When asked about his personal motivation behind a lifelong involvement in social justice issues, Mike McBane, Coordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC), thinks back to his days working for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Mike was mentored by activist bishops who were at one point criticized by “Bay Street tycoons” for taking sides on economic issues. Mikes recalls that “the Bishops would respond with, on y croit ou on n’y croit pas, meaning either you believe in an ethical position – in this case, the priority of labour over capital – or you don’t. They felt that there were circumstances when not taking a side in a conflict that involves injustice and oppression is, in effect, taking a side – the side of the status quo, which can benefit the oppressor.”

This mentoring in social justice served Mike well when he began working with the CHC in 1995. At the core of the CHC’s mission is defending the human dignity of the sick, the frail elderly, and society’s most vulnerable, an idea codified in the ethics of the Canada Health Act. Access to care must be based on need, not ability to pay. Health care is not a commodity to be bought and sold. In 2011, the CHC concentrated on two major initiatives. The first was a pre-election primer that analyzed the growing cost in the health care system and proposed well-researched, evidence-based solutions such as the implementation of a national Pharmacare program.

In his ground-breaking study, The Economic Case for Universal Pharmacare, Dr. Marc-Andre Gagnon writes “the rational implementation of universal Pharmacare would not only make access to medicines more equitable in Canada and improve health outcomes, but it will also generate savings for all Canadians of up to $10.7 billion” from the public purse and people’s wallets. Last year, the CHC also organized a major conference, strategy workshop, and meetings on Parliament Hill with participation from health care activists, including those on the front line of delivery.

The conference “Secure the Future of Medicare: A Call to Care,” included a powerful keynote speech by former Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanov and was followed by over one hundred meetings with politicians of every stripe, urging them to endorse a strong federal role in the enforcement of the Canada Health Act. To paraphrase Mike’s mentors, you either believe in the principles and values of the Canada Health Act, or you don’t. Sometimes, social justice means taking sides. – Source: www.interpares.ca

Pippa Curwen, director of Burma Relief Centre (BRC) – “Working for social justice to me means working to oppose oppression and exploitation by any group of people over another,” she explained. “In Burma we work with marginalised communities, particularly women, to oppose the systematic denial of their rights and the exploitation of local natural resources by the country’s military elite, which is leading to increased militarization and human rights abuses, forcible displacement, loss of livelihoods, and environmental destruction.”

BRC has supported community-based organizations working in the areas of health case, women’s rights, human rights and the environment, local media, community development and food relief since 1988. It has long-term relationships with community groups working to address local social justice issues. For over two decades we have worked together towards a vision of sustainable peace in Burma. While projects such as oil and gas pipelines, hydro-electric dams, and mining operations have the potential to benefit the people of Burma, current practices result in environmental destruction, human rights abuses, increased militarization, and little to no material benefit for local communities. BRC works with organizations that conduct research and produce educational material about the impact of these projects.

The Pa-Oh Youth Organization (PYO) is one such organization; PYO researches the impacts of Burma’s largest coal mine and coal-fired power plant, both of which are next to Burma’s famous Inle Lake. The mine and plant are not only polluting waterways, but also threatening the health of local populations and displacing villages. Each day the plant produces 100-150 tons of toxic fly ash, and the open-pit mine extracts up to two thousand tons of lignite, the most polluting of coals. About 10 percent of the plant’s power will be used in a giant open-pit iron ore mine at nearby Mount Pinpet. Excavation for the iron mine will displace 7,000 people and completely destroy the mountain.

In 2011, PYO launched Poison Clouds, a report which documents these impacts, and began hosting public workshops on the report findings. This work is slowly paying off, as mining companies and local authorities have begun to consider local concerns. BRC will continue to accompany communities as they seek ways to oppose oppression and exploitation currently inherent in these projects, while promoting their own vision of a peaceful and sustainable community. – Source: www.interpares.ca

By Raúl Zibechi – The petroleum issue: According the British daily, The Guardian, Americans seem to be “prisoners of another era” in their relations with the region and the world. Obama should listen to voices in his own country, like the director of WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America), Geoff Thale, who claimed that “this Summit was a reminder, a call to attention, that the traditional way of doing business vis-à-vis the region is eroding away.” This had been the preferred strategy of George W. Bush in the face of the failure of the FTAA. After Cartagena, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton embarked to Brasilia- where she wasn’t able to have a private meeting with Dilma – and met with Graça Foster, President of Petrobas. Clinton expressed that the hydrocarbon sector was her principal interest in relations with Brazil, since the United States is seeking to increase their participation in the exploitation of offshore oil.

“I’m delighted to meet with the President of Petrobas to discuss the fabulous future that Brazil has thanks to their oil reserves,” said Clinton while pointing out her “great interest” in establishing a free trade agreement with Brazil. Perhaps because of that interest Clinton avoided to declare her position on the nationalization of 51% of YPF by the government of Cristina Fernandez, to the distaste of Mariano Rajoy. Here lies an action taken at the intersection of two developments. The first is the discovery of enormous shale gas reserves in Vaca Muerta (located in the Argentine Patagonia) which amounts to the equivalent of more than 22 billion barrels of oil.

This makes Argentina the country with the third highest amount of non-conventional hydrocarbons. The second is that there will not be a shortage of emerging countries that want to participate in the exploitation of those areas; for example, Petrobas, the Russian oil company Gazprom, and above all, Chinese companies. Third, according to the Financial Times, the second Chinese oil company, Sinopec, was interested in buying Repsol’s YPF share for $15 billion.

But the main sign of real geopolitical shifting is in those who can invest, and, therefore, flex political muscle in the region. China just reported that in the first three months of 2012, their direct foreign investment grew a mind-boggling 94.5% from 2011. The Asian Giant now has strong oil investments in Brazil, where Sinopec purchased 40% of Repsol in 2012 and 30% of Petrogal in 2012, where there are now $15 billion invested by the Chinese in petroleum. Further, China has countless oil investments in Venezuela which is reorienting its exports from the United States to China.

A power in trouble: Nobody really knows the path that the White House is going to take in its relations with Latin America. What was discovered in the Sixth Summit of the Americas is that it no longer exercises a leadership role in the region. Not even its closest allies, like Colombia, share its drug war policy anymore. And really, President Santos defended the inclusion of Cuba in the Summit of the Americas as much as he advocated for a new discussion about the War on Drugs when he inaugurated the summit. We should remember that the War on Drugs came to substitute communism as the main enemy to fight. But when this policy has failed, there aren’t any new enemies that justify achieving consensus in the region.

To make matters worse for the US, the overlying perception is that the United States promotes militarization, while the emerging power, Brazil, practices a kind of “very sophisticated” diplomacy, according to Professor Riordan Roett of Johns Hopkins University and author of “The New Brazil.” In contrast to other emerging countries, “Brazil doesn’t have a single border conflict,” which allows an ascension without much opposition. In the coming years things can get even worse for the declining power. In the opinion of the European Laboratory for Political Anticipation, a think tank close to François Hollande, his election as president will accelerate the geopolitical transitions that we have seen since 2008. This analysis holds that the five years of Nikolas Sarkozy’s administration were characterized by “a subordination without recent precedent in the country’s history to the dominant power of the United States.” It goes further: it assures that the only period in which there was a similar abandonment of national sovereignty was during the Vichy Regime when France was controlled by Nazi Germany.

With the triumph of Hollande, two facts will come to pass that will have a serious repercussion on Latin America: France’s adoption of a policy of European independence as a “strategic priority” and its warming up to emerging countries in order to establish a Europe-BRICS alliance. This alliance is advancing rapidly. Brazil and China have an important agreement of space cooperation. India and Brazil are forming a strategic alliance in their defense industries for the cooperation in the production of combat planes and submarines. France has strategic agreements with India and Brazil to lease technology that both need for their military industries.

© 2012 Raul Zibechi is an international political analyst from the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, a professor & researcher on grassroots movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to many grassroots groups. He writes the monthly “Zibechi Report” for the Americas Program.

Editor’s Note – Disponible en Español aqui:

http://www.cipamericas.org/es/archives/6796

By Raúl Zibechi – Dilma Rousseff interrupted the speech of Barack Obama. The President of the United States was speaking about the advances of various countries in Latin America, commenting that now there exists “a prosperous middle class” that represents a business opportunity for companies from his country. “Suddenly, they are interested in buying iPads, interested in buying planes from Boeing.” “Or Embraer,” interjected Dilma, yielding applause. Days before the President of Brazil had been upstaged in Washington by a children’s Easter celebration, which was more publicized than her visit to the White House.

“That little photo opportunity had more visibility than the visit of the President of the sixth largest economy in the world,” complained the Brazilian press, contrasting Dilma’s reception with those of the presidents of China, Russia, and India. What stood out most from the Summit in Cartagena were the blunders and gossip material. Shakira made mistakes in several verses of the Colombian national anthem. Twelve members of Obama’s Secret Service had to return beforehand due to a scandal with prostitutes whom the bodyguards refused to pay. “It is the worst scandal in the history of the Secret Service,” wrote the Washington Post.

The Last Summit? The history of the Summit of the Americas is as brief as it is significant. The first was proposed by Bill Clinton and took place in December 1994, in Miami. The climate was dominated by the Washington Consensus, in which the region dutifully followed White House principles, which used the platform to launch the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). The derailing came with the fourth summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in November of 2005, when the United States couldn’t impose the FTAA due the refusal of Mercosur and Venezuela. The fifth summit, which took place in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009, was merely procedural since the presidency of Obama had just only begun.

The sixth summit was something else. First, the region is not divided-it is united. It is united against the discrimination against Cuba, against the drug war, and in favor the decolonization of the Malvinas Islands. Second, the region showed that it is now mature enough to walk on its own, without the “interference” of the United States and Canada. Third, the United States is isolated and very few countries continue to follow it: only Mexico and Chile, but each with very low profiles. The absences of Rafael Correa, Hugo Chavez, and Daniel Ortega made less noise than the early exits of Cristina Fernandez and Evo Morales.

But the most notorious was the departure of Dilma Rousseff who suspended her appointment with host Juan Manuel Santos for “scheduling reasons.” The Colombian President rushed to tell anyone who would listen that the summit “wasn’t a failure.” The main change that explains the shift is the taking-off of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC by its Spanish initials) formed in February of 2010. The creation of this organization, one without the United States and Canada, which had been in the works for a time, began to take shape months after the notable failure of the Organization of American States in resolving the crisis provoked by the coup d’état in Honduras in June of 2009.

The Declaration of Cancun, signed upon the creation of CELAC, pointed to the necessity of “deepening the political, economic, social and cultural integration of our region,” defending “multilateralism,” promoting regional integration and the creation of a new financial architecture, including the possibility of making payments in national currencies and evaluating the creation of a common currency.

Obama’s solitude: A report from Reuters emphasized that the President of the United States “left the summit alone” highlighting “the continual decrease of Washington’s influence in a region that has become less dependent on commerce and investments from the United States, thanks to rates of economic growth that are the envy of the developing world and new opportunities from their relations with China.”

The report mentions the crisis of the OAS, now that it is seen as an instrument of United States Cold War policy and maintains that the countries of the region are pushing for “a rebellion against the United States.” What’s more, the report maintains that the summit in Cartagena represented “a diplomatic victory for Havana.” And it’s not only the exclusion of Havana that is unsustainable. The War on Drugs, which has been Washington’s key policy in the region since the fall of the Berlin Wall, is being questioned by almost every single country. Obama was forced to contest Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina’s proposal for decriminalizing drug consumption, regulating their production and sale, and hardening the penalties for traffickers.

A recent study by the International Institute of Strategic Studies based in London maintains that the War on Drugs has a “threat for international security” that should force us to search for new alternatives. Their paper titled Drugs, Insecurity, and Failed States: The Problems of Prohibition, examines the policies centered on the prohibition of drugs during the last four decades and concludes that they have not impeded the production, the trafficking, or the consumption of drugs, but that they have caused an increase in violence and instability in the world. “Prohibition has failed to reduce the global consumption of drugs and has incidentally gifted a billion dollar business to organized crime syndicates” said Nigel Inkster, director of Transnational Threats and Political Risks of the prestigious Center for British Studies and coauthor of the study along with researcher Virginia Comolli.

The pressure against drug trafficking shifted the areas of production and led the traffickers to look for new routes that had been previously unexplored, causing areas of instability to steadily increase. That is the reason why an “urgent global debate” to study all of the possible alternatives to the current prohibition regime, including legalization and decriminalization, is being solicited. Greg Grandin, Professor of Latin American History at New York University, said that “the principal pillars of American foreign policy (promoting neoliberalism and increasing militarization through drug policy) are still standing, and have created a crisis in the corridor that runs from Colombia, passes through Central America, and stretches up to Mexico.”

Even though many recognize that the antidrug policy has been a disaster- even President Santos of Colombia is asking for changes- Obama insisted in rejecting the legalization policy that the other countries suggested. When Dilma asked for “relations among equals” recalling that “in the past, asymmetrical relationships between the North and the South have been responsible for very negative processes,” she was interpreting the feelings of the majority of the presidents. Without an alternative policy and having lost the role as Latin America’s most important market, the United States has to think about how the CELAC has begun to substitute the OAS as a forum to debate and resolve the problems of the region.

© 2012 Raul Zibechi is an international political analyst from the weekly Brecha de Montevideo, a professor & researcher on grassroots movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina, and adviser to many grassroots groups. He writes the monthly “Zibechi Report” for the Americas Program at CIP Americas.

Editor’s Note: Disponible en Español aqui:

http://www.cipamericas.org/es/archives/6796

By Raúl Zibechi – After the recent sixth Summit of the Americas there remains little doubt that the Latin American region has changed. It stopped being the back-yard of a decadent empire that has very little to offer save military bases & threatening fleets. The double failure of the United States, by Barack Obama in Cartagena and by Hillary Clinton the following week in Brasilia, shows the lack of constructive proposals for the region. As Dilma Rousseff pointed out, countries of the region demand “relations among equals,” which was interpreted by some analysts as “a rebellion against the United States.” The summit’s principal consequence is proof of US isolation and the non-existence of policies capable of attracting the region jointly as happened until the middle of the 1990s. I find five reasons for the deterioration of Washington’s relations with the entire continent, which anticipate the new scenario in formation.

The first is the double failure of the drug war & the embargo of Cuba. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Washington had to fabricate an enemy to continue forcing the militarization of international relations. Illegal drug trafficking fulfilled that function for a while, despite never being credible because it did not include a reduction of consumption in northern countries, the big consumers of illegal drugs. Now the war against drugs lost the battle for legitimacy. The International Institute of Strategic Studies just launched a study in which it affirms that it not only failed in combating consumption and trafficking, but also the war against drugs “has created an important threat to international security.” Was that not perhaps the desired objective?

The second is the end of the OAS’ time and the consolidation of Unasur (Union of South American Nations) and Celac (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), both of which exclude the United States and Canada and adjust to the new global reality. Following the already marked tendency by Unasur since 2009, Celac is rapidly becoming the organism capable of resolving the region’s problems and of tracing the direction of its sovereignty before the extra-continental powers. It can be discussed whether that is the type of integration that the Latin American peoples need, but there is no room for doubt that, whatever the path they elect, they are excluding the old property owners from the back yard.

In third place, the United States no longer is the principal trade associate of the region’s principal countries, particularly of South America, and its decreasing internal market no longer has the attraction of old nor is it in any condition to capture Latin American exports. The tendency is that China and the Asia group substitute for the role that the United States had from the beginning of the 20th Century until the 2008 crisis as the decisive trade and political ally. Until 2005, the United States purchased 1.5 million barrels per day from Venezuela, a number that fell in 2011 to less than one million. To the contrary, Venezuelan exports to China, which were almost non-existent in 2005, climbed to almost a half million barrels per day in 2011. The tendency is that one market substitutes for the other.

The United States and the European Union, in fourth place, are on the way to being displaced as the principal investors in Latin America. China is the principal investor in Venezuela, the first world reserve for oil, third for bauxite, fourth reserve for gold, in sixth position in natural gas and tenth reserve of iron in the world. China also has strong investments in Argentina & Brazil, the two largest South American economies. The second Chinese oil company, Sinopec, was interested in buying a part of Repsol in YPF for 15 billion dollars before the nationalization decided by the government of Cristina Fernández. Now it can expand its investments in Argentina, where it is responsible for 6 percent of the offer of crude and for 1.7 percent of gas.

The region also has endogenous capabilities for investment. The best example is the announcement of the investment of 16 billion dollars by three Brazilian companies (Petrobras, Odebrecht and Braskem) in Peru, to extract gas in Camisea, to construct a gas duct of more than a thousand kilometers toward the south and a petrochemical pole in the port city of Ilo, the first on the Pacific Coast. In fifth place, the United States no longer is the region’s only military ally. Venezuela maintains a solid alliance with Russia, Brazil has co-operation agreements with India in aeronautics and with China in the space industry. But the most notable is the progressive integration of the region’s military industries, in other words the coupling of the South American countries with the growing Brazilian military industry.

The most notable case is the strategic alliance between Brazil and Argentina, which translates into joint development of protection, a military carrier that will substitute for the Hercules, the development of air-to-air missiles that Brazil worked on with South Africa, and unmanned planes for border vigilance. Both countries form a critical mass capable of trumping the rest to set up a regional military industry autonomous from the north.

The victory of the socialist François Hollande in the French elections “will activate a series of strategic changes” that accelerate the geopolitical transitions underway, according to what the European Laboratory of Political Anticipation estimates. One of the principal turns will be the formation of a Europe-BRICS strategic alliance. In some way, this alliance already started with the 2009 France-Brazil military agreement to construct submarines/war planes. The region’s autonomization can have unexpected allies.

© 2012 http://upsidedownworld.org

Translation by Chiapas Support Committee

By Jonathan Glennie – Civil society groups play a vital role in tackling inequality in South America, yet aid money tends to support government strategies.“Instead of following the Paris prescription, aid money should be used to support non-government initiatives. Governments have the money they need (and if they don’t, they should raise taxes on the wealthy); it is the critics of government, those with alternative visions or representing different interests, who need to be protected and promoted.”

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has spent the past couple of years articulating a message of support for civil society as a vital part of the development process, with a special focus on women’s rights, to complement America’s traditional concentration on the role of the private sector. Her focus on “people-to-people” diplomacy has been described as “post-modern” by the China Daily, and may be one of her lasting legacies. South America is the latest continent to hear this message. At the recent Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Clinton told civil society representatives they are needed “more than ever” to respond to the region’s social and ethnic inequalities.

She is right. As more and more Latin countries take off economically (HSBC bank predicts Peru will be the 26th largest economy in the world by 2050), lack of money is by no means the main problem for most, if it ever was. The problem is the terrible distribution of wealth. As in any country, the role of civil society and trade unions will be central to the battle for greater fairness. It is, in one sense, an odd message to be emanating from the US. Latin Americans will take a long time to forget the way perceived threats to US economic interests have been brutally put down in the past, with not the slightest concern for the welfare of civil society movements.

But the US focus on democracy and civil rights is real, however hypocritical. Global civil society may find America to be one of its greatest allies in future years, especially as other major powers like China and Russia don’t even give a rhetorical nod towards such freedoms. A big problem for attempts by civil society in Latin America to play a strong part in the future of regional politics is funding. A new Civicus report says civil society groups in developing countries depend on international aid for 80% of their budgets, based on survey evidence. This dependence may not be ideal, and it can lead to a range of contradictions and complications, but – in the face of entrenched elites who have historically managed their countries’ resources for the benefit of the few rather than the many – it is nevertheless the reality.

With little tradition of public citizen funding of NGOs, non-international funds would need to come from the private sector, government, or high net worth individuals. Civil society will increasingly need to explore these options, but none bodes well for a strong and independent civil society. The gradual retreat of international aid from Latin America will do nothing to help support this vital third sector of the development system. The EU has just announced it will end bilateral aid to 11 Latin American countries by 2014. The UK has already done so, and Spain, one of the region’s major development partners, has savaged its aid budget due to economic implosion at home – in 2011, it was 33% lower than in 2010.

In a context of diminishing quantities, it is all the more important that remaining aid is directed where it is really needed. Unfortunately, regional aid policies are strongly influenced by a well-known – but in this case misguided – philosophy of aid effectiveness known as the Paris agenda. The main thrust of this agenda is that more and more money should support government development strategies & be aligned to government systems. In many countries (predominantly high-aid countries, according to our latest categorisation) this is a sensible stricture, after years of aid that has undermined state development. But Latin America is a low-aid continent: almost all its countries are very low-aid countries (that is, they receive less – usually far less – than 1% of their gross national income in aid). End aid tomorrow and, after a little budget shifting, most Latin American governments would hardly flinch.

Civil society, however, would be decimated. The problems have already started, with vital civil society movements from the Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego struggling to raise money to fund their advocacy and accompaniment work. Without them, vulnerable communities, both urban and rural, will be less likely to achieve their fair share of the overall economic pot, or resist threats to their wellbeing. Instead of following the Paris prescription, aid money should be used to support non-government initiatives. Governments have the money they need (and if they don’t, they should raise taxes on the wealthy); it is the critics of government, those with alternative visions or representing different interests, who need to be protected and promoted.

Money is not everything, and reduced international funding may well also have some positive benefits such as stronger domestic leadership and fewer donor fads. But it is essential for effective campaigning and agenda-leadership. Without urgent reassessment, the Paris agenda is in danger of doing serious harm in Latin America and other low-aid countries.

2012 © http://www.guardian.co.uk

By Chris Cook – “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” Winston Churchill’s rhetoric in 1936 is as relevant now, as the “Iran Six” nations prepare to meet Iran in Istanbul later this week, as it was then. (The “Iran Six” or P5+1 are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States – plus Germany.) I believe that this meeting, through the consequences which will flow from it during the following months, has the potential to shape history. Unlike most observers, I am optimistic as to the outcome.

The prize: “While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies” ~ Dick Cheney, Halliburton chief executive officer, Institute of Petroleum, London 1999. When Cheney came to power as US vice president in 2001, he was able to act to secure the oil prize, based on his belief that a peak in oil production was imminent. The first act was the campaign to liberate Iraq’s oil, and the demonstration of the sheer scale of US arms and fire-power had a salutary effect on recalcitrant nations generally and on the potential nuclear troublemakers, Libya and Iran in particular.

Libya’s capitulation was sufficient for Muammar Gaddafi to be able to remain in power for a few more years, while Iran immediately ceased all work on nuclear weapons and offered-via the Swiss-everything the US was looking for, short of regime change. Pragmatists such as then secretary of state Colin Powell, who considered that this olive branch should be accepted, were over-ridden: the neo-conservatives were riding high, flushed with success: real men go to Tehran! The ill-prepared and catastrophically badly managed US occupation of Iraq rapidly bogged down, and the realization that Iran was instrumental in the Iraqi resistance led to the gradual ramping up of the Iranian “nuclear threat” as a casus belli. But in 2007, the world changed.

Currency wars: By 2007, the sheer scale of US dollar liabilities to China led to the opening of a new front. I believe that at this point-in the same way that the US, as principal creditor, vetoed further British adventurism at Suez in 1956-the Chinese called a halt to US adventurism by using an economic veto – i.e. mutually assured economic destruction. I believe that energy security is a red line issue for China as much as for the US, and China was prepared to pull the plug on the US economy unless they pulled out of Iraq, and refrain from attacking Iran. We have entered into a new era of policy and diplomacy as a result: an era of currency wars. The US and Israel have in my view been warned off any physical attack on Iran or other significant oil producers without the consent of China and are therefore restricted to sanctions … and this is where it gets interesting.

Oil sanctions are a completely dumb policy, which Beijing has not been unhappy to see because they enhance China’s bargaining power and potentially enable it and other consumer nations to buy discounted oil from Iran to fill their reserves. Threats by the US to apply sanctions to China and the other BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa) are in my view a bluff. Financial sanctions are another matter, and it is true to say they have been instrumental in motivating Iran to come to the table. But these sanctions, which have now extended to persuading the craven Belgian domiciled SWIFT bank messaging system to throw out Iranian banks generally and the central bank in particular, will have unintended consequences with far-reaching effects.

Iran-a window of opportunity: Whereas in the West power is exercised through the banking system, in the developing world it is exercised by those who control resources, and particularly valuable and saleable energy resources like oil and gas. What we have seen in Iran may be viewed as an ongoing struggle for control of oil and gas resources during the privatization process, with close parallels to the oligarchic struggle that took place after the end of the Cold War in Russia. Since the election of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in 2005, we have seen an ongoing power struggle that culminated in April 2011 with an attempt to take control of the crucial Intelligence Ministry. At that point, key players in the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (aka Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC) and elsewhere sided with the present leadership, and a political battle was then left to play out during the approach to the recent Iranian parliamentary elections. Although these elections were dismissed outside Iran, they were instrumental in conferring legitimacy on the winning faction. Once it was clear that the Ahmadinejad faction had been soundly defeated, action has followed swiftly by a leadership more confident than it has been for years.

An overture was made within days to the P5+1 to restart negotiations, and key ministers have been given much more freedom of action free from obstructionism, too often based upon personal vendettas and rent-seeking. The nuclear element of the offer made by Iran in 2003 is possibly now back on the table. Former ambassador Hossein Mousavian, who was Iran’s nuclear negotiator at the time, supported this view recently in a US article. I also believe that for his part President Barack Obama has-unlike President George W Bush in 2003-ruled out military action aimed at regime change. The question is whether the demands by the P5+1 will be politically acceptable to Iran, and things are not looking good so far, if one listens to the spin from the US and European Union in relation to demands for closing down and even dismantling the underground nuclear facility at Fordow, near Qom. The key questions are what common ground there is among the members of the P5+1 and whose view will be dominant?

US & EU strategy: My analysis is that the Obama administration’s strategy is to negotiate a politically advantageous settlement with Iran in the months leading up to the November election, and to manage down the oil market price as the Iran “risk premium” leaks away. This market management would be achieved through continuation of the macro-market manipulation of the crude oil price orchestrated since 2009 between JPMorgan Chase and the Saudis (with fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council-Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates). This has been achieved through the facilitation by JPMorgan of Enron-style “pre-pay” financing of Saudi crude oil inventory funded by risk averse “inflation hedging” passive investment.

The result of such a strategy would be a “win/win” prior to the November election. The first “win” would be for Obama to have largely resolved an issue that cost President Jimmy Carter re-election. The second “win” would be a managed pre-election reduction in the politically sensitive US gasoline price to below US$2.50 per gallon. Obama’s opposition has nothing remotely resembling a credible policy to achieve this. France, Germany and the United Kingdom will probably take a harsh line in an attempt to be “holier than the pope”, whether through grandstanding prior to an election (France); an imaginary “special relationship” with the US (UK), or a generally pro-Israeli line (Germany).

Russia and China: On the face of it, Russia has-like all producers-a short-term interest in prolonging the risk premium on oil as long as possible, but no medium- or long-term interest in oil price levels that act to destroy demand, as now, particularly in their closest markets. China, on the other hand, would wish to see the end of sanctions and the risk premium which goes with them, and also to maintain the privileged access to Iranian oil that they have been assiduously cultivating for years. My analysis is that Russia and China will be inclined to accept the sort of Iranian terms set out by Mousavian, and more to the point, they have the economic clout to back up their position.

“How many divisions has the pope?” ~ Joseph Stalin / Or in this context, how many barrels has the Group of 7 leading industrialized nations? This is the question that exemplifies realpolitik at its most brutal. The fact is that the oil sanctions imposed unilaterally by the US and EU on Iran are counter-productive, and they benefit those who do not participate. In the event of a disagreement at Istanbul or subsequently, China, India, South Africa and others will undoubtedly buy, at a price, every barrel Iran can sell. But it is through over-reaching in relation to financial sanctions where the US may well have made a major strategic error. At the very time when the banking system is in crisis, the last thing the US should be doing is forcing a major oil producer like Iran to make alternative arrangements. A secure messaging system-which is all that SWIFT actually comprises-is actually pretty trivial to replicate, and all it needs is participants, which may or may not be banks, that are looking to clear and settle obligations.

When the BRICS nations met late last month in New Delhi, at the top of their agenda was a BRICS bank. There is no reason at all why such a credit institution need pay heed to US sanctions in respect of Iran because, quite simply, the US needs the BRICS more than the BRICS need the US. In fact, there’s no reason why it needs to be a bank at all, as opposed to a BRICS credit clearing network or clearing union. I suspect we are now entering a period of consequences … unforeseen consequences.

About: Chris Cook is a former director of the International Petroleum Exchange. He is now a strategic market consultant, entrepreneur and commentator.

© 2012

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By Danilo Valladares – “We want land where we can live and grow food to feed ourselves,” said Pedro Ichich, one of several thousand indigenous farmers who marched to the Guatemalan capital to demand solutions to the age-old conflict over land. The government of right-wing President Otto Pérez Molina met with representatives of the demonstrators this week, and they are now waiting to see what will happen.

Ichich, his wife and five children jointed the protesters on the 214-km march that started out on Mar. 19 from Cobán, in the northern province of Alta Verapaz, and reached Guatemala City eight days later, where they gathered outside the seat of government. “We want to be where we used to live, where the blood of our compañeros was shed,” said Ichich, whose family was among the campesinos or peasant farmers who were violently evicted by police and soldiers on Mar. 15, 2011 from land in Polochic valley in Alta Verapaz, which sugarcane growers claim as their own. Three campesinos were killed during the forced eviction of some 3,000 Q’eqchi Maya Indians.

“They left us in the street, with just the clothes on our back,” Ichich told IPS. “The police, the military and the sugar company’s private security destroyed our crops. Since then we haven’t had any work, and we have to ask people to let us spend the night on their property. So we are asking the government to do something.” Chanting slogans like “water and land can’t be sold” and “No to evictions”, around 5,000 native campesinos from different parts of the country reached the Plaza de la Constitución in the centre of the capital on Tuesday Mar. 27. The meeting between a delegation of protesters and Pérez Molina stretched from Tuesday evening into the early hours of Wednesday morning.

“The ball is in their court,” Daniel Pascual, a leader of the Comité de Unidad Campesina (CUC – Committee for Campesino Unity), the small farmers’ association that organised the march, told IPS. “The agrarian issue and hunger have become a focus of national debate in these nine days. I don’t think the president can ignore this problem.” Pascual said the protesters presented Pérez Molina with a list of more than 50 demands with regard to the land problem. But they agreed to put a priority on eight issues.

These urgent questions include the demand for a subsidy equivalent to 39 million dollars to help campesinos pay their debts on land; land for the displaced communities in Polochic valley; a moratorium on mining activity; and the removal of military bases from areas experiencing social conflicts, he said. “It’s not that we’re giving up on the rest of the issues, it’s just that this is the first set of questions that we are putting a priority on, to facilitate a response by the government,” Pascual said. Other demands are a halt to evictions from rural property and the cancellation of operating permits for hydroelectric plants.

Pérez Molina & the rural leaders agreed to meet again on Apr. 19 to work out the details of the eight agreements on the top priority issues and review the mechanisms to be put in place to address the rest of the demands. Before meeting with the president, the campesinos met with legislators who want to pass a law on integral rural development, which organisations of small farmers see as crucial to giving them access to land. They also met with representatives of the judiciary, to ask judges to take an impartial stance when it comes to issuing eviction orders. In Guatemala, the gap between the rich minority and the poor majority is one of the largest in the world. And in the countryside, the growing agribusiness sector is increasingly coming into conflict with indigenous communities, who are fighting for their right to land to grow subsistence crops.

A full 80 percent of farmland is in the hands of just five percent of the country’s 14 million people, while half of the population lives in poverty and 17 percent in extreme poverty, according to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) figures. The campesino groups are now waiting for the authorities to live up to their promise to address the situation, although the outlook is not encouraging. “Experience shows that the post-agreement stage is generally long and exhausting, with the campesino movement making a huge effort and the state failing to comply in the end,” Eugenio Incer, an activist with the Association for the Advance of Social Sciences in Guatemala (AVANCSO), told IPS.

He said that in this situation, there is a clash of two different visions of how to build the country, in social, political and cultural terms.“On one hand, the communities want the capacity to make decisions on what is happening in their territories, and they want legal frameworks like (International Labour Organisation) Convention 169 on the rights of indigenous people to be enforced,” he said. “On the other hand is the Guatemalan state’s deeply-rooted vision of not living up to these legal frameworks and facilitating the operation of economic activities that the communities are not necessarily asking for, such as mining, oil drilling, and extensive monoculture,” he said.

Incer said the debate should take place at the national level. Otherwise, “we will have serious environmental sustainability problems in 50 years, because the level of damage caused to water and forests is severe. We have to see how to achieve a national pact to keep poverty levels and inequality from continuing to grow,” he said. Other activists expressed doubts as well. Melvin Picón with the Manuel Tot Council of Peoples of Tezulutlán told IPS that the government’s economic policies are “incoherent” and fail to take into account that the country is considered one of the most vulnerable to climate change in the world.

“Despite this, the large-scale exploitation of our natural resources continues, and we are going to suffer the consequences,” he said. Picón said “the local communities and all of us who are engaged in this struggle are more than willing to take to the streets again and demand justice for the country’s indigenous people.” According to official statistics, indigenous people comprise close to 40 percent of Guatemala’s population of 14 million, although native organisations put the proportion at over 60 percent.

© 2012 Upside Down World

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By Cyril Mychalejko – A new report reveals the Canadian mining industrial complex’s responsibility for social discord and environmentally-destructive policies in Chile’s Patagonia region. “Far away, on the southern cone of South America in Chilean Patagonia, exists one of the most beautiful, still-virgin territories on Earth. There, an intense struggle is taking place that most Canadians have never heard of, but that intimately involves the Canadian mining industry, the Canadian government, and millions of Canadian pensioners and investors,” notes The Council of Canadians’ chairperson Maude Barlow in the report’s introduction. The report, Chilean Patagonia in the Balance: Dams, Mines and the Canadian Connection, asserts that Canada’s mining industry, which leads the world in mining investment and with more than half of its assets in Latin America, accounts for 33 percent of electricity demand in Chile while advantageously exercising enormous influence in setting government policy there.

The report focuses on the Aysén region, which has seen protests and social discord since the announcement that a hydroelectric “development” plan would move forward last May. The project will potentially affect 12 of Aysén’s major rivers and involve five dams on the Baker and Pascua Rivers. The project, which also includes the construction of power lines from the Aysén region to Santiago, will cause the “deforestation of 23,000 hectares, and six national parks” and damage to “11 national reserves,” reported The Guardian. The environmental non-profit International Rivers has also indicated that the project would forcibly displace many families, would flood many of the area’s best agricultural and ranching lands, and would endanger rare animal species.

The report states: “Transelec, the only transmission company currently operating in Chile that is even remotely capable of building HidroAysén’s link to energy markets, is owned by a Canadian consortium led by Brookfield Asset Management, with partnership from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and another public sector investor, the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation. Canadian capital is instrumental in making HidroAysén and projects like it both attractive and possible.”

As many as 50,000 protesters marched in opposition to the project in May 2011, while the national daily La Tercera reported that 74 percent of Chileans oppose the project. The HidroAysén dam project’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which was approved in May 9, 2011, has also come under fire. According to Chile’s Christian Democrat party Deputy Sergio Ojeda, chair of a congressional committee charged with investigating the EIA, it was riddled with flaws. “It appears that the HidroAysén project should not have been approved,” Ojeda told El Mercurio. “It is evident that the Environmental Impact Assessment suffers from a number of flaws that allow megaprojects like HidroAysén to not be evaluated with much rigor.”

Social movements in the region and nationally across Chile have remobilized with demonstrations and roadblocks last month to not only protest the project, but to demand reforms to address other social and infrastructure problems. “We have initiated a process of permanent and long-term demonstrations to trigger a change in the regional development that until now has focused essentially on the benefit of interests that do not belong to those who live in Aysén,” wrote leaders of various constituencies that make up the Social Movement for the Aysén Region in a letter to the government, as the Santiago Times reported. Protests were met with violence and repression, prompting Amnesty International to call for an investigation into reports of “an excessive use of [police] force, the unwarranted use of tear gas, the use of metal pellets and possible arbitrary arrests,” according to the BBC. Meanwhile, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera recently threatened to apply the country’s draconian anti-terrorism law toward protesters.

“By probing the links between Patagonian hydropower, electricity transmission, and the expanding mining sector, we hope to make Canadians stop and think about the implications of our shared investments abroad, and consider what obligations we might have to ensure that those investments are socially and ecologically sustainable,” states the Council of Canadians’ report. Socially and ecologically sustainable business practices is something Canada’s mining industry has had trouble upholding.

In July 2011 Greenpeace claimed that Barrick Gold’s operations in northern Chile along the border with Argentina are responsible for the significant shrinking of three small glaciers, which farmers in the region rely on. Barrick initially wanted to remove the glaciers, but widespread opposition due to obvious environmental concerns stopped the plan. However, the Center for Human Rights & the Environment, an NGO from Argentina, reported that local water supplies have been contaminated as a result of Barrick’s local projects.

“The media in Canada is fairly silent about protests happening in Chile, unless it ties into some other big news story. I’ve talked to some reporters that have admitted that they get so many stories about mining conflict that they barely even think that it qualifies as news anymore. It’s a great example of how cynicism promotes systemic injustice,” said Sakura Saunders, editor of www.ProtestBarrick.net a website that provides research/organizing information around mining issues. The site focuses on Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold.

The Council of Canadians’ report also notes that in 2010, “five assassinations resulted from conflicts around Canadian mining developments in El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.” Part of the problem, the report states, is the Canadian government’s “unwillingness to hold the Canadian extractive industry to basic environmental and human rights standards in its international operations.” A modest piece of legislation that would have empowered the federal government to investigate claims of human rights and environmental abuses and punish companies found guilty by withholding funding was rejected by Canadian legislators-even after receiving testimony that women were gang raped and tortured at a Canadian mine site in Papua New Guinea.

“We have to build a culture of resistance and awareness to these mining abuses. We have to reject these abuses in the strongest terms and demand action. We should investigate where our pensions and mutual funds are invested, and try to divest from mining companies such as Barrick and Goldcorp,” added Saunders. “We have to share the many resources out there (like videos, articles, and books) with our neighbors and friends, and not be fooled by companies’ promises for Corporate Social Responsibility.”

© Cyril Mychalejko 2012.

www.UpsideDownWorld.org

By Rosie Wong – With its muddy roads, humble huts, and constant military patrols, Bajo Aguán, Honduras feels a long way away from the slick polish of the recurring UN climate negotiations in the world’s capital cities. Yet the bloody struggle going on there strikes at the heart of global climate politics, illustrating how market schemes designed to “offset” carbon emissions play out when they encounter the complicated reality on the ground. Small farmers in this region have increasingly fallen under the thumb of large landholders like palm oil magnate Miguel Facussé, who has been accused by human rights groups of responsibility for the murder of numerous campesinos in Bajo Aguán since the 2009 coup. Yet Facussé’s company has been approved to receive international funds for carbon mitigation under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The contrast between the promise of “clean development” and this violent reality has made Bajo Aguán the subject of growing international attention – and a lightning rod for criticism of the CDM.

The Military Coup and Its Aftermath: In June 2009, a military coup in Honduras deposed the government of Manuel Zelaya, stymieing the government’s progressive social reforms and experiments with participatory democracy. “It was not only to expel President Zelaya,” says Juan Almendarez, a prominent Honduran environmental and humanitarian advocate. The coup happened “because the powerful people in Honduras were acting in response to the people’s struggles in Honduras.”

The result has been social decay and political repression. The homicide rate in Honduras has skyrocketed under the Porfirio Lobo regime, registering as the world’s highest in 2010. Human rights groups highlight the ongoing political assassinations of regime opponents. In this small country of 8 million people, 17 journalists have been killed since the coup. LGBTI organizers, indigenous rights activists, unionists, teachers, youth organizers, women’s advocates, and opposition politicians have also received death threats or been killed. Those responsible are rarely punished by the justice system, which instead devotes its energies to prosecuting social and human rights activists. Protests are often met with teargas canisters and live ammunition. The coup has also proved a setback for campesino activists seeking to halt the encroachment of large landowners on their farms.

The Struggle for Land in Bajo Aguán: Highly unequal land distribution has long been an issue in Honduras, and genuine land reform has been evasive. However, partial agrarian reform in 1961 made the rainforests of Bajo Aguán available for cooperatives of farmers who migrated there from other parts of the country. Clearing the forests to make the land suitable for farming was extremely difficult work, but the farmers’ perseverance turned it into one of the most desirable/fertile agricultural lands in the country. However, under pressure from international financial institutions, Honduras’s government passed the Law of Agricultural Modernization in 1994, allowing large producers to extend their territories beyond the maximum legal property limits. As a result, large landowners began to buy up the land of small farmers, effectively reversing whatever limited land reform had been achieved. The human costs were immense. According to Juan Chinchilla of the Unified Campesino Movement of Aguan (MUCA), “it forced masses of farmers to migrate to the cities and to the U.S. under terrible conditions.”

An older movement, the MCA (Campesino Movement of Aguan), has organized several dramatic acts of resistance to this dislocation. In May 2000, the collective orchestrated a remarkable mass occupation of a former U.S. military base on a large tract of arable land controlled by agro-industrialists. Coordinating with landless farmers from all over the country, the MCA organized 50 trucks and, early one morning, entered the former base and tore down its fences. This occupation continues today, despite threats and persecution. In 2008, MUCA occupied one of Miguel Facussé’s palm oil processing plants and subsequently entered into negotiations with then-President Zelaya to have occupied lands legally transferred to small farmers. When the coup occurred and jeopardized these hard-won gains, landless farmers mobilized against it, with MUCA officials travelling to the Nicaraguan border to meet Zelaya on his second attempt to return to Honduras. It was there that MUCA decided to organize a mass land occupation starting on December 9, 2009.

But despite this resistance, aggressive landholders buoyed by the coup have continued their onslaught against the farmers of Bajo Aguán. According to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, 42 farmers were assassinated between September 2009 and October 2011 in Honduras. More recent reports have the numbers in the 50s by 2011. In one surprisingly brazen incident in November 2010, after five farmers were killed in El Tumbador, Facussé gave a press statement acknowledging that it was his hired security guards who were responsible.

A community member from the Marañones settlement in Bajo Aguán described an eviction of small farmers from the Guanchía cooperative on 8 January 2010, carried out by a contingent of 500 police and soldiers with teargas and guns: “It was a violent eviction where they had nothing legal to show us; the first greetings they gave us were the weapons. They began to shoot at us, to capture and beat our compañeros. There were captured children, nine of them compañeras were raped; our homes were destroyed, our food – they took part of it and destroyed the other parts.” Almost every farmer I interviewed said that it was unsafe to leave their settlements. The countryside is dotted with military checkpoints, and farmers have been killed travelling to or from their settlements. “The way we see it, it has become a crime to be a farmer here,” Heriberto Rodríguez of MUCA explained. There have been at least four military operations in the area since 2010.

Palm Oil and Power: Bajo Aguán’s small farmers are already under siege. But carbon trading with the global North could help to fuel in this aggression even further under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Set up under the current UN climate treaty, the CDM is supposed to encourage “clean” technology in the South and to provide Northern actors with the most efficient (i.e., cheapest) way to reduce global pollution. The basic equation is simple: a project in the global South that ostensibly reduces carbon emissions generates carbon credits.

These credits can then be bought and sold by companies in the global North, who can use them to meet government requirements to reduce pollution without actually reducing emissions in their factories or power plants. Dinant, Facusse´s palm oil company, has set up one of these projects. In the past, the company’s palm oil mill pumped its waste into large open pits, a process that produces large quantities of methane. Dinant’s project involves capturing this greenhouse gas and using it to power the mill. The project’s blueprint claims that it will reduce pollution in two ways: first, by not letting the methane from open pits escape straight into the atmosphere, and second, by preventing pollution from burning the fossil fuels that were formerly used to power the mill.

Dinant’s approval is obviously problematic for a number of reasons. First, with the expanding palm oil industry contributing to massive deforestation in sensitive tropical regions, it’s ironic that Dinant would be rewarded for environmentally sound practices. Moreover, its CDM approval essentially endorses a business model of producing palm oil for export-instead of food for local consumption-in a country where one in four children suffers chronic malnutrition. As Heriberto Rodríguez argued, “We don’t need palm oil here. We need what we can eat.” Finally, if Wikileaks cables detailing some of Facussé’s more unsavory dealings-including but not limited to his potential links to drug traffickers (to say nothing of his documented violence against local farmers) – are any indication, Facussé’s misdeeds are no secret to the North. And yet one CDM board member told a journalist that “we are not investigators of crimes” and that there is “not much scope” to reject the project under CDM rules.

As rights groups have brought these problems to light, Northern companies associated with the project have pulled out one by one, including a consultant that contributed to the project application, the German government bank that had agreed to give a loan to Dinant, and the French electricity company that had agreed to buy the credits. This has left Miguel Facussé and Dinant out on a limb. However, the struggle to stop European carbon market money from flowing to Bajo Aguán is not finished: the CDM board has re-approved the project, and the British government has not withdrawn its support, which means that new buyers could still appear.

Not for Sale: At an international human rights conference held in Bajo Aguan in February, MUCA signed an agreement with the Lobo regime that included a financing plan for the farmers to pay the large landholders for occupied land. But critics say that even if the government can be trusted (itself a questionable proposition), the crucial issues of assassinations and impunity were ignored. Facussé´s company, is now accusing farmers of new “invasions.” Needless to say, the situation in Bajo Aguán continues to be incredibly dangerous. Local rights groups have called for a Permanent Human Rights Observatory to witness, document, and discourage the ongoing violence against farmers in the region.

Although growing international condemnation has made it more difficult for Dinant to access carbon market money, the project remains officially sanctioned, and loans from international development banks have not been cancelled. Heriberto Rodríguez, speaking from his roadside hut in an Aguán settlement, had no doubt about the impact of this international support: “Whoever gives the finance to these companies also becomes complicit in all these deaths. If they cut these funds, the landholders will feel somewhat pressured to change their methods.” MUCA spokesperson Vitalino Alvarez rejects the idea of carbon trading projects altogether. “To get into these deals is like having [our land] mortgaged,” he said. “So to this we say no; this oxygen, we don’t sell it to anybody.”

About: Rosie Wong has accompanied the anti-coup movement in Honduras since 2009, visiting Honduras three times and doing organizing work in Sydney, Australia. Kylie Benton-Connell, currently based in Brazil, provided research support. © Rosie Wong, “Carbon Blood Money in Honduras” Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, March 2012.