Issue 135 – October 2008

The economic development model promoted by global power has already clearly shown that it leads to social and environmental disaster, both on a local and on a global scale. Climate change is the clearest example regarding the environment, while increasing food scarcity suffered by millions of people, proves this at the social level.

Via Campesina is an international and intercultural movement that coordinates national and regional organisations of small farmers, peasants, rural women, landless peasants, agricultural workers, indigenous peoples, migrants, fisherfolk and men and women who work in artisan activities. This autonomous, multicultural, multi-ethnic and pluralist movement primarily works for changes in agricultural production, in consumption habits, in the role of women, education, health, environment etc. The central themes of La Via Campesina have been enriched through the cosmic vision of indigenous peoples, which preserves the mother earth against natural disasters, global warming and the ecological crisis provoked by unabated unrestrained capitalism.

It seems like a slap in the face. The oil palm agro-industry has chosen precisely 16 October, World Food Sovereignty Day, and the Latin American country most hit by oil palm – Colombia – to hold the first Latin American meeting of the “Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.” This is an attempt by palm grower groups – presently on the rise because of the possibility of their oil being used to produce agrofuels – to acquire certification from the Roundtable. They are seeking a “greenwash” that will enable them to overcome the negative publicity received by agrofuels regarding the food crisis and because of their harvest of pain and blood with the terrible violations of the Colombian communities’ human rights.

Arguments in favour of certification often explain that a company wanting to sell its products as sustainably produced has to have some way of proving this. A consumer who wants to buy socially and environmentally friendly products needs a label that they can trust on the products. When the problem is framed in this way, certification seems to be the obvious answer. But the certification of timber products provides three lessons that are important in any consideration of whether certification of agrofuels might help to prevent the worst excesses of a destructive industry.

The US-based Newmont Mining Corporation, one of the world's largest producers of gold, has plans to place an open pit gold mine in the Ajenjua Bepo Forest Reserve in the Birim North District in the Eastern region of Ghana. The organization No Dirty Gold informs that the projected mine would occupy an area 1.65 miles long (2.6 km) and a half mile across (0.8 km), and would create waste piles 60-100 m high. The mine would destroy an estimated 183 acres (74 ha) of forest in the reserve.

In yet another incident, the tribal and dalit women of village Harna Kachar, Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, had to bear the brunt of atrocities by the Police and the Forest Department. A mob of more than 300 that included Police, Forest Department, revenue officials and dominant sections of the village participated in the attack where more than 20 women were injured. They were ruthlessly beaten by sticks, their belongings --clothes, utensils, grains, cycles, livestock, etc-- were looted, and around 100 of their huts were lit on fire. This atrocity was inflicted on tribal and dalit women after the implementation of the historical 2006 forest rights act.

The organization Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, A.C. reported in a recently issued communiqué that on 3 October, a brutal police operation took place, violating the most basic human, individual and collective rights, involving the federal and state police, against the indigenous and peasant Tojolabal inhabitants of the Miguel Hidalgo community, Municipality of Trinitaria, Chaipas. Since 7 September, this community had been managing the Maya archaeological and ceremonial site of Chinkultic.

A pulp mill seriously alters the micro-region where it is installed and generates a series of problems that mainly affect traditional peoples. Aracruz Celulose S.A. (ARCEL) built the Barra do Riacho unit in the State of Espirito Santo in a place that had previously been the site of the indigenous village of Macacos. The building of this pulp mill attracted a large number of workers from other regions and states, causing much disruption in the neighbourhood of Barra do Riacho, which was basically a fishing community located one kilometre away from the mill. The neighbourhood suddenly grew from 900 to 10,000 inhabitants and today, Barra do Riacho still suffers from the consequences: a high rate of unemployment, child prostitution and drug trafficking.

It has been 63 years after Soekarno-Hatta proclaimed the independence of the Indonesia Republic on August 17, 1945. Every August especially on the 17th, Indonesians all along the archipelago celebrate this nation's anniversary. Sadly, for people of Siantar Utara, in the Municipality of Toba Samosir, Siruar region, North Sumatra, it will be somehow impossible to have such a celebration. Almost all of the around 300 families here suffer skin disease which is quite itching and painful. This skin disease is suspectedly caused by the waste of the pulp mill Perseroan Terbatas Toba Pulp Lestari (PT TPL).

Oil palm firms are making a fortune in Malaysia particularly with the current agrofuel rush. But none of it goes to those who put their blood and flesh to make the money come out from oil palm plantations (see WRM Bulletin Nº 134). Migrant workers from Indonesia appear to be among those who get the worst deal. At least 103 oil palm plantations in Sabah employ about 200,000 legal migrants as well as 134,000 considered illegal workers from Indonesia. An article from Erwilda Maulia, published in The Jakarta Post on September 17, 2008, reports “slavery practices” at oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. The National Commission for Child Protection revealed that thousands of Indonesian migrant workers and their children have been "systematically enslaved".