Globalizing the Struggle: Women’s Voices from the Mesoamerican People's Forum in Mexico http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3014-globalizing-the-struggle-womens-voices-from-the-mesoamerican-peoples-forum-in-mexico-

The Mesoamerican Peoples Forum was launched in 2001 in Tamaulipas, Mexico to combat Plan Puebla Panama. Over 500 people gathered for this year's VIII Mesoamerican Peoples forum in Minatitlan, Mexico in April.There's a popular saying in Latin America that if they're going to globalize commerce and capitalism, we're going to globalize the struggle. With that pretext the Mesoamerican Peoples Forum was launched in 2001 in Tamaulipas, Mexico to combat Plan Puebla Panama, a neoliberal plan, replete with mega projects, launched by the Interamerican Bank of Development and promoted by former Mexican president Vicente Fox.

Plan Puebla Panama has since been re-baptized as Project Mesoamerica incorporating Plan Colombia and the Mexican Merida Initiative, two U.S. conceived projects that funnel millions of dollars into army budgets supposedly to combat “narcotrafficking.” Therefore Plan Mesoamerica combines militarization with the promotion of the same mega projects including superhighways, dams, and open pit mines that have devastating consequences for the people and land across Mesoamerica.