Written by: Dídac
“Guatemala: hydroelectric plants in the Cahabon River contaminating water and biodiversity and affecting indigeneous’ lives”
Guatemala for almost twenty years is taking out an energy plan seeking for transition towards renewable hydroelectric energy. But this great plan is in the meantime leading to social conflicts and environmental destruction for the mere benefit of the large companies investing in the wmarket. This is the case of the construction project “REBORN” (RENACE in Spanish) aiming at setting five hydroelectric plants in the tributaries of the Cahabon River in the Department of Alta Verapaz. This project is led by MultiInversiones Corporation (MIC) owned by the family Guitierrez-Bosch. Part of those plants were built or projected to be in partnership with the powerful Spanish group COBRA which is part of the international consortium of construction activities and services (ACS), whose President is Florentino Perez, also President of the Spanish football club Real Madrid.
Protests against the plants came from the communities hardly impacted bt the project denounciating irregular practices committed by MIC in order to access communities’s land such as a set of acts of violence against inhabitants and indigenous community´s leaders to repress protests, not making payments promised to the families in exchange for their land etc. The inhabitants of the area also reported that the plants are contaminating the river as well as causing deforestation by the expansion of highways ant the construction of the plants itself.
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