STOP VEDANTA’S AGM! 28th July

STOP VEDANTA’s KILLINGS, DISPLACEMENT AND DEVASTATION!
THROW THEM OUT OF INDIA AND the UK!

STOP VEDANTA’S AGM!

3pm, Wednes­day, 28 July 2010,
The Insti­tute of Civ­il Engi­neers, 1, Great George Street, Lon­don SW1P 3AA

Vedan­ta plc’s record in Oris­sa, India:
· More than 100 men, women and chil­dren have been killed in acci­dents, police fir­ings, forced dis­place­ment, injury and ill­ness
· More than 1000 peo­ple have been dis­placed and more than 8000 under threat
· More than100 square miles of land have been dev­as­tat­ed and an equal area of for­est under threat
· Rivers and streams which are the life­line for tens of thou­sands of peo­ple are dry­ing up
· Thou­sands of acres of fer­tile agri­cul­tur­al land have been destroyed in a region which has seen famines every year since 2007
· Drink­ing water sources are being con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by dump­ing of fly ash and tox­ic red mud into riv­er streams
· The Niyam­giri hills – known as the most beau­ti­ful moun­tains in India — are under threat. The ancient civ­i­liza­tion of the Don­gria Kondh adi­vasi com­mu­ni­ty, who regard the Niyam Don­gar moun­tain and forests of the area as their Gods, is being wiped out
· Vedan­ta is caus­ing mass unem­ploy­ment and des­ti­tu­tion as farm­ers, fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties and for­est dwellers are being dis­placed and aban­doned in shan­ty-towns

Why is this hap­pen­ing?

Mega-prof­its for bil­lion­aires with blood on their hands
Anil Agar­w­al, bil­lion­aire CEO of Vedan­ta is deter­mined to mine for baux­ite in Niyam­giri despite mas­sive oppo­si­tion of the local peo­ple, and a nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cam­paign against it, which recent­ly led
share­hold­ers includ­ing the Church of Eng­land and Rown­trees, to pull out.
Lon­don –based Anil Agar­w­al is worth 4.1billion pounds and is cur­rent­ly the tenth rich­est per­son in Britain, whose per­son­al wealth has grown even in the reces­sion by 583%. Agarwal’s empire – Vedan­ta Resources – now spans four con­ti­nents, with offices in Lon­don and oper­a­tions in Zam­bia, Aus­tralia and India. Vedan­ta and Agar­w­al have been accused of ‘cor­rup­tion, fraud, forgery, manip­u­la­tion of share prices, and insid­er trad­ing.’ as Norway’s Coun­cil of Ethics describes.

Who else is ben­e­fit­ting?
Anil Agar­w­al and Vedan­ta have close links with the Sangh Pari­var, the umbrel­la group of Hin­du right-wing orga­ni­za­tions in India. These orga­ni­za­tions have been held respon­si­ble for geno­ci­dal attacks on India’s
minor­i­ty Mus­lim and Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ties, in Oris­sa, Gujarat and else­where.
Vedan­ta has con­nec­tions with many pow­er­ful fig­ures. Its Board mem­bers have includ­ed P.Chidambaram, India’s Home Min­is­ter, Naresh Chan­dra, for­mer Indi­an Ambas­sador to the US, and David Gore-Booth, for­mer British
Ambas­sador to Sau­di Ara­bia and High Com­mis­sion­er of India.

What is the role of the British Gov­ern­ment?
Vedan­ta was launched on the Lon­don Stock Exchange in Decem­ber 2003 with the help of Britain’s Depart­ment of Trade and Indus­try and the Depart­ment for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment (DfID). More recent­ly, mas­sive pub­lic­i­ty of Vedanta’s crimes forced the British gov­ern­ment to crit­i­cize it for not hav­ing a human rights pol­i­cy.

BUT the British Gov­ern­ment has con­tin­ued to active­ly sup­port Vedan­ta. For exam­ple, DfID has set up and con­tin­ues to fund Busi­ness Part­ners for Devel­op­ment (Now renamed as Build­ing Part­ner­ships for Devel­op­ment) whose aim is to counter the effect of the pow­er­ful people’s move­ment against the com­pa­ny. And in 2005 DfID com­mis­sioned “Oris­sa Dri­vers for Change” a research project which urges min­er­al inten­sive indus­tri­al­iza­tion of the region and sup­ports Vedan­ta and oth­er com­pa­nies.

Organ­ised by FOIL VEDANTA

Sup­port­ed by: South Asia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group, South Asian Alliance, All India Cen­tral Coun­cil of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Ravi Dass Human Rights Organ­i­sa­tion (UK), Hilling­don Wom­ens Cen­tre, Cam­paign Against
Crim­i­nal­is­ing Com­mu­ni­ties (CAMPACC), Peo­ples Glob­al Action, Com­mu­ni­ties Empow­er­ing Net­work, Glob­alise Resis­tance

Details: sasg@southasiasolidarity.org