Puebla-Panama Plan

The Puebla-Panama Plan ( _es. Plan Puebla Panamá, acronym PPP) is a multi-billion dollar development plan formally initiated in 2001, which is intended to "promote the regional integration and development" [http://www.planpuebla-panama.org/main-pages/concepto.htm Plan Puebla Panamá ] ] of the nine southern states of Mexico (Puebla, Guerrero, Veracruz and points south) with all of Central America and Colombia. The initiative was championed by the then president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, and agreed to by the governments of the respective participating nations.

Goals and financing

The Plan Puebla Panamá is intended to remedy a lack of investment and stimulate trade in the region by building or improving large infrastructure projects such as highways, air and sea ports, and electric and telecommunications grids. [Pickard, Miguel, "The Plan Puebla-Panama Revived: Looking Back to See What's Ahead," page 1. Interhemispheric Resource Center, June 2004.] It consists of eight initiatives: [McElhinny, Vince and Nickinson, Seth, "Plan Puebla Panamá: Development or Disaster?", page 3. InterAction, 2005]

* Energy Sector Integration
* Transportation Integration
* Telecommunications Integration
* Trade Facilitation
* Sustainable Development
* Human Development
* Tourism
* Disaster Prevention and Mitigation

According to the Presidency of Mexico, the percentage of funding allocated for each of these projects is: Transportation, 85.2%; Electrical, 11.1%, Tourism, 1.3%, Human Development, 0.8%, Disasters, 0.7%, Trade, 0.6%, Sustainable Development, 0.4%; and Telecommunications, 0.03%. [Pickard, Miguel, page 1]

These projects are to take place along five principal axes (or corridors) of development: [McElhinny and Nickinson , page 7]

* The Pacific Axis, which bears the majority of trade in the region
* The Gulf of Honduras Axis, to develop trade between the Pacific and the cities in the Caribbean region
* The Petén Axis, which runs from Puerto Cortés, Honduras to Villahermosa, Mexico
* The Mexico Trans-systemic Axis, consisting of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
* The Guatemala/Yucatán Axis

According to a study by the US-based nonprofit InterAction, $7.7 billion in funding for the Plan Puebla Panamá had been designated as of March 2005; the amount is eventually expected to rise as high as $50 billion. Of this funding, 35% comes from national governments in the region, 24% from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), 15% from the private sector, 7.5% from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE), 5% from the World Bank, 6.3% from other sources (the remaining funding could not be determined).McElhinny and Nickinson]

Criticism

The Plan Puebla Panamá has drawn criticism for its adherence to a neoliberal model of development, which critics say favors the interests of multinational corporations over those of local communities and the environment. According to critics, the true goals of the PPP include the privatization of land (including farmland), water and public services, and the control of the region by foreign interests. In addition, they argue that Plan Puebla Panamá is destroying fragile rain forests and displacing indigenous peoples who have little voice in the development effort. ["Plan Puebla Panama: Battle Over the Future of Mesoamerica, 2nd Edition." Network Opposed to Plan Puebla Panama, 2004.]

Much criticism of Plan Puebla Panamá is related to criticism of free trade agreements (FTAs), including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Critics argue that the PPP and related projects serve to lay the physical infrastructure that allows FTAs to operate:

"On the one hand, FTAs rewrite the region’s laws and policies for the benefit of transnational corporations and the region’s elites, while on the other, the PPP provides a network of physical infrastructure, easy access to natural resources and a new army of cheap labor for 'development' of the Isthmus of the Americas." ["Plan Puebla Panama: Battle Over the Future of Mesoamerica, 2nd Edition," page 11. Network Opposed to Plan Puebla Panama, 2004.]

According to the US-based group Root Force, the PPP and related infrastructure projects are essential for supplying the First World with access to cheap resources, thus maintaining a "colonialist" global economy. [ [http://rootforce.org/?q=node/3 Rootforce.org ] ]

History

The Plan Puebla Panamá was first announced by Fox on March 12, 2001 [Davis, Celia; Beas, Carlos Beas; and Call, Wendy, "Plan Puebla Panamá Exists and Mesoamerica Resists," page 2. Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo, 2006. Translated by Brendan O’Neill.] and officially launched on June 15, 2001 [http://www.iadb.org/ppp/pppdescription.asp] .

In 2002, following protests that forced the cancellation of a planned airport in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico State, along with persistent troubles in securing financing for PPP projects, a moratorium was declared on official comments regarding the plan, and its website was taken down. During the year-and-a-half moratorium, the IDB hired the US-based advertising agency Fleishman-Hillard to revamp the PPP's image.Pickard, Miguel]

In July 2003, Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army announced that "implementation [of the PPP] will not be permitted for any reason" in Zapatista territory. [Pickard, Miguel, page 3.]

In March 2004, Fox officially announced the relaunch of the PPP. Among the changes made were the removal of all hydroelectric dams and the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor from the project, and a new emphasis on the aspects of the plan relating to social concerns. Many of the projects removed from the PPP are still proceeding under different auspices.

Several Mexican governors are formulating rival plans.Fact|date=March 2007

Associated projects

The governments and institutions involved in the PPP have refrained from releasing specific information about which highways, electric lines, etc. are part of PPP initiatives. [McElhinny and Nickinson, page 3] [ [http://www.planpuebla-panama.org/proyectos_resumen.htm Proyectos - Plan Puebla Panamá ] ] . In some cases, projects formerly considered a part of the PPP have been removed from the plan, although the projects themselves have proceeded, often under the funding of the BCIE rather than the IDB.. In other cases, PPP projects have been cancelled entirely.

Two well-known, ongoing PPP projects are the Electric Integration System for Central America (SIEPAC) and the Mesoamerican Transport Integration Initiative, or International Network of Mesoamerican Highways (RICAM). SIEPAC involves the construction of 2,100 kilometers of energy line from Mexico to Panama, costing an estimated $390 million. ["The Plan Puebla Panama: International Educational and Advocacy Handbook." The SHARE Foundation, 2006.] One of the goals of the project is to be able to sell electricity generated in the region to the United States.Lenny, "Mexican Dam Ignites Resistance to Plan Puebla Panama," "Earth First!" 25:1, pp 16-17]

The Mesoamerican Biological Corridor was formerly in the scope of the PPP but is no longer classified as such. [Pickard, Miguel, page 5]

Initially, the PPP included plans for an airport in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico. These plans were abandoned after a nine-month struggle by farmers protesting the expropriation of their land for the construction. [Pickard, Miguel, page 3]

The Anillo Periférico highway in San Salvador, El Salvador, was part of the initial PPP, but since 2003 the IDB has maintained that it is no longer included in the plan. The same phenomenon has occurred with La Parota Dam in the Mexican state of Guerrero. Both projects are still being promoted by their respective national governments. [www.rootforce.org]

See also

* Mesoamerican region, an economic territory defined by the OECD, with the same membership scope as the PPP, excepting Colombia
* The Trans-Texas Corridor, extending from the US-Mexican border through the entire United States along I-69 and into Canada via Port Huron in Michigan; may be viewed as a U.S. counterpart to Plan Puebla Panamá transportation initiatives.
* Initiative for the Integration of South American Infrastructure, conceptually a follow on or expansion to the Plan Puebla Panamá and Trans-Texas Corridor initiatives, linking those roadways and reducing barriers to the flow of people and goods throughout much of North and South America.

Notes

External links

* http://www.planpuebla-panama.org
*http://www.rootforce.org
*http://www.iadb.org/ppp
*http://www.americas.org/item_10043
*http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/16.html
*http://www.iadb.org/
*http://archive.laprensa.com.sv/caricatura/caricatura.asp*