The Ecologist, June 2001 www.theecologist.org

Sophie Style reports on the Mexican government's plan
to open its doors even further to multinational
corporations.

The Plan Puebla Panama, or PPP, is a vast project
intended to open up Central America to free trade. But
opposition to it is growing. It is the next stage in
the "globalisation" of Central America. It is
happening with little fanfare, but its implications
are huge.


On March 12th, Mexico's new president Vicente Fox
launched the Mexican chapter of the "Plan Puebla
Panama" - the latest step in the creation of a vast
"Free Trade Area of the Americas" - in other words,
the corporate colonisation of Latin America. The $8
billion mega-project that is the PPP will create a
"development corridor" from Mexico's central state,
Puebla, through six Central American countries down to
Panama. It is being promoted as the key to eliminating
poverty and bringing peace in the region. But behind
the official discourse lurks the bitter fruits of
corporate imperialism in an area of strategic
importance for the US export industry, and according
to Mexican analyst Carlos Fazio, the final stage of a
counter-insurgency plan to combat indigenous
resistance in the South-East.

Until recently, very little was known about the PPP.
It is based on a document designed under the previous
Mexican government, by Santiago Levy, sub-secretary of
the Treasury Department and advisor to the World Trade
Organisation and World Bank. It is this global lending
institution, together with the Inter-American
Development Bank, that is providing the key impetus
for the Plan.


Subsidising "free" trade

Of all the 181 countries which are indebted to the
World Bank, Mexico's debt is the largest; and the PPP
will increase it. As with most World Bank loans, the
primary focus of the loan Mexico has been given for
the PPP is the modernisation of infrastructure across
the nine less-industrialised states of the Mexican
southeast - effectively subsidising transnational
corporations and opening the way for further
privatisations. The Plan includes the expansion and
construction of motorways, ports, airports and railway
systems, to be completed by the end of Fox's six-year
term. This year alone, $420 million has been
designated for over 2,200 kilometres of motorways, and
work will begin on two hydroelectric dams in Guerrero,
a state that has already been the site of widespread
environmental destruction.

In the state of Chiapas, christened by Fox as the
"central axis" in his vision to integrate southern
Mexico with the neighbouring economies of Central
America, the spotlight is on derelict Puerto Madero.
The president (the ex-head of Coca-Cola in south
America) has been using his keen
marketing skills to woo US capital to invest in this
crumbling 25 year-old harbour and transform it into a
regional gateway - complete with industrial park and
free-trade zone for fisheries. The government claims
that these developments are needed to improve the
health and education services in indigenous
communities. In fact, they have more to do with
facilitating the transportation of cheaply produced
goods and natural resources out of this region, and
increasing the influx of corporate goods and services
for the 27 million "consumers" in the region.


The export trampoline

The location of these communications networks is not
accidental. "We need to relate the PPP to the current
needs of the US economy and its lagging export
industry", says Andres Barreda, researcher at Mexico's
Autonomous University (UNAM). He argues that, with
production concentrated in the East Coast, including
up to half the world's cars and grain, and a shift in
the global economy from the Atlantic (Europe) to the
Pacific (Asia), it is of primary importance to the US
to be able to efficiently transport goods to the West
Coast. With the Rocky Mountains presenting an
overwhelming obstacle, Mexican and Central American
territories gain strategic importance, providing a
trampoline for the US to Asian markets. The Panama
Canal has fulfilled this function but is now saturated
with cargo ships.

The PPP's emphasis, then, is on relaunching a
long-standing American dream - to link the
Coatzacoalcos port on the Gulf of Mexico with the
Salina Cruz port on the Pacific coast across the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the shortest stretch of land
between the two oceans in this region. The PPP
document explicitly refers to infrastructure
investments which "could convert the Isthmus into an
exit channel to Europe for companies located in the
Pacific, and to the East for those in the Gulf of
Mexico". So far, PPP investments involve modernising
the trans-Isthmus railway line and building an
eight-lane motorway from port to port. These projects
are guaranteed to meet with strong resistance from
local indigenous inhabitants who refuse to be mere
pawns in the US battle to compete with Japan and
Europe in the global economy. As the Zapatista caravan
wound it way through the state of Oaxaca at the end of
February, Subcomandante Marcos echoed the voices of
local groups declaring that "the Isthmus is not for
sale".


Green gold, black gold

Commercial eyes are also on the region for its
combination of subsoil resources and rich
biodiversity. Oil and gas deposits, as well as sites
for hydroelectric production, are plentiful, as is the
array of "genetic resources" to fuel biotechnology
developments. The PPP will facilitate access by TNCs
to both of these. Investments of approximately $7
billion are proposed for "energy projects", including
gas and oil production in Tabasco, Chiapas and
Campeche. As well as the two hydroelectric dams in
Guerrero, 71 sites for new dams in Chiapas have been
located, mostly in the Zapatista autonomous zones. The
energy is needed to drive new industrial complexes in
the region, and to be exported to the US.

A hidden element of the PPP is the opportunity for
gene giants Monsanto, Syngenta, Diversa, Pulsar and
others to carry out "biopiracy" in central America.
Under the banner of "biodiversity conservation and
management", the World Bank - along with private
investors and so-called environmental NGOs - is
promoting the creation of national protected areas
across the South-East in the "Mesoamerican Biological
Corridor Project", now part of the PPP. There is
growing concern that these alliances are being used to
gain access to plants and micro-organisms, without the
informed consent of local indigenous populations. One
example is the collaboration between Pulsar and
Conservation International in the Lacandon rainforest.
The Pulsar Group, which includes one of the largest
transgenic seed companies in the world, is headed by
multi-millionaire Alfonso Romo, a close ally of Fox
and key promoter of the PPP. Conservation
International, in spite of its name, is well-known for
its collaboration with pharmaceuticals in some of the
most biodiverse countries in the world, in search of
medicinal plant remedies, some of which are later
patented. Indigenous groups in Chiapas and Oaxaca have
spoken out against these projects, describing them as
"a robbery of our traditional indigenous knowledge and
resources".


Maquilatitlan

As a way of drawing the indigenous populations out of
these areas, and to contain immigration to the US, a
further aspect of the PPP is to create industrial
corridors to expand the maquiladora model to the
South. The majority of these tax-free assembly plants
are now located on the Mexico-US border, but companies
have recently begun to threaten to move elsewhere due
to perceived high costs of production, excessive
regulation, increasing labour costs and inadequate
infrastructure. To prevent them leaving the country,
Fox has been trying to entice them to the southeast.
Here, companies are assured of cheap labour, with
salaries up to 40% less than in the north, and will
find generous subsidies and infrastructure provisions.
This year, 92 maquiladoras will move to the region,
creating 37,000 jobs.

A related aspect of the PPP is the drive to turn the
countryside "into a profitable business". This year,
there will be investments of $65 million in irrigation
systems covering 220,000 hectares in the eight
southernmost states of Mexico, primarily for large
monocultures. Another project proposes that small
farmers go into "partnerships" with business investors
and put their land up as capital, with the option of
continuing to work on it for a salary. The close
involvement of Romo in the PPP suggests the strong
likelihood of more genetically-modified plantations
across the region. The World Bank, for example, sees
Chiapas as "an interesting trial area for genetic
engineering".

All of these point to the concentration of land
ownership in the hands of big multinational companies,
as small producers are forced to rent or sell their
small plots or communally-held ejidos. Since the onset
of neoliberal reforms in the 1980s, and especially
under NAFTA, it often makes more financial sense for
indigenous campesinos to leave their corn or coffee
rotting in the fields than to sell it at rock-bottom
prices on the market. As more and more abandon their
land, and with it many of their traditions, the
options are clear. Rather than migrating to the US,
they can now become exploited salaried workers in
maquiladoras, or in the oil or agriculture industries,
at the same time opening the way to corporations
appropriating their land and the valuable resources in
it.


Two birds with one stone

If the indigenous populations refuse to leave their
lands or give up control of these resources, military
repression may follow. The states of Guerrero, Oaxaca
and especially Chiapas are simultaneously the sites of
greatest resistance and guerrilla organisation,
abundant natural resources and the most intense
militarisation in Mexico. Since the Zapatista uprising
in 1994, indigenous communities in Chiapas have
undergone seven long years of low-intensity war.
While striving to give an image of peace (which will
help attract investors back to the region) Fox has
already made it clear that there will never be a full
withdrawal of soldiers from Chiapas, because they are
needed to combat drug-trafficking and illegal
immigration. The PPP implies granting maximum security
for corporations - both in terms of infrastructure and
land tenure, as well as military protection. Given the
economic importance of natural resources in this area,
Gustavo Castro at the Centre for Economic Research and
Community Action Policies (CIEPAC) predicts an
increase in what he describes as "biomilitarisation"
and "petromilitarisation".

Meanwhile, the US Congress has approved the financing
of 38 military operations this year, which involves
sending around 100,000 soldiers to 21 countries in
Central America, South America and the Caribbean. The
aim is to support national armies in the fight against
drug-trafficking and guerrillas, under the guise of
humanitarian assistance. The US says it is needed to
protect some of the "weakest democracies" in the area.
In this sense, the PPP can kill two birds with one
stone - promoting economic globalisation and providing
a justification for increased military presence.


Grassroots opposition

The Plan Puebla-Panama - with projects that imply the
eviction of indigenous communities from their lands to
make way for roads, airports, industrial centres,
plantations, protected areas and military bases - is
bound to encounter strong grassroots opposition.
Across the southeast, communities are already fighting
specific projects at a local level, whether it is the
resistance of midwives and healers to biopiracy in
Chiapas, communal defence of forests in Oaxaca and
Guerrero, protests against the industrial corridor
across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, or opposition to
the expansion of eucalyptus plantations and the entry
of transgenic crops. The PPP is being promoted as a
plan which will "emerge from the people" after a
nationwide consultation. But what if the people decide
they don't want it? And why has work already started?

At the Third National Indian Congress, held on the
route of the recent Zapatista caravan in the central
state of Michoacan, representatives of more than 40
indigenous groups got together and agreed on the
following, landmark declaration:

"For us, Indian peoples, our Mother Earth is sacred,
and so are all the beings which inhabit her. They are
not a commodity which can be bought or sold. For this
reason, we cannot accept the destruction of our
territories through the imposition of mega-projects by
the federal and state governments in our various
regions throughout the country. We demand a moratorium
on all projects that involve bioprospecting, mining,
water mega-projects, and all biopiracy activities
taking place in our lands and in our country, until
the Indian peoples have discussed in their own time
the issues related to the control of their resources."

Itıs clear then, what the indigenous people, at least,
think of the PPP. How the government responds is
another matter entirely.

******************

For more information, contact chiapaslink@... or
see www.chiapaslink.ukgateway.net
With thanks to the Centre for Economic Research and
Community Action Policies (CIEPAC), and the Mexican
Network for Action Against Free Trade (RMALC).


check out our web site at http://www.chiapaslink.ukgateway.net
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