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dam-l LS: Protesting Power Rationing
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CHIP NEWS
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Date: May 12, 1999
Subject: Protesting Power Rationing
Sources: La Nacion
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PROTESTING POWER RATIONING
(Ed. note: Chileans upset with the recurrent power outages
that have plagued Chile off and on for the past six months
will give vent to their ire this Wednesday afternoon at 6 p.m.
at the Bustamente Park near Plaza Italia. The demonstration
has been convened by a broad range of community groups
and is expected to draw 5,000-10,000 candle bearing
protesters.
The editorial that follows appeared in Tuesday in support of
the protest).
Several groups - among them the Medical Association, the
Teachers Association, the CUT labor federation and
ecological organizations - have called a demonstration for
Wednesday in Bustamente Park to protest electricity
rationing and pressure authorities and power companies to
quickly resolve the emergency situation. The demonstration
has the backing of numerous legislators.
Organizers maintain that urgent solutions are needed to
guarantee the power supply to the public and, especially,
health facilities, which will soon face an upsurge in winter
illnesses. Medical Association President Enrique Accorsi
warned that intensive care units, surgical units, blood banks
and diagnostic laboratories are already experiencing serious
difficulties because emergency power- generating units in
use don't meet demand.
Protest organizers maintain that the government should
study the possibility of letting the concessions of those
power sector firms that don't comply with the law expire
without renewing them. At the same time, they have
expressed their strong opposition to an increase in
electricity rates and have suggested that the public not pay
their light bills while the crisis persists.
No one can deny the legitimacy of the protest, which is
aimed at channeling the understandable feeling of unrest of
the public. The situation has profoundly altered day-to-day
life and doesn't show any signs of letting up. Although
following President Eduardo Frei's nationwide address on the
matter the government reached agreement with some
companies to increase available energy resources, the fact
remains that the threat of cuts and the multiple resulting
problems continues.
Maybe a more aggressive showing of public sentiment has
been lacking of late to clearly show that we are experiencing
a serious social problem. It's possible this silence has
simply been confused with resignation.
It would be better for our livelihood in every sense if we
create conditions such that, given a crisis like the power
shortage, all sectors directly affected speak up. We need
civil society to have its own voice, different from that of the
government's and different from that of business. That isn't
an obstacle to a search for points of agreement on how to
resolve this and other problems.
What the public wants to see are concrete acts that point in
two directions. On the one hand, people want the electricity
supply to be normalized as quickly as possible and, on the
other hand, to see modifications to the regulatory framework
within which power sector businesses operate. Experience
should be instructive in showing the disasters that an
excess of permissiveness can create.
*Chile Information Project*
*The End*
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Monti Aguirre
Latin American Campaigns
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way
Berkeley, CA. 94703 USA
Phone: 510 . 848.11.55 and 707 . 591 .91.49
Fax: 510 . 848.10.08
e-mail: monti @irn.org
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