From: Campaign for Survival and Dignity <forestcampaignnews@gmail.com
Date:
Aug 11, 2007 5:19 PM
CAMPAIGN
FOR SURVIVAL AND DIGNITY
National
Convenor: Pradip Prabhu, 3, Yezdeh Behram, Dahanu Rd. 401602.
Delhi
Contact: Q-1 Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi 110016. Ph:9968293978,
011-26569023.
NATIONAL
CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF FOREST COMMUNITIES
Indian Social
Institute, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
21 August 2007; 11
am
For
more than 150 years now, India's forests have been the site of
struggles, uprisings and wars between India's forest communities and
those who have sought to seize their resources: a rapacious state and
the forces of capital. Till today, the forests seethe with violent
conflicts.
After
decades of struggle, last year the forest communities won a
historic victory with the passage of the Scheduled Tribes And Other
Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition Of Forest Rights) Act, 2006,
the first legislation in India's history to begin the process of
recognizing our rights and reversing the historical injustice done to
us.
But
the act was sabotaged at the last minute and its clauses altered
in a subtle but sophisticated manner – taking a legislation meant to
provide rights and altering it such that it in fact denied or
undermined the rights of many. This was nothing but a betrayal of
India's tribals and forest dwellers.
The
government assured parliament and our nation's forest peoples that
it would rectify the glaring anomalies in the act through the Rules
and amendments to the Act. However, the Draft Rules further betray the
rights of forest dwellers, and the amendments are nowhere in sight.
Meanwhile, even as this small step forward is itself undermined, the
government continues to push its larger agenda of seizing the forest
and natural resources by subverting the Constitution and denying the
most fundamental human and legal rights of tribals and forest
dwellers.
Therefore,
on August 21, tribal and forest dwellers' organizations
from across the country, along with leaders of people's movements,
trade unions, political parties and other progressive forces will be
gathering to discuss these issues in a national convention. Issues
will include :
The
Sabotage of the Act and the Rules
The
Subversion Of The Constitution
- Governments
in states with V Schedule Areas violate the Constitution
by denying community rights under PESA, while many tribal areas are
yet to be notified as Scheduled Areas – denying the constitutional
rightsof their inhabitants
- Salwa
Judum - State sponsored terrorism to suppress resistance, loot
forests and hand over tribal lands to industries
- Handover
of forests to corporates as carbon sinks and SEZs
Please join us on the twenty first of August at the Indian Social
Institute, Lodhi Road (near Sai Baba Mandir), New Delhi as we unite to
demand:
Enough
is Enough
A
Call to Struggle
