Category: Tribal Solidarity

June 5, 2009

Late last month, a group of demon­stra­tors were vio­lent­ly arrest­ed by police at a road­block in the north­ern Pana­man­ian province of Cocle.

The road­block was first set up on May 9, 2009 to resist the Petaquil­la Gold mine project, which is owned by the Pana­ma com­pa­ny Min­era Petaquil­la, and devel­oped by two oth­ers: the Van­cou­ver-based junior com­pa­ny, Petaquil­la Min­er­als and the Toron­to-based com­pa­ny, Inmet Min­ing.

As a many as 24 local com­mu­ni­ties are opposed to the project because of the “aber­rant pre­da­tion and destruc­tion of the Mesoamer­i­can Bio­log­i­cal Cor­ri­dor, where hun­dreds of hectares of vir­gin jun­gle and for­est have been cut down, and where the moun­tain pass­es and rivers that made the area one of the most impor­tant in the world due to its rich bio­di­ver­si­ty have been destroyed and pol­lut­ed,” notes a May 14 report by La Estrel­la.

The com­mu­ni­ties also say “they have nev­er been con­sult­ed, but rather deceived, and their lands have been tak­en from them unfair­ly in many ways, includ­ing the destruc­tion and burn­ing of ranch­es of indige­nous peo­ples, with­out even indem­ni­fy­ing the local res­i­dents and with­out any author­i­ty of the PRD gov­ern­ment ful­fill­ing its con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion to defend the com­mu­ni­ties.”

Also report­ing on the arrests, La Estrel­la says 12 demon­stra­tors were arrest­ed in total (oth­er reports say it was 30 demon­stra­tors), “among them the Chiriqui envi­ron­men­tal­ist Car­menci­ta Ted­man. A peas­ant who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said that he was real­ly afraid, because police­men were hit­ting the pro­tes­tors mer­ci­less­ly, even women and chil­dren. He added that when all this was hap­pen­ing Petaquil­la Gold heli­copters were sur­vey­ing the scene.”

The police used rods, and shot pel­lets and tear gas to sub­due the demon­stra­tors.

For back­ground on the Petaquil­la Gold mine and local efforts to stop it, vis­it miningwatch.ca

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.”