Human rights activists outside the AGM of Vedanta, owned by billionaire Anil Agarwal, demanded an end of the company's killings, displacement and wiping out of an ancient civilisation in the Niyamgiri Hills of India by bauxite mining. London, UK. 28/07/2010
Among the demonstrators were actors from the James Cameron film 'Avatar' and there were two bright blue aliens from the tribe destroyed in in that film. Vedanta has already built an aluminium refinery in Lanjigarh amd has carried out preliminary work for bauxite mining in Orissa's Niyamgiri Hills which will destroy the ancient civilisation of the Dongria Kondh adivasi community for whom these mountains and forests are Gods.
Already in Orissa, according to campaigning group Foil Vedanta, Vedanta have caused more than 100 deaths though accidents, police fire, forced displacement, injury and illness. More than a thousand people have already been displaced, with 8000 under threat, moved away from their traditional sources of income and dumped into shanty towns where there is no work. Thousands of acres of fertile agricultural land have been destroyed, rivers and streams disrupted and drinking water contaminated by fly ash and toxic red mud.
Foil Vedanta have a simple answer to why this is happening: "Mega-profits for billionaires with blood on their hands." Various shareholders have been convinced by the arguments and have pulled out - the Church of England sold its £3.8m holding on February 5 this year, and the Joseph Rowntree Trust its £1.9 million, "due to serious concerns about its approach to human rights and the environment, particularly in the Indian state of Orissa." Earlier this month Action Aid reported that the Dutch pensions company PGGM had pulled out almost &11 million because of the "financial risk in investing a company that was ‘persistently ignoring’ environmental and human rights."
Supporters of the campaign against Vedanta include Amnesty International, Survival International and Action Aid, for whom Bianca Jagger attended the AGM to "take a message from India’s threatened Kondh people direct to shareholders." Some of the other campaigners had also become shareholders and were able to enter the building; they and the other shareholders had to duck under the Foil Vedanta banner to reach the door.
Action Aid point to a damning report on Vedanta by the investment consultants PIRC which recommends the AGM to oppose the "re-election of 3 non-executive directors on health, safety and environmental grounds."
Vedanta was launched on the London Stock Exchange in 2003 with the help of the British Government's Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for International Development (DfID), and although the government has criticized its lack of a human rights policy, they have continued to actively support it's mining activities through the DfID Building Partnerships for Development programme and the Orissa 'Drivers for Change' research project.
The company's directors have included many powerful figures including Indian ministers and former ambassadors and David Gore-Booth, former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and High Commissioner of India. Vendanta and its billionaire CEO Anil Agarwal are said to have close links with the extremist umbrella group for Indian Hindu right-wing organistions, Sangh Parivar, said to be responsible for many attacks on Muslim and Christian communities in Orissa, Gujurat and other parts of India.
The protest outside the AGM at The Institute of Civil Engineers in Great George Street, a few yards from Parliament Square, was organised by Foil Vedanta, and as well as the charities above was supported by South Asia Solidarity Group, South Asian Alliance, Brent Refugee and Migrant Forum and London Development Education Centre.
