Benemerito, Chiapas, Mexico
14 October 2007

How much do you pay for electric every month? $50? $70? Do you use a lot of air conditioning in the summer? Do you have a computer? I bet that bumps up the price a lot, huh? Maybe up to $100 or $150, wouldn’t you say?

How much do you think a family living in a wooden hut in the jungle in Chiapas should pay? The Mexican federal government thinks they should be paying $100-$400.

On Sunday, October 14, 2007, representatives of 14 different collectively-owned communities (called “ejidos” in Spanish) gathered to discuss what to do about the government excessively charging them for their electric consumption. About 150 representatives of various communities packed the huge warehouse in the municipality of Benemerito in southern Chiapas, a sticky, hot tropical area very close to the Guatemalan border.

The Federal Electric Commission is in charge of serving residents throughout the entire country with electricity. Previously, these community members paid about 18 or 20 pesos a month (about $2 a month), which corresponds more with their rate of consumption. Most of them live in small one- or two- room huts made of wooden boards with rooves made of straw or sheet metal. Their electricity consists of one or two lightbulbs hanging in the middle of the room. Additionally families may have a television and/or a radio. Since 2005 electric bills started to increase. One local article states that bills reached as high as 4,793 pesos (about $479).

Copies of bills were posted on the wall at the meeting. One charged 1,523 pesos (about $150) for one month’s consumption. The meter reading showed that after a whole year of an average consumption of about 200 kWh per month, suddenly the consumption had mysteriously jumped up to 828 kWh, indicating that this individual must have suddenly installed an air conditioner, refrigerator, a computer, and maybe a new washer and dryer. Ironically, printed in big letters on the bill was the phrase, “Committed to Honesty.”

Several community members stood up and spoke, explaining similar stories of their electric bills skyrocketing to unimaginable sums. They explained that they couldn’t afford these prices, and that there was no way they had consumed so much electricity.

Guillermo Solís from the Red de Defensores Comunitarios (Community Defenders Network) based in San Cristóbal de las Casas spoke at a long table placed in front of the attendees. His group had helped coordinate the 14 ejidos to communicate and organize to deal with the problem. He explained that the purpose of his organization was to help them coordinate with other groups statewide who are having the same problems. This way they will have more strength in numbers and be able to fight the corrupt system.

He also explained that the scope of this problem is wider than just electricity; that their access to water, land, and housing is also threatened. The Red de Defensores works on all those levels with the understanding that these necessities are basic human rights.

Unfortunately, these rights are threatened by the corrupt federal, state, and municipal governments. Right now Chiapas provides around 50% of the electricity throughout Mexico through hydroelectric dams. However, Chiapas has one of the largest populations still living without electricity, many of whom are indigenous and are the poorest in the country. These dams are built to provide electricity to wealthy areas, city centers, and tourist resorts. In the meantime, the dams flood local communities and people thus have to evacuate their homes and lose their livelihood, since they tend to be farmers or fishermen.

Part of the motivation to push these communities off their property is the government’s desire to privatize the land and resources. The federal government has been trying to push the Plan Puebla Panama, which is a mega-project that involves an international highway running from Central America straight through Chiapas and north to the United States. Along the highway would be dams, sweatshop factories, mining operations, and other industrial projects mostly run by transnational corporations. As many local residents have learned again and again in the past, these projects tend to lower the standard of living for local residents by polluting the land, displacing the population, and offering low wage jobs in place of the farming or fishing that once sustained them. However, it’s a great deal for government officials who get healthy pay-offs from the corporations to do business there, and the corporations in turn make record profits. All that looks great for shareholders and organizations that determine business success solely by measuring the profit and the number of (abusive, low-paying) jobs that are offered.

The people currently living on that land are an obstacle to this plan. Different tactics are employed to kick them off: tricking them into signing contracts they can’t read, paying them off with government programs that are meant to divide communally-owned property, or just making the land unlivable by flooding it or polluting it with current mega-projects.

Apparently, another tactic is to astronomically raise the price of electricity.

The community members discussed the various things they could do to address this problem. Mr. Solís suggested doing a study using a commission of specialists such as lawyers and sociologists to investigate the situation and different tactics they can use. Then he suggested peaceful civil resistance, such as the communities refusing to pay until the bills reflect fair prices. He said there are communities who have successfully done this. He also explained there are groups who give workshops on how to connect and manage your own electricity in the event that the federal government cuts them off the grid for not paying.

Jose Luis Hernández of the Comité Local de Electrificación (Local Electricity Committee) also spoke at the front table. He organized the Committe specifically to address this problem, and was a large force in planning the meeting. He said one purpose of this meeting was to elect a committee of people to deal with the problem according to the communitys’ wishes. He also expressed a willingness to open a dialogue with the state government.

Augustín Soza Canseco, the munical present of the neighboring municipality of Marquez de Comillas also attended the meeting. He looked generally distracted and bored as the various community members voiced their problems and possible solutions. Finally, he spoke and stressed that the elected committee must be “objective.” He is in favor of doing an analysis, but is not in favor of civil resistence, such as refusing to pay the bills. He said that there are other options, like negotiating with the government, and turning to foreign resources, during which he gestured towards me, the only foreigner in the room.

Various men and women stood up and responded to him, complaining that their bills were still too high, and asking what they are supposed to do in the meantime with these bills they can’t afford. Some community members suggested agreeing to a fixed monthly price for electricity, such as 20 to 50 pesos (about $2-5), but that 500 pesos (about $50) was too much.

At this point Canseco looked visibly annoyed and exasperated, and stated that he didn’t think that 500 pesos was too much to charge for one month. “We are doing a business here,” he said. At this point I wondered how much Canseco’s monthly salary was. Surely it wasn’t the 42 pesos a day (about $4) minimum wage that many of these people were probably making. On a minimum wage salary, 500 pesos would be about half of one month’s wages. Imagine if half of your salary went just to pay for the electricity for the two light bulbs hanging in your wooden hut...

Finally a committee was democratically elected, and a rough plan was made to gather receipts and copies of bills from various community members as evidence of what was happening. From there they will decide the next step.

In the United States it is vital that we understand why so many immigrants are fleeing from Mexico to our country. This story is only a small piece of the reality that Mexicans in rural communities are living. While they struggle against the government corruption, one of their greatest sources of income that keeps them surviving is remissions from family members living and working in the States. If we want to be angry about the immigration situation in the States, we should be angry at the Mexican government, the U.S. government, which fully supports its policies and pushes free trade agreements that worsen the situation, and transnational corporations whose priority is to make record profits while devastating poor families. And we should direct our anger toward changing foreign and economic policy, not toward immigrants who are the first victims of these corrupt, short-sighted policies.

Jennifer Truskowski <joyblue (at) hotmail.com>