"Mexico president attacks environmentalists’ foreign funding", 29 Aug 2020

Mexico’s president launched a blistering attack on several environmentalist groups Friday, suggesting they were being paid by foreign foundations to oppose his controversial train project in the Yucatan peninsula. One group demanded President Andrés Manuel López Obrador apologize, claiming he was “criminalizing” environmentalists. “I have received information that all of these supposedly independent non-governmental, so-called civic groups are getting money, sometimes from abroad, to oppose the construction of the Maya Train,” López Obrador said, accusing them of “disguising themselves for money as environmentalists, disguising themselves as human rights defenders for money as well, when in the end it is a struggle for political and economic power.”... It was the latest chapter in López Obrador’s troubled relationship with civic groups, which he distrusts. López Obrador has claimed in the past they are funded by conservative opponents, and he favors government projects over private efforts in most spheres... The Mexican Center for Environmental Law responded by saying “we regret that once again, the Mexican government is criminalizing the work of civic groups.” “We demand a public apology for the attacks and defamation we have been subjected to by the president”... “International development aid is legal, as are donations from private people, companies and Mexican foreign foundations.”... The NGOs include some of Mexico’s most prominent environmental groups, who have been critical of projects in past administrations... In June, López Obrador inaugurated a leg of the project that would run through five southern states carrying tourists from the resorts of Cancún and Playa del Carmen to the Mayan ruins at Palenque. Many communities in the train’s path feel deceived by scarce and incomplete information, while activists fear the social and environmental impacts...