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."

More locals join community police in western Mexico

One hundred and six local residents were sworn in as new members of the community police of the district of Tixtla in Guerrero on Mexico's Pacific coast, in another sign that such self-defence groups, which have appeared in several parts of Mexico, were staying for now in spite of authorities' displeasure. The recruits included women and had already engaged in local policing for two months several localities of Tixtla, La Crónica de Hoy reported on 14 April, citing declarations from a regional coordinating body CRAC (Coordinadora Regional de Autoridades Comunitarias). The CRAC general-coordinator Eliseo Villar Castillo said "the project of community security and justice" was consolidating itself in parts of Guerrero, where such groups rose to prominence, namely the Costa Chica and inland and central parts of the state. Their aim he said was not to defy the authorities, but he observed locals were tired of the state's apparent inability to check crime. La Crónica separately reported shooting on 13 April between self-defence groups and suspected criminals, in the district of Buenavista Tomatlán, in the state of Michoacán north-west of Guerrero. The army intervened and was fired on though it was not immediately clear who fired on troops nor whether or not anyone died, La Crónica de Hoy reported. On 10 April, President Enrique Peña Nieto said self-defence groups were illegal and his "democratic" government could not tolerate them, Excelsior reported. Peña Nieto said, speaking in Japan, that "beyond what these groups may call themselves, the possible practices they may resort to intending to take justice into their hands are activities going beyond legality, which my government will have to fight." Authorities in Guerrero announced on 13 April that community policemen found outside their designated localities with arms would be detained; this apparently was in part a response to self-defence groups' support for recent teachers' protests in Guerrero. The decision was taken by the Guerrero Coordination Group including municipal and state authorities, the armed forces and state and local police, Excelsior reported on 14 April.

Mexican leader sees results of anti-crime strategy in a year

Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto said in Rome on 20 March that a year was needed before Mexicans could see the incipient results of his government's anti-crime strategy, even as reports indicated crime-related deaths remained high since he took over in December 2012. A "balance" could be made in a year, he said speaking at the Mexican embassy, and "favourable results, a palpable reduction" in violence and murders expected, though he added this did not mean an end to violence that has killed some 70,000 since 2006, when the previous government began to wage war on drug cartels. Peña Nieto said his government's security plan included the entire national territory while considering its regional variations, Europa Press reported, citing the Mexican daily El Universal. The Peña government's anti-crime plan includes dividing Mexico into five security regions, and consultations between state governors and the armed forces, currently involved in fighting crime, El Universal has reported. A recent Mexican interior ministry report indicated that average monthly deaths from criminal incidents were equivalent to those of 2009, three years into the war begun by the then president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, Proceso reported on 14 March. Calderón was much criticized for "militarizing" law enforcement and often blamed for the thousands of deaths his government's policy was said to have provoked directly and indirectly. Yet the interior ministry recently reported that the average monthly homicides rate in the first three months of the Peña government stood at 1,052, compared to 879 for the first year of the Calderón presidency. It was not immediately clear if the comparison was with a similar three-month period or a year. A ministry report issued on 8 March counted 3,157 victims of homicides from December 2012 to, presumably, the end of February 2013. As reports indicate murder rates differ across the country, and violence shifts from one zone to another in response to policing. The Public Security chief for the south-western state of Oaxaca declared on 20 March for example that reported homicides in Oaxaca fell 29 per cent from March 2012 to March 2013, and kidnappings 30 per cent. Marco Tulio López Escamilla said Oaxaca had become one of the country's safer states, in spite of sitting between two particularly crime-ridden states, Guerrero and Veracruz, Milenio reported. Likewise the head of the US Northern Command, General Charles Jacoby, was reported as telling the House Armed Services Committee that drug violence had fallen in northern Mexico and shifted toward the country's interior states, Proceso reported on 20 March.

Mexican party amends statutes to help government

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was the guest of honour at the 21st Ordinary National Assembly of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which approved a reformist agenda intended to assure the PRI's closer cooperation with government's liberalizing agenda. This included removal from party statutes of prohibitions on debating the imposition of VAT on foods and medicines, a move opposed by the Left in Mexico Alongside accepting the principle of private investment in the state-sector oil firm Pemex, these were among the "binding" items removed from the party's "basic documents," which indicated the party's eager support for its own government. The PRI senator Cristina Díaz Salazar said the changes sought to "accompany" Peña Nieto's policies, CNN reported. During and after the 2012 general elections PRI members were intermittently cited as saying that the PRI party and government would remain distinct; yet this is not a party known for dissentions and internal disputes. It contrasts in that sense with the Leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), whose members split from the PRI in the 1980s and which recently split again with the departure of its former leader. The PRI assembly approved an Action Programme (Programa de Acción) that included reducing its National Political Council from 1,200 to 700 members, and its Permanent Political Committee (Comisión Política Permanente) from 200 to 47 members including PRI-run state governors and the President, Proceso reported on 4 March. The assembly voted its support likewise for reforms in areas of taxation, competition and subsidies, while "mechanisms" were approved to ensure PRI members who accede to public office do not deviate from set party lines, La Crónica de Hoy reported. Peña told the 4,200 PRI members that there were "no untouchable interests" in the country; "the only interest I shall protect is the national interest. I shall take the decisions the country's transformation requires. The PRI's success depends on Mexico's success, CNNMéxico reported.

Mexico insists union chief's arrest legal, not political

President Enrique Peña Nieto pledged in a television address on 27 February that the investigation of the activities of detained teaching union boss Elba Esther Gordillo would continue "to its ultimate consequences, always remaining strictly attached to the law" and respecting the "human rights of persons implicated," CNN reported. Gordillo was detained on 26 February and formally charged on 27 with undertaking "operations with illicit resources" and engaging in "organized crime," relating to a range of alleged activities that included syphoning off union funds, money laundering and perhaps tax evasion, CNNMéxico reported. In total four were reported detained and two people were to be charged beside Gordillo, as suspected accomplices of her financial transactions. Peña Nieto said the "process being followed" is "strictly legal" and "responds to evidence of the probable, illicit deviation" and "concealment" of funds belonging to the SNTE, the education-sector union. Those funds he said belonged to teachers not union bosses and "must be used to benefit their workers." The president said his government maintained a "respectful and constant dialogue" with the union's leaders and repeated a "commitment to Mexico's teachers." He said "Mexico's educational transformation is going forward" with the aim of one day providing "quality education for all" in Mexico. The same day Mexico's Prosecutor-General Jesús Murillo Karam told the daily La Crónica de Hoy that he doubted the union would react to the detention with protests seeing as the "investigation seeks to defend the interests of education workers." He said the prosecution had "nothing to do with political questions...these are the axes the president has indicated, which is to fight corruption," La Crónica reported on 28 February. He told the daily that from the day Peña began his presidency in December 2012, he "told me my function was to apply the law."

Mexico to change ambassadors in Cuba, Canada

Mexico was to recall two ambassadors sent to Cuba and Canada by the previous conservative government and replace them with appointees closer to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its foreign policy postures that included better ties with Cuba's communist regime. The Leftist former governor of the state of Michoacán Lázaro Cárdenas Batel was to become ambassador in Cuba, replacing Gabriel Jiménez Remus, while a veteran diplomatist and former deputy-foreign minister Julián Ventura Valero would replace Francisco Barrio as ambassador in Canada, La Jornada reported on 28 January. The daily observed that good ties with Cuba characterised the foreign policy of PRI governments and that these deteriorated in the presidencies of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party. Cárdenas is a member of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and son of its founder, the former Mexico City mayor Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano; his grandfather was Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, President in 1934-40. In spite of initial protests against the 2012 general-election results and allegations of fraud against the PRI, the PRD has moved closer to the new government and signed the Pact for Mexico proposed by the PRI, designed to ease legislation. La Jornada cited unnamed foreign ministry sources as describing the appointment as a "gesture of friendship" to Cuba. Media carried pictures of a meeting in Santiago de Chile on 27 January between President Enrique Peña Nieto and Cuba's Raul Castro Ruz, on the sidelines of the summit of Latin American states and the EU. Unspecified sources cited by La Jornada stated that Mr Castro congratulated President Peña at the meeting on the PRI's return to power in 2012 and observed Cuba had had better relations with Mexico when the PRI governed; the PRI and Cuba's current regime coincided from the 1960s to 2000.

President presents security plan for Mexico

President Enrique Peña Nieto presented on 17 December a plan to restore "peace" to crime-ridden Mexico, urging a systematic crime policy devoid of "improvisations," based on shared responsibilities and eschewing party political interests, Agence France-Presse reported. Peña Nieto was speaking in the capital to members of the Public Security National Council (CNSP), and state governors, representatives of government branches and rights activists. Peña Nieto cited homicides, kidnappings and extortions as priority targets of reduction. A 10,000-member gendarmerie was to be formed and the national territory divided into five operational zones. The agency cited the plan's six broad outlines as planning a policy with clear objectives, crime prevention through social security programmes to be financed with funds in 2013, respect for human rights, coordination between and reform of security institutions and evaluation of objectives. The armed forces would continue fighting cartels for now he said, while new police were being trained. State governors and officials at the session signed 12 agreements on implementing the plan, El Universal reported. These included measures such as a national training programme for police, drafting police action protocols and including rights activists in the CNSP. On 18 December, Mexico's Prosecutor-General Jesús Murillo Karam spoke in an interview of some of the problems the state has faced in recent years in fighting organized crime, including he said an ill-prepared judiciary and institutions. He said it was "not a problem of government, the judiciary was made for a country at peace," El Universal reported. The judiciary he said had to face the "juncture" of rising cartel violence "as it emerged." He was particularly critical of almost 4,000 preventive or provisional arrests he described as unfair and inefficient; very few of those he said had led to the imprisonment of criminals. Murillo estimated 70,000 people died in drug-related violence under Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (2006-12), the president who began to wage war on the cartels. Murillo said these had broken up with the capture or killing of cartel bosses and prompted the rise of 60 to 80 new gangs or smaller cartels.

Youth protest as Mexican president takes office

Media reported over 90 arrests in the Mexican capital on 1 December during protests coinciding with the formal inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto's presidency. His victory in July's general elections was marked by fraud allegations and a rejection of results by many students and the Leftist coalition led then by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Public property was damaged in the protests, which the mayor Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon qualified as unprecedented and including "acts of barbarism." Spain's El País wrote of moments of chaos in the capital; Ebrard said 65 of the detained would face vandalism or related charges, Europa Press reported. The website Proceso separately reported protests in several states and districts, as well as a 40-minute delay to Peña Nieto's swearing-in inside parliament for disruptive conduct by left-wing parliamentarians. Allies of López Obrador raised banners that accused the outgoing president of handing over a "blood-soaked" presidential seat - for waging war on crime - or declaring "Imposition Consumed - Mexico in mourning." López Obrador himself addressed supporters in the capital that day, declaring he refused to recognize Peña Nieto for his "illegitimate and illegal" election, Europa Press reported, citing the daily La Jornada. He said the new interior minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong should resign for the "violent" response to protests, as should the police minister Manuel Mondragón for not assuring protesters' security. The government also condemned the violence. Peña Nieto separately promised 13 reforming measures that day, addressing the nation as president, Europa Press reported. The initiatives he promised included: introducing a universal social security system, educational reforms, measures to reduce crime violence, legislation to curb debt in public administrations and state governments and constitutional reform to ensure a single legal code and penal procedures applicable nationwide. The president had earlier touted a Pact for Mexico wherein all parties would cooperate to push through systemic reforms, though it was not yet clear if left-wing parties such as the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) would give it their backing.