Kurdish Women’s Movement Shows Solidarity with Water Defenders in So-called Mexico

Statement from the Kurdish Women’s Movement showing solidarity with water and life defenders in the Cholulteca region of so-called Mexico.

On February 15, 2022, police and national guard raided the Bonafont water bottling plant in Juan C. Bonilla, Puebla, Mexico, following nearly six months of occupation by surrounding communities in defense of their water. The water bottling plant had been occupied since August 8, 2021, the 142^nd anniversary of the birth of Emiliano Zapata, and converted into a “House of the People”—a space of regional, national, and international organization and articulation between struggles in defense of water and life.

The following statement was released the day following the raid and eviction.

From the Kurdish Women’s Movement, we express our solidarity with water and life defenders of the House of the United People of Altepelmecalli, in the Cholulteca region of Mexico, unjustly evicted and repressed on February 15.

In organizing a common front amidst a world water war—something we also experience in Kurdistan with continued Turkish attacks against the Tigris and Éufrates rivers—the example of the more than 20 Nahua communities organized together in the House of the People, represents for Kurdistan and internationally, a dignified and legitimate struggle for the self-determination of the people. It represents a dignified and legitimate struggle of women in defense of the earth, considered the foundations of life, and not objects from which to indiscriminately extract profit.

We believe that both the over-exploitation of nature and the over-exploitation of women is caused by the same statist, capitalist, patriarchal system. We don’t forget that while the Mexican government justifies the use of police and military forces, declaring extractivist projects to be part of the national interest, women in defense of the earth and its rivers, like the Metlapanapa river, have held national meetings in this region. At a global level, they are articulating resistance against the plunder of transnationals like Danone, collectively promoting alternative projects of health, education, knowledge, and economy. From their community and solidarity relations, they are sharing with peoples and communities across the globe who are in the same struggle for territorial defense and human rights.

In Mexico, in the face of environmental disaster, the number of political femicides, of assassinated and disappeared human rights defenders, is constantly rising. This is the case of land defenders Irma Galindo and Bety Cariño in the region of Oaxaca. There, the struggle against the exploitation of nature continues strong, in the Sierra highlands, in the jungle, as well as the coast of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

We denounce the military intervention in the House of the People, which took place just a few days before the celebration of the memory of Samir Flores, a social fighter who gave his life in defense of Morelos against the Integral Project in Huexca.

From Kurdistan to Altepelmelcalli, we defend the houses of the peoples and of the women; we have many dreams and much will, which repression cannot stop.

In living memory of Bety Cariño and Samir Flores, we walk in defense of water and life, from the hope that moves us, with revolutionary love to construct a world where life, justice, autonomy, and freedom prevail against the unjust projects of death.

Kurdish Women’s Movement

February 16, 2022