The Manantali Dam

The Manantali Dam

In 1972, the OMVS was formed with the objective of damming the Senegal River in order to advance irrigation agriculture, hydrologic
energy, and navigation for transporting goods throughout the Senegal
River Valley.31 OMVS, representing hydrologic interests of government officials in Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania, was created to replace the 1968 founded Organisation des Etats Riverains du Senegal (OERS) after Guinea withdrew membership.32 In 1972, the newly formed OMVS stated the following goals:

1) “To provide a secure and steadily improving livelihood for the inhabitants of the river basin and neighbouring areas”

2) “To safeguard as far as possible the ecological balance of the river basin”.

3) “To make the economies of the three member states less vulnerable to climatic conditions and external factors”

4) “To accelerate the economic development of the member countries by the intensive promotion of regional cooperation.’’

Despite avid warning against damming the Senegal River from

agronomists, economists, sociologists, and journalists, OMVS overlooked this educated advice, as well as recommendations to consult with and inform the river valley residents of the coming change in flow regime. OMVS planned to build two dams -the Manantali dam on the Bafmg tributary in Mali and the Diama dam nearer to the river delta in Saint-Louis, Senegal, which was intended to retain ocean salt water from the delta and lower valley for improved irrigation. The Manantali dam,
located upstream and bearing greater effect on the Fuuta Tooro study area, will be the greater focus in this discussion.

Construction for the Manantali dam began in 1981 and was

completed in 1987, at which point all $500 million invested in the project was spent, leaving nothing for the remaining power station and
navigational structuring of the river. (It should be noted that later in 1998, Mauritanian OMVS high commissioner Baba Ould Sidi Abdallah was arrested for illegally diverting funds). Manantali dam investors included several Arab governments, the Islamic and the African Development Banks, Italy, the French CFD, the German KfW, the Canadian CIDA and the European Union. Because of projected negative impacts, the World Bank declined funding the dam, though they did contribute to a later collection of funds allocated for the un-built power station; other donations for the power station came from the French CFD, the German KfW, the European Investment Bank and European Community, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, Canadian CIDA, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the West African Development Bank, and the Nordic Development Bank. In 1997, however, Norway withdrew plans to contribute to the power station out of disapproval for the dam’s severe health impacts on Senegal River Valley inhabitants. But the drastically rising rates of malaria and schistosomiasis were only one of many problems caused by the
construction of the Manantali dam.

After riparian land rights in Mauritania were redistributed to
Beydane herders, many of the expelled Pulaar farmers sought refuge
across the river, on the Senegalese side of the Fuuta Tooro. Pulaar
community leaders along the Senegal banks quickly became sensitive to the injustice, organizing self-defense committees and declaring the
Mauritanian agricultural reform a national problem that concerns all
Senegalese and not only the workers of the river valley. The committees rallied for fair land distribution and the continuation of allowing freely trafficked goods and people to cross the border, measures that were simply ignored by officials in both Nouakchott and Dakar. At the time, the Senegalese government’s apathy toward heightening tension in the Fuuta Tooro disappointed the Pulaar defense committees. Soon however, compiling disputes in the Fuuta Tooro became an issue Dakar could no longer overlook.

The Manantali dam was officially closed in 1988. As the dam took effect and the river lowered from adjacent floodplains, Senegalese farmers drew in closer to the river and began receiving harassment from
Mauritanian border guards, who chased Senegalese farmers off their own land. In November of 1988, Mauritanian camel herds were caught
violating grazing rights in Senegal and were ousted from the country.
Nouakchott officials consequently refused Senegalese trucks at the border, inspiring Dakar officials to form a river blockade in the Senegalese border town, Rosso. The following year, Dakar refused certain Mauritanian food imports, like fresh fish and mineral water, stimulating Nouakchott’s embargoes on Senegalese vegetable oil, animal feed, and fresh vegetables. Though this trade battle eased through a series of meetings coordinated by the government of Cote d’Ivoire, on April 8, 1989 a violent skirmish resulted after another Mauritanian herd was caught grazing on Senegalese land, and in accordance with established grazing laws, the Senegalese land owners captured and kept the herd. Two of these Senegalese men were killed on April 8, and the other thirteen were taken under Mauritanian custody. Failure of Nouakchott to seriously indulge Dakar’s request for investigation left Senegalese communities seething. From April 19-20, villages along the Senegal River experienced violent outbreaks, rioters in Dakar attacked Mauritanian shops and the Mauritanian embassy, stirring rumors in Nouakchott that Arabs were being actively sought and killed in Dakar. This was indeed not the case, but the following April 25 came to be known as ‘Black Tuesday’ for the hundreds of Senegalese and black Africans  hunted and killed in Mauritania that day. At least fifty Arabs were killed in Dakar during the resulting ‘Mauritanian Hunt’ from April 27-29. Foreign aid intervened to assist the ‘mass exodus of refugees’, as some 75,000 Senegalese and 170,000 Mauritanians were documented as displaced from the massacre,45 not counting those citizens who did not seek or receive foreign transport for repatriation, or the thousands of

Mauritanian blacks who were denied reentry to their country and deport Africans back to Senegal.

Because the three main factors causing the 1989 conflict are

critically worsening, these being 1) climate change 2) historical animosity between Mauritania and Senegal and 3) environmental impacts of the Manantali dam, potential for future hostility has not subsided.

1) Climate change is predicted to increase damaging measures through drought and rain variability.

2) Political violence against Pulaars in Mauritania actually worsened after 1989, according to Amnesty
International, reporting “Extrajudicial executions, torture, and the cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of villagers has reached a very alarming level in the south of the country.”Also, current Senegalese president, Abdoulaye Wade has a major water diversion project on the backbumer. The Fossil Valleys Project (FVP) entails diverting the dammed water from Manantali to Senegalese fossil tributaries for agricultural use. Due to Mauritanian protest, the FVP was not enacted, and when Wade brought it up again in 2000, Mauritania swiftly prepared once again ejecting Senegalese citizens from its borders. Wade
responded by publicly assuring the project’s dormancy, calming Mauritanian upset; suspicions certainly remain.

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