The following is the testimony of activist Roberto Rojo. This is what he posted on his Facebook account on November 6th:
“We cried for help, again and again. We feared for the jungle and the caves, and they never listened to us.”
From the moment they moved the Maya Train route through the jungle and started cutting down trees, we protested. Andrés Manuel flew over our heads in a helicopter, and we pleaded with him, with a loud SOS, to please not destroy the jungle.
And what was the response? A tweet from the president saying: “A group of pseudo-environmentalists paid by the United States is against the Maya Train project and progress.”
For months, we asked him to come and tour the jungle and see the caves. And what was the response? Attacks, mockery, threats, etc. We were afraid and angry because, illegally and ecocidally, the machines continued their destruction.
When the “bottle caps” came out, we asked them to come, along with the other candidates. And what was the response? They ignored us. Meanwhile, Quintana Roo and Campeche were losing vast swathes of rainforest.
They began massacring the caves, and the response to our pleas for help was always silence. The political class turned a blind eye while millions of lives were cut down by the power of metal.
We asked the president many times to come.
And the help never arrived…
The result: more than 20 million trees from our last healthy rainforests were killed, hundreds of caves were riddled with giant metal and concrete pilings, contaminating our precious water. A project that is useless and never will be, rife with death and corruption.
This government is criminal because of its arrogance, its corruption, and its ignorance.
Like the courageous Mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán, Carlos Manzo, who pleaded for help time and again, the government ignored him until it was too late. Here too, millions of innocent beings died, and our last remaining rainforests were mortally wounded.
Source: Facebook Roberto Rojo
