In the early hours of Monday, Aug. 17, the Kayapó Mekragnotire people blockaded the BR-163 highway in Novo Progresso in the Brazilian state of Pará using tires, logs, and bows and arrows. They were demonstrating against the government’s inattention to the intense illegal deforestation in their territory, the lack of support for dealing with Covid-19, and the “Ferrogrão” rail line that will cross their lands.
According to the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), after the demonstration had gone on for 12 hours, “the Federal Justice of Itaituba (in Pará state) granted a judicial order to clear the demonstrators from the area at the behest of the federal government”.
In addition to the eviction order, Sandra María Correia da Silva, the federal judge from Itaituba district, imposed a daily fine equivalent to $1,800 US on the Kayapó people should they not comply. The blockade was maintained until 11 a.m. Tuesday Aug. 18.
The BR-163 highway is a land route through the Amazon that stretches over 2,800 miles (4,500 km). It crosses the entire country from north to south, connecting the Prata and Amazon watersheds. Agricultural exporters, primarily dealing in GMO soy and corn, have used it as an alternative to the high costs of moving their products along waterways.
This route was built in the 1970s during the military dictatorship and later abandoned when it began to break down. It wasn’t repaved until 2009. There are still 125 miles (200 km) of road that need to be completed, but some areas that had already been paved have started to fill in with potholes.
In July, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Brazil’s National Land Transport Agency (ANTT) presented a draft project called “Ferrogrão” for analysis by the Federal Audit Court (TCU). If approved, the project—580 miles (933 km) of new rail construction—would move into the bidding phase. This line would connect the Mid West region (Mato Grosso state) with Pará. It is one of the Bolsonaro administration’s highest priority plans and would primarily benefit soy-producing companies in the region.
“The construction of the Ferrogrão railway, intended for the distribution of soy produced in Mato Grosso, has a direct impact on the Indigenous lands if the Kayapó people in Pará”, said APIB.
Ferrogrão will be one of Brazil’s major routes and its stock is highly anticipated by investors. Its objective is to transport soy, corn, and cotton produced in Mato Grosso state, as well as fertilizer, sugar, ethanol, and petroleum derivatives.
The construction contract will be assigned to the bidder that offers the best value for the concession and, long-term, plans to reduce truck traffic on BR-163, to make the rail line the main route for soy.
In 2017 U.S.-based agroindustrial giant Cargill announced it would compete in the tender with a block of other U.S. and Brazilian companies. It has considered grain merchants such as Archer Daniel Midlands, Bunge Ltd., and Amaggi as potential partners, according to Luiz Petti, president of Cargill in Brazil.
The railway would cross at least 14 protected natural areas, through the Amazon Rainforest and the Cerrado, an extensive region of tropical savanna. This has the Kayapó people on alert, but on top of this, conditions haven’t been easy for them, with Covid-19 cases on the rise among Indigenous peoples. Furthermore, deforestation and illegal mining carried out by “garimpeiros”, who function as paramilitary groups, have been decimating their villages.
APIB demands the “end to deforestation and illegal mining on their reserves” and says, “the Kayapó Mekragnotire blame the authorities for the deaths of four elders and the infection of dozens of people on their land”.
The demonstrators also demanded “support for confronting the Covid-19 pandemic in the region and the expulsion of those invading their lands”.
The highway blocked ended on Tuesday Aug. 18, but the Kayapó have announced that they will continue with their actions, above all against the Ferrogrão railway.
The inhabitants of this small town in southern Mexico have been denouncing the environmental effects of one of Oaxaca’s largest mining projects for years. Now, in the midst of a pandemic, they are preparing to protest a new contamination of their waters and to demand answers from a government that has turned its back on them.
The lands of Magdalena Ocotlán, a small town in southern Mexico, are fertile and rich in gold and silver. Here most of the women are engaged in embroidery, tortilla making and trading the crops their husbands produce on the communal lands. In May, the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) included the village in a list of ‘Municipalities of Hope’, 324 territories that could continue with their economic activities because no cases of covid-19 were registered.
Hope was short lived in Magdalena Ocotlán. This Oaxacan municipality, like its neighbor San José del Progreso, registered its first infection shortly after the Cuzcatlán Mining Company – a subsidiary of Canada’s Fortuna Silver Mines – resumed operations on May 27. This had to do with the May 13 federal government classification as “essential activities” the automotive industry, construction, and mining; these sectors have full government support for continuing with their operations.
From that moment on, a terrible distrust assailed the people “because workers come from abroad, from the north of the country and from other cities”, said worried peasant farmer Felipe Martínez. Some of the town’s inhabitants also work in the mine. In fact, according to community authorities the person infected was the mother of a local mine employee who died from the virus, and they claim that there are other cases hidden by the company. Although the sanitary filters and the protocol implemented during the quarantine are maintained, there is no longer any assurance that covid-19 will not spread.
Corn crops in Magdalena Ocotlán are located less than three hundred meters from the Cuzcatlán mining site. Photo by Santiago Navarro F.
Of the 324 Municipalities of Hope, there are only 40 left without covid-19. The state of Oaxaca, the third poorest in the country, already had around 10,000 infections and 800 deaths from the coronavirus as of July 26. Today, Mexico is the country with the forth most deaths from covid-19 in the world and the sixth in number of infections. The story of Magdalena Ocotlán is that of a people who resist abandonment and, now, the measures implemented by AMLO to reactivate the economy over health.
Tests for covid-19? Fans? They never reach these communities, because not even the main cities in Oaxaca have what it takes to contain the rapid increase in infections and deaths from the coronavirus. There are municipalities with more than twenty deaths that do not appear in the figures, because they simply consider it a waste of time to report them. While this is happening, in the middle of the pandemic, the city of Oaxaca was awarded as the best tourist city in the world in the contest The World’s Best 2020, by the magazine Travel + Leisure. It also won with its typical dish, the tlayuda, in Netflix’s “Street Food: Latin America” survey.
The Cuzcatlán Mining Company maintains operations in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo by Santiago Navarro F.
Less than an hour from the tourist capital of Oaxaca, the campesinos of Magdalena Ocotlán face a double challenge: to protect themselves from the pandemic and from the effects of the “essential activity” of mining. On July 10, they noticed that the water from one of the dams they built to capture rainwater was contaminated. A reddish substance painted the water, which was previously crystal clear, and a kind of white mud floating on the surface gave off a foul smell. It seems that this strange substance was washed away by the rainwater runoff from the mining company’s tailings dam, which means that the crops may also be contaminated.
A substance that has contaminated the water in the pools from which the campesinos’ cattle in Magdalena Ocotlán drink water. Photo by Santiago Navarro F.
An old fear was revived among the villagers. It was not the first time their waters were affected by the activities of the Cuzcatlán Mining Company, which operates less than 300 meters from the town’s water dams and corn fields. Although contamination was only recorded in 2018, strange pigmentations have been found on the banks of the streams. “This is the third time we have registered visible contamination, but we are sure that there are other forms of contamination that we have not yet identified. That is why we no longer drink water from our wells, and although purified water is very expensive, now we all buy it”, said Olivia Sánchez, Ecology Councilwoman in Magdalena Ocotlán.
According to Cuzcatlán director Luis Camargo, the mining company “extracts 8 million ounces of silver and 50,000 ounces of gold per day. It is one of the three mining projects in the exploitation phase out of 355 mining concessions in this state of Oaxaca. Two active concessions are located in the territory of Magdalena Ocotlán and are subsidiaries of Fortuna Silver Mines. Together with the Gold Resource Corporation project, they exploit an area of 120,000 hectares.
Perhaps the level of contamination on this occasion is not comparable to the spill from the same mining company’s tailings dam that occurred in October 2018, but it is enough to alert the residents of Magdalena Ocotlán. That year, according to the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa), the spill spread approximately four kilometers over the course of El Coyote stream, whose waters flow into the Magdalena River, and this in turn, into the Atoyac River. This directly affected the Magdalena Ocotlán drinking water well, and that is why people began to buy bottled water.
On July 16, the authorities of the community of Magdalena Ocotlán took samples of contaminated water to Profepa and the National Water Commission (Conagua), but they were told that they did not comply with the necessary requirements, so the samples were not accepted. It took government officials seven days to arrive.
With good reason, the community’s inhabitants are doubtful of the environmental authorities, because their rulings show a certain servility towards the company, just like what happened with the 2018 spill. “We detected irregularities on the part of these institutions, who argued that they did not have the technical capacity. So it was the company that had to do and pay for all the tests to prove that there was no contamination”, explained lawyer José Pablo Antonio, Executive Services Coordinator of the Mixe town who is legally handling the Magdalena Ocotlán case.
Although they await the response to the complaint filed with Profepa and Conagua, the people of Magdalena Ocotlán know that their only option is to protest and resist. They sense that if before the pandemic these entities claimed not to have the technical capacity to deal with the problem, this time the response may be even worse.
Traditional authorities of Magdalena Ocotlán publicly denounce possible contamination by the Cuzcatlán Mining Company in Oaxaca City. Photo by Santiago Navarro F.
In 2018 the community had to mobilize to get a response from the authorities. Today, despite the health risks involved in a protest, the inhabitants of this municipality are also willing to make themselves heard. “We are preparing, because we are not going to wait any longer. We are going to carry out mobilizations and blockade the highway because the President of the Republic committed to send a commission in 2019 to evaluate the effects and he did not send anyone”, said the campesino Felipe Martínez.
The campesinos are worried about this contamination in the midst of the pandemic, but they are also angry. They received López Obrador in their community three times and told him all about the problem of contamination, but today they feel he has turned his back on them. “We feel betrayed, because he told us he was going to solve the problem and simply ignored us”, said the Ecology Councilwoman.
To have considered Magdalena Ocotlán as a territory of hope and, at the same time, mining as an “essential activity” has been a mockery for these campesinos. However, the resistance of this small population to one of the largest extractive projects in the state does constitute a symbol of hope for many other Oaxacan peoples who oppose the indiscriminate advance of the mining business.
Santiago Navarro F., member of the CONNECTAS journalistic community.
The U.S. government and private sector have contributed to fighting the coronavirus in the Amazon. Their intentions for the region concern local advocates.
With no coherent strategy to slow the advance of Covid-19 in the United States, the Trump administration deployed humanitarian aid to Brazil.
On May 1, the U.S. Embassy in Brazil announced that the Trump administration would allocate a total of $12.5 million to mitigate the socioeconomic and health impacts of the pandemic, with special attention on the Amazon.
“Combating Covid-19 in Brazil is our top priority right now. Working across the U.S. government and engaging closely with American companies in Brazil, we are mobilizing millions of dollars to help Brazilians in need,” said U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Todd Chapman on June 2.
By August 11, the South American country had over 3 million coronavirus cases and 101,752 confirmed deaths.Meanwhile, infections and deaths continue to rise in Brazil. By August 11, the South American country had over 3 million coronavirus cases and 101,752 confirmed deaths.
“It seems like this help didn’t arrive in time for Indigenous communities, especially those furthest from urban centers,” where deaths have increased drastically, says Adriana María Huber Azevedo, a missionary with the Conselho Indigenista Missionário (the Indigenist Missionary Council, CIMI).
Many Brazilians are skeptical of the intentions of U.S. aid during the pandemic. The U.S. military continues to exert influence in Brazil and has a long history of supporting Indigenous displacement in Latin America. Meanwhile, some aid contributions reflect private interests responsible for environmental and cultural destruction in the Amazon, and others have promoted unproven medical treatments.
Coronavirus Enters the Amazon
The Kokama community, on the banks of the Solimões River in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, consist of around 800 people. They are one of the groups that has been most affected by Covid-19. By the second week of June, a total of 57 Indigenous Kokama people had died. The pandemic is spreading across the region at an alarming speed. Cases and deaths are mounting, and at least 75 different tribal groups have been affected.
The first coronavirus case and death in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, was confirmed when a businessman died in March. The virus quickly spread through more than 25 Indigenous communities.
“The third week of March, the first case among Indigenous peoples was identified. They say that a young Kokama woman, from the town of São José in the municipality of Santo Antônio do Içá, 879 kilometers [546 miles] from Manaus, caught the virus from contact with a doctor”,
SAID CIMI’S EXECUTIVE SECRETARY ANTÔNIO EDUARDO CERQUEIRA DE OLIVEIRA.
In a few weeks, cases rapidly expanded towards the Alto Solimões region, made up of 70 municipalities with a population of around 70,000 Indigenous people from several tribes.
Vale do Javari, located in western Amazonas, has the second highest Indigenous presence of any region in Brazil. At least 7,000 individuals from seven different peoples live there, including them 15 uncontacted tribes. Public servants working for the Special Districts of Indigenous Health (DSEI) who were in the region were confirmed to be infected with Covid-19.
According to records from the Missionary Council, by June 9, the Coordenação das Organizações Indígenas da Amazônia Brasileira (Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon, COIAB) had counted 218 deaths and 2,642 cases among 75 tribes in the area in which DSEI functionaries were operating. CIMI’s June 23 tally had documented a total of 314 deaths in the Amazon region. At that point, the Secretaria Especial de Saúde Indígena (the Special Ministry of Indigenous Health, SESAI) had reported only 107 deaths; the rest were documented by Indigenous organizations.
The under-reporting by official sources has continued. By August 6, SESAI’s confirmed case countamong Indigenous people had climbed to 17,198, but their claim of only 305 deaths is still less than CIMI’s figures from June. The Articulación de los Pueblos Indígenas de Brasil (Articulation of Indigenous People of Brazil, APIB), an independent body, reports 22,656 confirmed cases and 639 deaths.
U.S. Aid to Brazil
United States institutions in Brazil have disbursed funds for several purposes since May. According to an Embassy announcement, funds have contributed to “assistance for emergency health and water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions in Brazil (US$ 6 million),” “support to vulnerable communities, with a focus on the Amazon region (US$ 2 million),” and “refugees in Brazil (US$ 500,000).”
The United States Government has delivered two million doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to the people of BrazilAs part of the humanitarian aid package, USAID promised to deliver some 1,000 ventilators. According to a U.S. Embassy statement, since May, “The United States Government has delivered two million doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to the people of Brazil … HCQ will be used as a prophylactic to help defend Brazil’s nurses, doctors, and healthcare professionals against the virus. It will also be used as a therapeutic to treat Brazilians who become infected.”
However, Sebastião Pinheiro, a Brazilian agronomist, argues that the donation of this drug is merely publicity. “It’s a business deal by Trump, to benefit the Bayer-Sanofi companies that produce this medication. There is no scientific foundation backing its use against Covid-19… …It’s only Bolsonaro’s administration that promotes it,” said Pinheiro.
Bolsonaro, with no tangible scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of hydroxycloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19, began promoting it as the U.S. Embassy donated the drugs. When Bolsonaro tested positive for the coronavirus in July, he continued to promote hydroxychloroquine as a treatment.
Brazilian Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta was fired in April after refusing to promote the drug. One month later, his successor Nelson Teich resigned after disagreeing with Bolsonaro’s re-opening plan.
PRAINHA, Brazil, Feb. 26, 2019: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Byron C. Linder/Released
Military Presence in the Amazon
While the pandemic advances in Brazil, it is not only the U.S. Embassy and USAID that have intervened, but also the U.S. military’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which covers South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
On May 27, SOUTHCOM announced the donation of $45,000 worth of PPE for medical personnel and food for the region. This comes on top of the $2 million that USAID had donated to the Amazon region “to prevent transmission, support treatment and help mitigate health impacts of the virus,” according to the U.S. Embassy.
While this aid was being delivered to the Municipal Health Ministry and Civil Defense of Manaus, as well as Delphina Aziz Hospital, Ambassador Chapman said, “These donations demonstrate our commitment to the people of the Amazon region and to Brazil.”
SOUTHCOM has had a presence in the region for years. In 2017, it participated in the AmazonLog2017project, carried out along the border of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. The event served as a military exercise and a showcase of the weapons industry, carried out in three phases between August 28 and November 13, 2017. More than 2,000 troops participated, from the Brazilian, Colombian, and Peruvian armies as well as those of invited countries, among them SOUTHCOM.
Pinheiro is skeptical of the declared goals of the U.S. presence in the Amazon. “If coronavirus in the U.S. has mostly impacted poor, Latino, and African American people because there’s no public health system, are they really interested in poor and Indigenous people in the Amazon?” he said.
Pinheiro argues that the U.S. presence has other objectives.Pinheiro argues that the U.S. presence has other objectives.“Bolsonaro promised the United States and American companies that he would push Indigenous peoples out of their territories to open up public lands for the expansion of agriculture, ranching, mining, and energy production, among other things. The 2019 wildfires helped with this, in the same way coronavirus is working now,” he said.
According to Pinheiro, in September 2019, while the wildfires all over the Brazilian Amazon were intensifying, the U.S. and Brazil governments reaffirmed their promotion of “private sector development in the Amazon”.
This agreement was announced in Washington DC by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and his Brazilian counterpart Ernesto Araújo. In a press conference on September 13, 2019, they outlined a bilateral cooperation strategy to be implemented in the Amazon.
“The Brazilians and the American teams will follow through on our commitment that our presidents made in March [2019]. We’re getting off the ground a $100 million 11-year Impact Investment Fund for Amazon biodiversity conservation", said Pompeo.
Araújo agreed: “We want to be together in the effort to create development for the Amazon region, which we are convinced … is the only way to really protect the forest.” He added, “We need new initiatives, new productive initiatives that create jobs, that create revenue for people in the Amazon, and that’s where our partnership with the United States will be very important for us.”
These declarations built on a meeting between the presidents of the U.S. and Brazil in March 2019. Trump said, “President Bolsonaro and I are both committed to reducing trade barriers, facilitating investment, and supporting innovation across a range of industries, particularly energy, infrastructure, agriculture, and technology. [Bolsonaro]’s vision for freeing the private sector and opening the economy is the right way for Brazil to achieve strong economic growth.”
The Brazilian leader confirmed the increase in military cooperation between Brazil and the U.S., through access to a military base in Alcântara and technological exchange.
The cozy relationship between Ambassador Chapman’s and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro also indicates increasingly close ties between the two governments. Chapman, who was appointed to the position in late March, came under fire after an article surfaced in Brazilian newspaper O Globoon July 30 claiming that he had asked for Brazil to lower ethanol tariffs as a political favor to boost Trump’s poll figures in Iowa.
The revelations have increased concern over Chapman’s strong ties to private industry. According to his U.S. Embassy bio, “Chapman’s career has focused on promoting economic development and security partnerships around the world.” Prior to entering the Foreign Service, “[H]e worked as a commercial banker in New York and Saudi Arabia, and later as a business consultant in Brazil and his hometown of Houston, Texas.”
The Private Sector and Covid-19
According to the U.S. Embassy in São Paulo, at least “four hundred of the five hundred largest companies in the United States are in Brazil, many for several decades, sharing and developing solutions for Brazil and for the world.”
Some of these companies, with investments across several production and service sectors in Brazil, have joined onto the Trump administration strategy during the pandemic. By May 31, approximately $40.5 million had been donated by U.S. companies to support Brazilians during the pandemic.
Along with the private sector, the U.S. government donated $53 million to combat the impacts of Covid-19 in Brazil. This was a joint action between the American Chamber of Commerce for Brazil (Amcham), the U.S. Embassy, and the Mais Unidos group.
Mais Unidos is a collaborative social investment fund, partnering “the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Brazil through its U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and American companies.”
“The United States government and private sector are strongly committed to helping the Brazilian people to combat Covid-19 in Brazil,” the Embassy announced in a report.
These businesses have directly and indirectly incentivized Amazon deforestation.Donor companies include agro-industrial giants including Bunge, Cargill, ADM, Dupont, McDonald’s, CocaCola, Pepsico, and BurgerKing, among others. These businesses have directly and indirectly incentivized Amazon deforestation. Amazon Watch documented these trends in their report Complicity in Destruction II. Many of these donations came in the form of the companies’ own products rather than cash.
Cargill, Bunge, and ADM are the three largest soy producers in Brazil. These companies supply soy to many international firms, including fast food brands such as McDonald’s, KFC, and Burger King. According to the environmental organization Greenpeace, at least 35 billion hectares (86 billion acres), an area the size of Germany, is devoted to soy production alone.
A Greenpeace report found that soy production in Brazil has more than quadrupled over the past two decades, and is expected to increase by another third over the next 10 years. This would be an area equivalent to three times the size of Belgium.
Soy is used to feed livestock, another factor in the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon. According to Jorge Camardelli, president of the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association (ABIEC), in 2019 Brazil broke its records in beef exports—1.8 million tons, worth $7.6 billion, a 12.5 percent increase from 2018. As of July 2019, Brazil had 232 million head of cattle distributed across the most strategic areas of the country, like the Amazon.
It is possible that American companies are worried about containing the spread of Covid-19. But these executives are also concerned with restarting commercial production and, with it, projects that have been put on hold. When the pandemic has passed, they hope the U.S. and Brazilian governments continue to turn a blind eye to the environmental and social consequences of transnational businesses in the Amazon region. Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to affect Brazil’s most vulnerable populations with no end in sight.
David Milan is a freelance writer and translator based in Tucson, Arizona. He regularly works with Avispa Midia, an independent media collective covering political, economic, and social events in Latin America.
On July 13, Mapuche spiritual authority Celestino Córdova completed his 71st day of hunger strike in the Angol prison in Chile’s Araucanía region. With his health in a fragile state and having lost 20 kg (45 lbs.), Córdova stated in a communique: “in the case of my possible death I ask my people to not let their guard down”.
Córdova has been on a liquid-only hunger strike since May 4, along with eight other members of his community. They’re demanding the Chilean state allow them to be transferred to their communities, so they can complete their sentences safely amid the Covid-19 health emergency.
Córdova is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence for his alleged involvement in the death of businessman Werner Luchsinger and his wife, Vivianne Mackay, whose charred bodies were found after a fire in January 2013.
In October 2017 the Temuco Court’s Oral Tribunal decided to dismiss charges against 11 Mapuche people for their alleged involvement in the couple’s death. The ruling was unanimous and emphasized the Public Minister’s failure to prove that any of the accused were implicated. Córdova is the only person to be sentenced for the supposed murder of the Luchsingers.
Cristina Romo, one of the hunger strike’s spokespeople, made a call to the rest of the Mapuche Nation to combat this injustice with all types of action: “We call far and wide to continue the different mobilizations (…) keeping in mind that each strong action that our Mapuche sisters and brothers carry out, regardless of where it is done, is the struggle of our Mapuche people and nation”, read the spokeswoman in a communique.
The group of spokespeople stated that, clearly, “the government does not have the resolve to offer a political solution to the critical situation of the Mapuche political prisoners’ hunger strike.
“Dialogue is urgent. We must break the deadlock of the hunger strike. If this ends badly it would make understanding and peace in the Araucanía region extremely difficult”, said Chile’s National Human Rights Institute (INDH) Sergio Micco.
Leonor Olate, the spiritual leader’s private doctor, assured that “as Machi Celestino Córdova’s doctor … I must communicate the seriousness of his state of physical health: severe cardiovascular, renal, and neurological deterioration. A prompt response by the government to his demands is necessary”.
With complete resolve and conviction, Córdova asks his people not only to resist, but also “to fight until the Chilean state returns our ancestral Mapuche territory and the natural resources go back to all of its inhabitants, because today many of them find themselves robbed of their freedom by the Chilean state, causing great spiritual, personal, and socioeconomic damage".
Córdova is talking about the Temuco region, where the greatest number of Mapuche communities and associations are located. It’s known as the “red zone”, a territory where the original peoples claim the land of their ancestors, the majority of which is in the hands of factory and plantation owners.
UPDATE
On the 74th day of his liquid-only hunger strike, Machi Celestino Córdova was urgently transferred to Imperial hospital.
“He’s in the most serious phase. He has too many physical after-effects from the 2018 hunger strike and today we’re up against time”, said Romo.
The spokeswoman called on Chile and the world to show solidarity: “All solidarity, all help, all contributions, all mobilizations are welcomed. Joining the legitimate Mapuche struggle for land defense and liberation. Supporting the dignified resistance of Machi Celestino Córdova, of the eight political prisoners in the Angol jail and the 11 political prisoners in the Lebu jail”.
Solo se ha llenado el 30% del embalse y las comunidades de la Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé- han tenido que reorganizarse en otros lugares para continuar sus vidas.
For decades, the discourse of “development” has flooded the Latin American region to promote extractive projects of various kinds on campesinos and indigenous lands: open-pit mining, construction of hydroelectric dams and road and energy infrastructure, among many other mega-projects implemented without the consent of the communities.
With the endorsement of global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as investment from private and state corporations, these projects have been violently imposed, leading to the forced displacement of entire communities and the persecution, criminalization and murder of those who resist the devastation of their territories and the environment.
Now, under the pretext of climate change, capitalism presents ideas such as “clean energy” and “carbon neutral”, which promote initiatives that exacerbate dispossession at the global level. With these arguments, echoed by NGOs, governments and institutions such as the UN, the aim is to promote a series of projects that far from questioning the roots of global warming, seek to clean up the image of those responsible for the devastation.
“Our struggle is clearly against all exploitation”, stated the people of Latin America, who witness the negative consequences of “green” projects within the framework of “clean energy” and “conservation” of nature.
Ruins of the Chacté dam workers’ camp. More than three decades ago, the people of Cancuc expelled the workers because they did not have the permission of the communities. Today the land is used for planting maize and coffee plantations. Photo by Aldo Santiago
Avispa Midia, in collaboration with the Chiapaneco Group against the Extractive Model, presents The False Myth of Clean Energy, a documentary that gathers the testimonies of communities that are on the front line against the assault of the green economy, which seeks to put a price on the common goods of nature in Chiapas, Latin America and the world.
Voices from Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico combine in this audiovisual document to disarticulate the deception of the so-called “clean energies”, implemented under the discourse of “mitigation” of the effects of climate change and with negative impacts on the territories.
This documentary aims to contribute to the analysis of the communities for whom the environmental struggle represents an anti-capitalist struggle.
The false myth of clean energy in Latin America
Length: 46 minutes
Interviews: Alcaldía indígena de Nebaj, Asociación de Afectados por la represa El Quimbo, Comunidades afectadas por Hidrosogamoso, Comunidad Lenca de Río Blanco, Comunidad Náyeri de Presidio de Los Reyes, Parroquia de Cancúc, Otros Mundos AC, Centro de Derechos Humanos Digna Ochoa AC, Movimiento Reddeldía de los Montes Azules, Frente Popular en Defensa del Soconusco 20 de junio.
Images and sound: Lucia Ramirez, Juliana Bittencourt, Santiago Navarro, Beatriz Millón y Aldo Santiago
Directed by: Claudia Ramos Guillén y Aldo Santiago
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, two prisoner organizations in Chiapas announced the start of a hunger strike to denounce the lack of medical attention in State Convict Reintegration Center No. 5 (CERSS), located in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
Faced with the vulnerable conditions and deteriorating health of the incarcerated population on top of the inaction of state officials, members of La Voz de Indígenas en Resistencia (The Voice of Indigenous People in Resistance) and La Voz Verdadera del Amate (The True Voice of El Amate) announced that they would go on hunger strike from May 21 until June 5.
Alarm Bells From Weeks Ago
At the beginning of May, the organized prisoners shared their situation through several letters distributed by civil organizations. There have been no advances in case revision or their demand for freedom due to the irregularities and procedural violations in the trials that have kept them locked up.
Already poor conditions have also worsened due to the state’s suspension of visits, to limit contagion. This action has negatively impacted the inmates, as visits from family and comrades were how they received food, medication, and hygiene products, or money to buy their basic necessities inside the prison.
“We can’t fulfill our basic needs because visitors don’t have access, and this penitentiary doesn’t give us soap, toothpaste, or toilet paper”, assertedChiapas’ organized prisoners, facing a situation that’s not limited to this southern Mexican state. According to the 2016 National Survey of the Population Deprived of Freedom, almost 60% of people incarcerated in Mexican penitentiaries have to get hygiene articles by their own means, because the jails don’t provide them.
Despite the restriction on visits, in a communiqué published on May 10, the prisoners emphasized the high risk of contagion due to the guards’ lack of protocols. Guards are relieved every two days and do not have access to sanitary equipment or methods when they interact with the incarcerated population.
“The center lacks medications we need for any kind of emergency. The only thing they give out here is Tylenol,” stated the prisoners. May 14 marked the one-year anniversary of the protest camp they have maintained to demand their freedom. “The government of Chiapas has ignored our demands because we’re victims of torture committed by the Chiapan state prosecution. The government wants to see us die here. Our place is deplorable, but we will continue until we get our freedom, no matter the cost”, they emphasized in their communique.
Actions in Response to the Pandemic
The prisoners justified their hunger strike by the lack of attention given to the health of inmates who show Covid-19 related symptoms, “not even providing medication for the symptoms.”
They also shared their worry over prison officials’ denial of possible infections among their staff, and even of the unconfirmed death of one officer.
Since May 4, the prisoners have been drawing attention to the fact that a diabetic inmate showed symptoms related to Covid-19, and after interacting with other prisoners, was isolated without receiving medical attention.
According to prisoners, this case demonstrates the need to grant house arrest to infected people to avoid risking the health of the entire incarcerated population. As their denunciation states, “The population inside is suffering from fevers, muscle pains, and diarrhea. What we don’t know is if this is the Covid-19 virus or normal fevers. There’s no way to get a Covid-19 test and there are medications for the inmates.” The two organizations emphasized the grave health risks they face, because they have members with hypertension, diabetes, variousinfections, and other ailments that can increase the mortality rate of the coronavirus.
There are more than 200,000 imprisoned people in Mexico, and according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), 46% of those incarcerated share a cell with more than five people.
Since March 15, 2019, the organized prisoners have demanded their unconditional freedom due to multiple irregularities in the arrest and trial process. They held a 135 day hunger strike, during which they consumed only water and honey, which has undermined their health and puts them at even higher risk if they get infected with Covid-19.
By May 18, the National Human Rights Commission had registered 120 positive Covid-19 cases in penitentiaries, in addition to 74 suspected cases, 28 recoveries, and 21 deaths.
