Two thousand Bangladeshi citizens blocked major highways and railways for six hours on March 28 and demanded a response from the prime minister by April 11. They are calling on her to honor a 2006 agreement to ban open-pit coal mining in the country. For seven years, Bangladeshi citizens, including the National Indigenous Union (Jatiya Adivasi Parishad) have fiercely protested a British company’s plan for open-pit mining in Phulbari.
by Kate Hoshour and Christine Shearer
Originally published on TruthOut.org
As the sun rose on March 28, 2011, roughly 2,000 people gathered to demonstrate against a mining project that would displace tens of thousands of people in northwest Bangladesh and establish one of the largest open pit coal mines in the world.
Five scientists have published an article in ScienceAlert , supporting Indigenous plaintiffs who are seeking a court injunction to prevent a Chinese mining company from dumping toxic mine waste into the Bismarck Sea.
The following two articles regard massive protests that took place in Bangladesh yesterday demanding a ban on open pit mining scheduled to break ground in the northwest region of Phulbari. See Cultural Survival's Action Alert on Bangladesh here to send a letter in solidarity with the Indigenous farmers of this area against the destruction of their land.
On Friday, March 25th, Global Response program director Paula Palmer was interviewed on Bob Kincaid's radio program "Head On" regarding the campaign in Bangladesh against the Phulbari coal mine. A native of West Virgina, Bob is very interested in communities struggles against the coal industry.
Police and army officials have been sentenced by the Peruvian court for deaths and violence carried out in Bagua, Peru, against Indigenous protesters.
After the protests against mining reform in the Mining Code, the government of Ricardo Martinelli will retake dialogues this Wednesday with the Coordinator for the Defense of Natural Resources and the Rights of the Ngöbe Buglé Peoples.
The president of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli, promised that the new Mining Code will not affect the territories of indigenous communities.
The Huffington Post today published an interview with Paula Palmer, the director of Cultural Survival's Global Response program, about the current Global Response campaign, to stop construction of a dam in Bangladesh that would displace thousands of Indigenous people and destroy their homeland. To read the article and interview, click here.
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At least 2,000 demonstrators blockaded a major highway in northwest Bangladesh last week to protest government plans for open pit coal mining in Phulbari and nearby Barapukuria and demand compensation for lost crops and the destruction of their lands.
Last week, while the rest of Panama was celebrating Carnival, Ngöbe people from across the country gathered to elect a new president of the Ngöbe Bugle Congress, Panama’s largest Indigenous organization.
First, let's celebrate a victory! For the second time in the last six months, last week Indigenous Ngöbe protesters forced Panama's president and legislature to revoke a law that threatened their lands and rights.
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