Due to be completed in 2012, La Parota will be one of Mexico's biggest dams, flooding swathes of forest and subsistence farmland around the Papagayo River.
ARROYO VERDE, Mexico — A two-hour Jeep ride inland from Acapulco, with its fast-food chains and high-rise seafront hotels, Gregorio Garcia's family lives a simpler life in the tropical forest of southwestern Mexico.
A stream provides water, the soil bursts with squash and fruit trees and the forest provides fuel and medicinal leaves. Lunch is thick maize tortillas, salted deer meat, fresh chile sauce and coconut milk. Even the air smells sweet.
Yet this tiny paradise could soon be nearly 500 feet underwater in the basin of a huge dam that will power new floodlit, air-conditioned hotels as Acapulco expands.
"They say the dam will bring benefits, but not for us. We will be completely under water," Garcia said, his black eyes glistening with anger as he sat by his roomy adobe and wood home surrounded by pigs, goats and giggling children.
Due to be completed in 2012, La Parota will be one of Mexico's biggest dams, flooding swathes of forest and subsistence farmland around the Papagayo River with a basin ten times the size of Acapulco's famous bay.
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The $1 billion project has sparked violent clashes, leaving at least two dead as it pits those set to be flushed out of their ancestral lands against villagers living around the dam site, who have been swayed by promises of jobs, tarmac roads and new schools.
Sparring among "for" and "against" camps is on the rise. In December a man had a hand hacked off and his face slashed.
In hamlets like Arroyo Verde, crops are being neglected as men armed with machetes spend days and nights manning roadblocks to keep engineers out. In bigger villages, cinderblock houses are daubed with anti-dam slogans.
"It's quiet here, there's no alcohol or drugs. You can't put a price on it. We will fight to be left in peace. If we have to die to defend our rights we will," said Garcia, whose father founded Arroyo Verde as a young man.
Mexico's federal electricity provider, the CFE, says 16 out of 19 affected communities in Guerrero, one of Mexico's poorest states, have signed in favor of the dam at local meetings.
Once the rest are on board, it will launch the project and start moving the peasants to new homes elsewhere, it says.
But human rights lawyers say the meetings were rigged. Peasants who oppose the dam say local political bosses offered cash for signatures and used armed police to keep them away.
"They offered me money but I wouldn't sign. What they are doing is not legal," said elderly farmer Martiniano Luna, in the village of Oaxaquillas.
OPPOSITION MOUNTS
The 900 megawatt dam would boost Mexico's power supply as national demand grows, especially in Acapulco and Mexico City. Central America is also keen to buy Mexican electricity.
"We need hydroelectric projects and La Parota will benefit Acapulco and give locals a better quality of life. We have to convince them," said CFE project coordinator Umberto Marengo.
Mexico generates nearly a quarter of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, and plans to build dozens more.
Yet globally the tide of opposition to dams is growing.
Worldwide 40 million-80 million people have been displaced by some 45,000 large dams, according to the World Commission on Dams, something critics say cannot be justified given the average lifespan of a dam is just 50 years.
Dams can drive away downstream river communities too as rivers are plugged for up to two years to fill the basin. Once dammed, rivers can be reduced to a dirty trickle below the basin and can sporadically flood to dangerous levels.
Marengo denied the Papagayo would be cut off. The CFE says La Parota will displace 3,000 people, while opposition groups put the figure at 25,000 with many more at risk downstream.
Countless animal and plant species from armadillos to tamarind trees will also be drowned.
If forced off their land Guerrero's peasants face unemployment and rejection elsewhere. Rights workers fear their children could end up selling sex on the back streets of Acapulco, a fast growing resort city of 1 million people.
"These people are rich in the sense of what they derive from their soil but not once you put them in an urban setting," said International Rivers Network campaigner Monti Aguirre.
The CFE says it will give displaced peasants new houses elsewhere but has yet to say where or discuss compensation.
It says those living around the dam will benefit from a 34,600-acre freshwater basin that could be used for fishing and boating trips for tourists. And the dam will produce water for Acapulco, which brims with thirsty golf courses.
Yet many here don't see that as a reason to leave their livelihoods, history and buried dead to become sediment in a dam basin.
"There is no way and nowhere for us to go. My umbilical cord is buried here," said Barbara Hernandez, 22, breaking into sobs in Aguas Calientes, referring to an indigenous custom.
Behind her, a mural depicted armed revolutionary peasant hero Emiliano Zapata and the message "La Tierra No Se Vende" ("Land Is Not For Sale").
Yet dams are highly profitable, and indigenous peasants are rarely a match for wealthy investors.
"La Parota is for tourist resorts and golf courses in Acapulco," said human rights lawyer Priscila Rodriguez. "The peasants just get to pay the price."
Source: Reuters
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