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Nasa People Travels through Autonomous Movements in Mexico

Por
Santiago Navarro F
-

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

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

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

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

Sugarcane


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

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

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

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

SAYS AN INDIGENOUS NASA MAN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Autonomy


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

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

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

Women


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read moore ⇒ The military industry’s shameless business in the border wars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Por
Santiago Navarro F
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Translated by Leif Johnson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Santiago Navarro F

Central American Exodus

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Santiago Navarro F

50 million migrants

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

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

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

The military industry’s shameless business in the border wars

Por
Renata Bessi
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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
-

“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
-

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.

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