Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 00:46:02 +0100
From: "secr(MG!)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Dam Protesters Battle Police to Meet World Bank Chief
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Subject: [Asia-news] India: Dam Protesters Battle Police to Meet World Bank
Chief
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 14:00:03 +0000
From: f P c N interCultural <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Dam Protesters Battle Police to Meet World Bank Chief
By Frederick Noronha
NEW DELHI, India, November 13, 2000 (ENS) - Over a thousand
environmental protesters today stormed police barricades in New
Delhi, and marched up to the offices of the World Bank, demanding
they be allowed to meet with visiting Bank president James
Wolfensohn.
They are led by India's most prominent environmental campaigner,
the silver haired Medha Patkar. Patkar is a commissioner on
the World
Commission on Dams.
She leads the anti-dam group Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save
the Narmada Movement), which has been protesting the Indian
Supreme Court decision allowing the Sardar Sarovar dam across
the Narmada River to be raised. The organization campaigns for
the rights of the approximately 400,000 people likely to be displaced
by the dam project.
The Supreme Court handed down a ruling on October 18
rejecting a
six year old court appeal against the Rs 370 billion Sardar Sarovar
dam in Gujarat, western India. Proponents of the dam say it will
produce much needed electricity and flood control. Patkar
and other
critics point to the hundreds of thousands of people who
will be
displaced by the rising water and have nowhere to go.
Walking nearly nine kilometers (5.6 miles) in New Delhi to
the World
Bank's offices, protestors shouted slogans against the
global project
lender and demanded that it "quit India."
The World Bank has come under fire during the visit of president
Wolfensohn to India, after the multinational lending agency seemed
to change its stance on the dam project it had earlier
declined to
support.
Today's march to the World Bank office met with stiff
resistance from
the New Delhi police, who set up double barricades in the area.
Leading the protesters, Narmada Bachao Andolan women battled with
policewomen at the barricades, almost breaking these down.
Patkar told a World Bank staffer, who asked her to accompany him
for a meeting with senior officers, "If the World Bank
president can
come here and meet the government and the Gujarat chief minister
[in the region where the dam is being built], surely he can
meet us
here."
World Bank staffers said Wolfensohn was extremely busy with
meetings, but protestors said they would wait for him, if necessary
for days, blocking traffic in the national capital.
Wolfensohn arrived in India November 6 and will stay until
Wednesday. He is touring development projects and meeting with
"government leaders, representatives of civil society, business
people, and community leaders" in New Delhi, and a number of
states, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra,
Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, his office said.
The Sardar Sarovar dam is the first of 30 large dams and
hundreds of
medium and small dams planned for the Narmada River which runs
through central India. Launched in 1979, the Sardar Sarovar Project,
as it is formally called, envisages 135 medium and over
3,000 small
dams on the Narmada River.
This river originates in Madhya Pradesh in central India and empties
into the Arabian Sea after flowing through the states of Maharashtra
and Gujarat in the western regions of the country.
In its ruling in mid-October, India's Supreme Court allowed
the height
of the dam to be raised to 90 metres (292.5 feet). Every
five meter
increase thereafter would be subject to environmental
clearance till
the dam reached its planned height of 138 metres (449 feet). The
height of the dam currently stands at 88 metres (286 feet).
Patkar has criticized the Supreme Court order as one of "life
imprisonment" for the 44,000 families of the Narmada Valley, who
would be displaced by the multi-billion rupee dam project.
This coming Wednesday, the campaigners have an appointment with
Indian federal President K.R. Narayanan. "We are prepared to answer
all his questions and queries," said Patkar, "but it will be
up to him
to
take a decision."
Under the Indian Constitution, a Presidential intervention
is possible,
but this is not seen as likely.
This week, the Narmada Bachao Andolan is scheduled to hold a
"public hearing" near the historic Red Fort, which carries emotional
freight for generations of Indians because of the its link
with the
country's anti-colonial struggle.
But even Narmada Bachao Andolan admits that President Narayanan
is unlikely to entertain Patkar's plea to scrap the dam, a
plea that
the court accepted for hearing in 1994 but threw out six
years later
saying dams are all right for development.
Of the three Supreme Court judges hearing that case, one, Judge
S.P. Barucha, has written a dissenting judgment saying all
is not well
with the dam project.
For the moment, the protesting village farmers and tribal
folks are
stationed at Rajghat - the place where the father of India's fight
against colonial rule, Mahatma Gandhi was interred.
NBA has blasted the World Bank for Wolfensohn's recent remarks
favoring the dam. Wolfensohn's view now is that the Bank may not
have done the correct thing when it pulled out of the
project 1993.
Patkar told journalists she fears government repression in the
western Indian province of Gujarat, which she said might be
aimed at
forcing the local and tribal communities to vacate their
areas that will
be submerged now that the dam's construction has been resumed.
She warned that the conflict might turn violent. "People in
the valley
are not for violence, both as a strategy and a value. But
when it
comes to self defense, I would say it is not very unlikely."
Patkar blamed the media in western India for rousing
sentiment in
favour of the dam, the benefits of which have been
exaggerated, she
said.
In another development, India's federal government, led by
the right
wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has declared that it will closely
scrutinize the sources of foreign funds received by non-governmental
organizations in the country.
Some observers have linked this to the recent victory of the Indian
government against the anti-Narmada dam campaign, which is seen
as prompting the government to act tough with campaign
groups it
sees as acting on behalf of "foreign" interests.
Indian laws are very strictly against non-government organizations
getting access to foreign funding.
Newspaper advertisements last week charged the Narmada Bachao
Andolan with playing a negative role, and claimed the group
is acting
at the behest of vested interests.
The mainstream newspaper "Indian Express" carried a large,
prominent ad last Friday from a group called the National
Council for
Civil Liberties, accusing Patkar of sustaining her campaign
with the
help of foreign money received through unlawful channels.
The ad also alleged that Patkar has been passing on "confidential
documents related to national importance" to foreigners,
with the
aim of halting India's "progress."
Indian federal Home Minister L.K. Advani has also hit out against
the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Speaking at the dam site to mark the re-launching of the
work, he
charged that it is "more than a coincidence" that the "same people"
who were opposed to the dam had also questioned the need for India's
nuclear blasts.
The results of a wide ranging two year study by the World Commission
on Dams on the costs and benefits of the dams of the world is
scheduled for release on Thursday.
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2000. All Rights Reserved.
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