Environmental Violence, Water Rights, and (Un) Due Process in Northwestern Mexico

• Author: Lucero Radonic
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Date: 01 September 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X15585111
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 204, Vol. 42 No. 5, September 2015, 27–47

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X15585111

© 2015 Latin American Perspectives

27

Environmental Violence, Water Rights, and (Un) Due

Process in Northwestern Mexico

by

Lucero Radonic

Water-related struggles worldwide may not involve armed conflict or direct bodily

harm, but they are still violent in nature. Over the past century the Yaqui Tribe has con-

tinually contested water development plans and challenged distribution schemes, seeking

to regain control over its livelihoods and the production of space in its ancestral homeland.

In the Mexican state of Sonora we are currently witnessing a new chapter of the violent

saga around water access in the Yaqui River valley. In fighting the proposed construction

of the Independencia Aqueduct, intended to transfer water from the Yaqui River to the

capital city of Hermosillo, the tribe’s struggles for recognition as a rightful resource holder

have intensified. Paradoxically, dispossession is justified through an international human

rights discourse and the relentless interrogation of indigenous authenticity aimed at dele-

gitimizing Yaqui traditional resource claims.

Las luchas relacionadas con el agua en todo el mundo no necesariamente conllevan

conflicto armado o daño físico directo, pero todavía son violentas por naturaleza. Durante

el ultimo siglo la tribu yaqui han impugnado continuamente los planes de desarrollo del

agua y cuestionado los programas de distribución, con el propósito de recobrar el control

sobre sus medios de subsistencia y la producción del espacio en su tierra ancestral. En el

estado mexicano de Sonora estamos siendo testigos de un nuevo capítulo en la saga vio-

lenta en torno al acceso al agua en el Valle del Río Yaqui. Con la batalla contra el proyecto

de construcción del Acueducto Independencia— diseñado para transportar agua del Río

Yaqui a la ciudad capital de Hermosillo—las luchas de la tribu por el reconocimiento como

dueños legítimos del recurso se han intensificado. Paradójicamente, el despojo se justifica

por medio de un discurso de derechos humanos internacionales y el cuestionamiento

implacable de la autenticidad indígena con el propósito de deslegitimar los reclamos yaquis

sobre los recursos.

Keywords: Political ecology, Indigenous people, Mexico, Water rights, Water

conflicts

Today as 479 years ago, the Yaqui Tribe continues to fight in defense of our lands and

waters, which were granted to us as ancestral inheritance under the presidential decree

Lucero Radonic is an assistant professor in the Anthropology Department and the Environmental

Science and Policy Program at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on human-envi-

ronmental relationships, particularly the political ecology of water resources and the management

of nature in urban areas. She thanks Nemer Narchi for putting this timely issue together and the

three reviewers for their valuable comments. She also acknowledges Thomas E. Sheridan, Peter

Taber, David Tecklin, and Manuel Prieto for their always helpful suggestions at different stages of

the process. This manuscript was submitted on December 2012 and accepted for publication in

May 2013.

585111LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X15585111Latin American PerspectivesRadonic / WATER RIGHTS AND (UN) DUE PROCESS

research-article2015

28 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

of 1937 and then recognized as property in 1940. . . . The fight of the Yaqui Tribe has

been launched on every front: yesterday by sacrificing our lives and today by utilizing

the legal recourses provided by the Mexican Nation.

—Announcement for the Second International Water Forum. Yaqui Tribe, 2012

In early 2012 officials of the Mexican state of Sonora announced the pro-

posed construction on the international highway of a colossal Yaqui deer dancer

statue, the largest statue of its kind in Mexico. In the words of the director of

the Ministry of Infrastructure and Urban Development, the 37-meter-tall deer

dancer “will be looking toward the south of Sonora and will exemplify the

figure of a proud and pugnacious ethnic group.” These combative traits, how-

ever, are embraced and exalted only when found in a monumental metal sculp-

ture.1 The Yaquis’ contentious defense of their territory and natural resources

has been methodically met by violent state responses since the Yoemem2 first

rebelled against the Spaniards in 1740. A century ago eradication measures

were part of a military campaign justified under an assimilationist framework

and a modernization project that privileged Euro-Americans over indigenous

people.3 Today the weapons of choice are discursive and procedural mecha-

nisms used to overlook indigenous water claims and call into question the

tribe’s legitimacy as a sovereign political actor. In the context of the

Independencia Aqueduct—a 145-kilometer-long canal that will transfer water

from the Yaqui River to the state capital—legal struggles around water rights

are inherently violent. The state governor and elected officials largely from the

Partido de Acción Nacional (National Action Party—PAN) have disregarded

indigenous water rights, ignored Yaqui constitutional rights to prior consulta-

tion and self-determination, and overridden legal structures and court orders.

Violence against the Yaqui culminated in an attempt to deprive the tribe of its

legal standing, with state authorities contending that the tribe did not exist.

Appalled, the Yaqui responded, “If, as they say, we don’t exist, then the govern-

ment had better start erasing the deer dancer from the official state seal.”

In this paper I review Sonora’s modern hydraulic development in the light

of indigenous Yaqui struggles for water management. I argue that political

struggles surrounding the construction of the Independencia Aqueduct are the

modern bloodless sequel of the military maneuvers carried out to gain control

over Yaqui natural resources in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-

ries. In other words, in Sonora we are currently witnessing a new chapter of the

violent saga of environmental resources in the Yaqui River valley. Over the past

century the Yaqui tribe has continually contested water development plans and

challenged distribution schemes in an effort to regain control over its liveli-

hoods and the production of space in its ancestral homeland. In fighting the

construction of the Independencia Aqueduct, the tribe’s struggles for recogni-

tion as a rightful resource holder have intensified. Informed by a neoliberal

policy framework and a focus on creating a positive business climate, aqueduct

supporters give preferential treatment to individual rights and private prop-

erty over the collective rights and common property of indigenous people.

Paradoxically, dispossession is justified through an international human rights

discourse and the relentless interrogation of indigenous authenticity aimed at