The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement recently called on the Obama administration to commit to the development of a national plan of action on racial justice, in light of the Trayvon Martin case. This is an important and necessary call, and an example of how to use human rights processes and discourse to demand accountability for human rights violations.  Read More

TELESUR–En su columna el comandante Fidel Castro hace referencia a la VI Cumbre de las Américas celebrada este fin de semana en Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, cuyas imágenes “debieran conservarse bien, como ejemplo de un desastre”.

Fidel Castro sostiene que “el sistema impuesto por el imperialismo en este hemisferio está agotado y no puede sostenerse”.

Cuestiona el discurso y actitud del presidente de EE.UU Barack Obama en la “cumbre irreal” y destaca que las empresas estadounidenses y sus soldados “debieran abandonar las bases militares y retirar sus tropas de todos y cada uno de nuestros territorios; renunciar al intercambio desigual y el saqueo de nuestras naciones”.

A continuación se muestra el texto completo de la columna Relfexiones del Líder de la Revolución Cubana Fidel Castro:

“Observé bien a Obama en la famosa “reunión Cumbre”. El cansancio a veces lo vencía, cerraba involuntariamente los ojos, pero en ocasiones dormía con los ojos abiertos.

En Cartagena no se reunía un sindicato de Presidentes desinformados, sino los representantes oficiales de 33 países de este hemisferio, cuya amplia mayoría demandan respuestas a problemas económicos y sociales de gran trascendencia que golpean a la región del mundo con más desigualdad en la distribución de las riquezas.

No deseo adelantarme a las opiniones de millones de personas, capaces de analizar con profundidad y sangre fría los problemas de América Latina, el Caribe y el resto de un mundo globalizado, donde unos pocos lo tienen todo y los demás no poseen nada. Llámese como se llame, el sistema impuesto por el imperialismo en este hemisferio está agotado y no puede sostenerse.

En un futuro inmediato la humanidad tendrá que enfrentar, entre otros problemas, los relacionados con el cambio climático, la seguridad y la alimentación de la creciente población mundial.

Las lluvias excesivas están golpeando tanto a Colombia como a Venezuela. Un análisis reciente revela que, en marzo de este año, en Estados Unidos se produjeron calores 4,8 grados Celsius más altos que el promedio histórico registrado. Las consecuencias de esos cambios bien conocidos en las capitales de los principales países europeos, engendran problemas catastróficos para la humanidad.

Los pueblos esperan de los dirigentes políticos respuestas claras a esos problemas.

Los colombianos, donde tuvo lugar la desprestigiada Cumbre, constituyen un pueblo laborioso y sacrificado que necesita como los demás la colaboración de sus hermanos latinoamericanos, en este caso, venezolanos, brasileños, ecuatorianos, peruanos, y otros capaces de hacer lo que los yankis con sus armas sofisticadas, su expansionismo, y su insaciable apetencia material no harán jamás. Como en ningún otro momento de la historia será necesaria la fórmula previsora de José Martí: “¡Los árboles se han de poner en fila, para que no pase el gigante de las siete leguas! Es la hora del recuento, y de la marcha unida, y hemos de andar en cuadro apretado, como la plata en las raíces de los Andes.”

Muy lejos del brillante y lúcido pensamiento de Bolívar y Martí están las palabras masticadas, edulcoradas y machaconamente repetidas del ilustre premio Nobel, dichas en una ridícula gira por los campos de Colombia y que escuché ayer en horas de la tarde. Servían solo para rememorar los discursos de la Alianza para el Progreso, hace 51 años, cuando todavía no se habían cometido los monstruosos crímenes que azotaron este hemisferio, donde nuestro país luchó no solo por el derecho a la independencia, sino el de existir como nación.

Obama habló de entrega de tierras. No dice cuánta, ni cuándo, ni cómo.

Las transnacionales yankis jamás renunciarán al control de las tierras, las aguas, las minas, los recursos naturales de nuestros países. Sus soldados debieran abandonar las bases militares y retirar sus tropas de todos y cada uno de nuestros territorios; renunciar al intercambio desigual y el saqueo de nuestras naciones.

Tal vez la CELAC se convierta en lo que debe ser una organización política hemisférica, menos Estados Unidos y Canadá. Su decadente e insostenible imperio se ha ganado ya el derecho a descansar en paz.

Pienso que las imágenes de la Cumbre debieran conservarse bien, como ejemplo de un desastre.

Dejo a un lado los escándalos provocados por la conducta que se atribuye a los miembros del Servicio Secreto, encargados de la seguridad personal de Obama. Tengo la impresión de que el equipo que se ocupa de esa tarea se caracteriza por su profesionalidad. Fue lo que observé cuando visité la ONU y ellos atendían a los Jefes de Estado. Sin duda que lo han protegido de quienes no habrían vacilado en actuar contra él por prejuicios raciales.

Ojalá Obama pueda dormir con los ojos cerrados aunque sea unas horas sin que alguien le endilgue un discurso sobre la inmortalidad del cangrejo en una Cumbre irreal”.

UPSIDEDOWNWORLD–Rodolfo Vecino has a death sentence on his head. He has been told he will be kidnapped, tortured and his family will be murdered. Already this year one of Vecino’s colleagues has been killed – in January, Mauricio Arrendondo and his wife Janeth were gunned down in front of their children.

Vecino is the president of Colombian oil workers union (USO), which was last year declared a “military target” by right-wing paramilitaries for its campaigns against what the union says are the abusive labor practices of Canadian oil giant Pacific Rubiales.

The union’s campaign began last summer; just two months after Colombia signed a Labor Action Plan (LAP) with the U.S. pledging to tackle the very practices used by Rubiales and the type of anti-union violence that USO has suffered. The signing of the pact unblocked negotiations over the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the countries, which had stalled over Colombia’s abysmal labor rights record.

A year on, and at last weekend’s Summit of the Americas, the U.S. declared it was satisfied that Colombia had complied with the LAP and was enacting the reforms called for. The decision opens the way for full implementation of the FTA in May, even as unions and human rights groups in both countries continue to accuse the U.S. of “rewarding promises not actions”. Meanwhile, USO’s campaign against Rubiales continues and it is far from an isolated case. Unions across Colombia maintain they face the same problems of violence, worker abuse and anti-union practices, all committed with seeming impunity.

Disposable labor

Protests against Rubiales began after workers at the company’s Puerto Gaitan site contacted USO and described how 12,000 sub-contracted workers – the overwhelming majority of the workforce – were enduring low pay, appalling conditions and instability while being denied the right to bargain collectively and associate freely.

Ending the abusive sub-contracting system commonly used in Colombia was one of the principal aims of the LAP. The practice began in the late 70s, when businesses began to take advantage of the fact that many of Colombia’s labor regulations did not apply to worker cooperatives. Companies fired their entire workforce then forced workers to sign on with contractors calling themselves cooperatives. As the workers were then classified as temporary employees and could be laid off without cause, the cooperatives forced them to accept whatever pay and conditions were on the table. It was also a useful tool for preventing unionization as any worker who began organizing or agitating could be immediately fired. “They lost their rights, they lost money [and] they lost their working stability,” said Andres Sanchez from Colombia’s National Union School (ENS). The practice continues today, utilizing Colombia’s army of the unemployed and underemployed as ready replacements for sacked workers.

The LAP called for Colombia to enforce pre-existing but widely ignored legislation banning the cooperatives. However, as the Rubiales workers testified, in many sectors little has changed. Because the cooperatives are now banned, most of the contractors have simply changed names and become Simplified Stock Companies or Temporary Service Companies. “The phenomenon continues the same,” said Sanchez. “It is the same dynamic, they do the same things, workers [still] can’t demand that they benefit from their labor and not the third party,” he added. According to Sanchez, over 2 million workers in Colombia are still employed through these sub-contractors.

In Puerto Gaitan, the sub-contracted Rubiales’ workers have been forced to accept what Rodolfo Vecino called, “truly humiliating and poverty stricken” conditions. “They don’t have the conditions of a dignified life, they don’t have dignified salaries, they don’t have contracts that genuinely give the workers respectable levels of stability,” he said.

The workers have also testified to being pressured and threatened because of their association with the union and being told they would not be employed again while they were still members. “Although I am aware of my rights,” said one worker in a letter to USO, “in this case my need to survive and stay in work is more important.”

The ENS and USO both say they have persistently informed the government of the continued use of the cooperative style sub-contracting but little action has been taken despite the harsh penalties now demanded by law. So far, one company has been hit with a $6.5 million dollar fine over its use of contractors in the African palm sector. However, the fine was only imposed after a 107-day strike and came a week before Colombia’s labor minister traveled to the U.S. to discuss progress on labor rights. According to Sanchez, several months later and the fine has yet to be paid.

The paramilitary right and anti-union violence

After five months of strikes, blockades, occupations and violent clashes between riot police and protesters in USO’s confrontation with Pacific Rubiales, Rodolfo Vecino announced he had been threatened by four men claiming to be from the Auto-defensas (Self-defense forces). According to Vecino, the men told him he had been “sentenced” because USO’s confrontation with Pacific Rubiales made him an “obstacle to development.”

The term Auto-Defensas refers to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), an umbrella group for Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary movement that controlled vast criminal networks and infiltrated the core of Colombia’s political and economic systems. Its stated mission was to combat Colombia’s leftist guerrilla groups, something it did in part by waging a dirty war against “guerrilla collaborators” – members of leftist political parties, community organizers, human rights workers and unionists. From 1986–2011, nearly 3000 unionists were murdered, and although most of the cases remain unsolved, in Colombia there is little doubt that paramilitary groups such as the AUC were responsible for the overwhelming majority of the killings.

The AUC officially demobilized in 2006 after negotiations with the government of Alvaro Uribe. However, the much criticized process gave rise to a new wave of illegal armed groups. These new organizations mostly consist of former mid-level AUC commanders and foot-soldiers that either never demobilized or simply re-enlisted after demobilization. For the most part they no longer fight the guerrillas – in some cases they even collaborate with them – but instead concentrate on drug trafficking and maintaining the AUC’s criminal networks and commercial interests. However, the end of the ideological war between the paramilitaries and the guerrillas did not lead to a significant drop in anti-union violence and Colombia remains by far and away the most dangerous place in the world for unionists.

According to Vecino, three of these groups operate in the same areas as USO – the Rastrojos, the Urabeños and the Popular Revolutionary Anti-terrorist Army of Colombia (ERPAC). He believes the continuing violence against unions is because of the links between businesses and the paramilitaries. “We believe there are links in the zone,” he said. “Today there are no political lines of definition of these groups but interests around drug trafficking [and] they sell themselves to the highest bidder,” he said. “If [the company] gives them money it wouldn’t be the first time multinationals have associated with paramilitaries or common criminals to strike against the union sector.” Vecino also claimed that some of the cooperatives have ties to armed groups and are used to launder drug money.

Pacific Rubiales has adamantly denied any contact with paramilitary groups. Jorge Rodriguez, the company’s head of corporate affairs, told news website Colombia Reports: “We are very sorry for the USO union. We reject any type of threat, any type of intimidation, not only to trade unionists but to anyone in the country.”

Andres Sanchez agrees with the theory that the new groups continue to act as the armed wing for powerful commercial interests, pointing to how Chiquita bananas and Coca Cola have been implicated in the murder of unionists. “It is a culture where some businesses have used violence as a way of solving labor relation problems,” he said. “In Colombia, the links between paramilitaries and business have not yet been uncovered.”

For most American politicians and unionists, anti-union violence was the biggest obstacle to the passing of the FTA with Colombia and curbing that violence the LAP’s greatest promise. In the first year of the plan, 27 unionists were murdered and 2 disappeared, according to the ENS. While that remains the highest murder rate for unionists in the world by some distance, it does represent a significant reduction; in 2010, 51 unionists were murdered and 7 disappeared. However, Andres Sanchez believes the drop in homicides does not tell the whole story. “The situation with the violence has shown changes in its logic,” he said. “Now, it is not necessary to murder a unionist to successfully freeze a union. We have seen that threats, injuries and displacement have increased …  homicides have gone down a bit [but] the situation persists.”

In the LAP, the Colombian government pledged to increase protection for unionists by broadening the coverage of its protection program, clearing the backlog of applicants for the program and speeding up the application process. According to the U.S. government this is exactly what it has done. However, while the unions acknowledge there have been some improvements, they remain critical. “They say ‘no one in the program has been killed,’” said Sanchez. “So we say the program is badly designed, because they kill the unionists who aren’t in the program.”

The unions complain that the protection program excludes too many people and that the Colombian authorities have cleared the backlog and sped up the process partly by rejecting more people more quickly. According to Sanchez, this has involved turning down unionists who have received death threats. “They say that if they threaten someone it is a salvation because generally, the ones who are murdered have not been threatened, [and] the threat is to silence someone so it is not necessary to take measures after,” he said.

The approach has had a serious impact on USO leaders. Last August, USO received a letter informing them that protection programs for 23 leaders and a number of regional offices would either be terminated immediately or only extended temporarily. Three of those leaders were involved in organizing in Puerto Gaitan.

The LAP also pledged to tackle the impunity enjoyed by those responsible for the anti-union threats and violence. Less than 10% of the more than 3000 cases of murdered unionists have resulted in convictions. Many of those convictions came not from successful investigations but from confessions by paramilitary killers and, while the perpetrators of the crimes identified themselves, the intellectual authors remained hidden.

In 2007, the Attorney General’s Office set up a specialist sub-unit dedicated to anti-union violence. However, of the 195 murders that took place between the start of the sub-unit’s operations and May 2011, only 6 resulted in convictions. The unit did not obtain a single conviction for the 60 homicide attempts, 1,500 threats and 420 forced displacements in the same period.

The prosecutor’s office’s shortcomings in investigating anti-union violence were supposed to be addressed by 15 measures in the LAP, ranging from assigning more full time investigators to the unit to establishing victims assistance centers. As Congress approved the FTA in October, American union AFL-CIO reported that all but three of the obligations had either not been met, had been met insufficiently or there was no evidence of progress.

Progress for labor or for free trade?

Although he believes the LAP has failed to significantly improve the labor rights situation in Colombia, Andres Sanchez says the plan was an important step. “Yes, [the LAP] was to facilitate the unfreezing of the FTA,” said Sanchez, “but it was also a serious attempt.” However, he thinks the LAP will not be effective unless the government does more to involve unions in the process. “They are important measures,” he said, “expensive measures that could be effective but with this great vacuum of not taking into account the unions, they are measures that could fail.”

In the U.S, the implementation of the LAP has been monitored by the AFL-CIO, which has been critical of the government for using it to push through the FTA. “We don’t think the plan was sufficient to accomplish the goals but we do think it was a step in the right direction, a step towards meaningful change,” said the AFL-CIO’s Celeste Drake.  “Unfortunately, with the continued violence against unionists and too little progress on cooperatives and other practices like collective pacts [worker agreements used to sideline unions], it is far too soon for the US government to declare victory on the LAP and move ahead on the FTA. Colombian workers will lose whatever leverage they have to make real progress if the US moves too quickly.”

On the front line of the struggle against the violence and abuse suffered by Colombian workers and unionists, Rodolfo Vecino says he has seen very little change since the LAP came into force. “At the moment it is innocuous,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what is written there, they are dead words, they don’t have life because there isn’t anyone who is putting it into place.”

James Bargent is a freelance journalist based in Colombia. See jamesbargent.com

NACLA–With the release of two separate investigations this week, it is becoming increasingly clear why the reconstruction has failed the Haitian people on such a massive scale—it is lucrative business opportunity first, with the humanitarian priorities coming in at a distant second.

On March 30, the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research’s (CEPR) Haiti Relief and Reconstruction Watch (HHRW) released the results of a scathing investigation, which revealed that out of the nearly $400 million spent by USAID in Haiti, only 0.02% of the procurement contracts went to local firms. On the opposite side of the procurement spectrum, U.S. firms concentrated in the Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland area were rewarded with a staggering 77.46% of the contracts.

The largest of the procurements, a $173 million contract to the U.S.-based Chemonics International, was given to the company’s Haiti Recovery Initiation. One of the primary aims of the Initiative was the $2 million construction of a temporary parliament building for the Haitian government. The building itself was inaugurated during a large photo-op with President Michel Martelly and U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Merton in November, but has sat dormant ever since. Since handing over the building to the Haitian government, approximately $775,000 has been spent by the Haitian government to date to finish the building. U.S. Embassy spokesman Jon Piechowski regarded the situation as unproblematic, saying that “the offer was to provide a building,” but never to finish it, or even make it functional.

Two weeks ago, Jacob Kushner and Jean Pharés Jérôme of the Global Post reported on the troubling USAID project, writing that “the building is scattered with woodwork trimmings and debris from a costly ongoing renovation paid for by the Haitian treasury because legislators say the United States never finished the job. And critics in Haiti charge that the unfinished work and empty building stand as a powerful metaphor for much of what is wrong with USAID’s approach to development in Haiti: that it lacks coordination with and input from the Haitians themselves about how best to undertake reconstruction projects.”

The lack of transparency surrounding the reconstruction is largely a result of Haiti’s NGO model of development, which entails the privatization of responsibility. While corruption in Haitian public companies was the central justification for their privatization in the past decades, the current reconstruction process has many built in loopholes which invite abuse from international contractors. CEPR has highlighted the existence of one of these loopholes, called an “indirect cost rate.” According to CEPR “This allows a portion of all funds allocated to go towards costs not related to the actual program, in other words, back to their headquarters inside the Beltway. Both Chemonics and USAID declined to provide HRRW with the Indirect Cost Rate stipulated in their contract.”

Unfortunately, Chemonics is not alone in providing shoddy but expensive buildings to Haiti. In August of last year, Isabel MacDonald and Isabeau Doucet wrote an article titled The Shelters That Clinton Built, revealing that one of Bill Clinton’s Interim Haiti Recovery Commission’s (IHRC) first projects sent down twenty formaldehyde-laced trailers to be used as schools in the coastal city of Léogâne. The manufacturer of the trailers, Clayton Homes, is now being sued in the United States for providing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with similar formaldehyde-laced trailers after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Nor does it make logical developmental sense to ship prefabricated buildings to Haiti, since the construction of the same buildings in Haiti would provide jobs, stimulate the Haitian construction industry, and allow families to send their children to school and support other small businesses. This “multiplier effect” is a common theme in development circles, but is routinely missing in Haitian reconstruction efforts, as the shipping of prefabricated buildings has become the new trend.

Once in Haiti, the trailers were largely unusable, containing high levels of mold, reaching over 100 degrees, and several lacked water and sanitation facilities. Lab tests conducted during the investigation revealed that formaldehyde levels reached 250 parts per billion, which were “two and a half times the level at which the CDC warned FEMA trailer residents that sensitive people, such as children, could face adverse health effects.”

MacDonald and Doucet wrote that “the Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Clayton Homes had been awarded a million-dollar contract to ship twenty trailers to Haiti, for use as classrooms for schoolchildren. The Clinton Foundation claims it went through a bidding process before awarding the contract to Clayton Homes, which was already embroiled in the FEMA trailer lawsuit. But despite repeated requests, the foundation has not provided The Nation with any documentation of this process.”

If major donor organizations like USAID and the IHRC can treat the Haitian government with such disregard and disrespect in the reconstruction process, it becomes clearer, but no less disturbing, how Haiti’s half million internally displaced people have been totally marginalized more than two years after the earthquake.

While U.S. companies are taking huge contracts to provide unusable buildings, President Michel Martelly has recently found himself in the middle of a scandal related to his awarding of no-bid construction contracts to Senator Felix Bautista of the Dominican Republic. Dominican journalist Nuria Piera aired a story on Nuria Investigacion where she stated that she had found that one of Bautista’s companies, HADCOM Construction, was awarded a $350 million no-bid contract for reconstruction work. In addition, Piera uncovered that Bautista had allegedly given more than $2.5 million to Haiti’s President Michel Martelly before and after he won the presidency in 2011.

According to the Haitian weekly Haiti Liberté, “If Nuria’s charges prove true, wholly or even partially, they may deal a mortal blow to Martelly’s presidency. Already, Deputy Arnel Belizaire, who was illegally arrested last November on Martelly’s orders, says he is close to calling for the convening of Parliament’s High Court of Justice to impeach the President. Another deputy, Tholbert Alexis, told Scoop FM that he would push for a special commission to look into Nuria Piera’s allegations.”

The newest allegations add on to the growing controversy surrounding Martelly’s relatively new presidency. Already shrouded in an aura of illegitimacy due to highly flawed elections, Martelly has been confronted with allegations that he holds dual citizenship, thereby disqualifying him from holding the country’s highest office. Martelly’s first national program, the implementation of free education to all Haitian children has been under intense scrutiny due to the disappearance of tens of millions of dollars. Finally, it is widely believed that Martelly’s third nominee for Prime Minister (also the choice of Bill Clinton), Gary Conille, was fired from the post for undertaking an audit of several reconstruction contracts because they contained information that was damaging to both Martelly and former Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.

With vultures looking to capitalize financially on the reconstruction efforts both inside Haiti and out, a serious overhaul of the reconstruction system is long overdue, but unlikely. The continued neglect of the Haitian state has been the major reason why this cannot be done. At this point in time, a strong Haitian state is the last thing the major donors or politicians like Martelly want, as it would provide oversight and enforce contracts that become bothersome when you are looking to make a quick profit. Instead of helping to rebuild the Haitian institutions like the judiciary, they were bypassed and now face a near impossible task in ensuring integrity and transparency.

Haiti’s failed reconstruction is a clear signal that NGOs cannot replace the state, and that any attempt to do otherwise is destructive and dangerous. The reconstruction effort in Haiti has increased the dependency of the Haitian people through undemocratic and non-transparent projects that serve to entrench the ideals of privatized governance, reduce the role of the state, and free the mobility of both foreign capital and people, while nearly half a million Haitian people stay trapped in the IDP camps. Vast amounts of aid money, which could go to support Haitian grassroots organizations or the Cuban medical missions, are siphoned back to the United States or alternatively spent on expenses for temporary, foreign NGO staffers. Without a doubt, the Haitian people deserve better, yet their oppression continues a pattern that has historically generated profits for the rich, either through slavery, cheap labour, debt bondage, or now as a laboratory for NGO-led development—a politically correct term for money laundering.

Baraka announced as new Associate Fellow

IPS has announced, Ajamu Baraka (Chair of the Board of Directors of LACCC) as its newest associate fellow for the Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) program.

Baraka joins Washington’s first progressive multi-issue think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) has served as a policy and research resource for visionary social justice movements for over four decades — from the anti-war and civil rights movements in the 1960s to the peace and global justice movements of the last decade. IPS scholars have included such luminaries as Arthur Waskow, Gar Alperovitz, Saul Landau, Bob Moses, Rita Mae Brown, Barbara Ehrenreich, Roger Wilkins and Orlando Letelier.

The Foreign Policy In Focus program, publishes commentaries, briefs, and reports on its website www.fpif.org and organizes briefings for the public, media, lawmakers, and legislative staff. Staff and other FPIF experts also write for newspapers, magazines, and other online publications and author books on foreign policy and international affairs. FPIF experts speak frequently on television and radio programs and are often quoted by print and online journalists.

TELESUR–Un vocero de la alta comisionada de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, Navi Pillay, afirmó que deploran “el violento acto criminal que costó la vida” del joven chileno Daniel Zamudio de 24 años, tras haber sido brutalmente golpeado.

UPSIDEDOWNWORLD.ORG–“¡Agua sí! ¡Oro no! ¡Agua sí! ¡Oro no!” [Water yes! Gold no!] The chant vibrated through the thin Andean air as a regional demonstration against the Conga Gold Mine Project took place last Thursday to honor World Water Day. Thousands of residents of Cajamarca, Peru, gathered at the Laguna Azul, one of many high-altitude lakes on the proposed Conga Mine site, in effort to protect their water resources from exploitation and contamination.

“We are not asking for something that is not ours. The water in this lagoon and below it has fed our people for many centuries and Conga is going to take that away from us,” said Avelardo Escobar Huaman, a resident of El Tambo, Cajamarca. “The gold mine is going to destroy our springs and water sources. Here, we are mainly farmers. How will we grow our crops and feed our animals without water?”

Once it begins, the $4.8 billion Conga Project, a joint venture between U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corporation and Peruvian company Mina Buenaventura, will become the largest investment in Peru’s history and the second largest gold mine in the world. The open pit mine would affect between 3,000-16,000 hectares of fragile mountaintop wetlands including numerous lakes, rivers and marshes that supply the region’s drinking water.

Currently, the gold mine is on hold while international consultants review the environmental impact study which approved the Conga project in 2010. As the nation awaits the results, Cajamarca residents have been continuously demonstrating against the mine, organizing rallies and marches, sometimes more than twice a week in cities like Cajamarca and Celendin.

On Thursday, during the World Water Day gathering, police in riot gear watched the peaceful demonstration from a distance. Local farmers chewed coca leaves as speakers from various organizations and environmental groups took turns rallying up the crowd.

A demonstration that took place last November turned tragic when armed forces tear-gassed and fired upon protesters, resulting in 17 injuries. Standing before graphic photographs of bruised limbs and bullet wounds from the incident, Ana Bueno Abanto, director of La Casa de las Lagunas, clenched a handful of soil and asked the audience to remember the violence.

“Rifles have been used against people that have tried to defend this land that I hold here in my hand,” she said. “This land, our land, was disrespected on that day of violence and no matter how many metals and precious minerals are beneath this land, we as a community will always protect it and make sure it is respected.”

Reanalyzing a Controversial Study

In response to the civil unrest, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala declared a 60-day state of emergency in Cajamarca and increased military presence in the region. Shortly after, Newmont halted work on the Conga site and proposed an external review of the environmental impact study that originally gave the project a green light.

Following Newmont’s suggestion, the Peruvian government appointed three consultants from Spain and Portugal last month to review the study and gave them 40 days to present their findings. Results will be publicized in April, but Cajamarca Regional Vice President César Aliaga Díaz said he has little confidence in the outcome.

“Here in Cajamarca, few people take this review seriously,” Díaz said. “The study did not have any methodology or serious scientific approach. It’s so bad that we simply need to throw it out and make a new one. Reviewing this ten-thousand page study in forty days cannot possibly work.”

Díaz also pointed out the environmental impact study was approved by Felipe Ramirez del Pino, general director of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, who previously held high-level positions in Newmont projects from 2006 to 2009.

Regardless of the perceived flaws with the study, Peru’s national government has been pushing the project forward without heeding the region’s complaints. In October, Cajamarca’s Regional President Gregorio Santos joined the opposition against Conga by calling on a general strike. Then Santos’ government passed Regional Ordinance 036 on Dec. 5, 2011. The ordinance protects land on the proposed mining site from development and is presently being challenged in court for its constitutionality.

With its new anti-mining stance, Díaz said Cajamarca’s regional government has come under national scrutiny, both from the media and from politicians in Lima, but Díaz said his government is simply “listening to the voice of the people: Conga will not go.” He insists Cajamarca residents are fed up with foreign mining companies exploiting their resources, polluting their water and, all the while, exporting the majority of the profits.

Digging in Social Discontent

Anti-mining sentiment has been growing in the region ever since Newmont opened its Yanacocha gold mine just outside Cajamarca in 1993. The mine promised to increase employment and improve living standards for Cajamarcan residents, but few locals were hired by Yanacocha and many became frustrated as they watched foreigners and Peruvians from different regions get high-paying positions.

“When Yanacocha opened, most Cajamarcan residents saw little change in their lives,” said Aldo Santos Aries, regional coordinator for Servicios Educativos Rurales. “The main change was that they had less access to clean water because of the mine’s intensive use of the region’s water resources.”

“The Conga project is technically an expansion of Yanacocha mine,” he continued. “And aside from Yanacocha employees and businesses related to the project, few people in Cajamarca have been happy to have the mine here. They want to see Newmont leave, not expand.”

For the past two decades, Yanacocha sparked both a mining boom and a population boom in the region. According to the regional health service’s study, “Cajamarca:  Analysis of the Health Situation 2010,” Cajamarca’s urban population grew by 45.9 percent between 1993 and 2007.

Seemingly overnight, a region that was traditionally centered around agriculture changed into a major mining district. According to the same health study, 45.5 percent of the land in Cajamarca was owned by mining companies in 2010.

Cajamarcan activist, priest and politician Marco Arana Zegarra writes in his essay, “Water and Mining in Cajamarca: Defending the Right to Water” [Agua y Mineria en Cajamarca - Defendiendo El Derecho al Agua], that the mining industry has spurred impressive economic growth in Cajamarca, but due to lack of regulation, low taxes and low labor costs, the region remains one of the world’s cheapest areas to extract gold.  The cost of gold production in Yanacocha costs an average $110 US per oz. and is sold on the market for about $500 US per oz.

From 1996 to 2000, some of the mine’s most productive years, Arana also writes that the amount of chronically malnourished children in the region increased from 38.7 percent to 42.8 percent with over 75 percent of the population living in poverty.

During the same period, the Cajamarca region experienced a loss of fresh water trout and half its native bird species. Cases of stomach cancer also increased among rural populations. Various environmental studies have suggested the new ailments may be caused by heavy metal waste from mining activities.

Fragile Environment, Limited Water Sources

According to Laura Lucio, engineer for the Group of Formation and Intervention for Sustainable Development (GRUFIDES) environmental organization in Cajamarca, Conga’s main threat revolves around the fragile ecosystems and access to potable water. The Conga mine estimates it will use more than two million cubic meters of fresh water a year, drying five lakes in the process and drastically reducing the water sources in the region.

“The main problem is the terrain. We are talking about high altitude wetlands and marshes, with subterranean waters very close to the surface,” Lucio said. “The area is not made for mining activities. As they dig into the ground, they will have to continuously extract the subterranean waters which supply the whole region’s drinking water.”

In response to the concerns, the Conga project claims it will include four reservoirs, three of which will be constructed to supply potable water for the population’s consumption.

“Basically, our water is being foreign-owned and privatized right before our eyes. Without boundaries, the mine will have the full power over potable water,” Lucio said.

Another environmental dilemma is the risk of groundwater contamination. Water treatment plants will be built on the Conga site, but according to “Conga Mine, Peru: Comments on the Environmental Impact Assessment and Related Issues,” an independent study by Dr. Robert Moran, these plants will not be sufficient to handle the amount of contaminated water being produced by mining operations.

“If the Conga project must pump 379 liters per second, that implies treating roughly 1.4 Million liters per hour, which far exceeds the capacity of the treatment plant,” Moran wrote. “Clearly the proposed plant could not treat all of this water, nor would it be treated to chemical quality suitable for human consumption of aquatic life purposes.”

“In the United States it would not be legally allowable to approve the operating permits for a site requiring perpetual water treatment,” he continues.

A Handful of Water

At the conclusion of Thursday’s World Water Day gathering, protesters walked to shores of Laguna Azul, cupped the water in their hands, and drank it down. Speakers rallied up the crowd, vowing for a long fight to protect their land and water from another gold mining operations, and then, finally, the protest ended as it had begun, with the singing of the Tinkari band’s, “¡Agua sí! ¡Oro no!”

“El Oro en estas Lagunas, ya lo quieren explotar. Nosotros Cajamarquinos no lo vamos a dejar.”
[The gold in these lakes, they want to exploit it. We the Cajamarcans, we aren’t going to leave it.”]

TELESUR–El presidente de Bolivia, Evo Morales, advirtió que el capitalismo busca generar convulsiones internas en la región para apropiarse de recursos naturales como el petróleo para poder pagar sus deudas y manifestó que podría cerrar la embajada de Estados Unidos (EE.UU.) en La Paz, si la sede diplomática sigue molestando a su país.

Durante una reunión celebrada el sábado en Cochabamba (centro) con dirigentes del Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), Morales advirtió que “no tengo ningún miedo. Si otra vez la embajada de Estados Unidos sigue molestanto a Bolivia como está haciendo ahora, que mejor cerramos la embajada en Bolivia porque somos antiimperialistas, anticapitalistas y antineoliberales”.

Destacó que los países capitalistas tratan de pagar sus enormes deudas con la apropiación del petróleo y el invento de la lucha contra el terrorismo y el narcotráfico, para la creación de una revuelta interna planificada desde el exterior.

El mandatario añadió que algunos Gobiernos derechistas se suman a acciones de carácter conspirativo contra procesos de cambio, algo que no sólo sucede en Bolivia, sino que también se presenta en Ecuador y otras naciones con presidentes surgidos de los movimientos sociales.

En tal sentido, exhortó a militantes del MAS a evitar los fraccionamientos para enfrentar esos problemas y resaltó que es preciso fijar políticas estructurales y sociales para profundizar el cambio en el marco de la lucha contra el capitalismo.

En 2008 el Gobierno de la nación suramericana expulsó al entonces embajador estadounidense Philip Goldberg, por ser “un experto en dirigir conflictos separatistas y de conspirar para buscar la división de Bolivia”. La medida tuvo una reacción recíproca y Estados Unidos ordenó la salida del representante boliviano en Washington.

El pasado 28 de febrero Bolivia y Estados Unidos acordaron restablecer embajadores en sus respectivos países y consolidaron una alianza antidrogas bajo el principio de respeto a la soberanía.

En su alocución, Morales también se hizo referencia a sectores de extrema derecha de Bolivia quienes, a su juicio, no tienen una propuesta política, democrática, estructural o social porque se adhieren a los conflictos que se presentan en algunas regiones o sectores para dañar al Gobierno.

“Cuando se trata de molestar al Gobierno, al Evo, cuando un problema se presenta todos se suman ahí (…) cuando se presenta un problema de límites toda la derecha está ahí para magnificar se meten ahí, profundizar y enfrentar entre compañeros”, agregó.

Por otra parte, lamentó que algunos medios de comunicación representen a la derecha pero aseveró que no les teme y precisó que ante la situación en algún momento pensó en presentar un programa radial para decir la verdad y revertir la mentira.

AL JEZEERA–Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has swept to victory in his party’s primary in Puerto Rico, bolstering his position as front-runner in the race to determine who will face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

With 31 per cent of the ballots counted on Sunday, Romney had about 83 per cent of the vote, according to Puerto Rico’s electoral commission. Rick Santorum was in second place with just over 8 per cent. Newt Gingrich was third with about 2 per cent.

With more than a majority of the vote, Romney looked likely to win all 20 of the delegates up for grabs.

“There are only 20 per cent of the votes in and yet CNN has called it for me,” Romney told a rally in Vernon Hills, Illinois.

“Apparently the reason they were able to make the call was that, with only 20 percent in, 83 per cent of the people of Puerto Rico, those who voted, voted for me. So that’s a pretty good start. So I intend to become our nominee and I intend to get Latino voters to vote Republican and take back the White House. We’re going to get that job done,” he said.

Romney has a big lead in support from party delegates, whose backing is needed to win the nomination. But he faces a growing challenge from Santorum in Illinois, which holds its primary contest on Tuesday (March 21), in the months-long fight to win the 1,144 delegates needed to seal the Republican nomination.

‘Flawed’ and unpopular

The former Massachusetts governor and multimillionaire, who accumulated his fortune buying and selling troubled business ventures, has proven singularly unable to win the hearts of the base of the Republican party – an increasingly conservative bloc of voters who distrust Romney for his moderate past positions on important social issues like abortion and gay rights.

As the day began, Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, claimed he was in the contest for the long haul because Romney is a weak front-runner even though he comfortably leads in the fight for delegates to the nominating convention.

Santorum campaigned on Sunday in the southern state of Louisiana, which holds its primary on Saturday.

“This is a primary process where somebody had a huge advantage, huge money advantage, huge advantage of establishment support and he hasn’t been able to close the deal and even come close to closing the deal,” Santorum said of Romney. “That tells you that there’s a real flaw there.”

Romney is on pace to capture the nomination in June unless Santorum or Gingrich is able to win decisively in the coming contests.

Both Santorum and Romney campaigned last week in Puerto Rico, the US commonwealth island in the Caribbean island, where residents are US citizens but cannot vote in the November presidential election.

Romney secured the endorsement of Puerto Rico govenor Luis Fortuno and other leading politicians.

Santorum hurt himself with statements that English would have to be the official language if the US territory were to seek statehood.

Room to race

The former speaker of the House of Representatives has focused his campaign in the Deep South of the United States, but even at that he finished second to Santorum in Mississippi and Alabama.

Santorum wants Gingrich to leave the race, a move that would allow Santorum to consolidate the conservative opposition against Romney.

Both Santorum and Gingrich have said they would stay in the race and perhaps force the nomination to a fight at the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida, if Romney does not amass enough delegates to arrive with a mandate.

Santorum hopes that a strong showing in the remaining state contests would enable him to claim a mandate and persuade delegates to ignore election results in their states and go with him as the more conservative option over Romney.

But there is a hitch, and that is Gingrich’s refusal to quit the race even though he has only won primaries in South Carolina and Georgia, which he represented in Congress for two decades.

Romney’s aides call this a fantasy scenario even as they try to prevent delegates from defecting.

Trading barbs

As Puerto Rico voted, Romney and Santorum traded barbs from afar on national TV news programmes and at campaign events.

“Sen. Santorum has the same economic lightweight background the president has,” Romney told a crowd in Moline, Illinois.

That drew a Santorum retort: “If Mitt Romney’s an economic heavyweight, we’re in trouble.”

Aside from a pair of TV interviews, Santorum spent the day visiting a pair of churches in Louisiana, sharing how his faith has shaped his political career and his opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage.

He did not mention Romney or any of his other Republican opponents during talks at both churches.

He made clear he did not plan to exit the race anytime soon, saying in Bossier City, Louisiana, “One of the great blessings I’ve had in every political campaign is people underestimate me, people underestimate what God can do.”

AP–ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — One of the world’s largest oil refineries will close next month, the company announced Wednesday, stunning nearly 2,000 workers and threatening to upend the reeling economy of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Industry analysts said the closure is unlikely to have a major effect on the global oil market, but Gov. John de Jongh described the loss of the territory’s largest private employer as “a complete body blow” for the U.S. territory of about 108,000 people.

He said Hovensa generated a minimum of $60 million a year in revenue for the government, which recently laid of hundreds of public workers due to a budget crisis.

“Given what we’re going through right now, this is the last bit of news that I wanted to hear,” he said in a teleconference with reporters.

Losses at Hovensa, a joint venture of U.S.-based Hess Corp. andVenezuela’s state-owned oil company, have totaled $1.3 billion over the past three years and were projected to continue due to reduced demand caused by the global economic slowdown and increased refining capacity in emerging markets, said Brian K. Lever, president and chief operating officer of Hovensa LLC.

“We deeply regret the closure of the Hovensa refinery and the impact on our dedicated people,” Lever said in a statement. “We explored all available options to avoid this outcome, but severe financial losses left us with no other choice.”

Hess announced in New York that it will take a $525 million after-tax charge against its fourth-quarter 2011 earnings due to the shutdown.

The refinery employs about 1,200 people in St. Croix in addition to approximately 950 contractors, according to Hovensa spokesman David Roznowski. About 100 people, including contractors, will work at the oil storage terminal, the company said.

The refinery, founded in the 1960s, has been producing about 350,000 barrels per day during the rough economic climate. It relies on oil for fuel while competitors on the U.S. mainland use less expensive natural gas.

Hovensa was the third largest U.S. refinery before it cuts its capacity of 500,000 barrels by 30 percent last year. It is now the eighth largest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The refinery dominates the southern coast of St. Croix, where hundreds of workers live in company-built neighborhoods.

Speaking in hushed tones during a shift change at Hovensa on Wednesday, dozens of workers wondered where they would go after the refinery is converted to an oil storage terminal.

“This is all I know,” said a worker who had been with the plant for more than 30 years. “I don’t know what I am going to do now.”

Like others, he declined to be identified for fear of angering managers who will allocate the few remaining jobs.

The company’s website says it is still one of the 10 largest oil refineries in the world, but the closure is not expected to have a major effect on the oil industry because it had not been operating at full capacity, said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst for Oppenheimer & Co.

Hess benefits because it had been hemorrhaging money through the refinery, he said.

The closure reflects a three-year trend across the U.S. of refineries closing because of the global financial crisis, a drop in gasoline consumption and a shift in growth elsewhere, Gheit said.

“They cannot compete with the modern refineries being built in India, China and the Middle East,” he said.

Despite the closure, the U.S. remains Venezuela’s largest customer, and Venezuela is still among the top four suppliers of crude oil to the U.S., he said.

Alejandra Leon, a Latin America oil analyst for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based IHS CERA, said that in 2010, PDVSA reported the Hovensa refinery processed 389,000 barrels a day, of which 227,000 barrels a day were supplied by Venezuela. She said it wasn’t clear where the remainder came from.

She said there is an excess of refining capacity globally, so Hovensa’s closure ”is helping to rebalance the market.”

Hovensa spokesman Alex Moorehead said the refinery equipment will shut down by mid-February, but that the company will continue to provide fuel oil to the island’s Water and Power Authority through end of June.

Local Sen. Terrence Nelson said the announcement “is a blow in the gut,” and suggested the territory might need assistance from the federal government.

Nelson accused Hovensa of violating a long-term agreement with the government to continue refinery operations on the island. Nelson said it is unclear what Hovensa will need to do to compensate the government for breaching the agreement.

“It’s devastating,” Senator Sammuel Sanes said. “It was something I suspected was going to happen, but of course it took me by surprise. On a personal level it affects many people in my family. I have many in my family working for Hovensa.”

De Jongh said he called an emergency meeting to talk about ways to offset the economic damage.

He warned that local fuel prices will likely rise while the government looks for other suppliers and said officials are asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ease sulfur content restrictions so they can quickly contract a new supplier. The Energy Information Administration reported last year that the refinery accounted for 85 percent of the territory’s petroleum products.

De Jongh said he will also ask Hovensa officials if they are interested in selling the facility.

“I cannot afford to have an asset of that size sitting there,” he said.

In January, Hovensa entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department in which the company agreed to invest $700 million on pollution controls after a series of chemical releases affected people living downwind from the refinery. Hovensa also agreed to pay a $5.4 million penalty for violating the Clean Air Act.

It is unclear how the agreement will be affected by the closure.

EPA spokeswoman Mary Mears said the agency and the U.S. Department of Justice are still talking with Hovensa officials about how the closure will affect the consent decree. She said the company already paid the penalty.

___

Associated Press writer Ian James contributed to this report from Caracas, Venezuela.