If only there was some kind of international collaboration between nations to preserve the rights of humans the world over. It’s too bad nothing like that exists. 😔
We could call it the Combined Countries Club or the International Gathering of Places or something like that.
Mohdi committing genocide? Shocked pikachu!
Leave them be
A spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories.
“The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”
It does sound like it will be a genocide. Even their stated plan to relocate people if necessary is literally ethnic cleansing.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Academics from around the world have urged India to cancel a huge construction project on Great Nicobar Island, warning it would be “a death sentence” for the Shompen hunter-gatherer people who live there.
The $9bn (£7bn) port project, planned to transform the Indian Ocean island of 8,000 inhabitants into what has been called the “Hong Kong of India”, includes the construction of an international shipping terminal, airport, power plant, military base and industrial park.
In an open letter to the Indian president, Droupadi Murmu, published on Wednesday, 39 scholars from Asia, Europe and the US have warned: “If the project goes ahead, even in a limited form, we believe it will be a death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.”
Last year, 70 former government officials and ambassadors wrote to the president saying the project would “virtually destroy the unique ecology of this island and the habitat of vulnerable tribal groups”.
The government sees the project as vital for security and defence, given the island’s strategic location in the Indian Ocean, countering China’s growing presence in the region.
The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, an Indian constitutional body, said it was not consulted about the project, which it said would “adversely impact the lives of the local tribals”, according to media reports.
The original article contains 754 words, the summary contains 217 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
