Damming the Ngäbe: Aftermath of an AES Power Project in Panama
►http://www.globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/poverty-and-development/development-democracy-and-human-rights/52002-damming-the-ngaebe-aftermath-of-an-aes-power-project-in-panama.h
By Jennifer Kennedy
CorpWatch
October 15, 2012
The US headquartered global power company, AES Corporation is Panama’s largest US investor, generating over 35% of the nation’s energy. “Chan 75” is its latest and most controversial project in Panama’s rapidly expanding portfolio of hydroelectric plants. In this article, Jennifer Kennedy looks into the plight of the Ngäbe community, the country’s largest indigenous group who are directly affected by the project. Opening up the dam for hydroelectricity production has caused flooding in the region, displacing a community so heavily reliant on their land for subsistence farming.
Luis Abrego, a Ngäbe boatman, navigates the vast man–made reservoir that now covers four indigenous communities with a sea of murky water and rotting debris. Raising his eyes from the struggle to steer through the dead trees and decaying logs that clank against his boat, Abrego catches sight of an imposing concrete dam. Chan 75 is one of the latest and most controversial projects in Panama’s rapidly expanding portfolio of hydroelectric plants.