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dam-l Uganda letter: Environment, Dams and Human Rights/LS

This was sent by Ugandan groups trying to save Bujagali Falls from a large dam.

March 14

According to the Monitor newspaper of February 29, 2000 a United States of
America Report on Human Rights has ranked Uganda among the top six African
countries where human rights are grossly abused.

Unfortunately, the report only perceives human rights abuse in Uganda in
military and political terms only.  Ecological, cultural and environmental
devastation of Ugandans and their country through defective investment
policies and the erection of culturally, ecologically and environmentally
bankrupt projects such as huge dam projects are not seen as human rights issues.

Save Bujagali Crusade (SBC) wishes to call upon the US Government to expand
the yardstick upon which assessment of human rights abuse is measured to
include abuses that are cultural, ecological and environmental.  This will
enable that government to understand why civil society in Uganda,
particularly SBC, is waging a protracted struggle against huge dams,
principally Bujagali Dam.  It will also enable the World Bank to re-think
the whole concept of governance to include ecological, environmental and
cultural needs of the people as human rights needs.

When people are forced to move, culturally detached from their natural
cultural sites, prevented to access biodiversity for their livelihood and
exposed to disease factors through expansion of their (disease factors)
habitats, by erecting huge dam installations on rivers, their human rights
are being abused.

Only by a change of attitude towards avenues of human rights abuses and
their cases will the US Government, the International Finance Corporation
(IFC) and the World Bank understand why there is worldwide resentment and
mistrust of multinational corporations (MNCS) parading themselves as
purveyors and agents of development in the poor regions of the world.
Environmental and social responsibility of the US Government, IFC, and the
World Bank can only gain currency if this change occurs.  Then the US
Government can exert pressure on corrupt, criminal states and enterprises to
respect human rights in their widest sense.

If ecological, cultural and environmental considerations are integrated in
the assessment of human rights situation in Uganda, the country could rank
number one in Africa at the moment in the abuse of human rights!  As SBC has
always stated the construction of Bujagali Dam will grossly abuse the human
rights of Ugandans, particularly the Basoga who are ecologically,
culturally, ethically, environmentally and spiritually integrated in the
Bujagali Falls.



F.C. Oweyegha -Afunaduula
Deputy Coordinator
Save Bujagali Crusade.

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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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