Due to Central America and Southern Mexico's strategic location and coveted resources such as petroleum, natural gas, uranium, minerals, water, rivers with hydroelectric potential, loggable forests, marine life, biodiversity and a cheap labor force, governments of the region have been quick to privatize many of their industries for short term benefit. However, while the region comprising the PPP is rich in natural resources it is severely stricken with societal inequality and underdevelopment. Southern Mexico is home to 714 of the nations 850 poorest counties. The illiteracy rate is the highest in Mexico, the life span is 8 years less than the rest of Mexico, and 50% of the population in the nine states makes less than the minimum wage. Equally disturbing, the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas have more than 50% of their population classified as being in high or very high levels of poverty. At the same time, 40.5% of the population of Southern Mexico is without running water and 23% without electricity, while on average there is only 1 doctor for every 1000 inhabitants. However, average wages for the maquiladora sector in Southern Mexico are 40% less than they are in Northern Mexico although studies by the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and the Center for Reflection, Education and Action (CREA) found that border zone maquiladoras, many of which are operated by Fortune 500 companies, pay 20-30% less than what a family needs to live on. Considering the high rate of poverty, the limited availability of education, and the lack of access to health care, many communities and civil society organizations are outraged that the Fox administration is opportunistically attempting to use the unskilled workforce as a comparative advantage to attract foreign investment while claiming that the availability of poverty level employment constitutes social development.

The Fox administration has hailed the PPP as a plan that "will strengthen cultural identities and increase social participation," which aims "to perfect an integrated regional strategy with the participation of the communities, towns, civil organizations, companies, and government." For the region of southeastern Mexico, the Fox administration believes that the PPP will "attack in some direct form, the structural causes of the backwardness of the region, in particular in the areas of human development, infrastructure, institutional and regulatory changes, and politics in order to promote and facilitate productive private investment." Accordingly, proponents of the PPP purport that its' main objective is to "improve the quality of life of area inhabitants of the region." However, critics say that one only has to look to the regions' recent history to see that PPP projects are simply continuations of the same neoliberal projects that many criticize have not only failed to address poverty and environmental degradation but has instead promulgated it.

Take for example one of the most controversial geographical regions of the Plan Puebla Panama; the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, Mexico. Under the Zedillo administration the Trans-Isthmus Megaproject was initiated and now is being fulfilled under the auspices of the PPP. Stretching 300 kilometers from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is seen as a strategic alternative for international trade to the increasingly-crowded and problematic Panama Canal. Upon its completion the megaproject will create a new "dry canal" transportation corridor in order to facilitate the industrialization of the area which will in turn lure the burgeoning wave of inter-American trade and to fulfill the long dreamt goal of the United States to create a shorter route for trade from the east coast to the west coast of the Unites States.

With over 80% of economic activity taking place on the eastern half of the United States, the US will be one of the main beneficiaries of the project. In fact, Andres Barreda, a prominent researcher at Mexico's Autonomous University (UNAM) argues that with up to half of exportation moving away from Europe (accessible by the Atlantic) to Asia (accessible by the Pacific), the completion of the Trans-Isthmus Megaproject will provide the quickest route to get product to the West Coast for export overseas.

Essentially the goal of the project is to create an elaborate infrastructure of highway and railway systems connecting an extensive network of maquiladora and agroexporation industries with ports on either side of the Isthmus. Esteemed by proponents as a plan that will improve infrastructure, provide employment, and curtail poverty, the introduction of the megaproject was received with widespread resistance do to the lack of benefit for those living in the area. Be it resistance to industrial shrimp farms or defending communal land from transnational ranching companies, the largely indigenous populations of the Isthmus have continued to insist that development projects be created that reflect the needs of their communities.

Increased militarization is often directly correlated to development plans, and researchers argue that the PPP is no exception. Two of the most important regions in the world for trade are the Suez Canal, in the Middle East, and the American Isthmus, reaching from Columbia to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southeastern Mexico. Accordingly, these regions happen to be two of the most militarized areas in the world with continuous US presence. Since the beginning of 2001, the US Congress has approved the financing of 38 military operations, which includes dispatching approximately 100,000 soldiers to 21 countries in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. On the 15th of February, 2001, the Guatemalan Congress authorized the passage of "New Horizons," a collaborative project between the Guatemalan and U.S. armies in the El Peten area bordering the Mexican state of Chiapas. While officially slated as a humanitarian operation, the troops are positioned parallel to the location of communities which are to be relocated for the completion of projects within the PPP. Coincidentally, the Monte Azules Biosphere Reserve which borders El Peten is home to ongoing resistance to the forced displacement of indigenous communities who live within the forests. As a result of this situation and others similar to it, critics of neoliberal development policy contend that the PPP is another strategic move in the name of neoliberalism, which in its completion will facilitate international free trade, but in the meantime necessitates increased militarization in order to ensure implementation of the project while containing the growing resistance to the plan.

Information Gathered from:

• Barreda, Andres. September, 2001. Geoeconomia y geopolitica del Plan Puebla Panama. Lux, Organo Oficial del Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas, pg. 63-68.
• Barta, Armando (editor). 2001. Mesoamerica: Los Rios Projundos, Alternativas Plebeyas al Plan Puebla Panama. Mexico.
• Commission for Environmental Cooperation. 2002. The North American Mosaic. A State of the Environment Report.
• Consejo Nacional de Poblacion (CONAPO), Programa de Education, Salud, y Alimentacion (Progreso), INEGI, and IV Informe de Gobierno de 2000
• Mexico, Presidencia de La Republica. Plan Puebla Panama, Capitulo Mexico, Documento Base. March, 2001