[asia-apec 1623] RALLY AGAINST THE SARDAR SAROVAR DAM!Protest the Indian Supreme Court Ru

[Anuradha Mittal]

An Urgent Action from International Rivers Network and Friends of the 
River Narmada--supported by Food First/Institute for Food and 
Development Policy

RALLY AGAINST THE SARDAR SAROVAR DAM!
Protest the Indian Supreme Court Ruling
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When: Monday, October 23, 2000
          10-11 AM

Where: Indian Consulate
       540 Arguello Blvd. (near Geary)
       San Francisco

We urge you to join us for an emergency rally to support villagers 
fighting destructive development on India's Narmada River. The Delhi 
Supreme Court ruled 2 to 1 on Wednesday to allow construction to resume 
on the Sardar Sarovar Project. Writer Arundhati Roy has called the 
decision "absolutely disgraceful" and "a very sad moment in the history 
of democracy".

Construction is expected to resume within two weeks. Most work on the 
project had been suspended since 1994.

The ruling came despite evidence that claimed project benefits will not 
materialize, better alternatives are available and rehabilitation of the 
500,000 people affected by the project is impossible.

We urge you to come to the Indian Consulate on Monday and show your 
opposition to the dam and the Supreme Court verdict. Directions and 
background info are below.

For more info, contact

Susanne Wong
International Rivers Network
510-848-1155
swong at irn.org

Subbu Vincent
Friends of the Narmada
510-445-0646
svincent20 at hotmail.com

Aniruddha Vaidya
Friends of the Narmada
408-980-0672
asvaidya at netscape.net

*For more information on the struggle, go to www.narmada.org.

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DIRECTIONS TO THE CONSULATE
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Driving directions from the East Bay/Hwy 101:
Take 80 West to SF. Take the Fell St. Exit and stay to the left. 
Continue on Fell and make a right onto Stanyan. Turn left onto Fulton. 
Turn right onto Arguello. The address is 540 Arguello Blvd.

Driving directions from Hwy 280:
Take 19th Avenue/ Golden Gate Exit and continue on 19th Avenue, which 
merges into Park Presidio Drive. Turn right on Fulton Street. Turn left 
on Arguello Boulevard.

Directions from BART:
Take Montgomery Exit. Go to street level and catch the 38 or 38L(faster) 
bus and get off at the corner of Arguello and Geary. (The buses come 
every 7-8 min and the trip from the Bart station to the consulate is 
roughly 30 min.)

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PRESS RELEASE

International Rivers Network
Berkeley, California
www.irn.org

For Immediate Release: October 18, 2000
Contact: Patrick McCully (510) 543 3317

IRN Condemns Indian Supreme Court Go Ahead for Sardar Sarovar Dam

International Rivers Network strongly condemns today's majority
ruling by the Indian Supreme Court allowing construction to resume on
the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River. "The ruling is utterly
illogical and an insult to democracy and justice," said Patrick
McCully, Campaigns Director of International Rivers Network.

The Sardar Sarovar Project is one of the world's most controversial
dam projects and would forcibly displace more people than any other
infrastructure project in the world except for China's notorious
Three Gorges Dam. "Sardar Sarovar symbolizes an outdated and
internationally discredited approach to water management," Patrick
McCully added.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) filed their
case against Sardar Sarovar  in 1994. The NBA presented the court
with evidence showing that the project will not work as planned, that
alternatives are available, that the necessary environmental studies
have not been done, and that proper rehabilitation of the hundreds of
thousands of people who would lose their livelihoods to the project
is impossible. The NBA have for more than a decade led a mass
campaign of non-violent resistance to the dam.

The court had stalled construction on the part-built dam wall for
most of the past six years. But the final ruling allows the height of
the dam to be raised by five meters immediately and then in further
five-meter stages based on approval from government committees which
have shown themselves to be controlled by pro-dam interests.

One of the three judges on the Supreme Court bench, Justice S.P.
Bharucha, issued a dissenting opinion stating that construction
should be stopped pending new environmental studies.

The court has given project authorities four weeks to draw up a plan
for the resettlement and rehabilitation of the 200,000 people to be
displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Reservoir. A resettlement plan for
Sardar Sarovar was supposed to have been completed in 1981. "If the
authorities can't produce a credible plan in nearly two decades, how
can they write one in a month?", Patrick McCully asks.

Several hundred thousand other people will lose - or have already
lost - their livelihoods to irrigation canals, housing for
construction workers, the desiccation of the river downstream of the
dam, and a wildlife reserve planned to compensate for the ecosystems
to be flooded.

For more on the reaction to the Supreme Court judgement go to 
www.narmada.org

------------------------
NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN
10/19/00

ACTION ALERT ON SUPREME COURT VERDICT - NARMADA CASE

The anti-people judgment by the Supreme Court of India has sent a 
shocking wave across the Narmada as well as other river valleys but also 
fields and villages, homes and hamlets of those struggling against 
inhuman backlash of development. We have been, since the verdict is 
announced, receiving calls and messages of solidarity, enquiring about 
the next move.

Grateful to all who have always been with us throughout the long,
perseverant struggle and who are with us today, feeling utmost 
responsible to take the struggle ahead with greater strength and 
commitment, we are amidst planning our way ahead. With all of us, the 
full timers and main representatives of various parts of the valley with 
a few supporters who can make it, coming together in Badwani, Nimad. We 
will be reviewing the legal judgment, our moral commitment, political 
situation to chalk out a multiple front strategy.

We have over years, indicated our direction and taken to a non-violent 
path of struggle. This is a time to look back and look forward with all 
humility at our command and determination to continue to wage a 
war.......

We know, however, that many of our supporters, sympathisers, all of you
from different walks of life....have already begun with meetings and 
even thought of immediate phase that we suggest a few actions, gathered 
from various supporters, to you:

a.      please mobilise all our old and new friends supporters,
sympathisers, belonging to different organisation, movements

b.      do request others and send yourself protest letters to the
President and the Prime Minister, expressing your condemnation and
solidarity with the movement both. Indian supporters should also send
letters to the Chief Justice. You know what should be written in these.
Whatever you feel and think....yet a few hints:

1.      The President has powers to declare any law or government order 
as not applicable specifically in a tribal area (Schedule V of then
Constitution of India)

2.      The Prime Minister had written to us a very sensitive letter 
last year suggesting that he values the lives of the strugglers highly 
and without us, the complex issues of Narmada can't be resolved.

3.      The Chief Justice signed the judgment written by Justice Kripal 
and not  by Justice Bharucha. (Please look into the main features of the 
judgment circulated by us, separately).

c.      Do organise, even if small, action such as

1.      a delegation to the Minister / Chief Minister, Ruling party 
chiefs in your state / region esp. in Maharashtra, M.P. gheraoing them 
to question on their role.

2.      A support campaign on the streets and in the educational and 
other institutions with a statement pointed on the cloth scroll to be 
signed by all, addressing the President / Prime Minster / Chief Justice 
of India.

3.      Plan a conference / panel discussion / debate / public meeting 
on the Supreme Court Verdict, involving pro-people lawyers, former 
judges, legal experts, senior activists or journalists.

4.      Send letters to the editor to all the Press in maximum number,
commenting on the judgment, supporting the movement, bringing out
implications, questioning anything anti-people, reported in the media

5.      Encourage the maximum number of authors / columnists to write
articles. Meet the editors, senior journalists and other to brief them 
and convince them about the unjustifiability

d.      Please let us know who all can join us in tour across the valley 
to talk to the people, to work towards, mobilise strength for next 
actions.

e.      Be prepared to mobilise whosoever and wherever please to come 
and join us in the next action which wouldn't be too far, as we expect 
at this stage.

Be with us, spare time for us...

Medha Patkar                  Sanjay Sangvai
Noorji Padvi                     Keval Singh
Pervin Jehangir                Joe Athialy

Join the fight against hunger. For more information contact foodfirst at foodfirst.org.

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