The Guardian's Poverty Matters Blog
March 7, 2011
www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/mar/07/ethiopia-controversial-dam-criticism-communities
The government faces mounting criticism over the Gibe III dam - for not
consulting the communities affected by it and for attempting to silence
dissent
With Ethiopia due to become the leading recipient of bilateral UK
development assistance, following last week's review of Britain's aid
expenditure there is mounting criticism of its government's rush to
extend its hydroelectric programme and lease out large tracts of newly
irrigated land to foreign investors without full consultation of
communities affected by the schemes.
There is particular concern over the Gibe III dam being built on the Omo
river, the largest infrastructure project in Ethiopian history.
Campaigners say it threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of
people in the South Omo region and around Lake Turkana in Kenya. The
Lower Omo Valley, a Unesco World Heritage Site, is home to
agro-pastoralists from eight distinct indigenous groups who depend on
the Omo river's annual flood to support riverbank cultivation and
grazing lands for livestock.
Launching a new five-year development plan in August last year, the
Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, vowed to complete the dam "at
any cost" and lashed out at Survival International and other critics,
saying, "They don't want to see developed Africa; they want us to remain
undeveloped and backward to serve their tourists as a museum … These
people talk about the hazard of building dams after they have already
completed building dams in their country."
However, Peter Bosshard, policy director for International Rivers, one
of the groups involved in the campaign against Gibe III(pdf), says that
international groups had to speak out because local campaigners had
effectively been silenced. He said members of affected communities were
not consulted; anybody even suspected of opposing the dam risks
suffering serious consequences.
"Accountable governments and public participation in decision-making are
key elements of social and economic development," said Bosshard. "The
Ethiopian government makes a mockery of these concepts. In the Gibe III
dam, the biggest infrastructure project in Ethiopia's history, any
participation by the affected people has been suppressed, and any
dissenters risk arrest or worse.
"Western governments have found themselves on the wrong side of history
in the revolutions in the Middle East, and should start paying more
attention to the respect for good governance and basic civil rights in
their development assistance."
Ikal Angelei, director of the Kenyan charity Friends of Lake Turkana,
believes the dam also threatens the existence of communities living
around the lake – which is fed by the Omo river – most of whom are
residents of Kenya. Describing the dam as "the most outrageous social
injustice of our time", she insists a comprehensive impact assessment is
required, "capturing the entire Omo river, both in Kenya and Ethiopia,
and its effects on the hydrology of Lake Turkana as well as the entire
ecosystem".
Last month saw protests outside the Chinese embassy in Nairobi, with
campaigners calling on Beijing to halt funding for the scheme. Angelei
says the Nairobi government is divided on the issue, but that at least
protests are legal in Kenya, unlike in Ethiopia, and she urges donors to
heed Human Rights Watch's concerns that "funds given to Ethiopia are not
used to oppress its people".
One activist from the Nyangatom people living on the borders of Ethiopia
and Sudan recently said: "My mother and father live on the Omo river. If
the water is gone they will not have enough food. If they are hungry
then I worry about them. Maybe they will move to Sudan, and maybe I too
will leave Ethiopia. They don't want money or electricity, they only
think of their cattle. They are being pushed out by these government
plans. The dam is not useful to the Nyangatom people. The Nyangatom and
other people in South Omo won't benefit, only the government will
benefit. The Nyangatom are the victims of the dam."
Although progress on Gibe III has been considerably delayed by funding
constraints, China signed a memorandum of understanding last year to
finance construction on another mega dam on the Omo, Gibe IV, and plans
further dams on the Blue Nile as well.
Ethiopia's plans for constructing dams on the Nile have traditionally
met with robust opposition from Egypt, which has tried to maintain
control of more than half of the Nile's flow through the colonial era
Nile Waters Agreement, as well as through threats of armed force.
Perhaps reflecting Cairo's recent decline as regional strongman, Burundi
last week joined five other upstream nations in the new Nile Basin
Initiative, creating the two-thirds majority of riverine states required
to put the new treaty into force, and thereby effectively wresting
control of the Nile waters from Egypt and Sudan. It threatens Egypt's
right to 55.5bn cubic metres annually, conferred by the previous agreement.
Control of the Nile waters is further complicated by the imminent
independence of southern Sudan, whose proportion of the 14.5bn cubic
meters allotted to Sudan each year still has to be decided, as has its
membership of the new initiative, although it is likely to join its
fellow upstream states.
Protestors from the Stop Gibe III campaign have arranged a further day
of action picketing Ethiopian embassies across Europe on 22 March to
coincide with World Water Day.
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