La Jornada
December 7, 2001
By Javier Salinas Cesareo and Rene Ramon Alvarado

San Salvador Atenco, Mexico, December, 6th. Farmer representatives of 18 villages from the Tepeaca area in Puebla joined the ejidatarios movement in San Salvador Atenco and Texcoco. The aim is to call for support from every community in the country in the fight against the Puebla- Panamá Plan and the construction of the new airport.

The farmer commission of Puebla, which is part of the Emiliano Zapata Vive organization, suggested the creation of a national front in which would participate villages from various parts of the country. This front would allow those threatened of expropriation decided by presidential decrees, to change ideas and strategies in order to show the government that times of humiliation are over.

Concepción Colotla González, representing the Puebla commission, which, since last year, keeps on fighting against the undertaking project called "Milenio', warned that, if anybody went too personal, it would be easy for the government "to be done with us." Sharing her experience with the Atenco farmers, she explained that, in the last few months, they suffered not only harassment, holding and intimidation, but also hunger, adding that: "the reason why we endured it all is because, in our land, we remain united." So she invited the farmers not to give up the fight, since "land is worth more than anything else, and we don't own it, we're only passing by." She added that: "You are privileged people because you live on a wealthy area. And the reason why we came here is that we finally understood that only the people could save the people; that that is the only true law, not the one created by men or congressmen."

They are now preparing to put up a page on the Internet.

The farmers, in full disagreement with the construction of the new airport and the consecutive expulsion from their land, are elaborating an Internet site which will allow people to follow up, through their computers, the details of the mobilization, and keep contact with the ejidatarios by means of emails.

Cuitláhuac Victor Hernández, who represents the civil association Alianza Metropolitana, and is the designer for the website, explained that it will allow the farmers to express what they feel. The site will include information about all organizations involved in the resistance, an email, pictures, and anything else related to the movement. He explained that they are aiming at attracting more people, in the country as well as in the rest of the world, so that the problems caused by the presidential decree related to the expropriation of farmers in the area, is known by a majority of people.

The organization despises the P.R.D.

Some 300 farmers, remaining firm about their commitment, walked to the municipality of Papalotla, where they managed to get together with neighbors of the area. The stream of people started from the Atenco esplanade and covered the municipalities of Chiconcuac, Chiautla and Papalotla, where, they assured, will pass one of the main roads that will be built with the new airport.

During the march, which has been done riding horses or bicycles, or in vans, an act was programmed, which was to be presided over by Juan Miranda Alvarado, leader of M-16, an organization linked to the P.R.D. However, this act was suspended because the leaders of the farmers movement refused to mount the yellow and black platform designed to hold pictures for P.R.D. meetings.

Jesús Adán Espinosa, one of the leaders of the resistance, explained that they refused to participate in the act because they considered it to be " a trap designed to label the agrarian movement with P.R.D. colors."

Juan Miranda Alvarado, who joined the resistance and was threatened by members of the judiciary police because of his participation in the movement, indicated that with the "individualistic" attitude of Ignacio del Valle, the fight against the land could not go very far. He pointed out that Papalotla has the right to hold demonstrations against the construction of the new airport because, along with it, the government of the state would decide the construction of a highway linking Venta de Carpio (Ecatepec) and Chalco together. He added that the layout of the highway would eventually lead to expropriation from ejidal land as well as from individual housing in the municipalities of Tezoyuca, Chiautla, Papalotla and Tepetlaoxtoc.

He affirmed that the latest municipality would lose a quarter of its territory, presently no bigger than 3.5 km sq., and that 80 hectares of ejidal lands of the area would face the same fate.

Despite the farmers' contempt, Juan Miranda assured that the mobilization would continue: " but within the law, not with machetes."

Translated from Spanish by Caroline Rabemanantsoa on December 14, 2001