The construction of more destructive dams continues to threaten the planet.  The World Bank (WB), the Central American Economic Integration Bank (BCIE in Spanish) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in alliance with national governments, continue to plan juicy profits from these mega-projects for the benefit of large transnational companies.  These promoters of privatizing water and dams are creating fear and false alarms regarding the electrical energy crisis.  If these are not put into their hands there will be outages, economic crises, high energy costs and poor service.  They promote the idea that electrical energy under their management will not have electrical outages, they will lower prices, the electricity will be of good quality and they will give good service.  But the opposite has occurred in the countries that have privatized this sector.

In the “Don’t be a Prisoner of the Dams.  A Manual to Better Understand and Combat this Plague”, manual that CIEPAC will release next October, it is stated that rate of dam construction continues to grow.  According to the World Dams Commission (WDC), dams in the Northern Hemisphere of the American Continent  cover 15 countries from Panama to Canada including part of the Caribbean (Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Puerto Rico).

At the beginning of the 21^st century, this region had more than 8 000 dams of which almost 40% are multi-purpose.  Almost 80% of these are in the United States.  Hydro-electricity accounts for more than 50% of the electrical energy supply in 7 countries including Canada, Honduras and Guatemala.  Canada has the highest hydro-electric generation in the world and together with the United States produces more than 25% of said generation.

The peak of the construction of large dams in this region was in the sixties when it reached an average of 180 per year.  In the nineties, their construction fell by 40% mainly in the United States where the rate of dam closings surpassed the number of building permits (more than 400 dams, the majority of them small dams, were dismantled).

After the signing of the free trade agreements and with this the privatization of water, electrical energy, gas and petroleum and the elimination of tariff barriers, companies migrated south in the form of mining, paper, maquiladora (factory), textiles and auto-parts industries, etc..  This resulted in an increased demand for energy in nations where there are no environmental controls and where land and labour are cheapest.

The Southern Hemisphere of the American Continent as we refer to it is the region that includes the following 12 countries:  Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guyana and Surinam.  At the beginning of the 21^st century there were 979 large dams in South America of which 60% were in Brazil.  Dam construction peaked in the sixties and seventies when 17 new dams were inaugurated each year.  Hydro-electricity supplies more than 50% of the electrical energy in 10 nations in the region.  For example, 90% of the electricity in Brazil comes from dams, 73% in Venezuela, 68% in Ecuador, 74% in Peru, 100% in Paraguay, 57% in Chile and 68% in Colombia. 

Now let’s look at the middle region – the Meso-America of Plan Puebla Panama (PPP).  This region contains 8 countries:  Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico.  Although almost of of their rivers have been dammed, a new project threatens them:  the Electrical Integration System for Central America (SIEPAC in Spanish) which has as its goal the inter-connection of all of the electrical systems into just one network with just one set of regulations and standards for the region and all this with financing from the IDB and the BCIE that will worsen the external debt of these countries that are already very poor.  Deregulation in order to have regional regulation in the hands of large transnational corporations over national sovereignties and privatization of the entire energy and water sector.

Based on numerous sources researched by CIEPAC, there are documented plans for at least 340 dams in the PPP region threatening about 170 rivers among them the largest and most beautiful rivers in the region; a large quantity of biodiversity of plant, tree, animal and fish species unique in the world. Hundreds of archaeological sites, scared places and cemeteries are also threatened as are fertile lands, infrastructure (highways, schools, clinics, houses, bridges, etc.) and thousands and thousands of campesinos and indigenous peoples.  The construction of these dams will worsen the negative social and environmental impacts.

Given this the people resist and are paid with beatings, persecution, jailings, murders, threats and displacement.  And under the weight of the lies, the deception, the traps and other actions by the companies and the government, the people continue to march and to mobilize; in meetings, conferences and strengthening networks and organizations to defend the life of all in the search for alternatives.

SOME PRECURSORS TO THE ANTI-DAM STRUGGLES

The precursors go back to the 17^th century when Scottish fishermen tried to destroy a recently built dam.  In 1910, John Muir tried without success to bring public opinion to bear against a dam in the United States.  During the entire 20^th century the people affected by and threatened by dams strongly opposed them although for decades they were isolated protests without international solidarity hence they went unnoticed.

Beginning in the fifties, dam construction accelerated in the world and response to them was each time more organized.  Then they managed to stop two dams in the Grand Canyon and the Echo Park dam on the Colorado River which would have been 173 meters high.  Later, in the Philippines the resistance of indigenous groups to four dams on the “Little River” between 1973 and 1977 lead the World Bank to retire the project.

The protests gathered more public visibility until the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties.  The WB cancelled the Sardar Sarovar project in India in 1993 and later the Arun III project in Nepal in 1995.  In Argentina a referendum was held in 1996 and 80% of those to be affected voted “No” to the construction of the Corpus and the Itacua dams, which would have affected the indigenous Guarani communities, on the Parana River. 

In Thailand more than 5 000 people affected by the Pak Mun dam occupied the dam in protest in 1999.  In Brazil the struggle against one dam resulted in the company and all of its machinery being expelled from the zone.  In Brazil the Santa Isabel dam was stopped in 2003 – a dam that would have displaced 7 000 people and flooded jungles and 140 archaeological sites.

In Mexico, indigenous and campesino communities managed to stop the construction of the Itzantun dam in Chiapas in 2004.  In Oaxaca they stop the expansion of the Benito Juarez hydro-electric dam and in the state of Guerrero they continue to resist the La Parota dam and they have managed to stop the machinery.  New projects arise and with them the Mexican Movement for those Affected by Dams and in Defence of the Rivers.  In Guatemala they have begun a process to demand reparation for the Chixoy dam.  In this same year in China, projects to build 13 dams on the Un river (one of the merely two rivers in the country without dams) have been suspended.

In the 21^st century many struggles and resistance movements threaten.  The First International Conference of People Affected by Dams and its Allies held in Curitiba, Brazil (1997), and the “International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life” held every March 14^th, were taken over by other processes that formed in the following years.  The new century initiated the Second Continental Gathering Against Dams in Argentina (2002) and the Second International Conference of People Affected by Dams and its Allies in Thailand (2003).  The networks began to weave together in struggle and resistance for the defence of human rights and the search for a sustainable development.

The isolated resistance found in Meso-America (Honduras, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica and Nicaragua) managed to organize itself under the First Meso-American Forum Against Dams (2002) and the following year the forum was held in Honduras and later in El Salvador (2004) strengthening alliances and strategies.  Movements never seen before March 14^th began to be visible.  From the Meso-American forums the Peten Front Against Dams (2002), the Chiapas Front Against Dams (2003) and the Mexican Movement Against Dams and in Defence of Rivers (2004) arose and began to consolidate resistance in the states of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Puebla among other entities and countries.

In Honduras many organizations’ resistance struggles were strengthened among them the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH in Spanish).  In Costa Rica the Costa Rican Federation for Environmental Conservation (FECON in Spanish) and other organizations maintain a large resistance to dam projects.  In El Salvador the Lower Lempa Group is strengthening its resistance while in Panama organizations such as the Accompaniment Team to the Struggle Against the Dams of Caritas Panama, the Kuna indigenous communities and the Tenth of April Movement in Defence of the Tabasara River (M-10) are strengthening their struggle.

In South America the struggle and the resistance continue.  In Colombia they are working against the Urra dam.  In Bolivia they are working against the Pavas, Arrazayal and the Bala dams on the Beni River which would flood indigenous territories.  In Brazil, the government is promoting the construction of 8 dams on the Rocantis and the Araguaia Rivers, one of the world’s richest ecosystems with respect to biodiversity.  Here, the IDB would lend resources to Belgium’s Tractebel company, which the inhabitants have been pressuring through marches and other actions.  On the Tibagi River, there are plans to build four dams, which will flood the last humid jungle areas on the Atlantic coast as well as indigenous lands and 40 archaeological sites.  All of these cases are merely a small example of the resistance on the continent.  Now we present the text of the Carolina Declaration of the recent Third Meso-American Forum Against Dams:

THE CAROLINA DECLARATION

In the municipality of Carolina, department of San Miguel, El Salvador,, 536 people affected by and at risk of displacement due to the construction of dams and projects to privatize water as promoted by governments, transnational companies and financial institutions, from the Meso-American region and other international communities, we have come together at the Third Meso-American Forum Against Dams to share our struggles and problems and to build strategies to defend our lives.  For three days, we, women and men from Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize and Mexico, have explained the reasons for which our countries, the indigenous peoples, campesinos and civilians are alarmed by the uncontrolled growth of dams which convert us into victims of the famous neoliberal development.

Considering that:

The hydro-electric and water privatization projects continue to grow and the governments of our countries fail to take into account the cry for help of the people directly and indirectly affected who have demonstrated opposition to the neoliberal policies that work against nature, our peoples’ sovereignty and the existence of life itself.

The miserable methods and strategies used to trick, divide and threaten people who refuse to die end up being the same indicating that we have a common enemy that as always tries to hide itself under the dark cover of supposed development, false job creation policies, the common good and the generation of clean energy as an alternative to environmental contamination.

The lack of attention to our accusations, protests and the label of “ignorants” that they attribute to us simply because we do not agree with the criminal ideas of the transnational empires and those who would sell nations, are trying the patience of our Meso-American people, who insist on resisting moving from their lands, their sacred sites, their rivers and who resist the irrational changing of their social, cultural and natural living systems.

Neither the hydro-electric generating companies nor the governments are interested in spreading an education campaign to reduce the consumption of electricity; on the contrary, they encourage the people to consume energy, constantly and without consideration, like one more bit of merchandise circulating in the world’s capital market.

Given this: Having followed legal paths and peaceful methods to defend our fundamental rights to life, without having obtained positive responses to our petitions,

We demand:

-          The cancellation of all hydro-electric and water privatization projects in all of Meso-America, the reasons for which are many but most importantly is the defence of our lands, our rivers and the right of future generations to have free access to the same.  Water is a vital necessity not a commodity.

-          We demand that governments develop programs and policies that create a more humane and real development, one that corresponds to people’s needs and not to international interests and policies.  Hydro-electric projects cause too many negative impacts and their creation is not justified.  New renewable sources exist and we demand their implementation taking into account as a priority the opinion of the people.

-          The immediate freeing of our Honduran peers, Marcelino Miranda and Leonardo Miranda, both from the community of Montaña Verde, department of  Gracias, who have been unjustly condemned for defending their rights and demanding respect for their territories, a situation which led to us losing our beloved friend Carlos Reyes in 2003.  We will not tolerate another inhumane repression at the hands of the Honduran government, which we condemn and hold responsible in its entirety.

-          We also enthusiastically denounce the aggression suffered by our friend, Marcelino Tiul Caal, who was wounded by gunfire on March 14^th during the protests carried out in celebration of the International Day Against Dams in the department of El Peten in Guatemala.

We conclude:

1. That given the global investment that is coming down upon us with these projects, the response of the Meso-American people will be equal or greater resistance and struggle. 

2. We are not struggling for money nor ideals nor passing things but rather for the life and love of our rivers.  We live on water, land and the coexistence of our cultures.  Without our natural resources and our lands, we are converted into history, we are made extinct.

3. We want development without imposition.  A development that is humane and sustainable, constructive in which the life and the caring of Meso-America and the entire world are respected.  Development should be of the people, by the people and for the people.

4. We call on the governments of our countries to reflect and to consider the true pact that they have before their people because deterioration, exploitation and the implementation of these projects act against the lives of these very people.

5. A cry of resistance and for organization against all types of dams, privatizations, trade agreements and things that mean the kidnapping and displacement of the only thing that still belongs to our beloved Meso-America, is made by our indigenous, campesino and civilian people. They stole our gold during colonial times but they will not take our water or anything else.

6. The people should not pay the debt of these projects; they should not pay for their own death. 

7. The Meso-American Movement Against Dams is committed to being a decisive entity in the fight against all attempts to rob the natural, cultural and territorial riches from Mexico to Panama.

Dated the 17^th of July, 2004, Carolina, department of San Miguel, El Salvador.
Rívers for life.  No more dams.

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