Add a comment December 31st, 2009 by Matthew Anderson
Gold, Pacific Rim and “The Salvador Option” in El Dorado, Cabanas, El Salvador
A few years back, when the US was worrying about opposition groups in Iraq operating out of Syria, the proposal was made to attempt “The Salvador Option” (Newsweek, 1/10/05, see also The New Statesman at http://www.newstatesman.com/200501310012). Ah, what was that? Why, just as the USA did in El Salvador (and Honduras, under John Negroponte’s watch), a plan to create rogue death squads in Iraq with a license to kill. What was done from that suggestion, I don’t know, but the fact that it was even considered and that it was called “The Salvador Option” says so much about US foreign policy (during its proposal, John Negroponte was US Ambassador to Iraq) that we must highlight that plan and keep its consideration fresh to prevent such atrocities.
Tragically, the (El) Salvador Option has, for community environment activists, returned to the site of its name, this time with the unhappy association of a transnational mining company based in Canada and the United States by the name of Pacific Rim. For an interview covering the tragedies, please see Democracy Now (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/29/ ).
The summary is that on 26 December a 32 year old, 8 month pregnant environmental activist named Dora Alicia Sorto Recinos was shot while carrying another of her children (also shot, but who survived), making her death the second within one week of an environmental activist opposed to Pacific Rim reopening the currently closed mine of El Dorado, and the third this year. See www.cispes.org for details of Ms. Sorto Recinos’ death and that of Ramiro Rivera, vice-president of the local Environmental Committee, who was killed on 20 December in front of his daughter, despite the police escort with him since he was shot 8 times last August. A 52 year old woman riding with him was also killed.
The first environmental and community activist killed was Marcelo Rivera (no relation to Ramiro Rivera), a teacher and cultural center director who was abducted 18 June 2009 and found dead a few weeks later in a well, his body showing signs of torture. See “The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Rivera” on Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvXm52BhSHQ .
Pacific Rim, with golden tongue, has denied having anything to do with the death of Marcelo (see its official statement at http://pica-blog.blogspot.com/2009/09/pacific-rim-responds-to-report-about.html and its official plan of exploitation of El Dorado at http://www.pacrim-mining.com/s/Eldorado.asp ).
Pacific Rim, which was denied its permit to extract gold in El Salvador in April 2009, largely due to the efforts of Marcelo Rivera, has since applied for arbitration under the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to obtain millions of dollars in compensation for the closing of the mine. You can read the report that drew the Pacific Rim denial, published on13 August 2009 by Real News, available at http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=411 For deeper exploration of corporate greed and how trade trumps health and the environment in international treaties, see NOW with Bill Moyers on “Trading Democracy” at http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_tdfull.html
“The Salvador Option” is an unhealthy one for all concerned, including for environmental and community activists in Cabanas, El Salvador, which is contiguous with Honduras. Authorities from El Salvador, Canada and the USA must work to get to the bottom of who is killing environmentalists in Cabanas, and stop the killing. If this is happening in El Salvador, it is happening to all of us, everywhere.
Add a comment February 9th, 2009 by Matthew Anderson
As Valentine’s Day approaches consumers are importuned to purchase flowers and various other tokens of love. Our colleague Martin Donohoe, editor of the Public Health and Social Justice website passed on to us some materials looking impact of flowers, diamonds and gold on workers’ health and the environment. His concerns challenge us to think of less harmful, less exploitative ways of showing affection (see below).
Dr. Donohoe’s arguments were presented in a 2008 article published in the Health and Human Rights Quarterly entitled: Flowers, Diamonds, and Gold: The Destructive Public Health, Human Rights, and Environmental Consequences of Symbols of Love. Here we will briefly summarize his arguements.
Flowers:
About 190,000 people in the developing world are employed in the global floriculture industry. Most of the workers are women with low paying, no benefit jobs. “Child labor, dismissal from employment due to pregnancy, and long hours of unpaid overtime are common, especially before holidays such as St. Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.”
Floriculture is also the largest consumer of pesticides, one fifth of which are either untested or banned in the US. Workers in greenhouses may be exposed to particularly high levels of pesticides. Proper conditions for the handling and removal of pesticides may not exist. All of this has health consequences for the workers. [For a powerpoint version of this information see Dr. Donohoe’s presentation Floriculture Industry: Thorns without Borders.
Diamonds
The exploitation of diamond workers has long been well documented, see for example the report by Global Witness on poverty diamonds in Africa. What has become clearer in the past few years is the role of so-called conflict diamonds in fueling political turmoil in Africa as well as financing Al Qaeda.
Gold
Like diamonds, gold miners work in “the world’s most deadly industry.” Ironically, gold mining areas often show slower rates of sustainable economic development. Gold mining has tremendous ecological consequences. A single 18 karat gold ring is estimated to produce eighteen tons of waste.
For a general overview of the impact of mining on communities, see Oxfam’s report Dirty Metals: Mining, Communities, and the Environment.
Dr. Donohoe’s article ends with suggestions (which we have supplemented) for alternative non-exploitative, non-harmful ways of expressing love:
Flowers: Various unsuccesful attempts have been made to create eco-labels for flowers. One that is still in existence is Veriflora. In 2008 the Organic Consumers Association offered suggestions for where consumers could obtain organic flowers. Of course, the best alternative to cut flowers is to grow them yourself. For those of us who live in cities we are fortunate that there are now many urban gardens. Our colleague Julianna Mantay at Lehman has actually mapped community gardens in the Bronx (see Urban Agriculture/Urban Oases in the “Concrete Jungle”: The Culture of Community Gardening in the Bronx). Unfortunately, community gardens are not the solution to flowers in February in New York City. But they can be grown indoors.
Gold and Diamonds: The No Dirty Gold Campaign asks consumers to sign a pledge asking for reforms in the gold mining industry.
The article concludes:
Consumers should reconsider the entire concept of purchasing cut flowers, gold and diamonds as symbols of their affection. These symbols are not
universal and have not been constant throughout history, but rather are cultural constructs extensively perpetuated by the persuasive marketing efforts of multinational corporations. The visible reminders of one’s love should not also represent environmental destruction, violence, the subjugation of native peoples, child labor, and human rights abuses.
Substitute gifts include cards (ideally printed on recycled paper), poems, photos, collages, videos, art, home improvement projects, homemade meals, and donations to charities. Consider alternatives to the traditional diamond engagement and gold wedding rings, such as recycled or vintage gold: old gold can be melted down and made into new jewelry. Other options include eco-jewelry made from recycled or homemade glass and coconut beads. Purchasing handicrafts constructed by indigenous peoples from outlets that return the profits to the artisans and their communities provides wide-ranging social and economic benefits. Such tokens of affection will be rendered more meaningful through their lack of association with death and destruction and because they symbolize justice and hope for the future.
Taking up Dr. D’s suggestion of giving poetry for Valentine Days, here is a love poem from the Roman poet Catullus. It suggests yet another way of showing love.
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let us judge all the rumors of the old men
to be worth just one penny!
The suns are able to fall and rise:
When that brief light has fallen for us,
we must sleep a never ending night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then another hundred,
then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet another thousand more, then another hundred.
Then, when we have made many thousands,
we will mix them all up so that we don’t know,
and so that no one can be jealous of us when he finds out
how many kisses we have shared.
posted by Matt Anderson, MD
1 Comment December 26th, 2008 by Matthew Anderson
Click above to see the video
In November we posted presentations by the Spirit of 1848 caucus at the 2008 American Public Health Association annual meeting. We also felt it was important to share some of the presentations on trade and health that have been posted by the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health, CPATH. These represent cutting edge work on how trade agreements are impacting upon health.
Here is a listing of presentations, most with links to the actual slides or posters. You can also download them from the CPATH website.
Health & Trade Policy for Specific Industries. Moderator: Garrett Brown
Public Health Strategies to Address Trade Policy. Moderator: Kristen D. Smith
Trade Policy, Health, Economics & Justice Moderator: Susanna Rankin Bohme
Influence of Trade Policy on Health: Poster Session
To obtain copies of the following presentations, you should contact the authors:
- Cross-border hazard and cross-border justice: The Case of DBCP. Susanna Rankin Bohme
- FTAs and public health in Chile: The need for a policy research agenda. Leonel Valdivia
- Trade and nutrition: Consequences of free trade agreements in Peru, Chile, and Mexico. Sural Kiran Shah
- Corporate social responsibility: What is it good for? Beth Rosenberg
- Economic Liberalization and the Postcommunist Mortality Crisis. David Stuckler
- CAFTA and the Global Campaign for High Drug Prices. Ellen R. Shaffer
posted by Matt Anderson
