Mayo update — resisting Shell on Wednesday & Thursday

25.6.09
Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

The Soli­taire, the huge pipe lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

As the Soli­taires arrival looms large, the state ups the pres­sure with more friv­o­lous arrests.

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force, for oppos­ing Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project. Both were quite a dis­tance out­side of Shel­l’s so-called ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the Bay when they were arrest­ed by Gar­dai jump­ing towards them from RIBs (Rigid Inflat­able Boats). The protest was against prepara­to­ry cable work being done before the arrival of the Soli­taire. Nei­ther pro­test­er was close to any machin­ery, or stop­ping any work from tak­ing place. This brings to 22 the num­ber of peo­ple arrest­ed this month for oppos­ing Shell.

This forms part of a larg­er pat­tern of arbi­trary arrest, through which Gar­dai are seek­ing to repress peace­ful protest against Shel­l’s dis­as­trous Cor­rib Gas Project. Recent weeks have seen dra­con­ian attempts to remand first-time offend­ers to cus­tody for rel­a­tive­ly minor offences, along with very high bail mon­ey being demand­ed for pro­test­ers. The attempt­ed crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cam­paign­ers rais­es very seri­ous ques­tions about civ­il lib­er­ties and the infring­ing on the right to protest.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Mau­ra Har­ring­ton said: “The hun­dreds of Gar­dai and Naval per­son­nel draft­ed into the area in the last 48 hours shows just how far the gov­ern­ment will go to facil­i­tate Shell, despite the fact that this project is com­plete­ly against the inter­ests of the peo­ple of this coun­try. These lat­est arrests are mere­ly the Gar­daí and Navy try­ing to jus­ti­fy the immense and total­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate force that has been sent down by the State to force this project through”

LE Emer is cur­rent­ly sta­tioned in Broad­haven Bay and Navy RIBs crewed by Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel are cur­rent­ly being used against pro­tes­tors.

.…

The 24th of June began with an oppres­sive Gar­da pres­ence in the Glen­gad area and end­ed with two swim­mers from the camp being arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay this evening. Shel­l’s con­tract­ed pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire began its jour­ney to Glen­gad this after­noon and is expect­ed to be in the bay by morn­ing.

At lunchtime two squadrons of kayak­ers set out into Broad­haven bay as a prac­tise run for actions when the Solitare arrives. Kayak­ers were con­front­ed by a heavy Gar­da and navy pres­ence sup­port­ed by Shell secu­ri­ty in rigid inflat­able boats (ribs). Two kayak­ers were rough­ly han­dled, being dragged at speed by Gar­da ribs while Gar­dai hung on to their craft. All kayak­ers man­aged to return safe­ly to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. At the same time the Irish naval ves­sel the LE Emer entered Broad­haven Bay, cir­cled the bay and dropped anchor near Baly­glass pier. This war­ship remains at anchor tonight in the bay.

In prepa­ra­tion for attach­ing the pulling cable to the Solitare one of Shel­l’s tug boats drew a small­er cable from the Glen­gad com­pound to one of the dredg­ing plat­forms in the bay at aprox­i­mate­ly 5:30pm. Two swim­mers set out to inves­ti­gage what was hap­pen­ing, sup­port­ed by two kayak­ers. They were imme­di­ate­ly met by Gar­dai, navy per­son­nel and Shell secu­ri­ty in a total of 18 ribs. Even though the swim­mers did not enter the exclu­sion area they were sur­round­ed by ribs and arrest­ed at about 6 pm. The swim­mers were put at some dan­ger dur­ing the arrests by Gar­dai because of the lack of pro­peller guards on the ribs while they sur­round­ed the swim­mers. They also denied the swim­mers the pos­si­bil­i­ty of swim­ming back to shore by sur­round­ing them with ribs before they arrest­ed them. They were then tak­en to the Shell Glen­gad com­pound where they were held by Gar­dai for over 2 hours before being tak­en to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion for pro­cess­ing. One of the arrestees has since returned to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp but the oth­er per­son is being detained in a care home in Gal­way because they are 2 months short of their 18th birth­day.

In a fur­ther inci­dent lat­er on Gar­da park­ing cones were removed by locals and campers after it was dis­cov­ered that Gar­dai had no legal basis for putting them there. Soon after, two van loads of Gar­dai arrived at the road out­side the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, claim­ing that campers and locals were block­ing the road. A stand-off devel­oped which last­ed for over a half an hour. Dur­ing this inci­dent sev­er­al local peo­ple iden­ti­fied a man dri­ving a four wheel dri­ve jeep on the road as the dri­ver of the dig­ger involved in the incin­dent at Pul­lath­omas pier on the 11th of June, 2007; this was when numer­ous peo­ple were injured after a dig­ger was dri­ven through a crowd of local pro­tes­tors. This was brought to the atten­tion of the Gar­dai present but they chose to ignore this com­plaint, instead claim­ing that the assem­bled locals and campers were block­ing the road.

There has been a heavy Gar­dai pres­ence in the area through­out the area, includ­ing a pub­lic order unit sta­tioned inside the Shell Glen­gad com­pound. Gar­dai have also been stop­ping traf­ic on the roads around Glen­gad check­ing for insur­ance, tax, etc. A mys­te­ri­ous white van with Mayo plates has been parked on the road­side dur­ing the day­time, adja­cent to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp with the side door open, with some­one in there tak­ing pho­tographs or car­ry­ing out some oth­er type of espi­onage activ­i­ty. The occu­pants of this van are remark­ably cam­era-shy. Gar­da num­bers in ribs on the bay have also increased marked­ly in the last 24 hours. All in all, the state is mak­ing an extra-spe­cial effort on Shel­l’s behalf here in Co. Mayo.

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Pat & Jonathan O’Don­nell Arrest­ed and Boats Com­man­deered by Gar­dai As Soli­taire’s Arrival Immi­nent

June 25 2009

Fish­er­men arrest­ed for the crime of fish­ing in Broad­haven Bay

In a reprise of last year’s repeat­ed arrests on the waters of Broad­haven Bay, Shel­l’s Gar­dai have arrest­ed Pat ‘the Chief’ O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan while they were fish­ing in Broad­haven Bay this morn­ing. Their two boats were com­man­deered by Gar­dai and brought to Bal­ly­glass pier under tow and naval escort. Gar­dai claim that the two boats were ‘loi­ter­ing’, the new term for crim­i­nal­is­ing fish­er­men exer­cis­ing their rights to fish in their native waters. Pat’s broth­er Mar­tin is cur­rent­ly still on the water in the bay fish­ing in his boat. Mean­while the Soli­taire is less than an hour away from arriv­ing off Glen­gad.

Ear­li­er this morn­ing Pat and Jonathan O’Don­nell were arrest­ed by Gar­dai while exer­cis­ing their right to fish in Broad­haven Bay, waters that Pat and his fam­i­ly have fished for five gen­er­a­tions. Gar­dai board­ed the O’Don­nells’ two ves­sels, arrest­ed the men for ‘loi­ter­ing’, and brought their ves­sels under tow and naval escort to the near­by pier at Bal­ly­glass. All this hap­pened while Pat and his boat was under Gar­da ‘pro­tec­tion’. Jonathan has been tak­en to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion, but there is no word as yet of where Pat is detained. Pat’s broth­er Mar­tin is still fish­ing in the bay at the time of writ­ing.

In anoth­er devel­op­ment, a mixed group of thir­ty-five reg­u­lar and pub­lic order Gar­dai have tak­en up a posi­tion on the beach adja­cent to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, pre­sum­ably in an attempt to pre­vent actions hap­pen­ing on the water today. When the Gar­dai were asked by campers and locals what law­ful author­i­ty they had to do this they were not answered by any Gar­da.

The pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire is due to arrive in Broad­haven Bay in an hour or so, as of the time of writ­ing. The arrest of the fish­er­men and their pro­cess­ing by Gar­dai in dis­tant sta­tions is a bla­tant attempt to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project works in the bay with every under­hand­ed method at their dis­pos­al. If there ever was a time to get to Mayo to sup­port this com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing back against state cor­rup­tion and cor­po­rate greed it is now!