Tag Archive for 'Britain'

05
Aug

Vedanta says no mining without tribe’s ‘permission’

Following-up last week’s story about Vedanta and the Dongria Kondh, the company recently held it’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in London, where it assured shareholders and the attending Kondh that it will not proceed with it’s bauxite mine in the sacred hills of Nyamgiri without the tribe’s consent.

“I can only promise that we will only start work if we have complete permission of the court and the people,” said Vedanta CEO, Anil Agarwa.

According to Survival International, “[this] is the first time the company has made any such commitment to comply with international law, which recognises tribal peoples’ right to give or withhold consent for developments which profoundly affect their future,” adding, “Vedanta’s Executive Director Kuldip Kaura backed up Mr Agarwal by emphasising, ‘the local people have to give their consent.’”

Meanwhile, on the same day of the AGM, the non-profit group …

Published on
August 5, 2008
  0 Comments 477 views

10
May

200 Years of British Colonialism

The following 25 minute video is examination of the last 200 Years of British Colonialism; particularly as it relates to Africa, Israel, and Iraq. Don’t mind the music, it’s a bit melodramatic. Also, please be warned that this video contains images of deceased persons.

Courtesy of an article by Junaid Khan, here’s some of the dialogue (more or less paraphrased) from the video:

The idea on which the foreign policy of the West is based is the spread of capitalism and to make this view point dominate the whole world. Colonialism is a tool for spreading capitalism to the world and forcing it on others and a master of this tool is Britain.

The most important principle of the foreign policy of Britain is that there are only national interests and no friends and enemies. After the Capitalist revolution Britain has been controlled by rich capitalist families who have formulated her …

Published on
May 10, 2008
  0 Comments 984 views

29
Jun

The Chago and their right of return

Last month I posted an article about the Chago People, who were banished from their traditional land in 1973 by the British Government… Since then, the People have been struggling to return to their homes, in fact they’ve repeatedly won court cases which affirm their right to return must be respected. But the judgements have all been appealed, and so the Chago’s have not been allowed to return.

The most recent Judgement, once again reaffirming the Chago’s right of return, took it one step further by preventing anyone from appealing the decision… but guess what?

From Afrol News - Last month, the expelled people of the Chagos Islands, an archipelago claimed by Mauritius, thought they had achieved a breakthrough in their four-decade fight to return to the land that taken from them. The London High Court ruled that the …

Published on
June 29, 2007
  0 Comments 691 views

23
May

Chago win right to return home, for the third time

In 1966, the British Government leased Diego Garcia and the Chagossian Islands to the US Government, for a strategic military base. But the US government wanted a land free of people, and so in that same year until 1973, the British government secretly and systematically removed the entire population, some 2000 people off the islands. Most ended up in the slums of Mauritius, to a life of abject poverty.

In 2000 a UK court overturned the 1971 immigration order banning the people from their traditional lands, and decided that the exiles, now numbering 4,500, have a right to return to the archipelago. (read about the 2000 case)

In 2004, allegations were made that Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, was being used as a secret detention centre by the US. Shortly after, the British Government announced that the …

Published on
May 23, 2007
  0 Comments 1,316 views

06
Mar

Supporting Genocide In West Papua

Supporting Genocide In West Papua
from www.heathlander.wordpress.com
March 4, 2007

note by Ahni - the following is slightly skimmed-down version of the original article, which can be found here.

“Since Indonesia gained control of West Papua, the West Papuan people have suffered persistent and horrible abuses at the hands of the government. The Indonesian military and security forces have engaged in widespread violence and extrajudicial killings in West Papua. They have subjected Papuan men and women to acts of torture, disappearance, rape, and sexual violence, thus causing serious bodily and mental harm. Systematic resource exploitation, the destruction of Papuan resources and crops, compulsory (and often uncompensated) labor, transmigration schemes, and forced relocation have caused pervasive environmental harm to the region, undermined traditional subsistence practices, and led to widespread disease, malnutrition, and death among West Papuans. Such acts, taken as a whole, appear to constitute the imposition of conditions of life calculated …

Published on
March 6, 2007
  0 Comments 1,327 views

Video activism and the Chiapas Media Project

In the following presentation, Claudia Magallanes-Blanco from the University of Western Sydney talks about the role of video activism as a world-wide tool for empowerment and the Chiapas Media Project, a collaborative effort based in Mexico that provides indigenous Zapatistas in Chiapas and peasants in Guerrero with training and equipment to produce their own videos.

Since forming in 1998, CMP has distributed over 6000 videos, including: Zapata’s Garden, a film that looks at the society the Zapatista’s are building; …


I Am A Defender of the Rainforest

Known as ‘Soy defensor de la selva’ in Spanish, I am a Defender of the Rainforest is an award-winning documentary that was filmed, edited, and directed by members of the Sarayaku community in southern Ecuador.

The film shows how the …


Underreported Struggles #19, October 2008

In this month’s Underreported Struggles: 400,000 Guatemalans Reject Development Model, Philippines Indigenous People Unite for the Land, Riot Police Target Algonquin Blockade, Chagos Islanders Denied the Right of Return, and 17 other stories …


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