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2. RESPONSE TO PRESS RELEASE OF SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL DATED 15 JUNE 2009 REGARDING PROXIMITY OF A BAREFOOT RESORT PROPERTY TO THE JARAWA TRIBAL RESERVE

 

Section 1:

Factual inaccuracies in survival international’s press release

Section 2:

Barefoot’s position on subjective aspects of the press release

Section 3:

Substantiation of barefoot’s claims to ‘sustainable and socially responsible tourism development’

 

Section 4:

Chronological sequence of events

Section 5:

Summary of barefoot’s disagreement with the andaman administration: ground realities of our fight against a bullying system

 

Survival International mentions that “Government authorities on the Andamans want to stop the hotel, and are appealing against a Calcutta High Court ruling allowing it to go ahead.”

 

The reality is that Barefoot is being victimized and selectively targeted by the Andaman Administration, which is evidently demonstrable as follows:

 

The original impugned Notification of buffer zone and subsequent Stay Order passed by the Administration which Survival International refers to was issued in October 2007 and subsequently deemed to be bad in law by the Andaman Divisional Bench and by the Calcutta High Court, and both the Order and Notification since struck down by the Indian courts repeatedly on each Appeal. However the Andaman Administration persists with its harassment to date with multiple ‘Appeals”.

 

However, it should be noted that whereas the Notification (which is bad in law) was written to encompass ALL tourism and commercial activities within a specified radius of the reserve, it is matter of astonishment that out of the hundreds of individuals and businesses around the vast tribal reserve boundaries of South and Middle Andaman and Baratang, till date (almost two years after the Stay Order sent solely and individually to Barefoot), it is a fact that Barefoot is still, to date, the only ever recipient of a Stay Order from the Andaman Administration on curtailment of tourism activity within any radius of the reserve, based on the said Notification; this despite innumerable tourism ventures in operation and new ones continuing to start in and around the Jarawa Reserve area since then, all with far greater proximity to the Tribal Reserve than Barefoot’s own tent resort under question by Survival International. It is very clear based on the Administrations subsequent action and inaction that both the Notification and the Order were passed to target Barefoot and Barefoot alone, and not for any concern about the Jarawa or concern about operation of businesses around the Tribal Reserve boundaries.

 

This clearly demonstrates that the Andaman Administration’s attempt has been specifically targeted against Barefoot, and the attempt is to shake down and single out a single entity (Barefoot), and that the Administration is not at all in any event serious about protecting Tribal rights or acting in this regard out of concern for tribal issues. It must be remembered that this is the same Andaman Administration that still refuses to close the Andaman Trunk Road cutting through the INSIDE of the reserve, despite being in contempt of orders from the Indian Supreme Court. This is the same Andaman Administration that willfully refuses to uphold Tribal rights INSIDE the Reserve, that now purports to care about activities of the Jarawa more than 3 km OUTSIDE the reserve (but only specifically in the case of Barefoot, to the specific exclusion of all other tourism companies and to the exclusion of the Administration’s own tourism ventures and activities in and around the Reserve).

 

Surely Survival International should find these acts of omission and commission by the Administration suspicious, to say the least! At the worst it is an attempt to shake down Barefoot for unspecified gain for vested interests in or close to the Administration and at best a smokescreen to turn Survival International’s attention away from actual legal transgressions of Jarawa rights happening on a daily basis inside the Reserve and sponsored or condoned by the Administration. We are hence bemused at Survival International’s apparent ready willingness to toe the Administration’s line and wonder how Survival International allowed itself to be party to this victimization of a socially responsible company by a non-caring and opportunistic Andaman Administration.