by Kate Hoshour and Christine Shearer
Originally published on TruthOut.org
As the sun rose on March 28, 2011, roughly 2,000 people gathered to demonstrate against a mining project that would displace tens of thousands of people in northwest Bangladesh and establish one of the largest open pit coal mines in the world.
Located in an agricultural region that is home to thousands of farming and indigenous families, the Phulbari Coal Project has been fiercely opposed by Bangladeshi citizens who do not want to see the verdant rice fields of Phulbari bulldozed to make way for an open pit mine.
The project is being pursued by a UK-based company, Global Coal Management Resources, or GCM (formerly the Asia Energy Corporation). Despite six years of resistance by local people whose lands and livelihoods are threatened by the project, GCM is expressing confidence that the mine will go forward.
In their most recent action to halt the project, protestors enforced a six hour blockade of Bangladesh’s railways and highways that began at 6:00 am, reportedly forcing railway authorities to reschedule seven intercity trains, and disrupting road between the northwestern district of Dinajpur and other parts of the country.
In Phulbari, educational and business institutions reportedly remained closed during the blockade.
The demonstrators built on a demand made exactly one month ago on February 28th, when they convened rallies and enforced blockades in the same locations and issued a 30-day ultimatum calling for the government to halt the mine and expel GCM Resources from the country.
Rallying once again at locations throughout the Phulbari sub-district, the organizers of the March 28th protests issued a new ultimatum with a shorter deadline, announcing that this them they will allow only 15 days for their demands to be met before taken action again.
Responding to announcements of the protest, police and members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) were deployed in advance to guard the GCM’s office, the Phulbari Railway station, and other key establishments.
RAB, set up as an elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism force, has become notorious for what several human rights groups describe as routine use of torture and the alarming number of extra-judicial killings that occur in RAB custody.
Although denounced by Human Rights Watch as a “government death squad,” diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010 revealed that the UK has provided support to RAB, including training in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement."
The Phulbari Coal Mine Project is now at a critical juncture. It was stalled in the planning phase when political stability in the country and widespread protests led to emergency rule being imposed in Bangladesh in 2007. Following national elections in 2008, a new administration began actively reconsidering the mine.
The recent release of another WikiLeaks cable shows that the U.S. has been exerting diplomatic pressure for its approval, citing U.S. corporate interests.
Forced Eviction on a Massive Scale
According to GCM's project plans, the Phulbari coal mine would have a lifespan of at least 36 years and extract 16 million tons of coal annually at peak production. Of this, three million tons would be used for domestic energy consumption, with the construction of at least one 500MW coal plant, and the remaining coal would be exported.
The project's draft Resettlement Plan calls for the open pit mine and associated infrastructure to acquire nearly 6,000 hectares of land.
Estimates of the number people who would be evicted from their homes and lands in order to make way for the immense mega-project vary widely and are disputed.
According to GCM, the project would displace nearly 50,000 people (49,487 people and 11,247 households). However, a 2006 Expert Committee Report commissioned by the Bangladeshi government concluded that nearly 130,000 people would be directly affected, and as many as 220,000 people would suffer reduced access to water for drinking and irrigation, with uncertain displacement impacts over time.
GCM's estimate of the number of Indigenous people displaced is similarly contested. While GCM says some 2,200 indigenous people would be displaced, independent researchers and Bangladesh's Jatiya Adivasi Parishad (National Indigenous Union) estimate that 50,000 people belonging to 23 different tribal groups would be evicted.
“The project threatens some of Bangladesh’s most vulnerable Indigenous peoples who trace their ancestry in the region back 5,000 years,” says Paula Palmer, Director of Cultural Survival’s Global Response Program. Indigenous leaders fear that their ancient cultures and languages would not survive forced displacement and dispersal of their communities. In a recent interview, Palmer noted that “the mine may mean ethnocide” for the Indigenous Peoples it would forcibly resettle, who “will not be able to maintain the cultural traditions, religious practices, and languages that have sustained them for thousands of years."
Impacts on Food and Water
Over 80 percent of all lands slated for project development is farmland. Due to its elevation and location, Phulbari is one of few agricultural regions in Bangladesh that is protected from flooding. Project opponents are concerned that the loss of these agricultural lands will undermine efforts to overcome hunger in a country in which nearly half of all people currently do not have enough food.
Bangladesh is also one of the world's most densely populated countries. Displaced families would thus require significant support in regaining land and housing. Yet project plans state that people displaced for the mine will not receive replacement land - nor will other vital resources, including fish ponds, timber, and bamboo trees, be replaced.
“The company is offering displaced families cash, not equivalent land, because no land is available in Bangladesh,” notes Palmer. Yet, “studies show that cash payments to such ‘development refugees’ results in their impoverishment.”
Project impacts on water for household and agricultural use are also expected to be severe. According to the 2006 Expert Committee Report, dewatering operations required to keep water from entering mine pits up to 1,000 meters in depth would result in a massive reduction of ground water throughout a vast region and reduce access to water for 220,000 people.
The prospect of their tube wells running dry has raised grave concerns in Phulbari, where over half of all households report that they do not currently have enough water to meet their needs.
Environmental Risks
The Mangrove Action Project recently launched an international campaign to halt the Phulbari project, citing risks to the Sundarbans Forest Reserve, a UNESCO-protected mangrove forest and wetlands that contains over half of Bangladesh’s remaining natural forest. The vast wetlands includes three wildlife refuges, all of which are on UNESCO’s World Heritage Site List, and supports at least 58 rare and threatened species - including Bangladesh's last remaining population of the royal Bengal tiger.
Despite its protected status, plans for the Phubari Coal Mine call for coal to be transported through the Sundarbans by a fleet of barges to an floating offshore loading facility where it will be transferred to ocean-going vessels.
Significantly, the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for the project commissioned by GCM rates the risk that barge fuel could contaminate the Sundarbans Reserved Forest (SRF) as “extremely high” and “one of the most significant issues associated with the Project."
In the event of a "worst case scenario" oil spill, the ESIA states, “it is likely there will be damage to the SRF shoreline” and “extreme mortality or severe damage to mangroves and other shoreline plant species.”
There are also serious environmental and health hazards associated with coal mining itself. Although GCM maintains that local residents can continue farming some project lands during and after mining operations, this ignores the risks posed by coal. Mining coal unearths toxic heavy metals, including mercury, as well as acid-forming sulphur, that contaminate soil, water, and air, making lands that have been mined less than ideal for agriculture.
Protest & Resistance
The March 2011 demonstration is the latest protest in an ongoing battle to halt the project. Massive public protests involving thousands of citizens began in 2005 and continue through today.
August 26, 2006 is now commemorated as Phulbari Day – an annual day of mourning for those who lost their lives and suffered serious injuries when a government-backed paramilitary group fired indiscriminately on tens of thousands of people protesting the project. Three people were killed, including a 14 year old child, and more than 200 people were wounded.
This indiscriminate use of violence generated nationwide protests and a four-day general strike, which were brought to an end only when the government signed an agreement calling for the permanent expulsion of Asia Energy from the country and a ban on open pit mining.
GCM was forced to suspend it operations at this time, and its personnel fled the country under police escort after demonstrators burned down the company's project information office.
Within Bangladesh, national opposition to the project has been led by the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources and Ports, whose local leader Nuruzuman was reportedly tortured by the Bangladesh military in 2008 for his activities.
"Despite violence and intimidation aimed at silencing opponents, some 100,000 people participated in the final rally ending an incredible one-week 250-mile Long March from Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital, to Phulbari last October, notes Joanna Levitt, Executive Director of International Accountability Project, a human rights organization working to halt the project.
On February 28th of this year, roughly 2,000 protestors gathered for the rally and highway blockade in Phulbari, stranding some 500 passenger buses and vehicles on both sides of the highway.
Opponents’ key demands remain unchanged: the government must fulfill the agreement signed on August 31, 2006, which bans open pit coal mining and calls for GCM to be permanently expelled from the country.
GCM Resources
Despite sustained opposition, GCM remains confident that it will be able to move the project forward. The government of Bangladesh plans to announce a new coal policy by June 2011, and GCM expects that the new policy will clear the way for them to secure the "green light" that their investors are impatiently calling for.
In January of 2011, Cultural Survival sent a letter to GCM Chief Executive, Steven Bywater, calling for an immediate halt to planning for the mine, saying that it would forcibly remove thousands of indigenous people from their homes and farmlands, in violation of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
In a reply dated March 8, 2011, Bywater disputed this, saying that "Our resettlement programme will recognize the right of all affected people to free, prior and informed consent." However, Bywater's reply does not address the fact that no one in Phulbari is being offered the option of saying no to eviction and resettlement.
Bywater also notes that the project will bring the country needed electricity, and "roughly a third of the revenues generated by the Project will go to the Government in the form of royalties, corporate taxes, customs and duties, and taxes paid by employees, suppliers and contractors."
GCM's claims regarding financial benefits to Bangladesh are strongly contested by project opponents, who argue that the nation will lose, not profit, if GCM is permitted to extract the country's non-renewable resources while paying only 6 percent in royalties and profits.
Taking Bywater's figures at face value, two-thirds of project revenues will go outside of Bangladesh - and, a recently released WikiLeak documents suggests, toward wealthy investors in the Global North.
WikiLeaks Reveals Evidence of U.S. Interference
In December 2010, WikiLeaks released a diplomatic cable that revealed that the U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, James Moriarty, has actively intervened to push the Phulbari Coal Mine Project forward.
In the July 2009 cable, Moriarty cites 60 percent US investment in GCM and urges Tawfiq Elahi Chowdhury, the Energy Advisor to Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, to authorize open-pit mining as “the best way forward.”
Moriarty also notes that Chowdhury admitted that the coal mine was "politically sensitive in the light of the impoverished, historically oppressed tribal community residing on the land," but that Chowdhury agreed to build support for the project through the parliamentary process.
"WikiLeaks cables prove that U.S. officials chose to ignore the tens of thousands of Bangladeshi people marching in the streets to oppose this mine. Behind closed doors they aggressively pushed for a reckless coal project that would evict and impoverish thousands in Bangladesh - and line the pockets of a few hedge fund managers in the U.S.," commented Joanna Levitt, Executive Director of International Accountability Project.
According to the international organization Banktrack, major shareholders in GCM Resources are Aurora Investment Trust PLC; Christian Leone; Credit Suisse First Boston Equities Ltd; LCG Holdings LLC; Luxor Capital Group; and Polo Resources Ltd.
LCG and Luxor Capital Group are owned by Christian Leone, a U.S. citizen and former Goldman Sachs employee who also operates a New-York-based hedge fund in his own name.
Energy at what Price?
Over 100 civil society organizations from 31 countries have endorsed a letter to financial backers worldwide detailing human rights abuses and environmental concerns associated with the Phulbari project and calling on private banks to withdraw their support of the project.
Their concerns include the potential for further violence against project opponents. The Expert Committee commissioned by Bangladesh’s government shares these concerns, warning of “a high risk of social unrest and conflict” if GCM attempts to forcibly relocate tens of thousands of people, most of whom have land-based livelihoods.
Despite these warnings and sustained protests against the project, GCM continues to maintain that the project would be good for the people of Bangladesh, bringing needed electricity.
Of course coal is not the only energy option. An alternative development model can be seen in the Indian state of Orissa, which recently installed decentralized solar power to provide energy to 2,000 villages without large-scale displacement of people and destruction of their lands and communities
Many within Phulbari regard the GCM's Coal Mine Project as a violation of their rights. As one community member interviewed by the International Accountability Project said: "This movement is for human rights. This is against the aggression of the multinational companies. So the international community should come forward to save the human rights, to save the community."
____
Kate Hoshour is a cultural anthropologist and Senior Research Fellow for International Accountability Project, a San Francisco-based human rights organization that partners with communities in the Global South to challenge destructive development projects and promote accountability to upholding local people’s human rights in international development finance and practice.
Christine Shearer is a researcher for CoalSwarm, part of SourceWatch, and a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at UC Santa Barbara. She is managing editor of Conducive and author of the forthcoming book, "Kivalina: A Climate Change Story" (Haymarket Books, 2011).
Photo Credits: 1.Shahriar Sunny 2.Shahriar Sunny 3. Respontour
