Mexico’s Mayan train suspension divides Indigenous community

Like many of the villages in Calakmul in the south of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the sleepy, modest town of Xpujil lies alongside the area’s only federal highway. “I have been subject to personal attacks and victimization,” said Romel Gonzales, a founding member of the Regional Indigenous and Popular Council of Xpujil which fought for the suspension. “Our opponents have been to the houses of our colleagues and tried to pressure them into desisting.” In January, CRIPX successfully filed an amparo, or constitutional protection, against the government’s consultation process on the Tren Maya, which would stretch 1,502km and is estimated to cost almost $16bn. “CRIPX has never claimed to legally represent the people who live in Calakmul,” Gonzales said, adding that members of Mexico’s governing party Morena as well as the National Fund for Tourism have put pressure on local people to abandon their support for his group’s legal action to block the building. This marks a U-turn for the president after a statement he made in September 2019 on his administration’s signature project: “Come rain, thunder, or lightning, the Tren Maya will be built – whether people want it or not.” Gonzales accuses the president of imposing a “neocolonialist, paternalistic vision” on Mexico’s Indigenous people.