What Lies Beneath

...Peterson, Petroleum Geology and Resources of Southeastern Mexico, Northern Guatemala and Belize, United States Geological Survey circular 760...

...CONACYT, Ed...

...But the Accords do not give the communities the power to use national strategic assets for their own benefit...

...Witness for Peace, Un Crudo Despertar...

...By 1980, with the price of oil having skyrocketed to almost $40 a barrel from only $15 in 1978, the transnationals had begun drilling at the Guatemalan border where it meets Mexico's Marqu6s de Comillas area, and the Mexican government vowed to protect Montes Azules...

...http:A/wvw.gasandoil.comr/goc/news 15...

...vatize resources-Mexico may face an even worse This type of "economic solution" is falsely presented parade of transnational companies than Guatemala has, as the only possible answer to poverty in Chiapas...

...The government's practice of discouraging indigenous land During his presidential claims may be linked to its desire to keep the region open for more oil drilling and exploration, campaign, National Action Triton Energy...

...Favio Barbosa, "Pozos petroleros ocultos en la Selva Lacandona," Memoria, No...

...Jacobo Vargas Foronda, Guatemala: Sus Recursos Naturales y el Militarismo y el Imperialismo, (Mexico City: C laves Latinoamericanas, 1984...

...Several decades ago in the Mexican state of Chiapas and in neighboring Guatemala, geologists discovered deeply buried rock strata of the type that formed oil deposits millions of years ago...

...Ramrod Petroleum and Gas...

...Marcos cites military occupation of the village of Amador HernAndez, and the construction of a new road by the army, as particularly indicative of the government's desire to make sure it controls the region's oil...

...Campos Petroleros Gigantes y Recursos Mundiales de Petr6leo, report prepared for the U.S...

...and Basic Resources, which was leave the militarization and paramilitarization of acquired in 1997 by the Canadian company Norcen Chiapas at its highest level since he took office six years Energy Resources, and in 1998 by the U.S.-based ago...

...2. David Candelario Rodriguez, Las EstrategiasAmbientales...

...abundant raw materials could perfectly serve not just The San Andr6s Accords, which emerged in 1996 the new owners of these riches, but also other regions from peace talks between the EZLN and the govern- that need a newly proletarianized labor force...

...As of now, though, it is hard and Technology Services is fighting for concessions...

...Geological Survey and transnational companies claim that reserves in nearby Guatemala total a mere 50 to 100 million barrels, even though studies by environmental organizations report 1.4 billion barrels...

...The giant fields combined contain at least 250 million barrels of recoverable liquid oil (crude oil and liquid associated with natural gas), and at minimum 500 million barrels of hydrocarbons recoverable as liquid or liquid equivalents (natural gas is converted at 6,000 cubic feet per barrel...

...Andrds Barreda is an author professor of sociology at the National Autnomous University (UNAM) in Mexico City and coordinator of the Center for Social Analysis, Information and Popular Education...

...David Candelario Rodriguez is an engineer in the Southern Zone of Pemex...

...5 Lajous' statements contrast sharply with technical reports, including from his own agency...

...1 And discussing the Nazareth gas field, near Comitn, the report states that "along with the Ocosingo area, the hope is to incorporate a potential reserve estimated at more than two billion barrels, extending over more than 2,000 square miles...

...Mexico City, June 1978, p. 38...

...Canadians Dominate Oil Business," Cerigua Weekly Briefs, No...

...Author unknown...

...Supergiant oil fields have at least five billion recoverable barrels...

...1 4 Recently, Ranking present any superficial decrease in troops as evidence of Resources Inc...

...Charles D. Masters and James A. Peterson, Assessment of Conventionally Recoverable Petroleum Resources of Northeastern Mexico, U.S...

...The government also promoted military has mestizo colonization of Marqu6s s that seem de Comillas in order to discourage settlement by indigenous y rich in groups, who were making land distribution claims that might deposits...

...Portillo would later become president of Mexico, but at that time IEPES had the strategic task of preparing the program of incoming President Luis Echeverria's administration...

...4. General Accounting Office, Mexican oil Issues affecting potential U.S...

...Reforma is not far from regions of Chiapas that since early 1994 have been wracked by war between the Zapatistas and the Mexican government...

...Compahia Petrolera del Atltntico...

...El Banco Mundial, Polifticas de los Estados Unidos y Petr6leo en Guatemala, 1998...

...Party (PAN) candidate Vicente Fox said he could solve Enterprise Development Corp...

...government of the Pemex studies recognizing giant oil fields in Ocosingo, it confirmed statements from oil workers who in 1993 were amazed to witness the discovery of signficant, high-quality gas and crude-oil deposits--and of wells that had already been drilled before mysteriously being covered up...

...Pemex, Propuesta para el desarrollo y la preservacidn de la Selva Lacandona (Plan Maestro), Pemex, June 1984...

...Chiapas' northeastern mountain ranges are expressions of deep anticlines--the world's most important type of oil-containing geologic formations -and some anticlines in the Reforma area contain huge oil deposits...

...The study notes seven oil deposits in the Lacand6n rainforest...

...In 1970, Jos6 L6pez Portillo had just become director of the ruling party's Institute of Economic, Political and Social Studies (IEPES...

...50, January 1993...

...El Parcial: Boletin de Informacion Latinoamericana, (Hamburg: German Federal Republic, August 1983...

...trade and investment, Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, United States General Accounting Office, March 1992...

...CienciayDesarrollo...

...More recently, the state appears to be anticipating conflict between its desire to regulate and exploit oil, and the fact that the deposits happen be located near or directly beneath Zapatista communities, such as Aguascalientes de Francisco G6mez and Roberto Barrios, and autonomous municipalities such as Tierra y Libertad, San Pedro Michoacan, Jos6 Maria Morelos y Pav6n, Francisco Gbmez, Libertad de los Pueblos Mayas, Primero de Enero, Trabajo and Francisco Villa...

...2 In all, potential reserves total 3.7 billion barrels-only a bit less than the five-billion-barrel figure that the petroleum industry considers a mega-deposit...

...8 These same deposits appear on the internet page of the oil company Seine River Resources (SRR), which maintains operations in the nearby Pet6n Jungle in Guatemala...

...New Arcadia the Chiapas conflict in 15 minutes...

...So the government has been backsliding on the Accords, all the while encouraging continued military and paramilitary aggression that aims to blow holes in the The Lacand6n Rainforest, still a hotbed of conflict between Zapatista rebels and the government, attempt to negotiate peace contains valuable oil deposits that have already been discovered, as well as areas thought to with dignity...

...23, June 12, 1997...

...PEMEX y el gobierno se estbn acabando la selva," Proceso, No.777, September 23, 1991...

...Kiser...

...Not until sometime this spring will we know if current troop withdrawals represent a genuine change of policy...

...1 5 to gauge the new President's willingness to effectively Pemex geologists have noted that in Guatemala, com- dismantle the main repressive networks against the panies are drilling horizontally into the border subsoil to indigenous population, nor his will to carry out-withextract oil located up to a mile inside of Mexico.16 out beating around the bush-the federal government's Maps posted on the internet by the U.S...

...They suggest that the real reason for denial is that the Mexican government wants to clear northeastern Chiapas of thousands of contentious Zapatistas and other indigenous forces before they impede state attempts to exploit and privatize the oil fields...

...1 2 And there has as yet been no clear indication of whether there will be a reversal of the recent presidential decree signed by Ernesto Zedillo, which expropriated land from Amador Hernmndez to use for a strategic military encampment...

...1 0 If we go by indirect reports about the bioversity of the site and by statements from indigenous witnesses, it appears that important discoveries have been made, especially on the plateaus of El Ocotal Lake and El Suspiro Lake in the Amador Valley.nI These are the very places where President Zedillo, at the end of his term, ordered the expropriation of communal ejido lands in order to build a new military encampment...

...they are creating greater environmental and social devastation as they parade through the area in search of the coveted fuel...

...These and other statements were made to us in in San Crist6bal de las Casas, Chiapas, by Pemex technicians who work in the region and who spoke on condition of anonymity...

...Herman Bellinghausen, (Interview with Captain Julian of the EZLN), La Jornada, February 23 and 24, 1995 12 Jaime Reveles, El Financiero, December 18, 2000, p. 69...

...4 Despite all this evidence, in 1999, Adrian Lajous, who at that time was still director of Pemex, claimed that the wells in question showed limited potential for producing oil...

...Documento de diagndstico oficial sobre la biodiversidad y las condiciones sociales de vida en la region de Las Canadas, Chiapas, 1992...

...Data exist, however, which belie these negative claims...

...NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 40 What Lies Beneath 1. David Candelario Rodriguez, Las Estrategias Ambientales de Petr6leos Mexicanos en la 5elva Lacandona, Estado de Chiapas, Tesina, Universidad Aut6noma de Chapingo, Mexico, 1992...

...5. La Jornada (Mexico City), August 23, 1999...

...Pemex, Diagndstico de instalacionespetroleras en la zona de la Selva Lacandona: proyecto Ocosingo-Lacanton, (Mexico City: Subdireccion de Producci6n Primaria, 1991...

...have great oil-bearing potential...

...3. Giant oil fields are those containing at least 500 million recoverable barrels of oil...

...At the end of the decade, several remained, including Compahia General de Combustibles, a subsidiary of Sociedad Comercial del Plata de Argentina...

...En el entomo a las actividades petroferas, zona "Marquds de Comillas" y reserva de la bidsfera "Montes Azules," (Mexico City: Pemex, 1986...

...96, No...

...Alfredo Guerra Borges, Compendio de Geografia Econdmica y Humana en Guatemala, Guatemala, Editorial Universitaria de Guatemala, 1986...

...The Zedillo-era expropriations are the latest in a series of government actions to control northeastern Chiapas, apparently with a view to keeping the area's natural resources from being democratically controlled...

...Meanwhile, as Resources...

...Ren# Len Escribano, "El Petrdleo en Guatemala," Revista de Ciencias Sociales Centro de Investigaci6n y Documentacidn Centroamericano (CIDCA), JanuaryJune 1979...

...Geological promises vis-a-vis the San Andr6s Accords...

...Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), R-2284...

...Yet many geologists and government officials insist that these troubled areas contain little or no oil...

...24 (June 15, 1998...

...From 1975 and 1986, Pemex prospecting brigades of petroleum engineers and geology students working in the northern, central and southern Lacand6n Forest NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS a a 38REPORT ON OIL reported that they examined 94 anticlines and 60 faults with significant oil-bearing potential...

...A as well as more environmental devastation and more close watch therefore needs to be kept on the manipulamilitarization and aggression against indigenous Mayan tion of information about oil in the Lacand6n rainforest, and mestizo communities -similar to what already has since expelling rural populations from these regions of occurred in Guatemala's dirty war...

...CGG has been operating in the region since 1992, and several statements indicate that it is prospecting in Chiapas' Coordinated Reserve of the Montes Azules Biosphere, in high-biodiversity regions that supposedly are protected...

...1 2 Meanwhile, Mexico is not the only place where oil is being underreported...

...Of these, 35 anticlines and 14 faults were found to be promising, and Pemex has identified 29 of these as likely to contain oil...

...1 3 Transnationals are opening up new exploration wells, new pipelines, new roads and refineries...

...Recognizing these constitutional rights would obstruct the interests of the transnationals, which are privatizing strategic resources...

...Department of Energy, October 1995...

...Meanwhile, it seems quite likely that the northeast part of the state-the Lacand6n rainforest area-is also rich in oil...

...General Accounting Office notified the U.S...

...8. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Planeacibn Regionalpara la Conservacion y Desarrollo Sustentable de la Gran Cuenca del rio Usumacinta, (San Crist6bal de las Casas, Chiapas, April 1998) 9. Seine River Resources Home Page, http://wwwseineriver.com/ 10...

...Geological Survey, Openfile Report, 1981...

...In a 1986 study, he noted that in Marqu6s de Comillas, in the southeastern comer of the rain forest, "a potential [oil] reserve has been evaluated that is estimated at 1.498 billion barrels of crude spread over 865 square miles...

...If so-given the expected stampede to pri- roding the social fabric of Mexico and Central America...

...Prominent geologists from the U.S...

...Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos believes that oil has been one of the motivating factors in positioning Mexican army troops throughout the Lacand6n rainforest...

...El Gobierno Predice Boom Petrolero," Cerigua, January 30, 1998...

...Energy Information Administration, Energy In the Americas, U.S...

...Since then, the search has been on for oil in these areas, and in northwestern Chiapas, a good deal has already been discovered and pumped...

...In it, he noted possible oil reserves in the areas of Las Margaritas and nearby La Trinitaria, as well as Los Altos...

...On the Survey, the Energy Information Administration and the other hand, one hears a good deal of very explicit news Oil and Gas Journal do not recognize the existence of these days about modernization and investment projects oil in the Pet6n area of Guatemala, but they do in that propose to extend to Chiapas corridors of Mexico's nearby Lacand6n rainforest...

...6. Instituto de Geologla, Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico, Mapa geologico de anticlinales, sicdinales y fallas del estado de Chiapas, n.d...

...It is included in a study of the Mayan Jungle done The Mexican has downplay discoveries of even as the I overrun area especiall' petroleum by the College of the Southern Border of Chiapas, carried out to solicit funding for a privatization project for the Usumacinta River, at the border with Guatemala...

...Pemex, Marco de referencia ambiental en la selva Lacandona, Chiapas...

...By the 1970s and 1980s, companies such as Getty Oil, Texaco, Texaco Canada, Monsanto, and Elf Aquitaine, to name only a few, had appeared on the scene...

...9 Also noteworty are exploratory activities by the French firm General Geophysics Company (CGG, or Compaifa Mexicana de Geoffsica...

...3 Further, when the U.S...

...Guatemala Iniciard Pronto Subasta de Exploraci6n en Doce Areas," Alexanders Oil and Gas Connections, January 22, 1997...

...1 7 This suggests maquiladora sweatshops that produce textiles, automorecognition that there is more oil in Mexico than tive parts and other exportables, and which are now corGuatemala...

...But at the same government time, the government began reguled apparent lating the mass movement of Indians colonizing land near the oil in Chiapas, potentially oil-bearing anticlines...

...Charles D. Masters, D. H Root and R. M. Turner, World of Petroleum, U. S. Geological Survey, 1997, http://energy.er.usgs/products/papers/WorId oil/oilfindex.htm...

...impede oil exploration and drilling...

...Thus, Fox's new government can demagogically Union Pacific Resources...

...Parker and President Zedillo finished his term, he was careful to Parsley...

...of Canada has shown interest, while Oil its readiness to negotiate...

...Vol XXXIV, No 4 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2001 39REPORT ON OIL ment, cite the indigenous communities' collective right to evaluate federal and state plans to exploit strategic resources in their regions in order to determine those plans' effects on indigenous territories...

...As part of the job, L6pez Portillo edited a report about Chiapas...

...7. David Candelario Rodriguez, Guillermo Correa and Raul Monge, "Lacandones...

...6 Those reports agree with yet more information, such as that pumping wells have already been built.7 Most important, the reports concur with a map entitled "Rio Salinas Project...

...Pablo Cruz-Helu and Javier Meneses-Rocha, "Pemex Plots Ambitious E&D Spending Increase," Oil and Gas Journal, Vol...

...As of this writing, only one troop withdrawal has been reported, of 140 soldiers from Amador Hernmndez...