natural resources

An interesting article by Emma Volonté found on Upside Down World suggests nefarious dealings of a resource extractive company in Guatemala. This should not necessarily be news as we have highlighted many times the workings of, for example, Goldcorp and their Marlin mine in San Marcos. This article looks at the oil extractive concerns in the Petén region and specifically at the workings of the French company Perenco. Despite the fact that it was estimated that tourism would have benefitted Guatemala much more than oil extraction in terms of contributions to the national exchequer, Perenco got its way and has been able to consolidate its 98% monopoly on oil extraction in Guatemala. All very nasty indeed.

Here is a reflection from GSN accompanier Tanya.

Entering 2011, an election year for Guatemala, political and social actors are being targeted more frequently and, in the midst of the increasing levels of violence, the land issue rages on. Human rights defenders with environmental concerns are positioned as a threat to economic growth and even to national security. From outside, the conflict looks incomprehensible; a convoluted storm of random attacks, a game of monopoly in the dark. While various organizations are working to illuminate the past, history unravels to reveal the players and their interests.

The news from Guatemala, especially from Alta Verapaz, is something to dread in this year of election, especially with the notion that this will impact on the popular vote come November. The situation provides the ideal opportunity for someone to present themselves as the ‘hard man’ of Guatemalan politics in becoming the answer to the threat of violence unleashed by the incursion of the Zetas and the response of the Guatemalan state. Many commentators have described these events as a widening of the Drug Wars that were initiated in 2006 by the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón, and supported by, if not at the behest of, the United States. This is a war that has claimed more than 30,000 lives in Mexico and its measure of success seems to be on the number, still very few, of gang leaders either caught or killed. The number of dead seems to be unaffected by these ‘successes’. These, though, do seem to get the media into a bit of a lather. The beheadings, rapes, and other forms of violence dominate the news pages for the briefest of times before disappearing to await the next worthy capture or bout of monstrous brutality. Now the news is that Guatemala, that failed State to the south, has been invaded and taken over by the drug gangs. At least, that’s the story.

'This is a time of great tension because we know that at any moment, when we least expect it, our lives can be cut short at a stroke'.

So titled an article by Danilo Valladares for Inter Press Service.

As you will have read previously, two community leaders with FRENA (the Front for Resistance in Defence of Natural Resources and the Rights of the People) were murdered recently. GSN has highlighted the killings of both Evelinda Ramírez Reyes and Octavio Roblero and their assassinations were in addition to the slaying of another FRENA leader Víctor Galvez, last year.

Although these killings are of FRENA members, in dispute with the Spanish corporation, Gas Natural-Unión Fenosa, attacks are continuing to increase against human rights defenders. In 2009, 353 attacks were carried out, almost one a day, and 16 activists were killed.

The full article can be read here on the Global Issues website.