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dam-l WCD Submission: Dams, Apartheid & Reparations/LS
This was submitted to the World Commission on Dams' hearing for Africa,
which will take place in early December.
>DAMS IN THE CONTEXT OF APARTHEID
>& APARTHEID'S LESSONS REGARDING REPARATIONS
>
>Summary of Proposed Presentation
>World Commission on Dams Africa/Middle East Regional Consultation
>Cairo December 1999
>
>Liane Greeff
>Environmental Monitoring Group
>
> Dams all over the world have been used to entice bureaucracies with
>promises of rewards, of abundant water, abundant food, abundant energy, with
>very little mention made of the abundant financial social and ecological
>costs. In South Africa the promises have been the same, and not once have
>these large dams - the single biggest and most expensive infrastructural
>development, that foreign aid and global debt facilitates - been evaluated.
>No-one has asked whether the costs are worth it because no-one has taken the
>time to determine what these costs are and who pays them. And it is this
>question, regarding who pays the costs and who gets the benefits, that the
>real crux of the large dam debate comes to the forefront. And this question
>cannot and should not be one-sided. The flip side of the coin relates to
>evening the balance of payment and thus relates to how we can make equitable
>reparations to compensate the past losses of those who clearly paid dearly,
>who received nothing and who are, in many cases, still paying.
>
>South Africa, in its legendary twentieth century journey from Colonialism
>through Apartheid to Democracy, clearly demonstrates vital aspects of both
>these questions. Whilst the human rights distortions are most clearly
>evidenced in South Africa in that those who paid were black, and those who
>gained were white, it is not the proposition of this paper that South Africa
>stands alone. On the contrary, this distortion is replicated in all the
>countries of the world between the powerless and the powerful. And it is
>this dimension to dam building, which make dam decision making so vulnerable
>to short term political agendas and vested financial interests, at the cost
>of long term social and ecological sustainability.
>
>To a large extent the impact of large dams on communities have been shadowed
>by the greater distortions of Apartheid where 80% of the nation's people lost
>their land rights and what opposition there was, was silenced by force.
>However, a brief review of the Heyshope Dam in Mpumalanga, Kat River Dam in
>Eastern Cape, Gariep and Van der Kloof Dams in Northern Cape, Inanda,
>Woodstock and Jozini Dams in KwaZulu-Natal, gives clear evidence of a number
>of key experiences which illustrate the distortions of Apartheid Dams.
>
>* Whilst dams are built for energy and water supply, communities directly
>affected by these same dams do not receive either water or electricity
>* Approximately 250 graves of white people moved to make way for the Kat
>River Dam whilst over a thousand black graves submerged by the dam waters.
>Seymour communities have been struggling for three decades to receive
>compensation.
>* Heyshope Dam, in Mpumalanga, was built largely for industrial water for
>the Apartheid government's utilities and mines. The people who paid the
>price were the communities of KwaNgema and Driefontein who were separated by
>the dam, family ties were broken, schools became inaccessible, grazing lands
>lost, and despite the dam on their doorsteps, the community still face
>severe shortages of drinking water.
>* Pongolapoort (Jozini) Dam in KwaZulu-Natal, which was completed in 1970,
>was built to provide irrigation water for white sugar cane farmers. The
>regulation of the river water subsequently altered the natural flood plain
>regime and resources upon which 40,000 black downstream inhabitants
>depended. Only after years of anguish and poverty were water committees
>formed to replicate annual floods to replenish the flood plains
>* White farmers relocated by Gariep and Van der Kloof Dams received adequate
>compensation. Black farm workers, the descendants of people who had lost
>their land rights, however were left to fend for themselves, their families
>and their livestock, literally by the roadside, without land or livelihoods
>* The communities displaced by Inanda Dam, KwaZulu-Natal who were moved off
>their land, into urban townships, and who are still waiting after 14 years
>for any form of adequate compensation. These people still live in conditions
>of absolute poverty with high unemployment, and many of those who were
>displaced have died or will die soon without receiving justice.
>
>These points reflect the broader political ambit of empowering white people,
>creating jobs, promoting technical expertise, using the country's mineral
>wealth to pay for these developments as well as exacerbating the apartheid
>legacy of debt, and doing this through the exploitation of the majority of
>the countries population.
>
>Apartheid dam building however was not confined to the borders of South
>Africa but extended beyond to the war torn countries surrounding us - in
>particular to Mozambique where South Africa's need for electricity resulted
>in the then Portuguese government building Cahora Bassa. Cahora Bassa has
>proven to be one the most expensive white elephants on the continent - a
>combination of bad planning and management, and the civil war resulted in
>major ecological damage affecting downstream communities through loss of
>flood waters and floodplain resources, as well as not delivering any energy
>to South Africa. Now, all these years later, Portugal still owns the dam and
>is servicing the R3.2 billion debt whilst South Africa refuses to pay the
>resulting high electricity costs.
>
>Apartheid's Lessons Regarding Reparations
>
>Reparations which come from the verb 'to repair' is usually defined as
>"the act or an instance of making amends", usually by giving compensation to
>one who has suffered injury, loss or wrong at the hands of another. South
>Africa has a lot to offer the world in terms of its experience with trying
>to repair the damage done by Apartheid policies and practices. The Truth and
>Reconciliation Commission highlighted the value of making reparations as
>they can affirm that the values and interests, as well as the aspirations
>and rights, of those who suffered are being advanced. Reparations have both
>a psychological component as well as making material contributions, and it
>is evidenced that reparations play an important role in the process of
>dealing with loss, and therefore the process of healing.
>
>The case for reparations was given status in South African law in terms of
>Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act. A number of
>recommendations have emerged from the TRC process regarding reparation
>measures which could be in the form of compensation, ex gratia payment,
>restitution, rehabilitation or recognition. There are a range of possible
>reparation strategies, which include financial reparations, symbolic forms
>of reparation, such as erecting headstones, building memorials, renaming
>public facilities, a day of remembrance, etc., legal and administrative
>interventions, the need for ceremonies, as well as in some cases
>institutional reform. In the case of large dams, in addition to individual
>reparations such as receiving land for land or monetary compensation,
>community reparations are important and can take the form of community
>development projects such as training, schooling for children, recovery of
>lost graves, clinics and royalties. Community reparations and individual
>reparations are not mutually exclusive but are in fact complimentary.
>
>It is proposed that these recommendations, should be taken seriously by the
>World Commission on Dams in making recommendations regarding how
>bureaucracies, donor agencies and the dam industry should make amends for
>the injury, loss and wrongs that have been inflicted on communities affected
>by dams throughout the world.
>
>*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
>Liane Greeff
>Environmental Monitoring Group,
>PO Box 18977 Wynberg, South Africa, 7824
>E: liane@kingsley.co.za Tel: +27 +21 7610549/788 2473 Fax: 762 2238
>*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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