Foil Vedanta
PROTESTS ESCALATE IN LONDON AND TAMIL NADU, INDIA, AGAINST POLLUTING BRITISH COPPER SMELTER
A noisy protest will take place at 2 pm on Saturday 24th March at 42-44 Hill Street in Mayfair, London, as British Tamils armed with traditional Parai drums join with major demonstrations in Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu, India, against the expansion of British company Sterlite’s copper smelter in the State. The London protest, which takes place at the $20 million home of company boss Anil Agarwal, has been called by Foil Vedanta, Tamil People in UK and Parai – Voice of Freedom(1).
Meanwhile, in Tuticorin a major demonstration organised by the Anti Killer Sterlite People’s Movement in Tuticorin will take place on the 40th day of continuous protest in the town, demanding that the plant is closed and the expansion stopped. The Merchant’s Association has passed a resolution calling for a total shutdown (bandh) of shops in the town on the same day. Permission for the protest was initially turned down by police but was successfully challenged by activists and granted by the High Court on 14th March.
British company Vedanta Resources’ subsidiary Sterlite Copper has begun construction of a new 4 million tonne/year smelter on the edge of the town of Tuticorin, almost doubling their capacity, but residents argue the existing smelter has continuously polluted their water and air since it was established in 1996, causing respiratory and skin problems, fainting and other illness, especially among children. Activists also claim that Sterlite obtained its Environmental Clearance illegally by falsifying information to statutory authorities, while the existing plant is regularly found to be dumping toxic waste in the town, and operating without proper licenses.(2) The plant releases its waste into the sensitive Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve, an area of coral reefs and mangrove forests.
Residents of Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) called an indefinite dharna (protest) and hunger strike on 12th February and more than 500 people including many women and schoolchildren blocked the company gates until they were rounded up and arrested on 14th February. For the last month, they have continued their protests day and night, especially in the worst affected villages surrounding the plant.
Professor Fatima Babu from the Anti Killer Sterlite People’s Movement says:
“With its monstrous political clout, its huge money-power and its sheer unethical practices Sterlite continues to strangulate the rights of the people of Tuticorin. Since its inception, the giant copper-corporate has been flouting the laws of the land with impunity, with the connivance of corrupt political leaders and bureaucrats. It has robbed us of our natural and constitutional right to life and to livelihood. All our natural resources are polluted. Health status has touched a new low. Today, Tuticorin is heading towards becoming the capital of cancer. If this is development, we do not want it. Don’t take away our land, our water, our air, our health. We want to live our lives with dignity. That’s all.”
Karthik from Tamil People in the UK says:
“Although the majority of the Tamil population living in the UK have adopted the British life, local customs and try to blend in with society, they still feel their heart is left in the Tamil land. This absolute disregard to life and irreversible environmental damage to their land brings out strong emotional upheaval hence the support and participation in protests like these.”
The plant has been the subject of major protests in the town ever since its foundation stone was laid in Thoothukudi 1994, after being refused permission to set up in Gujarat, Goa, and Maharastra due to pollution concerns. In March and October 1996, hundreds of fisherman blockaded the port with their boats to prevent ships carrying copper ore from unloading. In July 1997 a toxic gas leak from the plant caused 165 women in the neighbouring Ramesh Flowers factory to faint, some later miscarrying. In March 2013 another major gas leak affected the whole of Tuticorin, leading to a bandh (strike) and protests of 5000 people which completely shut down the town for several days. The plant was ordered to stop operating for more than a month and was fined Rs 100 crore ($18 million) for pollution and damage to the environment since 1997, and for operating the plant without various environmental permissions over a number of years, by the Supreme Court1. The plant is located beside the fragile Gulf of Mannar, where toxic waste has damaged fish populations and the livelihood of thousands of fishermen.
Sterlite was the first company set up by British Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal in India before he launched Vedanta Resources on the London Stock Exchange in 2003, where it is now a multi-national FTSE 250 company with operations across India and Africa. The company even had operations in military-ruled Myanmar in the 1990s.(3) Vedanta, which was named the ‘world’s most hated company’ by the Independent newspaper in 2010, has received considerable support from the British government, including the direct assistance of former Prime Minister David Cameron in buying out Indian oil company Cairn India in 2011.2
London protests are targeting the Mayfair home of billionaire Vedanta boss Anil Agarwal. The house, owned by a Panama registered firm on Agarwal’s behalf in order to avoid tax, is the linked address for several offshore Vedanta subsidiaries as revealed in the recent Paradise papers leak.(4) 48% of Vedanta’s subsidiary companies were registered in tax havens in 2011 according to a report.3
Vedanta’s only other copper smelter in Chingola, Zambia, is the subject of a precedent UK damages case on behalf of 2000 farmers who have been polluted by the plant since 2004.4
Miriam Rose from Foil Vedanta says:
“Sterlite’s crimes in Thoothukudi and elsewhere in India were well documented before Vedanta launched on the London Stock Exchange. In 1998 they were even banned from the Indian stock market for two years for major stock market fraud, yet the British government gave them the clean reputation of a London listing without carrying out any due diligence. Meanwhile, the Tuticorin copper smelter has continued to operate without various permissions and pollute without remorse, causing a detrimental effect to local health and livelihoods. It is time the British government stopped supporting Sterlite and de-listed Vedanta from the LSE.”
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Case studies in Tamil Nadu
(1) Foil Vedanta is an independent grassroots solidarity organization focused primarily on the British-Indian mining giant Vedanta Resources PLC. Foil Vedanta targets the company in London where it is registered, as well as linking with people’s movements where Vedanta is destroying lives and devastating the land in India, Zambia, Liberia and South Africa and elsewhere. www.foilvedanta.org
(2) In 2013 The Supreme Court of India found Sterlite guilty of operating without various permissions since 20035. In September 2017 the National Green Tribunal (NGT) issued a judgment, following the show cause notice they had issued to Sterlite in March 2017 for several instances of toxic waste dumping and pollution as well as operating the smelter above its consented capacity. Many tonnes of copper slag were found dumped in the Upper Odai river, which Sterlite claimed they had sold to a developer for leveling of a construction site. The Upper Odai stream was also blocked with toxic copper slag causing a ‘manmade disaster’.6
(3) Sterlite Gold was one of the first companies to obtain exploration rights when Myanmar’s mining regulations were modified to allow foreign companies to hold and develop mines. They explored and developed several gold and copper mines but terminated their joint venture with the Myanmar Ministry of Mines in 2005.
(4) The Paradise papers revealed that Vedanta subsidiary GPM Gold, registered in Mauritius, is addressed at 42-44 Hill Street.7 The building itself is owned by Dino Trading and Investment Corporation in Panama on behalf of Agarwal, according to the Private Eye summary of tax haven owned properties in the UK.8
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Notes
1. http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/supreme-court-slaps-rs-100-crore-fine-on-sterlite-for-polluting-environment-40747
2. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13058634.Secret_state_lobbying_for_Scots_energy_giant/
3. https://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/doc_lib/addicted_to_tax_havens.pdf
4. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/may/27/zambia-vedanta-water-contamination-villagers-pollution-case-britain
5. http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/supreme-court-slaps-rs-100-crore-fine-on-sterlite-for-polluting-environment-40747
6. http://www.foilvedanta.org/news/thoothukudi-residents-resist-sterlite-expansion/
7. https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/82008207
8. www.private-eye.co.uk/registry
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