Indigenous Mexicans go up against city’s airport

Oscar Lopez -

For most of his life, Filiberto Mena Laiza had worked the earth, growing carrots, cilantro, beans and other crops in what was once rich agricultural land some 50 km north of Mexico City.

But as the metropolis of 21 million expanded in recent decades, swallowing up farmlands near the centuries-old town of San Lucas Xolox where Laiza lives, the 54-year-old indigenous farmer was forced to leave his livelihood behind. Condos have sprung up where corn had grown before, bringing with them more people, pollution and crime, Laiza said. After being robbed by unknown assailants of his earnings coming home from the fields one too many times, he decided farming had become too dangerous — and now operates a small taco stand with his wife in San Lucas’ main square. “The process of human development can’t be stopped,” Laiza said with a sigh of resignation.

“But what worries me is what are we going to leave for those that come after?... Just garbage.” Now Laiza and others in his indigenous community fear they may be about to lose another battle against urbanisation — one revolving around Mexico City’s new international airport. Set to be built on a military airbase called Santa Lucia, just a 15-minute drive from San Lucas, the project is being spearheaded by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Months after winning a landslide election last year, the leftist leader announced he was cancelling a part-built $13 billion airport started by his predecessor, President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Lopez Obrador put the decision to a public, non-binding vote, with 70 per cent of the roughly 1 million voters who participated opting to scrap the partially-constructed airport in favour of the Santa Lucia project. But critics say that the nationwide vote, which polled just 1 per cent of the electorate, did not consider the views of indigenous groups who will be most impacted. Like Laiza, many worry that the 36-square-km development is going to suck up their rapidly dwindling resources, especially water from an aquifer that is already heavily depleted.

“Water is a vital liquid that moves us all,” Laiza said. “Where will all the water that will be needed to maintain this monster come from?” The head of Mexico’s environment ministry, Semarnat, has publicly insisted that it has resolved the water problem.

“The water is going to be moved with an aqueduct, there aren’t any major problems,” Toledo Manzur told the press in September.

But residents are unconvinced, worrying not just about the airport itself, but also the surrounding infrastructure, which, they say, will alter the countryside. “Logically, hotels and shopping malls are going to arrive,” said Mateo Martinez Urbina, 63, a doctor in the nearby town of Tecamac and president of the local water board. — Reuters