Flooding the Ngöbe Bugle Not a Good Idea

In a beautiful land of hills and rivers in the province of Bocas del Toro, there lived a simple people known as the Ngöbe Bugle.  In 2005, in came the US Allied Energy Systems (AES) corporation in partnership with the Panamanian government and began razing their homes and farmlands to make way for the first of a series of hydroelectric dams along the Changuinola River.  The Chan 75 dam would degrade the environment and inundate four Ngöbe villages, displacing its more than 1,000 inhabitants and disrupting the lives of 4,000 more. For more information read the June 2009 Environmental News Service article.

In June of this year, The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ordered the Panamanian government to stop all work on the hydroelectric dam, granting the Ngöbe’s request for an injunction.

In August, the Ngöbe were still protesting.  La Prensa reported Airo Serrano, Ngöbe community spokesman as saying, “today is the last day that we peacefully demonstrate to the government so that it responds to our call for aid.  If it does not respond, we are ready to give our blood for our land and fight until the death.”

This month, the nonprofit Cultural Survival organization announced a step forward in its petition to protect the Ngöbe Bugle, passing another hurdle at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

But, word is that this once peaceful tribe is marching on Panama City, departing from the province of Chiriqui September 16th, and should arrive around October 6th, so something is up and going down.  Space was recently made available in the central gazebo on Plaza Catedral.