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<div class="entry-date">Weekend Edition April 25-27, 2014<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/25/the-politics-of-pachamama/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/25/the-politics-of-pachamama/</a><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle"><big><big><b>Natural Resource Extraction
vs. Indigenous Rights and the Environment in Latin America</b></big></big></div>
<h1 class="article-title">The Politics of Pachamama</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle"><big><big>by BENJAMIN DANGL</big></big></div>
<div class="main-text"><big><big> </big></big>
<p style="text-align: left;"><big><big>When I sat down to an early
morning interview with Evo Morales over a decade ago in Cochabamba,
Bolivia, the then-coca farmer leader and dissident congressman was
drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice and ignoring the constant rings of
the landline phone at his union’s office. Just a few weeks before our
meeting, a nation-wide social movement demanded that Bolivia’s natural
gas reserves be put under state control. How the wealth underground
could benefit the poor majority above ground was on everybody’s mind.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<div><big><big></big></big><big><big>
</big></big>
<p><big><big>As far as his political ambitions were concerned in terms
of Bolivian natural gas, Morales wanted natural resources to “construct
a political instrument of liberation and unity for Latin America.” He
was widely considered a popular contender for the presidency, and was
clear that the indigenous politics he sought to mobilize as a leader
were tied to a vision of Bolivia recovering its natural wealth for
national development. “We, the indigenous people, after 500 years of
resistance, are retaking power. This retaking of power is oriented
towards the recovery of our own riches, our own natural
resources.” That was in 2003. Two years later he was elected Bolivia’s
first indigenous president.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Fast forward to March of this year. It was a sunny
Saturday morning in downtown La Paz, and street vendors were putting up
their stalls for the day alongside a rock band that was organizing a
small concert in a pedestrian walkway. I was meeting with Mama Nilda
Rojas, a leader of the dissident indigenous group CONAMAQ, a
confederation of Aymara and Quechua communities in the country. Rojas,
along with her colleagues and family, had been persecuted by the
Morales government in part for their activism against extractive
industries in the country. “The indigenous territories are in
resistance,” she explained, “because the open veins of Latin America
are still bleeding, still covering the earth with blood. This blood is
being taken away by all the extractive industries.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>While Morales saw the wealth underground as a tool for
liberation, Rojas saw the president as someone who was pressing forward
with extractive industries – in mining, oil and gas operations –
without concern for the environmental destruction and displacement of
rural communities they left in their wake.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big></div>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>How could Morales and Rojas be so at odds? Part of the
answer lies in the wider conflicts between the politics of extractivism
among countries led by leftist governments in Latin America, and the
politics of <i>Pachamama </i>(Mother Earth), and how indigenous
movements have resisted extractivism in defense of their rights, land
and the environment.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<div><big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Since the early 2000s a wave of leftist presidents were
elected in Latin America on platforms that included using the region’s
vast natural resource wealth to fund social programs, expand access to
healthcare and education, redistribute wealth, empower workers, fight
poverty, and build national economic sovereignty.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Within this shift, the state, rather than the private
sphere, has taken up a greater role in extraction to benefit wider
society, rather than to simply fill the pockets of a few CEOs of
multinational corporations, as had been the norm under neoliberal
governments. The environmental and social costs of extraction are still
present, but with a different economic vision. “Extractive activities
and the export of raw materials continue as before, but are now
justified with a progressive discourse,” <a
href="http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/4025"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.cipamericas.org']);"
target="_blank">explains</a> Puerto Rican environmental journalist
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>While many economies and citizens have benefitted from the
state’s larger involvement in the extraction of these resources,
extractivism under progressive governments, as it had under
neoliberalism, still displaces rural communities, poisons water
sources, kills the soil, and undermines indigenous territorial
autonomy. As Argentine sociologist analyst Maristella Svampa <a
href="http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/beyonddevelopment_resource.pdf"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','download','http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/beyonddevelopment_resource.pdf']);"
target="_blank">writes</a>, Latin American “progressivism’s practice
and policies ultimately correspond to a conventional and hegemonic idea
of development based on the idea of infinite progress and supposedly
inexhaustible natural resources.” Buoyed by the progressive discourse
and mandate of the Latin American left, this extractive trend has
produced alarming results across the region.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Following Argentina’s 2001-2002 crisis, the Nestor and
Cristina Kirchner presidencies have worked successfully to rehabilitate
Argentina’s economy, empower workers, and apply progressive economic
policy to make the country more sovereign; following years of
neoliberalism, where public services and state-owned enterprises were
privatized, the Kirchners have put various industries under state
control, and used new government revenues to fund social programs and
make the country less beholden to international lenders and
corporations.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>As a part of this shift, in 2012, the Argentine state
obtained 51% control of the hydrocarbon company YPF, which was
privatized in the 1990s. Last year, however, Argentina’s YPF signed a
deal with Chevron to expand natural gas fracking in the country,
operations set to proceed on Mapuche indigenous territory. In response,
indigenous communities to be affected by the fracking took over four
YPF oil rigs. “It’s not just the land they are taking,” Lautaro Nahuel,
of the Mapuche Confederation of Neuquén, explained to <i><a
href="http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/the_fracking_debate_moves_to_argentina/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.earthisland.org']);"
target="_blank">Earth Island Journal</a></i>. “All the natural life in
this region is interconnected. Here, they’ll affect the Neuquén River,
which is the river we drink out of.” Protests against YPF-Chevron
fracking plans are ongoing in the country.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica, who has garnered
international attention recently for his government’s legalization of
marijuana, abortion and same sex marriage, and his offer to host
released Guantanamo detainees, is moving forward with a deal with
Anglo-Swiss mining group Zamin Ferrous for a major open-pit mining
operation that would involve the extraction of 18 million tons of iron
ore from the country over the next 12-15 years. Aside from the mining
operation itself, the plan includes the construction of pipelines to
ship the ore inland to the country’s Atlantic coast. Critics have
pointed out that the plan would wreak havoc on the region’s
biodiversity and displace local farmers. In response to the plans, a
national movement is currently underway to organize a referendum to <a
href="http://uruguayciudadanossinmegamineria.org/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://uruguayciudadanossinmegamineria.org']);"
target="_blank">ban open pit mining</a> in Uruguay.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>While Brazil’s President Luiz Lula da Silva and his
successor Dilma Rousseff, both of the Workers’ Party, have helped
expand the middle class in the country, and initiated successful social
programs aimed at eliminating poverty and hunger, their administrations
have also presided over vast economy of extractivism that leaves no
place for small farmers or environmental concerns. Brazil is home the
largest mining industry in the region: in 2011 it extracted more than <a
href="http://www.alainet.org/active/63944/show_author.phtml?autor_apellido=Gudynas&autor_nombre=Eduardo+"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.alainet.org']);"
target="_blank">twice the amount</a> of minerals than all other South
American nations combined, and is the world’s largest producer of soy,
a GMO crop rapidly expanding across the continent with a mixture of
deadly pesticides that are killing the soil, poisoning water sources,
and pushing small farmers out of the countryside and into Latin
America’s urban slums.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has famously championed
the environment in his country, aiding with the passage of a 2008
constitution that gave rights to nature, and beginning an initiative in
2007 to keep the oil in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park in the ground.
In exchange for not drilling the oil in this area rich in biodiversity,
the plan called for international donors to contribute $3.6 billion
(half of the oil’s value) to the UN’s Development Program for global
programs in healthcare, education and other areas. Last August, with
only $13 million donated, and $116 million more pledged, Correa
announced that the initiative had failed, and that oil extraction would
proceed in Yasuní. In a televised address, the president said, “The
world has failed us.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Yet while Correa rightfully spoke of the obligations of
wealthier nations to contribute to solving the dilemmas of the global
climate crisis, at home he expanded the mining industry and
criminalized indigenous movements who protested extractive industries
in their territories. Under his administration, numerous indigenous
leaders organizing against mining, water privatization measures, and
hydrocarbon extraction have been jailed for their activism.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Criminalization of indigenous activists fighting against
mining in Peru has also become the norm for this mineral-rich nation.
Under the presidency of Ollanta Humala, mining has boomed, and with it
so have conflicts where local communities are fighting to defend land
and water rights.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In Bolivia, President Evo Morales has spoken widely of
respecting <i>Pachamama</i>, fighting against the world’s climate
crisis, and utilizing indigenous philosophies such as <i>Buen Vivir</i> (Living
Well) for living in harmony with the earth. His government has enacted
progressive policies in terms of creating more governmental revenue
through the state management of natural resource extraction, and using
that revenue for wage increases, national social programs in
healthcare, pensions, education and infrastructure development. The
Morales administration and his party, the Movement Toward Socialism
(MAS), has also pressed forward with constitutional changes and laws
that protect the environment, empower indigenous communities, and make
access to basic utilities and resources a right. Yet the rhetoric and
promise of many of these changes contradict the way MAS policies have
played out on the ground.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>The government has advocated for a plan to build a major
highway through the TIPNIS indigenous territory and national park.
Protests against the government plans galvanized a movement for
indigenous rights and environmentalism. In response, the government led
brutal repression against families marching in protest of the highway
in 2011. Government violence left 70 wounded; victims and their
families and allies are still searching for justice.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Most recently, the MAS promise of respecting Mother Earth
and indigenous and small farmer rights clashed against another of its
plans; the Mining Law, which was passed by the MAS-controlled congress
in late March, and was on its way to the Senate, when protests against
the law forced the government to suspend its passage pending more input
from critics. While private cooperativist mining groups, notorious for
their lack of concern for the environment and local communities
impacted by mining, protested the law because it did not grant them to
the right to sell their resources to foreign and private entities
without sufficient government oversight, other groups with different
demands have put forth their critiques. Separate from the cooperativist
miners, these farmer and indigenous movement critics are more concerned
with issues such as water access and the right to protest.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>The Mining Law gives the mining industry the right to use
public water for its water-intensive and toxic operation, while
disregarding the rights of rural and farming communities to that same
water. Furthermore, the law criminalizes protest against mining
operations, leaving those communities that would bear the brunt of the
industry’s pollution and displacement without any legal recourse to
defend their homes. In response to the law, a number of indigenous and
small farmer organizations have taken to the streets in protest.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>I spoke with CONAMAQ indigenous leader Mama Nilda Rojas of
her view of the Mining Law. “The Morales government has told us that it
‘will govern by listening to the bases, and that the laws will come
from the bottom-up.’” But this is not what happened with the Mining
Law, Rojas said, which was created without sufficient input from
representatives of communities impacted the most by mining. “This is a
law which criminalizes the right to protest. With this law we won’t be
able to build road blockades, we won’t be able to march [against mining
operations],” she explained. “We’re well aware that it was the same Evo
Morales who would participate in marches and road blockades [years
ago]. And so how is it that he is taking away this right to protest?”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>“This government has given a false discourse on an
international level, defending <i>Pachamama</i>, defending Mother
Earth,” Rojas explained, while the reality in Bolivia is quite a
different story.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Meanwhile, outside of Latin America, governments,
activists, and social movements are looking to places like Bolivia and
Ecuador as examples for overcoming capitalism and tackling climate
change. The model of Yasuní, and respecting the rights of nature can
and should have an impact outside of these countries, and wealthier
nations and their consumers and industries based in the global north
need to step up to the plate in terms of taking on the challenges of
the climate crisis.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>In many ways, much of Latin America’s left are major
improvements from their neoliberal predecessors, and have helped forge
an exciting path toward alternatives that have served as inspirations
across the world. Overall, they have brought countries out of the
shadow of the International Monetary Fund and US-backed dictatorships,
and toward a position of self-determination. For the sake of these new
directions, the neoliberal right hopefully will not regain power in the
region any time soon, and Washington will be unable to further meddle
in an increasingly independent Latin America.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>Yet as the march toward progress continues in its many
forms, and election years come and go, the losers of Latin America’s
new left are often the same as before – the dispossessed rural
communities and indigenous movements that helped pave the way to these
presidents’ elections in the first place. In the name of progress,
Mother Earth, <i>Buen Vivir</i>, and 21st century socialism, these
governments are helping to poison rivers and the land, and displace,
jail and kill anti-extraction activists. Solidarity that is blind to
this contradiction can do a disservice to various grassroots movements
struggling for a better world.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>If an alternative model is to succeed that truly places
quality of life and respect for the environment over raising the gross
domestic product and expanding consumerism, that puts sustainability
over dependency on the extraction of finite raw materials, that puts
the rights to small scale agriculture and indigenous territorial
autonomy ahead of mining and soy companies, it will likely come from
these grassroots movements. If this model is to transform the region’s
wider progressive trends, these spaces of dissent and debate in
indigenous, environmental and farmer movements need to be respected and
amplified, not crushed and silenced.</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big>“We are on our feet, marching against extractivism,” Rojas
said. “Mother Earth is tired.”</big></big></p>
<big><big></big></big></div>
<big><big></big></big>
<p><big><big><em><strong>Benjamin Dangl’s</strong> latest book<a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1849350159/counterpunchmaga"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.amazon.com']);"> Dancing
with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America</a> (AK
Press) is on contemporary Latin American social movements and their
relationships with the region’s new leftist governments. He is editor
of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and
UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin
America. Email BenDangl(at)gmail(dot)com.</em></big></big></p>
<big></big></div>
</font></font>
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