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Date: May 8, 2000
Subject: OPPOSITION TO RALCO DAM PROJECT BOILS OVER AGAIN
Source: CHIP News
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OPPOSITION TO RALCO DAM PROJECT BOILS OVER AGAIN
Conservative Media Says Mapuche Playing To An International Audience
Indigenous Mapuche and Pehuenche activists and environmentalists opposed
to the Ralco dam under construction on the upper Bio Bio River in southern
Region VIII launched new protests over the weekend against the project,
which was given final approval in the last days of former President
Eduardo Frei's administration.
The Ralco power plant represents an investment of US$570 million for
energy giant Endesa and will produce 570 MW of power.
On Saturday some 50 people blocked the main road from Region IX capital
Temuco to the coast for 30 minutes, fleeing when Carabineros police
arrived to clear the highway. No injuries or arrests were reported. On
the same day, students and other dam opponents held a march in downtown
Region VIII capital Concepcion.
The road to the massive hydroelectric project was also blocked for some 15
hours last Wednesday at a location 150-km east of Los Angeles. Antolin
Curriado, lonco (spokesperson) for the local Pehuenche community of
Quepuca Ralco, announced at the time, "we have decided to occupy the road
due to the systematic threat represented by Endesa's construction of the
Ralco hydroelectric plant, usurping our lands and destroying our culture."
Mapuche groups also said they were protesting the alleged beating last
Friday of Mapuche legal assistant Rogelio Nahuel at the hands of Endesa
workers, while nearby Carabineros police looked the other way.
While a significant contingent of special police are maintained to keep
the peace in the contentious area, press reports were unclear as to what
action they took in last week's road block. La Nacion said there were
"incidents" when some 100 workers leaving the project passed through the
obstruction, but that information as to injuries was unavailable.
Curriado denounced the 'militarization' of the area, and called on local
legislators and Aucan Huilcaman, spokesman for one of the main indigenous
activist groups, the All Lands Council, to form a commission to mediate
the conflict and solicit the opinion of President Ricardo Lagos.
The most recent event occurred Sunday afternoon when a large group of
Mapuche began plowing on 534 disputed hectares of land near Traiguen,
Region VIII, preparing it for the planting of wheat.
National media are giving the Ralco dam situation and indigenous unrest
increased coverage, with the conservative El Mercurio and La Tercera
newspapers focusing on alleged support of the indigenous rights movement
by foreign organizations and governments.
El Mercurio this morning, for example, asserted the recent spat of
conflicts has been designed by Mapuche activists "to show the
international community that the Mapuche movement is strong and
representative of the majority of the country's Mapuche communities."
Meanwhile, in Santiago last week the roundtable convened by Lagos to
propose solutions to the indigenous conflict met for the second to the
last time. One participant in the roundtable said its working groups on
regional development and on legal issues were far from agreement. The
roundtable will apparently continue to meet this week in hopes of reaching
accords to present to Lagos by May 12, the deadline he set when forming
the roundtable shortly after his inauguration in mid-March.