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DAM-L LSW: Ralco Struggle Reaches the Courts (fwd)

To: dam impacts discussion list <dam-l@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>
Subject: DAM-L LSW: Ralco Struggle Reaches the Courts (fwd)
From: "D. Murray" <dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 12:50:43 -0400 (EDT)
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Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 09:27:19 -0700
To: irn-biobio@netvista.net
From: Monti Aguirre <monti@irn.org>
Subject: LSW: Ralco Struggle Reaches the Courts
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CHIP NEWS
April 30, 2001

****
-- RALCO STRUGGLE REACHES THE COURTS.

For the first time in the six-year old conflict, the Ralco dam project
reached the courts last Friday. Santiago's Appeals Court
will hear representations from indigenous groups,
environmentalists, and lawyers from the National Electricity
Company (Endesa). The plaintiffs would like the court to
prevent the construction of the US$500 million hydroelectric
reservoir.
The court will decide whether the 1982 General Law on
Electric Services has priority over the 1993 Indigenous Law,
which established protection and development norms for
indigenous people, as well as creating the National
Corporation for Indigenous Development (Conadi).
The litigation began when two members of the Pehuenche
community, Berta and Nicolasa Quintreman, and landowner Maria
Sola Ruedi, filed suit on the grounds that they would be
adversely affected if construction work on the dam goes
ahead. The hydroelectric project would involve flooding
3,467 hectares of land belonging to 131 Pehuenche families in
the areas of Quepuca Ralco and Ralco Lepoy in Chile's
southern Region VIII.
If the electricity company Endesa wins the lawsuit,
those families who did not agree to sell their lands will be
expelled by force. Ten indigenous families have refused to
sell their ancestral lands to allow the project to go ahead.
"The only way we will be taken away from here, is once we are
dead," the Quintreman sisters said.
Permission for the Ralco dam and reservoir was granted
to Endesa by the previous administration of President Eduardo
Frei on January 18, 2000. Endesa intends to present the
presidential decree in court to prove its case, as the decree
gives the company a number of rights over the land in
question.
Conadi officials, however, believe the decree lacks
legal authority, as the Indigenous Law forbids any takeover
or forcible purchase of lands belonging to indigenous
communities.
The draft version of the decree granting Endesa the go
ahead for its hydroelectric project originally included a
clause preventing the company from appropriating land
protected by the Indigenous Law. Nonetheless, it is
suggested that the article was dropped from the final version
of the decree after lobbying by Endesa.
This legal case is unlikely to be the last in the
ongoing dispute over the project: both sides have announced
that they would appeal an unfavorable Appeals Court verdict
to Chile's Supreme Court.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Monti Aguirre
Latin American Campaigns
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way
Berkeley, CA. 94703 USA
Phone:  510 . 848.11.55 and 707 . 869.16.37
Fax:    510 . 848.10.08
e-mail:  monti @irn.org
<http://www.irn.org>http://www.irn.org


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