Phulbari

Destroying Communities and Damaging Environment

NO MINE in PHULBARI

Call out for Action against GCM Resources plc.

Wednesday, 04 December 2013 at 10am-12pm
Venue: 4 Hamilton Place, London, W1J 7BQ

GCM Resources plc, an AIM-listed UK-based multinational company, supported by major hedge funds and banks including UBS, Credit Suisse, LR Global, and Argos Greater Europe Fund, wants to implement a massive open-pit coal mine in Phulbari in the north-west of Bangladesh, displacing up to 130,000 people and threatening lives. If implemented, the project will destroy over 14,660 acres of fertile agricultural land that produce three food crops annually, threatening to increase hunger in a country in which nearly half of all people currently live below the nutrition poverty line. The project threatens to destroy the homes, lands, and water sources of as many as 220,000 people, and forcibly evict an estimated 130,000 people.

On 26 August 2006, three people were killed and over 200 injured when paramilitary troops fired on a massive protest of some 80,000 demonstrators in Phulbari. The protesters were opposing the proposed open pit coal mine that the Bangladesh subsidiary of GCM Resources plc, Asia Energy, intends to implement. The situation in Phulbari has been tense and volatile since. The potential for violence has remained high in this project ever since August 2006.

The project has generated grave concern at national and international levels including the United Nations. This year the GCM Resources was dealt a serious blow as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) agreed to consider complaints regarding severe human rights violations associated with the company’s planned coal mine in Bangladesh.

Last year, on 28 February, 2012, seven Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations issued a joint UN press release, calling for an immediate halt to the project on the grounds that it threatens the fundamental human rights of hundreds of thousands of people, including entire villages of indigenous people, and poses “an immediate threat to safety and standards of living.”
Yet, GCM is aggressively moving on to implement this immense open pit coal mine ignoring the human rights and environmental degradation the project would leave.

The UK branch of National Committee to Protect Oil-Gas-Mineral Resources and Port-Power of Bangladesh is campaigning in solidarity with the people of Phulbari to throw GCM Resources/Asia Energy out of Bangladesh. The Committee in UK, in conjunction with the Phulbari Solidarity Group, London Mining Network, and World Development Movement, is holding a demo on Wednesday the 4th of December 2013 outside the Annual General meeting of GCM.

Come and Join us in the protest – Stand with the people in Phulbari – Round up the coal miners on 4th December!

• Download flyer as a PDF File: [Phulbari demo Flyer 2013]

For further information contact the UK branch of National Committee nationalcommittee.uk@googlemail.com or phulbarisolidaritygroup@gmail.com.

Visit:

http://protectbdresources.org.uk, http://phulbarisolidaritygroup.wordpress.com/,www.ncbd.org ; http://londonminingnetwork.org/