In August, 2011, an exploratory group came from CCA to find out about the naval base being built at Gangjeong Village amid protests of the villagers. At that time, Rev. Dr. Roger Gaikwaid, the General Secretary of NCCIndia, was one of the participants. He brought word of a similar tragic situation taking place in Odisha State, caused by the POSCO project, which had begun in 2005 when the governments of Odisha and POSCO signed an MOU for the POSCO Odisha Project, the establishment of a steel plant to take in approximately 4,000 acres of land with the capacity of producing 12 million tons of steel per year, and the establishment of a port for shipping the steel. His request was that as Koreans, we try to bring other Koreans to awareness of the issues involved caused by a Korean corporation.
The land being expropriated in Odisha is 3,556 acres of government forest land and 500 acres of private land. The total investment POSCO projected making into this steel plant was 12 billion US dollars for the Project, which makes it the biggest foreign direct investment in the history of India. The Project however faced strong resistance from affected residents and civil organizations against the acquisition of land. This was what Roger Gaikwaid shared in 2011, about the villages resisting strongly and suffering much. While suffer they did, it is reported that the villagers have been able to bring POSCO almost to a standstill in the ensuing years.
Korean religious and civil organizations supported appeals of the Odisha people to the forced land acquisition and human rights violations that took place. The Korea Student Christian Federation visited India in July 2013 to participate in a peace training program hosted by the Student Christian Movement of India (SCMI). The KSCF listened to local people’s voices related to the POSCO Odisha Project and the suffering of affected villagers. The NCC-India asked the KSCF to share the voices of Odisha people with churches and Christian students in South Korea, and to pay attention to the suffering of affected villagers. The KSCF suggested the Executive Committee of the NCC-Korea respond to the Odisha people and the Executive Committee accepted the suggestion. The Executive Committee decided that the Committee of International Affairs should organize a fact-finding committee in collaboration with the NCC-Korea Human Rights Center, the Committee of Peace and Justice and the KSCF.
Thus the NCCK organized the POSCO-Odisha Fact-finding Committee. The Committee started its mission in September 2013 and made efforts to understand the POSCO Odisha Project and the situation of affected villagers, through referring to related reports, visiting POSCO Headquarters in Seoul, South Korea and meeting the NCC-India staff. The Committee confirmed the need for field research and sent a three-member fact-finding team to Odisha in June 2014. These were Chung Jujin, Seo Jaesun and Chang Byunggi.
This team has prepared a comprehensive report of their findings, sharing information they collected and confirmed in Odisha. They certainly affirmed the responsibility of POSCO in the suffering of villagers, and affirmed that the attention and solidarity of churches and civil organizations in South Korea were urgently needed for these people, especially in the role of monitoring the business activities of South Korean corporations in foreign countries as responsible members of South Korean society. The report shows South Korean churches’ efforts to understand the suffering of affected people and to play a positive role in bringing changes to the field. As such it is an important report, and is available on request in either Korean or English to any who would like to read it in full.
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