Chihuahua, Mexico || Imposing projects using the Trust Fund of the Rarámuri people of Bosques de San Elías Repechique violates their rights to autonomy and self-determination

Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI) is concerned about the harassment and undue pressures against the Rarámuri people of Bosques de San Elías Repechique. And calls on the state authorities involved to respect the right of indigenous communities to freely decide over their territory and the destiny of their resources.

For more than nine years, the Rarámuri people of Bosques de San Elías Repechique have faced the State's interests and private individuals seeking to dispossess them of their ancestral territory. In 2014 this community won a lawsuit against the Barrancas del Cobre Regional Airport construction. The ruling recognized their collective rights and ordered a consultation -in accordance with international standards- for the comprehensive reparation of damages.

As part of compliance with this sentence, in 2017 the state government created a Trust to finance projects for the collective benefit of Bosques de San Elías Repechique through a technical committee. One of these projects is the Bowé Najativo (Let's Stay on the Road) sewing workshop built in 2020 with resources from said Trust. The workshop remained closed for nearly 10 months due to complaints of dispossession, theft, and environmental damage filed by mestizos from the town of Creel who falsely claim to be the owners of this indigenous territory.

Recently, community members presented a series of projects based on the Trust Fund's operating rules, including the construction of a community hall in the town of Repechique, the improvement of housing, the purchase of two tractors, and agricultural inputs. These projects are still awaiting approval by the technical committee.

In contrast, the technical committee approved the expense of 31 million pesos for repairing a road with machinery and constructing a commercial center in Creel, Chihuahua. These are not needs expressed by the community nor are they in line with the objective of the Trust Fund of Bosques de San Elías Repechique, a result of their struggle for the right to decide over their territory. Rarámuri members of the technical committee denounced that officials pressured them to sign the authorization for the projects, which they did under protest.

From IPRI, we express our concern for these pressures and diversion of resources that prevent the correct reparation of the damage, as well as the authorities' lack of will to attend to the real needs of the Rarámuri people related to the exercise of this Trust Fund. We recall that this occurs in a context of systematic violations of the collective rights of the community of Bosques de San Elías Repechique related to the possession and ownership of their ancestral territory, violating their rights to autonomy and self-determination recognized in the Mexican Constitution and in Mexico's human rights obligations, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

We call on the State Commission for Indigenous Peoples (COEPI), the Chihuahua State Government, and Governor María Eugenia Campos Galván to:

1. Fully recognize the ancestral territory of the Rarámuri people of Bosques de San Elías Repechique.
2. Respect and guarantee the exercise of their rights to autonomy and self-determination.
3. Cease the actions of dispossession, harassment, and criminalization of the Rarámuri defenders.
4. Guarantee respect for the decisions of the community of Bosques de San Elías Repechique regarding the exercise of their Trust, as part of an adequate reparation of damages.
5. Address the needs of the community in terms of territory, health, environment, security, and economy expressed in the Nátiga Busuré Development Plan, derived from the work of 10 indigenous communities with the support of our partners in Mexico, Consultoría Técnica Comunitaria A.C. (CONTEC), which was presented to the State Government in July 2022.