In Medias Aguas, Veracruz, there is an old train workshop hidden among weeds and trees. It is within a 3.5-hectare plot of land that the federal government has used without paying for it, at least since 1990. With the rehabilitation of Line Z of the Interoceanic Corridor railroad, this place became strategic. Now, as in the past, the train workshop is contemplated for the maintenance and repair of railway material and is complementary to the maneuvering yard that is also located at this site.
When the government announced the multi-million dollar investment, the ejidatarios thought that the debt would be paid off, but it didn’t happen. The authority only offered them 9,600 pesos (472 dollars) for the land: a payment of 27 cents (.01 cents in U.S. dollars) per square meter.
“Imagine our disappointment. It is an injustice. It is more what we have spent on lawyers and transfers than what they want to pay us,” says Gabriel Gómez Gutiérrez, commissioner of the Ejido with a historic railroad station inaugurated in 1910.
In addition to the debt related to this property, the government owes them for another three-hectare plot of land valued in a similar manner, where railroad families have settled since the last century.
While the lack of payment for the land the Navy already uses is important, the Mexican government's debt goes beyond that. There, the electric power is unstable, they have a health center damaged since the 2017 earthquake and no doctor. The secondary streets are made of dirt and stone, the drainage is almost artisanal and the waste goes to an open field near the houses.
Medias Aguas belongs to the municipality of Sayula de Aleman, where 78.4% of the population lives in poverty, according to data from the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL). Here, 8 out of 10 people have a monthly income that is not enough to cover their minimum food needs, established for this year at 3,286 pesos (161 dollars) per month for rural areas, and 4,529 (222 dollars) for urban areas of the country.
Poverty on the Isthmus
On average, 61.5% of the population living in the Isthmus lives in poverty. However, there are municipalities where the regional average is surpassed.
Zona de influencia
Otros indicadores
In 2020, former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador went to Medias Aguas to kick off the works of the Corridor. At the event, he said: “The dream is that there will be work in the Isthmus and all the communities in the south and southeast of Mexico.”
The announcement brought a mixture of hope and distrust among the residents, since the basis of the promised “progress” is the industrialization of the region with unknown impacts on their ways of life.
“We are peasants, our lands are our enterprises to subsist. That's where we live, that's where we eat. We don't want the government to support us, but we do want it to give us the resources to move forward,” says Juan Pavón, treasurer of the Medias Aguas Ejido.
In this path laid out for “development,” there are those who are being left out.
Their lives have been demolished
At kilometer 14 of railroad line Z, the rubble of what used to be a house remains. The first stone of this home was laid 27 years ago. First, there was a room, then a kitchen, and a modest living room, as the Hernández family's pocket allowed. As the number of family members grew, so did the cement and tin building that ended up being home to three families.
Part of the house was built within the right-of-way of the Interoceanic Railroad. This is a free space, in government possession, which cannot be less than 20 meters on each side of the track axis. “There was no other way,” says Angelica Hernandez Hernandez, 37, who came to live as a child in the only space her family could find to make a home, a few steps from the Calzadas River in Veracruz.
In January 2022, Angelica received messages from her mother, Virginia. Photos were showing a group of federal government workers demolishing her house. “What are you doing at that moment? How do you tell your mom that it’s over?” laments Angelica, standing over the ruins of her home two years after that event.
Along with the Interoceanic came the promise of relocation for families like the Hernandez, who settled next to the railroad decades ago. The Secretary of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development (SEDATU) assured that it would have spent 3 billion pesos in housing support for the people who lived in this situation, but for the Hernandez family and many others, there was nothing.
“We did not ask them to build us a house because we can raise ourselves from below, we do not want anything for free, but at least they would have given us time,” claims Angelica.
From one day to another the home they had known was no more. The family split up and none of them have a home of their own: they all rent on their own. “That December, before the demolition, was the last we spent together,” the woman recalls.
Her mother died shortly after.
The key to transformation
The government has focused on seeking foreign investment. They organize forums and meetings with governors and businessmen from all over the world. They have sat down with Chinese, Danes, Americans, and others to present the megaproject. Some have been invited to travel by train, others have been taken on tours of the ports and, together, they have toured the land allocated to the Development Parks (PODEBI), where the industrial parks handed over to private companies will be located. Mexican representatives have traveled to Belgium, Germany, and France, headed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, and the Navy. They have applied for international funds to make the dream come true. However, everything is moving slowly.
Specialists consulted agree that it is urgent to reduce the inequality that prevails in the south-southeast of the country, but that a project such as the Interoceanic Corridor has implications that could worsen the situation of the population of these territories.
According to researcher and economist specializing in geopolitics, Ana Esther Ceceña, the bet on industrialization “is obsolete” and long-term; the cost is higher due to the environmental and social impacts. “They are betting that investors from all over the planet will arrive and that this will bring development and employment, but employment is minimal, sometimes temporary,” she warns.
From her point of view, the government's vision clashes with that of the residents: some want large developments and others want to be offered the minimum necessary to have a better quality of life.
One of the obstacles to this promise of “progress” lies in the current productive activity of the 79 municipalities included in the megaproject. Only three of them have the industry as their economic strength. Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, together with Minatitlán and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, depend on oil. The rest live from retail trade, maquilas, and primary activities such as agriculture, livestock, and fishing, among others.
“Whenever there is an innovation, other things are displaced”, warns Jesús Carrillo, Director of Economics at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO).
When a transformation of productive activity is proposed, it must be done with caution, he stresses, and take care of all those who, due to their age, preparation, and the defense of their own culture, will not be able to change their main activity. “It is essential that they are protected so that the situation in the region does not become more unequal”.
Although the Mexican government has made agreements with universities to offer professional training to young people for the industrial project, it has not revealed what the plan is to include the rest of the population.
The other obstacle that has encouraged the advancement of the project is the lack of infrastructure, even though this is where the investment has gone. Between 2019 and 2024, 10 projects linked to the Interoceanic Corridor have been established, valued at a total of 120,709 million pesos (5 billion dollars), double the public investment estimated by López Obrador's government to launch the megaproject.
Part of that money has been spent on improvements to the ports of Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos, which currently cannot receive large cargo, not even at the level of other national ports such as Manzanillo or Lazaro Cardenas.
Salina Cruz is expected to be able to receive 510 thousand TEUs (the unit of measurement of maritime transport capacity in containers) annually by 2027. This amount is barely 5% of the volumes that currently transit through the Panama Canal, according to the Master Port Development Program for the Port of Salina Cruz 2022-2027. Based on the documentation obtained, it is unclear whether capacity will increase after this period.
Essential projects for the Interoceanic Corridor
Through the Ministry of the Navy, the Mexican government defined these investment projects as the first to be executed for the operation of the megaproject.
The Mexican government has offered tax benefits for companies arriving under a relocation model. These include a 100% discount on income tax for the first three years of operation and “zero payment” of VAT on operations within the region.
If companies wish to obtain tax benefits, they must prove the minimum number of jobs for an undetermined period approved by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) for each investment project, which the government has said corresponds to 20% of the total. In the proposals approved for the Development Sites (PODEBI), the companies defined the amount of employment they would generate and the salary conditions for the workers. This was the only lock that the government determined to protect the population.
The Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT) responded to a questionnaire sent by El Universal for this investigation. About the risk of the jobs generated being precarious, they said they have established requirements for the concessionaires chosen for the PODEBI, among which they emphasized “contracting an established percentage in local goods and services”, as well as “creating dignified jobs, with salaries above the minimum wage”.
The CIIT, which depends on the Ministry of the Navy, pointed out that “although the business model for the establishment of the PODEBI is benefiting from the reorganization of production chains worldwide, it is not based on the nearshoring effect, but on a regional development strategy”. CIIT also explained that this development model is based on two projects: the logistics platform that connects the two oceans and the industrial parks.
An exercise of patience
The sea began to eat the town 12 years ago. At the height of the Cuauhtemoc neighborhood, the electric blue of the Pacific Ocean keeps buried in the sand the vestiges of what were once houses, some of brick, others of palm and wood. Nothing is left of Cristobal Colon Avenue, in the Ikoot indigenous municipality, San Mateo del Mar, Oaxaca.
The phenomenon has increased in recent years, a product of climate change, but also of industrial practices that have accelerated its effects and maritime works in Salina Cruz, says Virgilio Quintanar, the former agent of the neighborhood. The water began to cover everything as never before. This town of four streets has only two left.
"We are waiting for the relocation of the town. We are humble and poor people. We have no money to buy land, that is why we are asking the government for help. We need everything: parks, sports fields, schools, piped water, electricity,” Quintanar enumerates. They were promised to repair these deficiencies, but the promise has remained just that.
The rise in sea level is only one of the problems faced by this municipality, which is part of the Interoceanic Project. Of its 15,578 inhabitants, 90.3% live in poverty. It is one of the four most vulnerable territories contemplated within the megaproject, just after San Lucas Camotlan and Santiago Ixcuintepec, also in Oaxaca, and Soteapan, in Veracruz.
This is a municipality of fishermen. Seven out of 10 “mareños” are dedicated to fishing. They believe that the effort to convert Salina Cruz into a profitable port will impact marine biodiversity, which is their livelihood. The Mexican government will dredge the depths of the sea to allow larger ships to arrive, affecting the aquatic ecosystem. The port is located less than 10 kilometers away from this municipality.
“With the idea of retaking the Interoceanic, many companies see investment in the Isthmus with good eyes, but they leave aside the indigenous communities. Our people resist megaprojects because if we change the idea, we tend to disappear,” warns Juan Zubieta, who is in charge of San Mateo del Mar’s security.
The fishermen know that the increase in industrial activity pollutes the land and water, as has happened in previous years. They fear that the works being erected for the megaproject, such as the breakwater and the seawall, will influence the growth of the tide.
As the sea advances, so does the Interoceanic Corridor. In between, is the historical abandonment of a region that has yet to see the transformation announced.
Government investment to reduce inequality has focused on the social programs established by the Lopez Obrador administration, which do not address the particularities of each region.
“The communities want to live well, in harmony with nature, to maintain their customs. They want development that covers their basic needs: water, housing, and health clinics. But they have not received them because the resources are going to big projects,” criticizes geopolitical scientist Ceceña.
The historical debts with the region were not repaired in the first six years of the Interoceanic Corridor. There is still a long way to go to cover the needs of the project and attract the external investment needed to make it work. Along the way, the inhabitants are still waiting for some of the promises of development to be fulfilled.
