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[Translation of an article from El Clarín of Santiago, Chile, for April 21. See original here.]

By Marcos Roitmann Rosenmann

Measures taken to nationalize and to recuperate basic riches in Latin America or Africa or Asia have always suffered the ire of colonial centers and the enterprises affected. There is no shortage of examples: Lázaro Cárdenas, Jacobo Arbenz, Fidel Castro, Omar Torrijos, Velasco Alvarado, Salvador Allende, Evo Morales, Hugo Chávez; the list is long.

Accustomed to ordering and to being in charge, arrogant empires are unfamiliar with the concepts of independence and sovereignty. They are reluctant to deal as equals. Paternalism, based on positions of strength, shapes the discourse of imperial haughtiness. To declare oneself opposed to paternal authority and the established order usually brings on exemplary punishment: blockades, destabilizing processes, economic strangulation, assassinations of leaders or coups d’état. These days, the expropriation of a private company, Repsol YPF, whose interests are those only of their stockholders and whose objective is to obtain profits at the cost of any ethical, judicial or environmental consideration, awakens the ire of the hegemonic powers, their institutions and principal political leaders. (more…)

[Translations of two articles from Colombian newspapers concerning plans by Greystar Resources of Vancouver, Canada, for an open-pit gold mine in the páramo, a large, diverse and environmentally sensitive area in the heights of the Andes consisting of  lakes, wet grasslands, peat bogs and forests.]

Protests held against Greystar plan for gold mining in Santurbán

Experts say it would affect rivers supplying metropolitan aqueduct

[Translated from El Tiempo for February 26. See original here.]

More than 15,000 people marched on Friday along the main streets of Bucaramanga to demand that the government not issue an environmental permit for a project in which the Canadian firm Greystar would attempt to exploit gold deposits in the páramo de Santurbán. (more…)

An interview with Oswaldo Sevá

[Translation of an interview from Brasil de Fato for Feburary 25. See original here.]

By Spensy Pimentel and Joana Moncau

An engineer with a doctorate in geography, Professor Oswaldo Sevá has been one of the principal allies in Brazilian universities of the social movements in their struggle against large development projects, like hydroelectric plants, mines and highways. These are efforts that he, in his courses at the Universidade de Campinas, calls “current conflicts of primitive accumulation.” The struggle he is most involved in currently is against the Belo Monte mega-plant on the Xingu River, a paradise of bio- and socio-diversity in the middle of the Amazon, now threatened by that project, which dates from the times of the civilian-military dictatorship and was resumed and brought up to date by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Since the ‘80s, Sevá has been publishing studies critical of the project, demonstrating its faults and inconsistencies. In the following interview, the professor shows that the current scenario of socio-environmental conflicts has, in reality, a global significance, representing a challenge for the social movements of the entire world. And he warns, “The threat is very serious as well where intellectuals and politicians considered leftists recite prayers from capital’s missal, repeat the ideological mantras of capitalism and use their political and cultural capital to suppress critics and to make those who think independently more tractable, in order to isolate those who simply continue resisting expropriation.” (more…)

Brack guarantees sanctions and prosecutor warns of penalties of up to 20 years in prison

[Translation of an article from La Razón of Lima for June 23.]

Residents of 28 indigenous communities in the Parinari and Urarinas distrricts, in the province of Loreto, are without water and are prevented from fishing, their principal source of food, after waters of the Marañón River were contaminated by a spill of more than 400 barrels of petroleum, severely affecting the ecosystem of the region.

Residents of the area told local media that “everybody is desperate because they don’t know what is going to happen in the next few hours due to the lack of commitment by Pluspetrol and the authorities. Two children have already suffered stomach problems because they drank water from the river. We have managed to take pictures of contaminated fish, with their fins coated in oil.” (more…)

CFE increases demand for coal from 10 million tons to 25 million in 2024

[Translation of an article from El Universal of Mexico City for May 10.]

Mexico, host to the world summit on climate change, has reverted to the use of coal, one of the most contaminating fuels, for generating power.

Reports by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation indicate that the three coal-fired power plants operating in the country emit 20.8 million tons of carbon dioxide, 30 percent of the total for the country.

Carbon dioxide is one of the gases causing global warming.

The same commission adds that coal-fired plants also release sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide and mercury, which cause serious damage to human health and to the environment.

The Comisión Federal de Electricidad [CFE – Federal Electrical Commission] announced it will increase the demand for coal from ten million tons to 25 million in 2024, an increase of 137 percent [sic].

The director general of Investigación en Política y Economía Ambiental [Research in Environmental Policy and Economics] of the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales [Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources], Carlos Muñoz, explained that expansion of coal-fired plants is within the prerogative of the federal government and no option can be dismissed.

He explained that Mexico has no commitment to reducing contaminants, which means it can use coal. Currently, he said, there are no limits because there are no international agreements.

Greenpeace México warned that this decision places the country on a road to “ecological suicide.”

For the president, those opposed to the power plant are a “blackout industry”

[Translation of an article from Hora do Povo of Brazil for April 28 concerning controversial plans to build a hydroelectric plant in the Amazonian region of Pará state. The project, supported by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is being opposed by environmentalists, indigenous groups and by José Serra, until recently governor of São Paulo state and now presidential candidate for the center-right Social Democratic Party.  Serra’s opposition is likely more a case of campaign opportunism than concern for the environment or for indigenous rights.  See also “Equivocations of a 'people's' govnernment” below.]

On Monday, April 26, during his weekly radio program “Café com Presidente,” Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva responded to criticism from tucano [Social Democratic Party] candidate José Serra of construction of a hydroelectric plant at Belo Monte, in Pará state. For the president, opponents of the project are the same people who are “manipulating for another blackout in the country.” He said the plant will be the third largest hydroelectric plant in the world. “There will always be those who don’t want us to act because they hope for a national disaster so they can find somebody to blame,” Lula charged. “There were five years of study before authorization could be obtained. Now, at last, the project will be built,” the president declared. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Correio da Cidadania of Brazil for April 20.]

by Waldemar Rossi

The debates and clashes over construction of one more Lula administration mega-project are in full swing: construction of the Belo Monte dam and power plant on the Xingu River, in the state of Pará, in the heart of the endangered Amazon.

Speaking on behalf of the great extractive industries, of agribusinesses and

Xingu protest against Belo Monte dam project

agricultural exporters, among others, is Maurício Tolmasquim, president of the Empresa de Pesquisa Energética [Energy Research Company]. Tolmasquim claims that the project will save the residents of the area, guaranteeing that they will be trained for jobs in constructing it. He doesn’t say, however, what will happen to that population after the work is done, where they will live or what productive activities will be guaranteed them for supporting their families. Nor does he say how many will have to be removed from the lands where they live. That is, the people interest the investors solely as a source of cheap labor. (more…)

[Translation of an article from TeleSUR for April 5.]

Repression by the Peruvian police against a miner’s demonstration in the southern region of Arequipa on Sunday left at least one dead, according to Javier Velásquez, prime minister of that South American country, while leaders of the protest say three died as a result of police action.

The death acknowledged by Velásquez occurred when police attempted to disperse a demonstration in Madre de Dios, in the southeastern jungles of the country, which the miners had staged to protest a government decree. (more…)

He accuses the company of trying to destroy his country and delegitimize its court system

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City, based on Agence France Presse and Prensa Latina dispatches.]

Quito, April 3 – Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa announced on Saturday that he will propose to the Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Unasor) the creation of a united front against transnationals like the US company Chevron, which he accused to attempting to destroy his country.

Correa described as “scandalous” a ruling issued by an international tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, favoring Chevron-Texaco because, he said, it destroys the sovereignty, the institutions and the juridical security of the South American country. (more…)