constructed by the Mexican Government in the early 1990s, penetrated the jungle, the river was the only means of travel in this region. Huge trunks of hardwood trees were floated downriver to the state of Tabasco.

In the 1980s, many Guatemalan refugees fled across the river to relative safety in Mexico. Other groups of refugees and Guatemalan guerrillas formed the so-called CPR communities in the jungle on the Guatemalan shores, hiding