Approaching Two Years Since the Assassination of Samir Flores, Resistance Continues to the Morelos Integral Project  

Letter to Samir Flores from the Popular Front in Defense of Land and Water: Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala, twenty-three months after his assassination. A call out for an international day of action on February 20th, the two-year anniversary of Samir Flores’ death

Samir:

Twenty-three months have passed since the cowardly assassination that took your life, amidst a false and deceitful discourse of consultation from López Obrador. That same false and deceitful discourse was used on September 12th, 2020, claiming that all of the appeals had been resolved, and that there will be no problem in beginning the operation of the Morelos Integral Project. Meanwhile, he sends in the National Guard on November 23rd to evict the dignified Zapatista encampment in Apatlaco, and buys the consciences of agrarian representatives to simulate an agreement, so that the water used to irrigate the fields, be used for an unnecessary thermoelectric plant.

You know well that the necessity and ambition of capital doesn’t have eyes, ears and much less a heart. On December 28, an electrical blackout took place throughout most of the national territory, from Nuevo León through Mexico City to Quintana Roo. This blackout exposed two of the principle lies of the Federal Government and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) about the necessity of the thermoelectric plant: 1. The national electric system is interconnected. It does not matter whether there exists a thermoelectric plant in Morelos or not. The entire system is one, meaning that what is generated in the north, reverberates in the south of the country. It doesn’t matter if Morelos is the only state that doesn’t produce electricity. Especially considering it is one of the states in the center of the country with expansive agricultural production. The cost of moving electricity is minimal because the CFE owns the electrical grid. The grid exists and it is interconnected; 2. It isn’t necessary to generate more electricity. The blackout was caused by an “imbalance in the national interconnected system” due to an imbalance between energy consumed and energy generated, with more energy being generated than is being consumed. It is ridiculous and illogical that amidst a climate and health crisis, they seek to generate more electricity at the expense of the health of the people of Huexca and the neighboring communities. This project will affect the campesino economy and production in Ayala, taking water away from use in the fields so it can used for industry. This project will also put the nearly one million people that live in the Popocatepetl volcano zone at risk with the operation of the Morelos Gas Pipeline.

Samir, reason is on our side. It cries out at every moment with the activity of the volcano, with the people’s resistance, with the struggle for self-determination, and even with a blackout. However, the lies of the irrational government are deceiving the population. The government has all the means to spread its word. They even use intellectuals who say they are in favor of the people, who spend their whole lives defending campesino wisdom, and who now call us ignorant, rash, confrontational, leftist radicals and conservatives, all for not being with the new overseer who proclaims a false discourse of a fourth transformation.

Thus, one month before the two-year anniversary of your death, we are preparing to carry out actions in your memory, and in defense of life, water and territory in general. We call on the people of Mexico and the world, those who have been touched by your word and your example, that on the second anniversary of your assassination, we carry out protests against the bad government and the lack of progress in finding your murderers. We also make a call out for proposals to continue defending life in the face of the irrational savage capitalism that rules the world.

We are ready. Together with the National Indigenous Congress and the EZLN, we will travel to Europe to know other worlds and other spaces, who like you and like us, struggle for life against capital. We are ready to continue the defense against the megaproject of death, the Morelos Integral Project, in spaces like the protest encampment in Huexca which was set up on December 12th in front of the thermoelectric plant. Today, that protest encampment is witness and victim to what has become not an energy project of the people, as lying Obrador says, but a military barracks, with the daily entrance and exit of dozens of national guard, army, state, municipal and private police forces. That is five repressive forces that are present, threatening our brothers and sisters, because the state is afraid, terrified of the dignity. They are terrified because they don’t understand dignity. Never will they understand it. Never will they know the force behind it. Personnel of the Mexican army and private police have taken pictures, pointed their weapons, and asked specifically for Teresa Castellanos of the “Huexca Committee in Resistance,” putting our compañera at risk, something today we want to denounce.

Here we continue Samir, resisting, rebelling against death for life, uniting, constructing justice, because we know that nothing comes from above, justice is built by the people from below. But yes, we want those who are responsible for your vile assassination to be known and punished.

Here we continue and here you continue, in our rebellious heart, that cries out and never tires in beating.

Long live Samir and Zapata, the struggle continues! Life yes, thermoelectric no! Long live our guardians Samir, Zapata and Don Goyo, death to the Morelos Integral Project!

T’neki tlalle uan atl para tenochti, amo timikiske por tumi – We want land and water for all, not to die for money.

People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water: Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala