Capitalism is the cause of climate illness! Global movement begins the cure!

[For full coverage of the World People's Conference on Climate Change, including the full text of the documents, click HERE.]
By Ron Ridenour, Cochabamba
May 15, 2010 -- Presenting the People’s Agreement — “Mother Earth does
not belong to us, we belong to it” — worldwide was the first act of the Global
People’s Movement for Mother Earth. This was carried out in May by Bolivia’s
President Evo Morales and representative activists from five continents.
Representing 35,000 people from 147 countries, they presented the
conclusions of 17 workshops — held April 19-21 at the World People’s Conference
on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (WPCCC) — to United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to the Non-Alignment Movement (now 130 Third
World countries) plus China (the world’s second greatest polluter), and then to
leaders of the European Union.
President Morales initiated the people’s conference as a response to the
failed COP15 held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. The so-called
“Copenhagen Accord” was strongly biased in favour of the rich governments and
transnational capitalist corporations that continue business as usual:
extracting unlimited profits from human labour and natural resources while
contaminating Mother Earth with its gaseous emissions and devastating wars.
Although conference delegates decided to take their analysis and
proposals to COP16 to be held
November-December in Cancun, Mexico, President Morales warned, at a May
6 news conference in New York, that there are only two choices: “Either save capitalism,
or save Mother Earth. If Cancun is the same as Copenhagen, then unfortunately
the United Nations will lose its authority among people in the world.” He implied that peoples’ movements might
replace the UN.
Key points of the final document arrived at in 17 workshops include:
- “Live well” (Indigenous philosophy) not “live better” (capitalism’s
creed). This enhances the environment holistically and encourages meeting
everyone’s basic needs while the latter requires greed and destruction of the
planet, and war among men and between nations over the Earth’s natural
resources.
- Demand the United Nations force the rich states (capitalist West,
global North) to reduce their CO2 emissions 50% of 1990 levels by 2017, the
second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
- These states must use at least 6% of their gross domestic product
(GDP), much less than they use for wars, for mitigation of and adaptation to
climate changes in the developing world.
- Recognise the universal rights of Mother Earth — the right to life,
clean water and air, free from contamination; every human being is responsible
for respecting and living in harmony with her; guarantee peace and eliminate
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; decolonisation of the atmospheric
space.
- Conduct a worldwide referendum on five points concerning how to
protect nature: agree or not to eliminating the capitalist economy; transfer
all financing for wars to finance the defence of Mother Earth; our territories
be freed of troops and military bases; create an International Climate and Environmental
Justice Tribunal to judge and sanction contaminating states and firms.
- “Capitalism as a patriarchal system of endless growth is incompatible
with life on this finite planet … the alternatives [to both capitalism and the
Soviet experience with a predatory production system] must lead to a profound
transformation of civilisation” -- Workshop 1: structural causes.
Unique climate conference amidst tumultuous transition
Mother Earth angrily erupted just as the first world conference seeking
to protect her was about to begin. Iceland’s volcanic ash darkened European
skies and prevented the arrival of hundreds of would-be delegates to the
celebration of Mother Earth. Seventeen-thousand flights were cancelled in the
first days and in some countries there were no flights for a week. In the same
period, BP, a major contaminator, could not control an oil drill in the Gulf of
Mexico, one of many which the US president had allowed against his campaign
promises, and the greatest ecological catastrophe in US history had just got underway.
Even with 1 million litres of oil daily spreading over an area that quickly
grew to the size of Puerto Rico, Obama continued to issue executive exceptions
to the freeze on oil well drilling in the seas to his buddies in the oil
business. As Morales told Amy Goodman of Democracy
Now!, the only difference between oil millionaire George W. Bush and Barack
Obama is the colour of his skin.
The people’s conference was held in Bolivia’s central Cochabamba
department at Tiquipaya (place of flowers). And as it was being prepared and
then underway, the revolutionary transition clashed with reactionary
intransigence emboldened by the ubiquitous Yankee empire. However, the empire’s
Enjoy Coca-Cola warring falsetto is now challenged by the descendent of Inca empire
President Evo Morales with his Coca-Colla natural coca energy drink.
From early April to early May, the time of my stay, I witnessed regional
elections in which President Morales’ party, the Movement towards Socialism
(MAS), won overwhelmingly in more areas than ever before. However, MAS was
accused of fraud in some electoral districts of La Paz by other left-wing
political parties, whose members are largely the same ethnic people as Morales,
Aymaras. In Ancoraimes, for instance, the province where Eugenio Poma was born
and raised, four left-wing parties contested for city power. Poma is Bolivia’s
ambassador to Denmark, a man I work with. When I visited his hometown, I
discovered Aymara against Aymara within the left. Besides MAS, there is the
social-democratic MSM (Movement Without Fear), MACA (Ancoraimes Movement for
Community Action) and the current mayoral party, SFCATK (Your Ancoraimes
Peasant Tupak Katari Federation). SFCATK is just a local party and shares power
almost equally with MAS, yet the former accused the latter of electoral fraud,
and there was serious anger between the two Evo-supporting parties.
In the richest eastern department of Santa Cruz, and in adjoining Beni
and Pando departments, the right-wing parties favouring secession were found
culpable of stacking fictitious votes in several municipalities hoping to
diminish the fast-encroaching MAS party. This led to daily protests and calls
for new elections.
Upon the day of my arrival in La Paz, I witnessed a long protest march
pass in front of the Methodist John Wesley guest house where I stayed. Down the
street in the very centre of the city stood the departmental electoral court,
and before it groups of Indigenous inhabitants in La Paz and upper El Alto
shouted against the court’s decision not to allow re-elections in their
particular voting district. The doors were guarded by heavily armed riot
police, who were of the same people.
The departmental electoral courts did decide to have new elections in
154 voting districts in 45 municipalities of four of the nine departments. This
would affect 52,000 voters. New elections were held within the month and did
not affect the original outcome.
MAS took six of the nine governorships, with s two-thirds majority in
five of them. In the other three departments, right-wing opposition parties
won, yet in all departments the voters for MAS greatly increased over the 2005
election. In 2005, MAS had 33% of the regional vote, nearly 1 million, while in
this year’s MAS’ vote nearly doubled to 1.83 million or 50.4%. MAS also won the
majority of council seats in 229 — up from 101 — of the country’s 337
municipalities.
MSM took second place, with 14%, a significant increase, and it won key
mayoral spots, including La Paz and Oruro, Morales’ hometown. The rightist
Verde party took Santa Cruz. Its new governor, Rubén Costas, is under
investigation by the attorney general for possible conspiracy to secede. He is
one of 300 members of the secret Caballero
(Gentlemen’s League of the East) club, some of whose members allegedly stood
behind an attempt to murder President Morales, in April 2009. Three of the
conspirators were killed in a battle with police. Among them was Eduardo Rózsa,
a former mercenary with in the Yugoslav war. Two witnesses to the conspiracy,
which would have included other mercenaries in Argentina, the Painted Faces,
spoke before the Senate at the same time as the outcry about the elections.
They named names and linked leading capitalists and politicians to the
conspiracy. The state investigation continues with probable charges forthcoming
in some months.
Amidst elections and re-elections, assassination and coup d´ètat plans,
a dispute broke out in the western province of Caranvá over where a
citrus-fruit plant should be located. For some unknown reason to me,
inhabitants were quite violent about the authorities’ decision and began
smashing things, including using dynamite and refusing trash collection. Two
people died violently. Thirty were arrested. At the same time, in eastern Santa
Cruz, a large group of people without land seized parts of a sugar plantation
where 800 workers earn a decent living. Many of the hard labourers were
attacked by the “homeless”, or peasants without land. Suffering some injuries,
the workers then defended the owners’ land, because this gave them a stable
income. Marginals pitted against workers!
If that wasn’t enough for the
country to bear at once, at the end of April, the public sector workers’
unions, along with the important and powerful miners’ union, first called for
spot strikes against the government’s proposal for a meager 5% increase in
wages and then an “indefinite strike” was called by the federation of unions
(COB), on May 7. Besides the wage issue, the government’s offer for pensions and
changes in the labor code were far less than the workers expected and demanded.
Many unions did go on strike; others
did not, including the largest of peasant organisations, the United
Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Workers (CSUTCB), the coca growers’ union
from Chapare and others. But the strike was initiated by the public workers’
unions because the government decides their wages and conditions, while private
employers set conditions for unions whose members are their employers. There
was a great deal of internal tension and varying views on how to approach
worker discontent. Within a couple of weeks, the strikes were effectively ended
with concessions granted by the government over pensions. For a closer view of
this issue, see Federico Fuentes piece: http://links.org.au/node/1700.
North-South tensions, the boiling national class conflict, sad struggles within the working class as well as between campesinos and jungle-dwelling Indigenous tribes over Mother Earth usage — to live well or to live better contradictions within the lower and middle classes — in addition to rightist attempts to secede and to murder the provoking leader. This is one busy man, this president, who comes from Indigenous coca leaf farmers. Evo hails as well from grassroots movements, from the war for water and for coca. He is a natural leader. He made promises, spiritual and practical. His activist brothers and sisters remind Evo of his promises and make him stick to them. Often there are contradictions, even conflicting interests amongst the peoples. He stresses unity, participatory democracy and equal rights. Already, half the ministers are women. Yet no matter where he looks, the president is under critique. He must not go back on his word. He must not rest, this activist president Evo Morales.
Seventeen workshops
The Minister of Foreign Affairs David Choquehuanca coordinated with the
renowned private university at Tiquipaya, Univalle, to host the unique climate
conference. Classes were suspended and many students helped with logistics. We
were accredited with a photo and number, which had to be checked each time we
entered the campus.
The final program included more than
we had anticipated. Aside from the workshops, there were three important
speeches by President Morales and others by visiting presidents. In addition,
there were several panel discussions on the main themes that ran during our
work sessions. At times, there were three panels at once. Then there were the
outdoor stands where groups sold their wares, mostly information and
propaganda, but also textiles. The new Coca-Colla drink, complete with a bag of
coca leaves, was on sale for 10 bolivianos ($1.40) for a half-litre. At that
price, four times’ the drink of the death squads, Coca-Cola did not have to
worry. There were also outdoor speeches and music during the day to distract
those weary of workshop concentration.
I concentrated on workshops 1 and
16, structural causes of the climate changes and activities to protect Mother
Earth. I wanted to assure the presence of language about and activities against
the wars. In addition, there were workshops on Mother Earth’s rights, Evo’s proposed
five-point referendum, the 50 million climate migrants, Indigenous peoples,
climate debt and adaptation, financing, harmony, an international climate
tribunal, development and transfer of technology, carbon market dangers, the
Kyoto Protocol, agriculture and food sovereignty, compared visions, and the
forests.
Each workshop was to have two
presidents selected by the participants. One was usually a Bolivian. There was
also a secretary and two local organisers, who kept notes and drew up a draft
of commentaries during the evening to be read the next morning. This took place
for three days and on the third day we were to decide on a final draft to be
edited and approved by the workshop presidents. The overall People’s Agreement
was read from the podium on April 22, the day of closure and celebration of
Mother Earth. Then the workshop resolutions were to be edited and written in
both Spanish and English. The latter was published on May 3 by the government
newspaper Cambio as a 16-page
supplement. All documents can be read on the conference webpage, www.cmpcc.org.
Preparations for the conference were
extensive and well done, yet no one foresaw that there would be twice as many
people as expected, despite the fact that some hundreds could not arrive from
Europe due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Some workshops had to be closed
to would-be delegates for lack of space. The largest room could hold perhaps 200
people but many rooms held less than 100. Not everyone thought that their ideas
were taken into account, and some expressed the opinion that workshop
resolutions were basically decided by Bolivian organisers or leaders
beforehand.
My own take on this is that
participatory democracy was the order of the week, yet with textual help
prepared by Bolivians beforehand. It would not have been possible to take into
account all discussions and debates and wrap them into one resolution, times 17,
in just three days.
No mention of `war’
But I have one major criticism about
the process in regards to the lack of any mention of “war” in Workshop 16’s declaration.
The wars were part of the discussion — I had sent in a two-page proposal with
argumentation to both workshops 1 and 16. Yet not one activity concerning the
damage that wars cause to humanity and Mother Earth was adopted. This baffles
me especially since Morales speaks of the wars as a major cause of Mother Earth
damage, and wars were included in the declaration of structural causes and
other workshops.
In Morales excellent “10 commandments
to save the planet, humankind and life”, the first one is “To end capitalism”;
followed by “Renounce war” with figures of damage to Mother Earth, which I used
in my presentation. I also provided evidence of this in Cambio, April 16, “The wars of the Empire kill Mother Earth”.
Nevertheless, I had to fight three days
running in Workshop 1 to get a few lines included in the resolution about
causes and even then the most important facts and figures were left out.
I sent this in to organisers several
weeks before the conference, and then argued for it:
Besides the daily murder, maiming and torturing of the invaded peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US government-military is contaminating the entire environment and the globe with its weapons of aggressive and “preventative” war. We, united in Bolivia at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights, declare that wars, especially those instigated and perpetuated by the United States of America, the self-styled policeman of the world, is the single major cause of pollution, the major cause of destroying Mother Earth. We hereby pledge to act in multifarious ways to end these wars. The anti-war movement must be revived and linked internationally. Anti-war activities must take number one priority for all of us who wish to preserve human life and the planet.
I included supportive evidence.
Co-director of the US-based International Action Center, Sara Flounders,
recently wrote, “Pentagon’s role in global catastrophe”. The Pentagon, as
Flounders wrote, “is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and
energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all
international climate agreements.” In 2006, the CIA Factbook stated that only 35 countries, out of 210, consume
more oil per day than the Pentagon. Officially, that is 320,000 barrels a day
but that does not include fuel consumed by contractors or consumed in leased
and privatised facilities, nor the fuel energy used to produce and maintain
their “death-dealing equipment or the bombs, grenades or missiles they fire.
See http://www.iacenter.org/o/world/climatesummit_pentagon121809/ and
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=1534#more-1534, January 9, 2010.
“The Pentagon wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan; its secret operations in Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1000
US bases around the world; its 6000 facilities in the US; all NATO operations;
its aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales will
not be counted against U.S. greenhouse gas limits or included in any
count.” How can that be?
The Pentagon demanded during the Kyoto
Accord negotiations that “all of its military operations worldwide and all
operations it participates in with the UN and/or NATO be completely exempted
from measurements and reductions”. It secured this concession and then had the
audacity to refuse to sign the accords. Yet to this day, the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change ignores all US military emissions of CO2 and all
other lethal toxics and radiation.
That means that when it is written
in Workshop 1’s declaration that the United States increased its greenhouse gas
emissions by 16.8% from 1990 to 2007 (while the rich bloc as a whole increased
emissions by 11%), this does not include GHG emitted by the Pentagon and its
wars. This is certainly a major factor when arguing to retain the Kyoto
Protocol as does Evo and Workshop 10.
Besides spreading CO2, US weapons
include depleted uranium, which “have spread tens of thousands of pounds of
micro-particles of radioactive and highly toxic waste throughout the Middle
East, Central Asia and the Balkans”, notes Sara Flounders.
“The US sells land mines and cluster
bombs that are a major cause of delayed explosives, maiming and disabling
especially peasant farmers and rural peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
For example, Israel dropped more than 1 million US-provided cluster bombs on
Lebanon during its 2006 invasion...
“The US war in Vietnam left large
areas so contaminated with the Agent Orange herbicide that today … dioxin
contamination is 300 to 400 times higher than `safe´ levels,” causing high
rates of cancer and birth defects.”
Environmentalists Against War
activist Gar Smith wrote that the US dropped 25 million bombs and 72 million
liters of chemical weapons on Vietnam between 1960 and 1975. Additional
millions of bombs and liters of chemicals were also dropped on Cambodia and
Laos. Fourteen per cent of Vietnam’s forests were ruined forever; 15,000 square
kilometres of land destroyed (www.rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com/2008/10/09).
Smith added that in the 1991 US war
against Iraq, 80,000 tons of climate-warming gases were dropped by the Pentagon
in just a few weeks. In 2003, the US hit Iraq in the first few weeks with
28,000 rockets, bombs and missiles, many using toxic depleted uranium. The
Pentagon wars in Iraq and elsewhere include the use of lead, nitrates,
nitrites, hydrocarbons, phosphorus, radioactive debris, corrosive and toxic
heavy metals.
The US spends half the world’s
expenditures of $1.3 trillion on wars and defence. The US and Europe just gave
their major capitalists $3 trillion to bail them out of their self-made
financial crisis. These rich governments offer 0.03% of that for developing
countries to “adapt” to climate changes.
Yet Workshop 1 used only the following text
about war in a three-page declaration of causes of climate change:
Capitalism responds through militarization, repression and war to the resistance of the people. It requires a potent military industry, the militarisation of societies and war as conditions necessary for its process of accumulation as well as for its control over territories, mineral and energy resources, and to suppress the struggles of the people. Wars, through their direct impact on the environment (massive consumption of combustible fossil fuels, oil spills, GHG emissions, impoverished uranium contamination, white phosphorus, etc.) have become one of the primary destroyers of Mother Earth.
No facts and figures and no
encouraging call to action. The four-page “action strategies” of Workshop 16
call for scores of actions during the rest of 2010. They include days and weeks
of “mobilisation in defence of Mother Earth” yet nothing about capitalism’s
wars.
I am simply at a loss to understand
this neglect especially given that this Global People’s Movement could unite
environmentalists with a revived anti-war movement, currently dormant, and with
the strong addition of an anti-capitalist analysis as the core problem for
humanity and Mother Earth.
Then there was the controversy about
“Workshop 18”. One of Evo’s strongest supporting groups, the Indigenous Conamaq,
wanted a workshop on national preservation of the Earth including banning or
curtailing the extraction industry from removing petroleum and minerals. In a
closing interview with Democracy Now!,
Amy Goodman asked Morales of this dilemma, given that a fourth of national
income comes from this industry. He replied that while studies had to made, and
controls utilised, “of what are we going to live” if this demand is accepted?
Before the conference began, Conamaq
leader Tata Quispe asked for the workshop to be included but Evo said no. There
would be no workshops on national issues of Mother Earth protection.
Nevertheless, Foreign Affairs Minister Choquehuanca later announced that “Workshop
18” would be allowed to proceed as a separate event two blocks outside the
university grounds. It was well attended and referred to in most of the
national media. The mining and petroleum industries, as well as deforestation,
were criticised, and the participants asked Bolivia’s government to take into
consideration its own contamination of Pachamama
(Aymara for Mother Earth.)
Running parallel to this controversy
over national contamination, Indigenous Trinitario Mojeño people from the
Isiboro Sécure Park in northern Cochabamba and Beni provinces attended the
people’s conference and learned that a peasant group living outside the jungle
had approved government plans to build a major highway that would cut through
their virgin territory. According to these jungle dwellers, their lifestyle
would be ruined; many animals, such as jaguars, deer and many unique bird
species would disappear. Native leader Antonio Ignacio Moya said his people,
who live off the land hunting and gathering, were not even consulted about the
plans. And it was at this conference that he learned that Evo Morales had
recently signed a law for the construction of the highway, which should cost
$415 million.
Bolivia’s new constitution, chapter
4 regarding the rights of Indigenous peoples, requires that any alteration of
their territories must be approved by them. Yet the only public hearings on
this highway were held outside their territory and attended by farmers who
would benefit from a highway connecting eastern and western provinces.
Furthermore, no environmental impact study had been conducted. The April 25
edition of Opinion pointed out that
in the last 18 years since the first law aimed at protecting the environment
was signed, no contaminator has been penalised. And, according to environmentalists,
nothing has changed since Morales became president.
Workshop 14 on forests concluded
that: “The Peoples are ancestral protectors, conservators, and dwellers of
their native forests and jungles; they are autonomous and sovereigns of
inalienable, indefeasible, unatachable, and nontransferable territories.”
But progressive governments in
countries where capitalism is still the dominant economy, such as Bolivia,
Venezuela and Brazil, deforestation and extraction of fossil fuels is still
going strong, and jungle dwellers are still being ignored.
Who is to shake these resolution
words in the face of this still popular Indigenous president? “The direct
involvement of organised peoples in the management and administration of
protected areas must be promoted in all countries as part of policies
integrating peoples and directly relating native forests and jungles, territory
and water basins… Institute a new process where peoples who depend on forests
and jungles participate fully and effectively in all actions to mange and
conserve forests.”
That `chicken speech'
Screwing back a couple days to the
inauguration, April 20, I must speak of Evo’s “chicken speech” since in many
countries this was the only mention in the mass media of the people’s
conference, and they got it wrong.
Some 25,000 people, including
representatives from 56 governments were present. We listened to various
musicians and watched native dancers. A ceremony of permission from Mother
Earth to conduct our conference was performed. A woman singer gave a tremendous
representation of Pachamama and a
shaman stroked the air with incense and asked us all to stand for Mother Earth.
The first speakers were activist
representatives from the five populated continents. Then the United Nations representative,
Alicia Barcena, offered greetings from the UN secretary-general. I felt a
commotion run through the audience, then whistles and boos. The UN spokesperson’s
voice cracked. “We represent the people too” – that was met with more boos. “If
you don’t want us here, we’ll retreat” – which was met with whistles. She sat
down.
Evo came to the podium amidst a
standing ovation. He did not refer to the UN woman but launched right into his
speech keeping his eyes on us. No notes. He spoke of United Nations’ doublespeak,
but COP15 was not a failure because it was a triumph of people’s movements, and
it led to this historic conference and celebration. We will construct a new
system, one of harmony among us and between us and Mother Earth, he said.
Then Evo explained how the
capitalist economy seeks to turn humans into consumers, and without sufficient
or good nutrients. He spoke of transgenic elements that the transnational
corporations put into our food, of GMOs, and female hormones inserted into
industrialised chickens, and “therefore when men eat these chickens, they
experience deviances in being men”. Evo suggested, instead, that we only eat
home-grown chickens, criollos, which are only fed naturally. The fact is that Evo
is right. Men can experience reduced testicles and develop “sports tits” -- enlarged
breasts -- just as can women from eating products stuffed with GMOs and quick-growth
medicines.
Nevertheless, the national
right-wing media twisted Evo’s words and his meaning. He was misquoted as saying
that men who ate industrialised chickens could become “sexual deviants”, clearly
a reference to homosexuality. This was picked up by international news bureaus,
and gay groups in some countries, such as Spain, protested. Evo sent a letter
to Spain’s federation of homosexuals and lesbians explaining he meant no
disrespect.
Evo also recommended naturally grown
foods to prevent baldness. Evo put down Coca-Cola as well. He told a story
about plumbers using Coca-Cola to unplug blocked up toilets because it has so
much acid in it. He recommended instead that we drink chica, a fermented corn drink. I thought he missed an opportunity
here to plug Coca-Colla. And I also thought that Evo could have mentioned other
good reasons to boycott Coca-Cola, such as its hiring paramilitaries in
Colombia and Guatemala to murder its workers who seek better working
conditions, and who join unions, and in India where its firms’ drain the soil
of water and nutrients and causes hundreds of thousands of farmers to quit
their land.
Evo Morales concluded his talk by
explaining how capitalism invents wars in order to accumulate more and more,
and when people resist they are murdered in wars. But, he noted optimistically,
the voice of the United States is heeded less and less. And our presence in such
great numbers from so many lands shows that capitalism is at a crossroads.
On April 22, our last day, the sun
was so hot that firefighters sprayed the audience of 25,000+ with water. Seeing
so many banners naming the true enemy of humanity and the planet — capitalism —
made me happy and reminded me of my young activist days in the United States.
After the inspiring 1960s turned into Reaganism, it seemed to me and many other
revolutionaries that the vanguard for socialism would not come from the most
industrialised — and thus most pacified — workers but rather from some of the
most exploited and oppressed, namely, from Latin America, and where Che Guevara
is still revered.
Now there are the eight ALBA countries in Latin America united in a socialistic
network, and the tens of thousands gathered here had understood that we cannot
advance the spiritual aspects of humanity; we cannot eradicate hunger and
poverty, nor maintain a lively planet with this depraved economy. A sign showed
us that “Bolivia is the capital of dignity”. We were happy and felt dignified chewing
on coca leaves and listening to the People’s Agreement being read by a Bolivian
woman and a man from the US.
Then Tomas Borge, one of the best of
the Nicaraguan Sandinista leaders in my opinion, spoke of the revolutionary
tide rising in Latin America, a wave started by Cuba and under the leadership
of Fidel Castro. He was followed by one of the many vice-presidents from that
island-nation, Esteban Lazo, who read a rather tiresome speech. Then came fiery
Hugo Chavez. Chavez recalled that, in 2001, Fidel had told him that ALCA (the
US-led “free trade” pact first with Mexico and Canada, and later attempts to
corral all of Latin America) would fail. No one could have believed him then,
but four years later it was dead and ALBA was begun.
ALBA, Chavez told us, would include
the people’s conference declarations and proposals. And we will all go to
Cancun “with more fury”.
Evo Morales’ closing speech had no
chickens in it. He spoke seriously about obligating the rich nations to respect
and adopt our resolutions. “If they don’t then the peoples will do it.” Evo
referred to progress in his own land since his presidency. For the first time
in many decades, there has not been a budget deficit, and the country is
“better off without the IMF and the United States”, which had just cut out its
aid to the country.
“Fidel began the fight for our
Mother Earth in 1992 when he told us Latin Americans not to pay the ever-rising
debt to their banks. And he told us it is they, the rich countries and their
rich banks, who owe a climate debt. We have to defeat capitalism and
imperialism, fight their military bases in Latin America. We can do it.”
The next day, hundreds of activists
and Bolivian students and soldiers planted 10,000 trees on one side of Kötu
Mayu mountain, in Tiquipaya. The president planted Tipas (the tall Rosewood
tree). I planted the Jacaranda, which sprouts lovely fragrant trumpet-shaped
blooms. This was the beginning of reforestation planned with planting 10
million seedlings each year for five years.
For these days, we 35,000 people
were of one common mind: unity against capitalism and its depravities. We hope
that environmentalists and others around the world will listen to our
conclusions and draw from them the understanding that as long as capitalism
exists, our planet will continue dying and one day no life will awake.
[Ron Ridenour is a veteran activist. Find out more at http://www.ronridenour.com/about.htm.]