Image: Amir Rizvi / CJP

Since May 2017,the POSCO PratirodhSangramSamiti (PPSS) has demanded that the construction of a boundary wall that began Nuagaon area that month  must immediately be stopped. PPSS says that as of November 6, 2017, it has been fighting a long and hard legal battle to provide legal defence for 420 individuals who were involved in the struggle. Additionally, warrants have also been issued against 2500 people which includes 500 women. Of these, 400 individuals were arrested. The remaining 2000 face a constant threat of arrest.

Protesting villagers and betel cultivators from the Paradip region of Odisha formed themselves into the POSCO PratirodhSangharshSamiti (PPSS), in June 2005- after an MoU was signed between POSCO and Odisha state government.  After winning a hard fought battle against POSCO, the PPSS is now strongly resisting the handing over of 27, 000 acres of land in Odisha’sParadip area to JSW steel.

It was after a long and tedious struggle of more than a decade, that PPSS had managed to secure a victory in its struggle against the South Korean company POSCO earlier this year, in March. Due to its persistent and peaceful resistance, POSCO was forced to exit finally.

Despite the success of the struggle, recent media reports indicate that an unrelenting state has now joined hands with the JSW steel for a new project, in which JSW has demanded 4500 acres of land and it is likely to invest Rs. 50, 000   crores for the 10 mtpa steel plant and a 900 mw power plant. The company also pledged to make an investment of Rs. 2000 crore to set up a captive port in Odisha’s coast at JatadhariMuhan near Paradip.

While the PPSS has declared that they will continue their resistance against all such attempts to take over the forest land and also struggle for justice in the false and fabricated cases against their activists, we take you through the twelve year long journey of resistance led by the  PPSS.

Background of Harassment and Intimidation
 

• Until end of December 2014, 350 criminal false and fabricated cases have been filed against members of the PoscoPratirodhSangramSamiti (PPSS)
• In  2011, in Nuagaon and Gadakjunga Gram panchayat  ( proposed POSCO area), the government undertook an allegedly forceful land acquisition process for acquiring 2000 acre of forest land. 
• In 2013, in Govindpur village of  Dhikia Gram panchayat, 700 acres of forest land was again allegedly forcefully acquired by the government.   Out of the 2700 acres of land, government handed over to POSCO multinational giant1000 acres of land.
• The PPSS took the decision from 2014 onwards  to re-occupy the land falsely acquired by POSCO  and the government land. Villagers of Gadakujangpanchayat re-occupied the the land acquired by POSCO.
• As a result, POSCO has filed cases against 30 people The cases are both criminal(invoking section 447, 426 of the IPC)  and civil cases(invoking the offence of encroachment)
• Again in 2015, Villagers of Govindpur re-occupied the government land. As a result, the local government filed criminal and civil cases against 40 people.
• Villagers of Nuagaon re-occupied the government land in 2015. The government has threatened to file cases against the people. At this point of time, there are apprehensions that the local government will again, more and more, file criminal and civil cases.
• Though, the local people have constructed a fence across the boundary of reoccupied land, most local people not yet started the beetle vine cultivation due to this impeding threat from the government.
• At this stage, the total criminal cases are 350 + 30 (criminal and civil cases) + 40 (criminal and civil cases) which totals as many as  420 cases.
• To date, warrants have been issued against 2,500 people among which 500  are women. This actually means that those issued a warrant can be arrested at any time and false cases will then again be lodged against them.
• Local lawyers from the PPSS state that over the past 11 years, approximately 400 from among the protesters have been arrested. Therefore, 2000 warrants have been pending, simply kept on ‘hold by government’ and the villagers against whom these have been issued face arrest.

The post 2,000 Odisha Tribals Face Arrest After Govt Issues Warrants for Re-Occupying Land Earlier Granted to POSCO appeared first on SabrangIndia.

It was the sustained and peaceful resistance of the people that compelled POSCO to exit finally. Despite the success of the struggle it has been recently learned hat the government of Odisha is planning to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to hand over our land to another company namedJSW Steel Limited. JSW Steel Limited is a part of the Sajjan Jindal controlled JSW Group.

The company is likely to invest Rs 50,000 crore for the 10 mtpa steel mill and a 900 MW capacity power plant.  The company has also pledged an investment of Rs 2,000 crore to set up a captive port in Odisha’s coast at Jatadhari Muhan near Paradip.  The Committee  has declared that they  will continue to fight against this forceful acquisition of our land,

In 2011, over 2,700 acres of land was forcefully acquired by the state-owned Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) for the proposed Posco project. After the POSCO announced withdrawal of its project, the government had cancelled the land allotment to Posco and kept it in its land bank.

According to the  Right to Fair Compensation and Transperancy in  Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARR) of 2013 “Land acquired and possession taken over but not utilized within a period of five years from the date of possession shall in all cases revert back to the original land owner.  

However,  the protestors have alleges that the Odisha government – – to counter the pro people impact of the central law – – enacted the ‘Odisha government’s revised policy for land acquisition notified on February 7, 2015’  under which “Land acquired and possession taken over but not utilized within a period of five years from the date of possession shall in all cases revert back to the state and be deposited in the Land Bank automatically.”

Meanwhile,  the Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha (IDCO) authority has started boundary wall construction near Nuagaon in late May 2017. The boundary wall is likely to be built around 18 km covering adjacent villages Nuagaon, Govindapur, Polanga, Gadakujanga and Baynapala kondh at an estimated cost of Rs 13 crore. The wall will eventually fence off the nearby Dhinkia and Gobindpur villages too.

MEMBERS of the PPSS from Nuagaon village strongly protested against the construction of boundary wall around a 1,700 hectare piece of land on the village’s periphery. The fencing of the land by IDCO is unwarranted and illegal, as the authorities have not settled our forest rights claims. Their claim is that the vovernment of Odisha has consistently failed to recognize both their individual and community rights over forest lands under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights Act) Act (FRA) 2006.

To strongly register their protest,  residents of Nuagaon, Dhinkia and Gobindpur villages have submitted applications to the local authorities to claim their land and forest rights, but these claims have not been processed since 2011. SIGNIFICANTLY,  three different official committees i.e., the Saxena Committee, the POSCO Enquiry Committee and the FAC – found that the Forest Rights Act,  2006 had been violated in the proposed POSCO area. Besides, on several occasions in the past, the gram sabhas of the area have passed majority resolutions against any handover of their lands.

The Committee  has demanded that the government must respect the unanimous resolution passed by over 2,000 people at a gram sabha held in October 2012 that the land used for betel cultivation was under the rights provided to the gram sabha under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006. If it hands these lands over to Jindal Steel instead of POSCO, the government will be committing a further criminal offence under the FRA, the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the SC/ST prevention of atrocities Act 1989. Thus under the Forest Rights Act of 2006, this makes any handover illegal.
 
The people whose land and beetle vines are allegedly forcefully destroyed and acquired by the government for POSCO, have lost their livelihood sources and now reduced to daily wage earners. Most of these families have farmed beetle leaves for generations, which they sell to earn a livelihood. They have no other employable skills. This is  why the Samiti had given a call and are determined to re-occupy these lands and reconstruct their vineyards.

It was on March 30, 2012, that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) suspended the environmental clearance for the project, calling for a fresh review due to concerns over the original environmental impact assessment.  However about 200,000 trees were felled despite the suspension. In May 2013, the NGT reiterated the project’s lack of environmental clearance and ordered POSCO to stop felling trees. In March 2017, POSCO stated that it was withdrawing from the project and requested the Odisha government to take back the land transferred to the company.

In July 2017, our villagers have filed a petition with the Kolkata bench of the National Green Tribunal. It’s has been asserted that the Odisha government cannot put this forest land into the land bank. According to the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, the government is required to get forest ‘clearance’ or approval from the central environment ministry to use forest land for a non-forest purpose. However, there is no provision to obtain forest clearance for a ‘land bank’ under the Act. The petition adds that under the Forest Rights Act of 2006, the government cannot change the use of forest land without recognizing the land and forest rights of people living or dependent on it for generations.

At present, the PPSS is struggling to provide legal defence for a total of 420 individuals.  In addition, warrants have been issued against 2500 people, including 500 women. Of these, approximately 400 of these individuals were, in fact, arrested. The remaining 2,000 (approximately) have remained at permanent risk of arrest and being denied their liberty.
 
 
 Demands of the PSSS:
 
1.     The government must also immediately stop the construction of a boundary wall around the land and allow  communities to access common lands that have traditionally depended on for livelihoods.
2.      Urgently process individual and community forest rights claims on land it had taken over for a POSCO project instead of transferring the land to a land bank.
3.     DECLARATION: THere is no provision under law or under any act which provides for land acquisition for any land bank for any purpose. Thus the land must return to the original inhabitants.
4.     The government of Odisha must follow the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Singur issue in which  the land of farmers bought for the Tata Nano plant was returned to them,
5.     Withdraw all false and fabricated cases on VILLagers.
 

The post Honour 2012 Gram Sabha Resolution, Hand Over 2,700 Acres Land for Betel Cultivation, Stop Steel Project : PSSS appeared first on SabrangIndia.

​​​​​​​
Bhubaneswar: PTI reports that the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) on Tuesday threatened to revive its agitation if the Odisha government hands over the land acquired for the Posco project to JSW for its proposed mega steel plant and demanded that the acquired land be returned to farmers.

"We will revive the agitation against any move to hand over the land for industrial purpose. JSW may be interested in the land, but we will not allow it to set up the unit in the area," PPSS president Abhaya Sahu told PTI.

The PPSS had spearheaded the agitation against setting up Posco steel plant on the land by displacing farmers. "The people will not tolerate it and more people will come forward to save the land," Sahu said claiming that at least five persons (4 from anti-Posco group and one from pro-Posco camp) had laid down their lives during anti-displacement agitation.Sahu also claimed at least 100 new betel vines have already come up on the land acquired by the state government for the Posco project.

He said the police have registered at least 32 cases against the villagers for re-occupying the land and setting up betel vines for which they have already received compensation from the government.

On claims of villagers on the land, Sahu said: "The villagers might not have legal title over the land, but they were in possession of the land for decades before they were evicted. We will not allow use of the land other than agriculture purpose."

"The villagers were making a living by raising paddy, betel leaf, drum sticks and fish ponds at the site before it was snatched away for the Posco project", Sahu pointed out. The state government, on the other hand claimed that it has already acquired 2700 acres of land for Posco project. While about 1800 acre of the land was handed over to the company, the remaining land was in government's land bank.

Meanwhile, the state government has cancelled the land allotment made to Posco for not utilising it for over three years. On 29 April, JSW chief Sajan Jindal met Odisha Chief Secretary AP Padhi and said that Posco's site could be a location for his company to set up a 10 mtpa greenfield steel mill.

"The land acquired for Posco project is now in the land bank of the state government. There has been no decision to return the land to the people as done in Singur of West Bengal. The Posco site is now in the land bank," Odisha's Industries Minister Debi Prasad Mishra told PTI.Asked whether the land would be given to JSW which was interested to set up a steel plant near Paradip, Mishra said: "No such decision has been taken so far. However, there is a marked difference between Singur and Dhinkia."

During the encroachment free drive from Dhinkia area, the state government had demolished around 1,592 betel vines and paid compensation to the farmers.
 

The post Return Land to Villagers, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti Demands appeared first on SabrangIndia.

(Photo Courtesy : The Hindu)

Big news – at times – go completely unnoticed.

(Thanks to the mediatised times we are passing through)

And thus it did not appear surprising that the decision by Posco, the South Korean steelmaker, the fourth biggest in the world, to exit the proposed 12 million-tonnes a year steel plant in Odisha did not cause much flutter. Yes, newspapers duly reported POSCO India’s ‘request to the Odisha government to take back the land provided to it near Paradip’ where it was supposed to invest 52,000 crore Rs.’ The letter stated company’s ‘failure to start work on the proposed plant’.

Perhaps none from the media wanted to showcase a negative example which is at variance with the efforts by the powers that be to project the idea of ‘ease of doing business’ here. Undoubtedly at a time when the government is keen to attract foreign capital and inducing it in very many ways, the way in which a Corporate Major – supposed to be one of the leading in the steel sector – had to exit from its project can easily shake their confidence about investing here. Or was it to cover up the fact that over the years how the South Korean Steel Major had dealt a heavy blow to the local environment by felling down more than eight lakh trees at the project site and residents are demanding accountability and compensation over such large scale environmental destruction.  What is more disturbing has been the fact that while the Union Environment Ministry never gave permission to cut the trees the MNC with due help from the local administration and law and order machinery went ahead with it. A case has been filed before the National Green Tribunal about this issue. (http://www.orissapost.com/residents-demand-compensation-for-rampant-tree-felling-by-posco/)
Question arises why did POSCO decide to quit despite receiving continued support from the central as well as the state government? Remember the company had been handed over 1,700 acres of land by the Odisha state for the project and around 1,000 acres of land was still lying with the state which it had acquired for the project. In fact, the Odisha government went ahead with the forcible land acquisition for the steel plant despite the fact that POSCO did not have an environmental clearance for the project. And also the environmental clearance given by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) on January 31, 2011 had also been suspended by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on 30 March 2012.

Whether it had a ‘change of heart’ about concerns expressed by local people – who were leading and continuing with the struggle which was billed as one of the ‘largest social movements in recent times’ – about the devastation it had brought out in the lives of the people or the company decided to become ‘green’ and decided to discontinue the project.

Definitely not.

Capital or capitalists never get moved by such humanitarian concerns ( which are exhibited by lesser mortals like us). Soul of capital or capitalists rest in profit only. It is the sole criterion for it to make decisions. (As an aside if capital/capitalist would have been really ‘moved’ by human misery neither we would have seen giant armament factories manufacturing weapons of death or and human trafficking becoming ‘lucrative’ business or crores of children slogging out on peanuts).

It is now history how the proposed project witnessed resistance by masses since its inception- which was spontaneous first and which later coalesced into formation of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti – since the state government signed an MOU with POSCO in June 2005 to set up a steel plant on 4,004 acres of land in Kujang at a plan outlay of `54,000 crore. The project was then claimed as the ‘largest investment by any multinational in the country.’

The mass movement which compelled the company to scrap its project altogether – wherein people showed exemplary courage, determination and creativity was led by activists of CPI (Communist Party  of India) and other progressive formations – had to face brutal repression at the hands of the goons of the management which were in connivance with the police and administration. A statement issued by Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (http://icrindia.co.in/mydirectory/2017/03/24/update-from-posco-pratirodh-sangram-samiti-ppss/) hailing the victory tells how four persons associated with the movement were martyred during the struggle and scores have been injured, how ‘several leaders of the movement have been jailed multiple times’ and how ‘more than 2000 warrants have been issued against the people and more than 400 false cases both men and women have been registered at the Kujang police station since 2005.’

Excerpt of a memorandum submitted by various organisations and individuals who had organised a protest in Delhi against killing of anti-Posco activists and forcible land grabbing makes it clear the intensity of violence perpetrated by the corporate–police-goonda nexus in the region to suppress the voice of the people. It said :
 

On 2nd March, hired musclemen of POSCO with the full complicity of Odisha Police threw bombs at anti-POSCO activists in Patana village, in which 4 activists were killed and several others were seriously injured. Out of the 4, 3 were killed as a direct consequence of the police’s refusal to arrive at the spot for 15 hours after the bombing, or arrange for an ambulance to take the injured to a hospital. ..(http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.in/2013/03/protest-held-in-new-delhi-against_10.html)
 

And it cannot be denied the support garnered by the movement outside the affected area also proved helpful in reaching out to a large cross section of people and create a favourable public opinion. (http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.in/2013/02/demonstration-outside-indian-embassy.html)

It is noteworthy that the victory achieved by the united struggle of peasants, fisherfolks, forest dwellers to protect their land, livelihood and environment is breath of fresh air for all fighting forces in this part of the world where one finds a strange co-existence of Corporate Interests and Religion centred exclusivist politics..

But while celebrating this victory we should also bear in mind that while Posco has quit the project the issue of land acquired and transferred to Posco still remains. Odisha’s Industry minister has told the assembly that the land will be kept in a land bank and plans are being made to fence the land. As rightly pointed out by Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samity it is “illegal, undemocratic, anti-peasants, and unwarranted” and the state government “must follow the Supreme Court decision on the pattern of Singur where land of farmers acquired by Tata’s Nano plant in West Bengal was returned to them.” (http://icrindia.co.in/mydirectory/2017/03/24/update-from-posco-pratirodh-sangram-samiti-ppss/)

Another important issue is related to chopping down of thousands of tress – like mangroves, cashew nut, betel vines, fruit bearing trees – in the project area and adjoining villages. These trees had played a key role in 1999 Super Cyclone when because of the vast green cover and sand dunes, while thousands of people from nearby villages perished, people in this area remained unaffected. Now with the cutting of trees, these villages have also become vulnerable to cyclones. While substituting the natural forest looks impossible, what the government can easily do is pay compensation to these concerned villagers who remained dependent on these trees. and initiate a campaign to plant eco-friendly trees in the region.  One can be sure that people of Jagatsinghpur and adjoining areas who humbled a big corporate major with their collective efforts can as well compel the government to concede to their demands.

As rightly said by legendary revolutionary Che Guevara, people united are always victorious.

This article was first published on kafila.online
 
 

The post Victory of Anti-Posco Struggle appeared first on SabrangIndia.