TradeJustice Activist Protest Chilean President Piñera for FTA-Linked Mining and Hydroelectric Projects
On Thursday, September 22, immediately after our protest against Colombian President Santos, protesters from TradeJustice member group Global Justice for Animals and the Environment demonstrated at a speech by billionaire Chilean President Sebastián Piñera at headquarters of the Council of the Americans, an alliance of corporations united to lobby for job-killing, anti-environmental free trade agreements. Activists demanded that Piñera end Chile's participation in the US-Chile Free Trade Agreement; cancel a hydroelectic project that will destroy the Patagonian wilderness; and stop the Pascua Lama Mining project, which threatens to destroy Andean glaciers, eliminate the water supply for local farmers, and leach cyanide, mercury, and sulfuric acid into the area's rivers. Barrick Gold, the mining company behind Pascua Lama, was one of the corporate sponsors of the talk. As the protest progressed we were spontaneously joined by two Chilean passersby and at the end of the event met Chilean students who had attended the talk to challenge Pinera in support of mass student protests for Chile. At the conclusion of the event, we passed out fliers to every attendee who would take them.
Read the flyer we distributed.
Read the flyer in Spanish.
Read the promotional flyer for the protest here. |