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| June 15, 2000 | atimes.com | ||
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China
Pressure mounts on World Bank to quit project By Gumisai Mutume WASHINGTON - Activists have embarked on the final stretch of a campaign to pressure the World Bank to quit a project in China that will resettle nearly 60,000 people onto hotly disputed farmlands traditionally inhabited by ethnic Tibetans. A final decision on the China Western Poverty Reduction Project (WPRP) is expected from the Executive Board of Directors of the bank in a few weeks. The project is regarded as one of the most controversial the bank has promoted in the last few years. Last June, the bank approved a $160 million loan to the three-component project designed to benefit almost 1.7 million of the poorest people in China. But in an unusual move, the bank agreed that no work be done and no funds be disbursed for the $40 million Qinghai component of the project until the board decides on the results of a review by the Independent Inspection Panel, an internal bank watchdog. The results of the inspection panel were submitted to bank management in April, but remain confidential. Activists say the report is a scathing critique of the project, finding numerous policy violations by the bank. ''We have heard that the report is the most incredible indictment of the bank and its procedures, but we don't have a tremendous amount of confidence that the bank intends to do the right thing now,'' says John Ackerly, president of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). The Washington-based ICT filed the complaint that sparked the inspection panel's review. Ackerly says, on the contrary, they are informed that this time around the bank is going to push the project through. China is the biggest customer of the bank and has threatened to re-evaluate its relationship with the institution if the project is thrown out. The vote to postpone the project has however also highlighted one of the biggest rifts in the bank's board for years. The United States threw its full 18 percent of the vote on the Board against the project urging the independent inspection of the programme. Germany also voted on the US side while four members of the 24-member board abstained. Watchers are now keenly awaiting the final vote on the project that could come in early July. bank officials say the project is likely to be voted through with substantial modifications to deal with the environmental concerns. However, the heightened civil society campaign against the project launched this week is demanding the public release of the inspection panel report before the board meets on the issue and that the project be withdrawn in its entirety. The independent inspection panel concluded that the bank had violated its own guidelines while preparing the project. It criticised the lack of attention by the bank on the impact the project would have on the environment in Qinghai Province and on the Tibetans who live there. The panel also found the bank in violation of its policies on Indigenous Peoples, Resettlement, Environmental Assessment and Information Disclosure. While it involved the construction of a 40-meter dam, no full environmental impact assessment has been carried out. Also, the project does not fully comply with World bank policies to protect ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples from the adverse effects of the development. The project is politically insensitive. It involves work in an area that China invaded and took control of in 1950, the report is alleged to say. The project seeks to resettle 58,000 Chinese farmers into an area that is considered to be a part of Tibet and the Tibetans see it as part of a plan to move Chinese into restive regions once populated purely by minorities. Tibetans have also warned that the mass relocation is tantamount to a death sentence as it would result in conflict over resources and further marginalisation. The bank itself admits that the Tibetans' share of the local population would fall from 23 percent to 14 percent as a result of the project and that Mongolians would dwindle from 14 percent to seven percent. As happened last year when they managed to halt the project, activists here are mobilising a powerful grassroots coalition to flood the key decision-makers with letters, emails and phone calls of concern. Last year it paid off. But the bank argues that the project provides significant health, education, employment and farming benefits to people in remote and inaccessible villages who now earn between $25 and $60 a year. The entire project amounts to $311 million and covers three provinces: the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Gansu and Qinghai provinces. (Inter Press Service) |
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