THE PEOPLE OF EPPAWALA OPPOSE THIS MINING SCHEME

Protests in Anuradhapura and Colombo, February 1998

Protest Rally in Eppawala, December 1998

Protest Rally in Eppawala, August 1999

The Committee Protecting the Eppawala Phosphate Deposit (Pospet Nidhiya Raekagaenima Komituwa) has been working against the secret negotiations with Freeport-McMoRan, Inc., IMC-Agrico and Tomen Corporation since news of them was first leaked in the early 1990’s. Their early opposition led the current (1999) President of Sri Lanka to promise them in 1994, explicitly, that she would oppose the negotiations if elected. She was indeed elected in that year, and the negotiations do appear to have ceased…temporarily. The Committee became active again in 1996, when reports of a new round of secret negotiations with Freeport-McMoRan (spin-offs) began leaking out; this news was confirmed by the end of 1997, at the same time that the parent company, through a series of name-changes, officially severed its interest in Eppawala in favor of IMC-Agrico and Tomen Corporation. Although the current President of Sri Lanka and her People’s Alliance (P.A.) also ran on a platform stressing transparency in political affairs they have actively worked against that policy by trying to enforce on the Cabinet an official order of silence about the Eppawala issue. When Rev. M. Piyarathana, leader of the Committee Protecting the Eppawala Phosphate Deposit, met with H.E. the President she refused to discuss the matter with him, and ignored the petition he brought from prominent Buddhist monks throughout the island.

As a result of this and subsequent refusals to even consult with the local population of Eppawala, let alone to heed its overwhelming opposition to this mining scheme, the Committee decided to stage its first mass rallies, in February 1998. The very first was held in Anuradhapura on February 3, 1998, on an auspicious Full Moon sabbath which happened also to be the day before the nation’s gala celebration of its 50th Independence Day. An estimated 20,000 protesters staged a sit-in and fasted in protest at the Sacred Bodhi Tree there. Later that month (February 19, 1998) an estimated three thousand protesters made the long trip from Eppawala to Colombo, where they staged marches in front of the U.S. Embassy, and in the “native” commercial district of Colombo, called the Pettah (where they also held a mass rally). Subsequent rallies, demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience including blocking highways and physically preventing company helicopters from landing have been held continually since then (most notably in June 1998, December 1998, March 1999, August 1999, October 1999). The thousands of local residents who have staged each rally have vowed to fight this scheme even unto the death. Well-versed in the history of Mahatma Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign, they are prepared to stand defiantly blocking the road to “Phosphate Mountain,” and throwing themselves down in front of the bulldozers, even though they expect that the company will arrive armed.