Press "Enter" to skip to content

AMLO declares southeast projects a matter of national security

Mexico City, Mexico — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has signed a decree in which all railways, ports and airports in the southeast will be considered projects of national security.

On Friday, AMLO announced the signing of the decree “by which they are recognized and declared as strategic priority of public interest and national security. The decrees specifically covers “the facilities of the Maya Train, the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the international airports of Palenque, Chiapas and Chetumal and Tulum in Quintana Roo,” he said.

“There is a deliberate action in bad faith, anti-popular, concerted, in which the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation is in collusion, just as I am saying, collusion, so we have to look legally because I have the power and there is a National Security Council which has the power to issue this decree. It is not illegal,” he explained Friday during his morning press conference.

López Obrador said he made the decision to turn these projects into national security actions because those who are promoting the protections against them receive financing from the United States government “and we can prove that.”

In addition, the objective is to protect from the corruption and irresponsibility of members of the Judiciary the strategic works that they have tried to stop for responding to the interests of opposition groups.

In a morning press conference, he recalled the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation to invalidate the 2021 presidential decree on the matter and assured that the federation will continue to act legally in the interest of the people.

“We have to shield these projects of national security and public interest,” he remarked.
“We, by the vote of the Mexicans, of the majority, got here, but the Judicial Power was inherited from the old regime. It is the Judicial Power of always, which must be renewed. So, since it follows the interests of the old regime, it is a power to protect the privileges of a minority, not to defend the people and to defend white-collar criminals and organized crime,” he added in his press release.

He clarified that the decree does not eliminate the responsibility of the Government of Mexico to make everything related to the projects transparent.

“The fact that a project is reserved as national security or of public interest does not mean that it will not be reported. (…) There is no legal provision to deny information, but that is part of the propaganda against it, saying ‘they don’t want anything to be known’.

“No, the Superior Audit of the Federation is constantly doing its job in all the Maya Train contracts and in all the projects and there is no problem in that,” he said.

President López Obrador indicated that the Maya Train is a mobility project that will connect the ancient Mayan cities, promote tourism and trigger economic and social development in the southeast.

“I believe that this project is going to signify the economic and social future of the southeast because what are the new generations going to live on? They have lived off agriculture, oil, livestock and in recent years, tourism, but of all these activities, the one with the most forward potential, is tourism,” he explained.

More than 30 million national and international tourists arrive in Cancun each year who will, once the projects are finished, be able to enter the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco and Yucatán to discover the splendor of the Mayan culture.