Dongria Kohnd mass protest — Middlesbrough and Wolverhampton Councils Revealed as Vedanta Investors

Tribe dances in mass protest against British min­ing com­pa­ny
21 Octo­ber 2008

Hun­dreds of mem­bers of the Don­gria Kondh tribe danced and sang through the cap­i­tal of the Indi­an state of Oris­sa on Mon­day, armed with tra­di­tion­al weapons, to mark their oppo­si­tion to British com­pa­ny Vedanta’s plans to mine their sacred moun­tain.

A huge pro­ces­sion of the tribe and their sup­port­ers snaked through the Oris­san cap­i­tal, Bhubaneswar.

The FTSE 100 British com­pa­ny Vedan­ta, major­i­ty owned by Lon­don-based bil­lion­aire Anil Agar­w­al, has received the go-ahead from India’s Supreme Court to mine alu­mini­um ore on the Dongria’s land. The mine would destroy the forests and streams the Don­gria depend on, and would turn their sacred moun­tain into an indus­tri­al waste­land.

Don­gria man Jitu Jake­si­ka said at the demon­stra­tion, ‘We will car­ry on our strug­gle to save Niyam­giri at any cost.’

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘If fur­ther proof were need­ed that the Don­gria Kondh are deter­mined to stop Vedan­ta, this would be it. The Don­gria know that the mine would destroy them. Vedan­ta must heed their voic­es and pull out of this project.’

Last week Sur­vival sub­mit­ted a report to the Unit­ed Nations Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Indige­nous Issues, say­ing, ‘Min­ing will dev­as­tate what the Don­gria Kondh hold sacred and the nat­ur­al resources from which they draw their spe­cif­ic iden­ti­ty as a peo­ple.’

Many British banks and pen­sion funds invest in Vedan­ta, includ­ing the Uni­ver­si­ties pen­sion fund (USS), F&C, Stan­dard Life, Bar­clays Bank, Abbey Nation­al and HSBC, as well as Mid­dles­brough and Wolver­hamp­ton Coun­cils. Sur­vival is cam­paign­ing for investors to pull out of Vedan­ta.

For more infor­ma­tion please con­tact Miri­am Ross at Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or (+44) (0)7504 543 367 or email mr@survival-international.org