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22-05-2023
MEXICO CITY: The government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador has deployed marines to the country’s south to occupy a section of railroad operated by a private conglomerate.
Officials called the measure “temporary” and in the “public interest”, as the government works to update a rail-to-sea network on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a narrow region of land between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.
That project, dubbed the Inter-Oceanic Corridor, is intended to help Mexico boost its economy and compete with the Panama Canal, a primary conduit for trade in the region.
Friday’s railroad takeover, however, caught the transportation company Group Mexico Transports off-guard, according to a statement it released in the aftermath.
“The surprising and unusual takeover of the installations by the armed forces is being analyzed by Group Mexico Transports, its investors and advisers,” the company said. Its shares dropped by more than four percent on Friday afternoon.
The Mexican government has promised to compensate Group Mexico Transports for the seizure, which involves approximately 120km (75 miles) of rail, between Medias Agues and the port city of Coatzacoalcos.
The company said that trains were continuing to operate on the line “with the surveillance of the armed forces”. The military takeover took place at about 6am local time (12:00 GMT).
This is not the first time the Lopez Obrador administration has been accused of seizing transportation infrastructure for government use.
In March, the United States-based company Vulcan Materials alleged that Mexican police and military members illegally forced their way onto docks at a port that it operated in Punta Venado, along the Caribbean coast.
Once there, the soldiers allegedly facilitated the unloading of cement, crushed stones and other materials on behalf of the Mexican company Cemex materials destined for the government’s Mayan Train project on the Yucatán Peninsula.
The incident prompted outcry in the US, with Republican Senator Katie Britt of Alabama calling the move “unlawful and unacceptable”. The US State Department, meanwhile, said it was “concerned about the fair treatment of our companies in Mexico”. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
