Protests delay destructive Amazon dams

25.3.11
The con­struc­tion of the Madeira dams in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon has been delayed, fol­low­ing vio­lent protests at the Jirau dam site last week.

Con­struc­tion work­ers report­ed­ly set fire to build­ings and more than 40 bus­es at the site, and ran­sacked shops and cash-points, in protest against low pay and bad work­ing con­di­tions.

The protests brought the dam con­struc­tion to a stand still.

The Jirau and San­to Anto­nio dams, part of the Madeira Riv­er hydro­elec­tric com­plex, will dam­age vast areas of land, upon which numer­ous trib­al peo­ples depend for their sur­vival. The Indi­ans did not give their con­sent for the dams to be built.

Domin­gos Par­intintin of the Par­intintin tribe said, ‘We hope that the project will be stopped, because it is our chil­dren who will suf­fer the con­se­quences. They will no longer have enough fish or enough game to feed them­selves’.

The uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans liv­ing in the area are extreme­ly vul­ner­a­ble as they depend com­plete­ly on their for­est, and they have lit­tle resis­tance to out­side dis­eases, which threat­en to dri­ve them to extinc­tion.

A report in the Fol­ha de São Paulo, one of Brazil’s biggest news­pa­pers, warned of an ‘explo­sion of crim­i­nal­i­ty’ in the area, par­tic­u­lar­ly homi­cide, sex­u­al exploita­tion and drug traf­fick­ing, as the dam con­struc­tion has attract­ed thou­sands of immi­grants. More than 37,000 con­struc­tion work­ers are report­ed to be build­ing the two dams.

This huge wave of immi­gra­tion is putting pres­sure on the land and increas­ing the risks faced by the uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans.

French com­pa­ny GDF Suez is lead­ing the con­sor­tium build­ing the Jirau dam.