by Alemayehu G. Mariam
People of Omo River Basin sold down the river
Exactly two years ago to the month, I wrote a commentary entitled, “The Dam and the Damned: Gilgel Gibe III Ethiopia” focusing on the impact of “development” in the Omo River Basin (ORB) in southern Ethiopia. In that commentary, I echoed the deep concerns voiced by various international human rights and environmental organizations over the ecological impact and cost of that dam on the lives of indigenous populations.
I also made it a special point to express gratitude and appreciation to “the great international human rights organization that have created so much international awareness on the precarious environmental situation in the Omo River Basin.” I am even more profoundly grateful to International Rivers, Human Rights Watch, the Oakland Institute, Survival International and the Africa Resources Working Group two years later for the extraordinary work they continue to do to save the environment and the indigenous people in the ORB. For years, these organizations have been in the forefront of the race to save Ethiopians damned by the Gilgel Gibe III hydroelectric dam.
The various international organizations have done invaluable work by raising public awareness and undertaking advocacy campaigns to bring international attention to the ecological disaster taking place in the ORB. Over the years, they have all issued meticulously prepared field reports, research and policy analyses and other scientific and statistical reports documenting the effect of the “development programs” of the regime in power in Ethiopia on the lives and livelihoods of the people of the ORB. They have all sought to advocate and mobilize international public opinion to bring sanity to the madness of Gibe III dam, the flagitious leasing of tribal lands in the Basin for sugar and rice plantations for the export sector and to stop the forced resettlement (“villagization”) of indigenous communities.
In my 2012 commentary, I also publicly lamented the fact that Ethiopians, particularly those of us in the Diaspora, have been standing on the sidelines with arms folded as the various international human rights and environmental organizations groups were running a steep uphill race to save Ethiopians in the ORB. We have
been silently watching them doing all of the heavy lifting for us. At the time, I pleaded with all Ethiopians to “join and help international human and environmental rights organizations help us, and engage in vigorous environmental activism of our own.” I appealed for the “creation of our own environmental civil society organizations, particularly in the Diaspora, to ensure that Ethiopia’s rich and diverse ecosystem is preserved and protected today and for future generations.” I also warned, “If we fail to do that, we will all find ourselves in the same position as the people of the Omo River Basin who are damned by the dam.”
been silently watching them doing all of the heavy lifting for us. At the time, I pleaded with all Ethiopians to “join and help international human and environmental rights organizations help us, and engage in vigorous environmental activism of our own.” I appealed for the “creation of our own environmental civil society organizations, particularly in the Diaspora, to ensure that Ethiopia’s rich and diverse ecosystem is preserved and protected today and for future generations.” I also warned, “If we fail to do that, we will all find ourselves in the same position as the people of the Omo River Basin who are damned by the dam.”