“Enséñame a organizar”: Enfrentando las políticas neoliberales a nivel nacional e internacional

Por Celeste Larkin, Chicago Religious Leadership Network

Llevo tres años viviendo en Chicago y, en este tiempo, la ciudad ha vivido muchos cambios en su economía municipal. El gobierno local, a cargo del alcalde Rahm Emanuel, ha cerrado docenas de clínicas que prestaban servicios de salud mental a personas de bajos recursos necesitados de estos servicios; ha cerrado 54 colegios públicos, en donde un 90% de los estudiantes afectados son afrodescendientes, que se encuentran en barrios donde se ha visto un aumento de escuelas charter, las cuales son de gestión privada y la mayoría no cuentan con sindicatos; y ha consignado cerca de 55 millones de dólares para un estadio de baloncesto privado en el campus de la DePaul University (una universidad privada) como “parte de la visión más grande de Emanuel” para establecer un distrito de entretenimiento, que incluirá un nuevo hotel con 1.200 habitaciones en el centro de convenciones.

Estos son algunos de los eventos actuales que demuestran un cambio en la política pública hacia la austeridad a través de recortes en proyectos públicos y garantías de seguridad social. Nuestro gobierno municipal busca depender más de financiamiento privado favoreciendo las prioridades de la clase económica élite, afirmando que esta estrategia “levantará todos los barcos”, asegurará que la economía crezca y promoverá las formas de desarrollo que los especuladores económicos quieren ver. Pero los demás no lo creemos.

Las manifestaciones contra el cierre de los colegios desencadenaron la ira y las movilizaciones nacionales, y miles de personas tomaron las calles de Chicago en protesta. Activistas y líderes sindicales continúan trabajando contra las medidas de austeridad propuestas para los colegios públicos y las pensiones de los trabajadores. Los ciudadanos de Chicago montaron campamentos de 24 horas frente a las clínicas de salud mental que se esperaba cerrarían y permanecieron allí por meses hasta que los funcionarios municipales finalizaron los planes que iban a afectar a nuestros amigos y vecinos necesitados de estos servicios vitales. Después de bastantes protestas públicas la ciudad y la Universidad DePaul decidieron suspender el plan de invertir millones de dólares de fondos públicos en el estadio privado, aunque estos fondos se redistribuyeron a proyectos de construcción de hoteles de lujo en la misma zona.

Todos los días, voy a trabajar con la experiencia local del neoliberalismo, un término económico que describe las políticas económicas que promueven la desregulación, la privatización, el comercio libre y menos gastos públicos. Paso mi jornada laboral con la Red de Liderazgo Religioso de Chicago (Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America, o CRLN) en solidaridad con las comunidades a lo largo de todo el hemisferio que enfrentan el mismo paradigma: Haya personas luchando contra tomas de territorio para fincas de cultivo de palma africana, para el derecho al agua potable frente a las concesiones mineras, o luchando para una buena educación pública para todos los niños, las comunidades se niegan a someterse a estas olas de privatización y siguen movilizándose, a veces en gran escala.

Hace poco asistí a la Conferencia Labor Notes de 2014 y escuché a trabajadores de todas partes del mundo mientras hablaban de su lucha para la dignidad y esfuerzos para construir movimientos. Uno de los talleres trató sobre estrategias creativas para aumentar y apoyar nuestro trabajo organizativo; el presentador, Ricardo Levins Morales, quien fuera un artista de la ciudad de Minneapolis, Minnesota; nos compartió una cita que él reinventó para hacerla menos condescendiente y más empoderadora. Esta idea de recuperar el dicho define el trabajo que va delante de nosotros: para redefinir nuestro concepto de lo posible, tenemos que rechazar las ideas jerárquicas de “libertad” y empezar a organizar de forma radical y crear nuestras propias soluciones:

"Si me das un pescado, me has alimentado por un día. Si me enseñas a pescar, entonces me has alimentado hasta que el río se contamine o se toma las orillas para proyectos de desarrollo. Pero si me enseñas a organizar, con cualquier reto puedo unirme con mis compañeros y nos creamos nuestra propia solución". – Ricardo Levins Morales

“Teach me to organize:” confronting neoliberal economics at home and abroad

Celeste Larkin, Chicago Religious Leadership Network

I’ve lived in Chicago for the past three years and, in that time, we’ve seen many changes to our local economy. The city, led by Mayor Rahm Emanuel has closed dozens of mental health clinics that served low-income people in need of services; closed 54 public schools, where 90% of students affected were black and in neighborhoods that happen to be seeing a spike in privately managed, mostly non-union charter schools; and promised about $55 million toward a private basketball arena on DePaul’s campus (a private university), as “part of Emanuel's bigger vision to establish an entertainment district, including a new, 1,200-room hotel at the convention center.”

These are just some of the current events that demonstrate a shift in public policy toward austerity cuts to public projects and social safety nets. Our local government seeks to further rely on private funds and the priorities of the economic elite, claiming this will “lift all boats,” grow the economy, and spur the kind of development the profiteers want to see. But the rest of us aren't buying it.

Protests against the school closings sparked rage and mobilizations nation-wide with thousands taking to the streets of Chicago in protest. Activists and union leaders are still working against the austerity measures being proposed for public schools and workers’ pensions. Chicagoans set up 24-hour camps outside of mental health clinics slated for closure and stayed there for months until city officials finalized their austerity plans for our friends and neighbors in need of these vital services. After much public outcry and protest, the city and DePaul decided to scratch the plan to pour millions of public dollars into the private sports stadium, though the money was redirected to the construction of high-end hotels in that area.

So I go into work every day with the background of local experience of neoliberalism, a term used to describe economic policies that promote deregulation, privatization, free trade and reduced government spending. I then spend my hours working at the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN) in solidarity with communities across the hemisphere struggling at the hands of the same paradigm. But whether folks are struggling against land grabs for African Palm plantations, for the right to clean water in the face of mining concessions, or for decent public education for all children, communities are refusing to take these trends of privatization sitting down and are mobilizing on sometimes massive scales.

Recently, I was at the 2014 Labor Notes Conference hearing workers from all over the world talk about their struggles for dignity and movement building. One workshop dealt with creative strategies that can enhance and deepen our organizing work. The presenter, Ricardo Levins Morales, is an artist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He shared with us a quote that he re-invented to make less patronizing and more empowering. His reclaiming of this truism defines our work ahead: to recreate our idea of what’s possible, refuse the top-down notions of “freedom” and to begin radically organizing and fashioning our own solutions: 

"If you give me a fish you have fed me for a day. If you teach me to fish then you have fed me until the river is contaminated or the shoreline seized for development. But if you teach me to organize then whatever the challenge I can join together with my peers and we will fashion our own solution."

Charter Cities: The new neoliberal experiment in Latin America

By Elizabeth Perkins, WfP Honduras Team

Competition. It’s an inherent concept of U.S. meritocracy, the ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ mentality. (That’s assuming everyone has boots in the first place). Neoliberal economic policy promotes competition as a tool for economic growth. It is based on the assumption that competition improves quality and efficiency. For a ‘developing’ country to create desperately needed jobs, it must compete with other countries to attract foreign investment. This ideology is manifested in Structural Adjustment Programs, free trade agreements like DR-CAFTA and the establishment of free trade zones. Most recently, Charter Cities in Honduras have captured the imagination of economists touting free trade and foreign investment as the country’s way out of financial crisis.

Promises of development aren’t new to Latin America. Nearly a decade ago, DR-CAFTA consolidated neoliberal policies that were already in place. When CAFTA was passed in 2006, Central Americans were told that increases in trade, foreign direct investment, job availability, and exports would raise incomes and standards of living. In 2010, when Honduras decided to raise its minimum wage 6.5%, 16 textile factories picked up and moved to Nicaragua, where minimum wage was half that of Honduras. This is just one example of how this agreement prioritizes U.S. corporations over the rights of workers. The next step in a progression of neoliberal policies being forced on Central America seems to be Charter Cities in Honduras, recently passed into law with the name Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDE).

Since the end of 2010, Honduras has been debating the idea of charter cities in its territory. In the most recent incarnation, the cities are defined as administrative divisions of the country, subject to central government but given autonomy with political, economic, and judicial systems with clear market rules that allow high levels of competition. In other words, they are regions within a country with little governmental control and regulation. The goal is to attract investment and generate employment in uninhabited regions of the country or in municipalities applying for conversion by referendum.


It has been an intense debate pushed primarily by National Party representatives Porfirio Lobo Sosa (former president ‘elected’ after the 2009 coup) and Juan Orlando Hernandez (former leader of the National Congress, and current President). For Honduras to accommodate this new idea, first the constitution had to be changed, after which the law needed a majority vote in Congress. Though essentially the same, it has passed through different incarnations – born as Paul Romer’s charter cities, then drafted into law as Special Development Regions (RED), and most recently passed as the Special Economic Development Zones (ZEDE) law. The first time around, the Honduran Supreme Court of Justice declared RED’s unconstitutional in October 2012. Just two months later in what became known as a ‘mini-coup,’ 4 of the 5 justices who passed the ruling were removed from their posts. ZEDE’s were passed into law the following year. Last month Choluteca was declared as a site for the first ZEDE.

“Model Cities = Expulsion of Garífuna People of Honduras.” Resistance groups protest model cities outside National Congress in Tegucigalpa in January 2013. Photo by Elizabeth Perkins

Resistance groups cite “an enormous inequality and social divide, which has been increasing since the 2009 coup d’état.” Socioeconomic inequality is becoming more drastic, as the National Congress pumps out more and more neoliberal laws, like the ZEDE. National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) representatives presented arguments to the Honduran Supreme Court in February (link in Spanish) requesting the justices declare the ZEDE law unconstitutional, as it’s essentially the same RED law that was declared so in 2012.

Mark Klugmann, named by Juan Orlando as the North American representative to promote the ZEDE externally, was recently interviewed by Honduran newspaper El Tiempo (article in Spanish). He says, “CAFTA opened up new possibilities and Honduras becomes the most attractive place for investment with the ZEDE. Investors in neighboring countries are looking to relocate to Honduras.” He argues that the ZEDE will help slow migration because it will offer a variety of jobs.

The Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) commented on their blog (link in Spanish), “The word employment has become the lure to capture the imagination of a people made poor and intentionally sunk into ignorance and disinformation.” One of the biggest problems with this plan is that there is no piece of uninhabited land large enough for a city of several million people. Small farming communities and indigenous groups like OFRANEH, whose homes have been named as potential ZEDE sites, are worried.

According to OFRANEH, the United Nations Commission for the Eradication of Racism and Discrimination (CERD) in their report (in Spanish) last month expressed concern for the impact the ZEDE law will have on indigenous and afro-descendant groups. The report urges the Honduran government to reevaluate the compatibility of the law with international human rights treaties it has signed protecting these groups.

“The National Party, since it’s founding, has distinguished itself with a paradoxical anti-nationalist attitude, the periods in which they’ve been in power being characterized by the turning over of national territory and subordination to the banana companies,” states OFRANEH. In the interest of big business, not that of the people, the Honduran government is moving forward with the ZEDE law. Though the U.S. government is not directly involved in this project, it will serve to further U.S. investment interests, widening the ever-growing gap between rich and poor in Honduras and the rest of the world.

The Impact of the TPP, Part One / El Impacto del TPP, Primera Parte

Español abajo

Josh Wise, Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition

For nearly five years now, government bureaucrats and lobbyists on both sides of the Pacific Ocean have been negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in secret. Despite claims from the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Michael Froman, that this is going to be a “high-level” agreement that will create lots of jobs, everything we've learned through leaks to the public (which essentially amount to negotiators committing treason just to tell us what our government is proposing) shows that the TPP is poised to become yet another extension of the same failed trade policy and negotiating process that gave us NAFTA, CAFTA and a whole host of other agreements that have accelerated the race to the bottom for labor, environmental and human rights standards. Only this time, it's on a much larger scale.

Free trade advocates point to David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage as the basis for eliminating trade restrictions. The idea is that if we eliminate government protections for industries, then countries will have to focus on producing what they are most efficient at and everyone pays a lower price for goods while profits are higher because of the efficiency. The reality is that the agreements that have been negotiated so far have been far from free, or even specifically about trade. Instead, what they have amounted to is a host of deregulation, and protections for investors (otherwise known as multinational corporations), which have limited the ability of governments to act in their public interest, whether in terms of labor standards, the environment or public health. This has boosted corporate profits immensely, but has resulted in a race to the bottom for the rest of us in terms of global living standards.

Why is it this way?
Well, it's really inevitable given the way we do trade negotiations. USTR is technically a diplomat, and as such, can keep trade negotiations classified. However, if you lobby the executive branch, you can get appointed as a “cleared adviser” to the negotiations, meaning you can see and influence the proposals. The TPP has more than 600 cleared advisers, many of whom represent major corporations. International treaties, of course, override all conflicting federal and local laws. So what we're left with is a system of lawmaking in which the lobbyists write the laws behind closed doors. It's no surprise then, that the final agreements disproportionately benefit the very same multinational corporations who wrote them.

What are the results?
The North American Free Trade Agreement has been in effect for 20 years as of 2014, and therefore provides the most data to analyze. Since NAFTA was enacted, the US has lost more than 1 million jobs to low-wage labor. And it’s not just low-skilled work that’s going abroad. The auto industry, medical device and chemical manufacturing and even research and development jobs are crossing the border to maquiladoras, where the average manufacturing wage is $2.50 an hour, and labor and environmental regulations are either non-existent or not enforced. Many “low-skilled” jobs, such as those in the textile industry, have long since left, as subsequent World Trade Organization and bi-lateral agreements have sent that work where the wages are even lower, such as Central America and Southeast Asia. The TPP includes Vietnam, where independent unions are illegal, and $2.50 is the average daily wage. The job loss, however, hasn’t just affected the US. Subsidized grain exports have displaced more than 2 million Mexican farm workers (fueling immigration and the drug trade) and millions of acres of land have been expropriated for mining and extractive industries.

Part Two, to be published tomorrow, will delve more into the impact of the TPP and talk about what we as citizens can do to stop it.

El Impacto del TPP

Josh Wise, Coalición por el Comercio Justo de Minnesota

Las negociaciones secretas del Acuerdo Estrategico Trans-Pacifico de la Asociacion Economica o, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) han seguido efectuándose por más de cuatro años. Según las afirmaciones dadas por el Representante Comercial de Estados Unidos (USTR), Michael Froman, el TPP sería un acuerdo “de alto nivel” dando pie a la creación de nuevos trabajos y por ende oportunidades laborales. Sin embargo, toda la información que hemos recibido mediante información que se ha filtrado al público (significando un acto de traición por parte de algunos participantes con el propósito de informarnos lo que propone nuestro propio gobierno) indica que el TPP está a punto de convertirse en otra extensión más del mismo proceso fallido de negociaciones de la política del comercio; los cuales han resultado en muchos otros acuerdos que han acelerado la “carrera hacia el abismo” en cuanto de las normas laborales, ambientales y de derechos humanos. Pero esta vez, en una escala mayor.

Los defensores del comercio libre utilizan la teoría de ventaja comparativa del economista David Ricardo como base teórica para la eliminación de las restricciones del comercio. La idea es que, si eliminamos la protección del estado para ciertas industrias, los países tendrían que enfocarse en la producción de artículos que resulten más eficaces, por consiguiente, todo el mundo pagaría precios más bajos para productos y las ganancias resultarían más grandes por la eficiencia. Sin embargo, la realidad es que los acuerdos actuales se alejan del ideal de “libertad comercial”, perdiendo los hilos conductores y yendo más allá del manejo del comercio. Al contrario, se ha introducido una gran cantidad de desregulación y protecciones para los inversionistas (la mayoría de éstos son corporaciones multinacionales), las cuales han limitado la capacidad de los gobiernos para actuar en favor de los intereses públicos en temas como normas laborales, medioambientales y de salud pública. Es cierto que han resultado en grandes ganancias corporativas, pero a la vez se ha venido generando ésta carrera hacia el abismo para los demás, sobretodo teniendo un impacto en el nivel de vida global.

Por qué es así?
En realidad, estos resultados son inevitables considerando como hacemos las negociaciones sobre el comercio. Según la definición oficial de su cargo, el USTR Froman es un diplomático, y, por esta razón puede mantener en secreto el contenido de las negociaciones sobre el comercio. Sin embargo, si alguien pide a la sección ejecutiva del gobierno, puede conseguir el título de “consejero autorizado” para las negociaciones, lo que significa que se puede ver y ejercer influencia sobre las propuestas. El TPP tiene más de 600 de estos “consejeros autorizados” y muchos de ellos representan corporaciones grandes. Además, los tratados internacionales se anteponen a todas las leyes nacionales y locales – dejándonos con un sistema de creación de leyes en el cual los grupos de presión (lobbyists) escriben las leyes detrás de puertas, por tanto, no deberían sorprender. Entonces, los acuerdos finales benefician desproporcionalmente a las mismas corporaciones multinacionales que los escriben.

Cuáles son los resultados?
El Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN) cumplió 20 años de vigencia este año, y por ser el acuerdo con mayor longevidad, tiene la mayor cantidad de datos para analizar. Desde que se estableció el TLCAN, los EEUU han perdido más de 1 millón de puestos de trabajo a sitios extranjeros de salario bajo. Y el trabajo no especializado no es el único que va para el exterior. Trabajo de la industria automóvil, de fabricación medica y química, y hasta investigación y desarrollo sigue cruzando la frontera a las maquiladoras, donde el salario promedio es $2,50 por una hora, y las normas laborales y ambientales o no existen o no se aplican. Mucho más trabajo no especializado, como el de la industria textil, desapareció hace mucho tiempo, porque los acuerdos bilaterales y los de la Organización Mundial del Comercio han controlado éste trabajo hasta donde el salario es aún más bajo, en regiones como Centroamérica y el Sudeste de Asia. El TPP incluye a Vietnam, donde los sindicatos independientes son ilegales y, $2,50 es el salario promedio diario. Entonces, la pérdida del trabajo no es solamente un tema de EEUU; las exportaciones subvencionadas de granos han causado el desplazamiento a más de 2 millones de campesinos y trabajadores mexicanos (contribuyendo a la inmigración y el tráfico de drogas) y millones de acres de tierra han sido expropiados para usos y explotación minera y de industrias extractivas.

La segunda parte de este post se publicará mañana, éste explorará más a fondo el impacto del TPP y discutirá que podremos hacer nosotros como ciudadanos para detenerlo.

The Human Face (and Price) of Trade

The Witness blog series is back!

This month, Witness for Peace, in close collaboration with coalition partners in the United States and partners on the ground in Colombia, Nicaragua, Honduras and Mexico, is hosting our second annual blog series – this one focused on the changing system of international trade and its effects on communities both small and large.

When most people hear the word “trade,” their eyes already start to glaze over, visions of tariffs and collective bargaining agreements dancing in their hands. This is understandable – at first, trade doesn’t exactly seem like the most exciting topic, tied up as it is with broader issues of economics, national sovereignty, imports/exports and labor rights. However, trade has implications that reach far beyond the entrances to ports and meeting halls – really, if you’ve ever bought anything or had a job, trade has affected you in some way. Over the course of the next month, we’ll be using this space on the Witness blog to explore the many ways trade changes lives, livelihoods and environments, from small-scale farmers in the U.S. Midwest to port workers in the Colombian city of Buenaventura.

The topics of free trade, unions, workers’ rights and economic policy have become increasingly important throughout the Americas since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect in 1994, creating a trade bloc between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and opening the door for subsequent economic policies and practices that prioritized corporations and multinational companies over unions and workers themselves. Since then, such agreements have spread across the region, with the U.S. signing free trade accords with countries including Chile, Peru, Colombia and the majority of Central America.

Though supporters in governments and the business world insist that such agreements help boost competition and encourage sales, the truth is that the few individuals and corporations at the top are those that truly profit, while laborers, farmers and small businesses see few of the benefits and are often left worse off than they were before the agreement took effect. Such agreements lead to lower prices on imported goods that  leave local businesses unable to compete without incurring significant losses; allow much greater influence for multinational corporations; facilitate widespread third-party contracting; and encourage extensive outsourcing in a "race to the bottom." These effects are well-documented, and some communities are refusing to simply accept them as inevitable. Last August, Colombia’s farmers began a national strike that quickly spread across the country and reached the largest cities, primarily as a response to the negative effects the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, signed in 2011, had on their communities and their livelihoods.

Well-researched critiques and comprehensive analyses of such agreements are now more important than ever, with the U.S. on the verge of signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would become the most far-reaching trade agreement in the hemisphere and grant a staggering amount of rights and privileges to corporations and business interests, potentially even overriding national sovereignty and laws in some cases. Through this blog series, we will examine the effects and lessons learned from current trade agreements and labor practices throughout the Americas, and hope to shed some light on the potential regional and global impact of the TPP as well as bring more attention to what’s happening in our own backyards and in thousands of other cities and towns across the continents.

Check back here every weekday for bilingual posts highlighting some of the effects free trade agreements and changes in trade and labor policy have had on individuals and communities throughout the Americas, and how some of our writers have seen those changes reflected in their own lives and the lives of others. Feel free to take a look at our 2013 Drug War blog series as well.

7th Milpa Festival: Indigenous Communities Resist

Three months before the 20^th anniversary of NAFTA, I found myself in an old school bus traveling through the Sierra Juarez in Oaxaca, Mexico. The landscape was unbelievably beautiful. Riding on the curvy roads I saw dense green vegetation and endless chains of mountains.

The Sierra Juarez´ flora and fauna have been preserved because they have powerful allies: indigenous people who have fought for centuries to protect their land, their culture, their way of life, and mother earth. A cloud of butterflies, indicators of the vast biodiversity of the land, greeted me upon my arrival to Santa Gertrudis.

I traveled to Santa Gertrudis to attend the 7^th Milpa Festival, an event organized by the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO). During the event, participants from Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, and Mexico discussed ways to protect their territory and their native seeds.

It was inspiring to watch community organizers and small-scale farmers talk about their experiences of resistance and share their analysis and skills. Despite the efforts of the Mexican government and transnational companies to completely transform rural Mexico into something that they can better exploit and profit from, these communities persevere.

The transformation of rural Mexico

The majority of Mexico’s farmers belong to marginalized indigenous groups. They grow food for their families on small plots of land using ancestral knowledge and sustainable technologies. For many, agriculture is still a sacred and communal activity.

Since NAFTA, government agricultural programs have supported multinational corporations and large agribusinesses instead of small-scale farmers, whose inability to compete have resulted in increased poverty, and mass migration to the United States.

The Mexican government is working together with U.S. companies (Monsanto, Dow, Pioneer, DuPont, etc.) to transform Mexico’s agriculture into an export-oriented mono-crop system that is dependent on agrochemicals and GMO/hybrid seeds.

The neoliberal ideal is for people to produce food for sale (not for personal use) and that they buy products sold in the global market (made by transnational corporations). This is achieved by creating conditions that make it more expensive to grow food than to buy it, or by imposing government programs that make small-scale farmers dependent on products made by transnational corporations. These strategies end the traditional practices that have allowed indigenous communities to remain self-sufficient and sustainable for centuries.

Indigenous small-scale farmers who want to defend their native seeds and traditional food systems find themselves fighting against these types of government programs as well as a barrage of misinformation from national media campaigns.The most iconic struggle in Mexico thus far, has been the fight to defend native corn.

In defense of corn

Corn was domesticated in Mexico thousands of years ago and the country holds a huge percentage of the world’s diversity; in the state of Oaxaca alone there are 35 species of corn. In 1998 the Mexican government declared a moratorium on the cultivation of GMO corn. But this type of corn was already being distributed by a federal food safety program that made cheap GMO corn from the United States available to low-income families.

In 2001 Ignacio Chapela, a scientist from Berkeley University, found GMO corn in the Sierra Juarez in Oaxaca.The corn was probably planted unwittingly by a farmer that obtained food through the government’s food safety program.

In 2005, the Bio-Security Law of Genetically Modified Organisms opened the doors to GMOs in Mexico. The law, designed to regulate the cultivation of GMO crops in Mexico, is so beneficial to GMO corporations that it became widely known as the Monsanto Law.

In 2009, for the first time in Mexican history, the government granted permissions to cultivate GMO corn in several northern states. Mexico’s current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, recently approved the cultivation of an additional 250,000 hectares.

Small-scale farmers and civil society have been fighting these initiatives all along. Some of their concerns are: the potential health effects of GMOs in humans, the contamination of non-GMO crops, the contamination of the areas of origin of corn, the loss of genetic diversity that could result if cheap GMO corn becomes the standard, the dependency of rural communities on expensive GMO seeds and agrochemicals, the loss of traditional systems of production, and the effects of GMOs and agrochemicals on the environment.Without this resistance, GMOs would probably be the norm in rural Mexico.

Resistance takes place daily when farmers or whole communities refuse to use non-native seeds or agrochemicals. Sometimes this means that they must abstain from participating in government programs.

PROCAMPO, for example, is a government aid program created to support small-scale corn farmers by distributing vouchers for seeds and other agricultural products. Many low-income farmers depend on these types of programs for production. Unfortunately the vouchers can only be used on U.S. hybrid corn and technology packages that include agrochemicals (most of which are produced in the United States).

"Are you hungry? Drink Pepsi.

Another example is the Crusade Against Hunger, one of the main programs of the Peña Nieto administration. The program is known for partnering with multinational corporations to distribute unhealthy processed foods in low-income communities throughout the country to “combat hunger”, instead of promoting healthy foods. Part of the initiative is “Oaxaca’s Program for Self-Sustaining Agriculture”, which aims to provide assistance to small-scale farmers in Oaxaca who produce only enough crops to feed themselves and their families. The model is the same as PROCAMPO’s: farmers receive aid in the form of hybrid seeds and agrochemicals.

For those dependent on government programs there is no option to use native corn or to produce crops in a traditional way. The programs make it more expensive to produce native organic corn, and ensure that farmers will become consumers,dependent on foreign seeds and foreign technology.

Click here to read a statement from Oaxaca’s Coalition in Defense of Native Corn about “Oaxaca’s Program for Self-Sustaining Agriculture”.

Despite the lack of governmental support and the pressure to participate in these programs, indigenous small-scale farmers continue to resist.

In July, farmers, organizations, and activists filed a class action suit against federal authorities and companies who are complicit in the legalization and planting of GMOs in Mexico. On October 10^th a federal judge ruled in their favor, suspending all current and future efforts to plant GMOs in Mexico until the resolution of several pending lawsuits. This has offered a glimmer of hope that eventually GMOs will be permanently banned from Mexican soil. The struggle must continue.

At the Milpa Festival I heard many people speak about a possible solutions to these issues: government support of the use of native seeds and ancestral cultivation techniques, valuing and supporting indigenous people’s knowledge, improvement of food production in a way that respects the environment and indigenous peoples’ way of life.

As I remember the faces and the voices of the farmers I met in Santa Gertrudis, I think of all the people in the United States who are fighting a similar battle against GMOs, mono-cultivation, and agrochemicals. But people in the United States have the additional responsibility of holding their government and U.S. corporations accountable for their role in the implementation of so many of the neoliberal policies that are affecting the rural global south. As we work together, trans-nationally, I feel confident that we will win this fight.

Get Involved!

• March Against Monsanto: Website that coordinates worldwide events against GMOs
  
  
• Sign a petition against the King Amendment in the United States
  
  
• Sign a petition to help stop secret trade deals on the TPP and TAFTA: the global Monsanto Protection Act on Steroids!
  
  
• Join a Witness for Peace delegation in Mexico to learn more about these issues

More information:

• Monsanto and GMOs, Worldwide Resistance: More information about GMOs in the United States and Mexico
  
  
• Oaxaca State’s Organization in Defense of Native Corn’s statement about the “Oaxaca‘s Program for Self-Sustaining Agriculture.“
  
  
• People's Permanent Tribunal Pre-Trial Hearing Judgment Regarding Corn
  
  
•  GMO Survival Guide
  
  
• The Transpacific Partnership and GMO foods: Learn more about future free trade agreements and GMOs
  
  
• Free Trade Agreements and GMOs: Poisoning the Land and its People (slide show)

Nimbyism and Colombia’s “Socially Responsible” Mine, Cerrejón

By Jeanine Legato
WfP Colombia

Southeastern Massachusetts, where I am from, was deeply embroiled in a nimby (Not-In- My- Backyard)  debate in 2008 about the proposed construction of Cape Wind, an offshore wind farm in Nantucket sound.  The debate lasted years and only recently passed its final regulatory obstacle of approval by the Federal Aviation Association.  In the meantime, it has dominated local airwaves, newspapers, and public discussion, and called the attention of just about every important national news outlet. The innocuous “How ‘bout them Red Sox” conversation in Massachusetts shifted for a long time to, “How ‘bout that wind farm?” Critics of the farm, bent on saving the view sheds of their waterfront homes have lost out over time to the proposal’s proponents, who fought for the environmental, economic and energy security benefits of renewable energy.

Yesterday, in the Wayuu Indigenous Reservation of Provincial located in the northern Colombia province of La Guajira, I witnessed another nimby scenario play out, albeit colored by much different circumstances, none so privileged as a debate over the Kennedy’s vacation home, and certainly not as well covered by the media.

Culminating a five day expedition along the banks of the Rancheria River to document its degradation since the arrival of coal-giant Cerrejón (BHP Biliton, Xstrata, Anglo American), and to call for the defense of the same ecosystem before the mine’s proposed 26 kilometer detouring of the river to mine the high quality coal beneath, communities called a press conference in Provincial and asked, “why is our resistance ignored in the media?”

The answer: Cerrejón, whose slogan is “Mining Responsibly”, dominates the press-beat in La Guajira with its multi-million investment in communications.  Furthermore, while the Cape Wind project was stalled by years’ long debate and strict environmental regulations, Cerrejón has been subjected to neither by the Colombian press or government.  President Juan Manuel Santos promotes deregulated mining and foreign investment to make extractive resources the “economic engine” for the country.

To the 150 participants on a five day excursion for the defense of the Rancheria River, comprised of Guajiran community members, and national and international NGO representatives, the economic myth was manifest.  La Guajira is Colombia’s poorest province, 34 years after Cerrejón’s arrival.  In visiting three of the dozens of communities displaced by Cerrejón, the mine’s claim to social responsibility was questionable at best.

In Patilla, multiple families remain in the dust-polluted town in the shadow of a massive mountain made of mining waste.  Cerrejón claims that Patilla is its most successful relocation case, boasting a video on its website of an inaugural party at “New” Patilla, the urban resettlement where Patilla residents were relocated.  Not featured in the video are the dozens of families that Cerrejón did not relocate on grounds that they were Patilla natives, but not residents.   As a result of the job precariousness that the mine imposed on the once agricultural economy, many Patilla natives moved part-time into town to find work or facilitate easier commutes to their kids’ schools.  Cerrejón refuses to compensate them for their homes or include them in rights to relocation.  To pressure the “resisters” to sell, Cerrejón has cut off their electricity for weeks at a time and been late in sending potable water supply to the community (the Rancheria River, once suitable for human consumption, cannot be used even for cattle due to mining pollutant content).

Further down the road, eight families remain in Roche, once the area’s densely populated social capital.  In its rush to relocate residents to New Roche, Cerrejón fueled disputes in the community, offering financial rewards for the families who were willing to leave Roche the quickest and delegitimizing the community leaders who advocated for resistance or slower-paced negotiations.  In April 2012, Cerrejón filed for the Colombian State to expropriate the remaining Roche families, a process that may occur in early October without Cerrejón having made a good-faith effort to work through tenuous points in the negotiation.

Three Inhabitants of Roche are unable to span the circumference of a Caracoli tree found along the Rancheria’s river banks.  Cerrejon’s expansion threatens the over two-hundred- year presence of local Afro Colombian communities as well as ancient flora and fauna.

As a Wayuu Indigenous community, Provincial strongly opposes the rerouting of the Rancheria River. They have begun an internal reflection process to preclude the prior consultation process that Cerrejón, required by ILO 169 and Colombian law, would have to carry out before exploring the project.  Cerrejón president Roberto Junguito told local press that an expansion project indicating the detouring of the Rancheria hasn’t been officially presented, making the communities’ call for debate and consultation on the topic an unnecessary controversy.    

Children in the Provincial Reservation perform a traditional Wayuu dance representing an edible cactus flower found in their territory.

However, according to independent news outlet La Silla Vacia, the Ministry of the Interior- the entity responsible for oversight of prior consultation- confirmed that Cerrejón solicited the formal initiation of the prior consultation process on November 29, 2010 and December 7, 2010. Prior consultation is not to be confused with prior consent; Cerrejón has been widely criticized by communities and NGOs alike for misrepresenting information regarding damages in the consultation process and, as with the case of the Rancheria River, not consulting with communities before advancing legal exploration processes with the Colombian government.  

The collective experience of just these few communities is enough to give legitimate claim to their campaign’s simple slogan, “Cerrejón lies.”

 Bathing in the Rancheria, running my hands along the riverbed and turning up baseball-size pieces of coal, I had to agree.  Walking through the woods and finding half- hidden pipes that spew black coal processing water into the river, I had to agree.  Cerrejon’s ridiculous claim that rerouting the river would not cause further harm to communities is a shameless lie, or, at best, a deranged dismissal of the dizzying damage this mine has already caused to suffering communities over the course of three decades.

150 delegates representing local, national, and international communities traversed the Rancheria River over five days to document the environmental characteristics of Guajira’s most important water source.

This is a case of nimbyism where there is no possible benefit to the locals.  100% of Cerrejón coal is exported, including to the U.S market.  What Guajirans stand to lose from the rerouting of the Rancheria River is not just a view, but the last vital life source sustaining them in the face of forced displacement.      

Join the Witness for Peace Colombia team in their current investigative project to find out where Cerrejón coal is being imported to in the U.S.  Write colombia@witnessforpeace.org to get involved.

Fired GM Workers Commemorate Protest’s Anniversary with Hunger Strike

By Austin Robles

WFP Colombia

ASOTRECOL on strike for 365 days, since August 1st

Minutes before he started to sew his mouth shut, Jorge Parra explained his rationale to me: “Essentially GM gave us a choice: to die of hunger or to die waiting for them to solve this problem.”

One year ago, on August 1st, 2011, several dozen workers from General Motors Colombia (Colmotores) started a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá. The Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of Colmotores (ASOTRECOL) had two simple demands: fair compensation for injuries incurred in the workplace and reintegration into GM’s workforce.  In commemoration of their protest’s anniversary, and without advancement in their case, four leaders of ASOTRECOL decided to sew their mouths closed and initiate a hunger strike.

ASOTRECOL workers claim that they were among 200 employees injured on the job in GM’s plant in Colombia’s capital city. The majority of ASOTRECOL’s members have undergone multiple surgeries, most commonly to treat spinal injuries, tendinitis, carpal tunnel, rotator cuff syndrome, and lumbar damage. After working their bodies until they were disabled and unable to perform manual labor any longer, GM fired them and refused to pay medical benefits or a severance package. ASOTRECOL also alleges that GM lost, altered, erased, or fabricated their medical histories to exclude their injuries from the company’s official records. Consequently, GM does not accept the injuries as work-related, instead claiming that they were incurred under normal circumstances outside the plant.

Carlos Ernesto Trujillo Rojas

Having seen no progress in their case over the past year, four members started a hunger strike on August 1st, 2012. Another set of members will join by sewing their mouths closed each week until their case is resolved. The dramatic move reflects their growing desperation. Before receiving six stitches in his lips, Carlos Ernesto Trujillo Rojas explained that the workers can not wait any longer. “They fired us without just cause, endangering us and our families. We are taking this decision because our health has worsened each day, we’re losing our houses, we practically live in the street, and we’ve been forgotten by the government.”

Inaction by the United States

ASOTRECOL’s case is especially alarming considering the U.S. government’s stake in General Motors. Two years before ASOTRECOL began its strike, GM filed for bankruptcy protection and reorganization with the United States government. It was the fourth-largest Chapter 11 filing in U.S. history, and the U.S. government became the company’s largest shareholder with 60% ownership. Failing to stay afloat after the Bush Administration pumped $20 billion into GM in 2008, the Obama Administration shelled out another $30 billion in taxpayer dollars in 2009.  At the start of 2012, the U.S. still had $25 billion invested in GM.

GM seems to have recovered from its financial turmoil and was this year restored to its position as the largest automobile manufacturer in the United States.  However, billion-dollar quarterly profit margins for GM did not translate into willingness to settle the small claims of ASOTRECOL members.

The U.S. government has maintained silence on GM’s situation as well, despite its pledges to support labor rights in the South American country. The U.S. walked a tight rope this past year as the Obama Administration tried to convince Congress to pass a free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia. Signed by the Bush Administration, the FTA stalled for years in Congress due to concerns over the trading partner’s labor rights record. According to Garry Leech, almost 75% of the world’s union leaders killed in the last 20 years were Colombian, and less than 5% of these killings result in a conviction. In 2011, out of 76 union leaders killed globally, 29 were Colombian.

Despite Colombia’s record as the “most dangerous country in the world to be a unionist,” the U.S. government passed the FTA, which went into effect in May 2012. The countries implemented an Action Plan for Labor Rights to provide enhanced protection for Colombia’s most at-risk industries. Still, seven unionists have been killed in Colombia this year, and many more have received death threats.

ASOTRECOL is a case in point for labor rights violations in Colombia. Their situation is all the more deplorable given the U.S. government’s promises to protect labor leaders while at the same time remaining one of GM’s largest shareholders. Although ASOTRECOL’s case is little-known in the United States, U.S. taxpayers are de facto GM shareholders. The U.S. government should recognize its two-sided stance on this case and pressure GM to stop ignoring these workers before they die of starvation. Jorge and other fired workers’ resolve in their hunger strike is evident. “We are set to continue until the final consequences,” he declared. “May God accompany us and help us.”

Workers from GM Colombia dying of hunger with their lips sewn shut.

Take action! Send a message to your representatives demanding accountability for your tax dollars!

Voices from the People's Summit

By WFP Colombia Team

As Presidents from across the Americas were getting set to gather for the Summit of the Americas April 14-15, social movements from across the hemisphere gathered in Cartagena at the People's Summit.

In the video below, co-produced by Witness for Peace and Fellowship of Reconciliation, human rights defenders, labor leaders and indigenous people discuss their vision of U.S. policy. Check it out.

Honduras: "Libertarians" Model Cities and the Resurrection of William Walker

Written by OFRANEH (Organizacion Fraternal Negra Hondureña) and posted on January 4, 2012.

Translated into English by the Witness for Peace Nicaragua Team.

For the original Spanish version please visit OFRANEH's blog.

This past December 10th, the British magazine, "The Economist" published an article that makes a reference to a memorandum of understanding between the government of Honduras and two United States firms regarding the construction of Model Cities (Charter Cities) in Honduran territory, without notifying the Honduran people up to now of the planned transactions.

The attitude assumed by the current regime to maintain “its business” with utmost secrecy , is part of the disdain held by the power elite of the country toward its subjects, a situation that worsened with the judicial-military coup in 2009 and the subsequent failed state that prevails in Honduras.

The companies Future Cities Development Corporation, known before as Seasteading Institute and Free Cities Group, will apparently be constructing model cities framed by “libertarian” ideology.

The Future Cities Development Corporation, was founded by Patri Friedman, grandson of economist Milton Friedman, known in Latin America as the father of neoliberalism, the economic theory associated with the impoverishment of the majority of the continent’s population and with authoritarian regimes that have offered themselves to boost the accelerated enrichment of the power elite.

Patri Friedman has shown his repudiation for democracy as a form of government in an article published by the extreme-right Cato Institute and sees a great potential in Model Cities under the libertarian regime that he hopes or plans to build in the failed state called Honduras.

Paul Thiel (founder of Paypal), another person involved in the construction of libertarian cities in Honduras, declared in an article written for Cato Unbound, that democracy and liberty are not compatible.

After the coup d’état in 2009, Honduras has suffered at the hands of the current National Congress—composed by a large majority of the same actors that participated in the downfall of democracy—the approval of a series of neoliberal-style laws that completely annihilated the meager social gains obtained in the 20th century. Concepts such as national sovereignty, food security, and human rights have been converted into obsolete terms by Honduran “legislators.”

In fact, the political and social deterioration occurring in this country, converts it into a paradise for economic adventurers and reactionary politicians, whose ideologies are based in individualism and economic Darwinism.

From the American Phalange of the Immortals to the Banana Coast

In the mid-19th century, filibuster William Walker invaded Central America with a band of self-declared “American Phalange of the Immortals,” who succeeded in taking over Nicaragua, where Walker acted as president from 1856-57. In his last incursion he was captured by the British who handed him over to Honduran authorities, who proceeded to execute him with a firing squad in the city of Trujillo in 1860. A New York Times editorial the same year mentions that the filibuster stated that other Walkers would rise from his blood.

Half a century later, Sam Zemurray financed an invasion and a coup d’état in Honduras (1911), perpetrated by Manuel Bonilla, who landed in the country coincidentally in the place where Walker was shot. From this point on, the Banana Republic was reaffirmed, a term coined by the writer, O’Henry, seven years before the felony committed by Bonilla.

Days before the coup d’état, the Canadian investor known as the “porn king,” began a series of illegal land purchases in the Bay of Trujillo, designated to create a tourist empire in an enclave known as the Banana Coast. During the mandate of Big Boss satrap Roberto Micheletti, the porn king consolidated the appropriation of a Garifuna community on the Rio Negro located in the city of Trujillo, demolishing a large part of the community under the pretext of constructing a dock for the Panamex cruise ship.

The Failed State and the Libertarian’s Paradise

According to the Washington Post, Honduras has become the most dangerous country on the planet, in addition to being the epicenter of drug trafficking between South America and the United States. The collapse of institutional pillars such as the Ministry of Security and the judicial apparatus, have converted the country into a true failed state.

It seems that Peter Thiel and his follower Patri Friedman, want to take advantage of the existing failed state of Honduras to recreate the pages of the novel Atlas Shrugged, in which the Russian-American author Ayn Rand, idol of libertarians, creates a science fiction novel that makes clear her philosophy that writer Gore Vidal described as “almost perfect in her immorality.”

Libertarians have converted themselves into a synonym of factions of enormous economic power in the United States that reject the supposed exaggerated intervention of the State, exalting the liberty of individuals over supposed government coercion. Although some anarchists of the 19th century were self-defined libertarians, the current movement in the United States finds itself linked with ultra-right groups like the Tea Party, Cato Institute and the Free State Project, among others.

It just so happens that the first week of December, the National Congress selected the Board of Notables in charge of Model Cities: George Akerlof, Ong Boon Hwee, Harry Strachan, Nancy Birdsall, and of course the artifice of the neo-colonial maneuver Paul Romer. But unfortunately in Honduras the media has opted for a discreet silence on the matter, while its news is dedicated to distill the blood that runs and impunity that rules in the country.

It is to be expected that the libertarian dignitaries and their millions of dollars will be successful in imposing their conditions on the Congress of a failed state. There is nothing strange that in imitating the ideas of the libertarian bible, Atlas Shrugged, they implement the “death ray” a sophisticated torture weapon, from the delirious book, which will probably be used against the undesirable hordes that try to cross the electrified fences of the paradise in the middle of the hell that they have imposed on us.

La Ceiba, Atlántida, January 4, 2012

OFRANEH

Organizacion Fraternal Negra Hondureña

http://www.ofraneh.org

http://www.ofraneh.wordpress.com

"We can neither eat bullets nor guns": the impact of U.S. military aid on Garifuna communities in Honduras

By Riahl O´Malley and Brooke Denmark
Witness for for Peace International Team - Nicaragua

Driving into Triunfo de la Cruz, a Garifuna community on Honduras´ northern coast, things seem normal. Children of all ages are dressed in uniform, making their way to school. Women sit in front of their homes chatting with their neighbors. When we arrive at Teresa Reyes´ house, the secretary of the Community Board, she and her husband, Alfredo, are fixing the roof.

As we begin speaking with her and two other community representatives, it becomes apparent things aren´t as they seem. Teresa and Alfredo are fixing their roof because someone had tried to burn their house down with them and their children inside. Why?

Because Triunfo de la Cruz, like many Garifuna communities living throughout Northern Honduras, is in a constant struggle to maintain their ancestral land and the culture it sustains. This land is being taken by large landowners and international big business. Teresa and Alfredo are part of the peaceful struggle to maintain their traditions and livelihood, which is met with constant repression.

Speaking for only a short while we begin to see the diversity of problems they face. From neoliberal mega projects such as “model cities” and hydroelectric dams, to multi-million dollar tourism projects supported by international development banks, to the threat of large landowners like Miguel Facusse.

Another threat to the community´s safety and autonomy is the spread of narco-trafficking throughout the region “like a cancer that is difficult to rid.” Tied to that spread is increased militarization to fight the “drug war." Today, 60% of cocaine enters the U.S. through Central America. An estimated 9 tons of cocaine were seized in Honduras in 2010. This is how the United States has justified providing over $24 million dollars in aid to the Honduran police and military between 2009-2011. But instead of solving the many issues Garifuna communities face, it is making it worse.

“When we hear of the help that the U.S. and other countries give to the military and police it scares us,” José Angel, member of the Community Board, explains. “I think Obama and Hillary Clinton need to revise how they apply this funding in these countries. Instead of improving the social situation, it is a huge step backwards. It actually creates fear. It is destroying our communities.” He adds, “The U.S. is trying to cure the effect rather than the cause: U.S. demand.”

The community leaders expressed little confidence in the police and military. Teresa states, “The police are obligated to give us protection, but we don´t see the police anywhere. It's an illusion, it´s false. Security doesn´t exist. Protection doesn´t exist. But if someone comes from the outside and wants to take over our land and we defend ourselves, if we take down the fences or knock down whatever they put up, they accuse us and the police come to arrest us. It´s completely backwards.”

She continues, “We don´t want other countries to continue financing the military…the military and police have attacked us, have repressed us, they have criminalized protest. We don´t need more military or police. Our culture has always been one of peace. Why are we spending so much on security but there isn´t any security? …We don´t need more of this policy. What we need is that those who are in the military go plant crops instead. What we need is food."

Jose Angel adds, “We haven´t learned how to eat neither bullets nor guns….What we need is to participate in and to be a part of the plans they make to improve our community.”