Mexico: PLP Leads Fight against Flooding of Workers’ Homes

MEXICO, February 12 —Workers living in the Lakes Xico-Tlahuac area, southeast of Mexico City, who are already threatened by flooding, now must fight the bosses’ plans for a grand-scale hydro project that will increase the danger. There are 120,000 families living in 12 residential colonies in the state of Mexico and the Federal District that could be affected.
Faced with the threat of flooding and later eviction from our homes, members and friends of the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have begun to organize meetings with our neighbors to denounce these actions of bosses and politicians against workers. Over two years ago, we began discussing the problem of flooding that results from unrestrained over-extraction of underground water that is sinking the area.
Now the bosses want to start building their project, called Sierra Nevada, which they have already approved. They claim it will bring “Water for Everyone Forever,” by building a series of ponds to collect fresh water, mainly from the ice melting off the volcanoes Popocaltepetl and Iztacihuatl, as well as from rain sources. According to the plan, this water could supply the western zone of the Federal District.
With this project, the bosses are trying to placate the anger of residents who are almost permanently living without water — but it will be at the expense of other workers’ lives. But they are also planning an “eco-tourism” zone around the project showing that the true beneficiaries will be those bosses who own the land and resorts.
University Bosses Complicit
The National Autonomous University of  Mexico (UNAM) directed researchers to plan a project that in fact cannot guarantee workers’ safety. They failed to incorporate a back up plan to protect residents in case of flooding. And the threat is always present, as the researchers themselves have admitted, in case of strong rains or a malfunction of the system of drainage channels, given the decrepit and inadequate municipal infrastructure.
Through the use of CHALLENGE, we warned residents about the dangers and the need to organize ourselves to fight. We have distributed more than 6,000 flyers and newspapers in the two years of this struggle. These actions have given workers confidence in us, and the confidence that if the workers are organized, we could accomplish much.
The local government tried to derail the movement, arguing that it was a false alarm, but during the rainy season they chose to sacrifice the lives of workers of several other districts, such as Reyes, La Paz, Nezahualcoyotl y Ecatepec, flooding their homes with residual waters from the general drain.
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