Felix Sánchez & King Valentín Santana

Interviewee: Felix Sánchez (President of the Naso Foundation) and King Valentín Santana (King of the Naso People).
Interviewer: Martin Mowforth and Karis McLaughlin
Location: San San Drui, Panama
Date: 9th September 2009
Theme: Naso struggle for land rights against the Ganadera Bocas company and the violence of the company and police.
Keywords: TBC
Notes: Please note that the following translations are of bit-conversations and part-conversations held whilst walking to the Naso village of San San Drui and of similar during our visit to the village. Some of them therefore start and/or end in mid-sentence. Please also bear in mind that some of the conversations are with people for whom Spanish is their second language – i.e., not just the interviewers – and especially in the case of King Valentin there is a problem of secondary translation of a secondary translation.

 


Naso 1

Felix Sánchez (FS): … the lands, including marking the limit of these lands. When they delimited these lands, it was never known that if you were next to me then you have to know which is my land. From a plane, they mapped this and they marked points with GPS and drew their map and began to make their arrangements/agreements. So, with the company, the Standard Fruit Company, at that time they were the bosses, but at the same time they weren’t the owners, they were the nation’s tenants and not the legitimate owners; but afterwards, in the seventies, the company went up for sale as a business, changing its name to one which had possession of the land and a pile of rules and arrangements which they made. That’s when it all started happening.


Naso 2

Martin Mowforth (MM): Perhaps you don’t want us to use your name? Is that OK or not?

FS: No, that’s not a problem. What we have always seen, at least for my part, in our experience of documenting all this, is that it’s necessary to know who is providing the information. So I would say that in the case of the interview done when this other person came last year and published information, several things were not right. Perhaps they didn’t meet with the right people who had a full understanding of the issue. It was very superficial and left a lot of doubt and many things that were not clear.

MM: In our case, our aim is that we are in the Central American countries to research a range of projects, programmes and environmental problems. In our opinion, the special difficulties faced by indigenous people, on land titling, is an environmental problem. So we are going to produce a text on these problems, and one chapter is going to cover the problems experienced by indigenous groups.

Male voice: At the Central American level?

MM: Yes, Central America. As you know, there are many indigenous groups in Central America.

Male voice: Yes, Guatemala alone has 23.

MM: We’re aware of this. But with your permission we are going to use the case of the Naso and your difficulties with the titling of your lands, and especially your conflict with the Boca Cattle Ranching company [Ganadera Bocas]. And if you wish I can send to Eliseo by email copies of what we write.

Male voice: You can use my email too. The organisation has an email too.

MM: We’ll send it to both of you.

Male voice: I think that it’s not just a problem of land titles in indigenous territories, which is a problem throughout Mesoamerica, but it’s also one of concessions too, which is the other way of wresting indigenous territories from us. It would be good to see what happens with the new initiatives which some governments have, like in Honduras which has the PAT [not sure] which is something like PRONAT here in Panamá, and to see what are its origins, especially seeing that today there are some incoherent things going on relating to the reality of our culture. To talk of land titling in indigenous territories is totally disconnected with the reality of our culture. Here we can say that when he or she inherits land, they say: “Your land is from here. Where is your almond tree?” to give you an example, no land is titled and nobody is asking for it to be so. It’s an initiative which comes from the government. So it would be good to focus on land titling not like, say, Ganadera Bocas as one such case, but with the Naso people there are many cases within the concession of people who are losing lands.

MM: I understand the problem and I want to ease your mind about the words we may use. We are very sympathetic to this case and to other cases associated with indigenous peoples. So we want to write in favour of your cause. We can send copies of what we write to you, Eliseo and others so that you can check our words.

Male voice: Yes, also so that we can give it to the community. It’s a preference that we have because many people come researching, they take away their information, and the community is left without knowing of what they did with it. It’s better to talk with the community. I’d like you to meet José before the mayor arrives. The sun’s very strong.


Naso 3

FS: That was what I was going to explain to you. That’s the government’s initiative. Here it’s called PRONAT, which is the National Land Titling Programme. In Honduras it’s PAT which is the same kind of initiative. The financiers are the World Bank and the BID [IDB, Inter-American Bank for Development] which are behind all that. In Perú it’s Law 1035, in Mexico it’s called …???… ; but they’re all similar initiatives which the states are assuming will enable them to provide some form of legalising land ownership. It means that land in indigenous territories will have a greater value, but it’s a clever way of continuing to take land away from indigenous territories. What you can see here, those titles, those posters and signs, precisely those there [pointing], that’s the propaganda and part of the campaigns to make people aware of the need to get titles to their land.

So, clearly, it’s not a programme which comes from the people’s initiative. It’s an initiative with its origins in the government, and also in the World Bank and the IDB which are behind these things, to be able to see the effects of the supposed valuation that they’re giving to land in the indigenous territories.

We’ve had a terrible experience here in Panamá with that project that the government runs through PRONAT. It’s terrible that they’re trying to push it further. We even sent an investigation to the World Bank, we signed up to the panel of the World Bank and asked them to carry out their own investigation into the project that they have here because PRONAT exists because of World Bank funding. So recently the World Bank panel came and actually the inspection panel has the authority to conduct its own investigation, which it is actually going to do in October.


Naso 4

FS: … here in these lands where we are. From there [pointing], where you see those posts, as I say, up to there is San San Drui and La Tigre is further down. Historically, all these lands have been inhabited and it’s proven that the burial sites were here in this place. In a given moment of history, the pressure of the ladinos who came making themselves owners of the lands, at that time they chased off the Naso from the hill. So the Naso went to the mountains which you can see beyond. Now after all that, the process of struggle has begun for the recovery of territory, of the lands lost.

Now the conflict that has begun is different. At least if the population from here had had the same knowledge then, about what they did here … , they wouldn’t just have fled towards the mountains but would have gone beyond the other sierra too. But now there is a greater knowledge that there are legal procedures and there’s an internal process of struggle too, of resistance; so the situation is completely different.

Here, where we’ve just arrived, is precisely where the community has marked the boundary with the Ganadera Bocas company. From that fence over there is Ganadera Bocas land, but within that, where we are, lands are titled to Ganadera Bocas including all of the community higher up, the schools, health centre, everything that’s above that. It includes all that’s there.


Naso 5

MM: We are here to research about environmental issues and we have heard and read a lot about the Naso’s problems. For us, these problems are environmental problems. Is it OK to ask some questions?

Quito Torres (QT): [translation] He says that’s OK, everything is perfectly fine, no problem. As the authority he thanks you for your efforts to get here. So he is happy to say something if it’s possible that it may interest you in trying to get to know the problems that we have here and that we have had for a long time, he says. For him it is good that you are getting this knowledge from a long distance away. So, from everyone here, he makes it clear that he must facilitate this interview.

MM: Thank you. So we could start with the most urgent and most immediate problem which is the problem of the destruction of your houses and community centre by the police, following the directions of the Ganadera Bocas company. Could you tell me a little bit about this problem and the current situation?

(QT): [translation] He says that in times gone by, our parents and grandparents lived here. And by chance for what is happening right now, there are white people who have been exceeding or overstepping our limits, our boundaries. So as is our custom, we keep defending our territory and we call on many people who come to know the problem that we have here that it is the white man who is stealing the land, and the land is ours.

MM: Of your ancestors?

QT: Yes.

MM: Do you expect other assaults as before when your houses were destroyed?

FS: Yes, they’ll do it again. So that’s why the mayor has come today, to talk with the community. He wants to inform them because the central government is already exerting pressure. The local communities are totally convinced that the lands are theirs, and therefore they [figures in authority] would prefer to come and talk with them and to suggest that they have authorisation from the central government for …???… So, we wait, although the mayor has said, “I’m not going to send any uniformed personnel”. You’re going to hear him right now. He never wanted to see any uniformed people in this community, demolishing, making them homeless, for nothing. He has said that he’s not going to do that.

MM: One related question. Have the people whose houses were destroyed got other houses now? Have they moved to other communities or other places?

FS: Those are the little ranchos that we see right now. They began to construct little ranchos which are not really permanent. There are some which are in places loaned by their relatives, some others higher up, but the majority are there [signifying the centre of the village from which we’d just come] making new ranchos; and so of course they talk of other displacements.

MM: As far as other problems that the Naso have, for example, the Bonik dam, can you tell us something about the current situation with this project and your struggle against it?

FS: To make it a little easier for the King, what has been your work and role in this struggle there and your position as King? (The more technical part we can give you, including documents.)

(QT): [translation] He says that he is not fighting for just one sector/part, he’s fighting for the whole territory. He is defending this territory; this territory is completely ours. So he’s done enough. There is one type who calls himself Tito Santana. He has betrayed his people in this case; and the government has also begun to pay him some attention.

The King says that he is going to defend his territory, and he is going to keep it. He makes a call to all white men, to the President of the Republic, to whom he has personally said that he is defending it. The President never took notice of him, yet the President of the Republic betrayed these people and so the problem is carrying on the same now as before; and people threaten them.

So, he says that it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, if you see yourself going to the end, to the edge of a group, to the edge of everything that we have, mainly in our area, which is called the Naso territory, the struggle is to keep yourself going as always, regardless of what happens. To him it doesn’t matter to say to your people that they put themselves in a corner in their area, in a place where there are no houses; we are defending one single cause which is our struggle, that is our right to our territory.

He says many thanks to you for coming here as journalists, not part of this country, as part of other countries, prepared to get to know us, because friends from other countries have helped us a lot when they have got to know our case. He hopes that we can continue to trust you so that tomorrow will bring us a good reply to this government plan to violate us.

MM: As Felix has already said, could we get the details, the reports, from you?

FS: I think so. In the case of the King, what we have often seen when he has acted – in the same struggles against the dam and against the company – is that he has served as the focal point, at least when the police invaded the community, when they arrested people, at the moment when he arrived on site they didn’t detain anybody. We can show lots of photographs where it is the King, surrounded by police, who is talking to them, intervening for the community. So it’s a case that he has shown himself. Within the whole process of struggle, he has always demonstrated the bravery to go and confront the power of government. They have lost a lot because on many occasions when he was present they couldn’t arrest anyone, but when the community was on its own they took people away as prisoners. On the one hand, that is one of the things he has been doing. On the other hand, he has also been at the forefront of the process of our making claims and demands. In the legal processes which we have been pursuing he is the signatory.

The King has been the focal point in all of this, but as far as the other one is concerned there is a king who the government bought, and the community sacked him. Although he’s been removed from office and separated from the people, he doesn’t live in the territory, but even so up till now the government recognises him because he represents their interests, he liaises with them, he signs agreements, they do loads of terrible things through him. That’s been happening here. You can see in various writings/articles that King Valentin is described as a defender of the environment.

On the other hand, we’ve dealt with all cases in a technical way, but we have always looked for decisions to be clearly associated with the King’s authority and with the community’s too. … We could show you in documents how the last government left everything more or less in favour of the company. We have always kept up the struggle without doubling our efforts and without getting too excited or duplicating efforts.

Those are the two very similar processes – the Ganadera Bocas company and the … company.


Naso 6

FS: … what we call here basic education, but also goes on after sixth grade – here they’re building the college. It serves the community. As you can see here, physically the new land area doesn’t allow it, but there’s going to be a problem of crowding, of expansion in the future, because the land is small and limited. To expand a bit more this infrastructure is important for the community.

Right now, it’s very limited for the children, and that’s what’s needed here, at least to have good park area. Good land to build this infrastructure is important. That’s what we’re thinking of for the future. But here, as you can see, there is no future, it’s so restricted. And that is what the fight is all about – Ganadera Bocas on the one hand throws people out and into the mountains, but imagine the infrastructure required in the middle of this natural area of sierras; look at the slopes that we have to deal with.

When they defined the property title they included all these lands, all that is here … The community became owners of this.


Naso 7

FS: The political structure of the Naso is composed of the traditional figurehead who represents us: the King. Following that is what we know as the Council of Leaders of the Naso People. This council is made up of leaders of each community, and our territory includes 11 communities. These leaders are those who discuss issues; it’s like the assembly where laws are discussed, and issues of development are approved and disapproved. Then there’s another organisation which is the General Assembly and that is the body which gives the final approval or disapproval of what is discussed in the Council.

The King is the figurehead, completely traditional. He represents us and is the image of authority as King. But he is above everything and coordinates the political structures that we have, namely, the leadership [the Council] and the Assembly.

END

Hector Garcia Berrios

Interviewee: Hector Garcia Berrios, lawyer and member of the National Roundtable Against Metal Mining
Interviewer: Martin Mowforth and Lucy Goodman
Location: San Salvador, El Salvador
Date: 22nd and 23rd July September 2010
Theme: TBC
Keywords: TBC
Notes: Translations of two interviews. Interview A was carried out at a demonstration outside the Canadian Embassy, San Salvador. Interview B in San Salvador, 23 July 2010.

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A)  Demonstration outside the Canadian Embassy, San Salvador, 22 July 2010

Hector Garcia Berrios (HB): Right now we are protesting here outside the embassy and we want to deliver a letter asking the ambassador that she uses her good offices and withdraws companies of Canadian origin from our country and that she does not sign the free trade treaty with Canada because this opens up a legal space for them to sue. That’s what we’re trying to achieve this afternoon.

… a community of Cabañas. We’ve got up to the … but we met with security forces of the National Civil Police (PNC) and private security which protects the embassy. We’ve been there trying to deliver it. It’s been difficult. Even a PNC official offered himself as an intermediary and to take the letter. Seeing that we couldn’t get in on either side of the building to get to the embassy, we decided, with the people who are here below, to provide the letter to him. All the embassy did was to put their stamp on it and the one who went in was the chief of security to deliver the document to the PNC who were mediating. They didn’t receive us. If only we might do the same when they arrive with their machinery – not to receive them when they arrive in our community and environment. I think we’re going to leave here in a moment. They’ve just told us that we will be informed that the letter was delivered. The only thing that the embassy did was to put its stamp on it, and they didn’t receive us, despite which … But what we did was make sure it got there through a PNC intermediary. They say that they will communicate with … and when they are going to receive us. Many thanks.

They leave us hanging here. Our objective is to deliver it and to make a presence and at the international level today there are activities at other Canadian embassies. People from different countries are demanding that the ambassadors use the good offices of their government to withdraw these Canadian companies which are doing so much damage in Latin America and in my country. Many thanks.

There’s a US person who’s doing a doctorate in Social Sciences and is nearly finished. He’s writing something on the resistance movement in Central America. He brought me a page to see if I would approve it. I told him that in our culture you don’t agree to talk with someone because you have a written commitment, rather from whom it comes. One thing you tell me – I know Leslie, and I know Alma and Tirso – they’re friends of mine, and they’re friends of yours, so we can talk before the document.

Martin Mowforth (MM): It’s absolutely necessary to know who you’re talking with. I understand.

HB: I want to ask you something. Is it possible to have access to what you’re writing in your analysis of Central America? Do you have it in Spanish or just in English?

MM: Most of it is in English. I’ve got documents not written by me that are in Spanish, but I could send you some documents that I have written in English. Can you read English?

HB: We can get them translated.


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B)  In San Salvador, 23 July 2010

Martin Mowforth (MM): Let’s begin with yesterday’s protest. Can you tell me the major points, the contents of the letter that you were trying to deliver to the Canadian embassy?

Hector Garcia Berrios (HB): Yesterday the Resistence was celebrating across Latin America the Day Against Open-Cast Mining. So we thought it was opportune, since across Latin America there were different actions at Canadian Embassies, that likewise we would get mobilised and present a letter to the ambassador asking that she uses the good offices of her government to withdraw from our country those companies of Canadian origin which are dedicated to mineral exploitation. So that is one of the objectives. The other was to ask her to intervene with her government to stop them signing the free trade treaty with Canada, since it creates a space for the different mining companies operating in the country to make claims against us if we do not grant them mining concessions here. So it violates the principles of sovereignty and self-determination of our native peoples. In that sense, we were looking for the ambassador, as you realise, but they didn’t let us enter, they kept it closed and placed a security detachment there.

The objective was this, to link together the different actions which were taking place at the Canadian Embassies. The Canadian ambassador did not want to receive us; in fact she takes a very hostile attitude towards us. Amongst us there were people who have wanted to go to Canada to talk on the issue and how it’s affecting us, and all of us in Latin America who are denied visas to travel to Canada. As if they have a register of all of us. A little while ago various colleagues from the National Roundtable Against Metal Mining, which is composed of several social organisations, amongst them ours which is called the Francisco Sánchez Unified Movement … 32, CEICOM (Research Centre on Investment and Commerce) as well, where David (Pereira) is; and all the people who came from Cabañas to apply for a visa for Canada – and none of them were granted. In the United States one of our colleagues managed to get one for three days. Maybe Canada has a more antagonistic attitude towards us, despite which they are getting very strong opposition in our country and we know that the ambassador has lobbied with high officials such as ministers and the president, to get approval for the authorisation of mining exploitation. So yesterday we also requested that she intercede so that they withdraw from here.

MM: What´s the current situation in the courts in the case of Pacific Rim against the government of El Salvador?

HB: When the current President Mauricio Funes publicly declared that he was not going to authorise any further concessions for mining exploitation, Pacific Rim changed its strategy. It took its claim to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID by its English initials), with its roots in the United States, for 77 million dollars plus legal costs, a total of 100 million dollars. Pacific Rim is a Canadian company. They weren’t able to make a claim against us because we weren’t contracted to them by a free trade treaty. So what they did is look for US financiers who opened a small office; they allied themselves with them and said: “Good, as the United States has a free trade treaty with El Salvador, we can make a claim against them because we have US associates. So they claimed against us, the tribunal was already set up and was made up of three referees and the ICSID: one from the World Bank, one from the company and one from the state of El Salvador. That was two to one, so that´s already a difference. But more than that, they have presented their grievance (that the state of El Salvador is supposedly doing by not granting them concessions) for the profits that they were supposedly going to make in return for their investments.

Despite what they’ve done, we believe that there are enough differences in their stances, because one thing according to Salvadoran law is that you can start the process of exploration, but that doesn’t necessarily oblige the state of El Salvador to grant a license for exploitation. In international law there exists the precautionary principle that can be used when the supposed development may cause damage to the ecosystem. So at the moment they are presenting the cases, and the state of El Salvador is making its own.

As a social movement we have brought over specialists to talk about the case, to raise awareness and to get more information, but also we are making ourselves available to the government of El Salvador , so that if they wish we also have various lawyers and we could collaborate with them.

MM: Are you expecting the verdict in September?

HB: No, it opens another stage. What happens is that the process of arbitration is a long process, it can last a year, a year and a half – it goes through various stages. They get to know the case, and then they pass judgement.

MM: Another thing very political and sad is the case of the assassinations which have happened during this year in Cabañas. I think there were three.

HB: There were five assassinations from June 2009 to December the same year.

MM: One of the criticisms of Pacific Rim is that they haven’t put out any statement about these assassinations. Have they said nothing about the assassinations?

HB: No. A little while ago the Canadian Senate sent out a call for Thomas Shrake, president of Pacific Rim, because Professor Steiner, who came here like you researching, he went to the Canadian Congress and presented a report on the damage which the company is doing. They sent out a call to the President of Pacific Rim and he came down and denied any link to the homicides and the acts of violence and held ADES responsible for these kinds of events. He [Shrake] said that officials of Pacific Rim had been trained to show a profile like that of Mahatma Ghandi and that it’s us who have generated the violence against the company, damaging and holding up the development of the country. He used very aggressive language in his speech, very violent; he directly accused one of the NGOs, ADES (Association for Economic and Social Development, Santa Marta), which has opposed the mining project and which has prepared and informed the people about it. ADES is one organisation which has worked for environmental protection and the unconditional respect for human rights.

I’ve been one of the lawyers who have been investigating the assassinations, not only that but also the profile and nature of how the environmentalists were assassinated. The department of Cabañas, where Pacific Rim works, was considered until 2008 the most peaceful of the Salvadoran departments. El Salvador has 14 departments. Morazán is the most peaceful department, and with fewest deaths, followed by Cabañas, in fact it only had 188 police and few or minimal resources to cover the whole department.

When Pacific Rim was publicly notified that they weren’t going to get the license for gold exploration, it changed its strategy from one of buying the good will of politicians, mayors, deputies, professors, local curates, to one of international claims against the state, but it ratcheted up the pressure against the social movement. A little while ago I was in Mexico with a group of scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), studying the mining process. I’ve had the opportunity to be in various countries studying this and you get to realise that there now exists a new modus operandi amongst the companies. They said delegates from Canada …. that for example there exist companies in Canada in which they create people who work in favour of mining to be able to …. First, they do a socio-anthropological study of where they are going to set up their installation, but more than that they have a designed structure for which they begin to contract, after the anthropological study, people from the community who are less scrupulous, like their employees, and they buy the will of people like mayors, deputies, businessmen, curates, pastors, professors – as has happened here – so that they manage to get into the community. And that is what they are doing here: they began to buy all the people. Why? Because they are damaging institutions – for instance, they pay for all the fiestas, the drinks are free, they finance the cars for the mayors, they pay for the police service’s end-of-year parties. So when they begin to generate pressure, our institutions begin to feel the pressure and they begin to criminalise social protest. They begin to persecute young people who are against them and we begin to see harassment.

In fact, there is no end of cases that I have. The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) has given me precautionary measures – they asked the Salvadoran state to guarantee my life because of the assault on my house. After that happened to me, they assassinated Marcelo. Later the level of violence began to rise.

At the moment, the Attorney General says that all the homicides which have been committed against environmentalists are the result of common delinquency – that’s the hypothesis they hold. Why do I not accept that? I don’t accept it because I’ve studied them case by case, and the hypothesis of the Attorney General of the Republic is deficient and contradictory.

In the specific case of Marcelo Rivera, there are contradictions in the way and the time that Marcelo was assassinated. The attorney told me, “Look, Marcelo was assassinated with some blows from a hammer, they beat him up, they hit him on the neck, they emptied a pistol into him, and they threw him away. Because of his sexual preference, he was going out with some young people, and then they got the idea to kill him, and so they killed him.” In our investigation we have verified that effectively Marcelo has two linear wounds, one of 10 cm and one of 7 cm and 1 cm wide. In the forensic medicine report it appears that these wounds were made post mortem, after death, or maybe when we were taking him out [of the well], because the fire brigade didn’t want to take him out, as they did with a stick. It’s that that caused these wounds, and it’s a lie that it was done with a hammer as the Attorney General said. It’s not a bruised blow. If it had been with an armament, the pressure would bruise and it would create a hole. So there is one contradiction.

Another is that they say that he died on the same day. When we took his body out – because we were the ones who took it out – he had been dead for a little more than 72 hours. Marcelo disappeared on the 18th [June 2009] and we took it out on the 30th which means that he spent around 11 days alive. So you begin to see the contradictions, not in how, but in depth. All the witnesses are going to attend an audience at the special court on Wednesday. The Attorney General’s hypothesis is based on a witness’s opinion because he wasn’t there at the time of death, only that he saw that Marcelo was there and that there were those youths there. So, with that they resolved it all. But people told us when we were investigating, because the police didn’t do any investigation, that they watched when they tied up the place and that when we got there, they [the police] moved off to the mountains or the woods or the canals, and when we got to the other place they moved again. We had witnesses who told us how much was paid for his assassination and the weapons which they used. We have all that information and we’ve given it to the police and the Attorney General’s office and they haven’t looked into any part of what we’ve given them. There are testimonies from someone who was with the people who assassinated Marcelo Rivera which tell of how they tortured him, how they pulled out the nails of his hands and of how he was sexually abused. He had a nylon tied here, on the finger, and they passed it through his mouth, his neck, they broke his windpipe and threw him down the well. When I say to the attorney how is it possible that you tell me that he wasn’t tortured and that what we are saying is a lie, how is it that you have the hand? They tell me: what happened is that the gang members wanted to tie him up and that he was already so rigid that they couldn’t tie him up, and so they tied only one hand. But it seems contradictory to me that if they tied one hand, why didn’t they tie the other? Marcelo was strong, very strong and big, so they only managed to tie one hand because he must have fought like mad. He was very strong, I know, with a very strong character, he wouldn’t let things like that happen easily. But it all happened. We knew where they had gone to throw the evidence of the rope, the shoes, the knapsack, and where he was. We’ve given it all to the police and they didn’t even go to collect it, or rather they weren’t interested in making any in-depth investigation.

But before this for almost three months, Marcelo had been on the receiving end of a campaign by the mayor of San Isidro, José Ignacio Bautista, because of his sexual preference. From the town hall came news sheets saying that Marcelo was a homosexual and about his sexual preference, and these went around all the population. In the government office here, in ConCultura, I had access to some records which monitored Marcelo Rivera and myself up until 2007. He was the director of the Casa de la Cultura and had a thick file in which the mayor had tracked us for years in different political activities and through our writings, on headed notepaper he was sending reports of our activities.

When I told the intelligence chief of the PNC, Howard Coto, about this type of situation and about the proof of the monitoring and intentions with regard to Marcelo Rivera, he told me that as mayor and as police chief, they could do those things. How could he tell me that? Marcelo had nothing to do with the mayor who is one of the greatest promoters of Pacific Rim and Marcelo was one of the people who had represented the resistance, and institutionally Marcelo did not depend on the mayor. But, more than that, we managed to get the mayor to withdraw the taxes that he had imposed on the town. We closed down a landfill site which mayors of right and left, the nine municipalities of the department, along with those of San Vicente, had managed to reach an agreement on so that it would make a 500 meter straight line from the Río Titihuapa, which provides all our people with bathing and food, because people don’t have access to water, they only have it in pipes. Marcelo and another group of people managed to stop that.

Marcelo was a very charismatic person. He celebrated Mother’s Day; he celebrated Children’s Day; he always dressed well; he was the first to get a library in the town, there was nothing there before; he was the first to create a NGO called ASIC, he was its director and he ran it. Marcelo didn’t harbour bad feelings towards anyone; so he was well settled. With him, we began green journeys. … We are in a department of ideology and law, and it’s from there that we began to form a strategy to resist the company. Whoever decided to assassinate him knew what he was doing. I think they not only wanted to assassinate him but also to send a message about what was going to happen. But after it had happened to Marcelo, they detained a few gang members and said that they were responsible for the murder.

When we present all the details of the assassinations, nobody takes notice, nobody considers them. What happens is that also lately a campaign has started against all the young people at Radio Victoria who are fighting to denounce this. They approach them in their houses, they leave anonymous threats, they say they are going to assassinate them. There’s a priest, Luis Alberto Quintanilla, who is also in the resistance, and they tried to kidnap him, young people with M16 weapons. He threw himself into a ravine at night and managed to flee after an anti-mining event.

They began to threaten us, to make telephone calls saying they were going to kill us, but nobody paid any attention to it here. Up to now, the Attorney General’s office hasn’t given any response to the threats. Who assaulted me? To know who fired on my house, to know who took away all the information that I had, I don’t know – I’ve never received a response.

In August, working on Marcelo Rivera’s case and having been denounced, a person close to the rightwing ARENA party called me from the town and told me – he called Miguel Rivera, Marcelo’s brother, and called me and said, “I’m going to give you a piece of advice. Get out of the town because it’s been agreed that you or Miguel are going to be assassinated during the holidays.” He told us who had been at the meeting where the agreement was made that they would assassinate us. Talking with Miguel Rivera I said to him, “look, first what they want to do is to scare us, they want to put the fear into us.” Anyway, effectively at the beginning of the August holidays I came here on the 6th August because my wife and daughter are here. On the 7th August they tried to assassinate Ramiro Rivera. Oscar Menjívar, a promoter of the mining company, put a shotgun to his back. He’s still at liberty because in the hearing where he would have been jailed the victim couldn’t attend because he was assassinated a few months after the first attempt. The judge said there was no evidence and so he remains at liberty. That’s the way things are here. Everybody knows who killed him, everybody knows who fired the shot and who works for the company. So, he remains at liberty.

Subsequently, on the 20th December 2009, Ramiro was killed. He had two special police with him from the witness protection squad, but on arriving at his house in Trinidad he was ambushed with shotguns and heavy weapons and they shot him. The police failed to react.

MM: What happened with the police?

HB: They had to defend themselves and fled because the firepower that they had wasn’t a match for what had been mounted. But also it was known that there had been threats against all of us and they took no protective measures. They gave me no security and that’s because I put it to the director of police that they leave me to choose my own security. They told me no, … If I had moved to 17 police from the police district of San Isidro, how am I going to be able to trust that you can give security? So no, the OAS resolution (through the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights) says that my security has to be agreed, but they haven’t wanted to agree. You can verify that in the Chancellery, you can talk with the lawyer David Morales who deals with international matters and you can see that it is the case that the PCN [National Civil Police] won’t allow us to choose our own security.

MM: Have you received many threats?

HB: We’ve received various. There are people who give you a call like I told you. He said to me, “go away because the decision has been taken that they are going to kill you.” The PNC chief in San Isidro, the new chief after transfer, called and told me, “I want to talk with you.” I knew him because I was a member of the police … as a member of the FMLN I entered the police force, so I know many policemen. He said to me, “I want to talk with you. I’ve been meeting with the mayor and a town councillor. It surprised me that the mayor has said, “the problem here in the department was you, and that if they neutralised you the problems here would be resolved.” So when they said your name I was shocked,” he told me. “Effectively it was the mayor who was asking that they neutralise you.” So the same institutions which informed me have made the call for me to be neutralised. I don’t know what a neutrality is, or how they can neutralise me, by cutting out my tongue, or by nothing less than eliminating me.

On the 26th December they killed Dora [Sorto], fifty metres from a police post. She was the wife of Santos who is part of the resistance against the mining in Trinidad, where it’s on another range of hills. When you begin to check all this in an holistic way, you realise that we are all environmentalists fighting against the mining company. Today they tell you, no, it was that this family and that family were hating each other, they’ve had problems and they killed amongst the family.That’s what the police say in the case of Trinidad. But they don’t tell you that they are working for a company, which is Pacific Rim, and that they oppose it. And that someone said, give them the money and give them the arms so that they can kill each other.

But this hasn’t only happened here. In Guatemala, more than 45 environmentalists opposed to mining have been assassinated, three attempted assassinations of the Minister of the Environment; in Mexico, at the same time as they killed Marcelo here, they killed the Mexican resistance leader, Mariano Abarca Roblero – hitmen on a motorbike that were working for the company assassinated him – the company was Canadian; a little while ago they killed Bety Cariño in an ambush similar to the one in which they killed Ramiro. So, there is a modus operandi of Canadian companies to intimidate and to generate violence and terror, in order to achieve their objectives. [Difficult sentence to translate.]

I was with US embassy representatives here – he was called …???… and was a human rights representative. He told me, “prove to me that the company knows about it, because it could be that the company doesn’t know about it and that maybe it’s their employees, that the company is clean, and the company has the right to take strategic measures with its officials.” That’s the stance of the US embassy. I said to him, “the company is an abstract form, they are legal forms. What you have to investigate is who is behind these things, who has so much power, and who has interests in carrying out this type of project.”

Who do we have behind it? Fidel Chávez Mena, ex-Chancellor of the Republic, his son, the President of the Pacific Rim company. Who else do we have? The brother-in-law of the ex-Vice President of the Republic, Ana Vilma Escobar, who represents the Poma Group, a very powerful business group at the Central American level. Or maybe, who has interests in carrying out the mining activity? That’s what you’ve got to investigate. Why don’t you open the files? And get to who is paying them so much money.

I have information about a man called … – let me remember – he works for Jim McGovern the US Congressman. He’s been working and monitoring the cases of impunity in Latin America, especially in Central America. Well, he called me and made contact with me. He told me, “from the sub-director of intelligence of the state we have information that the company is making large disbursements of money and it does it through various roundabout ways, through subtlety and by underhand means. I gave all that information to a PNC intelligence chief and I made sure that it got to the state intelligence chief. The only thing that they confirmed is that effectively there was a very strong link between public officials and the company, but that’s how it remains; they won’t let us see what more has been investigated.”

I think that there’s more, because these are structures that can function, that can only function, in corrupt institutions and in an atmosphere of impunity. That’s what’s happening in this country. Jim McGovern came here to investigate the case of Marcelo Rivera and one of the things that he said is that this is a fireproof case to demonstrate that President Mauricio Funes is fighting against impunity. But until Wednesday when we have the hearing, regretably the Attorney General has investigated nothing, and he has brought a legally very weak hypothesis. So what is that going to allow? That impunity continues or that the material authors of these crimes remain free …? We are faced with this – they try to say that they were isolated elements and that it’s just common violence. How strange is that? We all live in Cabañas and we’re all against the mining and we are all threatened and they tell us that they are going to kill us.

There’s a resolution from the Human Rights Attorney in which it is required that they investigate seriously and in an holistic way the context in which all this violence is occurring. Why have they not done it? Who are they protecting? Who has Pacific Rim given money to in the country? I could tell you who it’s been financing, it’s given funds to powerful politicians for their electoral campaigns – we have the names of who it has been promoting. Politicians, deputies, and mayors working more as promoters of the company than anything else.

MM: One thing I want to expose in the book is the culture of impunity. It’s a huge problem in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, and in El Salvador too. One last question: we’ve recently heard from the mining companies, and specifically Pacific Rim, about the concept of green mining. Could you comment on the use of this idea by the companies?

HB: To me it’s offensive that they try to cheat the people. Green mining does not exist. It was something that they created here in this country, trying to deceive and to say that in Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia there was green mining, so why couldn’t they do it here? And the big idea is that they contaminate and that they extract a large part of the soil and sub-soil and then they put it back. That’s the whole hypothesis that they put forward. Green mining is a fallacy – there’s only one type of mining. The chemicals that they are going to use, like mercury, cyanide, lead, cadmium, are going to contaminate the surface, the sub-soil and the water. The conflict in this is that it is a lie that there exists development through these companies. These companies respond to international interests in a context of megaprojects, where they develop dams, mining, the infrastructure from the north, which are large projects that belong to the government of the United States, via the World Bank and the IMF. They pressure the governments of Latin America so that they become a part of globalisation and market expansion in order to guarantee their own interests of the USA, Canada, England. These companies come to take our strategic resources. From 100 per cent of their profits they leave only 1 per cent in the local area and 1 per cent for the country – it’s offensive.

So, such mining doesn’t exist – it’s a lie. They have tried to take our people by surprise. As of today, I don’t know of a mine that does not contaminate.

MM: In San José, the capital of Costa Rica, there are advertisements on the screens in the buses from the company which is trying to extract the gold of Crucitas. They have publicity campaigns to present themselves with a clean image, which is an advertisement of about one minute and which says ‘Green Mining for Costa Rica’, ‘Mining, helping the people of Costa Rica’. It says it many times. I haven’t seen a mine that doesn’t pollute anywhere in the world. It’s incredible that they can use the term ‘green mining’, around which they’ve designed this campaign.

I sent Leslie nine files from this chapter on mining, a little before she left the country. I could send you the same files, but they’re in English.

HB: I could add that El Salvador is the only country in Latin America which has stopped a mining exploitation project. There’s no other country which has stopped and which has managed to politically intervene to bring about such a stoppage. That’s worth treasuring. The transnationals cannot continue to dominate the market and to prevail over the people. The people must unite and leave aside their divisions and different languages. The time has arrived for us to look after our environment or we are all going to die.

I can’t monitor the whole world looking for the things that others are doing; we are the same people who have to look after our little bit for present and future generations.

I recognise that part of the most important thing that we have managed to do is to have an influence in strategic sectors which can then influence other sectors, like the church and potential presidential candidates, and through the process of discussion and education with the communities. Thanks to that we have been able to stop this type of project. We’ve had costs and losses of life, yes, we’ve had them, but we’ve also seen international solidarity. The fact that you are here is because at the international level we’ve managed to make waves and to raise consciousness a little about what the European and US transnationals come and do to these people. They’ve been coming here since long before the present problems, wanting to exploit the natural resources of these communities for their own ends. And that can’t be allowed; we must join our own forces together and begin to work together, and thus we’ll have an opportunity to continue living, and our future generations too.

MM: Many thanks for your time and your words. The preparation of a book like this takes a long time, but I’ll use your words, but I’ll send them to you first to check them with you. After each interview, I get a friend to transcribe them, and of course I only use a few words from each interview; but I do want to use the words of Central Americans instead of just the words of academics from the north, so that is the motive for carrying out these interviews. I hope the book will be ready in two years.

END

COMUS members

Interviewees: Estela Anzora (Presidenta de COMUS), Juan Rodríguez, Jaime Coutts, Chico Peña and Ernesto
Interviewers: Martin Mowforth and Lucy Goodman
Location: San Francisco Javier, Usulután, El Salvador
Date: 26 July 2010
Theme: Many aspects of development in Usulután and in El Salvador as a whole, with special emphasis on agriculture and forestry.
Keywords: TBC
Notes:

 

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Martin Mowforth (MM): First, I know that you have organic agricultural production programmes. Could you describe some of those programmes?

Ernesto (E): My name is Erni, del CID [International Cooperation for Development] and I’m a promoter of the coffee project. We’re working in Berlín, and also in Tecapán and San Francisco Javier and the north of San Agustín. There are fifteen groups which we organise, and they’ve been helped with a finca plan. In the finca plan they tell us how many years they have had their cafetal. The cafetals generally last from 70 to 80 years – that’s their useful life span. So in the plan they specify the activities which they are going to carry out and those that they’ve already completed.

In the organised groups we are working to produce organic leaf mulches and organic fertilisers. Also we’re trying to work out the best ways to re-activate a finca, putting together the saplings from old bushes with those from young bushes.

We’ve got 150 producers organised. We’ve begun work with them and they are pleased with it, so much so that they are no longer applying chemicals.

MM: Are there still lands here which are contaminated with chemical residues from previous production?

Jaime Coutts (JC): In Berlín for example, there are producers who …???… Obviously if you have an organic finca below [on lower ground] and a finca that uses chemicals above [on higher ground] there is the possibility of the transfer of chemical residues. In this case, we can use physical barriers and run-off channels for the water along with a buffer strip of land. Heavy chemicals like DDT leave you with land that can’t be used for years; whereas with lighter chemicals you can still use the land. But, as Ernest says, of the 150 producers, there are 50 certified with 124 manzanas of land, 43 hectares of coffee certified by the German company BCS.

MM: As for organic fertilisers / compost, the producers make their own compost or do you have a centre for the production of compost here so that you can distribute it?

JC: No. We used to do it like that before. Today we’ve reached a productivity level where it’s done in groups. We’re certified under the GTO quality certification. The community organises itself … in Socorro Bautista there are 17 compañeros who with the help of one compañero from elsewhere make their own mulches and their own composts on their fincas. In other cases, they buy products like B80 and other foliars (mulches) which are produced in the US and other countries and are imported.

MM: But you have a coffee processing plant. You could use the waste material for the production of compost?

JC: We are working towards that with COMUS’s project. For example, when we have 300 quintals of processed coffee in the plant, it gives approximately five wagonloads of pulp. If we buy two wagonloads of turkey or chicken manure, we can apply a process known as bocache. We can use this at the rate of between 1 and 3 litres per plant. So our aim is to create our own centre of collection and processing. So as far as your question goes, we are processing it here and the producer receives his … of bocache. Some of them have just taken the pulp and nothing else, but that’s costly.

MM: On another issue, does COMUS involve itself in the delivery of potable water or in collection and storage systems of water for irrigation?

Juan Rodríguez (JR): My name is Juan Rodriguez. Before talking on the issue of water, it’s important to relate something about the production of the same organic coffee project. This is to the north … of the micro hydrographic basins in the area of our coverage. There’s an activity aimed at improving the soils with a kind of filleting to allow the accumulation of organic material but also the capture of water.

In this framework I think it’s important to mention that in the last three years we have been developing a series of efforts with this aim in mind and we have been selecting the producers, with 60 manzanas of cafetales, managing a production yield of 400 libretas per manzana. This implies that for each libreta we would need more or less a barrel of water during our winter [dry season] for each row. That implies that each manzana would need around 60 barrels in the rainy season. 400 barrels for 60 manzanas is a good quantity of water which can be captured and consequently it supplies the water tables which supply the national population. In that sense, there is a sector which is ready to have water.

On the other hand, there are zones and communities which don’t have a service of potable water. These communities, and there are quite a few of them to the north where the water is captured, don’t have access to potable water. So there we’ve been working on the construction of systems for capturing rainwater. In some communities it is for consumption, as in the case of La Concha which is where the coffee project is – there they have built water storage tanks.

Two types of systems for capturing rainwater have been built: some are full projects collecting 600 barrels of water, whilst others are individual reservoirs which take about 80 barrels of water. These are for families in communities …

And this year we’ve been working on the theme of training for the use of the cisterns which run the community water projects. We’ve also been doing training in the financial aspects, which implies ensuring the economic sustainability of the community water systems, but also with a medium term vision of not only the amount of water collected but also how to make good use of it and what works to do to ensure the recharging of the water table so that it feeds the wells which supply some of the families.

MM: Have the water tables been contaminated?

JR: Yes, although it wasn’t really COMUS who did this exercise; rather, almost four years ago there was an organisation here in San Francisco Javier which carried out various analyses and found contamination through agrochemicals.

Chico Peña (CP): My name is Chico Peña. Just to give a little support to what my colleague was saying, COMUS doesn’t supply water. What COMUS does is to accompany the communities so that they can resolve some of the problems associated with water supply when they arise. Still in 2010 a good part of the people that COMUS deals with don’t have a water supply. So their consumption is from artisanal wells, a hole from which they can get water with pitchers or tins.

MM: Has COMUS been involved in the drilling of wells?

CP: These wells were more family wells. The families drill them, take out the water and thus supply the community. It was a form of community water supply.

With our accompaniment which COMUS develops with the communities in the process of our work, we manage some water projects. Now 90 per cent of the communities covered by COMUS already have their own projects of potable water supply, administered by the community, and now there are wells which are not artisanal but which are a more family based potable water supply. There are some communities which still have not managed this and it’s going to be difficult for them because they are generally high zones where it’s very difficult to get a potable water system to them.

It’s more in the accompaniment which COMUS develops that we improve the use of the water resources and the water table that we have. Here in the area covered by COMUS there are five or six water administrators with a network of four or five communities where they manage those water projects.

We are clear that in the Greater San Salvador area, for example, the big companies, like Coca Cola and all those that have bottling plants are already exhausting supplies. Right now with the famous AdA, with the Association Agreement with the people of Europe, we think that the water crisis is going to get worse because I imagine that it will bring some interests here and one of those interests could be water. So that means that the problem of water is going to get worse every day.

COMUS’s work, through its accompaniment, is to strengthen the water tables which we still have.

MM: In all this business about water, where is ANDA (the National Administration of Aquaducts and Sewers)?

CP: The situation is that centrally, here in the urban area, as we say as good Salvadorans, it’s being administered by ANDA, but that’s the only place where it’s administered by ANDA.

In 2001, I think, the idea of decentralisation of water management was being put forward in all these municipalities. So this was one of the municipalities which was going to be decentralised and where management was going to be passed over to the community. But the earthquakes happened and so it was all left as it had been and ANDA continued to administer the water systems in the urban areas.

The situation now is that the systems approved by, for example Japan which has supported lots of these projects that we are developing, the financial and political body comes along and says “the project is now the community’s, the community administers it and it is yours.” Well, this project couldn’t be given to ANDA. On the one hand, ANDA isn’t interested in community projects; and on the other hand, there is the same conditioning of the project so that it can be administered by the community. Here, throughout the whole zone, the administration is being given to the community.

JC: To support what Chico says, we need to revive the political juncture that existed in the year 2001. There was a multimillion dollar robbery scandal [The Perla effect – see the book] – some multimillionaire officials took loads of money via an ANDA project. So the agencies, like the Japanese agency, don’t want to finance people who are taking advantage of the system, and they demanded that, if there were new community projects or new expansions, ANDA should be left out of the management of the funds.

So you have to get approval for the plans to be administered by the people. It’s a very easy way of saying …???… our water and when the people don’t control it – because that’s the problem we have in …???… right now the people are so poor that they don’t have to pay for the water, so they use great quantities of it. But who subsidises this? …???… To some extent, …???… the cost of all these operations, because it’s not an appropriate way. So it’s a double-edged sword.

MM: Do you have any renewable energy programmes in the communities?

Estela Anzora (EA): We’ve been investigating the alternatives that we can use. But the one mentioned most is solar panels. Although they could be a real alternative, at the moment we think they are too expensive, for which reason we have not yet got into these.

MM: Depends on the price of the panels. In your area of influence in this zone, do you have any problems caused by metal mining?

JR: Directly, no, not at the moment, but indirectly we are threatened because we can foresee that if the mine in Cabañas opens up, we’ll run the risk of contamination of …???…

MM: Is that the problem of Pacific Rim?

JR: Yes.

MM: Do they have plans to come into your zone?

JR: No, not here.

MM: So there’s no gold in your zone?

JR: No. [Laughter]

 MM: One issue on which I’m sure you can talk a lot is that of deforestation and reforestation. I know that you’ve got reforestation programmes going. Can you describe them?

EA: COMUS has been working since 1992 and onwards to ensure that there is no massive deforestation in the zone where we work, but yes, it has happened in other zones. So we’ve been making an effort to implement various alternatives, such as the organic coffee programme. Also there are other actions like the fincas integrated with fruit trees. In that way we’ve managed to stop large-scale deforestation as it happens in other places. When people have their own land, however, we can’t control what they do despite the fact that there are by-laws. In this municipality, for example, there’s an environmental by-law, although sadly it’s one of the things that are not applied.

As COMUS has been working on this, it has an awareness of how to improve the environment, but it’s a major work and we have challenges.

CP: The situation we live in in this zone which is not a zone given particularly to agriculture, but the population during and after the war became dependent on agriculture, on maize and beans to live; and that’s the reason why there is deforestation in the zone. The campesino has a unique way of life with farming and one in which you can’t live by trees; so you have to fell the trees in order to sow the maize. And if we return to the indiscriminate use of chemicals after the 1990s in this zone, in order to increase production, then unfortunately we’ve had to make use of those chemicals. As an agricultural zone, we have continued to use chemicals for the maize.

Since a while ago, COMUS has been trying to increase awareness about the need to reduce the use of chemicals. But deforestation is a result of agriculture. COMUS’s programme is more in the higher zone which is more vulnerable to lava flows and to erosion. We’ve made great efforts to maintain the coffee project because it’s through maintaining this project that we can prevent deforestation in the high zone.

There are particular efforts, as Estela was saying, in the certified plots, demonstration plots with vegetable production, and it’s in these that we are promoting fruit trees.

JC: It’s worth mentioning, as the others were saying, but there’s also a more global idea. If we remember how things were here before – I mean in the 1950s – from San Francisco Javier and three corontos further down, that’s where the coffee fincas began. The coffee fincas reach up to Alegría, 25 corontos higher up. There was plenty of vegetation and at that time there was a lot of work. What happened with the havoc of the war and the bombings and the 500 pound bombs and the scorched earth technique? Well, more than 2,000 manzanas of coffee were recovered in this zone. Then the Peace Accords came along. The struggle then was how to make these lands sustainable for the communities that lived in the area covered by COMUS. From that came everything which Chico and Estela have said. Five years ago there was a classification of coffee where they tried to maintain a standard quality of coffee, but today with climate change it’s necessary to take …???… the coffee, as I said before, 300 or 400 meters, to move up to 600 meters. So the most basic coffee now begins between 600 and 800 meters. What’s below that? It’s the inferior coffee. So in economic terms you do the numbers, and with the crash in the coffee price, and with what you pay the big exporters for your cup of coffee – well, at times, it’s not viable. But the producer carries on producing. So the challenge for COMUS is how to deal with this and how to ensure that they don’t fell their trees and that they make their plots profitable and provide food for the family.

MM: I was going to ask about global warming. Have you experienced any effects here?

CP: For the last three years here we’ve been feeling the effects, but we haven’t given it our major attention and it’s only in the last year that we’ve begun a process of training about global warming and climate change. In October or November of 2009, there was a huge tropical storm, Aída, which hit one place in particular, Verapaz, and left it really …???… So, we began to realise that these are climate change effects which can affect just one area and deal it a major blow. And this year our winter has been a little unusual, if we can say that, because it began with the rainy season from the 30th April / 1st May for fifteen days of rain when we had a lot of rain. Since the 24th May, it hasn’t stopped. There almost hasn’t been a day or night when there has been a downpour. This month [July] is the month that for us is normally a dry month in this zone, but now there hasn’t been a dry month. This is how we are feeling the effects of climate change, and that has significance for the farming, and particularly in the case of the bean. Most years the campesino sows the beans in May. Now we’re seeing truckloads of beans being put away, which is when they should be taking them out. As for maize and its fertilisation, as the fertilizers have no effect on it, the very small milpas find the effects are that it becomes yellow and scorched through the middle.

That means that a good part of the farmers are now going to feel the losses thanks to the climatic effects.

EA: Last year we could see it in the growth of the coffee. In November, when we had Tropical Storm Aída, the crops were grown and ready to cut. But we had so much rain in eight days that it ripped out the grain and that caused a huge loss. Particularly for the small producers, that is really difficult.

Like Francisco [Chico] said, with all the rain and throughout this winter with so many storms passing through – and we’ve only seen the tail-end of them – it’s almost irreversible. But even so, I think we have to make an effort to see what type of seeds we can work with, what type of plants and what other possibilities we have to be able to work with the producers to improve their food security.

JC: During last November’s storm, COMUS was making 20 quintals of coffee because we had seven flowerings …???… which means that this coffee dries itself …???…

MM: One last question about the land titling.

EA: For COMUS that’s a right for which we were formed and for us it’s an important axis of our work since our foundation, and it has been maintained. One of the people who we could mention has been important in shaping this problem is someone from here in the community, colleague Francisco Lemus (Chico), who has given a lot to the communities. It would be interesting for him to show it from his experience.

CP: Just to say a little about land titling, one of the problems which came out of the armed conflict in this country was the land ownership and the concentration of land in few hands. With the struggle there was a good group of families, 450 of them, only in this zone, managed to obtain property titles. From the time when they took over the lands, COMUS accompanied them right up to their becoming legal and with their title deeds in hand. It was in 1994 when that process was managed. But from 1995 for this zone we believed that the problem of the legality of the lands had been resolved and was finished. Eight or ten years passed and we didn’t give much emphasis to the land issue, but after the earthquakes [2001] we began to discover that in this zone the families had obtained their lands under the famous agrarian reform. With the agrarian reform, land was given to the campesinos, but at the same time they acquired a debt; so the cooperatives sold their land in order to pay off that debt. So the land was given to other campesinos and they got the debt with the land titles.

Since 2003, COMUS has re-adopted the problem of land titling and we’ve been faced with loads of families and cooperatives who now have the problems of the legality of their land with the ILPE. Because of the debts they have, these are big problems. They cannot pay the debt, so they can’t get their title deeds, and so now COMUS is running a process of accompaniment and doing socio-economic studies with the families so that they can demonstrate that they cannot pay for the land, and in this way to see how we can resolve the problems of legality. The accompaniment in this process of land titling is still continuing and we think that it’s not going to stop. We believe that with the change of government it’s going to be a bit more flexible and easier to resolve the legal situation of the families. But we keep on meeting these inherited traps which were left by former governments twenty years ago, and it’s not easy to resolve the problem.

So COMUS continues to deal with the land titling problem

END

Amilcar Castañeda

Interviewee: Amilcar Castañeda, Consultant in indigenous rights to the InterAmerican Institute for Human Rights. UNED
Interviewers: Martin Mowforth, Karis McLaughlin and Alice Klein
Location: San José, Costa Rica
Date: 21st July 2009
Theme: Indigenous issues in Central America.
Keywords: TBC
Notes:

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Amilcar Castañeda (AC): [about the Indigenous book] There was a conference/congress XXX in 1999, it had a big effect. The advantage of this publication is that it gives a general view of the indigenous world in Central America, what is being done in diverse fields; in the field of natural resources, the environment, sustainable development, the strengthening of cultural XXX, matters of indigenous territory, legislation… It gives a profile of what these same organisations are doing, and the people that accompany them, or be it, the NGOs. Also some government offices XXX. Although it is now 10 years old, but it gives you an idea, the problems in general continue, what changes are the answers, but the base is there. Finally, it contains a directory of organisations from Central America , Mesoamerica, Mexico and South American because XXX 22 countries. Also for you!

Q: For us? Very nice! All in Spanish, it’s possible to read it, speak it, understand it…

AC: Well, it’s a source, it’s there to read.

Q: Very well. Like you have said in our correspondence, you have been busy with various activities. Can you tell us a bit more about what you do?

AC: Ok, right now I am practically a consultant. After working for Native Lands which was 8…7… 8 years. Then I worked as XXX with the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights, they have a department for indigenous peoples. You have to see what is coming out from there – laws, policies to do with indigenous peoples, it worked at a global level, throughout all of the continent, they are doing work producing materials, and training for organisations, for people from NGOs and from the government, who need to know about the rights of indigenous people. Often, a series of rights are violated, because they aren’t aware of ILO convention 169. There are international laws that protect the rights of the indigenous towns, they don’t know.

So, XXX, by mistake they are making a series of violations. Also, there is the task of increasing awareness in the public sector. After, I am also working with an intercultural university in Nicaragua, called ‘Huracán’, you’ve heard of it? Also, I’m teaching a masters in ‘intercultural health’, so, much of this functions on a virtual level where Latin America students meet other students, for the most part indigenous, who work in hospitals, the Ministry of Health – on that I’m working part time.

Q: So is your speciality ‘health’?

AC: My speciality in this, is the matter of indigenous rights, human rights – this is global, it can relate to health, territories, education, everything. I have more predilection for health, and yes, I’m working in this right now.

Q: How long have you worked at Huracán?

AC: I’ve worked at Huracán almost since the start of the project, no, the University emerged in 93-94, and now nearly 15 years later and…

Q: Do you know Jane Freeland from England?

AC: No, no

Q: She has worked for Huracán. Sorry for the interruption.

AC: No, Don’t worry. Huracán is a university XXX, it must be. There are various people that support it and right now Huracán works with maybe 30-40 organisations with international cooperation from governments, the World Bank, XXX, Fondo Indigena. It has grown a lot. Right now it has 8,000 students.

Q: How many?

AC: 8,000 students, around 350 teachers, so it has grown. There are lots of cooperatives, XXX. So here I am. I’ve worked in various consultancies with them, organising the IV International XXX of autonomy, which is a huge project, basically as a consultant to all the XXX, no! And after, another about traditional medicine…
I’m also right now independent consultant with the Institute of Human Rights, making materials, organising events. We did one also about health, about migration, indigenous migration in the Americas, about which a book has been published, and another is coming out, I was the project designer and administrator, no… It’s about indigenous women in migratory  processes. I’ll send you the digital version when it comes out….
I was helping teach in the University of Costa Rica, here at UNED, there’s a program with ‘Consejo Nacional de Rectores’ that groups all the universities, the project’s called “Pueblos y territories indigenas”. The idea is to raise awareness in society, especially in the public sector, about indigenous peoples, their cultures, their needs, the need to have an intercultural dialogue. Then, series of courses are starting for government employees, and I’m going to run one about political legal anthropology.

Q: In your personal opinion, what are the greatest problems for indigenous peoples?

AC:  An element you will commonly find in whatever indigenous movement in Central America and in the continent, is the issue of territory – the issue that they don’t have security, they don’t have definite land, territories, and if they do have it, they don’t have security of it, or be it, they have a legal problem there, or it could be that there is a law that guarantees them land, but it’s not defined or demarcated, it has to be mapped and everything. Of this, part of the experience of XXX (Native Lands?) was en this, helping the indigenous peoples themselves demarcate, defend the borders of their territory and map them.

The other is the issue of recognition of indigenous peoples as specific cultures, as peoples, this is also an issue that is on the agenda. There is recognition in some countries, it is a low level recognition via a legal decree. For example, the political constitutions of the Central American countries say absolutely nothing about the indigenous, they’re not even mentioned. The rapprochement that we can find is that they speak a little about the native languages, the case of Honduras and here the same, no? But there is no mention of who speak the native languages, who the people are, and those individuals have rights, no? So it is very important to them to be recognised as people, as cultural social groups, different from the rest of society with XXX specifics. This is a second very important point.

Then also, the issue of improving their standard of living because the indigenous peoples… you are going to find a second map and using this map, the World Bank has crossed, has made a map of Central America, and has overlaid the map of poverty and the map of indigenous peoples. You will find that, according to the World Bank definition of poverty, it matches up – the areas where the indigenous live are the areas with the greatest indicators of poverty. There is a very serious problem for the indigenous peoples, of access to services or the use of collective rights granted by the states, so, despite the fact that they are common citizens, they’re not in the same position as the rest of national society to use their rights. So, there’s a problem of citizenship. You have to look at their political participation. You have to look at their access to goods, services, and their ability to use and to claim from the State, let’s say, a type of service and access which according to indigenous culture – no, they’re also talking about in this sense a system of intercultural justice, systems of intercultural medicine, systems of intercultural education, and furthermore, the need to conserve and develop their own cultures on the margins of having participation in national society, but also to conserve their own culture through a degree of autonomy, as stated in the ILO convention 169, the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is another very important point.

From there on, the national situations vary. In the case of El Salavdor, they do not have territories, so the fight for territories is at first place. First on the agenda is the recognition, because there is not any legal decree, law, nothing, that says that indigenous people exist in El Salvador. The the case of Costa Rica and others, at least they have ratified the convention 169, there is internal legislation that states that indigenous peoples exisit and that they have some rights, no? But for the countries where there is legislation, where the rights are guaranteed in the law, there is a problem which is global – the problem of applying these rights. There is a breach between what these laws and rights say, and what actually happens in reality.

Q: Do you think that there is a conflict between conservationists and indigenous peoples. Tiene algunos ejemplos?

AC: There are various articles with respect to Mac Chapin. You have read them? My answers are more or less the same. There has been a change of attitude for the conservationists. The article recalls what was happening, various fears and misunderstandings, not only of Mac, but other people. This other article by Mark Dowie, who is a North American journalist. He wrote an article called ‘conservation refugees’…………
But if there is a change. Like it says in Mac Chapin’s and Mark Dowie’s articles, and in others, in some way there is a misunderstanding between the indigenous peoples and these big conservation organisation – they are called BINGOS, they’re like big octopuses, those which more or less determine the direction of the global conservation movement, which have the resources and which finance other groups of NGOs, scientific or otherwise. They direct, they have the money, they need an idealogy, no… so there is a misunderstanding with them, and well there you saw, they don’t have a vision, a clear perspective on what ecologism should be.
You see that they are receiving money from oil companies and industrial mining companies – those which have direct problems with the indigenous peoples. In whichever country, you’ve seen it with VAGO in Peru, the rising of the indigenous, the killing..XXX… we know that these oil and mining companies are financing and donating to Conservation International, the WWF and others.

Q: Conservation International?

AC: Especially Conservation International.

Q: We are talking about links, at a national level, in the Central American countries, are there other organisations that behave in the same way, accepting money from transnationals or from the government? I’m thinking in specific organisations but I don’t want to mention….

AC: In some cases, or be it that they are the same transnationals that are intervening, learning even the use of convention 169 which says that the indigenous peoples, the communities have to be consulted. In many cases which matter to them, it is the state that has to be consulted, not the companies, so what is happening is that the oil and mining companies, and others, are consulting, which they shouldn’t be.

Q: I was thinking about organisations such as in El Salvador there is ‘Salvanatura’ that receives money from Nissan and Toyota, from oil companies also, but is that the same as Conservation International?

AC: No. In some cases they receive… or how to negotiate with the oil companies, at times it is through Conservation International or sometimes directly. It’s that this is a network, Conservation International has networks, those which finance, who also have more or less this way of thinking. They aren’t very worried, let’s say, about the right to territory. This isn’t for them a point which has to be secured, or the issue of political participation. The conservationists say that the issue of poverty isn’t of their concern. They vision is much more biological, and so they don’t get involved with this because it is political. So, in all the countries yes there are ogranisations, a type of NGOs that are channeling resources directly from ‘Merck Sharp y Dohme’ this pharmaceutical. They are giving money to Conservation International and for ‘INBio’. INBio is a state institute but functions like a private entity. Since the state has direct access to the indigenous territories and national parks, and since it is private, it can make business negotiations, in this case with Merck Sharp y Dohme for bioprospecting.
In each country there are similar processes which are basically with the private sector, but the state participates in its own way through INBio. So they enter with their money or their experts into the indigenous territories using some public figure and public laws and this is happening in all of the countries. INBio has an award from the King of Spain, Prince Astaurias, who are doing some interesting things, but who in the name of science, are entering…. But the indigenous people have already said that they don’t want INBio here, with ‘biopirates’, that is those that are looking for butterflies, insects, birds, “go and look elsewhere” they say.

Q: What do you think about development with reference to the indigenous communities and also the influence of Western culture?

AC: The issue of development is linked with the issue of poverty. Some indigenous people are the beneficiaries of social policies when they exist and when they find that they can be beneficiaries. When they become beneficiaries, as always they called that ‘development’, making roads, bringing electricity, doing a series of things according to the view of the state or the political class which directs the state. This is what produces development, a better standard of living, ‘index of needs provided’. They aim at the indigenous people that don’t have a television, don’t have electricity, don’t have a bathroom, as we have in the house. So they work with other indicators of poverty and development. But the indigenous are raising other issues – are speaking about a term which you will find in many documents “el buen vivir”. This was a term with Quechua origin, CHUMA, cause and effect. The Ecuadorian Quechuas coined this “el buen vivir”. This is the alternative conception that has been taken on by the indigenous movement throughout all the continent. What we want is to live well, el “buen vivir”. What does this mean for them? First, to have a territory, because we can’t do nice projects of innovative technology, There are nice projects where the women can participate, the children and everyone, but the point is on what foundation if we don’t have territory! We can’t assert our autonomy, our identity if we don’t have an actual base, a place to live. You have to look at the habitat, in relation to the environment, in relation to the natural resources. All of that is very important for the vision of the indigenous. It is important not to fall into a romantic vision…

There is the right, according to international standards, that the indigenous, like whatever other human group, has the right to develop, to enjoy the achievements of science and technology, the knowledge which enables one to meet human needs.  And also the right to live as they wish, in a way that strengthens and protects their cultural value and their identity. This is the point; it’s not that the indigenous is against development, it’s not that they don’t want roads, it’s not that they shouldn’t study. In the 70s, and maybe part of the 80s, a lot of anthropologists came and prohibited the indigenous from watching television, because with that comes acculturation. Or that they don’t use clocks, that they don’t use mobile phones, that if they use mobile phones then they are no longer Indians. Then why do we have to make the indigenous a showcase for conserving, a type of zoo or museum, a vision which the indigenous peoples themselves do not agree with. This comes from anthropology, the romantics. But you have to see that this existed, and does much damage.

About development, it is a development which agrees with what they want and for them it is a priority to conserve their culture, the historical continuation of their peoples because the greatest risk right now is the extinction of their culture and of them, as people, which is happening. There are many indigenous languages which have disappeared in this century, in a way overwhelming due to politics, on the large part from the state, and also the church, the same school.

Q: Question from Martin about the evictions of the Naso people in Panama

AC: The problem with them is, it is with respect to a property from which they were evicted by the police, cattle ranching company, yes… That is part of it, but there is another problem with a dam and that is much more complex, because right now the town is divided. There are two kings; one in favour of the dam, the cattle ranches and all that, and the other more in the line of defending their identity, their resources, their territory. Just two weeks ago, the students of Panama that are studying here in the program XXX of indigenous peoples about XXX and rights, here in UNED, they presented this case. They made a study of the case of the Naso people. I don’t know the details but I think the case was taken to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. You have to take it there, it’s not working, the report arrives at the Ombudsman office, but more is needed because the company is shooting XXX indigenous. More competent action is needed.,.

Q:  Can you comment on the institutional attitude towards indigenous peoples?

AC: In reality, looking at 10 years ago, things have advanced, if the states are the same. Has there been progress in the awareness of indigenous peoples? Yes and no. You can see that in various states, there are now specialised offices for indigenous peoples, in many of them a product of the same fight of the indigenous peoples. In Honduras you will find that it is PRONEEAC which is “Programa Nacional de Educación a las Etnias Autóctonas del Caribe”. There is also a program in the Ministry of Justice about the development of indigenous peoples. There is also a small office for “salud de las etnias” as they call it there in Honduras. But they are small, they are applications almost invisible inside the machine of the state, without resources, without technically specialised personnel, with few possibilities for making an impact on the indigenous peoples. There is a problem but but the states have to open their spaces, they have to change their policies. But in the majority the rest of the public bodies which don’t have specialised personnel, they are working as if indigenous people didn’t exist, as if they were any another Hondureñan, any other citizen…

At a political level the Pan American Health Organisation carried out an evaluation on 24 Latin American countries. They found that 19 countries of Latin America had created specific units for the indigenous peoples, inside the Ministerial body. Similarly these are emerging in the education sector as well. The problem with much of this is that it is done, but without guarantee that it will be monitored. It depends wholly on the current government or some high level civil servants that have some awareness, or some experience with Indigenous peoples and thus want to do something. But then the government changes, another comes in, and it has to start again from scratch. So these policies that are from the government collapse, so there isn’t guarantee that there will be a follow-up or a state policy with respect to the right of indigenous peoples or about the issue of territory. This is why the problems persist. There is much to be done in changing people’s attitudes. There needs to be an increase in awareness amongst the government employees.  Work needs to be done with them, and with the indigenous people.

In the case of Costa Rica this University program ‘Consejo Nacional de Rectores’ is very interesting. It has seen the necessity. The four public universities are working and have a range of projects, so that the government employees can take course on the internet… about indigenous rights and their cultures. This program includes studies on archaeology, about their culture, legal aspects… So something is happening, but there is still a lot to be done.

…………………..

AC: Well, now that I have your agenda I’m going to send you more documents. In the UICN (World Conservation Union, IUCN), they did a map on protected areas and indigenous peoples, and another by the World Bank on poverty and indigenous sectors

Q: This is a committee on the IUCN?

AC: The point is, the Holand committee of the IUCN is a bit more open. Even the WWF office in Geneva has a different vision to Washington. So in this time we could work with them, and receive resources from then for some aspects of the event. But after, when….. written, the whole world cut…. Not even a colon more, and we closed Native Lands. It’s difficult. They even threatened to close the magazine de WOLA in Washington, they said that if this article is published, they’d cut that as well.

END

Alida Spadafora

Interviewee: Alida Spadafora, Executive Director of ANCON (Asociación Nacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza de Panamá
Interviewer: Martin Mowforth and Karis McLaughlin
Location: ANCON’s office in Panamá
Date: 4th September 2009
Theme: Panama’s environment; the inappropriateness of mining in Panama; mining protests; deforestation; ANCON’s programmes
Keywords: TBC
Notes:

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 Martin Mowforth (MM): Gave intro. to the book.

Karis McLaughlin (KM): First, I’d like to ask about the Petaquilla project because we know that ANCON is against it. So we’re interested to know what can be done against mining, to get to know your opinions and if you are optimistic on what can be done.

Alida Spadafora (AS): Two years ago ANCON began to investigate the beginnings of the construction of the Petaquilla mine, especially with reference to gold mining; and we began to realise that they were carrying out an Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA). Since then we started to learn about the company. The company came to ANCON. It understood that we were investigating. They came to ANCON, met with the organisation’s directors and invited us to go there. I went with a team from ANCON. Outwardly there everything looks OK; they were working on the erosion, explaining the whole mechanics of the operation, the closed process they have for the use of cyanide; but also you realise the amount of deforestation that is occurring and the sedimentation too, when they had scarcely begun operations.

When we arrived [back] in Panamá [City], we began to learn and to investigate further into the impact of the open cast mining of metals; and from then we began to publish and to meet with other NGOs and to talk with the media. We tried to take the media people to Petaquilla, and they wouldn’t let us enter with the media. So the Canadians who were a part of this concession of 3,600 hectares came to ANCON to explain. At that time it was Tecominco, a very powerful Canadian company, … , who were the associates. They explained their motives, the seriousness with which they wanted to work this concession, to the highest standards.

Then when we asked about mining projects in tropical areas which had been successful without causing environmental problems, they couldn’t give an example. What we were understanding is that perhaps it’s possible to control and mitigate a few of the environmental impacts in desert areas which don’t have forests and which are not rich in water; and that, given the enormous impacts which mining has in terms of acidic drainage, the use of colossal quantities of water and the large-scale erosion, our country was not appropriate for mining.

We tried to communicate with the press that the directors of ANCON are not convinced that it’s an activity for Panamá, that it may compete directly with the tourism which we want to promote, with agriculture and cattle ranching which have traditionally always been important to Panamá, and that we want to promote something more sustainable. Also it runs against the idea of a sustainable forestry management which we want to promote for the area, and it contradicts the strategies and biodiversity agreements which Panamá has signed as well as the climate change and forestry policies for mitigating and stabilising the climate. We’ve tried to communicate all of these issues.

We held a forum on mining last year with many organisations from civil society, and we demanded a moratorium on mining. That is to say, we couldn’t ask that they stop, but we wanted to begin to analyse a bit more deeply because we considered that many people still did not understand the magnitude of the impacts of open cast mining, and that it was important to stop and to begin to analyse and to understand the significance of mining and to determine if Panamá would want to continue down this path.

We are talking of an investment of $4 billion, when the widening of the Panamá Canal was some $6 billion or similar. For that we held a referendum and did many serious and responsible studies on the widening of the Canal and on the huge investment being underwritten by a contracted law of the Republic; and there were different interpretations about whether it was complying with environmental legislation or not.

Thus we began to act legally with other NGOs. There were many accusations [denuncias] put to the Attorney General and to the administration of the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) on our part and also from the ANAM itself because they had not started the Environmental Impact Study. They presented an appeal to the Supreme Court and this said that a contracted law is not above the laws of the land and therefore there would have to be an Environmental Impact Study.

Although they carried out an Environmental Impact Study – a very deficient one which doesn’t fulfil the role of an Environmental Impact Study nor does it even fulfil the resolution required for the series of studies and plans – in our view, it is completely illegal what they are doing and the government should suspend it, but they haven’t done so. Moreover, the contract is damaging for Panamá given that the gains are extremely low, 2 per cent; what they pay for the concession is very low, they’re exonerated from paying almost all taxes, and the guarantees against environmental and social damages are undervalued – that is to say, if something occurs there, a disaster, the State is going to have to pay, and that means all of us. The contract law is damaging for Panamá and that is in accord, in part, with a cost-benefit study made by The Nature Conservancy called ‘Economic and Distributive Analysis of Mining Activity in Panamá’.

ANCON’s position has solidly been for a moratorium; we maintain that exploration and exploitation concessions must be suspended in Panamá.

MM: Do you think it’s possible to have sustainable mining on a large scale?

AS: Not in countries like Panamá because we have very vulnerable soils, a high precipitation, and even in areas where the rainfall is not high the storms, rains and showers which we have in Panamá mean that areas are vulnerable to landslides and loss of soil which is essential for agriculture and food security in these areas.

Further to that, open cast mining signifies large-scale sedimentation would have impacts in the coastal and marine areas, especially in areas of coral reefs which are susceptible to erosion, and it would be completely damaging to them. That would also affect fishing and the food security of artisanal fisherfolk, as well as the tourism which we are promoting in coastal zones – there are some marvellous areas in Panamá.

KM: Is that the same throughout Central America?

AS: Yes, it’s the same, because all of Central America has those vulnerable soils, those forests – it’s the biological corridor. There are slightly drier areas, but also areas important for fishing or for tourism, as are the coastal areas. Because it’s an isthmus, everything is related. Moreover, there’s a problem of vulnerability to climate change. The mining industry is really aggravating our vulnerability.

I don’t think that countries like Panamá and other Central American countries are appropriate for the development of mining. What happens is that resources are already being exhausted in industrialised countries and now they want to come here with a technology that can still make their operations profitable even in areas where there’s a lower presence of metals. And for that to happen they have to destroy thousands of hectares. We already know what type of vegetation has a big impact in Central America, also rainfall levels, and poverty too in our region. It’s been shown by studies in Perú that mining does not resolve the problem of poverty – it’s a fallacy. The mining companies want to convince everybody that they have to operate in areas of poverty for the good, but in reality the impact is precisely the opposite, they are impoverishing people, and the other big and serious issue from mining is the health issue – not only because of the risk of cyanide management, which we are not prepared for in Panamá, but also because of the acid drainage. Acid drainage leads to the solidification [chemical solution???] of water, and worse it leads to the release of heavy metals like lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic and others. So it gives rise to serious public health problems and ecosystem health problems too.

So from all that we can understand that we are entering into a huge series of problems. I feel a little sad for my country, because we still have not been able to persuade the decision-makers that it’s not the best route for our countries to go down. It’s very difficult because it has enormous economic power, an incredible profit, taking advantage of a very weak legal framework and an institutionality which doesn’t exist to deal with these issues.

MM: My question concerns your relations with the government. You’ve already mentioned the problem of the suspension of Petaquilla which all the organisations are asking for, but the government isn’t doing it. So have your relations with government suffered as a result of this?

AS: We now have a new government which has had scarcely two months in power. Since before the elections we were talking with the political parties explaining the risks and impacts of mining, and they all said yes, we have to analyse it, yes, gold mining is not compliant and they all said we need to study and research into it. Now we have approached ANAM and still I feel that they are not very sure about what they should do, whether to suspend the mine or not, that it’s not complying with standards, and that a moratorium is the route to follow.

I still haven’t had a positive sign. We’re going to meet with the Vice Minister of Commerce and Industry next week, and we shall insist again on the moratorium, insist that the contract law is harmful for the nation; we’re going to talk of the risks, and we know it’s not going to be easy because the position of the Vice Minister is that mining is the solution for Panamá, for its development, etc.. I think it’s going to be very difficult.

At the level of ANCON and its directors, relations with the State are very diplomatic. We do not go against them; we have to work at our relations with them, because we don’t want to close the doors of dialogue.

Other organisations have met with the Vice Minister and had an abominable experience, more so than with the Minister. The Minister of Commerce and Industry is a little more analytical and thoughtful. I had already visited him before he was the Minister, when he was just a party member, and I delivered to him, for example, an article published this year on mining in the National Geographic, in January; and I put this article in his hands and told him that this is not an activity for Panamá, I spoke to him of the risks, I told him of this map which we produced in ANCON.

Those projects of high impact we looked for from ANAM, in the database of Environmental Impact Studies which were presented to ANAM as procedures between the years 2000 and 2008. Mostly we’re talking about Category 3 which are those of greatest impact and some are in Category 2, because tourist projects never reach Category 3 which is the highest impact on the coast and for which a public consultation is required. Many projects here are Category 2, and they have a high impact – it’s these for which we have to change ANAM’s rules because there’s a high impact with these projects and they are mostly tourist projects on the coast and the coast is very vulnerable.

We also wanted to present the metals exploration applications in Panamá on a map, and there are all these black squares on protected areas, on private areas, on indigenous comarcas, on the Biological Corridor, on more than a half of Panamá. These are the exploration applications. These are the exploration concessions already given in red, and these are the exploitation concessions in black. Petaquilla is some 13,000 hectares. The …???… is done on a desk – it doesn’t matter where – there are no Environmental Impact Studies prior to this because the exploration already had an environmental impact. It isn’t regulated. They did it because the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MICI) agreed to it, and, well, they gave them the policy. These red areas are Category 3 – there are a lot of hydroelectric projects. So this is the panorama that we have.

The map is on our web page; it’s from 2000 to 2008. It needs to be filled out – I’d like to locate some oil exploration applications. They’ve been applied for in the Gulf of San Miguel, not so recently, but they aren’t marked on the map. It’s our really big worry because I believe that we have to decide what we want as a country. Do we want to be a mining country? Do we want to be a tourism country? Do we want to promote food security? Do we want to climb out of poverty? We’ve always been a service country; we’ve concentrated on the tertiary sector: the zona libre, the banks, the Canal.

First, we have to define, as the small country that we are, how we want to develop, what is our best path. Should we follow the tertiary sector or are we going to sell our resources and at what cost are we going to sell them? We have to be very clear about this. But also we have to define whether we want hydroelectricity? I think it’s good, but how and where and under what process, and we must decide whether here yes and there no and why? It’s in this that I think the government has committed errors, because the capacity of the territory doesn’t allow one single hydrographic basin to support ten hydroelectricity stations. We know that every time they submit an application for a hydroelectricity concession, they do it for just one project. That causes problems afterwards because there’s another further upriver and another one downstream. There are indigenous areas which they don’t consider important. And afterwards they have a huge problem and a social crisis, and conflicts between the inhabitants of the zone whether they are indigenous or campesinos.

If we decide that we want hydroelectric power – we have the global climate problem and a problem of energy demand – so, how are we going to do it? That’s the problem – the how, the where, who lives there, what benefits are those people going to have, have they been consulted, is there an Environmental Impact Study foreseen for the concession? No, the concessions are given on paper; they look for a map; it doesn’t matter what is there and who is there. That’s one of the problems that I believe exists in Panamá and we have to work on these processes.

The problem is that we don’t have a land ordnance / land registry. That’s the problem. You come from a country where there is a highly structured land registry and in which sectoral policies are integrated into the territory as distinct layers in a partial analysis, which is not done in Panamá. We are growing in a disordered way because wherever the investors want …, and it’s done. And many times it is done in detriment to other developing sectors which are public security, food security, or tourism which is helping communities to rise out of poverty in a sustainable way, because we’re not exhausting our natural resources with these sectors. From this reasoning we think that we have to look after how we use land and ensure that there are no conflicts of use between one sector and another, because sectoral plans are made for tourism, the ports, biofuels, agriculture, cattle ranching; and it doesn’t work like that. So I think that we have to begin to work on land structuring in critical areas of Panamá, beginning with critical hydrographic basins because we have a great wealth of water resources. But if we don’t look after them we can leave ourselves without quality and quantity of water. We have to work on the Environmental Impact Studies, we have to improve them a lot, in the procedures of how concessions are granted. If we had territorial structure it would be easier to define this or that and to say yes or no to various activities. It remains at the whim of the decision-makers to say yes to this.

So, to define what we want as a country, to put into order the country, the processes of Environmental Impact Studies, hydrographic basins as critical areas for this ordering, and public consultations. As a part of the improvement of Environmental Impact Studies it’s necessary to improve the process of public consultation. At the present time, the company, as it’s both the promoter and the one who pays the consultant as part of the Environmental Impact Study, is biased towards whoever is doing the Study and the consultations because the company pays for the public consultation; and many times what they do is hold a party, as we say here in Central America. They’re the employers and they celebrate with a party, with music, with a show, with a meal, with drinks. There is no neutral body which informs about the genuine risks of an activity because the promoter is the one who hires the consultant who carries out the Environmental Impact Study. We must regulate these public consultations in a much better way.

That the tourist projects are category 3 projects when they are in very vulnerable areas also establishes which are the areas that are vulnerable to climate change, because climate change is going to hit us hard – in fact it is hitting us hard. We are an area which has more coastline and more sea than land, and as the sea level is going to rise, that’s going to impact us enormously, principally in the areas of low-lying land, all the areas of Kuna Yala, Bocas Del Toro, our gulf areas. We have to keep our mangrove areas that provide protection which we need against sea level rise. Lately we have seen many tornados and unexpected winds, and the mangroves help us to reduce our vulnerability to these as a country, as a community and to protect our infrastructure too.

And what is so difficult is to get governments to understand this. We are clear-felling, we’re losing woodland, in the Darién, along the coasts, at a great rate; and they don’t know the double impact that this has through climate change – it makes us more vulnerable, but at the same time it releases more CO2 into the atmosphere. The erosion and the loss of fertile soil that causes we lose to the sea. We could collapse as a society, as suggested in the book …???…

MM: Does ANCON have centres in different parts of the country? And is it contracted by the government to monitor or maintain various protected areas, as in other countries such as Honduras?

AS: No, we’ve been trying to get to a scheme of co-management and for many years in Panamá we’ve been promoting co-management, but it’s not been possible. There are some experiences, however, such as in the Natural Metropolitan Park which is inside the city boundary and is under the patronage of members of civil society, the government and the municipality. That’s a very good case which we haven’t replicated in other areas. The last administration was wary of organised civil society intervening in protected areas – it was very closed. We think that there’s a better attitude in this administration and they have said that they want to support us.

ANCON has private reserves like for example the Private Natural Reserve of Punta Patiño in the Darién with an area of 30,000 hectares. It’s the largest in Panamá and the second largest in Central America. It’s a huge area. It’s in a remote area – you have to get there by plane, or by land and then boat will take 8 hours. There are no basic services. For us its control and upkeep have been very difficult.

MM: Is it just for research, or for teaching as well?

AS: Yes, there are guides and trails and we get mainly ecotourists there. We teach them the beauties of the tropical rainforest, the flora and fauna of the area. When ANCON bought it in 1993 it was a cattle ranch and we left it to restore itself. It was an area of pasture, but now we’re getting jaguars and …???… which were not seen before. Already there’s a secondary forest and also a primary forest with a certain degree of intervention in one part. There’s lots of mangroves.

We worked with government support to carry out rapid ecological studies, management plans and to set up the arguments for the establishment of a protected area, like that in Coiba which was done by decree, through the law, and in which ANCON was key. I would say that between ten and fifteen protected areas in Panamá have been established because ANCON promoted them. ANCON involvement was key because it provided the databases and the background for the establishment of these areas and promoted them through the media, with the communities and with other interested parties.

Thus we’ve been working in Bocas Del Toro, Chiriquí, Veraguas, Coiba and in the Biological Corridor in Santa Fe. We have supported the Panamá Canal Authority in community organisation. We’ve also been working in the Darién, in the Biological Corridor of Bagre, in the Darién National Park too, supporting ANAM with the teams of park guards in the park guard stations and refuges. We have mobilised funds which have helped ANAM in its role of protecting the protected areas. We are working on a project with the International Organisation of Tropical Areas for Forestry Reserves – between the Darién National Park and Patiño there is a forestry reserve area and we got funds from ITCO to develop a project supporting ANAM there. In the area adjoining Patiño there is no presence, no plans, nothing – it’s being invaded and there is deforestation.

MM: Have you had problems of invasions of drug traffickers coming from Colombia?

AS: Yes, they come in, they leave, they haven’t done any damage, but you know they’re coming and going because they come to buy food and necessities. Some communities help them because by doing so they help themselves. It’s an abandoned area. Recently the government has had a policy of greater presence and of working with the communities.

Action in the Darién is a bit limited. When you look for support, the FARC, the Colombian guerrillas arise. At times we want to invite the donors to visit the Darién and they can’t. When you make an accusation about an ecological crime, the State delays two or three months and the proof/evidence is lost because they fear the guerrillas. Also because it’s remote most times you have to go by plane or you walk for days and it’s very risky. The Darién is one of the most difficult regions, most complex, but ANCON has always been there and we have held out against the building of the highway to Colombia. It’s been a difficult fight of great persistence to talk with governments. This government has promised us that it will not be built.

Uribe always …???… According to our directors we should not be worried, this generation, they’re not going to build the highway. I don’t know. You always have to be watchful. Yes there is a possible connection by the Caribbean from Cartagena passing through Kuna Yala and entering Panamá by the coast from the sea. But in that case they would have to cross through an indigenous comarca which is very closed and doesn’t have any foreign intervention or that type of thing.

A better way is a ferry which they already had for a couple of years, but they also had many problems with drug trafficking. But it is seriously a better option. I think that whilst Colombia has so many social problems, so many conflicts, drugs, it’s better to keep things as they are.

MM: What’s the position of ANCON on the free trade treaties? I imagine it’s difficult for you but it’s a very active issue in the region at the moment.

AS: Our trustees haven’t dealt with the issue together yet. I can’t give you the position of ANCON as an organisation. But I am almost certain that together the trustees consider that the environmental issues must be analysed really well. You have to analyse the impact that a free trade treaty has on natural resources, whilst not doing business just for the sake of doing business. You have to examine the impact in Panamá. Some free trade treaties have positive impacts in the sense that a failure to comply with environmental legislation means that you cannot conduct business. Such is the case that I know of the treaty with the United States, which is also a limiting factor on businessmen here. They have to comply with environmental legislation before they can export a product.

Other changes which we would have to make as a country and for which we would have to prepare ourselves for that type of relationship with countries in our legislation, worry me personally; but I shouldn’t speak for myself. Also for other social issues, medicines, generics – but it’s very difficult to stop these; what we have to do is prepare ourselves. As far as our environmental legislation goes, we must prepare ourselves because the world is growing, it’s closer all the time and it’s impossible to close ourselves off from the commercial world of other countries – but we must do it well.

MM: I know this is a difficult issue, it’s especially difficult for an organisation to have a fixed position for or against, because there are many clauses and articles as you say …

KM: Are you involved in measures for the protection of the forests?

AS: In a general way. We’ve made an alliance with the British Embassy. We carried out a campaign to publicise the importance of the forests for the balance of the climate and for the reduction of …???… We did a spot on television which was included later by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and was adopted for the World Environment Day. It’s on the web page of UNEP. We did brochures, we invited the ambassador to our gala meal this year in January – he said a few words about climate change – we’ve gone to the media, we also have a spot on the radio, an advertising spot or short message spot. We made some small posters and have given talks to companies. I went on the radio and I’m going to be talking about the problem of climate change. With a second grant from Great Britain we are preparing a document on the vulnerability of Panamá to climate change and its impact so that people also understand that we are facing a problem and a responsibility.

MM: So the British Embassy is supporting you?

AS: Yes, it’s fantastic. We’re very close. They have invited us to training sessions in Costa Rica and they have a forum on climate change next week and I’m going to be there. They’ve asked me to make some proposals regarding climate change which I’m currently preparing. I sent a draft with reference to Kuna Yala and for resource management in the face of climate change, and they commented on it. We think that these links with the British government on the theme of climate change are getting closer all the time. They have a great interest in helping us and in helping civil society because they haven’t had much luck with the government, at least not with the last government. This one is more open, but they [the British government] has found a good ally in ANCON.

MM: One last question. I’ve seen that one of your donors is the Ford Foundation or Ford Company.

AS: Ford Foundation. Yes, they invited us to judge a competition, but they haven’t given us any money.

KM: Are there some situations when ANCON can’t carry out something it wants to do because of compromises with donors? Are you involved with companies which have the same mission …. ?

AS: Yes, we’ve done some research on companies especially on their operations in this country. From the mining industry we would never receive a cent, and nor from other companies which do damage in Panamá. We’re very careful over whoever gives us money. In the case of ADES Panamá we have done some follow-up, we’ve visited the area. They have been allies of ANCON, they have part-funded various forums and discussions, but we went to the area and weren’t able to balance precisely what things were happening. It’s not so much the company which is guilty, but also the government. I feel that they are trying to do things well. When I see mining, I say no.

ANCON is not radical. We want to see development under certain parameters and under certain rules. To us it seems that mining is not appropriate – we are a country that simply isn’t appropriate for mining. However, we must organise the energy sector in Panamá, we must define where and how, we must regulate it well and change the rules; but we have to do it. We have had a relationship with ADES, for example …???… in Panamá and other serious NGOs. We have realised that they are trying to do things there and yes there are impacts. But we never go with mining, never, and they are trying to mitigate the impacts.

END

Berta Oliva

Interviewee: Bertha Oliva, President of COFADEH (the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras)
Interviewer: Martin Mowforth and Lucy Goodman
Location: Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Date: 23rd August 2010
Theme: TBC
Keywords: TBC
Notes: 

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Martin Mowforth (MM): [A longish point about the change that has happened as a result of the coup d’état.]  How has the work of COFADEH changed?

Bertha Oliva (BO): Since the day of the coup d’état, we have seen our capacity to cope overtaken and that worries us because we have a clear indication that, as far as human rights go, there has been a savage worsening.

When COFADEH was first founded, in the 1980s, it was due to the forced disappearances and the violations of human rights, and we had a lot of work, great demand, many claims – at that time there were victims of all kinds of repression, of harassment and of surveillance. But we managed to do our work.

Now, looking back, we realise that the situation which faces this country today is very grave, because in the 1980s the repressive forces of the state used violence but in a hidden way, making use of paramilitaries. But today, after the first seven months, you can see the savagery in the streets, with the army oppressing the Honduran people. They try to take apart the Honduran people through repression. But it hasn’t happened as they wanted – the greater the repression, the greater the participation in society.

It seems to me that it doesn’t fit the current reality – after the seven months of the coup and since the 27th January when there was supposed to be a new government – according to them a constitutional and civil government – we can say that it’s just a continuity of the coup, it’s unfortunately a failed state. As a failed state, the situation changes, because in the 1980s we were trying to strengthen the state, although with serious deficiencies, but a state of law nevertheless. But today we have to strengthen …???…, and the only people who broke the constitutional order are those who are in the public institutions.

We have seen how things have changed, how life has changed for an organisation like COFADEH which is dedicated to follow-up, accompaniment, monitoring, action and lawsuits – it’s a different situation.

MM: As for the observation and monitoring of protests – today there has been a protest of the teachers?

BO: That has given us a totally different course of action. Just imagine, we are now faced with really strong protest marches but which are also very repressed. After the coup, which is now more than a year ago, the dynamic among the population is just as strong as it was at the time of the coup. For example, in the last few days the demonstration by the teachers has had hundreds and hundreds of participants – they took more than an hour and a half to pass by our office here. There were two to three hundred thousand people, all teachers.

There is a reality in the country that the successor government to the coup government is committing a huge mistake because it tries to ignore the social movement and the peoples’ demands. So, it’s going to overcome it by repression. But it doesn’t realise that such repression only serves to show the government as a lying violator of human rights, because according to its international image its commitment is as a government of reconciliation which respects human rights.

For example, right now you can see, you are witnesses to that man who just left – he was an agent of the secret police, as a paramilitary who infiltrates the marches.

MM: And what was he doing here?

BO: He was here because the protesters found him out. They grabbed him with a walkie-talkie giving out information, and he had been there, in the middle of the crowd, since 9 in the morning; and he was informing where they were and that they had to send more people like him. So the protesters grabbed him, and after the march, at about 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon, they brought him here so that COFADEH could call the attorney general’s office or the police. The people were very angry and when they brought him here we couldn’t say that they should take him because we knew that they were very angry and they could have done anything to him because they felt so offended. They could kill. So for us it was a very difficult situation, because when he is here we have to protect the rights of the assassin.

What he did was to call the Police Commissioner so that they would send for him. After he called the Commissioner he started saying he wasn’t one of them, but obviously they had advised him, because if the police sent for him, he would have to accept and admit that he was one of their agents. So they called me and said that they were going to send an attorney so that he could make a formal statement. Faced with that, I knew that they wanted to see how they could raise charges against us, but I said to him, “Look, you’re going to make a formal statement, but nobody here did anything to you, and so you decide whether you are going to go or to stay because nobody’s coming for you.” But he had already called his father and his father sent a lawyer. So he told the lawyer, …???… The lawyer said to him, “Why are you here?” It’s because he was informing on the activities of the protest march …???…

That’s the kind of work that we have to do daily now. It’s very difficult. To assume a role like that is not easy. We had a hitman here who was infiltrating a march monitoring protesters in the Resistance and teachers who were protesting about their rights which had been violated and that they had been victims of attacks and aggressions the like of which I’ve never had to register before.

MM: Have you never registered them with the police?

BO: But there’s so much aggression by the police in public. For example, on Friday when the protest had finished the teachers were concentrated in the Francisco Morazán University; some were getting ready to have lunch and others were preparing to go and analyse what had happened in the protest march, when they were savagely attacked by the police. They fired more than 200 tear gas bombs, each one of which costs $100. According to what we’ve been seeing, those bombs are the same as they used in Perú to break down the Sendero Luminoso group. It’s a really strong bomb which stuns and bewilders people. They are using lethal tear gas bombs against the protesters.

The effect on these people is going to be very strong in a little while; and on top of that they detained four of the teachers’ leaders – they held them and beat them up, they split open their heads and they put them in a cell which wasn’t legal. We were looking for them for more than two hours; we didn’t know which station they were in and we called it a kidnapping. Afterwards they moved them to the Core 7 police station where they raised charges against them and kept them until 2 in the morning with access to a doctor – and they were bleeding. That was effectively constant torture for more than twelve hours.

Afterwards they were driven to a private hospital in an armoured police car to receive medical attention. What’s more, they were so cruel – they ordered a police presence in the hospital, almost on the doors where they were. I asked that they withdraw the police presence because they didn’t need to guard them especially as those who had attacked them were from the same police corps and that they would be better cared for by their colleagues. Also, they were teachers and if they would want to file charges they were not going to abscond or flee.

This has been something that has been happening for many years. The system of the application of justice, all those involved in the delivery of justice, they have always been …???…; but at the moment it doesn’t even matter whether the people know and that was clearly shown to happen on Friday. The Public Prosecutor is the department which files charges against the detained. Their mandate is to protect, defend and accompany the population and society. And what they did was to file charges against the detained without intervening to ensure that they were immediately set free. If after they were found responsible for what the police had claimed, then they would receive open judgements. But faced with the barbarity of tear gas bombs, a tank of pepper gas spray, bullets, a detachment of more than 500 police who were there – for each teacher who was grabbed there were up to 50 police. How could a teacher do anything against these policemen? But even so, the Public Prosecutor has filed charges against them. They are accused of sedition and of lacking respect for authority.

MM: What are your relations with the current government? Do you have any channels open to you that you can use to change the practices of the police and the army, through the judiciary or other branches of the state?

BO: That’s the waste in the process that we have. Now what we have is a confrontation. So we talk of the indefensibility in that we are the defenders of human rights for the population. We had created spaces to allow us to help in the case of human rights violations, but today we no longer have them – that’s all gone. On the one hand, we believe that the government is not a government, rather it is a régime which imposes the idea that we should accept things even if they aren’t legal, even if they aren’t just – everything that it does violates human rights. These days I am realising that our spaces for manoeuvre are being reduced because a defender of human rights who does their work, who is not only making statements to the press, but also in COFADEH we accompany the victims, we take testimony and we help them to recover their emotional stability. After we make the denunciations to the Public Prosecutor, we insist that judgements are made in the courts. That’s not easy, because at the moment, as the Public Prosecutor was one of the institutions which legalised and whitewashed the coup d’état, they are the same officials – they haven’t changed these authorities at all the Attorney General, the Assistant Attorney, and in my judgement the Human Rights Attorney, the Constitutional Attorney, the Attorney for …???…, and the Attorney for Children are all lawyers who have acted with false …???…; and then if we go to the Supreme Court of Justice, they are the same people who carried out the military coup, who signed everything that justified the coup. If we go to the National Congress, which is where we have less effect because right now we are in the middle of them making new laws to strengthen their position – but equally they are the same deputies who were elected and were in Congress when the coup took place. The space we have to work in for human rights are minimal, and we are left only with the ability to make denunciations to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.

MM: The IACHR is one of your hopes?

BO: Well at least it offers a hope in the short term, but to make a denunciation and to demand precautionary measures we turn to the Inter-American System and the International System for the Protection of Children. We have dared to inform the Commission and we have asked for measures. To Amnesty International we have sent urgent actions because there isn’t just persecution in the public protests, there’s also a much graver situation, a hostility towards, surveillance of and threats to social leaders and NGO directors.

MM: And to you yourself, I imagine?

BO: Well, I admit that we have been threatened plenty of times, but I try not to say anything about it because if I start thinking about the threats we receive, we would do nothing and wouldn’t be able to slog away at all the other threats and violations. You have to realise that this is very hard. Right now, for example, I’m fearful of what is happening with this case, because they can raise me as a cause because with that lad they brought here they could accuse me of detaining him illegally.

We get every type of threat. They threaten us with legal action, they threaten us publicly, and we have also seen that as every day the situation gets worse it becomes more dangerous. Acts against life, acts against liberty, acts against the psychological state of people are all now systematic, selective and hushed up. During the first days of August seven journalists were threatened. Under Lobo’s government from the 27th [January] six journalists were threatened in February, March and April. But in the month of August, six journalists were being seriously threatened and detained – they were illegally detained and they had hampered their work before that. You wouldn’t believe that they could act so shamelessly against journalists.

The campesino sector. For instance, is one sector which is being threatened like you have no idea, and another thing which seems vital to me to say is that the battle for land in the interior of the country is very serious. Those people who you see downstairs, they are from the community of Puerto Grande in the south of the country, on the Island of Zacate Grande in the Gulf of Fonseca. They’re receiving death threats; yesterday some of them were wounded, and of those wounded one woman was hospitalised. I think there are about 80 families live there and the owner is a powerful landowner, Miguel Facussé, whose strategy has been to get families fighting amongst themselves. He’s got families to say that he is giving them that land; so he’s not fighting with the communities, instead families are fighting amongst themselves and that brings out the state authorities. So along come the authorities, the DGIC and the Public Security Force to see who’s fighting, and they say to them I’m only here to carry away the dead [there is probably some other proverbial or colloquial phrase or saying which would fit better here.]. That is a direct threat, but likewise, at the same time, it’s happening in Bajo Aguán, in Tocoa Colón, with the MUCA [The Unified Campesino Movement of Aguán] – the same Miguel Facussé, killing people, harassing people. So this is returning and coming round again like a ring.

In Tegucigalpa it’s a lie that there is governability. Here there are crawlers; here they have wanted to manage MUCA, so Lobo Sosa has signed an agreement, a deed of commitment, which says he will honour and which says he will deliver them lands, with titles, and that he is going to grant money for this purpose and that then it will be monitored. But what we have seen up to now is that no land titles have been delivered. That’s not what he offered, but what he has been giving is death. But they want to manage it at the international level, to show that they are progressing in this matter and to make sure that there is nobody who comes and says what they are in fact doing. But what is certain is that the conflict is continuing and the lack of respect for life is at its most intense since the start of the coup because the President believes that by saying he has signed agreements and that he has nominated commissions to monitor the accords, he uses it and sells it and wants to impose the idea that the situation is improving.

So, as his is a government of reconciliation, he has created an Official Commission of Truth and Reconciliation.

[Please note here the difference between the government appointed Truth Commission, officially called the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, and the international Truth Commission.]

MM: What hopes do you have for this Commission and the other Truth Commission?

BO: We’ve supported the Truth Commission. We know that it will have serious limitations because when you want to get information from the institutions of the state, they will possibly close up or will dilute the information when they deliver it. But equally, we know that what the Truth Commission can collect is going to be fixed in the notion of finding and deepening the truth without manipulation. For me, yes, there is hope in the Truth Commission.

It’s taking us a lot of effort to install it because it would seem that there are interested parties who are keen for it not to proceed, and that’s what the state, the government, is betting on because they want their own Truth and Reconciliation Commission to be the only one that is considered to be valid. The biggest political blow that the government has had up to now has been the installation of the Truth Commission and the recognition that it has given to the National Resistance Front because they were thinking of raising the profile of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but they haven’t been able to.

Just imagine, one of the members of the Honduran Truth Commission is the Rector of the University against whom there has been a trade union hunger strike for more than 100 days because he sacked them in violation of their collective contract, despite the fact that there were fixed and official recommendations that they must be reinstated because their rights were being violated. But there were more than 40 of them and he didn’t want to reinstate them into their work.

So, if any of the members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission commits a violation of social rights, do you believe that they can contribute to discovering the truth about human rights violations and which are much stronger and which are being committed by the government? It seems to me that this is a real problem. Perhaps in a year or six months they’ll deliver their first report.

It’s possible that the Truth Commission will report later than is generally thought, but the expectations that we have for the Truth Commission are the only ones we have. It’s the only one on which we can place our belief for everybody who is in solidarity with Honduras. The 28th June 2011 is the date planned for the first report, not the final report which will be concluded and produced in September 2011. The problem with the Truth Commission is that they’ve closed their searches, which is what happened during the coup, during the Micheletti régime, and is happening the same now. That shows the difference. I think that the facts of the cases are showing us some really strong things.

Right now we are producing a situational human rights report which isn’t finished yet. It’s currently in draft, but says that the assassinations carried out with political motives are now greater than those which were carried out under the Micheletti régime.

MM: The problem of impunity is one which has lasted for over 80 years, or certainly existed before; but impunity still exists here. What can the international community do to help to overcome this problem in Honduras?

BO: I believe that the international community can help us a lot right now. It’s the biggest crisis moment that this country has lived through. On the one hand, there is a communication strategy. The government has all the media and it is misinforming. The media which the international community reads are the media of the coup and that is where the disinformation is. The international community has to be watchful. It seems to me that each country can create solidarity committees, and solidarity relating specifically to the theme of human rights, to raise the level of awareness so that in your countries you know what we’re living through here. Honestly, I admit that the situation of human rights violations has overtaken COFADEH’s capacity to deal with them – every day we get more cases, to which we have to add the levels of poverty with which we work, because we are not economically prepared to respond to such barbarity. That obliges us to grasp the hand of wherever we can in order to attend to the people, to be able to help them.

MM: Do you have relations with Amnesty International?

BO: Yes, we do have relations with Amnesty. Amnesty collaborates with us a lot on Urgent Actions, but equally I believe that the solidarity committees should do that, as much to pressure the government as to look for ways and means of collecting funds and sending them. Not only do we have external displacements, where we have to take various people out of the country as an emergency, but we also have internal displacements. There are people who are in a very serious situation who we have to send to different places away from their homes, for example for a month until the situation passes – and that month is not free.

Also the clear poverty of the country and unemployment is enormous. In the face of all this, it’s very sad that whoever is empowered by the state is sharing out what little remains with the state. And that refers to the dams, the river basins – it’s impressive what they are doing. And if the population protest, then it is nothing much for the person to kill them and have done with it, …???…, and that’s it.

Corruption is another factor which is selling off the people. That is to say if someone sees acts of corruption and denounces them, he becomes the object of persecution, s/he’s sacked or s/he has to leave his/her job if it’s the boss who is being corrupt. But that is also an example of impunity.

The Honduran people are soon going to suffer disenchantment. These people have resisted and have kept up their morale, but there’s going to come a moment when morale falls because there are so many deaths – every time there’s a march, they fire tear gas, they torture, they assault, they emotionally destabilise with death threats, they steal from them, they accuse them of terrorism. It’s an oppressive state. What worries me most, and it should be the same for solidarity too, is how countries are recognising such an oppressive state under circumstances in which the massacres and political persecution are not stopped, it’s that that we come to expect as a people. That’s when disenchantment arrives in the country and its inhabitants. If right now the government is desperate for states to recognise it and it continues to violate human rights, it’s not going to stop doing it when it’s been recognised. Impunity is going to be a strong factor, and repression is going to get even worse.

At the moment in the country we are suffering hunger and there has been a time lag as far as militarisation goes, and we’ve managed to do a lot in that time. The most difficult thing is that in the militarisation the important positions have been taken by the human rights violators of the 1980s, the ones who are operating the death squads. That’s a product of impunity, a product of the squad members who we saw in the 1980s criminalised social protest. Nobody can protest because they are exposed to being gassed, to being detained or wounded or just disappeared.

MM: Are you labelled as terrorists?

BO: I work for human rights, but they label me as a member of the Resistance, and I support the Resistance, and for them that says everything. What I have said clearly I am always going to say – not just say, but do, because we don’t just talk, we also act – and it is the human rights defenders who, along with the people, suffer the abuse from agents of the state – they don’t leave human rights defenders alone. The defender who conforms ceases to be a defender. So, it doesn’t matter that they brand us as whatever they want to brand us as. But what is certain is that we face a broken country, a failed state. In the short term I don’t see that the situation is going to stabilise, in fact to the contrary, it’s going to get worse. It’s not going to get better if there is recognition and reinsertion of the state of Honduras into the Organisation of American States (OAS). That is not what is going to sort out the country, on the contrary, that will deepen and worsen the human rights violations because they are already unaccountable because they’re already accepted. The people’s suffering here is going to get worse every day.

As part of all that, there are people who describe the pain and the anxiety. This is a graphic on the death of Isis Obed. He was the first visible victim after the coup, because there were others before the coup – 15 days before the coup there were deaths, people who were calling for participation in the fourth poll were assassinated.

MM: It’s obvious that you need economic support.

BO: And more! I think we need to spread information about the situation because we have an impressive media barrier here. People come and because they don’t see any information in the media, they think everything is normal. But just imagine, in the National Autonomous University of Honduras there are four people who have been on hunger strike for more than 100 days, and still the problem isn’t resolved. For more than 15 days the Teacher’s Security Institute (Inprema) has been demanding that everything that was taken from it should be returned. That’s part of the corruption. The problem is not just funds, it is also about saving education in Honduras – it goes further than recovering the stolen funds, it’s about education in Honduras. There’s a tendency to privatise it and with the prevailing ignorance and limitations of the population and with the levels of poverty that we have, if Honduras was poor before the coup, now we have extreme levels of poverty. If the international financial organisations continue making the mistake of believing that support for the institutions of the state is going to resolve the problem, it’s not so – that will make it worse. The people need direct help. What the government is interested in right now, and what it will be interested in for a long time to come, is increasing the number of soldiers and the police force, strengthening the paramilitary groups so that they can subjugate the country even more in order that citizen awareness of education as the duty of the state and the government is not allowed to increase. And what they want to do is to privatise it. If they privatise education, Honduras will be condemned to absolute failure.

I feel that today there is a strategy to subordinate us. Some people have a lot of strength; others have very little and some are very easy targets – they’re more defenceless than others.

If you ask me what I would ask for, I would say the elimination or reorganisation of the Public Prosecutor’s office, to see if we can construct a space, because if you continue making denunciations to the Public Prosecutor, the international human rights institutions say to us, “Have you already made a denunciation to the Public Prosecutor?” By doing so we are strengthening a broken and criminally corrupt institute of the state. The worst thing is that we make a serious denunciation and we name witnesses, but we’ve had so many witnesses who have been assassinated. On the 30th July 2009 a teacher in a protest march was assassinated – he was called Roger Iván Murillo. For Roger’s assassination there was a teacher to give his testimony to the Public Prosecutor. He was a witness, he said that he knew who shot Roger because he was near his colleague. Prior to that the Public Prosecutor offered to give him protected witness status and within the month he was assassinated. The death of the first teacher was in July, and the witness was killed on 16th September – it didn’t take long.

There is a lad who in September filmed when they entered the barrios and shot a union (Sitrainfof) president. With his film he went to the Public Prosecutor to say that he had the proof, and that if they would guarantee his safety he would give it to them because on the film you could see and identify who shot him. That was on the 22nd September, and he went to the Public Prosecutor on the 24th or 25th September. In December his wife was killed. She was driving their vehicle. It was an attempt on his life, but they killed his wife instead.

Similarly, there was another case on the 22nd September [2009]. There was a lad who was due to give testimony. When the trial opened in the case of Don Francisco (another man they killed), he served as a witness because he saw and recognised the soldiers and police involved. Since that date, that lad has suffered more than 17 attacks. In September his wife was killed. As with the other case, they killed the wife because they got it wrong. In his case, they killed her by spraying gas …???… After the death of his wife, he continued getting attacked.

How on earth can people go to give testimony in a legal action to the Public Prosecutor, when the first thing they do is kill them? That is an indefensible situation of a failed state; that is what little hope we have in justice. There has to be first a purge of the place [the Public Prosecutor’s office].

Lucy Goodman (LG) : Are you worried for your own life?

BO: It’s a very difficult situation. Almost all of us, everybody who works here, have been subjected to threats. There are 17 of us here. They’ve loosened the brakes on our vehicles, they’ve loosened the screws on the tyres of the vehicles. The office was attacked before the coup. We’ve also been attacked with tear gas bombs. In September [2009] here, there were more than 150 people seeking refuge from police persecution and we were seriously attacked. They surrounded us and threw tear gas bombs below – it was a desperate situation. They closed down a space we used to have on the radio because we were working on a programme about historical memory called ‘Voices Against the Forgotten’. They closed it down without telling us absolutely anything. Now we broadcast by Radio Blog, but we’ve been heavily …???… We can’t live with fear. It’s terrible to be terrorised; for me it’s the worst type of psychological hardship.

When I remember everything that I have felt living with the people, I assure you that I feel a …???…, and I say we must do something, we have to do something, because what they want is that we won’t even say anything, they want to immobilise us.

BREAK

BO: [Referring to Tegucigalpa, I think] It’s a city which is horribly destroyed, and not just the formality of it, but structurally too because nobody …???… there is no plan designed by the local authorities to improve the situation. What they’ve tried to do all the time is just put patches and more patches on, because that allows them to get international solidarity. For example, with the dengue – nobody believes that it’s really the dengue that’s the problem. There was a flood in May [2010], so the government declared a national emergency and began to take people out unconditionally.

MM: They need to declare emergencies in order to attract funds from the IMF, the World Bank and the IBD.

BO: It’s the only way they can get funds, but if only it was to get funds to provide work. But no, it’s to obtain funds to put in their own pockets because they have to make a profit somehow. …???… impoverishing and destroying the country and its people. Public officials are never going to want to make a government of the people, that stimulates people, that shares …???… under-development. Zelaya wanted to do things, but the oligarchy didn’t allow him to because those things worked in favour of the people and encouraged them with raising things like the minimum salary. They are greedy businessmen, because even with the increase in the minimum salary, it wasn’t enough to cover the cost of the ‘basic basket’ for people. But it did increase it by almost double. We’ve had now seven months of this government which should have resolved the issue of the minimum salary, but it hasn’t even thought about the issue. What it’s doing is the greatest cruelty. For example, the fast food transnationals are firing people and then re-hiring them on hourly contracts only.

MM: Under the new contracts they don’t have any responsibility to pay any social security or other guarantees.

BO: Not even a Christmas bonus because they pay them daily.

END

Osvaldo Jordan

Interviewee: Osvaldo Jordan
Interviewer: Martin Mowforth
Location: Panamá City
Date: 14th July 2014
Key Words: CHAN75 hydroelectric project; Ngöbe people; Barro Blanco; Changuinola 2; Partido Popular; civil society; Naso people; Alliance for Conservation and Development (ACD); Bonyic hydroelectric project.

 

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Martin Mowforth (MM): OK, we’re recording.(Laughter)

So, Osvaldo – 8th July, 2014 – first, a number of questions about Panamanian issues, but before that, for my own sake, can you explain to me what you were explaining earlier about the situation with the CHAN 75 in 2010? When I was there, I visited Felix Sánchez and various Ngöbe people with my research assistants from England. Can you explain what you explained to me in the restaurant?

Osvaldo Jordan (OJ): Yes, of course.

Let’s say the hydroelectric construction project CHAN 75 was rejected and opposed by many people and, as many people know, in January 2008, the project was blocked for nearly a month and the blockade was violently suppressed. So, from then on, the business strategy was to convince various leaders:

  1. Don’t trust the solidarity groups who were fighting
  2. Negotiate independently and eventually this will not be so obvious as a principle – but it was.

Eventually, they would receive compensation from the company almost at a business level, no? Then from, let’s say, April 2008, a Ngöbe person appeared, not from the area, called Samuel Carpintero, and he began to work with the communities. He had been working for the United Nations, so because of this he knew the situation, but he used that information to get to the area, and he promoted the first process of dialogue with the Government, which was between July and November 2009. At that time we said it wasn’t sufficiently extensive or legitimate, but they signed an agreement in November 2009, in which the Government promised certain territorial recognitions, certain compensations, and this led those affected to grant permission for the hydroelectric construction.

MM: We met him.
OJ: Exactly. The agreement. So this was a little manipulated, we might say, but it still seemed normal. The following year the same leaders who signed the agreement, those representing each community, started a company which they called in English – or at least it was the name that appeared in the Panamanian Public Register: ‘Novel Lake’ [?] and in Spanish they used the acronym DANG. Now DANG was never clear which services it was providing. They received a contract for more than a million dollars from AES (Associated Engineering Services), for the cleaning of the reservoir. But apart from that, they provided security and other services. They even acted as intermediaries in many of the negotiations, and many of those affected say they took money which should have been for those affected. So, as part of those security services at this time, which basically lasted from the middle of 2009 until 2011, they controlled access to the area of the dam.

During the talks they also modified laws and last year, well, this year, more or less the month of February, the public services authority announced a resolution to authorise an ‘easement rite’. In the Barrio Blanco area, they called it an easement right of way. Thus, you could, in other words, I think it meant that the Ngobe people did not lose their property which was delimited within the comarca, but they had to give access to the hydroelectric construction, the reservoir. That gave rise to a mobilisation, the 10th April Movement, for the defence of the River Tabasara, which started to mount a resistance campaign from the beginning of February, continuing for several weeks. It still continues, but in the month of May, the company took them by force, forced them back. Basically, the camp, the initial camp was extended, then the company took back by force certain properties which had previously been acquired by the company. So, in this process, right now in June, the Supreme Court has made a decision, which eliminates the resolution of ASEP[1]. So the Genisa company no longer has its Honduran shareholders. The family is Honduran; the company no longer has any legal right to throw out the Ngöbe from the Bägämá area. But the construction continues.

MM: Yes

OJ:  And it’s very advanced and becoming a fact. Now there has been a change of government, the new authorities are going to have to take this on board. And then, basically the problem in Barro Blanco is not resolved. Likewise, the Government has driven Changuinola 2, without respecting the Saber Accord, without an adequate consultation process; nor is it paying enough attention to the land speculation in the coastal region and in the comarca. Nor, in my opinion, has it fulfilled in good faith the review of the Chan 75 Agreement. So, certainly there had been good faith on the part of the indigenous Ngöbe people, even against the will of many other people, other leaders, opting for a solution through dialogue and negotiation. Unfortunately the Government didn’t stick to its word. So, for this reason, I think, there is a possibility of new confrontations because the conflicts haven’t been resolved.

MM: Yes, OK.
OJ:  They have been extended.

MM: OK, thank you for the explanation. Look, last things, but briefly. OK?

First: Could you tell us a little about the papers and actions of the ACD? (Alliance for Conservation and Development) And second: your hopes for the PP, Partido Popular.

OJ: Ah (both laughing). Yes, well, they are two very different subjects because one of the questions I think reflects the current moment.

MM: Yes, I understand.

OJ: So,we need to make a distinction between the Government and civil society.
MM: Yes, absolutely.

OJ: At this time, many of the environmental activists in Panama, including those we have seen in the book, The Violence of Development, some of those mentioned have been in the Government. That’s very good, but also there is a problem, because we have to have an independent civil society, don’t we? So, I founded the Alliance for Conservation and Development on June 6th, it ought to have been on June 5th, but it was on June 6th 2001. We began as a voluntary group of young professionals, concerned with the situation of marginalisation of communities, and we wanted to have a project for sustainable development.  Eventually there were two big changes. One was: cataloguing incidents of conflict, and this was never our plan, but when the Naso asked for our help, we decided not to turn our backs, but supported them in the case of the Bonyic hydroelectricity project, eventually in the whole region; and then with the problem of San San and San San Druy. I believe you also got to know about this when you were there?

MM: Yes.

OJ: Clearly, a preliminary injunction from the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights. We became involved in the incident, but we also became involved in a professional manner. So, in the heat of the battle we begin to look for resources, we created the office, and thus ACD became a more formal NGO. This allowed us to do some very valuable work between the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Already we were declining, and already by the year 2010 we were really in a very complicated situation, but there were already projects which had been closed down. In 2011 we closed practically all the projects and in 2012, 2013 and 2014 we haven’t had projects as such, it’s been three years without projects. That means we don’t have staff, but, as legal actions and incidents don’t stop, we have continued working as volunteers.

MM: Yes

OJ: So, certainly, we went back to the way we had started.

MM: Yes. Just like ENCA.

OJ: Yes? Look, I don’t know. But we returned to being volunteer activists. It’s difficult, we all have work, as professionals we also grew a lot, and, well, people did very valuable work in many places. But still there is a solidarity and one of the reasons, in my personal opinion, is that ACD must survive. It’s why I call it ‘the critical voice of Panamanian environmentalism’. We dare to undertake issues, to highlight situations that the other NGOs in Panama don’t want to face.

MM: Yes, mmm.

OJ: Exactly. So, we feel this is a space we have to occupy, we have the backing of the community leaders; they have never stopped believing in the work we have been doing. New people are always arriving, aren’t they? They want to join. So I think I have to carry on the work. In 2004, on a personal level, I joined a political party. My ambition has always been to become a politician. I believe in political parties, not in independent movements, because I think political parties have identifiable policies and have to be accountable. An independent is adrift, and so, could be very committed and responsible but a swindler, couldn’t he? So, I prefer to work through a political party and I found that the Popular Party, the Christian Democrats, is the most serious and most responsible party that there was in Panama. And I shared much of the fundamental Social Christian ideology, above all the solidarity, the search for the common good. So, then I enrolled, and while I was in the United States studying for a doctorate, at the same time we were active in the ACD, I continued as a member of the party, but I couldn’t join in with much because I was outside the country. So, now, four years ago when I returned, I became active in the party and I thought I was going to seek selection as a candidate in 2019. But when some of my colleagues retired to go as independents, the possibility was open that I would enter as a candidate, and I participated as a candidate supporting the coalition that today has the Presidency of the Republic and also in a certain way we have the Assembly of the Panameñista Party of Juan Carlos Varela, and the Popular Party in which we are based. So, at this time, I am hoping to serve the country in a Government coalition which hopefully will match the work that I did with the Civil Society. But we have to accept the fact that ACD has to maintain itself as a separate and independent entity. ACD members belong to different political tendencies, so never, never do they, nor I, try to impose a political vision. Moreover, we speak little of partisan politics, we talk about the analysis, maybe because we all come from a very academic root. What we are trying to do is to analyse the reality and to try to find solutions. So this is going to be an interesting period and we will see what happens.

[Traffic noise and both talking at the same time]

MM: OK, perfect. Thank you very much Osvaldo for all your words. And, can I have your permission to include your words on the ‘Violence of Development’ website?

OJ: Absolutely.

MM: Perfect. Thank you very much.

OJ: Absolutely. Why not? And thank you too for this, for asking some of the questions we most wanted to ask when we started to work. I’ve just remembered another activist, whom I really respect, here in Panama, in another organisation. When we started to work at one moment, given that we saw what was happening in the archipelago [lot of background noise], which is an issue that we haven’t discussed much and we said then this is not an environmental issue, and this is a rights issue, human rights and environmental rights.

MM: Yes, absolutely.

OJ: Of course, and it’s what we have been doing from that time, 2007, and I think we have taken the right course.

MM: Yes. Perfect. Thank you very much.

OJ: No, thank you.

MM: That’s it. I think that’s been a very short interview.

OJ: Yes.

[Inaudible and a lot of noise. The two talking and walking, but the noise making it hard to understand.]

Snippets of conversation walking and in the vehicle:

OJ: I went to Cambridge.

MM: Oh, yes?

OJ: I think it was about the year … 2000. Yes there was a meeting in the World Conservation Centre.

MM: Ah, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

OJ: Yes, in Cambridge

(A woman talking on the radio)

MM: They monitor protected areas there.

OJ: And there was a person there I respect quite a bit too, who worked at Birdlife International, called Marco Lamborgini. [Unintelligible]. I think he has a much higher position now. He was also here, I worked as a representative of Panama and [inaudible], but by chance. It’s funny, now that I think about it, there was one of the partners there [unintelligible]. He is British, and he is one of the instigators. Because most of the environmentalists in Panama are quite conservative. [Unintelligible]. And he got into issues like transgenics, a lot of issues that were not the usual ones in Panama. At that time he was the campaigns director of [unintelligible], he was like the rights’ advocate. It was only him, only him. But I learned a lot from him, and he was one of my teachers on campaigning. That was a very important formative period for me and then I founded ACD.

MM: And are you still in contact?

OJ: Only a little.  But now, as I’m talking about him, I ought to ring him. Yes, because he’s a bit withdrawn. He lives here in Panama. And then he was working for an export company, Praline, but he was a voluntary environmentalist. So, now that he’s a retiree, he isn’t very public, but I ought to go and visit him now that I have a bit of time, and talk and analyse. I only rang him once because AES tried to buy off all the NGOs, including ACD, but very directly at that time  … At some point they made a statement that they had the support of [unintelligible] or something like that. Then I told him to look what they were doing. And he talked to the director, and the director made a disclaimer. She made a disclaimer, at no time did we approve, nor did we give permission. It’s a lot to do with marketing. ….
[Much noise, unintelligible.]
He is, I would say a pioneer of the environmental movement in Panama. And we give him a lot of credit, because, for example, the subject of the commons [unintelligible] we introduced into the law because of him. …. Of course, there must be public consultation where everyone is represented and can talk about all the problems before approving the project. That was not the spirit ….

[Both talking, not understood. Many noises and other voices (radio)]

END

[1]  National Authority on Public Services (ASEP) is Panama’s public services regulator and is responsible for regulating and monitoring the provision of drinking water, sewerage, electric power, telecoms, and radio and television services, as well as natural gas transmission and distribution. In July 2017, Osvaldo informed me that in 2016 the Supreme Court reversed the decision discussed here that had previously blocked the displacement of affected communities by the dam.

Naso people of San San Drui & Lorenzo Luis

Interviewees: Naso people of San San Drui, Felix Sánchez, King Valentín Santana and the mayor of Changuinola, Lorenzo Luis.
Interviewer: Martin Mowforth
Location: San San Drui, Panama
Date: 1st September 2009
Theme: Naso struggle for land rights against the Ganadera Bocas company and the violence of the company and police.
Keywords: TBC
Notes: Please note that Patricia Blanco did the transcription of this conversation, of which she said: “It was really difficult to understand, especially what was being said by the indigenous woman Lupita. I had to listen many times and I opted to give a summary of some of the general ideas as I understood them because it wasn’t possible to transcribe the recording as such due to the fact that her Spanish wasn’t coherent. Nevertheless, it was possible to get some general ideas. She has problems with her control of the language, and at times she refers to actions or situations which cannot be understood without having the context or background.” Some of these observations are also just as pertinent to other speakers in the transcription.

Felix Sánchez (FS): [to the Naso people gathered together] Here we are in the community. I also want to announce that we haven’t had a formal meeting with our visitors, Martin and Karis from England. They have come on a mission to research what is happening here, but as we already had the initiative for you to have a meeting with the mayor, they are taking the opportunity to be here with us in Drui. They’ll explain presently what they are doing here, but equally the authority of our mayor is here with us and likewise the Chief Magistrate of Guabito.

It’s crucially important that they meet you and talk with you. The last time that we all met with the mayor, Doña Lupita proposed that the next meeting we were going to have with everybody in the community of Drui, including Santa Ana and San San Tigra; we would widen it out because the mayor’s work affects everybody and everything that is happening in …???… More than anything, we want to make known the reality that the community is facing today, especially to this group that is here.

Yesterday the mayor indicated to me that he urgently needed to talk with you, at least all of you who are here, about the issue of your lands because there was never a meeting that included everybody. Also I spoke by telephone with the community leader and told him that the mayor was coming and that I thought he would be there because he is the authority of the community; and we needed to express ourselves with some force about what they are doing and we needed to work together, with the local authorities and the district authorities. So the mayor has come and we are genuinely grateful to him. I think that he is one of the first mayors who has made this type of gesture of support for the community and who has one way or another taken the time of day and of night, at whatever hour, to come here to the community and to talk with you.

I’m going to let Martin say a few words so that you can all get to know his work, after which we’ll start the meeting with the mayor.

Martin Mowforth (MM): Thank you to all of you for accepting us and giving us a welcome in your community. My colleague Karis and I are carrying out a study of a range of environmental issues in Central American countries. We’ve spent some months here, the majority of our time in Costa Rica, but we have also visited Guatemala and Nicaragua. We will probably visit Honduras and El Salvador too. Right now, as you can see, we are in Panamá and we have heard and read many things about your struggle, especially about the issue of the titling of your land. For us, this type of struggle is an important environmental issue. So we are here to listen to you, your problem of land titling of the Naso land, and we understand that you have encountered problems with companies which are trying to undermine your territory. If you have no objections, we should like to record your words on this issue. We have already heard Felix, but it would be very useful for us if we could take your testimony, at least from some of you, about your problems here and your struggle.

Once again, most importantly I want to say that we are very grateful to you for your welcome. Thank you.

FS: We were in the King’s house, talking with him, earlier this morning.

OK, we’re going to get going on this issue; and we’ll give a welcome to the mayor with a big applause please. We are going to listen to him so that he can tell us what he knows first hand as the main authority of this district. And you can then talk with him. So, honourable mayor, the time is yours.

Lorenzo Luis (LL): Hello. Once again, visiting the community as we had stated at the beginning of the government of the new municipal administration, make visits to the communities and be present where the problems occur. It’s an authority which is concerned for the communities where there are problems, not like others which flee when there are problems. We are committed to give attention to all in the community when problems exist. For me, as I stated to you the last time, it’s not easy, … there are so many others that I have to give attention to. I have demonstrated to the Naso people, as I said before being elected and after being elected, I would not push my people aside; I would be an authority who acts within the law but working within the law to be a reconciling negotiator, to mediate on the matters which we have to address in our district and in our community. Not like those before when cases like these presented themselves, they acted within the law but adjusting what they said to fit the legal text. I think that all the cases which can be done in this way, without dealing with them in another way, more peacefully, so that a more suitable response can be given, a response which conforms to the need.

The truth that I must tell you is that I have a boss, at the provincial level … and at the level of Panamá, which are the ministries and the central government.

After 10th August when I visited Panamá [City] for instructions from the Vice Minister of the Department for Indigenous Policies in Panamá. Given all the instructions he gave me, I came to visit you and to communicate with you, and also left notice for you about the next meeting which was going to be on Wednesday, but for other reasons we weren’t able to get here, so the visit was left pending. Yesterday I again received information direct from the Vice Minister’s office, and he tells me that they will act within the legal framework. In the same way he also told me that he will create a local commission and get them to travel to Panamá [City] so that they can discuss issues with the commission in Panamá [City]. And I said to them when they called that they are in Panamá [City] and that I couldn’t get there but that I could get to the community again to explain what they were saying to me.

The message from the Vice Minister of Government and Justice, José Ricardo Fábrega, says that there is no other possible outcome than to act according to the legal terms which Ganadera Bocas presented. But I’m still acting in the name of the local government – they don’t know the situation.

Let me say to you that for my part it has not been easy. It’s easy for them to give instructions because they’re there, but for me it’s not easy. For nobody in the communities that I have visited is it easy to find a solution to the problems which exist in our community. I have tried to deal with this matter in a peaceful way so that you can find solutions, but I must make it clear that if it gets out of my hands by some means or other, then tomorrow it should be clear that it wasn’t the mayor[‘s fault]. And the proof of this is that I am visiting you and explaining to you what they are telling me.

In the same way, you should also understand that as the authority I do not need to come with the police and I have shown that here again I am accompanied by my work team. The Chief Magistrate of Guabito; there should also be the Chief Magistrate for here – I don’t know why he’s not here, he will have his reasons for why he’s not here, but I must say to you that the pressure [of the work] is very hard.

[Note – this doesn’t seem to make sense because earlier Felix had said that the Chief Magistrate was there – probably a different Chief Magistrate.]

I must speak sincerely and honestly to you. King Tito Santana stated to the Vice Minister that you are a small group with your own name that won’t take any notice of him; and so the Vice Minister must proceed according to the law. I told you the last time what he had talked about with the Minister and that he had suggested to us and to the provincial authorities you have enough land and that you don’t need to fight with Ganadera Bocas. In a meeting that we had in the municipal office, I told him that he was acting like a representative of Ganadera Bocas and not like a representative of you, which was deplorable. For the sake of your honour I told him that, and the proof is that in the meetings I did it, but your officials were not with me. That shows who is trying to resolve these matters for you and who is representing you. He’s not interested to resolve the situation like we want to find a solution in a peaceful way.

So for me it’s not easy, believe me, sincerely, when I get those orders from the Minister’s office to punish a people in that way, because I come from a movement, representing a group. Today I’m an official, but I don’t find this to be very satisfactory, but I have to tell you in all honesty that I’ll do what I can as far as I can, but it may slip out of my hands. If for some reasons I don’t follow the instructions, I can try to comply with them some other way if I can manage it, and I will continue visiting the Naso people, not just this community, but all the Naso people including other communities such as the case of Carbonapaba, where there’s another confrontation with a very powerful businessman.

If I’m acting a little as if something has already happened, this isn’t normally how I operate, but it’s just that I’m trying to manage things so that we can reach a peaceful solution; but to be honest things are slipping out of my hands. I must make it clear to you because tomorrow I don’t want any surprises. I don’t want you to be saying that the mayor didn’t tell us, that the mayor didn’t explain to us or that the mayor has sided with Ganadera Bocas. I have met more with you than I have with them – I’ve only been with them once in my office to hear their statement.

Once again I have to tell you that the government makes it clear that you must look for some other place to re-locate to, and to do that the government is disposed to help you in your search for other housing and for other support. That’s what the Ministry told me and that is within the legal framework. Consulting with other lawyers has given me another possible way – I’m going to continue legal consultations to see how we can go about this. After this meeting, I’m going to send a report of my visit and of our conversations to the Vice Minister. I don’t know what his reaction will be. He even told me that if I don’t follow the orders he could order me to keep away. Indeed I’ve made this consultation to see at what point that would happen, because it could be a threat, a pressure, a strategy, or a psychological effect to see at what point I would or would not obey the instructions that he wants to give me.

But really, believe me, I feel a part of this group. But as an official I have to follow an established order, but at the same time I’m not here to trample on anyone. I’m very sad that tomorrow and in the past this kind of thing happens. I will keep on visiting you. As far as I’m concerned you can count on me, but the problem has already got out of my hands and is now at the level of the central government. They are the only ones who know what they say about how I should act, but they are not where I am, and it’s difficult to act within this …???…

So today more than anything I want to tell you, to warn you that you shouldn’t be taken by surprise. In the same way, I want to communicate with your leaders, but I’m not in communication with your leaders. I was going to try to tell you what the Vice Minister told me, but if any of you have a means of communicating with your leadership, it would be good to let them know and to try to locate them. I would give them the same message that they gave to me.

That’s what we bring to you; perhaps you wouldn’t be very grateful for that, but you must understand the position that I have as an official; and my duty and my commitment is to inform people of what is happening. As for me, well I’m not very grateful for it either. But I must inform you that it is my commitment with everybody, with all the community.

Up to now the government, not including Ricardo Martinelli, although Ricardo Martinelli would probably know the case, but I don’t think that this would delay it, …???… For me, I don’t think that Ricardo Martinelli knows the case. It’s possible that the Vice Minister has not really informed Martinelli of what is happening here. Seeing everything that Ricardo Martinelli has done in the last two months, just sixty days, it looks like he cares for the poor. In Panamá [City], when I visit, there are signs all over the place, in all the different communities, which say that now it’s the people who matter, that “I am here”, and that it matters that you get an adequate response. As far as I’m concerned, Ricardo Martinelli doesn’t have the information that the Vice Minister claims he has.

In any case, last night I said to the Governor that he has direct contact and that he can make suggestions and information known, and I also told the deputies that they are close to the President, so they can do the same. If I had the opportunity of an interview with [President] Ricardo I would explain the situation and I know that he would understand the problems of the people. As some say, he is a businessman, yes, but from what I have seen of the way he acts, he responds to those communities in need. In any case, I’m going to tell the Governor again today, and when I can find Mario Vilas who’s in the province of …???…, about how this matter can be mediated, not through the way they are trying to order. As far as I’m concerned, it’s sad and regrettable to have to come and tell you the orders that I have in hand. But right now, I’m not going to do it. And as I said at the start, and I keep to it, if I were the authority charged with protecting a community, as the authority I would look for ways of resolving the problems peacefully, and today I am here to see how we can look for solutions and I don’t want to be your enemy today or tomorrow. Today I’m your friend; tomorrow I shall always be your friend. The fact that I am an official does not make me act exactly as the law says. I’m a believer in making things better by means of dialogue and of resolving problems peacefully and of finding solutions. There are few officials who can operate within this type of framework.

So I say to you today that the information that the Vice Minister gave me is that there is no other way because this is private property and you are the invaders [squatters] and you have land. But he made it clear that because Tito Santana has said …???… that it is clear today who is informing him.

So, my friends and companions, sadly you can count on me but only up to what I can do, and that if tomorrow it escapes from my hands, then it will be clear that it’s not my fault. It will escape from my hands, but that won’t stop me acting by some other means, because you need to use some other way. And so tomorrow you should separate me from my official role. But with this consultation you can see their reasons, their motives, but perhaps as pressure, as threats, perhaps you can see my abilities to be able to confront these matters.

This is my message of today – I’m concerned about the situation. I had to leave the office this morning because this journey I wanted to make calmly using half a day to visit you in the community where you had previously invited me. But something else happened in the morning for which I was responsible and I wasn’t able to warn you. So you need to be prepared and you need to communicate with your leader who is in Panamá [City] that you are looking for all possible ways and means and that you’re not sleeping on this because soon other things will be taking over in the city and here other things will also be happening. It’s important that you let him [this is Eliseo he’s talking about] know because the Minister told me that he will find him, but I haven’t been able to locate him. If somebody has contact with him it would be good to let him know that I was here telling you what I have to hand at the moment.

Today [he must mean yesterday] I arrived home late and I was thinking about this problem till three in the morning – for me it’s very difficult. I was telling my kids of the work and what I’m going to do – it’s very difficult – so that I can involve them, but it’s not easy. It’s not a question of coming here and telling you lies, firstly because with God we must follow the other path, and it’s a good thing to talk with your leader in Panamá [City] so that I don’t deal with him through the Vice Minister without the President. It’s the only recommendation that I can make to your leaders, given the limitation on what I have and what I can do, so that I can continue to manage the matter.

Lupita: [Please bear in mind that the following translation is difficult to make sense of; but as the note at the beginning (from the transcriber) said, the speech was difficult to make sense of in Spanish too. The translation came down to a matter of treating each clause separately because sentences rarely made sense when taken together. It might even appear as gobbled-goo, unless you know the context, in which case it is possible to see the point of what is being said overall. But we have to ask ourselves, ‘how much of that contextual understanding is based on assumption and prejudice?’]

Today it’s two weeks since we came to a meeting. Good day everybody. It’s very certain what you are saying. The other day you came and told us very clearly …???… This man said to him ‘How do you know that Vargas has land? How do you know that Gamarra has land?’ You’re sat down there, but as you say, through that mayor I shouted to you to go to the meeting to [with?] the family that are there in …???… They feel something good about what you said to them. They don’t want to hear more: seven cats, seven cats, seven cats, until those cats don’t die …???…

Because we aren’t doing badly with our family; we are fighting with the Ganadera [Bocas]. Instead of supporting us, they don’t want to. Previously when we went there, he took the role of …???… demanded by our people. …???… In our name, how many are there? …???… [King] Tito is walking that route, so I say to you because they say, “look at us; we are new; we are Martinelli’s people.” It left me seeing how I don’t know. I say to you: “change, change, change.” Even I think change [is OK] but now that Martín Torrijos has left, there are bad changes for much of the time …???… So what changes are there?

I tell you that you are not so guilty because you’ve come here again, but as we have always said, beneath that there is a putrid lemon, a rotten orange. That is what is harming you. So I say to you as you said to us, that the Vargases have land, the Gamarras have land – that’s your response again, is it?

Now I say to you because you have two kings, King Tito says that he is the true king, but he is the government’s king. We recognise [King] Valentín Santana – he is our king, because he [Tito] has left the community. The other king says that we are squatters [precaristas], but he is the squatter. He’s no longer the leader, because if you’re the leader you should be in your area. [King] Tito meets with the Vice Minister. We are defending our comarca. Wherever you go, [King] Valentín talks of the comarca. We don’t recognise Tito as king because he is selling us out – it’s not good enough.

The government doesn’t want to give us anything because they want to make use of everything that there is here. Those who come here and put themselves next to us are opportunists – they enjoy our riches and yet we still don’t have a comarca. They are thieves who come looking for problems. He [I think she must be referring here to King Tito] received his silver, so he’s calm but we are still fighting for the comarca. They are thieves causing trouble.

They say that we have plenty of mountains, but everything is dry sticks there so we can’t work there and we can’t fell anything. That’s what we’re demanding, but the government doesn’t listen to us; it listens more to others who are selling us out.

The kings don’t think of what our elders have left us [???]. Many people come with their projects, but they don’t have good projects. They bring work, but with heavy machinery which we don’t know how to drive. So they are careful when people come to talk. The King is against us, the representative is against us, and now the family is against us. So where are we going to go?

Thank you, mayor, for informing us.

LL: Last night I told the Governor that he should say to Tito what he said to the Minister and that he should say to you and that he should come here to talk with you.

Lupita: Some ideas expressed by this participant [Lupita, I think] (as far as I understand them):

  • Problems of the boundaries
  • Problems with the leaders (kings) one of whom has allied himself with the government
  • Defence of the comarca and of the lands which they inherited
  • There is a division within the same indigenous group – some communities, such as La Tigra, are against them
  • They, however, recognise Valentín Santana as King and not Tito, who sold them out
  • They claim that some of the authorities and some of their leaders (Tito) do not tell the truth, they lie by hiding information and show the other side of their face
  • They claim that the government is not willing to help them
  • They refer to the fact that there are economic interests and money in the way.

Other participant: [This is the man who laid out all the tear gas canisters in the middle of the meeting floor for us all to see – the ones from the time when their houses were destroyed.]

Hello. Thank you for coming brothers and sisters. The 30th March of this last year was the occasion of the government’s visit to solve these problems. …???… It was them who threw us here. When you’re in your political role, in your campaign, as our brother mayor has just said, “vote for me”. Come rain or flood or whatever, they come from one corner to another, facing whatever problem they say “count on me”, but today nothing more than the image is seen. Today being aware of what is happening in the community with the indigenous, they know that these poor citizens and poor campesinos were there and made their vote. Now I wait like a father who goes away and comes back with a sweet or some sweet coffee. Look at what he brings us [I think this is the point at which he was showing us all the tear gas canisters]; look at those that sort out the problems. It’s not because the national government isn’t respected here in Panamá. Panamá didn’t want to begin at Changuinola. The mayor, the governor, all of them, didn’t understand us, or didn’t want to understand the case.

So we have Señor Félix Sánchez here. Thank God he’s here with his talent because none of the indigenous is prepared, but today he is preparing us. He’s in touch with people from different countries who hear us and see that we are not lying.

What type of Panamanian government wants votes and arrives to throw us out from here. Ganadera Bocas says that all this and further down is theirs. Señores, I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m 57 years old, I was born here and my father arrived before that. And now Ganadera Bocas arrives and says “No, no, all the indigenous should be out of here; all of this is ours.”

Señores, God made the earth and also made humanity, and we stay here on the earth. We are more than the businessmen of Ganadera Bocas. Sadly here we cannot take that for granted any longer. With respect to what the mayor says, I don’t know much about the current government, but it still doesn’t have much awareness; but look what a mess it’s making. So, what I want to say is that we are making a call to other countries so that they can see, so that they can call the highest authority, so that they hear what happened.

On the other hand the indigenous people have rights, there is a law, a decree, I don’t know in which year, I don’t know if the President or the government functionaries can open up the drawer to see it, but the indigenous peoples have rights. …???…

Now, as my brother Tito Santana says, first when he began he began well, he was warm, he was brave and relaxed about what he was doing here, under this roof where we are sat. But the man began to cheat with the Bonyik project. When he saw the ticket [money] there where they landed the deal, they bought him and all his conscience. He abandoned the comarca, abandoned the struggle of the indigenous people, of his people. Now, he uses “my people” politically, but he …???… the tray of silver.

Look at how we are now, sick, with colds. As chief you say the man may go to hospital and they will treat him. No, we have to struggle just to see how we can leave the area. Look what a state the road is in and what problems there are here. …???… to say good, this no, this yes, there the government functionaries don’t know what to do. Tito was a true King, but with that government. Right now I don’t agree with Tito. He has already completed his period as governor.

He says that we are squatters [precaristas], but he is the squatter, we are on the land …???… We are within our rights. We believe in the lineage. We want this new government, the current government, to look for a solution, but not through that. What is the solution? Well, a lineage. Perfect, through that we will get there, respecting one another.

Look how the wire fence is going now. They aren’t looking for wire – they’re looking even further up. And then as they say, …???… the post there already belongs to the government. They have jurisdiction over it and they manage it by saying, “Listen, do not, do not, do not, do not fell that”. The streams, the mountains, I don’t know what. Señores, so where are these humble and poor residents going to live? The government is not going to have a daily, weekly or even monthly mayoral meeting for all these residents who are here.

So, as a local resident I speak, I see, I feel, because I’m still alive, and I should like whilst I’m alive that all of us struggle for one single cause, for our families, for our security. If we don’t do that, our grandchildren and our families will see it getting worse and they will drive us out more quickly.

We’re not fighting against groups like these seven. But as our sister Lupita said, we don’t have that idea …???… the land owners are coming here for everything. In Bonyik I know a man who had a stretch of land all of which had been the Naso-Teribe indigenous group’s, but today the Colombians came and he sold it to them. When the families were there they had space to work, but today they are left penniless. Now, he got the title and then sold it – like the whites have money. How can the land owners do so much buying? So we must not sell our lands, we must look after them, we must maintain them for our families. …???…

For us, for the Naso, for the true Naso groups, Tito is a ‘nobody’ king. Here is Señor Valentín Santana, the man does not sell his people, he doesn’t deceive, he doesn’t …???… We are going to make an agreement. First, we must have a meeting with the people. I have to know what my people are saying, is it good or not, so I don’t go solo, on my own, all these things we must consult on.

Tito knows this, but, well I don’t know, he’s on his own and he wants to take advantage of the money. So he does the talking – he got there …???… he told them that the limit [boundary] is Dos Bocas, but he says that and we are going to leave it there. But that limit, that line of wire doesn’t seem right to me – it leaves the people apart. So he told us talking like a king wearing a tie …???… He always talks about how Ganadera has given [him] cows and steers. Lord, how many steers do damage to these poor campesinos like us; he never paid us; how many millions of dollars did he earn by this, and just for him because Ganadera was facilitating it for him. It was a bad project. He knows that where he puts his hand I will fight it. And as poor people, we struggle, we cry out, we talk for our rights. So when he arrives, he says “my people, my people” – he has nobody in his family who is backing him.

So, Mr mayor, so as not to make you tired, that is what I can say. Moreover, …???… As my sister said, the family does not want to support …???… There are seven of us and we are struggling here and if nobody wants to participate, well, we’ll leave it and each one can fight for their own house.

Now, look at Ganadera. It’s stopping us. It seems to me that it’s made a mess of all the posts there below, and Ganadera has made a hole. They don’t support me – I don’t want any support from them, but always remember that you don’t have papers, you don’t have documents, these lands are public lands, they aren’t owned with documents or signatures; so this land is not yours, this land is loaned … And the road – …???…  – I don’t want to see anything there. Your road will be …???… in a foot of mud to get round that bend so you take it as a straight line …???… But as I say, everyone will see their own problem.

We talk of our rights. Here we are not …???… along the route. Look how the bridge there has been left – the metal sheets have been lifted. If it had been any of us who had caused this mess on the bridge, we would be in prison; but as it’s a millionaire there wasn’t even a fine – no prosecution of the men from Ganadera Bocas. Look at the bases of the bridge as they are now – they’ve ruined them; they felled the trees on the river banks; and if we had done that we would be in prison. But for them, no authority or official would even appear.

Now, the new government has to consider that. Mr mayor, that is my explanation. Many thanks.

Lupita: Now, if we fight against the law, we have to pay the government. Here we have never had to pay the government. Every month we have to ask where are we going to get the money? There is no money to pay that. We think we are doing well for our families, but he [???] says that it’s bad. We have to pay, through the kings. They talk. They set their limits. We continue to work. Now he talks of collective land, and I say to him, “sir, you have to come to explain to us what is collective land for us?” They tell us that collective land is the same as the comarca, but whilst I don’t see this, I won’t accept it. So I say to people who come here from far off that we are going to invite you to the communities where there are families you can listen to so that they can tell you that I’m not lying, because I see that things are not how we think.

That day when we were there and the man from Talamanca (Costa Rica) arrived from Yorquín, where there had also been struggles. They talked of the case of the hydroelectric project; they talked of the case of the coal mine. Today all the indigenous people are not so calm – those who think and those who don’t think all say I’m very well.

I’m an old person and I think that now I’m going to suffer that heat, and if God says that …???… Paying. When God made this earth, …???… in the same way, now he is going to come for our land …???… So I would like you to come with us sir, two or three days in the community and we will visit families so that you can hear them when they say that this woman is not lying.

So we are struggling, and there’s no real power for us. So they say that it’s our fault that they aren’t making that road, but we have houses all along the road. So, as we do in Panamá, I and the people will press for the road. …???… if we’re at the side of the road because they can’t make it. Then I see that that road provides problems for all the people of …???… except the family that doesn’t want to support us; but we will do it.

FS: Mr mayor, we will congratulate you for the information you have brought with you – if only you …???… because you are a person who I can see considers …???… always to tackle hardship. And as you said yourself, look at what our family has received – there’s the education, the graduation, the doctor, there are all these things that they have done for my people. And you analyse an issue …???… so that people take photos …???…

As Sra. has said, I have come here many times. There was a mayor here called …???… I was staying here and he called me and sent me an item to look for as if I was a …???… When he arrived he told me that I was supporting him and that I was with him, or even that I was like the …???… The man armed me with a …???… I came here …???… because the money was …???…


Translation of the 3rd transcript of conversations with the Naso people in San San Druy, this one being the 2nd transcript involving the mayor.

(The same notes made about the quality of the recording and of the spoken Spanish which were made with regard to the first two transcripts and translations are just as relevant to this one.)

LL: … when it’s a big town, …???… information from Tito Santana, they are two people. I told the Minister when I had the interview on the 15th that he came to last month that there were two families, but also that this district is a big one. But also from Tito Santana they hear what they told me. He told him here the same as the Governor that those who come to the meeting here live in Guabito, in another area; they are not from here. So for that reason the Minister is trying to protect and to act quickly because according to the information in the document if there are two there’s no reason to consider both. So if tomorrow you manage to …???… then that’s down to Tito Santana – he’s the only one responsible for sinking you, the only one.

Lupita: Yes. What a bit of a family. It’s a lie, mayor, we realise what he is doing …???… by you. We are so many and we are no trouble.

LL: The other thing is …???… the same Mario Guardia told me in Panamá [City], his words, that … he doesn’t have any land. However, the Minister told me there were no problems with that; it’s resolved. We wondered with the Governor, I asked Mario Guardia, and he told me: no, that land is loaned, it’s not going to be given with a title, nor is it going to be adjudicated, now or ever, because that land belongs to Ganadera Bocas. So today it’s your problem, and if you don’t unite on this, you are going to have problems tomorrow. I told this to the Governor, so that he would relay this to the Minister, because the Minister is currently thinking and already has the information, and will say that there is no problem. The problem is here. But we know how things are. So the only one responsible for all the things that you can do is Tito Santana – just so that you know.

FS: I’m going to take the opportunity of this occasion, Mr Mayor, to show you what has been done in view of the fact that perhaps you are going to send a report to the Minister after this meeting, at least so that you can inform him about the steps that are being taken.

First of all, we have to have a clear idea that today we have a mayor who has felt the concern that the community has; first they were not buffaloes at the urns who voted for them, they were you. They weren’t Colombians, nor a transnational that went to vote; it was these people who today are asking that their rights be respected.

I want to say something very clearly in this intervention this morning. This community requested of the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights that precautionary measures be taken, and this document has already been formally accepted by the Commission. So, Mayor, I want to deliver this document to you so that you can see that we have copies for when the Minister or somebody from the government calls you or gives you instructions you will also be aware of the actions, not only local actions that this community is taking, but also actions in international law from those with whom we have been meeting.

So, perhaps not for the sake of letting them know, but you as mayor can use this document which tells in text what the community is doing on the legal front given the law that the community has and which was violated here from 30th March. So I want to give you this document. We can take copies of the document for your office in order to be able to respond to the Vice-Minister – that is the written document which we have given you and which is supported at the international level and which has been formally accepted by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.

The other thing that I want to make use of this occasion and for which I shall take another five minutes, Mr Mayor, and I’m not going to invent anything here, is that the people have the leadership they deserve. Today we have representatives who the people elected, but he continues operating in the same way and he is going to continue giving this payment to the community and to its people. And the mayor is a witness to this action, so that when he arrives at the office and opens the door, he talks to you of one thing, but his real actions are doing another thing.

Today we have a situation which for us since the 30th May 2004 without a king, and the fact that the government has recognised him is another problem. But it’s not our problem and it doesn’t interest us. But you’re right that today we have that problem because the previous government was interested in recognising him, and finally we’ve found some real reasons why. In December [2008] a law which went against our aspirations – the comarca law, the law of collective lands – and which Tito said will be the same …???… which Martín Torrijos approved. But the only person – I don’t know if you think I’m lying – who is called Valentín Santana here, the only one who went to the Supreme Court of Justice demanding the law, and here is the document, to hand, this is the copy of the lawsuit. Why? Because we believe in the comarca. Yes or no?

Everybody: Yes.

FS: We believe in this concept which our ancestors left us and I don’t think that those who were here 30 years before, who didn’t go to school, but who were so wise, thought that the legal definition of the territory had to be consolidated as a comarca. And there is Mr Valentín, the King, who is witness to these struggles which were begun many years ago. But today we are facing a legal process, and here is the copy – we can take more copies, whatever is needed, for the mayor – if you want this copy, the copy of this lawsuit which King Valentín Santana is making to the Supreme Court of Justice.

The Court has already responded. Here we also have the Supreme Court of Justice’s reply. It’s not a mute issue – here they are responding. Why do I mention it this morning? Because at times we think so much about a scoundrel to whom his land and his territory don’t matter. And along comes another time and possibility, as I said to the director of PRONAP, when the new government continues to say that because this is the Naso people’s authority, that is a trick.

Faced with this legal petition, the Supreme Court of Justice, which is considered to be the highest authority in our country to which we can go right to the end in search of justice for the Naso people, well, at least we have some responses. And next month there are many possibilities to have an audience to explain why we are arguing for the Naso comarca, against this law which Martín [Torrijos] approved on 3 December 2008.

I want to honestly assume that this has had to be an international process which we have brought about, because although it’s certain that the local authorities have been blind to what they haven’t seen and deaf to what they haven’t heard, it seems that they don’t understand the law of the Naso people. So we have gone to the international sphere, and when an International Commission for Human Rights accepts our demand, it is because they have seen the reasons why we have been making this claim; and that although plenty has been written about this struggle, we are not going to hide because it’s a reality.

Faced with this, I want to make it clear today that the Naso people continue to lose their land; with this type of leaders that we have who came here on Sunday promoting the new government’s changes but who ignore the process and this struggle because they haven’t input even a little of the responsibility into their posts that Doña Lupita has on her shoulders, or of those here who are suffering; and the responsibility of those people, like Tito Santana, affects us here.

The previous government also delivered 1,198 hectares of our land to others. Are we going to continue losing land – yes or no?

Here is the document, and I’m not lying, it’s signed at the back, the stamp is that of the National Direction of …???…, Dr Ligia Castro as the person responsible. And in the afternoon of that same day the state company was pleased, having a fiesta, they went to …???… killing cattle, they did everything they wanted because that’s what they were expecting.

But here you have a public servant. If I’d taken on the political interests, I would not have felt what is happening to the people now. But I’m continuing at the head of this process which today, with honour, we continue to say, at least for the past week, that we are seated with part of the government talking of the consolidation of the Naso territory in a document which I have here. A letter was sent to King Valentín Santana, King of the Naso people, with the unique intention of consolidating the Naso territory with the earlier application of 160,000 hectares.

Brothers and sisters, this fraudster who approved this law – I’m going to be really clear, I’m not going to be shy about saying these things – he approved the law of collective lands where the territory of the comarca as adjudicated by this law gives only 95,000 hectares, and he’s happy with that. But what the new government is proposing is to proceed with the consolidation of the Naso territory under the previous study which gives 160,000 hectares. I’m not lying to you; you can read it here, and I’m going to be here till midday so that you can read it. 160,000 hectares – here, it’s being proposed.

So I’m in agreement with a lot of what the mayor says. I feel that the President of the Republic is ignorant of what is happening here on the Naso territory. I feel that when he finds out he will have a very different reaction because he’s prey to those people who have already intervened in this area. They are thieves, usurpers of the land of our territory and they are not one of us. Brothers and sisters, it is not us who are begging for a few metres of land. Today we have the papers saying that the government recognises our piece of land. How is it possible that the head of the household becomes the young son? [Not sure of this, but it sounds like some Panamanian metaphor or something.]

I want to say one thing that was the practice of the previous government with documentation. We went with King Valentín, the teams and Doña Lupita to a meeting with the government which was under pressure and was on its knees before international demands. Here we’ve got the same …???… with the World Bank, Martin, here in the month of June they came because we had initiated a process of claims to the previous government because PRONAP was making totally arbitrary management decisions, unrelated to the traditional practices of the people – and we showed that. Today, the World Bank approved an investigation of Panamá, and that is going to happen right now, in the first few days of October.

Why? The King sent the letter to the previous government, and to the World Bank they were saying that they were consulting the Naso people and that Valentín is …???… in an open discussion, because on the other hand they amazed me, but on the other hand they couldn’t do it. In an open discussion with the World Bank they wouldn’t dare take action and withdraw the document. The mistake was to go to look for it because when it was brought out that same document said: Señor Valentín Santana did not receive the note. But it was the work of the previous government, it’s a note from December 2008. And they were discussing whether we were being consulted. So that particular struggle was being dealt with, and now this level is being dealt with, and so here you are not only seeing the work of the mayor; and it’s not out of friendship with the mayor after we shared a political campaign that I am going to say this really clearly, I say it because today he holds a responsibility as an administrator of this district and he is the foremost authority.

I believe that here we must also unite ourselves together in this struggle; I’m very clear in what I’m going to say, my struggle is not against any of my family or members of the community, my struggle is against those who are every day legalising a meter of land and taking a meter of land away from the Naso people – that’s the focus of our struggle, our great challenge.

I believe, mayor, that this morning, as you said here on the 5th August and in the office of the Governor to the Vice Minister, here there is a people who will continue crying out for justice. I’m going to be certain about one thing today, the damage that Ganadera Bocas has wrought on this community is irreversible, it will never be paid for, nobody is going to pay anything for it. The struggle could last many years, but it won’t depend on what the mayor wants, it is going to depend on us, on what we are feeling in the community, on our reality.

The mayor is transitory. These five years pass rapidly, but he’s going to continue being a resident of this district. I want to say today that we are clear on our aims and the threats which we face. I assure you that we are armed [this means with documents and information] and we are trying to document the whole process which we are promoting in the wider world, at the international level.

If I didn’t say it to the Director of Indigenous Policy and to those who came here in this meeting place on the 15th July, I didn’t express what I said as a threat, but what I said I continue to say and have said in meetings which we have had with the new government. This servant has knocked on doors. With the previous government we spent five years on the edge of a razor blade because that’s what the last government did. But now the start of a new government could affect us in what I’m aware is the way I have trusted in it. I’ve placed a lot of trust in the new government in the hope that we can manage to do what we weren’t able to do under the previous government. But …???… I put my confidence there because this government will listen to me. I’ve said it here to the mayor. I’ve met with the mayor many times because I want to be very clear. They will also listen to me knocking on doors to the outside because we are organising an assembly for 4th October when it will be one year since we had a great assembly in Bonyic, and now it’s going to be in Teyic [???] because we want to inform everybody about this process that’s happening now. There is a process of claims relating to the issue of the comarca. It’s already in draft with our lawyers to present to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.

I believe it’s necessary to double our efforts today, not to get discouraged, not to lose heart, and I believe in the saying, Sr Mayor, that in a war foretold no soldiers die. And the mayor came to foretell this to us, he came to warn us, he came to inform the community; and I don’t know whether I’m exaggerating, but I believe that I see the mayor at the head of our struggle, because he’s not going to abandon his community.

Here in reality we have to be spokespersons for this hope; we mustn’t get discouraged by the fact that there’s a lot of pressure; it will depend on us and our families in the community. For your information, I was in San San Tigra on Sunday. I left late at night from a meeting at which we had been discussing this issue. We were trying to explain to them and we are not going to explain to them in other languages. As soon as he gets here to Druy with these documents I want to go to Tigra, even with videos. We are already planning this with them, to arm a meeting more broadly with all the materials and maps to hand so that we can leave materials in the community so that they have them to hand, because that’s where the power is. When we get started, that’s where the power is.

And many people have become disillusioned saying that here amongst our people are other persons talking with us who have come to make the indigenous people angry. That is not so. I think that we are prepared for this, as Doña Lupita says, we won’t be telling any stories here. [Not 100% certain about the translation of that last clause.]

As Don …???… said, I want to congratulate the management of the mayor. Sr Mayor, believe that whilst we maintain this genuine communication, this legitimate communication, we are not going to [perder el norte]. Likewise, people here are not going to disappear through the negligence of those of us who are the leaders.

We mustn’t hesitate brothers and sisters. The worst enemy is not in the municipality; the worst enemy is not in the city; the worst enemy is right here, within our own territory – that’s the greatest detractor. Why do I say that? Because I say to you that just as it was possible that one person predicted the comarca, today another government may approve a different law. For everything the government was saying, it has to say yes because it owes some favours. We don’t depend on that; we depend on the management of the community, and so Doña Lupita leaves for Panamá [City], she’s not going to ask for favours, she’s not going to beg, she’s going to fight for your lands.

Brothers and sisters, last Wednesday, I say in all honesty, they heard men and women who don’t know how to put a letter onto paper, Doña Lupita, talk for 32 minutes in front of the Director of the World Bank, the new Director of PRONAP, and when the Director of the World Bank stopped and said, “Doña Lupita, now I have nothing to say”. And so here we don’t need anyone who goes under the table trying underhand techniques; here we need genuine leaders who won’t be bought and who won’t sell themselves, but who are clear in their direction, their aim and where we are heading.

This is the way we treat others, brothers and sisters, whilst we have that I want to show you that the worst enemy is within our territory, and that’s the one that we have to confront. Working over there, I know that keeping our officials well informed, primarily the mayor and the governor, because he also communicates a lot with us, will help us to advance, and I consider that we have to confront the struggle within ourselves.

This is my message. I believe that we will take on a role as we seem to have done permanently throughout this process, we will continue to document it all, Sr Mayor, with all the materials, with everything that is happening, so that all the processes and everything that we are doing outside will be known. Because it’s necessary that he knows for when they ask him what the community is doing in the face of this action. Here the war is against those who come from beyond.

Many thanks.

Another participant: I’d like Sr Mayor for you to come along here on a weekend, a Saturday or Sunday, so that you can see that river which took the house, or rather the site where it was. The government gave me a couple of …???… And I made a low ridge. What happened, Sr Mayor? This side slid away, this side …???… Do you think it’s fair to live there? With that danger and you’re living there … I had to knock the house down.

Why do we live here on the lowland? Because it’s wide. We’re thankful for where we are located. How are you going to live in those trees? How are you going to live there? You’ve got to get out of the ravines so that you can level it off. It’s not safe, when it rains it washes everything away, everything slides away. And that’s why you don’t see many things in this area. The government officials from the institution which deals with housing don’t come and see the damage and to see what has happened.

As I said, my mother has already been buried there; my brother with his two children and wife, along with six families, wake up in the surrounding countryside. … If only those officials would come and see the damage. That’s the problem that we have.

There’s land for crops, but for houses it’s not guaranteed and there’s no security. Look at the river bank – when it’s full of water it overflows and goes all over there. So, why doesn’t the government send its people to see. They say no, that we’ve got to locate ourselves in a better part, we’ve got to make ourselves secure; now if they want us to be secure they should put us against the cliff where we are going. What’s the best that the government sees? And if we don’t leave, they say it’s because we’re fighting and because we’re staying there. Now the damage has gone, the house has been rebuilt, the land has been washed, and nobody died. Now they want to re-locate us, but there’s no law that we have to live there and make our houses there. If I change from there I’ll need more land for my children who will also be making their homes because their families have two, three, four, five children.

So where those slides occurred we can’t locate our houses. Here you can see mountains, but that is for growing rice. We are used to living under thatched roofs which is refreshing, but now, since a year ago, we are suffering. As I said, we are not foreigners. We want a solution as soon as possible, but one which doesn’t come through a machine gun, one which comes with a document that signifies respect and your rights as indigenous peoples. But we are not expecting mistreatment and threats.

Thank you Sr Mayor.

Another participant: I also want to greet all of you on behalf of the Naso who are suffering here. We have some trips to Panamá City. Thank you Sr Mayor for bringing us such an important message. As a Naso from this territory I invited Tito Santana to talk so that we could hear another person …???… that never gives a consultation here, they never involve themselves here, Sirs, hear this clearly, with people who betray us and who are doing [something] in the community …???…

Thanks to our great friend, we have come so that he can bring this sad message, to hear of a traitor like Tito Santana who hides himself away and travels in a vehicle of …???… and buys the consciences of other people. Actually, he’s like a Vice-Minister of the new government. They’ve already bought it [???] because from what I hear the Vice-Minister has an order – well we also have an order from here for Panamá. God first – this is part of our fight. Try not to involve us with bad people, …???…

Also, the problem is not with us, the problem is that we have to hold onto each one of us and follow a good route. It’s an agreement which we have had, the greatest dream – that is the comarca, it’s our aspiration, we need the comarca. So, for the sake of the comarca we will all hold onto each other, all together, from the children to the old people. Those are going to be our needs from this day onwards.

I hear the King [please note that this could possibly be a reference to God rather than the Naso King – Señor Rey is often used in Central America to mean God] …???…  the authority of Guabito. I don’t know if the Chief Magistrate could offer an opinion on this. He also has a message for us.

LL: Before the Chief Magistrate of Guabito comes in, the Chief Magistrate has nothing to do with this matter. Ganadera Bocas has also wanted to involve him in it, so the Magistrate is here because I asked him to accompany me. Likewise, I told the Ganadera Bocas representative when he visited me because he was going to start proceedings against the Chief Magistrate on the grounds that he wasn’t doing anything. And I told him that it wasn’t within the competence of the Chief Magistrate and that therefore he wasn’t going to take action, still less so if he didn’t have my authorisation.

And we have already replied through our lawyer to the representative of Ganadera Bocas that he is not going to take action because they would want this action to be taken, that action to be taken, and that in the midst of it all they will attack you. The two of them have my instructions, so if they don’t have instructions they can’t do anything. Thus he is accompanying me today so that nobody is going to think that it’s his fault if something happens.

Also here is this colleague who works with me in representing you, and the mayor’s secretary, my colleague Isabel.

There we are, Chief Magistrate.

Chief Magistrate of Guabito: Good afternoon. I’m only here to accompany the Mayor, and to collect information.


Translation of 4th transcript of meeting with the Naso people.

1st September 2009

Honourable Mr Mayor, King Valentín Santana, everyone who is present,

Listening carefully to all your opinions, I have made a brief analysis – it’s only my personal opinion.

I am a resident of the San San Druy community (Changuinola, Bocas del Toro province) and I speak as a leader of the community.

What the comrade mayor has announced about our King Tito Santana is regrettable. But we as people, comrades, are also doing nothing, we will continue to put up with this martyr till who knows when, because the truth is that we are clear and we are not children. We know perfectly well that the Naso people have two kings. One group has Sr. Tito Santana and the other has Sr Valentín Santana. Whilst there isn’t just one single line, we will continue crying all the time because we don’t have a responsible father figure who makes the assumptions for us. Say what you like, this is the reality.

On Sunday some people from further up there visited us, former kings, and at times the gossip was not good to hear. I would not be able to leave here with giving my opinion. When we need to we people can laugh. I told the comrade who was with you when he arrived that we are going to tell you a little story. You came by car, and later you got stuck; and when he got here, he said to me, “comrade, how much will it cost me for you to pull the car out?” And I told him, “the world turns”. There was a group in the hut when you passed by and you didn’t even look out of the window and say hello to us. Then a bit further on, you needed me – how do you think that appeared? But things like that happen.

Friends, if we don’t make the effort as residents of the community, we’ll keep on having the same things happen. …???… I have always said to you, because we hear it said that there are people who don’t have the pants [balls; bravery] to confront the company, and I’ve always said here are capable people. Here we have people who want to fight and who have the energy, but what happens friends? Whilst we don’t resolve our internal problems, we will live all our lives blaming one another. And we know perfectly well that God was kicked out after the creation of the world; and we always have to have someone who is to blame, so the best thing when we have made a mistake is to acknowledge it and to move on. God created man and made him a wife, and after Eve made her mistake Jesus asked Adam [God] if the woman you made gave you food. So we always have to have someone to blame.

Don’t see me as strange because I’m a resident of the community. You are all my friends. Today, by invitation from friend Felix, I came to listen. So I’m here with you and I exhort you, as Señora Lupita was saying earlier, I’m very much in agreement with her, to meet as a community with the authorities and recognise the mistakes that we make. In that way we will start pulling together. If we do the opposite, friends, we will keep on regretting that people don’t want to support us or help us, and in the end we won’t get any positive result out of this. It’s this that I wanted to make clear to you. If I have spoken badly you know to forgive me and as an authority of the San San Druy community I invite the mayor to come to the community so that people and children of the community can get to know him. These are my words. Many thanks, friends.

END

Didier Leiton Valverde

Interviewee: Didier Leiton Valverde of SITRAP Costa Rica
Interviewer: Presentation for ENCA
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date: 17th June 2010
Theme: TBC
Keywords: TBC
Notes: This is a transcript of a presentation by Didier for ENCA and the subsequent conversation. Translation by Stephanie Williamson

Didier Leiton Valverde (DLV): My name is Didier Leiton Valverde, I am a union organiser in the banana and pineapple plantations in the Caribbean cost of Costa Rica. Before that I had almost 19 years experience working as an agricultural labourer working in these plantations, but for the last ten years I’ve been working as an organiser promoting trade unions and labour rights in the plantations. I have been invited here by British organisations who have fraternal links with my trade union in Costa Rica.

Martin Mowforth (MM): We’re conscious because of our work of the problems caused by the cultivation of pineapples in the South and South West of Costa Rica, through of the work of our partners, such as Unaproa and El Frente Contra la Contaminacion de Pindeco. But we’re not aware of the new things that are happening in Costa Rica surrounding the expansion of pineapple cultivation. Can you tell us a little about this recent expansion please?

DLV: Well, in Costa Rica, the pineapple cultivations have been in the South for 25 years or so. But in the last few years, this has expanded in to the Caribbean side of the country and the Northern zone of Costa Rica.

In the last ten years but especially in the last two, the expansion in the Caribbean North zone has been incredible, increasing the total area under pineapple cultivation in the country up to 47,000 ha. This is compared back in 2005 when there were only 20,000 ha. But this increase has been specifically in the North and Caribbean zone.

The worst thing about this expansion is that this is totally uncontrolled, occurring day by day. Each day there are more and more small campesinos losing their land as the plantations expand, and this is often done with support from the government.

Even though Costa Rica has a law saying that any new agricultural activity must have an environmental impact assessment, that just doesn’t happen in reality. The expansion is being supported by the general policies of the Costa Rican government, who support large scale capitalist projects and monoculture.

In the new zones there is more and more environmental contamination and human health impacts daily, including contamination of groundwater.

Stephanie Williamson (SW): One question, because I thought that there were also smaller campesino farms produciENCA members who attended Didier’s talkng pineapples in Costa Rica, not just these large plantations.

DLV: Yes, there are some smaller farms and producers too, but they’re not that small, and only really in the North. In the Caribbean zone all the production is by the large companies such as Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte and Pindeco. Although there are some smaller independent producers, they still have to sell their produce to the multinationals, who have control of the distribution and marketing chains for export.

Two years ago Pindeco bought a company called Caribana (?) that has banana and pineapple plantations in the Caribbean and Northern zones, for more than 500 million dollars. Pindeco is a subsidiary of Del Monte, and this buy out has now made them the by far the strongest and most dominant plantation company in Costa Rica.

ENCA member: In England at the moment there is a strong push for Fairtrade. I’d like to know if there is a difference, or big difference with the pineapple production that is grown under Fairtrade programs.

DLV: In Costa Rica, and I believe in all the banana producing countries of Latin America, the producers obviously want Fairtrade, because it means more money – the consumers pay a higher price, and this is better in general. But although Fairtrade’s aim is to improve the working and social conditions for the workers, in practice plantations are pretty much the same, under Fairtrade or not.

There’s a very strong anti-trade union culture in Costa Rica, and the companies of the plantations generally don’t permit real trade unions. We have tried to find out why there isn’t more of a difference with Fair trade – I’m part of a Latin American regional coordination of Banana Workers’ unions called Cociba. We have shared our experiences with people in Colombia and Peru regarding Fairtrade programs, and they say the same thing about them not providing much of a difference. I’ve worked as a union promoter in Costa Rica in companies that sell their products under Faritrade, but it’s still been impossible to establish a trade union.

We know that the premium that the consumer pays for Fairtrade actually stays in the hands of the companies.

SW: And what about the people who do the certification for Fairtrade? Why is this clear violation happening – is it something to do with what they call ‘yellow’ trade unions?

DLV: The unions constantly have to work with a very wide range of people, including very anti-union companies and the anti-union government. We also work with the certifiers from Fairtrade (The FLO) and from Rainforest Alliance. There is a struggle to get the foreign certifiers to come in to the country and realise the reality of the plantation conditions -the companies have people inside the certifying agencies to make it very difficult.

The unions, we are planning for alliances for a campaign to make a stronger link with the European consumers, to let them know what’s happening. Our organisation is totally pro Fairtrade but it has to be Fairtrade that actually delivers on its promises.

MM: We received something last November saying that Chiquita bananas now have Rainforest Alliance certification – they of course are one of the worst companies. Pindeco also have advertised the ISO (international standards organisation) 14001 certificaiton on their plantations. It’s hard to believe that these companies are able to get certification for good environmental practice.

Dominic McCann (DM): Are there any lands that are no longer fertile due to pineapple or banana growing that have been abandoned, and is that part of the reason for the expansion up into the North and Caribbean regions?

DLV: Not really, despite the expansion in to new regions, the companies are still producing over their old areas in the South.

James Watson (JW): Is there any particular reason for the recent expansion?

DLV: I believe that the consumer markets have been expanding – globally there is more consumption of pineapples, in Europe and the US. So they’ve needed to expand production to cover this market expansion. For example in the last year in Costa Rica, there’s been a Russian backed company coming in, to try and find production for the expanded demand in Eastern Europe and Russia. And China is getting involved as well – I don;t think anything’s likely to put the brakes on this expansion, as long as the demand is increasing. There’s a lot of profit to be had by these companies.

ENCA member: What kind of regulations or pressure would you like to see to control this expansion, either from the government of Costa Rica, or possibly from consumers?

DLV: The government is very pro-capitalist, and has shifted further to the right in recent years – they’re very pro big-business. There are trade unions and environmental NGOs in Costa Rica, but at the moment the government and the big companies don’t allow them to develop. For example, the companies will set up so called representative organisations in place of unions, but which they run themselves. So the only thing that has really worked in favour of the unions in the last few years has been getting international media attention on to what’s happening there. For example, through Banana link, we’ve had people working with Fairtrade unions in Costa Rica for over two years, and the government and the companies see Banana Link as an enemy.

MM: But internationally Banana Link has a very good reputation. They can put pressure on the companies.

SW: I’ve a question, because Banana Link had an international forum with supermarkets and others in December 2009, which we wanted to go to but couldn’t. They were trying to create a basic minimum for social and environmental standards. What came out of that forum, and from Banana Link’s influence?

DLV: Yes, this was the ‘World Banana Forum’. It went well – supermarkets, unions and NGOs and some producer governments participated, and talked particularly about social and labour issues. The supermarkets and government representatives of course said they wanted improvement, but in practice there haven’t yet been any changes from the companies.

The conversations are continuing, trying to get some practical change, but at the moment we haven’t seen changes in the supermarkets or organisations. Costa Rica is unique in some ways around this – they’ve been trying to set up something called a forum for social dialogue. But this process has caused difficulties for Banana Link and the trade unions as part of it involves recognising the ‘representative organisations’ that the companies have set up. This is difficult for us.

We also need to look in more detail at exactly what Costa Rican labour law involves. For over 10 years we’ve had investigations and monitoring by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in to the conditions in Costa Rica, and they’ve said that Costa Rica needs modifications to its labour laws. In particular, they’ve said that Costa Rica needs to show proof that it’s adhering to laws Costa Rica has signed on to protecting workers’ rights and regarding the recognition of trade unions. But the government isn’t supporting the unions, and are now creating laws that are really against trade union rights. At the moment the ILO has a global summit and they’re really pushing for proof from Costa Rica that it’s improved in its union recognition.

We’re always fighting, and we’re optimistic, but the recognition is very limited and the Costa Rican government’s attitude is that the ILO isn’t that important and doesn’t have the influence to enforce changes. They feel that as long as they’ve got the support of the US, what the ILO or the rest of the world says doesn’t make any difference,.

SW: So what can we as consumers, or NGOs, do about something like this, around this issue with the ILO?

DLV: I think the way to help is, we have to work together, the trade unions, NGOs and people in Europe to put pressure on our governments and companies to push for change. Much of the bananas and pineapples produced in Costa Rica go to English supermarkets.

Some supermarkets have already gone out to Costa Rica and met up with Banana Link. On the seventh and eighth of June we’re having a meeting with a person responsible for Tesco’s social responsibility program in Costa Rica, for example.

But it’s difficult to get these people to understand the reality, because people think that Costa Rica is a nice stable country with a democracy and with strongly protected rights, and the government and companies hide behind this. The supermarket representatives don’t see the bad things that happen – they get hosted by the companies and taken to the beach, and so on. So when they do have a visit to the plantation the workers groups they meet will be carefully selected by the company beforehand, briefed and led by so-called representatives. The representatives get good salaries and perks for towing the company line, and so the corporate social responsibility auditors are deceived.

ENCA member: Can you explain a little bit about how you and your organisation is organised in the country and how your network works?

DLV: Our union’s headquarters are in the Caribbean area, and we’ve got five unions in the pineapple sector, of which three are active, and the other two have more or less died out. There’s also a banana sector network among them. The groups are subdivided by region, and each person works in their regional area. Together they make up the ‘Cociba’ banana and pineapple trade union network. Cociba is then also affiliated with the Latin American regional network.

Daily work involves going out and talking to workers. We make formal complaints to the company bosses and government on behalf of the workers, and send out info and updates to consumer countries including the UK.

SW: Does Cociba have any involvement with the NGO Fora N Aus (?) which was active on pineapple campaigns?

DLV: Yes, we’ve worked with Fora. The Fora is an organisation that networks across the different areas, environmental groups, church groups, and unions. It was very active but it’s been weakened in recent years as a direct result of attacks by the big companies, including through court cases that have been used to weaken them financially, so they can’t do so much awareness raising work. It’s now more or less disappeared.

SW: Didn’t the fora receive funds from progressive European government sources?

DLV: No, though they were receiving funds from the organisation Bread for the World, but that project ended and the funding stopped. The attacks have been made on individuals within the network rather than the network itself, to make the individuals unable to afford their work. Two months ago the individual members of the network stopped supporting their last staff member, who had been a half time person at their secretariat. Now, there have been some attempts to revive the network by one of the member organisations, under the new umbrella of national front of communities affected by pineapple expansion.

And now there are other organisations that have been trying to support the movement, including with legal support. For example Del Monte has a farm called Babylonia in the Caribbean coast, which has contaminated the water used by the nearby communities, making it unfit for consumption. The pineapple workers have been fighting for the last 2 or 3 years, making studies showing that the farm’s activities are responsible for this. They found the carcinogenic herbicides bromacil, and diaron in the drinking water. The government has been bringing in clean water by truck for the last few years, so far costing 316 million colones (about 630,000 US dollars). To set up a new reservoir for the communities would cost 80 million dollars.

So the environmental groups, the unions and others are trying to set up a court case against Del Monte and the government. They’re currently looking for funding to get the legal support for this. The minister for health has tried to show they’re doing something, so they held a health exhibition in the area, but people have got skin problems and respiratory problems.

SW: I can suggest a little help by getting an article in a journal about this court case.

DLV: Yes, we’ve already got a lot of information about it, and we can ask the community members to formally make statements and testimonials about the problem.

SW: And did you know that Felicity Laurence from the Guardian is currently in Costa Rica looking at these issues?

DLV: Yes, these journalists were actually there when there was a fire in a chemical store at one of the farms, which collapsed sending these chemicals in to the canals, and then in to the sea on the Caribbean. There were thousands of dead fish.

We were also at a plantation with the journalists and banana link talking to the workers, making sure they could talk to all of them.

MM: Are these workers associations that you’re talking about the same as the ‘Solidarismo’ unions that we’ve heard of?

DLV: No, the Solidarismo is more of a philosophical approach, like a movement, with kind of an evangelical root. It says that disputes between the workers and the bosses can be solved by Christian principles, and they have a tool for collective negotiation called ‘areglo directo’ (something like ‘direct fixing’). This Solidarismo movement also has a legal financial element – they’re supported by a law and they have a savings and lending style fund. The people in the associations are generally plantation admin staff, and it helps them to build up their own savings by making regular payments from their wages. ‘Areglo directo’ works through unofficial means through a three member permanent committee supposedly selected by the workers but really put forward by the company. This is a way around collective bargaining such as through unions.

There’s a priest called Claudio Maria Solano who promotes this philosophy. He’s the head of an organisation in the Catholic church, called the Escuela Social Juan XXIII (from the Pope of that name). The school has a massive admin staff who promote Solidarismo with the full support of the management of the companies. They and their permanent committees have been formally recognised by the companies to represent the workers, and they maintain the associations among the workers.

They’ve got access to all the resources they need on their farms, as soon as a real trade union nucleus of workers tries to set up, the Escuela Social Juan group will be the first ones to try to pressurise them out. They say that it’s a God given process, and that the trade unions are of the Devil! They threaten workers with putting them on a black list if they join a trade union, or say that the company will have to shut down if they insist on creating a trade union. There’s all sorts of tactics they use.

SW: And this is just in Costa Rica?

DLV: Yes, this orgainsation is just in Costa Rica.

Some of them have gone further, to physical violence, threats, even death threats against the workers who are interested in forming a union. Or they’ll ring up their wife and kids and threaten them over the phone. It’s a very complicated and delicate situation.

MM: Is there any form of Socialismo in other countries in Latin America?

DLV: Yes, the philosophy has tried to spread to other places, such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The priest has gone to Guatemala, for example, but they don’t have the force there that they have in Costa Rica.

When they were talking about the ILO putting pressure on Costa Rica to improve its labour legislation, the Solidarismo groups were trying to counter this. For example, one of Oscar Arias’ government’s last acts before they left office was to pass a law that enshrined the Solidarismo movement in their constitution. The new president and her MPs and friends in big business are trying to go one step further and give more formal power to these ‘areglo directo’ arrangements, and make Solidarismo a recognised and legitimate beneficiary of state funds.

END

Bryn Wolfe

Interviewees: Bryn Wolfe
Interviewer: Martin Mowforth
Location: Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Date: Wed. 18th August 2010
Theme: General human rights situation in Honduras; palm oil cultivation and Miguel Facussé; free trade treaties
Keywords: TBC
Notes:

.

.

Martin Mowforth (MM): Martin explaining book, especially Re. African Palm cultivation and Miguel Facussé.

Bryn Wolfe (BW): I wonder what the connection is – who’s buying it? I assume he’s growing it for fuel.

MM: Yes, although I’ve just read an article today which quoted him as saying that we’re trying all kinds of new margarines and that kind of thing; but I think that’s a cover.

BW: Most of the cooking oil is African palm.

MM: Well that doesn’t surprise me, but then there’s so much African palm, you could have enough cooking oil for the whole of the Americas. [3:46]

BW: Do you know about Sam Zamuri, the banana guy? He’s really interesting. That guy also created the Zamorano, the research institute. And he virtually introduced the African palm to diversify. He was an odd guy. He was a Russian Jew who emigrated to the US in 1870 – 1880, and then he was very clever. He worked out that he could buy the over-ripe bananas or rotting bananas cheap to supply ice cream parlours, and he  …. that from almost nothing into 20,000 dollars, and when he’d made that money, he then started getting interested in the production. So he made the connection early in the  …. And he actually financed President Bonilla’s coup in the early [19]20s. He got 50 mercenaries on a boat, eluded the US government officers, or paid them off and they sailed in; and he got a five year concession on taxes. But apart from that he introduced the African palm. Even more bizarre, apparently he gave a grant to found one of the universities in Louisiana, which apparently has a very liberal reputation. But of course his actions with the United Fruit Company and everything else were ….

MM: Zamorano I find a strange institute – on the one hand, there’s very serious work on GM crops and on the other, there’s work on things like biopesticides and IPM (integrated pest management). [5:57]

BW: Is it actually integrated with the agricultural production on the famous Zamorano  ….?

MM: Well, I think only on the Zamorano-owned land, but they have various places – for instance, they have some bases – I’m not sure whether they own them, but I suspect they do – down in Valle and Choluteca where water melons are grown.

[More  re. African palm]

MM: It is of course related to the global issue of alternative fuels – an appalling solution if ever there was one.

BW: Yes, when I first read about Malaysia, with the environmental disaster and the human rights stuff. And then I thought they were growing a little bit of it, or they were just introducing it. But when I researched it – I mean they started growing it in the late [19]40s.

MM: More explanation of book. ….

Discussion of the research for the book and research assistants.

BW: Discussion re. Noelia / did Masters at Essex / Noelia Jover / working on climate change / also on Mexico /

Much general discussion. ….. lasting a long time.

Elly talking too, but very difficult to hear her.

[18:24]

BW: The coop is very interesting. …. The Red Comal is a cooperative which is really … The analysis of the whole problem of the agricultural situation they find themselves in. … Their analysis of everything that was happening was really impressive … And then they got raided. On election day, the police came in and yanked the hard drive out of all their computers. …

[MM on the book again.]

BW: [23:26] How do you feel about Costa Rica? Do you think it’s the Switzerland of Central America?

MM: Well, not really. You can see that it’s so much better than … with lots of nice places, but  scratch the surface of course and you will find plenty of environmental and social problems as well.

BW: Like any place, even developed places, the affluence and the relative deprivation. In terms of the different countries, it’s not that richer.

MM: No. the poverty there is less than in Nicaragua and Honduras, of course, but …

BW: But the general output and the level of people who are making money is greater.

MM: Yes, that’s right.

BW: Up to about two years ago when the TLC came in. I love the initials – TLC – Tender Loving Care in English. The same acronym. But I was fascinated – I’d visited Costa Rica a couple of times before – I’d never worked there. [25:08] After a while I started asking a few Costa Rican friends ‘What’s the difference?’ Because if I look at the geology and topography of Honduras and Costa Rica, there a few more volcanoes; and most of the Costa Ricans who gave me a good analysis said that they thought it was during the first Arias regime in the eighties that their government invested big time in education; so they got a jump in that they had more English, so that it was attractive to foreign companies to come in and then maybe start to ….

MM: I’m sure there’s some truth in that, but also it was earlier than that wasn’t it? I think in the late fifties and early sixties they invested quite a lot in their social systems and social welfare system, and health. And at that time there was no equivalent investment in places like Honduras or Nicaragua or Guatemala. And so it got a jump on the others there as well. …

It was only in the mid-1990s when tourism took over as the number one from coffee, or was it bananas?

BW: Apparently the development of coffee was different there from Honduras, in that there were a lot of small producers who were quite viable. So it made a difference too that they were all affluent. I always find it bizarre if you travel during the daytime and you see all those big cattle ranches with the Brahmin cattle.

MM: But then you go to the area you went to, Cartago, and you go past all these small farms growing vegetables and coffee too. You know they’re small – they’ve all got their little stalls out by the side of the road. [27:38]  In a similar way, its tourism developed like that to start with, and it still has a reputation for that – great reputation for relatively small-scale, relatively low-impact, sensitive tourism development  with lots of little lodges.

BW: Now they’re talking of condos.

MM: Exactly.  Since the late 1990s when things like Papagayo and things like big condominia, far from sensitive – all down the Pacific coast, Jaco, up in the Guanacaste area, there are big developments, and more developments planned. And of course these take huge amounts of water, particularly for …. So, that’s an interesting one for Chapter 3, because actually there is a particular struggle in Guanacaste, which is a dry area anyway, there are three major players all fighting for the water. One is the tourism industry, particularly for its golf courses and for its big developments, hotel and resort developments; two is agriculture because that’s being developed more and more in that area; and then three are the local people. And you can guess who’s going to have least power out of those three.

BW: In the nineties, the biggest budget I got out of the European Union – close to half a million euros – was for a huge indigenous integrated project in the far south, places south of Puerto Limón. It was a huge integrated thing with the indigenous, and of course they were under a lot of pressure. I find it very sad.

MM: Last week, I was in Casa Ridgway, and there was a group of indigenous Costa Ricans there to protest against the withdrawal of the law which gives them a degree of protection. So there are quite a lot of things going on. Then there’s Crucitas, the gold mine in the north.

BW: You know about the controversy about the place called Valle here?

[MM explains re. Goldcorp and the Marlin Mine in Guatemala.]

BW: This is that place which is so complicated because the whole mountain is a watershed for this little town, and the people have all kinds of titles that they’ve held these areas in the mountains for years, and then some golpista family comes in and claims they bought all the trees, and they want to clear all the trees. And of course the mining corporation wants to come in and do a strip mine. So it’s destroying the whole environment of the area, it’s essentially destroying the village. And then there are title disputes – it’s not that different from Bajo Aguán.

[MM: explains re. cyanide heap leaching, acid rain, skin diseases, etc.]

[Then they move onto pineapple production.]

BW: Here of course all the rivers and surface waters are polluted. ….

Somebody told me years ago – I couldn’t figure it out about Chiapas – you know I grew up in Mexico – and where the Mayas and the indigenous people were living was in the marginal areas anyway on the mountains and the slopes. It didn’t make sense to me with the hacendados – what was the land grab? Then some Mexicans told me well, it was uranium – there’s uranium there. It wasn’t for agricultural purposes or anything else – they want the uranium.

[Mention then of Isabel MacDonald’s mention of uranium.]

[Then more on Pacific Rim, and other examples of gangsterism.]

[BW: gives example of women’s groups protesting against discrimination.]

BW: The big story here of course that has fascinated me – when I arrived in the first year or two, I used to talk about Honduras as the Big Sleep. Because you have the traditional left who would get 200 or 300 people marching once a year on the presidential palace. It was just a group – the women’s group was separate – and who heard of the indigenous? (There about the same number, I think – about 5 or 6 % like Costa Rica). And suddenly when everything happened – the coup – this group came together, the Frente [38:37] and the left wing groups amazed me, the traditional political parties, because they genuinely seem to have embraced the indigenous and the women’s groups. And they, the women’s groups and the indigenous, definitely had an effect on the Frente. And the indigenous groups had a voice, and suddenly these invisible people and the Lenca, have suddenly come forward.

[MM: explains re. ENCA and earlier interview with Berta Cáceres.]

BW: A month ago when the police arrested her. They didn’t give her a bad time, but then she had a lot of signatures for the Constituyente, and they robbed those. Bertha Oliva, …. But that’s the interesting story – the invisible people. But the water thing too – it hasn’t been much of an issue here up to now, but if you look at what happened with the water in Brazil and Chile – it’s a big deal.

[Various items of discussion.]

BW: Ten years ago or fifteen years ago in the north, there’d been 300 Honduran rice farmers. Then as the markets opened up and the US was dumping the subsidised rice, suddenly there’s like fifteen people growing rice. You can go to the supermarkets with your students and try to find Honduran rice – all of it is American. When I returned in 2005, where I had to catch a connection I was talking to a farmer who was saying there’s no money in frijoles, maiz, rice – there’s no money in it – the trade agreements and everything else.

[General chat.]

Sayeed arrives [50:15] – with semitas.

[66 mins.] Talk of food.

Talk also of book entitled ‘Pseudo Capitalism’. Bryn considers it very suspect because of lack of index and rigour.

[80 mins]  Much talk of computers – Sayeed helping Bryn with viruses.

[102 mins]

BW: [104:15] I’ve just got this article which I thought would be interesting by Annie Bird from Rights Action. It’s just a big change because she was saying that the US failure to get the votes in the OAS. First of all she said that Maria Otero tried to meet with the Frente, and I’ve not been able to get a straight answer out of the Frente people I know about whether they met with her or they rebuffed her or whatever. Annie Bird was saying that 1) the US has accepted that the Frente is a player – they have to talk to them. And the other thing they have accepted is that the Constituent Assembly is inevitable. That’s a big change because if the US accepts it, then the military and the oligarchy have to. But then they’ll try to control the process, which is why the Frente …. So it’s a big change.

[Talk of Sayeed’s car.]

[The rest is farewells and chit-chat, in the car.]

END

Bryn Wolfe, Elly Alvarado & Mauricio Santos

Interviewees: Bryn Wolfe (long time development worker in numerous parts of the world), Elly Alvarado (resident of Tegucigalpa and Bryn’s wife) and Mauricio Santos (member of the Artists in Resistance Collective, Honduras)
Interviewer: Martin Mowforth, Amy Haworth Johns and Lucy Goodman
Location: Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Date: Wed. 22nd August 2010
Theme: Resistance to the 2009 coup; post-coup developments in Honduras.
Keywords: TBC
Notes:  Mostly in English, but with 3 small parts translated from Spanish and inserted in the transcription of the English conversation.

Mauricio Santos (MS): [Translation / Mauricio 0 file] … the moment the coup occurred, social meetings became well tuned. But now that the coup is a little behind us, now there are developing some internal tensions. There are different definitions and differences demonstrated – the first difference is that a meeting of the liberals is a meeting of the Resistance which, without a presence retained in the two parties – that’s always been the system – but there are many movements, the workers, the feminists, the indigenous; and it’s there where the first tension appears.

Elly Alvarado (EA): [Translation] As time passed, the coup lost its strength. … Now it’s almost a year away.

MS: [Translation] It’s a movement which is structured due to the political situation brought about by the coup, but there has been no precedent for sharing agendas. The coup allowed each sector that was fighting its own battles to communicate with each other; and so the LGBT movement had direct contact with the workers’ movement. The feminist movement had never worked with other sectors like the teachers. There’d never been any communication. So, …

Martin Mowforth (MM): [Translation] Now there is?

MS: [Translation] Now there is, but … So, up to now a new movement has begun. The difference, for example, between the indigenous movement, horizontal movements creates a lot of conflict with certain tendencies which now accept a vertical structure. So there’s a bit of tension within the Resistence.

Bryn Wolfe (BW): In terms of resistance, for me as a Quaker and a pacifist, there’s been a lot of terrible things – Nicaragua was a huge tragedy/turning point for me, because for a long time I endorsed violent revolution, because what option was there … you’ve got a Somoza what do you do? But in hindsight I felt like, you know it’s like hearts and minds and stuff, and there was no Nelson Mandela, nobody with a vision, and the problem was in Nicaragua there was a lot of people who never changed in their hearts. So it’s so tragic, you can achieve a certain amount of change for a while, but then things shift. Had the Sandinistas genuinely been dictators, you know, then they would have kept the regime that they did. But they didn’t and things swung back and so all the sacrifice and tragedy and blood … things are a mess. But the resistance is genuinely a kind of postmodern thing. It’s odd, and not as glamorous as the ‘….. something in something’, but it’s something new and different that people are perceiving in a different way, because this strange collection of people who most people dismiss as idealists and feminists and crazies, they are methodical and talk about strategies and what they want to do. They insist on deciding things in a consensual way and moving in unity, and if they don’t have unity they don’t go forward on that issue. Something definitely has to change because everybody has observed that the political system is broken in Honduras. And this is not unfamiliar to us from Britain because for the last 10 years we’ve been talking about the democratic deficit; how can we have 1.5-2 million people marching in the streets of London in 2003 and the government completely ignores them. Clearly the people were in non-favor of entering the war and yet the government ignored them. Another thing is, how many people in Britain feel disfranchised because there isn’t a political group that can actually reflect their interests, and the political system is controlled by money. The US is the worst example of that where it’s all about money. Here the political party … I think Ellie has voted only once in her life …. one time was enough. Mauricio has only voted once too. So nobody believes in the legitimacy of the process despite wanting to vote. It’s an interesting thing, the people at the front are saying let’s make a difference, so I felt there’s a great need for something like CAP – the peace centre in San José, to allow the different organisations to meet and communicate and explore ideas and do things and talk about how society might change and what they could do. I haven’t read anything for a bit about work that’s been done recently about people talking about writing a new constitution and talking about a new form of the state, but I know that work is going on. I know that there are people in the Resistance that are drafting and talking about the new constitution and I think that’s really important because when the time comes it won’t be vague and they’ll say look we have ideas written down.

MS: [Translation / Mauricio 00 file] I think that the most important change was that before we were in a relatively bad way, and nobody knew exactly why things weren’t working. But the coup allowed us to see the other side of the people who run this country. So in a certain way it was good because in the end it became known who were the people who were taking advantage of the country and exploiting the people. That was good. That was a fact that allowed the people to mature a little – much more than if there were a process of political formation. Now everybody in the streets talks about the oligarchy.

BW: For a little while at the beginning of the coup, I was writing diary thesis for ‘Red Pepper’ in Britain, for Fiona, whatever her name is, and I kept trying to tell her the Resistance is the real story here, that’s what interesting for the researchers and sociologists, that’s what’s new and so interesting in Honduras. My friend came back to me and said it’s just not a story so they’re not interested, and I thought they might just be interested in the formation of the left of the progression. But its outstanding the control of the international media, because I think back to the things we read about … something … or Nicaragua, and now with everything that’s gone down to do with the situation here, or even what’s going on in Costa Rica with the militarisation. It’s just not on their radar.

MM: I’ve heard very little about Costa Rica, only through the CAP.

BW: But the Guardian had some terrible editorial pieces analysing … and one time I wrote on their website saying this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

MM: The one thing I wanted to ask you was for your analysis of how the situation is with the Resistance. What you’ve told me already …. but anyway, let’s start with the effect of the women’s movements on the Resistance.

BW: Well I think the women’s organisations insisted that the movement work democratically and by consensus, and I think that historically and traditionally in Honduras there were 2 or 3 left wing parties in the campesino organisations, and they had a constituency but you know, when there were marches and protests in Tegucigalpa, I remember the first year I came there was one with 300 or 400 people, not huge numbers, and I think before the coup d’état, the traditional left wing parties didn’t talk much to the women’s orgs or the indigenous peoples, but when they threw them together in the ‘Frente’ there was genuinely sharing of ideas and talk of strategy. Also, significantly important was, whether people were prepared for it or not, but the women’s orgs and indigenous people argued for peaceful protests and Ghandian sort of direct action, not that people had the knowledge of Ghandian methods, but things like civil disobedience and resistance. I think that’s had a dramatic effect and it still goes on today. I was telling you about before the ….. conference in Tocoa, some of the women’s org and indigenous chose not to be involved in the selection of the executive leader. They didn’t want to have delegates and they didn’t withdraw from the Frente but said they didn’t want to take part. Sure enough I think their caution was quite useful because from …… somewhere to somewhere ….. the liberals tried to pack in 25 more delegates, and you know nobody accepted that.

MM: That was the conference you were telling me about in Tocoa with people turning up in 4 wheel drives and …….

BW: They had a lot of weapons and guns there.

So I think Tocoa was quite crucial, because nobody would have predicted that this broad movement with so many people in it, given the way the left was and the campesino organisations were, that it would still be going on a year later so strong, and still putting people out collecting over a million signatures for the Constituyente. Again the movement, interestingly, has always stayed disciplined, that their goal is to get the constituent assembly core to draft the constitution. Lots of things, and groups and individuals have tried to divert them from their agenda, and lots of people have said they should have formed a political party and stood for elections, but the movement seems consistently to have decided to stick with a Constituyente – that’s the goal.

MS: I think that the goal was important because all the movements fight for the same reason … opposition. All the things ….. become one force.

BW: So it’s united and has a united executive and has a very definite strategy and objective and it’s still growing. I think for the media, the Honduran media, the ………. names of paper and Radio stations, other than Radio Globo and channel 56, they have tried to ignore the Frente, and called the same policy as Lobo, to dismiss and ignore them. But I think the strength of the Frente has been counted as an achievement, because when the North Americans had to call off the 30th of July meeting of the OAS, because they still didn’t have the votes to get Honduras restored, and that’s because of the agitation, the protests,  and the lobbying of the Frente. The US media also tries to ignore and suppress the Frente and the lobby, it is very strong and well organised for the Golpistas and the oligarchy in the US, but they have not been able to budge the southern group, the Cono Sur . They have not been able to budge that group even though they have detached Chile and another county to support, the other countries are standing firm and are saying no. Of course Daniel Ortega’s position in … something …. is very clear, saying that I didn’t vote for this and I won’t support it, and we’re supposed to move forward by consensus. So I think in that sense, and I was telling you about the article of the analysis by Rights Watch, that the state department in …… somewhere, have accepted that the Constituyente assembly, to draft a new constitution is probably inevitable. So I think it’s quite significant that the North Americans have recognised that even though they’re not saying it. I was trying to nudge Mauricio the other day thinking about if Maria Otero had actually been able to meet with the Frente, there’s lots of talk and lots of gossip about how she had tried to meet the Frente representatives, but the media is not really clear about it.

MM: She’s one of the undersecretaries of state of the US government.

BW: She was dispatched during the ….. something July meeting. She also made a statement saying that the human rights situation would not preclude Honduras’ readmission to OAS. So the thing continues with the North Americans, the State Department, not acknowledging the human rights crisis.  I’d love to have a meeting with the American ambassador Lorenz, or one of these visiting people, about all the human rights reports since June 2009, there have been 7,8,9 lives of all kinds of diverse groups, there must be a huge stack of cases now, and I’d love to hear what these people think on the matter.

So I think its focus (the Frente), they’ve collected a million signatures, they have a million where only a half a million were required to trigger and call for a constituent assembly, and they intend to present that on the 12th of September, at congress, and then have activities. So that’s really where we stand, and the Frente remains united despite continued assassinations and everything else. There was a woman leader of an indigenous organisation who had 8 or 9 kids and was assassinated, all in the same pattern. What is fascinating here in terms of that, is for those of us with longer memories of operation Condor and low intensity conflict, and the techniques developed by the State Department and engineered throughout South and Central America in the 1980’s, it’s the same thing but the scale is not so big, but they do have a dirty war going on. They collect intelligence, they target individuals and in a drip drip way, you know 3 or 4 for a while maybe, or a whole group of journalists they’ll try and intimidate, and there was a brief spell when they were assassinating …..

MM: 7 journalists were assassinated …..

MS: ……….. In the 80s I think 300 people were killed, but now 100 people have been killed already in one year.

BW: In the 80s the US media, some of it was interested and would report violations, especially the famous human rights cases in El Salvador and Guatemala, and they would highlight these things, and the issues of Nicaragua were well known. But now except for the blogs and journals, the mainstream media doesn’t say anything about Honduras at all.

Compared to Sri Lanka where there’s a full-on war and you didn’t go out on the streets at night and lots of people vanished …. But nevertheless it’s quite significant, the number of people that have been lost. I want to make a point, because we were talking about Opus Dei before; in the early months of the coup, one of the really significant things, and really nasty, was that there were a lot of really committed activists in the Gay and Lesbian groups, and these groups, especially the transvestites got targeted. There were a lot of really grisly murders of transvestites with their heads cut off etc – really dreadful. So they were a definite targeted group. And a number of prominent media like …. someone. But then every sector, like the nurses, there was a very popular nurse leader and her husband is still being harassed now, although it happened a month ago.

MM: It’s the same in Olancho, like Padre Andres Tamayo. And Adalberto Figueroa has recently been the 13th member of the MAO to be assassinated. René is now at the top of the list of being targeted by the death squads.

BW: So whether its journalists, teenagers active in the barrios, prominent trade unionists, environmental activists – like with Goldcorp. The mining practices by Goldcorp involve cyanide heap leaching and you can imagine what effect this has on the watershed as it leaches into the river system.

MM: They spray tonnes and tonnes of water onto the earth with a cyanide solution in it to separate out the gold or silver, and all the waste water goes into a reservoir and the CEO of Gold Corp was asked in a press conference to try and name a single reservoir of cyanide solution run off that hadn’t leaked at some point, anywhere in the world, and he was unable to do so. Every one of these pilas has leaked into water courses on which people depend, and into the water table. Their defense is that cyanide in a water solution evaporates quickly, but then inevitably it falls as acid rain and then spreads the damage. There’s lots of horrible photos of people with rashes and skin ailments.

Amy Haworth Johns (AHJ): But there was an incident when one woman spoke out about the contamination and a lot of the village turned against her because they worked for the mine.

MM: Not the whole village but it caused a split between those employed by the mine and those not ……….. It’s a classic case of gangsterism.

BW: Pseudo capitalism, gangster capitalism. In Sri Lanka they went through 3 waves of structural adjustment, they were one of the first countries in Asia from the late 70s onwards, and they called it ‘Cloney capitalism’ and they did things like privatise all the buses. But because there was such a strong tradition in Sri Lanka, the MPs and parliament etc, this was part of their thing; so that they had lots of jobs to hand out to their constituency, so that when the parties got in power … There was one regime when we asked our MP and we were always complaining to our leader where our goodies were, where’s our pork pie?

I want to get back to your question … so I mean the movement remains strong and is committed despite all the attacks and everything else. The signatures have been collected and will be presented. Where do we go from here, I ask my friend here (Mauricio), because I can’t see that anything has actually changed since June 2009. Although if Lobo makes any sort of noise that’s necessary, he is as one of my good friends says ………., so I can’t see him doing anything dramatic or making any sort of move to congress just because the petitioners say so and he would like to do it. I don’t see any evidence that the guys who insisted that they had nothing to be sorry for and refuse to reinstate Mel Zelaya in the Tegucigalpa – San José accord, they haven’t changed, and the oligarchy hasn’t changed, so the big question is what happens when the big petition gets presented? Now legality and what the rule of law is and what’s in the constitution hasn’t meant anything to the golpistas and golpista mark 2 and Pepe Lobo. So it’s difficult for me to see them conceding a constituent assembly. So I personally expect some trouble for maybe a week or a week and a half in September, depending on how harsh the police and military are on cracking down on what happens. As always, it’ll be critical on the North Americans, what levels of violence will they accept and how violent does it have to get and that’s a key question.

MS: The signatures don’t have any value because the constitution says in an article, that anybody can change the constitution ………. …… so we can do anything and the constitution won’t change.

BW: But what about the golpistas with their articles written in stone. This is the rhetoric of what they say, but in the constituent assembly everything is up for negotiation. That’s the conundrum and I wonder exactly what’s going to happen. Obviously they’ve had since the world cup, plenty of time to think and discuss what they’re going to do. They know that the petition is going to be presented and the reception outside ….

The other thing to say is that they’re desperate for money because the IMF has refused emergency loans. The IMF is coming back in September to talk again, but as it stands now, the government thought they would be readmitted by the OAS and they thought they would have emergency funds from the IMF and they don’t. I don’t think the payroll has been missed since February. The government couldn’t do the payroll for a while in Feb this year, just after Pepe was inaugurated as president there was a month or month and a half when they couldn’t pay salaries and public finances were really a mess. It’s difficult to see what will happen and how far they can keep going until another economic crunch. We had the taxistas protesting with the final raising of petrol prices and gas for a week and a half, two weeks ago. So it’s difficult to see what’s going to happen. But at the same time, if the government cracks down on the Frente, or if they refuse to recognise the petition, then I can see this solidifying the southern group. They’ll say no, things aren’t normal in Honduras and they’re not even accepting the rules, which the Frente has gone through all the proper processes to abide by, so legally they should do it. So there’s still a lot of talk about the North Americans who want to see the Supreme Court change and they want to see the justices who are dismissed and the magistrates justices put back, but all of those are side issues. It’s difficult to see, in the next two months, what’s going to happen. I don’t think the Frente is going anywhere though.

One thing I’ve said to you and you’re aware from Costa Rica, is that the CAP is sheltering at the moment 27 people, recommended to them by the Frente. We may well see more people leaving and another exodus of a lot of people who are under pressure. One thing for certain is that the economic situation is going to get harder. I was trying to talk about this with Ellie’s father, who of course has a perspective. He’s in his mid 70’s now and lived a long life and seen a lot of stuff. We were talking to him about the coup in the early 60s. I asked what the difference was with that one. He said there was a lot more shooting and more people got shot. The conclusion we came to was that somehow people keep going, as they always have.

MM: What about the Truth Commission?

BW: Well the Truth Commission is a joke and has no credibility in or outside of Honduras. The big question is if … Maria Otero … there was talk with her because the fact that the US has now recognised the Frente as important and significant resistance, whether they could find somebody to go along to the Whitewash Truth Commission. There’s no comparison, if you look at the two commissions, the one set up by the Frente and the people involved in the remit, I mean, the whitewash commission has no credibility what so ever. There’s lots of good analysis to say that these Truth Commissions, where they have been implemented in South Africa, etc – they happen after the conflict not in the middle of the conflict, and we’re still very much in the middle of the conflict.

MS: The new liberals want a new party. I think there are different visions, because all the different movements, social and indigenous movements, they are trying to think in another way, like something similar to Bolivia – not a party.

Lucy Goodman (LG):  Would they have more effect if they were a party or would it be a completely different approach?

BW: There’s fear that if they became a political party, then they would simply be co-opted exactly like the liberal party started 50 or 60 years ago, supposedly as a progressive movement that intended to do all this good stuff, but clearly the liberal party got completely co-opted by the power structure.

MS: [Translation / Mauricio 000 file] I think that the conflict is between the visions which push for a structure which allows participation and those that simply want representation. There are people who are afraid of converting to a political party which would again use a platform of representation with leaders who would completely forget the grassroots. You can hear people in the streets – they say ‘No, we don’t want to see that.’ A campesino with a representative in the National Congress, ‘we don’t want to see people who ransack the country.’

MM: This is the crucial difference between participatory democracy and representative democracy, and the problem is the grassroots, the base, and the social movements get left out of representative democracy.

BW: The majority may not always be right. The majority can do horrific things and how do you protect the interests of minorities. I have one good student in Bolivia who works for an Italian movement offering good governance and efficiency training. She was very frustrated about why the Resistance hadn’t formed a political party. But I think it was the point that the political system is broken, and so people are saying it’s not about getting a new group in or new government – the whole system has to be changed. There’s a feeling, that unless the constitution can be changed, like in Bolivia, the constitution that is now the present one, was drafted in the early 80s in the State Department in the Reagan presidency with the military, and basically it’s engineered to preserve the power bases and oligarchs and protect them. So just like in Bolivia, they say they need to change to a greater franchise and have greater rights for people. The feminist organisation is a great example because they say that nothing in the constitution actually helps them or protects them. They say that there has to be actually guaranteed mechanisms in the constitution to protect women. The femicide here is horrific; I mean before the coup it was awful. The rates of violence were shocking.

LG: Do they leave the bodies on the streets as symbolism here too?

BW: Bodies are thrown anywhere.

MM: The social cleansing of street children is an ongoing issue to for both Guatemala and Honduras.

BW: That’s happened for the last 30 years.

AHJ: Who does the cleansing?

MM: The death squads.

AHJ: Who exactly are the death squads?

MM: Well, who are they?

MS: The movement, right now …… only has had one year, and the best thing right now is the talking and participation and discoveries of ways to move together.

BW: Moving together in unity. In usual democratic politics, minorities get shunted aside and have to accept the view of the majority and their views get lost. Like in our system, I think most people who have spent time looking at it objectively, in Britain, now conclude that the first past the post in not having a PR system like most of Europe, is really not working for us. We certainly don’t have governments that are objective to views. The places where there is PR, of course, we have green MPs, and green county councillors and extreme socialist worker parties.

END

Padre Andrés Tamayo

Interviewee: Padre Andrés Tamayo
Interviewers: Martin Mowforth
Location: Online
Date: 8th July 2010
Theme: Email Interview regarding deforestation in Olancho, Honduras
Keywords: TBC
Notes: Please note that Padre Andres had recently been expelled from Honduras to his native El Salvador on account of his having become one of the leaders of the opposition to the illegal coup d’état in Honduras. This explains why the interview was conducted by email.

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Q1: Referring to the deforestation in Olancho, can you consider the following…..

1a) The different degrees of guilt of the agencies which are involved in the exploitation of the wood.

Padre Andres Tamayo (AT): The first major guilty culprit is the institution of government today called the Institute of Forestry Conservation. This entity and their employees, from the bosses to the lowest, are investing in political paternalism and compromise, (one which should be healthy but yields to the pressures of power). No one denounces the form of decision-making channels and corruption in which they hand over the timber resources. By pressure they legalise the illegal; whitewash invoices, fix auctions, no evaluation is done on site – it’s all off the cuff, they inflate the quantity, the wood is decommissioned and they send themselves the same material which they stole. Ultimately, all the wood is owned by 4 giant companies- Sanzone, Lamas, Noriega, Indema and others. The contractors are those who lend their names to the afore-mentioned companies. The mayors who give their signatures hand over the forests in return for bribes. The deputies use their political influence and receive money and favours in exchange. The majority of the cooperatives are only vehicles for handing over the assigned areas to the businessmen, because they are the ones who receive the money and don’t do anything with the wood. The transnationals mentioned before have appropriated the majority of forest areas, buying the property rights to own and take for themselves the nation’s territory.

1b) The relation between the EU programmes, with respect to the supplies of drinking water in Olancho, and the illegal deforestation.

AT: It’s true that the EU is more an economic union than a political one, and they themselves have a budget for water resources. They don´t have a demanding policy to put conditions on the state with respect to its good use of the resource, because they themselves, and anonymous businessmen of their countries have concessions over our resources whether those are wood, water or minerals. Neither do they denounce the illegality because they have interests in the resources – [see research into illegal felling]. The precious timber goes to Europe. As far as financing drinkable water goes they only advise the communities about protection of the resources but don´t demand the state to stop the abuse of illegal exploitation of the timber.

1c) The link between agents of deforestation and the coup d’état in Honduras.

AT: The previously mentioned transnationals are exploiting my presence in the Olancho department because we managed a ban on 13,000 sq km, in order to make an experiment on the sound use of the resource. This affected their interests. They had already tried to expel me from the country. This was their best chance [in the coup d’état] for them to carry out their actions and demand that the coup government expel me. These same companies entered to cut wood in the prohibited zone with the military and police following the coup. The businesses picked up the bill to help the coup and political campaigns in its favour.

Q2: Can you explain the distinction between the ‘movement’ of people against deforestation (the MAO) and the NGOs and international NGOs?

AT: MAO is a movement which defends the natural resources, resisting and persisting, but they do not make plans nor execute them because it is more interested in protection and defence rather than doing experiments. MAO managed to put the forestry problem on the government’s table, and the NGOs are only concerned with one thing – local protection, but not with the national damage; and for that (local protection) they make and execute projects. The NGOs make and execute plans consistent with the interests of their financiers who are not militant institutions. I don’t deny that they are doing a lot of good, but they don´t put themselves at risk to defend their natural resources, neither to question the government nor the transnationals. Our organisation does not have any salaried workers, only people of conscience who defend their area from pillagers. The NGOs have employed workers.

Q3: What do the developed countries have to do to secure a return to democracy in Honduras?

AT: First they have to leave behind their neo-colonial interests – they are paying governments to ensure themselves of the exploitation of natural resources. Secondly, they ought to know the truth about why the coup came about – transnational companies which have large interests in this country were affected and therefore financed and promoted the coup. The greatest purpose of developed countries ought to be to create a development plan of benefit to the country with its natural resources and not to make themselves richer than they already are. Democracy is to allow what the people decide about their resources and wealth, and not to allow the transnationals to buy a government structure which empowers itself from the peoples’ natural resources. The free trade treaties ought not to be made from the government´s cabinet, but by the consent of the people, with equity.

END