Farmers have vowed to stage a march and an all-day protest near the Guadalajara International airport Friday, May 4 to draw attention to what they say is a land grab by the facility’s private operators, Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (GAP).
Nicolás Vega Pedroza, the spokesperson for the Ejido El Zapote farm cooperative, acknowledged that the march planned along the Chapala highway, set to start early Friday morning, would cause traffic delays. He advised people heading to the airport to give themselves more time than usual to make their flights.
The latest spat between the Ejido El Zapote and GAP concerns a 51-hectare swath of farmland bordering the facility, known as the Presa de San José, that famers have been using to cultivate crops but that federal authorities say belongs to them.
Jalisco state police officers assisted in securing the area in a swift operation carried out Saturday, March 31.
El Zapote representatives immediately cried foul, arguing that the land had just been prepared for planting by some their members.
GAP insisted that the seizure of the land was executed in full compliance with the law, noting that several rulings by federal judges support their claim to possession of the land, which was part of the airport’s original concession granted five decades ago.
“This piece of terrain is of huge importance for the security of the airport and its future expansion,” GAP stated at the time in a press release.
El Zapote spokesperson Nicolás Vega Pedroza told reporters that 35 farmers are in possession of titles confirming their legitimate right to cultivate the land.
He also disagreed with GAP’s claim that the land has any strategic value, saying it is not included in the plans for a second runway at the airport.
However, some sources confirm that preliminary construction work is already being carried out at the site, in order to connect the land to the main airport complex.
The current spat is the latest chapter of a dispute that dates back to the 1970s, when the federal government expropriated farmland to build the Miguel Hidalgo International Airport. The El Zapote ejido has consistently argued that it was never properly compensated for giving up its lands. Members and supporters have intensified their activism in recent years, staging lengthy protest outside the airport terminal, blocking highways and occupying the facility’s car park.
The ejido’s demands for compensation at current land values have never been taken seriously by federal authorities and negotiations with the farmers have repeatedly broken down and ended in acrimony.
With an election on the horizon and Jalisco’s private sector stressing the urgency to move ahead on construction of a second runway at the airport, GAP and the state government may have decided that now is no longer the time for equivocation but for decisive steps.