At the Third Conference Against Neoliberalism held in the municipality of Huitiupan, Chiapas from March 19-21, 2004, it was celebrated, after many years of indigenous and campesino (small-scale farmers) resistance, the definitive end to any attempt at constructing the Itzantun hydroelectric dam.

BACKGROUND

The municipality of Huitiupan (which in Nahuatl means, “place of the great temple”) is located in the northern region of Chiapas, bordering the state of Tabasco and the Chiapas municipalities of Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacan, Sabanilla, Simojovel and Amatan.  It has been a cattle, cotton, coffee and corn producing region.  The coffee fincas in particular, kept the acasillados (people who work for haciendo/finca owners and who depend on these owners for everything – they are not paid for their work but rather receive whatever the owners offer them) indigenous peoples in humiliating and exploitative conditions for decades. In the eighties, when they tried to flood the more than 24 000 hectares of land, there were about 16 000 inhabitants in the area, 80% of which were indigenous, mainly Tzotziles and a smaller amount of Choles and Zoques.  The Huitiupan ejido (communal lands) was endowed with the lands by a presidential resolution in 1938.  Among the fauna, one finds raccoons, tepescuintles, squirrels, tuzas, otters, toucans, deer, parrots, parakeets/magpies, clarines, turtledoves, coral snakes, iguanas, flat turtles, crocodile turtle, king buzzards, armadillos, wild boars, bats, porcupines, badgers and tlacuaches.  Among the flora one could encounter ceiba trees, cedar trees, mahogany trees, hormiguillos, ocote, amates, jumbas, palas de danta, guanacastles, sunflowers and jopi as well as others.

Between 1961 and 1963, personnel from the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) carried out geological studies for the Itzantun dam project.  The CFE wanted to contract workers from the community but they were afraid; they said that the mountain “has an owner” and that there were tigers, which indeed did exist.  In the end, they recruited staff from the region, they created openings and roads for machinery and the passage of the explosives which would open tunnels in the mountains.  Ten years later they returned for the period between 1973 and 1975, opening more tunnels, building roads and even runways for small planes.  Nonetheless, the inhabitants did not know what a dam was, they did not know what the CFE was and the CFE did not provide them with any information.

The CFE would return in 1978 once the zone was declared a viable project in the valley where three large rivers unite:  the San Pedro river, the Cuculho river and the Santa Catarina river which pass through a narrow among the mountains.  According to the project, the municipal headquarters of Huitiupan and the Santa Catarina and Competencia ejidos would be buried under the water.  Other inhabitants would have their lands in the municipalities of Amatan, Simojovel, El Bosque, Chalchihuitan, Pantelho and even San Andres Larrainzar, affected.  The CFE paid daily wages three times greater than what the inhabitants were accustomed to earning.  Many people abandoned their lands and turned to the call to work enlarging tunnels and opening up roads.  The commission installed a high tension plant and infrastructure for the engineers.

“We had what we needed, we all cultivated and harvested enough, we were happy, we didn’t have so much need for money, it was more peaceful”, stated the local inhabitants, but there had also been conditions of “extreme poverty, there wasn’t any organization nor orientation”, they had problems with commercialization:  “the prices were low and there was no market”.  When the commission arrived, many people abandoned their lands, they became workers and merchants and although some maintained their jobs as growers there was a feeling of distance and abandonment in this activity:  “we lost our love for the land.”  With all this, the bars, the stores and the restaurants also came.  The town of Huitiupan changed and the government didn’t want to invest in educational, health and development infrastructure since they knew that the town would be flooded.  And in this way, the years passed and it was in 1978 that the inhabitants found out that the town would be flooded.  Meanwhile, the personnel of the CFE were in the shady business of selling precious wood from the area. 

The inhabitants weren’t sure about the dam.  They began to understand what a dam is.  In 1980 when the process of investigating the appraisal began, the inhabitants began to become conscious of what the relocation would mean.  Then they began to organize themselves, to have assemblies and discussion, information and analysis meetings.  They visited the people who had been displaced by other dams in Chiapas such as the people of La Angostura, Chicoasen and Malpaso with the goal of learning from their experiences and obtaining information regarding the dimension of was coming down on them.  They found out that the Itzantun dam had not only already left four dead during its construction, but that hundreds of people had died in accidents during the construction of other dams due to unsafe working conditions, inexperience in the use of explosives, etc..

When visiting other displaced peoples, they found that in the municipality of Concordia, “the houses were bad, they didn’t have doors, floors or bathrooms”; in Nuevo Osumacinta, “the village was pure rock, nothing could be grown there, the lands that they were given to work were on the other side of the dam meaning that they had to travel by boat to get to their work,” and, “in Malpaso they had it the worst, it was an injustice what they did to these people, they just gave them a cheque, they didn’t build them a new town.”  Hence, in Huitiupan the process of organization among the communal land owners began with meetings every evening.  One important role was the struggle to bring about awareness, carried out by the Agricultural and Campesino Workers Independent Headquarters (CIOAC).  Some fought against the construction of dams, others for compensation and the restitution of lands, and the business people organized the boat transportation business for when the dam was full.

In 1980, the first march took place from the outlying municipality of Simojovel to the state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez where more than 2 000 campesinos and indigenous peoples participated, with the goal of demanding fair compensation for their lands.  The official National Campesino Confederation (CNC) and the Emiliano Zapata Campesino Organization (OCEZ) were also on the political playing field of these struggles.  The acasillados that worked on the fincas were left with nothing once the owners handed their lands over for the dam project.  Thus, those who were directly affected did not oppose the dam but rather they demanded shelter, the restitution of lands, inventory and compensation.

On March 26^th, 1981 the Secretary of Programming and Budgeting, the CFE and the Chiapas state government signed the so-called, “Itzantun Hydroelectric Project’s Agriculture and Livestock Readjustment Program for the endowment of shelter, basic urban infrastructure and social support.”  The program would include issues related to land affectation, agriculture, livestock and urban readjustment for the entire dam area which was calculated to be about 11 000 hectares, the re-establishment of the town, the construction of new homes and communications lines, etc..  However, they were all just promises.  Between 1982 and 1984 tension was growing.  The campesino movement reached its peak.  Marches, protests, jailed and threatened leaders – everything was seen at this time.  The entrance to the town of Huitiupan was even blocked for 18 days.  CFE personnel were not permitted to access to the town nor were they permitted to leave.  This included the governor of the state.  So, the CFE took on a different attitude, asking permission to enter, to carry out census, to do measurements for the dam planning and construction, to do the topographical work, etc..  In these years, the struggle was centered on land negotiations.

By 1985, a large part of the lands, fruit trees, vegetable crops and plantations had been restored or paid for and so the construction of the new town could begin giving priority to the cemeteries, temples, clinics, schools, etc..  They were about to begin contracting and training the local inhabitants in carpentry, masonry, driving, etc..  At the same time payment for the homes in the communal lands of Huitiupan, Catarina Las Palmas, Chitamucum Las Limas and La Competencia had not been made.  Remnants of the protests still existed.  The occupants of the Emiliano Zapata and the Cacateal Pital ejidos in the municipality of Huitiupan arrived, armed with sticks and machetes, impeding the continuation of work to mark the boundaries of lands.  Meanwhile, in the ejidos of Villa Luz, Morelos and La Sombra Carrizal, the inhabitants had invaded the lands that the CFE had acquired.  Despite this it was hoped that the dam would be filled in 1988.  But nobody expected the Mexico City earthquake in September 1985 which radically changed the priorities and budgeting of the federal government and the CFE for a while.

In 1986 the handing over of the new lands began and up until 1988 the communal land owners worked both lands, the new ones that the CFE had given them and where they would be relocated as well as their ejidal lands.  By 1989 the people were aware of the suspension of the dam and new divisions started up.  Campesino groups that did not have land began to invade the lands of people who had two properties.  Many of the coffee fields were abandoned.  Other people had abandoned their lands in order to receive good salaries with the CFE as workers on the dam; these people were no longer prepared to return to farming life and so they decided to emigrate to other cities and even neighbouring states.

On July 12^th, 1991 the ejidal commissioner sent notice to Governor Jose Patrocinio Gonzalez Garrido, one of the more repressive governors against popular and indigenous movements that the state has seen, in which he requested his intervention before then President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to cancel the Itzantun hydroelectric dam project once and for all, “as long as this situation is up in the air there will always be anxiety and insecurity in the entire zone affected by the project, land ownership will not be sorted out creating delays in crop production in the medium and long term.” He also added that “(…) we do not want the construction of the Itzantun hydroelectric dam because at the hand of the CFE, drug addition, alcoholism, prostitution and finally extreme poverty will come to our gentle and humble community, as is seen in Osumacinta and Chicoasen for example.”

On March 17^th, 1994, two months after the EZLN’s armed uprising, the CFE authorized, the free handing over of 6 640 hectares of lands allocated for the Itzantun Hydroelectric dam to the Agricultural Reform Secretary (SRA).  The CFE also donated more than 6 555 hectares of land that had been acquired from the campesinos to the government of Chiapas and which were not yet under public domain.  “The donation that is being authorized is done so that the government of the state of Chiapas can carry out actions to regularize land ownership and to execute a broad program of integral development in the zone, in favour of the beneficiary campesino groups and their families.”  However, nobody has done this during all this time.

On October 25^th, 1999 the CFE would ratify this decision and this was not effective either, the lands were never handed over and repositioned to their old owners.  In January 2000, the CFE, under its Director General, Alfredo Elias Ayub, in communiqué number DB/033/2000 again asked the CFE’s Director of South-East Production to take steps to hand over the lands with the instruction that, “on the document where the donation is recorded in should be indicated that the reason for and the goal of the donation is so that the government of the state of Chiapas can carry out the necessary actions to regularize land ownership and execute a broad integral development program in the zone, in favour of the beneficiary campesino groups and their families.”  Up until December 2000 the government of Chiapas was the legal owner of some of these lands.  However, their distribution to the campesinos never took place.

Given the social and political discontent, in his administrative term prior to the year 2000 federal and state elections, Governor Albores Guillen publicly announced that the Itzantun project was being cancelled but he never handed over the lands.  Owing to this, the people voted against the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which had, for years, flaunted its power, and in this way an ex-member of the PRI, Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia, representing the coalition of various opposition parties, came out the winner.

In the year 2002, people who were going to be affected by the Itzantun dam attended the First Meso-American Forum Against Dams held in the Peten jungle of Guatemala, on the banks of the Usumacinta river where the CFE intended to build five dams in the riverbed that would flow into the large Boca del Cerro dam in the state of Tabasco.  There they again denounced the Itzantun project getting the attention of the more than 350 delegates from all the countries in Meso-America and other regions.  In the Peten, the authorities of the municipality of Huitiupan requested that the following international gathering be held in their municipality.  This same year, months after the conference, the CFE’s Administration Secretary requested that the Secretary of Chiapas’ government begin administrative procedures for the return and regularization of land that would have made up the dam.  However, this didn’t happen either.

At the Second Meso-American Forum Against Dams in Honduras, held in 2003, the people of Huitiupan again denounced the government’s aspiration of building the Itzantun dam.  They did the same during the Third Biological and Cultural Diversity Week held in Guatemala. During the Second Chiapas Conference Against Neoliberalism held in the community of New Huixtan in February 2003, the attendees from Huitiupan proposed that the Third Chiapas Conference be held in their lands, the lands of the Itzantun dam project.  And that’s what happened.  From March 19-21, 2004 said conference was carried out.  Throughout the year great expectations were growing for this conference.

One day before the arrival of about 600 people from more than 80 organizations and institutions, 25 Chiapas municipalities, nine states and 10 different countries, the government of Pablo Salazar again announced the definitive cancellation of the Itzantun hydroelectric dam and at last the restitution of the lands to the campesinos.

After so many years in which the CFE agreed to return the lands, on February 10^th, 2004 the Chiapas State Congress, by its Decree 155, authorized governor Pablo Salazar to dissolve the state’s patrimony over 14 simple properties and 23 land masses that were going to be flooded by the Itzantun dam, located in the municipalities of Amatan, Huitiupan, Pantelho and Simojovel.  However, of the more than 13 000 hectares that the CFE had decided to give back several years earlier, the government of Chiapas only returned a little more than 5 258 hectares.  Where are the other 8 000 hectares?  It appears that some were lost.  In Decree 155 it is specified that in August 2003, “the rectification of all the properties was carried out (…) which gave as a result the quantity of Five Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty-eight decimal zero, zero one five zero zero five four three eight hectares (5 258, 15, and 54.381 [or 5258.00150054381 hectares]), which are those that were seen and that really and truly exist; such that the rectification of the lands adjacent to the properties and the fusion of the properties make up a resulting topographic unit of 14 properties and 23 land masses.

There are two elements that one should take into account.  One of these is that not all of the lands that were initially acquired by the CFE were returned.  Secondly, the land ownership regularization format sets out to privatize these lands under the Program of Certified Ejidal Rights and Titling of Urban Plots (PROCEDE), in a region where one now sees a considerable increase in campesino migration to the United States and where campesino production is in ruins.  Other interests are unfolding in the region.

Once again we observe the clear intention and declaration of the governments to capitalize politically from the struggle and resistance of civil society.  At any rate, the people decided to end the work of the Itzantun dam.  At the conference the victory was celebrated after many years of struggle.

THE PEOPLE CELEBRATE

Even though, at the end of this process that took several years, the people ended up poorer, they have their land.  The challenge is to see it flourish with sustainable development alternatives for the people of the region.  We textually cite the declaration:

THE HUITIUPAN DECLARATION

Colleagues and brothers and sisters:

The campesinos of the municipalities of Huitiupan, Simojovel, Chalchihuitan, Amatan, Pantelho and El Bosque, threatened by the ITZANTUN dam construction project, have received into our homes and our hearts here in Huitiupan the hundreds of colleagues from the state of Chiapas, from other states in the Mexican Republic and from various countries, who have offered us solidarity in the defence of our lands, our homes and our environment during the Third Chiapas Conference Against Neoliberalism.  Backed by and encouraged by the solidarity offered by the present organizations, we, the campesinos of this region,

MAKE PUBLIC AT THIS GRAND EVENT, THE DECISION OF OUR PEOPLE TO CANCEL ONCE AND FOR ALL THE ITZANTUN DAM CONSTRUCTION PROJECT.

This historic decision defines us as the owners of our life and of the future of our children.  We decided to make this decision that concern us as campesinos and as human beings. We decided that from now on the decisions of the people should be respected.  We are backed by many years of interminable struggle and suffering under the imposition of those who would try to take our lands from us.  We base our decision on the National and International Right that defend campesinos, in particular the indigenous people and we support this decision with the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Agreement 169.

We want to see recorded and signed the governmental declarations stating that this project has been cancelled.  Our decision is made before the unfulfilled promises of the authorities.

Huitiupan, Chiapas, March 21^st, 2004

The following communities sign the present declaration:

The municipality of Huitiupan: The Municipal Headquarters.  The Zacatonal de Juarez. Colony.  The Morelos Colony. Santa Catarina. The Pozo Esquipula Sanctuary. San Francisco 2. La Ventana. La Florida. The Community of Chanival. The Town of Pauchil. Covadonga. Zacaltic. La Competencia. Ejido Huanal. The Town of Linda Vista Almandro. Alvaro Obregón.

The municipality of Simojovel: The Municipal Headquarters. Campo La Granja. Ejido Luis Espinosa. Ejido Yuquín. Ejido Pimienta. Ejido Rivera Galeana. The Town of  Sabinal. The Community of Lázaro Cárdenas.

The municipality of Chenalho. The municipality of Amatan. The municipality of Chalchihuitan. The municipality of El Bosque. The municipality of Pantelho.

The signing organizations below support their colleagues in struggle:

The Little House of Peace; Las Abejas; Alianza Cívica; AMAP; ARIC Independent and Democratic; Antzetik yu-un Cañadas; Arrieros de Chalchihuitán; the Worker’s Association of El Paso; the Interdisciplinary Association of  Chiapas; Boca de Polen; CAPISE; the Peten Front Against Dams; the "Digna Ochoa" Human Rights Center; the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center; the Tepeyac Istmo of Tehuantepec Human Rights Center, the Santa María de Guadalupe Educational Center, the Ricardo Flores Magon Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca;  CEDIAC; CEPACOMAC; CEPAZ; CIAM; CIEPAC; CIRSA; CLAEES; COCIDEP; CODIMUJ; CODICH; the Cortamortaja Collective; the Feminine Collective of UNACH;  Huitiupán Civil Society; the Support Committee to Chiapas; COMPITCH; the Latin American Churches Council; the Highlands Co-ordinator; CORECO; DESMI; the Mayan Revival; Diaconía Region Jitotol; Diaconía San José Buena Vista; Diaconía San Juan Chamula; EDUPAZ; the D. H. Chenalhó Tzotzil Team; the Chiapas Front Against Dams, Border Region; the Indigenous Ecological Federation of Chiapas; Feminario; Flor de Pantelhó; Flor de los Altos, Food First, the Fortitude of Mayan Women, the 15^th of September Popular Struggle Front, the Young Student’s Union Front, the Forum for Sustainable Development; the León XIII Foundation; the Group of Indigenous Communicators; INESIN; Jolo´m Mayaetic; Jlumaltic; Lunatik; Wood of the People of the South-east; Mayavinic; MELEL XOJOBAL; the Independent Women’s Movement; the  Kölping Act; OMIRS; the Parish of San Andrés; the Parish of Santo Domingo; the Parish of Huitiupán; Pastoral Social Chenalhó; Pastoral Social Tuxtla Gutiérrez; the Parish of Altamirano; the Parish of Santo Tomás Apóstol; Pastoral Social Chenalhó; Peace and the Third World; Pueblo Creyente; the National Network on Gender and the Economy; Rights Action; SIPAZ; Sna Tzibajom; the Cooperative Society of Tzeltal-Tztotzil Producers; the Maya Winic Cooperative Society; the Tzotzil Union of Productive Diversification; the Witzilton Community; Yamtel Ach Winik; YOMBLEJ; Amber Mines, the Sacred Heart Missionaries of the missions of Guadalupe and San José, ODEMICH, the Organization of Organic Growers, the SNTE-CNTE Teaching Section VII Democratic Coalition and students from the MACTUMACTZA Rural Teacher Training School.  As well, individual members, political party militants, university students and/or organizations and institutions of CIESAS, UNAM, UNACH, the PRD, the PT, the PRI, the Democratic CNC, OCEZ and CIOAC, participated.

Here ends the text of the declaration.

In 1999 a group of campesinos from Huitiupan affirmed that: “Land is the principle base of sustenance for our families, without this we cannot even support our families, it is the only patrimony that we have in order to survive, without it, how are we going to get our daily bread? (…)  For the children, the grandchildren and those that are yet to come: any person who looks for and recognizes human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples; the parents, the grandfathers and grandmothers, the men and women that took part and forged this struggle, we can do no less than to thank them for the example, acknowledge their tenacity and reproduce their convictions.” 

Amen.

Sources:  The “Convenio de Coordinación” (Coordination Agreement) among the authorities of the municipality of Huitiupan, the CFE and the state government, April 13, 1985; Act 144 of the government session of the CFE signed by Niceforo Guerrero Reynoso; Act 108/99 of the government session of the CFE; the CFE’s Communique No. DG/033/2000 dated January 31, 2000; the Chiapas State Congress’ Decree No. 155 dated February 10^th, 2004; the letter from the La Competencia Ejidal Commissioner, March 18^th, 2002; the Official Information Bulletin for those Affected by the Construction of the Itzantun Hydroelectric Project (no date); the letter directed to the CFE’s Executive Coordinator of the South-East Zone regarding the affected people of the La Competencia Ejido, September 21^st, 1985; “Amparo en Revisión” (Protection in Review) No. 149/81; “The Inconclusive History of Social Struggle” by the Tzotzil Coordinating Center of the  National Indigenous Institute in Bochil, Chiapas, Huitiupan, January 1999.

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