Carlos Beas is founder and Director of the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus (UCIZONI) from Oaxaca, Mexico. He serves as the Director of Civil Society Development for the Center for Assistance to the Popular Movements of Oaxaca (CAMPO). Carlos was also a founding member of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI).

UCIZONI is a coalition of 93 indigenous communities in Oaxaca. Collectively, they have been an outspoken critic of the “Trans-Isthmus Megaproject” — a proposed dry canal that would create an 8-lane swath across southern Mexico from Oaxaca’s Gulf of Tehuantepec to the Gulf of Mexico near Vera Cruz.

The Megaproject is a neo-liberal plan that would destroy the sensitive isthmus ecosystem and displace thousands of indigenous people from their lands. Indigenous resistance to the plan has been met with a campaign of state-sponsored repression carried out by the Mexican Army and government.