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Article: Dams, guns and refugees: irresponsible development and environmental conflicts displace rural people, especially when the tensions lead to violence.
- Article from:
- Alternatives Journal
- Article date:
- September 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Alternatives, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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FIFTY YEARS AGO, Bengalis on the banks and the waters of the Karnaphuli River in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) saw something out of the ordinary. A strange small watercraft was being paddled up the river. It contained three Europeans wearing tropical helmets; one man in the back seat and two boys sharing the front seat.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
These were not colonial Britishers who had "stayed on" after independence. Rather, they were partly Jewish Ostdeutsche who were displaced on the German-Russian front of World War II. I was one of the boys in the front seat. The craft was a German-produced Klepperboot, a collapsible kayak, with a wood frame and ...