from Revolution News
Today residents of the town of San Bartolo Ameyalco, Mexico resisted the diversion of their natural spring well. Around 100 to 120 people were injured in what has been over a year long struggle to keep the towns spring from being diverted and overused.
The tension began in the morning, when, guarded by 1500 riot police officers, workers of the Water System of Mexico City (Sacmex) resumed laying pipe on the old road to Mixcoac. As they have done in the past, the townspeople rang the church bells to warn people to guard the spring. People armed with pipes, sticks and stones, tried to prevent the construction.
Reports are saying that 50 to 70 of the towns people were injured during the resistance, many of them hospitalized, and some seriously injured. 4 policeman were overtaken, and 2 of them seriously injured and hospitalized. 50 other policeman were injured, and several police vehicles were destroyed.
The borough project
San Bartolo Ameyalco delegation is in Alvaro Obregon, in the western part of Mexico City. It is a town founded in 1535, although there is evidence of its existence before the arrival of the Spanish invasion. Tepatecas originally settled in this area.
Ameyalco has a spring that has supplied centuries of the population and other neighboring settlements on the delegation Álvaro Obregón. It is considered a cultural heritage of the people, even as it is named: Ameyalco comes from the Nahuatl ameyalli , which means “place where the water flows clean.”
In April 2013, the delegation authorities Álvaro Obregón announced the proposed construction of a water distribution network, parallel to that which exists in the area. Residents were told that the spring would need a plumbing project in order to run pipes off of it, and that they would be supplied with two outlets.
Residents believe that it is a plan to take water from the village, and argue that any location with access to its own spring does not have to use water from a plumbing system in the first place.
The residents who have cared for more than a century for the spring and what that water supplies, refused to participate in the proposal. In May 2013, residents of Calle Camino Viejo a Mixcoac set up camp in the Zacamulpa water tank to prevent the start of the work of the borough project.
On February 14, 2014, a similar incident happened when a group of workers with digging machinery arrived. Residents say that women, men, youth, senior citizens and people from neighboring villages, all came to confront the police. Police violence and the arrests of 5 young people in February is fuel for todays events.
