(Salina Cruz) Between the Pacific and the Atlantic, Mexico is developing an “interoceanic corridor”, a future land alternative to the Panama Canal affected by drought, with its share of environmental concerns and concerning the impact on local communities.
Hernan Cortes already dreamed of it during the conquest in the 16th century, the current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wants to do it: facilitate the transit of men and goods by land between the two oceans, via the Gulf of Mexico.
The place: the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where Mexican territory forms a 300 km bottleneck between its two maritime openings.
The project, partially inaugurated by Mr. Lopez Obrador, consists not of digging a new canal, but of reactivating the railway between the ports of Salina Cruz on the Pacific and Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf.
For this, the government announced an investment of 2.85 billion US dollars. The development of the isthmus could increase GDP by three to five points, the executive hopes.
” We will […] go from one coast to the other in seven hours,” President Lopez Obrador said a few weeks ago in a video recorded aboard a brand new train. Service is scheduled to begin for passengers in December.
Ultimately, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor (CIIT) consortium hopes to see 300,000 containers transit by 2028 and 1.4 million at full capacity in 2033.
Industrial parks
The “interoceanic corridor” is taking shape at a time when “our brothers in Panama are having some difficulties due to lack of water in the canal,” noted Mr. Lopez Obrador.
Faced with this lack of water, the Panama Canal Authority announced a reduction in traffic to 25 ships per day from November 3, then gradually to 20 ships per day in mid-February.
In 2022, the 80 km long canal, through which 3% of world maritime trade passes, had welcomed 39 boats per day on average.
The “backbone of the Mexican corridor” is its complementarity with the Panama Canal, assures ship captain Adiel Estrada, operational coordinator of the project.
The development of the corridor must be accompanied by the development of industrial parks, for which calls for tenders have been launched. The government hopes to attract seven billion dollars in investments.
On the Pacific, the extension work at the port of Salina Cruz is monumental, using 5.5 tonnes of stone, AFP noted.
Launched in 2020, the work generated 800 direct and 2,400 indirect jobs, according to CIIT coordinator Adiel Estrada.
“It’s a magnificent project! “, exclaims Angélica Gonzalez, a 42-year-old craftswoman from Ciudad Ixtepec, one of the stations on the route between Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos.
Angélica was five years old when she took the train for the last time. She is looking forward to selling traditional clothes to future tourists.
The population “is very motivated” by the corridor and its promises of prosperity, recognizes Rafael Mayoral, an environmental advocate in Salina Cruz.
Organized crime
But this “does not erase its environmental and social impact”, he adds.
Juana Ramirez, an activist with Ucizoni, a regional organization, fears that the corridor will transform the isthmus into a place “polluted, with few animal and plant species, and increasing violence.” She believes in particular that the corridor will encourage the arrival of “organized crime”.
Ucizoni claims that the route did not respect international standards on consultation with indigenous communities, and that some of them were expropriated and displaced.
Members of the Navy “repress and harass” opponents, assures Mme Ramirez, who also says she is under threat of a heavy fine for having participated in a demonstration in April, “a clear example of criminalization” of the protest, according to her.
By mid-2024, the interoceanic corridor train must be connected to another line which goes to the border with Guatemala via Chiapas, the gateway for migrants to Mexican territory.
According to activists, speculation on land prices is already raging and mafias are carrying out violent expropriations in Salina Cruz and the surrounding area.
The NGO Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA) recorded three homicides of land defenders between October 2022 and July 2023, linked according to it to the corridor. The majority of victims come from indigenous communities.