If we go back to the XVI century, the time when Charles V entrusted his explorers (colonizers) to find the best passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, we will locate the -perhaps- first moment, in this long history, of interest -for the conquerors- to build an inter-oceanic passage that will cross the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and in that sense to be able to unite both oceans. With this look into the distant past, we can see that the need to open access routes, whether crossing the entire body of countries or continents, is a constant in this long history called colonialism.
This perception, which began five centuries ago, has endured under the same needs to promote trade, an essential condition of the capitalist mode of production, which the large international conglomerates have not renounced. The megaproject that is now being accepted with great fanfare has, as has been said, a long prehistory: under Juarez it was known as the McLein-Ocampo Treaty; during the Lopez Portillo and de la Madrid administrations, it was presented as the Alfa-Omega Plan; under Ernesto Zedillo, it was promoted as the Integral Economic Development Program for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; Vicente Fox, taking up the previous projections, included it in the so-called Plan Puebla Panama; Felipe Calderon, insisting on the initiative of his predecessors, inserted it within the Mesoamerica Integration and Development Project or Mesoamerica Project; Peña Nieto, once again promotes it within the Special Economic Zones. And surprise, the historical need to amputate the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, is now being promoted again, under the name of Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec or Program for the Development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
From the 16th century to the present, the domination and subordination of an interconnected and geographically dispersed world has seen the birth of new empires that have taken the roundness of the earth as the stage for their interests. In other words, what is called geopolitics has changed actors throughout these five centuries. Are we exaggerating when we say that the megaproject will amputate the Isthmus of Tehuantepec? The truth is that no, the only ones who exaggerate here are those who do not see the colonial continuity of this Program for the Development of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Let’s just look a little further south from where we are, towards the commercial Canal closest to our country, Panama. Amputated in the XIX century from Colombia, to be converted into a defenseless and depopulated country (under the commercial logic), which allowed the United States to establish disadvantageous agreements for the administration in perpetuity, of the Interoceanic Canal erected in the Panamanian Isthmus. This country, built under the slogan “For the benefit of the world”, is today one of the most dynamic economies in Latin America, as well as one of the largest where social inequality prevails (according to international financial organizations).
The gringos are coming to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec! Or rather, they are already here, and apparently nobody bothers, or the State has blinded them so much that they are all applauding the neo-colonial adventure of the American (mainly) and Chinese empires (seeking to position themselves) to administer this region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec under their interests of geo-economic and geopolitical expansion. How will they explain to their ancestors that they defended this territory from various foreign invasions? Or under what arguments will they justify why they accepted, submissively and applauding the entrance of the gringo empire, to completely devour this region.
Even the Federal Executive himself, has shouted it to their ears through his morning news, that the gringos come with great interest in this geostrategic region for world commerce and manufacturing. Ken Salazar has reiterated this on several occasions stating that:
Here, in this Isthmus, a place so strategic that they saw it more than 100 years ago, but it had not been developed. That is why this look to the south, we can do some great things, in the problems, if you are just there you do not get out, you know it in your personal lives, in your governments. We have to see where we can go with optimism, but also with immediate action to make efforts that will have an impact. So we as the government of the United States see opportunity, we see optimism, we see that with this project and other efforts that we are going to be making in Central America, that this region of the Americas is where the future of the economy is, and also of democracy. And it is that the values of us for all, as President Biden says, is for all the people to rise up (words spoken by Ken Salazar, in San Juan de Ulua Veracruz, on April 22, 2022).
Laura Richardson, the new head of the US Southern Command, has also reiterated the interest of the United States, in the midst of the dispute for world hegemony between the US and China, in Latin America’s lithium and water, since, as the head of the Southern Command reiterated, the natural resources of this hemisphere “have a lot to do with national security (of the United States) and we have to start our game” (https://cutt.ly/k8CyAup). The American Chamber of Commerce, which is the largest business organization in the world and the largest lobbying group in the United States, through its spokesperson in Mexico, has reiterated that this megaproject will make it possible for “natural resources, geographic location, strategic industries and trade agreements to accelerate the integration of global supply chains” (words spoken by the AmCham, in San Juan de Ulua, Veracruz, on April 22, 2022) and turn the Isthmus of Tehuantepec into a development pole under the control of those at the top.
If with this they still cannot see that this neocolonial crusade over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is coming for everything and everyone. From March 19 to 21 of this year (2023), some of the future administrators of this region will come to recognize the territory. For those dates, the Federal Executive has invited, to offer them the region, legislators from the United States, among those who have been publicly announced is John Forbes Kerry, ex-military of his country and current special presidential envoy of the United States for Climate.
If all these declarations that the United States is making publicly today about its intentionality in the Isthmus had been made in the past, and not too distant past, it would have been in the past. We know that the inhabitants of this region and the whole of this territory dominated by the Mexican State, would have rightly referred and brought to public discussion the imminent surrender of this territory to foreign interests, or in other words, the threat to our sovereignty. But this is not the case at the moment, why not? As we emphasized before, today the danger has dressed up as a leftist and from its podium it convinces its followers to surrender as instruments of submission, being forgetfulness one of its main qualities.
To conclude, it is important to never forget that a country is and will be dominated by the capital invested in it. Ken Salazar, AmCham and John Kerry are not alone in this. In this colonialist crusade that clings to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, there is a relocation of capitalist conglomerates that are relocating their global supply chains to their closest and most potential partner, the United States. In a scenario of war, pandemic and commercial disturbances, which forces capitalism to a new reorganization due to the alterations caused by it. The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is once again positioned, with increasing militarization and punitive mechanisms aimed at indigenous communities, as the heart of relocations. As it is not a megaproject only for the connection and distribution of goods to the USA, Asia, Europe and Central America, it will allow companies to insert themselves in order to regionalize the global value chains and promote the development of productive activities that generate large quantities of goods to supply the immediate market, the USA, or the international market. At the cost of the environmental, territorial, symbolic and political depredation of everything that constitutes the totality of this region.
Are we exaggerating? I wish it were so. Constellation Brands, is the company that has definitely been announced to be installed in one of the 10 polygonal areas offered by the State. This brewery will be installed in one of the PODEBI located in Veracruz, for this reason the brewery conglomerate has been given 17 concessions to extract 3,972,355 cubic meters of water. For its operation, this company requires 20 million cubic meters of water annually. And no, it will not be with reused water, because the Federal Executive has said that what is left over in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is water; and who better to take advantage of this resource than a multinational.
But this company, based in New York, is not the only one accompanying the U.S. General Staff in this crusade for the Isthmus. It has announced the relocation of a total of 400 companies from the Asian country, interested in relocating to the country. Among which, several have announced interest in coming to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, we highlight: Caxxor Group, Hyundai Motor Company, Amazon Inc, CARGILL, General Motors, VISTEON, SHELL and NESTLE, among several others that are agglutinated in both AmCham and the Global Business Council, the latter, to whom recently Raquel Buenrostro, offered the region.
Let’s go back to John Kerry, according to the Federal Executive, the visit of the U.S. legislator is due to the fact that the United States will be the main investor in the four wind farms that will be installed next to the PODEBI. According to the President of the Republic, the United States will provide resources for the CFE to be the owner of these wind farms. What they have not said is that there are also capitalist conglomerates focused on the wind sector, such as: Applied Energy Services (AES corporation); EDP Renewables; Sempra Infraestructure; TC Energy; INVENERGY; and again SHELL. And do they really believe that now it will be for the benefit of the population?
The Neo-colonization led by the United States over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will imply the commercialization, speculation and disappearance of everything that constitutes the territory, under mountains of ash and scrap thrown up by the Development Poles for Wellbeing. The American and probably Asian domination, the main goal of the crusade undertaken by the capitalist conglomerates, will make possible an almost miraculous improvement of the instruments of production and at the same time a catastrophic dislocation of the life of the 12 indigenous peoples that inhabit this isthmic region.
And as we emphasized before, today once again the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and we, who are an organic part of it, must be alert, since the new farmer who occupies the presidential chair wants to amputate our territory to hand it over to the foremen, whom he really represents. Because if we let them advance, they will come to take away our land, our memory, to close our ears and our hearts so as not to listen to the voices that warn us as an omen: it is time to walk very carefully, and defend as in the past those who came before us did, this vast territory that belongs to us, those who make the worlds and symphonies, against the gringos who come to divide up this convulsive but beautiful territory.
Five days before the U.S. tour of our territory, we tell them that: Here we will be waiting for them, with dignity and without taking a step back. For the defense of life and our territories.
Undoubtedly there are more veins that unite us than the cracks that divide us.
From the Isthmus of Tehuantepec this is our word as well as our call to be ALERT.
Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of Land and Territory – APIIDTT
Source: Congreso Nacional Indígena