Plan Puebla Panama
(PPP) is a mega project which seeks to open up the southern half of Mexico
and Central America to private foreign investment and establishing the foundation
for the Free Trade Area
of the Americas (FTAA). The plan depends upon multi- lateral development bank
support and private investment to create infrastructure that will attract
industry and expand natural resource extraction. With the Inter-American Development
Bank as the head of the PPP's financial structure and major credit and technical
assistance coming from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, among
others, controversial projects have already begun.
This is the first step in the latest push to globalize the Americas with the
end goal of incorporating all of the Western Hemisphere (except Cuba) under
the FTAA. Essentially the PPP will create development corridors from the 9
southern Mexican states of Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche,
Yucatan, and Quintana Roo, through the most southern Central American country
of Panama. The PPP will create an elaborate infrastructure of ports, highways,
airports, and railways aimed to connect the development of the petroleum,
energy, maquiladora, and agricultural industries. While the PPP's proponents
assert that its main objective is to improve the quality of life for area
inhabitants, critics of the Plan see it as an attempt to exploit the abundant,
cheap labor force and precious natural resources in order to attract foreign
investment eager to reap the benefits of an area stricken with poverty and
rich in biodiversity.
Maquiladoras, factories in which low paid workers assemble import component
parts for re-export, will be strategically placed throughout the region to
attract the 50% of the population in the nine states that make less than the
regular hourly wage of $1.90/hr (1999). Since Southern Mexico is home to 714
of the nations' 850 poorest municipalities (National Council of Population
(CONAPO)), the Fox administration hopes to use this comparative advantage
to compete with the maquiladora industry in Asia. In fact, this year alone
has seen the creation of 92 maquiladoras in the region where employers can
count on wages that are 30%-40% lower than those in the northern half of the
country. Labor activists contend that the PPP hopes to create mass migration
to areas concentrated with maquiladoras where transnationals have historically
paid unlivable wages. International trade law and unilateral corporate
agreements include loopholes that exempts transnational corporations from
national labor and environmental laws. Critics conclude that the lack of environmental
and labor regulations coupled with unlivable wages, will guarantee that transnational
corporations reap the benefit while the social and cultural fabric of small
communities is dismantled.
Environmental activists fear that the exploitation of primary materials (minerals,
timber, petroleum, biodiversity, and water) will lead to environmental degradation
for exportation without profit being dispersed to local communities. Mexico
currently ranks 2nd in the world in rate of deforestiation (National Forest
Inventory 2000) and 73rd in environmental sustainability among 122 nations
(La Jornada, 7/23/01). The PPP, many organizations have warned, will lead
to further environmental degradation due to the planned deforestation, overexploitation
of natural resources, inefficient laws, and
extreme poverty.
The elimination of the ejido system, or communal land holdings, as guaranteed
under Article 27 of the Mexican constitution, in order to further foreign
investment under NAFTA, catalyzed the corporate
consolidation of land in northern Mexico. The modification of Article 27 represented
a significant impact to the indigenous and peasant communities. By allowing
the sale, purchase or rent of ejido land and the elimination of the redistribution
petition, large agribusinesses and landowners have the ability to increase
land acquisition while leaving many landless without any social provision
to ensure land security and sustainability for the poor communities. Also,
the use of land as collateral, risks farm foreclosure, the loss of land rights,
and provokes the concentration of natural resources. As a result of its elimination,
transnational corporations under the PPP will continue to have access to hundreds
of hectares of primary resources, while installing unsustainable land practices,
like monoculutres of African Palm and the Eucalyptus plantations.
The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC), a central component of the PPP,
states that its focus is to create innovative ways to manage biodiversity.
But critics assert that it will facilitate the exploitation and privatization
of biodiversity and its accompanying traditional knowledge. The exemplification
of this process is a practice known as biopiracy which indigenous groups in
Chiapas and Oaxaca have already spoken out, describing them as "a robbery
of our traditional indigenous knowledge and resources". Mesoamerica is
one of the most biological rich and diverse region on the planet and the survival
of indigenous cultures and unique ecosystems make Mesoamerica a region rich
in "green gold." Mesoamerica is now subject to mass privatization
of genetic resources, as well as whole ecosystems, especially water. This
coupled with unsustainable primary resource exploitation, converts
Mesoamerica to an attractive region for extraction by multinational corporations.
In the end, critics conclude that the PPP will lead to massive displacement
of campesino and indigenous communities, further environmental degradation,
and development with the end goal of exportation for profit rather than eliminating
poverty. As a result, in less than a year since the announcement of the PPP,
hundreds of organizations and communities have formed campaigns of resistance
in order to pressure global powers to support alternative economic development
models.
Global Exchange is currently carrying out its' campaign by researching the
underlying neoliberal elements of the Plan and their social and ecological
effects, leading workshops in local communities
effected by PPP projects, organizing grass-roots education in the US and Mexico,
and advocating/lobbying for changes that promote human rights. To see how
you can participate in this process see our action page or volunteer for Global
Exchange.
