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US, India accused of overlooking Enron's human rights violations

C K Arora in Washington

A New York-based organisation has charged the US and Indian governments with overlooking the human rights violations by Enron Corporation which employs security forces who allegedly beat and harass people demonstrating peacefully against its Dabhol power plant in Maharashtra.

The Human Rights Watch, in a report released in New York today, calls on international financial institutions to take into consideration human rights when financing projects.

It urged the corporate and political leaders gathered this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to examine the Enron investment in India as part of their focus this year on ''responsible globality''.

It says that the Dabhol plant has indirectly benefited from other repressive government actions aimed at quelling opposition to the plant, which is the largest single foreign investment in India.

The report documents how Indian authorities have misused the country's law to charge peaceful demonstrators with serious crimes.

The US government and its Export-Import Bank, which have both vigorously promoted Enron's investment in India, have failed to address the human rights questions that they are obliged to investigate.

The project is a joint-venture of three US companies -- the Houston-based Enron corporation which is the principal shareholder and operator, General Electric, and Bechtel -- and the Maharashtra State Electricity Board.

The 166-page report is the result of a year-long investigation and provides detailed evidence of the systematic suppression of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, as well as police use of arbitrary detentions and excessive force against opponents of the Enron project.

All of these are violations of international laws and treaties that the Indian government has signed, it adds.

It recalls how local opposition to the Enron project began in 1992 over concerns about ''transparency,'' corruption, and the hasty negotiations over the terms of Enron's investment. Since then, protests have erupted over the local farmers' complaints that the power plant has unfairly acquired their land and has diverted scarce water for its needs.

Fishermen have protested over fears that when power generation begins in March next, effluents will cause a rise in seawater temperatures and kill off their fish harvests, it adds.

The HRW document cites an instance in June 1997, when the Maharashtra police raided a fishing village where many residents opposed the power plant.

They arbitrarily beat and arrested dozens of villagers, including Sadhana Bhalekar, wife of a well-known protester against the plant. They broke down the door and window of Bhalekar's bathroom and dragged her naked out into the street, beating her with batons. Bhalekar was three months pregnant at the time.

In another instance in May 1997, the police beat and arrested nearly 180 protesters who were demonstrating peacefully outside the company gates. In its investigation, HRW documented 30 similar incidents and heard allegations of many more.

The report also documents how contractors for Dabhol Power Corporation harassed and attacked individuals opposed to the power plant. The police refused to investigate complaints, and in several cases, actually arrested the victims on trumped-up charges.

Since the project's inception in 1992, Enron and the government of Maharashtra have repeatedly ignored public complaints, it adds.

UNI

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