Lula Returns to Power, Welcoming an Indigenous Vision of Governance in Brazil

The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh. Boston: Beacon Press; 2nd edition. March 23, 2021.

At a time when all caring people are seeking a new way forward out of a year of unimaginable death, destruction and rampant inequality, along comes a book that gives us hope that a better world may be possible. The book, recently published, is based on a struggle in a small section of a small country—El Salvador—beginning in 2002, when a group of “white men in suits” entered the province of Cabañas and tried to convince poor farmers that gold mining would be good for them. Their resistance, done at great peril and resulting in the assassinations of some of their leaders, ended up years later in a landmark case against corporate greed, garnering support from around the world. The basis of their success lies in the most fundamental of human needs: Water, for which left-right antagonisms fall apart once the deadly consequences of mining’s misuse of it—including causing cyanide poisoning—become patently clear.

Authors Robin Broad and John Cavanagh have brought us this amazing David versus Goliath story in their new book, The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved A Country from Corporate Greed. Their first-hand accounts of working with front-line communities, both in El Salvador and in the United States. provide lessons along the way about how to fight an immensely powerful entity and win, whether the enemy be Big Gold, Big Oil or Big Pharma (to name a few). As they write in their introduction, “You may find yourselves surprised to find the relevance of the strategies of the water defenders in El Salvador, whether your focus is on a Walmart in Washington DC; a fracking company trying to expand in Texas or Pennsylvania, or petrochemical companies outside New Orleans.” By the end of the book, they added relevant struggles in countries like Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, as well as in South Africa, South Korea, and India.

In an interview with John Cavanagh, I asked if he and Broad had an inkling of the huge ramifications of their story right from the beginning, and his answer was decidedly no. In fact, when they first got involved, back in 2009, they never expected to win. They knew what they were up against and had no illusions. As they wrote about the ensuing years of twist-and-turn battles lost and won, the authors described a combination of events that made the water defenders’ decades-long struggle unusual… Yet now, with lessons learned, replicable.

Their involvement with the water defenders began in October 2009. That month, the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a progressive organization “dedicated to building a more equitable, ecologically sustainable, and peaceful society,” invited a group of Salvadorian water defenders to accept IPS’s annual Letelier Human Rights Award for their struggle against Pacific Rim (PacRim), a huge Canadian gold-mining company that sought permits in El Salvador. That year’s award was particularly poignant because one of the awardees, Marcelo Rivera, had been assassinated the month before. Five people still came to Washington, with Marcelo’s brother, Miguel, traveling in his place. Leading the delegation was a small-statured, seemingly nervous Vidalina Morales. But when she stepped up to the podium at the National Press Club and began her acceptance speech, her voice filled the room with a sense of urgency. She described the dangers of gold mining—for drinking water, for fishing and for agriculture. By the time she got to explaining the use of toxic cyanide in separating the gold from the rock, she had the audience—including the authors—mesmerized.

Another factor made this occasion different. Cavanagh, who is the director of IPS, explained that usually the awardees arrive in Washington to accept their awards and return home. But on this occasion, “They asked for our help. El Salvador had just been sued by PacRim in an international tribunal that argued that El Salvador had to allow it to mine gold or pay over $300 million in costs and ‘foregone profits.’ They also asked if we could help them with research on companies involved in gold mining.”

John had previously engaged with IPS in fighting against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and had become familiar with the tribunal and the rules set by the World Bank involved in regulating a global economy. Broad, for her part, had written her doctoral dissertation and first book on the World Bank, and she had worked on the bank at her job with the U.S. Treasury Department in the mid-1980s. But she was less familiar with the workings of the tribunal the World Bank had set up in 1964, “The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).” Its mission was to hear cases brought by foreign investors demanding compensation for lost profits from countries that tried to limit or regulate their activities. The couple figured they could be helpful.

“That’s how we were drawn in,” John explained, while emphasizing the extraordinary role local Salvadorans played in educating local communities about the dangers of landfills and then the dangers of gold mining. It was their groundbreaking work, often under dangerous conditions, that had earned them the Letelier award.

What happened next is a remarkable story of a growing North-South alliance that eventually went global, succeeding in two monumental victories: 1) a decision by ICSID in October 2016 that rejected PacRim’s claims for damages, while ordering the corporation to pay El Salvador $8 million in costs, and 2) the world’s first-ever comprehensive metals mining ban, brought by the El Salvador legislature in March 2019.

The Challenge

Up until 2016, Cavanagh explained, “we never thought we would win.” But that did not stop the momentum of coalition building, which had begun as early as 2005 by local village defenders, human rights advocates, farmers, lawyers, Catholic organizations and Oxfam America. They united to call themselves the National Roundtable on Metallic Mining, or La Mesa Frente a la Mineria Metálica—La Mesa for short. Their ultimate goal, beyond building resistance at the local level, “seemed like a pipe dream,” the authors wrote. That goal? “Getting the Salvadoran Congress to pass a new national law banning metal mining.”

Over the years, spurred on by their quest to find out who was responsible for Marcelo’s murder, the water defenders and their international allies yielded a treasure trove of insights on how to fight the Men in Suits, regardless of the outcome. Here are just a few lessons learned from their struggles described in the book:

• • Listen to the horror stories coming from refugees, in this case, those fleeing Honduras. Marcelo; his brother, Miguel; and Vidalina made several trips to Honduras to learn more about the gold mines there. (Honduras had become a haven for Big Gold after the 2009 coup). They returned with “shocking stories of rivers poisoned by cyanide, of dying fish and skin disease, of displaced communities, denuded forests, and corruption and conflict catalyzed by mining company payoffs.” Those trips, the authors write, made a huge impression on the water defenders and “crystallized their thinking… They were vigilant researchers, thirsty to know more.”
  • Seek out unexpected allies. One was Luis Parada, a Salvadoran government lawyer with a military background. As it turned out, he was a disciple of Sun Tsu, a Chinese military strategist from 2,500 years ago, who had written The Art of War. Among the lessons Parada (and Sun Tsu) imparted: “Know thy adversaries”—be one step ahead of them, and also know your possible allies. “Befriend a distant state while attacking a neighbor.” Luis also offered valuable practical advice, including the fact that the Sheraton Hotel in the capital, with its bar and pool, “offered some of the best intelligence in El Salvador.” Another unexpected ally was the ultra-conservative Archbishop Saenz Lacalle, a member of the right wing Opus Dei. “All it had taken was the word cyanide,” the authors explain, to cause him to oppose mining. His replacement in 2008, Archbishop Escobar, followed suit. He was “hardly an activist cleric,” but he “had long-held unexpected and firm views on mining,” and in his inaugural messages called on the government to reject mining operations in El Salvador. Getting the Catholic Church behind the water defenders was crucial. The martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero, “whose photo is omnipresent throughout the country,” was no doubt a factor for widespread community support behind the water defenders, as was the encyclical put out by Pope Francis urging priests to take to the streets to defend the environment. Yet another surprise endorsement came from a member of one of El Salvador’s richest families and a leader of the right-wing ARENA party, which dominated the legislature. It turned out that John Wright Sol had a passion for the environment. Also noteworthy: His family’s vast sugar plantations consumed a lot of water. As he studied the impact of mining on water, he reached out to fellow members of ARENA. “I didn’t want to turn this into mining companies are the devil,” he advised. Instead, he chose to emphasize that “every citizen in the country must have access to clear water.”
  • Be wary of corporate PR campaigns. PacRim put out a report emphasizing that a whopping 36,000 jobs would be created from its mining operations, a vastly inflated claim. In radio interviews, PacRim aimed separate messages to the ARENA party and to the left-wing FMLN party, in which it claimed revenues would fund social agendas. Trips abroad arranged by PacRim often resulted in swaying politicians, whether on the left or right, to support their corporate agenda.
  • No matter how big, corporations can make mistakes. OceanaGold, a Canadian-Australian mining company which took over PacRim in 2014, had put on a brave face after the ICSID ruled against PacRim, acting as though it had won, and refusing to cough up the $8 million the company owed El Salvador. Yet it made a fatal error by choosing its mining operations in The Philippines as an example of its environmentally pristine practices. Broad knew otherwise, and along with other international allies had cultivated a professional relationship with the governor of the Philippine province where OceanaGold had its mine. Governor Carlos Padilla arrived in El Salvador on the eve of the crucial legislative vote on the mining bill and presented a “before and after” slideshow to the Environmental Committee. He pictured a lush landscape before the mining, contrasted with images of waste-filled “tailings ponds,” dead trees, dried-up springs and rivers, dead fish on river banks, and, as he explained, “No access to water for drinking or for irrigation.” He ended with an appeal to future generations. “Grandpa,” he imagined them asking. “Why did you allow mining?” 

His presentation was “sort of a clincher,” Cavanagh told me. “It raised the level of indignation.” The legislative vote followed soon afterwards, on March 29, 2019. The results were stunning, with 69 votes tallied against OceanaGold, zero nays and zero abstentions. Shouts of Sí, Se Puede!—“Yes we can!”—erupted from the floor, as members of La Mesa waved banners that read, “No a la Minería, Sí a la Vida”—No to Mining. Yes to Life!

Today, the water defenders remain cautiously optimistic, though constantly on guard. In the past, mining corporations have been able to convince even leftist governments that mining is good for the economy. Cavanagh speculates mayors of small towns, pressured to provide jobs, may have been behind the assassination of Marcelo Rivera and other water defenders.

But to date, Marcelo’s killers have never been identified. On an equally sobering note, he and Broad remind us in the book that “over 1,700 environmental defenders had been killed across 50 countries between 2002 and 2018.”

I asked John for an update since finishing his book in mid-2020. Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s “new Trump-like president,” he wrote, “hasn’t raised mining, and it doesn’t look like he is personally interested. He knows the public opinion polls that showed that the overwhelming majority of Salvadorans are opposed to mining.”

However, he added, “We remain worried. El Salvador, like all developing countries, is suffering economically after the pandemic, and other countries have increased mining to get more revenues. So, La Mesa remains vigilant against any actions that could indicate that the government wants to mine.”

We can only hope that water defenders around the world will strengthen their alliances. Fortunately, they now have a handbook that will help them in their journey of resistance.

Charlotte Dennett is the co-author with Gerard Colby of Thy Will be Done. The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. Her new book is The Crash of Flight 3804: A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil.

Narayan Gaikwad knew something was wrong. 

For eight days in August, he was given intravenous drips of electrolytes and saline solution, twice a day. By the time he realized he was being treated by a quack, it was too late. Fatigue had grappled him, and in no time, he collapsed in his house in the village of Jambhali in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

His family feared COVID-19 had caused his symptoms. They rushed 73-year-old Gaikwad to a makeshift public COVID center—10 miles from home. “There were at least 500 patients, while the facility had some 100 beds,” recalls his son, Bhagat. Next, they traveled another eight miles to a private hospital. “The doctor wouldn’t admit him because he didn’t have a COVID report,” recalls Bhagat.

“The entire system was saturated because many private doctors refused to treat COVID patients,” he says. Speedily, they rushed him to a local village doctor, who prescribed a few injections. “I did come to my senses, but my cough and cold didn’t go away,” remembers Gaikwad. All he wanted was a COVID test, which was hard to come by because the system was overwhelmed and unprepared. After that, he spent ₹5,000 (Indian rupees or $70 USD) and got a computed tomography (CT) scan. “We then rushed to a medical doctor, who prescribed week-long medicines and injections. It cost me another ₹13,000 ($180).” This was 10 days into his trek for proper healthcare and Gaikwad still couldn’t get a COVID test. “I was breathless.” To get tested, his family took him to a private university that had been converted to a COVID center—12 miles away. As anticipated, he tested positive. “I was put on oxygen, and within three days, I started feeling better,” he says with a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, the nine members of the Gaikwad family tested positive for stigma. “People started circulating that my entire family tested positive,” says Narayan, a low-income farmer. None of them were allowed to step out of the house for a month. “We had to throw away 2,000 kilograms of harvested tomatoes worth $275,” says Bhagat. Gaikwad never anticipated this would cost them a season’s earnings.

After he tested negative, Bhagat posted a screenshot of this report on his WhatsApp status, with the caption ‘Negative’. “It was necessary. Otherwise, we would have died of hunger, as people wouldn’t let us step outside,” says Gaikwad. In India, as in many parts of the world, ordinary people rely on groups created inside the WhatsApp messaging application on their smartphones to communicate with wide swaths of people, like their neighbors, coworkers and political allies.

It didn’t take long for the second wave to devastate India. On May 14, India reported 414,182 infections in 24 hours—the highest single day spike in the world. India’s far-right prime minister, Narendra Modi, prematurely declared a victory against COVID in January 2021. Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of which Modi is a member, started addressing election rallies in four eastern and southern Indian states—drawing several thousand people without masks. At one event, Modi proudly said, “I’ve witnessed such a rally for the first time.”

On the same day, India reported over 234,000 infections. With an oversaturated healthcare system, India ran out of oxygen, hospital beds, ventilators and essential medicines. Soon, people took to social media, making SOS calls for healthcare facilities. Hospitals started petitioning high courts for the lack of oxygen supply as several people died. As of May 30, India reported over 28 million cases with 329,000 people succumbing to the virus. A New York Times analysis reveals a more likely scenario could be 539 million cases with 1.6 million estimated deaths. 

But Gaikwad couldn’t find a bed in the first wave. 

“For poor people like us, the system collapsed long ago,” he says.

Three Decades of Austerity

In 1991, India “liberalized” its economy, which meant opening it to international markets, leading to a mass-scale privatization of public services and goods. In 1993, the World Bank released its World Development Report, which focused on healthcare. Ravi Duggal, health researcher and activist writes, “This report basically is directed at third-world governments to reorient public health spending for selective health programs for targeted populations wherein it clearly implies that curative care, the bulk of health care, should be left to the private sector.”

The World Bank report said investments in specialized health facilities should be diverted to the private sector by reducing public subsidies. It encouraged “social or private insurance” for clinical services. The result: 85.9 percent of people in rural India have no medical insurance.

To encourage privatization, the government reduced the customs duty on imported medical equipment from 40 percent in the 1980s to 15 percent in the early 2000s. As of 2016, it was down to 7.5 percent. From 1986-87, India spent 1.47 percent of its GDP on healthcare. Now it has been investing a little more than 1 percent of its GDP. Meanwhile, it has 43,487 private hospitals and a mere 25,778 public hospitals. Yet, a 2019 World Health Organization report pointed out average global healthcare spending was 6.6 percent of GDP.

Frontline Health Care Workers Bear the Burden

In March 2020, India’s Health Ministry tasked the Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers to contain COVID across 600,000 villages. For this, they survey households, find suspected COVID cases, and monitor oxygen levels and body temperature. ASHAs also support COVID patients who are home-bound and act as a liaison to people who are able to get treatment outside the village. This is in addition to over 50 responsibilities that include universal immunization, ensuring proper pre- and post-natal care, spreading awareness about contraception, hygiene, and maintaining health records.

For every 1,000 people, an ASHA worker—normally a woman from within a village—is appointed under India’s National Rural Health Mission. Swati Nandavdekar, 40, from the village of Mendholi in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district, is one of 970,676 ASHAs. “We are tired,” says Nandavdekar, who has worked without leave for 410 days. “People abuse me verbally and don’t answer my survey questions.”

In avoiding her, people are bypassing the ostracism that follows if they test positive, as in the case of Narayan. “In the previous lockdown, everyone lost their livelihood, and now they can’t afford an isolation of 14 days,” she elaborates. This is in contrast to last year, when ASHAs like Nandavdekar were able to successfully contact-trace COVID patients.

Dr. Sangita Gurav, the only public doctor for 15 villages that Kolhapur’s Bhuye Public Health Centre serves, commented on the rising fatality rate. “People consult us only after a week from testing positive,” she says. “By this time, their symptoms become severe, and oxygen levels start dipping.”

Sandhya Jadhav, an ASHA supervisor from Kolhapur, who oversees the work of 24 ASHAs, says, “Every day I get calls from ASHAs who talk of mental stress and the instances of verbal abuse.” ASHAs receive “performance-based incentive.” In Maharashtra, they average a meager monthly income of ₹3,000-4,000 ($41-55). But it comes down to $25 for ASHA workers like Nandavdekar, who is from a smaller village. “Most of them haven’t received PPE kits, masks, hand sanitizers and gloves for surveying even in the containment zones,” says Jadhav.

On May 24, ASHA workers across India had gone on a 1-day strike demanding legal status of permanent workers, adequate health safety gear, insurance and a hike in their wages. Last year, over 600,000 ASHA workers protested with similar demands.

For 833 million people, India has a mere 155,404 sub-health centers (which are the first point of contact for rural communities of 5,000 people), 5,183 community health centers, 24,918 public health centers and 810 district hospitals. That’s 1 district hospital for every 1 million people. With such a poor infrastructure, it’s the ASHAs who remain in direct contact with the villages. “We have been working since 2009 and have saved countless lives, which even the government knows,” Nandavdekar says. “But they won’t even treat us with respect.” 

Last year, the Indian government announced an insurance program of $69,000 (USD) for frontline healthcare workers. “If there was insurance, why weren’t we informed of the company and other details?” Jadhav says. “They took our signature on a blank paper.”

As cases continue to rise, the job of ASHA workers is far from over. 

“We are dying daily,” Nandavdekar says. “The only difference is that it’s not called death.” 

Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in the Kolhapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He was a 2019 People’s Archive of Rural India fellow, for which he documented vanishing art forms in the Indian countryside. He has written for Baffler, Progressive Magazine, Counterpunch, Byline Times, The National, Popula, Media Co-op, Indian Express and several other publications.

After more than a decade of grassroots organizing, agitation and tireless opposition by the international climate movement, the final nail was slammed into the Keystone XL’s coffin Wednesday afternoon when the company behind the transnational tar sands pipeline officially pulled the plug on its plans.

Following consultation with Canadian officials and regulators—including “its partner, the Government of Alberta”—TC Energy confirmed its “termination” of the project in a statement citing the revocation of a federal U.S. permit by President Joe Biden on his first day in office on January 20 as the leading reason.

Climate campaigners, however, were immediate in claiming a final victory after years of struggle against the company and its backers both in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa.

“TC Energy just confirmed what we already knew but it’s a thrilling reality all the same—the Keystone XL pipeline is no more and never will be,” said David Turnbull, strategic communications director with Oil Change International (OCI).

OMG! It’s official. We took on a multi-billion dollar corporation and we won!!

Keystone XL is dead!! The People made this happen! #NoKXL #NoTarSands https://t.co/AeLTyAOjCb

— Dallas Goldtooth (@dallasgoldtooth) June 9, 2021

“After more than 10 years of organizing we have finally defeated an oil giant, Keystone XL is dead!” declared the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) in reaction. “We are dancing in our hearts because of this victory! From Dene territories in Northern Alberta to Indigenous lands along the Gulf of Mexico, we stood hand-in-hand to protect the next seven generations of life, the water and our communities from this dirty tar sands pipeline. And that struggle is vindicated.”

IEN said that the win over TC Energy and its supporters was “not the end—but merely the beginning of further victories,” and also reminded the world that there are “still frontline Indigenous water protectors like Oscar High Elk who face charges for standing against the Keystone XL pipeline.”

Calling the news “yet another huge moment in an historic effort,” Turnbull at OCI said that while the Canadian company’s press statement failed to admit it, “this project is finally being abandoned thanks to more than a decade of resistance from Indigenous communities, landowners, farmers, ranchers, and climate activists along its route and around the world.”

Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, declared the victory in the drawn-out battle—which largely took place under the Democratic administration of former President Barack Obama—”a landmark moment in the fight against the climate crisis.”

“We need to keep moving away from dirty, dangerous pipelines that lock us into an unsustainable future,” added Margolis, who said he now hopes President Joe Biden will take this lesson and apply to other polluting fossil projects. “We’re hopeful that the Biden administration will continue to shift this country in the right direction by opposing fossil fuel projects that threaten our climate, our waters and imperiled wildlife,” he said. “Good riddance to Keystone XL!”

After YEARS the #NoKXL fight is over. The Keystone Pipeline is finally dead. Now do #Line3 and #DAPLhttps://t.co/A7YukN0GR0

— RAN (@RAN) June 9, 2021

Jamie Henn and Bill McKibben, both co-founders of 350.org and key architects of the decision to make the Keystone XL pipeline a target and symbol of the global climate movement, also heralded the news.

“When this fight began, people thought Big Oil couldn’t be beat,” said McKibben, who was among those arrested outside the White House in 2011 protesting the pipeline.

“Keystone XL is now the most famous fossil fuel project killed by the climate movement, but it won’t be the last,” said Henn. “The same coalition that stopped this pipeline is now battling Line 3 and dozens of other fossil fuel projects across the country. Biden did the right thing on KXL, now it’s time to go a step further and say no to all new fossil fuel projects everywhere.”

Clayton Thomas Muller, another longtime KXL opponent and currently a senior campaigns specialist at 350.org in Canada, said: “This victory is thanks to Indigenous land defenders who fought the Keystone XL pipeline for over a decade. Indigenous-led resistance is critical in the fight against the climate crisis and we need to follow the lead of Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous women, who are leading this fight across the continent and around the world. With Keystone XL cancelled, it’s time to turn our attention to the Indigenous-led resistance to the Line 3 and the Trans Mountain tar sands pipelines.”

McKibben also made the direct connection to KXL and the decision now looming before Biden when it comes to Line 3 in northern Minnesota. “When enough people rise up we’re stronger even than the richest fossil fuel companies,” he said. “And by the way, the same climate test that ruled out Keystone should do the same for Line 3.”

This article was first published in Common Dreams.

Jon Queally is managing editor for Common Dreams.