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made, hell-bent on economic development--flooding natural areas for dams, mowing down precious and irreplaceable ancient forests, paving everything over, polluting air, water, soil, letting corporate powers run rampant with toxic agricultural practices, mining and anti-Nature horrors of every kind, and ignoring Indigenous wisdom and environmental alarms about impacts on Mother Nature. I know that this is an excruciating dilemma for good government leaders in Latin America, who feel that they NEED to exploit their vast natural resources in order to feed, house, clothe, educate and employ the vast poor majority of people, whose lives and rights have been so long neglected and scorned by the super-rich, the super-corporate and their U.S. government/military/CIA allies. But there is another, deeper aspect to the leftist democracy movement that is sweeping Latin America, most evident in Bolivia and Ecuador, where Indigenous and campesino (small peasant farmer) groups have become powerful political forces. The hugely popular president of Bolivia, Evo Morales--a small coca leaf farmer and still head of the coca leaf farmers' union--is holding a world conference on climate change that includes "the rights of Mother Nature" in the title of the conference. Ecuador just recently passed their new Constitution (by an overwhelming majority) which enshrines the right of Mother Nature ("Pachamama") to exist and prosper apart from human needs and desires. The organic food and "greening" movements in the U.S. are comparable, but we are dealing with the endgame of corporate rule, whereas many Latin American countries still have a chance to do things right, still have vast natural areas where they must do things right, to save us all--to save the planet--still have access to Indigenous wisdom, and Indigenous tribes fighting for Mother Nature and--critically important--have fought for, and have, real democracies, wherein the desire of most people for a healthy environment can be heard and can have influence.
The U.S. government and its corporate/war profiteer puppetmasters hate Bolivia and Ecuador and their ally Venezuela for many reasons, but high on the list is the success of Indigenous ethics in government--respect for Mother Nature and rejection of the Wall Street "profit" horror that never counts the cost of any project to Mother Nature or to people. All three countries--and Brazil, which is closely allied with them in many ways--face this excruciating dilemma of the conflict between U.S./western-style development and a more Nature-friendly and humane economic policy. Brazil's Lula da Silva has been walking a tightrope on this matter--sometimes making terrible decisions, such as the deal with the Bush Junta on biofuel agriculture, and sometimes dramatically doing the right thing, such as using the presidential 'powers of decree' to preserve a swath of the Amazon inhabited by uncontacted tribes. He is certainly capable of understanding and sympathizing with the tribes on this dam issue. I don't know the history of the dam project but he probably has supported it and maybe even initiated it. He has a tougher, more complicated, and bigger country and economy to run than any other Latin American leader. But he is also termed out. Maybe that will give him the courage to re-think this issue. I also don't know what popular sentiment is, on this issue, in Brazil. Lulu himself is hugely popular but his designated successor is in a tight race with a rightwinger/corporatist. Court rulings such as this in Brazil, as here, probably don't mean that the project has beens stopped; it is just on hold. It could become an issue in the presidential election. I also don't know if there is a possible compromise--proposed by the tribes or anyone else.
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