Massacres and paramilitary land seizures behind the biofuel revolution

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

Massacres and paramilitary land seizures behind the biofuel revolution

· Colombian farmers driven out as armed groups profit
· Lucrative 'green' crop less risky to grow than coca

Oliver Balch in Mutat and Rory Carroll in Cartagena
Tuesday June 5, 2007
The Guardian

Armed groups in Colombia are driving peasants off their land to make way for plantations of palm oil, a biofuel that is being promoted as an environmentally friendly source of energy.

Surging demand for "green" fuel has prompted rightwing paramilitaries to seize swaths of territory, according to activists and farmers. Thousands of families are believed to have fled a campaign of killing and intimidation, swelling Colombia's population of 3 million displaced people and adding to one of the world's worst refugee crises after Darfur and Congo.
(snip)

"As a consequence of the development of palm by secretive business practices and the use of threats, people have been displaced and {the businesses} have claimed land for themselves," he said. His claim was backed up by witnesses and groups such as Christian Aid and the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia.
(snip)

The paramilitary groups, first formed in the 80s by businessmen, landowners and drug lords to fend off guerrillas, became a powerful illegal army which stole land, sold drugs and massacred civilians. Under a peace deal with the government they have officially disbanded but many observers say remnants remain active.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2095338,00.html

[formercia]

1. Pesky natives in the way again

of commercial interests.

In today's news, Geronimo would be referred to as a Marxist insurgent.

[Judi Lynn]

2. So very sad, and completely true.

Those photos from that time are beyond price.

[saigon68]

16. Yes its those Pesky "brown skinned" people again

</sarcasm>

[GliderGuider]

3. Jesus Christ

The first words out of my mouth. And I can't tell if I was swearing or praying.

[Javaman]

4. Don't you just love coming attractions...

the worst is yet to come.

Make sure you have a front row seat, spaces are going fast.

A story like this will be on page 20 in about 10 years. What scares me is what will be on the front page.

[youngdem]

5. So-called biofuels are gonna destroy the last of the world's forests and open places

if it takes off.

I sincerely hope we get off this ethanol and bio-diesel nonsense and get onto fuel cells, electric cars, solar and wave energy.

Ugh.

[BestCenter]

6. What about hybrids?

[youngdem]

7. So far, they don't get great mileage

So, I don't see why anyone would buy one. You get better mileage off of a diesel car and they last longer and take less energy to make, and have no expensive batteries. And new diesel cars are cleaner by a lot than the older models.

A friend has a Prius. He drives like a typical guy, and his mileage is in the high 20's to 30's on the highway. I got that for years in an 84 MB turbo-diesel, and the car cost me $3000. So, I think that Prius is a good solution when compared to many cars, but it is still a gas car with only good gas mileage.

I wish they would relaunch the hybrid Prius as a plug in with a 130 mile range or so on battery only. Many people would RARELY run the gas engine that way, and could charge up on off-rate overnight electrical rates in the garage. That would get me excited about the energy and environmental savings.

Then, we just need to focus on cleaner sources of electricity and energy efficiency, and the air would be much cleaner.

I would also like to see more focus on shipping by rail to reduce truck emissions. Locomotives are already diesel-electrics, and some could be wired to a electric only configuration. And trucks burn DIRTY.

Lastly, something I don't hear much about is providing shore power to ships at port, so they don't run dirty generators at port. A surprising amount of air pollution in port cities comes from this.

[nebula]

10. Isn't the top speed of plug-in vehicles around 30-40 mph?

In a Prius hybrid for example, the gasoline engine has to take over when the vehicle reaches 30mph, due to the speed limitation of the electric motor. That would seem to seem to render the 100% plug-in electric vehicle impractical for most drivers.

[formercia]

11. The shore power is available

it's probably cheaper to use onboard power.

Make it a law.

[Chemical Bill]

17. Wrong.

First off, the right-wing drug dealing para-militaries are destroying the people there. Kind of like we did to the indiginous people here. That's a separate issue.

Second, we get biodiesel from American grown soy oil. So "we" don't have any effect on this situation. The OP has an English source. England has to import any biofuel they use, but the article doesn't say that any palm oil biodiesel is being imported to England from there. The corn lobby has ethanol under it's thumb at the moment. Perhaps you could lobby to get biodiesel made from algae like they are starting to do around the world, instead of injecting misinformation into the debate. The oil companies love people to discourage the use of their only competition right now. I haven't seen any fuel cell that saves energy or fuel yet. OTOH, if you get an electric powered car, or solar cells on your roof, more power to you (pun intended), and thanks for caring.

Bill

[Lance_Boyle]

18. Waste-grease biodiesel is nonsense?

Planting for palm oil is wasteful, yes. But why disparage waste-grease biodiesel? It's making fuel out of trash. :shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

8. Biofuel gangs kill for green profits

June 3, 2007

Biofuel gangs kill for green profits
Tony Allen-Mills, New York

HE survived decades of Colombia’s murderous guerrilla uprisings. He lived through paramilitary purges and steered well clear of the cocaine overlords who swarmed across his rural region. It was something completely different that killed Innocence Dias. He died because the world is turning green.

The global quest for alternative sources of environmentally friendly energy has attracted high-profile support from American politicians, including President George W Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California. Celebrities such as Daryl Hannah, the actress, and Willie Nelson, the country singer, are leading a campaign to promote green fuels.

Yet the trend has already had disastrous consequences for tens of thousands of peasants in rural Colombia. A surge in demand for biofuels derived from agricultural products has unleashed a chaotic land grab by a new breed of gangster entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on the world’s thirst for palm oil and related bioproducts.

Vast areas of Colombia’s tropical forest are being cleared for palm tree plantations. Charities working with local peasants claim that paramilitary forces in league with biofuel conglomerates – some of them financed by US government subsidies – are forcing families off their land with death threats and bogus purchase offers.

“The paramilitaries are not subtle when it comes to taking land,” said Dominic Nutt, a British specialist with Christian Aid who recently visited Colombia. “They simply visit a community and tell landowners, ‘If you don’t sell to us, we will negotiate with your widow’.”

More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1875709.ece

[NashVegas]

9. The Greed Is Unbelievable! And We Thought Petroleum Cos Were Bad!

When the original exploiters moved into these places they were smart enough to have missionaries pave the way first, so at least the exploitation wasn't so obvious to the rest of the world.

We are witnessing the very worst humanity has to offer in this rush to bio-fuels. Crazy shit.

[Peace Patriot]

12. Another puzzle piece in the picture of Bushite "free trade" and their larding of

$4 billion (of our FUTURE tax dollars) on the rightwing fascists in Colombia. The six year delay--provided by the Bush Junta (and 8 or more years before they're finished)--in the U.S. addressing global warming and "peak oil" has given the global corporate predators who have ruined the planet time to figure out how to profit from its ruination.

The proper place for peasants, small traditional farmers, community organizers, leftists, union organizers and the indigenous is in urban slums or in mass graves. Slave labor, recruits for organized crime, or food for the worms. Take your pick. That is the thrust of the murderous U.S. "war on drugs" in Colombia (--and until the people started electing leftist governments in surrounding states, throughout Latin America). And I had figured that what Bush's buds wanted the land for was their own, big-scale coca farms, for big-scale drug trafficking. That's what I've picked up, and there is truth to it. But I hadn't heard about biofuels there. I guess I should have been tipped off by Lulu's smarming around Bush on biofuel production for Brazil. This is the thing that will destroy the Amazon rainforest once and for all. Logging, ranching and development have ravaged about a fifth of it (one of the largest and most important carbon sinks and carbon filters on earth). Biofuel production will kill it--as well as killing off small-scale food production (the best kind). I have more sympathy for Lulu, who has better intentions toward the poor than Uribe (a Bushite fascist whose government in Colombia has very close ties to the rightwing paramilitaries). But Lulu is wrong on this--and it is probably the Bush Junta's (acute) awareness of the big democracy and also environmental movement in South America, and how it might either stop the deal with Brazil, or reduce profiteering, that causes them to look to Colombia, where democracy is not a problem.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Whatever land can't be mined will be converted to biofuels, and the poor won't need to scratch out a

subsistance any longer: they can ALL live in those tin-roofed shanties clinging to the sides of hills with no running water, sewers, normal electricity, or heating, or doctors, or schools, and be available for around the clock slave labor.

Yep, the right has great plans for Latin America. We've already seen their handiwork in Haiti.

[Jim Sagle]

13. Hey, look over there!!! Chavez failed to renew a TV license!!!

[razzleberry]

15. competing with big oil ... a rough business .n/t

[Judi Lynn]

19. 'There Are No Plants or Animals Left'

COLOMBIA-ECUADOR:
'There Are No Plants or Animals Left'
Constanza Vieira

Credit: Acción Ecológica

BOGOTA, Jun 6 (IPS) - A new U.S. government report acknowledges that coca crops expanded last year in Colombia, despite the heavy herbicide spraying carried out under Plan Colombia, which has been loudly protested by neighbouring Ecuador for causing damages to human and animal health and food crops in border areas.


~snip~
The U.S.-financed Plan Colombia has destroyed 946,000 hectares of coca since 2000. The ONDCP explained the higher figures this year by pointing out that the area surveyed in 2006 was 19 percent larger than the previous year and that nearly all of the increase in coca cultivation was found in the newly surveyed areas.

Since 2001, the Ecuadorian Interinstitutional Committee Against Fumigations (CIF) has been studying Plan Colombia's "side effects" and "collateral damages" to human health and food crops. The interdisciplinary civil society group's reports have been cited by the Ecuadorian government when it has demanded that the Colombian government refrain from spraying within 10 km of the Ecuadorian border.

Colombia has announced that it is willing to pay compensation to the Ecuadorian farmers who have been affected by the spraying. But it is not yet clear whether that only includes indemnification for lost food crops.

CIF found that spraying of coca in Colombia had impacted crops and human health in Ecuador at two, five and 10 km from the border. The group found evidence of health problems like respiratory and digestive ailments, skin rashes, and damages to the eyes.

"These four problems diminished the farther we got from the border," Spanish Dr. Adolfo Maldonado with the environmental group Acción Ecológica, one of the 11 Ecuadorian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that make up CIF, told IPS in Bogotá.

The umbrella group's first study found that a large number of animals, mainly fish, had died. No one has specifically studied the impact of the spraying in rivers and other water sources. "All of the campesinos (peasant farmers) mentioned that a large number of pregnant farm animals had miscarried," said Maldonado.
(snip/...)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38067

[reprobate]

20. There is one biofuel answer that needs no land for crops, but no one talks about.

I'm speaking of algae generated bio diesel. The algae will grow in any sewage treatment or water treatment plant.

You need no land or fertilizers. In fact, nitrogen fertilizers are a side product of the process.

Read the UNH Biodiesel page and then tell me why we never hear about this possible answer with no negatives?

Is it because there are no large corps invested in it to make profits from?

Ya think?