United Nations rapporteurs slammed into Posco project area for alleged human rights violations

BHUBANESWAR:Here’s some superfluous counsel to Posco and its outreach supervisor in their ongoing enterprise to specifically counter allegations of human rights violations in Odisha.

They could consider toning down their superiority. And speaking certain untruths on behalf of the government of Odisha and India in order to protect its projects for a $12 billion integrated steel plant, captive iron ore mines and a captive port.

Take Posco’s response when a top team of United Nations rapporteurs slammed into it for alleged human rights violations in a statement on 1 October 2013. Among other things, the statement released by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights mentioned that “people in the project-affected area have reportedly been subjected to violence, harassment and threats, as well as arbitrary detentions and false charges, as a result of their activities to assemble peacefully and collectively defend their human rights”.

Posco said a few things well in a rebuttal issued several days later. “Posco agrees to the premise that Posco does have responsibility to respect human rights even though the government has the primary duty to protect the human rights of the people”.

Then Posco blew it.

“Posco squarely refutes the allegation that there is violation of human rights in its project area in Odisha.”

Police destroyed betel vines that day in the area of attack in the 700-acre acquisition zone, and even outside it. Men, women and children were roughed up the most recent of several such incidents. Several owners of betel farms were compelled to accept compensation on the spot.

The government of Odisha has a documented history of viciousness while acquiring or taking possession of land for industrial projects. And India’s documented human rights violations, past and ongoing, by the central government and various state governments would keep interested courts busy for years.

In Posco’s response to another scathing report earlier this year, shepherded among others by a team at New York University’s School of Law, this ironical paragraph on human rights issues leapt out. “…If the police do not act, who will protect the human rights of the local people? Their rights cannot be protected by someone seated in the UK and the USA and writing thesis on them. Posco has no role in maintaining the law and order. It is the duty and discretion of the govt.”

It is easy to understand Posco’s anxious, vehement, and sometimes contradictory, denials of any human rights wrongdoing in its Odisha projects even indirectly. The government of Odisha has done whatever it takes to facilitate the project for Posco, including violation of human rights committed by agencies of the state. By its repeated denial of such instances, and repeated, and public, shielding of the government’s actions, Posco may actually be cementing complicity in such actions. Human rights watchdogs are already snapping at the heels of several suppliers and financiers of the project. Censure by portfolio investors would surely be unwelcome.