[WSF-Discuss] Fwd: Peru and Ecuador: declaring war on citizens who resist extractive industry expansion
Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
Mon Aug 3 03:54:35 UCT 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
One more for those of us involved in movement or working in support
of movements; one more pause for reflection : How should one – how
should movements, and how should independent progressives - address
the convergence between right and left that so often shows itself at
the governmental and party levels ?
Ane where, in particular, their common enemy becomes the ordinary
people of their countries ?
As this essay suggests is today happening in Latin America ?
JS
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Brian K. Murphy" <brian at radicalroad.com>
> Date: August 2 2009 7:51:14 PM GMT+05:30
> To: Recipient List Suppressed:;
> Subject: Peru and Ecuador: declaring war on citizens who resist
> extractive industry expansion
>
> Excellent synthesis, worth reading:
> "...but today they've found a common enemy: the governments of Peru
> and Ecuador have singled out their own citizens who resist
> extractive industry expansion."
> ***************
> http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/2021/1/
> Peru and Ecuador: A Common Enemy
> by Jennifer Moore
> Friday, 31 July 2009
>
> They had been at war twice in the last century, but today they've
> found a common enemy: the governments of Peru and Ecuador have
> singled out their own citizens who resist extractive industry
> expansion.
>
> "Something terrible is taking place," says Father Marco Arana, a
> member of the executive committee of the Latin American Observatory
> of Mining Conflicts speaking at the Third Continental Meeting in
> Quito, "such that the discourse of 21st Century Socialism coincides
> with the logic and discourse of the most ultra-conservative
> governments like that of Peru."
>
> Presidents Alan García and Rafael Correa have been polarizing the
> internal clash over development vision in their respective
> countries with that of indigenous peoples, mestizo farmers,
> environmentalists and human rights activists, raising concern about
> possible future confrontations.
> A leading metal producer with ambitions to exploit agricultural,
> wood, mineral, and water resources in sensitive regions such as the
> Amazon, Peru's most recent stand-off resulted in the deaths of at
> least twenty three police officers, five indigenous people and five
> residents from the town of Bagua when state forces cracked down on
> a 58-day protest by Amazonian peoples on June 5th, according to
> preliminary figures from the People's Ombudsman (Defensoría del
> Pueblo). [1]
>
> Independent investigators, however, were prevented access to the
> site by police for five days following the incident and local
> witnesses have testified that cadavers of indigenous people were
> dumped into the river indicating that the number killed was much
> higher. [2] At least two hundred more were wounded, the majority
> civilian, and eighty four face legal investigations of which
> eighteen are currently imprisoned. Police are subject to an
> internal police probe and an investigation by the office of the
> public prosecutor. [3] Indigenous and human rights organizations
> have asked for a truth commission to carry out further
> investigations instead of the national police. The same month, the
> People's Ombudsman registered 128 social-environmental disputes
> across the country, almost doubled from the same time last year. [4]
>
> Despite strong economic growth in recent years, García is paying a
> high political cost for favouring big capital investments and
> aggressive free trade policies over the well-being of his own
> people, resulting in recent cabinet changes and plummeting
> popularity ratings. [5]
>
> In Ecuador, conflicts have not grown so violent, while Correa
> remains highly popular having just won a historic re-election with
> over 50 percent of the presidential vote after the first round in
> late April. However, Correa also faces differences with the
> country's social movements over resource extraction on the domestic
> front that some worry could become more serious should they go
> unattended.
>
> Correa has expressed intolerance for public protests, especially
> those opposed to a new large scale metallic mining sector intended
> to substitute for declining oil production. Protests against a new
> mining law in early January 2009 faced a heavy-handed response. In
> the south-central province of Azuay, locals reported that police
> sprayed tear gas into their homes. In the southern Amazonian
> region, one man was found shot and wounded, while others face
> terrorism charges arising from these events.
> In areas such as the Southern Amazon, where the biggest projects
> belonging to Vancouver-based Corriente Resources and Toronto's
> Kinross Gold are situated, recent election results at the local and
> regional level reflect a certain disillusionment with the
> government with the success of competing parties critical of
> Correa's economic development policies. This situation is further
> complicated for the government by key indigenous federations that
> maintain a firm stance against extractive projects on their
> territories.
>
> The indigenous Pachakutik party won the presidency of eleven
> municipalities, as well as the prefecture and one national assembly
> member in each of the two south-eastern Amazonian provinces in
> April. [6] As well, President Pepe Acacho of the Interprovincial
> Shuar Federation whose organization represents 500 Shuar indigenous
> centres and 50 such associations in the Amazonian provinces of
> Morona Santiago, Zamora Chinchipe and Pastaza states, "We have an
> irreversible position...no to any type of extractive industry on
> our territory which includes mining, oil, logging and hydroelectric
> generation."
>
> Sounding a lot like his conservative counterpart García, Correa
> insists that he cannot let a few people stand in the way of
> national development. Instead, he prefers to downplay the
> significance of these tensions while frequently insulting opponents
> and emphasizing promises to redistribute mining revenues and
> implement stronger state controls over the nascent sector.
> Speaking to Amy Goodman at the end of June on the widely respected
> program Democracy Now!, he misrepresented election results saying,
> "We won, overwhelmingly so, in all the mining regions...So, clearly
> the population trusts us." He denied calling protesters "nobodies"
> and concluded, "But three or four people are enough to make a lot
> of noise, to appear in the media, and so on. But, quite sincerely,
> they don't have the popular backing or the representation." [7]
> It is true that extractive industry critics have been marginalized
> given the current balance of power in Ecuador. However, Peru's
> experience suggests that economic growth does not automatically
> resolve conflicts and that they are likely to persist with costly
> outcomes unless a more democratic approach can be found.
>
> On June 28 shortly after the tragedy in Bagua, President Alan
> García published a lengthy treatise called "With the Faith of the
> Vast Majority" in which he disregarded protesters concluding that
> they represent a small minority of the population. "They threaten
> and block roads," he wrote, "because they know that they are few in
> number and that they have lost the game." [8] He calculated that
> about 50,000 Peruvians are involved, and purported that foreign
> governments, understood to include Presidents Hugo Chávez and Evo
> Morales, [9] have helped spark the unrest.
>
> But Father Marco Arana, a native of Cajamarca, Peru where the
> largest gold mine in Latin America has been radically transforming
> local life since the early 1990s, suggests that there is another
> reason why indigenous people, as well as peasant and mid-scale
> mestizo farmers, block roads. It is that they lack real political
> representation in Peru and that channels that should work for their
> complaints do not.
>
> "The result is a very complicated and polarized scenario," comments
> Arana, "which is exactly what should be avoided in order to stem
> further violence and such that democratic and respectful solutions
> can be brought about." He believes that current signals from the
> government favouring dialogue with indigenous groups are merely an
> attempt to "buy time" and that there is little indication that such
> efforts "will be beneficial or address the demands of indigenous
> peoples."
> Indigenous peoples participating in the recent mobilization at
> Bagua protested numerous presidential decrees enacted last year by
> President García in order to implement the free trade agreement
> with the United States that would, amongst other things, enable
> sale of their lands. The decrees are also consistent with Alan
> García's thesis outlined in a 2007 editorial called "The Dog in the
> Manger," [10] in which he describes indigenous peoples and peasant
> communities as poor, uneducated, and lazy. He suggests that they
> are the main obstacle preventing Peru from benefiting from natural
> resources found on their territories.
>
> But strong economic growth has not been benefiting Peru's poor.
> "Companies and the government have confused economic growth with
> development," says Nicanor Alvarado from the Vicar's Office in
> Jaen, not far from the Devil's Curve where protests took place in
> early June. "It's meant growth for the transnationals and industry,
> but not for local peoples."
> Between 2004 and 2008, Peru sustained an economic growth rate
> averaging 7.5%, largely driven by mining. [11] However, as a
> recent report from OXFAM Americaunderlines, poverty rates in the
> Andean highlands of Peru continue to soar above 70% and despite
> greater redistribution of mining revenues to certain regions of the
> country, institutional weaknesses often prevent them from being
> channelled into local development. [12]
> Instead of addressing such issues, President García has not only
> polarized the country, he has also been criminalizing dissent.
> Father Arana, also founder of the Training and Information Group
> for Sustainable Development (GRUFIDES), which helps communities
> monitor environmental impacts of mining on their lands and take
> peaceful action, describes various changes García has made to the
> criminal code including an extended definition of extortion. The
> new definition includes any act that could be interpreted as
> extracting economic benefits under pressure, such as impeding flow
> of traffic, public services or the construction of legally-
> authorized public works. Sentences have been boosted to up to 25
> years in jail. Also, authorities who "support their people by
> participating in protests can now be disqualified from their
> posts," adds Arana.
>
> The overall conclusion is that "the protests will continue," says
> Nicanor Alvarado who accompanied the indigenous uprising in Bagua
> and who has also been accused of terrorism as a result of
> participating in a popular referendum concerning mining activities
> in the northwestern department of Piura in 2007. He forewarns, "The
> communities who I have been accompanying have a culture of
> defending their territory, their language and way of life. They
> live from the land and they will fight to the end, I swear to you."
> The steady rise in social-environmental conflicts in recent years
> as tracked by the People's Ombudsman suggests that conflicts are
> likely to persist in many parts of the country. For Alan García,
> his popularity is seeing a reverse trend indicating that protesters
> are perhaps not as politically illegitimate as he would like to
> believe.
>
> Although a forty year veteran of oil production, Ecuador is at a
> much earlier stage in the development of a new large scale mining
> sector that will affect parts of the country as of yet untouched by
> extractive industry. Similar to García, Correa has polarized
> conflicts by defining activists as self-interested political
> opponents instead of human and environmental rights defenders.
> Without the same history of large scale mining, however, he has
> gained support from certain sectors by promising to reinvest mining
> profits in social programs and local development. But observers see
> warning signs that Correa's current trajectory could aggravate
> disputes.
>
> At the conclusion of a visit to Ecuador in July, investigator
> Anthony Bebbington from the University of Manchester, who is
> leading a major research project into extractive industry expansion
> and social conflict in the Andes, says that even those "that don't
> have a particular axe to grind [with Correa]," are concerned that
> "things could spill over and conflicts be serious" particularly in
> the southeast Amazonian region. Reflecting on the President's
> reluctance to admit this publicly, he says, "One presumes that
> [Correa] knows what's at play....So in not recognizing it, if
> something spills over he can cultivate it and say - like Alan
> García did - that this was something cultivated by darker or
> foreign interests as a way to ignore the political implications and
> to use repressive measures to try and diffuse the conflicts."
> Allusions have already been made to foreign conspirators supposedly
> manipulating rural peoples in government propaganda. [13]
>
> Considering Correa's arguments around greater state control and
> redistribution of mining revenues, Bebbington says these might buy
> the President time, but they will not resolve existing tensions.
>
> Drawing on years of research in Peru, he comments, "Unless you have
> all of your organizational, institutional and bureaucratic ducks
> lined up in order to be able to translate that money into local
> development, there's no reason that that will happen and there's no
> reason to believe that that approach is going to free you from
> local conflict dynamics." He concurs with Nicanor Alvarado and says
> that despite enormous fiscal transfers to certain areas of Peru
> results "have been immensely disappointing both in terms of real
> investments and also in the ways that local politics get distorted
> and new leadership and movements emerge to try to get access to
> those resources." He is not convinced that outcomes in Ecuador will
> be much different.
>
> But Correa seems to be avoiding other issues as well; issues closer
> to the heart of current disputes with indigenous peoples and
> mestizo farmers.
>
> "For example, how do you align a commitment to extractive industry
> with a commitment to indigenous people's territorial rights and
> other collective rights to exercise control over the life paths
> that they want to build? How do you align this commitment to
> constitutional rights and to the environment having rights? Those
> seem to me to be important discussions that lay at the heart of
> making Ecuador a healthier democracy," says Bebbington, recalling
> new gains in Ecuador's political constitution approved last
> September which recognizes rights for nature and declares the
> country a plurinational state.
> "It seems to me that that conversation is not happening. And it's
> being blocked through this argument that we're going to have a
> state industry, and we're going to increase revenues that accrue
> from extraction, and therefore this must be a good thing." It is
> also being blocked by a strong industry lobby backed by the
> Canadian Embassy in Ecuador that is wary of any measure that might
> exclude mining from certain areas.
> Risky business
> Affected communities bear the greatest risks of avoiding such
> debate, whether through the environmental and social impacts of
> extractive industry or when they are subject to severe repression
> for defending their rights like in Bagua or as is feared might
> happen in the Southern Amazon. But singling out one's own citizens
> also has political ramifications.
>
> It has yet to be seen what will happen as various indigenous,
> farmer, environmental and human rights groups become distanced from
> Correa. In the case of Peru, Father Arana believes that they have
> reached the point at which a new political option is essential in
> order to avoid greater "chaos, violence and authoritarianism."
> Now in the process of seeking the thousands of signatures necessary
> to run for president in 2011, Arana is leading a new movement
> called Land and Liberty. They will aim to advance an economic model
> based upon ecological sustainability and plurinationality in which
> extractive industry expansion should be subject to land use
> planning and ecological zoning. They also propose to legislate the
> right to free, prior and informed consent for indigenous and
> peasant communities as outlined by the International Labour
> Organization's Convention 169. While many details of their program
> remain unclear and achieving such goals will entail serious
> challenges, they are central issues to making peace once again
> within these Andean nations.
>
> Notes:
>
> 1. All figures based upon research carried out by the Defensoría
> del Pueblo between June 5th and June 30th 2009: http://
> www.defensoria.gob.pe/modules/Downloads/informes/varios/2009/
> informe-adjuntia-006-2009-DP-DHPD.pdf
>
> 2. http://www.politicaspublicas.net/panel/noticias/america-latina/
> 318-peru-comunicado-mision-fidh.html
>
> 3. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47454
>
> 4. The 64th Report on Social Conflicts from the Defensoría del
> Pueblo of Peru: http://www.defensoria.gob.pe/conflictos-sociales/
> objetos/paginas/6/44conflictos_-_reporte_64_-_junio_2009.pdf
>
> 5. http://www.coha.org/2009/07/garcia's-decline-in-peru/
>
> 6. "Hacia la segunda fase de la revolucion ciudana" Mario Unda,
> http://alainet.org/active/30562
>
> 7. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/29/
> ecuadoran_president_rafael_correa_on_global
>
> 8. http://www.ediciones.expreso.com.pe/2009/jun/28/index8fa6.html?
> option=com_content&task=view&id=57434&Itemid=1
>
> 9. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8106248.stm
>
> 10. http://www.elcomercio.com.pe/edicionimpresa/html/2007-10-28/
> el_sindrome_del_perro_del_hort.html
>
> 11. http://www.economist.com/countries/PERU/profile.cfm?
> folder=Profile-Economic%20Data
>
> 12. "Mining Conflicts in Peru: Condition Critical" March 2009,
> OXFAM America
> 13. For example, see "La Mineria en el Ecuador: Una Fuente de
> Esperanza" from the collection "La Patria es de Todos" available
> here: http://secretariadepueblos.gov.ec/Web/Joomla/MATERIAL%20SPPC/
> COMICS/COMIC8.pdf
>
______________________________
Jai Sen
jai.sen at cacim.net
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