Noe vs Nyaminyami
- When the giant Kariba dam was built between Zambia and Zimbabwe in 1956, Operation Noe was launched by Europeans to save thousands of trapped animals. On the contrary, the 50,000 people who lived there were not rescued and had to leave their homes and fertile lands.
Rhodesia, 1956. Construction work began on the Kariba dam in the Zambezi River basin. Four years later, the cement fence 128 meters long and 579 meters wide and the reservoir began to flood. The water reached its peak in 1963, covering the Zambezi alluvial plain, a promising leap forward for the project promoters.
But those who launched the project were not indigenous, but European. The initiative was carried out by the British North and South Rhodesia, current Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Rhodedians opposed the dam being made in the Cariboyan, but a group of external “experts” decided its location, without taking them into account. The construction works of the wall and the power plant were awarded to the Italian consortium Imprespresit and the project was designed by the French engineer Andre Coyne.
The Caribbean means “trap” in the batonga language, a sign of the dangers of the gorge, and the locals believed that the god of the Nyaminyami River lived there, and that by building the prey the divine snake would become angry. When they filled the swamp, thousands of animals had to leave their habitat. Many were left with no solution, isolated on islands or trees.
The locals believed that the god of the Nyaminyami River lived there; and that by building the prey the divine snake would become angry
And then the “white saviors” launched Operation Noe, ignoring the beliefs of the locals, choosing a Christian name for the rescue. About 7,000 animals were rescued and the most striking cases were revealed to the four winds, for example, when to save a rhino, after 7 hours of dangerous persecution, they had to make 12 miles in a raft. But they were isolated in the trees and nobody talked about hundreds of monkeys that starved after eating all the leaves.
One of the most affected animal species was man. Over 50,000 people had to leave their homes and fertile crops, most of them from the Batonga tribe. Even though they were tested for electricity, schools, hospitals... they had to flee. They had to cultivate higher, sandy soils in exchange for prolific alluvial fields. They lost their lives in exchange for supposed unsolicited profits.
It has been 60 years since the reservoir was filled and the Caribbean reservoir operator Zesco (Zambia Electricity Supply Company) has now launched the Gwenbe-Tonga initiative to mitigate environmental and social damage caused by the dam. Unlike the past, local communities will participate in all phases of the project. And there is also a sculpture of the god Nyaminyami in the Cariboan (in the image), looking at the wall that destroyed his place of residence. Are the fifties enough to extinguish the anger of the Batonga tribe and the river god?
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