The Urrà dam – Canada’s complicity in a horror story
The [Urrà] dam has brought death to our people, death to the fish, and death to the members of our community who have seen their source of protein vanish, and death to our leaders who have protested or challenged the dam”,
Kimy Pernia Domico, leader of the Embera Katio People, before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, November 1999.
The Urrà Dam
The Embera Katio indigenous nation live along the tributaries of the Upper Sinu river, in the last remaining rainforest of the Caribbean coast of Colombia. For centuries, they have relied on the river for the fish it supplied.
That all changed in 1994, when a consortium of Colombian, Swedish and Russian companies constructed the 340 MW Urrà I hydroelectric dam on the Sinu river. At a cost of US$780 million, the dam supplies 4% of the domestic energy demand.
Canada, through the then Export Development Corporation (EDC), provided a US$18.2 million loan of to support the sale of construction equipment.
Impacts of the dam
When operations began in 2000, the dam submerged over 7,400 hectares, including old-growth forest and the lands and homes of 411 families, none of whom had individual legal land titles, only collective indigenous land rights. 2800 people were forcibly resettled for the project, while a further 70,000 people were directly impacted.
The Embera Katio living upstream, and the Zenu downstream, are two such groups who were directly affected by the dam. The dam prevented fish from swimming upstream to spawn – a mainstay of the Embera diet – and submerged the Embera’s homes, their lands and their crops, as well as cemeteries and sacred sites. It also impeded fishing and periodic flooding of the agricultural plains and wetlands downstream, a vital source of livelihood to the Zenu people and other fishing and peasant communities.
Widespread malnutrition followed, making the Embera people more vulnerable to disease. This situation was further aggravated by the increase of water-borne diseases, such as dengue fever and malaria, which took up residence in the stagnant water of a once free-flowing river.
Strong pressures on a poor process
Remarkably, the Embera Katio and Zenu were never consulted about the dam’s construction, breaching the Colombian national constitution and International Labour Organization Covenant 169 on indigenous rights. Consequently, the Embera Katio obtained a court injunction in November 1998 that determined the project had proceeded without adequate consultation, and called for suspending submergence until a compensation agreement had been reached. Despite this, the Environment Ministry authorized and began filling the reservoir in November 1999.
Two months earlier, paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño had demanded the government do just that, painting Embera leadership as subversive elements threatening to sabotage the project. In fact, any opponents to the project were quickly linked to the guerrillas, and any attempt by the Embera to assert their rights was interpreted as an assault on the paramilitary’s authority.
Fighting back
In November 1999, Kimy Pernia Domico spoke before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade (SCFAIT), which was then reviewing the Act that governs EDC. He underscored the importance of local consultations, of conducting independent impact assessments prior to financing, and of the responsibility of the Canadian government to ensuring that affected groups were adequately compensated.
“I must stress: the Embera Katio are not against development,” said Kimy during the SCFAIT hearing. But they did want land in exchange for what was to be flooded, an environmental plan for the region, and attention to education and health problems.
And a month later, in December 1999, 170 defiant Embera Katio walked 800 km to the capital, and remained in front of the Ministry of the Environment for four months until the government stopped filling the reservoir.
Resolution??
In April 2000, the Colombian government and the Urrà company finally signed a settlement with the Embera, which included, damage compensation, new land and the suspension of plans for Urrà II, a second larger dam. Implementation of the settlement is very slow, however, and has not appeased the tide of killings and kidnappings.
By late March 2001, sixteen Embera people had been murdered by guerilla or paramilitary forces. In June 2001, Kimy himself was kidnapped, two days after a mission of Canadian human rights and first nations groups had met with him in Colombia. Kimy is still missing.
Finally, a March 2001 report linked the outbreak of a malaria and dengue epidemic inextricably to the damming of the Sinu.
EDC, the environment and human rights
The Urrà dam case is one of several examples of projects routinely supported by Export Development Canada and other export credit agencies (ECAs) around the world.
ECAs provide loans, guarantees, and insurance to companies to support the sale of national goods and services in emerging markets. While ECA involvement may often be small relative to the total budget, their involvement is usually key to help companies secure additional commercial financing or to engage in projects that would otherwise be too risky.
As the result of a long international campaign, ECAs do take the environment into account. In May 2002, almost a year after Kimy’s disappearance, EDC adopted its new policy framework on the environment. The framework, however, still does not require companies to consult with affected parties, disclose environmental and social information to these groups, or necessarily reveal which projects EDC is funding prior to doing so. Nor does it require projects to meet a minimum set of international standards, such as ILO 169 on indigenous rights, the World Bank safeguard policy on resettlement, or the provisions of the World Commission on Dams. And human rights abuses are only considered in the context of political and commercial risk.
What can you do??
Join hundreds of other members of the Canadian public who are demanding that EDC, and the companies it supports, adopt policies that take greater account of development, the environment and human rights.
To do so, sign up to our ‘rapid response network’.
