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Mexico’s 160 Indigenous Conflicts: A National Conflagration – Part II: Land Use and Social Conflicts

By 4 junio, 2014 Sin Comentarios

copudeverMore than 160 conflicts in 24 states have been documented up to February of this year in a preliminary report by the Committee for Dialogue with Indigenous Peoples of Mexico (CDPIM) of the Secretariat of Government Relations [SEGOB].

In addition to Nayarit and San Luis Potosi, land conflicts also exist in Sonora, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Morelos, Puebla and Veracruz. But with 19 conflicts Chiapas is the most afflicted followed by Oaxaca, with six, and Chihuahua, with five. In many cases these kinds of conflicts erupt in opposition to a public work, such as in Tepoztlan, Morelos, where people are unhappy with the expansion of the La Pera-Cuautla highway, which continues to advance under permanent police and military surveillance.

Other settler clashes with authority are rooted in water projects such as the aforementioned case of the Yaqui in Sonora or Zapotillo dam in Los Altos de Jalisco, which involves the flooding of at least three historic towns. A similar situation exists in the Green River in Oaxaca, with the project to build a hydroelectric dam in the Paso de la Reina community. The artificial flooding would impact many indigenous and mestizo communities who living by the river and use the banks for farming and fishing.

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