Gilberto López y Rivas
First of all, I would like to highlight the unconsulted nature of the Tren Maya mega-project among the affected populations, which include originary peoples protected by the Constitution and by international agreements, such as ILO Convention 169 and the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples…
The Tren Maya is more than the tracks: it is a gateway to regional and global trade and integration. ” Above all, the State is interested in opening the gateway to these capitals through the Train, especially in terms of commercial exchange. The tourist part is the plus”.
In recent years the Mayan community of Ixil Yucatan has been the target of several attempts to dispossess them of their lands; first for the installation of large-scale wind energy projects, then for real estate speculation, under false pretenses entrepreneurs attempted to take their lands but the community have manage to recover them; now they are again trying to dispossess them of more than 300 hectares that are being used for community projects. Last August 17, the Yucatan state police prevented them from accessing their lands because of an alleged sale they had made, which the ejidatarios deny having sold.
We recognized that even in the midst of all the destruction of the capitalists there are many achievements that we are reaping: The first and most important is that after 500 years of attempts to exterminate us WE ARE STILL HERE, the organization of the community against dispossession, as well as the lands recuperated in different towns, the struggle of women for the recognition and exercise of their rights, the struggle for water, the liberation of political prisoners, the relocation of the train stations in Merida and Campeche, the establishment of zones free of extractive projects, the conservation of languages and traditional festivals and the construction of autonomies.
El Sur Resiste caravan arrived at its final destination, Palenque, Chiapas prior to the launch of El Sur Resiste International Gathering 2023, which would take place on the 6th and 7th of May in the Caracol of Jacinto Canek. In Palenque, we carried out a march and rally in protest of the discrimination, criminalization, and imposition of the megaprojects upon the Originary Peoples of Chiapas.
