VENEZUELA DELAYS GURI TRANSMISSION LINE

The power interconnection agreement celebrated between Brazil and Venezuela has problems on yonder side of the border. On June 17^th instant, the Roraima Indigenous Council (CIR), quoting information published in the newspaper Folha de Boa Vista, announced that the works on the transmission line from the Guri Power Plant will be delayed. The announcement was made by Venezuelan technicians to Eletronorte in a meeting held early in June in the city of Puerto Ordaz. According to the contract celebrated between the two countries, the works should be totally completed by December 1998. However, a new time schedule established between the parties contemplates the start of operations in June next year.

The justifications for the delay, according to the Roraima newspaper, were entailed by hurdles that the Venezuelan power utility Eletrificación del Caroni (Edelca) now faces with equipment suppliers and with the country’s environmental laws. Despite the official silence, the works are under a severe opposition by the indigenous populations which inhabit the influence area of the transmission line in the Canaima National Park.

To minimize the unhappiness of the Brazilian government – which counts on the transmission line as the component for an economic development model for the frontier, within the scope of the second stage of the program "Brazil in Action," Venezuela secured the loan of an AEG Kanes 20 mW power generator to be installed in Boa Vista (RR). Its generation capacity, added to other power sources, will practically meet the city’s demand in full, according to local media estimates. The rental of the generator should also help Venezuela get rid of the hefty fines provided for in the contract, which may top $1 million.

Venezuela is the fourth largest world power producer, according to their embassy in Brazil. In the Guyana region, bordering Brazil, their installed capacity is 12,540 mW. Edelca is presently investing in two other plants in the Caroni river watershed (Macagua I and II) to jack up capacity by another 4,320 mW. The Brazilian government has several bilateral agreements signed with neighboring countries, including an economic-ecological zoning contract, completed by the Mineral Resource Research Company (CPRM) earlier this year over a 20,000 km² border area. According to its coordinator, Walter José Marques, the survey is designed to guide the development policies for the region, whose axis will be BR-174. (MAG)

INDIGENOUS PROTESTS REVERBERATE Chastised by the Guri transmission line works, 600 Kari’nă, Arawako, Akawaio e Pemon Indians blocked the El Dorado highway late in July to demand from the government the halt of activities and the immediate recognition of property rights over the lands they occupy. Dwellers of the Canaima National Park – whose Western limits are drafted by the Caroni river, whose hydroelectric potential is intensely explored – the Indians charge Edelca with the destruction of native vegetation and agricultural areas. Contrarily to Brazil, where indigenous territorial rights are a constitutional requirement imposed upon the state, in Venezuela indigenous peoples live in preservation areas, without specific rights over their lands, where they develop traditional activities. Since the beginning of 1997 the ethnicities which have been disturbed by the construction of the transmission line have protested against the Venezuelan government, charged with jettisoning it from any discussion about the project.