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Mexican drug cartels
target local democracy
Mexico City, 30 August 2010: Hardly two weeks after the murder of Santiago Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos another Mexican mayor was killed by members of drug cartels. Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, the mayor of the small town Hidalgo in the northern state of Tamaulipas was shot dead while he was driving his SUV, City Mayors was told. According to eyewitnesses, the mayor’s four-year-old daughter was wounded in the attack.

Leal Garcia, a by all accounts popular mayor, intended to leave office at the end of this year, having served his community since 2008. The mayor’s predecessor was seriously wounded in an attack a year ago and a police officer was killed in March in a machine-gun and grenade attack on the mayor's residence.

The killing happened barely ten days after six police officers were arrested over the killing of Santiago Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos.

Commentators in Tamaulipas believe that the drug cartels and corrupt members of the security forces plan further killings of elected politicians. “They aim to destroy local democracy and make the state ungovernable,” they warn. The state has been hit by five attacks involving explosives since last week’s discovery of the bodies of 72 migrants who had been massacred at a Tamaulipas ranch, allegedly by the Los Zetas drug trafficking gang. In June, gunmen killed a candidate for Tamaulipas governor.

Police officers arrested over
the killing of Mexican mayor
Monterrey, 22 August 2010: Six police officers have been arrested in connection with the killing of Edelmiro Cavazos, the Mayor of Santiago, kidnapped in the north of Mexico last week. According to the state prosecutor Rodrigo Medina, the officers, including one who acted as bodyguard to the mayor, were paid off by a drug gang. Cavazos, who was known for his stance against organised crime and corruption in the police force, was forced from his home by armed men wearing out-of-date federal police uniforms. No ransom was demanded.

Abducted Mexican
mayor found dead
Monterrey, 19 August 2010: Mexican police have found the body of the kidnapped mayor of Santiago. Edelmiro Cavazos, who only took office last November, was abducted from his home by gunmen last Sunday. Police sources said the killing bore the hallmarks of drug cartels. “Cavazos' hands were bound and his head was wrapped in tape.” But there are also reports that the mayor made himself unpopular among security forces because of his campaign against corruption in the police. Santiago is a small town of some 37,000 people, south of Monterrey.

According to eyewitnesses, Mayor Cavazos returned home last Sunday when he was confronted by up to 15 armed men who had arrived in seven vehicles with police patrol lights. When Cavazos and his security guard went to confront the men, the assailants forced the two into the cars. The security guard was driven around for some 15 minutes and later released unharmed. The body of the mayor was found yesterday near the Cola de Caballo waterfalls, a popular beauty spot.

Edelmiro Cavazos, who belonged to Mexico’s ruling National Action Party, has been described by local residents as kind and not someone ready to take on the drug cartels. However, Nuevo Leon state attorney general Alejandro Garza y Garza told the press that the mayor had attended state security meetings and agreed to join the fight against organized crime.

Mexico City Mayor demands
apology from Catholic Church
Mexico City, 18 August 2010: Mexico Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has demanded an apology and threatened legal action after Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez suggested he bribed the country’s Supreme Court judges. The cardinal’s accusation came after the Court ruled that a Mexico City law allowing same-sex marriages and adoptions by gay couples conformed with the country’s constitution. The mayor said that if he didn’t receive an apology he would file a slander complaint.

Under Mayor Ebrard’s leadership, Mexico City has become the most gay-friendly city in The Americas. When the law were passed last December, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon and his conservative National Action Party (PAN) went to the Supreme Court to challenge it, arguing that the law posed a threat to traditional families and the procreation of children. However, the move back-fired badly with the Supreme Court saying the constitution did not indicate that marriage had to be defined as the union of a man and woman. “To deny gay couples the right to adopt, the court said, would amount to discrimination.” Justice Arturo Zaldivar added there was nothing that indicated that homosexual couples were less apt parents than heterosexual ones.

After the Court announced it verdict, Mexico’s still powerful Catholic Church went on the offensive. Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, Archbishop of Guadalajara, called same-sex unions an aberration. "Would you want to be adopted by a pair of faggots or lesbians?" he asked. He went on to accuse Mexico City Mayor Ebrard of bribing the judges to force them to go along with gay marriage.

The cardinal vitriolic comments and accusation even stunned members of Mexico’s ruling PAN party, who demanded that Supreme Court judgments, however unwelcome, must be respected. A government source told City Mayors that the country’s constitution demanded that the Church kept out of politics. “The cardinal’s outburst has opened up a split between State and Church.”

Local elections to proceed
despite killing of candidate
Mexico City, 30 June 2010: Electoral officials in Mexico say the vote local and gubernatorial elections will proceed as planned on Sunday in the northern state of Tamaulipas, despite the murder of a politician who was favoured to win the race. Officials made the announcement after Rodolfo Torre, the candidate of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was killed in an attack being blamed on drug gangs. The PRI, however, has not named a replacement for Torre. 

The candidate, along with several aides, died in an ambush while he was campaigning in the town of Valle Hermoso, near Mexico's border with the United States.  It was Mexico's highest-level political murder in 16 years.

US State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid says the United States was "shocked and saddened" by the murders.  He described the incident as a tragedy, calling it evidence that the fight against drug cartels and criminal violence needs to continue, be strengthened and pursued vigorously.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has pledged to defend Mexico's democracy against drug gangs who have launched a campaign of intimidation against politicians running in local elections.

In May, a candidate for mayor from the ruling National Action Party, Jose Mario Guajardo, was killed along with his son in Valle Hermoso, which is just south of Brownsville, Texas.

Some 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Calderon took office in late 2006 and began cracking down on the cartels. (Report by VoA News)

Mexican mayor shot dead
in latest wave of violence
Mexico City, 21 June 2010: Gunmen have killed the mayor of the Mexican town of Guadalupe, a community on the Mexican-US border. Manuel Lara Rodriguez was shot dead in front of his family at a house in Ciudad Juarez, where he had fled to last month after he received death threats from drug cartels. A police spokesman said that the murder was probably related to local politics. Local elections are scheduled for 4 July.

Guadalupe is at the centre of a wave of violence involving rival drug gangs that smuggle narcotics to the United States. With hundreds of residents having been killed, it is listed among the most dangerous towns in the country. Since  President Felipe Calderon started his ‘war on drugs’  nearly four years ago some 23,000 people have been killed in Mexico.

In a separate development, Mexican police confirmed that they had found 12 mutilated corpses in hidden graves on the outskirts of Cancun, the latest sign drug-related violence is spreading to the popular tourist destination. Authorities announced the discovery last week, adding that some of the bodies had the letter "Z" carved on their chests, a likely reference to the powerful Zetas drug smuggling gang.

The grim find is at least the second such discovery this month. In May, Mexican police arrested Cancun's mayor Gregorio Sanchez on suspicion of offering information and protection to the Zetas, as well as the Beltran Leyva cartel. Sanchez's Democratic Revolutionary Party denounced the charges.

Drug cartels target
mayoral candidates
Mexico City, 16 June 2010: The war against Mexican drug cartels, which is being fought by the federal government, has become a source for increased violence in several Mexican states, thus putting local elections, scheduled for 4 July, at risk. In states on the US-Mexican border, a number of mayoral candidates have been threatened by cartel members. The drug gangs are trying to intimidate and eliminate candidates who are not willing to cooperate, while supporting those who are likely to turn a blind eye, or worse, on the cartels’ activities.

Crime and violence are everyday issues in a large part of the country. So far almost 23,000 deaths have been registered since the Mexican federal government started fighting the drug cartels in December 2006, soon after President Calderón took office.

Last month, José Guajardo Varela, a PAN’s candidate for the mayoralty of Valle Hermoso (a town 30 miles away from Brownsville, Texas), in the state of Tamaulipas, was murdered by hitmen after he refused to stand down despite death threats. The PAN party has not been able to find candidates for three municipalities in Tamaulipas which are currently being ruled by the party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI), while PRD members are frightened to run for the same municipalities. Also last month, the house of Martha Porras, candidate by the PRD for the mayoralty of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, a town on the border with Texas, was burned down. Martha Porras has disappeared.

Meanwhile, with the next local elections imminent, the National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) said that their mayoral candidates in the northern states would not give in to threats from the drug cartels. “Democracy will not be intimidated by criminals,” a spokesman declared.

Mexican mayor to continue
campaign from prison cell
Cancun, 8 June 2010: Despite being incarcerated in a high security jail, Cancun Mayor Gregorio Sánchez vowed to stay in the race for state governor of Quintana Roo. And his chances aren’t bad. Recent opinion polls give him a healthy lead. Police accuse the mayor of having accepted money from drug cartels in return for money laundering. A spokesman for the prosecution said that Sánchez and his wife Niurka had $2.5 million hidden in a number of bank accounts.

A journalist from Mexico News wrote that many Mexicans were not be especially shocked to learn that a Cancun mayor has a slush fund, in fact, five of the city's previous seven mayors have been involved in corruption scandals. "That kind of money in any politician's account is petty cash," he added.

Knowing that he was under investigation, Mayor Sánchez had prepared a number of political advertisements, describing himself as persecuted by political enemies and denying all charges. He called his opponents a political lynch mob.

The mayor has also been accused of having attended a meeting with Mexico’s top cartel bosses in Acapulco. According to an unnamed informer, the gathering took place in an apartment belonging to the late ‘Boss of Bosses’ Arturo Beltrán Leyva, who was later shot dead during a raid by Mexican marines. Sánchez’s wife denies the mayor was in Acapulco on the day of the meeting.

Mexican mayor and gubernatorial
candidate held on drug charges
Mexico City, 28 May 2010: Plans to hold state and local election in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo are in disarray after federal police have arrested the mayor of the resort city of Cancun. Gregorio Sanchez, who is also running for state governor in election scheduled for early July, was taken off the airplane, which had brought him back from Mexico City. A spokesman for Mexico’s attorney general's office said the mayor was suspected of offering information and protection to drug cartels operating in Quintana Roo state.

People close to Sanchez claim the mayor is a victim of dirty politics instigated by right-wing political opponent. The website of the mayor quotes Sanchez as saying that he had his life threatened during the campaign. One message allegedly told the mayor to resign or face being put in jail or even killed.

American and Mexican anit-drug campaigners point out that Quintana Roo has a history of providing a safe haven for drug gangs and cartels. In 2001, a former state governor was sentenced to 36 years in prison for money laundering and helping a drug cartel smuggle narcotics. And last month former Quintana Roo governor Mario Villanueva was extradited to the US to face charges on drug dealing and money laundering involving millions of dollars.

Voters punish Mexican government
over failure to control drug cartels
Mexico City, 18 May 2010: Mexico President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party (PAN) was soundly defeated in local and state elections held in the southern state of Yucatán. The party’s defeat was blamed on the government’s failure to win the war against the drug cartels.

 A coalition of the centre-left Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) and the Green Party (PVEM) claimed victory after capturing 63 of the state’s 106 town halls, including that of the state capital Merida. Mayoral candidates of PAN, which governed the state since the early 1990s, won in 33 towns. In the state congress the coalition won 13 seats, while PAN won the remaining two.

The Yucatan elections were a dress rehearsal for country-wide local elections scheduled to take place on 4 July. Then, voters in 15 states will have an opportunity to elect new mayors and parliamentarians. It seems likely that President Calderon’s ruling party will be further punished by the electorate, who blame the government for the impunity with which drug cartels operate in the country.

Last Friday’s kidnapping of a leading PAN member shocked the country. President Calderon has ordered a massive manhunt to find the missing politician, who he described as a personal friend. Diego Fernandez de Cevallos. who ran for president in 1994, is the most prominent kidnap victim yet in Mexico's raging drug wars.

Mexico City launches
bike sharing service
Mexico City, 25 April 2010: As he introduced Ecobici, a bike sharing service modelled on Vélib in Paris, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, who attended the failed Copenhagen Climate Conference at the end of last year, said people didn’t need to wait for a global commitment to care for the environment This spring Mexico City launched Ecobici, installing 1,100 bikes at 85 pick-up points throughout the centre of the city.

The mayor said during the first few weeks some 4,000 people had paid $24 for user cards, which swipe at a rack to release a bicycle for 30 minutes, and that some 50,000 trips had been made. Organisers hope to have signed up 24,000 people by the end of this year.

As one of the world's most polluted and congested cities, Mexico City is determined to green itself. Ecobici is just part of a massive programme. The Mexican government, World Bank and the United Nations are funding a 15-year, $1 billion per year Plan Verde. The plan focuses on transportation issues. In addition to Ecobici, BRT (bus rapid transport) is being introduced, the underground railway will be improved and once a week cars will be banned from the roads.

The mayor’s office said that the plan is already working. The number of days with health-threatening pollution levels has dropped from 333 to 180 and areas with BRT had seen traffic accidents drop by 30 per cent.

Catholic Church launches
attack on Mexico City mayor
Mexico City, 8 March 2010: Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church has been accused of breaking its concordat with the state after it launched a fierce attack against Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard. On the archdiocese of Mexico's website the mayor is accused of pandering to the views of leftist foreign groups by approving legalised abortion and same-sex marriage. The mayor is also criticised of ignoring rising crime and neglecting public transport.

Political observers have expressed surprise at the harshness of the Church’s criticism considering the mayor’s continued popularity and the widespread praise he received at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. There is speculation that the Church, which abhors Ebrard’s liberal views, plans to undermine his possible 2012 candidacy for the presidency.

Earlier month Mayor Monitor awarded Mayor Ebrard a seven-plus approval rating, his highest score yet. A commentator says “With limited resources Ebrard manages to support education, transport, social security, hospitals…without increasing the debt of the city.” Last year The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University praised Mexico City’s Metrobus system an outstanding for its contributions to the environment and people’s quality of life.

Mexican law prohibits the Church from becoming involved in politics.

Venezuela opposition
mayor is reinstated
Caracas, 6 March 2010: Venezuela's supreme court has reinstated an opposition mayor, ten days after it annulled his election and replaced him with a supporter of President Hugo Chavez. The election of Jorge Barboza, mayor of Sucre in western Zulia state, was cancelledon grounds that he allegedly failed to pay $292 in property taxes. At the time, the leading judge commented that the mayor was clearly not suitable to lead a city. The court has now said that its original judgement was unconstitutional because it violated Barboza's political rights.

Venezuelan opposition
mayor barred from office
Caracas, 28 February 2010: Venezuelan opposition politicians accused the country’s supreme court of having become a tool of President Hugo Chavez after judges annulled the election of an opposition mayor. The court threw out the 2008 election of Jorge Barboza, mayor of Sucre in western Zulia state, on grounds that he allegedly  failed to pay $292 in property taxes. The leading judge commented that the mayor was clearly not suitable to lead a city.

Jorge Barboza’s brother told journalists that the mayor lived in a rented house and that the owner had apparently failed to pay the taxes. “My brother should not be held responsible for the owner’s forgetfulness. “The ruling against my brother constitutes proof that the justice system is being used to politically persecute opponents of Chavez's government,” he argued.

The supreme court appointed Humberto Franka Salas, a member of Chavez's ruling party, as interim mayor. Franka Salas, who will hold the post until a new election, was runner-up in the 2008 mayoral election,

Left and Right join forces
ahead of Mexican elections
Mexico City, 17 February 2010: Mexico’s Secretary of the Interior, Fernando Gómez Mont, resigned from the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), just a day after the party announced its coalition with the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), the Labour Party (PT), and CONVERGENCIA to run jointly against the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the July local elections for governor in Oaxaca. The state has been ruled by the PRI for 80 consecutive years. Mr Gómez Mont commented that a coalition between parties with opposed ideologies amounted to fraud.

In May and July of this year, Mexico will hold local elections for governors, mayors and deputies in 15 states. In a scenario where the all-present PRI party rules over 19 out of Mexico’s 31 states, the now divided party PAN of President Felipe Calderón has a difficult task ahead given the fact that of those 15 states 12 will elect governors and of which 10 are currently ruled by a strengthened PRI.

This is the main reason why PAN is making alliances with other parties aiming to snatch power in those states from the PRI at all costs. Among those states that PAN will make alliances with other parties against PRI are Durango, Puebla and Hidalgo. Taking into account that in the 2009 federal elections the PRI won and recovered the control over several states and if it happens again in this summer’s local and regional elections to come the party will be in a strong position to regain the presidency in 2012.

Meanwhile Mexico City’s left-wing Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, the possible PRD candidate for the presidency, inaugurated the Public Bicycle System “Ecobici” as an alternative for public and private transport for short journeys in the city’s centre. 24,000 adult users are expected to benefit from this new program and by 2012 the use of bicycles may be increased by five per cent. The annual membership costs around 23 US dollars. The system counts on 84 stations with a distance of 250 metres between each of them and 1,114 bicycles are already available. From Tuesday, 16 February tourist and citizens will be able to hire bikes for 30-minutes journeys with no limit on number of journeys. According to Mayor Ebrard the new program is part of the city’s measures to reduce air pollution and to promote citizens’ health.

Haitian mayor accused of
selling earthquake relief aid
Port-au-Prince, 8 February 2010: The mayor of Petionville, a wealthy suburb of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, has been accused of hoarding relief aid and selling it on to the black market. On Sunday hundreds of women marched to the city hall to condemn the alleged corruption of Mayor Lydie Parent. A local radio station has accused the mayor of making a business out of tents, which should have been distributed to earthquake survivors.

Reports of a large amount of donated food being sold on the black market have further provoked anger among Haitians who blame government corruption for the slack management and sluggish distribution of goods.

Last month’s earthquake spared most of the residential buildings in Petionville although the local hospital was destroyed. The hilly and leafy community is favoured by politicians and wealthy business people. The Petionville golf course has been requisitioned by the US Army and turned into a tent city for more than 50,000 people.

Mexico City to allow
same-sex marriages
23 December 2009: To cheers from the public gallery, Mexico City parliamentarians voted to legalise same-sex marriages in the country’s capital. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, from the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has indicated that he will sign the bill, thus making it law. The bill will allow homosexual couples to adopt children. They will also be able to apply for joint bank loans and inherit from each other.

However, a spokesman for the country’s conservative president, Felipe Calderon, said the measure would be challenged in court. Pointing out that Mexico’s 32 other states will not follow the capital city’s example, the spokesman warned that the federal government would not allow Mexico City to become a state within a state.

When, two years ago, Mexico City went ahead with measures allowing abortions within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a majority of states demonstratively declared life began at conception.

Same-sex marriages have been legalised in Canada, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium as well as in five US states, including Massachusetts and Connecticut. In November, the mayor of Buenos Aires decided not to appeal against a court ruling allowing same-sex marriages in the Argentinean capital. Gay civil unions are legal in a number of Latin American countries including Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay.

Mexico City to expand bus
line and bike lane networks
Mexico City, 24 November 2009: Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard announced that the city would expand its system of dedicated bus and bike lanes. Speaking at Harvard University, where he received the Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnerships for the city's Metrobus system, the mayor told his audience that he hoped that Mexico City would inspire other cities around the world to embrace environmentally sustainable transport programmes.

Partly funded with World Bank loans, the bus rapid transit corridor opened in 2005 and runs alongside one of Mexico City's busiest boulevards. Today the system extends over 36km and helps to ease overcrowding on the city underground train network. A single fare costs between 0.30 and 0.55 euros. Bicycle riders are allowed to

The mayor believes that extending the network will push daily usage to more than 500,000 people. He also said that Metrobus had reduced Mexico City’s greehouse gas emissions by more than 80,000 tons.

Figures supplied by the City show that since the introduction of Metrobus, more than 800 of the city's 28,000 mini buses, have been removed from city streets. Traffic accidents declined by 30 per cent in the area Metrobus serves and an estimated six per cent of commuters switched from private to public transport.

Buenos Aires Mayor accepts
ruling on same-sex marriage
Buenos Aires, 18 November 2009: Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri has decided not to appeal against a court decision allowing same-sex marriages in the Argentinean capital. In a ruling the court wrote that two articles in Buenos Aires’ civil code, which say only people of different sexes can get married, were illegal. However, the court decision applies only to Buenos Aires. Same-sex marriages in other parts of Argentina remain illegal.

Explaining the court ruling, Judge Gabriela Seijas said the law should treat each person with equal respect in relation to each person's singularities without the need to understand or regulate them. “The city code prevents people from enjoying the rights that couples who enter into matrimony are entitled to. Those rights include inheritances, pensions and the ability to make decisions for the other person when he or she is incapacitated," the judge added.

After the judgment was announced, Mayor Macri acknowledged that he was urged by many people to lodge an appeal. "I had an important internal debate, weighing my upbringing with my search for the best customs and best liberties for society," he wrote on his internet site.

The mayor compared today’s discussions about gay marriages with the debate about divorce 20 years ago. “"What we have to learn is to live in liberty without violating the rights of others," he concluded.

The legal case was launched by a gay couple who wanted their union registered by city authorities.

Belize mayor calls charges
trumped up and malicious
Belize City, 4 October 2009: The mayor of Belize City, Zenaida Moya Flowers, and three officials of the city’s finance department were taken to court in connection with an alleged disappearance of funds from City Hall. Puzzlingly, the mayor and her officials were charged with ‘uttering false documents’ and ‘failure to follow city council regulations’ rather than corruption, misappropriation or theft.

The prosecution alleges that the mayor presided over the loss of over a quarter of a million dollars from the account of the Belize City Council.

The Mayor, who is a member of Prime Minister Dean Barrow’s United Democratic Party, called the charges politically motivated. She claimed that a faction within her own party is pursuing a vendetta against her. "Everyone knows I have no cozy relationship with the Prime Minister. I am no puppet and nobody's little girl," she told reporters outside the courthouse. Mayor Flowers stressed that justice would prevail in the end over what she described as ‘trumped up malicious charges’. According to news sources, the mayor claimed that the money was used to cover expenses of the Belize City Council but was not able to provide supporting receipts or documents to show what the money was spent on.

A radio station in Jamaica also reported that the Belsize Auditor General, who investigated the Council, said he was not furnished with certain documents to validate the expenses and concluded that some of those documents that he did receive were not genuine.

Mexico City to ban free
plastic shopping bags
Mexico City, 14 September 2009: Mexico City has banned the free give-away of plastic shopping bags by supermarkets, with mayor Marcelo Ebrard saying in future they would only be allowed if biodegradable. A spokesman for the city’s Legislative Assembly also told reporters that old–style plastic packaging would only be allowed where food hygiene made it necessary. He also confirmed that Mexico City’s Science and Technology Institute would design an advice programme for that purpose. He added that government agencies would support plastic bags producers to acquire the technology in order to manufacture less polluting products.

Although the measures came into force in August, fines will not be issued until August 2010 in order to allow commercial establishments enough time to meet the standards. In the meantime many of the city’s supermarket chains have welcomed the measure, with some switching to biodegradable bags and others starting to charge customers for the plastic bags.

Restrictions on the use of plastic bags and other packaging materials have been introduced in a number of other countries. By next year France will have switched to biodegradable bags, while in the US some states have already begun to substitute plastic bags with biodegradable and oxidegradable ones. In other states customers are being charged for plastic bags to discourage the use of them. Supermarket customers in Sweden, Ireland and Germany are already charged for plastic bags. According to an international Nielsen survey, 50 per cent of shoppers are willing to stop using plastic bags and wrappings.