In this interview, Indigenous activist Haizel explains to LAB contributor Isàlia McIntyre how strengthening Maya identity supports resistance to megaprojects harming communities across the Yucatán.

Since 2018, the Maya Train – an intercity railway line designed for tourism and cargo transport –  has expanded to over 1.500 kilometers of tracks across Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, including the states of Campeche, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Chiapas. The train, a flagship project of the previous administration, was touted by ex-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador as an engine of economic growth for the historically marginalized Mexican southeast. In practice, it has been an ecological disaster, and widely criticised for undermining the sovereignty and livelihoods of the very Indigenous Maya communities in whose name it operates. The train is now entering a new phase of freight service and expansion. Yet, associated human rights violations continue to surface.

Haizel De la Cruz, photographer and member of the Assembly of Maya Territory Múuch’ Xínbal, is at the forefront of resistance against the train and the harm it brings to Maya communities. In Maya, Múuch’ Xínbal, means ‘let’s walk together’, reflecting the assembly’s work in uniting communities across the Yucatán in defense of the peninsula.

In this interview with LAB, De la Cruz issues a scathing indictment of dispossession masked as development, and sheds light on the under-reported wave of violence the train has unleashed. Drawing from Indigenous Maya identity and stories, De la Cruz and her assembly demonstrate how the struggle for land and life does not relent–it adapts.

LAB: How did the assembly begin?

We decided to organize in 2018 because more and more megaprojects were coming to our territory. We had already seen genetically modified soy, pig farms, and mass tourism arrive, but then we found out that solar panels and wind turbines were being installed across the peninsula. These were presented as ecological alternatives and came with this narrative that if we accepted them we were saving the planet.

We were totally unfamiliar with these forms of energy, but we did notice that they came with usufruct contracts which sought to take our right to the land. So on the one hand there was this environmental discourse, and on the other hand they were dispossessing us of our territory and deforesting it. How can a project be environmentally friendly if it’s clearing a huge area of land?

LAB: What is your perspective on the Maya Train, and whose interests it represents?

The train came with this rhetoric of doing justice to Indigenous peoples, because the peninsula is forgotten, and calling it development. But when were we consulted? We didn’t know it was coming. On top of that, they call it ‘Maya,’ as though it were doing us a favor.

What this megaproject has really done is encompass all the others and unite them. In what sense? Renewable energies power the train and the pig farms are set up perfectly because now they have a train, it’s a freight train after all, to transport soy to feed the pigs. It’s shocking how looking at a map, everything fits together. We’re not the ones who consume soy, much less genetically modified soy. But we don’t consume the meat either. It’s exported, using the train.   

Renewable energy also powers the ‘development hubs,’ as they first called the stations. What this really means is industrialization… Think of Cancún; they want to implement the same industrial tourism model along the whole route.

We can’t allow this. It’s the death of the Maya people because we create and recreate life in this territory. Our life is immersed in this territory. We cannot speak of Maya culture, language, philosophy, an Indigenous Maya perspective, if they’ve taken our territory.

Now, [renewable energies are] expanding along the route. Again, we’re seeing how what was sold as an alternative project is actually a colonialist project that will dispossess [us] to feed [the train] that is equally colonialist.

LAB: What strategies has the assembly pursued to resist these processes?

We began [on the legal front]. We filed an injunction including loads of studies – archaeological studies, water studies, studies of the devastation and concessions granted to construction companies… we thought, there’s no way they can ignore so much evidence. Then the judge in Yucatán declared himself incompetent, the judge in Quintana Roo declared himself incompetent, the judge in Campeche declared himself incompetent, so we went to the Supreme Court. To this day, that injunction hasn’t been processed. 

We decided, if the legal route isn’t working, let’s strengthen ourselves as Indigenous communities through political formation workshops. When they offered renewable energy contracts, we went to the ejidos (communally governed lands), and told them, ‘look, this is what this clause says. This little word, which is incredibly confusing, means this.’ When a megaproject proposal arrives, those who’ve been to our workshop know to say, ‘give us a copy of the contract, it’s our right to analyse what you want us to sign’.

But the overarching theme is strengthening identity, our why: why fight for something that is ours, not in a material sense, but in a familial sense… We don’t see nature as a resource, and we try to strengthen this narrative.

LAB: The government says it conducted an Indigenous consultation to approve the train. How accurate is this claim?

They mostly consulted ejido leaders, who are mostly men. There were no women, and that’s not how we do consultations. As for those who said yes, it was not ‘yes’ to the train, but to meeting their needs… The government asked, ‘what are you missing? Water? If you accept the train, it will bring you water’. In Calakmul, where there’s a water shortage, they brought in water tanks that said ‘Maya Train’ on them. Who says no to that? But people were not being informed, they were being deceived.

LAB: How has the train affected everyday life in the communities? 

Now we have something even more painful hindering organization in the communities, which is organized crime. Since [the train] was announced, we saw it coming… shootings, kidnappings… a wave of terrible violence. With the arrival of the train, drug trafficking groups are fighting over new territories and new markets. Now they’re in the small communities, because small communities own large tracts of land. Between Valladolid in Yucatán and Felipe Carrillo Puerto in Quintana Roo… is dense forest that communities have cared for for years, but now it’s a drug trafficking route. There’s a struggle for control, the community is caught in the middle, and it’s the community that suffers.

Drug use has increased, domestic violence has increased, and suicides have increased. It’s fracturing society… It’s hard to tell someone ‘let’s fight for the land’ when they’re fighting to survive… when they’re afraid.

LAB: How does the assembly organize and operate?

We, as an assembly, are clear about the path we’ve chosen. If we’re going to die anyway, so be it, may our death serve a purpose. But there has to be a process, a path.  

We realized one strategy to reach people is through art as a tool to strengthen Maya identity, which tells us why we have to be willing to fight. For years they’ve tried to separate children from this identity. For me it’s fundamental that they don’t lose our connection with nature. Art provides that. 

For example, I went to a Maya community that has cenotes. I told the children, ‘we’re going to do a photography workshop, but the main theme is water.’ I asked, ‘what did your grandparents tell you about water?’ And they said, ‘Well, there are raccoons who take care of the water.’ That’s how we began. ‘Let’s imagine the raccoons are here. What do they see? And what are we going to do? Be like the raccoons and take care of the water?’

There is a historical memory… we have to strengthen [it] through the stories they already know. It’s a slow process, a complicated process, a process that takes years, and what we’re up against is moving at an accelerated pace. But I think it’s effective.