Geologist from Minaurum in Santa Martha, Cantera 1. Photo: minaurum.com
On September 4th, a committee of residents and municipal authorities of San Miguel Chimalapa, Oaxaca, handed the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) a formal statement completely rejecting mining exploration and exploitation in their territory.
The comuneros contested the legitimacy of minutes from a September 30, 2018 assembly, which supposedly took place in the community of La Cristalina and grants the Canadian company Minaurum Gold S.A. de C.V. permission to carry out mining exploration, investigation, and analysis. The decision was made without consent from the municipal or communal authorities and much less “the general assembly of the Zoque community,” as the document states. As such, they demand that the SEMARNAT deny permission to the mining company.
In an interview with Avispa Midia, the committee of residents and municipal authorities that presented this document emphasized, “we are not requesting a consultation; we are giving our position regarding this attempted mining exploration, and the position of the community is clear: the mine is not wanted.” Avispa Midia obtained a copy of the document submitted to SEMARNAT, which clearly states: “Through general assemblies and records issued and signed by former municipal and communal authorities, our community in its entirety has expressed our total rejection of mining exploration and exploitation in all our communal and municipal territory”.
Statement by the municipal, agrarian, and communal authorities of San Miguel Chimalapa received by the SEMARNAT.
Background
Through several aliases and subsidiaries in Mexico, the Canadian Minaurum Gold Corporation has or is in the process of acquiring the mineral rights to more than 247,000 acres of Mexican territory, equal to about two-thirds the area of Mexico City. It has opened up at least eight mining projects in three Mexican states under just three of its subsidiaries: Minera Mariposa S.A. de C.V., Esperanza Silver de Mexico S.A. de C.V., and Minera Zalamera S.A. de C.V.
In Oaxaca, Minera Zalamera has seven mining concessions in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region alone. On March 14, 2017, Minaurum Gold, S.A. de C.V., another subsidiary, applied for a 97,908 acre mining concession called Sea of Copper 2 in Santiago Niltepec. It is still in process under file number 062/10049.
On July 23, 2020, the company submitted an environmental impact statement to the SEMARNAT for a permit for “direct mining exploration by 20 drilling units” as part of the “Santa Martha Mining Exploration,” according to La Gaceta Ecológica in a report published August 13.
However, on its website the company admits that it has already carried out reconnaissance, rock sampling, geological mapping, and even an aerial geophysical survey with the Versatile Time Domain Electromagnetic (VTEM) system. They’ve used this to study 508 miles of deposits and geological environments, identifying seven key objectives.
Example of aerogeophysical survey with the VTEM system. Photo by the company GEOTECH
The Santa Martha project would extract gold and copper across a 15,839 acre expanse, with 100% of the profit going to the company, as Minaurum admits. Close to the Chimalapas Jungle, six miles from Zanatepec and 77 miles from the port of Salina Cruz, the project would be strategically close to the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a controversial infrastructural project currently under construction, in one of the most biodiverse areas of the country.
That is why the statement to the SEMARNAT signed by the members of the council, the agrarian and communal authorities, and the municipal president of San Miguel Chimalapa states: “We ask the SEMARNAT to refrain from granting such exploration permits ( …) as the permits are granted without the consent of the Zoque community, undermining our rights as Indigenous people and ancestral owners of the territory that comprises the core of San Miguel Chimalapa.”
The document also warns that "the environmental impact would bring irreversible consequences in our territory, mainly in the aquifers, since Chimalapa is primarily virgin forest with an immense variety of endangered flora and fauna.”
It is addressed to, among others, Oaxacan Governor Alejandro Murat, the heads of the Ministry of Economy and the SEMARNAT, President of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) Rosario Piedra Ibarra, and head of the National Institute of Indigenous People (INPI) Adelfo Regino.
The residents, as well as the municipal authorities who presented it, stated: “We are going to wait for the SEMARNAT to respond after delivering this document that states we do not want mining exploration or exploitation. (…) We are exercising our right to autonomy and self-determination by handing over our position in writing; now it is up to them to assess it”.
A number of organizations, collectives, and individuals have thrown their solidarity behind the EZLN after a paramilitary attack on the Zapatista village of Moisés Gandhi on August 22. Ocosingo Coffee Growers Organization (ORCAO), the group behind the attack, pillaged coffee storehouses and set fire to the Nuevo Amanecer del Arcoíris trading center in the autonomous township of Lucio Cabañas, in Ocosingo, Chiapas.
The National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and Indigenous Council of Government (CIG) condemned the acts and launched a call “against the war of extermination that’s quickly escalating against our sisters and brothers in the Zapatista villages who teach us to never stop sowing rebellion and hope.”
The Zapatista Europe Network, made up of many different collectives, released a communiqué on August 26 demanding “an end to the war against the Zapatista villages and an end to the actions of paramilitary groups like ORCAO, in Ocosingo.”
The Paso Doble Collective also showed their solidarity with the EZLN and made a call “to be alert in this new phase of the war.”
The Metropolitan Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Patriarchal Coordination denounced the acts as well, laying the blame on the Chiapan and federal governments for their complicity and silence regarding paramilitary activity. “This new act of aggression forms part of an intensification in the war of attrition against the Mexican state of Chiapas and is characterized by increasing violence perpetrated by paramilitary groups and organized criminal gangs,” they said in a joint statement signed by more than 500 other collectives and individuals.
The network expressed its solidarity and stated that “those of us who have signed this document are calling on Mexican and international civil society to join us in denouncing recent aggressions against indigenous communities. We demand an end to the aggression and hostility aimed at the Zapatista support bases.”
Along with these collectives, Germany’s Ya Basta NETZ network strongly condemned the attacks and expressed its solidarity with EZLN support communities. “All our solidarity with our Zapatista comrades and all the peoples of Mexico who are building their autonomy,” they announced.
This isn’t the first time that ORCAO has committed violence against Zapatista communities, specifically in Moisés Gandhi autonomous township. For years they have “intimidated and threatened the comrades who from below wager on hope, such as the attacks against comrades of the National Indigenous Congress, who were violated and kidnapped by paramilitaries from ORCAO, the Chinchulines, and people from the Morena party,” stated the CNI-CIG in a communiqué.
The attack in Moisés Gandhi comes on top of the constant violence and persecution suffered by Zapatista communities. “On July 17, a young girl named María Luciana Lunes Pérez was wounded by a bullet while working the loom in her house in the community of Koko’ in Aldama, Chiapas,” according to the Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Center for Human Rights.
Amid this series of abuses against Zapatista communities, Kafé Kapel in the UK, MutVitz13 in Marseilles, France, CaféZ in Liege, Belgium, Women of the Sixth in the Other Europe, and Women Adherents of the Sixth in Jovel, Chiapas “urged a ceasefire and the disarming of the paramilitary groups that continue acts of aggression against the communities of Aldama, Chiapas.”
Participants in the “Dance yourself another world” dance space condemned the violence against Zapatista communities and joined onto the demands for the immediate halt to hostilities against them, saying, “we don’t forget our steps in your dignified lands, we don’t forget that other dance that is possible. Our steps are not immobile; we are with you.”
The demonstrations of solidarity and the call to put an end to the war of extermination against the Zapatista villages in this historic moment hits harder now that the violence has intensified amid the silence of state and federal authorities.
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”.
