From the Spring 2002 issue of WCCN's Sister
State Update
by Carlos Arenas, WCCN Executive Director
Plan Puebla-Panamá (PPP) is a set of transnational megaprojects
related to: commerce, roads, tourism, electrical interconnection,
telecommunications and environmental management. Mexican President
Vicente Fox first unveiled PPP on November 30, 2000. The announcement
was part of a very ambitious development plan for the South and
Southeastern Mexico that would extend through all of Central America,
as part of Fox’s vision to promote economic globalization in
the so-called Mesoamerica region. After Fox’s announcement,
multinational financial institutions gave their support, with the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) acting as the main catalyst.
Geographically, PPP will cover seven Mexican states and all Central
American countries, specifically focusing on the biological and
cultural corridor known as Mesoamerica. This includes the most isolated
areas of that region, where local communities have fostered and
protected its biodiversity for centuries against all kind of conquerors
- old and new.
According to the IDB, PPP's objective is "to empower the human
and ecological richness of the Meso-America region, as part of a
sustainable development that respects cultural and ethnic diversity"
. However, environmental organizations, such as ACERCA, have called
the PPP "a counter-insurgency plan against indigenous peoples
because of the land privatization where people believe in the collective
use of land, cooperation and autonomy within the state."
In the case of Nicaragua, PPP impinges on the Atlantic Coast, known
for its natural beauty and the cultural richness of its indigenous
and Afro-Nicaraguan communities. The Nicaraguan component of PPP
is of concern to these communities because PPP will promote the
construction of a transoceanic dry canal. According to ACERCA, "the
PPP proposes to link the trans-oceanic megaprojects with the development
of a north-south industrial and transportation structure."
A Rich and Strategic Frontier
The Mesoamerican region contains the main Mexican oil fields and
is one of the richest areas in biodiversity on the planet. After
September 11, 2001, the resources for some of the projects included
in PPP were affected by the economic crisis in the United States
and the economic uncertainty that ensued. Meanwhile, Mesoamerica's
strategic importance has increased since September 11. It seems
that the geopolitical objective is to extend economic globalization
to the border between Panama and Colombia, and to at the same time
to protect their richness against the deterioration of the political
situation in Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador.
There is a natural barrier between Panama and Colombia, known as
the Darien gap. It will be used as a natural break against any external
threat to this economic dream. This gap historically has been a
natural barrier that for centuries has blocked any kind of connection
between South and Central America. The growing armed conflict in
Colombia and the revolutionary political process in Venezuela, in
addition to the unresolved political crisis in Ecuador, have convinced
many U.S. strategists in Washington D.C. about the necessity to
isolate North and Central America from the currently unstable Andean
region. As a result, during the last several months the negotiation
of a new free trade agreement between the United States and Central
America countries progressed from being a remote idea to an issue
that apparently will be a reality in the coming months.
Owners and Administrators
According to the official line from PPP, indigenous and Afro communities
living in the Mesoamerican region are called to participate in this
grand development project. It is important to keep in mind that
those communities are currently owners of the land where they live,
maybe without legal titles that prove their ownership, but they
have been there for centuries. The main offer that makes to nations
and local communities is to become "administrators" -
not owners - of local resources. For Central American governments,
being an administrator means being able to implement their own projects
for welfare, tourism, commerce, roads, electricity, and telecommunications.
For local communities, being an administrator signifies a long-term
process of dispossession of their land and resources. This is because
under PPP the owners of those lands will be transnational investors.
Thus, the communities in Mesoamerica will become administrators
of someone else's environment and its biodiversity, but there will
be little chance for the communities themselves to be owners. this
is one of the main reasons behind the growing opposition to PPP.
A Land of Resistance
Hundreds of years ago, the peoples of the Mesoamerican region were
divided by the creation of nation-states. New borders affected the
communities, but those people found ways to adapt to the new realities
and to survive despite the new divisions. Thus the Mesoamerican
region has a long history of resistance to domination, defending
their cultural and ethnic heritage. Some of that resistance was
expressed in the 1980s with the resistance of the Miskitos in the
Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, which won the autonomous status of
that region. In the 1990s, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico
was the most important local struggle against economic globalization,
but it was not the only one; Mesoamerica is endowed with many dynamic
organizations committed to social justice.
Plan Puebla-Panama cannot advance without a minimal consensus of
the local communities. Those populations have been strengthenng
their interconnectedness - among themselves as well as with organizations
in the North. For example, last December in Managua some local organizations
and NGOs - such as La Red de Defensa del Consumidor (Network for
the Consumer Protection), the Centro Humbolt, and the University
of the Autonomous Region of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast (URACCAN)
- organized a press conference to make public their opposition to
PPP . Currently, PPP is on the agenda of many progressive organizations
in the U.S. working with Central America and, of course, it is on
WCCN’s agenda. WCCN will strive to promote a clear understanding
of PPP’s implications. As always, we will do so from the perspective
of the people - not the multinational corporations.
For more information about "Plan Puebla-Panama", visit
the following websites:
