Tension mounts as Brazilian Indians retake land

27 May 2011
A com­mu­ni­ty of Guarani Indi­ans in Brazil has retak­en part of its ances­tral land in an act of des­per­a­tion, hav­ing lived by the side of a high­way for a year and a half.

The Guarani marched back to their land last week, unwill­ing fur­ther to endure the appalling liv­ing con­di­tions they have been sub­ject to on the road­side.

27 May 2011
A com­mu­ni­ty of Guarani Indi­ans in Brazil has retak­en part of its ances­tral land in an act of des­per­a­tion, hav­ing lived by the side of a high­way for a year and a half.

The Guarani marched back to their land last week, unwill­ing fur­ther to endure the appalling liv­ing con­di­tions they have been sub­ject to on the road­side.

The Indi­ans of Laran­jeira Nan­deru com­mu­ni­ty had their lands stolen from them in the 1960s, to make way for cat­tle ranch­es. They returned to their land in 2008, but were evict­ed again in Sep­tem­ber 2009 – soon after, their vil­lage was bru­tal­ly attacked and burned down.

Since then, the Guarani have been liv­ing under tar­pau­lin sheet­ing, with lit­tle access to clean water, food, or med­ical care, and sub­ject to intense heat and flood­ing, by the side of a high­way. Large trucks and cars thun­dered past day and night, and one Guarani was run over and killed.

Faride, spokesman of the com­mu­ni­ty, told Sur­vival researchers before the reoc­cu­pa­tion, ‘Laran­jeira Nan­deru was my father’s land, my grandfather’s land, my great grandfather’s land… We need to go back there so we can work and live in peace… that is our dream.’

Watch a film clip of Faride talk­ing about his community’s land — http://assets.survivalinternational.org/flash/syndicated-player.swf' width='480' height='270' allowFullScreen='true' wmode='opaque' bgcolor='111111' allowScriptAccess='always' flashvars='config=http://assets-production.survivalinternational.org/films/412/config.xml' />”>
Some Guarani lead­ers who have led their com­mu­ni­ties’ reoc­cu­pa­tions of their land, such as the inter­na­tion­al­ly-renowned Mar­cos Veron, have been assas­si­nat­ed.

The com­mu­ni­ty is now urg­ing the gov­ern­ment offi­cial­ly to pro­tect their land so they are not evict­ed again.

The Guarani have a deep spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to their land, upon which they rely for their men­tal and phys­i­cal well-being.

Fol­low­ing the loss of almost all their land to ranch­es and soya and sug­ar­cane plan­ta­tions, thou­sands of Guarani are liv­ing in over­crowd­ed reserves, and some are camped by the side of high­ways.

Survival’s Direc­tor, Stephen Cor­ry, said today, ‘It is no sur­prise that hav­ing been forced to endure such pre­car­i­ous con­di­tions for so long, the Guarani have tak­en mat­ters into their own hands and returned home. This should sure­ly act as a wake-up call for the author­i­ties to pro­tect the land and remove the lurk­ing threat of anoth­er evic­tion. That is the least the Guarani deserve’.
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Down­load Survival’s report on the sit­u­a­tion of the Guarani, sent to the Unit­ed Nations last year. ( in Eng­lish and Por­tuguese pdf, 2.4 MB).

Anti-mining protests shut down Peru-Bolivia border

24th May 2011
For more than two weeks, thou­sands of peo­ple have blocked an inter­na­tion­al bor­der in Peru — and almost no one in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world seems to have noticed.

24th May 2011
For more than two weeks, thou­sands of peo­ple have blocked an inter­na­tion­al bor­der in Peru — and almost no one in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world seems to have noticed.

The sto­ry has fall­en through the cracks, but here’s what’s hap­pen­ing:

A pro­posed min­ing project on the shores of Lake Tit­i­ca­ca has pro­voked out­rage among Peru­vians. Protests are grow­ing in the south­east­ern part of the coun­try.

About 10,000 peo­ple gath­ered in the city of Puno this week, shout­ing “Mina no, agro si” (rough­ly “Mines no, farms yes”). Shops, schools and pub­lic tran­sit all shut down.

The protests were sparked by the announce­ment that a sub­sidiary of the Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny Bear Creek would be allowed to build a sil­ver mine near Lake Tit­i­ca­ca.

Tit­i­ca­ca is the high­est nav­i­ga­ble lake in the world and the largest lake in South Amer­i­ca. The lake was con­sid­ered sacred by the Incas and is a major tourist draw today.

The pro­test­ers say min­ing would pol­lute Lake Tit­i­ca­ca, the Desaguadero Riv­er and its trib­u­taries. They are demand­ing the can­cel­la­tion of all min­ing and oil con­ces­sions and the repeal of the decree that allows min­ing in the bor­der area.

Bear Creek says the pro­posed project offers a “low-cost ‘pure sil­ver’ mine” in a “min­er­al-rich nation with a favor­able invest­ment cli­mate.”

The Peru­vian gov­ern­ment said it would dis­patch the mil­i­tary to con­trol the protest and clear the road link­ing the two coun­tries.

Boli­vian busi­ness­men esti­mate they have lost between $7 mil­lion and $16 mil­lion because of the block­ade. The pres­i­dent of the Cham­ber of Exporters of Bolivia, Goran Vrani­cic, told Efe that dai­ly loss­es total $1 mil­lion.

The protest began on May 9 with the clos­ing of the Desaguadero bor­der cross­ing. The route is still blocked with large rocks, logs and barbed wire.

About 600 trucks are stuck on the Boli­vian side of the bor­der, and in the last cou­ple of hours, many of the trapped truck­ers have begun return­ing to the Boli­vian cap­i­tal of La Paz. The clo­sure large­ly affects Boli­vian car­go head­ed to Peru or to third coun­tries through Peru­vian ports (Bolivia does­n’t have access to the sea).

In April, after a protest left three dead in the near­by region of Are­quipa, the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment can­celed the Tia Maria min­ing project.

THWAC is dead, long live THWAC! Another era in the fight against Scottish Coal ends, but the struggle continues…

May 23rd, 2011

May 23rd, 2011
After eight months of occu­pa­tion and strug­gle, Coal Action Scot­land has decid­ed to bring an end to the Hap­pen­don Wood Action Camp. The camp was tak­en in Sep­tem­ber last year to resist Scot­tish Coal’s plans to open-cast the wood­land, and to act as a base in South Lanark­shire to take direct action and work with affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties in the ongo­ing strug­gle against the coal indus­try. Hav­ing felt that those goals were met as much as they were going to be, and with Scot­tish Coal’s appli­ca­tion being sub­mit­ted for a new 4 mil­lion ton open cast at Glen­tag­gart East, we have decid­ed to change our focus. We are in no way aban­don­ing South Lanark­shire, or the strug­gle against Scot­tish Coal, and will con­tin­ue to be active in the area in new and excit­ing ways.

Sur­round­ed by three active open cast coal sites, and mul­ti­ple scars being “restored”, the res­i­dents of THWAC placed them­selves along­side the peo­ple of the Dou­glas Val­ley, right in the bel­ly of the beast. Mak­ing the threat of new coal exploita­tion and the con­stant noise and dis­rup­tion a part of every­day life for our­selves is one way in which we felt we could show sol­i­dar­i­ty. We were able to build on links forged dur­ing Main­shill, and met many more peo­ple cam­paign­ing and work­ing to halt Scot­tish Coal’s march across the Dou­glas Val­ley.

Dur­ing our time at Hap­pen­don Wood we tried to impact as lit­tle as pos­si­ble on the envi­ron­ment we were stay­ing in. This includ­ed using solar pan­els to charge the bat­ter­ies to pow­er the lap­tops and the lights in the com­mu­nal and office, donat­ing our shit to a local hous­ing coop who will com­post it and use it to grow food in their orchards, grey water sys­tems to fil­ter our waste water and using paths to reduce the soil ero­sion. Great effort was tak­en to return the small area of wood­land we inhab­it­ed to its orig­i­nal state as we left, and we left the land bet­ter than how we found it. More than Scot­tish Coal can say.

The camp became a use­ful hub in the com­mu­ni­ty for shar­ing infor­ma­tion and ideas. Pub­lic meet­ings were organ­ised and links between the many com­mu­ni­ties were forged. Dur­ing our time at Hap­pen­don Scot­tish Coal launched their “For­ward Strat­e­gy.” Their land grab of the Dou­glas Val­ley involved three new open cast coal sites, with plans to remove a total of 5.4 mil­lion tonnes of coal, fly­ing in the face of local oppo­si­tion and glob­al opin­ion on cli­mate change. This cat­a­lyst ignit­ed a local cam­paign with oppo­si­tion reach­ing from Gle­spin to Les­ma­hagow and a series of pub­lic meet­ings, kick start­ed by peo­ple from THWAC. Peo­ple from all over the Dou­glas Val­ley have con­tin­ued their gen­eros­i­ty with food, water, build­ing mate­ri­als and lock-on cement. We would like to say a mas­sive thank you to the all the peo­ple who came down and pro­vid­ed vital prac­ti­cal and moral sup­port in a win­ter cold enough to rival last year’s at Main­shill.

Dur­ing the occu­pa­tion of Hap­pen­don Wood, Coal Action Scot­land con­tin­ued cam­paign­ing against coal expan­sion in Scot­land. The Health Study Group and Com­mu­ni­ty Ecol­o­gy Group car­ried out vital research into the neg­a­tive effects of the coal indus­try. Eco­log­i­cal stud­ies have been car­ried out at prospec­tive coal sites in the Dou­glas Val­ley, dis­cov­er­ing pro­tect­ed species which were some­how over­looked by Scot­tish Coal’s paid for eco­log­i­cal sur­veys. More and more research has been con­duct­ed show­ing the links between coal extrac­tion and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases, regard­less of Scot­tish Coal or South Lanark­shire Council’s refusal to lis­ten. CAS also con­tin­ued to sup­port the cam­paign in Mid­loth­i­an against an open cast by Scot­tish Coal near the vil­lage of Cous­land, and we thank the local cam­paign­ers for their sup­port in return. The com­mu­ni­ty man­aged to defeat the pro­pos­al at the plan­ning stage.

A Smooth Newt found dur­ing tat down.

As the name sug­gests, THWAC was start­ed as a base for direct action. Dur­ing the eight months affin­i­ty groups from across the UK, and fur­ther afield, came and car­ried out a wide vari­ety of direct action and protests at open casts in the area and tar­gets fur­ther afield. This includ­ed: mine gates locked shut at night three times, dig­ger div­ing at Main­shill twice, Main­shill offices were attacked with paint, Raven­struther coal rail head was block­ad­ed twice, South Lanark­shire Council’s offices had ban­ners hung from the roof and stink bombs let off inside the com­mit­tee room, Scot­tish Coal con­trac­tors RPS and Weber Shand­wick had their offices glued shut and slo­gans paint­ed on their walls, and accord­ing to anony­mous reports post­ed online there were six sab­o­tage actions with over thir­ty three vehi­cles inca­pac­i­tat­ed. These add to the already impres­sive list of actions tak­en against the coal indus­try since Coal Action Scot­land formed. Through this cam­paign of sus­tained direct action we have cost Scot­tish Coal a con­sid­er­able amount.

Over the next few months we will be set­ting our sites on Scot­tish Coal’s plot to tear up Glen­tag­gart East in the Dou­glas Val­ley. We are join­ing with local cam­paign­ers in a call out for as many objec­tion let­ters to South Lanark­shire Coun­cil against this appli­ca­tion as pos­si­ble. More infor­ma­tion about this can be found on the STOP web­site. We will also con­tin­ue to use direct action to apply pres­sure on them to aban­don this open cast. If any­one wish­es to join in then Tar­get Brochures show­ing coal infra­struc­ture across Scot­land can also be found on our web­site. After the suc­cess of last year’s event we will be plan­ning anoth­er Out­door Skill Share from the 26th to the 29th of August, where we will run work­shops on the prac­ti­cal skills need­ed to hold a protest site. More infor­ma­tion can be found on the Out­door Skill Share web­site.

All that’s left is to say thank you to all our vis­i­tors and see you all next time.

The Hap­pen­don Wood Action Camp

Indian resistance to steel works

May 22, 2011
The land acqui­si­tion for the pro­posed mega steel project of Posco in Orissa’s Jagats­ingh­pur dis­trict has been post­poned fol­low­ing stiff resis­tance from vil­lagers sup­port­ing as well as oppos­ing the ven­ture.

May 22, 2011
The land acqui­si­tion for the pro­posed mega steel project of Posco in Orissa’s Jagats­ingh­pur dis­trict has been post­poned fol­low­ing stiff resis­tance from vil­lagers sup­port­ing as well as oppos­ing the ven­ture.

The State Gov­ern­ment had to stop the land acqui­si­tion work on Fri­day after the vil­lagers sup­port­ing the ven­ture protest­ed, demand­ing that the process be com­plete­ly stopped till their six-point demands are met.

As many as 33 mem­bers of the Unit­ed Action Com­mit­tee (UAC), the group sup­port­ing the project, were arrest­ed on Thurs­day when they blocked the entry of offi­cials engaged in the land acqui­si­tion work. On Sun­day, a large num­ber of vil­lagers sup­port­ing the UAC organ­ised a ral­ly in the area ear­marked for the project reit­er­at­ing their demands.

Mean­while, Posco Pratirodh San­gram Sami­ti, the out­fit that has been strong­ly oppos­ing land acqui­si­tion for the project since 2005, has also decid­ed to inten­si­fy its agi­ta­tion in the com­ing days.

The Sami­ti has been demand­ing that the Gov­ern­ment not acquire any land till the author­i­ties organ­ised Pal­li Sab­ha meet­ings in var­i­ous vil­lages to take the con­sent of the thou­sands of fam­i­lies that were to lose their land and liveli­hood sources.

The agi­tat­ing vil­lagers, who had staged a protest on May 18 when the author­i­ties resumed land acqui­si­tion, have termed the Gov­ern­ment action “ille­gal”.

The land acqui­si­tion work had shown lit­tle progress dur­ing the three days when admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials entered the area amid heavy police pres­ence to car­ry out the exer­cise. While the 1.52 acres of for­est land was acquired by demol­ish­ing betel vine­yards on May 18, it dropped to 72 dec­i­mals on May 19 and .27 acres on May 20.

In anoth­er devel­op­ment, the High Court has issued notices to the State Gov­ern­ment and oth­ers on a peti­tion chal­leng­ing land acqui­si­tion for the project. The peti­tion will come up for fur­ther hear­ing on May 25.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/article2040318.ece?homepage=true

Mexico: Indigenous community stands up to gangs, illegal loggers

On April 15, Purepe­chas from the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty of Cherán detained a group of five log­gers who were attempt­ing to trans­port ille­gal­ly-logged tim­ber from their land.

On April 15, Purepe­chas from the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty of Cherán detained a group of five log­gers who were attempt­ing to trans­port ille­gal­ly-logged tim­ber from their land.

Hop­ing to turn the log­gers in, the Purepe­chas lat­er informed local author­i­ties about what had hap­pened. But, two hours after doing so, a police car arrived in the com­mu­ni­ty with two pick-ups that were occu­pied by more than a dozen heav­i­ly-armed men.

The armed men pro­ceed­ed to open fire on the com­mu­ni­ty, seri­ous­ly injur­ing one per­son, Euge­nio Sánchez Tiandón, who was shot in the head and remains in a coma.

Fol­low­ing the attack, the Purepecha, with few oth­er options, declared an emer­gency “state of siege” and closed off all access points to the com­mu­ni­ty.

The self-imposed state of siege is ongo­ing.

Accord­ing to a May 5 report by Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al, on April 23, “the com­mu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed the five ille­gal log­gers to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Fed­er­al Attor­ney General’s Office (Procu­raduría Gen­er­al de la Repúbli­ca, PGR) along with 140 com­plaints from res­i­dents.”

Four days lat­er, anoth­er group of ille­gal log­gers tried to gain access to the com­mu­ni­ty; but they, too, were stopped by the Purepecha.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the com­mu­ni­ty came under fire once more–only this time, the armed men did­n’t have a police escort. Two com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, Pedro Juárez Urbina and Arman­do Hernán­dez Estra­da, were killed in the attack.

It has been over three weeks since the two Purepecha men were killed on April 27; how­ev­er, the com­mu­ni­ty reports that warn­ings of reprisals have been sent to com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers by the armed gang, which is believed to have ties to the main drug car­tel in Michoa­can.

Accord­ing to the very lat­est reports on the “Cher­an rebel­lion” as it’s been labelled by the press, the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment has sent troops and fed­er­al police to patrol the out­skirts of the com­mu­ni­ty; some­thing the Purepecha had been call­ing for since the state of siege began. But it remains to be see if they’ll actu­al­ly do any­thing.

Pro­vid­ing some back­ground, a com­mu­ni­ty spokesper­son recent­ly told reporters that Cher­an has been under attack for the past three years. Speak­ing on the con­di­tion that he remain anony­mous, the spokesper­son said that, since 2008, a total of nine peo­ple have been killed and five oth­ers have been dis­ap­peared.

In that same amount of time, Ille­gal log­gers have defor­est­ed near­ly 80 per­cent of the region’s 30,000-acre for­est. “But dur­ing the past year, the groups seem to be sup­port­ed by orga­nized crime groups,” the spokesper­son said.

Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEHuoEdI1Kc

Grangemouth Biomass Protesters ‘Block Port’

16.5.11
Four peo­ple have been arrest­ed in a protest against a pro­posed bio­mass pow­er sta­tion at Grange­mouth docks.

Twen­ty pro­test­ers from Action Against Agro­fu­els blocked both the access roads to the port, but police said South Shore Road had now been reopened.

16.5.11
Four peo­ple have been arrest­ed in a protest against a pro­posed bio­mass pow­er sta­tion at Grange­mouth docks.

Twen­ty pro­test­ers from Action Against Agro­fu­els blocked both the access roads to the port, but police said South Shore Road had now been reopened.

The group said the wood-burn­ing pow­er sta­tion would threat­en forests and wors­en cli­mate change.

Forth Ener­gy has said it would use sus­tain­ably sourced wood that was a by-prod­uct of the tim­ber indus­try.

The part­ner­ship with Forth Ports and Scot­tish and South­ern Ener­gy wants to cre­ate four plants in Scot­land at Dundee, Rosyth, Grange­mouth and Lei­th.

Cen­tral Scot­land Police said the activists had been arrest­ed for caus­ing an obstruc­tion at South Shore Road.
‘Nec­es­sary action’

Some of the demon­stra­tors locked them­selves to scaf­fold­ing tripods in the road to block the entrances to the port.

Pro­test­er John­ny Agnew, from Glas­gow, said: “Vast renew­able ener­gy sub­si­dies, paid through all our fuel bills, are being offered for big bio­mass, which caus­es more cli­mate change, more defor­esta­tion and more pol­lu­tion. We are effec­tive­ly sub­si­dis­ing eco­cide.”

The group said there was “noth­ing sus­tain­able” about cre­at­ing new demand for wood and that the plant would lead to health prob­lems because of air pol­lu­tion.

http://bio-fuel-watch.blogspot.com/2011/05/direct-action-against-forth-energy.html

Hundreds of Brazilian Indians set up protest camp in capital

14 May 2011
Over 700 Brazil­ian Indi­ans from more than 230 tribes set up camp last week in the country’s cap­i­tal city, Brasília, to urge the gov­ern­ment to respect their rights.

14 May 2011
Over 700 Brazil­ian Indi­ans from more than 230 tribes set up camp last week in the country’s cap­i­tal city, Brasília, to urge the gov­ern­ment to respect their rights.

Out­raged by the advance of large scale infra­struc­ture projects which threat­en to dev­as­tate their land, the Indi­ans marched, chant­ed and debat­ed in the streets, call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to act fast to pre­vent this destruc­tion.

The Madeira dams, cur­rent­ly being built in the Ama­zon, are putting immense pres­sure on uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans’ lands as migrants are arriv­ing in the area and defor­esta­tion is increas­ing. The uncon­tact­ed Indi­ans rely on their for­est to sur­vive and any form of con­tact with out­siders could be fatal for them.

The Belo Monte dam planned for the Xin­gu riv­er in the Ama­zon threat­ens the liveli­hoods of thou­sands of trib­al peo­ple, who have not giv­en their con­sent for the dam to be built.

The pro­tes­tors stat­ed in an open let­ter, ‘We will not allow our Moth­er Earth, which we have been pre­serv­ing for mil­len­nia and which con­tributes to the social and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our coun­try and of the world, to be torn away from us yet again, or destroyed irra­tional­ly’.

Last month, the Inter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Human Rights called on the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment to sus­pend the Belo Monte project, but Brazil’s Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff has refused to do so, and ordered an imme­di­ate break in the country’s rela­tion­ship with the Com­mis­sion.

Guarani Indi­ans at the camp warned that the gov­ern­ment is pro­ceed­ing extreme­ly slow­ly with its pro­gram to map out the tribe’s ances­tral land, and that mean­while, thou­sands of Guarani are liv­ing in over­crowd­ed reserves or on the sides of main roads.

The cur­rent boom in sug­ar­cane and ethanol pro­duc­tion is of par­tic­u­lar con­cern to the Guarani, some of whom have seen their lands tak­en over by sug­ar­cane plan­ta­tions.

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing on ener­gy giant Shell and its joint ven­ture part­ner in Brazil, Cosan, to stop using sug­ar­cane plant­ed on the Guarani’s ances­tral land to pro­duce ethanol.

Patagonian Hydroelectric Project Approval Spurs Protests in Chile

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.

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.

—–

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.

2010 protest