PBI-Mexico accompanies International Day of Indigenous Resistance march in Mexico City

On October 13, PBI-Mexico tweeted:

“On #October12, International Day of #IndigenousResistance, we accompanied the March in CDMX [Mexico City], in the framework of global action against #militarization and capitalist and patriarchal war, led by Indigenous organizations and communities.”

EFE reports: “Representatives of indigenous communities and students marched on Wednesday [October 12] in the Mexican capital to demand ‘a stop to militarization and the capitalist and patriarchal war against the peoples of Mexico and the world.’ The massive demonstration, which began in the Angel of Independence and would end in the Zócalo of the capital, criticized, mainly, the strategy of the Mexican Government to maintain until 2028 the presence of the Armed Forces in public security tasks.”

La Jornada adds: “The walk was led by the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), followed by the contingents of the parents of Ayotzinapa, [the Indigenous] students of that same rural normal [teachers] school [who were disappeared by the military in September 2014], mothers looking for their disappeared relatives, students of various universities and members of various trade union and social organizations.”

The BBC further explains: “Mexico’s Congress has voted in favour of extending the presence of the military on the streets until 2028. Troops have been carrying out public security duties for years as part of Mexico’s war against drugs and the gangs which control their trade. But critics say extending the military’s duties for another four years further militarises the country. Rights groups say the militarisation of police duties has led to human rights abuses and further violence. Accusations of human rights abuses by the military hit the headlines again last month when a retired general and two other members of the army were arrested over their alleged links to the disappearance of 43 students in 2014.”

The banners in the photo above reference Indigenous Náhuatl land defender Samir Flores Soberanes.

Samir Flores

Flores was a vocal opponent of the Morelos Integral Project (PIM).

On February 20, 2019, he was shot in his home in Amilcingo, Morelos and died later that day in hospital. He was 35 years old.

The Peoples’ Front in Defence of Land and Water (FPDTA) described his murder as “a political crime for the human rights defence that Samir and the FPDTA carried out against the [PIM] and for people’s autonomy and self-determination.”

The PIM megaproject includes a 171-kilometre gas pipeline across the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos; a gas-fuelled thermoelectric plant in the town of Huexca, Morelos; and a 12-kilometre aqueduct to divert water from the Cuautla River to cool the turbines at the thermoelectric plant.

The FPDTA has stated: “[Mexican President] Lopez Obrador [supporting the PIM] betrays the peasant and the promise of change of his government, to favour transnational corporations [including] Canadian miners like Alamos Gold, among others.”

Toronto-based Alamos Gold has reportedly reactivated work on their Esperanza open-pit gold mine near the community of Tetlama (about 60 kilometres due west of Huexca). Mines can be energy-intensive and could use electricity generated by the plant.

In January 2022, Pie de Pagina reported: “Inhabitants of more than 16 Nahua towns and colonies of Morelos marched to protest the entry of the Canadian company Alamos Gold in the municipality of Temixco, Morelos with the intention of exploiting gold and silver in an open pit. They demand that the municipality declare its territory free of mining and Semarnat [the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources] reject the entry of the mining company”

PBI-Mexico began to accompany the Peoples’ Front in 2020.