Viva México Episode 5: The Walls Within
María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, the first indigenous woman to ever run for president in Mexico, tells us what she hopes to achieve through her campaign. We also discuss the murder of Mexican journalist Javier Valdez with Adrian López, the editor of a newspaper in Sinaloa.
María de Jesús Patricio Martínez will represent the Zapatista movement and Mexico’s National Indigenous Congress.
María de Jesús Patricio Martínez has always had a gift for curing people’s ailments, an ability she attributes to her close connection with the earth.
Born and raised in Tuxpan, a slow-paced town in western Mexico surrounded by scrubby hills and fields of sugarcane and maize, she began offering herbal remedies to sick neighbours at the age of 20 after noticing the government’s indifference to local health problems.
“Back then, there was a shortage of doctors and medicine and the health department had no answers,” said Patricio, an indigenous Nahua. “But we have so many plants and so much knowledge from our elders. My grandmother would give us special teas to cure stress, coughs or diarrhea, and they worked. So I thought: why not give herbal remedies to those who can’t afford medicine?”
Now a 53-year-old mother of three, Patricio is renowned for preserving traditional indigenous medicine. But she is about to embark upon a much more ambitious mission: healing a country that has been torn apart by rampant violence, political corruption and economic inequality.
Mexico’s National Indigenous Congress – a broad coalition of native ethnic groups – and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) have nominated Patricio to represent them in next year’s presidential election.
If they gather enough signatures to ratify her nomination, she will become the first indigenous woman ever to run for president in Mexico…
Javier Valdez was the sixth journalist murdered in Mexico this year.
One of the most experienced and respected journalists to have covered Mexico’s brutal drug war was murdered in Sinaloa, a state plagued by narco violence, on Monday.
A brave and tireless reporter, Javier Valdez Cárdenas was shot 12 times after leaving the offices of Ríodoce, a newspaper he founded and edited in Culiacán, the state capital. He was the sixth journalist murdered this year — a seventh would follow before the day was done. Over 100 have been killed since 2000.
“The Mexican government condemns the murder of Javier Valdez. My condolences to his family and companions,” President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted. “I reiterate our commitment to freedom of expression and the press, which are fundamental to our democracy.”
The president said a special prosecutor’s office for crimes against freedom of expression would investigate the killing, but observers are doubtful the government is truly willing or able to ensure that justice is done. From 2010 to 2016 that office received 798 complaints of aggressions against journalists, securing just three jail sentences, a 99.7 percent impunity rate.
Valdez’s death occurred less than 48 hours after 100 gunmen abducted seven journalists in the lawless southern state of Guerrero. The assailants stole equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars before releasing the reporters, who were covering violence in the region.
Jonathan Rodríguez, a reporter at a weekly newspaper in western Jalisco state was also shot dead on Monday evening. His mother, Sonia Córdova, who also worked at the paper, was hit too and is in a critical condition…
Click here to read this article in full at VICE News
Click here to read my interview with Valdez from earlier this year
The Tequila Files 