THE RIGHT TO HEALTH AND ILLNESSES FROM THE DAMS…:  The unmoving waters of the dams generates illnesses such as schistosomiasis (which can cause gastritis) which comes from snails in the unmoving or slow moving waters as occurred in the Kariba, Aswan and Akosombo dams.  Among the other illnesses associated with the construction of dams are: dysentery, diarrhea, malnutrition, unusual mosquito proliferation, pockmarks, skin rashes, vaginal infections, cancer, tuberculosis, syphilis, yellow fever, dengue and leishmaniasis.  Although there are many opposing opinions, among the possible impacts caused by high tension electrical transmission lines there are physical deformities at birth; increased cancer and leukemia in children, brain tumours and nervous system problems.

In China, liver cancer has been associated with the presence of cyanobacteria toxins in drinking water. [1] In the 1990’s, the University of Helsinki studied mercury in tropical reservoirs.  The concentration of mercury was seven times greater in people who at fish. [2]   Dams in the tropical regions produce an excess of aquatic weeds and toxic cyanobacteria.  Mining activity close to the reservoirs also elevates mercury levels in fish that convert it into methyl-mercury which affects the central nervous system.  Moreover, in general, human residues, the waste water from neighbouring communities goes into the reservoirs which have little water movement.

As we have already seen, the construction of dams attracts external people to the community which results in the importation of prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases which are worsened with the presence of the police or army which watch over the project.  Malaria extended out from the Itaipu dam; fevers and malaria spread out more rapidly from the Sardr Sarovar and the Upper Krisna dams in India and in Brazil and in other countries in Africa where malaria is the main cause of death.  At least some 40 000 people who live in the Amazon watershed have suffered from itchy or stinging feet and other health impacts due to the release of waste waters from the Tucurui dam.  With the Tocantis dam, many stomach problems were recorded where many children were also recorded as having died after drinking water.

THE RIGHT TO BIODIVERSITY AND THE EXTINCTION OF FLORA AND FAUNA…:  Dams and water diversions are the main reasons that 33% of fresh water fish species in the world have gone extinct, are in danger of extinction or are vulnerable.  The percentage is increased in countries in which rivers have been highly dammed – almost 75% in Germany.  A significant but unknown percentage of crustaceans, amphibians and plant and bird species that depend on fresh water habitat are extinct or in danger of extinction.  Discharges of cold water from the dam kills some species of fish and all the biodiversity which depends upon natural flooding.  Animals in ecosystems are displaced or killed; wetlands, underground water sources and unique forests are destroyed and the fertility that comes with the natural sediments no longer come.  With the opening of roads for the passage of machinery and other infrastructures, more forests are knocked down opening the door to lumber traffickers.  Reforestation in other places is not sought in order to mitigate the impacts.  With time, the displaced destroy more forests for their relocation thus eliminating more biodiversity.

Some dams result in many animals being left corralled into small islands where they die of hunger. Water storage also results in exotic plant, fish, crustacean, insect and animal species which the compete with native species.  The dams block kilometres of the passage of fish, insects and terrestrial animals up and down stream.  The canals or ladders for fish such as salmon which have been built to one side of the dam to allow the fish to pass through have not been successful.

“(…) impeding the passage of migratory fish species was the most significant ecosystem impact, recorded in more than 60% of the projects (…)” [3]

In North America, the construction of dams is one of the principal causes of fresh water fish extinction.  In the United States, for having put so many dams on the Colorado river, the water no longer reaches the sea and jaguars and herons and a large number of indigenous peoples who fished and cultivated there have left.  On the Colombia river, between 5 and 14% of adult salmon die at each of the eight dams built on it.  In Thailand, the Pak Mun dam eliminated 51 animal species and 11 250 tonnes of fish were lost from the Senegal river.  The salt sea or Aral lake of old Russia, with 67 000 square kilometers making it the fourth largest in the world, has lost 50% of its surface area and more than 75% of its volume now that the two main rivers filling it have been rerouted for crops in the desert.  Twenty of the twenty-four fish species that it had have disappeared.  With the Tucuri dam, 285 000 hectares of tropical forests and its wildlife have been lost.  In other regions, shrimp and turtles have been unable to migrate.

The contamination of water from the Belem dam in Brazil generated 300 000 tonnes of carbon which resulted in toxic foam and killed fauna and flora.  During a visit to Chile in 1998, James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, admitted that the bank’s support for the Pangue dam had been a mistake and that the bankc had done “a poor job” during its evaluation of the environmental impacts of the project given that the Pehuenche people living in the zone had not been consulted.  Not only is the environmental impact of this unsustainable project impressive but so is the loss of biodiversity for the dams observed in Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico.

THE RIGHT TO A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE…:  Those who defend hydroelectric dams argue that it is a clean source of energy.  This is a lie.  Dams constitute on of the principal direct and indirect causes of the loss of millions of hectares of forests many of which are abandoned underwater and decomposing.  Hence,  all dams emit greenhouse gases which bring about global warming as the biomass decomposes and rots emitting large volumes of carbon dioxide and methane, the two most important greenhouse gases.  On the other hand, the river is also dragging organic sediments to the reservoir increasing the rotting biomass.  Nonetheless, it is the shallow dams in tropical hot zones that have the most probability of being important greenhouse gas emitters compared to the deep ones in boreal zones.  “Gross emissions from reservoirs may represent between 1% and 28% of the potential global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions.” [4]   “Dams are unique among large infrastructure projects in the dimension and way that they affect the lack of access to resources and their distribution through space, time and social groups.” [5]

THE RIGHT TO ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND DEBT AND CORRUPTION…:  The average budget overrun for large dams is 56%.  Those financed by the World Bank (WB) oscillate between 27% and 39% more; those of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) at 45% more and in Latin America the average is 53% more than the original budget proposal.  In this way, the people are put into debt and the corrupt become wealthy.  For example, with the Yacyreta dam in Argentina and Paraguay the amount of money stolen by corruption was more than 6 billion dollars.

Twenty-five percent of the dams achieve the lower objectives than those planned with respect to capital.  Seventy-five percent end up with costs greater than the proposed budget. [6]   “(…) the opportunities for corruption offered by the dams and its large scale infrastructure projects further distort the making of decisions, planning and implementation”. [7]   “At the beginning of 2000, the Chinese government released information about how corrupt officials had embezzled $60 million of relocation funds from the Three Gorges dam”. [8]

“The WDC Knowledge Base offers many examples of the failures of project proponents, contractors and operators with respect to fulfilling their duties, the explicit (agreements and specific project contracts) and implicit (policies, laws, regulations and applicable directives)”. [9]

In India, a 1983 study concluded that 159 dams had excess costs of 232%.  The final cost of the Chixoy dam in Guatemala went over by the equivalent of 40% of the country’s 1988 external debt.  The Itaiupu dam in Brazil and Paraguay cost 16.6 billion dollars in 1990 when the external debt of Paraguay was 1.7 billion dollars.  The Itaparica dam in Brazil displaced 40 000 people and ten years later only 35% of the dam was complete owing to two loans from the WB for $232 million.  More than 40% of Brazil’s external debt was due to investments in the energy sector.  Forty-six percent of the people in China relocated due to dams continue to live in extreme poverty.  In India, 75% have not been relocated; 72% of the 32 000 indigenous peoples of Indonesia displaced because of the Kedung Ombo dam are living in greater poverty than before; the 800 indigenous families of Laos displaced by the Houay Ho dam are without water in living in extreme poverty. [10]

The Grand Coulee dam flooded indigenous lands in addition to three cities.  Nonetheless, the  non-indigenous peoples were compensated but the indigenous peoples received less and they received their compensation later.  Among the affected those who are without land or legal title to land have not been taken into account.  Nor are they who are employed by landowners to work the lands that are then flooded – as in the case of the Itzantun dam in Chiapas.  Many of the compensations exclude these types of groups, including indigenous groups.  In the case of those displaced from their lands by the Kao Maem dam who are of Karen ethnicity, since they were considered illegals they were not considered for relocation.

With the Kariba dam in Africa, the Tonga tribe did not receive what it had been promised:  electricity, water, highways, schools and hospitals.  Forty years later, in 1997, they were given electricity.  In order to build a dam, during the negotiations with the soon-to-be displaced, promises are generally made for the following seven basic elements:  electrical energy for the new town of relocation, drinking water (sometimes for free), foods, ‘development’ projects, the paving of streets, transportation and the construction of social infrastructure such as health clinics and schools.  These are always unkept promises and on occasions, five, twenty-five, even fifty years of the dam’s useful ‘life’ ass and the people have never received the promised benefits.

THE RIGHT TO PEACE AND MILITARIZATION…:  The majority of large dams in Latin America and the Caribbean were built during the cruelest of dictatorships which had taken power in the 50’s and the 80’s.  Dictators that were trained in the School of the Americas who used massacres and imposition to benefit the builders of the dam projects such as the Itaipu, Guri, Yacyreta and Chixoy dams.  The dictatorial governments received millions of dollars which were absorbed by corruption and for the benefit of mining and industrial exploitation, while the people continued to bear the burden of this supposed development.  The dictators encouraged the policies of the International Financial Institutions (IFI) and the WB, privatizations and the large Pharaoh-like construction of dams.  “In the case of the Tucurui dam, the project was planned under a military dictatorship and there wasn’t much concern during the planning for economic profitability or the recuperation of costs”. [11]

The WB turned a blind eye while the dictators were trafficking in contracts, steel, cement, turbines, transformers and other ghost construction materials and it justified further loans to fatten the network of corruption.  While many dams built in the 80s are ending construction above the original budgeted costs, today they continue to impose more dams throughout the continent at a price of more repression, trickery and militarization of the now supposedly ‘democratic governments’.  The same story is repeated in Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, and Chile.  The School of the Americas in Georgia, U.S.A. is also known as “the School of the Assassins”. 

Many graduates established at least 10 military dictatorships on the continent and thousands of others participated in the brutal assassinations and massacres of the 70’s and 80’s.  From there came the militaries of Costa Rica, Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.  In El Salvador, graduates assassinated Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, other religion persons and priests, 900 people in Mozote among them children and women and they participated in many other massacres of social leaders.  Graduates include Somoza in Nicaragua; Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez in Guatemala; General Luis Alonso Discua in Honduras; Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos in Panama; Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola in Argentina; Velasco Alvarado in Peru; Colonel Victor Bernal Castano in Colombia and 10 000 others.  In Bolivia there was the dictator, Hugo Banzer; in Brazil there were 455 graduates and in Chile 2 805 soldiers.  In Ecuador there was the dictator, Guillermo Rodriguez.  In 1994, it is calculated that the School of the Americas had produced more than 56 000 Latin American military graduates.  Only in 2003 did the Pentagon report that 22 855 Latin American soldiers had been trained in the United States, some of them at the School of the Americas – soldiers from Panama, Belize, El Salvador, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, among many others.

THE RIGHT TO LIFE AND THE DAM MASSACRES…:  Among the violations of human rights that we have analysed and that are related to dams, the worst is and has been the violations of the right to life.  Mining productions and the construction of dams have been the ‘development’ projects in which the highest numbers of deaths and murders have occurred in the world, above all of indigenous persons.  In Indonesia, eight people drowned during an act of protest against a dam.  In Paraguay, police beat inhabitants that built improvised huts on the coasts of the Yacyreta reserve.  In Colombia, repression against the opponents of dams continues and indigenous leaders have been brutally murdered or disappeared.  The resistance of the Tonga people to the construction of the Kariba dam ended up with 30 wounded and eight dead as a result of the colonial government’s firearms.  “In Nigeria, in April 1980, police fired on those who blocked the highways in protest against the Bakolori dam (…) unofficial calculations put the number of dead at more than 126”. [12]

Among the worst cases is the Chixoy dam in Guatemala.  One of the survivors talked about how his wife and children had been killed in front of him when he asked authorities, ‘And where are we going to go?’  The answer was the gunfire.  The violence began in 1980 when the military police arrived at Rio Negro and killed seven people.  Later, the bodies of two indigenous leaders were found mutilated.  The military gathered together all of the women and children and drove them to a site behind their village where they tortured and murdered 70 women and 107 children.  In the end, more than 400 indigenous Maya Achi, among them women and children and the elderly, lost their lives under the military dictatorship in 1985.  A confidential WB report in 1991 signaled that 25% of the 1 500 people who were displaced were murdered before the reservoir was filled.  During the construction the WB and the IDB intervened; as did the Italian government and company, Gogefar; the German consortium Lahmeyer International and Hochtief; the Motor Columbus company and Swissboring of Switzterland; and the International Engineering Company of the United States (now Morrison-Knudsen).  Nobody accepted any responsibility and they even denied that the massacres had occurred!

 For the construction of the Miguel Aleman dam in Mexico, the homes of 21 000 indigenous Mazatecos were burned.  The Kariba dam in Zambia and Zimbabwe displaced 57 000 Tonga people and the government sent in troops to oppress those that did not want to move.  Blood was shed.  In 1978 police killed four people when they shot at an anti-dam movement protesting the Candil dam in India.  In the year 2000, the indigenous Embera-Katio of Colombia sought political asylum at the Spanish embassy after the assassination of another of their leader due to their opposition to the Urra dam.  These stories are repeated far and wide in Latin America and the Caribbean.  If we do not stop them, they will worsen with the continuation of plans to expand the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP) and the Regional Integration Initiative for South America (RIISA).

Another world is possible!

(Note:  The information in this bulletin is taken from the booklet, “Don’t be a prisoner of the Dams”, by Ciepac, March 2005.  Said booklet used as its fundamental reference information contained in the World Dams Commission Report for the year 2000: www.dams.org)

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