. MEMORY RESISTANCE AND MYTHOLOGY //RESEARCH

The Limia, a perennial river 135 km long between Galicia and Portugal, flows westwards from its source in Talariño Mountain to Viana do Castelo. Despite being part of natural parks, biosphere reserves and the Natura 2000 zone, it hosts 5 dictatorial interventions that are still having a devastating impact on its ecosystem.

After the Civil War, Franco’s regime opened the National Institute of Colonisation, in order to solve the energy and food crisis. The institute built 300 new villages across the territory and 615 Dams. Water storage was essential to help the severe drought the landscape was facing and support agricultural development and productivity1. During the republic in 1928, a land survey was carried out and the Limia river was categorised as very suitable for reservoir implementations due to its constant flow.

First the As Conchas reservoir was built in 1949, Salas reservoir followed in 1960, together with the artificial draught of the Antela Lagoon and mass Eucalyptus plantations at the river source. Meanwhile, Spain´s Generalisimo Francisco Franco had agreed on a treaty with Portugal´s dictator at the time, Salazar. The construction of a third Dam would come as a consequence of this pact, that would have the water reservoir on Galician Land but Plant in Portugal. The project was held on pause for 30 years until the democratic governments of the respective countries, Spain and Portugal, decided to resume it in 1992. Four villages were fully submerged and forcibly expropriated to the Portuguese energetic company EDP.

Southern Galicia-North Portugal, 1956

Southern Galicia-North Portugal, 2020

The pact between the two dictators over the destiny of these communities and the landscape can be seen as a repeating pattern in the history of the two countries. The former empires had already made a pact in 1494 about how they would split the world in halves to set up their colonial network, known as Tordesillas Treaty. This gave origin to the current border of Brazil with the rest of South America. 1

A repeating pattern of control over other communities' land, of disrespect to different types of knowledge, of patronising, of abuse and fear.

1 https://es.unesco.org/memoryoftheworld/registry/613

It was in the mid twentieth century when Franco and Salazar signed that treaty for hydraulic exploitation of international rivers between Spain and Portugal. Back then, no one thought that the little and timid Limia would have been part of it, the river Lethes of forgetfulness. Although material interests were so big and daring that a couple of decades later the rumour started to be heard.

At the beginning it wasn't taken seriously, but then, foreigners started coming into the land showing interest in buying property and so the bad omen increased. It reached its culmination when 2 kilometres away from the border, within Portuguese territory, a 110 metres tall Dam was raised, and it would breed a sea of 17 kilometres in Galician land. When the people knew what was upon them, a construction of such magnitude on the way to expropriate them, they protested.

I was still a little girl everyone was talking about the dam but no one believed it was coming In the end, it caught half of us by surprise because we didn't want it. They would come at night to negotiate while hiding with the elder which the ones who were disoriented, who thought the world would end if the dam came so they sold, more than half sold at night us, the one who were left behind, we had a lot of issues too there were protests, riot police came and, we were very hurt but well, it was worth it I thought we were all gonna die riot police would hit us very hard especially to women between our legs to burn us after that we went to the town hall we let them pass

We said let the bull go and once we were inside the town hall we started the hunger strike we were there 12 days

[...] everyone would tell us don't sell that the dam is not gonna come don't sell that the dam is not gonna come look now if it didn't

Look

I had to carry my disabled mother-in-law on my back because the water was reaching our waists already

Here

I remember looking at the land states those that you worked so hard on and seeing them now like that..I wanted it to forever be full so I would only see it once now, you see them one day and the next they are flooded it's really sad we saw our old house while strolling the other day

Once I tried to recover my old coffee machine two years ago [...] we were 9 siblings, we had to tried hard to survive we had very little land, my brothers sold, I had a house but some of them didn't live here some did no one wanted it when we were told about the money no one wanted it and we fought until the end it was good for young people for the old people it was really bad 80 years old 70 all their life have been there and now they had to leave it was like killing them they took away the life from them1

1 Margarita’s testimony, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc8No0Nse80 translated to English by Author

1968 -’Instrumento de Ratificación del Convenio y Protocolo adicional entre España y Portugal para regular el uso y aprovechamiento hidráulico de los tramos internacionales de los ríos Miño, Limia, Tajo, Guadiana y Chanza, y de sus afluentes, firmado en Madrid el 29 de mayo de 1968.’

1980- Lindoso Dam construction starts.

1989- Hunger strike.

1992- First flood.

There were two phases of resistance, the first phase was a series of protesting against the construction of the dam. The reason for the early protest resulting to be unsuccessful was that a large number of the community in the valley and specially the elders were illiterate. They couldn't read what was coming for them, they didn't have the tools to defend themselves in the 1960s, and this is something that the state was completely aware of. Later on, the implementation of new schools in rural areas increased and younger generations experienced greater exposure to the county's context and the world, majorly through television. But it was already too late for our little Limia.1

The second phase of resistance couldn't fight the construction of the Dam, although they fought for monetary compensation in exchange of the land's expropriation. This has been considered by the community to be partially successful. Resistance manifested in many different ways, not only through protest but in the forms of hunger strike and barricades. Many members of the community, including Margarita, tricked the police in order to lock themselves inside Entrimo’s town hall, where they slept and starved for 12 days. 2

We are in Hunger strike because we have dignity

1 Oral testimony shared with Author, Entrimo, 2022

2 Documentary ‘Os días afogados’, 2015

‘Salto de lindoso morte e destruccion de 200 familia labregas violacion dereitos humans ’

Lindoso Jump

Death and destrucction of 200 rural families Human rights violation

Another act of resistance was the transportation of the valley's church. The San Salvador de Manin church was located in Aceredo. The majority of the local community attended its Sunday service, and had their ancestors buried in its grounds. A sacred temple and cemetery was going to be drowned forever.1

The church’s community locked themselves inside the church for days until an agreement was signed, by which a team of professionals would transport the temple stone by stone up the hill. With the temple's transport, the exhumation of all the bodies in the burial ground came. This church is currently known by the community as the traveller church or transhumant2 church (Igrexa trashumante), as it was originally built in the 1600s uphill, and later transported downhill in the 1700s. 3

Newspaper Cut, ‘Aceredo moves out the dead’, 1989 aprox. In this image the numbering of the stones in the church’s facade can be appreciated.

Newspaper Cut, ‘Water starts to swallow villages, 1992 aprox. In this image the local newspaper made a diagram with the updates of the stage of every sffected village: O Bao: evacuated and flooded, Buscalque: Half flooded and in period of evacuation Reloeira: not evacuated yet Aceredo: not evacuated yet.

Newspaper Cut, ‘The Arbitrage Board for the Lindoso Expropriations continues to be un-constituted’, 1989 aprox. In this image the neighbours are gathered and locked inside the church, around a fire.

During the conquest of the Iberian peninsula, the Romans identified their mythological river Lethes, The river of forgetfulness, in Galicia we now know it as the Limia river. Which gave origin to the present tradition of crossing the river to prove your memory retention. I see a narrative relating this roman ‘curse’ and the current alienation of any life form surrounding this water body.

The roman soldiers were scared to cross the Lethes, as the myth said that they would lose all their memory as soon as they reached the opposite bank. The brave captain then told them to wait and watch him cross, once on the other side of the river, the captain started to point at each soldier and recite their names one by one. This story has been passed on since, and has been repeated yearly by the people of the Limia.1

The feeling of abandonment of the land by the authorities who industrialised the Limia and continue to exploit its the ecosystem. There are two types of forgetfulness in the landscape, material and political. Materially there is very little care for the infrastructures that could connect to the remaining community. Constant decision making from the governments located hundreds of kilometres away from the valley, impact directly on the life of the people and ecosystem, simply by not considering them at all, by not maintaining the forest, by letting the natural parks burn in the hot season, by listening to their propositions.2

On several occasions, the present community has tried to revoke Franco's international deal, and finally get the rent tax that they should be getting paid for by Portugal. But that would not be convenient, not even for the socialist party, considering the amount of land Spain occupies in Portugal with other dictatorial interventions. I wonder how these abused communities could get ownership back of their ancestral land, or the energy produced by the reservoir, as EDP is 51% owned by the Chinese Government. Is there any system that could heal both the non-human biosphere and restore the historic rural dynamic and traditions to the valley?3

‘Veñen de fora os que nos queren lonxe da nosa terra’- Suso Diaz

‘They come from ouside, the ones that want us far from our land ’- Suso Diaz

First page of Francisco Franco’s Pact with Salazar, 1968 BOE, Spanish government https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1969-478

Newspaper Cut, ‘“The Church is our only weapon and they will not move it until they pay us”’, 1989 aprox. Neighbours testimony shared with the press.

Todo o meu ser está leigado a terra, Sabeme a terra todo na memoria, Terra o camiño, terra a miña historia, Terra esta voz que no deserto berra.

-Celso Emilio Ferreiro

All my being is bound to the soil, Everything tastes like soil in my memory, Soil is the path, soil is my story, Soil is this voice that shouts in the desert.

-Celso Emilio Ferreiro1

1 Soil land and earth are the same word in Galician, Terra. the poet refers to all three meanings when he uses it, also refering to the galician nation. A terra or A terriña.

Due to the impact of climate change and the mismanagement of water resources, these dams are experiencing severe drought seasons and contamination. Is the energy produced worth the damage inflicted on the ecosystem?

The drought has caused the villages to come back to the surface and receive an incredible amount of visits under the name of tourism which has translated into the digital fetiche of the ‘ghost village’. The main sources of pollution come from the meat industry. In the Baixa Limia area, there are 72 pigs for every person. On top of that there are large chicken farms and other industrial agricultural exploitations. Chemical residue and pig waste is being spilled onto river meadows daily. The saturation of these spills is such that the As Conchas reservoir has had to forbid drinking, irrigation and bathing. Some areas in main affluents of the Limia are in complete hypoxia. Environmental movements and ecologists have been reporting the situation for more that 10 years, with no success. 1The energy company exploiting Salas and As Conchas was established in Barcelona and formerly an appendix of the main bank of the regime in Galicia. They decided that the best solution for the situation was to open an artificial channel that would dilute the pollution on the healthy reservoir, although, it has only translated in both dams being a health hazard, and contaminating all the aquifers in the region. Pollution, drought, abandonment are some of the site specific problems of this valley. General Dam construction controversies can be added to the list. Intense fog that carries bacteria on to the harvest and decreases the quality of, for example, grapes in the vineyards. 2

1 “Análise estatística, xeo-hidrográfica, demográfica e de carga gandeira realizada por SGHN” https://sghn.org/nitratos-a-limia/

2 Identification of nitrates origin in Limia river basin and pollution-determinant factors, UVigo

A water body is meant to be a source of life, the central point of the ecosystem and the mere reason why we are here today. But in this case, water has become an infrastructure made of concrete, in which no one around it is legally allowed to use, and physically recommended to come into contact with. In this project I want to focus on the water body as infrastructure and the network that these three concrete dams represent to the communities of human and other than human life in its surroundings.

By Author

Lindoso Dam

Year of completion: 1992

Construction starts: 1980

Reservoir Capacity: 37,9×10(7) [m³]

Dam Height: 110 m

Use: Hydropower exclusively, Galicians not allowed to use resource.

Nº people displaced: 200 Families

Water extension: 17 km

Reservoir surface: 10.72 km²

Current owner: EDP(Electricidade de Portugal) Company is 51% owned by Chinese goverment.

As Conchas Dam

Year of completion: 1949

Construction starts: 1945

Reservoir Capacity: 8,0×10(7) [m³]

Dam Height: 48 m

Use: Hydropower.

Irrigation and leisure are forbidden due to extreme contamination

Nº people displaced: 300 Families

Water extension: 12 km

Reservoir surface: 6.31 km²

Current owner: Naturgy Company is owned by mix of international shareholders

Salas Dam

Year of completion: 1971

Construction starts: 1968

Reservoir Capacity: 8,7×10(7) [m³]

Dam Height: 50 m

Use: Hydropower.

Nº people displaced: -

Water extension: 10 km

Reservoir surface: 6.86 km²

Current owner: Naturgy Company is owned by mix of international shareholders