Category: London

GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC (27 JULY)

VENUE/TIME:- AGM OF VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC, THE LINCOLN CENTRE, 18 LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, LONDON, WC2A 3ED, (near­est Tube- Hol­born)
27 JULY 2009, 2.00 pm onwards

STOP THE CULTURAL GENOCIDE, ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION, HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION, DEADLY POLLUTION
The Glob­al Cam­paign against Vedan­ta Resources plc will be protest­ing inside and out­side the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing of Vedan­ta Resources plc at Lin­coln Cen­tre, 18 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Lon­don, WC2A 3ED on 27 July 2009 from 2.00 pm onwards. Simul­ta­ne­ous protests will be held world­wide on 27 July, in the east­ern Indi­an state of Oris­sa and oth­er parts of India and a series of demon­stra­tions, pub­lic meet­ings and ral­lies will be held in Oris­sa, Kolkata, Mum­bai and oth­er cities from 27 July onwards.
Vedan­ta Resources is a multi­na­tion­al min­ing com­pa­ny, list­ed on the Lon­don Stock Exchange whose spec­tac­u­lar rise involves vio­lat­ing Envi­ron­men­tal Laws, Human Rights Abuse, Finan­cial scams & Polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion in Zam­bia, Arme­nia, India and oth­er coun­tries where it exploits poor­ly reg­u­lat­ed min­ing enclaves. Recent­ly Vedan­ta has announced plans to start min­ing in the Niyam­giri hills of Oris­sa, India from Octo­ber 2009 and it aims to increase oper­a­tions by 6 fold by 2011. Vedanta’s min­ing in Oris­sa will have a dev­as­tat­ing impact on the frag­ile Ecosys­tem of this fer­tile and vital­ly impor­tant forest­ed moun­tain­ous region and the state of Oris­sa in gen­er­al. It will lead to a Cul­tur­al Geno­cide of the ancient trib­al civ­i­liza­tion of the Don­gria Kondh and Majhi Kondh tribes, who have lived eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able & self suf­fi­cient lives for cen­turies in these moun­tains. Vedanta’s min­ing will also lead to severe­ly tox­ic pol­lu­tion, dis­eases, ter­mi­nal ill­ness­es, destruc­tion of endan­gered wildlife, dam­age to the wild ele­phant pop­u­la­tion, dev­as­ta­tion of crops and arable land and the poi­son­ing and dry­ing up of rivers and streams, which will have cat­a­stroph­ic effects on tens of thou­sands of peo­ple for whom these rivers are cru­cial life­lines in Kala­han­di, one of the most drought prone regions of India.
The Glob­al Cam­paign against Vedan­ta Resources plc is spread over sev­er­al coun­tries and includes over 150 sol­i­dar­i­ty groups, Grass­roots move­ments, NGOs, activists, intel­lec­tu­als, aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als.
WE DEMAND THE FOLLOWING:-
1. Vedan­ta should IMMEDIATELY ABANDON PLANS for min­ing Baux­ite in the Niyam­giri hills of Oris­sa.
2. PARLIAMENTARY INVESTIGATIONS in the UK and in India into Vedanta’s oper­a­tions in India and around the world.
3. Vedan­ta, a UK based com­pa­ny, MUST BE MADE ACCOUNTABLE for the social, envi­ron­men­tal and health reper­cus­sions suf­fered by local com­mu­ni­ties around the world as a result of Vedanta’s cal­lous min­ing activ­i­ties. Those who have been affect­ed and abused by Vedanta’s activ­i­ties MUST BE ENABLED to seek jus­tice in their home coun­tries and/or in the UK.
4. Vedan­ta Ltd, Reg­u­la­tors, the UK Gov­ern­ment and Gov­ern­ments of the min­ing enclaves MUST IMPLEMENT MORE EFFECTIVE CONTROLS on Vedanta’s oper­a­tions.
5. Vedanta’s Share­hold­ers and oth­er investors must be MADE FULLY AWARE of the true nature of this min­ing com­pa­ny they are invest­ing in so that they can make a bet­ter informed deci­sion on whether to WITHDRAW THEIR INVESTMENTS from this crim­i­nal­ly destruc­tive min­ing com­pa­ny.

BACKGROUND TO WHY VEDANTA RESOURCES PLC MUST BE STOPPED
After a high­ly con­tro­ver­sial legal case last­ing 3 years at The Supreme Court of India, which wit­nessed some out­ra­geous dis­tor­tion of facts and a major mis­car­riage of jus­tice, in April 2009 the Indi­an Gov­ern­ment gave clear­ance to Vedan­ta to mine Baux­ite in the Niyam­giri hills of Oris­sa for the next 25 years. Vedan­ta plans to start min­ing Baux­ite in Octo­ber 2009 and aims to increase by 6 fold by 2011.
CRITICAL REASONS WHY WE MUST NOT LET VEDANTA COMMENCE MINING ACTIVITIES IN NIYAMGIRI and leave behind a trail of ter­ri­ble ENVIRONMENTAL and HUMAN DEVASTATION includes the fol­low­ing:-
· Vedanta’s min­ing activ­i­ties will have a cat­a­stroph­ic effect on the frag­ile Ecosys­tem of Oris­sa with over a thou­sand hectares of prime Ever­green ‘Reserve Forests’ being wiped out, rivers being poi­soned, ground water lev­els falling. Already Vedanta’s Refin­ery, which has been built on trib­al land in Lan­ji­garh, is crit­i­cal­ly pol­lut­ing. Major rivers of Oris­sa, includ­ing Riv­er Bansad­hara, has already been pol­lut­ed at its source. Tox­ic wastes have ruined fer­tile agri­cul­tur­al lands, pol­lut­ed air, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed drink­ing & bathing water, & caused severe ill­ness­es in peo­ple & wildlife. Min­ing will com­pound these effects.
· Hun­dreds of the local indige­nous pop­u­la­tion have been killed in work and road acci­dent in and around this Refin­ery because of Vedanta’s crim­i­nal neg­li­gence. The Com­mu­ni­ty has been vio­lent­ly split and is ter­rorised by thugs in Vedanta’s pay.
· Niyam Don­gar is the most dense­ly forest­ed moun­tain in the Niyam­giri range. It is home to the ancient civ­i­liza­tion of the Don­gria Kondh tribe, who have pre­served their sacred moun­tain, pre­vent­ed defor­esta­tion, lived eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able & self suf­fi­cient lives for cen­turies.
· Cul­tur­al Geno­cide is immi­nent with Mass Unem­ploy­ment and Des­ti­tu­tion as farm­ers, fish­er­men and for­est dwellers will be dis­placed and aban­doned in shan­ty-towns. Del­i­cate social struc­ture will be torn apart with the col­lapse of tra­di­tion­al Eco­nom­ic sys­tems, Kin­ship sys­tem, Egal­i­tar­i­an pow­er struc­tures and Reli­gious val­ues. Already dis­place­ment and the inva­sion by an alien indus­try has led to a sharp rise in ille­gal liquor shops, fraud­u­lent schemes, drunk­en vio­lence, wife beat­ings, sui­cides, pros­ti­tu­tion & seri­ous frac­tures in the com­mu­ni­ty. Cul­tur­al Geno­cide will also affect Majhi Kondh tribe and will cul­mi­nate in the destruc­tion of Niyam Don­gar, the most sacred moun­tain of the Kondh tribe and their Lord of Law. The Kondhs per­ceive the moun­tains and the forests as their Gods. So their destruc­tion is both an envi­ron­men­tal and a cul­tur­al atroc­i­ty.
· These Baux­ite-capped moun­tains are the rea­son for the region’s excep­tion­al fer­til­i­ty and bio-diver­si­ty. Baux­ite, which con­tains the Alu­mini­um ore, soaks up rain­wa­ter, holds this water and releas­es it to numer­ous peren­ni­al streams and rivers, which are essen­tial Life­lines in Kala­han­di, one of the most drought prone regions of India. Remov­ing this Baux­ite will be cat­a­stroph­ic for the frag­ile ecosys­tem, endan­gered wildlife and for tens of thou­sands of peo­ple who rely on these rivers.
· If min­ing starts on Niyam­giri, at least 50 oth­er major moun­tains are next in line! Already trib­al peo­ple and ‘Dal­its’ (Untouch­ables) have move­ments to pro­tect Bapla Mali, Mali Par­bat, Deo Mali, Gand­hamar­dan and oth­er moun­tains in Oris­sa and Andhra Pradesh. BHP­Bil­li­ton, Alcoa, Rio Tin­to, Jin­dal & Dubai-based com­pa­nies are poised to set up Baux­ite mines.
· In Dec 2000 police opened fire on trib­al cam­paign­ers, killing three at the Utkal project. While an Inquiry into the police fir­ing was hold­ing up this project Vedan­ta made its move, build­ing its refin­ery before apply­ing for per­mis­sion to mine! Vedan­ta has repeat­ed­ly vio­lat­ed Gov­ern­ment Pol­lu­tion Guide­lines, ille­gal­ly occu­pied vil­lage land, crim­i­nal­ly start­ed con­struc­tion work with­out Envi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance, dumped tox­ic pol­lu­tants into rivers and cleared ‘Reserve For­est’ land despite valiant efforts by vil­lagers to pro­tect their forests.
· Moun­tains of North Oris­sa are some of the last pock­ets of wild ele­phants in East­ern India. These majes­tic ani­mals are being threat­ened by the ram­pant min­ing. Mag­nif­i­cent wildlife, forests, some of the high­est water­falls in India and many trib­al cul­tures are in seri­ous dan­ger of being wiped out for­ev­er.

WORLDWIDE REACTIONS & MOVEMENTS
· In ear­ly 2009, in a breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful non-vio­lent protest over 10,000 vil­lagers and con­cerned cit­i­zens held hands to form a 17 kilo­me­tre human chain around the Niyam­giri hills.
· On July 9, 2009 Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al stat­ed that “The Indi­an Gov­ern­ment should imme­di­ate­ly with­draw the clear­ance grant­ed to a mas­sive min­ing project (Vedan­ta) that threat­ens the lives and liveli­hoods of a pro­tect­ed indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty liv­ing in the Niyam­giri hills.
· Vedan­ta has been black­list­ed by the Nor­we­gian Govt Pen­sion Fund, with its pen­sion fund invest­ments divest­ed in 2007 cit­ing “seri­ous mal­prac­tice and con­tra­ven­tions of envi­ron­ment norms and ethics by the Vedan­ta man­age­ment in the past wher­ev­er they oper­ate” and “human rights vio­la­tion”. Pro­ce­dur­al vio­la­tions in pro­cure­ment of envi­ron­ment and for­est clear­ance for min­ing were cit­ed. The Mar­tin Cur­rie Scot­tish Trust Fund also with­drew their £2.37m invest­ment in Vedan­ta in July 2008 on grounds of “envi­ron­men­tal and human rights vio­la­tion.”
· The Oris­sa State Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board has issued more than 3 notices to Vedan­ta for vio­lat­ing pol­lu­tion norms at its Refin­ery and the CEC com­mit­tee of the Indi­an Supreme Court sub­mit­ted sev­er­al reports high­light­ing irreg­u­lar­i­ties and cor­rup­tion in Vedan­ta and rec­om­mend­ing that Envi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance for min­ing activ­i­ties should NOT be give. Both Vedanta’s par­ent com­pa­ny- Ster­lite and Vedanta’s sub­sidiary MALCO have been charged in court with the crim­i­nal vio­la­tion of Envi­ron­men­tal laws, cal­lous dump­ing of tox­ic wastes and ille­gal con­struc­tion.
· World­wide uproar fol­lowed Vedan­ta being award­ed the ‘Gold­en Pea­cock Award’ by the World Envi­ron­men­tal Foun­da­tion (WEF) in 2009. This same award was award­ed to Satyam Com­put­ers in Sep­tem­ber 2008 before being with­drawn in Jan­u­ary 2009 after senior man­age­ment and the founder chair­man were arrest­ed for fraud. Var­i­ous con­cerned cit­i­zens wrote a let­ter to the jurors of this ‘Gold­en Pea­cock Award’ voic­ing their con­cerns and expos­ing Vedanta’s activ­i­ties. In reply the jurors dis­so­ci­at­ed them­selves from Vedan­ta and said that the prize deci­sion was made before­hand by one Mr Mehra. Mr Mehra is a high­ly dubi­ous Lon­don based cor­po­rate guru of whom ‘The Observ­er’ released an arti­cle in May 2003 called ‘The Con­tra­dic­tions of Mad­hav Mehra’! Hun­dreds of organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als wrote to the jury of the ‘The Gold­en Pea­cock Award’ and demon­stra­tions were held at the Award cer­e­mo­ny in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Such was the pub­lic anger that even the Chief Min­is­ter of Himachal Pradesh and oth­er Gov­ern­ment offi­cials refused to par­tic­i­pate in this Award cer­e­mo­ny.
· In Viet­nam, the trib­al peo­ple of the Cen­tral High­lands are being invad­ed by the world’s top alu­mini­um com­pa­nies. Gen­er­al Vo Nguyen Giap – a war hero, now aged 97, who helped defeat the French and Amer­i­can inva­sions – is among a large group of the country’s lead­ing cit­i­zens who are oppos­ing this new inva­sion by min­ing com­pa­nies. Sci­en­tists are promi­nent in the cam­paign. In Peru’s Ama­zon region oppo­si­tion against oil extract­ing com­pa­nies gained world­wide atten­tion after a block­ade by about 30,000 peo­ple was met by severe police vio­lence on 5–6 June 2009, which killed at least 85 Indi­ans. In Nige­ria the assault on indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties involved the out­ra­geous ‘exe­cu­tion’ of writer and envi­ron­men­tal activist Ken Saro Wiwa, who was non-vio­lent­ly oppos­ing multi­na­tion­al oil com­pa­nies. In the Phillip­ines, Indone­sia, Malaysia, Brazil, Colum­bia, Ecuador, Bur­ma, Tibet etc min­ing, oil and log­ging com­pa­nies are destroy­ing for­est simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the liveli­hood of the indige­nous peo­ples. Sci­en­tists believe that Swine Flu out­break in Mex­i­co could be due to the hor­ren­dous pol­lu­tion spread by the big meat com­pa­nies. In West­ern Aus­tralia, Erin Brock­ovich, the famous Envi­ron­men­tal lawyer is rep­re­sent­ing the local com­mu­ni­ty against Alu­mini­um giant Alcoa after an out­break of res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es.
· We need to under­stand that the Finan­cial Cri­sis, Glob­al Warm­ing & Pan­demics are linked to these exploitive indus­tries, which pol­lute cal­lous­ly, dev­as­tate crops and arable land, destroys com­mu­ni­ties & cul­tures, leads to the loss of rare ani­mals & med­i­c­i­nal plants, death of rivers, inflic­tion of sick­ness and ter­mi­nal dis­eases. All for the sake of a few greedy years of cor­po­rate prof­its. We need to join with the Grass­roots move­ments in India, Viet­nam, Peru and oth­er coun­tries in oppos­ing these mon­strous­ly destruc­tive cor­po­ra­tions and in choos­ing gen­uine­ly sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, which will be gen­uine­ly ben­e­fi­cial for the local com­mu­ni­ties and be eco­log­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able for many gen­er­a­tions to come.

CONTACT DETAILS:-
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST VEDANTA,
Samaren­dra Das- sdasorisa@hotmail.co.uk, sdasorisa@rediffmail.com
Felix Padel- felixorisa@yahoo.com
Chan­da Asani (Kashipur Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group)- chanda_asani@yahoo.co.uk
Sachin Masurkar (Kashipur Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group)- sachinam_sai@yahoo.co.in
Phone- (+ 91)9869324085
Agro­to­sh Mook­er­jee- whatculture@yahoo.co.uk
Phone- (+44) 07528435541
Miri­am Rose- welliebird7@hotmail.co.uk