Protestors to stay put at Barro Blanco

 WHILE the government has optimistically announced that testing of the Barro Blanco hydro electric  project is close to beginning,   Indigenous  residents of the region  who remain in camps on the banks of the Tabasara River to protest the plan  are resisting efforts to remove them.

Protester Clementina Perez said they will remain on the site despite being notified that they would have to vacate it when testing of the plant begins.

“We won’t move,” Perez said. “We will remain praying and fasting.”

The protesters have demanded that the project be abandoned due to the impact it will have on indigenous communities.

Fellow indigenous leader Toribio García and Manolo Miranda also announced their opposition to the testing.

The government is anxious to avoid violent confrontations that were  a hallmark of many protests in other locations during the Martinelli era, leading to deaths and injuries when riot police were called in.