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Rarámuris against organized crime

In defense of its territory, for years, this town has challenged drug traffickers

DOUBLE EDGE

By: Abigail A. Correa Cisneros







Rarámuris against organized crime

More and more there is less to defend; However, those who cling to the Earth and its natural resources are still fighting, despite falling like flies in a battle against large corporations, organized crime and the interests of a few who make millions, destroying forests, rivers, and mountains. and forests.

A recent investigation conducted by Mexicans against corruption, warns of the growing repression against indigenous people, especially in the state of Chihuahua, where defenders of territory are murdered - like natural resources - and communities are displaced by criminals who they have their sights set on legal and illegal logging in the Sierra Tarahumara. In this area mining projects also increased and to say of the victims, the government does not do anything to stop the massacre against nature or against the Rarámuris, who live there.

The reporters Thelma Gómez Durán and Patricia Mayorga relate the tragedies that Rarámuris families live because of organized crime and bad government, which instead of defending these territories, grants concessions to mining companies that finally end the environment. In the Colorada de la Virgen community, there have been several murders. An important businessman from Chihuahua, Mario Humberto Ayub Touche and two sons of Artemio Fontes Lugo, a local cacique, are identified as responsible for cutting down the forest and being part of the drug trafficking groups of the region and the dispossession of Tarahumara territory.

From 2001 to 2017, the Sierra Tarahumara lost 19, 100 hectares, according to Global Forest Watch monitoring data and one of the main reasons is the planting of marijuana and poppy. In Mexico, the poppy cultivation area went from 25,200 to 30,600 hectares from 2016 to 2017, according to the monitoring carried out by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Unodc) and the Mexican government. That report points out that the area is known as "El Triángulo Dorado", where the states of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua (the southern part of the Tarahumara mountain range) share territory, is among the main poppy producers in the country.

The permanent insecurity has caused the exodus of dozens of families. For almost ten years, the inhabitants of this area have been forced to work in poppy fields, almost kidnapped, and to act as assassins, otherwise, they are killed, so they flee. In the publication Diagnosis and Proposals on Violence in the Sierra Tarahumara, it is pointed out that there is "a control of the forestry activity by organized crime, control that goes from the theft of guides (documents to certify that a tree was felled in legal form), illegal and legal cutting, transportation and commercialization, or even a regional closure for opposing to sell to criminals. "

In another report from the Civil Association, Community Technical Consultancy, it is highlighted that federal environmental authorities grant permits for forest exploitation in areas inhabited by indigenous communities, "without prior consultation with this population, as established by international and national legislation."

Civil organizations denounced that at least 15 defenders of forests and territories in the Sierra Tarahumara were killed from 2009 to 2018, although there may be more but they are not in the statistics, "because they happen in areas where there is no work of organizations, either because they are very remote places, difficult to access or because they occur in territories taken by the drug traffickers, "says a human rights defender to the reporters of Mexicans against corruption.

This is a situation that worries because not only attack the ecosystem, organized crime, colluded with some rulers, try to get out of the way who gets in the way, in this case it is an ancestral town that has been occupying that territory for centuries, Rarámuris belongs to the Sierra because they take care of it, respect it and fight because it does not die out.

FROM THE CENTER

The defenders of the Earth, José Lucio Bartolo Faustino and Modesto Verales Sebastián, members of the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero Emiliano Zapata (Cipog-EZ) and the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), were assassinated last weekend in Guerrero, then of a meeting in which they organized themselves to carry out mobilizations since various state and federal agencies have refused to address the social and political demands of these organizations. They were shot by an armed group in Chilapa, despite the presence of the Mexican Army and the ministerial, state and municipal police ... And the economic situation is complicated for Mexico and the current Moreno government because it turns out that we woke up with the United States it will impose anti-dumping duties of 17.65 percent on Mexican tomato imports, putting producers in check who generate 400 thousand direct and more than one million indirect jobs. This drastic determination of the northern neighbors was taken by the expiration of the "suspension agreement" signed by both parties in 1996, when the Department of Commerce, under pressure from Florida producers, filed an antidumping petition against the Mexicans and began a research on whether that product was sold in the US market at prices below the market. According to the specialists, said "suspension agreement" has been renewed several times since 1996 to avoid the payment of countervailing duties that were then imposed and that averaged 17.65 percent, and the most recent one won this Tuesday. The concern for our government is not minor, because we must remember that our country displaced the Netherlands as the largest exporter of tomatoes in the world in 2018, with external sales for 2 thousand 261 million dollars, a record, but coast of an almost total dependence with the neighbor of the north, to whom it sends 99.7 percent of its exports. That is to say, in Mexico, the more than 3.5 million tons of tomato production represents a little more than 20 percent of the national production of vegetables, being the months of February, October, and November those of greater harvest; and the states with the largest share in the value of production are Sinaloa, with 15.7 percent, San Luis Potosí 13.2 percent, and Baja California 9.5 percent ... For its part, Eduardo Orihuela Estefan, president of the National Confederation of Owners Rurales, pointed out that this decision of the US government, activated through the Department of Commerce, will also impact the risk of the employment plant in 17 Mexican federal entities, with a total of 1.4 million direct jobs, of which more than one million correspond to the industrial plant and to companies that supply inputs and services, and around 400 thousand refer to agricultural day laborers. The following: the Department of Commerce will reactivate the anti-dumping investigation and issue its final decision no later than September 19, 2019; Subsequently, the United States International Trade Commission will issue 45 days after November 1, 2019, its final determination of the damage to the industry ... Within the framework of Mother's Day in Mexico, let us reflect: according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 80 percent of the internal female population in prisons have children, and more than 60 percent of these women are between 18 and 39 years old, even of reproductive age; therefore, some during their process are pregnant and their motherhood is fragmented at the time when their children reach six years and are sent to other institutions for their care.

abicorrea79@hotmail.com

Staff

Translator: Martín Caballero

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