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Guadalupe Ramírez is a septuagenarian woman who comes from the clouds.
The force with which it defends its territory can be compared to that of the wind from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Oaxacan region in southern Mexico that it inhabits and protects.
There, the gusts of winds are compared to the gusts of category two and three hurricanes, since the area has the second largest wind energy potential in the world after Patagonia in Argentina.
Photogallery: A Mexican septuagenarian in front of international wind power companies
This is well known by companies that, in addition to not sharing their income with the communities, also do not share the energy they generate. The Mexican government also knows this, which since the administration of President Felipe Calderón has not stopped granting tenders, according to an investigation by the Journalistic Platform for the Americas. For this reason, the soundscape that was previously dominated by birds, now consists of the incessant noise generated by the blades of the more than two thousand wind turbines that have been installed.
Ramírez lives in Unión Hidalgo, a community of indigenous Zapotecs who call themselves
Binni'zaa
(people who come from the clouds).
To refer to older women they use the appellation of Ná, which is why they call her
Ná Lupita
.
A decade ago, when he was 60 years old, he began a self-taught process to learn about wind energy, international law, agrarian law and obligations of the State with indigenous communities and thus be able to defend the territory.
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So far it has accumulated a great victory: that Desarrollos Eólicos Mexicanos (Demex) has not installed any wind turbine on its land.
This 2021, together with his community, Ná Lupita
faces Électricité de France (EDF), a company that seeks to install the Gunna Sicarú wind farm in Unión Hidalgo.
His defense is based on two processes: a claim before a French Court and an injunction ordering the Ministry of Energy to carry out an adequate indigenous consultation.
Both companies were contacted to carry out this report, but until the closing of the text, no response was received.
Their resistance is also before the Mexican State that ratifies international agreements, but does not comply with them, something that is also supported by an investigation by the Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico.
In the installation of wind farms in the region, Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) has been violated, which guarantees the right of indigenous peoples to prior, free and informed consultation.
The recent ratification of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (Escazú Agreement), may represent an opportunity for their struggle, since the document, which Among other measures, it seeks to protect environmental defenders so that they can act without threats and insecurity.
A feat that began in the nineties
At the end of the nineties, “some very funny weather vanes”, as Ná Lupita describes, appeared on the landscape. White turbine towers multiplied rapidly in the region. In 1994, the pilot park known as La Venta was installed in Juchitán, a town just 20 minutes from Unión Hidalgo.
It wasn't until 2011 that she and her husband, Juan Regalado, learned that the weather vanes were wind turbines. Demex, a subsidiary of the Spanish Renovalia Energy, knocked on their door and offered them a lease, according to the couple's version. In exchange for 750 euros per year, the company could install wind turbines on its land for the Piedra Larga wind farm. They were assured that livestock and their crops would not be affected. They both decided to sign. They explain it: "The lies they told us did not sound bad at first and they told us that it would also be for the benefit of the community."
Little time passed for him to realize "the deception." He began to see the heavy machinery that was destroying everything he found. “They didn't cut down the trees, they destroyed them, they didn't even leave them to use as firewood,” says Rosalba Cuevas, one of Lupita's resistance partners. He thinks that they did it to destroy evidence: "That we have a lot of diversity here in the region." The presence of flora and fauna in the space where the park was built was verified in the Environmental Impact Study of the project.
Both Mrs. Guadalupe Ramírez, 'Na Lupita', and other people in the community managed to prevent the wind turbines from being installed on their land.
For this reason, both in the Demex park and in others on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, empty spaces are observed along the wind farm.
Click on the image to see the complete gallery Greta Rico
In addition to the sadness that caused them to see how "in a little while they turned the trees into dust" that for so many years they had cared for, when Lupita and her husband went to Financiera Rural to renew the loan that allowed them to buy sorghum seed for planting, They found that the company had already mortgaged their land to finance the construction, they decided they wanted to cancel the contract.
Although the company assured them that at any time they could review the clauses, they could not rescind the agreement.
They even wanted to talk with the then governor of Oaxaca, Gabino Cué, so that he could intervene, but the president never received them.
“We were forced to find a lawyer to help us;
20 other owners were also dissatisfied and thus the Resistance Committee was born ”.
Juan Antonio López, transitional justice coordinator for the organization ProDESC, is one of the lawyers who accompanies the community.
He explains that the contracts were made in a rigged way, because since 1954, Unión Hidalgo declared itself as an agrarian community, therefore, the lands are not private property and there cannot be lease documents made individually.
In the installation of wind farms, the right of indigenous peoples to prior, free and informed consultation has been violated
In 2013 this activist fought her first legal battle, when she and other owners filed a lawsuit before the Unitary Agrarian Court of Tuxtepec (Oaxaca) requesting the nullity of all contracts signed with Demex.
Although in 2016 the magistrate acknowledged that there is a communal regime in Unión Hidalgo, he did not favor the community, arguing that the company “was not notified that such a regime existed,” explained the lawyer.
ProDESC relied on the resolution, but to date the process remains unanswered. However, Ná Lupita can already count on a victory, because before the Agrarian Court issued that first ruling, in 2015, Demex terminated the contracts of seven owners, including hers. “The company was afraid of a sentence that would be unfavorable for them and that is why they rescinded them, they did not build anything on those lands. That is already a great triumph, and it was possible thanks to the fact that she disagreed and told her colleagues about it, ”says attorney López.
To date, the family ranch is surrounded by wind turbines, but not invaded.
Instead of metal towers, they have fields of sorghum, corn and beans, they continue to see how the fruit trees grow that the chickens help to fertilize and their animals have ample space to graze.
New legal battle
While Ná Lupita was looking to reverse her contract, a French firm was already preparing her arrival in the town. In 2017, the Energy Regulatory Commission issued permit E / 1922 / GEN / 2017 so that Electricité de France (EDF) could generate wind power for 30 years. At that time, the company already had the studies that support the energy potential and another one on environmental impact. In addition, following the example of other wind farms, it had already signed lease contracts after changing the legal status of the land from communal property to private property.
Since assemblies and meetings began to be convened in the community to discuss this new process, she and her cousin Rosario Fuentes were present, and both decided to take the floor and actively participate in the opposition to the project. Together with other companions, they formed the Committee of Gubiñas Women in Defense of Life - gubiña is the name of Unión Hidalgo in Zapotec -, from which they organized to give information to the people of their town, go house to house when necessary and translate into Zapotec everything that was not understood, since from the previous process I had learned that for the construction of this extractive project it was and is necessary to carry out an indigenous consultation.
For the installation of the 28 wind farms that are now in the Oaxacan Isthmus, no contracts were signed under the communal route.
Furthermore, during the construction of the Piedra Larga I and II wind farms (located in Unión Hidalgo), ILO Convention 169, in force in Mexico since 1990, was completely ignored, as no consultation was carried out.
Since Ramírez began to defend her land and the territory of her community, other women have joined the Resistance Committee and have been involved in informational activities to prevent the installation of other parks.
In the image Rosario, Rosalba and Guadalupe herself pose next to a wind turbine.
Click on the image to see the complete gallery Greta Rico
According to Ná Lupita,
her colleagues and the lawyer who accompanies them, the strategies of the company to get the installation approved include providing biased information, giving money to some of the residents or helping the schools to have the support of the students.
This has caused an environment of polarization among the inhabitants, "weakening the community fabric, and increasing the risk and violence against those who defend the territory," explains ProDESC, which now also accompanies the community in the presentation of a legal action under the French Surveillance Law, which obliges French firms to respect human rights in other territories where they plan to develop a project.
Among the most favorable resolutions for Unión Hidalgo would not only be the cancellation of the project, but also a comprehensive reparation for the human rights violations that have already been carried out.
Na Lupita
He does not speak French, but he is going to participate in the hearing, as he says, his grandmother taught him "to defend those who cannot do it and that is happening in the town."
EDF has already given an answer, arguing that it has not violated any human right, since the one who is obliged to make the consultation is the Mexican Government.
The first attempt by the State to carry out this investigation, without following the guidelines established by the ILO, was in 2017. ProDESC filed an amparo appeal before a district judge that was granted and through which the Ministry of Energy was ordered (Sener) carry out a consultation adhering to the highest standards of the indigenous right to consultation and free, prior and informed consent.
EDF has already given an answer, arguing that it has not violated any human right, since the one who is obliged to make the consultation is the Mexican Government
"In April 2018 they returned again with the consultation and continued although not everything was rebuilt," says Ná Lupita in the backyard of her house, which adjoins a house that still remains in rubble after the earthquake that in September 2017 destroyed good part of the community.
In 2019, the process was resumed and, according to the minutes of the information sessions of the consultation, some of the talks were attended by around 40 people, most of whom spoke Zapotec, and all the technical specifications were presented in Spanish. and ecological of the project.
During the consultation process, actions that go against the guidelines defined by the amparo have been registered;
for example, it has been financed by the local government and has had the participation of company representatives.
The covid-19 pandemic stopped the consultation, but since July 2021, Sener wants to renew the process without considering the increase in cases of infections and the number of deaths that have been registered in the region.
“Many of the sessions have turned into shouting and insults, and there are even armed people there.
Then they start screaming when I want to speak, but I stand there quietly, with the microphone in hand until they stop talking and listen to me (...) The consultation process is very important to see where we are left with EDF ”.
Ná Lupita is concerned that if the company begins construction "then the other companies that have already cast their eye on Unión Hidalgo will begin to come."
Threats and threats
Lupita has no plans to leave activism.
Unlike, she says, the wind farms and some politicians, she knows that the land is noble.
"They tell us that the land is not fertile, that it was useless land and that they were finally going to be used by the wind farms, but that is not true," he says in the backyard of his house, where papayas even grow in pots.
Some people claim that she and her companions are "opposed to development" and are "anti-Aeolian";
some others use the microphones to shout and thus not allow their participation, and some more consider that “walking behind Na Lupe is dangerous”.
On one occasion they tried to kidnap her and her husband was tied up and gagged in his own business.
Nothing serious has happened to them, but they consider it to be a threat.
She does not hesitate to put everything she has at the disposal of the movement and her community: her time to cook, convene or participate;
his truck so that a group of neighbors or even journalists can move, or his house so that meetings and conversations can take place.
Its patio is a faithful witness to this, since enough chairs are stacked in it to simulate a small auditorium of at least 25 people.
On one occasion they tried to kidnap Na Lupita and her husband, they even gagged and tied him up in their own business.
That integrity and disposition was also present in the 2017 earthquake, when the community was destroyed and their vehicle was used to fetch food and supplies from the nearest community.
He even arranged land for the construction of a community kitchen that came to offer up to 100 breakfasts and 100 meals a day to those who did the reconstruction work.
Those who have accompanied her in her development process and have been consulted for this story have even seen her present her defense in international instances.
They consider that he lost the fear to speak, but that the lack of response and resolution of the case has caused him a strong wear and tear in emotional and family terms.
Alejandra Ancheita, founder and director of ProDESC, argues that the Escazú Agreement represents an opportunity for the Mexican State to demonstrate that the ratification of agreements and treaties are not a dead letter and seek to create tools and resources for the effective protection of defenders of the territory such as the protagonist of this text.
This report is part of the Defenders of the territory project of
ClimateTracker
and
FES Transformación.
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