TerraViva United Nations

News Briefs – Tense Tug-of-War over Peru-Brazil Energy Agreement

Mar 5 2012 (IPS) - LIMA, Mar 5 2012 (IPS) – Brazil is keen to move ahead quickly with the construction of hydropower plants in neighbouring countries to supply its demand for electricity. But Peru is still stalling on an agreement between the two countries, due to a number of conflicting interests and demands.

Pakitzapango Gorge on the Ene river, homeland of the Ashaninka people and the site of a projected new dam.
Credit: Courtesy of CARE

After seven months in office, Peruvian President Ollanta Humala has not yet decided what to do with the energy agreement signed by his predecessor Alan García (2006-2011) in June 2010 with former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), to great fanfare.

Furthermore, the agreement has yet to be ratified by the Peruvian Congress.

Local resistance in the area where five hydroelectric plants are to be built under the agreement is one reason why the Humala administration has had to delay a final decision on the agreement, according to observers.

Projects like mega hydropower dams raise hackles in Peruvian society, already on edge because of anti-mining protests, most recently against the Conga gold mine in the northern region of Cajamarca which led to the declaration of a state of emergency and a cabinet reshuffle in late 2011.

The protestors’ actions have not been limited to marches and strikes. On Feb. 16, leaders of the Central Ashaninka del Río Ene (CARE), a federation representing indigenous Ashaninka communities in the Ene river valley, in Peru’s central jungle region, presented an appeal to the High Court in Lima for an injunction against Congress and the Foreign Ministry, demanding the suspension of the energy agreement with Brazil.

David Velazco, a lawyer at the Fundación Ecuménica para el Desarrollo y la Paz (FEDEPAZ), a human rights organisation, told IPS the injunction seeks to protect the constitutional rights of indigenous people, such as consultations to obtain their free, prior and informed consent for development projects in their territories, as stipulated by law.

Leaders of the Ashaninka people, who live in the Ene river valley in the central department (province) of Junín, complain that their territory would be adversely affected by the Paquitzapango hydropower project, one of five planned under the agreement with Brazil.

“The new government has not reflected deeply and seriously on the pros and cons of the agreement for the country,” César Gamboa, an environmental lawyer and head of policies for Law, Environment and Natural Resources (DAR), a civil society organisation, told IPS.

 
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