Ten Thousand People Encircle the Niyamgriji Mountains in Orissa, India

Jan­u­ary 30 2009
Three days ago, 10 thou­sand peo­ple, a major­i­ty of them trib­al, formed a 17 km long human chain around the Niyam­grii moun­tains in Oris­sa, India. The peo­ple were protest­ing the plans of Vedan­ta, a British min­ing com­pa­ny, to start baux­ite min­ing the moun­tains. Baux­ite is the most impor­tant raw mate­r­i­al for alu­minum pro­duc­tion and last year the Supreme Court said two of the planned min­ing projects could go ahead.

The protest was the sec­ond large-scale demon­stra­tion in ten days: on 17 Jan­u­ary up to 7,000 pro­test­ers marched to the gates of Vedanta’s alu­mini­um refin­ery in the near­by town of Lan­ji­garh.

“The rul­ing meant that an arm of the British-list­ed min­ing giant Vedan­ta could use baux­ite from a moun­tain in Oris­sa which local hill tribes view as sacred,” says on BBC News and con­tin­ues:

In a sep­a­rate rul­ing last year, South Kore­an steel firm Posco was also giv­en the go-ahead by the court for a $12bn plant in the same state. Envi­ron­men­tal and trib­al cam­paign­ers have called on India’s prime min­is­ter to halt the Vedan­ta project. They argue that India’s rush to devel­op­ment should not come at the expense of tra­di­tion­al and sus­tain­able ways of life of trib­al and mar­gin­alised peo­ple.

Many who took part in Tuesday’s protest bran­dished tra­di­tion­al weapons, such as bows and arrows. They car­ried plac­ards with slo­gans includ­ing “Vedan­ta, Go Back” and “Stop min­ing in Niyam­giri”. Their demon­stra­tion was fol­lowed by a pub­lic meet­ing in which speak­ers railed against the Lon­don-based com­pa­ny, which is cur­rent­ly set­ting up a large alu­mi­na refin­ery in the area.

Don­gia Khond­Speak­ers said they would oppose min­ing in the hills until their “last breath”. They demand­ed the imme­di­ate can­cel­la­tion of the min­ing lease to Vedan­ta. “The Niyam­giri hill is the life­line of the trib­als and there is no way we can allow baux­ite min­ing here,” Lin­garaj Azad, a leader who spoke at the meet­ing, told the BBC.

The Don­gria Kondh tribe, who live in the Niyam­giri hills, con­sid­er the hill sacred. They have been oppos­ing the min­ing lease giv­en to Vedan­ta for years, say­ing it would destroy their lives, liveli­hood, reli­gion and cul­ture. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists have also opposed plans to start baux­ite min­ing, because they say that the area is eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive. They say that if min­ing goes ahead it would lead to the destruc­tion of for­est, large scale dis­place­ment and would dry up or pol­lute dozens of rivers and streams.

Vedan­ta claims that “no-one is going to be dis­placed…” and that the com­pa­ny is “com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of the area.”

Protest­ing in front of Vedan­ta’s meet­ingsSamaren­dra Das, an Indi­an author, film mak­er and activist, who has been fight­ing the case of the Don­gria Kondh tribe, says that the baux­ite min­ing will lead to cul­tur­al geno­cide. The tribes will be forced to leave their lands and adapt to a lifestyle they do not want to. Samaren­dra and Felix Padel have writ­ten sev­er­al arti­cles about the con­se­quenses of the baux­ite min­ing and some of the have been puplished here on Sav­ing Iceland’s web­site: Agya, What Do You Mean by Devel­op­ment? and Dou­bleDeath: Aluminium’s Links With Geno­cide.

Sur­vival International’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said yes­ter­day: “By these protests the Don­gria Kondh are show­ing just how far the author­i­ties have failed them. The fact that the machines are run by a major British com­pa­ny should be a cause for shame in the City of Lon­don. This is a scan­dal which won’t go away until Vedan­ta leaves the tribe in peace.”