The man with the red flag and other tales of AMLO’s Mexico

 

A few weeks ago our son, Chris, was driving from his home in San Vicente, Nayarit, to Tepic, the state capital. On a remote stretch of road that wound its curvy way through forests the traffic slowed to walking pace. A man with a red flag appeared, approached Chris’ car and said “Take this man to hospital”. A man with a bloodied face promptly appeared and sat in the back seat. He was the driver of a lorry involved in an accident. He had not been wearing his seat belt – hence the injuries to his face. The nearest ambulance station was a considerable distance away, so Chris found himself in the role of volunteer ambulance driver. The injured man was from the next town along the road, Compostela (population 16,000), which was conveniently en route to Chris’ destination. They arrived without further incident at the public hospital in Compostela. Unfortunately, a notice on the door informed them, with impeccable logic, that it was shut on account of the health emergency. The injured lorry driver asked to be taken to a taxi rank. That was where Chris last saw him trying to persuade a reluctant taxi driver to take a bloody passenger home. This rather improvised health care is indicative of an under-funded public system. Mexico has a large number of doctors trained to the highest standards, and the best (always private) hospitals are a match for any in North America or Europe. However, the provision of medical services for the less fortunate, especially in remote areas, is patchy, and subject to arbitrary administrative measures, such as closing a hopsital when a medical emergency occurs.

A few weeks before this incident Chris met another man with a red flag, this time on the Querétaro-Mexico City toll road (a rough equivalent of the M6 toll road in the UK or the New Jersey Turnpike in the USA). As he pulled into a toll plaza, Chris noticed that the booths were empty. A man with a red flag stopped him and explained that the “booths have been taken over” (las casetas están tomadas), by whom and for what purpose he did not say. He demanded 50 pesos (about £1.60), less than the official toll. Chris had no cash and the man with the flag did not take cards, so after some debate he relented and Chris drove off. Chris has no idea who the man with the flag was, but in Mexico a small red flag lends an air of authority. The man with the flag may have been part of a local group engaged in some form of protest, or a member of a criminal gang.  In any case, he and his associates had illegally taken possession of a federal government facility on a major highway. Law and order in Mexico is unpredictable and arbitrary, rather like health care provision.

Rather like Mr Trump, Mexico’s president, AMLO, is fond of blaming his predecessors for his country’s ills and of accusing them of corruption. On the latter charge, AMLO is undoubtedly on firmer ground that Mr Trump. His immediate predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN – presidents are identified by acronyms nowadays) is generally considered to have presided over an unprecedentedly corrupt administration. AMLO recently announced a plebiscite (he is fond of calling referenda to endorse his initiatives). The proposal was to consult the people as to whether the public prosecutor should investigate evidence of corruption against Mexico’s four previous presidents. One might think that a prosecutor hardly needs instructions from the public to investigate evidence of corruption. That is the prosecutor’s job after all. The proposed plebiscite no doubt had political objectives, rather than judicial ones. Law and order can indeed be unpredictable.

Meanwhile, the fight against corruption at the highest levels took a dramatic turn at Los Angeles airport. The Secretary of Defence under EPN (2012-2018), General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, was arrested by the US Drug Enforcement Agency on suspicion of corruptly assisting drug cartels. News reports suggest that the drug kingpin El Chapo Guzmán, now in a US jail for life, has begun to denounce high-level officials, alleging that they took bribes from his organization. If that is true, life may get a little tougher for a number of important people. EPN may no longer be quite so free to dine at his favourite New York restaurants. However, Cienfuegos has not yet been charged, so much remains to be seen. 

AMLO argues that corruption is the root of just about all of Mexico’s problems, from drug and criminal violence, to poverty and poor public services. This is not without a kernel of truth, although corruption has long been so deeply embedded in all levels of society that attacking corruption alone is not likely to solve other problems. However worthy his anti-corruption rhetoric, AMLO uses allegations of corruption as a convenient justification for any initiative he chooses to promote. A few months ago I heard AMLO speaking critically of institutions that I had not heard of before: los fideicomisos, or trust funds. While most national governments have borrowed money to provide economic stimulus and fund social provision during the pandemic, AMLO has declared that he will not increase government borrowing to attenuate the economic and social impacts of Coronavirus. Rather, he explained, the government would find money elsewhere, one source being los fideicomisos. These are endowment funds established to provide long-term funding for higher education institutions, scientific research institutes and the like. AMLO has alleged, citing only one rather inconclusive case, that the funds are poorly managed and used for corrupt purposes. The institutions that have fideicomisos have defended them, arguing that they are properly audited, that there is no evidence of corruption, and that the funds include grants from international agencies and other funding bodies which will be lost if the fideicomisos are abolished. Thus, a long- established method of providing predictable funding for higher education and research indpendent of fluctuations in the government’s budget, have been rather blithely abolished. Government also can be arbitrary and unpredictable.

Higher education had already suffered budget cuts within weeks of AMLO’s election in 2018. At the Colegio de Michoacán (Colmich) , where I spent three happy months researching in Spring 2018, the staff first felt the cuts at Christmas when the customary aguinaldo (Christmas bonus) and ham were eliminated. I recently heard from a friend at Colmich that the loss of the fideicomisos would further weaken finances. The pandemic has already strained Colmich’s finances severely. All teaching has been online since March and is likely to be so until next summer at the earliest. The students have returned to their homes in various parts of the Republic and the faculty are in lockdown at homes in Zamora, in Mexico City, or in USA. Apparently, only one member of staff has contracted Covid-19, but several others have contracted dengue fever, a seasonal mosquito-borne viral disease. The main business in Zamora is enormous acreages of berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries), which require plenty of water and provide a mosquito-friendly habitat which causes occasional outbreaks of dengue.

The Coronavirus pandemic has been particularly damaging for the large number of Mexicans who make their living in the “informal sector” (selling food and drinks on the street, busking, carrying out casual work, selling door-to-door, performing juggling and other tricks at traffic lights for a few coins and so on), or who work in tourism and related activities. The Bahía de Banderas area, where Chris lives is a major tourist resort. From November to April the region is usually crowded with visitors from Canada and the USA escaping winter cold. Those tourists have been almost entirely absent since early this year. Many workers have been laid off by the hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues. They now seek what income they can in the informal economy. While we were talking to Chris recently, he was distracted by a man at his front door offering to mow his “lawn”, a small patch of grass no more than 2m². Chris already has somebody who mows this tiny patch of grass for a small fee, but it was a hot day (40^oC), so he offered the man a fruit juice and a banana, which he consumed in the shade of a small tree. He returned his glass with profuse thanks and moved on to find work elsewhere.

The Coronavirus has had a profoundly negative impact on Chris’ charity, Pasitos de Luz. Events attended by tourists account for about 40% of income. The government ordered Pasitos to close in March to restrict the spread of infection. The staff switched from providing meals, therapy and education for the children in their building, to delivering food parcels, advice and support to the children’s families at home. Plans to reopen were further delayed by an unanticipated problem. For several years Pasitos had transported children to its facility in an old yellow American school bus, but it had broken down and could not be repaired. Two antiquated mini-buses were pressed into service, but these are not considered to be Covid-secure. So, one of Chris’ projects this year has been to buy a bus. In the USA yellow buses are manufactured to a demanding specification required by law. The law also requires that they are retired from service long before the end of their useful life. There is, therefore, a market for used buses in countries like Mexico that cannot afford such exacting standards. Even so, Chris discovered that a used yellow bus can cost a good $150,000. Fortunately, he found a Mexican company that offered to build a new bus customized for Pasitos’ needs. The next problem was to raise the still substantial funds needed to buy the bus. This campaign was successful, and Pasitos proudly took delivery of its new bus in September. Preparations are now underway to welcome the children to the building once again.

While the beaches and other tourist areas were locked down, work continued at Pasitos on a therapy pool generously funded by donors in Calgary, Alberta. The Pasitos pool is modelled on a therapy pool in Calgary. However, the designers failed to understand a significant difference between Canada and Mexico. At the Calgary pool each child is assisted by a therapist. Pasitos cannot afford a 1:1 ratio of therapists to children. Therefore, the Mexican pool requires a barrier to prevent unattended children falling into the pool, a requirement not anticipated by the donors. Securing funding for the barrier has been another of Chris’ projects. Government support for people with disabilities is far from adequate. However, the Directorate of Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities of the state of Jalisco called for proposals for grants ranging from 50,000 pesos (c.£1,700) to 250,000 pesos (c.£8,500). Of 46 proposals received, funding was allocated for 16, of which Pasitos de Luz was one. The other charities won grants for adults and children with various needs and medical conditions: the social and labour market inclusion of disabled adults; education; treatment for cleft palate/lip; treatment of cataracts and other visual impairments; teaching sign language; treatment of speech and language disorders. However, even if all the grants had been for the maximum amount, the total funding for a state with a population of 8.3 million, including Mexico’s second city, Guadalajara, with a population of 5.2 million, would have been 4 million pesos. Since 7.5% of the Mexican population is disabled, this equates to inclusion funding per capita in Jalisco of 6.5 pesos (UK£0.22/US$0.33). The proportion of the population that is disabled in the UK is 22% and in the USA is 26%, so I suspect that the figure for Mexico is a gross underestimate and the real need for support much greater.

Life in Mexico, as you will have gathered, can be very tough. However, Mexicans are hard-working, resourceful, courteous, hospitable people, with strong and vibrant cultural and social traditions and family ties that help them cope with the hardships. One tradition that will be affected by the pandemic this year is El Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead). The James Bond film, Spectre,  opens with an entirely fictional Day of the Dead. In other words, this was an “indigenous tradition” made in Hollywood. However, the Bond brand offered an opportunity to attract international tourists to Mexico City, so the parade has now become an annual “tradition”.  Far less glamorous commemorations fill cemeteries in in towns throughout Mexico with families who share a meal by the graves of deceased relatives. This year gatherings in cemeteries are prohibited, so, in Mexico at least, Covid-19 can find you even as you rest in your grave for eternity.