Reflecting the strategic alliance and strong working relationship between them, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has invited Argentine President Alberto Fernández to attend the Feb. 24 celebration of the bicentennial of Mexican Independence as a “special guest and distinguished speaker, by virtue of the strong ties of friendship and collaboration between our two countries as well as the common historic aspects of our nations’ fight for independence.” Página 12 reported today. Officials of the Mexican embassy in Buenos Aires delivered AMLO’s invitation to Fernández, and according to Mexican media, he is the only foreign leader invited to attend and speak. He will remain in Mexico until Feb. 26.
Feb. 24 is the anniversary of the promulgation of the Plan de Iguala, by which Mexico declared its independence from Spain, and the celebration of that date will take place in Iguala, in the state of Guerrero. Feb. 24 is also Mexican Flag Day. Throughout 2021, Mexico will hold a total of 15 different commemorations of both its independence from Spain, as well as, according to several media, “500 years of indigenous resistance,” and “seven centuries of the history of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.” Tenochtitlán was the capital of the bloody Aztec empire—today Mexico City— built in 1325 and destroyed by the Spanish in 1521. The event in Iguala will be the second of these 15 planned events.
Recall that in November 2019, when he was President-elect, Fernández traveled to Mexico as his first overseas trip after winning the presidential election that month. The two nations are close allies and coordinate on a number of fronts. Last November, Mexico and Argentina jointly announced the founding of the Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency (ALCE) which began to operate this year. A year earlier, after the November 2019 coup against Bolivian President Evo Morales, the two leaders worked together—Fernández still as President-elect— to save Morales’s life, ensuring that he first got to Mexico where he was granted asylum, and then later to Argentina where he was offered refugee status. Morales remained there until November 2020. Fernández and López also coordinate through the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), of which Mexico serves as president Pro-tempore for the second year in a row. In January of this year, a Mexican delegation led by Health Undersecretary Hugo López-Gatell, who is responsible for Mexico’s coronavirus response, traveled to Buenos Aires to discuss protocols and results of the Sputnik V vaccine’s use in Argentina. Following this visit, Mexico ordered 24 million doses of the Russian vaccine, Forbes Mexico reported.[crr]
