The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is currently being created under the hegemony of the U.S. government.  The Puebla Panama Plan (PPP) is one of its regional expressions of wealth accumulation, through the imposition of policies meant to achieve better comparative advantages in the world market.  These political and economic plans are being accompanied by a process of militarization of campesino (subsistence farmers) and indigenous territories and regions.  These territories contain strategic resources that are being privatized in an accelerated manner, dismantling State power and eroding national sovereignty.  In this same way, the Colombia Plan is being extended into every corner of the hemisphere. 

The United States wants to gain access to the strategic resources in the entire American continent.  Corridors, roads, railways, electricity and telecommunications, gas and oil pipelines, canals, etc.  Everything, absolutely everything, oriented towards satisfying the needs and demands of the United States.  Plans, projects and works cross over the territories of Latin America.   One of these ghosts continues to haunt poor communities: hydroelectric dams.  

Facing this panorama, the Convergence of Movements of the Peoples of the Americas (COMPA) carried out it’s second assembly in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas in October of 2000, where more than 100 organizations from 18 countries of the Continent elaborated a diagnostic about the effects of neoliberalism, and also proposed strategic focus areas.  The social organizations, indigenous and campesino groups and foundations present defined 6 focus areas for struggle and action:  the FTAA, rural development, foreign debt, gender equity, defense of indigenous territories, biodiversity and against genetic engineering, and against the Colombia Plan and militarization in Latin America (www.compasite.org).  Other movements have sprung from this meeting such as the Week for Biological and Cultural Diversity (www.laneta.apc.org/biodiversidad) and the Forum “People Before Globalization, Alternatives to the PPP”, that began with the Forum in Tapachula, followed by the forum in Xela and soon to be followed by another meeting in Managua.  At the Xela Forum, participants saw the need to organize what is now called the “Mesoamerican Forum for Life” (www.laneta.apc.org/biodiversidad).

These social movements are growing and are being accompanied by an exchange of information, experiences and a search for alternatives and local and regional struggles of resistance.  The organizations of diverse sectors in the PPP region are finding new links between the focus areas that mark the current political, economic and social events in the region.  A new relationship with common agendas will more strongly link and unite the many hopes for a different political project. 

But meanwhile, the governor of Chiapas, Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía is strongly attacking human rights defenders with slanders.  The governor echoes the sentiment that:  “you’re either with me or you’re against me.“  He does not accept any criticism or suggestions. 

The governor has been distancing himself from and has had more confrontations with human rights organizations, the NGOs and the same social, campesino and indigenous organizations who have also withdrawn their support and credibility.  The situation has not improved, rather it has worsened.  The supposedly democratic government is becoming weaker and weaker, and civil society is divided.  The indigenous communities are in a very alarming and critical economic situation.  The divisions that are growing between the communities and the NGOs, especially those NGOs that receive governmental funds from the World Bank, which the governor visited in Washington after attending the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre this February.  The government funds are also coming from projects of co-financing between the World Bank and some international foundations who decided to channel their funds to this “new government.”  In addition, in these same days, inhabitants effected by hydroelectric dams in Chiapas are demanding the reparations for damages done to lands and property  many years ago. 

At the same time, at the United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development that was carried out in Monterrey, the rich countries bickered over giving charity to the poor countries from which they have already extracted millions and millions of dollars.  Cuba and Venezuela were the only governments critical of the swindle of the Conference when so-called democracy implied signing a document, the famous “Consensus of Monterrey”, that no one consented to.   This document was not achieved through consensus, but was drawn up previously, without possibilities for amendments, and was imposed by the United States. 

In a parallel manner, and in the midst of all of this, CIID, CIDECA, CEIBA, CIEPAC, CALDH, CIEP, RMALC, COPINH, IRN, CPR, Global Exchange, Rights Action, indigenous communities from the Usumacinta river valley, as well as other social and indigenous organizations from many countries, convoked a meeting without precedent.  An indigenous Guatemalan community, Quetzal, in the Peten jungle, threw a party to welcome the more than 300 delegates who arrived in buses, boats, walking, or however they could, despite many difficulties.  People arrived from 21 countries, including Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, United States, Canada, Spain, Catalonia, Italy and Australia.

It was a democratic, plural, broad and cultural gathering.   Reconciliation and the hope for unity were re-strengthened and gave us new breath.  Experiences and reflections, alternatives and local and regional action plans emerged during these days.  Later, through consensus and participatory democracy (unlike at the forum in Monterrey), the participants elaborated their own political declaration that we reproduce here. 

Declaration from Quetzal

Cooperativa Unión Maya Itzá, Petén Guatemala

Between March 21st - 23rd men and women representing 98 organizations and communities from 21 countries met faced with the general preoccupation caused by the plans for the construction of dams with different ends in different regions.

We have shared information and experiences, as well as analyzed the negative environmental, cultural, economic-social effects that have already been caused and the potential damages of these projects.

We have confirmed information that states between 40 and 80 million people in the world have been displaced by the construction of these projects, which have been mostly to the benefit of those with economic power with the support of the international and multilateral financial institutions, highly tied to the projects of the Plan Puebla Panama, Plan Columbia, commercial trade agreements and the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

We have also confirmed that these projects, supported by transnational and national capital do not comply in its' totality, with environmental legislation at the national and international levels, which obliges us to adopt measure of resistance and to reiterate the validity of the proposed alternatives that have come from the people.

At the end of our discussions we agree:

1. To oppose the construction of dams in our countries that alter or divert the natural flow of the rivers, flood, affect, or displace people from their communities, destroy sacred and historic sights, and cause the death of ecosystems and biodiversity.
2. To oppose the construction of dams because with their effects they flagrantly violate the self-determination of our communities on our lands, affecting the patrimony and cosmovision of indigenous communities in the region.
3. To reiterate our call to all Latin Americans to continue the popular resistance against the construction of the dams and all complimentary neoliberal politics.
4. Our repulsion and condemnation of the institutions that have financed these projects (World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Central American Bank for Economic Integration) and the governments that support the transnationals involved in this dirty business (AES, Union FENOSA, Endesa, Harza, among others).
5. Our solidarity with the threatened people and organizations that have been persecuted and have suffered from violations of human rights in the name of the struggle resisting the construction of dams.
6. To stress our rejection of the construction of whichever dam on the Usumacinta River because it would seriously damage the communities and ecosystems in the area. At the same time, we reject whichever project related to the generation of electric energy constructed in the name of the Plan Puebla Panama.
7. To confirm that the plan to displace people from the mountains of Mesoamerica, especially those integrated into the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, is an inseparable part of the regional plans for the occupation of the basins and constructions of dams.

Immediately we demand:

a.      Immediate justice and comply to the responsibilities related to genocides and the corresponding reparation of damages caused to the affected people by dams already constructed.

2. The suspension of persecution, intimidation, disappearance, death threats and strategies of disarticulation against people and organization struggling against dams.
3. To the national governments, the suspension of the imposition of projects that do not benefit the communities and towns in the region.

As a final resolution we agree:

a.       Our solidarity with the movements at the Latin American level in the struggle against dams (Usumacinta in Guatemala-Mexico, Chaparral in the border region of Intibucá El Salvador-Honduras, Itzantún and El Cajón in Mexico, La Maroma in El Salvador, Susuma in Honduras, El Tigre in the border region between El Salvador-Honduras, Chalillo in Belice, Bayano and Tabasará in Panama, Guaigüi in the Dominican Republic, among others).

2. Our rejection of the complimentary projects to dams such as those in relation to biopiracy, commercial trade agreements, and intellectual property rights.
3. On the World Day of Action against Dams, we will meet again next year in Colomoncagua, Honduras.

Unión Maya Itzá, Petén, Guatemala, March 23, 2002
Organizations which signed onto the declaration:
Belize: Belize Alliance Conservation (NGOs BACONGO).

Bolivia: Coordinadora por la Defensa del Agua y la Vida de Bolivia.

Colombia: Cabildo Mayor Embera-Katío del Río Verde y Río Sinu de Colombia.

Panama: Centro de Asistencia Legal Popular (CEALP).

Spain: Colectivo de Solidaridad con Chiapas.

Italy: Ya Basta.

Canada: Derechos en Acción.

Costa Rica: Asociación Espíritu de Lucha, Boruca; Asociación para el Bienestar Ambiental de Sarapiquí (ABAS); Federación Costarricense para la Conservación del Ambiente (FECON); Mujeres Indígenas Espíritu de Lucha (MIEL); Proyectos Alternativos para el Desarrollo Social (PROAL).

El Salvador: Ayuda en Acción; CESTA; Comité Ecológico del Cantón La Estancia; Comunidades Unidas de Bajo Lempa; Instituto Salvadoreño de Permacultura; Sistema Económico Social.

United States: Chiapas Support Committee; CONCERN-América; Global Exchange; Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); International Rivers Network (IRN).

Honduras: Confederación de Pueblos Autóctonos de Honduras (CONPAH); Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e  Indígenas de Honduras (COPINH); Convergencia de Movimientos de los Pueblos de las Américas en Honduras (COMPA); Organización Fraternal Negra de Honduras (OFRANEH); Unión Revolucionaria del Pueblo.

Guatemala: Asamblea Consultiva de la Población Desarraigada (ACPD); Asociación Campesina Río Negro Rabinal Achí (ASCRA); Asociación Civil del Medioambiente Recursos Naturales; Asociación de Comunidades Forestales de Petén (ACOFOP); Asociación de Desarraigados en Desarrollo del Petén (ADEP); Asociación de Mujeres Ixmucané; Asociación para la Promoción y el Desarrollo de la Comunidad (CEIBA); CEDES; Centro de Acción Legal en Derechos Humanos (CALDH); Centro de Educación Popular Padre Hermógenes (CEPAHER); Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (CIEP); Centro de Investigaciones de Desarrollo Económico de Centro América (CIDECA); Colectivo Madre Selva; Comité ProMejoramiento de las Comunidades Fronterizas del Río Usumacinta-Petén; Comité Promejoramiento Retalteco Petén; Comunidad Vista Hermosa Los Chorros; Comunidades Populares en Resistencia del Petén (CPR-P); Cooperativa Canahan; Cooperativa Mario Méndez Montenegro; Cooperativa Nueva Guatemala, Sayaxché; Cooperativa Unión Maya Itzá; Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (CNOC); Estudiantes Universitarios - Petén; Federación Luterana Mundial; Foro de ONG's; Fundación para el Apoyo Técnico en Proyectos (FUNDATEP); Guías Espirituales; Hijos e Hijas por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio (HIJOS); Instituto Mesoamericano de Permacultura (IMEP); Ixchel; Mamá Maquín; Parroquia Poptún; Red Comunitaria de América Central para la Gestión del Riesgo; Sindicato de Carbonera; Zona de Adyacencia–Petén.

Mexico: Tabasco: Asociación Ecológica Santo Tomás; Consejo Ciudadano del Agua del Estado Tabasco A.C. (CCATAC). Chiapas: Ayuntamiento Huitiupán; Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria (CIEPAC); Comunidades Indígenas de la Región de Simojovel de Allende (CIRSA); AMOR; Consejo de Organizaciones de Médicos y Parteras Indígenas Tradicionales de Chiapas (COMPITCH); Cooperativa Nueva Alianza; Coordinadoras Regionales de Chiapas de la Sociedad Civil en Resistencia de Los Altos, La Costa, Fronteriza, Norte-Selva y Marqués de Comillas; Ejido Huitiupán; Frente Independiente de Pueblos Indios (FIPI); Indymedia; Misión de Guadalupe; Misión San José Chiapas; Organización Campesina Emiliano Zapata (OCEZ-CNPA); Organización de Médicos Tradicionales y de Parteras Hwziltán; Organización de Obreros Agrícolas y Campesinos (CIOAC); Pastoral de la Tierra; Resistencia Civil; Resistencia de la Costa; Resistencia Independiente. Guerrero: Consejo Guerrerense 500 años; Consejo Guerrerense 500 años de Resistencia Indígena. Veracruz: Consejo Indígena de Uxpanapa Veracruz (CIUX); Cooperativa de Ganaderos de Carolina. Mexico City: Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC).

The Declaration ends here.  Now it is time for the participants to organize plans for struggle, resistance and also for local and regional alternatives.  Many proposals were drawn up regarding legal strategies, communication, mobilization and organization.  In some regions resistance will be organized or strengthened against the transnational companies that attempt to displace communities.  In other regions, people will search for alternative ways to generate electric energy, protect rivers and river valleys or how to use international legal resources.  These struggles are already well underway, and are now being strengthened.  No one can stop them. 

¡LIGHT, WATER AND LAND FOR ALL PEOPLES!

Note: If you wish to be placed on a list to receive this English version of the Bulletin, or the Spanish, or both, please direct a request to: ciepac@laneta.apc.org and indicate whether you wish to receive the bulletin in plain text or as a Word 7 for Windows 95 attachment.

Note: If you use this information, cite the source and our email address. We are grateful to the persons and institutions who have given us their comments on these Bulletins. CIEPAC, A.C. is a non-government and non-profit organization, and your support is necessary for us to be able to continue offering you this news and analysis service. If you would like to contribute, in any amount, we would infinitely appreciate your remittance to the bank account in the name of:

CIEPAC, A.C.
Bank: Banamex
Account number: 7049672 Sucursal 386
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México.
You will also need to use an ABA number:
BNMXMXMM

Thank you! CIEPAC

Telephone:
in México: 01 967 674 5168
from outside Mexico:: +52 967 674 5168