Latin America: Policy and Advocacy

For more on the crisis:

2009-09-02T13:40:00.001-07:00

See the Advocacy Guide

And the Regularly updated website ASJ runs on the crisis

Reflections on the crisis in Honduras from MCC Partner

2009-09-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

AJS Condemns both Zelaya and His Ouster
by Kurt Ver Beek and Andrew Clouse
Originally published on the Christianity Today blog (http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2009/07/honduras_coup_w.html)

Political leaders from around the world are racing to be the first and loudest to condemn this past Sunday’s coup in Honduras. Everyone from President Obama to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, from the United Nation’s general secretary to Fidel Castro, are denouncing the coup, threatening sanctions and calling for the return to office of ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Yet why are so many Hondurans, including key evangelical leaders, so divided about the coup and Zelaya’s return?
It all starts with the constitution. The Honduran constitution has 379 articles—and all but four can be reformed. It’s one of these four non-negotiable that’s causing all the fuss. The article states that a Honduran president cannot be re-elected. Ever. One four-year term is the only shot a president can have. Nearly all Latin American countries wrote this into their constitutions during the 1970s and 1980s in an attempt to avoid their presidents’ tendency to use second terms to consolidate power and stay in office permanently.

So starting with president-turned-dictator-turned-fugitive Alberto Fujimori in Peru, and more recently including Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and now a little closer to home—Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Zelaya in Honduras—Latin American presidents have sought to reform their constitutions to permit re-election. In the last few years Venezuelan president Chavez has been building ALBA, a block of Latin American presidents designed to challenge the U.S. hegemony in the region. His country’s oil income in the form of finance grants, loans and political advisors serves as the carrot to entice presidents to join ALBA. And predictably enough, six of the nine members of the ALBA countries have or are trying to reform their constitutions to pave the way for their possible re-election.

Honduran president Zelaya began a full-out effort to reform the constitution in March of this year by announcing a referendum to be held Sunday, June 28—the day the coup took place—to determine whether the people wanted an assembly called to rewrite the constitution before presidential elections in November. Almost immediately, the country’s political, economic and many religious leaders began lining up against this effort. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum illegal; the Congress voted to sanction the president; the attorney general’s office began investigations into possible charges; both political parties—including the president’s own—condemned his actions; and church leaders like Evelio Reyes, pastor of one of the largest evangelical churches in Honduras, began holding high-profile prayer vigils each morning in front of government offices.

Had the president done a better job during his first three years in office, his efforts may have been more popular. However his administration has been plagued by ineffectiveness and myriad accusations of corruption. During his first year in office, his administration received over $4 billion in debt forgiveness—with the chief condition that any money not spent on debt was to be invested in reducing poverty. Many organizations, including Christian NGOs, worked for over a year to define how this money could be best invested. However, Zelaya ignored their efforts and instead tried to buy votes by spending 70 percent of the money on raises for teachers and health workers, and the rest on ineffective but politically powerful “cash coupons” for the rural poor. Zelaya has also failed to deliver on promises to build houses, promote land reform, build a new international airport and fight corruption. In the meantime, he has used public funds to finance a pro-government newspaper and TV station, flashy TV and radio ads and pro-government demonstrations. Zelaya did move beyond rhetoric early this year when he impetuously hiked the minimum wage by 60 percent. The raise was desperately needed, but its overnight implementation in an already-struggling economy led to thousands of minimum-wage job losses as many businesses found it impossible to make payroll.

In short, Zelaya’s record is dismal. And that fact has led many Hondurans, including most evangelicals, to be relieved to see his ineffective and corrupt administration come to an unexpected end. Pastor Evelio Reyes, in a speech to support the new government said, “We cannot tolerate these kinds of actions. No country in the world puts up with these types of barbarities, and Honduras won’t either because we have dignity.”

But the president does have his supporters. Despite his decidedly non-leftist background, Zelaya has managed to gain the support of some of the most radical social groups in Honduras by funding their organizations and protests and promising them seats at the constitutional assembly that would have rewritten the constitution. These groups are expert mobilizers and are now returning the favor by leading the increasingly violent protests seeking Zelaya’s return to office.
But other, less radical Hondurans and church leaders also disapprove of the coup. First, the rhetoric Zelaya used during the last three months to promote a rewrite of the constitution touched a nerve for many Hondurans, including evangelicals. Zelaya’s speeches as well as very professional TV and radio ads (designed by Venezuelan advisors) argued that the 70 percent of the Honduran population who live on less than $2 a day have seen little benefit from 20 plus years of democratic rule in which a political and economic elite have run the country and everything in it for their own illicit gain. Zelaya said it was time to hear the “voice of the people” and that reforming the constitution was a good first step in getting that voice heard. This message resonated with the poor and those, including many Christians, concerned about issues of poverty and injustice. Mario Cantor, an evangelical pastor in a marginal urban community, said this:

“The majority of people who supported the cuarta urna (the “fourth ballot box”) believed that the constitution needed to be reformed to be more inclusive. According to some, the constitution excluded certain sectors of the community. So they believe that there is a need to create a constitution that allows the people to have more participation in the country´s decisions. Zelaya himself was talking about a more equitable society, where distribution of wealth is fairer, talking about the common good, as Jesus did.”

In addition, many Hondurans and Honduran Christians are uncomfortable with the military’s role in Zelaya’s ouster, fearing a return to the situation of the 1970s and 1980s when the military was clearly the power behind the president. This was an era of fear, violence and corruption that few Hondurans care to relive. They argue that like him or not, if Zelaya was breaking the law, he should have been charged and tried instead of forcibly removed from his home and flown to Costa Rica. And they are uneasy hearing reports of suspended civil liberties and protesters detained.

They want the democratic system to work the way it is supposed to. As mega church pastor Rene Peñalba stated, Zelaya’s goal “in itself was not bad, but he got the method wrong. And I would say the same about the other side. [Zelaya] deserved to go to trial, but they got the method wrong. Both sides got it wrong.”
While the fear of an oversized role of the military is understandable, it seems clear that they were an ambivalent partner in the ouster, directed by a small but powerful political and economic elite. Although initially Zelaya’s allies in carrying out the referendum, the military has shifted since there was clearly little enthusiasm for the task. Just days before the referendum, Zelaya fired the chief general and the rest of the general’s staff quit in solidarity. Zelaya and his supporters staged a dramatic showdown at a military warehouse to get the ballots while the military stood silently by. And most obviously, while the military carried out the arrest and flew Zelaya to Costa Rica, they did not seize power but immediately installed the president of Congress as President of the country.

What’s clear among all the conflict is that all the existing powers in Honduras—the ruling elite, the Zelaya administration, and the military—show by their rhetoric that they recognize what most ordinary Hondurans want—to live in a country where their voice will be heard and where true democracy and rule of law flourish.
Carlos Hernandez, president of the la Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (AJS’s Honduran sister organization), a Christian social justice organization in Honduras, argues, “As Christians we need to make the legal systems work for everyone—from the poorest Honduran to the most powerful. So first of all, Zelaya should return to the country and there should be a full investigation into his actions. If he has broken laws, he should be tried and sentenced—not sent to Costa Rica without a trial. Second, we should also push for an investigation into who was responsible for this coup and they should also be investigated and tried. It is only then, by showing that neither side is above the law and that neither side can take the law into their own hands, that we can show the world that justice for all is possible, even in Honduras.”

Merida Initiative: Security over Human Rights

2009-04-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

From: Witness for Peace witnessforpeace.org/article.php?id=682

The Merida Initiative: Human Rights Sacrificed in the Name of Public Security

The historic campaign and election of President Barack Obama spurred much talk of hope and change in the U.S. Our southern neighbors in Mexico have watched the U.S. political landscape with both hope and apprehension, wondering whether President Obama will promote positive change for them. Mexicans understand that - for better or worse - their country’s economic health is closely linked to our own. They are concerned about their country’s security as they face the devastating effects of the current economic crisis in addition to increasing narco violence.

The statistics are chilling: last year 6,000 Mexicans were murdered--some decapitated--in drug-related violence, more than double the year before. Many Mexicans fear that powerful drug cartels are taking over their cities, towns and communities, with cartel representatives infiltrating the police and army.

U.S. government officials are concerned with this increasing violence, knowing that an unstable Mexico with a population of 100 million is a threat to the security of the U.S. In fact last year alone there were 370 drug-related kidnappings in Phoenix, Arizona. But it is not only drug-related violence that should concern policy makers in the U.S. Rising poverty and unemployment rates in Mexico result in more Mexicans turning to drug trafficking and an increasing number crossing the border to look for work in the U.S.

The U.S. Congress responded to these security concerns by passing the Merida Initiative in June 2008 with the support of then Senator Obama. With the Initiative’s inherent focus on a military approach to public security many worry that the protection of human rights will be ignored.

The Merida Initiative is a 3- year aid package totaling $1.4 billion designed to combat organized crime and drug trafficking. The 2008 portion of the package, signed into law by President Bush last year, totals $400 million. While it is unclear how all the approved funds are being allocated, at least $116.5 million were originally earmarked as foreign military funding. The Mexican military’s dubious human rights record raises serious concerns for human rights activists in Mexico and the U.S.

Thanks in large part to the pressure of Mexican human rights organizations, a small portion (15 percent) of the Merida Initiative funds can be distributed only after the Mexican government shows improvement in the following areas: transparency, accountability of police forces, civilian and judicial prosecution of human rights abuses by the military, and the establishment of a relationship with civil society to monitor the Initiative. The U.S. Congress has not yet verified improvement in human rights. The U.S. Congressional Report that accompanied the Merida Initiative expressed concern over a variety of recent human rights abuses in Mexico, and specifically urged for a transparent and accurate investigation of the murder of U.S. journalist Brad Will in October 2006 during the social unrest in Oaxaca. While at the close of 2008, Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno was arrested for this murder, the head of the National Human Rights Commission, a federal institution that conducted an in-depth investigation and presented a full report to the Mexican Attorney General, stated that - against their advice - the Mexican government had arrested an innocent man.

The Mexican government’s blatant disregard of the findings of its own human rights institution demonstrates a failure to emphasize human rights as a core concept of public security. Miguel Angel Vasquez de la Rosa, from the Oaxacan NGO, EDUCA or Services for an Alternative Education, explained that the Initiative’s approach to creating public security actually increases the potential for human rights violations on multiple levels. For him it is clear that with increased militarization, those who suffer will not be the most powerful criminals, but instead the most vulnerable members of society. “The results of this policy will not be to bring regional security, like it was sold to us, but…will most affect civil society, the streams of human migration, and the social movements that demand justice in our country,” Vasquez de la Rosa says. His concern is justified by the reports of abuses committed by Mexican security forces in Oaxaca and Atenco in 2006, and a number of more recent human rights abuses - including the murder of two campesinos by federal military during an “anti-drug” operation in a small community in Oaxaca in August 2007, and the killing of three migrants in Chiapas by state police this year.

Vasquez de la Rosa says that instead of addressing security exclusively through military aid, the Initiative needs to address security on a human level. “How do you create conditions that guarantee people’s security so that they do not have to migrate, so that they can find work in [their home] country?” Making the link between poverty and the need to migrate or join the endless drug cartel employee base, would truly address the level of insecurity felt by most Mexicans.

Integrating a human rights approach into the Merida Initiative would mean addressing the root causes of violence and poverty, and evaluating how public policies contribute. For Vasquez de la Rosa these include the renegotiation of NAFTA, U.S. domestic immigration reform and transparency in negotiations and promotion of the Initiative. Since two-thirds of Mexico’s foreign investment originates from the U.S., Vasquez de la Rosa points out that “the issue of security is not only to help Mexico, but to guarantee that all of the investments that U.S. corporations have [in Mexico] which are many, can be realized in a peaceful context”.

While it is likely that portions of the total package will be allocated this year and next, the Obama administration has the opportunity to reconsider the effectiveness of the Initiative. In addition, President Obama should consider policy alternatives that address violence and poverty. With the support of the Latin American Working Group, members of Congress will present a petition to President Obama to reinstate the ban on imported assault weapons, many of which end up in the hands of drug traffickers. Also recently, more than 1,200 U.S. organizations representing different sectors presented a petition calling for drastic immigration policy reform, in which they also urged the renegotiation of NAFTA. With a clear campaign promise from Obama to address the NAFTA question, there is some hope that U.S. policy might shift toward an approach that prioritizes human rights. However, until policy makers understand the link between the negative effects of NAFTA and the increase in poverty, migration, and violence, the Merida Initiative will continue being the wrong policy to bring true security to people of our countries.

New Times in Bolivia: The hope of a new Constitution

2009-02-17T13:09:00.000-08:00

By Lynne Longenecker

January 25, 2009 became an historic day in Bolivia when 61% of the population voted to approve a new constitution that expands the rights of the indigenous majority, solidifies state control over natural resources, and lays the foundation for more equitable land distribution. While historic, the vote also followed the pattern of a divided country that is becoming familiar in Bolivian politics, with four of the country’s nine departments strongly rejecting the proposal.
Based at MCC’s office in Santa Cruz, the largest city in the lowlands of eastern Bolivia, we experienced the referendum through the eyes of a city in which it seemed hard to find anyone who openly supported the new constitution, or anything having to do with the Evo Morales government, for that matter. Even so, the day of the vote was amazingly calm and quiet. Vehicles were prohibited on the streets, so kids were riding bikes and people were sitting on lawn chairs where there is normally busy traffic going past.

Even weeks afterward, I've been surprised at the ongoing calm. I thought there might be more immediate reaction, protests, etc. At this point all the "action" seems to be in the context of discourse in the press and media, rather than anything physical. From what we read it sounds like more resistance might come as the government tries to enact laws that put the constitution into practice. This may be a difficult process because the opposition controls one of the arms of congress. Despite the tension, the calm is encouraging, and fits historical patterns that have shown the Bolivian people to be amazingly slow to take to violence. It also matches a recent study by the United Nations which showed that the large majority of Bolivians support peaceful dialog to resolve the country’s differences, as opposed to violent conflict.

It's interesting to see the spin in the press. The press from the western highlands celebrates the victory as a major step forward in rights and opportunity for indigenous people, framing it as the basis for a new era in Bolivian history after centuries of discrimination. The press in the eastern lowlands claims "victory" in the sense that the constitution lost in these four departments. Some claim that this means the new constitution doesn't apply in this part of the country, although that argument doesn’t really have any legal basis. It would be like the "red states" in the recent US elections claiming that Obama wasn't really their president!

What it does mean is that the government will need to choose what kind of posture to take toward the opposition departments. If they try to use this as a mandate to steamroll changes through without negotiation with the opposition, it will fuel sentiment that the government is imposing its changes, and fears of non-indigenous people of being overrun or oppressed by the newly empowered indigenous people. I hear these feelings from people in this part of the country and can understand the fear to some degree, so I hope the government can take a posture of continued dialog in the process of putting this constitution into practice.

It's amazing to see the power of the media in all of this. The leaders of the opposition have been very good at using media to prey on the fears of the people to raise resistance to the government. On the other hand, Evo can be divisive with his rhetoric, too, even though his criticisms of the historically unjust political and economic structures usually seem to be very well founded. How to speak the truth in ways that challenge and change structures without alienating the opposition to the point that it's really detrimental to your cause? I guess that's a difficult tension for anyone working for structural change, and one that MCC will need to navigate in the months ahead. How to promote justice while really listening to voices on all sides of the conflict? When to take a confrontational stance and when a more conciliatory one? How to bring about change that is truly positive and just, and not simply a replacement of one oppressor for another?

So far, it seems like an amazing achievement that the Morales government has been able to walk that line successfully enough to bring about this new constitution through peaceful, democratic processes and minimal violence. We hope the international community can help these processes continue as Bolivians sort out the details of what these changes mean and what a more just Bolivia will look like.
At MCC we see an important need to work at bridge-building in this context, as the tendency is for people to have less and less contact with those from the other side, and for media and politicians to dehumanize the “other” in efforts to capitalize on fear and distrust.

Lynne is serving as coordinator for the peace and justice program for MCC Bolivia. This includes providing administrative support for MCCers working in this program, as well as developing new opportunities for MCC peace-building work in the polarized context of Bolivia.

El Salvador’s Elections: Is a New Time Coming?

2009-02-17T13:08:00.000-08:00

By Tobias Roberts

After nearly 20 years of being governed by the conservative, right-wing government of the ARENA party, the people of El Salvador took a confident step towards a long overdue change when they voted for mayors and representatives to the National Legislative Assembly on January 18th.

From 1980 to 1992, El Salvador suffered a cruel civil war with over 70,000 victims as a conservative estimate. The war was fought between the oligarchy and military against a guerilla movement that arose due to two electoral frauds, the repression of social movements, and massacres against the rural population by the armed forces. In 1989 the rich families of the oligarchy and military led by Roberto Dabuisson (who ordered the execution of the Salvadoran archbishop, Oscar Romero) conformed the ARENA party and won the presidency of the first elections. For the past twenty years, ARENA has continued as the leading political force. With policies such as promoting CAFTA, dollarizing the economy, privatizing virtually every public service, and generally governing for the business elite, ARENA has made El Salvador one of the world’s most violent countries with rampant inequality and massive poverty.

However, on January 18th, the Salvadoran people overwhelmingly demonstrated their confidence that the FMLN, the progressive, left-wing party and ex-guerrilla group, will be the course to creating a more just, equal, and peaceful country. The FMLN, for the governing period 2009-2012, will be the party with most representatives in the National Assembly (35), though they will be unable to form a majority because of the inevitable coalitions of ARENA (with 31 representatives) and other smaller right wing parties. On the municipal level, the FMLN went from governing 51 municipalities to 97 municipalities becoming the primary political force in El Salvador for the first time ever, and giving hope to the population that the FMLN will also be able to win the presidential elections to be held March 15.

Despite this clear victory for the FMLN, the major communication agencies, owned exclusively by the oligarchy families, have done all they can to try and downplay this decisive call for change by the people. The FMLN lost the mayorship of the capital and largest city, San Salvador and this was utilized by the major communication agencies to proclaim the FMLN as a “party in decline” or as a “sure sign of distrust by the people of the FMLN.” The result of this massive campaign by ARENA and the oligarchy has created a generalized feeling of confusion amongst the people who seem to accept that the municipal and legislative elections were a triumph for ARENA when in reality they were a clear indication of popular support for the FMLN .

The electoral process in itself was filled with many irregularities, the majority of which were perpetuated by ARENA. Accusations of people voting outside their established municipality in areas where the FMLN held a slight lead, busses of Nicaraguans with falsified Salvadoran ID´s being stopped and sent back to Nicaragua before they were to illegally vote (most likely for ARENA), and numerous accusations of the ARENA party paying individuals for their votes were only some of the abnormalities presented on the voting day. In fact, in one municipality, the elections had to be postponed due to massive protests by the people who found ARENA bringing their supporters from other municipalities to vote in a municipality thought to be won by the FMLN.

Yet even in the face of such blatant abnormalities (which were not broadcast in any considerable means by the communication agencies), the FMLN came out as the leading political force in the country. Perhaps the most symbolic victory and most decisive call for change came from the municipality of Izalco in the department of Sonsonate. Izalco has traditionally been the stronghold of the ARENA party. It is where they always begin their electoral campaigns because for them it signifies the “defeat of the communists.” In 1932, in the municipality of Izalco, a peasant and indigenous revolt lead by Farabundo Martí against the corrupt military junta was crushed by the government and military forces leaving a toll of over 30,000 killed in a week´s time. This event also marked the beginning of the disappearance of El Salvador´s indigenous Nahuat population since being identified as indigenous also meant “communist” to the government. But on January 18th, for the first time ever, the FMLN won the municipality of Izalco thus taking from ARENA one of its primary ideological strongholds.

Now, all eyes are on the presidential elections set for March 15th. The presidential candidate for the FMLN is Mauricio Funes, an ex-journalist who had no involvement with the guerilla movement during the war. This characteristic has inspired confidence and trust in much of the population whom, with Funes as candidate, are seeing the FMLN as a solid political party and not just as an ex-guerilla group. ARENA, financed by the oligarchy, has begun a massive propaganda campaign. But since they can´t seem to find anything against Funes, their campaign has focused on instilling fear in the population around the figure of the FMLN´s vice presidential candidate, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, who was involved in the civil war. TV commercials showing Ceren as a guerilla fighter accusing him of being a terrorist, showing pictures of bridges blown up by the guerrilla groups during the war, showing speeches of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and of course Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, are aimed at trying to depict the FMLN as an unstable and dangerous option that will drive the country into chaos. These images of the FMLN are countered by other ARENA propaganda showing themselves as intelligent, professional politicians, lovers of justice, promoters of equality, and the route to a better future. The campaign slogans of ARENA so far have been: “A more just country,” “Alliance for change,” and “Vote with wisdom”, all of which somewhat ironically depict the exact opposite of what ARENA has stood for during the last 20 years.

Voting in San Salvador on January 18. Photo AlJazeera

In spite of these massive campaigns, current polls continue showing Mauricio Funes having a considerable lead over the ARENA presidential candidate, Rodrigo Avila. This has lead ARENA and the oligarchy into a state of alarm and fear that they could lose these presidential elections. And this surely means that the next month here in El Salvador will be filled with dirty campaigning and electoral violence. And if Funes and the FMLN do come out victorious on March 15th, it will be interesting to see the reaction by ARENA and the oligarch families.

Tobias Roberts currently works with the New Dawn Association of El Salvdor in an HIV-AIDS and community development project. He works in 6 rural communities developing masculinity workshops, beginning women´s cooperatives, and strengthening community organization.

“The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom…”

2009-02-17T13:06:00.000-08:00

By Nate Howard

If we take seriously that “His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made,” instead of seeing a conjectural separation between Creation and the Creator, we discover that Creation is “nothing less than the manifestation of God’s hidden Being.”

Thus, in light of our worship of a type of progress that destroys creation and dehumanizes man, I would venture to say that there is less fear of God today than at any other time in the history of humanity. By intuition then, I believe I may also say that wisdom is lacking.

Central to the philosophy of progress, preached by our economists, scientists, and politicians, is the belief that universal peace is achievable through unlimited economic progress. Certainly the notion of personal enrichment is a powerful mover, but as wise men and women have always asked, can the foundation for peace really be achieved through the “cultivation and expansion of needs?”

Traditional wisdom leaves no room for the romanticism of peace sought by employing the powerful human drives of selfishness. “Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.”

Like the region of Sibinal, San Marcos where I work, “there are many poor societies that have too little, but where is the rich society that says “Halt!” we have enough? There is none.”

Here in Sibinal, there are numerous anti-life manifestations of this unwillingness by the rich to practice restraint. One of the most severe is the presence of Goldcorp Inc. Goldcorp is a Canadian-owned mining company that began operations in Guatemnala in 2006 at the Marlin Mine in Sipicapa, San Marcos and continues today with preliminary explorations in areas across the Highlands, one being the region of Sibinal where MCC alongside the San Marcos Diocese has been implementing a food security program. Goldcorp’s mining operation in Guatemala, which is almost entirely given to the extraction of gold, is very difficult to justify on any grounds. To begin, there are serious environmental issues raised as a result of its operations. According to the Mineral Policy Institute (MPI), safe disposal of mine waste is generally recognized as the single largest environmental challenge facing the mining industry worldwide. Similarly, the United States Environmental Protection Agency named water contamination from mining as one of its top three ecological security threats to the world. In addition to the waste, which amounts to 20 tons of earth and cyanide, 250,000 tons of water an hour are involved in the process to create sellable gold. Besides the physical dangers to local communities and ecosystems, this excessive use of water is especially concerning as numerous communities in Sibinal are without potable water systems and deal with water shortages for the irrigation of their crops.

Another area of concern is Goldcorp’s contribution to social conflict in Guatemala. Through a formal consultation process, it is documented that the overwhelming majority of communities are opposed to the presence of the mine. Nevertheless, due to exceptional rights for multinational corporations guaranteed by recent fair trade agreements and clever legal tactics, Goldcorp has been allowed to pay little attention to the stated will of these primarily indigenous communities. In Sibinal for example, though 32 of the 32 villages in the region cast their lot in opposition to the mine, Goldcorp through contracts with the Guatemalan national government has obtained a license to explore an area 25 km2. The result has been conflict. In December of 2004, and then again in January of 2005, blockades organized by indigenous peoples to stop the transport of materials to be used in the construction of the Marlin Mine, have ended in violent attacks perpetrated by the military and police. Since the mine began its operation, a number of clashes have arisen between local residents and the mine’s employees. As a result, indigenous leaders, many of which are women, have faced intense legal harassment, and in some cases, jail time. Most recently, on August 9, 2008, indigenous peoples once again took to the streets successfully blockading 16 points along Guatemala’s major highway system in protest to the mining exploration occurring throughout the highlands. The climate only continues to intensify.

All these negative social and environmental factors aside, the distribution of profits, four-fifths of which are generated by the sale of gold for ornamental purposes, is laughable. The current mining law in Guatemala requires that 1% of the mine’s profits be left behind in Guatemala, of which half is supposed to be passed on to the local authorities in the areas being mined. In the end, due to corruption and other factors, it is estimated that about 01% of total profits actually trickles down to the communities affected by mining operations.

The obvious beneficiaries are Goldcorp’s executives (in 2007 the CEO was the highest paid executive in British Columbia, earning $17 million) and its shareholders, who were paid $31.7 million in the second quarter of 2007 alone. Nevertheless, those benefiting from Golcorp’s practices do not end with those directly invested. A few examples are the 17 million Canadians contributing to the Canadian Pension Plan that is one of Goldcorp’s largest investors, and the thousands benefiting from Goldcorp’s massive donations to such institutions as the University of British Colombia. As cited in a report from the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, the reality is that most of Canada’s citizenry, due to its government’s relationship with the extractive industry through economic and political backing is benefiting from the more than 1000 Canadian mining companies that account for 40% of all mineral exploration undertaken globally. Sadly, these same companies have been implicated in human rights abuses and environmental disasters in more than thirty countries.

I could perform a similar connect the dots exercise with another life-threatening manifestation of this lack of restraint—soaring prices of basic foodstuffs and transportation—which the poor severely rely on for their daily survival. 40 years ago Guatemala produced enough corn to keep its price from rising beyond its poor majority’s purchasing capacity, but since capitulating to the guidance of international organizations in the 70s and 80s to cut subsidies and open up its agricultural sector to trans-national competition, production in Guatemala has markedly dropped and its once autonomous food prices are now dictated by the world market. For a season corn prices stayed low, however, with the price affects brought on by the signing of the Central American Free Trade agreement and the bubble-type demand for bio-fuels, the price of corn has increased by nearly 150% in the last 18 months. Unfortunately families in Sibinal do not have enough land to produce sufficient amounts of corn to feed their families and thus are forced to pay exorbitant market prices to eat. They have thus become dependent on mass transit to take them to their distant work, yet with rising prices of diesel their wages barely cover transportation costs. Resultantly, the malnutrition rate of children under five in Sibinal has risen to nearly 83% up from 50% in 2004, and the migration of working-aged males to the US and Mexico has continued to skyrocket to about 75% of the corresponding population.

Nevertheless, all this connecting the dots, only serves to make these cases appear independent and capricious, and as though considerable investigation and proximity are necessary to arrive at the conclusion that they are anti-life. Humbly I suggest that if we cannot see the breakdown in its simplest equation, i.e. that the single-minded pursuit of wealth—materialism—is first, at odds with Christian teaching, and second, contains within itself a limiting principle—Creation—then simply put—we are in trouble.

Let us take a look at the case of energy. As I write, the price of oil just clipped the $137 a barrel mark, a 500% increase since the U.S. invaded Iraq. Many are pointing to our wars in the Middle East and the resultant insecurity around the world’s largest source as the cause of this dramatic price increase in oil. Certainly it is a factor, but there are others too: increased demand from China and India, a falling dollar, price manipulation by OPEC, and the list goes on. Nevertheless, these happenings are the fruit of something much deeper.

As blood is to the body, oil is to economic growth. If it fails, all fails. And though demand may flucuate at times, the supply will oneday indeed fail. Surely there will be more wars to come as the “haves” and “have-nots” draw their lines in the sand and battle for oil rights (its no coincidence that the tables are being set for conflicts with Iran, Venezuela, and soon enough the resurging, oil-rich Russia), but eventually it will run out. Certainly these geo-political factors are creating an urgency around its use, but ultimately the resultant dangers facing communities all around the world like Sibinal, are due to the fact that our pursuit of unlimited growth, requires an unlimited source of energy. Unfortunately, to date, there is no such adequate renewable source.

In light of this basic arithmetical contradiction, a slew of responses have emerged and remerged. Most often we hear that technology will solve our problems. With great optimism our experts tell us that we need not practice virtue, for science will save us. It was less than a half decade ago that the production of bio-fuels on lands once used for domestic food production was hailed man’s new clever saviour. At present they are on the decline…although not without leaving behind a trail of food crisis’s in poor countries dependent on international food markets, instead of their own farms, to feed their $1 a day unemployed agrarian populations.

Another response is that of nuclear energy. Last month, Senators Jon Lieberman and John Warner formally introduced a new bill that would provide $544 billion worth of subsidies to the nuclear energy industry, including a special clause where which the government would assume all liability. Insurance companies, having run their numbers and read their Soviet history, have deemed ionizing radiation to be uninsurable. Yet, insured or not, the hazard remains. Once created there is nothing that can be done to reduce the radioactivity of radioactive elements. Only the passage of time reduces their intensity, and in many case we are talking about thousands of years. Not to worry. Our scientists assure us that we can safely manage these waste deposits, not to mention the nuclear reactors themselves, by employing the most advanced technologies. As if somehow technology can prevent earthquakes, wars, or civil disturbances. Like the dog and his vomit, it appears we intend to return to past follies.

This past January, our president in his address to the Union, had this to say about our exhausted economy, “Today, our economic growth increasingly depends on our ability to sell American goods and crops and services all over the world.” And this to say about the energy issue, “To build a future of energy security, we must trust in the creative genius of American researchers and entrepreneurs and empower them to pioneer a new generation of clean energy technology…Together we should take the next steps: Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions. Let us increase the use of renewable power and emissions-free nuclear power.”

It is perhaps understandable that he and others would offer this counsel…but this my friends is not wisdom, but instead merely a reflection of the conventional Sisyphean ideas that form the foundation for our current type of globalization—a dream which is unable to logically hold itself.

For every technological breakthrough, or clever economic treaty, another ten of its kind are required to offset the resultant unforeseen negative impacts. Nevertheless, for reflective purposes, let us assume that technology will provide the magic “energy elixir”; let us presume that our politicians and multinational corporations will convince the Venezuelans and Iranians to adopt our free-market capitalism. Is that what they and we need? As asked at the onset, does the expansion and cultivation of needs make for a better world, foment healthier relationships, or create a more virtuous society?

For anyone paying attention it is obvious that the suggestion that we reduce our standard of living is missing from the debate. It’s as if our leaders and experts have a blind spot. Where then do we turn? The answer to me is obvious.

There is a great necessity for folks working at the grassroots to deal with specific cases and connect the dots, which in any sense I have avoided doing (albeit hopefully with eloquence). However, in confronting the philosophy of materialism, ultimately we are dealing with a meta-narrative issue, and thus, the resolution to our problem lies at the meta-narrative level.

As a Christian, I know no greater authority on “right” meta-narratives than the church that adheres to its holy scripture. It is the church that can best begin to steer us towards something more virtuous; or at least bear witness to a different way. There are many places to start, but I can see none more effective than heeding the wisdom given us by our faith tradition and putting first our own house, or in this case church, in order in three distinct ways.

The first is simply to be less greedy and selfish ourselves. Rather than new needs, we should work to cultivate virtues such as restraint and moderation. Do we really need to buy new gold, silver, or diamonds? The church should be an example of temperance. Until then our collective voice is just one of the many. The second acquires its girth from the first. Instead of yielding to those and that which promotes a type of “progress” that is anti-life, we should render our full support to those who truly work for peace. There are great organizations out there doing great work that could use our support. This requires the church actively work to educate itself and learn. The third is to be hopeful. If I have learned anything in my three years here in Central America it is that hope is central to the Christian faith and something that we should always be about. However true hope is displayed through action and so congregational activities such as writing a letter to your church’s Member of Parliament or buying a share and then attending Goldcorp shareholders’ meetings to raise concerns are in order. Be creative…

I leave you with these paraphrased words of hope from Leonardo Boff, a trailblazing Brazilian theologian/ecologist who spoke here in Guatemala…‘our Earth, this living bio-system, is groaning, nevertheless, these are not groans unto death but unto birth, and we along with her must choose life.’

Let us choose life…

After serving for 18 months as MCC’s Hurricane Stan Response Coordinator, Nate Howard is currently working with MCC providing food security support for its programs in San Marcos, Guatemala.

Bolivia MCCer shares experience on Witness for Peace delegation

2009-02-06T13:29:00.001-08:00

By Lindsey Frye

With its rainforest lowlands, fertile valleys and striking mountain peaks, Bolivia is a country of much historical and geographical diversity. This past October I was able to travel beyond the lowland city of Santa Cruz where I’ve worked for the past year with MCC to experience first hand some of this diversity. I participated in a learning tour with Witness for Peace and along with 10 other women from the United States, I met with politicians, religious leaders, social movement leaders and “campesinos” in four different places in the country. Each person we met with shared their story, their hopes and most of them had a pretty strong opinion to share about President Evo Morales.

In 2005, Morales won the presidency with an overwhelming 54% majority vote and became Bolivia’s first Indigenous President. However, the story doesn’t begin there. It begins when hundreds of families who were moved from Potosi to the Chapare region in the 1980s when the world tin prices fell and there was nothing left to mine. The government relocated the families in the hopes that they would become farmers (and also to break up the mining unions). The families began growing coca and the union structure was reorganized with 900 sub-unions with 140 families in each one. One of those included the family of Evo Morales, who rose to become the president of all of the sub-unions.

We visited a coca farm and a union member, Vitalia, who told us about U.S. funded initiatives in the 1990s to eradicate coca. “In those times, there was no day, no night or sleeping, there was just fear and hiding,” she said, with pain in her voice. Her house was raided several times in the middle of the night, with soldiers threatening to kill her children. She lost friends and relatives during this time at the hands of an army funded almost entirely by the U.S. government. As we spoke with the human rights ombudsman, Godofrede Reinike, we learned that not only was the U.S. funding the army, it was also lining the pockets of Hugo Banzer, the president/dictator at the time with $120 million for 5-8 million hectares of coca eradicated. “Banzer did more than that,” Reinike explained, “he eradicated 30 million hectares, which turned into 78 deaths, thousands detained, hundreds permanently wounded. But it made the movement stronger and it made Morales stronger.”

Since 2005, there has been no forced eradication of coca in Bolivia (although the union will eradicate if any of the members are found to be growing more than their quota). We visited a construction sight where Venezuela has optimistically funded a tea factory. Although coca is used for stomach aches as well as an appetite suppressant, and only 2 of the 18 alkaloids in coca are used to make cocaine, exporting the tea is technically illegal because it appears on a list of international illegal substances created by the U.N. in 1961.

There is much more to be said about the trip, but this is a small window. One thing organizations like Witness For Peace have to teach us is that we must look deep down into the roots of the problems that we attempt to address in countries like Bolivia. Many times at the roots are manipulated governments, coerced by money from the North. It is impossible for me as a North American to do development work in Bolivia without looking first to my own country to know how we, along with others, have kept such a beautiful country in complex cycles of poverty for so long. Although Bolivia is 2nd in Latin America in reserves of natural gas, 5th in the world for fresh water and 8th for biodiversity, 60% of the population suffers from malnutrition and 25% of 5 year olds are in the dying stages of hunger. MCC has a lot of important work to be doing in Bolivia. But just as urgently as community development workers or dry latrine projects are grassroots movements in the United States and Canada to work for change in their local and national governments.

Thoughts from the World Social Forum

2009-02-02T05:16:00.000-08:00

Published on Thursday, January 29, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

The Seeds of Latin America's Rebirth Were Sown in Cuba

There was one region that saw the bankruptcy of neoliberalism - and now
the rest of the world is having to catch up

by Seumas Milne

On 9 October 1967, Che Guevara faced a shaking sergeant Mario Teran,
ordered to murder him by the Bolivian president and CIA, and declared:
"Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man." The climax of Stephen
Soderbergh's two-part epic, Che, in real life this final act of heroic
defiance marked the defeat of multiple attempts to spread the Cuban
revolution to the rest of Latin America.

But 40 years later, the long-retired executioner, now a reviled old
man, had his sight restored by Cuban doctors, an operation paid for by
revolutionary Venezuela in the radicalised Bolivia of Evo Morales.
Teran was treated as part of a programme which has seen 1.4 million
free eye operations carried out by Cuban doctors in 33 countries across
Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. It is an emblem both of the
humanity of Fidel Castro and Guevara's legacy, but also of the
transformation of Latin America which has made such extraordinary
co-operation possible.

The 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution this month has already
been the occasion for a regurgitation of western media tropes about
pickled totalitarian misery, while next week's 10th anniversary of Hugo
Chávez's presidency in Venezuela will undoubtedly trigger a parallel
outburst of hostility, ridicule and unfounded accusations of
dictatorship. The fact that Chávez, still commanding close to 60%
popular support, is again trying to convince the Venezuelan people to
overturn the US-style two-term limit on his job will only intensify
such charges, even though the change would merely bring the country
into line with the rules in France and Britain.

But it is a response which also utterly fails to grasp the significance
of the wave of progressive change that has swept away the old elites
and brought a string of radical socialist and social-democratic
governments to power across the continent, from Ecuador to Brazil,
Paraguay to Argentina: challenging US domination and neoliberal
orthodoxy, breaking down social and racial inequality, building
regional integration and taking back strategic resources from corporate
control.

That is the process which this week saw Bolivians vote, in the land
where Guevara was hunted down, to adopt a sweeping new constitution
empowering the country's long-suppressed indigenous majority and
entrenching land reform and public control of natural resources - after
months of violent resistance sponsored by the traditional white ruling
class. It's also seen Cuba finally brought into the heart of regional
structures from which Washington has strained every nerve to exclude
it.

The seeds of this Latin American rebirth were sown half a century ago
in Cuba. But it is also more directly rooted in the region's disastrous
experience of neoliberalism, first implemented by the bloody Pinochet
regime in the 1970s - before being adopted with enthusiasm by Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and duly enforced across the world.

The wave of privatisation, deregulation and mass pauperisation it
unleashed in Latin America first led to mass unrest in Venezuela in
1989, savagely repressed in the Caracazo massacre of more than 1,000
barrio dwellers and protesters. The impact of the 1998 financial crisis
unleashed a far wider rejection of the new market order, the politics
of which are still being played out across the continent. And the
international significance of this first revolt against neoliberalism
on the periphery of the US empire now could not be clearer, as the
global meltdown has rapidly discredited the free-market model first
rejected in South America.

Hopes are naturally high that Barack Obama will recognise the powerful
national, social and ethnic roots of Latin America's reawakening - the
election of an Aymara president was as unthinkable in Bolivia as an
African American president - and start to build a new relationship of
mutual respect. The signs so far are mixed. The new US president has
made some positive noises about Cuba, promising to lift the Bush
administration's travel and remittances ban for US citizens - though
not to end the stifling 47-year-old trade embargo.

But on Venezuela it seemed to be business as usual earlier this month,
when Obama insisted that the Venezuelan president had been a "force
that has interrupted progress" and claimed Venezuela was "supporting
terrorist activities" in Colombia, apparently based on spurious
computer disc evidence produced by the Colombian military.

If this is intended as political cover for an opening to Cuba then
perhaps it shouldn't be taken too seriously. But if it is an attempt to
isolate Venezuela and divide and rule in America's backyard, it's
unlikely to work. Venezuela is a powerful regional player and while
Chávez may have lost five out of 22 states in November's regional
elections on the back of discontent over crime and corruption, his
supporters still won 54% of the popular vote to the opposition's 42%.

That is based on a decade of unprecedented mobilisation of oil revenues
to achieve impressive social gains, including the near halving of
poverty rates, the elimination of illiteracy and a massive expansion of
free health and education. The same and more is true of Cuba, famous
for first world health and education standards - with better infant
mortality rates than the US - in an economically blockaded developing
country.

Less well known is the country's success in diversifying its economy
since the collapse of the Soviet Union, not just into tourism and
biotechnology, but the export of medical services and affordable
vaccines to the poorest parts of the world. Anyone who seriously cares
about social justice cannot but recognise the scale of these
achievements - just as the greatest contribution those genuinely
concerned about lack of freedom and democracy in Cuba can make is to
help get the US off the Cubans' backs.

None of that means the global crisis now engulfing Latin America isn't
potentially a threat to all its radical governments, with falling
commodity prices cutting revenues and credit markets drying up.
Revolutions can't stand still, and the deflation of the oil cushion
that allowed Chávez to leave the interests of the traditional
Venezuelan ruling elite untouched means pressure for more radical
solutions is likely to grow. Meanwhile, the common sense about the
bankruptcy of neoliberalism first recognised in Latin America has now
gone global. Whether it generates the same kind of radicalism elsewhere
remains to be seen.

© 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/29-11

The Canadian mining industry in Latin America and the Caribbean

2009-01-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

January 14, 2009

“If the USA is the world’s policeman, Canada is the world’s miner”
Jon Baird, President of the Prospectors and Developer’s Association of Canada

Introduction
Approximately 80% of all global financing of the mining industry is channeled through the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and over 60% of all mining companies in the world are Canadian. With extractive resource prices incrementing despite the current economic crisis , the world can expect to see even more of Canadian foreign direct investment (FDI) flowing into their countries in the form of explorations, construction and exploitation of natural resources which will continue to be necessary commodities as long as the world’s consumers need it to be so.

Canadian Investment in the Americas
After North America (including Mexico) and Europe, Latin America is the most important destination for Canadian foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world . Currently, Canadian FDI in the Americas is 3 times its investment in Asia and 4 times its investment in the Middle East and Africa. In the last 3 years, Canadian investment grew by 79 percent in the region, to CDN$88 billion, compared to an average of 15 percent in the rest of the world. The extractive industry constitutes the most important sector for Canadian direct investment in the region.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to the Americas in 2007 in his campaign to “re-engage” the Americas, followed by Minister of State for the Americas, Peter Kent’s, 2009 visit to Central America (primarily in preparation for free trade agreement talks with the CA4 in February), speak to the increased interest in continued healthy economic relations between Canada and countries of focus in the region – Mexico (North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA) Colombia (pending bilateral trade agreement) Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras (pending trade agreements with CA4) Chile (bilateral trade agreement), Costa Rica (bilateral trade agreement) and key Caribbean countries (CARICOM trade agreement)– as well as countries which Canada has deemed as prospective possibilities for strengthened relations, such as Haiti, Brazil, and Barbados.

The Canadian government has named its priorities in the region as: enhancing the prosperity and providing greater opportunity for all; strengthening and reinforcing support for democratic governance throughout the Americas; and building a safer hemisphere. Stephen Harper has proposed a “third way” between market liberalism and focus on social policy, although what exactly the “third way” diplomacy is referring to is unclear at this point.

Given that the majority of Canadian direct investment in the region is in the extractive industry it is reasonable to hypothesize that Canada’s renewed interest in the region will complement its economic interests in continued expansion of Canadian FDI in the extractive industry, and any approaches to foreign relations that will support this agenda.

The Canadian government’s stated interests in fomenting increased security and democratic governance, albeit lofty and respectable goals, are also necessary for creating “secure” environments in which Canadian companies can safely invest and, particularly in controversial sectors such as mining, increased “security” has often been accompanied by domestic military force presence providing security for company infrastructure and personnel, and often times has resulted in violent repression of social protest in the various countries in the region where Canadian mining companies have sought or are currently seeking, reception of their megaprojects or further development of their exploration projects. The disconnect between human security and investment security in Canadian foreign policy objectives is a marked point of contention between Canadian civil society, Latin American civil society, and governments.

Growing awareness has developed into numerous working groups on the Canadian extractive industry question. Made up of NGOs, civil society groups, share-holder organizations, educational institutions and local community organizations from the countries where the industry is investing, as well as collective campaigns for engagement and advocacy around the Canadian mining industry, the large network of civil society organizations has brought the issue of the Canadian extractive industry to the attention of the government and Canadian society. The work of the collective initiatives culminated in the “Round Table Talks” on the Canadian Extractive Industry.

Prior advocacy and engagement work done on Extractive Industry in Canada
In 2005, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT) issues a ground-breaking study called “Mining in Developing Countries and Corporate Social Responsibility”.

From the Halifax Initiative (a Canadian coalition of NGOs, ThinkTanks and Academic institutions): the report recommended that the Canadian Government move away from its current voluntary approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It called for policies that condition public assistance for Canadian companies on compliance with international human rights and environmental standards, including core labour rights. The report also identified the need for legislation that holds companies accountable for their actions overseas.

This report led to the 2006 National Roundtable talks (named “Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries”), a comprehensive multi-stake holder consultation process, held through public forums, facilitated by the government, to hear the position and concerns of Canadian society regarding the Canadian extractive industry. The process led to the publication of consensus-based final conclusions and policy recommendations for government and business, in 2007. In that same year, the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination encouraged the Canadian government to take bigger strides in responding to and preventing the negative impacts Canadian mining operations were having on Indigenous communities within Canada and around the globe. With the entrance of the conservative government in Canada, the reports and continued conversations around implementation of policy recommendations were effectively shelved.

Agreements like the “Global Compact”, the “OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises”, the “International Code of Ethics for Canadian Business” are all attempts at creating global, or at least national level, norms and standards for Corporate Social Responsibility and human rights, environmental rights and labour rights, in all global business. The Canadian extractive industry, however, being one of the primary perpetrators of violations of human and environmental rights, has yet to agree to anything that would be beyond voluntarism and legally binding within Canadian courts. The Canadian government has not demonstrated serious interest in establishing any sort of legally binding framework to hold Canadian corporations operating abroad accountable for their activities, nor has it seriously considered implementing a mandatory independent human, environmental and labour rights impact assessment policy that would ensure better and more timely information with regards to the potential effects a mining operation – or any other extractive industry operation – might have on the local population. At this moment, the only guidelines established are the already mentioned initiatives, and a company’s own corporate social responsibility policy none of which are legally binding, or have demonstrated significant improvement to the situation of the local population in terms of poverty reduction, job creation or social services.

At the February 2009 meetings of the Americas Policy Group (a working group of the CCIC), one of the agenda items is “Getting it Right: A step by step guide to assess the impact of foreign investments on human rights” facilitated by Caroline Brodeur of Rights and Democracy – this demonstrates that this is still an important issue for Canadian civil society and NGO coalitions working for justice in the Americas.

So what’s the Big Deal about Canadian Mining?
FAQ:

1. Doesn’t FDI create jobs for the local population?
a. Jobs are being created, but the numbers generated through IFC investments and via MIGA (main financing bodies for the global extractive industry) guarantees are not overwhelming. Many jobs have been created, and then lost through early shutdowns and closures. Also, no data is available on whether large-scale mining jobs are displacing other workers, such as small-scale miners or agriculturalists. While jobs are being created, there is no indication if jobs are benefiting marginalized or poor sectors of the population.

2. Shouldn’t increased FDI alleviate poverty by raising standards of living and access to social services that many MNCs invest in during operations?
a. There is little evidence to indicate that poverty alleviation is achieved through direct investments and guarantees in the extractive industries. Qualitative investigation reveals that the poor do not benefit from the extractive industries. In-depth qualitative research reveals that investments that might look like contributions to poverty alleviation (i.e., electrification of a region, potable water systems) do not benefit the poorest because tariffs are out of reach or distribution systems are not egalitarian.

3. Is mining really that bad for the environment?
a. According to Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch Canada, mining in its two main manifestations (open-pit and underground) are inherently unsustainable. As he states in a response to Pierre Gratton of the Mining Association of Canada: Mining is essentially a waste management industry. Whether a mine is underground or open-pit, most of what is mined is discarded, leaving millions of tons of waste rock and sand-like “tailings” loaded with dangerous heavy metals that had previously been more or less safely bound up in the rock. When uranium is mined, 85% of the radiation is left behind in the tailings. Sulphides exposed to weathering by air and water can generate acid drainage, which, in addition to being deadly to aquatic life on its own, also helps leach heavy metals from tailings and mine workings. Arsenic, cadmium, nickel and so on make their way into ecosystems with deadly results. Canada has been a leader in trying to find solutions to this problem, and while improved management techniques have been developed, mines are still being built that require the sacrifice of natural water bodies to create tailings dumps, and whose effluent will have to be monitored – and often treated – in perpetuity. The industry is fond of saying its harmful practices are all in the past, yet it continues doing basically the same things. In other countries, especially underdeveloped or “third world” countries, governments’ capacity to create, monitor, and enforce environmental regulation is weak or absent, and in the interest of low-cost production, mining companies routinely engage in practices that are illegal in Canada and may well be illegal in the country they are operating in as well – practices such as dumping effluent and sewage directly into streams and rivers, dumping tailings into rivers or oceans, or smelting ore without any effort to scrub acid and toxins from the smokestacks.
b. An open-pit gold mine typically will use 900,000 liters of water in a day, or more. According to an independent study by the Pastoral Commission for peace and Ecology of the San Marcos Dioceses, Guatemala, 250,000 liters of water is used in every hour of operations, which is the amount of water a family will typically use over the course of 20 years. In water scarce parts of the world, such as San Marcos in Guatemala, this is an incredibly irresponsible use of water, especially when taking into account the questions of food security and agriculturalists’ ability to grow and produce their own food for consumption – currently an MCC project in the area of San Marcos.
c. When a mine is closed, it is closed and either abandoned or reclaimed by the mining companies. There will always be environmental scarring of some sort, and sometimes a government will step in to do a closure and clean up, as the Canadian government is doing in the case of the Giant Mine in NWT. In impoverished countries, such as Guatemala, Honduras or Colombia, it is much less probable that the government will be able to spend the average CDN$300 million that a mine clean-up usually costs, leaving the environmental damage un-remedied and the local community with a devastating scar on their lands.

4. Does mining really have such negative impacts on human and labour rights?
a. In Colombia, 65% of all human rights violations occur in areas where there are extractive industry projects operating. These human rights violations include anything from denying workers the constitutional right to organize, to massacres forcing entire communities to flee their homes. Mining companies have been accused of hiring paramilitary groups to threaten and assassinate community leaders who seek to organize unions and people who oppose the mine. In Honduras, a Mennonite Pastor was forced to flee the country with his family for his work in advocacy against a Canadian mining project operated under GoldCorp subsidiary, Glamis Gold in the Siria Valley, in 2008. In the same year, in Guatemala, Monseñor Ramazzini received threats against his life for his work in advocating for an end to mining projects which have been proven to jeopardize the environmental integrity of the area, and the lives of the local community members. At the moment, at least 3 people have been killed during protests against the Marlin mine in San Marcos, and the threats continue.
b. In Colombia, home to the world’s second largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs) the majority of forced displacement occurs in regions of the country where there is interest in the natural resources the land can offer. As the Conflict Analysis Resource Center on the Colombian conflict states: While defending the interests of the State and the companies operating in these districts, the paramilitaries have committed the majority of the human rights violations reported in the last few years; they are notorious for extreme brutality involving massacres, torture, kidnappings extortion and massive displacements of civilians. These violations have been committed mainly as part of an explicit strategy to separate the guerrillas from their perceived popular support base and gain control over land, natural resources and strategic roads. This largely explains the co-relation between internal displacement and the presence of multinational corporations in Colombia. The regions richest in natural resources are also the ones most prone to internal displacement.
c. 50% of all newly mined gold is taken from Indigenous Lands. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (September 2007) provides that Indigenous Peoples (IPs) should be guaranteed the right to free prior and informed consent (FPIC) providing that IPs’ right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands, territories and other resources, including FPIC from state in connection with development and utilization of surface and subsurface resources such as (from the Declaration):
(a) Article 10 on forced relocation;
(b) Article 12 on culture and intellectual property;
(c) Article 20 vis-à-vis legislative and administrative measures taken by the States
(d) Article 27 with regards to indigenous peoples’ lands, territories and resources, and
(e) Article 30 with development planning.

Canada opposed the passing of the UN Declaration, and most governments in the Americas do not comply with the norms established by the United Nations and the International Labour Organization.

5. Don’t local communities want mines?
a. According to the Co-Development Report prepared for the Extractive Industries Review by Canadian government in 2003, out of all the mines studied, “community support for mining is apparent in only one case study: the mine in Turkey and at the same time, citizens launch many complaints with this mine.”
b. In 2004, a series of community consultations were realized with the 13 communities of the San Marco department in Guatemala with regards to the mine. The poll showed that 95.5% of the populations were against the mine and the communities issued a public statement saying: We publicly declare at the national and international level, that the granting of the licence for open pit metal mining violates the collective rights of the [I]ndigenous peoples who inhabit our territories. The company and the government of Guatemala, as well as the government of Canada, roundly ignored the positions and interests of the local communities and in response, an Indigenous group 150 kilometres away from the mine site in Sololá began a 42-day blockade of Glamis trucks passing through their community on the way to San Marcos. The blockade ended on January 11, 2005, when more than 1,200 soldiers and 400 police agents began firing at the unarmed protesters. Raúl Castro Bocel, an Indigenous farmer, was killed by the security forces. Twenty others were injured. Following these events, another process of community consultations were realized by the Dioceses and a number of NGOs. These community “consultas” resulted in 98.5% of the local population voting against the mine.
c. Canadian mining company, Pacific Rim, is in the process of suing the El Salvadoran government if it is not permitted to open a controversial mine which the community has organized around to protest. According to the company, which although it is Canadian is making the claim under its US subsidiary, Pacific Rim Cayman LLC, provisions within the Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Central America (CAFTA) allow for the company to sue the government if it changes laws (El Salvador is currently re-working its Mining Code) or allows for any activities that would potentially cause a company from the FTA signature countries to lose profits or not make as much profit as it would have, had the laws not been changed.
d. In Colombia, community consultations have demonstrated repeatedly that local communities are not in favour of mines and other mega projects in the extractive industry, and this has created backlash from companies and paramilitary groups. Union organizers, environmentalists and human rights activists have been threatened and assassinated systematically in their activities to protest foreign mines, including Canadian.

6. How am I involved?
a. 80% of all gold mined is used for ornamental purposes.
b. Canada and the United States demand far greater amounts of petroleum produced products than any where else in the world, particularly for gasoline for vehicles and air travel.
c. Under most Domestic Mining Codes (the Canadian International Development Agency has been involved in various countries’ mining code revisions) and trade agreements, foreign companies are required to pay on average between 1-5% in royalties to the local government. This means that 95% of all earnings stay within the Canadian economy and stock exchange. In the case of the Marlin Mine in Guatemala, GoldCorp is required to pay 1% of all profits back to the Guatemalan government and according to COPAE, MCC partner, the community has seen none of the money.
d. Mining companies receive financing through Export Development Canada (a Crown corporation) and the International Finance Corporation. Companies also receive equity financing (i.e. shares) through the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. A significant percentage of investments in the CPP are in the extractive industry, including in GoldCorp CPP: $63 mil (Guatemala, Honduras), Pacific Rim CPP: $21 mil (El Salvador), Eldorado Gold CPP: $71 mil (Colombia), Alamos Gold CPP: $1.5 mil, (Mexico), Enbridge CPP: $34 mil (Colombia).

What can we do?

Ask the Canadian government:
a. That the Canadian government implement legally binding framework for Canadian extractive industry corporations operating in foreign countries;
b. That the framework include obligatory independent human rights, environmental and social impact assessments prior to entry by the Canadian corporation;
c. That the Canadian government signs and ratifies the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
d. That Canadian corporations are legally bound to respect the norms of free, prior and informed consent with indigenous communities.

Concerned Mennonite Church Writes to Obama re: Mexico and Central America relations

2008-12-09T11:22:00.001-08:00

Emma Frederick, a pastor from Perkasie Mennonite Church in Pennsylvania just recently participated in an MCC Learning Tour to Mexico to learn about migration from a women's perspective and the dynamics and issues that play into migration, immigration policies, militarization of borders and wide-spread abuses used as tactics to dissuade Mexican and Central American immigrants from making the journey.

As she notes in this letter to President Elect Obama, people will continue to come to the United States as long as economic policies are in place that force them into undignified work situations, internal displacement to urban centers to work in factories and/or no work at all.

This letter is a good sample for anyone interested in this issue and wanting to write to their representatives or the President Elect himself.

Thank you Emma!

Dear President-elect Obama,

We as a group of concerned citizens from the Perkasie Mennonite Church, in Perkasie, PA, want to congratulate you on your historic campaign and Presidential victory. Your call for change resonated with the American people, and we hope that as a country we can build true change, both domestically and abroad.

We recognize that your foreign policy challenges will be many, and we urge you to bring your message of change to the people off Latin American and the Caribbean. As people who care deeply about the role of U.S. policy on our sisters and brothers in Latin America, we call on you to forge a new relationship with our southern neighbors - one that supports peace, promotes justice, respects sovereignty, and builds up sustainable economies.

We are especially concerned about the dire situation of many Mexicans and Central Americans. There is a strong and visible contrast between the U.S. and Mexico's northern and southern borders. Many Mexicans and Central Americans live in poverty and are struggling to survive and provide for their families. Many recount the promises made by government authorities before the implementation of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the last few years the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). They bemoan that economic prosperity never arrived for so many people. The trade pacts have impacted the economy of these countries and devastated the livelihood of a great amount of people. Farmers cannot compete with subsidized produce that arrive on their markets. This form of forced immigration is a driving force behind undocumented immigration to the United States. Border assembly factories (maquillas) have provided jobs with wages earned at 1/5 the minimum wage in the U.S. At the same time their prices for food and daily needs are the same as ours. Inadequate housing with payments taken out of that wage, further enslaves them.

Specifically, we urge you to:

* Transform our trade policy so that it prioritizes people and the environment over corporate profit. That would include renegotiating NAFTA and CAFTA and rejecting other trade agreements that follow the failed NAFTA model, including the U.S. Colombia trade agreement. Our government needs to work along with these countries to create a fair trade initiative that will help Mexicans and Central Americans revitalize their economies.
* Promote humane immigration reform that respects the human dignity of our immigrant neighbors, outlawing the dehumanizing treatment of migrants on these borders, and addresses the poverty and trade policies at the root of immigration.
* Forge a new type of diplomacy in the region based on mutual respect. Instead of bullying our neighbors to follow our interests and ideology, engage in true dialogue that respects their sovereignty and listens to the needs of their people.
* Put pressure on the border assembly factories to pay fair wages to their workers and provide more humane working conditions.

We believe that together we can work on reforming the immigration system by addressing the root causes of migration. From a deep conviction of faith we call on you to address these important issues.

Sincerely,

concerned citizen/Christian

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

2008-11-27T09:48:00.000-08:00

Friends,

On Friday, November 21, Prime Minister Stephen Harper approved a free trade pact with Colombia which Parliament now has 21 days to debate.

Colombian Brothers and Sisters, partner organizations and Anabaptist churches have voiced their deep concern around this potential trade deal, which would go into effect in January, 2010. They have shared that the "closed-door" policy on debates and information pertaining to the deal have created a cloud of uncertainty around the possible effects that this pact will have on Colombian economy, the dire human rights situation and the humanitarian crisis that is currently facing the country. Colombians have also voiced their concern that basic processes of prior consultation with marginalized groups in society - such as the indigenous and the afro-colombian community - will not be respected and greater foreign direct investment without proper impact assessments - particularly in the extractive industry - will contribute to an exacerbation of the violence around land rights and the massive displacement of populations from resource rich territories.

Despite Colombian Government affirmations that paramilitary structures have been dismantled and that the country is "safer" thanks to democratic security policies, partners have documented grave human rights abuses in many territories throughout the country where paramilitary continue to operate with more or less impunity.

Church leaders and communities continue to be attacked (324 aggressions in 2007 according to Justapaz documentation project). Union leaders continue to be assasinated (over 40 in 2008). Extrajudicial executions continue to occur by state armed forces (65% increase between 2002-2007). Communities continue to be displaced massively, creating a humanitarian emergency across the country (270,675 people in the first quarter of 2008 - highest rate since 1987).

This is NOT an environment which is conducive to healthy foreign investment, nor is it an environment in which Colombians will beneift from greater Canadian exports competing in local markets in unfair economic coniditions.

Faith Reflection
People of faith all over the world are calling for international trade and investment systems that respect and promote the dignity of the human person as created in the image of God, ensure the well-being and development of people in all nations as children of God, foster gender and racial equity before a God who loves and values each of us equally, and lead to environmental sustainability, for which we are charged as stewards of God's creation.

Call to Action
Please find attached 4 letters - To Primer Minister Stephen Harper, Minister of International Trade Stockwell Day, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon and a sample letter for your MP. Please send these letters by email, fax or snail-mail by December 10.

Visits, e-mails, phone calls, faxes and letters are all good ways to contact your legislators. E-mails, phone calls and faxes are good for time-sensitive issues. Postal mail travels slowly, but letters have long-term impact. Be sure to include your mailing address in all correspondence to confirm your residency in a particular district and state.

We are grateful for copies of your correspondence and any responses you recieve! Please send them to policyanalyst.mcc@gmail.com and stefancherry@mennonitecc.ca.

Find out who your Member of Parliament is:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Menu=HOC

Thank you!

In Christ, Lord of Justice and Peace.

Rebecca

__________________________________
Sample Letter

House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Dear____________________________

As a concerned member of your constituency, I write you to express my concern regarding the potential free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia currently being passed through Parliament

As a follower of Christ and a member of the global as well as Canadian church, I have heard the cry of our brothers and sisters in Colombia. They have shared that the current political context in Colombia is one of the most serious and volatile of the recent past. According to the Consultancy for Human rights and Displacement (CODHES), 270,675 people have been forced to flee from their homes in the first quarter of 2008 which is the highest rate of internal displacement since 1987. This is exacerbating the already extremely serious humanitarian situation that exists in Colombia and has resulted in increased levels of poverty, violence and unemployment. Much of Canadian investment will be in the extractive industry; it is in regions of the country where the extractive industry operates where 75% of human rights violations and displacements occur. There are no guarantees that Canadian companies will not be indirectly affecting the well-being of local communities in such an environment.

A Mennonite church partner organization, Justapaz, has documented recent cases of human rights violations against church leaders in the Tierra Alta region, which is where the peace talks with the paramilitary took place in 2004. It is concerning to us that even in the province where the peace talks were realized, paramilitaries are still operating with little response from the government. It is also concerning to us that paramilitary continue to threaten union leaders, human rights advocates and members of the political opposition parties; according to partner organizations, over 40 union leaders have been assassinated in this year. Contrary to assertions that only delinquent organizations remain, the over 60 newly emergent paramilitary groups are continuing to target political objectives, as in the past. This is not the kind of political environment in which Canadians want to see their government establish a Free Trade Agreement, regardless of its impact on our own economy, either positive or negative.

The Colombian government has not been able to quell the violence that is still very present in Colombia nor has it been able to guarantee that human rights and victims’ rights will be respected.

For these grave concerns, we respectfully call on the Canadian government to:
- NOT implement the free trade agreement with Colombia until significant improvement to human rights has been evidenced;
- call on the Colombian government to sever all ties with paramilitary organizations and structures;
- conduct an independent human rights impact assessment on Canadian foreign investment in the extractive industry;

Thank you for your time and consideration of these requests, and we pray for God’s guidance and grace as you discern how to move forward on this agreement.

In Christ,

Your Name

Some reflections on Obama and Latin America

2008-11-25T12:11:00.001-08:00

Obama and Latin America

The feeling among many partners in Latin America is generally very positive in response to the historical victory of President Elect Barack Obama in last week’s elections.

In his first official effort at stating a position on Latin America last May, Sen. Obama’s speech, “Renewing US leadership in the Americas” framed his positions on policy and relationship towards Latin America referring to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “four freedoms” speech of 1941. This was the vision FDR articulated for a new world order – prior to US engagement in the Second World War – based on 4 basic freedoms: political freedom, religious freedom, freedom from want, and freedom from fear .

That same day, after meeting with the conservative Cuban-American National Foundation, the Obama campaign released “A New Partnership for the Americas” plan, which outlines three major regional policy issues that his administration would tackle if elected to office: (1) political freedom/democracy, (2) freedom from fear/security, and (3) freedom from want/opportunity. As Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs states, “According to Obama, the strengthening of democracy will at its core address the protection of human rights, as well as support the rejection of de facto coups and autocratic practices. The U.S. will foster democratic institutions by strengthening democracy at home – habeas corpus will be restored, Guantanamo Bay will be closed, and torture and indefinite detention will end”.

Analysts note the particular speech and policy Sen. Obama referred to, which preceded FDR’s “Good Neighbour” policy, paved the way for the most harmonious era in Latin America–U.S. relations during the 1930’s. The Good Neighbour Policy is a framework that should be re-visited and there is hope in the region, from academics and think tanks, that this would be the model of relationship and diplomacy that the Obama administration will adopt.

However, there is some concern that the Obama presidency will maintain a “business as usual” style of policy towards the region.

For example, although Obama has made reference to the possibility of lifting restrictions on travel for Cuban-Americans and freeing up the process of Cubans in the US sending remittances to families in Cuba, he has maintained the position of holding the embargo as it stands in order to encourage democratic transition and institutionalization. In reference to Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, Sen. Obama has used strong language, partly in order to separate his campaign from Chávez’s populist government, and has again referred to encouraging democracy through “aggressive diplomacy”.

Obama has stated that the foci for security policy should be transnational gangs, drugs, violence and organized crime. He has proposed strengthening security efforts of the United States in Central America, and approves the extension and continuation of the newly implemented “Mérida Initiative” – a multi million dollar military aid package largely to be Mexico and small sum to Central America. Obama supports regional efforts to combat violence and transnational drug trafficking and organized crime, and has also stated his support of continuing military aid to Colombia to combat narcotrafficking. In addition, Obama stated his concurrence with the Colombian military’s decision to attack FARC insurgents on Ecuadorian soil stating that, “Colombia has a right to strike terrorists who seek safe-haven across its borders.”

Looking towards the future
Nonetheless, Obama’s victory is clearly a positive sign for Latin America, and certainly is a hopeful move from the Bush administration’s strategies of increased military aid to respond to social and political conflict, failed drug eradication programs and interventionist counter-terrorism tactics. These tactics and failed policies have served to create more hostility towards the United States in the region and have not responded to the great social and economic strife that millions of people in Latin America face.

Obama’s conviction that a new US-Latin America relationship must be forged and new US policy towards Latin America must be built, is welcome. Time will test the new President elect’s positions in practice towards the region, but the opportunity is ripe for creative and new relationship building.

Obama’s fresh ideas around economic development, increasing U.S. foreign aid, vocational training, micro-finance, and community development may prove to be effective strategies for poverty reduction, job creation and stimulating local economies. As analyst Birns says, “He will attempt to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, will work to decrease the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and increase global education. He will cancel the debts of Paraguay, Guyana, St. Lucia, Bolivia, Haiti, and Honduras, as well as those of other countries around the world which have been designated as “heavily-indebted poor countries.” Obama will seek to reform the IMF and World Bank, and establish fair trade that promotes labor and environmental standards. In addition, the WTO will be encouraged to enforce mutually advantageous trade agreements. Obama opposed CAFTA and a U.S.-Colombia FTA, and will seek to amend the provisions of NAFTA to increase its benefits for American workers.” These are interesting proposals, and will be challenged from all sides by special-interest lobbies in congress, corporate America and Latin America, and potentially Obama’s own party. Lest it be forgotten that NAFTA was negotiated and implemented by a democrat government, as was Plan Colombia.
Although Obama and running mate Joe Biden, have made such overtures to Latin America as a region, in addition to large promises for re-charged relationships and leadership in the region, they have specifically cited countries already closely allied with the United States, such as Colombia, Mexico and Brazil – committing to continuing military aid packages to the first two, and opening up markets for bio-fuel sales for the latter.

Country by country: What leaders are saying.
In Bolivia, the Evo Morales administration voiced their hope that “Obama will reverse the Bush administration's anticipated suspension of trade preferences that allowed more than $150 million in Bolivian goods into the U.S. without being charged import taxes last year”. Morales affirmed hope that relations would improve with the United States expressing his confidence that relations will be healthier with Obama in the White House.

Obama has stated that he intends to cancel Bolivia’s foreign debt, however it is not clear whether or not Obama will be willing to renegotiate the inclusion of Bolivia in the ATPDEA (Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act).

The Venezuelan government suggested that Obama's win was the culmination of a wave of leftist electoral victories that started in South America nearly three years ago, saying “the historical election of an afro-descendent to the head of the most powerful nation in the world is the symptom of an era of change which has been brewing in South America and could be knocking on the doors of the United States”.

In a televised speech on Sunday, November 9, Chávez announced that he would be open to meeting with Obama in “conditions of equality and respect” and that he hoped with Obama a “new phase of relations”.

Obama has been widely critical of Hugo Chavez’s government and manner of governing, stating that “Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has increased his anti-U.S. rhetoric and tried to counter American influence throughout Latin America. Some commentators fear that Chavez threatens oil markets and regional stability. Barack Obama believes the U.S. must restore its traditional leadership in the region – on democracy, trade and development, energy and immigration. This will tamp down the anti- Americanism that has sprung up in opposition to the Bush administration’s global policies and lack of engagement in Latin America”.

The Mexican government expressed its support of the new president elect, stating that the “government will maintain close relations with Obama’s transitional team to engage in dialogue at all levels of government around issues of migration and the Mérida Initiative”, affirmed Foreign Minister, Patricia Espinosa. Espinosa also stated that Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, seeks a meeting with Obama as soon as possible given that “what unites (the two countries) is much greater and more important than a long border”.
She also stated that “what unites us, above all, is the need to make North America a region in which we are strengthened economically and our two countries must work together to build societies that are not only more prosperous but also more just”.
While Obama has stated his intention of reforming immigration policy in the United States, through creating legal avenues for undocumented immigrants to seek citizenship and legalization, he has indicated his administration plans to continue and expand the military aid package known as the “Mérida Initiative” to Mexico and Central America, in addition to the building of the wall and increased border security. In his “A new Partnership for the Americas”, it is stated,

“Border violence and the trafficking of guns and stolen vehicles along the U.S. - Mexico border remains a critical crime and homeland security challenge for the U.S. To combat this increasing problem, the United States forged a new security cooperation initiative with Mexico and nations in Central America. The Merida Initiative is designed to combat the threats of drug trafficking, transnational crime and terrorism in the Western Hemisphere. Barack Obama believes that a new security initiative is needed with Latin American neighbors – an initiative that extends beyond Central America. This initiative will foster cooperation within the region to combat gangs, trafficking and violent criminal activity. And it will marshal the resources of the United States to support the development of independent and competent police and judicial institutions in the Americas.”

Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua expressed his congratulations to Obama, classifying the presidential elections as historical. Ortega stated that “it is truly a miracle that the United States has an African American president for the first time in its history” and that the new president elect is “the symbol of the immigrant that has arrived to the United States and had children there” after recognizing Obama’s African roots .

Álvaro Colom of Guatemala congratulated the new president elect saying that he, the government and the Guatemalan people, “hoped that the new government would create more humane and respectful conditions for the treatment of the thousands of Guatemalan immigrants that, without a doubt, play and important role in the economy and the progress of the United States” .

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim compared Obama's victory to that of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former leftist union activist known as Brazil's first leader to come from working-class roots.

"In the case of Lula, hope overcame fear," Amorim said. "In the case of Obama, hope overcame prejudice."

Obama has been clear in his intention to relax import quotas on Brazilian ethanol exports to the United States, saying that his administration is interested in creating a bigger market for Brazilian ethanol and will eliminate the 7% limit that is currently in place through the Caribbean Basin Initiative. At the same time, Obama has voiced concern around environmental degradation, particularly in the Amazon region and the risks of deforestation which accompany greater agricultural production. Obama has stated that his administration would support alternative energy and offer incentives to maintain forests and natural reserves.

Colombian President, Álvaro Uribe also congratulated the new leader, stating that Colombia’s hopes for the ratification of a Free Trade Agreement which has been stalled by the democratic Congress earlier in the year would be realized. Obama has been very firm on the free Trade Agreement, stating that consistent and systematic violations of human rights by the military, and the worsening situation with union leader assassination for which the government has not responded adequately, in addition to the para-politics scandal, are factors which his administration will not overlook and the chance of the FTA being signed without significant modifications is increasingly unlikely.

Despite his strong position on the FTA, together with Vice-President elect Joe Biden’s rejection of the deal and Biden’s consistent record of questioning this sort of bilateral trade agreement, Obama has voiced his support for continued military aid to Colombia – although there is hope that an Obama administration will be open to hearing from Colombian human rights organizations and Washington-based NGOs, and heed their call to decrease military aid and increase humanitarian aid. According to Birns, “In 2007, he (Obama) also had sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stating that the U.S. must balance its military aid to Colombia with social and economic reforms. Nevertheless, four recent letters (two to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, one to then-Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, and one to President Uribe himself) regarding human rights abuses in Colombia lacked his endorsement”.

Obama has also stated his understanding and justification of the Colombian military’s attack on Ecuadorian soil during the raid in March of FARC Secretariat members Raúl Reyes’ camp.

“The U.S. and Colombia have many important shared interests. For more than 8 years, the U.S. has provided roughly $700 million a year to fight drug trafficking. We need to continue efforts to support Colombia in a way that also advances our interests and is true to our values. We must support the creation and reinforcement of robust civilian institutions in Colombia that contribute to lasting peace and to ending the decades-long reign of terror perpetrated against the Colombian people by illegal armed groups of every stripe. Given the devastating impact the drug trade has on the U.S. and Columbia (sic), we must continue to do more to work to reduce the drug trade. Barack Obama supports continuing the Andean Counterdrug Program to the U.S. strategy to combat narco-trafficking in Colombia. He will enhance the program and broaden the involvement of Colombians, while reducing its reliance on American contractors…In an Obama administration, we will support Colombia’s right to strike terrorists who seek safe-haven across its borders, to defend itself against FARC and we will address any support for the FARC that comes from members of neighboring governments because this behavior must be exposed to international condemnation and regional isolation”.

Some conclusions
It is safe to say that President Elect Obama’s victory presents a symbolic triumph that is encouraging and hopeful for the world. It is also safe to say that the majority of Latin America’s “vote” was for an Obama-Biden win.

Concern remains, however, that the new “leadership” model is not what Latin America needs. Rather, as Eduardo Galeano says, what the region needs is a new “mutual respect” model that guarantees autonomy and sovereignty in domestic decisions. Partners have expressed interest in a new model of respect that would re-negotiate un-just trade agreements, such as NAFTA and CAFTA, and close the School of the Americas military training facility and Guantanamo Bay detention center unconditionally. A new model would also cut military aid to the region and increase humanitarian aid, seeking to resolve root problems of social and political conflict through democratic institutions, instead of suppressing civil resistance through violence. This new model would re-think unjust immigration policies and instead create policies of respect and dignity for the 12 million Latin America immigrants living in the Unites States currently.

There is also concern that the renewed leadership and relationships would be only extended to countries already allied with US interests, such as Colombia, Brazil and Mexico and exclude, or maintain current relations, with countries whose current governments do not reflect US interests in the region.

While Obama is learning about Latin America, and preparing to countermand executive decisions of the Bush administration and bring significant changes to Washington, the moment for re-thinking US-Latin American relations has arrived, and none too soon.

Analysts have made mention of the significant symbolic importance that the results of the election have had, and there is widespread hope in the region that the significance will go beyond symbolism, and translate into real change for US-Latin America relationships in the region.

Obama’s policy towards the region will be different from the prior 8 years of the Bush administration, this is clear. The definitive official position and policies towards Latin America have yet to be seen. With the policy outline “A New Partnership for the Americas” and the speeches given during the campaign, it is possible that Obama will reflect a Clinton era style of Latin America relations.

Obama is in the position and in the historical moment to drastically change U.S.–Latin America relations for the better, and bring a much needed break from past, failed policies. Hopefully he will respect the call of numerous Latin American leaders, and peoples, to enter into a new era of politics, based on mutual respect, autonomy and sovereignty, fair trade policies and increased equality in decision making and distribution of the wealth of resources in Latin America.

To send Barack Obama your personalized request that US policy towards Latin America changes dramatically, click here for a sample letter from Witness for Peace. [http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5436/t/2467/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=163]

Open letter from Indigenous Association to President Elect Obama

2008-11-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

Click here to read the open letter from the ACIN ( Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca).

Planet facing "ecological crunch"

2008-10-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

The most recent Living Planet Report from the World Wildlife Federation (WWF)states that the world is headed towards a global ecological crunch which is already significantly more damaging than the current financial crisis tha world leaders are working at alleviating in such a coordinated and vigorous manner.

The report, produced together with The Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, states that while reckless spending is causing a world recession, reckless consumption is causing the world's resources to be depleting at an alarming rate. In the last 35, the earth's wildlife population has decreased by one third. The report warns that if human consumption patterns maintain the same demaands on the planet as they do currently, by 2030 we will need 2 planets to maintain ouflifestyles...That is within our lifetime. While the majority of consumption comes from European and North American countries, the report explains that this is a global crisis and that more than 2/3s of the world's population lives in nations that are ecological debtors.

The report also shares the good news: that this crisis is not irreversible, and that while it is a global issue, we all have opportunities to become involved.

For more information from the WWF, click here for ideas on what you can do.

MCC Colombia Prayer Request

2008-10-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

Friends,

The last few weeks have seen close friends and loved ones persecuted and threatened, and we need your prayers.

Colombia is living a particularly tense moment in history currently and although main stream media is telling the story of a Colombia with an improved security situation, a strong economy and in a time of post-conflict, we are seeing the opposite.

On August 29, Mennonite brother Hector Mondragon was falsely accused in the national newspaper of having ties with guerrilla organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), just days before a planned speakers tour the United States around the Free Trade agreement being negotiated between the United States and Colombia. He is now in hiding and in fear for his life, as well as the safety of his family.

On September 17, close personal friend of the MCC Colombia team, Nelson Berrío, along with a list of other union leaders, members of the Permanent Assembly for Civil Society, and members of a political opposition party, the Polo Democrático, received death threats from a newly established paramilitary splinter group. These threats have created deep concern within the MCC team and we denounce these aggressions against our friends and colleagues.

The Colombian government, justice system and military intelligence system play a significant role in either generating threats against civil society leaders or in protecting those who suffer threats. For that reason, the Colombia government must be held responsible for the safety of these leaders.

Although the government has stated that the paramilitary apparatus has been dismantled and that security in the country is improving, these cases, like many other recent cases, highlight a different reality. We are concerned that the government is not responding adequately to the increasing insecurity faced by many peace movement and civil society leaders, and we ask for your prayers and your attention in the next months as action may need to be taken.

Pray for:

- the spirit of wise discernment in deciphering the right steps to take in response;

- light and truth to shine forth amidst confusion and anger;

- the perpetrators of these threats, that they may repent and turn from violent ways;

- strength and solidarity for these friends from the broad church community;

- the safety and well-being of those under threat, as well as that of their families

We remember the words of the psalmist, "O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. O give thanks to the God of gods, for His steadfast love endures forever. O give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His steadfast love endures forever" Psalm 136:1-3.

We believe that the Lord is good and that His steadfast love endures forever, and we trust in His strength. We believe that His love is made manifest through Christian solidarity and the community of believers' unconditional support for each other.

We appreciate your prayers.

Hector Mondragon: Transcript of video conference given on FTA Speakers Tour

2008-10-02T17:05:00.000-07:00

Trade Agreements: Defending the Rights of Corporations at the Cost of the Rights of the People
Héctor Mondragón

September 2008

Greetings to all and my appreciation to those who are present here, to hear my reflections despite my inability to be there with you in person.

I’ve had to turn to the help of technological experts to be able to share with you as had been planned.

You know that I’ve come to speak about the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the United States and Colombia. This is an important theme currently in our countries; it’s a topic of much debate.

You know that the unions of the United States, in particular the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organizations, have said to Mr. Obama, democratic candidate, that a central condition for their support of his candidacy will be that the democratic party not support the FTA with Colombia.

The unions of the United States have this perspective because they know the terrible reality that their companions in Colombia have been living over the last 20 years; that more than 2,600 trade union leaders have been assassinated during this time. And how the labour rights of the Colombian people have been systematically violated; and that effectively, in Colombia, labour rights are no longer applied in the large majority of economic sectors because unions have been weakened through assassinations and violence.

The same reason for my inability to travel for this presentation is related to this terrible reality that Colombia is living; the historic reality of voices of resistance, voices in favour of the rights of the people, being silenced.

We have many years of history of violence in our country, sometimes turning to assassinations and massacres, like in the union movement. Other times it takes the form of judicial and state repression in an attempt to criminalize social and political protest and the defense of rights of the people.

In my life I have been subject to all of these strategies of the powers that govern Colombia. I’ve been subject to torture that still scars my body and mind. I’ve needed to deal with years of death threats, needing to go into hiding time and again, not because of the violation of any laws or state norms, but because of an illegal death apparatus that threatens and kills in Colombia, as has been the case of the union leaders, and that have obliged me, for the most part of my life, to be aware of the moment when they might come and kill me, these assassins, sustained by the governing powers in Colombia.

And in this moment I’m needing to face this situation in which they are trying to judicially and politically attack me and I have stayed in Colombia precisely because I don’t want to flee from this strategy to criminalize my activities; this strategy of defamation and slander that is being brought against me. I have decided to confront it with the truth.

It is for these reasons that I am not physically there with you.

But I am here to tell you what I had to share with you on this tour.

And thank you to Rebecca who is accompanying me and who now is with you – I hope you will receive this message, which is mine but is also that of the people with whom I work – indigenous peoples, peasant organizations, the labour movement – people whom I have been accompanying for many years and who’s weariness – and dreams – I have witnessed. As well as the misfortune of living in a country subject to the terror of violence of a never-ending armed conflict and that is used systematically to strip the people of their rights.

In what framework – not just in Colombia, but internationally – are these free trade agreements being negotiated? I think that in this moment in the world we are at a cross-roads because, on the one hand, we’ve come – since the French Revolution – in the conquest of human rights. As a result of the strength of the struggle and the mobilization of peoples, these rights – since the moment of the declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution – have been winning their place in the world. After the defeat of Nazism after the Second World War, the United Nations approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and after that the declaration of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This created what many refer to as second generation human rights, which are effectively, collective rights. These are an integral part of this generation of rights that humanity has been achieving.

It is within this framework that we find the rights of children, environmental rights, which are not only collective rights of human beings, but also of animals, plant-life – of all living things. The rights of indigenous peoples, which are also part of this generation of social, economic and cultural rights. There have been significant advances in this area.

The Colombian Constitution also recognizes these rights as constitutional. The international agreements and conventions on human rights are guarantees of individual as well as collective rights. The latest was the declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that the General Assembly of the United Nations approved on September 13 of last year, 2007. Unfortunately with opposing votes from the United States, Canada and abstention from Colombia, which was the only country in all of Latin America that did not vote in favour of this declaration, which, although it does not have co-active force, is a guide for the rights of indigenous peoples.

This process of approval for rights, however, is being put into question by another judicial process which is trying to establish a new global constitution, including another set of norms which have as an objective to define new norms which will protect the interests of what we call investors – in other words, the interests of transnational corporations. It is within this framework that the Free Trade Agreements appear.

Initially, the 29 countries named the “most developed” in the world, wanted to arrive to a global investment agreement. But it was precisely the resistance of people from Europe, from Japan, from Canada, and the United States, that impeded the establishment of this global agreement and made the agreement fail, in 1998. These people were aware – you yourselves – of how this agreement would affect fundamental guarantees of collective and individual rights. Of how this type of agreement would favour rights of transnational corporations and investors which would be in contradiction to the construction of individual and collective rights.

However, they have tried to implement this global trade agreement by other means. Sometimes by the World Trade Organization, which also has not been able to consolidate this global framework, although it has taken steps to establish some norms that have created and perpetuated hunger. But fundamentally the Free Trade Agreements have been the path to establishing this normative framework.

What is the message that I am wanting to bring to you? That the Free Trade Agreements are not simply about trade. Trade is one of the themes that are dealt with in the FTAs. Only one.
That’s to say, in the Colombia-U.S. FTA, there are 5 chapters on trade, but 15 others dealing with 13 other themes – and these themes are precisely the rights of transnational corporations.

So, then, what do we say?

The FTA does not only jeopardize the people of Colombia, it jeopardizes both peoples, Colombians and citizens of the United States alike. Your rights are also going to be affected because the rights of the investors are placed above the rights of the citizenry.

I’m not proposing a world without investors. I’m saying that the people must be first; that human beings must be first; that communities must be first –their rights must come before the rights of investment.

What, then are these rights of the investors that are being guaranteed by the FTAs?

First are the extra-territorial provisions, in other words, the rights of the transnational corporation to not respect national domestic legislation, rather be able to refer to private international tribunals that do not judge according to domestic law, rather according to the rules and norms of international trade agreements, in other words, according to their own rules of engagement.

This is very serious.

For example, for the indigenous peoples of Colombia, this means that an entire process of construction of rights for them, that the Colombian constitution recognizes, will not be recognized under the FTA.

In fact, this is true for all Colombians and their constitutional rights, but this will be the same for you.

The second right that the transnational corporations are seeking to guarantee is what they call “judicial stability”. This serves to guarantee the rights of investors to sue governments for changing laws that might impede the transnational corporation from making as much money had the laws not been changed.

This is extremely serious. This means freezing legislation. It is an attack on democracy. Basic democratic rights of all peoples includes the freedom to change governments and modify laws to best serve the interests of the common good, which is part of the right also to elect them. If the people realize they made a mistake in voting in a certain political party they have the right to modify their vote, have a referendum, and vote for a different party. This is the essence of democracy and the FTA by establishing “judicial stability” and indemnity for virtual expropriation is proposing that in the interests of the transnational corporation the laws cannot be modified.

At first glance, this is much more serious for Colombia because many more companies from the United States will invest in Colombia than Colombian companies investing in the United States. But this is also to say that there could be Colombian companies that perfectly enjoy these same conditions, with the only intention of investing in the United States, enjoying the same invulnerability, or impunity, vis-à-vis U.S. domestic law.

The third right that the transnational corporations are seeking is the so-called “intellectual property” rights, according to their perspective. Why do I say “their perspective”?

For example, the indigenous from Mexico began to grow corn 7,000 years ago. In that time, corn was like a thick stick, heavier than other grains. The work of indigenous cultivators over thousands of years, and more recently by peasant farmers, has brought us the corn on the cob we know today, and allows us to enjoy the great diversity of corn that exists. Obviously, the transnational corporations do not recognize the immense intellectual property that exists in all this biodiversity just found in the variations in corn. If the transnational corporation obtain rights to corn, they will patent is, and at this point in Colombia, a law has already been passed – Law 1033 of 2006 – that penalizes peasant farmers for using a patented seed without permissions with 4-8 years in prison – which is coincidentally, the same prison time a paramilitary that confesses to crimes against humanity and massacres of hundreds of people under the Peace and Justice Law.

So, we have a regime of laws which favour the transnational corporation and allow them to gain control of agriculture and other branches of production. The FTA seeks to allow for the patenting of living things – not only the products patented through laboratories and scientific experiment, but the ability to patent living creatures, which is much more serious, and which was prohibited in the Andean Community. Through pressure to approve this FTA, the Andean Community approved – for uncertain reasons, and I say uncertain because it was passed by three votes from Colombia, Peru and the outgoing government of Ecuador (the current administration does not agree – Bolivia was not allowed to vote because supposedly they were behind on their debt payments, which in turn caused Venezuela to pull out of the Andean Community, jeopardizing an internal process of economic integration between neighbours, as Colombia and Venezuela are, who should be strengthening their economic and commercial relations. And it wasn’t because of the political questions being debated currently, rather because of a very concrete issue – that being, the patenting of life.

So it is then these that are the rights of the transnational corporations.

The corporations want everything to be for sale, everything to be commodified. That water be commodified. That the corporation has, by definition, a right to privatize public utilities and services like electricity and more concerning, water; water, which should be a right for all human beings, and as I have said before, of all animals and plants and of all living things.

Today it is at risk of being converted into simply a business.

These are the rights of the transnational corporations, which when put together bring us mechanisms that undermine collective and individual rights.

To see how these mechanisms actually operate through the FTAs, let us remember that Colombia has signed the FTA with the United States twice. The first time in November 2005, and the second time in June, 2007. Why were these not ratified?

Because from the United States, there was significant pressure, from the unions and from human rights organizations, not only regarding the FTA with Colombia, but also regarding other FTA being negotiated at that time with Peru and South Korea. These democratic organizations of the United States demanded at the very least, 3 major changes in the agreements:
First, with respect to limiting intellectual property rights in the pharmaceutical industry, with the objective of establishing minimum protection of the right to health;
Secondly, to limit the rights of the transnational corporations to establish minimum protection for environmental rights and; thirdly, to obligate fulfillment of the International Labour Organization conventions by the signers of the agreement in order to protect labour rights. This was not just in the case of Colombia, but with Peru and South Korea as well.

In Colombia, they asked for something more, realizing that these provisions could not be reality only in the text of the agreement, and that union leaders would no longer be assassinated could be guaranteed by simple adherence to these 3 conditions. So these 3 conditions, or changes, were introduced so that the United States congress would approve the FTA with Peru and South Korea, but would not suffice for the agreement with Colombia because human rights organizations and unions demanded that there be an end to the assassination of union leaders for the agreement to be signed.

The changes themselves are positive. But as we have seen, these changes still fail to guarantee the respect of fundamental individual and collective which are violated by other norms included in the FTA. For a free trade agreement to be just, it would be necessary that these issues such as “judicial stability”, extraterritorial provisions and intellectual property not be included in the agreements that supposedly are trade agreements, that these agreements wouldn’t become agreements concerning the rights of transnational corporations.

And in Colombia, it is necessary that the grace situation that our country is living ends.

Because in Colombia, the systematic assassination of union leaders hasn’t been the only precedent, but rather an intense violence whose protagonists have been illegal armed groups, like the paramilitary and the guerrilla, as well as the state’s own armed forces. This violence has not begun recently, but is a violence that has been present for many years now; a violence which has a primary objective to rob the peasants, afro-Colombians, and indigenous of their land. It is a violence that expresses political intolerance to political opposition as well as towards social protest that began in the 19th century through numerous civil wars, products of this social and political intolerance, and which resulted again and again, in the dispossession of lands and the concentration of land in the hands of a few. If we think about the time between 1946 and 1958, 2 million people were displaced, 200,000 assassinated and displaced lost 350,000 farms in an undeclared war between the conservative and liberal parties. Today, over the last 20 years, over 4 million people have been displaced. This has created an extreme level of concentration of land in which some 15,000 people are owners of 67% of the land in a country with a population of 45 million. And within that group, there is a minority of 1500 people who own more than half of the land in the country.

This has been the result of the violence.

You can investigate every case to see who orchestrated the massacres, who used mechanisms of terror, to see if it was illegal armed groups – the paramilitary or guerrilla – or if it was the military. But we will always find the same result – the dispossession of the peasant, massacres and displacement.

We will also find the elimination of political opposition, the elimination of grassroots leaders, the destruction of social fabric. This is evidence that in our country, the processes that are happening in other countries in Latin America are not occurring here. In Ecuador, in Bolivia, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Mexico, we find a wide-spread resistance movement that is countering the measures of transnational corporations and are acting in defense of collective and individual rights of the people over and against the rights of the investors. It explains, for example, why in the last referendum in Bolivia, President Evo Morales received two thirds of the vote in his favour. These are strong social movements that know what they want to achieve and where they want to go. But in our country, things are not this way. These policies of free trade are imposed through blood and bullets, over the debilitation of social movements through the elimination of their leaders and the massacre of their peoples. This is what we have in Colombia.

This is what has caused the assassination of so many social movement leaders…how many of my friends…? And if I tell you that 5,000 of my friends have been assassinated, I may not be counting them all.

These things cause in us, in the social movements, to be constantly living with threats against our lives from legal and illegal actors.

This is the way in which this policy has been imposed, these free trade agreements, and it is why we turn to you, who have a democratic regime in your country, and why it is no surprise that this agreement has not been approved in the United States while it has been approved in Colombia, because our social and political fabric has been destroyed while you in the United States can still organize to block an agreement that violated the rights of the people. This, however, does not mean to say that in Colombia there isn’t still massive resistance. The indigenous in the department of Cauca achieved, in 2004, a large march in the city of Cali, and later they conducted community consultations in 6 communities on the free trade agreement which produced an encouraging result because 85% of the population voted, and 80% voted against the FTA. The Catholic Church and other organizations have organized similar consultations, resulting in similar outcomes, and there have been mobilizations, like in May 2006, which was harshly repressed through, among other things, helicopters begotten through Plan Colombia.

But the reality is that the existence of this war serves as a pretext for this regime to continue threatening us, repressing us, and silencing the social movements in Colombia.

For these reasons it is urgent for this terror to cease, of all the perpetrators of the violence. Of the political and economic powers behind the violence – what is demonstrating itself through the Para-politics – of the groups that have financed Paramilitaries. Of the Guerrilla that commits terrorist acts, which serve as a pretext for the regime to destroy social protest but also cause immense damage to the people. And of the state armed forces, that collaborate with the paramilitary, that repress unashamedly, and that have also been protagonists in serious violations against the population.

For us, the struggle of civil resistance, that we have been dedicated to all these years, sometimes causes us to almost lose hope. But the Colombian people have something very important, the social movement here in Colombia has something very important, which is faith.

Faith which is the experience of what we can hope for because we have known small victories through our struggles.

And with these small victories, like when the indigenous won the constitutional recognition of their rights in 1991, we see as though a ray of lightening lights the night, we see how the future will be; and we maintain our faith.

And this is why we continue the struggle.

And in this struggle we are ready and willing to give our lives.

We are in a historical moment that might be compared with what the United States went through in 1860. At that time there was an economist – an economist that today the neoliberal economists dismiss – who was very important for you, for the United States, who was Henry Charles Carey. Carey understood that the future of the United States depended on two things: that free trade not be permitted and that slavery be abolished. And he clearly understood the relation between those two things. Carey projected that if the United States allowed for free importation from England, which at that time has much more advanced technology than the United States, the effect of free importation would mean the ruin of the U.S. economy, the ruin of small U.S. business and the impossibility of the U.S. to become a prosperous country.

For these reasons, he maintained that it was necessary to protect production in the United States, so that the U.S. would prosper. For these reasons he’s viewed as a protectionist, and he is frowned upon today, but what is certain is that you triumphed, because this was also tied to another essential element, which was the abolition of slavery.

Carey said that if free markets were allowed, the United States would simply become an exporter of cotton and a net importer of industrial goods. And to become an exporter of cotton, it would have to become a country of slavery, because as you know, cotton came from the large cotton plantations where the slaves were. And the United States would have become what today we call underdeveloped or backwards – a colonial country dominated by England. And Carey had nothing against England, he only wanted his country to prosper.

A person that perhaps who are more familiar with, Abraham Lincoln, named him as his chief economic advisor and you all know that story already. These thesis prevailed, slavery was abolished, the United States protected its industry, and for these reasons, the United States is today a powerful nation.

What would we like at this moment?

We would like, like Carey wanted, that our country doesn’t become a country of slaves; a country that doesn’t continue being underdeveloped; a country where people can live with dignity. This is also our objective when we say we don’t want a free trade agreement.

We don’t want to be another United States of America. This does not interest us. Forget it.

I think the experience of being a super-power is not a good one.

But what is good is to be a prosperous country, and this the U.S. has done well.

So, now we think that if you fight to not sign these free trade agreements, in particular, the FTA with Colombia, you will be supporting our right to dignity, prosperity.

But, as I’ve said before, in doing this you are not just defending the rights of Colombians. You will be defending your own rights.

Mr. Samuel Huntington, whom you all know well, has invented the idea that the internal enemy of the United States is the Latino community and the reason, according to him, is that Latinos, because of their indigenous ancestry, believe in collective rights and for this reason are threatening to the central thesis of the free trade agreements, which is, that collective rights must be eliminated.

I call on you – and this is the central theme of the tour I was going to give and what I want to transmit to you through this medium – defend collective rights. Because they are your rights – environmental rights, rights to health, rights to shelter and housing –don’t let them take these rights, which is already happening to 2 million US citizens, and may happen to 6 million more. These collective rights – your collective rights – depend on our unity in the struggle against the free trade agreements. It is the same struggle, we have the same cause, that of our collective rights as peoples, to defend our rights as humanity, against the rights of investment. This struggle for our collective rights is the same cause. Although, there is one difference: we are giving our lives in this struggle, but be sure that we will continue and we trust that you, and us, together, will triumph.

Thank you.

Hector Mondragón speaks to the Mennonites

2008-10-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

To my brothers and sisters, the Mennonites

Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the LORD delivers him in times of trouble. The LORD will protect him and preserve his life; he will bless him in the land and not surrender him to the desire of his foes. . . But you, O LORD, have mercy on me; raise me up, that I may repay them. I know that you are pleased with me, for my enemy does not triumph over me. In my integrity you uphold me and set me in your presence forever. Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen.
Psalm 41:1-2, 10-14

To be a Mennonite for me has meant to be a mature Christian. I made my commitment to Jesus Christ before I joined the Mennonite Church. When I was in high school, I was able to participate in a Bible group and come to important conclusions about my life. Reading Matthew 25:35-45 was decisive for our commitment. We understood that we could find Christ here and now, in the hunger, the homeless, the displaced, the sick, the prisoner, and the poor, and we went to meet up with him.

Upon reading Luke 18:18-25 we questioned our concept of morality, of integrity. There, a young man that had kept all the commandments of Gods law receives clear answers from Jesus: “no one is good except God alone”; “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

We were middle class youth; we thought we were good people, but Christ warned us, only God is good, the rest are sinners. He told us not to think of ourselves as good just for not robbing, not lying, going to church, or not committing adultery; he asked more of us. He told us to leave everything for the poor and follow him. We decided to believe all this. I thanked my parents for the religious and moral formation and the life example they gave me and that they assisted me in taking steps towards this commitment with Jesus Christ. Since I didn’t have anything to sell, I decided to surrender what I had to the poor; I gave my life for the poor, with the assurance that among the poor and in each poor person was Christ. Everything I did to one of these brothers, I did to Christ himself. We learned to love and even give our lives for them (1 John 3:16, John 15:13). I have committed many errors and have many faults, but I have always been faithful to this commitment.

It is life lived through this commitment that has sustained and cultivated faith in me, despite all of my failures. Faith is not only a belief; faith that is alive is a lifestyle, resulting only from the experience of commitment to God. It is a relationship with God; it is “the foundation of things hoped for and the demonstration of what is not seen” like the Greek manuscripts of Hebrews 11:1 really say. This foundation is not established, then, by mere certainty or conviction, but means a complete test, a sufficient demonstration that results from following the Lord. It is He, then, that is given merit for allowing this experience, and not the person who receives the gift of believing in him.

I have already strange story many times how it was Jesuit priests who helped me realize that drawing close to the Mennonites would revive and mature my faith. I was faced with the sad reality of the violence in Colombia and the political debates in which I participated since 1990 and I became convinced that it is necessary to sow the fruit of justice through peace (James 3:18). One time, when I was working at CINEP (Center for Investigation and Popular Education), a priest, who is now a Jesuit provincial head, asked me to comment on a letter he had sent to defend his position of nonviolent struggle for popular rights. In the conversation, he mentioned to me that the Mennonites were coherent with the position of peace in the gospel. This led me to search out who they were and where I could find them. I knew about the Anabaptists historically, but I did not know about the Mennonites; I began to study the theme, and every day that went by I wanted to know more.

Finally, as a result of a forum about conscientious objection, an indigenous senator, with whom I had began to work in 1992, asked me to accompany him to the Teusaquillo Mennonite Church. The indigenous are very unique in Colombia in that they are not obligated to serve in the military, and decidedly support conscientious objection for the rest of Colombians. At the forum, I met the pastors Noé Gonzalía and Peter Stuckey, who upon my request to know more about the church, invited me to attend the following Sunday. I continued to attend this church without fail until October of 1998 when I had to leave Colombia because of threats to my 2 children (now I have a third son). Years earlier, I had decided to be baptized, and I was baptized on July 20th by Noé Gonzalía. In addition to being a member of the Teusaquillo church, for four months I attended the Mennonite church in Kennebeck in Maine in the United States, where I was living for the second semester of 2000. Currently, I am part of the Mennonite community in North Bogotá, established under the umbrella of the Teusaquillo church.

All this time in the church has helped to mature my faith, and I am very thankful not only to those who are part of the congregations to which I have belonged, but also to all Mennonites, beginning with those who, in the 16th century continued the church of peace that Jesus founded, in which and for which the Christian martyrs of the first three centuries, Prisciliano, the Waldensians of the 7th to the 15th century, and so many more Christians all died.

Upon reading “The Martyrs Mirror” I strengthened my commitment to and witness for the poor and I solidified my decision for nonviolence, unconformity with the world’s system of selfishness (Romans 12:2), following Jesus Christ on the path of love for the enemies (Matthew 5:44), accepting the way of not fighting evil with evil nor facing violence with violence but overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:21), and fighting for peace through new social relations based on love and not on money.

Reading “The Martyrs Mirror,” which Peter Stucky lent me to read during a recuperation period after a surgery was illuminating. It prepared me for the new persecutions that were coming and allowed me to deeply reflect about those of the past, about my torture in 1977, the death threats that I received and continued to receive (dozens between 1988 and 2004). So, without wavering, I renounced defending my life at the cost of others, and ever since then I have lived only because God wants me to and has allowed me to protect myself without harming anyone.

Jesus does not promise that we will not be persecuted. On the contrary, he repeatedly announces that they will persecute us. He tells us that we will be blessed when they persecute us and say bad things against us because of his name (Matthew 5:11). By chance, is the cause of Christ not the cause of the poor? Well, clearly it is, for everything that we do for the poor, for those brothers, we do for Him. We cannot forget that; the cause of Christ is the cause of the poor, and for that reason they persecute us and say bad things against us. In the same way they persecuted the prophets (Matthew 5:12), about whom we can read how much they fought for the poor (for example, Isaiah 1:11, 5:8, 58:7, 61:1; Jeremiah 5:28, 34:8-22; Ezekiel 16:48-49; Amos 4:1, 5:12, 8:4-6; Micah 2:1, 3:3).

The Scripture says it all. Everyone who wants to follow Christ will suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12). A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household! (Matthew 10:24-25). I cannot be surprised now that they slander me out loud after having looked for a way to kill me for 20 years. It hurts me to know that my family has suffered and still suffers. If it was announced to Mary, the mother of Jesus, that a sword would pierce her soul (Luke 2:35), then those who follow Jesus also suffer great pain, the pain of those who love, the pain of their loved ones.

“A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all” (Psalm 34:19). God does not promise that we will be free from affliction, but that He will deliver us from them. I can say, like Paul, “the persecutions I endured, yet the Lord rescued me from all of them” (2 Timothy 3:11), until God wants me to be with Him forever. Jesus Christ triumphed over this same death with resurrection; he delivered us from this same death (1 Corinthians 15:28). Those that want to kill our body will not be able to take our life (Matthew 10:28); those that now want to kill the word, will not be able to keep it from living in a society of solidarity, in every hungry person that eats, in every displaced person that receives his land, in every indigenous town and afro community that lives the alternative of love, in every worker that has justice in his/her job and for his/her kids, in everyone that will love, putting an end to violence.

Nevertheless, I live in anguish, like any persecuted human being. The Lord himself in his anguish had sweat like drops of blood (Luke 22:44). “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” All of the terrible mental burden that I carry because of the torture I suffered has awoken again, and I have traveled to confront the anxiety and to confront the slanderers.

I have been able to begin this new period of witness writing about “My choice for civil resistance,” and this terrible situation has been an opportunity to give testimony about nonviolence, against violence, for justice for the poor. Because we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28) even the worst things. The persecution brings us to the testimony, and this testimony means that the Word reaches more hearts and changes lives.

Please pray. Pray for me, for Colombia, for those who govern us that they will cease the persecution and we will have peace and justice, because God wants all humans to be saved (1 Timothy 2:2-4). “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. . . The prayer of a righteous man is powerful” (James 5:13,16). The fruit will be harvested (James 5:7). Lord Jesus Christ, we wait for your return, with love, patience, and humility.

September 15, 2008

Mennonite Churches and MCC support Hector Mondragon

2008-10-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

SUPPORT LETTER FROM THE COLOMBIAN MENNONITE CHURCH FOR HECTOR MONDRAGON

The Colombian Mennonite Church has more than 60 years of a nonviolent testimony of service to this country in search of peace and well-being for Colombia. At the global level, for nearly 500 years the Mennonite Church has been teaching and practicing nonviolence and opposition to every type war, recruitment from armed groups, and violence of every kind.

The brief history above shows that this is the teaching that is given to the members and to anyone who is willing to listen, and this is the commitment that our members assume.

Héctor H. Mondragón has been a member of our church since 1994, that is, 14 years. We have known him as a Christian not only committed to the cause of Jesus Christ, but also to Jesus’ teaching and example of nonviolent love. As a person dedicated full time, both as an investigator and advisor, to the cause of the poor, in particular the indigenous and peasants of our country, brother Mondragón has worked in support of the church in favor of justice for these groups of people, particularly in relation to possession of land. But, always from the perspective of nonviolence. His positions towards the government as well as toward the insurgent groups have been clear.

Because of this, we are very concerned about the attempt to link him, through the Raul Reyes’ computer, to alias Sara and to the FARC through a national newspaper article. The timing of this development seems to us clumsily “coincidental”, just before a planned speaking tour in the United States in order to explain the implications of and concerns about the free trade agreement with that country for the great majority of Colombians. Brother Mondragón could not travel on his tour. On the other hand, Colombians interested in seeing the FTA approved were able to make their visit to the United States this month. This fact makes us feel there is an evident lack of fair play in the democratic debate surrounding this issue.

We want to signal that the Colombian Mennonite Church rejects any attempt to link one of our members – and in this particular case Héctor H. Mondragón – to any armed group or any violent practice or to slander his/her name, as we all know, also is extremely dangerous for the life and security of any person in this context.

We hope with this to emphasize our position of support for brother Mondragón for the peace of anyone or any group who might have been confused with such news. At the same time, we ask for support both at the nation and international level to defend the good name and to ensure his security.

We do not doubt that the truth will ultimately triumph and the cause of God’s justice for the poor of the earth as well. Also, we believe that God will vindicate the righteous, and we invoke the words of Jesus: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled and Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God, and Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

We also call on those who represent a different position than us, those who continue to use weapons to achieve their ends, including the governing class of our country to reflection, repentance and change, with our sights on opening paths to peace and well-being for Colombia, because we believe in the possibility of conversion and new courses.

Thank you for your solidarity and support in this difficult time.

Cordially,

Alix Lozano, President
Christian Mennonite Church of Colombian

Arli Klassen, Executive Director
Mennonite Central Committee

Mennonite Church member in danger

2008-10-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) had intended to facilitate a speaker's tour with Colombian Mennonite economist Hector Mondragón. This tour, planned for Sept.3, 2008 through Sept. 15, 2008, was focused on the Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Colombia.

It was decided on Saturday, Aug. 28, that Hector would not come on the tour.

On Friday, Aug. 27, an article about the detention of Liliany Patricia Obando a purported member of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – the largest guerrilla group) appeared in a Colombian national newspaper. This article, refers to a letter addressed to Hector Mondragón written by Raul Reyes, slain member of the FARC Secretariat, recommending Liliany Patricia Obando as a collaborator.

Mondragón never received this letter. He says he has never had contact with Raul Reyes. The Attorney General's office has not notified Mondragón of any judicial process against him, so this public statement becomes slander and violates basic legal process.

In the Colombian political context, it is clear that the newspaper reference was not accidental; it is a form of implicit accusation.

The newspaper article has generated fear among Mondragón’s family members and a deep sense of anxiety for Mondragón as he mentally relives past experiences of imprisonment, torture and death threats.

The church community together with Mondragón and his family decided that it would be dangerous and unwise for Mondragón to travel to the United States without clarifying his judicial status and clearing his name of the implicit accusation of relating to the FARC.

Although the motives behind publishing the reference to Mondragón in the newspaper article are still unclear, the immediate results are clear. The fact that Mondragón can not travel blocks U.S. audiences from hearing him in person with regard to questions concerning the Free Trade Agreement.

The Colombian Mennonite Church and Mennonite Central Committee ask for prayers for the Mondragón family concerning protection, wisdom and clear discernment in this complex and uncertain situation.

Witness For Peace: More Money for Merida Initiative

2008-08-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

Congress Plans to Double Plan Mexico Funding!

Congress took a step in the wrong direction by approving the Merida Initiative. The counternarcotics aid package, signed into law on June 30, includes $400 million for Mexico in 2008 and 2009, in addition to $65 million for Central America in 2008. While representing a significant reduction from Bush’s original $1.4 billion proposal, this approved version of the Initiative still pushes forward a dangerous, bullheaded approach to the US’s drug problem. So long as demand for drugs remains high in the U.S. and poverty remains high in Mexico, the drug trade will persist. While wholly ignoring these driving forces, the Initiative mimics the failed model of Plan Colombia: equip a foreign military to stamp out supply. Our partners in Mexico have named this increased militarization as a threat to human rights in Mexico, where security forces have brutally cracked down on civil society groups in Oaxaca and elsewhere. (Click here for more background on the Merida Initiative.)

Just after committing us to a senseless drug war in Mexico and Central America, some in Congress now appear poised to entrench us in it. This week the Senate appropriations committee revealed that the proposed 2009 foreign operations bill would throw $400 million more at Merida ($300m for Mexico; $100m for Central America). The House version would destine an even greater sum: $470 million. If passed as is, this bill would double Merida’s size, its waste of taxpayer dollars, and its threat to human rights. This headlong leap in the wrong direction can be prevented—Merida funding must be removed from the foreign operations bill.

Please call your representatives now to express your disappointment about the approval of Merida Initiative funding in late June. Ask them to speak and act against the inclusion of further Merida funding in the 2009 foreign operations appropriations bill. (Click here and scroll down for talking points.) To reach your representatives’ offices, call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Ask to be connected to your House or Senate member (give your state and zip code if you’re not sure who it is).

While Witness for Peace denounces the lamentable approval of Merida funding, we applaud you for your calls to Congress, letters to the editor, and other persistent actions to oppose this ill-fated Initiative. Through your efforts, we have begun to spread awareness and amass a growing movement against the Initiative. This momentum will prove critical in blocking the funding requests pending for 2009. In the meantime, we will work with our partners in Mexico and Central America to track the spending of the already-approved $465 million and its impact on civil society.

What kind of peace for Colombia?

2008-08-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

Rebecca Bartel and Bonnie Klassen
August 15, 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombia’s political climate has dramatically changed over the last months with the deaths of three-high profile members of the FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia); the military rescue of 15 political prisoners from FARC custody, including three U.S. contractors and Ingrid Betancourt, ex-presidential candidate; the ongoing paramilitary/politician scandal; and the increasing re-arming of paramilitary groups.

The rescue of Betancourt and the U.S. citizens is an indisputable triumph for the Colombian government and military in their fight against the FARC. The military strategy and show of might have sparked hope in some sectors of the Colombian population and in other countries that a road to peace is being forged.

At this critical juncture, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), its partners in Colombia and Colombian Anabaptist churches are asking, "What kind of peace do we want for Colombia?" These groups have united in a call to peace and reconciliation that is extended to all actors in the armed conflict, illegal and legal groups alike.

According to MCC partners and Anabaptist church leaders, the government and military path to "peace" is moving toward chaos and is contrary to the church's goal of reconciliation.

As Mennonite Brethren leader Diego Martinez stated, "These actions, based in deception and lies, will never lead us to peace. We are calling on all of the armed groups to build peace through nonviolence and truth."

The dismantling of the central commands of armed groups such as paramilitaries and guerilla groups including Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) without comprehensive processes of truth, justice and reparation will not put an end to the illegal armed groups in Colombia. Instead, it creates a chaotic, dangerous dynamic because many small, independent but well-armed groups begin organizing, creating more insecurity for regular citizens.

As similar experiences in other countries demonstrate, the cessation of hostilities between warring factions in civil conflict without processes of truth, justice and reparation creates an atmosphere of arbitrary violence and heightened insecurity. Societies become fractured.

Prior to the recent action, President Alvaro Uribe's reputation had suffered significant blows due to three factors: currently, over 60 members of Congress are under investigation for connections to paramilitary networks, there have been serious setbacks in the negotiation of a Free Trade Agreement with the United States because of human rights concerns, and the demobilization and disarmament process of the paramilitaries has failed.

Now, President Uribe is using his strengthened popularity to modify the constitution to allow for a third presidential term, making a mockery of the democratic constitutional norms that were written in the last round of peace agreements with insurgent groups in Colombia.

Another term would also guarantee four more years of Uribe's Democratic Security Policy, which has been responsible for increased levels of internal displacement, increased numbers of extrajudicial executions and failure to curb paramilitary activity.

Ricardo Esquivia, director of MCC partner Sembrando Paz, states, "This government is dedicated to war and is overriding democratic process by eliminating spaces for dialogue and discussion. This will only create more fractions within the armed groups causing more violence and terror… there may be more security on the highways, but it has been at the cost of greater insecurity on the streets in the cities on the coast – the massacres, assassinations, poverty and hunger persist."

The Anabaptist churches in Colombia affirm that lasting peace means addressing the root causes that perpetuate violence: deep levels of poverty, unequal land distribution, the large gap between rich and poor and the use of violent repression instead of dialogue to resolve social conflict.

Colombian civil society and particularly the millions of victims of the 50-year armed conflict need the support of the international community to assure they have a voice in a peace that offers truth, justice and reparation. The invitation to peace from the Anabaptist community extends to all factions in the conflict, the guerilla groups as well as the paramilitary and government forces; an incomplete process might increase violence against the civilian population.

In Colombia, MCC is supporting a major project with local partners and churches to enable churches to work with victims to rebuild their lives, to create spaces for dialogue between participants in the conflict and to create paths toward truth, justice and political advocacy for policy change. These paths lead toward reconciliation within society, rather than war.

To learn more visit mcc.org/Colombia.

To hear a Colombian speaker in your area in September, contact Theo Sitther at the MCC Washington Office for dates and venues: 202-544-6564, ext. 118.

Food "Crisis "in Latin America

2008-06-04T10:01:00.001-07:00

Food crisis in Latin America

Wheat, rice and other coarse grain production has risen over the last year and is expected to continue to rise through to 2009.[1] Despite the rise in production, prices have soared, increasing in 2006/2007 by 37% and 2007/2008 by 56%.[2] Overall, food commodities on the international market have risen 83% over the last 3 years and consumption is increasing alongside. According to the Canadian Food Grains Bank, over the last decade, almost every year the amount of cereals consumed globally have exceeded production.[3]

The Right to Food

The dramatic rise in food prices has precipitated political unrest in various countries throughout the world, and will continue to affect the political and social stability of countries where the basic right to food is being violated. As the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, states, “the right to adequate food is threatened to be violated on an unprecedented scale by the combination of a series of actions, by uncoordinated actors. None of these actors seeks to violate the right to adequate food. But none should be allowed to ignore the impact of its conduct on the right to food”.[4]

The Special Rapporteur makes clear that the crisis facing the world, particularly the world’s poorest countries, is not only a matter of humanitarian urgency, but a matter of fundamental human rights observation by all member states of the United Nations who have committed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the Right to food as is stated under Article 25, and their obligation under Chapter 55 of the UN Charter to ensure and promote the universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Currently, it is estimated that there are 854 million people in a state of food insecurity in the world, the majority in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. OF these 854 million, 54 million live in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is an avoidable situation, and therefore an unacceptable situation. As noted by Brasilian President Lula da Silva, the world food crisis ‘is, above all, a crisis of opportunities and distribution’.[5] According to economist Amartya K. Sen, famines are not only caused by environmental dynamics, conflict or market speculation, but by a “sudden shift in the entitlement set of certain segments of the population, who become vulnerable because they cannot work, or because the value of the services or goods they offer on the market has fallen”.[6]

The current “crisis”

Crisis is always an opportunity for change, and this particular crisis is presenting the world with the opportunity to re-think agricultural and trade practice. The two cannot be separated. The current crisis is being called a “silent tsunami” by the World Food Program (WFP) and threatens to plunge over 100 million people in abject poverty in every continent.[7] According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), if drastic measures aren’t taken immediately, some 10 million people are estimated to fall into poverty in the region.[8]

A number of food exporting countries – like Brasil, Argentina, China, India and the US – have put holds or dramatically inflated export taxes on their exports to keep reserve stocks full for their own populations. The result has pushed food prices up even more and the 70% of developing countries that rely on food imports for the majority of local consumption are feeling the strain.

Although immediate responses to the emergency are necessary, long term structural adjustment must also be implemented. Taking into account the structural causes of the crisis which go beyond the immediate causes of poor crop production and natural disasters of the last few years, short and long-term solutions need to be considered from a bottom-up analysis with strong national ownership. Differing responses for differing countries is also necessary, as it was the “one size fits all” structural adjustment policies of the 80s and 90s, deregulating agricultural production, the dismantling of agricultural support and social protection that are now coming to haunt the poor and rich alike, as stated by Salil Shetty, Director of the Millenium Development Goals Campaign.[9]

Causes

The United Nations has identified six major causal factors for the current food crisis. In no particular order:

The first being the growing population boom in emerging economies like China and India. The increase in the urban-middle class in these countries has created higher demand for meat and proteins. The demand for a more protein-rich diet is a right no one questions, in fact in terms of development progress, this should be taken as a positive sign. However, for each calorie of beef to be produced, 9 calories of plants are needed; and 4.5 calories of plants are needed to produce one calorie of milk or egg.[10] This increase in demand has obviously affected supply which is finding it difficult to follow. This in part is due to the lack of sufficient agricultural investment – the second causal factor – parallel to the trend of dismantling agricultural subsidies and marketing boards begun in the 1980s and continued to be pushed today, under the tutelage of organizations like the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. While in the 1970s most countries in the world would have sufficient reserve stocks and agricultural capacity to buffer the current market shocks, structural adjustment programs have effectively castrated local agricultural sectors to absorb the impacts of international food demands.

The third factor is that of climate change. Climate change will affect rains, increase the frequency of droughts and average temperature, and threaten the availability of fresh water for agricultural production. In Sub-Saharan Africa, arid and semi-arid areas are projected to increase by 60-90 million hectares, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that in Southern Africa yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent between 2000 and 2020.[11] In Latin America, out of the ordinary heavy rainfall caused flooding in Bolivia, Haiti, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador, causing a significant loss in food production in 2007and creating an acute food security emergency in these countries.[12]

The fourth factor is the rise in energy costs. With petroleum prices being at record highs – US $120 a barrel in May 2008 – the costs of food production have increased, mostly because of the effect on the price of inputs like fertilizers and pesticides as well as the increased costs of transporting inputs and outputs. This is a problem which also reflects the structural dilemma of food distribution and the reliance that most developing countries have on food imports. Instability and conflict in major oil producing nations like Iraq, Iran, the Gulf of Mexico and Nigeria have demonstrated that although the demand for petroleum remains constant, the supply is vulnerable to political and social instability, again reflecting structural realities which require further analysis and a critical approach. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), this factor has been a major factor in the massive move of US and European farmers to agro-fuel production.[13]

This brings us to the fifth major causal factor, which is the agro-fuel boom. In the United States, as much as one third of all maize (corn) production now goes to agro-fuels, up from 5% a decade ago, and subsidies for agro-fuel production vary between US$ 11 billion to US$ 13 billion every year.[14] These subsidies are the same that have distorted the agricultural market over the last few decades and compromised the competitive advantage of farmers in developing countries. Agro-fuel production also jeopardizes access to land, as food production and fuel production compete for arable land in all countries; this leads to deforestation (Haiti, Brasil, Guatemala), violent conflict (Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti), and ethical dilemmas as the use of land and food products are used to fill gas tanks in foreign countries while local populations starve. According to the IFPRI, increased demand for agro-fuels has contributed to 30% of the rise in cereal prices.[15] The focus on maize and sugar cane for agro-fuel production and the consequent increase in costs, particularly for maize, have forced populations that have historically relied on maize for their diets to switch to production of other crops, such as rice and wheat (among others), consequently increasing demand and prices. In addition, the increasing demand from US, Canadian and European markets for agro-fuels are moving farmers in developing countries to focus productive energies on agro-fuel production of products such as oil-palm, red beets and sugar cane. Brasil already has devoted arable land the size of Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and Great Britain combined for agro-fuel production.[16] In addition to increasing food costs, the benefits of agro-fuels are now being thoroughly questioned. As the Special Rapporteur states:

“there is now mounting evidence that too many hopes have been placed in agrofuels. First, it is clear that agrofuels cannot constitute an alternative to reliance on fossil fuels: the U.S. National Academies of Sciences found that even if all the corn and soybeans produced in the U.S in 2005 were used for bioethanol production, this would only replace 12% of the country’s gasoline demand and 6% of its diesel demand.27 Second, in their current mode of production, the impact of agrofuels on the environment has been shown to be clearly negative, both because of increased deforestation and because of the nitrous gas emissions released in their production. Thus, a recent issue of Science published conclusions according to which ‘converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a ‘biofuel carbon debt’ by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels’.28 Another study by Nobel price-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, a specialist on the ozone layer, suggests that growing and burning biofuel crops may in fact raise, rather than lower, greenhouse gas emissions, although the impacts of rapeseed biodiesel, primarily used in Europe, and of corn bioethanol, dominant in the U.S., are significantly worse in this regard than those of cane sugar bioethanol, as mainly produced in Brazil.29 Third, we understand that we have grossly underestimated the quantity of energy required to produce agrofuel, and the quantity of water involved in the processing of crops for that purpose, in a world in which water scarcity is rightly seen as a pressing issue. Finally and most importantly, we have come to realize that diverting crops from the production of food and feed to the production of fuel leads to a pressure upwards on the international markets for agricultural products, which endangers food security”.[17]

The last factor is speculative market investment. Large investors have been focusing their moneys in energy markets other than oil, given the volatility of the market, beginning in 2002. Investment in corn, soybeans, wheat, cattle and hogs in 2007 was at US $47 billion, up from US $ 10 billion in 2006, again reflecting increasing demands in the global market for higher protein diets in emerging countries and agro-fuels.[18] This has obviously affected the prices of these commodities on various trade boards such as the Chicago Board of Trade.[19]

Effects in Latin America and the Caribbean

From the 2007 “tortilla wars” in Mexico up until recent violent protests in Port-au-Prince, Latin America and the Caribbean are seeing the consequences of rising prices food prices.

It is clear that the crisis is hitting the most basic of staple food products, such as rice, corn, beans and wheat. A coalition of farming organizations in Mexico recently sent a comunicado to President Calderón, warning that if prices aren’t stabilized, there could be a return to the “tortilla wars” of 2007.

In Haiti, Prime Minister Jaques Edouard Alexis was forced to step down after protests of the expensive cost of living and increasing costs of food, which are exacerbating the already dire situation of the country’s population. The protests left 6 people dead and dozens injured.

People also took to the streets in Argentina, protesting the cost of tomatoes which had risen above the cost of meat. Venezuelans are being forced to wait in queues to purchase basic food stuffs, and in Guyana an 80 per cent rise in the price of rice and a 50 per cent increase in the cost of chicken triggered protests and a strike by sugarcane workers. The government promised to issue seeds and urged people to cultivate idle land.

A regional Food Summit, convened by Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, brought together 16 Latin American and Caribbean leaders the first week of May to discuss the crisis facing the continents. Delegations from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, Cuba, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Bolivia, and Venezuela participated in the summit which concluded with a proposal from the Venezuelan delegation. President Hugo Chavez has offered to establish a US$ 100 million agricultural fund to finance alternative small-scale agriculture projects, such as a regional grain bank and other programs. The summit participants – except El Salvador and Costa Rica – signed a collective statement to the United Nations General Assembly, declaring a state of emergency and urging the UN to tackle the food crisis when it convenes in September.

Possible Responses

The crisis is not going to disappear any time soon and most likely will become worse in the coming months.

Some ideas for action:

- Encourage policy changes: the recent change in Canadian policy which allows Canadian food aid to be bought locally will improve the local situation; changing trade policies which favour large-scale agricultural production through subsidies and dumping laws to favouring small scale local production. US policy however requires all food aid given must be US agricultural products. However there has been growing talk in the NGO community to ease this restriction, as well as from President Bush, who believes 25% of food aid should be allowed to be purchased locally.

- Pressure governments to match their dollar figure in immediate food aid to that of long-term development assistance (roads, irrigation, subsidized seeds, access to water). These should be country specific project intended to improve local agriculture in states which import food.

- Become aware of our eating habits in Canada and the US that we bring to Latin America. Much of the grain production that could be utilized to feed starving populations around the globe are used to feed livestock which satiates our exaggerated need for meat, poultry and pork products which mass-produced, causing consequent environmental degradation as well as affecting world food prices.

- Buy local, direct from the farmer if possible. Or join a Local Bulk Buying Club, which prepares weekly pick-ups for their members. If no such organization exists, talk to neighbours and other community leaders to see if there is interest in creating one.

- Visit MCC programs in various countries which work in food security, through learning tours or other kinds of visits. First hand experience will greatly improve knowledge and subsequent action

[1] FAO, Crop Prospects and Food Situation, No. 2, April 2008

[2] FAO, Crop Prospects and Food Situation, No. 1, February 2008

[3] Canadian Food Grains Bank, “Backgrounder: Why are Food Prices Going Up?” http://www.foodgrainsbank.ca/uploads/Why%20are%20food%20prices%20going%20up%20-%20backgrounder.pdf

[4] Analysis of the World Food Crisis, Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, New York and Geneva, May 2, 2008.

[5] Speech from President Lula da Silva, conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held in Brasilia, 16 April 2008.

[6] A. K. Sen, Poverty and Famines, (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,) 1981.

[7] World Food Program, “WFP says high food prices a silent tsunami, affecting every continent”, April 22, 2008

[8]Carin Zissis, “The Food Crisis and Latin America”, Council of the Americas, April 24, 2008.

[9]Salil Shetty, “Analysis: World Food Crisis and MDGs”, April 28, 2008

[10]Analysis of the World Food Crisis, Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, New York and Geneva, May 2, 2008.

[11] Ibid.

[12] FAO, Crop Prospects and Food Situation, No. 2, April 2008

[13] Joachim Von Braun et al, “High Food Prices: The What, Who and How of Proposed Policy Actions”, International Food Policy Research Institute, May 2008.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Eric Holt-Gimenetz, “The Great Biofuels Hoax”, Global Policy Forum, June 25, 2007.

[17] Analysis of the World Food Crisis, Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, New York and Geneva, May 2, 2008

[18] David Kesmodel, Laurent Etter and Aaron O.Patrick, ‘Grain Companies’ Profits Soar As Global Food Crisis Mounts’, The Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2008,

[19] Analysis of the World Food Crisis, Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, New York and Geneva, May 2, 2008

Extraditions cause concern for victim's rights

2008-05-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

The extradition of 14 ex-paramilitary leaders in early morning of May 13 to the US for trial has caused victims’ rights organizations, human rights organizations and legal associations to question the interests of the Colombian government in the unprecedented move.

President Alvaro Uribe Velez ordered the extradition of the 14 chiefs under the pretext of continued illegal activities being carried out by the chiefs from their jail cells as they go through the legal process of the Justice and Peace law implemented to facilitate the demobilization process of some 30,000 paramilitary combatants in 2006.

The concerns that are being voiced by various sectors of civil society, both in Colombia and the United States, are varied. The first concern is that under US jurisdiction, the paramilitary leaders will only be tried for charges of drug-trafficking to the US. Crimes against humanity, homicide, extortion, and kidnapping will not be on the judicial agenda, as these crimes have not affected the US public directly therefore US legal measures cannot reach these crimes.

Secondly, given the increasingly revealing testimonies that the paramilitary chiefs were pronouncing regarding political ties to paramiltarism – particularly as they related to the President and his family – some analysts are naming the extradition a way to silence the leaders in their confessions of collusion with public servants and political figures. Although some commitment have been made for the Peace and Justice process to be continued in the US by Colombian lawyers via satellite and travel, there is little guarantee that the leaders will continue confessing as candidly as they had been, given that now their trial will be focused solely on drug trafficking.

Thirdly, the extradition is in violation of international norms for processes of transitional justice, as victims now have lost their right to confront the paramilitary leaders who are guilty of orchestrating the massacres and homicides that have disappeared their loved ones. There is also absolutely no guarantee of reparation for the victims and their families, as the legal process will focus on crimes of drug trafficking and there is no longer any legally binding framework for reparations. Although organizations like the Collective of Lawyers José Alvear Restrepo have pronounced their intention to work together with lawyers and legal associations in the US sympathetic to the victims’ cause, there is little guarantee that goods and properties taken from victims by paramilitary networks will be returned.

The last concern has to do with the norms of US legal process in general. The system in which US common law procedure has been developed permits the payment of crimes through fines and indemnities for damages caused. Effectively, the paramilitary leaders will be able to pay down their jail terms, with illicit moneys, that will stay in US coffers instead of repairing damages caused to the victims who rightfully should be compensated for their suffering.

Some political analysts see this move as fishing for a vote of confidence from the US democrat congress in hopes that the current Colombian administration’s shamed reputation for human rights violations will be salvaged and talks of the free trade agreement will be re-opened.

As the Peace and Justice Process has revealed intimate relationship between paramilitary structures and political leadership, the extradition raises concern that the full breadth of the para-state scandal will not be revealed and victims of crimes of the state and paramilitarism will be left without recourse for reparation and recuperation.

Currently over 50 members of congress are under investigation for collusion with paramilitaries. Magistrates investigating said members of congress are denouncing threats to their lives for their work in revealing the truth, by the governmental security department, DAS.

As the current administration continues to push for the free trade agreements and possibly a third re-election, the political climate makes the need for critical analysis and international collaboration for justice, peace and truth all the more urgent.

Canadian Mining in Colombia

2008-05-08T06:10:00.001-07:00

Watch this CBC special report on a Canadian mining company exploring gold deposits in Colombia and the connection mining has with displacement in this country.

watch here

Currently Colombia is home to the world’s second largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs), after Sudan. The United Nations has named Colombia the “worst humanitarian catastrophe in the Western Hemisphere” as over 3 million people have been made homeless refugees in their own country.

According to an MCC partner report on human rights violations of church leaders and members, “displaced persons testify that their lives become similar to that of a fugitive sought by the authorities. They are forced to flee constantly, moving from one place to another to avoid being found by those looking to kill them, and having members of the armed group that displaced them show up in the place they were displaced to. They speak of lists of names of persons sentenced to death, and of infiltration by armed groups of the government agencies where they have gone seeking help or protection…They live in fear, forced to remain virtually imprisoned in their homes, terrified by the sight of men on motorcycles or vehicles that pass by or stop near their residences.”[1]

Approximately 30,000 – 40,000 Colombians apply for refugee status in Canada each year. Many of those are internally displaced persons seeking safety on foreign soil. Of those 30,000, fewer than 2,000 are accepted by the Canadian government on a yearly basis and many are sponsored by churches in Canada.

Although the Canadian government has demonstrated genuine concern for the humanitarian situation in Colombia, and has devoted significant amounts of money to organizations working with IDPs, there has been a conspicuous limitation in regards to analyzing the roots causes of displacement. In particular, there seems to be lack of political will to consider the causes of displacement from regions of the country where there are significant natural resource deposits and where Canadian business is or could potentially be, investing in the extraction of said resources.

The current Free Trade Agreement being negotiated between Colombia and Canada bases its legitimacy upon the premise that the current administration of President Alvaro Uribe has improved security in the country and has made significant headway in respect for human rights. Contrary to this affirmation, the Colombian Consulting organization for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) found that the highest number of newly displaced persons in the last five years of internally displaced persons was recorded in 2007, at 305,996.

Since the inauguration of Alvaro Uribe as President in 2002 and the implementation of his “Democratic Security” policy, some 70% of the currently displaced population has been forced from its land, (CODHES, 2006). Not only do partners claim that a free trade agreement with Canada would worsen the situation of the IDP population, but they also question why Canada would negotiate an agreement with a government that has not taken responsibility for mass internal displacement and impunity for human rights violations.

Given that the majority of Canadian investment is in the extractive industry and the majority of human rights violations occur in areas of the country rich in natural resources, partners have expressed concern that Canadian corporations are not being held responsible for their complicity in displacement of communities and other human rights violations. As the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) reports, since the 1980’s, Colombia’s vast natural resources have attracted multinational investment interests. Paramilitary, state and guerrilla armed forces have all capitalized on Colombia’s natural wealth in different ways, but always with the same result: victimizing the civilian population.

“While defending the interests of the state and the companies operating in these districts, the paramilitaries have committed the majority of the human rights violations reported in the past few years; they are notorious for extreme brutality, involving massacres, torture, kidnappings, extortion and massive displacements of civilians (CERAC, 3 November 2005). These violations have been committed mainly as part of an explicit strategy to separate the guerrillas from their perceived popular support base and gain control over land, natural resources and strategic roads. This largely explains the strong co-relation between internal displacement and the presence of multinational companies in Colombia. The regions richest in natural resources are also the ones most prone to internal displacement.” (ADMC, 2007)

As a source within the foreign affairs department shared with The Star, (Allan Woods, July 12, 2007) in negotiations with Colombia, “Canada will insist on non-binding references to corporate social responsibility,” further adding, “It’s just basically to raise the visibility of it (corporate social responsibility).”

Currently, various foreign extractive companies are under investigation for employing paramilitary death squads in the protection of foreign business infrastructure, including the assassination of union leaders and death threats and forceful displacement of local communities to allow companies to freely explore resource deposits. Implementing references which are non-binding is not an adequate strategy to prevent serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, especially from a government which lauds itself as a world leader in respect for human rights and human security.

Many of the Colombian refugees in Canada are IDPs who have been forced from their lands because of foreign corporate interests, or because of fighting among the different armed groups vying for control of the natural resources the land might offer. The more emphasis that is placed on opening trade and the less that is placed on assuring humanitarian well being and human security, could create a humanitarian situation much worse than the current crisis, and many more thousands of displaced persons and refugees forced to seek asylum in countries like Canada.

[1] “A Prophetic Call: Colombian churches document their Suffering and Hope” Vol. 2, August, 2007.

Tensions are Rising

2008-03-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

Never have the words of the Prophet Isaiah brought such comfort and hope to me:

“Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 5O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” –Isaiah 2:3-5

Tensions are rising. Countries seem to be preparing for war. The last thing we need is more war.

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more…

On Saturday, March 1, the Colombian army conducted an operative, killing 20 guerrilla fighters of the FARC, as well as FARC commander, Raúl Reyes. The Colombian government lauded the attack as a significant military hit against the insurgent group.

However, the attack took place on Ecuadorian soil.

Upon the recovery of the cadavers of the March 1 attack, three computers were found in the guerrilla camp, supposedly containing a slew of email correspondence between FARC leaders and Ecuadorian and Venezuelan officials.

Colombia has accused the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela of colluding with and supporting the FARC (named a terrorist organization by the United States and Colombian governments, as well as by the European Union) financially and militarily, a charge both governments have denied.

Venezuela – a key player in the negotiations taking place between the FARC and the Colombian government for a humanitarian exchange of kidnapped political leaders held in the FARC’s power – has named the attack an affront on the negotiation process, and an affront on Ecuador’s sovereignty. In the last 2 months, the FARC have released 6 hostages through Venezuela’s mediation.

Both Venezuela and Ecuador have closed borders completely with Colombia, closed their embassies in Colombia, removed Colombian ambassadors and diplomats, cut commercial and diplomatic relations, and both have sent troops to the border areas that they share with Colombia.

O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Venezuela and Ecuador, both countries with left of center governments and strained relations with Washington, have affirmed that war is not outside of the realm of possibility and are preparing to take the necessary measures to affirm their sovereignty and innocence in the accusations placed by the Colombian government.

In the streets of Bogotá, the tension is thick. Heightened police and military presence is notable, and both the army and police forces have begun a recruitment campaign in universities and on the streets.

Although the Colombian government has not responded militarily, and has announced that they will seek mediation from the OAS on Tuesday March 4, President Álvaro Uribe has confirmed his plan to seek approbation from the Security Council of the United Nations to claim that legitimate defense measures were taken on Saturday’s attack, invoking article 51 of the UN charter – the same article cited by United States to justify the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

HE shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples

The United States has declared complete support for the Colombian government in any actions it decides to take against “terrorism” and “terrorist supporting governments”. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain have all demonstrated their support for Colombia, and a select group of Republican members of congress are pushing the House of Representatives to give Colombia all the military and financial support it might need to fight the FARC. The Colombian Chief of Police has named the FARC no longer just a domestic threat, but a “global aggressor” taking steps towards “transnational terrorism” after alleging that information on the computers found demonstrate that the FARC and the Venezuelan government were negotiating the purchase of 50 tonnes of uraniam.

Even Colombia’s opposition parties are voicing their support of President Alvaro Uribe.

War can be avoided.

War must be avoided.

Pray for a resolution to this conflict that will lead to a long-standing peace in South America.

Pray for the transformation of hearts and minds of political leaders in Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia and the United States and the reconciling Spirit of God to move all governments to work towards peaceable solutions instead of more war, and a just peace within Colombia and among its neighbours.

Pray for the decision-makers and mediators of the Security Councils of the OAS and the United Nations to make prudent judgments and to work towards peace.

Pray for the victims of war from all sides.

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.