Subject: Pehuenche Demand Money from Power Company
The following is an article from the Winter 1998 issue of Native Americas, published by the Akwe:kon Press at Cornell University. For more information on how to stay informed of emerging trends that impact Native peoples throughout the hemisphere visit our website at http://nativeamericas.aip.cornell.edu.
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Pehuenche Families Demand More Money from Spanish Power Company
By Lydia Fernandez
Representatives of 83 Pehuenche families who agreed to sell their land
for the construction of the $500 million Ralco Dam Project in Chile have
demanded more compensation than was originally offered. By Lydia Fernandez
The families want Endesa, the Spanish-owned electric company planning to build the dam on the Bio-Bio River, to raise its livestock offering from $1,700 per family to $3,200 per family. They also want the company to give them $3,800 in cash for leaving their lands.
The relocation plan would move the families to the El Barco plot, further up the Bio-Bio River. The plan would cost about $19 million, including monetary support for Pehuenche families living in the area but not directly affected by the dam's construction.
The construction of the Ralco dam would flood 600 hectares, about 1,500 acres, of Pehuenche land. The cost of relocation does not include construction of homes and barns for the 400 Pehuenches who would have to be moved before the dam's 13-square-mile reservoir is filled.
The entire project is anticipated to cost $4.3 million, a figure that includes housing subsidies, employment initiatives, infrastructure construction and soil improvement plans.
But a handful of Pehuenche families refuse to sign contracts ceding their land to Endesa. They have refused to meet with Rodrigo Gonzalez, the new director of the National Indigenous Development Board (CONADI).
Project opponents said the dam will disrupt sacred burial grounds and lands protected under a 1992 Indian rights law that prohibits the sale of Indian lands without the unanimous consent of the community involved.
There are six dams planned for the Bio-Bio River. In total, they would require 1,000 Pehuenches to move-about 20 percent of the tribe.
Chilean government officials argue that the land in question in the Ralco case comes under an electric service law that allows expropriation of property and takes precedence over the Indian rights law.
Government officials dismissed the director of Chile's National Environmental Commission in 1997 after a technical review board issued a finding against the dam project. And in August, Chilean President Eduardo Frei dismissed three members of Conadi, including director Domingo Namuncura, when it appeared the board would vote against the Ralco Dam Project.
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