M. Jalal Hashim
© 2009 Khartoum, Sudan
I. INTRODUCTION
In
2005, immediately after signing the Naivacha Agreement between the Government
of the Sudan and the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM), the National
Congress Party (NCP) held its general congress where the former minister of
Finance, Abdul Rahim Hamdi, presented a paper in which he revealed a demographic triangle that was drawn by the
regime in its early years that
comprises
roughly the middle of the Sudan under the claim that this is what will remain
after the disintegration of the Sudan with southern region, Darfur and other
areas breaking away; hence the Hamd’s Triangle[1].
This report has given birth to the policy of Demographic Re-engineering, upon
which areas lying outside this triangle were to be quickly Arabized by, 1,
resettling the African ethnic groups deep inside the triangle, a matter will
eventually lead them to be completely Arabized, and 2, by a new Arab population
injection from outside the Sudan. In fact the government of the Sudan started
implementing this scheme in Darfur years before the signing of Niavacha
Agreement (in 1994), where Arab tribes from over Chad were welcomed into the
country. Without addressing the issue of land grabbing that has taken place in Darfur , upon which the African ethnic groups have lost
their lands, no peace is deemed possible. The Hamdi Triangle dates the time
where the policy of Demographic Engineering has been implemented in other parts
of the Sudan, such as Nuba Mountains (southern Kurdufan), eastern Sudan (the
Gash and Tokar delta) and northern Sudanese Nubia, where at least two dams are
being built on the Nile with the flooded areas planned to be evacuated[2].
In
the case of Nuba Mountains the ICC indicted minister, Ahmad Hārūn, was
appointed Governor of the State of Southern Kurdufan in 2009. Hārūn has been
indicted by the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity in Darfur crisis; he
was seen to have acted as the resident engineer of the policy of Demographic
Engineering in Darfur that has lead to hundreds of thousands to be killed with
at least 2 millions losing their lands and thus living in refugee camps.
Although the Nuba Mountains had fought with SPLM against the Islamist regime of
Khartoum, it is believed by many that it has not been addressed with due focus
by Naivacha Agreement. The region has been the theatre of continuing clashes
between the indigenous Nubians and their pastoralist Arab neighbours, the
Baqqāra of Miseiryya Arab tribes, who have kept encroaching into the Nubians’
lands with evident support from the Khartoum Sudan
In
the case of Sudanese Nubian the Arab population injection will be brought this
time from Egypt Sudan Sudan Egypt
The
Islamist Khartoum government is aware that these demographic upheavals will
neither pass unnoticed by the concerned people nor will the international
community let them get away with it. However, it is sure that it will take
considerably long time for all this to take place. By then they aim to create
new situations on the ground that no one can reverse, just as the case in Darfur [3].
More
dams are also being built in other areas of northern Sudan Sudan Sudan Egypt Sudan Nile in the Sudan Sudan Sudan
The
experience of Mirwi dam has clearly shown that the flooded areas will be
evacuated in the same way that took place in the case of Aswan High Dam.
Incidentally news broke out revealing plans that aim at bringing in millions of
Egyptian peasants to settle in the areas evacuated by the indigenous groups.
Such a plan of demographic engineering will naturally be implemented in collaboration
with the Egyptian government; it was the Egyptian government who first
engendered this plan in its own Nubian region. It seems that this is not the
first time for the Khartoum Darfur
leading to the crisis there. In the case of Darfur
a whole Arab nomadic tribe from Chad Darfur .[4]
This
report has limitations to information gathering and methodology that can be
summed up in the following two points. First; the information pertaining
to dam building in the Sudan
A. HISTORICAL NUBIANS
AFFECTED BY DAMS IN NORTHERN SUDAN [5]
This
Chapter will show that it is Egypt Sudan Egypt Nile
course south of its borders as that was seen as a direct threat to its water
security. The Nile treaty when first signed in
1929 after completing the building of Sennar Dam to irrigate al-Gezira Scheme,
made clear that riparian countries had to seek the approval of Egypt Egypt Egypt Khartoum Egypt Egypt
1. Egyptian
Nubians
The
construction of the High Dam in Aswan was completed, resulting in an area of
500 km along the Nile course (310 km in Egypt, 190 km in the Sudan) to be
submerged under the reservoir. The reservoir, i.e. the lake, bears two names, 'Lake Nasser Egypt Lake Nubia Sudan Egypt Sudan Aswan Sudan Aswan
2.
Sudanese Nubians
The
Nubians have been traumatized by the dams that were built on the Nile since 1902
when the first Aswan dam was constructed. Their trauma continued on all through
the raising phases of it (1910, 1933) to the construction of the High dam in
1964. All this has prompted the Nubians of Dungula, Mahas, Sukkout to organize
themselves to resist building any more dams. The Nubians of Halfa region that
were affected by the High dam and long since have been resettled in the eastern
Sudan DIU telling
that the water reservoir of Kajbar dam will extend to 105km up the river to
Dungula city; the water reservoir of Dal dam will extend to 65km up the river
to a small village called Kid Urma, just 6 km down the dam of Kajbar. To curb
for these wide spread rumours, the DIU began
speaking about the areas to be affected, with every time increasing the size of
the reservoir and submerged areas. As the policy of total de-population has
been adopted in all these projects, it was decided that the people affected by
Mirwi dam to be resettled in areas far from their historical homelands under
the point of gun. To make it even worse, the government was so secretive about
the project, totally ignoring to consult the concerned communities.
B.
STRATEGY FOR A GLOBAL MISSONARY SUDAN
1.
Pre-salvation revolution in Sudan
The
successive governments of the independent Sudan Sudan
2. The
Salvation regime
The
pro-Arab Islamist movement that assumed power in 1989 shouldered the responsibility
of correcting both the Arab and Islamic world. The banner of Islam gave them
the confidence the previous governments lacked. Internally they began by
policies aimed at social demographic re-shape of Sudanese people by
establishing the ministry of Social Planning. The minister who headed that
ministry was the Vice President Ali Osman Muhammad Taha. The ministry planned
to form the believing nation. The launch for this project was the Jihadi years
in Southern Sudan , Nuba Mountains Darfur .
Externally
they began their Islamic missionary to correct the world by chanting Jihadi
songs that threatened both America Russia Egypt Sudan Egypt 16/6/1995 the regime plotted the assassination
attempt on the President of Egypt, Husni Mubarak who was on his way to attend
the African summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa
By
the turn of the century the Islamist regime of Sudan Egypt Egypt Sudan Egypt Sudan Sudan Sudan
C.
THE EGYPTIAN DEMANDS ON THE SUDAN
1. Food
security
2. New
lands for agriculture and settlement
To
free itself from wholly depending American wheat, Egypt Egypt Sudan Egypt Khartoum Cairo
De-population
of large areas as a result of building dams
The
components of this policy go as follows: a/ building a series of dams in the
northern Sudan so as to evacuate the region and resettling the affected people
far away from their home villages; b/ resettlement of millions of Egyptian
peasants in the areas evacuated as a result of building the dams.
Clandestine
plans for the resettlement of millions of Egyptian peasants in Northern Sudan
The
covert plans are indirectly revealed through a series of articles published by
Sudanese writers, journalists and politicians in daily newspapers aimed at
de-sensitizing the resettlement plan. A flow of pro-Egyptian, anti-Sudan
newspaper articles began appearing regularly. They were all characteristic with
particular discursive clauses, such as “the strategic demographic equilibrium”
the Egyptians are assumed to realize in de-populated northern Sudan Sudan Sudan Sudan
In
a symposium held in Khartoum
In
a Newspaper article, Muhammad Sa'id Muhammad al-Hasan, who is fanatically
pro-Egyptian, went further to claim that the Egyptian demographic re-population
of the Nubian region is not only a necessity, but also a right[10].
In one of his Egypt-loving articles, which was published in a Sudanese
Newspaper, he writes: “... the population inter-mix between the two parts of
the Nile valley should take the first priority as it is necessary for the South
[i.e. the Sudan] in the same way as it is a necessary for the North [i.e.
Egypt]; it is the core of the integrative and unification process ... The
acceleration of the 'Four Freedoms Agreement', especially the part that deals
with facilitating the move of Egyptian peasants towards the southern part [of
the valley, i.e. the northern part of the Sudan], will bring about a wide range
of benefits in the Nile valley, not only on the level of agricultural produce
and expansion and the creation of new productive areas, but also on the level
of realizing demographic equilibrium. ... Thus we come to the role of Egypt in
securing Sudan and bringing peace to it, and the reinstatement of the Joint
Defence Treaty [signed with the May Regime (1969-1985) and nullified by the
democratic rule (1985-1989)] ... As strategic necessity, it [Egypt] should
restore its influence [in Sudan] and the Nile agreement along with the
restoration of life and population density in the area of Old Halfa. During its
rule of the Sudan Sudan Sudan Khartoum 2/9/2007 , the
Egyptian Ambassador went out of his way to attack the Sudanese who stood
against building the dams in northern Sudan Cairo Sudan Sudan
Explicit
plans for the resettlement of millions of Egyptian peasants in Northern Sudan
In
late 2003 head news read that negotiations on highest levels with the Egyptian
government had been made so as to facilitate the settlement of millions of
Egyptian peasants, along with their families, in the triangle of the Nubian
basin, Halfa-Dungula-Uwainat. The aim of this move is said, on one hand, to
safeguard the Arab identity of Sudan Sudan
The
Sudanese delegation, which was backed by a Presidential mandate, was led by
Islamo-Arabist Nubians, General-Brigadier Abdul Rahim Muhammad Husain (then
Minister of Interior, presently Minister of Defense). A cover-up plan named
“the Four Freedoms” which theoretically allows the Sudanese and the Egyptians
as well to own agrarian lands and settle in both countries was officially
declared. The cover-up plan has come out half cooked as both parties were too
eager in their scrambling to create a de facto situation before the
Nubians become aware of what was going on. There is no agrarian land to be
owned by the Sudanese investors in Egypt Sudan
On
31/03/2004 a mainsheet press release from the State Minister of Agriculture in
Khartoum (Dr. al-Sadig Amara, an Arabist Nubian as well) revealed that 6.1
Millions of fedans in the triangle of Nubian basin had been sold to the
Egyptians (investors and peasants) with long term leases, i.e. investment
through settlement.[13]
There is no mention of the Nubians in all these deals which seem like have been
made overnight.
Online
evidence
In
official visits to Cairo Sudan Iraq Iran
The
Minister of Defence went out of his way challenging his audience to bring
forward their solutions about tackling the population explosion in Egypt Sudan Sudan West Africa
has steadily increased. The State Minister on his behalf lamented the
hesitation of some Egyptian intellectuals and officials, urging them to
expedite moving to the Nubian basin before [sic] other people move there[15].
3.
The Nile Water Treaty
First
signed in 1929, it was reinstated in 1959 when Egypt Aswan Sudan Egypt Sudan Egypt Egypt Khartoum Egypt Nile
water. This makes Egypt Egypt Sudan Egypt Sudan Nile water as there will be none
of it to be re-distributed. 3. In the case of the separation of southern Sudan Egypt Sudan Nile water, i.e. by
allowing Egypt
4.
Arab
scramble into the Sudan
The
Arabization of northern region of the Sudan Sudan Egypt Sudan Southern Sudan , Nuba Mountains Darfur and Ingassana, i.e. from black African
areas. Other Arab states began also scrambling on the Sudan Sudan Egypt
5.
Egyptian
connection with dam-related de-population policies
The
policies adopted by the Egyptian government with regard to the complete
de-population tactic of the areas affected by the construction of the High dam
give string indications of how it is going to benefit from the dams being built
in the Sudan simply because the same tactic of de-population is being followed.
The Non-Nubian re-population of
Nubia
The
Nubians in both Egypt and the Sudan did make many attempts to go back and
establish small colonies of settlements and agriculture. They farmed the
drawdown areas by pumping water from the reservoir[19].
However, all these attempts were occasionally aborted by the fluctuating water
level of the reservoir, a matter the Nubians believe it to be intentional by
the authorities which never encouraged them to go back.
By
the 1990s the Egyptian government began following a policy of repopulating the
evacuated Nubian regions. It began encouraging Egyptians other than Nubians to
settle in the evacuated areas around the reservoir lake. It did this while the
Nubians were kept away from their own historical lands, living in a pigsty
style of life in their barren area of Koum Ambo. However, two economical
activities have been available to develop in the evacuated area; namely fishery
and agriculture. And indeed there are such projects, but with no Nubians among
either the fishers by the Egyptian government[20].
The same thing happened in the Sudan, with tacit encouragement from the
government to the Arab Bedouin who began settling in the evacuated area. The
full and open selling out of Sudanese Nubia by the Sudanese government was to
wait for a few years to come yet.
The
re-population of the Nubian region in Egypt has become an official policy
entrusted to both the Minister of Agriculture and the military Governor of
Aswan. Villages with full facilities and utilities built by the Egyptian
government and distributed to individuals and families from outside the regions
with bank loans to start with. In 2006 the inauguration of the settlement at
the old Nubian village of Kalabsha with 150 non-Nubian families took place; it
was opened by the Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza[21].
The al-Ahram Newspaper (the unofficial voice of the government)
announced that tens of thousands of fedans were to be distributed in the Nubian
region to people other than the Nubians[22].
When the Nubians demanded that their lands be returned to them, they got an
arrogant reply from the military Governor of Aswan: "If you want your
lands, go fetch them beneath the water[23].
This
policy is adopted by the Egyptian government in order to contain the discontent
among its Arab population who had been negatively affected by the 1992
Agricultural Law, which has come into effect by 1997. This law has liberalized
the land tenure market by abolishing the old land rental and tenure by
returning it to its old feudal owners, thus compelling the peasants to re-hire
it all over again, with the threat of rental price increase looming over their
heads. During the 1990s the price actually tripled and by now it has quadrupled[24].
This has caused a turmoil and unrest among the peasants who began seeking other
jobs. Migration of the peasants to other areas of agricultural schemes of
reclaimed land, away from their home villages, was encouraged by the
government. The Egyptian government adopted the policy of inter-migration so as
to solve (1) its chronic problem of population explosion, and (2) to compensate
those who have been negatively affected by its land liberalization law.
Re-settlement in the reclaimed land of the New Valley in Sinai was officially
encouraged, a matter the peasants were not enthusiastic about. Being riverain
all through history, such a move was too much for them. That is how the
Egyptian government began re-settling them in the Nubian regions which was
evacuated four decades ago against the will of its historical people, the
Nubians.
III. THE DAMMING OF NORTHERN SUDAN
The Hamdi’s Triangle gave way to
the policy of Demographic Engineering to be conceived and hastily implemented in Darfur and now in Nuba
Mountains (southern Kurdufan) and northern Sudan. In northern Sudan it is going
to be implemented under the pretext of development that necessitates building a
series of dams on the Nile so as to produce power and irrigation. The DIU has
declared that it is going to build at least 23 dams in the Sudan with at least
4 of them in Southern Sudan. In northern Sudan (down stream from Khartoum and
further north) where millions of Egyptians peasants are going to be settled
after evacuating the dam-affected people, at least 6 dams will be built with
the 7th already complete.
A.
arguments for and against dam
building[25]
This
section will review and discuss the series of dams being built in the Sudan
weighing their pros and cons. It will give evidence to the damage they wreak
with regard to the affected people and ecology weighed with the very little
benefit to be gained from them. It will discuss the arguments pertaining to the
two points of view. To do this one needs to set up the general guides for dam
building. Dams are built either for productive (agriculture and power) or
preventive (against floods and draught) objectives; their function however is
not eliminatory as a dam can serve one, two, or even all the above functions
(as the case with the Aswan High Dam). However, it is deemed necessary to
clearly state the function of dam when building one. If a dam is built to
irrigate water, then the agricultural scheme should necessarily be conceived
before the idea of the dam; the same rule applies when the dam is built to
generate power for industry. So far, aside from generally speaking that these
dams are meant for both agriculture and industry, the Sudan government has
failed to publicly bring forward the details of any development project in
relation with the dams it intends to build.
1.
Power generation claims
The
total of power to be generated from all the dams in the Sudan will not exceed
in any way 5.000 MW (according to Makkawi al-Awad, the Director-General of
National Electricity Corporation[26].
The cost of Mirwi dam has so far exceeded $2.25 billion, borrowed from China
and various Arab states and banks; the dam has not yet come to completion. With
such little amount of power the dam is thought not feasible with regard to the
high cost. For instance, the non-industrial consumption of power in the Saudi
capital, Riyad, is 8.000 MW. This raises a host of questions such as: if Saudi
Arabia, as an oil country, is able to generate all this power (35.000 MW in
total), why not Sudan which has also become an oil country? What will Sudan do
when Khartoum becomes the size of Riyad? Makkawi al-Awad[27]
gives us the following options for power generation covering the period up to
year 2030, thermal and hydro as well:
- Hydro-power generation: 4.587 MW
(%28)
- Thermal-power generation: 18.491 MW
(%28)
The
news broke out telling that, according to Afifi Abdul Wahab, the Egyptian
Ambassador in Khartoum, Egypt has agreed to supply northern Sudan with
electricity[28].
This was understood by the Nubians to be meant as services rendered to
facilitate the Egyptian settlement in the Nubian basin. It also shows that the
electricity of Merowe (Mirwi) dam is not enough.
2.
Irrigation claims
Dams
are often built to provide irrigation for the agricultural development
projects. However, this presupposes that there is enough water to be irrigated.
The total share of Sudan in the Nile water is 18 billion cubic meters (BCM),
while its consumption is 14 BCM, with a surplus of 4 BCM only. This means that
it can rely on these 4 million cubic meters for its agricultural development projects.
But building the five dams in northern Sudan will waste more than its surplus
in evaporation as the region is known of its very hot climate. To make things worse,
the region is also known of its relatively flat topography, a matter that
results in the dam reservoirs being extensively stretched thus providing big
water surface for evaporation. Of the five dams, I will bring the evaporation
loss of only three of them: Mirwi, Kajbar and Dal. These figures are taken
from: Dr. Seif al-Din Hamad Abdalla (2008)[29].
The importance of this reference is that the writer, more than being a highly
qualified person on water resources, is the expert of the Ministry of
Irrigation and Water Resources and in this capacity he submitted this paper:
Merowe (Mirwi) Dam evaporation loss of water: 1.5 BCM; Kajbar Dam evaporation
loss of water: 1.7 BCM; Dal Dam evaporation loss of water: 800 Million CM.
This
shows that the building of these three dams only will literally leave Sudan
without any water surplus that may allow it to undertake further agricultural
development projects. The same author, speaking in the same capacity in a
symposium held by the government in Khartoum, stated that only 2 BMC of Sudan’s
surplus of water will remain after the completion of Merowe (Mirwi) dam[30];
the remaining 2 BMC will vanish into the thin air by the completion of Kajbar
and Dal dams. In the conference of Arab
ministers of water resources held in Sharm al-Shaikh resort in Egypt, the
Sudanese minister, Kamal Ali, admitted that the dams of northern Sudan are
being built only for power generation[31].
This means that building the other dams (Mugrat, Dagash, al-Shireik, and
al-Sabalouga) will even make Egypt’s share of the Nile water decreases sharply.
For Egypt to sacrifice water in this extravagant way there must be a bigger
compensation; nothing than new cultivable lands can equal the prize of water to
Egypt.
3. Dam duration
Dams
built on rivers with high alluvial sediments, such as the case with the river
Nile, are deemed unfeasible[32].
The dam of Khashm al-Qirba on the river Atbara in eastern Sudan was built to
irrigate the agricultural projects set up solely to sustain the Nubians
affected by the Aswan High dam who had been resettled there. It was built at
the same time with the Aswan High dam. The last 40 years have been enough to
relegate it into redundancy as a result of the river’s annual 170 million tons
of sediments[33].
This has lead to the deterioration of the Khashm al-Qirba agricultural scheme
to the extent that it could not sustain the Nubians who were compelled to mount
another exodus.
The
situation of the Aswan High dam with regard to sedimentation remains a matter
of guess due to the secrecy enveloping it. However, it is known that the USAID
had funded $154 million in improvements to the High Dam since the late 1980s[34].
More than harming the turbines of the dam, the high alluvial sediments of the
Nile water have caused acute problems of salinity in Egypt. In R.J. Oosterbaan,
1999[35],
we read: “The salt concentration of the water in Lake Nasser [read Lake Nubia
in the Sudan] at the High Dam is about 0.25 kg3 salt/m. The salt import into
Egypt’s water use systems thus amounts to about 14 million3 3 tons per year (55
billion m water/year x 0.25 kg salt/ m water) or roughly 1.6 ton/fedan/year
over 8.7 million fedans of irrigated land, i.e. 4.0 ton/ha/year”. So, if the
last 40 years were enough to turn the Khasm al-Qirba dam into redundancy, then
it is quite possible that the dams being built in northern Sudan will face the
same fate. When the river Atbara joins the Nile, the alluvial sediments reach
270 million tons. All the six or seven dams are located down the confluence of
the Atbara and the Nile. This makes one question the feasibility of building
these dams. However, by building them, Egypt will definitely be the major
beneficiary as they are going to save the Aswan High dam from the fate that has
befallen Khashm al-Qirba dam.
B.
The Seven Dams on the River Nile North of
Khartoum[36]
Below we are going to review these dams and the
benefits assumed to be gained from building them with regard to the declared
policy of Demographic Re-engineering.
1.
Merowe (Mirwi) Dam (4th
Cataract)
The Merowe (Mirwi) dam project has a long history
when compared to the other ones to be built. Its idea was conceived first by
the Egyptians who wanted to build their high dam at this spot in 1947. Later
they changed their mind but not before they conducted the land and
socio-economic surveys and drawing maps- the same maps that will be used later
by the Dam Implementation Unit to estimate the agricultural and demographic
loss going to be caused by the dam.
Objectives
of the project
The
website of the dam says that it[37]:
“… is a multipurpose scheme … basically intended for generating hydropower”.
Many feasibility studies were done on the project in the past decades the most
recent of which are the studies conducted by Monenco-Agra Company, Canada, in
1993, and the Hydro-project Institute, Russia, in 1999.” Then the website gives 10 objectives for
building the Merowe Dam as follows:
1.
To generate
electricity power to meet the increasing demand for purposes of economical and
social development
2.
To provide
relatively cheap electricity power to improve the irrigated agriculture in the
country
3.
To benefit from
the flow irrigation for the upper stream river to achieve agricultural
development, and to improve the breeds of agricultural seeds
4.
To use the
electricity to pump up the ground water and use it to expand the agricultural
sector
5.
To establish
industrial projects, food industry projects, and mining fields that depend on
the electricity as a main energy source
6.
To introduce the
fish industry in the Dam’s lake
7.
To protect the
downstream areas from the destructive floods
8.
To improve the
river transportation
9.
To improve the
living standards for the local residents in the area of the project, by
creating investments and new job opportunities
10. To
reduce the pressure on the current dams, especially with regard to the struggle
for water use for irrigation or power generation
However,
in another place we read other objectives[38]:
“The Merowe dam was designed to serve several purposes, namely: the generation
of electricity from its 1250 MW hydropower station; the development of
centralized agricultural irrigation schemes (about 300000 ha); and, the protection
of the Northern State against devastating high floods of the river Nile.
Furthermore, the dam will act as a sediment trap, reducing sedimentation at the
Aswan High Dam further down stream in Egypt”.
Now with the dam complete and officially inaugurated
on 3/3/2009 by President al-Bashir, the country has yet to wait to see it
producing energy. Many trials were made in the last 5 months to operate the dam
so as to generate power with no tangible results. There was wide blackout in
the country on the very same day announced to have the dam being operated to
incorporate the power generated from the dam into the main stream electricity
of the National Electricity Corporation (NEC). This happened more than three
times. Furthermore, the dam has not been working according to the operating
programme designed for it[39].
All this has lead to a conflict between DIU and
NEC which was deepened by the fact that the latter had already announced its
plan to generate more power than all total gained from all the dams planned to
be built by the DIU and with less cost.
Arab funding of the project
Amount
of the basic loan: $150 million
The amount of the additional loan: $100 million
The total amount of funding: $250 millions
The basic loan
was signed on 7th May 2002 ,
and the additional loan was signed on 21st January 2004
The Kuwaiti fund for economical development
Amount
of the basic loan: $100 million
The amount of the additional loan: $50 million
The total amount of funding: $150 millions
The basic loan
was signed on 17th March
2002 , and the additional loan was signed on 26 April 2004
Amount
of the basic loan: $100 million
The amount of the additional loan: $50 million
The total amount of funding: $150 millions
The basic loan
was signed on 6th May 2002 ,
and the additional loan was signed on 26 April 2003
The Saudi fund for development
Amount
of the basic loan: $150 million
The amount of the additional loan: $50 million
The total amount of funding: $200 millions
The basic loan
was signed on 30th December
2003 , and the additional loan was signed on 22 April 2004
In addition to the funds provided by the Arab
Funds, Qatar 7th July
2002 , a funding agreement of $106 million was signed with the
Sultanate of Oman, and on 25th
August 2002 an agreement totalling to $15 million was signed with
the State of Qatar.
Other financiers
In addition to the Arab funding, the Government of
China provided 85% of the funding required for the Transmission Lines and the
Substations. The details of their funding are as follows:
The
first loan: $400 millions
The second loan: $65 million
The third loan: $54 million
The total amount of the Chinese loans: $519 million
All three agreements
were signed on 23 December
2003
The allowance period before the first repayment is 6-7
years, and the maximum repayment period is over 20 years.
The accompanying projects
§ Residential Town
§ Roads and Bridges
§ Railway
§ Merowe Airport
§ Merowe Hospital
§ There is no mentioning of any
agricultural development project
Construction companies
§ Lahmyere International (Germany
§ Alstom (France)
§ The China International Water
& Electric Corporation CWE and CCMD Consortium (China
§ Harbin Power Engineering Company
(China
Power, construction and reservoir
§ 12.5 km3
§ 175 km long (20% of the Nile annual flow)
Collateral damage
§ 3.000 Archaeological sites
submerged
§ 55-70 thousands displaced
§ 3 Ethnic groups affected
§ Proper resettlement not arranged
§ Clashes between the affected
people and the military militia related to the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU) in
2003, 2006.
Criticism
§ Weakness of 1993 Monenco Agra (Canada
§ Outdated assessment studies
§ Inadequacy of resettlement issues
or the environmental and cultural impact studies;
§ Lack of transparency
§ The Swiss Federal Institute of
Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) concluded in March 2006 that the
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) provided by the Sudan
§ The government has not consulted
the affected communities about the project, and is cracking down harshly
against their protests[45].
1.2. The DIU
forced Plans for the Manasir Resettlement
(1) al-Multaqa, far down the river; (2) al-Mukarāb,
up the river, close to Atbara; (3)
al-Fidā’ Scheme, up the river close to Abu Hamad in the Rubatab tribe region;
(4) Wadi al-Mugadam Scheme. It had declined the latter as no studies were made
to assess its suitability. The areas 2, 3, and 4 were decided to be allocated
for the resettlement of the people of Amri and the Manasir with the area 1
allocated for the resettlement of Hamdab people. In fact in the study conducted
by the German company Lahmeyer International[46]
on behalf of the Merowe Dam Project Implementation Unit, Commission for Social
Affairs and Environmental Assessment, with the exception of al-Multaga (where
the Hamdab affected people have already been resettled), there is no detailed
resettlement arrangements for any of the above-mentioned areas. Wadi
al-Mugaddam was indeed mentioned but not without false claims that it was
endorsed by the Amri people as a resettlement area. “It is located 85 km
downstream of the dam site, on the left bank of the river Nile
and is 5 km distant from the river. On the basis of the limited information
available, which is considered in sufficient o make a final decision, the site
has been tentatively accepted by the Amri group pending the outcome of proposed
studies to be undertaken to assess the extent and agro-economic feasibility of
the site”[47]. According to the
Manasir Just Demands, no further steps were taken on this issue. The
Mukabrab was mentioned in just 5 lines[48]
that read: “Another potential resettlement area, Mukabrab (19.000 ha), situated
along the Atbara river (a seasonal tributary
to the Nile ), has a longer history than other
places. The Mukabrab site has recently been reconfirmed a possible area within
which to resettle part of the displaced Manasir people. Although some survey
has been done already, detailed pedological, irrigation and agro-economic
studies are required in order to finally assess its feasibility”. About what
the Lahmeyer study[49]
calls “other sites”, we read the following:
- El Fida
(16.000 ha) - at the beginning (upper reaches) of the future reservoir
near Abu Hamad, on the right bank and 10 km from the river
- Wadi
Mahafur (22.000 ha) - 55 km downstream from the dam
site, on the right bank and 5 to 10 km [sic] from the river
- Wadi
Hawar (25.000 ha) – 80 km downstream from the dam
site, on the left bank and 5 km from the river
- Wadi al
Khuwai (1000.000 ha) – 230 to 230 [sic] km downstream
from the dam site, on the right bank and 0 to 10 km from the river
All the sites except that of Wadi al Khuwai,
are at least 5 km far from the bank of the Nile .
The information about the Wadi al Khuwai is not true as it is at least 19 km
far from the Nile . This sheds doubt on the
credibility of the distances the study gives. By 2002, the time of the
publication of the report, the construction works on dam had already started
and the above-mentioned sites were already being presented to the affected
people against their will as the chosen areas for their resettlement. This
raises the question of the scientific integrity and honesty of the studies
undertaken by the DIU . The other observation
to be made, the irrigation of the agricultural schemes to sustain the resettled
people, according to the plans of al-Multaqa, were to be done by pumps from the
Nile rather than from a canal branching from the Merowe dam.
2. Kajbar
Dam (3rd Cataract)
The main reference
relied on in this regard is a study prepared by the DIU [50].
So far, this is the only release of the DIU
with regard to Kajbar dam; the summary is not a study in the strict meaning of
the word, but rather a mobilization introduction aimed at the de-sensitization
of the affected people toward the project. It is written with loose, rhetoric
and flowery discourse. The Informative Summary talks a lot about the benefits
of hydropower, other dams such as Merowe dam, which has already been
implemented, and benefits of Dal dam whose feasibility studies have not yet
finished according to the DIU.
Kajbar is a small
village in the middle of the Nubian Mahas region about 120 km down the river
from Dungula, the capital of the northern state. The most northerly part of the
third cataract ends at Kajbar, where the government declared in 1995 its plans
to build a dam.
The causes
for proposing the building of Kajbar dam is to generate power (Installed
Capacity of 360 MW). The government thought of building it in 1995. By 1999 it
declared unofficially that it had abandoned the project due to the lack of fund
and little feasibility. In 2005 the government through the Dam Implementation
Unit declared that it was going headfast to build the dam. Equipments were
brought to the site the matter that caused anxieties among the villagers. To
curb the fears of the people the government assured the villagers that the dam
was not going to be build unless they explicitly agree to that. They even
conveyed a Presidential message that people had the right in deciding not to
have a dam built on their land.
The objective
listed in the Informative Summary are vaguely general without specifying a
single project with a specific name of product, area, producer, investor let
alone ways of marketization and/or industrialization. They go as follows:
·
Power for water
pump instead of diesel-fueled pumps to irrigate present-day cultivated lands
·
The building of
the dam will lessen the cost of irrigation which some times is more than the
income of cultivation
·
The use of the
hydroelectricity in pumping underground water and thus increasing the
cultivated areas
·
The expansion in
the production of various fruits of which the Northern State
·
The use of
electricity in mining and building material which are in abundance in the State
·
The creation of
an attractive tourist environment by exploiting the lake of the reservoir plus
the antiquities of which the State is rich
·
The
encouragement of various industries such as food and foliage industries
·
The promotion of
the social and cultural life of the local communities and the increase of
living standards as a result of the spread of investment activities
·
Architectural
development in various towns of the State with service provision which will
result from the flow of investment
·
Providing
sustainable electricity for urban and rural societies in the State with very
little cost for various utilities
·
The saving of
the huge sums of money presently being paid by the farmers to provide for fuel;
and providing support for them so as to raise their production capacities
·
The hydropower
supports animal production in its all kinds (poultry, dairy, and meat) a matter
that will make the State a pioneer in this area.
The Funding
of the Project
When the idea of the dam was
hatched in 1995, a company was established under the name of Kajbar Electricity
Co. The company financed the initial studies and designs which were made by the
Russian Institute of Hydro-Project. The share holders were as follows:
§ The
Government of the Northern State
§ The
Farmers Union of Northern State
§ The
Cooperative Union of the Northern State
§ The
Women Union in the Northern State
§ The
Bank of Khartoum
§ The
Islamic bank of the North
§ The
farmers Bank
§ Individual
shareholders from the Northern
State
The accompanying projects
No accompanying projects were
mentioned in the Informative Summary. The
Informative Summary says about this: “By transferring the project to the Dam
Implementation Unit (DIU) all the documents and studies have become the
property of DIU ”. Neither a date is given when
this took place nor any information about what has become of the shares of
those holders. No information is either given about who is funding the project
or who is implementing it. However, other sources say that it is a partially
financed by China Sudan China China
Construction Companies
§ Could
be anyone of the following Chinese companies?
§ The
China International Water & Electric Corporation CWE and CCMD Consortium (China
§ Harbin
Power Engineering Company (China
Power, Construction & Reservoir
§ FSL: El. 218 / 213 m
§ Dam
Height : 17 m
§ Installed
Capacity : 300 / 108 MW
§ Reservoir:
3 km3
§ Length:
67.5 km long (20% of the Nile annual flow)
Collateral Damage
§ No
figure is given with regard to the archaeological sites to be submerged
§ No
figure is given about the number of people to be displaced in the Informative
Summary; however, other sources give the figure of 10-20 thousands
§ Cultivated
land lost is 3.600 according to the Informative Summary, a matter the affected
people do not agree with
§ One
main ethnic group to be affected (the Mahas) plus part of the northerly Danagla
§ No
proper resettlement has been arranged; the Informative Summary, which is issued
in March 2008, states that the preliminary studies have indicated toward the
suitability of Kukka Plains, immediately upstream from the dam site on the left
bank of the Nile, with only 15.000 fedans. It admits that the area has neither
been studied in a proper way nor there any exact statistics
§ At
least 500 archaeological sites will be submerged (the area surveyed from the
site of the dam upstream to Tombos, approximately 20 km (i.e. out of the 70 km
which is the extent of the dam lake)[53].
§ Clashes
between the affected people and the military militia related to the Dam
Implementation Unit (DIU) in June 2006.
Criticism
§ Weakness
of 1995 Mahmoud Sharif’s Feasibility Studies
§ Outdated
assessment studies
§ Inadequacy
of resettlement issues or the environmental and cultural impact studies
§ Lack
of transparency
Disregard
of the international principles
3. Dal Dam (2nd cataract)
The
information on Dal dam is very scanty due to the lack of transparency that has
so far characterized the policies of the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU). Three
sources only have been available. The first is the study conducted by the
Russian Hydroproject Institute[54].
The second study is the pre-feasibility study was conducted in November 2006 by
EDF Scot Wilson[55].
The third source is a study prepared by the DIU [56],
which be given special emphasis as it is the only document that issued by the DIU . The fact that the information related to Dal dam is
included in a DIU publication that bears the
title Kajbar Dam Project is very telling of either the unprofessional
way of doing its job or of its intention to envelop its job with shrouds of
ambiguity and obliteration.
In
matters pertaining to the dams being built in the Sudan Aswan Nile water have caused acute problems of salinity in Egypt
The
Informative Summary (March 2008) states that the field studies have already
begun and were supposed to finish in August the same year. So far, nothing has
come out to this effect. It also states that the studies targeted two
scenarios, names Low Dal (201 m above sea level) and High Dal (219 m above sea
level). The Informative Summary does not give the exact heights of any of them
(however, other sources show this, see below). Then it states that the
socio-ecological studies have proved the infeasibility of Dal High. The
Informative Summary does not mention any details about any socio-ecological
studies. However, a social impact assessment is claimed to have been conducted[60].
The people of Sai island, which lies about 50 km upstream from the site of Dal
dam, told the present investigator[61]
that a team from the Karima-based Faculty of Arts and Human Studies, University
of Dongola, had tried to conduct such a social impact survey starting with Sai
island in June 2008. At the beginning the team denied to be part of the studies
undertaken for the building of Dal dam. When confronted with the above
mentioned study, which was provided to villagers by the anti dam committee,
members of the team admitted that the survey was part of the studies of the Dal
dam. The team was chased out of the island and that was the end of the survey
as it has not dared enter any other village as the rest of the villages were
notified. However, the same team which was lead by Dr. Nasreldin Sulaiman, from
Karima-based Faculty of Arts & Humanity Studies, University of Dungula, did
conducted the survey covering the area from Saadin Fenti (north Mahas region)
down to Akasha which is about 20 km downstream from Dal village[62].
Low Dal
(Source:
EDF Scot Wilson, ibid)
- Low to moderate dam height, 20 – 45
metres
- Extensive bedrock evident at site
in river channel and on abutments
- Geological
mapping proposed
- Cost
(Millions Euro) : 298.600
Assessment of Dal Site (Low option)
- Dam
Hieight : 25 + 20 m
- Installed
Capacity MG: 340 + 108/300
- Annually
Energy GenerationGWh/yr : 3.000-4.000
- Population
displaced by Reservoir : 5.000-10.000
High Dal
(Source: EDF Scot Wilson
- Dam Height: 45 m
- Installed Capacity MG: 700-800
- Annually Energy Generation GWH/yr:
4.000-5.000
- Population displaced by Reservoir:
10.000-20.000
Assessment of Dal Site (High option)
- Very low topography, especially on
West bank
- Shallow reservoir, high evaporation
losses
- Only power benefits, no benefits
from irrigation, flood alleviation or regulation
- High affected population 10,000 –
20,000
- Substantial loss of date palm trees
and irrigated agriculture
- Rumours among the local people talk
about a third scenario of Dal Higher, whose lake will extend to 20 km
upstream from the site of Kajbar dam. It is claimed that this is Plan B in
case of cancelling Kajbar dam due to pressure from the local communities
of the affected Mahas and northerly Danagla lest they get united against
the government.
Power, Construction & Reservoir
(Source: EDF Scot Wilson
- FSL : El. 218 / 201 m
- Dam Height : 45 / 20 m
- Installed Capacity : 780 / 340
MW
Collateral Damage
- No figure is given with regard to
the archaeological sites to be submerged;
- No figure is given about the number
of people to be displaced in the Informative Summary; however, other
sources give the figure of 10-20 thousands;
- Cultivated land lost is 3.600
according to the Informative Summary, a matter the affected people do not
agree with;
- One main ethnic group to be
affected (the Sikkout) plus part of the northerly Mahas;
- No proper resettlement has been
arranged; the Informative Summary, which is issued in March 2008, does not
say anything about the resettlement of the affected people;
- No archaeological survey has been
conducted to assess the possible loss of sites and antiquities. However,
five major sites of antiquities, namely Amara West, Sai, Seidenga, Soleb,
and Sesebi are potentially and directly threatened by the construction of
the dam[65].
- Clashes between the affected people
and the authorities of the State in 2008 indicate in the future the same
will happen with the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU) when it starts the
construction.
Criticism
§ Weakness of the studies of
Informative Summary[66], Hydroproject Institute[67] and the pre-feasibility study by EDF Scot Wilson[68].
§ Scientific and Methodological
deficiencies;
§ Inadequacy of resettlement issues
or the environmental and cultural impact studies prepared by EDF Generation
& Engineering Division[69];
§ Lack of transparency
4.
Mugrat Dam (5th Cataract)
Mugrat island
occupies the northern parts of the 5th cataract in Abu Hamad Reach,
which is inhabited by the Rubatab tribe[70].
Mugrat is considered to be one of the biggest islands in the Sudan as it
stretches for about 40 km with an average width of 5 km. The information on
this project is very scanty.
This dam is the
brain child of the Islamic regime of Khartoum ;
it is not included in the series of possible dams studied in the mid 1970s to
the mid 1980s[71].
Only two sources with very meager information have been available. The first
source is a publication of the Dam Implementation Unit[72].
The second source is information gained by the investigator in personal
communications that the consultant company is SMEC, Australia [73].
Consulting the
website of SMEC we read: “SMEC's origins were in the development of the Snowy Mountains Australia which was designed and
built between 1949 and 1974. At the time it was the largest infrastructure
development ever undertaken in Australia
and a symbol of national development and modernization”. It tells of the
activities of the company in other areas of the world, Africa
included: “SMEC continues to be one of the world's foremost hydropower
development consultants. We offer over 40 years hydropower experience in Australia , Asia , Africa and the
Pacific. We have engineered more than 30 major hydro-electric power/pumping
stations of up to 2100 MW capacity”[74].
With regard to Sudan, the website says nothing in details aside from admitting
that it is mounting a series of major projects of dam building: “Key
achievements in 2007-8 included the strengthening building market in Vietnam, a
burgeoning urban development sector in Australia, major dam projects in Sudan,
Vietnam and Australia, and design of the high altitude Rohtang road tunnel
between India and China”[75].
The Mugrat Dam
Study contains 3 maps of the area with none of them having any scale. Two of
them show the sites of the dam of Mugrat along with the sites of other two
dams, namely of Dagash and al-Shireik all of which are in the 5th
cataract. The study contains 7 chapters (with chapter 7, P.33, preceding
chapter 6, P. 37). Chpter I speaks generally about the municipality of Abu Hamad
and its administrative units (PP. 5-6); chapter II, PP. 8-12, generally speaks
about the dam and the areas that are going to be flooded (to dealt with below);
chapter III, PP. 14-17, speaks about the influential personalities in the area;
chapter IV, PP. 19-25, generally speaks about the following services and
utilities: residence, health, education, water supplies and electricity;
chapter V (PP. 27, 28, 29 & 32 with 30 and 31 missing) generally speaks
about the population and social situations giving scanty information of the
tribe of Rubatab; chapter 6 (PP. 38-41) speaks generally about the economical
situation in the area; chapter 7 (PP. 33-34 sic, with the page that
speaks of water & electricity in chapter V repeated on 36) generally speaks
about roads, communication, security services, i.e. Police, and river
transportation.
This dam also
seems to be the brain child of the Islamic regime of Khartoum as it is not included in the series
of possible dams studied in the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s[76].
Objectives of the Project
§ Apparently electricity as there
is no mentioning of any objective in the copy of have of the Mugrat Dam Study
The Funding of the Project
§ No
information so far
The accompanying Projects
§ Nothing
so far
Construction Companies
Power, Construction &
Reservoir
§ No
information so far
Collateral Damage
§ Archaeological
sites to be submerged: No information so far
§ Villages
to be submerged: 59 villages. This should not be trusted as the map does not
show them. The map is neither detailed nor scientifically accurate. It shows
that only the inhabited satellite islands around Mugrat are 11 let alone the
relatively small ones not shown in the map. At least 30 small villages within
and around Mugrat
Island
§ Number
of People displaced: according to our copy of Mugrat Dam Study, PP. 4,5, only the
villages affected on the west bank are given which is 17597. This should not to
be relied on as the number of a whole Locality, al-Jireif on the west bank, are
missing.
§ Ethnic
groups affected: Rubātāb Arfo-Arab tribe of the Ja‛aliyyīn stock.
§ Proper
resettlement not arranged: Nothing has been arranged as the people to be
affected by the dam have not been officially informed of the construction of
the dam.
§ Clashes
between the affected people and the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU): On 14
November 2008, the DIU cancelled a meeting in Abu Hamad where a group of
scientists affiliated to the consultant company were supposed to meet with the
village sheikhs and local leaders to discuss the influence of the dam on their
lives. This caused a stir among the people as the meeting was administered by
the office of Abu Hamad Commissioner.
Criticism
§ Weakness
of December 2007 Mugrat Dam Study
§ Scientific
and Methodological deficiencies
§ Inadequacy
of resettlement issues or the environmental and cultural impact studies;
§ Lack of transparency
5.
Dagash Dam (5th Cataract)
Only twp documents
have been available for the present investigator, names the personal
communication with some of the scientists who were contracted by the consultant
company to undertake the pre-feasibility studies and an official publication
from DIU . However, the information gained from
both is very meager. The personal communication with some of the scientists
working on this project has revealed that the dam is being built by SMEC.
However, there is no mentioning of it at all, only stating that it is currently
being contracted to build of dam projects in Sudan [78].
The official
publication of DIU [79]
is mostly a replica of the study conducted in Mugrat area. The only difference
between the two studies takes
place in chapter II (about the dam) and III (about the influential
personalities in the area). For instance the Introduction goes as
follows:
·
Mugrat Dam Study – “This document embodies the basic
information about the area expected to be affected by the construction of
Mugrat dam”
·
Dagash Dam Study – “This document embodies the basic
information about the area expected to be affected by the construction of
Dagash dam”.
The rest is simply a matter of 100% copycat to
the extent that the authors have been forgotten in many places to replace the
name “Mugrat” with the name “Dagash”. The name of Mugrat is mentioned in many a
place of the study which is supposed to be of Dagash with one credit that for
chapter VII (PP. 33-35, with PP. 31 & 32 missing) to rightly come after
chapter VI (PP. 27-29).
This dam is a
brain child of the Islamist regime of Khartoum
as it is not included in the series of possible dams studied in the mid 1970s
to the mid 1980s (cf. Ibrahim, A.M. 1984. The Nile
Description, Hydrology, Control and Utilisation, PP. 1-13.
in: Dumont , H.J., el Mogrhraby,
A.I. & Desougi, L.A.
(ed). 1984. Limnology and Marine Biology in the Sudan The Hague , Boston , Lancaster :
Dr W. Junk Publishers).
Objectives of the Project
§ Apparently electricity as there
is no mentioning of any objective in the copy of have of the Dagash Dam Study
The Funding of the Project
§ No
information so far
The accompanying Projects
§ Nothing
so far
Construction Companies
Power, Construction &
Reservoir
§ No
information so far
Collateral Damage
§ Archaeological
sites to be submerged: No information so far
§ Villages
to be submerged: 11 villages[81]. This should not be relied on
as many villages are missing in the lists while appearing in the maps. At least
10 small, inhabited islands are shown in the map while the banks of the Nile are shown to be sparsely settled. A recent visit to
the region by the present investigator has shown this to be wrong. In this
regard, the map is greatly flawed and very misleading.
§ Number
of People displaced: Our copy of Dagash Dam Study, 2007, Op cit., gives
two kinds of lists of affected villages with their relative population. The
first list is on an unnumbered page between pages 1 and 2, which gives the name
of the councils (9 in number) under which the villages fall; it gives the
population of 18127. The second list, on P. 9, gives the number of 12 villages
with population of 15353 with the population of some of the villages missing.
§ Ethnic
groups affected: Predominantly Rubātāb Arfo-Arab tribe of the Ja‛aliyyīn stock.
§ Proper
resettlement not arranged: Nothing has been arranged as the people to be
affected by the dam have not been officially informed of its construction.
§ Clashes
between the affected people and the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU): On 14
November 2008, the DIU cancelled a meeting in Abu Hamad where a group of
scientists affiliated to the consultant company were supposed to meet with the
village sheikhs and local leaders to discuss the influence of the dam on their
lives. This caused a stir among the people as the meeting was administered by
the office of Abu Hamad Commissioner.
Criticism
§ Weakness
of December 2007 Dagash Dam Study
§ Scientific
and Methodological deficiencies
§ Inadequacy
of resettlement issues or the environmental and cultural impact studies
Lack of transparency
6.
Al-Shireik Dam (5th Cataract)
This
dam is included in the series of possible dams studied in the mid 1970s to the
mid 1980s[82]. It is to generate only power. The project began in 1993.
In 1996 the Commissioner of Berber Province[83]
began thinking of generating power in the same way proposed by the late Mahmoud
Sharif in Kajbar case, i.e. by polar-suspended turbines across the cataracts so
as to resolve the chronic problem of power shortage in the state. In the same
year the Province contracted an international company to do pre-feasibility
studies for such limited power generating project[84].
The contracted company turned out to be the Canadian company Acres International,
which was sanctioned by the World Bank in July 2004 for leading corrupt
business associated with the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, South Africa; the “… World Bank's Sanctions
Committee found that Acres engaged in corrupt activities for the purpose of
influencing the decision making of the then Chief Executive of the Lesotho
Highlands Development Authority[85].
Eventually it did the contract which yielded a four-volume report[86].
However, instead of answering the question of how to generate power through
suspended turbines set across the cataract, the report shifted to another
purpose that is how to generate power by building the big al-Shireik dam, a
matter eventually adopted by the River
Nile State
By
the end of 1996 the idea of building the suspended turbines was adopted by the
government of the River
Nile State
Objectives of the Project
- To generate electricity not less
than 100 MW that was deemed enough for the operation of the cement
industry that was being planned by the State government.
The Funding of the Project
- No information so far
The accompanying Projects
- Cement industry (at least four
factories are already functioning)
Construction Companies
- A South African company has been
contracted (rumours; not sure)
Power, Construction & Reservoir
- FSL : El. 343 / 335 m
- Dam Height : 45 / 20 m
- Installed Capacity : 315 MW/
150 MW
- Cost: $ 600 Million (in 1998-1999)
Collateral Damage
§ Archaeological
sites to be submerged: No information so far.
§ Villages
to be submerged: No information. However, the map of al-Shireik dam area
included in Mugrat Dam Study, op. cit., shows at least 40 place names on
both banks of the river Nile with 10 inhabited
islands.
§ Number
of People displaced: 100.000 people (claimed by affected people).
§ Ethnic
groups affected: Predominantly Ja‛aliyyīn Proper, Mirafāb and some Rubātāb
Arfo-Arab tribe of the Ja‛aliyyīn stock.
§ Proper
resettlement not arranged: Nothing has been arranged as the people to be
affected by the dam have not been officially informed of its construction.
However, rumours had that Wadi al-himār (i.i the Valley of the Donkey, a
barren area that lies about 20-50 km on the eastern bank of the Nile ) was illicitly determined as a place for
resettlement
§ Clashes
between the affected people and the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU) are expected
as there is one political organization at least that has been established
lately purposely to tackle the issue of building al-Shrieik dam, namely Nile
River Coalition political movement.
Criticism
- The power generated will not exceed
10% of the total national power especially when the
- The construction of
- Lack of information[87]
- Lack of transparency[88]
- Loss of cultivated lands with no
substitute available
- Resettlement not arranged yet
7.
Al-Sabalouga Dam (6th Cataract)
This
dam is included in the series of possible dams studied in the mid 1970s to the
mid 1980s[89].
Only one source has been available, which is similar
to the ones published by the DIU on the 5th
cataract dams[90].
Below we are going to review the content of this report which is also of
flowery and rosy language.
The
first observation that catches sight is that it does not have pagination. In
fact the document can hardly merit the description of a study. It lacks any
scientific content and seems like it was written in hurry.
Introduction: Flowery language about
the fame of al-Sabalouga area as a tourist attractive spot.
Chapter I: A Basic Background of
the Area: Starts by the location of the area, showing the location in the map
of the Sudan Nile
River State Khartoum
Chapter II: The Tribes and Ethnic
Groups: It starts with the same flowery
language describing the people and some aspects of their traditions and rites;
then a heading on the hygienic situation, 3 lines only; then a heading on the
political system, with only 2 lines; then a heading on the religious leaders,
one and half lines; then a heading on the political leaders with 4 lines.
Immediately
after this and out of the blue it starts talking about the opinion of the
people on the project. It reads:
“The
opinions of the citizens vary between those who agree and disagree of the
project, but the majority supports it and gives it their blessing, provided
that their rights are addressed. Those who oppose the project look upon their
homelands as something that symbolize heritage which they have inherited from
their forefathers. Most of those people are above 50 years old. However, those
who support the project whose majority are youth and young people long for a
better life, being more ambitious, a life that cannot be fulfilled in the
prevailing realities. They all look forward toward the future with optimism and
the fear of suspicious people [sic]. With regard to the studies being
conducted in the present, contrary to what had taken place in Kajbar, the
people of al-Sabalouga villages affected by the present studies [sic],
have welcomed the project without showing any kind of refusal or opposition
except few people of them such as wad al-Basīr”[91].
Then
the study resumes the subject matter of the chapter with a heading on the
government institutions in the area (two and a half lines).
Chapter III: The Various Population
Activities: It starts with a heading on
agriculture and another on the kinds of crops; then the agricultural schemes in
the area mentioning three of them, namely al-Wifaq scheme, al-Taqaddum Society
scheme, and the scheme of the Extension of al-Taqaddum Society. It brings a map
of these schemes and the surrounding villages with no scale. Then a heading on
the animal resources (6 lines); and the fishery activities in the area (5
lines); and finally the river transportation which is not existent due to the
fact that the river is impeded with the rapids and cataract.
Chapter IV: The Basic Services and
Infrastructure: it starts with lamenting the relegated situation of the area in
this regard (2 lines); a heading on health with lamentation on how poorly the
area is serviced (2 lines); a heading on education with the same lamentation (2
lines); a heading on electricity with the same lamentation but not without
making a stress on how needy this service is felt by the local people (6
lines).
Chapter V: it starts with a heading on tourism and how
the area is known to be attractive to national tourists. It sums the potential
of tourism in three factors, namely the cataracts, some of the Mahdia State Khartoum
Another
heading is on antiquities that only mentions the relics of the Mahdia State Kitchener Mahdia State
Chapter VI: it does not have a
title of its own. It starts with a heading on the economical activities (5
lines); a heading on the flood of the Nile under which a variety of topics are
discussed, such as farming, cultural activities, sports and school festivals
(12 lines). Then comes another heading that reads: Sites South of the Dam,
which tells about the villages that lie on the back of the dam, and it does not
make it clear whether they will be affected by the dam or not. It talks
generally to conclude that the flooding of the Nile
submerge their shore farming and threatens the local people who seek shelter on
the nearby mountains. After this it mentions two municipalities, namely Karari,
East Nile, and another place called “al-Maqābir” (i.e. cemeteries) giving the
names of the commissioners of each of them. The study admits that the area of
al-Maqābir will slightly be affected with some of the graves going under the
water. Does this mean that these sites are among those affected by the dam?
Conclusion and recommendations: it
concludes that the majority of the people of the area to be affected by the dam
have consented to its building. It also makes stress on the deteriorating
situation of education and the shortage in the service of electricity to end up
by stating that the villages upstream from the dam site are of less size than
those downstream from the dam site [sic]. Then it brings a map of the
site of the dam.
Objectives
of the Project
- To generate electricity not less
than 100 MW that was deemed enough for the operation of the cement
industry that was being planned by the State government.
The
Funding of the Project
- No information so far
The
accompanying Projects
- Cement industry (at least four
factories are already functioning)
Construction
Companies
- A South African company has been
contracted (rumours; not sure)
Power,
Construction & Reservoir
- FSL : El. 343 / 335 m
- Dam Height : 45 / 20 m
- Installed Capacity : 315 MW/
150 MW
- Cost: $ 600 Million (in 1998-1999)
Collateral
Damage
§ Archaeological
sites to be submerged: No information so far.
§ Villages
to be submerged: No information. However, the map of al-Shireik dam area
included in Mugrat Dam Study, op. cit., shows at least 40 place names on
both banks of the river Nile with 10 inhabited
islands.
§ Number
of People displaced: 100.000 people (claimed by affected people).
§ Ethnic
groups affected: Predominantly Ja‛aliyyīn Proper, Mirafāb and some Rubātāb
Arfo-Arab tribe of the Ja‛aliyyīn stock.
§ Proper
resettlement not arranged: Nothing has been arranged as the people to be
affected by the dam have not been officially informed of its construction.
However, rumours had that Wadi al-himār (i.i the Valley of the Donkey, a
barren area that lies about 20-50 km on the eastern bank of the Nile ) was illicitly determined as a place for
resettlement
§ Clashes
between the affected people and the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU) are expected
as there is one political organization at least that has been established
lately purposely to tackle the issue of building al-Shrieik dam, namely Nile
River Coalition political movement.
Criticism
- The power generated will not exceed
10% of the total national power especially when the
- The construction of
- Lack of information[92]
- Lack of transparency[93]
- Loss of cultivated lands with no
substitute available
- Resettlement not arranged yet
IV. CONSEQUENCES AND REACTION OF AFFECTED
PEOPLE
This
chapter will show to what extent the threat posed by the dams is grave and how
the government is stealthily executing them with reckless readiness to use
un-proportional force to suppress the affected people. It will also show how
the affected people react to the building of the dams, at the beginning
peacefully and later developing into very violent measures. The chapter will
try to answer the question of whether the reaction of the frustrated affected
people may trigger off civil strife and war in northern Sudan
a.The
Tactics of Deception and Obscurantism
i.
The Dam Implementation Unit
Rather
than being a purely technical matter, where transparency is most needed along
the technical qualification, building dams in the Sudan Merowe
(Mirwi) in the Sudan Sudan
The
website of the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU) gives us the following information
about itself[94]:
“On 27th Feb.
1999 , the President of the Republic formed an Executive Unit to
promote and follow up on the implementation of the Dam’s Project. Article (8),
Paragraph (D) of the Presidential Decree mandated the Unit to prepare and
execute all investment activities related to the project, and search for funds.
At that time, Mr. Osama Abdullah Mohamed El Hassan was appointed as State
Minister and made the Executive Director for the Merowe Dam Project
Implementation Unit”. The first observation that attracts attention in this
mandate is the fact that DIU is to be in charge
of not only the construction of the dam, but furthermore of the investment
activities related to its construction. In 2005 another Presidential Decree was
issued (No. 206) upon which all the lands of northern Sudan (i.e. that lie in
the State of the River Nile and of the North State) were ordered to be
expropriated from the authority of the two respective state governments to fall
under the authority of the DIU, which eventually started selling them to Arab
investors as mentioned above. The second point to be observed is the wide power
given to DIU by the Presidential Decree.
Article (13) is titled “Exemptions” upon which the DIU
is exempted from the following Civil Service Law:
·
Service
Retirement Law
·
The National
Social Insurance Fund Law
·
Civil Servants
Accountability Law
·
Fiscal and
Accounting law
This
makes the DIU an institution above the law of
the state as it has been launched with a law of its own that immunes it from
litigation and auditing. Since then building dams has been politicized to the
extent that a number of specialist and experts feared that this might have
compromised the professionalism and technicality of dam building[95].
The DIU gave no heeds to such opinions. In a
newspaper interview, when faced with such anti dam arguments, the Director of
DIU, Osama Abdalla (a first year university drop-out), defiantly retorted back:
“The more they attack me, the more projects I will come up with”[96].
In the last two years, the DIU took to
organize proportional tours to the dam. Trade unions, Government employees,
mosque committees all over the country were invited to these free of charge
tours where they were provided with transportation (that varies from rented 4X4
vehicles, luxurious coaches and airlines), food, drinks, and more than often
accommodation. Thousands of trips were said to have been arranges costing tens
of millions of US Dollars.
ii.
Broken promises and mistrust in Merowe (Mirwi) dammed Area
The people affected by Merowe
(Mirwi) fall into three groups, namely the Hamdab, Amri, and the Manasir. In
the beginning the affected people agreed to the project, with the condition
that they remain living in their home areas at the shore of the lake of the
dam, i.e. not to be evacuated. However, the government seemed to have other
agendas. By then the regions of northern Sudan
The
adopted policy of total de-population decided that the people affected by Merowe (Mirwi) dam to be resettled in areas far from
their historical homelands under the point of gun. To make it even worse, the
government was so secretive about the project, totally ignoring to consult the
concerned communities. Those who lived immediately behind the dam, i.e. the
Hamdab, were compelled to resettle in an arid area covered by sand dunes about
100 km down the river far from its shore. They had to submit to that because by
they were not fully aware about the plight to befall them. The people next to
them, i.e. those of Amri region, resisted the plans of resettlement, demanding
to be allowed to resettle on the shore of the artificial lake of the dam, just
above the contour the rising water would stop at. The government declined them
this right. The Manasir who are the only ethnic group to be wholly affected by
the dam, adamantly rejected evacuating the area, demanding, like their brethren
in the Amri area, the right to resettle on the shore of the lake. They were
also denied this right. Up to the moment, one third of the Amri people and the
majority of the Manasir are there sticking to their home villages notwithstanding
the rising water of the dam as on 16/4/2008 the last gate of the dam was closed. The
sufferings of the people who have remained are available in the web worldwide[97].
The cases of broken promises relating to each one of
the affected groups of Merowe (Mirwi) dam will
be reviewed with an emphasis on the Manasir as they constitute 67% of the
affected population. In 1999 immediately after the Presidential Decree upon
which the Merowe Dam Implementation Unit (MDIU) was formed, a socioeconomic
survey was conducted so as to count the population their belonging in order to
evaluate the compensation. The survey was flawed due to the secretive way of
conducting it and consequently was rejected by the affected people as they were
not consulted[98]. The Manasir
Council noted that the MDIU was responsible for both the building of the dam
and the decisions pertaining the resettlement and compensation of the affected
population.
The MDIU, without consulting either the Hamdab people,
Amri people or the Manasir, decided that the areas of resettlement were going
to be as follows: (1) al-Multaqa, far down the river; (2) al-Mukarāb, up the
river, close to Atbara; (3) al-Fidā’
Scheme, up the river close to Abu Hamad in the Rubatab tribe region; (4) Wadi
al-Mugadam Scheme. It had declined the latter as no studies were made to assess
its suitability (See appendix 2). All
places were at least 5 km far from the Nile .
The Hamdab and Amri people were forced to move without much resistance as they
were also completely ignorant on what they were going to live through.
The Manasir, on the other hand, decided that they
were not going to be resettled afar from the shore of the Nile ;
they opted to what has come to be known as “the Local Option”. Accordingly they
came up with 6 areas to be allocated close to the shore of the dam reservoir (Um Sarih; al-Haraz;
al-Huweila; Kiheila East; Kiheila West; and Um Tineidba). The DIU ,
however, had other plans for the resettlement; it was decidedly determined in
the studies it did of the dam and in particular about the human activities
around the dam reservoir that no population was to be left back there. We read
in the study conducted by Lahmeyer International[99]
on behalf of the Merowe Dam Project Implementation Unit, Commission for Social
Affairs and Environmental Assessment, that: “The population that is currently
resident along the the reach of the Nile river that will be submerged by the
future reservoir will be resettled, leaving an unpopulated area around the lake
shore. This situation will remain so for an unpredicted period of time because
the natural conditions will not allow agricultural activities.”
In 2002 a Temporary Decree named “the Law of
Resettlement and Compensation of People affected by Merowe dam for the Year
2002” was issued in accordance to the Presidential Decree No. 1, 2002. It was
supposed to either be ratified by the National Assembly in the Session number 2
on 10/8//2002 or to be amended or nullified. The National Assembly eventually
formed a committee that concluded to the following points:
- The
Presidential Decree No. 1 did not take on board the results of the studies
made with regard to the compensation categorization
- The
Decree did not give the affected people enough time to in deliberation
with the government
- The
necessity for a separate commission for the compensation and resettlement
- The
observation made by the affected people with regard to the aloofness of
the MDIU was taken on board.
Accordingly a separate commission was formed to run
the affairs of the compensation and resettlement (the Commissioner of
Resettlement & Compensation- CRC). The Manasir could have felt satisfied by
these developments if it were not for the rumour that leaked telling that the
CRC was in fact appointed by the Director of the MDIU himself, i.e. Osama
Abdalla. This proved that the CRC is not going to function as an independent
body but rather as a body that takes orders from the MDIU. On 28/1/2004 the Governor of
the River Nile State 20/7/2004 the Federal
minister of agriculture, late Majzub al-Khalifa, issued a ministerial decree
upon which clear directives were given to all concerned departments to start
making the studies of assessing the Local Option so as to implement it. A
committee of 8 members representing concerned government corporations and
departments was formed to do that. However, it failed to make the Manasir happy
as there was no one among its member to represent the MDIU.
The year 2004 elapsed with contradictory government
letters issued from one side by the pro-Manasir various federal and state
government ministries, states, and departments with regard to the facilitating
of the Local Option, and, on the other side, other letters issued by the Anti Manasir
MDIU with regard to the facilitating the resettlement of the Manasir in the
Mukabrab against their will. It was clear that the MDIU over-ruled the various
institutions of the federal state by simply being empowered by the Presidency.
In 2005 the Manasir People Committee was arrested twice to stay almost 9 months
in prison (3 months in the first arrest and 6 months in the second arrest) from
2005-2007[101].
In Amri the situation was the same as that of the
Manasir; the people supported by various government institutions, were
insisting on the Local Option with the MDIU stubbornly insisting on areas far
away from the shore of the
reservoir, a matter the people flatly rejected.
On
8/4/2006 a
Presidential Decree[102]
was issued upon which a host of decisions were made. They were as follows:
1.
The concerned
parties in the River
Nile State Merowe
dam reservoir which lie within its frontiers so as to allocate them to those
who rightfully deserve them [i.e. the Manasir]
2.
The River Nile
State
a.
Formation of
basic committees with regard to those who are affected by the Merowe
dam within the frontiers of the State
b.
It is upon the
State Governor and the concerned parties in the River Nile State
The
State Governor immediately issued a host of State Decrees in accordance[103]
upon which the lands around the reservoir were allocated to the Manasir;
another accordance[104]
upon which the surveying of the lands around the reservoir were begun so as to
facilitate the resettlement of the Manasir; another accordance[105]
upon which the resettlement of the Manasir in the areas suggested by the DIU
were to be suspended. The Manasir could
have never been happier if it were not for the TV interview with Osama Abdalla,
the DIU Director that took place 4 days after these decisions were taken. In
the interview Osama Abdalla mocked those decisions and sarcastically spoken of
the Local Option. Still the Manasir could have ignored what Osama Abdalla, the
DIU Director said, if the President did not praise the former for what he had
said in the TV interview (for more details, see: Muhammad Abdalla Sid Ahmad[106].
At
this point a group of very influential figures in the ruling party intervened
to bring this un-necessary trouble to an end. They mounted an internal campaign
upon which two major events took place. The first was the release of the the
Manasir committee from the prison as it was a condition made by the Manasir not
to go into negotiation while their committee members were detained. The second
was the census which was conducted among the Manasir to check who many of them
supported the Local Option. The census was made under the auspices of the
Central Organ for Statistics. The results were as follows: 70% for the Local
Option; 30% for the Mukabrab and other faraway areas[107].
All this was announced in huge gatherings of the Manasir in Khartoum
In
all this no mention whatsoever was made of the DIU
nor was there any one to represent it. It simply resumed its old policy of
compensating the Manasir people according to the 1999 census which was totally
rejected by both the Manasir and the government. The Manasir committee retorted
back (cf. Al-Ayyam Newspaper, 6/9/2007 ) accusing the DIU of trying to sow dissension among the people and not
heeding any respect to its own government which had formed it.
In
April 2007, i.e. prior to the flood season, the temporary gates of the dam were
closed a matter that caused the water to rise to unprecedented levels flooding
most of the shore lands in Amri area. The people of Amri stuck to their
villages not heeding the pleas of some of the government officials to evacuate
their homes. This closure of the gates continued to the end of the flood
season. According to the organization of International Rivers: “During the
flood seasons of 2006 and 2007, the dam builders restricted the Nile ’s flow so much that the homes of thousands of
families were flooded. According to affected people, the authorities decided to
close the dam’s gates completely on the Eid holiday of September 30. The rising
waters now threaten Sherri
Island Nile
and a centre of the resistance against the Merowe Project. The island counts
more than 1000 families and is a regional centre with schools, a hospital and
local council offices”[108].
On
16/4/2008 the DIU celebrated the last re-diversion of the river course
giving the signs that it was going to close the gates to fill up the reservoir[109],
with news of thank-giving between the two governments of the Sudan China Merowe
dam was under water. This happened without fulfilling any of the promises made
by the government. Nor there was any counting of belongings made to substitute
the results of that of 1999 which were flatly rejected by both the people of
Amri and the Manasir. The Human Rights Unit of the United Nations Mission in
Sudan (UNMIS) concluded in a two days finding trip (29-30 October 2008) that
the DIU had forced the Manasir and Amri people to evict their lands without
providing them with the least aid[111].
On
26/1/2009
President Omer al-Bashir visited the River
Nile State Merowe dam[112].
That speech meant nothing new as the President had already responded positively
to the demands of the Manasir by issuing the Presidential Decree No. 70[113].
The problem was that the Presidential Mandated DIU defiantly refused to take
action accordingly. What more than a Presidential Decree can the President
do? This made many people raise the
question whether what al-Bashir had said was simply election frenzy. On 18/2/2009 the minister of
Presidential Affairs, Lieutenant General Bakri Hasan Salih dispatched a
Presidential executive memo[114]
with regard to the directives pertaining to the visit of the President to the
State of the River Nile. It has 10 items to be implemented as the President
publicly promised the people of the State. Against each item the government
ministry or institution responsible with the implementation was mentioned. Item
two read as follows: “To pay compensation to every body of the Manasir who is
rightly entitled to; and the committees of counting belongings should start
their work immediately”. The first government institution mentioned as
responsible for implementing this item was the DIU ,
then the government of the River
Nile State
iii.
Obscurantism in Dal-Kajbar to-be-dammed
Areas
In
order to obscure the affected people, the government adopted the policy of
giving contradictory news that creates confusion rather than clarification.
Part of this tactic was to combine both dams of Kajbar and Dal in the official
statements made by the government officials and the documents. This was shown
in the documents discussed above where the feasibility study of Kajbar dam
included discussion pertaining to the building of Dal dam.
On
February 12, 2008, the governor of Northern State, while addressing the people
of Serkinmatto village which lies across the river from Dal village, declared
that the building of Dal dam is pending the ongoing studies and that it was not
going to be built without consulting the
affected people[115].
On 18/8/2008 the Government of the Northern State publicly dispatched a public
release[116]
where it announced that “Of the the great works your government is facing up is
the building of both Kajbar and Dal dams when the Merowe (Mirwi) dam is just
about to finish. We believe that these dams mean the get out the patient
citizen of this state from the narrowness of scarcity of living means and
services so as to approach the wide space of sunshine development and
construction. In this context the Resolution No. 73 for the year of 2008 of the
Council of Ministers of the National Government has unanimously supported the
construction of the Kajbar and Dal dams so as to preserve the rights of our
people in the state”. A day later, i.e. on August 19 2008, in a press
conference held at the Journalists House in Khartoum, the governor of Northern
state states that there was no place for negotiating the principle of the
building of Kajbar and Dal dams[117].
On 30/8/2008 , in
a visit to Sai island, the governor of Northern state defiantly declared that
his government has not and will not drop the decision to build both Kajbar and
Dal dams[118].
On 15/1/2009 , the
same governor declared that the building of Dal dam is pending the ongoing
studies while the building of Kajbar dam, whose studies have concluded its
feasibility, is pending the agreement of the affected people[119].
The
government officials kept denying their intentions of resettling millions of
Egyptian peasants in the Sudan Egypt Qatar Sudan 26/5/2008 [122]
the news appeared with the following head news:
“Arrangements for the Resettlement of 5 Million Egyptians Peasants in
al-Gezira Region [just south of Khartoum
iv.
The “shoot-to-kill” policy of DIU
Resistance in the Fourth Cataract
The
three affected people of Merowe dam (Hamdam,
Amri, and Manasir) established their respective organization to negotiate with
the government the compensation and resettlement in 2000 when the project
started. The Hamdab people, the first group to be resettled were, made no
resistance as they were not given ample time to grasp the impact of the
up-coming situation. In interviews with people there, the investigator was told
that that was not going to be the case had they known. The DIU
painted a rosy picture for them and they believed it. They have been resettled
in a newly established area called al-Multaqa (i.e. road junction) as it
is the spot where the newly paved tarmac road coming from Omdurman Merowe and Dungula.
There
they were resettled with the agricultural
scheme of al-Multaga for their subsistence. The Lahmyre study[123]
says about the agricultural scheme that
the “… total gross area of the scheme is 6.300 ha and the net irrigated area is
5.600 ha”[124]. Instead of being
irrigated from a canal branching directly from the dam reservoir as the same
study states in another place, it is rather to be irrigated by two main pump
stations with one of them on the Nile and the second serving as a via media
that pumps water from a gathering pool. This is due to the high level of ground
which has necessitated that the canals to be built on an 8 meter fill from
above the bank of the Nile ; the lifting of the
canal keeps on the higher it goes towards the fields. We read: “The first
distribution point along the canal at kilometer 4+270 about 50% of the water of
the first lift is to be conveyed to the field through two secondary canals (S1
and S2). The remaining 50% is to be lifted again at the end of the main canal
and distributed through two other secondary canals (S3 and S4) for irrigation
of the upper part of scheme[125].
The secondary canals have a total length of 23 km and the 13 branch canals have
a total length of 25.5 km.”
The fields grown by the Hamdab people in this scheme
more than once ran out of water in the seasons of 2005, 2006 and 2007 due to
breaking down of more than one of the various pumps that lifted the water from
one level to the other. On 2/3/2009 ,
just a day before President al-Bashir inaugurated the Merowe
dam[126],
the people of Hamdab took out to the streets and congregated at the roundabout
of the junction blocking the way to commuting vehicles in protest of this
problem. On 23/5/2209
the General Union of Hamdab Farmers issued a public release declaring the total
failure of the agricultural scheme in the area they have been resettled into[127].
According to the Sudan Tribune[128]
“The
farmers at the new resettlements, who lost their crops for the third time due
to water shortage, decided to block the vital highway between Khartoum and
Dongla to protest against the water shortage, but the police intervened and
clashed with them to end the blockade”.
Taking lessons from the failing situation of Hamdab
people, the Amri and Manasir people prepared themselves for the confrontation
with the DIU . They established their respective
representative organizations. The Manasir had the Dam-affected Manasir
Committee which was recognized later by the Government of the River Nile State 2/6/2004 to be developed into the Council of the
Dam-Affected Manasir with its Executive Committee. However, the DIU did not recognize the Executive Committee. In
response to this the committee held a meeting in Shiri Island 2/9/2004 upon
which they decided to withdraw their consent to the dam building. In early
January 2005 the DIU deployed big military
forces. The Manasir people reacted to this by calling for a mass meeting in
al-Kab town upon which they re-confirmed the withdrawal of their consent to
building the dam, declaring the region of the Manasir a closed area where no
government institutional presence, military or civilian, was allowed. The DIU retaliated by taking to prison the members of the
Executive committee where they spent a month. In December 2004 the members of
the committee were arrested again to be released on 27/5/2005 [129].
Three months later the frustrated Manasir took to the streets in their secluded
villages. Some of the demonstrators threatened to take to arms and declare a
civil war against the Federal government. The government sent huge heavily
armed troops which searched the villages house by house for arms to find none.
By early 2004, a group of the Manasir people at home
and in diaspora established a political organization called “the Movement of
the Displaced Manasir”. They managed to have a group of about 22-50 of young
Manasir to be trained in guerrilla war fighting by SPLM in Nuba Mountains Sudan
The Amri people established their own committee
which is called “the Amri Dam-affected People Committee. Their scenario goes in
the same steps as that of the Manasir: resisting evacuating their home area;
opting for the local settlement; demanding fair compensation. The DIU did not heed any of these demands. In early 2006 the DIU changed tactics to crack down the resilience of the
defiant people of Amri. It began intimidating the people in their villages to
provoke them. The Amri People Committee was aware of the plans of the DIU and therefore kept its people under control ordering
them not to respond to the provocative behaviour of the DIU .
Shooting in Amri
On
the 22nd of April, 2006
in Amri island government security forces, militia groups and special
paratroops belonging to the DIU opened fire on
a small congregation of people who resisted being evicted. Three people were
killed immediately with others injured. The Sudan Human Rights Organization
reported the murderous attack with strong condemnation: “As relayed by several
witnesses, as well as families of the injured citizens, the attack was planned
and executed by the assaulting troop in collaboration with the security
headquarters of the dam administration, which had been threatening with ‘severe
reactions’ the natives opposing the dam’s location and the resettlement plans
far away from their ancestral land at the Nile bank”[131].
Shooting in Kajbar
In
2005, when the government renewed its idea of building Kajbar dam, the governor
of North State DIU assured the people that the dam was not going to be
built without their explicit consent. These pledges were based on a direct
order from the President that not to build any dam against the will of the
people of the concerned area. Believing in the Presidential and official
promises, they wanted to express their total rejection to the dam-building. On the 10th of April 2007
they organized a peaceful demonstration in the small villages overlooking the
cataract, which was assumed to be the site of the dam. The special security
force, which was putting on an army fatigue, opened fire wounding at least five
people. Taking the injured people and heading back to the nearest hospital, at
a certain river-mountain strait (called in Nubian ‘Kidin Takkār’) that
allows for only one vehicle to pass at a time, the demonstrators came across a
group of about 20 heavily armed soldiers apparently meant as reinforcement.
Outnumbering the armed men, the angry demonstrators encircled the two vehicles
and took the soldiers as hostages after stripping them of their arms for about
two hours before releasing them.
On
the 13th of June
2007 the villagers organized another peaceful demonstration that
started from a village called Farrēg and then headed down the river toward the
cataract. About five km up the river from the cataract, exactly at the same
strait where they had held the armed men as hostages, the demonstration was
ambushed by a group of heavily armed force that was positioned atop the
mountain. The force opened fire killing instantly four people with one of them
(Muhammad Faqir) a teenager of only 18 years old. More then 15 people were
injured. The whole massacre was filmed by a video amateur; it shows the armed
men cheering and dancing when shooting the villagers[132].
In the coming weeks more than 20 people were arrested, among them journalists
who tried to report[133].
Leading figures of Nubian senior activists resisting the dam-building were also
arrested for months[134].
Young Nubian activists were also arrested in northern Sudan Khartoum 24/6/2007 the
Attenry General office dispatched a memo to all newspapers prohibiting them
from publishing any material dicussing the issue of Kajbar bloodshed or dam[136].
b.
The remaining Threat of Dams
The plans to evacuate the Nubian
region so as to facilitate the re-settlement of millions of Egyptian peasants
to resolve Egypt Sudan Egypt Egypt Tahrīr Province New Valley Sudan Sudan Khartoum Sudan
This factor has urged the to-be
affected people of the dams to move quickly and muster their popular forces as
shown above. Below we will review the possibilities their present reaction will
develop to in the future if the Islamist government has not heeded to their
demands.
c.
The Alliance Darfur
and SPLM
The
Anti Dam Committees united:
It was only a matter of time for the anti dam
committees representing the affected people of northern Sudan
The situation in the
Mirwi dammed area is very critical as the water has kept rising above the
contour 300 which was supposed to be the highest limit of the reservoir
according to the operating programme of the dam. The close monitoring of the
water level since 1/4/2009
has shown that the water has risen from the contour 300, i.e. up to the brim of
the dam lake, and reached by 1/5/2009
the contour 305. Latest news from the region has revealed that the water had
even risen above the contour of 305. According to the operating programme of
the dam, it is supposed to be at 292 in April and May, allowing people to
cultivate the reclaimed shore lands. Attached is the operating programme of the
Mirwi dam (source: the Nile River State, the Commission of the Mirwi Dam
affected People, January 2007, The preliminary Report, prepared by YAM
for Development & Consultation Co. P. 3).
The fact that the
water has risen above the limit determined by programme of the dam raises a
host of fears of potentially serious hazards such as causing damages to the
basement construction of the dam, the possible collapse of it, causing water to
overflow, causing land sliding of the parapet extending from the dam walls.
Furthermore this incomprehensible increase has scared the local option Manasir
and made them to believe that the government, as represented in the Dam
Implementation Unit, might have targeted them with the aimed to compelling them
to evacuate their homeland.
The Dam Implementation
Unit (DIU) used to be under the authority of a technical ministry that is of
Irrigation and Water Resources until it had been put under the direct authority
of the Presidency in 1999. In 2007 the Presidential Decree No. 217 was issued
upon which the small unit was promoted into a Presidential department
responsible for the building of all dams in the Sudan DIU has been launched with an
interim law of its own that immunes it from litigation and auditing. Since then
dam-building has been politicized to the extent that a number of specialist and
experts feared that this might have compromised the professionalism and
technicality of the subject matter of dam building.
Hereby we raise the
concern, asking the government to make the information pertaining to the
operating programme of the Mirwi dam a public knowledge rather than keeping it
as classified information. If the dam is running according to an operating
programme other than the mentioned below, we urgently demand the government to
publicize it. If it is not running according to its determined operating
programme, we strongly demand the government to declare this serious matter and
to raise high the alarm and take the preventive measures deemed necessary.
The proclamation included a chart
that shows the operating Programme the dam was assumed to be working upon.
It clearly shows how the dam is not following its rules of operation:
Month
|
Jan.
|
Feb.
|
March
|
April
|
May
|
June
|
July
|
Aug.
|
Sept.
|
Oct.
|
Nov.
|
Dec.
|
Water
Level
|
299
|
297
|
294
|
292
|
292
|
290
|
290
|
290
|
295
|
300
|
300
|
300
|
Two
days later, i.e. on 21/05/2009
the head department of dams in the ministry of Irrigation Water Resources
announced that they (not the Dam Implementation Unit) were going to empty the
Mirwi dam reservoir. This was strange as the dams since 1999 when they were
referred to DIU were no longer under the
responsibility of the ministry. This was taken as an indication of the
conflicts going inside the government with regard to the professionalism with
which the Mirwi dam was managed. This seeming victory gave boost to the
cooperation between the anti dam people committees. The idea of promoting this
cooperation into a coordinated political action is quite predictable.
The equitable, peaceful driving for
peace
The
drive is indeed present as the people affected by dams have persistently shown
in their correspondences to the government that they do not look for troubles.
However, it is wishful thinking to expect such solutions while the NCP regime
is on hold of the state. It is so difficult to reason with the hawks and ruling
clique in the NCP. This means to rethink the Demographic Engineering policy,
which in turn means that to visit the whole policies of the government. Such a
step may be beyond the capacity of the system as it is being driven by a
momentum that it cannot stop.
Investors: Arab and Chinese
The
Arab states are as stubborn as the Khartoum Darfur proved this. They will not back off from
supporting the present regime of Khartoum Sudan
The
Chinese government will not jeopardize its business with the USA Europe so as to help the NCP regime. The investment of China Sudan USA Europe .
The Chinese government will keep low profile hoping to maintain the same status
quo in case of any regime change.
The alliance of marginalized people
of the New Sudan
The
ideological discourse of New Sudan initiated by the late John Garang has
succeeded in raising the awareness of Africanism among marginalized people of
the Sudan Darfur (cf. SLA ).
Contacts have already been made by the Nubian organizations and the rebels of Darfur . In the referendum of 2011 Southern
Sudan will vote for independence. Other mutinous parts of the Sudan Southern Sudan as a launch platform for their
military incursions against the central government of Khartoum Sudan Sudan
d.Three
Scenarios
Unity of Dam-affected People
By
now there are 5 anti dam people committees (namely of Dal, Kajbar, hamdab,
Amri, and the Manasir) and 3 more preparatory anti dam people committees
(Mugrat, Dagash, and al-Shireik). The people to be affected by the Sabalouga
dam have not been drawn into this yest. At any moment they may join, especially
when practical steps are taken towards implementing the dam. When such steps
were taken in April and may 2009 with regard to al-Shrireik dam, the people
immediately started forming their anti dam committee. In doing this they sought
advice and support from other anti dam committees which was readily rendered.
This also happen with the people to be affected by both Mugrat and Dagash dams.
In
the period of April-May 2009, the water level was 304-7. The people panicked as
rumours were telling that the other gates of the dam are blocked. The rumours
was based on the technical opinion that the filling of the lake in one flood
season was against the rules that recommend that the filling to take place in
at least 3 years time and gradually and not during the flood season. The Dam
Implementation Unit (DIU) closed the gates on 26/7/2008 and by 26/9/2008 the lake reached the contour of 300.
This has caused the sediment to settle right on the closed gates. Only two
gates were open which had been operated to generate power for very short time
in April but came to an abrupt stop due to breakdown of the turbine[140].
Now
with the advent of the season of flood, the Manasir look at the coming days
with apprehension and anxiety. No one knows for sure what kind of operating
programme the dam is flowing as the DIU has
not announced any thing about this subject. The government of the River Nile
State failed to provide Yahiya Abdul Majid with the operating programme of the
dam as it could not get it itself from the DIU[141].
This dire situation has prompted the Kajbar Anti Dam Committee to call upon all
anti dam bodies to meet so as to discuss the situation of the Manasir and other
groups living downstream from the dam. Upon meeting on mid May 2009 a unified
body emerged which mounted a campaign to raise awareness about the ominous
consequences of not having the Merowe dam
working according to its operating programme. On 18/5/2009 they organized a press conference in Khartoum Merowe dam reservoir. On
20/5/2009
the Director-General of Dams and Nile
Control in the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources (karuri al-Haj
Hamad), rather than the DIU , announced that
the ministery had started emptying the Merowe
dam reservoir[142].
This was interpreted by the anti dam committees as a direct result of the call
they made just 2 days ago.
War
The
dam affected people get very agitated by the government policies which lack
transparency and seem to play tricks on them with so many promises dishonoured.
In Shiri Island, in the Manasir region, the people became so furious and
frustrated that they set fire on the office set up by the DIU and attacked the
IDU representative in 2007. They also attacked the Resettlement Commissioner
and a high rank Police officer hurting both of them physically and verbally
when they paid the Island a visit in 2007. At
that same time, a Manasir man, a senior retired army officer, in Birti area
attacked verbally Prof. Ibrahim Ahmad Omar, the Secretary-General of the
National Congress Party (the ruling party) accusing him of deceiving the people
and calling him a liar. The former President of the Manasir Executive
Committee, Osman al-Magdum, lambasted the Governor of River Nile State, Ghulam
al-Din, calling him a liar in an official meeting in 2006. On 21 May 2009 , the Governor
of the River Nile State Eritrea
The
Nubians have already organized themselves politically and militarily with the
latter not active yet. They have put clearly that they will take to arms so as
to resist the building of Dal and Kajbar dams. At least two of their political
organizations have publicly pledged to take to arms the moment the government
start building any of the two dam. In 2004 they submitted a memo to Kofi Annan,
the then Secretary General of the UN[145]
arguing that the building of these dams will eventually disrupt the Nubian
society of Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. They further argued that the
Nubians constitute the only ethnic group with an African tongue on the Nile from Kosti (up the White Nile )
and Sinnar (up the Blue Nile ) down to the Mediterranean Sea . This sets the scene of the problem as
a conflict Africanism vs. Arabism.
Other
Arab ethnic groups of northern Sudan Sudan Khartoum Sudan Sudan
Limited government driven violence
This
is a far-fetched possibility as experiences have systematically shown that the Khartoum Khartoum Darfur .
At the same time the status quo of deterioration of normal peaceful situations
seems to be taking place by default due to the Islamist and Arabist nature of
the regime. The moment National Congress Party (NCP) of Khartoum
This
depends on the possibility that it dies out from the government and
consequently from the people. However, this is also far-fetched possibility. At
the inauguration of Merowe (Mirwi) dam on 3/3/2209 , just a day, before
the writ issue is declared by the ICC, the official slogan was that: “the dam
is our reply to Ocampo” which was by the President himself. Every time and
then, he was heard shouting in his rhetoric public addresses that their reply
to Ocampo and the ICC will be to build more dams[146].
V. CONCLUSION
With
the disintegration of the Sudan looming, the Khartoum government adopted a
policy for concentrating spending public funds in an area that comprises the
middle Sudan h (the Axis of Kordufan-Dungula-Sennar) hence known as Hamdi’s
Triangle; areas of predominant African ethnic groups outside this triangle were
to be Arabized by a new population injection from neighbouring countries (from
Chad in the case of Darfur; from Egypt in the case of northern Sudanese Nubia;
from local Arab tribes in the case of Nuba Mountains). This is the policy that
has so far merited the name of “Demographic Engineering”.
In
the last five years the government of the Sudan Khartoum Sudan Egypt Darfur military movements to orchestrate
efforts of resistance. The Egyptian Nubians have declared their alliance with
their brethren in the Sudan Sudan Egypt Darfur
will destabilize the region more than ever. The northern Sudan Egypt Sudan Nubians , Egypt Sudan Sudan
[1]
Cf. Abdul Rahīm Hamdi (Former Minister of Finance). 2005. Al-waraqa al-iqtisādiyya li’l-mu’tamar al-watani al-hākim bi’l-Sudan
[The Economic Paper for the National Congress, the ruling Party in the Sudan
[2] Cf. Hashim, M.J. 2006. Islamization
and Arabization of Africans as a Means to Political Power in the Sudan Africa and its Diaspora. Windhoek
[3] Cf.
Hashim, M.J. 2008. The Dam
Building Northern Sudan : is it a Tool for the Resettlement of
Millions of Egyptian Peasants? Is it a New Darfur Scenario in the Making? BPP School of Law London
[5]
Hashim, M.J. 2007. The Policies of
De-Nubianization in Egypt Sudan Africa .
Volume I, No. I 2007. Presented at the International Reparation Conference. Conference
Theme: Transformation, Reparation Repatriation and Reconciliation. Ghana West Africa , Accra 1 August 2006 .
[6] Cf.
Hashim, M.J. 2008. The Dam
Building Northern Sudan : is it a Tool for the Resettlement of
Millions of Egyptian Peasants? Op. Cit.
[7]
Not more than 14 million fedans; Sudan
[9] Izz
al-Din Hamid, cf. al-Rai al-Am
Newspaper, 18/4/2004 ,
P. 3.
[10] Al-Rai
al-am Newspaper, No. 2351, 8/2/2005 .
[11] .
Fikri Abul Qasim, “Nadwat al-miyāh wa ‛uzlat al-safīr” [The Symposium on Water
and the Isolation of the Ambassador], Eilaf Newspaper, 10/09/2007 ,
[12] Al-Sahafa Neswpaper, 16/04/2008.
[16] Cf.
Al-Toum Ibrahim al-Niteifa, al-tufayliyiin yuqaddimuun al-ard majjaanan
lil-mustathmiriin al-ajaanib [The Parasitics offer Lands Free for the Foreign
Investors], Al-Maidan Newspaper, 18/9/2007 .
[17] AOAD.
1983. Dirasa istita’iyya gi lil-mawarid wal’istithmar al-zira’I fil-iqlimayn
al-sharqi wal’shimali fi’jamhuriyyat al-Sudan al-dimuqratiyya [A Pilot
Study about the Agricultural Resources and Investment in the East and North
Regions in the Democratic Republic if the Sudan Khartoum
[18] AOAD.
1990. Tahdith dirāsat al-tawassu’ al-‘ufuqi wal-ra’si fī zirā’at al-qamih
bil-iqlim al-shimāli fī jamhūriyyat al-Sudan [The Updating of the Studies
for the Horizontal and Vertical Cultivation of Wheat in the Northern Region of
the Sudan]. Khartoum
[19] Fernea & Rouchdy. 1991.
Contemporary Egyptian Nubians, Epilogue, Part III. In: Frnea, E.W., Fernea, R.
& Rouchdy, A. (ed). Nubian Ethnographies. Prospect Heights Illinois
[20] For
fishery, cf. Lassaily-Jacob, V. 1990. Village Resettlement in Lower
Nubia , Egypt Paris
[21] Al-Wafd
Newspaper, 18/05/2006 .
[22] Al-Ahram
Newspaper, 11/06/2006 .
[23] Rajab
al-Murshidi in Rousa al Yousef Newspaper: www.rosaonline.net .
[24] Roudart, L. 2000/1. Microeconomic
analysis of the liberalization of the rent price on agricultural incomes. In:
Land Reform: Land Settlement & Cooperatives. Part II. No. 2000/1.
FAO. Online:
[25]
Based on: Hashim, M.J. 2007. Risālat
Kajbār: min ajl al-Sudan, lā min ajl qarya [Yhe Message of Kajbar: for the
Sake of the Sudan
And: Cf. Hashim, M.J. Forthcoming. Limāza
narfud hāzihi al-sudūd wa mā hiya badā’iluna al-tanmawiyya? [Why do we
oppose the building of these Dams and what are our Development Solutions?]. Khartoum .
[26] Al-Ayyam
Newspaper, 16/2/2008 .
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ajras
al-huriyya Newspaper, 25/3/2009 .
[29] Seif
al-Din Hamad Abdalla. 2008. “al-qudra al-takhzīniyya l’il-sudūd ‛ala al-nīl wa
rawāfidihī dākhil al-Sudan” [The Storage Capacity of the Dams on the Nile and its Tributaries in the Sudan Sudan Khartoum 2/9/2007 .
[30] Al-Khartoum
Newspaper, 24/6/2008 .
[31] Al-Masri
alyoum Newspaper [The Egyptian Today], 22/3/2008 .
[32] Seif al-Din Abdalla, op cit.
[33] ibid.
[35] Oosterbaan, R.J. 1999. Impacts of
the Irrigation Improvement Project ,
Egypt
[36] Cf. Hashim, M.J. Forthcoming. Limāza narfud hāzihi al-sudūd wa mā hiya
badā’iluna al-tanmawiyya? [Why do we oppose the building of these Dams and
what are our Development Solutions?]. Khartoum.
[39]
Cf. The Nile River State, the Commission of the Mirwi Dam affected People, January
2007, Khadamāt istishāriyya li-dirāt khiyārāt al-Manāsīr li’l-tawtīn hawl
buhayrat marawī: al-taqrīr al-mabda’ī [Consultative Services for the Study of the Manasir Option to settle
arount the lake of Merowe: the Preliminary Report], prepared by YAM for
Development & Consultation Co. P. 3
[42] Cf.
Jim Giles. 2006. A wave of Chinese-built dams in Africa ,
particularly the Merowe project in Sudan 23 March 2006 ), doi:10.1038/440393a; Published online 22 March 2006 :
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7083/full/440393a.html
[44] Cf.
United Nations Environment Programme, Sudan Post-Conflict
Environmental Assessment: Freshwater resource. Online: http://postconflict.unep.ch/publicat...ynthesis_A.pdf.
[46] Environmental Assessment Report for the Merowe Dam Project, 2002: 13.
[48] Ibid,
PP. 3-5.
[49] Ibid.
PP. 3 – 5.
[50] Wuhdat
tanfīz al-sudūd, ri’āsat al-jamhūriyya [Dam Implementation Unit (The
Presidency)]. March 2008. mashrū‛ sadd Kajbar: ma‛lūmāt muwjaza: mashrū‛
i‛ādat binā’ al-ḥadāra bi-i‛ādat al-tawṭīn [The Project of Kajbar Dam: an
Informative Summary: the Project of re-building Civilization through
Re-Settlement], to be referred to as “Informative Summary”.
[53] Cf. Edward, D & Osman, A. 1992. The Mahas
Survey, 1991: Interim Report & Site Inventory. Khartoum University of Khartoum Khartoum University of Khartoum Khartoum University of Khartoum
[54]
Principal Features of Projects in Sudan Nile
Waters Study 1978, Acres 1993, PB Power 2006.
[55]
Cf. Consultancy Services for Eastern Nile
Technical Power Trade Investment Program Study, Khartoum
[56] Wuhdat
tanfīz al-sudūd, ri’āsat al-jamhūriyya [Dam Implementation Unit (The
Presidency)]. March 2008. mashrū‛ sadd Kajbar: ma‛lūmāt muwjaza: mashrū‛ i‛ādat
binā’ al-ḥadāra bi-i‛ādat al-tawṭīn [The Project of Kajbar Dam: an
Informative Summary: the Project of re-building Civilization through
Re-Settlement], referred to above as “Informative Summary”.
[57] Al-Sha’b
Newspaper, 14/11/2006 ,
also available online: http://www.alshaab.com/news.php?i=2102.
[59] Op
cit, online http://www.waterlog.info/.
[60] Cf.
the Republic of Sudan December
20, 2007 .
[61]
An interview on 9th
December 2008 .
[62] Personal
communication, 12.3.2009.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Ibid.
[65] For
the importance of these sites, cf. Welsby, Derek A. &
Anderson, Julie R. (ed.). 2004. Sudan London British Museum
[66] Op. cit.
[67] Ibid.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Op
cit.
[70]
Cf. Abdullahi Ali Ibrahim, 1994, Assaulting with Words: Popular Discourse
and the Bridle of Shari'ah: Islam and Society in Africa
Series, Northwestern University.
[71] Cf.
Ibrahim, A.M. 1984. The Nile Description, Hydrology, Control and Utilisation, PP.
1-13. in: Dumont ,
H.J., el Mogrhraby, A.I. & Desougi, L.A. Sudan The Hague Boston Lancaster
[72] Ri’āsat
al-jamhūriyya. Wuḥdat tanfīz al-sudūd. Al-idāra al-‛āma lil-shu’ūn al-’idāriyya
wal-māliyya. December 2007. dirāsa ‛an manṭiqat sadd Mugrāt, i‛dāt
maktab al-mutāba‛a, Atbara [The Presidency of
Sudan, Dam Implementation Unit, the Public Administration of Administrative and
Financial Affairs. December 2007. Study of the Area of Mugrat Dam,
prepared by the Atbara-based Follow-up Office], to be called “Mugrat Dam
Study”.
[73] Interviews
with some of the fieldworkers and people in Mugrat area, December, 2008.
[76]
Cf. Ibrahim, A.M. 1984, op cit.
[79] Ri’āsat
al-jamhūriyya. Wuḥdat tanfīz al-sudūd. Al-idāra al-‛āma lil-shu’ūn al-’idāriyya
wal-māliyya. December 2007. dirāsa ‛an manṭiqat sadd Dagash, i‛dāt
maktab al-mutāba‛a, Atbara [The Presidency of
Sudan, Dam Implementation Unit, the Public Administration of Administrative and
Financial Affairs. December 2007. Study of the Area of Dagash Dam,
prepared by the Atbara-based Follow-up Office], to be called “Dagash Dam
Study”.
[81] Source:
Dagash Dam Study, 2007.
[82] Cf.
Ibrahim, A.M. 1984, op.
cit.
[83] Dr. Abdul Sami‛ Haidar, a medical dentist.
[84] Cf. Abdul Sami‛ Haidar, 2007, Sadd al-Shireik: mulakhkhaṣ
tārīkhī [the Shireik Dam: a Historical Summary].
[86] Cf.
Acres International. 1997. Long Term Power System Planning Study.
[87]
Cf. Rābitat ’abnā’ Futwār, sadd al-Shireik, 14/10/2007 [the Association of the
People of Futwār Island, al-Shireik Dam].
[88] Ibid.
[89] Cf.
Ibrahim, A.M. 1984, op.
cit.
[90] Ri’āsat
al-jamhūriyya. Wuhdat tanfīz al-sudūd. Al-idāra al-‛āma lil-shu’ūn al-’idāriyya
wal-māliyya. December 2007. dirāsa ‛an al-mantiqat al-muta’aththira bi-qiyā
sadd al-Shabalouga. i‛dāt maktaba‛a, al-Sabalouga [The Presidency of Sudan,
Dam Implementation Unit, the Public Administration of Administrative and
Financial Affairs. December 2007. Study of the affected Area of Sabalouga Dam, prepared by the al-Sabalouga-based
Follow-up Office, to be called “al-Sabalouga Dam Study”.
[91] Ibid.
[92]
Cf. Rābitat ’abnā’ Futwār, sadd al-Shireik, 14/10/2007 [the Association of the
People of Futwār Island, al-Shireik Dam].
[93] Ibid.
[95]
Cf. Prof. Ja’far Ahmad al-Zargani, “Sadd Merwoe: li-man tuqra’ al-‘ajrās?” [The
Merowe Dam: for whom the Bells toll?], al-ayyam
Newspaper, 16/5/2007
where he raised fears of the dam suffering from cracks at its base wall.
[96] Cf.
Al-Wifaq Newspaper, 30/4/2008 .
[97]
By googling either ‘Amri’ or ‘Mnasir’), cf. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=B1it_0SSa4k&feature=related.
[98] Cf. The Council of the Merowe
Dam-Affected People- the Manasir, 2003. Al-matālib al-‛ādila fī al-ta‛wd wa
i‛ādat al-tawtīn [The Just Demands in Compensation and Resettlement], to be
referred to as “the Just Demands”.
[101]
Interview with leading members of the Manasir Committee, 21/12/2008 .
[102]
No. 70, Year 2006.
[103]
No. 37, 7/5/2006 .
[104]
No. 38, 7/5/2006 .
[105]
No. 39, 7/5/2006 .
[106] Al-Sudani
Newspaper, 10/5/2007 .
[107]
Cf. Akhbar al-yawm Newspaper, 18/6/2007 .
[109]
Cf. Al-Ayyam Newspaper; Al-Sahafa Newspaper, 16/4/2008 .
[110]
Cf. Ajras al-hurriyya Newspaper, 4/2008.
[111]
Cf. United Nations Mission in Sudan 12
December 2008 .
[112]
Cf. Akhar lahza Newspaper, 27/1/2009 .
[113] Op.
cit.
[115]
Cf. Al-Sahafa Newspaper, 14/2/2008 .
[116]
The Government of the Northern State, “An Important Release”, 18/8/2008 .
[117]
Cf. Al-Sahafa Newspaper, 20/8/2008 .
[118]
Cf. Al-Midan Newspaper, 2/9/2008 .
[119]
Cf. Al-sahafa Newspaper, 16/1/2009 .
[120] al-Masri
alyoum Newspaper [the Egyptian Today], 3/4/2008 .
[121]
Available online worldwide: http://www.almasry-alyoum.com/articl...rticleID=99842.
[122] Al-Sahafa
Newspaper,
[123] Op.
cit, 26/5/2008 .
[124] Ibidt, ANNEX 6.
[125] Cf. Figure 8. The Figure numbered 8 in ANNEX 8 is entitled ‘Northern Sudan
[126] Ajras
al-huriyya Newspaper, 4/3/2009 .
[129]
Interviews with members of the Manasir Committee, 16/5/2007 .
[130] Interview with Ali Askuri, 10/10/2008 in Khartoum
[131]
For more details of the incident, see: http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15235.
[137]
Al-Sadig al-Mahdi, 2000, Miyāh al-nīl: al-wa‛d w’al-wa‛īd (The Nile
Water: the Expectations and the Menaces), Cairo
[138]
Cf. Al-Wasit Newspaper, 29/11/2007 .
[139] Cf. “A
National, Regional and International Proclamation to obviate the Ominous
Hazards of Mirwi Dam”, issued in
Khartoum by The Political Corporation for Crisis Management, the People
Committee for resisting Kajbar Dam, the Nubian Corporation for Development and
the Resistance of Dal Dam, the Executive Committee of Manasir People affected by
Mirwi Dam, the Executive Committee of Amri People affected by Mirwi Dam, the
Provisional Committee for resisting Mugrat Dam, the Provisional Committee for
resisting Dagash Dam, the Provisional Committee for resisting al-Shireik
Dam on 18/05/2009
[140]
According to claims made by informed people interviewed by the present
writer who did not want their names
disclosed.
[144]
Interviews with members of the Movement of Insaf al-Muhajjarin (the Movement of
Justice for the Resettled People) in 2008-9, in Khartoum
[145]
Cf. Hashim, M.J. 2008. Islamization and Arabization of Africans as a Means to
Political Power in the Sudan Africa and its Diaspora. Asmara
[146]
Cf. Ajras al-huriya Newspaper, 4/3/2009 .
