Apology note: This one's over 800 words (my pledge was to keep each blog under that), but well worth it!

One of the more interesting and perhaps important things I've done over the past couple of months is get involved with the Toronto Roundtable on Mining and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This grows out of my visit to Rayagada (see entry and photos on Rayagada), where I visited Badal, Bidulatta, and others who have been working to help the villagers who are affected by the mining consortium U.A.I.L. I won't go into the details here, but am including my presentation (which took exactly 7 minutes, the maximum time allotted for each presenter).

Briefly, the Canadian Government is sponsoring a series of round tables on CSR and the Canadian Extractive Sector, and their behaviour in developing countries. There is a push to have legislation enacted that will make Canadian companies operating in other countries accountable for their human rights and environmental violations. It might also make them more cautious of committing the violations in the first place. The main site for this activity is (without the http:// preceding) 'international.gc.ca/cip-pic/current_discussions/csr-roundtables-en.asp' (apologies for not giving the link here, it'll be in my Links page).

For the 2 months leading up to the Toronto Roundtable, there were local meetings hosted by Kairos where a number of NGOs got together and discussed strategies and other details. I felt I was in over my head, as I didn't really know much about the issue, but I represented Alcant in India and Amnesty at the first couple of meetings. When others more knowledgeable than I took over, I breathed a sigh of relief. However, scheduling conflicts meant that I was called on to present for Alcant in India. My learning curve was quick and steep, and with a lot of help from Angad Bhalla, the filmmaker of U.A.I.L. Go Back, I presented the following statement.

Alcan and Village Opposition in Kashipur, Orissa, India

My name is Ellen Shifrin and I represent a small Canadian organization of students, activists, and scholars called Alcant in India. I want to tell you the story of a community in the Kashipur area of Orissa, India. For the past 14 years, this community has been fighting to prevent a bauxite mine and aluminum plant, backed in part by Canadian multinational Alcan, from being established on its land.

Alcant in India is dedicated to publicizing the plight of the people in the Kashipur Area to Canadians. We have worked with several groups, including Amnesty International, Kairos, the United Church of Canada, and Canadian Auto Workers Local 2301, all of whom have recognized the injustice taking place in Kashipur and raised their voices against Alcan.

Protest against what is happening has taken place in numerous forums, including Alcan's share holder meetings, but nothing has changed for the people of Kashipur. Their experience has been one of brutal repression, and they have lived in a state of constant fear. This is what Alcan, and as a result, Canada, mean to them.

Before I get into 'actionable ideas', I want to give a little background on Alcan's involvement in Kashipur to show why these ideas are so necessary.

In 1992 a consortium called Utkal Alumina International Limited (U.A.I.L.) was established to build a mine and an alumina plant in the Kashipur area. At that time, Alcan was involved through its Indian subsidiary, Indal. As surveys began, the local indigenous and low caste people were told various stories about what the project was about, including that it might be for a local railway. When the truth leaked out, the people began organizing against the project. Their resistance was met with brutal repression by the police and agitators sponsored by the company. By December 2000, at which time Alcan directly held 35% of UAIL, tensions were extremely high. On December 16th 2000 they erupted.

Following a meeting of the village anti-mining movement, the police descended upon the village Maikanch and opened fire upon the participants. Nine villagers were shot, three died. Ragunath, Anhilas, and Damodar Jhodia died as a result of a Canadian mining corporation's unfettered efforts to mine in a developing country.

After the deaths, Norsk Hydro (Norway), which had been the lead investor, withdrew from the consortium, at which point Alcan increased its stake to 45%. As well, at this time a halt was put on project construction, but in 2004 this was lifted, and the police repression resumed. Several activists have been arrested and abused by police. Although actual construction of the mine and plant have not yet begun, one police outpost has been established with a second planned. This police state environment is the promised 'development' that has arrived for the villagers, ninety percent of whom traditionally rely on agriculture for survival.

Infrastructure construction at the plant site has now begun, despite calls from the Orissa State Assembly Committee on Environment for a suspension of work because the environmental clearance initially given to the project expired in 2000. The initial report, by the way, was questionable, and was disputed by local environmental experts.

In this context of ongoing human rights violations and environmental disregard on the part of Alcan, we strongly urge the Canadian government to take the following actions:

1) In order to ensure that human rights abuses like the killing of activists in December of 2000 does not happen again, Canadian corporations, including Alcan, must be held to international human rights standards, including, and perhaps especially, those protecting indigenous communities from forced relocation.

2) Canadian monitoring mechanisms must be established, and all documents relating to this process must be made public. This will ensure, for example, that the consultation process between Canadian companies and local communities is honest, without huge discrepancies like those in Kashipur, where the Orissa State Government estimated that a couple of thousand families would be affected, but local NGOs estimated that tens of thousands of people will be affected.

3) To ensure that companies do not go ahead with environmentally harmful projects, all environmental impact assessments must be made public, and in cases of dispute be verified by reputable independent third party analysts.

4) To ensure that companies like Alcan do not have impunity from their complicity in extrajudicial killings, legislation must be enacted to enable the process of bringing charges against Canadian corporations in Canadian courts when they commit gross human rights violations anywhere in the world.

5) To ensure that the families of people like Anhilas, Ragunath, and Damodar Jodhia receive justice, legislation must be enacted to permit foreign citizens and communities to seek compensation and redress in Canadian courts for crimes committed against them by Canadian companies.

To close, I want to quote from a 2005 report by the Polaris Institute that sums up our concerns about duplicity in corporations in general and Alcan specifically:

Alcan takes
. . . every opportunity possible to speak about how sustainable and environmentally and socially conscious they are. . . . Despite the company’s reality as a leader in a dirty industry (strip mining, smelting, hydro electric dam), well spent money on image provides the veneer of a clean and conscious corporation with impeccably clean hands. In practice, however, Alcan is much less successful at following its own rhetoric. (1)

1. 'Can Alcan Claim to be the Best? Its Corporate and Social Responsibility in Question.' Polaris Institute, July 2005, p. 1 (please include http:// before the following: alcantinindia.org/alcan%20profile.pdf)