A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

The Campaign Comes to Washington

Carlos Chen brought his campaign for reparations to the World Bank in the spring of 2000. He found a willing audience in the hundreds of critics who gathered to protest what they viewed as the Bank's support for globalization.

This broad charge encompasses many different concerns. Environmentalists have long maintained that the Bank was subsidizing the displacement of indigenous people by lending money for large infrastructure projects, particularly dams and roads. Chixoy, to them, was a prime example.

The World Bank has adopted internal guidelines (operational directives) on dams, indigenous people, and involuntary resettlement that are relevant to Chixoy.

Carlos Chen addresses a protest meeting outside the World Bank in Washington, DC. Annie Bird, from Rights Action, translates.

Directive 4.30 requires that those who are resettled involuntarily by a Bank-supported project should receive compensation that is equal to or better than their previous standard of living.

Directive 4.20 demands that indigenous people affected by a Bank loan be fully consulted and that their cultural and social needs be fully respected.

These guidelines had clearly not been respected in Rio Negro. As a result, the California-based International Rivers Network sees Chixoy as a strong argument for suspending all loans to dams that uproot people against their will.

Rallying for Rio Negro.

The Washington-based Center for Environmental Law (CIEL) also feels that the Bank should suspend support loans to projects that involve involuntary resettlement until it can demonstrate an ability to enforce its own guidelines. CIEL also sees Chixoy as an argument for giving more teeth to the Bank's inspection panel, which is its main vehicle for hearing complaints against its projects.

Many environmentalists also feel that Chixoy is an argument against large hydroelectric dams. If these dams do so much damage, the Bank should accelerate the search for a new energy strategy, based around energy conservation and clean sources.

Finally, a growing number of international campaigners feel that the Bank should accept responsibility for damage resulting from past loans and pay reparations. It is hard to refute this argument when it comes from a community that lost half its members to massacre. This has elevated the Rio Negro demands to an entirely different level from most compensation claims.

Remembering those who died at Rio Negro.

Chixoy provides a common thread to all of these demands. All - to a greater or lesser degree - found their voice in Washington in April as activists gathered for the spring meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Carlos Chen cut a dignified figure as he addressed meetings. But his message was incendiary, and heavy with implication for the World Bank.

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