PBI-Mexico accompanied FPDTAMPT announces resistance actions, solidarity with sit-in at Danone/Bonafont bottled water plant

On April 21, PBI-Mexico tweeted: “Defenders of water and the environment of the @fpdtampt [Peoples’ Front in Defence of Land and Water] announce resistance actions in a context of continuous harassment and threats for their opposition to the PIM.”

PIM refers to the Morelos Integral Project which consists of an aqueduct that would take 50 million litres of water a day from the Cuautla River, a 171-kilometre gas pipeline that crosses three states, and a thermoelectric plant in Huexca, Morelos.

The Peoples’ Front note that they are considering “a sit-in in front of the thermoelectric plant” and starting “a travelling dissemination camp.”

On Facebook, the Peoples’ Front adds about its planned dissemination camp: “Alongside the truths of thermoelectric, we will take every town and place to invite us and spread: the word, memory and demand for justice for our brother Samir.”

Samir Flores, an Indigenous rights defender, member of the FPDTA and opponent of the PIM, was shot to death on February 20, 2019.

The Peoples’ Front has also denounced the harassment of the sit-in at the Bonafont company headquarters in San Mateo Cuanalá, Puebla.

The French transnational Danone has owned the bottled water company Bonafont since 1996.

Last month, La Jornada reported: “Dozens of residents gathered at the company headquarters, with banners in hand to demand the closure of the company, as they reported that it extracts the liquid from deep wells and leaves the inhabitants without supply.”

Another report by La Jornada has noted: “For 25 years, the Bonafont company has irregularly exploited more than 1,400,000 liters of water daily from the Iztaccíhuatl volcano veins, workers from the French company that belongs to the Danone Group.”

That article highlights: “The sit-in is held by a hundred residents, 60 percent made up of women and their children, who in the evening receive the support of those who return from work in the city of Puebla to gather up to 300 people.”

In Canada, Danone sells a wide variety of dairy and non-dairy products.

PBI-Mexico has accompanied the FPDTAMPT since early 2020.