DAMBUSTERS

Plans for a potentially devastating dam in Belize are going ahead, after a split vote by the UK Privy Council (still the highest authority for the island). The three-judge majority acknowledged that the proposed dam would flood an area scientists say is 'one of the most biologically rich and diverse regions remaining in Central America,' home to such endangered species as the jaguar, tapir, and the last 200 remaining scarlet macaws in Belize. Nevertheless, Lord Hoffman, Lord Rodger and Sir Andrew Leggatt deferred to the Belizean government's political decision to allow the Canadian-backed project to go forward.
A strongly worded minority dissent found that the dam approval process violated Belizean law and should be overturned. The dissent, written by Lord Walker and joined by Lord Steyn, criticized Fortis and the Belizean government for consistently failing to disclose to three courts critical information about the project, and said that the Belizean government official in charge of the project's environmental review was not credible.

Across the Atlantic, the Spanish authorities are currently test filling another project - the Itioz dam - to see whether it will hold the water's weight. Now, Corporate Watch publishes an interview with two activists intent on stopping it. Most of the villages in the water's path have already been violently evicted. Although the Spanish High Court is still ruling against the dam there is no guarantee that the dam won't be filled quickly in a few days, to present all the campaigners with a fait accompli.The interview is taken from Freedom - a fortnightly anarchist newspaper published since 1886. For obvious reasons, the activists are anonymous, while their answers have sometimes been slightly paraphrased for clarity.

'Our objective is to paralyze the dam works...Sometimes we stop the work for minutes, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for days -- but our objective is to paralyze the works.'

The Itoiz dam
In 1996 the Solidarios stopped work on the Itioz dam for a year - when they cut the cables on a concrete transporter. Although the Spanish High Court had already ordered the dam's construction illegal, the Solidarios were rewarded for their act of law-enforcement by being charged with kidnapping - a security guard had been locked in his office for several minutes. The activists charged responded by going on an international tour, doing talks and actions across Europe, most memorably an occupation of the London Millennium Eye in alliance with opponents of the Indian Narmada dam.

INTERVIEW:

Q: “The Solidarios are a part of a wider wave of ecological direct action. Where did they get their inspiration from?”

M: “For us, the UK direct action movement is a very big inspiration: fighting the motorways, the anti-road campsites...we have a lot of influence from here.”

Q: “And how did you find out about the UK direct action movement?”

M: “Mainly from the Undercurrents videos -- we have all the videos.”
C: “Also doing the European tour we made contact with many groups.”
M: “We are also working with groups from all parts of Europe, and we made actions with Narmada-UK, since this is same struggle. In Holland we made action with GroenFront!, a very strong direct action group...and also in other parts, with the Italian anarchists...there are a lot of people who have the same problems and the same mentality and the same actions."
Q: "A lot of the time we are connected, not through any formal group, but because we share a way of doing things?"
M "Informal, yes. It is the best way."

The roots of the Itioz anti-dam campaign lie in the 1980s, when the Co-ordination Against the Dam began to oppose the government's plans. This grouping of unions, political parties and civil society groups mainly fought the impending dam through the courts. When construction work began in 1995 the Solidarios adopted a different kind of tactic.

C: "We don't believe in law! We are direct action..."
Q: "In the mid 1990s we also saw a rise in ecological direct action in the UK. Is it a coincidence that the same kind of movement was happening in the Basque country?"
M: "In the 1980s there was a strong campaign against the road from Pampalona to San Sebastian, we made one camp; that was 1990. It was a strong ecological fight against the road..."
Q: "Did your group arise out of a wider environmental movement?"
M: "The end of the motorway campaign saw a lot of changes - many environmental groups started to talk with the political parties, to change their tactics and become less radical. Also at the time ETA began putting some bombs and killing some people...so it became part of a wider struggle in the Basque country, it introduced another dynamic."
Q: "I've heard that it's more dangerous to be a radical activist in many parts of Spain now, because of the presence of ETA, the government will make up links and use that as an excuse to repress you -- is that a big problem?"
M: "It can be a problem, because the tactic of the Madrid government is to use the argument of violence - they're eager to make our struggle seem violent. When we made an action that stopped the work for one year - because we cut some cables - the newspaper and all the media started a very strong campaign saying that we are terrorists and we start with the violence...it wasn't any violence...but it was a strong action, because we made a lot of damage, millions of damage, so they start 'you are terrorists, you are part of ETA', so the government is always very interested to manipulate the reason for the fighting."
C: "But now there are all the other movements, the squats, the government is very eager to link them with terrorists -- doesn't matter if it is in the Basque country or not - Barcelona, Madrid..."
M: "If in Barcelona there is something strong, some action or something, they will start 'yeah, is ETA', so it is very easy for the government to manipulate the media."
C: "For us there are no borders to say 'this is the Basque nature, this is the Spanish nature', for us there is no border."

Q: "So in the Solidarios campaign, there are both people who have been born in the area, and there are also people who've come from other parts of the Spanish State?"
M: "And also from Europe, and from the world..."
C: "You are welcome to come!"
M: "A lot of people take part, we have no restriction of the territory - we are fighting against earth destruction, first thing.

How do the Solidarios see the other political groups active in the Spanish state? We quickly dismiss the traditional left - the PSOE, equivalent to our own Labour Party. They're in the pockets of the companies just like the PP (Conservatives), but maybe in slightly different pockets. But what about the Anarchist organisations, like the legendary CNT direct action union?

C: "We are like a net - so we help each other. We are fighting against the dam, but maybe there is an action in another city against the high-speed, or maybe against a jail, and we go...so we are like a net, and one day we're all together, but there are too many struggles and we cannot be all together...I used to lived with a CNT member...and for example in the social centre we had in Pampalona, the CNT is there."
M: "I think the CNT is very few people, but they work hard, very active."
Q: "And the anarchist squatters, what do you think about them?"
M: "I don't know if we can call them 'anarchist squatters' - for example, in Pampalona, in the city where we lived, the squat, the social centre, it hasn't any label - it is a squat place, and in this place it can be Basque nationalist, autonomous...some Trotskyist! I don't know...about other parts - in Madrid, Barcelona, they are more 'anarchist'?”
C: "I think that they don't call themselves 'anarchist' there either - it is always a part of them, but it is not just that. It is too much like closing doors...people who pass along the street can come in, without thinking 'but I am not an anarchist.'"
M: "Too often, maybe, the label stops people: 'they are anarchists, they are communists', it is much better to start to understand one another."

So the struggle continues. The wars fought by the companies always demand our resistance. After making more than seventy actions in eight years the Solidarios con Itoiz also need to struggle to defend themselves. Iñaki García Koch was recently jailled for five years for his part in the cable cutting action.

Q: "Is there anything else you'd like to say to people in the UK who will be reading this interview?"

M: "We'd like to say that we are fighting against this dam, and we have to say that it is not a local problem. Because now the big discussion in the world is the water privatisation; this must be one of the biggest problems in the world. Now in the 21st century the big corporations want to take control over all the water, and this is already happening in many places around the world...so, I think we have to take control of our resources, not only the water - everthing that we need, that is not a luxury, but a real need. They want to steal this resource that belongs to everybody, and they want to get a lot of money from that, and there are a lot of people who are dying now because they don't have any fresh water to drink. So the water in this century must be the biggest problem, just like oil was for the last century and the cause of the biggest wars, just like oil has been.”

http://www.sindominio.net/sositoiz/

www.sositoiz.net

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