By: Isaín Mandujano
The National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Government Council (CNI-CIG) announced that a federal judge granted them a provisional suspension of the presidential agreement that declares the federal government’s public works and projects [matters] of public interest and national security.
At a press conference this Tuesday, they announced that the Second District Court in Matters of Civil, Administrative and Labor Suspension and Federal Trials in the State of Puebla granted the provisional suspension of the presidential agreement.
They pointed out that with this suspension: “the neoliberal Mexican government is provisionally prevented from executing the actions indicated in its illegal agreement, like declaring its projects [matters] of “Public Interest” and “National Security,” with which it reiterates: “with cynicism, its decision to trample on the rights of anyone, using its armed groups to do so.”
They argued that indigenous peoples and communities of Jalisco, Querétaro, Puebla, Morelos, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Yucatán and CDMX, participants in the National Indigenous Congress (CNI, Congreso Nacional Indígena) filed a total of 17 lawsuits against the agreement of the President of the Republic that declares the federal government’s works and projects [matters] of public interest and national security, with which the federal public administration agencies are instructed to grant provisional authorizations for their execution.
It’s an agreement that ignores requirements established in the Constitution and in international conventions and regulatory laws; and thus violates the rights of the peoples for the purpose of enabling the imposition of infrastructure works and large mega-projects like the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Maya Train, the New International Airport of Mexico City and the Morelos Integral Project. [1]
They said that megaprojects facilitate: “a greater dispossession of Native peoples through reordering of territories, borders and populations of Mexico and Central America in favor of the geopolitical interests of the United States and large multinational capitals.”
They indicated that with the agreement of the bad federal government, they will also have all the facilities to repress the peoples who are opposed to their neoliberal policies.
“Despite the profound legal aberration that the agreement represents, in most of these lawsuits for amparos (suspensions) the judges have declared themselves incompetent, have rejected them outright or have asked us for various endless clarifications; in contrast to this negligent and complicit attitude of many judges,” they mentioned.
They explained that with this presidential agreement, the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador will have the ability to protect its own business and also that of big capital that wants to continue dispossessing the territories of the Nation and its peoples.
Members of the Coordination and Follow-Up Commission of the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Government Council called on all the Native Peoples of Mexico: “to be attentive to the imposition of the megaprojects of death and the way in which the judicial power can act in the face of the decision of our peoples to defend their rights and their territories.”
[1] One legal obligation that the Mexican government is bypassing with what is termed its “agreement,” is the obligation it has to hold prior, informed, free and culturally appropriate consultations with indigenous peoples who are affected by proposed public works projects.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 