06.08.2009
Dam Affected People march for their rights in Estreito/MA
Camp is set up in front of the hydroelectric plant for the last 17 days

Around 1500 people who are camped in front of the Hydroelectric Plant of Estreito since July 21, are preparing to march towards the city of Estreito in the State of Maranhao today, August 7. They demand that companies Camargo Corrêa, Alcoa, Vale and GDF-Suez-Tractebel, owners of the dam, recognize the peasants, fishermen and indigenous people as affected and resolve the problems caused by the project. Regional leaders of the Movement of Dam Affected People affirmed that “even President Lula recognized the debt of the Brazilian State with the dam affected people. Our protest and the march are meant to transform this recognition into concrete actions that will improve our life and working conditions”.

According to data from the Movement, the dam will affect 5.000 families in twelve municipalities. However the companies recognize just 2.000 families, those with land titles and thus subject to compensation, while the rest of the affected people with professions linked to the river like fishermen, ferryboat operators, coco processors (quebradeiras de coco) etc., are ignored. In addition the indigenous peoples living nearby the river have not been included in the impact studies neither have been mentioned as affected by the project.

The dam affected people demand, amongst other points, the delimitation of aquaculture parks for the installation of breeding cages, and the installation of a processing a storage plant for their produce, collective definition of the general criteria for compensations, the creation of evaluation reports and their distribution to the families with clarification of the criteria used and updating of the existing reports which were filled by the population in 2004.

One of the coordinators of the camp mentioned that “the Estreito dam is everything that should not happen to a river, to its people and the environment. These companies symbolize the greed of capitalists for our natural resources, and on top of that they do not recognize our rights, and they use money from BNDES to transform the Tocantins river in an immense lake”. Estreito is the seventh hydroelectric dam on the Tocantins river, for which, there are another three projected.

In 2007, artists from the Movement Right Humans (Movimento Humanos Direitos) created a video where they are positioned against the dam and demand the respect of the rights of the affected population (http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=BR&v=OKEQz6JJs04). Actress Bete Mendez spoke of the disasters big projects like the Estreito dam cause. “These projects ignore the environmental and social impacts and this is a crime”.

Human rights violations in Estreito

Suez-Tractebel, the majority shareholder of the construction consortium is considered one of the worst companies of the sector with regards to the treatment of the affected populations. Owner of the Cana Brava dam in the State of Goiás, the company has also disrespected the rights of thousands of people and at the time of the construction there was no consultation process whatsoever with the local population. All the inventories and studies conducted by Tractebel at the time were done without the knowledge and participation of the affected population.

In Estreito, the construction works started in April 2007. On the same month, federal justice ordered the immediate halt of works for regarding “unsatisfactory” the environmental impact study – EIA and report – RIMA which should justify the licence conceded by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Energy Resources. The federal justice stated that the effective absence of impact studies was of “immense graveness”. That decision was annulled three months later.

The company still today does not recognize local indigenous people as affected by the project. The company is also responsible for violating the legal right of the population for complete and prior information on whether they will be displaced, what are their rights and when they will have to abandon their houses and lands.