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 Editorials | Issues | August 2007 
High Voltage Conflict Over Guerrero Dam
 Diego Cevallos - IPS
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| “The relocation of these (indigenous) peoples. . . shall take place only with their willing and informed consent.”
(Article 16.2, Convention 169 on indigenous peoples and tribes of independent nations. ILO) |
Campesinos in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero have been blocking access to an area where the government wants to build a huge dam and hydroelecric station, since 2003.
On Aug. 12, at a public meeting attended by local residents, their local representatives and officials of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), a majority of the campesinos (small farmers) decided that the project should be cancelled.
"Everyone agreed to respect whatever the majority decided, without any pressures being exerted," José Hernández, a leader in the farming district of Cacahuatepec, told IPS.
"They should know that we are not going to give in, even if it costs us our lives," he warned.
About 30,000 campesinos live in Cacahuatepec and other farming communities near the Papagayo river, where the government plans to invest one billion dollars in a dam and hydroelectric station.
Called La Parota, the project would take six years to build, and is designed to generate 900 megawatts when completed.
The government of former President Vicente Fox (2000-2006) began work on roads and workers’ camps for the dam in 2003.
However, these works were suspended almost immediately because of protests by campesinos whose lands would have been expropriated.
Since then, opponents of the dam have kept access to the area constantly blocked, night and day, with stones, planks and other materials. Their aim is to refuse admission to CFE workers and government authorities.
"It’s been a long process, with a lot of bribery and tricks, but it should end now. They should know that we are not going to sell or leave our lands," Hernández told IPS in a telephone interview.
The administration of President Felipe Calderón, who like Fox belongs to the conservative National Action Party (PAN), has maintained the plan to build La Parota, and negotiated the meeting with the campesinos to explain its point of view and listen to the project’s opponents.
The Aug.12 meeting was attended by 3,000 local residents, who voted against the project by a show of hands in front of government delegates. The resolution was duly documented.
However, some campesinos in favour of the La Parota dam are now saying that there was pressure at the meeting, and that they will not accept the resolution.
Neither will the government of the state of Guerrero, headed by Zeferino Torreblanca, of the leftwing opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).
The CFE authorities have not announced their position, but Hernández believes that they are behind the moves to refuse to recognise the meeting’s decision.
According to the government of Guerrero, the La Parota project is still going ahead. The hydroelectric station, officials say, will bring employment and generate power which will compensate for the electricity shortages experienced by several cities in the state, including the Acapulco resort.
Hernández, 44, who makes his living from growing maize and lemons, said that "at the last meeting, there were no pressures of any kind. Everyone saw the whole thing."
"That’s why we’re so angry that they are now saying that there was pressure, and that they won’t abide by the resolution. Clearly, the federal government is behind this," he said.
If the dam were built, it would create a reservoir covering 14,000 hectares of land belonging to 2,000 campesinos, according to the government. But opponents of the project and some researchers say that it would have an impact on 20,000 people, and change the local culture and environment.
"All the legal battles against La Parota have been won. If the authorities refuse to abide by these results, there will be endless confrontation and a complete loss of trust in the law," Mario Patrón, a lawyer for the La Montaña Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre, based in Guerrero, told IPS.
Patrón, who advises campesinos in the La Parota project area, says that the insistence on building the dam "even at the cost of the way of life of hundreds of campesinos, and of the environment," is due to powerful economic and business interests.
Local companies such as Ingenieros Civiles Asociados and Ideal, and the foreign firms Techint and General Electric, are interested in contracts for building the dam.
"Opponents of La Parota have at least seven legal verdicts in their favour, which ruled that campesino meetings that apparently approved the project in 2005 were illegally manipulated. Now there is a document voted by a new meeting in the presence of the authorities, which is completely binding," said Patrón.
The Fox administration said two years ago that the majority of campesinos were in favour of La Parota, and was on the point of putting contracts for the project out to tender. But judges ruled that the meetings at which the dam was approved were invalid.
"The Calderón government should forget La Parota, because it will never be built," Hernández said.
Opponents of the project include local and international environmental groups.
The non-governmental Latin American Water Tribunal, based in Costa Rica, concluded in March 2006 that the project was unsuitable, and that the Fox administration’s attempt to push forward with it had deceived the campesinos and violated their rights.
Opponents of La Parota say that the dam will benefit private companies, but not the local communities. They say that it would result in unemployment, extreme poverty, and irreversible effects on the environment.
But advocates of the project say that dams help control water flow and can prevent flooding. They also point out that hydroelectric stations reduce the amount of oil used to generate energy.
Nearly half of Mexico’s electricity is generated from fossil fuels, which contribute to global warming.
But hydroelectric dams have environmental costs too, such as the loss of animal species and the flooding of farmland. They also require relocation of local communities.
The environment and communities downstream of large hydroelectric stations have paid an "unacceptable and unnecessary" price for them, according to a report by the World Commission on Dams. |
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