Sussex Energy Group at SPRU

On the 4^th of April 2016, Bangladeshi police opened fire on protesters, killing four people, including a 37-year-old salt cultivator, from the remote village of Gandamara in the district of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Around another 100 villagers were also injured by the approximately 700 rounds fired by the police. They had joined 500 other villagers demonstrating against the planned construction of a large (1320 MW) Chinese financed coal-fired power plant to be built at Banshkhali on coastal farming land.

People speaking at protests a month later in May said that the police were still threatening and harassing Banshkhali people with arrests and detention, with people were now unable to leave their village out of fear. The loss of life doesn’t yet seem to have affected the Government’s efforts to continue supporting the construction of the plant.

These protests are not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh. Three people were shot dead by paramilitary forces when 5000 people congregated to protest against an open-pit coal mine in the district of Phulbari in the north of Bangladesh in 2006, a decade before the 2016 demonstration. Now a globally renowned people’s movement, the incident resulted in a ban on mining in Phulbari, but the struggle has not ended. GCM Resources (formerly Asia Energy Corporation), a London-based company, which is invested in the mining operations, has continued to pile up pressure on the Bangladesh Government, which is now reviewing the plans. A GCM Resources statement says it’s awaiting government approval to begin mining in Phulbari.

Protestors outside the AGM of GCM Resources in 2012. The company is awaiting Bangladeshi government approval to develop an open-pit coal mine in the district of Phulbari, Bangladesh. Credit: Global Justice Now (CC BY 2.0).

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