Mining in Mexico: the NAFTA connection

Out of a list of 926 mining projects in Mexico, there are 85 exploration projects from the U.S.A. 21 have been postponed, 23 in production, and 6 in development. In terms of Canadian projects, there are 501 exploration projects, 115 have been postponed, 58 in production, and 28 in development, according to the Mexican Bureau of Economy. In the 28 states where there are mining concessions, the rise in industry from the U.S. and Canada can be tied into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which created a free trade zone between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico starting in 1994. Those who argued for NAFTA promised it would create economic growth and prosperity across these three countries. However, at least in the case of U.S. and Mexico, there continues to be large income disparities. 

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             Mexico is a country with resource rich land serving extractive transnational industries; thus, taking most of the wealth outside of Mexico’s borders. Also, with the high rates of impunity and corruption, most of the wealth that does stay within the country ends in the hands of public officials working hand in hand with transnational companies. The mining industry is not talked about enough by the international media. However, with ⅕ of Mexico’s land concessioned to mines, what is happening in Mexico in regards to the mining industry must be addressed.

The paved road leading to the Yahuín mountain

In towns such as San Jose del Progreso located in the southern state of Oaxaca, there have been several cases of assassinations and intimidation practices towards environmental activists protesting the Canadian mine company Fortuna Silver. On June 16, 2012, environmental activists Bertín Vásquez Ruiz and Guadalupe Vázquez were shot in front of city hall for protesting the presence of Fortuna Silver in the town. Local human rights groups assert that the three gunmen were hired by the mining company. Also in 2009, while 300 people (including women with children) were blockading the mine’s entrance into the town, 700 police units arrived and violently removed the townspeople. Water is of main concern because the mining industry absorbs a great amount of the resource in the arid town of San Jose. The local population is also worried about pollution of their water by chemicals. An infamous case is the nearby town of Capulálpam, where water became so polluted by the company Continuum Resources that even the Mexican Federal Environmental Protection Agency intervened.      
                                                                
            Most recently there have been rumors that Fortuna Silver is planning to spread to the town of San Juan Chilateca which is in the same municipality as San Jose del Progreso. Espacio Kruz, a grassroots project working on environment protection, human rights, gender equity, cultural preservation, and defense of the land and territory asserts that in the mountain of San Juan Chilateca, called “Yahuín” there is presence of minerals, mostly gold and silver. Espacio Kruz started noticing a couple of years ago that there was construction in the perimeter of the mountain such as paving, road and electricity amplification principally near the mountain, as well as the arrival of trucks with the logo of Fortuna Silver.

The reed fence and unpaved road out front from Espacio Kruz

Espacio Kruz’s private property is found along one of the roads that lead to the mountain. The municipal government decided to pave the road, which Espacio Kruz opposed to. The response from the authorities was one of hostility and threats. On August 1st, 2016 Espacio Kruz was notified by the municipal authorities that it had to move its  fence in three days or otherwise it would be taken down by force. The fence has become polemic because it has prevented the paving of that portion of road. (The majority of the neighbors had already donated their 2 meters of land for the pavement project of the municipality.) Espacio Kruz argues that the document they received is illegal because it is not signed by a judge. There are rumors too that the politicians in the creation of this document work with the mining company Fortuna Silver. This is not the first time Espacio Kruz has experienced acts of intimidation. On February 25th, 2016 the fence was intentionally burned. 

             Although the rumors in San Juan Chilateca are just that, it is important to make the connections with the cases of San Jose del Progreso and Capulálpam, within the context of U.S. policy and NAFTA. The towns mentioned above are only three small examples of how the actions of our national companies are diminishing the way of life of people all across Latin America. An important change we need is policy change. It is time to educate ourselves about where our tax money is going and what policies our representatives are supporting, especially now in times of elections. Take action and recommend your Congress member to say NO to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the international trade agreement that has been called NAFTA on steroids.

Six Reasons the Drug War is Disastrous for Latin America

by (Ret.) Detective Russell Jones

The American War on Drugs has contributed mightily to the violence and poverty individuals, families, and children must endure or escape just to survive in Latin America.  The region will never achieve full political and socio-economic stability until the US changes its policies at home. 

   1. The drug war is responsible for thousands of deaths each year.

The War on Drugs causes violence between criminal organizations, and drug prohibition creates a violent underground market in which the lives of both civilians and officers are endangered. In Colombia, 15,000 people were killed in a 20-year war against cartels, while the Mexican government’s war against cartels has led to more than 120,000 Mexican deaths and disappearances since 2006. Nevertheless, drug addiction rates in the U.S. have remained about the same.

photo credit: Yuri Cortez/AFP/GettyImages

    2. The Balloon Effect: Hard-line prohibition forces the illegal drug market into new areas.

“The Balloon Effect” explains why cartels are still powerful despite the military-grade pressure put on them: Squeezing one side of a balloon makes the balloon burst from the other side. Similarly, if the U.S. cracks down on drug production in one part of Latin America, the market will simply move to a new area, where it will cause long-term socio-economic damage. For example, in the early 2000s, the U.S. poured billions of dollars into Plan Colombia, and Colombia’s cocaine production dropped, so the production market moved to Peru and Bolivia.

3. Police corruption leads to devastating lawlessness.

Cartels flourish in parts of Latin America with underfunded and poorly trained criminal justice systems because they corrupt the police with bribes and threats. In Mexico, it is estimated that 92% of crimes go unreported. In Colombia, the same police that have received billions of dollars in U.S. aid have long-standing ties to counter-revolutionary militias fueled by drug money called ‘paramilitary’ groups. As a Honduran pastor quoted in the New York Times said, “You never call the cops. The cops themselves will retaliate and kill you.”

4. Latin American children unable to seek refuge elsewhere are trapped. 

Indiscriminate aerial fumigation under Plan Colombia hit one family five times. Their eleven year-old boy, Javier, recalled the incidents, “You see the planes coming—four or five of them—from far away with a black cloud of spray behind them. They say they are trying to kill the coca, but they kill everything. After the fumigation, we’d go days without eating. Once the fumigation spray hit my little brother and me…. I was sick for a long time and my brother was sick even longer.” Cartels also recruit young children in schools, who are easily lured by the prospect of a high income and sense of community. In Ecuador, U.S. policy promises aid in return for a certain number of drug arrests, which has led to an increase in police targeting of low-level female drug mules. Because imprisoned mothers in Ecuador often bring their children to take care of, spikes in the populations of women’s prisons mean more children are living behind bars.

5. The drug war makes drugs more profitable, and for the wrong individuals.

In Colombia, as Javier explains, people starve to death and there are no government assistance programs. People do not want to grow coca, but prohibition has ironically made illegal drugs the most lucrative crops. High value, low-weight processed coca is easier to transport through the underdeveloped road system, especially during the rainy season when produce trucks are easily stuck. “I know that if I was offered support, a government program that allowed me to farm and survive, I wouldn’t go back to coca,” says Javier.  Unfortunately, not many programs exist to help Latin Americans struggling with poverty. 

photo credit: Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images

    6. Catching the big fish doesn’t work either. 
The notorious Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman recently escaped from a maximum-security prison in Mexico for the second time, once again proving the level of power and influence that cartels have over law enforcement and the government, and ultimately the futility of the drug war. He is guilty of many crimes and should certainly be behind bars, however his detention proved so ineffective not just because he escaped, but because the flow of drugs didn’t slow while he was locked up. Arresting drug consumers clearly hasn’t worked, so one might deduce that targeting producers is more effective. But if the goal of prohibition is to curtail the drug market, and arresting a man who sells more drugs than Pablo Escobar at the height of his infamy didn’t topple his empire, then why does prohibition continue?

Thankfully, the War on Drugs is also being fought from a more compassionate side, and we know there are successful alternatives to prohibition. Cartels are already being weakened economically by legalizing medical and recreational marijuana in a handful of U.S. states. Drug policy reform advocates across the globe are fighting for policies that prioritize treatment instead of punishment to ultimately reduce criminal activity and profits for cartels and their destructive impact on Latin America. 

Detective Russell Jones (Ret.) is a retired narcotics detective from New Braunfels, Texas, with 40 years of experience in enforcing the War on Drugs, and is now a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). LEAP is a group of police and other criminal justice professionals working to end the American War on Drugs and the disastrous effects it has had in areas like Latin America. LEAP advocates for replacing prohibition with drug legalization, regulation, treatment, and education as a long-term solution to society’s drug problems.