Sunday 9 June 2013

The Rights of the Lake


One of the world’s largest desert lakes is facing one of the worst human undertakings of the 21st century. Yet despite the numerous side-effects it has on the indigenous population, the lake as well as the flora and fauna that inhabit this ecosystem, world’s most remarkable institutions have continued their support for the project in blatant disregard of the glaring disaster they are manufacturing by their otherwise reckless, negligent and ignorant actions.
As the source of life for over a million living creatures, it is incumbent on any government and development agency to tread with circumspection while venturing into those allegedly ‘beneficial’ initiatives. Not even in the jungle is there wisdom in extinguishing the lives of some in order to improve those of others. It unprecedented and is not recorded anywhere in the chronicles of history.
River Omo which accounts for close to three quarters of the total water in L. Turkana is a river shared by both Ethiopia and Kenya. Riparian ownership demands inter alia that riparian owners have an obligation to have the water flow onto their land in its natural quantity and quality. The unilateral decision by the Ethiopian government to block the waters of the Omo in order to establish hydro-electric dams that came with human rights abuses on the part of the government in the Omo basin is one of the greatest testaments to Africa’s disregard of international law, sound resource governance and the mandatory Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the indigenous communities.
Environment Impact Assessment reports and Scientific analysis by activists  indicate the short term and long term massive effects the dam will have on the human and animal population. For centuries, the people on the western and eastern shores of the lake have known nothing else for fishing and domestic water other than the lake. That’s why they are fascinated when a whole president who is constitutionally mandated to take care of these poor Kenyans is pro a project that is anti-their very existence. From Argentina to the Americas, water bodies are being destroyed in the name of development and achievement of set-goals; yet no one is willing to stop and ask their conscience whether or not the step taken is one leading to Eldorado or one of minus a thousand lives plus one vision.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, while addressing the Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone in which he was being tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes charges had this to say:
“In the word of today, if America and Europe want you to live, you live. If they decide that from now on, you will not live, you will not live. They will eliminate you. That’s why I am standing before you today”. These words had a lot of sense then and still have a lot of sense today. In the world of Eastern Africa, if Ethiopia wants you to live, you live and if they want to extinguish your sojourn on earth in a micro-second, you die. From the mufti-billion Gibe Dams to diverting the Nile to Ethiopia while oblivious of the fact it is the heart of Egypt upstream, the Ethiopian government has in the recent past acted with a lot of impunity. Which begs the question, what do they think they are to the people of the eastern Africa region? And to the doomed Kenyan leaders, this superiority over others when it comes to shared rivers cannot be solved through magical abracadabra nor senseless lectures and verbal diarrhea. Arise and safe us from the enemy or soon count us part of the team that will launch an offensive against human rights violations by the Ethiopian government.
It is the law of nature that if an agency, government or individual has nothing important to give to you, they should pack and go and leave you as they found you. Not the source of problem that they have become. What is shocking is the fact that the relevant government officials are not aware a ticking time bomb is in the making in the other part of the country. Someone tell Ethiopians that having not been colonized doesn’t make them any more important than others. Someone tell Ethiopians that you have a right to abuse your own resources but let the effect not be felt by your neighbours.

Ekai Nabenyo is a law student at the University of Nairobi and blogs at
INFORMING KENYANS- www.ekainabenyo.blogspot.com


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