Protest

Activists return turbines for Lower Subansiri Dam to sender

With more than 150 dams proposed for construction and 11 projects in operation, Northeast India is one of the hotspots of global dam building. The biggest project under construction is the Lower Subansiri Dam on the border between the states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Social movements have organized massive protests against the mega-project in the Himalayan foothills over several years. In a huge success, they have just managed to send the turbines for the project back to the sender.

Almir Narayamoga Surui and Sheyla Yakarepi at protest outside BNDES office in London

Over the past two weeks, I had the privilege of joining indigenous leaders from Brazil and Peru on a tour of four cities in Europe, aimed at raising public awareness and stepping up international support for their campaigns against socially and environmentally destructive dams in the Amazon. The indigenous delegation, also accompanied by colleagues from Amazon Watch and Rainforest Foundation-UK, had a busy and varied agenda in each of the cities we visited, including public seminars, street demonstrations, debates with officials from governments, corporations and multilateral agencies and meetings with partners – not to mention rushing through airports, metro and train stations in order to arrive on time at the next way station.

Main road in Awassa (Oliver Benson)

It’s been more than a week since anyone has heard from three students kidnapped from the Awassa University campus in southern Ethiopia by government security forces, according to the Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA). Whereabouts of the students, Nagga Gezaw, Dhaba Girre, and Jatani Wario, is still unknown. The students were part of a local movement in southern Ethiopia which has called on their government to address river contamination, unpaid compensation and other problems caused by the Lega Dembi open pit gold mine. Several student-led demonstrations in early December brought promises to address the issues, promises now left empty by the extra-judicial kidnappings. (For more info on the demonstrations, see Addis Fortune and Voice of America.)