According to a recent communique from ProDESC, on 17 March the Sixth District Judge located in Salina Cruz in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, ruled that the appeal by the Popular Assembly of the Juchiteco People (APPJ), which was filed on 19 August 2015, was denied.
The appeal was filed due to violations of the human rights of affected communities due tofor violations in the irregularities in the consultation process that took place in Juchitan de Zaragoza with regard to the installation of a wind farm by Southern Wind Energy (EES).
In the appeal, the APPJ reported that the Federal Energy Commission violated the principles of the right to consultation and that the consultation process was not conducted in accordance with the principles of the 169th Convention of the ILO, which determines that consultation should be free, prior, informed, culturally appropriate and conducted in good faith.
During its visit to Oaxaca in August 2016, the UN Working Group on Businesses and Human Rights highlighted in its report the multiple human rights abuses on this wind farm and repeated some of the contents of the appeal.
The Working Group stated in their report that during the visit they discovered violations to several rights, including the rights of indigenous people, the right to consultation, the right to a clean environment, and cultural rights.
In addition, they stated that community defenders suffer from aggressions and attacks, which took place during the time period in which they filed the appeal.
Previously, the Observation Mission (which included civil society organizations FUNDAR, ProDESC and Código DH - an organization that receives PBI accompaniment) and almost 100 civil society organizations released a report in which they documented the failure to comply with the principles of consultation as well as cases of human rights violations that took place during the process of installation of the wind farm.
According to civil society, the denial of the appeal implies that “Oaxacan state authorities are allowing the impunity that rules the country to also predominate in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
This affects indigenous communities that are defending their right to land, territory and natural resources from the wind industry in Mexico.”
It is important to highlight that PBI participated as an international observer of the consultation process with the goal of providing visibility to the risk situation for human rights defenders that participate in the process.
In addition, in the context of the work that we do in the state, PBI met with organizations and authorities in the region in the most recent trip to the Isthmus last March.