Riky to be driven out of India!!
The Riky saga began when the ship was beached illegally at Alang
on April 19, 2005, despite the fact that the Danish Environment
Minister, Ms. Connie Hedegaard, had alerted Indian authorities
about it's impending arrival. Ms. Hedegaard wrote to her Indian
counterpart Mr. A. Raja, requesting him not to allow the Riky to
enter India, since the ship had not been stripped of the hazardous
substances on board, and its arrival in India constituted a clear
violation of the Basel Convention.
But despite this foreknowledge, Indian authorities were unable
to stop the ship from beaching at Alang - a few falsified papers,
another change of name and the owners of the "Riky" had hoodwinked
the authorities once again.
While environmental groups (including Greenpeace) and labour
unions cried foul, and continued to pressurise the Indian
authorities, the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) turned to
the SCMC for guidance.
The response of the SCMC's chairperson, Dr. Thyagarajan, is
crystal clear - in a letter sent to the Chairman of the GPCB, Dr.
Thyagarajan has taken a strong view of the illegal beaching of the
"Riky", and instructed the GPCB that "Riky must be mercilessly
driven out of Indian sovereign territory without any further loss
of time.'' He has also asked for a high-level investigation into
this matter.
While we wait for the investigation to begin, we shall continue
to work with our allies not just to ensure that the Riky gets sent
back to Denmark, but also that the position taken by the SCMC
establishes precedent, and that future cases are handled with
similar rigor.
As Madhumita Dutta of the Corporate Accountability Desk points
out, "The Riky case has exposed that all is not well in Alang and
that the current practices of cheating, fraud and falsification of
documents must be changed. Ship owners all over the world will have
to change their current polluting practices."
"The SCMC has made a landmark recommendation by saying 'If the
ship is considered hazardous by Denmark, the Basel Convention
requires India also to treat it as such.' By stating this, Dr.
Thyagarajan has clarified the most debated section of the
directives of the Basel Convention and made it explicit that if the
exporting country considers an end-of-life vessel a hazardous
waste, so must the importing country," pointed out Jim Puckett, of
the Basel Action Network.
"In the light of the SCMC recommendations, we are confident that
both Denmark and India will implement their obligations towards the
Basel Convention in letter and in spirit, without wasting further
time," said Jacob Hartmann, Campaigner, Greenpeace Nordic, "We
appeal to the Danish authorities to immediately prosecute the
offending ship-owner and other agencies involved in the transaction
of Riky and also make immediate arrangements to retrieve the ship
from India for decontamination."
Click here to view the joint press statement
issued on May 30, 2005 by Basel Action Network, Greenpeace,
Corporate Accountability Desk & Ban Asbestos Network.
Click here to view a copy of Dr. Thyagarajan's
communication to the GPCB chairperson.
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