despojo
International Encounter in Defense of Life: Corn, Water, the Territory, and Mother Earth
From July 25 to 27, 250 people from 60 communities, organizations, and networks from different states in Mexico and other countries gathered in Chiapas at an International Encounter in Defense of Life: Corn, Water, the Territory, and Mother Earth. The purpose of the encounter was to share eorgaizational experiences in defense of life and to reflect collectively on how to confront the projects and mega-projects, as well as the militarization and organized crime, which pose a threat to life.
After three days of discussions, those present published a declaration in which they analyze the current situation experienced in the territories.
DECLARATION
YES TO LIFE, NO TO DEATH PROJECTS
To local, national, and international civil society
To human rights organizations
To the States and governments of Planet Earth
To movements, dignified struggles, and rebellions
To the local, national, and international press
With 250 people present, members of 60 communities, organizations, and networks, we gathered on July 25, 26, and 27, 2025, in the community of Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’ (below the Rio Grande), in the municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico, with the aim of sharing organizational and community experiences in resistance and in the defense of life, water, corn, territory, and Mother Earth.
We are women, men, young people, elders, children, recognizing our cultural, generational, spiritual, and gender diversity.
We come from different territories of Mexico, such as Oaxaca, Coahuila, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Puebla, the State of Mexico, Chiapas, as well as Colombia, the Valencian Country, and Germany.
We have come together to seek ways to confront these deadly projects by weaving together with greater strength the alternatives we are already building in each family, community, town, region, territory, organization, and struggle.
After three days of sharing and analyzing what is happening in our regions and in the world, WE DECLARE AND REAFFIRM that:
Our territories have a great biocultural diversity that we have inherited from our ancestors, which is seriously endangered by an extractive development model that, under an individualistic, capitalist, and patriarchal logic, is stripping us of everything that gives us life.
We recognize that we suffer the same threats: a) the violation of our rights as women, children, youth, young people, men, gender diversities, peoples, and Mother Earth; b) the militarization of our territories by different local, regional, and national security forces; and c) the presence of organized crime and its complicity with governments and states.
We denounce that, in all our territories, projects are imposed on us without the consent of the peoples, and consultations are used as a tool to carry out and consummate the dispossession. We also denounce how institutional power and the powers that be systematically instigate community division in favor of capitalist companies.
In a world that is exhausted, we know that our enemy is the same, and that is why we declare that we are not in favor of colonialist and patriarchal development because it has never worked for us.
THANKS TO THE SHARING WE HAVE DONE
we have heard firsthand about the struggle of the women and peoples of the municipalities that make up MODEVITE (Movement in Defense of Life and Territory), the Community Government of Chilón, as well as their Autonomous Communal Pluriversity Yutsilal Bahlumilal-Ch’ich’ Community Government.
MODEVITE has shared with us their experience of more than 10 years of resistance against the San Cristóbal de Las Casas-Palenque Highway, misnamed “the Highway of Cultures.” This struggle resonated with the struggles of communities and civil society organizations in Oaxaca against the Interoceanic Corridor, the Margarita Maza de Juárez dam, and mining concessions. From southeastern Coahuila, they shared their resistance against an illegal and clandestine industrial toxic waste dump and their defense of the water of the San Miguel stream. Our sisters from Hidalgo shared their struggle against the solar park that is planned for the city of Sahagún and water contamination in Tula, coming from waste from the Mexico City metropolitan area. From northern Veracruz, participants denounced the government’s distribution of fertilizers and agrotoxins that are poisoning the land and the health of communities.
At the same time, we learned from Crianzas Mutuas Colombia about the defense of rivers in the municipality of Suárez in the Cauca Valley. From the same country, we heard about the struggles of the Cabildo de Taganga, Santa Marta, carried out by fishing communities on the Colombian Atlantic coast who are fighting to defend their Maritorio (fishing grounds).
We have shared our pain, but also our hopes and strengths: our community organization woven through our normative systems, our spiritualities and ceremonies, as well as the collective community work that sustains the alternatives we pursue in our daily lives.
We have woven our capacity to share and dream in the midst of the violence and wars that surround us.
WE DENOUNCE
the strategies of governments, political parties, business elites, and local caciques who seek to destabilize our community organizations in order to strip us of our territories for their capitalist interests.
We demand respect for our rights and those of our Mother Earth, as well as respect for the lives of the defenders of the territory and human rights who are fighting throughout Latin America and Planet Earth.
We demand respect for the autonomy of indigenous peoples, Black people, and people of African descent, and that the decisions they make in the exercise of their self-determination be respected, as well as all their collective rights recognized in national and international law.
We demand the immediate halt of megaprojects in our territories, of mega-highways and concessions that allow the dispossession of Mother Earth and the extraction of natural resources, imposing a colonialist model of development that does not come from our wisdom as indigenous peoples.
We demand respect for women, youth, children, and gender diversity in general, and in particular for those of indigenous, ethnic, peasant, fishing, Black, and Afro-descendant communities.
We, the youth, demand our right to flourish in our own communities, contributing our skills and knowledge.
We stand in solidarity with the Colombian social movements that are protesting against transnational corporations that exploit gas and oil on the seabed, build dams that damage rivers, and engage in large-scale mining.
We stand in solidarity with MODEVITE and all the collectives, communities, organizations, and networks fighting against extractive and predatory megaprojects.
FROM THIS SACRED MAYA TERRITORY, WE MAKE A STRONG CALL:
To the indigenous peoples and local, national, and international civil society to accompany, in person or from afar, on August 9, 2025, International Day of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the pilgrimage called by the Believing People of the Jesuit Mission of Bachajón to show their rejection of the highway that will cross these indigenous Mayan territories, whose implementation has not respected the rights of indigenous peoples and which, together with the Interoceanic Corridor, the misnamed Maya Train, and the privatization of water, are part of the territorial reorganization of southeastern Mexico in the service of big capital.
We urge you to continue weaving together, through all the diverse means and forms available to us, our ancestral wisdom and our spiritualities to strengthen what we have in common in the search for peace with justice and dignity and in the defense of life.
We invite you to revalue the life of peasants and the communities that sow our food, as well as the defense of native seeds free of GMOs and the natural production of our food to recover the fertility of our lands.
We know that neither governments nor states will solve our problems, which is why we must continue walking together, weaving our knowledge and spiritualities for the respect of LIFE, beginning with our bodies, our territory, and our land.
We call on all peoples and local, national, and international civil society to continue fighting with one heart.
WE SALUTE AND EMBRACE OUR COMRADES OF:
The community of Cherán K’eri. We say to you: You are not alone, and your struggle is our struggle!
We support the struggle of Jlumaltik Candelaria for the recognition of her government and community autonomy.
We embrace the Zapatistas and the Encuentro de Resistencias y Rebeldías “Algunas Partes del Todo” (Encounter of Resistance and Rebellion “Some Parts of The Whole”) convened by them in their territory to take place from August 2 to 17.
We support the struggle of the Organization Sociedad Civil Las Abejas for justice, peace and dignity.
We support the organizers of the Regional Forum in Defense of Territory and Autonomy against Megaprojects in Chontal and Istmo, to be held on August 9.
To the International Congress on Communality in Oaxaca, to be held on August 7, 8, and 9.
To the struggle of the education workers of the CNTE.
To our sisters at the Jineolojî Academy in Rojava, as well as the Modern Democratic Academy and the entire Kurdish women’s movement and the Democratic Confederalism of Kurdistan.
To our comrades who are part of the Global Network of Alternatives (TGA): Crianzas Mutuas Colombia, Vikalp Sangam of India, and the Movement for Alternatives and Solidarity in Southeast Asia (MASSA).
No to genocide in Gaza!
No to wars, Yes to Life!
Planet Earth, Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’ Community. Chilón, Chiapas
Sunday, July 27, 2025
Collective signatures:
- Crianza Mutua México part of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA)
- Crianzas Mutuas Colombia part of the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA)
- Movimiento en Defensa de la Vida y el Territorio, Chiapas, Mexico (Movement in Defense of Life and Territory – MODEVITE)
- Association of Community Councils of the Municipality of Suárez, Cauca, Colombia
- Gobierno Comunitario Chilón, Chiapas (Chilón Community Government)
- Indigenous Council of Taganga, Santa Marta, Colombia
- Ahlan Muc’ul Ha’ Community, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico
- Pluriversidad Autónoma Comunal Yutsilal Bahlumilal de Gobierno Comunitario Ch’ich’, Chiapas, Mexico (Yutsilal Bahlumilal Autonomous Communal Pluriversity of Ch’ich’ Community Government)
- Movement of Living Rivers of Colombia
- Corporation of Chinchorreros of Taganga, Colombia
- Proyecto de Educación Alternativa (PEA), Selva Ocosingo Region, Sección VII de la CNTE Chiapas, Mexico (Alternative Education Project of the National Coordinator of Education Workers)
- Water Custodians of southeastern Coahuila, Mexico
- Bachajón Mission, Chiapas, Mexico
- Centro de Derechos Indígenas A.C, Chiapas, Mexico (Center for Indigenous Rights A.C.- CEDIAC)
- Colectivo Proyecto Videoastas Indígenas de la Frontera Sur, Chiapas, Mexico (Collective Project of Indigenous Videographers of the Southern Border – PVIFS).
- Foro Oaxaqueño del Agua, Oaxaca, Mexico (Oaxacan Water Forum)
- Working Group “Bodies, Territories, Resistances” – GT CUTER CLACSO
- Colectivo Sí a la Vida, Jalpa Coahuila (Yes to Life Collective)
- Comunidad de Pedagogas(os) Críticas(os) y Educadoras(es) Populares de Chiapas, México (Community of Critical Pedagogues and Popular Educators of Chiapas)
- Universidad de la Tierra Huitzo Yelao, Oaxaca, Mexico (Huitzo Yelao University of the Earth)
- Centro Universitario Comunal de Guelatao de la Universidad Autónoma Comunal de Oaxaca (Guelatao Community University Center of the Autonomous Communality University of Oaxaca, Mexico)
- Observatorio de Participación Social y Calidad Democrática de la Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, Mexico (Observatory of Social Participation and Democratic Quality of the University Iberoamericana Puebla)
- Observatorio Ciudadano/Comunitario del Agua y Medio Ambiente de los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca, Mexico (Observatory of Citizen/Community on Water and the Environment in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca)
- Observatorio de las democracias: sur de México y Centroamérica – ODEMCA (Observatory of Democracies: Southern Mexico and Central America)
- Colectivo Tsijilba Bij de Agua Clara de Chiapas, Mexico
- Tejidos de Sanación de Oaxaca/CDMX (Healing Networks of Oaxaca/Mexico City)
- Servicios Comunitarios de Oaxaca, Mexico (Oaxaca Community Services)
- Kokopelli Collective of Northern Veracruz, Mexico
- Centro Universitario Comunal de San Pedro Comitancillo de la Universidad Autónoma Comunal de Oaxaca, Mexico (San Pedro Comitancillo Community University Center of the Autonomous Communality University of Oaxaca)
- Cooperativa Editorial de la Red Transnacional Otros Saberes (Transnational Network of Other Knowledge RETOS Publishing Cooperative – RETOS).
- Machtia Collective of Hidalgo, Mexico (Free Learning)
- Silvestra Project: Compost Toilets of Oaxaca, Mexico
- Satil Film, Chiapas, Mexico
- Savi Network of the Mixteca Region of Oaxaca, Mexico
- Colectivos Nichimal Cuxlejalil, Chiapas, Mexico (Flourishing life)
- Musiqueros Principales, Región Ch’ich’, Chilón, Chiapas, Mexico (Principal Musicians Collective)
- Ach’ix Querem Ec’ Chilón, Chiapas, México
- Tejido de Colectivos Universidad de la Tierra Caldas y Suroccidente Colombiano (Network of Collectives of the University of the Earth, Caldas and the Colombian Southwest)
Convocan a la 6a Asamblea Nacional por el Agua, la Vida y el Territorio
En 2022, el Congreso Nacional Indígena – Concejo Indígena de Gobierno (CNI-CIG) decidió crear la Asamblea Nacional por el Agua, la Vida y el Territorio, para unir y fortalecer las luchas en defensa del agua, la vida y el territorio de forma autónoma y libre de manipulaciones y utilización oportunista por parte del Estado. En agosto de ese año se llevó a cabo la primera sesión. Desde entonces, un total de cinco asambleas se han realizado en diferentes territorios.
Según el análisis del CNI-CIG y de la propia Asamblea, las iniciativas de la llamada “Cuarta Transformación” representan una exacerbación del despojo hídrico y territorial. El Plan Hídrico, que, según su evaluación, “no es otra cosa que robar el agua de las comunidades indígenas y de las colonias populares para entregarla a las grandes industrias”; el Plan México, que “encarna ocho megaproyectos energéticos, desviación, relleno, invasión y desaparición de arroyos, humedales, lagunas, el cauce y pérdida del caudal del río, reventa del agua tratada para la producción industrial”; los “planes de justicia” y su racismo sistémico; el reordenamiento territorial y sus afectaciones para los pueblos originarios y las colonias populares urbanas, “quienes son desplazados forzadamente con la gentrificación y/o con la violencia de los cárteles con la finalidad de entregarla a los criminales de traje”.
Al mismo tiempo, la violencia crece en el país: desapariciones forzadas, ataques paramilitares y del crimen organizado, militarización extrema y criminalización y agresiones contra defensores del territorio y de los derechos humanos.
Ante esta realidad, convocan a la 6a Asamblea Nacional por el Agua, la Vida y el Territorio, que se llevará a cabo el 18 y 19 de octubre en el pueblo de Loma de Bácum de la Nación de la Tribu Yaqui, Sonora.
A seguir, la convocatoria completa:
(Continuar leyendo…)
