The Committee for Human Rights in Latin America (CDHAL) begins its Solidarity Caravan tour March 8, 2010. Already in its 5th year, the Caravan will tour communities on the eastern shore of Québec from Montreal to Sept Iles to raise awareness about the impacts of megaprojects for local communities in the Americas. This year will be the second in which the Caravan will focus on the impacts of dams, already a hot topic in Quebec following the opposition campaigns to the Rupert and Romaine rivers diversion projects.

While the rights to participation of local communities in environmental assessment of megaprojects are guaranteed by legislation in Quebec and Canada, Latin American communities have little say in how development takes place on their territory. Forced displacement, assassinations and intimidation by paramilitary forces are the ways in which development is imposed on the majority of local communities from Mexico to Chile. Intensive natural resource development began in 2000 under the auspices of regional integration plans promoted and financed by the Inter-American Development Bank. Two major regional integration plans, the Plan Pueblo Panama (Central America) and the Initiative for the Integration of South American Infrastructure (South America), foresee some 500 development projects totaling approximately $60 billion. Faced with significant human rights abuses and excluded from benefiting from large dam projects many local and aboriginal communities have created opposition groups such as the Movement of Dam Affected People (MAB), the Red Latinoamericana contra represas y por los ríos, sus comunidades y el agua (Latin American Network against Dams and for the Protection of Rivers, Communities and Water -REDLAR) and Movimiento Mexicano de Afectados por las Presas y en Defensa de los Rios (Mexican Movement of People Affected by Dams and in Defense of Rivers – MAPDER). Similar to aboriginal peoples in Quebec and Canada these groups are not opposed to development but demand that such projects take into consideration their human, social and economic rights as international conventions such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Dam Commission require.

“As we enter the era of energy efficiency, the Committee for Human Rights in Latin America is to highlight the impact on human rights that this energy called “clean” causes for the affected communities and ask what their rights are respected. Furthermore, we wish to end the climate of violence that usually accompanies the introduction of such projects, often involving acts of repression, harassment and violence by security forces.”  The Solidarity Caravan will travel across Quebec from the 8th to the 27th of March in the company of a delegation of Latin American women representing impacted communities in the South. They will be visiting local schools, CEGEPS, community centers and universities in various towns and cities such as Ottawa, Gatineau, Québec, Wendake, Betsiamites and Sept-îles. The objective is to create support network and a dialog concerning the impact of large development plans such as the Plan Nord launched by the Quebec government last year.

The trip will close with a two-day conference in Montreal on the 26 and 27 of March organized by CDHAL in collaboration with the Coalition on socio-environmental impacts of transnationals in Latin America, Development and Peace, the Canada Research Chair on Environmental Education, the Montreal Institute of International Studies (IEIM) of UQAM, and the Research and Knowledge Network Relating to Aboriginal People DIALOG.

For more information contact Julie at caravane@cdhal.org or 514.387.5550