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Mexico: Indigenous People in Oaxaca Sue Federal Government and 18 Authorities

Por
Santiago Navarro F
-

“Today we have decided to fight by legal means, and we are ready for whatever it takes to defend our territory. We're not going to let this company in, and there is nothing to negotiate”. —Cirino Martínez Flores

In Oaxaca alone, the Ministry of Economy has issued 322 mineral rights concessions to extract silver, gold, copper, and zinc, among other minerals. In doing so, it has violated the right to previous and informed consultation not only of the Chontal region, but of all peoples in Oaxaca.

At least 16 Chontal communities in the Oaxacan Isthmus that could be affected by mineral exploitation have decided to, by judicial means, impede and prohibit extraction in their territory. The indigenous community of Santa María Zapotitlán, part of the municipality of Santa María Ecatepec, Oaxaca, filed writ of amparoi #1208/2018 against mining concession #238447 and the Mining Law. This mining concession belongs to Minera Zalamera S.A. de C.V., a company in Canadian hands.

The motion was filed in the Fourth District Court in the state of Oaxaca. In doing so, the communities have sued 18 federal and state authorities for granting the mineral concession—valid for 50 years—to Zalamera S.A. de C.V., a subsidiary of the Canadian company Minaurum Gold Inc., which seeks to extract gold, silver, copper, zinc, and lead. Through this legal recourse, the communities have denounced two things: "the unconstitutionality of the Mining Law and the granting of this concession, which is in violation of several rights", stated Armando de la Cruz Cortez, a Chontal lawyer.

Cruz, who is also a coordinator of the NGO Tequio Jurídico, mentioned that the lawsuit also targets the federal government because "the concession was granted by the Ministry of Economy, but it has its basis in the Mining Law". By arguing that resources below the subsoil fall under federal jurisdiction, this law "grants concessions without the authorization of any community authority, and is therefore an act of imposed authority that ignores rights, including international rights, such as the right to consultation", said the lawyer.

Among those being sued are: the Chamber of Deputiesii and the Senate, the President of Mexico through the Ministry of Economy, the Secretary of Governance, the director of the Official Journal of the Federation, the Secretary of Economy, the General Mining Coordinator of the Ministry of Economy, and the head of the Ministry of Economy's Oaxaca branch, among others. "Within these 18 authorities is a portion of the mining sector at the federal level, with the Ministry of Economy and its state representatives at the head. The entire mining sector of Oaxaca has also been sued", added the lawyer.

The suit was brought on December 18, 2018 by the indigenous community of Santa María Zapotitlán, which is part of the Chontal People's Assembly for the Defense of our Territory (Asamblea del Pueblo Chontal para la Defensa de Nuestro Territorio, APCHDT). Two days later, the Fourth District Court granted a "complete suspension”. "This suspension is a preventative measure, but moreover it’s a measure that we consider important. By declaring the complete suspension, the judge has ordered all of the authorities named as responsible to leave things in the state in which they find them. That is to say, they are not to carry out actions that could deprive the plaintiff communities of their property or the possession and use of their agrarian rights—neither partially nor totally, temporarily nor permanently", said Cruz. The lawyer mentioned that, along with the preventative suspension, the judge also ordered the defendants to submit a report in relation to the suit, but the branches of the mining sector in Oaxaca "have responded that it is not their responsibility, it’s the Federation’s”.

For their part, the authorities responsible at the Federal level have responded to the amparo with a complaint (document number 110-02-05 659/2019) in which they argue that the suspension "is inappropriate, because the contested acts are by nature not suspendible". The complaint, filed by Silvia Meneses Gonzales, Deputy Director-General of Litigation for the Office of the Attorney General of the Ministry of Economy, also states that "it is illegal by violation of that decreed by Section II of Article 128, interpreted in accordance with Article 129 Section XIII of the Law of Amparo".

The articles referenced, specifically Article 128, establish that a judge may decree a suspension only as long as the following requirements are met: "II. That harm to the public interest does not result, nor do violations to regulations of public order".

Article 129 states that, among other examples, the following are considered to be instances of harm to public interest or violations of public order regulations: "XIII. Impeding or obstructing the State in the utilization, leverage, or exploitation of the resources over which it has direct dominion, referenced in Article 27 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States". These are the articles the Ministry of Economy is using to appeal for the suspension to be overturned.

"They objected because they think that the suspension affects their rights. First, they're saying that this suspension is damaging to the public interest and they're centering this on the Ministry of Economy's authority to exploit mineral resources by means of its mining concessions. Second, they argue that it's infringing on a law that has to do with public order—they're referring to the Mining Law", stated Cruz.

For the lawyer, "public interest" loses all meaning at the moment "in which an authority grants territory to a private business for its exploitation, because it loses the direct administration of that resource. That interest is no longer that of the nation; it becomes a business's private interest, in opposition to the collective interest of a community. The community's interest ends up being violated by that of the business. The judge has to look at all of this, and is obligated to follow international regulations when issuing a resolution”.

The company, which in this case is the affected party, "had to be notified as well, and was supposed to have issued a report, but up to this moment there has still been nothing from them", he adds.

Cruz condemned the fact that the representative of the Ministry of Economy "is handling not only the defense of the President of the Republic but that of everyone from the Ministry of Economy. But what worries us most is that she's also acting as the voice of the company. It’s worrying that this «Fourth Transformationiii» government has sent us this message—so concretely in this case—when at the same time they say they're looking out for human rights and indigenous peoples in defense of their territory. They're contradicting themselves", said the plaintiff communities' counsel.

The Mexican Congress has also submitted its report, added Cruz: "The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have said that the Mining Law is constitutional, legal, and doesn't violate any rights or guarantees of any indigenous peoples, and as such, they request that the case end here".

The Common Denominator

Cirino Martínez Flores, a Chontal man, doesn't know much about laws, but along with other campesinos, he was chosen to help with territorial defense by Zapotitlán's community assembly. He tells of how his pueblo decided to organize itself when one of the traditional authorities realized that the mineral rights of this territory had been conceded. "I stand together with the Common Lands Commission to confront this mine", Martínez said with conviction. He is one of the spokespeople of the group of 16 communities from the Chontal People's Assembly for the Defense of our Territory (APCHDT).

As is the case with the majority of villages where this type of license has been issued, the indigenous people of this region received no information, much less any consultation about this concession. "In 2011, [representatives of the mining company] went to the Common Lands Commission and only said that they wanted to do some soil studies; they never said it was for a mine. After they conducted many studies, we became concerned and asked our uses and customs authorities to investigate. That's when we found out about this concession to the Zalamera company", said Martínez.

Minera Zalamera S.A. de C.V. holds seven mineral concessions in Oaxaca's Isthmus region alone, principally for the exploitation of gold, silver, copper, and zinc. In addition to Zapotitlán, there is Jackita in Santo Domingo Zanatepec, San José in the municipality of Ayala, Aurena in Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, Riqueza Marina 1 and 2 in Santo Domingo Tehuantepec, and Riqueza Marina 3 en Santa María Mixtequilla. None of these municipalities were consulted prior to the issuance of these concessions, much less neighboring communities, which would also be affected. There are other companies that also hold concessions. "In this Isthmus and Chontal region, we're talking about more than 60 concessions", stated Tequio Jurídico's lawyer.

Oaxaca is a majority indigenous state. Of the 56 indigenous peoples recognized in Mexico, 16 are found here, with their own forms of government. Around 78% of land in Oaxaca, or 7,359,680 hectares, is collective property in the hands of native peoples. In Oaxaca alone, the Ministry of Economy has issued 322 mineral rights concessions to extract silver, gold, copper, and zinc, among other minerals. In doing so, it has violated the right to previous and informed consultation not only of the Chontal region, but of all peoples in Oaxaca. "We haven't heard of a single one of these concessions being permitted or authorized by the pueblos, and they haven't been informed of potential dangers. Therefore, we think this action is an attack against the constitution itself as well as the international human rights framework, like [convention] 169 of the International Labor Organization, with regard to indigenous rights and culture. And in the rest of the country, this is the common denominator, because concessions have been imposed that violate the fundamental rights of native peoples", argued the lawyer.

Some ten transnational corporations are behind the majority of mining concessions in Mexico, including Minaurum Gold Inc., Zalamera's parent company. This transnational is headed by an experienced exploration and administration team "who has been credited for the discovery of more than 200 million ounces of silver and eight million ounces of gold in Mexico", according to the company's 2018 official report. Their official website shows 12 mining concessions, distributed among Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero, and Morelos. One of them is in the Gold Belt of Guerrero, which in recent years has been one of the main gold producing states. In contrast, this state is also one of the poorest in Mexico, with a high level of violence and social fragmentation.

Mining Fund

Before Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office as the President of Mexico, he announced the creation of a mining fund through Graciela Márquez, an official in the Ministry of Economy. Through it, the taxes paid by mining companies would be used to compensate for the damages they caused.

This fund was created with 2013's fiscal reform, during Enrique Peña Nieto's presidency. Mines are charged a special tax of 7.5% of their profits, which goes to the "development" of communities close to mineral extraction. This fund is currently controlled by the Ministry of Economy.

The Chontal people know what the Mining Fund goes to and they don’t agree with what is being proposed. "We know that this program to compensate people and villages affected by mining has been around since before the current government. But it's a strategy that reinforces land dispossession, because these resources are not going to satisfy the many needs of communities. What's more, this resource isn't going to compensate for even a fraction of what a company like this will leave", stated Cruz.

The Chontals have also not been seduced by the prospects of so-called community development proposed to them by several successive governments. "For us as campesinos, development is in our lands, our community, because it's our mother Earth and that's where we work, that's where we live. For us, that's where development is, and we're not interested in what the government thinks is best for us. Because without anyone telling us, we can see: if this mine goes through, what's going to happen to our children and grandchildren? They're going to wipe us out as the Chontal people. We're the ones who are going to be the hardest hit", declared Martínez Flores.

At the entrance to Zapotitlán, there's a guardhouse that is manned so as not to let any strangers into the community. "We're well organized; we're in resistance. We keep an eye on our authorities to make sure there are no negotiations with the government, because the highest authority is the Community Assembly and anyone who sells themselves out will be expelled from the community. Today we have decided to fight by legal means, and we are ready for whatever it takes to defend our territory. We're not going to let this company in, and there is nothing to negotiate. This is already an agreement of our 16 communities that are fighting together", added Martínez Flores.

Whether or not these pueblos win this amparo, this action is a "tool that other pueblos will be able to use to defend their territory, and what we hope is that other pueblos will organize themselves", stated Cruz.

Update: The 13th Circuit Collegiate Court for administrative and labor matters ruled in favor of the community. It declared the authorities’ arguments—complaints about effects on “the social interest”—to be baseless. As such, the suspension remains valid until the amparo is definitively resolved. The community members have to go to court for a process hearing on April 3.

Nasa People Travels through Autonomous Movements in Mexico

Por
Santiago Navarro F
-

The Nasa are a native people in the department of Cauca [translator: "departamentos" are essentially states in Colombia, translated directly as “department”], in the Andean zone of southwestern Colombia. 27 years ago, these people decided to take the offensive against the industrial production of sugar cane. Currently, the Nasa carry out actions like burning cane fields and then reclaiming the land, as part of what they call "Liberation of Mother Earth". In January 2019, they have been traveling through Mexico and its autonomous movements, where they have learned and shared their experiences.

"We thought that we were alone in the struggle for Mother Earth, but in our first encounter we heard about the struggle of peoples in Mexico and that motivated us to get to know and learn from these struggles", shares a spokeswoman of the Nasa women. She’s part of a brigade that began a tour through Mexico to get to know different autonomous processes, among them the Good Government Councils of the Zapatistas, the forms of government and resistance of peoples in Oaxaca and Puebla, and the Autonomous Government of Cherán, Michoacán, which has expelled the political parties from their territory.

The Nasa have taken advantage of this trip to invite people to their next congress, which will take place August 3-6 in Corinto, Cauca, Colombia, so that other movements can share their experiences. Mexico has become a landmark in Latin America, principally with the call of the Zapatista National Liberation Army [EZLN] to strengthen the autonomy of native peoples and anticapitalist struggle. "We've learned from the Zapatistas that it is possible to move autonomously, for the right to live. We give thanks to Zapatismo because it has shown the whole world that another world is possible. We also thank the National Indigenous Congress of Mexico for having walked the path towards autonomy, and this is a living experience for us", says the spokeswoman.

In her travels through these parts, the spokeswoman of this brigade shares, "I realized that in Mexico they are also taking part in a struggle for life", and "just like us, they have been run over by the state, but they continue forward. So we came to Mexico to learn, but also to share our struggles".

Sugarcane


For the Nasa, Uma Kiwe represents Mother Earth, and in the living memory of her inhabitants, the plunder of their territory by European colonization remains present. "Our grandparents recount that, when the Spanish arrived, most people fled towards the mountains and the flatlands remained in the hands of those men, and today, it's full of sugarcane plantations", says the spokeswoman, who, for safety precautions, only identified herself as a liberator of Mother Earth.

According to a document produced by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) called "The sugar cane cluster in the Cauca Valley, Colombia", this valley and certain areas of Hawaii, Peru, and Mauritius are the only four zones in the world where sugarcane can be grown throughout the year. As such, they are considered to be high-yield areas. Sugarcane cultivation is constant in the Cauca valley, and more than 120 tons of sugar are produced per hectare per year. Most of this crop is used to make biofuels. 1.2 million liters of ethanol daily has generated more than $20 million USD monthly for investors.

The sugarcane sector spans 47 municipalities from the north of the department of Cauca, through the central band of the Cauca Valley, to the southern end of the department of Risaralda. There are 225,560 hectares of this monocrop in the region.

"I'm a liberator of Mother Earth, and we are liberating ancestral territories as well as taking back our history and that of our ancestors, like the chief Gaitana (an indigenous woman who led a rebellion against the Spanish between 1539 and 1540), who fought for 120 years, armed, against colonization. From 1971 to 1990, we reclaimed some 200,000 hectares that the colonizers had taken from us",

SAYS AN INDIGENOUS NASA MAN.

The Occupations
For Cauca's Chamber of Commerce, one of the constant worries of the sugarcane agroindustry in this region "are the constant occupations of properties by indigenous communities that claim these territories," they warn.

The president of the board of directors of the Colombian Association of Sugarcane Producers and Providers (Procaña), Carlos Molina, states that "what it is that generates this conflict, and what proposals could be made for the government to take measures so that everyone can come out winning, is currently being studied."

The Nasa people, just like the rest of the native peoples and black people of this country, were not recognized as subjects of law, and as such, their territory was not recognized either. It wasn't until 1991 that the Constitution recognized the right of indigenous peoples in Colombia to "exercise jurisdictional functions within their territorial sphere, conforming to their own rules and procedures, as long as they are not contrary to the Constitution", states Article 246.

At the very same time as this recognition, says this Nasa man, "they carried out a massacre on the Nilo plantation where they killed 20 comrades who were taking back their territory”.

He's referring to the massacre committed December 16, 1991, by paramilitaries trying to drive out the indigenous people who were occupying these lands. Jorge Valencia, then proprietor of the Nilo Hacienda, "was an accomplice to the formation of the paramilitary group", denounced Orlando Villa Zapata, alias "Ruben", an ex-paramilitary who participated in the massacre. Once they had murdered the indigenous people and caused their displacement, the group scattered. However, the next day, 5,000 indigenous people occupied the Nilo Hacienda and stayed there permanently.

After this massacre, the government promised to return the plantations to the native peoples, but it was all talk, states the Nasa man. "So the people opted to retake direct struggle, entering the plantations. In 2015 we entered a plantation called La Emperatriz, with the firm purpose of no longer sitting down to negotiate with the government, but to take back our territory and strengthen our autonomy", says this member of the Nasa people.

Autonomy


These people, despite having suffered murders, injuries, persecution, repression, military attacks, judicial attacks, media attacks and threats, appeal to their history, and they affirm that there are no documents that hold that this territory does not belong to them. "We have taken this struggle back up because they've been growing cane for many years and they've cause us a lot of harm. Waiting for things from the government has not helped at all. We are natives of this land and even if they have a document that says it has an owner, that owner just showed up; this territory was stolen and they don't take care of it. They only represent death for our Mother Earth and for ourselves", states the spokeswoman.

The Nasa people have to reconstruct their autonomy. "We're seeing that neoliberalism is the same across all of Latin America, because they are not building life. They're building death. What's more, peace is nowhere to be found in Colombia. Murders of social leaders have increased. In our pueblo alone there have been eight deaths, as well as persecution and harassment", says the brigade.

One of the brigade's objectives is to establish links with other indigenous peoples, but also with students, workers, and other segments of the urban population, to look at autonomous processes and strengthen them. "That's why we're going to keep taking back land. That's why we're going to liberate it, to live together in it and defend life. For that reason, the struggle for land is not a solely indigenous problem or duty, but rather an ancestral mandate of all peoples, all men and women who defend life", they state on the Liberation of Mother Earth website.

Women


This is the first time the Nasa spokeswoman has left her country. She misses her family, community, and food, but understands the importance of these links with other peoples who struggle in the rest of Latin America. That said, she maintains that the main job is with young people and children, because the future depends on them. It is here that the Nasa women have played a decisive role in the recovery of their territory. "We teach our children the necessity of taking back our territory and decontaminating the land, because that is what hurts us as women, as mothers. Because the Earth is a woman and a mother. We go about sowing food crops to the extent that we have cleaned up the land, because this is where life is. It's a big job, because everything is polluted, even the water. So it's taking back our territory, but also taking back life", says the Nasa woman.

"We have to work with the children on remembrance. So that they know why our territory is polluted. So they know that life is in the land. That a salary doesn't make a life. Without water, without land, we won't have life for the future. Our lands have been seized and they are destroying them", she states.

The brigade mentions excitedly that the most radical actions carried out have been to go to the city, where the poorest neighborhoods are, to freely give what they have produced: food. They call this action the March for Life: "This is to demonstrate that the recovery of our territory is for life, not for death. That the land is not there to generate profits", they say. A second March for Life will take place in March 2019.

The fruits of Uma Kiwe that they have decided to offer in this second march are also an offering for the brothers they have lost in the last four years, although to them, they are not dead. They are Guillermo Paví, Javier Oteca, Daniel Felipe, Héctor Latín, Ramón Ascue, and Fredy Yulián. "They're alive, and here they are, tracing out the second march of food for the liberation of Uma Kiwe. They light the way for us", states the movement.

"We have received a lot of abuse and been battered by the government and the rich, for whom our struggle is inconvenient, but as we go about cleaning up this territory, we go about liberating it, and liberating ourselves as well. Because liberation give us autonomy, including in our forms of thought. We are liberating ourselves from capitalism, and that's our struggle", adds the spokeswoman.

The Palestinian children killed by Israel in 2018 have been forgotten by the world

Por
Avispa
-

Defence for Children International Palestine (DCIP) paints a bleak prospect for Palestinian children in revealing that in 2018, at least 56 were killed by Israel. Individuals who witnessed some of the murders have insisted that the targeted children were unarmed and posed no threat to the state or its citizens.

Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli army snipers, drones and security forces across the occupied Palestinian territories. Five of the murdered children were under 12 years of age. In Gaza, 49 children were murdered by Israel in activities pertaining to the Great March of Return protests.

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Live ammunition was used by Israel in 73 per cent of the fatalities documented by DCIP, which also recorded “140 cases of Palestinian children who were detained by Palestinian forces.” Israeli forces also arrested 120 children within the occupied West Bank. In both groups, the detained children suffered abuse at the hands of the security forces holding them, whether the PA or the Israeli military.

These tactics show that Israel’s colonial collaboration with the Palestinian Authority is targeting a very vulnerable segment of Palestinian society. What’s more, the killing and wounding of Palestinian children by Israeli snipers at the Great Return March is a direct maiming of the generation which can carry on the anti-colonial struggle.

Citing international law is pointless when Israel, and even the Palestinian Authority, have extended the parameters for an ongoing cycle of abuse against Palestinian children. International law is only relevant when used to point out that violations are taking place and the Palestinians are facing a UN member state which treats international law with contempt, while the international community gives its tacit agreement to the abuse and is, in some cases, complicit.

DCIP’s research establishes the fact that Israel killed an average of more than one child per week in 2018. Earlier shocking official statistics revealed that between 2000 and 2014 Israel killed a Palestinian child every three days on average, for fourteen years. Throughout the year there was ongoing discussion about Israel’s genocidal intent and actions which were mostly discarded due to the monopoly over the term in reference to the Holocaust. Yet, Article II of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines the term as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” What else is Israel doing to the people of Palestine, “in whole or in part”?

The international community’s responses are so predictable that Israel finds no obstacles in manoeuvring beyond the limits set by international law; it is allowed to act with impunity. The “drip, drip” rate of the killing of Palestinian children and the almost routine nature of their detention sneaks under the radar of human rights violations. As the international community fails to respond to Israeli violations within its established framework, Israel succeeds in bridging the gap between violations and rights.

Read moore ⇒ What does the Central American exodus have to do with Europe’s ‘migrant crisis’?

To speak of Israel’s violations now is, in fact, also to speak of the international community’s irresponsibility. Yet neither are scrutinised and held to account; the result is the regular yet somewhat reluctant citing of what should happen according to international law being juxtaposed against Israeli breaches of the law. Accountability, however, has long since absconded from the scene of the crime. If Israel wants to kill Palestinian children (or women and men, come to that), it will kill because it has decided, quite deliberately, to do so.

Meanwhile, the international community will steer clear from ever associating Israeli actions with genocide, preferring instead to rely on “alleged war crimes”, the perpetrators of which will never be brought to justice. Palestinian children killed by Israel over many years, last year included, have been forgotten by the world.

What does the Central American exodus have to do with Europe’s ‘migrant crisis’?

Por
Santiago Navarro F
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Translated by Leif Johnson

Laloua Moutbena is one of many mothers from Mauritania, in Northeastern Africa, who is looking for her disappeared children. Her son, Yatoub, left the country one day, fleeing economic crisis and searching for a better life. "He wanted to help his brothers and his mother", Laloua shared in a letter sent to the many mothers in Central America and Mexico who have been searching for their children for more than a decade.

On the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of November, mothers of disappeared children around the world met for the first time in Mexico City. Their shared language was one of pain and the strength needed to keep up the search for their children. They cried, shared, and recognized the fact that disappearances are taking place all around the world, and that this is a systematic issue, with origins in a crisis of the capitalist system.

Nadia Trima, a mother from Tunisia, has been searching for her son Chemami Mehdi Zine for ten years. She says that he decided to emigrate to Italy in search of a better life, but she never heard from him again. "We are searching for our children, the more than 500 young Tunisians who have disappeared. We place the responsibility for these disappearances in the hands of the Tunisian state, and we demand justice", Trima told Avispa Midia.

The organization "France-Americ Latin" has analyzed and documented the causes of migration to Europe, and argues that the economic and financial crisis of 2008, as well as the Middle-Eastern revolutions that began in 2011, generated an enormous wave of migration. As Braulio Moro, a member of the organization, stated, this wave of migration "is termed a 'migration crisis' in Europe, but in reality is a crisis of the European Union."

In 2015, the European countries reached an agreement that pledged to accept only 160,000 refugees. However, two years later, just 20,000 had been settled. Consequently, European, African and Asian organizations requested that the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (PPT), based in Italy, organize a Tribunal on impunity and the violation of the human rights of migrants and refugees.

The PPT has documented the scope of migrant flows, but also the hundreds of deaths and disappearances left in their wake. As Moro, who was a voluntary migrant to France twenty years ago pointed out, "in the first half of 2017, more than 100,000 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe. But we must also take into account that between 2000 and 2017, more than 17,000 men, women, and children died in the Mediterranean Sea, without response by the European Union, which is obligated to offer freedom of transit. Moreover, they are obligated to take them in legally and facilitate their transit, since they are fleeing war, misery, and the crisis that was provoked by the economic policies of the European Union itself."

"For us, the main border is the water, the sea, and there are no precise statistics about the lives lost there, like there are for the deserts of the United States, where people cross illegally", Moutbena noted.

This flow of migrants, with origins in the Middle East and Africa and who are mostly trying to reach Europe, has been classified by the UN as "the worst migration crisis since the Second World War."

Photo by Santiago Navarro F

Central American Exodus

Alongside this European context, the media jumped all over the story of the migrant exodus, primarily originating in Honduras, with individuals joining from countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, expanding this wave of more than ten thousand people who are currently arriving at the US-Mexico border in Tijuana.

The activist and sociologist Marta Sánchez Soler, one of the organizers of the First Global Summit for Mothers of the Disappeared, told Avispa Midia that the specific circumstances of the Central American migration are somewhat different from those in Europe, but that general problem is exactly the same. "The majority are youth who are seeking to escape war, terrorism, gangs, and the economic crisis.”

Soler affirms that migrant flows in Europe and Central America have both been heightened by "persecution and violations of human rights, but also inequality, poverty, climate change, and natural disasters."

Before the Central American Exodus, and after the tragic earthquake of 2010, thousands of Haitians moved to South America, primarily to take opportunities provided by the World Cup and Olympics to perform construction work in Brazil. This wave of migrants was joined by others from Africa, after the restrictions on migration that were imposed by the European Union.

"We had the capacity for about 110 people a day, and we received more than 200. There was no structure, but various volunteer groups formed who could do the work. They slept outside the church, in the streets, so the doors of the church were opened to let them sleep in the great hall of the church. We were with them a few months. We started to call around to various companies, to get people hired in construction or refrigeration, so that they could be placed safely. Some time after, other organizations joined up to take them in, and even the local government began to offer migrant services that did not exist before", Elvira Gonzalez explained to Avispa Midia. Gonzales is a Peruvian migrant who works in the organization Misión Paz de São Paulo, in Brazil. The organization serves to welcome all migrants who come to the house, and Gonzalez was deeply involved in the most critical phase when the first Haitians arrived in the city.

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After the coup of 2016, when the elected president of Brazil, Dilma Roussef, was forced to step down, a new economic crisis began, which affected migrants as well as Brazilians. For two years, many Haitians left the country, headed to countries like Canada, Chile, and primarily to the United States. "We don't know how many left, the statistics don't exist, but we know that it was a lot of people. We have information that indicates that many of the people that we hosted were stranded on the Mexican border, trying to cross into the United States", said Paolo Parise, who is one of the organizers of the Misión de Paz. He estimates that at least thirty thousand Haitians arrived at the US-Mexico border in this period.

Photo by Santiago Navarro F

50 million migrants

Andrés Barreda, researcher in the department of economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), notes that migration has been a constant, and that "the largest and most important flow of migrants is towards North America, and has pushed more than 50 million Central American and Mexican migrants in that direction over the past decades, particularly following the signing of NAFTA."

This migrant flow, Barreda argues, "was disrupted following the crisis of 2008, when the contraction of the North American economy meant that it could no longer benefit from cheap migrant labor, and migrants began to turn around. At the same time, the super-criminalization of migrants began, with the application of genocidal policies of control to migrant flows through Mexican territory, carried out by criminal organizations and the drug cartels."

For the UNAM researcher, the problem of migrant flows is being supplanted by other capitalist models, and throughout this, the military industrial complex is present on the border, offering its services to private buyers. "We are in a moment of rupture for a neoliberal politics that continues to fail, because it doesn't function now like it did in the 1990s or even in 2000. Different capitalist models are gaining strength in various countries, or even within a given country, such as in the United States, where some want to follow the same dynamics of globalization, while others look to other exploitative politics based in the construction of national state capitalism. This is taking place in Brazil, China, the US, in Russia, and around the world,” Barreda added.

The military industry’s shameless business in the border wars

Por
Renata Bessi
-

The military industrial complex companies that are feeding the wars and authoritarian regimes of the Middle East and North Africa with weapons and technology are also the main beneficiaries of border security contracts attempting to isolate European Union countries from the flow of migrants coming primarily from the Middle East and North Africa.

A report by the Transnational Institute, a research body based in the Netherlands, implicates weapons and biometric security manufacturers in particular who have benefited from the crisis: first feeding repression and conflict in these countries and, later, obtaining multimillion-dollar contracts to provide border surveillance equipment and technology. “The companies benefit from both sides of the refugee tragedy. The companies create the crisis and then benefit from it”, says Nick Buxton of the Transnational Institute.

Deaths

The measures taken to block a migration route forces people to take more dangerous routes. According to the report, in 2017, one out of every 57 migrants who crossed the Mediterranean died; while in 2015, one out of every 257 lost their life. The Transnational Institute notes this reflects the fact that, in 2017, the Central Mediterranean route – the longest and most dangerous – was the main route for displaced persons, primarily coming from East and Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015, the main route was from Turkey to Greece, mainly used by Syrians.

According to the report, arms manufacturers such as Airbus (trans-European), Finmeccanica (Italy), Thales (France), and Safran (France), are among the large companies in the European border security complex. Indra (Spain), Finmeccanica, Thales, and Airbus are leading players in the EU’s security business as well as three of the four main European arms merchants, including sales to countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Global arms exports to the Middle East have increased by 61% between 2006-2010 and 2011-2015, according to the report. From 2007 to 2016, the total number of permits issued by EU member states for the export of arms to 35 countries (with which the EU has security agreements and that have been pressured to increase their border security capabilities) exceeded 122 billion euros. More than 20% of these countries (7) are under an UN or EU arms embargo, but most of them still receive weapons from some EU member states, as well as migration-related support for their armed forces and security bodies from the EU itself.

The border security market is booming as well. According to the report, it was estimated to be at some 15 billion euros in 2015 and is expected to increase to more than 29 billion euros annually in 2022. The budget for Frontex, the main European border control agency, increased by 3,688% between 2005 and 2016 (from 6.3 million euros to 238.7 million).

There are also several semi-public companies and international organizations offering consulting, training, and border security management that have prospered alongside the enormous growth of the border security market. Among them are the French semi-public company Civipol, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). In part, Civipol is owned by large arms manufacturers such as Thales, Airbus, and Safran. In 2003, it drafted a very influential consultancy report for the European Commission that laid the foundations for the current border externalization measures which it is now benefiting from.

Additionally, the arms and security industries have received 316 million euros in funding for research on security issues, allowing them to set the research and development agenda. Often, they are benefitting from the resulting contracts. Since 2002, the EU has financed 56 projects in the field of security and border control.

Conflicts

The Middle East and North Africa continue to be sites of widespread conflict, violence, and human rights violations. The wars in Syria and Yemen are escalating. There are continuous conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, and Libya. Dictatorial regimes rule in Eritrea, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. And there are the occupations of the Palestinian Territories by Israel and of Western Sahara by Morocco.

According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2015, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Qatar, Algeria, Israel, and Turkey were among the top 20 arms importers in the world. The list was led by Saudi Arabia, which has no difficulty acquiring arms despite its atrocious war crimes in Yemen or its participation as a weapons supplier in the war in Syria.

Influence

Buxton reports that the arms and security industries have influenced European border security policies through lobbying, their frequent interactions with EU institutions specializing in borders, and their decisive role in research policy. The European Organization for Security (EOS), of which Thales, Finmeccanica, and Airbus are a part, has been very active in defending increased border security. Many of its proposals, such as the creation of a pan-European border security agency, have ended up becoming actual policy.

“These companies are in the halls of power in Washington, in Brussels. They are assisting in the planning of migration policies and defending a militarized security response as the solution to the ‘problem’ of migration. And they offer themselves as the ones who can provide the goods to control the flows,”

EXPLAINS BUXTON.

The report criticizes that “evidence shows a growing confluence of interests between European political leaders seeking to militarize the border and the main defense and security contractors providing the services; yet this is not only a question of a conflict of interest or that some actors are benefiting from the crisis, but also concerns the course Europe is taking at this critical moment.”

Extension of the Border

The European Union exerts the same pressure on its neighbors as the United States exerts on Mexico, according to Buxton. “They have agreements with more than 35 surrounding countries, exporting the same border model. The same companies militarizing the European Union’s borders are also militarizing the borders of countries such as Morocco, Libya, Algeria. This is a global system. They are exporting this model to the surrounding area and, little by little, around the world,” he explains.

The report warns that the vast majority of the 35 countries the EU prioritizes for border externalization are authoritarian, known for committing human rights abuses, and with deficient human development indicators.

Since 1992, and even more aggressively since 2005, the EU has developed policies to externalize Europe’s borders so that forcefully displaced persons do not even reach them. This involves agreements with countries neighboring Europe to accept deported people, adopt the same border control policies as Europe, improve the tracking of individuals, and to fortify borders. In other words, these agreements have turned Europe’s neighbors into Europe’s new border guards. And as they are far from the European coast and media, the consequences are practically invisible to European citizens.

Furthermore, according to the report, there is a growing presence of European military and security forces in charge of border security in third countries. Stopping immigration has become a priority for ongoing Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) missions in Mali and Niger. Member states, such as France and Italy, have begun to deploy troops in Libya and Niger.

Israel

Buxton notes that it’s important to highlight the role of Israel. Israeli companies are the only non-European companies to receive research funds, based on a 1996 agreement between Israel and the EU. These businesses also have a unique sales strategy, taking advantage of their participation in Israeli border security, including the separation wall in the West Bank and the border fence with Egypt.

In general, the equipment and technology coming from Israeli arms and security companies are internationally acclaimed as they are considered to be “battle tested.” “They have the experience of controlling Palestinians. For some time, they have had walls and all the infrastructure of control. They sell their capabilities and technologies by advertising this experience”, says Buxton.

Detention and Deportation

Additionally, some arms companies are not just involved in the process of preventing immigrants from reaching Europe. According to the report, some benefit from the detention of refugees. One example is the British company Serco, known for managing the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons, which, in 2014, was chosen to manage the Yarl’s Wood detention center. The seven-year contract (2014-2021) is worth 70 million pounds.

Another example is the multinational security company G4S. This company used to carry out deportations from the United Kingdom until three of its security guards were accused of killing Jimmy Mubenga on a flight to Angola. They were later acquitted of the homicide in a verdict criticized by several human rights groups.

However, the report notes, G4S still manages detention centers in the UK and provides prison guards and other services to similar centers in Austria, Estonia, and Norway.

Mexican Indigenous Peoples Prepare to Resist Lopez Obrador’s Neoliberal Policies

Por
Santiago Navarro F
-

“There will be profound changes, but they’ll come in accordance with the established legal order. There will be freedom for businesses. In terms of economics, we’ll respect the Banco de Mexico’s autonomy. The new government will maintain fiscal and financial responsibility. It will recognize the contracts with national and foreign companies and banks.” This was a speech given by the Mexican President-Elect, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) on July 2nd of this year. He announced that during his 6-year term as President, which begins this December, there would be continuity of the pro-development policies of his predecessors, both for unfinished projects and for those already agreed to.

Among the already agreed upon contracts with companies and banks such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank are projects that bring in massive flows of capital such as the Special Economic Zones, regions, including the Trans-Isthmian corridor in Mexico’s southwest Tehuantepec Isthmus, that were established by current Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto by presidential decree. They also include the New International Airport of Mexico City and the gas pipelines throughout Mexico that connect to the United States. Another project that will continue as planned is the 1500-kilometer Trans peninsular Tourist Train in the Yucatan, known as the Maya Train. Speaking in Cancun on October 11th, Obrador said that the train would be constructed “whether our adversaries like it or not”, dismissing claims that it will cause severe environmental damage in the region.

If anyone has shown fierce opposition not just to the Maya Train but also the new airport, special development zones, and the promotion of monoculture, it has been original and indigenous peoples who gathered from October 11-14 in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, for the Second Plenary Assembly of the National Indigenous Congress and the Indigenous Governing Council (CNI-CIG, for its initials in Spanish.)

The members of the CNI-CIG, accompanied by the leadership of the indigenous organization the Zapatista Army for National Liberation, expressed their disagreement with AMLO’s arguments: “Down here, there is no more for us than to defend life, regardless of whatever lies may come from the government that’s leaving (Enrique Peña Nieto’s) or the government that’s coming in (Lopez Obrador’s). Their words are superfluous when their Trans-Isthmian projects and the expansion of their Special Economic Zones are threatening the Binniza, Chontal, Ikoots, Mixe, Zoque, Nahua, and Popoluca peoples…as well as the Mayan peoples who are threatened by their capitalist train project that strips and destroys everything in its path.”

This is the position that the communities constructed after three days of work, including discussions around nine tables of analysis, and time spent sharing both reflections and concrete actions they’ve taken in their territories. 589 representatives of the communities, including delegates, invitees, and activists, turned out for the Assembly. They were unified in their position regarding the new Mexican government and the programs its looking to implement, saying that “words are also superfluous in comparison to the announced plan to plant a million hectares of trees for fruit and lumber in Southern Mexico.” This was a response to Lopez Obrador’s declaration that he considers “100 million hectares of communal and cooperative property to be abandoned” in the region, thus justifying his plan to develop monoculture as a way to “convert these into productive lands.”

By the same token, AMLO has proposed a consultation to decide if his government will proceed with the construction of the new airport in Mexico City, which would be built 30 kilometers northeast of the capital, at Texcoco Lake in Mexico State. Heriberto Salas, part of the Coordination of Peoples and Organizations in Eastern Mexico for the Defense of Land, Water and Culture, and a member of the CNI-CIG, told Truthout, “Our rejection of the construction of this death project is total, and there is nothing to consult about. The project will provoke not only the death of Texcoco Lake, but also will bring about irreversible environmental damages in all of our communities in the Texcoco basin. The lake is part of our history and patrimony.”

“Words fail when the future government imposes the creation, in the old ways of indigenous rights, a National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI, for its initials in Spanish) that is run by the deserters of our long resistance struggle,”

SAID THE MEMBERS OF THE CNI. THE INPI IS SET TO BE RUN BY THE INDIGENOUS OAXACAN, ADELFO REGINO, WHO SERVED AS THE SECRETARY OF INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS IN OAXACA STATE UNDER THE CONTROVERSIAL GOVERNOR GABINO CUÉ. REGINO CO-OPTED AND DEMOBILIZED VARIOUS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS WITH THEIR “TEQUIO FOR CHANGE” MOTTO*, LOOKING FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND OFFERING THEIR LEADERS GOVERNMENT POSITIONS.

*Tequio is a Nahuatl word that refers to collective action for the common good.

Transformation

“For the good of all, first the poor”, is the slogan that Lopez Obrador uses to bring about what he calls the Fourth Transformation of Mexico. According to his New Mexican Mandate, this transformation implies “the strengthening of the domestic market, trying to produce everything we need to consume in our own territory. That all Mexicans can be happy with where they were born, where their customs and traditions are.” To this end, AMLO has taken up negotiations around NAFTA, now known as USMCA, and will approach the negotiations with vigor in the second half of 2019.

Also among the programs of the Fourth Transformation is the announced plan to begin on his first day in office employing 50,000 young people in the Army, Navy, and Federal Police.

The CNI-CIG doesn’t give AMLO credit for these initiatives, and considers them to be a continuation of previous neoliberal policies. “Words fail once again when we see the cynicism with which the Mexican peoples are hand-delivered to U.S. interests through the free trade agreement, which the future government of Lopez Obrador promises to ratify”, says the organization’s statement.

The indigenous council’s final resolution also asserts that AMLO “in one of his first speeches showed no doubts about continuing current monetary and fiscal policy, which is to say, continuing neoliberal policies. These policies will be guaranteed with the announcement that military forces will remain in the streets, and with the pretension of recruiting 50,000 young people for the armed forces that have served to repress, deprive, and sow terror in the entire nation.”

Attendees at the CNI-CIG’s Second Assembly came from diverse parts of Mexico, such as the delegate Floreta Vosquez Molina, a Yaqui indigenous woman from the community of Loma de Bacúm in Sonora in northwest Mexico. Four months ago, her 18-year-old son was murdered for opposing the Sonoran gas pipeline being installed from Guaymas-El Oro, which will traverse their territory. “If Obrador thinks that our children are going to quit the defense of our lands to become soldiers or police, he’s dead wrong. This isn’t going to happen. The people who killed my son are protected by the government and the police. I don’t believe that Obrador is going to bring us justice”, she said.

The pipeline in question is owned by the U.S. company Sempra Energy, and is intended to provide natural gas from Arizona to the Mexican Pacific states. The project was imposed by Enrique Peña Nieto’s government with no consideration for the self-determination of the affected communities, and will be finished during López Obrador’s presidency. Vasquez Molina told Truthout “this new government is not going to help us stop this project. Because they’re not like us, they’re not indigenous, they don’t think like us.”

San Andres Accords

The San Andres Accords were agreements signed by the Mexican government and the Zapatistas on February 16th, 1996. They were a commitment to modify the national constitution and grant rights to the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico, including autonomy and self-determination. But they’ve been betrayed by the Mexican government, which modified the accords and seeks to approve something completely different. The Zapatistas decided to build their autonomy without official permission, forming the so-called Councils of Good Government in Zapatista territory. Other indigenous communities have also constructed their own autonomy using the accords as a base.

The accords were betrayed at the same time that a counterinsurgency plan, called Plan Chiapas 94, was executed. Plan Chiapas 94 is a strategy operated by the National Defense Secretariat that created paramilitaries that exist up to today. These paramilitaries are responsible for more than 3,500 displacements, 81 extrajudicial executions, and 37 forced disappearances, according to documentation by the Friar Bartolome de Las Casas Center for Human Rights.

The objectives of the counterinsurgency project are to debilitate solidarity with the Zapatistas and organized indigenous peoples. The government has also “authorized many laws that have made it legal to violently rob us of our land, programs to divide us and provoke internal conflicts among us, and plant the seeds of contempt and racism from all directions”, argue the members of the CNI-CIG in their statement. This comes as a response to Lopez Obrador, who wants to establish the San Andres Accords in the Mexican Constitution.

Mario Luna, an indigenous Yaqui, asserts that the San Andres Accords are being exercised through the daily construction of autonomy by the peoples organized under the CNI-CIG, and that they don’t need AMLO’s legislation. “Our process is for autonomy and general consensus for ourselves. With the structural reforms established in our country, there is no need for the San Andrés Accords to be enacted by Mexican legislation. It is essentially contrary to our aims, because our processes are autonomous and not subject to law, much less the calendars of governments or political parties”, Luna argues.

As the CNI-CIG plenary expresses it, “Words are also superfluous when they cynically speak of recognizing in their deeply rotten laws the San Andres Accords or our free self-determination without even touching the murderous capitalist assemblage that is the Mexican state.”

The indigenous peoples met for three straight days to analyze and reflect on the national and international political and economic context, firmly concluding that the approval of the San Andres Accords in the current context, which is to say during the Lopez Obrador administration, would legitimize the stripping of their territories. This is especially true because AMLO’s mandate doesn’t question the reforms to Article 27 of the constitution that permits the division and privatization of indigenous territory.

Indigenous peoples argue that the article has permitted the commercialization of their lands for national and transnational corporations. It is therefore self-contradictory that Lopez Obrador wants to approve the San Andres Accords “without killing off the concessions of water, mining, natural goods and hydrocarbons, and without imposing limits on the imperial power granted by the current free trade agreement…[nor limiting] huge transnational corporations, without destroying the control over our territories exercised by massive criminal cartels with state security forces’ support.”

To accept the legislation of the accords, indigenous peoples “would be living, in the best case scenario, under a crass illusion, which obscures the onslaught of money against our peoples”, according to the 2nd Assembly’s statement.

Organization continues

One thing the indigenous peoples of Mexico have in common is collective land possession, among ejidos (rural lands for collective use) and communal lands, which represent 52% of the Mexican territory. This type of possession has been blurred with diverse programs for land regulation in this country, which seek to grant individual land titles to indigenous peoples, which is to say to convert community land into private property. Besides this dispossession, they also have in common persecution, incarceration, and murder. There is no indigenous group that hasn’t been dispossessed of part of their land for national and transnational venture capitalist projects without seeing any of the profits. According to the National Institute of Indigenous Languages, there are at least 9,000 indigenous prisoners in Mexico.

For this reason, the members of the CNI-CIG, as part of the resolution of their assembly, have decided to call for a national and international campaign for the liberation of eight of their members who are currently imprisoned for defending their territory. The indigenous prisoners are Dominga Gonzalez Martinez, Pedro Sánchez Berriozabal, Romulo Arias Míreles, Teofilo Perez Gonzalez, Lorenzo Sánchez Berriozabal, and Marco Antonio Pérez González from the community of San Pedro Tlanixco, in Mexico State. The list also includes Fidencio Aldama Pérez from the community of Loma de Bacum, Sonora.

Severo Aguilar Ontamucha, the Traditional Governor of the Original People of Cohuirimpo, one of the eight Yoreme Mayo indgienous groups in Sonora State, told Truthout, “At every turn, we’ve been confronted with federal and local governments’ intentions to dispossess us of our territory. We’re aware that this is a process where the Mexican government is seeking to displace our traditional authorities, and the new government will do the same. In the face of the continuation of this war, what we have to do is strengthen our forms of government and our organization with other groups and people in resistance.”

The CNI-CIG has as its only option “to continue building the organization that will become an autonomous, rebel government with compañeras and compañeros from other geographies, to collectively break the inertia that has been imposed on us…[and to be able to identify] where the storm is coming from and, in the middle of it, not to quit weaving until our fabric, along with the others, appears in every corner of Mexico and the world.”

Another of the resolutions taken by the Indigenous Governing Council is that they will cease being only indigenous and Mexican because they’re looking to form alliances with other sectors, organizations, collectives, and peoples of the world. Mario Luna, one of the people in charge of establishing connections with indigenous peoples in the United States as well as migrants and other Latin American peoples, told Truthout that “the broadening of these horizons is being carefully analyzed to take secure steps for the strengthening of the indigenous movement. And from the beginning, these links are tied into networks that have already been created, but everything needs to be discussed. In any case, we ratify our ant capitalist position and reaffirm our promise with our communities.”

For that reason, and in order so that the idea doesn’t stay as just an idea, they have agreed to consult their communities to draw up an agreement about what forms these new alliances will take that won’t put the work the CNI-CIG has already one at risk: “We agree to consult our communities, peoples, nations, tribes, and neighborhoods about what forms and methods will be used to build together with these networks, both big and small, a coordination that enriches us with support and solidarity. That make our differences our strengths in networks of resistance and rebellion with the word that makes us one, in a respectful and horizontal manner.” They also asked that those interested in the process “consult in a serious and committed way inside your organizations and collectives if it is necessary or not for you to form your Governing Council.”

What the CNI-CIG is looking for in these consultations is “the incorporation of something bigger, that can be capable of incorporating our struggles, ways of thinking, and identities. Something bigger that can give strength to the visions, methods, forms, and times of everyone.”

Text and photos by Santiago Navarro F.

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