BOLIVIA: A COMING TRIAL BY FIRE?

by Benjamin Dangl

After winning a landslide victory on Dec. 18th, Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales announced plans to nationalize the country’s gas reserves, rewrite the constitution in a popular assembly, redistribute land to poor farmers and change the rules of the US-led War on Drugs in Bolivia. If he follows through on such promises, he’ll face enormous pressure from the Bush administration, corporations and international lenders. If he chooses a more moderate path, Bolivia’s social movements are likely to organize the type of protests and strikes that have ousted two presidents in two years. In the gas-rich Santa Cruz region, business elites are working toward seceding from the country to privatize the gas reserves. Meanwhile, US troops stationed in neighboring Paraguay may be poised to intervene if the Andean country sways too far from Washington’s interests. For Bolivian social movements and the government, 2006 will likely be a trial by fire.

The Social Movements and the State

Among the presidential candidates that ran in the December election, Morales has the broadest ties to the country’s social movements. However, he has played limited roles in the popular uprisings of recent years. During the height of the gas war in 2003, when massive mobilizations were organized to demand the nationalization of the country’s gas reserves, Morales was attending meetings in Geneva on parliamentary politics. After the 2003 uprising ousted right-wing president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, Morales urged social movement leaders to accept then-vice president Carlos Mesa as Sanchez de Lozada’s replacement. In June 2005, when another protest campaign demanding gas nationalization forced Mesa to resign, Morales helped direct the social movements into governmental channels, pushing for an interim president while new elections were organized.

Morales’ actions during these revolts were aimed at generating broad support among diverse sectors of society, including the middle class and those who didn’t fully support the tactics of protest groups. This strategy, combined with directing the momentum of social movements into the electoral realm, resulted in his landslide victory on Dec. 18.

In spite of Morales’ relative distance from social movements, his victory in a country where the political landscape has been shaped by such movements presents the possibility for massive social change. Once he assumes office, Morales has pledged to organize a Constituent Assembly of diverse social sectors to rewrite the country’s constitution. It is possible that this could allow for a powerful collaboration between social movements and the state.

Vice President-elect Alvaro Garcia Linera says such collaboration is possible. He contends that MAS, the Movement Toward Socialism party which he and Morales belong to, is not a traditional political party but rather “a coalition of flexible social movements that has expanded its actions to the electoral arena. There is no structure; it is a leader and movements, and there is nothing in between. This means that MAS must depend on mobilizations or on the temperament of the social movements.”

Oscar Olivera, a key leader in the revolt against Bechtel’s privatization of Cochabamba’s water system in 2000, believes the relationship between social movements and the Morales administration will play a vital role in creating radical change in the country. Olivera participated in the December election because he felt that it was part of “a process of building strength so that in the next government… we can regain control of natural resources and end the monopoly that the political parties have over electoral politics… We are creating a movement, a nonpartisan social-political front that addresses the most vital needs of the people through a profound change in power relations, social relations, and the management of water, electricity, and garbage.”

To sustain their momentum and unity, an alliance between some of the most dynamic social groups was formed in early December 2005 in the first Congress of the National Front for the Defense of Water and Basic Human Services. This alliance includes the Water Coordinating Committee of Cochabamba, the Federation of Neighborhood Councils of El Alto, the Water and Drainage Cooperatives of Santa Cruz, as well as neighborhood organizations, cooperatives, irrigation farmers, and committees on electricity, water rights and other services from all over the country. In many cases, these autonomous groups have organized methods of providing citizens with basic services which the state fails to offer. Such a coalition of grassroots forces may pave the way for a nationwide alternative form of governance.

Tangling Over Coca

Morales plans to fully legalize the production of coca leaf and change the rules of the US-led War on Drugs in his country. White House officials are wary of any deviation from its anti-narcotics plan in Latin America; a strategy they claim has been successful. However, US government statistics and reports from analysts in Bolivia tell a different story.

A recent report from the US Government Accountability Office states: “While the US has poured 6 billion dollars into the drug war in the Andes over the past five years…the number of drug users in the US has remained roughly constant.”

In an interview on National Public Radio (NPR), Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s undersecretary for political affairs, said the Bush administration hopes “that the new government of Evo Morales in Bolivia does not change course, does not somehow assert that it’s fine to grow coca and fine to sell it.”

Though it is a key ingredient in cocaine, coca has been used for centuries in the Andean region for medicinal purposes; it relieves hunger, sickness and fatigue. It’s also an ingredient in, cough syrups, wines, chewing gum, diet pills and, many claim, Coca-Cola. The US Embassy’s website for Bolivia suggests chewing coca leaves to alleviate altitude sickness.

“Trying to compare coca to cocaine is like trying to compare coffee beans to methamphetamines; there‚s a universe of difference between the two,” Sanho Tree from the Institute for Policy Studies explained on NPR. “We have to respect that indigenous cultures have used and continue to use coca in its traditional form, which is almost impossible to abuse in its natural state.”

Georg Ann Potter worked from 1999 to 2002 as an advisor to Morales, and since then has been the main advisor to the Coordination of the Six Women Federations of the Chapare, the country’s biggest coca growing region. Potter stated that although Morales plans to continue a hardline approach against the drug trade, the current policies of the US War on Drugs need to change.

“One billion dollars has been spent [on alternative crop development] over the last 20 years and there is little to show for it,” she said. “Forced eradication resulted in many dead, more wounded, armed forces thieving and raping.”

It’s widely held among critics of Washington’s anti-narcotics agenda for Latin America that the US government uses the War on Drugs as an excuse for maintaining a military and political presence in the region.

A report from the Congressional Research Service stated that the US War on Drugs has had no effect on the price, purity and availability of cocaine in the US. Potter explained that even the US government admits that “Bolivian cocaine, what there is of it, does not go to the US, but rather to Europe.”

The Andean Information Network, a Bolivia-based NGO which monitors human rights issues in the US-led War on Drugs, recommends that “the US should recognize studies that have determined that domestic education, prevention, and rehabilitation programs are more effective in altering drug consumption, and accordingly address the demand side of the war on drugs.”

Between a Rock and Hard Place

In regard to the country’s gas reserves, the Morales administration could go in two directions. It could fully nationalize the gas reserves and face the wrath of multinational corporations and lending institutions that want exactly the opposite to happen. Or it could renegotiate contracts with gas corporations, and partially nationalize the industry. Choosing the latter option would likely generate massive protests and road blockades. Social movement leaders have stated that if Morales doesn’t fully nationalize the gas, the population will mobilize to hold the administration’s feet to the flames.

“We will nationalize the natural resources, gas and hydrocarbons,” Morales stated after his election. “We are not going to nationalize the assets of the multinationals. Any state has the right to use its natural resources. We must establish new contracts with the oil companies based on equilibrium. We are going to guarantee the returns on their investment and their profits, but not looting and stealing.”

Any move that Morales makes is likely to upset either corporate investors, social movements or both. Previous Bolivian presidents Carlos Mesa and Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada walked similar gauntlets and ended up being ousted from office by protests.

A secession movement in Santa Cruz, the wealthiest district in the country, also threatens Bolivia’s peace. An elite group of businessmen lead the movement to separate Santa Cruz from the rest of the country, which would allow for the full privatization of the gas industry regardless of what protest groups and the national government demand. This group has been accused of maintaining militias organized to defend their autonomy.

Other methods of destabilization are already underway. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the US government has spent millions to support discredited right-wing political parties and stifle grassroots movements in Bolivia. Between 2002 and 2004, a grant from the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) allowed for the training of thirteen “emerging political leaders” from right-wing parties in Bolivia. These 25-to 35-year-old politicians were brought to Washington for seminars. Their party-strengthening projects in Bolivia were subsequently funded by the NED.

US Troops in Paraguay

Outright US military intervention in Bolivia is a possibility. An airbase in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay is reportedly being utilized by hundreds of US troops. The base, which was constructed by US technicians in the 1980s under Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, is 200 kilometers from the border with Bolivia and is larger than the international airport in Paraguay’s capital. Analysts in the region believe these troops could be poised to intervene in Bolivia to suppress leftist movements and secure the country‚s gas reserves.

Under US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s direction, the Pentagon has pushed for a number of small Cooperative Security Locations (CSLs) based around Latin America. These military installations permit leapfrogging from one location to another across the continent. Such a strategy reflects an increased dependence on missiles and unmanned aircraft instead of soldiers. CSLs offer the opportunity for a small but potent presence in a country. Such outposts exist at Eloy Alfaro International Airport in Manta, Ecuador; Reina Beatrix International Airport in Aruba; Hato International Airport in nearby Curacao; and at the international airport in Comalapa, El Salvador. Paraguay may already be home to the region’s next CSL.

The US Embassy in Paraguay contends that no plans for a military outpost are underway and that the military operations are based on humanitarian efforts. However, State Department reports do not mention any funding for humanitarian works in Paraguay. They do mention that funding for the Counterterrorism Fellowship Program in the country doubled in 2005.

U.S. officials say the triple border area, where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet, is a base for Islamic terrorist networks. Analysts in Latin America believe that the U.S. government is using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to secure natural resources in the region.

“The objectives of the USA in South America have always been to secure strategic material like oil in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, tin mines in Bolivia, copper mines in Chile, and always to maintain lines of access open,” Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, a Brazilian political scientist at the Universidade de Brasilia, wrote in the Folha de São Paulo.

Orlando Castillo, a Paraguayan human rights leader, said the goal of US military operations in his country is to “debilitate the southern bloc…and destabilize the region’s governments, especially Evo Morales…”

While grappling with these challenges, the Morales administration will have to answer to the millions of Bolivians who, in the December election, gave him the biggest mandate in the country’s history.

For centuries Bolivians have, in the words of Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, “suffered the curse of their own wealth.” The country’s tin, copper and silver were exploited by foreign companies that made enormous profits while Bolivia struggled on. For many Bolivians, the election of Morales offers the hope that history will stop repeating itself. As Galeano writes, “Recovery of the resources that have always been usurped is the recovery of our destiny.”

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Benjamin Dangl has traveled and worked as a journalist in Bolivia and Paraguay. He edits Upside Down World, uncovering activism and politics in Latin America, and Toward Freedom, a progressive perspective on world events.

This story originally appeared in Toward Freedom, Jan. 12
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/724/

SOURCES:

“Two Opposing Views of Social Change in Bolivia,” by Raul Zibechi, International Relations Center—Americas Program, Dec. 14, 2005
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2987

“Bolivia after the election victory of the MAS: Morales cannot serve two masters,” by Jorge Martin, In Defense of Marxism, Oct. 1, 2005
http://www.marxist.com/bolivia-election-victory-mas100106.htm

“Exporting Gas and Importing Demoracy in Bolivia,” by Reed Lindsay, North American Congress on Latin America, November 2005
http://www.nacla.org/art_display.php?art=2603#

“US Military in Paraguay Prepares To ‘Spread Democracy,'” by Benjamin Dangl, Upside Down World, Sept. 15, 2005
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/47/44/

“US Military Moves in Paraguay Rattle Regional Relations,” by Sam Logan and Matthew Flynn, IRC—Americas, Dec. 14, 2005
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2991

“An Interview with Paraguayan Human Rights Activist Orlando Castillo,” by Benjamin Dangl, Upside Down World, Oct. 16, 2005
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/48/44/

See also our last features on Bolivia:

“Bolivia: ‘Gas War’ Impunity Aggravates Tension,” by Kathryn Ledebur and Julia Dietz, WW4 REPORT #117
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“Paraguay: The Pentagon’s New Latin Beachhead,” by Benjamin Dangl, WW4 REPORT #116
/node/1340

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Feb. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingBOLIVIA: A COMING TRIAL BY FIRE? 

SOUTH AMERICAN PIPELINE WARS

Chavez Bloc Races with Oil Cartel to Grid the Continent

by Bill Weinberg

As the left-populist Evo Morales takes office in Bolivia, a clear anti-imperialist bloc is consolidating in South America, led by Venezulea’s Hugo Chavez and also including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and potentially Chile. Days before Morales was inaugurated Jan. 22, Chavez and other regional leaders met in Brasilia to announce ambitious plans for new gas and oil pipelines spanning the continent, linking national markets across vast areas of rainforest and towering mountains.

Now a race is on between a series of pipeline projects already being developed under the auspices of multinational corporations and the proposal unveiled at Brasilia: the first predicated on extracting resources from South America with the minimum return to the continent’s inhabitants; the other on harnessing those resources to lift the continent’s masses out of poverty.

The corporate projects invariably link oilfields in the continental interior—the Amazon and Orinoco basins—with the Pacific and Caribbean coasts for export to the United States. The Caño-Limon pipeline, run by a consortium led by California’s Occidental Petroleum, links Colombia’s Arauca oilfields in the Orinoco with the Caribbean. To the south, the Putumayo-Tumaco line links the new oilfields of the Colombian Amazon to the Pacific, with Petrobank Energy of Canada a major investor. In Ecuador, the new Heavy Crude Oilduct (OCP) similarly spans the Andes, linking Amazon oilfields to the coast, with Occidental again a leading member of the consortium. In Peru, the Camisea pipeline, built by Halliburton for a consortium led by Hunt Oil of Texas, has just gone on line, again linking Amazon gasfields to the coast. All of these projects have met with long protest campaigns by impacted indigenous and campesino communities. And another such project, a proposed gas line linking the Bolivian Amazon to the Chilean coast, to be built by Sempra Energy of California, was effectively cancelled by the Bolivian indigenous uprising of October 2003.

The main pillar of the Chavez plan, in contrast, does not link the Amazon to the sea but crosses the Amazon to link the South American nations to one another. The proposed arteries that would reach the sea envision exports not to the US but to China.

The plan is also seen as a move towards establishment of a regional joint venture of state-sector oil companies, to be dubbed PetroAmerica, which would integrate Latin America and the Caribbean on principles of self-sufficiency, and re-invest profits into development and social programs.

At the Second Bolivarian Congress of Peoples‚ a pan-Latin American summit of social and political leaders that Chavez hosted in December 2004, Evo Morales said: “We dream that PetroAmerica can be consolidated… [W]hy can’t PetroAmerica have partners like China and Bolivia to stop the North American empire? It’s important to advance these economic proposals to liberate our peoples… Enough of foreign people who come to dominate us, and to subjugate us and make themselves the owners of our lands.”

The London Times reported Jan. 22 that on Morales’ pre-inauguration trip to Venezuela he and Chavez announced plans to merge their respective countries’ state energy sectors as a first step towards the creation of PetroAmerica.

But apart from the daunting costs and technical challenges of the Chavez pipeline vision, there are clear political obstacles. Some observers believe that the proposed network’s competition with the pipelines already pumping or under construction will have a destabilizing effect on the new South American bloc. A perhaps more fundamental contradiction is that indigenous and campesino communities whose lands stand in the path of Chavez’ proposed pipelines could find themselves facing the same kinds of pressures they now face before the corporate mega-projects—thereby undermining a crucial constituency of the region’s left-populist governments.

An Anti-Imperialist “Spinal Chord”?

At the Jan. 19 Brasilia meeting, Chavez, Brazilian President Luiz (“Lula”) Inacio da Silva and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner agreed to move ahead with a planned gas pipeline running the length of the continent. The proposed pipeline would stretch 10,000 kilometers (6,215 miles)—more than three times the length of the US-Mexico border. It would take seven years to build and cost up to $20 billion, according to Venezuela’s Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez.

“We are moving forward with tremendous political will to make this project a reality,” Ramirez told Bloomberg news, adding that the pipeline would be the “spinal cord” of South America. The line would start at Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and run through Brazil before reaching Argentina, dissecting the Amazon Basin.

Sophie Aldebert, Rio de Janeiro-based associate director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, expressed skepticism that the project will ever be built. “It is very difficult to believe this will take place, because of the distance, the financing and the supply,” Aldebert told Bloomberg news in a telephone interview.

The plan envisions using Venezuela’s 150 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, the world’s eighth-largest, to help resolve chronic gas shortages in Argentina. “In the opinion of all the presidents, this is one of the most important steps for the consolidation of a united South America,” Lula’s top international aide, Marco Aurelio Garcia, told Bloomberg. “Energy is becoming the driver of that integration.”

An imperative for Venezuela in the regional integration is to open South American markets for its hydrocarbon resources and lessen its dependence on the US, which now takes about two-thirds of the country’s oil exports.

But Venezuela is having trouble meeting its own internal demand. Venezuela in December actually cut home deliveries of heating and cooking fuel in some eastern states because of natural gas shortages. However, Chavez boasted to reporters in Brasilia that Venezuela’s capacity may double as the country develops offshore fields near the border with Colombia and off Trinidad and Tobago.

The ever-present threat of US intervention was also an implicit issue at the meeting. Chavez used the summit to discuss purchase of 36 training aircraft from Brazil’s Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, the world’s fourth-largest aircraft maker. The US, of course, opposes the sale, and Brazil needs Washington’s approval to sell the aircraft as they utilize US technology.

“It’s totally absurd,” Chavez said. “They are training planes for our cadets so that they can learn to fly. This is an example of the absurdity of US international policy; they are punishing Brazil and international trade.”

Integration or Rivalry?

Chavez also called for integrating Bolivia into the new pipeline network. Together Venezuela and Bolivia “have gas for 200 years,” he said. “This pipeline is vital for us.”

But a Jan. 20 analysis for the Associated Press by Alan Clendenning finds the Latin leaders’ “show of brotherhood could backfire if this expensive dream becomes reality since the network they hope to build would also likely turn the continent’s neighbors against each other as they compete for clients.”

Bolivia is already the biggest exporter of gas to Brazil and wants to increase exports to Argentina through another proposed pipeline. By joining the much larger proposed pipeline, Bolivia “would be tying [its] production prospects to whatever Chavez wants to dictate,” said Andres Stepkowski, a Bolivia-based oil consultant.

Chavez dismissed that idea in Brasilia. “There is no desire to compete. I don’t think there is any fear in Bolivia, rather there’s joy that this project is going to integrate us all. You wait and see.”

Critics say Bolivia lost a big export opportunity with the collapse of a multi-billion-dollar plan to build a pipeline over the Andes to a Pacific port in Chile, where the gas would be liquefied for shipment to Mexico and Southern California. Evo Morales helped lead the rebellion against that plan in 2003, charging that Chile and the United States stood to profit to Bolivia’s disadvantage. California’s Sempra Energy turned instead to Indonesia as its supplier, company spokesperson Art Larson told AP.

Bolivia’s vice president-elect, Alvaro Garcia Linera, said the Chile project will never happen with Morales as president, but that his administration would consider a pipeline that could reach the Pacific via Peru. Since both countries lost territory to Chile in the 1879-1884 War of the Pacific, Bolivia and Peru have often been united against their more prosperous southern neighbor.

Yet if a Bolivia-Peru pipeline is built, the two countries “would be fighting for the same markets, Mexico and the United States,” said Pietro Pitts, editor-in-chief of Venezuela-based LatinPetroleum.com. “It’s a race to see who’s going to get that gas first,” Pitts said. “Why would Peru want to let Bolivian gas get through unless it charges a lot for the pipeline?”

These analyses quoted by AP ignore the potential for opening new markets for the region’s hydrocarbon resources—especially fast-industrializing China, which has a growing economic presence in South America. When president-elect Morales met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing, he hailed China as an “ideological ally” and invited it to develop Bolivia’s gas reserves, the New York Times reported Jan. 10. Hu promised to encourage “strong and prestigious” Chinese companies to invest in Bolivia.

Venezuela: South America’s New Saudi Arabia?

Chavez is also preparing an unprecedented thrust of domestic expansion in the oil sector. Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, has announced plans to reach crude production levels of 5.8 million barrels per day by 2012 and 7.5 million barrels per day by 2020, Business Wire reported Jan. 11. PDVSA also intends to invest $3 billion into expanding its refining capacity, and form strategic alliances to use refineries in the other Caribbean and South American countries.

With reserves estimated at more than 77 billion barrels, Venezuela is hoping to surpass even Saudi Arabia as a global supplier. During the first six months of 2005, Venezuela’s oil production reached 3 million barrels per day—a figure PDVSA hopes to increase by 6.6 million barrels per day, building 650 additional kilometers of pipelines in the oil-rich eastern region.

Alejandro Granado, PDVSA’s vice president of refining, said the company is considering spending $10.5 billion to build three new refineries in Cabruta, Caripito, and Barinas, increasing Venezuela’s processing capacity by 700,000 barrels per day. Granado said that the governments of Venezuela and Cuba are also working together to reactivate the island nation’s Cienfuegos refinery, which has a processing capacity of 70,000 barrels per day. Venezuela is also considering the possibility of processing 50,000 barrels per day from the eastern Franja de Orinoco region at Uruguay’s La Teja refinery, and building new refineries in Brazil through its alliance with Petrobras, the Brazilian state company.

Asdrubal Chavez, PDVSA’s internal director, announced that by 2012 PDVSA will have 58 tankers in its fleet, with construction and maintenance of the ships to be coordinated via strategic alliances with Argentina, Brazil, China, and Spain.

PDVSA has also announced the PetroAndina Initiative, which features building an oil pipeline from Venezuela to the Pacific via Colombia, Business Wire reported. Asdrubal Chavez told Business Wire the pipeline will facilitate greater access to Asian markets.

The Chinese news service Xinhua reported Dec. 23, 2005 that Venezuela is already exporting 140,000 barrels of crude oil per day to China, compared with 1.5 million to the US.

Venezuela-Colombia Rapprochement

The Los Angeles Times reported Dec. 18 that after a near breach in relations earlier last year, petro-politics has now brought Chavez and Colombian leader Alvaro Uribe back together. On Dec. 17, the two leaders hugged, called each other “brother” and schmoozed in the shade of a giant ceiba tree near the spot where Latin American independence leader Simon Bolivar died on Dec. 17, 1830 in the Colombian port of Santa Marta. Uribe invited Chavez to Santa Marta to mark the 175th anniversary of the death of the Liberator. After two hours of talks, they announced a series of economic initiatives.

The low point in Venezuela-Colombia relations came in January 2005, when agents acting on behalf of Uribe’s government abducted Colombian guerrilla leader Rodrigo Granda out of the Venezuelan capital to a Colombian prison. Venezuela recalled its ambassador and suspended commercial relations for a month. Later, Chavez accused Colombia of hosting enemies plotting against him.

But Uribe needs continued access to Venezuela’s markets (the second-biggest destination for Colombian goods after the US) and the continued goodwill of its government toward the estimated million Colombians living and working there. And Chavez needs access to Colombia as an artery to export oil to China. Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez confirmed to the LA Times that the two countries were moving forward on the pipeline plan. As a first step in the project, Venezuela has agreed to foot the cost of a $300 million pipeline to import Colombian natural gas

In a sign of warming relations, Colombia in November rejected asylum claims for six Venezuelan officials who Chavez said were involved in the April 2002 coup attempt against him. Speaking to reporters Dec. 17, Chavez denied charges that Venezuela offers refuge to Colombian guerrillas. “It’s a lie, and no one has ever shown any proof to the contrary,” Chavez said. “We are for peace.”

Sierra de Perija: Battle for the Border Zone

The proposed new pipeline links between Colombia and Venezuela would have to cross the Sierra de Perija, the mountain range which forms the Colombian border. This strategic Sierra is already slated by the Chavez government for new coal-mining concessions—which has led to the first signs of tension between the populist regime and indigenous peoples and ecologists.

Robin Nieto reported for Venezuelanalysis.com Dec. 13, 2004 that Chavez is supporting the controversial plan to increase coal mining operations in the state of Zulia, a key oil-producing region bordering Colombia. But ecologists and Zulia’s water authorities warn that the plan may threaten the state’s most important water supply. Coribell Nava, a biologist at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela in Maracaibo, Zulia’s capital, says that increased coal mining would severely degrade the biologically rich Sierra de Perija, which protects the state’s critical watersheds.

“Coal is found in the heart of the hydrological valley. The [mining] concessions that are being granted in the Sierra Perija would terminate our water source,” Nava said.

Maracaibo holds over half the state’s population of approximately 2.5 million, and depends on only two sources of water, both in the Sierra de Perija: the Tulé and Manuelote reservoirs. These reservoirs are fed by the Cachiri and Socuy rivers, respectively.

CorpoZulia, the national government’s regional development corporation, is planning to open new coal mines along both rivers above the reservoirs. The state water authority, HidroLago, has expressed concerns about the plan.

“If the coal mining project continues, the ecological impact will be disastrous,” Herencia Gonzalez said, manager of the regional branch of HidroVen, the national government’s water authority.

Gonzalez told Venezuelanalysis that last year she and national Environment Minister Ana Elisa Osorio visited the coal mines currently in operation in the Sierra, and said she was shocked by what she saw. “I could not believe my eyes,” Gonzalez said, “Is it worth destroying our natural heritage and our water source for coal?”

The Paso Diablo and Mina Norte concessions that Gonzalez and Osorio visited are located just north of the Manuelote reservoir. Contamination of local lands and waters from mining at these two locations has already displaced local Bari, Jukpa and Wayuu indigenous people residing in the area.

William Fernandez, a 27 year-old student at the Bolivarian University in Maracaibo, and a member of the Wayuu nation, told Venezuelanalysis how his family was forced from their lands by the mining operations: “We lived in the Caño Corolado sector by the Guasare River from 1986 to 1995. We dedicated ourselves to agriculture, corn, and the raising of cattle. Because of the effects on the environment we had to leave the area.”

Fernandez’ family is now living in another area that is also being affected by mining—this time from barite (barium sulfate) mines. “We are now thinking of leaving this area too because of how it affects our animals,” Fernandez said.

Indigenous territories in the Sierra de Perija have yet to be demarcated by the national government. Rusbel Palmar, a leader of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Zulia (ORPIZ), wants to issue be settled before new mining concessions are granted. “The coal infrastructure plans have not been presented to indigenous people,” he told Venezuelanalysis. “These plans cannot be done without consultation with indigenous people and different sectors of civil society.”

The national plan for the Sierra and Zulia includes construction of a new mega-port for coal export at the sea mouth of Lake Maracaibo, to be dubbed Puerto America, and a 500-megawatt coal-fueled electric plant to power a new rail line linking the port to the mines. These projects are set to begin next year according to CorpoZulia. The plans were outlined in the Zulia-wide newspaper, Panorama, in an Oct. 27, 2004 article, in which CorpoZulia boasted they will employ “clean and efficient” technology.

Zulia already faces a chronic water shortage—impacting not only the state’s north-western coal-mining regions of Mara and Paez, but also Maracaibo. Many districts of the city receive running water only once a week.

The national government recently provided Zulia a loan of $15 million for water infrastructure for the state’s northwest region. However, this infrastructure would still depend on the two reservoirs now threatened by increased coal production.

Nava stressed that the rivers are threatened not only by sulfur contamination from mine waste, but also the deforestation that would result from new mining operations. “The cutting down of pristine forest is just part of the ecological disaster,” he said. “The deforestation will also affect the water reservoirs since without trees and their roots to sustain the soil of surrounding mountains, the rain will literally wash the soil directly into the water reservoirs.”

While CarboZuilia, the coal mining division of CorpoZulia, pledges to invest coal proceeds into regional development projects, like road-paving, ecologists contend that the cost of coal mining outweighs the economic benefits. “Coal today currently represents only 0.02 per cent of revenues for the national government,” said Lusbi Portillo, a professor at the University of Zulia and head of environmental group Homo et Natura. “Coal is not very significant in terms of economic production. However coal is important to other countries like the US, which consumes more than 900 million tons of coal each year.”

Portillo also points out that investments for Puerto America will eventually come from the IMF and the World Bank—despite the anti-globalization stance of the Chavez government. “Venezuela is serving the [US] empire at our expense, and Zulia is a zone of sacrifice.”

Even the national vice-minister of Environmental Conservation, Jose Luis Berroteran, said that coal mining in the Sierra de Perija is incompatible with the purported vision of the current Venezuelan government.

“Coal mining is not in accordance in a country that agrees with the Kyoto Protocol,” Berroteran said. “Perhaps coal mining may be acceptable in other countries but not here, not in a country with a government that has a new vision. It runs contrary to policies of sustainable development.”

The Mina Norte and Paso Diablo sites account for more than 80% of Venezuela’s annual coal production of 8.5 million metric tons. The mines are both owned by joint ventures of private companies with the national government as a minority partner. Mina Norte, 20 kilometers north of the reservoir, is run by Carbones de la Guarija, a joint venture of CarboZulia and Carbomar, an international consortium with a 64% stake in the mine. The two largest stakeholders in Carbomar are the local Massey Family (30.9%) and Chevron (29.94%).

Carbones del Guasare, which operates Paso Diablo, five kilometers north of Manuelote, is held jointly by CarboZulia and the foreign companies Anglo Coal (24.9%) and Peabody Energy (BTU), which recently purchased 25.5% of the mine from Germany’s RAG Coal International. Peabody Energy is world’s largest coal company, with annual sales of over 200 million tons and more than $2.8 billion in revenues. According to Peabody’s company profile, their coal and other products fuel more than 10% of all US electrical generation and over 2.5% of worldwide electrical generation.

Lusbi Portillo argues that Venezuela’s environmental movement has been paradoxically weakened under the progressive Chavez government. “It’s like ploughing the ocean,” said Portillo. “In an oil culture where we were taught that oil, coal and minerals make us rich, where can you go? PDVSA is supposedly ours now, it has been rescued from multinational corporations, this is what people believe, and this makes our work as ecologists even harder.”

Portillo is organizing a protest against the coal concessions at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas in March. “Five buses will take indigenous people and social organizations from Zulia to Miraflores,” he pledged.

Venezuelan Ecologists Under Attack

Portillo has been menaced by powerful figures in Venezuela’s industrial bureaucracy for his activism on behalf of the Sierra de Perija. In December 2004, the Venezuelan Program for Education and Action in Human Rights (Provea), an independent group, issued an urgent alert warning of threats made against Portillo by the CorpoZulia’s president, Brigade General Carlos Martinez, and by an engineer with the Venezuelan Ministry of Energy and Mines, Juan Rojas.

According to Provea, on Dec. 8, 2004, at a forum at the Second Bolivarian Congress of Peoples held that month in Venezuela, Martinez said: “Just as there existed a human rights mafia in Venezuela, environmentalists formed a green mafia. Behind this green mafia, opposed to the exploitation of coal in the Sierra de Perija, were the counter-revolutionaries and the transnational companies, and it was directed by the CIA.” He singled Portillo for particularly damning criticism, citing his recent statements against the mining concessions in the Zulia state newspaper The Truth.

Days later, on Dec. 11, representatives of CorpoZulia, the national Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) and Irish coal mining company Brendan Hynes made a tour of communities in Zulia’s mining zone. These representatives called together the inhabitants of the parish of Monsenor Godoy in the municipality of Mara, to seek the community’s approval for new coal concessions. The meeting was chaired by MEM engineer Rojas, who is attached to the national mining agency IngeoMinas. At the meeting, Rojas stated that Portillo was “a terrorist” and accused him of stealing MEM vehicles. Throughout the event, he continued to make indirect allusions to the presence of Portillo in the meeting.

Provea, of which Portillo himself is an associate member, protested that: “These remarks endanger the life and integrity of activists in the ecological and human rights movement in Zulia… These acts not only seek to inhibit the activity of communities affected by current and planned mining projects but could be interpreted as a green light to state or private actions which could endanger the life and integrity of Lusbi Portillo and other leaders of the ecological and human rights movements in the Zulia region.”

Despite these tensions, the rupture between indigenous peoples in Zulia and the Chavez government is not yet complete. But the struggle in the Sierra de Perija could prove a microcosm of the contradictions Chavez and his South American allies will face in the new race for strategic control of the continent’s resources.

SOURCES:

“The 2nd Bolivarian Congress of Peoples: On the Road Towards a Community of South American Nations,” by Robin Nieto, VoltaireNet, Dec. 10, 2004
http://www.voltairenet.org/article123175.html

“Venezuela’s Chavez Promotes Pipeline in Brazil Summit,” Bloomberg News, Jan. 19, 2006
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=autgpEhwzkds&refer=latin_ame rica

“Pipeline network could divide South America,” by Alan Clendinning, AP, Jan. 20, 2006
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Business/2006/01/20/1402638-sun.html

“Venezuela: The New Saudi Arabia,” BusinessWire, Jan. 11
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/prn/texas/3579648.html

“For Leaders of Venezuela and Colombia, Common Ground,” by Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 18, 2005, online at Americas.org
http://www.americas.org/item_23929

“The Environmental Cost of Coal Mining in Venezuela,” by Robin Nieto, Venezuelanalysis.com, Dec 13, 2004
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1334

“Urgent Action to protect Venezuelan environmentalist and human rights defender,” Provea, Dec. 16, 2004, online at Mines and Communities Website
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/action69.htm

LatinPetroleum.com
http://www.latinpetroleum.com

“Bolivia: Evo woos China on gas investment,” WW4 REPORT, Jan. 10, 2006
/node/1478

See our related stories:

“Colombia vs. Venezuela: Big Oil’s Secret War?” WW4 REPORT, April 2005
/colombiavenezuelabigoil

“Amazonia: Planning the Final Destruction,” reprinted from Native Americas,
Fall/Winter 2001
/amazonia.html

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ARGENTINA: AUTONOMOUS WORKERS UNDER ATTACK

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

BUENOS AIRES: HOTEL WORKERS ATTACKED

Early on Dec. 8, a delegation of 12 cooperative members from the autonomous worker-controlled Bauen hotel were violently ousted from the Buenos Aires municipal legislature as they sought to attend a debate concerning their dispute with the hotel’s former owners. A larger group of Bauen workers had been waiting for eight hours outside the legislature, but when the debate finally began at around 2:30 AM, only 12 of the 60 workers remaining outside were allowed to enter the chambers, even though the sessions are supposed to be open to the public.

Shortly after the debate began, the 12 Bauen workers–most of them women–began to whistle their disapproval at deputy Mario Morando, author of a bill which seeks to return the Bauen hotel to the Iurcovich family, its original owners. Legislature president Santiago de Estrada responded by ordering the workers removed. Nearly 50 police agents arrived and attacked the 12 Bauen workers, beating them and spraying some kind of irritant gas in their eyes. After the workers were ejected from the chambers, the legislature continued its discussion, finally approving the creation of a commission of seven deputies to head a four-month negotiation process between the worker cooperative and the former owners. The workers’ cooperative is determined to maintain its control of the hotel. (ANRed, Dec. 8 via Resumen Latinoamericano) The owners shut down the hotel in 2001. Two years later, 40 of the original workers reoccupied it and opened it for business; the workers’ cooperative that runs it now has 150 members. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 10)

KIRCHNER INCHES TO THE LEFT?

On Nov. 28 the government of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner suddenly announced a reshuffling of his cabinet, with Banco de la Nacion president Felisa Miceli replacing Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna; ambassador to Venezuela Nilda Garre replacing Defense Minister Jose Pampuro; Deputy Foreign Relations Minister Jorge Taiana replacing Foreign Relations Minister Rafael Bielsa; and Juan Carlos Nadalich replacing Alicia Kirchner, the president’s sister, as head of the Social Action Ministry.

Cabinet changes were expected. Three of the former ministers–Pampura, Bielsa and Alicia Kirchner–were leaving to take seats they won in Oct. 23 legislative elections. But analysts were surprised by the firing of Economy Minister Lavagna. Appointed by interim president Eduardo Duhalde in April 2002, five months after the collapse of Argentina’s economy, Lavagna had maintained conservative fiscal policies while holding off the most drastic demands of foreign creditors and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Argentina’s economy grew at more than an 8% annual rate over the last three years. The Argentine stock market reacted to Lavagna’s departure on Nov. 28 by falling 4.49% that day in heavy trading.

Analysts say President Kirchner is moving to the left following the success of his candidates in the October legislative vote, including the election of his wife, Cristina Fernandez, as senator from Buenos Aires province. Economy Minister Miceli is considered close to Lavagna and worked in his consulting firm, but she appears to be to his left. “The orthodox measures for lowering inflation are the peace of the cemetery,” she said recently, indicating her negative view of neoliberal policies. Defense Minister Garre was a defender of left-populist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez when she was in Caracas. Miceli and Garre are the first women to head Argentina’s economy and defense ministries. (Inter Press Service, Nov. 28; New York Times, Nov. 29; Financial Times, Nov. 29; La Jornada, Mexico, Nov. 29)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 11

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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #115
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1245

See also our last update on the struggle in Argentina:
/node/1392

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PERU: INDIGENOUS PROTEST GAS SPILLS

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Residents of the Machiguenga and other indigenous communities of the lower Urubamba river area in Peru’s Ucayali region began a 72-hour strike on Dec. 2 to protest the government’s failure to address the problems caused by gas spills on the Camisea pipeline. The strike was prompted by a spill of at least 5,000 barrels of condensed liquid gas on Nov. 24 in the Machiguenga Communal Reserve near the Vilcabamba mountain range in Echarati district, which has affected the communities living in the Urubamba and Ucayali river basins. It was the fourth spill from the 430-mile long Camisea pipeline in less than a year. (El Diario del Cusco, Dec. 6 via Amazon Alliance; Dallas Business Journal online version, Dec. 8; Regional Indigenous Organization of Atalaya-OIRA, Nov. 30)

Edward Bendezu Palomino, general secretary of the Federation of Residents of the Lower Urubamba, said the situation of the indigenous communities in the area is desperate, since they can no longer eat local fish or drink the water. Residents are demanding that the government declare a state of emergency for the gas pipeline and halt all activities of the Transportadora de Gas del Peru (TGP) consortium until it offers security guarantees to prevent future spills. As a first step, the communities are demanding that a high-level commission with decision-making powers arrive in the zone within a week. Bendezu said the indigenous communities don’t trust the promises of the government or the company, since after the third spill it was promised that measures would be taken to prevent similar incidents. (EDdC, Dec. 6) TGP is a joint venture between the Dallas, Texas-based Hunt Oil, the Argentine company Techint and five other shareholders. (DBJ, Dec. 8)

On Dec. 5, members of the indigenous federations of the Lower Urubamba COMARU, CECONAMA and FECONAYY met in the indigenous community of Nuevo Mundo and resolved to continue their strike and blockade along the Urubamba river until Dec. 12. The groups are demanding a meeting in the community of Kirigueti between the indigenous federations, the managers of the TGP and Pluspetrol companies, and authorities from the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Supervisory Organization of Investment in Energy (OSINERG), along with district-level, provincial and departmental officials and members of the media from Lima and Cusco. The federations have 14 demands to be addressed at the meeting, including that the causes of the gas spill be determined; that the entire route of the Camisea gas pipeline be visually inspected; that the damages in indigenous communities be repaired, and all the affected communities compensated and provided with adequate medical services to monitor the impact of the spill on residents’ health; that self-sustaining fish farms be created in all the communities of the area in order to restore residents’ primary food supply; that the region be provided with electrical service and a gas distribution facility; and that indigenous workers on the Camisea project be paid wages on a par with the project’s foreign workers. (Joint communique from COMARU, CECONAMA, FECONAYY, Dec. 5 via Amazon Alliance)

Jeremias Sebastian Sandoval, president of the indigenous community of Miaria, said police committed acts of violence against his community on the first day of the strike, Dec. 2. Sandoval accused TGP of paying police agents to attack the indigenous protesters. (EDdC, Dec. 6)

According to Amazon Watch, a Washington, DC-based organization, the Nov. 24 spill has prompted a joint commission from Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines and OSINERG to begin an emergency review of the Camisea pipeline situation. “We will have the results of an audit of the Camisea pipelines [soon], and these could lead to fines and even to the operator losing the concession if it failed to comply with the technical norms of the contract,” said Gustavo Navarro, director of the state oil and gas company Hidrocarburos de Peru, in an interview with Reuters. (DBJ, Dec. 8)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 11

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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #115
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1240

See also our last update on Peru:
/node/1270

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Jan. 1, 2006
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ECUADOR: MOVES TOWARDS NEW CONSTITUTION

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

The 31 new judges of Ecuador’s Supreme Court of Justice were sworn in, along with 21 alternate judges, on Nov. 30 by Carlos Estarellas, president of a four-member commission appointed to choose the magistrates. Ecuadoran president Alfredo Palacio and Organization of American States (OAS) secretary general Jose Miguel Insulza attended the ceremony. Ecuador has had no functional Supreme Court since last April 15, when president Lucio Gutierrez dismissed the entire court and was himself ousted from office five days later. (ENH, Dec. 1 from AFP; MH, Dec. 1 from wire services; AP, Dec. 4)

In a surprise executive decree signed on Nov. 30 and released on Dec. 1, Palacio asked the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to call a voter referendum for Jan. 22 on whether to convene a constituent assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution. The move led TSE president Gilberto Vaca to resign on Dec. 3, saying he would not “lend myself to violate the Constitution.” Ecuador’s Congress, which had been negotiating with the president over constitutional reforms, threatened on Dec. 3 to impeach Palacio if he moves forward with the referendum. (La Jornada, Dec. 2 from Reuters; El Nuevo Herald, Dec. 4 from AFP; Miami Herald, Dec. 2, 4) The constituent assembly is a key demand of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), which mobilized some 10,000 indigenous people to Quito Nov. 16-18.

On Dec. 2, in another unexpected and unexplained move, Palacio replaced three of Ecuador’s top military commanders in a brief ceremony at the government palace. Palacio appointed Gen. Nelson Enriquez to replace Vice Adm. Manuel Zapater as head of the joint command; Gen. Robert Tandazo to replace Gen. Jorge Zurita as head of the army, and Gen. Jorge Moreno to replace Gen. Edmundo Baquero as head of the air force. The changes came as Defense Minister Osvaldo Jarrin was on an official visit to Spain. (MH, Dec. 3 from wire services)

On Nov. 29, for the sixth time this year, 164 indigenous and campesino communities in the northern Ecuadoran provinces of Pichincha and Imbabura began blocking local highways to demand that the government release $50 million in funding for a drinking water project. The open-ended strike practically shut down Imbabura province and paralyzed traffic along the PanAmerican highway, which links Ecuador with Colombia. (Clajadep, Nov. 30 via Ecuador Indymedia)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 4

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Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #116
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1345

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Jan. 1, 2006
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