Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization

August 31, 2009

Mapuche: Hundreds Mobilize for a ‘Chile Without Dams’

One day after the release of a UN report on Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Chile, demonstrations around Chile have focused on environmental and indigenous claims.

Below is an article published by MapuExpress :

More than 2,000 people in 19 different locations of the country [Chile] got together on 29 August 2009 in the National Demonstration ‘For a Chile With No More Dams’. Parallel citizen demonstrations throughout the country expressed their reject for destructive projects in Chile and call on the devolution of the water to the communities and on the implementation of renewable and clean energies.

Many cars has accompanied the more than  400 participants that congregated at mid-day in the traditional  pentagonal square of Coyhaique, with the aim of showing the companies HidroAysén and Energía Austral their reject for the implementation of hydroelectric mega-projects in their area and the sea privatization.

People riding horses, candidates to the Senate and the House of Representatives, city councilors and rural inhabitants got together to manifest for a ‘Chile with no more dams’, in the capital of the Aysén region.

The local coordinator, Alejandro Del Pino, acknowledges the success of the protest organizers even against the companies attempts to ‘buy people’s conscience’.  

In the city of Valdivia, the local coordinator Manuel Ruiz has indicated that ‘what empowers this national demonstration is its unity and transversal character in a national struggle, since it counts with environmental and human rights’ organizations, communities councils, the Mapuche Coz Coz Parliament and fishermen against the privatization of the sea’.  

In Curacautín, the Ninth Region, despite the storm, people demonstrated and got together in the Casa Abierta to be informed about environmental local conflicts.

On the Seventh region, in the locality of Talca, music and artistic performances were the protagonists. More than 200 assistants were informed about the hydroelectric issues involving the region of Maule, especially concerning the Robles thermoelectric from AES GENER and the central stations in the Achibueno river.  

On the Aysén region,, there were also activities in Villa Cerro Castillo, Puerto Cisnes, Bahía Murta, Cochrane, Caleta Tortel  and Villa O'Higgins.

The demonstration planned for Santiago, has its initial point in Plaza Italia, congregating about 400 people.  After more than two hours of activities, a petition was issued, in which protestors stated: “We are opposed to the current economic growth logic installed in the country. In which centralized decisions are taken, frequently resulting on public ethic flaws and that left us, as legacy, huge invasive and undermining investments projects’.   

Many well-known environmental leaders were present: Patricio Rodrigo, Executive Secretary for Patagonia (CDP), Hernán Sandoval (from  Chile Ambiente), Rodrigo Herrera (from  Greenpeace), Luis Mariano Rendón (from Acción Ecológica), Flavia  Liberona (from Fundación Terram), among others.  

In Santiago, there were artistic performances and danse. People also interpreted a special ritual for the on behalf of the ‘water’, chiefed by Juan Pablo Orrego.

[…]

Note: Translated from an original article published in Spanish.

To the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) Report on Chile, please click here .