It is hard to be sanguine about the future. The breakdown of the ecosystem is well documented. So is the refusal of the global ruling elite to pursue measures that might mitigate the devastation. We accelerate the extraction of fossil fuels, wallow in profligate consumption, including our consumption of livestock, and make new wars as if we are gripped by a Freudian death wish. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—Conquest, War, Famine and Death—gallop into the 21rst century.
Those who rule, servants of corporations and the global billionaire class, accompany the suicidal folly by cementing into place corporate tyranny. The plan is not to reform. It is to perpetuate the corporate pillage. This pillage, more and more onerous for the global population, necessitates a new totalitarianism, one where the billionaire class lives in opulence, workers are serfs, rights such as privacy and due process are abolished, Big Brother watches us all the time, war is the chief business of the state, dissent is criminalized and those displaced by conflicts and climate breakdown are barred entry into the climate fortresses in the global north. Portions of the human species, the most privileged, will, in theory, hold out a little longer before they succumb to the great die off.
The persecuted and the abandoned, now in the tens of millions, know the future. For them, the future has already arrived. Julian Assange, the most important publisher of our generation, whose extradition to the US was approved on Friday by the British Home Secretary Priti Patel, is an example of what will befall all publishers and journalists that expose the inner workings of power. His imprisonment for revealing the war crimes, mendacity, cynicism, and corruption of the ruling class, including the Democratic Party, heralds a new era. Investigations into the centers of power, the life blood of journalism, will be a criminal offense.
It does not matter that Assange, who suffered a stroke and is in poor physical and psychological health, is not a U.S. citizen or that WikiLeaks is not a US-based publication. It does not matter that all of Assange’s meetings with his attorneys were recorded by UC Global, the Spanish security firm at the Ecuadorian Embassy where Assange lived for seven years, and turned over to the US, obliterating attorney-client privilege. The campaign against Assange, and I have sat in on hearings in London, is a Dickensian farce, the persecution of an innocent and heroic man, far more reminiscent of the Lubyanka than the best of British jurisprudence. He is being used to send a message— if you expose what we do we will destroy you.
Workers, whether in the vast sweatshops in China or the decayed ruins of the rust belt, struggle on subsistence wages without job protection or unions. They are cursed by trade deals, deindustrialization, austerity, rising interest rates and rising prices. They, too, know the future.
The decision to raise interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point, with new rate hikes on the way, will further depress wages, which have stagnated for decades, increase unemployment and personal debt and make food and other basic necessities more expensive. Raising interest rates usually induces a recession. But the oligarchs are more than willing to extract blood from the working class. Inflation reduces investment returns. It disrupts leveraged financial strategies.
Prices are not rising because of wages. They are rising because of supply shortages and price gouging by corporations and oil conglomerates. US corporations posted their biggest profit growth in decades by raising prices during the pandemic. Corporate pretax profits rose last year by 25 percent to $2.81 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s the largest annual increase since 1976, according to the Federal Reserve. When taxes are included, last year’s corporate profit rose to 37 percent, more than any other time since the Fed began tracking profits in 1948.
Antitrust laws and breaking up monopolies would ease the strain of inflation and lower prices. Rationing would break inflation. So would a wage-price freeze. Nationalization, reversing the capture of public utilities, the health care system, banking, and other services by corporations, would also blunt price rises. But the billionaire class is not about to impose measures that diminish their profits. They will keep their monopolies. They will keep their grip on what were once public assets. The message from the billionaire class is this: the economy is run for our benefit, not yours.
Ukrainians, enduring a war of attrition with the infusion of tens of billions of dollars of weapons from the US and Europe, know the future. War is the chief business of the state. It enriches the arms industry. It expands the military budget. The US now sends $130 million a day in military aid and assistance to Ukraine, part of the $55 billion in aid promised by Washington.
The US, struggling with societal breakdown and an ailing economy, sees its military as the only mechanism left to destroy global competitors, especially Russia and China. Russia, hemmed in by an expanding NATO in Central and Eastern Europe, and China harassed by a succession of carrier groups in the South China Sea, which Washington has called a “national interest,” have been united as US adversaries. China sees the waterways of Asia and the Pacific as part of its sphere of influence, as Russia sees Ukraine and other neighboring states. The aggressive military posturing of the US on the borders of China and Russia has provoked an unnecessary cold war, one many Washington policy makers nonchalantly expect may evolve into a hot war amongst nuclear armed nations that would potentially obliterate life on the planet.
There is an intensifying scramble for control, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s building of air bases from Japan to Australia along the Asian littoral, giving it the ability to attack warships, including aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific. The refusal of the U.S. to accommodate itself to a multipolar world and to chase the chimera of unrivaled global hegemony has seen Russia and China solidify an alliance, an alliance cold warriors worked hard to prevent. The hostilities, a self-fulfilling prophecy by U.S. warmongers, delights the Washington establishment whose goal is to perpetuate endless war.
You know you are in trouble when Henry Kissinger, who has called for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and open negotiations with Moscow “in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome,” is a voice of sanity.
Despotic governments need an enemy to justify the repression of dissidents, the reduction and cancellation of social programs and the iron control of information. Wars justify the unjustifiable—black sites, kidnapping, torture, targeted assassinations, censorship, and arbitrary detention—off-the-book war crimes. War induces a state of perpetual paranoia and fear. It demands mass obedience.
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous,” George Orwell writes in 1984. “Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
The message of endless war is—if you defy the ruling class, the militarists and the government, you are a traitor.
The 140 million people across the globe suffering from acute hunger, a result of the pandemic, the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine, know the future, along with the families of the 15 million people who died from the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of whom with proper prevention and medical care could have been saved. The refugees fleeing failed states and climate disasters—there could be 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050 – in the global south know the future.
The message imparted to the poor, the vulnerable, the sick and the weak is this: your lives and the lives of your children do not matter.
The oligarchs in the Democratic Party and the establishment wing of the Republican Party are aware they are in political trouble. Is it due to Russian meddling? Is it due to Donald Trump and his proto-fascist minions? Is it caused by journalists and publishers like Assange who give them a bad name? Is it a failure of messaging? Is it a lack of rigorous censorship of the far-right and leftist critics?
The Democratic Party, now united with the establishment Republican Party, is flailing around for a solution. They are bankrolling far right candidates in the Republican primaries, a tactic that backfired on Hillary Clinton when her campaign worked during the primaries to promote Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. Retrograde Republicans, de facto members of the Democratic Party because they voted to impeach Trump, are being lionized as true patriots, as if they can lure people away from Trump and Trump-like clones. Robert Reich, along with other Democratic leaders, argues that Rep. Cheney—who voted for Trump policies 93 percent of the time as a member of the House but now looks set to lose her bid for reelection in Wyoming—has “demonstrated more courage and integrity than any other politician in America” and might just be “the best president of the United States for the perilous time we’re entering.” Jonathan V. Last, in an article headlined “Mike Pence is an American Hero” in The Atlantic, writes that Pence “did more to protect democracy—both on January 6 and since—than any other person inside the Trump administration.”
Perhaps the expected Supreme Court ruling that will overturn Roe v. Wade will work in their favor. Perhaps the televised hearings on the January 6th assault on the Capitol, an extended campaign commercial, will convince voters to support them. Perhaps the promise of more stringent gun laws will excite the electorate.
What can we expect from a party leadership that believed Michael Bloomberg, who has switched allegiance between the Democratic and Republican parties several times, would save them from progressives such as Bernie Sanders? What can we expect from a party leadership that anointed Joe Biden, who spent his political career dispossessing working men and women, building the world’s largest prison system, militarizing police, destroying the welfare system and funding military fiascos in the Middle East, as president?
The Biden administration is defined by failed expectations, from its stymied Build Back Better Plan to its refusal to raise the minimum wage. It is running on fumes, using gimmicks, empty rhetoric, spectacle and fear to intimidate the electorate.
The descent is pathetic to watch, reminiscent of the moment Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu tried desperately to placate an unruly crowd from the Balcony of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Romania building by offering to raise pension and family allowance by $2 a month. He and his wife were executed four days later. The discredited East German Communist Party, which like the Romanian revolution I also covered as a reporter, made similar empty gestures, promising to open its closed party headquarters to the public long after anyone cared.
The billionaire class, or at least many of them, would prefer to loot and pillage under the cover of the old political decorum and rhetoric. They like the fiction of paying homage to an emasculated democracy. It gives them the veneer of respectability.
But this is not to be. The rage of the betrayed is articulated by imbecilic demagogues vomited up from the social and political swamp. Corporations and the billionaire class will continue to exploit, but under a cruder and crueler authoritarianism. The social, political, economic, and environmental breakdown will accelerate. Reality, increasingly unpalatable, will cease to exist in public discourse. It will be replaced by Millenarian cults, such as the Christian fascists, and bizarre conspiracy theories, a retreat into magical thinking where evil is embodied in demonized individuals and groups that must be eradicated. Truth and lies will be indistinguishable. The vulnerable will be cast aside, blamed for their own misery, as well as ours. Those who resist will be criminals. Mass death will sweep across the planet. This is the world our children will inherit unless those who control us are wrenched from power.
Tens of thousands of workers demonstrated against the rising cost of living, with many linking the crisis to the NATO’s war and Russia policies. Many demonstrators condemned the US-led NATO alliance and its involvement in the Ukraine war. Many linked their dire economic straits to the EU’s sanctions regime on Russia and with the NATO’s rush to arm Ukraine.
Protesters demanded that their leaders “spend money on salaries, not on weapons,” and chanted “stop NATO.”
Media reports said:
Workers marched through Brussels on Monday demanding government action to tackle sharply rising living costs, as one-day strikes at Brussels Airport and on local transport networks nationwide brought public travel to a near-halt.
Protesters carried flags and banners reading “More respect, higher wages” and “End excise duty”, and many protesters set off flares. Some demanded the government do more, others said employers needed to improve pay and working conditions.
Unions said about 80,000 were present. Police put the figure at 70,000.
Local public transport operators were running skeleton services, though some train lines were operating, partly to allow protesters to converge on the capital.
Inflation in Belgium hit 9% in June, mirroring sharp rises elsewhere driven primarily by the impact of war in Ukraine on supply chains and energy and commodity prices.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Belgian workers were better protected than counterparts in most other European Union countries because wages were indexed to inflation.
He told public broadcaster RTBF the government had extended sales tax breaks on gas, electricity and fuel until the end of the year.
The trade union-organized protest packed the streets of Brussels, bringing the city to a standstill.
While similar protests against rising costs have taken place across Europe as of late – thousands of trade unionists marched in London on Saturday – few have linked the soaring prices with the actions of NATO and its members.
Just three months ago, some protesters in Brussels waved Ukrainian flags and demanded that the EU cut itself off from “Putin’s Oil.” Weeks before that, there was a demonstration outside European Parliament buildings calling for “sanctions for Russia.”
Brussels is home to headquarters of both the EU and NATO. It was also the city from where U.S. President Joe Biden chose to announce a round of sanctions on Russia in March, before immediately telling a reporter that “sanctions never deter” those targeted by them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused European countries of committing economic “suicide” via sanctions, and predicted last week that the EU’s “direct losses” from this sanctions policy “could exceed $400 billion in a year.”
The Belgian protest, organized by the ACV, ACLVB and ABVV trade union federations, heralds the start of a week of industrial action across Belgium.
The unions want political leaders to do more to address the cost-of-living crisis and to reform legislation to allow easier salary negotiations.
Flemish public transport operator De Lijn warned trams and buses would be affected by worker absences and route closures.
Brussels Airport said it could not allow passenger flights to depart because the industrial action extended to security personnel, and most arrivals were also cancelled. In addition to packing the streets, the protest led to mass cancellations of flights at Brussels Airport, as unions representing security personnel went on strike. Public transit routes around the city were also operating at drastically reduced capacity.
Management at Brussels Airport warned of queues of up to eight hours at security screening after a walkout by G4S security staff.
The company advised passengers not to come to the airport and to rebook their flight “if possible”.
Most scheduled flights on Monday, including all outbound flight, were cancelled. Brussels Airport said it could not allow passenger flights because of the security walkout.
Management at Brussels South Charleroi Airport, a hub for low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, urged passengers to arrive at least three hours before departure, amid disruption concerns.
Belgian unions representing cabin crew of Ryanair say they plan a strike from June 24 to June 26, during a peak holiday weekend and an EU summit in Brussels on June 23 and June 24.
Unions at flag carrier Brussels Airlines plan to go on strike at around the same period.
The ACV and BBTK unions say Ryanair is not respecting Belgian labor law, which covers such issues as the minimum wage and cabin crew payments.
Some of Europe’s busiest airports have been affected by staff shortages and logistical issues in recent weeks.
Amsterdam
Cleaning staff at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport went on strike on Monday after they were not part of 5.25 euros per hour pay bonus given to 15,000 other workers at the airport.
UK
There was also flight disruption at UK airports caused by staff shortages and equipment failure, while the UK is set to be crippled by industrial action on Tuesday.
Heathrow on Monday asked airlines to cut 10 per cent of flights at two terminals on Monday, while easyJet has started cancelling thousands of flights.
The move by Heathrow affected around 5,000 passengers at Terminals 2 and 3 on approximately 30 flights.
An Emirates Airbus A380 with almost 500 passengers to Dubai was one of the flights that were grounded.
Other cancellations included at least three Virgin Atlantic transatlantic flights, two of them to New York and Los Angeles.
British Airways said it had cancelled flights to France, including three destined for Toulouse and two for Marseille.
It comes after images emerged on Friday of a huge pile-up of passengers’ luggage at Heathrow. It has been blamed on technical problems.
Heathrow “apologized unreservedly” in a statement for the disruption faced by passengers at the weekend.
Meanwhile, Britain is bracing itself for three one-day strikes on its railways starting on Tuesday.
The strikes by the Rail, Maritime and Transport union are likely to severely disrupt services on the railways and London Underground, with increased traffic expected to choke roads during the summer.
A sordid enterprise, nasty, crude and needless. But the World Cup 2022 will be, should anyone bother watching it, stained by one of the highest casualty rates amongst workers in its history, marked by corruption and stained by a pharisee quality. The sportswashers, cleaning agent at the ready, will be out in force, and the hypocrites dressed to the nines.
From the start, the link between the world’s premier football (or soccer) competition and the gulf state was an odd one. Qatar and the World Cup are as connected in kinship as gigantic icebergs and parched desert sands. But money was the glue, prestige the aim, and there was much glue to go around when it came to securing the rights to host the competition. What was lacking was a football tradition, an absence of sporting infrastructure, and the presence of scorching weather.
The central figure in this effort of bald graft over distinguished merit was Mohamed Bin Hammam, Qatar’s football grandee and construction magnate. From his position as a member of the executive committee of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), he is said to have acted, on occasion, more like “the head of a crime organisation” than a mere board official. All the time, he risibly claimed that he was a fan of reform, calling for “more transparency in FIFA.”
There was little evidence of transparency when it came to Doha’s bid. With manoeuvring and cash incentives, the votes fell Qatar’s way in December 2010. FIFA’s own comically named ethics committee cleared the country’s officials of any misdemeanour (it was “verified internally” that no secret plots had been made leading up to the award), while also having harsh words for other bidders, notably England.
The body also commissioned a 430-page report from lawyer and ethics investigator Michael Garcia that put the officialdom of both Russia and Qatar at ease. For one thing, Garcia seemed mild in noting that, “A number of executive committee members sought to obtain personal favours or benefits that would enhance their stature within their home countries or considerations.” With specific reference to Qatar, Garcia mentioned the country’s Aspire sports academy, alerted to it being used to “curry favour with executive committee members”. This gave “the appearance of impropriety. Those actions served to undermine the integrity of the bidding process.” But not enough, it would seem, to invalidate the choice.
In all the scrounging, haggling and dealing, the fate of tens of thousands of migrant workers have fallen into the void, showing that sporting choices, even if nourished by a grossly unethical base, will still be tolerated. Despite this, the reports about the appalling treatment Qatar affords its imported labour have not stopped coming. For one thing, 2 million workers retained to build the various stadia, a new airport, roads, the metro system, not to mention providing a range of other services (restaurants, transport, in some cases, even security), would generally count as indispensable. The problem with modern trafficking and slave practices lies in the fact that they will, when the time comes, be dispensable. The pool is large and constantly replenished.
The years since Qatar was awarded the right to host the World Cup have seen a degree of ugliness that would make the hair stand on the back of any labour and human rights activist. Much of this predates the commencement of work upon the facilities needed for the sporting event, a legacy shaped by the Kafala system. The system of sponsor-based employment effectively indentures the worker to the employer, or kafeel, trapping the employee by restricting mobility, choice of employment and visa status.
In 2017, Qatar reluctantly signed an agreement with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) giving an undertaking to combat labour exploitation and “align its laws and practices with international labour standards”.
Despite such undertakings, The Guardian revealed in February 2021 that 6,750 migrant workers hailing from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had perished in Qatar since December 2010. Such a total would be further inflated were it to account for other source countries of migrant labour, including Kenya and the Philippines.
The circumstances behind each death vary from suicide to being killed in shoddy worker accommodation. But the authorities have done their best to relay the causes in murky terms, often aided by a reluctance to conduct autopsies. “Natural deaths” tops the list as a favourite, with respiratory and acute heart failure featuring strongly.
In May this year, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, FairSquare, and a number of international migrant rights groups, labour unions, business and rights groups, along with football fans and abuse survivors, made a plea to FIFA. In a letter addressed to its President Gianni Infantino, the collective writes of “hundreds of thousands of migrant workers” who had yet to receive “adequate remedy, including financial compensation, for serious labour abuses they suffered while building and servicing the infrastructure essential for the preparation and delivery of the World Cup in Qatar.”
In urging Infantino to work with the Qatar government, trade unions, the ILO and other relevant bodies to address labour abuses, the collective acknowledges various modest improvements. But minor labour reforms and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy Initiatives came “too late”. The various reforms have also been unevenly enforced. Many workers essential to the World Cup enterprise also fall outside the remit of the Supreme Committee’s initiatives.
This whole endeavour, in short, remains plagued and blotted by institutional callousness. But a good deal of this will be forgotten come the opening ceremony and lost among the hordes of politically illiterate fans. The sporting show will go on, and anyone wishing to protest its merits will risk five-year prison sentences and a fine of 100,000 Qatari riyals (US$27,000) for “stirring up public opinion”. That’s mightily sporting of the authorities.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
The Tamil homeland has been subjected to decades of Sinhalisation but since the end of the armed conflict, there has been a rise in the establishment of Buddhist temples and Sinhala settlements through the appropriation of Tamil land. The government has used it’s departments such as the archaeological and land survey departments to alter the demographics of the North-East.
Rise of Buddhist Nationalism Leading up to Sri Lanka’s independence, “Buddhism and Sinhalese were so closely intertwined that it became impossible to treat either in isolation.” The GoSL “constantly and deliberately targeted the Tamil language, land, culture, education, economy, history and identity, while promoting and protecting Sinhala language, land, culture, education, economy, history and identity.” Though this section does not delve into the origins of Sinhala Buddhist ideology, it demonstrates the way Buddhism informs the basis for Sinhalization while also functioning as a powerful working strategy in the state-sponsored Sinhalization of the North-East.
According to the Sri Lankan Constitution of 1972, “The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the state to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana.” This article remains unchanged to this day.
The first Executive President of Sri Lanka, the late J.R. Jayawardena, said publicly that “seventy percent of our country are Buddhists. Therefore, we shall lead our lives according to the sacred words of Buddha… We have a duty to protect the Buddha sasana and to pledge that every possible action would be taken to develop it.”
This sentiment prevails. At a religious ceremony on January 2, 2022, the current president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa,said: On the day I was sworn-in as the country’s President at the Ruwanweli Seya, I declared that I was a President elected by the majority of Sinhalese. I firmly believe that the protection of Sinhala Buddhists, who have made so many sacrifices to elect me as the first citizen of this country and that heritage is my foremost responsibility. Notably, President Rajapaksa, who himself is accused of participating in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide when he served as Defense Minister during the end of the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, further strengthened the powers of the executive presidency in his first year in office. On October 22, 2020, the Sri Lankan Cabinet passed the 20 th Amendment to the Constitution, which concentrated powers with the President and provided him with the power to make important political appointments without checks and balances. As will be seen throughout this report, the President uses his extensive powers to harden Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka and to promote the process of Sinhalization.
Sinhalese colonization of Tamil districts was willfully carried out to change the ethnic and political character of Tamil areas.It is estimated that almost a quarter of the island’s population was moved from the Wet Zone to the Dry Zone between 1946 and 1971, under peasant colonization schemes. These colonization schemes altered the ethnic composition of Tamil provinces. In particular, Sinhalese population in the Trincomalee District increased from 3.8% to 33.6% of the total population between 1911 and 1981. During the same period, the Tamil population decreased from 56.8% to 33.7% in the district. In the Amparai District, Sinhalese population increased from 7.0% to 38%, while the Tamil population declined from 37.0% to 20.0% between 1911 and 1981. This rapid increase in the number of Sinhalese settlers in the Eastern Province led to the creation of the Sinhalese electorates of Seruvila and Amparai in 1976.
Since independence in 1948, the GoSL has tried to weaken (or outright deny) the concept of the “Tamil homeland” by engaging in processes of demographic change and repression through the three strategies that advance Sinhalization: land acquisition, militarization, and Buddhisization. Using these methods, the GoSL also seeks to strengthen a Sri Lankan identity, rooted in Sinhala-Buddhism (with a foremost place for Sinhala-Buddhists), including by assimilating Tamils and minority groups into this monolithic identity.
The governance, management and use of “heritage lands” are at the heart of many intergroup tensions in Sri Lanka. While the GoSL has designated several bodies to oversee the designation, use, and protection of such lands, these mechanisms are largely headed and captured by Sinhalese-Buddhist interests, with little representation or consultation with Tamil and minority groups. As a result, Tamils and Muslims in the Northern and Eastern Provinces have been systematically marginalized while their religious sites are co-opted or destroyed. Sinhala Buddhist nationalism is currently utilized by the state to justify Buddhisization across the North-East. The GoSL undertakes this Buddhisization by: destroying and appropriating non-Buddhist places of worship (such as Hindu temples and Muslim mosques), constructing Buddhist viharas and statues in majority Tamil-speaking areas with military sponsorship, providing space and authority for Buddhist monks to influence the agenda of GoSL, and using the archaeological department and Presidential Task Force as instruments to selectively uncover new areas with Buddhist history and legitimize state-sponsored Sinhalization in the North-East.
Kumarathasan Rasingam – Secretary, Tamil Canadian Elders for Human Rights Organization.
To
Shri M. K. Stalin
Chief Minister
Tamil Nadu
Dear Shri Stalin,
I understand that the Sterlite company of the Vedanta Group has proposed to sell its Copper Smelter plant at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu.
It is ironic that the company should now resort to such a diversionary step, after polluting the surroundings with toxic contaminants, adversely affecting the health of the people and after the affected people were forced to agitate, instead of showing remorse, the company should choose to pressurise the local authorities to resort to coercive action against the agitated people. It is only after judicial intervention that the affected people could get some relief.
It is equally unfortunate that the Union Ministry of Environment should remain inactive when such plants wantonly contaminated the environment and caused irreparable damage to the health of the people.
The State government should commission an independent enquiry to determine the social cost of the operations of the plant in terms of the adverse health impacts so that the company is obligated to compensate each and every family affected by it over a long period of time.
Further, it is reported (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/indl-goods/svs/metals-mining/copper-plant-sale-offer-diversionary-says-anti-sterlite-group-in-tamil-nadu/articleshow/92343007.cms) that the land where the plant is situated was used for agricultural purposes by the people, before it was acquired decades ago by the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT).
It is most likely that the land was originally acquired under the erstwhile land acquisition legislation of 1894 in which case, the acquisition was made on the specific ground that the lands were meant for a “public purpose”, a term defined under that law ]Section 3(f)(iv) of the 1894 Act) as ” the provision of land for a corporation owned or controlled by the State;”.
In other words, when the land was acquired forcibly at that time, the commitment given by the State government to the original owners was that such statutory acquisition was being made, exclusively for a “public purpose”, which had no meaning other than that the land would be used by a company wholly owned or controlled by the State”. Therefore, in the first instance, it was grossly illegal for the then government to have allowed the land to be used by a private company like the Sterlite company. Therefore, the land transfer to Sterlite in the first instance should be deemed null and void.
Against this background, I feel that the State government should take back the land in question and preferably hand it over back to the original owners.
I hope that the State government, considering the havoc that was created by the company and the gross human rights violations that followed as a result of it, immediately orders reversion of the lands to the government. Considering that the earlier governments had committed a breach of trust when they allowed the land to be transferred from SIPCOT account to Sterlite, it would be in order for the present government to hand over the land to its original owners.
The State government should ensure that the Sterlite company compensates every affected family for the way it has caused irreparable damage to their health over a long period of time.
Regards,
yours sincerely,
E A S Sarma
Former Secretary to Govt of India
Visakhapatnam
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