The Violence of Development: Resource Depletion, Environmental Crises and Human Rights Abuses in Central America

The Violence of Development

The Violence of

Development

Resource Depletion, Environmental

Crises and Human Rights Abuses

in Central America

Martin Mowforth

First published 2014 by Pluto Press

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Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by

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Copyright © Martin Mowforth 2014

The right of Martin Mowforth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

List of Figures, Tables and Boxes

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

Acknowledgements

Preface

1Introduction

2Food: For Whose Table?

3Water: Flowing in the Wrong Direction

4Energy: Powerful Forces

5Mining: All that Glitters…

6Deforestation and Reforestation: Can’t See the Wood for the Trees

7Industrialisation and Free Trade Treaties: From Slavery to Sweatshop

8Indigenous Groups: The Fourth World Fights Back

9The Violence of Development: Human Rights Defenders against the Wall

10Whither Development?

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

List of Figures, Tables and Boxes

Figures

1.1Central American populations

1.2Population growth rates, Central America

1.3Selected indicators of development, Central America

2.1Global hunger, 1969–2010

2.2Crude oil price and food price index, 2006–2009

2.3Hunger in Central America

4.1Percentage electricity production by generation type, Central America, 2009

5.1The significance of mining in the Central American economy

5.2Do Not Flush

6.1Change in forest cover, 1990–2010, Central America

7.1Exports of primary products as a percentage of total exports, by value, Central America

8.1Indigenous territories of Central America

9.1Estimates of gang membership, Central America

Tables

2.1Number of organic farms, Central America, 2007

3.1Infant mortality rates

3.2Population with access to improved drinking water sources and improved sanitation, 2008

4.1Per capita electricity consumption, Central America

6.1Carbon emissions: Central America and comparators

6.2FSC certified forests in Central America

6.3Central American wetlands under the Ramsar Convention

7.1Exports of manufactured goods as a percentage of total exports, by value

8.1Population estimates of indigenous groups in Central America

Boxes

1.1Definitions: GDP, GNP, HDI and HPI

2.1Violence against the unions in the pineapple industry

3.1Major types of public–public partnerships (PUPs)

4.1Hydroelectric projects in Bocas del Toro, Panama

5.1The use of cyanide in gold mining

6.1Assassinated members of the Olancho Environmental Movement

8.1ILO Convention No. 169

8.22007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

9.1Guatemala: a state of emergency?

9.2The death of Rodrigo Rosenberg

9.3Costa Rica: land of natural wonders and threats to those who defend them

9.4FNL members assassinated, 2009–2011

9.5Defending the ‘white lobster’

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

* Denotes translation from the Spanish, indicating that the initials may not match the ordering of words or names.

AA – Association Agreement

ACD – Alliance for Conservation and Development (Panama)

ACLU – American Civil Liberties Union

ADELA – Action of Anti-Petroleum Struggle* (Costa Rica)

ADES – Association for Social and Economic Development* (El Salvador)

AECO – Ecologists’ Association of Costa Rica*

AHJASA – Honduran Association of Village Water Committees*

ALBA – Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America*

ANAM – National Environment Authority* (Panama)

ANCON – Association for the Conservation of Nature* (Panama)

ANDA – National Aqueduct and Sewerage Administration* (El Salvador)

APP – Water for the People* (Honduras)

APREFLOFAS – Association for the Preservation of Flora and Fauna* (Costa Rica)

ARENA – Nationalist Republican Alliance* (El Salvador)

ASADAS – National Association of Water System and Sewerage Operators* (Costa Rica)

ASM – artisanal and small-scale mining

ASONOG – Association of NGOs* (Honduras)

ASOTRAEXDAN – Association of Workers and Former Workers with Claims Against Nemagon* (Nicaragua)

AyA – Costa Rican Institute of Aqueducts and Sewers*

BELPO – Belize Institute of Environmental Law and Policy

BOPA – Belize Organic Producers Association

CAFTA-DR – Central America and Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement

CAM – Campamento Environmentalist Movement* (Honduras)

CARSI – Central America Regional Security Initiative

CASM – Communities and Small-Scale Mining

CATAPA – Technical Academic Committee for Assistance in Environmental Issues (Belgium)

CCAD – Central American Commission on the Environment and Development*

CDM – UN Clean Development Mechanism

CEDES – Episcopal Conference of El Salvador*

CEICOM – Salvadoran Centre of Research into Investment and Commerce*

CELAC – Community of Latin American and Caribbean States*

CER – certified emission reduction

CICIG – International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala*

CIDA – Canadian International Development Agency

CIDICCO – International Centre for Information on Cover Crops* (Honduras)

CIEPAC – Centre for Economic and Political Investigations into Community Action* (Mexico)

CIIR – Catholic Institute for International Relations (now called Progressio)

CIS – Exchange and Solidarity Centre* (El Salvador)

CISPES – Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador

CITES – Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

CNEE – National Electrical Energy Commission* (Guatemala)

CODDEFFAGOLF – Committee for the Defence and Development of the Flora and Fauna of the Gulf of Fonseca*

COFADEH – Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras*

COHDEFOR – Honduran Corporation of Forestry Development*

COHEP – Honduran National Council of Private Enterprise*

COMUS – United Communities of Usulután* (El Salvador)

CONAP – National Council for Protected Areas* (Guatemala)

CONATEL – National Telecommunications Commission* (Honduras)

CONAVIGUA – National Association of Guatemalan Widows*

COPAE – Pastoral Commission for Peace and Ecology* (Guatemala)

COPINH – Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras*

COSEP – Superior Council of Private Business* (Nicaragua)

CSF – Conservation Strategy Fund

CSR – corporate social responsibility

DECA – Department for Environmental Evaluation and Control* (Honduras)

DEFOMIN – Department for the Promotion of Mining* (Honduras)

DEFRA – Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK)

DEOCSA – Western Electricity Distribution* (Guatemala)

DEORSA – Eastern Electricity Distribution* (Guatemala)

ECLAC – Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

EIA – Environmental Investigation Agency

EIS – environmental impact study

ENCA – Environmental Network for Central America

ENEE – National Electrical Energy Company* (Honduras)

ENEL – Nicaraguan Electricity Company* (Nicaragua)

EPM – Public Services Companies of Medellín* (Colombia)

EPZ – export processing zone

FAFG – Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation*

FANCA – Fresh Water Action Network of Central America

FAO – UN Food and Agriculture Organisation

FMLN – Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation* (El Salvador)

FNL – National Front for Struggle* (Guatemala)

FNRP – National Popular Resistance Front* (Honduras)

FRENA – Resistance Front for Natural Resources* (Guatemala)

FRENASAPP – National Front of Sectors Affected by Pineapple Production* (Costa Rica)

FSC – Forest Stewardship Council

FSLN – Sandinista Front for National Liberation* (Nicaragua)

FTAA – Free Trade Area of the Americas

FTZ – free trade zone

GDP – gross domestic product

GEF – Global Environment Facility

GFC – Global Forest Coalition

GJEP – Global Justice Ecology Project

GMO – genetically modified organism

HDI – Human Development Index

HEP – hydroelectric power

HPI – Human Poverty Index

IACHR – Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

ICE – Costa Rican Electricity Institute*

ICF – Institute of Forestry Conservation* (Honduras)

ICFTU – International Confederation of Free Trade Unions

ICMM – International Council on Mining and Metals

ICSID – International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes

IDB – Inter-American Development Bank

IEN – Indigenous Environmental Network

IFC – International Finance Corporation

IFI – international financial institution

IGTN – International Gender and Trade Network

IIED – International Institute for Environment and Development (UK)

IIPFCC – International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change

ILO – International Labour Organisation

ILRF – International Labour Rights Forum

IMF – International Monetary Fund

INDE – National Electrification Institute* (Guatemala)

IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IPES – Permaculture Institute of El Salvador*

ISI – import substitution industrialisation

IUCN – International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

KGC – Kuna General Congress (Panama)

LAIFCC – Latin American Indigenous Forum on Climate Change

MAO – Olancho Environmentalist Movement* (Honduras)

MAOCO – Costa Rican Organic Agriculture Movement*

MAOES – Organic Agriculture Movement of El Salvador*

MBR – Maya Biosphere Reserve (Guatemala)

MDG – millennium development goal

MPRI – Mining Policy Research Initiative

MUCA – United Movement of Campesinos of Aguán (Honduras)

NACLA – North American Congress on Latin America (USA)

NAFTA – North America Free Trade Agreement

NGO – non-governmental organisation

OAS – Organisation of American States

OECD – Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

PAC – Civil Defence Patrols* (Guatemala)

PPP – public–private partnership

PRONAT – Panama Land Administration Project*

PRSP – Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

PSIRU – Public Services International Research Unit

PSP – private sector participation

PUP – public–public partnership

RCB – Biodiversity Coordination Network*

REDD – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (UN programme)

SANAA – National Autonomous Aqueducts and Sewers Service* (Honduras)

SAP – Structural Adjustment Policy

SETA – Water Service Workers’ Union* (El Salvador)

SITRABI – Izabal Banana Workers’ Union* (Guatemala)

TNC – transnational corporation

UNAG – National Union of Farmers and Cattle Ranchers* (Nicaragua)

UNCHR – UN Commission on Human Rights

UNDP – United Nations Development Programme

UNES – Salvadoran Ecologist Unit*

UNESCO – United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

UNFCCC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

UNGA – United Nations General Assembly

UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund

UNPFII – United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

UNWFP – UN World Food Programme

USAID – US Agency for International Development

WDM – World Development Movement

WFP – Witness for Peace

WHO – World Health Organisation

WRM – World Rainforest Movement

WTO – World Trade Organisation

WWF – World Wildlife Fund

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the School of Geography at the University of Plymouth, UK, for funding the research visits made to Central America in 2009 and 2010 which stimulated the production of this book. In Central America, those visits were hosted by the Institute for Central American Studies (ICAS) in San José, Costa Rica, where Linda and Clifton Holland, Stefani Aguilar, Carmen Luna and Marie Elena Baca were extremely helpful and welcoming. During those visits, I had the assistance of four volunteer research assistants: Karis McLaughlin and Alice Klein in 2009, and Genna West and Lucy Goodman in 2010. They helped me in conducting over sixty interviews with people who live and work in Central America, and in researching specific topics covered in the book. I could not have had four more critical, capable and perceptive assistants – their work was invaluable.

In the process of submission to publishers, the work has been critically reviewed by several anonymous reviewers, and I am grateful for all the suggestions and comments that they made. But I should make special mention of three critics who assessed and commented on the work as each chapter was produced: Adam Lubanski, Ian Munt and June Mowforth. Their comments were always useful, constructive and encouraging, and I owe them many thanks.

Of crucial importance to the book has been the work of ENCA (Environmental Network for Central America), which provided the initial idea for the book. This includes individual members of the organisation whose ENCA Newsletter articles I have used in the book: Stephanie Williamson, Doug Specht, James Watson, Barney Thompson, Helen Yuill, Dominic McCann and Kerstin Hansen. To all the regulars at ENCA meetings, I am grateful for the constant stimulus, and the camaraderie, afforded by our meetings. Doug Specht and James Watson of ENCA deserve much gratitude for their assistance in the establishment and use of the website created to accompany this book: www.theviolenceofdevelopment.com.

The book rests heavily on the thoughts, ideas and experiences of many people in Central America, especially those who gave so much of their time in our interviews, but also to many others whose conversations I have enjoyed and learnt from over the last 25 years of visiting and working in the region.

•In Costa Rica, as well as the staff of ICAS, these include Pati Blanco, Saskia Rodríguez, Didier Leitón Valverde, Isabel MacDonald, Pablo Sibar Sibar, Luisa Bajaramo, Nela Perle, Cristoph Burkard, Zsuzsana Pal, Juan Luis Salas, Daryl Loth, Ros Barrett, Sebastian Salazar, Bernardo Aguilar, Amilcar Castañeda, Bruce Callow.

•In El Salvador: Leslie Schuld, Delmy Valencia, Tirso Canales, Alma Benitez, Hector Berrios, Karen Inwood, Antonio (of IPES), Carlos Flores, Mauricio Sermeño, Juan Rodríguez, José Santos Rojas, Chico Peña, Juanita Del Carmén Pineda, Rosa Estela Anzora, Jamie Coutts and other members of COMUS, and Padre Andres Tamayo.

•In Guatemala: Sister María-José López, Iduvina Hernández, Norma Maldonado, the many Mayan residents of San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Sipacapa who gave their testimonies, Padre Timoteo, Padre Fernando, Sam Verhaert and Daan Janssens (of the Belgian organisation CATAPA), Purificación Hernández and Carlos Albacete.

•In Honduras: Bertha Oliva, Berta Caceres, Dr Juan Almendares, Lizandro, Mauricio Santos, René Gradis, Victor Ochoa, Estela Maradiaga, Juan Granados, María-José Bonilla, Elvín Maldonado, Alfredo López, Eduardo Zavala, Denis Sierra, Bryn Wolfe and Elly Alvarado.

•In Nicaragua: Sister Abdontxu Viar, William Vargas, Edilberta Gómez, Dra Aidalina Zúñiga, Dra María-José Sequeira, María Consuelo Sánchez, Liz Light, Lesbia Guerrero, Román Gónzalez, José Gutiérrez, José Arauz and other members of SELVA.

•In Panama: Felix Sánchez, residents of the Naso villages of San San and San San Druy, including King Valentín Santana, Bernardino Morales and other members of the Ngöbe-Bugle communities who spoke with us, Alida Spadafora, Geodisio Castillo, Dr Julio Yao.

•In Belize: Chet Schmidt, Sharon Matola, Candy Gönzalez.

Many others have helped with information, opinions, advice and friendship over the years, and my apologies to those who I have failed to name in the lists above.

For permission to use their material, I am grateful to Alistair Smith of Banana Link for information used in Chapter 2; Milton Flores of CIDICCO for material used in the section on ‘The Human Farm’ in Chapter 2; David Hall of PSIRU for information used in Chapter 3; Sam Verhaert and Thomas De Maeseneer of CATAPA for Figure 5.2; Grahame Russell for numerous items from the Rights Action listserv; Gill Holmes for information on ‘the white lobster’ used in Chapter 9. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers will be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future issues of the book.

Tim Absalom of the University of Plymouth’s Cartography Unit produced the Figures and most of the Tables in the book, and suffered the constant changes that were required with great professionalism, producing output to his usual high standard. I am very grateful to him. Marlene Maree assisted in the compilation of the final stages of the book, for which I am very grateful. I should also like to thank my editors at Pluto Press, especially David Castle and Philip Thomas, for their assistance and forbearance during the editing stage. Finally, June Mowforth deserves awards for her long-lasting support, encouragement and patience.

Martin Mowforth

July 2013

Preface

This book stems from over twenty years of experience of development work in Central America. My first visit in 1988 sparked an interest and involvement in the region, neither of which have dimmed with time. I have been a relatively wealthy and privileged visitor to the region, at times as part of my short-term employment, at other times with enough personal resources to make visits on my own behalf. On occasions I have been present in the region as an activist, researcher or collaborator, at other times merely as a fly on the wall.

A part-time post in the School of Geography at the University of Plymouth, UK, has enabled me to fill in many knowledge gaps through research to complement my experience. Being part-time has also allowed me to make many visits to the region, and the university has assisted me financially to make two of those visits (covering eight months) specifically for the writing of this book.

Editing the thrice-yearly newsletter of the Environmental Network for Central America (ENCA) has demonstrated to me that the violence suffered by some sectors of Central American society did not come to an end in the early 1990s with the drawing to a close of the overt wars in the region. No issue of the newsletter has gone by without the need to consider for inclusion the details of assassinations of environmentalists, social or indigenous activists or human rights defenders. This also served as a stimulus for the book.

Those experiences and research yielded well over 200,000 words for the book. Pluto Press, however, wanted no more than 100,000 which meant the omission of many case studies, numerous issues of importance and many points of view gained from interviews, meetings and organisations in Central America.

The solution to this problem of lost material came in the creation of a website with the same title as the book: www.theviolenceofdevelopment.com. The website follows the same chapter structure as the book, but the website chapters do not include linking text between all the illustrative material. Instead, each website chapter is composed of stand-alone figures, tables, text boxes, maps, diagrams and photographs. Whilst these items stand alone, they are all included on the website because in a variety of ways they support the text of the corresponding book chapter.

Two extra chapters appear on the website: one chapter to cover a range of issues which are not fully covered elsewhere in the book; and another chapter to include transcriptions and translations of all the interviews which were conducted in Central America during the two periods of funded research in 2009 and 2010. Both Spanish and English transcriptions and translations are included.

The book remains the only means of presenting and discussing the principal arguments and issues associated with the social and economic development of Central America. The website simply provides illustrative and supplementary evidence in support of the issues discussed and arguments made in the book.

The aim of the work is to bring realism to our ideas and understanding of what we see as Western-led development in the poorer countries of the world, and in so doing to provide something of a jolt to all who believe it to be an unquestionable force for good. But at the same time, the book and the website bring to light many of the ways in which individuals and organisations can and do improve their lives and defend their communities despite the ‘development’ imposed upon them.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

This is a book about development issues. It asks how development has shown itself over recent decades and what it means to people on the ground. I wish to be sceptical about the term ‘development’ and to recognise that for some it has become a form of religion. I am aware of the dangers of simply carrying on with the assumption that it is unquestionably a good thing even if we cannot really explain precisely what it is. As Swiss scholar Gilbert Rist suggests, we should ‘not yield to ready-made appraisals … [which] take it for granted that development exists, that it has a positive value, that it is desirable or even necessary’.¹ But it is indeed widely taken for granted that development is necessary – an entire industry of development has grown around the term, encompassing the mission statements, activities and finances of government departments, nongovernmental organisations, charities, international financial institutions, United Nations agencies and transnational companies. As Wolfgang Sachs suggests, development ‘denotes improvement, advance, progress; it signifies something vaguely positive. So it’s difficult to oppose it: who wants to reject the positive?’²

But Mexican activist and intellectual Gustavo Esteva refers to the era of development as the ‘new colonial episode’ and believes that ‘the four decades of development were a huge and irresponsible experiment which, judging by the experience of the majority of the world, has failed miserably’.³ This postdevelopment view supports the argument that development is an unequal and uneven process, and that as such it is an inherently political process. Like the terms globalisation and modernisation, development is predicated on Westernisation. As Hettne states, ‘In order to develop it was deemed necessary for the ‘new nations’ to imitate the Western model – it was a modernisation imperative’.⁴ This modernisation imperative began with US President Harry Truman’s inaugural speech to Congress in 1949, in which he cited large parts of the world as ‘underdeveloped’. So saying, he set off the race for development among Third World nations.

That process of Westernisation, or globalisation, pursued first a rather simplistic form of capitalism, in which development was more or less coincidental with industrialisation and all its attendant processes of technological advancement. The benefits of this process were supposed to trickle down to the poor majority and lift them out of their underdevelopment; but as Joseph Stiglitz (former chief economist at the World Bank) argues, the trickle-down mechanism ‘was never much more than just a belief, an article of faith’.⁵

As it happened, Western companies (predominantly those of North America and Western Europe) benefited most from this post-war race for development through their already relatively advanced technology. To advance further they needed raw materials and natural resources, found in abundance in Third World countries. To get access to those resources they required an infrastructure adequate to their techniques of production and distribution. To upgrade the infrastructure in Third World countries to an appropriate level loans were required, and these came from the international financial institutions (appropriately referred to as IFIs) established at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 – the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and their offshoots such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Bilateral loans from government to government and private loans also played a role in this process. Who better to carry out these infrastructural works than the Western companies which already had the technological capacity to do so? The results effectively involved a take-over of Third World natural resources, infrastructure and production by Western companies.

The loans for these developments were made to Third World governments so that they could pay the Western companies for these works, and the results included the Third World debt crisis. This crisis reached a peak of public awareness in the 1980s and early 1990s, but has since slipped off the Western public’s agenda. That does not mean that it has been resolved; far from it – many Third World countries are now permanently and unsustainably in debt to the IFIs. There are those who would argue that this was precisely the intention of the age of ‘development’ – Western capitalist domination and access to the natural resources of the rest of the world.⁶

Whether that was the deliberate intention or not, we need to ask whether the development intended has occurred for those who Truman identified as underdeveloped. Esteva suggests that despite its promises of widespread enrichment, development ‘for the great majority, has always signified the modernisation of poverty: the growing dependence on the direction and management of others’.⁷ Ivan Illich refers to ‘development as planned poverty’, and André Gunder Frank refers to, ‘the development of underdevelopment’.⁸

This perspective describes the theory of dependency which is best understood as a riposte to the free-market economics approach to economic development and international trade. Dependency theory sought to demonstrate how and why these relationships are highly unequal. The theory argues that Western capitalist countries have grown as a result of the expropriation of surpluses from the Third World, especially because of the reliance of Third World countries on export-oriented industries (coffee, bananas, gold and so on) which are precarious in terms of world market prices. The theory uses the notion of core–periphery relationships to highlight the unequal relationship, where the core is the locus of economic power within a global economy.

The most widely cited of the dependency theorists, André Gunder Frank,⁹ takes matters one step further with his notion of the ‘development of underdevelopment’, which stresses that it is the underdevelopment of the structures in Third World countries created by First World capitalist development that creates dependency. Above all, theories of dependency are in general agreement that the interdependence resulting from global economic expansion suppresses autonomous growth, resulting in unequal and uneven development.

Many development-related non-governmental organisations (NGOs) repeat this message, using evidence from their projects with partner organisations in Third World countries; and if the publicity material of such organisations is a part of your regular diet of information it is difficult not to become seriously concerned about the notion of development as well as the general state of world development. I should make it clear from the outset of this work, however, that, despite what you have read above, I am not against development per se. I have been involved in what is commonly called development work for the last three decades and, like many others so involved, I see it as representing some form of progress and improvement in the quality of life for many people. Experience in Central America, however, has made me aware of the failings and abuses of development, and of the way in which it is used as a theoretical construct to justify prevailing Western ideology.

The region chosen for this portrait of the difference between the theory and practice of development is that of Central America, and the following chapters examine some of the significant and topical activities which have emerged as major issues of contention and concern relating to the benefits of development. A few indicators relating to the ‘development of development’ in Central America are given below as an initial assessment of the region’s level of development.

Whilst there is a definite regional focus on Central America, the development issues covered here are no less relevant to other Third World regions which suffer the same factors holding back their development. Indeed, it can be reasonably argued that certain parts of the African continent are emerging from a particularly violent period of their history, as did most of Central America around two decades ago, and that these African nations are highly likely to serve as the next test bed for the imposition of economic policies from the West. They can therefore learn from the last 20 years of experiences of the Central American nations.

Measuring Development

Figures 1.1 and 1.2 show population data and population growth for the Central American countries and the region as a whole, along with comparisons from the UK and USA. These data serve here merely as a point of reference for the tables and figures which follow, and which relate to issues and measures of development. As with definitions of development, there is considerable debate over measures of development. For many years, how far a country had progressed along the generally accepted line of Western development was measured in terms of its per capita gross domestic product (GDP), whose definition is given in Box 1.1. It is still measured in these terms, but the need to use other indicators in order to broaden our understanding of the term ‘development’, and to acknowledge that there is more to development than can be counted in currency, has become accepted even by the World Bank, which provides annual estimates of GDP.

The decade of the 1990s saw an increasing awareness of the need to incorporate human welfare, human rights and poverty reduction into the measurement of development.¹⁰ Hence the creation of the Human Development Index (HDI) and later the Human Poverty Index (HPI), compiled by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In 1990 the UNDP published its first Human Development Report, which included its first calculation of HDI as a composite measure of life expectancy, literacy and per capita income.¹¹ The composite measure is intended to reflect a general sense of wellbeing that people may or may not feel in their lives. The HPI was added later by the UNDP and reflects levels of deprivation in a country through the same variables used in the calculation of the HDI. (The specific definitions of HDI and HPI are also given in Box 1.1.)

Figure 1.1Central American Populations

Source: UN DESA (2009) ‘World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision’, New York: Department for Economic and Social Affairs.

Quite apart from differing definitions of development, a separate book would be required to examine thoroughly all the different assumptions, perspectives and indicators of development and their interpretations. This introductory chapter simply presents a summary portrait of the development levels of Central American countries through a selection of indicators. These are shown in Figure 1.3, which gives comparative data for the UK and USA in several of the charts. As can be seen in Figure 1.3, there is a general level of development in Central America as a whole (in comparison with two of the leading capitalist nations), and a number of significant differences between the seven regional nations.

Figure 1.2Population Growth Rates, Central America

Source: UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division,‘World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision’, New York: DESA. 2009.

Detailed comments about each of the graphs included in Figure 1.3 are not given here. The thesis of the book refers more to how these countries have reached their current levels of development or underdevelopment rather than to a spuriously precise description of those levels. Nevertheless, it would be wrong not to draw the reader’s attention to a number of significant points.

First, by various indicators the countries of Costa Rica and Panama stand above the rest of the region. In the case of Costa Rica, many commentators ascribe this higher level of development to the fact that in 1949 it abolished its army and initiated relatively ambitious programmes of social welfare, health care and education. This may indeed have been a factor in the country’s development, but it is noteworthy that nearly a quarter of its population still lives below the poverty level. Moreover, the US has done all it can to militarise Costa Rica, first in the 1980s as it tried to develop a southern front in its war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, and secondly, in 2010 in its agreement with the Costa Rican government to station over 6,000 US troops and part of its naval force in Costa Rican waters in its war on drug trafficking (see Chapter 9).

In the case of Panama, the higher indicators might be explained by the strong US influence over the Panama Canal Zone until the end of the twentieth century. The two-tier society created through US control of the canal zone skewed the distribution of wealth within the country, leading to greater inequality than in other Central American countries. This is most easily observable in Panama City where there is a chasm between the wealth associated with work in the canal zone and the scores of international banks on the one hand and the rest of the Panamanian population on the other.

The second feature of Figure 1.3 which stands out is the consistent difference of scale between the Central American nations and the USA and UK. There is a significant quantitative difference in the richness of life experienced in these two groups of countries. I accept Vandana Shiva’s point that there is a distinction between poverty as subsistence and misery through scarcity and want,¹² but it is highly likely that for the majority of the region’s poor this quantitative difference in the richness of life is also felt qualitatively.

A third point of relevance here is the failure of most of these statistics to show the level of inequality within each country. Inequality is important because it negates progress in poverty reduction, erodes the efficient functioning of government institutions and public services, leading people to lose faith in their participation in society. Referring to the second half of the twentieth century, Dirk Kruijt describes the Central American economies as ‘characterised by a stark contrast between a small number of the very rich and masses of the desperately poor [which] displayed features of a harsh and unmitigated capitalism reminiscent of mid-nineteenth-century Europe’.¹³ Even Costa Rica has been sliding upwards to greater inequality over the last decade. Reporter Mike McDonald notes, ‘Costa Rica, the second most egalitarian country in Latin America, has a widening gap between rich and poor’.¹⁴

Box 1.1Definitions: GDP, GNP, HDI and HPI

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

The total value of the output of goods and services produced by an economy, by both residents and non-residents, regardless of the allocation to domestic and foreign claims – used to show the relative wealth of different countries, and through yearly comparisons to show levels of economic growth.

Gross National Product (GNP)

The total domestic and foreign value added claimed by residents and therefore equals the GDP plus net income from abroad, which is the income residents receive from abroad for services (labour and capital) minus similar payments made to non-residents who contribute to the domestic economy.

Human Development Index (HDI)

A summary measure of human development. It measures a broader definition of well-being and provides a composite measure of three basic dimensions of human development: length of life, access to knowledge and standard of living.

Source: UN Human Development Report 2010 (http://hdrstats.undp.org/).

Human Poverty Index (HPI)

Introduced in the UN Human Development Report 1997. Rather than measure poverty by income, the HPI uses indicators of the basic dimensions of deprivation: a short life, lack of basic education and lack of access to public and private resources. The HPI concentrates on deprivation in the three essential elements of human life already reflected in the HDI: longevity (the likelihood of death at a relatively early age), knowledge (the percentage of adults who are illiterate) and a decent standard of living.

Gini Coefficient

Differences in national income equality around the world are measured by the national Gini coefficient. The Gini index lies between 0 and 100. A value of 0 represents absolute equality (where everyone has the same income) and 100 represents absolute inequality (where one person has all the income, and everyone else has zero). The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion normally used as a measure of inequality of income distribution.

Source: http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/161.html

Figure 1.3Selected indicators of development, Central America

Sources:

AWorld Bank national accounts data and