PBI-Mexico reiterates concern about National Guard raid of occupied Danone bottled water plant

Photo: Sandra G. Germendia of Peace Brigades International speaks at the media conference for the report ‘Defending Rights in Mexico: Between Omission and Simulation’.

On September 2, Avispa Media reported on press conference on the report Defending Rights in Mexico: Between Omission and Simulation prepared by Acción Urgente para Defensores de Derechos Humanos A.C. (ACUDDEH), the Cerezo Mexico Committee and the National Campaign Against Forced Disappearance.

That article notes: “During the presentation of the document, the Office of Peace Brigades International (PBI) underlined its concern about the increase in the raid as a way to sow terror and exemplified it with the eviction carried out by the National Guard, in February of this year, against the House of the Altepelmecalli Peoples in Puebla.”

To hear the full comments by Sandra G. de Garmendia, coordinator of the Mexico office of PBI, go to 24:58 to 41:50 in this video.

The eviction of Altepelmecalli

La Jornada de Oriente has reported:

“At 1:20 a.m. on Tuesday [February 15], agents of the National Guard and the State Police evicted members of the Council of United Peoples of the Volcanes Region who had taken – in the municipality of Juan C. Bonilla – the Bonafont water bottling plant – which is owned by the French consortium Danone – since March 22, 2021.

[Pueblos Unidos/United Peoples was formed by 20 Indigenous Nahua communities from the volcanic region in the state of Puebla, Mexico “to resist the colonization and depletion of their waters by Bonafont”.]

Eleven months [before the raid], residents of Juan C. Bonilla and 30 other communities in the region, taking advantage of the fact that March 22 is World Water Day, took over the Bonafont plant as part of a growing unrest against the bottler they accuse of having caused the wells of that municipality to run out.

Over the last year, this conflict became emblematic in Latin America for having managed to get the protest against Bonafont to the headquarters – in France – of the Danone Group and collectives from Europe, the United States and Canada, in solidarity in the struggle for the defense of water in the municipality of Juan C. Bonilla.

It was learned that Bonafont had exerted strong pressure on the governments of the state of Puebla and the federal government to proceed with the eviction of its Juan C. Bonilla plant, which led this company to extract water from other wells clandestinely.”

Calls to boycott Danone

The Peoples’ Front of Morelos Puebla Tlaxcala has posted this statement on their Facebook page that concludes: “We call on all communities and people who defend the struggles for life and who believe that another world is possible, to mobilize and join the campaign of BOYCOTT the Bonafont company, through calls on social networks, talks, memes, stickers, manifestos, caricatures, graffiti, murals, songs, dances, plays and any possible means, telling people NOT TO BUY AND NOT TO CONSUME Bonafont water.”

Salvemos los cerros de Chihuahua has also signed this statement that concludes: “We invite the population not to support these companies and stop consuming the products of the French transnational Danone: Bonafont, Activia, Danonino, Vitalinea, dnp, Danette, Dany, Oikos and other range of junk food.”

Danone in Canada

Along with Bonafont, Danone’s water brands include Evian. Other Danone brands sold in Canada include Activia, Danette and Oikos.

Some of the Danone brands sold at a Loblaws grocery store in Ottawa.

Evian bottled water sold at a Shoppers Drug Mart in Ottawa.

We continue to follow this situation.

Additional reading

How Nahua Indigenous communities in Mexico took on Danone in defence of water and life by Marina Tricks

Indigenous activists launch global campaign against water bottling transnationals by Tamara Pearson