They accused the authorities of committing to pave streets and electrify communities, actions that have not yet occurred.
After ceding ejidal lands so that the federal government could build the Tulum International Airport and Section 6 of the Mayan Train, ejidatarios demonstrated at the crossroads of the Mayan town of Chumpón, at the camp of the National Defense Secretariat (Sedena), on the Muyil-Felipe Carrillo Puerto stretch, Yucatán due to the non-compliance with agreements by the authorities.
About 610 ejidatarios from 11 communities of the Chunyaxche agrarian nucleus, with more than three thousand families, explained that when the sale of the ejidal lands was negotiated, an agreement with 25 points was signed that had to be fulfilled by the federal government, which was recorded in the minutes of the Ejidal Assembly held for those purposes.
“They committed to paving streets, electrifying communities where there is no electricity, providing internet service in the communities; that there would be medicines and doctors in the health centers,” they asserted.
“The repair of the road in the Chumpón-Tepich stretch, which is about 80 kilometers of short route, which is where people coming from Yucatán to work in Tulum enter; it is a very dangerous stretch because it is very narrow, there are many potholes. The request is that this state road be widened and repaired, but to date, there is nothing,” accused Román Caamal, an ejidatario from Chunyaxche.
According to the demonstrators, the agreement has been partially fulfilled, but not on the most important points, but the most serious thing is that now the federal government intends to take over another five thousand hectares of land.
“The people feel that the federal government is using all its power to take over the ejidal lands. For the indigenous people, this is a robbery, a dispossession; they are not satisfied with what the Ejido has already ceded to them, now they want to take away another 5,400 hectares from the Ejido on the side adjoining the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, supposedly to expand the reserve,” they warned.
“The truth is that this surface, our grandparents, the older people have been taking care of it for more than 100 years; it has not been touched and is a virgin area that the same community people have been caring for and preserving for many years, as if they now come to tell you that they want to take care of it and preserve it. There is no one better to preserve than the people of the communities who have kept it safe from fires and people who want to occupy those lands,” accused Román Caamal.
The interest in acquiring those lands – he assured – has to do with the increase in the value of the place, close to the Tulum International Airport.
“In fact, one of the main agreements is the regularization of lands that the Ejido has as possession. When it was sold (to the federal government) the land was almost given away and that was done because they came to pressure the community people a lot, saying that if they did not want it, the federal government would simply expropriate and the people would be left with nothing. So, the people of the communities had no choice but to accept a little money in exchange for ceding 1,500 hectares, 1,300 for the Airport and 300 (sic) for the Mayan Train,” he said.
The regularization of the agreed 14,000 hectares did not occur, but there is already a federal decree to appropriate 8,000 hectares of that surface. The rest would be delivered to the Ejido.”
“The motto ‘the poor come first’ is just a speech by the federal president (Andrés Manuel López Obrador); the Mayan Train project has caused irreparable damage to ejidal property. The lies, blatant theft, and betrayal by public servants such as Undersecretary Daniel Fajardo and government officials who only come to lie to the indigenous people to take over ejidal lands,” he said.
“Enough of so much abuse of power, enough of so many lies, theft, and dispossession. The 4T is a real farce created to use the poor,” he asserted.
Source: El Universal
