Counterinsurgency for wind energy: the Bii Hioxo wind park in Juchitan, Mexico

Sustainable development and climate change mitigation policies, Dunlap and Fairhead argue, have instigated and renewed old conflicts over land and natural resources, deploying military techniques of counterinsurgency to achieve land control. Wind energy development, a popular tool of climate change mitigation policies, has consequently generated conflict in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Istmo) region in Oaxaca, Mexico. Research is based on participant observation and 20 recorded interviews investigating the Fuerza y Energia Bii Hioxo Wind Farm on the outskirts of Juchitan de Zaragoza. This paper details the repressive techniques employed by state, private and informal authorities against popular opposition to the construction of the Bii Hioxo wind park on communal land. Providing background on Juchitan, social property and counterinsurgency in Southern Mexico, this paper analyzes the development of the Bii Hioxo wind park. It further explores the emergence of hard' and soft' counterinsurgency techniques used to pacify resistance against the wind park, enabling its completion next to the Lagoon Superior in October 2014. Discussing the greening of counterinsurgency', this contribution concludes that the Bii Hioxo wind park has spawned social divisions and violent conflict, and intervened in the sensitive cultural fabric of Istmeno life.