Week 6: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week

Post by Sunday at midnight

1. Mark Whitaker

2. Revolt in the Peruvian Amazon against Unrepresentative Oil Development

3. I think one flaw in Collier is his lack of data on the environmental implications of economic expansion. He doesn't really have comparative data about environmental issues and conditions correlated to his traps concept.

Some economic expansion is better than others, and I expect that if economic expansion (that Collier in the abstract argues removes the conflict trap) comes with widened pollution, can even some economic expansion lead to the conflict trap as well? So perhaps Collier should disaggregate 'economic development' into a scale of more degradative economic development versus less/zero degradative development. And then run his correlations once more with social stability and socioeconomic data in these two pairs.

The trick of course is getting the empirical data to prove or qualify this idea, as well as separate out all the different historical case variations that I am sure matter as well. Collier's traps are useful concepts though remember they are conceptual tools based on average correlations (so it depends on what you correlate or investigate) instead of requirements. I would like to see some more data to test the idea that environmental pollution in the bottom billion may create a potential conflict trap despite economic development. He only mentions environment in one state, Nigeria, (i.e., without comparative data).

The Peruvian government wants to get around indigenous communities rights by conducting a free trade agreement with the U.S. oil companies. Little matter that oil rarely if ever leads to development, and only crony corrupt cash for the governmental elites (there are exceptions to this rule: Botswana has done well with its raw material wealth, and its wealth came after it reached a political settlement; though countries that build their political settlements on raw material extraction are more inured in such corruptions, according to Collier's book. We watched a bit about Chavez attempting to prove the exception to the rule, though even after two terms of presidency so far, Venezuela has had little diversity to its development, and still is highly linked to the oil model. It's unfair to accuse a government of doing something it said it would not do, since Chavez's aim has always been to socialize the oil profits for Venezuelans in general instead of provide for ways out of the Dutch Disease system. It seems Peru is well on the way to yet another civil war.

By the way, last year I think, Costa Rica's announcement about oil and development is very different: so different that even though it discovered oil, it passed laws saying that its oil would not be utilized in perpetuity because of environmental concerns and because the state is developing in other ways. However, for states of the bottom billion without other immediate options the international market in raw materials (particularly when it comes as a ready-made plan from international investors) can seem like a dream come true in the short term, though has almost always been mismanaged in the long term and has worked against the country involved to claim it was 'developing' in this way. News from Peru: even though extraction rarely leads to development, states still gain much legitimacy (and perhaps crony bribery) for playing along and making themselves dependently underdeveloped.

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October 9, 2009
Peru Indian tribes join forces to fight off Amazon sale to oil companies
Achuar elders in Washintsa, Peru. The Government plans to auction off 75 per cent of the [Peruvian] Amazon to companies

Ramita Navai [reporting] in Washintsa, Peru

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They emerged from the thick, green jungle clenching their spears: a long file of barefoot chiefs and elders, their faces painted with their tribal markings and crowns of red, blue and yellow parrot feathers.

They had been summoned by the chief of Washintsa village for a meeting to discuss an oil company’s efforts to buy the rights to their land. Most had travelled for hours, padding silently through the dark undergrowth.

They came from Achuar Indian communities scattered along the Pastaza River, one of the most remote parts of the Peruvian Amazon near the border with Ecuador.

These men are part of a growing resistance movement crystallising deep in the jungles of Peru. For the first time isolated indigenous groups are uniting to fight the Government’s plans to auction off 75 per cent of the Amazon — which accounts for nearly two thirds of the country’s territory — to oil, gas and mining companies.

They oppose 11 decrees issued by President García, under special [non]legislative powers granted to him by the Peruvian Congress [i.e., outside their elected representatives to enter into this crony extraction], to enact a free trade agreement with the US. These would allow companies to bypass indigenous communities to obtain permits for exploration and extraction of natural resources, logging and the building of hydroelectric dams.

Indigenous leaders say that the laws will affect more than 50 Amazonian nations representing hundreds of thousands of Indians.

One by one the men step forward and deliver angry, defiant messages. “If an oil company tries to come here, we will block its path and block the rivers. We will not let them in and we will take strong action,” Jempe Wasum Kukush, a local leader, said. Another, Tayajin Shuwi Peas, warns: “We are not scared and we will fight to the death over this.”

Some groups have already begun the battle. Protests have turned deadly, with scores of clashes and rallies erupting across the country this year.

Oil operations and airports were besieged and shut down, culminating in a mass demonstration of more than 3,000 Indians, mainly from the Awajun tribe, blockading a road in the sweltering jungle town of Bagua in June. More than 30 people were killed, including 20 policemen, after special forces, airlifted to the scene, opened fire on the protesters.

Fearing more violence and faced with public outrage, the Government was forced to revoke two of the most contentious decrees. The Prime Minster resigned and President García also admitted to a series of errors in the handling of the incident.

The Government has also called the protesters extremists and terrorists [how can the president say that when it is they who are defending their developmental rights that were non-legislatively abrogated], and has charged an indigenous leader, who has since fled to Nicaragua, with sedition and rebellion. More than 100 men face criminal charges and many of them live in hiding.

Francisco Shikiu Ukuncham was shot through the back and saw three of his friends killed. He says that the fighting has served to strengthen ties between tribes. “All we want is for our home, the jungle, to be respected. We were demonstrating peacefully and they shot at us like we were dogs,” he said. “But the Government doesn’t listen to us. And if it doesn’t listen, the situation is going to get worse.”

Some of the tribes communicate with each other via a web of radios. The network has enabled disparate indigenous groups — often located hundreds of miles apart — to form alliances, co-ordinate protests and exchange information.

According to Ambrosio Uwak, the president of an indigenous rights organisation and one of the leaders of the movement, his group can mobilise more than 15,000 people through the radio system. “We want every single one of these decrees revoked. But if not, we won’t hesitate to call on our people to rise up again,” he said.

Unreported World, Peru: Blood and Oil. Friday, October 9. 7.30pm. Channel 4

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6867053.ece

On Peru:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pe.html


"Peru's economy reflects its varied geography - an arid coastal region, the Andes further inland, and tropical lands bordering Colombia and Brazil. Abundant mineral resources are found in the mountainous areas, and Peru's coastal waters provide excellent fishing grounds. The Peruvian economy grew by more than 4% per year during the period 2002-06, with a stable exchange rate and low inflation. Growth jumped to 9% per year in 2007 and 2008, driven by higher world prices for minerals and metals and the government's aggressive trade liberalization strategies. Peru's rapid expansion has helped to reduce the national poverty rate by about 15% since 2002, though underemployment and inflation remain high. Despite Peru's strong macroeconomic performance, overdependence on minerals and metals subjects the economy to fluctuations in world prices, and poor infrastructure precludes the spread of growth to Peru's non-coastal areas. Not all Peruvians therefore have shared in the benefits of growth. President GARCIA's pursuit of sound trade [sic] and macroeconomic policies has cost him political support since his election. Nevertheless, he remains committed to Peru's free-trade [sic?] path. The United States and Peru completed negotiations on the implementation of the US-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA), and the agreement entered into force February 1, 2009, opening the way to greater trade and investment between the two economies."

GDP - real growth rate:

9.8% (2008 est.)
country comparison to the world: 13
8.9% (2007 est.)
7.7% (2006 est.)

Labor force - by occupation:

agriculture: 0.7%
industry: 23.8%
services: 75.5% (2005)

Population below poverty line:

44.5% (2006)

Budget:

revenues: $38.01 billion
expenditures: $35.29 billion (2008 est.)

Exports:

$31.53 billion (2008 est.)
country comparison to the world: 62
$27.88 billion (2007 est.)

Exports - commodities:

copper, gold, zinc, crude petroleum and petroleum products, coffee, potatoes, asparagus, textiles, fishmeal

Exports - partners:

US 18.9%, China 14.9%, Canada 7.8%, Japan 6.6%, Chile 5.5% (2008)

Imports:

$28.44 billion (2008 est.)
country comparison to the world: 65
$19.6 billion (2007 est.)

Imports - commodities:

petroleum and petroleum products, plastics, machinery, vehicles, iron and steel, wheat, paper

Imports - partners:

US 24.5%, China 10.6%, Brazil 7.8%, Chile 5.3%, Ecuador 5.2%, Argentina 4.7%, Colombia 4.1% (2008)

Disputes - international:

Chile and Ecuador [both to Peru's south] rejected Peru's November 2005 unilateral legislation to shift the axis of their joint treaty-defined maritime boundaries along the parallels of latitude to equidistance lines which favor Peru; organized illegal narcotics operations in Colombia have penetrated Peru's shared border [conflict trap spilling over]; Peru rejects [landlocked] Bolivia's claim to restore maritime access through a sovereign corridor through Chile along the Peruvian border

Refugees and internally displaced persons:

IDPs: 60,000-150,000 (civil war from 1980-2000; most IDPs are indigenous peasants in Andean and Amazonian regions) (2007)

Infant mortality rate:

total: 28.62 deaths/1,000 live births
country comparison to the world: 78
male: 31.07 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 26.06 deaths/1,000 live births (2009 est.)

Ethnic groups:

Amerindian 45%, mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white) 37%, white 15%, black, Japanese, Chinese, and other 3%

Religions:

Roman Catholic 81.3%, Evangelical 12.5%, other 3.3%, unspecified or none 2.9% (2007 Census)
Languages:

Spanish (official), Quechua (official), Aymara, and a large number of minor Amazonian languages
Literacy:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 92.9%
male: 96.4%
female: 89.4% (2007 Census)