Save the Ngabe people..Stop the Dam!

On Friday, May 18th a group of Ngabes and solidarists hiked to the construction site of the Barro Blanco dam on the Tabasara River.  They were met with tear gas, bombs and live fire.  The indigenous group was unarmed and outnumbered, 300 to 50.  One man was wounded from a nearby explosion.

“Yesterday was war. [Martinelli] is massacring our people.  He killed one, he killed another and yesterday he nearly killed again.  If we killed one of theirs we would be in trouble, but they kill one of ours and deny it,” Rogelio Rodriquez, a prominent Ngabe community member said.

A group Ngabe men blockading a construction bridge that
crosses the Tabasara River in the Veraguas Province, Panama

Again on Saturday, May 19th the group attempted a second time to block and occupy the dam construction site and they were yet again met by an overwhelming number of riot police.  The protesters had enough time to block the bridge with logs and stones before the police arrived, but the blockade was not enough to keep the police on the other side of the river.  The police force shot tear gas and live bullets at the unarmed Ngabes for close to an hour until everyone retreated into the hills.

The people of the Ngabe-Bugle Comarca have been fighting against the Barro Blanco Hydroelectric Project for 13 years.  If the dam is constructed it will displace thousands of people and destroy acres of rainforest.  Toribio Garcia, one of the leaders of the current movement to occupy the dam site, says that they “will keep struggling until the end, until the dam project is canceled.”

Ngabe people running from tear gas bombs on May 19th

“We come unarmed and they come with so much,” Celio Guerra says, President of the Traditional Ngabe-Bugle General Congress, “Martinelli’s police force is trained in Colombia, in Israel and at the School of the Americas.  There is so much military force in Panama, they could be protecting all the forests but instead they are working for Monsanto, George Bush, Texas, not for us, the people.”

Tabasara River, downstream of the projected dam.

The Ngabe people are “environmentalists more than anything,” Garcia says, “We take care of and protect the nature, rivers, animals and ourselves.  We need this river to survive.”

The dam is being constructed by a Panamanian construction company, GENISA, created specifically for the construction of hydroelectric plants.   The Barro Blanco dam is being funded by development banks including the Dutch FMO, the German DEG, and the Central American BCIE.

Everyone living on the banks of the river downstream of the dam has been told to abandon their homes.  They have been coerced into signing resettlement agreements and told that if they do not right now, they forfeit the measly price GENISA is offering them for their land.

Leftover graffiti from the February protests

Silvia Carrera, the cacique general of the comarca, continues to negotiate with the government. Celio Guerra, says that for him “the cacique does not exist.”  Guerra says that “the government is paying Ngabe-Bugle officials to negotiate their way.”

Carmencita Tedman MacIntyre, a seasoned environmental activist, agrees with Guerra.  MacIntyre feels that the people have been “betrayed by the cacique. It is a whole scam to mislead the people yet the project is advancing rapidly.”

The Barro Blanco construction site May 2012

The government led by President Martinelli is pushing for hydroelectric projects all over the country.  “Energy is more expensive in Panama than many other countries even though we have so many hydroelectric plants,” Garcia says, “the government does it to sell and to make more money than they already have.  We will not benefit from the dam but we will all be affected.”

locaonga | May 22, 2012 at 1:57 pm | Tags: barro blanco, indigenous protest, ngabe-bugle protest, ngobe-bugle dam, ngobe-bugle protest, panama dam issues, panama hydroelectric, panama indigenous, panama represas | Categories: Indigenous | URL: http://wp.me/pOMXR-7t