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India: People's Struggle Against the POSCO 'Empire'

Last Saturday, heavily armed police units and locals - mostly women and children - clashed in the Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa. The cops used batons, tear gas and fired rubber bullets, injuring over 100 people while hundreds of local villagers and some supporters were attempting to block POSCO-India from beginning the construction of the planned steel plant.
☞ 100 injured in police action at Posco-India project site (The Hindu, 5.16)

The background: The South Korean multicorporate enterprise POSCO, one of the largest producers of steel in the world, is well-known in India and, not precisely because “steel loves nature” as stated on the cover of its presentation file and still less because it loves people.

In 2005 POSCO signed an agreement with the Indian government for the establishment of a steel plant, a port and mine prospecting in the Eastearn State of Orissa. Since then, tens of thousands of people have been opposing the project because of the huge negative impact it will have on the villagers.

The area where POSCO is proposed to be allotted the mines spreads over 6000 hectares of primary forest. These forests are inhabited by a wide variety of wildlife and flora.

Furthermore, the tribal communities which form 74 per cent of the population in the surrounding area are completely dependent on these forests for fuel, fodder, fruits and medicinal plants. The water springs in the area provide water for drinking as well as irrigation...

In August 2007, a large group of people belonging to various political parties and social organisations protested at the doors of the POSCO offices, protected by a large contingent of police force.  The demonstrators, that included many women, raised slogans against the Korean company and blamed the government for facilitating the Posco steel project in Jagatsinghpur district, despite the opposition of displaced villagers.

In October 2008, a resolution signed by more than 100 organizations and people, most of them academics, condemned the increasing state of repression in Orissa against the peaceful resistance of people to the anti-people POSCO steel Project. Despite the state’s increasingly repressive regime, the struggle had reached a new height, with more local residents, especially women, joining in and more democratic voices from all over the world condemning the state for acting in denigration of Constitutional values and human rights, and in favour of corporate interests. The level of repression reached its highest point when the president of the anti Posco movement, Abhay Sahu was jailed...

But the struggle against POSCO's steel project goes on!