Author: earthfirst

Brazil: Kayapo blockade heads into second month

May 23, 2010

It’s been exact­ly one month to the day since a group of Kayapo set up a fer­ry block­ade across the Xin­gu Riv­er in an ongo­ing protest against the con­tro­ver­sial Belo Monte hydro dam.

Kayapo blockadeMay 23, 2010

It’s been exact­ly one month to the day since a group of Kayapo set up a fer­ry block­ade across the Xin­gu Riv­er in an ongo­ing protest against the con­tro­ver­sial Belo Monte hydro dam.

The Kayapo were dis­patched to the site on April 22, the same day Brazil’s gov­ern­ment grant­ed out rights to build the dam

Sad­ly, the effort has received lit­tle media cov­er­age since then, even with a con­stant ref­er­ence to celebri­ty activists Sting and James Cameron.

Nev­er­the­less, as the front line effort heads into its sec­ond month, the Kayapo warn that they have no inten­tion of back­ing down unless the gov­ern­ment can­cels the project.

The Kayapo Continue Blockades in Protest of the Belo Monte Dam

by Inter­na­tion­al Rivers and Ama­zon Watch

For Imme­di­ate Release
May 21, 2010

The Kayapo Continue Blockades of Amazon Highway for the 28th Straight Day in Protest of the Belo Monte Dam
Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples Vow to Block Dam Construction or “Die Fighting for our Rights”

Piaraçu, Xin­gu Nation­al Park, Brazil — A group of Kayapo indige­nous peo­ple led by Chief Megaron Txukar­ramãe have been blockad­ing the Xin­gu Riv­er cross­ing of the BR-80 — a major Ama­zon high­way in Mato Grosso State — since April 23 in protest of the gov­ern­men­t’s plans to build the mas­sive Belo Monte Dam. Dozens of Kayapo war­riors have been block­ing the fer­ry cross­ing over the Xin­gu Riv­er for four weeks and are deter­mined to remain there. Their actions have dis­rupt­ed a major trans­porta­tion artery for com­mer­cial goods in the region.

In a state­ment issued from the block­ade, Chief Megaron referred to Pres­i­dent Lula as “ene­my num­ber one” to Brazil’s indige­nous peo­ples, and vowed to main­tain the block­ade until Belo Monte is can­celed or “die fight­ing for our rights.”

Chief Megaron has been joined in these protests by Kayapo Chief Raoni Metuk­tire, an emblem­at­ic leader for over 20 years of indige­nous resis­tance to the Brazil­ian gov­ern­men­t’s plans to dam the Xin­gu Riv­er. In a May 1st inter­view with the French chan­nel TF1, Chief Raoni said “I have asked my war­riors to pre­pare for war and I have spo­ken of this with oth­er tribes from the Upper Xin­gu. We will not let them [build this dam].”

Lead­ers of the Arara, Xipa­ia and Juruna indige­nous peo­ples of the Low­er Xin­gu echo the vocif­er­ous oppo­si­tion of the Kayapo to the Belo Monte Dam, and have also vowed to lay down their lives to stop the project, which would destroy their com­mu­ni­ties and liveli­hoods. “We are firm in this strug­gle, and con­tin­ue more strong and deter­mined than ever to stop Belo Monte,” said the leader Shey­la Juruna. Attempts to stop the Belo Monte Dam became known around the world last month when film­mak­er James Cameron and mem­bers of the cast of Avatar joined protests in Brasil­ia and vis­it­ed vil­lages on the Xin­gu Riv­er and its trib­u­taries to hear about the plight of the region’s indige­nous peo­ple.

Slat­ed to be the 3rd largest hydro­elec­tric project in the world, Belo Monte would divert over 80 per­cent of the Xin­gu River’s flow through arti­fi­cial canals, flood­ing over 500 sq km of rain­for­est while dry­ing out a 100 km stretch of the riv­er known as the “Big Bend,” which is home to hun­dreds of indige­nous and river­ine fam­i­lies. Though sold to the pub­lic as “clean ener­gy,” Belo Monte would gen­er­ate an enor­mous amount of methane, a green­house gas 20 times more potent than car­bon diox­ide.

Despite legal injunc­tions against the pro­jec­t’s auc­tion, the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment announced that the auc­tion’s win­ning con­sor­tium, “Norte Ener­gia,” would pro­ceed with plans to dam the Xin­gu Riv­er. Pres­i­dent Lula’s insis­tence that the project move for­ward at all costs — in spite of seri­ous social, envi­ron­men­tal and finan­cial con­cerns, as well as a mas­sive local and inter­na­tion­al out­cry — con­tin­ues to be met with fierce denounce­ments from indige­nous peo­ple of the Xin­gu Basin.

“The destruc­tion that would be caused by the mas­sive Belo Monte Dam in the glob­al­ly essen­tial Ama­zon Basin would have world­wide ram­i­fi­ca­tions that can’t yet be ful­ly com­pre­hend­ed. Indige­nous peo­ple are deter­mined to dis­rupt the ‘busi­ness as usu­al’ mod­el of destruc­tive devel­op­ment projects that ruin the envi­ron­ment and their tra­di­tion­al ways of life,” said Atossa Soltani of Ama­zon Watch. “Indige­nous groups from the Xin­gu Basin have sent the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment a clear and resound­ing mes­sage that they will not allow the Belo Monte Dam to move for­ward. A Brazil­ian and inter­na­tion­al coali­tion of orga­ni­za­tions and social move­ments stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with these groups, and is mobi­liz­ing fur­ther social and legal actions.”

International bike ride links communities in resistance: Merthyr to Mayo cyclist

22.5.2010
Today, a 50-strong inter­na­tion­al bike ride begins the 400 mile jour­ney from a com­mu­ni­ty resist­ing Britain’s largest open cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Wales to Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, where local peo­ple have spent the last ten years fight­ing a Shell-led gas devel­op­ment. We aim to offer direct sup­port to these two local cam­paigns resist­ing the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

22.5.2010
Today, a 50-strong inter­na­tion­al bike ride begins the 400 mile jour­ney from a com­mu­ni­ty resist­ing Britain’s largest open cast coal mine in Merthyr Tyd­fil, Wales to Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, where local peo­ple have spent the last ten years fight­ing a Shell-led gas devel­op­ment. We aim to offer direct sup­port to these two local cam­paigns resist­ing the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

30 cyclists from the UK will join the “Madrid to Mayo” cycle ride in Cork, and many oth­ers from Ire­land are expect­ed to join on route. We will spend ten days trav­el­ing up the west coast of Ire­land, dis­trib­ut­ing a spe­cial­ly pro­duced news­pa­per, “Chang­ing Times”. Events are being held along the way, each night we’re being host­ed by dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions, and we’ll arrive in Mayo for the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp June Bank Hol­i­day Week­end Gath­er­ing at Glen­gad.

It’s gonna be a good laugh, but hope­ful­ly more than that — the line we are draw­ing from Merthyr to Mayo is a reminder that none of us can afford to see these places in iso­la­tion.

The ride begins today with an event in Merthyr Tyd­fil where local res­i­dents and the sol­i­dar­i­ty cyclists are shar­ing sto­ries, ideas, music and food.

“Our com­mu­ni­ties’ sto­ries are repeat­ed across the globe in the places where fos­sil fuels are sourced. Large cor­po­ra­tions move into areas regard­less of the wish­es of the affect­ed pop­u­la­tion; resources are extract­ed and, whilst the cor­po­ra­tions reap vast prof­its, the local peo­ple have to suf­fer the health and envi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences. And, as the fos­sil fuels are burnt they con­tribute to cli­mate change, affect­ing every­one.” — Merthyr res­i­dent, Alyson Austin.

Both com­mu­ni­ties have a long his­to­ry of resis­tance, and their efforts have result­ed in amaz­ing suc­cess­es. In Erris, Mayo, the cam­paign won a size­able vic­to­ry in Novem­ber last year, when Shell’s appli­ca­tion for their onshore gas pipeline was effec­tive­ly refused by the plan­ning author­i­ties; it is unclear when (or if) per­mis­sion will be grant­ed in the future. In Merthyr Tyd­fil, cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly tak­ing out a Group Pri­vate Nui­sance case against the min­ing com­pa­ny, Miller Argent. Sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of local peo­ple are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the legal action which aims to lim­it the mine’s impact on res­i­dents. Cli­mate activists recent­ly did a sol­i­dar­i­ty action by blockad­ing coal trains head­ed from the mine to Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion. In recent months, Mayo has seen string of actions local­ly, nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers Pat O’Don­nell and Niall Har­nett (more infor­ma­tion on the pris­on­ers and how to write to them, and the cam­paign in gen­er­al, on the shell to sea web­site.)

Please join us on the ride, for the gath­er­ing, and in con­tin­ued resis­tance against patri­ar­chal white-suprema­cist cap­i­tal­ist impe­ri­al­ism, and the fight for social and eco­log­i­cal jus­tice!

http://www.merthyrtomayo.org.uk

Cellphone Antenna Sabotaged with Fire, Bristol

FOR SELF-ORGANISATION & ANTI-CAPITALIST RESISTANCE

May 21, 2010, approx 2.30am.

FOR SELF-ORGANISATION & ANTI-CAPITALIST RESISTANCE

May 21, 2010, approx 2.30am.

A ‘T‑mobile’ repeater was destroyed by fire. All effort was made not to endan­ger any life and the mast was cho­sen due to its dis­tance from res­i­den­tial build­ings and activ­i­ty. The fence was cut with bolt-crop­pers and placed at the base of the anten­na, wrapped around the elec­tri­cal cables pow­er­ing the mast, was a cut tyre filled with rags soaked in paraf­fin. Soaked rags were also tied to the cables and tucked into the tyre. Fire­lighters were used to ignite the lot. The anten­na was sit­u­at­ed near the cen­tral Tem­ple Meads rail­way sta­tion close to a new ‘urban devel­op­ment’ area.

Destruc­tive acts against the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions infra­struc­ture of cap­i­tal­ist econ­o­my are sim­ple and repro­ducible, as are attacks against oth­er facets of indus­tri­al soci­ety. The sys­tem relies on a net­work of cables, anten­nas and pow­er units to enforce and sus­tain its exploita­tion. Far from being a face­less abstract ene­my, the con­duits of com­mod­i­ty pro­duc­tion remain attack­able at many points, vul­ner­a­ble to our courage, rage and joy.

We ded­i­cate this action to the arrest­ed anar­chists Con­stan­ti­no, Luca and Sil­via in Switzer­land, accused of con­spir­ing against a nano-tech facil­i­ty; to all the pris­on­ers of the social strug­gle in Greece and to all those who have begun to fight, in a myr­i­ad of places, of dif­fer­ent tongues, races and names.

FOR INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL & ECOLOGICAL STRUGGLE AGAINST STATE & CAPITAL

Cells of Fire: Storm of But­ter­flies

Giant Elephant attacks Manchester Council meeting

……well sort of. New coun­cil­lors were remind­ed yes­ter­day that Man­ches­ter Air­port is still the ‘ele­phant in the room’ when it comes to the local Cli­mate Change Action Plan – since the Coun­cil have refused to include the flight emis­sions from the Air­port in their car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets.

……well sort of. New coun­cil­lors were remind­ed yes­ter­day that Man­ches­ter Air­port is still the ‘ele­phant in the room’ when it comes to the local Cli­mate Change Action Plan – since the Coun­cil have refused to include the flight emis­sions from the Air­port in their car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets. The 9ft inflat­able ele­phant high­light­ed that the Coun­cil’s much-laud­ed plans are total­ly under­mined by the omis­sion of the Air­port– espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil own 55% of Man­ches­ter Air­ports Group.

As Coun­cil­lors met alto­geth­er for the first time since the elec­tion, a trail­er bike soundsys­tem played a set of air­craft nois­es as a reminder of what life under the flight path can be like for com­mu­ni­ties in Stock­port and Knutsford.
Air­craft Noise — audio/x‑ms-wma 4.4M

In Novem­ber 2009, Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil released ‘Man­ches­ter: a Cer­tain Future’ which laid out plans to reduce the city’s CO2 emis­sions by 41% by 2020. These cal­cu­la­tions did not include the full impact of the air­port. The next day the Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved pro­pos­als to bull­doze res­i­dents homes at Hasty Lane, to expand the World Freight Cen­tre at Man­ches­ter Air­port. [1]

A report by the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change (Decem­ber 2009) has pre­dict­ed that Man­ches­ter Air­port could become as busy as Heathrow with the num­ber of flights dou­bling by 2050, lead­ing to a flight tak­ing off or land­ing every 70 seconds.[2]

Recent­ly, the new coali­tion Lib­er­al Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment in Lon­don have blocked expan­sion plans at Heathrow, Stanst­ed and Gatwick. It seems the avi­a­tion indus­try will be look­ing to expand region­al air­ports like Man­ches­ter to increase their prof­its.

Alex Foun­tain from the Stop Expan­sion at Man­ches­ter Air­port coali­tion said, “The new coun­cil­lors need to take a fresh approach to air­port expan­sion. The coun­cil can­not con­tin­ue to ignore its effects on local com­mu­ni­ties – such as ris­ing car­bon pol­lu­tion and noise impacts.”

He con­tin­ued, “There is a tourism defecit in the North­west of Eng­land amount­ing to £2.2 bil­lion. [2] That’s £2.2 bil­lion more being tak­en out of the region than being brought in by air­ports. The argu­ment that air­port expan­sion is good for jobs and the econ­o­my is unfound­ed. We need an update assess­ment of the air­port’s role in the region.”

Man­ches­ter Air­port plan to become car­bon neu­tral by 2015 — but this will not include emis­sions from flights.

A ren­di­tion of ‘Nel­lie the Ele­phant’ by the Toy Dolls was also heard play­ing out the soundsys­tem.
TUNE: Nel­lie the Ele­phant by the Toy Dolls — mp3 3.1M

Notes
————————–

[1] Coun­cil Approve Expan­sion Plans — Man­ches­ter Evening News — 21st Novem­ber 2009 http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1183425_fury_over_airports_move_to_demolish_family_homes

[2] Man­ches­ter Air­port to be as busy as Heathrow — Man­ches­ter Evening News – Mon­day 8th March 2010
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1194908_manchester_airport_to_be_as_busy_as_heathrow

[3] Bren­dan Sewil­l’s ‘Air­port Jobs: Cru­el Hoax, False Hopes’ – page 21.
Avail­able here:
http://www.aef.org.uk/uploads/Airport_jobs___false_hopes_cruel_hoax.pdf

http://www.stopmanchesterairport.org.uk

The new Action Update — full of of action news and analysis

In the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Newcastle flotilla blockadeIn the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Be inspired by our protest camp fea­ture and the recent Tit­nore vic­to­ry. And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against whal­ing ship sab­o­tage, coal port pirates, riots in Zagreb, min­ing firm occu­pa­tions in Bolivia, dam resis­tance in Brazil and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10.pdf

Eviction Threat to Kew Bridge Eco Village

Kew Bridge Eco Vil­lage faces an evic­tion threat, start­ing from this Fri­day, 21st of May, 2010. It is like­ly that they will evict on the fri­day, or the mon­day after or at some oth­er date that suits their pur­pos­es.

Kew Eco VillageKew Bridge Eco Vil­lage faces an evic­tion threat, start­ing from this Fri­day, 21st of May, 2010. It is like­ly that they will evict on the fri­day, or the mon­day after or at some oth­er date that suits their pur­pos­es. If you want to help pro­tect the eco vil­lage, then come down and lend a hand.

The eco vil­lage is pri­mar­i­ly a place for beings of dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives, expe­ri­ences, ideals and aims to come togeth­er to cre­ate sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties, wher­ev­er they might exist. The site is set to be turned into a mon­strous devel­op­ment of expen­sive flats and more pubs and shops, in an area with two near­by shop­ping cen­ters, and with 3 pubs in the imme­di­ate area, and copi­ous amounts of dis­used prop­er­ties stand­ing emp­ty as the num­bers of home­less con­tin­ue to rise. Kew Bridge Eco Vil­lage stands in the way of this redicu­lous devel­op­ment and against all unsus­tain­able prac­tices every­where.

So if you want to pro­tect the eco vil­lage, whether you con­sid­er your­self to be class­war, eco, fem­i­nist, hip­py, hard­core, non-vio­lent, sur­vival­ist, what­ev­er: come on down and sup­port the vil­lage! There are plen­ty of sleep­ing spaces, and you even have the option of set­ting up a tent.

See you at the bar­ri­cades!!!!

See a map?

Note: click­ing the map link will load data from Open­streetmap’s exter­nal serv­er.

Nuclear Power Conferences in London Hit by Protests

Tues­day, 18 May 2010 — CAMPAIGNERS from Lon­don and SE Eng­land Stop Nuclear Pow­er [1] protest­ed out­side the Financ­ing Nuclear Pow­er and Nuclear Inter­im Stor­age con­fer­ences in cen­tral Lon­don today. They invit­ed del­e­gates to invest in a green future instead of nuclear ener­gy and demand­ed an end to nuclear waste pro­duc­tion.

Nuclear conferences protestsTues­day, 18 May 2010 — CAMPAIGNERS from Lon­don and SE Eng­land Stop Nuclear Pow­er [1] protest­ed out­side the Financ­ing Nuclear Pow­er and Nuclear Inter­im Stor­age con­fer­ences in cen­tral Lon­don today. They invit­ed del­e­gates to invest in a green future instead of nuclear ener­gy and demand­ed an end to nuclear waste pro­duc­tion.

The first port of call for the three pro­test­ers, two of whom were dressed in white over­alls, was the Financ­ing Nuclear Pow­er con­fer­ence at the plush Crowne Plaza hotel near St James’s Park. They held up a ban­ner that read “Green Solu­tions Not Nuclear Green­wash” and leaflet­ed del­e­gates and pass­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic out­side the main entrance to the hotel for over an hour and a half, close­ly watched by hotel secu­ri­ty staff through­out.

Two of them then moved on to the Nuclear Inter­im Stor­age con­fer­ence, which was tak­ing place at Dex­ter House at Roy­al Mint Court, adja­cent to Tow­er Bridge. Stand­ing in the court­yard out­side the entrance/exit to the build­ing host­ing the con­fer­ence, they held up a larg­er ban­ner that read “Green Our Future, No to Nuclear” and exchanged ban­ter with del­e­gates and oth­er users of the build­ing on their lunch break. Secu­ri­ty guards were called and the pro­test­ers were told they were on pri­vate prop­er­ty and had to leave, but the pro­test­ers stood their ground. A Police Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port Offi­cer then appeared and also tried to get the pro­test­ers to leave, but they refused. Fur­ther back up was called, but the pro­test­ers left before it arrived, hav­ing been there for an hour.

The incom­ing Con­ser­v­a­tive-Lib­er­al Demo­c­rat coali­tion gov­ern­ment has said it will con­tin­ue with the Labour gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of allow­ing ten new nuclear pow­er sta­tions to be built in Eng­land and Wales. Min­is­ters have said that no direct pub­lic sub­si­dies will be offered for new nuclear build, although a car­bon floor price is pro­posed. Nowhere in the world has a nuclear pow­er sta­tion ever been built with­out pub­lic sub­sidy.

For five decades, the nuclear indus­try has failed to find a per­ma­nent solu­tion for its radioac­tive waste, which remains dan­ger­ous for tens of thou­sands of years. [2] With cur­rent waste stor­age facil­i­ties at Sizewell B in Suf­folk near­ly full, plans are in place to build a new “tem­po­rary” store where waste from the reac­tor will be kept indef­i­nite­ly in the absence of a per­ma­nent solu­tion. This is before con­sid­er­ing the waste from any new reactor(s), which would be more radioac­tive and remain too hot to trans­port for 160+ years.

Cam­paign­er Daniel Vies­nik, 35, from Lon­don, says: “Con­trary to the non­sense that you hear from the nuclear spin doc­tors and their polit­i­cal mouth­pieces, nuclear pow­er is a dirty, dan­ger­ous and expen­sive tech­nol­o­gy that diverts essen­tial invest­ment from gen­uine green alter­na­tives like ener­gy effi­cien­cy and renew­able and decen­tralised ener­gy. It car­ries the risks of nuclear weapons pro­lif­er­a­tion, nuclear ter­ror­ism and a Cher­nobyl-type cat­a­stro­phe [3,4]. Why waste mon­ey on nuclear white ele­phants and dump more nuclear waste on local com­mu­ni­ties when we could build a gen­uine­ly sus­tain­able, nuclear-free, zero car­bon future?”

All images may be repro­duced free of charge for non-com­mer­cial use if cred­it­ed to D. Vies­nik. Please e‑mail for high res ver­sions.

Notes:

1. Lon­don and SE Eng­land Stop Nuclear Pow­er is part of the Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work, a UK-based non-hier­ar­chi­cal grass­roots net­work of activists tak­ing action against nuclear pow­er and sup­port­ing sus­tain­able alter­na­tives.
http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net
network[at]stopnuclearpoweruk.net

2. Nuclear Decom­mis­sion­ing Author­i­ty’s Oxide Fuel Top­ic Strat­e­gy (2010) indi­cates that seri­ous ques­tions remain with­in the nuclear indus­try itself over whether any solu­tion for per­ma­nent dis­pos­al of radioac­tive waste will ever be found.
http://www.nda.gov.uk/documents/upload/draft-oxide-fuel-topic-strategy-gate‑0.pdf

3. EDF nuclear reac­tor car­ries ‘Cher­nobyl-size’ explo­sion risk — Guardian, 7 March 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/07/edf-nuclear-reactor-chernobyl-risk

4. Aca­d­e­mics demand inde­pen­dent inquiry into new nuclear reac­tors – Guardian, 11 March 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/11/independent-inquiry-nuclear-power-stations

vd2012-imc [at] yahoo.co.uk
http://stopnuclearpoweruk.net

Thousands of Tibetans mobilize to defend Sacred Mountains

May 18, 2010
A mas­sive police crack­down may be immi­nent in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), where thou­sands of Tibetan vil­lagers have mobi­lized to defend their sacred moun­tains from exploita­tion.

Stop Mining Tibet protestMay 18, 2010
A mas­sive police crack­down may be immi­nent in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR), where thou­sands of Tibetan vil­lagers have mobi­lized to defend their sacred moun­tains from exploita­tion.

Accord­ing to reports from Radio Free Asia (RFA), the vil­lagers are attempt­ing to halt three sep­a­rate gold mines in Tsong­shen, Choeten, and Deshoe in Markham coun­ty, TAR.

As many as five thou­sand Chi­nese troops have been called in to make sure the min­ing oper­a­tions pro­ceed.

A local Tibetan source, who spoke to RFA on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, says at least five pro­test­ers have already been injured in the protests, while numer­ous oth­ers have been beat­en and tear-gassed by the troops. One also “attempt­ed to kill him­self with a bro­ken bot­tle, the source said.”

Almost exact­ly one year ago, the same Tibetan vil­lagers orga­nized an indef­i­nite road­block to pro­tect one of their sacred moun­tains, known local­ly as “Ser Ngul Lo.”

Trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish as “Year of Gold and Sil­ver”, Ser Ngul Lo has been wor­shipped by the Tibetans for cen­turies and it is the site of impor­tant cer­e­monies con­duct­ed in times of drought.

Gov­ern­ment offi­cials at the time grant­ed a Chi­nese com­pa­ny per­mis­sion to oper­ate a gold mine in the region–most cer­tain­ly, with­out con­sult­ing the Tibetans or gain­ing their con­sent.

In addi­tion to pro­tect­ing the Moun­tain, the vil­lagers were also deeply con­cerned that their drink­ing water would be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by the mine. And with a tense stand-off that ensued, the peace­ful vil­lagers declared that they were “ready to die” to pro­tect the sacred site. The Tibetans feared the worst.

But then, as the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty watched on, the unimag­in­able hap­pened: Gov­ern­ment offi­cials sat down with the Tibetans and reached a peace­ful accord.

For their part, the offi­cials agreed to com­plete­ly aban­don the gold mine and with­draw all troops in the area. In addi­tion, they agreed to build a con­crete bar­ri­er to stop any old min­ing waste from leach­ing into the local water sys­tem.

In return, the Tibetans agreed to end their 24-hour block­ade and return home.

Hounslow squatted community land project

New land project occu­pied

New land project occu­pied

Come and get stuck in at squat­ted Houn­slow Com­mu­ni­ty Land Project, on the Han­worth rd nxt to Gur­d­wara tem­ple, ideas so far are allot­ments, sus­tain­able liv­ing, cre­ative work­shops, recy­cled sculp­ture gar­den, spir­i­tu­al space, sports pitch­es, adven­ture play­ground and nature trail! Come and be part of this! site phone kat on 07812 774110 or just turn up betwn 12 and dusk any day.

TATE MODERN 10TH BIRTHDAY SEES ACTION AGAINST SLICK BP SPONSORSHIP

DEAD FISH AND OIL-DRENCHED BIRDS HANG FROM TURBINE HALL

Tate Mod­ern was forced to close down parts of its No Soul For Sale tenth anniver­sary exhi­bi­tion on Sat­ur­day (15 May) while it strug­gled to remove dozens of dead fish and oil-soaked birds (1) hang­ing from huge black bal­loons let loose in the Tur­bine Hall.

DEAD FISH AND OIL-DRENCHED BIRDS HANG FROM TURBINE HALL

Tate Mod­ern was forced to close down parts of its No Soul For Sale tenth anniver­sary exhi­bi­tion on Sat­ur­day (15 May) while it strug­gled to remove dozens of dead fish and oil-soaked birds (1) hang­ing from huge black bal­loons let loose in the Tur­bine Hall.

Art activists from LIBERATE TATE, a grow­ing net­work ded­i­cat­ed to ensur­ing the muse­um drop its spon­sor­ship deal with BP, infil­trat­ed Tate Mod­ern’s Tur­bine Hall and released dozens of heli­um-filled black bal­loons with dead ani­mals attached. Crowds of tourists and art lovers gath­ered to watch the bal­loons rise up in the air until they filled the ceil­ing of the Tur­bine Hall.

Josephine Buoys, who took part in the art action, said: “We took this action whilst Tate spon­sor BP is cre­at­ing the largest oil paint­ing in the world. Across the Gulf of Mex­i­co ecosys­tems and liveli­hoods are being dev­as­tat­ed by their oil spill. Every day Tate scrubs clean BP’s pub­lic image with the deter­gent of cool pro­gres­sive art. Yet there is noth­ing
cool about a cor­po­ra­tion that cares more about its prof­its than life or the future of our frag­ile world.”

By late after­noon Tate staff had burst some the oil bub­ble-like black bal­loons by climb­ing onto a high gantry, but many remained out of reach and the rot­ting fish and seabirds hov­ered above the evening’s cel­e­bra­tions head­lined by Thurston Moore of Son­ic Youth. Rumours cir­cu­lat­ed that Tate would com­mis­sion a marks­man to shoot the remain­ing bal­loons down from the top of the for­mer pow­er sta­tion.

LIBERATE TATE said: “Every time we step inside the muse­um Tate makes us com­plic­it with acts that are harm­ing peo­ple and cre­at­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and cli­mate change, acts that will one day seem as archa­ic as the slave trade. We call on Tate to become a respon­si­ble, eth­i­cal and tru­ly sus­tain­able organ­i­sa­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry and drop its
spon­sor­ship by oil com­pa­nies. As a pub­lic insti­tu­tion the Tate’s Trustees, chaired as they are by an ex-CEO of BP, must aban­don its asso­ci­a­tion with BP. All vis­i­tors to the Tate must be able to enjoy great art with a clear con­science about the impact of the muse­um on soci­ety and the envi­ron­ment.”

LIBERATE TATE dis­trib­uted a com­mu­niqué (online here http://bit.ly/9RFfxJ) through­out the Tate Mod­ern 10th anniver­sary promis­ing fur­ther actions to ‘free art from oil’ by artists and activists across Britain until Tate ends its asso­ci­a­tion with BP.

LIBERATE TATE have issued an open invi­ta­tion for artists, activists, art lovers and oth­er con­cerned mem­bers of the pub­lic to act to ensure that Tate ends its oil spon­sor­ship by the end of 2011 ahead of Tate Mod­ern’s expan­sion into its cleaned-out under­ground oil tanks.

LIBERATE TATE con­tact details:
web: www.twitter.com/liberatetate email: liberatetate@gmail.com

(1) — the ‘seabirds’ were made by mem­bers of Lib­er­ate Tate