Chinese construction firms will fuel deadly conflicts along Africa's rivers

Opinion
Chinese construction firms will fuel deadly conflicts along Africa's rivers
By IKAL ANGELEI and SAMUEL MAINA
Daily Nation (Kenya), Thursday, March 3 2011

The involvement of Chinese companies in the Gibe III Dam on the Omo
River, Ethiopia, seems endless.

The latest entry into this largely unpopular and potentially
catastrophic project is Sinohydro - the world's largest hydropower company.

Sinohydro is the third Chinese company to delve into the Gibe III affair
after Dongfang, who won the tender to instal turbines and
electro-mechanical works, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of
China which would finance Dongfang's investment to the tune of $500 million.

Sinohydro announced in their website - in Chinese - that they had won a
$46.5 million (307.1 Yuan) contract to manufacture and instal metal
structures, including hydraulic gates and hoisting equipment, among
other steel structures.

The translation we have of this announcement is not very clear and we
await a better one that would give us its full meaning. The fact that
Sinohydro has delved into the murky Gibe III affair should, however, in
itself, be a cause of alarm.

The company has already been involved in other controversial dam
projects in Africa. Across the border in Sudan, they have been awarded a
$705 million contract to build the Kajbar Dam along the Nile.

This dam is being built on the ancestral lands of the Nuba, and
threatens to take up a huge chunk of what little remains of this
historically valuable land - and displace a people troubled by similar
dams for years.

When Egypt built the Aswan Dam thereby creating the world's largest
man-made lake behind it, Lake Nasser, they flooded out 150,000 Nubians
from their ancestral lands.

The loss of Nubian lands, and with it their culture, did not end with a
project outside their country, but continued with the propagation of
similarly devastating projects such as the relatively new Merowe Dam
which flooded out 50,000 people.

The proposed Kajbar Dam is not the only one threatening the last of the
ancient lands of Nubia. Another, the Dal Dam, is also planned within
their lands. Both dams could displace about 20,000 people.

Kajbar alone will submerge and thus destroy about 500 archaeological
sites, records of aspects of Nubian culture dating back thousands of years.

The people of Kajbar and Dal are vehemently opposed to these dams. They
have called them "humanitarian disasters" and have vowed - if push comes
to shove - to bring out their guns and engage in armed protest.

They went to the streets in 2007 to protest when Chinese and Sudanese
engineers tried to conduct a feasibility study. Thousands came out to
oppose the project.

Four died and 13 others were seriously injured as their own government
opened fire on them. Some 26 others, including journalists, were arrested.

What this did not do was to destroy the resolve of the people of Kajbar.
"We will never allow any force on earth to blur our identity and destroy
our heritage and nation," a community member said.

Just a week ago, the people affected by Dal Dam took to the streets in
protest against surveys conducted by the Dam Implementation Unit which
wanted to show there would be no substantial loss if the dam was
implemented.

The involvement of Sinohydro, Dongfang and other Chinese and non-Chinese
companies in Ethiopia's Gibe III Dam is likely to result in similar
conflict over resources.

Already, due to climate change and other developments upriver in the Omo
Basin, Lake Turkana is shrinking further into Kenya, leaving behind the
pastoralists and fishermen of southern Ethiopia.

The construction of this dam will - as sure as the sun rises from the
east - result in an explosion of violence, making an already bad
situation worse.

The conflict is likely to be a complex mess of bloodletting pitting the
Nyang'atom, Mursi, Amarkoke in Ethiopia against each other, while in
Kenya, the Rendille, Samburu, Turkana, Dassanech, and Gabra will turn
against each other.

Will China listen to the voice of reason and bar Chinese companies from
involvement in projects that have been rejected by local communities and
are being forced upon them by their oppressive regimes?

It is only through tangible measures that China can disprove its
spreading reputation in Africa as a country that does business with zero
degree of ethics.

/Ms Angelei is the director of Friends of Lake Turkana while Mr Maina is
the organisation's communications officer./
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