 Hey everyone, welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, Code Pink's weekly webinar. My name is Leonardo Flores. I'm super pleased to have with us today independent journalist Alina Duarte from Mexico and so just a technical issue real quick. We recorded this earlier and for some reason the audio, only the audio came through. So after this first question you're only going to see photographs of us and you're gonna hear the audio. Alina was very kind and to re-record the introduction and the first question so that you can see the dynamic a little bit. Thanks so much for being here, Alina. I hope you'll follow her on Instagram and Twitter because she's been doing an amazing job of covering the George Floyd uprising here in DC. So this is the, we just passed a two-year anniversary of Andres Manuel Lopez over the election in Mexico and he's been in office now for a year and a half and he came in the office of, you know, he's talking about the fourth transformation which we'll talk about later on but I wanted to have your assessment of what you, how you think he's done in the first year and first year and a half in office. Well thanks for having me, Leo. As always it's pleasure for me to be participating with you here in this webinar and everywhere. So yeah, two years ago with a real like a high percent of the population voted for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. More than 60% was a result of that day, July the second of 2018. He has a lot of support between like even so far after a year and a half and he has more than 70% that it's still a lot of support compared to other governments or in the rest of the world. I mean after a year and a half we can say so like 70% it's a lot even when he has gone through a lot of incidents to call it like that including this pandemic. So after a year and a half I think during this fourth, this so-called fourth transformation, the first I'm going to say later also, is the independence of Mexico, second revolution and the third one is during the 19th century called these reforms, liberal reforms against the like the relationship between the state and the church and a lot of issues. Now this is, he calls the first transformation, La Cuarta Transformación, La Cuatro Te, in Spanish and he is always trying to change this narrative of what we had for the last 80 years in Mexico, 70 years of the PRI and 12 years actually of the PAN and also a new term of the PRI. So after that all of these decades he's trying to change first the narrative because we are going to get into this debate if he's a leftist or not a governor. So there have been, that's right, like a lot of changes including for example in education, he approved this education reform but there are a lot of criticizes and saying that, like critics saying that this was mostly the same reform that the past governments tried to improve in Mexico. So that's not like a real progressive reform and education but there has been a lot of investment of the education system now in Mexico. Also the health care and there is something that it saw on the debate in Mexico because some months ago say that the pandemic was the best that could have happened for the Mexican government so that was real like a polemic. It was really a mess, absolutely. So he tried to explain what was he referring to and he was saying that one of the purposes of the objectives of the Mexican government was to improve the public health care system in Mexico. So that's why he decided to improve now in this context of this pandemic. He invested and the government invested a lot in hospitals that were dismantled during the last administration. A lot of invested in doctors, in nurses, in a lot of things. For example this relationship between China and Mexico now it's stronger because of the COVID. There have been like 20 flights with things for fight COVID in Mexico that are coming from China. Also even with the US a lot of the ventilators are coming from the US, well are going to Mexico from the US and now we have a stronger health care system to fight the COVID specifically in Mexico. So that's another change that has been going on in Mexico, the issue of the health care. I think that there's a lot of, it's something really controversial in terms of for example these projects, the so-called imagined train, that it's not even imagined and is this narrative against that we heard a lot during the last government, during this neoliberal time in Mexico, that it's about the progress of the development of the communities and it is not. Actually the indigenous communities have been fighting against these projects so it's complicated to say that this is a progressive politic of an unloaded government. Also I think we need to, it's complicated the relationship with the social movements now in Mexico. They are trying to fight for a more progressive agenda that unloads not necessarily open to listen even to just to listen like the feminist movement even when we have seen not only here because it's complicated like the march of women as an example because here in the US I think that not necessarily are like real revolutionary women fighting against patriarchy and you know it's more like a liberal agenda. In Mexico I think it's pretty different, like after the war on drugs I think one of the most affected groups in Mexico have been the women. So there have been a lot of social movements during the last 14 years trying to improve this strategy against the war on drugs and mostly all of them are women so this feminist movement it's not only about young people it's like talking about patriarchy it's also about these women, mothers who have lost their children during this war so Amlo has not listened as we have been hoping. Also he has said that this feminist movement is conservative when we know that yeah there is always this opposition who has been trying to fight against the women's rights and now they are calling themselves feminist but this is not the like the reality of the feminist movement in Mexico and Amlo is saying all the time that it's a conservative movement but also there are so many feminists in the government so it's it's unfair to say that he's not listening all the feminist movement the government is doing but he's not definitely and so it's a pretty complicated situation after a year's one year and a half and after two years of the election but I also we're gonna talk about it later this foreign policy towards Latin America it has changed a lot it has been really progressive compared to what we have in the other administrations the relationship between the U.S. it's pretty complicated they have been defying for example Amlo has has defied defeat confront that confront like the government of Trump in issues like with Venezuela or yeah with the exile of everyone but at the end he has been really submissive to the migration politics so you know it's it's not it's unfair to say that he's not progressive and I think the most important part of this year and a half are the programs that the social programs that he had been improved in all of the country in Mexico we are 120 million of people and so it's approximately like 60 million of people who lives under poverty and from that part of the population around 80 90 percent now according to our law administration has now access to a social program that means that if you are indigenous you have an access to a certain program if you have a disability and you live in I don't know in the south of Mexico that are one of the poorest parts of the country you have access to another program if you are poor and you have kids so there are so many programs that have been implemented during the last year and a half and actually that's why Amlo is saying that he has been fighting it successfully the the COVID because now with this wealth redistribution we are fighting like better than we could have done with another government so I think that's the most important part of this year and a half these social programs implemented I mean we're talking about 60 million of people so it's it's amazing even not only the 60 million but for example there are for example my grandma receives a program just because she is more than 60 years and all of the population even if you are rich you are poor you have access to this program once a month I guess a doctor goes to my place and check her health so it's something that didn't happen before for example in I mean there there are so many in so many examples and of course that the reality has changed but I think that we can do better when he is saying that he's left this government we already know that he is not socialist anti-capitalist anti- progress he's not he hasn't say so for 14 years that he has been running for something or when he is he was a major of Mexico City he has not say so never like never ever and yeah so now we have a lot of contradictions in the government even when they have implemented this kind of programs we have seen like part of the the people who he used to call the mafia in power now we see that they are part of the government with the oligarchs the businessman they are really close to him after he was calling him calling them the mafia in power so let's we are seeing with this pandemic that the contradictions are getting like more profound and we will see if he radicalizes his administration and I think something's gonna happen because you cannot say that you agree with the working class and with the businessman at the same time so it's about time that we can see something like we saw in Honduras for example in 2009 or what we saw months ago eight months ago in Bolivia with the coup against Evo Morales actually we now know that it was about lithium and natural sources now in Mexico in north of Mexico they discovered not so long ago like a year ago that we also have lithium so we are gonna see I guess some kind of this civilization of the country we have seen when the murder of these binational people in the border of Mexico and the U.S. they if Trump took advantage of that saying that this was part of the war on drugs and the narcos where we should call them terrorist organizations so that was just the first goal to like hey something's going on here in their relationship but yeah it's it's all about time and but yeah it has been a long long long year and a half of this administration yeah so that's really interesting because he so he ran on a platform of against the neoliberalism and it seems like he is investing making a lot of social investments but as you said he is you know very far from a socialist and he's also has lots of alliances with business interests and you know oligarchs in Mexico and yet there is a very kind of rabid or virulent opposition to Amlo from these entrenched elite interests Amlo has something you know at one point his popularity was something like 86 percent right and now it might be a little lower but still well above 50 percent and and still then yet there's these kind of plots against him so about a month ago there was a something called the BOA the broad opposition block of document was leaked showing them you know basically laying out the steps for a soft coup in Mexico can you give us some details about that yeah well this opposition has been the same opposition I mean the same group that has always been in power for the last 80 years and now they are really pissed that they lost the elections the years ago and it's not something that we need to like it's something hide it is not absolutely we know who are these group people are former presidents like Felipe Calderon who implemented war on drugs quotes and quotes because it's only a civil war that people don't really know what's going on in Mexico and it's something that it's still going on and something that even the opposition is using against Amlo when they started this war and now there are more than 200 people killed disappear you know it's complete a mess so that's why people voted for Amlo even when they they knew that he's not a socialist anti-imperialist anti-capitalist or whatever and a lot of people I know they just voted for him because he was not the pre not the pan and he didn't want to continue this war so in this document that was leaked called let's rescue Mexico of this opposition group and its members are as I said like former presidents and even actors politicians and you know these influencers this is okay to say in English influencers yeah yeah it's another actually and so they have been doing this war against Amlo and to everything that sounds pretty like to the left and this is not something new I must insist and these are the same people who implemented the war on drugs who are calling now for a public health care system when they try to privatize it for a public education when they try to privatize it so it's those are these these people are the ones who are trying to implement this strategy and I must say that this is not the first time during this last year and a half that we see or at least I've been trying to say that it's about time to see open strategy and open attack between the like an alliance between the State Department you know like the same things that we have seen in Latin America in 2009 in Honduras now in Bolivia last year or in many many other Venezuela like for the last 20 years I think it's it's only about time to see something like openly a war an open war against Andres Manuel we've seen also these massacre in the border of Mexico and the US they were both US US and Mexican citizens that were killed and I think that that was like the first one of the first things that we're trying to make some noise against I'm low on to put these narratives against him and you remember that here Donald Trump tried to call the the narco groups or gonna say terrorist organizations and that's why because of this attack you know and this is not a new narrative actually when Hillary Clinton was at the State Department she started with these narratives and they tried to make this alliance because between these generals that was killed in Soleil money between Soleil money and the narco traffic in Mexico so you know it's it's it's it's good it's we need to say that it's not the first time that we see something like like this and yeah they been they've been also using this corporate meal like in your time the Washington Post to implement these narratives that I think it's out of context totally that even when we can say openly I consider myself a militant journalist a leftist journalist and I can say that I'm low like openly I can say that he's not a leftist president as we would have a president like him to in 2006 but because of the fraud in 2006 we didn't have this amelot who had like this leftist idea more progressive and things like that now we don't have it we we see these oligarchs in the cabinet pretty close to him one of him who is a total oligarch in Mexico Alfonso Romo he's part of the presidential cabinet and he's coming to the White House to this meeting now in here in DC so it's like it's it's it's a strategy of course of the far right that and we must remember that even this far right from the pan the party in Mexico they're really close to the Venezuelan opposition the Cuban opposition and the Nicaraguan opposition so it's not I mean it's not a surprise that they try to to do actually there was an audio leaked also more than a month ago between many of them not specifically this group but specifically between the richest persons in in Mexico saying that maybe was time to call for aid help of the US government you know it's like even when they have had a lot of opportunities in Mexico because there are so many alliances between for example Carlos Slim or Ricardo Salinas Pliego who is the owner of Tebe Azteca the one of the two principal media outlets in Mexico and his owner of almost everything in Mexico but he have had a lot of opportunities in Mexico but they're not they don't have enough you know like this they want everything that they used to have it like in other governments so yeah it's it's a constant it's not a new war against Amlo but we must say that something that Amlo was saying before that they used to he used to call them the mafia in power and now part of this mafia isn't the government no so it's part of the contradictions yeah I mean one of the things that really struck me about this this plan the let's rescue Mexico plan was how they really want to control the narrative in the media and of course in Mexico they own all of the media and they have alliances with the media here in the US and so two days ago three days ago on July 5th and I'm not bad in the New York Times I'm not sure if you were able to see it but basically he he compares Amlo to Trump which is you know totally ridiculous and it's part of a kind of this strategy right to discredit Amlo especially in the United States and so and so you know start building support for if not for a hard coup then a soft coup which is very much what they plan they then want to take over the legislature and then basically do the equivalent of an teaching Amno but one of the other things that Garauza does is he harshly criticizes Amlo for coming to visit Trump which is to me you know I think he'd be criticized either way if he said no to visiting Trump and the same actors which would be like up with her you know you know would be rioting almost saying how can you not visit you know the president of the most powerful country in the world but so now Amno has arrived you know on Tuesday night and to the US to visit Trump can you talk a little bit about what what can be on the agenda for this visit yeah well its agenda is this memorial visiting the memorial of Abraham Lincoln what I consider a total mistake I personally it's like what are you why are you doing this specifically here in the in the capital when we saw in the Lincoln Park here in Washington DC that people are trying to throw down to down this statue of Lincoln when they are like doing this education on anti-blackness and Lincoln was part of that so I think that's a wrong message I know that he admires Amlo admires a lot of Lincoln and things like that but well that's his decision also he visits the statue of Benito Juarez an indigenous president of Mexico and then he he's having this time meeting with Donald Trump a private meeting that it's gonna last only half an hour and then the bilateral commissions are gonna meet everyone and a part of what we were saying before is that the these people the owners of the media outlets the owners of everything in Mexico are gonna have a dinner with Donald Trump and with Amlo in the White House it's it's a strong message I know and as you said the narratives against the visit are really strong and I must say that actually I don't it's not that I'm a conservative but at the same time it's like Amlo I don't know if he's considering that this was necessary especially when Justin Trudeau didn't want to come to DC to be part of this meeting towards the the new NAFTA and I think it's it's it's not only about the meeting with Donald Trump I don't know if you saw that even the Democrats the Hispanic caucus with Alexandria Ocasio, Jose Castro, Joaquin Castro and they were saying that this was like a political the relation the bilateral relationships were getting like politicized and I mean I totally agree you know and we must talk actually about why Amlo is so interested in coming and during in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of not rising in the US with more than 30,000 cases now 30,000 people who have died of COVID in Mexico I mean it's not like the best moment to come to the US and specifically it's the first trip abroad of Mexico Amlo he didn't want he said is in the beginning of his presidency that he didn't want to travel that his best foreign policy will be the domestic policy so this is his first first trip in a year and a half so it's interesting because we I remember that the pan in Mexico were really it was really really closed to Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 and they were calling to vote for a Hillary and I don't know if Amlo is trying to yeah to convince Mexicans and it's pretty complicated what I'm gonna say because I don't know if he's trying to convince them to vote for Trump because the pan and the far right would have a better alliance with Democrats even when Trump has called those rapists, murderers or gangsters, bad hombres and whatever he wants to so I don't know we we're gonna see what's happened what they're gonna say in this press conference that I hope they have but Amlo since his press conference yesterday he was saying that he's not trying to confront anyone that he wants to have this good neighbor policy but let's see because we know who is Donald Trump that he is not only a president but the candidate of the Republicans so it's it's complicated what was like the message or to find something good or at least like the less bad of these visits but let's see how it goes and in the days prior to the visit Trump was tweeting pictures of the wall on the border which seems kind of like either some sort of provocation or message but can you tell us a little bit about just tell us the story about Trump on the wall and Amlo? Yeah actually we have had like a lot of like episodes of the wall we remember that Trump was saying all the time that Mexico was going to pay for the wall the Mexican government didn't want to confront it during the last year but at the same time he put a lot of the Mexican National Guard in the south border of Mexico so we became the wall like you know it's like we didn't pay for it we became the wall we are the wall and now he visits Trump visited Arizona he posted these pictures of the wall two days before Amlo arrived to Washington also I was listening that Trump is gonna try to push once again this idea or this initiative of like to end DACA so 80% of the of the dreamers of the DACA recipients in the U.S. are Mexicans so that's a really strong message that's something of course that they have to talk and of course that we know Donald Trump but he's gonna say something or the press are gonna ask something about it and actually in Mexico City the press asked Amlo what was his opinion on on the wall and he said like I don't want to talk about it I want to get I'm gonna be silent about it let's wait I don't want to be confrontative and whatever so we know that Amlo it's not as Donald Trump trying to to fight all the time but it's true that that Amlo it's part it's complicit of these immigration policies with the U.S. and even when he is saying he said before this trip that he wanted to like to to defend the the migrants rights but at the same time we've seen that that's not true in Mexico that there is a lot of racism xenophobia and the the National Guard in the south border of Mexico's it's not like the best way to treat migrants and even Amlo hasn't visited for example these detention centers in Mexico that we have and that a lot of human rights organizations have been calling him out to say something to visit him to even the same congress people in in Mexico are trying to push this idea that if they are leftist they should have a better migration policy so yeah it's it's very complicated and specifically I think it's one of the or the hardest issue during this meeting like the the the issue on on migration and can you tell us a little bit about how Mexico is handling the COVID pandemic well as I was saying before like Hamlo was really he was shocking to hear this affirmation he was saying that is the best that could happen for that what he calls the the forward transformation is it okay in English like the forward yeah well the first yeah it's like the new process that's how he calls these his government and this new process social processing in Mexico that it means that we had the independence as the first transformation the revolution and then this process of new laws during the 19th century so now this is like the forward big transformation and he was saying that this was the best thing that could happen for his desires to have a better a better health care system in Mexico so that was really controversial he had to explain it thousands of times before people got the idea that he was trying to like to tell everyone and they have been investing a lot of money in in hospitals in infrastructure in in doctors nurses they've been contracting people and to handle the the COVID I mean they what something that people in Mexico I think are really grateful for is the issue that they have been really for the most possible transparent or really honest when they say that they're are gonna be people dying people sick people we need time to invest in hospitals to like have everything there this was last week there was like the 20th a flight from China something like that with things for for COVID so it's impressive what they have done in just few months and well almost yeah it's it's almost half of a year at this point but I think we have had more as I said 30 000 people who have died because of COVID in a population of 120 million people so that's I mean it's it's sad and it's but it could have been worse definitely and so now we are at the point for example in Mexico City where we have more than 23 million of people in the like in the metropolitan area and now the cases are going down and for this week was I think the first week that we we've seen this situation but they're still growing like a lot of cases and it has to to be because we have more than 50 percent of our economy it's informal it's not they don't have access to unemployment or something like that people had to work during the pandemic there are like a lot of in even in Mexico City you know like there were this principal market in Mexico City where there were thousands of cases of COVID but they didn't close they were still working every day so that was really hard and I think that they could have done specifically because we saw the cases for example in Venezuela that they gave a lot of like they took it more seriously and from a leftist like a way to do it you know like cancelling the rents or doing this like cancelling the payments of water you know these these kind of things that we didn't see in Mexico but at the same time Amlo was saying like okay this is not going to be that hard because we have implemented implemented a lot of social programs so that's how we are going to fight COVID in Mexico and that was absolutely not enough but at the same times as I said like it could have been worse definitely with another government but that's not enough to say that it would have been worse I think at this point he can do better absolutely and definitely it's a big difference for example in Mexico City if you were only suspicious to have COVID you received a package with food with 1,000 pesos that it's like 200 no like 300 dollars for like a month so you can you could stay in home you know so they tried to prevent and then they started to do this test in a lot of places so they tried to do it in the in the the best way possible but at the same time as I said we need to look at the past and we need to understand that Mexico had a complete destroyed healthcare system and it was really hard to think that we could survive this pandemic like they did I don't know in other countries when they have formal economy when they are for example even for example in Vietnam that they even having borders with China they didn't have so many cases because they close everything the state it was responsible of giving money and satisfying the necessities of the population I think Mexico would have done more but they didn't and at the same time they did it the best not the best but better than the the last governments could have done so yeah it's it's complicated to say that this is the best option it was not absolutely but it could have been worse if they didn't invest so much money in in hospitals in doctors nurses in these flights even these ventilators coming from the US from China they accept these brigades from Cuba the many Cuban doctors so I mean it's like we need to be fair with what they've done yeah and I think I just saw an article about an hour ago and this goes back to the issue of how they're building a narrative against and the article talked about how it was so shocking that Mexico the deaths from COVID in Mexico had just passed France the France's deaths and they don't mention that Mexico has twice the population if not slightly more than France and so I think that we have to be fair in terms of you know analyzing or assessing a Mexico's COVID response and it's certainly they I'm certainly done much much better than say Bolsonaro or Trump or Añez or Lenin Moreno and Ecuador you know so it hasn't been all bad and finally last question because you briefly mentioned the issue of Venezuela whenever Trump meets with the president from Latin America particularly from Latin America but anyone from over the world actually the issue of Venezuela comes up can you talk tell us just what Amno's position has been regarding Venezuela well yeah I think I've been I have been inferring this talk now that you say something about Venezuela because something that I was really pleased as a journalist as a militant from left in Mexico is to see a total different foreign policy when it comes to Latin America definitely we've seen a change or at least for example in Venezuela specifically in the case of Venezuela and we saw for more than a year the last government of Enrique Peña Nieto attacking every single day Venezuela when we had a human humanitarian crisis in Mexico because of the work on drugs because of the murder and disappearance of 43 students of Ayatnapa and they were so cynical when they came I remember I was covering here the OAS all the time and they were like oh my god Venezuela we need to talk about human rights all the time and I remember I asked him in front of like everyone like how Mexico can't say something like that when we have a human crisis in our country who do you think you are and he was like okay no we are we are open to the like to the human rights organizations so that's why like this is different and I was like okay whatever you say but now we see a new policy at it specifically at the OAS because I think that was the best example of foreign policy towards Venezuela like in Mexico and now we have an ambassador who openly denounces the case for example that we saw in Venezuela when like two months ago this kind this attempt of an intervention a failed intervention and one of so many that we have seen during the last years but she openly condemned it and she was confronting also Almagro saying like why we're not talking about this why it's always about Venezuela why it's always about another countries and when we need to talk about human rights and sovereignty of Venezuela we're not talking about that so it's totally different even when they are not openly supporting specifically Andres Manuel in his press conferences during the morning that all the people and specifically this corporate media are always asking what's your position about Maduro and what do you think are you allies all the time all the time and he's like okay I'm not gonna say it because I respect the the other countries I respect their internal policies so I'm not gonna say anything about it but in the OAS we see this like our new ambassadors saying this kind of things or even when he was asked about the possibility of sending oil to gasoline to Venezuela when we know that the U.S. is always trying to push these sanctions backcode sanctions these unilateral economic issues we saw Almagro saying that we are gonna we have our own sovereignty and we are gonna do whatever we want and it doesn't matter if the U.S. or it's another country try to do something we respect our our nations we are independent so we can take this this kind of like medias measures measures yeah so we've seen that we've seen the exile like he he accepts Evo Morales as a as an asylum you know like after the coup in Bolivia we've seen this relationship with the new government of Argentina we've seen actually the visit of the president of Cuba Diaz Canel we are seeing this new relationship with Russia that I mean it's getting closed every every day so yeah it's absolutely different and in the case of Venezuela it was a complete change even as I said when he's not openly supporting he he's trying and even with food Mexico has been sending food to Venezuela and now I think someone was sanctioned in Mexico I guess because of this situation but I mean it's not that they are close allies but at the same time it's not an enemy as we saw during the last administration great thank you so much for your time Alina if you could remind our viewers of your instagram and twitter and those that would be great because I really think they should follow you thanks again for being here no thank you yeah well my twitter is at Alina Duarte and I don't I don't know how to say it a yonvajo underscore underscore yeah at Alina Duarte underscore and instagram it's the opposite it's at underscore Alina Duarte and Alina Duarte periodista that means journalist in facebook you can find me you can follow me and and I'm trying to to now covering these uprising here in the US and during next weeks I'm gonna be in Bolivia like in the next month so I'm gonna I'm gonna cover the presidential elections after the coup and I think they are gonna be complicated and of course maybe we can do another program of Bolivia soon thank you yeah all right I'm gonna tune in again next week