Chile: Anti-coal plant activists get death threats

Five social activists and community leaders opposed to the construction of coal-fired thermoelectric plants near fishing villages in northern Chile filed a complaint with the prosecution service denouncing that they had received anonymous death threats warning them to stop their struggle. "We are concerned," Rosa Rojas, head of the La Higuera Environmental Defence Movement (MODEMA), told IPS. Along with associations of small-scale fishers, the group has been fighting for the past two years against the installation of three coal plants in the district of La Higuera in the northern Chilean region of Coquimbo. The Barrancones plant, which would generate 600 MW, is a project of the Franco-Belgian utility Suez, and the 300-MW Cruz Grande plant is planned by the Chilean Compañía Minera del Pacífico mining company. The third project - the 800-MW Farellones plant, to be built by the state-owned mining company CODELCO–was withdrawn in November from the environmental impact assessment process, a decision that was celebrated as a partial triumph by the activists.