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DAM-L Huge Protest Over Large Dams in Lesotho (fwd)

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Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 15:56:46 -0800
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From: Ryan Hoover <ryan@irn.org>
Subject: Huge Protest Over Large Dams in Lesotho
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PRESS RELEASE: Transformation Resource Centre (Lesotho), International 
Rivers Network, and Environmental Monitoring Group (RSA)

Huge Protest Over Large Dams in Lesotho
Police Attempt to Disrupt Demonstrations, Injuring Three

More than 2000 demonstrators converged on three major dams in Lesotho on 
November 19 during a massive coordinated protest. Police responded 
violently at Mohale Dam, injuring three elderly women. The demonstrators, 
all impacted by the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), were protesting 
the lack of fair compensation for property lost to the dams, and 
unfulfilled promises of development in affected communities. They demanded 
to receive a ten-percent share of royalties generated from the dams and a 
commission of inquiry into the project?s impacts on local people. In a 
petition that they delivered to project authorities during the protest, the 
protesters state, ?We have tried by all possible means to get a fair and 
reasonable compensation for our property?but this was all a fiasco. We were 
promised development?but this has not materialized to date.?

The World Bank-funded LHWP is the most massive infrastructure project in 
sub-Saharan Africa. The US$5 billion project is designed to divert water 
from Lesotho to the urban and industrial Gauteng region in South Africa 
through a series of dams and tunnels blasted through the Maloti
Mountains. The first three major dams in the six-dam scheme affected 27,000 
people. Approximately 2000 of them were resettled.

Discontent stemming from the large involuntary resettlement and 
compensation program has plagued the project since its inception. Local 
communities, who depended on subsistence farming prior to the project, have 
been left bereft of land and struggle to survive on annual compensation 
deliveries. In community meetings and petitions, affected people have 
repeatedly pressed for a greater voice in project decision-making and a 
more equitable distribution of project benefits. This week?s protests, 
however, marked the first time communities have demonstrated in such large, 
coordinated numbers.

Crowds of 1000 affected people gathered at both Katse and Mohale Dams on 
Monday, while 300 more marched at Muela Dam. They marched and sang protest 
songs before delivering the petitions containing their grievances. At 
Mohale Dam, they rolled large stones onto project access roads, briefly 
stopping construction at the site. Mohale police, angered that some 
protesters failed to gather at pre-agreed marching areas, assaulted a group 
of demonstrators with batons and whips. Three elderly women required 
medical attention after being beaten about the face and back.

?This lashing of defenseless old women was unprovoked,? said Jacob Lenka, a 
community worker with the local human rights organization, Transformation 
Resource Centre (TRC). ?While some community members may have misjudged 
where they were to march, it did not warrant this police brutality.?

Elsewhere, a planned demonstration of resettled people in the Lesotho 
capital, Maseru, was postponed because police refused to grant permission 
for the protest.

?These protests show that affected people are running out of patience,? 
said TRC Coordinator Motseoa Senyane, ?The World Bank and other project 
authorities have not adequately addressed the communities? concerns in the 
past. It is time that they do so.?

For more information, please contact:
Motseoa Senyane, Coordinator
Transformation Resource Centre
Phone: +266-314463
Fax: +266-322791
Email: centre@lesoff.co.ls

Ryan Hoover
International Rivers Network
Phone: (510) 848-1155
Fax: (510) 848-1008
Email: ryan@irn.org

Liane Greeff
Environmental Monitoring Group
Phone: +27 21 448 2881
Fax: +27 21 448 2922

Background information on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project can be found 
at: http://irn.org/programs/lesotho/index.shtml

A report on the social impacts of the project entitled, ?Pipe Dreams: The 
World Bank?s Failed Efforts to Restore Lives and Livelihoods of 
Dam-Affected People in Lesotho,? can be found at: 
http://irn.org/programs/lesotho/pipedreams.pdf



Ryan Hoover
Africa Campaigns
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way
Berkeley, CA 94703
USA
Phone: (510) 848-1155  Fax: (510) 848-1008
www.irn.org


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