Rossport solidarity — Leeds, London, Bristol, Reading, Madrid, Ireland (Clare, Belfast) & at Bellanboy

15.09.2007
Yes­ter­day morn­ing at 8am, a ban­ner was hung over the A58 /Leeds Inner Ring Road in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the day of action against Shel­l’s plans for a gas pipeline & refin­ery in Mayo, Ire­land.

The ban­ner read:
Stop Shell Hell in Ire­land
www.shelltosea.com

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Activists con­struct ‘high pres­sure pipeline’ at Irish Embassy in Lon­don

Fri­day morn­ing at 9.30 am, diplo­mats and passers-by were sur­prised to wit­ness a “dodgy agree­ment” between a ‘Shell rep­re­sen­ta­tive’ and ‘the Taoiseach’, and find a ‘pipeline under con­struc­tion’ at the Irish Embassy in Lon­don. A group of activists had gath­ered at the Embassy to high­light and shame the Irish Gov­ern­men­t’s involve­ment with Shell in the con­struc­tion of a high pres­sure raw gas pipeline at Ross­port in Coun­ty Mayo.

The demon­stra­tors unveiled their ban­ner: “Bertie Ahern: Shelling Ire­land out!” In the style of Char­lie Chap­lin, activists dressed as Bertie Ahern and a Shell rep­re­sen­ta­tive per­formed a series of ‘dodgy deals’. The Irish Taoiseach “begged” Shell to “Take own­er­ship of our nat­ur­al resources – for noth­ing!”, and offered Shell and oth­er oil com­pa­nies “100% of the prof­it” with “low tax­a­tion”, “gar­da oppres­sion”, “false pros­e­cu­tions of pro­tes­tors” and “the oppor­tu­ni­ty to destroy EU-pro­tect­ed envi­ron­ments” as sweet­en­ers. The aim of the per­for­mance was to draw to atten­tion the irra­tional­i­ty of the gov­ern­men­t’s sup­port of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion of the dan­ger­ous and exper­i­men­tal pipeline in Mayo.

Anne-Marie O’Reil­ly, an activist at the embassy this morn­ing, explained:

“I can under­stand why Shell would be in favour of these terms and would­n’t have any objec­tion to the gar­da baton charg­ing peace­ful pro­tes­tors. But I can­not com­pre­hend why the gov­ern­ment would give away Ire­land’s resources and allow the destruc­tion of envi­ron­ment and com­mu­ni­ty when there is no ben­e­fit to Irish peo­ple. Per­haps anoth­er sto­ry of cor­rup­tion will emerge when it’s too late to stop the pipeline?”

The action coin­cid­ed with the sit-down protest at the refin­ery in Bel­linaboy and with ‘Shell to Sea’ sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in Brighton, Berlin and across Europe.

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Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide did a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo at the Shell Garage on Muller Road, East­ville, Bris­tol from 5:30 till 7:30. It was small but per­fect­ly formed, with good leaflets (thanks to Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty posse) and ban­ners (thanks to clever trevor).

Sev­er­al dri­vers changed their minds and went else­where for their petrol when they saw us or spoke to us about what is going on in Ross­port at Shel­l’s behest. We hand­ed out leaflets at the zebra cross­ing, where bored and exas­per­at­ed dri­vers were trapped in their lit­tle met­al box­es carp­ing, honk­ing and scratch­ing at each oth­er like bat­tery chick­ens. It gave them some­thing to read in the exten­sive traf­fic jam that sat next to the garage.
Sev­er­al Irish passers-by showed par­tic­u­lar inter­est.

The fore­court was almost com­plete­ly emp­ty most of the time we were there, so we effec­tive­ly shut it down with­out any police action or oth­er such quo­tid­i­an aggro.

Pho­tos were tak­en and will appear short­ly if for­tune and our sil­i­con mas­ters smile upon us.

Our press release is below.

STARTS

We are at the Shell petrol sta­tion on Muller Road in Bris­tol today (Sep 14th) occu­py­ing the fore­court in protest against Shell’s treat­ment of the peo­ple of Ross­port, in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land.

From 6pm we will be there, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port, who have been impris­oned, beat­en and intim­i­dat­ed by the Irish police at Shell’s request.

We are activists from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, a group who cam­paigns about cli­mate change and human rights.

Shell want to build a dan­ger­ous and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive gas pipeline and refin­ery right next to people’s hous­es on unsta­ble marsh land. There is mas­sive oppo­si­tion in the local com­mu­ni­ty and there has been sup­port for their strug­gle across Ire­land and inter­na­tion­al­ly, with many Shell garages being tar­get­ed for demos.

In 2005, 5 men were jailed for 3 months for refus­ing to allow Shell access to their land. Fol­low­ing their impris­on­ment the com­mu­ni­ty set up a pick­et at the pro­posed refin­ery site, stop­ping work for over a year. Last autumn, large num­bers of police moved into the area and beat the com­mu­ni­ty off the streets. Numer­ous peo­ple were hos­pi­tal­ized and the police bru­tal­i­ty has been inter­na­tion­al­ly con­demned. More recent­ly state repres­sion has involved the ini­ti­a­tion of mali­cious pros­e­cu­tions against promi­nent local cam­paign­ers. Despite the strong forces work­ing against them, the com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to resist. We are here in sup­port of their strug­gle.

ENDS
Con­tact: Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide 07988 460373 or 07983 350021

Notes for jour­nal­ists

Major Crit­i­cisms of the Project

Unprocessed gas will be piped at unique­ly high pres­sure lev­els, dan­ger­ous­ly close to dwellings and through sev­er­al SACs’ (spe­cial areas of con­ser­va­tion), sup­pos­ed­ly under the pro­tec­tion of EU law.
The gas will be processed at a refin­ery with­in the catch­ment area of the local reser­voir, Car­row­more lake, which pro­vides the drink­ing water for 10,000 peo­ple.
An Taisce (The Irish Nation­al Trust) has stat­ed that if the project goes ahead, Car­row­more Lake will even­tu­al­ly have to be closed as a source of drink­ing water.
The refin­ery will be a huge source of air and water pol­lu­tion. Between 200,000 and 300,000 kg of methane (a major green­house gas) will be emit­ted annu­al­ly, with the risk of vapor cloud explo­sions and acid rain.
The site will hold over 5000 tonnes of dan­ger­ous chem­i­cals. Over 1500 tonnes of methanol (a highy tox­ic chem­i­cal) are expect­ed to be ‘lost’ each year. This will be emit­ted, with the waste water, into
Broad­haven bay, “an impor­tant area for a num­ber of marine mam­mal species and for oth­er marine life” accord­ing to a report com­mis­sioned by Shell. The waste water would also con­tain heavy met­als such as arsenic, mer­cury and cad­mi­um. Any waste not pumped into the bay will drain instead into Car­row­more Lake.
The project will adverse­ly impact on the liveli­hoods of the region’s farm­ers and fish­er­men due to the mas­sive land, air and water pol­lu­tion.
All the prof­its from the gas extrac­tion will go direct­ly to the oil com­pa­nies, the Irish peo­ple will gain noth­ing.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion is avail­able from:
www.gcmonitor.org/article.php?id=576
www.indymedia.ie
www.corribsos.com

http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

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On Fri­day 14th Sep­tem­ber, Read­ing Grass­roots Action and oth­ers from around Read­ing took part in a pick­et of a lcoal Shell garage. This pick­et was made in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the anti-pipeline/re­fin­ery com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle tak­ing place in Ross­port, Ire­land.

We protest­ed for about an hour on the fore­court, giv­ing out many leaflets to dri­vers. The Police arrived just as we left.

The fol­low­ing leaflet was giv­en out:

NO SHELL HELL IN IRELAND!

In Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, a busi­ness coali­tion led by Shell Oil — with the approval of the Irish gov­ern­ment and full pro­tec­tion by the police — are plan­ning to:

- Forcibly take land from local res­i­dents and build an exper­i­men­tal high pres­sure gas pipeline (at four times the usu­al pres­sure) run­ning next to homes and destroy­ing rare eco-sys­tems. The pipe will run through bog­gy land with a his­to­ry of land­slides. In Mex­i­co, a pipeline of low­er pres­sure explod­ed, killing twelve peo­ple.

- Con­struct a gas refin­ery on unsta­ble bog, using pre­vi­ous­ly untried meth­ods to sta­bilise the bog sur­face. Emis­sions from the refin­ery will bad­ly pol­lute the near­by Car­row­more Lake, source of the region­al water sup­ply. Con­crete being used in the con­struc­tion has already been found to be faulty.

- Pump tox­ic waste into Broad­haven Bay, the source of local fish­er­men’s liveli­hoods. A research team found that Broad­haven Bay was an impor­tant breed­ing and rear­ing area for dol­phins and whales.
Nor­mal and best prac­tice is to refine the gas off­shore, bring­ing it ashore at much low­er pres­sure. Yet, the gov­ern­ment is hap­py with the dan­ger to local peo­ple and is giv­ing Irish gas away for prac­ti­cal­ly noth­ing, forc­ing the Irish peo­ple to pay the costs. But things are not going to plan…

Shell hoped to have the whole thing up and run­ning by 2003. Yet, with extra­or­di­nary courage, local peo­ple have protest­ed, block­ad­ed and refused to com­ply. To date, no work has been able to start on the pipeline, and hard­ly any work has hap­pened on the refin­ery.

In 2005, five local farm­ers were jailed for not allow­ing Shell on their land, one farmer has suf­fered a stroke after intim­i­da­tion by Shell con­trac­tors and in late 2006 extreme police vio­lence was used against pro­tes­tors. How­ev­er, block­ades by local peo­ple conit­nue tak­ing place every morn­ing and last month, activists from UK took part in an occu­pa­tion of the site, along with local peo­ple and oth­ers, stop­ping work for two hours. This is cost­ing Shell mil­lions!

Today is a day of action against Shell. About 200 peo­ple block­ad­ed the refin­ery this morn­ing by sit­ting in the entrance way. Rough­ly 170 then entered the site and stood on machin­ery to stop work. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, riot police are once again pro­tect­ing the cor­po­ra­tion instead of cit­i­zens, and there has been heavy vio­lence against peace­ful pro­tes­tors, and sev­er­al bru­tal arrests. In spite of this, the sit-down block­ade con­tin­ued, stop­ping all deliv­er­ies to the site.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it: www.corribsos.com and www.indymedia.ie

——–

There was a sol­i­dar­i­ty pick­et of the Irish Embassy in Madrid, organ­ised by the Fed­eración Anar­quista Ibéri­ca, the Iber­ian sec­tion of the Inter­na­tion­al of Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tions (http://www.iaf-ifa.org/) They have also made up posters about Ross­port, and car­ried arti­cles in their month­ly mag­a­zine, Tier­ra y Lib­er­tad.

I think the ban­ner reads ‘Shell Destroys the State Com­plies’

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Clare Shell to Sea Pick­et — 14th Sept ’07.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mayo and today’s Sit-Down Protest at Bel­lan­aboy.

It’s been clear for the last 2 years that the argu­ment against the Shell Cor­rib Gas Project is won.

And the amount of cars beep­ing their horns in Ennis this evening is tes­ta­ment to the sup­port for Shell to Sea, gen­uine­ly.

The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue in their refusal to debate the argu­ments and nego­ti­ate a set­tle­ment, and they per­sist in using force against the protests at Bel­lan­aboy, a protest that has gained nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sup­port and recog­ni­tion as … LEGITIMATE & JUST.

Greens — You have buried your heads in the Fian­na Fáil mire. Yoy are com­plic­it now. You are prov­ing your­selves to be unre­li­able and unwor­thy of trust. The Green Par­ty pumps for Shell.

email clareshell­tosea at gmail dot com
phone 085 1607287
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Sol­i­dar­i­ty Shell pick­et in Belfast
Fri­day Sep­tem­ber 14, 2007

Belfast Shell to Sea organ­ised a pick­et of the Shell sta­tion in Ander­son­stown today in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the nation­al mobil­i­sa­tion in Bel­lan­aboy in Mayo.

Over a dozen activists took part in the pick­et and dis­trib­uted leaflets to pass­ing motorists and pedes­tri­ans, and received a lot of honk­ing from cars show­ing their sup­port. Despite it tak­ing place dur­ing rush hour and the road being extreme­ly busy, the fore­court of the sta­tion was left desert­ed for most of the time the pick­et was on.

email shell­toseabelfast at gmail dot com

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News from protest at Ross­port

Text mes­sage from the site of pro­posed refin­ery reports at 7.30 ” good turn out, over 200 so far, no trucks through the main gates and low police pres­ence”.

Updates

- 8:28
Between 50–120 have just stormed the main gate of the refin­ery and are head­ing up the cen­tral road to where the machin­ery is work­ing.

- 8:40
Pro­test­ers have gone through the sec­ond gate and are on the main site.

- 8:50
Text received from the protest:
“They kept the machines going until the last minute, peo­ple are stand­ing on a drilling machine, most work stopped, pro­test­ers and cops wan­der­ing around enor­mous site”.

- 8.59
” Two arrests, one bad­ly beat­en, get­ting pushed out pret­ty aggres­sive­ly’

- 9:34

The are now over 150 peo­ple occu­py­ing refin­ery site. There have been 7 deten­tions with peace­ful pro­tes­tors being assault­ed by sev­er­al Gar­daí who were not in the usu­al uni­form…

At least two pro­tes­tors were seri­ous­ly assault­ed and tak­en away.

- 9.47: “Riot police out in force. Protest cor­doned off. batons out and lots injured. Three arrest­ed so far”.

- 10:00
Site has been cleared by Pub­lic Order Unit with some bru­tal­i­ty. Arrestees appear to have been released in Bel­mul­let or along the road.

There’s a sit down protest out­side the gate with approx­i­mate­ly 170 pro­tes­tors being ringed by a large force of the coun­try’s finest.

Reports com­ing in of cops scream­ing to each oth­er to’break their fuck­ing arms’ with a lot of kick­ing and punch­ing going on (obvi­ous­ly direct­ed at the peace­ful pro­tes­tors). sev­er­al cops real­ly went for it but we’ve record­ed good video evi­dence. Cam­eras and tape are being hid­den to avoid a repeat of the inci­dent last year at Lennon’s quar­ry where a video cam­era was tak­en and smashed by the cops.

One fair­ly seri­ous assault to report and pos­si­bly 2 or 3 pro­tes­tors unac­count­ed for…

- 10:42
A num­ber of those arrest­ed were released either out­side the gates of the main site or once they reached Bel­mul­let. It is unclear as to whether peo­ple have been charged or not.

There is a sit down protest out­side the gate once more with 170 — 200 pro­tes­tors being ringed by a large force of the coun­try’s finest.