13 July 2009 | News | Victims of climate change | Climate Justice and Energy
Small genocides
Panama: Indigenous conflict over Chan 75 continues causing controversy
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The indigenous of the Panamanian community of Charco La Pava have few protest measures left to express their rejection to the building of hydroelectric dam Chan 75.
A few days ago, the decision of not sending their children to school until the works are stopped and until after a precautionary measure issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) demanding the suspension of the works, is enforced.
Charco La Pava is 300 meters from the location selected by the company AES Changuinola to build the hydroelectric dam.
Héctor López, leader of the community, told Panamanian newspaper La Prensa that the residents of that community are concerned because the government “has ignored the ICHR measure” and claimed that there will not be dialogue with private parties until they stop the works.
The government said the ICHR’s proposal is “not very objective”, that the rapporteurs should know better the situation of the indigenous peoples living in that Panamanian region, and that the information used is from over a year ago.
Bartolome Clavero, member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, published an article on ALAI’s website a few days ago with an interesting approach to know this conflict better.
According to the author, the corporate projects promoted in different parts of Latin America, have as its most visible effect that the indigenous communities are harassed, displaced and deprived of their livelihood.
Cases like that of Charco La Pava are contemplated under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, when it refers to a state of “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. The question Clavero asks himself is the following: “Are the Americas getting ready for small genocides?”
The private promoters of Chan 75 have created a program of “participatory resettlement”, a corporate terminology that is replicated by Clavero. “Saying in this context that participatory resettlement is like consented violent dispossession or murder by suicide. (…) Who would think that such a corporate literary genre includes the attempt to commit some small genocide”.
