Mayan communities’ council says they must first grant permission to build the massive project…//
Members of the Regional Indigenous Council stated that neither the surveys nor the rituals, much less the rights of way, exempt the federal government from informing and consulting as soon as possible the 82 indigenous communities potentially affected by the Mayan Train project, Animal Politico reports.
Mayan communities represented in the Indigenous Regional Council warned that the first to be consulted and to whom they should request permission for the construction of the Mayan Train are the 82 indigenous communities that are going to be affected by the megaproject, a condition that has not yet occurred.
The council blasted the Ritual of the Original Peoples to ask Mother Earth for her approval for the construction of the Mayan Train, which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador conducted in Palenque, Chiapas, last Sunday, and which was held simultaneously in Edzná and Becán, Campeche; Chichén Itzá, Yucatán; Tenosique, Tabasco, and Tulum, Quintana Roo. The council lamented the use of indigenous rituals as a “folkloric show” and tourism stunt based on a concept of development that goes against the principles of the communities.
“What we are saying is that in the national opinion poll that they did and where they say that 80 percent are in agreement with the project, the real affected were not consulted or present. And this type of ceremony does not comply with the real beliefs of our people and only lends itself to a tourist-type show and not to a true religious process. For that, many things are required, not just that one dresses, incense is put on or the baton is given, which is not given to anyone either,” warned Romel González Díaz, spokesman for the Council.
“A non-real movie is being produced just to say that we already agree with the project, and it’s not true. It’s about creating an image that the Mayan people agree with this process, and it’s not like that,” he said.
González Díaz said that the central problem lies in the insistence of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in saying that the construction of the Mayan Train has already begun, and that the government organizes “national opinion polls” and ritual ceremonies to give the starting signal, when the communities of affected indigenous people do not yet have information or a real explanation of how the project is going to be carried out, because there are no environmental studies or studies of any kind.
In an interview, he explained that in the only meeting that the members of the Council have held with the head of the National Tourism Fund (FONATUR), Rogelio Jiménez Pons, and two others with his team, no progress could be made in that regard. These three meetings are the only ones in which they have participated and at the express request of the Council.
“The information they gave us is partial, limited and controversial, not scientific, and without foundation of impact study. Although they say they are listening to us, they were a bit annoyed by the criticisms we made of their process.
“For example, regarding the station that we still do not know if they are going to put in Xpujil, Plan de San Luis or Conhuas, we ask them where they are going to bring water if it is the first problem of Calakmul and the network that is extracted from three wells of the community of Centenario, near the Laguna de Silvituk. In optimal conditions it only has capacity for 10 thousand people. How are you going to do this if you want to build cities and also sustain the tourism load of 8 thousand people. And their answer was totally limited and insufficient, saying that there will be specialized studies on that. That marks a terrible absence of information. I can not make a project proposal if I do not even know where I’m going to bring water,” he said.
The same happens with the president’s assertions that “they are not going to knock down a single tree”, when only the section from Carillo Puerto to Bacalar and from Bacalar to Xpujil, there are extensive areas of forest that would have to disappear, as in Halachó, Yucatan, he aded.
“There are sections that are in a straight line with the archaeological zone of Xpujil, Becán, Chicanná, Balamkú and at the other end is that of Calakmul. To be able to cross there you are going to touch the core area of the biosphere reserve and what López Obrador is saying has no congruence. He should inform himself better and that his team does not lie to him about the impacts that the project will have,” he said.
In the opinion of the Council, “what is wrong” with the López Obrador administration is that by not providing information or “inventing things”, the thinking of indigenous communities and their concept of development is minimized and discriminated.
–Report by FONDEA journalism, with support from Kellogg Foundation
Source: Animal Politico
