[WSMDiscuss] Fwd: English version of our Press Conference Bulletin on the NAICM- 11/Dic/2018.

[Azril Bacal Roij]

*Thank you for your valuable support for wide distribution.*
*Facebook.com/Coordinadora de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Oriente del
Estado de México*
*Twitter: CPOOEM_Edomex*


*PRESS CONFERENCE BULLETIN ON THE *

*NEW MEXICO CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT *


In the year 2014, with the Enrique Peña Nieto Government announcement of
the *New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM) construction project
reactivation in the  Texcoco Lake*, those of us who integrate the *“Original
inhabitants and NGOs eastern State of Mexico coordination in defense of
land, water and culture”*(Coordinadora de Pueblos y Organizaciones del
Oriente del Estado de México en Defensa de la Tierra, el Agua y su Cultura)
and as *Nahua People of the Valley of Mexico *are part of the *National
Indigenous Congress*, raise our voices to emphasize the negative impact
that this would mean, because it is a project that would centralize the
service at a single airport, disabling the existing Airport System in the
central region of the country and causing the Texcoco Lake death, *-a site
of very high historical value, symbol of the nation, natural rain water and
temperature controller and ecological balance axis for the entire Mexico
Valley basin (climate change and global warming), place of nesting and
reproduction of thousands of migrating birds and harvesting of nutritional
ancestral treasures such as Spirulina, the ahuautle, the tequexquite and
earth salt-* in addition to pollution by waste, smog and noise; the
devastation of plants and animals endemic species; sanctuaries destruction,
sacred hills and their archaeological wealth, including the prehistoric
strip of the lake shore; the pipelining of rivers and springs; the paving
of the vegetal layer that would prevent rainwater filtration to recharge
aquifers; the intense use of electricity; the over-population; the
construction of housing units, shopping malls, industrial and wind power
parks, solar panel farms, gas pipelines, gigantic landfills and
incinerators; the loss of food sovereignty and local trade; the breakdown
of the social tissue; over-exploitation of earth natural resources and
climate disaster, condemning ejidos (public common lands), indigenous
communities and original  nahua peoples heirs of the ancient wisdom, such
as traditional medicine and our nahuatl mother tongue, to poverty,
displacement and extinction; as well as the collapse of the very Mexico
city.


>From that time onwards, we have worked tirelessly and by our own means, to
inform and contribute to the people awareness on the false progress
discourse and the serious Airport project construction effects (NAICM);
additionally, with the help of first level solidarity scientists from our
country and abroad, have managed to demonstrate based on specialized
studies its *non-viability* in a highly seismic zone, three times saltier
than sea water, which is also the lowest point of the Valley of Mexico
Basin and with an imminent risk of sinking and flooding.


But the Mexico City Airport Group and the Federal Government seemed
unwilling to hear and despite our warnings and recommendations, initiated
the New Airport works and the connectivity works, hand in hand with
speculation, deception, the fraudulent assemblies, land dispossession,
illegal appropriation of hundreds of hectares which affected the ejidal and
communal life of the peoples; homes demolition, repression and violent
evictions of ejidal camps that were defending their territory, the
government used this purpose security forces (army, navy, police and the
PRI paramilitary *Antorcha Campesina* groups), with the complicity of
institutions such as SCT, CONAGUA, SEMARNAT, CFE, SEDATU, INAH, State and
Municipal governments, agricultural authorities and related Ejido
commissaries and  delegates.


Also initiated the land leveling for runways construction, which consisted
of the removal of the natural Texcoco Lake soil and toxic sludge sediments
removal from Mexico City open drains that over decades CONAGUA has been
depositing there together with rubble and other debris from buildings and
hospitals that collapsed during de 1985 earthquake. There are millions of
tons of these debris, that thousands of trucks and trailers carried away
and which were used to fill old mines tunnels in the mountain area of
Texcoco and other neighboring fraternal towns, contaminating crop lands and
ground water aquifers. In addition, hundreds of hills of the basin were
dynamited and devastated for the extraction of materials such as volcanic
rock, basalt, and tepetate, to be used as soil replacement, causing
irreversible environmental damage to the lake bed and its surroundings.
Deforestation and destruction of natural vegetation continues and the
concrete pouring in the river channels, as well as cutting, stripping and
bring down trees, with the introduction of invasive alien species to
Mexico, among other crimes.


In 2015 we continued our organizational effort creating the *Non-parties
Wide Front against the New Airport and other Mega-projects in Mexico’s
Valley* and in 2016, our struggle against the new six runway airport
construction in Texcoco Lake basin, joined the *Global Action against
Aviation Expansion and the construction of more airports in the world*,
because it is the most atmosphere polluting industry on the planet, the one
with highest energy consumption and the primary responsible for climate
change; in addition to the fight against the use of biofuels.


In that same year 2016, we also alerted on the *Precautionary Principle*
which as being part of the international treaties signed by Mexico, already
has constitutional category within the country; as well as the *debt*
derived from the mega-project and our founded fear that it would fall upon
the people of Mexico, reason why we *delivered letters to foreign banks
main offices and representations in Mexico that were to finance the
megaproject*, and express our disagreement *over irresponsible Government
borrowing and the risks* *implied *by the investments that as financial
institutions decided to make through loans and bond issues for the
construction of the *New Mexico City International Airport (NAICM)* and
requesting them not to make any more loans to the then Mexican federal
Government, *whose payment neither future Governments nor the people of
Mexico would guarantee*, as they would doom our people to live in
indefinite misery, for payment and the high debt cost together with the
existing serious corruption in the funds management and project costs
increase, as we were sure, would not be respected, but would significantly
increase, as it has happened in Latin America and other parts of the world
such as in Greece, Spain and Argentina, although in Mexico we already have
a *FOBAPROA *whereby the Government obliges the people to pay the debts of
private companies and their own.

*So the NAICM investing banks, were warned!*


By 2017, the *over-costs, corruption and project delays* were evident, so
the Federal Government enabled 14 kilometers of track-roads and a freight
train to accelerate the work and avoid the possible *New Airport*
cancellation; but the rainy season and the September 19 quake confirmed the
inevitable, *its resounding failure*.


This 2018, we were received by the * North America, Central America and the
Caribbean regional headquarters, of the UN International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO-ICAO)*, where in writing and verbally *we denounced*
that the New Mexico City International Airport *(NAICM), mega-project, does
not follow actual needs, but a business cause of business economic groups
and political power*; as well as irreversible damage to ecosystems, the
environment, climate change, Earth's atmosphere pollution and the planet
ozone layer; providing Aeronautics industry data showing that New Airport
has errors in its design and planning *and does not meet international
safety, efficacy and environment impact* * standards *which are the ICAO
ICAO-UN responsibility to monitor and enforce.

On the other hand, we attended the 8th edition of the *World Social Forum
on migration*, where we also denounce our problematical and the looming
threat of our peoples forced displacement by the folly and imposition of
the New Airport construction, the Aerotropolis and associated works, in the
Valley of Mexico Valley.


Additionally, we presented *a writing to the SEMARNAT head*, with copy to
the then still President Enrique Peña Nieto and other involved agencies of
the three Government levels, asking them the following: *Who will answer
and compensate the environmental impact of the New Airport construction to
our lands and ancestral territories, natural resources and historical,
archaeological and cultural heritage that was invaded, stripped,
contaminated and destroyed; violating our interests, human rights and
self-governing fundamental rights of ownership and possession as original
peoples, communities and neighborhoods?*


Finally, given the media consultation illegality to give a way out to the
Peña Nieto Government of not admitting his failure with the New Airport
project construction in the Texcoco Lake, due to the complicated terrain
conditions and geological terrain and cost duplication; and the current
Federal Government and the Mexico City Airport Group statements that the
NAICM construction work in the Texcoco Lake would continue "*until* *the
project is once again reviewed, its advances and negotiate with creditors
and investors the debt bonds*", we were forced to add a legal tool to our
struggle, for which we constituted the *Foundation: Life, Nature and Legacy
of the Valley of Mexico, A.C*. and certified before a notary public the
opinions of professionals and other supporting documents, with the
solidarity and support of the *“Movimiento de Abogados Insumisos
Zapatistas”* (Movement of Non-submissive Zapatist Lawyers, by its spanish
acronym-MAIZ) and in our capacity as members  of the Foundation and the
Valley of Mexico indigenous Nahua peoples, Acolhua descendants, filing
an *environmental
criminal lawsuit before the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR)*, - *which
has already been admitted* - against the Mexico City Airport Group, S.A. de
C.V., the National Water Commission, the Secretariat of Communications and
Transport, the Ministry of the Environment and Natural resources, as well
as who or those result responsible, *for crimes committed against the
Environment and the Environmental management.*


In accordance with the Constitution article 4th on Environmental Damage
Liability, *we ask and urge the judge*, to provide instructions where
relevant, *so that New Mexico City International Airport works that are
being carried out in the Texcoco Lake area are suspended, due to
environmental crimes it implies, and through this environmental criminal
lawsuit, the NAICM mega-project is definitely cancelled* at any point in
the Valley of Mexico and the rest of the country, as it is
demonstrably *UNVIABLE,
UNNECESSARY, ECOCIDE and UNAFFORDABLE. Contemplating the recovery of the
entire System of Lakes of the Valley of Mexico and return to the condition
as they were, since for us the non-parties and anti-capitalists a lake, the
rivers, the trees, the water, the air and our capacity of producing healthy
food and medicinal plants, as well as our history and culture, are of
immeasurable value.*


*"The TEXCOCO Lake DESERVES to live, because it mirrors the homeland, the
nation was born in it and must remain being a Lake and its rivers recovered
and re-hydrated, to bring life back to the entire VALLEY OF Mexico”.*


*Valley of Mexico, December 11, 2018.*
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