Mexico: State Terror, Education Reform and the Stock Exchange

Por

21 June, 2016

State police shoot protesters. Jun-19-2016

The reasons why the Mexican government wants to impose the Educational Reform, even if it means killing people, as with the massacre in Nochixtlán by repressive state forces on June 19, are rooted in economic objectives guided by international financial organizations. The reform, proposed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with the OECD-Mexico Agreement to Improve the Quality of Education in Schools of Mexico, aims to lay the groundwork to shift education from being a State responsibility to instead being resolved in the realm of the financial market.

One of the state’s actions accompanying the Educational Reform is the issuing of bonds to the speculative market. Just over a year after the adoption of the reform, in December 2015, the first educational bonds or National School Infrastructure Certificates (CIEN) were issued by the Mexican Stock Exchange, which investors BBVA Bancomer and Merrill Lynch purchased for 8.581 billion pesos.

When a company or state issues bonds, the investors who buy them are lending them money in exchange for the issuer – in this case the Mexican State – committing to pay the interest at fixed intervals over a predetermined period of time. These payments will be made every six months and by the states and their inhabitants.

With the educational bonds, the state aims to attract investors to this sector and, in a first stage, aims to renovate existing infrastructure and promote the development of new schools and basic services. That is, the state has converted the bonds into a given number of common stocks to attract investors to this sector that, since its establishment, is seen as another company that will have to generate profits for shareholders.

The Educational Reform is part of the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP), guided by the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). In total, 11 structural reforms have been approved: labor, the treasury, education, finance, energy, reform on transparency, political and electoral reform, reform in telecommunications and broadcasting, the new court-ordered protection law, the national criminal procedures code, and reform in economic competition. Twenty-two more reforms still need to be approved.

According to Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics and former vice president of the World Bank, the Structural Adjustment Programs have four steps: privatization, in which the government sells companies and public institutions to private investors; the liberalization of financial markets, when controls are reduced on the entry and exit of money in the country – in order to attract investors – interest rates are increased; the introduction of market prices, when the government allows the prices of basic food, water and energy to rise; and free trade, which means removing barriers (taxes and tariffs), to foreign products that protect local producers and industries.

If the national teachers movement manages to bring down the educational reform, there will be a path to bringing down all the structural reforms that are occurring in the country’s strategic sectors, such as the energy sector. This is the assessment that teachers are making. This is precisely the fear of the federal government. The government remains closed to dialogue because it already signed all of the international agreements.

Layoffs

The CNTE argues that the educational reform is a model seeking to outsource education by replacing their positions with new contract workers without labor rights, until it turns into a privatized service. The reform is focused on recruitment procedures and teacher supervision and not on true changes to improve education and the working conditions of the teachers.

According to María Bernardita Zamora, a history teacher in Iztapalapa, one of the poorest areas in the Federal District, and a member of the CNTE (the teachers union fighting the reform), the estimate is that with the reform 60% of the 1.2 million teachers in Mexico today will lose their jobs. So far, 4,000 teachers have been fired for rejecting the educational reform, according to the teacher.

State Terrorism

The teachers of the CNTE have been on a general strike since May 15. Since that date there has been intense plan of mobilizations by the movement, and the state response was brutal repression. In the last week barricades were erected in all regions of the state of Oaxaca, where countless acts of repression by federal and state police were recorded.

On June 18 and 19, the repression led to a massacre. Starting on the 18th, in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the battles that began in Zanacatepec extended to Juchitán, Ixtepec, Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz. All barricades reorganized themselves after those failed attempts. Later, on the 19th, the focus of the repression spread to the Mixteca region in Nochixtlán, where for a week teachers, parents and the community in general had maintained barricades to keep the police out of the city of Oaxaca. The repression left at least eight people dead, 27 disappeared and a hundred injured and arrested.

Despite this situation, the police had to retreat and try at all costs to clear the roads to advance to the state capital. The federal police managed to pass the blockades at Nochixtlán and Huitzo in order to enter the city of Oaxaca, while they received support from reinforcements who were waiting at the airport and other sites.

Hours after the massacre in Nochixtlán, about 20 blockades at the entrance to the city of Oaxaca were attacked. There was at least one person killed by the repressive forces of the state, and hundreds injured and arrested.

On the same night, the next location expecting repression was the center of the city, specifically the Zócalo (main square), where since May 15 teachers have maintained their encampment. Electricity to this area was cut for a few hours, later being turned back on. Barricades were erected around the Zócalo. In the end, there was no eviction and the camp remains until now.

Meanwhile, the Interior Minister of Mexico issued a statement on Sunday, June 19, where he stated that photographs shared on social networks, which show federal police using firearms against protesters, are totally fake. “The actions of the federal troops are in line with the protocols established to enforce the law without violating human rights,” he said.

Moreover, a gathering of more than 70 civil society organizations issued a humanitarian alert in response to the armed State attack on the civilian population.

Today, June 19, we are witnesses to the extremely violent actions of the Mexican State to repress the teachers and organized society in resistance in various areas of the state of Oaxaca, including the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Nochixtlán and the city of Oaxaca. As a result of excessive use of force, at least six people are dead and dozens wounded and detained.

Similarly, they say that:

So far the whereabouts of detainees, or the total number of injured and dead are not known. Medical care has not been guaranteed and the civilian population has had to create emergency care sites to meet the overwhelming need of those injured.

Among other points, the statement by civil society organizations denounces the constant criminalization of social protest in Oaxaca. Among the main instances regarding this, it is worth noting:

In May 2013, the arrest of five teachers from Oaxaca: Damián Gallardo Martínez, Lauro Atilano Grijalva Villalobos, Mario Olivera Osorio, Sara Altamirano Ramos and Leonel Manzano Sosa.
In 2015, criminalization and smear campaigns by the media against the teachers have been constantly increasing, along with the process of dismantling the IEEPO (Oaxaca State Institute of Public Education) that happened in July, leaving thousands of teachers in particular risk of not receiving their salaries.
In October 2015, Juan Carlos Orozco Matus, Othón Nazariega Segura, Efraín Picazo Pérez and Roberto Abel Jiménez García were arrested and dozens of arrest warrants against members of Section 22 (the Oaxacan branch of the CNTE) were issued.
In April 2016, Aciel Sibaja Mendoza, finance secretary of Section 22 was arrested.
In May 2016, Heriberto Magariño López, another leader of Section 22 was arrested.
Finally, on June 11, Francisco Villalobos Ricardéz, secretary of Section 22, and a few hours later on June 12, Rubén Núñez Ginez, secretary general of Section 22, were both arrested.

Similarly, various United Nations officials have issued urgent appeals to the Mexican authorities, voicing their concern about human rights violations reported in some of these cases, in particular, arrests without an arrest or search warrant, the use of torture during the subsequent arbitrary detention, and other violations of the rights of detainees.

Political Prisoners

On Saturday, June 11, 2016, at approximately 11pm, more than 1,000 police violently removed the teachers of Section 22, who belong to the CNTE in Oaxaca, the state with the highest concentration of teachers affiliated with the CNTE, 83,000 of the 200,000 in all of Mexico. The teachers were in an encampment in front of the Oaxaca State Institute of Public Education (IEEPO).

The police attacked the teachers from various positions, firing tear gas canisters directly at the teachers. Meanwhile, the teachers reorganized immediately, together with neighbors and anarchist youth, resisting with stones and barricades. After the repression, the teachers went to the Zócalo, where their encampment remains at the moment.

The eviction came after a team of special forces on Saturday afternoon arrested Francisco Villalobos Ricárdez, Organization Secretary of CNTE Section 22, in the city of Tehuantepec in southern Oaxaca, for the theft of books in 2015. Those books are distributed to students for free and are considered property of the Ministry of Public Education. During the theft one person was injured, according to the charges filed against the secretary. Early Sunday morning, the same day as the repression in Oaxaca, Secretary General Rubén Núñez was arrested for the alleged use of illicitly acquired funds. Altogether, seven CNTE members have been detained. Another 24 members of the CNTE in Oaxaca have arrest warrants out against them.

In a press release, the CNTE said that the government has publicly shown that today’s teachers are treated as the worst offenders in the country as several of them are held in maximum security prisons, as they represent a threat to the government of Enrique Peña Nieto and by not allowing the passage of a reform that was dead on arrival, as it is being buried in Oaxaca.

Negotiating Table

The teachers’ movement is calling for an immediate start to negotiations, but the government refuses to open up such a space. Isabel García Velázquez, a teacher and member of the CNTE political commission in Oaxaca from the Coastal region, said:

We are willing to have a national dialogue on education because we have a proposal. An alternative education model is needed in the state of Oaxaca, one that respects the customs, the culture and that is evaluated according to how we live. But they want to impose a reform exclusively in accordance with their own policies. It will not be possible here in Mexico, not here in Oaxaca.

Photos: Xiaj Nikte and Niña Salvaje
Videos: Avispa Midia, SubVersiones, Jarana Films, El Enemigo Común, Desde las Nubes.

Resistance Extends Throughout Oaxaca Against Education Reform

Por

Avispa

20 June, 2016

June 16, 2016

Translation by Elenemigocomun

“Welcome to Oaxaca” says a metal plate at the entrance to this city. A city worth knowing, with a great gastronomic and cultural diversity, colors, sounds and tastes. One of the states of Mexico with the most diversity in native languages, one of the richest in natural diversity, but also the 3rd poorest state in Mexico, according to statistics of the National Council for Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL). Although, truth be told, there have always been two Oaxacas, the profound and everyday Oaxaca, and the one sold in advertising- a made-up Oaxaca offered to a wealthy sector. Today, an intense day of demonstrations throughout the entire state, the legend “Welcome to Oaxaca” was a welcome for the federal police sent by the federal government to establish peace and order in this federal entity and “to apply the Education Reform with military methods,” says the housewife, Jazmín López, who has joined the reception.

In this entry to Oaxaca for those coming from Mexico City, known as la Hacienda Blanca, (White House), teachers and residents of the surrounding settlements blocked the access and detained hundreds of trucks carrying luxury cars, goods for commercial centers, building materials and machinery. They only allowed civilian vehicles to pass.

The same reception was given in each of the four corners of Oaxaca. For example, in the Isthmus de Tehuantepec, 8 hours away from the city of Oaxaca, at least three large barricades were erected to prevent access to the elements of the Gendarmería, a partnership created for the fight against drug trafficking.

The federal police arrived by air along the Pacific coast and with the use of tear gas, immediately tried to deter the barricades in Tehuantepec, Jalapa del Marqués and Tequisistlán, all located in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region. However, the operation failed. Section 22 teachers and villagers regrouped to reinforce the resistance. At the end of the day, they added at least 9 barricades in this region. “The Istmo is a land of warriors and police will have to wage a fierce struggle if they want to get in,” Professor Demetrio Bautista said.

Unable to enter land due to the strong resistance and barricades set up in the state capital Oaxaca as well as in Istmo, the federal police have chosen to use helicopters and airplanes. This June 16th, at least three federal police aircraft landed at the “Benito Juarez” International Airport of Oaxaca, located in Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán. They carried about 500 armed federal agents.

Meanwhile, the encampment in the historic center of this city has been maintained since May 15 and the blockade of the Freeway 190 in the district of Nochixtlan (which links Mexico City to Oaxaca), completes its fourth day today. The same is true of the one set up by the people of San Andrés Chicahuaxtla in the district of Putla de Guerrero, Oaxaca, as well as those in the communities in the Southern Highlands and la Cañada, where the barricades are still in effect.

The blockade at Hacienda Blanca is expected to be maintained until Friday, June 17. It’s a symbolic place where on Wednesday, June 15, riot equipment from the federal police was burned. Preparations are also underway for a massive mobilization in Mexico City on Friday, where more than 100,000 teachers are expected to join in.

The teachers are still demanding the release of their thirteen imprisoned comrades and the suspension of dozens of arrest warrants, but above all, the total rejection of the so-called “Education Reform”.

Communication

Radio Plantón, frequency 92.1, has become critical to this resistance, because it’s a way to publicize the activities carried out in the 7 regions of this state.

It is a means of communication triangulated with several community radio stations and with free and independent media platforms on the Internet, but with a constant warning that the State will pull its signal, as has happened before. At the same time the mass media maintains a media war to criminalize teachers. A huge demonstration on June 14, for example, was not covered by mass media even though at least 90,000 education workers, parents and organizations were mobilized.

This radio frequency has also given those against this resistance the opportunity to speak, but they are immediately turned off with dozens of calls from parents in support of the struggle of their childrens’ teachers.

Without Transportation

The bus company Autobuses de Oriente (ADO) decided to suspend trips from Mexico City to Oaxaca and back, indefinitely.

Repression of the National Strike in Columbia Strengthens – Thus Far, Three Demonstrators Have Been Killed

Por

Santiago Navarro F

12 June, 2016

“The spirit that we have is that the territory should be for those who care for it, who inhabit it, who produce the food, who look after the water and the common goods. This is in contrast to a model that intends to create an infrastructure of mining and extraction of petroleum at the expense of the peoples that have historically inhabited these lands.”

In spite of strong repression, the campesinos, indigenous peoples, and African descendants of the Cumbre Agraria, Campesina, Étnica y Popular de Colombia (Agricultural, Rural, and Ethnic Peoples Summit of Columbia) have sustained a national strike for more than ten days that began May 30, 2016. Up until now the toll has been 3 indigenous people dead, 200 people injured, and 105 more facing criminal charges.

“Three indigenous people have been murdered by the Fuerza Publica del Estado (the Colombian military and national police). The response of the police has been savage repression”, said Sandra Rátiva, member of the Peoples’ Congress, one of the 13 organizations that make up the Cumbre Agraria, in an interview.

In at least 70 strategic points in 24 states throughout all of Colombia, demonstrators are maintaining blockades of the principle routes that connect the country to South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. There is participation in the strike by more than 100,000 indigenous people, rural inhabitants, African descendants, and other marginalized sectors of Colombian society, and other social sectors like students, academics, and international solidarity groups are now joining the movement.

The strike is a response to the disregard of Decree 870 by the National Government of President Juan Manuel Santos, which was signed May 8th, 2014. The agreement took into consideration the demands of the Cumbre Agraria, which were aimed at creating a mandate for quality of life improvements, for structural agricultural reform, sovereignty, democracy, and peace with social justice, revisiting eight points: lands, collective territories, and territorial legislation; a self-determined economy against the model of displacement; mining, energy and rural life; cultivation of coca, marijuana, and poppy; political rights and guarantees of justice for victims; social rights; urban-rural relations; and peace, social justice, and political solutions.

“From 2014 to 2016 the government has not fulfilled this first round of negotiations, beginning with the disregard of the 8 points. It is for this reason that since August of 2015 we decided to begin preparations for this national strike. We call ourselves the Jornada de Minga Nacional (National Conference of Collective Labor). We call it collective labor because we all contribute something to this action,” explained Rátiva.

At the time of this interview, the 9th of June, as a result of the refusal of the government to enter negotiations, the spokespeople of the 13 organizations of the Cumbre Agraria met in Gualanday, in the state of Cauca, to plan strategies to continue the strike, and to discuss points over which to negotiate with the government. “The government has produced false statements about supposed regional negotiations, affirming that we don’t presently have the goodwill necessary to negotiate. Their objective is to fragment the movement,” added Rátiva.

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Photos by Congreso de los Pueblos

No Guarantees of Safety

While the Minister of the Interior, Juan Fernando Cristo, has declared that the government would provide full guarantees for the legitimate exercise of social protests, his declarations contrast sharply with reality, as repression is already being endured. “The minister has given the order to evict the blockades without regard for either our intentions for negotiation, nor consideration of our petitions that seek a series of just policy transformations in the rural areas of the country. The response of the state has been strong repression and they have tried to divide the movement, offering small concessions in a few regions where they didn’t have a presence before the strike,” said the militant of the Peoples’ Congress.

Furthermore, the Colombian Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights demanded that the authorities of the country explain the deaths of the three indigenous people during the strike. “The facts should be brought to light by the judicial authorities, and our office offers full support in doing so. It is imperative to adopt all possible methods to avoid the possibility that situations like these repeat themselves,” declared the organization in a statement published on its website.

Cumbre Agraria and Resource Extraction

In 2011 Columbia signed a Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Canada. A similar agreement followed in 2012 with the European Union.

“In Colombia, as in Mexico, we have a very strong neoliberal model. We have had fourteen free trade agreements signed, and the WTO, IMF, and World Bank are demanding compliance with these agreements. There has been a massive advance of the transnational agricultural and energy industries. In Colombia, President Santos has said that one of the principle drivers of his development project is precisely the engine of mining and resource extraction. It has to do with extractive projects of enormous magnitude in both the mining and energy sectors,” argues Rátiva.

“There is a strong resistance from the urban population, the campesinos, and the black and indigenous communities to the extractive projects of mining and hydroelectric energy. For example, in the west of Colombia there is resistance in the municipality of Valdivia, where the Movimiento Rios Vivos (Living Rivers Movement) is fighting against the construction of dams and the choking of our rivers, which, as in the rest of the country, are part of the extractivist model. In the rest of the country there is a latent threat of mining and it makes up part of the reason for why we have mobilized. Because the spirit that we have is that the territory should be for those who care for it, who inhabit it, who produce the food, who look after the water and the common goods. This is in contrast to a model that intends to create an infrastructure of mining and extraction of petroleum at the expense of the peoples that have historically inhabited these lands,” emphasized Rátiva.

Solidarity

From noise demonstrations and cultural activities to forums and mobilizations, diverse sectors of Colombia have demonstrated their solidarity with the strike.

The 4th of June saw a meeting of the Comisión Política de las Asociaciones, Organizaciones and Pueblos Indígenas (Political Commission of Indigenous Associations, Organizations, and Peoples) affiliated with the Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia (National Indigenous Organization of Colombia) who denounced the militarized response of the state to the actions of the Cumbre Agaria and also announced actions to strengthen the movement. “We continue in collective labor, in all gathering places, until the national government gives constitutional guarantees of the legitimate exercise of the right to protest,” said the pronouncement.

Also the research group, Conflicto, Región y Sociedades Rurales (Conflict, Region, and Rural Societies) of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana declared their solidarity with the Cumbre Agraria. They assure that as researchers of rural issues they are well aware of the problems faced by campesinos. “We see with concern the negligence of the government, the delaying tactics, and the lack of real solutions to the problems of rural Colombians. We support the Cumbre Agraria because from our work and as a result of multiple research projects that have been done about rural Colombia we’ve been able to verify that this country needs to solve the structural problems of rural life.”

The Summit

The Cumbre Agraria was created after a similar repression was experienced during a strike in 2013. “The farmers’ strike of 2013 received a lot of solidarity from the urban sector, but also suffered violent state repression. And so in 2014, the Cumbre Agraria was formed, the most important space of national convergence in Colombia,” added Rátiva.

Translated by Scott Campbell

After Police Attack, Barricades Reappear in Oaxaca

Por

Avispa

12 June, 2016

In the waning minutes of June 11, federal police, the federal gendarmarie, and state police carried out a violent raid against striking teachers blockading the Oaxaca State Institute of Public Education (IEEPO). The attack comes almost ten years to the day when a similar state attack on striking teachers on June 14, 2006, led to a five-month, statewide rebellion.

Teachers in Mexico have been on strike since May 15, demanding, among other things, an end to the neoliberal educational reforms being pushed forward by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. For a roundup of events during the first 15 days of the strike, see the most recent Insumisión column.

While things have been tense in Oaxaca, with Governor Gabino Cué announcing that he had hundreds of police ready to remove any teachers encampment or blockade, there have been no big confrontations until tonight. This is likely due to the fact that the state held elections on June 5 and did not want to take any action prior to that which might interfere. Then earlier on Saturday, federal police arrested Francisco Villalobos, the Organization Secretary of Section 22, the Oaxacan branch of the National Coordinating Body of Education Workers (CNTE). He is being charged with aggravated robbery for allegedly stealing free schoolbooks in 2015.

In response, teachers set up blockades at major intersections throughout the city of Oaxaca and elsewhere in the state. Then came the raid on the teachers’ position at the IEEPO. At the same time, electricity was cut in the Zócalo, the city’s main square, where the teachers also have an encampment.

In response, teachers and civil society began building barricades blocking off access to the Zócalo, communicating information using the union’s radio station, Radio Plantón.

Via Facebook, a compa from Oaxaca shared with me that “30 police trucks are headed to the Zócalo…On the edge of the city there are five buses full of riot police and more police trucks. The city center is under siege.” Another communicated that all up and down Independencia Ave there are shoes, belongings and trash scattered about, indicating that several people have been arrested.

At around 2:30am Oaxaca time, it was announced that the Secretary General of Section 22, Rubén Núñez, was arrested on the border between Mexico City and the State of Mexico. The top two officials of Section 22 are now in state custody.

At the time of this writing, 3:30am in Oaxaca, Radio Plantón is reporting that military planes are now arriving in Oaxaca. They predict intense confrontations in the coming days. We will do our best to keep this page updated.

Green Economy: Social and Environmental Conflicts

Por

Avispa

10 June, 2016

In the last two years 300 activists of the environment were murdered. Help visibilize violence against environmental activists and amplify just climate alternatives.

⇒ https://vimeo.com/167957141 ⇐

The environmental and climate crisis has been an increasingly constant concern in many places around the world. From the young and elderly, women and men, to institutions, companies and governments, all have expressed concern about the environmental costs that have been provoked due to unrestrained economic growth and rampant consumption.

In this reality the United Nations proposed a new economic model, the “Green Economy”, beginning in the 1990s. The plan was designed to assist governments in "greening" their economies by reshaping and refocusing policies, investments and spending towards an emerging range of sectors. These areas include “clean” technologies, renewable energies, hydroelectric dams, wind farms, renewed water services, green transportation, eco friendly waste management, building green cities, agriculture and promoting sustainable forests.

On the other hand, there are a plurality of original peoples, indigenous and farmworkers, in many parts of the world who believe in other world views, and whose connection with nature and the land has been historic and constant. Yet over the course of the last two or even three decades, specifically in Latin America, these indigenous peoples have been displaced or evicted from their ancestral lands to make way for megaprojects under the guise of ‘sustainable development and conservation of the environment. In many cases, these people have been criminalized, even charged under anti-terror laws, as they seek to have a voice and resist this particular kind of “development”. In Latin America rate of murders of environmental activists, mostly indigenous, have increased. These individuals have struggled to stop clean energy megaprojects, industrial agriculture, deforestation, mining, among others. murders of activists.

Many of the people being killed in these struggles are not only protecting their local land and water. By keeping carbon in the ground, and defending ecological farming practices, they are showing the rest of us how to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Our project is to rigorously investigate the real impact of this new model of the Green Economy. Likewise, we seek to expose different alternatives that are being created from below in response to environmental and the climate change crisis.

Goals:

1. Creating a Green Economy watch dog organization, essentially a website or digital platform where the following materials will document and make public the relationship between the Green Economy and Human Rights violations:

Interviews, expert analysis, articles and reports made during the period in which we will tour and document Mexico-Central America
Multimedia, Photographs, video reports
Maps and documents

This material will be directed towards and made free and accessible for the indigenous and farmworking communities, their leadership organizations, NGOs, non-profits and independent media.

2. Production and final publication of a book-report derived from research and interviews conducted in the course of the trip, with the aim of observing the link between the Green Economy and human rights violations against indigenous peoples, farmworkers, minorities, small-scalle producers, and placing emphasis on the role of women.

The book will be made available in print as well as in a digital format. The electronic version will be accompanied by an interactive and dynamic map, which will allow for the user to locate in each of the countries and regions of Mexico and Central America, the major projects of the Green Economy model. The map will also provide visual and textual elements that identify and locate the major transnational companies as well as their financing, and the groups of people who are directly and indirectly negatively impacted by the actions of these companies.

Our commitment is to deepen our research and reach the places where the commercial or mass media fail to reach.

We kindly request that you be part of this project, give it a push, and support not only independent and ethical journalism, but to better our understanding of the dramatic changes to our environment, the people most affected, and to emphasize ground-up democratic solutions.

About the team members:

Renata Bessi (Brazil) is a freelance journalist. She has written for : Truthout the Americas program and collaborates with the Mexico based Subversiones Communications Agency. Bessi was a finalist for the "Libero Badaro of Jornalismo" award in 2014 in Brazil, with her exhaustive report “Transposição do Rio São Francisco ameaça terras indígenas”. She has also published in Upside Down World, Agência Pública de Periodismo Investigativo and Repórter Brazil.

Santiago Navarro F. (México) is a freelance journalist and photographer. Navarro F is a member of the the Subversiones Communications Agency and is a collaborator of the community radio station of the Autonomous University of Chapingo. Navarro F has also published in Truthout, the Americas program, and Upside Down World.
The documentary "Aquí estamos, no estamos extintos (2015)" (Here we are, we are not extinct) of Renata Bessi and Santiago Navarro F., was recognized by the jury of the International Film and Video Festival of Indigenous Peoples - 2015 as best documentary in the category of socio-organizational process of Indigenous Peoples. The documentary was exhibited in Chile, Argentina and Spain.

Clayton Conn is a photographer and journalist whose work has been published in such outlets as Free Speech Radio News, Upside Down World, and NACLA. He was formerly a member of the editorial group of Desinformémonos. Since 2014 he has been the Mexico correspondent for TeleSUR English.

The Dark Side of Clean Energy in Mexico

Por

Renata Bessi y Santiago Navarro F

14 February, 2016

A palm hat worn down by time covers the face of Celestino Bortolo Teran, a 60-year-old Indigenous Zapotec man. He walks behind his ox team as they open furrows in the earth. A 17-year-old youth trails behind, sowing white, red and black corn, engaging in a ritual of ancient knowledge shared between local people and the earth.

Neither of the two notices the sound of our car as we arrive “because of the wind turbines,” Teran says. Just 50 meters away, a wind farm has been installed by the Spanish company Gas Natural Fenosa. It will generate, at least for the next three decades, what governments and energy companies have declared “clean energy.”

Along with this farm, 20 others have been set up, forming what has come to be known as the wind corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, located in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The corridor occupies a surface area of 17,867.8 hectares, across which 1,608 wind turbines have been installed. The secretary of tourism and economic development of Oaxaca claims that they will collectively generate 2,267.43 megawatts of energy.

“Before, I could hear all the animals living in the areas. Now, it seems the animals have left due to the wind turbines.”

The Tehuantepec Isthmus stretches just 200 kilometers from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, making it the third narrowest strip of land connecting the Americas, after isthmuses in Nicaragua and Panama. In this area, mountains converge to create a geological tunnel, which funnels extremely high-speed winds between the two oceans. Energy investors have focused on the region after the government of Oaxaca claimed that it’s capable of producing 10,000 megawatts of wind energy in an area of 100,000 hectares.

“Before, I could hear all the animals living in the areas. Through their songs and sounds, I knew when it was going to rain or when it was the best time to plant,” Teran said with sadness and rage in his voice. “Now though, it seems the animals have left due to the wind turbines.”

What Teran does not know is whether the turbines, built in accordance with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), as defined in the Kyoto Protocol, are generating alternative energy that will actually help to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of large corporations and industrialized countries. The main objective of these polluters is to prevent global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius before 2100, according to the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), better known as the COP21, which concluded in December 2015. “I don’t know what climate change is and neither do I know about the COP. I only know that our ancestral lands are being covered by these turbines,” Teran said.

At the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, participating countries passed the UNFCCC in response to climate change. With this accord, states set out to maintain their greenhouse gas emissions at the levels reached in 1990. At the third Conference of the Parties (COP3), held in Japan in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was approved by industrialized countries, with the aim of reducing national emissions to an average of 5 percent below the 1990 levels, between 2008 and 2012. In order to help reduce the costs of this reduction, three “flexibility mechanisms” were designed: emissions trading, joint implementation and the aforementioned Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), under which a large number of the wind farms in the Tehuantepec Isthmus have been constructed.

According to the Kyoto Protocol, these mechanisms are meant to permit industrialized countries and private companies to reduce their emissions by developing clean energy projects in other parts of the world where it is more economically viable, and later include these reductions into national quotas. The second period of engagement of the Protocol is 2013-2020. In this period, countries in the European Union (excluding Iceland) have agreed to a collective emission reduction of 20 percent with respect to 1990 emission levels.

The Clean Energy Extraction and Energy Transition Financing Law states that Mexico will install technology to generate 25,000 megawatts of clean energy by 2024. “Mexico has an obligation to limit the electrical energy generated by fossil fuels to sixty-five percent (from the current eighty percent) by 2024,” the law states.

Teran continues sowing his corn while we ask him about the benefits he’s gained from the wind corridor and, a bit irritated, he responds: “They have not provided me or anyone in my family a job, and I don’t want anything to do with these companies or the government; I just want them to leave me in peace on my land. To let me live as I did beforehand.”

Wind Farms for Sale

The US Department of Energy and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with the justification to help accelerate the use of wind energy technologies in the state of Oaxaca, developed an atlas published in 2003, which mapped the wind potential in the state of Oaxaca. The mapping confirms that the isthmus is the region with the largest wind potential.

"This wind resource atlas is an important element of the Mexican strategy to ensure availability of the necessary information and to define specific renewable energy projects as well as tools access to financing and development support," according to the atlas document.

The paper organizers say they will not share specific maps related to the respective areas of wind potential due to the confidentiality required in possible contracts signed between companies and the government of Mexico. Although more than a decade later, with the arrival of more parks in this territory, it has become clear which of these sites are mainly located on the shores of Laguna Superior.

"Clean energy is part of the continuity of the exponential economic growth of capital"

For all the good intentions the United States had to cooperate with Mexico to invest in renewable energy, USAID made another document in 2009, called "Study of Export Potential Wind Energy of Mexico to the United States", which confirms that the greatest potential of this energy is concentrated in the states of Oaxaca (2,600 megawatts) and Baja California (1,400 megawatts). In August 2015, the government of Mexico officially announced that the wind farm "Energía Sierra Juárez" in Baja California, the first wind project between Mexico and the United States, will export energy to California. And they are waiting for an interconnection to export the energy produced in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

"This mapping is only one part of a series of mega-projects that are designed for this area," said biologist and coastal ecology and fishery sciences professor and researcher Patricia Mora, of the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Integral Regional Development of Oaxaca (CIIDIR Oaxaca) based at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional."Not only is it wind energy, but also oil and gas, and also mining, an infrastructure for the movement of goods. Therefore, this wind mapping is only a pretext to map the full potential of this whole geostrategic area, which functions as a type of catalog to offer it to businesses."

The wind corridor was designed from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in 1994 by Mexico, the United States and Canada, subsequently given continuity with the international agreement, Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), and now remade into Proyecto Mesoamerica. The project's main objective was to "create favorable conditions for the flow of goods, oil, minerals and energy."

"Clean energy is part of this context. It's part of the continuity of the exponential economic growth of capital; it is not something alternative to it. It's another link that is painted green," Mora said.

Not-So-Clean Energy

To set the turbines, hundreds of tons of cement that interrupt water flows are used. “It is worth mentioning that they are using the cement company Cemex, who also has a wind farm in the Isthmus,” Mora said.

The population of Venta, where the first wind farm was built, was literally surrounded by turbines. Insufficient with the already installed complex, under the argument of self-sufficiency and with a capacity of 250 megawatts, the park called Eurus, built in 2009, was auctioned off with capital from the Spanish company Acciona and transnational construction materials company Cemex.

It seems that Cemex is the role model of the CDM, a clean and responsible company that has registered several projects this way. In its 2013 report, Cemex boasts of expanding their projects with the CDM model. “Six new initiatives were registered as CDM in 2013, which include four alternative fuel projects in Mexico and Panama and two wind farms located in Mexico, among those Eurus and Ventika.”

In 2015, the Eurus wind farm won the prize awarded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB Infrastructure 360°) in the category of “Impact on Population and Leadership,” which recognizes outstanding sustainability practices in infrastructure investments in Latin America and Caribbean.

In February 2015, community activists from the organization Defenders of the Earth and Sea announced, “about 150 wind turbines owned by Acciona and located in the Eurus wind farm and Oaxaca III, have spilt oil, from the blades and main coil, which has polluted the ground and the water, affecting several farmers and ranches surrounding the area.”Both wind farms have 1,500-megawatt turbines, which need 400 liters of synthetic oil, while the 800-megawatt turbines only need 200 liters of oil per turbine per year.

The Costs of Clean Energy

The dominant development model in the production of electricity from wind power in the Tehuantepec Isthmus is stated as a formula in which everyone wins – the government, developers and industry. The model has been of self-supply, in which a private developer of wind power generates energy production contracts for a wide portfolio of industrial customers (Coca-Cola, Cemex, Walmart and Bimbo, for example) for a certain period. In this way, companies can set prices lower than the market for the long term, and separately they enjoy the financial benefits of carbon trading, which on one hand, allows them to continue polluting and, secondly, to speculate on the sale of these pollution permits to other companies. Developers can access financing schemes for “green” projects through organizations like the Inter-American Development Bank and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the UN.

The communities are also presented as winners in these projects for the development of self-sufficiency and the income they receive from the lease of their land.

Why the Resistance?

In November of 2012, the consortium Mareña Renovables set out to build the largest wind farm in Latin America in the Barra de Santa Teresa, in San Dionisio del Mar, Oaxaca. The Barra is a strip of land between two lagoons that connects to the sea in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Here the Indigenous community of Binni Záa (Zapotec) and Ikojts (Huave), together with the community of Alvaro Obregon, opposed and blocked all access to this strip of land. In response, the state sent about 500 troops from the state police to unblock access, acting with extreme violence. The Indigenous community resisted until the government suspended construction of the wind park. In response to constant harassment and persecution,the Alvaro Obregon community created a community police force called "Binni Guiapa Guidxi" on February 9, 2013.

What was known as Mareña Renovables has changed its name and its form several times. The Spanish energy company, the Preneal Group, which had signed exploration contracts and obtained permits from the state government, sold the rights to the project for $89 million to FEMSA, a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Company and the Macquarie Group, the largest investment bank in Australia. These companies quickly sold part of their stakes to Mitsubishi Corporation and Dutch pension fund PGGM, signing at the same time a power purchase agreement with FEMSA-Heineken for 20 years.

They also sought to speculate with the reduction of 825,707 tons of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the emissions of 161,903 cars.

"Mother Earth is sick; the disease is global warming. They want to profit with the same disease that they have caused to Mother Earth," said Carlos Sanchez, a Zapotec activistwho participated in the resistance against the installation of the wind farm in Barra de Santa Teresa Park and the installation of a park by Gas Natural Fenosa in Juchitan de Zaragoza."Under the pretext of reducing global warming, they come to our territories to control our forests, mountains, our sacred places and our water."

Sanchez is also founder and member of the community radio station Totopo, created to report on mega-projects in the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. During an intermission of his radio programming, we asked Sanchez about what the Zapotec people know about the CDM. "It is a discourse between businessmen. They are labels exchanged between companies to justify their pollution and do not explain anything to Indigenous peoples," he said.

"Could we, with our forests, also sell carbon credits, bypassing these companies? Who will buy?" Sanchez asked. "It is no coincidence that only those who understand these mechanisms are the only ones who benefit as employers and the state."

He added, "We do not even benefit from the energy produced. If you walk by the communities you will notice what the clean development they have brought consists of, and I challenge one of the owners of the companies to see if they want to live in the midst of these turbines."

Following the demonstrations made by Indigenous peoples on May 8, 2013, the secretary of tourism of the state of Oaxaca, José Zorrilla Diego, announced the cancellation of the proposed Renewable Mareña in the Barra de Santa Teresa. Shortly after the announcement of the cancellation, the state government said the project would continue in other areas of the isthmus.

Human Rights Violations and Perspectives

Community organization against the wind farm in the Barra de Santa Teresa was the first major resistance against the ways in which these companies are developing their projects on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Sanchez reports that, not coincidentally, it is in this period that the companies began hiring hit men, with the backing of the state."We see gunmen escorted to the state police. Some of us have been persecuted with absurd lawsuits, accusing us of kidnapping, attacks on the roads, and damage to other people's private property. The radio station has undergone several attempts at closing, with the invasion of the federal police and Navy," Sanchez said.

Sanchez reports that since 2013, he does not go to public places. His mobility is restricted to the community. "We endorse the protection mechanism of the Ministry of Interior. But we have realized that their task of protection has been given to the state police, the same people who attacked us. I do not know whether they have come to protect me or arrest me. So I rejected this protection mechanism and started a small personal protection protocol," Sanchez said. "The state supports the wind companies," he added.

The Committee for the Integral Defense of Human Rights Gobixha (CódigoDH) Oaxaca demanded the immediate intervention of the federal and state governments to stop the wave of violence against supporters of the Popular Assembly of the People of Juchitan who have been victims of threats, harassment, persecution and attacks, including the murder of one of its members. This followed the conflict rooted in the construction of the Bii Hioxo wind farm, according to CódigoDH. But there was no response.

The company Gas Natural Fenosa rejects the accusations, ensuring, "While certain groups have filed several allegations regarding violations of human rights of communities affected by the project, Gas Natural Fenosa says they are unfounded, that they lack objective justification, and are incompatible with the commitments made by the company's Human Rights Policy."

New Strategy, New Park, Old Problems

It did not take long for the government's 2013 promise - to relocate the project from the Barra de Santa Teresa toward another zone in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec - to take shape. In 2014, the company Mareña Renovables, now called Eolica del Sur (Southern Wind), found a new place to develop clean energy and contribute to the goals of reducing greenhouse gases in Laguna Superior.

In 2016, the project foresees the installation of 132 wind turbines of three megawatts each in an area of 5,332 hectares, avoiding the emission of 879,000 tons of greenhouse gases per year, according to the company.

An independent report released by researchers from different fields and universities points out various inconsistencies in the environmental impact study submitted by the company and approved by the Secretariat of Environmental and Natural Resources (SEMANART).

The first contradiction is in regards to the company that made the study. The company responsible is Especialistas Ambientales (Environmental Specialists). And according to the constitutive act of the company, it was possible to determine that the founding partner is the engineer Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo, current undersecretary of planning and environmental policy of the SEMANART.

The document warned that there are many inconsistencies with respect to the surface of Baja Espinoza Forest (Selva Baja Espinosa), which is to be cleared for the construction of this project. Evaluating the information available on the environmental impact statement's (EIS) own field research, "our analysis shows that the developer intends to cut 100% of the tree surface without proposing any measure of compensation."

"This is particularly worrying," according to the document. "The Selva Baja Espinoza connecting the Priority Marine Regions: Continental Shelf Gulf of Tehuantepec, and Upper and Lower Laguna; and Terrestrial Priority Regions: Northern Sierras of Oaxaca Mixe and Zoque-La Selva Sepultura."

According to Eduardo Centeno, director of the Eolica del Sur company, the EIS is submitted in accordance with Mexican law and contains mitigation measures and preventive measures for the environment, including reforestation.

Another concern of communities is in relation to water pollution in the lagoon and sea area as a result of the oil that will drain on the beaches - 300 liters per wind turbine. Biologist Genoveva Bernal of SEMANART explains that the institution responsible for approving the EIS says the park will not affect Laguna Superior at 3.9 kilometers. "With this distance, it will not have an impact," Bernal said.

Alejandro Castaneira, professor and researcher at the National School of Anthropology and History, who participated in the creation of the report, says the SEMANART authorized an environmental impact study that was wrongly produced. "It is announced that parks are generating clean energy. Are we going to use clean energy to produce Coca-Cola and Lay's chips while poverty continues?" Castaneira said.

A Far From Participatory Process

After the events of 2013, Eolica del Sur and the state convened for the first free, prior and informed consultation, under Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization for Indigenous peoples, 22 years since the arrival of the first wind farm in Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This consultation was initiated in November 2014, and completed in July 2015, and is regarded as an essential element for the project to become effective.

On the one hand, both the federal and state governments (as well as the company) claim that the consultation fulfilled its role, which justifies the project, since most of the participants approved. On the other hand, there is enormous pressure for the cancellation of the same consultation because of the irregularities.

At a press conference, Bettina Cruz Velázquez, a member of the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Defense of Land and Territory, said that the consultation was carried out after local and federal permits and approvals of land use had already been given by authorities. This shows the federal government's decision to strip Binni Záa(Zapotec) of its territory. "The consultation is a simulation. They do not respect international standards," Cruz Velázquez said.

A petition for relief was filed for the 1,166 Indigenous Binni Záa in order to protect Indigenous rights and defend their territory against the wind project. On September 30, 2015, the judge issued an order to suspend all licenses, permits, goods, approvals, licenses and land use changes granted by federal and local authorities, until the final judgment is issued.

"The state allows these projects on the one hand, allowing all the state and federal agencies to expedite permits," said lawyer Ricardo Lagines Garsa, adviser to the community. "Yet Indigenous peoples are not aware of these legal proceedings, so that they can actually participate in decisions. The whole isthmus territory has been divided between companies [due to] the lack of awareness of the peasant and Indigenous communities who live here."

Who Benefits From "Clean" Energy?

According to documents from the Commission for Dialogue with the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico, international experience has shown that remuneration paid by energy companies erecting wind farms on leased land oscillates between 1 and 5 percent of the gross income of the energy produced by the turbines. "However, the case of Mexico is drastically different if you take into account the much lower value compared to international standards: here, remuneration is between .025 and 1.53% [of gross income]."

The Tepeyac Human Rights Center states that "because there is no organization that regulates the value of land in Mexico, energy companies pay landowners far less than the actual value, which can provoke tension in communities in which wind farms are set up."

The criteria that have been used to justify the implementation of wind parks in Mexico as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as total energy production, are insufficient to determine the benefits, risks and broader implications of wind energy production, according to the Commission for Dialogue with the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico. "The criteria ignore or underestimate the complexity and cognitivist and ethical uncertainty of the risks and impacts created by wind parks on a large scale," the commission stated. "They cannot be seen as a viable energy alternative if they continue to reproduce and deepen socioeconomic and environmental inequalities between countries and between social groups within individual countries."

This story was made possible thanks to the Internews' Earth Journalism Network and produced in collaboration with Armando Carmona.

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