BANGLADESH and the open cast coal disaster

Phulbari in Northern Bangladesh
The rice bowl of their soul
Wonderful agricultural land
Where the Santal take their role
An indigenous tribe of people
Ancestral their belief
Worshipping their idols
And the natural world
True grief
To hear the British
Are coming
60 square miles they need
Of fertile agricultural land
Where many souls now feed

Upon this arable soulful soil
With established production high
Eighty percent is fertile
The question really why
Could anyone be insane enough
To destroy a paradise
And turn it over to open cast
Mining ahead of rice

Coal is filthy energy
It makes no sense at all
Except ofcourse for money
The idea does appal
This area grows rice and wheat
Maize and potato’s too
BRinjal and tomato’s
Lychees Mango’s which do
Feed a lot of people
Bananas JAckfruits they
With blackberries
Are specialist fruits
Any time of day

20,000 people at least
A lot of ponds
80,000 trees
36’000 homes and barns
It sounds like a disease
For all of this would be destroyed
To accomodate this vile
500 mw power plant
Its clearly off the dial

At Barapukaria already
1500 tons of cosl per day
But a giant wanted here
Would decimate and do away
With just so much ancestral Land
Committed to so much
What amounts to industrialization
Impractical as such

The loss to local people
Impossible to bear
The project was aborted
In 2006 aware
There were umpteen protests
Before and so to think
Anyone would bring this back
It takes us to the brink

Open cast is a madness
An unbelievable scar
That would ruin All this fertile land
Where so many people are
Its spurious to tell them
That Bangladesh would be
Better off
Which is nothing more
Than confounded sophistry

Live ammunition was used on
The protestors recently
Killing six and injuring
Many all of them who be
Blatantly involved
By living and working there
The prospect is unthinkable
And produces such despair

The unembroidered facts here
Are clearly very high
Nothing should be kept back
From the people lets apply
The region and its people
How dare the Brtish say
That Bangladesh would be better off
That is arrogant and way

Off the point of reference
That existed then and now
It defaces and eliminates
The natural world and how
Could any thinking caring
Body of people dare to say
That such a venture
Would be positive in any single way

Coal produces methane
A dirty damaging gas
Causative of climate change
And working that enmasse
8 million tonnes to be transported
In rail and barges to
An offshore re-losding facility
And, what would that do

The environment would further suffer
The air quality too
A plague upon the community
Malignancies anew
Crippling contamination
A bleak and calamitous sore
that mother nature created
But was Lost for evermore

Why is it local people have so little rights
They have worked this land for ages
And they do have sights
On its true friability
And to watch the open cast
Coal Just smother everything
They had built up
Permanent flags hung at half mast

Forever over such a scheme
Which bears no resemblance to
What had been a catharsis
And what they wanted to do
Was steal the very essence
All the blood and sweat
All the ancestral promise
That on this land was set

GCM they call themselves
Formely Asia Energy
Want to take Phulbari region
And destroy its credibility
Squander its fertility
Dissipate its worth
Replace it with such lethargy
An unresponsive birth

To then create a purgatory
A wretchedness beyond
Any nightmares ever spoke of
With no where to abscond
It makes no sense on gods earth
To ruin the sublime
With hideousness and disfigurement
For the rest of time

Not any amount of money
Can replace the damage done
Its so evil to suggest that
Satanic mills the sun
Cannot adjust the frightfulness
That will be left behind
When All the coal is exctracted
And most have lost their mind

Go back to where you came from
Such ugliness we see
Not just in the planning stages
But what comes eventually
Pollution on a scale so high
Compared to what we now possess
We do not wish to see this
Complete unsightliness.

“Paddy piled up high
Sheds full of cows
Ponds brimming with fish”

“Gola bhora dhan
Goyal bhora goru
Pukur bhora macuj”

About Rex Tyler

I love animals. I enjoy writing poetry and delivering speeches.I like to mentor people who need help in preparing speeches and evaluations.I enjoy travel although it is much harder for me these days.I so enjoyed the Andes Mountains and Volcanoes and the Quichua people who live and thrive there.I have lots of friends around the world.
This entry was posted in Abandonment, activism, Bangladesh and its coal, Coal, Corporate Giants, Indigenous People. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to BANGLADESH and the open cast coal disaster

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *