| Plan Puebla-Panama |
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| Written by Administrator | ||||||||
| Tuesday, 22 June 2004 | ||||||||
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Plan Puebla-Panama Kelly Schoolmeester What is it? Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP) is a mega project which seeks to open up the southern half of Mexico and Central America to private foreign investment and establish the foundation for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). PPP would encourage foreign investment in the region, by constructing a series of transportation and sweatshop corridors spanning the isthmus that is Panama. Whose idea was it? The PPP was conceived by the present Fox administration, but it appears in plans and projects previously designed by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank for Mexico and Central America. After Fox was inaugurated in December 2000, he put a number of the construction projects in Mexico and Central America into a single PPP package. How does the PPP fit in with NAFTA and the FTAA? The PPP seeks to create basic infrastructure, or improve that which exists, in an effort to entice large corporations into investing in the area. The improvements in infrastructure would essentially boost corporate profits by easing, for example, the movement of goods in and out of the region, by improving roads. What are the major components of the PPP? 1. Sustainable development 2. Human development 3. Prevention and mitigation of natural disasters 4. Tourism promotion 5. Facilitation of trade 6. Highway integration 7. Energy interconnection 8. Integration of telecommunication services How much will it cost? The PPP is currently budgeted at US$10 billion, but some sources place the figure at US$25 billion. Principal lenders of this amount are the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, European Union, the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), the Central American Integration Bank (BCIE), and development agencies of the US, Japan, Spain and other countries. How are locals protesting? There have been four regional encounters on the PPP that have brought activists together from Mexico, Central America and other parts of the world. These events have been held in Chiapas, Mexico (March 2001), Guatemala (November 2001), Nicaragua (July 2002), and Honduras (March 2003). Attendance at the events has grown from over 300 participants in Chiapas to over 1,200 in Nicaragua, representing over 400 organizations. Winners: Multinational corporations. They would get abundant natural resources, with no trade restrictions, low taxes, and lax environmental standards. The Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund would provide the start-up capital. Losers: Small farmers, indigenous communities, and workers in the isthmus and elsewhere. Besides environmental disaster, local residents would face displacement from their traditional communities. Those who could not find local sweatshop jobs would then be forced to migrate to cities or, despite the border guards, to the U.S. Further Information: http://www.ciepac.org/bulletins/ingles/ing312.htm http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2002/04/a.html http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/mexico/ppp/ppp.html
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