POSCO: Glaring Instance of Corporate Loot and Corruption

In spite of ample evidence of rampant violations of laws on part of the Korean company POSCO and the Odisha State Government, the UPA Government’s Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has given POSCO a ‘green’ signal of forest and environmental clearance. In doing so, the MOEF has ignored the reports of two expert Committees appointed by the Ministry itself, which had concluded that the Odisha Government violated the Forest Rights Act to benefit POSCO.

Brutal State Repression and Crackdown on Democratic Protests Against Land Acquisition

Following the clearance, forced land acquisition in the Jagatsinghpur area has begun, with heavy police deployment in the area. 20 platoons of police have been already deployed in the area since 14 May 2011 and the DIG of Police has announced that another 28 platoons of police will be sent for forcible acquisition of land by the government. The villagers who have been bravely resisting land grab are threatened with intensified repression if they challenge the ongoing land grab.

The situation has become very tense since 3 June 2011 when the police and civil administration brutally beat up the villagers in Nuagaon as they refused to give their betel-vines and opposed the forceful acquisition of their land. According to a report on the ongoing repression submitted by several groups and concerned individuals to the National Human Rights Commission, these villagers were released only after their betel-vines had been destroyed. Moreover, they were forced to take cheques as compensation. Seventeen people including women and 6 children (5-12 year old) were arrested and the police force is spreading fear and terror in the area using loud speakers and announcing that if people do not leave their betel vines voluntarily, force will be used to destroy the betel-vines and land will be forcibly taken by the administration.

Blatant Violation of People’s Rights and Environmental Laws In Order to Force the POSCO Project Upon the People of India

A wide range of existing legislations have been subverted to allow the POSCO project: for instance, the Odisha Government has claimed that the resolutions by the Palli Sabhas of Dhinkia and Govindpur (in which 65 % of the villagers participated) rejecting the proposal to divert land to POSCO, are false. Shamefully, the MoEF and the UPA have accepted this absurd claim of the Odisha government, thus sanctioning a blatant contravention of existing legislations. Ironically, in his order, the Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has said, “Faith and trust in what the state government says (is) an essential pillar of cooperative federalism” and “the bona fides of a democratically elected state government cannot always be questioned by the Centre.” On what basis does Ramesh conclude that the democratically expressed mandate of the gram sabhas carries less weight than the word of a state government? Does his respect for democratic mandates extend only up to state government – not to the village-level democratic bodies, in which villagers directly express their mandate?

Actually, Ramesh’s remark about federalism lets the cat out of the bag: the UPA Government is acting in shameful collusion with the Odisha Government in violating laws to appease corporate interests. The MoU signed by the Odisha government and POSCO provides for the large-scale export of iron ore – POSCO will have rights to mine 600 million tonnes of ore over 30 years, of which 60% will be exported to POSCO’s Korean steel mills. The exported iron ore will thus serve the economic interest of South Korea and POSCO stockholders – mainly American banks and Warren Buffet – one of the world’s richest’s individuals.

The list of irregularities in clearing the POSCO project is a long one: To begin with, apart from the shameful subversion of the people’s mandate against land acquisition for POSCO (expressed through gram sabha resolutions), environment and forest clearances have been given despite open violations of the UPA’s own Forests Rights Act. Moreover, the MoEF’s own committees and reports have been subverted, and gross violations of the law blissfully ignored, to clear the project.

The A. Raja Angle

The Odisha government alloted this project to POSCO out-of-turn, jumping a queue of 200 applicants. Moreover, Jairam Ramesh’s clearance is all the more legally questionable because they are being granted on the basis of a 2005 MOU, which has lapsed and is yet to be renewed. Anti-corruption activists have pointed out the similarities between the POSCO case and the 2G scam in which spectrum was handed over cheap to companies in violation of regulations in the 2G scam. In the POSCO case, massive natural resources – iron ore, land, forests, water, and a harbour – are being handed over to a company in violations of law. It should be noted that the captive port for POSCO was hastily cleared in the very last phase of A Raja’s tenure as Environment Minister. Raja is now in jail in the 2G case, and the CBI is investigating corruption during his tenure as Telecom Minister as well as his earlier tenure as Environment Minister. Why has Ramesh granted clearance to POSCO without even waiting to see if the CBI finds any evidence of corruption in Raja’s role in clearing the captive port for POSCO?

In January this year, Ramesh had remarked on POSCO’s “strategic significance for the country” (i.e relations between Korea and India); and now he is citing ‘faith and trust’ in state governments. These indicate that the clearance for POSCO is not based on whether or not POSCO has the necessary legal basis for clearance, but on political considerations. Not long ago, when the UPA Government had been forced to distance itself from the Vedanta project, Rahul Gandhi had called himself the ‘soldier’ of the adivasis of Odisha in their battle against land grab. The ‘soldier’ is silent now as his Government colludes with the Odisha Government to wage war on laws, democracy and people’s survival – all to appease huge MNCs.

The POSCO ‘scam’ – in which laws of the land are violated to allow a private MNC to loot precious natural resources of the country and make profits to the tune of lakhs of crore rupees – at the cost of livelihood and survival of tribals and poor villagers in one of the poorest states of the country – is the latest shameful instance of corruption and corporate loot, facilitated by the Odisha Government and the UPA Government at the Centre. It calls for cancellation of the project, a thorough investigation and punishment to those guilty of breaking the laws to benefit corporate interest.