IIRSA and the Latin American Political Elites: Infrastructure, Development and Environmental Agenda in the Pan Amazon.
Nirvia Ravena
Renato Boschi
The South American foreign policy has in IIRSA one of the key tools in the repositioning
of the Latin American countries in the scenario of global change (Couto, 2007.2008;
Santos Caballero, 2011). In this context, as an actor in the relevant sub regional, Brazil
plays an important role in shaping of capitalism in Latin America. (LIMA, 2003, Adams
2004; Soreanu Pecequilo 2008, Santos Caballero 2011) IIRSA, has emerged on the
scene of the determinations the Washington consensus that designed neoliberal
agenda based on privatization of state enterprises, deregulation of the economy and
the unilateral liberalization of foreign trade by countries belonging to Latin America
(Quintanar & Lopes, 2003, Couto 2008, Soreanu Pecequilo 2008). While the unfolding
of Washington Consensus, the discussion about the development headed toward
regional integration. The construction of physical infrastructure, communication and
energy to the Latin American integration was a major topic of the First Meeting of
Presidents of South America, held in 2000 and from it created the IIRSA.
Based on territorial planning, IIRSA has been designed to perform the
integration from ten regional integration axes of which pass through the four Pan-
Amazon.
The Pan Amazon or Amazon Continental consists of all spaces belonging to the
drainage area of the Amazon basin. Included in this definition, the geopolitical point of
view the following Amazonian countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana,
Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.
In ten years of existence, by the election of presidents from the so-called New
Left, IIRSA takes the role of coordinating policies in Pan-Amazon, gestated still in
institutional frameworks linked to neo-liberal paradigms, showing, by Brazil, a
performance of continuity in diplomacy of Fernando Henrique (Almeida, 2004;
Universidade Federal do Pará/Universidade da Amazônia-Brazil
Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ)-Brazil
Soreanu Pecequilo 2008) on one hand and the Global Player (LIMA, 2003; Santos
Caballero, 2011).
Associated with the typology of State Logistics by Cervo (2003, 2005) the theory
of the variety of capitalism is extremely instrumental to analyze the developments of
capitalism in Latin America in joints where the "new left" is in power.
The "new left" in most countries of the Pan-Amazon, presented the
environmental issue as a central element in their programs of government. Thus, it is
important to identify the place of the environmental agenda in development policies
that are underway in Latin America.
The format of the South-South cooperation, integration and regional consensus
and maintenance of the neoliberal agenda of IIRSA are points that allow you to check
interwoven forms of adaptation of capitalism in Latin America. These points were
associated with an institutional ergonomics created by neoliberal agenda that, in the
institutional household, of most South American countries, became secondary to the
discussion of environmental impacts and externalities arising from the development
agenda undertaken by the variant of capitalism in Latin America.
The forms taken by capitalism in various institutional contexts gave rise to a
variety of interpretations about their ability to adapt. Thus, in Latin America, while the
Global Player, Brazil is taking with the countries of the Pan-Amazon as coordinator of
the regional dynamic in which this adaptation occurs. This strategy is the use of
integration projects such as IIRSA. In Latin America, and particularly in the Pan-
Amazon, IIRSA lends to political context, well-marked peculiarities. The action of the
Chiefs of Executive in the implementation of its projects is flagship and has presented a
pattern that join populist practices to development policies that exclude the
environmental agenda at the time of design and implementation of projects.
This article presents a reflection on the consequences of development policies
aimed at regional integration undertaken recently by the so-called “new left” adopting
an approach that combines literature about the variety of capitalisms and
interpretations of populism and new left in Latin America. The discussion aims to
describe the changes that have occurred in the Pan Amazon and to what extent the
inclusion of the environmental agenda in development policies of elected presidents in
the last decade has irreversibly changed the stock of natural resources that could be
strategic for development of long term sustainable policies.
The paper is organized into three sections: one that presents a summary of the
approaches on varieties of capitalism, a second part that describes the recent
literature on post-neoliberal inflection occurred in countries that make up the Pan
Amazon and the last that describes and analyzes IIRSA's projects for the Amazon and
the role of Brazilian foreign policy in this context.
The interpretation of the variety of capitalisms context for the Pan Amazon
In a summary of the literature about the variety of capitalisms can say that it is an
approach that has shown significant levels of complexity in the analysis of the
globalization process. The debate surrounding this literature also shows
comprehensive in order to provide more alternative explanations for specific
phenomena assumed by capitalism. Initial approaches on the diversity of capitalism
(Hall & Soskice, 2001; Amable, 2003; Boyer, 2005) to more recent analyzes (Schneider
2009; Amable, 2009; Diniz, 2010; Doctor, 2010) have increased and typification
including state as a dominant explanatory variable in the models.
There are few approaches for Brazil (Boschi & Gaitan, 2008; Diniz, 2010; Doctor,
2010). For Latin America, the prospect of development policies associated with the
analysis of the size of the state in coordinating and regulating the market and the
actions of elites, allow a more clear picture of the phenomena of globalization in this
region (Hart, 2001.2003; Boschi & Gaitán , 2008; Diniz, 2010; Schneider, 2009; Doctor,
2010).
The state apparatus then appears as a decisive element in development
projects. At the same time, democratic consolidation and also has an ideological turn
in how policies are being implemented. (Hart, 2001.2003; Boschi & Gaitan, 2008).
If for Latin America on issues of development have nuances that are not trivial,
for the Pan Amazon there is a necessary nuance of this movement that combines an
anti-neoliberal and implementation of development models that ignore the
environmental agenda. Thus, the distinction between a practical and populist ideals of
the left, in the analysis of models of development for this region of Latin America,
demand is also an interpretation of that part of the literature has been defined as a
new left in Latin America.
The New Latin American Left and the Latin American Integration: Brazil and
its foreign policy
The so-called "Latin America Turn Left" (Roberts, 2007; Arditi, 2008; Cameron,
2009), has emerged as an object of political analysis given the presumed inflection that
occurs in the neoliberal policies that prevailed in the 90s. Coined to explain the extent
to which the election results in Venezuela (1998), Chile (2000 and 2006), Brazil (2002
and 2006), Argentina (2003), Uruguay (2004), Bolivia (2005), Peru (2006 and 2010 ),
Ecuador (2006) and Nicaragua (2006) showed how to use the electoral agendas of the
left, based on popular acclaim, this chain has sought to analyze the consequences of
the ex post period in which the Washington Consensus in Latin America led to believe
that the triumph of liberalism would materialize in the association between capitalism
and democracy. However, the institutions in its informal dimension shown in the
normative perspective of democracy and elections, his disappointment with what had
been institutionally constituted. The correlation between inequality and civil rights
allowed and encouraged this discontent.
The Latin American leaders that are inserted into associated behaviors called
new left-wing populist appeal to the masses associated with institutional settings, from
formal point of view, characterized by democratic procedures.
In Latin American countries, participating in the Pan Amazon, the presence of
this logic that associates development strategies to contexts of electoral legitimacy is
remarkable. Brazil appears most of the interpretations as a country where pluralism
was consolidated (Roberts, 2007; Arditi, 2008; Cameron, 2009 ;). However, these
approaches make clear the difference in institutional contexts marked by populist
performances and contexts where social democracy appears as a regime which also
allowed the reduction of inequalities through a consolidation of democratic
institutions (Kauffman, 2007; McLoad et al 2011). Brazil and Chile fall into this
typology. However, it is important to point out issues of disrespect the civil rights of
traditional populations in the Pan Amazon, these democratic contexts, as a point to
relativize this supposed consolidation (Raven & Teixeira, 2010). The positioning of
environmental issues into development strategies that allow relativization.
From the standpoint of the coordination of development policies, Brazil has
experienced growth rates that allowed the resumption of programs of income
redistribution and development is still designed in the wake of neoliberal policies.
In its foreign policy, Brazil has adopted a performance of coordinator of Latin
American integration, and even in the face of economic asymmetry between countries,
seeks to maintain the strategy to raise regional force by coalition with the South (Lima,
2005, Jaguaribe, 2008 ; Santos Caballero, 2011). In the regional scenario, for the Pan-
Amazon, IIRSA, as an instrument of effectiveness of this strategy, is emblematic.
The IIRSA has been designed under the influence of the IDB and policies
designed by ECLAC for Latin America (CEPAL, 1994). Originated by neoliberal
conceptions about regional integration, the guiding idea of the IIRSA seeks to create a
less costly flow of people, goods, capital and natural resources by increasing the
movement of goods across the continent and also intercontinental
perspective. Initially, the state's role in implementing this action of integration would
be limited, and even as coordinator of actions directed to the region would function
only as the creation and maintenance of supranational organizations. From this
perspective the IIRSA the state would lead stocks at the regional level that would result
in an institutionalization of supranational integration in perspective. The axes of
integration proposed by IIRSA demonstrate the magnitude of integration and
coordination problems arising from this proposal for supranational.
FIGURE 1
Source: IIRSA 2009
It is important to note the need for integration, associated with the view that
Latin America experienced a low level of investment in infrastructure, was the
argument raised as a central element for the preparation of IIRSA. The number of axes
in Figure 1 is composed mainly of works in construction that has the dominant sector.
This sector leverage circuit development, but it constitutes an interest group that, in
the regulatory game, is opposed to normative2. This mega-project would serve,
through regional integration, economic agents strategically placed in both the state
apparatus in the Brazilian and other Latin American countries. Currently, the
governments of the left, use of the IIRSA projects to meet the market demands. This
policy option of Latin American governments to stay implementing IIRSA's projects is
welcome in the political system. Political pluralism has allowed the market, through
campaign finance and the action of pressure groups particularly business, has a
2 In Brazil, the energy sector combines state action and business interests that circumvent the civil rights of people who will be affected by infrastructure projects located mainly in the Amazon. This is denounced and judicialized but the State and Federal prosecutors are hamstrung by presidential decrees that prevent its action.
relevant role in the decision making of elected leftist governments. Relations and
interest groups expand in times of campaign finance, the window of opportunity to
influence government decisions. Thus, the IIRSA constitutes an instrument of a game
where the market and government gain. (Quintanar & Lopez, 2003; SOREANU
PECEQUILLO, 2008, Couto 2007) The existence of uncoordinated environmental
regulation in most countries of the Pan Amazon and growing environmental
deregulation in the Brazilian political scene3, make the IIRSA, an effective tool both for
governmental interests to expand jobs and increase economic growth rates and for
agents market that have a return on their investment campaign.
Table 13: Base institutional environment of the Amazon countries
Country Responsible for the Environment
Reference to Environmental in the
Constitution
Management, supervision and monitoring of
Amazonian natural resources
Bolivia - Ministry of Rural Development,
Environment and Agriculture
- Ministry of Water
Constitution of the Republic of Bolivia
(1967, with reforms in 2002)
- National Institute of Agrarian Reform
- Forestry Superintendent - Governments departmental
- Local governments
Brazil - Ministry of the Environment - Council of
Government - National Council on
the Environment (CONAMA)
Federal Constitution (1988)
- Brazilian Forest Service
- Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Resources
(IBAMA)
Colombia - Ministry of Environment, Housing and
Territorial Development
- National Council on Environment
Political Constitution of Colombia (1991)
- Amazonian Institute of Scientific Research
- Amazonian Body
- Cormacarena
- Corponariño
- Corporinoquia
Ecuador - Ministry of the Environment
- National Department of Development
Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador
(1998)
- Institute for Development of Amazon (Ecorae)
3 An example of this deregulation is the project of Law 1876/1999 that it "provides for Permanent Preservation Areas, Legal Reserve, logging and other measures" (revokes Law no. 4,771, 1965 - Forest Code, amending Law No. 9605, 1998) which is awaiting referral to vote in the full House of Representatives.
Planning
Guyana - President of the Republic
- Sub-Offices - Committee on
Natural Resources and Environment
Constitution of the Republic of Guyana
(1980)
- Subcommittee on Natural Resources and Environment
-Advisory Committee for Natural Resources
and Environment (NREAC)
Peru - National Environment Council
(CONAM)
Political Constitution of Peru (1993)
- National Institute of Natural Resources
(INRENA) - Research Institute
of the Peruvian Amazon (IIAP)
Suriname - Ministry of Labor, Technological
Development and Environment
- National Institute for Environment and
Development
Constitution of the Republic of Suriname
(1987)
- Ministry of Physical Planning, the Land
and Forest Management
- Ministry of Natural Resources
Venezuela - Ministry of Popular Power for the Environment
Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela (1999)
- Research Institute of the Venezuelan
Amazon (IVIA) Source: Sant'Anna 2009, adapted from PNUMA, OTCA e CIUP, 2009.
These bases are linked politically to the institutional sector bureaucracies
markedly developmental remaining in the domestic scenarios and interfere in the
south-south cooperation (LIMA, 2005). An example is how the financing of projects
designed within the IIRSA and how the adhesion of BNDS to finance most projects is
associated with the requirement that the Brazilian companies are contracted to
perform the work. However, the question that arises is: what is the development
model designed in this strategy? The IIRSA is further elaborated under the influence of
neo-liberal perspective and dependent trajectories created from this development
confined to the environmental agenda an insignificant role in driving and
implementing projects. Projects and environmental licensing express this secondary
position.
The Pan Amazon is the recipient of four of the ten lines of action of IIRSA, which
articulates the Andean transversely to the axis of the Guiana Shield, the axis Amazon,
and the axis Peru-Bolivia-Brazil, home to much of the internationalization of Project
Madeira and the proposal to integrate the Atlantic and Pacific, through the
combination of modal waterway, rail and road.
The tables below allow you to check the total number of ongoing projects and
their environmental licenses in each country:
TABLE 01: AXIS OF AMAZON
TOTAL OF PROJECTS BY COUNTRY PROJECTS RUNNING
Countries With no License
Environment
With License Environment
With no License
Environment
With License Environment
Finished with
License
Finished with no License
BRAZIL 03 06 01 01 01 -
BRAZIL/ PERU 01 - - - - -
PERU 15 11 03 09 - -
COLOMBIA 02 03 - 03 - -
COLOMBIA/ ECUADOR/
PERU
02
- - - - -
ECUADOR/ PERU
- 02 - - - 01
ECUADOR 13 06 - 04 - -
TOTAL 36 28 04 17 01 01 Source: Initiative for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA). Accessed at:
www.iirsa.org on 12/03/2012.
TABLE 02: AXIS OF ANDINO
TOTAL OF PROJECTS BY COUNTRY PROJECTS RUNNING
Countries With no License
Environment
With License
Environment
With no License
Environment
With License
Environment
Finished with
License
Finished with no License
BOLIVIA - 01 - 01 - -
BOLIVIA/PERU 02 - 02 - - -
BOLIVIA/PERU/COLOMBIA/ECUADOR/VENEZUEL
A
03 - 01 - - -
COLOMBIA 06 11 - 07 02 01
COLOMBIA/ECUADOR 04 02 02 01 -
COLOMBIA/VENEZUELA 03 01 - 01 01 01
ECUADOR 01 06 - 01 -
ECUADOR/PERU 03 03 01 02 03 01
PERU 01 09 07 01
VENEZUELA 07 - 02 - - -
TOTAL 30 33 08 20 07 03 Source: Initiative for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA). Accessed at:
www.iirsa.org on 12/03/2012.
TABELA 03: AXIS OF GUYANESE SHIELD
TOTAL OF PROJECTS BY COUNTRY PROJECTS RUNNING
Countries With no With With no With Finished Finished
License Environme
nt
License Environme
nt
License Environme
nt
License Environme
nt
with License
with no License
BRASIL - 02 - 01 02 -
BRASIL/GUYANA/SURINAME
01 - 01 - - -
BRASIL/VENEZUELA 01 02 01 01 - 02
GUIANA 01
GUIANA/BRASIL - 02 - - 01 -
GUIANA/SURINAME 01 - - - 01
GUIANA/SURINAME/VENEZUELA
02 - - - - -
SURINAME 02 01 - - - -
VENEZUELA 03 - 01 - - -
TOTAL 11 07 03 02 04 02 Source: Initiative for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA). Accessed at:
www.iirsa.org on 12/03/2012.
TABELA 04: AXIS OF PERU BOLIVIA BRASIL
TOTAL OF PROJECTS BY COUNTRY PROJECTS RUNNING
Countries With no License
Environment
With License
Environment
With no License
Environment
With License
Environment
Finished with
License
Finished with no License
BOLIVIA 07 01 02 - - -
BOLIVIA/BRASIL 02 - - - - -
BOLIVIA/PERU 01 - - - - -
BRASIL 03 03 03 02 - -
BRASIL/PERU 02 - 01 01 02 -
PERU 05 02 02 01 - -
TOTAL 20 06 08 04 02 - Source: Initiative for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA). Accessed at:
www.iirsa.org on 12/03/2012.
The tables presented above allow to verify the ineffectiveness of environmental
regulation for all axes as in all of them unlicensed projects were finished and there are
still several running without their license. This finding is not trivial. The number of
projects without an environmental permit if not exceeds the licensed designs
approaches the number of projects being executed with environmental license.
In energy, transport and communication IIRSA in 2011 established a schedule of
priority projects. This is an indication of the revival and strengthening of the
implementation of integration hubs. In the four axes operated in the Pan Amazon,
there are 84 ongoing projects. Allegations of social movements in the countries of the
IIRSA participants regarding the lack of regulation applied to environmental projects
are intense. In Peru and Bolivia, especially the social movements question the IIRSA on
the basis of their appearance that combines developmental disrespect for the rights of
traditional populations that are located in areas where there is the environmental
impact resulting from implementation of the IIRSA projects. Most of the projects
located in the transportation sector, but the most striking are those related to the
energy sector.
The axis of the Peru-Brazil-Bolivia is strategic in all the others. In it are also
provided for construction of hydroelectric plants in Peru and Bolivia and the waterway
to be built in wood to drain much of the natural resources for the Pacific. It was
designed to supply the world market with products from the processing of
commodities and goods with greater added value produced by Brazilian companies
mostly. The logistics flow includes a stretch of waterway Beni-Madeira, to connect the
output of the River Plate to the Pacific.
On the one hand the construction of infrastructure for the integration is a
physical scale to be considered; on the other hand the coordination of economic and
institutional construction projects under these axes is complex. An association
between low level of environmental regulation, low level of participation of interested
and affected the decisions of IIRSA and presidential performance-based plebiscitary
acclamation, allow the state apparatus to easily transform into an instrument of
market agents in the capture of regulatory arenas. In this context the environmental
arena is the most concerned.
Even more regulated than other countries in the Pan Amazon environmental
issues, the regulatory debate about the environmental arena is big trouble in
Brazil. The strong impact on consumption that the redistributive policies of the Lula
government promoted (Hunter & Sugiyama, 2009), became opaque the importance of
environmental issues whose dynamics has intangible benefits and long term. In the
reverse path, social policies offer consumers new to the market almost
immediately. Explained. The demands for more aggressive programs of distribution of
income and employment growth has been accompanied by a discourse that blames
environmental regulation and protection of traditional barriers to the development
because, in the discourses of business and government, environmental regulation is
the element responsible for obliterating works that would create a virtuous cycle of
growth. The environmental agenda has had few adherents and various regulatory
instruments have been changed in Brazil4.
In the rest of Latin America, and particularly the countries of the Pan-Amazon,
these instruments exist without a scope coordinating environmental policies and have
a low degree of institutionalization. Thus, consider the action of Brazil in the
coordination of regional integration projects requires an understanding of that country
as hegemonic also looking to impose models of environmental regulation. These, in
the case of IIRSA in the Pan-Amazon, operate throughout the territorial impact of IIRSA
projects in the region. Compatible regulatory projects are already underway for this
purpose5. The area of influence, only from Amazon axis, allows us to understand the
scope of territorial action on this axis as well as the extent to which institutional
coordination is complex. The complexity of the interweaving of scales that involve the
actions of regional integration proposed by IIRSA is notorious. The axis is
representative of the Amazon scenario complexity. In their areas of coverage are the
largest inventories of natural resources of the planet and also low levels of
institutionalization of environmental regulations.
4 Also in 2007, Jerson Kelman that interfered starkly in the regulation of water resources given its position as market agent and regulator (RAVENA, 2004) proposed the exemption from licensing for projects under the category "National Interest". (Kelman, J. Environmental licensing and national interest. O Estado de S. Paul, Open Space, A2, 02/06/2007.)
5 In the Andean axis is running the project: Armonización regulatoria: eléctrica, gasífera y
petrolera. Countries: Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
FIGURE 2
Source: Observatorio Latinoamericano de Geopolítica 2007. Ana Esther Ceceña, Paula
Aguilar, Carlos Motto.Territorialidad de la dominación: La Integración de la
Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana (IIRSA)
This axis is about 200 miles wide and 20,000 km long navigable. In it there are
already ports of Tumaco (Colombia), Esmeraldas (Ecuador), Paita (Peru), Manaus,
Belem and Macapa (Brazil).
The coverage area of the shaft Amazon is very diverse both environmentally
and economically. It is a region marked by the presence of endemic species and local
knowledge has not seized. For the region's conservation projects in local productive
arrangements, strategic and military agreements with specific radar systems and
monitoring. It has potential in the industrial area (electronics, biotechnology, chemical,
pharmaceutical, cement, shipbuilding, aluminum, fertilizers), agricultural (sugar cane,
cotton, tobacco, coffee, cotton, soybeans), agro-forestry, fisheries, mining ( oil, gas,
coal, metals, uranium, iron, gold, emeralds) and tourism.
Of the 44 projects of IIRSA in this area, 21 are for works designed to ports and
waterways, road 12, 3 for works in seaports, 5 for air and one for boundary
adjustments, and the other two are the electrical interconnection interconnecting the
various dams built on the route of the river Madeira. At higher values of IIRSA
investments will be capital for the generation of hydroelectricity.
Most companies that were still in the government of Fernando Henrique
Cardoso, capturing the agenda of building works in the axes of IIRSA, remain in times
of "Turn Left" Latin American and the decisions of leftist and center-left elected.
Moving near the state structures, introducing their demands and exert their influence
through a strategy of pluralism arenas capture (Stigler, 1971) supra, these companies
have changed their performance, and greater flexibility to act according to the
redefinition of the role of America in the global crisis of 2008 and the conversion of
Brazil in global player on the world stage.
The World Investment Report 2011 noted that the largest increase in foreign
investment occurred in South America investments were approximately $ 86 billion,
with Brazil accounting for 56% percent of this amount. Companies such as Vale do Rio
Doce, Gerdau, Camargo Correa, Votorantim, Petrobrás and Braskem have made
acquisitions in the sector of iron ore, steel, food, cement, chemicals, and petroleum
refining, industries in Latin America. (World Investment Report 2011).
In parallel, the industry related to infrastructure is positioned as influential
actor in pursuit of the actions of IIRSA. From the standpoint of household, Brazil,
Brazilian companies are welcome to their demands on the association between the
Growth Acceleration Program-PAC and actions of IIRSA. In this sense, the major
hydroelectricity wins given its centrality as a structural element of regional integration.
Already operating in the Madeira River, the industrial sector on the
construction of roads, ports and dams has significant growth both in the domestic
context and in the countries of Latin America that are in the coverage area of the shaft
Amazon. Wood River flows by more than 95% of the total flow of Bolivian rivers. This
river is the main source of suspended sediment and dissolved solids in the basin. The
design and construction of the Madeira River Hydroelectric Girau and San Antonio are
disrupting and destroying the environmental balance and regional levels. In addition to
the plants in Brazil and Bolivia the project for the Madeira River is formed by the
construction of a 4,200-kilometer waterway that allows navigation of large ships.
There is a forecast of building a connection line and power transmission with over
1,500 km in length.
Besides the construction of roads, connecting the Brazilian system to other
countries in Latin America is one of the main objectives of the Brazilian government in
the implementation of IIRSA. Interconnection is not only physical. The Ten Year Plan
for Energy Expansion in Brazil cites projects to build hydroelectric plants in Peru,
Bolivia and Guyana, coincidentally on the axes of IIRSA covering the Pan Amazon.
Approximately 7,000 MW of installed capacity corresponds to six plants to be installed
in Peru. The constructions of these dams are originated from an agreement signed in
2010 by the then President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Alan García. The cost of the
projects would be $ 15 billion (about $ 23 billion) and the plants would be managed by
the Brazilian state Eletrobrás. However, Peru has canceled the provisional license of a
Brazilian consortium to build the plant on the Inambari river. Cancellation protests
took place in the department (state) of Puno, the same that would house the dam and
the Peruvian government also demanded the cancellation of all concessions in mining
and energy sectors in Peru.
The construction of Jirau and San Antonio Cachuela Esperanza in Brazil and
Bolivia make Bolivia incorporates most of the externalities of the Madeira project. The
environmental impact study will be reviewed in four hearings in Bolivia and is bringing,
as in protest about the construction of the road in the indigenous TIPNIS, social
movements and protagonists of the inclusion of the environmental agenda in
development models of the new left.
The central question of compatibility between development and inclusion of an
environmental agenda, in Latin America, passing through the regulatory game that has
marked its expression in environmental regional institutional forms. TCA and then the
OTCA, as an expression of the intentions of regional integration in Latin America, home
in your program area of Infrastructure Transport, Energy and Communications, the
institutional framework to operationalize the IIRSA projects. The dependent
trajectories originated in the construction of such cooperation are associated with the
dynamic implementation of the IIRSA projects lend well defined contours and
development policies in the region. The construction of the TCA and ATCO expresses
the characteristic of cooperation focused on the volatility of the signatories to join the
cooperation.
Foreign Policy, South-South Cooperation and the IIRSA
The beginning of the TCA took from the meeting of heads of state of Brazil and
Peru that sealed the commitment to develop the initial design of cooperation. The
Treaty began to gain consistency in its production in 1978, the year that Venezuela,
although at first reluctant to have accepted the possibility of recognizing it. About 15
months of negotiations were needed for the final version was presented in 1980. In
this scenario, the premise of the treaty was to preserve (in the sense of territoriality,
not in the environmental sense) and the development of the Amazon.
The consolidation phase of political and diplomatic TCA, which occurred
between 1980 treaty that was broken and the goals to be achieved strengthened.
Major issues, from the standpoint of administrative and organizational to start the
operation of the TCA have been developed and was also established its organizational
structure; Peru was chosen as the locus of this structure. In the same period, were
emphasized what should be the priority sectors for cooperation has been established -
the territorial occupation, the development of technology and scientific knowledge -
facing the region (Roman, 1998).
The signatories undertook to enhance the decision. In 1989, at a meeting held
in Manaus, there was a revival of TCA on a new footing. The question was to house
their infrastructure in a country less hegemonic than Brazil. At that meeting, Brazil had
the intention to maintain the TCA as an instrument of national security and domestic
still position yourself in order to drive and coordinate policies.
The reaction of countries participants was to allocate the operational logistics
of the Treaty in a secretary pro tempore, in Ecuador. When the office was definitely to
Peru, had about 20 employees from all signatory countries. Importantly, the question
of the time it took the operation of the TCA to be effective, because it reflects the lack
of consensus about the purposes of the Treaty and the perception of the signatory
countries that Brazil would not be interesting to emerge as hegemon in the context of
formulating drawing. However, the need for signatory countries to a certain cohesion
around the territorial integrity of the Amazon in the face of outside interests to Latin
America promoted a "geopolitical rationality." This ended as the element that allowed
the instrument was finally played, at one time as a window of political opportunity for
the Latin American countries to begin to define in advance geopolitical strategies to
defend their domestic interests. The TCA, however, was still marked by a regional
reality permeated by mistrust and uncertainty among the signatories.In 2002, the
creation of the OTCA sought to reinvigorate the purposes of integration started with
the TCA, giving more emphasis to the environmental dimension.Headquartered in
Brasilia and the Amazon from the truth, the Executive Secretariat of the OTCA, which
should be the instrument of effective policies for the region becomes more an organ
that intensified regional inequalities since, expressed the competitive dimension of the
signatories of TCA in relation to projects funded by multilateral agencies for the
Amazon.
Between 2002 and 2007, OTCA sought to implement actions aimed at regional
cooperation and distrust remained, mainly from Bolivia to Brazil questioned the
purpose of integration (Sant'Anna, 2009). The discussion on the integrated
management of transboundary rivers, as a strategy of cooperation, already had the
problem of knitting scale institutional, physical and political ACTO faced. On the other
hand, the Brazilian government's strategies within the South-South cooperation from
the foreign policy of the Lula government, promoted the badwagoning movement of
the Pan-Amazon countries to implement policies of the IIRSA projects.
The primary purposes of the Treaty, the political forces that have undertaken,
the consequences of their actions and those who succeeded in an institutional vacuum
are elements that make up a framework for thinking about the type of cooperation
undertaken and dependent trajectories originating from TCA that influenced the
Brazilian foreign policy in the conduct of policy development and integration in the Pan
Amazon.
In the domestic and regional scenarios, the Lula government has combined the
maintenance of macroeconomic policy with an unorthodox strategy articulated by the
autonomist foreign policy community. The developmental legacy remained in some
Brazilian sectoral bureaucracies and influenced its foreign policy towards Latin
American neighbors (LIMA, 2005). Sectoral bureaucracies, such as energy, for example,
that denser development projects aimed at strengthening the mix of business elites in
the context of domestic and regional integration strategies. For the Pan-Amazon IIRSA
materializes and operates this policy. On the other hand, the Brazilian Amazon is a
region where sectoral policies are defined with a high degree of concentration when
considering the federal pact, ie the integration between the domestic and local
conjunctures is disregarded. For the other signatory countries of the Organization, this
dynamic of distance intensifies.
In the Lula government, ACTO, marked by the same dependent trajectories set
by the initial design of the TCA was again enhanced in November 2011, coincidentally
after the meeting to establish the priority projects of IIRSA which occurred in June
2011.
In Dilma the strategy initiated by the Lula government has materialized through
the coordination of actions of the OTCA and IIRSA. Still early in the assembly of your
frame diplomatic president at a meeting of foreign ministers of member countries of
the Pan Amazon reaffirmed the course of South-South cooperation in the Pan Amazon.
At that meeting, redefined the role of the organization leaving it as a banner of
regional sustainability associated with a change agenda that includes developing a
different perspective from that which led to its creation from the TCA.
South America is living a moment of great potential for diplomatic action concertada.Os social issues are central to the agendas of the various domestic and foreign countries. The achievements in terms of economic growth in the entire South American continent brings with it a growing concern about reducing inequality and promoting social justice, increasingly linked to environmental conservation. We can thus associate the concern about the environment, with the equally legitimate concern related to economic development and poverty eradication (Minister Antonio Patriota, Eleventh Meeting of Ministers of the Member Countries of the Organization of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty - Manaus, November 22, 2011)
The discursive statements of submission of the environmental agenda to the
development agenda is clear. The IIRSA projects operated by ATCO for the Pan Amazon
materialize growing purposes stated.
The assumptions present in the developmental agenda of priority projects of
IIRSA and the lack of running their licenses also show that the Brazilian foreign policy
waves to the neighbors of the Pan-Amazon extent to which the environmental arena
must go into the south-south cooperation. Going against this wave are the social
movements. Forged in the Latin American political institutions, these movements rely
on the defense of the environment and environmental asset of the Amazon.
Final Considerations
The theory of varieties of capitalism associated with interpretations of the
governments called new left allows you to realize for the Latin American context
schizophrenia political representation that has been operated in two simultaneous
perspectives, but conflicting. The myriad of possibilities to adapt to new scenarios of
capitalism and the reality of the new left to meet the challenges of consolidating
democratic institutions, pluralism is printing a new face: new strategies of social
movements linked to the consolidation of the environmental agenda as a central
element in the model for Amazon.
Transcending the national boundaries, the transboundary environmental
perspective that is being built from the action of social movements is a reality that
governments put the so-called New Left, a demand for institutions that ensure the
dyad-environmental sustainability in development regulatory perspective and not
merely discursive. In this new configuration of social movements organized actions
whose turn to the inclusion of the environmental agenda in government decisions, the
New Technologies of Information and Communication gives the social movements,
previously hamstrung by divisions and geographic place names, a planetary dimension.
More than this. Allow solidarity in the face of environmental issues transcend the
limits of national states seeking to consolidate and follow the practices and institutions
that allow, as Boulding say, that this deep crisis "which faces mankind may predispose
people to taking more interest in the immediate problems and to devote more effort
for their solution".
The solution is in a republican respect to the peoples of the Pan Amazon.
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