Indigenous Issues: The Belo Monte Dam Protest & Effects of the Drug War (Lp8312012)

This week Latin Pulse focuses on indigenous issues in Latin America. The program discusses the controversial Belo Monte Dam under construction in Brazil and the legal cases that have failed to halt the project. The dam will have direct effects on indigenous groups and urban residents who will be displaced by flooding caused by the dam. The program also looks at the controversial practice of herbicidal spraying as a method in the Drug War and how that has caused health problems and posed other challenges for indigenous groups such as the Embera-Katio, Embera-Chami, and Awa people of Colombia. The news segment, this week, covers the oil refinery fire in Venezuela, which killed dozens of people.

Dr. Eve Bratman of American University, and
Gimena Sanchez of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

Executive Producer: Rick Rockwell
Associate Producer: Jenna Longoria

The photo is by Brent Milikan via the group International Rivers from Flickr using a Creative Commons license: http://www.flickr.com/photos/internationalrivers/7402982420/

The second part of the interview on Colombia can be found on the more recent program here: Assange's Ecuadoran Asylum & Colombia's Long Civil War (Lp9072012) by LatinPulse