Violence is the Evil that Grows Along With the Megaproject

Two shots fired into the air prevented his son from being macheted to death. Salvador Pinal Melendez had already been beaten and his corn crop looted when he fired the gun. Everything was happening in front of the municipal police of Santo Domingo de Tehuantepec, in Oaxaca. He had called them asking for help because a group of people were threatening to invade his land with violence. But the police, the man recalls, did not intervene.

“When my son started to record with his cellphone, they came at him with machetes. I had a gun for my defense, I am honest. I shot into the air so they would not continue trying to kill my son. That is why the police took me to prison,” says Pinal, who was accused of attempted murder and imprisoned for three years in the Tehuantepec prison after the events of September 20, 2021.

Salvador Pinal is a Binnizá (Zapotec) indigenous man who owns a five-hectare plot of land in Santa Cruz Tagolaba’s town, within the municipality. His property is in a strategic location: just a few blocks from the Transisthmian Highway that connects Oaxaca to Veracruz, from the railroad tracks, near the Port of Salina Cruz, and from at least two Development Sites (PODEBI in Spanish), industrial parks that the Mexican government wants to assign to private companies as part of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

He lost his freedom and his property. The dispossession of his land was not the only one in the area. Other peasant families were physically attacked and threatened by a group led by two members of the community who wanted to take illegal possession of their land. They have filed complaints with the Oaxaca State Attorney General's Office and the rural authority, but their cases are frozen.

The land of Santa Cruz Tagolaba has become of high interest for the industrial development planned for the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Expectations about the megaproject have attracted investors interested in land near the railroad, ports, and industrial parks, looking to get a head start on development. While speculation grows, a wave of violence impacts the lives of those living in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced the million-dollar investment for the industrial transformation of the area during his campaign in 2018 and later as president-elect. Since then, crimes such as threats, injuries, damage to the property, extortion, and dispossession have increased in 79 municipalities of Oaxaca and Veracruz contemplated in the megaproject, according to the analysis based on data from the Executive Secretariat of Public Security carried out for this investigation.

Dispossession cases, such as the one in Tagolaba, have grown since 2018, when 376 complaints were registered. By 2021, the figure rose to 704. Every day, two cases of dispossession are reported in this area, according to the crime incidence from 2019 to the first half of 2024.

The situation is similar in the case of threatening offenses. Its incidence increased with the first phase of the megaproject. Between 2015 and 2018 the annual average was 766 complaints, while between 2019 and 2024 this figure tripled: each year there are 2,519 cases on average.

“I am going to defend my land as far as I can. I tore down all the posts because they had already subdivided the land, they burned my 200 lemon, coconut, and plum trees. I was so angry, but I couldn't do anything because justice was in their favor”, says Pinal about the invasion of his land, a week after he was released, after proving his innocence to the state justice system.

The evil that hits everyone

There are areas of influence of the Interoceanic Corridor where the increase in intentional homicide stands out. This is the case of Salina Cruz, which had an annual average of 10 killings between 2015 and 2018. That figure grew to 24 murders per year between 2019 and the first half of 2024. In Santa María Mixtequilla, the figures mark a maximum of four homicides before the launch of the megaproject. But from 2019 onwards, year by year they increased until 14 intentional homicides were registered in 2023. There is a similar trend in Matías Romero and Santo Domingo Tehuantepec.

Among the insecurity in the area, at least three activists have been assassinated in the defense of the territory.

Noel Lopez Gallegos, a member of the group Peaceful Civil Resistance, was murdered after being reported missing in July 2023: he publicly questioned the installation of an industrial park (PODEBI) in Santa Maria Mixtequilla. He asked for an equitable distribution for all the inhabitants because of the expropriation of land. The Mexican government had paid only 130 million pesos for 502 hectares, or 25 pesos per square meter.

Felix Vicente Cruz was shot and killed on April 13, 2023, while in his office. He was municipal agent of the 20 de noviembre community in the Binnizá municipality of San Francisco Ixhuatán. In the past, he fought against high electricity rates in a place exploited by private investment wind farms. Recently he opposed the Inter-Oceanic Corridor and participated in various road blockades as part of the defense of territory in Oaxaca.

“This is an act of direct violence against those who defend land, territory, and human rights. These events occur in the context of the imposition of the Interoceanic Corridor. This violence is against organizations that oppose the imposition, dispossession, looting, pollution, and death of our natural resources and territory that this project will bring to the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the South-Southeast of Mexico,” said a statement the organization Asamblea de Pueblos del Istmo en Defensa de la Tierra y el Territorio (APIIDTT) about this murder.

In 2022, armed men shot at Erick Sánchez and Jesús Manuel García Martínez, both land defenders and opponents of Interoceánico because of the dispossessions that the megaproject has left in the region. The attack occurred in Santa Cruz Tagolaba and ended with the life of García Martínez, while Sánchez was injured.

Insecurity is an obstacle to overcome

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is a cocktail of culture and tradition, mixed with ancestral conflicts over land tenure. At the same time, they have been coexisting for years with business interests and organized crime. In this territory, a megaproject faces a diversity of security problems.

In February 2021, the Regional Intelligence Fusion Center of the Southeast (Cerfi-Southeast) conducted a crime diagnosis of the Interoceanic Corridor. This body, which is in charge of the Armed Forces and carries out intelligence work against criminal organizations, emphasized that given the expected economic spillover there will be “new territorial, social and organized crime conflicts to take advantage of the economic opportunities that such project will generate”, according to the presentation found in the e-mails of the Ministry of Defense (SEDENA, by its acronym in Spanish), leaked by the hacker group Guacamaya in 2022.

In Oaxaca, the presence of the Sinaloa Cartel, the CJNG, the Zetas, and the Beltran Leyva Cartel concentrates the fight for control of drug trafficking routes. They traffic drugs from Central and South American countries, which are moved across the Pacific Ocean and cross the border into the state of Veracruz.

In a later report, the SEDENA detailed that Oaxaca's geographic location “facilitates the execution of drug trafficking activities.” From planting to trafficking, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is an obligatory passage for drug trafficking. There, organized crime has diversified its activities: kidnapping, executions, car theft, arms trafficking, extortion, and, particularly in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, oil theft and human trafficking.

The document also mentions the presence of indigenous communities that are governed by customs and traditions, “giving rise to social conflicts over land disputes, resulting in homicides and armed clashes between groups of peasants and indigenous people.”

Regarding Veracruz, it explains that “a climate of insecurity has prevailed” due to the confrontation of criminal groups, who often broadcast videos on social networks to threaten their opponents, to expose colluding authorities, and to announce “cleanups” crimes. According to the report, cells of the CJNG, the Z Vieja Escuela, and the Gulf Cartel have a presence here. An increase in intentional homicides and extortion is reported, “presuming the dispute of criminal organizations for the control of the territory occupied by the Transisthmian Corridor”. The main criminal activities are as diverse as in Oaxaca, adding cattle and cargo theft.

The intervention of organized crime has since been a concern for the Mexican government in the development of the Interoceanic Corridor, as was stated in the March 2021 letter sent by Brigadier General Antonio León to Natalia Barón Ortiz, technical secretary of the Territorial Coordination for the Construction of Peace in Oaxaca. She was informed that the objective of the meeting was “to carry out various actions to address the demands of social groups and dissuade criminal groups that seek to benefit at the expense of the development of the project,” reads the letter also found in the SEDENA emails.

In August of this year, Captain Marcos, of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) — a mostly indigenous organization that took up arms against the Mexican government in 1994 — made public a position stating that “the so-called mega-projects do not result in development. They are only commercial corridors opened for organized crime to have new markets.” The EZLN points out the struggle between rival cartels for the trafficking of people and drugs, but also for the monopoly on the collection of money for the Mayan Train and the Interoceanic Corridor.

“The loss is for those who survive in those places,” he stresses. “The State thinks that those in so-called Organized Crime are its servants and they come and go as directed or forced. It is because of that belief that they get the surprises they suffer,” Captain Marcos concluded.

Patrimonies for sale

“Land for sale in the Interoceanic Corridor zone.” “3.5 million pesos per hectare, we have 49!” “Just 10 minutes from the port of Salina Cruz.” “Three hectares in Tehuantepec at 150 pesos per square meter.” “It has a stream and a well that does not dry up all year round. Nearby passes the Interoceanic Corridor.” “Five minutes from the Minatitlan airport, 10 minutes from the petrochemical complexes, 15 minutes from Coatzacoalcos.” “Incredible commercial zone that will replace the Panama Canal in a very short time.” The advertising along the Transisthmian Highway, parallel to the railroad tracks, is similar to what abounds in social networks.

As the market eyes the land adjacent to the megaproject, entire families lose their property.

“They entered with violence and machetes. We went to report them and they poured gasoline on us, they threatened us. We did everything the law told us to do. One night, they came to shoot at my house at about two o'clock in early morning. They left a written threat saying that we should stop fighting for our land. We cannot go out to the street, we are afraid,” says Norma Angélica Miranda, who lost her family land on March 21, 2021. Although she filed criminal charges for dispossession and cattle rustling, the cases have not progressed.

Norma Angélica, a peasant farmer, became ill after the trauma she experienced. The dispossession forced her to change her life completely. She moved to the center of her town, where she could not devote herself to her animals or the mesquite that used to grow on her land. Nowadays, other people live on her land; they are in charge of protecting it, and little by little they have subdivided it, preparing it for sale. “They took away the place where I was happy,” he says in tears. She calculates that more than 100 hectares have been taken in Santa Cruz Tagoloba.

In both Oaxaca and Veracruz, violence does not have a single perpetrator. The interviewees agree that diverse criminal interests coexist in the territory, some are old, such as the struggle for land tenure. In other cases, it is organized crime disputing the routes of human smuggling and trafficking, or criminal groups completely inserted in the communities that found a lucrative business with the dispossession of land to offer it to industries.  

“They invaded our land to give it to investors who plan to come to Tehuantepec,” says Elizabeth Woolrich, whose 14-hectare plot was the first to be invaded in 2021. Woolrich was born in Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, and is the executor of a communal plot of land that has been in her family's possession for 69 years. “We want the Isthmus to flourish, but with justice,” she stresses.  

The Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT) said in response to a questionnaire sent to them for this investigation, that for the operation of this project, security is fundamental and that is the reason why they deployed naval personnel in the territory.

“It is clear that there are conditions that are likely to be attractive to generators of violence. We are preparing and taking the necessary measures to strengthen security so that this does not happen,” the organism detailed through its press office.

Regarding the increase in crimes such as robbery and threats, CIIT pointed out that they have learned that “people have pretended to be representatives of the institution to obtain personal benefits”, for which he urged citizens to report them to the competent authorities.

“If they want our lands they can come to us, we can reach an agreement. If it is for the progress of the Isthmus we are in the best disposition to negotiate, we are not opposed to selling, but that they do not steal our lands, because with so much sacrifice we acquired them,” says Salvador Pinal.