Carlos Beas of UCIZONI on the impact of the Interoceanic Corridor and the future of Indigenous Rights in Mexico
The headquarters of the Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo (UCIZONI– Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Isthmus Region) lies at the edge of the industrial municipality of Matías Romero, Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. To reach the secluded outpost from the centre of town you must cross over freshly laid railway tracks and trek up dirt roads before being met by its high-walled entrance, crowned with barbed wire fencing. I arrived on a seemingly peaceful day in June, on the eve of UCIZONI’s 40th anniversary, to meet with Carlos Beas, the group’s veteran coordinator and longtime advocate for the defence of Indigenous rights and territory in the region. With his long moustache, piercing eyes, and sonorous voice, Beas held an impressive, commanding presence as he welcomed me beyond the stark facade of the compound into UCIZONI’s verdant, embracing community space – the centrepiece of which was a large two-story building populated by colourful murals that serves as a school for Indigenous children in the local area.
My conversation with Beas centred on the impact of a new infrastructure project that lies at the heart of the federal government’s plans to transform the economic fortunes of Mexico’s historically neglected southern regions: the Corredor Interoceánico del Istmo de Tehuantepec (CIIT – Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec). Initiated under the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and partially inaugurated in December 2023, the CIIT revives longstanding national ambitions to construct a land corridor through the region known as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, across the thinnest strip of land in the country. This is intended to facilitate the flow of goods between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans via a network of freight rail transportation. Widely promoted as Mexico’s alternative to the Panama Canal, the CIIT’s scope, however, extends beyond that of a mere transit and logistics hub, as Beas explains:
‘The first thing we need to understand is that the Interoceanic Corridor is a continuation of other major projects for building and modernising energy and communications infrastructure. This began more than 120 years ago. Here in the region, it is not a new process. The second thing we need to understand is that it is a large-scale project that is not isolated from other projects located in the southeast of the country… In other words, it is part of a whole scheme of construction and infrastructure aimed at expanding and strengthening capitalist development throughout the region.’
Carlos Beas Speaks on behalf of the UCIZONI. Photo: Jack Phillips
Development as Trojan Horse
Beyond the principal line – running from Salina Cruz in Oaxaca to Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz – the CIIT’s rail network is being expanded to connect with a series of other AMLO-initiated megaprojects in the south-southeast, including the Mayan Train in the Yucatán Peninsula and the Dos Bocas oil refinery in Tabasco. Meanwhile, the government is building out the region’s industrial capacity to feed the corridor’s logistical and energy ambitions. This includes expanded natural gas infrastructure via the Puerta al Sureste pipeline to import gas from the United States; alongside the establishment of Polos de Desarrollo para el Bienestar (PODEBIS – Well-Being Development Zones) throughout the Isthmus to promote manufacturing and processing activities in the region – a strategy that for Beas equates to the creation of a ‘new maquiladora zone’. Beas views the government’s purported aim to address regional inequality through grand infrastructure projects such as the CIIT as a developmental Trojan Horse that masks more exploitative, underlying processes of accumulation:
‘I am trained as an economist. I do not believe in marginalization, nor do I believe in development, nor do I believe that underdevelopment exists. What does exist are asymmetric relationships in which global capitalism designates sacrifice zones, zones of intensive capital accumulation, and zones of exploitation for generating raw materials and cheap labour through extractive projects.’
As for the prospects of the CIIT to uplift the local population, Beas invokes the often-cited case of the Panama Canal to caution against the damaging social and environmental effects of logistical corridors. ‘In the Panamanian part of the famous canal, there are indeed places like Colón where right next to the city there is a large so-called “free zone” that Panamanians can only access to work. It has “first-world” facilities, but right beside it is a city without libraries, with schools in poor condition, with sewage running through the streets. They sell us the idea of development as a path to well-being, as a way out of poverty, but in the end what we get is more poverty – now accompanied by violence, dispossession, and the destruction of local cultures.’
(In)Security and (Non)Consent
Ucizoni have been on the front lines of resistance against the environmental, social, and territorial impacts of the CIIT and its associated network of energy and infrastructure projects. Many of its members, including Beas himself, have faced threats and intimidation from security forces and organized crime groups as a wave of ‘macro-criminality’ has swept a region that was, until recently, relatively removed from Mexico’s ongoing internal war between cartel groups and the state. Organized crime has arrived ‘together’ with the influx of investment and economic speculation to the region, Beas tells me. ‘A month ago we had eight homicides in less than a week, something that had never happened here. Today, classes are suspended here and in various places throughout the Isthmus of Tehuantepec due to a lack of security conditions. That didn’t happen before, and it has to do with the presence of these companies that are operating here, companies that are tied to politicians.’
This configuration of unprecedented investment into the region – backed by the federal government’s ‘Fourth Transformation’ project of national renewal – combined with the intersection of local political and economic interests, both formal and illicit, resulted in what UCIZONI maintains was a false and deceptive consultation process to approve the CIIT. Mexico is a signatory to the ILO’s Convention 169, which enshrines the right to free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous communities to protect their rights and territories. Nevertheless, when it came to the CIIT’s consultation process, ‘a few assemblies were held, but the communities were not consulted’, Beas tells me, ‘they were “informed”, about something very general in 10 or 15 minutes. But this project has many, many details… communities were never truly informed of the environmental impacts; the economic and social impacts were never addressed’.
UCIZONI Banner: ‘Forty Years of Resistance, Long Live the Indigenous struggle’. Photo: Jack Phillips
A Broken Olive Branch
UCIZONI’s protests against the government’s consultation process reflects similar concerns raised by groups in the Yucatán Peninsula over the rushed implementation of the Mayan Train and its potentially damaging effects on the region’s biosphere. But despite local resistance and numerous legal injunctions, both projects have continued apace in reshaping the territorial and socio-economic dimensions of Mexico’s south-southeast. Since then, in an attempt to reset relations with these communities, the government has introduced new constitutional reforms designed to grant legal autonomous status to Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities. What’s more, the new President of the Supreme Court following Mexico’s first judicial elections in June, Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, is himself a Mixtec Oaxacan. Nevertheless, Beas remains unconvinced by what he considers to be largely cosmetic reforms that fail to address Indigenous Mexicans’ longstanding demands for full rights and recognition.
‘We’ve known Hugo Aguilar for many years… He was a lawyer – a good lawyer – but about seven years ago he went to work for the government, and that’s when he broke off his direct relationship with the communities. Now, the issue isn’t whether he’s Indigenous or not… Hugo Aguilar, in the end, is the one who implemented those false consultations to impose the megaprojects. Ultimately, he is a government employee, and it doesn’t matter whether he speaks Mixtec or doesn’t speak Mixtec.’
As for the constitutional reforms and the possibility of a newfound relationship between Mexico’s Indigenous peoples and the state, Beas is left firmly unimpressed: ‘It (the reform) talks about autonomy, it talks about self-determination, but as long as territorial rights of Indigenous peoples are not recognized, it is a farce… Because ultimately we are not interested in “consultation”; we are interested in consent or non-consent: prior, free, and informed. That has never existed… and as long as the territorial issue is not addressed, nothing will change’.
