Oil Pipeline Threatens Nicaraguan Indigenous Community!

Oil Pipeline Threatens Nicaraguan Indigenous Community!

A Florida-based company, the Phenix Group, is planning a 470 kilometer long pipeline to carry foreign oil across Nicaragua, beginning at the indigenous community of Monkey Point on the Caribbean Coast.

The Phenix Group hopes to get World Bank funding for their project that would cut a swath through the World Bank sponsored Meso-American Biological Corridor.

Phenix CEO Rick Wojcik falsely claims to have a letter from the Monkey Point community signed by local nurse Pearl Watson, who says she has not seen or signed any such letter.

Watson predicts oil spills, destruction of fisheries and says, “People [in Monkey Point] live on the fishing and producing of the land. What benefit will we get from losing our sea goods, losing our wildlife?”

The recently passed indigenous lands demarcation law obliges Phenix to fully inform and consult with indigenous peoples with traditional rights to the land in the path of the pipeline.

What can we do?

**Write Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños**

Include the points below. Use fax or airmail.

President Enrique Bolaños
Casa Presidencial
Managua, Nicaragua
Fax: 011-505-228-9298

1. Inform President Bolaños that you are following the struggle of the Monkey Point community against Phenix’s pipeline.

2. Demand that he uphold Nicaraguan law by ensuring that the community is granted a full disclosure of Phenix’s plans through a legally-entitled consultation process.

3. Insist that the Nicaraguan government promptly establish the planned CONADETI commission to initiate the process of demarcating the community’s land.

Background Information:

While corporate plans for a high-speed railway to dissect Nicaragua and form a “Dry Canal” appear to be progressing slowly, another cross-country megaproject steams ahead. A Florida based company called The Phenix Group (www.thephenixgroup.com) plans to begin constructing a 470 kilometer oil pipeline across Nicaragua by the end of this year despite opposition from the Monkey Point community that the pipeline would cut through. The proposed pipeline would share the same route as SIT-Global’s proposed “Dry Canal” project, running from Monkey Point in the east to Corinto in the west. Yet, the inauguration of Phenix’s pipeline project could proceed even if SIT-Global’s railway project does not.

Through the proposed pipeline project, oil tankers from South America would anchor two miles off the Caribbean shores of Monkey Point and connect to oil-collecting buoys. The crude oil would then be transported via an underwater pipeline to a "marine terminal" that would be constructed in Monkey Point for oil storage. From this terminal, up to 480,000 barrels of oil would be pumped daily across Nicaragua through three underground pipelines, with the aid of six pumping stations, to the Pacific port,

of Corinto, where tankers would receive the oil and transport it to markets in the western United States and Asia. Expected funding for Phenix’s US$600 million project would come from Export Development Canada, two confidential organizations, and the World Bank. Wojcik reports, “We’re looking at long-term funding with the World Bank,…we’re in discussions with the World Bank,…[and] we’ve been assigned a case officer from the World Bank.”

If the SIT-Global railway project proceeds, Phenix’s pipelines would be constructed within the fenced 600 meter wide swath that SIT-Global plans to clear-cut across the country. If the Nicaraguan government does not permit SIT-Global to clear this swath, Phenix would independently bulldoze a cross-country path wide enough to encompass the buried pipelines, pumping stations, and a planned adjacent access road.

In defense of his company’s plans, Wojcik asserts, “We’re not a clear-cutting timber company. [The project requires] only a couple hundred meters through the jungle.” Some of that jungle standing in the path of the projected pipeline lies within the Cerro Silva Natural Reserve. The pipeline would also sever the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, a multi-million dollar project of the World Bank purportedly established to protect the rich biodiversity of Central America’s Atlantic Coast. The World Bank’s steps towards funding a pipeline that would cut through its own protective corridor challenge the sincerity of the stated goals of the corridor project.

Commencement of the pipeline project is contingent upon a US$2 million environmental study that is currently being conducted in conjunction with SIT-Global to determine the impact the different megaprojects would have on Nicaragua’s environment. In defense of the pipeline project’s environmental credentials, Wojcik avers, “The World Bank will not support any project that will environmentally damage another country.”

Phenix CEO Rick Wojcik fraudulently claims that after promising that pipeline construction would adhere to environmental guidelines, Phenix received a letter from Monkey Point residents indicating their “full support” for construction of the pipeline and marine terminal in their community, signed by Pearl Watson, a Monkey Point nurse. When asked if she signed the letter, Watson laughed, said she had never signed or seen such a letter, and declared the community’s opposition to the proposed pipeline project.

Watson further condemns the pipeline project as an undertaking that will destroy the natural resources that people in her community depend upon for their existence. She explains, “People [in Monkey Point] live on the fishing and producing of the land. What benefit will we get from losing our sea goods, losing our wildlife?” Watson fears that the planned construction of the pipelines through the Monkey Point community would pay no heed to environmental guidelines and flatten much of the community’s rain forest. She also predicts that continuous operation of the pipeline for the next three decades would cause lethal oil spills in the community’s rivers and ocean, saying, “I don’t care how much you take care; the oil will spill in the water.” She bemoans the impact such damage would have on the future of Monkey Point. “In 25 or 30 years you won’t have much forest around…[and] after there is no more oil to pass through the pipeline, they [Phenix] are going to leave and the community will have no fish in their streams. We inherited this land from our ancestors, and if we destroy this land we will leave nothing for our children and grandchildren but barren land, from which they can produce nothing.”
Wojcik paints a cheerier picture of the future of a pipeline-occupied Monkey Point, promising that Phenix’s project would grant community residents more advanced employment opportunities.

Besides providing residents with temporary construction jobs for installation of the pipeline, Phenix claims that it plans to train residents to fulfill longer-term, higher-skilled jobs needed to operate the pipeline business. Wojcik states that, though foreign workers would initially hold pipeline operation jobs, he thinks that Monkey Point residents and other Nicaraguans would replace all of these workers within 3-5 years as they received appropriate levels of training.

Yet, voices from within Monkey Point scoff at Phenix’s suggestions that the pipeline would bring more lucrative employment for community members. Watson argues that community members are not and would not be qualified to work in the higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs. She predicts that the more desirable pipeline jobs would go to more qualified people who would move in from Managua and Bluefields, while Monkey Point members would get Phenix’s grunt work. Watson laments that community members “would be cleaning the floor or pushing wheelbarrows around…in exchange for their land.” Though Wojcik has assured Monkey Point residents that the pipeline project would “respect their traditions and culture,” Watson wonders how forfeiture of a historical fishing culture for menial oil industry employment can be described as “respect.”

Watson adds that, in general, the Monkey Point community would see no economic benefits from the oil passing through their community. She cites the historical example of Venezuela, where the overwhelmingly impoverished population has not had access to the immense profits generated by one of the world’s largest oil reserves. Watson argues, “This is not the only option for development on the East Coast. We must look for alternatives to this destructive one.”

Under Nicaraguan law, Monkey Point community members are entitled to two legal measures that would strengthen their struggle against the pipeline, according to Maria Luisa Acosta, Nicaraguan indigenous rights lawyer. With the passage of the "Demarcation Law Regarding the Properties of the Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Communities of the Atlantic Coast, Bocay, Coco and Indio Maiz Rivers" last December, the Nicaraguan government officially recognized that Monkey Point and the surrounding lands belong to their indigenous and ethnic inhabitants.

Under this law, Phenix is legally obligated to conduct formal consultations with Monkey Point community members and provide “full disclosure” of the pipeline project plans to the community before implementing those plans, according to Acosta. Phenix has yet to present such an open, comprehensive disclosure, which would better inform community members how the pipeline would impact their environment, economy, and culture, and better prepare them to negotiate the minimization of such impacts.

The recent law also grants Monkey Point community members the right to officially demarcate their ancestral land by applying to the Nicaraguan government for a legal title to their property. Acquirement of this title would put increased legal pressure on Phenix to formally consult the community members and would strengthen the community’s bargaining power in negotiations with Phenix representatives over whether the community’s land is used for the pipeline and under what conditions. However, in order for Monkey Point members to apply for a legal title, the Nicaraguan government must promptly establish the planned National Commission for Demarcation of Indigenous Lands (CONADETI) to oversee and facilitate demarcation applications.

César Paiz, a representative of the planned demarcation commission, says, "We know that behind many of the worst [land rights] conflicts there are powerful business interests, seeking to exploit the lands inappropriately. It is important now to get organized and seek support to enable the law to be properly implemented." You can help provide such support for the legal empowerment of the Monkey Point community by writing a letter to President Enrique Bolaños and requesting that he implement the legal guarantees to the community as expeditiously as possible.

With your help, Watson hopes that her community might preserve the ancestral land, vital ecosystem, and cultural heritage that comprise Monkey Point. In the words of Watson, "The Monkey Point people…have their five common senses and they can see when something is destroying them."

"Courtesy of Nicanet"

Blue Miskitu ®