T ́neki tlalle uan atl para tenochti, amo timikiske por tumi: We want land and water for all – not corpses to feed capital.
Peoples' Front in Defense of the Land and Water
In Huexca, one day they began to clear a very large piece of land1.
People wondered the purpose, and began to investigate.
"We found out that many began to rent their land: we discovered that the land in Huexca was already sold, and the water rights already allocated, all access had been granted.
How did we find out? The communities were informed of this in assemblies, because officially there was not even the intention from above to facilitate the consultations required to find out our position, if we wanted the project or not”, explained Samantha César.
(Muñoz Ramírez, Gloria. “Samir sin reversa”, 2020)
Little by little, people began to get together. They became aware of a wave of outsiders arriving to neighboring towns to buy land.
With the information they were able to gather, they called community assemblies and the resistance began. Through these meetings they soon discovered that the authorities had granted permits, bypassing any process of deliberation.
One day, Don Lupe saw some men digging near his land. He asked what they were going to do "and they answered that they were going to pass the contracts for a gas pipeline, and that they were doing tests in order to put the machine.”
The more data obtained grew paralleled to their level of frustration. So the communities began to organize resistance committees in the affected regions across the three states.
The PIM, Proyecto Integral Morelos, consists of two thermoelectric plants located in the community of Huexca. They were licensed to the Spanish company ABENGOA; this infrastructure passes through the foothills of the Popocatépetl volcano, crossing more than 60 rural communities in the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos.
The transnational mega-project is contracted to the Spanish companies ELECNOR and ANAGAS, and to the Italian company BONATT.
Communiqué from the Peoples' Front in Defense of the Land and Water of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala. February 13th, 20222.
WE CONDEMN THE MURDER OF FRANCISCO VÁZQUEZ, WE DEMAND TRUTH AND JUSTICE FROM THE VIOLENCE INFLICTED BY THE PIM
Those of us who make up the People's Front in Defense of Water and Land strongly condemn the murder of the communal landholder (ejidatario) Francisco Vázquez Domínguez who held the position of president of the communal nucleus3.
The events occurred yesterday, February 11th, in his plot of land, where he received a gunshot wound that caused his death.
This murder is part of the ongoing pattern of violence, aggressions and violations of human rights against those who defend territorial ancestral rights to water and resources – those in opposition to the Morelos Integral Project.
The aggressions, in the struggle for the defense of agrarian communities and indigenous peoples’ autonomous livelihoods, prove to be a strategy of terror against those of us who defend life.
It is even more worrying to hear the declarations of the state government that rule out that the murder of Francisco Vázquez Domínguez is related to the conflict regarding the thermoelectric plant. They are omitting from their investigations and preliminary inquiries the fact that the deceased himself declared in a meeting on February 10th that “he feared for his life, and that he held Rogelio Plasencia responsible in case something happened to him."
That meeting, in his capacity as President of the Vigilance Council, included more than 20 community members to discuss the dismissal of the water association4 president.
Unlinking the investigation, refusing to acknowledge the connection between the activist’s murder and the conflict generated by the extractivist mega-project would be a grave error on the part of the authorities. This means ignoring the serious risk faced by those of us who defend our territory against dispossession.
We demand clarity for the murder of Francisco Vázquez, and the murder of our brother Samir Flores5 – two community members who openly expressed their opposition to the Morelos Integral Project.
We repudiate the government's inaction in the face of these murders.
We demand that Rogelio Plasencia be investigated for the direct accusation made by the deceased.
We hold Rogelio Plasencia and the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador responsible for the aggressions inflicted on the People's Front in Defense of Land and Water, Morelos-Puebla-Tlaxcala and affiliated organizations6.
T ́neki tlalle uan atl para tenochti, amo timikiske por tumi: We want land and water for all, not death to feed capital.
People's Front in Defense of Land and Water Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala.
February 13th, 20227.
