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dam-l LS: PR: Report Criticises European Dam-Building Firms
PRESS RELEASE From Corner House, UK.
27 March 2000
New dams report criticises the track record of European firms
European firms are violating people's rights, ruining local environments
and enriching themselves by building dams overseas, despite a litany of
failures and abuses examined in a report published this month.
The report 'Dams Incorporated: The Record of Twelve European Dam Building
Companies', by Dorset-based group The Corner House, calls for laws to
curtail the industry's "power to oppress", including holding them to the
same environmental, social and economic standards when working overseas to
which they are at home.
The report is to be submitted for consideration to the World Commission on
Dams.
The twelve firms - ABB (UK-based, Swiss), Balfour Beatty (UK), Coyne et
Bellier (Fra), Electrowatt (Swiss), Impregilo (Ita), Knight Piesold (UK),
Kvaerner (Swed), Lahmeyer (Ger), Siemens (Ger), Skanska (Swed), Sogreah
(Fra) and VA Tech (Austria) - have built, or are building, some of the most
destructive dams in the world.
These dams include:
* Ilisu - a Turkish dam project that opponents say is being used to
eradicate the Kurds as an ethnic group;
* Lesotho Highlands - where a $2m case of dam bribery involving 20 or more
foreign firms is now being prosecuted in a local court;
* Itaipu and Yacyreta - the most infamous examples of hydro-corruption, on
the border of Paraguay and Argentina. The combined cost of the two dams was
more than $30 billion - it should have been a little over $7 billion;
* Chixoy - where Guatemalan armed forces massacred more than 400 Maya Achi
indigenous people;
* Pangue and Ralco - in Chile, where local people were not consulted before
the projects were started;
* Three Gorges - where 1.3 million Chinese people will be forced from their
homes.
Europe's dam builders are exporting technology that has been discredited at
home. They are increasingly looking to private sector funding, often
underwritten by export credit guarantees. "Not only have the companies
continued to remain involved in projects where human rights abuses have
been demonstrated or where resettlement plans have been inadequate," the
report says, "they have in many cases actively promoted such projects
against local opposition and often in contravention of their own corporate
environmental guidelines."
"It is hoped that the report will provide local communities, host
governments and potential investors with information to help assess the
probity, reliability and ethical standards of the companies involved."
"Many dam-affected communities are now calling for reparations. It is time
to hold Europe's dam building companies accountable for their past.
Documenting their record is key to that process," the report says. "It is
also hoped that a knowledge of the record of European dam builders could
help European citizens who are demanding that the companies which operate
from their countries, often with the backing of their tax-payers’ money,
and certainly with their governments’ blessing, are held accountable for
their actions abroad."
The introduction to the report calls for a range of policy changes that
should be made if the European dam building industry's power to oppress is
to be curtailed.
For further media inquiries, please contact:
Nick Hildyard +44 (0)1258-473795, email cornerhouse@gn.apc.org
or Matthew Grainger +44 (0)1865-249392, email katmatt@gn.apc.org