As Men Emigrate, Indigenous Women Gain Political Opportunities and Obligations in Mexico

Por

30 November, 2014

The emigration of men to the United States threatens indigenous systems of governance in Mexico. When men leave, the weight of activities in small towns falls on women, but despite this women are still fighting for space in the political arena.

The system of "uses and customs" that governs 418 of the 570 municipalities in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico is based on social and traditional political practices in indigenous communities, founded on community work and assemblies that elect authorities, parallel to the party-based election system. However, these practices have faced a persistent enemy since the 1960s: emigration. In a collective system, the continual departure of large portions of a community takes a real toll on politics and lives, and the flow of people away from Oaxacan lands is leaving behind gaps in the towns' social and political organizations.

The Institute for Migrant Assistance (IOAM) estimates that around 2 million Oaxacans live in the United States; the population of the entire state is 3.1 million. In 2010, 98 out of every 100 migrants that left Mexico went to the United States. The figure on a national level is 89 of every 100 individuals. The majority of immigrants are indigenous and work as day laborers in agriculture, construction, domestic service, in restaurants, and as cleaners, gardeners and laborers. They are concentrated in Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, San Antonio, San Francisco, Phoenix, Fresno, Sacramento and Tucson.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), of the 570 municipalities that make up Oaxaca, the municipality of San Juan Quiahije in the coastal region and San Bartolome Quialana in the Central Valleys are, respectively, the top two towns within the national context with the highest levels of migration.

"Oaxaca is the second-poorest state in Mexico. The minimum wage in Mexico is approximately 49.50 Mexican pesos per eight-hour day of work. In Oaxaca there are far too many people who earn less than the national minimum wage," according to the Migrant Counseling Center of Oaxaca's website. To make matters worse, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect in 1994, imported corn became 30 percent cheaper than local corn, which is the basis of the indigenous diet. This caused the emigration of small-scale farmers away from rural regions. The result has been the "abandonment of the countryside and rural areas and the loss of cultural traditions," according to the website.

Women from the Mixtec region of Oaxaca on their way to participate in a tequio - unpaid collective work done for community benefit. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)

Political Awakening

Migration away from the region has historically been predominantly male. According to INEGI, of every 10 emigrants from Oaxaca, eight were men. There are many reasons women stay behind. The risk of death in the desert or during river crossings that are required to get into the United States without documentation is one of them. The responsibility of raising children, taking care of the land and providing for the family also fall to women, especially given that they do not always receive remittances from the husband who leaves. This has also brought consequences for women who historically only participated in domestic activities within communities governed by "uses and customs."

"When the men leave, women stay and then begin to fulfill their designated cargos in schools, in community projects, in community service; even the responsibility for the survival of the household falls on women," said Carmen Alonso Santiago, an indigenous Zapotec woman and director of the non-governmental organization Flor y Canto (Flower and Song). For her, the necessity of assuming cargos (volunteer community service positions) and roles within the community is one of the principle ways that women begin to deepen their political participation. In this way, the departure of men brings greater obligations for women, but also opens greater possibilities and opportunities for the strengthening of women's emancipation in communities.

Gaining a Voice

Teotitlán del Valle is a Oaxacan town governed by "uses and customs." It has 8,000 inhabitants with a deeply-rooted tradition of weaving wool. The colorful tapestries and the clothes for cold weather are well-known in different parts of Mexico. Historically, everything was done within an artisan system, from the washing of the wool to the creation of dyes; the tradition is to make natural dyes using flowers, fruit, leaves and tree bark. Things have changed somewhat recently - some weavers use chemical dyes, for instance, but most retain the traditional methods. In large part, pieces are woven to reflect the legends and history of the community. There is no house without at least one loom and the art of weaving is taught to children beginning at the age of 10.

Seventeen years ago, a group of women from Teotitlán decided to form a cooperative, Vida Nueva. "We came together purely out of necessity. We sold our rugs to middlemen, but the pay was very low. We were single women, widows, wives of men who had emigrated. We had to provide for our families," Pastora Gutiérrez Reyes, one of the founders of the cooperative, told Truthout. "There is a lot of emigration. In the 1940s, our grandfathers started to leave, then our fathers, our brothers: The young men finished middle school and then left. Our group formed as a way to find options for work. That's how we started to work in the fields and to weave," she said.

Now, beyond just working in the cooperative, they also participate in political work with other women in the community. "We promote workshops on sexuality, health, self-esteem, and against the use of drugs," Reyes said. "In the beginning of the cooperative they criticized us a lot. Can you imagine a group of women organizing ourselves 17 years ago? Women couldn't even leave the town."

As their work grew stronger, a moment arrived when the women of the cooperative took the initiative to introduce themselves to the local authorities. "Slowly, they began to take us into account as a group of women. We began to participate in the assemblies. Other women began to see our participation. Slowly, more women came, mainly those who had husbands outside the country or who were widows," Reyes recalled. "We are now taken into consideration in the social and political realms. When there are official or political events, we are invited by the local authorities. Women can now have cargos. Men saw how women organized themselves and how their political work has good results. Today, there is a little more equality."

Limited Political Life

The "uses and customs" system has been valorized and defended by communities for centuries. When their territory is threatened, it is defended by men, women, the elderly, even children. But the political participation of women, although it has grown, is still minimal within this system. To get an idea of these low levels of participation in the state of Oaxaca, according to the State Electoral Institute of Citizen Participation in Oaxaca, during the 2014 elections, women participated in "uses and customs" systems at a rate of 1.68 percent and in political party systems at a rate of 5.2 percent.

Carmen Alonso Santiago, the director of Flor y Canto, points out that in different communities, the conditions for women vary widely because everything is based on what is determined by the "uses and customs" of each town. "There are communities where women fight for their rights, and others where they don't as much," Santiago told Truthout. "There are communities where currently it is not permitted for a woman to be elected as an authority and in other communities, there is no discrimination. In others, women are not taken into consideration to even raise their hands in the assemblies and fulfill their role in other ways. But there are other places where for many years women have participated in assemblies, voting and being counted."

Mapping the Participation of Women

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, in its publication titled "Political Participation of Women in Mexico," based on the elections in October 2007, mapped the participation of women in the cargo system in municipalities governed by "uses and customs." This year, 361 municipalities were registered as part of the "uses and customs" system.

The inquiry demonstrates that there are several combinations of criteria that determine which women vote. In 234 municipalities (62.7 percent), all women can vote, single, married and widowed; in 59, women are not allowed to vote (15.8 percent); in 15, only married women can vote; in 5, only widows; in 10, only single women; and in 7, only single women and widows are allowed to vote. Forty-eight municipalities did not give statistics.

Zapotec girl from the valleys of Oaxaca gives a presentation in an event for the defense of native corn. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)

Women are part of the city council - either as members or in some rare cases as mayors - in 21 municipalities (5.6 percent). Only 48 municipalities (12.9 percent) have women members of the municipal administration as treasurers, secretaries, auditors and in administrative commissions, such as those for potable water.

Women participate more as members of committees - they appear in 195 municipalities (52.3 percent) - that have been formed through the initiatives of public institutions, such as the comprehensive development of the family, institutions in the health and education sectors, and in social programs combatting poverty. The participation of women in these types of committees is more readily accepted because they are seen as an extension of the roles women already fulfill in the domestic sphere. As committee presidents, they appear in 14 municipalities (3.8 percent) only.

Women in Cargos

Fifty-six municipalities (15 percent) register that women fulfill obligatory cargos in the following categories: religious and traditional, such as those in charge of the temple, catechists, and sometimes even serving as police, although in only six municipalities are police positions given as cargos to women.

In 64 municipalities (17.2 percent) community serviceis obligatory for women. While cargos are carried out by individuals authorized by the assembly, community service is a one-time activity that the whole community participates in, generally occurring on important days such as during festivals or collective community work (tequio).

In 42 municipalities (11.3 percent), women do services during traditional festivities; in 12 municipalities (3.2 percent) women are the organizers of such festivities. Another 31 municipalities (8.3 percent) decide the community service of women in diverse community tequios, from cleaning public spaces, churches, communal spaces, and as promoters for community programs.

According to the Human Rights Commission's report, the low political participation and presence of women within local government structures can be explained through two factors, and the contrast between the official report and the nuanced personal experiences women describe is marked. According to the report, "The structural nature of this social inequality is reflected in a rate of human development that is almost 15 percent lower than the non-indigenous population, due to the prevalence of 'uses and customs' that exclude the participation of women at high rates."

Furthermore, the report states that women's participation "in public municipal spaces can be seen as an extension of their roles in the private space of home and family, given that their roles are connected to family and procreation: education, health, collective consumption services (mills, milk stores); the same institutions that develop programs for social benefit always require this type of 'participation' by women in the community sphere."

Verónica Vázquez García, a professor in the postgraduate college in Texcoco, Mexico, who researched women's political participation in the system of "uses and customs," wrote, "women realize innumerable tasks necessary for community development, but are rarely recognized and have little decision-making power . . . The traditional gender roles not only do not change, but are reproduced daily. Women rarely rise to positions of power. Much work is needed in order to topple, one by one, these forms of discrimination that are deeply rooted in the political life of each municipality."

Rights Guaranteed by Law

On August 3, 2011, Oaxacan Congresswoman Eufrosina Cruz Mendoza, as president of the Directive Body of the State Congress, presented a constitutional reform initiative in Congress that would guarantee the active and passive right to vote for women in municipalities governed by "uses and customs" and would take steps to create a Board of Equality and Gender in all of the state's local councils. The proposal was approved on April 28, 2011.

In the State Congress, of the 42 members of the 61st legislature, only 16 are women and of these, only Cruz Mendoza is from an indigenous municipality that is governed by "uses and customs" - Santa María Guiegolina, in San Carlos Yautepec, Oaxaca.

Cruz Mendoza was elected president of her municipality in 2007 and the results were nullified based on traditional laws that stipulated that women cannot be elected to that position.

Zapotec women from the Isthmus. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)

The Construction of Daily Life

The system of "uses and customs" is much more than a system of cargos, of electing authorities, of decisions made by assembly. It is based on the construction of a daily life in which the role of women is fundamental. "We are talking about their own ways of living in community, of relating to one another, of educating our children, of working the land, of preparing our food, of relating to the natural world, of fighting against those who would exploit our lands. And women are present in all of these processes," Santiago said.

She defined what has permitted communities to maintain their "uses and customs" over time. "I feel that we have deep roots as an indigenous town, which has changed over time, it's true, but that is still very rooted in our values, in solidarity, brotherhood, in community work. And all this is transmitted with education and women are the principle teachers."

Santiago remembers the decisive entry of her grandmothers in the system of "uses and customs" although they didn't participate in the cargo system. "The grandmothers did not participate in assemblies, didn't speak Spanish, but have always been the advisers of the community, with their sensitivity, their intuition," she said. They were sought after to resolve internal marriage problems. They were recognized. When a mayor was elected, the authority came with his spouse, his children, to the house to talk with the grandmothers. And they called other grandmothers who were also highly respected. And the women gave their advice to the mayor and told him how he had to behave.

María Isabel Jiménez Salinas, who lives in the Isthmus of Tehúantepec and is part of the Peoples' Popular Assembly of Juchitán, told Truthout that women, like men, work to sustain life. "Around here, men fish at night, bring the fish in the morning, and women sell the fish during the day. The men rest while women sell the product. And the small-scale farmers work the land and the women make and sell the products."

In the daily life of these communities, there is equal participation of men and women, as in the sowing and in the harvest, Santiago said. The roles of communal living and survival are well-defined. "Now, slowly, political participation is drawing near. It is women who are pushing a process to raise their level of participation."

Communal Lands: Theater of Operations for the Counterinsurgency

Por

Renata Bessi y Santiago Navarro F

27 November, 2014

In 2006, a team of geographers from the University of Kansas carried out a series of mapping projects of communal lands in southern Mexico's Northern Sierra Mountains. Coordinated by Peter Herlihy and Geoffrey B. Demarest, a US lieutenant colonel, the objective was to achieve strategic military and geopolitical goals of particular interest for the United States. The objective was to incorporate indigenous territories into the transnational corporate model of private property, either by force or through agreements. Demarest's essential argument is that peace cannot exist without private property.

"The Bowman Expeditions are taking places with the counterinsurgency logic of the United States, and we reported them in 2009. These expeditions were part of research regarding the geographic information that indigenous communities in the Sierra Juarez possess. The researchers hid the fact that they were being financed by the Pentagon. And we believe that this research was a type of pilot project to practice how they would undertake research in other parts of the world in relation to indigenous towns and their communal lands",
SAID ALDO GONZALES ROJAS IN AN INTERVIEW WITH TRUTHOUT. A DIRECTOR FOR THE SECRETARY OF INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS IN THE STATE OF OAXACA, ROJAS ENSURES THAT INDIGENOUS LAWS ARE BEING INSTITUTED AND APPLIED CORRECTLY IN THE STATE.

According to researcher and anthropologist Gilberto López y Rivas, "The agents on the expeditions consider the types of communal property in these lands, both collective and autonomous, to be an obstacle for the development plans currently being very aggressively executed, where there is capital from mining companies, pharmaceuticals, energy companies, among others", he told Truthout. This is despite the fact that these communal lands in Mexico, for example, were recognized after the Mexican Revolution in 1910 and are lands that indigenous communities have possessed since time immemorial.

Geographer and University of Colorado professor Joe Bryan, affirmed in an interview with Truthout, that, as a point of reference in this offensive against communal lands, the Southern Command of the United States military, one of the 10 command units belonging to the US military that are deployed across the world, covers the area from South America, Central America, to the Caribbean. "They have turned their gaze to see that there is no state presence and an absence of private property. They are looking for communal areas and present these areas as belonging to drug trafficking and organized crime groups. In this way the Southern Command is looking to become a partner with the governments and nonprofit organizations in Latin America, and with this in mind, for example, that operation called Continuous Mission - that promotes health services to communities - [is] another way of occupying territories and of counterinsurgency."

As the ideologue of these expeditions, Demarest considers collective land ownership to be the birthplace of delinquency and insurgency, and thus believes that collective property must be destroyed. He graduated from the School of the Americas, which is under the administration of the US Army and was founded in 1946 in Panama, with the objective of training Latin American soldiers in war and counterinsurgency tactics. In recent years, graduates from the School of the Americas have participated in assassinations in Colombia, formed part of the drug trafficking organization The Zetas, in Mexico, and were involved in the coup in Honduras in 2009, as was demonstrated by activists through a School of the Americas Watch lawsuit against the Department of Defense in February 2013. "Demarest is one of the coordinators of these expeditions. He was trained in the School of the Americas, later served as military attaché for the United States Embassy in Guatemala in 1988 and 1991, where a counterinsurgency project was implemented that caused terrible massacres of indigenous populations," says López.

In Oaxaca, a caravan of activists arrives to support those resisting the construction of the wind farm, in the face of more than 500 policemen attempting to take control of the territory. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)

The Counterinsurgency Manual

According to the May 2014 publication of the Army Manual of the United States (FM-3-24, MCWP-3-33.5), which outlines the strategic ways to break up any type of insurgency, in the section titled "Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies," when certain elements within the population grow dissatisfied with the status quo and are willing to fight to change conditions to be in their favor, using both violent and nonviolent means to effect change in the prevailing authority, these are the conditions that lead to insurgencies.

In this same sense, this manual was made to counteract any type of insurgency using different methods and in collaboration with what the manual calls "Unified Action Partners", a collaboration of integrated effort that goes from national companies or multinational ones and government organizations and NGOs, to the presence of intergovernmental organisms such as the United Nations. "Regional organizations like the Organization of American States and the European Union or international organizations like the United Nations may be involved in some counterinsurgency operations. The United Nations, in particular has many subordinate and affiliate agencies active worldwide", states the manual's text.

In Oaxaca, a police officer takes pictures, attempting to document the presence of activists in Oaxaca's Triqui indigenous region. (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)

The Counterinsurgency Academy

"Each year the Minerva Initiative, with Pentagon funding, looks to map 59 indigenous towns in Central America and gives prizes to 12 of the 300 projects that are presented. In 2013, it awarded a project that was going to take place in Honduras with the backing of the National Pedagogical University Francisco Morazán, employing as research assistants people of indigenous and mixed descent to map zones of communal property in order to destroy or annihilate them",
SAYS LÓPEZ.

In 2013, the US Department of Defense approved a budget allocation of 1.5 million dollars, with the possibility of increasing it to 3 million, for Jerry Dobson and other researchers to continue with the Bowman Expeditions, now a program with the Minerva research initiative. "The Minerva Initiative is a consortium that moves in relation to the Pentagon's interests and contacts the best universities in the United States and subsumes Latin America Universities that offer to receive funds from the department of military studies of the Pentagon in order to carry out research for the counterinsurgency," explains López.

There are at least 12 research projects with Pentagon financing under the guidance of the Minverva Initiative to collect data for the counterinsurgency effort. "Another project under the direction of the Minerva Initiative is the megaproject of the University of Washington, in collaboration with Harvard, that looks to study the origin, characteristics and implications of political movements in 23 countries, relying on a database of 58 countries provided by the Minerva Initiative, looking to construct a map of the movements in space and time," says López.

In February 2012, elements of the Mexican army enter the autonomous community of Cheran in Michoacan, despite not having permission. (Photo: Heriberto Paredes)

Breeding Ground for Indigenous Movements

The "reforms" recently approved in Mexico, which include the privatization of education and petroleum resources, as well as drastic changes to Mexico’s financial sector, will have a direct impact on more than 80 million Mexicans, especially considering that 40 percent of spending in the public sector is financed using income from Mexican Petroleum (PEMEX). These reforms create a potential breeding ground for the intensification of new social movements in the country. Although usually pacifist in nature, historically such movements have been labeled as insurgent.

In just three federal administrations, almost the same amount of land has been conceded to mining companies as was distributed after the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Over 94 million hectares have been conceded, and a large number of these concessions are located in indigenous territories, where people were not informed of that fact. In December of 2013, Jaime Martínez Veloz, Commissioner for a Dialogue with Indigenous Towns of Mexico, warned that this situation, promoted by the governments of Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox,and Felipe Calderón could provoke social confrontations in the affected regions.

The reform to the hydrocarbon law gives a free pass to transnational corporations looking to expropriate territories, through what is referred to in article 33, for public use - and this includes communal lands. Communities have jurisdiction only of up to 30 centimeters beneath the soil: beyond that, it belongs to the federal government. "It opens the door to the expropriation of lands of course for public utility and even to biosphere reserves, as well as to a series of human rights violations," was one of the positions in the debate over article 33 in the words of Senator Zoé Robledo.

During the first 16 months of the presidential term of Enrique Peña Nieto, these reforms have been accompanied by a rise in the criminalization of activism and social struggle in this country. Disappearances and forced detentions are now "unquantifiable". "From here we say to Peña Nieto that it will not be possible for him to decide for us, because our towns are organized; we have decided that they can kill us, but we are not ceding our land to anyone," says Felipe Flores, who together with other indigenous communities opposes the construction of a hydroelectric dam called La Parota, in Mexico's southern state of Guerrero.

For López, social struggles are taking place in a context of militarization and counterinsurgency, where one sees the presence of an authoritarian state that uses selective violence, as it did during the dirty war in the 1960s and '70s, with enforced disappearances, incarceration and persecution.

In Cherán, Michoacán, La Ronda Comunitaria is an effort that seeks protections for indigenous autonomy, based on the principle, "Only the people defend the people".(Photo: Heriberto Paredes)

Irregular Warfare

Indigenous communities, where one can find the support bases of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in Chiapas, Mexico, is a living example of the application of the mechanism called irregular warfare, as it is labeled in counterinsurgency manuals. "It is not low-intensity warfare, but a war of comprehensive wearing-down, which goes from the co-opting of communities with government assistance programs, which according to the counterinsurgency is taking the water away from the fish. But it also creates angry fish who are at the service of the state that then attack insurgent fish, or, paramilitary groups from the same community, who are the ones that perpetrated the most recent attack against the Zapatista Movement, a movement that has not undertaken a single offensive action in the last 20 years, because they decided to opt for the road of support for the autonomy of their communities", says López.

Oaxaca, at Risk for Insurgency

Since the armed uprising of the EZLN in 1994 and since the signing of the 1996 San Andrés Accords regarding indigenous rights and culture, a large majority of the indigenous towns in Mexico have echoed the demands of these accords. Oaxaca, as a majority indigenous state, generated concern for the governor at the time, Diodoro Carrasco Altamirano, and then-president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, who opted to implement a policy of indigenous containment with a series of constitutional reforms elaborated by the Center for Government Studies of Oaxaca. It used the same counterinsurgency tactics implemented by the School of the Americas, which since 1953 and until 1996 had received close to one thousand military police from Mexico to take training courses, principally regarding counterinsurgency techniques, according to one of the chapters of a historical report of the Special Prosecution for Social and Political Movements of the Past (FEMOSPP).

That is why in 1996, due to these counterinsurgency tactics, political actions were implemented across the state of Oaxaca to co-opt and buy off social leaders. Intelligence and paramilitary groups were created, such as the so-called "Delivery Crew" in the Loxicha region, a group paid by bosses whose most important task is betrayal: They turned in presumed guerrilla fighters and tortured, selectively assassinated, raped women and made arbitrary detentions. Of the over 150 indigenous individuals detained during that time, in the year 2012, there were still seven prisoners, known as the Loxicha prisoners.

In 2006, during the term of Ulises Ruis Ortiz, over 2 million people spilled into the streets to ask for the removal of the governor. Since then, counterinsurgency tactics have been constantly reworked in this region of the country. Since this period, the city of Oaxaca is one of the most monitored cities in the world, with C4 intelligence technology, with more than 230 cameras that form part of a Command, Control, Computers, Communications Center (C4), that, among other activities, does not just film and capture information in each of the monitored areas, but is also capable of facial recognition, and of recognizing gestures and physical features, supported by deaf-mute individuals that analyze every movement caught on film.

In a war, battlegrounds are defined and an enemy is identified that must be reduced or controlled. In this case, it appears that indigenous towns have been identified by governments and corporations as a potential enemy - which in turn threatens the conservation of communal territories and autonomous self-governance. Meanwhile, in stark contrast to the bellicose and destructive power of governments and corporations, in indigenous towns' struggles, resistance and community cohesion are the principle weapons.

Soy: Industry’s Miracle Bean in Brazil

Por

Renata Bessi y Santiago Navarro F

25 November, 2014

Soy was initially introduced to Brazil as part of a US military aid package. Today, its industrial cultivation results in a number of negative consequences, including deforestation and the expulsion of small-scale farmers from their land.

George Washington Carver, a 19th century African-American scientist, made inroads into industrial uses for agricultural crops, including research on the production of biodiesel from soybeans. The legume arrived in Germany in the 1930s and Hitler used it as a substitute for petroleum. In Brazil, it was introduced during the military dictatorship (1964-1985) as part of a military aid package from the United States. Today, Brazil is the second-largest producer of soy on a global scale, after the United States. This production is concentrated in the hands of a half-dozen corporations, including Monsanto, ADM, Cargill, Bunge and Louis Dreyfus.

Along the BR-163 highway a lush, green landscape unfolds. It is, however, entirely homogenous; there is no diversity beyond soy plants. On the highway, cargo trucks clump together, demonstrating the productive potential of this region. Cuiaba, the capital of Mato Grosso, with just 480 inhabitants, is the epicenter of soy production in this country. Over 5 million hectares of soy have been planted in Brazil, and this image of abundant production is sold to potential investors in the soy market.

Local politicians are often big soy producers. One case is that of Blairo Borges Maggi, governor of Mato Grosso in 2005, businessman and Brazilian politician. At that time he was known as the "King of Soy," and in 2005, Greenpeace gave him the "Golden Chainsaw" award, due to the monstrous deforestation that his companies were responsible for, to make way for soy production in the Amazon.

"This ancient seed . . . is presented as a clean energy alternative, but it actually destroys biodiversity".

However, Mato Grasso is just the tip of the iceberg. Brazil is the fifth-largest country in the world, and soy is being cultivated across all its regions. "This legume is the principal raw material exported from Brazil. Soy is cultivated in all regions of this country. The states with the highest production are Mato Grosso and Paraná, which together produce a little more than half of the country's soy," Sebastião Pinheiro, a researcher and agronomist with the University do Rio Grande do Sul, told Truthout.

The rate of production, incentivized by the Brazilian government, is not surprising. Soy is being used strategically by the food, energy, health and biochemical industries. Through the process of refining soy oil, lecithin, an emulsifier, is obtained, which is often used in the production of processed food products such as hot dogs, mayonnaise, ice cream, chocolate bars, cereal and frozen food. It is also present in products that slow cell damage - and therefore lessen the signs of aging - to such a degree that it is considered a natural alternative to hormone replacement therapy.

Soy is also indirectly present on the plates of people worldwide. According to the Association of Soy and Corn Producers of Mato Grosso, in Brazil, 80 percent of soy flour is used as a base for processed animal feed. Vegetable protein is thus transformed into animal protein, and thus soy is present in the production of meat, eggs and milk.

"What is coming in 10 years is a sort of green industrial revolution, where plants will be turned into factories"

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Brazil's national industry produces approximately 30.7 million tons of soy, of which 5.8 million tons go to the production of edible oil and 23.5 million tons go to make protein flour.

According to Pinheiro, it is not that soy itself is problematic, but that the processes of production for soy and its derivatives require huge extensions of arable land, millions of liters of water and the use of pesticides. "This ancient seed will revolutionize the processes of production dependent on petroleum, and capital will shift to those chains of production. It is presented as a clean energy alternative, but it actually destroys biodiversity".

"Green Plastic"

Gustavo Grobo, from the Argentinian group Grobocopatel, known as the "King of Soy" in that country, mentioned in April 2014 that "what is coming in 10 years is a sort of green industrial revolution, where plants will be turned into factories".

Biodiesel and glycerin are obtained from ground soy, together with 10 percent alcohol (methanol). Glycerin is currently beginning to reshape production processes that are dependent on petroleum. Brazil has been one of the countries at the forefront of the production of biofuels, principally from sugar cane and soy. By producing biofuels using soybeans, glycerol is obtained. It is the most recent novelty in Brazil - used principally as a substitute for propane - a resin obtained up until now from petroleum derivatives and used to make polypropolene, forming what's called "green plastic". Polypropolene is used in the production of packaging for food, textiles, laboratory equipment, automobile parts and many other products.

"Soy has become embedded in the petrochemical tree, from food to auto parts"

PINHEIRO ARGUES THAT SOY IS CHANGING THE PRODUCTION PROCESSES THAT ARE DEPENDENT ON PETROLEUM."Soy is the principal export product of Brazil and is strategic because it is being substituted for petroleum in the technological matrix. This petrochemical has been surpassed thanks to biotechnology",
THE AGRONOMIST TOLD TRUTHOUT.

Modern biotechnology uses living systems and organisms in the development or production of useful products, combining the fields of biology, chemistry and engineering. It is applied most commonly in the production of pharmaceuticals, in agriculture, and in the production of industrial inputs. It includes the modification of genes, including the cultivation of cell and tissue cultures, DNA recombination technology and synthetic biology.

Since the peak of petroleum production in the 1970s, and as a result of its subsequent rise in market value, the search for alternatives has become a question of national security in many countries. This is especially true for the United States, which consumes 25 percent of energy produced worldwide, with just 4 percent of the world's population. Petroleum has also been essential for the production of plastic, auto parts and thousands of other products.

"Novartis, Bayer, Monsanto and other corporations have reduced their levels of production of agrochemicals and have instead directed a large part of their investments toward biosynthetic products, which use microorganisms, bacteria and fungi to convert simple inputs into more complex outputs. Systems are dependent on fermentation, on carbon chains or directly on the photosynthesis of the sun", Pinheiro said. They are particularly useful in the development of new pharmaceuticals, medical treatments and vaccines.

Petrochemicals Without Petroleum

The corporation Nova Petrochemicals in Brazil is the first of its kind in this country. It uses new chains of production, principally using soy derivatives to produce impact- and heat-resistant plastics, such as auto parts and construction materials. Nova Petrochemicals is part of the conglomerate Quattor, made up of Petrobras and the Unipar group. In 2010, the company Braskem bought the Brazilian company Quattor and the US company Sunoco Chemicals.

Currently, Braskem is the leader in thermoplastic resins in Latin America and is the third-largest producer on the continent. It has 18 plants in Brazil, and produces over 11 million tons of thermoplastic resin and other petrochemical products. In total, according to the company's website, it manufactures 16 million tons of products in 36 plants located in Brazil, the United States and Germany.

Braskem offers countless products, from construction materials and beauty accessories to air fresheners, solvents and automobile parts. According to the company, these products contribute to the global reduction of greenhouse gases.

"Soy has become embedded in the petrochemical tree, from food to auto parts", Pinheiro told Truthout.

The Biggest Producers in the World

According to an October 2014 report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), global production of soy in 2014-15 is estimated to be 311.2 million tons. Production in 2013 was 285 million tons. According to the USDA data, the United States has projected a production level of 106.87 million metric tons, followed by Brazil with 94 million and Argentina with 55 million. These countries are also the biggest global exporters.

"The three principal soy-producing countries produce 80 percent of global volume, which will mostly be sold to China to fatten chickens and pigs",
SAID MERCI FARIN OF THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF ESPIRITU SANTO.

However, according to 2014 data from the National Supply Company (CONAB), a public enterprise of Brazil's Ministry of Agriculture, the production requirement for such quantities of soy is 30.11 million hectares of land. This "requirement" has led to the decimation of entire ecosystems in order to make way for soy production.

"Bunge, ADM and Dreyfus dominated at least 95 percent of the exports from Brazil, and they are fighting for land in this country in order to be able to plant soy", Pinheiro said.

Ford, Biofuels and the "Green Revolution"

Petroleum is at the heart of the automobile industry, present at every stage in the production chain, but at the beginning this was not a foregone conclusion. As climate change provides the impetus for new models of transportation, an unevolved automobile industry risks stagnation. "Biofuels are an alternative that looks to create a new cycle of accumulation with a new fleet of vehicles built on the logic of clean energy", Pinheiro said.

The green revolution adopted the rationale of the production of food on a large scale in order to counteract hunger and poverty, but none of these social results came to fruition.

Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, was the first businessman to apply the moving assembly-line technique in manufacturing in order to produce automobiles on a mass scale. At first, he was very interested in using the fermentation of alcohol and soy biodiesel as fuel for his cars, based on a recommendation by George Washington Carver. However, the Rockefeller family quickly made advances to consolidate their company, Standard Oil (later Exxon-Mobil), revolutionizing that industry at every level. "The technological matrix of oil was imposed by the Rockefellers, both as the principal source of energy in the chains of production and in the daily life in the United States and in the rest of the world", Pinheiro told Truthout.

However, down the line, Hitler ended up taking advantage of the scientific advances of Washington Carver. "Germany has no oil, and Hitler used the studies about soy and started to create petrochemicals without petroleum. From 1930, soy cultivation began across the Austro-Hungarian empire", Pinheiro said.

The first phase of the "green revolution" came about shortly after World War II. William Gaud, the director of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), first used the term in 1968. The United States had discovered a way to redirect and use all of the technology developed during the war to produce food on an industrial scale. This system was implemented in Brazil and the rest of Latin America, altering the biological cycles of food production in order to obtain greater quantities in less time.

According to researcher Merci Fardin, this agricultural model consisted of using improved varieties of corn, wheat and other grains, along with huge quantities of water and agrochemicals. "The agrochemicals and all the machinery used in this 'revolution' is an adaptation of the war technology - principally war machinery - that was adapted to convert them into tractors. This gave way to monoculture systems, known as green deserts", Fardin said.

The green revolution adopted the rationale of the production of food on a large scale in order to counteract hunger and poverty, but none of these social results came to fruition. "In the last 50 years, the world became impoverished and experienced famine, and today this famine is administered by corporations, who have gotten rich at the expense of hunger", according to Fardin.

First Interference of the United States After World War II

One of the United States' first interventions in Brazil after World War II was through agriculture, according to Sebastião Pinheiro, the agronomist. The United States introduced cotton, tobacco and improved seed varieties, soy among them. "The United States brought the complete package: the science, the technology and the financing. In an altruistic fashion, it gave all its improved seed varieties of soy to the Brazilian government", said Pinheiro, who argues that the objective at the time was to provide continuity with the plan to reconstruct Europe, which required a source of food that would meet demand from the European population. "The North American proposal would only be completed through the implementation of industrial agriculture in the Southern Hemisphere, which is now known as the breadbasket of the world", Pinheiro said.

"This industrial package called the green revolution was a military strategy".

Later, through the "Brother Sam" operation - the US support behind the military dictatorship of 1964 - 100 tons of weapons and munitions, oil tankers, a fleet of combat airplanes and military equipment were sent to Brazil. The package also included, Pinheiro says, a technology package for agriculture and above all scientific research.

"The military regime in Brazil, instructed in military doctrine by the United States, used it as a pretext to combat Marxist influence, and opened the doors of Brazilian universities to the Rockefeller Foundation, which gave financial donations for the modernization of programs, curricula and training of professors in the United States", Pinheiro said. "It was a type of agreement between the Education and Culture Ministry and USAID, which provided follow up to the research for improving and genetically modifying seeds".

These conditions eventually permitted the concentration of land for monocultures in the hands of a half-dozen companies, Pinheiro said. He added, "This industrial package called the green revolution was a military strategy because all of the agrochemicals were produced in military factories. The principal objective of the dictatorship was to forcibly remove peasants and indigenous people from their lands, in order to concentrate the land in the hands of a few soy, sugar cane and eucalyptus-producing companies, among whom are Monsanto, ADM, Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Ford".

The Death of Family Farming

In addition to the destruction of forests, soy production has stoked the large-scale use of pesticides. According to the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil, the average consumption of pesticides is on the rise. In 2005, 7 kilograms per hectare were used. In 2011 that level had risen to 10.1 kilograms, an increase of 44.3 percent.

The MST fights for agrarian reform in Brazil, urging implementation of a model based on family farming. Due to this lack of agrarian reform, many peasants have decided to occupy the land. In Mato Grosso do Sul, there are 53 land settlements, the majority connected with the MST - the highest concentration in the country - that are configured like small islands within the green deserts, where diversified agriculture exists alongside the monocultures of sugar cane, eucalyptus and principally soy.

"The way out has been to produce in small quantities, in an artisanal system, gradually working to regenerate the soil".

"We are surrounded by soy, and the poison that is dispersed across the monocultures ends up on our land. You plant a native corn seed, for example, and it doesn't germinate", Sindy Gauber, who lives in the Geraldo García settlement in the municipality of Sidrolancia, in Mato Grosso do Sul, told Truthout. "It is difficult for us to be able to plant without coming into contact with pesticides. Our work to build an ecological and organic production is harmed by these conditions. It will take decades until we can plant the food that we consume in a totally free way".

Beyond this, said Gauber, the few lands expropriated by the federal government to be redistributed to peasant families via a federal program are not productive lands in general, since they have been used up by monocultures.

Gauber says that many families, lacking options, end up abandoning their land in order to work in the monoculture plants. In the settlement where she lives, many families lease their land to agribusiness.

Compounding this situation is the use of genetically modified (GMO) seeds. In Brazil, GMO plantations represent over 50 percent of the territory designated for agricultural activities in the country - and the majority are GMO soy varieties.

Despite the difficulties, Gauber says that the families have created the conditions for resistance by organizing cooperatives and participating in small markets. "The way out has been to produce in small quantities, in an artisanal system, gradually working to regenerate the soil", she said. "This disproportionate war is senseless because really those who feed the city are the small-scale farmers in Brazil. Monocultures are basically for export and for industry".

Depraved Cycle for Peasants

Soy fields and pasture for livestock: This is the monotonous scenery that can be glimpsed along the MS-164 highway, in the municipality of Ponta Pora, in Mato Grosso do Sul, on the border with Paraguay. On the edge of this highway is also one of the biggest settlements in Brazil, taken over by social movements led by the MST in 2002. The settlement, Itamarati, covers 50,000 hectares of land and is home to 3,000 families. Ironically, it used to be a large soy-producing farm. Its owner was Olacyr de Moraes, the largest individual soy producer in the world in the 1980s.

"This disproportionate war is senseless because really those who feed the city are the small-scale farmers in Brazil".

Itamarati has two types of land, spaces for individual plots and collective ones. The individual plots (up to 10 hectares) are home to fruit trees and vegetable gardens; most of these fruits and vegetables are consumed by residents. The 12-hectare plots are for collective production, with irrigation and collectively owned equipment, where food is planted for commercialization.

The community has a health care structure, education, two cooperatives for production development, a small commercial center and even an urban center.

Ariovaldo Ciriaco is one of the settlement's farmers. He grows rice, manioc and peanuts. Beyond food for individual consumption, he also plants soy. "Of the total of 50,000 hectares of Itamarati, close to 20,000 of them have soy plantations", said Ciriaco, who is a member of the Association of Cooperative Farmers and the resistance group El Dorado dos Carajas.

Ciriaco has been living in the settlement since the beginning in 2002, and says that after moving onto the land, his family and other members of the settlement were besieged by the multinational corporations that produce corn, soy and fertilizers. "The discourse that they used was that the use of products [fertilizers, pesticides and GMO seed varieties] would reduce costs and we would have greater productivity. The argument was that, using the best technology, one could work less and earn more money. Afterward, we saw that this wasn't true. For example, in terms of corn, they said that the seeds would produce 160 sacks per hectare, but the truth is they don't make more than 100 sacks", Ciriaco said.

"Those who came to live and work here were either employed by a large farm or in other, smaller areas. We were not accustomed to working with soy on a large scale. So they sold us the package (seeds, fertilizers and pesticides) at expensive prices and with quantities of poison higher than necessary. So today we see the abuses they carried out because of our lack of knowledge", he added.

Ciriaco says that a large number of the farmers ended up in a cycle of dependence on products made by multinationals like Bunge, Cargill, ADM, Bayer and Syngenta. "Their representatives in Brazil even came to us to sell their products. The package is very expensive, so families had to get into debt in order to buy it, and when they harvested, they paid the debt. This cycle of dependence is a huge problem", he said.

The price of soy is defined by the international market, principally by the United States. Yet Ciriaco hasn't lost his energy: His goal now is to grow crops without having to be dependent on corporations and their technology packages. "Our challenge is to stimulate agricultural diversity - invest in alternatives, in order to diminish the dependence on soy".

Correction: The original version of this article read 5 billion hectares of soy had been planted in this region of Brazil. In fact, it is 5 million. Many thanks to the sharp-eyed reader who caught the translation error.

Mexico: Electoral Reform Threatens the Self-Determination of Indigenous Peoples

Por

Renata Bessi y Santiago Navarro F

30 September, 2014

At the end of May, Mexico’s National Congress approved a political-electoral reform that will organize federal and local elections for the year 2015. Such a reform represents a step backward for indigenous towns in Mexico because it does not consider the way in which they elect authorities through their own system of "uses and customs" legitimate.

Despite efforts by citizens, academics, organizations and indigenous movements, who turned in a series of proposals to senators and congress members from Oaxaca long before the reform was passed, the self-determination of indigenous towns and communities has not been guaranteed.

"By not guaranteeing the right to autonomy and political representation in these towns, the diversity of political organization that exists in this country is being denied," says Aldo Gonzales Rojas, of indigenous Zapotec descent and a director for the Secretary of Indigenous Affairs in the state of Oaxaca, where he ensures that indigenous laws are being instituted and applied correctly. "A legal gap has been created given that this other system exists, but is not recognized. Indigenous communities should have juridical certainty", he continues.

The electoral adviser for the State Institute for Electoral Affairs and Citizen Participation of Oaxaca, Victor Leonel Juan Martínez, also says that the reform throws into question the autonomy of indigenous towns.

"Far from looking to meet with indigenous groups, they look to undermine their collective spirit; instead of establishing agreements, they see them as political clientele; far from constructing a national multicultural project, they seek out factious interests and use the indigenous flag as an instrument for their own ends," he declared during the Thirteenth Session of the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Affairs, which took place in May of this year.

Community belonging to Oaxaca Nochixtlan receive information on how the electoral processes through political parties operate. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.**)

In contrast to this situation is the new reform initiative on indigenous rights and culture that is in process in Oaxaca’s state congress. "In Oaxaca’s state congress there is currently a proposal being debated for constitutional reform with regard to indigenous affairs, which would address electoral issues in these towns and guarantee the autonomy of indigenous communities," Gonzales tells Truthout. In this way, "If federal laws do not regulate these issues, we are going to work so that they are regulated in the best way possible in the Constitution and the laws of the State; in Oaxaca, we cannot leave this issue aside."

According to the Federal Electoral Institute, there are no federal level statistics of the number of municipalities that elect their authorities through the system of "uses and customs." The only state in the country that legally recognizes this system is Oaxaca. Of the 570 municipalities that compose the state, 418 elect their authorities through "uses and customs."

First Consultation of Indigenous Towns

To draft the proposal for the reform initiative, the secretary of Indigenous Affairs, a branch of the state government, issued a call for public comment and completed a consultation. Twenty-four regional forums took place with over 5,000 participants, among them 1,500 municipal authorities. There was also a state forum made up of 500 delegates representing each of the regional forums.

At first, indigenous leaders, academics and lawyers worked to create the reform’s fundamental criteria. These three integrated groups completed studies and analyzed national and international laws that have served as references for indigenous processes. From that point, they identified the central discussion points, including: indigenous modes of communication, culture, traditional medicine, indigenous women, community values, governing systems, electoral processes, autonomy, self-determination (in terms of land and territory), state jurisdiction and consultation.

A platform was constructed for each of these themes, and they were subjected to a consultation process. From there, a publication was compiled with these criteria that was sent to community authorities so that they could revise and discuss them. Shortly thereafter, an invitation call was put out in the places where consultations would take place. "They put out the call based on the principle that the state should listen to the towns before making reforms and laws. It is the first consultation that was done for indigenous towns in Oaxaca," says Melquiades Cruz Miguel, head of the Department of Indigenous Intercultural Communication, part of the Secretary of Indigenous Affairs, which also was a participant in the consultation process in the Northern Sierra Mountains.

Once the forums had taken place, a technical committee of experts was created and made up of intellectuals, lawyers and indigenous leaders to convert the results of the consultation into a bill format.

Once this process was finished, a state forum of indigenous towns was convened to ensure that the final version of the document had support. "And, finally, the text was presented to a consulting board made up of intellectuals and indigenous leaders, in order to validate and legitimate the consultation," Cruz says.

The proposal was presented to the governor of Oaxaca, Gabino Cué Monteagudo, in August of 2013. The text passed through the government’s technical advisory board, and in March of 2013, was sent to the state congress to be voted on.

A final resolution is expected in October. "We don’t know if members of congress are going to approve the full reform or an amended version, because - given that it deals with territory, autonomy, [and] indigenous jurisdiction - it affects many interests," says Cruz.

Assembly of communities that listen to what candidates offer in exchange for their vote. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.)**

Strengthening of Assemblies

The reform initiative looks from the start to strengthen the interwoven nature of indigenous communities. "Rights for communities are strengthened, and decisions made in community assemblies are recognized to have effects beyond the town, which is to say, the State has to respect their decisions," says Gonzales.

The proposal establishes mechanisms so communities can manage their development plans, put into place actions that they’ve decided on, and evaluate and regulate them. "It is recognized that communities have their own mechanisms, from planning to controlling their resources."

Another aspect of the reform is that it guarantees the right of communities to prior, formal, free and informed consent in the case of administrative actions on the part of municipal and state governments. "It is not easy, but, for example, in cases of land concessions made to mining companies, one of the requirements they ask for is that the change of subsoil use be granted by the municipal authority. The proposal is that this change of subsoil use pass the assembly," he explains.

Cuts to the Proposal

According to Victor Leonel Juan Martínez, before sending the bill to congress, the governor removed two fundamental pieces that had come out of the consultation. The initial proposal would establish an autonomous institute of indigenous Oaxacan towns, an institution that would be fundamental to carry forward public policies. "And when the governor presented [the bill] to the congress, the proposal for the institute was no longer there."

Another proposal that was not accepted completely was one that would establish the possibility for municipalities that are governed by their own normative systems to be able to name their congressional representatives through mechanisms other than political parties.

"There are some actors that have little experience with the subject of indigenous towns, that have fears around the right to autonomy and free determination of towns and try to minimize some of the proposals,"
NOTES GONZALES.

Community resistance to one of 28 wind farms planned for the region known to the state and decides declared autonomous municipality. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.**)

Forces within the Dispute

For Gonzales, one fact that should generate more controversy has to do with the political rights of indigenous communities, such as the proposed creation of an indigenous parliament, which he believes most likely will not pass in its entirety. "Certainly something general in this respect will be part of the Constitution."

A reform of this nature has generated vehement dispute within the State, he tells Truthout. "It cannot be forgotten that Oaxaca is essentially indigenous, and the state owes an enormous debt to these towns. The passage of a reform of this nature would mean doing justice. To not approve it would be an injustice. Indigenous towns have been invisible. The liberal state was constructed as an agreement between French and North American perspectives. No one turned to see that indigenous towns also had their proposals."

Limits

Gonzales admits the limitations of the law. "When the reform is approved, indigenous groups will have new legal resources to defend their lands. But it is not simple. There is no oral mechanism [for communicating the existence of the laws], they are not easily accessible, lawyers are necessary in order to access these tools. It will be necessary to go through a trial period."

Cruz warns that the passage of the constitutional reform will not be sufficient if it does not guarantee the operation of new institutions that bring about public policies for indigenous towns. "If this does not happen, the same thing will happen as when the law was passed in 1998: it was inconsequential. It’s necessary to regulate, to define how the laws will be applied, which institutions should manage them and where resources should come from. The work we have to do after the law is passed is much greater. It is necessary to have mechanisms in place so that all of this can get off the ground."

Women caring declared autonomous municipality. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.**)

History

According to indigenous lawyer and jurist Francisco López Bárcenas, indigenous towns in Oaxaca have a long history and tradition of defending their rights; they have learned how to work together to have a relationship with the state and the rest of society while maintaining their ethnic identity. This has been reflected in the constitutions and laws that have guided the political life of this federative entity since before the creation of the Mexican State.

"The state of Oaxaca counts among its achievements having been the first of the Mexican Republic to legislate around the issue of indigenous rights, long before the federal government signed the United Nations ILO-Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal towns in Independent Countries in 1989, and prior to the reform of the 4th article of the Political Constitution of the United States of Mexico, where for the first time the pluri-cultural nature of the nation and some cultural rights were recognized, based on the presence of its indigenous towns," says López Bárcenas.

Another important factor was the uprising of the armed movement of the Zapatista National Liberation Army in 1994, comprised primarily of indigenous individuals, which marked a new generation in the indigenous movement in Mexico and across the world.

"It was an important watershed moment for the vindication of the rights of indigenous towns in Mexico and in the world. The EZLN uprising and the San Andrés Accords particularly, regarding indigenous rights and culture, were fundamental factors for the generation of a strong national indigenous movement that made up the National Indigenous Congress, which in turn became a principle representative - together with the EZLN - for the demands of indigenous towns." These are the antecedents that form the basis of the documents of this new reform initiative.

Contradictions

The juridical tools have been important so that towns can be recognized as collective legal subjects. But these communities exist, with or without this recognition, and continue to strengthen their community ties and their autonomy. Those that are disobedient and rebellious will continue to be a minority, but they continue building their daily lives, with or without permission.

"We have our forms of organizing ourselves that are deeply rooted, and what the law says on paper is one thing, but here everything has to go through the assembly, and we will continue living this way because it has worked well for us," says Saúl Aquino, commissioner of communal resources in the Zapotec community of Capulálpam de Méndez.

"Indigenous towns must strengthen their processes of autonomy, preparing new generations for autonomy and not expecting anything good to come from the political class of this country," says anthropologist and researcher Gilberto López y Rivas.

The Changing Map of Latin America

Por

Renata Bessi y Santiago Navarro F

27 August, 2014

The map of Latin America is in full flux. The reconfiguration of territories primarily affects the 670 indigenous communities that stretch from the Rio Grande to Patagonia, according to statistics from the Economic Commission of Latin America and the Caribbean. This political, social and economic remodeling of territory has been accompanied by seemingly endless conflict and social upheaval across the continent.

In 2000, the National Intelligence Council, a support center for the CIA, forecasted this scenario in a report titled "Global Tendencies 2015," which states, "Indigenous resistance movements in Latin America will be one of the principal challenges for national governments in the next fifteen years." They also affirmed that, "these movements will grow, facilitated by transnational networks of indigenous rights activists, supported by well-financed international human and ecological rights groups."

In the decade since the publication of the report, indigenous resistance movements have indeed proliferated. What the report failed to explain, however, were the factors that would drive such growth.

The reordering of territory has blurred borders in both economic and political terms with projects such as the Mesoamerica Project - previously Plan Puebla-Panama - and the Initiative for Regional Infrastructure Integration of South America (IIRSA), which both entered into force after 2000. Their primary objectives include the construction of transportation and telecommunication networks, as well as energy-generation projects such as hydroelectric dams and wind farms. They also plan to designate national parks, protected areas, Heritage for Humanity sites, cross-border conservation areas, transnational parks (also called Parks for Peace), ecological and biological corridors and networks of protected areas.

April 2014 - The wind farm owned by Gas Natural Fenosa, which uses the name Biìo Hioxo Energy, continues its progress on communal land where sacred ceremonial centers exist in Zaragoza Juchitán of Oaxaca. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.**)

"When we think about IIRSA, we are talking about lines of communication, of channels that span 20,000 kilometers, or the entire Amazon, as a line that penetrates remote territories that have not yet been reached, where what has not yet been extracted can be accessed," Ana Esther Ceceña, coordinator of the Latin American Observatory on Geopolitics, told Truthout. She considers the Mesoamerica Project and IIRSA as part of the same territorial restructuring strategy.

"Indigenous people are on the front lines of a battle, fighting a war that is on behalf of all of us, because it is there that the capitalist system looks to relaunch a new form of accumulation"

The design of these projects is indeed strategic, and "progressive" governments are presenting them as a development opportunity. "What will happen with IIRSA is that local governments will be forced to be more disciplined because they will be brought in line with global markets. There are 500 transnational companies that produce half of global gross domestic product; when one looks at IIRSA's design and these companies' projects, they complement one another: The groundwork is being laid for the circulation of communication, merchandise, raw materials and energy," Ceceña said.

Latin America is currently experiencing a brand of neocolonialism based on opening new possibilities for extraction. "Capital needs a reordering of territory - considering this as a type of historical-social construction - in order to continue reproducing itself, as much in terms of materials as in power relations, of accumulation of capital and profits. The ordering enables access on a large scale to certain types of material from the earth," added Ceceña.

According to Gustavo Esteva, founder of the University of the Earth in Oaxaca, Mexico, the current capitalist system is in crisis, and this has led businesses to use pre-capitalist methods of extraction, in the colonial vein. "They are looking toward expansion into territories that these communities have preserved," he said in an interview with Truthout.

This expansion has led to an affront to the ways of life that exist in these territories, which has provoked uprisings in many towns. "Indigenous people are on the front lines of a battle, fighting a war that is on behalf of all of us, because it is there that the capitalist system looks to relaunch a new form of accumulation," Esteva said.

August 2013 - Indian Township Pipipan Floresta, Pernambuco Brazil. Closures to a federal road due to the forced demarcation of their lands. (Photo: **Renata Bessi**)

The response of indigenous communities across the Latin American continent has largely been twofold. The first is an institutional approach, using parameters established by international agreements like ILO-Convention 169 or local struggles for legal recognition of indigenous ways of life. The other is through declarations of autonomy from the jurisdiction or administration of the state and construction of systems of self-governance, such as the Zapatista movement in Mexico.

Indigenous people are working within this redefinition of territory in Latin America, precisely for the recognition of their lands. According to Joe Bryan, professor in the University of Colorado's geography department, in the last two decades, countries across Latin America have transferred titles of various forms of land possession to indigenous and traditional community collectives to form a total of 2 million square kilometers, a space equivalent to the territory of Mexico.

Territorial Demarcations Change the Maps

"For over three decades, indigenous movements have undertaken the process of securing their territories, which is their claim in order to confront the permanent plundering that characterizes modern colonialism. These efforts are changing the map of Latin America through their public demonstrations and the recognition of their territorial rights," Bryan told Truthout. "This transformation reinforces a series of legal changes regarding the recognition of indigenous rights, not just in response to instruments like ILO-Convention 169 and UN declarations, but also to a series of legal recognitions of collective rights."

The relevance of the confluence of these facts cannot be negated, because it is due to indigenous movements that the very cartography of indigenous towns in resistance has changed. "The indigenous person was converted from a sort of folkloric curiosity to a political subject with his or her own discourse concerning rights," Bryan said. "It was because of them, because of these movements that this mapping has occurred, not just for the production of their own maps, but also for the transformation of their social and political spaces in the region."

July 2013 - Part of a hydraulic infrastructure project in Brazil that starts in the town of Cabrobo and crosses the San Francisco river, directly affecting Truka and Pipipan indigenous peoples. (Photo: **Renata Bessi**)

Demarcations Do Not Guarantee Rights

But these physical and legal changes do not necessarily mean that indigenous rights are being respected. For Bryan, the demarcation of indigenous lands does not guarantee the permanence of communities in their lands, nor does it protect these communities from the destruction of their communal resources through extractive activities.

These territorial adjustments have brought changes above all to resource management, political mapping and market formation, such as carbon markets. To confirm this, it is necessary to look closely at the political and economic context of the origin of these demarcations.

According to Bryan, the processes for such demarcations began in Colombia. "It did not begin as a progressive movement, but as a conservative process initiated by the state. It started due to the need to resolve violent conflicts, and ended with its recognition in the Colombian Constitution of 1990."

"For the market, it doesn't matter if the property is private or owned collectively, like those of indigenous communities. What matters is having someone to do business with"

Since then, indigenous territories were identified by the state as part of a geopolitical blueprint, which was of utmost importance in order to control the territory. Bryan said that the state allowed the participation of a wide range of indigenous movements, even armed movements, in a constituent assembly because the lack of state presence gave way for the space for a guerrilla presence, and the formation of self-defense forces and paramilitary groups.

He added that while reforms in Colombia were promoted to recognize and protect the territorial rights of indigenous populations, they also succeeded in guaranteeing the demobilization of armed indigenous groups and increasing the presence of the state in these same zones. Moreover, the titles given by the state did not slow the displacement of 5 million people since 1985 - the majority of them indigenous - due to guerilla and paramilitary violence.

Legal Recognition of Lands, New Markets

This model of reform served as an inspiration for Nicaragua, which also experienced a context of armed conflict over indigenous territories. The process had the support of the World Bank: "The Bank made efforts to facilitate the development of a property law for indigenous communities. They even sent a Nicaraguan commission to Colombia so that they could learn how to apply the law in their country. And with the backing of the Bank, the law was passed in 2002," Bryan said.

Two years after the approval of the law, the World Bank supported another reform that was applied in Honduras, which recognized the collective property rights of indigenous and Afro-Honduran communities. In the same way, it supported reforms in Bolivia, which led to the recognition of communal territories of origin.

"Gas, mineral resources and lumber are exploited within titled territories without the possibility of refusal by communities"

"The Bank had an interest in formalizing collective property rights through demarcation, title provision and registry, as a basic condition for the functioning of markets. The recognition of these collective rights is conditional upon the logic of neoliberal politics. Above all, it locates property as a necessary structure for the market," Bryan explained. Given this, "for the market, it doesn't matter if the property is private or owned collectively, like those of indigenous communities. What matters is having someone to do business with."

Two examples can be referenced regarding the opening of markets in indigenous lands: carbon markets and the sale of ecosystem services. Bryan cites a study from the University of Arizona about carbon markets in the Lacandon jungle in Chiapas, Mexico that illustrates that the opening of new borders for markets in these territories is not as lucrative for the communities that live there as for the owners of capital. "Carbon markets would be impossible without indigenous territories. This doesn't mean that they are profitable for these communities."

Extraction

Countries are thus recognizing indigenous territories, reforming their constitutions, and even recognizing, in some cases, a state made up of many nationalities, but at a cost. Bryan argues that these changes come along with a commitment to national development based on extraction.

Ecuador provides an example. According to Bryan, this country had the most significant and organized indigenous movement in the region throughout the 1990s. When Rafael Correa took office in 2007 he recognized their historical demands, issuing titles for large extensions of indigenous land in Ecuador's lower Amazon regions. But shortly thereafter, he opened a bidding series for mineral extraction in the same zone, under the argument that the underground resources still belonged to the state. Bryan said that this type of discourse treats territory vertically and considers indigenous people as an obstacle to national progress.

Correa's argument flew in the face of ILO-Convention 169, which maintains:

These towns [maintain the right to] participate in the utilization, administration, and conservation of said resources. In the case in which mineral or other underground resources belong to the State . . . governments should establish or maintain processes that seek to consult the affected towns, with the goal of determining whether or not the interests of these towns would be harmed, and to what degree, before undertaking or authorizing any type of prospecting or exploitation programs of the resources in their lands. The affected towns should participate only if it means that they will benefit from such activities, and receive fair compensation for whatever harm they undergo as a result of the activities.

Bolivia also shows similar tendencies, despite having the only indigenous president in the region, Evo Morales. "Gas, mineral resources and lumber are exploited within titled territories without the possibility of refusal by communities. It is like a type of currency. Once the title has been offered, communities are not given the right to say no to exploitation," Bryan said.

Recognition Is Not Enough

The criteria for land demarcations are also the subject of criticism. Bryan explains that in the logic of this model, indigenous peoples are able to create and strengthen institutions to manage their land. However, he questions whether this can be achieved when the state, responding to the interests of capital, remains the dominant actor. Property demarcation ends up working, "like a straitjacket," that limits the social relations that already exist in communities. It encourages isolation instead of the interaction that is necessary to establish territory - a clearly colonial move in Bryan's estimation.

"Instead of revolutionizing the geography, it is only adjusted, reducing the demand for autonomy to the right to ownership"

Another complaint regarding the regularization of indigenous territories relates to the fact that the state is the arbitrator, and therefore, indigenous matters are subject to legal standards for recognition. These maps conform to the state's conception of property, fencing off indigenous territories and foreclosing on indigenous worldviews. "Instead of revolutionizing the geography, it is only adjusted, reducing the demand for autonomy to the right to ownership," Brian said.

The problems with land demarcations indicate that instead of institutionalization, a reimagining of how to create spaces is necessary. Bryan calls for "an indigenous geopolitical reality" to create just, collective spaces.

Other Paths

The fight for the future of the capitalist system is being waged in indigenous territories. It is in these same towns where alternatives to capitalism can be lived, as is being done through the indigenous movement of the Zapatista Liberation Army (EZLN), according to Gustavo Esteva. "What we have learned most importantly from Zapatista communities is that resistance does not mean just enduring, not just resisting the construction of a dam, a mine . . . resistance will only be successful if at the same time we construct another possibility for living," he said. "We have to increase the visibility of these successful experiences that represent the alternative, because a lot of people are ready to act."

Another example of communities resisting alienation are the indigenous towns of Bolivia which are not satisfied with the recognition of the rights of nations and the constitutional recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples.

In June, the collective Council for the Bolivian People presented a proposal to form autonomous governments, inspired by the Zapatista experience, which would lay out a plan that ceases to recognize the institutional electoral system. The Council's proposal states they are, "divorcing themselves from federal, county, and municipal mandates, because the 'good governing boards' and the inherited, institutionalized forms of 'bad government' cannot exist together in the same territories." Thus, according to the proposal, all territorial and geologic permits (mineral and hydrocarbon) are considered canceled.

Another form of self-governance in indigenous territories by indigenous people, which is very particular to Latin America, is the normative system known as "uses and customs" in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. These are forms of government which have been maintained in different historical contexts and which were recognized in 1995 by Oaxaca's state Congress.

However, these normative systems have been at risk ever since the Program for the Certification of Ejido Rights and Titling of House Plots (PROCEDE), passed in 1994, modifying Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution governing the land tenure system. These regularization policies made the status of communal lands vulnerable and put communities on alert. Communities that did not want to take part in the reform, including many in Oaxaca, have entered into a new stage of resistance, a theme that we will explore in-depth in the next article.

Across Latin America, a Struggle for Communal Land and Indigenous Autonomy

Por

Renata Bessi y Santiago Navarro F

27 July, 2014

Communal Land and Autonomy

Entering into the heart of indigenous communities in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, land of the Mixtecs and the Zapotecs, is like opening a door to a world of shapes, textures, colors and flavors that contrasts with the Western culture that governs daily life in big cities and westernized families. These indigenous communities are strongly tied to the mountains, to the smell of coffee that mixes with the smell of pines and the fragrance of flowers, to the legends that are woven by looms into clothing. All this takes place in lands that cannot be bought or owned.

If poetry, legends, clothing and food are the ways in which the ancestral culture of the indigenous Oaxacans is materialized and maintained, then "uses and customs" is the living expression of the political system of these communities, which has maintained its legitimacy historically, like any other state system. Of the 570 municipalities in the state of Oaxaca, 418 are governed through the traditional form of political organization of "uses and customs." Only 152 have adopted a conventional system using political parties, a striking reality that is not just relevant in Mexico but in all of Latin America.

As an example, Bolivia is the country with the largest indigenous population in Latin America; according to the UN, 62 percent of Bolivians are part of an indigenous group. Only 11 local governments, however, are recognized as autonomous, with the right to elect their authorities through their own "uses and customs" system.

Oaxaca, one of Mexico's 31 states, has the country's highest level of diversity as well as the largest indigenous population. Of the 3.5 million inhabitants in the state, according to official statistics, more than one-third of the population is of indigenous origin (1,165,186 individuals). However, it wasn't until 1995 that all the municipalities' normative systems of "uses and customs" were legally recognized in Oaxaca's state congress.

Each town has its owns rules about the best forms of organization; they are not homogenous. Despite the diversity of systems, two things are broadly characteristic of all of them: the cargo system and the assembly.

The assemblies, which are the highest decision-making bodies, are attended by all the heads of families, women and men, where they deliberate in person the town's issues in order to arrive at consensus. Designated authorities preside over the assemblies. There are different levels of assembly: the domestic, neighborhood, the town council, the civil, the religious and the agrarian assemblies. The general assembly is the product and culmination of these previous assemblies. It is the maximum indigenous authority and it is the body that decides the rules that the govern community life.

Authorities are not elected through a traditional electoral system, but through a hierarchical system of cargos, which are unpaid positions that each member of the community must fulfill. In order to get to the position of mayor, a citizen would have to have served in a series of positions (cargos) throughout his or her life in the community. In general, individuals begin performing cargos at an early age. A 10-year-old child can start participating in community activities by doing some type of service in the church, ringing the daily bells that are used by the community as important daily markers of time, for example.

From there the process of transition from one cargo to the next begins, each one deliberated in the assembly. The communities in Guelatao de Juarez, inhabited by no more than 800 inhabitants, and Capulalpam de Mendez, with 1,500 inhabitants, located 60 kilometers from the capital city of Oaxaca in the Northern Sierra mountain range, are examples where these traditions are maintained. In these communities one begins in a position of topil (general assistant) or police assistant, then becomes a third-level council member or project manager, then second-level council member on education, ecology or health, followed by a first-level council member on taxes, community mediator and finally president.

There are two presidents. One is municipal, dedicated to the administration of the urban area, overseeing services like education, sewage and potable water. The other is the president or commissioner of communal resources, who administrates agrarian issues, such as communal land, since private property does not exist. There are also other cargos: mayor, treasurer and secretary. In Guelatao, there is a consulting board that is made up of elderly members of the community and people with experience who are well respected in the community.

In Guelatao, Jesus Hernandez Cruz just began his cargo as mayor. His hands, still rough from years as a small-scale farmer, grip a pencil and notebook where he takes his notes. He sits at a desk made of wood from the region. He was a professor and farmer for 34 years and retired in 2005, which is when he began his community service. He has a pension and continues to cultivate his tejocote fruit trees, from which he makes jellies.

Jesus Hernandez Cruz, mayor of Juarez Guelatao. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.**)

The mayor explained the logic of participating in cargos starting at the bottom, doing things like cleaning public spaces, before reaching a position like mayor. "The objective is that the person comes to understand the problems and needs of the community in order to be able to resolve them once they assume more important cargos. In this collective manner, each person is accommodated in certain activities according to their abilities. No one earns money here. In this way, one gains knowledge about the realities of the community. The only thing one earns as one completes a good service is the respect and recognition of the town," he said.

In Guelatao, the inhabitants are compensated with services like water and public electricity that they don't have to pay for. "Cargos are a service to the community, and in exchange, the community offers benefits to these citizens, such as gifts that are provided by the municipal authority in return for service. Because of this, it's looked down upon if an individual does not fulfill his or her cargo and then comes back to the authority to ask for favors. If one does not want to fulfill the service - the cargo - without being compensated, it is preferable for this person to leave the town or that person will no longer enjoy these benefits," writes Gabriela Canedo Vasquez, author of An Indigenous Conquest: Municipal Recognition of "Uses and Customs" in Oaxaca.

Community celebrations are also important times for the towns. Communities put on at least one celebration annually, where everyone participates and the assembly names a commission to be responsible for it, work which is also part of the cargo system.

Collective work, cleaning the community in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F**.)

Foundations

Two means of community communication are the loud speakers that are usually located in the center of town and the community radio station. From there authorities announce festivals, assemblies and tequios, or collective work that is done for community benefit. "We recently invited everyone to clean the highway that marks the boundary with the community of Ixtlan. This type of service also serves to integrate people into a sense of community," said Saúl Aquino Centeno, the commissioner of communal resources in Capulalpam de Mendez.

The elements that sustain the organizational community structure are the knowledge and values that have prevailed throughout their history. "We must understand what we are, not the 'I' or the 'you,' but the 'we,' and we should hold onto these principles in order to stop the interference of the vulgar and shameless principles of individualism. We shouldn't enter into competition except to reproduce that which will be shared," said Jaime Martínez Luna, an indigenous Zapotec anthropologist. "We are against development because it is linear and requires growth; we consider ourselves to be circular, in a spiral, and it's because of this that men and women are not the center of the natural world. We are not owners of nature; we are owned by nature."

Additionally, "Earth is considered to be our mother and we cannot do violence to her because she gives us life. We respect seeds because our grandparents taught us that they cry if they are not cared for; the grandparents say that the Mother Earth gives us food and when we die she receives and hugs us," said Silvestre Ocaña López, of the indigenous group Tlahuitoltepec Mixes in Oaxaca, who does not hesitate to mark the difference between the way of thinking in her town and Western thinking. "Within the Western worldview, the earth is a product," Ocaña López said. "For us in indigenous towns, we see it as our mother. She does not belong to us; we belong to her."

Precedents

The indigenous rights lawyer Francisco López Bárcenas has immersed himself in the historical context of the indigenous communities of Oaxaca, and affirms that the debate about indigenous rights has existed since before the creation of the Mexican state. "It resumed on January 10, 1825, when the first Federal Constitution was being promulgated, which established in its fifth article that administratively it would be divided into counties, parties and towns; these last would be administrated by a city council made up of mayors, council members and mediators, as long as the town's population reaches 3,000 'souls.' In this way, the state of Oaxaca recognized the form of organization that indigenous communities had used since colonial times to resist Spanish oppression."

In that sense López Bárcenas assumes that Oaxaca was the first state to pass legislation in the arena of indigenous rights, long before the Mexican government signed the UN's ILO-Convention 169 regarding Indigenous and Tribal Communities in Independent Countries in 1989.

Communal Lands

The land in these towns is communal; it belongs to everyone. There is no private property, not even small plots are sold. The transference of land is done through a transfer of land rights. A father can transfer his land to his children, for example. Everything must go through the assembly. No one can sell the land and no one can buy it.

"If someone here works in the fields that individual is given a parcel of land. But that person must continually work the piece of land. If after three years nothing has been produced on the land, it is transferred to someone else who is interested in farming it. The commissioner is in charge of this," explained the president of communal resources of Capulalpam.

People's discussion on mining in Capulalpam Mendez, northern highlands of Oaxaca. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.**)

The assemblies can even decree protected communal areas. "We are updating the statute about communalism that governs communal resources. We are going to decree that an area where there are freshwater springs will be protected. We know that there are currently projects to take our land," the commissioner said.

People that come from other communities cannot acquire land; they can only rent. Nor can they participate in the assembly system automatically. In Guelatao, "the person that moves here has the obligation to report himself or herself to the municipal government in order to be considered for community projects and cargos, but only once the decision has been made by the assembly that they can be accepted," according to Guelatao's mayor.

Justice

Guelatao also has a security protocol. "Here the punishments range from jail time - for eight hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, up to three days - fines or forced labor, and are for the benefit of the community. The mediator is the person directly responsible for justice in cases of physical violence, theft and crimes. The mayor is responsible for domestic lawsuits. He is the family mediator. He is also the person in charge of following up with problems that are outside the scope of the mediator. If a situation is very grave, it would require transferring the case to the Public Ministry. But the majority of cases are resolved here," Cruz explained.

Community Projects

Guelatao's mayor explained that the community also depends on federal and state resources. "There is an imposition of rules that must be followed with regard to funds destined for municipalities for social development. These resources come from the federal government, to be used for infrastructure and operations," the mayor said.

In Capulalpam, they also receive outside resources, but fewer. "Communities have grown and improved with their own resources. [The town] is self-sufficient economically," said the president of communal resources.

The self-sufficiency of the town is based in resources that are generated by five community businesses: a water bottling plant, a mill (there are forests that are managed sustainably within the community), a crushed-gravel pit, a toy factory and an ecotourism project. "Each project has its own administration. The assembly chooses a commission that accompanies each of them. Each project must report to the commissioner regarding economic developments and requests, which are brought up for approval in the assembly, usually every four months," the president said.

The profits are used for social benefit. "No comunero (individuals who administrate and have historically had the right to use or cede communal lands) or citizen receives direct economic support or benefit. Resources are divided according to the needs of the community. The municipal government has some employees, such as a gardener, librarian [and] a person in charge of the cultural center. The project gives a certain amount of money to pay these people," he added.

But Is It Autonomy?

Little is spoken about autonomy as a concept among people of these communities, although a definition is sought after in academic spaces. It's possible that a complete concept has not been constructed that includes all the nuances and lived experiences of these towns. It simply manifests in the inter-subjective relationship between human and nature, and how social relationships are mitigated by this relationship to territory, or the Mother Earth, as they call it.

Theatrical representation of gratitude to Mother Earth; the meeting of people in defense of native corn. In the central valleys of Oaxaca. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.**)

Autonomy seems to be a daily reality that is breathed and felt in the harmony of the people when they go to participate in the tequio - collective work - or when they attend an assembly, organize to defend their land and territory, and celebrate and dance. The cargos of self-governance are still seen as a symbol of respect for the person who is chosen to give the service without being paid.

The mayor of Guelatao recognizes the existence of a political and social organizational autonomy, but is critical of the role of state and federal government resources in communities. "The government is involved in everything, since they began collecting taxes and issuing public forms of credit. Before the farmer had the field entirely; in that moment we were autonomous. We produced and we provided for ourselves. We didn't need any resources from the government. Town administration questions were handled through community cooperation. Now we aren't 100 percent autonomous because we depend on resources from the government," the mayor said.

For Martínez Luna, the anthropologist, autonomy is determined by the degree to which communities guarantee their own food sovereignty. "Autonomy shouldn't be something that is injected from the outside; it should come from our own capacities - exercised, not developed."

According to Martínez Luna, two other things are necessary to guarantee autonomy. "We have to value what we are because it is in this way that we value what we have, because this allows us to flourish fully. We have to think in a decolonized manner." Community education is another route. "The value of individualism has been introduced into our way of being; it exists, but we have to fight to eliminate it through community education. Because I am not 'I' or 'you,' we are 'us.'"

Threats

Some indigenous communities have been infiltrated by political parties, both from the left and the right, who offer food vouchers and place conditions on governmental economic support that would have had to be provided to small-scale farmers and indigenous individuals anyway. Another influencing factor is that deals are made between construction companies and local governments where the company gives a percentage of their budget designated for a public works project to the authorities or community representatives so that they will accept the project. In some cases, when budgets are larger, such as in the case of wind farm companies, hitmen are contracted or paramilitary groups are created to confront the community and thus give a justification for the interference of the state to re-establish "law and order," to such a degree that there are indigenous leaders that have been assassinated for refusing to accept these projects.

"We recognize that we must confront the plundering by transnational companies and the harassment of bad governments through their political parties that offer programs and money that corrupt many leaders and divide our communities," states the declaration of the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) of the Isthmus region, which took place in March 2014.

While a furious battle has been unleashed for the recognition of indigenous rights and culture in other communities in Mexico and Latin America, in Oaxaca, new legislation is being debated on this very theme while large-scale projects continue to advance.

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