Argentina: Quechua Community Members Occupy Airport During Second Day of Protest Against Plupetrol

Octo­ber 29th, 2014

Inhab­i­tants inform the author­i­ties that, if their requests are not respect­ed, they will be tak­ing more direct mea­sures, such as man­u­al­ly clos­ing pipeline valves.  They ask that DINOES (Spe­cial Oper­a­tion Divi­sion) does not inter­vene. 

Octo­ber 29th, 2014

Inhab­i­tants inform the author­i­ties that, if their requests are not respect­ed, they will be tak­ing more direct mea­sures, such as man­u­al­ly clos­ing pipeline valves.  They ask that DINOES (Spe­cial Oper­a­tion Divi­sion) does not inter­vene. 

On the sec­ond day of protest­ing against the neg­li­gent deci­sions of Plus­petrol, a dom­i­nat­ing E&P pri­vate com­pa­ny orig­i­nat­ing from Argenti­na, Quechua inhab­i­tants took their retal­i­a­tion to the air­port.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence, Aure­lio Chi­no Dahua, pres­i­dent of Fediquep (Indige­nous Quechua Fed­er­a­tion of the Pas­taza), explained that the peo­ple feel deceived by both the cor­po­ra­tion and the state.  He relates such uneasi­ness to the the state’s dis­en­gage­ment from alle­vi­at­ing Pluspetrol’s social-envi­ron­men­tal impacts on the com­mu­ni­ty, even in the face of raw evi­dence.

The indige­nous leader also projects his indig­na­tion towards the government’s lack of com­mit­ment, stat­ing that, although the Quechua peo­ple have fos­tered active dia­logue with the author­i­ties since 2011, not one pro­gram has been imple­ment­ed with the sole pur­pose of meet­ing their demands.

Dahua reit­er­at­ed that, dur­ing the last months, Plus­petrol Norte has been erod­ing and divid­ing the com­mu­ni­ties, and that Fediquep has been bla­tant­ly ignor­ing the inhab­i­tants’ rights.  For such rea­sons, he pro­pos­es that the com­pa­ny retreats from the area and, if they wish to resume the oper­a­tion, heeds to the community’s direct par­tic­i­pa­tion.  It is also being demand­ed that fam­i­lies are con­nect­ed to the elec­tric­i­ty that is pro­vid­ed by Lore­to Region­al Gov­ern­ment and Plust­petrol.

Mean­while in Nue­vo Andeos, the peo­ple hold their grounds in hopes that atten­tion will final­ly be brought to their demands.

Not too long ego, it was them who request­ed a reme­di­a­tion process of Shan­shococha Lagoon, as well as ade­quate com­pen­sa­tion for Pluspetrol’s exper­i­men­ta­tion through­out the past 15 years.

As the con­ver­sta­tion moves, it is evi­dent that yesterday’s demon­stra­tion in Nue­vo Andoas is being vig­or­ous­ly sup­port­ed by sur­round­ing areas with­in the Pas­taza and that will sure­ly res­onate beyond.

[EF!  Newswire Note:  The fol­low­ing post is a loose trans­la­tion of an arti­cle first pub­lished by Servin­di.]