Indigenous Communities in Oaxaca, Mexico Fight Corporate Wind Farms

More than five cen­turies after Colom­bus’ arrival in the Amer­i­c­as, the inva­sion of Euro­pean pow­ers con­tin­ues to threat­en tra­di­tion­al ways of life in indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Mex­i­co.  The con­flict against the cor­po­rate takeover of the ances­tral lands of the Huave, or Ikoots peo­ple, in the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec in Oax­a­ca is just one of the strug­gles con­tin­u­ous­ly being played out in the face of trans-nation­al devel­op­ment poli­cies such as Plan Puebla Pana­ma (now known as Proyec­to Mesoamer­i­ca).

The Ikoots peo­ple of Oax­a­ca have inhab­it­ed the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec for more than 3000 years, pre-dat­ing the bet­ter-known Zapotec cul­ture in Oax­a­ca.  They are a fish­ing soci­ety that depends on the ocean for their liveli­hood; the Ikoots peo­ples’ his­to­ry is so inte­grat­ed with the sea that they are also known as Mareños (“Ocean­ers”). Now Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties are strug­gling to defend their ances­tral lands from multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions who want to build wind tur­bines in the water along the coast, in the very ocean that has sup­port­ed their way of life for cen­turies.

In April of 2004, the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Ener­gy (DOE) and the US Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (USAID) spon­sored a study to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of wind projects in the state of Oax­a­ca, which found that the best area for wind project devel­op­ment was in the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec, in the heart of the ances­tral Ikoots ter­ri­to­ry. [1]  The pro­posed Par­que Eoli­co San Dion­i­sio (San Dion­i­sio Wind Park), a wind farm to be con­struct­ed in the ocean along the coast, would con­sist of 102 wind tur­bines in the water out­side the town of San Dion­i­sio del Mar (and 30 more out­side neigh­bor­ing San­ta Maria del Mar), two elec­tric trans­former sub­sta­tions, six access paths and addi­tion­al sup­port struc­tures. [2] It would take up 27 kilo­me­ters of coast­line.  The multi­na­tion­als imple­ment­ing the project have also informed the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment that they will need to install 5 moor­ing docks in the Lagu­na Supe­ri­or, a coastal lagoon that local com­mu­ni­ties heav­i­ly depend on for fish­ing. [3]

The con­struc­tion of wind tur­bines would have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on both Ikoots soci­ety and the envi­ron­ment.  The com­mu­ni­ty fears that the vibra­tion from the machines would destroy the aquat­ic life in the area, which is the eco­nom­ic basis of sur­vival for Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties such as San Dion­i­sio del Mar, San Mateo del Mar and San Fran­cis­co del Mar.  “This is the life of the poor: we fish so we can eat and have some­thing to sell, to have a bit of mon­ey.  They say that now that the wind project is here, they’ll give us mon­ey for our land and sea, but the mon­ey won’t last for­ev­er.  We don’t agree with this. How are we going to live?” says Lau­ra Celaya Altami­ra­no, a res­i­dent of Isla Pueblo Viejo and the wife of a fish­er­man. [4] The wind tur­bines also present a threat to migra­to­ry birds and would dam­age the ecosys­tems of the local man­grove swamps.  In addi­tion, the pro­posed con­struc­tion would des­e­crate Ikoots sacred ter­ri­to­ry, name­ly the Isla de San Dion­i­sio and the Bar­ra de San­ta Tere­sa (known by the Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties as Tileme).

The pro­posed loca­tion for the aquat­ic wind farm is San Dion­i­sio del Mar, a town of about 5000 res­i­dents.  The project in San Dion­i­sio is being imple­ment­ed by a con­sor­tium called Mareña Ren­ov­able, which con­sists of the glob­al invest­ment bank Mac­quar­ie, based in Aus­tralia; the Dutch invest­ment group PGGM; and the Mit­subishi Cor­po­ra­tion of Japan.  It includes tur­bines con­struct­ed by the Dan­ish Com­pa­ny Ves­tas Wind Sys­tems, and the involve­ment of two wind pow­er com­pa­nies:  Grupo Pre­neal of Spain, and DEMEX of Mex­i­co.  The project also has fund­ing from the Inter-Amer­i­can Devel­op­ment Bank. [5] The elec­tric­i­ty from the farm would be used to pow­er such cor­po­rate giants as FEMSA (based in Mex­i­co, the largest bev­er­age com­pa­ny in Latin Amer­i­ca), Coca-Cola, Heineken, and oth­er multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions. [6]

A total dis­re­gard for the envi­ron­ment and the liveli­hoods of local peo­ple is par for the course when multi­na­tion­als step in to take over com­mu­nal lands for prof­it.  In the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec, wind pow­er com­pa­nies have been exploit­ing local com­mu­ni­ties for years, pres­sur­ing farm­ers (most with lit­tle for­mal edu­ca­tion) to sign con­tracts they often don’t under­stand in order to give up their rights to land that has been held com­mu­nal­ly for gen­er­a­tions. “Oax­a­ca is the cen­ter of com­mu­nal landown­er­ship. There is prob­a­bly no worse place to make a land deal in Mex­i­co,” says Ben Cokelet, founder of the Project on Orga­niz­ing, Devel­op­ment, Edu­ca­tion, and Research.[7] Devel­op­ers held meet­ings with locals in which mod­el wind­mills the size of din­ner plat­ters were shown; they were led to believe they could con­tin­ue farm­ing around them. Lat­er they were shocked to see 15-to-20-sto­ry tur­bines con­struct­ed, tak­ing up acres of their land.  Devel­op­ers pay the farm­ers a pit­tance in exchange for their land, often pay­ing only 1/5^th of what they would pay for sim­i­lar land in the US, or 1/7^th of what they would pay the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment for the same land.  And, in a move that exac­er­bates ten­sion in the com­mu­ni­ty, local lead­ers are giv­en bet­ter deals for their land in order to make the process more appeal­ing to the rest of the pop­u­la­tion: “The first guy or two that bites gets [$8] per square meter. That’s a hun­dred times bet­ter con­tract than the oth­er peo­ple,” says Cokelet. “But the 98 per­cent of farm­ers who sign after­wards sign on for rock-bot­tom prices. Those one or two peo­ple who bite – they don’t bite because they’re lucky. They bite because they know some­one. And their job … is to sell it to all their neigh­bors.” [8]

There are cur­rent­ly 14 wind farms built on land in the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec, with 4 under con­struc­tion in 2012 and 3 more sched­uled for 2013. [9]  Accord­ing to the Declaración de San Dion­i­sio del Mar, released on Sep­tem­ber 17 by the indige­nous rights orga­ni­za­tion UCIZONI (La Unión de Comu­nidades de la Zona Norte del Ist­mo — The Union of Com­mu­ni­ties in the North Zone of the Isth­mus), the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the 14 exist­ing wind farms have not ben­e­fit­ed from low­er elec­tric­i­ty rates; rather, the inten­tion of the farms is clear­ly to serve the inter­ests of transna­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions such as Coca-Cola, Wal­mart, Nes­tle, Bim­bo and oth­ers. [10] The wind tur­bines in San Dion­i­sio are the first pro­posed tur­bines to be built in the sea.  Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties would not even ben­e­fit from the jobs cre­at­ed by the wind tur­bines; the con­struc­tion and main­te­nance of the wind tur­bines would most cer­tain­ly be giv­en to employ­ees of the multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions fund­ing the project, not to local fish­er­men.

The Ikoots com­mu­ni­ty of San Dion­i­sio del Mar did not con­sent to this project, nor were they even informed that it was under con­sid­er­a­tion.  The Inter­na­tion­al Labour Orga­ni­za­tion, a Unit­ed Nations agency deal­ing with labor rights, specif­i­cal­ly states in its Con­ven­tion 169 (Con­ven­tion on Indige­nous and Trib­al Peo­ples) that “spe­cial mea­sures… be adopt­ed to safe­guard the per­sons, insti­tu­tions, prop­er­ty, labour, cul­tures and envi­ron­ment of these [indige­nous] peo­ples. In addi­tion, the Con­ven­tion stip­u­lates that these spe­cial mea­sures should not go against the free wish­es of indige­nous peo­ples.” Mex­i­co rat­i­fied this con­ven­tion in 1990. [11] In this case, there was no pub­lic forum or announce­ment regard­ing the con­struc­tion of the wind farms.

“A com­mon prac­tice of for­eign busi­ness­es is to ‘buy’ [via bribes] the local PRI­ista author­i­ties,” says Car­los Beas Tor­res, a leader and co-founder of UCIZONI and a well-known activist for indige­nous rights. In 2004, Alvaro Sosa, the then-pres­i­dent of the “comis­ari­a­do de bienes comu­nales” (essen­tial­ly, the com­mis­sary for the ter­ri­to­ry held in com­mon by the com­mu­ni­ty), signed a pre­lim­i­nary con­tract rent­ing a sec­tion of land to the Span­ish cor­po­ra­tion Pre­neal with­out the knowl­edge of the town’s res­i­dents. The 30-year con­tract that gave the multi­na­tion­als access to 1643 hectares of land; Sosa did not inform the com­mu­ni­ty of this action and accept­ed bribes in exchange for his consent.[12]  The peo­ple of San Dion­i­sio del Mar did not find out about the exis­tence of this con­tract until late in 2011, when the munic­i­pal pres­i­dent, Miguel López Castel­lanos (a mem­ber of the Par­tido Rev­olu­cionario Insti­tu­cional, or PRI), again with­out con­sult­ing the com­mu­ni­ty gave his per­mis­sion for the con­sor­tium Mareña Ren­ov­ables to begin con­struc­tion of wind tur­bines in exchange for a pay­ment of between 14–20 mil­lion pesos (between $1–1.5 mil­lion USD). The multi­na­tion­als claim to have giv­en him 20 mil­lion pesos, but Lopez Castel­lanos only admits to receiv­ing 14 mil­lion pesos. [13]

Upon this dis­cov­ery, the res­i­dents of San Dion­i­sio held a pub­lic assem­bly where they demand­ed that the munic­i­pal pres­i­dent revoke his con­sent for the wind farm, which he refused to do. In Feb­ru­ary, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the com­mu­ni­ty met with DEMEX in Mex­i­co City to request that the con­tract process start over, but were turned down. [14] Thus the strug­gle for con­trol of the Ikoots’ ances­tral land began.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, an intense resis­tance move­ment against the wind farm has surged in San Dion­i­sio del Mar.  The towns­peo­ple have ini­ti­at­ed a legal bat­tle in the Tri­bunal Uni­tario Agrario (Agrar­i­an Uni­tary Tri­bunal), the gov­ern­ment agency in charge of set­tling agrar­i­an dis­putes, in an attempt to nul­li­fy the con­tract.  How­ev­er they are also tak­ing direct action in an attempt to defend their land.  In late Jan­u­ary 2012, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers took pos­ses­sion of the munic­i­pal palace in San Dion­i­sio in protest, eject­ing munic­i­pal pres­i­dent Miguel López Castel­lanos, cre­at­ing the Asam­blea Gen­er­al del Pueblo de San Dion­i­sio (Gen­er­al Assem­bly of the Peo­ple of San Dion­i­sio), and declar­ing them­selves in resistance.[15]  In April, the San Dion­i­sio com­mu­nal assem­bly pre­vent­ed employ­ees of the multi­na­tion­als from lay­ing out access roads in the Bar­ra de San­ta Tere­sa, and set up a per­ma­nent watch to make sure the con­trac­tors do not return. [16] In Sep­tem­ber, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers orga­nized a nation­al encuen­tro (or gath­er­ing) in San Dion­i­sio, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of around 300 peo­ple from 25 dif­fer­ent indige­nous and activist orga­ni­za­tions from 6 dif­fer­ent states in Mexico.[17]  The intent of the encuen­tro was not only to raise aware­ness on what was hap­pen­ing on Ikoots land, but also to cre­ate a large-scale nation­al plan of action to resist megapro­jects such as the wind farms. “It’s prac­ti­cal­ly a sec­ond Span­ish Con­quest; they’re com­ing again to snatch our land with a con­tract that is com­plete­ly advan­ta­geous, dra­con­ian and in vio­la­tion of our rights as indige­nous peo­ple,” says Jesús Gar­cía Sosa, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Asam­blea Gen­er­al. [18]

The resis­tance move­ment con­tin­ues to grow despite threats and intim­i­da­tion, as well as actu­al phys­i­cal attacks on com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers com­mit­ted by oppos­ing polit­i­cal fac­tions. The gen­er­al con­sen­sus is that these fac­tions are being paid by the multi­na­tion­als involved to ham­per resis­tance to the devel­op­ment project. On August 25, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Asam­blea Gen­er­al named Moisés Juárez Muriel was bru­tal­ly attacked while walk­ing home in the evening by two men who beat him with stones. He was tak­en by two com­pañeros in resis­tance to the IMSS-Com­pla­mar clin­ic, where he was refused treat­ment because the clin­ic was under con­trol of the munic­i­pal pres­i­dent. [19] In mid-Sep­tem­ber, imme­di­ate­ly after the con­clu­sion of the encuen­tro in sup­port of the Ikoots com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in resis­tance, a group of heav­i­ly armed indi­vid­u­als sur­round­ed the munic­i­pal palace that the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers were occu­py­ing, point­ing guns at and intim­i­dat­ing the peo­ple who were guard­ing the build­ing. [20]

Resis­tance move­ment lead­ers have also received pub­lic death threats from polit­i­cal par­ties and anony­mous sources. On Octo­ber 6, a group of PRI agi­ta­tors marched through San Dion­i­sio, mak­ing spe­cif­ic death threats against Bet­ti­na Cruz Velazquez, a well-known human rights activist and founder of the Asam­blea de los Pueb­los Indí­ge­nas del Ist­mo de Tehuan­te­pec en Defen­sa de la Tier­ra y el Ter­ri­to­rio (Assem­bly of Indige­nous Peo­ples of the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec in Defense of Land and Ter­ri­to­ry). Cruz Velazquez is deeply involved in the resis­tance move­ment against the wind project. Human rights groups in Mex­i­co have for­mal­ly asked the gov­er­nor of Oax­a­ca, Gabi­no Cué Mon­teagu­do, to guar­an­tee her safe­ty.  [21] Car­los Beas Tor­res of UCIZONI has received threat­en­ing phone calls for his pub­lic stance in oppo­si­tion of the project. [22]

In some cas­es, attempts to stop resis­tance sup­port have led to clashess. In mid-Octo­ber, two orga­ni­za­tions, El Frente por la Defen­sa de la Tier­ra (The Front for the Defense of the Earth) and UCIZONI sent a car­a­van of sup­port attempt­ing to bring food and sup­plies to the com­mu­ni­ty in resis­tance in San Dion­i­sio. A block­ade was set up by armed PRI­ista sym­pa­thiz­ers of the munic­i­pal pres­i­dent, Miguel López Castel­lanos, to keep the car­a­van from pass­ing. [23] A vio­lent con­fronta­tion ensued.

“The store own­ers in San Dion­i­sio belong to the PRI and refuse to sell food to the peo­ple resist­ing the wind project,” says Car­los Alber­to Ocaña, whose father (a native of San Dion­i­sio) was the dri­ver of the first truck in the sup­ply car­a­van. “When the car­a­van approached the town, it was stopped by a block­ade of about 70 peo­ple. They had guns, machetes, and gaso­line for set­ting the cars on fire.  My father was in the first truck with five oth­er peo­ple. They PRI­is­tas in the block­ade pulled them out of the truck and start­ed beat­ing them.” The police even­tu­al­ly arrived, but the car­a­van was unable to pass the bar­ri­cade to reach San Dion­i­sio and even­tu­al­ly it was forced to turn back with­out deliv­er­ing the sup­plies.

On Octo­ber 17 and 18, mem­bers of the Asam­blea Gen­er­al of San Dion­i­sio, UCIZONI, la Asam­blea de Pueb­los Indí­ge­nas del Ist­mo en Defen­sa de la Tier­ra y el Ter­ri­to­rio, la Alian­za Mex­i­cana por la Autode­ter­mi­nación de los Pueb­los (Mex­i­can Allaince for the Self-Deter­mi­na­tion of the Peo­ple, AMAP), and a half dozen oth­er groups held protests in Mex­i­co City. They held ral­lies in front of the Inter­amer­i­can Devel­op­ment Bank, Mit­subishi, Coca-Cola, Ves­tas, and the Dan­ish embassy. Their goal was twofold: to impede the con­struc­tion of the wind park in San Dion­i­sio, but also to pub­licly denounce the envi­ron­men­tal and cul­tur­al dam­age that threat­ens the Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties of the Isth­mus. They were received and allowed to present writ­ten com­plaints at the Inter­amer­i­can Devel­op­ment Bank, Ves­tas, and the Dan­ish embassy.  oca-Cola-FEM­SA refused to meet with them. [24] As of this writ­ing, the Ikoots com­mu­ni­ties’ strug­gle against cor­po­rate takeover con­tin­ues; in Novem­ber rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the com­mu­ni­ty will trav­el to the Nether­lands, with the sup­port of Dutch unions, to present a let­ter of protest in per­son to the Dutch invest­ment com­pa­ny PGGM.  In the words of Asam­blea Gen­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jesús Gar­cía Sosa, “We will not allow that busi­ness and gov­ern­ment to yet again dis­place us from our ter­ri­to­ry, which sym­bol­izes our very life, our moth­er, our father; we can’t sell it to them or put a price on it, much less in exchange for projects of death and plun­der.” [25]

On Octo­ber 30th, Pres­i­dent Felipe Calderon Hino­josa, who was in Oax­a­ca to inau­gu­rate a new high­way, also trav­elled to inau­gu­rate the Piedra Larga Wind Park. Calderon salut­ed the project, cit­ing it as a solu­tion to pover­ty and cli­mate change, and men­tion­ing the “addi­tion­al income” the res­i­dents of the town Unión Hidal­go would receive for allow­ing the tur­bines to be installed on their com­mu­nal land.

Mean­while, 300 meters out­side the park, theirn entrance blocked by nation­al police, near­ly 200 peo­ple from dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties in the region includ­ing San Mateo del Mar, San Dion­i­sio del Mar, San Fran­cis­co del Mar, Unión Hidal­go, Juchitán, San­ta María Xadani and the UCIZONI, protest­ed the park’s open­ing. [26]

FOOTNOTES

1. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Oct. 14 2012.

2. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

3. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Apr. 21 2012.

4. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

5. Recharge News, Mar. 12 2012.

6. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Apr. 23 2012.

7. Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, Jan. 26 2012.

8. Ibid

9. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Oct. 11 2012.

10. UCIZONI state­ment, Sept. 17 2012.

11. Inter­na­tion­al Labor Orga­ni­za­tion Con­ven­tion 169.

12. La Jor­na­da, Aug. 23 2012.

13. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

14. Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, Feb. 28 2012.

15. El Sol del Ist­mo, Jan. 30 2012.

16. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Apr. 21 2012.

17. Des­per­tar de Oax­a­ca, Sept. 28 2012.

18. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

19. Qua­dratin Oax­a­ca, Oct. 9 2012.

20. Ibid.

21. E‑Oaxaca, Oct. 15 2012.

22. Qua­dratin Oax­a­ca, Oct. 9 2012

23. E‑Oaxaca, Oct. 11 2012.

24. La Jor­na­da, Oct. 17 2012:

25. Noti­cias de Oax­a­ca, Aug. 20 2012.

26. Eco Noti­cias Huat­ul­co. Oct 30, 2012.