"Endesa must definitively paralyze the Ralco dam construction"
19 September, 1999
Endesa has violated the law: this is the real cause of the Ralco dam paralyzation.
The socialist deputy, Alejandro Navarro, valued in a positive way the resolution issued by the Judge of the Sixth Civil Court of Santiago, Mario Coach, who accepted the preventive measure filed by the sisters Berta and Nicolasa Quintreman, who opposed the Ralco hydroelectric plant construction since the very beginning.
According to the MP, the paralyzation of Ralco forces the government to implement and develop the Indigenous Development Area, which should have never resided in private company activities opposed to the will of the Pehuenche people.
It is necessary to recall that there are 8 families who have not signed the barter promises yet, and that they are tenacious opponents to the project. Because of this, while the whole of the barters is not fulfilled, greater works in the zone of the Alto Bio Bio can not be accomplished.
As the Sixth Civil Court of Santiago Resolution indicates, this court orders "the suspension of the effects of the environmental authorization conceded by CONAMA to Endesa in the process of Environmental Impact Evaluation of the Ralco Hydroelectric Plant Project, through Resolution No. 010/97, dated June 6, 1997 and its modifications, only to the extent in which it affects major works or works of great magnitude, such as:
Dam works
Works of the Plant
Liaison with the Central Interconnected System through a high tension line.
Plan of resettlement of the affected communities.
According to Navarro, Endesa violated the Conama resolution, what means a fine of 500 UTM and the definitive revocation of resolution No. 10, 1997, which was only authorizing preliminary works. He added that the judgment "does not make but confirm what we had been outlining during several years: Endesa has violated the Environmental Law, the Indigenous Law and it makes an awful business upon carrying out a project that is not economically profitable".
In this regard, he requested Spain to make an evaluation of this project and expressed that "in the package of sale submitted to the Spanish, Ralco was shown to them a ‘star project', while really being a project with serious risks and deficiencies".
The socialist MP stressed that there is no doubt that the economic price of Endesa "was distorted upon considering Ralco as an assets and an investment for the future very profitable"; he added that "this has never been so, and therefore it seems that the fact of having developed Ralco before the sale of Endesa Chile has strongly depreciated the company's value".
In his opinion, it is time to tell the truth and Endesa's board will have to inform its associates of the real value of the hydroelectric plant and the real feasibility of the project.
Regarding the position to be adopted by the government on the current situation of the project, the MP indicated that the government will have "to refrain from intervening in the economic discussion that will emerge, since it is not within its functions to favor a given private productive project, something that has permanently occurred, as the strict support that the Executive has given to Ralco shows; the governmental bodies have then been converted into judge and interested party in relation to somedody else's business".
As for the electrical concession, the MP said that the Electricity and Fuel Superintendence, and particularly Juan Pablo Lorenzini, should not accept any type of pressures on the electrical servitude concessions; also, the Intendant of the VIII Region, Martin Zilic, should do the same, and he "will have to refrain from intervening in favor of Ralco, assuming a neutrality that up until now he has not had, but that in these circumstances is indispensable to have".
Source: Nizkor Int. Human Rights Team
From: nzkspain@teleline.es (Nizkor
English Service)
Nizkor Int. Human Rights Team
Derechos Human Rights
Serpaj Europe