Social impact of development on ethnic minorities

Examples of these strategic flaws and their consequences in Afghanistan, Brazil, Sudan, and as dramatically evidenced in the 1977-1979 revolution, Iran, are detailed in this report. A "cultural survival manifesto" is presented stressing the need to promote local participation and cultural pluralism to ameliorate the social problems that may result from a merely technological approach to project planning. Project successes and failures are analyzed to point out both positive directions and the manner in which some development projects have contributed to genocide, disadvantaged ethnic minorities, and proletarianization caused by displacement from the land. Brazilian Indians are being killed by disease, land grabbing settlers, and assimilation, a process which threatens their physical survival and ensures their cultural disappearance. Ethnic minorities, a strong force in Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iran, are being manipulated by development projects, further exacerbating inter-ethnic rivalries, migration, and discrimination. The displacement of ethnic minorities from their land in Iran, Brazil, and Sudan is studied in light of landowners, welfare, and crowded labor pools. One section of the report addresses the Dez Irrigation, the Qazvin industrial park, the Qataghan cotton, and the Helmand Valley projects, all within Iran and Afghanistan. Compared are the projects" economic productivity; level of technology; sociological factors; land availability; and the influence of foreign, rather than domestic assistance. The section on Sudan includes an introductory geographic and historical survey, the Gezira scheme, the "New Halfa," and the Joglei Canal projects. The final section discusses the goals and rationale of the Transamazonica Highway in Brazil, and the project"s effects on colonization, landownership, and on the ecology and the Indian inhabitants of the region.