22 March 2008

At least 70 actions took place in over 30 countries to celebrate the importance of protecting our rivers. Many groups opted to demonstrate and protest. In Brazil, MAB organized more than nine events. MAB's occupation of the worksite at Estreito Dam on the Tocantins River lasted nine days until demonstrators at the Estreito Dam were finally offered an agreement which maintains that organs under the Brazilian presidency will convene meetings to discuss the ongoing social and environmental concerns that the dam project presents. A rail line in Minas Gerais was blocked by the women of Via Campesina (of which MAB is part), in support of families seeking compensation from the company for their being displaced for Aimor's Dam.

To all those struggling against heavy industry in India, we at Saving Iceland wish you are solidarity and strength. To have 30,000 persons on a blockade must be an incredible feeling, and a product of incredible organisation and will.

Resisting Liberalisation, Privitisation & Globalisation

Biggest civil disobedience movement since Independence
7th Novemeber, Sambalpur
Surya Shankar Dash

History was made yesterday when more than 30,000 (some say there were almost 50,000) people representing the farming community of western orissa descended upon Burla and marched on to Hirakud dam protesting against the sale of water to companies like Bhusan [Steel], Vedanta [Aluminium] and [Aditya Aluminum]. These farmers had come from villages in the districts of Bargarh, Sambalpur, Nuapada, Bolangir, Sonepur & Jharsuguda. They came in trains, trucks, and jeeps despite all attempts by the police to detain them en route to Burla on the pretext of violation of motor vehicles regulations, etc. The protestors sang songs, shouted slogans, laughed, danced and celeberated all along making it one of the most peaceful and unique protests ever. The police shuddered at the sight of this mammoth rally and every blockade they had put up vanished into thin air.

6th October 2007

This commentary by Mines and Communities

Once again India's Supreme Court (SC) has deferred taking a decision on the mining of bauxite in Orissa's Niyamgiri Hills, although the central government's Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) did its best to steamroller assent for Vedanta's potentially very damaging project.

Mines and Communities Vedanta update

Vedanta Update

7th September 2007

It's one of the longest-enduring conflicts over a mine project in recent times. Three years ago, the Indian Supreme Court's Central Empowered Committee (CEC) on forestry issues, condemned in no uncertain terms plans by UK-based Vedanta Resources plc to mine the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa for bauxite. It also found that Vedanta's alumina refinery – deliberately located at Lanjigarh, next to the hills - was being constructed in violation of forest protection legislation, and that the company had lied on several occasions in its defence of the huge project.

you can see some more pictures here. 21/09/07

On the 12th of September 2007, the Global

Trinidadians say NO to industrialisation

Day of Action Against Heavy Industry, people in South Africa, Iceland, Trinidad, Denmark, New York, Holland and the UK protested against the heavy industrialisation of our planet. This marked the first coordinated event of a new and growing global movement that began at the 2007 Saving Iceland protest camp in Ölfus, Iceland. The common target of these protests against heavy industry was the aluminium industry, in particular the corporations Alcan/Rio-Tinto and Alcoa.

06 August 2007
Indigenous farmers arrive in London to protest at mining giant's AGM
an Action Aid report

Kumuti Majhi and Phulme Majhi, members of the Kuntia Kondh indigenous group travelled to London to protest at the annual general meeting of mining giant Vedanta.

They are concerned about the environmental impact of its proposed aluminium mining and processing plants in the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa, India.

The farmers-labourers, fishworkers on the Satyagraha blocked the road when the district Minister Vijay Shah tried to pass the Satyagraha centre in Taloon, to protest against the callous attitude and corrupt ways of the Government of M.P. The people affected and to be affected by Sardar Sarovar were upset that the Minister did not agree to enter the Satyagraha and have a dialogue on the issue of life and death. But they also felt jubilant; realizing that the Minister was indeed scared to step on his own government land, now occupied by the people of the valley. Police misbehaving and pushing the women, cleared the way after about half-an-hour for the minister.
Before the incident, farmers, whose motor-pumps are drowned in the reservoir waters due to release of water from Omkareshwar dam, without any warning, took out a motor cycle rally and giving a memorandum to the Minister, demanded that the water levels should be brought down by 22 meters to open up the motor-pumps, or the losses should be fully compensated. The Minister could only say that he would consult the Chief Minister, ordering the MPEB officials orally that they should write off the electricity bills of those who have lost their pumps.

"It’s ALCAN the Aluminium Man
The Aluminium Man with the Aluminium Plan
For making lots of aluminium
Out of other peoples land!

Will this Man of Aluminium
Realize what he's done,
Once he's done what he is about to start?
He's got aluminium, but he's got no heart!"

Montreal Mirror
Nov 20-26.2003
Vol. 19 No. 23

Impoverished Indians fight ALCAN's bid to open a mine in their backyard. Since this article was written the repression has been stepped up.

The first thing that greeted Angad Bhalla on entering Maikanch, a town in the east coast mineral-rich state Orissa, India, was the painting of an Adivasi tribal man in traditional clothes and the admonition: POLICE NO ENTER.

Dear Friends - Narendra Modi (CM, Gujarat) has called a meeting of CMs of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh on 7th January 07 (tomorrow) to seek consent on erecting the gates on the Sardar Sarovar Dam wall, which is already raised to 122 mts height when thousands of affected families are yet to receive land and get resettled and rehabilitated. If the gates are erected and height is raised to 138.68 mts, it will lead to a watery grave, unjust and illegal. This must not happen after 21 years of struggle by the people, adivasis and farmers, who raised basic questions related to development. Please therefore get into action here and now.