Road Block to Stop Theft of Water from Yaqui Peoples

14 July 2013 Vícam, Sono­ra, Méx­i­co – Tra­di­tion­al Author­i­ties and the Yaqui peo­ple remain firm more than a week after the start of their road block of the inter­na­tion­al high­way 15 (Mex­i­co-Nogales) near the com­mu­ni­ty of Vícam, announc­ing that they will take stronger actions. The action is in response to the state government’s refusal to stop the oper­a­tion of the Inde­pen­dence Aque­duct that has ille­gal­ly extract­ed the first vol­umes of water from the El Novil­lo dam.

Extrac­tion began in ear­ly May, even though the state gov­ern­ment did not have per­mis­sion from the Nation­al Water Com­mis­sion (CONAGUA) to trans­fer the water. There is also a Supreme Court (SCJN) res­o­lu­tion that rat­i­fied pro­tec­tion for the tribe pend­ing the Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment (MIA), which is required to legal­ly begin tak­ing the water.

On May 8, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the tra­di­tion­al author­i­ties of Vícam, cit­ing the dossier 631/2012 for vio­la­tion of their right to con­sul­ta­tion by the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources (SEMARNAT). How­ev­er, nei­ther the Sono­ra state gov­ern­ment nor fed­er­al author­i­ties have com­plied with the Supreme Court’s deci­sion to stop con­struc­tion of the Inde­pen­dence Aque­duct. On the con­trary, they have con­cealed the con­tin­u­al oper­a­tion of the water pumps that CONAGUA helped to install to suck water from the Rio Yaqui near the dam El Novil­lo.

Since the announce­ment of the con­struc­tion of the project through the media – the Yaqui were nev­er direct­ly con­sult­ed – the tribe has denounced the theft of water nec­es­sary for its exis­tence, the ille­gal­i­ty of the work and, above all, what they con­sid­er an effort to exter­mi­nate them by the Gov­er­nor of Sono­ra, Guiller­mo Padres Elias. Elias was backed by then-Pres­i­dent Felipe Calderon and now has the tac­it sup­port of Pres­i­dent Enrique Peña Nieto, who has not spo­ken out or vis­it­ed the state despite his cam­paign promis­es.

In Sept. 2011 and Nov. 2012, the tribe exer­cised its right to protest, inter­mit­tent­ly blockad­ing roads. As time passed with no response from any author­i­ties or respon­si­ble par­ties, the block­ades became semi-per­ma­nent on the high­ways, local roads and trails that con­nect the south and north of the state.

Cur­rent­ly, the block­ade is on a high­way locat­ed in an area rec­og­nized as Yaqui ter­ri­to­ry by pres­i­den­tial decrees in 1937 and 1940. The roads that con­nect to it pass through pri­vate­ly leased land, but the ter­ri­to­ry remains in the hands of the tribe.

Protests south of Sono­ra began with the mega-march on May 28 in Ciu­dad Obre­gon, called “Respect for the rule of law” and led by the Tribe and the cit­i­zen move­ment “No to Novil­lo”. End­ing the march, the tribe and sup­port­ers began the road­blocks in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Cajeme to demand restora­tion of the rule of law due to the con­stant vio­la­tions com­mit­ted by the gov­er­nor of Sono­ra. After hold­ing assem­blies to dis­cuss con­tin­ued civ­il resis­tance in the Vícam Tra­di­tion­al Guard, the tribe announced the instal­la­tion of a camp with the road­block in case CONAGUA does not turn off the pumps at the Novil­lo dam.

The “Defense Brigades of the Yaqui Riv­er” called to protest near the 47-kilo­me­ter point on the high­way, vis­i­ble from the pedes­tri­an bridge. They issued a state­ment and invi­ta­tion, call­ing on, “All mem­bers of the Yaqui tribe, tra­di­tion­al author­i­ties and peo­ple in general…to par­tic­i­pate in the protest on the road in Vícam as Guiller­mo Padres ille­gal­ly con­nects a pipe to the Novil­lo dam, steal­ing water that belongs to us. This is water that is lack­ing in our ter­ri­to­ry that is used to irri­gate our lands, and to con­sume with­out get­ting sick. It is very, very impor­tant for us to revive the Yaqui Riv­er that is com­plete­ly dry now. ”

The state­ment also empha­sized that, “They have already stolen a lot of our water, so we shouldn’t allow them to con­tin­ue to divert it to some­place else; it is here where we need it. They have caused us a great deal of dam­age, so let us join our efforts and togeth­er res­cue the water for all Yaquis who inhab­it this ter­ri­to­ry. You don’t need to be a gov­er­nor, cap­tain, com­man­der or sec­re­tary to defend your right to a dig­ni­fied life. We are Yaqui and that’s enough to make your voice heard and to act.”

From the foot­bridge, where the tribe has set up tarps to main­tain the protest, there is a long line of trail­ers, trucks, bus­es and pri­vate cars wait­ing for the mil­i­tary to give the order to pass. But giv­en the absence of dia­logue with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, a solu­tion appears far off. Mean­while, ambu­lances are allowed to pass.

The Yaqui remain alert. In 2011 the state and fed­er­al police sup­pressed a sim­i­lar demon­stra­tion. Recent state­ments by the state attor­ney gen­er­al, Car­los Navar­ro Sugich, threat­ened inter­ven­tion of the police; state Sec­re­tary of Gov­ern­ment, Rober­to Romero, has ignored the author­i­ties of the Tribe; and the del­e­gate of the Sono­ra Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Trans­porta­tion, Javier Hernán­dez Armen­ta has indi­cat­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fil­ing against pro­test­ers before the Attor­ney General’s Office under Arti­cle 533 of the Law of Gen­er­al Means of Tran­sit (Ley de Vías Gen­erales de Comu­ni­cación).

The Yaqui are con­fi­dent that the only law­break­ers are Gov­er­nor Guiller­mo Padres, the “YES Sono­ra Cap­i­tal Fund” (Fon­do de opera­ciones Sono­ra SÍ) that is the finan­cial force behind the project and fed­er­al agen­cies. In the fight to save their water, the Yaquis are achiev­ing what years of gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion has sought to avoid: the uni­ty of the “Eight Tra­di­tion­al Peo­ples”. The Yaqui author­i­ties of Guamúchil Loma who have been pro-gov­ern­ment in recent years (known as “torokoy­oris”) have joined the block­ades.

Social net­works are also serv­ing to expose and report what hap­pens in Vícam, com­pared to lit­tle or no infor­ma­tion report­ed in local media. The media has focused on sen­sa­tion­al­ist aspects such as vio­lence, extor­tion, inse­cu­ri­ty, and eco­nom­ic loss­es. They gen­er­al­ly ignore the Yaqui per­spec­tive.

In the heat of sum­mer with the high tem­per­a­tures of the Sono­ra desert, day and night, women and men of all ages con­cen­trate on the side of the road. They will announce stronger mea­sures if they receive no answer. They say in the Jiak lan­guage: “Namaka­sia achaim kaabe amau tawabaane” (stay strong, friends. Nobody should stay behind). Women fix meals, peo­ple come in from oth­er Yaqui vil­lages, and the trib­al flag waves, announc­ing that auton­o­my is lived every day and it is defend­ed every moment.

Fer­nan­do, a Yaqui from the Yoeme group and a firm defend­er of water rights, makes a sign to remem­ber the ances­tors who died defend­ing Yaqui ter­ri­to­ry. “The smell of rebel­lion fills the air here in Vícam. In the faces of my fel­low brigade mem­bers, you can see the signs of our future vic­to­ry. Namaka­sia ” he con­cludes.