Cover image: The president of Mexico, military figures, and businessmen during the inauguration of Line Z of the Interoceanic Train. In the same event an agreement was announced for the construction of a green hydrogen plant by the Danish company Helax Istmo. Salina Cruz, Oaxaca. December 2023.
The south-southeast of Mexico is being reconfigured territorially with a wave of transportation megaprojects—the Interoceanic Train and the Maya Train—whose corridors are connected to energy projects, industrialization, real estate development, tourism, and urbanization. To sustain these projects, another wave of projects is advancing full steam ahead, yet with less visibility compared to the major energy projects.
In an in-depth investigation, the collective GeoComunes mapped out and presented the restructuring of the energy sector currently taking place in Mexico, specifically during the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to sustain the primary megaprojects being pushed by his administration.
“The projects being developed in the two most isolated regions of the country are related to territorial planning that, in spite of the discourse of change and radicalism, seeks to strengthen the economic sectors that during the entire wave of neoliberalism were deployed in these regions: tourism, agriculture, mining, and commercial transportation,” sustains the report.
Furthermore, the regional reorganization is linked to the “development agenda led by the United States, associated with militarization, policies of migrant contention, and territorial reorganization to accommodate nearshoring and the use of Mexican territory as a platform for the exportation of US natural gas,” they report.
One of the pivotal energy projects is the Puerta al Sureste underwater 715-kilometer-long gas pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, considered in the investigation to be the pipeline which “articulates together the territorial reorganization in the south-southeast.”
The project is being pushed by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and by TC Energy (previously known as TransCanada). They seek to transport 1,390 million cubic feet of natural gas daily from Tuxpan to Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz, and then to Dos Bocas in Tabasco. This gas pipeline is the extension of another underwater pipeline that is already built and functioning, with which natural gas is imported from Texas to Tuxpan in Veracruz.
The TC Energy natural gas compression station is just 500 meters from a body of fresh water, and just one kilometer from the ocean. Photo: Aldo Santiago
The natural gas to be transported in this pipeline will provide for the ten planned industrial parks, the planned fossil-fuel power plants, and also the liquified natural gas terminals that will be used to export gas to Europe, Asia, and South America. “It also seeks to expand the capacity to export energy and gas coming from the United States toward other parts of the world. That is, convert the south-southeast region not only into a manufacturing platform, but also one of exportation for US gas,” the report sustains.
Other Projects Linked to Natural Gas
In addition, the projected increase in the consumption of natural gas is associated with the expansion of other gas transportation infrastructure projects, according to GeoComunes:
Liquified natural gas terminal for the exportation of natural gas from the Port of Salina Cruz- the Federal Electricity Commission is pushing the construction of this terminal, with a capacity to export 430 million cubic feet of natural gas daily. It has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the company Sempra, in order to value the construction of said terminal for the exportation of natural gas extracted in Mexico or imported from the United States and headed toward the Asian market.
Liquified natural gas terminal in Coatzacoalcos- this project has been pushed by the Federal Electricity Commission to export approximately 600 million cubic feet of natural gas daily toward markets in the Atlantic basin, principally European and South American markets. This terminal would be fed by the Puerta Sureste gas pipeline.
Jáltipan- Salina Cruz gas pipeline- this project was announced in 2015 as part of the packet of new gas pipelines to extend the reach of natural gas imported from the United States throughout the country. In its latest version, announced in 2022, this gas pipeline should already be connected directly to the liquified natural gas terminal in Salina Cruz. Once constructed, this gas pipeline would connect with a project called Gasoducto Prosperidad with which it is sought to transport natural gas from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (in Ixtepec, Oaxaca) to the border with Guatemala (in Tapachula, Chiapas). And if this gas pipeline is able to send natural gas toward the south of Isthmus, not only will it require the gas pipeline Puerta al Sureste to be constructed, but it also requires an increase in the capacity of the compression station in Chinameca.
A “fundamental piece” is the description given by the National Natural Gas Control Center (CENAGAS) about the compression station located in Chinameca, Veracruz. Photo: Aldo Santiago
More Projects
Today the structure of energy production in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is concentrated in two extremes, the north and the south of the Isthmus. “In the northern part, in the state of Veracruz, the production of energy is centered around the industrial, petroleum, and petrochemical zones and is concentrated in the hands of Pemex and private companies like Cydsa, Grupo Infra, Braskem Idesa, Contour Global PLC. This represents nearly a third of the capacity installed in the Isthmus,” mentions the collective.
The other two thirds are located in the far south of the Isthmus, in the state of Oaxaca, where there are 29 wind farms in operation which occupy 30,000 hectares of territory recognized as communal or ejidal land. The grand majority of this production is in the hands of private European companies.
Wind farms in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Photos: Santiago Navarro F
However, according to the document “Resumen Ejecutivo Plan Estrategico y Plan Maestro Conceptual del Corredor Interoceanico del Istmo de Tehuantepec,” current levels of production are insufficient. The electricity demand of the industrial activities in the Isthmus will multiply by 2.5 between 2030 and 2050, passing from 3,294 to 8,348 million watts per hour per year.
To fulfill this increased demand, it is expected that new electric stations in the region will have to be built, “although, for now, there isn’t any concrete information about how many stations that will include, where the stations will be located, nor what types of technologies will be used,” said the report of the investigation.
GeoComunes mentions that, beyond the ten industrial parks already planned, another nineteen parks—ten in Oaxaca and nine in Veracruz—are to be installed later on.
Residents of Puente Madera protest against the imposition of an industrial park on common use lands of the Zapotec community.
The reception for company bids interested in investing in the first ten industrial parks was done in June 2023. In the month of November 2023, bids for the remaining industrial parks began, with a decision expected in April 2024.
Of the first ten industrial parks planned, four of them—San Blas Atempa, Ciudad Ixtepec, Santa María Mixtequilla and Asunción Ixtaltepec—should be mixed parks, which is to say, in addition to industry, they will include wind farms to generate electricity.
“The wind farms will be built by Mexican or US companies, they will be administered by the Federal Electricity Commission, and they will have financial investment from United States banks,” says the report from GeoComunes.
Green Hydrogen
Helax Istmo, a subsidiary of the Danish company, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, signed an agreement with the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and with the Mexican Navy to install a plant that will develop renewable energies via green hydrogen and green maritime fuels, “contributing to Mexico’s objectives of sustainable development, as well as the decarbonization of the worldwide shipping industry,” the company tells the media.
Signing of the memorandum of understanding with the Danish company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners to develop Helax Istmo, a project destined to produce green hydrogen and green maritime fuels in the isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca.
The plant should be built in one of the ten industrial parks planned along the Interoceanic Corridor in Ixtepec.
In spite of the recent restructuring, GeoComunes emphasizes that, since the signing of the Free Trade Agreement in 1992, and throughout the structural reforms in the last three decades, the energy policy has maintained the same: “opening up this strategic sector to private capital, and making the energy infrastructure adequate in the country to conform to the interests of fossil fuel capital and, particularly, fossil fuel capital from the United States.”
The investigation done by GeoComunes also covers the energy restructuring in the Yucatan Peninsula and the northeast of the country. Topics that we will address in future texts.
Cover image: Maya Q’eqchi’ residents of Santa Elena, in the department of Petén, are criminalized by the oil palm company Industria Chiquibul. Photo: Luis Hub/ Prensa Comunitaria
Santa Elena is an Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ community in the municipality of Sayaxché, in the department of Petén, located in the north of Guatemala, near Río Salinas. In this region the heat is intense. In the past, water flowed abundantly with lush landscapes and rainforest. Today the rainforest lies in ashes under the immense oil palm plantations.
The community has been cornered in by the oil palm plantations. On the scarce land they still have left, they plant corn, beans, chili, and yucca. Some families raise livestock. Daily survival is complicated more by the polluting of the rivers and springs, a consequence of the monoculture crop.
With scarce land and without work, a part of the population, principally men, migrate to the United States with the hope of bettering their living conditions. Others are forced to submit to degrading work on the oil palm plantation.
Industria Chiquibul, an affiliate of the company Unisource Holding, is an exporter of different agricultural commodities like sesame seed, crude palm oil, and cardamom. They are also involved in the importation, commercialization, and distribution of fertilizers in Latin American markets. Today they possess around 70 caballerias (Over 7400 acres) of oil palm plantations surrounding this Maya community.
This crop first arrived to this region in 2012, when they began buying up lands of the Maya Q’eqchi’ families. “They told us that our lands were going to be flooded because they were going to build a hydroelectric dam on the Usumacinta River,” remembers the Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’, Mario Pop Tux, one of the community leaders, during an interview with Avispa Midia.
Photo: Renata BessiPhoto: Renata BessiOil palm monoculture owned by Industria Chiquibul expands around the Sierra de Chinajá, a region adjacent to thePetén lowlands where the company plants and processes the fruit. Photo: Aldo Santiago
This industrial crop also arrived with a military detachment that was constructed near the community. Now there is a presence of soldiers, National Civil Police (PNC), and armed company security. “They carry out patrols during the day with their faces covered, as if they are criminals,” comments Pop Tux. The patrols are also done from the air. The community members report drone flyovers, principally at night.
The arrest warrants are a constant threat. According to the Maya Q’eqchi’, there are five arrest warrants against community members of Santa Elena, ex-workers of the company who have struggled for their labor rights. “We are aware that they could do the same as they have done in the past. They could invade the community, causing terror amongst the women, children, and elders, beneath the justification that they are looking for our criminalized compañeros,” he said.
In a community assembly—the maximum authority in the community—in February of this year, local authorities, elders, and community members wrote out an act documenting the different “incidents” in the last two months which have marked the intensification of violence against Santa Elena.
The persecution of residents of Santa Elena is not something new. After Chiquibul bought lands, they began to contract workers from different communities to cut down trees and plant oil palm. The working conditions offered by the company were described as “modern slavery” by the lawyer of the Bufete para los Pueblos Indígenes, Juan Castro. They worked more than 12 hours a day for $4.40 dollars.
Workers for the company Industria Chiquibul in the municipality of Raxruhá, have organized since 2016 demanding better working conditions from the oil palm company. Photo: Aldo Santiago
The situation became unsustainable for the Indigenous people, coming to a head in 2019. The company contracted 300 people, yet when they finished their one-year contract, Chiquibul didn’t pay them the agreed upon amount. The worker’s committee, which was created in 2016, visited the Ministry of Labor and calculated that each worker should receive—adding severance, salary, bonus—$12000 quetzales (US $1500), but the company only paid the $4800 quetzales (US $615 dollars). That is to say, less than half the amount.
Then a worker’s general strike broke out. The Indigenous people of Santa Elena and the community carried out a series of actions denouncing the company. Even so, the company didn’t pay the workers. On the contrary, the company began a process of criminalization against members of the community.
The company denounced leaders of the workers in the courts, which resulted in six arrest warrants against community members. In November 2022, four indigenous people were captured and detained, including Mario Pop Tux, accused of kidnapping, extortion, aggravated usurpation, and illegal detention. “We were in prison for 73 days,” says Pop Tux.
During the actions carried out by the workers demanding better working conditions from the palm oil company, hundreds of police were deployed to repress the movement in 2020.
In February 2021, the courts dictated a condemnatory sentence against four community members of Santa Elena. “With this sentence, we see how the state is accomplice to these forms of modern exploitation. They do not understand the context of land grabbing and Indigenous exploitation,” said the lawyer that accompanies the workers and members of the community, Juan Castro.
The sentence was for four years, but with conditional suspension. That is to say, they have to present themselves monthly to the public prosecutor’s office in the municipal seat of Sayaxché to sign documents. “The Indigenous peoples are considered responsible and not the companies that are damaging the environment and the life of many communities,” says the lawyer Juan Castro.
Maya Q’eqchi’ people of Santa Elena, in the department of Petén, are criminalized by the palm oil company Industria Chiquibul. Photo: Prensa Comunitaria
There was an expectation that after the condemnatory sentence of the Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ and the end of the strikes—since then the company has brought in workers from outside the region—that the persecution of Santa Elena would stop. But that’s not what has happened. “They’ve continued to harass us up until today. They continue to scare us, surveil us, control us. They don’t stop terrorizing us,” explains Pop Tux.
Certify the Crops Using Indigenous People
At 7:00am on January 25, 2024, Carlos Cú, representative of Chiquibul, accompanied by two others, came looking for the President of the Community Development Council (COCODE) of Santa Elena, José Caal Pop, at his house. He was not there because he had gone to work on his land. The representatives of the company decided to leave. At around 12:00pm, Caal Pop returned home. Shortly after, the three men returned looking for him.
They presented him a document asking that he, as the president of COCODE, sign it. “They were summoning me to a meeting related to the certification of the company. That’s what they told me. And they wanted me to sign the document for the meeting.”
According to Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’, the workers of Chiquibul wanted to minimize the conflicts between the company and the community. “Carlos Cú (one of the signers of the document) said to me: we’ve come to speak to you directly. We want you to give us that opportunity. We know that there is no problem (with the community). We want you to sign this document for us. So that there is no problem.”
Caal Pop didn’t remain silent. “I told them, how is there no problem? If we are being surveilled all the time. They didn’t like what I said and they left,” explains the Maya Q’eqchi’.
Oil palm plantations property of Industria Chiquibul. Photo: Aldo Santiago
In July of 2023, the company began the process for the certification of their oil palm plantations by the worlds leading palm certifier, the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil). The objective is to obtain certification this year 2024.
The certification will allow the company to expand its sales in North American and European markets. The palm oil of Chiquibul is already part of the supply chain of European companies like Dreyfus Company (LDC), Nestle S.A., Upfield Holdings B.V., Henkel AG & Co., KGaA, PepsiCo Inc., Vandemoortele. These chains were tracked by the German organization, Christian Initiative Romero (CIR), and recently published in the report Im Schatten der Ölpalme.
The Spanish company Lipsa, the British company Unilever, the German company Basf, the Dutch companies Lowis Dreyfus and Marie Olie, and the French company ADM-SIO also were traced as buyers of Chiquibul oil products, in a still unpublished investigation done by the Dutch project, SOMO The Counter, commissioned by the CIR.
Guatemala in the World
The majority of the palm oil consumed worldwide comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. However, the CIR report argues that there are more and more oil palm plantations in Latin America to satisfy the world demand. Guatemala and Colombia are already fourth and fifth on the list of national exporters.
The largest buyer of Guatemalan palm oil is the Netherlands, with 32% of the total volume, according to the report. In the case of Germany, Guatemala has become the second most important provider, after Malaysia. Given that 43% of the palm oil resold by the Netherlands goes to Germany, it is likely that the total share of palm oil from Guatemala that goes to Germany is still greater, emphasized the German organization.
According to a report from Industria Chiquibul, the process of certification is already happening. “A group of external advisors visited our plantations and together, with our sustainability team, have established a plan of action which will be centered on people, planet, and prosperity to achieve our sustainability,” says the company in their document.
One of the obligatory points for certification is a consultation with the communities affected by the palm plantations, that began on February 14.
The document presented to Caal Pop for his signature, of which the Avispa Midia team has access, explained that it is a process of “free, prior, and informed consent (COP)”, that seeks to “establish a relation of confidence between the company and communities, where the communities can get to know the company, be clear about their rights, and can express their concerns and worries related to the operation of the company.”
In their explication, they do not mention Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization which states that the communities have the right to say “no” to projects in their territories. In real terms, it is a process that is ignored, because they have already deforested and are currently cultivating grand extensions of oil palm. “We did not participate in the meeting and we are not going to participate in the following ones. What they want is our signature for the certification, and they aren’t going to get it, because the consultation doesn’t exist,” said Mario Pop Tux.
Oil palm monoculture owned by Industria Chiquibul expands around the Sierra de Chinajá, a region adjacent to the Petén lowlands where the company plants and processes the fruit. Photo: Aldo Santiago
According to the Pop Tux, around 18 villages are impacted by Chiquibul’s palm plantations in the region. Beyond Santa Elena, there are at least another 10 villages that do not agree with the presence of the company, where the company implemented the same shady mechanisms. “For this first meeting, they invited all of the communities, many didn’t go. They also suffer persecution and arrest warrants,” he said.
The company will also have to carry out two other processes. The High Conservation Value Assessment “to identify the social and environment values both within the areas where the company carries out its operations, but also in its areas of influence,” says the document. In reality, they are going to map the forests that they couldn’t deforest, including forests that are not on their lands, to establish conservation programs, which are pivotal to obtaining the certification they are looking for.
Oil palm plantations owned by Industria Chiquibul. Photo: Renata Bessi
In addition, they must also carry out a Social Impact Report with which they will identify “the social and environmental impacts that the company could be generating, and at the same time organize a management plan to control, mitigate, and compensate these impacts,” according to the document of Chiquibul.
Bio Terra Consultores Ambientales will be the company responsible for carrying out these studies. They were contracted by Chiquibul.
Meanwhile, the RSPO certifier has been criticized throughout the world for certifying companies that have generated socio-environmental conflicts. By labeling palm oil “sustainable,” palm oil’s image is rehabilitated giving the impression that the industrial cultivation of oil palm is compatible with principles of ecology and human rights, and that it offers a long-term sustainable solution for the use of the land. “However, that is not the case,” says CIR.
According to the German organization, the RSPO allows, for example, the partial use of pesticides that appear on the Pesticide Action Network’s list of highly hazardous pesticides. Furthermore, inspectors for the certification process are contracted by the companies themselves, as is the case of Bio Terra Consultores Ambientales, “which can lead to conflicts of interests in practice. There is a great risk of corruption.”
Fertilizer and agrochemical residue used in the plantations of Industria Chiquibul
The Community of Santa Elena reiterated in an assembly their rejection of the certification. “These certifications we profoundly reject for the violations of our human rights. Threats, intimidation, environmental contamination, deforestation, exploitation of the rivers where the community gets its drinking water.”
Disappearing the Certified Document
The president of COCODE also denounced the public prosecutor for having disappeared the community certified document of Santa Elena. This document is very important for a Maya Q’eqchi’ community. In it we capture the agreements, the norms, the commitments of the community, the results of the assemblies. These types of documents are very important for each one of the communities of our Q’eqchi’ people,” explains Caal Pop to Avispa Midia.
Mario Pop Tux explains that on May 6, 2021, the local authorities were summoned—the auxiliary mayor and the representative of COCODE of Santa Elena—by the Municipal government. On May 7, they went to the municipal offices. The mayor was not there, but a prosecutor from the public prosecutor’s office was. “This prosecutor disappeared the certified document without explanation,” he sustains.
According to the president of COCODE, the municipal government’s commitment was recorded, from an assembly in the community, that they would recover seven caballerias, today in possession of Chiquibul, for the families of Santa Elena.
“We believe that this agreement was the reason for which they disappeared the document. The value of the work that is in the document, it is very valuable to us. We demand that they return it to us peacefully. And that the municipal authority complies with it,” said Caal Pop.
Petition
The Movement of Communities in Defense of Water, Qana’ Ch’och, the Coordination of NGOs and Cooperatives (CONGCOOP), and the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), launched a petition demanding the authorities of Guatemala to take urgent measures against the harassment and violation of human rights enacted by Industria Chiquibul against the community Santa Elena.
According to the organizations, this pattern of violence is intrinsic to the palm oil industry. In the last decade, they sustain, the company Industria Chiquibul has accumulated a trail of violations of the rights of Indigenous and campesino communities, including the illegal appropriation of community lands in the village of Carolina, contamination of the San Román river, criminalization via arrest warrants, and detentions orchestrated by the company, labor violations, and deforestation.
They demand “an end to the arrest warrants against community members which are based on false accusations, and an end to the process of certification of Industria Chiquibul before the RSPO.”
Oil Palm in Petén
In the department of Petén, where the municipality of Sayaxché and the community of Santa Elena are located, oil palm cultivation has increased exponentially. According to the report from 2021, Dinamicas productivas entorno al cambio de uso del suelo y sus repercusiones en la Reserva de Biosfera Maya (RBM), done by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), in 2000 there were 320 hectares and by 2022 there were 78,921 hectares, 46% of the nation’s total.
The growth at the national level between 2005 and 2010 was 20%, in Petén it was 192.4%
Photos: Santiago Navarro F
The production of palm in the municipality of Sayaxché represents 87% of the production in the department of Petén, according to data from 2018-2019 generated by the Gremial de Palma.
Indonesia, India, China, and the European Union are the countries that consume the most palm oil, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, with statistics from July of 2023. The worldwide consumption has increased more than 80% in the last 15 years.
“As a result, the cultivation in Central America is expanding, with negative consequences for the local communities and the environment,” summarizes the CIR.
RSPO Response
In a communique updated on March 15, 2024, the RSPO reported that it is aware of the CIR report. The organization assures that it has taken the necessary steps to review the allegations in the report and that it is working closely with the companies implicated to get a complete understanding of the situation.
The RSPO maintains that it continues to monitor this case with the objective of ensuring that the palm oil products “are being produced in a responsible and sustainable manner in accordance with RSPO standards.”
...
The RSPO reports that Industria Chiquibul “is not a member of RSPO and therefore is not in the process of RSPO certification.” However, in the company’s sustainability bulletins and statements, Chiquibul says that it is “working” towards certification.
Organizations from different states of Mexico recently published a communique recognizing the labor of the Indigenous Communal Government of Santa Maria Ostula, in the municipality of Aquila, Michoacán, in defense of the collective rights of the Indigenous Nahua people, and for ensuring security in their territory.
The Indigenous Nahua community of Santa María Ostula is located in the coastal-sierra region of the state of Michoacán, a region rich in natural resources, minerals and forests. However, it is one of the most violent zones in Mexico. The dispute between different organized crime groups for control over the territory and its resources has resulted in hundreds of assassinations and disappearances.
In this context, inhabitants of the Indigenous Nahua community of Santa Maria Ostula, “have understood that only though unity, community work, strengthening their internal forms of organization, and care for mother earth, can they generate a dignified alternative of life in their territory,” says the communique.
According to decisions made in general assemblies, the maximum authority of government in the community, they have strengthened the Indigenous governing institutions, grounded in their agrarian authorities, communal council, community representative, security, and communal guard.
In this sense, the Indigenous Communal Government of Santa Maria Ostula, “guarantees the legitimacy and capacity of its own institutions, to generate better conditions of life in their territory, which is one of the most secure places in the country, in spite of being located in one of the most violent zones,” explains the organizations.
Given the lack of capacity on part of the state to provide security, the organized crime groups maintain control over extensive territory in the coastal-sierra region of Michoacán and have tried to enter Ostula’s communal territory generating violence and tension.
Despite this, through organization, the community has been able to repel the attacks and has sought dialogue to strengthen alliances with the federal government to address the situation of violence in the region.
According to the organizations, the recent history “has taught us that only with the participation and control, legal and legitimate, of the Indigenous Communal Government of Santa María Ostula, has it been possible to achieve peace and security, which are two of the most sensitive issues we face as Mexican people.”
On Tuesday, March 5, in front of the Supreme Court of the State of Chiapas, organizations demonstrated demanding an end to the criminalization of land defenders, who, the organizations argue, have had crimes systematically fabricated against them. The organizations demanded the immediate freedom of José Gómez, Zapatista political prisoner, and five land defenders from San Juan Cancuc.
José Díaz Gómez, Indigenous Ch’ol and Zapatista Support Base, is imprisoned in CERSS No. 17 in the municipality of Catazajá, Chiapas. “They fabricated a crime against José as payback for his participation in the Zapatista movement,” explained the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center (FRAYBA), in a communique. Díaz Gómez has been held in preventative detention since November 25, 2022.
According to the organization, his process has been maliciously postponed. The judge has approved the extension of the investigation three times to benefit the public prosecutor, regardless of no further investigation having been carried out.
“These delays are part of a pattern where prosecutors and judges extend these processes, and the consequences are extended imprisonment without sentences, all for simulation. During this time, his public defender has been changed multiple times, violating his right to a continuous and diligent defense,” denounced FRAYBA.
FRAYBA has solicited on three occasions his release from preventative detention, which would allow him to carry out his legal process in freedom, to mitigate negative effects on his health and the economy of his family. However, the response has been negative on each occasion.
The Five Land Defenders of Cancuc
At the demonstration, the organizations also denounced the criminalization of Manual Sántiz Cruz, Agustín Pérez Domínguez, Juan Velasco Aguilar, Agustín Pérez Velasco, and Martín Pérez Domínguez, Tseltal land defenders.
The first three were arrested by municipal and state police, the national guard, and elements of the Mexican military on May 29, 2022 in the municipality of Cancuc.
Afterwards, they were handed over to the Specialized Prosecutor of Indigenous Justice in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, “who held the three incommunicado and disappeared for more than 24 hours. This prosecutor fabricated a completely different version of the arrest, stating that the three had been detained on May 30—that is to say a day afterwards—in San Cristobal de las Casas for carrying drugs,” explains FRAYBA in the communique.
During their detention, they fabricated evidence to accuse them of a second crime that they didn’t commit, obtaining arrest warrants on that charge. After being freed for the first crime, they were arrested again after the opening of a second fabricated investigation. They were taken directly to CERSS No. 5. This situation “follows a pattern documented in dozens of cases by FRAYBA,” explains the organization.
On June 1, 2022, families of the three detained and two witnesses, accompanied by staff from FRAYBA and an international human rights organization, went to the control court for the first hearing against the three land defenders. Outside the CERSS, the police arrived and arrested the two witnesses, Martín Pérez Domínguez and Agustín Pérez Velasco, adding them to the list of criminalized and imprisoned land defenders.
Throughout the trial, FRAYBA has denounced the different human rights violations like the arbitrary detentions, illegal deprivation of freedom, inadequate translation during the trial, and the admission of evidence clearly deficient for the court.
“Unfortunately, the process has been a bureaucratic labyrinth that has prolonged the preventative detention for almost three years,” says FRAYBA.
The organization calls on the “judges to listen to the denunciations of the victims of human rights violations, and that they carefully study the fabricated evidence to ascertain its inconsistencies, and not to be part of the undue prolongation of preventative detention that is another form of punishment for the exercise of political rights.”
Cover image: Abandoned oil well leaks in the north of Veracruz. The leak affects the land and water sources of the nearby communities. Photo: Regina López
There are many cases in Mexico exemplifying the increasing violence used against campesino and Indigenous populations in order to impose megaprojects. Here, we share an analysis from inhabitants of northern Veracruz, in the region of Totonacapan, about the links between the three actors they consider to be fundamental for the dispossession of territories: business, state, and crime.
Óscar Espino, activist and human rights defender in Veracruz, who accompanies collectives looking for the disappeared and is also a member of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), argues that the logic of terror imposed by these actors seeks to demobilize the population thus avoiding community organization and resistance.
According to the reflection of the communities of Totonacapan, the violence of these three actors facilitates the hollowing out of meaning of the territories for multidimensional dispossession: territorial, economic, organizational, and political, among others, in order to produce these areas as merely extraction zones.
“You cannot fight a logic of terror imposed on your territory, thus the logic of geoterror,” sustains Espino, exemplifing it with the context of northern Veracruz, a region plunged into violence with executions and disappearances, marked as a priority zone, historic and contemporary, for the extraction of hydrocarbons.
Photos: Regina López
For Óscar Espino, the intention of these strategies of geoterror is to get the communities out of their way, the communities that “interfere” with plans to impose “development” megaprojects.
Northern Veracruz is traversed by multiple megaprojects looking to exploit water resources, like the Proyecto Trasvase de Pánuco, that seeks to extract water to send it to the northern states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León.
Also, it seeks to continue with the extraction of hydrocarbons through nonconventional methods, like hydraulic fracking, with the project Aceite Terciario del Golfo (ATG). According to the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH), in this region, 3,358 wells have been fracked.
Photo: Regina López
Added to this are the effects on the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico due to the passage of the Puerta al Sureste gas pipeline, a 715-kilometer underwater pipeline that will connect with infrastructure in the south of Texas, for the exportation of natural gas from the United States and Canada.
According to testimony of Espino, the actions of the companies, state, and organized crime have the objective of transforming campesino life, converting them into caretakers and promotors, submissive to the megaproject. According to the analysis, this is not achieved only through violence. “This logic of terror begins, not with weapons, but with seduction,” emphasizes the activist on the conditions that limit community articulation and organization for the defense of the territories in this part of the country.
This publication is part of a series of dialogues with participants in the assembly of the National Indigenous Congress carried out in Puebla in 2023. Below, we present extracts from the conversation with Óscar Espino.
Avispa Midia (AM): During the meetings with delegates of the National Indigenous Congress you shared some points of reflection that you all have carried out in northern Veracruz about what you call strategies of geoterror. Could you speak a little more about that?
Óscar Espino (OE): We have carried out this analysis collectively, between peoples, communities, and organizations in Totonacapan. First, we didn’t realize what mechanisms the state, companies, and organized crime were using in our territories, but we knew that these three actors were planting fear in the communities.
We saw these three things as isolated; organized crime doing its own thing, saying that they are dedicated to the narco question; companies planning their hydrocarbon megaprojects; the state making laws and carrying out harassment and repression, or pointing the finger at the communities.
But when we began to deepen our analysis, we realized that there is synergy, an alliance between these three actors and other powerful actors in the region, like local caciques who are entrenched in Indigenous and campesino communities functioning also as a mechanism of agglutination of these three actors planting terror and fear in the communities.
AM. What are the effects in the territories of Totonacapan derived from these strategies of geoterror?
OE: For the communities it has been very difficult to see how their territories began to be renamed. It stops being Totonacapan to convert, for example, into Zeta territory; a strategic field of extraction of hydrocarbons like the “Aceite Terciario del Golfo;” a buffer zone for strategic projects, of exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons. To name the territory in certain ways also gives it meaning. Renaming it is also a form of emptying out the territory. What we say is that there is synergy between these actors, both from the state, as well as organized crime and companies, to empty the territory of its heart and knowledge. It is not that we aren’t in the territory, but that we are losing our connection to it, and that connection is being lost because of this logic of terror.
Infrastructure for the extraction of hydrocarbons in the municipality of Papantla, Veracruz. Photos: Regina López
We see other communities that rise up and struggle. Yet its not the same, a community to which the mining company is just now arriving, and which has all the information and can stand up to the mining company, and Totonacapan that has lived through 120 years of exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons. What this means is that there are generations, including grandparents, great-grandparents, who were born with oil wells in their communities, with dispossession from the beginning of their lives, of not feeling at home because the first ones who were there were displaced and have been relegated to live in spaces of coexistence or permanent conflict with the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons.
I am talking about the first wells at the beginning of the last century. We are talking about more than 100 years of exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons, but also an economic logic associated with the life of hydrocarbons. Yet the people didn’t imagine the devastation. They went out to the street, fascinated by the machines that arrived, but they began to see the destruction when under their houses or where they sought to plant their food, they began to see a network of pipelines. So, the control and decisions people had over their territory began to be limited.
The question here is how their lives have been threatened by the pipelines of the companies of Petroleo Mexicanos (PEMEX), and how their lives are at permanent risk.
There are communities that have, for example, turbine power plants with a deafening noise. Throughout the entire community, to be able to talk, you have to shout. It is a system of deprivation and risk that begins with health itself.
There are people with really bad health problems due to the gas vented in the zone that is not regulated and that the state says is within the controlled parameters of gas emissions. That is totally false. Furthermore, this is associated with a network of pipelines of infrastructure for the extraction of hydrocarbons that requires the use of water. For example, communities that do not have water, PEMEX arrives saying that they can give them water. So the communities say, “great,” but this has produced precarious conditions because they continue without water as the water is used for the extraction of hydrocarbons.
Water well contaminated by oil leaks in the north of Veracruz. Photo: Regina López
And an entire system of control is also associated with the territory. First, the depreciation of campesino life, and next, the rise in prices in their territories. So, they say, “Ok. How? My land isn’t useful for planting, ad then the private companies arrive.”
Because people from outside the community began to arrive, contracted by PEMEX and other companies to explore the mountains, valleys, and territories of the communities to locate zones for exploration.
We learned from a human rights center, that they drugged people so that they could endure the dehumanizing work days, in heat of more than 40 degrees Celsius in Totonacapan, and they would go locate the wells. After that, the work they gave to the local people isn’t work of engineers or oilmen, it is cleaning the sludge, the most unhealthy and depredatory work for the people.
AM: You were talking about the violent methods of dispossession of territories, but also of other strategies that do not imply the use of force. Could you give us some examples?
OE: The communities are a threat to the logic of the megaproject. This logic isn’t only hindering the relation of the campesino with his territory, but the campesino being campesino. They need the campesinos to be other things, to be caretakers of the megaproject, to submit to the megaproject. This logic of terror begins like that, it does not begin with arms, it begins with seduction. A hegemony is imposed, they call it a “soft” hegemony, imposed on the people in a way that convinces them, from the precarity of campesino and Indigenous life, abandoned by the state system. Then the companies arrive and they say, “what is the most important necessity you all have at this moment?”
And they invented a program called Program of Support for the Communities and Environment (PACMA). Imagine that, those who are doing the pillaging are talking about supporting the community and the environment. Well, with this program, they offered local infrastructure projects. So, a human rights defender arrives and says to the people of the communities “no, compañeros, they are tricking you,” but nothing comes of it. Meanwhile, those from the program arrived and said, “Here it is” the money for the infrastructure project.
This brought the logic of the companies to the communities. There is no longer direct conflict where the communities put themselves in front of the wells, because the people resisting began to be criminalized. Negotiations began, it wasn’t even negotiation, it was subjugation.
That logic began to introduce terror in the community, the fear of living in one’s own territory thinking that the following day they might be removed. That the following day, the wells are going to be exploited, that there is going to be a spill, an explosion, or that the following day, in your water well, in place of water, you get crude oil. Or that you will see dead animals because in the river where they were consuming water, there was a spill. It is a permanent fear of death.
AM: How does private capital fit into this scheme of imposing the logic of terror?
OE: The managers of private companies began to appear, contracted by PEMEX, for subcontracts for activities that Pemex couldn’t do. This transition was changing in such a way that, first, you saw only PEMEX, and afterwards we began to count up to more than 40 private companies. There were companies that manage the pipelines, that manage the liquids, that manage the chemicals, that manage the exploration, that provide the iron, that remove it; each company with its own logic and each one of them taking no responsibility. You no longer knew who to fight against.
There started to be private company security and, after that, we began to see how, at the same time, they began to introduce the megaproject; they began to introduce drugs and organized crime. What we didn’t know is that the objective was to displace complete families, displace complete communities, displace concrete actors in the communities, to install fear, to impose a logic of terror.
Photos: Regina López
We did not understand that it was linked to the megaproject. What do we defend ourselves from? Organized crime that began to arrive to our territory? Do we defend ourselves form the megaproject or from the company that is screwing us? Do we clean our stream? Do we do something about the venting gas? Or do we do something to protect our ears? That is the logic of terror.
AM: In what circumstances do you witness the link between crime and the state?
OE: When we began to organize with other collectives, families of human rights defenders looking for their disappeared, we began to encounter really weird logics. We are defending our territory so that the wells don’t do damage, and those collectives are searching inside the wells for their disappeared loved ones.
Because of the thousands of wells in Totonacapan, the majority aren’t being used. They are old wells, from deposits that have already been explored and exploited and that have very little (hydrocarbons) and are not profitable until they frack them. Yet the oil infrastructure remains.
For example, there is one old well and facility that looked like a hotel. Organized crime groups carried out their meetings there. They didn’t give it to the community who asked for it to convert it into a high school, but they did let organized crime occupy the space. So, we said, “This is not logical.” How can organized crime come and install a “kitchen” (what they call an extermination center) in one of the PEMEX zones, and PEMEX has security and the businesses have security but nothing happens.
The people of the community said to us, years afterwards, that they saw that organized crime stopped using the space for their meetings, they came to sweep it making piles of earth. Then they began dumping everything there, the remains of cars, things they that had stolen, human remains, barrels with holes where they dumped bodies. It is a perverse logic.
AM: You mentioned the dispossession is not only territorial. What are its other expressions?
OE: There is economic dispossession through the depreciation of campesino life, and at the same time, speculating on it, of people’s indebtedness, of loans.
Infrastructure for the extraction of hydrocarbons in the municipality of Papantla, Veracruz. Photo: Regina López
There is organizational dispossession taking away the strength of the assembly and its authorities. Political dispossession because the people can no longer make decisions over their territory. If there is a pipeline, the first thing you see in your plot of land is a “no digging” sign, so what are we to do? And next in your plot, the oil spill that you cannot clean up. How do you clean it up?
AM: How do the companies articulate with other actors to dispossess territories?
OE: The public universities were making alliances with businesses and with PEMEX to collaborate in the dispossession. If it wants to continue to call itself a public university it should carry out investigations on the dispossession and declare itself free of fracking. So too should the communities. The public university has to declare itself free of fracking. But the first thing they did was implement a “new educational offer: petroleum engineer,” that is to say, engineer of dispossession.
Oscar Espino emphasizes in sharing the analysis of the inhabitants of northern Veracruz, to reflect “as a mirror, as the CNI has taught us,” in order to collaborate with other communities and resistance processes to identify in advance the actors and the logics in which the imposition of megaprojects takes place.
“Sometimes we don’t imagine this perverse logic of terror imposed on our communities, and it takes us a long time to discover it,” sustains Espino about the importance of analyzing the power of companies, their connection with crime, and the consent of public officials to confront “projects of supposed development.”
“There are marvelous examples of the campesino and indigenous communities struggling against these projects, but we believe that this exercise of reflecting on the painful reality of some can help us heal and strengthen our own communities before the pain arrives,” he concludes.
Cover image: Members of the Otomí community during the Second National Assembly for Water and Life carried out in Amealco, Querétaro. Photo: Santiago Navarro F
Organizations, communities, and collectives in defense of water, from multiple geographies of Mexico, convoke the Fourth National Assembly for Water and Life to take place on March 23 and 24, in the community of La Magdalena Tlaltelulco, Tlaxcala.
To mark the International Day of Water, the invitation emphasizes that the territorial dispossession and plundering of water affecting Indigenous peoples and communities, isn’t only happening in this county, but throughout the world, part of the global capitalist war on the people.
They highlight that in spite of water being an essential element for life, the current water crisis shows that its availability serves the interests of industry and millionaires. In particular, they highlight the case of communities in Tlaxcala—the state which will host the next assembly—where water wells are being exploited by industry and real estate development projects without any regulation.
They say that the municipal seat, La Maddalena Tlaltelulco, is facing the “authoritarian and violent dispossession of water wells pertaining to the ejido community, putting at risk the only source of subsistence, agriculture, but also community life with its own autonomous dynamics and forms of organization.”
They also mention the transnational companies entering the state of Tlaxcala with green energy projects, where “they arrive to deprive the population of rain and water for the harvests.” These projects of “development” contaminate the earth, air, and waters of the rivers and lakes, damaging the health of the population.”
Mobilizations in front of the offices of CONAGUA in Mexico City. September 2023
The organizations give another example, that of the urban zone of the Valley of Mexico. The National Water Commission (CONAGUA) reported that “day zero,” which is to say, when the water supply will end and access to the liquid will be tightly rationed for this region, will arrive on June 26.
At the same time, they point out that private industry is demanding an “update” to the legal and regulatory frameworks to continue hoarding water. They denounce the “war for water” where CONAGUA “operates with impunity and complicity in benefit of the private sector, transnational companies, and major financial capital.”
Yes, There is Water. It is Being hoarded!
The invitation sent out on February 27 cites an investigation from the Autonomous Metropolitan University showing that “a reduced group of politicians and businessmen are responsible for the plundering of water. Among them are: the Cerveceria Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, plundering 143,700 million liters of water yearly, Mexicana del Sobre, plundering 445,000 million liters of water yearly, and the Compañia Industrial Minera, plundering 8,000 million liters a year,” they detail.
They also list companies that produce junk food, like the transnational company, Coca Cola, that reports using 55,000 million liters of water yearly. Or the companies Danone and Nestlé, the first of which extracts 15,000 million liters yearly, and the second 10,000 million liters yearly. “The list goes on, with Bimbo, Bachoco—chicken companies, Walmart, real estate development companies, and many others that receive all the water that they want, while many people and families don’t have any,” they emphasize.
Institutionalized Dispossession and Territorial Reorganization
The communities and organizations sound the alarm in the face of different initiatives that from the governmental and legislative spheres that seek to institutionalize the dispossession of water.
They cite cases in Querétaro with the initiative of the Law that Regulates the Provision of Drinking Water, Sewage, and Sanitation Services of the State; in Puebla with the Law of Water and Sanitation; and in Tlaxcala with the Law for the Provision of Drinking Water, Sewage, and Sanitation Services.
It is important to remember that since March 2021 in Querétaro, the people have been resisting the so-called Water Law which is considering the possibility of municipalities and the State Water Commission (CEA) privatizing water by granting concessions to private companies for a time period of up to 20 years.
According to activists and members of the Otomí community of Santiago Mexquititlán, it was not enough to show evidence of the plunder of water and the multiple irregularities committed by public officials. This was not considered by the CEA, who favored private business, mostly real estate companies, above the rights of the people.
Worse still, in a report on February 5, CONAGUA pointed out that Querétaro is one of the entities most affected by serious drought.
At the same time, the call also eludes to the accelerated process of territorial reorganization through megaprojects being pushed by the so-called “fourth transformation.”
Among them is the Maya Train, the Interoceanic Corridor, the Santa Lucía International Airport, the Morelos Integral Project. “In Queretaro, CDMX, Tlaxcala, and Puebla, the reorganization is named: Train Mexico-Querétaro, General Program of Territorial Organization, Metropolitan Program of Puebla-Tlaxcala, respectively.”
The communities in resistance assert that these plans and programs are designed and orchestrated by a handful of people, “who seek to decide over the lives of entire communities, to satisfy their ambition and meet the demand of large investors who are designing the death and destruction of our communities.”
Third Assembly for Water and Life in Mexico City
In the invitation for the next assembly, emphasis is put on what they consider to be the structural crisis, as well as the violence, growing insecurity, and activities of organized crime with “the proliferation of paramilitary groups increasing under the protection of the political class and the current government; the objective, to contain the resistance and organization of the communities.”
In light of this, those organizing the National Assembly for Water and Life define its principles as anticapitalist, antipatriarchal, and antipolitical party, autonomous and self-managed. They emphasize: “We fight, defend, and resist with our existence, and we sustain ourselves through the construction of collective care in search of autonomy for our bodies-territories weaving community networks for the defense of life.”
You can consult the invitation and complete list of activities here in Spanish.
