South Korean President Go Back!!
Satya Sivaraman Reports
‘South Korean President down, down! Go back! Go back!” were the slogans renting the air on 2 December as hundreds of farmers, fisherfolk and agricultural workers participated in the padyatra from Paradip to Puri – on its fourth day- to protest against the corporate invasion of the Orissa coast.
Though local folk of the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur have never seen South Korean President Lee Myun-Bak and have nothing against him personally, they are don’t want him to visit their cluster of villages.
President Myung-Bak has been invited by the Indian government to be the main guest at the country’s Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi on January 26 next year. Following this event plans are being considered by the Orissa government to arrange his visit the POSCO project site also.
For five full years now the villagers of Ersama block in Jagatisinghpur district have battled state agencies, the police and even goons of the ruling political party in Orissa to prevent the takeover of their land for the US$12 billion project by the South Korean company POSCO, the fourth largest steel maker in the world.
The project involves setting up an integrated steel and power plant, a private port and mining of over 600 million tonnes of Orissa’s high grade iron ore. For the steel and power plants alone the project needs around 4004 acres, of which 3566 acres is government land but 438 acres belongs to local farmers who are refusing to part with it.
“It is better that the South Korean President does not come anywhere near the POSCO project site” said Abhay Sahu, leader of the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) spearheading the anti-land acquisition movement.
The padyatra will traverse 120 kilometers along the coast where several large global mining companies have proposed projects that require acquisition of large amounts of agricultural land and will culminate in a large public rally on 5 December.
The POSCO project, the single biggest foreign investment in India currently, has been controversial right from the beginning. Apart from the dispute over acquisition of farm land critics of the project have also criticised the government for permitting POSCO to build a private port, draw water from irrigation canals for its steel and power plants and questioned allowing the company to mine 600 million tonnes of high grade iron ore in northern Orissa.
Under the Memorandum of Understanding signed between POSCO and the Orissa government the South Korean company will pay just Rs 24 per tonne of royalty for the iron ore when international prices in 2009 touched almost Rs 2500 per tonne- a huge difference that has many smelling a major financial scam. Th private port that POSCO wants to build in Jagatsinghpur district is also being opposed by the officials of the state-owned Paradip port, which already exists in the same area and is adequate to handle any large shipments of iron ore required.
In a recent development Indian media reported that POSCO executives are now in negotiation with the government of Karnataka, in southern India, to see if the steel plant site can be shifted to that province. While such a move is not confirmed, if the exodus really happens it will be a major loss of face for the Orissa government, that has banked its prestige on implementation of the POSCO project and a major victory for the farmers of Ersama.
END
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