In the lower Omo River Valley of southern Ethiopia, a spreading humanitarian emergency that threatens to spawn conflicts in the region is largely being met with silence from both the Ethiopian government and the international community. Here is what I know though. If you were consulted, then the Merrile were not consulted.Do not just support it because it might not affect you. Leave us alone! Critics state that the Gibe III dam may worsen their situation. I condemn the author of the article and the people who are working behind the scenes to stop the dam project. Shockingly it does not even mention that the Omo River supplies almost 80 percent of the Lake Turkana waters. Timothy Clack has received funding for anthropological fieldwork in the Omo-Turkana area from British Academy, British Institute in Eastern Africa, Cambridge University, Christensen Fund and Oxford University. God Bless Ethiopia, Though we all agree on the ugly poletical and human right record of EPRDF, I don’t think it is wise to object the construction of such projects which have huge advantages even after EPRDF leave office. But this case is not just the responsibility of outside agencies and the Ethiopian dam planners. The accident occurred at around 5:15pm on April 19, 2011, when one side of the bridge, located 850km from Addis Abeba, gave… Considerable portion of the water would have been evaporated in the desert lake even before they use it. I am a somali live in canada.I was watching BBC news they show a topless teenage african girls and topless lady.what i asked myself is that the news people hide the breasts of the white girls at beaches.i am angry. The people forget things after couple of days and enjoying talking. You have entered an incorrect email address! The first large dam on the Omo River, Gibe III takes its name from a tributary of the Omo, the Gibe River, on which two smaller dams were previously built. Encompassing swathes of Ethiopia, South Sudan and Kenya, the Omo-Turkana Basin is one of the oldest landscapes in the world that is known to have been inhabited by Homo sapiens and is now one of the world’s most extraordinary examples of ethnic diversity. I have visited the Gilgel Gibe I and II projects when I was student. Ethiopia has no dam on either Gibe II or III projects. Around 90 metres of bridge being constructed by Midroc over Omo River collapses A 90-metre portion of the Omo River Bridge, which is under construction in Omorate Zone, Southern Regional State, collapsed onsite. Ikal is talking about an evil that is unfolding in our own eyes during our time. This project will not let the Turkana lake to dry. But we must also recognise that large-scale infrastructure projects are likely to have far reaching consequences for the lifestyles and cultural identities of those they displace. There is no point for any Ethiopian to stand against it. Lecturer in Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Oxford. Doesn’t it make sense they’d allow this one to go through just so we would be in conflict with Kenya in the long run? Since 1948, Ethiopia has also been signed up to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. these big monster banks are doing business without having any drop of integrity and social responsibility.but what makes me more sad is that most African country governments are being used as an instrument for those monster banks agendas which are against the very livelihood of Africans poor people. The Ethiopian dam-affected people – who, like those on the Kenyan side, are largely indigenous peoples leading traditional lifestyles – have heard little or nothing about the project and their options, even though the changes to the Omo will upset the fragile balance of river bank cultivation and herding they maintain, unraveling the valley’s best strategy against food insecurity. Let us put our country interest first what ever our political view is. In his seminal work, Development as Freedom, the Nobel Prize winning economist, Amartya Sen, demonstrated that sustainable development must be based on universal access to social and economic necessities as well as political and civil rights. may cause 290 km2 of forest dry out lack of water. Instead it will create a more controlled flow for the communities downstream, which presently move to another basin for water when the dry season comes. This has to change and we should all stand together as Ethiopians. Their situation mirrors that in Ethiopia, where the traditional economy of the Lower Omo Valley supports up to half a million people. That is what they are doing nothing new. I am not Kenyan, but I am extremely worried about the consequences of building the Gibe III. The completion of Gibe III, Africa’s tallest dam to date, has eliminated the annual flood and radically reduced the Omo’s flow, which produces 90% of Lake Turkana’s freshwater input. why Ethiopia is blamed when she is developing Gibee III project which is far from Turkana by hundreds of killometers. There is no mention of how long it may take to fill Gibe III’s massive reservoir, during which time dam operators may only release 25m3/ sec, creating a prolonged dry season up to several years long. Gashu, you seem to know possibly little around this globe. It suggests that the dam will regulate the natural flooding cycle of the Omo River, eliminating the seasonal floods critical to downstream farmers. lakes could die for several environmental or intrinsic reasons and the reason is not just one is the Ikal tried to explain. In any case, we are living in a global age where what happens in one end of the globe reverberates one the other. Photograph: Alamy “Awareness of the dam’s impacts and … Starting in 2008, construction of the Gilgel Gibe III Dam on the river upended that life for subsistence farmers, cattle herders, and fishermen, who depended on the Omo… It is estimated that more than 200,000 people rely on the Omo River below the dam for some form of subsistence such as flood recession agriculture, and many of these ethnic groups live in chronic hunger. Take note of that…… Omo water according to me is international waters and we shall need an agreement. i know those tribes on omo river region. 4) Which dam are you talking on Gibe III project? Thank God Eritrea told the World Bank and IMF to get lost when they tried to force Eritrea to borrow their money but wanted to impose their conditions on how to use the money. Especially Gibe III is something that we badly need. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Formerly the fourth largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea has reduced to around 10% of its size in the 1960s. We have been limited to exploit our water resource for long. Ethiopia has every right to build dams on Omo river and use it to generate electricity, and for irrigation. The project’s lack of transparency in other areas borders on the corrupt. Over 30% of the lake inflow will be diverted for commercial irrigation projects. Elias thanks for news but let’s not make mistake of EPRP. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word “genocide”, famously defined the specific need to protect against the “disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups”. The project will benifit both people and both sides shall work together to minimize the impact during operational phase. It is really astonishing. 2. I am mad by the kind of responses written by people who pretend to be concerned Ethiopians. The Gibe 3 Dam is currently under construction on Ethiopia’s Omo River. Once fully commissioned, it will be the third largest hydroelectric plant in Africa with a power output of about 1870 Megawatt (MW), thus more than doubling total installed capacity in Ethiopia from its 2007 level of 814 MW… Lake Chad has nearly disappeared from diversions that stopped its flow, and Lake Victoria has seen major drops in its water levels from dams that let too much water out. Agence Francaise de Dévelopement, Germany’s aid agency KFW, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa may support the costly transmission line from the Gibe III Dam to Kenya’s national grid. It is difficult not to conclude that what we are seeing in the Omo is the wholesale disregard of these commitments by the Ethiopian government. Forsure TPLF will go in coming 20 years but dam will be used by poor people of Ethiopia and as a nation we must think for 100 years. I’m not saying there will not be any environmental impact but there are many remidial measures to minimize the impact. All these years we have been squabbling against each other instead of focusing on using the Nile. T he Omo River is a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in southwest Ethiopia and northern Kenya. The former lake bed. It is clear the dam has no use to improve the conditions of lives for the local people who stand to lose their grazing land. Though we don’t like the colonization of our country by Italy, the roads and bridges constructed that time have remained very useful for us (belte leje yesetuten yezo aleqsal). answer 1 of 11: hi every one i am from the communities of the lower omo valley tribes and i am writing this in order to express my fears about the disaster of the dam project on omo river and its negative impact for me, my people and the tourism. For that matter the areas around the dam will also experiance some sort of environmental consequences. Their ancestral land will be grabbed by the government which will be leased or sold to foreign colonialists to grow food, flower etc to benefit themselves and token bribery to the local colonialists from the ruling tribes in Ethiopia.