Workbooks N3

Workbooks N3
Autor: Juan Manuel Sandoval Palacios
RMALC, CLACSO and INAH
CLACSO Working Group on Borders, Regionalization and Globalization
2022

The construction of the so-called Maya Train, one of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's priority projects to boost the "development" of southeastern Mexico during the 2018-2024 period, has resulted—primarily in the expansion of the right-of-way and the route's construction in areas where no railway line existed—not only in the displacement of hundreds of people, the destruction of their homes, and the destruction of thousands of trees and plants, but also in the damage to archaeological monuments. This damage has involved the destruction and looting of monuments in some unexplored or recently discovered archaeological zones by personnel from construction companies and other entities, as well as by various people from nearby communities. But it has also involved the destruction of archaeological monuments in some ejidos and communities by ejido members and residents who, upon learning that the Maya Train will pass near or within their lands, sell plots containing pre-Hispanic structures. These structures are then razed and looted by these same people to leave no trace and thus avoid any problems with the National Institute of Anthropology and History. In other cases, they destroy archaeological monuments to build commercial buildings (shops, hotels, or restaurants), hoping to profit from the tourism that the Maya Train will bring to the region. And it is precisely these archaeological monument zones, both those already open to tourism and others that could be opened, that form part of the arguments used by the government to justify the construction of the Maya Train in the territories of Chiapas, Tabasco, and the states that make up the Yucatán Peninsula.

In this Working Paper No. 3, the findings of a project are presented that show that “The presumption of induced and continued destruction of an indeterminate number of Archaeological, Historical, Artistic and Paleontological Monuments, not only through the lands that the trains will pass through, but also through all the territories where it will exert its transformative and destructive influence”, mentioned in the “Complaint of Facts” presented to the Attorney General of the Republic in May 2020, has already become “the real destruction” of an indeterminate number of Archaeological Monuments.

You can read and share the document at: https://biblioteca-repositorio.clacso.edu.ar/bitstream/CLACSO/139370/1/Cuaderno-de-Trabajo-3.pdf