Oaxaca: UNHCHR Intervention Requested over Human Rights Violations in Approval of Implementation of Trans-Isthmus Corridor

@Meganoticias

The Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus (UCIZONI) and the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CMDA) reported (UNHCHR) the violations of their rights in the framework of the approval and implementation of the Trans-Isthmus Corridor to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner in Mexico. Given this, they demanded that the United Nations High Commissioner in Mexico, Guillermo Fernandez Maldonado, urge the Mexican State to suspend the project until the people have “full information on environmental and social risks and impacts”; as well as to investigate violations of the rights of indigenous peoples in the area.

In the letter, they detailed the irregularities in the consultation process carried out by the federal government in March 2019 for the approval of the megaproject and denounced that it was not prior, free, informed, culturally adequate and in good faith as recommended by the international conventions on the matter, which have been ratified by Mexico. “There was no dialogue, but a monologue from the governmen”, asserted the organizations that also requested the UN precautionary measures in favor of the indigenous peoples of the Isthmus.

They also recalled that the construction of a Trans-Isthmus Corridor between the port of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, and that of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca would impact 80 municipalities (and not 76 as the official project says): 31 in Veracruz and 49 in Oaxaca, “within which converge eleven indigenous peoples, eight of them with ancestral presence and three that have been relocated by different governments, but who are assumed to be Isthmian peoples.”

For more information in Spanish:

Pueblos de Oaxaca denuncian ante ONU violaciones a sus derechos por Corredor Transístmico (Desinformémonos, 19 de noviembre de 2020)

Resistencia al Transístmico llega a la ONU, pueblos del Istmo presentan queja ante Alto Comisionado (El Universal, 18 de noviembre de 2020)

Comunidades oaxaqueñas exigen suspender Tren Transístmico (La Díaz de Juárez, 9 de noviembre de 2020)

Pueblos originarios mantienen resistencia al transístmico; se reunirán con autoridades federales para dialogar (El Universal, 26 de octubre de 2020)

For more information from SIPAZ: