Protesters in front of the venue of the DoNER ministry-World Bank meeting in Guwahati on Thursday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, Nov. 10: ?The Northeast is not for sale.?

Stark in its message, one banner said it all as the World Bank today faced the first volley of protests in the region.

Members of various NGOs stormed the venue of a two-day consultative meeting on the topic, Natural Resources, Water and the Environment: Nexus for Development and Growth in Northeast India, to protest the alleged attempt to sell the region?s interests.

The meeting, attended by several representatives of the World Bank, was organised by the Union ministry for development of the northeastern region to elicit the views of government officials on a concept paper prepared by the bank for management of water and natural resources in the region.

Trouble began just after the meeting began around 10.30 am. The protesters stormed the first floor of the hotel where the officials had congregated and started shouting slogans.

?The people who wrote this concept paper do not know the ABC of the Northeast, or is it being implied that the people of the region are incapable of thinking about their own development?? asked Ravindra Nath of River Basin Network, a constituent of the Civil Society Initiatives against International Financial Institutions.

The activists stalled the meeting for about half-an-hour even as World Bank officials tried to reason with them. All the placards bore slogans like ?60 years of World Bank is enough: not anymore?, ?Buy two rivers, get one free? and ?Dollar is not for destruction?.

A harried World Bank official said he and his colleagues invited the activists to participate in the discussions, but they refused. ?If the people are finding their voice, it is good. We would have appreciated it more had these voices been translated into concrete suggestions.?

Unrelenting in his tirade, Ravindra Nath retorted that the ?war will go on and these people will face more drastic action in the days to come?.

Anthropologist B.K. Roy Burman, who was among the protestors, echoed him. ?The concept paper seems to be basically a strategy document to fulfil a political agenda.?

Another demonstrator questioned why water was being ?treated as different? from natural resources in the concept paper. ?Is this because the World Bank and the central government want to build a large number of dams in this region??

Dismissing the demonstration as a needless exercise, an official source said no project had been finalised. ?This is just a dialogue among officials, experts and NGOs.?

Representatives of the Brahmaputra Board, Central Water Commission, Inland Waterways Authority of India and the state water resources and agriculture departments attended the conclave.