Dear friends Please flood the ministers inbox with this appeal drafted below. Its high time we do it.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.kerala.gov.in/> [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Sir/ Madam The lives and livelihoods of over 20,000 Dalits, Adivasis and others, peacefully protesting for land at the Harrison Malayam Private Ltd plantation in Chengara, Pathanthimthatta are in danger. A group of trade unions claiming to represent the plantation's retrenched rubber workers have announced plans to march and reclaim the land from the peaceful protesters on Wednesday, September 3rd. The trade unions, including CITU, INTUC, AITUC, UTUC, HMS and others, in collusion with company goons, have already succeeded in manufacturing a human rights crisis in the area. Together, they have been blocking food, medicines and other essential materials from entering the plantation for the past one month, terrorizing the peaceful protesters and their children. Women have been the targets of brutal attacks by the workers of the trade unions and other hired henchmen of Harrison Malayalam Ltd. Many women have testified that the attacks happened in the presence of the police, who remained mute spectators and whose inaction encouraged the perpetuators further. The police have also colluded in preventing civil society groups from entering the site. The proposed March could potentially deteriorate the law and order situation in the already fragile areas of Chengara further. In the light of past actions, which were used as a cover up to inflict physical harm and to denigrate the dignity of the protesting Dalits and Adivasis, we urge you to take immediate actions to thwart attempts of a March on September 3rd. We strongly feel that government can no longer sit idly and allow the rights and lives of marginalized peoples' to be violated in this manner. Under no circumstances should union activists and company goons be allowed to march on the plantation this Wednesday. We demand: 1. Immediately intervene to stop the September 3rd planned assault on the peaceful protesters by trade unions and company goons. 2. Take immediate action against those responsible for the blockade, ensuring the immediate lifting of the blockade, and restore normalcy to people's lives. 3. Immediately initiate criminal proceedings against the perpetrators of the sexual assault of the four women at the struggle site on August 7th 2008. 4. Enter into a dialogue with the protestors and take measures to distribute land to the landless. -- "There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than ''politicians'' think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think" - Foucault ANIL Anil Tharayath Varghese National Centre for Advocacy Studies Serenity Complex, Ramnagar Colony Pashan, Pune 21 Phone - 02022952003/4 Mobile - 09890387877 email - [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
