translated from Spanish: Banderazo in St. Lucia, illegal act: original villages

While inside St. Lucia Air Base the government on Thursday mounted an exhibition of heavy machinery to give the flag for the construction of the Felipe Angeles airport for the second time, the surrounding area still felt unsatisfied.
Residents of the 12 villages originating in Tecámac, the Municipality of The Mexiquense where the base is located, they demonstrated at the front door to warn President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that his fight against the megaproject will continue in their territories and in the courts, even international ones.
Find out: With display of machinery and helicopters with flags begin works of St. Lucia
This organization of settlers filed 10 shelters, of which it had obtained two temporary suspensions, but which are not yet thoroughly resolved, so it emphasized that construction should not yet begin.
“We think it was a symbolic and illegal act,” said the villager spokesman Arturo Hernandez.
Not only because of the legal remedies that remain, he explained, but because the master plan, technical studies and authorizations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) are still unready, so construction should not be started, which López Obrador already asked to inaugurate on March 21, 2022.
Inside, the president gloated that the legal hurdles that delayed the work, which he first flagged, were over last April 29. This Thursday he decided to come again, a day after a federal judge revoked the last of seven definitive suspensions that the collective had obtained #NoMásDerroches, but which the government managed to take down by declaring strategic security facilities all those operated by the Ministry of Defence, such as this air base.
López Obrador said it was unprecedented that more than 140 protections had been filed against a public work and called it “a waste,” motivated because there were so many interests around.
But the interests of the peoples who manifested themselves at the same time are only water, which is already scarce and they fear that the megaproject will be wiped out; planes, which will pass just 60 meters high from their homes; the noise, which the Environmental Impact Manifestation itself (MIA) calculates between 130 and 180 decibels, while the approved for urban areas is 68 decibels maximum.
“We have nothing to do with No Más Derroches, we have nothing to do with the Coparmex (Patronal Confederation of the Mexican Republic). We have nothing to do with the money lords, then,” Herrera clarified in an interview with Animal Político.
The only thing in common, he said, is the legal framework, which is the same for all Mexicans.
The Felipe Angels airport plan does not know about 15 documents that would be legally mandatory: airworthiness studies and simultaneous operations with Benito Juárez and Toluca; study of weather conditions; geotechnical and topographical; orographics; legal proceedings; environmental risks; archaeological sites; social impact studies; existing facilities, relocation proposals, service feasibility study and service plan; feasibility; project management. In addition, the risk analysis, cost-benefit analysis and master plan, which have already been declared reserved under national security argument.
New mobilizations and legal resources
The Organization of the 12 Originating Peoples of Tecámac includes inhabitants of San Juan Pueblo Nuevo, San Lucas Xolox, the Acozac Kings, Santo Domingo Ajoloapan, Santa María Ajoloapan, San Pedro Pozohuacan, San Jerónimo Xonacahuacan, Tecámac, San Pablo Tecalco, San Francisco Cuahtitlixca, San Pedro Atzompa and Santa María Ozumbilla.
This Sunday, October 20, there will be a protest caravan in Xolox, and a much larger march is planned from the Municipal Palace of Tecámac to the main gate of St. Lucia on October 26, which is Saturday. Yesterday’s only about 40 people came for being a working day, but the nonconformities are widespread.
Two vendors of chicharrones and paddles outside a nearby high school told this portal that the people of Reyes Acozac are angry and worried that they will force them to sell their land or leave their homes. A neighbor of Tecámac claimed that in the last week she saw trucks from a construction company.
Another said it was rather in April that it was noticed that transports loaded with tepetate were coming in.  A young man from Ozumbilla commented that if the work is to be done, I wish he really brought economic development and jobs, since for now they have only said that there will be gardening and maintenance, but the operation is with trained personnel who are required to study , which they have almost no.
The 12 villages also plan to appeal to the Tenth District Court to review the provisional suspensions granted to them, and if not to intervene to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN).
If that is not enough, they already have the aim of going to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) or the International Criminal Court (ICC).
One of his arguments is that an indigenous consultation was not fulfilled in all the indigenous peoples around it, even though it so establishes Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The government consulted only one, Xaltocan, belonging to the neighbouring municipality of Nextlalpan, arguing that it was the only one affected.
“He didn’t deign to see us.
The villagers’ demonstration lasted until the official act was over. A member of the Helpofate—the body that cares for the president—came out to talk to the disgruntled. They explained that all their claims are already written and in court, but that they wanted to see a show of goodwill from the president: to receive them for dialogue after one of his morning lectures.
They gave him contact details, but they only received a card with a presidency phone, without anyone’s own name.
As López Obrador’s vehicle approached, the military contained protesters and journalists waiting at the exit. A young sympathizer even took a hit from a soldier for getting too close, but he got to give him a role with a message. The disgruntled, on the other hand, got nothing.
“When the president of the republic came out, we came to the front to see us. He almost ran us over and didn’t deign to see us. He didn’t deign to see us…
“We were present there as peoples, with our limitations, but finally we are the peoples. The little we argue we’ve learned through our own experience,” Hernandez said.
Inside were minimal mountains of land that did not fill one of the 15 cargo trucks there were, and the 30 bulldozers that workers left behind after the two minutes of display that the president smiled.
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Original source in Spanish