LA ESQUINA CALIENTE (THE HOT CORNER) - A STUDY OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY IN ACTION AROUND THE WORLD

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY vs REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

We as citizens of the United States observe politics from afar and the vast majority of us may participate in the political process only to the extent that we go to the polls once a year to vote. We may endeavor to follow the news accounts of our nation's politics as they unfold, and of the consequences those political actions yield, but we have little power to influence our "democratically" elected officials. Perhaps we write an occasional letter to our senator or representative, but we almost inevitably receive a vague and impersonal response explaining why they will vote in our opposition.

Over the decades, our representative democracy has been systematically undermined and has ultimately failed in preserving the well being of the people of this nation. The system that the founding fathers painstakingly devised in order to best serve the interests and the will of the people has been corrupted and the systems of checks and balances on power that they instituted have been stripped away. Most of us accept this reality as being beyond our control and continue to observe, comment, and complain without aspiring to achieving any real change, without any hope of instituting a new system of governance that would instead take directly into account your views, and the views of your neighbors, and would empower you to make real positive change possible in your communities.

This site will attempt to explore in depth the places in the world where people are successfully bringing about that type of change in the face of similar odds, where an alternate form of democracy, which is called participatory or direct democracy, is taking root. Initiative, referendum & recall, community councils, and grassroots organizing are but a few ways in which direct/participatory democracy is achieving great success around the world.

Our system of representative democracy does not admit the voice of the people into congressional halls, the high courts, or the oval office where our rights and our liberties are being sold out from underneath us. Our local leaders and activists in our communities, and even those local elected officials who may have the best of intentions are for the most part powerless to make real positive change happen in our neighborhoods, towns and villages when there is so much corruption from above.

In places like Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, India, and the Phillipines, new experiments in grass roots community based governance are taking place. There is much to be learned from these and other examples of participatory democracy from around the world when we try to examine how this grass-roots based governance could begin to take root here in our own country in order to alter our political system so that it might better serve the American people.

In the hope that one day we can become a nation working together as a united people practicing true democracy as true equals, we open this forum…

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Monday, August 25, 2008

GUATEMALA: Local Referenda Confront Mining Company with Direct Democracy

This case from Guatemala illustrates the power of direct democracy, here in the form of popular referendum, to assert the will of the people in a democratic fashion over corporate and special interests that may threaten the future of the community and the well being of it's inhabitants. - Editor

Goldcorp: Occupation and Resistance in Guatemala (and Beyond)

Written by Dawn Paley
Monday, 23 June 2008
Source: The Dominion -
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1346/33/

Goldcorp Inc.'s Marlin mine in Guatemala has been a hotbed of controversy since locals became aware of the presence of the company (then Glamis Gold) in their municipalities.

Adding weight to the resistance to the mine is a ruling made public on June 9 by the Constitutional Court in Guatemala, which has found eight Articles (or sections thereof) of the Mining Law to be unconstitutional. (for a full text of the ruling in pdf format click here).

Among the Articles deemed unconstitutional are 19 and 20, which allow mining activities to start while the corresponding paperwork is still being processed, Articles 21, 24 and 27, which allow mining activity to take place to unlimited depths of the subsurface, Article 75, which allows mining companies to discharge water from their tailings pond directly into surface water, as well as Articles 81 and 86.

Goldcorp has refused to comment on the ruling, as they are in this case unable to use their regular discourse about the importance of the "rule of law."

Lawyers and environmentalists in Guatemala hope that the ruling will prevent Goldcorp from discharging untreated water from the tailings pond at the Marlin Mine into local rivers, which the company had planned to begin doing in the next few months.

¡Viva la Consulta Comunitaria, Bajo la Represión!

The municipality of Sipakapa, a Mayan Sipakapense community, held a consulta (community referendum) three years ago this month, rejecting the activities and presence of the company and open pit mining in their territory.

Since the 2005 consulta in Sipakapa, more than 20 other municipalities that have been concessioned in the Guatemalan highlands have held pre-emptive consulta proceses, most recently in Tajamulco.

The consulta was undermined in a 2007 ruling by Guatemala's Constitutional Court -a product of an unconstitutionality suit filed by Glamis Gold against the validity of the consulta- that ruled that the consulta in Sipakapa was legal, but not binding.

The people of Sipakapa have brought their case in favour of the validity of the consulta to the Inter American Court on Human Rights based in Washington DC. Thus far, the case has been accepted by the court.

In San Miguel Ixtahuacan, a Mayan Mam community consisting of about 45,000 inhabitants, a consulta is expected to take place in the next few months.

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