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dam-l LS: NBA Support Letter for Millenium Wheel Action/Press Statement of UK Activists
Dear Friends,
We are thrilled with the amazing action undertaken by you. We are sorry
that we were not able to respond sooner - we were all in a meeting in
one of the villages out of contact with email- all the NBA activists
were there as it was our big organizational meeting, and we could see
your mail only now. However, even before we could see the mail, we had
seen the reports in the press - you will be happy to know that major
Indian newspapers have splashed the story, some of them even on the
front page.
Even now, if you need the statement here is a small one.
"The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA - Struggle to Save the Narmada)
expresses its thanks for the amazing, bold and innovative action by the
Basque environmentalists from the group Solidarios con Itoitz and
activists from Narmada UK. This action is even more important as it was
undertaken by the activists at great personal risk, even to the extent
of risk to their lives. The NBA believes that it is this commitment
- which does not hesitate even to put one's own life to risk -
exemplified this action, it is this commitment by activists all over
the world which gives great hope to this world of stopping the
unsustainable, unjust and environmentally destructive paradigm of
development that seems to be the hall mark of the capitalist system,
which is taking the world towards a certain disaster.
The NBA expresses its solidarity to the struggle of the Basque people,
in particular the struggle against the Itoitz reservoir (in the Basque
Country).
The NBA believes that such struggles are not isolated events in separate
countries, but are a part of the larger global struggle - a common
struggle in which we are all participating as part of humanity. Such
struggles are struggles for human rights, for justice and for dignity
and do not know or recognise the artificial boundaries that we call
countries.
The world may call such activists as "extremists" -as indeed many
times the NBA is referred to as in India - but we believe that in a
world controlled and run by greed and the hunger for power, if it needs
extreme actions to remind us of the basic values on which society should
be built, so be it. If expressions of sanity in an insane world, demands
for justice in an unjust world are seen as extremism, so be it."
Shripad Dharmadhikary,
NBA
********************
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday 25th October 1999
Mobile telephone contact with activists at Millenium Wheel: 07931 899
231and 07901 625 253 (or ask for Nick at base of wheel)
Press Office for the day only: 0181 374 9677
Anti-Dam Activists Climb The Millenium Wheel
Eight activists are currently occupying the Millenium Wheel today in
central London in protest at the destruction caused by dam projects in the
Basque Country and India. The activists remain defiantly perched on top of
the Wheel, which they scaled before dawn after evading security. They have
unfurled huge banners with the slogans "Stop The Dams!", "Free Narmada,
Free Itoitz!" and "Let The Rivers Run Free!". The action is being taken by
Basque environmentalists from the group Solidarios con Itoitz and activists
from Narmada UK.
In a communique giving their reasons for this action, Solidarios con Itoitz
give the following statement:
"For many years we have seen how the tendency of capital is to concentrate
population in large conurbations to the detriment of rural areas, which
have become more and more deserted. Rural Areas are transformed into
resource-zones for large-scale transport infrastructure, production centres
for energy and industrial agriculture, or for the accumulation of raw
materials to satisfy the needs of large cities.
One of these raw materials which has become more and more valuable is
water, which is accumulated in gigantic reservoirs, flooding towns,
valleys, traditional cultures and ways of life based on respect for mother
earth (amalurra-pachamama), who gives us life. Through these dams the
powers that be control at their whim as indispensable a resource as water,
they speculate with it squandering public money in order to promote corrupt
private business interests, deceiving the public with hypothetical
irrigation schemes and putting in grave danger the population living
downstream.
Emblematic examples of this type of 'development'-driven infrastructures
are the Itoitz reservoir (in the Basque Country) and Narmada (India). The
Itoitz reservoir has been under construction since 1993. If it were filled,
it would flood 9 towns and 5 nature reserves of great ecological value. The
excuse of irrigation is used to mask the real reasons for this dam - ie the
economic interests of tourism and industry far removed from the flooded
areas, to which the water would be channelled via supercanals. Despite
being ruled completely illegal by the highest judicial authorities, work is
continuing, and the dam itself has already been built. Official studies
have highlighted the structural problems of the dam, with the grave danger
that these pose to the population living downstream. The collective
Solidarios con Itoitz practises non-violent public direct action against
this dam. Of the more than 40 actions that have been carried out in the
campaign against the dam, the most high profile was the cutting of the
cables of the concrete transporting system, which stopped work on the dam
for a whole year. As a result of an unfair trial, the 8 participants in the
action have been sentenced to 5 years prison. Today's action, as part of
the S.O.S European Tour, is a protest both against the prison sentences and
the building of the dam.
"By taking action today we are showing our complete rejection of the
construction of large reservoirs and dams internationally, which threaten
the future of the earth and its peoples. By taking action on the Millenium
Wheel we are rejecting an irrational and wasteful "development"-based
system, which does not hesitate to spend millions of pounds on fatuous
spectacles while denying dispossessed millions the chance to live on the
eve of the Third Millenium."
INDIAN DAMS WILL LEAVE MORE THAN 1 MILLION PEOPLE HOMELESS
Meanwhile, according activists from Narmada UK, also taking part in
today's action:
"Over one million people are to be left homeless, landless & destitute in
the Narmada Valley, central India. The Indian government heralds the highly
controversial Narmada Valley Development Project (consisting of 3200 dams)
as the largest river valley development project ever conceived in human
history. Many (including the World Bank) view this as the biggest planned
human/ environmental disaster in history.
Through this reckless developmental plan, snatching the river from its
people and gifting its waters to others (mainly commercial interests), the
Indian government claims it will irrigate land and provide drinking water
in distant places (up to 3000km away). This is all being done without even
a review of other possible alternative decentralised initiatives. The first
completed dam irrigates only 5% of the land which the authorities promised
it would. It has long been established that this whole project is flawed.
The World Bank (WB), the projectís initial funder was forced by the NBA
(Narmada peoples' movement) to conduct an independent review of the plans.
Following the review, the WB withdrew its support.
The NBA estimates that over 500,000 people will be displaced by the Sardar
Sarovar (SSP) dam alone. This one mega-dam will alone submerge more than
27,000 hectares of ancient forest and rich agricultural lands. The vast
majority of the peoples affected by SSP are indigenous Adivasi (tribal)
people whose civilisation is older than Hinduism itself. Many of those
whose lands are being illegally taken away are not even categorised as
Project Affected People, therefore, are not entitled to any compensation,
rehabilitation or resettlement. The R&R packages have dispersed village
communities to over 40 different locations, to land that is infertile,
effectively destroying all their social and cultural ties. The people who
accepted resettlement in the late 70ís have found their conditions so awful
that many have returned to their land, even though much of it has been
submerged. Others, have been physically prevented by the police from
leaving their new colonies. The people of the Narmada Valley have resolved
to drown, rather than move from their lands."
For more Information contact:- NarmadaUK@yahoo.com, NBA@lwbdg.lwbbs.net.
For more general information visit <http://www.agp.org/>www.agp.org.