that use of its bicycles in 2010, 2011 and 2012 had in total saved 232 tonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to planting 697 trees. Yet cycling remains hazardous in this car-dominated megalopolis, and biking associations earlier asked the city's Environment Secretary Tanya Müller to act to ensure safer cycling, including by forcing the city's sometimes ramshackle, and often intimidating, minibuses to drive sensibly. The newspaper Excelsior separately reported the first act of vandalism against a bicycle station inaugurated in Benito Juárez, suspected to have been the work of local residents who had lost their habitual "parking space" to bicycles.

Mexico City recycles asphalt to cut pollution, costs

They used to throw it out, but now the Mexico City government is recycling the asphalt and pavement material it removes from roads, to produce a cheaper, less polluting and more abundant "asphalt mix" to repave and repair city roads. The head of the recycling plant making the material in the district of Coyoacán, Mariano Plascencia, said the mix produced 90 per cent less dust and pollutants, without elaborating, Milenio newspaper reported on 22 July. It consisted of a mix of crushed stones, cement and "additives," merged in temperatures of 120-151 degrees celsius. The plant had most recently produced 57,900 tonnes of the asphalt mix, which the city government distributed between the capital's delegaciones, the larger city sectors or districts, to meet their stated needs. The use of the new asphalt was made obligatory in 2010. The new material was described as requiring little maintenance, which produced a further "40 per cent savings," the daily cited city authorities as saying.

Colombia's premier novelist dies in Mexico City

The Colombian novelist and Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez died in Mexico City on 17 April, at the age of 87. His relatives had in preceding days been preparing the press and the public for his possible and imminent death, due in part to a recurring cancer. García Márquez had been living in Mexico since the 1960s, and the country would pay him a public homage on 21 April in the capital's Palace of Fine Arts (Bellas Artes), the daily Excelsior reported. Latin American heads of state, writers and personalities expressed their sadness at the writer's death. The author's famous novels included One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Mexicans accept Presidential visit to Cuba, novelist chides "shameful" summit

A telephone poll taken in Mexico by BCG-Excelsior found that most members of a sample population did not perceive President Enrique Peña Nieto's recent visit to Cuba as an act of support for a dictatorial regime. Cuba hosted the summit of Latin American and Caribbean heads of state and governments in Havana in late January, attended by almost all Latin American leaders. The poll, reported in the daily Excelsior on 3 February, revealed a measure of political realism among Mexicans. It showed that 51 per cent of respondents had a "bad or very bad" opinion of Cuba's ageing revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and 32 per cent "good or very good." Only 10 per cent of respondents thought however that Mexico should curb relations with Cuba over rights violations, while 32 per cent believed it should expand ties. The government of President Peña, who was elected in 2012, has moved to improve ties with Cuba, reversing the relative estrangement that occurred under his conservative predecessors Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. Mr Peña's centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) enjoyed good relations with Cuba from the 1960s to 2000 when it lost the presidency. Most respondents approved Peña Nieto's recent visit to Cuba for the CELAC summit, and 70 per cent said it did not signify backing the Cuban regime, Excelsior reported. Less satisfied however was the Peruvian novelist and prominent liberal Mario Vargas Llosa, who chided American leaders for going to Cuba, not omitting to describe Fidel Castro as a "prehistoric being." His remarks to the Chilean dialy El Mercurio were reported by most Hispanic media. The novelist said attending the summit was "a disgrace," and "groteseque, as the invitation's terms included defending democracy and they're going to a country with a 54-year dictatorship," Tabasco Hoy reported on 31 January. Attending the summit he said, "shows how little reality democracy has for many Latin American governments."

Mexico counts over 100,000 killings in six-year drug war

A Mexican interior ministry agency reported that over 104,000 people were killed in criminal violence between 2006 and 2012 when Mexico's last president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, waged a relentless and controversial war on drug cartels and organised crime, papers reported on 25 October. The present government, led by Enrique Peña Nieto, seemed to face similar levels of violence in spite of boasting better intelligence and a more coordinated approach to fighting organised crime. The figure given by the SNSP (Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública) for reported or registered homicides during the Calderón presidency was 104,096 victims. Mexican authorities have repeated that most of these were were criminals and cartel operatives killed by each other or in shootouts with state forces. The report identified 2011 as the most mortiferous year with 22,856 homicides followed by 2010, with 20,681 homicides, the daily Milenio reported on 25 October. The newspaper cited figures showing a steady rise in homicides from 2007 to 2012. The SNSP counted 15,552 homicides in the first ten months of the Peña presidency, which began on 1 December 2012, Milenio reported on 25 October.

Grave in Mexico said to yield bodies of youngsters missing for months

After months of speculation over how a dozen individuals could disappear without trace in Mexico, and anger at the state's inability to find them, authorities were on 23 August cited as saying that tests on six of 13 bodies found buried in Tlalmanalco in the central Estado de México indicated they may well belong to 12 or 13 youngsters kidnapped in Mexico City on 26 May. A deputy-state prosecutor for Mexico City or Estado de México said the grave yielded 13 bodies not seven as reported initially, and six were identified as belonging to the missing kidnap victims, Europa Press reported on 24 August, citing Mexican press reports. Judicial authorities had in recent months faced the ire of relatives of the disappeared for their apparent confusion and half-competent investigations. A conservative member of the capital's legislative assembly said authorities found the grave by luck while looking for an arms cache, not for any "serious investigative work," Milenio reported on 23 August. Federico Döring Casar, a member of the National Action Party in Mexico City's legislature, said police went to the spot after an anonymous caller phoned to say arms could be hidden there. Assembly members were cited as saying that the "Heaven case," named after the nightclub where the youngsters were kidnapped, remained open until authorities find and punish the murderers. Milenio cited another Federal District legislator Santiago Taboada Cortina as saying that the case showed organised crime was present and active in the capital, contrary to the assertions made by the city's mayor that the cartels and criminal gangs had not come to the capital. Separately, two men were found hanging by a road on 21 or 22 August in the north-central state of Zacatecas, in a suspected tit-for-tat killing between two drug cartels, Proceso reported. The Zetas cartel was suspected to have hanged the two, apparently in reprisal for the Gulf Cartel "torturing" and hanging on 18 August a boy an a girl aged 19 years, with a note by them alleging they were kidnappers. Presumably the victims had ties to the rival cartels. In the northern state of Durango, the brother of the mayor of Canelas was found dead on 23 August, and reported as murdered by unspecified means; the director of public prosecutions Sonia Yadira de la Garza had cited him as suspected as involved in criminal activities, Proceso reported on 23 August.

Colombian troops shoot guerrillas, mayor detained for drug ties

Colombian troops shot dead three guerrillas in fighting on 23 August in the northern department of Córdoba and the west-coast department of Chocó. The Defence Ministry reported the killing of a commander of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the district of Bagadó in Chocó, a man dubbed Darwin, Walter or Ñarro and described by the Ministry as a fighter of more than 20 years; he was identified as commander of the Manuel Hernández el Boche front, a unit of the ELN's Western War Front. Troops also shot dead in the district of Tierralta in Córdoba two members of Front 58 of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The army identified one of them, a 25-year-old, as an "important bombmaker" for the FARC, Radio Santa Fe reported. On 23 August President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón ordered the state's envoys to leave Havana and return to Colombia after FARC negotiators interrupted ongoing peace talks to "analyse" a possible national referendum concerning the talks' results, el Colombiano reported. The FARC suggested resuming talks on 26 August but Mr Santos said talks would resume when Colombia deemed it suitable; he said "in this process the FARC are not the ones to determine breaks or set conditions," el Colombiano reported. State agents separately arrested 10 including a mayor and two policemen suspected of drug trafficking and working with two of the continent's main drug cartels, Radio Santa Fe reported on 23 August. The detained were suspected to have sent some 100 tonnes of cocaine a year toward Central America, the United States and European countries over an unspecified time, and to have had ties with the Sinaloa and Zetas cartels as well as the FARC and local gangs. One of the detained - variously caught in districts including Bogotá, Cali and Medellín - was identified as the mayor of Milán in the southern department of Caquetá, Radio Santa Fe reported.

Over 25 killed, found dead around Mexico in days

Twenty six at least were reported killed or found dead around Mexico through 18-21 August including 12 killed in the north-western state of Sinaloa, two state detectives murdered in Guerrero and seven bodies found in Estado de México in central Mexico. The 12 killed in Sinaloa on 20-21 August included four car passengers shot in an ambush in the countryside outside Culiacán and three gunmen shot dead by police whom they had attacked at an unspecified spot, Milenio reported on 22 August. The daily separately reported that a person died and two were injured in a shootout in Tepito in Mexico City on 21 August, in what witnesses declared was a fight over drugs. The bodies of two undercover policemen engaged in intelligence work in the west-coast state of Guerrero were found on 20 August, buried near a village in the district of Juan R. Escudero and indicating they had been tortured and shot; armed men reportedly kidnapped them on 5 August in the village of El Ocotito in Chilpancingo, Proceso reported on 20 August. The review observed that a gang called Los Rojos was now dominant in the Chilpancingo district and that Federal Police detained 10 suspected members of the gang in El Ocotito during July. Police unearthed seven bodies from a grave in Tlamanalco de Velásquez in the Estado de México outside the capital, and were investigating to ascertain whether or not they could belong to some of the youngsters kidnapped from a Mexico City after-hours club on 26 May. Authorities were to perform tests before making declarations, Milenio reported, citing the chief prosecutor of capital Rodolfo Ríos. At least four individuals were reported killed in the eastern states of Tabasco and Campeche between 18 and 21 August, including a bus driver gunned down in Cunduacán on 21 August, a man "burned alive" in a car in Cunduacán on 18 August and two shot dead near Balancán or Campeche that day, Tabasco Hoy reported.

Mexico's Guerrero state accused of "harrassing" civilians, ignoring crime

The Citizens Council for Public Security and Penal Justice, a non-governmental body observing security trends in Mexico, observed on its website on 21 August that residents of Chilpancingo, the capital of the western state of Guerrero, were living under a "systematic" regime of extortion and threats from criminal gangs, and state authorities were doing very little about it. The body reported that civic groups from Chilpancingo denounced on 14 August that all those earning a living in the district - from taxi drivers, to businessmen to the self-employed - had to pay extortion money to the local mafia or face retaliation against themselves or relatives. Retribution could take the form of kidnapping, property destruction or murder; the website reported on 16 August that 14 businessmen from the state or district were "presently" believed kidnapped. It stated on 21 August that many locals suspect that at least certain district or state officials were collaborating with criminals, as suggested by the fact that citizens were sometimes threatened by phone while meeting with officials to report criminal activity. The Citizens Council observed that the state governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero was protecting criminals "by omission," or by failing to act against crime, while residents of Chilpancingo were "sick and tired, desperate and ready to resort to arms to defend themselves," as in other parts of Mexico. Businessmen and activists in Guerrero were separately reported to have accused the Guerrero government of harrassing them for complaining about crime and insecurity. Members of a local grouping the Citizens Council for Security and Development (Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad y el Desarrollo de Guerrero) - lodged a complaint against state governor Aguirre for harrassment, while the local president of the national employers' association Coparmex complained that state prosecutors had summoned him and demanded he "prove" allegations that criminals were extorting money from businesses in Guerrero. Jaime Nava Romero said the Guerrero government had better prosecute crimes not "delegate its responsibility to society," and said the state was responsible for his personal security, Proceso reported on 21 August.

Troops disarm militia in western Mexico amid protests

Soldiers detained and disarmed on 14 August 45 members of the self-styled, self-defence group (Autodefensa) of Aquila in the western state of Michoacán in a rare intervention against one of the groups Mexico's government denounces as illegal. The groups have emerged in several states, but particularly in Michoacán and Guerrero in reaction to the extensive, violent and near-unchecked activities of criminal gangs there. This was presumably the militia that briefly took over the Aquila municipal government in late July, disarming the police; the newspaper Milenio reported on 15 August that it had controlled Aquila since 23 July. When troops arrived in town to arrest four or five members of the militia including its leader Agustín Villanueva, they found that 40 other members of the militia carried weapons used exclusively by the armed forces and other arms thought to have belonged to the Aquila police. They were disarmed and detained for the illegal possession of such arms; the army later stated that some 300 locals sought to obstruct the operation and effectively held 30 soldiers hostage for six hours. Sixty local residents were said to be travelling to Mexico City to demand the release of the 40 militiamen, La Jornada reported on 16 August. Self-defence groups in the nearby districts of Buenavista Tomatlán and Tepalcatepec were said separately to have threatened to "paralise the state" with unspecified actions from 19 August if these were not released, La Jornada reported. The acting governor of Michoacán Jesús Reyna García has accused the militia of "sowing fear" in and around Aquila and obstructing circulation, although according to Milenio he had not explicitly accused the group of having ties to organised crime. He was cited as saying he was not informed of the other militias' threats.

Eight shot in two Mexican states, police arrest 10 gang suspects

Eight suspected criminals were killed on 28 July in two shootouts in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora in northern Mexico, agencies reported. Police shot dead four suspected gangsters in the locality of Trincheras in Sonora after gunmen in three cars blocked, then began firing on one or more federal or state police cars on patrol that evening, Milenio reported, citing Notimex agency. The daily observed that Trincheras was now "for months" without municipal policemen. An unspecified number of gunmen left their cars and ran away after the shootout. In Chihuahua, four men were killed in a shootout between gangs in the district of Camargo, while two women and a five-year-old child in a nearby car were injured, Proceso reported. Police found the four gunmen in their car, which also yielded items including "military-type" uniforms and two assault weapons. In the northern state of Coahuila, police detained on 28 July 10 suspects identified as members of the Zetas drug cartel and thought involved in crimes including murder and kidnapping in the districts of Parras de la Fuente and the La Laguna region including Torreón, Lerdo and Gómez Palacio, El Universal reported. Authorities confiscated from them arms used by the army, grenades and mobile phones among other items, the daily stated. The Zetas cartel was thought to have hung sheets in several spots in the north-central state of Zacatecas, informing "the people of Zacatecas" that it would make its "presence known so you know we are here," Proceso reported on 28 July. A decapitated body was found by one of the sheets, in the district of Guadalupe. Others were visible over bridges and roads in the districts of Fresnillo, Valparaíso and Zacatecas. The messages followed the arrest in mid-July of the Zetas' chief, the gangster dubbed Z-40, and warned the public he remained alive and head of the cartel; everything remained "well structured and this will not be over until it is over." The sheets indicated that a group called Los Chapulines were the "real culprits" behind unspecified kidnappings in that state, Proceso reported.

More policemen killed in attacks in western Mexico

Mexican authorities raised from two to four the number of policemen killed in seven attacks gangs launched on police convoys on 23 July in the western state of Michoacán; the press earlier reported six attacks, which the police repelled, killing 20 assailants. The seventh ambush occurred late on 23 July on the road between Lázaro Cárdenas and Colima in the district of Aquila, though no criminals were immediately reported killed here. In total 30 policemen were injured in all attacks that day, La Crónica de Hoy reported. The daily reported separately that members of the community police of the district of Aquila abandoned after four hours the municipal government offices they occupied on 24 July; it cited the occupation as the first action taken by this particular force, reportedly now including some 200 armed locals, since its formation days before. The mayor of Aquila Juan Hernández Ramírez urged the Mexican government to send more troops to the area, observing however that the community police used no violence when disarming the municipal police and briefly usurping its duties. The governor of Michoacán Jesús Reyna told Milenio television on 24 July that an unspecified number of troops and police were to be sent to the state after recent attacks, while urging the state to act "with greater decision" against crime there, Milenio reported. The neighbouring state of Querétaro was in turn reported to be sending troops and police to "fortify" its border with Michoacán. Prominent parliamentarians reacted with consternation at organised crime's increasingly brazen presence in Michoacán. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party's coordinator in the Senate Emilio Gamboa Patrón said the attacks were "indefensible... the chaos...shooting at each other for 18 hours. This shows things are not well," La Crónica de Hoy reported on 25 July. The opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party's coordinator in the Senate Miguel Barbosa Huerta said criminals' capacities appeared to "exceed" those of the state, while Jorge Luis Preciado Rodríguez of the conservative National Action Party urged the government to "get tough" in Michoacán.

NGO found, fewer murders were punished in Mexico in 2012

The Mexican research body Citizens Council for Public Security and Penal Justice (Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y Justicia Penal) observed on 9 July a rise in the country's impunity rate - already very high for most crimes - citing figures compiled by the national statistics agency INEGI. It reported on its website that official figures showed that in 2012 16 per cent of homicides ended in convictions, "which means the authors of 84 of every 100 killings avoided punishment and were free to continue killing." The Council stated that a "slightly" greater number of homicides were punished in 2012 than in 2010 and 11, "not because more killers are being caught...and convicted," but for the "fewer homicides." In absolute terms it stated, the number of killers convicted in 2012 was the lowest since 2003, and convictions for homicides began to fall in 2007. "For that reason homicides increased 141 per cent in just five years, going from 11,775 in 2006 to 28,375 in 2011," it wrote. The Council stated that statistics showed that "the majority of local governments have contributed almost nothing to reducing violence," and any decline in regional violence was due either to action by federal authorities or to drug cartels or gangs overcoming rivals and imposing their control of a particular territory. One of the country's police generals painted a sorry picture of the state of Mexico on 12 July, denouncing the "generalised deceit" he said was harming the Mexican polity. The former deputy-minister of defence General Tomás Ángeles Dauahare was receiving an honourary doctorate that day, though he had previously faced prosecution for alleged ties to organized crime apparently on the basis of false testimonies. He said Mexico faced "the threat of chaos" and deplored the "informality" he said had first harmed the economy and was now discrediting the state; he was presumably referring to a range of undeclared activities. "Simulation, diatribe, deceit and lies that sow disunity and rupture have become common currency," the newspaper La Jornada cited Dauahare as saying. "There is frequent evidence these days of social agitation and street violence, one hears the discourse of hate, and messages of social rancour and resentment. All this generates fear, uncertainty and discouragement," he said, while urging Mexicans to unite around "the Constitution and laws." The retired general became on 1 May an adviser to Mexico's defence minister.