|
|
CHILE: Environmentalists Withdraw Backing from Government
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO, Apr 25 (IPS) - Twenty-three environmental groups in Chile withdrew their support from President Michelle Bachelet, complaining that she had failed to live up to an agreement they had signed with her during her election campaign.
They also accused the centre-left government of persecution against the environmental movement.
Environmentalists "have the right to take the decisions that they please," government spokesman Francisco Vidal told foreign journalists Friday. "But this administration, like all of the governments of the (ruling Coalition for Democracy, in office since 1990), has achieved or is attempting to achieve an intelligent balance between the need for development and productive growth and conservation and environmental sustainability."
The 23 organisations that signed the "Chagual Agreement" in late 2005 with Bachelet announced Wednesday that they would no longer back her administration, which they say flagrantly violated the promise not to consider nuclear energy as an option.
But the head of the National Environment Commission (CONAMA), Ana Lya Uriarte, said Thursday that the president would fully comply with the Chagual Agreement and that there has merely been "a difference of interpretation" between the government and the environmentalists. She also said "the government’s door has always been open to" the country’s environmental groups.
Vidal said that "If the ecologists believe that by abandoning the Coalition for Democracy and moving closer to the right-wing opposition they will obtain environmental sustainability, may God help them."
The end of the Chagual Agreement "does not mean we have broken off relations with the government. We will evaluate everything on a case by case basis, but I foresee a scenario of greater conflict over the environment," the president of the Institute of Political Ecology, Manuel Baquedano, told IPS.
The activist believes that until Bachelet’s term ends in two years, "the government’s desire to swiftly approve productive projects, even if they have environmental problems," will clash with the action of environmentalists and citizens who want the impact of investments to be fully assessed and who are opposed to environmentally unsustainable initiatives.
Since Bachelet, a socialist, took office in March 2006, there have been relatively few conflicts over environmental issues, thanks to the agreement signed with the president, "even though problems were worse than in previous years," said Baquedano.
But that situation is now likely to change, said the environmentalists who spoke to IPS, although they all clarified that their organisations would continue working with the government on questions that they see as necessary.
Baquedano believes the environmental groups’ "opposition" will chiefly be felt with respect to air pollution in Santiago, since forecasts indicate that conditions will be particularly bad in the coming southern hemisphere winter, which is "smog season."
The Chagual Agreement was comprised of 10 points, ranging from the modernisation of the country’s environmental institutions to commitments not to consider the possibility of nuclear energy or allow the production of genetically modified crops. (Chile presently only allows transgenic crops for seed multiplication and export purposes, but not for domestic use).
According to the environmentalists, clear progress was only made on the first point, thanks to the efforts of Uriarte. In June, the government will submit to Congress draft laws that will create an Environment Ministry (to replace CONAMA) as well as an environmental inspectorate.
The activists also welcomed the drafting of a National Strategy for the Integrated Management of River Basins, which is pending final government approval.
But they say no progress was made on the other pledges made by Bachelet, like the establishment of an environmental information system, including environmental indicators, to support government accountability and public information, and a fiscal policy aimed at achieving environmental sustainability, as well as the expansion of the fund that supports educational institutions and civil society organisations.
Nor are there any signs of the promised environmental impact studies on the multiplication of GM seeds and the protection of glaciers, they complain.
The split between the government and environmental groups began to emerge when the Bachelet administration, feeling the pressure from the country’s energy crisis, announced in March 2007 that she was setting up a presidential commission, the "Working Group on Nuclear Power", for which the government would earmark 100 million pesos (218,000 dollars) to research state-of-the-art technology in the industry.
Baquedano said that although some of the environmental groups wanted to declare at the time that the Chagual Agreement had been broken, a decision was reached to accept the explanations offered by Bachelet, who said that nuclear energy would not be adopted during her administration and that the commission would merely carry out the studies needed to allow the next government to make an informed decision on the question.
But the final catalyst came when Energy Minister Marcelo Tokman himself announced on Mar. 27 that two million dollars would be allotted to studies assessing the possibility of adopting nuclear energy in Chile. The announcement was made during the "Nuclear Energy: An Option for Chile" seminar, financed by foreign companies and sponsored by the government.
The president of the Sustainable Chile Programme, Sara Larraín, said these actions show that "the government is moving in the direction opposite to the agreement" signed in 2005.
In Baquedano’s view, the president gave in to pressure from other leaders in the governing coalition, like former president and current Senator Eduardo Frei (1994-2000), who is in favour of nuclear energy, thus putting an end to any possibility of the "citizen government" that Bachelet had promised in her campaign.
"The underlying problem is that Bachelet’s plan for a ‘citizen government’, within the framework of which the Chagual Agreement was set, has gone up in smoke. It has become clear that the second half of her term will belong to a ‘political party government’, in which there is no space for social movements," he said.
Before declaring that the Chagual Agreement was broken, several prominent environmental activists had complained that they had been under surveillance by the government intelligence apparatus, which they said was aimed at intimidating them and curtailing their opposition to high-profile investment projects.
The environmentalists say they have been tailed by the police and that their phones have been tapped. They also mention suspicious robberies in which several organisations have had computers stolen in the last few years.
In response to a question from IPS, Bachelet’s spokesman dismissed such complaints, saying sarcastically that "I recommend they (the environmentalists) go to the forest without worrying. We are in democracy; maybe some of them got stuck in the (1973-1990 military dictatorship of General Augusto) Pinochet."
But Deputy Interior Minister Felipe Harboe recently said it was necessary to increase monitoring and oversight of environmental groups, and especially of their financing, which drew howls of outrage from activists, who say they act strictly within the law.
If Interior Ministry officials continue to make "intimidating comments," environmentalists will consider turning to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, said Larraín.
"In Fundación Terram we believe that the government’s failure to live up to its promises with regard to the environment goes beyond the points included in the Chagual Agreement," the environmental group’s executive secretary, Flavia Liberona, told IPS.
The government is incapable of responding to the country’s environmental challenges due to the lack of well-defined environmental policies, she argued.
(END/2008)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is RSS?
