Text read during the hearing of women affected by dams with the President of the Republic, at the Presidential Palace
Brasília, April 7, 2011.
Dear Madam,
We, the women affected by dams, organized in the Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAB), met for four days in Brasilia, at a meeting that we called “Women Affected by Dams in struggle, fighting for our rights and for the construction of a popular energetic project”. This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of MAB as a national organization, from our analysis of the current historical moment for our country and the situation we are in each of our communities, we come to say that:
1. We understand that the election of the first woman President of the Republic in our country puts us all in a new stage of struggle for our rights and bring to all women affected by dams the hope that your womans sensitivity understands our situation and we can move forward building a more just, fraternal and egalitarian country.
2. We hereby deliver a preliminary document that points out the plight of women affected by dams and workers who work and live around these great works. We look forward to discussing this issue with the federal government and building the necessary solutions for this.
3. We reiterate the need to advance the general guideline given by MAB to the Federal Government. Our proposal calls for structural measures, based on a participatory process, a popular character in the definition of national energy policy, with proper regulation of the decree signed by former President Lula on the registration of those affected, and in drafting a new national treatment of social and environmental issues in major works of this country, and a series of emergency measures to pay the historical debt that the Brazilian state has with the people affected by dams. We stress the need for greater control and performance of the State and public agencies in these matters, otherwise all efforts will not produce positive effects.
4. We reaffirm our position against the construction of the plant of Belo Monte and ask for immediate suspension of work in that region.
5. We express our full support to the struggle of workers in the works, which have their rights violated, and are pressured by exhausting working hours and a degrading situation of life in construction sites. They rebel and struggle for their just rights of workers building the wealth of this country, and want to see the results of their work fairly distributed.
6. We also express on this April 7th, Worlds Health Day, our refusal to proposed changes to the Brazilian Forest Code and the use of pesticides, which have already reached several places in this country at an alarming rate, even to the point of breast milk being contaminated.
7. We express our solidarity with the struggles of Latin people, especially the Mapuche in Patagonia Argentina, who are being affected by oil from Petrobras.
8. Lastly, we understand that your presence in the Presidency shall serve specially to meet the historic demands and agendas of organizations of women workers in the countryside and cities, a fact that goes toward the construction of policies for gender equality and the end of oppression and violence against women.
Without further due, we thank you for having us in this palace, we wish you a good work and to always find ourselves together, standing in the struggles against all the unjust structures of our society. Water and electricity are not commodities!
Sincerely,
Women Affected by Dams
Movement of People Affected by Dams – Brazil
