(Photo@Noticias, Voz e Imagen)

On April 23rd, some 80 members of the State Police and the State Investigation Agency (AEI) arrested 11 ejidatarios from Santo Domingo Ingenio who had been blockading the Cinco Palmas wind farm belonging to the French electricity company EDF Energies Nouvelles for two months for alleged “extortion”, and at the request of said company. The blockade, organized in demand of 30 thousand pesos for each of the 214 people who rent their land to the project, put 52 towers out of a total of 80 installed out of service. In response, Zapotec inhabitants of this locality initiated the blockade of the federal highway that communicates to Oaxaca with the state of Chiapas to demand the liberation of its ejidatarios.

EDF’s regional manager, Rafael Cacho Lopez, had previously stated that the company does not have the subsidy requested by the comuneros in its contracts, and that the sum of this resource is earmarked annually for social support, such as the rehabilitation of classrooms, among other things.

For their part, the protesters denounce that, since 2013 when the project started, successive municipal governments have kept these millions.

For her part, the head of the office of the General Secretariat of the Government of Oaxaca (SEGEGO), Carmelita Ricardez Vera, said that “Institutions must guarantee the rule of law; they, as ejidatarios, signed an agreement that is in force and does not stipulate any extra resources, as they claim. That is why we say that it is the leaders and not the ejidatarios who want to blackmail the companies.”

For more information in Spanish:

Acusan a líderes de ejidatarios de extorsionar a empresas eólicas (La Jornada, 25 de abril de 2017)

Detienen a 11 ejidatarios por bloqueo a parque eólico en Oaxaca (Proceso, 23 de abril de 2017)

Detienen a 11 personas en desalojo de bloqueo a parque eólico en Oaxaca (Radio Formula, 23 de abril de 2017)