Mexico shows how not to conduct a land resettlement

President Vicente Fox and his team of technocrats are learning the hard way what development experts have been saying for years: If you want to build an airport, talk to the farmers before you consult the engineers.

Two weeks ago, the government managed to peacefully resolve a four-day standoff with machete-wielding farmers who objected to the expropriation of their land for a new $2.3 billion airport project. But the project is still in trouble. On Friday, Texcoco landowners voted to break off negotiations with the government entirely, despite a seven-fold increase in the government's original purchase offer.

"We are peaceful people, but our land is sacred to us," says Maria Elena Jimenez Valdez, a mother of 10 whose family stands to lose its tiny plot. Gesturing to a portrait of Mexico's patron saint hanging on her wall, she adds: "Taking our land away would be like moving the Virgin of Guadalupe to the United States."

Some observers say the Fox administration is in the process of demonstrating how a government should not handle a land resettlement issue. It's a hard lesson that many countries have had to learn, they say, and one that could affect the Mexican government's ability to execute future development projects.

Large-scale projects – such as dams, highways, and airports – eject about 10 million people worldwide from their homes every year, according to the World Bank, a higher figure, on average, than the number of people displaced by war and civil conflict.

Resettlements can go smoothly, experts insist, and those that do end up costing government less overall, and even benefiting the people moved. Governments who don't plan ahead and don't engage the people first usually suffer the consequences, both financially and politically.

"It is morally incumbent on a democratic government that has to relocate people to resettle them so they can share in the gains of development, and not only in its pains," says Dr. Michael Cernea, a World Bank senior social policy adviser with more than 25 years of experience working on resettlement policy.

Bad examples abound. Locals protesting the construction of Tokyo's Narita Airport destroyed the control tower in 1978, adding years more work and billions more dollars to the final project. A $500 million project to dam Brazil's Uatuma River flooded 1,500 square miles of rainforest killed thousands of Waimiri Atroari Indians who refused to move or were resettled to uninhabitable land. Dozens of other countries have faced unrest related to development, which commonly turns violent.

"The attitude that 'we are going towards development and the impact does not matter' is a recipe for disaster," says Vincent Abreu, an expert on resettlement at the University of Michigan.

Colombia and China eventually adopted national policies to ease resettlements after growing unrest over develop- ment projects led to fears of widespread social upheaval. But Mexico, which itself canceled a massive 1992 dam project in the wake of violent reactions to plans to relocate 30,000 people, appears to have failed to bring the locals on board.

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