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 honor of Francisco Vázquez Domínguez, our struggle is for life over profit. (2022)

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.

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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.

1

Muñoz Ramírez, Gloria. “Samir sin reversa”. Desinformémonos. First edition (2020).

2

Communiqué in Mexican-Castilian available here, from the original source.

3

Abelardo L. Rodriguez in the municipality of Ayala in Morelos and President of the Oversight Council of the Association of Users of the Cuautla River (ASURCO)

4

Association of Users of the Cuautla River.

5

Samir was a vocal advocate for Indigenous rights and land protection, a member of the The People's Front in Defense of Land and Water, and the Indigenous Governance Council (CIG), a Zapatista-affiliated organization. In February 2019, journalist and environmental activist Samir Flores was shot twice in the head at his home in Amilcingo, an indigenous village in Morelos, Mexico.

His murderers still go unidentified.

The People's Front in Defense of Land and Water of which Flores was a member, said he attended a public meeting days before his death and challenged government representatives, as an outspoken opponent of a thermal-electric plant and gas pipeline promoted by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The FPDTAMPT declared that Samir had no enemies other than the promoters of the mega-development project.

“This is a political crime,” the statement said.

6

And towards members of the Ejidos de Ayala en Defensa del Agua, as well as the members of the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua, Morelos-Puebla-Tlaxcala.

7

Translation by taller ahuehuete, in solidarity with the cause.