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| "No to the Wind Farm Project" (Photo: Special) |
Mexico City - In 2004, the Spanish enterprise Preneal arrived at the municipality of San Dionisio del Mar, Oaxaca, held a meeting with the community members, who signed an attendance list but afterwards, the transnational used their signatures for their convenience as indicating acceptance by the local people for construction of a wind farm.
The comuneros [indigenous people who live and communally work lands they hold collectively], enraged because the [Spanish] wanted to strip them of their lands, their livelihood, their ceremonial center and their very existence, initiated the struggle. Tired of all the fuss, Preneal transferred their project to another Spanish company, Mareña Renewable. Today, the villagers fight against this monster of wind power, and, as they tell it, without the support of Governor Gabino Cué.
Jesús García Sosa, a comunero, a free fisherman as he is called, says that if he had known that their children are going to be professionals, engineers of the wind farm, then he would not be so worried about the sea,
"but we need the sea because for millenia the sea has sustained the Huaves [indigenous group]. Our sea is the legacy that we inherited from our ancestors, so we defend it, so it does not affect our culture, our habitat."
Jesús García says that he he read in a scientific journal of the UNAM that mangroves are ecosystems, and there is a mangrove island on the sandbar of Santa Teresa, where he lives and fishes.
The wind farm will remove all these mangroves, he adds. He recounts observing the other day the Mareña Renewables' workers measuring the mangrove plants, Why are they measuring them? The answered, "because we are going to plant them somewhere else." And then he asked himself, "Perhaps they might not know that nature put them here and not anywhere else."
The wind farm will remove all these mangroves, he adds. He recounts observing the other day the Mareña Renewables' workers measuring the mangrove plants, Why are they measuring them? The answered, "because we are going to plant them somewhere else." And then he asked himself, "Perhaps they might not know that nature put them here and not anywhere else."
It is thanks to these reasonings by the comuneros that in San Dionisio del Mar the fishermen protect their sea, its biodiversity, and their native birds.
Then, when the comuneros asked Mareña engineers what would happen to the migratory birds that come to the sandbar of Santa Teresa and cross the sea, that they would pass by because they would come across the blades generating power. The engineers answered, "well, they may make a U-turn."
The absurd response of Mareña Renewables recalls the sad and ridiculous response from the former Secretary of Communications and Transport, Pedro Cerisola who, when asked what would happen to the ducks that inhabit Lake Texcoco, blurted out,
"So even the ducks prefer Texcoco."When Jesús García tells about his concern about the mangroves, he comments,
"Perhaps the Spanish think we are fools."
The sad answer is yes. They think it so much that they have tried to deceive the comuneros by telling them that their children would find the panacea and the glory of life, wealth and peace of mind thanks to the production of energy.
Nothing is more false, because here the only winners will be the foreign companies and the big losers will be the more than 50,000 comuneros who live fishing and protected from hurricanes by the Guadalupe sandbar.
The conflict between comuneros and foreign companies began in 2004. José Murat and Ulises Ruiz, two PRI governors, did nothing for the community, and neither has the current governor, Gabino Cué, who emerged from the "left".
It is time for justice and recognition of their rights as the first and very ancient inhabitants of the place that the federal government should put a stop to this outrage in San Dionisio del Mar and the thirteen communities that would lose their food and their life with the arrival of the wind farm.
For those who do not know the residents of San Dionisio del Mar, the following words are revealing:
"We are nahuales, we are sunlight, we are clouds, we came from Peru hugging the coastline, we came from the Incas, from the time of our ancestors, although many of those who know how to read, those who know the silabario [primer that divides words into syllables] now don't even remember.
"We are air of the Isthmus, smelling the seas, we are paddling the canoes bringing food home: yawl, mullet, sea bass, shrimp, crayfish and monk fish.
"Where do we live? In the dunes area of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, state of Oaxaca, San Dionisio del Mar and the surge [of waves] from the lake above or from Santa Teresa Sea, San Francisco del Mar Pueblo Viejo and its estuary port, San Mateo and its Tileme Sea, Santa Maria del Mar and its sandbar of Santa Teresa ... "
These comuneros have received death threats. Bettina Cruz Velázquez, Carlos Beas Torres, Rodrigo Peñaloza, Isaúl Celaya López and Mariano Gómez are now hiding somewhere to stay alive even as they are pursued by the transnational enterprises for defending their sea and the land.
And if anyone is missing the spokesperson, Carlos Sánchez Martínez, defender of the community members, it is because he is also being pursued. ...
And if anyone is missing the spokesperson, Carlos Sánchez Martínez, defender of the community members, it is because he is also being pursued. ...
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