Recovering Haiti looks to tourism to bolster economy

A young guide in Milot, Haiti, readies to the lead a horse to La Citadelle, one of the largest forts in the Caribbean. The Sans-Souci palace - ruined in an 1842 earthquake - is in the background.

By David Agren, Canwest News Service

MILOT, Haiti - The earthquake that shook Port-au-Prince failed to budge La Citadelle la Ferriere, an early 19th-century fortress that towers over this community in northern Haiti.

With thick, stone walls, rows of cannons and piles of cannonballs, along with breathtaking views from a setting nearly 900 metres above Milot, local tour guide Maurice Etienne calls it "one of the biggest fortresses in the Caribbean,'' and one of the best tourist attractions in the region, too.

And now, with the economy in shambles and the capital in ruins, Etienne and others in Haiti's nascent tourism industry see potential in places such as La Citadelle and are calling for the country to urgently embrace one of the Caribbean's most lucrative industries.

The proposal to bolster tourism in Haiti isn't entirely new, however. Haiti was among the pioneers of Caribbean tourism in the 1950s, but the industry petered out with the rise of strongman Francois "Papa Doc'' Duvalier.

Read more at Canada.com.

Haitians living in Dominican Republic return home to find relatives

I recently returned from 11 days of reporting in the Dominican Republic and Northern Haiti. Here's one of the stories from the trip on the mass return of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince in an effort to retrieve relatives left homeless or injured by the Jan. 12 earthquake.



By David Agren
Catholic News Service

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (CNS) -- Saintivo Gassant boarded a small, intercity bus with 37 other passengers -- mostly fellow Haitians -- at a ramshackle station in the Dominican capital, beginning a seven-hour journey back to the rubble of his native Port-au-Prince.

He carried a backpack stuffed with documents: immigration papers, a copy of his university degree, and even photos, including a snapshot of him with the president of the Dominican Republic at a tourism exhibition. He clutched the backpack tightly for much of the first leg of the journey, knowing its contents could prevent any glitches in his attempt to bring his 12-year-old daughter, Kimberley, back to the Dominican Republic.

Gassant knew few details about her situation, just that Kimberley had been living temporarily with her mother when the magnitude 7 earthquake flattened the Haitian capital Jan. 12, and that she was now living in the street, under the care of his sister.

"I still don't know the whole story," he said Jan. 26, explaining that he learned of Kimberley's fate in a brief, Jan. 16 phone call. "My return home will be completely unexpected for them."

Gassant was just one of the thousands of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic -- and points farther abroad -- to return to Port-au-Prince in search of information on loved ones and, in many cases, to retrieve them from the ruins of an earthquake that claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and destroyed a city that will not be fully reconstructed for years.

Read more at Catholic News Service.

Gubernatorial politics makes strange bedfellows

Politics makes strange bedfellows - and nowhere more so than Oaxaca, where the oft-conflictive southern state holds local and gubernatorial elections July 4 that will choose a successor to polemic Gov. Ulises Ruiz.

To refresh memories, Ruiz heads an old-school state chapter of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), clashes frequently with Section 22 of the SNTE teachers union and various left-wing movements and presided over a 2006 uprising by the teachers and their allies that descended into lawlessness and destroyed the state's tourism-dependent economy.

The National Action Party (PAN) and Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) so dislike Ruiz - who last fall was found responsible for human rights violations in the uprising by a Supreme Court investigation - that the two political foes appear willing to join forces in an attempt to oust the PRI, which is said to be largely under Ruiz's control.

Both PAN president César Nava said PRD president Jesús Ortega have already spoken favourably of a possible alliance - even if the logistics of carrying it out would be difficult. It would require the PAN to back a candidate - most likely former Oaxaca city mayor and Convergence party Sen. Gabino Cué, who was backed by a similar coalition in 2004 - that is considered close to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, an anti-establishment figure the PAN party branded, "A danger for Mexico," during the 2006 presidential election. For the PRD, forging an alliance with the PAN requires still-scorned members to partner with a party that López Obrador derides (along with the PRI) as the "mafia" and is run by close allies of President Felipe Calderón - a man they accuse of stealing the 2006 election and refuse to recognize as legitimately elected.

López Obrador has rebuked the prospect that any of the country's left-wing parties - PRD, Convergence and the Labour Party (PT) - might even consider forging alliances with either the PAN or PRI.

The Oaxaca state chapters of the PAN, PRD, PT and Convergence already all have signed onto the alliance. Any alliance must be registered by Feb. 10.

DIFFERENT POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
The Mexican political landscape has changed over the past three years, however, making a possible alliance and cooperation between bitter enemies a possibility. The PAN has lost ground in Congress, while the PRD has been beset with internal divisions. The PRI juggernaut appears set to roll once again in 2010, too. The PRI enters 2010 on a roll, having captured a plurality in the lower house of Congress last year and having dominated state and local races in the years since the party's disastrous third-place showing in the 2006 presidential and congressional elections.

For some political observers, the willingness of disparate opposition parties to now forge electoral alliances reflects the revival of a once-popular strategy for taking down the PRI during the 1990s, when its grip on power began to weaken.

"It's the old opposition strategy against the PRI," said Federico Estévez, political science professor at ITAM. "It makes the PRI fight for every last vote."

NOT JUST OAXACA
But Oaxaca could be just one of many unlikely alliances in 2010, when 12 states - including such PRI bastions as Oaxaca, Puebla, Veracruz, Hidalgo and Durango - elect new governors.

PAN officials have already said that they would consider electoral alliances in states with polemic PRI governors - such as Puebla, where Gov. Mario Marín gained infamy in 2006 for attempting to railroad journalist Lydia Cacho - and strong PRI machines that produced clean sweeps in for the party in the 2009 midterm election.

Ortega from the PRD said his party would consider alliances in places with "absolutely authoritarian governors."

Oaxaca tops that list for many political observers and non-PRI politicians. The state is among the poorest in Mexico and governance among the least transparent. Violence long has been a calling card of Oaxaca politics - and critics of the PRI such as Section 22 and the Oaxaca People's Assembly (APPO) have been accused using tactics such as intimidation, vandalism and extortion, too.

Current PRI Deputy Elpidio Concha is accused of belonging to a mob that beat a protesting teacher to death five years ago. (He enjoys immunity from prosecution as a Chamber of Deputies member.

Diego Petersen Farah, former editor of the Guadalajara newspaper, Público, opined during the 2006 uprising, "Ulises Ruiz is a troglodyte and the Oaxaca PRI is more a criminal organization than a political party."

López Obrador spent the latter part of 2009 touring the more than 400 Oaxaca municipalities that use non-partisan forms of local governance that are based on traditional "usos y costumbres." Cue travelled with López Obrador - who carried Oaxaca during the 2006 presidential election - during the tour, which featured outbursts blasting both the PAN and PRI.

The former presidential candidate has been critical of Ruiz and the Oaxaca PRI for years. The criticism increased after the April 2009 assassination of an Oaxaca activist for his "legitimate government," Beatriz López Leyva, that was blamed by her family on a PRI mayor.

HARD TO UNSEAT
Ruiz won a disputed election in 2004 and, according to his critics, proceeded to run run the state with a heavy hand. He brought about an unpopular gentrification to the popular Zócalo square in the center of the state capital without holding proper consultations, for example. But his July crackdown on striking teachers in the Zócalo provoked the 2006 uprising. (The teachers in Oaxaca have struck annually for more than 25 years.)

Opposition politicians called for Ruiz's head, but he refused to back down. The PRI also refused to abandon Ruiz. Political circumstances ultimately saved him - along with political tactics for survival by the PAN and Calderón, who barely won the 2006 election and risked having the PRD block his taking the oath of office.

With the PRD attempting to prevent Calderón from taking office, the president began working with the PRI.

As Grupo Reforma columnist Sergio Sarmiento told me in Nov. 2006: "Either (PAN) makes agreements with the PRI or they forget about ruling the country for the next six years."

The cost of making agreements with the PRI appears to have been high. Former PAN deputy Gerardo Priego told me numerous times in 2008 that his party erred by making so many legislative and political deals with the PRI - at the price of sparing governors such as Ruiz and Marin - and that voters would punish the PAN because they would "see no difference" and opt for the more experienced party.

Now the PAN wants the PRI out of the Oaxaca governor's office - and could be willing to make agreements with a man they consider "a danger for Mexico" to do so.

Estevéz gives the coalition a chance of success since the PAN has reasonably a good organization in some parts of the state and former interior secretary and former Oaxaca governor Diódoro Carrasco defected to the PAN in recent years. Cué performed strongly in 2004 and Ruiz has been polemic since taking office.

The terms of agreement might derail any coalition, though.

"PAN is usually unwilling to go into alliances if it's the junior partner," Estévez said.

And then there's the prospect of trying to unseat a party that has always governed Oaxaca and operates a legendary political machine that produced a clean-sweep in last summer's midterm elections and reputedly is operating on all cylinders - especially in the "usos y costumbres" municipalities.

"Oaxaca is old-time Mexico, in terms of politics," Estévez said.

A bit of New Year's self-promotion

I spent three days in early December working as a fixer in the Lake Chapala area and Guadalajara for a New York Times reporter, who was investigating what happens to the undocumented migrants that lose access to health care services in the U.S. and subsequently return to Mexico. The story focuses a 34-year-old woman, Mónica Chavarría, from an ejido on the Jalisco-Michoacán state line. She has end-stage renal failure and used to receive treatment at a public hospital in Atlanta. But the hospital closed the kidney dialysis clinic earlier this year due to budgetary issues.

The undocumented migrants receiving dialysis were offered three months of treatment elsewhere and a trip home. (U.S. Citizens with kidney failure are eligible for Medicare.) Mónica returned to Mexico with her youngest son, while her husband and older son stayed in the Atlanta area. Her husband has been working as a paver and raising money to pay for a transplant - which would cost far less in Mexico.

Read the full story here, at the Times' website.

Happy new year to everyone!

Christmas potpourri

Parroquia in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. Photo by Steven H. Miller.

I avoided working on Christmas Day for the first time in three years. But I noticed enough happenings back in Mexico worth mentioning in a blog post. (There certainly weren't any here in Canada worth mentioning, spare this outstanding year-end column penned by Lord Conrad Black from his Florida prison cell on the worst nonsense of 2009.)

Trips to the newsroom on the past two Christmas Days were rather bleak affairs - and made even more bleak by a big boss that was partial to a no-fun, let's-take-ourselves-too-serious editorial policy that kept the lighter side of the news out of the newspaper on holidays. (How many times can you write seriously about Andrés Manuel López Obrador rallies in the Zócalo? For the record, I've done it more than 20 times.)

The lighter side of the news in Mexico around this time of year often involves fireworks - or, more accurately, some mishap with fireworks, such as a pyrotechnics warehouse blowing up in Cancún.

And with most Mexicans feasting on their Christmas dinners - accompanied by generous amounts of drink - late on Dec. 24, a not-so-enterprising reporter in León wrote about the traditional remedy for a night of hard drinking: A hot bowl of menudo, or tripe soup. Menuderías were, no surprise, busy on Christmas morning, ladling up hot fare for those that hit the liquor a little too hard.

Others hitting the liquor a little too hard got busted by the "alcoholimétro," or breathalyzer. The Mexico City Public Security Secretariat reported that 1,096 motorists have been detained so far this holiday season for failing breathalyzer tests. Cops in the capital have reputedly been less inclined to take bribes from those anxious to avoid a possible trip to the drunk tank.

Reforma, meanwhile, noted that the Mexico City prison population also got into the Christmas spirit by hitting the liquor a little too hard. The newspaper reported in a Boxing Day story that wealthier inmates celebrated Christmas with feasts that featured "Serrano ham" along with "alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, music and ... and hired women."

Inmates with culinary skills reportedly prepared the feasts for their wealthier counterparts, who, the Mexico City daily said, "Are known as godfathers." An inmate known as Juan "N" told Reforma that guards got in on the act, too, but in a far less festive fashion. He said that the guards charged less-fortunate inmates double to be marked "present" during roll call because they needed money for Christmas bonuses and didn't want to have to disrupt the prison parties.

Christmas, unfortunately, was bleak for many in Mexico's working and lower classes, who have suffered through an economic crisis in 2009 that has been marked by rising prices, lower wages and record unemployment.

El Universal interviewed one of the Santas moonlighting in Mexico City's Alameda Central, who said he took the gig because his construction job wasn't giving him any hours. The 15-year-old Santa said that his temporary gig paid 130 pesos per day and that he liked the work - even though his reasons for saying so seemed truly dismal.

"They pay me less here, but I like it more," he said. "I remember my childhood [while working as a Santa], although Santa never brought me anything."

One person grumbling about the big Santa better known as the federal government not bringing anything for anyone was López Obrador - the so-called "legitimate president" and self-styled champion of the downtrodden. Not one to avoid mixing disparate happenings and holiday events with his pet causes - recall his August 2008 proposal to solve insecurity and kidnappings by avoiding the "privatization, open or disguised, of the national petroleum industry" - López Obrador invoked Jesus Christ in his Christmas Twitter remarks.

"According to history, a day such as today, 2009 years ago, Jesus Christ was born, the most important defender of the poor that has ever existed."

Naturally, Mexico's religious institutions weighed in on Christmas - but not with the usual tidings of comfort and joy. Bishop Raúl Vera López of Saltillo - a man, who, like López Obrador, shows frequent disdain for the country's political class - delivered a Christmas Day rebuke to the federal government's recent scalping of cartel kingpin Arturo Beltrán Leyva.

Members of the Mexican Navy shot Beltrán Leyva dead during a Dec. 16 raid in Cuernavaca. That raid, and the subsequent papering of the body with bank notes by crime scene workers, upset the good bishop. He told inmates at a women's prison that the federal government appeared to have no interest in capturing Beltrán Leyva, only executing him.

"They went to execute, not to apprehend," the bishop said.

"They went to execute, in a way to exhibit the executed people in the same way they exhibited those that were killed and left hanging from trees in the era of the Revolution.

"Now they're smearing them in bank notes."

Bishop Vera has been critical of the federal government's war on drugs from outset and told me in June 2007 that soldiers should be sent back to their barracks since they lack the proper training for dealing with the public.

The Archdiocese of Mexico City differed. Cardinal Norberto Rivera - who seldom sees eye-to-eye with Bishop Vera - told reporters Dec. 20 that he favoured keeping soldiers in the streets since there wasn't another organization ready to take their place.

But the cardinal became far more animated by the Mexico City Assembly (ALDF) approval last week of same-sex marriage laws and the last-minute changes to the legislation to allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

Archidocese of Mexico City publication, Desde la Fe, reported Dec. 24 that during the archdiocese's annual posada, the cardinal "expressed his discontent with the recent approval by the (ALDF) of 'marriages' between persons of the same sex and the adoption of children by theses couples." (Bishop Vera, for the record, backed a 2007 initiative in Coahuila state, site of his diocese, that approved same-sex civil partnerships. He also has blessed the formation of a gay Catholic youth group in Saltillo.)

The salvo against the ALDF for its approval of same-sex marriage was only the latest in a series of tart editorials and statements from the archdiocese against the ALDF and the Chamber of Deputies. Past salvos have taken issue with lawmakers' lavish salaries, partisan political posturings, and their supposed frivolity in the face of the serious economic and social problems facing the country. The archdiocese went even further than just blasting the ALDF for approving same-sex marriage, however. The archdiocese issued an especially grumpy Christmas statement blasting the recently approved Mexico City budget, which increases taxes and metro fares and imposes a new water tariff regime that is meant to stave off forced water rationing in 2010.

"Why is the [majority] PRD, a fierce opponent of federal taxes, such a thief on local (taxes)?" the archdiocese asked.

"Will it be that they need more money to sustain corruption in the boroughs and the scandalous budgets of local deputies that they only use to approve criminal laws such as the one for abortion, immoral ones such as weddings between homosexuals and unjust ones such as the adoption by couples of the same sex.

Going beyond the ALDF, the archdiocese took issue with federal lawmakers, too. A Dec. 1 editorial asked federal lawmakers "to set the example" and take less generous Christmas bonuses, known as an aguinaldos.

The 500 deputies took their usual bonuses - a pro-rated sum of 65,000 pesos this year. The bonuses also included 9,157 pesos in coupons for a Christmas dinner.

At least there was no re-run of last year, when the deputies were reimbursed the money from their aguinaldos that had been deducted in taxes.

PRD kingpin quits party

A PRD senator on the losing end of a power struggle in the Mexico City borough of Iztapalapa has quit the left-wing party.

Sen. René Arce - PRD power boss in Iztapalapa, one of the biggest local-level jurisdictions in Mexico and one of the party's most populous bastions of support - announced his departure Dec. 15 in a move that had been expected, but underscored the ongoing disunity and disarray in the Mexican left. In an open letter to PRD president Jesús Ortega, Arce expressed dismay with the refusal of the party's hardline factions to negotiate with political rivals - such as the PAN and PRI, parties that former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador brands, "The mafia" - or advance structural reforms in areas such as taxation and the petroleum sector.

"Our country requires a left, that, without fear of the taboos of the old marxist left or of the anachronistic revolutionary nationalism, is willing to reach broad national agreements, including [agreements] with those in all sectors of society and with our political adversaries," Arce said.

The comments were pointed directly at López Obrador, who has admonished PRD members to avoid all dealings with the PAN and PRI and crusaded tirelessly - and unsuccessfully - last year against plans to allow greater private sector participation in the state-controlled petroleum sector.

Arce had crossed swords with López Obrador over the years, but the feuding between the two intensified after the latter narrowly lost the 2006 presidential election.

The senator had been a key organizer in a PRD faction known as the New Left, which is loyal to Ortega and narrowly prevented López Obrador's preferred candidate, Alejandro Encinas, from winning the 2008 internal election. (The electoral tribunal [Trife] overturned the annulled internal election and awarded the PRD presidency to Ortega.)

López Obrador, aided by ace Mexico City organizer René Bejarano and the PRD's IDN faction, took revenge on the New Left and Arce in the March 2009 primary election for PRD borough chief candidate in Iztapalapa, however. (Arce and his brother, Víctor Hugo Cirigo, were previously borough chiefs in Iztapalapa and Arce's ex-wife Silvia Oliva competed in the 2009 PRD primary.)

The former Mexico City mayor later ousted the Arce clan from Iztapalapa. He promoted the successful primary candidacy of Clara Brugada, although she was disqualified in June by the Trife due to irregularities at some of the polling stations in the primary election. The Trife decision set in motion the "Juanito" saga in which López Obrador co-opted the PT campaign of Rafael Acosta and had Acosta promise to step aside for Brugada if the PT won the election. Juanito won on July 5, held office briefly, but took leave so that Brugada could take his place. (Read about the Juanito saga here and here.)

López Obrador's Iztapalapa coup severely weakened the New Left. Ortega also appeared to be weakened as party president and unable or unwilling to intervene in Iztapalapa on Arce's behalf. According to some columnists, Ortega has stayed out of Iztapalapa in an attempt to make peace with the López Obrador factions so that he could launch a bid for the Mexico City mayor's office in 2012.

Arce is reportedly trying to form a new local party with former Chamber of Deputies speaker Ruth Zavaleta - who also resigned from the PRD - that would most likely align itself with the PRI.

Already, Adrián Rueda wrote in his La Razón newspaper column that Arce has a political association that could be converted into a political party. But even before any party is formed, Rueda reported Dec. 16 that Arce was creating headaches for the local PRD in the Mexico City Assembly, where three Arce loyalists also quit the PRD. Their departures deprive the PRD of a majority in the Assembly and thus means that the leadership in the Assembly will be rotated among the represented parties - the PRD had been in position to hold the Assembly leadership for the next three years.

President unveils political system overhaul

Calderón's proposed political reforms include reelection, run-off elections and fewer federal lawmakers

President Felipe Calderón unveiled a proposal on Dec. 15 for staging run-offs in future presidential elections. The process would pit the two biggest vote-winners in a run-off election to determine a clear victor - and presumably avoid a rerun of the narrow 2006 presidential contest, when Calderón narrowly won by less than a single percentage point and the scorned runner-up, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, derided the process as rigged.

The president unveiled the proposal as part of a 10-point plan for overhauling an oft-maligned political system that is dominated by powerful political parties and, according to some observers, run by an irresponsible political class that lacks both professionalism and accountability to voters.

The 10-point plan fulfilled a promise made earlier this fall to advance reforms such as the reelection of legislators and mayors, introduce the possibility of holding referendums and allowing for the election of independent candidates.

Calderón's proposals include those ideas, but, if the version he sent to Congress is approved, it would also eliminate the Senate seats distributed through proportional representation and reduce the number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies by 25 percent.

Other proposals call for allowing citizens and the Supreme Court to propose laws and creating a mechanism for the president to critique legislation already approved by Congress before signing it into law. (Torreón-based writer Patrick Corcoran of the Gancho blog compares this to a version of the line-item veto.)

One proposal could potentially imperil the nation's minor political parties - the Green Party, Labor Party, Convergence party and New Alliance - by raising the minimum-vote threshold necessary for them to maintain their registrations with the Federal Electoral Institute from two percent to four percent.

Opposition lawmakers greeted the president's plan with muted enthusiasm. Senate president Carlos Navarrete of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) groused about the president sending the plan to Congress on the final day of the ordinary sessions. (The permanent commission of Congress begins sitting next week.)

"The president likes to wait until the minute and send it in a nick of time, well, he needs to understand that Congress will take its time evaluating the proposals," he told reporters.

Navarrete - described in news reports as being "bothered" by the president's timing - said debate would likely begin in February.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), meanwhile, questioned the president's motives and timing and suggested that Calderón was pursuing diversionary tactics.

"It seems that this change of direction comes after the adverse and precarious results with which the executive arrives at the second half of its government ... in the economic and security matters that were its priorities" said PRI Sen. Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, president of the constitutional points committee.

Still, some in the PRI appeared open to holding discussions with the president, although Coldwell raised the possibility of his party pursuing other reforms such as an overhaul of the presidency itself and giving Congress more of a role in vetting presidential appointments. (PRI heavyweight, Sen. Manlio Fabio Beltrones has long called for creating a "cabinet chief" position, while Coldwell said the PRI wanted to end the "cronyism" in Calderón's cabinet selections.)

State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto appeared even more cautious that his Senate counterparts. He told reporters that he opposed reelection for historical reasons that go back to the national mythology that constant reelection during the rein of Former President Porfirio Díaz provoked social unrest and led to the Revolution.

Peña Nieto, an early favority for the 2012 PRI presidential nomination, previously has said that he instead favours extending legislative and mayoral terms from three years to four years. His support for any proposals could be key as he reputedly wields enormous influence over the roughly 40 PRI lower-house lawmakers from his home state.

For his part, López Obrador blasted the Calderón proposal for a run-off election. In a Twitter posting, he said, "The mafia want a run-off in the elections. They think that with Televisa and their two parties [PAN and PRI], they're going to keep themselves in power forever."

Calderón and López Obrador both claimed 35 percent of the 2006 popular vote; most analysts say that a run-off would have undoubtably gone in favor of the PAN.

Influence of Our Lady of Guadalupe still strong

A sand sculpture of Our Lady of Guadalupe on display in Puerto Vallarta

A majority of Mexicans still confess a strong devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, according to a survey published in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais.

The telephone survey by Mexico City pollster Maria de las Heras found 64 percent of respondents “confess a strong devotion” to Guadalupe.

Another 40 percent of respondents “profess that they have personally received a favor or miracle” from Guadalupe, de las Heras said. Some 28 percent of respondents reported that they visit the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe at least once per year, while a similar number say they visited the site multiple times each year.

The survey reflects the enormous influence of Guadalupe over Mexican society. As de las Heras put it: "It's impossible to understand Mexico without knowing Mexicans' devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe."

It also comes on the eve of Dec. 12, when millions of followers converge on the basilica to celebrate the anniversary of Guadalupe’s appearance at Tepeyac Hill in what is now northern Mexico City.

Father Jose de Jesus Aguilar Valdes, director of radio and television for the Archdiocese of Mexico City, said that the number of visitors to the basilica has increased over the past year due to the economic crisis in Mexico that has sent unemployment to record-high levels and plunged millions of families into poverty.

Local officials in the borough of Gustavo A. Madero - which includes the basilica - estimated that 5.1 million pilgrims visited the Basilica de Guadalupe this year.

Catholics believe that Guadalupe appeared before Juan Diego – then an indigenous farmer – at Tepeyac Hill in 1531. Juan Diego was canonized in 1999, although a former rector of the basilica, Guillermo Schulenburg, was against the canonization and didn't entirely accept the story of Guadalupe making an appearance at Tepeyac. He also doubted the existence of Juan Diego.

The influence of Guadalupe on Mexican society has been strong for nearly five centuries, however. Her influence extends beyond Mexico, too. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega fulfilled a campaign promise to visit the shrine after winning power in 2007. Former FARC hostage Ingrid Betancourt visited the basilica in 2008, saying that she had prayed to Our Lady of Guadalupe while being held in the Colombian jungle.

De las Heras wrote, “(Our Lady of Guadalupe) is more than a religious symbol,” and that for 42 percent of Mexicans, “She is also a patriotic symbol like the flag or national coat of arms … that more than a few social movement leaders throughout our history have taken advantage of.”

Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the father of Mexican Independence, was perhaps the most prominent of those leaders; he adopted a Guadalupe banner in 1810 to rally followers to the cause of overthrowing Spanish colonial rule. More recently, the leadership of a union representing fired utility workers adopted a similar banner for its protest marches that attempted to shut down Mexico City.

Church leaders in November condemned the use of Guadalupe by any group pursuing political ends.

Our course, foreigners also try to leverage Guadalupe's popularity. Then-presidential candidate John McCain made a well-publicized appearance at the basilica during the 2008 election campaign - perhaps an attempt to win favour with Latino voters and shave the rough edges off of a party known for negative views toward undocumented migrants. U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited the basilica in 2009 as part of a trip to Mexico that was marked by her insisting that Mexico was not a failed state.