Farmers from Irrigation District 005, representing the municipalities of Delicias, Meoqui, and Camargo, held a demonstration outside the Chihuahua State Congress on Tuesday to reject the new General Water Law currently under review in the Federal Chamber of Deputies and to urge local legislators to oppose the initiative.
As part of their protest, they parked tractors on Aldama Street, adjacent to the Legislative Palace.
The protesters, approximately 50 people convened by the organization “United Farmers of Chihuahua,” met with local deputies from the PAN, PRI, and Movimiento Ciudadano parties. They also submitted a request for the Morena party’s senators and federal deputies to appear before the State Congress.
They accused the new General Water Law of ending private ownership of agricultural well concessions and persecuting producers because it grants the Mexican government the power to limit water hoarding, eliminates the buying and selling of permits, and prohibits changes in land use without authorization from the National Water Commission.
One of the protesters, Alexa Jiménez, warned that the new legislation centralizes water management and will lead to arbitrary decisions.
Jorge Robles, another protester, warned that the regulations for the National Water Law will allow for persecution, saying, “It’s like when you sign a contract and we say, ‘You didn’t read the fine print.’ Well, here we don’t even have the fine print. They want to pass the law first, and then they’ll issue the regulations, and that’s when they’ll stab us in the back.”
Arturo Medina, leader of the PRI in the State Congress, suspended the legislative session and asked the representatives to go outside and meet with the farmers who were protesting to request support against the new Water Law promoted by the Morena administration.
Medina addressed the farmers and expressed his support for what he called an outrage, arguing that the new law promoted by Morena aims to devalue land by severing its connection to water.
He criticized Morena’s proposal for criminalizing farmers and turning water into a tool of political control by centralizing all decisions regarding this resource.
The legislator told the protesters that “in Chihuahua, we are proud of you and your courage,” and assured them that it is not easy to confront repressive politicians like those of Morena.
“Now they want to tell us who can plant crops and who can’t; who can water their livestock and who can’t… but in Chihuahua, they’re going to run into a brick wall, because we won’t back down here,” he emphasized.
The local PAN legislator, Arturo Zubía, pointed out that “five years ago, they also tried to take our water, and we had to go out and defend it because we have dignity. Today, once again, the Federal Government is trying to deal another blow to agriculture: they no longer just want to control the water from afar, now they’re trying to cut off the flow directly to our own businesses and plots of land with this new National Water Law.”
The PAN caucus coordinator, Alfredo Chávez, told the protesters that the proposed law “violates the rights of producers and, above all, harms the poorest producers. Unfortunately, this law is designed to kill Chihuahua’s agricultural sector. This law was written by someone sitting at a desk in Mexico City, someone who doesn’t know the water reality of Chihuahua.”
Source: jornada
