The Amazonian city of Maripasoula has been blocked for a week, after a movement whose violence has surprised the elected officials.
by and
Repeated electricity cuts, exasperated inhabitants in the grip of a lively sense of abandonment, an explosion of unprecedented violence: the events of the last days in Maripasoula, city of 12,000 inhabitants set in the southern forest of the Guyana, alerted elected officials and local officials. Will they be the beginnings of a new, harder social movement in the department, after that of 2017?
The municipality has been blocked for seven days by residents, despite the restoration of electricity by EDF. Since October 5, Air Guyana airplanes, a company that has only been serving the service, are no longer on the aerodrome of Maripasoula, closed to the public. Three hundred meters from the slopes, residents have erected a dam with branches and tree trunks.
At the end of September, they underwent very long current interruptions, which can go up to several days in certain districts. Other judgments followed from October 4, which led, in cascade, water cuts, telephone, and the closure of schools – still in progress Tuesday October 11. In question: the repeated breakdowns of the single thermal power plant with the fuel which fuels the city, operated by EDF under the contracting authority of the Community of Western Guyanese communes. A hydroelectric dam was planned in the “multi-year energy programming” for 2016-2023, controlled by the State and the local authority of Guyana (CTG). The Voltalia project will be delivered at best in 2026, with eight years behind the initial calendar. “We have the impression that nothing happened,” admitted Gabriel Serville, president of the CTG, who came on October 8 to discuss with the locals. 2> “Many do not want to listen to anyone ”
A week ago, young people from the Maripasoula, sometimes hooded, lit lights in the evenings coming in the streets plunged into total darkness. During the night from Friday to Saturday, municipal equipment and vehicles parked in front of the town hall and CTG services were burnt down. “The town hall has become a target,” said Mayor Serge Anelli, deploring the insufficiency of the gendarmerie forces.
“The inhabitants of the municipalities of the river, in Guyana, tend to speak of” double pain “because they have the feeling of being landlocked and forgotten, recalls Senator Georges Patient (gathering of progressive and independent democrats). This form of violence, we did not know it. Many no longer want to listen to anyone, neither elected officials, nor the state. It is a form of exasperation that we can understand, even if the violence is inadmissible. Perhaps needed this action for the eyes to stick on this part of the territory. “
You have 32.84% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.