Regional Strike Paralyzes Hydroelectric Project in Colombia

19 Jan­u­ary 2012

The Region­al Move­ment for the Defense of the Ter­ri­to­ry launched a region­al strike in Huila, Colom­bia on Jan. 3 to protest the destruc­tive impacts of the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project and the enter­ing of UK-based petro­le­um com­pa­ny Emer­ald Ener­gy into the bio­di­verse moun­tain­top moor ecosys­tem of the Páramo of Miraflo­res. The move­ment, com­pro­mised of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Affect­ed by the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project (ASOQUIMBO), the Civic Com­mit­tee of West­ern Huila, com­mu­ni­ties from the Páramo of Miraflo­res and the Region­al Indige­nous Coun­cil of Huila (CRIHU), has blocked the high­way and bridge known as Paso del Cole­gio and has par­a­lyzed the con­struc­tion of the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project, coura­geous­ly push­ing the divert­ing of the Mag­dale­na Riv­er behind sched­ule while fac­ing vio­lent evci­tions by riot police and the mil­i­tary and a media black­out.

The three main demands of the strike are that the envi­ron­men­tal licens­es for the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project and Emer­ald Ener­gy be imme­di­ate­ly sus­pend­ed, pub­lic envi­ron­men­tal hear­ings be held for the project in affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties and for multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion Emge­sa to imme­di­ate­ly repair the Paso del Cole­gio Bridge and oth­er high­ways that have been dam­aged while work­ing on the Quim­bo project. Last week Colom­bi­a’s Comptroller´s Office respond­ed by open­ing a “pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tions” against the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment, the Region­al Envi­ron­men­tal Autonomous Cor­po­ra­tion (CAM) and INVIAS- High­way Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty for vio­la­tions of the envi­ron­men­tal license of the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project. In addi­tion, Govenor Cielo Gonalez of Huila, House Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Con­sue­lo Gon­za­lez de Per­do­mo and Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Lopez have all come out in sup­port of the region­al strike and the demands of the move­ment.

After two weeks of par­a­lyz­ing con­struc­tion of the dam, con­stant con­fronta­tions with secu­ri­ty from the con­struc­tion site in block­ing the entry of work­ers from both land and the riv­er, the Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment final­ly agreed to meet for an hour and a half with the com­mu­ni­ties in a meet­ing medi­at­ed by the gov­er­nor. Jan­u­ary 25 through the 31 there will be pub­lic assem­blies through­out the region where fish­er­peo­ple, agri­cul­tur­al work­ers, cat­tle ranch­ers, log­gers, pick-up truck dri­vers, sand dig­gers and con­struc­tion work­ers affect­ed by the Quim­bo will be able to present their griev­ances to rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Comptroller’s Office and the Ombuds­men Offices fol­lowed by a day of pre­sent­ing the envi­ron­men­tal and archae­o­log­i­cal impacts and the very seri­ous tec­ton­ic risk in the area of the dam. Oth­er pre­sen­ta­tions for the Paso de Cole­gio Bridge, the Paramo of Miraflo­res and oth­er regions affect­ed the bridge dam­age will be held. Fur­ther­more, on Jan. 18 there was a Judi­cial Review of the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project as a result of Vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate Alexan­der Lopez’s motion to the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment to sus­pend the divert­ing of the Mag­dale­na Riv­er to pre­vent an “irre­versible cat­a­stro­phy” until the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment present its review and response to all the cas­es pre­sent­ed on Feb­ru­ary 3. If the Quim­bo Dam is not sus­pend­ed, ASOQUIMBO is pre­pared to risk lives to occu­py the Dam Con­struc­tion site and stop it indef­i­nite­ly.

The region of the Quim­bo is rich in bio­di­ver­si­ty, includ­ing over 900 ha of Ripar­i­an for­est ecosys­tem along the river´s edge, as well as exten­sive fer­tile agri­cul­tur­al lands. Dur­ing the last four years the project has caused eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion, increased cost of liv­ing, psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­mas, and abus­es against local com­mu­ni­ties. Over 2,000 peo­ple live in the region that would be cov­ered by the 9,500 ha reser­voir, though more than 15,000 peo­ple in cen­tral Huila depend on this region for employ­ment and food pro­duc­tion.

One of the sec­tors most affect­ed by the Dam is the fish­ing indus­try. “The Quim­bo con­struc­tion site dumps a vari­ety of liq­uid and oth­er pol­lu­tion into the riv­er, before the Quim­bo a fam­i­ly could catch up to 40lb. of fish a day now a fam­i­ly is lucky if they can catch 8 lb. ad there is no way to live with that” described Miri­am Restre­po, a local fish­er­woman from Hobo at the strike. “The fish we catch can only live and feed in run­ning water and we fish­er­man do not own land, we live along the sand banks where we fish. Emge­sa does not want to com­pen­sate us because they say we won´t be affect­ed by the Quim­bo.”

The move­ment against the Quim­bo dates back to 2007 when the first envi­ron­men­tal license for the project was giv­en to the Span­ish multi­na­tion­al ener­gy com­pa­ny Emge­sa (now a sub­sidiary of Ital­ian Ener­gy giant Enel) under ques­tion­able cir­cum­stances. At th time, then-Pres­i­dent Alvaro Uribe made busi­ness deals with Emge­sa and did not include any local gov­ern­ment or the leg­is­la­ture from any say in the deci­sion mak­ing process. It was then that the Mag­dale­na Riv­er was hand­ed over to com­pa­ny as a Pub­lic Util­i­ty indef­i­nite­ly by the for­mer pres­i­dent Uribe. Since then, the envi­ron­men­tal license for the project has been changed mul­ti­ple times in nego­ti­a­tions between Emge­sa and the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment, always to cater to the demands of the com­pa­ny. When issues such as the numer­ous sen­si­tive tec­ton­ic faults with­in the region not­ed by INGEOMINAS (the State Geo­log­i­cal Insti­tute) or the unique arche­o­log­i­cal findsthat were dis­cov­ered by the Colom­bian Insti­tute of Anthro­pol­o­gy and His­to­ry (ICANH), this caused the envi­ron­men­tal license to be sus­pend­ed until an accu­rate arche­o­log­i­cal sur­vey of the area was com­plet­ed. Those deci­sions were sub­se­quent­ly revoked by the Pres­i­dent or the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment. In addi­tion,Envi­ron­men­tal Laws were changed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Uribe with less than 72 hours before his term end­ed to favor the com­pa­ny over the impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties in August 2010.

On Novem­ber 29, 2011 the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment and Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Devel­op­ment through Res­o­lu­tion 123 revoked its pri­or sus­pend­ing of the license through Res­o­lu­tion 1096 of June 14 which had been sus­pend­ed for not appro­pri­ate­ly com­pen­sat­ing landown­ers and for dis­plac­ing work­ers from pro­duc­tive farms. The new license was grant­ed stat­ing that pri­or vio­la­tions had been rec­ti­fied with­out the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment vis­it­ing the region to ver­i­fy what actions Emge­sa report­ed to the Min­istry. The License states that Emge­sa can­not buy out farms that are cur­rent­ly in pro­duc­tion, though “numer­ous farms that we worked on such as La Vir­gina, La Güi­pa and oth­ers are aban­doned in dis­ar­ray when they pre­vi­ous­ly employed up to 30 work­ers each,” explained farm­work­er Harold Segu­ra, a res­i­dent from La Jagua.

Dur­ing the last four years the farm­ers who grow tobac­co, cof­fee, cacao, day labor­ers, fish­er­men, arti­sans, log­gers, and oth­er inhab­i­tants of the region have grown and uni­fied into ASOQUIMBO, rec­og­nized both region­al­ly and nation­al­ly as a deter­mined, effec­tive and coher­ent social move­ment and as an exam­ple of com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance against a hydro­elec­tric dam project whom many believe will set prece­dents for oth­er anti-dam strug­gles in Colom­bia and else­where. As part of Nation­al Move­ment for the Defense of Ter­ri­to­ries of theMove­ment Rios Vivos, ASOQUIMBO has grown to build ties with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by dams, such as Urra I & II en Cor­do­ba, Hidrosog­amoso in San­tander and Hidroituan­go in Antio­quia.

Colom­bian Pres­i­dent Juan Manuel San­tos has placed min­ing and ener­gy pro­duc­tion as a vital “loco­mo­tive” of devel­op­ment for the coun­try that seeks to be piv­otal in the region´s infra­struc­ture cre­ation and resource extrac­tion. Caught in the path of this loco­mo­tive are hun­dreds of indige­nous, Afro-descen­dent and peas­ant com­mu­ni­ties whose ter­ri­to­ries rich in gold and oth­er met­als, coal, oil, hydro­log­i­cal resources and rich soils for agro-fuel pro­duc­tion are caught in the mid­dle of a bat­tle between the State resource extrac­tion poli­cies and their human right to self-deter­mi­na­tion. In Colom­bia, the strug­gle against the Quim­bo is the strug­gle against gold in Suarez, Cau­ca, which is also the strug­gle against oil Palm in the Montes de Maria, as it is the strug­gle against the Cer­re­jon Coal Mine in la Gua­ji­ra.

Please Sup­port the Region­al Move­ment for the Defense of the Ter­ri­to­ry by con­tact­ing Colom­bian Min­is­ter of the Envi­ron­ment Dr. Frank Pearl of the Repub­lic of Colom­bia and inform him that you sup­port the Region­al Strike and call for:

Min­is­ter Frank Pearl
fpearl@minambiente.gov.co
011 57 332 3400

-Imme­di­ate sus­pen­sion of the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project´s Envi­ron­men­tal License. Yes to Agro Eco­log­i­cal Food Secu­ri­ty Campesino Reserve!
- Imme­di­ate sus­pen­sion of the Emer­ald Energy´s Envi­ron­men­tal License in the Cer­ro Paramo de Miraflo­res.
- Emge­sa imme­di­ate­ly repair of the Paso del Cole­gio Bridge and the high­ways con­nect­ing La Pla­ta-Garzón, La Pla­ta-Tesalia-Íquira and La Pla­ta-Leti­cia.

For more infor­ma­tion about the Quim­bo Hydro­elec­tric Project:
Damming Mag­dale­na: Emge­sa Threat­ens Colom­bian Com­mu­ni­ties
The His­to­ry of the Quim­bo in Colom­bia: Dammed or Damned?
Protests against the Quim­bo Dam
Polin­iza­ciones Blog