MEXICO .- Indigenous organizations fear increased violence against land defenders after the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) ordered the Federal Congress to issue a law that regulates the right to prior, free and informed consultation on the State or private projects that invade their lands.
For more than a decade the Legislature avoided carrying out an indigenous consultation law despite the fact that Mexico promised to do so and sign the Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization.
Thus, without a regulation to the consultation, the green light was given 506 projects that would impact 63 ethnic groups, among them, Amusgos, Awakateko, Chatino, Chichimeca, Cucapá, Huasteco, Huichol Ixcateco, Kanjobal, Kekchí, Maya, Nahuas, Otomíes , Mixes, Papagos, Tecos, Purépechas, Popolocas, Tepehuas, Yakis, according to Atl as of Megaprojects in Indigenous and Black Zones of Latin America.
Congress looked the other way and the result was that of all the consultations that were made for these projects, only two have gone through due process, according to the study of the Institute of Legal Research, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM ): in the rest, “the manipulations have been a constant.”
Faced with the inaction of the congress, the SCJN ordered the past 10 of June make a Law of Indigenous Consultation that makes the rules clear.
Previously, the Ministry of the Interior had convened this year various organizations to participate in 10 open forums to ask about how the law should be but left a bad taste in the mouth of critics of native peoples organizations.
They say they are a sham, that in the end it will be done whatever the mandate wants federal river, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (or whoever is in turn), because now there is a majority in both chambers: that of deputies and senators and they want to leave the issue of indigenous consultations under the control of the Executive.
“Only those who are convenient for them were summoned to those forums,” warns Rafael Ornelas, president of the Mexican National Council of Indigenous Peoples. and Indigenous Communities. “The strategy for the law will be to give a voice only to those who do not oppose federal projects such as the Mayan Train or the Transitsmico.”
The special rapporteur of United Nations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz. “The authorities choose some people who they think will agree with the project and only those they are consulted, so the communities are divided. No government should allow a commercial project to take place in those areas without consulting them. ”
On the other hand, when the indigenous land has become a target of interest for commercial exploitation, there are usually murders and intimidations. Bad faith, misinformation, spoil, scams and lies, according to the UN report.
A new element is added to this situation, warns Ornelas. “It is known that after the court’s decision, indigenous peoples will have to be consulted by force and that is why now companies and governments are infiltrating false indigenous leaders to push projects throughout the country. ”
Other strategies
The promise of benefits to the affected indigenous people is one of the bad practices. For the construction of the Felipe Ángeles airport, for example, the government promised the people, located next to the Santa Lucía air base, in the State of Mexico, to resolve the water conflict if they allowed airplanes to pass .
Those attending The meeting voted by show of hands in favor of the airport because the government offered a lot of help to the people, and because they considered that, anyway, “the project was already underway” when the consultation should have been earlier.
Due to lack of prior and informed consultation, the Union of Indigenous Communities of the North Zone of the Isthmus in Oaxaca opposes the Interoceanic Corridor in the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (in Oaxaca ), a project that consists of the expansion of the ports of Coatzacoalcos and Salina Cruz, in the modernization of the trans-isthmian railroad tracks, wind farms, hydroelectric plants, fracking and mining.
The inhabitants of the place d They say that the query made at the end of March 2019 did not meet the standards because they blackmailed the community: the majority of The invited authorities warned them that if they did not approve the Isthmus of Tehuantepec railway project, the works projects they need would not be approved.
They assure that there was an intimidating presence of the army inside and outside the compound where the assembly was held consultative and that the environmental impact study was “plagued” with irregularities and omissions
In other cases, activists are assassinated. It happened with the Huexca thermoelectric plant – part of the Morelos Comprehensive Project in the states of Puebla, Tlaxcala and Morelos. Days before the consultation organized by the Ministry of the Interior in 2019 They surprised opposition activist Samir Flores with bullets.
Flores had been critical of the government’s failure to comply with the characteristics that a consultation process should have when the interested parties are members of an indigenous people, as is the case of this region, inhabited by Nahuas because the government organized the exercise by becoming judge and party, without clear rules.
However the impact of this and other decisions has led to the loss of traditional land and territories; migration, eviction and resettlement; the depletion of resources necessary for physical and cultural survival; destruction and pollution of the environment; the fragmentation of the community social fabric, and harassment and violence.
Options
The UNAM Legal Research Institute and the organization Fundar warned in a report that it will be useless to focus all state efforts solely on the right to consultation of indigenous people. “It is necessary to strengthen other guarantees such as self-determination, territory and access to justice.”
The UN Rapporteur requested some type of sanction for those people who divide the communities as a strategy to achieve a project. Many times, on the basis of bribes, they manage to “convince” some people who appear in the community as “progressives” and fight against those who oppose .
Naayeli Ramírez-Espinoza, consultant to the Foundation for Due Process, suggests that any initiative for the Indigenous Consultation Law should avoid “the vertical imposition of a law” or it would invariably lead to the failure of the process and aggravate the distensions in the relationship between indigenous peoples and the State.
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