Environmentalists Demand Public Hearing on Rio Tinto  

Savo Manojlovic (BETAPHOTO/AMIR HAMZAGIC/EV)

A representative of environmental movement Get Going for Change, Savo Manojlovic, on Sept. 20 submitted to state public broadcaster RTS a demand seeking from the TV station to host a public hearing and a debate on mining corporation Rio Tinto. 

Speaking to reporters outside the RTS building, Manojlovic said the Get Going for Change movement had collected 38,000 signatures for a people’s initiative, adding that the public broadcaster was obliged “to report on the issues which are in the interest of citizens.” He added that a public hearing should engage representatives of Rio Tinto, rather than have politicians speak on their behalf, stressing that politicians should be representing the interests of citizens and not companies.  

A movement activist Marina Pavlovic has said that by repealing the local spatial plan for the Jadar deposits, the government has canceled the Rio Tinto project, but stressed that in parallel, similar projects have appeared across Serbia, which are deemed damaging to the environment. She cited the example of the municipality of Rekovac where “the locals have been defending their estates for more than a week.”