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Torres warns that talks could end up in court after Ejidos continue to block Holbox road

Holbox, Q.R. — After another day of roadblocks, the Government Secretary, Cristina Torres Gómez, warned that either talks are maintained or the situation will have to go to court for a solution.

Her warning came after a third consecutive day of roadblocks by Ejidos who continued to demand land usage payments from the CFE. The Ejidos want to be compensated by the federal agency for the land they are using to run an electric cable to the island of Holbox.

Torres says that resolving these types of issues takes time, but the Ejidos have gone as far as to demand immediate payment. “The dialogue begins but is broken when the Ejidos go so far as to ask for immediate answers, a final position of payment. To solve the problem, dialogue is required. It cannot be a monologue,” she said.

She said that the Ejidos are willing to reach agreements, “but they want to be told we come here and we will solve the problems, but it does not work like that because technically technical appraisals are required, provisions that cannot be arranged without those elements,” she explained.

Torres said that Governor Mara Lezama has met with Manuel Bartlett Diaz, the General Director of the CFE, “but no agreement was reached due to extreme attitudes of the Ejidos wanting the superintendent to arrive with a plan of payments.”

She also said that the CFE has to determine if they even owe a right to land use. “We know that there is a certainty of passage to the CFE for more than 40 years,” she added.

Torres Gómez said that the Ejidos must consider that more is being lost than gained with these attitudes “because they live from tourism and from what is generated as service providers,” referring to the affects the ongoing roadblocks have had on area tourism, especially for Holbox.

She says they are only creating an injustice by affecting the residents and the economic the sectors that live from tourism.

In a recent Radio Formula interview, Governor Mara Lezama commented that a similar situation is taking place in the south of the state along section 7 of the Maya Train where the Ejidos also want land use compensation.

She said in that case, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has already said that if an agreement is not reached, that part of the Maya Train will not be constructed.