Occupy Shellanaboy set up at refinery gates in Erris (& solidarity with Ogoni 9)

Novem­ber 11, 2011

About 40 Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers blocked the Augh­oose com­pound this morn­ing — all Shell employ­ees pre­vent­ed enter­ing com­pound 7.30 to 9.30. The road was kept open to local traf­fic by the cam­paign. There was no Gar­da pres­ence. Just after 10 Shell to Sea activists start­ed set­ting up an Occu­py Shell Cor­rib Camp at the gates of the refin­ery in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the glob­al Occu­py move­ments!

At 9.30 cam­paign­ers start­ed mov­ing from the Augh­hoose com­pound to the refin­ery site where there will be meet up at 10. This action was part of the day of sol­i­dar­i­ty called both to remem­ber the exe­cu­tion of Ken Saro Wiwa and for peo­ple from around Ire­land to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty in Erris, Mayo.

Local res­i­dents and their sup­port­ers will gath­er at 10am at the gates of Shell’s inland refin­ery. From there they will walk to Bel­lan­aboy Bridge to com­mem­o­rate a baton charge by Gar­daí on Novem­ber 10th, 2006. The baton charge result­ed in numer­ous injuries to cam­paign­ers and is one of the low points of the 11-year strug­gle against the inland refin­ery and high pres­sure pipeline. They will also be mark­ing the 16th anniver­sary of the exe­cu­tion of nine activists in Ogo­ni­land, Nige­ria. Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight oth­ers were hanged by the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment on Novem­ber 10th, 1995 for their oppo­si­tion to Shell’s envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion in the Niger delta. The walk which is now (11.20) under­way is lead by peo­ple car­ry­ing the 9 cross­es to com­mem­o­rate the Ogo­ni 9 exe­cut­ed on this day in 1995. Over 100 peo­ple are tak­ing part