Prodesis
Its overall objectives were:[1] These goals should stimulate a sense of citizenship, and enhance the relation between the Chiapas government and the 155,000 inhabitants of the 830 communities located around the protected area of the Lacandon Jungle: the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve.
These "micro-regions" were defined by suitability for particular approaches to social and economic development and included Agua Azul, Avellanal, Amador Hernández, Betania, Benemerito de las Américas, Carmen Villaflores, Comunidad Lacandona, Damasco, Francisco I Madero, Maravilla Tenejapa, Marqués de Comillas, Nahá, Nuevo Francisco León, Nuevo Huixtán, Rio Blanco, and Santo Domingo.
In late 1998 SEMARNAP responded to a set of key issues that had been raised by the EC Delegation in 1997, presented a reformulated proposal and requested that renewed consideration be given to the Project.
The 1996 proposal was appraised by a further mission, carried out in September 1999, made up of Dr. Alastair White (anthropologist and socioeconomist) and Torsten Mark Kowal (rural development forester and climate/environmental scientist), working for LTS Consultants, Scotland, UK.
The main points in the re-design were to require local project-orientated planning processes within all components to supersede the ambitious participatory planning component proposed in 1996; and emphasis was placed on defining options for achievable changes in land-use, for training specific groups in the alternative land use and microenterprises options, and for linking up community-level projects with credit and other funding sources.
The parties furthermore underlined the positive results of PRODESIS implementation and agreed to explore the possibility of continuing it with a second phase in the 2007-2013 Cooperation Programme.
[...] The process of reform currently underway is also being hindered by a range of other factors such as [...] the conflict in Chiapas, the activities of guerilla movements in a number of other areas and the human rights situation, one of the most dramatic recent examples being the massacre which occurred in Acteal on 22 December 1997 and which was strongly condemned by Parliament in its resolution of 15 January 1998.
"[9] On January 23, 2004, an article in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada[10] reported that in the community of Nuevo San Rafael in the Lacandon forest, 23 houses were burned down and that the victims were chased into the jungle.
[11] On several Indymedia-sites [12] and other news and community sites around the world it was soon suggested that the violence was perpetrated by the Mexican Army against the Zapatista Ch'ol tribe, and that the EU was involved in relation to Plan Puebla Panamá.
Since early 2004 numerous critical articles (varying in factuality) about Prodesis have been published in Mexican newspapers (mainly La Jornada), magazines (Proceso [13], Contralínea [14]), and on websites of local and international NGO's.
The majority of Lacandones do not possess cattle so have little negative impact on the forest, whereas in all the other communities, a better-off part of the population owns some beef-cattle, constituting an important form of saving and investment.
Then it was colonised in 1974-86 by settlers coming largely from other Mexican states, though the ejidos that were then formed absorbed the already-settled Tzeltal and other Chiapas Indian groups.
However, the interior of the Marqués de Comillas triangle remains poorly served by roads, and this has affected the growth of the communities where substantial concentrations of poverty are still found.
State-led exploitation of the forest’s precious woods was managed by COFOLASA/CORFO during the 1970s and 80s (cedar and particularly mahogany), as against private companies with largely North American capital who first entered the region in the 1850s.
However, the quota of families to receive these subsidies in each community is usually limited and the money typically arrives very late, which greatly reduces the incentive effect.
State intervention patterns have created a situation in which government funds have become an important potential source of direct income, and this has affected local attitudes and behaviour.
A ‘dependency syndrome’ has developed that is often pronounced among the poorer communities, for which the government funds assume greater significance relative to their earnings from production.
Despite the considerable development and biodiversity justifications for setting-up Prodesis, like its predecessor-projects PIDSS and Plan Cañadas, was perceived by (a part of) the population and NGO's (local as well as international) as a counter-insurgency "light" project.
These potential instability factors bring with them a cost (lack of security for companies, a distorted image abroad, especially in Europe) and may represent important barriers to the general development of the country, and in particular to attracting European trade and investment."
Country Strategy Paper Mexico 2002-2006 (Archived) 26-2-2004: MEP Erik Meijer, question E-0546/04 "Is the Commission aware that, according to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada of 3 February 2004, five non-governmental organisations in the south-eastern state of Chiapas consider the European Union to have been involved in an attack on the village of Nuevo San Rafael, controlled by the Zapatista movement and occupied by members of the Chol tribe, in the remote nature reserve of Montes Azules, which consists of primeval forest, on 19 or 22 January, in which attack 23 houses were set on fire, the occupants fled, the village was permanently cut off from the outside world by soldiers and the land is being returned to the former big land-owners to enable them to fell the primeval forest?
[...] Was this attack encouraged by the fact that the EU has concluded an agreement concerning a development project worth € 15.000.000 with governor Pablo Salazar, possibly in part in connection with Plan Puebla Panama, which comprises major infrastructure projects in Central America from Panama to nine poor federal states in Mexico, which require the indigenous Indian population to make way for newcomers and to enable the land to be put to new uses or at least compel that population to give up the autonomy which it in practice enjoys?"
30-3-2004: Commissioner Chris Patten, answer E-0546/04 "The Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Mexico states in its first article that the: Respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights, proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, underpins the domestic and external policies of both Parties and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.
The Commission is aware of the press reports in question, and considers any suggestion of EU involvement in any act of violence in Chiapas or elsewhere to be utterly without foundation.
6-1-2005: MEP Eva Lichtenberger, question E-3589/04 "Parliament has received news that the indigenous people and those in the rural areas around Montes Azules have not been duly informed about the project and there is a great deal of mistrust.
1) Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner refers to the political situation in 2000: Newly elected president Fox had promised to revive the peace process and ratify the Cocopa legislative proposal which, taken to the constitutional level, would mean the fulfillment of the San Andrés Accords.
However, in April 2001 Mexican Congress adopted a diluted version of the Cocopa law, which was criticised by the International Labour Organization for violating ILO-convention 169 [19].
Furthermore, in 2004 Ruben Velazquez Lopez (secretary of government of Chiapas) said he would "not tolerate land-occupations anymore", threatening informal settlements with eviction.
This distinction however is purely theoretical: in reality conflicts over land, para-military attacks, Zapatista presence, and Prodesis' 16 micro-regions are all located in the Lacandon region around the Montes Azules Reserve.
25-9-2008: Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, answer H-0628/08 "At every step of the project cycle, and even now with PRODESIS in its closing stages, the Commission has been aware of the difficult political and social situation on the ground.
During the feasibility study and formulation mission, there were multiple contacts and consultations with local beneficiaries and communities as well as national and regional civil society organisations.
