Commemoration of 21st anniversary of opposition to La Parota dam in rural Acapulco

Hector Briseno

Correspondent

The newspaper La Jornada
Monday, July 29, 2024, p. 14

Acapulco, Gro., A festive atmosphere was experienced in the town of Cacahuatepec, in the rural area of ​​Acapulco, where yesterday inhabitants of localities of communal assets, social organizations and activists commemorated the 21st anniversary of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (Cecop), this time with the motto For Agroecologystressing that its new mission is the fight against climate change and sustainable agriculture.

They warned, however, that the decree definitively cancelling the dam project has yet to be issued.

Cecop spokesman Marco Antonio Suástegui Muñoz said that the fight against La Parota has taken place between innocence and evil, from dungeons to freedom, and from darkness to light. Between innocence and evil, because The Death Dam project was loaded with evil, perversity and ambition, but the people of Cacahuatepec are full of dignity, principles and values..

He argued that These lands have been defended with blood, and they will continue to be defended with blood; you cannot sell what does not have a dollar sign.

From darkness to light, for there is Those of us who are in the darkness; Vicente Suástegui remains missing since August 5, 2021.

And from the dungeons to freedom, because We still have political prisoners.

Suástegui Muñoz pointed out that it is necessary for more women and young people to join the movement, and sent a message of solidarity to the parents of the 43 Ayotzinapa students who disappeared on September 26 and 27, 2014.

Finally, Suástegui Muñoz stated that the Cecop movement does not feel represented by the Fourth Transformation.

He stated: We feel betrayed, distant, forgotten, when they are in glass bubbles.

One of the spokespersons for Cecop, Rodolfo Chávez Galindo, highlighted that it has been 21 years of resistance and victory against the hydroelectric project that the government attempted to impose on the Papagayo River through the Federal Electricity Commission, as part of the Puebla-Panama Plan, which would have meant the displacement of more than 30 thousand peasants and the dispossession of lands of another 50 thousand in the communal properties of Cacahuatepec and 19 ejidos of five municipalities, with Acapulco being the most affected.

However, he stressed that although President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suspended the project, the final cancellation of the La Parota dam is still pending in writing.