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dam-l SA communities speak out on large dams/LS




                                    PRESS RELEASE



Durban 19 October 1999
Immediate Release

COMMUNITIES SPEAK OUT ON LARGE DAMS

At a meeting organised last night by Earthlife Africa Durban, Environmental
Monitoring Group (EMG), Group For Environmental Monitoring (GEM) and The
International Rivers Network (IRN), three communities directly affected by
large dams shared their experiences of forced removal to make way for large
dams.

The meeting was held to inform communities of hearings for people affected
by large dams in Southern Africa organised by the NGO sector scheduled for
the 11 th and 12 th of November 1999 in Cape Town.. The hearings will give
an opportunity for communities to speak out on the social and economic
impacts of large dams. The hearings will provide Southern Africa with
opportunity to allow for Commissioners from the World Commission on Dams to
hear the plight of the Southern African communities. The hearings will feed
into the World Commission on Dams, Africa and Middle East Regional
Consultation to be held in Cairo, Egypt from 8 December 1999.

Kwazulu-Natal communities welcomed the hearings as opportunity to speak out
and mandated Earthlife Africa to continue with the process of gathering
information around the issue of large dams in KZN. Mrs. Justine Shangase of
the Emaphephetheni community who was removed to Ntzuma to make way for the
Inanda Dam said, " I have been fighting forced removal since 1912, and
continue to do so, but will this process allow me to see compensation for
the land that I lost in Emaphephetheni area of Inanda. When the Inanda dam
was built, as many of my friends have died before being compensated for
their land."

Mr. Bhekani Maphala of the Amangwane community near Bergville in the
Drakensberg Mountians, where the Woodstock dam was constructed in the 19980s
revealed that "When the people where removed, the Inkosi insisted that even
the graves of our ancestors had to move, so the government people who were
given this task would often not finish exhuming a grave before knock off
time, this would mean that a grave would often be left open for the night
and women of the community already traumatized by the fact of losing a kraal
had to keep a vigil at the grave side with the remains of the their
ancestors for the night before the government workers returned the next
day."

Earthlife Africa Durban will be visiting the communities of the Amangwane on
the 25 th of October 1999 and will organising meetings for the three
communities affected by the Inanda dam on the 31 st of October 1999. Other
communities in KwaZulu-Natal that were affected by large dams are requested
to contact Bryan Ashe of Earthlife Africa Durban on 0826521533 urgently.

/ends



For more information Contact:
KwaZulu-Natal :

Bryan Ashe: Earthlife Africa Durban Branch
Cell: 0826521533
Tel/fax: 031-2052178
e-mail: bryan@mweb.co.za

Photos are available on request and can be ordered and supplied by e-mail
scanned for publication.

Southern African Hearings Cape Town:

Noel Stott: Environmental Monitoring Group (Johannesburg)
Tel: 011- 472380 Fax: 011-4722380
e-mail: sacbl@sn.apc.org

Liane Greeff: Environmental Monitoring Group (Cape Town)
Tel: 021- 7610549 / 7882473 Fax 021- 7622238
e-mail: Liane@kingsley.co.za

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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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