Thematic Review II.2: Dams, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities

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 deepseated
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
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.