I don’t receive a single government program and they come to take away my piece of land, that doesn’t seem fair to me. I have worked this space with my sweat, getting up early along with my wife and not resting all day. But you, the governor, are coming to take away my piece of land,” said a campesino member of the Movement for the Defense of Life and Territory (Modevite).
In the context of the construction of the “superhighway of cultures” (Ocosingo-Palenque), a group of pineapple farmers sent a message to state authorities asking them to reconsider their decision and critique the consultation process.
I send a message to the governor. Those who went out to vote are not ejidatarios where the highway passes, but those who voted are the ranchers of Ocosingo and Yajalón, he said.
The campesino pointed to the land as a product of their sweat, and with the support of organic fertilizer they produce pineapples without credits or support from any program.
For this reason, they asked for their petition to be taken into account so as not to be affected by the construction of the highway, and clarified that it does not represent a benefit for them.
They are going to use us as a ladder, the businessmen are going to pass, but those of us who sell pineapple will just watch (…) In our lives as campesinos, we don’t use the highway,” he said.
On June 12, Modevite, made up of dozens of Tseltal, Ch’ole, Tsotsil and mestizo peoples, demanded an international investigation with the presence of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in light of the progress of the Palenque-Ocosingo superhighway.
The organization categorically rejected the beginning of the construction work, pointing out that there was no free, prior, and informed consent, as established in Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) (Articles 6, 7, and 15) and Article 2 of the Mexican Constitution.
They denounced that the consultations were carried out only in the municipal capitals, excluding the communities and their traditional authorities.
The government intends to legitimize a project of death by using our ancestral ceremonies, blessing the machines that will destroy our environment and community life. We reject that they use us to legitimize projects that only benefit the political and economic elites of the state of Chiapas, they said.
Original text by Andrés Domínguez published in Chiapas Paralelo on June 23rd, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.