Chiapas Support Committee
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EZLN: The government wants to kidnap the image of Zapata
[Admin: New EZLN communiqué! We’ll publish the English translation as soon as we receive it.]
By: Elio Henríquez
San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) affirmed that like the previous ones, the current federal government “wants to kidnap the image of Emiliano Zapata Salazar so that, with his death, the defense of land will also die, the land that is like us, the original peoples, we call life.”
In a message directed to the peoples of Morelos on the 100th anniversary of the assassination of General Emiliano Zapata, signed by Subcomandante Moisés, the EZLN warned that: “the original peoples will continue in rebellion and resistance.
“The current bad government is like it’s a predecessors, except now it changes the justification: now the persecution, pursuit and attack on our communities is ‘for the good of all’ and is done under the flag of the supposed ‘Fourth Transformation’.”
He argued that: “the current federal Executive is wrong when, showing off his ignorance about the country’s history and culture that says ‘to govern’ (his beginning book is not Who governs, but Who commands), seeks to reconcile Francisco I. Madero with Emiliano Zapata Salazar; because just like Madero wanted to buy off Zapata, the bad government wanted to buy off Samir Flores Soberanes (a member of the Permanent Assembly of the Peoples of Morelos, assassinated in February), and the peoples that resist, with supports, projects and other lies.”
He pointed out that in Chiapas “the flyovers of military planes and helicopters have reappeared, as well as armed vehicles, like in the times of Carlos Salinas; of Ernesto Zedillo, political tutor of the current head of the Executive Power; of Vicente Fox after the betrayal of the San Andrés Accords; of the psychopath Felipe Calderón, and the tie and cigar thief Enrique Peña Nieto. The same, but now with more frequency and greater aggressiveness.”
Up there above they are the same… and they are the same. And reality removes the makeup with which they want to simulate a change.”
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Thursday, April 11, 2019
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/04/11/politica/004n3pol
Re- Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Residents of San Juan Cancuc reject San Cristóbal-Palenque superhighway construction
Protesting against the San Cristóbal-Palenque superhighway
By: Chiapas Paralelo
The Movement in Defense of Life and Territory (Modevite, its Spanish acronym) in San Juan Cancuc demonstrated a series of points in which they expressed their rejection of the realization of the superhighway project that goes from San Cristóbal de las Casas to Palenque.
Accompanied by the Human Rights Committee and heads of the area, the Modevite detailed in 16 points its opposition to this project, which first seeks to devastate the land, and would have an environmental impact and destruction of the ecosystems.
It would also contribute to pollution, mostly made by disposable waste, deforestation, displacement of those affected, the obstruction of roads and trails, as well as the division of the communities.
There would also be dispossession of the land, guaranty hunger and poverty due to destruction of lands and plots; it would contaminate springs, and there would be the presence and increase of violence and insecurity in communities and regions.
Finally they indicated that the construction of this project would lead to the loss of peace in the communities and violation of the fundamental rights of the peoples. Therefore, they stated that the already existing highways should be rehabilitated as a solution.
[1] Indigenous communities have demonstrated their rejection of constructing this superhighway for years! The superhighway was and still is an important part of the Plan Puebla Panamá for mega-development! After winning a lawsuit several years ago that prohibited construction of the superhighway in 2 Chiapas municipalities, we can deduce from this article that the government is proposing a new route for the superhighway. See: https://chiapas-support.org/2016/05/30/indigenous-win-lawsuit-against-the-san-cristobal-palenque-superhighway/
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Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Zapata’s grandchildren reinforce the struggle against the thermoelectric plant
By: Gloria Muñoz Ramírez
The consultation imposed by the federal Executive to start up the Huexca, Morelos thermoelectric plant, which forms part of the Morelos Integral Plan, the Nahua population responds with information caravans about the real dangers that the energy project will bring to residents of the eastern part of the state. Community by community, the Peoples Front in Defense of Water and Land of Puebla, Morelos and Tlaxcala, accompanied by experts in different areas, informs people about the direct contamination of the Cuautla River and the imminent danger from the construction of a gas pipeline in areas at risk from the Popocatepetl Volcano.
The murder of Samir Flores Soberanes, a popular communicator, social struggler and guardian of the territory, and the realization of a partial consultation (referendum) in which the ballots carry on the reverse side all the “good things” about the institutional project, further angered residents of the communities affected, who the president classified as leftist radicals and conservatives. He did not consider them that way in 2014, when the then candidate promised to throw out the thermoelectric project.
“They got involved with Zapata’s grandchildren,” they say in Morelos, while in Amilcingo they prepare to receive the National Indigenous Congress on April 9, and to take over the former Chinameca hacienda the following day, the date on which they had announced the official commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the treasonous assassination of the general of the Army of the South, Emiliano Zapata.
The organization of the peoples who are opposed to the Morelos Integral Plan, in which rejection of the thermoelectric plant won, has led them to create local fronts in defense of water, clarifying that they will struggle peacefully at all times and that they will not fall into provocations from those who, they point out, have received money from the federal delegate in Morelos, Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes, for supporting the project.
On Wednesday, Zapata will ride again through these lands, endorsing their struggle for land and for life. Definitively stopping the energy project is urgent.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Saturday, April 6, 2019
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/04/06/opinion/012o1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
What they’re saying in Mexico about Trump’s visit to the border
TRUMP: STRAW THREATS
A La Jornada Editorial
In Calexico, California, where he went to visit a stretch of wall, Trump was received with a balloon in the shape of a baby, “for his infantile attitudes” Baby Trump waves over the border wall. Photo: Xinhua.
In another turn of his speech about the border that the United States shares with Mexico, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that “for the moment” he would not totally or partially close the border crossings as he had threatened to do last Friday, when for the first time he issued an ultimatum in that regard. According to the president, for now he can suspend the drastic measure because the government of Mexico “is detaining thousands of people at its southern border.” In what seems an effort to point the perception of alarm transmitted by Trump, the US Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) closed two of the eight lanes of the entry gate located at Otay Mesa due to what it called “an unprecedented humanitarian and security crisis.”
The magnate’s statements and those of the agency in charge of customs are completely inconsistent with the reality. First, because in recent days there has not been a drastic change in the policy that the Mexican government has been applying since December of last year with respect to the Central American migrants that enter the nation on their way to the United States, much less has it undertaken the mass detentions to which Trump referred. Second, because the number of people without immigration documents that arrive in the United States is very far from the historic maximums; therefore, it is totally fallacious to speak of an “unprecedented crisis.”
In this context, the fact that the Republican politician backs down on his latest series of threats suggests pressure from the American business community for conjuring up such complete nonsense, whose consequences would be catastrophic even in the short term: just one day of commercial exchanges by that means represents up to 2 billion dollars for companies on both sides of the border. For the automotive industry in the United States the scenario would be particularly disastrous, because just one week of closing the border could see everything paralyzed due to the lack inputs coming from Mexican territory.
For the rest, the decision to suspend the reckless ultimatum shows, above all, that behind this and previous episodes is not but a propagandistic strategy designed by the old television presenter to show the image of a bold, aggressive and thoughtless macho man that that so appeals to the most backward sectors of the American electorate, precisely those whose loyalty to Trump has remained unperturbed. In sum, the causes and rhythms of these outbursts should not be sought at the border or in the migratory flows but rather in the electoral calendar of the magnate and his party.
What’s serious and regrettable about this propagandistic demagogic extend and release is that the theater of the “border emergency” restricts access to refugees and asylum seekers and it reinforces the perspective that a real humanitarian crisis is developing.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Thursday, April 5, 2019
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/04/04/opinion/002a1edi
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Marichuy: Seeking an apology from Spain, a simulation
María de Jesús Patricio (Marichuy) spokeswoman for the National Indigenous Congress Photo: Benjamin Flores
By: Patricia Mayorga
MEXICO CITY (apro)
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s request for an apology from Spain because of colonization, is a simulation, “what they have to do is to stop dispossessing communities of their land,” the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) spokeswoman, María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, pointed out.
On her visit through Chihuahua, the former aspirant to the presidency of the Republic insisted that the federal government deceives the citizens because it continues the dispossession and displacement of ethnicities in order to take possession of their territory.
The Purépecha Francisco Reyes, who is also a member of the CNI, warned that in the government of López Obrador the situation for indigenous peoples could get worse because he imposes measures and actions with the justification that has the support of 30 million people that voted for his national project, according to what the local Chihuahua publication Raíchali published.
Both agree that the promotion of megaprojects is accompanied by the social decomposition of the communities, con the pretext of development because it’s about a business in which “there’s no limit (…) they’re just screwing over the peoples.”
Marichuy Patricio Martínez said that they are not going to stop fighting so that the customs of the peoples prevail and achieve an organization from below against the destructive actions of the megaprojects.
The indigenous leader met with representatives of the mountain communities of Chihuahua, to listen to what has happened in the region since the start of the new federal government.
“It’s about a tour to see how they are resisting and to know what they think about the new government,” she said upon arriving in the northern state.
María de Jesús Patricio expressed her concern about the works announced, like the construction of the Maya Train (Tren Maya) in the country’s south, which they imposed “with a rigged consultation,” orchestrated by big capitalists that are the ones who dictate the direction of things, publishes the Chihuahua website.
The CNI spokeswoman said that the change of regime would not come because that doesn’t depend on only one person, but rather on everyone. And, in the case of the indigenous communities, many have maintained their customs with their governors, form of organization, fiestas, traditions and a cared-for territory that they have known how to maintain.
“We are justly fighting for that, for the respect of life on earth,” the added.
In the specific case of Chihuahua, she referred to the huge problem clandestine logging in various zones of the state, like in the municipality of Bocoyna, in which the four wheels of capitalism against the indigenous communities are show: exploitation, repression, dispossession and contempt.
She criticized that, in that case, the action of the authority had been contrary to the request of the residents, such as in the community of Bawinocachi, Bocoyna, in which the Federal Prosecutor for Environmental Protection (Profepa) placed responsibility on its residents for the clandestine logging that, since about a year ago, started killing off their forest.
In the settlement agreement dated January 15, 2019, the federal agency notified them that it had opened an administrative process against them for alleged omissions they could incur by permitting deforestation, Raíchali published.
“If they finish off the forest they are going to all of us,” María de Jesús Patricio insisted and emphasized the need to organize from below so that the people govern and also to prevent the destruction of the forest and the natural resources by the corporations or governments that want to impose businesses.
Patricio Martínez reiterated that there are many communities that maintain their customs and their form of organization.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Proceso
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Burial without a corpse
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec
By: Gustavo Esteva
The funeral of neoliberalism was decreed, but we do not know which corpse they will bury.
President López Obrador once again showed his desire to liquidate the neoliberal era, to which he rightly attributes a large amount of the troubles that overwhelm the country. His conviction is clear. But his personal definition of the enemy jeopardizes his intentions.
López Obrador seems sure that exiting the neoliberal world will be enough to retake the State leadership. It is true that renouncing the basic State functions to give them away to private corporations, in a way as corrupt as incompetent, is one of the worst mistakes of the Mexican governments since 1982. But before celebrating the recovery we need to know the meaning. It seems that everything changes… for nothing to change. This State leadership is used to giving away public programs to corporations and adopting the path that they are indicating.
One of the clearest examples is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. It is said loud and clear that the new plan satisfies the national interest and generates wellbeing for the people of the region. Nevertheless, even the most superficial analysis of the plan´s contents, shows that it is a dispositive that inserts the country more deeply in not it´s own logic, but into the one of private interest. It constitutes a very real threat to people in the region, because it endangers their ways of life, their traditions and their hopes.
When Porfirio Díaz created the idea for the first time, it seemed viable that Mexico to strategically use the project, which awoke huge interest among the Americans. At some moment of tension with the United States, Díaz Ordaz discovered that large portions of the Isthmus were in foreign hands, so he organized a massive distribution of ejido and communal lands as a pretext for expropriation. It was too dangerous for Mexico that these lands were not our own.
When López Portillo thought that it was his turn to administer abundance, he ordered the preparation of the project in order to invest petroleum profits in it. The project was very advanced when they discovered that they had run out of money and the risks were too high. Today, under entirely different conditions, they seek to reorder activities on the Isthmus in order to connect it to an operation that only big corporations could assume and in order to cancel an autonomous path.
The protocol of the process of the free, previous and informed consultation for the peoples and indigenous communities of the Tehuantepec Isthmus in Oaxaca and Veracruz, regarding the Development Program for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec [1] is a document that deserves a careful consideration. It is an exemplary case of the forms of the state of siege (State of emergency), when the law is used to violate itself, to twist itself. It describes the pertinent legal dispositions for the case and finds solace in the legal value of good faith, to right afterwards describe the way in which people will be betrayed in spirit and in word.
The consultation that was made in a hurry and will end on March 31 is not even “previous”. The government has already made the decision to do the program. Their actions haven´t even reached the communities involved, but decisions have been made that will affect them. Every day contracts and commitments are announced. It’s urgent for the government to process the 5 billion dollars that were promised to Trump for the area.
It won´t be a “free” consultation either. It is made according to the time and conditions defined by the federal authorities, not for the peoples, which “customs and habits” are being quickly adjusted to the demands of the process. It won´t be an “informed” exercise. The presentation has a clear bureaucratic mark, with incomprehensible terms for ordinary people and formats typical of a promotional flyer. During the meetings, the expositions are accompanied with clientele suggestions, in order to incorporate some of the projects that the communities had demanded a long time ago, therefore facilitating a positive answer. [2]
The most awful thing about this consultation is that it only “informs” about the government’s program so that the people take it or leave it without presenting options. The only way of make this consultation valid is allowing the people to choose what they really want.
The operators of the mechanism of civic participation will give good news to the president by the end of the month. He would “win” another one. They will affirm with all cynicism and ignorance, that the program it is made with civic participation and in accordance with the principle of “mandar obedeciendo” [3] (to govern obeying). The result will be used as “proof” that the peoples just want to access the forms of capitalism that prevail in the north, leaving behind their “underdevelopment”, as some of the organic intellectuals of the new government affirm.
Now comes the answer of the peoples. It has already been announced in Guelatao, when the people AMLO drove-in (acarreados) surpassed the locals to honor Benito Juárez. He will not wait.
NOTES:
[1] According to reports in the press, the Development Program for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, aka the Trans-Isthmus Corridor, is a project to revitalize the existing single-track railroad between the port of Coatzacoalcos (Veracruz) and the port of Salina Cruz (Oaxaca). The existing railroad would be upgraded to a high-speed railroad with two tracks that would carry freight between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, thus providing a Panama Canal-lite and facilitating trade with China. Both ports are designated Special Economic Zones, tax-free zones for trans-oceanic commerce. The Mexican government believes that this mega-project would promote “development” in the region and provide jobs, not only for the local population, but also for migrants from Central America.
[2] See the CNI-CIG and the EZLN’s communiqué about the referendum here.
[3] Mandar obedeciendo is a set of principles for governing and leadership that are practiced by the CNI-CIG and the EZLN.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Monday, March 25, 2019
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/03/25/opinion/015a2pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
EZLN and CNI-CIG on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec referendum
COMMUNIQUE FROM THE CNI-CIG AND THE EZLN: Another Simulated Referendum to Justify Megaproject Development on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
To the people of Mexico:
To the people of the world:
To the CIG Support Networks:
To the Networks of Resistance and Rebellion:
To the National and International Sixth:
To the media:
The plans for dispossession and destruction that the bad governments call the “Isthmus of Tehuantepec Development Program,” are for us as original peoples an announcement of the tragedy they now intend to extend through the territories of all of the Isthmus peoples.
As the CNI-CIG, we reject and condemn the bad governments’ so-called referendum, to be carried out throughout the Isthmus communities March 30 and 31, which simulates consultation of our peoples in order to impose these megaprojects of death.
We denounce the corrupt practices with which the bad governments, through their National Institute for Indigenous Peoples, have sought to divide, deceive, and intimidate our communities, offering programs and projects in exchange for yes votes in their so-called referendums, as if it were not precisely our territories and natural resources which are at stake.
The Binizzá, Ikoot, Chontal, Zoque, Nahua and Popoluca original peoples who inhabit the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz have already made clear our “NO” to these megaprojects of death, which will lead to the destruction of our territories and the death of our mother earth.
We reject the invasion of our territories by mining companies that will destroy the mountains, springs, rivers, and air, as well as by the wind power companies that use the wind as a tool of negotiation to displace us from our lands. We do not want their trains, which only transport death, nor their repressive military or paramilitary violence, which devastate our territories.
We state once again that we will not cease in our struggle to protect mother earth and our indigenous communities and territories no matter how many simulated referendums the bad neoliberal capitalist government carries out in order to impose—via war—projects that prioritize money over the life of the original peoples and of nature. On the contrary, we will continue to organize ourselves in resistance and rebellion with all those below.
We call upon all honest organizations and collectives, on the CIG support networks and on the national and international Sixth to be alert and ready to respond in solidarity to this new attempt to impose projects of dispossession.
Attentively,
March 2019
For the Full Reconstitution of Our Peoples!
Never Again a Mexico Without Us!
National Indigenous Congress
Indigenous Governing Council
Zapatista National Liberation Army
Provocations, infamy, apologies
[Admin: The EZLN and the CNI-CIG are focusing their joint resistances on the Morelos Integral Project (PIM). This article begins to explain why: Resistances to the PIM could be repeated with the Maya Train, the Tehuantepec dry canal (aka Trans-Isthmus Corridor) and other pending megaprojects impacting indigenous peoples throughout Mexico.]
CUERNAVACA MORELOS, FEBRUARY 8, THE PERMANENT ASSEMBLY OF PEOPLES -PHOTO: TONY RIVERA
Gilberto López y Rivas
Upon completing the first 100 days of the new government, it’s concerning that its ex oficio lawyers make targeted statements about those indigenous peoples, who from their knowledge and anti-capitalism, denounce and resist the renewed development, neo-indigenist and militarization policies of the Fourth Transformation.
The EZLN and the National Indigenous Congress-Indigenous Government Council were not responsible nor were the “isolated voices” of the “Zapatista environment” for the fact that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador would ratify the PIM (Proyecto Integral Morelos, Morelos Integral Project) in his speech in Cuautla on February 10, in which he reversed his public commitments in 2014 and 2018, and in which he stigmatized “leftist radicals,” and classified them as “conservatives,” without distinguishing that, in reality, they were members of peoples and communities that for years have been waging an unequal battle against the PIM, and, now, paradoxically against the new government, that defends and represents said project.
The murder of Samir Flores Soberanes, the very incarnation of that struggle, took place ten days after the presidential harangue. Pointing out, as does Armando Bartra, that it seeks to make political use of this death to “feed blood to a cause that doesn’t need it” is trivializing that murder and an unsustainable political infamy. Samir is a symbol of the struggle of the peoples that remember with admiration and respect their teachings. Amilcingo, his birthplace, becomes the epicenter of mobilizations like the Emerging National Assembly versus State Violence and Self-determination of the Peoples, held on March 9, in which the current government was characterized, in fact, as a continuity of neoliberalism, calling for a national and international mobilization next April 10 in Chinameca, and declaring AMLO a “persona non grata” in Morelos: “We will not permit –participants in this assembly assert– that the death of our caudillo of the south is insulted with the presence of one who seeks to impel death projects on Zapatista land.” The resistances to the PIM could be repeated with the Maya Train, the Tehuantepec dry canal and other megaprojects at the doorstep.
The apologists of AMLO’s achievements in his first 100 days seem to not take into account the unavoidable reality of the profound gap between the original peoples and a government that already decreed the end of neoliberalism, in the “100 days that moved Mexico” (sic). Of course, as indigenous peoples organized in defense of their territories and their autonomic processes, it’s not a priority on the governmental agenda, except when it refers to the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), which as of today has not made one single statement about the Morelos Integral Project and the continuity of the violence against those who struggle in defense of Mother Earth, like Samir.
The INPI is carrying out consultations in communities formally comply with Convention 169 of the ILO, although Victoria Tauili-Corpuz, the UN’s special relator on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, already firmly expressed her concerns to the current government about the obligations contracted in this regard by the Mexican State, in accordance with the constitutional context and the international treaties in effect.
Also, from the ambits authorized, difficult of being accused of “conservative” and “ultra-leftist,” emerge critical observations that coincide with those sustained by community resistances. Greenpeace lamented the little attention of the current government, “beyond the discourse,” to the theme of the environment, and evaluated that in just 100 days of government President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policies –on environmental and energy matters– profile Mexico in the direction of a climate disaster. Among the five points on which such affirmation is sustained, specifically, the reactivation of the thermoelectric plants, like the one in Huexca.
Within this context of authoritarianisms from the power: To what hypothetical dialogue does Bartra refer and who is hindering it when consultations are imposed from the federal Executive that have been considered illegal, illegitimate, in violation of the collective rights of the original peoples? Is it dialogue with the delegate of the Presidency of the Republic in Morelos, Hugo Éric Flores, a systematically questioned operator that harassed the dignified people of Huexca with his presence on the night of last March 5, without being invited by a community assembly, accompanied with public force, and offering patronizing and corporative aid that seeks to buy consciences and, that yes, fraction and divide communities? Is it dialogue with the prosecutor that “investigates” Samir’s murder, insulting his memory and the ethical integrity of the atmospheres of family and struggle? Is it dialogue with one who only listens to the echo of his word made law?
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Friday, March 22, 2019
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/03/22/opinion/016a2pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
The Maya Train would threaten Palenque because of tourist overpopulation
Temple of the Inscriptions, Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico.
By: Andrés Domínguez
“The maximum capacity is 700,000 visitors, but we will adhere to our management program, which has already happened in other areas where the buffer capacity is exceeded and that has put the area at risk” Julio César Romaní Cortés said, National Director in charge of Palenque for the National Commission for Natural Protected Areas (CONANP, its acronym in Spanish), regarding the 8 million tourists estimated to visit Palenque annually thanks to the Maya Train project.
Romani Cortés, also the director of the Agua Azul Cascades flora y fauna protection area, indicated that a management program already exists, in which are defined what extractive and non extractive activities can be carried out, besides the support capacity that the area to not be affected could have.
Also, the director indicated that as of now they don’t know much about the Maya Train, to the extent that they have not even approached them or delivered studies about the impact that the influx of tourists in the natural protected areas of Palenque and the Agua Azul Cascades could have.
Therefore, he stated that inside the public use areas of Palenque 450,000 people are received annually, with support of up to 700,000. Given that, the Maya Train project, which according to estimates from the National Tourism Fund (Fonatur, its Spanish acronym) would bring more than 8 million visitors, “beyond what can be done,” he added.
The director of one of the zones of the most national and international tourist attraction in the country, he communicated that there have already been cases of overpopulation of tourists in a natural protected area, which have put the areas at risk, closing them and therefore the authorities seek more controls for regulation.
With respect to the projection that the State Secretary of Tourism, Katyna de la Vega, will make about the creation of 9 eco-tourist centers close to the Maya Train, he said: “I have no qualms about whether they create one or ten, you just have to consider the sites to visit, since they all have a limit of acceptable exchange, because upon it being exceeded the place and its environment could be at risk.”
Romani Cortés, insisted on saying that the capacity that the Palenque area can support is 700,000 people and that: “those will be the ones they allow to pass.” However, he did not rule out the opening of new spaces that would undoubtedly benefit the local and national economy, through the new attractive places, which diversifies the offer.
However, he urged respect for the normative system that already exists, like the management system, which will be the one they will follow and apply for the purpose of not affecting the biodiversity present inside of a protected area.
“If there is a path that accepts the visitation of 200 people per day, but then they ask us to let 1,000 enter, the contamination and support would reach its limit. Therefore, we have to talk to the population, since that would harm a place, under a strict norm and geographic, faunal, spatial y floristic analysis” he said.
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Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas Paralelo
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Evangelical power against feminism
Brazilian women take to the streets to protest the election of Jair Bolsonaro.
By: Raúl Zibechi
At some point in the next few years, the evangelical wave will reach all the Latin American countries because it’s growing exponentially and it’s becoming a social and political tsunami capable of modifying the scenarios to which we are accustomed. So we should learn something about what is happening where that wave has been imposed.
Brazil is the most symptomatic case of Evangelical and Pentecostal growth. The studies that are appearing show that the victory of Jair Bolsonaro was possible thanks to the Evangelical electorate. (goo.gl/YbPEoW). Among the Catholic population there was a tie between Bolsonaro and the PT’s candidate, Fernando Haddad. Among other religions, as well as among atheists and those who don’t profess any religion, there was a slight majority in favor of the candidate of the left.
But the difference was overwhelming among the Evangelical population, among which it got more than double the votes and obtained a difference of 11 million votes, which marked his triumph. Other analyses estimate that he obtained the greatest difference among poor and Evangelical women, where the difference in favor of the extreme right would be even greater.
The change in religious tendencies is very important in Brazil, although other countries in the region seem to be producing a similar although more attenuated process. In 1950, Catholics represented 93.5 percent of the population and Evangelicals 3.4 percent. In 2010 the Catholic population had fallen to 64 percent and the Evangelical climbed to 22 percent.
In 2017, an investigation carried out by a foundation linked to the PT, showed that among residents of the urban peripheries of large cities individualist values were advancing that favored conservative behaviors (goo.gl/3LtZJT).
One of the most interesting works, because of its qualitative character, was carried out in Morro da Cruz, the largest poor periphery of Porto Alegre, which had stood out since 1990 because of its increasing politicization through the participatory budget that the PT implemented in that city. The neighborhood voted massively for Lula, but in 2018 it turned over massively for Bolsonaro.
The first conclusion of the anthropologist Rosana Pinheiro, one of the study’s organizers, says that: “it’s impossible to separate Bolsonaroism from anti-feminism” (goo.gl/HHVNuF). Observing the changes in the same population over a decade, allowed them to understand with greater detail the deep motivations of those who turned to the extreme right. Their conclusions are tremendous, although they contradict other studies.
Since 2014, the economic crisis, has dramatically affected the peripheries that felt the political system abandoned them. In parallel, since the June 2013 protests a new popular mobilization of women, blacks and LGBT was born. “For teenagers from the periphery, Bolsonaroism was a reaction to the new generation of feminist girls, which was unprecedented in Brazil,” the investigator concludes.
Many husbands supported Bolsonaro “as a way of attacking women, who are now more empowered,” she adds. Among other reasons, it’s because it’s impossible to separate the “macho crisis” from the economic crisis, since both feed each other.
The struggle for the recognition of black minorities, LGBT and women was deployed in Brazil just in the last five years. According to Pinheiro, a large part of the population experiences tension and insecurity with their identity, “divided between the role of the oppressed and the desire to be on the side of the oppressor.” She concludes: “As a consequence of colonization, there is also a constant struggle to be/ to seem part of the elite. That explains why so many poor people, blacks, women and LGBT supported Bolsonaro.”
I believe that these analyses illuminate some problems that we have in the antisystemic movements to confront the new right.
The first problem is that there is no other path than territorial work with the popular sectors, direct, without shortcuts, institutions or social policies. Only a militant presence in the territory can allow us to reverse this situation. We cannot attribute our failures to either the social networks or to the media (which do their part), but rather to our abandonment of the popular territories.
The second is that it’s urgent to address the place of men, in general, and that of poor young men, in particular. In a broader work, Pinheiro and her colleague Lucia Mury Scalco, maintain that one of the decisive factors in the formation of “Bolsonaro youth” was “the loss of social leadership and the sensation of the destabilization of hegemonic masculinity” (goo.gl/ZkGhYH).
We have become badly accustomed to the fact that macro policies, inspired in the World Bank, can solve political problems. The social technologies of above cannot substitute for organization and militancy that, like popular education, are the only ones capable of modifying the realities of below.
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Originally Published in Spanish by La Jornada
Friday, March 15, 2019
https://www.jornada.com.mx/2019/03/15/opinion/016a1pol
Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee
Chiapas Support Committee 