Author: earthfirst

Disabled activists occupy Birmingham City Council office: photos and video

Yes­ter­day (Mon­day March 30th) the Dis­abled Peo­ple’s Direct Action Net­work (DAN) occu­pied the main entrance of Louisa Ryland House (Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil’s main hous­ing an

Birmingham council DAN protest 1Birmingham council DAN protest 2DAN 'Free our People' bannerYes­ter­day (Mon­day March 30th) the Dis­abled Peo­ple’s Direct Action Net­work (DAN) occu­pied the main entrance of Louisa Ryland House (Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil’s main hous­ing and social ser­vices office) over the way that dis­abled peo­ple are treat­ed by the coun­cil.

Around 20 activists, who had come from as far afield as Lon­don, Leeds and Man­ches­ter, marched from the city cen­tre (paus­ing only for a pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty out­side the Coun­cil House) at 1pm, chant­i­ng slo­gans such as “What do we want? Free­dom! When do we want it? Now!” and “I’d rather go to jail than die in a nurs­ing home”. Despite the fact that an arti­cle about the action had already appeared in that morn­ing’s Birm­ing­ham Mail, Louisa Ryland House were total­ly unpre­pared for the inva­sion, with not even secu­ri­ty guards ini­tial­ly present when DAN entered, chant­i­ng “Busi­ness as usu­al — ain’t gonna hap­pen!”

We occu­pied the lob­by and block­ad­ed the entrance with 2 wheel­chairs chained togeth­er (with ban­ners and peo­ple hand­ing out leaflets to both coun­cil work­ers and passers-by out­side in the street) for about 2 hours before any police turned up — ini­tial­ly it was a pair of “Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port Offi­cers” who essen­tial­ly said they agreed with us and walked away, then about half an hour lat­er the actu­al West Mid­lands Police came, but were very clear­ly total­ly unpre­pared to arrest a group of dis­abled peo­ple, repeat­ed­ly warn­ing us that we were break­ing the law (er, we knew that) and that if we stayed we would be arrest­ed… how­ev­er, they did­n’t seem to want to get round to it…

(One offi­cer did tell us that it would be “zero tol­er­ance” if we did it again… not quite sure if that’s believ­able! Also amus­ing was the guy with a huge pair of bolt-cut­ters who BCC secu­ri­ty called in, who essen­tial­ly took one look at the small and flim­sy-look­ing yet effec­tive chain and left pro­claim­ing it not worth call­ing him out for…)

At around 4pm, after the police had told him about our protest, BCC’s Direc­tor of Health and Social Care Peter Hay actu­al­ly came out to meet us (the oth­er coun­cil­lors and exec­u­tives we addressed our demands to were appar­ent­ly still in their “impor­tant meet­ings”… pre­sum­ably decid­ing just how lit­tle of their 2009 bud­get they could get away with dol­ing out to dis­abled peo­ple), and after some nego­ti­a­tion we secured a meet­ing with him and oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of his depart­ment on Fri­day 3rd April, as a result of which we decid­ed col­lec­tive­ly to call the occu­pa­tion off and retire hap­pi­ly to a local acces­si­ble pub.

DAN’s demands in Birm­ing­ham are for acces­si­ble, afford­able hous­ing for all dis­abled peo­ple (in ordi­nary streets and com­mu­ni­ties, not in the ghet­to-like “Extra Care” hous­ing devel­op­ments that BCC is cur­rent­ly build­ing, which will give dis­abled peo­ple liv­ing in them “in-house” staff as their only option for pro­vid­ing per­son­al care needs, mak­ing them essen­tial­ly no more than nurs­ing homes under anoth­er name), Direct Pay­ments to employ per­son­al assis­tants (PAs) to be grant­ed to all dis­abled peo­ple who need per­son­al assis­tance (which it is a legal oblig­a­tion for all local author­i­ties to offer to all dis­abled peo­ple meet­ing the eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria — yet despite this num­ber being in the tens of thou­sands in Birm­ing­ham, only 482 dis­abled peo­ple in the whole city cur­rent­ly get them), and an end to the unjust “care” charg­ing poli­cies which require the poor­est dis­abled peo­ple to pay most towards their own “care”, dri­ving them even fur­ther into pover­ty.

Birm­ing­ham DAN know many dis­abled peo­ple who are lit­er­al­ly unable to leave their hous­es (if they are lucky enough to be housed at all) and liv­ing in squalor and hope­less­ness with­out the assis­tance need­ed for the most basic of dai­ly tasks (such as cook­ing, house­work, and in some cas­es even dress­ing and show­er­ing) and, even when sup­pos­ed­ly hav­ing “inde­pen­dent liv­ing”, lack­ing any mean­ing­ful choice and con­trol over our own lives. We demand true inde­pen­dent liv­ing (as defined accord­ing to the Social Mod­el of Dis­abil­i­ty, mean­ing not “doing every­thing for one­self” but “hav­ing con­trol over one’s own life”) and self-deter­mi­na­tion for all dis­abled peo­ple under the prin­ci­ple of “Noth­ing About Us With­out Us”!

The Birm­ing­ham Post and Mail (2 local papers owned by the same com­pa­ny) both cov­ered us, with slight­ly dif­fer­ent pho­tos and sto­ries, but the lat­ter print­ed the ludi­crous claim on behalf of Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil that “We’ve always main­tained we are hap­py to meet with DAN rep­re­sen­ta­tives and dis­cuss their con­cerns.” — well, if that was the case, we would­n’t have had to take direct action, would we?

BCC also exposed just how far they are from real­i­ty by open­ly admit­ting to the press that “the aver­age wait­ing time for pri­or­i­ty [hous­ing] adap­ta­tions is 58 weeks” (yes, over a YEAR), as if that was some­thing to be proud of… what plan­et are they on?

It remains to be seen what, if any­thing, will come of the meet­ing between DAN and Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil on Fri­day, but we will assure them in no uncer­tain terms that if they con­tin­ue to fail to meet their legal oblig­a­tions to acces­si­bly house and grant Direct Pay­ments to dis­abled peo­ple, we will be back!

These issues are not just present in Birm­ing­ham but nation­wide. After a rel­a­tive absence for the last few years, DAN is ris­ing up again to high­light and bring to an end these injus­tices. “When we are under attack — dis­abled peo­ple fight back!” Coun­cils, char­i­ties and any oth­er organ­i­sa­tions which oppress dis­abled peo­ple around the coun­try — watch out for forth­com­ing DAN actions near you…

Anoth­er DAN activist’s report with more pho­tos here: http://clairlewis.livejournal.com/4495.html
Activist Youtube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMERfR4tmps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPXAPiVMztc
Main­stream media Youtube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EslOKMwz0vg
Sto­ry in the Birm­ing­ham Mail here: http://www.birminghammail.net/news/birmingham-news/2009/03/31/wheelchair-blockade-at-birmingham-social-services-97319–23272364/

danmail-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

JNC open new squat. Gardeners required.

At 0900 hrs on Tues­day 31 March, mem­bers of ‘Jus­tice Not Cri­sis’ occu­pied the Beech­court Hotel, 201 Bris­tol Road, Edg­bas­ton, Birm­ing­ham, B5 7UB.

At 0900 hrs on Tues­day 31 March, mem­bers of ‘Jus­tice Not Cri­sis’ occu­pied the Beech­court Hotel, 201 Bris­tol Road, Edg­bas­ton, Birm­ing­ham, B5 7UB.

The 21 bed­room hotel has had a check­ered past over the years. It has been emp­ty for sev­er­al months hav­ing had its licensed removed by Birm­ing­ham City Coun­cil. Reg­u­lar police atten­dances to fights, alle­ga­tions of being used for immoral pur­pos­es, mas­sive debts and nui­sance to local res­i­dents all played a part in the hotel being aban­doned.

Local resident’s tell of noise nui­sance, burn­ing of car tyres and plas­tic, dump­ing of rub­bish and the ille­gal cut­ting down of trees as just some of the com­plaints.

The hotel with a vast area of land at the rear com­pris­ing of a lake com­plete with ducks, geese and fish has been run down over a long peri­od of time. The 21 bed­rooms once home for Birmingham’s home­less now con­sists of emp­ty rooms, a dam­aged and crum­bling build­ing, and rub­bish strewn gar­dens to the rear.

JNC intend to car­ry out a clean up oper­a­tion put the grounds to more sym­pa­thet­ic use and home peo­ple off the streets of Birm­ing­ham in a clean safe wel­com­ing envi­ron­ment.

The own­er has been con­tact­ed and nego­ti­a­tions are on going to ensure the prop­er­ty is put to a prop­er use.

Local res­i­dents will be noti­fied of the occu­pa­tion and ensured that our inten­tions are in the best inter­ests of the local com­mu­ni­ty and the build­ing and grounds.

Any­one wish­ing to pop in with ideas or sug­ges­tions is more than wel­come. We are in need of any­one able and will­ing to assist with the clean up of the gar­dens and entrance at the rear which are an eye­sore to local res­i­dents.

http://www.justicenotcrisis.com

Activists occupy Hazelwood power station in Earth Hour direct action

“Switch off Coal and Switch on Renew­ables” was the very clear mes­sage being sent to State and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments this Earth Hour by com­mu­ni­ty cli­mate activists who occu­pied Hazel­wood Pow­er Sta­tion in Vic­to­ri­a’s Latrobe Val­ley on Sat­ur­day March 28.

Switch off Coal at Hazlewood protest

“Switch off Coal and Switch on Renew­ables” was the very clear mes­sage being sent to State and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments this Earth Hour by com­mu­ni­ty cli­mate activists who occu­pied Hazel­wood Pow­er Sta­tion in Vic­to­ri­a’s Latrobe Val­ley on Sat­ur­day March 28.

View the video — http://www.engagemedia.org/Members/bento/videos/Hazelwood.m4v/view
Switch Off Hazel­wood Blog — http://switchoffcoal.wordpress.com/

Louise Mor­ris, one of the Hazel­wood pro­test­ers from Friends of the Earth, said every hour should be Earth Hour, accord­ing to an ABC Report. 3 activists locked on to equip­ment ear­ly Sat­ur­day morn­ing with 30 more present protest­ing for the shut­down of one of the most pol­lut­ing coal pow­er sta­tions in the world and call­ing for a rapid tran­si­tion to renew­able ener­gy tech­nolo­gies.

“If we’re seri­ous about cli­mate change, we actu­al­ly need to be switch­ing off coal and switch­ing on renew­ables rather than just switch­ing off our lights for one hour once a year,” she said.

On the Switch Off Hazel­wood Blog Louise Mor­ris said:

“Hazelwood’s car­bon pol­lu­tion emis­sions, at 17 mil­lion tonnes annu­al­ly, are equiv­a­lent to about 5% of Australia’s annu­al green­house gas emis­sions – the same amount as Kevin Rudd’s emis­sion reduc­tion tar­get for 2020. “

“By shut­ting down Hazel­wood this year, we could achieve this 5% tar­get imme­di­ate­ly, and then adopt prop­er emis­sion reduc­tion tar­gets as the cli­mate sci­ence demands. It’s time to get down to the real busi­ness of tran­si­tion­ing Aus­tralia away from pol­lut­ing fos­sil fuels and switch­ing onto renew­able ener­gy,” said Ms Mor­ris.

“Gov­ern­ments are hap­py to pro­vide token sup­port for cli­mate change by switch­ing off their lights for an hour, once a year, but if they are seri­ous on cli­mate change it’s clear Hazel­wood needs to be decom­mis­sioned this year.”

“This Earth Hour we need to acknowl­edge it is time to do so much more than just switch off our lights for an hour. We need to switch off our reliance on dirty coal and switch onto job rich renew­able ener­gy sources.”

Warwickshire Cricket Club attempt illegal eviction at squat.

War­wick­shire Coun­ty Crick­et Ground staff and con­trac­tors forced entry into 312 Per­shore Road, Edg­bas­ton Birm­ing­ham ignor­ing Pub­lic Order Act Laws and squat­ters rights.

At the first court evic­tion hear­ing with WCCC, Jus­tice Not Cri­sis did not defend the action against 3 of the 4 prop­er­ties held by them. The Judge ordered forth­with pos­ses­sion on those prop­er­ties.

War­wick­shire Coun­ty Crick­et Ground staff and con­trac­tors forced entry into 312 Per­shore Road, Edg­bas­ton Birm­ing­ham ignor­ing Pub­lic Order Act Laws and squat­ters rights.

At the first court evic­tion hear­ing with WCCC, Jus­tice Not Cri­sis did not defend the action against 3 of the 4 prop­er­ties held by them. The Judge ordered forth­with pos­ses­sion on those prop­er­ties.

The next stage in the evic­tion process is to apply for a war­rant and return with Bailiffs who are then empow­ered to take pos­ses­sion of the prop­er­ty and remove occu­pants.

WCCC obvi­ous­ly think they are beyond the law as the arrived at the prop­er­ties and smashed down the door to 312 Per­shore Road which was occu­pied at the time. JNC called the Police who informed WCCC staff that they were act­ing ille­gal­ly. The staff then left and the build­ing was re-secured by our mem­bers.

We have pho­tographed and video record­ed the inci­dent links are avail­able on our web­site.

At a hear­ing before Dis­trict Judge Ingram at Birm­ing­ham Coun­ty Court,on 25th March 2009, War­wick­shire Coun­ty Crick­et Club where grant­ed a forth­with pos­ses­sion order for 318 Per­shore Road.

JNC defend­ed the action stat­ing that they had a ten­an­cy grant­ed to them from an Agent of the Crick­et Club.

JNC are con­sid­er­ing their options on an appeal to the Euro­pean Court of human rights on the right of every per­son to a home. The Judge com­ment­ed ” Every per­son who wants a home should have a right to one”

JNC will resist the evic­tion order when Bailiffs arrive, as we report­ed yes­ter­day WCCC don’t nor­mal­ly both­er with the next legal stage choos­ing to send con­trac­tors to attempt an ille­gal evic­tion instead.

http://www.justicenotcrisis.com

e‑mail: justice.not.crisis@googlemail.com

ELF Mexico Torch Earth Destroying Machines, Yet Again

“Today [March 23rd] the Guadala­jara, Jalis­co sky was illu­mi­nat­ed by the abo­li­tion­ist fire of the Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra (FLT/ELF) when we decid­ed to break the social order imposed by the tech­no-indus­tri­al civ­i­liza­tion; on the night of March 22 a machine that destroys the earth was reduced to ash­es and a big stone broke the win­dow of a bank.

ELF Mexico Torch Earth Destroying MachinesELF Mexico Torch Earth Destroying Machines“Today [March 23rd] the Guadala­jara, Jalis­co sky was illu­mi­nat­ed by the abo­li­tion­ist fire of the Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra (FLT/ELF) when we decid­ed to break the social order imposed by the tech­no-indus­tri­al civ­i­liza­tion; on the night of March 22 a machine that destroys the earth was reduced to ash­es and a big stone broke the win­dow of a bank.

Maybe we have not col­lapsed the sys­tem of dom­i­na­tion with these actions, but it begins with actions like these.

From prac­tice comes suc­cess.

Guadala­jara Méx­i­co ELF”

anony­mous report trans­lat­ed by http://directaction.info

5 Arrested as Work stopped on Muir Dean open cast coal site in Fife

26. March 2009
Yes­ter­day at 2pm five pro­test­ers stopped work at the Muir Dean open-cast coal mine near Cross­gates in Fife, oper­at­ed by ATH Resources. They climbed onto a huge exca­va­tor in the cen­tre of the pit, dis­play­ing a ban­ner demand­ing “No New Coal”.

No New Coal!No CoalNo Coal26. March 2009
Yes­ter­day at 2pm five pro­test­ers stopped work at the Muir Dean open-cast coal mine near Cross­gates in Fife, oper­at­ed by ATH Resources. They climbed onto a huge exca­va­tor in the cen­tre of the pit, dis­play­ing a ban­ner demand­ing “No New Coal”.

Unex­pect­ed­ly, Fife police arrest­ed all five pro­test­ers after detain­ing them ear­li­er, despite them agree­ing to come down off the exca­va­tor, and even though work­ers at the site were hap­py for them to just leave. They were held at Dun­fermline police sta­tion and have now been released on bail.

One activist said “We’re here to send a mes­sage to ATH Resources that min­ing the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel and fuelling cli­mate change is not accept­able. As min­ing com­pa­nies such as ATH don’t appear to be lis­ten­ing, we’ve come to stop them min­ing, too.”

Con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ed the Muir Dean site as the orig­i­nal plan­ning appli­ca­tion was refused by Fife coun­cil and unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed against by the coun­cil plan­ning com­mit­tee fol­low­ing hun­dreds of objec­tions from local res­i­dents [1]. The deci­sion by the local coun­cil to refuse the appli­ca­tion was over­turned by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment spark­ing anger in Cross­gates. Work at Muir Dean start­ed in April 2008, being one of the “new coal” sites open­ing across Scot­land and the UK.

The pro­test­ers are act­ing to oppose the thir­teen new open cast coal mines due to open in Scot­land as well as exist­ing mines that sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact upon the qual­i­ty of life of local com­mu­ni­ties. Scotland’s CO2 emis­sions are increas­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly because of the burn­ing of coal, and with the cur­rent push for new coal it will be impos­si­ble for Scot­land to meet its 80% reduc­tion in CO2 emis­sions by 2050.

Anoth­er activist stat­ed “The time to take action to pre­vent run­away cli­mate change is now. Peo­ple need to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their sur­round­ings as well as the wider world. The com­pa­nies caus­ing cli­mate destruc­tion must be stopped”.

The ATH Resources oper­at­ed site pro­duces around 450,000 tonnes of coal per year and will pro­duce 4 mil­lion tonnes in total – equiv­a­lent to around 7.32 mil­lion tonnes [2] of CO2 being released into the atmos­phere.

The pro­test­ers apol­o­gize to any work­ers affect­ed by today’s demon­stra­tion, but in rec­og­niz­ing the des­per­ate need to stop burn­ing coal see no oth­er choice but to tar­get the com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for min­ing it.

[1] http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/news/display.var.1813977.0.ath_given_permission_to_begin_muir_dean_operations.php

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal – Rel­a­tive car­bon cost: every kilo­gram of coal once trapped in CO2 weighs approx­i­mate­ly 1.83Kg.

—-

The 5 detained pro­test­ers were arrest­ed for a “Breach of the Peace” and held over-night.

All accused are out with tri­al dates in August.

Fight Speciesism! #8 — Out Now

Spring 2009 issue of the lat­est anti-speciesist, anti-cap­i­tal­ist, abo­li­tion­ist direct action news is out now.

Arti­cles: SHAC 7 sol­i­dar­i­ty, oper­a­tion sink­ing ship, hunt sab­bing, mink released, ‘fash­ion’ shop closed, lib­er­a­tionists arrest­ed, max mara cam­paign, inter­na­tion­al actions, pris­on­er let­ters, police under attack, alf vs wagenin­gen uni, pris­on­er sup­port, mon­keys fight back, netcu, bull­ring riots, aeta 4, earth lib­er­a­tion, mex­i­can actions, whale wars, riot­ing in lon­don and edo smashed.

Fight Speciesism! #8 - Out Now Spring 2009 issue of the lat­est anti-speciesist, anti-cap­i­tal­ist, abo­li­tion­ist direct action news is out now.

Arti­cles: SHAC 7 sol­i­dar­i­ty, oper­a­tion sink­ing ship, hunt sab­bing, mink released, ‘fash­ion’ shop closed, lib­er­a­tionists arrest­ed, max mara cam­paign, inter­na­tion­al actions, pris­on­er let­ters, police under attack, alf vs wagenin­gen uni, pris­on­er sup­port, mon­keys fight back, netcu, bull­ring riots, aeta 4, earth lib­er­a­tion, mex­i­can actions, whale wars, riot­ing in lon­don and edo smashed.

FS! #8 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2009/03//424982.pdf

PRINT / SHARE / DISTRIBUTE

Anti­speciesist Action is a col­lec­tive of mil­i­tant anti­speciesists and ani­mal lib­er­a­tionists com­mit­ted to con­fronting ani­mal abuse, suf­fer­ing and exploita­tion of non-human beings through the use of direct action.

G20 critical mass & link to action maps, meeting points, and resources

A voy­age of explo­ration into the world of Car­bon Trad­ing, what it is and who’s mak­ing a killing out of trad­ing in hot air.

Wed April 1st 9:00 AM Meet at Bank Junc­tion (Bank tube sta­tion) EC2

You’d be a fool to miss it! Want more? Get involved with: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

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G20 Critical Mass flierA voy­age of explo­ration into the world of Car­bon Trad­ing, what it is and who’s mak­ing a killing out of trad­ing in hot air.

Wed April 1st 9:00 AM Meet at Bank Junc­tion (Bank tube sta­tion) EC2

You’d be a fool to miss it! Want more? Get involved with: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

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For oth­er G20 plans, actions & info, fol­low the links under G20 1–2 April 2009 in the updat­ed upcom­ing Action dates & gath­er­ings

Callout for organising! Scottish Camp for Climate Action

Build­ing a more sus­tain­able future in four easy steps:
1. Get out your diary and find a pen
2. Open it at the pages for the 4–16 June and 3–10 August
3. Write in very large, bold let­ter­ing: CLIMATE CAMP SCOTLAND across these dates

Camp for Climate Action Scotland bannerBuild­ing a more sus­tain­able future in four easy steps:
1. Get out your diary and find a pen
2. Open it at the pages for the 4–16 June and 3–10 August
3. Write in very large, bold let­ter­ing: CLIMATE CAMP SCOTLAND across these dates
4. Get involved in this excit­ing move­ment for social change and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice!

What’s the Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action?

Some time between 3–10 August, activists, cam­paign­ers and com­mu­ni­ties from all over Scot­land will set up camp! We will be liv­ing sus­tain­ably and equal­ly, and tak­ing awe-inspir­ing col­lec­tive direct action to hold greedy cli­mate crim­i­nals to account.

In a time of epoch-mak­ing eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal change, we’re going to be mak­ing direct changes for the bet­ter. We’ll be tak­ing con­trol of our lives, of our soci­ety, and stand­ing up for what we believe in. We’ll refuse to believe the greedy pol­luters and financiers, when they say it’s just not the right time to clean up their act. We’ll clean it up for them!

The Camp (whether urban or rur­al) will be a liv­ing exam­ple of col­lec­tive, imag­i­na­tive low-impact liv­ing, full of prac­ti­cal solu­tions. Its not just about plas­tic bags and light bulbs any more, these things iso­late us and dis­tract us from the real prob­lems. Instead, we will work togeth­er to build strong, sus­tain­able and pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ties.

Whilst we haven’t decid­ed where the camp will be yet, there’s no short­age of options. Whole swathes of air­ports, coal pow­er sta­tions, open cast mines and agro­fu­el instal­la­tions and motor­ways are planned for Scot­land. We also have the lux­u­ry of host­ing the head­quar­ters of inter­na­tion­al banks like RBS and HBOS, whose greed got us into this eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal mess.

What’s hap­pen­ing in the run-up to the camp?

Some time between June 4–16 there will be a Cli­mate Camp Con­ver­gence, with infor­ma­tive and prac­ti­cal work­shops and dis­cus­sions, oppor­tu­ni­ties for build­ing links between cam­paigns, and the chance for us to col­lec­tive­ly plan the future of cli­mate activism across Scot­land. By the time the August Camp rolls around we’ll be a force to be reck­oned with.

How do I get involved now?

Mak­ing this hap­pen needs loads of ideas, ener­gy and input. In short, it needs you. And all your mates!

Come to an organ­is­ing meet­ing!

We organ­ise hor­i­zon­tal­ly, with­out lead­ers, and every­one has input into deci­sions. At the moment, most of the organ­is­ing is being done in Edin­burgh. We want this to change! We plan for local organ­is­ing meet­ings to feed into reg­u­lar Scot­land-wide Gath­er­ings.

Next meet­ing: Edin­burgh, Tues­day 24th March, 7pm
at the Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh (ACE) www.autonomous.org.uk

The fol­low­ing meet­ing will be on April 7th , 7pm, ACE in Edin­burgh.

On the agen­da, Tues­day 24th:

1.What focus each of the sum­mer con­ver­gences will have: direct action, edu­ca­tion, move­ment build­ing etc, And what some of the spe­cif­ic con­tent will be.
2. What the exact dates of each con­ver­gence will be.

Start organ­is­ing in your area!

- Get organ­is­ing with peo­ple in your area and see how much time, ener­gy and resources you can bring to a Cli­mate Camp in Scot­land. To be effec­tive, Cli­mate Camp Scot­land needs to have strong, decen­tralised groups doing the plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion.

- Please get in touch if you want to help organ­ise Cli­mate Camp Scot­land! so we can work togeth­er to find meet­ing times and loca­tions that as many peo­ple can get to from around the coun­try.

- Host the Cli­mate Camp Scot­land Info Tour in your area, to find out what’s hap­pen­ing this sum­mer, what has to be decid­ed and pre­pared, and how you can get involved.

- Email: climatecampscotland@riseup.net to request the Info Tour and with any ques­tions how­ev­er big or small!

Philippines: Thousands protesting open pit gold mine

March 23, 2009

Thou­sands of local vil­lagers in the Mas­bate province of the Philip­pines, are in their sec­ond week of protest­ing the “unwel­come and unsafe” pres­ence of the Filmin­era Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (FMC).

MasbateMarch 23, 2009

Thou­sands of local vil­lagers in the Mas­bate province of the Philip­pines, are in their sec­ond week of protest­ing the “unwel­come and unsafe” pres­ence of the Filmin­era Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (FMC).

Work­ing in part­ner­ship with Aus­trali­a/­Cana­da-based com­pa­ny, Cen­tral Gold Asia (CGA), Filminera’s open pit gold mine in Aro­roy was sched­uled to be ful­ly oper­a­tional on March 20th, but a mas­sive show of local oppo­si­tion halt­ed the com­pa­ny from mov­ing ahead.

On March 14, as many as 4,000 vil­lagers from Aro­roy bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves in front of the mine site.

A bat­tal­ion of sol­diers was flown in to pro­tect the mine site soon after the protest began, reports the CBCP. A sec­ond report from the CBCP explains that, as of March 18, there were “about 50 armed men belong­ing to Alpha Com­pa­ny 22nd CAFGU Bat­tal­ion who are roam­ing around the min­ing site, while three boats of the 9th Infantry Bat­tal­ion of the Philip­pine Army are anchored at the municipality’s shores and most of its men are con­duct­ing check points and search­es.”

For­tu­nate­ly the mil­i­tary hasn’t tak­en any action yet, but they could make a move at any moment.

Mean­while, the com­pa­ny has declared a “five-day work hol­i­day” at the mine, and giv­en away free ban­quets, bin­go socials “and all sorts of sports” to try and hol­low-out the pro­test­ers’ legit­i­mate demands.

The vil­lagers are ask­ing the gov­ern­ment to revoke Filminera’s min­ing per­mit, and to repeal the Min­ing Act of 1995 “which favors for­eign com­pa­nies” over envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, human rights, and indige­nous peo­ples rights.

A num­ber of pri­ma­ry con­cerns are fuel­ing the demands, as the dio­cese of Mas­bate Social Action Foun­da­tion Inc. (DIMASAFI) explains in a recent state­ment:

Cen­tral Gold Asia, at the begin­ning of its activ­i­ty has paint­ed a rosy pic­ture before the eight (8) impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties with promis­es of employ­ment and social devel­op­ment. After years of explo­ration, it began to show its ugly face:

  • An open pit min­ing with wide tracks of land being scraped while moun­tains and hills are being flat­tened, leav­ing the com­mu­ni­ties agape at the unex­pect­ed sight;
  • farm­ers being dis­placed with mea­gre mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion and relo­cat­ed in near­by cat­tle graz­ing land with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of farm­ing activ­i­ties;
  • the small scale min­ers with thou­sands of depen­dents being dri­ven out of their place of work result­ing in their scam­per­ing every­where to dig for their sur­vival;
  • rivers being closed with embank­ment for the con­struc­tion of the tail­ings pond, and some rivers rerout­ed, with the con­se­quent dry­ing up of rice fields and fish ponds and water source of a near­by com­mu­ni­ty;
  • age-old trees being bull­dozed with plants and crops to the dis­ap­point­ment of farm­ers who have tilled the land for many years;
  • the source of drink­ing water that serves the near­by com­mu­ni­ty being cut off;
  • the port of Bar­rera, a long time source of liveli­hood of the peo­ple resid­ing along the coast­lines, now being made the catch basin of the mine tox­ic wastes in case of over­flow and the pos­si­ble con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the 21,000 hectares of 68 fish­pond own­ers in 9 barangays.

The sit­u­a­tion for local com­mu­ni­ties will con­tin­ue to dete­ri­o­rate if the mine becomes ful­ly oper­a­tional.

How­ev­er, if sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty is an indi­ca­tion, it’s that the mine will nev­er see the full light of day.

As of March 23, the protest is attend­ed by at least 7,000 vil­lagers, fish­er­folk, and oth­er con­cerned cit­i­zens. Sev­er­al NGO’s and Ecu­meni­cal groups, includ­ing the Catholic Church, have also expressed their sup­port for the vil­lagers.

It appears that the local gov­ern­ment sup­ports them aswell. Aroroy’s Sang­gu­ni­ang Pan­lalaw­igan (leg­is­la­ture) “has slammed them for lack­ing even the basic require­ment of an Envi­ron­ment Com­pli­ance Cer­tifi­cate,” notes a press release from Alyansa Tig­il Mina, a coali­tion of NGO’s opposed to large scale min­ing. “It was also recent­ly revealed that FMC lacks a Mayor’s per­mit and a busi­ness per­mit.”

Contacts

  • Rodne R. Galicha (ATM Sites of Strug­gles Offi­cer): 09087421905
  • Mar­cial Velasco/Danilo Cor­puz (ACRA Mem­bers of the Board): 09209190274
  • E‑mail: kalikasan101@gmail.com Web­site: www.alyansatigilmina.net