الأسلحة الكيميائية وحقيقة استخدامها في السودان في منتدى ميديكس للحوار
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 Hamdab: in the Financial Times
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Sudan will harness the Nile but widen conflict
By Andrew England
Financial Times, March 9, 2007
For some months, Hassan Ahmed Omar suspected he was being trailed by
Sudan's feared security agencies. One December evening his fears were
confirmed at a friend's wedding party. An agent butted in on the
celebrations, told him he was "wanted" and escorted him to a car
outside. He was taken to an office in Khartoum where he says a six-month
saga of imprisonment, interrogation and occasional beatings began.
Mr Omar's transgression was to be associated with a campaign against
Khartoum's $2bn (£1bn, ?1.5bn) hydroelectric dam project on the fourth
cataract of the Nile. The project is the largest of its kind under way
in Africa and, when completed in 2008 or 2009, should produce 1,250
megawatts, doubling Sudan's electricity generation.
Sudanese officials say building the dam is crucial to development as the
country's economy expands, on the back of oil revenues and rising
investment from Arab states. Not only will it provide electricity for
industry but it will also create a 170km-long reservoir that will help
irrigate desert terrain, they say.
Yet for many, such as Mr Omar, the Merowe dam has so far brought grief,
becoming the latest in a long line of contentious schemes around the
world that call into question the benefits of hydroelectric power. It
will displace up to 50,000 people and flood areas rich in archaeological
sites, some dating back to the Stone Age. Unease about the dam is also
fuelled by Khartoum's poor human rights record and its failure in the
past to distribute the benefits of development equitably.
This is compounded by the involvement in the dam of a German company
blacklisted by the World Bank for alleged corruption on another African
project - and of companies from China, which has close ties to Khartoum
and helped develop Sudan's oil industry. It has played an important role
in supporting the government during the past decade while other nations
have attempted to bring Khartoum to book over atrocities in Darfur and
southern sudan.
Mr Omar, aged 39, was one of four members of a committee representing
the Manasir tribe who were detained from December 2004 to the end of
June 2005. The men were released without being charged but are prepared
to square up to the government again.
"We feel this state is a terrorist state . . . it started the problem
and does not want to solve the problem, therefore we expect there will
be a confrontation with the state any time," Mr Omar told the Financial
Times. "We feel our tribe is being targeted by the state. We believe
they want our land and are displacing the community for it."
In sub-Saharan Africa the shortfall in electricity remains a key
obstacle to development. Three out of four households do not have access
to power. Excluding South Africa, installed generation capacity is only
20,000MW, roughly equivalent to that of Poland, according to the World
Bank. Africa uses a meagre 5 per cent of its hydroelectric potential,
compared with 40 per cent in Asia and 80 per cent in Europe, the
Washington-based institution says.
The solutions, however, are rarely straightforward. In the late 1990s,
as the debate surrounding dams mounted, the World Bank and the World
Conservation Union set up the World Commission on Dams to conduct a
review into large dams and propose guidelines for future
decision-making. In 2000 the commission released its report, saying dams
had made a "significant contribution to human development".
But it added that in too many cases an "unacceptable and often
unnecessary price has been paid to secure those benefits, especially in
social and environmental terms, by people displaced, by communities
downstream, by taxpayers and by the natural environment". It added:
"Lack of equity in the distribution of benefits has called into question
the value of many dams in meeting water and energy development needs
when compared with alternatives."
To build its dam, the Sudanese government is providing $575m and
receiving nearly $1bn from Arab states and lending institutions,
according to a government website. The government is also receiving
$520m in financing from China, the main player in the country's oil sector.
China itself has one of the more questionable records when it comes to
dam construction. The $25bn Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River has
drawn criticism over corruption, the resettlement of more than 1m
displaced people and the environmental impact. In Africa, Chinese banks
and companies are involved in dam projects in at least six countries,
according to the International Rivers Network, a US-based advocacy group.
Peter Bosshard, policy director at the rivers group, maintains: "If
China continues to neglect international environmental and human rights
standards in the projects it funds, poor people around the world will
see it as an exploiter rather than the partner it could be."
Germany's Lahmeyer International, which is acting as consultant on the
construction at Merowe, has also been tainted by controversy. Last
November, the World Bank sanctioned the group because of "corrupt
activities" in connection with a multi-billion-dollar water transfer and
hydroelectric project ordered by the governments of Lesotho and South
Africa, making it ineligible for Bank-financed contracts for seven years.
Its role in the Merowe project has also attracted criticism, with Eawag,
a Swiss federal aquatic research institute, saying Lahmeyer's
environmental impact assessment report "was far from meeting European or
international standards". Eawag's 2006 review of the report said no
serious attempt was made to use "the vast scientific knowledge base on
the effects of large dams". It concluded that the dam would draw
sediment and that it was likely to lose more than 30 per cent of its
capacity over the next 50 years.
The dam was once a dream for the Manasir, Amri and Hamadab tribes who
for centuries have survived growing dates, wheat, beans and sorghum on
narrow strips of fertile land that straddle the Nile banks around the
Merowe area where the river loops south before returning north towards
Egypt.
It is a tough existence: the land is rocky and harsh and there has been
little development in the area, which lies 350km north of Khartoum. Most
houses are traditional huts made of mud and many lack electricity.
Talk of a dam in their area has been doing the rounds since the 1940s,
when Sudan's Anglo-Egyptian rulers discussed the possibility of the
project as a means to control floods in the Nile valley. It did not get
off the ground and in the 1960s Gamal Abdel Nasser built the Aswan High
Dam, which enables Egypt to regulate the Nile's flow from the Sudanese
border. That project displaced some 90,000 people, mainly Nubians,
including Sudanese living in the border region.
Still, successive Sudanese governments continued to tout the idea of the
Merowe dam, while the Manasir and others waited expectantly. For them,
the idea of a massive project on their doorstep had generated dreams of
prosperity, even inspiring songs, with choruses along the lines of "God
bring us the dam". But once the project finally moved from drawing
boards to the ground, frustration surfaced. Rather than being able to
settle on the shores of the reservoir and gaining access to irrigated
land, the government decided those living in the area should be
resettled to villages it is building in the desert, in some cases more
than 40km from the Nile.
Around 800 families of the Hamadab community - less than 10 per cent of
the total number of people being relocated - were resettled in 2003.
Last August, just under half the Amri were relocated - they claim
forcibly - when dam authorities flooded their area, affecting scores of
homes.
Just three months earlier, hundreds of Amri had held a meeting in the
compound of a school to discuss the resettlement. They wanted to bar the
dam authorities from carrying out a survey, because they were unhappy
with the land and number of new homes being made available. But they
ended up in confrontation with security forces, who fired on the crowd
and killed three people.
A police statement accused the villagers of "harassing" police and
throwing stones at them. "The police regret the death of the three
people and pray to Allah to accept them," the statement said. The Amri
insist the security forces fired without provocation. After that
incident, followed by the flooding, the partial resettlement took place.
"People were left with no option. The dam authority started with people
who wanted to go and this undermined the will of those who wanted to
stay," says Abdulmuttalab Hadallah, a member of the Amri committee.
"Seventy per cent of the people did want to go. They would have been
happy to move if all the services had been in place and they had been
able to farm."
Unlike the Manasir, members of the Hamadab and Amri say they would be
content to relocate if they felt they were provided with decent farming
land and adequate compensation. But Mr Hadallah complains that little of
the new desert land is arable, despite promises of irrigation schemes,
and accuses the government of failing to provide the services they need
to settle there. "For those who have been moved we are trying to push
the government to improve the situation, for the other half they will
not move unless we get all the entitlements," he says.
A member of the Hamadab in Khartoum also has complaints, saying that
while the new concrete houses - which have electricity and water - are
decent, there has been little support to help the community settle down.
"There was no local participation in selecting resettlement areas -
people have no trust in the government," he says. "There are no
institutions to manage the transfer of life: even the money they get for
compensation they don't know how to use effectively."
The Dams Implementation Unit refused to grant the FT the necessary
permit to visit the dam site or the resettlement areas. Nor were
officials from the unit made available to talk, in spite of a formal
request. However, Abdulhalim Aimutaafi, Khartoum's governor, was happy
to share his views.
"They had the deal of their lives," Mr Aimutaafi says of the relocated
communities. The authorities "give them big pieces of land; they build
new houses for them. You know the resettlement programme is costing 25
per cent of the dam costs - more than $500m. But people always know that
when there's a new development project they have to scream at the
government to get the maximum and this is what they did. It's a
political game."
He says electricity consumption in Khartoum alone is already heading
towards 1,000MW, with demand rising by more than 20 per cent a year and
the prospect of rationing this year. Merowe, he says, can be the
catalyst for future development.
"If you want to generate 1,000MW from thermal generators . . . you need
4,000 tonnes of fuel a day: this is $2m a day," he says. "If you use
that money in the right way you can build a dam every year, so this dam
is going to be the start of the chain of development of dams for the
future. This is the value to the Sudanese economy."
But conspiracy theories abound that the government plans to sell the
local land around the dam to large-scale investors - even the Chinese.
There is no hard evidence to support the rumours, but those accessing
the Dams Implementation Unit's website are welcomed by a picturesque
scene of the sun setting over palm trees and a large lake, surrounded by
high-rise buildings rather than small dwellings.
Left mulling their next move are the Manasir, who represent more than 60
per cent of those the government wants to relocate. Last June, they
reached an agreement with state authorities under which an independent
study is being carried out into the viability of the Manasir being
resettled in six locations around the reservoir. It will then be up to
the irrigation and agriculture ministries and Nile State authorities to
make a decision on whether to accept the proposals.
If they agree it could ward off further confrontation. But the two sides
remain deeply distrustful. During a recent meeting of the Manasir's
committee, tempers frayed as its members haggled over the best course of
action, raised voices only dying down after the muezzin's call to
prayer. At the close, they agreed to implement the first phase of an
"emergency plan", which entails the Manasir unilaterally building six
new sites around the reservoir - and being prepared to fight.
Initially, they will set up camps and provisions at the sites while
waiting for the authorities' response to the survey's findings,
committee members say. "If they try to resettle us by force we will
resist and fight," says Mohamed Abdullah, one of them. "To die on your
land is better than to be defeated and compelled to leave."
It is unclear how much of the Manasir's talk is bluster. Mr Abdullah, an
affable 63-year-old retired civil servant, seems an unlikely candidate
for a rebellion. But Sudan is no stranger to conflict and Manasir
committee members insist they are not bluffing. They even claim that
some of their community's younger men went to neighbouring Eritrea in
2004 to train with the Sudan People's Liberation Army, a former rebel
movement that fought a decades-long civil war in southern Sudan.
"Electricity and a house? What use is it if it is in the desert?" Mr
Abdullah asks.
A RACE AGAINST TIME TO UNEARTH CLUES TO THE PAST
By the time the dam at Merowe in northern Sudan reaches its final height
of 60m some time in late 2008, thousands of years of Sudanese history
will already be drowned under the waters of the Nile, write William
Wallis and Andrew England.
Among remnants of cemeteries, towns, pyramids and monasteries buried
under desert sands and among rocky islands in the river are clues of the
role Sudan's ancient Nilotic cultures played in civilisations that at
one point stretched through Egypt as far as Palestine.
The irony, readily acknowledged by archaeologists, is that the dam
itself has focused attention on the area in an unprecedented way,
bringing to light its significance during a five-year race against time.
Teams from across the world have scrambled to the remote and harsh
terrain in the 170 sq km area that will eventually be submerged,
gathering artefacts that date back as far as 150,000 years.
There is nothing as dramatic to capture the public imagination as Abu
Simbel - the temple that helped galvanise archaeological rescue efforts
when Egypt built the Aswan dam in the 1960s and that was eventually
moved by Unesco into the desert. But archaeologists say the richness of
past cultures discovered so far has revolutionised the understanding of
an area that until then was considered peripheral to the great African
civilisations of the Nile.
While they lament the speed at which excavations have had to take place
- and the inevitability that important chapters of Sudan's past will be
hidden - some also recognise that without the dam they might not have
been there at all.
"There is no doubt that we have been able to raise more money and do
more intense work than we would have done were it not for the Merowe
Dam. But the bad side is that when the water is flooded, it's gone
forever," says Derek Welsby, Sudan expert at the British Museum, who has
led some of the digging.
There has been sporadic talk of building a hydroelectric dam at Merowe,
some 350km north of Khartoum at the fourth cataract of the Nile, for
more than half a century. But the Sudanese government's status as an
international pariah during the 1990s, when it was harbouring Osama bin
Laden and fighting a civil war in the country's south, put plans on
hold. By the time the government started turning talk into reality in
2002 - partly thanks to its strengthening ties with China - most
archaeologists were caught unawares.
A campaign launched by Sudan's own National Corporation for Antiquities
and Museums changed that, bringing together teams from 14 countries in
what is the country's largest excavation project. Salah Ahmed, fieldwork
director for the corporation in Khartoum, says the work will provide "a
real representative idea about the history of the region".
Some local activists, however, are less happy with the results. In the
past year they have sent teams of archaeologists packing, most recently
preventing a German group from digging on one of the many islands within
the Nile that turn out, against previous expectations, to have been
inhabited thousands of years ago.
Among other grievances, the activists claim that the government has
failed to honour an agreement to build a museum in the area. Some local
groups also appear to believe that if they can stop the archaeologists,
they will also be able to halt the building of the dam.
As it continues to go up in the coming months, however, the waters will
begin to rise with it. By then the villagers will themselves be forced
to move and the evidence their forebears left behind will be gone.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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Re: Hamdab: in the Financial Times (Re: Asskouri)
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عسكوري لك التحية موضوع جيد وقيم
الموضوع ادناه يعكس تورط الشركة الالمانية العاملة في الخزان في عدة فضائح مالية بشهادة البنك الدولي
Quote: Bank bars company for years-old bribery scandal by Emad Mekay
The World Bank has debarred a German engineering company from Bank-backed contracts for seven years for its role in corruption involving an African water project, but Bank watchdog groups say the move is long overdue.
The World Bank, the largest public lender, cited corrupt activities in connection with the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), described as southern Africa's largest water development, in its decision to debar Germany's Lahmeyer International GmbH (Lahmeyer).
By paying bribes to the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority's chief executive, Masupha Sole, the engineering company engaged in punishable activities, the World Bank's Sanctions Committee found.
Sole was convicted in 2002 of 13 counts of bribery and sentenced to 18 years in prison for taking more than two million dollars in bribes over 10 years from agents representing 12 of the world's largest construction firms.
Germany's Lahmeyer International was accused of paying Sole just over 250,000 dollars.
The Washington-based Bank says that the company will have to meet certain conditions for the debarment period to be reduced, including fully disclosing instances of past misconduct.
The LHWP is a massive, multi-billion-dollar water transfer and hydropower project implemented by the governments of Lesotho and South Africa. It is designed principally to transfer water from the Maluti Mountains in eastern and central Lesotho to Gauteng Province in South Africa.
This is the second time the Bank has debarred a company for corruption in the project. Two years ago, it excluded the Canadian firm Acres International from Bank projects for three years after it was convicted of paying bribes under the LHWP.
But watchdog groups that have blown the whistle on corrupt practices in the LHWP say the Bank's decision came inexplicably late. After all, the Bank opened its debarment proceedings against Lahmeyer in relation to the LHWP back in 2001. The government of Lesotho announced criminal indictments of Lahmeyer and Sole in 1999.
Although the Bank's corruption policy states that it will sever ties with any firm guilty of corruption on a Bank-financed contract, it allowed the company to continue to bid for Bank-backed contracts until this week.
Lahmeyer received at least 18 Bank contracts totaling nearly 15 million dollars, watchdog groups say. Four contracts worth a combined 1.4 million dollars were granted since the Bank reopened its investigation of Lahmeyer in August 2005.
"Although we welcome this decision, the World Bank's sluggish response has only been to Lahmeyer's advantage. Future action must come more swiftly," said Terri Hathaway of International Rivers Network, one of the groups monitoring the case. "The Bank cannot be serious about fighting corruption if it chases criminal companies, but gives them a generous lead time."
Patricia Adams of the Canadian-based foreign aid watchdog Probe International voiced similar concerns.
"It sends the wrong signal to other corporate bribers," said Adams.
"In those seven years since the original indictment, Lahmeyer was able to carry on business as usual. Rather, the Bank should have taken swift action and suspended the company's right to do business with the Bank when they were originally indicted -- as is allowed for under the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- pending a decision by the Lesotho courts," she said.
The Bank says it had to wait until legal proceedings were concluded in the African nation and that it re-opened its own debarment proceedings against Lahmeyer in August 2005.
"This sanction reflects a serious response to corrupt practices," said Graeme Wheeler, managing director of the World Bank Group and chairman of the Bank's Sanctions Committee.
"At the same time, the sanction is structured to encourage Lahmeyer to demonstrate that its contracts and practices now meet the high standards that are essential to the Bank's work," he said.
The Bank funds hundreds of large projects like power plants, toll roads, water-supply infrastructure, fiber-optic networks, ferry terminals and ports.
Adams says that giving the company leeway under the Bank's newly devised Voluntary Disclosure Programme (VDP) could skirt true justice since such protections are ultimately "bad for developing country citizens and taxpayers, and the rule of law".
"The VDP programme allows 'confessors' confidentiality and thus allows the Bank to cover up its own negligence or complicity, which undermines the administration of justice in countries where it is a criminal offence to bribe a foreign official," Adams said.
Lahmeyer International was part of the consortium which carried out the 1986 feasibility study for the LHWP. The project's first phase is complete, including the Katse Dam, the Muela Dam, 82 kms of water tunnels and 200 kms of access roads, at an estimated total cost of 2.5 billion dollars.
When completed, the project would divert about 40 percent of the water in the Senqu river basin to South Africa's industrial Gauteng region.
Apart from corruption, environmental groups had additional concerns about the Lesotho Highlands Water Project because it directly affected about 27,000 people, displacing hundreds of subsistence farming households, and dispossessing many people of their land. They say the LHWP has caused the vulnerable Highlands population to "lose fields, grazing lands and access to fresh water sources". |
http://www.odiousdebts.org/odiousdebts/print.cfm?ContentID=16637
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Re: Hamdab: in the Financial Times (Re: wesamm)
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Quote: Memorandum on the Merowe Dam Project
Submitted to His Excellency Zhang Dong, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Sudan, at the Occasion of the Visit of President Hu Jintao to Sudan
By the Leadership Office of the Hamadab Affected People, International Rivers Network and The Corner House January 29, 2007
Introduction
The Leadership Office of the Hamadab Affected People (LOHAP), International Rivers Network and The Corner House welcome the positive potential for economic and social development which China’s growing role as a trading partner and investor has for Africa. Yet development requires more than economic growth. The interests of local communities and the environment must be safeguarded in the growing trade and financial relations between China and Africa.
The Merowe Dam Project in Sudan is the largest hydropower project which is currently under con-struction in Africa. The project will double the power generating capacity of Sudan. The affected communities are not opposed to the construction of the Merowe Dam. Yet the principle of a harmo-nious society requires that they should also be beneficiaries of the project, and not pay for its construc-tion through their impoverishment and the destruction of their environment. LOHAP, International Rivers Network and The Corner House support this view.
The Merowe Dam Project has massive, unresolved social and environmental problems. As it currently stands, the project violates Sudanese law, and a series of internationally recognized social and environ-mental standards. This memorandum summarizes the social and environmental problems of the project, and presents recommendations for the solution of these problems.
Chinese construction companies and financial institutions are major partners in the construction of the Merowe Dam. The visit of the President of the People’s Republic of China, Hu Jintao, to Sudan in February 2007 offers an opportunity for the Chinese and Sudanese governments to discuss the pro-blems of the project, to hear directly the concerns of those affected by it, and to address the unresolved issues.
This memorandum is being submitted to His Excellency Zhang Dong,Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Sudan. Copies will be shared with Sudan’s Dams Implementation Unit and China Export Import Bank.
Involuntary displacement
The Merowe Dam will create a reservoir with a length of 200 kilometers. It will require the displace-ment of approximately 50,000 people, who have farmed fertile plots in the Nile Valley for many gene-rations. The affected people are from three ethnic groups - the Hamadab, Amri and Manasir people. According to the official plans, they will be resettled in new locations in the Nubian Desert. The resettlement colonies are supposed to receive irrigation water and services such as free electricity supply during a transition period.
There is strong controversy about how many people are affected by the project. The authorities are refusing to pay compensation to many families who have lost their plots and houses, in violation of a Sudanese law which requires the compensation of all land that has been farmed for more than ten years.
So far, about 10,000 people from the Hamadab communities have been resettled from the Nile Valley to El Multaga in the Nubian Desert. A visit by The Corner House and International Rivers Network in February 2005 showed that the resettlement program has so far been a complete failure. Many of the new plots at El Multaga are covered by sand. Even with irrigation water, the quality of the desert soil is so poor that the farmers cannot produce food for themselves or the market. And while they do not have income, they have to pay for many of the services which they were promised for free during the transi-tion period. The poverty rate is increasing rapidly in El Multaga, and many people are leaving the site.
In August 2006, approximately 10,000 people from the Amri communities who still lived in the reser-voir area were affected by heavy flooding. The affected people lost their houses, animals, and crops. The authorities had not warned them about the imminent floods, and did not offer any relief. The government prevented UN representatives, relief agencies and journalists from visiting the affected area, and detained journalists who tried to do so. Many Amri people have now been moved to a place called New Amri (Wadi Al Mugadam), where the conditions have been described as disastrous.
The affected people suspect that the the water diversion channels at the construction site of the dam are insufficient to deal with the annual rains, and that the project authorities are trying to flood them out of their villages without any compensation. Thousands of additional people, particularly from the Manasir communities, will be displaced when the water level continues to rise during the 2007 flood season.
In June 2006, the Governor of Nile State, responding to concerns over the plight of the affected com-munities, reached an agreement with the Manasir, under which the Manasir would not be moved to desert resettlement sites but would be allowed to continue living on their land around the proposed reservoir. The agreement was backed by a series of Presidential Decrees. For several months, the dam authorities blocked implementation of the agreement, refusing to release key data for a study of the agricultural potential of the reservoir shore. The dam authorities are continuing to push for the Manasir to be resettled at Al Fiddah, a location in the Nubian Desert.
Recommendations:
* All people who are losing land and houses to the dam and reservoir should be recognized as dam-affected, and should be entitled to receive full compensation for their losses.
* The affected people should be resettled at locations of their own choice along the reservoir, and not in locations in the desert which do not offer any basis for their future livelihood.
* The social and economic problems of the people who have already been displaced need to be addressed immediately.
* The Agreement reached between the Manasir and Nile State should be honored in full.
Lack of participation
The affected communities are not opposed to the construction of the Merowe Dam. They want their interests to be safeguarded, and have selected committees to represent their interests. The project authorities have not recognized these committees, and have systematically sidelined them throughout the decision-making process.
The project authorities have responded with violent repression instead of constructive dialogue to the concerns of the affected communities. In December 2004, the authorities detained three representatives of the affected communities for more than a year. The detainees were never brought before a court, but held as hostages to pressure their communities to accept the resettlement conditions offered by the authorities. In November 2005, the authorities responded to a petition from an affected community on Sherri Island by trying to arrest community representatives, and sent three army battalions to the affec-ted area.
The tense situation in the affected area escalated in April 2006. Militia of the project authority armed with machine guns attacked a large group of affected people who held a peaceful meeting at a school in Amri village. The militia killed three people and wounded 47. The unprovoked attack on Amri village was documented by Al-Jazeera television, and confirmed by a letter of the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing Rights to the Sudanese government in October 2006.
Recommendations:
* The project authorities should engage in a dialogue with the committees of the affected commu-nities to address the problems of the project.
* The project authorities and the government should desist from using any violence against peaceful representatives of affected communities.
* The project authorities should collaborate fully with the relevant authorities to ensure that the June 2006 agreement between the Manasir and Nile State is fully implemented.
Environmental impacts
A brief Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Merowe Dam was prepared in April 2002 by Lahmeyer International, a German engineering company. According to Sudan’s Environmental Protec-tion Act of 2000, all environmental feasibility studies need to be reviewed and certified by the Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources, the technical arm of Sudan’s Ministry of Environ-ment. In violation of this law, the Merowe EIA was not shared with and reviewed by the Higher Coun-cil prior to the start of construction.
In March 2006, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) published a review of the Merowe EIA. The main findings of this review were:
* Poor quality EIA: According to the review, "key environmental issues such as reservoir sedi-mentation, irrigation, water quality and downstream ecological impacts (...) were not addressed adequately".
* Fluctuating water levels: Dam operations will cause the downstream water level to fluctuate by 4-5 meters every day. The reservoir surface will fluctuate between 350-800 square kilometers every year. The strong fluctuations will erode the river banks, making it difficult for farmers to collect water and fish in the river and reservoir.
* Sedimentation: Up to 130 million tons of sediment will be deposited in the reservoir every year. As a consequence, the storage capacity will be reduced by 34% within 50 years. This will seri-ously diminish the capacity of the project to generate electricity.
* Aquatic ecology: The dam will block fish migration. The fluctuating water levels and erosion of the river banks will destroy fish spawning areas and the habitats of other organisms.
* Public health: Pollution and the decomposition of organic matter may create public health hazards for people drinking water or eating fish from the reservoir. Furthermore, "stagnant water and exposure of a large area of the river bed can create perfect breeding conditions for mosquitoes, vectors of malaria and yellow fever and the water flea, host of the guinea-worm".
Recommendations:
* The EIA by Lahmeyer International should be reviewed and certified by the Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources according to Sudan’s Environmental Protection Act.
* The Higher Council should propose measures to address the problems identified by EAWAG which need to be integrated in the design and operational regime of the Merowe Dam.
China’s involvement
The Merowe Dam is being constructed by CCMD, a consortium consisting of the China International Water and Electric Company (CWE), a company established by the Chinese government to execute large international construction projects, and the China National Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Corporation (CWHEC), a company that builds many power projects in China and interna-tionally. The CCMD contract amounts to $650 million. The total cost of the Merowe Project is budge-ted to reach $1.2 billion. China Export Import Bank is the main foreign funder of the project, with a contribution of $387 million.
Non-governmental organizations informed China Exim Bank and other institutions about the problems of the Merowe Dam Project at several instances. Until recently, only one response had been received. When the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre inquired about the massacre at Amri village, the Project Director of the CCMD consortium stated on May 12, 2006, that "so far within our site no such event of what you mentioned in your e-mail occurred".
On December 8, 2006, Peter Bosshard, the Policy Director of International Rivers Network, had the chance to meet with Li Ruogu, the President of China Exim Bank, to discuss the environmental respon-sibility of financial institutions. Li Ruogu confirmed that China Exim Bank was committed to protec-ting the environment in the projects it financed. He indicated that China Exim Bank was sending a team to Sudan to review the situation of the Merowe Dam Project.
Conclusion and recommendation
The Merowe Dam Project has the potential to provide much needed power for the social and economic development of Sudan. As it stands now, the project impoverishes the affected communities, creates strong tensions in the affected region, and has massive negative impacts on the environment. This is inconsistent with the development of a harmonious society.
The Merowe Dam Project violates Sudan’s laws on the expropriation of land and the protection of the environment. It is also inconsistent with internationally recognized social and environmental standards. A review of the project by The Corner House and International Rivers Network identified 63 violations of the safeguard policies of the World Bank. Constructing a large hydropower project without the ap-proval by the relevant environmental authorities would also violate China’s environmental legislation.
In line with its commitment to protecting the environment, China Exim Bank should investigate the social and environmental problems of the Merowe Dam Project, and request that the responsible autho-rities in Sudan undertake immediate remedial measures to address these problems in cooperation with the affected communities and their committees. If such remedial measures are not immediately taken, China Exim Bank should suspend the financing of the project, and CCMD should suspend project con-struction.
President Hu Jintao will visit Sudan on February 2-3, 2007. His visit will provide a welcome opportu-nity for the Chinese government to convey its concern for the development of a harmonious society to the Sudanese government, and to discuss the measures that are required to address the problems of the Merowe Dam Project with the Sudanese government.
Further reading
A Critical Juncture for Peace, Democracy, and the Environment: Sudan and the Merowe/Hamadab Dam Project
ByInternational Rivers Network, The Corner House, May 2005.
Export Credit Agencies and Environmental Standards: An Invitation to Join the Dialogue
By International Rivers Network, December 2006.
Independent Review of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Merowe Dam Project
By Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, March 15, 2006.
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http://www.irn.org/programs/merowe/
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Re: Hamdab: in the Financial Times (Re: wesamm)
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Quote: Sudan dam will drown cultural treasures, destroy Nile communities
Thursday 29 April 2004.
By Ali Askouri*, World River Review
April 2004 — The Merowe Dam, proposed for the Nile in Northern Sudan, demonstrates how not to plan and build a dam in the post-World Commission on Dams era. This project appears to violate virtually all of the WCD’s strategic priorities. It will displace more than 50,000 people (mainly small farmers living along the Nile, whose lives will never be the same), have far-reaching environmental consequences, and inundate a historically rich area. The dam’s impacts are expected to be great, and yet there is no project environmental impact assessment. Project planning has been non-transparent, and people who will be directly affected by it have not had their voices heard. Dissent against controversial dam projects in Sudan has been met with harsh government repression, and this project is no exception.
The government maintains strict censorship on any news about local resistance to the project. But reports of incidents have leaked out through various channels. In one peaceful protest at Korgheli Village, for example, police dispersed men, women and children with tear gas and live bullets. Organizers were arrested, detained and tortured. In another incident, when 200 families were forced to resettle from riverside lands in the inhospitable Nubian Desert, Sudanese television showed government agents posing as affected people agreeing to move peacefully and receiving money as compensation. The reality is that eking out an existence in completely barren lands could mean the extinction of the Hamadab people.
The US$2+ billion multipurpose project - a price which includes transmission lines, flood engineering works, the dam itself, and resettlement - is being financed mainly by Middle Eastern financial institutions. A Chinese firm is the main contractor on the dam, along with the French company Alstom, and the German firm Lahmeyer. The 60-meter-high dam is expected to have an installed capacity of up to 1,250MW, almost twice the nation’s current total installed capacity.
Merowe would be the first dam on the mainstem of the Nile River in Sudan. The idea of building a dam at Merowe has been circulating in Sudan for more than 50 years. However, due to a combination of economic and political factors, it remained shelved until 1992, when it was exhumed by the government. At that time, the government hired a Canadian Consultant (Monennco) to carry out a project feasibility study. This study advocated building a 1250 MW hydropower dam. The project was unable to attract funders at the time. In August 1999, Sudan became an oil exporting country, and its newfound wealth helped to its credit rating among financiers. Consequently the government was able to re-present the project for finance. To date an estimated $1.3 billion - mainly from Middle East financing institutions - has been secured.
Sudanese civil society groups and individuals have for years argued that this project should be postponed until peace is achieved, human rights and democracy are restored, and the project’s cultural, social and environmental impacts have been fully evaluated. Such critical scientific evaluation and assessment cannot be undertaken under the current authoritarian government.
Social impacts The project will necessitate the resettlement of more than 50,000 people, mainly small farmers living on the river banks. Some people are already being resettled, with poor results. In a petition addressed to the German firm Lahmeyer, Dr. Alfadil Mohammed Osman writes, "I belong to the Hamadab area. My people are now in the desert, except for those who were fit and moved to a shanty town on the outskirts of Khartoum. They have no water, no health services, no hope. It is a disastrous situation."
The original study by the Canadian consultants proposed that all affected people be resettled 250 km away from the riverbanks into the midst of the Nubian Desert. The government at first accepted this proposal, but due to continuous campaigning by the affected people, this option has mostly been dropped, though not completely. The government is still considering resettling the people from the southern part of the affected area into the desert.
While not in the middle of the desert, the proposed resettlement sites are barren, windswept places with no groundwater supply - quite different from the villagers’ current situation along the Nile. Soils in the resettlement area where one of the groups has already been moved has proven to be barren and infertile by soils laboratories in Sudan and the UK. In September 2003, a group of farmers returned from the resettlement site to their original villages when they realized the uselessness of the area for farming; the government met them with unprovoked violence, using live bullets against them and injuring many. They were forced to go back to the resettlement site by the police and security agents.
Resettlers are also expected to meet resistance by communities that are expected to host them. In northern Sudan, where the land on the river bank is extremely scarce, a movement of a different group to a land owned by another community will no doubt trigger social unrest among those communities. Earlier experiences in Sudan attest to this.
The affected population has offered to negotiate over the years, but the government has categorically refused to meet with their representatives. Instead, the government opted to appoint its own agent to represent the affected people. The affected population has conditioned their acceptance for the project with three options for resettlement:
- Resettlement on the river bank in Northern Sudan
- Resettlement in central Sudan in one of the major agricultural schemes
- Resettlement in the same area on the outskirts of the lake.
The affected population also has stipulated that they should be moved to one place as a group in order to maintain the social fabric of their communities. Instead, the government divided affected people into three groups on a tribal basis and intends to resettle them into three separate areas separated by hundreds of kilometers. Such imagined divisions, in fact, do not exist. All, three of the groups are of Arab descent, all are Muslims, and all have the same culture and mode of life. All are strongly linked by inter-marriage and there is no barrier of any type between them. However, the government has deliberately chosen to break the unity of the affected people, to facilitate its policy of divide and rule, by emphasizing minor tribal divisions.
The government’s approach will inevitably lead to the disintegration of these communities, which have been living next to each other in harmony for hundreds of years. It will also strain family relations and social contacts. The government has categorically denied these communities any chance to discuss the issue of resettlement with each other. Within the government bureaucracy, everything related to this project is decided solely by one man, the State Minister for Irrigation. Numerous calls have been made by the affected people and national organizations to ensure the participation of the affected people in the resettlement process. Such calls have been categorically rejected, and the individuals or organizations that made them were suppressed and prosecuted.
When some of the affected people opted to take their grievances about compensation and resettlement to court, they were denied access to justice. This was immediately followed by prosecution where a number of these people were arrested, detained and tortured.
In addition to resettled communities, others will suffer social dislocation because of flooding of the wadis, which will permanently cut off neighboring villages from each other. Some of these wadis are quite large and their crossing represents a real problem for the villagers who opted to remain in the area. No study has been conducted to investigate this problem.
Unhealthy Ecosystems
A health impact study for the dam, documented in the book Dams and Disease by William Jobin (1999), has identified 20 major negative health impacts that will result from the project. "Without considerable effort and expenditures, the overall health impact will be strongly negative," Jobin writes. The dam is expected to increase or introduce serious deadly diseases such as malaria, schistosomiasis, river blindness, Rift Valley Fever and AIDS. The reservoir will also affect wildlife in the area. There is a sizable gazelle population living in the surrounding desert. No provision was made to study the effects of the reservoir on the gazelle population or other wild animals which call the desert home. The effects of the dam on the downstream population have not been addressed, and were completely ignored. Thousands of small farmers living downstream will face difficulty in irrigating their plots due to the recession in the water level. All the area behind the dam down to the southern most reach of the reservoir of the Aswan High Dam will be deprived from the annual silt brought by the river floods. Horticultural crops which are the main produce of the local economy, beside fruit-bearing trees (mango, grapefruit, and lemon) and the rare species of date will be severely affected by lack of annual siltation and the considerable recession in the water level. The magnitude of these effects has been totally ignored.
The ecological and climatic changes that will result due to the presence of this huge body of water have been completely ignored. Without an Environmental Assessment Study, it is impossible to know what other environmental damage might occur.
Drowning History
The area where the dam is located is one of the oldest areas in northern Sudan and has known human civilization since the dawn of history. According to the Sudanese National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM), the project will destroy archeological sites both directly (through engineering and construction works) and indirectly, through environmental changes in the region. NCAM states that the affected area runs for about 170km on both banks of the Nile, and associated islands. According to the Merowe Salvage Project website, "Very little archaeological work has ever been undertaken in this region but what has indicates the richness and diversity of human settlement from the Palaeolithic period onwards."*
An internal memo by NCAM states: "Over the last 13 years a number of excavation campaigns were conducted by various international archaeological experts, including UNESCO. These activities have thrown more light on the archaeological potential of the region and resulted in the recording of hundreds of sites. They consist of cemeteries and tombs, rock drawings, remains of settlements, and monumental fortress of the medieval period."
In Conclusion, The Merowe Dam project was proposed, designed and implemented by an influential group within the military government of Sudan to serve its own purposes in monopolizing the electricity sector (now being privatized). Two leading European companies - Lahmeyer of Germany and Alstom of France, which has a 250 million Euro contract for equipment on the project - are playing major roles in the construction of this project, turning a blind eye to the fact that internationally accepted standards on human rights, resettlement and the environment have been ignored.
A group of activists from the affected people supported by the Sudanese civil society organizations are calling for the postponement of the project until it has been subjected to rigorous scrutiny and its effects on both people and the environment have been thoroughly investigated and assessed. The project design needs to be up-graded to match internationally accepted standards such as the World Commission on Dams. An overall updated review of the project’s most troubling components by an internationally reputable firm to review the work done since 1992, especially in light of the findings of the WCD, is of vital and critical importance.
The author is the president of Leadership Office of the Hamadab Affected People (LOHAP) in London |
http://www.sudaneseonline.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=2714
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Asskouri
wesamm
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست