At the end of June, before the imminent entry into effect of the new free trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada (USMCA), the Metropolitan Anticapitalist and Antipatriarchal Coordination and the Indigenous Council of Government (CIG) of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) called for a series of protest activities that will include: a virtual march “Against USMCA! No to the New Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico!”, On July 1st; a virtual Forum “Analysis and Perspectives: a Comparative Framework of NAFTA-1994 and its Contributions to Social Inequalities”, on July 16th; and a public presentation of the legal resources presented before national and international bodies against megaprojects, on July 30th and 31st.
On July 1st, the day the new trade agreement came into force, the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of Land and Territory (APIIDTT), also part of the CNI, published a statement denouncing that this type of agreements “cement the legal frameworks to use force by law in the imposition of megaprojects in Mexico, as well as a whole series of policies, laws and reforms that violate the human rights of indigenous peoples and the Mexican people.”
It declared that the wave of violence that plagues the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is “linked to the imposition of megaprojects and extractivist policies of the Mexican government”, in particular the Trans-Systemic/Interoceanic Corridor-Train, “a historic project that since the mid-19th century has been proposing using the geostrategic position of the Mexican Isthmus as a commercial node for global trade, this as part of the expansionist project of the US, which, by not achieving its objective in Mexico, gained control over the Panama Canal, a project that is currently obsolete compared to the demand from this rampant global market.”
It warned about the fact that “the Mexican Isthmus is seen as the primary node in these treaties, and with the discourse of emerging from the economic crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, national and international pressure is created in our region by capital to streamline the works and construction of this Trans-Systemic/Interoceanic Corridor-Train from the port of Coatzacoalco, Veracruz to the port of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, interconnected with Section 1 of the Maya Train, passing through the new Dos Bocas refinery and extending from Salina Cruz to Tapachula, Chiapas, to consolidate an energy, rail, port and industrial corridor, militarizing and reordering the entire south-southeast of Mexico and placing the new border with the US on the Tehuantepec Isthmus.”
Given this, the APIIDTT made a “call to organization, to resistance and to fight for the life and future of coming generations. The Isthmus is Ours, not the companies, nor the governments, it is of the indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, it is of the Mexican people and of any person who decides to defend it, take care of it, and respect it.”
For more information in Spanish:
Boletín completo (APIIDTT, 1ero de julio de 2020)
Tratados como el T-MEC «cimientan los marcos jurídicos para usar la fuerza» contra los pueblos: comunidades del Istmo (Desinformémonos, 1ero de julio de 2020)
Jornada de lucha contra el T-MEC y los megaproyectos (CNI, 30 de junio de 2020)
For more information from SIPAZ:
National/International: USMCA Comes into Effect with Mechanisms for Internet Censorship and Criminalization of Digital Locks Evasion (July 3, 2020)
National/International: United States Formally Approves USMCA Trade Agreement(February 2, 2020)
National/International: Mexican Senate Ratifies US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (July 4, 2019)
sipazen.wordpress.com 