Plan Puebla Panama Paul R Earl Facultad de Ciencias Biol

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Plan Puebla PanamaPaul R Earl Facultad de
Ciencias BiológicasUniversidad Autónoma de Nuevo
LeónSan Nicolás, NL 66451, Mexico
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Rural poverty and a call for its solution
Education, industrialization and family
planningThe purpose of this lecture is to
acquaint you with some plans for the Latin
society from the Mexican state of Puebla through
Chiapas to the nation of Panama--white, mestizo
and Indian. The welfare of over 65 million people
is involved. The central theme of the most
interest is the improvement of the standard of
living in the very poor mesoamerican area.
One cause of the discontent of the rural poor is
the rise in the earnings of the more educated of
the population. Still, soil erosion coupled with
much larger rural populations is causing
starvation.
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Worldwide, the quality of life is being examined
from many points of view, some involving medicine
and economics. Finding a job is the first thing.
Earning a living that provides for a long,
comfortable and happy life is another.
Overpopulation, soil erosion influenced poverty,
lack of educational and lack of work
opportunities often cause migration, war and
revolution. Regardless, Indian nostalgia might
well be replaced by lessons focusing on family
planning and soil erosion.Governmentsall know
that hunger causes revolutionare quick to
counteract movements that they clearly see can
overthrow them. Raising the standard of living of
the victims of some system is a pleasant
solution.
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Objections to free tradeLets begin
with the socialists who have done such a grand
job in a book called A Globilization Handbook by
Caroline, Ellen, Walter, Wendy, Siamak, Moses,
Victor, Shannon and Chad of the Social Justice
Alliance, Stony Brook, NY at justice_at_ic.sunysb.edu
and www.ic.sunysb.edu/clubs/justiceVery many
Internet references that you need are found in
this glorious text which is sometimes quiet
juvenile. Try this for Mexico after 1994, Child
labor has grown dramatically.--Maude Barlow in a
free trade analysis at http//www.canadians.org/
It is so very far from the truth as to damage
the left ! There is no child labor in Mexico.
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The PPP is designed for large infrastructure
projects like toll highways, airports, deepwater
ports, electrical and telecommunications grids),
that together with ongoing projects like
hydroelectric dams, dry transisthmus of
Tehuantepec canals, more big highways that are to
motivate large private companies to locate in
Puebla-Panama. These activities, including those
of Pulsar, a highly successful Mexican private
organization, are typical yet infrequent TV news
items of Mexico today.
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Free trade food examplesEggs and meat.
The grain is imported to Mexico from the US, and
the eggs produced in Mexico. If the grain were
produced there, the eggs meat would cost more.
Simple enough now.Milk, Leche en polvo
importada. Imported powdered milk has been the
only milk, with due exceptions, in Mexico for
MANY YEARS, having nothingreallyto do with the
NAFTA of 1994. It is very easy to make native
whole milk. Buy airconditioners for the cows. The
only problem left is your electric bill.Melons
in La Laguna, Coahuila in 2002 could not be
grown, because the energy cost of irrigation
pumps was too high.
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From Brazil north the fires of the 80s and even
in the 90s sent black clouds out over the
Atlantic. Mexico was 2 deforester. The method
was slash-n-burn forest for beef
cattle. An enormous deforestation was federally
directed in Mexico as La Programa Nacional de
Desmontes, 1976 and financed by the World Bank
(WB). Still Mexico and CA have been seriously
eroded for at least 3,500 years by the Mayans and
others. To put cattle on erodable arid lands
seems odd so some OTHER goal was being sought.
Heavy machinery was purchased from the US at very
high prices. Later in the 80s much of it was
abandoned on the ranches of political deputies.
La Programa Nacional de Desmontes and erosion
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The ZapatistasThey have done
well in fostering the democratic right to protest
and have gained worldwide recognition with 4
million visitors to their web site
http//www.ezln.org The representation of
indigenous rights is either imperative or simply
just. Nevertheless, the world or much of it does
not have the factual data, living on in an
anthropologic mist. Dogooders sometimes spread
false information. The Good Old Days never
existed, and things are inevitably worsening,
because now rural uneducated populations from
Puebla to Panamá are much more numerous than they
were. The rather large number of people, the
great distances and the mountains need
recognition as giant problems.
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Cheaper imported food much replaced native
products.The principal Issues inspiring this
uprising are 1/ Mexican government's unilateral
change of indigenous constitutional rights,
especially land rights. Indigenous ejidos
(eh-HEE-doz, collective farms) were privatized or
simply abandoned as no longer legal.2/. Desire
for meaningful elections after the1988 elections
were stolen.3/. Human rights interpreted as
violated, involving political repression.4/.
Economic reforms of NAFTA hurt small farmers by
loss of subsudies.5/. Decline in world coffee
prices.
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The Zapatists are supporting a way of life that
the climate, soils and economy no longer support
well. Many other politics have developed tons of
failures, because the human demands far exceed
the capacity of the environment to produce that
food, and because they are missing industrial
skills. Nonetheless, recall that dumping of
subsidized or other foods should never be
allowed. Regardless of what happens in the
market, it is still possible for a man to grow
enough corn and beans to feed his family. His
solution may be cutting down trees for land he
will soon erode. He may be nomadic, moving to
another patch of forest. But perhaps that is not
the point, whereas getting a job is.
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The old ways no longer provide a living.
Overpopulation is recorded as soil erosion and
grotesque deforestation. Where are the trees? The
World Bank financed the national deforestation of
Mexico in the 70s and 80s just as Malasian-headed
multinational businesses are deforesting Belize
now. The financing of the national destruction
of Mexican forests in the 70s 80s by WB cannot
be erased. The theft of much overpriced heavy
equipment like bulldozers shows that millions of
dollars can evaporate without being noticed. What
a bank ! WB financed La Programa Nacional de
Desmontes, 1976 that caused new national soil
erosion.
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Some organizationsA large job is
identifying the major organizations and treaties.
The first group is easy all federal and state
governments as found in Internet. National and
state bank data could be interesting or
necessary. Many other organizations can be
reached by such links. Thanks to Wendy Call for
supplying most of them.http//www.datacenter.org/
research/ppp.htmExtensive list of web links
about the PPP compiled by an Oakland, CA
organization that does research on the PPP in
collaboration with the Mexican organization Grupo
de Trabajo Colectivo del Istmo (Collective
Working Group of the Isthmus). (bilingual
Spanish-English)
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http//www.mesoamericaresiste.org/This web site,
edited by two community organizations in the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec UCIZONI (Association of
Indigenous Communities in the Northern Zone of
the Isthmus) and the Grupo de Trabajo Colectivo
del Istmo (Collective Working Group of the
Isthmus) gathers information about the PPP and
gives the perspective of communities that live in
the region.Though it hasnt been updated in the
last few months, it contains some good
information. (Spanish only, use Internet Explorer
only with this page)
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http//www.americaspolicy.org/citizen-action/spotl
ight/index.htmlThe Americas Policy PPP
Spotlight includes an occasional series of
articles about the Plan Puebla Panama and links
to other sites that provide information. (English
with some Spanish) http//www.mesaglobal.net/
This web site from Mesa Global de Guatemala
focuses on information about FTAA (ALCA), CAFTA
(TLCAUSA), and other free trade agreements, but
includes some information about the Plan Puebla
Panama. (Spanish only, use Internet Explorer
only)
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The countries involved in PPPThe 9 southern
Mexican states of Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca,
Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana
Roo, and the 7 CA countries Belize, Guatemala,
Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and
Panamá make up the territories of PPP. The
extremely poor countries are 1/ Guatemala and
2/ Nicaragua.The US has
concluded the US-Chile FTA the Central American
Free Trade Agreement, (CAFTA) with Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Guatemala,Honduras, Nicaragua, and the
Dominican Republic.
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Demographic data Correlation Matrix
POP AREA YTH ADLT
ELDPOP 1.0000AREA 0.6926
1.0000YTH -0.5571 -0.8430
1.0000ADLT 0.4740 0.7143 -0.9742
1.0000ELD 0.6359 0.9546 -0.9420
0.8420 1.0000TFR -0.4069 -0.6460
0.9270 -0.9728 -0.7703GDP 0.7765
0.9683 -0.8835 0.7731 0.9642AGR
-0.5046 -0.6058 0.8082 -0.7885 -0.7616IND
0.0785 0.2164 -0.2038 0.1922
0.2027SERV 0.4488 0.5258 -0.7317
0.7004 0.7093 TFR GDP
AGR IND SERVTFR
1.0000GDP -0.6886 1.0000AGR
0.7278 -0.6744 1.0000IND
-0.2624 0.2076 -0.3527 1.0000SERV
-0.5845 0.6121 -0.7946 -0.2514 1.0000
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The more rural these disasterous people are, the
more disasterous babies they have. Are they
really poor because they want to be? Long ago
they made things miserable for themselves. When
off-farm jobs are found, misery will reduce
CUBICALLY !The soil has abandoned these people
so they cut down trees.What is the problem?
LONGTIME OVERPOPULATION.Their behavior is
excused, because they are hungry !
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ConclusionsForest
reserves, hydroelectric potentials and petroleum
are the resources of the area. The area contains
far too many rural people without much hope for a
better life. Solidifying an electricity net seems
most important. However, the eradication of
tropical diseases like Chagas and the promotion
of family planning are just as important just as
persistent poverty also is.Getting computerized
education into the primary schools might be more
important than widening a road. Nonetheless, the
basic proposition to industrialize mesoamerica
is basically sound, necessary and challenging.
All of these people need a new way of life.