Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum presided over a social justice ceremony in San Salvador Atenco on Sunday and pledged that no security body under her administration will be deployed to repress the population, as she formalized the restitution of lands to the very organization that led the fight against the canceled Mexico City airport.

Two decades after the 2006 police raid that involved grave human rights violations — including torture, sexual assaults against women, and dozens of arbitrary arrests — the president formalized the restitution of 54.5 hectares to the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT).

RELATED: Sheinbaum Slams U.S. Meddling in Mexico’s Internal Affairs

“Where there was dispossession, today there is restitution; where there was repression, today there is dialogue,” Sheinbaum told the community, drawing a deliberate line between what she called the neoliberal model of the past and her government’s approach. She recalled how, upon encountering a highway blockade near Texcoco, she chose to negotiate water and land demands immediately rather than order a police eviction — a direct repudiation of the violent tactics used in 2006.

During the commemoration, the FPDT directly demanded criminal punishment for the intellectual and material authors of what it called the “bloody repression” on May 3 and 4, 2006. The organization pointed explicitly at former presidents Vicente Fox and Enrique Peña Nieto — the latter serving as governor of the State of Mexico at the time — blaming them for the deaths of young men Alexis Benhumea and Javier Cortés, the sexual torture of women, and the arbitrary imprisonment of hundreds of farmers.

The movement handed Sheinbaum a list of unresolved demands that go beyond the land already returned. They are seeking the devolution of another 186 hectares in Xalapango, an end to all mining operations in the region, and the construction of schools and health facilities under a comprehensive initiative called Manos a la Cuenca (Hands to the Basin).

Del Valle acknowledged advances made during the previous administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, including the declaration of the area as a protected natural zone and the definitive cancellation of NAIM in 2018, but said much remains to be done.

Today, the FPDT insists there is a “window of opportunity” with the current government to finally put the operational masterminds behind bars.

IN THIS ARTICLE