Chilean Indians, activists protest licensing of dam
By Roger Atwood
SANTIAGO (Reuter) - Indians and environmental activists occupied Chile's
indigenous affairs bureau and environmental protection board Tuesday to
protest the licensing of a dam that will force hundreds of Indians off
their land.
The National Environmental Commission (Conama) Monday gave the green light
to plans to build the $600 million Ralco dam on the Bio Bio River in
southern Chile.
Beating drums and denouncing Chilean ``colonization,'' about 20 aborigines
Tuesday took over the offices of the National Indigenous Development
Corporation (Conadi) and unfurled banners from upper floors, including one
reading ``Indigenous Dignity -- no to Ralco!''
``The Chilean government has once again shown its colonizing mentality by
not respecting our people or the law,'' said a statement read by the
occupiers, wearing ponchos and playing reed flutes.
``Our grandfathers taught us well how to defend our lands and if it's
necessary, 10 times we will return to shed our blood for our lands, but
Ralco will not be built,'' they said.
They demanded to speak with Conadi's director, a supporter of Ralco
appointed by President Eduardo Frei's government early this year after it
abruptly fired the previous director who was opposed to the dam.
At the same time, about 30 environmental activists occupied the first
floor of Conama's offices.
Conama granted a license to private electric utility Endesa to begin
building the dam and bring it into operation early in the next century. It
will complement a smaller dam opened last year by Endesa downstream, which
was also bitterly opposed by environmentalists.
The dam will force up to 700 Pehuenche Indians off part of their ancestral
lands and flood about 9,000 acres of farmland and rare temperate rain
forest on the river's upper reaches.
In exchange for the license to build, Endesa will have to compensate the
Pehuenches with land of similar value and also buy 9,400 acres of land
nearby for a wildlife reserve -- an area roughly similar to the area that
will be flooded.
The dam's builders say Chile, with almost no oil of its own and vast
hydroelectric potential, needs Ralco and other dams to guarantee the
country's booming economic growth into the next century.
Endesa general manager Jose Yuraszeck said Chile will need about 10 more
dams the size of Ralco to be built between now and the year 2013 to
satisfy energy demand, plus nine more power plants fueled by natural gas
piped in from Argentina.
Opponents of the dam, which has also attracted opposition from U.S.
environmental groups, can still appeal in court but they said they had
little chance of stopping it there.