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Foil Vedanta & Black Lives Matter – 2016

Foil Vedanta & Black Lives Matter: On Friday 5th August 2016 I photographed Foil Vedanta protesting outside the AGM of mining giant Vedanta Resources in the City and later went to Whitechapel where Black Lives Matter UK were a rally as a part of a “national shutdown”, the first major Black Lives Matter events in the UK.

Black Lives Matter had begun in the US in 2013, founded by three Black women, and grew around the Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Of course it came from a broader history of civil rights movements and struggles, both in the USA and here in the UK.

Foil Vedanta at mining giant’s AGM

Ironmonger Hall, Aldersgate

Foil Vedanta & Black Lives Matter - 2016 — *City of London Police stop Samarendra Das and the Vedanta Monster at the entrance to the Ironmongers Hall*

Foil Vedanta staged a noisy and colourful protest outside the Ironmonger Hall in the City of London where Vedanta, then still listed in London were holding their AGM.

This protest was in support of the fight by communities around the world where the mining company and its subsidiaries had polluted rivers, displaced communities, killed workers in accidents and destroyed the environment, as well as defrauding governments by tax evasion.

The mining giant was 69% owned by billionaire chairman Anil Agarwal and his family, but when listed on the London Stock Exchange had to hold an annual meeting for shareholders. Some of those protesting had become shareholders so they could attend these meetings and ask questions about the company activities.

The protesters came with many placards about the company’s crimes and with statements from some of those who had suffered from them, and lobbied shareholders as they arrived for the meeting. A team from Vedanta carrying documents for the meeting got a very noisy reception, but police escorted Mr Agarwal to the meeting by a side entrance, though the protesters spotted him and shouted loudly.

The campaigners had come with a large inflatable ‘Vedanta Monster’, its various heads representing Vedanta companies – and with a resemblance to Anil Agarwal

When fully inflated the Vedanta Monster made a dash for the entrance but was stopped by police. It was too large to enter the hall, but did for some time block the doorway.

Police escorted shareholders past the monster and tried to get those holding it to move away – and eventually they withdrew a few yards.

It was soon time for Samarendra Das and other protesting shareholders to go into the AGM while the noisy protest continued outside.

Some shareholders who left the meeting early were escorted by politc past the noisy protest where protesters were still shouting and drumming

Many more pictures at Foil Vedanta at mining giant’s AGM.

Black Lives Matter London

Altab Ali Park, Whitechapel

BLMUK, Black Lives Matter UK, had called for a national day of action on August 5th to commemorate the many UK victims of state violence, including Mark Duggan, Sarah Reed, Mzee Mohammed, Jermaine Baker, Sean Rigg, Leon Patterson, Kingsley Burrell and over 1500 others, disproportionately black, since 1990. The day of action was five years and a day after the police killing of Mark Duggan.

*Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean Rigg was killed by police in Brixton in 2008, raises her fist in salute*

*Stephanie Lightfoot-Bennett whose twin brother Leon Patterson was battered to death by police in a Stockport cell in 1992*

*A relative of Sheku Bayoh, killed by police in Scotland in 2015*

The London event took place in Altab Ali Park, renamed in 1998 in memory of Altab Ali, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi Sylheti clothing worker who had been murdered in May 1978 in Adler Street which runs along the east side of the park. He was killed by three teenage boys in one of the many racist attacks taking place in the area then.

BLMUK had recently come together as a community movement of activists from across the UK who believed deeply that #BlackLivesMatter but are not affiliated with any political party. They called for justice and an end to racialised sexism, classism and homophobia and a new politics based on community defence and resilience.

The rally ended with meetings by those present in four large groups to discuss future community organisation in North, South, East and West London, and I then went home.

*The East London meeting begins in one corner of the park*

More on My London Diary at Black Lives Matter London.

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Rastafari, Vedanta & De Beers – 2014

Rastafari, Vedanta & De Beers: Pictures from protests I covered on Friday 1st August 2014.

August 1st is Emancipation Day, celebrating the effective date of the abolition of slavery across the British Empire in 1834, and 2014 also marked the centenary of the foundation of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) by Marcus Garvey and Amy Ashwood Garvey in Jamaica in 1914.

In Brixton I photographed a rally by Rastafaris preparing to march to Parliament to demand reparations for the slave trade. I left to go to Lincoln Inn’s Fields to a protest outside the AGM of mining group Vedanta, responsible for killings and environmental destruction in various countries around the world.

Finally in Piccadilly campaigners were outside De Beers asking people to boycott diamonds cut and polished in Israel which fund war crimes against Palestinians.

Rastafari Demand Reparations For Slave Trade

Windrush Square, Brixton

On the centenary of the foundation by Marcus Garvey of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Rastafaris met at Brixton to march to Parliament demanding reparations for the descendants of those taken from Africa by the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Demands for international reparations have been increasingly made in recent years, some for huge sums. As I wrote:

“In 2004, a group of Jamaican Rastafari movement groups argued that European countries, particularly Britain, should pay £72.5 billion to resettle 500,000 Jamaican Rastafarians in Africa, but the British government rejected their claim. Other claims have been lodged in 2007 by Guyana, in 2011 by Antigua and Barbuda.”

No government has yet agreed to any financial reparations to the descendants of slaves or the countries affected. The British Government at the time of abolition paid out huge sums over many years to the owners of slaves – equivalent to 40% of the national budget – and this payment was only completed in 2015. Among those who have received payments were powerful British families, including current business and political elites in the United Kingdom.

The event go off to a slow start with drumming and dances and then some speeches. It was still continuing when I left to go elsewhere and I missed the march which only began an hour and a half later.

More on My London Diary at Rastafari demand reparations for slave trade.

Vedanta Told ‘End Your Killing’

Lincoln Inn’s Fields

The protest on the opposite side of the road from the Vedanta AGM was organised by Foil Vedanta who say:

“Vedanta Resources is a FTSE 250 British-Indian mining company guilty of thousands of deaths, environmental devastation, anti union action, corruption and disdain for life on earth. They have become one of the most hated and contentious companies in the world.”

A number of the protesters had bought shares in the company so that they could go into the AGM and ask questions while others continued the protest outside.

As well as protesting Foil Vedanta have also carried out a great deal of research into the activities of Vedanta and is subsidiary companies. These include Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) in Zambia which has poisoned thousands of people causing ongoing birth deformities in major pollution spills in 2006 and 2010. They had claimed to be unable to pay their fines or their tax bill while actually making around around $500 million/year.

Protests against Vedanta here where the company is listed and on a much larger scale in India and elsewhere where they operate have so far stopped Vedanta from destroying the Niyamgiri mountain in Odisha, sacred to the indigenous Dongria Kondh. The protests in London led the company to decide to de-list in 2018. They have also attempted unsuccessfully to de-list from Indian stock exchanges.

More at Vedanta told ‘end your killing’.

Boycott Israeli Blood Diamonds

De Beers, Piccadilly

*Protesters lined the front of the shop both here in Piccadilly and around the corner in Old Bond Street*

Protesters at De Beers in Piccadilly asked people to boycott diamonds cut and polished in Israel which contribute around a billion dollars every year to the Israeli military and security industries and fund Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.

More pictures at Boycott Israeli Blood Diamonds.

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