The case of the failure of Mexico’s Laguna Verde Nuclear Plant,

With Latin American countries still turned off to nuclear power two years after Japan’s monumental Fukushima meltdowns dispersed radioactive fallout across the ocean to them, events inside a similar facility in Mexico have fueled mounting skepticism over the potential for developing the energy technology.

Fissures, leaks, shutdowns, government secrecy, a failed upgrade, alleged bid-rigging and contract fraud at Mexico’s lone atomic power station, the state-run Laguna Verde Nuclear Plant, were vetted during the 9^th Regional Congress on Radiation Protection and Safety held in Rio de Janeiro in April.

The audience of Latin American experts eager to share the information at the professional association forum starred scientists from Argentina and Brazil, which also have nuclear power plants, as well as from Venezuela, Chile and Cuba, which had made tentative moves toward establishing atomic energy stations before the Fukushima catastrophe stymied aspirations.

The irregularities at Laguna Verde came to light thanks to a courageous group of anonymous high-level employees inside the power plant and to the public information requests by their spokesperson, Mexico’s National Autonomous University Physics Professor Bernardo Salas Mar, a former plant employee and valiant whistleblower.

Some of Salas Mar’s most recent research was accepted at the International Radiation Protection Association congress in Brazil, but his university did not provide him with travel expenses to attend in person.

Salas faces high-level attempts to have him fired as a result of his persistent efforts to make public his discoveries of dangerous faults and cover-ups at the Laguna Verde plant. But Salas’ achievements speak for themselves. Were it not for his ceaseless hammering on the doors of the 10-year-old Federal Information Access Institute (IFAI), perhaps no one ever would have known about the latest incidents at Laguna Verde until it was too late.

Based on his freedom-of-information requests to the institute, Salas and Laguna Verde’s own technicians revealed in an April 19 letter to President Enrique Peña Nieto that Mexico has been defrauded to the tune of more than a half-billion dollars by the international companies that won the bid for the federal contract to uprate the two reactors at the plant located near the Caribbean port of Veracruz.

“Uprating” is industry jargon for boosting the capacity of nuclear reactors so they can generate more electricity.

The letter to the President alleges the Federal Electricity Commission purposely botched the bid letting by omitting the usual requirement for a contractor to abide by the Review Standard for Extended Power Uprates. Apparently the CFD did this to favor the Spanish company Iberdrola Ingenería and the French company Alstom Mexico, which lacked the capability to carry out the changes to the nuclear steam supply system according to standard specifications.

Employees in key positions at Laguna Verde had alerted the two previous presidential administrations to the issue as far back as 2006, communicating their “worry over the capacity-boosting work contemplated for this nuclear plant, considering it to be unreliable, risky and overpriced,” according to the letter. Still Iberdrola and Alstom got the $605-million contract to increase the plant’s power output by 20 percent.

Iberdrola announced the successful conclusion of the five-year, $605-million modernization project in February, noting that it overhauled equipment dating back to 1990, in the project that created more than 2,000 jobs.

The president of Alstom in Mexico, Cintia Angulo, was arrested a week after the announcement of the upgrade conclusion on charges of giving false testimony in an unrelated French case of non-payment.

However, the more spectacular fraud for both firms will prove to be the Mexican uprate contract, which not only failed to accomplish the goal of boosting Laguna Verde’s power output, but also left the reactors in worse condition than before, Salas and employees charge.

The Federal Electricity Commission responded to Salas’ inquiries, saying that Reactor Unit 2 would be operating at 100 percent of planned output in April and Unit 1 would be at 100 percent in May.

Nonetheless, after further information requests, Salas revealed that the National Nuclear Safety Commission has denied both reactors the licenses to operate at higher output in the aftermath of the contract, due precisely to the fact that the guidelines for the nuclear steam supply system were not followed.

Employees say the failure to follow the guidelines during the uprate cracked the jet pumps that inject the water to the core of the General Electric boiling water reactors, the same kind that melted down due to a generator system crash at Fukushima.

“The situation of the reactors is not serious yet, but operating with fissures could cause a major problem to the extent that it could endanger national security. (Remember Fukushima and Chernobyl.)” the letter to President Peña Nieto says. The employees consider it “risky and inacceptable for both reactors to continue operating with the fissures that have been encountered.”

Simultaneous suspension of operations at both reactors in September 2012 and related confusing news releases, some blaming the pump fissures, caused alarm in the communities around the installation.

Authorities first said a diesel generator breakdown was at fault for the interruption in service of one reactor, while fuel-cell restocking was the reason for a stoppage at the other.

The next day they said a clogged seawater intake was part of the reason for removing both reactors from service. An escape of hydrogen gas from a condenser was posited. And finally, officials stated to the public that the fissures in both reactors’ water pumps were to blame.

Government secrecy about details surrounding the event accentuated longstanding worries in the population near the plant. The fear of accidents and serious concerns over the ongoing situation was highlighted by an NGO’s court appeal arguing that people should be exempted from paying their light bills due to the fact that their civil rights had been violated by the lack of safety measures and accountability at Laguna Verde.

In response to Salas’ information requests, the Energy Secretariat, in charge of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and the National Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSNS), said it didn’t have the answers to his questions.

Its commissions presented incongruous replies. The vagueness of the answers provided by the Federal Electricity Commission prompted the researcher to appeal to the IFAI to require revised responses.

After his second round of questioning, he was able to deduce that the cooling water intake channel had indeed filled with sediment and it had been dredged, so it did not present a hazard and did not cause the reactor operations’ interruption.

He also then could determine that the hydrogen had been released from the ductwork into the cooling water of the main generator, during the month of August. While the amount of gas was unknown, the escape was not to the atmosphere, and neither presented a danger nor was cause for halting operations.

The CSNSNS responded that the diesel generator failed when a piston stuck due to lack of lubrication resulting from a bearing problem on Sept. 12. The event did not endanger life and limb, according to Salas.

Simultaneous reloading of fuel cells at both reactors was the most likely reason for the concurrent stalling, Salas concluded after the numerous freedom-of-information requests.

While the main present dangers appear to be the fractures in the cores’ water pumps, a Jan. 11, 2013 scram (emergency reactor shutdown) remains to be inspected under the looking glass of the IFAI.

The institute created by decree in 2002 has provided important tools for shedding light on the machinations of the nuclear plant, among other formerly opaque federal operations.

Yet, as this case underscores, IFAI should strengthen its own processes in order to avoid the kind of inconsistent and self-belying responses that ensnared this most recent of many investigations into the lack of security at Laguna Verde.

Even so, that won’t protect the population from the specter of accidents or deteriorating health and safety in the advent of air and water pollution from the facility, which is located on a part of the coast with only poorly maintained roads to offer escape routes.

If Peña Nieto and company are to be more responsive to community needs than their predecessors, one way to show good intentions would be to comply with demands for conducting an emergency public evacuation drill, something that never has been done in the history of the 17-year-old nuclear plant. Another would be to take the irresponsible parties to court to establish accountability.

National and local unions representing teachers, electricians, truck drivers and other industries made up the bulk of the people flooding the plaza on May Day.  Aside from large numbers of supporters and activists, the demonstrators were accompanied by a police presence of 5,150 units and 250 police vehicles, with surveillance helicopters flying above.  The city government closed off access to traffic and pedestrians, suspended subway service, and cordoned off some historical monuments.  A press release issued the day before by city police announced that these operatives were intended to “keep public order and prevent vandalism, seize any contraband and to regulate the flow of traffic and parking.”

“There’s no reason to celebrate!” Gustavo Ortega Bravo, Secretary of Political Affairs for the  Alliance of Rail Workers of Mexico, stated in his speech–a phrase repeated often that day from the many of the speakers addressing the crowd. Later Bravo told Americas Updater that the labor reforms erode workers’ rights, likening the reform to the authoritarian policies of Mexico’s autocratic dictator at the turn of the century.

“The labor reform takes away job security,” Bravo said. “We are returning to the Porfirio Diaz era.”

The contested labor reform establishes a new legal framework for what could be a complete overhaul of the Mexican labor law. While it has expanded the definition of discrimination and now allows for more flexible maternity leave including for adoptions, the reforms set a legal framework for new labor practices which could, many fear, pave the way for longer hours at less pay. Although it still protects the 8 hour day for permanent work contracts, the reformed labor law now sanctions other kinds of labor relationships such as subcontracting, trial periods, training, temp work, and event work.

For Raul Romero Trejo, associate of the Labor and Social Security Law practice at Capín, Calderón, Ramirez y Guitérriez-Azpe, S.C., an international law firm in Mexico City, the labor reform is a harbinger of progress, with the potential of attracting more foreign investment to Mexico. “It was about time the labor law was reformed, as it has been unchanged since 1980,” Trejo said. He insists that the expansion of the labor reform to include other types of work relationships provides better protection against fraud and more stringent mechanisms for controlling labor violations. Trejo did not hesitate to point out how the new labor law adds more benefits for employers.  “It provides alternatives like subcontracting without having to pay settlements for letting workers go,” he said.

He added his belief that employers can be held more accountable under the reforms, noting that “They’ve increased fines for non-compliance with labor law.”

Benedicto Martinez, Vice President of the National Union of Workers (UNT by its Spanish acronym),  expressed an opposing view on the new subcontracting policies in an interview preceding the May Day events.

“The labor law reform cheapens the hiring and firing process,” Martinez said.  He fears that employers will fire people more easily now and hire new staff under the new “trial period” or “casual work” contract terms so as not to pay the benefits and rights of permanent workers.

“Legalizing subcontract work does not solve the problem,” Martinez affirmed. He said that such workers are not unionized, and hiring more would decrease the number of organized employees. “The reform does not change the fact that whenever inspectors would come, the workers would be afraid of losing their jobs if they disclose their real status as subcontracted employees. This will foment fraud and social security evasions on the part of employers.” The union leader was referring to the common practice in Mexico of employers using subcontractors to hide employees on their rolls to avoid paying taxes.

Trejo agrees that the new labor law may be weak in preventing social security tax evasions.

“The law does attempt to combat fraud but it did not live up to our expectations. [The labor law] is neither clear nor precise,” he said.

Another point that both Trejo and Martinez agree on despite their differences is that the provisions added to protect both employers and employees against bullying and sexual harassment at the workplace do not have teeth. Trejo attributed the lack of enforceability of the anti-harassment clauses to differences between federal and state penal codes, while, according to Martinez, the anti-harassment provisions are only based on denunciation and therefore fail to address situations when employees might be afraid to speak out against employers who harass them because they don’t want to risk prolonged unemployment until a potentially lengthy proceeding is resolved.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activist Jose Antonio Lugo, age 29, who attended the morning May Day rally, said he came because of the discrimination in the workplace.

“The LGBT community is confronted with oppression in the work environment because we are excluded. We cannot say we are gay at work, or we will be disregarded,” Lugo said. He added that if LGBT members are openly gay, lesbian, bi, or transgendered at work, they often face demotions.

“We are even fired sometimes. Just because we have a different sexual preference,” he said.

In Mexico City, the daily minimum wage is now $64.76 pesos per day, or $8 pesos (US $0.70) per hour. Consumer goods, which include basic groceries and basic household utilities, as a conservative estimate, can run over $140 pesos per day for a family of four (about US $11 per day), or more than twice the Mexico City minimum wage.

“It’s we workers who have to suffer the higher cost of living, the higher prices. It is unsustainable,” Bravo said, “Because of the high prices in gas, in electricity, and the steady increase in the cost of basic consumer goods.”

Martinez, who says he has read the new labor law from beginning to end, states, “There is nothing in the new law to guarantee a higher minimum wage and an improvement in standard of living in Mexico,” Martinez said.

The May Day speeches indicated a deeper problem than just the complicated terms of the new labor reform. Mexicans from many walks of life expressed uncertainty about basic issues including unemployment, job security, insufficient wages, and Mexico’s future.

Bravo expressed his view that low wages and job insecurity in Mexico are leading to increased social disintegration, even to the detriment of national security.  “Organized crime is a result of the young people being excluded from the labor market, so they look for other ways to earn a living,” he said.

The union leader criticized the mass media for portraying protesters like him as rioters bent on disruption, rather than giving voice to Mexican workers’ concerns.

“Our discontentment has a reason,” Bravo emphasized. “It’s because of the reality that we see and feel. Ask a housewife if the money’s enough for the household and the kids.”

In Mexico City, May Day events proceeded nonviolently until later in the afternoon, when a dozen youth had a skirmish with police and threw paint balls at the nearby Mexican Stock Exchange.  In other cities, not only in Mexico but all over the world, International Workers Day was celebrated this year as it is every year–with demonstrations, rallies, and parades, many marked by clashes. But no matter the mood, something happens on this historic date almost everywhere. Except for several thousand miles to the north of Mexico, in the country where May Day was born, where it is just another work day. Across the world´s most economically integrated border, the future of Mexican labor is being defined amid conflicting interests. Mexico’s changing labor standards will have a major impact on business, millions of workers and their families and on the U.S. economy.

Rebecca Ellis is currently working as a legal translator in Mexico City. She recently graduated from the Columbia Journalism School, where she was social media editor and contributing writer at The Brooklyn Ink.  She has published over 40 multimedia headline-driven feature stories for newspapers and online publications including the Queens Chronicle, The Black Star News, Global Newsroom and CIP Americas Program. She also recently attended the Reynold’s Center Business Journalism seminar in Boston on how to track money in politics

Obama’s visit into the region focused on issues of great domestic concern to the United States, including regional security, migration, and commerce. Organized drug violence appeared to, at least in the public appearances, take the back seat. As Carlos Molina Minero, president of the Central American Institute for Social Studies (ICAES) in Costa Rica put it, “this was Obama’s trip to say ‘look, Latin America, I’m still here!”

After a stopover in Mexico, Obama’s first since the election of Enrique Peña Nieto, the U.S. president arrived in Costa Rica to address the Central American Integration System, known in Spanish by its initials SICA. The main topic on the executive agenda, as the name of the hosting organization would imply, was regional integration. In broad terms, the president, Central American, and Caribbean leaders discussed cooperation throughout the isthmus on economic, security, and migration issues.

Economically, as the thinking goes, a region composed of six small countries with correspondingly small economies could, if integrated, carry more negotiating weight as a trade block whose combined economic worth is closer to that of Peru or Chile. While recent free trade agreements (FTAs) have further stimulated regional integration, regional integration is a project that was first taken up in the 1960s with the creation of the Central American Common Market.

“The benefits of regional integration are numerous,” said Carlos Manuel Echeverría, director of communications and public relations at SICA. “It provides economic diversification, development of the middle class, an increase in job creation, more investment, and more competition.”

Trade in Central America has grown since regional integration began in the 1960s, most notably with the United States. Central America’s behemoth northern neighbor is the largest trading partner of the region, accounting for 33 percent of the region’s exports in 2012, a quantity that totaled 9.8 billion dollars. Similarly, 41 percent of the region’s imports come from the United States. The predominance of the U.S. as provider and market was cemented in by the controversial signing of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) between the region’s countries and the United States.

“The U.S. recognizes our fates are tied up with your success,” Obama said to a crowd of businessmen in San José on Friday. “If you are doing well, we will do better. And if we’re doing well, we think your situation improves.”

But growing trade with the United States doesn’t tell the entire story. Although average living standards across the region have risen, the income gap between the region’s highest and lowest social strata has failed to shrink. The idea that smaller countries can substitute for size with economic openness has not proven, particularly in Central America, to have positive effects distributed throughout the region.

“In Costa Rica, the GINI index shows how inequality continues to grow every day,” said Juan Carlos Mendoza García, deputy for the Citizen Action Party (PAC) in Costa Rica. “We would like to see trade that can promote equality, wealth distribution, and conservation of our natural resources.”

Throughout the region, average income per capita has declined to 16 percent of what it currently is in the US, down from 19 percent in the 1960s. This comes despite considerable opening of the region’s economies and the signing of a number of free trade agreements that promised to bring new jobs, prosperity, and growth to the region. In an announcement send from Costa Rica, Obama reaffirmed his commitment to economic cooperation throughout the Americas, pointing to the domestic benefit of free trade. “Millions of Americans earn a living right now because of the trade between our nations,” he said.  “And after this week, I’m as confident as ever that we can build on our shared heritage and values to open more markets for American businesses and create more jobs for American workers.”

Yet across the capital city San José, others are not as enthusiastic. “FTAs are not magic wands,” said Molina. “What we have seen in the negotiation process is a great deal of corporate participation and diminished returns for workers. If we are going to continue looking at trade as a means of development, we need to be demanding decent jobs and sustainable development.”

While criticisms of the US-promoted neoliberal trade model abound, particularly in Costa Rica, where CAFTA-DR passed by only a few percentage points in a national referendum, liberalization proponents point to other factors that have limited economic growth and prosperity.

“Due to the failed war on drugs, crime rates throughout the region have shot up to some of the highest rates on the planet,” said Juan Carlos Hidalgo, Latin American policy specialist at the CATO Institute in Washington D.C.  “It is difficult to see substantial economic growth with the current levels of violence present throughout Central American countries.”

Aside from the effect of violence, which cannot be ignored by either Washington or Central America, another primary challenge to regional growth and a truly realized regional integration is the existing asymmetry between countries in the region. It is one of the reasons why SICA, in its 22 years of existence, is still struggling to reach its stated goals of promoting deeper regional peace, democracy, and levels of development.

The disparity of per capita income between countries is one such example of remaining economic asymmetry. According to the Institute for International Economics, the region’s richest country, Costa Rica, has a per capita income of $3,940 while the region’s poorest country, Nicaragua, is at a mere $473.

“The question at hand is not about what has been agreed to in the trade agreements but what has been implemented in these countries,” says Molina. “FTAs cannot substitute for a country’s policies, and those continue to be greatly varied throughout Central America.”

While regional integration continues to be an important goal for Central American countries, analysis at ICAES describe the relationship between countries as cooperative, indicating that true regional integration has not yet been realized. And until greater regional integration and stability is achieved, it is going to be difficult for sustained growth and prosperity to take hold in the region. And while Central America continues to reevaluate its regional goals strengthen integration efforts between countries, the efforts will inevitably on the character of its evolving relationship with the United States.

“The US simply has to change the way that they see us from the north,” added Molina, explaining that better trade policy would have a positive effect on both migration and security. “The only way that migration to the US is going to stop – or slow – is for the US to start promoting projects that lead to sustainable development.”

“We don’t want to be America’s backyard any longer,” he added. “Instead of interference in our politics, we’d like to see more technology, infrastructure, and education.”

Eva Hershaw is an independent journalist and photographer based out of Mexico City.

Cartes, who has accusations of narcotrafficing, smuggling and money laundering[CP1]  all of which he was denied, won the elections with 45.8% of the votes, while second runner-up, Efrain Alegre, got 36.94%. 68.57% of the more than 3.5 million Paraguayans that could vote went to the polls to cast their ballots and choose not only president and vice president, but also members of congress, governors and representatives to the Mercosur parliament.

The Colorado party (ANR) also obtained 19 seats in the senate, 4 more than in the past elections, while the liberals (PLRA) got 12, losing two seats from its actual 14. The left managed to increase its number of seats with Frente Guasu gaining 5 seats, the Partido Democratico Progresista gaining 3 seats and Avanza Pais 2. UNACE, the party that allied with the PLRA for these elections got two seats, marking a sharp decline from the 9 seats it has at the moment. The senate is completed with one member from the Partido Encuentro Nacional and another one from Patria Querida, who lost 3 seats.

In the lower house the ANR went from six seats now to eight, the PLRA will remain with the same number of seven seats, UNACE goes from four seats to one and Avanza Pais gained one seat. 

What the numbers are telling us and what does all these means?

We are tired of traditional politicians

As in 2008, this elections Paraguayans voted for a stranger to politics hoping he would be able to bring change from within. Cartes is a political novice. He only came to politics a few years ago and bought his way into the Colorado Party. This was not only his first election as a candidate but also as a voter, it was the first time the new president of Paraguay actually voted in a national election.

But Paraguayans also seem to indicate that they learned something from the 2008 elections–you can’t bring in a complete stranger with no political platform and that’s why they went for Cartes, a newcomer running on the ticket of the strongest political party of the country. 

Your alliances will cost you

The results of the elections represent a huge blow to the liberal party. The message was loud and clear: “we don’t agree with how the party managed Lugo’s political trial and we don’t agree with your alliance with the UNACE.” The PLRA not only lost the presidential bid but also lost seats in the senate and lower house, along with governors in places that were usually their stronghold.

The popular vote also severely punished Patria Querida, because of its involvement in the Lugo political trial which, coupled with a few other significant political mistakes in the past few months seems to indicate the death of the party. 

You still can’t win against the Colorado party unless you make alliances

This one is a lesson everyone from the opposition already knew but somehow they thought they could get around it. They couldn’t. In Paraguayan politics unless you make alliances you won’t win against the Colorado Party – a party simply too smart, too old and engrained in Paraguay politics and that keeps winning because “the devil knows more for being old than for devil”. We have seen this again and again. For any opposition to gain ground against the Colorado Party, it will need to build strong alliances. Precisely what did not happen this election, as a fragmented opposition opened the door for the return of the Colorado Party. 

The myth of the youth vote

With such a large portion of the population under 35 years old, there is always wishful thinking in Paraguayan politics that the youth vote will change the political course of the country. This proved to be a myth once again. Youth in Paraguay are profoundly disenchanted with the entire political process and feel their vote makes no difference, which helps explain low participation. On the other hand, the ‘hard vote’ – the vote based on parties rather than candidates – keeps being the dominating force in politics.

Don’t underestimate the status quo and the strength of the client state

There is also a very strong message in this election–the power of the status quo and the client state. The overwhelming consolidation of power of the Colorado Party in this election strongly indicates how conservative Paraguayan society still is, afraid of change and reforms that could potentially alter the structure of power in the country and redefine social classes.

Challenges ahead

While Cartes managed to obtained a resounding victory, the honeymoon period I not likely to last long. Some of the main issues he will have to deal with include:

A new phase of international scrutiny of Paraguay

Cartes will need to provide strong and clear explanations to the accusations of his involvement in drug trafficking, smuggling and money laundering. These issues will most likely turn international attention to issues of political stability and rampant corruption in the country and he will need to be prepared to provide some convincing answers, or at least try.

Increasing social needs

With the economy expected to grow at 13% this year, the problem in Paraguay is one of increased inequality, poverty, lack of access to basic services and disparities in landholdings. With close to 50% of the population living in poverty, the new government will need to find a way to fulfil increasing social needs and to try to convince people that the economic boom the country is undergoing thanks to commodity prices is not one that will only benefit the oligarchs and traditional elites, but the population at large. Unless these issues are addressed from the root, expect to see increasing social unrest in the country in the coming years.

Fragmented and divided society

Paraguayan society is and will continue to be fragmented over the main social issues concerning the country. The shattering of the social contract after the ousting of Lugo in June requires not only a sharp political ability but also strong social leadership to help bring the country together under one common vision. It is doubtful that Cartes has these abilities.

Management of international relations

Cartes’ election puts the regional hegemons, Brazil and the United States, in a very complicated situation and raises questions about the situation of Paraguay in the Mercosur. Cartes will need to find a way to re-establish positive relations with the region and find a way to bring Paraguay out of the international isolation it has been suffering since June last year–an urgent matter for a landlocked country like ours.

As Paraguayans adjust to a new president, for those of us focusing on politics, Cartes election is worrisome, to say the least. With Cartes we can expect high levels of land and social inequality and a low-quality democracy in the next five years, certainly not a positive forecast for a nation in dire need of structural change.

Claudia Pompa is a Paraguayan consultant with extensive experience in development and political risk analysis. She holds a Masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and is a regular contributor to the CIP Americas Program http://www.cipamericas.org[CP2] 

Dissident teachers hold mass protest in Guerrero State against President Nieto’s education reform.

Obama last visited Mexico during the G-20 summit in Los Cabos last June. He and his entourage will touch down again today for talks with Mexico’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto. Since his election, Peña Nieto’s team has worked to shift media focus away from violence related to the drug war and towards the economy, something that will likely be reinforced during this visit.

According to the New York Times, “In Mexico, Mr. Obama plans to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto for talks that the Mexican foreign ministry said earlier ‘will cover competiveness [sic], education and innovation, along with border infrastructure, commerce, migration and citizen security among other subjects of shared interest.’”

Competitiveness

Competitiveness is a preferred term that governments use today to talk about privatization and regulatory reforms designed to benefit the corporate sector. Previously, competitiveness was known as austerity, structural adjustment, or privatization, terms that have fallen out of favor due to the harsh consequences of these programs on the population at large.

So with respect to competitiveness, what might Obama and Peña Nieto discuss? Well, for one, Mexico recently changed their labor laws in order to “increase competitiveness,” pushing down minimum wage to about 60¢ an hour and making it more difficult for workers to receive social security and regular workweeks.

Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil firm, will definitely be a topic of conversation. According to the Financial Times, “an opening of Mexico’s highly protected oil sector, which is dominated by state behemoth Pemex, could provide untold opportunities for US oil companies as well as the sort of technology-transfer Mexico desperately needs.”

With all the talk of the gains to be achieved through privatizing Mexico’s oil sector, the fact that 99 percent of the state owned oil company’s profits go towards the federal budget, representing about 40 percent of the total national budget, will probably be sidestepped. Full privatization of Pemex would mean harsh austerity throughout the country.

In addition, the US funds something called the Mexico Competitiveness Program through the US Agency for International Development (USAID). According to the agency, “USAID is working with Mexican partners to improve economic governance and increase private sector competitiveness by improving the business enabling environment and by building sustainable support for continued policy reforms and systemic changes.” This means funding Mexican think tanks and non-governmental organizations to promote business friendly policies, privatization, and US backed reforms to the justice sector.

Education & Innovation

On December 11th, ten days after taking power, the Government of Mexico changed two articles of the Constitution, resulting in what they are calling an education reform. The focus on mandatory testing for all teachers has generated controversy, as, among other things, it makes teachers into increasingly precarious workers who can be fired for failing a test. “What was approved isn’t an education reform, rather a labor and administrative reform in disguise,” wrote columnist Luis Hernández Navarro in La Jornada. In the same column, Hernández maintained that the legislation opens the pathway to the privatization of the education system.

There has long been pressure from organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change the education system in Mexico. In a December 2012 press release announcing the renewal of a $73 billion credit line for Mexico, the IMF called for reforms to the education system, among other things. Peña Nieto has already earned the admiration of the International Monetary Fund, whose leaders say they are “very impressed with President Peña Nieto’s structural reform agenda.”

Mass protests against the education reform have taken place across the country. On April 18th, a record 250,000 teachers, students, and their supporters are estimated to have marched in Guerrero against the reform and for free and public education.

The US corporate sector has a lot riding on innovation and education in Mexico. “With Mexico able to provide US companies with young, skilled and cheap labor, and with the US able to play a potentially crucial role in the transfer of technology and know-how to its southern neighbor, there is clearly plenty of room for the two administrations to push ahead with further economic integration,” according to a recent article in Financial Times. General Electric has an important center for research and design in Querétaro, which is fast becoming home to the country’s most important aerospace cluster. Engineers, 115,000 of which graduate in Mexico each year, are particularly sought after, as they can be hired here for less than $1,000 a month. This is a crucial element in Mexico’s ability to attract foreign direct investment in advanced manufacturing. According to data from Mexico’s Secretary of the Economy, the number of aerospace companies in Mexico rose from 61 to 249 between 2005 and 2011. Eighty-five percent of aerospace exports are to the United States.

Border infrastructure, Migration & Citizen Security

Obama will likely promote the immigration reform bill that is before the US Senate. The bill comes in at over 800 pages, and places immigration squarely within the context of national security. There are positives and negatives to the proposal, which aims to ensure an adequate and flexible labor force in the US. While some workers may eventually achieve the “pathway to citizenship” offered through the reform, other prospective migrants will be directly impacted by its political tradeoff, an expanded border wall and even more militarization along the US’s southern border.

There’s a demand from the corporate sector to build new border crossings and expand existing ones between Mexico and the US. “Financially, investment in border crossings and infrastructure has not matched the exponential increase in trade crossing the border each year,” reads a December memo from the Council on Foreign Relations. This border infrastructure is necessary for the maquila (assembly) industry in Mexico to expand, and the US requires Mexico’s cooperation on these crossings, the construction of which amount to huge subsidies for the US and other corporations with operations along the US/Mexico border.

In terms of “citizen security” it is plain as day that violence in Mexico has risen in tandem with the implementation of the Merida Initiative, a US backed strategy militarizing the transshipment and production of narcotics. Over 120,000 people have been murdered and at least 27,000 disappeared since the beginning of the “drug war” in December, 2006.

Many of the dead and missing are migrants and “non-citizens,” Mexico has increasingly become one huge border for Central Americans, where the enforcers are not only immigration police but also the army and organized crime groups. It’s likely the presidential talks will skirt the ongoing violence in Mexico and focus more on police training and community programs, which are the supposed positive aspects of the Merida Initiative. Talking about the “drug war” probably the last thing Peña Nieto wants to do while sharing the spotlight with Obama.

Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist and independent researcher. See more of her work online at dawnpaley.ca.

As foreign investment in mines and dams throughout Guatemala and Honduras have indigenous communities under threat and violent attack,, the World Bank flagrantly violates international law. On April 10 it conducted a “consultation” relating to a revision of the Bank’s “Safeguard” Operational Policies  that  communities affected by the project were not invited to and that they considered a sham. Echoing the coupling of foreign investment with militarization, the Commander of the US Military Southern Command visited Guatemala at the same time as the World Bank’s ‘consultation.’ He attended the inauguration of a newly constructed military base, and confirmed over $25 million in assistance for that base.

On April 10, 2013, the World Bank held a “consultation” in Guatemala City regarding the restructuring of the safeguards that form part of the World Bank’s Operational Policies.[1] Tens of thousands of families impacted by mines and dams in Guatemala and Honduras did not attend.

Among those not attending were 11,000 Maya – Achi families displaced in 1982 by the Chixoy Dam in Guatemala,[2] the Lenca community of Rio Blanco in Honduras who are today blocking roads illegally built on their land to access to the Agua Zarca dam project they rejected, the Xinca communities in Guatemala who oppose the U.S. –Canadian owned Tahoe Resources silver mine whose leaders were recently kidnapped and were quickly arrested on April 12 after they mobilized to block the mines entrance,[3] the Garifuna communities of Honduras’ North Coast who demand collective titles for their lands while opposing the Model Cities project, and the campesino communities of the Aguan who have lost 96 members and allies to apparent death squad violence since 2010.[4]

Though the World Bank and its member states are not complying with international law such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, the UN Charter and International Labor Organzation’s Charter 169, it is the indigenous and campesino communities that are criminalized on the pretext of law enforcement and brutalized by militarization carried out in the framework of the Central America Regional Security Strategy, backed by the US, Canada, the Inter American Development Bank and the World Bank, among others.[5]

World Bank-Funded Project Affected Communities Repressed by U.S.-Backed Troops

Between 1978 and 1982, the Rio Negro community peacefully resisted displacement by the World Bank funded Chixoy dam and demanded compensation for their land.  As a result, Rio Negro was subject to a series of five massacres and other acts of violence such as extrajudicial executions and torture. The UN-sponsored truth commission examined as an illustrative case the March 13, 1982 massacre of 107 children and 70 women, and found that it was the result of the Chixoy dam project and constituted an act of genocide.  The Guatemalan military was supported by U.S. security agencies throughout the genocide.[6]

On April 7, 2013, a Honduran police commander, in blatant disregard for the community’s land title, threatened to evict Rio Blanco communities affected by the Agua Zarca dam who were blocking a road in their land, while bragging he had participated in the violent evictions in the Aguan region.[7]  The Lenca federation, COPINH, denounces that the Agua Zarca dam is funded by the Honduran Bank FICOHSA, and is a joint project of the Chinese energy giant SINOHYDRO[8] and the Honduran concession holder DESA.[9]

In September 2011, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation’s Asset Management Company announced it had approved a $70 million capital investment in the Honduran Banco FICOHSA, the IFC Asset Management Company’s first investment in Central America.

FICOHSA’s principal shareholder Camilo Atala explained the IFC funds will “strengthen our capacity to support…large projects that are essential for the country’s economic and social development.”[10] Communities impacted by the dam have held consultations and rejected the dam.  The Agua Zarca dam is also funded by the multilateral bank, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration.

The World Bank consultations in Guatemala were coincided with a visit to Guatemala by General Frederick Rudesheim, Commander of the U.S. military’s Southern Command (Southcom), from April 9 to 11, 2013.  He participated in the inauguration of a training center for the Inter-institutional Task Force Tecun Uman in San Marcos, a joint military – police task force.  Even in these times of budget austerity, the U.S. Embassy to Guatemala will donate to the Task Force through the Guatemalan Military, a fleet of 42 vehicles, Jeep J8, worth US$5.5 million, along with US$10.71 million for base construction and $9.2 million for equipment and organizational activities.[11]

Southern Command made a similar donation of a fleet of green Ford F-150’s to the Honduran military in 2010.[12]  One of these trucks was used in the in May 2012 killing of an unarmed 15 year-old boy shot in the back by agents from a U.S.-trained military unit engaged in policing.[13] The vehicles have also been circulating in the Aguan, where reports indicate police and military units collaborate in death squad killings.[14] There 96 campesinos and their associates have been killed in the context of a land conflict with World Bank-funded palm oil corporations.  The U.S. Special Operations Command South through SouthCom is also building base installations for the 15^th Battalion in the Aguan.[15]

U.S. Backs Remilitarization as Central American Death Squads are Reactivated

The announcement of US assistance to the military/ police task force in Guatemala  comes less than a week after the current president, Otto Perez Molina, a former general who in 1995 was reported to be a CIA asset, was named in court as responsible for ordering the massacre of Maya-Ixil villages in 1982 and 1983.  The witness, former soldier Hugo Reyes, made the declarations during the trial of former military dictator Rios Montt on genocide charges.[16]   Rios Montt ruled the country during some of the Chixoy-related Rio Negro massacres of Maya-Achi people.

Bernal also named Colonel Juan Chiroy Sal as a material and intellectual author of the Ixil genocide.  Chiroy Sal was arrested in October 2012 on charges related to the October 4 massacre of six Maya-Quiche protestors opposing hikes in electricity prices, a subject of tension since the electrical distribution was privatized ten years before.   Chiroy Sal was acting as commander of the Presidential Honor Guard when he ignored orders from the National Civil Police to stop, advising him military participation in control of the protest was not warranted, and guided his elite unit to confront the protestors.[17]  Human rights advocates criticize military actions in a policing role.  At the time of the massacre, 200 U.S. Marines were in Guatemala as part of Operation Martillo, training Guatemalan military in policing activities.[18]

Guatemalan justice reform advocates denounce that since Otto Perez Molina assumed the presidency last year, the military, with U.S. backing, is being integrated into policing functions,[17][19]  Guatemalan air force pilots even participated in a DEA-led drug interdiction in the Moskitia region of Honduras in which four bystanders were killed.[20]

Before the militarization began, apparently in response to years of efforts to reform the justice system, Guatemala’s murder rate dropped for the first time in 12 years–a dramatic reduction from 46 per 100,000 in 2009, to 41 in 2010[21], then to 38.6 per 100,000 in 2011.[22] The trend continued in 2012, dropping to 32 per 100,000.[23]  However, in the first quarter of 2013, after militarization began, gains made in 2011 and 2012 began to disappear, and the murder rate rose 10% in just three months.[24]

On March 18, the Campesino Unity Committee, CUC, the organization with which Rigoberta Menchu worked before receiving the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, denounced that “an organized crime group paid by businessmen and landholders is systematically murdering indigenous and farm worker leaders,” exactly the manner in which the UN-backed truth commission described the emergence of the death squads in the 1970s.  CUC’s denouncement followed the March 17, 2013 murder of a Xinca indigenous leader and the kidnapping of three others as they returned home from a consultation on a proposed US- Canadian Tahoe Resources- Goldcorp silver mine in San Rafael, Santa Rosa.[25]

World Bank Fails, Project Displaced Peoples

Organized in COCAHICH, the Chixoy dam’s victims sent a letter on April 9, 2013 to the Banks stating they would not be attending the “consultation.”  (Were some invited and others not?) Despite 18 years of high-level meetings with the Banks, Chixoy dam survivors were not invited.  Exactly three years before, on April 9, 2010, COCAHICH and the Guatemalan government signed an agreement in which the government assumed responsibility to provide reparations to the 11,000 people impacted by the dam.  Not one cent has been paid.

The agreement was based on a study of damages commissioned by a negotiating group mediated by the Organization of American States, in which the World Bank, Inter American Development Bank and the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights participated as witnesses.  All parties signed and accepted the damages assessment.

That assessment found that the World Bank violated several internal regulations relating to the environment and indigenous people, regulations established in 1972, 1974, 1981 and 1982.  The assessment further found that the Banks had failed in their responsibilities to monitor the project, and even after learning of problems with resettlement the Banks continued to disperse loans for the project.

COCAHICH calls on the Banks to not authorize loans to Guatemala until the dam’s victims begin to receive agreed upon reparations, and further, COCAHICH calls on the Banks to pay the reparations.[26]  Some loans from the WB and IDB for Chixoy charged 7.5% and 9.25% in interest;[27] the people of Guatemala paid over a hundred million dollars in interest on loans incurred by military dictators they had not elected.[28]

World Bank Safeguards Not Enforced and Don’t Comply with the Law

The Chixoy dam case calls attention to several problems with the Banks safeguards.   First, the Banks do not always comply with their own safeguards.  The World Bank was established as a specialized agency of the United Nations.  As such it is obligated by law to accomplish the purposes and objectives established in article 55 of the UN Charter, the promotion of universal respect for human rights.  The WB has repeatedly failed in fulfilling that obligation.

The Banks safeguards are not even in line with international law, and may be further weakened in a revision scheduled for 2014.[29]  For example, the policy regarding indigenous peoples does not incorporate the principals established in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), adopted by the General Assembly in 2007.

The UNDRIP articulates the already existing principal in international law that indigenous peoples have the right to free, prior and informed consent regarding development projects in that region.  That means a dam, mine, or large plantation cannot be established in indigenous territory if the recognized indigenous authorities do not expressly approve, give consent for, the project.

Most recently, in Honduras, the WB’s private sector lending arm, the IFC, approved two loans to a palm oil corporation accused of coordinating  death squad activities with the Honduran military and police; campesino movements have denounced 96 related murders.  While one of the two loans, to the Dinant Corporation, is being audited after the first half, $15 million dollars, the second loan, to the Oleoproductos Corporation, was dispersed in full. [30]   Disbursements on both loans were made during a coup regime not recognized by nations in the region, which ruled the country amidst denouncement of widespread human rights violations echoed by the Inter American Commission for Human Rights of the Organization of American States.[31]

U.S. Treasury Department Is Not In Compliance with U.S. or International Law

It is not just the World Bank that is responsible for the human rights violations associated with its projects, it is also the governments of the world who run the World Bank through 19 Executive Directors (EDs).  The United States’ Executive Director currently holds 22% of the voting power, followed by Japan with about 5%.  The US Executive Director is overseen by the Treasury Department, the Secretary of the Treasury sits on the Board of Directors of the World Bank.

The International Financial Institutions Act of 1977 obligates the Treasury Department to use human rights considerations in guiding its voting on multilateral bank loans.   The Treasury Department has disregarded this obligation, as can be seen in the Treasury Department’s responses to findings by World Bank’s Inspection Panel, the agency charged with determining whether the Bank’s safeguards are respected.   In 2007, the IP had found that the Bank funded Land Administration Program in Honduras had not complied with operational policies and that the consultation framework established by the Bank had the potential to divide Garifuna communities and weaken their efforts to register collective land titles.[32]

However, the Treasury Department did not agree with the IP.  On October 4, 2007, the Treasury Department responded to the IP finding on the PATH program in Honduras, stating that if a “particular representative organization” were required to be included in consultation in order to comply with the Bank’s Operation Directives [in this particular case that would refer to the Garifuna Federation, OFRANEH], “it would effectively give that organization veto power over the implementation of the project. In this regard, we agree with the Management’s view that it would be inappropriate to assign veto-power to any one sub-group among stakeholders. If provision of veto-power to indigenous peoples was intended, OD 4.20 [on Indigenous peoples] would have required “prior, informed consent” rather than the extant “prior, informed consultation.”[33]

That position directly contradicts existing international law.  The International Labor Organization Convention 169, adopted in 1991, established that “Consultation with indigenous peoples should be undertaken through appropriate procedures, in good faith, and through the representative institutions of these peoples.”  This means that if a consultation process is not developed with those truly representative of the indigenous people affected, then the consultations would not comply with the requirements of the Convention. In ILO Convention 169, Article 16 states that, “Where the relocation of these peoples is considered necessary as an exceptional measure, such relocation shall take place only with their free and informed consent.”    Further, Treasury’s position was taken a few weeks after the UNDRIP was adopted by the General Assembly on September 13, 2007.

While the U.S. has not ratified the UNDRIP, the World Bank as a Specialized Agency of the UN is obligated not to defeat the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations, and must further and not undermine the objectives of the UN Charter, including the promotion of “universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.”[34]  Those human rights are defined by the Declarations of the UN General Assembly.

Across Guatemala, indigenous communities under threat from mines and dams are holding community consultations, and rejecting the projects. These communities will not participate in the Bank’s ‘consultation’ on safeguards.  But the Bank is required by law to respect the communities’ decisions.  Multilateral lenders must be held responsible for gross human rights violations associated with projects they fund.  As Central America is being militarized on the pretext of law enforcement, the World Bank must begin to respect the law.

Annie Bird is Co-Director of  Rights Action and a contributor to the CIP Americas Program www.cipamericas.org.  For more information contact Annie Bird, annie@rightsaction.org.

 NOTES

[1]http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/PROJECTS/EXTPOLICIES/EXTSAFEPOL/0,,contentMDK:23275156~pagePK:64168445~piPK:64168309~theSitePK:584435,00.html

[2] COCAHICH, “Carta Abierta al Banco Mundial”

[3] http://www.coha.org/22177/; http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/justicia/Apresan-mina_0_899910016.html

[4] http://rightsaction.org/sites/default/files/Rpt_130220_Aguan_Final.pdf Since the reports publication, on February 21, 2013 Adolfo Cruz of MUCA and Manuel Ezequiel Guillen Garcia of MOCRA were kidnapped, their tortured bodies found on February 24.  On March 18, 2013 MOCRA spokesman Eduardo Mord Rivera was shot as he rode his bicycle to the town of Tocoa.

[5]   “The Group of Friends is comprised of the IDB, the World Bank, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, the OAS, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and the United Nations, the European Union, as well as Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.”  http://www.iadb.org/en/news/news-releases/2011-04-14/citizen-security-in-central-america,9345.html

[6] http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/mds/spanish/anexo1/vol1/no10.html

[7] http://copinh.org/article/copinh-comunicado-urgente-a-siete-dias-la-lucha-si/

[8] SINOHYDRO holds a 50% share of the world’s hydroenergy market, including the Patuca I, II and III dams in Honduras.  http://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/sinohydro-corporation

[9] http://www.copinh.org/article/copinh-comunicado-urgente-rio-blanco-nuevamente-em/

[10]http://www1.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/corp_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/ifc+news/ifc+asset+management+company+press+releases/ifc+capitalization+fund+invests+$70+million+in+ficohsa+to+support+smes+in+honduras

[11] http://photos.state.gov/libraries/guatemala/788/pdfs/pbs15_20130408.pdf http://www.laprensagrafica.com/EUA-entregara-42-vehiculos-para-combatir-narcotrafico-en-Guatemala[12] http://archivo.elheraldo.hn/content/view/full/405774

[13] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dad-seeks-justice-son-slain-broken-honduras-0

[14] http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/727/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=12051

[15] http://rightsaction.org/sites/default/files/Rpt_130220_Aguan_Final.pdf

[16] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/efrain-rios-montt-trial_n_3020052.html

[17] http://servindi.org/actualidad/74122; http://www.s21.com.gt/nacionales/2012/10/11/capturan-militares-ejecucion-extrajudicial-totonicapan;  http://www.elperiodico.com.gt/es/20121012/pais/219136/

[18]  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57503167/200-u.s-marines-join-drug-war-in-guatemala/;  http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=73172

[19] http://www.s21.com.gt/nacionales/2012/07/14/sugieren-que-militarizacion-sea-temporal;

http://noticierostelevisa.esmas.com/internacional/552367/violencia-enluta-guatemala-pese-militarizacion/

[20] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/world/americas/in-honduras-deaths-make-us-rethink-drug-war.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[21] http://multimedia.laprensagrafica.com/pdf/2011/03/20110322-PDF-Informe-0311-Homicidios-en-Centroamerica.pdf

[22] http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/Homicidios-bajado-Guatemala-informe-Gobernacion_0_621538111.html

[23] http://www.americaeconomia.com/politica-sociedad/mundo/guatemala-redujo-en-cinco-puntos-su-tasa-de-homicidios-en-2012

[24] http://www.s21.com.gt/nacionales/2013/03/02/inacif-reporta-mas-casos-homicidios; http://www.elperiodico.com.gt/es/20130403/pais/226599/

[25] http://www.coha.org/22177/

[26] COCAHICH. “Carta Abierta al Banco Mundial Acerca de la Consulta Programada.” Guatemala, April 9, 2012.

[27] http://www.centerforpoliticalecology.org/chixoy.html

[28]  http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/REPORT373A3720Generating3720Terror37203728Dec372020123729+8013.twl

[29] http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-571573

[30] http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/spiwebsite1.nsf/0/2f9b9d3afcf1f894852576ba000e2cd0; http://www.cao-ombudsman.org/cases/document-links/documents/CAOAppraisalReport_Dinant_August132012.pdf; http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/spiwebsite1.nsf/78e3b305216fcdba85257a8b0075079d/e90f482eea0be2c9852576ba000e2d34?opendocument; http://www.iic.org/en/projects/honduras/ho3623a-02/dinant-holding-company

[31]  The Inter American Commission on Human Rights reported on visits to Honduras conducted 17 to 21 August 2009, whose preliminary findings were published on 21 August 2009 in PR No. 60/09, as well as in the  report on that mission approved by the IACHR on 30 December 2009 entitled “Honduras: Human Rights and the Coup de E’Tat,” and during the 15 to 17 May 2010 visit to Honduras by the IACHR as reflected in the press release PR No. 54/10 dated 19 May 2010 , and the report “Preliminary Observations of the Inter-American Commission on Its Visit to Honduras, 15 to 18 May 2010” published 3 June 2010.

[32]http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTINSPECTIONPANEL/0,,contentMDK:21527041~pagePK:64129751~piPK:64128378~theSitePK:380794,00.html

[33] http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/development-banks/Documents/10.4.2007%20%20U.S.%20Position%20on%20the%20World%20Bank%E2%80%99s%20Inspection%20Panel%20report%20on%20the%20Land%20Administration%20Project%20in%20Honduras.pdf

[34] Charter of the United Nations, Art. 55(c), adopted 26 June 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, T.S. 993, 3 Bevans 1153, entered into force 24 October 1945.  Other human rights obligations are enshrined in Article 1 and Article 56 of the UN Charter, and these too are binding upon all Member States of the United Nations.  Article 1(3) states that the “purposes and principles” of the United Nations is “to achieve international co-operation in … promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all….” While Article 56 states that “all Members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action … for the achievement of the purposes set forth in Article 55.”

Despite this, the state company said that the water was potable. A statement released days later said: “In relation to the event of the taste and odor perceived several days ago by the population of the metropolitan area, OSE informs that it was entirely due to a substance released by a type of microscopic algae in the Santa Lucia River. This substance, called Geosmin, has no bearing on the health of the population “[1].

The authorities closed ranks and denied emphatically the contamination of water sources, which had always been of high quality. However, much of the population did not believe the State’s arguments, buying bottled water and depleting stocks.

This event wouldn’t have had much significance if it were not for a movement that has grown in recent years against the installation of an Indian owned, open pit, iron mine called Aratirí. The movement has also been protesting the extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers that have polluted the soy crop and recently re-forested areas. In fact, environmental consciousness has grown widely due to a debate following the installation of a massive pulp mill on the Uruguay River.

At that time (approximately 2003 – 2008), amid the euphoria of to the rise to power of the Fente Amplio (2004) and an atmosphere of nationalism exacerbated by disputes between environmentalists and the Argentine government, the majority of the population supported the Uruguayan government. Now things have changed. The rural population (only 5% of the total) began to feel the harmful effects of agricultural development and small-scale traditional farmers (including livestock herders) began to mobilize.

A Contaminated Country

It’s difficult to accept that Uruguay’s rivers are polluted. The country was always a natural paradise, with few cars and light industry, with extensive ranches and grain farming. But in the last decade, with agricultural and mineral speculation, things have changed drastically.

The main changes that have been occurring over the last ten years have been concentrated in rural production. The price of land has increased six fold ($500 to $3,000 per hectare on average). Thirty-eight percent of agricultural land has been sold, and 41% has been leased [2]. Between 2000 and 2008 Uruguayan owners lost 1.8 million hectares that went to corporations that acquired a similar surface quantity.

There is a strong concentration of land owned by multinational corporations with one million hectares belonging to just 14 groups. Montes del Plata (Chilean-Swedish-Finnish) has 234,000 hectares followed by Forestal Oriental (Finnish) with 200,000 hectares. The U.S. company, Weyerheuser has 140,000 hectares and the Argentine owned El Tejar and Agronegocios de Plata (ADP) have 140,000 and 100,000 hectares respectively, completing the list of the largest foreign investments.

In the 2001-2002 season there were only 29,000 hectares of soybeans planted. In 2012 it exceeded 1 million hectares. Another million hectares of land was forested. This represents an exponential increase in the use of pesticides and fertilizers that have been washed by rain into rivers. This has initiated a drama that the people are beginning to feel.

A study of the Santa Lucia River (which provides 60% of the drinking water) conducted by the National Direction of the Environment (DINAMA) resulted in scandal. Internationally accepted phosphorus levels in water are 25 micrograms per liter, but the count detected in the river ranged between 70 and 12,900 micrograms per liter. [3] Scientists and environmentalists have been ringing alarm bells about the pollution, but the state has done little.

Biologist Luis Aubriot of the Sciences Department told reporters that “if there is no reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus” then the water problems will not be solved [4]. Another biologist, Mario Calcagno, recalled that in addition to the pesticides and fertilizers used for soybeans, the Santa Lucia River is polluted by refrigerator effluents, food industries and urban centers, and that native forest on its banks have been disappearing. “It’s a disaster,” he said [5].

Diego Martino, who represented Uruguay at the United Nations Program for the Environment, presented one of the strongest arguments: “In 2010, levels of atrazine were detected in the water. It is one of the components of glyphosate. There is no nationwide study that says what the consequences of very low levels of atrazine could be when consumed over ten years “[6].

In his opinion the main problem is the inability of the State to make and regulate decisions. He gave an example: How long did it take for the DINAMA to change the distance of 50 meters to 500 meters for spraying [pesticides] around a rural school? Years”. It’s not known how many children were made ill by this delay.

One of the main problems are [agricultural] reservoirs, which are used mostly for irrigation and rice cultivation. In a small country like Uruguay there are over a thousand dams that with the summer heat become incubators for algae growth because of the concentration of agrochemicals. Rain the water in the reservoirs overflows into rivers. All the rivers of Uruguay, including the extremely wide Río de la Plata, are green with pollution.

Livestock is also being affected. A rancher from the central part of the country, whose sheep drink in the large Rincón del Bonete dam, suffered the loss of 56 sheep in one year, all intoxicated [7]. The Director of Renewable Resources of the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries acknowledged, “Uruguay does not have a diagnosis of the state of its water”. The same official affirms that soy is grown only four meters from lakes, rivers and streams, even though there is legislation that establishes a distance of [at least] eight meters, which is also insufficient. [8]

The director of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the Sciences department, Daniel Panario, received in 2012 the National Award for Citizen Excellence. He is the country’s most distinguished and combative scientist that has been denouncing pollution for over 20 years. In his opinion, the best example [of pollution] linked to water is lead.

“In the 1940s in England it was concluded that the poor performance of children in schools was due to lead and immediately all the water pipes were changed. In Uruguay this conclusion was made in the 1970s. We are now in 2013 and they have still yet to finish changing out the lead pipes in Montevideo. They say they have other priorities and that it’s expensive”[9].

In addition to the State, the university is an obstacle in allowing the population in knowing the truth. “One does not have complete freedom to investigate issues of national interest. When one goes to talk they risk having to deal with the authorities. A few days ago the [university] president said that I did not speak representing the university and that I was damaging the [image] of the department”[10].

Here appear two problems: academics prioritize research that can be published in journals, usually in English, to which ordinary people do not have access. On the other hand, universities depend on conventions and funds from various international organizations and private companies that have no interest in making public criticisms of the products they sell.

Universities themselves often boycott researchers like Panario, despite their national and international recognition. He applied twice for the national research fund and was rejected both times. He had to appeal to higher authorities for admission. He now seems happy with the growth of the movement against open-pit mining.

A Different Movement

Iron ore prices were stable for twenty years. In 1985 a dry metric ton was worth $26. In 2004 it had reached $38 and climbed to $140 in 2008. In 2009 the price dropped to $101 per ton, but now it’s rising once again. Iron ore is not just any other metal, as it represents 95 percent of all metals used in the industry.

Aratirí Mining belongs to Zamin Ferrous, an Indian company based in London. It has seven projects in South America, five in Brazil, one in Peru and one in Uruguay, and expects to produce about 50 million tons of iron ore across the continent in 2013. But the company’s potential in the region amounts to 10 billion tons.
In Uruguay they were licensed to mine about 110 thousand hectares in areas devoted to cattle ranching and forestry, where exploratory drilling had been performed to detect areas of greater density of iron ore. The mining project has three parts: the area where the mining will be conducted, about 220 kilometers of pipeline to the Rocha coast and finally a freight terminal. The total investment is estimated to be $2 billion.

In late 2010, when Parliament passed the Mining Code, small-scale rural producers of Valentines and Cerro Chato (180 and 3,000 inhabitants each), the areas where Aratirí installed [it’s project], began to mobilize. In January 2011 neighborhood commissions from the coast, where a port will be installed to export the iron, started a petition against the project.

From there [opposition] activity intensified. First they attended a session of parliament to explain the reasons for opposing the project. Small-scale livestock ranchers would see disruptions in their production because they will either face land expropriations and thus be forced to emigrate or they will be forced to migrate because of air and water pollution. The coastal villagers would suffer a loss to their fisheries and tourism will become scarce.

Later they held dozens of informational events in different places, such as small towns of 50 to 100 people. Finally in May 2011 they convened the first national march in Montevideo with the slogan “No to mining, yes to natural resources”. The [mining] company held its own march in Cerro Chato mobilizing merchants and workers. The next day the [small-scale, opposition] producers doubled the number of people mobilized, challenging the multinational [company] that had also began conducting its own informational events that were boycotted by those opposed to mining.

In July 2011 the Confederation of Coastal villages was created with representatives from seven communities of the Rocha Department: La Paloma (pop. 3,500), Aguas Dulces (400), Punta del Diablo (800), Valizas (330), La Pedrera (200), La Esmeralda (57) and Cabo Polonio. These communities oppose the construction of a port in La Paloma designated for the export of wood to be sent to paper factories, and another port designated to export iron.

On October 12 the second national march was held with a confluence of collectives from the north, central region, south and coastal zone, made up of small-scale producers and rural workers. Several celebrities participated in a video against mega-mine projects. Since then each region now focuses on local activities and the Permanent National Assembly in Defense of the Land and Natural Assets was created with about 36 grassroots collectives [11].
In mid-2012 the government confirmed the construction of a deepwater port for the export of iron, wood and other products near La Paloma. In August the movement against mining held its first national assembly in Tacuarembó (North) attended by 300 people from 35 collectives.

In attendance were three unions, indigenous groups, community radios, small-scale producers and rural workers. Members of the coastal towns opted for direct action to prevent the construction of the port near La Paloma. On October 12 the third national march was held in Montevideo with 10 thousand people participating, dozens of gauchos on horseback, tractors, flags of indigenous peoples, environmentalists and unions.

The movement against mining in Uruguay has three unprecedented features. The first is that it was born in the rural central region, in villages of about 50 to 3,000 people, and then it appeared in the departmental capitals and later in Montevideo, where the first groups are still being organized. This is a reversal of what has happened throughout the country’s history of social struggles, where almost all have been born in the capital.

Secondly, it’s a grassroots, assembly based, horizontal movement, linked to land and territory. It finds its inspiration from rural populist identities rather than unions and labor of the traditional left. Although these sectors are integrated and participate they do not assume a hegemonic role. The speech and language invoke the independence struggle of 200 years ago led by Jose Artigas, also emphasizing that everything relates to the land.

The third is that the movement has thus far rejected being institutionalized. NGOs have their hands bound. Political parties are kept silent. But was is most interesting is that the movement hasn’t chosen the path of a national referendum, the modality that has been adopted by all the great Uruguayan movements since the restoration of democracy, beginning with human rights.

There are local collectives that gather signatures for departmental referendums, and after extensive discussions the choice to move to a national referendum has been avoided. The experience of over 20 years indicates that this path leads to the dismantling of the movement since it infringes upon the popular will.

This is the first social movement that was born under a progressive government. It directly questions the extractive model and the pollution of water only supports the movement’s arguments especially for gaining public support. As Panario said reflecting on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in New York and the overall climate change debate: “You must have a catastrophe for the people to become aware.”

Raúl Zibechi is an international analyst for the weekly Brecha of Montevideo, professor and researcher on social movements in the Multiversidad Franciscana of Latin America, and advisor to several grassroots organizations. He writes the monthly “Zibechi Report” for the CIP Americas Program www.cipamericas.org.

Translation: Clayton Conn

Resources

“Aguas de marzo. Agroquímicos y potabilidad”, Brecha, March 22, 2013.

Permanent National Assembly in Defense of the Land and Natural Assets: http://endefensadelatierraylosbienesnaturales.noblogs.org/

Cirio, Ignacio, “Efectos colaterales”, video, Radio Mundo Real, 2012, in www.radiomundoreal.fm/rmr

El Observador (daily): www.elobservador.com.uy

Movement for a Sustainable Uruguay (MOVUS): http://movusuruguay.org/

Uruguay Mining Observatory: http://www.observatorio-minero-del-uruguay.com/

OSE (State Sanitary Works): www.ose.com.uy

Santos, Carlos, ¿Que protegen las áreas protegidas?, Montevideo, Trilce, 2011.

Zibechi, Raúl “Victims of Agrochemicals Break their Sielcne”, CIP Americas Program, January 12, 2012 in http://www.cipamericas.org/es/archives/6003

Zibechi, Raúl “Las penas son de nosotros. La conformación de un nuevo bloque de poder en Uruguay”, en Gariela Massuh, Renunciar al bien común, Mardulce, Buenos Aires, 2012.

Zibechi, Raúl, Entrevista a Daniel Panario, Montevideo, April 8,2013.

[1] OSE, March 21, 2013.

[2] All of the information from: Raúl Zibechi, Las penas son de nosotros, work cit.

[3] El Observador, April 11, 2013. The Santa Lucía River begins in the center of the country 100 kilometers from Montevideo and connects with la Plata River near the capital.

[4] Idem.

[5] El Observador, April 12, 2012.

[6] El Observador, April 4, 2012.

[7] Brecha, April 5, 2013.

[8] Brecha, March 22, 2013.

[9] Interview with Daniel Panario, work cit.

[10] Idem.

[11] Information taken from MOVUS, Uruguay Mining Observatory and the Permanent Assembly.

The world economy has seen three decades of neoliberal trade agreements along with strong financial liberalization, both domestically and in transborder flows. They have been accompanied by new rules on intellectual property, government procurement, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, labor relations and the prohibition of performance requirements on international corporations. These agreements radically redefine any nation’s development strategy, delivering it into the hands of transnationals and the “free market”.

What has the result been? A semi-stagnant world economy, high unemployment, rapid environmental deterioration and the worst crisis in 80 years. One might think that with these “achievements” we would have stopped negotiating new trade agreements. But it’s exactly the opposite.

The transnational corporations need to open up new terrain for making profits, even if it goes against the rules of social and environmental ethics. And since these transnational corporations have taken control of the regulatory realm, their servants in government are working overtime to invent new trade pacts.

Mexico agreed to join negotiations on the TPP last year. By doing so, it accepted two harmful conditions. The first, to renounce any attempt to reopen negotiations on the terms already agreed on by the countries in the TPP–that is, it agreed in principle that what was already agreed on should be accepted by any new partner seeking to join the process. The second is that it cannot request the inclusion of new issues on the agenda.

So Mexico went into negotiations as always: on its knees and giving up everything before even entering into talks. One might think that with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) our country already handed over everything and there isn’t much left to lose. That is partially wrong. Mexico gave up everything to Mexico and Canada, not to the other eight countries of Asia and Latin America. That’s why the TPP poses a new threat to Mexico.

One of the characteristic traits of the TPP is that a foreign company can sue the governments when the company feels that its expected earnings have been affected. This part of the TPP is inspired by Chapter 11 of NAFTA, which poses a particularly dangerous threat to public health, consumer protection and the environment. In fact, this instrument was already used by Metalclad in 1996. Now Monsanto could cite Ch. 11 of NAFTA to force the federal government to completely open the Mexican countryside to its harmful genetically modified corn. Will the Peña Nieto cabinet dare to reject with a clear NO the dangerous plans of the transationals or will it agree to play the role of subordinate?

The TPP is also a tool to pressure China on its monetary policy. How is it that the Asian giant does not form part of the TPP? The answer is that the TPP seeks to build a commercial fence to stop the rise of the Chinese Yuan as the currency of reference and bolster the fading US dollar. The so-called currency wars of today will be exacerbated by the application of the TPP.

For its part, Japan is on the verge of entering into negotiations. The Japanese are worried about the pressure to open up their agricultural sector and deregulate the public health system.

On March 13 a committee of the Japanese parliament sent a letter to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe concerned about the threat of the TPP. Its central warning: It is necessary to avoid the humiliation and subordination that Mexico was subject to when it entered into the process last year. The Japanese parliamentarians clearly took note of the high cost of accepting an agreement whose terms were already largely established without having participated in the negotiations. Unlike Mexico, Japan does not feel it should have to behave as a satellite to the United States.

The TPP also could be converted into a military bloc. In this region there are already precedents for trade or strategic agreements formed to stop the economic rise of an emerging power that had its own imperialist intentions  (Japan in the years 1921-1938). The result was the extension of the Second World War to the Pacific Ocean.

A bad omen: Obama just established the Western Pacific as the center of US Naval operations.

Alejandro Nada is a Mexican economist, professor of economics, and researcher at the Centro de Estudios Economicos.

“Faced with the threat that the mining industry represents in Mesoamerica, we call out to the peoples and communities of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Canada and Mexico to strengthen our networks of resistance and to build broad alliances based on our knowledge, within which the defense of territory forms the basis of our connections.”

Declaration from the Gathering of Mesoamerican Peoples: “Yes to life, No to Mining” January 17-20, 2013 – Capulálpam de Méndez, Oaxaca, México

“Today Capulálpam finds itself in a constant struggle against mining operations. It is not that we are against progress,” Municipal President Juan Perez Santiago told the four hundred to five hundred-strong people as he opened the conference. “We are against irreversible consequences that this type of activity leaves behind. After many years of mining activities, we’ve lost thirteen (13) different water sources, contamination of the rivers, we’ve lost the fish. A lot of the waters sources have been contaminated by toxic materials. Today we are saying NO to mining because our environment is in need of our protection. We need generations who are not at risk of suffering the decisions made by the previous generations.”

Capulálpam and several surrounding communities have chosen to confront the many decades of underground mining which has negatively impacted their central river and contaminated close to 50 % of their artesian springs and aquifers that sustain the life of the communities.  While the community-unified mining alliance successfully forced the Mexican government to address the toxic run-off and the stream degradation through the Federal Environmental Commission suspending the rights of the concession-holder, these suspensions are not always permanent.

Capulálpam is concerned that recent gold discoveries under its remaining springs will destroy their last source of pure water. Municipal President Santiago says, “The most important aquifer that maintains our community is at risk. This is the aquifer that sustains life throughout this watershed. It provides life to the watershed of Capulálpam.”

Up to the 1990’s, the mining industry was limited for foreign private interests until the Mexican government introduced the National Mining Modernization plan. This released 1.8 million hectares of mining concessions previously held by the Mexican government. Along with reforms to Article 27, which sets out the legislative frameworks for mining under the Mexican Constitution, existing communal lands could now be leased or sold for resource exploitation, “reversing the right of Mexican citizens to the communally-administered natural resources necessary to sustain life.”

When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed by Canada, Mexico and the United States and came into force on January 1, 1994, two (2) years after its implementation, the process for mining concessions had been streamlined and foreign ownership limits lifted in Mexico, bringing a huge increase to the number of concessions being granted.

Exploration concessions are valid for six (6) years and if a concessionaire wishes to go into production before the expiration of the 6 years, they may request an exploitation concession, which is valid for 50 years and can be renewed once for the same amount of time. Thirty percent (30%) of the national territory has been sold in blocks of fifty (50) year mining concessions by the Mexican government, mostly to Canadian corporations. During the Capulálpam conference, there were stories of intimidation, assassinations and environmental degradation perpetuated by the mining industry throughout Mesoamerica.

There are lessons to be learned for us as we discuss and contemplate mining development. Here in Canada, legislation has also been passed under Omnibus Bills C-38 and C-45 without consultation, limited debate, if any, and limited time for review, changing over one (1) hundred different pieces of legislation and regulations that will have significant impacts to the environment and Aboriginal and Treaty rights. They also change the public’s rights.

Approximately 99% of the lakes and rivers have lost their protection for navigation and environmental assessment meaning 32,000 rivers and 2.25 million rivers and could be vulnerable to industrial impacts and development.  Many of these waterways include lakes, streams and rivers that have and continue to sustain the indigenous way of life.

Last April 2012, the federal government announced natural resource projects will be moved to “one project, one review” policy with “fixed timelines” for major economic projects where Environmental Assessments (EA) are being “fast-tracked and streamlined.”

Aside from being rushed through the Canadian Parliament as an add on to an Omnibus Bill, getting the free, prior, and informed consent of the Indigenous Peoples recognized under Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), to which Canada reluctantly signed under world-wide global pressure, did not occur.

UNDRIP Article 19  says that, “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the Indigenous Peoples concerned…in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent  before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.”  [Emphasis added]

While Canada considers the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples “non-binding” and nothing more than an “aspirational document,” it purports to uphold the “rule of law” while ignoring many legal rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada, such as this one triggering the Crown’s duty to consult:

“The foundation of the duty in the Crown’s honour and the goal of reconciliation suggest that the ‘duty arises when the Crown has knowledge, real or constructive, of the potential existence’ of the Aboriginal right to title and contemplates conduct that might adversely affect it.” There are a lot of outstanding lands claims dealing with land by Indigenous Peoples.

This Supreme Court of Canada obligation for consultation and accommodation was never properly discharged to the peoples to whom it is owed regarding Bills C-38 and C-45.

When the Crown in Right of Ontario attempted to allow mineral exploration projects to proceed in Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) without properly consulting the community, the Ontario Superior Court stopped the project saying that, “allowing the project to continue without consultation was a violation of Treaty # 9. The objective of the consultation process is to foster negotiated settlements and avoid litigation. For this process to have any real meaning it must occur before any activity begins and not afterwards or at a stage where it is rendered meaningless.” (Para 89)

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug was the site of the signing to the adhesion to Treaty # 9 on July 5, 1929 of which KI is an original signatory. KI viewed the signing as developing a new relationship with His Majesty and His Subjects as equal partners not a mass land surrender as reflected in the treaty text. KI elders tell us that they agreed to share the land and its benefits. They did not entertain nor subscribe to engaging in a legal fiction to sign away land and resources which have been handed down through generations or to knowingly sell their birthright.

KI continues to ask for the law pertaining to its rights be respected and the land issues be resolved in a fair and just manner. Meanwhile it has had to insist that the rule of law pertaining to its rights be followed, pressuring the Ontario government who ended up having to pay out 2 mining/exploration companies and forcing Ontario to unilaterally withdraw land from prospecting and mining claim staking in KI territory, similar to what Capulálpam had to do to get the Mexican government to address the environmental degradation brought on by decades of mining in their territory. The site where KI asked the last exploration company to leave was an old mining site which has never been rehabilitated and its environmental and health impacts undetermined.

The federal government Bills C-38 and C-45 remove many protections for water, fish and the environment seemingly to push development at all costs while attempting to discredit and silence the voices who speak out as “radical” that “ threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.”

Throughout the globe and here in Canada, legislation is being enacted by governments to enable resource-hungry companies to exploit the natural resources at all costs. These resources are often located on the homelands of the Indigenous Peoples who are currently harvesting the abundance and surviving from the lands into which they were born.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Article 32 says that, “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the Indigenous Peoples concerned…in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their land or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.” [Emphasis added].

The Indigenous Peoples of Mesoamerica, including KI are taking similar stands “in defense of life, our sacred spaces, our forests, rivers, hills, sources of water and our children,” and are reaching out to people globally to support, ““A change in the economic and political development model that currently permits the looting of territories as well as a change in the authoritarian, colonial, military and patriarchal structure of governance. Respect for the decisions of peoples should be a fundamental part of the new relationship with nation-states. This means exercising the right to self-determination of Indigenous, campesino and rural peoples.”

Municipal President Santiago speaking from experience spoke eloquently against unbridled development and unsustainable mining practices: “We say No to mining because with mining we are exchanging life for death, life for destruction, the life that we see in our mountains and our forests. We want to make sure that the community of Capulálpam and all of the communities present here are supported in their struggle against mining.”

Here in Canada, legislation has been enacted to expedite resource extraction while provincial and federal governments make deals with companies in other countries for the untapped resources often located on indigenous homelands like the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario. These deals are being made on the premise that there is unfettered access to the territories, which are lined with outstanding legal obligations through treaties and other constitutional mandates. At the same time, credible science offered by various environmental groups have fallen on deaf ears. Globally, the call of Capulálpam for building alliances and building the network of resistance echoes into Canada aligning with the cry – when injustice becomes law, resistance is the outcome.

John Cutfeet is a spokesperson for the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation in the Canadian province of Ontario, author and indigenous rights activist.