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Dams Indigenous Peoples

This document is a summary of the report "Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities" prepared for the World Commission on Dams. The report examines the impacts of large dam projects on indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, including involuntary displacement from traditional lands and the disruption of livelihoods and cultures. It notes that indigenous peoples have a special attachment to their lands and view them as integral to their identities and cultures. The report argues that indigenous peoples' rights must be respected in dam planning and construction processes.

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124 views98 pages

Dams Indigenous Peoples

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Ed Pettitt

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WCD Thematic Reviews

Social Issues I.2

Sharing Power

Dams, Indigenous Peoples

and Ethnic Minorities

Final Version : November 2000

Prepared for the World Commission on Dams (WCD) by:

Marcus Colchester - Forest Peoples Programme

Secretariat of the World Commission on Dams

P.O. Box 16002, Vlaeberg, Cape Town 8018, South Africa
Phone: 27 21 426 4000 Fax: 27 21 426 0036.
Website: http://www.dams.org E-mail: [email protected]
World Commission on Dams
Orange River Development Project, South Africa, Draft, October 1999 i

Disclaimer
This is a working paper of the World Commission on Dams - the report published herein was
prepared for the Commission as part of its information gathering activity. The views, conclusions, and
recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission. The Commission's
views, conclusions, and recommendations will be set forth in the Commission's own report.

Please cite this report as follows:

Colchester, M. 2000 - Forest Peoples Programme : Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities,
Thematic Review 1.2 prepared as an input to the World Commission on Dams, Cape Town,
www.dams.org

The WCD Knowledge Base

This report is one component of the World Commission on Dams knowledge base from which the
WCD drew to finalize its report “Dams and Development-A New Framework for Decision Making”.
The knowledge base consists of seven case studies, two country studies, one briefing paper, seventeen
thematic reviews of five sectors, a cross check survey of 125 dams, four regional consultations and
nearly 1000 topic-related submissions. All the reports listed below, are available on CD-ROM or can
be downloaded from www.dams.org
Case Studies (Focal Dams) Country Studies Briefing Paper
• Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia River Basin, USA • India • Russia and NIS
• Tarbela Dam, Indus River Basin, Pakistan • China countries
• Aslantas Dam, Ceyhan River Basin, Turkey
• Kariba Dam, Zambezi River, Zambia/Zimbabwe
• Tucurui Dam, Tocantins River, Brazil
• Pak Mun Dam, Mun-Mekong River Basin,
Thailand
• Glomma and Laagen Basin, Norway
• Pilot Study of the Gariep and Van der Kloof
dams- Orange River South Africa
Thematic Reviews
• TR I.1: Social Impact of Large Dams: Equity and • TR IV.1: Electricity Supply and Demand
Distributional Issues Management Options
• TR I.2: Dams, Indigenous People and Vulnerable • TR IV.2: Irrigation Options
Ethnic Minorities • TR IV.3: Water Supply Options
• TR I.3: Displacement, Resettlement, • TR IV.4: Flood Control and Management Options
Rehabilitation, Reparation and • TR IV.5: Operation, Monitoring and
Development Decommissioning of Dams

• TR II.1: Dams, Ecosystem Functions and • TR V.1: Planning Approaches

Environmental Restoration • TR V.2: Environmental and Social Assessment for
• TR II.2: Dams and Global Change Large Dams
• TR V.3: River Basins – Institutional Frameworks
• TR III.1: Economic, Financial and Distributional and Management Options
Analysis • TR V.4: Regulation, Compliance and
• TR III.2: International Trends in Project Financing Implementation
• TR V.5: Participation, Negotiation and Conflict
Management: Large Dam Projects

• Regional Consultations – Hanoi, Colombo, Sao Paulo and Cairo

• Cross-check Survey of 125 dams

This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
World Commission on Dams
Orange River Development Project, South Africa, Draft, October 1999 ii

Acknowledgements
This paper was to have been written jointly with Andrew Gray, of the Forest Peoples Programme,
who was killed in an air accident in May 1999. We profoundly lament his loss.

I would like to offer my thanks to Fergus MacKay, Garth Nettheim and Tony Simpson for help with
legal interpretations and to Maurizio Ferrari, Bill Fisher, Real Courcelles, Josef Milewski, Robert
Goodland, Maninder Gill, Sandy Davis, Joji Carino, Anne Deruyterre, Ted Moses, Brian Craik, Andy
Orkin and Ted Scudder for comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank The Cornerhouse
for the exceptional help provided in chasing up sources and information.

Financial and in-kind Contributors:

Financial and in-kind support for the WCD process was received from 54 contributors including
governments, international agencies, the private sector, NGOs and various foundations. According to
the mandate of the Commission, all funds received were ‘untied’-i.e. these funds were provided with
no conditions attached to them.

• ABB • Skanska
• ADB - Asian Development Bank • SNC Lavalin
• AID - Assistance for India's Development • South Africa - Ministry of Water Affairs and
• Atlas Copco Forestry
• Australia - AusAID • Statkraft
• Berne Declaration • Sweden - Sida
• British Dam Society • IADB - Inter-American Development Bank
• Canada - CIDA • Ireland - Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Carnegie Foundation • IUCN - The World Conservation Union
• Coyne et Bellier • Japan - Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• C.S. Mott Foundation • KfW - Kredietanstalt für Wiederaufbau
• Denmark - Ministry of Foreign Affairs • Lahmeyer International
• EDF - Electricité de France • Lotek Engineering
• Engevix • Manitoba Hydro
• ENRON International • National Wildlife Federation, USA
• Finland - Ministry of Foreign Affairs • Norplan
• Germany - BMZ: Federal Ministry for Economic • Norway - Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Co-operation • Switzerland - SDC
• Goldman Environmental Foundation • The Netherlands - Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• GTZ - Deutsche Geschellschaft für Technische • The World Bank
Zusammenarbeit • Tractebel Engineering
• Halcrow Water • United Kingdom - DFID
• Harza Engineering • UNEP - United Nations Environment
• Hydro Quebec Programme
• Novib • United Nations Foundation
• David and Lucille Packard Foundation • USA Bureau of Reclamation
• Paul Rizzo and Associates • Voith Siemens
• People's Republic of China • Worley International
• Rockefeller Brothers Foundation • WWF International

WHY WE DON'T WANT TO MOVE

This land is where we belong -- it is God's gift to us and has made us who we are. This land is where we
are at home, we know its ways: and the things that happened here are known and remembered, so that
the stories the old people told are still alive here.
This land is needed for those who come after -- we are becoming more and more than before,
and we must start new settlements, with new farms around them. If we have to move, it is likely that there
will be other people there and we shall not be free to spread out as we need to: and the land will not be
enough for our people, so that we will grow poor.
This land is the place where we know where to find all that it provides for us -- food from hunting
and fishing, and farms, buildings and tool materials, medicines. Also the spirits around us know us and
are friendly and helpful.
This land keep us together within its mountains -- we come to understand that we are not just a
few people or separate villages, but one people belonging to a homeland. If we had to move, we would be
lost to those that remain in the other villages. This would be a sadness to us all, like the sadness of death.
Those who moved would be strangers to the people and spirits and places where they are made to go.

The Akawaio Indians, Upper Mazaruni District, Guyana, 1977 1

As long as:
By Paulus Utsi (Saami)

As long as we have water, where fish swim

As long as we have lands, where reindeer graze and wander
As long as we have grounds, where wild animals hide
Then we have consolation on this earth.

When our homes have been destroyed and our lands devastated,
where will we live?
Our lands, our livelihoods have dwindled
The lakes have risen
The rivers have run dry
The streams sing with sorrowful voices
The lands blacken, verdure wilts
The birds become silent and flee.

All the good things we have received

Do not touch our hearts
What should have made our lives easier
Has become worthless.

Hard stone roads make

Our movements painful
The peace of the people of the wilderness
Cries in their hearts.

In the rush of time

Our blood is thinned
Our unison shattered
Waters cease to roar.

1
Cited in Bennett, Butt-Colson and Wavell 1978:9

Table of Contents

1. Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities and National Development............................1

1.1 Summary/Introduction................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Difficulties with Definitions .......................................................................................................... 1
1.3 Special characteristics of Indigenous Peoples ............................................................................... 2
1.4 Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Minorities under international law .......................................... 3
1.5 Rights to land and territories.......................................................................................................... 3
1.6 Indigenous Peoples and Relocation ............................................................................................... 4
1.7 Rights of restitution ....................................................................................................................... 5
1.8 Other key rights ............................................................................................................................. 5
1.9 The right to self-determination ...................................................................................................... 6
1.10 Rights of Minorities....................................................................................................................... 6
1.11 Other relevant international standards: .......................................................................................... 7
1.12 National policies towards Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities........................................... 8
1.13 Processes of Participation: from consultation to negotiation, control and consent ..................... 10
1.14 Eminent domain and Indigenous Resistance ............................................................................... 11
1.15 Eminent Domain and the Private Sector:..................................................................................... 14

2. Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities and Dams:.....................................................16

2.1 The Impacts of Large Dams ........................................................................................................ 16
2.1.1 Disproportionate impact: ............................................................................................................. 16
2.1.2 Resettlement as Ethnocide........................................................................................................... 17
2.1.3 Failure to identity the cultural distinctiveness of affected peoples:............................................. 18
2.1.4 No Prior Informed Consent ......................................................................................................... 19
2.1.5 Failure to recognise the impact of loss of land and livelihood .................................................... 20
2.1.6 Secondary Displacement and Conflict......................................................................................... 23
2.1.7 Lack of Compensation or Inadequate Compensation .................................................................. 24
2.1.8 Gender Inequities Exacerbated .................................................................................................... 26
2.1.9 Human Rights Abuses ................................................................................................................. 27
2.1.10 Worse Off than Before................................................................................................................. 28
2.1.11 The whole watershed ................................................................................................................... 31
2.1.12 Inadequate processes of restitution.............................................................................................. 34
2.1.13 Underlying Causes of Negative Impacts .................................................................................... 34
2.1.14 Denial of the right to self-determination...................................................................................... 35
2.1.15 Social Exclusion .......................................................................................................................... 35
2.1.16 National planning and marginal voices ....................................................................................... 36
2.1.17 Costs, benefits and local values ................................................................................................... 37
2.1.18 Engineering consent..................................................................................................................... 39
2.1.19 The Pressure to Lend ................................................................................................................... 41
2.1.20 Lack of Accountability ................................................................................................................ 42
2.1.21 The privacy of private financing.................................................................................................. 42
2.1.22 Social Engineering for Development: ......................................................................................... 43
2.1.23 Dam-building and equity ............................................................................................................. 43

3. Towards ‘Best Practice’ ................................................................................................45

3.1 Affected communities: the importance of organising.................................................................. 45
3.2 Lessons learned: .......................................................................................................................... 46
3.3 Non-Governmental Organisations: the value of long-term support work ................................... 47
3.4 Private Sector: sharing power...................................................................................................... 48
3.5 International development agencies: the need for accountability................................................ 51
3.6 MDB examples of ‘Best Practice’: .............................................................................................. 51
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities vi

3.7 Inter-American Development Bank: informed consent............................................................... 52

3.8 Uncertain progress at the World Bank:........................................................................................ 53
3.9 Governments................................................................................................................................ 54

4. Conclusions and Recommendations ............................................................................56

4.1 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 56

5. Recommendations..........................................................................................................58
5.1 Recognition of the Distinct Nature and Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities.... 58
5.2 The Fundamental Importance of Territories................................................................................ 58
5.3 Rethinking the doctrine of eminent domain ................................................................................ 58
5.4 Free, Prior and Informed Consent................................................................................................ 59
5.5 Respect for Human Rights........................................................................................................... 59
5.6 Early Involvement in the Planning Cycle .................................................................................... 59
5.7 Negotiated Settlements ................................................................................................................ 59
5.8 Joint Implementation and Monitoring ......................................................................................... 60
5.9 Restitution for Past Loss.............................................................................................................. 60
5.10 Enforcement of Standards............................................................................................................ 60

References ................................................................................................................................61

Annex 1: Text of E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/14. .............................................................................86

Annex 2: Participants in the Geneva Consultation.............................................................88

1. Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities and National

Development
1.1 Summary/Introduction
The objective of this paper is to assess the extent to which Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities
have gained or lost from large dam projects.1 Like many previous studies on the theme, it finds that
indeed large dams have had very serious impacts on these peoples’ lives, livelihoods, cultures and
spiritual existence. Due to structural inequities, cultural dissonance, pervasive and institutional racism
and discrimination, and political marginalisation, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities have
suffered disproportionately from the negative impacts of large dams, while often being among those
who have been excluded from sharing the benefits.

On paper, measures to avoid or mitigate these negative impacts have been progressively improved
over the past 50 years as international law and the policies of developers have been revised in
response to growing voices of dissent. As this study shows, however, despite these advances and even
where these policies are meant to apply, large dams continue to have serious, even devastating, effects
on Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities. In large part this is because dam-building in particular,
and development programmes in general, are driven by powerful interests and visions, which provide
neither the incentives nor the time for developers to apply these new standards.

Encouragingly, substantial movement has already been achieved towards a consensus on ‘Best
Practice’ options, including by leading hydro-power companies and multilateral development banks,
which might lead to fundamental changes in the way future large dam-building schemes relate to
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities. In essence these changes reflect improvements in State
recognition of the historical territorial rights of Indigenous Peoples and imply a reconsideration of the
current doctrine of eminent domain – by which the properties of citizens can be expropriated in the
‘national interest’. If, in future, dams could not be built without the free, prior and informed consent
of affected peoples as expressed through their own representative institutions, much of the inherent
inequity of dam-building today could be mitigated or removed and alternative development options
would be given greater chance of proving themselves.

Indigenous Peoples, in particular, have long asserted the right to determine their own development,
considering their right to accept or reject development proposals to be implicit in their inherent right
to self-determination. The acceptance by national governments and the dam-building industry of the
principle of free, prior and informed consent provides the main means by which the currently
adversarial relationship between them and Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities could be
transformed. Acceptance of the principle of free, prior and informed consent, would mean that, in
future, dam-building would not go ahead without the affected communities being assured that they
would benefit from the planned schemes and without them being first convinced that adequate
mechanisms were in place to secure their development, compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation
and their full involvement in legally enforceable monitoring procedures to ensure compliance.

1.2 Difficulties with Definitions

Neither Indigenous Peoples nor Ethnic Minorities are clearly defined in international law. At its
broadest, the adjective indigenous is applied to any person, community or being that has inhabited a
particular region or place for a long time. However, the term ‘Indigenous Peoples’ has gained
currency, internationally, to refer more specifically to long-resident peoples, with strong customary
ties to their lands, that are dominated by other elements of the national society. Although a number of
Asian and African governments have sought to limit the definition of Indigenous Peoples to those
peoples whose lands have been permanently settled by European colonists such as the ‘Indians’ of the
Americas, the ‘Aborigines’ of Australia and the Maori of New Zealand, many peoples within Asian
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 2

and African States define themselves as ‘indigenous’ and as distinctive from dominant national
societies. They seek recognition of the same rights as those aspired to by the indigenous peoples of
the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
Despite resistance from some countries, the general trend at the United Nations has been to accept that
many of the so-called ‘tribal peoples’ of Africa, Asia and the Pacific are indistinguishable from
‘Indigenous Peoples’ as far as international law and standards are concerned.2
Indigenous Peoples themselves insist on the principle of self-identification, which they see as an
intrinsic part of their right to self-determination.3 The principle of the self-identification of groups is
recognised in Article 8 of the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is
currently under discussion at the United Nations Human Rights Commission.4

The International Labour Organization’s Convention #169 applies to both Indigenous and Tribal
Peoples and thus includes many such peoples from Asia and Africa. It ascribes both the same rights
without discrimination. Article 1(2) of ILO Convention # 169 notes:

‘Self –identification as indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for

determining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply.’

The concept of a ‘minority’ is a much broader and more encompassing one and has been popularly
used to include any social group which distinguishes itself from the national majority, whether
through nationality, religion, race, culture, language, caste or sexual orientation. It is however
generally accepted that the term ‘minority’ refers not to numerical minorities within a nation State but
to groups that suffer some degree of domination or discrimination by more powerful or numerous
groups. In practice, the UN Human Rights Commission and its subsidiary bodies have addressed the
concerns of minorities when they can show that they are culturally, religiously or linguistically
distinctive from the dominant population, have some degree of group identity and have suffered
evident abuse of their fundamental human rights based on policies or practices of discrimination.5

Many international lawyers agree with indigenous peoples that there is no need for an external
definition of either the terms ‘indigenous peoples’ or ‘minorities’. They note that the very term
‘peoples’ which is fundamental to the constitution of the United Nations is itself undefined.6

1.3 Special characteristics of Indigenous Peoples

An alternative approach, that eschews definition, has been adopted by external agencies, that plan
projects in Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities areas and have policies that make special
provision for them, and which, therefore, need a mechanism for staff to identify where and when they
should apply their policy. Rather than seeking to define Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities this
approach sets out a number of ‘indicators’ which tend to be manifest by such peoples and can thus be
used to help identify them. For example, for the purpose of its operations, the World Bank considers
indigenous those peoples who manifest:

• vulnerability to being disadvantaged in the development process

• close attachment to ancestral territories and to natural resources in these areas
• self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct group
• an indigenous language, often different from the national language
• presence of customary social and political institutions
• primarily subsistence-oriented production.7

Indigenous Peoples themselves emphasise that they differ from many other marginalised social
groups in their relative lack of incorporation into the State or administrative apparatus. As Irene Daes,
the Chairperson of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, concludes:

“In summary, the factors which modern international organisations and legal experts (including
indigenous legal experts and members of the academic family) have considered relevant to
understanding the concept of “indigenous” include:

a) priority in time with respect the occupation and use of a specific territory;
b) the voluntary perpetuation of cultural distinctiveness, which may include aspects of language,
social organisation, religion and spiritual values, modes of production, laws and institutions;
c) self-identification, as well as recognition by other groups, or by State authorities, as a distinct
collectivity; and
d) an experience of subjugation, exclusion or discrimination, whether or not these conditions
persist.”8

1.4 Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Minorities under

international law
In accordance with international law, members of Indigenous Peoples and Minorities enjoy all the
fundamental human rights and freedoms of people everywhere. In addition, because of their distinct
relation to States and the rule of law and because they suffer discrimination and are vulnerable to
abuse, international law has also developed specific legal provisions to secure and protect their rights.

1.5 Rights to land and territories

Among the most important for the purpose of this study is the recognition of the rights of Indigenous
Peoples to the ownership, control and management of their traditional territories, lands and resources.
These rights were first set out in the International Labour Organisation’s Convention #107 on
‘Indigenous and Tribal Populations’, of 1957, and were later expanded on, in 1989, in a revised
Conventions #169 on ‘Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’.9 Articles 14 and 15(1) of Convention #169
state:

! Article 14

1. The rights of ownership and possession of the peoples concerned over the lands which
they traditionally occupy shall be recognised. In addition, measures shall be taken in
appropriate cases to safeguard the right of the peoples concerned to use lands not
exclusively occupied by them, but to which they have traditionally had access for their
subsistence and traditional activities. Particular attention shall be paid to the situation of
nomadic peoples and shifting cultivators in this respect.

2. Governments shall take steps as necessary to identify the lands which the peoples
concerned traditionally occupy, and to guarantee effective protection of their rights of
ownership and possession.

3. Adequate procedures shall be established within the national legal system to resolve land
claims by the peoples concerned.

! Article 15

1. The rights of the peoples concerned to the natural resources pertaining to their lands shall
be specially safeguarded. These rights include the right of these peoples to participate in
the use, management and conservation of these resources.

The ILO’s Conventions broke new ground in that they established the principle that ‘aboriginal title’
derives from immemorial possession and does not depend on any act of the State. The term land is
generic and includes the woods and waters upon it.10

The UN’s Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides even stronger recognition
of Indigenous Peoples’ territorial rights. Article 26 states:

‘Indigenous peoples have the right to own, develop, control and use the lands and territories,
including the total environment of their land, air waters, coastal seas, sea-ice, flora and
fauna and other resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or
used. This includes the right to the full recognition of the laws, traditions and customs, land
tenure systems and institutions for the development and management of resources, and the
right to effective measures by States to prevent any interference with, alienation or
encroachment on these rights.’

1.6 Indigenous Peoples and Relocation

The ILO has also agreed special provisions regarding forced relocation. Under Article 12 of
Convention 107, Indigenous and Tribal Populations cannot be relocated except according to national
law for reasons of national security, economic development and their own health. If they are relocated
‘as an exceptional measure’, they shall be:

‘provided with lands of quality equal to that of the lands previously occupied by them,
suitable to provide for their present needs and future development…Persons thus removed
shall be fully compensated for any resulting loss or injury.’

Article 16 of Convention 169 sets out in greater detail but with additional qualifications, the
conditions under which Indigenous and Tribal Peoples can be relocated from their lands:

1. Subject to the following paragraphs of this Article, the peoples concerned shall not be
removed from the lands which they occupy.
2. Where the relocation of these peoples is considered necessary as an exceptional measure,
such relocation shall take place only with their free and informed consent. Where their
consent cannot be obtained, such relocation shall take place only following appropriate
procedures established by national laws and regulations, including public inquiries where
appropriate, which provide the opportunity for effective representation of the peoples
concerned.
3. Whenever possible, these peoples shall have the right to return to their traditional lands, as
soon as the grounds for relocation cease to exist.
4. When such return is not possible, as determined by agreement or, in the absence of such
agreement, through appropriate procedures, these peoples shall be provided in all possible
cases with lands of quality and legal status at least equal to that of the lands previously
occupied by them, suitable to provide for their present needs and future development. Where
the peoples concerned express a preference for compensation in money or in kind, they shall
be so compensated under appropriate guarantees.
5. Persons thus relocated shall be fully compensated for any resulting loss or injury.

The UN’s Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides stronger protections than
either of the ILO Conventions. Article 7 prohibits any action which dispossesses Indigenous Peoples
of their land, territories or resources and prohibits any form of population transfer which may violate
or undermine their rights. Article 10 prohibits forcible removal from their lands and territories and
insists that ‘no relocation shall take place without the free and informed consent of the indigenous
peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation, and where possible, with the
option of return.’
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 5

Article 30 of the Draft Declaration acknowledges that:

‘Indigenous Peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the
development or use of their lands, territories and other resources, including the right to require the
State to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their
lands, territories and other resources particularly in connection with the development, utilization or
exploitation of mineral, water or other resources….’

1.7 Rights of restitution

Many indigenous peoples have already suffered loss of their lands to development. While ILO
Conventions #107 and #169 are mute on this issue, Article 27 of the Draft Declaration recognises
that:

Indigenous Peoples have the right to the restitution of the lands, territories and resources which they
have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used, and which have been confiscated, occupied,
used or damaged without their free and informed consent. Where this is not possible they have the
right to fair compensation. Unless otherwise freely agreed upon by the peoples concerned,
compensation shall take the form of lands, territories and resources equal in quality, size and legal
status.

Similar recommendations have been made by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination. At its 1235th meeting on 18 August 1997 the Committee noted:

‘The Committee especially calls upon States parties to recognise and protect the rights of indigenous
peoples to own, develop, control and use their communal lands, territories and resources and, where
they have been deprived of their lands and territories traditionally owned and otherwise inhabited or
used without their free and informed consent, to take steps to return these lands and territories. Only
when this is for factual reasons not possible, the right to restitution should be substituted by the right
to just, fair and prompt compensation. Such compensation should as far as possible take the form of
lands and territories.’11

1.8 Other key rights

A number of other rights of Indigenous Peoples are particularly relevant to this study. Notably, ILO
Convention # 169 recognises the right of Indigenous Peoples to exercise their customary law, a right
more fully affirmed in the UN’s Draft Declaration. International law also makes clear how states and
other institutions should interact with Indigenous Peoples. Article 6 (1) of Convention #169 notes:

In applying the provisions of this Convention, governments shall:

a) consult the peoples concerned, through appropriate procedures and in particular through their
representative institutions, whenever consideration is being given to legislative or administrative
measures which may affect them directly;
b) establish means by which these peoples can freely participate, to at least the same extent as other
sectors of the population, at all levels of decision-making in elective institutions and
administrative and other bodies responsible for policies and programmes which concern them;
c) establish means for the full development of these peoples' own institutions and initiatives, and in
appropriate cases provide the resources necessary for this purpose.

1.9 The right to self-determination

The existing ILO Conventions regarding indigenous peoples are unique in a number of respects,
perhaps most importantly in their recognition of the collective rights of the indigenous group to own
land and other resources, enter into negotiations and regulate the affairs of its members in line with
customary laws. To a limited extent, therefore, Indigenous Peoples are already recognised by
international law as autonomous seats of power within States.

Indigenous Peoples themselves go further. They assert their right to be recognised as peoples and, as
peoples, to be accorded the right to self-determination, a right of all peoples affirmed in Article 1 of
both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Whereas ILO Convention #169 is explicitly moot on this issue
(Article 1.3), the right of Indigenous Peoples to self-determination is strongly upheld in the Draft
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which has already been endorsed by the UN’s Sub-
Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities and is now being
reviewed by the Human Rights Commission.

In the meantime, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) appears to have already
accepted that Indigenous Peoples do enjoy the right to self-determination. In its recent commentaries
on Canada’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights and the rights of Canada’s ‘Aboriginal Peoples’, the HRC notes:

‘the Committee emphasizes that the right of self-determination requires, inter alia, that all
peoples must be able to freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources and that they may
not be deprived of their own means of subsistence (Article 1(2)). The Committee recommends
that decisive and urgent action be taken towards the full implementation of the RCAP [Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples] recommendations on land and resources. The Committee
also recommends that the practice of extinguishing inherent aboriginal rights be abandoned
as incompatible with Article 1 of the Covenant.’12

Historically, European nations did not hesitate to recognise the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the
regions that they were ‘discovering’ to act as sovereign nations, hold territory, own land, exercise
their customary law and maintain their own forms of government. Indeed they often based their
claims to indigenous territories on their conquest of, or alliance with, Indigenous Peoples.13
Accordingly treaties were often signed with Indigenous Peoples as binding agreements between
sovereign powers.14

The question of Indigenous Peoples and corresponding rights is likely to continue as a major item of
discussion at the United Nations for some years.15 For the purposes of this study what is important is
to recognise that one of the key reasons that Indigenous Peoples identify themselves as such is
because they assert this right to self-determination. By virtue of this right they seek to renegotiate
their relations with the States in which they now find themselves in order to achieve greater autonomy
in their social, cultural, economic and political development. At the minimum what they are seeking is
the right to control their territories and to ensure that no developments should be imposed without
their free and informed consent as expressed through their own representative institutions.

1.10 Rights of Minorities

By contrast with Indigenous Peoples, minorities enjoy far fewer special rights under international law.
Whereas the duty of States to protect minorities was one of the organising principles of the League of
Nations in the first part of the 20th century, since the second World War international law has been
constructed around the interdependent concepts of the rights of peoples and the rights of individuals
within nation states.16

Accordingly, international law has been very hesitant in recognising the rights of collectivities within
existing States. Minority rights key around Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, which states that:

‘In those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to
such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their
group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their
own language.’

The language is very cautious. As it stands, international law does not recognise the group rights of
minorities but only affirms the individual rights of members of minorities. The European Convention
on Human Rights is no more explicit and only applies to individuals and does not guarantee
substantive minority rights at all. Even these special provisions are too much for some States. The
French Republic, for example, has made a formal declaration with respect to the International
Covenant of Civil and Political Rights that ‘Article 27 is not applicable so far as the Republic is
concerned’.17

In framing legislation about minorities, Governments have been careful to avoid ascribing rights to
minorities that might encourage racist or segregationist policies. Thus, the International Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination only affirms the acceptability of positive
discrimination in favour of disadvantaged groups so long as ‘such measures do not as a consequence
lead to the maintenance of separate rights for different racial groups’ (Article 1, para 4).

In sum, existing international law accepts that minorities have rights to maintain their religions,
languages and cultures and to be accorded protections and provisions by the State to ensure that they
are not discriminated against. These provisions should ensure that they enjoy rights to their property
equal with other citizens as well as protection of their other fundamental rights and freedoms.

1.11 Other relevant international standards:

The Convention on Biological Diversity also makes provisions relevant to Indigenous Peoples and
any minorities who consider that they ‘embody traditional lifestyles’. Article 8(j) obliges States ‘as far
as possible and as appropriate’:

‘Subject to its national legislation, [to] respect, preserve and maintain knowledge,
innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional
lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources…’

Similarly, Article 10(c) obliges States, ‘as far as possible and as appropriate to:

‘…protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in accordance with

traditional cultural practices that are compatible with conservation or sustainable use
requirements.’

The full implications of these provisions have yet to be determined. An intersessional working group
under the Conference of Parties of the Convention is to look into the matter further in early 2000.18

The World Bank has a number of specific policies relevant to this study including policies on
Indigenous Peoples, environment assessment, involuntary resettlement and cultural property. The
World Bank’s policy on Indigenous Peoples, which can be interpreted as applying equally to many
so-called Ethnic Minorities, is designed to ensure that indigenous concerns are addressed prior to
project implementation. The policy is designed to ensure that:

• there is a clear borrower government commitment to adhere to the World Bank’s policy
• acceptable mechanisms are in place to ensure indigenous participation in the full project cycle
• a special project component is developed which:

- makes an assessment of the national legal framework regarding Indigenous Peoples

- provides baseline data about the Indigenous Peoples to be affected
- establishes a mechanism for the legal recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, especially
tenure rights
- includes sub-components in health care, education, legal assistance and institution building
- provides for capacity-building of the government agency dealing with Indigenous Peoples
- establishes a clear schedule for fitting actions related to Indigenous Peoples into the overall
project, with a clear and adequate budget

• final contracts and disbursements are conditional on government compliance with these
measures.19

Recently, too, the European Union has adopted a policy resolution on Indigenous Peoples and
Development which recognises that ’indigenous peoples have the right to choose their own
development paths, which includes the right to object to projects, in particular in their traditional
areas’ .20

International agencies working in other sectors such as forestry and conservation have also begun to
recognise Indigenous Peoples’ rights to the use, ownership and control of their lands and territories.
The International Tropical Timber Organisation’s Guidelines for Natural Forest Management accept
ILO and World Bank standards towards Indigenous Peoples. Similarly, recognition of indigenous
tenure and participation is also enjoined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. Principles and
criteria #2 and #3 of the Forest Stewardship Council for voluntary certification are explicit on the
need to recognise and legally establish Indigenous Peoples’ legal and customary rights to land and
insist that no forestry projects should go ahead on their lands without the people’s consent The World
Conservation Union’s (IUCN) new protected area categories accept Indigenous Peoples as owners
and managers of Protected Areas. New IUCN and WWF policies endorse the UN Draft Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, recognise their rights to own, control and manage their
territories, and accept the principle that conservation initiatives should only go ahead in indigenous
areas with the free and informed consent of the traditional owners. The World Commission on
Protected Areas has also just adopted guidelines for implementing these principles. Since the 1992
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), there has been an
intergovernmental consensus that Indigenous Peoples should be involved in policy making and they
have been accepted as a ‘Major Group’ that should be involved in implementation of Agenda 21.21

1.12 National policies towards Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic

Minorities
At the national level the diversity in the way government agencies relate to Indigenous Peoples and
Ethnic Minorities is very great. As noted in Section 7 below, some countries have signed or inherited
treaties with the Indigenous Peoples who now fall within their national territories. These treaties,
which are interpreted in international law as international agreements, may accord these Indigenous
Peoples clearly defined rights and provide them with an important measure of self-governance.22

In addition to such international arrangements, many governments have adopted explicit or implicit
policies towards Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities Policies which range from those which try
to ignore or overcome ethnic differences and encourage the rapid assimilation of ethnic groups into
the mainstream to those which purposefully try to maintain their distinctiveness. Both extremes are
associated with human rights abuse. Assimilationist policies that deny ethnic differences and the right
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 9

to maintain cultural traditions, while contrary to the international laws noted above, remain all too
common, the situation of the Kurds in Turkey being one of the most obvious examples.23 At the other
extreme enforced segregation, expressed through policies of apartheid and ‘ethnic cleansing’, are
considered to be ‘crimes against humanity’ and have been widely condemned.24

! Integration:

Most States seek to implement intermediate policies between these two extremes. A policy of
integration was actively promoted by the International Labour Organisation in the 1950s. The
underlying belief was that peoples’ traditional practices were obstacles to the improvement of their
conditions of life and employment and the need was to institute temporary protections of indigenous
and tribal peoples’ rights while encouraging their gradual integration into the national majority.
Integrationist policies are still actively implemented in much of Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and are
considered crucial for nation-building and for overcoming ‘tribalism’.25

! Pluralism:

In contrast, the second half of the 20th century has seen a growing recognition of peoples’ rights to
maintain their ethnic identity as something to be cherished and respected. The International Labour
Organisation’s revised Convention #169 thus recognises in its preamble:

‘the aspiration of these peoples to exercise control of their own institutions, ways of life and
economic development and maintain and develop their identities, languages and religions,
within the framework of the States in which they live.’

In Latin America in particular, a number of countries have revised their constitutions so that they
explicitly recognise their multi-cultural and pluri-ethnic character.26 Measures have been instituted
accordingly to encourage bilingual and intercultural education, recognise indigenous territories,
institute local self-governance and create autonomous provinces. Likewise in India a constitutional
amendment has been passed recognising tribal self-rule.27 Pluralist policies come closest to meeting
the expressed demands of many minorities and most indigenous peoples. They provide some scope
for self-definition and a measure of self-determination, allowing the peoples themselves to choose
their development path.

An encouraging finding of the WCD joint consultation on ‘Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic
Minorities’ held in Geneva in July 1999 was the realisation that, with the exception of Malaysia and
Namibia, the others of the seven countries from which case studies were drawn had moved away from
out-dated integrationist approaches. Canada, Guatemala, Chile, Norway and the Philippines, have
now adopted policies which can be broadly grouped together as ‘pluralist’, providing much greater
scope for self-governance and the protection of distinctive identities and rights (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1:28 SOME NATIONAL POLICIES ON IPs and Ems

Other Assimiliation Integration Pluralism
Norway Pre-1950s Post-1970s
Canada Pre-1960s Post-1980s
Guatemala 1980s(genocide) 1990s
Malaysia 1990s
Philippines Historical 1960s 1990s
Chile 1980s 1990s
Namibia Historical(isolation) 1990s

Finally, a number of European countries have adopted policies on Indigenous Peoples to guide the
activities of their development assistance agencies, including inter alia Germany, Belgium, Austria,
Netherlands, Norway and Denmark.

1.13 Processes of Participation: from consultation to negotiation,

control and consent

The United Nations Research Institute on Social Development defines participation as:

‘…organized efforts to increase control over resources and regulative institutions in given
social situations, on the part of groups and movements of those hitherto excluded from such
control’. 29

Since the mid-1980s, participation has become a key word in development discourse. The Rio
agreements consolidated global acceptance that ‘sustainable development’ required the effective
participation of local communities in decision-making and most development agencies have
elaborated policies to promote the involvement of civil society in one form or another in project
planning and implementation.

Notwithstanding this consensus, practices of participation vary widely. As one analyst notes
"repeated and token use of the terminology has devalued it; participation has come to mean so many
things that it sometimes means nothing...".30 Participatory approaches range from token consultation
with those likely to be affected by development decisions, through hasty data gathering techniques,
such as rapid rural appraisal, to more participatory appraisal methods, and finally to much more
inclusive participatory processes which involve locally-affected groups not just in planning, but also
in negotiation, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation.31 Full participation implies
that the local communities actually have control of development processes and resources and can veto
development options that do not suit their interests and thus implies negotiated settlements, in which
they are able to secure outcomes that are acceptable to them.32 Obstacles to effective participation
inhere not only in the procedures and prejudices of developers and government agents, but in the legal
situation of the peoples concerned. Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities are especially at risk
from ineffective participation procedures due to the lack of recognition of their rights, notably to land
and natural resources, and due to the prejudice and cultural gulf between them and ‘decision-makers’.

It is beyond the scope of this study to provide a full review of the challenges to effective participation
and negotiation. Development agencies such as the World Bank and other multilateral development
banks have elaborated detailed procedures aimed at ensuring that so-called ‘project beneficiaries’ are
involved in proposed projects.33 NGO reviews of the application and performance of these procedures
emphasise that particular attention should be given to the following:

• a long lead in time to ensure effective communications and planning

• timely and full access to project related documents in the right languages and in forms intelligible
to the peoples concerned
• workshops and public meetings to discuss findings, proposals and plans
• open review of alternatives
• openness to the ‘no project’ option
• adequate resources to allow effective participation, including funds for institution- and capacity-
building
• clear and legally enforceable contracts between Indigenous Peoples, borrower governments and
the Banks
• effective participation of Indigenous Peoples in monitoring and mid-term evaluations

• easily accessible and simple complaints procedures and effective systems for the redress of
grievances.34

Indigenous Peoples also emphasise the deficiencies of rapid rural appraisal techniques, which are
often too hasty and ill-prepared to bridge the social and cultural divides between consultants and
affected peoples. They are likewise sceptical of the current enthusiasm for ‘multi-stakeholder’
approaches which pretend an equality between participants in meetings, without taking into account
the prevailing inequities such as lack of recognition of rights, differences in language and education,
divergent traditions of expression and existing prejudices among participants. Indigenous Peoples also
emphasise that the ‘stakeholder’ approach presumes an equality in ‘stakes’ where there is none. ‘We
are not ‘stakeholders’ but ‘rightsholders’’ has been a common assertion by Indigenous Peoples in
such meetings.

The tendency of development agencies to use NGOs and anthropologists as intermediaries in project
planning has also caused many problems and misunderstandings. NGOs and social scientists may be
welcomed by Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities where they support them in their discussions
and negotiations with developers but they should not be allowed to substitute their voice for that of
the people concerned.

1.14 Eminent domain and Indigenous Resistance

‘I am most unhappy that development projects displace tribal people from their habitat,
especially as project authorities do not always take care to properly rehabilitate the affected
population. But sometimes there is no alternative and we have to go ahead in the larger
interest’
Indira Gandhi 35

Central to the disputes between Indigenous Peoples , Ethnic Minorities and Governments over
imposed development projects, is the question of whose will should prevail in the absence of
consensus or mechanisms for further negotiation. Through exercise of the principle of eminent
domain, many States grant themselves the power to override local objections and expropriate private
property in the national interest. Such powers are usually regulated by enabling laws, such as Land
Acquisition Acts, which set out the official processes of land acquisition and establish procedures for
the due compensation of landowners.36

Social justice organisations have long questioned the methodologies by which planners assure
themselves that the ‘national interest’ is indeed being served by a project. For example, in 1989,
India’s voluntary sector ‘National Working Group on Displacement’ noted:

‘The official declaration of ‘national purpose’ can no longer be taken as self-evident. It

should become a subject of open public debate and holistic appraisal. Such appraisal can no
longer be a techno-managerial exercise limited to establishing positive benefit-cost ratios.
Factors like distributive justice, the right to live with human dignity, the right to adequate
livelihood and resource base, sustainability etc., have to be brought to bear on each project
to decide on its desirability and justifiability.’ 37

Other activists also query whether the State’s right of eminent domain, which allows the expropriation
of private property in the public interest, also gives the State the right to violate other fundamental
rights and freedoms, including in particular the right to practise one’s own religion, which in the case
of Indigenous Peoples may be intimately bound to the land. The right to freedom of belief is
enshrined in international law and is incorporated into the constitutions of many countries. Indigenous
peoples claim that the flooding of their lands, which are sacred to them and underpin their
cosmologies, constitutes a violation of this right which should override the principle of eminent
domain.
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 12

In any case,, many Indigenous Peoples and some Minorities question whether the principle of eminent
domain can legally be extended over their territories at all, on the grounds that they are themselves
sovereign peoples with the right to self-determination. Some countries come close to accepting that
Indigenous Peoples, by virtue of their residence in their territories prior to the creation or extension of
the nation state, do have both prior rights to their lands and natural resources and the right to self-
governance, including the right to veto proposed developments on their lands.

In the USA, legislation on this issue has been through a long and contentious evolution. Since the
formation of the Union, the United States has recognised Native Americans as ‘domestic dependent
nations’ and deals with them on a ‘government-to-government’ basis.38 However, the sovereign rights
of Native Americans over their lands and resources are qualified in a number of ways. As the
Tuscarora Indians discovered in their dispute over the Niagara Power Project, under US law
Indigenous Peoples who have acquired full property rights to their lands, in line with normal land
titling procedures, are subject to expropriation ‘in the national interest’ like other US citizens.
However, those Indians who have signed treaties with the USA or prior colonial powers and/or have
been resettled on officially recognised reservations are more securely protected, at least in law, from
expropriation. Reservation lands, which are owned by the United States government and held in trust
for the benefit of Indian nations, cannot be used for a purpose "inconsistent with the purpose for
which such reservation was created or acquired”. Likewise, transfer of reservation lands from the
Indians cannot be made except “by a treaty or convention entered into pursuant to the
Constitution”.39

During the late 19th century the US courts disputed whether Indian reservation rights extended to
include their rights to water, a matter that was settled in the Indians’ favour in a historic case in the
US Supreme Court in 1908.40 The case established the so-called ‘Winters Doctrine’ which, in effect,
‘reserved the Indians’ rights to water’ giving them priority over non-Indians. The Federal Government
subsequently abused this power and used it to impose national water policies on member States of the
Union during the middle years of this century, while making minimum provisions for affected
Indians. However, since the 1970s, improved processes of public participation and indigenous
mobilisation have established both the de jure and de facto right of reservation Indians to veto water
projects on their lands.41 Just such developments allowed the Yavapai people to reject the
establishment of the Orme dam on the Colorado River which would have flooded them off the Fort
MacDowell reservation, although it took them 30 years of persistent pressure before the Federal
Government acceded to their rejection of the dam.42 Notwithstanding these protections, the US
Congress reserves for itself ‘plenary power’ which gives it full legislative jurisdiction over Indians
and Indian lands irrespective of their residual sovereignty and is unlimited and beyond judicial
review.43

Canadian law relating to Indigenous Peoples is very complex. Indigenous rights are governed by a
series of instruments, including the 1867 Indian Act (as amended) and Sec. 35 of the 1982
Constitution Act, which protects ‘existing aboriginal rights’ and historic and modern treaties, the latter
being negotiated and constitutionally protected land claims and self-government agreements. In the
case of modern treaties, the rights of any one Indigenous Peoples depend on the specific self-
government agreements and land claims settlements reached between them and the state. As a general
rule eminent domain doctrines may be applied to native lands, including reserve lands, under the
Indian Act, provided the Crown complies with its fiduciary/trust obligations.44 The Cree and Inuit in
the James Bay project area were in the somewhat unusual situation of not having signed any treaty
with either Canada, the province of Quebec or the French colonial powers. Their aboriginal sovereign
rights as First Nations to their lands thus remained un-extinguished when Hydro-Quebec and the
Governments of Quebec and Canada began in the early 1970s, without Cree consent and against their
express wishes, to construct the La Grande hydro-electric mega project. This situation endured until
the Cree negotiated the James Bay agreement

This controversy over the James Bay development projects in Quebec helped clarify the way
Aboriginal rights relate to the sovereign powers of the State. In the 1960s, as Hydro-Quebec noted in
its submission to the WCD meeting in Geneva, in line with their then current assimilationist policies,
Canadian “Governments thought that Indian rights, Indian status and treaties were things of the
past”.45 Accordingly, when the James Bay hydro-electric development project was first announced in
1971, no provisions were made to deal with the Indigenous Peoples’ claims. Intense litigation
followed and drew on an historical judgement handed down in the Supreme Court in 1973 recognising
the continued existence of Aboriginal land rights if they had not been extinguished by the Crown.46
Since the Cree and Inuit peoples were in this situation of not having surrendered their rights they were
able, in August 1973, to obtain an injunction from the Quebec Superior Court ordering a halt to the
James Bay hydro-electric project. The court agreed that the Province could not ‘…develop of
otherwise open up these lands for settlement without… the prior agreement of the Indians and
Eskimo’.

Construction of the project was already well under way, however, and the Cree state that it did not
halt even in the face of the court injunction. Although the injunction was later overturned by a higher
court, turning the Cree once again into ‘squatters’ on their own lands, it and the 1973 judgement
provided the basis on which the Cree and Inuit were able to negotiate a compromise with the
Provincial and Federal authorities agreeing, the Cree argue under duress47, to the surrender their rights
in exchange for compensation and legally enforceable agreements as part of any development of their
lands.48 A recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada has now ruled that negotiation shall be the
way to resolve legal disputes between Aboriginal rights and development.49

These advances in Canadian law should not obscure the fact that disputes between the Canadian
government and Indigenous Peoples over hydro-power projects remain very acrimonious. One
unresolved case concerns the second stage development on the Churchill river, the so-called Gull
Island power complex, which is being developed by a consortium comprised of Newfoundland and
Labrador Hydro (65.8%) and Hydro-Quebec (34.2%), which is responsible for the design of the
project and will purchase most of the electricity generated. The massive 3,200 MW project, which
overlaps Quebec and Newfoundland, comprises two dams and two river diversions and will flood a
large area of the hunting territory of the Innu people who live both sides of the provincial boundary.
The whole area is the subject of an unresolved land claim by the Innu people, currently being
negotiated with the Canadian government. According to the human rights organisation, Survival
International, the authorities in Quebec and Newfoundland stubbornly refused to consult the Innu
before signing a pact in March 1998 intended to open the way for the construction of the project [in
March 1998], a position they have been forced to go back on due to indigenous protests. Daniel
Ashini, chief negotiator for the Labrador Innu has insisted that ‘this project can only proceed with
Innu consent’.50 Explaining the apparent discrepancy between the treatment of the Cree and Inuit in
James Bay since the mid-1970s and the current treatment of the Innu, James Wilson of Survival
International notes that ‘Canada has proved very poor at first recognising the inherent rights of
Indigenous Peoples.’ The Innu have yet to be clearly recognised as the owners of their lands and are
reluctant to surrender their rights, as the Cree and Inuit were obliged to do.51

In this regard, the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the U.N. Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights have declared (in the context of their respective April 1999 and December
1998 judgements of Canada’s compliance with its international human rights obligations under
ICCPR and ICESCR) that the extinguishment, conversion or giving up of Aboriginal or treaty rights
is incompatible with the International Bill of Rights. Noting the connection between policies and
practices of land and resource dispossession and the economic marginalization of Aboriginal peoples
in Canada, the two Committees declared that Aboriginal issues are the most pressing human rights
question facing Canadians and called on the government of Canada to abandon all extinguishment
policies.

Somewhat as in Canada, in Australia, the legal situation is complicated by the diversity of regional
legislations. Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory enjoy relatively strong protection under the
Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act of 1976. Aboriginal lands in the territory are
managed by Land Councils, which act subject to the consensus of the traditional land-owners. They
enjoy what is effectively a right of veto on development proposals and although technically the
Federal authorities can override this in the national interest, this power has never been exercised.
Aboriginal sacred sites may also be protected nationally by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Heritage Protection Act 1984, which allows the Commonwealth Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to
protect such sites. This may prevent sacred sites being flooded, overriding national interest arguments.
A case in point was the proposed Todd River dam near Alice Springs, which would have flooded an
important Aboriginal women’s site, but which was halted when the site gained protection under the
Act. There are also (mostly lesser) levels of protection under State and Territory laws. Australian law
has now, belatedly, recognised ‘native title’ as deriving from immemorial possession, continuing
occupation and the exercise of customary law. Although ‘native titles’ are not entirely exempt from
expropriation, Aboriginal land-owners have a right to negotiate, followed, in the absence of
agreement, by a tribunal determination which, however, may be overridden on the basis of national
interest.52 By contrast, in Papua New Guinea, where 98% of the national territory is recognised as
belonging to traditional land-owners, the State retains its power to expropriate in the national interest,
subject to the usual provisions of due acquisition and ‘just’ compensation.53 In New Zealand,
however, Maori land rights are guaranteed by the Treaty of Waitangi and thus offer the Maori
stronger protection against expropriation without consent.54

In India, this issue is likely to be contested in the courts in the near future. In 1996, the Indian
Constitutional provision granting autonomy to villages was extended under the Panchayats (Extension
to Scheduled Areas) Act to recognise self-rule at the level of the panchayat (village level sub-district
or parish), giving adivasi communities, governed through gram sabha (village assemblies), the
powers of local government and control over natural resources. Whether or not these changes will be
interpreted as granting gram sabha the right of veto over imposed developments or control of national
waters is yet moot. The Act insists on consultation with the gram sabha and the provision of detailed
information about the need for the acquisition and about the lands to be made available in
compensation, before the acquisition of lands for a public purpose can take place. However, a revised
Land Acquisition Act is presently being debated in India and may undo some of these gains. That
India’s ‘Scheduled Tribes’ need special protections from expropriation is evident from the fact that
although Scheduled Tribes make up just 7% of the population of India, they account for 40% of the 30
million people displaced by development between 1951 and 1995. Only one third of those displaced
to make way for development in India have been resettled.55

In other countries, too, the State’s power of eminent domain is qualified. In the Philippines, for
example, the law on environmental impact assessments requires ‘community consent’ before a
clearance certificate can be issued for a development to go ahead although it is disputed whether this
consent should be obtained at the village (barangay), municipal or provincial level. In Colombia, the
courts have established that a law requiring community consent to projects is of equal weight to that
granting the State the power of eminent domain. Likewise in Chile, legal contradictions between the
country’s electricity law and Indigenous Peoples Law have led to injunctions temporarily halting
construction of the controversial Ralco project which will flood the Pehuenche people off their
lands.56

1.15 Eminent Domain and the Private Sector:

The move away from state-led development models towards development based on foreign direct
investment and private sector initiatives may, in any case, force a rethink of the general applicability
of the doctrine of eminent domain. With private companies increasingly building, owning and
maintaining large dams and associated works, and raising funds for their projects on the international
capital markets, the distinction between public interest and private profit has become increasingly
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 15

blurred. With the era of State planning coming to an end, it may no longer be publicly acceptable for
State agencies to expropriate the properties of private citizens to make way for developments by
private corporations. Leading dam-building enterprises such as Hydro-Quebec – a for-profit para-
statal company - already accept the principle that dam-building should not go ahead without the
consent of those directly affected.57 This principle has also been publicly endorsed by the
International Hydropower Association.58

2. Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities and Dams:

2.1 The Impacts of Large Dams
Although on paper, indigenous peoples (and to a far lesser extent ethnic minorities) have a range of
internationally agreed rights that offer considerable legal protection from the abuses of state and
private sector power, these rights are rarely observed in projects involving dam development. Overall,
the available literature indicates that the experience of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities with
regard to dam projects has been one of:
! cultural alienation
! dispossession, both from their land and other resources;
! lack of consultation;
! lack of compensation or inadequate compensation;
! human rights abuses;
! lowering of living standards.
This section reviews the overall experience of indigenous groups and ethnic minorities with regard to
dams, before analysing some of the structural, institutional and political reasons that underlie the
ongoing failure of governments and international agencies to observe the internationally-agreed rights
of such peoples. The aim of this part of the review is not just to illustrate some of the typical
consequences of large dams for the futures of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities but also to
identify the particular conceptual and procedural failures in project planning and in resettlement and
rehabilitation which result in serious impacts on the peoples concerned.

2.1.1 Disproportionate impact:

As the World Bank acknowledges in its 1994 Bank-wide Review of Projects Involving Involuntary
Resettlement, those resettled as a result of dam projects are generally from the poorest and most
vulnerable sections of society.59 Such vulnerability reflects not only their exclusion from the decision-
making process and economic and political institutions that would enable them to exercise genuine
control over their lives and livelihoods but also, in many instances, from racism and from
discriminations of class, caste and ethnicity.
Worldwide, indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities make up a disproportionately large percentage
of those who lose their livelihoods to dams, either because their communities are directly affected by
dam projects or because of the ‘knock-on’ effects of such projects.60 In some instances – the Nubians
of Sudan, for example – communities have been shifted several times to make way for dams or the
development projects associated with them.61
In Africa, numerous dam projects have involved the forced relocation of indigenous groups or ethnic
minorities: in many cases, such as the Volta Dam, the projects have impacted several different ethnic
groups at once.62
In the USA, it was poor black sharecroppers who bore the brunt of the impacts of the massive dam
building programme undertaken in the Tennessee Valley from 1933 to 1946,63 whilst native
Americans have suffered disproportionately from the dams built by state and federal authorities in the
arid West, both through the direct loss of their reservation lands and through the illegal abstraction of
their water.64
In the Philippines, almost all of the larger dam schemes that have been built or proposed have been on
the land of the country’s 6-7million indigenous people.65 In India, according to government figures
from the mid-1980s, between 40-50 per cent of those displaced by development projects have been
adivasis:66 credible estimates for the numbers moved to make way for dams alone have been placed
between 14 to 40 million, of which 60 per cent are adivasis or Dalits (“untouchables”).67 Future
planned dams development also disproportionately threatens Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic

Minorities. In the Philippines, for example, many of the dams planned under the 1993-2005 power
development programme will affect indigenous land.68

2.1.2 Resettlement as Ethnocide

As numerous commentators acknowledge,69 involuntary resettlement is a traumatic process,

regardless of one’s social or economic background. The World Bank, for example, has stated:

“When people are forcibly moved, production systems may be dismantled, long-established
residential settlements are disorganized, and kinship groups are scattered. Many jobs and
assets are lost. Informal social networks that are part of daily sustenance systems – providing
mutual help in childcare, food security, revenue transfers, labour exchange and other basic
sources of socio-economic support – collapse because of territorial dispersion. Health care
tends to deteriorate. Links between producers and their consumers are often severed, and
local labour markets are disrupted. Local organizations and formal and informal
associations disappear because of the sudden departure of their members, often in different
directions. Traditional authority and management systems can lose leaders. Symbolic
markers, such as ancestral shrines and graves, are abandoned, breaking links with the past
and with peoples’ cultural identity. Not always visible or quantifiable, these processes are
nonetheless real. The cumulative effect is that the social fabric and economy are torn apart.”

NGOs working on the issue concur. As the Multiple Action Research Group, India, notes,

“Persons who are uprooted and rehabilitated in another place have to undergo the entire process of
resocialisation and adjustment Traditional social relations and community networks break down as a
result of displacement, leading to physical and psychological stress. It also leads to economic
disruption, often resulting in impoverishment and insecurity. Inadequate and unplanned resettlement,
with little or no share in the benefits from the project that has caused this displacement, further
increases the misery of those affected. A hostile host population in the new area only serves to
aggravate the trauma. Fall out in the form of alcoholism, gambling, prostitution and even morbidity is
not unknown70

And, as Ackerman points out,

“Even where planning is effective, some (especially the aged) will never come to terms
with their new homes. For them the transition period ends only with death.”71
In the case of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, however, the psychological and social
traumas of resettlement are exacerbated by the discrimination that they frequently face from
mainstream society; by the strong cultural, economic and religious ties that often bind them to their
particular land; and, in many cases, by a past history of oppression, dislocation and exploitation. For
example, the Waimiri-Atroari Indians of Northern Brazil, were estimated to number some 6,000 in
1905. Eighty years later, massacres and disease left only 374 Waimiri-Atroari alive. In 1987, the gates
of the Balbina Dam were closed, flooding two villages in which lived 107 of the remaining members
of the tribe and blocking the annual upstream migration of the turtles whose eggs are an important
part of their diet. The Waimiri-Atroari are now further threatened by a plan to divert the river Alalau
to increase the flow into the Balbina Reservoir.72
Speaking of the threat posed to the Himba pastoralists by the Epupa dam in Namibia, Maongo
Hembinda, told the WCD joint consultation on Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities in
Geneva:
‘Cattle is one thing we have received from God and we depend on them very heavily. If the
cattle die from the construction of the dam, we will also die, because we depend on the cattle.
This is a form of killing the Himba people – it is a mystery to us why the government is doing

this to us…. God created all peoples equal. We should be treated the same way as all other
peoples.’73
All too often, forced resettlement can thus prove the final blow to their integrity as a people. What
may appear to planners as a minor impact74 - the submergence of ancestral graves, for example, or
even specific forest glades or river pools - can have serious social repercussions, since the economic
and religious life of many indigenous peoples is often linked to specific topography of their lands A
case in point are the Maria Gonds of India, who are threatened with displacement by the
Bhopalpatnam and Inchampalli dams. Maria social, economic and religious life is not merely linked
to the forest but rather to specific parts of the forest. Each clan has its own clan god who in Maria
belief is the true owner of the land, which is not transferable. Megalithic monuments erected to the
dead connect the clan direct to the soil. 75 Discussing the Akawaio Indians of Guyana, threatened in
the 1970s by the Upper Mazaruni Dam (now cancelled), Survival International also notes the way in
which the physical landscape of indigenous groups is intimately linked to their social, political and
cultural way of life:
“The Akawaio have invested the landscape with special significance. It is an environment
transformed by their ancestors in conjunction with the mystic forces of the universe. All its
features – its rivers, falls, mountains, rocks, savannahs and valleys – were designed by their
forebears, whose names and deeds are recorded in myth, song, dance and poetry. The vital
forces of each locality are linked to the human community. They protect, guide, feed and even
chastise its members. Thus the landscape is dynamic, every part is living, functional, has
meaning and moral value.”76
Such intimate relationship with the land – often expressed in mytho-poetic language77 that cannot be
reduced to the cost-benefit framework of planners (see below) – has been stressed time and again by
indigenous peoples facing relocation and/or the upheavals of imposed development. As the World
Council of Indigenous Peoples put it in 1985:
“The Earth is the foundation of Indigenous Peoples. It is the seat of spirituality, the fountain
from which our cultures and languages flourish. The Earth is our historian, the keeper of
events and the bones of our forefathers. Earth provides us food, medicine, shelter and clothing.
It is the source of our independence: it is our Mother. We do not dominate Her; we must
harmonize with her.
Next to shooting Indigenous Peoples, the surest way to kill us is to separate us from our part of
the Earth. Once separated, we will either perish in body or our minds and spirits will be altered
so that we end up mimicking foreign ways, adopt foreign languages and build a foreign prison
around our Indigenous spirits, a prison that suffocates rather than nourishes as our traditional
territories of the Earth do. Over time, we lose our identity and eventually die or are crippled as
we are stuffed under the name of ‘assimilation’ into another society.”78
Indeed, such is the tie that they feel for their lands and cultural sites, that many indigenous groups and
ethnic minorities perceive the flooding of their lands as a deliberate act of genocide. In the case of the
planned Ilisu Dam in Turkey, for example, which will require the forcible relocation of 12,000 -
16,000 people, mainly ethnic minority Kurds, and flood the historic town of Hasankeyf, the United
Kurdish Committee has stated that it sees the dam as part of “a deliberate policy of the Turkish
authorities to eliminate all traces of Kurdish civilisation.”79

2.1.3 Failure to identity the cultural distinctiveness of affected peoples:

In 1982, the World Bank adopted a special policy on ‘Tribal Peoples in Bank-financed Projects’,
designed to ensure that their rights and interests were taken into account in future project planning.
The policy was revised in 1991.80 Subsequent internal reviews in the World Bank have revealed a
persistent failure of World Bank staff to apply this policy in practice.
In the case of the Sardar Sarovar Project in India, for example, between 70% and 80% of the 200,000
people directly threatened with relocation to make way for the reservoir are classified by the
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 19

Government of India as members of ‘Scheduled Tribes’. World Bank staff persistently dodged
applying the Bank’s policy on tribal peoples to the project on such grounds as the people wore
factory-made shirts or had images of Hindu gods in their homes. Project staff continued to deny the
applicability of the policy even after the World Bank’s legal expert specifically noted that the affected
ethnic groups ‘fell within the scope of the World Bank’s policy on Tribal people (OMS 2.34)’.81 The
Report of the Independent Review of Sardar Sarovar identifies the Bank’s failure to recognise the
cultural distinctiveness of the peoples in the submergence zone as one of the main obstacles to their
successful resettlement and rehabilitation.82 The review concluded:
“In drafting the terms and conditions of the 1985 credit and loan agreements, the Bank failed
to take adequate account of the fact that a large proportion of those at risk from the
development of the Sardar Sarovar Project are tribal people. This meant that insufficient
account was taken of the principles enshrined in the Bank’s 1982 Operational Manual
Statement outlining its policies regarding tribal peoples.”83

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has encountered a similar problem with its own project
portfolio. In a 1998 review of its experience financing dam projects in Africa, the AfDB noted a
persistent failure to identify the main ‘target groups’ at the time of feasibility studies or appraisal. The
review concluded that, as a result, ‘on the whole, the environmental performance of 6 out of 10 of the
projects considered in this review is insufficient owing to the absence of measures to mitigate their
negative impact as well as the failure to adequately address the population resettlement issues’.84

2.1.4 No Prior Informed Consent

ILO Convention 169 clearly states that relocation of indigenous peoples should only take place with
their “free and informed consent” or, failing that, only following a process of consultation that allows
for “effective representation of the peoples’ concerned.”85

The reality for many dam-affected indigenous groups and ethnic minorities is quite otherwise. At one
extreme, affected communities have in many instances been given no prior warning whatsoever of a
project: the first knowledge the tribal people of Bihar had of the Kutku dam was when huts were
constructed for workers and surveyors began to walk across their fields with tape measures. In other
instances they have only learned of the decision to build a dam when eviction notices are pinned up in
their villages. Insofar as their “participation” is later invited in the project, it is often primarily with a
view to ensuring their easy eviction: in many cases input that challenges the project is deemed at best
unwelcome, and at worst subversive (see below: Human Rights Abuses).86 Likewise, the Evenks,
Evens, Chukchi, northern Yakuts and Yukaghir peoples of the Republic of Sakha in Siberia were
never consulted about plans to build a cascade of five dams on the Kolyma River, nor were any proper
social impact studies made to help plan a future for the affected peoples. According to Vasili Robbek
of the Institute on Northern National Minority Problems, the projects, which are currently under
construction, ‘may turn the aboriginal peoples of Kolyma into ecological refugees and may lead to
ethnocide’.87

Where affected communities are informed of projects, the information provided is frequently
misleading and does not provide a basis on which to make an informed choice as to whether or not to
consent to relocation. As Enakshi Thukral of the Multiple Action Research Group in India remarks of
oustees affected by the Sardar Sarovar Project, “not only were the people uninformed but they were
often deliberately misinformed about the project and their future.”88

In other cases, particularly those involving isolated ethnic minorities or indigenous peoples, the
content of the information provided is so beyond the experience of those to be relocated that it simply
makes no sense to them. The oustees from the Nagarjunsagar Dam in India – a third of whom
belonged to the ‘scheduled tribes’, mainly the Lambada people, and two thirds of whom were Dalits –
were simply unable to comprehend that the dam would result in their lands being submerged and their
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 20

being displaced. It was not that they were stupid: merely that a reservoir the size of the dam’s was
outside of their experience. Based on what they knew of floods, they assumed that even if the river
waters did rise, their villages would be safe because they were higher than the river itself.89

Although the 1990s have seen project authorities, often under pressure from donors, arranging
“consultations” with project-affected people, these rarely involve genuine discussion or dialogue. A
contested example is the case of the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos, which will displace approximately
4,500 people — primarily from the Lao Theung and Lao Loum ethnic minority groups. Whereas some
consultants contracted to the project argue that recently local people have been appropriately
informed and local leaders were involved, other observers report that earlier consultations consisted
largely of officials telling local people that the dam will be built and they will benefit from it.
Villagers report:
"The governor asked for our co-operation to leave our homes. But he nicely promised to give us
new homes and a good road in the village. He said every house would have electricity. Well, we
have no television, no refrigerators and we don't know yet what we can use that electricity for.
But it might be good to have it" says Thiang, a villager who will be relocated by the dam. "If we
had a choice we would stay and protect the forest. We feel very sad to lose the forest. But what
can we do?"90
The team which undertook the economic impact assessment for the project, witnessed one "public
forum" held in a town downstream of the dam site. The meeting was attended by World Bank staff
and senior NTEC representatives, as well as Resettlement Committee (RC), Provincial and District
representatives. The team state:
"Several fluent Lao speakers complained that RC representatives failed to translate negative
comments or concerns made by local citizens about the dam project. Likewise a very senior
NTEC representative attending the meeting complained that local citizens were receiving
misinformation about the dam's probable impacts."91
The “editing out” of critical voices is equally apparent within those institutions that plan, fund or
construct dams. In the case of the Bio Bio Dam, Chile, a highly critical report commissioned by the
World Bank, whose private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), helped finance the
dam, was heavily censored by lawyers. One third of the report has never been released, despite the fact
that improved transparency on the part of project developers is one of the main recommendations in the
released portions of the report. The company building the dam also refused to release the results of a
social impact study to the Pehuenche communities affected by the dam despite an agreement with the
consultant who undertook it that the results would be shared with affected communities.92

2.1.5 Failure to recognise the impact of loss of land and livelihood

As summarised in Part I, international law and the policies of the main development agencies respect
the property rights of all citizens, including minorities, and include special provisions to recognise the
rights of Indigenous Peoples to their land and territories. The special ties that these peoples have with
their customary lands has also been noted.

The available literature indicates that for most indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities faced by
dam-based development projects, the experience has been one of dispossession, exclusion and denial
of their rights. Most obviously, the construction of dams and their ancillary works, together with the
wider development projects connected to them, have led, in many cases, to the loss of considerable
areas of agricultural land, forest, fishing grounds, grazing lands and other resources on which
indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities rely for their livelihoods and ways of living.
In Ethiopia, the World Bank-funded Awash valley programme destroyed much of the forest and
grazing lands on which 150,000 Afar pastoralists depended. The subsequent conversion of most
of the irrigable land to cotton and sugar cane plantations led to the displacement of 20,000 people
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 21

who became dependent on food relief. The Afar came to view the development project as
‘punishment from God.’93

In Brazil, the Tucurui Dam flooded 2,430 square kilometres of tropical forest, including parts of the
land belonging to the Parakana and Gaviao de Montanha peoples.94 Other indigenous communities –
the Gaviao Parakateje, the Asurini do Tocantins, the Krikati and the Guajajara - lost land to
transmission lines.95

In Peninsula Malaysia, government authorities are denying the land rights of the 400-strong Temuan
people who will be displaced by the proposed Sungai Selangor dam, a US$2 billion water supply
project about 60 kilometres from Kuala Lumpur. Instead of recognising the Temuan’s rights to the
full area that they customarily use, the government is only offering them minimal cash compensation
and two hectares of land per family on government resettlement schemes. Lawyers acting for the
Temuan, a ‘negrito’ people who make a comfortable living from agro-forestry, hunting, fishing, and
as eco-tourist guides, allege that this is unconstitutional. They point to the fact that High Courts in the
States of Perak and Johor have twice ruled that the aboriginal peoples of the Peninsula have
proprietary rights over their ancestral lands.96

In India, the dispossession of adivasi people has been a very widespread problem. India is a signatory
of ILO Convention 107 and consequently legally recognises the right of ‘Scheduled Tribes’ to the
collective ownership of the lands they traditionally occupy. In practice, however, the law is not
applied and land titling procedures have not been adjusted to acknowledge tribal rights to their
commons. Although some adivasi manage to acquire individual title to some of their cultivated plots
many others do not. Moreover, their wider rights to pastures, shifting cultivation areas, hunting lands,
collecting zones and fishing grounds are denied. Many are treated as ‘encroachers’ on State lands or
as ‘poachers’ in forestry reserves and protected areas. Accordingly, in planning large dams,
Government agencies distinguish between ‘landed’ and ‘landless’ adivasis thus denying compensation
to those without land titles and completely ignoring the need to also compensate people for their loss
of the substantial areas they use for hunting, fishing, grazing and gathering.97
In 1985, the human rights organisation, Survival International filed a complaint about this issue with
the International Labour Organisation with specific reference to the World Bank-funded Sardar
Sarovar Project on the Narmada river, pointing out that by treating between 75 and 85 % of the tribal
outsees as ‘landless’ the Government of India was in clear violation of ILO Covention 107. After
receiving information from the World Bank and Indian Government, the ILO’s committee of experts
on the observation of conventions substantially upheld Survival International's complaint. Noting that
the compensation arrangements did not ensure prima facie that the requirements of the Convention
were met, the ILO called on the Government to revise the resettlement programme in line with the
Convention.98
These issues had, in fact, been brought to the attention of the World Bank and Government of India
prior to the signing of the project agreements. In 1984, a World Bank consultant made specific
recommendations for overcoming these problems. A national policy on resettlement should be
carefully worked out. Measures should be taken to ensure that all oustees are given land in
compensation, not just those who had managed to obtain legal title. Cash compensation should only
be offered to oustees who rejected compensation in land. Institutional and participatory arrangements
should be made to ensure compliance and the provision of services in the resettlement villages etc.99
Despite this, the 1985 project agreement continued to deny the rights of ‘encroachers’ and illegally
discriminated between ‘landed’ and landless’ oustees. Although in 1988, the Government of the State
Gujarat lifted the distinction between landed and landless oustees assuring two hectares of irrigable
land for each oustee family, the states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh continued to deny the land
rights of tribal peoples without individual land titles. All three states persist in denying the tribal
peoples’ rights to their wider territories used for hunting, gathering, shifting cultivation, grazing and

fishing. 100 Dalits have faced similar problems and have also resisted their treatment at the hands of
the authorities.101

The land rights of the Saami people are likewise not recognised in Sweden, leading to serious
problems for them when their grazing lands are expropriated for reservoirs. For example, referring to
the impact of the Suorva dam, which was constructed in a National Park in northern Sweden, Lennart
Pittja of the National Union of the Swedish Saami notes:
“All the land under water was used by my father and grandfather for reindeer herding. Many
troubles have come out of this. First, it is harder for the reindeer to find food high up in the
mountains. In the springtime when they come up [from the lowlands], the grass starts to grow
by the river, so that is where the reindeer would go first to find food. But now because all this
area is flooded, they have to go up on the mountains where the weather is much harsher. It is
snowing even in May. It is hard for us to find food for the reindeer. Also this area that is
under water was used by the female reindeer to deliver their calves. We cannot use it for
calving anymore, so, again, we have to go up to the mountains where it is much colder. Many
of our calves freeze to death because of this… As I said, the Suorva dam was built in four
different stages, which has meant that my father and grandfathers have been forced to move
their settlements four times. Just imagine having to burn up your house and re-build it again
– four times.”102
In the US, thousands of hectares of Indian land have been lost to dams. In North Dakota, a quarter of
the Fort Berthold Reservation, shared by the Arikara, Mandan and Hidatsa peoples of the upper
Missouri, for example, was flooded as a result of a staircase of dams (the Missouri River
Development Project (MRDP), built during the 1950s and 1960s. The land lost included the best and
most valuable and productive land on the reservation – the bottom lands along the river where most
people lived.103 Five different Sioux reservations also lost land. Again, the impact was quite severe:
the dams destroyed nearly 90 per cent of the tribes’ timberland, 75 per cent of the wild game, and the
best agricultural lands.104 Ultimately, the Missouri dams cost the indigenous nations of the Missouri
Valley an estimated 142,000 hectares of their best land – including a number of burial and other
sacred sites – as well as further impoverishment and severe cultural and emotional trauma. A
guarantee, used to rationalise the plan in the first place, that some 87,000 hectares of Indian land
would be irrigated was simply scrapped as the project neared completion. As researcher Bernard
Shanks puts it:
“MRDP replaced the subsistence economy of the Missouri River Indians . . . with a welfare
economy . . . As a result of the project, the Indians bore a disproportionate share of the social
cost of water development, while having no share in the benefits.”.105

A specific complaint by the Cree people affected by the Nelson River Diversion Project is that
assessments of adequate compensation for losses is made impossible due to the lack of pre-project
studies. Such studies as were done were framed in a very western style and ignored issues of greatest
concern to the Cree themselves. Nor is indigenous knowledge considered a substitute for a lack of
scientific assessments. The problem has been compounded by a lack of post-project assessments,
meaning there are neither base line data nor post-project information on which to assess damages. As
Hertlein notes:
‘Unfortunately, over the years that the project has been in place, the living source of
information of the social impacts of the project, in the form of Elders who possess the
traditional knowledge are passing away. Consequently, addressing the social impacts
continues to get harder from either perspective since the western-based scientific
measurement is lacking and the traditional knowledge of the Cree slowly gets lost.’106
Even when negotiated agreements seem to protect Indigenous peoples against loss of access to the
resources on which they depend, they are not always effective. Section 22.2.2 of the James Bay and
Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA) establishes as a fundamental principle “the protection of the
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 23

Cree people, their economies and the wildlife resources upon which they depend,” relying on “an
environmental and social impact assessment and review procedure established to minimize the
environmental and social impact of development when negative on the native people and the wildlife
resources of the territory.” However, according to the Cree:
“The promised regime to deal with the social impacts and opportunities and to craft
environmental regulation specific to the Territory has not been implemented…. Rather than
an upstanding, forthright and honest fulfilment of these commitments to the Cree people, we
have seen 23 years of attempts by Canada and Quebec and their entities to deny, diminish
and refuse to work with the Cree people …”107
Indeed, despite the guarantees in the JBNQA, some 5,000 square kilometres of forest have been clear-
cut in the Cree territory without any assessment whatsoever of its environmental or social impact.108

2.1.6 Secondary Displacement and Conflict

The appropriation or loss of land and other resources due to dam projects is not restricted to the areas
directly impacted by dams. Indigenous groups and ethnic minorities outside the area may also find
their land and other resources expropriated for associated industrial or agricultural projects or for the
resettlement of those relocated by dams. Such groups are not generally considered as project affected
peoples and their rights are frequently abused.

In the case of the Maheshwar Dam in India, now under construction, land earmarked for resettlement
sites is currently being used by ethnic minority dalits and indigenous adivasi groups. As Heffa
Schucking reports:
“The resettlement site for Jalud is at a location called ‘Samraj’ . . . [Those living there]
explained to me that, while they were never well off, their situation has become desperate since
April 1998. At this time, representatives of [the dam developers] entered the village with a
police force and forcibly annexed and bulldozed the land of 34 families as well as the entire
pasture land of the hamlet. Although all of these families have either land titles (which I was
shown) or the status of long-term encroaches (and the receipts to back this claim), there was no
due process of land acquisition or even written notices served. Instead from one day to the next,
their land was bulldozed and taken from them. When some individuals attempted to peacefully
intervene and explained that they own title to this land, the police responded by man-handling
these people and the representatives of MPEB threatened to have the entire hamlet thrown into
jail.
“The consequences of these events for the Harijan/Adivasi community are catastrophic. Since
they lost their entire pasture lands they were forced to sell almost all of their cattle and
buffaloes – some 400 animals. On the private and encroached lands that were taken, they had
been growing subsistence crops such as sorghum. Anokibai, a Bhil adivasi, asks: ‘If the land
has gone, then we are also gone. If we don’t have the land, will we then eat stones or pebbles?
How will we live and how will we eat?”109
Through displacing one community to resettle another, dam-based development strategies have thus
often resulted in a spiral of displacement which goes far beyond the actual submergence area of
individual dams. Moreover, the pressure on land in the resettlement areas can be a major cause of land
disputes, which often takes the mantle of “ethnic” conflict.
The US-funded Kaptai hydropower dam in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in south-east
Bangladesh, for example, displaced more than 100,000 Chakma people – one sixth of the total
Chakma population – and flooded around two fifths of their cultivatable land. Some 40,000 of those
displaced left for India and today live in Arunachal Pradesh. They have never gained citizenship for
themselves or for their children born in India. A further 20,000 are supposed to have moved into
Arakan in Burma. Others were dispersed within the CHT. As government officials acknowledge, the
resulting land shortage and resentment of the government contributed to the bloody conflict between
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 24

the Buddhist Chakma and Muslim Bengali settlers which affected the region since Kaptai was
completed in 1962, and which has cost the lives of an estimated 10,000 people.110
Conflicts over land and associated inter-ethnic strife also characterised the resettlement of the
Sudanese Nubians (Halfans) displaced by the Aswan High Dam. Under the resettlement scheme, the
Halfans were relocated to an area occupied by Shukriya pastoralists, who continued to graze their
animals on land allocated to the Halfans for farming. In 1974, the conflicts reached such a pitch that
the Sudanese Army had to be called in to protect the Halfan’s cultivated fields. In a study undertaken
nine years after resettlement, Hussein Fahim reports: “While the Halfans were lamenting the loss of
their . . . homeland, the Shukriya nomads were regarding the expropriation of their land by outsiders
with great displeasure.”111
Other knock-on effects of dam projects have also led to conflict which has taken an “ethnic”
character, with ethnic majorities being encouraged by local politicians and economic elites to
scapegoat local minorities. In the Senegal Valley, for example, the completion of the Diama and
Manantali Dams on the Senegal River encouraged the politically and economic elite of the ‘Moors’ in
Mauritania,112 who before had had little interest in agriculture, to appropriate river basin land in
anticipation of making large profits from the development of medium and large-scale irrigation
schemes.113 Backed by the security forces, the Moors began to take over lands from the black
inhabitants of the Valley, forcibly expelling thousands of black Mauritian nationals as “foreigners”
and expropriating their land. Senegal, meanwhile, retaliated by expelling thousands of its minority
Moorish population. At least 60,000 Senegalese and black Mauritians were deported or fled from
Mauritania, and twice that number of Moors left Senegal.
Indeed, in some instances, river basin development and subsequent resettlement has been deliberately
used by certain interests to ferment “ethnic” violence as part of a wider political strategy for gaining,
or shoring up, political power. In the case of the Accelerated Mahaweli Project in Sri Lanka, for
example, officials within the Mahaweli Authority have admitted that, in league with militant Buddhist
priests, they used the resettlement programme to drive a wedge between minority communities of
Tamil-speaking Hindus and Muslims by settling poverty-stricken households from the Singala-
speaking Buddhist majority within and around minority communities.114 As Thayer Scudder of the
California Institute of Technology notes:
“Though contrary to project goals, which stipulated that ethnic and religiously distinct
populations were not to be mixed and that minorities were to receive plots according to their
proportionate representation within the national population, these actions were ignored by
such donors as the United States Agency for International Development and the World Bank.
Subsequently, massacres on both sides occurred, in some instances in the very communities
where they had been predicted.”115

Some dams have contributed to armed conflict without ever being built. One of the most well-known
cases is that of the World Bank-supported Chico dams project in the Philippines which threatened to
displace some 80,000 Kalinga and Bontoc people from their ancestral lands.116 When locals protested
against the project, the Marcos regime tried to undermine resistance with bribery and obfuscation.
However, resistance hardened and the people resorted to civil disobedience to prevent surveyors
getting access to the area. Engineers’ campsites were dismantled and roads were blocked, prompting
the government to send in the army and initiate a campaign of violence.117 The Igorot leader Macli-ing
Dulag was assassinated and many people took to the hills and joined the New Peoples Army in
defiance of the imposed development programme.118 The conflict endured long after the World Bank
pulled out and the project was cancelled. Local villages were repeatedly bombed and subjected to
counter-insurgency programmes as a result.119

2.1.7 Lack of Compensation or Inadequate Compensation

Although national laws have long existed in many countries requiring compensation for those
resettled by development projects, in the very many cases involving indigenous peoples, ethnic
minorities and other vulnerable sections of society these laws have been more honoured in the breach
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 25

than the observance. In the Philippines, for example, those resettled in the 1950s as a result of the
Ambuklao and Binga Dams on Agno River still have to be compensated for their losses.120 Ethnic
Minorities and Indigenous Peoples may suffer disproportionately in this respect as they may lack
formal citizenship, residency or land tenure paperwork. According to the World Bank, one-fifth of the
10,800 people displaced by the Khao Laem Dam in Thailand were Karen. Because the Karen families
did not possess legal residence papers they were considered ineligible for resettlement land or house
plots, unlike ethnic Thai oustees.121
Moreover, despite the passage of ILO Conventions 107 and 169 in 1957 and 1989, and the World
Bank’s Guidelines on Involuntary Resettlement and Tribal Peoples in 1982, inadequate compensation
for oustees from dam projects continues to be all too common. In many instances, oustees have been
resettled on inferior land and frequently many of those relocated are given no land at all, either
because there is not enough to go around or because only those who have legal documents to prove
ownership are compensated.
In the case of the Volta Dam, it had been intended that sufficient land be cleared to provide every
farmer with 12 acres. But by 1966, as the deadline of impoundment approached, only 6,000 hectares
had been cleared from a target of 22,000 hectares. By way of comparison, the flooded area included
52,000 hectares in productive use.122
Those resettled as a result of the Hirakud Dam in India, many of them Gonds, only received land if
they were able to produce proof of ownership. As a result many were left out even though they had
been cultivating their land for generations.123 Likewise, in Turkey, contrary to national law, the vast
majority of landless people displaced by the Ataturk Dam and other dams being developed as part of
the Greater Anatolia Project were in many cases not compensated or rehabilitated at all, but were
simply left to fend for themselves.124
Where cash payments are made as compensation, indigenous peoples may face particular problems,
particularly where they are unaccustomed to money matters and where traditions exclude the concept
of land as a negotiable commodity. Disorientation by the dispossession of their lands, and often
unused to handling (comparatively) large sums of money, they may squander improvidently the
money given them in exchange for their lands.125 At Hirakud, for example, the tribal oustees, “fell
prey to businessmen selling colourful tinkets and consumer items like transistors and watches, or lost
their money in gambling or on liquor.”126 This, notes the Multiple Action Research Group, was also
the experience of the oustees of the Koyna project in the 1960s and more recently the Kutku dam
oustees. As Karve and Nimbkar commented nine years after the Koyna dam was built; “It was an
error to hand over thousands of rupees to people who had hardly handled cash at all. Now, a number
of years later, a large majority of the displaced are still without a roof over their head.”127
Negligent resettlement planning and entirely inadequate compensation schemes characterised the
Chandil and Icha dams on the Subarnarekha river in India’s Bihar State, which ended up displacing
some 68,000 people and inundated 30,000 hectares of farmland and forest. The adivasis threatened by
the Chandil dam protested against the project from its inception in 1975 and, in 1978, some 10,000 of
them demonstrated against the dam at the construction site. Police harassment of a protest fast and
then police firings on unarmed protesters caused four deaths. The project continued nevertheless and
in 1982 the World Bank approved a US$127 million loan to the project. Despite the absence of a
resettlement plan, the Chandil dam’s sluices were closed in summer of 1988 posing an immediate
threat to some 10,000 indigenous people, while 30,000 others faced inundation over the coming 20
months as the reservoir began to fill. University researchers described scenes of mass misery, and one
World Bank official advised Bank headquarters that the situation required the emergency intervention
of the International Red Cross. Since then the situation has become even more critical.128
Such experiences lay behind the ILO’s recommendation that compensation should be in the form of
land-for-land, a guideline also adopted by the World Bank in its Operation Directive 4.30.
Nonetheless, the recommendations have been routinely flouted in many dam projects, including many
of those since funded by the World Bank.

The problems for the adivasi peoples being displaced to make way for the Sardar Sarovar project,
noted above, were compounded in the resettlement programme. Not only were the actual numbers of
project-affected persons hugely under-estimated but lands for resettling the oustees were in any case
unavailable.129 Before engaging in the project, the World Bank was warned in 1984 that the Narmada
Planning Authority, which was to oversee the resettlement programme ‘at this point lacks the
organisational strength and professional personnel to carry out a resettlement and rehabilitation
project of great magnitude’.130 The project went ahead, nevertheless.
At the same time, in defiance of India’s international legal obligations the World Bank was also
considering funding other dams on the Narmada river with no intention of providing land-for-land for
those dispossessed. In planning the resettlement of the estimated 100,000 people, many of them
members of Scheduled Tribes, who would be moved to make way for the Narmada Sagar project, the
World Bank noted that:
“Planning thus far for the Narmada Sagar project resettlement is based on the realistic and
innovative assumption that many oustees will not be able to acquire equivalent land to
replace that flooded.”131

2.1.8 Gender Inequities Exacerbated

Resettlement affects women differently from men132 and the form that it takes can greatly exacerbate
existing gender inequalities, undermining the position of women and their power to exercise control
over their lives.
For example, among the Cree affected by the Nelson River Diversion Project, the decline of
traditional economic activities – such as fishing, hunting, trapping, and gathering – has had specific
impacts on women and has affected their role in the family. Whereas Cree women and children used
to accompany adult males on hunting trips, these kinds of excursions are now curtailed or carried out
by men alone. Women often now simply stay at home, while social problems have increased among
Cree youth.133
In the vast majority of cases involving the forced relocation of indigenous peoples and ethnic
minorities as a result of dam project, women have been denied compensation for the plots of land they
have previously cultivated, largely because they do not “own” the property or have it registered in
their name. They are therefore seldom entitled to compensation. In the case of the Sardar Sarovar
Project, for example, only households headed by the “senior” male in a family or by the eldest son
were deemed eligible to receive land as compensation. Women-headed households – those of widows,
for example – were excluded from the resettlement package.134
The Asian Development Bank-funded Batang Ai project in the Malaysian State of Sarawak in Borneo
had a similar uneven impact on women. A study by Hew Ching Sim of the effects of the resettlement
onto a plantation established and administered by the State-owned Sarawak Land Consolidation and
Rehabilitation Authority (SALCRA), showed how the Iban women suffered from their change of
circumstance. She noted how:
“SALCRA’s policy of one certificate of ownership per household has meant that Iban
women’s traditional rights over land have been abrogated and thus a dependency
relationship is created. The new system of plantation agriculture has also eroded women’s
traditional equality with men in the sphere of production.”135
Compensation, which should have been paid to both men and women as co-owners of the land was
only paid to male ‘heads of household’. Some women, interviewed by me in 1987, noted that their
husbands had abandoned them, taking the money and setting up house with other women, and leaving
them virtually destitute. Overall, incomes declined, gathered foods became scarcer and firewood hard
to find. The women also found it hard to carry on their traditional weaving and basketry, as they had
lost access to forests from which to collect the materials. Summarising the people’s sense of despair
one old woman told me: ‘we are dead already.’136

In cases where project-affected communities are integrated into agricultural schemes involving
contract farming, such as in the Jahaly-Pacharr scheme in Gambia, where 2,000 Mandinka households
were contracted to grow rice as part of a large-scale irrigation project funded by the International
Fund for Agricultural Development, additional problems can arise. Because the onus of finding and
organizing the labour force is placed on the contracted grower – generally the male head of the
household – contract farming can create new intra-household tensions, resulting in increased divorce,
domestic tension and the renegotiations of family and marital responsibilities, often to the detriment
of women.137 As Scudder notes: “A separate problem is the frequency with which focus on a single
cash crop lowers the status of women, especially in cases where they had their own pre-project fields
or crops.”138
Women may find themselves further marginalised where resettlement breaks up existing communities
and extended family networks. As Thukral notes of women in India; “Because women in India are
much less mobile than men, the breakdown of village and social units affects them much more
severely. The fact that she might be leaving relatives and friends behind, or may never again meet her
daughter who is married into a village which will not be displaced, is a great cause of concern for the
woman, a fear that cannot easily be brushed aside.”139
Where resettlement results in economic hardship, as has generally been the case for indigenous
peoples and ethnic minorities, women may find themselves pressured into prostitution, bringing
additional discrimination. In Laos, the provincial office of the Attapeu Lao Women’s Union has
reported that 15 Lao Theung women displaced by the Houay Ho dam became prostitutes for workers
on the construction site. This is the first time prostitution had been recorded in the area and raises the
possibility of AIDS being introduced in a region with very poor public health services.140

2.1.9 Human Rights Abuses

Resettlement is often resisted, leading, in many cases, to violence and accompanying human rights
abuses. In addition to the flouting of international and national laws and agreements intended to
protect the economic interests of project-affected people, there are well-documented cases where
oustees and their supporters have been intimidated, beaten up or murdered by State or paramilitary
forces for opposing projects. Other human rights abuses against those who have resisted resettlement
include the burning of homes, illegal incarceration and rape.141
For example, when some of the 21,000 Mazatec Indians displaced by Mexico’s Miguel Aleman Dam
in the late 1950s refused to move, employees from the Papaloapan River Commission set fire to their
homes. The army had to be called in several times to quell the resulting unrest in Indian communities.
142

In the case of the Sardar Sarovar Project in India, human rights abuses have included serious
infringements of the International Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Code of Conduct
for Law Enforcement Officials (1979) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(1966).143 Abuses have included:
“unprovoked, excessive physical abuse towards non-violent protestors; discriminatory arrests
based on fabricated, trumped up charges; arbitrary invocation of prohibitory orders to check
the movement of activists; failure to provide charges upon arrest and witness before a
magistrate within the constitutionally mandated period; failure to provide food and medical
care to detainees; police use of intimidation, manipulation and coercion of Narmada citizens;
theft of personal property by police and other state officials; and the failure of law enforcement
to be representative of , and responsible and accountable to, the community as a whole.”144

In a number of other cases, including Sardar Sarovar, Chico River (Philippines), Kariba (Zambia),
Urra (Colombia) and Chandil (India) oustees or protesters have been killed or murdered.145 In the case
of the Chixoy Dam in Guatemala, for example, some 376 Maya Achi people, mostly women and
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 28

children, were massacred by the security forces when they resisted eviction from their village of Rio
Negro to make way for the dam’s reservoir. In many cases, those murdered had been raped and
tortured prior to being shot. In a study based on interviews with survivors, the human rights group
Witness for Peace reports:
“They were strangling many of the women by putting ropes around their necks and twisting the
ropes with sticks. They were also beating other women with clubs and rifles and kicking and
punching them. ‘I remember one woman,’ [Jaime, a survivor who was 10 years old at the time]
relates, ‘a soldier jumped up and kicked her in the back. He must have broken her spine,
because she tried to get up but her legs wouldn’t move. Then he smashed her skull with his
rifle’ . . . The patrollers killed the children by tying ropes around their ankles and swinging
them, smashing their heads and bodies into rocks and trees.”146

Despite the massacres, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank both gave two
loans for Chixoy, the World Bank’s second loan being made two years after the mass murders.

Nor is this a problem of the past. Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities affected by numerous
contemporary projects – including projects for which finance is currently being sought – charge that
abuse of their human rights is widespread, often involving the multiple breach of internationally
agreed undertakings. The Ilisu Dam in Turkey is a case in point. The United Kurdish Committee, an
alliance of 20 UK-based Kurdish groups, charges that the project contravenes a range of
internationally agreed human rights, notably those relating to "the choice of the citizen of his place of
abode, the right to a public and fair hearing of the indigenous population and the Right to Self-
Determination of the Kurdish People."

More specifically, the group argues that the project is in violation of:

! Articles 6,8,13 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950

! Article 1 of the First Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950
! Articles 1,7,12,17 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)
! The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 8,10,13 and 17)
! The UN Declaration on the Rights to Development (Article 2)
! The Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic Religious or Linguistic
Minorities (Articles 1, 2, 4 and 5)
! The UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Articles 3,6,7,12,19,25,26,27,30
and 37)147

2.1.10 Worse Off than Before

“Why didn’t they just poison us? Then we wouldn’t have to live in this shit-hole and the
government could have survived alone with its precious dam all to itself.” Ms Ram Bai,
adivasi forced to move to a slum after losing her land to Bargi Dam, Narmada River, India.148
Under World Bank guidelines, resettlement should “improve or at least restore former living
standards and earning capacity”149 of those resettled. Very few official studies have been undertaken
to assess how far this has been achieved for projects involving indigenous peoples or ethnic
minorities. The problem is hampered both by the failure of the relevant authorities even to keep the
sort of baseline data that might allow for a proper assessment of project outcomes and by the
difficulties of tracking down those relocated – not least because many have been forced to move from
their resettlement sites due to the lack of economic opportunities. The few official studies that have
been undertaken – coupled with reports from indigenous groups and NGOs – strongly suggest that the
overall picture is one of livelihoods being degraded, if not destroyed.

For example, a 1993 study by the World Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department (OED) states that
“In India the overall record is poor to the extent of being unacceptable.”150 A 1990 review, also by the
OED, of the Latin American region similarly stated that it was “unable to find a single study of a
Bank-financed project [in the Latin American region] which quantitatively demonstrated that a
resettlement population has been adequately rehabilitated in terms of income, health or other social
welfare measures.” Overall, concluded the Bank’s 1994 Bank-wide Review of Projects Involving
Involuntary Resettlement, “the weight of available evidence points to unsatisfactory income
restoration more frequently than to satisfactory outcomes.”151
The 1994 Review, again undertaken by OED, was able to find only one Bank-funded dam – the Khao
Laem in Thailand, which displaced mainly ethnic minority Karen – where the “fundamental goal” of
the Bank’s policy had been met and “incomes for all households rose after resettlement”.152 However,
the figures presented by the Bank have been criticised as misleading. Forty percent of those displaced
were ineligible for compensation or had left the resettlement sites by the time the survey, on which the
OED conclusion is based, was carried out. These families – which included the displaced ethnic
minorities (see above) – were thus left out of the OED survey. Furthermore, 80% of the resettlers
surveyed considered themselves worse off than before displacement and five years after moving to
resettlement sites were still taking part in protest rallies to demand more compensation.153
Academic studies, undertaken by University-based researchers, confirm the overall failure of
resettlement schemes resulting from dam projects. Thayer Scudder, for example, states:
“Well-designed long-term research is urgently needed. In its absence, the arguments will
have to rely to a large extent on case studies. What is known from them indicates that,
whether short-term or cumulative, adverse social impacts, as with environmental ones, have
been seriously underestimated. When combined with adverse health impacts, it is clear that
large scale water resource development projects unnecessarily have lowered the living
standards of millions of local people.”154
Scudder cites the Tennessee Valley as an example. According to a study by the US-based
Environmental Policy Institute, despite the billions of dollars spent to develop the hydro potential of
the region by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the “evidence does not support the widely held
belief that the TVA contributed substantially to the economic growth of the Tennessee Valley
region.”155 A disproportionate number of the poorest families displaced were black share-croppers:
according to sociologist Nancy Grant, the racial prejudice of both the local people and the planners
meant that these families experienced particular difficulties in relocation.156 According to Grant:
“ . . . The large-scale displacement of farm units and the subsequent relocation of families
caused severe economic problems for the families and the overpopulated area in which they
were forced to resettle. The tenant and poor landowner bore the brunt of readjustment . . .
TVA compensated only those who could show a direct, measurable loss; it ignored those who
did not have written or formal access to the lands and refused to acknowledge the local
custom of informal use of non-titled land as a means for supplementing income. Land
speculators and swindlers descended on the Tennessee Valley, involving families in phoney or
unprofitable investments.”157
Grant concludes that overall those relocated “were worse off than they had been before the coming of
the TVA”: 69 per cent of the farmers in the Wheeler Dam area, for example, were resettled to inferior
land.
In India, forty years after the construction of the Nagarjunsagar Dam – one of the country’s largest
irrigation and hydropower facilities - the nearby villages where adivasis evicted by the dam were
resettled still have no roads, no power supply, no water pumps or faucets. Poverty in the area is so
acute that adivasi have resorted to selling their children to earn money. According to reports in the
Indian Express, ninety per cent of children being sold for adoption in Andhra Pradesh came from
hamlets occupied by Nagarjunsagar oustees: with boys valued more highly, female infanticide is
common, with every family in 60 hamlets surveyed reporting at least two cases of girl deaths.158

Testimony to the Sri Lanka Hearings of the World Commission on Dams also highlighted the
suffering of the adivasis displaced by the Bargi Dam, Madhya Pradesh, who lost not only their
grazing rights (and hence their cattle) but also their right to fish the river. According to Shripad
Dharmadhikary of the Narmada Bachao Andolan: “All in all, a prosperous, self-sufficient community
was reduced to penury. Even starvation deaths were reported.”159 Many of those resettled have now
moved to nearby towns, where they labour as construction workers, rickshaw-pullers or on road
building. Indian journalist Shailendra Yashwant quotes one oustee:
“It has killed our pride, living like animals here. Our children will never believe we were once
thriving farmers. All they have seen is this filthy living.”160
Other studies from India also confirm a drastic fall in living standards amongst oustees at other dams.
The Tata Institute of Social Sciences, for example, has surveyed the diets of oustees from the Sardar
Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River and reports that resettlement has “meant a decline in the variety,
quantity and quality of food consumed”.161 Similarly, the Delhi-based NGO Lokayan surveyed 258
Munda, Ho and Santal households ousted by the Srisailam Dam and found that, since eviction, the
families’ incomes had declined by more than 80 per cent: average family debts had risen by more than
150 per cent.162
In Latin America, the outcome of resettlement for ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples has been
similarly negative. A submission to the Brazil Hearings of the WCD notes that the 2000 Kuna and
500 Embera Indians displaced by the Bayano Dam in Panama 30 years ago have suffered “three
decades of land disputes and violence” and “a lack of adequate food, water and income”.163 According
to those affected, the government has broken agreement made with the Kuna and Embera when the
dam was first built, as well as numerous agreements negotiated since then: the most important of these
relate to compensation measures for the loss of traditional territories and the granting of legal titles to
new lands.164 The dam inundated the Indians’ coffee and cocoa crops and squeezed them up the
hillsides onto less fertile lands.165
Nor is this a problem of the past. Conditions among the 800 ethnic minority Nya Heun families
displaced by the recently-constructed Houay Ho dam in Laos are reported to be appalling, with people
suffering from a severe lack of food, a shortage of arable land and insufficient clean water.166 A
researcher who visited the Houay Ho resettlement site in February 1998 found “a sense of anger,
frustration, and desperation among many of the Nya Heun villagers interviewed”.
The initial feasibility study estimated that three hectares of non-paddy land per family would be
needed for basic self-sufficiency but noted that only one third of that amount was actually available.
While provincial officials claim that there is “plenty of land” available, villagers interviewed at the
site report that all they had were small plots of land adjacent to their houses. Additional land for
growing coffee had been promised but this was “delayed”. No land for growing a subsistence rice
crop was available and there have been reports that many families have now left the relocation site
and have tried to move back to their former villages but that this will not be tolerated by the
government.
A social-environmental consultant team which visited the Houay Ho resettlement site in September
1997 found that people were worse off due to the project and was very critical of how resettlement
has been handled. Their trip report refers to the site as “an already serious situation of imperilled
livelihood” and states that “this resettlement site appears to be a disastrous combination of too many
people on too little land with too little external support.”
One elderly woman interviewed in February 1998 said,
“We don’t know . . . we feel we have been lied to . . . If we were lowland Lao it might be
different but they don’t care about the Nya Heun people . . . We cannot go on like this or we
will die . . . We can’t survive at Bat Chat San but we also are not allowed to return to live here .
. . so we don’t know what to do . . . it will be the end of the Nya Heun people.”

Those resettled have also suffered from inadequate water supplies. Most of the wells drilled at the site
are either dry or contain water of poor quality. When visited in 1997, 42 families were found to be
depending on one shallow well for drinking water. 167
Elsewhere, in Vietnam, a joint study of those affected by the Hoa Binh Dam – mainly members of the
Muong, Tay, White Thai and Black Thai ethnic minorities – also reports major post-resettlement
problems, including a decline in living standards. According to the study, undertaken by the Research
Institute for Asia and the Pacific (Sydney) and the Institute of Science Management (Hanoi), the dam
and the wider Song Da Project of which it is part has resulted “in massive social and environmental
impacts at a . . . local level.” Evacuees have insufficient land and have been forced to encroach on
nearby forests, leading to “unsustainable patterns of resource use”; water shortages are serious and
common; educational and health standards “appear to have suffered significantly”; and “poor diet and
sanitation has led to resurgence of diseases such as dysentery and goitre.” The final irony for those
displaced, says the report, is that “they are without electric light or other benefits created by the dam.”
168

2.1.11 The whole watershed

The loss of land and livelihoods is rarely restricted to the area flooded by a dam’s reservoir. Those
living in areas slated for resettlement sites, for example, may find their land taken over to make way
for oustees. Power houses, electric transmission lines, irrigation canals and other associated works
cause further displacement. Land may also be lost to protected areas and reforestation schemes
established to mitigate the loss of wildlife and forest caused by the construction of a dam. Typically,
protected areas are also established in watershed areas to try to limit soil erosion and consequent
siltation of reservoirs and so prolong the life of the dams. Areas of land alongside reservoirs may be
rendered unusable for agriculture or other uses, although it may not actually be permanently flooded.
Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities living in command areas of irrigation projects also find that
as land values rise, there is increasing pressure from politically connected outsiders to take over their
land.169 Others who live as farmers downstream of dams lose their livelihoods, which were previously
dependent on annual floods to restore fertility and water supply.170 Hydropower projects are often
established to promote new industries, taking over further land, while roads and mines, associated
with the dam projects draw in settlers who may take over tribal lands.171 These impacts are rarely
included in initial resettlement and rehabilitation plans and development agencies have often resisted
calls from environmental NGOs for basin-wide planning before individual projects are designed and
funded. Yet, as the World Bank notes, ‘these regional impacts, if not well understood and planned for,
can often create as many problems for indigenous and other displaced populations as the infrastructure
works’.172

An example of the forced relocation of an Indigenous People to make way for a national park established
to protect the watershed of a dam comes from the Dumoga-Bone National Park in Sulawesi, Indonesia,
which was considered a successful example of buffer zone management by the World Conservation
Union.173 In fact, the establishment of the Park along the watershed required the expulsion of the
indigenous Mongondow people, who had been forced up the hillsides by the agricultural settlement and
irrigation projects in the lowlands.174
The last remnants of Sri Lanka's aboriginal people, the Vedda, were likewise expelled from the Madura
Oya National Park established to protect the catchment of the controversial Mahaweli Development
Programme. Although the Vedda had been demanding rights to their lands since at least 1970, they were
obliged to leave their lands with the gazettement of the Park in 1983. Brought down out of the hill forests
to small settlements where they were provided houses and small irrigated rice paddies, the Vedda -
traditionally hunters and gatherers supplementing their subsistence by shifting cultivation - had trouble
adapting to a sedentary life. Subsequent surveys showed they resented the lack of access to forest
produce, game and land for shifting cultivation and were fast losing their own language. Only one small
group insisted on remaining in the forests where they were persistently harassed by officials. International

protests in support of the Vedda led to Presidential promises that some land would be set aside for them
but this has been a long time coming.175

The Independent Review of the Sardar Sarovar Project found that compensatory reforestation in the
Narmada watersheds threatened to displace a still unknown number of adivasi. The study also found
that resettlement plans and social impact studies had omitted to deal with the 800 adivasi families who
lost lands to establish a new town for construction workers, the tens of thousands to be displaced to
establish compensatory wildlife sanctuaries, the tens of thousands of adivasi and lower caste farmers
who would lose access to resources in the resettlement area and the estimated 140,000 people (10% of
them adivasis) who would be displaced by canals.176

Some impacts from major projects may be felt far outside the river basin. For example, concerns were
raised before construction that the Three Gorges Dam in China, which will uproot an estimated 1.5
million people, might prompt the resettlement of the Han Chinese oustees in minority areas on
China’s borders to consolidate central government control of border regions.177 Exactly these
problems are now becoming apparent. With land becoming scarce, project authorities have been
encouraging displaced families to migrate to remote provinces such as Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia
as members of the paramilitary Construction and Production Corps. Such colonisation programme are
extremely unpopular, both with the relocated families and the host populations. In October 1998,
severe tensions arose in Kashgar after Three Gorges oustees had been relocated in the area. Eight
policemen were killed and the city had to be placed under curfew.178 In May 1999, senior Chinese
Government officials admitted that ‘initial attempts to resettle displaced people in provinces like
Xinjiang, Hainan, Hunan and Henan had been a failure.’179

Another unforeseen problem that has had serious consequences comes from the siltation of reservoirs
and the streams and rivers that feed them. As well as substantially reducing the life of the dams,
siltation has caused the seasonal flooding of much larger areas than dam-builders had anticipated.
Ibaloy people who have lost lands to the Ambuklao and Binga Dams in this way were for many years
told that the siltation had nothing to do with the dams and were denied compensation. Only recently
has the government admitted some liability for these people’s problems.180

A particular problem faced by Indigenous Peoples who live downstream from dams in boreal zones
comes from the discharge of power-generating water on top of frozen rivers during winter. In the case
of the Kolyma dams in northern Yakutia, the resulting unseasonal floods have caused high mortalities
of fur-bearing animals important to the Indigenous Peoples economy, such as musquash, ermine,
squirrel and small rodents.181
The way that large dams affect peoples’ access to fisheries and water is also a major concern. In the
US, the loss of water rights has now become a major issue for indigenous groups. Under the so-called
‘Winters Doctrine’, Indian reservations have a paramount right not simply to the water necessary to
meet their present needs but their future needs as well. This right has been consistently abrogated,
however, with Native Americans being denied access to the water that should flow through their
reservations in favour of non-Indians. Virtually every drop of the water accruing from the Missouri
River Development Project, for example, was consigned to non-Indian use. In many cases, Indians,
who have often suffered great hardship as a result of the denial of their water rights,182 have had to
agree to “voluntarily” relinquishing those rights in order to obtain access to the water they required to
fulfil their own development plans, for instance through extending irrigation.183
The disruption of rivers due to dams has also severely impacted the fisheries on which many
indigenous groups depend and which, in many instances, play a major role in their culture. For the
Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Nez Perce people of the Northwest of the US, for example,
salmon remain “the core of our traditional culture and religion.”184 Such peoples have seen salmon
runs in their region decline drastically as a result of dams converting “the free-flowing Columbia,
Snake and other rivers into strings of slackwater pools unfamiliar to Indian people, inhospitable to
salmon.”185 Before dams, say the Indians:
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 33

“It took juvenile salmon about two weeks to travel from their home streams in the Snake River
to the ocean. Now it takes about two months. Many die from added stress and disease from
higher temperature and slower water as well as from longer exposure to animals and fish that
prey on them. . . In the final analysis, the system of dams too hungrily consumes the benefits of
the river and leaves too little to nourish salmon. Salmon do not need more gizmos at the dams
or bigger and better barges; they need a fair and equitable share of the water’s wealth. . .
Salmon are letting us know it is no longer possible for humans to uncompromisingly
appropriate all of the river’s benefits.”186
The tribes in the region are now fighting back and have instituted a salmon restoration plan, Wy-Kan-
Ush-Mi Wa-kish-Wit.187 Elsewhere, in Oregon, the Umatilla Confederated Tribes have filed a
successful suit arguing that the Army Corps of Engineers, which constructed the Chief Joseph Dam,
illegally interfered with the water flow necessary to the spawning of salmon and steelhead trout that
were the basis of their economy. In this, and a similar case brought by the Colville Confederated
Tribes, the court ordered the devising of a plan ‘in the public interest’ that would correct the problem.
In many cases, the tribes have only won compensation or rehabilitation measures after decades of
struggle. As the draft scoping paper for the WCD’s study of Grand Coulee notes the struggle for
reparations has been a long one: “Both the Colville and Spokane [Native American] tribes felt they
had been unfairly treated during [dam] construction. In 1951, 1975 and 1991, they took legal action
against the government demanding reparations for the forced inundation of tribal lands, the loss of
traditional fishing and root digging areas, the failure to honour agreements and treaties, and other
‘historical inequities’. Their main argument was that the government had never justly compensated
them for their losses, despite decades old promises.” 188
In India, the loss of fishing rights is also a major issue. In the case of the Bargi Dam on the Narmada
River, the adivasis who were forcibly relocated to make way for the dam lost their rights to fish the
river when the fishing rights to the newly-created reservoir were auctioned to a big contractor: oustees
could not even fish for their home consumption. Agitation by the oustees, the majority of whom are
now living in abject poverty, has finally forced the Government of Madhya Pradesh to hand over the
fishing rights to the reservoir and to negotiate new rehabilitation measures, including lowering the
height of the reservoir in order to provide land for those relocated to cultivate until they are properly
resettled.189

Submissions to the WCD Hearings in Brazil have also highlighted the impacts of dams on fisheries
and hence on the livelihoods. In the case of the Urra 1 project in Colombia, the Association of
Producers for Communal Development of La Cienaga Grande de Lorica (ASPROCIG) reports that the
dam has disrupted the migration of fish for spawning, severely affected the livelioods of the Embera-
Katio people in addition to non-indigenous peasant and fishing communities. According to
ASPROCIG:

“The number of those directly affected by this problem is estimated at 60,000, about 15.4 per
cent of the lower Sinu basin. Fishing production, previously estimated at approximately 6,000
tons annually has decreased to 1,700 tons.”190

A problem that is only recently receiving international attention comes from growing evidence that
methyl mercury is released from bacterial transformation of mercury accumulated in soils and strata
underlying reservoirs, and may reach such high concentrations that reservoir fish become inedible. In
Venezuela, the Guri dam which displaced two communities of Pemon Indians in the 1960s, was
initially welcomed for providing an abundant new fishery for both the local criollo and Pemon
communities. In 1986, a second stage of the dam, which obliged the Pemon to be resettled a second
time, caused them to be forced to evacuate their homes before their resettlement site was prepared due
to unexpected, heavy falls of rain.191 Then, during the mid-1990s, researchers found that methyl
mercury levels in the reservoir had become dangerously elevated and the government was obliged to
ban the consumption of the main commercial species being fished in the reservoir.192
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 34

A similar problem has affected the Cree living near the La Grande reservoirs in Quebec. As fish are a
major part of the local Cree diet, mercury levels in their bodies have risen dangerously. By 1984, six
years after La Grande complex was completed, mercury levels in pike and walleye, two fish species
important in the Cree’s diet, had increased six-fold and 64% of Cree living on the La Grande estuary
had blood mercury levels far exceeding the World Health Organisation tolerance limit.193 [Since then,
as one outcome of the James Bay agreement, steps have been taken to better understand and address
this problem. According to Hydro-Quebec] While research [has] showed that high concentrations of
mercury were found in Cree blood samples before the reservoir was filled, it is clear that the
reservoirs have made the situation worse. Hydro-Quebec thus made an agreement with the affected
Cree to compensate them for this serious problem and an emergency programme was put in place,
which consisted of regular monitoring and an intensive campaign to persuade the Cree not to eat fish
from the reservoirs.194 By 1993-4 measures to limit contaminated intakes had brought mercury
concentrations in the Cree down to 11.5% of all tested individuals in nine affected communities, with
much lower rates being recorded in women of child-bearing age.195 However, the social impacts were
substantial. Since the Cree rely on fish for sustenance during hunting and trapping activities, the
mercury problem discouraged these activities and has led to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.
Accompanying dietary changes have contributed to significant increases in obesity, cardiovascular
disease and diabetes, previously virtually unknown.196 In the opinion of many Cree, the message of
the information campaign that ‘country food’ is bad for you drove a wedge into their identification
with their land, with significant cultural repercussions.197

2.1.12 Inadequate processes of restitution

A particular problem highlighted by the participants at the WCD Joint Consultation on ‘Dams,
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’ in Geneva in July 1999, is the absence or failure of
mechanisms to restitute Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities for past losses and injuries done by
dams. The Ibaloy people displaced by the Ambuklao and Binga dams on the Agno River in the
Philippines had to wait nearly 25 years before their appeals for assistance with resettlement were
given any kind of attention. The subsequent failure of resettlement efforts to restore a decent standard
of living led to further complaints but it was not until the government set in motion plans to build the
San Roque dam in the same area that a ‘Claims Committee’ was established to deal with the
complaints of those affected by the previous projects. The people had had to wait forty years before
an official body would even hear their claims for restitution. Since the Committee was set up, its slow
pace of settling claims has been a source of further problems.198

The plight of the Maya Achi displaced by the World Bank-funded Chixoy dam also illustrates this
problem. Although over 400 members of the affected communities were killed by government-
directed forces in order to overcome their resistance to the dam in the early 1980s, it was not until
1996 that the World Bank undertook a programme to rehabilitate the affected people. Considerable
problems have since been incurred in actually implementing this plan, the most serious complaint
coming from the 44 families of orphaned descendants of those killed in the 1980s who have been
denied land as compensation for ancestral lands lost. In all, the resettled Maya Achi claim that they
have now been resituated with lands less than a third of the extent of their original cultivation’s and
replacement housing is of a very poor quality. Compensation for the suffering they have endured over
the intervening years has not been forthcoming.199

2.1.13 Underlying Causes of Negative Impacts

Given the seriousness of the impacts of large dams on Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities and
the fact these problems persist even when international laws and development policies have been
modified to address them, it is necessary to look beyond procedural remedies to identify the
underlying causes of the problems.

This review of the case literature and subsequent analysis suggests that underlying the failure of
governments and project developers worldwide to respect the law and follow their own procedures are
a range of institutional, structural and political factors that undermine the bargaining power of
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities and reinforce their marginalised status within society. Such
factors include:

! Denial of the right to self-determination.

! Deep-seated structural inequalities of power between ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples and
the wider society in which they live, including racism and other institutionalised forms
discrimination;
! A variety of everyday institutional practices – from cost benefit analysis to national planning -
that reinforce the marginalised status of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities and which
depoliticise the resource and other conflicts that arise from dam-building;
! The institutional priorities and internal career structures of implementing agencies which
frequently lead to a “pressure to lend” regardless of social and environmental costs;
! The lack of accountability of planners and implementing agencies to affected peoples;
! The tendency of hydro-based development strategies to reinforce inequitable access to both
resources and decision-making.
Such circumstances make it much harder for well-meaning policies and standards to have effect.

2.1.14 Denial of the right to self-determination

For Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities, the fundamental reason that dam-building so often
causes them problems, is that their right to self-determination is not recognised. Consequently they
are neither treated as equal partners in proposed dam-building projects, nor provided means to
negotiate mutually acceptable solutions. No effort is made to seek their prior and informed consent to
either the overall project or, sometimes, even specific components, such as resettlement. Their right of
veto is denied. This fundamental imbalance of power underlies many of the other problems that
follow.

2.1.15 Social Exclusion

One of the other most obvious reasons that the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic
Minorities are excluded in dam-building is because the processes of social exclusion are in any case
deeply nested in the dominant society. Some of this discrimination results inheres in the prejudices
and stereotypes of national society. In Rwanda and Burundi, for example, among the Hutu and Tutsi
majorities it is commonly held that drinking from the same cup as a Twa (pygmy) is polluting.200 In
India, similarly, Hindu beliefs instill the notion of ‘untouchability’.201 Such racial and ethnic
prejudices are deeply rooted and widely documented.

In some countries these kinds of prejudices are institutionalised. For example in Thailand, many
indigenous people lack citizenship cards and are thus not able to claim the benefits accorded Thai
citizens, vote or get title to their lands.202 The pervasive problem caused by the lack of recognition of
land rights has been noted above.203 Internationally, a number of governments still seek to deny that
emerging international standards on Indigenous Peoples apply in their countries, among the most
vociferous at the United Nations Human Rights Commission being Bangladesh, India, Malaysia,
Japan and China. Other countries, like France, deny that they have minorities at all.204

Where countries do have favourable policies towards Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities,
controversy often arises about exactly which peoples should be beneficiaries. In India, for example,
the transhumant pastoralist Van Gujjars, who face displacement from their wintering grounds in the
Shivalik Hills and who seek the protections offered by the International Labour Organisation, are not
classified as a Scheduled Tribe by the Indian Government. In Brazil, the Quilombo, descendants of
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 36

escaped slaves who re-established autonomous African societies in the forested interior, some of
whom are now being moved to make way for dams, complain that they are treated even worse than
Indians, whose lands are at least protected by the Constitution and through the establishment of Indian
Areas, Reserves and Parks.205

National policies of cultural assimilation deny ethnic diversity and deny Indigenous Peoples and
Ethnic Minorities the right to teach, write or even speak their own languages – as with the Kurds in
Turkey for example. In Indonesia, an explicit policy of assimilating so-called ‘isolated and alien
peoples’ (suku suku terasing) into the national mainstream, includes practices of forced resettlement,
the dismantling of longhouses, the burning of traditional religious paraphenalia and the colonisation
of Indigenous Peoples’ lands with settlers from the Inner islands. The aim, noted the Minister of
Transmigration in 1985, is that "different ethnic groups will in the long run disappear because of
integration . . . There will be one kind of man."206

2.1.16 National planning and marginal voices

Since they are denied equal access to decision-making and their cultures and traditional systems are
devalued, national development planning frequently excludes Indigenous Peoples’ and Ethnic
Minorities’ voices and concerns. National water use and energy development plans tend to be
centralised planning exercises based on national statistics and computer-generated predictions of
population increase, industrial expansion and urban consumption patterns. Local visions, rights and
priorities are often excluded from such plans as details ‘to be dealt with at the implementation level’
or because Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities are considered obstacles to development.207
Top-down planning of this kind, leads to decisions being imposed on people without their
involvement. Indigenous Peoples have long spoken out against such an approach. As Ailton Krenak
of Brazil told the World Commission on Environment and Development:
“The only possible place for the Krenak people to live and to re-establish our existence, to
speak to our Gods, to speak to our nature, to weave our lives, is where God created us. We
can no longer see the planet that we live upon as if it were a chess-board where people just
move things around.” 208
International development agencies frequently exacerbate this process by excluding consideration of
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities rights and interests in Country Assistance Strategies,
Structural and Sectoral Adjustment Programmes and Sectoral lending.209
A further problem arises from the tendency, noted by many academic commentators, for planners to
define problems in ways that fit the macro-economic solutions that planning agencies are equipped to
provide. For example, in the course of justifying their promotion of agricultural markets in Lesotho,
World Bank officials and consultants have claimed that the country has a “subsistence-oriented
society virtually untouched by modern economic development” and that 85 per cent of its inhabitants
make a living as farmers. The proposed solution, not surprisingly, was to modernise the agricultural
sector. In fact, as standard histories document, Lesotho has participated in regional labour, cattle and
agricultural markets for more than a century, while its inhabitants derive the crucial part of their
income as migrant labourers in South Africa, with only six per cent of average rural household
income deriving from domestic crop production.210

The WCD joint consultation on ‘Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’ held in Geneva in
July 1999, also drew attention to the way dam building is increasingly driven by regional economic
planning processes. The meeting noted that the Epupa dam in Namibia, the Bakun dam in Sarawak,
the Bio Bio dams in Chile, and the projects of Hydro-Quebec in Canada were all being promoted with
the aim, at least in part, of feeding electricity into regional power grids. In some cases, these
development plans are explicitly linked to the regional energy policies of trading blocks such as
NAFTA, APEC and Mercosur. No consideration is given to the rights of Indigenous Peoples and
Ethnic Minorities in this kind of macro-economic planning nor are the negotiations open to
representatives of these peoples.
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 37

2.1.17 Costs, benefits and local values

In planning large-scale projects and in order to justify the exercise of eminent domain, planners of
large- scale dams make great use of cost-benefit analyses in order to show how projects will be in the
‘public interest’ and are worthy investments. Indigenous Peoples have been openly critical of the
limitations of such an approach.

For example, the expectation on the part of planners that a financial value can be put on land,
ancestral graves or ceremonial artifacts that might be lost to a dam is often met with dismay by
Indigenous Peoples and many Ethnic Minorities. For them, many of the losses which are incured as a
result of a dam being built simply cannot be valued in financial terms. As the Ibaloy comment on their
ancestral graves:

“It is not easy to destroy our sacred burial grounds. It is our community faith that our
beloved dead, most especially our ancestors, are resting in peace in our ancestral land. We
believe they are with us in their spirit as we are with them in our traditional and cultural
values. That is why no amount of money will constitute a just price for their sacred
graves.”211

Similarly, the Yavapai of the Fort McDowell Indian Reservation Arizona refused point blank to put a
price of their land that would be lost to the Orme dam, planned as part of the Central Arizona Project,
rejecting out of hand a $40 million compensation scheme offered by engineers of the Bureau of
Reclamation. "The land is our mother", said one Yavapai teenager in 1981 "You do not sell your
mother." It was a response which officials from the Bureau of Reclamation "found baffling”. Yavapai
leaders, meanwhile, were "annoyed that [the] engineers had even bothered to make the trip." As
Wendy Espeland of Nortwest University reports in her study, The Struggle for Water:

"Orme dam was needed, [the Bureau of Reclamation] believed, to regulate and store water,
generate hydropower and protect Phoenix from floods. The Yavapai saw things differently.
They did not understand why they should bear the costs of others' mistakes; of building
houses in the floodplain; of growing thirsty cotton in the desert; of stopping rivers so that
Phoenix could grow its unplanned, ugly sprawl and residents could keep watering into
oblivion the desert that first drew them there. Nor did the Yavapai believe that it was their
right to sell the land, the last bit linking them to their ancestors, land they believed was
sacred."212

Although they did not use the term, the Yavapai viewed land, in the words of Espeland, as "an
incommensurate value, and money and other land, regardless of the amount could not capture its
value or compensate for its loss." As one teenager put it: "If we took the money, we could not be
ourselves . . . and we could not live with ourselves."213 The Yavapai, however, have difficulty in even
explaining to supporters of the Orme Dam why their land was, in effect, incommensurable. There was
simply no language in which they could express their feelings. Analogies – for example, likening
the sale of their land to the sale of their children – were "often misunderstood . . . as sarcasm or
exaggeration", and were rejected by Orme supporters as inappropriate: "land could not . . . be valued
as children . . . and it was not unique in ways that precluded it being priced."214

Unsurprisingly, the Yavapai's refusal to price their land undermined the entire rationality of the
Bureau of Reclamation's cost-benefit studies. Whilst, for officials of the Bureau of Reclamation, such
cost-benefit analysis and contingent valuation were means of framing negotiations over acceptable
terms for building the dam, to the Yavapai, they were an affront – and one, moreover, that distracted
people "from the real and relatively straightforward stakes of the decision." As one elder expressed it:
"White men like to count things that aren't there. We have a way of life that will be destroyed if that
dam comes through. Why don't they just say that?"215

A comparable experience comes from Australia. Commenting on attempts to put a price on

Coronation Hill, a part of the Kakadu Conservation Zone in Australia, an area which for the
Aboriginal people is a sacred site containing their dead ancestors, a leading academic critic of cost-
benefit assessment (CBA) notes:
“No matter how well-intentioned, the Australian Resource Assessment Commission might
have been in asking how much people would be willing to pay to stop the mining in the area
and preserve the conservation zone, the question is inappropriate. To approach the issue
through CBA – in particular to insist that there must be some price people would be willing to
pay to forgo a good to which they are committed . . . – is . . . to abandon all neutrality and to
attempt to corrupt the relationships constitutive of a culture.”216

The cost-benefit approach may not only inappropriately put financial values on ‘costs’, it may also
invoke benefits which the affected peoples may dispute. For example, on being told by the Chief
Engineer of Eletronorte that the proposed Altamira project, involving a series of dams on the Xingu
river, would “be in your interest….They will bring progress”, a Kayapo woman responded:
“We don’t need electricity. Electricity won’t give us food. We need the river to flow freely. We
need our forests to hunt in. We are not poor. We are the richest people in Brazil. We are not
wretched. We are Indians”.

In a more philosophical vein, the International Indian Treaty Council, a non-governmental

organization of indigenous peoples, has stressed the gulf between the way in which land is viewed by
indigenous peoples and way land is valued and costed by planners:
“The philosophy of the indigenous peoples of the Western hemisphere has grown from a
relationship to the land that extends back thousands of years… This philosophy is profoundly
different from the predominant economic and geopolitical ideology which governs the
practices of the major industrial powers and the operations of transnational corporations. Its
chief characteristic is a great love and respect for the sacred quality of the land which has
given birth to and nourished the cultures of indigenous peoples. These peoples are the
guardians of their lands which, over the centuries, have become inextricably bound up with
their culture, their identity and survival. Without the land bases, their cultures will not
survive.”217
In the case of the Volta Dam, for example, the resettled were incorrectly referred to as subsistence
farmers, with low levels of productivity which contributed little to the national development effort. As
for their land, 94 per cent was considered to be either unoccupied or unsuitable for agriculture.
Defined in this way, the “idea emerged that by virtue of their backwardness, the resettled deserved
their fate.” In fact, some 80,000 people lived in the affected area and their agriculture was far from
“subsistence”. 218 This is not a problem that belongs to the past. To justify the claim that the Sardar
Sarovar Project in India would bring water to villages without water, for example, the World Bank
inflated the number of villages that would, in theory, benefit from the project, including inventing
villages that do not exist.219
In effect, cost-benefit analysis does more than force the valuation of what cannot be valued. It
depoliticises the debate over dams and water policy – in ways that further marginalise already
marginalised people within society. Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities, whose values may
differ considerably from the mainstream, are in a particularly vulnerable position in this regard.220

Even where strong efforts are made by planners to ensure that Environmental Impact Assessments do
take into consideration the full range of impacts and concerns, there are huge difficulties in getting
agreement on project’s benefits.

For example, in the light of the Crees’ unfortunate experience with mercury contamination following
the La Grande developments, the environmental assessment regime set up for Hydro-Québec’s
proposed Great Whale (Grand Baleine) project went to great lengths to be complete. Guidelines,
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 39

issued by the review bodies set up by the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement and by the
federal environmental assessment regime, called for a ground-breaking Environmental Impact
Surveys (EIS) based on the principles of sustainable development, on “the rights of local communities
to determine their future and their own societal objectives,” and on:

respect for the right of future generations to the sustainable use of the ecosystems within the
proposed project area, both for the local population and for society as a whole. This involves
preserving the region’s flora and fauna, maintaining the quality and capacity of ecosystems
and their renewable resources, preserving unique and remarkable sites, conserving cultural
diversity, and maintaining and improving the quality of life in the region.221

It was to take into account indigenous knowledge, culture and values, as well as the project’s
justification, based on a detailed examination of need and alternatives.222 Externalities were
to be dealt with qualitatively, avoided the pitfalls of trying to monetize impacts and reduce the
problem to a simple cost-benefit analysis.223
Unfortunately, Hydro-Québec was not able to adhere to these guidelines. Official review bodies
found that the voluminous EIS submitted by the company:

“suffer[ed] from a number of major inadequacies which prevent a clear definition and
prediction of the repercussions of the proposed project to the extent that it becomes extremely
difficult to adequately estimate its real costs and benefits. … As submitted by the Proponent,
the EIS is presently neither sufficiently complete nor adequate for the decision-making
process.”224 (emphasis in original)

Major inadequacies which affect the analysis of the impacts are: an inadequate knowledge of
the human societies, an inadequate approach regarding the combined and integrated effects
of the proposed project and an inadequate appreciation of the uncertainty associated with the
project's impacts. … With regard to the biophysical environment, the EIS does not recognise
the existence of distinct ecosystems within the study area, their structure and function, or the
processes and interrelationships which constitute ecosystem health.225
As a result, the review bodies found the EIS inadequate to permit a reasoned judgement on the
project’s justification:

The justification of the proposed project involves, first, assessing the need for additional
energy resources, and then comparing the various supply-or demand-side resources that
could be developed to satisfy it. A least-cost analysis was to demonstrate that the best solution
for meeting the anticipated demand growth includes the Great Whale project, not only for the
demand growth scenario judged most likely, but also for other plausible scenarios. Moreover,
the Proponent was to provide a comparative analysis of the externalities of the different
energy resources available, on a quantitative basis, insofar as possible, or on a qualitative
basis, where not possible. These analyses are not developed to a sufficient degree in the EIS
to permit evaluation of whether or not the conclusions are well founded.226

The very day after the release of this damning report, the Quebec Premier announced that the project
would be shelved.227

2.1.18 Engineering consent

Even where it is national policy to involve affected communities in dam-building projects, the
obstacles to effective participation are manifold. In the case of the Bakun dam, for example, Dayak
peoples were provided minimal information about the project, access to the Environmental Impact
Assessment was denied and when they objected to the proposed resettlement plan they were

denounced as being ‘anti-development’. Dayak leaders had their passports taken away to prevent
them travelling overseas to speak out against the project and NGOs supporting the indigenous
communities suffered harassment and repression. Lawyers from Peninsula Malaysia acting for the
affected people were denied access to the State. Communities were threatened with withdrawal of
State benefits and services if they persisted with their opposition. They were obliged to sign contracts
accepting the relocation, in order to get new housing and land in the resettlement area. Dissent was
quashed.228

The James Bay Cree state that they negotiated the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement of
1975 under the duress of continuing destruction of their lands and the courts’ and governments’
refusal at the time to acknowledge their aboriginal and constitutional rights. As evidence of this
duress, they point to articles in the Agreement, insisted upon at the time by Hydro-Quebec, that
provide that the Crees shall in the future not raise sociological impacts on their people as grounds for
opposition to further hydro-electric projects in their lands. Prof. Peter Cumming of York University
describes the agreement as “a forced purchase,” and the Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Problems and Alternatives wrote that:

“… it would be most difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Aboriginal parties … were
repeatedly subjected to inappropriate, unlawful coercion or duress. … These actions were
incompatible with the fiduciary obligations of both governments and substantially affected the
fundamental terms of the ‘agreement’ reached” (and see box).229

Box 2.1: Cree Statement to the World Commission on Dams

CREE STATEMENT TO THE WORLD COMMISSION ON DAMS

Even after the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA) was signed in 1975, Hydro-
Québec obtained a series of further concessions from us, under circumstances in which we could not
refuse. For example, it became clear while the La Grande project was under construction that erosion
from the drastically increased flows in the La Grande River would threaten the safety and well-being
of the community of Fort George, located on an island at the mouth of the river. The only solution
was to relocate the community to the mainland. However, Hydro-Québec refused to recognise its
obligation to pay for this relocation as mitigation of the impacts of the project. Instead, it demanded
in exchange our permission to relocate the future LG-1 dam site from mile 45 to mile 23 above the
estuary, a proposal that we had rejected in the original negotiations leading to the JBNQA. The closer
location would provide greater head, and thus greater power benefits to Hydro-Québec, but would
also result in substantially greater impacts on the Cree, due to the flooding of the first rapids and the
loss of territory intensively used for hunting and trapping. The change also increased the flow
impacts downstream. We had no choice but to accept this modification in order to guarantee the
safety of the Fort George community.

More recently, Hydro-Québec sought to engineer our consent for the Great Whale project, first by
arguing that they had already agreed to it in the James Bay Agreement, and then by insisting (with the
agreement of the governments of Quebec and Canada) on splitting the project in two. The idea was to
start construction of the many new roads and airports needed in order to build the project, well before
the environmental assessment of the dams themselves could take place, thus allowing a repeat
performance of the “balance of convenience” argument that had been so effective 15 years earlier. We
challenged this move in Federal Court, claiming it was an attempt to side-step the environmental
assessment regime set up by the James Bay Agreement. The Court found in our favour, opening the
way to an integrated Environmental Assessment process.

We also maintain that Hydro-Québec’s recent behaviour demonstrates that it still considers it proper
to attempt to engineer the consent it claims to require. Hydro-Québec has chosen to negotiate directly
with local Band Councils, rather than with the Grand Council of the Crees. This fit nicely with the
policy of the Quebec Government to deal with communities and not with the larger political
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 41

organisations of aboriginal peoples in their dealings with them. However, it is not up to Hydro-
Québec or to the Province of Quebec to determine the modalities by which the Cree Nation will give
or withhold its consent for a major hydro project. The Cree Nation has elected the Grand Council by
universal suffrage and mandated it to represent them in precisely these situations. Hydro-Québec’s
unilateral decision to negotiate with local Band Councils rather than with the Grand Council itself is
thus a bald-faced attempt to engineer consent for new megaprojects on Cree territory.

To implement this strategy, Hydro-Quebec initiated a series of meetings with the chiefs and councils
of individual communities to be impacted by the proposed Rupert Diversion and the Great Whale
River Diversion projects. … With the offer of money, equity involvement in the project and future
jobs (the last two of which Hydro-Quebec had failed to deliver on the 1975 project), Hydro-Quebec
tried to kindle the hopes of the community leadership.

In 1999 the Cree people spoke, in the community elections. Three chiefs who had been vocal
advocates of participating in the discussions with Hydro-Québec were replaced by outspoken critics
of the HQ proposals. Two others who had promoted Hydro-Québec’s community-by-community
approach were also voted out. The Hydro-Quebec strategy of divide and conquer had failed. 230
Milder forms of engineered consensus are very prevalent. Scudder notes that, in Botswana:
“government presents its use of customary meetings (kotla), at which local people discuss
vital issues with their leaders, as a form of local participation. In connection with the
Southern Okavango Integrated Water Development Project, however, such meetings were
used more to inform local people of the government’s intentions, and to solicit their reactions
to those intentions, than to actually involve them in the planning process.”231

The WCD joint consultation on ‘Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’ held in Geneva in
1999, heard a number of complaints about Government manipulation of the consultation process to try
to engineer the result that they sought. A spokesperson for the Himba pastoralists, theatened with the
loss of core parts of their grazing lands to the Epupa Dam, noted how the government was attempting
to gerrymander administrative and electoral boundaries in the area and thus overcome resistance. In
1997, heavily armed Namibian police attempted to prevent the Himba speaking to their lawyers and
only after the latter obtained a court order from the High Court were the people able to meet their
legal advisers again without fear of harassment and intimidation. Similarly, the meeting heard how in
Manitoba in Canada, government agencies had changed the rules for voting in communities to ensure
consent to rehabilitation packages linked to the Churchill-Nelson River Diversion Project. Pressure
has likewise been placed on the Pewenche people to accede to the Ralco dam on the Bio Bio river in
Chile. The Ralco dam is now under construction even though the project still lacks the authorisation
of the government agency responsible for indigenous affairs. Two [of] directors of the agency have
been threatened with dismissal since they oppose the resettlement plan.232

2.1.19 The Pressure to Lend

The problem of abbreviated participatory procedures is very widespread. It is exacerbated by deep-
seated institutional pressures on the staff of multilateral development banks to “deliver” projects. As a
1992 report by the World Bank’s Portfolio Management Task Force, led by Willi Wapenhams, makes
clear, the Bank’s “pervasive preoccupation with new lending” takes precedence over all other
considerations.233 According to the Task Force, “a number of current practices – with respect to career
development, feedback to staff and signals from managers – militate against increased attention to
project performance management.”234 In the subculture which prevails at the Bank, staff appraisals of
projects tend to be perceived “as marketing devices for securing loan approval (and achieving
personal recognition)”, with the result that “little is done to ascertain the actual flow of benefits or to
evaluate the sustainability of projects during their operational phrase.” 235

The Bank’s institutional priorities and management structures have thus encouraged staff to flout
internal policy directives and borrower governments to ignore loan conditions. Unsurprisingly, the
“credibility [of loan agreements] as binding documents has suffered”236 and “evidence of gross non-
compliance [with Bank legal covenants] is overwhelming.”237 When borrowers disregard loan
conditions, the typical response of Bank management has been to look the other way or waive the
relevant requirement, unless public pressure forces them to do otherwise. As Patrick Coady, an ex-
Executive Director of the World Bank, has remarked: “No matter how egregious the situation, no
matter how flawed the project, no matter how many policies have been violated, and no matter how
clear the remedies prescribed, the Bank will go forward on its own terms.”238

2.1.20 Lack of Accountability

Other institutional problems compound this problem. Neither individual project staff nor the
institutions that they work for are in any real sense accountable to the local communities. Large-scale
dams tend to be implemented over decades but, typically, staff in government institutions, private
companies, consultancies and banks may only work on any one project for a few years or even a few
months – often only a few weeks or days in the case of consultants on short-term contracts to assess
issues such as social impacts. Yet the contents and consequences of their reports and decisions may
not show up until months or years later.

This might not matter so much if the institutions themselves were in some way legally obligated to the
affected communities but in fact, grievance procedures are often unwieldy or absent, opportunities for
legal redress tortuous and responsible institutions remote. Enforceable contracts between dam builders
and oustees, whether indigenous or not, are the exception not the rule.239

2.1.21 The privacy of private financing

This problem is likely to become more, not less, acute as the financing, building and operation of
dams moves to the private sector.240 Already many private-sector funded projects are eschewing
support from the main lending windows of agencies such as the World Bank because the environment
and development standards required by the Bank are considered too onerous. Instead, companies are
turning to publicly-backed Export Credit and Investment Insurance Agencies (ECAs) to guarantee
their investments and thus ease the task of raising private sector financing.

Such ECAs are now financing (or considering financing) a number of major hydro projects around the
world, including the San Roque Dam in the Philippines, the Three Gorges Dam in China, the Ilisu
Dam in Turkey and the Maheshwar Dam in India. A major attraction for industry of ECAs is that,
almost with rare exceptions — the US Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank and the US Overseas Private
Investment Corporation (OPIC) being cases in point — they have no mandatory human rights,
environmental and development standards: they also have a secretive institutional culture. In Britain,
for example, the UK Export Credits Guarantees Department ECDG is required under the 1991 Export
and Investment Guarantee Act to take account of all economic and political factors that might
adversely influence a loan. It has no legal obligation, however, to consider the environmental impacts
of its investments or the contribution they will make to development; no obligation to ensure that all
its projects comply with a set of mandatory human rights, environmental and development guidelines;
and no obligation to screen out projects with adverse social and environmental impacts.

There are no formal policies, for example, that require environmental impact assessments for ECGD-
backed projects or export deals; no requirements to ensure that rigorous safety measures and
emergency accident response plans are in place for projects involving hazardous facilities, such as
nuclear power or chemical plants; no requirements to ensure that those forcibly evicted as a result of a
project will be adequately compensated and resettled; no requirements to consult with local people or
concerned non-governmental organisations; no requirements to release documents that are relevant to
assessing the social and environmental impacts of a project; no requirements to give timely advance
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 43

notice of upcoming projects so that affected peoples can voice their concerns and objections; and no
requirements to publish details of funded projects.

The ECGD is not required to follow even the World Bank’s (weak) guidelines for screening and
monitoring projects, nor the guidelines recommended by the Development Assistance Committee of
the OECD, nor the guidelines drawn up by the OECD to influence the conduct of multinational
companies. Although, in some instances (and generally only as a result of public pressure),
environmental and social factors are taken into account in this underwriting process, the risks assessed
are those posed to the financial and political viability of the project, not the risks that the project poses
to the environment and to people.241

2.1.22 Social Engineering for Development:

Although, from a neo-classical economic perspective, conventional top-down development has

delivered measurable gains for many groups,242 such gains should be seen in a wider context. The
gains made by some groups are frequently to the cost or exclusion of others.

Historically, the creation of a global economy and its accompanying industrial infrastructure has only
been possible through dismantling local cultures and reassembling them in more ‘modern’ forms.
Indeed, in some quarters, such dismantling has been openly promoted as policy. As one development
analyst commented in the 1960s:

"Economic development of an underdeveloped people by themselves is not compatible with

the maintenance of their traditional customs and mores. A break with the latter is prerequisite
to economic progress. What is needed is a revolution in the totality of social, cultural and
religious institutions and habits, and thus in their psychological attitude, their philosophy and
way of life. What is, therefore, required amounts in reality to social disorganisation.
Unhappiness and discontentment in the sense of wanting more than is obtainable at any
moment is to be generated. The suffering and dislocation that may be caused in the process
may be objectionable, but it appears to be the price that has to be paid for economic
development: the condition of economic progress."243

Likewise, Etounga-Manguelle, ex-staffer of the African Development Bank, believes fundamental

changes in African cultures are required before the continent can benefit from modern development
planning.244 A similar view has been expressed more recently in a paper prepared by Kenichi Ohno of
Saitama and Tsukaba Universities, Japan, for input into the World Bank's 1997 World Development
Report. The paper, which "summar[ises] current discussions taking place among official and
academic researchers responsible for Japanese aid policy”, argues that "market thinking" is "not
ubiquitous in human society" and must therefore be instilled if it is to be practised. The process of
economic development - or, as Ohno terms it, "systematic transition" - is thus

“a deliberate attempt, perhaps only once in the history of any country, to implant a system
from without that does not arise automatically from within the existing society.” 245

The implications for Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities could not be more stark.

2.1.23 Dam-building and equity

Dam-based development strategies have contributed to this multi-faceted process of exclusion in a

number of significant ways. For example, the financial packages, engineering expertise and
organisational capacity required to construct large dams has privileged certain types of expertise and
centralised institutional power over others. As a result, many alternative approaches to water
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 44

development - including a range of water harvesting and irrigation technologies developed by

indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities - have been overlooked, downplayed or dismissed by
planners. In India, for example, many villagers now face water shortages because their local village
tanks have fallen into disrepair, in part because state bureaucracies have preferred - for institutional
reasons - to fund centrally-managed water supply systems (using large reservoirs) in preference to
funding the upkeep of tanks.246 In the same way, the emphasis on engineering and economic
considerations in dam building has diverted attention away from environmental and social
considerations – whereas they should be treated as fundamental parts of dam planning equal to
technical design.247

Dam-based development strategies have also played a significant role in restructuring food
production, consumption and distribution patterns - for example, through promoting a shift from
production for local consumption and marketing to production for export in order to earn the foreign
exchange to pay for irrigation schemes.248

In addition, the large sums of money involved in building individual dam projects, coupled to the
development of elite patronage networks associated with the awarding of contracts, has not only
encouraged corrupt practices but has reinforced political structures that privilege certain classes,
ethnic groups and commercial interest over others.249

3. Towards ‘Best Practice’

‘The Committee calls in particular upon States parties to….ensure that members of
indigenous peoples have equal rights in respect of effective participation in public life, and
that no decisions directly relating to their rights and interests are taken without their
informed consent.’250

3.1 Affected communities: the importance of organising

The ability of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities to exercise control over the decision-making
processes that affect their lives and livelihoods is key to the successful outcome of any development
projects that might affect them. In the case of water projects, both the literature and submissions of
stakeholders make it clear that projects “succeed” only where affected communities have been able to
determine their design, operation and implementation. A case in point is the Baliraja Dam in India: as
Enakshi Thukral points out, the dam, which involved no resettlement and was just 4.5 metres high,
worked precisely because it was “the result of the people’s own initiative”. It was “their solution to
their problem”. 251

Where gains have been made, they have been achieved largely through resistance to official
proposals, rather than as a result of compliance with them – and were rarely intended outcomes of the
planner’s plans.

Building new institutions based on cultural traditions may be a key part of successful organising. For
example, opposition to the Chico dams in the Philippines was organised around the revival of the
Kalinga institution of the bodong or ‘peace pact’ by which, in the past, warring communities would
establish peaceful relations to allow trade with the lowlands252. To confront the dam, the bodong was
extended over a very wide area, even beyond its original extent, so that it came to embrace a major
part of the central Cordillera of the island of Luzon.253
Nahua Indians Marcelino Diaz de Jesus and Pedro de Jesus Alejandro of Mexico recount similar
lessons from their successful struggle against the San Juan Tetelcingo Dam on the Upper Balsas river.
The first the Nahua learned of the dam was when, in 1990, they noticed surveyors crossing their lands
and fixing markers against the expected flood levels of the impoundment. At the time the Nahua were
not organised and Diaz and de Jesus believe that, were it not for the heightened awareness about
indigenous rights in the continent in the years preceding the celebrations of 500 years since Colon’s
‘discovery’ of the Americas, they might never have had the courage to oppose the dam. The approach
of this event, the increased public sensitivity to environmental issues preceding the Rio Summit and
the Nahua’s discovery of international standards recognising their rights, notably ILO Convention
169, emboldened them to oppose the government’s plans. By dint of creating a Council of Nahua
Peoples of the Upper Balsas, through letter writing, lobbying, demonstrations, media work and a
historic march to the capital city in defence of their rights, they were able to swing public sentiment in
their favour and oblige the President to cancel the dam.254

Moreover, the record clearly shows that where resettlement is accepted by a community, strong
community organisation is key to obtaining the best possible terms and to ensuring that rights
guaranteed to indigenous groups and ethnic minorities under national and international legislation are
respected. Using compensation monies to build up strong indigenous organisations is likewise
considered part of ‘best practice’ by Hydro-Quebec.255

Political pressure – rooted in strong community organising - has also proved the key to opening up
discussions on reparations for damage done by past dams. In Madhya Pradesh, for example, the
authorities are now considering reparations for oustees of the Bargi Dam. However, as Shripad
Dharmadhikary of the Narmada Bachao Andolan notes, this has only been achieved through four

years of protest by oustees.256 Others note that where consultation has taken place, it is generally as a
result of affected communities demanding that their voices be heard.257

Likewise, in the US, political organising – including direct actions and legal cases – has been key to
Native Americans regaining their full water rights. In the early years, tribal acquiescence to dams was
not hard to get. Unaware of their legal rights and untrained to use the courts, tribal elders felt unable
to oppose government pressure. For example, tribal elders felt forced into agreeing to their
resettlement to make way for Garrison Dam on the Missouri. The reservoir displaced 80% of the
Mandan, Hidatsa and Arika peoples and has been blamed for the consequent high levels of
unemployment among those relocated.258 By the 1970s, however, peoples like the Yavapai were far
better aware of their rights and were able to hold their ground.259

As Guerrero notes of the strategies employed by groups seeking redress:

“This social ferment [of the early 1970s] coincided with the maturation of the first generation
of American Indian political strategists and attorneys ready, willing and able to engage in a
sort of policy making and juridical ‘ju jitsu’ with the ‘rules of the game’ enunciated by
Congress and the federal courts. Not just Treaty rights, but statutes like the Clean Water Act,
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Safe Water Drinking Act were therefore
brought increasingly to bear in litigation and negotiation of indigenous water rights.
Similarly, beginning in 1977, Native Americans began to gain increasing access to
international forums such as the United Nations, through which new and sometimes effective
sorts of pressure can be brought to bear upon the US. All of this added up, between 1965 and
1980, to a radical alteration of the context in which indigenous water rights were pursued.”260
Indian groups in the US are now reasserting their rights and seeking compensation in the courts (see
above). Indeed, the struggle over water rights has been described as “the last chapter in the Indian
wars.”261 As Madonna Thunderhawk, a Hunkpapa Lakota AIM member, one of the group that
founded Women of All Red Nations, and a long-time water rights activist on the Standing Rock
Reservation in North Dakota, puts it:
“Water is the life blood, the key to the whole thing. Without water, our land rights struggles –
even if we were to win back every square inch of our unceded lands – would be meaningless.
With the water which is ours by aboriginal right, by treaty right, and by simple moral right,
we Indians can recover our self-sufficiency and our self-determination. Without that water,
we are condemned to perpetual poverty, erosion of our land base, our culture, our population
itself. If we do not recover our water rights, we are dooming ourselves to extinction. It’s that
simple. And so I say that the very front line of the Indian liberation struggle, at least in the
plains and desert regions, is the battle for control over our water.”262

3.2 Lessons learned:

This review suggests that among the key actions for Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities in
dealing with dam-building schemes are the following elements:
• Early involvement in project planning and evaluation of options. Experience suggests that the
earlier in the project cycle people engage with developers, the better chances they have of
securing a favourable outcome, be it stopping the dam, relocating or redesigning it or ensuring
acceptable compensation.
• Get informed. Early and then sustained access to all official or company documents relating to
planned projects is essential for well-judged interventions. Some countries and many international
development agencies have freedom of information acts or policies, which can be appealed to if
documents are not forthcoming.

• Establish strong autonomous institutions. Organised and mobilised communities with widely
accepted and open decision-making processes have proven far better able to deal with dam-
building projects than divided ones.
• Secure legal standing for representative institutions. In many countries, customary institutions are
not legally recognised. Organisation and registration using existing laws may be crucial before the
people concerned is accepted in negotiations.
• Register land ownership and customary use. Even in countries which recognise indigenous rights
to lands, processes of land registration often lag far behind. Securing documentation of rights can
be crucial to strengthening community rights in negotiations.
• Document customary usage, historical occupation and current land use. Establishing independent
sources of information can be crucial in court cases and negotiations. Increasingly Indigenous
Peoples are making maps of their land use and historical occupation, using easy-to-use GPS and
GIS technologies to demonstrate their customary ties to their territories
• Use the law. Because so many dams and resettlement schemes are imposed without due regard to
legal process, recourse to the courts has proved a powerful tool for many affected peoples. Of
course, where national laws are weak and the judiciary not independent, this avenue may be
closed.
• Use international standards and procedures. International law and multilateral development
agencies not only have standards regarding human rights and resettlement but also have
procedures to respond to violations and grievances. Filing complaints with the ILO and the World
Bank’s Inspection Panel, for example, while frustratingly slow and cumbersome, has resulted in
improvements in some cases.
• Insist on legally enforceable contracts with implementing agencies. Indigenous Peoples have long
demanded that developers (governmental and private) enter into binding agreements with them,
enforceable through the courts, prior to commencing projects. Marked improvement in the way
dam-builders now deal with Indigenous Peoples in Canada has resulted from this practice.
• Involvement in preparation, environmental and social impact assessments, appraisal, monitoring
& evaluation. Integral involvement of representatives of the affected communities in the full
project cycle improves communications, allows the earlier identification of potential problems
and implementation errors, and facilitates the identification of mutually acceptable solutions.
• Share experiences. Sharing experiences between Indigenous Peoples in different areas, countries
or even continents through meetings, workshops, community exchanges has proved a valuable
way for Indigenous Peoples to learn from each other and strengthen their resolve to confront their
problems.

3.3 Non-Governmental Organisations: the value of long-term

support work
The risks that NGOs substitute their agenda and voice for that of affected communities have been
highlighted above. Despite these negative cases, many Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities have
found NGOs to be important allies in helping them find solutions to the problems they face from
large dams. Especially in developing countries, NGOs are also often able to help affected
communities access funds to build up their capacity to deal with proposed projects.

The main tasks that NGOs need to assist affected communities with are those highlighted above.
Experience has taught NGOs a number of other key lessons in their support work with Indigenous
Peoples. These include:

! Ensure the affected people maintain the initiative. Although cultural traditions of advocacy and
support work vary widely around the globe, ensuring a democratic and mutually accountable
relationship between NGOs and affected groups is vital to maintaining trust and good
communications.
! Maintain a long-term engagement. Staff turnover in NGOs is high and the focus of their work is
often driven by donor fashions. Dealing with large dams, however, has proved a very long-term
exercise. NGOs are most effective where they are able to maintain their commitment to support
communities over decades. If they do so they become important reservoirs of experience and
often evolve longer institutional memories than official development agencies making them
potentially valuable partners in development planning.
! Build up detailed documentation and information. NGOs have proven especially valuable allies to
Indigenous Peoples where their wider networks and greater access to modern communications
give them access to information about laws, likely impacts, comparable experiences and effective
negotiating tactics.
! Open sustained, high-level media campaigns have also proved important for ensuring
transparency and accountability where government officials and project staff have proved
reluctant to deal fairly with the affected peoples.

3.4 Private Sector: sharing power

The move to private sector development of dams is relatively new and only a few of the longer
established companies have taken any initiative to address the issues raised in this paper. Indeed,
many of the new companies developing dam projects have no previous experience in building or
operating dams. For example, S. Kumars Power Corporation Limited, the company developing the
Maheshwar Dam in India, is a textile company with no previous experience of dam building.263
Similarly the huge consortium, Bakun Hydroelectric Corporation, formed to build the Bakun dam in
the Malaysian State of Sarawak and which was prepared for flotation on the Kuala Lumpur Stock
Exchange in 1996, had no prior dam building experience.264 Both projects have been highly
controversial and have had a very low level of participation of the affected peoples. Despite
community objections and resistance, construction and involuntary resettlement schemes have been
pushed through.

Companies and professional bodies with a greater experience of building dams have, however, begun
to evolve clear standards and policies, which suggest greater sensitivity to the needs and views of
indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities.265 The International Finance Corporation, the private sector
financing arm of the World Bank notes that:

‘Public consultation plays a critical role in raising awareness of a project’s impacts and
gaining agreement on management and technical approaches in order to maximise benefits
and reduce negative consequences. Furthermore, consulting and collaborating with the
public makes good business sense. Public consultation can lead to reduced financial risk
(from delays, legal disputes, and negative publicity), direct cost savings, increased market
share (though good public image), and enhanced social benefits to local communities.’266

Leading dam builders go further. For example, in its 1997 Position Paper on Dams and the
Environment, ICOLD - the International Commission on Large Dams, a professional body bringing
together many major dam- building interests - states:

"f) Involuntary resettlement must be handled with special care, managerial skill and political
concern based on comprehensive social research, and sound planning for implementation.
The associated costs must be included in the comparative economic analyses of alternative
projects, but should be managed independently to make sure that the affected population will
be properly compensated. For the population involved, resettlement must result in a clear
improvement of their living standard, because the people directly affected by a project should
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 49

always be the first to benefit instead of suffering for the benefit of others [For that reason,
under a law dating back to 1916, communities in Switzerland are entitled to considerable
annual payments and quotas of free energy for granting the rights to hydropower
development on their territory]. Special care must be given to vulnerable ethnic groups.

g) Even if there is no resettlement problem, the impact of water resources development

projects on local people can be considerable during both construction and operation. All
such projects have to be planned, implemented and operated with the clear consent of the
public concerned. Hence, the organisation of the overall decision-making process,
incorporating the technical design as a sub-process, should involve all relevant interest
groups from the initial stages of project conceptualisation, even if existing legislation does
not (yet) demand it.

Such concerted action requires continuous, comprehensive and objective information on the
project to be given to governmental authorities, the media, local action committees or other
non-governmental organisations, and above all to the directly or indirectly affected people
and their representatives. In this information transfer from planners to the public, dam
engineers must contribute, through their professional expertise, to a clear understanding and
dispassionate discussion based on facts and not on irrational ideas of the positive and
negative aspects of a project and its possible alternatives. Dam promoters must act as
mediators and educators with the aim of becoming good neighbours and not intruders." 267

Likewise, as noted above, the International Hydropower Association has also endorsed the principle
of prior and informed consent for future dam-building. Hydro-Quebec, strictly speaking a state-owned
for-profit utility, has perhaps gone furthest in elaborating these principles in detail and seeking to put
them into practice. As the company notes in its submission to this review, the way it deals with
Indigenous Peoples has transformed in the past forty years, “from ignoring such issues in the 1950s
and 1960s to proposals today of full partnership with local communities…”. Its first major project
affecting Indigenous Peoples, the James Bay project, had ignored Indigenous land claims and led to
lengthy litigation, eventually resulting in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement between
seven signatories including the Federal and Quebec Governments and the Cree and Inuit nations. The
settlement secured financial benefits for the Cree and Inuit, ownership title to defined areas of land,
and future hunting, trapping and fishing rights to a much wider area, in exchange for extinguishing
their ancestral land rights. The company believes that the Quebec Cree have benefited overall from
the project and points to a report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People which compares
their current situation [very] favourably with the Ontario Cree to the west.268 Yet, as noted above, the
James Bay Cree themselves still have major concerns about the impact of the James Bay complex and
the way proposed projects are being negotiated.

Current Hydro-Quebec policy stresses that, for projects to go ahead, they should be environmentally
acceptable, socially accepted and profitable. As the company points out. “This is a major shift
inasmuch as it clearly puts environmental and social considerations on an equal footing with
economic ones”.269

The acceptance of the principle of prior and informed consent marks a turning point in discussions
between Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities and the developers of large dams. A crucial issue
for affected communities that then needs clarification and acceptance is the means by which consent
is expressed. In the case of Hydro-Quebec, the company notes that agreements are negotiated between
the company and Band Councils which are then subject to rejection or acceptance, sometimes by
referendum, of the entire community. The exact modalities for negotiation and reaching agreement
vary from case to case and depend on various factors, including the political organisation of the
peoples concerned. The company emphasises the importance of capacity-building of indigenous
institutions for there to be a sense of partnership and trust in negotiations. These negotiations between
the communities and the company include seeking agreements on; mechanisms for the joint design
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 50

and implementation of mitigation and compensation measures; compensation for negative impacts
such as loss of hunting and fishing opportunities: economic development programmes and monitoring
arrangements. In addition the company allocates a fund of 1-2% of capital investment in the project
towards community development funds. In future, Hydro-Quebec hopes to go further and develop
options that will allow direct community participation in social and environmental assessments – with
joint EIAs being aspired to – and that will result in the company sharing ownership and revenues with
affected communities where feasible.270 However, as noted above, the Grand Council of the Crees of
Quebec argues that the company should have been negotiating directly with them as the political body
elected by the Cree people rather than piecemeal with the Band Councils.271

Another project that Hydro-Quebec has negotiated with Indigenous Peoples is the Sainte Margarite 3
Hydroelectric Development, which gained approval from the Quebec Government in 1994 subject to
the company reaching a negotiated agreement with the Montagnais (Innu). The project has divided the
affected Innu people, with the Band Council only securing approval, through a referendum of the two
communities, by a very narrow majority of 52%/48%.272 As Hydro-Quebec itself admits “the
referendum temporarily amplified divisions in the community: between Uashat and Maliotenam [the
two villages], and between the Traditionalists and Others”.273 These divisions were mostly due to a
proposed river diversions which are considered essential for the profitability of the project but which
will affect one community in particular, Maliotenam. The river diversions were not authorised by the
government. Hydro-Quebec has decided it will only go ahead with the diversions if and when local
consent and government approval are secured. 274 Meanwhile the rest of the project is under
construction and due for completion in 2001. The project can be modified to incorporate the river
diversions once and if they get the go-ahead.275

Hydro-Quebec notes that three conditions make it possible for the principle of prior and informed
consent to be adopted in Canada – the existence of choices between dams sites, the existence of
alternative energy generation technologies, such a natural gas turbines, and the relative affluence of
Canadian citizens which removes the urgency from development decisions aimed at poverty
alleviation. Hydro-Quebec makes the observation:

“In countries where only one or limited sites are available for hydropower development and
water supply, where needs are pressing, where electricity production alternatives are few, the
approach of local consent to new projects takes another dimension. In some cases, giving
“veto” power to local communities on projects that may provide essential public services to
millions raises a fundamental ethical dilemma: the balance between minority and majority
rights. Such “veto” power may even backfire against local communities raising resentment
and social tensions as the majority may feel hostage to the decisions of a few. This is not to
say that projects of national importance should be rammed through at the expense of local
communities – we have seen enough of such justifications around the world over the last
generations, with disastrous consequences on local communities and the environment alike.
We simply are pointing out a difficult ethical issue which projects might raise in less
developed economies.” 276

Reflecting on such arguments Peter Bosshard of the Berne Declaration, a Swiss NGO, made these
remarks to the recent WCD hearing in London:

! Should Southern governments care less about the economics of their power projects because they
are poor? Can they better afford to waste resources on a dam which is more expensive than, say,
increasing the efficiency of the transmission system? Certainly not.

! Should Southern governments care less about the social impacts of their projects? Are their
industrial and urban consumers so poor that they need to be subsidised by the even poorer dam-
affected people? Again – certainly not. After all, it is the affected people who pay for the so-
called external costs, and not the North, or outer space.
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 51

! Finally, should Southern governments care less about environmental costs? Here even more than
in the North, natural resources are not a luxury concern, but support the economic livelihood of
millions of people.

So our Southern partners argue that dam projects in the South should fulfil the same basic
conditions as dams in the North, and I agree with them.”277

3.5 International development agencies: the need for

accountability
Resettlement policies related to large dams were first adopted by the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation in 1971.278 As mentioned above, a more detailed policy on Involuntary
Resettlement was adopted by the World Bank in 1980 and revised in 1990. The 1990 policy was
endorsed by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development in 1993, implying acceptance of these same standards by the other main multilateral
and bilateral development agencies.

The World Bank’s current resettlement policy is at odds with Indigenous Peoples’ demands in a
number of respects. The first and most obvious is that it unquestioningly accepts the doctrine of
eminent domain and thus accepts the principle that international development assistance can
legitimately be given to projects that entail obligatory expropriation and forced relocation. Since the
acceptance of resettlement by local communities is not required, such a policy provides little incentive
to either borrower government or Bank project officers to enter into meaningful negotiations with
local communities or seek alternative, more acceptable development options. Casting the local
communities into the role of victims and passive beneficiaries contributes substantially to project
failure.

Although the multilateral development banks have developed a number of other policies designed to
improve civil society participation in projects, the overall top-down and imposed character of
internationally financed dam projects remains a major problem for Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic
Minorities. This tendency, coupled with the procedural weaknesses and deficient incentive structures
summarised above, means that policies are applied to the minimum extent that staff can get away
with. If new mechanisms were in place to increase the accountability of project staff to those affected
the performance of multilaterally funded projects could increase markedly.

3.6 MDB examples of ‘Best Practice’:

Also worrying for Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities are the apparently low standards of ‘Best
Practice’ that the multilateral agencies seem to have accepted. The problems with the World Bank’s
positive assessment of the Khao Laem project have been noted above. For its part the Asian
Development Bank has stated that the resettlement of Iban Dayaks to make way for the Batang Ai
dam in Sarawak was an example of a ‘culturally sensitive and economically sound programme’;
because ‘the policies and plans to resettle the indigenous peoples affected by the Batang Ai
Hydropower Project in Malaysia were carefully investigated and prepared.’279 Other assessments are
more sanguine.

The project caused the displacement of some 2,800 Iban from 26 longhouses. A study carried out by
the Sarawak Museum before the project began showed that 98% of the Iban still practised their
traditional religion and maintained a strong attachment to their traditional customs, beliefs and
traditional aspects of longhouse living. Most of the people felt their standard of living had improved
in recent years and that they already had sufficient income from rubber and pepper that they cultivated
in the old swiddens. Many feared that the gods would punish them with natural disasters if they
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 52

allowed the flooding of their sacred land. Many gave as a condition for accepting their removal that
they not be resettled on a land scheme, that they be assured the possibility of growing rice and of
maintaining their mixed economy of hunting and farming.280 Eventually the Iban were persuaded to
move in exchange for promises of free housing, free water, free electricity and 11 acres of land per
family.

The reality has proved a bitter experience. Not only were they resettled on a Government land
scheme, but they were forced to change their way of life radically. Rice cultivation proved impossible
on the terraces prepared for them and they were obliged to set up as small-holders on a plantation
scheme. Incomes fell to the point that according to one study 60% of households were below the State
poverty line, with the majority of respondents reporting that lack of land was their main problem.281

Clearly Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are awkwardly placed to deal with the sensitive
social issues related to large dams affecting Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities. Since the
Banks’ contractual counterparts are borrower governments, their interactions with affected
communities tend to be mediated through Government agencies. MDB policies thus tend to get
weakened and attenuated by lack of commitment or capacity on the part of borrower government
institutions to adhere to MDB standards and policies.

To get around this problem, the solution that Indigenous Peoples have long advocated is for there to
be tripartite agreements between the MDBs, Governments and Indigenous Peoples, thus ensuring that
the affected peoples are directly involved in project planning, implementation and monitoring.
Indigenous Peoples likewise have insisted that they should have the right to accept or reject proposed
developments in their territories.282

3.7 Inter-American Development Bank: informed consent

In 1998, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) adopted a policy on Involuntary Resettlement
which comes close to accepting these demands. The policy institutes gradually improving practices
that the IDB began to adopt since the mid-1980s, after reviews had shown that several IDB-funded
projects were failing to address the needs of those being forcibly resettled. Effective resettlement, the
reviews found, could be achieved when:

• there was broad participation of those affected mediated through their local representative
institutions
• compensation of land for land was offered
• resettlement plans and schedules were well linked to the construction programme
• resettlement was followed up with broader economic and social development initiatives.283

Accordingly, in 1984, the IDB adopted ‘socio-cultural check-lists’ meant to be used by IDB
operational staff to ensure these kinds of issues were addressed in future projects. Systematic
screening of projects for environmental and social impacts was instituted in 1990 and ‘operational
guidelines on involuntary resettlement’ were adopted in 1991 and have been updated several times
since. Finally, and building on the lessons learned in the intervening time,284 the IDB adopted a public
policy on involuntary resettlement in 1998.285

The IDB policy requires borrower governments and staff to make every effort to avoid or minimise
the need for involuntary resettlement through a search for alternatives and through adequate
assessment of the numbers of people likely to be impacted and the full costs of resettlement. The
policy also insists that any resettlement plan should secure at least equal living standards for those
relocated. Specifically with respect to Indigenous Peoples, the policy stipulates the need for:

• informed consent by the affected people

• their extensive participation in the design of the compensation and resettlement plan
• full recognition of customary rights
• fair compensation including special measures to compensate for loss of cultural property (such as
burial or sacred sites) and to minimise disruptions to existing patterns of socio-cultural
organisation
• compensation with land for land lost where required
• indigenous communities be better off after removal.286

IDB staff interviewed in this review believe that the adoption of the operational guidelines and the
policy have already led to significant improvements. Resettlement has become less frequent and,
where unavoidable, planning has improved. Resettlement is now seen as an integral part of projects on
a par with the engineering or construction components. and accounts for approximately 30% of the
overall costs of rural projects involving relocation and 50% of urban projects. Notwithstanding these
improvements, the IDB staff note that the main obstacle to further advance is weak borrower
government capacity. Even where dam-building or other development activities are carried out by the
private sector on Indigenous Peoples’ lands, there is a pressing need for strengthened government
capacity to ensure indigenous participation and to regularise tenure. The IDB is currently proposing
programmes of institutional strengthening with governments to help secure indigenous rights.

Although the African Development Bank has yet to accept the principle of prior and informed
consent, its review of its financing of dam-building projects in Africa reveal that project performance
improves if resettlement programmes are first discussed and negotiated with the local communities.
Where, as in the case of the Lupoholo-Ezulwini project, the resettlement ‘plan has taken into account
all the social and cultural specifications of the populations, for example by transferring the graves, and
meeting beforehand, all the costs relating thereto, to the satisfaction of the traditional chiefs’, the
AfDB considers that a successful resettlement has resulted.287 In general, however, resettlement
performance of AfDB-funded projects appears to have been inadequate, one cause being that ‘the
frequency and quality of the Bank’s supervision missions have proved to be largely insufficient’ and
as a result the AfDB’s project preparation and appraisal guidelines have not been adhered to.288

3.8 Uncertain progress at the World Bank:

Surprisingly, the World Bank, which until the 1990s had shown a leadership role in its adoption of
new standards on both Indigenous Peoples and Involuntary Resettlement, may now be falling behind
the Inter-American Development Bank. Indeed, many NGOs and even some World Bank staff
interviewed in the course of this review consider that the World Bank is presently moving in the
opposite direction through a process of revising and simplifying its Operational Directives. Among
those policies being revised by the World Bank are both the policy on Indigenous Peoples and that on
Involuntary Resettlement.

As this article goes to press, the World Bank is currently reviewing comments made by NGOs and
resettlement experts on its new draft Operational Policy on Involuntary Resettlement, which it plans
to submit to its board of executive directors for approval and adoption in early 2000. The principle
advance in the new policy is that it will consider projects to be ‘active’ so long as the social mitigation
plans have not been fully implemented, whereas previously the Bank considered a project closed once
the infrastructure component was completed, regardless of whether or not the resettlement had been
duly carried out.

Notwithstanding this advance, a number of serious concerns have been raised about the current draft,
including the following:

• it does not accept the principle of prior and informed consent, either for those relocated in general
or for Indigenous Peoples in particular
• a land for land provision is not mandatory
• there is no assurance that those resettled are made better off than before.

In addition to correcting these deficiencies, those reviewing the draft policy have recommended the
following additional changes to the draft:

• Clearer stipulations are needed to ensure the involvement of local communities in baseline
surveys
• Clearer provisions are needed to secure the interests of customary rights holders
• Explicit provisions are required on the need for compensation for non-monetised economic
activities, unquantifiable livelihood functions and cultural losses
• Stronger measures are required to ensure the involvement of project affected people in
Monitoring and Evaluation
• Enforceable mechanisms are required for the redress of grievances
• A proposed advisory panel should include independent members.

It remains to be seen how far the World Bank will go in responding to these suggestions. However,
the indications are that although the World Bank strongly favour processes that involve disclosure of
information about proposed projects and effective public consultations, including special measures to
address the concerns of Indigenous Peoples and other vulnerable groups, it feels unable to accept the
principle of prior and informed consent.289

If MDBs are to restore confidence that their dam building projects will really benefit affected
communities, much bolder reforms are required. Land for land provisions should be restored. The
principle of prior and informed consent of affected peoples should be insisted on. Tri-partite
agreements between MDBs, Governments and Indigenous Peoples or Ethnic Minorities should be
mandatory. In addition, new internal procedures should be instituted making MDB project staff
personally accountable for the faulty application of policies and providing the right incentives for
them to invest the time and resources in adhering to them. Moreover, MDBs need to recognise that
the norms that they establish have wider implications beyond their own performance and the quality
of the projects they fund. They influence national laws in borrower countries, shape the policies of
other aid agencies and international bodies and may even contribute to emerging principles of
international law. As international indigenous rights lawyer Benedict Kingsbury notes:

It is incumbent on international institutions to recognise that in adopting, applying and

supervising their policies they are doing more than making rules for themselves: they are
participating in an international normative process.290

3.9 Governments
Although the private sector and international funding agencies play an increasingly important role in
the building of large dams, it still remains the responsibility of governments to legislate standards for
dam construction. Application of these standards in turn implies a coherent and positive policy
framework regarding both dams and indigenous peoples, adequate institutional capacity, the rule of
law and the maintenance of an independent judiciary. Governments, in short, remain key players.

In section 1, this study has already examined some of the ‘best practice’ examples set by governments
towards indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities. Pluralist policies, which devolve power to local
communities and grant autonomy to Indigenous Peoples are increasingly finding favour in Latin
America and in some Asian countries. Legislation recognising indigenous peoples’ rights to their
lands and territories has begun to be adopted and applied in South America and the Philippines. An
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 55

important step forward is being made by those countries which have ratified ILO Convention # 169.
In addition some countries have begun to modify the principle of eminent domain, by requiring the
consent of local communities or indigenous peoples before development plans get government
approval (see p. xx above).

A comprehensive review of these national developments is beyond the scope of this paper. What is
clear, however, is that, if the principle of free, prior and informed consent is to be legally accepted and
practically applied, many countries will need to carry out far-reaching legal and institutional reforms.
These reforms are likely to gain ground if clear policies on free, prior and informed consent are
adopted by multilateral development banks, bilateral aid programmes, export credit agencies and by
the private sector.

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

4.1 Conclusions
Taken together, the literature review, email consultation, interviews, seminars in Washington and the
public meeting in Geneva, all undertaken as part of this study, provide a fairly sound basis for the
following general conclusions about ‘Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’.
Distinctive status and rights

• Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities constitute distinctive social categories in international
law and development practice and, on these grounds alone, merit special attention from the dam-
building industry.

• International law and standard-setting accepts these peoples’ rights to: self-definition; to practice
and maintain their own religions, languages and cultures; to exercise their customary law; to
represent themselves through their own institutions; to the ownership, management and control of
their lands, territories and resources; to compensation with land for land in the case of relocation;
and to participate in decisions regarding their future.

Serious Impacts
• Large dams have disproportionately impacted Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities. Future
dam building also targets their lands disproportionately.
• Major impacts include: loss of land and livelihood; the undermining of the fabric of their
societies; cultural loss; fragmentation of political institutions; breakdown of identity; human
rights abuse.
• Women have been especially badly affected.
• The majority of those affected have been made worse off than before.

Procedural failures
A number of procedural failures have contributed to these problems:
• Failure to identify the distinctive characteristics of affected peoples in project planning
• Failure to recognise customary rights
• Denial of the land for land provision
• Inadequate compensation and ill-planned resettlement
• No prior and informed consent
• No negotiation
• Failure to appreciate the wider impacts of projects or carry out watershed-wide planning
• Inadequate or absent environmental and social impact assessments
• Tardy and inadequate reparations

Underlying problems

Underlying these problems and procedural failures lie a number of institutional, structural and
political factors. The study has highlighted the following:
• Denial of the right to self-determination.
• Social exclusion including through official policies and institutions and prevalent discrimination
in national societies.
• Lack of consideration of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities in regional and national
energy and water policies and plans.

• The inability of Cost-Benefit Analyses to capture Indigenous Peoples’ and Ethnic Minorities’
priorities and values.
• The focus of private companies, funders and government agencies on large-scale projects to the
exclusion of alternatives.
• The engineering of consent and the denial of voices of opposition
• The pressure to lend in international financial institutions which results in over-rapid decision-
making, lack of consideration of alternatives, abbreviated participation and failures to apply
agreed procedures.
• The lack of accountability of dam builders, operators, contractors, consultants and funders to the
affected peoples. This tendency is likely to be exacerbated by moves to increasingly privatise the
dam building industry.
• The acceptance among macro-economic planners of the need for social engineering to promote
modern development processes.

Emerging ‘Best Practice’

Encouragingly, substantial movement has already been achieved towards a consensus on ‘best
practice’ by some multilateral development banks, some governments, elements in the private sector,
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities and among NGOs. Among those ‘best practices’ on which
there is emerging consensus, if not full agreement, are the following:
! The need for Government policies and laws which recognise Indigenous Peoples’ and Ethnic
Minorities’ rights and promote cultural diversity, territorial management and self-governance.
! Acceptance of the principle of free, prior and informed consent (including implicitly the right of
veto).
! Early negotiations between dam-builders and affected peoples.
! Agreements which provide enforceable contracts, mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes, and
joint implementation and remedial measures, without demanding the surrender of rights.
! The establishment of independent regulatory oversight mechanisms to ensure compliance.
! Compensation with land for land.
! Joint social and environmental impact assessments and joint monitoring and evaluation.
! Resettlement and impact mitigation plans which ensure that those relocated end up better off than
before removal.
! Benefit sharing options including revenue sharing or joint ownership schemes.
! Capacity building of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities institutions.

Although, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) led the way in the 1980s in establishing
standards for resettlement and rehabilitation, their subsequent failure to adhere to these standards has
been all too well documented. A worrying finding of this review is that some MDBs seem to be
weakening rather than strengthening their standards. They also seem reluctant to reform the incentive
structures for staff so that they have the time, resources and inclination to apply these standards. In
order to sustain the general movement towards consensus on ‘best practice’, it is urgent that MDBs
embrace the principles of free, prior and informed consent, compensation with land for land and that
relocatees be better off after removal.

5. Recommendations
The WCD consultation on the theme of ‘Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’, held in
the World Council of Churches in Geneva on 31 July and 1 August 1999, provided a great deal of
additional material supporting these main conclusions.291 Although time did not allow the elaboration
of detailed recommendations the following key principles and recommended practices emerged from
the discussions for consideration by the World Commission on Dams.

5.1 Recognition of the Distinct Nature and Rights of Indigenous

Peoples and Ethnic Minorities
! Proponents of large dams need to understand the distinct nature of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic
Minorities. Their rights flow from this distinctiveness. The United Nations Draft Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples should guide the interactions of national governments, the
private sector and other external agencies with such peoples. In particular the rights of Indigenous
Peoples to self-definition, to the ownership and control of their territories, to exercise their
customary law, to practise their traditional religions, to represent themselves through their own
institutions and to self-determination need to be recognised.
! Many Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities continue to suffer racial and cultural
discrimination and their rights to their customary lands and the resources they depend on are often
not adequately recognised. Distinct and appropriate measures are therefore needed to ensure they
are not further marginalised in dam building programmes.

5.2 The Fundamental Importance of Territories

! Many speakers stressed the fundamental significance to indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities
of their territories. As a spokesperson for the Saami put it: ‘Indigenous Peoples have a right to a
past, a right to a presence and a right to a future’. Their right to the past is bound up with their
attachment to their territories. ‘The land, the forests and the rivers are our mothers’ as another
speaker noted. Their right to a presence, implies a right to a voice in decision-making and to have
a secure place on the earth. Moreover, in looking to the future, ‘as members of indigenous peoples
we don’t have the right to sell out our cultural existence because of the coming generations’.
! What Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities seek is to become active protagonists of their
own development and no longer to be cast into the roles of passive recipients of aid or victims of
development.

5.3 Rethinking the doctrine of eminent domain

! Accommodating Indigenous Peoples’ and Ethnic Minorities rights’ implies rethinking the
doctrine of eminent domain. Expropriation of their lands in the national interest against their will
implies for them not just a loss of private property but a violation of their fundamental human
rights and freedoms, including in particular their right to exercise their own religions which are
bound up with their ancestral lands. The meaning of the ‘national interest’ in the context of multi-
ethnic, pluri-cultural societies embracing a number of nations or nationalities in any case needs
clarification.
! The doctrine of eminent domain also needs rethinking as dams are increasingly being built for
private profit by corporations and are often designed to feed into regional electricity grids and
promote exports. National needs and interests are not clearly or uniquely being served by dams
built under such circumstances.

5.4 Free, Prior and Informed Consent

! The principle of free, prior and informed consent should guide the building of dams that may
affect Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities. Such consent should be sought at the very
beginning of the process of considering plans to build dams.
! As an industry spokesperson noted at the meeting, early negotiation of consent is not just ethically
desirable but also saves time and money and helps ensure that social and environmental issues are
adequately taken into account in planning and implementation.
! Ensuring that such consent is really free, prior and informed implies:
- Recognising the peoples’ own representative institutions as required by ILO Convention
169.
- Information is made available in a timely manner and in a form and in languages
intelligible to the local communities (and not just their leaders or lawyers).
! The right to free consent implies equally the right to dissent (right of veto). Where a people are
clearly opposed to a particular project their decision should be respected and they should continue
to benefit in the same way as other peoples from State benefits, development plans and services.

5.5 Respect for Human Rights

! Indigenous Peoples’ and Ethnic Minorities’ fundamental human rights and freedoms must be
secured through the whole dam-building process.
! As the representative of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
noted at the meeting, in addition to the other rights already highlighted by others, this includes –
inter alia – the right to life, the right to livelihood, the right to participation, the right to exercise
one’s own religion and the right of opposition as set out in the Declaration on Human Rights
Defenders.
! In countries or situations of pervasive repression or denial of rights and freedoms, international
agencies and companies should be especially cautious about involving themselves in dam-
building projects.

5.6 Early Involvement in the Planning Cycle

! Representatives of the peoples concerned should be involved in national and regional energy and
water planning and not just at the project level:
! Full consideration of alternatives, including those suggested by the peoples concerned, should be
carried out before focusing on any particular project.

5.7 Negotiated Settlements

! To ensure clear and binding agreements based on mutual understanding, learning from each other
and sharing of knowledge, negotiations should result in mutually agreed, formal and legally
enforceable settlements.
! Settlements should not require the surrender of rights.
! External funding and construction agencies should also be legally accountable for their
involvement in, or support for, such projects.
! Mutually accepted arbitration processes for the resolution of ensuing disputes should be part of
these settlements.

5.8 Joint Implementation and Monitoring

! The peoples concerned should be integrally involved in joint environmental and social impact
assessments. Social impact assessments should be given the same status and importance as
environmental impact assessments.
! A fundamental principle of mutually agreed resettlement and rehabilitation plans must be
compensation with lands, territories and resources equal in quality, size and legal status to those
lost.
! There should be full compensation for any loss or injury.
! Remedial measures should be incorporated to cushion social, cultural and institutional disruption.
! The peoples concerned should be jointly involved in project implementation and in Monitoring
and Evaluation.
! Special provisions must be made to ensure that the interests of women are taken into account.
! Where requested settlements should include fair sharing of benefits or options for joint ownership
and profit sharing.

5.9 Restitution for Past Loss

! The meeting noted the huge numbers of people affected by past dams who had been denied
adequate compensation or rehabilitation. Many of their problems endure, or become apparent,
after the dams have been constructed or made operational and may even carry on after they have
been decommissioned.
! Mechanisms need to be established to allocate responsibility for these damages and to provide
reparations and compensation for peoples displaced by these past projects. These mechanisms
should include measures to compensate for all losses and for the suffering endured since the dams
were built.

5.10 Enforcement of Standards

! The need for enforceable standards was emphasised. The suggestion was made that the World
Commission on Dams should recommend the establishment of some kind of international
‘Ombudsman’ or ‘Tribunal’ to oversee the future implementation of such standards.
! One participant suggested that, in the absence of clear standards and processes of enforcement,
there should be a moratorium on the building of large dams.
! The WCD should refer to the ‘Guidelines relating to transitional corporations and indigenous
peoples submitted by the Indigenous Preparatory Meeting’ to the Working Group on Indigenous
Population in 1997.292
The meeting recognised that further discussions were needed if adequate and more detailed
recommendations were to be developed. Separate lists of recommendations should be developed for
all the actors involved in dam building including: Governments, International Financial Institutions,
including Export Credit Agencies, the Private Sector, Consultancies, the United Nations, NGOs and
for affected peoples.

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Endnotes

1
The findings and conclusions of this paper derive from an extensive but not exhaustive review of the available
literature, the results of an email questionnaire sent out to several hundred individuals known to be involved in
the issues of Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities and/or Dams, and telephone interviews with a number of
legal experts, indigenous spokespersons and NGOs. The consultation embraced a wide range of actors,
including industry, international development agencies, environment and development NGOs and
representatives of Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities. The paper also draws on the findings of the
WCD’s joint consultation on ‘Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’, held in Geneva on 31 July – 1
August 1999. In addition, the draft paper was presented and discussed at two seminars held in Washington DC
in early November at the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to ensure that account was
taken of their perspectives.
2
Colchester 1993, 1995; Tenant 1994; Gray 1995; Kingsbury 1995; Fisher 1993; Maybury-Lewis 1996; Daes
1996a:72; Pritchard 1998a:44; Pritchard 1998b:61. Some Asian and African countries already accept that the
term ‘indigenous peoples’ applies to the ‘tribal peoples’ and ‘cultural minorities’ within their borders, including
Nepal, Philippines, Cambodia and Botswana. In a landmark case for the Ainu of Japan, on 28 March 1997 a local
court in Sapporo, Hokkaido, recognised the Ainu as an indigenous and minority people. The Asian Development
Bank has also adopted a policy on ‘indigenous peoples’ to guide its operations. For a more nuanced discussion of
the applicability of the concept of indigenous peoples to Asia see Kingsbury 1998.
3
Daes 1996b.
4
The Working Group on Indigenous Populations has accepted the following working definition from the ‘Cobo
Report’ of 1986 as the basis for its work: ‘Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having
a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider
themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They
form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future
generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity; as the basis of their continued existence as
peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.’
5
Thornberry 1987.
6
Gray 1995; Thornberry 1996; Kingsbury 1995; 1998.
7
World Bank 1991.
8
Daes 1996b.
9
The following countries have ratified ILO Convention 169: Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador,
Fiji, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay and Peru. The following countries have
ratified ILO Convention 107: Angola, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Dominican
Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, India, Iraq, Malawi, Pakistan, Panama, Portugal,
Syrian Arab Republic and Tunisia. Venezuela has incorporated ILO Convention 107 into national law but has
not registered its adherence to the Convention with the International Labour Office.
10
Bennett 1978.
11
General Recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination XXIII(51)
concerning Indigenous Peoples. Adopted at the Committee’s 1235th meeting, on 18 August 1997,
CERD/C/51/Misc.13/Rev.4 cited in Kambel and MacKay 1999.
12
Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee: Canada 07/04/99, at para. 8 UN Doc
CCPR/C/79/Add. 105 (Concluding Obervations/Comments 1999) cited in Kambel and MacKay 1999.
13
Jenning 1984.
14
Orange 1987; Prucha 1994; Alfonso Martinez 1998.
15
Until recently, the Human Rights Committee had avoided making a judgment on whether indigenous peoples
have the right to self-determination. In the 1990 case of Chief Omanayak v Canada, the Committee upheld the
complaint on the grounds of violations of other rights, thus leaving the Lubicon Cree’s right to self-
determination unaddressed. The Committee similarly declined to consider whether the ethnic Germans of Italian
Tyrol constitute a ‘people’ in the case of AB v Italy the same year (Pritchard 1998:189).
16
Thornberry 1987.
17
Thornberry 1987:7.
18
Simpson 1997.
19
World Bank 1991.
20
EU 1998.
21
ITTO 1989; WWF 1996; IUCN 1996; WCPA 1999; International Alliance 1997.
22
Morris 1985; Orange 1987; Treaty 7 elders et al. 1996; Alfonso Martinez 1998.
23
Short and McDermott 1977.
This is a draft working paper of the World Commission on Dams. It was prepared for the Commission as part of its information-gathering
activity. The views, conclusions, and recommendations are not intended to represent the views of the Commission.
Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities 78

24
Thornberry 1987; Asmal et al. 1996.
25
Bodley 1982; Colchester 1986; 1992; 1993.
26
Bello 1999; Sanchez 1996.
27
Sharma 1997.
28
Somby 1999; Hertlein 1999; Hydro-Quebec 1999; Colajacomo 1999; Corbett 1999; Carino 1999; Anguita
1999; Gabungan 1999.
29
UNRISD/79/C.14, Geneva, May 1979 cited in Turton 1987:3.
30
Fisher 1993: 27.
31
Arnstein 1969:216-224; Borrini-Feyerabend 1996.
32
Srikandarajah et al. 1996; Hildyard et al. 1998.
33
Cernea and Guggenheim 1997; Peters 1997.
34
BIC handbooks; Pua-Villamor and Ocampo 1996; Colchester 1999.
35
Letter to Baba Amte cited in Colchester 1984.
36
As Cernea and Guggenheim point out, however, national laws generally frame “due compensation” in terms
of monetary compensation and do not provide for wider forms of rehabilitation where the State’s powers of
eminent domain are exercised. “Resettlement policies concerned with providing more than remuneration for lost
assets, however, are relatively recent arrivals in national and international law . . . [However] resettlement
policies are part and parcel of much braoder, evolving concepts about human rights in development . . .
Improved international policies must be complemented by better national policies and stronger institutions to
translate policies into planning principles for actual projects” (Cernea and Guggenheim 1997: 7). For example,
using public funds to purchase replacement land that will be given to private individuals “is often not covered
by existing legislation or may even be expressly prohibited”. Similarly, “very few legal systems provide
compensation for the taking of common property, even where the displaced population depends on it for the
bulk of its needs”. Partly on the recommendation of the World Bank, the doctrine of “eminent domain” is now
“being expanded in certain legal systems to provide for measures in addition to monetary compensation”
(Shihata 1993:45).
37
Fernandes and Thukral 1989:111.
38
Statement by the US Government to the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, July 1999.
39
Federal Power Company v. Tuscarora Indian Nation, 362 U.S. 99 (1960).
40
Winters v. United States, 207 US 564 (1908).
41
Guerrero 1992:192-193.
42
Khera and Mariella 1982.
43
Although exercise of this power, and power to abrogate treaties, is bitterly contested by native Americans, the
US Congress has exercised it on a number of occasions including its decision in 1993 to abrogate the Cheyenne
River Sioux Tribe’s rights to control non-Indian hunting and trapping under the Fort Laramie Treaty regarding
lands taken by the United States for construction of the Oahe Dam and Reservoir. South Dakota v. Bourland,
113 S. Ct. 2309, 124 L. Ed. 2d 606 (1993).
44
Fergus MacKay pers. comm. 25 June, 27 and 31 July 1999.
45
Hydro-Quebec 1999.
46
Calder vs. The Attorney General of British Colombia [1973] S.C.R. 313. Ironically, the Nishga people who
fought this case, which established the principle of Aboriginal title, lost their own case (Treseder et al.
1999:10).
47
Submissions by Dr. Ted Moses, Grand Chief of the Grand Council of the Crees to the WCD 30 November, 1
and 2 December 1999. For further discussion of this case see ‘engineering consent’ below.
48
Treseder et al. 1999:11-12.
49
Delgamuukw vs. British Columbia [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010.
50
Survival International 1999; Canadian Natives Win Churchill Power Project EIS, Environmental News
Service 16 August 1999.
51
James Wilson, and Colin Sanson, pers. comm. 11 November 1999.
52
Garth Nettheim, pers. comm. 20 and 26 July 1999.
53
James 1985:146-147.
54
Tony Simpson pers. comm. 14 July 1999.
55
Upadhay and Raman 1998; Marwaha 1999; MRG 1999:19.
56
IRN bulletins 9/9/1999, 13/9/1999, 4/10/99.
57
Hydro-Quebec 1999.
58
Statement by Alison Bartle of the International Hydropower Association to the WCD-Reuters Seminar 13
July 1999, Statement by Richard Taylor on BBC Radio 4 ‘One Planet’, 4 August 1999.
59
World Bank 1994: iii-iv.

60
McCully 1996:70.
61
The Nubian people of Northern Sudan were moved four times to make way for dams between 1902 and 1963,
the majority being relocated to eastern Sudan, on the border with Eritrea and Ethiopia, in 1963 after their lands
were flooded by the Aswan Dam. Those left – some 64,300 – are mainly living in Wadi Halfa province. Their
three remaining centres of population – Wadi Halfa, Dongola and Marowe – are now threatened by a new dam,
the Kajbar Hydroelecric Project at the Nile’s third cataract. The three communities have vowed to commit mass
suicide rather than be moved again: “Allowing our land to be taken means the extinction of our distinct
language and culture forever. Our contention is that we must die before our culture and our language [die].
Where can we go if our area is taken.” Bol 1999; see also Nubian Alliance Website < http://I-
cias.com/abubakr.htm>.
62
The Volta project is often portrayed as affecting just one ethnic group. In fact, as Graham observes, the area
directly affected by the dam’s reservoir was characterised by “unusual ethnic and linquistic diversity. Krobo,
Ewe, Tongu, Akwamu, Krachi, Gonja and Dagomba, each with their own cultural traditions, coexisted
comfortably in the region." Graham 1985:135.
63
Grant 1990.
64
Guerrero 1992.
65
Anti-Slavery Society 1983. Since the publication of this study the population of Indigenous Peoples in the
Philippines has risen from the 4.7 million then estimated to a currently estimated 6-7 million.
66
The Planning Commission’s Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-90) put the figure at 40 per cent. However, a
report prepared by Working Group on Development and Welfare of Scheduled Tribes for the 1990-95 Five Year
Plan puts the figure higher – at 50 per cent. See: Government of India, Seventh Five Year Plan 1985-90, Vol. 1,
Planning Commission, 1985, pp.18-19; Government of India, Report of the Committee on Rehabilitation of
Displaced Tribals due to Development Projects, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi, 1985. Working Group
on Development and Welfare of Scheduled Tribes, Report for Eighth Five Year Plan (1990-1995), New Delhi,
cited in Thukral,1992.
67
Comments made by N.C. Saxena, Secretary to the Planning Commission, at meeting to discuss draft National
Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy, New Delhi, 21 January 1999.
68
Carino 1999.
69
World Bank 1994: iii-iv.
70
Thukral 1992.
71
Ackermann 1973:28.
72
Fearnside 1989; Gribel 1990.
73
Statement to the WCD joint consultation on ‘Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’, Geneva, 31
July – 1 August 1999.
74
Planners and water bureaucrats tend to view land merely as a commodity, one piece being easily exchanged
with another or for cash. They may fail to comprehend its spiritual and emotional significance for many people,
both indigenous and non-indigenous. Moving from one piece of land to another is thus seen as unproblematic.
For example, Ernest Ravan of the International Institute for Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering notes:
“Dams are not planned to submerge highly developed areas. Often the quality of life of the displaced indigenous
population was low, and therefore could be an opportunity to improve living standards; the construction of large
dams can sometimes prove such an opportunity. If the people prefer, however, to continue living as they have in
the past, they can do so by moving upstream in the river valley” (Razvan 1992).
75
Colchester 1986.
76
Bennett et al. 1978:2.
77
This mytho-poetic relationship to the land is well expressed by the quote from the Akawaio Indians of
Guyana cited on page 2. For other examples see Moody 1988.
78
Quoted in Burger 1987: 14.
79
Statement of the United Kurdish Committee, London, July 2nd 1999; Balfour Beatty, the UK construction
company bidding for the contract for the Ilisu Dam, variously puts the figure at “less than 15,000” and “12-
16,000 people” (Balfour Beatty 1999a,b,c).
80
World Bank 1982.
81
Morse and Berger 1992:68.
82
Morse and Berger 1992:79.
83
Morse and Berger 1992:349.
84
AfDB 1998.
85
Burger 1990:98.
86
Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities often face particular problems in this regard due to their
marginalised status within many societies. Where such peoples are pressing for recognition of their rights, they

may not be in a position to speak out openly against a project. The Ilisu dam is a case in point. With the Turkish
State engaged in a undeclared civil war with Kurds in the region where the dam is to be built, local people are
reported to be afraid to voice their concerns. The war has already killed 15,000 people and 3,000 villages have
been destoyed in counter-insurgency operations. Draconian laws have also been introduced to stamp out the
Kurds’ identity: it is currently illegal to teach the Kurdish language or to give a child a Kurdish name. Hundreds
of thousands of Kurds have fled the repression by migrating to neighbouring countries or to the West.
87
Robbek 1999.
88
Thukral 1992:22.
89
Thukral 1992:65.
90
Scudder pers. comm. 2 August 1999; Traisawasdichai 1996.
91
Quoted in Berger 1997, Annex 3:9: IRN 1999:37. The International Advisory Group, appointed to advise the
World Bank on its handling of social and environmental issues on the project, has stated that it "has doubts
about the effectiveness of consultations on the ground with the most vulnerable populations, particularly women
and ethnic minorities (as required under OD's 4.20 and 4.30).” Its own direct contacts with these groups, though
not extensive, suggest that the “level of comprehension of project proposals and their impacts is low".
92
Opaso 1999.
93
Testimony presented by Pat Adams of Energy Probe to the US Senate Sub-Committee on Foreign Operations,
1 May 1986; Said 1997.
94
Andrade 1992.
95
Treece 1987.
96
Utusan Konsumer, April:12-13; Chee Yoke Heong, ‘Not on our land: aboriginals say of dam’, IPS, 16 May
1999.
97
Colchester 1985; 1987:11.
98
ILO 1986:’Report on the Committee of Experts, Observations Concerning Ratified Conventions’,
International Labour Conference, Provisional Record 31, 72nd session (No. 31/51-31/52). Exchanges between
the ILO and the Indian Government have continued on this issue for the last 15 years. While the ILO has held to
its opinion that adivasi’s customary rights should be recognised for the purposes of compensation and
rehabilitation, the Government of India has persisted in asserting that ‘landless oustees’ are ‘encroachers’ on
State lands and not entitled to the same treatment as those with land titles. See for example ‘Report of the
Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations’, 1993:311-314.
99
World Bank, 1984.
100
Morse and Berger 1992:350.
101
Omvedt 1993.
102
Pittja 1994:54.
103
Guerrero 1992.
104
United States v David Sohappy, Snr et al., 477 US 906 (1986), cert. denied. Cited in Guerrero 1992.
105
Guerrero 1992.
106
Hertlein 1999:8.
107
Submission of the Grand Council of the Crees (Eyou Istchee) and the Cree Regional Authoiry to the
Commission on Territorial Management of the National Assembly on the Global Study of the Development of
the Region of Northern Quebec, 6 October 1978, p.5 http:/www.gcc.ca/Political-
Issues/positions/commission_on_territorial_management.htm
108
Crees and Trees, An Introduction, p. 3. http://www.gcc.ca/Environment/forestry/crees_and_trees_
an_introduction.htm.
109
Shucking 1999: She also notes: “The actions of the authorities in Samraj are clearly illegal. According to
India’s Land Acquisition Act, written notice must be given,as well as a time period allowed for landowners to
put forward objections before they can be expropriated. If the objection is overruled, they receive compensation
for payments based on prices for similar land in the same area. Because the affected people in this case belong
to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, there are additional legal provisions to protect their rights.”
110
Oliver-Smith 1991:143; CHT Commission 1991:13. Many of those resettled were displaced twice - US
engineers underestimated the size of the reservoir, resulting in many of the original resettlement sites being
flooded.
111
Fahim 1981: 73.
112
Horowitz 1989.
113
Horowitz 1989; Scudder 1990.
114
Gunaratna 1998: 13.
115
Scudder 1990, 1994.
116
Bello et al. 1982.

117
Pearce 1992.
118
Drucker 1984; Fay 1987.
119
Survival International News 1985 (7):1.
120
Women Workers’ Programme 1996:13.
121
World Bank 1993b.
122
Graham 1985:34.
123
Thukral 1992:16.
124
Bosshard 1998.
125
King 1986.
126
Thukral 1992:16.
127
Karve E. and Nimbkar, J., A Survey of People Displaced Through the Koyna Dam, Deccan College, Pune,
1969. Cited in Thukral 1992:16.
128
Rich 1994:43-46.
129
Morse and Berger 1992.
130
Partridge 1984.
131
Partridge 1984, Appendix 2:1. Recent NGO surveys suggest that more like 300,000 people will be displaced
to make way for the Narmada Sagar project.
132
Discussing the general problem of resettlement, the World Bank acknowledges the differential impacts on
men and women, arguing that women’s lives tend to be worse disrupted than men’s. “Women are harder hit by
resettlement than men since they are more likely to earn their living from small businesses located at or near
their residences. Women may also be affected disproportionately in rural areas since they are more often
dependent on common property resources. For example, gardens may more frequently be on unregistered lands
than fields owned by men”. (World Bank 1984: 2/9).
133
Hertlein 1999:9.
134
Morse and Berger 1992.
135
Hew Cheng Sim 1986:23.
136
Colchester 1989:61.
137
Carney 1988; Watts 1992.
138
Scudder 1994.
139
Thukral 1992:16.
140
IRN 1999:47.
141
Colajacomo 1999.
142
Guggenheim 1993:205.
143
Udall 1992.
144
Udall 1992.
145
World Bank 1993b.
146
Stewart et al. 1996.
147
Other social justice groups, such as the Berne Declaration, point out that the dam, as currently conceived,
breaches World Bank's guidelines for development projects on 18 counts, including OD 4.30 on Involuntary
Resettlement. There has been no consultation with affected people or local NGOs. No rehabilitation plans are
place for those who would be ousted by the project. And no compensation package has been agreed. (Bosshard
1998).
148
Quoted in Roy 1999.
149
World Bank 1994.
150
World Bank 1993:v.
151
World Bank, 1994:x.
152
World Bank 1994:4/3.
153
World Bank 1993a; Pongsapich et al. 1992; Hubbel 1994.
154
Scudder 1994.
155
Cited in Chandler 1984.
156
Grant 1990:83. Grant notes (p.83): “Overall, the black communities affected by TVA reservoir removal were
not given substantial help in reordering their lives. Several regional planners with considerable power to
approve or reject requests held racial views that did not allow for equal treatment of blacks . . . Even
communities whose leaders conformed to local standards of acceptable behaviour were treated unequally.”
157
Grant 1990:82.
158
‘Oustees of Nagarjunsagar dam after four decades: they kill the girl child to survive poverty and hardship’,
Indian Express, 4/9/1999.

159
Dharmadhikary, S., Testimony to WCD Sri Lanka Hearings. The adivasi families displaced by Bargi were
promised 2 hectares of replacement land each, even though their holdings had often been much larger than this.
Because of incompetent surveying, many families had to be resettled twice after their new lands were
submerged by the reservoir. Some of those displaced were moved to an ‘ideal village’ at Gorakhpur. Although
the village had a hospital and a school, there were no medical staff and no teachers. Deprived of almost any
means of subsistence, five people of starvation died in Gorakhpur between 1990 and 1992. (Daud 1993).
160
Yashwant, S., “Bijasen, and Beyond: Driven away by Dams”, Frontline, 30 July 1993.
161
Parasuram 1994:17.
162
Lokayan 1985; Srisailiam 1986:259.
163
Submission to WCD Brazil Hearings.
164
Submission to WCD Brazil Hearings.
165
Testimony given to author in Madungandi in 1990.
166
IRN 1999:37.
167
Dennis 1997:14-15.
168
Hirsch et al. 1992.
169
Furer-Haimendorf 1982.
170
Acreman and Hollis 1997.
171
Treece 1987.
172
Maninder Gill and Sandy Davis, pers. comm. 9 November 1999.
173
Sayer 1991:44.
174
Down to Earth No. 5 1989.
175
Chandrasena 1993.
176
Morse and Berger 1992: in 1994 the Narmada Bachao Andolan estimated that 40,000 adivasi would be
affected by the compensatory wildlife sanctuaries in Sardar Sarovar project area (‘Supreme Court of India Writ
Petition’.
177
Fearnside 1990:50.
178
Open Letter from Berne Declaration to President Jaing Zemin, 19 March 1999.
179
South China Morning Post, Thursday, 27 May 1999, ‘Zhu breaches silence on Three Gorges Dam failures’.
180
Carino 1999.
181
Robbek 1999.
182
In the early 1900s, the fortunes of the Pima and Maricopa O’Odham peoples of the Gila River Reservation
plummetted as a result of the diversion of water from the Gala for use by white settlers – with the result that the
Indians were deprived of water for their irrigated farming. The first decade of the 20th century is known by the
Pimas and Maricopa O’Odham as the “black decade”. Many other tribes have suffered similarly.
183
Guerrero1992.
184
Letter from Ted Strong of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, undated.
185
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, “Altering the Dams: Restoring the ebb and flow of the river”,
n.d. There are now 29 dams in the Federal Columbia River Power System. The other 107 dams that affect
salmon are either owned by the federal government or licensed by it.
186
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, “Altering the Dams: Restoring the ebb and flow of the river”,
n.d.
187
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission 1998; Hollenbach and Ory 1999.
188
Ortolano and Cushing 1999.
189
Dharmadhikary, S., Testimony to WCD Sri Lanka Hearings
190
Association of Producers for Communal Development of La Cienaga Grande de Lorica (ASPROCIG),
Submission to the World Commission on Dams for Sao Paulo Public Hearing, July 1999.
191
Statement by Carlos Figueroa of the Federacion de Indigenas del Estado Bolivar, Venezuela, to the World
Commission on Dams (n.d.).
192
Colchester 1996.
193
McCully 1996:40. Hydro-Quebec has since made an agreement with the affected Cree to compensate them
for this serious problem
194
Philip Raphals, ‘The Hidden Cost of Canada’s Cheap Power’, New Scientist 15 February 1992:52.
195
Joseph Milewski pers. comm. 20 September 1999 citing Chevalier, Dumont, Langlois and Penn 1977 and
Dumont, Girard and Bellavance 1998.
196
Raphals op. cit. note 196.
197
Submission of the Grand Council of the Crees, 1 December 1999.
198
Carino 1999.

199
Colajacomo 1999. The InterAmerican Development Bank, which co-financed the Chixoy dam with the
World Bank, initiated a watershed management and community development project in the Chixoy watershed
in 1992 (IDB 1999).
200
Lewis and Knight 1995.
201
Omvedt 1994.
202
McKinnon and Bhruksasri 1986; McKinnon and Vienne 1990.
203
Cobo 1986; Colchester 1992.
204
Thornberry 1987:7.
205
Statement by Quilombo spokesperson, Oriel Rodrigues Moraes, to the WCD joint consultation on ‘Dams,
Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’ in Geneva, 31 July -1August 1999.
206
Colchester 1986.
207
Andrade 1992.
208
WCED 1987: 114.
209
Colchester 1997.
210
Ferguson 1990.
211
Cited in Carino 1999.
212
Espeland 1998:1.
213
Espeland 1998:205.
214
Espeland 1998:208.
215
Espeland 1998:216.
216
O’Neill 1996 :99.
217
Quoted in Burger 1987:14.
218
Graham 1985:134.
219
Morse and Berger 1992.
220
While accepting these problems, World Bank officials believe that cost-benefit analyses can be suitably
modified to incorporate social and environmental values and can be particularly effective when they include
prior consultations with those affected.
221
Guidelines – Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Great Whale River Hydroelectric Project,
Evaluating Committee et al., Aug. 28, 1992, pp. 3-4. The Guidelines were adopted unanimously by these five
bodies, composed of representatives of the Cree, the Inuit, the Government of Canada and the Government of
Quebec.
222
Guidelines, pp. 4-7.
223
Ibid., p. 22.
224
Joint Report on the Conformity and Quality of the Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Great
Whale River Hydroelectric Project, Provincial Review Committee et al., p. 3. http://www.gcc.ca/
Environment/hydro/background/conformity report.htm.
225
Ibid., p. 65.
226
Ibid. p. 17.
227
Submission of the Grand Council of the Crees to the WCD, 1 December 1999.
228
INSAN 1996; WRM/Forests Monitor 1998; Gabungan 1999.
229
Paul Joffe and Mary Ellen Turpel, quoted in Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Astchee), Never Without
Consent, ECW Press, 1998, pp. 121-122.
230
Submission by the Grand Council of the Crees to the WCD, 1 December 1999.
231
Scudder 1994.
232
Statements to the WCD Joint Consultation on ‘Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’, Geneva,
31 July-1 August 1999; Corbett 1999; Hertlein 1999; Anguita 1999.
233
World Bank 1993: iii.
234
World Bank 1993:15.
235
World Bank 1993: iv and 14.
236
World Bank 1993: ii.
237
World Bank 1993: 8.
238
Coady, P., Statement to World Bank Board Meeting, 23 October 1992.
239
Rich 1994:148ff.
240
The distinction between private and public-sector dam building is not always easy to make. Many dams are
built by private companies on ‘build, operate and transfer’ contracts with government agencies
241
Rich 1994; Hildyard 1999.
242
Ahuja et al, 1997:9. Between 1975 and 1995, for example, the proportion of East Asians living in absolute
poverty declined from 60 per cent to 20 per cent, whilst the number of poor in the region fell by half: from 720

million to 345 million. Some of these gains, however, have been lost to the recent South East Asian economic
collapse.
243
Sadie 1960:302.
244
Etonga-Manguelle 1991.
245
Ohno 1997: 13.
246
Agarwal and Narain 1997.
247
LeMoigne et al. 1991.
248
Goldsmith and Hildyard 1984: Vol 1.
249
McCully 1996; Usher 1997.
250
General Recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination XXIII (51)
concerning Indigenous Peoples, CERD/C/51/Misc 13/Rev.4.
251
Thukral and Sakate 1992:143-154.
252
Dozier 1966:212ff.
253
Regpala 1990.
254
Diaz de Jesus and Jesus Alejandro 1999.
255
Khera and Mariella 1982; Guerrero 1992; Hertlein 1999; Hydro-Quebec 1999.
256
Shripad Dharmadhikary Testimony to WCD Sri Lanka Hearings.
257
See, for example: Association of Producers for Communal Development of La Cienaga Grande de Lorica
(ASPROCIG), Submission to WCD Public Hearings, Sao Paulo, July 1999.ASPROCIG notes of those affected
by the Urra Dam in Colombia: “Urra S.A. and the Colombian government have totally refused to allow the
affected communities to participate in decision making about the construction of the dam. It is only through
their own actions, international pressure and the ruling of the constitutional court that Urra SA and the
Environment Ministry have taken timid steps toward consulting those affected.”
258
McCully 1996:7.
259
Khera and Mariella 1982.
260
Guerrero 1992.
261
Michael Swan, an attorney involved in western water rights litigation for the US Interior Department, quoted
in Guerrero 1992:207.
262
Quoted in Guerrero 1992:208.
263
Schucking 1999.
264
Delphi International 1996; INSAN 1996.
265
New private sector standards are also being adopted by other sectors. For a discussion of indigenous peoples
and oil development see Tomei 1998.
266
IFC 1998:3 emphasis added.
267
ICOLD 1997 emphasis added.
268
Canada 1996:41-42 cited in Hydro-Quebec 1999:12.
269
Hydro-Quebec 1999 emphasis added. As noted in Section I, Canadian practice obliges Hydro-Quebec to seek
consent for its schemes. Its failure to gain such consent in the Grande Baleine project, after a substantial
investment in project planning and impact assessments, has the made the company very aware of the need to
work closely with affected communities if it is to secure the outcome that it desires.
270
Hydro-Quebec 1999: Corfa and Milewski 1998:10.
271
Submission of the Grand Council of the Crees to the WCD, 1 December 1999.
272
Hydro-Quebec 1999.
273
Corfa and Milewski 1998:8.
274
Statement by Real Courcelles of Hydro-Quebec to the WCD Joint Consultation on ‘Dams, Indigenous
Peoples and Ethnic Minorities’, Geneva, 31 July –1 August 1999; Joseph Milewski pers. comm. 20 September
1999.
275
Hydro-Quebec, L’amenagement Sainte-Marguerite-3: “En accord avec le milieu”,
http:/www.assnat.qc.ca/fra/publications/debats/journal/ch/991109/1410.htm#991109029. Hydro-Quebec,
Amenagement hydro-electrique Sainte-Marguerite-3: Etude complementaire en reponse a la condiiton 3 du
decret gouvernemental, January 1995.
276
Hydro-Quebec 1999:3-4.
277
Bosshard 1999.
278
Butcher 1971.
279
Pua-Villamor and Ocampo 1996.
280
Sarawak Museum 1979.
281
King 1986; Hew Cheng Sim 1986; Colchester 1989:59-61;
282
eg International Alliance 1992.

283
IDB 1985:30-31.
284
IDB 1996.
285
And see letter from the IDB to the WCD published below.
286
IDB 1998:2, 23-24. IDB staff had initially sought to include a provision in the policy stating that IDB
projects should not require the involuntary resettlement of indigenous people at all. However, this was over-
ruled by the board and, at the insistence of the government of Brazil, the term ‘Indigenous Peoples’ was
substituted with the term ‘indigenous communities’. A draft ‘strategy’ on Indigenous Peoples is currently in
preparation.
287
AfDB 1998:8 emphasis added.
288
AfDB 19998:14.
289
World Bank staff expressed these views at the joint WCD/World Bank seminar held in Washington DC on 1
November 1999 to discuss this draft paper. Staff are particularly uncertain about how consent is assured and
believe that the Canadian experience may not be replicable in countries with different political, cultural and
juridical traditions. See also IFC 1998.
290
Kingsbury 1999.
291
About 42 individuals attended the consultation in Geneva (see annex 2). The meeting which was co-
sponsored by the World Commission on Dams, the Forest Peoples Programme, the World Council of Churches,
the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, the United Nations Office of the Commissioner for
Human Rights and the TebTebba Foundation received additional support from Novib. The meeting included
representatives of these agencies, the International Labour Organisation, representatives of indigenous peoples
and ethnic minorities, industry, one para-statal organisation and a number of NGOs. Representatives of
governments and multilateral development banks had been invited to the meeting but declined to attend.
292
E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/14.

Annex 1: Text of E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/14.

Guidelines relating to transnational corporations and indigenous peoples submitted by the Indigenous
Preparatory Meeting.
26-27 July 1997
PREAMBLE

Guided by the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants on Human Rights, and with the
understanding that indigenous peoples have the right to their lands, territories and resources which
must be recognised and respected, and with the knowledge that transnational corporations have gained
much of their power, position and profit by the exploitation of these resources, we believe that they
will willingly respect the following proposed guidelines:

1. CONSENT

International Corporations should gain the free and informed consent of indigenous peoples prior to
initiating or implementing development activities which directly or indirectly affect the lands,
territories and resources of the peoples concerned.

2. CONSULTATION

International Corporations should consult with and directly involve indigenous communities and their
representatives in all stages of planning, assessment, implementation and conclusion of proposed
development activities, to ensure that their economic, social, cultural and political rights and activities
are not adversely affected by the proposed development activities.

3. WRITTEN AGREEMENTS

International Corporations should negotiate and secure written agreements from the indigenous
peoples concerned including, but not limited to, the implementation phases, assessed ramifications
and profit sharing arrangements, prior to initiation of any development activities.

(Transnationals should be encouraged to provide financial assistance to indigenous peoples to ensure

that the peoples concerned have full access to and ability to engage experts and resource persons as
members of their negotiating teams, if they so desire. Such experts shall be vetted and engaged by
indigenous peoples directly.)

4. COMPENSATION

International Corporations should negotiate with the indigenous communities a just and fair profit-
sharing arrangement, prior to signing of any kind of agreement, and with full disclosure of the
projected profit and complete development plans for the relevant project, to ensure that the peoples
concerned receive an equitable profit share and/or compensation package.

5. MONITORING AND RECOURSE

International Corporations should have ongoing meetings with the indigenous peoples concerned,
throughout the duration of the project, to ensure their direct role in the monitoring of all stages and
effects of the project. They should provide a recourse mechanism to deal with possible disagreements
over the provisions of written agreements between indigenous peoples and transnational corporations.
Such a body should ensure the direct participation of the indigenous peoples concerned and give full
and immediate effect to its decisions and conclusions.

6. ANOMALIES

In the case of circumstances in which problems occur which were not part of the original assessment
impact report, International Corporations should make immediate restitution for life, land and/or
property and other damages that may have been caused accidentally or through negligence.

7. TRANSPARENCY

Transnationals should make public, through their annual reports, the economic, environmental and
social impact on the communities in which they work, data on indigenous equity participation and,
where relevant, compensation packages and response times to effect compensation or restitution.

Transnational must make transparency and public accountability a cornerstone of their public
relations policies and, in particular, in all matters of their relations with indigenous peoples. This will
lead to public trust in companies, their policies and their products.

All corporations should adopt environmental policies which form part of their corporate
responsibility. These environmental standards should be developed in consultation with the
communities affected and be rigorously applied to indigenous areas, regardless of the status of
indigenous peoples within the relevant state.

8. ACCOUNTABILITY

Human rights issues are not an internal matter but a matter of concern to the entire international
community. The transnationals that work in the countries where there are no internal legal
frameworks and/or administrative mechanisms that are capable of enforcing and/or providing such
involvement of indigenous communities should accept a constructive obligation to respect the
guidelines and the fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples.

9. FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

All financial institutions should insist on an independent environmental assessment report prior to
agreeing to funding projects. These should include:

a) the ecological, social, cultural and economic impact on indigenous communities and peoples;

b) Recommendations to eliminate or minimise negative, impacts; and

c) Provisions for foreclosure of loans if these recommendations are not fully implemented.

10. SUPPORT

Within the "new partnership" as adopted by the General Assembly in its resolutions, we request from
the High Commissioner for Human Rights to support financially and assist us to ensure that we can
develop, adopt and implement full guidelines before the year 2000.

Annex 2: Participants in the Geneva Consultation

CONSULTATIVE MEETING ON DAMS, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND ETHNIC
MINORITIES

Geneva 31 July – 1 August, 1999

World Council of Churches
150 Route de Fernay, Geneva, Switzerland

PARTICIPANTS LIST

Devasish Roy Bangladesh

Oriel Rodrigues Moraes MAB, Brazil

Real Courcelles Hydro Quebec , Canada

Luke Hertlein Protecting Aboriginal Rights, Land and the Environment (PARLE),
Canada

Aldisson Anguita Mapuche Community, COMEX, Chile

Cristobal Osorio Sanchez Rio Negro Community, Guatemala

Kanakeswar Narzary President UBNLF, India

Bineet Mundu India

Ratnaker Bhengra India

Thangmawia Chairswan Society, India

Maria Mangte Indian Confederation of Indigenous & Tribal Peoples, India

Mr Rozathang General Secretary, ZO-Re-Unification, India

Derhagra Mocharhary India

Prithibi Majhi India

Deva Kanta Ramchiary India

Jebra Ram Muchahary Tribal Welfare Society, India

Ram Dayal Munda Tribal and Regional Languages, India

Robi Lal Basumatary India

Robert Mandosin The Irian Jaya Environment Foundation, Irian Jaya

Jaroslava Colajacomo Reform the World Bank, Italy

Andrew Corbett Legal Assistance Centre, Namibia

Norman Tjombe

Maongo Hembinda Himba representative, Namibia

Ande Somby Law Faculty, Tromso University, Norway

Joji Carino WCD Commissioner (Tebtebba Foundation, Philippines)

Jill Carino Cordillera Peoples' Alliance for the Defense of Ancestral Land and
for Self-Determination (CPA), Philippines

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz Tebtebba Foundation, Philippines

Raymond Rovillos Philippines

Konstantin Robbek The Institute on the Problems of The Northern Minorities of

Sakha Republic (Russia)

Achim Steiner World Commission on Dams, South Africa

S. Parasuraman World Commission on Dams, South Africa

Fiona Archer South African San Institute (SASI), South Africa

Lars-Anders Baer Sami Council, Sweden

Julian Burger Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights

United Nations, Switzerland

Chandra Roy International Labour Organisation

Project for Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, Switzerland

Eugeno Poma World Council of Churches, Switzerland

Michael Robertson ABB Corporate Management Services, Switzerland

Cassani Alain Switzerland

Jodi Nishima Switzerland

Diwata Olalia Hunziker WWF International, Switzerland

Monica Castelo Interpreteur, Switzerland

A-Wu Ligerlal Paiwan People of Pingtun, Taiwan

Marcus Colchester Forest Peoples Programme, UK

Louise Henson
Maurizio Ferrari

Shelina Thawer Minority Rights Group International, UK

John Stevens USA

William Fisher USA

Rebecca Fan USA

Mary Coyle USA

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