MIM Notes 216
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MIM Notes 213
by a comrade and MC5 After years of bloody struggle, four months of a protest encampment in the yard of the Environment Ministry and several weeks of intensified protests in April, on April 19 the Embera-Katio people signed an agreement with the government of Colombia. The agreement gives the Embera-Katio economic compensation for the flooding of their lands by the government hydroelectric project and it also bars construction of the second proposed hydroelectric project. The Urra Dam is a joint imperialist project. It started filling with water November 18th, 1999. The Canadian government loaned it $28 million through its Export Development Corporation (EDC). According to the Globe and Mail of November 16, 1999 in Canada, BFC Construction Corporation of Ontario specifically benefited from EDC's loan activity of $18 million related to the Urra Dam.(1) The EDC is not required to consider environmental impact or any impact in its own internal procedures concerning development projects. In turn, BFC Construction is only procuring supplies for the leading contractor for the dam, a Swedish company. Swedish firm Skanska has dam activity in both India and Colombia.(2) Skanska is the largest holder of real estate in Sweden. Skanska's imperialist activity belies the frequent social-democratic yammering about Sweden. Nor is this Urra Dam a project of the quaint petty-bourgeoisie that usually enamors the social-democrats. The Urra Dam project value exceeds $780 million and involves profits going to paramilitary groups who intimidate people off their land, partly with the help of a local corporation set up to handle the project. (See for example the press release excerpt from the People's Global Action on the paramilitary forces at work.) It is important to realize that Colombian internal forces are not the main reason this dam project happened. Without imperialism, this project would not have occurred. The money for the death squads comes from the European imperialists. It goes to show that while the rights of imperialist country so-called workers in Sweden are respected, when it comes to the Third World, Swedish companies are involved in repression just like the other imperialists who do most of the work clearing the way for the Swedish usually. The relative freedom of the Swedish so-called workers is bought with the repression of the Colombian people and other Third World peoples. Also subcontracting with Sweden's Skanska is Voest-Alpine MCE, another major hydro dam contractor. (3) Voest-Alpine MCE is based in Austria. Even the Russian Energomachiexport company is involved in the Urra Dam project(4) financed overall mainly by the Nordic Investment Bank. The Nordic countries are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden The Nordic Investment Bank has this to say about itself: " The Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) has its headquarters in Helsinki, Finland. The bank was established in 1976 to direct international capital to the Nordic countries. The bank has a "triple A" status awarded by the two leading American rating institutes. . . . "The bank's main role is to assist Nordic firms in financing industrial projects, environmental schemes, ports, power plants and tourist facilities, amongst other things. "NIB also supplies investment loans for projects which can serve Nordic interests in credit-worthy developing countries and in Central and Eastern Europe, but the main activities funded today are located in southeast Asia."(5) Finally, the bank behind the whole Urra dam project has this to say for itself: "One of the main interests of the Nordic Investment Bank is environmental conservation. The Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) is a subsidiary which works on a trans-national level."(5) According to the progressive organization known as the World Rainforest Movement, however, the Urra Dam is an environmental catastrophe that the Nordic Investment Bank financed: "This situation constitutes both an environmental catastrophe and a genocide. Downstream from the dam, the river level has already decreased dramatically, resulting in the collapse of the river's banks and the entailing destruction of the peoples' houses. The most valuable fish for the Embera's diet--a species called 'bocachico'--is massively dying in the suddenly drying wetlands. At the same time, the Embera Katio indigenous peoples living upstream are powerless to prevent the flooding of their fields, sacred sites, cemeteries and houses, with the consequent destruction of their traditional culture."(6) So much for protecting the environment with imperialist self-interests. The new government agreement with the Embera-Katio people also has provisions to protect what the government calls "human rights" in Embera-Katio territory. MIM knows that there are no universal humyn rights under capitalism, just concessions the government is forced to offer the people. In this case protecting the Embera-Katio humyn rights means the government giving lip service to curbing some of the abuses by its own military. On Apr. 10 the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia called on the indigenous people of Colombia to defend the U'wa and Embera-Katio peoples rights, declaring a "territorial, cultural and social state of emergency of the indigenous peoples of Colombia."(7) The U'wa are fighting against Occidental Petroleum's (a U.$. company) oil drilling on their sacred ancestral lands and the Embera-Katio are fighting the flooding of their lands by the Urra dam project. Throughout April protests by indigenous people took place across Colombia. On April 4, four indigenous legislators began a hunger strike outside the Congress building in Bogota while a few days later 800 Embera-Katio and U'wa protesters set up camp outside the Environment Ministry and the Congress. Forty U'wa people joined the hunger strike on April 10.(8) As the protests have intensified more indigenous groups have been seizing and occupying land. On April 5, more than 400 indigenous people blocked the Panamerican highway in the southwestern region of Colombia as part of the national mobilization.(7) Demanding land titles, people from the Prensa Zanja Honda First Nation seized the Tolima Triangle dam. On April 13 nearly 7,000 protesters tried to blockade the Pan-American highway between Popayan and Cali but were forced to return home after the army and police attacked their demonstration.(8) The indigenous people in Colombia are rightly demanding that the imperialist-backed Colombian government give back their land and grant them national self-determination. Here in the united states, where the congress is pushing through a huge funding bill for the Colombian military, the role of Amerikan imperialism in Colombia is very clear. As is often the case, in the Urra Dam situation, European imperialists benefit from the repression mainly directed by Uncle Sam. The original authorization of the dam construction took place under an environmental license that forced the government to compensate the Embera-Katio communities each with about $40,000 annually for 50 years. The new agreement gives them all of the money in a lump sum to pay for purchase of lands to expand their reservation.(9) While this is a victory for the Embera-Katio because it will allow them to acquire new land, it does not compensate for the original theft of their land or the hardship endured. The agreement also requires that the government not use Embera-Katio people as military or police guides or bodyguards or informants, prohibits them from using community radio frequencies and from any other activity that could be interpreted as involving them in the armed struggle currently going on in the country.(9) The Colombian military is infamous for its brutality against both the armed resistance groups in the country and the people who happen to be in the way of the battle. There is no reason to believe the military or the Colombian government will abide by this agreement, but it represents a concession that the Embera-Katio people are correct to demand. The struggle by the Embera-Katio shows us the concessions that can be won from the imperialists through persistent protest. But without armed struggle the imperialists will continue to oppress and exploit the majority of the world's people. Individual corporations or governments may be forced to give in to small demands, but they will never give the power of self-determination to the people. This power can only be won through revolutionary struggle. The indigenous peoples in Colombia continue their active protests demanding improvements in living conditions, making it clear that the battle continues even after this accord between the Embera-Katio and the government. On April 28 about 4000 Embera-Chami and Embera-Katio people occupied the town of Pueblo Rico to demand that the governors of this and a nearby department meet with them to come up with solutions to their lack of health care, education and infrastructure. The occupation prohibited all people from entering or leaving the town. The First Nation peoples and the people of Colombia in general are fighting imperialist backed corporations and an imperialist-lackey government. The battle will not be won until imperialism has been overthrown by the people. It is not that MIM opposes all development projects. However, the projects should be run for the needs of the people, not the profits of imperialist companies. We are confident that these types of struggles throughout the world will gradually lead the people to an understanding of the need for Maoist leadership in the revolutionary movement. The history of anti-imperialist struggles makes clear that this is the only effective path to victory. As we are building for this victory we must support the day to day struggle for self-determination of indigenous people everywhere.
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