This Monday, the general director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Diego Prieto Hernandezwas present at the morning conference of the president Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorto share the progress to date in terms of archaeological salvage in the project mayan trainon the Yucatan Peninsula.
The official declared that “it is the most important research project, as a result of the archaeological salvage, that has been carried out in the Mayan region of Mexico,” which, he said, has employed almost 300 multidisciplinary specialists and more than 1,000 workers. of the communities involved. About them he declared: “they are very happy because in addition to obtaining a job, they contribute to the recovery of their own assets.”
Among other details, he explained that as part of the comprehensive work, 23,311 structures of different sizes have been located, which have been identified, investigated or protected with geogrid for further investigation, “since it would not give us the time to explore them all ” . Likewise, he stated that so far 1,292 personal property have been rescued, including metates, ceramics, lithics and archaeological fragments, as well as half a million sherds or pottery sherds.
Until now, he said, there has been evidence of 129 human burials, most with offerings, and 835 natural elements associated with archaeological contexts, mainly caves and cenotes.
With all this, he announced that the construction of several community museums will be carried out in the region, which will presumably be enriched with the pieces that have been recovered during the rescue operations, the first of which will be carried out in a community in Yucatan .
Among the pieces found, explained a video that was projected during the conference, there are vessels with ceramic paint, cave paintings and temples outdoors or in caves, as well as an ancestral canoe located in the waters of a cenote.
President’s Remarks
Then, the President of the Republic, Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorexpressed that the series of positions that oppose the construction of the Mayan Trainincluding that of the collective save me from the train, “in reality it is a political opposition, I would say political, because they want to block everything we do, they see everything badly (…) I have explained it several times, there is no community, no ejido, or small owners who oppose it. It is the opposition of political groups that have nothing to do with the area, many do not even know the area (…) they are pseudo-environmentalists financed by companies, interest groups created even by the government of USA”.
Later he expressed: “the important thing is that we come from below, we have been fighting for years and besides that we have moral authority, because we are defenders of justice and the environment, and human rights.”
He believed that part of the “vested interests” for the opposition of the mayan train come from companies involved in projects in the region, including Xcaret Group and the calica companywhich he accused of continuing with the work of extracting materials in a bank in the region near Carmen beachin it Section 5 of the train. “He received permits from the neoliberal governments and the environmentalists never, ever said anything. It is an unprecedented destruction of the territory and they continue to do so, ”he said about the latter.
On Xcaret Group declared: “in addition to everything they have done, they have another development near Valladolid, in Yucatán, joining cenotes and already announcing that they were going to open at the end of the year. So, since they are unemployed (because of a provisional suspension), now they have intensified more, with the pseudo-environmentalist pimps, the campaign against the Mayan Train. But of course we are not going to allow a work that is for the benefit of the entire southeast just to protect the interests of economic groups that rent pseudo-environmentalists, communicators, columnists and the media to be stopped.
For her part, the owner of the Semarnat, Mary Louise Albares, declared that “Xcaret is a group that prefers to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. It has never presented an environmental impact statement in all its proposals and all its projects”.