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Chile: The people of Mehuin again oppose
the Celco pulp company
The coastal village of Mehuin
is located in the Northeastern zone of the Province of Valdivia,
on the borders of the ninth and tenth regions of Chile. It is
a small bay, fed by the river Lingue, and surrounded by the mountains
of the coastal cordillera. It has a population of approximately
1,700 people, but co-inhabits with 13 communities comprising some
3,000 Mapuche-Lafkenche indigenous peoples who come down to the
village to sell their products and to get supplies. Some
very well defined sectors also exist in Mehuin, with their own
cultural characteristics. One of these is that of the artisan
fisher-folk who inhabit the sector of the village known as “la
Caleta”, near the Lingue River, where most of the daily life of
the village takes place.
Some 10 years ago, the Chilean
Pulp Company, Celco S.A. began to carry out some secret studies
with the idea of installing a mill and building a pipeline to
take 900 litres per second of liquid industrial effluents to the
bay. The project was approved in May 1996
and the environmental resolution granted Celco the possibility
of choosing between two alternatives for its effluents: dumping
them in the river and installing a more modern system or, dumping
them in the sea some 35 kilometres away.
For the company, the cheapest
alternative was to dump its effluents in the sea, but there they
came across opposition to the project from the community of Mehuin.
Right from the start the people of Mehuin opposed the implementation
of the necessary studies, convinced that they would only ensure
the approval and implementation of the project and consequently
pollute the sea. A campaign was organized to reject the use of
the sea as a dump for polluting chemicals, known as NO TO THE
PIPELINE.
Faced by this opposition, Celco
reacted with the same arguments that had been used in other conflicts
in the country. The first thing was to impose the project as something
already decided by the authorities and to try to frighten the
community by telling them that opposition was a crime. Abuse of
power and authoritarianism were used as strong and valid tools
by the company. The second step was to convince people of the
benefits of the project, discrediting any argument or group opposing
it, particularly environmental groups that were accused of being
terrorists and manipulators. The third step was to offer money,
an easy task for a project investing US$ 1,400 million. A new
school was offered, working implements to the fisher-folk, even
a wharf to cover the pipeline as it entered the sea. The company
also offered money for some of the leaders if the conflict was
ended. Furthermore, Celco relied on the power of some of the media
aligned with the company and the Valdivian local newspaper became
the strongest defender of the project.
The government attempted to
impose the project as a decision taken by technical teams and
any opposition by the community had to be made in the framework
of existing legislation. For the government, what was important
was to reaffirm its policy of economic growth and this meant supporting
all private investments and the forestry/pulp model was part of
this process.
Celco attempted entry by land
and by sea into Mehuín in order to carry out the studies, but
found an organized community that had managed to make a major
part of public opinion aware of the issue. The Government’s action
was laid open to the country and part of the international community,
which looked on with concern at what was going on in the environmental
and indigenous conflicts and that was able to witness the strong
repression carried out in some Mapuche areas. Faced with imminent
defeat, the company and the Government negotiated a way out of
the conflict: to approve the project with the initial alternative
proposed in the first project, that of discharging effluents into
the River Cruces using a more modern treatment that would ensure
minimal pollution.
However, shortly after the
pulp mill started its activities, the Valdivians started smelling
dreadful odours, which led to a series of complaints. Worse still,
a silent threat descended down the River Cruces. It was a chemical
mixture comprising heavy metals, sulphates and organochloride
compounds, fed daily by one million litres of liquid industrial
waste, flooding the waters of the Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary
(30 kilometres down river from the pulp mill), causing the death
and migration of thousands of black-necked swans.
The environmental crisis was
brought to the attention of thousands of inhabitants of the province
and of the country. After months of mobilisations, the then President
of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, suggested the “solution” to the crisis:
dumping the effluents from Celco into the sea.
Once again, – having won the
first hand over the country’s most powerful economic group and
over the idea of national development which, in a simplistic way,
considers that the country’s growth requires the sacrifice of
a few, although this may imply the death of some of the country’s
small ecosystems – the inhabitants of Mehuin are ready for resistance.
Their objective is still that of avoiding pollution of their waters
and thus saving their sole source of subsistence. They are convinced
that the submission of an Environmental Impact Assessment by a
large economic corporation such as Celco, is enough to achieve
its approval, and therefore they are prepared to prevent it being
implemented in their area. The principle of prevention and
the possibility of reversing a decision taken by the authorities
using mechanisms of citizen participation are nil. Historically,
only 4 per cent of the projects submitted to that management instrument
have been rejected and of those approved, only 25 % are submitted
to very minor control. It is therefore not overbold to conclude
that Environmental Impact Assessments only contain declarations
of intention that in most cases will not be fulfilled.
It is in this context that
the community of Mehuín awoke on 17 August with the siren set
off by the observers on the hills, announcing the arrival of the
vessels to the place where Celco was to start its studies.
Two tugs hired by the company arrived in the proximity of Punta
Chanchán, escorted by the patrol vessels “Chiloé” and “Antofagasta”
of the Chilean Navy and a warship, with over one hundred marines
on board and among them, some hooded men and zodiac boats, ready
for action.
Twenty minutes later the fisher-folk’s
boats had arrived at the site to face this threat. Thirty more
launches from Queule, at the south of the Ninth Region also arrived,
opposing the pipeline. The public agents shot at the fisher-folk’s
boats on several occasions, all of which has been duly recorded
on film. In the afternoon, following the staunch opposition of
the fisher-folk, the two tugboats retreated to the north and the
Navy ships returned to Corral and Valdivia.
The president of the Mehuin
Fisher-folk’s Association, Joaquín Vargas, stated that they were
defending the source of employment of over 400 families who were
making a living from fishing. “We are defending the right to work
in a pollution-free environment. As is set out in the Constitution,
the State is responsible for safeguarding the heritage of all
the Chilean people.”
According to Vargas, the environmental
impact assessment does not involve any guarantees for the fisher-folk
as the State always ends up by approving it. “Where pulp
mills are in operation with Environmental Impact Assessments,
the results are there for all to see. Nearby we can see this in
Valdivia in the Cruces River. There, there used to be swans that
could fly, we fisher-folk do not have wings to fly.”
Article based on information
from:“El conflicto de Mehuín”, José Araya Cornejo,
http://www.wri-irg.org/nonviolence/nvse23-es.htm; and information
sent by Vladimir Riesco Bahamondes, Acción por los Cisnes, e-mail:
riesco@surnet.cl and by
Lucio Cuenca, Observatorio Latinoamericano de Conflictos Ambientales,
e-mail: “Segundo intento de la empresa por iniciar estudios en
la zona. Con presencia de buque de guerra y marinos encapuchados
Celco no pudo iniciar estudio para ducto al mar”, Eliab Viguera,
OLCA.
(Video
in: http://www.mehuin-celco.blogspot.com/)
