Evo Morales and the Amazon

[subsuelo]

The struggle over whether corporations should control energy reserves in the Amazon is set to move from Peru to Bolivia.

The indigenous struggle in the Peruvian Amazon made international headlines last month after clashes between indigenous protesters and police left 25 police and more than 50 indigenous people dead. For months, indigenous communities had been demonstrating against the incursion of transnational petroleum corporations given contracts by Peruvian President Alan Garcia without consultation with--let alone approval from--local indigenous communities.

In Bolivia, Amazonian indigenous people are also confronting transnational petroleum companies that have been given licenses to begin operations by the government of Bolivian President Evo Morales. The difference, however, is that Morales, the country's first indigenous president, counts on the support of much of the country's indigenous population.

Here, we publish a translation from Spanish of a statement by Manuel Lima, president of the Bolivian Forum on the Environment and Development, released two days before the La Paz meeting.


THE COMPANY Geokinetics, an octopus of the oil and gas industry headquartered in Houston, Texas, has already begun seismic work for gas exploration in the South Amazon of Bolivia, affecting the territory and the communities of the indigenous groups Mosetén and Leco-Larecaja. The development plans will also affect the Chimán, Quechua-Tacana, Tacana, Ese Eja, Toromona y Leco-Apolo indigenous groups, as well as campesino camps in the area and shore populations, such as those in Rurrenabaque and San Buenaventura.

This was verified in the area by several commissions of which various indigenous communities are part. The first phase of exploration has already begun: large work camps and open penetration roads have been detected in Palos Blancos in the department (state) of La Paz and close to the community of Pukara in the department of Beni, and helicopter trips and detonations are daily and incessant.

The most dramatic part is the exploratory work that is wreaking irreversible environmental destruction of rivers, forests, and animal and plant life, all of which the indigenous communities depend on for their livelihoods and the survival of their culture.

This evident aggression against all of the rights of indigenous peoples of the South Amazon of Bolivia is being carried out by a petroleum company whose origin is unknown to the indigenous organizations and the Bolivian people generally. The aggression is born from absolute disrespect for the rights of prior consultation and consent of the indigenous people, who were not even informed about the scope and risks that the oil and gas activity would bring.

This disrespect for the human rights of these peoples, including efforts to bribe leaders of some organizations and communities, worsens their subjugation. And this is occurring in spite of the fact that Evo Morales declared that the transnationals would not buy off leaders as they did in the past (La Razón, October 29, 2008).

It is for these reasons that we issue this denunciation on a national and international level--to stop all of the abuses already noted for which there exists proof that cannot be hidden that should be condemned in the most forceful manner possible, appealing to the solidarity and mobilization of all sectors that struggle for una Amazonía para la Vida (an Amazon for Life).

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THE MOST incredible aspect of all of this is that the aggression against the Amazon's indigenous peoples is happening under the watch of the first president of the pluri-national state of Bolivia, compañero Evo Morales.

For this reason, we ask for and demand an explanation for the presence of this Yankee petroleum company in an area the area that constitutes the port of entry to the rest of the Amazon, and of which control and ownership is a strategic objective of the North Americans--a fact already denounced on numerous occasions, including by the very Bolivian government headed by Evo Morales.

We do not understand how the North American presence can be accepted when events in Baguá, Peru have demonstrated that this presence only brings death and genocide for our indigenous brothers and sisters. The same interests that Geokinetics (also operating in Peru) represents in Bolivia are those that have driven the massacre in Baguá. Do we have to end up with the same extreme violation of human rights to get the Yankee petroleum company to leave the region?

Nor can we keep quiet about the fact that functionaries of the Bolivian Ministry of Hydrocarbons have threatened indigenous leaders with militarizing the zone if opposition to gas exploration arises.

What is being behind all of this? Public announcements until now have stated that the company given the concessions to the gas reserves of the jungle were YFPB-Petroandina SAM, a Bolivian-Venezuelan mixed enterprise.

We now denounce this subcontract with a North American company that is not only injurious to national sovereignty, but also violates and mocks the spirit of the hydrocarbons nationalization process that the Bolivian people fought for on the streets of El Alto and La Paz in the "Gas War" against neoliberalism, when more than 60 people were killed in October 2003.

Is this the nationalization that our compatriots died for?

Why is property being given to a project that is also of doubtful technical viability, when it is known that YPFB explored the same region 20 years ago and failed to find any significant deposits?

Why isn't priority given to more urgent issues in the realm of hydrocarbons, such as extraction of hydrocarbon liquids that have already been exported, for which we lose hundreds of millions of dollars, or for the demand to comply with the 47 contracts with the transnationals that continue to operate in national territory?

Why this overwhelming obstinacy and stubbornness toward people and rights of entry to the Amazon?

Conscious of the irreparable environmental damage that is beginning, we also cannot believe the siren songs of the Yankee company, Petroandina, and Ministry of Hibrocarburos functionaries when they talk about mitigating the damage. It was revealed a few days ago that the president of YPFB, Carlos Villegas, pardoned the transnational Transredes' debt to the state and indigenous communities in La Paz and Oruro from the biggest ecological disaster of its history, a petroleum spill caused by the rupture of one of the company's pipelines in 2000.

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...

We do not want another Baguá, not at the hands of the gas companies nor as a result of the imposition of a new developmentalist vision of indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources.

We want sacred rights, national laws and international agreements, as well as the thinking of our government represented by the slogan "to live well"--meaning to live in harmony with nature, as we have always lived, and as our brother Evo proclaims in intentional forums--to be respected.

We want the efforts of the indigenous people and peasants of the Amazon to be revered. This is to preserve not only life and nature in the Amazon, but also the viable economic alternatives that they propel--such as ecological production of chestnuts and cacao and ecotourism that demonstrate that sustainable use of biodiversity is the alternative to the model of accumulation based in the extraction of non-renewable natural resources that has tied Bolivia to poverty since the founding of the Republic.

In this sense, we propose an ideological debate and conscious reflection, and accept the challenge posed by compañero Evo Morales himself in the last consultative meeting of the Indigenous Confederation of Bolivia to debate these issues and all those related to the present and future of the Amazon in an open, frank and fraternal manner...

We believe that these truths need to be heard, that the actions of the functionaries of the Ministry of Hydrocarbons violate the rights of indigenous peoples and should be punished, and that it is necessary to end the North American presence in the Amazon, especially when it means environmental destruction, social division, cultural degradation and subjection to the dictates of politics that do not respond to the true needs of the people.

Translation by Sarah Hines.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/07/27/evo-morales-and-the-amazon">Socialist Worker - read more

[Peace Patriot]

1. Ah, me! This is a very, very, VERY difficult problem for the leftist governments

that have come to power all over South America. It is no problem for rightwing governments. They just kill, torture, 'disappear' and brutally repress whoever gets in the way of multinational corporations and their own greed--along with killing, torturing, 'disappearing' and brutally repressing any manner of leftist, human rights worker, community activist, union organizer, journalist or others who oppose them and hosts of ordinary people who merely want to be part of politics and government. Merely to vote, in a country like Colombia, is to take your life in your hands. Speak out and you can expect a bullet in your head, or worse (being chainsawed while alive, and your body parts thrown into a mass grave).

Leftist governments have many things to contend with--including the above (the constant threat of the return of fascist juntas), the hostility of the US against democracy and social justice in Latin America, and the pressures from within to achieve the social justice that they have promised to their societies. Social justice--decent jobs, decent income, health care, education, etc.--require either the manufacture of goods and services to provide those benefits, or the exploitation of natural resources as a transition to a prosperous economy (use of the profits from natural resources for development of local infrastructure, business, manufacturing, trade, education, bootstrapping). One of the signatures of "neo-liberal" exploitation of these countries has been utter neglect of local infrastructure and manufacturing, as well as looting of social programs. So these countries--I'm thinking particularly of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia--don't have a lot to start with. In Venezuela, for instance, prior to the Chavez government, even the machine parts for the oil industry were being imported--i.e., not providing local jobs, or the chance for local enterprise. The country had been rendered utterly dependent on imports, including even food. The Chavez government had to build an economy from the ground up! And they made progress toward that end, using oil profits as the means. The Chavez government produced an amazing economic growth rate of nearly 10% over a 5 year period (2003-2008), most of it in the private sector, not including oil. But they still have a long way to go, to create a sustainable economy. And some of the problems are very difficult, long term problems, such as land reform (for food self-sufficiency) and education. (It takes decades to build up a sustainable, prosperous, local agriculture industry; also, educational programs take years if not decades to produce a skilled citizenry--new ideas, new enterprises, a new basis for economic growth.)

Oil is bad, bad, BAD for the environment--as we all know. That is the leftist dilemma. The best the Chavez government could do--being realists--is to insure that the profits from the oil were not being given away to multinationals in a 90/10 split favoring the multinationals, by re-negotiating the contracts to eventually reach a 60/40 split favoring the people of Venezuela and the social programs they want. That oil--along with all the other exploited oil in the world--is fueling the death of Planet Earth.

This is the dilemma in Venezuela, Bolivia and many other countries. In Venezuela, the indigenous now have a right to petition for the recovery of land, but they cannot gain control of the mineral rights. The indigenous are a minority in Venezuela. The rest of the population is dependent on, and generally approves the exploitation of, oil and other minerals. It is their ticket to a prosperous future in a good society. In Bolivia, the majority of the people are indigenous. As is proper in a democracy, they have more say. Truly, we would be wise to heed the indigenous everywhere--minority or not minority--because they live off the land, and have a particular reverence for Nature, and they know full well what is happening to the earth from a century of rapacious exploitation and industrialization. They feel the effects before everyone else. And they are very right as to who and what are responsible (predatory capitalism, originating in the north). In any case, most of South America has at long last achieved democracy and vastly improved social and economic policy, but is clearly struggling with environmental wisdom. Where the indigenous are in the majority, or a large part of the population--Bolivia, Ecuador--this issue has had more prominence. In Ecuador, for instance, their new constitution grants Mother Nature ("Pachamama") the right to exist and prosper, apart from human needs and wants--a first in the world, as to constitutional law. This is clearly due to indigenous influence. But Rafael Correa's government has the same problem as Venezuela and Bolivia--the need for development to create a future sustainable economy. Like Venezuela, Ecuador has lots of oil and the best Correa can do is to insure that the profits benefit Ecuadorans.

And that is hard enough, given the Bushwhack war plans in South America, which are focused on Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, to regain global corporate predator control of those resources (--war plans that the Obama administration seems to be abetting; there are many signs of a pending war for oil in South America, including, for instance, the Obama administration's completion of Bushwhack plans for five US military bases in Colombia--a government with one of the worst human rights records on earth, in a country that is adjacent to Venezuela's and Ecuador's main oil provinces, where rightwing politicians openly talk of secession).

Evo Morales has to produce a manufacturing/services economic base--build one from nothing. As with Chavez and the other leftist leaders, he is very popular, and the society's goals and his goals coincide. Bolivians want education, health care, decent jobs and wages, aid to the elderly, children, the sick, the weak, and a voice in their own affairs--political democracy--like everyone else. How to achieve this quickly? Bolivia has gas, oil and lithium. And exploiting those resources is the only means by which social advancement can be achieved quickly, or at all.

The indigenous in Bolivia now have more rights and more say in their own affairs than in any other country--due to the success of democracy (the long, hard and dangerous work of many people, including the indigenous, who have suffered immensely in the struggle for democracy). The indigenous in Bolivia were gruesomely denied even the most basic human rights, by the rich white minority, for centuries. Even as late as the 1950s-early 1960s, the indigenous were not allowed to walk on the sidewalks! They were stripped of their land as well, and often turned into outright slaves. But, rather amazingly, they preserved their culture, which is based on respect for Mother Nature, sharing and community. No one gets too rich; no one starves. And Nature's bounty is passed onto to future generations. This is, indeed, the culture that Evo Morales was born into. He is, himself, 100% indigenous, and is closer to the indigenous viewpoint than any other politician in South America or the world.

How is he to solve this dilemma--development vs. the indigenous?

The Bushwhacks instigated a white separatist coup in Bolivia last September--funding and organizing fascist rioters and murderers right out of the US embassy. Morales won that fight, with the strong support of other leaders in the region (including Lula da Silva in Brazil, Cristina Fernandez in Argentina, and Michele Batchelet in Chile). He has negotiated with the saner elements of the white separatists, and managed to keep the peace and get the new constitution voted on and passed by an overwhelming majority. He is a great leader with great negotiating skills. He can probably achieve a compromise, if anyone can. But it may be even more difficult than turning back a white separatist coup funded and organized by the US.

[subsuelo]

2. I love how Ecuador put that in their constitution.

If we in the United States were half the lovers of the environment and champions of democracy that we say we are, then most of us would be enthusiastically supporting Correa Morales and Chavez 100%. I contend that we would, if we weren't being brainwashed by corporate-run media. The hidden hand as usual is the wealthy business interests that run counter to everything the Bolivarian revolutionaries stand for: indigenous rights, the rights of 'Pachamama' (Mother Nature), equality for all, eradication of poverty, etc. The simple fact is - North American business interests *must* take some heavy blows, if progress on these issues and more are going to be made.

But getting back to the article. I trust compañero Morales more than any other leader in the world. If progress is slow, it's not because he's selling his people out. This transition is going to be difficult and sometimes perhaps difficult decisions have to be made, always with the greater interests of the people in mind. I have great confidence in the Morales' agenda moving forward and await his explanation as to what the current circumstances are regarding the items noted in the article.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Agreed. nt