In the opinion of the Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) the German firm Lahmayer International should have tried to prevent violations of human rights in the construction of the Merowe Dam on the Nile. "As project manager and coordinator of the construction of the controversial dam Lahmayer must face up to joint responsibility for the shooting of peaceful demonstrators, arbitrary arrests, forcible resettlement and other violations of human rights against many thousand people”, said the STP Africa consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Tuesday in Göttingen. The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) yesterday lodged a complaint concerning the construction of the Merowe Dam.at the office of the Public Prosecutor in Frankfurt.

The STP had laid serious charges against the company in June 2006 in 14-page memorandum. The company played a major part in the "German-Sudanese Business Forum”, which is supported by the German government, which met in Bad Fibel and was making publicity for the project. As a result of the intervention of the Society for Threatened Peoples and then the action of members of Parliament the forum was closed.

Lahmayer was responsible for quality control, site management and contract management of the Merowe Dam and for its commissioning in March 2009. More than 50,000 small farmers and nomads of the Arab ethnic groups of the Manasir, Amri and Hamadab were forcibly moved for the reservoir, which is 174 km long and four km wide. The land onto which they were moved is in the main very infertile. Instead of conducting talks with the critics of the dam the Sudanese authorities had dozens of demonstrators arrested arbitrarily or intimidated by militia allied with the government. Many of those arrested were threatened that they would not be released until the villagers had agreed to being moved.

On 22nd April 2006 three dam critics were shot by militia-men at a protest meeting. Six representatives of the Manasir were arrested in the capital of Khartoum on 29th March 2007 when they attempted to gain information on the building-site, which was hermetically sealed off from the outside world. They were held for two months without any legal justification. Not only Sudanese journalists, but also the UN Special Rapporteur Sima Samar, were prevented from visiting the Merowe area. In the course of 2008 whole village communities were forced without warning from their houses by the rising water.

We shall be glad to send the memorandum (download also at www.gfbv.de).