10 May 2011
Chile approved a hydroelectric project that would flood Patagonian valleys and become the country’s biggest power generator, sparking violent protests and more than a hundred arrests.
Police fired water cannons and tear gas at demonstrators outside the building in the city of Coyhaique where 11 of the 12 members of an environment commission voted in favor of the HidroAysen project that Santiago-based Empresa Nacional de Electricidad SA and Colbun SA (COLBUN) want to build.
HidroAysen’s five dams would flood nearly 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) of land and require a 1,900 kilometer (1,180 mile) transmission line to feed the central grid that supplies Santiago and surrounding cities as well as copper mines owned by Codelco and Anglo American Plc. The government of President Sebastian Pinera says Chile needs more hydroelectric and coal- fired plants to meet demand that will double in the next decade and reduce power costs that are the highest in the region.
“We have to get that energy somewhere, independent of what the project is, because energy today is twice as expensive as in other Latin American countries,” Ena Von Baer, the government’s spokeswoman, told reporters yesterday in Santiago. “We want to be a developed country and to do that we need energy, especially cheap energy for the poor.”
Street March
Hundreds of protesters blocked the entrance to the room where the government’s regional representative Pilar Cuevas and other officials sat after yesterday’s meeting in Coyhaique. A police officer and at least one other person were injured by stones thrown by demonstrators, while more than 20 people were arrested during clashes with police involving tear gas and water cannons, regional governor Nestor Mera told reporters yesterday.
More than 120 were arrested last night in protests around the country, newspaper La Tercera reported. About 1,500 people gathered in a plaza in central Santiago before marching to the presidential palace, the newspaper reported. Police dispersed protesters who tried to block traffic in the downtown area.
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The results of the vote give the go-ahead to HidroAysén, a dam project run by the Italian group Endesa and its minority holding group the Chilean corporation Colbún, which holds a 49% stake in the project. The proposed series of dams would affect the Baker river, the most most voluminous in Chile, which attracts ecotourists, rafters and fishermen, and is an important ecological feature of the region. Project opponents say the project will badly impact 6 national parks, 11 national reserves, 12 important conservation sites, 16 wetlands and 32 privately-held protected areas. Meanwhile, proponents of the project project construction jobs and electricity production of 2.750 megawatts.
The organization Patagonia Sin Represas (Patagonia Without Dams) planned a peaceful protest in the wake of the approval, to take place at Plaza Italia, Santiago’s ground zero for demonstrations at 7:00 PM tonight. Thousands of people joined together, chanting (among other slogans), Piñera, entiende, Patagonia no se vende (Piñera (president of the Republic), understand, Patagonia is not for sale). Protesters held signs with messages opposing the project, including one written in English, shown below partially supported with a kayak paddle. When asked why their sign was in English, the protesters said it was for the international media.
The police then drove four buses along the curve of the street to block the protesters and their signs from view by the commuting public driving and walking east up Avenida Providencia, the street on which thousands of commuters travel home each weekday night.
At approximately 7:30 PM, the protesters attempted to cross the street from Plaza Italia and take over one direction of the Alameda (the main street which leads down towards the city centre), at which point the police shot water from water cannons at the protesters and began to release tear gas into the crowd. Many protesters scattered, and several offshoot groups tried to make their way down to the Moneda (the presidential palace) where tensions increased between the protesters and the police, and local news reported that 600 protesters arrived and later set several barricades aflame. As of approximately 10:00 PM a helicopter with a search beam could be seen overflying the Moneda and nearby streets.
Similar protests were planned in other cities throughout the length of Chile.