Rossport roundup

Gar­daí look on as Shell secu­ri­ty con­tin­ue to use unlaw­ful force on peace­ful pro­tes­tors

On Thurs­day last, the 15th Sep­tem­ber, Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty force, IRMS con­tin­ued their prac­tice of using force on the pub­lic road as they see fit. Once again the Gar­daí sat close by and wit­nessed this unlaw­ful use of force by IRMS and allowed it to con­tin­ue unim­ped­ed.

At approx­i­mate­ly 2:30pm last Thurs­day, a small num­ber of cam­paign­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp went down to the entrance of the Shell com­pound in Augh­oose to peace­ful­ly protest. Work­ers at the com­pound were attempt­ing to lay tar­mac at the entrace to the com­pound, so the cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to sit down on the edge of the road. How­ev­er the cam­paign­ers were pre­vent­ed from sit­ting down at the edge of the road by IRMS and were pushed, kicked, punched, pulled and car­ried away from sit­ting down at the edge of the road. This con­tin­ued for over 45 min­utes dur­ing which Gar­daí watched the whole sit­u­a­tion from Gar­da vans parked no more than 50 metres away.

Com­ment­ing on the lat­est inci­dent Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way stat­ed “Let’s be clear about this: Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty — IRMS — have absolute­ly no right to use any force on cam­paign­ers who are peace­ful­ly protest­ing on a pub­lic road. The fact that Gar­daí would watch IRMS assault cam­paign­ers for near­ly an hour on a pub­lic road is anoth­er clear exam­ple of the total sus­pen­sion of the rule of law in rela­tion to protest­ing against Shell.”

“In Octo­ber in Gene­va, the UN Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Review will review Ire­land’s human rights record, and while the Irish Gov­ern­ment give great lip-ser­vice to human rights abus­es in far-away places, they are let­ting Shell and the Gar­daí here in Mayo do what­ev­er they wish to peace­ful pro­tes­tors”. [1][2]

NOTES

[1] UN urged to exam­ine Irish human rights laps­es – Irish Times — 13th August 2011
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0813/1224302379794.html

[2] Shell to Sea high­lights human rights abus­es to UN
http://www.shelltosea.com/content/shell-sea-highlights-human-rights-abuses-un

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Fence climb­ing, tres­pass­ing, trac­tor climb­ing and more dis­rup­tion of work in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo

Tues­day 13th Sep­tem­ber six peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp went down to Shel­l’s tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo to dis­rupt work. Work was slowed from three sep­a­rate actions spread over 2 hours as peo­ple inter­fered with fenc­ing work and then two peo­ple got up on a trac­tor mak­ing a deliv­ery to the com­pound.

Over the past cou­ple days Shel­l’s com­pound in Augh­oose has seen some major dam­age to the perime­ter fenc­ing. The heavy duty pal­isade fenc­ing (the green spiky one) is still in place, but a lot of the flim­sy sil­ver har­ris fenc­ing is down, con­crete bol­lards hold­ing oth­er fenc­ing was smashed, and the green fenc­ing pan­els (which is in piles along the road in the pho­tos) came down. As a result of this destruc­tion, Shell has all but stopped mak­ing deliv­er­ies to the com­pound.

On Tues­day after­noon as Shell work­ers were try­ing to repair some of the dam­age done, six peo­ple went down to dis­rupt them. Green fenc­ing pan­els were in piles along the road­side of the com­pound, and peo­ple sat on the piles to pre­vent the work­ers from putting them back up. A dig­ger on the inside of the com­pound was wait­ing to re-erect the pan­els, but the pro­test­ers made this dif­fi­cult and the dig­ger dri­ver gave up.

Shel­l’s secu­ri­ty (IRMS) even­tu­al­ly came over and dragged peo­ple off of the pan­els. This was not on Shel­l’s prop­er­ty but the road verge, so the pri­vate secu­ri­ty had no right to use force on the pub­lic road. Gar­dai were present but did­n’t seem to mind pri­vate secu­ri­ty assault­ing peo­ple on the pub­lic road and at one point even did some labour for Shell, mov­ing fenc­ing pan­els back into place.

After awhile peo­ple went around the side of the com­pound and tres­passed onto Shel­l’s land where work­ers were try­ing to fin­ish the last bit of the heavy duty pal­isade fenc­ing. As soon as peo­ple showed up the work­ers gave up and packed away their tools, the dri­vers got out of the dig­gers and walked away. This last­ed for about an hour until Shell secu­ri­ty dragged and car­ried peo­ple off the land.

One pro­test­er was sex­u­al­ly assault­ed as they were being car­ried by IRMS. Their pants were falling down and they asked secu­ri­ty to put them down so they could pull their clothes back on, but IRMS refused. The secu­ri­ty mem­ber (pic­tured below) who was car­ry­ing the per­son­’s legs shoved both of his hands up into the per­son­’s crotch. He refused to show his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion badge fol­low­ing the assault.

After this a trac­tor car­ry­ing some sort of bog-drainage equip­ment was com­ing down the road towards the com­pound. Peo­ple ran towards it and despite attempts by Gar­dai to keep them off the trac­tor two peo­ple climbed up on top of it. One per­son was dragged down from a con­sid­er­able height, and the oth­er came down after being giv­en a warn­ing under the Pub­lic Order Act. Nei­ther per­son was arrest­ed.

Actions against Shell are pret­ty much con­stant at the moment, with some­times 3 or 4 sep­a­rate actions in a day. Morale is high, and any­time is a good time to vis­it if you’d like to see the area and find out more about what is hap­pen­ing. There is a week­ly protest out­side Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery, with lots of locals and peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. And there’s plen­ty to do aside from protest­ing, includ­ing cook­ing, tend­ing to the three gar­dens, meet­ing locals and loads of building/site main­te­nance!

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, between Bal­linaboy and Pul­lath­omas. To con­tact the camp, rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com or 085 114 1170

More pho­tos — http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100512