In Defense of the Isthmus: The Persistent Struggle Against the Interoceanic Corridor

Por

23 March, 2023

David Hernández Salazar, community agent of Puente Madera, the Indigenous Binizaá community located in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, was detained on January 17 by members of the Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office, accused of supposed damage to public roads and highways.

However, these crimes are fabricated. The political persecution against the community agent of the Binizaá community is a consequence of the persistent struggle of the community of Puente Madera to defend their common use lands of El Pitayal, where the state seeks to build one of the 35 industrial parks that make up the Interoceanic Corridor megaproject.

After his arrest, the community mobilized applying pressure and forcing the state to release him only a few hours after his detention. Now, Hernández emphasizes that he is not the only person being persecuted. There are 17 others, all inhabitants of the community of Puente Madera, who have warrants out for their arrest.

For Hernández, the strategies taken up by the state are no surprise. Since 2021, members of the assembly of comuneros of San Blas Atempa—the municipality to which the community of Puente Madera belongs—have denounced the simulation and falsification of signatures to give approval to the installation of one of the industrial parks, which the state is naming, “development poles for wellbeing.”

With the mobilizations that have taken place to denounce the simulated approval of the industrial park, the criminalization of representatives and inhabitants of the community of Puente Madera has not stopped. The same people facing criminalization are those who demand a resolution to the nullity lawsuit presented in the Local Agrarian Court of Tuxtepec seeking the cancelation of the construction of the industrial park on the common use lands of El Pitayal.

As the Binizaá community has pointed out, the United States is also involved, interfering in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec via investments in their quest to reconfigure southeast Mexico, principally for geostrategic value.

As Anna Esther Ceceña, the coordinator of the Latin American Observatory of Geopolitics, reflects: “When containers from China and the United States pass through the Interoceanic Corridor, the security forces watching over them will be from North America, not only from Mexico. It is important to observe the military risk.”

This publication is part of a series of discussions with participants in the Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress, which took place on March 4-5 in Tehuacán, Puebla. You can also consult the past discussions on other social struggles in Michoacán and Quintana Roo. Below, we share excerpts from the interview with David Hernández Salazar, from the community of Puente Madera.

Avispa Mídia: What is the status of the lawsuit against the supposed assembly decision that approved the construction of the industrial park in El Pitayal?

David Hernández Salazar, community agent of Puente Madera (DH): The last hearing was in March of 2022, where the alternate of the Communal Lands Commissioner, Gregorio Salva, and the head of the Agrarian Attorney General’s Office, Mr. Paredes, informed us that the industrial park had not been approved in the assembly of March 14, 2021. So, that is where we are. They recognize that the project wasn’t approved, but the state and federal governments continue entering the lands of El Pitayal for the construction of the industrial park.

AM: Was there a legal resolution?

DH: That is still pending. We also had a conversation with the National Agrarian Attorney General’s Office. They received us in Mexico City. There I presented all the evidence of the irregularities that have taken place in this process. They say that while there is no official ruling which stops them from entering the lands, then they will continue to enter. Thus, the response I gave them was: “Well, then we are going to defend the land.” We are the same. While there is no resolution from the Agrarian Court, you enter the land, and as long as you continue to enter the land, we are going to defend it.

AM: That was last year and then you were arrested…

DH: Exactly, from there we arrive at my arrest…and in response to my arrest we saw clearly the support of the population of Puente Madera. In the end, this struggle is a community struggle, not just of a few individuals, much less of a sole social leader, but of an entire community.

AM: What are you being accused of?

DH: Attacks on public roads and highways, material damage, and the burning of vehicles. That is what they are accusing me of. It shouldn’t be this way, but we know they are fabricated crimes, crimes that don’t have any legal basis, that aren’t based in what really happen.

The fabrication of these crimes is an attack against us, to stop this struggle in defense of the common use lands of El Pitayal. Furthermore, there exists 17 other arrest warrants against the compañeros of Puente Madera. These are the same, fabricated crimes. There is no basis in what really happened that day to justify these warrants. More than anything, these 18 arrest warrants are to intimidate the community. My legal case has already proceeded, but those of my compañeros are pending. However, they are preparing an appeal, so that the compañeros can feel protected and supported by the community.

AM. How important is this struggle against the imposition of the Interoceanic Corridor?

DH: We know that it is one of the priority megaprojects of the president of the republic. We also know that there are political leaders who want to claim these lands and territories. These claims are based upon imposition via the falsification of signatures and of lies to the communities.

As of now, the Interoceanic Corridor has faced many problems. For example, I can mention the group UCIZONI (Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus) who have been stopping the advancement of the project for various days, obstructing the train lines, due to the state refusing to fulfill certain agreements with the communities.

On the other hand, is the municipality of Santiago Astata. There, a blockade has been in place for five days because the company hasn’t paid for the stone material that they are extracting, which already exceeds 11 million pesos.

In the specific case of San Blas Atempa, there are various issues: rigged assemblies, both of the comuneros, as well as of the Indigenous communities, on part of the National institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI). These rigged assemblies have been carried out in complicity with the municipal president, the communal lands commissioner, and of course, the state and federal governments.

The message is clear: we are going to continue defending our lands and territories. It is our right as Indigenous communities. The lands are not for sale. With the position that we have taken in Puente Madera, we will continue defending our lands, although the state seeks to intimidate us with these arrest warrants. They can lock up one, two, three, as many of us as they want, but because the struggle is of an entire community, we will continue in defense of our common use lands.

AM: What is your reading of the impulse of the United States with the announcement of more investments in the Isthmus region?

DH: We know that on March 21, the United States ambassador to Mexico will arrive to the Isthmus, and of course, we know that larger projects are on their way. Imagine, there are ten industrial parks, which need to be supplied electrical energy. So, there they go, seeking to privatize the common use lands, and in particular the lands of San Blas Atempa, because we have almost 10,000 hectares, enough to put a wind farm to provide energy to these industrial parks. For that, we are on maximum alert, seeking to strengthen this movement in order to impede them from advancing further on the common use lands.

David Hernández emphasizes that the Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress gathers communities who, in spite of their differences, share similar problems in their communities, such as the actions of governments and corrupt agrarian authorities, or the militarization around megaprojects to intimidate the population. “And when they can no longer do what they need to do, organized crime steps in,” said the Binizaá man.

“The message that we bring from our communities is to strengthen our struggle. It is not only in the Isthmus region, but throughout the country, that we are experiencing this situation,” says the member of the community of Puente Madera.

Resistance Grows Against Water Privatization in Mexico

Por

Santiago Navarro F

9 March, 2023

^{Cover image: Participants in the Second National Assembly for Water and Life pose on a water truck to emphasize the water crisis in different parts of Mexico. Photo: Santiago Navarro F}

A soft breeze, followed by a strong wind, stir up the earth, causing dust to dance between the bodies of those arriving from different geographies of Mexico, and even some from other parts of the world. Their gazes cross with a certain complicity, not surprisingly, the present times are a tragedy. There isn’t one movement that hasn’t suffered state repression: disappearances, political imprisonment, dispossession, harassment, and the worst, assassination. But on this occasion, people gathered around a common element which represents life, which connects everyone’s destiny: water.

Participants from at least eighteen states of Mexico, and people from six other countries—more than 500 people—arrived to rebel Otomí territory, in the community of Santiago Mexquititlán, pertaining to the municipality of Amealco, Querétaro. The majority of whom were there for their first time, enthusiastically attending the Second National Assembly for Water and Life.

For two days, participants shared their thoughts, strategies, and the challenges they have faced, in expanding coordinated actions “against the exploitation of water and the water crisis being caused by national and multinational companies,” they explained.

Otomí women, wearing their traditional clothing with contrasting colors, making their appearance and the certainty of their words more powerful, understand it well. They chose their community to host the event, and this was not a random decision. “In the state of Querétaro, they’ve begun implementing laws to privatize water. But this vital liquid is located principally in our territories, in the territories of Indigenous peoples,” said the Indigenous Otomí woman, Sara Hernández.

Sara refers to a law that was proposed in 2021, going into effect in July of 2022. The law primarily benefits private capital. As a consequence of the law, “a large number of water concessions were issued to the private water sector,” she adds.

Among other benefits to private companies, the new law allows those with water concessions to “temporarily provide, totally or partially…the public services of drinking water, potabilization, drainage, sewage treatment, and the disposal of wastewater.”

In addition to allowing the private sector to profit from the blue gold, the law opens the door for private companies to participate in making policies, guidelines, and technical specifications for the construction, expansion, rehabilitation, administration, operation, conservation, and maintenance of drinking water supply systems and other services. This law will even reward the private sector with recognition for encouraging what they are calling, “citizen participation in water culture.”

The Indigenous Otomí woman, Sara, recalls that one of the principle activities that caused alarm in the community was in 2021, when the new law was being prepared in the parliament of Querétaro. “That year we began to see that they were exploiting the water in the community with pipes and water trucks,” she says.

The most outrageous thing, Sara relates, is that the community was paying the State Water Commission (CEA) for the water service, but the water was not meeting their daily needs. The situation was so dire that the only well that fed the entire community was beginning to reach its limit and dry up. “That’s when the community got organized and took over one of the water trucks and decided to take control of the well,” says Sara.

The Legal Battle for Water

Next to the Otomi community’s drinking water well, there sits the remains of an official vehicle of the State Water Commission (CEA), a water truck with a phrase written in graffiti on its 30,000-liter capacity tank: “It’s not a drought, its exploitation,” alluding to the water crisis in several Mexican states.

The well providing water to the Otomi community is part of the Valley of Amealco, one of seven aquifers that sustain the monstrous industrial complexes and urban zones established in this area. At the same time, these water reserves form part of 653 aquifers that provide the groundwater of Mexico, according to studies from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT).

“Water continues to be managed in the same way as it has been by previous governments, as it has been since the reform to Article 27 (of the Mexican constitution). Since the enactment of the national water law, through the simulation of a concession system, the privatization and exploitation of water has been approved,” explains the lawyer, Carlos González, of the National indigenous Congress (CNI), who provides legal support to the Otomí community.

The lawyer calls the concession system a “simulation” because “through the figure of the concession, water is disproportionately handed over to large companies, concentrating it into very few hands in this country: in the mining sector, for soda and beer companies, for the industrial and real estate sector, for industrial agriculture and cattle raising,” summarized the advisor to the National Indigenous Congress.

Carlos González points out that this strategy of privatization is taking place in the Otomí region, principally with the concession of a well located in Barrio 4 of the community. That well is formally administered by the State Water Commission (CEA). “With this law, there exists the possibility, the high probability, that this well will be handed over to management by a private company,” remarks the CNI lawyer.

For this, “We’ve begun a legal battle, filing several appeals in Querétaro. We’ve also begun to mobilize,” Sara explains.

According to the lawyer, the community has taken up a legal battle as one of the strategies of resistance. Three appeals have been filed against the law, against the refusal to hand over management of the well to the community, something that has been requested by the community on various occasions. Furthermore, an appeal has been been filed to prevent a private company from acquiring a concession and taking over management of the well.

“Two appeals were ruled on in favor of the community. The unconstitutional acts that were extremely harmful to our people were suspended,” explains the legal advisor.

The Struggle Must Be Nationwide

As if they were mirrors, the social and legal problems arising from the water crisis in different Indigenous communities in Mexico, all reflect the same scene of exploitation. This second assembly, which took place on February 18 and 19 in this Otomí community, followed a previous assembly in a different community that stood up to the blatant exploitation of the multinational corporation Danone.

The history begins in Santa María Zacatepec, in Juan C. Bonilla, Puebla. There, the French company, Danone, via its affiliate, Bonafont, installed themselves in the community in 1992. The company was “extracting 1,642,000 liters of water daily. In addition, they exploited the workers with miserable wages. This company left us without water. In 2021, the 20 communities who have since organized, didn’t have water in our wells,” says an activist from the community, who for security reasons only introduced herself as Adela.

This company offers a liter of water to the Mexican market for nearly the same cost as a liter of gasoline. “So, if oil theft is a serious crime, why does the government allow water theft and not classify it as a crime?” asked the Indigenous man, Alejandro Torres, a member of the organization, Pueblos Unidos de la Region Choluteca y de los Volcanes.

Via direction action, these communities took over and stopped the activities of the Bonafont plant. “From that moment, our wells began to have water again. We’ve calculated that, to this day, more than 1.2 billion liters of water have flowed again. That number will continue to rise because we will not allow the company to return to our territory to exploit our water,” added Adela.

After this experience, different communities from different regions of Mexico decided to organize a second assembly to strengthen the defense of water and the defense of Indigenous territories. Among the agreements reached were that the communities would adhere to their self-determination as Indigenous peoples, not asking for permission from the government to manage their water. “Because we have the capability, and the forms of organizing ourselves. We know how to manage and take care of our water, as we have done since time immemorial,” says the Indigenous man, Miguel López Vega, of the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra, y el Agua, Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala.

Participants in the second assembly warn that if no action is taken, the coming crisis will be much worse and will not only affect Indigenous peoples, but urban zones as well. “The struggle must be nationwide,” Adela adds.

Those who participated in the assembly have named this new epoch of dispossession, “A war of extermination,” and the examples are clear.

Among them are: “A) The plundering, extraction, trafficking, sell, and exploitation of water; B) The extermination of our forests, rivers, oceans, minerals, flora, fauna, cultural and linguistic richness and diversity; C) The imposition of megaprojects like the Mayan Train, the Interoceanic Corridor, and the Morelos Integral Project; and D) By all means they seek to end with our autonomy, the autonomy of Indigenous peoples,” they denounce in the agreements from the assembly.

In order to continue the organizing work, an agreement was reached to carry out a third assembly, to be held on August 12 and 13 in the Indigenous community of Xochimilco, if approved by the community.

Different activities have been announced for March 8, 9, and 22, including mobilizations. Above all, they are calling for “global action against the exploitation of water and for the right to life,” to commemorate the United Nations recognition of the importance of access to drinking water as a basic human necessity.

From the assembly, they also seek to denounce the exploitation, privatization, and plunder of water, especially by “the exploitative companies like Nestle, Bonafont, Danone, Coca Cola, and tourist real estate companies.”

In a press conference on Monday February 20, at the close of the assembly, they remembered the Indigenous activist Samir Flores Soberanes, who opposed the Morelos Integral Project (PIM), and was assassinated four years ago.

“His struggle against the Morelos Integral Project (PIM) and his open opposition to the Huexca Thermoelectric Plant caused the narco-state to order his assassination. We not only condemn the delay of justice and the impunity, but we demand truth and justice for Samir. Today we reaffirm that the seeds that he planted in the struggle are flourishing in the Second National Assembly for Water and Life.”

This assembly was also dedicated to the activists Antonio Díaz Valencia and Ricardo Arturo Lagunes Garza, who have been disappeared since January 15 in Aquila, Michoacán. Throughout the event, emphasis was placed on the demand for their alive return.

Mexico abides by United States climate policy, adding four wind farms in the Isthmus

Por

Santiago Navarro F

22 February, 2023

^{Translated by Elizabeth L. T. Moore}

^{Pictured: AMLO during a meeting with the United States special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry}

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintained this Wednesday, February 8, that, of the first round of the request for bids for 10 industrial park areas in southern Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec, four will be set aside for the generation of wind energy. This measure was taken as part of a climate change agreement established with the United States.

Obrador added that the United States special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry, will set foot on Mexican territory for the seventh time on March 19 to supervise the areas set aside for wind energy generation in the Isthmus, where physical and legal infrastructure are being created in the so-called Interocean Corridor.

“This is an agreement with the United States government to contribute to confronting the climate change problem,” detailed the Mexican president.

The president of Mexico also assured that the four renewable energy generation complexes, adding to the 29 wind farms already in operation in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will be part of the public agency Federal Electricity Commission (CFE in its Spanish initials). Furthermore, he emphasized that they will be funded by the United States or its banks, “with very low (interest) rates” and that they will be built “by Mexican and United States companies.”

The United States special envoy, along with the United States Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar and other officials, will meet on March 19 with the Mexican president and Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard with whom they’ve already met. During their participation in COP27, both countries outlined commitments to tackle climate change with an investment of $48 billion dollars.

Among the objectives they’ve laid out to justify the creation of new renewable energy generation complexes is increasing their impact to reduce 22% to 35% of greenhouse gas emissions in the next eight years. This means doubling the Mexican territory’s infrastructure to generate twice as much of the current renewable energy emissions until 2030, on track with the production of an additional 40 gigawatts (GW).

“These goals will allow the North American region to have one of the most efficient energy transitions [...] President López Obrador’s decision will mean thousands of new jobs and the expansion of Mexico’s green economy,” celebrated Chancellor Ebrard at COP27.

The International Coalition

The current decisions about renewable energy in Mexico are a continuation of the agreements established with the United States and Canada at the North American Leaders’ Summit (NALS) held in 2021. The Mexican government committed to rolling out more than 30 additional gigawatts of combined wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectricity capacity by the year 2030, meeting the 40 GW the United States needs to add in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Although this is not the only measure the U.S. is taking in matters of climate change.

The United States special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry, recently met with the United Arab Emirates, a country that has joined the First Movers Coalition with the joint objective of “bolstering efforts to scale up key clean technologies, including in the context of the US-UAE Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE)”.

This Coalition was announced by United States President Joe Biden in association with the World Economic Forum during COP26, assuring they are the driving force “for companies to harness their purchasing power and supply chains to create early markets for innovative clean energy technologies.”

Currently, the Coalition has more than 65 corporate members that have pledged a total of $12 billion to embed in the new production chains and the new renewable energy generation complexes.

The United Arab Emirates joins the government partners that already form part of this Coalition: Denmark, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom. All have committed to promoting the Coalition and accelerating the development of innovative low carbon emission technologies to a global scale.

Mexico plays an important role in the United States’ decisions when it comes to the creation of new renewable energy complexes. Ken Salazar has justified that “the commitment between our governments with clean energies and the energy transition benefits our nations and the planet.”

The United States ambassador used the example of the progress of United States company investments in Mexico. “You can see in Baja California, where Sempra Infrastructure (the Mexican subsidiary of Sempra Energy) will develop a wind farm with a 300 megawatt capacity and announced the signing of a 20-year purchase agreement to supply renewable energy to different locations in California.”

Ambassador Ken Salazar during his mission in the north of Mexico at the end of 2022 also highlighted the capital presence of multinational company Invenergy that “will invest $70 million in the Energy Center La Toba, Baja California, for a 40 megawatt (MW) solar plant.”

AMLO decrees expropriation of communal lands in Oaxaca for construction of industrial parks

Por

Avispa

13 February, 2023

On Thursday February 2, Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, published two decrees in the Official Journal of the Nation making official the expropriation of 1,018 acres of communal lands in Ciudad Ixtepec, and 1,240 acres in Santa María Mixtequilla, both in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca. These lands will be the future sites of two industrial parks or Development Poles for Wellbeing that are being constructed as part of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Both lands were bought by the federal government through the national fund, El Fideicomiso Fondo Nacional de Fomento Ejidal (FIFONAFE).

According to one decree, the Mexican government paid $111,447,000 pesos to community members and land caretakers for the expropriation in Ciudad Ixtepec,

In the other decree, the federal government paid $40,000,000 pesos in advance, of the total $130,000,000 pesos that will be paid to cover the expropriation of land in Santa María Mixtequilla,

The government has announced ten industrial parks to be constructed as part of the Interoceanic Corridor. Three of these industrial parks are being planned in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. However, the government still lacks the decree to expropriate 300 hectares of land of El Pitayal, in the community of Puente Madera, in the municipality of San Blas Atempa, Oaxaca.

The Community Assembly of Puente Madera has mobilized and managed to detain the sell of the lands. Community members filed a lawsuit to nullify an assembly decision which took place on March 14, 2021, where the sell of the lands was authorized for the installation of the industrial park. The lawsuit alleges that dead people’s signatures were used to authorize the sell.

In statements to the media, the Secretary of Economy, Raquel Buenrostro, has pointed out that of the ten industrial parks, between three of four of them will be for companies that produce renewable energies.

At the end of February, Buenrostro said that a program will be presented to “generate a business model” for the ten industrial parks. “We want to do an auction, to see what will be placed where,” she said.

Salomón Jara Cruz, governor of the State of Oaxaca, has announced to the media that in April, the Secretary of the Economy will launch a call to national and international companies for bids for the industrial parks.

IDB

The Inter-American Development Bank announced that it is making available between $1,800,000,000 and $2,800,000,000 dollars in the next three years to finance projects of companies relocating to Mexico. This is taking place amidst a reconfiguration of the global value chain. The IDB said that priority would be given to projects that decide to move to the Interoceanic Corridor.

Fighting for the forests in Eastern Congo

Por

Eugenia López

10 February, 2023

^{Cover image: The Batwa indigenous people are currently facing multiple challenges. The cultural crisis, the lack of recognition of their territorial rights and the reappropriation of their lands by multinationals make the communities that live by and for the forest even more fragile.}

With its rivers, forests, savannas and freshwater swamps, the Congo Basin – the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon – is a patchwork of treasures. It is home to approximately 10,000 species of tropical plants, as well as more than 400 species of mammals, 1,000 species of birds, and 700 species of fish, including several endangered species such as forest elephants or mountain gorillas.

Humans have shared the Congo Basin forests with these other species for tens of thousands of years. Today, the forests still provide food, fresh water and shelter to more than 75 million people.

^{The Congo rainforest, much of which is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is the second largest rainforest in the world. The Congolese government has recently tendered 16 new oil fields, some of them in the rainforest. Photo by Axel Fassio/CIFOR.}

I had the privilege of talking to Blair Byamungu Kabonge, an Indigenous Batwa descendent who was born in the South-Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the Congo Basin connects with the Great Lakes region. Growing up in these lands, he has not only been a witness to nature’s beauty, but also its tragic ongoing destruction.

Together with its wildlife, Blair’s region is extremely rich in oil, diamonds, gold, copper, and minerals like cobalt, tin, cassiterite and coltan. This makes it ripe for extraction and exploitation, as these materials are used to produce new technologies such as smartphones and tablets as well as electric vehicles, solar panels and other so-called ‘green’ or ‘clean energy’ technologies.

Decades of violence

The economic interests in the minerals, timber and wildlife located in the region has attracted the interest of foreign countries and transnational companies over the past centuries, which has led to the explosion of violence.

This started with the colonisation of the territory by Belgium from the end of the 19th century. Attracted by its abundant wealth in rubber, ivory and minerals, the belgium crown, together with concessionary companies, undertook the brutal exploitation of its natural resources and population. Between 1880 and 1926, half of the inhabitants were killed, to the point that some historians refer to this period as a “forgotten holocaust”.

After the official independence of the country in 1960, the economic interests didn’t vanish, and more countries started to get involved in natural resources extraction, such as the United States, Canada, South Africa, the European Union or China, principally.

Locals and NGOs working in the region have long been calling out the direct link between the exploitation of natural resources and continuing armed conflicts in DRC.

Today, the Kivu region is still highly insecure, with multiple armed guerrilla groups, and a heavy presence of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) which are guilty of violently exploiting civilians to extract valuable minerals to sell on to transnational companies.

*^{A Democratic Republic of Congo Army soldier at an outpost on Chanzu hill in eastern North Kivu region, Nov. 5, 2013.}*

“The wars we have are linked to the quest for control and domination over ecosystems,” Blair tells me. “But the rich countries chose to cover their ears. They do not seek to establish peace in eastern Congo; they know what they have to gain in this story. If the production of coltan stops in the Congo, what are you going to use to make your phones?”

The race for natural resources has been responsible for significant environmental damages, with devastating destruction of humid primary forests. According to Global Forest Watch, the total area of humid primary forests in South-Kivu decreased by 6.6% between 2002 and 2021.

The hypocrisy of international conservation plans

In light of the ever-worsening climate crisis – and despite the fact that local communities had been trying to give the alert for far longer – combating deforestation has begun to be seen by international institutions as a crucial step in limiting the impacts of climate change, as the world’s forests absorb roughly one-third of carbon emissions annually.

During COP26 in 2021, leaders from more than 100 countries pledged to halt deforestation by 2030.

A group of 11 countries, along with the Bezos Earth Fund, agreed to contribute $1.5bn toward restoration efforts in the Congo Basin region. At the latest COP conference that took place in November 2022, a Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP) was launched to unite actions by governments, businesses and community leaders to implement the commitment made at the COP26.

However, this seems unrealistic given that there was a similar plan adopted in 2014, which sought to halve global deforestation by 2020 and end it by 2030… with absolutely no results so far.

Like many others, Blair does not really believe in international mechanisms that promote environmental protection. “After each international conference, agreements are signed, but if we get to COP27, it’s because it’s useless,” he says. “The initiators of these policies take people for idiots.”

The hypocrisy of these international declarations is hard to ignore, knowing that the countries that promote them are often the ones who benefit the most from (and contribute the most to) nature’s destruction.

“The same nations that run the COPs are the ones that own the industries that are destroying the planet,” agrees Blair. “So, are we going to start taking action, or are we going to stay distracted and carry on as if nothing is happening?”

I ask Blair what he thinks the answer should be. “What we need is for countries like France, the United States and Russia to reduce their production,” he says. “If we want to conserve the planet, we have to reduce! But which of these countries is taking real action? None!”

He continues: “Everybody says that the DRC is a poor country. And if you come here, it’s true, you’re going to find poor people. But these countries which you think are poor are still rich in forests – and that’s because the people have preserved them. We accept to live in misery, but we preserve nature. You refuse to live in misery, but you destroy the Earth!”

Conservation failures

During his lifetime, Blair has witnessed the failure of multiple conservation plans, one of which is directly linked to his homeland. His village is located at the edge of the Kahuzi Biega National Park (KBNP), a protected area of 6,000 square km situated near Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border. Established in 1970, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, and has been largely funded by the US and German governments. But far from providing protection, it seems like that designation has actually created the conditions for the acceleration of the sale and exploitation of animals and soils in the area.

^{A burned Batwa home in Kahuzi Biega National Park. Between July 2019 and December 2021, joint contingents of park rangers and army soldiers violently expelled the Batwa from their ancestral home in the park, according to a report by Minority Rights Group International. Photo by Robert Flummerfelt.}

“My village is located in the middle altitude of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. As a child, I saw elephants. The park was one of the parks that attracted a lot of attention from tourists. Before the area officially became a national park, even if we made our livelihoods from hunting, there was everything. But when the white man came here and decided to create the park, that’s when the destruction started. The elephants are gone. Who organised the illegal sale of ivory? Who came to exploit the soils? The local communities or the people of the park, in collusion with the so-called “donors” who finance the park?” Blair challenges.

Blair left his region some years ago and now works in the North-Kivu region, near the city of Goma.

Here, he observes a similar case in the Virunga National Park. “Today, this park is the home of armed groups. And it’s called world heritage, it’s registered with UNESCO – and that makes me laugh. If it’s a world heritage, then what is the international community doing to knock the rebels out of the park? These armed groups threaten ecosystems and communities, they trade in species, they trade in minerals. But when the minerals come out of the park, they become “pure” in the eyes of white people, where in fact, they are made of blood.”

Sadly, this terrible situation is not specific to DRC: there are several other cases of conservation plans (designed by the UNESCO or other institutions and organisations) leading to a significant increase of violence and destruction throughout the world, such as in Central America.

Nature keepers

Blair is not just a witness, he has dedicated his life to defending the forests and Indigenous and local communities’ right to self-determination and self-organisation in their own land, because he knows that their destinies are closely related.

In fact, Indigenous peoples have been, and continue to be, nature’s best guardians on Earth: although they now represent only 6% of the world’s population, they protect 80% of the biodiversity that remains on the planet.

From speaking to Blair, it is clear that the land which Indigenous communities live on, and the natural resources which they depend on, are inextricably linked to their identity, culture and livelihoods, as well as their physical and spiritual well-being.

“For Congolese forest communities, the forest is everything,” Blair explains. “An inhabitant of a forest community can spend a year without buying anything, he does everything thanks to the forest: if he wants meat, he finds meat there; if he needs plants to heal himself, he finds them in the forest, if he wants to build, he doesn’t need nails since he finds ropes in the forest. The forest is life. The traditions of the people here conserve the forest.”

Yet now, the communities are faced with the risk of losing the forests on which their ways of life depend. Blair continues: “they know that if they end up being displaced, they have no place in the outside world, their way of life is absolutely different. They think: our life is here. To move us is almost to take us to the guillotine. We are not going to adapt to the way of life in the cities.”

Community forestry to protect the land

Throughout the world, Indigenous peoples often lack formal recognition of their lands, territories and natural resources. This puts them in a vulnerable situation and in a permanent state of war against companies and governments that seek to take control over their territories in order to exploit their natural resources.

Since 2017, Blair has been working as a community facilitator with the National Alliance for Support and Promotion of Indigenous and Community Heritage Areas and Territories in the DRC (ANAPAC-DRC). One of his main missions has been to support Indigenous communities to manoeuvre the slow bureaucracy and long legal processes necessary to assert their rights on their lands and forests.

In DRC, the soils and subsoils of protected forests belong to the State. However, according to Article 22 of the 2002 Congolese Forest Code, local communities can request a proprietary title on their forest, even if they are located in protected areas, if they can prove that they have a historical relationship with this territory.

When the communities receive their titles – which are collective and permanent, meaning that they won’t need to be renewed by future generations – they also obtain the right to manage their land in autonomy: they gain access to the right for self-determination and self-organisation in their territory.

^{Kahuzi Biega National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is famous for its gorilla reserves. The status was achieved at the cost of expelling the nomadic pygmy communities that had been living in this part of the Kalehe territory of South Kivu for generations. Democratic Republic of Congo, November 2020.}

With his organisation, Blaire has helped the Bambuti Indigenous community win land titles in the forest territory of Kisimbosa Chamsaka in the province of Nord-Kivu in 2019, becoming the first community forest in the region.

“It helps solve a lot of land issues. Without this, outsiders can easily come from Kinshasa and impose concessions. This brings a certain security”, explains Blair, even if he knows that there is no absolute guarantee that the communities won’t suffer from industry and economic pressure, and that the violence is not going to disappear with land titles.

However, he is sure that all of this is not just about property rights: the entire process also promotes collective organisation and solidarity between communities, which can be decisive when facing any type of threat.

“After obtaining their titles, communities are able to build projects such as schools at their local level, and then also open them up to other communities. One of our most important goals is connection: sometimes communities have a lot in common without realising it. Meeting each other allows them to learn from each other and to join forces for the protection of ecosystems,” he clarifies.

Building international awareness and solidarity

At the end of our conversation, I asked Blair about the responsibility of other people in the world with this same reality, and more precisely, what the people that will read his story can do to support local communities in Congo in their struggle for life.

One of the main things Blair says is building consciousness, especially among people that live in the Global North and asking: what are the impacts of living in rich countries on other peoples, and especially Indigenous peoples all over the planet?

Then, it is crucial to start holding the companies that are benefiting from the land’s destruction accountable for what they are doing: Which industries, and which products are made with blood? What can be done to stop them?

We must also build solidarity, and support those who are fighting everyday to protect not only their own lives but the planet we are all living on. Because, as Blair urges: “the biodiversity we have here in Congo is not just for ourselves, it is for everyone.”

^{A version of this text was published in See. Hear. Act. Do.}

Mexican officials announce bids for Interoceanic Corridor industrial zones

Por

Ñaní Pinto

7 February, 2023

^{Translated by Scott Campbell}

^{Cover image: Indigenous Binniza residents of Puente Madera, in the municipality of San Blas Atempa, protest against the imposition of an industrial park on their communal lands.}

The Mexican government, through the Ministry of Economy, announced that the first tenders towards the creation of planned industrial zones in the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT), in Oaxaca, will be open for bids in February.

“We hope that each development zone will generate investments of around one billion dollars,” said Raquel Buenrostro Sánchez, Minister of Economy, who anticipated that, in addition to government investment, resources from the United States government will be forthcoming.

At the end of 2022, the former head of the CIIT, Rafael Marín Mollinedo, announced that ten plots of land were ready for the construction of industrial parks. “At the beginning of the year, they will be opened for bidding so that developers can take charge and fill them with businesses,” he said in an interview with an infrastructure industry media outlet.

Now, in 2023, the Minister of Economy is also including the participation of the U.S. “We have presented the logistics corridor project to the United States and they were very interested. Perhaps Gina Raimondo, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, will join us at the official presentation,” said the minister.

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In its first phase, the Corridor foresees the rehabilitation of 200 kilometers of railroad tracks connecting the ports of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in addition to the construction of ten industrial parks referred to as Well-Being Development Zones (PODEBI).

“The idea is that in each zone there is a private operator who commits to an investment plan with employment generation goals and a short, medium, and long term development vision,” said the Minister of Economy.

In this regard, the federal official added that there exists a high probability that included among the economic stimuli for the project will be resources from the U.S. government, in addition to those that may be provided by the Mexican government and which will be determined by the Ministry of Finance.

Buenrostro’s recent statements contradict those of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who, since December 2018, when he assumed the presidency of Mexico, said that for reasons of “sovereignty” there would only be Mexican investment fueling the CIIT project.

Semiconductors

The Minister of Economy also elaborated on the possibility that part of the resources from the United States, coming from the Semiconductors Law or CHIPS Act, with 390 million dollars in spending, could be channeled towards the production of semiconductors in southern Mexico.

“Part of these funds could be invested in Mexico. This makes sense for the United States because there is an urgency in relocating (those resources). One issue that complicates rapid relocation is the shortage in their labor market. Taking that into consideration, Mexico is the best place to move companies that are now in Asia,” Buenrostro shared during a Mexico City meeting with financial media outlets.

At the same time, she pointed out that there exists between 1.8 and 2.8 billion dollars from the Inter-American Development Bank (BID) to fund the relocation of companies to Mexico. As a result, she mentioned, the administration will give priority to projects that choose to establish themselves in the Interoceanic Corridor.

“We have suggested they locate their investments in the south because in northern Mexico there is not enough water and, as well, it will allow for other problems to be attended to and resolved, such as those related to migration and development in southern Mexico and Central America,” said the minister.

Repression

The federal government’s announcement comes one week after the arrest of activist David Hernández Salazar, who, as a member of the municipal government of Puente Madera, an Indigenous Binniza community in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, supported the demands of his community in opposing the construction of an industrial park on their communal lands.

Following Salazar’s arrest, his community and social organizations mobilized. He was released after a few hours.

*^{Indigenous Binniza residents of Puente Madera, in the municipality of San Blas Atempa, protest against the imposition of an industrial park on their communal lands.}*

“It is not right that for defending our land, territory, human rights, and ourselves as Indigenous peoples we are criminalized, assaulted, and threatened for deciding to defend life when faced with their Megaprojects of Death,” denounced the Community Assembly of Puente Madera and the Assembly of the Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of Land and Territory (APIIDTT) following the release of Salazar.

In a statement, the above organizations once again stood firm in rejecting the installation of an industrial park linked to the CIIT and called for decentralized actions in solidarity with the peoples of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec on February 9, with an emphasis on the struggle against the imposition of the Interoceanic Corridor project.

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