Revived Airport Mega-Project Threatens Mexican Farmworkers Again in Atenco Clayton Conn - Upside Down World
go to original April 17, 2013

In 2001 and 2002 townspeople and ejidatarios of San Salvador Atenco, Mexico successfully halted a plan proposed by then President Vicente Fox to expropriate more than 1,100 hectares of their farmland and territory for the construction of an International Airport. Now in 2013, the deceased plan has been revived to haunt and threaten them.

“This is worse than before,” says Jorge Oliveros, ejiditario and longtime member of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT), the grassroots organization that successfully lead the opposition campaign in 2001- 2002. “If the previous project was outrageous, than the current one is even more so. In 2001, 90 percent of our territory was included [in the project], now its 95 percent but with the same strategy of division, threats, repression and death.”

The mega-project, dubbed the “Future City” seeks to expropriate more than 1,500 hectares of land from Atenco and more than 15,000 from the region. It’s not just for the infamous airport but to also accommodate Mexico City’s land hungry and rampantly growing urbanization that nearly extends to the outskirts of rural Atenco and it’s neighboring town, Texcoco.

The FPDT claims it obtained leaked information by ICA, Mexico’s largest construction company, that outlines some of the specific infrastructure projects for the territory. These projects include an area designated for industrial parks, a residential zone for new condominium complexes, a rural campus for Mexico City’s Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM), and of course the airport.

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