Arquivo

In 1997, Endesa, the largest Spanish power company, responsible for the emission of 73 million tons of carbon monoxide a year into the atmosphere, was licensed to build what was to be the third largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, on Chilean soil. The river that was dammed was the Biobio river - the longest in the country - that rises in the Andes and flows into the Pacific Ocean. In May, 2004, the water starts to rise in the Ralco Valley and 70 indigenous families - who have never had access to electrical power in all of their lives - are expelled from their land and obliged to go up into the mountains and live far from the river, at an altitude of 2000 meters. The UN condemns the Endesa company for violating human rights of the pehuenche-mapuche people, but their decision is innocuous. The mapuche leaders who speak out against the situation of their people are, concomitantly, persecuted and sentenced by Chilean courts that apply to them antiterrorist laws (instituted by Pinochet) with never so much as a weapon found amongst them.