Category: Indigenous rights

Boliviaʼs newest park, Ñembi Guasu, hit by fires

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The ongoing fire crisis in the Eastern Bolivia department of Santa Cruz has burned 187,800 hectares of the Ñembi Guasu Area of Conservation and Ecological Importance, scorching forests and leaving behind burnt out wildlife carcasses. The destruction in one-sixth of the Ñembi Guasu comes just four months after the Guaraní Charagua Iyambae autonomous government designated the park as protected on April 29, 2019.

According to reporting from El Deber, the Fires started in Roboré municipality, which has received much of the local attention during the ongoing Chiquitano dry forest fire crisis. But Charagua is the worst-affected municipality in the country, with 239,073 hectares burned according to recently released satellite analysis from the Fundación de Amigos de la Naturaleza.

El Deber reports the fire rages uncontrolled:

Today, it is the largest fire in the country; the only one that no one has taken care of up til now. Since August 9, when a chaqueo [slash and burn fire] got out of control 15 kilometers from Roboré, the flames have devoured land, reaching over 100 km away… and spilling over as far as Paraguay, towards Otoquis [Park] and still no one has done anything to put it out.

Hoy es el incendio más grande del país; el único que nadie ha atendido hasta ahora. Desde el 9 de agosto, cuando un chaqueo se descontroló a 15 kilómetros de Roboré, las llamas han devorado más de 100 kilómetros en línea recta, 187.800 hectáreas hasta ayer, ya se ha desbordado hasta Paraguay y hacia el Otuquis y aún nadie hace nada por apagarlo.

Pablo Ortiz, “Nadie atiende el incendio de Ñembi Guasu: el área protegida más joven,” El Deber, August 27, 2019.

The current fire in Ñembi Guasu stands as a potent metaphor of the risks that agricultural deforestation poses to both indigenous autonomy and conservation. Unless they have the resources to defend the territory, manage disasters, and shape policy, so-called Protected Areas will remain unprotected.

FAN visualization of fires in 2019 in Santa Cruz department

Ignoring new TIPNIS law, Bolivian government restarts roadway construction

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Bolivian newspaper Página Siete has published photos of the ongoing construction of the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway inside of the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory. The current active construction continues work that began before the enacting of Law 266, which ends special protections for the territory, on August 13. The prior activity, revealed by indigenous residents was clearly in violation of Law 180 of 2011, which the new law repealed.

However, Law 266 also placed some legal limits on road building (see the full text of Law 266 (es)). Officially termed the Law of Protection, and Integral and Sustainable Development of the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS), it requires:

Article 9 … Integration and Articulation Activities [i.e., transportation infrastructure], which improve, establish, or maintain rights of indigenous peoples such as freedom of movement, whether through the opening of neighborhood roads, highways, systems of river navigation, or of aerial transportation, etc. shall be designed in a participatory manner with the indigenous peoples …

The law also establishes a planning process for development and integration:

A timeframe of 180 days is established for the elaboration of a Protection Plan for TIPNIS, the Integral Plan for Transportation in TIPNIS, and the Development Agenda for the Indigenous Peoples of TIPNIS to Live Well, in accordance with the results of the Consultation. Insofar as those documents are approved, the instruments of planning and management of TIPNIS shall be applicable, so long as they don’t contradict that which is established in this law, and in agreements resulting from the Consultation.

Right now, of course there is no Integral Plan for Transportation in TIPNIS, nor has any highway been designed in a participatory manner. Whether before or after the passage of the new law, the Bolivian government shows no sign of following the legal limits on its road building in TIPNIS.

Bolivian Senate approves law to de-protect TIPNIS amid protests across the country

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The Bolivian Senate has approved Law 266, which allows for the construction of highways and exploitation of resources within the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). Their vote came less than six hours after the law was brought to the Senate. In so doing, they set the stage for Bolivian President Evo Morales to abrogate Law 180 of 2011, legislation won by the Eighth National Indigenous March of the same year which declares TIPNIS to be an “intangible zone” and prohibits any highways from crossing it. The government has already secretly contracted with two contractors to build the controversial Segment II of the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway, and journalists and residents have confirmed the presence of building equipment and construction parts inside the park.

Protests occurred throughout the last week in La Paz, Trinidad, Santa Cruz, San Ignacio de Moxos, and Cochabamba, organized by the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia, the Fundación Solón—led by former UN Ambassador Pablo Solón–, environmentalists, feminists, and indigenous solidarity activists. Protests continue today in La Paz, coinciding with the scheduled opening of the Senate session; with vigils in Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Trinidad (Beni Department), and in Cochabamba. Activists will gather for a “direct action” demonstration in Cochabamba at 7 pm local time.

Read More »

What’s wrong with the 2012 TIPNIS consultation?

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At the core of the current legislative push to reverse the 2011 special protection law for the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory is the 2012 government-run consultation process. Government advocates and the sponsors of the legislation, Patricia Chávez and Romona Moye, repeatedly claim:

It’s the request of the people, the community members, their corregidores [a traditional leadership post] and leaders, through the prior consultation carried out within the territory itself. We have exercised our right to be consulted as Bolivians and as indigenous people who inhabit the region.

“Es el pedido del pueblo, comunarios, los corregidores y dirigentes, a través de la consulta previa desarrollada en el mismo territorio; nosotros hemos ejercido nuestro derecho a ser consultados como bolivianos e indígenas que habitamos esa región”

When proponents of the law have talked about how the law, the highway, and the revocation of the protective law have been discussed among the communities of TIPNIS, they are referring only to one and only one thing, the 2012 consultation. While there are real disagreements about it, all signs indicate that the consultation process was fundamentally flawed.Read More »

Emergency protests as Bolivian legislature considers bill to allow TIPNIS highway (live-blogging)

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This morning, Thursday August 3, the Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia’s Plurinational Legislative Assembly is considering a bill that would authorize the country’s most controversial infrastructure project, the Cochabamba–Beni highway, to be built through the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory.

Ramona Moye and Patricia Chávez, two MAS-affiliated Deputies in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, introduced the legislation on July 3, and it recently passed out of committee, and will be considered today. The bill, called the “Ley de Protección, desarrollo integral y sustentable del Territorio Indígena Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – Tipnis” (Law for the Protection, Integral and Sustainable Development of the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory) would repeal and replace Law 180, the 2011 law that protects the territory, declares it an “intangible zone,” and prohibits any highway project from passing through it. That law was the fruit of the a national march led by the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia and a wave of nationwide support of the cause of protecting the territory.

Where can I get a quick overview of the TIPNIS conflict?

If you understand Spanish, watch this documentary:

Other overviews in English are in Emily Achtenberg’s article Contested Development: The Geopolitics of Bolivia’s TIPNIS Conflict (2012), and Rob Key’s documentary The Dividing Line – TIPNIS and Bolivia’s Road (2013). An up-close look of the arduous path of resisting the highway comes is offered by this recent Mongabay profile of Fernando Vargas (in Spanish), the former President of the Subcentral TIPNIS.

What is the current state of construction of the highway?

The original funder of the highway, Brazil’s National Bank for Economic and Social Development, withdrew all funds from the project in 2012. Since then, the Bolivian government has funded the northern and southern segments of the project, located north of the park and inside the colonized Polygon 7 at the south end. Both of these segments have been troubled by delays and adverse construction conditions, but the southern Segment I was opened in 2016.

Screen Shot 2017-07-05 at 3.52.38 PM Despite the legal prohibition on Segment II, TIPNIS community members have recently shared photographic evidence that the government is actively building bridges inside of the Territory that would become part of the highway.

TIPNIS-Unauthorized Construction-July17 170998

Emergency Protests in Defense of TIPNIS

On Wednesday, August 2, activists in La Paz marched and set up an encampment (plantón) in Plaza Camacho opposing the new law. Here is a half-hour video of their demonstration. Present in the video are Fabián Gil and Marqueza Teco from the Subcentral TIPNIS and a representative of CONAMAQ Orgánico.  Press coverage: Página Siete.

A protest is being held on Thursday, August 3 in Cochabamba.

Resources for following the controversy:

Live coverage today

  • The press service Agencia Nacional Fides is covering the debate live on Twitter: Follow @noticiasfides
  • The government line within the Plurinational Legislative Assembly is being live tweeted at @Diputados_Bol
  • Twitter hashtags: TIPNIS, #TIPNISenEmergencia

Tense session in the Assembly

Fides reports Fides reports that security has prevented three opponents of the highway from entering the chamber during debate: Rafael Quispe, former head of CONAMAQ and currently an alternate deputy in the Assembly; Senator Edwin Rodríguez, head of the UD delegation; and Fernando Vargas, leader of the 2011 March and former President of the Subcentral TIPNIS. Vargas was later admitted into the gallery.

Inside the session, one opposition tactic was deputies wearing masking tape over their mouths to recall the police use of the same tape on captured members of the pro-TIPNIS march in September 2011. Another was protest signs within the session.

The debate included extended statements from MAS-IPSP deputies Patricia Chávez and Ramona Moye (indigenous seats, Cochabamba), Gabriel Montaño (Santa Cruz), Juana Quispe (Chimoré in the Chapare), and Emilio Vilche (alternate deputy and an affiliate of CONISUR). The official Twitter feed of the Chamber of Deputies (@Diputados_Bol) broadcast these statements but not those of opponents of the legislation. Opposition deputy Shirley Franco (UD) complained about a lack of parity in participation, but Montaño counted 16 opposition speeches, which she claimed lasted over 4 hours out of 11 hours of debate so far.

In the end, the Chamber of Deputies approved both the overall bill and the detailed text as presented.

Even before this approval, the Senate’s Committee on Land, Territory, Natural Resources and Environment put the legislation on its agenda (see image to the right). Minutes later, a vote in that committee resulted in a tie vote. A rapid-fire consideration of the bill is well underway. Late in the evening, Senate President José Alberto “Gringo” Gonzalez stated publicly that the chamber as whole will take up the bill next Tuesday morning, August 8, at 11am.

 

 

Video: TIPNIS leaders speak out against law that threatens their territory

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Press conference featuring leaders of the Subcentral TIPNIS
Conferencia de prensa dirigentes de la Subcentral TIPNIS

Marqueza Teco, President of the Subcentral of Women of TIPNIS
Fabián Gil, President of the Subcentral TIPNIS (elevated from Vice President by community resolution repudiating Domingo Nogales’ role in supporting the proposed law)

Available as Facebook live video segments: 1 | 2 (es)

Departmental Civic Committees: Build highway outside of TIPNIS

Carwil Bjork-James1 Comment

An assembly of Bolivia’s departmental Civic Committees has called on the government of Evo Morales to re-route a controversial highway to the east of the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). In their joint statement issued on July 20, the establishment organizations write,  “We categorically reject the Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxo highway project for destroying TIPNIS and propose that the connecting of Beni and Cochabamba should be [instead] articulated along a Villa Tunari–Camiaco–Loreta–Trinidad route. Rechazamos categóricamente el proyecto carretero Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos por destruir el Parque Nacional y Territorio Indígena Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS) y proponemos que la articulación entre Beni y Cochabamba sea: Villa Tunari-Camiaco-Loreto-Trinidad.” This alternative route is one of several that has long been ignored as the Morales government pressed to build a highway northwards out of the coca-growing Chapare and directly through the national park, inhabited by Mojeño-Trinitario, Tsimané, and Yuracaré communities who have campaigned against it for over a decade. I last reported on these option in 2012, when the Isiboro Sécure Defense campaign estimated that the route (number 2 on the map below) would be 250km in length, about 50km shorter than the project underway.

Map of four options to the Cochabamba-Beni highway through TIPNIS

Bolivia’s civic committees are coalitions of mainstream organizations, equivalent to an amalgam of a Chamber of Commerce, assembly of government officials, church leadership, and charitable organizations. While in the 1960s and 1970s, they played a key role as an independent voice for civil society amid Bolivia’s military dictatorship, they emerged as a right-wing counterweight to the Morales government in 2005. The right-wing civic movement encompassed committees in the eastern and central provinces, while civic committees in Potosí, La Paz, and Oruro have tilted leftwards. (Oruro and Potosí civic committees have organized important protests making regional demands of the national government.) This week’s report of a joint statement represents an important new voice in the ongoing conflict. It builds upon an alliance of indigenous and center-right project skeptics that backed Carmelo Lens in the 2015 governor’s race in Beni department. As can be seen below, civic committees from Cochabamba, El Alto, Tarija, Oruro, Pando, Camiri, and Chuquisaca, issued the statement, in cooperation with TIPNIS leaders Fabian Gil, Marqueza Teco, and Fernando Vargas.

Images of the resolution provided by Lelponi Maria Alba Guillén de Vargas.

Legislation and office occupation are latest moves in seven-year fight over TIPNIS

Carwil Bjork-James1 Comment

The saga of Bolivia’s most controversial road project, the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway through the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS), took a long-anticipated turn this month. As I observed in 2013:

The 2012 events of the TIPNIS conflict have added manylayers of complexity to the story, but the essential government stance is simple. Where once it said the highway would be built “whether the indigenous like it or not,” since November 2011, the message [now] is that the highway will be built precisely because the indigenous like it. (Bjork-James 2013:278)

On July 3, Ramona Moye and Patricia Chávez, two MAS-affiliated Deputies in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, introduced legislation that would open the territory to a highway that is projected to leave it mostly deforested within fifteen years of completion. The text of the law had been circulated to TIPNIS communities in February and March of this year. The legislative assembly event was headlined by Domingo Nogales, who was elected presidente of the Subcentral TIPNIS in December; Diego Roca, President of Conisur; and Carlos Fabricano. In their press communiqué announcing the event (cached here), the MAS claimed the draft law was “their draft law, which was worked out in consensus with the communities that make up the reserve su anteproyecto de ley, el mismo que fue trabajado en consenso con las comunidades que conforman la reserva ubicada entre Cochabamba y Beni.”

Prior and subsequent events belie that description. Ramona Moye and Carlos Fabricano, who are married, have been publicly repudiated by indigenous community members within for their involvement in the 2012 pro-highway march and affiliation with the pro-road MAS party. In April 2015, Moye had her visit to TIPNIS disrupted by a traditional leader and a young community member who allegedly stole her outboard motor to prevent her from campaigning for Beni gubernatorial candidate Alex Ferrier. Moye complained to the press: “How is it that I can’t enter my territory? … they prohibit me, and take away my motor, and threaten that I’ll never be able to return there again. Cómo pues yo no voy a poder entrar a mi territorio, si he nacido allá, si soy de allá, soy una indígena de allá y que ellos me prohíban y que me quiten el motor así con robo y amenazas porque eso fue lo que ellos me hicieron a mí, me amenazaron que nunca más podía volver a allá (a Nueva Lacea), por lo tanto me hicieron un robo.” The Subcentral Sécure has been divided into factions led by Carlos Fabricano and Emilio Noza since at least 2012; Fabricano’s wing took over the organization’s office in Trinidad, Beni in 2014.

Since the December 2016 gathering of affiliates of the Subcentral TIPNIS, the new leader of the Women’s Subcentral, Marqueza Teco, has taken the lead in opposing the highway project, while the newly elected male leader Domingo Nogales Morales has had a lower profile in the press. In April, the women’s organization reportedly occupied the office of the Subcentral Sécure within the park.

The early July announcement has prompted new reactions from opponents of the highway through TIPNIS. Fernando Vargas, past president of the Subcentral TIPNIS has spoken out against the legislation (video|La Razón) Then, on July 12, representatives of at least ten indigenous communities and the Women’s Subcentral occupied the Subcentral TIPNIS and publicly de-recognized Domingo Nogales as their leader (video|Los Tiempos). “He is no longer president of TIPNIS because he committed such a serious crime within the territory and its communities; therefore, they have elevated the vice president of the subcentral [Fabian Rocha] to president of the Subcentral TIPNIS | Ya no es presidente del Tipnis por haber cometido un delito tan grave dentro del territorio y las comunidades, por lo cual le suben al vicepresidente como presidente de la subcentral del Tipnis,” Emilio Noza told reporters by phone.

Such changes of leadership in Bolivian organizations are often precursors to mobilization. In this case, they match calls by both Fernando Vargas and Marcial Fabricano (a founder of the Subcentral TIPNIS and former president of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia) to reorganize the indigenous movement. As we enter the seventh year of the controversy, the TIPNIS highway continues to be a flashpoint for indigenous and environmental mobilization in Bolivia.

Image: Women’s Subcentral of TIPNIS President Marqueza Teco at indigenous territories summit in May 2017.

[2014] CONAMAQ in crisis: Pro-government faction seizes headquarters by force

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This post was originally written in January 2014, and went unpublished while I was on parental leave with my first child. I’m posting it now to make it available for others to reference.

The highland indigenous movement CONAMAQ entered a profound organizational crisis in December over the organization’s relationship to the Evo Morales government. The group, whose full name means the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu, represents over a dozen highland indigenous communities dedicated to restoring self-governance through traditional community structures. It diverged politically with the government in 2011 over the right to exercise free, prior, and informed consent over projects in indigenous territories and its participation in the Eighth National Indigenous March in defense of the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). Soon after the march, CONAMAQ withdrew from the government-aligned Pact of Unity. In the past year, it has made preparations to run an independent slate in the 2014 parliamentary elections.

A faction of pro-government leaders within CONAMAQ, led by Hilarion Mamani of Chichas waged a campaign for new leadership of the organization, which included six attempts to occupy its headquarters. In December, Mamani’s faction and the existing leadership held separate gatherings of the Jach’a T’antachawi, a large gathering that is the organization’s highest authority. Late on December 10, after the pro-government gathering elected Hilarion Mamani, a crowd of his supporters burst into the organization’s La Paz headquarters and beat three CONAMAQ leaders and a member of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights. Bolivian police took control of the building for the next month, while supporters of the existing leadership maintained a vigil outside the building. Hilarion Mamani’s supporters attacked that vigil and took control of the headquarters on January 14. Both the Defensoria del Pueblo and the UN’s human rights office in Bolivia issued statements of concern following the violent takeover; the UN particularly criticized the failure of the police to safeguard the vigil from physical attack.

The Jach’a T’antachawi aligned with the incumbent leadership elected Freddy Bernabé as the new head of the organization on December 12 and 13. The regional indigenous confederation of the Andes (CAOI) and the Amazon Basin (COICA) recognize him as the leader of CONAMAQ. The government-aligned Pact of Unity, which also include the CIDOB faction led by Melva Hurtado, views Hilarion Mamani as CONAMAQ’s leader. The newspaper Pagina Siete and community radio network Erbol report that grassroots leaders in most of the organization’s base back Bernabe.

For Hilarion Mamani, the split is a repudiation of the incumbent leadership’s political alliances, including with CIDOB, the Green Party, and “free thinking” dissidents within the MAS. Conversely, the incumbent leaders have denounced his actions as nothing more than government interference in the organization. The government claims to distance itself from an “internal” conflict in the organization, but state media immediately recognized Hilarion Mamani as its leader and Vice Minister Alfredo Rada has blamed the split on the government’s critics in the movement. Dissident MAS legislator Rebeca Delgado denounced government interference, citing documentation of Rada’s Vice Ministry paying the logistical expenses for Mamani’s election (see also this signed budget posted online). Since his election, Mamani’s faction has vowed to mobilize for Evo Morales’ re-election as president.

Post-script: CONAMAQ’s headquarters before and after the takeover by the pro-government faction, as tweeted by a Bolivia journalist.

 

State of the TIPNIS highway, 7 years into its controversial construction

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Since documenting the state of construction of the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway is purely factual work based on references, I’ve been doing on Wikipedia for years. Here’s the latest update:

Screen Shot 2017-07-05 at 3.52.38 PM

Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway on Wikipedia

Update 1: Despite the legal prohibition on Segment II, TIPNIS community members have recently shared photographic evidence (taken on July 17, 2017) that the government is actively building bridges inside of the Territory that would become part of the highway.

TIPNIS-Unauthorized Construction-July17 170998

Update 2: After the passage of Law 266, construction of the highway appears to have accelerated. This is happening despite provisions in the law which require the elaboration of  transportation plan for TIPNIS and consultation with residents.

At the Inter-American Commission Human Rights…

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I’m spending this week in Washington, DC, attending sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. I’m here as a researcher on socio-environmental conflicts and a teacher; six of my students in a Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples class are here with me to see how the human rights they are learning about are claimed in practice. The Inter-American human rights system, which includes the Commission and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, has become a critical node in the mesh of institutions that are transforming indigenous rights from a general aspiration to a formal international norm.

International law institutions are viewed by most United States citizens with well-earned skepticism. The US government has played an ironic role in helping to structure such institutions, but then refusing to acknowledge any outside legal commitment or monitoring structure as having authority over its actions. US Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick famously called social and cultural rights “a letter to Santa Claus” and Senate ratifications of major human rights treaties have included statements insisting they may not be invoked in civil litigation. Outside the superpower, however, these institutions tend to be regarded with greater respect and states dutifully send senior officials to be questioned and directed by members of the Inter-American Commission. On Friday, for example, Commissioner Macaulay insisted that a Minister from Panama not leave the room without first scheduling the next meeting with a community who brought its land claims case before the IACHR.

Indigenous Rights at UN:OAS.002Both the Commission and the Court are bodies of the Organization of American States, the regional association of Western Hemisphere countries founded in 1948 in response to the Roosevelt Administration’s call for a “League of Nations of the Americas.” US leadership initially positioned the OAS as anti-communist and drove Cuba’s suspension from the organization from 1962 to 2009. The Commission began in 1959 and the Court opened in 1979. While the softer of the two institutions, the Commission has the power to impose binding “precautionary measures,” ordering states to protect vulnerable individuals or avoid taking irreversible actions. The Commission also acts as an investigative arm of the system and makes recommendations to states, and sends cases to the Court for adjudication when the states don’t comply. The Court acts as a kind of continental Supreme Court overseeing the human rights of people in twenty-four countries that have ratified the American Convention on Human Rights (those countries indicated by all colors except purple and gray in this map).

My students have been reading Richard Price’s Rainforest Warriors: Human Rights on Trial, a detailed ethnographic account of the how the Saramaka people brought their rights claims before the Inter-American Commission and Inter-American Court in a landmark case. The Court’s eventual decision in Saramaka v. Suriname concluded (1) Afro-descendant peoples in the Americas living traditionally and distinctly from national societies have the same rights as indigenous peoples; (2) Both kinds of traditional peoples have rights to property in their traditional territories, and the resources they have traditionally used; (3) projects that seize this property or threaten the physical or cultural survival of traditional peoples can only be carried forward with their free, prior, and informed consent.

Four years ago, I attended the session on the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory at the Commission. You can read my report on that hearing here. More recently, in December 2016, three Sioux peoples brought the issue of the Dakota Access Pipeline to the IACHR. The hearing is archived as an online video (en and es, according the language of the speaker), just as all hearings this week are available from the Commission.