Amazon Indians refuse to end occupation of building site

Amazon Indians on Friday refused to end their occupation of a building site that has partially paralysed work on the world’s third largest hydroelectric dam for two days.

Some 200 people from various indigenous groups occupied one of three construction sites of the controversial Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River on Thursday, halting work by 3,000 of the 22,000 workers on the project.

They are demanding that the Brazilian government hold prior consultations with indigenous peoples before building dams that affect their lands and livelihoods, an issue that has sparked years of protests against the Belo Monte dam.

The latest protest includes 100 Munduruku Indians from the Tapajos river, the only major river in the Amazon basin with no dams but where the government plans to build a dozen to meet Brazil’s rapidly rising electricity consumption.

The government sent police and soldiers to the Tapajos River earlier this year to guard geologists and biologists whose work surveying the area for a dam was opposed by the Munduruku.

“We indigenous peoples are uniting in the fight against the hydroelectric dams because our problem over there is the same as theirs here,” a leader of the group, Valdemir Munduruku, said by telephone from Belo Monte.

“We are united by the disrespect of the government, the lack of consultations, the destruction of our lands,” he said.