Tribals block Vedanta earthmovers
Company jumped the gun to feed refinery starved of bauxite, they allege
IN THE dead of night on January 7, two earthmoving vehicles were seen moving up the forest road of Niyamgiri Hills. Villagers of Semalbhatta were quick to conclude that the heavy vehicles were from the nearby Lanjigarh refinery owned by Vedanta Alumina Ltd. They alerted nearby villages. By 3.30 am a crowd of 800 people gathered to form a human wall and stopped the heavy vehicles from going further up the hill.
The impasse continued for about 10 hours until the police arrived. The tribal protestors returned home only after the vehicles retreated to the refinery two kilometres away. Niyamgiri Hills in the Eastern Ghats is at the centre of a power struggle between the Dongria Kondh tribals, who have lived there for generations, and Vedanta, a subsidiary of Sterlite Industries that has won rights to blast open the hills to take out its bauxite deposits.
Activists fighting for the rights of the tribal people over the forest in Kalahandi district alleged Vedanta was trying to start covert mining operations without waiting for clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (moef).