Friday, May 29, 2020

TONATIERRA: Open Letter to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

TONATIERRA

Community Development Institute

PO Box 24009

Phoenix, AZ 85074

www.tonatierra.org

tonal@tonatierra.org

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May 26, 2020

Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

5100 O'Neill House Office Building

200 C Street SW

Washington, D.C. 20515

Good greetings.

Today marks five years and eight months since the forced disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students of the normal school Raul Isidro Burgos in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, on the evening of September 26, 2014. Six deaths, which included three other students, also occurred that evening at the hands of the agents of the Mexican state or their proxies among the local narco cartels. On the night of their disappearance, the students were on board five commercial buses with final destination in the US cities of Atlanta and Chicago. Unknown to the students, a shipment of heroin worth an estimated 2 million dollars was hidden on two of the buses. The students themselves were on route to attend the anniversary of the Massacre of Tlatelolco ‘68, when the Mexican army opened fire killing hundreds of unarmed protesting students in Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City, where the Olympics of 1968 were being hosted.

The investigation into the case of Forced Disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students remains without resolution, and in the pall of the Covid-19 pandemic, parents of the 43 missing students have been pushed to the margins of the agenda of the new government in Mexico under president Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). Today, in spite of the social constraints in place due to the Covid-19 quarantine, the parents of the Ayotzinapa students are manifesting a global call to accountability of the AMLO government, in consequence to commitments he has made to them but not fulfilled.

Today during a global action organized through social networks to commemorate 68 months since students' disappearance, the parents' legal representative, Vidulfo Rosales, called on Mexican federal authorities to inform the relatives of the victims regarding what concrete advances have been made by the AMLO administration in the investigation. A critical issue of accountability that still has not being reported on publicly after more than five years is the details of the scope of involvement of the Battalion 27 Headquarters of the Mexican Army in Iguala, Guerrero, in the events of September 26, 2014.

Instead, the coverup of the criminal involvement of agents of the state, from the army to the judiciary, continues in the AMLO administration. The campaign to falsify witnesses, evidence, and subvert a legitimate investigation is prolonged even though on March 18, 2020, a Mexican judge issued an arrest warrant for the former head of investigations for the national Attorney General's Office, Tomás Zerón, for alleged violations in the original federal investigation of the case of the 43 Ayotzinapa students.

Tomás Zerón and five other former officials face charges including torture, forced disappearance, and judicial misconduct. Three have been arrested and three, including Zerón, are still at large. Zerón oversaw the criminal investigation agency of the Attorney General's Office and also its forensic work in the Ayotzinapa case. The students' bodies have never been found, in spite of the fact that a GPS signal from one of the student’s cell phones was tracked to the Battalion 27 headquarters in Iguala in the early morning hours of September 27th.

Zerón's team said in October 2014 that they had found a bone fragment of one of the students in the river by the dump at the town of Cocula. However, a team of independent experts determined the Zerón account was fabricated and discovered that Zerón had visited the location a day earlier with an alleged gang member, without notifying the man's lawyer or filing a report on his visit. Many of the suspects arrested in the case were later released, and many claimed they had been tortured by police or the military.

Federal officials who were not authorized to be quoted by name have stated that a warrant has been issued for Zerón's arrest and that Interpol had been notified to help locate him in case he was outside of Mexico. One of the officials said there were indications that Zerón may have left for Canada in late 2019.

Yet Zerón is not under arrest today. Today, speaking for the parents of the 43 Ayotzinapa students, attorney Vidulfo Rosales called for the Mexican government to explain why arrest warrants have not been executed against the government officials allegedly involved in fabricating the so-called government’s "historical truth" of the Cocula dump story and promoting the criminal coverup from the highest levels of government.

Explanations are called for, certainly by the Mexican government, but if Tomás Zerón is in Canada, there must also be an accounting for the complicity of Canadian authorities in sheltering such an accused criminal and now participating in the international coverup of the Forced Disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students.

Explanations are also to be had by the US government, far beyond the particulars of the Ayotzinapa case. The military apparatus of the Mexican state would not have the capacity to engage in the surveillance, assault, and forced disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students if the US government wasn’t providing funding, logistical support, and political cover under the Plan Merida Initiative - Mexico. Masked as an international “War on Drugs”, the Plan Merida-Mexico serves as the tool of the narco-state of Mexico not to eliminate the drug cartels in Mexico, but instead to establish hegemony, control systems, and the backing of corrupt government officials in order to manage the market of supply and transportation routes to feed the demand for drugs north of the US-Mexico border.

An estimated 120,000 deaths in Mexico attributed to the violence of the “War on Drugs” have been reported since the Plan Merida Initiative began under President Calderon in 2009.

Beyond the emblematic case of Ayotzinapa 43, in January of 2020 the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that 61,000 people are officially listed as “disappeared” in Mexico, individuals who have vanished in more than a decade of extreme violence by and among organized-crime groups. The previous official estimate, released in April 2018, put the number at 40,000.

USMCA-TMEC-CUSMA 2020: Present Context

At this juncture, it becomes necessary to recall and reaffirm the provisions of the Leahy Laws or Leahy Amendments, which are U.S. Human Rights laws that prohibit the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity. Named after its principal sponsor, Senator Patrick Leahy who first introduced the legislation in 1997, the provisions of the Leahy Laws are now codified in the Foreign Assistance Act since 2008.

Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (Leahy Amendment):
(a) IN GENERAL. – No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.

The gross systemic violation of Human Rights under the successive regimes of political corruption in Mexico is not a matter of conjecture or editorializing. It is a finding of fact of the U.S. State Department who in its official 2018 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Mexico referenced the findings of a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in Tamaulipas that ruled that authorities had failed to investigate indications of military and federal police involvement in the disappearance of the 43 students from the teacher-training college of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014.

But beyond the decisions of the courts of Mexico regarding the gross systemic violation of Human Rights in the context of the case of Ayotzinapa 2014-2020, now there is also a ruling from within the US legal system that must be taken into account by the US Congress, by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, by the constituents of each of the 50 states of the USA, and also by implication - the government authorities in Canada.

In Arizona, on January 7, 2020, the Arizona Immigration Court Judge Molly S. Frazer, in a ruling regarding the asylum case involving a Mexican national who was at the scene of the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students on September 26, 2014, issued a ruling that sets historical antecedent within an American court regarding the pervasive impunity that shrouds the violation of human rights in Mexico. The individual seeking asylum in the U.S., Ulises Bernabé García, was serving as a temporary Justice of the Peace at the base of the Municipal Police of Iguala and was the first direct witness who saw the Army in the streets of Iguala in the hours that the attack and disappearance of the students occurred. In his official testimony, he categorically denied the account that the 43 students had been taken to the base of the municipal police as claimed by the version of the so-called “historical truth” disseminated by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office (PGR) within the Peña Nieto government.

“The Court agrees with the conclusion of the expert witness, Mrs. Hernández, that the official historical truth, created by the Mexican government has been refuted, that numerous witnesses were tortured by the Mexican government and that pieces of evidence were also manufactured or sown at the scene of the crime by the Mexican government in order to support the false ‘historical truth’ ”, affirms the ruling of the Arizona Court.

"(The Court) Challenges the belief that a municipal police department would have the political influence and the resources to plan such an intricate cover-up and disappearance of the 43 Mexican students. It is much more possible that the federal government of Mexico and the federal police have been responsible for this horrible incident”, states the judgment of the court.

Judge Molly S. Frazer

January 7, 2020

In our letter to the USMCA Working Group of the US House of Representatives on September 13th, 2019, we informed the Working Group members and House Speaker Pelosi that upon review of the public record of debate concerning the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the context of the proposed US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the systemic disregard for the human rights of Indigenous Peoples is blatantly discriminatory, unacceptable, and must be addressed before the agreement is put to vote before the House of Representatives.

Specifically, we called for a full public hearing before the appropriate committees and/or Working Group formations of the US Congress for the purpose of informing the US congressional representatives on the right of Indigenous Peoples to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) as stipulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) regarding projects which impact their collective rights.

On January 1, 2020, we reiterated this concern to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, urging the Commission to conduct a full public hearing on this issue before the vote of approval on the USMCA in the US Congress.

Neither the USMCA Working Group nor the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission ever responded to our petition.

Disregarding these fundamental Human Rights concerns, both the US Congress and subsequently the Canadian Parliament adopted the USMCA-TMEC-CUSMA as had been negotiated with the government of Mexico, without any substantive input from the Indigenous Peoples of the region. In Mexico, the Spanish text of the agreement was never even published until our organization TONATIERRA received a copy from the Mexican Consulate in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 5, 2018.

The USMCA has been promoted as a necessary "update" of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In distinction from NAFTA which was adopted in 1994 thirteen years before adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples - UNDRIP (2007), the signatories of USMCA must comply with the minimum standards of FPIC or the corporate consortia investing in any development project in violation of FPIC will immediately become financially liable and exposed to the risk of legal challenges and financial penalties that must be presented before their constituencies (states) and shareholders (corporations).

This principle is now well established, having been the subject of the Soft Woods Lumber Dispute (1982) between the US and Canada which acknowledged the proprietary rights of Indigenous Peoples over territories and resources in the international trade tribunals. Recognizing this fact, the World Bank has restructured its procedures, protocols, and practices regarding Indigenous Peoples and the right of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent under the Environmental and Social Standard 7 to shield its interests.

Indeed, the perpetuation of an international systemic pattern of human rights violations committed by the states against the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the fundamental purpose why the UNDRIP was developed as a necessary instrument of contemporary international human rights law after decades of negotiations among all parties.

Yet in the USMCA trade zone, the pattern of systemic human rights violations persists and is granted impunity, protection, and corporate profitability by the trade policies and agreements among the states that take as a “given” the surrender of the territorial rights of the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the continent. It is a narrative of 526 years of expropriation, looting, and dispossession: the Master’s Narrative of cultural supremacy and colonial dominion.

In the case of the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico, the gross systemic violation of Human Rights under the successive regimes of political corruption over the past 100 years has its roots in the concept of “Original Property of the State” which was invoked in the Constitution of 1917 after the Mexican Revolution. The concept of Original Property of the State is the Civil Law concomitant to the “Marshall Trilogy” of US Supreme Court decisions under Common Law that are framed in the legaloid tenets of the Johnson v. M’Intosh (1823) case which affirmed the basis of US territorial jurisdiction on the continent as the Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom (October 12, 1492).

The approval of USMCA without recognition, respect, and effective mechanisms for the equal protection of the internationally recognized Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the trade zone encompassing the three countries, specifically the right of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) must be addressed and rectified. The Indigenous Peoples have never consented to have our inherent Human Rights, Territorial Rights, and Right of Self Determination subverted under the regional commercial framework of the USMCA. Consultation is not consent. Simulations of consultations are a travesty and a fraud.

To what depth are the three USMCA governments willing to descend to mask their involvement and complicity in perpetuating the 526-year old pogrom of corporate colonization and genocide? More to the point, to what standard will the respective constituencies of the states hold their representatives in government accountable in terms of Civil Rights, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, and most importantly the responsibility to protect the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth?

In the case of Ayotzinapa, the protection and asylum being given to Tomás Zerón in Canada is telling but not unique. The scale of death and forced disappearances in Mexico that goes back five centuries is not only that of individual loved ones, family members, and friends. We have lost entire nations, communities, traditions, languages, and vital human histories that number in the tens of millions. The creation of the rural schools of teacher preparation in Mexico such as Ayotzinapa, which served the marginalized Indigenous Pueblos of the countryside with a curriculum that integrated indigenous languages and critical thinking, was also a product of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920.

On May 20, 2020 the Assembly of Defenders of the Maya Müuch Xîinbal Territory in the Yucatan issued a proclamation in denunciation of the “Maya Train” project being promoted by the government of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the southeast region of Mexico. Replicating the model of corporate collusion that the Canadian government subscribed to by purchasing the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion in 2018, AMLO has positioned the Mexican state as the chief promoter of the “Maya Train” project.

And just like D.Trump did upon first taking office as president of the US, when he fast tracked approval for the Dakota Access Pipeline, AMLO is pushing the “Maya Train” without any environmental impact studies and without genuine consultations with the affected indigenous peoples, as stipulated by International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 169. Indigenous organizations have consistently and unequivocally been opposed to the project, beginning with the name the government has given it, questioning: “Who allowed them to appropriate the Mayan identity?”

In fact, in April of 2019, AMLO made public announcement that President D.Trump was willing to have the US government invest in the “Maya Train” project. The international consortia of corporate interests that are investing in the scheme includes the U.S.-based firm BlackRock Investment Fund, and Operadora Carso, controlled by one of the wealthiest men in the world, Carlos Slim. Portugal’s Mota-Engil, China Communications Construction Company, Grupo Cosh, and Eyasa y Gavil Ingenieria have also won initial bids for the mega-development industrial development project. What involvement any Canadian corporations may have in the project has yet to be identified.

Which brings us back to the message of our original communique of January 1, 2020, to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. Also in January of 2020, in Campeche, Mexico, a federal district court issued an Order of Protection against the Maya Train project, due to the fraud and abuse of the government officials in the consultation process, simulating a public consultation when the contracts for the project had already been approved.

This is fraud. There can be no legitimate implementation of USMCA-TMEC-CUSMA without recognition, respect, and effective mechanisms for the equal protection of the internationally recognized Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the trade zone encompassing the three countries, specifically the right of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). Consultation is not consent.

We reiterate our call to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission to conduct a full public hearing on the implications of the blatant systemic violation of Human Rights in the international USMCA trade zone, and specifically to address the violation of the inherent Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples, cited in USMCA as follows:

32-1

CHAPTER 32 EXCEPTIONS AND GENERAL PROVISIONS

Section A – Exceptions

Article 32.5: Indigenous Peoples Rights

Final Clarifications:

1.) The designation of Indigenous Peoples in the USMCA is definitive, in terms of the recognition of Indigenous Peoples as “peoples”. In the context of the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was not yet in place in 1994 during the original NAFTA agreement, the recognition of Indigenous Peoples in an international commercial agreement necessarily is accompanied and contextualized by the recognition of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as articulated and affirmed in the principles and articles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

2) The principle of non-discrimination is a preemptive norm in international law. Therefore, the recognition of Indigenous Peoples as “peoples’ in USMCA Article 32.5 Indigenous Peoples Rights must be taken as an affirmation and commitment to uphold, recognize, respect, and institute guarantees of protection for the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples, without illegal or arbitrary discrimination, including effective consequences in the form of legal remedies to address the violation of these rights. Colonization must not be disguised as development.

3) The official text in Spanish (or any indigenous language) of the USMCA agreement was never published in Mexico or anywhere else until the date of December 5, 2018 when our organization TONATIERRA requested an official copy at the offices of the Mexican consulate in Phoenix, Arizona. Without having the text of the USMCA agreement in advance, there is no legitimate or rational narrative that can explain how the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico have been consulted at least with respect to the protection of their particular and collective rights under the USMCA, much less taken into account with the opportunity to approve or DENY CONSENT.

TONATIERRA

Maya Visión – Centro Cultural Techantit

*******

Free Prior and Informed Consent

FPIC

All Peoples have the right to self-determination. It is a fundamental principle in international law, embodied in the Charter of the United Nations and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The standard, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), as well as Indigenous Peoples’ rights to lands, territories and natural resources are embedded within the universal right to self-determination.

The normative framework for FPIC consists of a series of international legal instruments including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the International Labour Organization Convention 169 (ILO 169), and the Convention on Diversity (CBD), among many others.

FPIC is a specific right that pertains to Indigenous Peoples and is recognized in the UNDRIP. It allows them to give or withhold consent to a project that may affect them or their territories. Once they have given their consent, they can withdraw it at any stage. Furthermore, FPIC enables them to negotiate the conditions under which the project will be designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated.

Consultation is not consent.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

COMUNICADO MAYA MÚUCH’ XÍINBAL: ¡NO AL TREN MAYA!

COMUNICADO

ASAMBLEA DE DEFENSORES DEL TERRITORIO MAYA MÚUCH’ XÍINBAL

¡NO AL TREN MAYA!

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20 DE MAYO DE 2020

Canek dijo:

“Nosotros somos la tierra. En nosotros maduran las semillas. Nosotros alimentamos las raíces. Bajo nuestras plantas caminan las aguas de los cenotes. Nosotros somos la tierra”. Ellos son la sustentabilidad del despojo.

(Canek. Ermilo Abreu Gómez)

A LOS PUEBLOS Y COMUNIDADES MAYAS DE LA PENÍNSULA DE YUCATÁN
A LAS ORGANIZACIONES DE LA SOCIEDAD CIVIL

A LA SOCIEDAD EN GENERAL

Nosotras y nosotros, indígenas que somos parte del pueblo maya de la península de Yucatán y que integramos la Asamblea de Defensores del Territorio Maya Múuch’ Xíinbal, levantamos la voz para denunciar los megaproyectos empresariales que tienen como finalidad despojarnos de la tierra y el territorio, lugares y espacios donde habitamos, donde vive y se alimenta nuestra familia, donde hacemos la milpa que heredamos de los abuelos y abuelas, donde celebramos nuestros ritos y vivimos nuestra identidad con dignidad y con profundo respeto a la madre naturaleza, donde convivimos con el aire, el agua, los árboles, el maíz, el sol, pero sobre todo, donde crece la semilla del futuro; en la Asamblea estamos convencidos y luchamos por defender nuestro pensamiento que dirige nuestras acciones:

¡LA TIERRA NO SE VENDE NI SE RENTA!

En los últimos años hemos visto con mucha preocupación que en nuestros pueblos y ejidos llega “gente extraña” ofreciendo dinero a cambio de cederles nuestras tierras para el desarrollo de grandes proyectos eólicos y fotovoltaicos, o bien, para la construcción de granjas porcícolas para alimentar a miles de cerdos de exportación; vienen a ofrecernos que mediante estos proyectos vamos a tener empleo, que nos pagarán bien por la renta o venta de las tierras, pero la realidad es que lo único que han logrado es que en algunos pueblos haya división y enfrentamiento entre habitantes, e incluso entre familiares; a los empresarios no les importa que sus “grandes desarrollos” deforesten miles de hectáreas de selva, contaminen el agua de los cenotes, contaminen el aire, contaminen la tierra, su única visión es convertir en mercancía lo que para nosotros es sagrado: ¡ESTA LUCHA ES POR LA DEFENSA DE LA VIDA!

Desde que inició el presente sexenio 2018–2024, se anuncian grandes proyectos para “detonar el desarrollo” del sureste mexicano que históricamente ha estado abandonado. Dicen que, ahora sí, la suerte nos sonríe porque nos van a construir un tren y para que nos alegremos será maya, que ahora sí, no nos podemos quejar porque el “desarrollo” va a llegar y vamos a salir de pobres, que el tren maya es un acto de “justicia social”, este es uno de los proyectos prioritarios del presente sexenio tal como lo indica el plan nacional de desarrollo, fue una decisión tomada de arriba para los de abajo, -como siempre se ha hecho- porque nosotros en los pueblos y comunidades no hemos solicitado la construcción de un tren y mucho menos que sea maya.

Entonces:

• ¿POR QUÉ LA “URGENCIA” DE CONSTRUIR UN TREN?

• ¿QUIÉNES SOLICITARON LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DEL TREN?

• ¿A QUIÉN ESTÁ BENEFICIANDO LAS LICITACIONES PARA LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DEL TREN?

• ¿LOS IMPACTOS Y DAÑOS AL MEDIO AMBIENTE YA LOS CONOCEMOS?

• ¿QUÉ SABEMOS DE LOS POLOS DE DESARROLLO Y DE LA MAGNITUD DE ESTOS?

• ¿CONOCEMOS LAS CONDICIONES MEDIOAMBIENTALES QUE PUEDE SOPORTAR LA ZONA PARA NO COLAPSAR?

• ¿ENTENDEMOS BIEN QUÉ ES EL “FIBRA” Y CÓMO SE PONE EN RIESGO NUESTRO TERRITORIO?

Estas preguntas que nadie responde, tienen una sola respuesta y se llama despojo, un despojo que se ordena desde el ámbito gubernamental, y sin temor a equivocarnos, podemos asegurar que hacen uso de la militarización como “concomitante”, a la imposición de los megaproyectos. Por ello, denunciamos ante el mundo, que el Fondo Nacional del Fomento al Turismo, (FONATUR), es el garante del Estado Mexicano, para llevar a cabo el despojo de nuestros pueblos y la imposición del mal llamado Tren Maya; solo baste recordar, que el Tramo 1, de 228 kilómetros con una inversión de 15.538 millones de pesos, fue entregado al consorcio Mota-Engil México SAPI de C.V. en convenio con China Communications Construction Company LTD, Grupo Cosh S.A. de C.V. Eyasa S. de R.L de C.V y Gavil Ingeniería S.A.; el Tramo 2, de 235 kilómetros con una inversión de 18.553 millones de pesos, fue entregado al consorcio integrado por Operadora Carso (Carlos Slim) Infraestructura y Construcción (Cicsa) y FCC Construcción; el Tramo 3, de 172 kilómetros con una inversión de 10,192.9 millones de pesos, fue entregado al consorcio integrado por las empresas Construcciones Urales S.A. de C.V., Gami Ingenería e Instalaciones S.A. de C.V. y Azvi S.A.U.; el Tramo 4, de 257 kilómetros con una inversión aproximada de 25 mil millones de pesos, será adjudicado de forma directa por el gobierno de México, a la constructora mexicana ICA, compañía de construcción fundada en 1947 y con operaciones en una docena de países de América Latina, será directa porque la empresa ya cuenta con el derecho de vía de la autopista de Kantunil- Cancún; el Tramo 5, de con una inversión sin definir, será entregado al Fondo de Inversión BlackRock, pues según Jiménez Pons, ya tiene una ventaja en la licitación de ese segmento del proyecto ferroviario; el Tramo 6 y 7, de 510 kilómetros con una inversión aproximada de 32 mil millones de pesos, fue entregado a la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), a fin de evitar, según ellos, trámites burocráticos que alarguen el proceso de edificación del proyecto ferroviario, así como para ahorrar cerca de 20 por ciento del costo de los tramos finales. Todas estas empresas tienen un historial de deshonestidad y de corrupción que este gobierno no solo no ha querido investigar sino que los ha premiado con nuevas oportunidades al puro estilo de los sexenios pasados.

Este es el precio del despojo, y la militarización del País para garantizarlo, es algo que no queremos para nuestros pueblos y comunidades, por lo que hacemos un llamado a la solidaridad nacional e internacional, para exigir la cancelación inmediata de la construcción del Tren Maya.

Nosotras y nosotros, como Asamblea de Defensores del Territorio Maya Múuch’ Xíinbal manifestamos que No estamos de acuerdo con la construcción del tren “maya”, que seguiremos tomando acciones legales a nivel nacional e internacional para detener su desarrollo. Nuestra postura es que NO permitiremos que ningún proyecto invada y nos despoje de nuestro territorio, incluido este “tren desarrollista”, NO permitiremos la destrucción y contaminación de nuestros recursos naturales, NO permitiremos que se tomen decisiones por nosotros y nosotras, NO permitiremos que en nombre del “desarrollo” se violenten nuestros derechos consagrados en la Constitución de nuestro país y en las leyes internacionales, NO permitiremos que sigan pisando nuestra dignidad como pueblos originarios:

¡ESTA LUCHA ES POR LA DEFENSA DE NUESTRO TERRITORIO Y POR NUESTRAS VIDAS!

###

Saturday, May 23, 2020

PROCLAMATION MAYA MÚUCH XÍINBAL: NO TO THE MAYA TRAIN!

PROCLAMATION
ASSEMBLY OF DEFENDERS OF THE MAYA MÚUCH XÍINBAL TERRITORY
NO TO THE MAYA TRAIN!
MAY 20, 2020
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Canek said:
"We are the earth. Within us, the seeds of life mature. We feed the roots. Under our fields the waters of the cenotes flow.

We are the earth”.

They are the sustainability of dispossession.

(Canek: Ermilo Abreu Gómez)

TO THE MAYAN PEOPLES AND COMMUNITIES OF THE YUCATAN PENINSULA

TO CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS TO THE SOCIETY IN GENERAL

We, Indigenous Peoples who are part of the Mayan people of the Yucatan peninsula and who are part of the Assembly of Defenders of the Mayan Territory Múuch Xíinbal, raise our voices to denounce the mega-development commercial projects that are intended to deprive us of land and territory, places and spaces where we live, where our families lives and sustain themselves, where we plant our fields of corn, the milpa which we inherited from grandparents and grandmothers, where we celebrate our rituals and live our identity with dignity and with deep respect for Mother Nature, where we live with the air, the water, the trees, the corn, the sun, but above all, where the seed of the future grows; In our Assembly we are convinced and we struggle to defend our thinking that directs our actions:

THE LAND IS NOT FOR SALE OR RENT!

In recent years, we have seen with great concern that "outsiders" arrive in our towns and ejidos offering money in exchange for transferring our lands to them for the development of large wind and photovoltaic projects, or for the construction of pig farms to feed thousands of pigs for export. They come to offer us that through these projects we will have employment, that they will pay us well for the rent or sale of the land, but the reality is that the only thing they have achieved is that in some towns there is division and confrontation between the inhabitants, and even between relatives; the Entrepreneurs do not care that their "great developments" deforest thousands of hectares of jungle, pollute the water in the cenotes, pollute the air, pollute the land, their only vision is to turn into merchandise what for us is sacred: THIS FIGHT IS FOR THE DEFENSE OF LIFE!

Since the beginning of this 2018- 2024 presidential term, major projects have been announced to “detonate development” in the region of the Mexican southeast that has historically been abandoned. They say that now, yes, luck smiles at us because they are going to build us a train and to make us happy it will be called the “Maya Train”, that now, we cannot complain because "development" is going to come and we will no longer be poor, that the Mayan train is an act of "social justice", that this is one of the priority projects of the current administration as indicated in the national development plan. Yet these decisions were made from above for those of us below, as it has always been done, because we in the pueblos and communities have not requested the construction of a train, much less a “Maya” Train.

Therefore:

• WHY THE “URGENCY” OF BUILDING A TRAIN?

• WHO REQUESTED THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TRAIN?

• WHO IS BENEFITING FROM THE BIDS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TRAIN?

• DO WE KNOW THE IMPACTS AND DAMAGES TO THE ENVIRONMENT?

• WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE PLANS FOR THE “DEVELOPMENT CENTERS” AND THE MAGNITUDE OF THESE?

• DO WE KNOW THE CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO PREVENT THE ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE OF THE REGION?

• DO WE COMPREHENSIVELY UNDERSTAND THE HOLISTIC NATURE OF OUR TERRITORY THAT IS AT RISK?

These are questions that no one answers. There is only one answer and it is called dispossession, a dispossession that is ordered by governmental authorities, and which without any doubt, we can assuredly state that the authorities make use of militarization as "concomitant” condition to the imposition of these mega-development projects.

For this reason, we denounce to the world the National Fund for Promotion of Tourism (FONATUR) who is the guarantor of the Mexican State to carry out the dispossession of our peoples and the imposition of the so called “Maya” Train:

It is enough to remember that Section 1, of 228 kilometers with an investment of 15,538 million pesos, was delivered to the Consortium Mota-Engil México SAPI de C.V. in agreement with China Communications Construction Company LTD, Grupo Cosh S.A. de C.V. Eyasa S. de R.L de C.V and Gavil Ingeniería S.A.;

Section 2, of 235 kilometers with an investment of 18,553 million pesos, was delivered to the consortium made up of Operadora Carso (Carlos Slim) Infraestructura y Construcción (Cicsa) and FCC Construcción;

Section 3, 172 kilometers with an investment of 10,192.9 million pesos, was delivered to the consortium made up of the companies Construcciones Urales S.A. de C.V., Gami Ingenería e Instalaciones S.A. de C.V. and Azvi S.A.U.;

Section 4, of 257 kilometers with an investment of approximately 25 billion pesos, will be awarded directly by the Mexican government to the Mexican construction company ICA, a construction company founded in 1947 and with operations in a dozen countries of Latin America will be direct because the company already has the Kantunil-Cancun highway right-of-way;

Section 5, 135 kilometers with an undefined investment, will be delivered to the BlackRock Investment Fund, since according to Jiménez Pons, it already has an advantage in the tender for that segment of the railway project;

Section 6 and 7, of 510 kilometers with an investment of approximately 32 billion pesos, was delivered to the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA), in order to avoid, according to them, bureaucratic procedures that lengthen the process of building the railway project, as well as to save about 20 percent of the cost of the final sections.

All these companies have a history of dishonesty and corruption that this government has not only not wanted to investigate but has rewarded them with new opportunities in the style of the past six-year presidential terms.

This is the price of dispossession, accompanied by the militarization of the country in order to guarantee it, something that we do not want for our peoples and communities, and so we call for national and international solidarity, to demand the immediate cancellation of the construction of the “Maya” Train.

We, as the Assembly of Defenders of the Maya Múuch Xíinbal Territory, declare that we do not consent with the construction of the “Maya” train project, that we will continue to take legal action at the national and international level to stop its development. Our position is that we will NOT allow any project to invade and rob us of our territory, including this “train for development”, we will NOT allow the destruction and contamination of our natural resources, we will NOT allow decisions to be made for us and we will NOT allow our rights to be violated in the name of “development”, rights enshrined in the Constitution of our country and in international law, we will NOT allow the assault on our dignity as Original Peoples to continue:

THIS FIGHT IS FOR THE DEFENSE OF OUR TERRITORY

AND FOR OUR LIVES!


Consulado de Mexico en Phoenix, Arizona

TRANSLATION:

TONATIERRA

Thursday, May 21, 2020