On August 10, a frantic message landed in the mailbox of members of a Facebook group called Save Niyamgiri. Two leaders of the Dongria-Kondh tribe’s resistance to a controversial mine in Orissa’s Lanjigarh were said to have been abducted, and had subsequently gone missing. The two men were reported to have been ambushed at the base of the hill range where they live, bundled into a vehicle at gunpoint, and driven away. They were not being held at local police stations, Lanjigarh or Muniguda. A third person accompanying them was left alone.
HERE'S AN ENCOURAGING UPDATE
Plans by Vedanta Resources to mine on Dongria Kondh land "threaten the survival" of the tribe, according to an official government investigation whose report has just been released (August 16, 2010). In the damning report, the committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests has ruled that Vedanta has acted illegally and with "total contempt for the law;" that local officials have "colluded" in the company’s illegal activity and falsified documents; that "it is established beyond any doubt that the [mining] area is the cultural, religious and economic habitat of the Dongria Kondh;" and that to allow Vedanta’s mine would be "illegal." You can download the report from the ministry's website.
The two – Lado Sikaka and Sana Sikaka – have been at the forefront of their tribe’s battle against a massive bauxite mine planned on their land by British company Vedanta Resources. Sana was let off by the abductors the next day, while Lado remained in custody.
Lado, a vocal opponent of the Vedanta project, hails from Lakhpadar village, one that is closest to the mining lease area. Only a month earlier, two paramilitary platoons had carried out a combing operation in Lakhpadar and assaulted Sana. They were apparently looking for Lado who was not present in the village at that point. The body of another anti-Vedanta leader from a different village was found dead in mysterious circumstances the day after Lado met a team of experts sent by the government to investigate Vedanta.
[UPDATE: See my study on the media coverage of the Vedanta/Niyamgiri ussue: http://issuu.com/newswatch/docs/vedanta ]
The news did not trickle out into the mainstream media. Alerts were issued by Survival International and Amnesty International. It still did not make news. There were no screaming headlines in newspapers. There were no heated debates on 24/7 television. India’s most blacked-out story remained a non-news item. The incident received more mileage outside.
Lado and Sana Sikaka, incidentally, are both campaigning against a proposed bauxite mine in the Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa. Research by Amnesty International indicates that the Niyamgiri bauxite mining project, which would be located on the Dongria Kondh's sacred sites, traditional lands and habitats, is likely to result in violations of their rights to water, food, health, work and other rights to protection of their culture and identity. The project is currently awaiting clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests. The results of a second official investigation into the mine will be published in less than a week from now. The head of the investigative team, NC Saxena, has told journalists to expect his report to be “another bomb.”
In December last, Lado told Survival International, “We have always depended on our Niyam Dongar (their name for their land). It is our tradition. And it is our future. We say to Vedanta: if the whole universe came to try to convince us about Vedanta we still would not allow this mine.”
The mine has been broadly condemned. One Indian government team declared the mine was likely to “lead to the destruction of the Dongria Kondh” as a people. Several investors including the Church of England sold their shares in Vedanta over the project, and the British government declared that the Dongria’s rights have been violated.
Lado was finally released on August 12. He had quite a story to tell. Lado and Sana had been stopped by 12 armed plainclothes police officers and two unidentified persons as they were travelling to Delhi with other activists to protest against the mine. They abducted the two men in the van the activists were travelling in, forcing Sana out of the van at Bijepur town.
They detained Lado Sikaka for another day and interrogated him in the town of Rayagada. Lado said that while he was there, he was beaten on his hands and legs, and interrogated about whether he had links with supporters of Maoist groups or was involved in any violent incidents in the Niyamgiri Hills. He replied in the negative.
However, his captors forced him to sign two blank pieces of paper, before taking him to the nearby town of Kalyansinghpur and releasing him there. He legged it back to Lakhpadar. The Rayagada district police superintendent denied that the Sikakas were detained by police.
If the police did not pick up the two men, then who did? Circumstances have been murky indeed. The story of the struggle of the people is confined primarily to the foreign press. The Indian populace remains blissfully ignorant of the same. The blackout continues.
Footnotes:
- A prima facie search for Vedanta on Google News at 11.00 pm on August 15 revealed that only 15 news sources had covered the abduction of the Dongria Kondh men. That would include both the abduction and their subsequent release. Only Hindustan Times and The Hindu were the mainstream news establishments to have covered the incident. On the other hand, there were 355 news items pertaining to Vedanta Resources buying a majority stake in Cairn India. There were many newspapers, including The Times of India, which gave it front page mention.
- Meanwhile, you can write a letter for the Dongria Kondh on Survival International's site.
- You must also read the Amnesty International report Don't mine us out of existence: Bauxite mine and refinery devastate lives in India, available in PDF format.
