About incomprehensible injustice and other issues in Mexico
Huichapan, January 30, 2013
Through this statement CUMA wants to express our strongest
condemnation of the Clean Development Mechanism’s
approval to the project that will incinerate waste at the
CEMEX cement plant located in Huichapan, (State of Hidalgo,
Mexico).
Our community is adjacent to the cement plant. We have direct evidence of the beginning
of the incineration of waste in March 2012 and we have mobilized to stop this activity. We
do not understand how it is that the CDM can approve this project regardless of the
documentation that we have provided with the evidence that this project does not meet
the requirements of the CDM, does not comply with the laws of the state or locality, and
represents an unacceptable affront to the local and national community. The CDM Board
needs to have in their hands the truth of what is happening here, and they need to stop
this imminent approval.
We are the ones who suffer the negative consequences on our health; we are the ones
who live here every day. We know that when Mexican authorities come to do pollution
monitoring controls, emissions are reduced, to the point of diminishing production to
meet such weak controls.
As if that were not enough, when we were tired of asking CEMEX to please listen to us and
stop harming ourselves, we decided to speak out and expose the truth to the public
knowledge. This has been at the cost of suffering strong attacks and a smear campaign
that has generated social tension and division among the community. There are those
who support the incineration of waste at the cement plant; basically they are a small
number of employees and their families from the CEMEX company, who always give their
approval to the consultations not so much for the eventual benefits they could have but
because of fear of being fired, even against harming the general welfare of the
community. Some neighbours who are co-opted by donations and gifts from the cement
company support them.
On the other hand, we are those who are opposed to this project. We are the majority
and we’re not against the development of our communities, but against having to suffer
damage to our health and ecosystem, with obvious and visible impacts; a project of this
nature cannot be viable.
From our humble view, this project is nothing more than just a business, and those most
affected are always the voiceless, the marginalized, the poor and the ignorant. Where the
money could well serve real institutions working for care of our planet, it ends in the
hands of firms, consultants and professionals responsible for green-washing the
information for approval. Even worse, the money ends up in the hands of companies that
have not generated any real positive change in our land. Sadly we see that through the
years, they only have left devastation, desolation, and irreparable damage to our Mother
Earth.
Please Executive Board members of the CDM who are still on time to cancel this approval:
do not turn a deaf ear to this request since refusing to listen can trigger serious social
conflicts in our communities at a time when our country needs integration and fraternity.
Sincerely,
Coordinating Board
Citizens United for the Environment
CUMA