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dam-l RALCO DAM SPURS PROTESTS IN SANTIAGO

 >October 13, 1997

>SOURCE:  EL MERCURIO
>SOURCE:  LA EPOCA

>        --  RALCO DAM SPURS PROTESTS IN SANTIAGO.  Chile's native
>people remembered their martyrs and protested the  Ralco
>hydroelectric plant on Sunday's anniversary of the arrival of
>Europeans on the American continent.
>        While Santiago Mayor Jaime Ravinet headed festivities
>celebrating the city's Spanish roots, Mapuches held the "huinca"
>(white man) invader" responsible for "505 years of suffering. "
>        On top of Cerro Huelen, more commonly known as Santa Lucia,
>Mapuche leaders called for unity with their Pehuenche cousins
>against the Ralco project.
>         Jose Nain, a representative of the Mapuche organization
>Consejo de Todas las Tierras, said, "For 505 years our rights have
>been violated, our land expropriated and our culture invaded... We
>express our concern to the Chilean State for the continuing suffering
>that Ralco will mean for our people."
>         On Saturday several indigenous groups and ecologists gathered
>in front of La Moneda presidential palace to protest President
>Eduardo Frei's refusal to meet with the group to discuss Endesa's
>Ralco plant.
>        "We regret that you refuse to receive us and hear of our
>suffering, on such an important day for us all," said Agustin Correa, a
>member of a Pehuenche delegation that had traveled from the Upper
>Bio Bio region that would be flooded by the Ralco project.
>         Prior to delivering a letter detailing the groups' opposition to
>Ralco, Correa declared that October 12 should not be a day for
>celebration, but rather an occasion to recall the history of indigenous
>peoples and their influence on Chile's identity.
>         Nicolasa Quintreman,  a member of one of the 101 families
>who would be forced to relocate from the Upper Bio Bio region, said,
>"I am not afraid.  I will not move from my land and my roots.  Not
>even gold will induce me to move.  The offers they have made only
>guarantee deeper poverty."

Chile Information Project

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