Chiapas al Día, No. 243
CIEPAC Chiapas, México
May 16, 2001
In March of this year, the federal government made public the "Base Document" of the Plan Puebla-Panamá, which includes an extensive diagnostic of the region. The introduction of the "Mexico Chapter" emphasizes the importance of adapting the "system of governmental institutions" and "public policies" in order to "creatively make the most of development opportunities that globalization of the world economy brings, and minimize its negative effects." This "adapting"means decreasing the role and sovereignty of governments while allowing free entry of investments from large transnational corporations in accordance with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The diagnostic confirms the "great disparities between regions" of central and northern Mexico, and the south and southeast made up by the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, Quitana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán. These disparities have caused, "a serious lag in the socio-economic development of the south." The document concludes that, "the endemic conditions of isolation and poverty that prevail in the region are caused by a historically complex weaving of many factors including the application of discriminatory public policies in the past." However, the solutions given are, among others, that the northern businessmen conquer the south with their investments, enjoying the wave of privatization, and the cheap labor of peasants and indigenous people of the south and southeast. The comparative advantages are now more attractive than ever.
"This new development plan of the south-southeast region of Mexico enlists a strategic perspective of national development that for the first time proposes participation of a decisive manner in a macro-region of vital importance for Mexico: Central America -- in order to directly attack some of the structural causes of underdevelopment in the region." (World Bank, Interamerican Development Bank, etc.) According to the official document the PPP will include, "a continuous and permanent consultation mechanism that will perfect an integral, regional, and long term strategy to foster the participation of communities, peoples, civil organizations, businesspeople, and the different levels of government." "One constant principle of this strategy will be respect of liberty of the regions and entities defined to control their own destiny." Nonetheless, the supposed consultations that have taken place so far have been fraudulent, and the immediate future of the PPP and the jobs that it promises collapse before President Vicente Fox's eyes.
During the first five months of Fox's government, from November of 2000 until April of 2001, the country has lost 255,000 jobs, according to official sources. In addition, the economic crisis in the United States is dragging down the Mexican economy. The government just announced a 3,375 million peso budget cut, and one of the most affected sectors will be the rural sector which will suffer a cut of 680 million pesos. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), with the goal of securing money owed on the foreign debt, approved a contingency credit to Mexico of around 20,000 million dollars. Contingent on the loan is an increase in Structural Adjustment policies, intended to increase privatizations. As if this were not enough, various automotive companies have closed in the last few weeks, and others are threatening to close. Companies in the maquiladora (assembly plant) industry forbade the worst crisis ever when Fox announced massive firings in the bureaucratic sector and insists in his lies, "Cheer up! There's no crisis," and, "To the families that do lose their jobs, from November until now, I offer them my solidarity.
In the part called "Vision", the document affirms that, "the region in question will reach its potential and utilize its characteristics to convert itself into a center for "world class" development in Latin America, for, "a sustained and sustainable economic increase (with rates higher than the international average and in activities that increase added value)," and, "an efficient use of resources and a commercial expansion and integration." So this means that the region offers to transnational corporations its water, petroleum, gas, biodiversity, cheap labor, roads, ports, and airports that the companies need in order to speed up their trade with the rest of Latin America and with Asia.
In the chapter "Mission", the official document states that the PPP, "aims to promote and strengthen development in the south-southeast region of Mexico, through the rapid and coordinated implementation of public policies, programs and projects of public and private investment oriented towards, to name a few, the educational and social development of the population, expanding and integrating development of sectors of basic infrastructure, promoting and developing productive activities, modernizing and strengthening local institutions, and expanding the technological base of the region."
In the chapter "Sphere of Activity," the PPP is described as, "a long-term plan of integral development of great vision that has as a geographical sphere, in its Mexico section, the nine states of the south southeast region (Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz y Yucatán), and in its Central America section, the seven countries that make up the region (Belice, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua y Panamá)." The entire region that the PPP encompasses includes more than 62 million inhabitants. The south-southeastern region of Mexico includes 25.7% of the national land surface, and, "is considered by the Mexican federal government as a strategic region for national development." In the terms of globalization by the Neoliberal model that means turning riches over to the big transnational corporations. "This region is rich in natural resources (variety of climate and soils, an abundance of water, great biodiversity), it has very extensive coasts, large amounts of energy resources, and a great diversity of culture and traditions. The region is the principle producer for the country of many agricultural products, including an abundance of fruits, coffee and cacao. The second most important sectors include agriculture, fishing, forestry, and tourism (in many niches, like beaches, cultural, adventure, ecotourism, ect.)." In many of these areas corporations already control production, like in the case of coffee and cacao by the Nestle corporation, and in the case of genetically engineered vegetables by the company Pulsar.
The official document also states that, "The Gulf Coast of Mexico contains important deposits of hydrocarbons. Mining activities (not metals) are also important. The region also has the potential to exploit its location as an Isthmus to become a passage for cargo between the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico -- a greater level of industrialization of the branches of production in the region is desirable, and an industrial development encouraging greater added value." The PPP endeavors to attract more than 90 maquiladora industries into the south-southeastern region, that could serve as magnets to attract the indigenous and poor population and free up the territories where strategic resources are concentrated (water, biodiversity, petroleum, electric energy, gas, etc.). For the indigenous people, the maquiladoras would be like the coffee plantations of the new century.
The PPP is officially conceived as, "a long-term integral plan of great vision" to help stimulate investments on the account of the public debt in strategic communications, energy, hydro-agricultural, infrastructure and industrial programs and projects. In the midst of all of this wealth in the south and southeast of Mexico, 28.3% of the population of the country lives, and 84% of the municipalities with high and very high poverty levels are situated. In other words, the poorest people of the country will be the ones who subsidize the infrastructure necessary for the big transnational corporations to install themselves in the region who in turn will offer low maquiladora salaries to the poor, exploit strategic resources, and receive legal and all other kinds of power to market their products.
The Reaction of Organized Civil Society
From May 10th to 12th of this year, the First Forum of Information, Analysis and Proposals, "The People Come First, Before Globalization" was convened in Tapachula, Chiapas by the diocese of Tapachula, the Mexican Network of Action Against Free Trade (RMALC) and CIEPAC. Two hundred and fifty representatives of 131 civil society organizations and agricultural producers participated in the meetings. Participants were from the Central American countries of Guatemala (15 organizations), El Salvador (3) and Nicaragua (6), and from 105 Mexican organizations from 10 states of the Republic (Campeche, Chiapas (67), Mexico City, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tabasco and Yucatán). The forums were characterized by an intensive labor of collective information gathering and analysis as well as the construction of alternative proposals to the problems that the region faces that the PPP claims to undertake.
The participants constructed the following declaration:
"Considering that any development plan should be the result of a democratic process, and not of an authoritarian process, we firmly reject the so-called Plan Puebla Panamá because it is just a renewed project of savage colonization of Central America (Southern and Southeastern Mexico, and the Central American countries), serving only the interests of big capital, transnational corporations and the oligarchy. It is a plan that will worsen even more the impoverishment of the peoples and the destruction of our cultures and our environment."
"We categorically reject the attempt to impose these plans without the will or interest of our communities. We express our proposal to start a process of integration of our communities under the democratic principles of equality, justice, sustainability, but coming from the needs and cultural, economic and social diversity of each one of us. History has shown us that only through a process of planning and integration from the bottom up can people's, community's and society's rights be respected as a whole, and in respect to diversity.
"The participants demand an opening of wide spaces for participation, information, consultation, and public debate with civil society and with all levels of government. We reject any and all pretense of public consultation, as ones that have been held in some states of Mexico. These antidemocratic proceedings violate the sixth part of Article 169 of the ILO, dealing with the Rights of Indigenous People, as well as various articles of Protocol of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations, that our governments are obligated to respect and enforce."
"We affirm that, after analyzing and reflecting about the grave crisis from which the majority of producers and inhabitants of the region suffer, the crisis is a product of misguided public policies that were mostly decided on undemocratically. To repeat and further these same plans under another name does not guarantee either growth or development for the benefit of the majority of the population, and on the contrary threatens to sharpen social polarization, exclusion and insustainability."
"We reject the repetition of an authoritarian investment strategy that, like many strategies suggested by the interests of international multilateral financial organisms like the World Bank and the Interamerican Development Bank will not resolve, but will in fact worsen the economic situation and will only serve to give guarantees to big capital, transnational corporations, and the national and local oligarchies. The PPP is the result of a strategy of capital expansion that responds to the so-called Neoliberal globalization that forms part of the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA).
"The PPP is just another imposed program like the programs of structural adjustment and the free trade agreements, with the aggravating condition that it is being promoted by the Mexican government, and that it includes the Central American countries, which is an abuse and a violation of the sovereignty of the people of the Central American Isthmus.
"We denounce all of the strategies oriented towards destroying the economy, as well as national, peasant and popular food and labor security. That is why we support the strengthening of resistance campaigns, those of an economic, equitable, sustainable solidarity nature as well as those that are similar to the organizations of coffee producers, and of basic food goods. We reject the actions of biopiracy, the appropriation of cultural diversity through patents in an attempt to privatize community knowledge. We demand seriousness from the institutions to the demand for a moratorium on all bioprospecting contracts.
"We reject the privatization of Natural Protected Areas, as the PPP intends to do, because it puts the Mesoamerican Biological Corredor in risk. We support the initiatives of the Natural Protected Peasant and Indigenous Areas. We reject the trade and import of genetically engineered foods, including corn, due to the environmental and public health risks. We reject the attempts to privatize public services of health, education, etc., as these are the obligation of every government.
"We call for the development and strengthening of all forms of resistance and support, and we encourage new alternative forms. We energetically condemn the reproductions of the infamous conduct of anti-immigrant policies that the Mexican government uses against its Central American brothers, like the U.S. government does against Mexican immigrants and Latino immigrants in general. Therefore we demand that any integration policy combats the roots of expulsion of our compatriots and in all cases guarantees legitimate human rights."
"We demand the decriminalization of migration, taking into account the diversity of groups by gender, age and race, which require special attention. The Central Americans who have migrated to the U.S. are part of the Mesoamerican peoples, and at the same time defending their rights as people and migrants, we should foster their participation in the development of their countries of origin."
"We join with the National Indigenous Congress in rejecting the distortion of the Law on Indigenous Rights and Culture that the majority of the Mexican legislative power passed. This law weakens Indigenous rights by recognizing the Indigenous Peoples as objects of public interest rather than subjects of law, and by not recognizing autonomy, and the full enjoyment of territories and natural resources. We insist that the Cocopa Law be incorporated into the Constitution.
"We manifest our rejection of the attempts to safeguard the authoritarian economic integration processes with the use of armies, or of military intimidation. We demand the conclusive end to United States operatives and bases in the territories of our communities. We stand in solidarity with the demands of the people of Columbia to cancel the counterinsurgency plan and the invasion of the U.S. Empire.
"We demand the liberation of Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, ecological peasants from the mountains of Guerrero, imprisoned for defending their forests from the plundering of transnational corporations. We denounce the violation of women's reproductive rights, through forced birth control and sterilization imposed by public programs encouraged by international financial groups like the World Bank."
"Facing this panorama, we urge a rejection of megaprojects including the Plan Puebla Panamá, and we demand a public debate with our governments that includes the economic, social, cultural and environmental impacts of the plan, and a discussion of alternative development and investment projects. Those present promise to promote and construct an alternative Mexico-Panama Plan that represents the interests of our peoples. Therefore we make a call for the creation of a Mesoamerican Social Alliance, as a way to strengthen the Continental Social Alliance.
This declaration was signed by:
CHIAPAS: Global Exchange; Centro de Investigaciones Económicas y Políticas de Acción Comunitaria (CIEPAC); Centro de Derechos Humanos "Fray Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada"; Jolom-Mayetik; Alianza Cívica; Red de Defensores Comunitarios por los Derechos Humanos; Caritas de San Cristóbal de Las Casas; Educación para la Paz (EDUPAZ); Comisión para la Unidad y la Reconciliación Comunitaria (CORECO); Desarrollo Económico y Social de los Mexicanos Indígenas (DESMI); Colectivo de Educación para la Paz (CEPAZ); Pueblo Creyente; Area de Derechos Humanos de San Cristóbal; CoopCafé; Coordinadora Diocesana de Mujeres (CODIMUJ); Cooperatú; Sociedad Civil Las Abejas; Coordinadora de Contacto de los Altos; Parroquia de Guadalupe de la Diócesis de Tuxtla Gutiérrez; Red de Intercambio y Comercio Alternativo (RICAA); Parroquia de San Andrés; Indígenas de la Sierra Madre de Motozintla (ISMAM); Cáritas de Tapachula, El Porvenir, Zona Pavencul, Mapastepec, Tres Picos y Motozintla; Organización de Mujeres de la Costa; Misión de Guadalupe; Sociedad Cooperativa "Iguana Sana"; Kay Kab; Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Sierra (CEDEHMAS); Sociedad Cooperativa de Cafetaleros San Pedro Apóstol (SOCOCASPA); Equipo Cristiano por la Paz; Parroquia El Triunfo; Comunidades Organizadas de la Sierra de Chiapas (COSICH); Organización Tzeltal de Productores de Café de San Juan Cancuc; Unión de Ejidos de la Selva; Comité Coordinadora de Integración (CIDECH); Parroquia de Bella Vista; Estación Libre; Cooperativa K'al Lu'um; Centro de Investigación y Acción de la Mujer (CIAM); Desarrollo Alternativo; PACEPIC; SSS Kulaktik Tenejapa; SSS-UREAFA; Familias Cultivadoras de la Vida; Promoción de la Mujer; Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR); Centro de Derechos Humanos Fray Matias de Córdova; Fuerza Liberadora La Unidad; Parroquia San Gerónimo Belisario Domínguez; Productores Orgánicos de Chiapas; Organización Popular Indígena (OPI); Foro de la Mujer; Ixmacal Tvanil Vum Moiam; Mujeres Organizadas de San José Ixtepec; Frente Cívico Tonalteco; SSS Mulupro; Witness for Peace (WFP); Colegio Miguel Hidalgo; Productores Orgánicos de la Sierra "Posi"; Red Casa de Migrante-Casa Albergue Belen; Iglesia Santiago Pavencul; Organización Campesina Emiliano Zapata (OCEZ); Organización Campesina Emiliano Zapata Coordinadora Nacional Plan de Ayala (OCEZ-CNPA); Comunidad Nuevo Momón, Margaritas; Federación Indígena Ecológica de Chiapas; Colegio de Michoacán; Mujeres Alternativas de la Sierra de Chiapas (MASICH); Pastoral de Salud Parroquia Escuintla; Productores Alternativos de Chiapas (PROALCH); Consejo de Médicos y Parteras Indígenas Tradicionales de Chiapas (COMPITCH).
OAXACA: Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo (UCIZONI); Centro de Derechos Humanos Tepeyac; Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Región Istmo (UCIRI); Consejo Indígena y Popular de Oaxaca "Ricardo Flores Magón" (CIPO-RFM); Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste; Coordinadora Estatal de Productores Cafetaleros de Oaxaca; Centro de Capacitación Integral para Promotores Comunitarios (CECIPROC); Frente Popular Obrero Campesino (FPOC); Convergencia Indígena Popular (CIP); Grupo de Trabajo del Istmo; CEDICAM Missioneros de Maryknoll; Instituto de Asuntos Mundiales Contemporáneos. GUERRERO: Comisión de Recursos Naturales y Desarrollo Sustentable PRD del Congreso del Estado de Guerrero.
PUEBLA: Consejo Indígena Regional de la Sierra Negra de Puebla del Congreso Nacional Indígena (CNI); Organización de Pueblos Mixtecos de Puebla; Comisión TAKACHIUALIS; Sociedad Cooperativa Agropecuaria Regional "TOSEPAN TITATANISKE".
MEXICO D.F.: Sociedad Cooperativa Trabajadores de Pascual SCL; Departamento de Estudios de Antropologia Social (DEAS); Red Mexicana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC); Red de Acción sobre Plaguicidas y Alternativas en México (RAPAM); Servicio de Iglesias; Equipo Pueblo; Instituto Maya; Seminario Permanente de Fronteras y Chicanos; Centro de Análisis Social Información y Formación Popular; Movimiento Ciudadano por la Democracia (MCD); Comunicación y Redes para la Educación Emocional (CORE). TABASCO: Sociedad Cooperativa Grupo de Mujeres Despulpadores de Jaiba; Ishiktaj Ajushe' Buka' (Mujeres Moliendo Pozol); Asociación Ecológica Santo Tomás; SSS El Pueblo; Comité de Derechos Indígenas de Macuspana. CAMPECHE: EDUCE, PAUAL.
YUCATAN: Sociedad Cooperativa Chac-Lol; Sociedad de Solidaridad Social Dzocu Yaha Il Caji Te-Tiz.
GUATEMALA: CAL-DH; Instituto para la Superación de la Miseria Urbana (ISMU); Coordinadora de ONG y Cooperativas (CONGCOOP); Casa del Migrante; Coordinadora Nacional Indígena y Campesina (CONIC); Unión de Productores Pequeños y Medianos; Centro de investigación y desarrollo de Centro América (CIDECA); Comité Campesino del Altiplano (CCDA); Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC); Asociación de Mujeres en Solidaridad; Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular (CIEP); Centro de Estudios y Documentación de la Frontera Occidental de Guatemala (CEDFOG); COPIASURO R.L.; Catholic Relief Services; Rights Action.
EL SALVADOR: Fundación Nacional para el Desarrollo (FUNDE); CONFRAS; CENTRA NICARAGUA: FENACOOP; Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC); Asociación de Organizaciones Campesinas Centroamericanas para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo (ASOCODE); Centro Humboldt; Unión Nacional de Productores Asociados (UNAPA); Centro Investigación Desarrolo Rural (CIPRES) ESTADOS UNIDOS: Mexico Solidarity Network (MSN).
Also present were presenters like Armando Bartra, Andrés Barreda, Juan Manuel Sandoval, Alejandro Villamar, Antonio Machuca, Orlando Núñez, Roberto Gonchez, José Angel Tolentino, Fernando Bejarano, Alberto Arroyo, Jorge Santiago, Carlos Beas y Elba Flores, among others.
The second Forum will give continuity to the process of reflection and of development of alternatives to the PPP and will take place in November in Guatemala. Therefore we formed a promotion group with representatives from the countries that will participate in the meetings. This is only one sign that, despite everything, hopes are born, and they grow like in nature, from below.
Gustavo Castro Note: There will be a Part III of the bulletin on the Plan Puebla Panamá that will include a summary and analysis of the official diagnostic of the Mexican and Central American Chapters. The official PPP document can be consulted in www.ciepac.org
Center for Economic and Political Investigations of Community Action, A.C. CIEPAC is a member of the Movement for Democracy and Life (MDV) of Chiapas, the Mexican Network of Action Against Free Trade (RMALC), Convergence of Movements of the Peoples of the Americas (COMPA), Network for Peace in Chiapas, Week for Biological and Cultural Diversity and of the International Forum "The People Before Globalization", Alternatives to the PPP.
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