INDIA - Enron, a Texas-based energy company that has been promoting itself as a provider of "green" power in the newly deregulated US energy market, has a different profile abroad. Last August, Amnesty International (AI) accused Enron, General Electric and Bechtel with complicity in human rights violations. The findings focused on the brutal suppression of protests directed against the joint-Enron Development Corporation/Dabhol Power Corporation 2,450-megawatt natural gas powerplant in Maharashtra.
Villagers protesting the project's effect on the local population and the environment have been subjected to harassment, arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment and preventive detention. On June 3, 1997, local police stormed into homes in Veldur early in the morning after the men had left for work, beat the village women and dragged them into police vans.
AI notes that India's moves to liberalize its economy and develop new industries have marginalized and displaced entire communities: Meanwhile, Indian authorities have resorted to repressive measures to expedite foreign investments. AI revealed that Maharashtra state officials and project promoters agreed to share costs to deploy 100 State Reserve Police on the site to protect the $1.2 billion project from nonviolent demonstrators.
"We consider those subjected to arrest and imprisonment simply for protesting peacefully ... to be prisoners of conscience," AI declared. AI called on Enron, GE and Bechtel to publicly state their policy on human rights and to ensure that the training of their staff and managers reflects the rights that are set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Enron Violates Human Rights