By Peggy Hallward
In the preparations for the celebrations commemorating the 500th anniversary of Columbus' landing in the Caribbean, over 120,000 people were evicted from their homes in the Dominican Republic.
It was an appropriate gesture. From the moment the Spaniards arrived in South America and started removing Indians from their lands, the history of colonialism has been a history of forced resettlement. Clearances (in Scotland), reservations (in the US), collectivisation (in Russia) and homelands (in South Africa) are just four of the means that have been employed to relocate citizens who have stood in the way of "progress".
With the transition from colonialism to development, the reasons for resettling unwanted people, have, if anything, increased. To make way for open-cast mines, 10,000 Navaho and Hopi native Americans are being removed from the Big Mountain reservation in Arizona. In Thailand, the Khor Chor Kor project will evict up to 970,00, families from their land, so that fast-growing trees may be planted for timber and wood pulp. In Bali, Goa and other tourist paradises, homes and villages are being demolished to provide space for hotels. And in a drive to beautify Seoul for the 1988 Olympic Games, 900,000 people were violently removed from their homes.
Such wholesale disruption of human lives, we are told, is all in a good cause. David Hopper, former senior vice-president of policy, planning and research at the World Bank, puts it bluntly: "You can't have development without somebody getting hurt for the benefits that are going to accrue". But according to anthropologist Thayer Scudder, forced resettlement is "about the worst thing you can do to a people ... next to killing them."
Involuntary resettlement destroys local economies and productive assets, creating poverty and food insecurity. It tears apart families and breaks up traditional social safety nets, leading to acute psychological, social and cultural stress. And it causes disease. In short, involuntary settlement can be the death of people. And not only does it wrench people away from the environment they depend upon; in the words of one World Bank report, it also "causes severe environmental effects and the loss of valuable natural resources".
Horror stories
That the World Bank has plenty to say about resettlement is hardly surprising, for resettlement is its business. As the largest development agency in the world, it is involved in more such projects than any other institution.
In some cases these are linked to transmigration or plantation schemes; but the majority are associated with large scale hydro- electric and irrigation projects. Often replacement land for displaced people is not provided - or even available in densely populated countries like India - so "evacuees" end up as landless labourers, or unemployed in city slums.
Resettlement horror stories abound. The Balbina dam on Brazil's Uatuma River, completed in 1986 with the help of a $500 million World Bank loan, flooded 2400 square kilometres of rainforest and forced one-third of the Waimiri Atroari Indians off their land. More than half their population has died as a result of social and economic disruption, environmental degradation and horrific health conditions.
In Indonesia, 25,000 peasants were flooded off their land by the World Bank-funded Kedung Ombo dam. Hundreds of families protested against the resettlement plan by remaining in the reservoir, even as the waters poured in. Eight people drowned in the ensuing chaos. Today, over a year later, several hundred people still live in the dam area, holding out for an acceptable rehabilitation package.
The bank, which is currently financing projects that are forcibly resetting an estimated 1.5 million people, is unchastened by these cases. Projects in its pipeline may force another 1.5 million to move.
In Thailand, for example, the Pak Mun dam will displace up to 20,000 peasants and threaten the fisheries of the Mekong. The resettlement record of the Thai electricity utility EGAT - which is responsible for building the dam and compensating those displaced by it - is abysmal. In 1967, EGAT resettled villagers displaced by the Sirindhorn dam on barren, rocky land, totally unfit for farming. Many of the farmers had to abandon the land to seek work in the crowded cities. Now EGAT proposes that villagers flooded off their fertile farmland by the Pak Mun dam move to marginal land beside that given to the Sirindhorn evacuees.
In India, 300 kilometres west of Calcutta, the World Bank is proposing to continue its funding for the Subernarekha Multipurpose Project, one of whose dams, the Icha, will displace nearly 30,000 people. On April 5, 1991, 450 local people - mostly tribal women and children - began a peaceful protest against the Icha dam. Three days later, they were arrested, and were kept in jail for over a month.
And in China, the World Bank is preparing seven projects involving resettlement. That which looms largest on the horizon is the $12 billion Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River, which will force about one million people to move. The dam's 600- kilometre-long reservoir will drown dozens of archaeological sites, parts of 10 cities, more than 800 villages and up to 44,000 hectares of precious farmland. The World Bank, Canada, the US and Japan will almost certainly be approached for funding.
Since the late 1950s, more than 10 million Chinese have been relocated because of water management projects. According to China's Ministry of Water Resources, more than a third of these people are still impoverished.
The World Bank is aware of the horrible consequences of forced relocation. Its own report, Involuntary Resettlement in Development Projects, goes into gruesome detail about the "extraordinarily disruptive and painful process" which the tlement must endure. The bank, however, still believes that it is acceptable to force people to move because it has written a policy whose goal "is to ensure that the population displaced by a project receives benefits from it".
With this policy, the bank only endorses and entrenches the notion of involuntary resettlement. The bank staff are led to believe that there is nothing wrong with continuing to plan projects which call for forced resettlement.
The principle behind this policy is that the power to make decisions about development should reside with the planners and not with the local people. If instead local people could reject, accept or modify proposed plans, then involuntary resettlement - along with much social injustice and environmental damage - would be drastically reduced. However, the World Bank and other aid agencies show no signs of change. They reject outright the idea that planners should be required to negotiate with affected communities until the latter are satisfied; for this might mean the complete abandonment of the project.
Fighting back
Villagers and tribals are now insisting that their voice be heard and in many cases are mobilising to defend their homes. The campaign to stop the Narmada dams is perhaps the best known example, but there are many others. Brazil's Kayapo Indians successfully fought a series of dams on the Xingu River. And in Mexico, the Nahuas Indians are opposing construction of the San Juan Tetelcingo dam, which would flood the traditional land of 30,000 people. "To take us away from here they will have to kill us", a Nahua spokesman has said.
The international environmental community has begun to lend support to these struggles. In their critique of the World Bank's draft Forest Policy, 20 NGOs pointed out "the completely unacceptable loophole" which allows involuntary resettlement of forest dwellers. And in their 1991 open letter to the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD), the International Rivers Network said that ICOLD should "adopt guidelines protecting humans rights and indigenous cultures from forced resettlement".
But not enough has been done to draw attention to this issue. Governments in the North and South alike, plus the international aid agencies, still think involuntary resettlement is acceptable, albeit regrettable. NGOs could make a difference by launching a worldwide campaign against involuntary resettlement.
The campaign could be organised centrally, or better still, in a decentralised manner by region, or even by country. Alternatively, NGOs could simply incorporate the theme into their everyday work. Targets of the campaign against involuntary resettlement would include the World Bank, regional development banks, bilateral aid agencies and governments - both those which promote forced resettlement and those which fund it.
The campaign should attract groups and individuals concerned with environmental issues, development issues, indigenous peoples and ettlement affects all these areas. Involuntary resettlement is so offensive that it should be opposed by all concerned with social and ecological justice.
[Peggy Hallward is director of forestry research for the Canadian environmental group Probe International, 225 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2M6. This article first appeared in the British magazine Ecologist.]