Latinamerica Press

Independent information from Latin America & the Caribbean for the world www.latinamericapress.org N° 4, AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013. VOLUME 45

ISSN 0254-203X

Oil exploitation to reduce poverty?

President of Ecuador calls for oil drilling in protected area after international cooperation falls short.

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Agroecology, fair trade, responsible consumption and the protection of native seeds are some of the practices that Mayan farmers from Guatemala have rescued from their ancestors.

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Divide between the old “perk system” and neoliberal technocracy

Paraguayan President starts his term among internal political strife within his party and the mobilization of blue-collar workers, farmers and indigenous natives.

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AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

BORIS MERCHÁN(TOP); LOUISA REYNOLDS (LEFT); ADRIÁN MORÍNIGO(RIGHT)

The long battle to preserve ancestral farming practices

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ECUADOR Luis Ángel Saavedra in Quito

BORIS MERCHÁN

Oil exploitation to reduce poverty?

Youth movement advocates for a referendum to end the extractives industry in Ecuador.

Correa calls for oil drilling in protected area after international cooperation falls short.

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RESIDENT RAFAEL Correa announced Aug. 15 that he now support drilling for oil beneath Yasuní National Park because the international community failed to fund US$3.6 billion Ecuador requested in exchange for not tapping into the Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini (ITT) block, located in this protected area.

International cooperation only brought in US$13 million — 0.37 percent of what the government demanded to compensate for abandoning the project.

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Correa said the drilling was necessary to reduce the country’s poverty levels. He dismissed the objections of environmental communities, which had hoped the national government would preserve the Yasuní National Park, considered one of the most diverse areas on earth.

At the same time, the government has also increased what it expects to receive from the exploitation of the ITT. While the reserves were originally valued at $7.2 billion during the Yasuní negotiations, that figure has jumped to $18.2 billion, reinforcing the government’s argument that drilling will reduce poverty by eliminating the housing deficit and providing basic services, schools, hospitals and other public works to the people.

The National Assembly must vote on the presidential order to drill the ITT, and several of its committees are reiterating the party line. The commissions

Correa said the drilling was necessary to reduce the country’s poverty levels.

He dismissed the objections of environmental communities.

The government expects to receive

US$18.2 billion

from the exploitation of the Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini (ITT) block. of Economic Development, Justice, Collective Rights and Autonomous Governments already have issued positive reports. For example, the resolution of the board of Economic Development, Production and Microenterprise states “the proceeds will be part of a process of change in the transformation of the production matrix, which involves large investment in the social sector.”

The composition of the National Assembly, in which the ruling party has 108 of 126 possible votes, ensures the president’s request will be met, even though there is no explanation for the $18.2 billion the ITT would now supposedly generate, such as if this figure is the net income to the national treasury after subtracting operating expenses, calculated at 30 percent for being a “heavy” crude oil deposit, which requires more extensive technological processes to remove. Nor has it been explained whether this income, which would begin in the fifth year of operation, will be obtained now through advanced sales, as has been done with Chinese companies exploiting other Ecuadorian oilfields.

Value of the reservoir

The former Superintendent of Banks, economist Alfredo Vergara, estimated net annual income from drilling the ITT will be about $600 million to $700 million, which would still not be enough fund the government’s offer to provide basic services to the people of

CONTENTS LATIN AMERICA Solar energy on the rise

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LATIN AMERICA/THE CARIBBEAN Rethinking development model is urgent In defense of family and small-scale farming Agroecology as a way of life School feeding combats infant malnutrition Continued environmental degradation

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BRAZIL “Too much land for a few indigenous people”

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COSTA RICA Organ trafficking on the rise

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COLOMBIA Agricultural strike persists

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ECUADOR Oil exploitation to reduce poverty?

A decade of resistance against a hydroelectric plant

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EL SALVADOR Ancestral knowledge to cultivate the land War crimes remain unpunished

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GUATEMALA The long battle to preserve ancestral farming practices Women commit to agroecology

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HAITI Small farmers win Food Sovereignty Prize

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MEXICO Food sovereingty at risk

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NICARAGUA Fresh water in danger because of interoceanic canal

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PARAGUAY Divide between the old “perk system” and neoliberal technocracy

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“If we know that the exploitation of the Yasuní will cause the disappearance of isolated peoples, we can not risk their survival in a referendum. What we should do is defend the Yasuní at all costs.”

— HAROLD BURBANO

Ecuador. Vergara says that the rush to exploit the ITT is due to the need to sustain the government’s current spending— which otherwise would impede poverty reduction in the coming years.

Spending and the current budget are extremely high due to the considerable social investment made by the government, which has also increased the number of public servants, including teachers and health workers.

In a message broadcast on national television, Correa tried to convince mainly young people — to whom he constantly referred — that the government had made every effort to ensure that the original proposal was successful, but that the drilling was now needed. The constant reference to young people was because this is the sector that has the greatest attachment to ecology, and the one that took up the defense of Yasuní as one of the main reasons for paying attention to national politics. They are also a significant percentage of the electorate.

The same night as the announcement, young Ecuadorans protested Correa’s decision in the plaza where the presidential palace is located, demanding the ITT never be drilled.

However, the biggest protest occurred the night of Aug. 27, when they again tried to rally in the plaza but were repressed by the National Police. Thereafter the demonstrations in defense of the Yasuní have decreased and the government is receiving the support necessary to carry out drilling.

Referendum

Environmentalists and the indigenous movement have proposed a referendum to ask: “Do you agree the Ecuadorian government should keep the ITT oil below-ground indefinitely?” The groups submitted the proposal to the 4

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Constitutional Court and are preparing to collect the 600,000 signatures needed to carry out this project. Another group of young people raised the issue with the Court to declare Ecuador free all extractive activities, weakening the position of indigenous and environmentalist groups.

Finally, more than 30 mayors in the Amazon, who are up for reelection in February, arrived in Quito and proposed a third matter with the Constitutional Court, supporting ITT drilling and allocating the income to fight poverty.

Municipal elections to be held in 2014 have strengthened local authorities’ support for the president, even those who criticized him earlier, as they are all seeking the support of the ruling party for their re-election. Several of the mayors who now support oil drilling in Yasuní were elected by the Plurinational Pachacutik Movement, the political arm of the indigenous movement and staunch opponent to the government today.

A referendum raises doubts in the human rights sector, not only because there is the risk of losing the vote, but also at stake is the survival of communities who live in the Yasuní National Park.

“If we know that the exploitation of the Yasuní will cause the disappearance of isolated peoples, we can not risk their survival in a referendum. What we should do is defend the Yasuní at all costs,” said Harold Burbano, lawyer for the human rights law group Regional Foundation for Counseling in Human Rights.

With the three issues before the Constitutional Court, and considering that organization’s fidelity to government policy, the court is very likely to proffer a response that strengthens the government’s position. That would dismantle the indigenous and environmentalist proposal, which hasn’t garnered the collective support required to curb the president’s decision to drill the ITT— a project that will surely affect the delicate Yasuní ecosystem, even if the government argues that it will affect one per thousand of the park’s 982,000 Hectares (2.4 million acres). q

LATIN AMERICA/ THE CARIBBEAN

Latinamerica Press

Rethinking development model is urgent Regional conference calls to promote sustainable development with equality and respect for human rights.

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The current model is unsustainable. Economic growth is not enough: we must have growth for equality and equality for growth. It is not enough to reduce poverty if there remain structural inequalities based on gender, ethnicity and territory. Social issues are about more than social policy,” said Alicia Bárcenas, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), at the First Session of the Regional Conference on Population and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Held Aug. 12-15 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the event gathered representatives of the 38 member countries and associates of ECLAC as well as 24 regional and international organizations and 260 non-governmental organizations. They met to debate 120 measures on eight priority topics to continue the action plan of the International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994.

The delegates approved the Montevideo Consensus, pointing out that full integration of the population and its relationship within sustainable development with equality and respect for human rights is the general framework that must “reinforce the public policies and actions needed to eradicate poverty and break the cycles of exclusion and inequality.”

In signing the Montevideo Consensus, the delegates also agreed to “apply a human rights approach with a gender and intercultural perspective in addressing population and development issues, and step up efforts to recognize, promote and uphold relevant goals in order to eliminate inequalities and foster social inclusion,” among other measures.

Women’s organizations present at the event acknowledged the appeal to the states “to consider amending their laws, regulations, strategies and public policies relating to the voluntary termination of pregnancy in order to protect the lives and health of women and adolescent girls, to improve their quality of life.”

The fact that countries recognize “for the first time in a regional document that reality forces them to rethink their laws, considering the claims of women” was qualified as an “historic advance” by representatives of the Regional Network of Civil Society Organizations of Latin America and the Caribbean toward Cairo+20.

However, they reminded that Latin America and the Caribbean is the region “with the highest instance of criminalization of abortion in the world.” Seven countries — Chile, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Suriname — ban abortions under all circumstances.

Finally, experts and authorities highlighted the need to converge towards a new development agenda based on the rights of people.

“Human rights should be recognized in all population and development matters,” said Uruguayan Foreign Minister Luis Almagro.

“There are inequalities that urgently need to be solved, such as problems in accessing sexual and reproductive health services, teenage pregnancies (which keep people in poverty), greater empowerment and gender equality, legal gaps in enforcing the rights of indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples, recognition of diversity of sexual orientation and protection of migrants.”

Likewise, Bárcenas called “to rethink our destination and implement a deep change in production and consumption patterns.” She added that “women’s equality, their three forms of autonomy (physical, economic and decision-making) and young people” are at the heart of the agenda. “They are the main social stakeholders who need to be empowered,” she said.” q AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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LATIN AMERICA/THE CARIBBEAN José Elosegui

In defense of family and small-scale farming

LA VÍA CAMPESINA

La Vía Campesina Internacional’s new action plan reclaims food s overeignty and agro-ecological production.

La Vía Campesina celebrates two decades of fighting against hunger and poverty in the rural world.

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WENTY YEARS after La Vía Campesina International was founded, the global network of rural organizations has agreed to a new worldwide action plan based on small-scale farming and agro-ecology, food sovereignty, and self-determination of communities. At the same time, the group is reaffirming its stance against transnational corporations, industrial agriculture and agri-business..

In honor of Egidio Brunetto, one of the chief leaders of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and also of La Vía Campesina International, more than 600 representatives from around the world gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia, for La Vía Campesina’s sixth conference, under the theme “For land and people’s sovereignty, in solidarity and struggle.”

One of the most important aspects of the event, which was held in June, was the call to intensify resistance in the countryside, land occupations, and support a return to the field, agroecological production, and activist

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demonstrations. It also emphasized the strategic nature of political and educational training processes that campesinos are carrying out in various parts of the world.

Among the guidelines adopted, it highlighted the need to ensure access for rural and indigenous people to land, water and native seeds; promote campesino and indigenous food production; and guarantee that rural communities have quality, universal, free public education that encourages youth to stay in the countryside.

It also supported the importance of international campaigns defending native seeds and land reform, and combating violence against women. The organization launched a global version of the Campaign against Pesticides and for Life, which the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC)-La Vía Campesina has conducted in Latin America and the Caribbean since its fifth congress held in Quito, Ecuador, Oct. 2010.

Food crisis

Alberto Gómez, of La Vía Campesina Mexico and one of the most prominent figures of La Vía Campesina International, told Latinamerica Press that “70 percent of food coming onto the tables of mankind is produced by us campesinos, artisanal fisherrmen, people dedicated to urban agriculture.” Women produce the vast majority of that food, according to La Vía Campesina.

State policies

“The crisis is causing our rights as human beings — as campesinos — to be more rapidly dismantled.”

— ALBERTO GÓMEZ

“The many-headed monster [the capital] is strong, big, powerful, but we dare to challenge it. The world’s largest market is the food market. And large corporations — capital — want to consolidate this market, because this is a huge amount of money, which they don’t have, and it is spiraling out of their control,” Gómez said, adding that family, small-scale farming and the proposed food sovereignty continue gaining ground.

La Vía Campesina issued a “platform to fight hunger and poverty in rural areas,” with guidelines for “governments and multilateral institutions that truly want to” address these crises. Structural causes are found in the capitalist system and “the neoliberal policies of cutting budgets and services, and the transnationalization of our economies,” according to the organization.

Wendy Cruz, representative of La Vía Campesina Central America, highlighted the need to address feminist issues in the rural and popular sectors. She stressed that the movement must commit to provide greater effectiveness in the campaign to reduce violence against women, with the goal of achieving social justice worldwide.

“Another area of focus that women request is our concern for all matters relating to the issue of militarization, which is emerging in all countries and affects us [women] first,” Cruz told Latinamerica Press. She called on women around the world to claim their rights and dignity.

Gómez, meanwhile, positively assessed developments including the right to food sovereignty in some national constitutions — such as Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela — a political demand of La Vía Campesina since 1996. But he believes that is not enough. “[To include] food sovereignty in a constitution is good, but for that to be established and implemented, you need a series of policies, not just from the government, because governments last 4 to 6 years and then change, but [you need] state policies,” he said.

According to the Mexican leader, transnational corporations, governments of various countries (especially industrialized), international financial institutions in the height of a capital crisis, are in the midst of a run on developing states’ natural resources, which leads to the persecution of farmers and indigenous peoples with threats and murders.

“The crisis is causing our rights as human beings — as campesinos — to be more rapidly dismantled,” Gómez observed.

He added that a major challenge for the campesino movement is to ally with other movements and unite various struggles, because “we are acting virtually alone internationally.”

The challenge, he said, is to “transform ourselves into a mass movement.”

Meanwhile, Nury Martínez of Colombia’s National Unified Agricultural Trade Union Federation (FENSUAGRO), clarified to Latinamerica Press that, “We are not just talking about food sovereignty, but about the sovereignty of peoples.

And above all, how that relates to us in Latin America with the U.S. imperialism offensive, and the issue of intervention in democratic governments.”

That issue “concerns us greatly and requires greater unity, greater international solidarity, and to be attentive to the things that could happen” in the region, said Martínez. q

“[To include] food sovereignty in a constitution is good, but for that to be established and implemented, you need a series of policies, not just from the government, because governments last 4 to 6 years and then change, but [you need] state policies.”

— ALBERTO GÓMEZ

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GUATEMALA Louisa Reynolds in Guatemala City

LOUISA REYNOLDS

The long battle to preserve ancestral farming practices

Agroecology, an ancient indigenous peasant practice, helps resist climate change.

Agroecology, fair trade, responsible consumption and the protection of native seeds are some of the practices that Mayan farmers have rescued from their ancestors.

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AYAN FARMERS of the Cuchumatanes mountain range in northwestern Guatemala know that organic farming requires hard work, patience and dedication but is the only road to sustainable development.

In 2006, these farmers decided to abandon intensive agriculture, which involves the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizer, as they realized that it boosted crop yields in the short term with seemingly little effort but polluted water sources and depleted the soil in the long term. They then founded the Association for the Sustainable Development of the Huista Commonwealth (ADSOSMHU).

The mancomunidad, or commonwealth, is an association of municipalities that share the same history and culture and work together to implement common policies and build infrastructure projects for the benefit of all members. Mancomunidades were officially recognized by the Guatemalan

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government when the Municipal Code was approved in 2002.

Mancomunidad Huista is one of Guatemala’s oldest commonwealth associations and groups together seven municipalities located in the department of Huehuetenango: Santa Ana Huista, San Antonio Huista, Concepción Huista, Nentón, San Miguel Acatán, Unión Cantinil, Jacaltenango and La Democracia.

With financial support from Spanish NGO Paisaje, Ecología y Género, ADSOSMHU built a demonstration center where farmers can purchase native seeds to grow corn, beans, vegetables such as mushrooms and pumpkins, and medicinal plants such as aloe. They also learn how to care for aquarium fish and how to produce compost made from decomposing leaves and soil, worm compost, and a foliar fertilizer made from fermented leaves, water and cow’s milk.

Organic fertilizer

Producing organic fertilizer is a lengthy process as composting can take up to six months, worm compost takes between one and two a half months, and foliar fertilizer, the quickest method, can take up to a month.

In 2006, these farmers decided to abandon intensive agriculture, which involves the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizer.

“We’d like to carry out an in-depth investigation that will allow us to recuperate native corn and bean seeds.”

—RUBÉN LÓPEZ HERRERA

“When the Green Revolution began in the 1950s and 1960s, farmers began to use agrochemicals as we were led to believe that agrochemicals were the solution to our problems. Using chemical pesticides, farmers can clear 0.03 acres in one day as opposed to 0.005 acres in five days using ancestral farming techniques,” explains Rubén López Herrera, coordinator of ADSOSMHU. “In the beginning, [agroecology] requires a lot of effort, patience and dedication. That’s why women have been most receptive to the idea. We only obtained results after two or three years but from that point onwards we obtained higher crop yields than we had achieved when we used agrochemicals, the soil recovered its nutrients and our products have a different color, taste and texture,” he adds.

ADSOSMHU’s members consume most of what they produce and any surplus is sold in local markets.

López emphasizes that agroecology is nothing new as it has been practiced by Mayan farmers since pre-Columbian times, an assertion that has been proven by academic research.

For instance, Professor of Agroecology Stephen Gliessman, of the University of California, has written a number of articles in which he explains how the ancient Mayans were early practitioners of ecological engineering. As they lacked the technology to reach groundwater they built drainage canals to redirect and reuse rainwater and convert seasonal swamplands, known today as bajos, into large agricultural fields.

They also used agricultural terraces, water reservoirs, raised fields and planted urban gardens.

ADSOSMHU is one of the 60 campesino groups that belongs to the National Network for the Defense of Food Security and Food Sovereignty in Guatemala (REDSSAG), a national organization founded in 2004 that seeks to promote agroecology, fair trade, responsible consumption and the protection of Mesoamerica’s native seeds.

In 2011, ADSOSMHU received the Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources’ (MARN) Chajil Uwachulew (Defender of Nature) Award for its efforts to preserve native seeds. However, López says that other than this symbolic award, ADSOSMHU has never received any government support.

“There are many things that need to be done.

We’d like to carry out an in-depth investigation that will allow us to recuperate native corn and bean seeds and we’d also like to receive support from agricultural technicians so that we can improve our crops but they (the government) are very bureaucratic,” López explains.

REDSSAG’s coordinator, Ronnie Palacios cites successful projects in Brazil, Venezuela and other South American countries as evidence that agroecology works and says that this model could help Guatemala to reduce its dependency on corn and wheat imports, stimulate self-sufficiency and employment in rural areas and reduce the surge of impoverished farmers who migrate to urban areas or to the United States in search of better living conditions. However, Palacios says that so far, the government has shown little or no interest in supporting Mayan agroecological practices.

“It’s necessary to prioritize subsistence farmers and farmers living below subsistence levels and develop mechanisms to exchange information and carry out scientific investigations. Unfortunately there’s been no support. We’ve sought help from the Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (ICTA) but they’ve refused to initiate an investigation project. The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAGA) has a family orchard program and we’ve proposed that it should include agroecological production but they rejected it (the proposal),” he says.

Palacios says that “economic interests” could explain the government’s reluctance to stop handing out chemical fertilizer and help farmers to revive the agroecological model of the ancient Mayans, a remark that makes sense given that Disagro and other major agrochemical producers have been key campaign donors over the past few years.

The Campesino a Campesino Movement

Eric Holt-Giménez, executive director of Food First, an US nonprofit organization whose main goal is to forge food sovereignty for human rights and sustainable livelihoods, explains that during the 1970s, Mayan farmers who had become heavily indebted in order to purchase Green Revolution technology were forced to migrate to coffee, sugar and banana plantations where they earned miserable wages and had to sell their labor in order to repay their loans.

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A farmer in the department of Chimaltenango (35 miles west of Guatemala City) began to experiment with organic farming techniques and realized that he could increase his yield by up to 400 percent. Other farmers sought to follow his lead and began to rescue ancestral Mayan practices that were then passed on from one farmer to another. Farmers who taught other farmers were known as promotores campesinos, or campesino promoter, and this chain of learning by example marked the beginning of a movement known as Campesino a Campesino, which rapidly spread across Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

“Farmers established cooperatives to sell their produce and stopped going to the coast to work on the plantations. In the 1970s and 1980s they were so successful that they started to buy land from the plantation owners who began to call them communists and called in the army, so they fled to Mexico and began te El Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimen-

tación (MAGA) tiene un programa de agricultura familiar y hemos propuesto que incluyen la agroecología pero no lo han aceptado”.aching the peasants there,” says Holt-Giménez.

The Campesino a Campesino movement has dwindled as a result of the bloody civil wars that tore Central America apart during the Cold War era, although local NGOs such as ADSOSMHU are seeking to revive it and give it a new impetus.

According to “Measuring farmers’ agroecological resistance after Hurricane Mitch in Central America,” a study conducted in 2000 by World Neighbors, international development organization that works with extremely poor communities who are struggling to survive, today, less than 0.5 percent of the region’s four million smallholders practice agroecology.

The sustainable practices most commonly used include intensive in-row tillage, the use of compost, vermiculture and animal manure, as well as integrated CONTINUE >

COLOMBIA

Agricultural strike persists Farmers and truckers protest against government agricultural and trade policies.

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n Aug. 19 strike has since erupted into hundreds of thousands of largely farmers and truckers protesting the government for its trade and agricultural policies, demanding changes such as cheaper gas and fertilizer, and crop subsidies.

Protesters initially blockaded highways preventing produce from reaching markets near the central Boyacá province and southwestern Cauca, and in the following days similar roadblocks and rallies arose throughout the nation.

The National Agricultural and Popular Table for Dialogue and Agreement (MIA) initiated the strike, a group of agricultural organizations that object the free trade agreements signed with the United States, China and the European Union.

They claim they can’t compete with the low prices of

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the foreign imports and goods smuggled across the border from Ecuador and Venezuela, and demand the right to land and improvement of basic services in rural areas.

Miners, doctors and students have since followed suit in protest, saying that government privatization policy risks their livelihood to a vulnerable market.

Previously refusing to negotiate until roadblocks ceased, on Aug. 26 President Juan Manuel Santos reached a “nonaggression pact” with the protest leaders in Boyacá, mandating that police would not intervene as long as protestors remained nonviolent. While the situation calmed in Colombia’s center province, authorities reported demonstrations elsewhere, including the capital city Bogotá.

Santos also agreed to

negotiations with agricultural strikers, saying he wanted to ensure that farmers have “a decent income, could continue working the land and look forward to a future with more hope and optimism.”

On Aug. 27 agricultural producer representatives and government officials met in the city of Tunja to discuss easier loan access, lower fertilizer prices and higher produce prices, among other demands.

Agricultural producers announced in a statement on Aug. 28 that although they have “every intention” to reach a satisfactory agreement with government representatives, the strike will continue given that the government “has not made a clear and consistent proposal to meet the needs of the Colombian countryside.”

“The dialogue continues,” the statement said, while inviting farmers to “maintain social and peaceful protest and remain in the places they have been for the 10 day strike.” — LP

pest management strategies that include the use of traps, organic pesticides and repellents, and beneficial insects.

The farmers themselves, led by Holt-Giménez, carried out the research and found that agroecological plots on sustainable farms had more topsoil, higher field moisture, and more vegetation, which meant that after Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in 1998, they had a 49 percent lower incidence of landslides and averaged 47 percent less rill erosion and 69 percent less gully erosion than conventional plots.

inbrief • On July 3, a new law was passed in Colombia that will mandate a minimum sentence of six to ten years for the committing the crime of an acid attack, as opposed to previous maximum sentence of six years. If there is damage to the neck or face, the minimum term is eight years and the maximum is 15. Acid attacks in the country, largely against women, are possibly soaring to the frequency of Bangladesh and Pakistan, which boast the highest levels of the life-scarring aggression in the world. According to the Colombian Institute of Legal Medicine, there were 161 reported cases last year, about triple that of the previous two years. Due to the sensitive nature of the attacks many more are thought to go unreported.

• On Aug. 12, the Appeals Provincial Court of Morona Santiago in southeastern Ecuador sentenced the indigenous leaders Pepe Acacho and Pedro Mashiant to 12 years in jail for the alleged crime of organized terrorism. They were deemed “co-responsible” for the proceeding violent indigenous protests against the Water Law that took place on Sep. 30, 2009. The court maintained that Acacho, also national congressman, had encouraged the population to commit

“It was crop diversification and agroforestry what made the system so resilient and allowed it to withstand climate change. However, governments don’t support peasant agriculture and this has only gotten worse because of the free trade agreements designed to drive farmers off the land and open up Latin America to foreign investment. Governments need to start practicing food sovereignty and go back to policies that worked in the past to achieve self-sufficiency,” says Holt-Giménez. q

acts of terrorism via his program on Radio La Voz de Arutam while he was president of a Shuar indigenous federation. Indigenous groups are fighting back against the ruling, with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador declaring “a systematic violation of human rights.” “Neither Acacho or Mashiant can be considered terrorists, because they were mobilized to defend our territories,” said the group in an Aug. 12 statement.

state of Michoacán demanded the government free 44 colleagues that were arrested last week on the charges of weapon possession and organized crime. The group claimed they were acting in self-defense against the Knights Templar drug cartel. Raul Plascencia, the head of the country’s National Human Rights Commission, warned that increasing numbers of vigilante groups are likely to emerge due to insufficient government security.

• Sometime between July 21 and 22, a cross-dressing teen, Dwayne Jones, was brutally murdered at a party in Jamaica for wearing women’s clothing, according to the Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In light of two similar incidents reported last year and widespread verbal and physical abuse against homosexuals in the nation, local advocacy groups have called on the government to condemn the killing and investigate the crime.

HRW LGBT advocacy director Boris Dittrich said that in the country “homophobia is so bad that human rights defenders advocating the rights of LGBT people are not safe.” On July 29, Justice minister, Senator Mark Golding, condemned Jones’ murder and called on the police to “spare no effort in bringing the perpetrators to justice.”

• According to local activists, more than 100 members of a long-time voluntarily isolated tribe in Peru attempted to make contact with outsiders. The Mashco-Piro members asked for bananas, rope and machetes from the local Yine people from the remote community of Monte Salvado, across the La Piedra River, in the eastern department of Madre de Dios. Members of the Native Federation of Madre de Dios River and Tributaries discouraged them to cross the river. The incident, which occurred in late June, was recorded in a video released on Aug. 19. Because the approximately 15 tribes in the region that live in voluntary isolation are thought to be vulnerable to foreign germs, Peruvian law prohibits physical contact with them. Anthropologist Beatriz Huertas, who works with Peru´s agency for indigenous affairs said the tribespeople may have appeared this time and in 2011 because “they are upset by problems of others taking advantage of resources in their territories,” such as illegal logging, drug smuggling and oil and gas exploring.

• Heavily-armed vigilante groups are springing up in Mexico, claiming to combat the violence and crime plaguing the nation when a corrupt government and inadequate military cannot. On Aug.19, members of a masked group from the center

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BRAZIL Paolo Moiola

“Too much land for a few indigenous people”

CARLO ZACQUINI

llage. It was love at first sight. Later on I had various interactions always with the same group, until [later on], I had the opportunity to live among the Yanomami of the Catrimani River. Little by little, as I tried to survive in that place, many times without basic essentials, I learned one of their languages, and I started to investigate their culture.”

Brother Zacquini speaks of the indigenous as if they were his family. And certainly they are, today as yesterday, as they are subject to even more embarrassing attacks than those of the past. These attacks come from representatives of the national Yanomami indigenous group oppose proposed constitutional amendment Congress who belong to the powerful rural 215/2000 that threatens the process of demarcation of indigenous lands that coalition, which attempts to make void the is protected by the Constitution. reach of the chapter of the 1988 Constitution that deals with the indigenous peoples.

One of the most recent and controversial cases is the complementary bill 227/2012, presented by Representative Homero Pereira, President of the rural coalition, which is made up of more than 230 N ARTICLE 231 the Brazilian Constitution re- senators and representatives. The bill seeks to regulate cognizes the indigenous peoples, their social or- section 6 of article 231 of the Constitution. In particuganization, customs, languages, beliefs, traditions, lar, the bill tries to subject indigenous lands to the “higand their original right to the lands they have tra- her public interest of the Brazilian State,” annulling the ditionally occupied. In addition, it is the State’s duty to right to its possession and exclusive right of the indigedemarcate the land, protect it and make sure all of its nous peoples. This is a justification for large estates and resources are protected. However, these peoples are vic- highways, oil pipelines, hydroelectric centres, railway, tims of constant attack from the political and economic mines, and human settlement on indigenous territory. powers that seek to displace them from their territories.

The constitutional amendment proposal 215/2000 The indigenous population in Brazil is 900,000 — presented by Representative Almir Sa — seeks to people of a total of more than 200 million inhabi- place the demarcation of the indigenous lands, until tants, and they belong to 305 ethnic groups. For Carlo now guaranteed by the Constitution, under CongressioZacquini, Italian missionary of the Order of the Con- nal control, and thus at the hands of the rural coalition. solata who has lived for 48 years in the state of Rorai“A small number of ‘whites’ — says Brother Zacquima, a north-most state, the situation is very serious. ni — has taken control of the enormous stretches of “A few months after I arrived in Brazil, on May 1, land and dominates the national government through 1965, at the mouth of the Apiau River, I was fortunate to ‘its’ representatives. The vast size of the country, the meet some indigenous who were then called Vaiká. Now confusion in land ownership, and the economic power I know they were the Yanomami from the Yõkositheri vi- have prevailed over common sense and the law. If a

The powerful rural coalition attempts to change laws to strip indigenous peoples of their territories.

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law is favorable to the indigenous peoples then they can change it, as is happening now. At any rate, it is said, [those] who have created the laws in effect — and thus who can modify them — are not the indigenous.”

Coveted Territories

Officially called the Parliamentary Farming Front, the rural coalition, its powerful sponsors — the National Agricultural Confederation, made up of important agricultural owners, agribusiness and mining groups — and the most influential media outlets, maintain that the 113 million hectares (283 acres) of the Brazilian territory (13.3 percent of the total, according to data from the nongovernmental organization Socio-environmental Institute) at the hands of the indigenous people is too much. “Too much land for a few indigenous people,” they say.

It must be said — among other things — that often this a theoretical possession. A considerable part of the indigenous land is actually subject to constant and prolonged invasions by a variety of actors: ranchers, miners, merchants of precious wood, and of biodiversity traffickers.

“Why, even in the case of the communities who have obtained recognition for their lands, the government does not promptly and with efficiency intervene against the invaders? In this way [it] reinforces the mentality that invading indigenous lands and destroying nature is not a crime. Incentivized by impunity, the invasions multiply. If the offenders were the indigenous, the forces of order would very quickly act to restrain them, even with violence,” says Zacquini.

The problem is that many times even the State does not respect the indigenous territories. For example, this occurs with the mega-works projects of the Acceleration of Growth Program (PAC). According to the governmental organization National Indian Fund, 201 PAC projects affect indigenous territories. The ones impacting the most are the hydroelectric power plants, particularly Jirau and Santo Antônio on the Madeira River (Rondônia), Teles Pires (Mato Grosso), São Luiz (Pará) on the Tapajós River, and the largest of all, the Belo Monte one on the Xingú River (Pará). Works that devastate the environment and endanger the lives of tens of indigenous peoples also reflect the lack of respect and adherence to the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, to which Brazil is a signatory.

According to article 16 of the Convention, “the peoples concerned shall not be removed from the lands which they occupy. Where the relocation of these peoples is considered necessary as an exceptional

“Why, even in the case of the communities who have obtained recognition for their lands, the government does not promptly and with efficiency intervene against the invaders?”

— CARLO ZACQUINI

measure, such relocation shall take place only with their free and informed consent.” Brazil’s violation of this article is obvious.

“Why, when we think of ‘progress’, we almost never think of the lands of plantation owners, which are often uncultivated, but we always and only think of the indigenous?,” rightly asks Brother Zacquini. The statement is based on clear numbers: in Brazil, close to 70,000 people own 228 million hectares (570 acres) of unproductive land, according to data from the state agency Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.

Race towards looting

In Roraima, where Brother Zacquini lives, are the Indigenous Territory of the Yanomami and the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Reserve, where various peoples live: Makuxi, Vapichana, and Ingarikó, among others.

Both territories have official recognition, but the problems persist.

“There are tens of bills presented by congressmen, many from Roraima, to eliminate or reduce the rights of the indigenous people,” points out the missionary.

On top and underneath the indigenous territories lie coveted natural resources, and many are willing to do anything to have access to them, as is evidenced by bill 1610/96 — presented by Senator Romero Juca — that seeks to allow the exploitation of minerals in indigenous lands.

“The race towards the looting of non-renewable natural resources does not lead any country to true progress. Usually it serves to make someone rich, leaving future generations to pay for the debt,” concludes the Italian missionary. q AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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EL SALVADOR Tomás Andréu in San Salvador

Ancestral knowledge to cultivate the land

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HERE ARE no shortcuts to wisdom. There also is no magic formula to retain knowledge and pass it on to future generations. El Salvador is beginning to understand now that its soil and food are contaminated with chemicals.

But within the uncertain food production dynamics in the Central American country, there are other mechanisms at play that are harmonious with the land and its crops. This is occurring after the recovery of the ancestral knowledge, the respect of the ecosystem cycles and the willingness of men and women who seek food security through agro-ecology.

“We have applied the ancestral processes gradually. Our ancestors did not practice monoculture, that’s why we seek to plant yucca, corn, zucchini, and loroco. The people have even stopped planting flowers in their plots.

That’s why our soils before were rich and that’s why we want to recover all of that tradition that also included the planting of herbs such as blackberries,” explains Juan Pablo Pérez, from the Farmer to Farmer Program, to Latinamerica Press. The Farmer to Farmer 14

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MUJERES PRODUCIENDO LA TIERRA

Agro-ecological practices include the use of native seeds, organic fertilizer, biological pest control, crop rotation, and respect of the ecosystems.

Women farmers support agro-ecological practices for land cultivation and breeding animals.

Program was developed by farmers and is based on the barter of the goods grown by its members.

This initiative dates back to 1984 and has precursor organizations in Mexico and Nicaragua. In El Salvador the effort has fluctuated over time from 1994 to 2000, when it began to have a constant and solid dynamic.

Perez is a farmer from the central department of Cuscatlán.

He farms basic grains, vegetables and fruits. He works with organic fertilizer to protect the crops and uses aromatic plants to repel predators and prevent the growth of fungi. His method is successful at warding off whiteflies in crops such as chili pepper, tomato, spinach, red bean and creole corn.

“We have applied the ancestral processes gradually. Our ancestors did not practice monoculture, that’s why we seek to plant yucca, corn, zucchini, and loroco.”

— JUAN PABLO PÉREZ

“What we do is prepare strong substances that smell badly to scare off infestations or insects. One of the [substances] is made of chili pepper, garlic and onion. Or we make a soap with olive seeds. That product is placed in a gallon of water and [is used to] fumigate the leaves of the plants,” says Pérez.

“For us, all insects must be in an agroecological plot: larvae, worms, ants. There must be a balance for a good harvest,” he adds.

Replacing agrochemicals

Pérez has strong links to the nongovernmental organization Salvadorian Ecological Unit (UNES), which searches for new alternatives to combat the damage that agrochemicals and climate change cause.

“Agro-ecological practices follow a completely different procedure than traditional [practices] of food production which have been implemented since the worldwide ‘Green Revolution’. This has to do with organic products that become sustainable [for the land, the farmers, the nation] because they do not need agrochemicals nor the use of hybrid or improved seeds,” explains Mercy Palacios, from the UNES’s Public Policy Impact on Food Sovereignty area.

Palacios told Latinamerica Press that in San Julián, a municipality located in the western department of Sonsonate, the community leaders are the ones who have retaken these ancestral concepts to gradually replace agrochemicals.

The effort of the Farmer to Farmer Program and the UNES now has a vital component on their side: the Legislative Assembly banned on Sept. 5 the import, export, distribution and commercialization of 53 agrochemicals. The action of the legislative body created a domino effect, starting with businessmen, the farmers and up to the government, CONTINUE >

GUATEMALA

Women commit to agro-ecology Indigenous women widowed because of armed conflict opt for organic crops.

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oined in the National Coordinated Widows of Guatemala (CONAVIGUA), the indigenous women who lost their husbands and family members during the 36 years of internal armed conflict that devastated Guatemala between 1960 and 1996 decided a few years ago to devote themselves to the protection of land and growing organic products.

“The plants, herbs and other crops such as corn and beans are important in the lives of women,” said María Isabel Soc, member of CONAVIGUA and of the Women’s Commission of the international organization La Vía Campesina. “We are corn and we cannot eat another type of food that is not ours.”

“Many years ago began the process of training and educating women from different regions of the country so that they can put in practice their knowledge within their relationship with Mother Earth, the importance of food sovereignty, taking advantage of the resources they have in their communities and having access to a healthy nutrition,” she added.

In the Alta Verapaz region, in the north of the country, the women of various rural communities have decided to grow their crops using only organic fertilizer and homemade insecticide.

“Today they grow a variety of vegetables and medicinal plans,” said Marieta Tista de León, member of

one of the communities of Alta Verapaz. “Women have improved the economies of their families and now they don’t depend on a place to purchase their food but they are the ones who provide healthy and nutrient-rich food to nearby families.”

Lucía Quilá, leader of CONAVIGUA, said that farming allows women to feed their families and have a surplus to satisfy other needs. Many of them began with small plots and now they provide food to their communities.

However, they find it hard accessing the market to sell their products and they have to compete with transgenic products that have invaded their communities.

CONAVIGUA turned 25 on Sept. 12. Indigenous organizations such as the Maya Waqib’Kej National Coordination and Convergence highlighted “the daily struggle [of CONAVIGUA] in strengthening leadership and transforming the lives of Maya women in Guatemala.”

Among the CONAVIGUA projects that have empowered indigenous women are literacy programs, mental and physical health programs, but especially those projects that “help the family economy, seeking food sovereignty, making use of the natural resource conservation living in harmony with Mother Nature”, saluted Waqib’Kej. —LP

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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Brito, from “Mujeres Produciendo la Tierra” or “Women

“There is something that Working the Land” Farming Association, is an example. Not is she an important member of the organization, but she should not be allowed and only also works the land. that is logging [because trees] “I cultivate in a small plot that I have with my husband family and we make fences with vetiver grass. With my help us in this very rainy area and family we are totally organized to maintain and conserve our of the country. It seems simple plot,” describes Brito to Latinamerica Press.

She grows radishes, tomatoes, and bell pepper. She but it is a form of defense has also started growing coffee in her plot of land in the Talcomuna canton, located within the Buena Vista township against climate change.” of the Izalco municipality, in Sonsonate, a place with strong — SONIA BRITO

for the latter has two years to search for substitutes for these now banned agents.

The banning of these chemicals is rooted in the death of 60 people, all of whom died from renal failure between Jan. and Sept. 2013 in San Luis Talpa, department of La Paz, at the center-south of the country. The people of the area blamed the contamination on the use of agrochemicals.

“One of the obstacles that we must overcome is that without pesticides is not possible cultivate and this [belief] is due to the news from the media and deceptive propaganda. This limits the recognition of ancestral techniques and knowledge,” emphasizes Palacios.

But the UNES also recognizes that the farmers are the ones who voluntarily and blindly seek agrochemicals and overuse them.

“There has been an alignment from the farmer’s side towards olden practices but on the other hand, the soil is highly contaminated,” says Palacios.

To make the land fertile again, adds Palacios, people must “think agroecologically” and “start by de-contaminating the soil by using native seeds” because “these [seeds] can be produced year after year in the same community” without having to resort to an agrochemical.

Women as protagonists

If the issue is about legacy, the principal role of women in ancestral agriculture survives until today. Sonia 16

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indigenous roots. She will see the fruits of her efforts in three years.

The work does not end there; she also shares her knowledge. Along with the association she is the mentor of 12 groups of women in the departments of Sonsonate and Santa Ana. The agro-ecology she learned focuses on many areas: organization, formation, provision, advocacy and community health. Though it takes time, there are fruits to her labor.

“The land is very contaminated and we will not be able to combat this from one day to the next. We have carried out practices that have ended up being very slow, but we have had changes, many changes. There is something that should not be allowed and that is logging [because trees] help us in this very rainy area of the country. It seems simple but it is a form of defense against climate change,” says Brito from her experience.

Brito is happy because the Legislative Assembly passed the ban on pesticides, though she recognizes that “we use agrochemicals, but to stop using them is also our great challenge. We already reached a 35 percent reduction. We struggle on this topic.”

For Palacios, the State must establish “a legal framework to create food sovereignty in the country. It must launch a native seeds program that excludes chemical fertilizers and adds at the appropriate time technical aid for farmers. And the most important thing: it must begin to rescue the knowledge of our ancestors.” q

The State must establish “a legal framework to create food sovereignty in the country.”

— MERCY PALACIOS

LATIN AMERICA/ THE CARIBBEAN Latinamerica Press

Agroecology as a way of life

LA VIA CAMPESINA

Alliance creation process, an initiative launched in 1996 at the Second International Conference of La Vía Campesina in Mexico.

The main commitment is to “take forward the fight for food sovereignty, considering it a principle, vision, legacy, right and duty built by indigenous peoples, peasants, family farmers, artisanal fishermen, women, afro-descendants, youth and rural workers that has become an umbrella platform for our struggles and a proposal for society as a whole.”

Other commitments include the defence of territories against hoarNetworks, movements and organizations in the region seal their ding, extractivism, privatization of stacommittment to the creation of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Latin te assets and large-scale agribusiness.

America and the Caribbean.

Agroecology was chosen as “a way of life that recovers all we have lost, a connection with ancient knowledge,” as it rescues local markets and knowledge of communities, raises debate about the prices and encourages exchange and barter as a model of a social and solidary economy based on sustainability, redistribution and reciprocity.

FOOD IS not a commodity but a human right, “It is an alternative proposal to the climate change recognized by states through different legal ins- that mainly affects local food producers,” states the detruments. By recognizing this right, states have the claration. obligation to respect, protect and guarantee the One of the achievements of the institutions that people’s right to food — especially of food producers — make up the Alliance is that international organizations to guarantee the right to decent work and employment such as Food and Agriculture Organization of the Unias well as to a fair wage, based on the principles of social ted Nations (FAO) agreed in 2012 to discuss food sojustice and human dignity,” states the declaration of the vereignty understood as “the right of people to control First Assembly of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty of their own seeds, land, water and food production, ensuLatin America and the Caribbean. ring through local, autonomous (participatory, commuThe meeting, held on Aug 6 and 7 in Bogota, Co- nity and shared) and culturally appropriate production, lombia, was called by various regional organiza- consistent and complementary with Mother Earth, the tions engaged in the fight for food sovereignty, in- peoples’ access to sufficient, varied and nutritious food, cluding the Latin American Coordination of Rural deepening the production of each nation and people.”

Organizations-La Vía Campesina, the AgroecologiThe FAO defends food security to overcome huncal Movement of Latin America and the Caribbean ger in the world. La Vía Campesina, however, believes and the Pesticide Action Network, among others. that it is not enough for food to be available, accesRepresentatives of 23 Latin American and Ca- sible, sufficient and safe. The organization is trying ribbean networks, movements and organizations, and to achieve food sovereignty through “giving prioof 11 Colombian organizations, concluded with the rity to local production and consumption of food.”

Organizations join forces to strengthen the fight for food sovereignty.

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Since 2008 there has been an increase in international food prices, which has led to nearly 50 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean (8 percent of the total population) suffering from hunger. According to the FAO, the situation “is not a result of insufficient production or lack of food supply, but it is fundamentally due to a lack of access to food of an important sector of the population that does not have enough income to acquire food.”

Some 80 percent of farmland in Latin America and the Caribbean are family farms, according to the FAO, that has declared 2014 International Year of Family Farming.

“The objective of the Alliance is to be the instrument of unity for people fighting for food sovereignty as a significant example in building a new social model, based on the Good Living and on the sovereignty of the people,” the declaration states. q

Some 80 percent of farmland in Latin America and the Caribbean are family farms, according to the FAO, that has declared 2014 International Year of Family Farming.

HAITI

Small farmers win Food Sovereignty Prize Haitian team recognized for fighting for food democracy by promoting safe, healthy agricultural practices and advocating for peasant farmer rights.

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he US Food Sovereignty Alliance announced Aug. 13 that a team of Haiti’s five largest peasant organizations won the fifth-annual Food Sovereignty Prize, an honor granted to grassroots groups for creating projects that create “food democracy” and combat hunger and poverty.

Food democracy refers to “bottom-up, communal and cultural approaches to deal with hunger and poverty,” according to Charity Hicks of the Detroit Food Justice Task Force, a group that sponsors the prize.

Selected from 40 applicants, Haiti’s winning team represents more than a quarter million Haitians and fights for food democracy by promoting safe, healthy agricultural practices and advocating for peasant farmer rights.

The team known as “the G4 and the and the Dessalines Brigade,” consists of Heads Together Small Farmers of Haiti

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(Tèt Kole), the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP), the National Congress of Papay Peasant Movements, the Regional Coordination of Organizations of the Southeast Region, and the Dessalines Brigade — named after the 19th-century Haitian independence leader JeanJacques Dessalines — and is supported by La Vía Campesina, or the International Peasant’s Movement.

According to the Food Sovereignty Prize website, merit for the award is also based on creating global ties and prioritizing the leadership of women, indigenous people, migrant workers and other “food providers marginalized by the global food system,” which the winner was thought to achieve by means of its widespread alliance.

Since 2007, the group has been working to rebuild Haiti’s environment stricken by hurricanes and 2010 earthquake,

end poverty and preserve the Haitian Creole seed. Three years ago, the MPP rejected a donation of genetically-modified seeds by the US agricultural giant Monsanto, saying the transgenic seeds would contaminate native crops and threaten Haiti´s precarious food security and sovereignty.

“The Food Sovereignty Prize symbolizes the fight for safe and healthy food for all peoples of the earth,” G4 executive committee member Chavannes Jean-Baptiste said.

“It’s a fight that must be waged both locally and globally, and requires deep solidarity among all organizations fighting for food sovereignty.”

Honorable mentions for the prize included farmers’ organizations in India, Mali and the Basque Country. Last year, the award went to The Korean Women Peasant’s Association, and in 2011 to The Landless Workers of Brazil. — LP

PARAGUAY Gustavo Torres in Asunción

Divide between the old “perk system” and neoliberal technocracy

ADRIÁN MORÍNIGO

programs launched by his government.

Political analysts polled by Latinamerica Press agree that Cartes’s biggest challenge will be to avoid possible divides within his party due to his cabinet’s composition, which consists of businessminded technocrats, purportedly efficient and competitive, and no prominent figures from the ruling Colorado Party (also called National Republican Association), whose practice is partisan and perk-oriented.

Upon entering office, Cartes tried to distance himself from his predecessors of the Colorado Party to demonstrate that “the New Course,” his campaign rhetoric, Labor and farmer organizations press the government to stop privatization signifies the abandonment of old party and patenting of GM and indigenous seeds, mainly corn. practices that led the party to its removal from power in 2008 after six consecutive decades of absolute hegemony.

Following the decision of the new government to change the rules of the game, some legislators and party leaders more insistently began to demand government positions.

“Pushy and ungrateful, thanks to the Colorado Party he became president, he came to my party,” complained Gustavo INCE AUGUST 15 , when he was appointed Centurión, Vice President of the Sectional Colorada of president of Paraguay for a five-year term, the capital district of San Lorenzo in a radio interview.

Horacio Cartes began to rule in a favorable Centurión was referring to Cartes joining the party environment to carry out his agenda, only recently in 2009. which proposes a New Course for the country with Under this pressure, Cartes began to grant some “opportunities for all.” secondary secretary positions to Colorado-affiliated He has majority support in the House of members.

Representatives and a simple majority in the Senate “The appointments are signs of negotiations —four votes away from an absolute majority, which between President Horacio Cartes and the Colorado would approve his proposals automatically. In addition, Party, and that the president lost his first round of Cartes has an agreement with the runner-up party, negotiations. The disagreements between Cartes and the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), and his party do not arise only due to the issue of office other opposition groups, including the Democratic designations, but also because of his attempt to Progressive Party, Country Forward, National Union ‘impose’ his projects onto his legislators and what’s of Ethical Citizens, Beloved Fatherland Party and the more, there’s disagreement among the vision of the National Meeting Party. He has also received the pledge [political] model they want to promote. Through his of the Guasú Front, led by ex-president (2008-2012) cabinet of technocrats and the desire to optimize the and current senator, Fernando Lugo to support social State, he wants a neoliberal model, while the ARN

President Cartes starts his term among internal political strife within his party and the mobilization of blue-collar workers, farmers and indigenous natives.

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AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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“Cartes wants to rule as a businessman and that’s difficult in a country where the most of the people are farmers, informal workers and unemployed.”

— MERCEDES CANESE

insists on a perk-oriented system,” Hugo Richer, Guasú Front senator told the press.

Upon inquiry from Latinamerica Press, Mercedes Canese, energy sovereignty activist and former deputy minister of Mines and Energy, said that the guest list of entrepreneurs and technocrats joining Cartes shows that “[He] wants to rule with business owners and advance the neoliberal model, downsize the State and privatize public enterprises.”

Political analysts and union members also point out that the business-oriented and technocratic vision of a large portion of the cabinet that Cartes selected foreshadows government privatization and private sector concessions of public services.

In late August, employees and technicians of the Paraguayan electricity sector began protesting against the adoption of regulatory framework of the electricity industry that they think conceals a privatization maneuver. “Cartes wants to rule as a businessman and that’s difficult in a country where the most of the people are farmers, informal workers and unemployed,” Canese adds.

The challenges of the new office

Cartes’s “New Course” would mean the acceleration of the resource-based economy model, more agribusiness and more cattle for export. The family farming model is a problem for Cartes, and he will likely disregard it in public policy.

While groups of farmers and indigenous organizations fight for the preservation of native seeds, the government has followed the path of its predecessor, the interim ex-president Federico Franco (2012-2013), by appointing a representative of the guild of soy producers to the National Plant and Seeds Quality and Health Service (SENAEV).

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Engineer Regis Mereles, a member of the Union of Soy Producers (APS) and of the Union of Production Guilds (UGP) who stands for the complete deregulation of all types of transgenics, was appointed.

Last July, before Cartes took office, the Ministry of Industry and Trade granted the request of multinational corporation Monsanto to patent the transgenic corn seed MON 89034 and methods for its detection and use in Paraguay. In response, farmers and indigenous groups that produce native and Creole corn for consumption and income and city-dwellers started a campaign seeking to reject the request of Monsanto on the grounds that it violates Article 5 of 1630/00 Patent law, which stipulates that plants and animals are excluded from patent protection.

“It was wrong to grant Monsanto’s application.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade should reject the corn patent requested by Monsanto, as this is not permitted in Paraguay. Corn is the primary food source of Paraguayan culture,” reads the campaign slogan of the native and Creole maize producing organizations.

City protests

The Federation of Paraguayan Educators (FEP), and the Organization of Education Workers of Paraguay-National Syndicate (OTEP-SN), were the first to “welcome” the new government, laying siege to the capital on Aug. 14 and 15, at the start of Cartes’ term. More than 15,000 teachers demanded improvements to pensions through the Educational Retirement Act, and called for the provision of free and quality education.

Likewise, the physicians’ guilds affiliated with the National Federation of Health staged marches on the following days. They protested the lack of payment of wages, the threat of unfair layoffs by the new Minister of Health Antonio Barrios, and attempts to cut the health budget.

Employees of publicly-owned companies in the electricity industry, members of the National Electricity Administration (ANDE), the National Syndicate Electricity (SITRANDE), and Paraguayan Communications Company (COPACO), which is affiliated with the National Union of Telecommunications (SINATEL), participated in a meeting organized by the main trade unions on Sept. 5.

In a subsequent mobilization to the National Congress Plaza, they marched along farmer and indigenous organizations against potential privatization efforts. Addressing union leaders and indigenous representatives, Cartes promised to hold immediate dialogues in order to analyze each issue and seek solutions to the most serious problems facing the country.

“Workers who are associated within SITRANDE know very well the intentions of Cartes’s government, that is forcefully leading a neoliberal economic policy which involves the privatization of major public goods,” said José María Benítez to the Latinamerica Press.

Benitez is a delegate of the Acaray hydropower station, an ANDE-owned plant located in Hernandárias, Alto Parana.

The government has no clear plan of how it will create jobs”, added Benitez.

“If its intent is to privatize and then create jobs, that’s very contradictory because that would mean firing people and then presumably creating conditions for new jobs. That’s the situation we see with SITRANDE ...The strategy to follow is: ongoing protest, try to win majority support, and defend one of the most precious commodities of the people, which is energy.” q

“If its intent is to privatize and then create jobs, that’s very contradictory because that would mean firing people and then presumably creating conditions for new jobs.”

— JOSÉ MARÍA BENÍTEZ

LATIN AMERICA/ THE CARIBBEAN

School feeding combats infant malnutrition Programs promote local development through the purchase of food from family farming.

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chool feeding programs implemented in eight countries of the region have become important for social protection, food security and children’s nutrition, ensures the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in a recent report.

According to the report “A Panorama of School Feeding and the Possibilities for Direct Purchases from Family Farming – Case Studies in Eight Countries”, released on Aug. 22, school feeding programs combat chronic childhood malnutrition while “promoting the permanence of children in school and bolsters their learning process.” These programs benefit 85 percent of students from the countries in the study — Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru.“ Furthermore, the document maintains that these programs tend to obtain food from fa-

LATIN AMERICA/ THE CARIBBEAN Percentage of chronic malnutrition in children under five years old (2012)

Country

Percent

Guatemala Honduras Bolivia Nicaragua

49.8 30.0 27.1 21.7

Peru El Salvador Paraguay Colombia

19.5 19.1 18.0 13.2

Source: FAO

mily agriculture, thus propelling local development. In Latin America and the Caribbean, about 80 percent of the agriculture is family farming, according to FAO data. The FAO has declared 2014 to be the International Year of Family Farming.“ This is a triple winner solution: it se-

cures quality food for students of public schools, promoting the consumption of fresh and healthy food, it opens new markets and the possibility of higher income for family farmers while boosting local development,” said FAO Director General, José Graziano da Silva.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, 49 million people — 8 percent of the total population of the region — suffers from hunger, mostly children younger than five years old and women. This situation “is not a result of insufficient production or lack of food supply, but it is fundamentally due to a lack of access to food of an important sector of the population that does not have enough income to acquire food,” FAO said.

According to the Inter-American Development Bank, the poorest urban sectors allocate 70 percent of their budgets to purchasing food.— LP

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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EL SALVADOR Tomás Andréu in San Salvador

War crimes remain unpunished

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FRANCISCO CAMPOS

Presidential candidates will not repeal the Amnesty Law for crimes committed during the armed internal conflict.

Monument commemorating the victims of the El Mozote massacre in December 1981, when members of the Salvadoran Army killed 966 people.

seeking to become president of El Salvador in 2014 will request the repeal of the amnesty law that eliminated the possibility of adjudicating war crimes committed during the armed conflict in the Central American country from 1980 until the signing of peace accords between guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the government of President Alfredo Cristiani (19891994) in Jan.1992.

More than 20 years later, the left and right have something in common: they don’t want to reopen the wounds of the past and both are looking toward the future, according to their own words. So both sides have turned their backs on the Truth Commission (TC) report, published in Jan. 1993 that documents grievous human rights violations committed during the armed conflict that left more than 75,000 people dead, more than 8,000 missing, and millions of dollars in destroyed infrastructure.

Days after the TC report was released, the legislature passed the so-called General Amnesty Law for the Consolidation of Peace, granting “broad amnesty, absolutely and unconditionally” to people who committed human rights violations during the armed conflict.

Latinamerica Press asked the main presidential candidates if their government plans include a repeal of the legislation.

“The amnesty reconciled the Salvadoran family,” said Norman Quijano, candidate of the rightwing Nationalist

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Republican Alliance (ARENA). “Repealing it would be harmful to reconciliation.

If at that moment the slate was wiped clean, why do we have to open the wounds 20 years later?”

The same tone was used by former President Elías Antonio Saca (20042009), who is running for a second term with the Unity Movement, composed of established right-wing parties like the National Coalition, Christian Democrats and the Grand Alliance for National Unity, the latter a division of ARENA. Saca

The armed conflict left more than 75,000 people dead, more than

8,000 missing,

and millions of dollars in destroyed infrastructure.

“The government of Mauricio Funes and the FMLN have been very similar to previous governments in the logic that ‘I was appointed to manage the future and not to judge the past.’”

— MARÍA SILVIA GUILLÉN

declared about the amnesty law through his campaign team: “the position remains as it always has. The Peace Accords established certain criteria, parameters and decisions that contain the amnesty law, therefore, [it] must be preserved. We must take into account that the executive branch doesn’t repeal laws.”

Deception with FMLN While human rights organizations expect nothing from the Salvadoran right on the issue of the Amnesty Law and the reparation of the conflict’s victims, they also didn’t anticipate unpleasant surprises from the ruling FMLN party.

The FMLN won the 2009 election with former journalist Mauricio Funes as a presidential candidate, ending 20 years of power by ARENA. Although the FMLN has always been a harsh critic of impunity for those responsible for war crimes, Funes cleared doubts by announcing on TV Sept. 2, 2008, when he was a presidential candidate, “I’ll ask the deputies [of the FMLN] to not do it [promote initiatives to repeal the Amnesty Law]. We have already discussed this within the party.”

And so it went. Neither he nor the FMLN made any effort to repeal or amend the Amnesty Law. Its presidential candidate for 2014 — current Vice President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former guerilla commander — will not seek otherwise.

“First, I want to say that we closed the conflict through peace accords. These agreements opened a new phase in El Salvador. It is an example for Latin America and the world.

Development – to build it, you need to build it in peace.

Now we [the FMLN] are seeing the future and the future must mean opportunities for all,” he told Latinamerica Press.

For Benjamin Cuéllar, director of the Central American University’s (UCA) Human Rights Institute, “the present campaign proposals are so precarious, because no one is capable of encouraging hope.

Any of the candidates that win the presidency will rule as Funes did, and as past ARENA presidents ruled.”

Alliance with military officers Last June, a military group established a public partnership with the FMLN. Sánchez Cerén and his running mate, Óscar Ortiz, a former guerilla commander and current mayor of Santa Tecla, capital of the southwestern department of La Libertad, brought on as a defense adviser an active military officer, Colonel Roberto López Morales. The TC and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said he knew the plans to assassinate UCA Jesuits priests and two of their colleagues on Nov. 15, 1989, from attending a planning session for the massacre. He did nothing to prevent the attack.

“He is an accomplice and abettor. He knew they were going to kill the Jesuits. Perhaps out of fear he did not raise his hand when asked who disagreed with the murder, but later he could have picked up the phone and called the UCA and said, `Look, they’re going to kill you.’ Suppose he did not because there was no phone. Why did he not cooperate with the Truth Commission and give the information he had?” Cuéllar told Latinamerica Press.

The Foundation for the Study of Applied Law (FESPAD) has struggled to repeal the Amnesty Law. Its director, María Silvia Guillén, expressed her deep disappointment at the FMLN’s attitude.

“The government of Mauricio Funes and the FMLN have been very similar to previous governments in the logic that ‘I was appointed to manage the future and not to judge the past.’ FESPAD believes without doubt the FMLN government has a historic debt, because we expected this government would take seriously reparation for victims, but also seriously seek truth and justice and that is what [this government] feared. That made me very sad,” Guillén said.

Although Funes has apologized on behalf of the State for war crimes, including the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero in 1980, the massacre of El Mozote AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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in 1981, the killings of the Jesuits, and all the cases documented by the TC — for Cuéllar that gesture is not enough.

“It is no use [to apologize]. The worst death there has been with this government is that of the people’s hope,” he said. “There is no commitment to the victims or to truth. The commitment is to the party or party leaders. The policy of protecting criminals is what makes El Salvador difficult to live in. There are people leaving this country because of the impunity also.” q

inbrief • Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos stated on Sept. 9 that it will not be possible to apply the ruling of the International Court of Justice of the Hague which conceded 75,000 square kilometers of the Caribbean Sea to Nicaragua in November 2012 unless both nations agree to a border treaty. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accepted the offer though he demanded that Santos comply with the decision. Panama, meanwhile, became involved in the conflict and accused Nicaragua of trying to appropriate Panama’s territorial waters. Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli announced on Sept. 11 that he will send a letter to the General Secretary of the United Nations, along with Colombia, Costa Rica, and Jamaica, denouncing Nicaragua’s intentions to extend its control over the territorial waters of other nations.

• The 40th anniversary of the military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende (197073) on September 11, 1973 was commemorated with protests and massive manifestations in Chile. The military coup established a 17-year dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet (197390) and left more than 40,000 officially recognized victims who died, were detained-disappeared or were tortured. While

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“The worst death there has been with this government is that of the people’s hope.”

President Sebastián Piñera called on citizens to overcome the traumas of the past, former President Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010) participated in a ceremony in Villa Grimaldi, a detention center where she, her mother Angela Jería and another 4,500 people were tortured. The former governor and current presidential candidate for the center-left coalition New Majority called for an “advance [to search for] the truth, for justice, reparation and a compromise for a ‘never again’”.

• The Aug. 15 decision of President Rafael Correa to allow the exploitation of petroleum in the Yasuní Park, the largest protected area of Ecuador, was harshly criticized by environmentalists and indigenous groups who have demanded the retraction of the decision. Correa revoked the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, which protected one of the areas with the greatest biodiversity on the planet in exchange for the international community’s payment for half the value of the petroleum in Yasuni. The government has only received little more than US$13 million, 0.37 percent of the $3.6 billion that it sought to collect. Correa said that the intervention of state oil company Petroamazonas will cover one per thousand of the 982,000 Hectares (2.4 million acres) of the park.

• Aug. 28 was the ten-year anniversary of the presentation of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR), on the violations of

— BENJAMÍN CUÉLLAR

human rights committed during 20 years of internal armed conflict that was started in Peru in 1980 by the subversive group Shining Path. Up to date, there have been few advances in regards to complying with the recommendations of the CVR to promote finding the truth, justice, and reconciliation. One of the important pending issues is the location of more than 15,000 disappeared individuals during the internal conflict who are presumed buried clandestinely in more than 4,600 communal graves. In 10 years the district attorney’s office has recovered 2,662 bodies, 1,528 of which have been identified by family members.

• The Intern-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), expressed its regret on a Sept.

10 statement for Venezuela’s official withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Due to the withdrawal, any human rights violations committed in Venezuela starting on that date will not be under the protection of the Court. The measure came under effect one year after Venezuela’s denunciation of the American Convention on Human Rights in which it accused the IACHR and the Court of infringing its sovereignty and protecting terrorism. While Venezuela will continue to be under the IACHR, as long as it is part of the Organization of American States, nothing obligates it to comply with the IACHR’s mandates.

COSTA RICA

Latinamerica Press

Organ trafficking on the rise In a region rife with human trafficking, a more atypical variety of the crime is on the rise.

O

rgan extraction is now the next top human trafficking offense in Costa Rica after sexual exploitation, according to a report released July 2013 by the Directorate General of Migration and Immigration (DGME). Of the 20 total cases in 2013 so far, nine were used for sexual exploitation, seven for organ trafficking, three for labor exploitation and one for servitude.

According to the World Health Organization, organ trafficking may be even more difficult to track than drug and sex trafficking, but it appears to be increasing globally, with brokers allegedly charging up to US$200,000 for the organization of a transplant for a wealthy patient. This upward trend may be credited to the mounting instances of diseases that affect the liver, kidney, heart and pancreas worldwide.

On June 18, Costa Rican doctor Francisco José Mora, chief of nephrology at the public Calderón Guardia Hospital, was arrested for the suspected promotion of organ trafficking services on YouTube. A video posted by journalist Amelia Rueda shows the doctor touting his medical expertise and advertising Costa Rica as an attractive destination for transplant tourism.

“Costa Rica is known worldwide for its transplant tourism,” Roberto Tanus, president of the Transplant Society of Latin America and the Caribbean, told reporters.

“Everyone knows what we are talking about here. Transplant tourism is an elegant disguise for what is really the illicit trafficking of organs.”

If convicted, Mora could serve eight to 16 years in prison.

In the same incident, authorities arrested Maureen Patricia Cordero Solano, a police officer who allegedly recruited donors, assuring patients of the procedure’s safety.

Linking it to the same investigation, Attorney General Jorge Chavarría confirmed that a Costa Rican woman recently died on her way home from transplanting an illegal organ in Israel.

At a meeting sponsored by the International Organization for Migration of Costa Rica on Apr. 24, 2013, it was revealed that last year, two Israeli citizens paid a Costa Rican and Nicaraguan man $6,000 for two illegally obtained kidneys.

“We don’t want Costa Rica to be seen as a place where an organ can be purchased,” Public Security Vice Minister Freddy Montero said in response to the incidents. “We cannot back down on this issue.”

A larger trend across Latin America This trend reflects a larger one across Latin America. In the first seven months of 2013, Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office received 22 reports of stolen children, many of which are believed to be used in organ trafficking, according to children’s prosecutor Erick Cardenas.

Last year, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists cited countries like Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Bolivia as nations where organ trafficking has become a major underground business.

The report identifies the increase due to the increasing demand for body parts in the United States.

At a meeting in July in Chile, the Regional Consultation for Latin America and the Caribbean on the Right to an Effective Remedy for the Victims of Trafficking in Persons, the UN called for collective action in Latin America to combat human trafficking.

“Trafficking knows no borders and affects all regions of the world,” the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, said at the meeting. “In Latin America and the Caribbean there are countries of source, transit and destination of trafficked persons. And although the political will is there, the adoption of a comprehensive and collective approach to address this problem remains a challenge.”

At a February UN meeting in New York called “Crimes of 21st Century: Organ Trafficking, Global Health and Security,” Ana Lita, cofounder of non-profit organization Global Bioethics Initiative (GBI), said a major barrier to combating the crime is that there is no international standard to deal with it. Lita said the international community and non-governmental organizations like GBI do not currently have explicit legal framework to pursue traffickers. q

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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MEXICO Latinamerica Press

LOUISA REYNOLDS

Food sovereingty at risk

Mexico is one of the eight worldwide “centers of origin” of corn, and it has 59 breeds and 200 adapted varieties of this grain.

More than 40 percent of food consumed is imported.

F

OOD SOVEREIGNTY at risk in Mexico due to the increasing dependence on food imports. For the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), this situation is worrisome because of the volatility of international food prices.

“An international context of volatile and high prices makes Mexico vulnerable especially because these are basic food products,” affirmed in May the FAO representative to Mexico, Nuria Urquía Fernández, in statements quoted by the press.

Urquía added that, according to forecasts from the U.S. State Department, imports of corn, the base product of the Mexican diet, will increase by 50 percent until it reaches 17 million tons. In 2012 corn imports were 10.8 million tons, constituting 30 percent of internal consumption.

Likewise, the FAO is concerned about farmers. About 70 percent of farmers have lower incomes than needed to subsist, 20 percent have great potential for growth but do not have the necessary aid, and 9 percent are the ones feeding the

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nation. Close to 40 percent of the farming production is provided by communities dedicated to family agriculture, many of whom apply agroecological practices to their corn and other crops.

Meanwhile, the environmental organization Greenpeace warned in July of the risk to food sovereignty in Mexico because of the market entry of transgenic corn.

“The enormous diversity of the original grains could be lost and 80 percent of small producers in the country would be at risk, including 2 million farmers who produce for self-consumption only,” said Aleida Lara, coordinator of the Greenpeace Mexico Sustainable Agriculture Campaign, to the press. “What is serious is that, in the case that transgenic seeds are found in crops for self-consumption or [the crops] of small producers, they would have to pay royalties to the large transnationals, as is already happening in the United States.”

Mexico is one of the eight worldwide “centers of origin” of corn, and it has 59 breeds and 200 adapted varieties of this grain. In 2009 the government reformed the legislation on biosecurity, lifting a

Close to 40 percent of thefarming production is provided by ommunities dedicated to family agriculture, many of whom apply agroecological practices to their corn and other crops.

decade-long moratorium on transgenic corn. Until Oct. 2012, 177 permits for experimental and pilot farming of transgenic corn were granted. These are the first stages of massively developing commercial agriculture.

According to Lara, this year the US companies Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer and Dow Agrosciences presented formal requests to the government to commercially grow transgenic seeds in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Tamaulipas, and Sinaloa. The latter is considered the bread-basked of Mexico.

Although the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fishing and Food (SAGARPA), ensured it had not authorized the cultivation of transgenic corn in the country, SAGARPA Secretary Enrique Martínez y Martínez, specified that “[we] must act according to scientific opinion.”

“We need greater production and seeds that are more resistant to pests, drought, ice [seasons], but at the same time we have the obligation to conserve the status of genetic wealth of native crops and we are doing that, but up to date no authorization from SAGARPA has been given, and we will do it in accordance with total scientific opinion,” said Martínez y Martínez.

In regards to the Secretary of SAGARPA comments, Lara specified that “transgenic crops can contaminate native grains not only when they are mixed but also through indirect ways such as the presence of insects or the wind. [The mixing of transgenic and native crops] would create serious risk for the crops and human health.” This type of transgenic production, she adds, “requires enormous amounts of herbicides, putting human health and entire fields in immediate danger.” q

NICARAGUA

Fresh water in danger because of interoceanic canal

VIAJEROS.COM

Latinamerica Press

Nicaragua or Cocibolca Lake generates and ensures a very important part of the country’s water.

Environmental organizations warn of the repeal of the legal framework that protects the greatest source of water of the country and Central America.

T

that granted a Chinese company the concession to build and manage the interoceanic canal that will unite the Atlantic and Pacific oceans annulled the legal framework that protected the Nicaragua or Cocibolca Lake, the largest in Central America, and its sources and tributaries, denounced environmental groups.

The Special Law for the Development of Nicaraguan Infrastructure and Transportation, related to the Canal, Free Trade Zone and Associated Infrastructures, or interoceanic canal law, approved by the National Assembly in June, grants a 50-year concession that can be extended for 50 more years to the HK Nicaragua Canal Development Group (HKDN) HE LAW

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

27

“All regulations and control over our environmental conditions have been transferred to the investing company, which will decide how our nation’s natural resources will be used.”

— VÍCTOR CAMPOS

headquartered in Hong Kong, to build the interoceanic canal that will compete with the Panama Canal, located less than 600 kilometers (370 miles) away and through which 5 percent of world trade circulates.

The Concession and Implementation Framework Agreement of the law grants HKDN absolute power to manage the flow of the water, establishing that Nicaragua is obligated to guarantee HKDN “the access and navigation rights in rivers, lakes, oceans and other bodies of water within Nicaragua and in its waters, and the right to extend, expand, dredge, divert or reduce said bodies of water.”

Additionally, the law grants the company absolute autonomy to decide what land must be expropriated and freedom to set fares and tolls, in addition to forcing Nicaragua to renounce its right to sue the company before national or international courts for any damage that company could cause during the evaluation, construction, and project operation stages.

Víctor Campos, Assistant Director of the Humboldt Center, an organization that promotes territorial development and environmental management, explained to Envío Magazine that “Cocibolca’s water is a vital resource for everyone who lives around the lake, and the majority of Nicaragua’s population lives in this particular watershed, and it in turn generates and ensures a very important part of our country’s water.”

In addition to the serious and irreversible damages that it could cause to other ecosystems, Campos specified that “virtually all regulations and control over our environmental conditions have been transferred to the investing company, which will decide how our nation’s natural resources will be used.”

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Campos also expressed his concern “about the free and informed prior consent the ethnic communities and indigenous peoples on the autonomous Caribbean side of the country must give before their lands can be used for this project. When an official spokesperson for the governing party [the Sandinista National Liberation Front] bench in Parliament was questioned about the fact that, by law, indigenous lands can’t be transferred, he replied that they won’t be transferred because “it’s only a concession”... But this is a concession for 100 years!”

Edwin Castro, head of the Sandinista legislators group, ensured that the construction of the canal will lead to a short term economic growth of 10 percent to 15 percent and the creation of 2 million formal jobs. However, The Nicaraguan Alliance against Climate Change, which groups some 20 local environmental organizations, declared that, while it shares “the wish to find alternatives that will lead us to overcome the poverty levels,” the project “must not jeopardize the possibility of future generations to live in a healthy environment.”

For Campos, the construction of the canal and water conservation for human consumption “are mutually exclusive.”

Either there is a canal or there is a water reservoir for the population, he indicated. q

The construction of the canal and water conservation for human consumption “are mutually exclusive.”

— VÍCTOR CAMPOS

LATIN AMERICA/ THE CARIBBEAN Latinamerica Press

Continued environmental degradation LATIN AMERICA/ THE CARIBBEAN Absolute composite environmental rank*

Latin American nations top list of countries that contribute to the negative impact on the environment.

B

razil, Mexico and Peru are among the top 10 countries of the world that contribute to environmental degradation, according to the investigation “Evaluating the Relative Environmental Impact of Countries” conducted by the University of Adelaide (Australia), Princeton University (United States) and National University of Singapore.

The study, which evaluated 171 countries, used seven environmental degradation indicators: natural forests loss, habitat conversion, marine captures, fertilizer use, water pollution, carbon emissions and species threat.

One of the important findings is that the wealthier a country is, the greater its impact on the environment.

“We correlated rankings against three socio-economic variables (human population size, gross national income and governance quality) and found that total wealth was the most important explanatory variable; the richer a country, the greater its average environmental impact,” explained Professor Corey Bradshaw, who led the

Country

Brazil Mexico Peru Argentina Colombia Ecuador Venezuela Chile Bolivia Honduras Paraguay Guatemala Costa Rica Trinidad and Tobago Panama Haiti Nicaragua Uruguay El Salvador Cuba Dominican Republic Guyana Jamaica Puerto Rico Belize Dominica Suriname Bahamas St. Kitts and Nevis St. Vincent and Grenadines Barbados Grenada Saint Lucia Antigua and Barbuda

Rank

Score

1 6 10 11 20 21 22 27 36 52 56 58 63 71 78 83 90 102 112 115 118 119 133 142 143 147 158 159

4.5 13.6 18.3 19.6 30.7 31.6 31.8 35.0 43.9 59.1 60.1 60.2 63.1 67.9 71.2 74.2 78.9 86.9 90.9 91.8 93.0 93.6 99.6 109.5 111.2 113.6 127.4 129.5

163

133.3

165 167 169 170

171

136.1 146.3 148.9 158.3 160.4

**Lower ranks, higher negative impact.

Source: University of Adelaide Environment Institute/PLoS One

“The richer a country, the greater its average environmental impact.”

—COREY BRADSHAW

investigation that was carried out in 2010.

“There is a theory that as wealth increases, nations have more access to clean technology and become more environmentally aware so that the environmental impact starts to decline. This wasn’t supported,” he added.

However, the investigation also found that in countries with poor governance and high corruption, environmental protection policies are nonexistent or are not adequately implemented.

The document warned that “continued degradation of nature despite decades of warning, coupled with the burgeoning human population, suggest that human quality of life could decline substantially in the near future.

Increasing competition for resources could therefore lead to heightened civil strife and more frequent wars. Continued environmental degradation demands that countries needing solutions be identified urgently so that they can be assisted in environmental conservation and restoration.” q AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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ECUADOR Luis Ángel Saavedra in Quito

JESSICA MATUTE

A decade of resistance against a hydroelectric plant

Residents of San Pablo de Amalí protest the diversion of a river to build a dam.

Community opposes dam that would affect farming and livestock.

D

repression and harassment from government officials and workers of the company Hidrotambo, the community of San Pablo de Amalí, in the central Ecuadoran province of Bolívar, maintains its opposition to the construction of a hydroelectric dam that would alter their farming activities. Clashes with police and soldiers have led to several lawsuits over sabotage and terrorism; however this has failed to intimidate the local population that has been fighting for 10 years.

In 2003, during the administration of former President Lucio Gutiérrez (2003-2005), the company Hidrotambo (a consortium of Plasticaucho Industrial, Electrogen, Corporación para la Investigación Energética and Spanish firm Ingehydro) got the National Directorate of Water Resources — which is today called the National Water Secretariat — to grant it a 50-year concession for more than 90 percent of the Dulcepamba River basin. The company’s intention was to build a hydroelectric dam that would contribute eight megawatts to the national power grid.

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The concession allowed for about 5,400 liters/second during the rainy season and 1,960 liters/second in the dry season. In 2005, shortly before the Ecuadoran Congress ousted Gutiérrez, Hidrotambo secured a rate of 6,500 liters/second.

The project will affect the 74 communities in the Dulcepamba River basin, from San Pablo, in the upper reaches of the mountain range, to San Pablo de Amalí, in the subtropics where the dam is built.

According to the non-governmental organization Ecological Action, about 45,000 people will be affected, but compensation is only provided for two families whose farms are in the dam’s construction site.

Unfulfilled promises

In 2004, resistance from the community prevented the firm contracted by Hidrotambo, called Constructora de los Andes (COANDES), from starting work to divert the river toward the site where the dam was to be built. So one year later, the company signed a contract with the Army Corps of Engineers, but continuous clashes with the community forced the military to abandon the project in 2008.

74 communities 45,000 people will be affected, because of the dam’s construction

During his 2006 electoral campaign, President Rafael Correa visited San Pablo de Amalí and said he would close the project when he came to power, which indeed happened. However, in March last year the work restarted with a contract directly controlled by the National Electricity Board (CONELEC) and the provincial government of Bolívar.

This new contract is even harder for communities than the one signed under Gutiérrez. The new one prohibits campesinos from using river water for irrigation or livestock breeding.

“We went to seek a concession for water to irrigate and were told they can give us enough for a halfinch hose. That is not even enough to irrigate an orange tree,” said Manuel Trujillo, leader of San Pablo de Amalí, during a meeting on June 18 between the com-

munity and lawyers of the human rights legal group Regional Foundation for Counseling in Human Rights (INREDH).

Indeed, clause 12 of the contract transforms Hidrotambo into the absolute owner, not only of the water, but also of the entire communal territory adjacent to the future hydroelectric plant.

“The permit holder shall have the right to build and operate, as the owner, drinkable water or wastewater systems, and is also authorized to construct, operate and maintain roads, bridges, runways or perform any other work necessary for future site access to the center to be constructed, or places associated with it,” it reads.

Conflicts with the people peaked on Dec. 15, 2006, when about 1,500 campesinos from affected communities clashed with about 300 soldiers near CONTINUE >

LATIN AMERICA

Solar energy on the rise Governments boost expansion of alternative energy sources.

E

xploding megacities, economic growth and expanding industries have fortified the energy demands in the region.

Currently, solar energy makes up less than 4 percent of energy sources in Latin America; however countries like Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru are investing in the solar business with plans to increase the energy production. Peru has also announced extensive plans to provide two millions of its inhabitants with solar energy, especially in the poorer northern regions.

With the National Photovoltaic Household Electrification Program, Peru started one of the biggest solar projects in the country so far. The project aims to provide access to electricity to 95 percent of Peru by the end of 2016. Currently about 66 percent of households in Peru have electricity.

The first phase of the project was inaugurated on July 8 by installing 1,601 solar panels in 126 communities in the nor-

thern province of Cajamarca, benefitting some 8,000 people.

The government plans to install 12,500 solar plants over the next three years that will provide electricity to about 500,000 homes at a cost of US$200 million.

Energy and Mining Minister Jorge Merino stated that “this program is aimed at the poorest people, those who lack access to electric lighting and still use oil lamps, spending their own resources to pay for fuels that harm their health.”

Brazil has vast potential when it comes to solar energy, however it remains widely unused.

There are only few solar parks at the moment but numerous new projects have been approved for this year and the years to come. In Manaus, the capital of the Amazonas state, a $13 million project to build one of the largest solar parks in Latin America is waiting for its approval this year. It would generate enough energy to supply 3,000 homes. Brazil’s biggest city, São

Paulo, also plans to construct a solar park connected to the municipality’s electrical system.

Chile, with the desert of Atacama in the north, has a clear potential to provide solar energy to its citizens and also other countries. The desert has an area of 105,000 square kilometers and is believed to possess one of the world’s biggest solar potential. Chile has the largest electricity consumption per capita in Latin America and in order to meet the demand, the Chilean government has called for 10 percent of the electricity to be generated by renewable energy resources by 2024.

Ecuador inaugurated its first solar facility in February. Located in the northern province of Imbabura, the plant has 4,100 solar panels connected to the country’s electrical grid.

Similarly, Nicaragua launched a solar farm in February located in Carazo province, south of Managua, that will benefit 1,100 homes. —LP AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 2013

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“We’ve decided not to flee, because it’s awful to be far from family. And if we have to go to jail, we’ll go with our heads held high.”

—MANUELA PACHECO

San Pablo of Amalí. During that year there had been continuous military incursions using tear gas. The troops also controlled access roads and made seizures on public buses under the pretext of searching for weapons.

“What they wanted was to know who leaves and enters the community,” Trujillo said to Latinamerica Press.

As a result of the clashes, 22 lawsuits were brought against residents of San Pablo de Amalí, and 14 community leaders were detained and accused of rebellion.

Two months later, the National Ombudsman Office observed the actions of the Army Corps of Engineers and requested the military cease operations against the community, but during a flare-up Feb. 26, 2007, about 70 military officials launched tear gas directly at community residents, wounding many.

In December 2008, the Constituent Assembly granted amnesty to the campesinos of San Pablo de Amalí who were being sued, and the Army Corps of Engineers left the area.

Lawsuits against the community

Project work resumed despite President Correa’s promise, and without reviewing or updating the project’s environmental permits. As in previous years, there were again clashes with the special police forces.

Latinamerica Press offers information and analysis from Latin America and the Caribbean, with emphasis on the issues that affect marginalized populations within the region. Spanish version: Noticias Aliadas The journal is produced by Comunicaciones Aliadas, a Peru-based non governmental organization that for almost 50 years has been producing independent and reliable information and analysis. Our objective is to demonstrate the situation facing excluded and marginalized sectors of the population within Latin America and the Caribbean.

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On Aug. 16, 2012, the Interior Ministry sent a commission to investigate the facts, but only met with Hidrotambo and staff and didn’t visit the community.

For these latest confrontations, Trujillo and Manuela Pacheco, another San Pablo de Amalí leader, have been brought to trial for sabotage and terrorism. A Nov. 12 arrest warrant was issued for them, so they went underground until the legal team defending them is able to revoke that order. The process is ongoing and both leaders are disposed to go to jail if they are convicted.

“We’ve decided not to flee, because it’s awful to be far from family,” Pacheco told Latinamerica Press. “And if we have to go to jail, we’ll go with our heads held high.”

On June 18, delegates of the National Ombudsman Office, the Ministry of Environment, CONELEC, the provincial government and representatives of Hidrotambo returned to visit the project site. State officials backed the company by only allowing two members of the community to join them.

Furthermore, a representative of the National Ombudsman Office, Consuelo Cano, barred the groups defending the community from participating in the trip.

“No one invited you,” Cano said.

However, human rights organizations present could observe the effect on people and their farms caused by the river’s diversion, which is already 40 percent completed.

“As a result of these clashes, most villagers live in constant stress and it has disrupted their vision for the future as individuals and as a community,” Beatriz Villarreal, an INREDH officer who provides social and psychological counseling to the community, told Latinamerica Press.

“Children and some of the elderly have been evacuated because of the risk, while others are staying in their houses because they don’t have anywhere to go, and they are getting ready to defend [their homes],” Trujillo said. “It’s been 10 years of fighting and everything has gone back to zero.” q

Director: Elsa Chanduví Jaña (echanduvi@comunicacionesaliadas.org) Editor: Cecilia Remón Arnaiz Translators: Dana Litovsky Justyna Przybyl Victoria Macchi Graphics editor: Graciela Ramírez Ramírez

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