hat Clemente Grefa remembers most about his childhood are the sounds of the Piatúa River: the hum of insects, the chatter of children playing, the women whistling as they clean clothes, and the burble of water trickling.
An image of Yaku Warmi, which means “woman of the water” in the Kichwa language and is the name | given to the sacred rock of the Piatúa, where a mermaid is said to live.The people of Piatúa have not relented: while a date has not yet been set, they hope their case will soon be heard at the Constitutional Court, the country’s most powerful judicial body.
But many others living along the Piatúa signed, thinking it would be a financial boon for their families. And many say they didn’t know what they were signing. Some didn’t even know Genefran S.A. was an electricity-generation company: they say they were told by Genefran S.A. that it would be doing some nonintrusive work upstream, and that if communities agreed, it would bring scholarships and jobs to the region. They didn’t hear back from Genefran S.A. for two years.
The battle eventually moved from the road to the provincial court in May 2019, after the case was brought to the court’s attention by Curipallo, who heads the provincial office for a branch of the government that serves as a watchdog to ensure the state upholds the rights of people and nature. Curipallo was convinced the evidence clearly showed that Genefran S.A. had failed to explain to those who signed the contracts what its activities in the area would entail.
Claiming these people are indigenous when there's been population displacement in the Americas for 10,000 years is worth a chuckle