Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The national state of Chile keeps stepping over usů
ůand they want to see us completely assimilated to their system.
We have always been like a stone in the state shoe
because they can't make their "progress, development" so easily with us here.
And we are here because of a cause
our fathers fought for their lands and we are still in the same fight
an endless fight.
PELAL STANDS UP
My name is Ivan Reyes Alcaman, I'm leader of the Alcaman community
and president of the association of communities Ayunmapu.
We are now in Freire, to be more specific in Pelal,
also known as Quepe, in the provincial called Cautin, of the Araucania region in Chile.
We are facing this issue officially since the year 2006,
but started on 2003, when the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) began a project to build a new airport.
On January 6th the project gets into the Environmental Evaluation System,
for the citizens to discuss the project, as is indicated by the environmental laws.
There were 60 days to give technical opinionsů
...so when we heard about it, we started to gather the people of the communities,
and we presented 380 observations to the Nacional Comission of Enviroment (CONAMA)
which were answered 3 monthesů6 monthes later, and the answers weren't satisfiers at all.
Basically because the enviromental evaluation of this project was made by Arcadis Geotecnia,
that is a consulting enterprise of the Ministry of Public Works
They determined that there wasn't going to be any environmental impacts,
only on the specific spot where the runway would be.
We realized that all the studies that were used to build that report
were openly manipulated, so they could get those results.
WATER FLOODING
For example on the water studies
the airport project is planned to be built on the head of a river
from which goes out affluent that feeds others small rivers way down.
Exactly there they want to build an airport runway,
that would compress and displace the water from there and send it to the near places, which are communities.
We are not going to be able to race any small animals, neither pigs, or sheepůis going to invade the all territory.
Over those woods. Imagine now with the airport, and all that water channeledů
The water rises up to here, and it is almost inside the house.
If the water of the collaterals channels of the river is displaced, on winter we would have more than half past meter hereů
Any increment, even a few centimeters in the flow, means that the water will get into the houses,
and that wasn't evaluated in the project,
obviously on purpose to not get responsible of the impact that was going to occur in the communities
located one kilometer away from the airport runway.
SOUND CONTAMINATION
Right now you can hear the plains passing by
and that airport is far away...
but now they want to build another near here, like a kilometer or so
and the sound contamination will be a hundred percent worst.
It's absurd, because in a field or a community
noise ever reaches over the 13 db
that's the noise that birds produce
or when tractors are working it goes up to 25 db or 30 db
but never 45 db as an average inside the communities
and those results are the product of how the studies were made
by the Ministry of Public Works.
Nobody would tolerate a noise bothering until 4 or 5 in the morning
also, that noise will be there for the rest of your life
and for the next generations too.
"NO TO THE AIRPORT 'COUSE I WON'T EVEN SLEEP PEACEFULLY"
They resolved that with the airport running VS without the airport
the noise increase wouldn't exceed the 10 db
which for the north American regulations
doesn't requires any special measure to soften the impact of the inversion.
ůand you can hear the silence
WATER POLUTION
it's not that much contaminated as other rivers
is in the beginning state, lilke going to get sick the water
The airport would have a plant for serving water in it's infrastructure
and that works with "activated mod"
That's a bacterial mod that solves the garbage
and would end up into Pelal's river
Pelal is the main water source in the surroundings,
it goes throw all the communities,
and it's from where we take the water to irrigate the vegetables
that it's our main production,
and also the water for the animals.
All the serving water will end up here
The bathroom water, the kitchens water, all that...
The airport runaway it would be like a thousand meters from here, more or less
and it will bring all the serving water, I don't know what experiment they'll make,
plus the plain fuel changes, and all that into the water
there for, if the water gets contaminated we won't be able to grow any vegetables
neither feed the animals.
The productive impact would be very high
and would also contaminate the places in the communities from where we get our medicinal plants
the places where the "Long n~em" lives, the owners of some places
and all that would get contaminated by de flow into the river.
Here in Arucania, and in Chile, there is no guaranty for those treatment plants
because there are constantly denounces saying that they don't follow the right procedures
and that enterprises get rid of their disposal directly into the rivers.
That bird is called "churra'o"
those birds indicates that the water is still clean, that is alive, because they are eating things
when they disappear that means that the water is completely contaminated.
POLITIC CLIENTELISM
Our community is located in the north face of where they intend to build the airport
There are nine communities in this north face, directly involved.
Seven are against the project and two are in favor of it
To this two that are in favor, the government has given special treats throw the social programs
for them to get benefits in extraordinary ways in compares with other zones of the region.
But, as they saw the opposition of our communities, the government and the Ministry of Public Works
started to recruit farther communities
to show them through their medias as if the majority would be in favor of the project.
"HISTORICAL AGREEMENT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMUNITIES NEAR THE AIRPORTů
...Government and 16 comunities of Quepe-Pelal."
When the objective reality is that we are 14 comunities.
Seven in the north face, and seven plus that are farther and also against this project.
The Ministry of Public Works made up commissions and they came to offer:
"if you agree with our project we'll make a road to your house,
and if you agree with the airport we'll build you a barn
another would receive a store room, and another would get it's fence fixedů
and people fellů and people who didn't have houses would get oneů
and people fell in that game, unfortunately they fell in that play.
Nowadays a few ones got those things, and the others are still waiting.
What they did was to make small groups, and talk to them privately.
That is illegal. The major itself came to talk with one of these small groups.
And she was told once "you have to get in contact with all the communities"
and she agreed, but she lied.
ANCESTRAL TERRITORY
Ancestral territory is what our people used to occupy before Chile invasion
and that is what we are claiming for.
It was said that Mapuche territory was about 35.000.000 hectares or some.
The frontier was the bio bioů from there down it was all Mapuche's land
and now of course, Chile ate all that.
They started by pushing people aside, and pushing and pushing, and that's the whole story.
Lately the records show that Mapuche's has about 300.000 hectares,
and the rest of the lands became landowner's property,
forestry enterprises, and there they are, all partitioned.
The submission begins when people starts going into the cities.
And that is what the state wants, people gathering in cities
there they can handle Mapuche as they want, but in the fields they can't.
The conflict with the state was declared 3 years ago, soon after we started to find background records
that in the airport zone, there are graves...
caused by a massacre that the Chile army executed in 1800.
That slaughter was followed by a wave of immigrants that wanted to get settled here
burning the houses of those people who didn't wanted to leave
all these promoted by the state in 1903.
Then, Chile government, divided all these lands, and gave in mercy titles to the people that was still in here
for about 3 hectares per family, and the rest of the lands were given away to the highest bids in Santiago,
or were assigned to this European immigrants to produce weed and wood,
for exportation in EEUU and Europe, that were in crisis because of the war.
These large private fields are strategically imposed to cut the communication in this territory.
Some of them have a 1000, 1200, 1400 hectares, and each community is living with 200 hectares as maximum.
That's why we haven't got much now. There are families living in small pieces of land, huddle together.
Mapuche culture can't be practiced in these conditions.
When government did this, not everybody accepted the decision of abandoning their lands
and many stayed, and there are innumerable storys about this in Araucania.
What we didn't know is that the same happened right here.
We thought that our ancestor were pushed aside peacefully,
but now we are discovering that there was death and killing,
involving the army and the state of chile,
and that they tried to hide this by making illegal burials, precisely were the airport wants to be built.
We investigated and discovered that all of these represent what is known as "Significant Cultural Place".
These are eleven at least: cemeteries, places were spirits live, and so...
ůthat would allow us to get conscious that these lands and territories, ancestrally, were possessed by our ancestors,
and there for, we can claim today for the right to be restored to our communities and ourselves.
And that is what we call the ancestral revindication of the territory in Pelal.
And this is a problem that is being proposed in this same minute, and that has to be solved out somehow.
Mean while we keep gathering proofs to base our case in.
This is the politic of keep sending the steamroller over the rights,
to keep protecting the transnational investors,
to keep protecting the big landowners,
keep protecting the capitalism.
what we can do nowadays, what we have been doingů there are two paths that we have followed and will keep following:
the path of rights, and the path of factsůor facts and rights, as you prefer.
The paths of rights are legal struggles, claiming to the judges, public denounces, and that must be constantly done.
And there is also the path of facts with strikes, walk outs, protests, alliances with other sectors,
political sectors that also wants to denounce and expose the government in their montages
using state founds to cheat and scare the people, not to oppose the airport project.
This course of action allowed us, after 3 years of being introduced this problem,
to achieve the immediate objective of stopping the airport.
In fact, in May the 7th the airport was supposed to be bid, but it got suspended on last minute because of our actions.
NO TO THE AIRPORT IN ARAUCANIA
LET'S RECOVER THE ANCESTRAL TERRITORY
PELAL STANDS UP