Citizens’ Research Collective on SEZ

Ramsey Clark’s Statement to the Convention

All India Citizens’ Convention Against Atrocities in Nandigram and
Special Economic Zones

The following is the statement to the Convention from Ramsey Clark, the
former US Attorney-General, whose outspoken indictment of the lawless
US bombing of Iraq during Gulf War I in 1991, embodied in his report to
the than UN Secretary-General, has now become a legend.

I wish I was able to join with all of you on June 19th in New Delhi,
India, at your important meeting to address the needs and grievances of
the farmers and rural poor whose lives have been made miserable by the
greed of the transnational corporations and the local rich.

Free trade areas in Central America, Maquiladoras on the Mexico-US
border, Special Economic Zones in West Bengal—these arrange-ments all
over the world allow freedom for the transfer of money and finances but
end the freedom of the people who have lived on and worked the land for
generations.

It is such a harmless phrase—Special Economic Zone—it sounds like
an area of rapid development of technology and learning that will allow
the creation of wealth from nothing and enrich the life of a region.
What a difference between words and reality! It pushes small
farmers—who were at least able to feed their families—off the land, introduces
industries that pollute the environment while giving only a small
minority of the displaced people alienating, low-wage jobs. A tiny minority
of transnational corporations, rich people and corrupt officials have
an opportunity to make fortunes from speculation in real estate, while
most of the displaced people are simply made landless and desperate.

It is a tribute to the courage of the poor people of Nandigram that
they have joined together to fight against this imposition of a Special
Economic Zone on their region. It is a crime that the government and
private corporations have unleashed upon these people the power of the
police and of private hoodlums who have beaten and even killed dozens of
them.

Some eight years ago a well-known New York Times columnist wrote an
article in which he wrote the phrase: “You can’t have McDonald’s
[fast-food shops] without McDonnell-Douglas [the bomber-plane
manufacturer].” He wanted to illustrate that the so-called free market and things
like Special Economic Zones depended on the military might of the
Pentagon. What this means in practice is that all the special exploitation
and oppression of the billions of urban and rural poor of the world
depend in the long run on the military power of the United States and the
willingness of Washington to wage aggressive war.

It is important for all people who stand for justice to stand on the
side of the poor people of Nandigram in their heroic struggle against the
Special Economic Zones. And we salute the organisers of the SUCI who
are helping to mobilise the independent action of the rural poor to
carry on this progressive struggle.

Mainstream, Vol XLV, No 27