The fugitive toxic ship " Kong Frederik IX" alias "Frederik" alias "Riky", spotted in Alang.
The statement by Greenpeace and BAN, supported by trade unions
and other environmental groups, follows a recent decision by the
Supreme Court Monitoring Committee to allow the Danish ex-ferry
Riky, containing hazardous substances such as polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs), tributyltin (TBT) and asbestos, to be beached and
cut on the infamous ship-breaking beaches of Alang, in Gujarat.
Earlier the Danish government, in repeated letters from their
Ministers of Environment and of Foreign Affairs, had begged India
to return the vessel as it was hazardous waste under the
international treaty, the Basel Convention [see footnote1]. The
ship was exported without proper notification or assurances that it
would be managed in an environmentally sound manner [see
footnote2].
"In the absence of political will, we cannot force the shipping
industry to clean up their act. The SCMC's reversal of its earlier
stance on Riky has exposed that no one, not even a Supreme Court
appointed authority, is free from pressure from vested interests.
We wanted to ensure that India received clean steel and that the
ship-breaking workers could retain their jobs and their health,"
said Ramapati Kumar of Greenpeace India. "But enough is enough! If
Indian authorities cannot stand by their commitment to
international convention and national laws, and instead encourage
toxic trade, it is inevitable that the industry will suffer the
consequences."
India has also shocked other delegates at a working group of the
Basel Convention [see footnote3] in Geneva this week by publicly
stating that it had no intention of adhering to the Basel
Convention Guidelines on Environmentally Sound Ship Dismantling.
The guidelines call for, among other things, a no-spill technology
to be used as of 2008. India had helped negotiate these guidelines
that were adopted in 2003. In a Convention with 165 Parties, India
was the only country to hold the position that deems a ship is not
a waste under the Convention and therefore not subject to all of
the control procedures and obligations of the Convention. Meanwhile
the Defence Department of India is engaged in investigations of
underworld connections in Alang.
"Government authorities have shown their complete inability to
implement the most basic rules and regulations to safeguard labour
interests - the workers lose life and limb for the sake of a mere
fifty rupees a day," said PK Ganguly of Centre of India Trade
Unions, "The workers would be better off seeking employment
elsewhere - the government has failed them so completely that there
is no point in allowing the industry to continue."
"Decades of Government apathy and refusal to address the worker
health epidemic in Alang, combined with the Government's open
support for the ship-breaking industry at any cost, indicate that
there is absolutely no political will to protect the environment
and labour rights. Until this changes, the ship-breaking industry
in Alang cannot be tolerated," said Madhumita Dutta of the
Corporate Accountability Desk, The Other Media, "For the eight
years that the ship-breaking controversy has raged in Alang,
nothing has been done by any of the authorities to improve worker
health or to reduce exposure to toxics."
Greenpeace and BAN cite the following instances of international
and national laws being abused:
- Deliberate violations of the Basel
Convention allowing illegal traffic as defined by that treaty, and
considered as a criminal act (as in the Riky case)
- Deliberate violation of Supreme Court orders directing the implementation of the Basel Convention.
- Refusal to implement the Basel Convention Technical Guidelines for environmentally sound management of ship dismantling.
- Lack of any substantial improvements at ship-breaking yards in last 5 years.
- No plans to halt the use of beaching of ships for scrap
- Claiming that a ship is not a waste
under international law in opposition to the position taken by 164
other countries at the Basel Convention.
- Falsifying Gas-Free Certificates, conducting other corrupt practices such as under-invoicing
- Refusal to obey Supreme Court orders
directing the Indian Government to engage in negotiations at IMO and
Basel Convention with a view to developing uniform international rules
preventing the export of un-decontaminated ships-of-scrap to non-OECD
countries.
For further information please contact:
Ramapati Kumar,
Greenpeace Campaigner, (Delhi) Phone: 011-26100373 or (0)9845535414
email : 
Jim Puckett, Basel
Action Network(Geneva, London), email: 
Martin Besieux,
Greenpeace Campaigner(Brussels) +32 496 161 585 email:
Namrata Chowdhary,
Media Officer, Greenpeace India. Phone: +919810850092, email:
Notes to Editor
1. The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, adopted 1989. India became a party in 1992.
2. Letters and legal analysis of the Riky case can be found at: www.ban.org/index.html
3. 4th Session of the Open-Ended Working Group of the Basel Convention, 4-8 July, 2005, Geneva.