The National Assembly for Water and Life brought together Indigenous peoples, neighborhoods, and communities from Mexico in the Yaqui territory to discuss the mechanisms of water dispossession they suffer and, above all, the strategies of struggle they carry out to defend and protect it.
The assembly began with a statement by María de Jesús Patricio, spokesperson for the National Indigenous Congress. Marichuy stated that “Each of the communities that form part of the National Indigenous Congress has its own ways of resisting this plunder.”
“Development that destroys and kills communities is not development for communities; it is development for capital. It is development for corporations that only see dollar signs on the land, the forests, and the water,” the spokesperson asserted. The main agents blamed for water dispossession are the Mexican government and corporations.
The forms of dispossession range from illegal extraction, favoring concessions, megaprojects such as hydroelectric plants, thermoelectric plants, gas pipelines, Justice Plans, imposed Natural Areas, industrial parks, aqueducts, breweries, landfills, industrial pollution, dams, urbanization in bodies of water, among others.
“For them it’s profit, for us it’s death,” said Marichuy.
Higinio Ochoa, a Yaqui member of the Loma de Bacum People’s Water Council, welcomed more than 127 people who arrived from 17 Mexican states and one country, Argentina.
Higinio described how the Justice Plan divided the eight Yaqui communities and gave biweekly salaries to the authorities, with whom “they are openly manipulated.”
“There has been a lot of talk about the famous Yaqui Justice Plan regarding water. This is a group supposedly made up of the eight Yaqui communities called the Jiaki Commission. “But they are falling prey to dispossession against our Yaqui brothers. All this for a check,” Higinio said in a calm, strong voice. He asserted that they are betraying and harming each other, stealing water and thereby preventing crops from being planted.
He mentioned what they have experienced in Loma de Bacum to keep the government out of the community and take control of the water from the Oviachic dam. They also created the Water Council. It is the only one of the eight communities that did not participate in the Mexican government’s Plan.
“The water does not belong to Conagua,” Higinio asserted.
The people of Loma de Bacum blocked a gas pipeline from the Ienova company in 2018. Now, with the Justice Plan, they created a Water Council to ensure water management for agroecological planting and distribution to the community.
At the beginning of the assembly, they performed a ritual to express their gratitude and give their words to action. People from 16 Purépecha, Peninsular Maya, Popoluca, Nahua, Yaqui, Mayo, Ñu Savi, Mixe, Tsotsil, Tseltal, Otomi, Raramuri, Naayeri, Masateca, Chol, and one international community registered: Mapuche.
“Each of the communities has known how to take care of their territory. Of course, they know how to manage water, take care of natural resources, plants. That’s why they’re still alive, why there are communities, why there are lands, water, and why they want to take away the communities to take the riches there,” said Marichuy.
The 17 participating states are Zacatecas, Sonora, Mexico City, Querétaro, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, State of Mexico, Puebla, Veracruz, Chiapas, Michoacan, Baja California, Morelos, Oaxaca, Campeche; and one country: Argentina.
“Together we can defend this life. It’s not even for us, but a life for all those who come after us and for our territory. Here we are willing to continue this coordination of different forces to put a stop to so much dispossession,” Marichuy stated.
On the first day of the assembly, participants held working groups to discuss the questions: Who is dispossessing water, and what is dispossession like? And they answered, “What are the water defense strategies you are implementing in your regions?”
On the second day of work, they will hold the plenary assembly and final pronouncement with the declaration and agreements reached.
Source: desinformemonos
