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dam-l The Year of Eating Bones - Article re SA Hearings/LS



Dams Can be Disastrous - The Year of Eating Bones

MELANIE GOSLING
Environment Writer

TO the Tonga people who lived on both sides of the Zambezi, the year the
newly-built Kariba Dam filled up has become known as "the year of eating
bones". This was said by Fanuel Cumanzala from Zimbabwe, who spoke in Cape
Town
yesterday at the Southern African hearings for communities affected by
large dams. The hearings, organised by the Environmental Monitoring Group
and other
NGOs, form part of a global process in which people affected by dams have a
chance to put their case to the World Commission on Dams.
Cumanzala said the Tonga people, a minority group, had lived by fishing,
hunting and flood plain agriculture since 1500AD.

"When Kariba was built, the Tongas lost everything, but people in distant
cities gained a great deal. The Tonga people still feel the effects today,"
he said. Once they had lost their land they depended on government handouts.
When
these stopped, many died, and 1957 became remembered as the year of eating
bones.

David Syakusule, representing seven Tonga chiefs in Zambia, said many
people had refused to be resettled. "But an African had no say at that time.
Lorries came and loaded up people.
Livestock drowned. Everything was buried by water. The graves of our
ancestors are under water.
"Soldiers were sent by the government to kill people who didn't want to
move. Bloodshed was done," Syakusule said.
By the time Kariba became operational in 1957, 23,000 Tongas in Zimbabwe
and 34,000 in Zambia had been forcebly removed as the 260km long and 30km
wide dam flooded their land. While Kariba's hydro-electric scheme brought
power to many regions, it took 40 years before the displaced Tonga people
got electricity.

"For those years we only saw power lines going over our heads," Syakusule
said.
And if colonial governments paid little heed to the feelings of communities
affected by dams, so do some modern democratic governments.
Motjinduiko Kapika, a Himba from Namibia who lives near the proposed Epupu
Dam on the Kunene River, said he had been sent by his headman to give the
message to everyone who would hear that they Himba people did not want the
dam.

Speaking through an interpreter, Kapika said: "The Epupa area makes a
living for people in Angola and Namibia. Life will be destroyed for both of
our peoples if this dam is built. Our ancestors graves are buried there.
The government's answer is to have a reburial. We went over the whole Epupa
area to discuss this dam and the people did not agree with it. We say no to
this dam."

Andrew Corbett from the Legal Resources Centre said several of the Himba's
anti-dam meetings in Namibia had been broken up by armed police. He said
the dam was being touted as necessary for hydro-electric power, but the
offshore Kudu gas fields were more than sufficient to supply Namibia's
energy needs.

Melanie Gosling
Environment Reporter
Cape Times
Tel: +27-21-488-4716
Fax: +27-21-488-4717

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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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