MEXICO CITY - Mexican peasants are taking their fight against a new hydroelectric dam to the courts, hoping to avoid more bloodshed as thousands in one of Mexico's poorest corners fear they will be forced off their land.
Mexico's state-owned CFE electricity utility says communities around the proposed site of the La Parota dam in the southwestern state of Guerrero have signed in favor, but opposition groups have gone to a local court saying the signatures were obtained unlawfully.
With two people killed and many injured in clashes over the dam, the groups are also talking to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and a Latin American environmental tribunal, worried that peasants will fight the CFE's bulldozers to the death.
"They are prepared to defend their land with their lives," lawyer Vidulfo Rosales told a news conference.
"If the people say they will die before they let this happen then how are they going to get them out of their houses? We are only at the start of this battle," said Priscila Rodriguez, a lawyer and activist at Mexican human rights group CEMDA.
La Parota, a huge project aimed in part at generating power for the fast-growing resort of Acapulco, will flood an area of tropical forest ten times the size of Acapulco's famous bay.
Expected to generate 900 megawatts when it starts operation in 2012, it will cost about $1 billion.
The CFE hopes to invite bids for its construction as soon as February, though project coordinator Umberto Marengo said it will await the outcome of the local court cases before proceeding.
Opponents of La Parota, who say they number several thousand against a few hundred in favor, have been fighting the project since 2003. Dozens man roadblocks day and night, machetes slung over their shoulders, to stop CFE engineers getting through.
Their lawyers say local political bosses bribed locals with cash to sign in favor of the dam and police used riot shields and tear gas to bar opponents from vote-collecting meetings.
Some signatures were repeated or forged, they say.
"The assemblies were illegal. They bought support. The whole thing is a farce, a lie," said local activist Felipe Flores. "There have been deaths, injuries, arrests and threats."
While those set to be displaced by the dam basin are mostly against it, some of those living nearby have been swayed by promises of new paved roads, schools and hospitals.
The CFE says La Parota will displace 3,000 people, who will be moved to new housing elsewhere, but opponents put the figure at 25,000 with another 70,000 set to be hurt by changes in the level of the river they rely on to irrigate their crops.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
