Root Force in Watsonville: Take Down the System

Campesin@s blockade construction, CFE murders organizers and EZLN threatens war

La Parota, a 765-megawatt hydroelectric dam slated for he Papagayo River in Guerrero, Mexico, is a classic infrastructure expansion project in all the worst ways. Ecological evastation, massive dislocation and cultural disruption, and the imprisonment and murder of those who resist—all so the wealthy can have more electricity.

The Papagayo flows southwest down through the biologically rich Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range, joining with the Omilán River and then continuing to the Pacific Ocean. La Parota—the construction of which is expected to cost the Mexican people US$800 million—would submerge 43,000 acres of forest and farmland along the river’s banks, displacing at least 25,000 mostly indigenous campesinas and campesinos (subsistence farmers) from the Communal Lands of Cacahuatepec.

Like all large dams, La Parota would decrease downstream water quality and dry out nearby watersheds. Furthermore, the loss of nutrient-filled water from upstream would degrade soil and increase its salinity. Fisheries would be destroyed, and the incidence of waterborne diseases such as malaria would likely increase. In addition, communities downstream of dams are at risk of catastrophic flooding should the dam spill over or burst—a particular concern with La Parota, which would be built above the San Andreas Fault.

While Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) is billing the dam as a source of green, renewable energy, such claims are absurd. Far from being renewable, sediment accumulation limits the electricity generating capacity of dams to 50-100 years. Meanwhile, large dams are significant contributors to global warming: As the tremendous biomass of a tropical forest decays beneath a reservoir, it gives off greenhouse
gases. Dams in tropical regions have been shown to produce anywhere from two to 40 times as much carbon dioxide as an equivalent coal-fired plant.

The plants and animals that cannot tolerate the environmental changes caused by the dam will be forced to relocate or die, just like the campesin@s. And while the CFE claims that it will provide dislocated farmers with new land, this land would be of poorer quality and in a different ecology. Most of the folks forced off of their land would actually end up in the cities, having lost the means to provide food and water for themselves, and forced to work in maquiladoras. Widespread depression and suicide have inevitably resulted from similar “relocations.”

The reason for this blatant genocide and ecocide? Electricity generated from La Parota would be incorporated into an international energy grid and used to power factory-centers, maquiladora (export-oriented sweatshop) corridors, tourist cities (such as Acapulco, 19 miles from the proposed site) and the southwestern US. Water from the reservoir would be diverted from downstream communities to Acapulco.

The CFE made no attempt to include the campesin@s in the decision-making process regarding La Parota. In July 2003, without giving notice or seeking permission, the commission simply sent in machinery to build two tunnels to divert the flow of the Papagayo. Farmers from surrounding communities responded with road blockades and encampments to keep CFE equipment out of the area. The ongoing roadblocks have been largely successful, and the CFE has been forced to pull out most of its equipment. In October 2003, protests against La Parota were staged in local communities and cities across Guerrero. In Chilpancingo, the state capital, the protesters were 30,000 strong. Their message was clear: “We are ready to die for the land.”

In June 2004, construction equipment was brought in by force, and police escorted engineers and laborers to the dam site. On July 27, undercover police and soldiers, who were monitoring one of the blockades, arrested and beat a leader in the struggle against La Parota, along with his sister. The following day, another organizer was arrested. They were released in August following an international support campaign.

That same month, locals banded together to form the Council of Ejidos and Communities in Opposition to La Parota Dam (CECOP), joining forces with the national Movement of Persons and Communities Affected by Dams and in Defense of Rivers (the ejido is a form of communal landholding established after the Mexican Revolution). Meanwhile, campesin@s and researchers from across Mexico challenged the CFE’s land expropriation in court.

Because of legal challenges and massive resistance, the building of La Parota has technically been suspended. However, the communities in the region are still living under a state of siege. By January 2007, six community members had already been murdered as a result of the struggle against the dam. Some locals believe that the CFE is paying people to assassinate key movement leaders. At the very least, it is dividing people and inciting them to harm one another. This ongoing internal strife is nearly as alarming to CECOP members as the threat of the dam.

The people directly opposing La Parota are facing intimidation, imprisonment and death. It seems that the CFE is only biding its time, waiting for the resistance to die down, so that the dam can go forward. Meanwhile, under the guise of “local improvements,” it continues to build the roads needed for construction.

On April 16, 2006, the Zapatista National Liberation Army upped the stakes in the struggle, threatening armed resistance in solidarity with CECOP. Speaking in Aguacaliente, Guerrero, Subcomandante Marcos said, “We bring a very simple message from... the indigenous commanders who represent the Zapatista communities in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.... In simple words, our commitment is that they will only be able to build this dam with a war in the Mexican Southeast.”

The privatization of nature is nothing new. Throughout the world, the powerful gain more power by dominating the Earth and its inhabitants, turning life into a commodity. The construction of La Parota would privatize the water that flows through the Papagayo River; the water that once gave life to the surrounding land, creatures and people would become a commodity for the powerful and their armies. The people who live with the Papagayo River are ready to die to protect it. What are we willing to do to bring an end to an empire of enslavement and murder?

Click here for those responsible

Just as the Plan Puebla Panamá (PPP) lays the foundations necessary for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and eventually the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the entire PPP hinges on San Salvador's Anillo Periferico highway. According to Action for Community and Ecology in the Rainforests of Central America, the Anillo Periférico is the "critical node around which... the entire PPP network (gravitates)".

The city of San Salvador, capital of El Salvador, occupies a critical position in American geography. The Central American isthmus is a bottleneck through which all commerce between South and North must pass. One of the simplest ways to move land cargo across Central America is the Panamerican highway, which passes right through San Salvador. Currently, such cargo loads must travel though the center of the city, leading to the kinds of delays familiar to anyone who has ever driven through a major urban center. Hence the plan for a highway bypass: the Anillo Periférico, or Peripheral Ring.

As a part of the PPP, the Anillo Periférico was initially conceived in 2001 as a project of the Salvadoran government, with the US$1 billion in funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). It would be 7 lanes wide, running a 44 mile (70 kilometer) circuit around the city. The government has promised that the highway would reduce traffic and gas use in the city as well as increasing the accessibly from one part of the city to another. This happy picture is a lie, of course, and as that lie became apparent, the government's plans quickly began to unravel.

The first problem with the story is that the Anillo Periférico, as planned, would not encircle the San Salvador metropolitan area; rather, it would circle the urban center, punching directly through densely populated communities at the city's outskirts. In the past few decades, hundreds of thousands of rural inhabitants have migrated to El Salvador's cities because of poverty and war; estimates suggest that up to one in three Salvadorans was displaced by the country's 12-year civil war. Now tens of thousands of these same families stand to be dislocated by the Anillo Periférico. Inhabitants of the communities that are not destroyed will be cut off from relatives in other villages and from the city center where many of them work. In fact, even a study by the government's Salvadoran Fund for Pre-Investment Studies predicted that the highway would actually make transportation into and out of the city more difficult.

But can't people just us the new highway to get around? In fact, the Anillo Periférico will have precisely zero benefit for those San Salvadorans without personal vehicles—more than 80 percent. Only one of the road's stated purposes is accurate: to transport maquiladora (sweatshop)-assembled goods through Central America to markets in the North and South. Those who stand to be affected by the highway agree; when surveyed, 93 percent could think of no personal benefit from the project.

It is not only the neighborhoods in the highway's path that stand to be harmed by its construction. El Salvador has already lost 95 percent of its total forest cover, making it the second most deforested country of the Americas. Yet 80,000 trees are to be clearcut in order to make way for the Anillo Periférico, some in protected ecological areas such as El Espino Reserve. This cutting is taking place on the slopes of the San Salvador Volcano, with a further 30 feet (10 meters) of soil to be excavated for construction. The communities on the volcano's slopes already live under constant threat of landslides, which are exacerbated by deforestation.

Trees and other vegetation hold soil together even in the torrential rains that visit the tropics every Summer; when this cover is removed, catastrophe results. In 1998, mudslides and floods accounted for the majority of the 18,000 deaths caused by Hurricane Mitch in central America; aerial surveys found that the vast majority of the slides occurred on deforested slopes, while very few occurred on slopes that retained their forest cover. Increased flooding and erosion also stand to degrade the aquifers that all life in the region depends on; deforested slopes are less absorbent--as is land covered in concrete--leading to a steady and inevitable depletion of the area's water recharge zones.

When the water is depleted from formerly humid soil, it is replaced by air pockets. Eventually, this pocket-filled soil settles. By Summer 2006, sinkholes had begun appearing throughout San Salvador, causing the collapse of buildings, bridges and roads. In September, the downtown center flooded for the first time in recorded history. Critics of the Anillo Periférico have linked these disasters directly to the ongoing construction.

Resistance to the Anillo Periférico has been fierce from the beginning. More than 39 communities have declared themselves opposed to the project and lodged complaints with the Ministry of Public Works (MOP). Many of these communities have banded together to form the Association of Communities Affected by the Anillo Periférico (ACAP), which has organized popular mobilizations against a variety of the national and international institutions pushing the project. In October 2002, El Salvador was paralyzed when 28,000 protesters against the Anillo Periférico blocked highways, bridges and border crossings nationwide.

The government and the IDB were quickly forced into damage-control mode. Originally, the highway was to be built in four major stages, with the completion date of 2012. In 2002, however- the same year that the eastern portion was supposed to be completed- the IDB cut funding for the project, handing it off to the less transparent Central American Economic Integration Bank (BCIE). Immediately, the IDB began to insist that the Anillo Periférico was no longer part of the PPP.

Work on the northeastern portion was completed in 2004. The revised construction schedule has the western portion slated for 2006-2008, the southern for 2010-2012, and the southeastern for 2013-2015. Roadwork on a connector road in the southern portion began in April 2004, and construction in the west began in September 2005. When road-building crews first arrived for work in the west, they were confronted by a blockade of machete-wielding protesters. Unfortunately, the crews managed to bypass the blockades and resume work.

Nonetheless, the bulk of the highway (70 percent) remains unbuilt, and resistance is still strong. The MOP appears to be leaving the most controversial sections of the highway for last, but these are also the weak links that can cause the "ring" to remain incomplete. A plethora of multinational companies are already up to their elbows in this project; strategic pressure from the North could still cause the whole thing to fail.

Click here for those responsible

Update 4/2007

Portions currently under construction:
• Expansion of Avenida Masferrer Norte and 75. Av. in San Antonio Abad (on slopes of San Salvador volcano)
• Expansion of Bulevar Diego de Holguin at Avenida Jerusalen

Note that some corporate or government officials may deny that these are part of the Anillo Periférico. However, the original project maps confirm that they are indeed a part of it, and San Salvador residents opposed to the highway consider them such.