Warning from Puebla: sovereignty is not negotiated
Claudia Sheinbaum made it clear on May 5 that Mexico does not accept external tutelage. On the 164th anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, the President unleashed a broadside against those seeking international support due to lack of popular support.
“Those who seek external support because they do not have popular support in our country are destined for defeat.”
The president was direct: “To those who relive the Conquest as salvation, to those who believe that the people are stupid, to those who seek to vindicate Hernán Cortés and his atrocities: they are destined for defeat.”
Historical memory as a shield
Sheinbaum recalled that Mexicans learned the lesson of 1862: no power decides here. He quoted Juárez: “The triumph of reaction is morally impossible.”
The message was also for the United States: “Let us remember the great moment between Juárez and Lincoln, but we are clear: we are free, like the indigenous people who went to the mountains during the Conquest to preserve their right to organize.”
Protest and parade
The Chief Executive took 31 thousand soldiers of the National Military Service and 800 women volunteers. He asked them not to forget the struggle of May 5 as a reminder of resistance in the face of foreign invasions and internal betrayals.
The Secretary of Defense, Ricardo Trevilla, described the Battle of Puebla as “the starting point of nationalism.” The governor of Puebla, Alejandro Armenta, supported Sheinbaum’s position: “The homeland is neither a colony nor a protectorate.”
No surprises
The ceremony included a floral offering at the mausoleum of Ignacio Zaragoza and a civil-military parade. The President was accompanied by her legal and expanded cabinet, from Rosa Icela Rodríguez to Luisa María Alcalde.
The background? Sheinbaum throws down a political gauntlet: whoever seeks external salvation is doomed. History, he says, does not forgive those who bet against the people.
