Near a Native American village in Guyana, a high-voltage power station project

Protected by a large deployment of law enforcement - nearly 80 gendarmes equipped with quads and drones - the workers restarted deforestation operations in mid-August in this area of ​​western Guyana, in the town of Mana.

Started in November 2022, the work was interrupted for five months, during the rainy season, with CEOG citing “technical and meteorological constraints”.

A photovoltaic power plant is to be built here, which is supposed to ultimately supply electricity to 10.000 homes via energy storage technology running on hydrogen.

But the project, supported in particular by the Meridiam investment fund, is contested by the 200 inhabitants of Prospérité (or Atopo Wepe), an Amerindian village of the Kali'na ethnic group located two kilometers from the site. They consider the plant too close to homes and have been asking for years to find another base.

"We fight with pieces of wood. They (the authorities) with grenades that they throw 200 meters away. The fight is unbalanced. Many resources are deployed to fight against our minority. All this to kill the forest and destroy the living space of 200 people", deplores to AFP the yopoto (traditional village chief) Roland Sjabère.

The Prospérité village received the support of the Human Rights League (LDH). “No development project, however necessary, can be carried out by violating the rights of indigenous peoples, their ancestral customs, their links with the land and their interactions with their environment”, underlined the human rights organization last March in a press release.

The director of the CEOG believes in response that he is “within the nails” of the law.

“We are authorized and legitimate to carry out this work. If this were not the case, we would have been arrested,” Henry Hausermann told AFP. The industrialist, supported by the State and a large majority of local elected officials, insists that “moving the project is impossible”.

After several attempts at mediation, the situation seems to have reached an impasse. And tensions, already high at the end of 2022 after the placement in police custody of chief Sjabère following damage to the construction site, were reignited with the resumption of work.

Three legal actions in one year

Despite this tense context, there have been no injuries or arrests since mid-August. But Roland Sjabère fears for the future.

“There is a need for calm and de-escalation because violence is increasing. We want to avoid this kind of tragedy,” he underlines. A message heard by the new prefect Antoine Poussier, who arrived in Guyana on August 21, who went to Prospérité on Thursday to meet the customary authorities.

At the same time, the village association continues its legal fight. She summoned the CEOG before the Cayenne judicial court for “obvious neighborhood disturbance”. A first hearing took place on Friday.

“It is a legal procedure which can stop the work and not just suspend it”, specifies Roland Sjabère, for whom it is important to recognize the impact that the CEOG would have on “women, men and children” , and not just about “nature and animals”.

This is the third legal action brought in less than a year against the power plant project after a criminal complaint for environmental damage, filed in November and dismissed in May, and a protective order rejected in February by the Administrative Court of Guyana.

On the side of the CEOG and its partners, eight complaints were filed for damage to the construction site, threats and intrusions on a private site. These complaints are currently being investigated.