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

Por

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.

Michoacan and the Economics of Crime

Por

Santiago Navarro F

28 January, 2014

In southwest Mexico, Michoacan residents have taken up arms and formed a self-defense militia to protect themselves from violent drug cartels, succeeding where state and federal authorities have failed.

"We have about 25,000 members of armed self-defense groups . . . in less than 15 minutes, we have an army of some 140,000 people ready to go to war if necessary, so we will not surrender our weapons . . ." - General Council of Community Self-Defense in Michoacán, Mexico

The situation in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacan has been in the headlines of national and international media due to the emergence of more than 20,000 armed men and women who call themselves community self-defense groups. These groups are mainly funded by local businessmen and producers who have decided to donate between 50 - 80 percent of their profits instead of paying that money in extortion or quotas to organized crime.

For 12 years, several cartels have disputed this territory. First, there were the Zetas, who were then displaced by la Familia, which later was replaced by the Knights Templar cartel, which currently controls the region.

June 2013: The town of Aquila, which lies on the coast of the state of Michoacán, is of one of the first mostly indigenous self-defense groups which arose after other groups formed by ranchers and farmers. (Photo: Juan José Estrada Serafín)

"The situation worsened when these men started to rape girls between 11 and 12 years old. . . . We wanted to do something to stop this, but we were afraid", said Dr. José Manuel Mireles, leading representative of the Michoacan General Council of Community Self-Defense, in an interview with the media network, Subversiones.

The Michoacan self-defense groups formed as a response to the inability of the Mexican government to stop violence that has claimed more than 80,000 lives in less than a decade. Beginning in 2006, then-president Felipe Calderon, backed by George W. Bush, implemented a series of strategies as part of the so-called Merida Initiative, a security cooperation agreement between the United States, Mexico and Central America.

The goal of the Merida Initiative was to combat drug trafficking, transnational organized crime and money laundering. With the support of more than $1.5 billion from the United States, as well as sophisticated weaponry and technology, war was declared on drug trafficking. The result was an actual increase in organized crime, which infiltrated all three levels of the Mexican government.

"How long did the training specialists brought in from New York last in the top government office of the capital [of Michoacan]? They were paid for three years, and instead of diminishing organized crime, it grew . . . not one official could fulfill their function, because all the authorities are part of the cartels . . . Why do they want to blind and distract all of us Mexicans with their big machines?" asked Mireles.

To talk about Michoacan is to talk about the atrocities suffered by local populations at the hands of organized crime. These acts range from the collection of fees from the poorest to the wealthiest businessmen, to raping minors, and murdering those who are unwilling to abide by the demands of these criminal groups.

But talk of Michoacan is also talk of a strategic area for the Mexican economy, especially for transnational corporations that benefit from the territory’s resources. It is one of the most important states in agricultural and mining production, where criminal cartels are the main trading link occupying at least 50 percent of the extractive industry in the state. Low prices and often nonexistent trade barriers have attracted companies like U.S. Precious Metals to engage in the exploitation of gold, silver and copper, as well as other multinational companies, or the world´s second-largest economic power, China.

When President Enrique Peña Nieto traveled to China to strengthen trade relations, especially in the mining sector, mining companies had already established links with the Knights Templar cartel to enter the business.

The context of violence is in itself a market for the large defense industry, primarily that of the United States. About 2,000 guns per day enter illegally into Mexico across the border with the United States; likewise, the Mexican government has purchased various batches of weapons from the United States and other countries. Thus, there is a constant flow of weapons that move between organized crime, vigilante groups and the government.

"The logic is drugs and people move north, and what comes back are weapons and dirty money that later filters into the Mexican financial market and then goes back to the United States",
SAID JAMES DAYAN, CONTENT DIRECTOR OF THE MEMORY AND TOLERANCE MUSEUM, ABOUT ARMS TRAFFICKING IN MEXICO.

In 1990, French judge Jean de Maillar, an expert on organized crime, published in his book Un Monde Sans Loi that the activities of the major international mafias will generate the equivalent of about $800 billion, an amount higher than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Spain and equivalent to the GDP of Canada, i.e., 15 percent of world trade. According to the report, nearly $400 billion are earmarked for security services, ranging from buying politicians and officials, guards and private armies, which allow for the free movement of illicit capital, to its end point, which is the reintroduction into the legal economy.

This type of economy, considered by many analysts as a Gross Criminal Product (GCP), seems to be a model that has been applied in Mexico for at least 12 years. The current events in Michoacan are only a microcosm of what happens in over 80 percent of the rest of the country, where there are at least eight cartels: the Zetas, Sinaloa, Beltran Leiva, Arellano Feliz, Gulf, Juarez, the Knights Templar and the Familia Michoacana cartels. They are criminal cartels that not only traffic drugs and weapons, but also sex workers, undocumented migrants, toxic waste, oil and gas, high-tech industry, products that do not pay duties and automobiles, among many others.

Most Mexicans are not aware of the logic of this kind of economy because they find themselves most concerned with confronting and surviving the violence and insecurity of everyday life. So far, the Community Self-Defense groups in Michoacan have recovered several municipalities from cartel control, giving a lesson to the Mexican government. Without sophisticated weaponry and without a bilateral agreement for international cooperation, these groups have been able to clean up a good part of the Mexican state, which the government struggles to do.

Also, they are still awaiting the government arrest of the leaders of the Knights Templar cartel, who have been identified by the citizens themselves. However, the military and police have not acted because they have received no order to do so.

"I have argued that this strategy of putting police in the city is a farce . . . this is a lawless place, where the Templars govern. Yesterday, I stopped in front of a police commander and said, 'That man over there is the one extorting 18 million pesos from the lemon producers.' The police said they could not do anything," stated Gregorio Lopez, a priest of the Archdiocese of Apatzingán. Lopez also set an ultimatum for the government to clean the city of the "evils," or that he would do it himself, even if he had to arm his people with sticks.

So far, the government's objective remains to disarm self-defense groups. Meanwhile other self-defense groups are beginning to sprout up throughout the rest of the country. In the state of Chiapas, communities are forming groups against mining projects due to environmental devastation. In Guerrero, there are community police forces that have been organizing to maintain peace and security for several years. Other groups continue to emerge throughout the country, and the potential of an overall civil war lies dormant.

Energy Reform, Shale Gas and Public Spending Cuts in Mexico

Por

Santiago Navarro F

24 October, 2013

Gas Drilling Western Politics — A fracking well in Colorado, pictured in 2012

"Peak oil is not the same as running out of oil. What it means is simply reaching the ceiling, and then starting a terminal decline in oil production as determined by basic geological and technological factors."

- Bellamy Foster 2011

Recently the president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, introduced an energy reform bill that would modify existing legislation to allow greater public and private investment in the energy sector. This would enable the exploitation of more complex oil deposits, including unconventional oil. The inspiration for the bill comes in part from the 9,100 drilling permits that the US has granted to 170 oil companies for oil and shale exploitation, in contrast to the three deposits that have been opened to exploitation in Mexico.

With 680 trillion cubic feet, Mexico ranks fourth in the world - after China, the United States and Argentina - in shale gas reserves, according to estimates by the US Department of Energy's Energy Information Agency. These are resources that must be exploited, according to the reform measure.

Shale gas is extracted from soft sedimentary rocks formed by deposits of mud, silt, clay and organic matter. The two techniques used for extraction of this gas are hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling. These techniques have caused great alarm because of the environmental hazards associated with each process' dependence on the use of millions of cubic feet of water and potentially harmful chemicals. An investigation conducted by the Tyndall Centre argues that the processes not only affect underground and surface aquifers but also human health. For example, 17 of the chemicals used in the extraction of shale gas have been classified as toxic to aquatic organisms, 38 as acutely toxic and eight as carcinogens. An additional six are suspected of being carcinogenic, seven are mutagenic and five have reproductive side effects.

For some time, the United States has been concerned about reaching "peak oil" with regard to conventional oil production. For political and economic reasons, the United States has exaggerated its reserves, since an admission of the real amount would mean a worsening of the economic crisis that has permeated the global capitalist system. With only 4 percent of the world population, the US consumes 25 percent of global energy output. Two-thirds of the oil consumed is in the form of gasoline and diesel fuel for cars and trucks. Therefore, the peak of conventional oil production could cause a catastrophic collapse of the United States' economy if it doesn't have access to sufficient hydrocarbon energy to allow for time to convert its vehicle fleet and alter production chains.

Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, argues in his book The Age of Turbulence that the intervention in Iraq and the increased military presence in the Middle East were justified because "the last quarter century will require between one-quarter and two-fifths more oil than is used today." The possibility of the end of cheap oil puts the US in a state of high alert. In the same vein, the Government Accountability Office, in a report published in 2007, argued that "the uncertainty about future oil supply makes it important to develop a strategy to deal with the peak and decline of the production of hydrocarbons." Since the Bush administration, the United States has taken a more aggressive stance in controlling world production of hydrocarbons and biofuels, a part of which has been a wave of occupations and lootings.

Mexico figures into this strategy. During the presidency of Felipe Calderon, Greenspan said Mexico had to open its energy sector to foreign capital or it could set off a fiscal crisis. Several Mexican researchers, including John Saxe Fernandez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, have refuted Greenspan's assertion. Saxe Fernandez said Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) generates sufficient resources to develop exploration and drilling not only in deep water but also on the continental shelf and in shallow water.

The problem, rather, is that the Ministry of Finance, hobbled by the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank - entities close to Mr. Greenspan - has launched a brutal attack on PEMEX, according to Saxe Fernandez.

"Between 1990 and 2004, PEMEX made $347 billion in profits (in 2004 dollars).The Ministry of Finance charged them $355 billion in taxes," Saxe Fernandez asserted. "Besides confiscating 100 percent of the profits generated in that period, they charged them an additional $8 billion. The objective? In the words of the World Bank: 'take the company to the point of sale.' "

To illustrate how unusual PEMEX's case is, consider the fact that in 2004 British Petroleum paid taxes that equaled 34 percent of its $24.7 billion profit. In the same year, PEMEX profits were $40 billion, but the Ministry of Finance charged it $42 billion. Saxe Fernandez claims the Finance Ministry, following the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF, is trying to force PEMEX into debt to cover these deficits, making it all the more vulnerable to sale.

During the protests in Mexico, banners with legends of "PEMEX not for sale"; "Mexico has no president"; and "Mexico not for sale." (Photo: Santiago Navarro F.)

For decades, the World Bank, IMF and Inter-American Development Bank have pushed for the imposition of such free-market reforms in Mexico and across Latin America, often through so-called SAPs, or structural adjustment programs. Such programs, executed by the secretary of finance, have facilitated transnational investment, unconventional oil development and other strategic areas such as clean energy, large-scale GMO production, biofuels, education and health. According to Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and former vice president of the World Bank, SAPs have four steps:

Privatization: The government sells businesses and public institutions to private investors.
Liberalization of capital markets: Controls on money in and out of the country are reduced. To attract investors to the country, interest rates are greatly increased.
Introduction of market prices: The government gets rid of price controls, and commodity prices are dictated by the market.
Free trade: Barriers (taxes and duties on foreign goods) to protect local producers and industries are removed.

Thus, energy "reform," along with "reforms" in educational, fiscal and financial sectors, is the center of gravity of the new strategy for economic development and growth in Mexico promoted by Peña Nieto.

*For weeks, thousands of teachers, students and workers have mobilized against structural reforms in different parts of Mexico. (Photo: **Santiago Navarro F.**)*

Nevertheless, according to a national study conducted by Alianza Civica, more than 83 percent of Mexicans are firmly opposed to amending the Constitution to allow for private investment in the exploitation and processing of oil and gas in Mexico. They agree that this would have a direct impact on the 80 million poor Mexicans, especially considering that 40 percent of the country's public expenditure (education, health care, infrastructure, security and social programs) is financed with PEMEX revenues. An immediate impact would be felt through a rise in basic food prices, which has been a principal driver of increasing poverty in Mexico. According to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, asset poverty is defined as the inability to purchase basic food items.

Predictions of economic growth and development spurred by the reform made by Peña Nieto and others don't convince many Mexicans. For several weeks now, thousands of teachers from the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) have mobilized in the north, center and south of Mexico, demanding the repeal of recently passed education reforms supported by the Organization for Cooperation and Development, which has historically supported privatization.

This has triggered discontent toward Peña Nieto and his structural reforms. It also has caused CNTE teachers to radicalize their actions and demonstrations, as well as increase solidarity with other unions and civil organizations in different sectors across the country that oppose the energy reform. Meanwhile, the state's response has been to contain social protest with military equipment donated by the United States under the Merida Initiative, which originally was intended to combat organized crime. With more protests almost certainly on the horizon, it seems that Mexican civil society is in for continued United States-sponsored state repression.

From the Green Economy to Communality

Por

Santiago Navarro F

27 August, 2012

During the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) held this past June in Brazil; Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, and Uruguay’s Jose Mujica used their speeches to denounce the green economy as a form of “new colonialism”.

“On the one hand there is the colonization of nature, a comodification of life’s natural resources, and on the other hand the colonization of southern countries that carry on their shoulders the responsibility of protecting the environment that is destroyed by the industrial capitalist economy of the North”, said President Morales. “This so called environmentalism commodifies nature including every tree, plant, drop of water and natural being into a commodity that is subject to the dictatorship of the market that privatizes wealth and socializes poverty.”

Despite these criticisms, also held by indigenous peoples from around the world, the three presidents were in the minority among their counterparts at the summit. The final resolution was to take up the so-called “green economy” as a new economic model to “eradicate poverty and contribute to sustainable growth by maintaining healthy, functioning ecosystems and the Earth.”

Many communities in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico echo those voices that view the model of the green economy as a way of marginalizing the efforts of indigenous peoples. These communities do not believe in the model of development of exponential economic growth as being a real solution to environmental and ecological crises.

Jaime Martínez Luna, member of the indigenous Zapoteco community in the Oaxacan town of Guelatao, president of the Communality Foundation and author of the book “What they call Communality”, spoke to us in an interview about communality and development.

“We are against development because it is lineal and advances upward. We are circular, we are not the centre, we are not the owners of nature, she is the owner of us. Communality is more than just a concept; it is a form of life that is founded on the assembly, communal responsibilities, festivals, communal work, and collectivity. It is internal knowledge that is born from observing what we do every day.”

The United Nations and promoters of a new and cleaner economy have worked on various proposals as alternatives to the end of an era of an economic model based on oil. This implies a reconfiguration of space and time for a new market, which seeks to replace oil with new technologies, and operating via carbohydrates and bioenergy in order to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) while maintaining economic growth.

There are many interests involved in this new type of economy. On the one hand there are transnational capital investors that have invested millions of dollars in energy inversion. It is a monopoly of so-called clean technologies and a profitable market for carbon credits or pollution permits. In the same vein are the environmentalists who have implemented green policies issued by these international organizations.

On the other hand are indigenous communities that are located in the 10 countries that have the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world. These communities identify themselves as being part of mother earth and its diversity. Therefore, rather than just conserving their resources, they work to preserve their forms of social relations and local knowledge, employing a practical worldview that is being lost by the influence of Westernized thinking. It is a thinking that has taught them to view themselves as individuals, and think in a linear and homogeneous fashion.

The territory of these communities represents a platform for the carbon credit market through the creation of National Parks, National Protected Areas, World Heritage sites, Transboundary Conservation Areas, Transnational Parks (also called Peace Parks), Biological Corridors and protected ecological areas.

Mexico is the third richest country in terms of biodiversity, and the state of Oaxaca – populated mostly by indigenous peoples – is the number one state in the country. It also forms part of the so-called Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.

For over two decades organizations such as the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), Conservation International (CI), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), along with companies such as Televisa, Gamesa, Coca Cola, Novartis and others, have operated in Oaxaca. These organizations often execute projects without the consent or necessary information for native communities.

In an interview, indigenous communal authorities from the Sierra Juarez region and the Sierra Mixe area expressed their views in regards to the “green economy”.

Meliton Jimenez, president of communal security in the community of Tlahuitoltepec says, “They set the prices which leaves our authorities with minimal support, people are angry because their land is being expropriated for the sale of carbon credits and they wonder where they will get food to eat. However, no matter what, we need our trees and to take care of our environment. We do not know carbon credits well enough to demand that they pay us what they should; we think they give us what they can. ”

Ulises Diaz, deputy secretary of communal property says, “Since 1985 we decided to take more care of our environment and in 2002 Oaxaca Environmental Services (SAO in it’s Spanish initials) and PRONATURA came to complement our work. Through these NGOs we sell oxygen to CHINOIN, Fundación Televisa and Gamesa. It is a responsibility of everyone, but more so from those countries that pollute more. They must be made responsible and aware and we all must contribute, not just those of us who have forests. ”

Wilfred Mendoza Jiménez, also from Tlahuitoltepec, explains the problem of issuing patents to certain communities and not others. “Since the 90’s there has been a presence of UN organizations. Novartis in conjunction with state and federal governments have engaged in practices of bioprospecting. Novartis did studies on soil in Calpulalpan and developed patents, which were taken in exchange for a laboratory. But we know that micro-organizations do not measure territories and were also in our communities, but now they do not belong to us. ”

The different communities of this region identify the necessity to conserve and rescue lost knowledge that they had inherited from their ancestors. Their alternatives to conservationism and what represents the green economy or development are their own forms of traditional life, which is communal and collective.

Some have decided to distance themselves from western knowledge that seems to be closed to their alternatives, and seek to regain historical memory so as to identify the fundamental causes of the loss of communal principals.

Martínez Luna comments, “There has been a big struggle in the region to stop forest concessions and there have been victories in stopping various national mining projects. We can boast that in the region there is a high level of conservation, as the environment remains protected through communal decision; it is not private property. This is because there is no private property, but rather communal ownership. Bioprospecting has occurred on different levels, some permitted by the community and others without their input. There is a lot of interest in knowing what we have. Anyone can come, but if they do not receive authorization by the community, they do not enter.

Martínez Luna highlights the need to understand and appreciate who we are, because in this way we can value what we have; to not be competitive, but rather to reproduce sharing and prevent the blatant intrusion of individualist principles.

From the green economy to communality, there are different principles and interests. In the former, growth and sustainable development predominate, but with the logic of accumulation and capital profit that benefits only a few. In the latter, the collective, communal and diverse is what prevails. It is not that they reject a better life, but rather it is a rejection of an irrational model of economic development that exists through the underdevelopment of other countries and regions.

Today many indigenous peoples of Latin America share their modes of thought and action, from “Communality” which is taken up in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, “Govern by Obeying” used in southeastern Mexico to the “Live Well” of Bolivians. Voices that are claiming an outstanding ecological debt from the countries of the north for those of the south. What they (northern countries) recognize as development, is looting and destruction of ecosystems and of indigenous peoples.

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