- Andean countries: NO to the FTA that ravages forests and takes over natural resources

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has been one of the main instruments in the advance of economic and power groups that support privatization, globalization and de-regulation of the economy in their eagerness to commercialize the most hidden corners of life. However, since 1995, when the WTO suffered a severe setback in Cancun and when the project for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) collapsed in Miami, the United States has approached over twenty countries to formally launch bilateral free trade agreements (FTA), in an attempt to accelerate the process through bilateral or sub-regional negotiations, putting pressure on the weaker or more submissive countries. The FTAs are geopolitical instruments to galvanize a wide spectrum colonialism in the Latin American countries, insofar as they cover aspects ranging from the strictly economic to labour legislation, State management, intellectual property, the environment and natural resources, knowledge, culture and although this seems amazing, the relationship of human beings with what is transcendental.

FTAs are aimed at ending the rights of the indigenous peoples over their territories through provisions that establish that the State renounces its authority to control economic concentration and monopolies; the possibility of obliging countries to pay millionaire sums to US companies when they do not make the profit they expected; the guarantee that a US company cannot be expropriated and that if this were to occur, the investors would have to be compensated for profit not attained; a provision that would among other things, prevent processes such as agrarian reform, environmental rehabilitation, river rehabilitation, basin rehabilitation, etc.; the obligation to guarantee police protection of foreign investments even against strikes and protests; regulations ensuring that US companies can appropriate resources, components of our surroundings and activities that so far had not been considered as merchandise. The clauses open up the way for: a) privatisation of seas, rivers and lakes, education, health, national parks, communications, transport, and anything that the lawyers of US companies have the ingenuity to include; b) allow US companies to take over control of the press, television and radio; c) privatization and delivery to trans-national companies of various governmental functions, such as environmental standards and monitoring, prisons and certain functions of the army (as they have been doing in Colombia and Ecuador in the context of the Patriot Plan); d) the possibility of privatizing anything that can be called a “service” as this is not defined or it is defined in an extremely wide sense. For example, through the term “environmental services,” the privatization of the atmosphere, the climate, ecological functions enabling environmental regulation and the whole biosphere starts to be possible.

From 25 to 27 October, Ecuador was the scene of the fifth round of FTA negotiations between the United States and the Andean countries. Spokespeople for the social organizations of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru made it clear that the FTA proposed by the US Government is not only a trade agreement but it also covers all fields of economic, social and political life. The “Ecuador Decide” (Ecuador Decides) movement declared that “the only interest pursued by the United States together with trans-national corporations is to appropriate a biological reserve unique in the world, that possesses one third of the planet’s soft water, that is home to the greatest quantity of wildlife in its forests, of which 72 per cent serves as a basis to prepare medicines and that regulates the climate and the production of oxygen, in addition to its wealth in oil.”

All over Latin America resistance to Free Trade Agreements and to United States re-colonization is growing. Most of the social organizations that engaged themselves at the Social Forum of the Americas held in Quito at the end of July to make the 12th of October into a day of continental struggle fulfilled their promise. On that date, great mobilizations took place in Central America, particularly in Costa Rica and El Salvador, demanding their parliamentarians not to ratify the trade agreements signed by their governments with the United States.

In Colombia, over one million people demonstrated in the midst of a national strike against the FTA and the indigenous leaders are calling for a consultation with their communities to avoid that the wave seeking the wealth of forests and cloud forests in resources and raw material ends up by impoverishing their territories. In Bolivia, tens of thousands of indigenous people met for several days and demonstrated against President Mesa’s attempts at involving his country in the on-going negotiations of the Andean countries with the United States. In Peru, a campaign has been launched to collect signatures to convene a referendum to decide on signing or rejecting the FTA. In Ecuador too, work is underway to convene a peoples’ consultation for the population to decide on the FTA.

The text of the FTA, which is a prototype applied in a more or less equal way in all cases, makes it possible to acquire property rights over plants and animals as if they had been invented by someone. It has transpired that Article 8 of the chapter on intellectual property in the US proposal states that “Each Party (each country signing a FTA) will allow patents to be taken out for the following inventions: a) plants and animals; and b) diagnoses, therapeutic and surgical processes for the treatment of humans and animals." So far, the authorities of the Andean countries recognize that the United States is setting down conditions going beyond the agreements on intellectual property and patents established by the WTO.

Many of the patents on biological material that the United States and the trans-national companies wish to defend are derived from research processes involving the usurpation of originating peoples’ knowledge – what we call “bio-piracy.”

For the forests of the region and their originating peoples, the FTA would imply not only the trade frontier advancing into nature, insofar as it favours increased activities for the exploitation of natural wealth, but would also strengthen the attempts at appropriation of access to this wealth and the knowledge linked to it.

In Guayaquil, Ecuador, during the FTA negotiations, the reflection of the social sectors was accompanied by protests, such as the one made by Acción Ecológica, when it broke through the security system and unfurled a banner reading “FTA = Free Corruption Agreement” while they shouted “We have no wish to be a colony of the United States.”

Article based on information from: “Biodiversidad en riesgo”, La Revista Agraria, CEPES, http://www.cepes.org.pe/revista/agraria.htm , distributed by Correo Indígena, Nº 59, e-mail: coppip@amauta.rcp.net.pe ; “TLCs: Asalto a la Tierra y el Cielo”, René Báez, Alai-amlatina, http://www.bilaterals.org/article.php3?id_article=931 ; “El TLC es un tratado de libre corrupción”, Jairo Rolong, Ecuarunari, Minga Informativa,
http://ecuarunari.nativeweb.org/tlc/26oct04jairo.html ; “Declaración de Guayaquil”, Equipo Nizkor, http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/ecuador/doc/decide.html

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- Brazil: The Ashaninka Resistance Movement meets the future

Deep in the interior of Brazilian Amazon, a logger crosses the border from Peru and invades Ashaninka tribal land, felling another ancient mahogany and dragging it toward the river to be floated down to a truck and headed for international markets.

“This week is one of the most crucial in Ashaninka history,” observed curator Celso Carelli Mendes, speaking from his 15 years of experience living and working in the Amazon with various tribes. “This week may decide the future of the way that indigenous people work with the Brazilian nation-state, the future of the forest itself.”

We were eating a midnight snack at a café in the center of the capital city of Brasilia, after driving tribal leader Benki Piyanko to his hotel following a paparazzi-filled evening at Ciné Brasilia. The evening was the official opening of Semana Ashaninka-Apiwtxa, five days of meetings, cultural events, round-table discussions and films revolving around the Ashaninka tribe. The Semana brought together some of the Brazilian government’s top decision-makers, including Minister of the Environment Marina Silva and the presidents of FUNAI and IBAMA, the two major government agencies dealing with indigenous people.

The opening event was a glamorous public spectacle, including performances by the Ashaninka and other Brazilian musicians, official speeches, TV coverage, a photography exhibit and the debut of a documentary film. Ultimately, however, most seemed to agree that despite the flash and sparkle of the night, it was ultimately superficial, a show. On the way back in the car, Benki and Celso spoke about the division between pretty words and real action, the eternal split between theory and practice.

“People were coming up to me tonight and telling me that I was demonstrating the future of Brazil, a future in which indigenous people work in alliance with the government to preserve the Amazon,” Benki said. “But I think that the future is already here, the way is clear—we just need people who are going to act, who are going to do what needs to be done for the forest, who are going to work. That’s what is lacking.”

When I arrived that evening at Ciné Brasilia, the twelve members of the Ashaninka tribe who had traveled thousands of miles from the outer reaches of the Amazon for Semana Ashaninka-Apiwtxa were assembled in front of the flashbulbs, microphones and TV cameras. They were dressed in their traditional hand-woven robes and feather-topped crowns, faces painted with intricate red and black patterns, draped in countless strings of colored seeds.

The Brazilian Ashaninka live on a reservation of 85,700 ha (1 hectare = 2.5 acres), in the state of Acre, near the border with Peru. Apiwtxa refers to a specific community that might be called the capital of the Brazilian Ashaninka nation, where the leaders of the tribe live. The remote location of the tribe has played a part in its sporadic contact with devastating forces of colonization, and the land to this day is only accessible by air or by a journey of several days by canoe from the nearest road.

Compared to their ancestral territory, this reserve represents a rather small piece of land, which the Ashaninka people have managed to hold on to after hundreds of years of struggle and resistance. The reserve was recognized as their nation’s territory in 1992, 250 years after the first major uprising of the Ashaninka expelled the Spanish soldiers and Franciscan missionaries who had arrived with the wave of colonization. After warding off invasion for over a century, many of them were enslaved in the brutal regime of coffee and rubber plantations. It is estimated that a staggering 80 percent of the tribe was decimated from disease and extreme exploitation during the rubber boom of 1839- 1913. In the face of this incomprehensible loss, the Ashaninka have battled to maintain their cultural identity, protect their forest home, and preserve their language and livelihood.

According to the event program, the Semana Ashaninka had two objectives: to explore the “advances and victories of the tribe in relation to natural resources and sustainable production” and to, “seek solutions to difficulties and problems in the Brazil-Peru border region.” After the opening event, the Ashaninka took part in a series of meetings with government officials and public “round-table” discussions. The major issue discussed was the illegal entry of loggers across the remote border, who are felling mahogany and other valuable trees in Ashaninka territory at a growing rate.

The Ashaninka gained some amount of media attention in the past decade, owing in part to the charisma, strength and initiative of their young pajé, Benki. Thirty years old and the son of the “chief,” or cacique, Benki’s intense shamanic training included a year of spiritual practices in isolation in the jungle as an adolescent. Benki was among the leaders of a project to bring the Internet to the Ashaninka, using small village kiosks to facilitate communications between remote areas and create a website to publicize news about the tribe.

“Some people ask, ‘why are Indians messing with the Internet?’” Benki remarked. “But I think it is really important that we have this net of communication, to let the world know what is going on with us.”

The Ashaninka presented their initiatives towards sustainable development through documentary films that demonstrate some of their work. One aspect is a program of reforestation, replanting land destroyed since the invasion of brancos, or white men. Benki reported that the tribe has replanted 25 percent of the deforested land, and that the small fruit plantations have been bearing products that the tribe has sold to benefit schools. They have also implemented projects to raise fish and turtles for food, with excellent results. Much of the work was done by children as a form of experiential learning, and training for the future.

“I asked myself, what did my grandparents and great-grandparents do to protect the forest?” Benki said. “Our people want to work with Brazil to create an alternative development, to show the world an example of sustainability…. Eight years after we started this project, we were able to feed people, and hope to continue forever.”

“The Ashaninka story is different in that they are showing us the way,” commented Romulo Mello, Director of Hunting and Fishing Resources at native affairs organization IBAMA. “They don’t just talk, they “do”, and they are inviting us to participate with them, to share lessons from indigenous culture.”

By Juliana Birnbaum, e-mail: juliebirnbaum@earthlink.net . The quotes have been translated by the author.

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- Chile: Contamination from a pulp mill causes death in the wetlands

The Nature Sanctuary Carlos Anwandter at Rio Cruces is the Site that Chile incorporated as Wetland of International Importance when it adhered to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat, in 1981. It is home to a wide diversity of species of flora and fauna, particularly black-necked swans (Cygnus melancoryphus), an endangered migratory bird. The Sanctuary and its swans are part of the identity and image of the inhabitants of the nearby city of Valdivia, closely linked to the riparian landscape.

At the end of October, public alarm was alerted with the appearance of dozens of dead or undernourished and blind black-necked swans, with evident neurological alterations that made it impossible for them to fly. The reason for this was identified as being the fact that they feed on a type of algae (Egeria densa) which is apparently being affected by contaminants. This disaster is also affecting the taguas (a local bird), coypu (a vegetarian rodent), and various types of fish that have also been found dead.

Although there has not been a conclusive answer to the causes of this disaster, the sole relevant event that has taken place on the Cruces River over the past year and that could explain such a drastic change in the ecosystem is the entry into operation of the Valdivia Pulp Mill, belonging to the Celulosa Arauco Company (CELCO). This pulp mill started operating in February 2004, 15 km upriver from the protected wetland.

Located in the commune of San José de la Mariquina, Province of Valdivia, with an initial investment of one billion dollars, this mill has an annual production of 850,000 tons of Kraft pulp and was presented to the country as a model enterprise. It was the first one to be submitted to an Environmental Impact Assessment System (EIAS), set out in Law 19,300 on general environmental bases and, according to its executives, one of the few in the world to have a tertiary treatment system for the evacuation of effluents. The environmental resolution approving it assured that the emissions of total reduced sulphide (TRS) – the characteristic “rotten egg” smell of pulp mills – would not be detected by the human sense of smell. At the most it would be projected at a range of 500 metres.

However, since 1996, various ecological and citizen organizations had opposed the installation of CELCO. They warned about the project’s impacts and in particular the consequences of the evacuation of industrial effluents. The political authorities did not listen to them, seduced by the possibility of opening a great company.

Today, less than a year after it was launched, negative impacts on the environment have overshadowed any benefit that it might have given to regional economy. What started in the first months of the year with complaints and protests by the community of Valdivia, affected by the nauseous smell blown in by the wind (see WRM Bulletin 83), continued in August with an environmental emergency in the Eighth Region following the turpentine sulphate spill that affected, among others, the inhabitants of Lota, located at 30 km from the pulp mill, where schools had to close down because the pupils were nauseous with headaches and vomiting. . Following the launching of the pulp mill, in other nearby villages, such as Lanco, Mafil and San Jose de la Mariquina, people started consulting the doctor because of headaches, nausea and irritated eyes.

The pervading emanating smell widely surpasses 50 kilometres, and even reaches as far as the city of Valdivia. CELCO has already been sanctioned by the Valdivia Health Service, by the Municipality of San Jose de la Mariquina and by CONAMA (the National Environmental Commission) of the Tenth Region.

The environmental authorities have detected serious irregularities in the construction and operation of the Mill and in the liquid and gaseous waste effluents and emissions showing that the volumes established by the Environmental Impact Assessment approved by the Chilean authorities, have not been respected. Among other things, a clandestine duct and direct discharge into the Cruces River of stagnant water from the ponds of untreated liquid industrial waste and of 50 litres per second of refrigeration waters at a high temperature through the rainwater collector, were identified..

To this now is added the death of the black-necked swans. Shocked by the ecological disaster that is affecting the wetlands of the Cruces River and disappointed by the slow reaction of the authorities to this event, on 14 November the inhabitants of the region organized a march and an original river caravan in which over 1,500 people took part and on 16 November they held a Citizen Assembly with the participation of 500 people. The demand was unanimous: to apply the preventive principle set out in environmental legislation and while their possible responsibility for the deaths in the Sanctuary is not discarded, to halt operations at the paper mill so as to eliminate contaminating effluents that are suspected of causing the loss of the ecological heritage of the Cruces River,.

The mass death of swans and the impacts on the ecosystem of the Nature Sanctuary were avoidable.

Article based on information from: “Desastre Ecológico en el Río Cruces: Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada”, distributed by RedManglar Internacional, e-mail: redmanglar@redmanglar.org , http://www.redmanglar.org/redmanglar.php?cat=GestionAmbiental13#cisnes ; “Celulosa Arauco no quiere someter ducto a evaluación de impacto ambiental”, Carlos González Isla; “¡Vida a los cisnes!”, Angara Kuns P., material sent by Lucio Cuenca, e-mail: l.cuenca@olca.cl , Observatorio Latinoamericano de Conflictos Ambientales, http://www.olca.cl

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- Venezuela: Will Chavez intervene in the communities’ dispute over Smurfit plantations?

Exactly six years ago we had the opportunity to visit the State of Portuguesa in Venezuela to obtain first hand information on the situation of the local populations in Morador and Tierra Buena regarding the Smurfit Carton de Venezuela’s vast eucalyptus, pine and gmelina (Gmelina arborea) plantations. This company belongs to the transnational company Smurfit Corporation of Irland.

During this visit we were able to document the social and environmental impacts resulting from this company’s activities and its plantations, summarized in an article published in the January-February 1999 edition of the Revista del Sur (see complete article in: http://www.redtercermundo.org.uy/revista_del_sur/texto_completo.php?id=859 )

When President Hugo Chavez took up office, we thought that the situation of these communities might improve. With that hope in mind we sent a letter to the President on 26 March 1999, emphasizing that “in order to find a solution it seems fundamental to address the peasants’ aspiration to receive the land of the Finca la Productora, which we believe to be pursuant to the advanced Venezuelan agrarian law, and at the same time to cease the aggression towards the environment resulting from the activities of this company.”

That same year a new constitution was adopted in Venezuela, generating new expectations regarding a possible solution to the conflict in Portuguesa. In fact, the new Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in its Article 306, stipulates that “The State shall promote the conditions for comprehensive rural development with the aim of generating employment and guaranteeing an appropriate level of welfare to the peasant population, together with their incorporation into national development. Equally it shall promote agricultural activities and best land use practices by providing infrastructure works, inputs, credit, training services and technical assistance.”

Equally, the new Land and Agrarian Development Law establishes in its Article 8 that the peasant sector will be guaranteed incorporation into the productive process and for this purpose, the structuring of farms through acquisition of lands is promoted. In Article 12 it recognizes the right to assign land to any person who is competent to carry out agricultural work. Furthermore, the government has stated that the country’s food security is a priority, and therefore, agricultural lands are too.

From the above it seems clear that legal provisions endorse the communities’ claims in their dispute with Smurfit. Furthermore, the company itself seems to have finally understood that it needs to reach some type of agreement with the local people. As we mentioned in the Revista del Sur in 1999: “In spite of its policy of harassment and repression, the company does not seem to be successful in overcoming the determination of the people opposing their activities…”

In fact, in a recent report produced by the Venezuelan organization AMIGRANSA regarding the situation in the zone affected by Smurfit plantations (see complete report in http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Venezuela/disputa.html ) it states that the company is willing to sell (out of its 27,000 hectares in the State) the “Finca La Productora” (2,000 hectares) to solve the conflict that has arisen.

In this context, the peasants of Morador and Tierra Buena have concluded that they cannot carry out the delicate negotiations with the Smurfit Company on their own, and need a high level and experienced Government negotiator to help them reach an agreement with Smurfit. The peasants do not agree on the purchase being made until the following has been clearly defined: 1) How many hectares of land at the Finca La Productora are private and how many belong to the National Agrarian Institute (presently the National Land Institute) and therefore are the property of the Venezuelan State? 2) What environmental and social liabilities have Smurfit’s activities given rise to in the zone? (The peasants believe that such liabilities must be deducted from the price Smurfit wants for the estate).

In support of the local communities’ claims, WRM sent a letter to President Chavez on 18 November (see letter at http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Venezuela/carta181104.html ). This letter ends by saying “The peasants in the zone need the support of your government, Mr. President, to carry out negotiations with this powerful company and it is for this reason that we approach you to ask you for this support.”

In turn, the Latin American Network Against Monoculture Tree Plantations (RECOMA) also joined this appeal by sending a letter to President Chavez dated 30 November, setting out that: "Faced by such a difficult and unjust situation, we address you, asking you to adopt the pertinent measures to solve this problem affecting society and the environment in the State of Portuguesa. (See the complete letter in http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Venezuela/Recoma.html ).

We hope that the appeal of the local communities will be addressed and that finally justice will prevail, because, as we wrote in 1999: “If tree plantations are unsustainable in general, in this case they seem to be more unsustainable than ever.”

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Venezuela/Smurfit.html