Greenpeace brings symbols of outrage to French doorstep: ’France, Your Waste Kills!’
February 09, 2006
New Delhi, India - Greenpeace activists were prevented from delivering protest bags, each an individual petition, with the message, ’France, your waste kills!’ to the French embassy in India. The French Ambassador refused to accept the 1200 petitions filled with inoffensive domestic wastes. These were gathered through a public activity designed to provide hundreds of Indian citizens an opportunity to express their outrage against the French government’s decision to send the Clemenceau to India without decontamination, despite the obvious threats to Indian labour and the Indian environment
“These protest bags are a symbol of the growing outrage against the dumping of First World trash on our shores. It is ludicrous that France has no qualms about dumping hazardous wastes in India but will refuse to accept harmless domestic waste from Indian citizens bearing messages to French President Jacques Chirac,” said Vinuta Gopal, Toxics campaigner, Greenpeace India. “We are determined to deliver every single one of these packets of concern to the President.”
A coalition of trade unions, representing the interests of unorganized migrant workers of Alang, joined Greenpeace outside the French embassy today to protest the French double standards - France employs the highest international safety standards in dealing with asbestos within its own boundaries. The trade unions condemned the arrogant position taken by France and vowed to step up their protests in the run up to President Chirac’s visit.
“The French ambassador has offered to provide health care to the Alang workers after they have been exposed to the hazardous substances from the Clemenceau! How dare he make the arrogant assumption that they have the right to endanger our workers’ health in the first place?” said PK Ganguly, secretary, Center of Indian trade Unions (CITU).
Popular opinion in France has also turned against the government’s decision; in an opinion poll of French citizens published in the French newspaper Liberation on February 8th, 68% of the respondents indicated that they want the Clemenceau called back to France for decontamination, while 84% stated that hazardous wastes generated in Europe must be processed there as well.
Greenpeace is demanding that national and international laws be upheld and enforced, to enable the ship-breaking industry to operate under the best environmental practices, with safe working conditions. Greenpeace is not, and never has, campaigned against the ship-breaking industry, or demanded its closure. Greenpeace will welcome Clemenceau in India when the ship has been decontaminated.
Vision, video, photos, report information
Vinuta Gopal,Greenpeace Toxics Campaigner: +91 9845535418 Ramapati
Kumar,Greenpeace Toxics Campaigner: +91 9845535414 Vivek Sharma,Greenpeace
India Communications: +91 9343788424 vivek.sharma in.greenpeace.org
We’ve done our bit. Now it’s your turn
February 06, 2006
New Delhi, India - Even as the experts ponder technicalities, venerable judges sit behind closed doors and examine legalities, politicians take positions (or remain clueless), the toxic Clemenceau is being tugged without let or hindrance to the hellish ship-breaking yards of Alang. And if you think Greenpeace is single-handedly going to stop this warship, you’re only partly correct.
This is where you come in.
There’s a simple way of letting the French and Indian governments know that the Clemenceau is not welcome here.
Thousands of people just like you can fill protest bags with garbage, collect enough of it, and dump the lot right at the doorstep of the French embassy in Delhi’s posh and spotless diplomatic enclave.
Thousands of people just like you can sign postcards addressed to Environment Minister A. Raja, asking him to get his head screwed on straight, and do the best thing for this country, its people and its environment. In short, asking him to do his job.
Thousands of people just like you are already, even as you read this, joining the campaign. They’re filling postcards. They’re filling garbage bags. They’re building pressure. They’re doing more.
If three is a crowd, thirty thousand is a really big crowd.
On 16th January, angry with the Indian Government for failing to stop the Clemenceau, two students of the Indraprastha University came to Greenpeace. They’d heard about the postcard campaign that Greenpeace has launched in eight cities across the country and wondered if they could add their weight to it. Less than a week later, Ravi and Jiten were with us in person to deliver the postcards they’d collected.
Noted social activists Swami Agnivesh and Nafisa Ali hold up bags bearing the words ’France: Your Waste Kills.’ The bags, filled with garbage, will be dumped at the French embassy as a mark of protest against the toxic ship Clemenceau. Citizens and celebrities from across the country are joining Greenpeace in this protest.
Then, on 4th February, sufi rocker Rabbi Shergil, along with social activists Swami Agnivesh and Nafisa Ali, filled protest bags with garbage. Adding to the thousands of garbage bags already collected, they called on citizens concerned about the environment and human rights to follow suit. Every bag that piles up represents an Indian voice against the dumping of First World trash on our shores.
How many will it take? A thousand? Twenty thousand? Thirty? We’re not stopping until the Clemenceau has stopped. Together, we can (quite literally) raise a stink. One whose whiff will linger till Chirac’s visit to India later this month.
You can make a difference. And you can do it now. Call (+91) 98455-35418 to know how and where you can sign a postcard or fill a garbage bag. Alternately, email us at greenpeace.delhi gmail.com with a message against the Clemenceau’s entry, and we’ll send you details on how you can join the campaign.
Greenpeace tells Indian Environment Ministry: ’Don’t make India a waste dump’
January 19, 2006
New Delhi, India - Greenpeace activists took the campaign against the illegal import of the Clemenceau to the doorstep of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), holding up a banner stating ’Don’t make India a waste dump’ and lining up barrels painted with the letters C L E M E N C E A U. Greenpeace also delivered hundreds of petition postcards signed by Indian citizens in eight cities, with the clear demand that Minister A. Raja do the right thing, and ask France to take back the toxic decommissioned aircraft carrier.
“These barrels are symbolic of the fact that the Clemenceau is nothing but a consignment of hazardous and toxic waste being dumped onto Indian soil,” said Ramapati Kumar, Toxics Campaigner, Greenpeace, “The ministry’s position that the ship is hazardous only if it contains toxic cargo is shockingly regressive. An environment minister who takes such a clearly illegal position can, at best, be considered incompetent. Should he need clarification, we are here to remind him that toxic substances are intrinsic to the structure of the ship and must be decontaminated if we have to protect our people and environment.”
“There is no doubt regarding the illegality of the import of the ship under the Basel Convention. Now more than ever India needs to send a strong and clear signal to the developed world that we will not accept their wastes. If India fails to implement the Basel Convention we will only invite international ridicule”, said Madhumita Dutta of Corporate Accountability Desk, The Other Media, “The MoEF must set the right precedent with Clemenceau, and ensure that the French government issue a public apology for misrepresenting facts and for submitting invalid documents. This is the least they owe the people of India.”
The Prime Minister of India, in response to a delegation representing environmentalists’ and trade unions’ concerns regarding the Clemenceau, said that he would ’look into the matter and do the needful.’
Greenpeace and the Corporate Accountability desk are demanding that the Indian government take a firm stand against France’ attempt to send its waste to India, and reject the import of the Clemenceau until it has been thoroughly decontaminated.