Mateo in Santiago!: Patagonia sin represas!

Chile Part 11

I'm just blogging up a storm right now! Here is the protest blog as promised. A month ago, authorities from Chilean President Sebastian Piñera's administration approved a project called "HidroAysén" which will build five dams in Patagonia in order to generate hydroelectric power and meet Chile's increasing energy demands. It was amazing to see how quickly people took to the streets to protest this decision, and how many showed up!

All of these photos are from one protest I went to, along with 40,000 other people. You just don't see that activism in the States, we haven't had anything like it since the Civil Rights Movement. Then again, most of the Chileans who marched on this day were students, which explains how they were able to unite so many people. In the days after the approval of the project, Facebook was inundated with events to demonstrate, so it was easy to see where something was going to happen. I also happen to live right next to Plaza Italia, where the marches usually start and then go to La Moneda, the Chilean White House. It was crazy to see how throughout the country, from Santiago to Valparaíso to Pucon, citizens rose up and shouted their dissatisfaction.

To give you guys a taste of some of the chants during the protest, I'll post them under various photos. I have to warn you, though, some of the words are pretty ugly.
The title of this blog means, "Patagonia without dams!" Patagonia is truly the pride of Chile and HydroAysén's approval brought a lot of people together to show their disgust.

Plaza Italia, normally crowded with honking cars and bounding buses, now filled to the brim with literally thousands of people shouting and stomping their feet.

Rene, Megan and I, ready to check out the scene!

Pure luck that this guy decided to turn his head at that moment, but it definitely made a nice contrast to the marching mob.

"All we are saying, is give peace a chance!"

Flag of the Mapuche, Chile's predominant indigenous group. Whenever there are protests, the Mapuche always come up because there are currently Mapuche participating in a hunger strike in protest of their brothers who are in jail due to an extremely vague "antiterrorism" law which implied that to be Mapuche was to be part of an illicit organization.

Chile dice "No" HidroAysén (Chile says "No" to HidroAysén), a reference to the Yes or No vote for the project, and the fact that the majority of Chileans do not want it, even if the government does.

Lesson #1 in Chilean protest chants! "No nos gusta, no nos interesa...una Patagonia llena de represas!" "We don't like, we're not interested in...a Patagonia full of dams!" It was unreal to see Avenue O'Higgins, Santiago's main street, utterly flooded with people.

Fight for the pinguinos!

Lesson #2: "Piñera, entiende, Chile no se vende!" "Piñera, understand, Chile cannot be sold!"

Kindling the flame of the people

What an epic photo - raise your hopes up to the sky, good sir!

40,000 Chileans in front of their White House, demanding that their wishes be respected...first time I ever thought that building looked small.

A "guanaco" in the distance, ominously silent. Guanacos are the vehicles that police use to scatter the crowd by firing high-powered streams of water at protesters. They are so called because they're like the Chilean animal of the same name which is very adapt at spitting! They wouldn't be silent for long, though...