Posco:
Bad for India, bad for Uruguay and bad for the climate
As we reported
in October 2009, the Korean steel company POSCO has been granted
the opportunity both in India and in Uruguay to occupy territory
that is valued by the inhabitants of both countries.
In India, POSCO was granted permits to install a steel plant and
a port and also to carry out mining prospection in the eastern state
of Orissa in an area which includes 6000 hectares of pristine forests,
prime agricultural land and coastal economy. On its part, the Uruguayan
government signed an Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement
with the Korean government, whereby all type of support is guaranteed
to the Korean firm POSCO to establish a “Carbon sink Forestation
Project” (See details in WRM Bulletin No. 147)
The only reason why the project in India has not yet been implemented
is because of the massive resistance since 2005, involving thousands
of people who depend for their survival on the forests, agricultural
land and sea-coast the company plans to destroy for its business.
According to recent reports, due to the lack of response on the
part of the government and in protest against what the locals call
the joint conspiracy by the central government at Delhi, the state
government and the South Korean President, the inhabitants decided
to continue with their “Sit-in” (Dharna in
the local language), a peaceful protest that started on 26 January
2010 (coinciding India’s Republic Day in which the Korean
President was official chief guest). One hundred and seven days
and nights had gone by, during which women, men and children of
farm and fisherfolk families sat in, when they decided to appeal
for national and international solidarity as they had been unable
to achieve the slightest sense of government responsibility towards
the people they are supposed to represent.
In a desperate effort to comply with the promise to “expedite
works to hand over lands,” to the company, on 11 May this
year the government sent 25 strongly armed military squads, which
surrounded the area where the inhabitants were carrying out the
sit-in, occupying schools and prepared to attack ... the local unarmed
population. In this framework, the anti-POSCO movement made a further
urgent appeal to participate in the Massive Resistance Week in solidarity
with the local strugglers against the giant POSCO and against State
brutality.
“At no point,
in their struggle for over five years, have the anti-POSCO protestors
indulged in any violent activities and have instead set an example
to the rest of the country on how to carry out a democratic struggle
based solely on the mass support of ordinary men and women”
says the movement in their press release. In spite of this, on May
15, Orissa police opened fire on peaceful protesters who stood on
the way in defense of their lands and livelihoods. This act of the
state was condemned by various human and civil rights organisations
across the country and the world. Forest-rights movement groups
such as the National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW)
and the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD) condemned this atrocious
brutality and the desperate attempt of corporatisation of forest
resources, in which more than 50 people were injured severely and
many shops and houses were set on fire by the blood-thirsty policemen.
Despite all the violence against the people and bullets lodged in
their bodies, people in the area continue to protest against the
acquisition of land for the steel plant and captive port. They are
still there because this is not just a “dispute over land
acquisition for development” as it has been announced by the
government but because POSCO project is illegal and will not bring
any benefits for the local population or the country's economy.
The POSCO project is illegal as it violates the Forest Rights Act
of 2006. Under that law, no forest land can be given to anyone until:
1) all the rights of the people in the area are recognised and 2)
their consent is given to the project. The Central and State governments
have no legal right to hand over this land to POSCO. In law, not
just in public view, this is daylight robbery of the country's natural
resources by a multinational. What is not usually mentioned is that
POSCO is getting a huge amount of land, water and millions of tonnes
of iron ore in exchange for which it will pay essentially nothing.
This is what India’s government considers “development”.
On June 22, the
POSCO–Orissa government Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
was set to expire, exactly five years after it was first signed.
This MoU, which basically restricts the government's role to that
of a mere "facilitator" for the project and an agency
for land acquisition, is highly unethical and should not have been
signed in the first place. Five years later, having witnessing the
state's brutal repression of the local opposition to this project,
and how the state has repeatedly flouted its own laws and policies
regarding forest rights and enviromental protections, local people
demand that this MoU not be renewed and request support by signing
the petition available at: http://www.petitiononline.com/p210610/petition-sign.html
This same company
also disembarked in Uruguay with a project for “clean development”
involving monoculture tree plantation aimed at “compensating”
for carbon dioxide emissions within the so (badly) called “Clean
Development Mechanism” (CDM) of the UN Climate Change Convention.
As to be expected, the company assures that its project implies
“a significant contribution to the sustainable development
of Uruguay.”
What is really
sad is that the Uruguayan government has just given the green go-ahead
to the POSCO project, in spite of the long track-record of opposition
to monoculture tree plantations in this country and the enormous
amount of documented information available regarding their social
and environmental impacts. This decision has disregarded the document
submitted by the Network of Environmental NGOs and by the Uruguayan
Association of NGOs to the CDM Advisory Committee in Uruguay, in
which the arguments used by the company to justify the so-called
development associated with its project, are refuted one by one.
What is even more
serious is that the government of Uruguay has not considered the
level of conflict and repression that the presence of POSCO has
caused in India over the past 5 years, clearly showing up the real
nature of this company that now intends to appropriate Uruguayan
land under the mask of “clean development.”
The lack of respect
for the right of the peoples over their lands and forests in India,
the lack of consideration for the well established social and environmental
impacts caused by monoculture tree plantations in Uruguay, are disastrous
for either country, and even worse for the climate.
Article based on information from the Appeal of the anti POSCO Movement
(PPSS), and the Press Releases of May 15 and June 6 sent by Mamata
Dash, e-mail: mamata68@gmail.com
