TALK: Maritime interests in the Tamil seas – the Tamil Genocide and UK government and business interests

oil blocks currently being allocated off Sri Lanka

with Phil Miller from Corporate Watch and Miriam Rose from Foil Vedanta

Activism and Academia Forum and the Centre of World Environmental History, Sussex University

28 February 2014 between 12:00-14:00

ARUNDEL BUILDING Room 208

After the genocidal war ended in Sri Lanka in 2009, the Tamil people did not just lose control of their land. The seas were also captured by the Sri Lankan navy. The government gave foreign energy firms lucrative concessions to prospect for oil and gas lying deep offshore in the Mannar and Cauvery basins. Fisherman, from Tamil Nadu and Tamil Eelam, face constant harassment. Australia recently provided Sri Lanka with patrol boats to turn back Tamil refugees.

Much of this ongoing conflict and exploitation takes place on the high seas, out of sight. Indeed, the defeat of the Tamil’s Sea Tigers has allowed Sri Lankan naval officers to pose as ‘counter-piracy’ experts, now running their own maritime security companies. The Somalia piracy across the Indian Ocean is being fought in part from the island of Sri Lanka.

Foil Vedanta responds to Tom Albanese on Vedanta in Zambia

12^th February 2014

Last week several articles were published in the Zambian media reporting on a press briefing held by Vedanta executive Tom Albanese following a ‘closed door meeting’ he held with Labour and Social Security Minister Fackson Shamenda in Lusaka, Zambia, on the 7^th February. Mr Albanese met with the Minister to refute claims made in Foil Vedanta‘s report ‘Copper Colonialism: Vedanta-KCM and the copper loot of Zambia‘, released to the Zambian press on January 31^st. The report demonstrated that, contrary to their claims, Vedanta’s subsidiary Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) are making considerable profit in Zambia and are guilty of casualising the labour force as well as causing severe environmental damage.

We want to respond to some of the claims made by Mr Albanese, and present more evidence of Vedanta’s campaign of misinformation here.

Please click this link to download the full report: Copper Colonialism: Vedanta KCM and the copper loot of Zambia

or read it online at this link.

Our response also has been printed in the Lusaka Times and national level debate around the report is documented in the Zambia Post newspaper.

Copper Colonialism – Foil Vedanta Zambia report launched

21st January 2014.  In December Foil Vedanta activists made a trip to Zambia to investigate the operations of Vedanta subsidiary Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), Zambia’s biggest copper miner, and to make links with grassroots movements, academics, journalists and those in the political system who may be questioning the unjust terms of copper mining in their country.

We were shocked to discover the environmental and social devastation wrought by Vedanta’s operations, and the lack of information held by policy makers and regulators in Zambia on this multinational as well as on wider issues with copper market manipulations, material flows and the real interests controlling their country. This report is a comprehensive account of the origins of, and interests behind the rapid loot of Zambia’s copper resources which is currently taking place.

The Mine Workers Union of Zambia have now launched a full investigation into the evidence in the report, and Vedanta Executive Tom Albanese has been flown out to Zambia to refute the evidence we have published.

Download the report here, or read the full (35 page) report online below.

To download the report click here: Copper Colonialism: Vedanta KCM and the copper loot of Zambia.

Vedanta loses $10 billion investment at Niyamgiri and slips to FTSE 250

Celebrations of the Niyamgiri victory at Jarapa in August

On Saturday 11th January the Ministry of Environment and Forests finally gave its statement formally rejecting permission for Vedanta’s Niyamgiri mine. In late December another major disaster hit the company when low share prices got them officially demoted from the FTSE 100 to the FTSE 250, removing their ‘blue chip’ status.

The failure of the Niyamgiri bauxite mining project is estimated by some to have cost Vedanta $10 billion in lost investments. Vedanta boss Anil Agarwal had built the Lanjigarh refinery at the foot of Niyamgiri mountain, and even expanded it sixfold, so sure was he that he would gain permission to mine despite the local inhabitants’ dissent. In November 2004 he even used a Financial Times article to mislead investors and create confidence, by claiming that he already had permission to mine the mountain.

Sulphur Dioxide leak grounds residents in Chingola, Zambia

This report comes from local residents and research direct from Zambia where a Foil Vedanta team is currently investigating British based Vedanta’s copper subsidiary KCM and making links with Zambian communities.

In the early morning of Friday 13th December high levels of Sulphur Dioxide were released from Vedanta subsidiary KCM’s Nchanga copper smelter in Chingola, Zambia. KCM’s Public Relations manager Joy Sata (a former journalist for Daily Mail Zambia) warned affected communities to stay in their homes until the pollution passed. See news article below.

Sata was quick to point out to the media that the pollution was caused by a national power outage due to disruption at the Kafue Gorge Power Station run by the government power company ZESCO. However, this does not explain why KCM’s smelter was the only one of many other mining companies affected by the power cut to release toxic emissions into the local community. It is clear that KCMs back up power supply was not effective causing their production to stop and releasing damaging emissions.

Thirty women’s groups tell Priyanka Chopra to pull out of campaign

Thirty women’s organisations and other groups have now signed this open letter to Priyanka Chopra asking her to officially pull out of Vedanta’s shameless Our Girls Our Pride PR campaign. The TV campaign with Indian channel NDTV aims to paint the notorious mining company as a saviour of women’s rights, rather than the human rights abuser they have been repeatedly proven to be. (See previous article ‘Vedanta’s Our Girls Our Pride campaign is a farce and a sham’).

We hope Priyanka will see sense and respond to the call of worldwide and Indian women’s movements to stand by India’s women and girls and withdraw her part in this PR scam on the part of Vedanta.

Dear Priyanka Chopra,

We the undersigned, representatives of the women’s movement in India, the UK and the USA are deeply shocked and dismayed to hear that you have agreed to become a Brand Ambassador for a campaign ‘Our Girls, Our Pride’ launched by one of the most notorious mining companies in the world – Vedanta Resources. Are you aware that Vedanta’s activities are destroying the lives of thousands of girl children in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and other states of India where the company is active and also in many countries of Africa? Are you aware also that the struggle against Vedanta’s activities has been led by women and girls?

Vedanta’s Our Girls Our Pride campaign is a farce and a sham

Anil Agarwal and Priyanka Chopra at Our Girls Our Pride launch on NDTV

2nd September 2013. On the same day that the last of twelve villages voted Vedanta out of Niyamgiri for good, Vedanta announced a new major Corporate Social Responsibility and PR campaign to save its tattered reputation. The campaign, in partnership with the Vedanta funded station NDTV, entitled ‘Our Girls, Our Pride‘, will focus on nutrition, education, health, foeticide and infanticide affecting girl children in India. Miss World 2000, Bollywood superstar and UNICEF’s Goodwill Ambassador for child rights – Priyanka Chopra, will be the face of the campaign. The idea that Vedanta could be an ambassador for the well being of India’s poorest girl children is beyond farcical. Vedanta’s mining and processing operations have displaced, poisoned and polluted thousands of families. Their low pay, anti-union activities and worker’s deaths have deprived hundreds of young girls of their parents and plunged their families into poverty.

Vedanta used the launch of the Our Girls Our Pride programme to promote another PR campaign which they have run since 2008 to make India ‘a child malnourished free nation’. To achieve this goal they promote their take-over of 14,000 Anganwadi (child day care) centres – as part of a mass privatisation programme. This privatisation has been opposed by Anganwadi workers who claim centres are being shut down and jobs lost as a result. Karnataka Anganwadi teachers held a protest in August which demanded an end to Vedanta’s privatisation or a state wide strike would be held.

Vedanta also emphasised their widespread promotion of Self Help Groups which they claim have ‘transformed 14,900 women into Rural Entrepreneurs’, plus health camps, a Heart Hospital in Rajasthan and a 350 bed Cancer Hospital in Raipur. These health centres will be necessary for those living near or working in Vedanta’s plants which have repeatedly polluted and poisoned their locality. Just this year Vedanta’s Sterlite copper smelting subsidiary in Tamil Nadu released toxic gases (thought to be largely sulphur dioxide) which choked thousands of local inhabitants leading to ongoing health impacts and one death. Self Help Groups on the other hand have been effective in reducing mass dissent against Vedanta’s operations, as women receiving money as part of the scheme sometimes feel unable to criticise the company despite the obvious health impacts on their children and themselves. Not in every case however, as even Vedanta’s CSR darling village of Phuldumer on the Niyamgiri mountain adamantly opposed their proposed mine despite the Self Help Groups they had set up there. This article looks at a few specific cases in which young girls have suffered as a result of Vedanta’s activities and aims to demonstrate the total incompatibility of Vedanta’s style of operation with the well being of communities and their girls.

Foil Vedanta is coordinating a mass letter to Priyanka Chopra signed by women’s orgamisations urging her to pull out of the campaign and avoid helping to clean Vedanta’s rightly sullied reputation.

Please sign a public petition asking NDTV to pull out their support for the campaign here, and a petition asking Priyanka Chopra to pull out here, or contact us on foilvedanta@riseup.net if your organisation wishes to be a signatory to the letter (which can be found at the end of this post).

Stop the Visit of Narendra Modi to the UK! Remember the Gujarat genocide of 2002

Call out for action!        Labour MP for Brent North – Barry Gardiner – has invited the Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi to come and address the House of Commons on the subject of ‘The Future of Modern India’. Narendra Modi is the Prime Ministerial candidate of the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and an avowed admirer of Hitler and his policies. In 2002, Modi presided over the genocidal attacks in which over 2,000 men, women and children from Gujarat’s Muslim minority community were systematically killed, including three British citizens.
This is purely an attempt to help British corporates sell their products and services in Gujarat in the interests of larger profits. Modi’s past visits to the UK have been used to raise extensive funds and support for communal violence. A visit at this time is particularly dangerous and must be stopped.

A rally will be held at Barry Gardiner’s surgery.    Please come with placards and energy!

Monday 9 September 2013, 11:30 AM – 1 PM,

Brent Civic Centre, Engineers Way, Wembley HA9 0FJ   Join the facebook event page here.

Please also sign the petition. Full copy below.

Niyamgiri unanimously rejects Vedanta!

Jarapa palli sabha

20th August, 2013. Yesterday Jarapa – the last of the twelve villages selected to vote on the proposed Niyamgiri mine – sealed the victory of the mountain and its people over Vedanta, as, like every other village, it unanimously opposed the mine. Niyamgiri has now spoken, and commentators agree that, though the Ministry of Environment and Forests has the final say on the resolution passed by the villages, they would face public outcry if they ignored the clear message of the Dongria.

Thanks to the hard work of activists at, and around, Niyamgiri, the precedent process, enabled by the Supreme Court, has been fully transparent, and the Odisha government’s attempts to use violence and manipulation to influence the verdict, have failed. As a result the world has witnessed the clarity and conviction of Niyamgiri’s people – from Dongria and Kutia Konds, to Dalits, Gaudas  and others who live off the bounty of the mountain – who realise that there is no richer life than having self sufficiency, community and freedom. In the palli sabhas Niyamgiri’s tribal people showed their wisdom and knowledge as they articulated their vision of development, and questioned the type of development prescribed for them by the state, which they do not recognise as progress. (More details below). Yesterday they celebrated their great victory with music, drums and dancing.

The Hindu newspaper quotes Lingaraj Azad, leader of Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti on the final palli sabha vote:

“As all gram sabhas have unanimously rejected mining in the hills despite the sinister design by the Odisha government and ruffians engaged by Vedanta, it is time Vedanta gracefully respected public sentiment and packed off,”

The Ministry of Environment and Forests now have two months to deliver the final verdict on the mine according to the April 18th Supreme Court ruling. After ten years of bribery, corruption, coercion and violence to try to get Niyamgiri’s bauxite, Vedanta has lost a $7 billion investment. This people’s victory should be a lesson to other communities fighting mega-projects who seek short term profit over the longevity of sustainable communities. With strength, solidarity and commitment you can win. As they say in India – “ladhenge jitenge!” – ‘We will fight, we will win!’.

Niyamgiri 10 – Vedanta 0

9th August: Ten of twelve Palli Sabhas have now been held on the Niyamgiri hills and each one has unanimously rejected Vedanta’s proposed mine, and laid claim to the whole mountain range for their cultural and religious rights.

The latest meeting to be held was in Lakhpadar on 7th August where 97 voters virulently opposed the project and rejected the claims which the judge claimed were filed for compensation of Forest Rights. Local resident and movement leader Lodo Sikoka told the judge and the panel:

“Our God lives in open space. You keep your God locked with a key. We won’t leave Niyamgiri. If the Government, Political Party Leaders ask for it we will fight and shed blood. Why do the police, armed force destroy our fields and crops in the name of combing Maoists? Why are they entering our territory? Withdraw them immediately.”

A full report of the Lakhpadar palli sabha entitled – ‘Niyamgiri is our doctor we will die for niyamgiri but never allow for mining bauxite for Vedanta‘ can be found at Orissabarta.