Minerals, water, wood and fossil fuels are among the resources identified by the SEDENA in Zapatista Territory that transnationals want to loot.
from thefreeonline on by Chiapas Support Committee By: Zosísimo Camacho
Las Margaritas, Chiapas, October 14, 2017 – Autonomous Zapatista authorities receive María de Jesús Patricio Martínez “Marichuy,” in the community of Guadalupe Tepeyac. Photo: ADOLFO VLADIMIR / CUARTOSCURO.COM
. They are of interest to transnationals such as FEMSA Coca Cola, Frontier Development Group and First Majestic, and to the public companies CFE and Pemex.
The “complaints” of the “self-named” Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) to the Mexican State are focused on the current “mining, oil wells, super highways, highways and mega [water] wells” concessions, as well as on the construction of the Maya Train, according to an internal document of the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), dated February 2020.
It warned that the policies and development projects of the federal government in the indigenous regions, as well as the continuity of the concessions granted in previous six-year periods, have “increased the tension” between the Zapatista bases and leaders and those of the federal government.
The study Socio-political Activism of the EZLN and its Impact on the National Security, ordered by SEDENA to its Mexican Institute of Strategic Studies in Security and National Defense, pointed out tensions between the Zapatista movement and the federal and state governments due to the arrival of public and private companies to indigenous territories throughout the country. And, particularly, the intentions to explore the Chiapas territory of Zapatista “influence.”
It cited the cases of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), FEMSA Coca Cola, Frontier Development Group, First Majestic Silver Corp, Radius Gold and Blackfire Exploration.
It emphasized that at the heart of the complaints was the extraction necessary for development projects, from water, gas and oil, to timber and precious and industrial minerals.
The report placed the EZLN as one of the poles around which part of the leftist opposition to the 4T is articulated. The issues underpinning the discourse of this opposition are indigenous rights, water management, mining exploitation, electric power generation projects and the Maya Train (Tren Maya).
In the document “El Activismo Sociopolítico del EZLN” (The Sociopolitical Activism of the EZLN) — elaborated in February 2022– SEDENA identified what until then were, in its opinion, the main disputes between the Zapatista movement and the government of the so-called Fourth Transformation.
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