The Monday, Sept 21 edition of the New York Times carried a full-page
advertisement about the Sardar Sarovar dam. It was signed by 28
organizations from 11 countries.
The ad contains clippings that can be mailed to the President of the
World Bank, and the US Campaign to Stop Sardar Sarovar. We strongly
encourage everybody concerned about this issue to get copies of the
coupons and mail them.
A transcript of the ad follows. The second-last paragraph is especially
interesting (it may sound ambitious, but seems quite feasible for the
organizations that signed this ad).
--Vikram
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Vikram S. Adve
6364 Computer Sciences E-MAIL: adve@cs.wisc.edu
1210 W. Dayton Street PHONE : (608) 262-6615
Madison WI 53706. FAX : (608) 262-9777
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[ YOUR TAX MONEY --- FUNDING YET ANOTHER WORLD BANK DISASTER ]
WHY THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE
WILL DROWN BEFORE ACCEPTING
THE SARDAR SAROVAR DAM
The world bank is at it again. This time it is financing (with
your tax money) a monstrous dam project in India that will
submerge tens of thousands of acres of forests and farms, destroy
fisheries, increase disease, and force more than 100,000 tribal
and rural people off their land. The people are resisting.
Thousands have vowed they will drown rather than give up their
homes. And the Bank's own Independent Review commission has said
the project is flawed and that the bank should ``step back'' from
it. We strongly agree. You can help. Here are some details:
1. The World Bank was created after World War II from altruistic
motives: to help war-torn countries. But later, it took it upon
itself to implement development projects in the third world. Many
have proved to be social and economic disasters.
2. Partly funded by taxpayers, the Bank now uses its mandate to
devastate rainforests, replace self-sufficient agriculture
(substituting corporate agribusiness), and construct some of the
most colossal dam projects on Earth. Such World Bank projects
have contributed to global problems of deforestation,
desertification, salinization, the spread of water-borne
diseases, and the forcible displacement of more than a million
tribal and rural poor people.
Does anyone benefit? Yes. The corporation and engineers that
build the project, and the elite government officials and
politicians that support them.
3. A case in point is the Sardar Sarovar Project on the Narmada
River in India. If completed, the dam will be 3,970 feet wide and
455 feet high, creating a reservoir 125 miles long. The water
will submerge 31,500 acres of valuable forest land and 27,500
acres of rich agricultural land. Construction has already begun,
but is being seriously slowed by massive local resistance.
4. About 100,000 people now live in the ``submergence zone,''
gaining their sustenance from the forest and from small-scale
agriculture. An overwhelming majority oppose the dam, but all are
slated for forced displacement. Believers in the non-violent
strategies of Gandhi, the people are not cooperating with
authorities. Several thousand have __vowed to drown rather than
leave their homes and traditional lives__. In most cases, this
includes entire villages.
5. The WB has already approved $450 million toward the Sardar
Sarovar Dam Project, with another $456 million for related canal
works. But the destruction will not end there. The the Sardar
Sarovar Dam is an essential element in the much larger, even more
devastating Narmada Valley Development Project: 30 major dams and
over 3000 medium and minor irrigation schemes that will cause
displacement of more than one million people.
6. The WB's own guidelines require that when indigenous peoples
are affected there must be full consultation on any removal
plans, and that ``oustees'' must regain a standard of living at
least equal to the one they left. __The Bank has never in its
history lived up to that standard in a major project.__ In the
case of Sardar Sarovar, they have again failed to do so, or to
redress the human rights implications of this project.
7. Seven years of controversy over this project finally compelled
the WB to appoint a distinguished commission led by Bradford
Morse, former Head of the UN Development Programme, to ferret out
the facts. The panel found that the projects were ``__flawed,
that resettlement and rehabilitation are impossible under
prevailing circumstances, and that environmental impacts, were
not properly considered.__''
According to the report, no comprehensive Environmental Impact
Assessment was ever completed. And to this day, says the report,
the basic data for an Environmental Impact Assessment still does
not exist.
8. OTHER FINDINGS OF THE REPORT:
-> Resettlement planning was so negligent that __the Bank
completely ignored the plight of 140,000 families that would be
affected by the canals.__ 13,000 of these families will lose all
or most of their land.
-> Several of the Indian stats in the region are refusing to
give oustees any land since, being ancient tribal societies, the
oustees never had documents to prove their original
``ownership.'' (They lived on their land long before ownership
documents existed.) The Bank never tried to determine the
magnitude of this problem.
-> Technical analysis suggests the dams will not perform as
advertised, will not deliver the supply of drinking water
promised, and that the irrigation benefits are exaggerated. Also,
sedimentation, waterlogging, salinity and drainage problems may
make the dams and canals less effective, or inoperable, soon.
-> The threat of waterborne disease like malaria was not
assessed, and no safeguards were taken. (Malaria cases have
dramatically increased near the dam site.)
-> From the report: ``__Important assumptions upon which the
project is based are questionable or known to be unfounded...
benefits are overstated while social and environmental costs are
frequently understated. Assertions have been substituted for
analysis.__''
9. The most critical phase has now begun. Construction on Sardar
Sarovar is underway, and forcible resettlement has begun. Some
protesters, and families that refuse to go, have met with
terrifying brutality from Indian police: beatings, arbitrary
arrests, unlawful detentions in the thousands. The Human Rights
group, Asia Watch, said this (in June): ``These abuses are part
of an increasingly repressive campaign by the state governments''
to try to prevent organizing of protests in villages, or the
release of any news on the disastrous environmental or social
effects. The Independent Review team concurred: ``Progress will
be impossible except as a result of unacceptable means.''
India's central and state governments share responsibility for
these human rights abuses, but the bank itself is an accomplice
for having ignored the abuses and by refusing to acknowledge the
awful consequences of these projects.
THE QUESTION MUST BE RAISED: __can the World Bank ever be
reformed__? These bankers, sitting in their plush, air-
conditioned offices in the financial centers of the world, are
making catastrophic decisions without any true concern for the
people that are affected, or for nature. They seem intrinsically
dedicated to a form, scale and style of development that cannot
serve the needs of the indigenous and poor peoples and they
ignore all appeals from these people. As for the consequences to
the environment, despite the Bank's public rhetoric, these are
__never__ a major concern. The end result? Lands swept clear of
people, trees and farms, and the imposition of monolithic, out-
of-date development models.
__This must change now__. If ever the bank wants to
demonstrate that it can match its rhetoric with action, then
unconditionally withdrawing from the Sardar Sarovar Projects is a
__minimum__ first step. If the World Bank does not withdraw from
Sardar Sarovar it will confirm that the Bank cannot implement its
own slated policies. Failing withdrawal, __we will launch an
international campaign to urge taxpayers, donor governments, and
environmental and social organizations to oppose the $18
billion replenishment of the International Development
Association__, the division of the World Bank that gives loans to
projects like Sardar Sarovar. We can no longer tolerate public
money being channelled into destructive development.
You can help by using the coupons below. Thank you.
International Rivers Network (USA) Friends of the Earth (USA)
Action for World Solidarity (Germany) Greenpeace International
Australia Conservation Foundation Indian National Trust for Art and
(Australia) Cultural Heritage (India)
Bargi Visthapit Sangh (India) International NGO Forum on Indonesia
Bharat Jan Andolan (India) (Holland)
Both Ends (Holland) Netherlands Committee for I.U.C.N.
Campagna Nord/Sud (Italy) (Holland)
Center for International Environmental Rainforest Action Network (USA)
Law (USA) Rainforest Information Center
Coalition for Environment and (Australia)
Development (Finland) Sierra Club (USA)
Earth Island Institute (USA) The Ecologist (England)
Food First International Action The Swallows, Third World Association
& Information Network (Germany) (Sweden)
Friends of the Earth (Australia) Third World Association (Uruguay)
Friends of the Earth (Japan) Wilderness Society (Australia)
Youth, Unity and Voluntary Action
(India)
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--
Gary S. Trujillo gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,bu.edu,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst