Author: earthfirst

Calais No Border Camp Call-Out 23–29 June 2009

The Calais No Bor­der camp is a joint ven­ture between French and Bel­gian activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

Calais No Borders campThe Calais No Bor­der camp is a joint ven­ture between French and Bel­gian activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

It aims to high­light the real­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion in Calais and North­ern France; to build links with the migrant com­mu­ni­ties; to help build links between migrants sup­port groups; and last­ly, but not least, to chal­lenge the author­i­ties on the ground, to protest against increased repres­sion of migrants and local activists alike.

This camp calls for the free­dom of move­ment for all, an end to bor­ders and to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tems of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens, into the doc­u­ment­ed and the undoc­u­ment­ed.

Why Calais?

We have cho­sen Calais for two main rea­sons; it is an impor­tant loca­tion in the his­to­ry, devel­op­ment and prac­tice of Euro­pean migra­tion con­trols and has long been a major bot­tle­neck for those seek­ing to get to Britain. But more impor­tant­ly, it is also a focus of the strug­gle between those who would see an end to all migra­tion into the EU, and those try­ing to break down the bar­ri­ers between peo­ples, the bor­ders that pre­vent the free­dom of move­ment for all, not just the priv­i­leged few.

Since the mid-nineties tens of thou­sands have lived in des­ti­tu­tion, sleep­ing rough in Calais, wait­ing for their chance to cross the chan­nel to Eng­land. Between 1999 and 2002 the Red Cross ran a cen­tre at neigh­bour­ing San­gat­te but this was forced to close after polit­i­cal pres­sure from France and Britain. Since then, the mas­sive police pres­ence and repres­sion in Calais has forced thou­sands of men woman and chil­dren to wan­der the Calais region and all along the North coast of France, Bel­gium and Hol­land. They are rou­tine­ly bru­talised by the police; tear-gassed, beat­en, arrest­ed and repeat­ed­ly interned at the near­by Coquelles deten­tion cen­tre. The police reg­u­lar­ly burn their shel­ters and the few mea­gre pos­ses­sions that they con­tain. The local groups that sup­port the migrants by pro­vid­ing food and oth­er human­i­tar­i­an aid are com­ing under increas­ing attack from the police and a num­ber of activists have been arrest­ed in recent months. Mean­while British Immi­gra­tion Min­is­ter Phil Woolas has been call­ing for the con­struc­tion of a per­ma­nent holding/detention cen­tre for migrants in Calais docks.

The Big­ger Pic­ture

Calais how­ev­er remains only one small part of the over­all pic­ture of Euro­pean migra­tion con­trols, a major inter­nal bor­der with­in the hi-tech EU bor­ders regime. Since the begin­ning of the decade, the EU been attempt­ing to build ‘Fortress Europe’; exter­nal­is­ing EU bor­ders into Africa and Asia with EU bor­der guards patrolling the Mediter­ranean, in Libya and off the West Coast of Africa cour­tesy of the Fron­tex bor­ders agency; and via the Euro­pean Neigh­bour­hood Pol­i­cy, where coun­tries from the Ukraine all the way round the Mediter­ranean to Moroc­co are now paid by the EU to do its migra­tion pre­ven­tion work for it.

Migrants’ Rights Are Work­ers’ Rights

Through this sys­tem of bor­der con­trols, author­i­ties cre­ate two kinds of migrants: a small num­ber of ‘skilled’ migrants, who are des­ig­nat­ed as ‘use­ful’ to the state; and a mas­sive num­ber of undoc­u­ment­ed work­ers who have no rights and are there­fore exploitable as cheap labour. Thus is our fight for free­dom of move­ment also a fight for the rights of all work­ers.

Transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty works!

Build­ing links and work­ing togeth­er allows us to share infor­ma­tion between us on a transna­tion­al lev­el. It also allows us to exploit the fault-lines and cracks in Fortress Europe. Last Novem­ber, transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty helped to pre­vent the planned depor­ta­tion of Afghans from Calais to Kab­ul.

Cam­paign­ing Against Bor­ders

This camp will con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of the No Bor­der camps across the world since the late 1990s and, like the camp tak­ing place this year in Lesvos in August, it will be a space to share infor­ma­tion, skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ences; a place to plan and take action togeth­er against the sys­tem of bor­ders which divides us all. For cen­turies Euro­pean impe­r­i­al pow­ers have exploit­ed the land, resources and peo­ple of the major­i­ty world to become wealthy and pow­er­ful, leav­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and mas­sive inequal­i­ty in their wake. Those who attempt the jour­ney to the UK or else­where in Europe are chal­leng­ing this injus­tice by their move­ment. The sit­u­a­tion in Calais is a result of the com­pro­mise and con­flict of inter­est between French and UK immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy and we call on groups, net­works and indi­vid­u­als here to take action across Europe and to become part of a glob­al move­ment of sol­i­dar­i­ty that defends their right to choose where they move .

Equal rights for all !!

*No One Is Ille­gal. Free­dom Of Move­ment And The Right To Stay For All*

http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/

http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

Saving Iceland Summer Mobilisation 2009!

Join us from 18th July to resist the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness and take direct action against heavy indus­try!

The Strug­gle So Far

Join us from 18th July to resist the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness and take direct action against heavy indus­try!

The Strug­gle So Far

The cam­paign to defend Europe’s great­est remain­ing wilder­ness con­tin­ues. For the past four years direct action camps in Ice­land dur­ing the sum­mer have tar­get­ed alu­mini­um smelters, mega-dams and geot­her­mal pow­er plants.

After the ter­ri­ble destruc­tion caused at Kárah­n­júkar and Hengill, it is time to crush the ‘mas­ter plan’ that would have seen every sin­gle major glacial riv­er dammed, every sub­stan­tial geot­her­mal field exploit­ed and the con­struc­tion of alu­mini­um smelters, oil refiner­ies and sil­i­con fac­to­ries, as well as a sig­nif­i­cant increase in Iceland’s green­house gas emis­sions.

The Sit­u­a­tion Now

Despite opti­mism fol­low­ing the ‘cut­lery rev­o­lu­tion’ where mass street protests and direct action brought down the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment and forced the issue of heavy indus­try back onto the polit­i­cal agen­da, the bat­tle is far from over.

The fall of alu­mini­um prices on the world mar­ket and the glob­al eco­nom­ic cri­sis has tak­en its toll on heavy indus­try projects and alu­mini­um com­pa­nies in Ice­land, putting many of the plans for alu­mini­um smelters, mega-dams and geot­her­mal pow­er plants on hold, or ruled out com­plete­ly. The heavy indus­try machine is far from hav­ing been defeat­ed but recent upris­ings show the deep impact Sav­ing Ice­land has had on the grass­roots and the polit­i­cal land­scape.

Polit­i­cal Changes

The recent elec­tions are a major blow for the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in Ice­land, with the ‘Left Greens’ boot­ing the min­is­ter of the envi­ron­ment out for being too much of a gen­uine envi­ron­men­tal­ist. We are look­ing at a heav­i­ly for­ti­fied pro-heavy indus­try gov­ern­ment, doing away with any pre­tence of the gov­ern­ment being ‘Green’ or even remote­ly Left wing. On top of this, nation­al ener­gy com­pa­nies have already start­ed nego­ti­a­tions with oth­er types of indus­try in the North, where some politi­cians ruled out a new smelter.

Anar­chy in Ice­land

Years of work by Sav­ing Ice­land to intro­duce the ideas of direct action and anar­chy into main­stream soci­ety, cou­pled with a rad­i­calised pop­u­la­tion fol­low­ing the down­fall of the gov­ern­ment, has result­ed in a con­stant­ly grow­ing move­ment of rad­i­cal activists and anar­chists in Ice­land.

Over the past few months squat­ters have twice tak­en a social cen­tre and defend­ed it from evic­tion, refugee and no bor­ders activism is going strong, Food Not Bombs hit the streets every week and actions such as the four “skyr attacks” (where green yoghurt is thrown all over dis­plays, com­put­ers and suits) in two months have tar­get­ed politi­cians and nature killers.

The mutu­al sup­port between the Ice­landic rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty and Sav­ing Ice­land this sum­mer will make for a very excit­ing and action-filled mobil­i­sa­tion!

Tar­gets this Sum­mer

The Hel­gu­vík alu­mini­um smelter, tar­get­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land last sum­mer with an action that stopped con­struc­tion for a whole day after 40 activists invad­ed the site, is still being built. Pow­er­ing the smelter will mean eight new pow­er plants, at least sev­en of which will be geot­her­mal from the Reyk­janes Penin­su­la, dry­ing it up, and Hell­isheiði – also tar­get­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land last sum­mer that saw a drill rig shut down cost­ing thou­sands of pounds. One of the geot­her­mal plants pow­er­ing Cen­tu­ry’s smelter could be in Bitra, close to Hengill, where a local cam­paign last win­ter stopped con­struc­tion from tak­ing place. The eighth pow­er plant will prob­a­bly be a mega-dam on the beau­ti­ful Þjórsá Riv­er.

If ever there was a build­ing site and “test drilling sites” destroy­ing unique and frag­ile ecosys­tems and vul­ner­a­ble to direct action this sum­mer they are on the Reyk­janes penin­su­la, South West Ice­land!

Get involved!

Come to Ice­land from the 18th July and join us for a sum­mer of resis­tance and direct action. Check www.savingiceland.org for reg­u­lar updates and infor­ma­tion for peo­ple join­ing us, or email us on savingiceland@riseup.net to let us know when you’re arriv­ing.

Help sup­port our strug­gle with dona­tions, trans­la­tions, sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and by spread­ing the word.

Climate Rush Pedal Power

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Mon­day 1st June the UK Par­lia­ment returns from recess for the sum­mer sit­ting.
We want to give them a warm wel­come and remind them of the heat they can expect if they con­tin­ue to ignore cli­mate change.

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Mon­day 1st June the UK Par­lia­ment returns from recess for the sum­mer sit­ting.
We want to give them a warm wel­come and remind them of the heat they can expect if they con­tin­ue to ignore cli­mate change.

Ed Miliband (Sec­re­tary of State Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change) is in Bonn that evening, dis­cussing with oth­er ‘world lead­ers’ the agen­da for the UN Cli­mate Sum­mit in Copen­hagen. Let’s give our ‘lead­ers’ a taste of the civ­il dis­obe­di­ence they can expect if real cli­mate jus­tice fails to mate­ri­alise.

It is also the first evening of a coal con­fer­ence at the illus­tri­ous ‘Chatham House’. Every­one who’s any­one, at least in the coal world, will be there.

We’ll begin our bike-ride out­side their con­fer­ence before wind­ing our way through town.

Meet us from 5pm on St James Square, SW1Y 4LE. We’ll then move off at 6pm and take our bikes for a relaxed tour through Lon­don. Labour might think that invest­ing in elec­tric cars is the solu­tion to cli­mate change but we know that cars using elec­tric­i­ty from coal-fired pow­er sta­tions is yet anoth­er red-her­ring.

Camp Climat at Nantes

Activists cam­paign­ing against a pro­posed local air­port near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 — 9 August 2009.

“Le Camp Cli­mat” con­cept is tak­ing off over the chan­nel, just as it is in the UK. Activists cam­paign­ing against the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a new air­port 16 kilo­me­tres north of Nantes (Loire-Atlan­tique, 44) have announced a camp from the 3 — 9 August 2009.

Activists cam­paign­ing against a pro­posed local air­port near Nantes, France, have announced a week of action from 3 — 9 August 2009.

“Le Camp Cli­mat” con­cept is tak­ing off over the chan­nel, just as it is in the UK. Activists cam­paign­ing against the pro­posed con­struc­tion of a new air­port 16 kilo­me­tres north of Nantes (Loire-Atlan­tique, 44) have announced a camp from the 3 — 9 August 2009.

The air­port plans have a long his­to­ry, with the ori­gins of the plan to con­struct a “hub” for north-west France, dat­ing from 30 years ago. The pro­posed air­port will con­crete over 2000 hectares of tra­di­tion­al bocage: pas­toral land divid­ed by tra­di­tion­al hedgerows. By con­trast Britain’s sec­ond busiest air­port Gatwick occu­pies a site of only 300 hectares. And all this despite 3 air­ports already oper­a­tional (Nantes, Angers, Rennes) with­in 100 kilo­me­tres of the pro­posed sites. None of the exist­ing air­ports are oper­at­ing at any­thing like full capac­i­ty at the moment, nor will they in the future if cur­rent air tick­ets sales con­tin­ue their present down­ward trend.

Despite being beyond any rea­son­able con­cept of util­i­ty, the Pharaonique project rolls for­ward, with forced sales of farms, homes, and land. Sur­veys and geo­log­i­cal sam­pling of the site began in Octo­ber 2008.

Oppo­si­tion to the project is cen­tred on two main organ­i­sa­tions: the Camp Cli­mat, and a coali­tion that unites res­i­dent groups called ACIPA, which has long pur­sued a civ­il cam­paign amongst the French bureau­cra­cy.

As the threat becomes more immi­nent, many acts of resis­tance have already occurred: with trac­tor road­blocks and sab­o­tage of sur­vey works. A vis­it­ing offi­cial from the pre­fec­ture, come to announce the loss of land and homes, was flanned. The sur­vey work­ers now work along­side an escort of up to six­ty gen­darmes. Eight activists face fines of up to 15,000 euros and sen­tences of 2 — 4 months for their part in the resis­tance.

Le camp fonc­tion­nera de manière auto­gérée, avec pour principes de base : une empreinte écologique min­i­mum, des actions à fort impact auprès de la pop­u­la­tion locale et/ou des médias, des échanges de savoirs sur les pra­tiques alter­na­tives et écologiques, la mise en com­mun des béné­fices, la pra­tique du prix libre ou coû­tant et le développe­ment de réseaux. Il s’inscrira dans le cadre d’une semaine de résis­tance sur le site et fera suite à deux moments forts sur place : le fes­ti­val « Le Planch­er des Vach­es » (same­di 1er août) et le pique-nique annuel des opposants au pro­jet d’aéroport (dimanche 2 août).

(The basic prin­ci­ples of the autonomous camp are: a min­i­mal eco­log­i­cal foot­print, strong local links, strong media impact, edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties and exchanges, devel­op­ment of net­works, and com­mu­nal liv­ing with food at prix libre (con­tribute as you can afford). The camp forms part of a week of resis­tance at the site with a music fes­ti­val on the 1 August, and an annu­al local pic­nic on the 2 August.)

Notre-Dames-De-Lan­des is 202 kilo­me­tres from the fer­ry ter­mi­nal at St. Malo, which makes for a pleas­ant two day ride to be here, but Nantes is also well served by rail: the TGV from Paris (1 train/hour) takes 2h 20mins.

www.campclimat.org

Scottish Climate Camp 3–10 August — details

“Glob­al ecosys­tems are in col­lapse, species extinc­tion is unpar­al­leled in human his­to­ry and dan­ger­ous cli­mate change is a real­i­ty affect­ing us all. There is no time to act but now. Join us 3–10 August for a week of low-impact liv­ing and high-impact direct action.”

Camp for Climate Action Scotland flier“Glob­al ecosys­tems are in col­lapse, species extinc­tion is unpar­al­leled in human his­to­ry and dan­ger­ous cli­mate change is a real­i­ty affect­ing us all. There is no time to act but now. Join us 3–10 August for a week of low-impact liv­ing and high-impact direct action.”

The camp will be set up some­where around the Firth of Forth in cen­tral scot­land — sur­round­ed by coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, gas and oil refiner­ies, coal ports, open cast coal mines, cor­po­rate HQs, an air­port, a nuclear pow­er sta­tion, a cement fac­to­ry and oil ter­mi­nals.

This camp will cut car­bon emis­sions. Cli­mate Camp Scot­land will raise the pro­file of direct action in Scot­land, show­ing that the nature of the cli­mate cri­sis is such that we no longer have time to wait for our polit­i­cal and busi­ness ‘lead­ers’ to act for us.

In addi­tion, we aim to rad­i­calise the polit­i­cal analy­sis of cli­mate change and its solu­tions, plac­ing it with­in a wider polit­i­cal con­text of social change and the reshap­ing of soci­ety towards more egal­i­tar­i­an and lib­er­tar­i­an val­ues.

Join us in August to take action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change!

—————————————–
Camp for Climate Action Scotland benefit flier
Fundrais­er 4th June:

2 DEGREES 2 HOT — A night of Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Hip-Hop!

Thurs­day 4th June, 11–3am at the Bon­go Club

Sup­port us by com­ing to the Bon­go Club in Edin­burgh (37 Holy­rood Road) on Thurs­day 4th June for great music, a great night out and rais­ing mon­ey for our sum­mer of direct action!

Acts con­firmed so far: Rad­i­cal per­for­mance and poet­ry by Tick­le, Burn­ing Bright, Mechan­i­cal Beast, Lifeshows, 1sp and DePTHS!

Camp for Climate Action Scotland Boiling Over gathering poster
Boil­ing Over — Scotland’s Gath­er­ing for Cli­mate Action: 11th — 14th June, The Phoenix Cen­tre, Glas­gow

Boil­ing Over will be a space for thought, analy­sis, learn­ing, move­ment build­ing, train­ing and cre­ativ­i­ty. Ulti­mate­ly, we hope to devel­op a strat­e­gy for stop­ping cli­mate change from with­in Scot­land.

Social Change not Cli­mate Change

Despite years of rhetoric about Cli­mate Change Bills, Kyoto Pro­to­cols, Tech­nofix­es and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, CO2 emis­sions are still ris­ing, ecosys­tems are still col­laps­ing and soci­ety is as unequal as ever. This is tes­ti­mo­ny to the fact that we need to take mat­ters into our own hands and find bot­tom up solu­tions to cli­mate chaos.

What’s hap­pen­ing?

The pro­gramme will include four days of talks, film show­ings and dis­cus­sion, cul­mi­nat­ing in plan­ning and vision­ing ses­sions. We will skill-share prac­ti­cal skills such as cook­ing for large num­bers of peo­ple and direct action train­ings which will lay the foun­da­tions for the Camp for Cli­mate Action hap­pen­ing in Scot­land from 3–10 of August.

Boiling Over header
Come along!

The space will be a safe, acces­si­ble and open envi­ron­ment, free from oppres­sion, hier­ar­chy and dis­crim­i­na­tion. Food and accom­mo­da­tion will be pro­vid­ed.

Reg­is­ter ear­ly!

Reg­is­ter and donate ear­ly to help us plan and fund Boil­ing Over.
Down­load the Reg­is­tra­tion Form from our web­site and post it back to us, or email your infor­ma­tion to climatecampscotland@riseup.net and make your dona­tion online.

If you would like to see a par­tic­u­lar workshop/discussion/filmshowing/etc hap­pen or would like to facil­i­tate one please get in touch and send an email to *cli­mate­camp­scot­land [at]
riseup.net*
Camp for Climate Action Scotland header
http://www.climatecampscotland.org.uk/

Peru Indigenous In Standoff With Government

May 22nd 2009
For more than a month, indige­nous groups in the Peru­vian Ama­zon have been main­tain­ing block­ades of roads, rivers, air­ports and oil and gas pipelines to protest a series of new laws that would lead to increased indus­tri­al exploita­tion of their ter­ri­to­ries. The decrees were passed in accor­dance with the US-Peru Free Trade Agree­ment.

May 22nd 2009
For more than a month, indige­nous groups in the Peru­vian Ama­zon have been main­tain­ing block­ades of roads, rivers, air­ports and oil and gas pipelines to protest a series of new laws that would lead to increased indus­tri­al exploita­tion of their ter­ri­to­ries. The decrees were passed in accor­dance with the US-Peru Free Trade Agree­ment.

An esti­mat­ed 13,000 peo­ple from 65 tribes and 1200 com­mu­ni­ties are tak­ing part in the protests.

In response, Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia declared a state of emer­gency, sus­pend­ed civ­il lib­er­ties and dis­patched the army to the affect­ed regions. The Peru­vian and Argen­tin­ian nation­al oil com­pa­nies have both been forced to cease oper­a­tions in the region.

The police, mil­i­tary and extrac­tion com­pa­nies have used vio­lence to attempt to break the block­ades, result­ing in injuries and dis­ap­pear­ances — but the indige­nous groups are refus­ing to back down. Despite Garcia’s insis­tence that none of the laws will be revis­it­ed, the Peru­vian leg­is­la­ture has repealed one of the 10 laws and opened nego­ti­a­tions about the oth­er nine.

The Peru­vian government’s response to the cri­sis has sparked out­rage among indige­nous peo­ple and their allies world­wide, and the Peru­vian mis­sion to the Unit­ed Nations was recent­ly met with protests in New York.

For links to more news sto­ries, vis­it Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Cry.

For more infor­ma­tion, updates and photos/video of police bru­tal­i­ty at the protests, vis­it Ama­zon Watch.

See also:

Peren­co to Drill for Oil in Ter­ri­to­ry of Uncon­tact­ed Indige­nous (Jan­u­ary 7, 2009)

Peru Indige­nous Issue Oil Ulti­ma­tum (Octo­ber 22, 2008)

Indige­nous Vic­to­ry in Peru! (August 24, 2008)

Rossport Shell to Sea Gathering, 29th May — 1st June

Every­one is invit­ed to the third annu­al June gath­er­ing here at Ross­port.

Fri­day 29th May — Mon­day 1st June.

The cam­paign has been run­ning for years now, and you can find out more on the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp web­site: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/

Every­one is invit­ed to the third annu­al June gath­er­ing here at Ross­port.

Fri­day 29th May — Mon­day 1st June.

The cam­paign has been run­ning for years now, and you can find out more on the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp web­site: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/

The gath­er­ing is a great chance to see the area (real­ly real­ly beau­ti­ful), find out what’s real­ly going on, and to meet the peo­ple involved — cam­paign­ers, locals, cats.

Also, music, work­shops, surf­ing, kayak­ing, food (includ­ing sea­weed).

Prepa­ra­tion is going on now, and it feels excit­ing.

Last year, when shell tried to lay the RAW gas pipeline, the peo­ple resist­ed all sum­mer. Even­tu­al­ly, the soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) was forced to fuck off, with its tail between its legs.

This year they will try again, and it is the spe­cial blend of locals, and activists, from near and far, that have kept them away so far.

Come and see what it’s like when all types of peo­ple com­ing togeth­er for a com­mon cause. Shell is so pow­er­ful, please come along and help.

ps. if you can’t make it for the gath­er­ing, you are wel­come any time you like through the sum­mer, even if it’s only for a day or two.

pps. please spread the word; email­ing, tex­ting, talk­ing about ross­port and the gath­er­ing.

Hop­ing to see you here!

Eco-village occupation London June 6th

Hel­lo friends,

you may be aware of the eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion which is being planned for Sat­ur­day June 6th. The idea is to occu­py a dis­used urban site in SW Lon­don near Ham­mer­smith and to start an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based on sus­tain­able meth­ods of liv­ing such as veg­etable grow­ing, com­post toi­lets the works. There is a press release below- please can you dis­trib­ute it to all and sundry and tell every­one you know who would want to know that this thing is going down or up? (depend­ing on which way you look at it 😎

Hel­lo friends,

you may be aware of the eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion which is being planned for Sat­ur­day June 6th. The idea is to occu­py a dis­used urban site in SW Lon­don near Ham­mer­smith and to start an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based on sus­tain­able meth­ods of liv­ing such as veg­etable grow­ing, com­post toi­lets the works. There is a press release below- please can you dis­trib­ute it to all and sundry and tell every­one you know who would want to know that this thing is going down or up? (depend­ing on which way you look at it 😎

The land is every­bodys.

For imme­di­ate release…

Back­ground:

In May 1996, 500 The Land is Ours activists occu­pied 13 acres of derelict land on the banks of the Riv­er Thames in Wandsworth, high­light­ing the mis­use of urban land, the lack of pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing and the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the urban envi­ron­ment. That action grew into far more than just a sim­ple land rights action.

A com­mu­ni­ty grew up on the site called Pure Genius!! over the 5½ months that the occu­pa­tion last­ed for.….

Then and now:

“Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars” Mar­tin Luther King.

In the first three months of 2009, near­ly 13,000 Britons lost their home to repos­ses­sions. Now, per­haps more than ever, the ideas of peace­ful land recla­ma­tion and eco-vil­lages are becom­ing rec­og­nized as the solu­tion to prob­lems such as over­crowd­ing in cities and the destruc­tion of the land due to harm­ful agri­cul­tur­al prac­tices.

Action:

In the spir­it of Pure Genius, On June 6th 2009, hun­dreds of activists will con­verge on a piece of derelict land close by to Ham­mer­smith in south west Lon­don to cre­ate an eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty based entire­ly on sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy and con­struc­tion tech­niques.

Come and be a part of this eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty.

Inspired:

This eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion is inspired by cam­paigns like The Land is Ours which cam­paigns peace­ful­ly for access to the land, its resources, and the deci­sion-mak­ing process­es affect­ing them, for every­one, irre­spec­tive of race, gen­der or age. for more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it:

www.tlio.org.uk

Meet-up:

The exact loca­tion of the site will be revealed on the day. The meet up point is at Water­loo Sta­tion (under the clock in the mid­dle of the sta­tion) at 10AM on Sat­ur­day 6th June. Please try to be on time as we don’t want to be hang­ing around all morn­ing.

If you would like to speak to some­one regard­ing the cam­paign or the occu­pa­tion, please con­tact Car­olyn on: 01727 812369 or Gareth on: 07515 166011 or email: diggers360@yahoo.co.uk

Galwegian’s are Reclaiming it’s Streets (Eire)

May 17, 2009

Galway RTSMay 17, 2009
Yes­ter­day after­noon, Gal­we­gians and their friends from around the coun­try and world came togeth­er on new­ly renamed (by us), Anti-Shop Street, to take back our space from the cap­i­tal­ist, con­sumerist cul­ture which has tak­en over, with it’s bizarre ideas of a life ded­i­cat­ed to shop­ping, spend­ing, buy­ing and prof­it, so that we could share an expe­ri­ence of anoth­er world, where every­thing is free, peo­ple share and give food, fun, stuff and life, sim­ply because they can and it just feels good!

“Free Food, Free Stuff, Free Fun, Free Social Inter­ac­tion, Free World for Every­one”, was the chant of the day, encour­ag­ing every­one to join in the fun. ‘Feck Mon­ey’ could also be heard every now and again, amongst the joy­ful shout­ing and whoop­ing! The event start­ed at 1.30pm, when a ‘Real­ly Real­ly Free Mar­ket’, mag­i­cal­ly appeared out of nowhere; clothes, videos, toys, ted­dies, cards, match­es, mark­ers, crayons, zines and more were all decked out on a table and offered to bemused passers-by for free. Con­fused by the idea of free stuff, those who were afraid to ask were left won­der­ing ‘what’s the catch?’ Need­less to say, there was none. Just a group of peo­ple who believe in a bet­ter world where gifts can be giv­en freely, and the only prof­it sought is the joy of mak­ing oth­ers hap­py. They were prompt­ly joined by Gal­way Food-Not-Bombs, (who share veg­e­tar­i­an food, mes­sages of peace and a bet­ter soci­ety, with the pub­lic), to feed the par­tic­i­pants and onlook­ers with love­ly veg­e­tar­i­an soup, bread and amaz­ing cook­ies at the REAL reces­sion bust­ing price of no euros and no sense! Par­tic­i­pants dec­o­rat­ed Anti-Shop street with colour­full ban­ners let­ting peo­ple know “Anoth­er World is Pos­si­ble”, encour­ag­ing them to “Spend Less, Give More”, invit­ing them to “Cel­e­brate Our Streets” and one sug­gest­ing that we should just “Feck Mon­ey!” Oth­ers dec­o­rat­ed the ground, chalk­ing mes­sages such as “Cap­i­tal­ism Kills”, until the Gar­dai informed them it was ille­gal!

Gal­way Shell to Sea, who know all about the urgent need to reclaim con­trol over our own lives, envi­ron­ment and resources, came out to par­tic­i­pate and spread the word about the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cam­p’s June Bank Hol­i­day Gath­er­ing, com­ing up on May 29th.
Enter­tain­ment was abun­dant with ran­dom indi­vid­u­als show­ing off and teach­ing their jug­gling and poi skills, tra­di­tion­al Irish music, Capoeira danc­ing with accom­pa­ny­ing music, peo­ple play­ing chess, oth­ers blow­ing bub­bles, DIY art with home-made nat­ur­al paints. And, how bet­ter to inter­act and have fun on our streets then to play Twister! Plus lots of oth­er fun and ran­dom stuff…

It was about two hours before traf­fic war­dens arrived to try and kill the fun. Unable to give out park­ing tick­ets, due to our incon­sid­er­ate lack of licence plate num­bers, they made a poor attempt at tak­ing our Twister. Then the Gar­dai were called in to deal with our men­ac­ing antics. The first Gar­da on the scene told us we had to move the Twister because we were block­ing the street. We polite­ly refused and argued that these were our streets and peo­ple seemed to be get­ting by just fine. Short­ly there­after, five to six guards hud­dled on the oppo­site cor­ner, obvi­ous­ly a bit unsure of what they should or could do. They no doubt were grate­ful when the free water arrived in abun­dance from the sky. Not ready to give up just yet we con­tin­ued on play­ing wet Twister for twen­ty min­utes, tak­ing full advan­tage of all the free water before wrap­ping it all up with a lot of cheer­ing, clap­ping and a great sense of achieve­ment. We had Reclaimed the Street if only for a few hours and we’ll do it again and again and again.…

To find out more about Gal­way Reclaim the Streets or get involved in the next one con­tact thestreetgig@gmail.com

All the ducks are swimming in the water tral la la (Faslane action report)

On Sun­day the 17th of May three activists from faslane peace camp blocked the route of a nuclear sub­ma­rine using kayaks on the mouth of the Gar­loch. The three delayed the subs entry into the Clyde sub­ma­rine base for over 4 hours despite hor­ri­ble weath­er con­di­tions (rain­ing heav­i­ly) and leaky kayaks.

Faslane Peace Camp logoOn Sun­day the 17th of May three activists from faslane peace camp blocked the route of a nuclear sub­ma­rine using kayaks on the mouth of the Gar­loch. The three delayed the subs entry into the Clyde sub­ma­rine base for over 4 hours despite hor­ri­ble weath­er con­di­tions (rain­ing heav­i­ly) and leaky kayaks. There was a con­stant police pres­ence on land and sea with some of the police boats being quite aggres­sive the campers stayed close to the shore to avoid con­fronta­tion and arrest when nec­es­sary, there was also a group of intel­li­gence gath­er­ing mod on land. Luck­i­ly there was no arrests made and the sub­ma­rine was unable to leave Coul­port for the rest of the night.