Curitiba, 1997: The birthplace of the internationalization of the struggle of those affected by dams
March 1997: Curitiba, in Southern Brazil, hosted the First International Meeting of People Affected by Dams. From the 12th to the 14th, people affected by dams from 20 countries participated in the meeting in the capital [Curitiba] of Paraná, in a world teeming with dams and creating thousands of victims each year.
For decades, these populations had realized that the struggle for the rights of these populations confronted companies and international organizations, and that, to adequately respond to the aggression suffered by those affected, international articulation and advocacy were necessary and urgent.
The first step in this direction occurred after initial contacts with international partners in the fight against dams – especially the NGO International Rivers Network and professors from Brazilian universities. In September 1995, MAB (Movement of People Affected by Dams) organized a preparatory meeting in Itamonte, Minas Gerais. Two years later, the idea became a reality in Curitiba.
The main legacy left by the First International Meeting was expressed in the final document, the Curitiba Declaration – For the right to life and ways of life of populations affected by dams. The debates held with representatives of organizations, social movements, and NGOs, and the Declaration, pointed to the need for an international moratorium on large dams until a minimum number of demands were met, including compensation for the millions of people whose ways of life, culture, economy, and social standards were altered or destroyed due to dam construction.
The Declaration also highlighted the importance of internationalist coordination:
“Our struggle is the same because, everywhere, dams displace people from their homes, flood fertile agricultural land, forests, and sacred places, destroy fishing reserves and sources of drinking water, cause social and cultural disintegration, as well as the economic impoverishment of our communities. Our struggle is the same because, everywhere, there is a great distance between the economic and social benefits promised by dam builders and the reality of what happens after construction.”
In the document, the participants affirmed their commitment to international action and the unification of a common international day for those affected worldwide, naming March 14th as the International Day of Struggle against Dams, for Rivers, for Water and for Life. Until then, in Brazil, the date was called the National Day of Struggle against Dams.
Ivanei Dalla Costa, a member of MAB’s (Movement of People Affected by Dams) coordination, explains that the context that ensured the holding of the First International Meeting was the existence of an existing process of coordination among those affected from various countries, who were suffering in the clutches of capital eager for the profits that would come from the dams: “What preceded it was a concrete reality and the challenge of uniting and exchanging experiences of the struggles that were taking place. The first meeting opened a path to strengthen this coordination, to give visibility and to exert a lot of influence based on the needs of those affected. It also highlighted the importance of continuing this organization and this process,” she states.
For Ivanei, holding the meeting in 1997 was a sign of boldness and courage to internationalize the struggle of those affected, in a coordination that continues to this day. “It marks this moment of opening a path, but also of setting a precedent to say that we can no longer go back. To this day, populations live with similar problems. The same companies that build dams in Brazil build them in other countries; and now the extreme events of the climate crisis also affect, in a very similar way, the populations of various countries,” he warns.
The articulation, a result of the First International Meeting, ensured that a month later, in April 1997, during a World Bank workshop in Gland, Switzerland, the MAB became part of the World Commission on Dams – WCD. The Commission took fundamental steps throughout its two and a half years of existence, developing the most comprehensive set of studies on the subject ever undertaken and recognizing thousands of people affected worldwide, based on a sample of 150 dams.
The First International Meeting in Curitiba not only anticipated the strength that the international union of those affected could achieve, but also paved the way for an organized struggle on all continents, encouraging those affected in many parts of the world to rise up with strength to resist the dams. The final Declaration and the International Day of Struggle are permanent legacies of those affected, who from then on gained more strength to echo their voice around the world.
Check out the full Curitiba Declaration Here.
Heading towards the IV International Meeting, continue following the history of the International Meetings next Monday, with the report from the II International Meeting in Thailand.
