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Central America
February 16, 2007
- The crackdown
- Gay unions catching on in northern Mexico?
The Tepito neighborhood has long had a bad reputation, mostly because it houses the country’s biggest market of bootlegged and stolen goods. Along with pirated DVDs though, the Tepito market is also known as a place to find drugs and guns.
For years, Mexico City has tolerated the situation, mostly, many say, because the street vendors are extremely well-organized and a potent political force come election season.
On Tuesday, the city government stepped into Tepito, kind of. Officials did not target the market, but rather a nearby apartment complex they say is a den of drug and pirated DVD activity. The government is taking the drastic step of expropriating the building and evicting residents. The government plans to turn the complex into a drug rehab or cultural center.
Residents will be indemnified, but only if they can prove they own an apartment. Understandably, the action has created an uproar in Tepito, where residents have taken to the streets in what promises to be a nasty fight.
The Tepito situation only highlights a looming problem: Lacking decent jobs, Mexico has turned a blind eye to perhaps millions of street vendors, many of whom sell pirated goods such as movies and compact discs. The day that the government attempts to confront the situation will surely be a bloody one, if it ever comes.
The new gay civil union law is under attack in Coahuila, even as legislators in neighboring Chihuahua are considering a similar law.
The conservative National Action Party is taking its objection to the Mexican supreme court, arguing that the law approved in Coahuila last month is unconstitutional. At the same time, northern Mexico continues to be the unlikely vanguard of gay rights in the Americas, as legislators from the Revolutionary Democratic Party in Chihuahua introduced a gay union bill this week.
Meanwhile, Karla Lopez and Karina Almaguer say they have been overwhelmed by the reaction since they became the first gay couple to sign a civil union in Coahuila on Jan. 31. The Matamoros couple apparently had no idea they were the first civil union in the country and are beyond bothered by all the press attention.
“They won’t leave us in peace; they won’t let us eat or sleep,” an annoyed Lopez told the Mexico City daily El Universal.
October 10, 2006
Nicaragua, one discovers shortly after arriving, has an almost complete lack of street signs. The streets, I am told, actually do have names, it’s just that they haven’t been used in so long that nobody remembers what they are.
Getting directions is a surreal experience. Here’s the official address (it is on the letterhead) of my hotel in Managua: 30 meters south of the Restaurant La Marseillaise.
That’s all well and good, but only if you know where that restaurant is.
Another hotel in Managua had this tortuous address: From the Hercules Gym, one block south, one block east and 2½ blocks south.
Even the taxi driver got lost trying to get there.
October 2, 2006
- Rumsfeld visits Nicaragua
- Nicaraguan pitcher captivates nation
More Nicaragua news: Donald Rumsfeld is in town, headlining the seventh annual conference of defense ministers of the Americas in Managua. It will be interesting to see whether he makes any comments about Nicaragua’s upcoming election and the possibility that Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega could return to power.
American officials like Ambassador Paul Trivelli and Congressman Dan Burton have come under fire in the Nicaraguan media for what is seen by many here as meddling in the country’s internal affairs. The U.S. is widely considered to be behind an effort to unite right-wing parties in Nicaragua to ensure that Ortega doesn’t win. Ortega leads the polls but not with enough support to avoid a second round of voting.
I’m down in Nicaragua covering next month’s presidential election, so I figure that politics will be dominating the headlines. So, what’s the top story in this morning’s papers? The five-inning, rain-shortened no-hitter tossed by Boston Red Sox rookie Devern Hansack.
His performance brought screaming headlines and front-page pictures to Managua’s largest dailies, which complemented their coverage with features on Hansack’s family. Hansack is from a fascinating part of this baseball-mad country called the Autonomous Region of the South Atlantic, a largely empty, starkly beautiful area on the Caribbean coast.
The area is made up of a mix of descendants of African slaves and Miskito Indians, and English is the lingua franca along much of the coast. The region is highly inaccessible, except by boat and plane, and for many years was largely beyond the reach of the central government in Managua.
Part of the reason Hansack’s feat is a big story here is that it came out of nowhere – two weeks ago 28-year-old Hansack was playing double-a ball. But Nicaragua, where baseball is more popular than soccer, has also been starved for a big-time Major League Baseball star for years. It’s been awhile since favorite son Dennis Martinez dominated for the Expos, and current Nicaraguan star Vicente Padilla is not among baseball’s elite.
If Sunday’s outing wasn’t an aberration, Hansack could be the next big Nicaraguan star. And as a Boston Red Sox fan, for whom this season has been one giant disaster, I certainly hope so.
