Mexico Is World’s Deadliest Spot for Environmental Activists Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
go to original September 29, 2022

A Yaqui Indigenous wears a bandana over his mouth as he walks through dust past the cemetery where slain water-defense leader Toms Rojo is buried in Potam, Mexico. (Fernando Llano/AP)

Mexico has become the deadliest place in the world for environmental and land defense activists, according to a global survey released Wednesday, and the Yaqui Indigenous people of northern Mexico are still mourning the killing of water-defense leader Tomás Rojo found dead in June 2021.

The murder of Indigenous land defenders often conjures up images of Amazon activists killed deep in the jungle — and Colombia and Brazil still account for many of the deaths. But according to a report by the nongovernmental group Global Witness, Mexico saw 54 activists killed in 2021, compared to 33 in Colombia and 26 in Brazil. The group recorded the deaths of 200 activists worldwide in 2021.

Latin America accounted for over two-thirds of those slayings — often of the bravest and most well-respected people in their communities.

That was the case with Tómas Rojo, who authorities claim was killed by a local drug gang that wanted the money the Yaquis sometimes earn by collecting tolls at informal highway checkpoints.

Between 2010, when state authorities built a pipeline to siphon off the Yaquis' water for use in the state capital, Hermosillo, to 2020, Rojo led a series of demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience, including a months-long intermittent blockade of the state's main highway, which caused millions in losses for businesses and industry.

People who knew Rojo don’t believe the toll money theory: They say he was killed by the powerful interests that stand to profit from the Yaquis’ land and water rights in the northern border state of Sonora, across the border from Arizona.

“Tomás demonstrated his capacity as a natural leader. He was a descendent of warriors,” said Fernando Jiménez, who fought alongside Rojo in a movement to defend the tribe’s water after the government built a dam to divert Yaqui water to rapidly growing Hermosillo in 2010.

Rojo's body was found half-buried near Vicam, nearly three weeks after he disappeared. He was initially identified by a red neckerchief he had been wearing when he left home.

Read the rest at WSLS.com

Related: Report Says 200 Environmental Activists Killed Globally in 2021 (Associated Press)

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