Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has compromised proper and efficient health care in responding to the pandemic that has affected the country’s Indigenous Peoples disproportionately.1 From February 28 to August 3, 2020, 4,178 Indigenous Peoples have contracted COVID-19 with a fatality rate of 16.5% higher compared to the non-indigenous population.2
Ignoring the impending disaster, a Presidential Decree was issued on April 23, 2020 slashing 75% of public spending affecting, among others, the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI), a government agency crucial in ensuring healthcare and support services to Indigenous Peoples.3 This move was denounced by UN Special Procedures, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples.4 The Decree also listed 38 national priority development programs, including the Tren Maya and the Inter-Oceanic or Transístmico Corridor, many of which pose threats to indigenous territories and ecosystems.
Mainly catering to international tourists, the Tren Maya is a high-speed inter-city railway running through the Yucatán Peninsula. Dubbed as the “New Panama Canal,” the Transístmico Corridor is a 300-kilometer trade railway line that crosses the state of Oaxaca, connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.5
Despite strong resistance from local indigenous communities directly affected by these projects, the President is pushing them forward, with the justification of addressing the historical underdevelopment of Mexico’s southern states. Obrador also argues that these megaprojects are crucial to Mexico’s recovery from its economic downturn caused by the pandemic.
Although mobility restrictions are significant health protocols to address the pandemic, many local leaders are now unable to conduct actual demonstrations as they remain at home to avoid contracting COVID-19. Bettina Cruz, a Binnizá (Zapotec) academic and activist in Juchitán, Oaxaca, said “(the megaprojects) are moving forward and we cannot do anything, not even file an injunction against decisions that are made. Why? Because the courts are not open, leaving us completely paralyzed.”6
On May 11, Obrador released another Presidential Decree allowing the Armed Forces to carry out policing duties until March 2024. Increased militarization in megaprojects areas heightens the threat of human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples who are openly against these projects. Pedro Uc Be, a Mayan writer and outspoken opponent of the Tren Maya said, “(Militarization) comes off as a message sent to us from the presidency to inhibit any form of criticism or act of protest.”7
Unlike the local activists, organized crime groups known to operate in collusion with state security forces and government officials were undeterred by the pandemic’s impacts and restrictions.8 In 2020, these groups were linked to a number of threats and gross human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples in relation to extractive businesses’ operations. Like the State security forces, these criminal groups are rarely, if ever, held accountable for these violations.
“Only 1.3 percent of crimes committed in Mexico are solved.”9 There is also a particular “inability or unwillingness” on the side of the Mexican government to protect Indigenous Peoples from the threats and attacks of organized crime groups.10The indifference of the government, including the justice system to resolve the land conflicts and associated human rights violations, including the humanitarian crisis have negatively affected the work of local and indigenous community representatives who have been managing communal land property in Mexico since the 1917 Revolution.
Impunity is equally apparent in cases involving indigenous women. In February 2020, protests erupted in Mexico City over cases of femicide and the impunity surrounding it.11 However, indigenous women are often absent from conversations about femicide despite having the higher probability of falling victim to it.12Impunity of violence against indigenous women is illustrated by the cases of Inés Fernandez Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantù, Indigenous Me’phaa women who were sexually tortured by Mexican soldiers in 2002 in the state of Guerrero.
In 2010, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued two judgments against Mexico that ordered a full investigation of the cases by civilian authorities and reforms in the military justice system and several public policies to address gender violence.13 After more than a decade, however, the Mexican government has shown no interest in fully implementing the IACHR’s judgements.
THE NAHUA PEOPLE OF THE EJIDO OF CARRIZALILLO DEFEND THEIR RIGHTS TO LAND, HEALTH AND LIFE AGAINST THE CANADIAN MINING COMPANY, EQUINOX GOLD14
The Canadian mining company, Equinox Gold, launched a campaign to harass the members of the ejido or communal agricultural lands of Carrizalillo, after the former failed to steer the dialogue in their favor. Thirty police patrols were deployed in the community. The Attorney General of the State of Guerrero also came to supposedly meet with both parties, but this gesture was seen more as an act of intimidation. Without the community’s knowledge, Equinox Gold representatives alleged to the Minister of the Interior, Olga Sanchez Cordero, that the community had links with organized crime and urged Mexican authorities to protect the company.
The Nahua people of the ejido of Carrizalillo have a history of resolute defense of their collective lands against extractive mining in the state of Guerrero. On September 3, 2020, they once again showed strong resistance when they collectively decided to shut down Equinox Gold operations, known locally as Los Filos mine that managed to expand its open-pit mining operation from 2,000 to 10,000 hectares.
The 500 families in the ejido accused Equinox Gold of breaching two agreements on social issues and land rental. Leagold Mining Corporation previously passed on these agreements after the 2019–2025 land lease was transferred to Equinox Gold. The two agreements which were signed by the Carrizalillo ejido inhabitants and Leagold Mining Corporation in 2019 were for temporary land occupation and on social rights. Specifically, the first includes land rental. The second guarantees medical and health support to the ejido members, educational scholarships for the children, provision of sufficient drinking water in their homes which was the community’s utmost concern, as well as ensuring employment for the local population. Equinox Gold, however, honored neither of the two agreements.
“All of the respect we were shown during the negotiation of the agreements faded away, and differences began to arise over breaches of the agreements and there was lack of transparency. Ultimately, after raising the corresponding complaints, the company began to treat us with discrimination and racism,” said the ejido in a statement.
The situation deteriorated after the government declared mining as an essential industry at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020. Equinox Gold summoned its contract workers to report for work on May 16 without implementing any health and safety protocols. After 42 workers tested positive with COVID-19, the company did not have them quarantined as protocols required. Instead, they were sent home, endangering their families and the entire community.
At the start of 2021, the ejido remained to stand against Equinox Gold despite the constant threat of organized crime groups operating in the state of Guerrero. Carrizalillo is within the so-called drug corridor where criminal groups are incessantly terrorizing the community and causing a number of murders and disappearances. The company has its own private security group, but it is common knowledge in the area that a criminal group has an existing agreement with Equinox Gold to also provide them security. People supportive of the ejido of Carrizalillo were threatened and intimidated by State authorities and organized crime groups, forcing them to leave for their safety and opting to continue their support remotely.
THE IKOOTS PEOPLE IN SAN MATEO DEL MAR, OAXACA ARE CAUGHT WITHIN COMPLEX ISSUES OF POLITICAL CONFLICT, DEVELOPMENT AGGRESSION AND ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS
On June 21, 2020 15 members of the Ikoots Peoples— 13 men and two women— were tortured and murdered; some of them burned alive and 30 others forcibly displaced.
Previously on May 1, 2020, the road to Salina Cruz— the closest city from the municipality of San Mateo del Mar, State of Oaxaca — had been blocked by people claiming to represent the authorities in Huazatlán del Río. They restricted mobility in the area, including access to health services and travel to work. On May 3, violence occurred in Huazatlán del Río when the Deputy Municipal Agent was murdered, two persons were kidnapped and tortured, several persons injured, and two houses and several vehicles set on fire by hired hit men linked to the San Mateo Mayor. The violence was viewed as an act of retaliation against the Deputy Municipal Agent who had imprisoned several persons linked to the Mayor. In response, municipal agents demanded intervention from the State and Federal Public Security Institutions. Still they did not prevent the massacre that happened the following month.
The series of violence stemmed from a communitarian fracture that deteriorated during the 2017 municipal election. The Indigenous Ikoots system of assembly-based election, which formed the “United Front of Agencies,” has not been recognized by State authorities as a customary form of government. The assembly-based election was contrary to the ballot- system, which elected the current Mayor with support from a construction company, political parties and Oaxaca State electoral authorities.
For decades, wind power and mining companies in the region have been trying to enter San Mateo del Mar and other nearby municipalities and Ikoots communities have been defending their territory against their entry. The 2017 electoral tension occurred in the context of heightened and complex conflict within the indigenous territory due to the presence of these companies.
At the core of this political conflict is the Federal Government’s persistent promotion of the Transístmico Corridor megaproject. The government has been offering money to villages and municipalities to implement the project, which is provoking divisiveness within the Ikoots communities.
The political conflict and the persistent promotion of the megaproject have contributed to the disintegration of community cohesion in San Mateo del Mar. Those who try to peacefully re-establish the traditional organization are threatened and silenced.
In addition to this complex political environment, the presence of organized crime in the Oaxaca Isthmus region aggravates the violence and further disrupts unity of the community in San Mateo del Mar. The Ikoots peoples accuse the political parties of colluding with organized crime in order to control their territory and blame them for the series of violent events in the first half of 2020.
Read and download the full IPRI's 2021 Annual Criminalization report here.
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