Protest to Barclays UK

Dear Friends,

The UK Bank Barclays is planning to finance a new
dam project on the Narmada River in Central
India. We are therefore asking you to sign on to
the following protest letter by Tuesday,
September 7. Please send sign-ons (name,
organization, country) to:  heffa@urgewald.de

Background:

The Narmada Valley Development Project is one of
the world's most controversial dam building
schemes. It entails the construction of 30 large
dams in India's Narmada valley and would displace
over 2 million people. Over the past 15 years,
the peoples' movement in the valley and a broad
coalition of international NGOs achieved a number
of successes, including the termination of World
Bank and Japanese ODA support for these projects,
so that up until today only six dams have been
completed.

Now, however, Barclays (who is one of the
initiators of the "Equator Principles") aims to
finance a new dam project on the Narmada, called
Omkareshwar. Barclays is acting as an arranger
and will try and draw other private banks into
the deal. It is therefore strategically very
important that there is an immediate and strong
NGO response to Barclays in order to stop a new
wave of foreign financing for Omkareshwar and the
other dams still planned along the Narmada.
Omkareshwar itself will displace over 50,000
people and submerge one of central India's last
remaining intact natural forest areas.

You will find more information in the following
letter, which we hope that you will be able to
support.

Thank you!
Heffa Schuecking

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John Varley
Chief Executive
Barclays


Dear Mr. Varley,

We are writing to you today to share our concerns
regarding Barclays' involvement in the
Omkareshwar Dam Project in the Indian State of
Madhya Pradesh. As the Omkareshwar Dam was
already turned down by a number of international
banks and financial institutions, we are
surprised that Barclays is willing to risk its
reputation by becoming involved with this
controversial project. Among the institutions
that turned down the Omkareshwar project are the
World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee
Agency (MIGA), Deutsche Bank and ABN AMRO.

In view of Barclays' role as one of the
initiators of the Equator Principles, we are
especially disturbed that your bank has opted to
back a project that is in such evident and
flagrant violation of these principles. Although
the Omkareshwar reservoir will flood over 5000
hectars of one of Central India's last remaining
natural forests - forests that harbour an
enormous array of biodiversity, including
endangered species such as the Indian Tiger -
there is not even an Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) for the project. Although the
dam's reservoir will displace some 50,000 people,
many of whom are indigenous and are thus awarded
special protection under the Indian Constitution
and ILO Convention 107 (to which India is a
signatory), there is no Resettlement Plan for
Omkareshwar. These are not only serious
transgressions of the Equator Principles but also
violations of India's Federal Environmental
Protection Act and Madhya Pradesh's Resettlement
Policy.

Barclays' 2003 Corporate Social Responsibility
Report highlights your commitment to human
rights, based on relevant UN and ILO Conventions
and Treaties. It also mentions Barclays' role in
the Business Leaders' Initiative on Human Rights.
We therefore wish to draw your attention to the
fact, that the Omkareshwar Project has already
led to human rights violations and that the
project's sponsor, the National Hydroelectric
Power Corporation (NHPC) is known to have an
extremely poor track record on human rights. A
recent international NGO mission to the
Omkareshwar Project area documented how NHPC
officials and police evicted an entire village
over night, even forcing people to dismantle
their own houses, through threat of force and
intimidation. In the case of the neighbouring
Indira Sagar Project, which is also under the
auspices of NHPC, the local newspaper Dianik
Bhaskar reports that _the administration is
threatening people at gun point and is bent on
emptying the villages through threats even though
the issue of compensation is yet to be resolved."

It is therefore hardly surprising that the
Omkareshwar Project, like many of the other large
dams along the Narmada River, is encountering
massive public opposition in the form of
demonstrations, rallies and legal petitions. The
Indian writer and winner of the Booker Prize,
Arundhati Roy, in fact, calls the Narmada Bachao
Andolan (_Save the Narmada Movement") _India's
most important resistance movement since the
independence struggle".

In light of your commitments to sustainability,
human rights and the Equator Principles, we urge
Barclays to re-evaluate its involvement with
Omkareshwar and its sponsor, NHPC. As
international non-governmental and
community-based organizations, who are committed
to supporting the struggle of villagers in the
Narmada Valley, we would like to ask you to
clarify the following questions:

1) What is the exact nature of Barclays' involvement with the
Omkareshwar
Dam? 2) Will Barclays apply the Equator Principles to
this project and if no, why not?
3) Has Barclays already entered into contractual
obligations with Omkareshwar's sponsor, NHPC?
4) Is Barclays willing to meet a representative
of the international NGO mission that
investigated the Omkareshwar Project?

We look forward to your response in this urgent matter.

Respectfully,



--
___________________URGEWALD__________________________

Heffa Schücking
Von-Galen-Strasse 4
D-48336 Sassenberg
Germany
Fon: +49 (0)2583 1031
Fax: +49 (0)2583 4220
Email:  heffa@urgewald.de
 http://www.urgewald.de