While Utkal is the most prominent bauxite/alumina development, it is not
the only one in Orissa. NALCO plans to operate the world’s third largest
alumina refinery in Damanjodi. In the Gadhamardan hills near the Hirakud
reservoir, Bharat Aluminium Cmpany (BALCO) tried to start mining bauxite in
the late 1980s. After blasting at BALCO’s mines badly damaged the famous
Nrusinghanath Temple, people in the region had seen enough, and forced a
halt to the project.
Forced relocations and indigenous rights in other countries
The struggle in Orissa echoes similar contests between aluminum
transnationals and indigenous peoples around the world.
Australia
Bauxite mining in the Australian province of Queensland occurs on native
land. In Dec. 1996, the Australian high court ruled that Wik and Thayorre
aborigines hold legal Native Title claims on land that Comalco mines in the
town of Weipa. Billiton’s bauxite mines in Gove are also on Aboriginal
land. (Suganthi Singarayar, “For Aborigines, Racial Discrimination Act is
Sacred,” Inter Press Service, Jan. 27, 1997; Dr. Richard Howitt,
“Exploration, Mining and Indigenous Futures: What does it mean? Why does it
matter?,” Macquarie University School of Earth Sciences, 1990)
Next to the Weipa mine, Alcan hopes to develop the Ely bauxite deposit. The
company holds a mining lease dating from 1965. In 1997, it was negotiating
with the local Aboriginal community to obtain access to land where it wants
to build a port. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies, Native Title Research Unit archives)
Roger Moody called Weipa a “region flagrantly robbed by Comalco from its
Aboriginal inhabitants in the ’60s, and which continues to be one of the
major disgraces of northern Queensland…No less controversial is
Pechiney’s acquisition in 1981 – along with Billiton Aluminium – of a 40%
interest in the Arukun bauxite prospect in the same area, an aboriginal
reserve whose occupants are firmly against bauxite mining .” (Roger Moody,
“Gulliver PUK (Pechiney-Ugine-Kuhlmann) Dossier” in The Gulliver File –
Mines, people and land: a global battleground, Minewatch, 1992.)
In the 1980s, Alcoa’s planned to build a $1.5 billion smelter in Portland,
Victoria, Austria. According to Moody, “the site is part of the
traditional land of the Aboriginal Gunditj-Mara people, who strenuously
fought – using court claims, direct action, occupations and sabotage of
Alcoa’s machinery – to stop the smelter being built. Under such pressure
and because of the high electricity price charged by the Victorian state
government, the project was mothballed in 1982. The Labour government in
the state – despite token gestures towards Aboriginal land rights – revived
the project soon after coming to power in 1983, and will in fact take a 25%
stake in it.” (ibid).
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