» 06/16/2011 12:31 INDIA Demonstrators protesting against steel multinational arrested, Church protests Eighteen Dalits and Adivasi as well as 200 local leaders and workers are arrested for protesting against land expropriations and deforestation, which would follow the realisation of the multi-billion plan of South Korean multinational POSCO. The mill would produce 12 million tonnes of steel a year.
New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) strongly condemned the police for attacking protesters who were demonstrating against South Korean steel giant POSCO and its multi-billion project in Orissa. According to residents in Jagatsinghpur District, where the US$ 12 billion mill is expected to be built, not only are thousands of people going to be forcibly uprooted but an entire ecosystem will also be destroyed. Police arrested 18 residents, mostly Dalits and Adivasi. About 200 leaders and workers from local parties were also arrested as they tried to enter the Orissa Secretariat to demand the relocation of the project.
“Over the past several days, according to reports, more than a thousand police officers have been deployed in the area to create a climate of intimidation and fear among communities to give up their fundamental rights of access to forests and their lands. Such strategies are unjust and undemocratic," the NCCI said in a statement.
“We question the propriety and justness of such strategies when two cases filed by the villagers are pending in the Orissa High Court,” the Church group statement read. “How can the government still dare to go ahead with the project when three official committees have declared the appropriation of land to be illegal and in violation of the Forest Rights Act?"
The multi-billion deal between POSCO and the State of Orissa is India’s largest direct foreign investment.
Signed in 2005, it called for the expropriation of 4,004 acres of land, 2,900 of forest land, near the port town of Paradip, about 120 km from the state capital of Bhubaneswar.
The plant would produce about 12 million tonnes of steel, but the project has been delayed for more than five years due to a lack of environmental clearances and protests by landowners.
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