Dams, Displacement and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and Its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965 - 2007

6. Displaced Energy

150 6 w Displaced Energy That few citizens of mozambique have, to this day, derived any real benefit from the massive hydroelectric project on the Zambezi river is one of the harsh realities of mozambique’s postcolonial history. rather than promoting national economic development or sustainable livelihoods for the people living adjacent to the river, the dam instead robbed mozambique of precious energy. By harnessing the river’s flow regime to meet the needs of the South african state, cahora Bassa deprived rural communities in the Zambezi valley of the lifesustaining nutrients that had supported human society and local ecosystems for centuries. additionally, peasants and the urban poor had no access to either the electricity the dam produced or the revenues it generated because, until 2007, the dam remained in Portuguese hands. While the natural energy of the river was now an export commodity that provided the South african economy, both during the apartheid era and under anc leadership, with cheap hydroelectric power, nearly 95 percent of mozambique’s population had no access to this critical resource, including those living in villages adjacent to the power lines (see fig. 6.1). South africa received the energy, Portugal received the income, and Zambezi valley residents paid the price. For more than thirty years after mozambique achieved political independence , cahora Bassa remained a colonial project. european workers continued to fill the highest-paid jobs and enjoyed substantially better living and working conditions than their mozambican counterparts. the HcB still owned and operated the dam, determined the outflows of water, and negotiated the sale of electricity on lisbon’s behalf. only in 2007, after intense and contested interstate negotiations between mozambique, Portugal, and South africa, did Portugal reluctantly agree to cede control of the dam to mozambique.1 Displaced Energy w 151 throughout this period, South africa continued to appropriate, at belowmarket value, whatever hydroelectric power mozambique produced.2 in 1980, concerned about Frelimo’s nonracial socialist agenda and its historic ties to the african national congress (anc), South african security forces began a sustained military and economic campaign to destabilize mozambique and destroy the nation’s infrastructure. High on its list was cahora Bassa. For more than a decade, South african–backed renamo fighters repeatedly sabotaged the dam’s power lines, paralyzing the hydroelectric project and terrorizing the hundreds of thousands of peasants living adjacent to the river. Since cahora Bassa’s power lines were providing only 7 percent of South africa’s energy, disabling them had relatively minor consequences for the apartheid regime.3 even before mozambican independence, South africa’s public electricity utility, eskom, had stated unambiguously that cahora Bassa “was not envisaged as providing more than supplementary power for the republic ’s energy requirements [and that] South africa’s long-term energy plan has never included cabora Bassa as it is not our policy to depend on sources outside our border.”4 although the destabilization campaign ended in the early 1990s, shortly before the anc came to power, tension over the dam persisted. the new South african government insisted that the HcB honor the existing colonial contracts that set the price of electricity artificially low. Under great pressure, it eventually agreed to pay appreciably more for the imported energy—although the rate was still well below the world price. F I G U R E 6 . 1 . Pylons passing a tete village. Daniel Ribeiro 152 w Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development in this chapter, we explore the complex and often strained relationship between mozambique, South africa, and Portugal over control of the dam and the energy it produced. What was at stake was nothing less than mozambique ’s postcolonial sovereignty and its right to use its scarce resources to insure the well-being of its citizens. this struggle over the future of cahora Bassa illuminates the multiple ways in which human security, ecological resiliency , economic development, and national sovereignty operated within a highly contested transnational field of power over which mozambique had little control. FR ELI M O ’S SO CI ALI ST AGENDA Upon gaining independence, Frelimo had to confront the existence of cahora Bassa. reversing its previous condemnation of the “racist project,” it hailed cahora Bassa as a symbol of liberation and an instrument for growth. in language reminiscent of Portuguese colonial discourse, mozambique’s first president, Samora machel, and his economic advisers insisted that the dam would help the mozambican people achieve...