The company’s headquarters in Madrid. Wikimedia photo.
Sacyr, the Spanish company that’s
trying to loot the Panama Canal
by Olmedo Beluche
Some folks hailed a ruling at the end of September by the International Chamber of Commerce’s Arbitration Court, based in Miami, which obliged the Spanish company Sacyr to return $265 million from a lawsuit over the construction of the Panama Canal’s third set of locks. The company alleged that the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) erroneously rejected the mixture of basalt and asphalt that it proposed to use.
However, the enthusiasm of the Panamanian public should be tempered, since Sacyr has filed lawsuits against the ACP on the order of $3.75 billion. The aforementioned 265 million barely constitute 8.8% of the total demanded. Everything else remains in dispute.
The problem is that, when in 2007 the Grupo Unidos Por el Canal consortium (GUPC), in which Sacyr was the majority partner, tendered its bid for the construction of the larger third set of locks, the total cost of the work was estimated at $3.118 billion. On that figure, the ACP ended up paying an additional $460 million, bringing the final cost of the work to $ 3.578 billion.
In other words, SACRYR makes the leonine demand for more than double the initial cost of the work. It’s absurd, and fraudulent from every point of view. If everything demanded was paid in favor of Sacyr, the final cost would go from the $3.118 billion estimated at the beginning to a total of $7.103 billion.
To top it off, thanks to neoliberal globalization, this attempted raid on Panamanian public funds is in the hands of a foreign tribunal, outside of our jurisdiction and sovereignty, in Miami. Let’s not celebrate too soon.
Historically, the looting of the Panama Canal’s resources by financial speculators began in the 19th century when the North American owners of the Panama Railroad Company, together with those of the French Universal Canal Company, conspired to rob the people of Panama and Colombia of rights over the railroad for which neither ever paid. That’s just to mention one of the incidents.
In Latin America, the news media commonly use the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht as the model of a corrupt company. However, they forget that others have also paid bribes and kickbacks to politicians. In Spain, Sacyr has been accused of paying politicians of the Partido Popular and has been involved in other questionable operations.
In the Panamanian case, it was questionable that CUSA, whose owners are the Alemán Zubieta family, to which the ACP administrator at the time when this concession was made belongs, was a junior partner with Sacyr in the GUPC. But that was “legal,” they say, because in Panama there is no conflict of interest law.
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For the millions of people around the world who live on islands today, a plane or boat can easily enough carry them to the mainland or other islands.
But how did people in the ancient past first make it to distant islands they couldn’t even see from home? Many islands around the world can be reached only by traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles across open water, yet nearly all islands that people live on were settled by between 800 to 1,000 years ago.
Archaeologistslikeuswantto understand why people would risk their lives to reach these far-off places, what kinds of boat and navigational methods they used, and what other technologies they invented to make it. Islands are important places to study because they hold clues about human endurance and survival in different kinds of environments.
One of the most interesting places to study these processes is the Caribbean, the only region of the Americas where people settled an archipelago with some islands not visible from surrounding areas. Despite more than a century of research, there are still many questions about the origins of the first Caribbean people, when they migrated and what routes they took. My colleagues and I recently reanalyzed archaeological data collected over 60 years to answer these fundamental questions.
Settling the islands one by one
Based on the discovery of unique stone tools and food remains such as shells and bones, archaeologists have a general understanding thatpeople first spread throughout the Caribbeanin a series of migrations that probably began at least 7,000 years ago and likely originated from northern South America.
Amerindians paddled between islandsin dugout canoes and were remarkably adept at open-water travel. Archaeologists don’t know what inspired people to first colonize the Caribbean islands, but we do know they brought plants and animals from the mainland, like manioc and oppossum, to help ensure their survival.
There are two main ideas about what happened. For decades, the prevailing notion was that people migrated from South America into the Antilles in a south-to-north “stepping-stone” pattern. Because the islands stretch in a gentle arc from Grenada all the way up to Cuba in the northwest –with many largely visible from one to the next– this would seem to provide a convenient path for early settlers.
This hypothesis, however, has been challenged by evidence thatsome of the earliest sites are in the northern islands. Analyses of wind and ocean currents suggest that it was actually easier to travel directly between South America and the northern Caribbean before moving in a southerly direction. Researchers call this proposal of a north-to-south migration the “southward route” hypothesis.
For decades, archaeologists have been excavating artifacts on these islands. Scott Fitzpatrick, CC BY-ND
Revisiting previous scientists’ date data
Figuring out which model for settling the Caribbean best fits the evidence depends on being able to assign accurate dates to human activity preserved in the archaeological record. To do this, researchers need a lot of reliable dates from many different sites throughout the islands to establish how, when and from where people landed.
Archaeologists typically usea technique called radiocarbon datingto figure out how old an artifact is. When an organism dies, it stops producing carbon and its remaining carbon decays at a fixed rate of time – archaeologists say “death starts the clock.” By measuring the amount of carbon left in the organism and then performing a few additional calculations, scientists are left with a probable age range for when that organism died.
Archaeologists often date things like food remains, charcoal from cooking hearths or wood in the building where they are found. If archaeologists date shells found in a trash heap, they can tell, usually within a range of 25 to 50 years or so, when that shellfish was harvested for a meal.
Archaeologists have been radiocarbon dating findings in the Caribbean since the 1950s – when the radiocarbon technique was first discovered. But dating methods and the standards scientists follow have improved dramatically since then. Part of our job was to see if each of the 2,500 radiocarbon dates available would meet today’s standards. Dates that did not meet those standards were thrown out, leaving us with a smaller database of only the most reliable times for human activity.
Determining where people lived first
By statistically analyzing these remaining dates, we confirmed that Trinidad was the first Caribbean island settled by humans, at least 7,000 years ago. However, Trinidad is so close to South America that only simple – or even no – boats were needed to get there.
After Trinidad, the oldest settlements occurred between 6,000 and 5,000 years ago in the northern Caribbean on the large islands of the Greater Antilles: Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Reaching them would have required crossing passages of water where no islands were visible to the naked eye, although navigators rely on other wayfinding techniques – like current, cloud patterns, seeing birds fly in a certain direction – to know if land is out there. By around 2,500 years ago, people had spread out to settle other islands in the northern Lesser Antilles, including Antigua and Barbuda.
Based on these data, the patterns of initial settlement of the Caribbean are most consistent with the southward route hypothesis.
Around 1,800 years ago, a new wave of people also moved from South America into the Lesser Antilles, colonizing many of the remaining uninhabited islands. About 1,000 years later, their descendants moved into the smaller islands of the Greater Antilles and Bahamian archipelago. This is when Jamaica and the Bahamas were settled for the first time.
Our research findings also support the widely held view that environment played a significant role in how and when islands were settled.
Archaeologists know that once people settled islands, they frequently moved between them. Not all islands are the same, and some offered more or better resources than others. For example, in the Bahamas and the Grenadines, the primaryway to access freshwateris by digging wells; there are no streams or springs. Some islandslacked clay for making pottery, which was important for cooking and storing food. People may have also traveled to different islands to access preferred fishing or hunting spots or seek out marriage partners.
Strong seasonal winds and currents facilitated travel between islands. That’s also probably one of the reasons why Caribbean people never developed the sail or other seafaring technologies that were used in the Pacific, Mediterranean and North Atlantic around the same time. Dugout canoes crossed between South America and the islands just fine.
Interpretations of past human behavior at archaeological sites are anchored by radiocarbon dates to study change over time. For archaeologists, it’s important to periodically take another look at the data to make sure that the narratives built on those data are reliable. Our review of the radiocarbon record for the Caribbean allowed us to show – with increased accuracy – the ways in which the region was first colonized by people, how they interacted and moved between islands, and how their societies developed following initial colonization.
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To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.
Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.
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These announcements are interactive. Click on them for more information.
Estos anuncios son interactivos. Toque en ellos para seguir a las páginas de web.
Back then — now Trump wants to get Flynn out of the latter’s guilty plea and the Greens no longer openly hobnob with Putin and the Trump campaign but still say nothing about swarms of fake Facebook personas coming onto Bernie groups preaching “vote Green” and repeating right-wing anti-Biden memes.
A warning from a Democratic member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee
I am also an active Democrat — how good or bad of one we Democrats in Panama will perhaps discuss after the election — and this old hippie activist. Since 2016 I have been an administrator of the Expats for Sanders Facebook group (we DID win the Democrats Abroad global primary again this year) and more recently, with Yippie legend and group founder Aron Kay ailing, I have become an administrator with the Aging Hippies for Bernie Sanders group. I came into responsible positions with both groups in times that they were facing enemy troll wave attacks.
The technology is always advancing, as is public awareness of what goes on and corporate and political reactions to that, but the basic stuff is very old. And the arts of creating fake persona bots and trolls can be quite sophisticated, but even compared to 2016 this year’s norms have regressed to quite primitive.
First, the difference between a bot and a troll is generally function. A bot is a bit of code that presents an image of a person but has no speaking role. It’s used to “like” or “follow” some dubious page, persona or account to promote its rankings with the company running the particular social medium, so as to reach more people. But bots are often amenable to being fleshed out enough to be given speaking false persona roles through which trolls operate. The question does arise whether old bots which survived mass purges between the last presidential election season have now have been upgraded to be used by trolls this time around. It might explain a lot of things about artistic levels if that is the case.
As a group administrator, look first at behavior. Is somebody coming into a progressive group running a de facto ‘abstain from voting against Donald Trump’ message? Might be a ‘vote Green’ ploy, or a ‘write in Bernie Sanders’ message, or a ‘vote for Kanye West’ argument or — more common then than now — this nonsense about how it’s “woke” for young African-American adults not to vote. At this point, and especially given the endorsements of Joe Biden by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortéz and virtually all of the leading American progressives, that stuff just ought to be eliminated from any group bearing the name of anyone who has endorsed Biden. But you really want to distinguish among causes for the deletion of a post or comment, the placing of a person on moderation during the campaign season and the definitive expulsion of an account.
False personas advocating voter abstention need to be definitively kicked out. Real people with genuine progressive credentials who don’t much like Joe Biden and say as much should be respected as people and engaged in reasonable debate.
So, the person or persona who posts something that ought to be deleted should be looked up. Did this account get created last week? Is the sum of its messaging a mix of Bernie Sanders primary arguments against Joe Biden and rightist conspiracy theories or memes? Does the name sound odd? Is the photo one of some celebrity, or of a cat? Do you go to the “about” part and find no information listed? Or spurious or clearly false information listed? Do you go deeper and look at what the Facebook account says that they like and find an odd mix for anyone in any generation of a progressive social milieu? (Or more telling yet, go down to the things they say they like, or into their photos, and see all these Confederate flags?)
These are all hallmarks of a fake persona at a primitive level of the art. There are lots of these popping up in the social media these days.
A great quick red flag — are they in a Bernie group, which they only joined AFTER Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign? There are legitimate folks who have done that — it’s about us, not him, and it’s a movement, not a personality, so he tells us. But a simple date may call for deeper investigation.
I have run across a couple of more sophisticated troll personas that made me suspect, with no way of proving, that we are dealing with Russians.
There was the guy (or so projected) in a Bernie group, claiming to be from New Zealand. Born and educated there, works there, so the Facebook profile says. Almost all posts about US politics. Nothing at all about the American community in New Zealand.
Similarly, the purported guy from the north of England. Nothing at all about England. Nothing about the large Democrats Abroad chapter in the UK or any other Americans. Born, educated and lives in the same part of northeastern England. All this trash Joe Biden ‘from the left’ stuff, and a bit about 9/11 being a false flag event staged by an international Jewish conspiracy.
And what else do the two guys above have in common? Writing perfect American Standard English of a bland midwestern variety. Not one phrase of Kiwi or Brit usage. Much better language institute students than Boris and Natasha ever were, but not so steeped in the dialects and histories of the English-speaking peoples to be convincing.
There are and were in 2016 entire fake leftist groups using Bernie’s or AOC’s names. They have attracted real people, who recoil at the abstention messaged they allow or promote. One of the hallmarks is their screeds against progressives who are voting for the Democrats on the charge of “vote shaming.” The next US Congress really ought to call some of the people involved to come before committees and explain. Not just for the purposes of exposing slime, but for some legislative purposes like what ought to be done about Facebook, Google et al.
Finally, let me say as an old antiwar hippie who lives abroad that although I think that Senator Murphy says a timely and important thing, at the end of the day it will be in America’s interest to reduce tensions and reach certain understandings with Putin. And with other bad guys like Modi, and with Latin American leaders who have fallen ill with the caudillo compulsion. Thing is, Donald Trump owes too much to Putin to deal with Russia properly, at arm’s length, talking nation to nation.
Let’s have these discussions about US foreign policy among calm Americans of varying points of view. But let’s give the fake persona trolls the bums’ rush.
[Eric Jackson, a dual US and Panamanian citizen by birth and resident of Panama, in addition to publishing The Panama News is also vice chair and past chair of Democrats Abroad Panama. Here he does not speak for Panama’s Democratic organization, only himself.]
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One of the historic abuses — and abuses of history — that has existed in Panamanian law is the notion that it can be a crime punishable by prison to defame a dead person. That specific possibility was written out of the law several years ago, but without an explicit bar on such prosecutions. The former mayor of La Villa de Los Santos, who died this past March, was found listed on the Ministry of the Presidency’s payroll this September. The young and increasingly noticed online journal Foco took notice and published the above — which is true, or was at the time. There could be many an innocent explanation, but there are also historic practices that are not so innocent. Foco did not accuse any individual of a crime. A false allegation that someone committed a crime is the essence of calumnia, half of what is usually referred to as the calumnia e injuria law. The other half, injuria, is making somebody look bad in the public eye. Strictly speaking, truth is not a defense. However, Panama is a party to human rights treaties that would bar a conviction for injuria when the story is both true and a matter of public interest — as in what’s going on in the government. There are other ways to harass journalists, though. The late politician’s son has announced a lawsuit for $30,000 for injuring the reputation of the deceased. Graphic from Foco.
Turbulence and decay in Panama’s politics and media taken out on the small press
by Eric Jackson
It used to be that there was a powerful cartel of about a half-dozen or less ad agencies that wielded tremendous power. They told the TV stations what programs were acceptable, the real estate developers which races of people could or could not appear on their billboards, the newspapers who would or would not get the prized advertising clients.
Then, as a worldwide phenomenon that owes a great deal to Google and Facebook, advertising-supported communication media collapsed as a business model. A few of the giants survived by gobbling up competitors or diversifying into other lines of business. Some of the media were acquired by billionaires to whom profits were not so important as vanity. A lot of news organizations, and many an entertainment medium, went through painful cost-cutting.
(Reality TV? Influencers? Some people get well paid, but these insufferable personas are cheap compared to the costs of the way things were done. The wretched products are noticeably inferior to those who see and care about such things.)
Now, with Panama’s ad agencies largely subsidiaries of US-based companies that are themselves endangered, with Panamanian media increasingly captured by political parties or beholden to foreign interests, the opinion-making biz ain’t what it used to be. What a time for a medical crisis that collapses the Panamanian economy, and a moral crisis that has collapsed the credibility of Panama’s political caste notwithstanding partisan boundaries.
We are in such a time. The state, and now with an attempt by the church to get in on the action, dominate the sources of information like never before. Government announcements, police trophy photos of the latest drug seizure and the archbishop’s declarations of what’s right and what isn’t — this is supposed to be our daily information feed.
What’s a demagogue looking to increase his or her following to do? Set up “call centers” of trolls who spread bile about whatever other side wherever it can be spread. Get some sort of government funding for private propaganda aimed at personal benefit. Build up some low-talent relative as an “influencer” and get his or her endorsement. It’s all pretty vacuous. People sense that and buy fewer newspapers, avoid subscribing to get past the old mainstream papers’ pay walls, turn off the old TV networks, and go surfing online.
It’s hard to sustain a vacuum, though, and into the empty spaces come the social media and a bunch of small and micro news organizations. A bunch of the emerging sources are no longer so new. Some of them are folks from the old paradigms — CBS News may have washed its hands of Dan Rather and MSNBC may have discarded Cenk Uygur but they live on in their own media. As do, on the Panamanian scene, folks like Ebrahim Asvat and Mauricio Valenzuela.
It’s a problem for political dynasties, government agencies, rabiblanco media barons and those who consider that by holy anointment or superior bloodlines their stories are all that matters and all that ought to be told. So the state, and now the church, instead of educating people on how to determine what is fake, instead of going down into the trenches to call out social media falsehoods that can get people killed, run this facile argument that if information is not from them, it’s false.
Yet the piranha school of small media nibble away, much to the discomfort of those in high places, especially those who flaunt bad behavior on the presumption that nobody who is anybody will talk about it.
And seeing how the anointed ones act, there are these social media imitators. You often don’t know the “who” of upstart or breakaway “movements” with no identified leaders and tiny followings, which also try to invoke authority against the small media. You can generally figure out the “what” by looking at the messages they put out.
Ah, the nationalist ploy, by an anonymous “movement” with 19 followers. Garden variety US-inspired religious right, it appears. Is it one of the same old demagogues’ new additions to its cast of social media trolls? Notice to whom they address their “nationalist” plea.
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With 200,000 dead, Americans are concluding that a more Rooseveltian response was in order.
Amazingly, America has become a nation of socialists, asking in dismay: “Where’s the government?”
These are not born-again Bernie Sanders activists, but everyday people of all political stripes (including previously apolitical multitudes) who are now clamoring for big government intervention in their lives.
Nothing like a coronavirus pandemic to bring home the need that all of us have — both as individuals and as a society — for an adequately funded, fully functioning, competent government capable of serving all.
Instead, in our moment of critical national need, Trump’s government was a rickety medicine show run by a small-minded flimflammer peddling laissez-fairyland snake oil.
“We have it totally under control,” Trump pompously declared after the first U.S. case was confirmed in January. For weeks, as the pandemic spread out of control, he did nothing. An increasingly anxious public found that they couldn’t even get reliable test kits from Trump’s hollowed-out government health agencies.
Still, he shrugged off all concern and responsibility: “By April, you know, in theory,” he said, “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” Not exactly a can-do Rooseveltian response to a national crisis!
By now, over 200,000 Americans have died from the virus, millions more have been sickened, and the economy remains depressed.
These inconvenient facts have exposed this imposter of a president as incompetent, uncaring, and silly. That complete absence of White House leadership is why a deadly pathogen has now raged practically everywhere across our land, a “closed indefinitely” sign has literally been hung on the American economy, and even our social and civic interactions — the essence of community life — have been halted.
Right-wing politico Grover Norquist once said he wanted a government so small “I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Trump has shown us what such a small-minded government looks like. And what it costs us.
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The forensics team works the scene of PRD activist Wendy Del Carmen Rodrírugez’s gangland-style murder. Public Ministry photo.
Nito’s party
President Cortizo is not entirely to blame, maybe not even mostly at fault. But as the government faces a huge debt crisis and a still-deadly epidemic the ruling PRD is falling into faction fighting that appears to shade into gang warfare, almost daily displays of arrogant disrespect for the general public and increasing demands on the public treasury. Such is the setting for next year’s internal party elections.
The man who founded the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), General Omar Torrijos, was a complicated character who put together a broad and at certain glances unlikely coalition to unite Panama for the task of abolishing the old Canal Zone. His big advantage was that the Pentagon wanted to retain certain military ties here, but generally considered the white Zonians as obnoxious and expendable while it saw the West Indian civilian majority of the Canal Zone population as a prime resource for its military recruiters. Once the Panama Canal treaties began to take effect in 1979 the Torrijos coalition and the PRD itself began to fall apart. Within the party the centrifugal forces have been at work ever since.
Next year leftists and neofascists will do battle within the PRD, and will probably be outflanked by yet other factions. There will certainly be turf wars and hit men may come into play. Grasping would-be party elites will be looking to create paid positions for themselves and push out the last of the unpaid patriotic volunteers. There will be promises and pressures to manipulate the legal system to get alleged rapists, drug runners, embezzlers of public funds and garden variety assault and battery guys relieved of all consequences for their actions.
Now’s just the prelude. There is a move in the legislature to create new 41 corregimientos to staff with PRD activists, at a starting cost of some $13 million a year. About 60 low-level local PRD activists have now banded together as “professionals” and are demanding inclusion on the public payroll.
The intra-PRD power struggle has strained the president’s relations with his party caucus in the legislature. If history is any guide, the party won’t be re-elected to power in 2024 and its frantic hacks will be squeezing every last advantage to amass some wealth for a coming five years in the political wilderness.
But this is only a year and a half into this government’s five-year mandate. President Cortizo could be rendered politically helpless during one of the worst crises in Panamanian history. Perhaps, though, he could reach beyond his party and call upon the Panamanian people to surmount this dilemma. The problem with that is that the non-PRD folks who have his ear, mostly business leaders, are also on the whole grasping and short-sighted.
The PRD’s woes aren’t something for Panamanians who are unaffiliated with that party to celebrate. They are but a microcosm of the nation’s woes, replicated in every political party, in the private sectors and in the ways that so many of us deal with one another.
So do we have someone to lead us past this moment?
It’s well beyond political hardball and into criminal activity. Donald Trump threatens to send out goons to intimidate voters where he knows he will lost big. Donald Trump has sabotaged the mail sorting rooms in largely Democratic areas and declares that he’s defying court orders to reinstall the torn-out equipment. Donald Trump has issued orders to slow down mail service by ordering postal workers not to deliver all the mail.
In a number of key jurisdictions Reverend Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign are organizing a voter defense effort. But in the face of organized crime directed at hijacking American democracy, more should be done.
State, county and local governments need to step in so that nobody interferes with the mail and nobody brutalizes or intimidates voters. If the order comes down that election mail is not to be delivered to clerks in time to be counted, one of the responses ought to be that state national guards and postal workers’ unions combine to thwart such crimes and deliver the mail. If Republican mobs block access to voting places like they recently did in one Virginia county, they should be arrested by local or state authorities. People displaying weapons at or within sight of voting places should be taken off to jail.
Cadet Bone Spurs thinks that everyone who might vote against him is a wimp. He’s wrong, and even were he not, voters of all persuasions should be protected from his gangster displays.
The estate that Gandhi left behind.
Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Bear in mind….
Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.
Surah Al-Baqara, 2:256 (Yusuf Ali version)
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.
Isaiah 61:1 (King James version)
If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary.
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The economy is broken and will not go back to what it was. So will people “fish in turbulent waters?” Of course. As if the people who have the president’s ear haven’t! But things were broken way before the virus came to Panama, and whatever the coming economic demands the basic issues won’t be fixed unless we deal with old prejudices and problems. Photo from Twitter.
Reality is ruthless
by Miguel Antonio Bernal
The budget must be balanced, the treasury must be replenished, the public debt must be diminished, the arrogance of public officials must be moderated and controlled, and aid to other countries must be eliminated, so that Rome does not go bankrupt. People must learn anew to work instead of living at the expense of the State.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 BC
Lumpempresidentialism continues to wreak havoc upon our country. Down to a science, it plays upon the patience of a majority of the population who, ignorant of their rights as human beings, has fallen into the clutches of a mediocre and dictatorial government.
The pandemic’s arrival accelerated the crises through which we had been slogging. With it came the manipulation of minds weakened disuse and easily stunned. Today, the fear of freedom is compounded not only by the fear of democracy, but also the fear of education and the fear of culture.
Little analyzed here is the hidden face of presidential power, each day more aristocratic, authoritarian and autocratic. President Cortizo’s “speech” in Coclesito on July 31, with his untouchable vice president beside him, went beyond the symbolism of the environment. It was revealing in the spiteful venting of its content. He contemptuously questioned those who criticize him, spoke of “hidden agendas” and “dark motives,” and threatened: “After the pandemic passes, we will face …”
However, the disenchantment and social discontent do not stop. It may be confined and atomized by an isolation increasingly linked to the prevailing inequality. But more and more sectors of the population are beginning to react to the economic and social crisis as something caused and fueled, not by the pandemic, but by the corruption, impunity and mediocrity of the political parties and their abandonment of education, health and public safety.
No matter how ruthless this imposed reality is, we have to react. Yes, we have to be demanding of ourselves. We have to repudiate those who deceive, subjugate and mistreat us with all their means so that we do not protest, so that we remain silent before their ruthless actions.
It’s also necessary to remind those who come out of the caves of the political parties and the new political upstarts who, without knowing or wanting civil liberties, only aspire to enjoy the privileges that emanate from the administration of the treasury: No matter how much they seek to avoid it, the Constituent Assembly is, despite their desire for a detour around it, the road that people are seeking.
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Foto por la Autoridad de los Recursos Acuáticos de Panamá.
Las Américas no deben dejar pasar la oportunidad para liderar la protección del medio ambiente
por Amnistía Internacional
El 26 de septiembre cerró el plazo para que los países firmen el Acuerdo Regional sobre el Acceso a la Información, la Participación Pública y el Acceso a la Justicia en Asuntos Ambientales en América Latina y el Caribe (Acuerdo de Escazú). Para que este tratado entre en vigor, es necesario que al menos once países lo ratifiquen, por lo que solo se requiere uno más para sumarse a los diez países que ya lo han hecho.
“Este acuerdo nació de la necesidad de atender de manera urgente la emergencia climática que enfrentamos. Cuando el tratado se abrió a firmas hace exactamente dos años, también se abrió la esperanza de que América Latina y el Caribe hicieran historia con una normativa innovadora que podría contribuir en la protección al medio ambiente y a quienes lo defienden. Los países de la región no deben dejar pasar esta importante oportunidad”, dijo Erika Guevara Rosas, directora para las Américas de Amnistía Internacional.
Celebramos que 23 países, que representan más de dos tercios del total, se hayan sumado a la firma, y que diez Estados hayan respondido con la urgencia que amerita la crisis ambiental ratificando el acuerdo. Países como Costa Rica o Santa Lucía están a punto de unirse –está en manos del poder legislativo– y de convertirse en la última ratificación que abrirá la posibilidad de implementar políticas necesarias para la protección medioambiental de la región y del planeta.
“Pese a que la entrada en vigor del Acuerdo de Escazú podría ser un avance substancial en la política de los Estados de la región frente a la emergencia climática y la crisis de violencia en contra de personas defensoras del medio ambiente, la lentitud de algunos Estados para ratificarlo demuestra el desinterés que aún existe en varios países en la región de tomar medidas para construir una política ambiental más participativa, accesible y justa.”
Organizaciones de la sociedad civil de toda América Latina y el Caribe han formado coaliciones y trabajado de manera conjunta, en un esfuerzo de coordinación casi inédito con gran participación de personas jóvenes, para exhortar a los Estados de la región a firmar y ratificar el Acuerdo.
El Acuerdo de Escazú es el primer tratado medioambiental regional de América Latina y el Caribe. Su propósito es establecer nuevas normas de protección del medio ambiente y los derechos humanos que garanticen el acceso a la información, la participación ciudadana y el acceso a la justicia en materia ambiental en la región. Además, es el primer tratado internacional que incluye medidas específicas para proteger a las personas defensoras de los derechos ambientales.
“La importancia de ese tipo de normativa para la región es indiscutible. Colombia, Brasil, Guatemala, Honduras y México figuran entre los países más peligrosos del mundo para defender derechos humanos y el medio ambiente. Si bien hay avances en las discusiones sobre el Acuerdo en Colombia y México, en Brasil, Guatemala y Honduras el retraso es tal que más bien parece demostrar una falta de voluntad política”, dijo Erika Guevara Rosas.
“Desde Amnistía Internacional reiteramos la importancia de la implementación de normativas internacionales que fortalezcan la protección del medio ambiente y de las personas que lo defienden. Instamos a que los Estados de la región muestren su liderazgo en construir una política ambiental más participativa, accesible y justa en las Americas, adhiriéndose a la mayor brevedad al Acuerdo de Escazú.”
Representantes de las Naciones Unidas ya señalaron que la pandemia de COVID-19 debe considerarse como una llamada de atención para repensar nuestra relación con el medio ambiente, por lo que esta crisis no debe ser una excusa, si no una motivación más para avanzar en la protección de nuestro planeta.
Información adicional:
De los 23 países que firmaron el Acuerdo, solo diez lo han ratificado: Antigua y Barbuda, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panamá, San Cristóbal y Nieves, San Vicente y las Granadinas y Uruguay.
Otros 12 países han firmado el acuerdo, pero aún no lo han ratificado: Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Granada, Guatemala, Haití, Jamaica, México, Paraguay, Perú, República Dominicana y Santa Lucia.
En la lista de los países que no lo firmaron ni ratificaron están Chile, El Salvador, Cuba, Honduras, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Surinam, Trinidad y Tobago y Venezuela.
La organización internacional Global Witness, en su último informe “Defender el Mañana”, sitúa a Colombia, Brasil, México, Honduras y Guatemala en el primer, tercer, cuarto, quinto y sexto puesto respectivamente en número de asesinatos a personas defensoras de derechos humanos y del medio ambiente en 2019.
Nota del redactor: Ayer ratificó Argentina. Hay tramites legislativos pendientes en Colombia, Perú, Costa Rica y la República Dominicana para ratificar y salvar el tratado. Pero también ayer, el gobierno de Chile declaró su intención de salir del acuerdo.
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This species ranges from Mexico to Bolivia, Northern Argentina and Uruguay. It’s a forest bird that comes out to the edges and into cliearings, but it tries not to be seen. One of its moves is to run along tree branches – like a squirrel. It’s widely found around the isthmus, a bit less common at the higher altitudes.
Esta especie se extiende desde México hasta Bolivia, el norte de Argentina y Uruguay. Es un pájaro del bosque que sale a los bordes y a claros con algunos arboles, pero trata de no ser visto. Uno de sus movimientos es correr a lo largo de las ramas de los árboles, como una ardilla. Se encuentra ampliamente alrededor del istmo, un poco menos común en las altitudes más altas.
To fend off hackers, organized trolls and other online vandalism, our website comments feature is switched off. Instead, come to our Facebook page to join in the discussion.
Para defendernos de los piratas informáticos, los trolls organizados y otros actos de vandalismo en línea, la función de comentarios de nuestro sitio web está desactivada. En cambio, ven a nuestra página de Facebook para unirte a la discusión.
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What route did the first settlers to colonize the islands of the Caribbean take? 
