Mexico’s new president promised “the end of neoliberalism.” But as he forces through megaprojects and steamrolls over Indigenous dissent, activists are beginning to understand that anti-neoliberal doesn’t always mean anti-capitalist.
Samir Flores Soberanes was a teacher, a campesino, a community organizer, a radio host, and an Indigenous Nahua land and water defender. In February, Samir was killed in his home, shot twice in the head.
Samir was a prominent voice within the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua (People’s Front in Defence of the Land and Water), an organization fighting to stop the Proyecto Integral Morelos (PIM), which would see the operation of two thermoelectric plants and a natural gas pipeline in the shadow of the very active Popocatépetl volcano in central Mexico. Land defenders are fiercely opposed to the project – they believe it will divert water supplies in the region away from agricultural use and ultimately will undermine the way of life of the Nahua people in the state of Morelos.
Local officials told Mexican media that his murder was tied to organized crime, a frequent explanation proffered by officials whenever an activist or journalist is killed in Mexico, a country racked by cartel-related violence. But the timing of his murder – mere days before a contentious plebiscite, which would determine the future of the PIM, was set to be held – left little doubt in the minds of his comrades: Samir was killed in order to try to debilitate the work of those opposing the PIM and send a message that the project would proceed.
“He was a very creative person, multifaceted. His absence leaves a void in community work, in the work with the population,” Juan Carlos Flores, a member of the People’s Front in Defence of the Land and Water, tells Briarpatch.
“They have no idea who they took from us,” says Hugo Franco Guzman, one of the hosts at the local radio station that Samir helped to start.
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