Homún, Yucatán, (July 28, 2021) .- After more than five years of struggle, the people of Homún, Yucatán municipality, are not tired; they have resisted death threats, the closure of their cenotes, and a whole legal battle to defend their most important possession: Water. They remain firm in the defense of the vital liquid.
What they are defending is the land where they were born, they do not see it as a vital natural resource, but rather they recognize a connection with the cenotes, with their caves, with their way of life.
Through their perseverance, they have shown that justice exists, that if people are organized, it can be accessed through legal processes.
Recently, Maribel Ek Can, José Clemente May Echeverría, and Doroteo Hau Kue, representing the community, received the Heart of the Lion award, given by the Student Federation of the University of Guadalajara (UDG), “for being an example of struggle in the defense of water against the pig farming industry and promoting a healthy relationship between man and nature ”.
This recognition is an incentive that motivates them to continue with their struggle but also makes them realize that many people love the same things they love: Nature and Water.
Lourdes Medina Carrillo of the Indignación Homun’s legal defense team recalled that one of the struggles that the community has undertaken was an injunction lawsuit against a mega farm in 2018.
From this appeal, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation decided to suspend the operations of the pig farm while the trial ends. The Court confirmed that the farm must remain completely closed and without functions.
It has not been an easy process, acknowledges the lawyer because the people of Homun have been the victims of threats for fighting for their convictions, they have also been criminalized, harassed.
Even, according to Medina Carrillo, one of the mothers of the children who filed the injunction was identified by a group, possibly hired by the farm company, and she stated that was attacked.
In 2018, without a closure order, inspectors from the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) tried to close down five cenotes that are under the tutelage of Maya leaders who oppose the installation of the pig farm.
“In May 2021, the state government decreed the closure of the water defenders’ tourist inns, acts that were considered retaliation against the people of Homun”. Medina Carrillo concluded.
Source: La Jornada Maya
The Yucatan Times Newsroom
