Adrián Reyes

MEXICO CITY, Dec 16 2005 (IPS) — The Mesoamerican Peoples Forum, which groups together hundreds of social organisations, has turned its sights on a Mexican project to provide energy and fuel to Central America, the Dominican Republic and Colombia, out of fear that it responds to “U.S. economic interests.”

The Mesoamerican Energy Integration Initiative has raised concern among the members of the forum, since it is a project that will affect the populations of nine Latin American and Caribbean nations.

The signing of the agreement to implement the new plan took place under “suspicious circumstances, because it seems like the idea was to take civil society organisations by surprise, so that they wouldn’t have a chance to voice their opinions before it was signed,” Héctor de la Cueva, a spokesperson for the non-governmental Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC), remarked to IPS.

The participants in the three-day meeting of civil society groups from around the region held this week at the University of Costa Rica agreed to study the viability of the energy integration project established by Colombia, the Dominican Republic and the Central American nations at a meeting held Tuesday in the Mexican resort city of Cancún.

The sixth Mesoamerican Peoples Forum brought together 1,500 representatives of indigenous, environmental, trade union, religious, student and campesino organisations, which resolved to “improve regional coordination to strengthen mechanisms for opposition” to the free trade agreement between the United States, the Dominican Republic and five Central American countries, known as CAFTA.

They also agreed to expand the social base of the Mesoamerican Forum by incorporating groups that face discrimination, such as gays and lesbians, as well as different church organisations.

The participants concurred that privatisation policies have turned public services in the region, such as telephone and electricity service, into merchandise, a process that has benefited transnational corporations while making access to these basic rights increasingly difficult for millions of people.

“Neoliberal policies have turned over our natural resources and our diversity to the private interests of the transnationals, which is why we urgently need to analyse our strategies for fighting the neoliberal policies promoted by the governments in the Mesoamerican region, which have led to an increase in poverty and social exclusion,” concluded the Forum participants.

De la Cueva admitted that for the moment, no concrete actions have been designed to deal with the Mexican energy project, which took the region’s social organisations by surprise because of the speed with which it was announced and signed. In the coming weeks, however, once they have been able to study the details of the initiative, the non-governmental groups will be able to define a strategy.

He added that the energy initiative, which involves Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and the historical-cultural region encompassing Central America and a large part of Mexico known as Mesoamerica, must quickly demonstrate that it is a genuine attempt to promote the development of the area, and not simply a project aimed at secretly benefiting the energy and trade interests of the United States.

“If social organisations discover that U.S. economic interests are hidden behind the project, we are going to stand in its way,” as they have done with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), said the activist.

“We are worried that (Mexican) President Vicente Fox is trying to impose the interests of the United States on the Central American agenda, as he attempted to do in Mar del Plata (at the Summit of the Americas held in that Argentine city in November) through his defence of the FTAA,” he maintained.

“We are disturbed by the fact that Fox has taken on the role of a salesman promoting U.S. interests,” he remarked.

Government representatives from Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama signed an agreement in Cancún that will guarantee energy supplies to the participating nations. The initiative represents a second phase in Plan Puebla Panama, a wide-reaching regional integration programme also launched by the Mexican president, back in 2001.

The Mesoamerican Energy Integration Initiative responds as well to the urgent actions undertaken on Jun. 10 by the energy ministers of Central America to confront the crisis sparked by the rise in world oil prices.

The initiative includes initial commitments to build a crude oil refinery in Central America, a natural gas pipeline, and a thermoelectric power plant, in addition to opening up the sale of franchises of the Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex, establishing electricity supply grids from Mexico to Guatemala and Panama to Colombia, and promoting renewable energy programmes and energy efficiency.

Eduardo Andrade, president of the Mexican Energy Association, an independent consulting firm, told IPS that “this initiative will be the catalyst for the industrialisation of the Central American countries.”

“It is a strong project that will guarantee energy supplies and lead to major investments in the region such as have never been seen before,” added Andrade, who called the agreement a positive step towards integrating development of the region and compared it to the actions undertaken prior to the creation of the European Union (EU).

In the case of the EU, he noted, the most developed countries backed the least developed ones with economic resources and productive initiatives, so that once the creation of the bloc was formalised, they were all in an equal position to compete commercially.

“I don’t believe that the energy integration initiative will provoke a negative reaction from the United States. In fact, it will benefit that country, because by sparking industrial development in Central America, it will curb emigration to that big northern neighbour,” Andrade added.

At the signing of the agreement in Cancún, Fox assured his counterparts from the region that the initiative will remain in force despite the fact that his own term is coming to an end next year.

He also stressed that the project is not aimed at creating a monopoly for Pemex in Central America.

“Here there is no hegemony, there is no paternalism, and there is no favouritism. This is a free market project, with the participation of all,” said Fox.

According to official estimates, between seven and nine billion dollars will be needed to initiate work on the project. Mexico will contribute one million dollars to create a technical committee responsible for follow-up of the initiative, which will carry out its first assessment of progress in May 2006.

For his part, Mexican Energy Minister Fernando Canales emphasised that the Mesoamerican initiative will not interfere with the San José Pact, through which the governments of Mexico and Venezuela have a commitment to supply 80,000 barrels of oil a day each to countries in Central America and the Caribbean.

Nevertheless, George Baker, director of U.S.-based Baker and Associates, Energy Consultants, warned that the new initiative could lead to fragmentation among the countries of Latin America, because while the Central American countries are seeking energy support from the north, others like Cuba, Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela are pursuing other prospects.

He maintained that if the Mexican energy project succeeds, it will make the San José Pact obsolete. And what is worse, he said, is that the Fox administration did not consult on the matter with Venezuela previously. The two countries reduced their diplomatic ties to a minimum after verbal clashes between Fox and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez during and after the Summit of the Americas in November.

In the meantime, analyst and consultant David Shields has forecast a new rivalry between Mexico and Venezuela over their respective energy projects.

“The reality is that Venezuela can aspire to conquering new energy markets to the north and south of its borders, but Mexico cannot afford to harbour these kinds of hegemonic dreams,” Shields wrote in an article published by the Mexican newspaper Reforma. As a result, said the analyst, “it is unfortunate that Fox is raising hopes that Mexico cannot fulfill.”