Goldcorp in Guatemala and the limits of the MDGs
"The Marlin mine has divided our town, harassed protesters, and made us afraid for the health of our families." "Is this economic development? Could Goldcorp do this in Canada?"
In this video, Aniseto López and Sister Maudilia López Cardona from the "Front in Defence of San Miguel Ixtahuacán" (FREDEMI) talk briefly about Goldcorp's Marlin mine, its impact on local communities and the usefulness of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
In total, there are eight MDGs which every member of the UN has agreed to achieve by 2015. These goals include: "Eradicating" extreme poverty and hunger; "Promoting" gender equality and empowering women; and "Ensuring" environmental sustainability.
Unfortunately, while companies like Goldcorp are allowed to operate with impunity, there are some people who simply won't benefit from the MDGs. Instead these people will have to continue "fighting for their lives" like the people of San Miguel Ixtahuacán have done since the Marlin mine first opened in 2004.
Since that time, Goldcorp, through its subsidiary, Montana Exploradora, has been contaminating and depleting local water supplies; causing damage to local homes through "blasting" at the mine; invading stealing, and fraudulently "purchasing" community land, and using the police and the courts to criminalize the local communities for standing up in self-defense.
In light of all this, Aniseto López offers some poignant remarks:
"I find the Millennium Goals and whether they are realized very interesting, but something has to start happening now. From this moment on and not just until 2015. We have to stop the things that have negative implications for humankind... what we need is actions, not just a written pieces of paper, not just ideas. We need acts. Especially in a country like Guatemala. It has been severely impacted by the multinationals. That is why we suffer here."
This video was produced by La Ruta, an independent project that studies the progress of the MDGs in Latin America.
Based in the Netherlands, La Ruta was recently in Mexico and Central America to report on what local peoples, social movements and organizations had to say about the MDGs.
You can find more of their videos and reports at their website: http://www.laruta.nu
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“what we need is actions, not just a written pieces of paper, not just ideas. We need acts.”
There is a problem though, because actions must be the upholding of principles, because we are human we must be able to explain why with clearly understandable appeal to the reason of others. Numerous principles which give ‘shape’ and meaning to laws, international laws that are ‘supposed to’ ACT as effective available recourse to safeguard the principles from this type of illegal exploitation clearly are not able to function as they were created to? That becomes the first question. At this time it is clear that the UN will not achieve its stated MDGs and in most if not all categories will have actually lost ground. So it is time for judgment to be passed on this failure & such judgment is actionable.
I think that it is possible to say that the UN is not an effective institution, perhaps its mandates are undermined by the IMF and World Bank and ‘that world trade body whatever the name is I can’t remember at the moment’. The facts are that the UN has been failing as an institution.
To me personally, one key fundamental failure of the UN is the fact that it is not inclusive. There are many more nations of distinct peoples across the globe than there are UN member states~’countries’, and this is one main problem because this fact invalidates UN laws and/or other enforceable legal instruments that come out of the UN process since none of these legal instruments can be considered to be representative of humanity. This fact is a very serious and fundamental failure of what the UN claims to be.
I then think that the available remedy is obvious. If each nation that is not a member of the UN joins a separate-competing ‘UN’ body, the fundamental dialog becomes necessary because each is claiming legitimacy, while the numbers make it clear who is principally in the right & the ‘old UN’ members are of course welcome to renounce the ‘old UN’ and join the truly globally representative body. And those who do not join are rendered as illegal entities in principle. One can immediately consider that applying reasoned principle will make it virtually impossible for ‘states’ that were borne out of a colonial past to be eligible because the principles mentioned in UNDRIP as well as the even more far reaching draft proposal principles that were not included in the final UNDRIP document would be applied.
It is also quite simple and straightforward to achieve this, the only real issue is likely LANGUAGE, since language protocols are another major and serious downfall of the UN process in its entire history thus far.
You’re right, BJ. We have to maintain our integrity in all of this, otherwise we’re no different than them. I don’t think he’s really saying we should do “anything” though. At least, I’m certain he knows what would happen if we did: Whatever country we may be talking about, the military would not hesitate (except in the rarest of circumstances).
At the same time, “action” of some kind is absolutely necessary. Words are necessary too, and prayers—but they only go so far. And if there is no action, than our words can disserve us; especially if they keep us held back (which may give a corporation, for example, all the room it needs to keep doing what it shouldn’t be doing.) It’s the “imperial grand strategy” at work here.
That said, I think it’s important that we take some time to study what the Peoples have been doing in Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru and the Philippines. Since 2008, they’ve each accomplished something monumental through widespread, long-term, non-violent actions (ie, “permanent mobilization”).
There’s still alot of work left to do for indigenous rights in these states, to be sure. But they’re accomplishments wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Their approach has proved to be too effective for us to ignore.
Also, I totally agree about the UN. It’s a country club. And it would be great to see an alternative. I use to think that Indigenous Nations should actually form their own international body, like the UN (more like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) but we just don’t have the resources for it at this point. Unless it also (conditionally) welcomed friendly states and maybe even NGOs?
It seems that we do in fact have the resources… I mean, in the northern hemisphere we have far more resources than they do in the global South & their “permanent mobilization” is more impressive and apparently a whole lot/entirely more effective than what is taking place in the North?
The Haudenosaunee built up an interesting model, which Karoniaktajeh explicated well some of the shortcomings of too. Last autumn a Kanienke’ha:ka elder had introduced a mention of ‘ ” being recognized as a people” ‘, would seem to be broaching the more general truth about it?
— Just wondering if, if the concept of ‘The Peoples Republic of China’ were re-examined and were to drop the ‘of China’ part, would that possibly be making sense? Maybe an offer of membership would be to include a guarantee of a distinct people’s language being accorded automatic equal official status as all others???