The governor of Chaco announced today the province’s debt will be entirely converted into pesos in the next few days.

“We are going to pay these bonds in pesos, the truth is all the debt should be absolutely ‘pessified’ (converted into pesos),” said Jorge Capitanich, who is a member of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s Partido Justicialista, at a press conference yesterday.

Chaco’s debt amounts to approximately $4,755m and Capitanich had already been in the headlines for similar reasons earlier this month after he decided to pay off a debt of over US$250,000 in pesos, attracting criticism from the financial sector. Critics said that Chaco had effectively defaulted on its debt and accused the province of financial irresponsibility. The governor paid off the debt at the official $4.72-per-dollar rate while the unofficial rate, taking into account inflation, is more than 20% higher.

The governor defended himself by stating that Chaco could not buy dollars because of the monetary restrictions imposed by the Central Bank and that “Chaco had regularly honoured its obligation”. He also denied “that what happened with the bonds was a default”.

His decision has made some investors flee the province and the value of companies who could not assure their payments in dollars has plummeted. This had led the Central Bank to guarantee all the provinces they would be sold enough dollars to cover their debts despite strong restrictions over the last few months.

Read more about Argentina’s recent monetary measures and protectionism here.

On 7th August, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner inaugurated the Complejo Bilingüe Intercultural Consejo Nam Qom via videoconference, a bilingual Spanish-Qom school located in Pampas del Indio, a town 200km north of Resistencia, the capital of Chaco.

Qom is a language from the  guaycurú  family spoken by the Toba (or Qom) indigenous people who currently total an estimated 70,000 in Argentina and reside mainly in Formosa and Chaco provinces.

The educational complex was inaugurated via videoconference. (Photo courtesy of Chaco province)

The complex, which will house all three levels of education, from primary to tertiary, will be administered by the indigenous Qompi Council, in what they have called a system of ‘social indigenous administration’

The Minister of Education of Chaco, Francisco Romero, stated that having teachers that are fluent in the language will enable a more pedagogical structure for learning in the Qom language. For this reason, he explains that half the teachers will be indigenous, providing a more holistic approach to the learning process, that goes beyond just teaching the language. The school hopes to incorporate teachers that also are educated in the cultural practices of their ancestors.

The school’s principal, Miguel García, believes that the participation of the Qompi Council “will guarantee the educational integration of the indigenous peoples.”

The issue of disappearing indigenous languages is a growing concern internationally, and many wonder what kind of impact this will have in future generations as centuries of accumulated knowledge and wisdom could disappear with them. In that respect, the inauguration of the bilingual Qom school is Argentina’s first step towards protecting cultural history that could eventually be on the brink of survival.

Bigger Cities, Fewer Languages

With a population of seven billion, the world speaks an estimated 6,909 languages. The Linguistic Society of America (LSA), however, estimates that “80% of the world’s languages may vanish within the next century.”

And, according to the LSA, “when a community loses its language, it often loses a great deal of its cultural identity at the same time.”

The process of globalisation has brought with it a movement towards homogenising languages taught in schools, in an attempt to ease the incorporation of future adults into the global labour market. People are choosing to learn global languages like English, Spanish, and Mandarin in order to better navigate the world in which we live today. Currently, there are an estimated 328 million people with English as their first language and 845 million who primarily speak Mandarin.

As well, technology and greater ease of travel have decreased the gap between cultures. What is positive in terms of sharing information and easing cross-cultural understanding, can be devastating on a micro-cultural level. The problem is that smaller cultures are not usually protected or encouraged to thrive in such a large bowl of more dominant languages and cultures.

In the so-called ‘new world’, colonisation has been a massive historical factor in explaining the loss of indigenous languages too, as many of the original inhabitants of the lands who were not killed had to learn the coloniser’s tongue.

The Argentine Case

According to Ethnologue, an online database of language statistics, there are currently 473 languages that are on the verge of extinction, some within Argentina.

This is a very different panorama to the one 500 years ago when the Spanish first arrived, when there were 35 languages thriving in the territory that is now Argentina. Today, according to the United Nations, there are just 15, and two of them, Tehuelche and Chaná, are critically endangered – meaning only the eldest members of the community understand and speak the language.

The Qom language is not yet under threat. Currently, the Toba represent nearly 11.5% of the indigenous population of Argentina, and statistics from the National Institute of Indigenous Affairs show that around 60% of them can still speak and/or understand the Qom language. However, with each generation, fewer youths learn to speak the language as their communities are increasingly integrated into the Spanish-speaking world.

A Toba settlement near Resistencia in Chaco Province (Photo: Kate Stanworth)

Immigration from communities in rural areas to urban centres contributes greatly to this integration and interaction with Spanish-speakers. Whilst the vast majority of the Toba people live in rural settings in Chaco and Formosa, and some in the urban area of Greater Resistencia, they have not been immune to migration trends. An estimated 14,000 Toba have left the North East, one of the poorest areas in the country, and now live in the city of Buenos Aires and its surroundings.

As the need for knowledge of the Spanish language increases, it is hoped that the newly-inaugurated school in Chaco will encourage the preservation of cultural practices that could be lost down the line.

Programmes on integrating indigenous languages into the mainstream education system have already been started in other parts of the world, like New Zealand and Canada. Although the positive effects have so far only shown to be short-term, there is still hope that they will continue into the future. These revitalisation programmes, much like the bilingual school in Chaco, are an effort to reconnect generations in order to show the value in preserving the communities’ indigenous languages.

Back to School

The Complejo Bilingüe Intercultural Consejo Nam Qom has 12 classrooms and two additional rooms for technical education, spans 4,000m2, and can accommodate up to 900 students in three shifts. It will not only educate children, as it also includes a high school for adults, a vocational degree in nursing, and diplomas in Indigenous Social Communication and Indigenous Education.

The land the school is on was donated by two older residents and the Artists for Solidarity Foundation, and the provincial and national governments granted $18bn from the Solidarity Fund, generated from the taxes on soy exports.

Officials are hopeful for what the opening of the largest institute in Latin America to offer classes in an indigenous language could mean for the future.

Children in a Toba settlement near Resistencia in Chaco Province (Photo: Kate Stanworth)

Access to formal education respectful of the tobas’ tradition will provide a foundation for education that could help break the cycle of poverty that exists in the country’s north. It may help integrate the community and diminish the “social distance” between the ‘micro’ and ‘mega’ cultures.

The school may also provide bilingual speakers that could help others integrate, by providing translators and bilingual counsellors to those having difficulty adjusting to a fast-changing world. The possibility of bilingual outreach programs into city establishments, like the Derqui community, is a distinct possibility, hopefully a plausible one.

However, these are still speculations. As the new school begins to operate, the results will hopefully start to be seen and felt by the community soon.

Click here to find out what Argentines think about the role of the state in preserving indigenous culture.

Latin America’s vast forests are rapidly disappearing. They have come to represent yet another quickly diminishing artery of the continent’s many ‘open veins’. Their fertile land is being converted at an increasingly alarming rate for the purposes of large-scale agribusiness, namely, soy.

Images of deforestation in the wild Chaco. (Photo: Greenpeace)

Louis Reymondin is the man behind a new satellite imagery and ground processing system, Terra-i, mapping deforestation across South America.

Reymondin, a Swiss native, is a third-year PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at King’s College of London and has been working as a visiting researcher at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), whose headquarters are based near Cali in southwest Colombia, for the last five years. During this time he developed Terra-I from scratch.

The complex system detects land-cover changes resulting from human activities in near real-time, producing updates every 16 days. It currently runs for the whole of South America.

“So far the system has shown that deforestation has increased in Caquetá, Colombia by 340% since 2004, and the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay, the second most forested area in South America, has lost over a million hectares of forest.”

Deforestation in Argentina

According to Reymondin, “In Argentina, Terra-i has performed habitat status monitoring every 16 days from the 1st January 2004. During the past eight years, it has detected a cumulative habitat loss of 1,955,419 hectares, equivalent to an annual national loss rate of 244,525 ha/year.” To give an idea of scale, that is roughly an area the size of Luxembourg lost each year.

Deforestation is centred in the north of the country where its largest forest, and the continent’s second largest, following only the massive Amazon, lies.

“The provinces of Santiago del Estero and Salta were the most heavily impacted, having 590,094 hectares and 516,069 hectares converted respectively between 2004 and 2011.”

Map of habitat loss in Argentina, Terra-i detection.

The Gran Chaco spreads over three countries: Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. As defined by data provided by the Organization of American States (OAS), the “Gran Chaco Americano” biome covers approximately 1,000,000 km² of South America and encompasses the central-north region of Argentina (53% of the total area of the Gran Chaco and 22% of the country’s surface area).

According to Reymondin, the South American Gran Chaco is a mosaic of habitats. It is a hotspot of biodiversity on the continent and one that is becoming increasingly threatened.

The data coming from Terra-i is especially pertinent as it attempts to isolate the deforestation resulting from human activity.

“The Terra-i outputs are of course not noise [error] free and we cannot guarantee that every single pixel that has been detected is the result of human activity, nor is Terra-i detecting all the events of deforestation that occurred since 2004.”

That said, Reymondin has included many special equations to ensure it is the best data available: “… we have implemented a range of methodologies to reduce the effect of noise, such as cloud cover, and to filter land cover changes that are not human-caused, or at least not directly, such as floods and drought. We can therefore say that the majority of the detections that we observe can be attributed to human activity.”

Why is the Chaco Disappearing? 

Perhaps the most obvious driver of change is the blanket of soy that has been rapidly spreading over the continent since the 1990’s.

Changes in global markets have expedited this process in the new millennium, especially in Argentina. A country with a huge farming component, the rolling pampas of grazing cattle typically associated with the Argentine countryside are being replaced by industrial farms growing soy, now a much more lucrative crop for any farmer.

The romantic vision of ranch life remains important in Argentine culture, but the economic equations involved in the agriculture business have changed in recent years. The expansion of soy farming is driven by US ethanol production and a global interest in biofuels; prices for soy continue to break records.

Soybean farming has been rapidly spreading over the continent for the last ten years. (Photo: Greenpeace)

Some agricultural analysts say that Argentine soybean farming is now several times more profitable than cattle ranching.

It is these profitable equations which are threatening the Chaco. Large-scale agribusinesses are encroaching on protected Chaco regions both themselves, and by pushing cattle ranchers into the area after evicting them from lands they traditionally used.

Now the third largest soy producer in the world, Argentina’s aggressive land conversions will soon change this status. Widespread drought in the US, formerly the top soy producer, combined with a larger than usual yield predicted for the 2012-2013 harvest, will put the Southern Cone soy producers in the top spot for production.

Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil combined are producing well over half of the soy on the international market. All countries in the Southern cone are rapidly converting all arable land to soy at breakneck speed.

Lessons of Paraguay 

Perhaps nowhere is the power of soy, and the threat to the Chaco in the face of this, more apparent than in the case of Paraguay.

Recently, Paraguay made headlines worldwide by the all-too-quick impeachment of left-leaning president Fernando Lugo, prompting international sanctions and public condemnation.

Paraguay is currently the fourth-largest exporter of soy. Loose regulations and relative poverty make it an easy target for multi-national soy giants to take hold there. Terra-i created a video -which can be viewed here– illustrating the massive changes in land taking place in the neighbouring country.

Around 77% of Paraguay’s arable land is owned by just 2% of the population. In the past ten years, deals have been struck for 203 million hectares of land — nearly six times the size of Germany — at a pace and scale that outstripped the ability of governance structures to respond, a situation which Lugo sought to reverse with a reform that never quite came to fruition.

Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, writes in a recent opinion piece for the New York Times, “The Paraguay soy boom — made in China and Europe and grown upon the lands of the political elite — is controlled by the boardrooms of Big Business. As much as 70% of Paraguay’s soy is exported each year and of that the multinational grain giants Cargill, ADM, and Bunge account for about 70% [of all soy exported].”

Los Angeles based KPFK’s Sojourner Truth radio show recently featured a segment on the impeachment of Fernando Lugo. The show hosted Miguel Lovera, the former national secretary for plant safety under Lugo, who spoke of the impeachment as being a coup orchestrated by a ‘Genetically Modified Soy Mafia.’

Lovera was outspoken on the show in claiming Lugo’s removal as being intrinsically related to his moves to protect Paraguay’s Gran Chaco from encroachment by multi-national soy companies and his desire to redistribute their land to smaller-scale farmers.

“The main comparative advantage of Paraguay as a soy growing territory has actually been the lack of regulations in the past. Since Lugo’s government took over that condition changed, and we actually started regulating … venturing into sensitive territory and they weren’t ready to adapt.”

Lovera hints that the original struggle in the northern region resulting in the deaths of peasants and police officers was not only orchestrated by the soy mafia, but actually committed by those in their employment.

At the very least, there is a dangerous concentration of power in terms of Paraguayan soy -an industry controlled by only a handful of very powerful multinationals which account for an undeniably influential lobby.

Lovera states that the Chaco, after small-scale peasants, is becoming the most visible victim, “[The Chaco] is also the area that is allocating all this displacement, the cattle ranching displacement in the areas that are good for soy growing, they are encroaching into this wilderness.”

To Bear Witness

The power of something like Terra-i in the face of the great changes taking place in South America is perhaps that it is an indisputable witness to what is occurring here. An omniscient eye-in-the-sky silently watching and detailing every change taking place, no matter how remote the location in which it is occurring.

“Habitat conversion is contributing to widespread loss of biodiversity and other critical ecosystem services, yet in many parts of the world the scale and pattern of habitat loss still goes unmonitored,” says Reymondin.

“Decision makers at multiple scales (local to national to regional) need information on land-cover change, as accurate and recent as possible, in order to prioritise interventions and act upon new land-cover change patterns in a timely manner. Terra-i aims to provide information about habitat loss at a temporal and spatial resolution that is relevant for decision makers.”

The data and real-time images coming from Terra-i provide interest groups, interventionists, and really anyone with an interest, solid data to point to. It is free, accessible, and irrefutable.

Infographic of the deforestation in Chaco showing the locations and damage done. (courtesy of Greenpeace)

Reymondin and his team aim to expand Terra-i. South America, while a significant achievement to monitor an entire continent, is but one of many hotspots in terms of biodiversity loss and deforestation due to human activity.

“We will keep updating the detection of deforestation in Latin America as data comes in from the MODIS satellite sensors. We plan to extend Terra-i to cover the whole tropics which will be a new challenge as this increases considerably the amount of data to process.”

Terra-I also plans to broaden its lens to encompass other resources, including the multifarious effects deforestation has on water resources.

Quite simply, Terra-I is the fly on the wall (or better, bird in the sky) bearing witness to the changes taking place. Increasing awareness and solid, publicly available information are key to social action. Given this, perhaps tools like Terra-i could help to prevent future stories such as Lugo’s in South America.

How aware are Argentines of the deforestation problem? Click here to find out.

Last week the government of Chaco established new restrictions on the development of intensive farming in the Impenetrable, an area in the north of the Gran Chaco extending into Paraguay.

The restrictions include a ban on bulldozers in the area, a huge accomplishment in an ongoing struggle to preserve this region.

This new legislation is the result of the meeting between Governor Jorge Capitanich and representatives of Greenpeace. The meeting came after the environmental group blockaded two bulldozers in the Impenetrable that were found to be holding permits issued by the province that violated national law.

“At last we will have a bulldozer-free Impenetrable. A very important step for the future of the forests of the Chaco and its people. The new requirements obligate small and medium livestock producers to develop native forests and maintaining compliance with the Forest Act,” said Hernán Giardini, coordinator of Greenpeace forest campaign.

The rate of destruction in Gran Chaco has accelerated since 1996, when Monsanto introduced genetically engineered soya beans into Argentina. Since then, the country has extended its agricultural frontiers to grow genetically engineered soya for export as animal feed and fuel, increasingly at the expense of the Gran Chaco.

In addition to a ban on bulldozers, other restrictions include- a 300 hectare limit on permits (of which half must be left as reserve), maintenance of at least 120 trees over 25 cm of diameter on each hectare, and caps on cattle.

Furthermore, each permit must complete the “Provincial Program Impact Assessment of silvopastoral systems on Environmental Services” in order to assess each land parcel with regard to their impact on biodiversity.

“The new restrictions on factory farming is a breakthrough in the defense of the Impenetrable, a valuable forest ecosystem that covers about 4 million hectares of the semiarid Chaco region and home to critically endangered species like the jaguar, the giant armadillo, and the anteater. We will continue to monitor the region to ensure compliance with the Forest Act,” said Giardini.

Greenpeace stated that more than 80,000 Argentines took part in this campaign.

These new restrictions on factory farming is a breakthrough in the defense of the Impenetrable, a valuable forest ecosystem that covers about 4 million hectares of the semiarid Chaco region which is home to endangered species such as the jaguar, the giant armadillo and the anteater, as well as more than 60,000 Indigenous and campesinos.

Greenpeace revealed new photographic evidence today of severe deforestation in the north-eastern province of Chaco. The images show environmental damage in the protected area of El Impenetrable.

The environmental organisation is calling on the Argentine government to stop the illegal activities that violate the Forest Act.

“The images are compelling. They show bulldozers in the process of clearing, and it’s severe impact on native forests in areas where national law prohibits it,” said Greenpeace representative Hernán Giardini.

On May 14^th the provincial government suspended silvopastoral harvesting in native forests for 60 days. This order came out of a meeting between Governor Jorge Capitanich and Greenpeace representatives.

“We hope [Jorge] Capitancih meets the Forest Act and stop the fever of the bulldozers,” said Giardini. “We will continue to monitor the region and enforce the Forest Act.”

The Land Demarcation of Native Forests classifies El Impenetrable, which covers around 4 million hectares of native forest mainly situated in the Chaco region, as Category I and Category II forests, prohibiting clearing.

It is home to critically endangered and protected animals, such as the jaguar, the giant armadillo and anteater. Around 60,000 people live in El Impenetrable, mainly members of indigenous communities, who have over the years suffered human rights abuses by government and deforesters.

Money donated by the United States Southern Command (USSC) is being put towards the construction of a ‘humanitarian relief centre’ at the Resistencia Airport in Chaco Province, Argentina. The project is now in the final stages of construction and drawing heavy criticism.

The centre is the latest in a string of USSC funded projects popping up across Latin America. The USSC currently operates bases in Paraguay, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, and Peru.

Despite its express purpose as a ‘relief centre’ to be manned and operated by Argentina, those against have been outspoken in dubbing it a façade for USSC intelligence in Argentina and the Tri-Border Area (TBA).

The Official Line 

The USCC donated US$1 million for the construction of a Humanitarian Relief Centre next to the airport in Resistencia, Chaco Province.

The USSC is responsible for providing contingency planning, operations, and security for Central America, South America and the Caribbean. It is a joint command comprised of more than 1,200 military and civilian personnel. Its mandate is to operate a Humanitarian and Disaster Relief programme, which develops civilian infrastructure necessary for economic and social reforms aimed at improving the living conditions of impoverished regions.

While funded by the USSC, officials on all sides deny any direct involvement by the US military organisation in the operations of the relief centre. Chaco governor Jorge Capitanich announced the creation of the centre, operated in the Resistencia airport.

A US embassy representative, who wished to remain unnamed, assured The Argentina Independent that the humanitarian centre in Chaco had no connection to the USSC beyond the initial US$1 million funding (official figure from US Embassy).

“The US Government has engaged with the Argentine government over many years to increase infrastructure for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief capabilities,” he said.

According to the US Embassy representative, the US government made a donation through the USSC to the province of Chaco with the objective of enhancing capabilities to respond to natural disasters. “The fact is: there is no deployment of any US civilian or military personnel and no connection with the development or operation of the facility by US personnel. It is entirely Argentine,” he added.

Planning and development of the centre has reportedly been in the works for many years, first mentioned in 2006 when the US began discussing a humanitarian relief centre with the ministry of the interior.

“This is not a US facility, just a US donation.”

All the equipment and supplies are donated to the local government and it is effectively owned and operated by the Chaco government.

The Opposition

Opposition political groups have accused Chaco governor Jorge Capitanich of giving US military and intelligence a seat in Argentina through the creation of the relief centre. To these allegations the governor responded, “I categorically deny [the version] that is circulating in the social networks that [the centre] is related to a seat of the Southern Command in Chaco.”

The announcement of this base comes within weeks of the construction of another USSC funded base, which opened on 5th April 2012 at the Chilean Fort Aguayo naval base in the port city of Concón, in the central province of Valparaíso.

The USSC stated that the installation in Chile will be used for training in military operations on urban terrain by Latin American soldiers as they prepare for international operations, such as United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions.

More than 20 Chilean and international human rights groups wrote an open letter in protest of this training ground to Chile’s Defence Minister Andrés Allamand. In the letter, they stated that the Fort Aguayo training ground – a simulation of an urban zone, with eight buildings, sidewalks, and roads—suggests plans for US military intervention, and demanded the project be terminated.

Various groups have also come out in opposition to the centre in Chaco Province. On 26th May over 10,000 people marched in Chaco to express their opposition to the creation of the base in what they called a “caravan for sovereignty” demanding Capitanich to cease construction of the centre. Present at the march were national deputy Victoria Donda, from Libres del Sur, along with other notable public figures and politicians.

National deputy for Proyecto Sur Fernando “Pino” Solanas has condemned the centre as well. Speaking at the march, Solanas said that “the so-called emergency centre at the airport of Resistencia has already installed an immense mass of cement, with giant satellite dishes to collect all kinds of information not only on our territory and its resources, but on the movements carried out in our brotherly countries. All with computerised instruments also supplied by the United States.”

He went on with his condemnation citing the centre as a front for future control of Latin America. “Let us not forget that the Southern Command is the leading organisation among existing US agencies that guarantees the security, stability and prosperity throughout the Americas; however, by this strategy it plans to consolidate US control in Latin America,” he said.

Scepticism of the base is especially heated with Colonel Edwin Passmore, who has acted as the USSC spokesperson for the relief centre and is in charge of the US Military Group of the US Embassy in Argentina. Col. Passmore was expelled from Venezuela in 2008 on charges of engaging in espionage activities while serving as US military attaché there. He was also embroiled in a media scandal in 2011 when a US military plane that landed in Buenos Aires was reported to be carrying undeclared electronic monitoring equipment, medications, and intelligence transmissions.

Chaco, the Triple Border, and the Terrorism Link

The US has been ramping up security efforts across Latin America over the past decade, well beyond the recent construction of bases in Chile and Chaco Province.

The Fourth Fleet was re-activated on 1st July 2008, and is based in Mayport, Florida. It is now part of the US Navy system and consists of navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean sea and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans around Central and South America.

The proximity of the centre to the TBA has been one of the main points to breed scepticism as to its express purpose.

The USSC has been outspoken in its suspicion of the TBA. Air Force General Douglas Fraser, while testifying before the US Senate on 13th March 2012, said that the USSC is focused on stopping transnational organised crime and building partners’ capabilities.

The major area of concern is what the US has described as the spread of Hezbollah and narco-terrorism in the region. They have equated this with increasing Iranian activity in the area.

Edward Luttwak, a counterterrorism expert with the Pentagon’s National Security Study Group cited the TBA as the most important base for Hezbollah activity outside of Lebanon. In an interview with MSNBC, Luttwak said that “the northern region of Argentina, the eastern region of Paraguay and even Brazil are large terrains, and they have an organised training and recruitment camp for terrorists.”

“Iran is very engaged in Latin America,” said Gen. Fraser at the Senate hearing. “They have doubled their number of embassies in the last seven years. They now have 11 embassies. They have 40 cultural centres in 17 different countries throughout the region.”

Southern Command officials see the Iranian activity as trying to build cultural awareness for Iran to circumvent international sanctions. “They are seeing an opportunity with some of the anti-US-focused countries within the region as a method on being able to do that.”

“The concern lies with Iran’s connections with Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist groups, both of which have organisations in Latin America,” Gen. Fraser said. “Those organisations are primarily focused on financial support to organisations back in the Middle East, but they are involved in illicit activity .”

The US is extremely wary of the growing intimacy between Venezuela and Iran, and of reported developing relations with Bolivia. At the US House Committee of Foreign Affairs hearing on 2nd February 2012, chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen cited “anti-US geo-strategic linking taking shape amongst the Iranian regime and its military cadre, criminalised and criminalising states in the region, and transnational narco-terrorist networks as a clear and present danger to US security.”

As of now, the centre consists of only one permanent structure to be manned by 75 staff. Despite protests and ongoing controversy, construction of the base continues.

Click here to find out what people think of US involvement in the region.

The US Government is financing a “humanitarian relief centre” at the airport in Resistencia, Chaco Province, via the US Southern Command (USSC), a division of the US military. The donation for the centre is at least US$1 million.

Official sources such as the US embassy, USSC, and the Chaco government, have been quite adamant in asserting that the centre is solely for humanitarian relief and will not have any connection to USSC operations – and so far there is no evidence to the contrary.

However, there is a lot of speculation in this regard. The US is very concerned with security in the Triple Border Area between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, and many are pointing to the centre as a front for some sort of intelligence project.

We did our weekly vox pop in front of the symbolic Malvinas Memorial (Plaza San Martin) to find out what is the level of awareness on the topic is on the streets of Buenos Aires. Also, we wanted to catch a glimpse of what the feelings towards the US involvement in Argentine affairs are.

Read the voice of the streets of Buenos Aires here.

Photos by Diego Espinoza

Alejandro Avalo, 25, Gran Buenos Aires, engineering student

 It is good that they are interested in helping South America, but the truth is that each government should deal with his problems and if they want to give help in a province like Chaco, [Chaco’s] government should also be aware of whose hands they are really leaving this into. More responsibility is needed about the aftermath of this donation –  especially if we are talking of these sums. What’s going to happen next? Will they carry on what they promised? Here in Argentina the degree of corruption is so high that it is easy not to trust anyone or anything. If checks are not carried on, everything is done in vain. I don’t think the US administration is trying to influence our politics, we are different countries with different cultures and each one is administrated differently. If they’d tried so, it would not be correct.

Diego Marcelo, 34, Capital Federal, worker in a health-related company

In Chaco and Argentina we are already well equipped to deal with natural disasters. In the interior province I can’t think about a cataclysm, besides a earthquake and a volcano or fires in Cordoba province. We have good resources. The US already had an antecedent in the triple-border zone where they settle with the excuse of terrorism to investigate on water resources over there. I don’t know now about this new situation. As it always happen, [US governments] start supporting dictators to overthrown legitimate governments and then they turn their back to the same government they helped before. There is no clear politics: they always seek to pursue their own convenience.

Juan Pablo Aleman, 30, Barrio Norte, events organiser

At the first glance, it seems to me that it would not do harm for Chaco to accept foreign help as long as it is legitimate, wherever it comes from. I should however read better what the project is to come to better conclusions. In the past years, there was an era in which the US had a strong influence on us via the IMF and we were defenceless against their cultural and political influence – it was the era of Carlito (Menem). Now with our president they can’t do what they want as they used to do in the past. They are imperialist; they are from the first world. But if they want to help, let them come.

Paula Rodriguez, 26, Santiago de Chile, tourist and philosophy student

A help to poor communities is always a bit of a lie because they always take advantage of these situations to plunder what communities produce. US always fostered divisions amongst communities in Latin America. In Chile is the same, they are fighting over a military base but people don’t really know much about it besides what they read once in an independent newspaper – same happens with mining, which in Chile is privatised and the US owns licenses. When US military invest money in the country the government is always happy. The US influence here is more fashion, culture, all the people want to learn English to follow the so-called American Dream – something I’m skeptical about.

Belen Luis, 17, Capital Federal, high-school student

I think it is good if a foreign country wants to help us, it is all good. There are many people in need out there. Chaco’s government did good to accept the donation. I really don’t know much about US politics here in the past. What do they want in exchange? They must want something, anyway. People don’t have access to this information however.

Marta Luz Ledesma, 68, Salta, housewife

It is good, Chaco’s government did well to accept this donation, it is marvelous. We need it a lot in Bolivian Chaco, the Argentine one and Paraguayan one. It is not suspicious at all; they are helping the local population. US influence? It won’t affect, the more countries offer to indigenous populations the better is.

Nearly 25 thousands people have been affected by flooding in the northwestern province of Chaco, Paraguay. The senate yesterday called a state of emergency due to the growing number of victims.

For three weeks the region has been experiencing more than twice the average rainfall causing the Pilcomayo River to flood in the highly indigenous district. The towns of General Diaz and Lomo Del Plata are among the most effected places in the region.

Today, two people died in General Diaz as they could not reach the hospital due to the floods. Other deaths have been reported, yet details remain unconfirmed.

Outside the towns, the flooding has trapped around 5,000 families who are unable to receive food or medical care, reports Paraguayan daily ABC Colour.

The Chaco district is the most sparsely populated district in Paraguay, home to mainly indigenous tribes and poor families. As the majority of people outside the main cities live in isolated areas, the burst banks of the river are covering the main roads preventing access.

On Wednesday, the Paraguayan government started to use helicopters to airlift victims of the floods, as well as providing aid to other areas.

Sixty-seven percent of the vote in Chaco went to the re-elected governor for the Frente Chaco Merece Más candidate Jorge Milton Capitanich. After winning more than twice the number of votes than his Radical opponent Roy Nikisch, Capitanich dedicated the victory to his late friend and former president Néstor Kirchner and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Capitanich spoke of the “responsibility to help the president.” He discussed the necessity to generate more investments, private sector employment, social inclusion and improved income distribution to make “Argentina a just and developed country.”

He emphasised that Chaco is in a process of development and will be one of provinces with the highest relative growth in the coming years. Capitanich stated, “In the past four years we have grown 47.7%,” adding that although there still exist social classes, poverty has been cut in half.

Finally, when asked about his future, Capitanich said it is too early to talk about the 2015 elections. For now he is just going to focus on his two main objectives: being successful in governing his province and establishing a stronger and improved legacy.

Along with Chaco, Corrientes and Córdoba also held provincial elections this past weekend.

The victory in Corrientes went to Ricardo Colombi, a radical candidate with the Encuentro por Corrientes (ECo) party. Colombi and the ECo held the lead with a nine-point difference over the opposing party Frente para la Victoria (FPV).

In the city of Córdoba, another radical candidate Ramón Javier Mestre won with 36% of the vote. Mestre told Clarín, “ These results show that we can continue with the recovery of the Republic of Argentina and as one united party we can work for the citizens and offer them an option of a real government.”

The United States defended the use of the pesticide glyphosate to Senasa authorities, the organization responsible for ensuring and certifying the health and quality of agricultural production in Argentina. According to a diplomatic cable exposed in 2009 by Wikileaks, the embassy presented a study to the regulatory agency that authorizes the use of pesticides after Página/12 revealed a scientific study warning of the possible toxicity of the product.

The US began lobbying in favor of the pesticide manufacturer, Monsato, six months after President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner ordered the Ministry of Health initiated an official investigation on the possible harmful effects of the pesticide. If the study shows the pesticide affects the health of the population, it will serve to limit, and eventually ban, the use of glyphosate.

Toxicologist Andrés Carrasco found negative effects from the pesticide in chicken embryos. According to the embassy’s cable, Carrasco is a researcher for the “prestigious” CONICET and the “highly respected” Universidad de Buenos Aires but his study is not “scientifically credible” because it was not endorsed by these institutions or included in a scientific journal. The research has since been published in the Chemical Research in Toxicology journal – the Wikileaks cables do not indicate if the embassy has since corrected their initial perception of the study.

The cable also explains the embassy’s interest in defending the pesticide use: “Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the popular Roundup pesticide. Monsanto is the main slice of the glyphosate market in Argentina, with 40%, and therefore it is the most prominent circumstantial victim and more vulnerable to attack.”

Last year the Chaco province ordered a study on the effects of glyphosate on its population after a provincial judge suspended spraying rice with the pesticide for 90 days in the town on Leon. The report published in August 2010 found cancer in children under 15 had tripled in the last decade, coinciding with the rise of rice farming in the area.