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The military industry’s shameless business in the border wars

Por
Renata Bessi
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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
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“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.

Northern Guatemala: Indigenous peoples called terrorists for defending their rivers

Por
Santiago Navarro F
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Translated by: Sam Warren, Photos: Santiago Navarro F., Anthony Guerra

Her name is Zara Mercedes Días Velászques; she is walking with other women accompanied by their children. She walks with a stick in her hand, which she grasps strongly, as if holding on to hope; she screws up her face and lets loose a shout. “We demand justice, police get out! Earn a living working with sweat on your brow like us! Businessmen out too, leave this place alone!” Mercedes, like the other members of her village, has been labeled a terrorist for opposing one of the most important projects in this region, a hydroelectric project, which–though it was supposed to help develop these communities–has only brought misfortune.

Zara Mercedes is from the village of Bella Linda. They are Chuj Maya peoples from the municipality of San Mateo Ixtatán, in northern Guatemala’s Department of Huehuetenango. In these lands, and in the name of “sustainable development”, three hydroelectric dams known as Pojom I, Pojom II and San Andrés have been planned that will be fed by the diversion of the Negro, Pojom, Yalwitz, Primavera, Varsovia and Palmira rivers. In response, the indigenous communities of the region have sustained a resistance effort to these projects for more than four years.

During Avispa Midia’s July 2018 visit to the Yich K’isis (or Ixquisis) micro-region of San Mateo Ixtatán, the team confirmed the presence of Guatemala’s National Civil Police (PNC, for Policía Nacional Civil) at various strategic points of the business known as PDH S.A. (for Promoción y Desarrollo Hídrico, Sociedad Anónima, or Hydrological Promotion and Development Corporation), the business in charge of the construction of the hydroelectric complex.

A military detail has been installed since May 2014, as well as private security guards, according to the national Human Rights Director of Guatemala, Miguel Colop Hernández. “The National Civil Police, around 300 units, and a detail of the Armed Forces of Guatemala can be found inside the buildings of PDH S.A.; there is also private security and this has provoked discontent among the communities. The security forces have said they just receive orders from their superiors. Though this doesn’t say anything good about the Guatemalan government”, the functionary told Avispa Midia, as he carried out his duties as observer of the peaceful demonstrations of July 2018.

There is precedent for the labeling of these communities as terrorists. In August 2017 the demonstrators launched a peaceful protest in the Yich K’isis region, where the main buildings of PDH S.A. are located. There they delivered a document to the chief military officer and to the managing official of the PNC, demanding they withdraw. More than 2,000 protesters had gathered with instructions to maintain a peaceful protest.

But moments later “some people who had their faces covered burned the machinery. We thought they were the workers themselves, but they wanted to put the blame on us”, stated Lucas Jorge García, the second-level regional president of the Yich K’isis Micro-region of San Mateo Ixtatán, to the Avispa Midia team.

Minutes later, the company gave a distorted version of the story to the media, labeling the actions as terrorist acts. The Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations (CACIF, for Comité Coordinador de Asociaciones Agrícolas, Comerciales, Industriales y Financieras) also officially described the actions as terrorist acts in an August 31 statement: “We forcefully condemn the disruptions in Ixquisis, Huehuetenango, which can only be considered terrorist acts.”

This was also true for the Association of Generators with Renewable Energy (or AGER, for Asociación de Generadores con Energía Renovable). “We repudiate the terrorist acts that are being carried out in the village of Ixquisis, municipality of San Mateo Ixtatán, Huehuetenango, committed by criminals”, they stated in an official communication also dated August 31.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) warned in its December 2017 report that this language stigmatizing the protesters has been spread throughout social networks and communication media, in an attempt to delegitimize the demands of these communities. For example, civil society organizations indicated that defenders of human rights are called “professional troublemakers,” “bandits,” “professional thugs,” “failed fratricidal rabble,” “left-wing NGOs formerly terrorist organizations.”

“We’re peaceful here, we never commit violence. But they’ve blamed us for being terrorists and guerrillas. Even Monsignor Álvaro Mazzani of the Diocese of Huehuetenango has said that we’re terrorists, but this monsignor is on the side of the corporations, because he carries the blood of the Spanish who came here more than 500 years ago and that’s why he keeps fucking us over,”

SAYS LUCAS JORGE.

Antiterrorism Law

As these events were ongoing, in November 2017, the Union of National Change (UCN, for Unión del Cambio Nacional) representative Napoleón Rojas introduced an antiterrorism bill that was backed by the Congressional Governance Commission. This bill, titled "Law Against Terrorist Acts" (Ley Contra Actos Terroristas), no. 5239, composed of 58 articles, was established in accordance with the recommendations given by the Financial Action Group of Latin America (GAFI-LAT, for Grupo de Acción Financiera de Latinoamérica), the same recommendation given for the rest of the Latin American countries.

The current law, in its Chapter I, establishes that the law "is of public order and aims to regulate criminal figures related to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations; as well as to prevent, and encourage the investigation and punishment of acts of terrorist character, so as to guarantee the constitutional order, the Rule of Law."

Zara Mercedes is tired of all the intimidation, but she is determined to fight to the end. "We are fighting because we don't want to put our children at risk".

"But now there are people who step in our path and threaten us, they say we're guerrillas, terrorists. We aren't guerrillas, we are fighters, we don't carry arms, we come as we are, we come to protest. The police are the ones causing the chaos, they insult the communities and use gas against us, they're the terrorists."

Zapatistas

In January 2017 more than 2,000 protesters tried to mount a sit-in near the buildings of the hydroelectric company. But around the estate located between the community road in Pojom and the border with Mexico, a group of masked people placed wire nets from the business’s encampment and began to burn the machinery. This was documented by Prensa Comunitaria, which was present at the time. “From the forested area we began to hear the crack of rifle shots… the journalist Santiago Botón recognized the sound of the shots: they weren’t rifles that security guards could have had, but rather they were using military rifles,” denounced the witnessing journalists.

Exactly 10 minutes from the military detachment, armed men began to shoot, causing the death of a 72-year-old man, Sebastián Alonso Juan. The police and the military did not intervene to support the protesters.

Prensa Comunitaria obtained the report on the matter authored by the PNC detachment operating from inside PDH S.A., which was sent to their PNC superiors in Huehuetenango. The report claims that “at 22 hours on January 14, 2017, a group of armed Zapatistas (from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation), coming from Mexico, entered the village of Ixquisis of the municipaity of San Mateo Ixtatán, with the aim of burning uninhabited houses and taking over a cattle ranch.” The report claims that in their rounds they found a banner which stated the following: “The National Civil Police, National Army and people of PDH have 24 hours to evacuate.”

The presence of the Zapatista Army in this region was never proven; to the contrary, on June 5, 2017, World Environment Day, the IACHR indicated their concern over the murder of Sebastián Alonso Juan, for which reason–in their Press Release No. 072/17–they announced that during their visit to the village of Ixquisis, representatives from the IACHR met with the relatives of Sebastián Alonso, who stated that after he had been shot down, employees of the hydroelectric business had proceeded to hit him on one side of his face and neck while he lay dying.

The December 2017 IACHR report titled “Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala,” documented on the delegation’s visit to Ixquisis and Santa Eulalia, Department of Huehuetenango, remarks on the severe conflict generated by the various hydroelectric projects and states that at least 278 human rights defenders had been subjected to judicial proceedings and capture.“This is frequently used against communities that occupy lands targeted for the development of megaprojects and exploitation of natural resources. In the northern region alone, 500 custody warrants were in force,” states the report.

Southern Command

If this weren’t enough, on February 13 and 15, 2018, elements of Joint Task Force Bravo of the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), based in Soto Cano Air Base in Comayagua, Honduras, mobilized to the municipality of Nentón, in Huehuetenango, on the Guatemalan border with Mexico. 66 members of JTF Bravo participated, including doctors and soldiers, together with the 5th Infantry Brigade of the Army of Guatemala. The soldiers were also supported by the Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance of Guatemala, the Ministry of Defense, and the Department of Social Works of the Wife of the President of Guatemala (SOSEP, for Secretaría de Obras Sociales de la Esposa del Presidente de Guatemala), led by Guatemala’s First Lady, Patricia de Morales.

Local media documented that as part of the mobilization in Nentón, three military helicopters flew over the municipalities of San Juan Ixcoy, Santa Eulalia, San Mateo Ixtatán and Barillas.

They were seen to leave from the departmental capitol of Huehuetenango, with no known route. People from the communities noticed the helicopters because of their large size. They flew over San Mateo Ixtatán, arriving some minutes later at Yich K’isis, and then descended onto the runway located on the premises of PDH S.A.

The motive for the Southern Command’s presence in the region remains unknown. To this day, the government of Guatemala has not stated anything on the matter.

Private security

On the other hand, the private security that guards the property of the business is from a group known as Serseco, according to a statement from the spokespeople of the ministry of governance of Guatemala in January 2017, in a dialogue between the Convergence Party and the ministers of energy and mines.

The Serseco Group (for Servicios de Seguridad Consolidados, or Consolidated Security Services) was founded in 1986 and is considered a leader in comprehensive security solutions, offering services for businesses, homes, personal security guards, and many other products. They maintain a presence in various Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica and Ecuador, and they also have allied businesses in Spain.

“As part of its business strategy, Serseco Group has crossed borders and conquered other markets with the goal of replicating its know-how and experience in other countries. This is the case for Serseco International, which arose in 2006 and operates from the United States so as to better attend to international demand for security products”, states its official homepage.

“The business’s private security has been provoking us constantly. We are going to continue with our fight until this business leaves our communities. It doesn’t matter if they call us terrorists, because this will affect us, this will affect our children. It’s for them that we fight”, adds Zara Mercedes.

Sustainable development

A campesino (small-scale farmer) of no more than 60 years of age, who did not wish to give his name for safety reasons, shows the Río Negro to the Avispa Midia team, takes a few sips of water and washes his face to show the water is clean. He says that when the company arrived, "right when they got here they said they were going to build a small plant, to give public lighting and energy to the 31 communities who don't have it, and they said they were going to do it for climate change. Then they started to divert the river." 

According to the investors in this hydroelectric complex, managed by PDH S.A., the project is projected to avoid the production of greenhouse gases equivalent to that generated by nearly 25,000 cars every year. The investors maintain that this is more than enough for the project to be considered "sustainable development" for the region. As such, in addition to the benefits acquired through the sale of power, the investors will receive compensation through Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). Each CER is equivalent to a ton of carbon dioxide (tCO2), usually sold on the stock market as Carbon Bonds to those countries or industries who seek to offset their emission limits or to pay for the right to emit more greenhouse gases with these certificates.

The people of the communities object to this sustainable development. "We don't agree with the development, we want them to leave our territory alone. We don't believe in this development that kills, that violates and that makes use of the police and the army. They also destroy our communities. Here we have respect for our holy Earth", says the second-level regional president of the Microregion of Ixquisis.

Maril Hernández Martínez, a young woman of 17 years of age, says that PDH S.A. has threatened them with death for living close to their buildings. "We don't know where those people come from. We're of the water, and we live from her. We don't need the corporations; we know how to live here just as we are. We want to live lives full of peace and joy. Before we were calm and happy, but when the company arrived, it sowed hatred. The company's workers come to intimidate us, threaten to kill us with their weapons," the young woman tells Avispa Midia.

Name change

October 3, 2017, PDH S.A. announced publicly that the business was closing a cycle, and so would evolve into a new business model. “Now we are Energy and Renewal (Energía y Renovación), and we’re betting on sustainable development,” they announced in their statement.

Lucas Jorge looks skeptical when we ask him about the name change, and without hesitation claims that “the company changed its name because of the number of complaints it was receiving, for the violation of human rights in the communities resisting peacefully”, and because “the PNC and the business’s private security shot at us. They killed Sebastián Alonso Juan from the Yulchen Frontera community”, says the president of Ixquisis.

This context of violence stands in sharp contrast to the position of Energy and Renewal, which boasts on its official homepage of its respect for “the diversity and cultural richness of the area,” and also promises to promote environmental sustainability, openness to dialogue and consensus, stating that they are “respectful of human rights and believe in accountability.”

The referendum

For the dissenters, the dialogue was broken ever since the business and the Guatemalan government refused to recognize the results of their referendum that was carried on in 2009, together with the then-mayor of San Mateo Ixtatán, Andrés Alonso Pascual. The Community Referendum was publicized in the 66 villages [inglés no distingue entre “aldea” y “caserío,” así que sumé los números] that make up the municipality. 25,646 people participated, 99% of whom rejected the presence of extractive, mining and hydroelectric projects.

The business and the government of Guatemala have tried to negotiate several times with the residents of the communities, and have attempted to win them over with highways, schools, medical centers and even the promise of a new referendum, but the townspeople are resolved not to accept any project in their communities. “As young people we ask for the withdrawal of the company known as PDH, as there is no longer anything to discuss. We don’t want anything from them. We don’t want to be left without water, and so we demand that the government withdraw the police, withdraw this company. Because they are draining their wastewaters into the water we drink. They have offered us drinking water, but we don’t need it, because we drink from the river and we live from the river, but they’re polluting it”, denounces Maril Hernández.

Water

The pollution of these rivers goes against the needs of these communities. According to figures gathered by the IACHR, nearly 3 million people in Guatemala lack access to drinkable water and approximately 6 million don't have access to improved sanitation services. Among the population living in extreme poverty, 40% don't have access to improved sources of water. Guatemala is the only Central American country with no law governing bodies of water. Additionally, in rural areas there are grave problems with access to drinkable water because of drought, diversion of rivers and monopolization of water by the business sector.

In this region, where water flows everywhere, the hydroelectric stations in total aim to generate 170,000 additional megawatt hours of renewable energy annually, which will travel to the market through the Interconnection Networks for the Regional Central American Market (MRC, for Mercado Regional Centroamericano). "So far, efforts to advance regional electrical integration have centered on the design and execution of the project 'Central American Electrical Interconnection System" (SIEPAC, for Sistema de Interconexión Eléctrica de los Países de América Central), the construction of the first regional transmission system and the implementation of a competitive energy market with the participation of every Central American country", announced the Inter-American Development Bank in its 2017 report on Central American electrical integration.

Interconnection

The corporation known as PDH S.A., now "Energy and Renewal", was officially registered in 2007 with its legal representative, Carlos Eduardo Rodas Marzano.

Marzano served as Presidential Commissioner of the Government of Guatemala, holding the post of Advisor of the Ministry of Foreign Relations with Rank of Special Envoy for the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP), now known as the Mesoamerica Project. This integration project was presented in 2000 by the then-president of Mexico, Vicente Fox Quezada; since then the agenda and cash flow has predominantly come from the United States.

The project aims to expand the free market from southern Mexico to the rest of Central America, where the various governments promised to initiate the so-called "Mesoamerican Initiatives", in eight components: sustainable development, human development, disaster prevention and mitigation, tourism promotion, facilitation of commercial trade, road integration, electrical interconnection, and telecommunications integration.

In 2001, within the framework of the PPP and in order to promote Central American integration, the Inter-American Development Bank announced the Guatemala-Mexico electrical interconnection project, which complemented "the SIEPAC, a $320 million project to develop the first regional transmission network of the Central American power grid and a wholesale electricity market," stated the IDB, proclaiming its promise--along with Spanish businesses--to support the project.

Mexico, as permanent president of the Mesoamerica Project, has utilized the Mexican Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AMEXCID, for Agencia Mexicana de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo) to promote the creation of SIEPAC, with an extension of 1120 miles (1800 km) and a network of 40,400 miles (65000 km) of fiberoptic cable. A network that goes from Guatemala to Panama and extends to Colombia, an infrastructure where the Regional Electrical market began operations in 2014. Mexican investors have contributed 11% of the total amount invested by SIEPAC's proprietary company; U.S., Spanish, Central American and Colombian businesses have also invested in the project.

According to the 2016 Statistical Report of the Directorate General of Guatemala, that year 58% of the country's energy consumption was met with renewable resources. 440.6 megawatts of energy production were installed in total, of which 60% were hydroelectric plants and 40% were geothermal plants. In total approximately 2,444 more kilowatts were installed in 2016, of which the business known as DEORSA represented 57%, followed by EEGSA with 37% and DEOCSA with 6%. [esta parte no me quedó muy claro; dice 440.6 mW instalados en 2016, y luego 2,444 kilowatts] The three businesses are based on international capital from the Spanish business known as Gas Natural Fenosa.

In May 2011 the British investment fund Actis acquired the stocks of Deorsa and Deocsa for a sum of $345 million USD paid to Gas Natural Fenosa and renamed the two businesses Energuate. In 2016 the company IC Power Ltd, from the investment fund I Squared Capital (ISQ), and a subsidiary of Kenon Holding Israel, an Israeli company that operates power grids in Peru, Colombia, Chile, parts of the Caribbean, Israel, and now Guatemala, acquired Energuate.

In the same Statistical Report it was announced that since 2016 "Guatemala exports electricity to the Regional Electric Market (MER) and Mexico," and that in that year alone around 11% of the national production was exported. "98% of the exports were to the MER and the first offers of energy exportation to Mexico by Guatemalan agents were observed."

"We know this energy isn't for the communities, it's for the transnationals. They're installing some pretty thick cables. Many say it's going to Mexico. We don't matter to the transnationals,"

SHARES MARIL HERNÁNDEZ.

One of the points where energy flows from Guatemala to Mexico is through the 50-mile (80 km), 400 kilovolt electric line that connects the Mexican substation in Tapachula and the Guatemalan substation in Los Brillantes, and which began operations in 2010. Through May 2018, the sales to Mexico had reached some $7.2 million USD, while energy exports to Central America generated $44.2 million USD, according to figures from the Bank of Guatemala (Banguat).

The Inter-American Development Bank has promoted SIEPAC as an engine of growth and competition in Central America. In the April 2018 meeting in its headquarters, with representation from the US State Department as well as the Mexican government, MER authorities, and delegations from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama, the bank reaffirmed its commitment. "The IDB is committed to remaining the strategic partner for the region and to supporting its energy integration process. To that end, the Bank supports and provides technical cooperation and other financial resources."

The meeting also highlighted the commitment to continuing the electrical interconnection project between Guatemala and Mexico with the consolidation of Mexican interconnection and SIEPAC. "A study for the overall design of the integration of the Mexican electricity market with SIEPAC will be concluded this year; work will continue on a feasibility study expected to be ready in the first half of 2019."

"All we have left is to fight. If we don't fight now, tomorrow we won't have our land. We won't have water and there won't be corn. We'll die of hunger. The company and the government must understand this: their development is our death", concludes Maril, the young woman of 17 years.

The United States Southern Command’s New Strategy in Latin America

Por
Santiago Navarro F
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The United States Southern Command has launched its new 2017-2027 THEATER STRATEGY. “This plan is our model to defend the access routes from the south of the American continent to its interior and promote regional security through the degradation of threats by transregional and transnational illicit networks (T3Ns), immediate response to any type of crisis (natural or human disaster) and forming relations to confront global challenges”, outlines the strategy document presented by Kurt Walter Tidd, current Commander of the United States Southern Command.

The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) is one of nine military commands belonging to the United States. It encompasses the area relative to the south of the American continent, Central America, and the Caribbean. It is headquartered in Miami, Florida.

In this strategy, the Sothern Command resizes its presence in Latin America considering that transregional and transnational illicit networks extend beyond transnational criminal organizations and gangs to violent extremist organizations ideologically motivated such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. It also considers among its threats the presence of China, Russia, and Iran in that region.

According to the documents of this new strategy, “the Violent Extremist Organizations focus on spreading their influence and form a network of supporters and radicalized followers—including foreign terrorist fighters—especially in vulnerable populations in the Caribbean and parts of South and Central America”.

Mexican Anthropologist Gilberto López y Rivas points out to Avispa Midia that what the United States government is doing with its rhetoric of defending democracy and humanitarian aid is “a form of Global State Terrorism and, in the countries the United States considers its allies, a State Local Terrorism is replicated, as in the case of Colombia and Mexico”.

The strategy document is clear in assuming that it wants to strengthen relations in the region. “Naturally, these strategic challenges also present opportunities to promote security and regional stability. During the last five decades, SOUTHCOM worked diligently to obtain—and maintain—the region’s trust. Now we propose to develop this trust to deepen the bilateral cooperation and broaden the cooperation to trilateral, multilateral or transregional dimensions. For example, we are encouraging Pacific countries such as Chile, Colombia, and Peru to improve the integration and exportation of the best security practices to Asian and Pacific partners”, the document states.

The strategy confirms that there already exists an established network in Latin America and the Southern Command which aims to “cultivate a network of allies and partners and undertake our activities as part of a thorough effort through this integrated network comprised of: The Joint Force, intergovernmental agencies, multinational agencies and non-governmental organizations”, according to the 2017-2027 THEATER STRATEGY document.

Civil Society

At the same time, the strategy ranks its operations from civil society, academia, and the social and military organizations. “SOUTHCOM will partner with civil society, the academic sector, the private sector and the populations that extend the governance, improve the community’s resilience, broaden the social and economic opportunities and help the vulnerable populations resist the corrupt influence from the existing threats and illicit networks, and from wicked or perverse external actors”, asserts the new strategy.

“In each of our countries, the agencies are embedding themselves in the police and military structures that provide them intelligence to carry out their actions. I have already pointed to the type of relationship that all the military forces have with what they call the host nations. These host nations are in charge of carrying out their war or internal counterinsurgency”, says anthropologist López.

The Mexican researcher adds that drug traffickers function “like a paramilitary force or at the service of the armed security forces. In the case of Mexico, they are the other side of the clandestine Armed Forces, which are used to criminalize [movements that resist government policies]. The mining companies call this Conflict Engineering, which is how mining corporations impose their presence in a region by using criminals who are protected by security corporations.”

The main military influence areas for the Southern Command are the Task Forces located in each of the countries of Central and South America. Implementation of the new strategy links “Components, Joint Task Forces, and Security Cooperation Organizations (SCO)”.

SOUTHCOM exercises, the document says, “its legal authority as a Combatant Command to fulfill missions through its components of each service, Joint Task Force and other organizations which regularly carry out exercises, operations, and exchanges of experts from different fields. The Armed Forces (Army, Navy, and Air Force) provide SOUTHCOM with command components that carry out the specific objectives of the mission and the security cooperation activities”.

The strategy emphasizes one of its main areas of influence in Central America, the Joint Task Force-Bravo, which operates in the Honduran military facilities in Soto Cano Air Base, located in Comayagua Valley, Honduras. Its staff is composed of more than 500 United States military men and 500 American and Honduran civilians. In also considers the Guantanamo Bay Joint Task Force, located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-South), located in Cayo Hueso, Florida.

These United States military areas coordinate their actions with interagency units located within the teams of each country of the United States Embassy. “Working with interagency partners such as the Department of State (DOS), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Justice, and the collaboration with the ONGs and intergovernmental, business, and academic organizations allows us to move towards national objectives that would be impossible to achieve solely with military power”, the 2017-2027 THEATER STRATEGY document points out.

Read also ⇒ The US Southern Commands Silent Occupation of the Amazon

“Trump is trying to recover the ground lost during the last decade by the progressive governments and wants to take a strong stance due to the presence of China and Russia. China is being a reflected as a model of development for the countries of the region. This is where the United States sees a problem in the region. Unlike the United States, China is making its presence economically and not militarily”, said researcher Wolf Grabendorff, from the Andean University Simon Bolivar of Ecuador in a correspondence with Avipa Midia.

In Grabendorff’s opinion, in a scenario in which the United States is losing economic presence, “what remains as a last resort a military presence”.

United States & NATO Military Bases in Latin American & the Caribbean

The objective of the military base is ‘to protect the interests of North American companies” in the Neuquén zone.

Oil, A Strategic Motive

The Southern Command had previously launched a strategy for the 2008-2018 decade, which is now coming to an end, entitled United States Southern Command Strategy 2018 Partnership for the Americas. Among the economic title, they looked to secure the supply of oil and natural gas. According to the United States Department of Energy, in 2008, three of the four main energy suppliers for this country were located in the western hemisphere (Canada, Mexico and Venezuela). Likewise, the Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy projected that the United States would need 31% more oil and 62% more natural gas in the following two decades, 2008-2028.

“As the United States continues needing more oil and gas, Latin America become a global leader in energy with its enormous oil reservations and production and supply of gas and oil. We must work together to guarantee that these energy resources and the infrastructure that supports them allow for regional prosperity”, the official 2008-2018 strategy document argued.

The Argentine province, Neuquén, took a geopolitical turn. In 2011, one of the most important deposits of gas and unconventional oil in this country, Vaca Muerta, was discovered. This deposit is located in Neuquén Basin. It has a surface of 30 thousand km2. According to the Argentine company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF)—Fiscal Oilfields—in Vaca Muerta there are 117 trillion cubic feet of shale gas and 40 billion barrels of unconventional oil which is already extracted using the hydraulic fracturing method (fracking).

Read also ⇒ Fracking Expands in Latin America, Threatening to Contaminate World’’s Third-Largest Aquifer

Argentina went on to lead, after China, the list of nations with most “technically recoverable” reserves of shale. But it also reconfigured its geopolitical position. During 2017, Tom Cooney, who was then North American interim ambassador, had visited the Neuquén province and ratified the intention to reactivate a military base construction for humanitarian aid. At the same time, he highlighted the investments made by Chevron and Exxon Mobil in Vaca Muerta.

The objective of the military base is to “protect the interests of North American companies” in the Neuquén zone, according to Mariano Mansilla, an Argentinian deputy.

However, the General Secretary of the Provincial Government of Neuquén, Leonel Dacharry, holds that “this is not about a military base, but about the Humanitarian Assistance Program that will resume the work that was suspended in 2012 and which consists of a deposit and an office building for the coordination of the Civil Defense and other agencies in case of an emergency”.

In addition, Albert Kraaimoore, interim minister advisor of the United States, who led one of the last American delegations that visited the Neuquén province on March 22 and 23 of 2018 said, “we are visiting many provinces but, especially, it is very important for us to get to know Neuquén better, because there are a lot of interests in what is happening in this very young province and because of the growth of the oil industry. I think we have something to share with you. There are many American companies that have seen a great change here in Argentina. There are many who are coming to make their investments, especially in Neuquén, big companies like Chevron and Exxon”.

The former U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Tom Cooney, emphasized that the tours in these provinces have been taking place since 2009 and that “the donation for humanitarian assistance further increases the capacity of the province to respond and prepare for natural disasters”. Mr. Cooney was a Foreign Policy Advisor for the U.S. Department of State. During his time in Washington, Minister Cooney worked closely on topics related to the fight against terrorism in Latin America.

In February of this year, 2018, in the framework of the official visit to the United States, the Minister of Security of Argentina, Patricia Bullrich, along with the Secretary of Interior Security Gerardo Milman, were welcomed in Florida by Admiral Kurt Walter Tidd, current head of the Southern Command. Among other points, they addressed the upcoming thirteenth G20 meeting that will be held for the first time in the Southern Cone on November 30th and December 1st of this 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In these meetings, dialogues with the FBI and the DEA were drawn. The Minister returned to her country with the commitment to create a Task Force against international crime and drug trafficking for the northeast region of Argentina, with the support of intelligence analysts from the DEA.

“This compromise includes more analysts that will help us analyze where the drugs are coming from”, said Bullrich.

“Hezbollah is a concern to the United States in this region because “it came up in every meeting we had.” - Patricia Bullrich, Minister of Security of Argentina

According to the official, “official U.S. reports identifying several potential terrorists in the Triple Frontier between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay” were presented in the meetings.

“Hezbollah is a concern to the United States in this region”, says Bullrich, because “it came up in every meeting we had”. In the same way, Gerardo Milman also added that, “it is very important for our government to be able to collaborate with them [the United States] and vice versa. We have offered them a joint task in the Triple Frontier due to terrorism issues, and we believe we may also work with other agencies, in addition to the DEA, that will allow us to have a deeper look into what is happening there”.

Researcher Grabendorff contradicts this vision. “I don’t find it adequate for people to label any sort of activity as terrorism where there is only a Molotov. Terrorism is something else”, points out the German political scientist Grabendorff to Avispa Midia.

“The word terrorism is a very important word for the relationship of the United States with other countries. This is the case of Argentina with Mauricio Macri, the current president of this country”, says Grabendorff.

It seems that the presence of the Southern Command goes beyond terrorism, drug trafficking and oil. The Triple Frontier constitutes the geographical point where the borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil converge, coinciding with the Iguazú River mouth in the Paraná River. The Guarani Aquifer System is located in this area, which is one of the main reservoirs of underground fresh water in the world. Based on a study conducted by the Military Center for Argentine Democracy, the Guarani Aquifer would have a capacity of approximately 50,000 km3, with an annual recharge of 160 Km3 to 250 Km3, such that exploiting some 40 Km3 annually could provide 360 million people with about 300 liters of water daily per inhabitant.

Friendly Relations

The humanitarian aid in the face of natural disasters, the response against illicit organized crime networks, and terrorism have been the lines by which the “United States Southern Command Strategy 2018 Partnership for the Americas” has been implemented from 2008 to 2018. That strategy sought to strengthen ties with its international partners to support “security and stability” of the region. During this period, many diverse military operations have been carried out to promote the security cooperation and reach the strategic objectives of the United States.

“The Southern Command’s present strategy is to create closer relationships with the nation-states, with the police and military units, mainly due to the presence of China and Russia in the region. Under progressive governments it was not that easy to trace those relationships, and today, they return in the form of humanitarian aid, training, and the politics against drug trafficking and terrorism”, adds the German political scientist Wolf Grabendorff, an international consultant on issues of international relations and security in Latin America.

For Grabendorff, there are several processes of reorganization of the United States in the Southern Cone. For example, he warned that “after the United States military bases closed in Ecuador they moved to Peru and Colombia, we must pay attention there”.

According to the United States Embassy in Peru, “in total, since 2007, the United States government is providing more than $44 million to Peru in 277 projects, through its Humanitarian Assistance Program (HAP), to help Peru improve its capacity to respond to disasters.” Among other projects is the new Regional Emergency Operations Center of Huánuco financed by the Southern Command that will be used to “improve the response capacity to natural disasters. The investment in this center goes above $1.5 million”, said Jorge Chávez Cresta, a Southern Command representative.

In addition, in August 2017, the head of the Southern Command, Kurt Walter Tidd, in the framework of the South American Defense Conference-2017 (SOUTHDEC 17), held in Lima, Peru, said that “this meeting demonstrates our interest in strengthening relations with the countries of this region, to join as partners and true friends who welcome all ideas and perspectives.

The South American Defense Conference is one of three regional security conferences that the United States Southern Command carries out to “exchange experiences among defense and security authorities of the region”, including on the issue of “climate change”.

A month prior to this meeting, the Southern Command had carried out a military exercise by sea, air and land called Multinational Exercise UNITAS—2017. More than 4,200 sailors from 19 countries, and approximately 60 naval, terrestrial and aerial units, participated in the “Mar de Grau” off the northern coast of Peru, in its fifty-eighth edition of these exercises. The United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as the Peruvian Armed and Air Force, participated in this international exercise.

“Colombia is the United States’ most important ally in the region. Colombia could be the Trojan horse in an eventual military intervention against Venezuela or against any country in the region, according to their interests”, points out Gilberto López y Rivas, who is an author of “Estudiando la Contrainsurgencia de Estados Unidos” (Analyzing the United States’ Counterinsurgency), among other books.

In addition to these military exercises, others were carried out in the Triple Frontier shared by Brazil, Colombia and Peru, with the multinational military exercise titled AmazonLog2017, organized by the Brazilian Armed Forces with support from the Southern Command. At least 2,000 Brazilian military men participated, as well as men from the invited countries, with high-caliber weapons and ammunition, ships, planes and helicopters, information technologies, nautical equipment, smart energy, radars and sensors.

“Under military dictatorship in Brazil, these joint exercises with the United States never took place. This is the first time, since they were aided in World War II, in which the Brazilian government helps this North American country carry out these exercises. This is a very significant historical geopolitical change”, said Grabendorff.

In Honduras, a hydroelectric project for autonomy

Por
Renata Bessi
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Translated by: Sam Warren

The half-truths created by the green economy marketplace are many. In various parts of Latin America there are mining projects stamped with the label “green,” hydroelectric dams that fall within the Clean Development Mechanism and at the same time destroy forests, water and the social fabric of indigenous and rural communities. But Avispa Midia found, in a corner of Honduras, one small community on the Caribbean, known as Plan Grande, where there truly is green energy production—or rather “community energy,” as the town’s residents call it.

Six kilometers (4.8 miles) from Plan Grande lies the community of Betulia. The two communities have shared in the diverse attempts undertaken to produce their own energy within their territory. At first the two communities attempted it by using a small diesel-powered turbine. A second effort saw the installation of a commercial hydroelectric plant in Betulia, though not in Plan Grande. Although the people of Betulia rejected this project, it was implemented anyways, causing social and environmental damage as a result of a dam that, even so, was recognized internationally as a Gold Standard Premium Quality sustainable project. In this report, divided in four chapters, we share the experience of the two projects.

Community-Based Energy

Yadira Santos lightly bends her knees, as if she were climbing a staircase, amidst the turmoil of the Caribbean waters of Honduras, on a beach by the town known as Rio Coco. She looks for the reporter and says excitedly, "Come on!" A storm was coming and this was the only way to arrive at the final destination--by boat. Yadira insists: "Come on, if we wait more than five minutes the storm will hit us full on and we won't get to the town today." There was no other option. The reporter, assures her team, placed one of her feet on Yadira's knee as Yadira tried to lend some stability to the boat; then she pushed herself off and threw herself inside. Half an hour later, everyone disembarked safe and sound in Plan Grande.

Plan Grande is not, geographically, an island. It is a small town that lies on the same Caribbean coast of Honduras. But even though it is on the American continent, visitors must arrive either by boat or an hours-long hike along paths through dense forest. It is connected neither by highways nor wires. That is to say, the community is not connected to the national electrical system, which relies heavily on contributions from large public and private dams; they produce 32.8% of the country's electricity, according to government figures from 2017.

The town isn't connected and doesn't need to be. It has its own hydroelectric plant, a small power station that generates its own energy communally. The turbine is small, with only 18 kilowatts of power, but it is enough to supply 120 houses in the town, around 500 people. The dam itself is just over six meters (about 20 ft) wide and the waterfall goes no higher than three meters (about 10 ft)

Comparison

 
While the Plan Grande plant has 18 kilowatts of power, the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, on the Gualcarque River in the Lenca village of Río Blanco where the indigenous activist Berta Cáceres was murdered as a result of protest against the project--has 21.3 megawatts of power and is commercially considered a small hydroelectric plant. This status was conferred by its funders, the FMO (Financierings Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden), of the Netherlands. By way of example, the Itaipú hydroelectric plant, Brazil's largest and the second largest in the world, has an installed capacity of 14,000 megawatts.
  • "We work with the flow of water that comes from the mountain, and it's not large. Our logic as a community is not of limitless consumption, it is not the logic of commercializing energy, it is the logic of meeting our most basic needs. Thus we adapt our consumption to what nature offers us," said Oscar Padilla, of the community council. "What we propose is not to stop using technology that has been created, but to use it responsibly and with respect for our rivers and forests. Because, yes, nature does have limits."

How electricity arrived

 
Those who arrive for the first time and are not from the community would say, at first, that it is impossible to carry turbines, generators, poles, cables, and cement to the village's beach on a small boat. But this is not the greatest problem. There are no wide roads where the river is, but only small paths; there would be no way to transport all the equipment necessary to the winding road upriver, where the powerhouse and the dam wall were built.
 
"Well, that's how we did it. And not only the men, us women too. The men go lobster-fishing a large part of the year. The ones who are captains go for the whole season, 8 months, it starts in June and they stay until March. The ones who are sailors go for three. Almost all the youth go. So we had to work just as hard," said Bernarda Baños, 63 years old.
 
This wasn't a one-time effort. They had to carry the turbines and generators to the town in small boats twice.
 
Until 2006 the people of Plan Grande used gas lamps. "And when we didn't have money to buy gas, we made coconut oil lamps. All this beach you see, along the entire shore there were coconut trees and that's where we got the oil from," recalls Baños.
 
In 2006, a diesel generator plant arrived in the neighboring town of Betulia, donated by the Spanish Cooperation Agency for International Development (or AECID, for Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo). "We knew that one of their representatives was going to be in Betulia. That day it rained a lot and we couldn't go by sea, so we walked for hours to get there. So we talked with him and he told us that if we got a hold of a helicopter to carry the equipment to Plan Grande, then they'd give us a plant too," remembers Dilsia Reyes, from the organized women's group of the community and president of the community council.
 

See what the community representatives' response was to the AECID member:

 
Without helicopters and "on our own backs," as Reyes put it, the community maneuvered the plant upriver and managed it for four years, until 2010. "We had three hours of energy per day, from 6 pm to 9 pm. At 9 pm we all went looking for a lamp because the plant turned off," said Reyes. To generate three hours per day of energy the plant consumed three gallons of diesel and as time went on the community could no longer sustain it.
 
The town's second project hit the mark. After abandoning the diesel plant, the community presented their need to an international organization and was awarded financing to install a small hydroelectric plant.
 
"The whole town joined together to build the project and figure out its organization and administration. It's been three years now that we've had truly clean energy for the 120 homes in the community," said Edgardo Padilla, of the Electricity Committee, the administrative committee for Plan Grande's energy project.
 
Edgardo calculates that it's possible to acquire all the apparatuses for energy generation by spending around $10,000 USD and assures that the project's maintenance is more reasonable. "Before we were spending at least 1000 lempiras ($42.50 USD) per month to maintain the system; now we spend no more than 100 lempiras ($4.25 USD)," states Edgardo.
 
Plan Grande's turbine is propelled by gravity-driven water from the San Matías River, which forms part of the Lis Lis River Basin, in the Matías Microbasin and El Gringo Gorge Forest Protection Area. Part of the water from the Matías River is diverted from its course by a PVC pipe that connects with the dam wall, passes through the powerhouse and returns to the normal course of the river some meters below. "Studies were done to determine how much could be diverted from the river without causing harm," explains Edgardo.
 
"At first we didn't know about turbines, we had technical assistance to manage them and also for the installation of the pipes, the dam wall, the electric system, the cables, the poles. Now we train each other. Installing the transformers, for example, is now a responsibility of the townspeople. That is, the problems aren't so complex; we already resolved them. The idea is to work so that we have full autonomy," Edgardo added.

When we talk about community projects, we mean that which is community-developed and community-sustained, Padilla made clear. "We know of other communities that received donations of turbines and generators, but they didn't succeed in maintaining the project. So we worked hard to create a way of organizing ourselves, in such a way that the whole community has the responsibility for the energy we generate," he explained.

The community council was responsible for the project construction and the entire community participated in the process. After it was ready, an Electrification Committee was created, which administers, maintains and supervises the project. "We have an executive committee with seven members, a coordinator, the treasurer, president, secretary, members. Also, we have operators, who operate the system. When big problems arise we hire technicians from outside the community. And we rotate these responsibilities throughout the community, so we have to prepare other people to exercise these functions."

The decisions are made in a community assembly. "We periodically convene the assembly for the economic report of revenues and expenses, very detailed reports. In the assembly the people have the opportunity to ask questions and propose ideas, improvements. We, as directors, analyze them and follow up. There are no restrictions in the assembly," he explained.

The committee generated rules for energy consumption. "We thought of norms of use that would allow for the division of energy among the people in the most egalitarian form. With respect for the capacity of the river, we created some restrictions. For example, we don't allow the use of air conditioners. We don't allow one person to have too many electrical appliances because it restricts the consumption of another person, it takes away their right, so we have consumption maximally calibrated."

Four rates were created, of 250 lempiras ($10.60 USD), 200 lempiras ($8.50 USD), 130 lempiras ($5.50 USD) or 100 lempiras ($4.40 USD) monthly, depending on consumption and home appliances. "There are fines if people don't respect the rules. They were all decided on in assembly. People educate themselves because they know how much it costs all of us to produce energy," sustained Edgardo.

Profits for the community

 
Before, there was nothing cold in Plan Grande, remembers Reyes. When the sailors came with their products, we had to give them away because there wasn't any way to conserve them. "Now they bring their products, their lobsters, they give to everyone in the community who needs it and the rest they store for their own consumption or for sale. So nothing goes to waste. It's all consumed."
 
Now they can maintain computers. "We created a basic center in the community so that children could learn to use computers," says Padilla. The women's group in the community was also able to realize their bakery project. "We can plan our production with greater certainty," said Nolbia Cortez, who forms part of the women's group.
 
In addition to the possibilities for work and learning generated by the use of power, the production of energy itself generates profits for the community due to the fees paid for use. That is, a part of the resources is used to maintain the system, and the rest goes to a communal fund for the town's use.
 
"We have made a petty cash fund so that people in the community, in moments of need or emergency, can go to the treasury and obtain an allowance to take a sick person to the hospital, for example. We have also created a fund for loans, small credits. If I have a need, whether it is urgent or not, there is a fund where I can apply for a loan. We have as collateral the use of energy; if we don't pay the loan, our service is cut," explains Edgardo.
 
With the fund, children studying at the community school have been given scholarships. "The assembly decided on the parameters for the scholarship. One is for high academic achievement. The other is for the degree of the child's need," said Edgardo. Further support goes to the school administration.
 

If a private hydroelectric project had been built in Plan Grande, it would have damaged the forested, mountainous area above the town, comments Padilla. "It would have taken away a good part of the forest for the construction of a dam and it would have used the entire flow of water. The truth is that they already came to propose the purchase of our project. But our logic is different, it's to utilize the minimum flow of water necessary and adapt our consumption to it. We work with the aim of protecting our forest above, our source of water. We know that if there's no forest, there's no water," said Padilla.

6 km (3.7 miles) from Plan Grande, in the town of Betulia--the same one that initially had a small diesel plant--there is now a commercial hydroelectric plant. "The river of Betulia is destroyed. Before it was fertile, people went to catch shrimp in the river. Now the river is muddy, and it floods. The fishing grounds that used to exist no longer do."

The report:

 
The cases of Río Blanco, Guadalupe (Betulia), and the El Tumbador estate form part of a general context of the despoiling of the commonly held properties of indigenous, black and poor rural peoples, with the purpose of ceding these properties to third parties, alien to the community, so that they may be exploited.
 
The State has been the judge and the judged: it allies itself with the interests of the investors, it constitutes itself as their first business partner. Far from protecting the indigenous and poor rural communities, it favors their despoilment. This is shown in the murder of Berta Cáceres, as it was the same State that persecuted Berta Cáceres and refused to hear her denunciations that now has exclusive control over the investigation and the search for "justice," as was documented by the International Expert Assessor Group (GAIPE, for Grupo Asesor Internacional de Personas Expertas).
 

The project on the Betulia River bears the Gold Standard Premium Quality certificate, which confers sustainable project status

 
The Gold Standard Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Switzerland which provides premium carbon credit certification. That is, the certificate attests that the project promotes reduction of polluting gas emissions and has the right to carbon credits that can be sold to countries which have to meet reduction goals.
 
The government of Honduras has oriented its actions in the development, enlargement, modernization and optimization of electrical services around the generation of what it considers to be clean energy. In official reports, the Honduran government boasts that 61% of the national electrical grid is powered by clean energy.
 
"We have taken our experience to other areas. We've talked. We had an event in San Pedro Sula, where there were multimillion-dollar hydroelectric projects, and we shared the example of Plan Grande with them. And do you think they paid attention? No, they didn't care. But oh well, in Plan Grande we're fighting to do something healthy for the community and the environment."

Beginning in 2010, according to the report Human Rights Violations in Extractivist Projects in Honduras, from the Honduran Center for the Promotion of Community Development (CEHPRODEC, for Centro Hondureño de Promoción para el Desarrollo Comunitario), 40 contracts with private businesses were approved for the generation of hydroelectric energy. 21 of these projects were within the territory of the Lenca, Pech, Tawahka, Misquito, Tolupan and Garifuna indigenous groups.

The government that followed the 2009 coup saw the approval of Decree 233-2010, repealing the ministerial decrees 001-96 and 158-2009, which prohibited hydroelectric projects in protected areas. This in turn made possible the approval of laws favoring the concession of rivers, the construction of dams, mineral exploitation, hydrocarbon exploration and the approval of the Special Regimens of Development (RED, for Regimenes Especiales de Desarrollo) or "Model Cities" in the following government (2010-2013) presided over by Porfirio Lobo Sosa.

The General Law on Water, also reformed in 2009, promotes the concession of bodies of water to third parties and based on this legal framework 40 contracts were conceded to private businesses the following year, without any previous consultation of indigenous communities.

The processes of the concession and despoilment of these communities' natural resources, sustains the report, are complemented by repressive policies based on the militarization of public spaces. Some examples include the Anti-Terrorism Act, the NGO Control Act, the Illicit Association Act, and the creation of military police and elite police forces.

Padilla speaks to the communities harassed by hydroelectric megaprojects:

If you have a river, don't sell it. The communities need to be ready for when the multimillion-dollar hydroelectric projects arrive. These projects are a disaster for the communities. We have the example of Betulia nearby. Business people arrive and in many cases the community isn't ready, they don't have enough information and they say yes to the projects. They draw you a beautiful picture of the generation of clean energy but when the time comes, things are very different.

I invite the communities to look favorably on the work we have done in Plan Grande. Take note, we are ready to give any information they might need. Our people can even lend technical assistance and can go to other communities, share the experience. The Committee also has its doors open to explain everything, how we manage the project in the community, the technical and administrative parts as well as the organizational parts.

Social Conflict in Nicaragua: More than 108 dead

Por
Renata Bessi
-

Traslate: Laura Krasovitzky

On Thursday, May 31, student and social movements, farmers and civil society organizations in Nicaragua that are part of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy called for greater resistance against the repression carried out by President Daniel Ortega’s administration. “We are calling for an intensification of different forms of peaceful protest: intensify the struggle for university autonomy, strengthen and reorganize barricades, reinforce supply centers and strengthen expressions of solidarity and support", expressed the Alliance in a statement. The Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights (CENIDH) has confirmed that as of the evening of May 31, the death toll has risen to 108 after 43 days of government repression against protestors.

The Alliance’s call took place a day after an attack on a giant demonstration on Mother's’ Day in Nicaragua on May 30, led by mothers of the victims of the wave of repression in April ("Mothers of April“ movement) in the country. The attack left 88 injured and at least 16 dead in different cities around the country, according to the most updated count on May 31 by the CENIDH.

"The simulation carried out by the government of President Daniel Ortega has reached inconceivable levels of perversion. While in the morning his government signed an agreement with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to create an Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, which would investigate grave human rights violations committed so far, later in the day, the government violently attacked a mass march convened by mothers of youth executed within the context of the protests,"

SAID ERIKA GUEVARA ROSAS, DIRECTOR FOR THE AMERICAS AT AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL.

The protests, led mostly by students, began on April 18 in response to government reforms that increased workers’ and employers’ contributions to social security, while cutting benefits.

Within the first five days of protests alone, the Nicaraguan Red Cross provided treatment to more than 400 wounded, 235 of whom had to be transferred to health units, according to Amnesty International’s (AI) report Shoot to kill: Nicaragua's strategy to repress protest, presented on May 29. Moreover, 311 of all cases regarding medical attention took place in Managua, primarily at the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua (UPOLI), making it one of the areas with the highest number of registered attacks against protesters across the country.

Audiovisual materials presented by AI confirmed the use of firearms by police during the first days of the protest in the areas surrounding the UPOLI. The images show a law enforcement group (riot police and National Police) with shotguns and two firearms. The police fired lethal ammunition at least once, despite a lack of perceivable threats against them. This event would have happened at night.

Understanding the context

Nicaragua's political context shies away from traditional left-wing and right-wing politics. For a sector of what is considered to be the institutionalized political left of Latin America, the protests in Nicaragua appear to follow the script of the United States-led coup against Ortega, who currently leads the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), heir to the Sandinista movement that overthrew the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua in 1979.

In an interview for TeleSur, for example, international analysts like Sandino Asturias, Adolfo Pastrán and ErnestoWong pointed out that the protests are part of a new interventionist plan put together by the United States, as a reissue of the right-wing script that has been used in Venezuela to trigger a change in government.

However, reality is much more complex. Avispa Midia interviewed Rigo del Calvario López, who was part of the Sandinista guerrilla in the 1970s. Talking about Sandinismo in the times of President Daniel Ortega is a matter of nostalgia and anger for this old ex-guerrilla.

"To be a Sandinista meant learning from the principles of General Augusto César Sandino, who led the resistance against the United States armed occupation in Nicaragua between 1926 and 1933. He did not seek to be a landowner or president. Those of us in the original block of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) affirmed that we did not want to be entrepreneurs or millionaires and much less presidents. However, the opposite happened. They became landowners, presidents, businessmen and millionaires. They only use the red and black flag to shelter themselves and that's not being a Sandinista", shares Calvario.

Learn more ⇒ Avanza el neoliberalismo en Nicaragua: del rojinegro de la revolución al fiusha de las modas

Taking all of the above into account, the wave of violence on behalf of the State is unjustifiable and indefensible. Nicaragua has been governed for three consecutive terms since 2007 by President Daniel Ortega. His wife, Rosario Murillo, has been vice-president since January 2017. According to AI’s report, in recent years, the signs of human rights deterioration have been increasingly visible. On the eve of the 2016 presidential elections, Amnesty International expressed concern that Nicaragua was "very quickly and dangerously slipping back into some of the darkest times the country has seen in decades", the document stated.

An Avispa Midia team tried to enter Nicaragua on the eve of the elections, but was denied entry by immigration authorities after realizing it was a team of international journalists.

Rights violations regarding freedom of expression and peaceful protests have been repeatedly carried out by President Daniel Ortega’s government, This has been documented by various national and international human rights organizations. The violent crackdown on protests and harassment experienced by representatives and rural community leaders is also due to their resistance to the Interoceanic Grand Canal mega-project, which has also been repeatedly condemned by Nicaraguan organizations and Amnesty International.

AI made a recount of the events in its report. On April 16, 2018, the Board of Directors of the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS) approved a reform regarding the social security system, which was ratified the following day by President Daniel Ortega through the 2018 Presidential Decree, published in La Gaceta Official on April 18, 2018.

The reform entailed an increase in social security contributions for employers and workers and an additional contribution of 5% for pensioners, among other changes. The affected sectors of the population took these measures as an attack on their rights. The lack of consultation and transparency during negotiations further fueled discontent. As a result, thousands of people protested in Managua and other cities in the country such as Bluefields, León, Estelí, Ciudad Sandino and Masaya.

Acts of repression and violence against protesters, most of whom were students, by state security forces and government related groups or paramilitaries were denounced through social media networks and by human rights organizations as soon as the protests began. On the first day, a parapolice group attacked students at the Central American University (UCA).

On April 19, 2018, students from various universities joined the protests. The day ended with at least three people killed, including a student and a police officer, and dozens of people injured. The protests spread to other departments across Nicaragua, while the government blocked the transmission of at least four media outlets, as was later reported.

Universities like the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua (UPOLI), the National University of Engineering (UNI) and the Agrarian University (UNA) became shields for hundreds of young people to protect themselves from the violence carried out by public security forces and parapolice groups. On April 21, 2018, reporter Ángel Gahona was murdered in Bluefields and nine other journalists were injured.

The following day, additional attacks were reported and attributed to the National Police, which went after students sheltered in the UPOLI. Six people were injured, as a result, and one person died. That same day, President Daniel Ortega announced he would revoke the reforms to the social security system, but made no mention of the deaths of protesters. The repression has been increasing ever since.

The strategies of repression

Some of the elements AI mentioned as part of this strategy of repression are: an official discourse of denial and covering up of existing repression and its consequences, as well as having the highest levels of government stigmatize people protesting publicly; the use of parapolice groups to carry out attacks, amplify their repressive strength, and operate outside the law more easily; the excessive use of force by the National Police and its riot police unit; possible extrajudicial executions by both the National Police and parapolice groups; possible acts of concealment and obstruction in investigations due to a lack of basic and crucial initial steps to make them successful; the denial of medical care in public hospitals; as well as attempts to control the press in order to conceal reality and limit freedom of expression.

Details for some of these elements according to AI’s report can be explored below.

Denial of State repression

After reports of the first three people killed by state forces surfaced on April 19, 2018, Vice President Rosario Murillo told reporters that the groups of people protesting were "tiny" groups that were "against peace and development, led by interests and a political agenda, selfish, toxic, (and) full of hate, [...] "and had made up the deaths reported that day as an anti-government strategy. She also expressed that these sick hearts, full of hatred, and perverts cannot plant chaos and strip all Nicaraguan families of the tranquility that God has given us".

She also accused the media of being manipulative and "promoters of violence that cowardly and premeditatively hide from the cameras they themselves carry", and warned that the government would not allow any provocations.

On April 21, President Ortega made a public statement regarding the protests for the first time, emphasizing that the protesters were "murderers, who walk with weapons of war and when they fall in combat because of the army or the police, then it’s poor them and one has to go to Human Rights on their behalf. "He also stated that protests were being manipulated by political factions that take advantage of any excuse to take political advantage".

Despite the fact that the number of people murdered within the context of police repression increased every day, neither President Ortega nor Vice President Murillo lamented the deaths of protesters. It was not until April 30, 2018, when the Head of State expressed his solidarity with people who lost a loved one in acts of violence and called for "a minute of silence, remembering the deceased, [ ...] but above all, committing ourselves to prevent violence from returning to our homeland".

Without proof of evidence

Safeguarding and preserving the crime scene correctly is one of the most important aspects to ensure an impartial and effective investigation. International standards indicate that essential steps must be taken to process all evidence that may contribute to the success of the investigation in these types of cases.

However, Amnesty International stated that in most of the documented cases, the crime scene was not preserved (when it was in fact possible) and the evidence was not recollected promptly and exhaustively and lacked a guarantee for the chain of custody.

In at least two cases, families told Amnesty International that the evidence at the scene of the crime had been removed. According to videos analyzed by the organization, the morning after the murders of Orlando Pérez and Franco Valdivia, several people cleaned traces of blood and other evidence with a hose and buckets of water.

In the case of Cristhiam Cadenas, whose body was found inside a burnt building in the city of León, the police did not preserve the evidence (his clothes) and did not guarantee the chain of custody. At the time of the interview with Amnesty International, his brother Alexander Sarria Cadenas explained that the police showed him his brother's pants half burnt on one side and a burnt body that was unidentifiable. Although Alexander Sarria identified the clothes, he was not completely sure if it was his brother since he did not have a DNA test to verify his identity. Moreover, Alexander mentioned the body’s legs, arms and teeth were missing.

Nonetheless, the forensic pathologist told him he had died from smoke inhalation without offering any further explanation.

Censorship

Censorship, attacks and threats to media and journalists by riot police and parapolice groups were repeatedly reported during protests. On April 19, 2018, the Nicaraguan Institute for Telecommunications and Mail (Telecor) issued an order to take Channel 100% Noticias, Channel 12, Channel 23 and Channel 51 off the air. Additionally, the Radio Darío radio station in León was set on fire on April 20.

Nicaragua Dialogue

Conversations currently held between movements and organizations and the Ortega government were suspended by the Catholic Church, which has been acting as a mediator and witness in the process after the massacre on Mother's Day. "At the time, we agreed to a National Dialogue despite the lack of conditions and political will by the government. This time has been wasted in sterile discussions that do not touch upon the pillars of the dialogue: Justice and Democratization", the Alliance declared in its statement.

"We continue to believe that the Nicaragua Dialogue is still a way to find a peaceful solution to the crisis. However, following the most recent events, it will only be possible to proceed with this dialogue if the conditions set forth by the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua are fulfilled and if we have international independent guarantees present".

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