Angelica Enciso L.
The newspaper La Jornada
Monday, July 29, 2024, p. 15
Most of the mining, water and tourism projects that have been built on communal and ejidal lands are illegal, since they have been carried out without the approval of assemblies and without indigenous consultation, minutes are altered and the decision of the community members is not respected, and few have complied with the rules, warns Francisco López Bárcenas, author of the book Land is not for sale!
In mining there are 5,500 concessions in indigenous territories and I can assure you that they are all illegal, there was no consultation to hand them over.
. When the current federal government began, it was said that there was no impact from the suspension of the delivery of mining concessions, because they have so many, for about 50 years
he adds.
In an interview about the text edited by the Colegio de San Luis and Conahcyt, the collaborator of The Day Remember that the constitutional reforms of 1992 removed the inalienable, unseizable and imprescriptible character of communal and ejidal property so that it could enter the market. Despite this, the land is still communal and ejidal property, under the control of its owners.
From then on, a wave of legal and institutional reforms began that led to changes in public policies so that the lands, their natural resources and the food produced by the peasants were at the mercy of the interests of the owners of capital.
says López Bárcenas, a lawyer specializing in indigenous issues and researcher at the Colegio de San Luis.
He points out that the current limitations for communal and ejidal property to enter the market are the holding of two assemblies in which the community members authorize the transaction of their land, In practice this is complicated because the ejidatarios are not there, they migrated, and there are very large ejidos. It is very difficult to bring all the ejidatarios together.
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It has happened that when communal and ejidal land has been sold for projects, it was because the assemblies were simulated and did not meet the legal requirements. If they are reviewed, many of these lands are occupied illegally. There are some ejidos that have agreed to do business with the company, but others have bought from the ejidal commissioners and they have signed without having the authority to do so. Added to this is the fact that the consultations with the people have been simulated.
He adds that, Therefore, when the ejidos decide to take action, they always win, because the operation was illegal.
. A good policy would be to review the alleged communal and ejidal authorizations, projects would be rejected. There are some companies, the smaller ones, that do comply with the regulations to avoid problems.
he says.
He believes that the problem is with secondary laws, such as the mining and national water laws, The Constitution is good and if international law were applied, if the rule of law were respected here, many conflicts would have been avoided.
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It is specified that Generally, the consultation and the assembly requirements are not complied with, nor is it respected when the assembly says no, as is the case of Capulálpam de Méndez, Oaxaca. They have assembly minutes where they say they do not want the Natividad mining company, they have given them to all the authorities, but nobody pays attention to them.
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In the book, López Bárcenas argues that The strategy to dispossess the people is to reform the State to put the laws, institutions and government policies at the service of private capital, Mexican and transnational.
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