Ms.Babycakes

The people used an excavator they seized from the company IEnova, affiliate of the United States transnational, Sempra Energy. The company was building the gas pipeline without the approval of those who live there. So, after an assembly, the entire community went to where the pipeline was being laid. There, they excavated and cut out with a blowtorch nearly ten kilometers of pipeline, which they then took to Ciudad Obregón to sell as scrap metal.

“The company complained, made a fuss, and sued. If you continue building the pipeline, we told them, we are going to continue selling it as scrap metal,” says Guadalupe Maldonado Flores, a Yaqui who has accompanied territorial defense efforts of the traditional guard of Loma de Bácum.

In August 2017, they began to remove the pipeline, but the energy megaproject began in 2012, with the signing of a contract between the then-president Enrique Peña and the company. Construction began in 2013. They failed to carry out a consultation with the Indigenous peoples, yet they knew that the pipeline route crossed Yaqui territory.

The proposal was to build “Gasoducto Sonora” for the importation of gas through Agua Prieta. In 2016, the company arrived to the eight Yaqui towns to promote the project offering money, water purifiers, and even new pickup trucks. IEnova had the acceptance of seven of the eight Yaqui towns. In Loma de Bácum, it was impossible.

Francisca Vazquez, Carmen’s mother, had a dream in the sacred Bakatete territory. After this dream, the women got organized. Casilda was still alive, a well-known Yaqui woman and elder, who dedicated herself to convene and organize the women in order to stop what the transnational company was doing. It was women who led the land defense.

“Ever since we were little, our ancestors, our grandparents, who never studied, who spoke our language, told us that our lands were going to be taken. ‘The government says: everyone will study. Don’t take their side. From today, you defend your territory. We are not going to be here anymore, and the day that the government wants, it will have you in its sights,’” says Francisca.

Thanks to the work of the women’s group from Bácum, they won an injunction and the judge suspended construction in June 2017, also ordering the removal of the pipeline. But the company continued construction until the community of Loma de Bácum stopped it themselves.

Also, to serve as a reminder of these acts of self-defense, the community left the burned cars which belonged to the pipeline company in the central plaza, in front of the church and traditional guard.

Inhabitants of this town and of the other seven Yaqui towns are now denouncing the entrance of mining companies for exploration in their territory. The traditional guard of Loma de Bácum detected at least seven incursions in the mountains of Bakatete seeking to begin mining projects."