The issue is quite broad and urgent in the Brazilian agenda, but also in the whole continent where Brazilian corporations have hundreds of megaprojects involving dams in different states, as well as in neighboring countries like Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. This is part of a process of reaching the international energy market aimed at northern countries and transnational mining projects.

In interview with Real World Radio MAB leader Soniamara Maranho said the energy tariffs in Brazil continue to raise. The people are paying high prices for one of the cheapest energy sources. Its price is calculated based on the price of energy produced from oil.

“Water and energy with sovereignty, wealth distribution and peoples’ management of resources” is the slogan of the MAB national meeting. Soniamara explained how the crisis in Brazil, which has led to massive popular demonstrations in the country’s main cities, legitimizes the struggle of the people affected by dams and places the energy issue, as well as the outcomes of the meeting, in the country’s political and social agenda.

“Until our previous meeting the MAB used to work a lot with the people affected, which are the opposite of the system. Since then, in 2006, when we organized our National Meeting in Curitiba, we began to question the model, to question for whom is energy produced. We began to realize that the energy model turns energy into a commodity”, said the leader.

“The people who had never taken to the streets look at us now with different eyes after the massive demonstrations that took place in June in the main cities of Brazil. This facilitates our work but it also implies a huge responsibility as a social movement that future struggles will have to be organized, that we need to have a slogan and a clear strategy to help build a popular project with the help of the workers”, she concluded.

For more information please go to: mabnacional.org.br