Looking for some Dam Justice
I first went to Costa Rica about four years ago and it was at that time that many Costa Ricans were protesting the possible privatization of their communications company, at the same time teachers were protesting their pension fund being slashed. Apart from the graffiti I didn't actually come face to face with the demonstrations until several days before I left on my six week trip. The teachers were marching from the capitol to another city nearly 20km away and I was on a bus that going that same way. Well, needless to say it was a hot 30-45 minutes on the bus until we got around them. It didn't occur to me that they were intentionally blocking the highway.
The last day on my way to the airport I learned that blocking the highway wasn't just something that they happened to do while marching it was a tactic in and of itself. As we actually had a flight to catch it was more than just a little frustrating for us. Luckily we had a resourceful bus driver who ducked around off ramps to get around the protest and get us to the airport in time. I remember thinking at the time that it seemed like a good way to turn people against your cause.
Yesterday the group that Christine works for organized a protest against the dams the government is building, among other things like mining and water privatization. Basically, we blocked off an entire lane of the Pan American highway at a major intersection, effectively blocking another major road.
I'll get into the techniques and my list of things that would make it significantly more effective in a minute but I think it's more important to discuss what exactly they were protesting. The government has plans to build at least two new major dams on top of the two they already have. These new dams would flood quite a large area of land and displace an untold number of people. Considering that El Salvador has the population density of Japan but instead of living in cities they all live in the country side, especially along rivers, it could be a lot of people.
The other two dams are used to generate electricity for the country, which I'm not against really. I think that if it were done properly a lot of people could use the stored water behind the dam during the rainy season to irrigate their crops. That's really the best time to grow stuff because it's so sunny. However, I don't think they use the stored water that way and really they ought to be using solar power, we're in the tropics for pete's sake.
In my opinion the main issue here is recompensation. The poor displaced people will be getting nothing or very little in return for their lost land. The issue is that after the civil war the government was supposed to give out parcels of land to the poor. However, ARENA, the military side's party, has been in charge of the federal government since then and has been quick to dole out the parcels to its supporters and completely halted giving land titles to the FMLN supporters. Thus the government won’t have to pay those people for their flooded land.
The other issues at hand were the gold mining companies being given free reign and no pollution restrictions. The rivers that they are dredging are quickly being contaminated with mercury and other nasty things that the poor have no choice but to drink. One of the things that strikes you when you're here in El Salvador is how many deformed people there are. You'll probably see more in one day than months or even years in the U.S. Of course, a lot of those effects are from the unregulated use of DDT for so many years, but the mercury poisoning is going to start having an effect in the form of Minamata disease.
I haven't heard any hard details about the water privatization. That's really one of the frustrating things about the protesters here. They don't do much if any research on the things that they're protesting. That's why I can't tell you exactly what the dam will be used for, how many people will be displaced, who is going to benefit, etc. The leaders just seemed to be assuming that every major government project was evil, which isn't that terrible of an assumption here. It's also probably the reason their only chants were, “No to the dams, No mining, No to water privatization!”
When Christine and I got there we immediately wanted to help so we set about handing out the flyers they'd printed to the stopped traffic. Most of them didn't seem too thrilled about the whole thing. I think that's the effect sitting in 30 minutes of traffic because of you does to people. We probably handed out a thousand or so before the whole protest ran out. We could easily have handed out 10 times as many.
The flyers were pretty ridiculous it was a half sheet of paper printed on both sides in size 12 font. There was one heading that may have been in 14 point font. The problem is most people here, if they can read, can't see very well and are intimidated by that much writing. The other thing is that actual text of the flyer was all about Jesus and how he would be against the dams and would want the people to keep their land. It had nothing really informative about the facts of what was going on with the dams, arguments for and against, etc.
They had the same problem with the banners they had made. They tried to fit 3 sentences on a banner, which were so cluttered I couldn't even read them from 10 feet away. On top of that they were holding them parallel to the single lane we had open so unless people could read them in the instant they were driving by, they might as well have been blank.
One other problem I had with the whole thing was that they drove in a big truck to carry these large speakers, a gas generator all to amplify their voice when a simple megaphone would have done the trick and actually been of better quality probably as the microphone kept cutting in and out.
Anyway, that was a lot of criticism but I really do think they're doing the right thing. I just want them to be more effective at it. Pissing off thousands of people and not effectively telling them why you're wasting their time seems counter productive. Christine mentioned that it would be better to spread out around a big city at stop lights, I think she's on to something. Of course they would be missing out on the solidarity building that the centralized speaking provides, but there's no reason not to do both.
This post stems from some recent books that I’ve read and plan on re-reading that every single one of you should read. They were both sent to me by my Dad and if I could send each of you a copy of them I would. The first one will most directly impact your immediate life and the lives of those around you. It’s called The China Study by T.Colin Campbell. It explains in simple terms the mountains of scientific evidence that point to animal protein as the leading promoter of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer and the majority of the most common and sinister diseases that seem to be plaguing our society. He was able to actively turn on and off cancer growth by changing the diet of mice. 23 of 24 type II diabetes patients no longer had to inject themselves with insulin after 3 weeks on a whole foods/plant-based diet. Heart disease can actually be reversed with a diet.
The second book may save your life as well, but on a planetary level. It’s called Plan B 2.0 by Lester R. Brown. He basically goes through all of the major problems that we face as a planet, explains their causes and likely outcomes if nothing is done. It’s very informative and puts facts and clear explanations to all things such as global warming, falling water tables, the looming oil crisis, poverty, and overpopulation. I have to say that the first half of the book is fairly depressing. The problems seem so monumental and the mind set necessary to change course is just not there in our world. We have this sense that the world is in trouble, but the individualism that capitalism promotes has us all so focused on our own lives and problems that there seems to be no way to really organize and do something cooperatively, which is really the only way it can be solved.