A 13th September report in the Salvadoran daily
newspaper La Prensa Gráfica described
yet another motive behind the exodus of people from Honduras: namely drought.
This illustrates well the thesis in the article ‘How Climate Change Forces
Central American Farmers to Migrate’ – also
uploaded to this website this month, September 2019 – that drought and the
unreliability of climate are forcing many rural farmers to consider the
possibility of migration as a way out of their predicament.
Several Honduran departments have been declared as emergency
zones due to the scarcity of water. Some of these zones have not had any
rainfall for ten months and over 50 per cent of basic grains like corn and
beans have been lost, according to official sources.
In the eastern department of Olancho 1,000 head of cattle
have died due to the drought. Farmers with some capital behind them can
purchase alternative feeds for their cattle such as the waste products of
African palm oil which are rich in protein. But for the majority the grass is
simply not growing due to the drought. Some sources are suggesting that this
climate trend means that in the medium and long terms farmers must adapt to
raising a much smaller number of cattle on their land.
The drought has also affected urban areas such as the
capital city Tegucigalpa, and residents are having to purchase tanks of water
for activities such as washing as well as drinking. Clearly in such
circumstances the poor are more likely to be adversely affected by the drought.
As if Hondurans don’t have enough to contend with: a
narco-state run by organised crime; security forces whose main modus operandi
is violence against the people they are supposed to be protecting; a gang
culture and protection racket which pervade so many of the activities of
Honduran society and economy; a system of production which displaces Hondurans
from their land for the benefit of transnational corporations and local elites;
and a complete lack of opportunities for Hondurans. Add climate change to the
mix, and who could be surprised that so many Hondurans try to escape their
country of birth to find opportunities elsewhere in the world?
The following article is taken from ‘Towards Freedom’,
an organisation that takes “a progressive perspective on world events” –
https://towardfreedom.org/ We are
grateful to Toward Freedom and Edgardo Ayala for permission to reproduce the
article here.
Gilberto Gómez stands next to the cow he bought with the support of his migrant children in the United States, which eases the impact of the loss of his subsistence crops, in the village of La Colmena, Candelaria de la Frontera municipality in western El Salvador. This area forms part of the Central American Dry Corridor, where increasing climate vulnerability is driving migration of the rural population. Photo Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
CANDELARIA DE LA FRONTERA, El Salvador (IPS) – As
he milks his cow, Salvadoran Gilberto Gómez laments that poor harvests, due to
excessive rain or drought, practically forced his three children to leave the
country and undertake the risky journey, as undocumented migrants, to the
United States.
Gómez, 67, lives in La Colmena, in the municipality of
Candelaria de la Frontera, in the western Salvadoran department of Santa Ana.
The small hamlet is located in the so-called Dry
Corridor of Central America, a vast area that crosses much of the isthmus, but
whose extreme weather especially affects crops in Guatemala, Honduras and El
Salvador.
“They became disillusioned, seeing that almost every
year we lost a good part of our crops, and they decided they had to leave,
because they didn’t see how they could build a future here,” Gómez told IPS, as
he untied the cow’s hind legs after milking.
He said that his eldest son, Santos Giovanni, for
example, also grew corn and beans on a plot of land the same size as his own,
“but sometimes he didn’t get anything, either because it rained a lot, or
because of drought.”
The year his children left, in 2015, Santos Giovanni
lost two-thirds of the crop to an unusually extreme drought.
“It’s impossible to go on like this,” lamented Gómez,
who says that of the 15 families in La Colmena, many have shrunk due to
migration because of problems similar to those of his son.
The Dry Corridor, particularly in these three nations,
has experienced the most severe droughts of the last 10 years, leaving more than
3.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
warned as early as 2016.
Now Gómez’s daughter, Ana Elsa, 28, and his two sons,
Santos Giovanni, 31, and Luis Armando, 17, all live in Los Angeles, California.
“Sometimes they call us, and tell us they’re okay,
that they have jobs,” he said.
The case of the Gómez family illustrates the
phenomenon of migration and its link with climate change and its impact on
harvests, and thus on food insecurity among Central American peasant families.
La Colmena, which lacks piped water and electricity,
benefited a few years ago from a project to harvest rainwater, which villagers
filter to drink, as well as reservoirs to water livestock.
However, their crops are still vulnerable to the
onslaught of heavy rains and increasingly unpredictable and intense droughts.
In addition to the violence and poverty, climate
change is the third cause of the exodus of Central Americans, especially from
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, according to the new Atlas of Migration
in Northern Central America.
Between 2000 and 2012, the report says, there was an
increase of nearly 59 percent in the number of people migrating from these
three countries, which make up the so-called Northern Triangle of Central
America. In Guatemala, 77 percent of the people living in rural areas are poor,
and in Honduras the proportion is 82 percent.
In recent months, waves of citizens from Honduras and
El Salvador have embarked on the long journey on foot to the United States,
with the idea that it would be safer if they traveled in large groups.
Travelling as an undocumented migrant to the United
States carries a series of risks: they can fall prey to criminal gangs,
especially when crossing Mexico, or die on the long treks through the desert.
Another report published by FAO in December, ‘Mesoamerica in Transit’,
states that of the nearly 30 million international migrants from Latin America,
some four million come from the Northern Triangle and another 11 million from
Mexico.
The study adds that among the main factors driving
migration in El Salvador are poverty in the departments of Ahuachapán, Cabañas,
San Vicente and Sonsonate; environmental vulnerability in Chalatenango,
Cuscatlán, La Libertad and San Salvador; and soaring violence in La Paz,
Morazán and San Salvador.
And according to the report, Honduran migration is
strongly linked to the lack of opportunities, and to high levels of poverty and
violence in the northwest of the country and to environmental vulnerability in
the centre-south.
With respect to Guatemala, the report indicates that
although in this country migration patterns are not so strongly linked to
specific characteristics of different territories, migration is higher in
municipalities where the percentage of the population without secondary
education is larger.
In Mexico, migration is linked to poverty in the south
and violence in the west, northwest and northeast, while environmental
vulnerability problems seem to be cross-cutting.
“The report shows a compelling and comprehensive view
of the phenomenon: the decision to migrate is the individual’s, but it is
conditioned by their surroundings,” Luiz Carlos Beduschi, FAO Rural Development
Officer, told IPS from Santiago, Chile, the U.N. organisation’s regional
headquarters.
He added that understanding what is happening in the
field is fundamental to understanding migratory dynamics as a whole.
The study, published Dec. 18, makes a “multi-causal
analysis; the decision to stay or migrate is conditioned by a set of factors,
including climate, especially in the Dry Corridor of Central America,” Beduschi
said.
For the FAO expert, it is necessary to promote
policies that offer rural producers “better opportunities for them and their
families in their places of origin.”
It is a question, he said, “of guaranteeing that they
have the necessary conditions to freely decide whether to stay at home or to
migrate elsewhere,” and keeping rural areas from expelling the local population
as a result of poverty, violence, climate change and lack of opportunities.
In the case of El Salvador, while there is government
awareness of the impacts of climate change on crops and the risk it poses to
food security, little has been done to promote public policies to confront the
phenomenon, activist Luis González told IPS.
“There are national plans and strategies to confront
climate change, to address the water issue, among other questions, but the
problem is implementation: it looks nice on paper, but little is done, and much
of this is due to lack of resources,” added González, a member of the
Roundtable for Food Sovereignty, a conglomerate of social organisations
fighting for this objective.
Meanwhile, in La Colmena, Gómez has given his wife,
Teodora, the fresh milk they will use to make cheese.
They are happy that they have the cow, bought with the
money their daughter sent from Los Angeles, and they are hopeful that the
weather won’t spoil the coming harvest.
“With this cheese we earn enough for a small meal,” he
said.
Summary by Martin
Mowforth from report by El Economista
2 October 2019
Key words: recycling;
incentives; plastics; Bay of Panamá.
On 2 October, El Economista
reported that the government of Panamá was looking for ways of incentivising
recycling. Speaking at an international symposium on sustainability organised
by the Industrial Union of Panamá, the Environment Minister Milciades
Concepción said that recycling by industry is practically nil: “Here we can’t
set up recycling plants because there are no incentives,” he declared.
According to official figures the Bay of Panamá receives
175,000 tonnes of waste each year, much of which is composed of plastics. The
Director of Urban and Household Hygiene Pedro Castillo said that “on recycling
we are years behind.”
Cerro Patacón is the main landfill dump for the city of
Panamá and the 150 informal recyclers who work there find the collection of
plastic material to be less attractive than the collection of other materials
because of the low demand for plastics.
The
United Nations Environment Programme calculates that in Latin America only 10
per cent of all waste material generated is recycled, and that this rate is
lower in areas of poverty. UNEP also estimates that each year 8 million tonnes
of plastic reach the sea, and that if this continues, by 2050 there will be
more plastics in the oceans than fish.
A half-yearly comment and update on political developments in El
Salvador by the El Salvador Network (ESNET), a UK-based solidarity network.
We are grateful to ESNET for
permission to reproduce their latest Update (November 2019) in our website.
Key words: ARENA; FMLN; GANA; Nayib
Bukele; gang violence; corruption; Archbishop Oscar Romero.
The former Marxist guerrilla army (the FMLN) demobilised, as Peace
Accords were signed, in 1992 to bring the 12 year long civil war to an end in
El Salvador. There was space for the FMLN to organise politically, and contest
elections locally and nationally. This finally resulted in the first ever Left
Presidency from 2009 – 2014. President Mauricio Funes is now in exile in Nicaragua
after being charged with large scale corruption. Previous right wing (ARENA)
Presidents have also been charged, conveniently died or been imprisoned for
even greater corruption offences.
The second FMLN term, 2014 to May 2019, of President Salvador Sánchez
Cerén, saw little social progress as the FMLN tried a variety of tactics to
tackle massive gang related violence, which has forced many into exile and
resulted in many murders each day. Against this violent background it was clear
that the historic opportunity so many had fought for – and many had died for –
had not achieved a lot. Programmes to give out free school uniforms, and fund
co-operatives to grow maize seed for food sustainability were a good start, but
there was never a radical transformation of society. Ten years of the FMLN in government
left them exhausted by the gang wars, mired in many accounts of favouritism,
ineffectiveness, nepotism and worse.
In the February 2019 Presidential Election, the FMLN candidate came a
distant third, with ARENA (extreme right wing) second and a clear first round
victory with well over the necessary 50% for Nayib Bukele, formally of
the GANA centre right party.
An initial wave of euphoria that here was something new politically to
move El Salvador beyond the 2 party paralysis of the post-civil war period has
given way to a more nuanced reflection. Bukele has allied himself with Trump
and against Cuba and Venezuela and has recently expelled Venezuelan diplomats.
Some of his more left wing supporters hope this is to keep onside with the US
in order to be left alone to initiate some social and economic progress.
Announcing that all teachers will move to ‘flexible’ (in effect zero hours)
contracts shows the economic direction of travel of Bukele.
Who is Nayib Bukele?
Son of a wealthy family and working originally in the family business,
Bukele (now 38) worked as a PR specialist on the 2009 FMLN Presidential
election campaign for Mauricio Funes, and subsequently joined the party. He was
quickly elected Mayor of a small town, and then of the capital city, San
Salvador. He proved to be dynamic, controversial, slick, a maverick who never
fitted well in the FMLN. He was expelled from the FMLN for a number of acts
against party rules, and then became candidate for President of the GANA centre
right party in 2019.
Bukele is a figure similar to Macron in France – a young dynamic
outsider who has shaken the political mould – with no clear ideology, but
clearly of the centre / right. Above all he is a ‘self-brand’, adept in using
social media. He has had some early successes against the gangs, reducing the
daily murder toll. El Salvador recently hosted the Latin American surfing
championships, and Bukele encouraged all the surfers to go back home and tell
everyone how wonderful El Salvador is for surfing, and how they should all come
and stay a while! It seems that attacks on trade unions, public sector social
programmes and the alternative press show that Bukele is going all out to
attract US private sector investors.
Meanwhile Archbishop Oscar Romero (murdered while saying mass by a
death squad in 1980) has been finally officially canonized by the Argentinian
Pope Francis as ‘San Romero de las Americas’. The ceremony in Rome was a
national celebration of Romero and his legacy – which is still disputed, since
the right have tried to reclaim Romero as one of their own. March 2020 will mark the 40th
anniversary of the assassination of Romero, which will be commemorated widely
in El Salvador, and around the world, including here in the UK.
At COP25 in Madrid in December 2019 Nicaragua’s Policy Minister Paul
Oquist outlined to delegates the policy stance of his government to the issue
of climate change and how to address it. In particular he explained the need to
introduce into the system of adaptation and mitigation the notion of losses and
gains, using the term ‘indemnification’, to redress the injustices of the
historical causes of climate change. We consider this to be an important
feature of any international mechanisms that seek to allocate funds for climate
change action; and so we include his address here.
Dr. Paul Oquist Kelley Minister-Private Secretary for National Policies
Presidency of the Republic of Nicaragua
Translated by Tortillaconsal.com
December 11th 2019
Madam President, Your Excellencies, Ministers, Special Guests
The President of the Republic of Nicaragua, Comandante Daniel Ortega Saavedra,
and Vice President Compañera Rosario Murillo Zambrana, send their greetings and
best wishes for the success of this COP, aimed at achieving a higher level of
commitment and climate action.
Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capacities are not
political positions but objective historical and contemporary realities. To
maintain that we are all historically responsible for climate change would be
tantamount to saying that we all participated equally in the Industrial
Revolution, as well as in the massive accumulation of capital resulting from
it. This was when most of our countries suffered at that time the yoke of
colonialism and neocolonialism, as well as the slave trade and the exploitation
of slave labour, which also contributed to the historical accumulation of those
responsible.
To maintain that we are all equally and universally responsible for greenhouse
gas emissions today, is equivalent to saying that the 100 countries with the
lowest emissions that account for 3% of the total, have the same responsibility
as the ten countries with the highest emissions that account for 72% of the
total. At the same time, it is equivalent to saying that most countries with
less than one ton of CO2 equivalent per capita have the same responsibility as
countries with 18 tons or 16 tons per capita.
My country, Nicaragua, contributes 0.03% of total global emissions, with a per
capita of 0.63 tons. Despite our negligible level of responsibility, we are
actively working on mitigation and adaptation, as well as loss and damage,
because we love Mother Earth, and we are concerned about the future of our
country and the world. Nicaragua has gone from 25% renewable energy in 2007 to
62% in 2018, while electricity coverage has expanded from 54% of households in
2007 to 95% in 2018. We are committed to the 30×30 initiative to restore 2.8
million hectares degraded due to a historic, active agricultural frontier. We
have committed in the Forest Carbon Partnership to capture 11 million tons of
CO2(e) [carbon dioxide equivalent] over the next five years. We are also adapting
a dry corridor to the new reality of climate change.
This effort has been in the context of average annual economic growth of 4.7%
between 2011 and 2017, the third highest rate among the countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean, accompanied by great social advances. These include
the reduction of the maternal mortality rate from 92.8 per hundred thousand in
2007 to 34.1 today, and the reduction of the infant mortality rate from 29 to
12 per thousand children born. Chronic malnutrition in schools was reduced by
66%. General poverty was reduced from 47.9% to 24.9%, and extreme poverty from
17.3% to 6.9%. Very important in this world, the GINI measure of inequality in
consumption went from 0.41 to 0.33. In 2007, Nicaragua ranked at 90 in the
Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum in Davos, rising to the rank of
number five in 2019, only below the Nordic countries. The indigenous and
Afro-descendant population of the Caribbean Coast and Upper Wanki River or
Coco, achieved the delimitation and titling of 37,800 square kilometers of
their ancestral lands, in 23 territories, each with its own territorial
government and control of its own resources.
However, Nicaragua, like 35 other countries around the world, has seen its
capacity to respond to climate change and to achieve sustainable development
goals undermined by coercive, unilateral, extraterritorial and illegal
measures, which even criminalize third parties that do not comply with the
illegal measures. Only sanctions approved by the United Nations Security
Council are legal in international law. The international system of bank
transfers is key to the de facto imposition of these illegal, unilateral,
coercive measures that violate the human and legal rights of individuals,
organizations and entire countries. There are also covert actions of
destabilization of governments and attempts at coups d’état, some successful
and others not. In the Middle East, several countries have been invaded or
bombed in wars of aggression. The Nuremberg court ruled that this type of war
is the supreme violation of international law and human rights, because it
contains within it the sum of all the evils of war. Even countries suffering
the consequences of climate change see their ability to respond to the future
shattered by catastrophic disasters and the lack of international compensation
mechanisms. All these phenomena have affected the respective response capacity
of developing countries.
Our Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement are incomplete, because
they do not include an effective mechanism to finance response and recovery of
losses and damages. Mitigation reduces the risk of loss and damage; adaptation
reduces the impact of specific threats of loss and damage; loss and damage
themselves are the end result of the very climate change we are seeking to
minimize. Thus, we propose that the concept of losses and damages be elevated
to the same level as mitigation and adaptation, in order to receive resources.
The President of Nicaragua, Comandante Daniel Ortega Saavedra, in his message
to the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, stated that the only equitable
and effective way to finance losses and damages is for the countries and
corporations that have caused the problem and benefited from the use of carbon
to accumulate capital to compensate countries that suffer the consequences of
climate change without having caused it, in the proportion of their
responsibility. We have the data from 1880 to date, both for countries and for
corporations. Some people think this is a very radical proposal, but it is not.
The concept that whoever causes damage to another must then compensate the
other for the damage caused is called tort in common law. It is also in the
Napoleonic codes and in Sharia law. So too, all ethical systems, and all
religions of the world, contain the concept. However, the term most despised
and feared in these negotiations is the word “indemnification”.
The developing countries need enormous financial resources for the
future, to face mitigation, adaptation and losses and damages. In Copenhagen in
2009, funding of US$100 billion per year starting in 2020 was proposed and
reiterated in successive COPs. We should not accept as part of the US$100
billion accounts of past expenses, we cannot finance our projects with them.
Nor can we accept that the market mechanisms of Article 6 of the Paris
Agreement replace the US$100 billion annually. We must not accept the
postponement of the date after having already waited 10 long years. What is
needed from 2020 onwards are new, fresh, liquid resources with equal access for
all developing countries. To guarantee these requisites, if these funds appear,
they should be channelled through the financial mechanisms of the Convention,
namely the Green Climate Fund, the GEF, the Adaptation Fund, and the Least
Developed Countries Fund.
The year 2019 will be remembered like 1848, 1871, 1968 and 1989, as a
year when the street became important in world politics. Climate change is one
of the drivers of this phenomenon in many countries, with youth on the front
line. The 16-year-olds marching in the streets today will be 18 years old in
two more years, and no one will speak of that youth as passive, disinterested
and apolitical. A highly motivated voting youth can change the correlation of
political forces in many countries, being decisive in countries now evenly
split between opposing forces.
There is still a year before COP26 in 2020 but you see neither a working group
advancing the US$100 billion a year nor a road map. Only Secretary General
Antonio Guterres has asked President Emanuel Macron of France and Prime
Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica to investigate the issue.
If the US$100 billion annual commitment in 2020 is broken, this could be
termed the Fraud of the Century. In reality, much more is needed and US$100
billion has to be just a starting point. The US$100 billion myth has the
aggravating factor that it reduced climate change spending and action in the
critical decade of 2010 to date, and now we are suffering the consequences.
What we cannot do at this time is to have another Lost Decade of financing and
action on Climate Change.
It isn’t often
that you will find the UK Daily Mail cited in this website, unless the citation
is given for its racism, intolerance and bigotry; but in this case we reproduce
a report from Nicanotes which in its turn cites a list of the Daily Mail’s
‘must-see’ tourist destinations.
Taken from Nicanotes
(https://afgj.org/nicanotes/), a weekly production by the Alliance for Global
Justice (AFGJ)
9 January 2020
Daily Mail Includes Nicaragua in List of 12 New Key Destinations for 2020
Nicaragua was included in an exclusive list of 12 new key tourist
destinations around the world, published on December 28 [2019] by the British newspaper Daily Mail. Nicaragua was listed
along with Chicago (USA), Japan, Dubai, Galway (Ireland), Chile, Israel and
Australia. Nigel Tisdall, writer of the article, describes Nicaragua as “a
captivating mix of volcanoes, jungle and beach, with a relaxed atmosphere and
excellent coffee.” It also highlights Granada, for “its architecture” and “the
possibility of sailing among its forested islands.” Recently other British
media, such as Travel Weekly Magazine, Marie Claire Magazines UK, Selling
Travel, Travel Trade Gazette, Wanderlust, have recognized Nicaragua as a
must-see destination for 2020. The print version of the Daily Mail has 2.5
million readers daily, and its digital version reaches 26.8 million unique
users monthly, making it one of the most read websites in the English-speaking
world. (Taken from Informe Pastran, 3/1/20)
Increase in Tourism from Costa Rica
For Nicaragua’s commerce, service and transportation, the month of
December [2019] was very good with
the considerable increase in the arrival of tourists from Costa Rica. In the
Masaya handicraft market, the arrival of hundreds of Costa Rican tourists was
visible. In the case of transportation, the companies that provide this service
from San José report that passenger traffic increased by 40%. Enrique Quiñonez,
president of the Chamber of Tourist Transport of Nicaragua confirmed that they
had to put into circulation more buses to meet the demand. (Taken from Informe Pastran, 6/1/20)
Shortly
after the inauguration of Alejandro Giammattei as the new Guatemalan President,
he met with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and offered a deal of
potentially great benefit to El Salvador: namely a port on the Atlantic coast
of Guatemala. Lucy Goodman translated articles about the deal from La Prensa
Gráfica (by Melissa Pacheco, 28.01.20) and El Economista (29.01.20), and Martin
Mowforth summarised and commented upon these for The Violence of Development
website.
Key
words: El Salvador – Guatemala integration; Atlantic port; security
cooperation; domestic flights.
El
Salvador and Guatemala plan to eliminate the border initially for the passage
of persons and later for freight. They have also re-defined flights between the
two countries as ‘domestic flights’.
(Melissa Pacheco)The presidents share the announcements between themselves about the removal of the border for the transit of people and goods.
The Guatemalan president offered a concession to create a public-private
partnership as the means to enable completion of a Salvadoran port on the
Atlantic coast. Land from the Santo Tomás de Castilla National Port Company
(Empornac) will be ceded to El Salvador for this purpose. The area to be ceded is
known as El Arenal (or The Quicksand) and currently serves as a depot for
containers. Last year (2019) Empornac carried out technical studies to
determine the feasibility of constructing a pier to accommodate dredgers and
cruise ships there.
“We have offered El Salvador something unprecedented in the history of
Central American integration and today I want to announce it publicly because
we’re going to explore, as soon as possible, the possibility of El Salvador having
a port in the Guatemalan Atlantic. We will deliver this Project as a public-private
partnership so that El Salvador can develop it. It is an offer that we have
made to El Salvador, we consider it to be the right thing to do,”
Giammattei announced at a press conference that took place at the Presidential
House.
He added that he had spoken with the authorities of SICA (Sistema de la
Integración Centroamericana / Central American Integration System) in order to
receive the support of the institution in the implementation of the project. He
also announced that he made a firm pledge to officially de-categorise flights
between Guatemala and El Salvador to ‘domestic’. This comes as part of the
initiatives to improve integration in the region.
The Guatemalan Minister of Economics, Antonio Malouf, confirmed that a
legal-technical analysis for ceding the land of Empornac will be carried out.
“Basically, it would be our entry to the Atlantic. Our goods will have
the power to go from the Atlantic and enter from the Atlantic. I believe what
we’re doing is making a real union that is going to spread to other countries
in Central America that will want to unite and do similar,” declared the
Salvadoran President.
Apart from the possible construction of the Salvadoran port on the
Guatemalan coast and the re-categorisation of flights, the leaders announced
that in one month they hope to have removed the border for the passage of
people and within three or four months the barriers for goods between the two
countries.
“We have to sign papers where we can eliminate the customs on goods
respecting that goods entering El Salvador and destined for Guatemala have already
paid taxes in El Salvador and do not have to pay them in Guatemala and those that
have entered Guatemala destined for El Salvador do not have to pay them in El
Salvador. We believe it will take us about three months,” the Guatemalan
president declared to the media.
The elimination of the borders for the passage of people also requires the
implementation of a bi-national arrangement on security. “If someone passes
from Guatemala to El Salvador evading an arrest warrant, they will not be
evading anything because we are going to have the same approaches in both
countries,” Bukele stated.
Giammattei
referred to their intention to apply similar security sanctions, one of which
was to standardise the criminal codes in both countries. In the language he
used to explain this part of the agreement, Giammattei betrayed his profoundly
hateful and hardline understanding of crime in society. “Standardising the
penalties, the sanctions, the punishments, so that when they spray ‘Baygon’
here the cockroaches do not go there because they think that there they will
find it easier, and when they spray ‘Baygon’ the cockroaches won’t come here,
as the law will be the same for the two countries,” said the new president.
Moreover,
he said that they had been monitoring Bukele’s Territorial Control Plan (PCT),
the main commitment of the Salvadoran Government to improve security
conditions, and he (Giammattei) did not rule out implementing some of the same sanctions
in Guatemala.
The following article illustrates the cynical
greenwash deployed by governments in their relationship with environmental
protection. In this case, the government of Guatemala is shown to be the cheating
‘greenwasher’. (Both articles were originally sourced from the Spanish News
Agency EFE and appeared in El Economista. We are grateful to Lucy Goodman for
her translation and summary on behalf of The Violence of Development website.)
El Economista, 20/09/19
Guatemalan government prohibits the use of plastics
Key
words: single-use plastics; Guatemala; repeal on change of government.
In
September the Government of Guatemala announced the prohibition of the use and distribution
of single-use plastic bags and other plastic items in order to contribute to the
protection of the environment and gave a two-year deadline for adapting to this
measure.
The
Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources published the government
agreement in the official daily newspaper (Diario de Centro America), announcing
the restriction that also applies to plastic straws, plates, cups, containers
and plastic or polystyrene food packaging.
This
movement does not restrict or limit any municipal initiatives with the same
purpose, as within several constituencies in the country, similar measures have
already been in place for a while. The Ministry of Environment and Natural
Resources will be verifying, inspecting and monitoring compliance with this
legislation itself, and wall train legal persons to apply the corresponding sanctions
for non-compliance.
The
only exempt plastic items will be those “for medical or therapeutic
purposes”, as well as imported items that are “factory sealed with
plastic material or expanded polystyrene”.
Showing
a photo of a turtle tangled in plastic, the then-president Jimmy Morales celebrated
on social media this decision in which “Guatemala says no to plastic” and affirmed
that this changes the country for future generations to come. “It’s time to
change our form of consumption, for our nation and the future of our children”
he proclaimed.
Subsequently,
in a press conference, the president reiterated his pleasure with this
decision, that there are other products available for use, and that there are
two years to accomplish the transition and find the right substitutes.
Questioned
about the loss of jobs in the plastics sector, Morales advocated seeing the benefits
and asked for it not to get “dramatic” and “to find a solution
to the issues”.
The
Plastics Commission of the Guatemalan Exporters Association, formed of 60 manufacturers
and export companies states on the website that the sector creates some 10,000
jobs directly and 60,000 indirectly, and the plastics industry is the “industry
of export, indirectly the most important in the country”. The principle export
destinations of these products are Central America, the Caribbean, the United
States and Mexico.
[Editorial
comment: it is rumoured that President Morales knew that the measure would be
repealed by any right-wing successor to the presidency. Enter stage right:
President Elect Giammattei.]
President-elect of Guatemala to
repeal the agreement to ban plastic.
President Elect of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei. EFE
Guatemala’s
new President Alejandro Giammattei announced on Wednesday that he would repeal
the agreement that prohibits the use and distribution of single-use plastic
bags, among other products.
“Plastic
usage is not prohibited; there are other more important things to do. We must
focus on culture, education, environmental awareness” declared Giammattei to
the press after he left a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce.
Giammattei
had warned that he would look into this agreement because in his view there is
a “much deeper” problem.
[Editorial
comment: indeed there is; it is the deep corruption within Guatemalan state
politics and the Chamber of Commerce.]
Various
commercial sectors have spoken out against plastics prohibition because they
consider the real problem of contamination is in the management and control of
solid waste, while the Plastics Commission of the Guatemalan Exporters
Association states that 10,000 direct and 60,000 indirect jobs are at risk.
Key words: Guatemala; non-governmental organisations (GOs); human rights
defenders; social activists; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR).
Early this month (February 2020) the Guatemalan Congress moved to limit
the work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Human rights defenders
and social activists criticised the Guatemalan Congress for passing a law
that could be used by governments to arbitrarily control non-governmental
organisations (NGOs).
The ‘Law of Non-Governmental Organisations for Development’
establishes that NGOs will not be able to use foreign donations or
financing to carry out activities that “alter” public
order.
“If an NGO uses foreign donations or financing to alter public
order, it will be immediately cancelled … its executives will be charged
under criminal and civil legislation,” the new law states.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) also expressed its reservations regarding what happened in
Congress.
“The reform of the NGO law could affect the freedom of
association, assembly, and expression, as well as democratic spaces for organised
civil society,” the OHCHR said and added that “it is important
to adopt laws and policies that guarantee spaces for democratic participation.”
In 2019, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet
expressed concern about the NGO bill as it introduces controls that could
be used to arbitrarily limit social organisations.
The NGO law is based on proposals that lawmakers of the previous
legislature made to avoid the fight against corruption promoted by the
International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.
With the new law, the government can “arbitrarily cancel
uncomfortable organisations,” said Justice Now (JusticiaYa), an NGO
which was born amidst the anti-corruption fight in 2015.
The leftist party Winaq, whose most notable member is the 1992 Nobel
Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, said the NGO law is “a blow to
freedom of social organisation and harmful to the majority.”
Despite our efforts to point out that
Costa Rica is not as environmentally friendly or as labour friendly as its
legislation would suggest, the Costa
Rican government is clearly making some real attempts to move towards its
pledge to decarbonise the country. The country’s transport system is heavily
dependent on fossil fuels, so meeting this goal will not be an easy task, but
the following summary indicates some important first steps made towards the
goal.
By Martin Mowforth
Rail
reactivation
In
November 2019, the Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy together with the
Costa Rican Railroad Institute (ICF by its Spanish initials) initiated a
feasibility study into the reconstruction of 131 km of railroad between the
central province of Alajuela and the Pacific Central province of Puntarenas.
Such a rail line could be used to transport passengers and freight.
$550,000
(USD) have been invested in the initiative. Elizabeth Briceño, President of
ICF, said: “We are sure that this will contribute to the economic reactivation
of the zone and will generate employment.” The funds will be used for the
pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, market analyses, risk analysis,
environmental studies, and design, administrative and budget evaluations.
The
studies are expected to take seven months. The Planning Minister, Pilar
Garrido, linked the project entitled ‘Railroad Reactivation to the Pacific’
with other possible rail initiatives such as the ‘Limón Electrified Freight
Train (Caribbean Zone)’ with the aim of connecting by rail six of the country’s
seven provinces.
Electric
cars
The
IONIQ model of electric cars has a range of 375 km from one single battery
charge which takes up to 54 minutes. In Costa Rica, the model has been marketed
for two years and 400 sales have already been achieved. This is a level of
acceptance which Jerry Campos, regional manager of Hyundai, says is greater
than expectations.
By
the end of 2019 Costa Rica had 34 fast charging points for electric
cars in operation. They are part of a network of charging stations (called
‘electrolineras’) that the government plans to expand in future years.
Of
course we need to remember that not everything about electric vehicles is
environmentally friendly or even socially friendly. Nevertheless, it can be
said that if Costa Rica manages to change its fleet of vehicles from petrol to
electric over the course of the next decade, then there is little doubt that it
will be further along the path of phasing out fossil fuels than most other
countries in the world. But that’s a big ‘if’.
In
February this year, El Salvador also introduced its first completely electric
car to the public, again with plans for later expansion. It is being marketed
there by Grupo Q which is hoping to sell five units within two months of its
introduction. Currently there is only one charging point in El Salvador. At the
price of $39,800 (USD) the car is unfortunately out of the range of the vast
majority of the country’s population.
Electric
buses
More
recently (March 2020) the government of Costa Rica has announced a pilot plan
to introduce electric buses as one aspect of their plan to decarbonise the
country’s economy. Three autobuses have been donated to Costa Rica by the
German Cooperation Agency GTZ, and the Costa Rican government has extended the scheme
to include a total of 15 electric buses by the end of this year.
Currently
the idea is that they will be tested out in different parts of the country, and
data will be collected on their serviceability, their usage and their
profitability. The eventual aim is to turn the whole public transport fleet in
the country over to electric buses. Claudia Dobles, the First Lady of the
country, said: “This is a clear signal that the sector wants to modernise and
provide an improved service to its users.”
The
pilot plan requires the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity to provide the
necessary accompanying technical electrical infrastructure. Additionally, the
National Learning Institute is to provide training for drivers and mechanics;
and a special tariff will be charged for electric bus users.
A
group of transport businesses are involved in the plan and each participating
business is expected to purchase at least one of the 12 new buses. The
transport businesses have been pressuring the government to promote policies
for the implementation of bus-only lanes and favourable financial credit lines
for green initiatives such as bus renewals and operating costs.
The
National Decarbonisation Plan presented by President Carlos Alvarado’s
government in February 2019 envisages the elimination of the use of fossil
fuels in Costa Rica by the year 2050.
El
artículo siguiente es originario del blog Two Worlds por John Perry. Apareció originalmente
en el Grayzone.com – thegrayzone.com . Estoy agradecido a John por su
autorización para reproducir el artículo en este sitio web.
John Perry
Two
Worlds blog: (twoworlds.me)
18 de febrero 2020
Aquí hay un titular que no verás: Nicaragua está en paz. Tras el
violento intento de derrocar al gobierno en 2018, que costó al menos 200 vidas,
el país ha vuelto en gran medida a la tranquilidad que disfrutaba antes. Esta
no es sólo la impresión que recibe cualquier visitante de Nicaragua, sino que
está confirmada por las estadísticas: Insight Crime analizó
los niveles de homicidio en toda América Latina en 2019 y demostró que sólo
tres países eran más seguros que Nicaragua en todo el continente.
Además, tres de sus vecinos, el ‘triángulo del norte’ de Honduras, El
Salvador y Guatemala, estaban entre los peores países. También tienen altos
niveles de violencia mortal contra las mujeres. En los primeros 24 días de
2020, por ejemplo, 27 mujeres hondureñas sufrieron muertes violentas, mientras
que el vecino Nicaragua sigue teniendo uno de los niveles más bajos de femicidio en América Latina.
Las últimas provienen de un incidente a finales de enero. Los campesinos
sin tierra atacaron una comunidad en el gran bosque de Bosawás. Según la
agencia Reuters, seis
muertos, diez secuestrados y casas destruidas. The Guardian, el New
York Times y el Washington Post repitieron la historia. El periódico local de
derecha La Prensa citó a la ONG
Fundación del Río, que lo calificó de ‘masacre’; la Alianza Cívica de la
oposición nicaragüense se sumó a esta calificando el ataque de ‘etnocidio’. Amnistía
Internacional condenó ‘la indiferencia del Estado’ ante el sufrimiento de los
pueblos indígenas. La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos dijo que el
gobierno no estaba cumpliendo con sus obligaciones internacionales.
Bosawás es la mayor superficie de selva tropical al norte del Amazonas.
Tiene pocas carreteras y principalmente comunidades pequeñas, muchas de las
cuales dependen de los ríos para su transporte. Muchos habitantes locales
pertenecen a grupos indígenas a los que el gobierno ha concedido títulos de
propiedad de la tierra. Otros son los llamados ‘colonos’, familias campesinas
de las cuales algunos han comprado sus tierras pero también hay otras que las
ocupan ilegalmente. Las disputas entre los agricultores establecidos y los
campesinos sin tierra son comunes, y durante muchos años han dado lugar, a
veces, a la violencia. Los problemas de la vigilancia de esos lugares, con su
historia de conflictos y corrupción, no se limitan a su lejanía.
Lo que realmente ocurrió en el caso reciente sólo quedó claro después de
que la policía llegó en horas avanzadas de la tarde del 29 de enero para
investigar, tras haber sido llamada al lugar por motivo de un reporte de dos
personas muertas, no de seis como se reportó en los medios. En el lugar donde
se produjo el atentado, la comunidad de Alal, la policía encontró 12 casas
quemadas y dos personas heridas. Nadie había desaparecido. Para el 31 de enero
habían revisado otras tres comunidades cercanas y no encontraron pruebas de
asesinato o secuestro. Los líderes de la comunidad local condenaron las
noticias falsas.
Luego, en un lugar completamente distinto, a 12 km al este de Alal, a lo
largo del río Kahaska Kukun, cerca de la comunidad de Wakuruskasna, la policía
encontró e identificó cuatro cadáveres, dos en
una parte del río y dos en otra parte, aparentemente muertos por heridas de
bala. La población local dijo que no conocía a nadie que hubiera desaparecido o
estuviera desaparecido. Las investigaciones continuaron y dos días después
altos funcionarios de la policía y del gobierno se reunieron con la comunidad en la escuela local para explicar las investigaciones y la labor de
aplicación de la ley que estaban realizando, así como la ayuda que recibirían
las personas para reconstruir sus casas destruidas. Posteriormente, el 5 de
febrero, los familiares de las víctimas se reunieron con la Procuradora de los Derechos Humanos de Nicaragua, Darling Ríos, para denunciar los crímenes cometidos. La
policía cree haber identificado a la banda criminal involucrada y continúa la
búsqueda de los mismos.
Los antecedentes de esta historia son importantes y son ignorados por
los medios de comunicación internacionales y los organismos de derechos
humanos. Una parte importante del territorio nicaragüense está legalmente en manos
de grupos indígenas y ha sido debidamente titulado por el Gobierno de Nicaragua
como tierras comunales de cada comunidad. Las autoridades que las administran
son designadas por las propias comunidades. En el territorio indígena de
Mayangna Sauni As, formado por 75 comunidades, existe una disputa interna por
el control de estas tierras comunales. De tal manera que algunos de los líderes
han vendido tierras a grupos de colonos externos, lo que podría ser la raíz del
conflicto del mes pasado.
Lamentablemente, a pesar del proceso masivo y continuo de reforma
agraria en Nicaragua, sigue habiendo casos de campesinos desplazados que no
pueden comprar tierras caras en zonas pobladas y tratan de comprarlas en otro
lugar a bajo precio, y tal vez ilegalmente, o simplemente las toman. Las zonas
poco pobladas como Bosawás son especialmente vulnerables. Las organizaciones
internacionales describen los conflictos resultantes como luchas entre pueblos
indígenas conscientes del medio ambiente y forasteros destructivos, instigados
por el gobierno. La realidad es que los pobres compiten por la tierra, a veces
de forma violenta. Y la violencia es espasmódica: en los dos últimos años se
han registrado pocas muertes en conflictos por la tierra, aunque hubo varias en
2015 y 2016, que afectaron principalmente a una comunidad indígena diferente,
los miskitu.
No es de extrañar que los medios de comunicación se pongan del lado de
los grupos indígenas y que los colonos rara vez tengan voz. Inevitablemente,
como en el caso de Alal, quien pueda sacar una historia a través de una llamada
telefónica recibirá atención, e incluso una agencia como Reuters parece ser
dispuesta a basar sus reportajes en ese tipo de información antes de que los
hechos puedan ser comprobados. Para quienes no están familiarizados con
Nicaragua, cualquier noticia sobre grupos indígenas conjura imágenes de los
tribus aislado de la Amazonia, lo cual está lejos de la situación real. Los
medios de comunicación establecen la escena con imágenes románticas de las selvas tropicales. Sólo en raras
ocasiones envían a sus reporteros para investigar a fondo los acontecimientos
sobre que están reportando.
Si esto es lo que se espera de los medios de comunicación de hoy, no
debería ser el caso de las ONG de derechos humanos. Sin embargo, los organismos
de ‘derechos humanos’ con sede en Nicaragua son notoriamente sesgados
políticamente, y desde hace mucho tiempo ya pasaron el punto en que se pueden
considerar ser objetivos. Sus recientes denuncias de una campaña gubernamental
de asesinatos en zonas rurales, por ejemplo, se han demostrado ser completamente falsas. Todas
las ONG locales compiten por las donaciones de gobiernos extranjeros, y (como
uno admitió) exageran sus cuentas de muertes para conseguirlo.
Lamentablemente, las ONG internacionales no son mucho mejor. Los
reportajes de Amnesty International sobre Nicaragua se han demostrado estar llenos de errores y tergiversaciones. Anteriormente, varios individuos y organismos habían solicitado a la
ONG Global Witness corregir la información sesgada en sus informes sobre de las
disputas de tierras en el área de Bosawás, que caracterizaron a Nicaragua como
el “país más peligroso del mundo” para ser un defensor del medio ambiente. A pesar de los muchos
esfuerzos que hizo para asegurar que Global Witness escuchara las complejidades
de la historia real, ese ONG se negó a retirar sus acusaciones, incluso cuando
se descubrió que algunas eran completamente falsas.
Por eso los titulares como ‘Una trágica epidemia de violencia’ no deben
tomarse al pie de la letra. Incluso la BBC (seis indígenas muertos en un ataque) se equivocó. El sesgo mediático contra el gobierno sandinista de
Nicaragua es incesante, y las ONG internacionales lo están alimentando (al
igual que el gobierno de EE.UU., por supuesto). Mientras tanto, detrás de los
titulares, el pueblo nicaragüense está recuperando con éxito la preciosa paz y
seguridad de la que disfrutaba antes de los violentos acontecimientos de 2018.
La mayoría se siente aliviada de que la verdadera ‘epidemia de violencia’ haya
terminado unos meses después de haber comenzado para dejar a Nicaragua el país
más seguro de la región.
The following article by John Perry comes
from his Two Worlds blog. It originally appeared in The Grayzone, an independent news website dedicated to original
investigative journalism and analysis on politics and empire – thegrayzone.com.
I am grateful to John for permission to reproduce his article in this website.
Here’s a
headline you won’t see: Nicaragua is at peace. After the violent attempt to
overthrow the government in 2018, which cost at least 200 lives, the country
has largely returned to the tranquillity it enjoyed before. This is not only
the impression that any visitor to Nicaragua will receive, it is confirmed by
statistics: Insight Crime analysed homicide levels across Latin
America in 2019 and showed that only three countries were safer than Nicaragua
in the whole continent. What’s more, three of its neighbours, the ‘northern
triangle’ of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, were all among the worst
countries. They also have high levels of fatal violence against women. In the
first 24 days of 2020, for example, 27 Honduran women met violent deaths, while
next-door Nicaragua continues to have one of the lowest levels of femicide in Latin America.
The latest
ones come from an incident at the end of January. Criminals attacked a small
community in the large forest reserve of Bosawás. It was reported by Reuters to have led to six deaths, ten people being
kidnapped and houses being destroyed. The Guardian, New York Times and Washington Post all
repeated the story. Local right-wing newspaper La Prensa quoted the NGO Fundación del Rio who called it a
‘massacre’. Nicaragua’s opposition Civic Alliance joined in by calling it
‘ethnocide’. For the opposition news channel Patriotic Communications it was a ‘war’ against
indigenous people in which ‘the Ortega government is silent’ about the crimes
committed. Amnesty International condemned ‘the state’s indifference’ to the
sufferings of indigenous people. The Interamerican Commission for Human Rights
said the government was failing its international obligations.
Bosawás is
the largest area of tropical rainforest north of the Amazon. It has few roads
and mainly tiny communities, many relying on rivers for transport. Many local
people belong to indigenous groups which have been granted land titles by the
government and this land cannot be sold, only leased. Others are settlers
(called ‘colonos’) some of whom have leased land but others who occupy it
illegally. Disputes between established farmers and landless peasants are
common, and for many years have sometimes resulted in violence. The problems of
policing such places, with their history of conflict and corruption, are not
confined to their remoteness.
What really
happened in the recent case only became clear after the police arrived to
investigate, having been called to the scene of two reported
deaths, not six, late on the afternoon of 29 January. In the place
where the attack occurred, the community of Alal, the police found 12
houses had been burned down and two people had been injured. No one had
disappeared. By 31 January they had checked three more nearby communities and
found no evidence of murder or kidnapping. Local community leaders condemned
the false news reports.
Then, at a
completely differently place 12km east of Alal, along the River Kahaska Kukun
near the community of Wakuruskasna, police found and identified
four bodies, two in one part of the river and two in another part, apparently
dead from gunshot wounds. Local people said they knew of no one who had
disappeared or was missing. Investigations continued and two days later senior
police and government officials met with the community in the local school to explain
the investigations and the enforcement work they were doing, as well as the
help that people would get to rebuild their destroyed houses. Then, on February
5, the families of the victims met with Nicaragua’s Procurator of Human Rights, Darling
Ríos, to denounce the crimes committed. The police are pursuing the criminal
gang involved and so far (February 12) have captured one culprit who was
carrying a sub-machine gun.
The
background to this story is important and is ignored by the international media
and human rights bodies. A significant proportion of Nicaraguan territory is
legally held by indigenous groups and has been duly titled by the Nicaraguan
Government in each community’s ownership. The authorities that administer them
are designated by the communities themselves. In the indigenous territory of
Mayangna Sauni As, made up of 75 communities, there is an internal dispute over
control of these communal lands. Some of the leaders have sold land to groups
of outside settlers, which is possibly at the root of last month’s conflict.
Sadly,
despite a massive and ongoing process of land reform in Nicaragua, there are
still cases of displaced peasant farmers who can’t buy expensive land in
populated areas and seek to buy it cheaply, and perhaps illegally, elsewhere,
or simply to occupy it. Sparsely populated areas like Bosawás are especially
vulnerable. The ensuing conflicts are portrayed by international organisations
as struggles between environmentally conscious indigenous people and destructive
outsiders, abetted by the government. The reality is that poor people are in
competition for land, sometimes violently. And the violence is spasmodic: there
were few reported deaths in land disputes for the last two years, although
there were several in 2015 and 2016, mainly affecting a different indigenous
community, the Miskitu.
It is
hardly surprising that news media side with indigenous groups and that the
settlers rarely get a voice. Inevitably, as in the Alal case, whoever can get a
story out via a phone call will receive attention, and even an agency like
Reuters will (it seems) accept such a report before the facts can be checked.
To those unfamiliar with Nicaragua, any news item about indigenous groups
conjures images of uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, which is far from the real
situation. News media set the scene with romantic images of rainforests. Only
rarely do they send reporters to investigate in depth.
If this is
to be expected of today’s media, it shouldn’t be the case with human rights
NGOs. Yet Nicaraguan-based ‘human rights’ bodies are notoriously biased
politically, and have long passed the point where they can be considered
objective. Their recent allegations of a government campaign of rural
assassinations, for example, were shown to be completely
false. All the local NGOs compete for donations from foreign
governments, and (as one admitted) exaggerate their death counts in order to get it.
Regrettably,
the international NGOs are little better. Amnesty International’s reporting on
Nicaragua has been shown as full of errors and misrepresentations. Global Witness
was earlier called out for biased reporting of the land disputes in the Bosawás
area, in which it called Nicaragua the world’s ‘most dangerous country’ to be an
environmental defender. Despite many efforts to get it to listen to the
complexities of the real story, it refused to withdraw its allegations even
when some were found to be completely untrue.
This is why
headlines like ‘A Tragic Epidemic of Violence’ should not be taken at face
value. Even the BBC (Six indigenous people reportedly killed in attack) was
wrong. Media bias against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government is unremitting, and
international NGOs are feeding it (as, of course, is the US government).
Meanwhile, behind the headlines, Nicaraguan people are successfully recovering
the precious peace and safety they enjoyed before the violent events of 2018.
Most are relieved that the real ‘epidemic of violence’ ended a few months after
it began.
