After five years of defense in Oaxaca, the Zapotec indigenous community Unión Hidalgo achieved the definitive suspension of the Gunaa Sicarú megaproject wind farm, belonging to the French parastatal company Électricité de France (EDF).
The news was announced by the First District Court of Oaxaca, where the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Project A.C. (ProDESC), responsible for accompanying the Zapotec community during these years, had been litigating to cancel the company's supply and interconnection contracts with the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
“In 2016, we learned that a French company was planning to build the largest wind farm in Latin America on more than 80% of our land... as indigenous communities, we are looking for communication channels to learn more and demand that the communal quality of the land be respected,” explained Guadalupe Ramírez, defender of the Unión Hidalgo community, during the press conference organized this Monday by ProDESC.
This is the first wind farm canceled in Mexico. The Gunaa Sicarú project aimed to build 115 wind turbines with a capacity of 300 MW, as well as a 230 kilovolt (kV) transmission line and alternate roads in a 79-hectare industrial estate.
This park was to join the 27 wind power plants that already exist on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, such as the first Piedra Larga park of the Spanish group Desarrollos Eólica Mexicanos (Demex), which was installed in Unión Hidalgo a decade ago.
According to defender Guadalupe Ramírez, these buildings represent a violation of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on indigenous and tribal peoples, which advocates the right to consultation and participation in decisions about their lands.
“I saw the construction process of Piedra Larga, I saw the impacts that this park has had on the environment. And if this one (Gunaa Sicarú) had been built, an artificial barrier would have formed from the municipality of Santo Domingo Ingenio to Juchitán and El Espinal affecting the land, flora and fauna,” added Pedro Matus, a Zapotec defender, who is a peasant within the territories that would be occupied.
For Matus, it is necessary to carry out a regional impact study to evaluate the impact of wind farms that already exist.
Both indigenous defenders pointed out that despite the joy of the suspension of the megaproject, it is only the beginning of the defense against the threats, verbal aggression, intimidation and defamation that they have already faced from those who support the French parastatal company.
“With the cancellation, we know that our security is at risk and that is why we demand from the authorities of the three levels of government for the safety of our families, because the threats have already begun,” said Guadalupe Ramírez.
Miriam Saage-Maaß, director of the European Center for Human and Constitutional Rights (ECCHR) in Germany, also participated in the press conference, who participated in supporting the Unión Hidalgo community, together with ProDESC, in submitting a lawsuit to EDF.
“There are always very nice presentations where they talk about their environmental and social commitments to (American) communities, but reality dictates something else to us. This is why we request that European companies carry out their processes with due diligence so that they do not commit human rights violations,” said the director of ECCHR.
Both ProDESC and the supporters of Unión Hidalgo stated that this definitive suspension of the Gunaa Sicarú megaproject wind farm will serve as a precedent for all companies that decide to continue building on communal land.
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