Author: earthfirst

Indigenous Resistance To Silly Dam Project In Brazil

18/11/2008
Peo­ple Pow­er Fucks Up Con­struc­tion

Juruena Dam construction site trashed 1Juruena Dam construction site trashed 218/11/2008
Peo­ple Pow­er Fucks Up Con­struc­tion

One hun­dred and twen­ty mem­bers of the Enawene Nawe tribe trashed a con­struc­tion site of a hydro elec­tric dam on the Juru­e­na riv­er in west­ern Brazil on 11th of last month. Trucks, offices, hous­ing for work­ers were all destroyed and or torched in a $1 mil­lion sur­vival spree.

“They came armed with axes and pieces of wood, ban­ished the employ­ees and lat­er set fire to every­thing” said Fred­eri­co Muller, a coor­di­na­tor work­ing at the site. At least 12 trucks were destroyed, along with a num­ber of offices and hous­ing units.

Sur­vival because the tribes all over the Ama­zon basin rely on the rivers for fish­ing, one of the eas­i­est, most reli­able ways to get food. There are 77 such dams planned for the area but the destruc­tion is very wide­ly spread: one Brazil­ian super dam project – the Belo Monte – will dis­place 16,000 peo­ple.

Some back­ground to this cri­sis: Brazil’s spi­ralling ener­gy needs are the result of the den­tal­ly inim­itable pro indus­try fuck­wit Lula de Sil­va’s (or should that be the IMF etc’s) poli­cies of growth at any cost. Demand has out­stripped sup­ply in recent years and a long drought in 2001 brought mat­ters to a head. With no water even the best dams can pro­duce no pow­er so rationing was com­menced – down to one fifth of nor­mal sup­ply. The deci­sion was made at this time to increase Brazil’s hydro capac­i­ty by 75% and thus we have the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of mass forced dis­place­ment of indige­nous peo­ples.

But the dams are not even a sure thing either eco­nom­i­cal­ly or prac­ti­cal­ly (except­ing the con­struc­tion com­pa­nies, financiers, bribees etc.). Pre­dic­tions of low water for 3 – 5 months of the year make the projects look ridicu­lous. How­ev­er if you include geno­cide as a wel­come part of your busi­ness mod­el then the fig­ures are any­thing but. As one fucked up white ele­phant dam is com­plet­ed it requires more upstream stor­age capac­i­ty to be built and hence more dis­place­ment. This is the real­i­ty of ‘eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment’ in Brazil.

Mass Tribal Uprising in West Bengal

Novem­ber 18, 2008

What we are wit­ness­ing in the trib­al belt of West Ben­gal is [an] his­tor­i­cal moment. A long oppressed peo­ple have risen up and are dar­ing to con­front their oppres­sors and ques­tion the log­ic of “devel­op­ment” that destroys their lives and liveli­hoods.”

Novem­ber 18, 2008

What we are wit­ness­ing in the trib­al belt of West Ben­gal is [an] his­tor­i­cal moment. A long oppressed peo­ple have risen up and are dar­ing to con­front their oppres­sors and ques­tion the log­ic of “devel­op­ment” that destroys their lives and liveli­hoods.”

In what start­ed out as a protest against police bru­tal­i­ty, on Novem­ber 7 more than ten thou­sand San­thal men and women con­verged in the Indi­an state of West Ben­gal to demand the end to state oppres­sion and the con­stant dis­pos­ses­sion of their lands.

It is an his­toric moment for the trib­al peo­ples in the region — and one so unprece­dent­ed that author­i­ties are not even sure what to do about it.

“Even the polit­i­cal par­ties and civ­il soci­ety are at a loss try­ing to come to terms with what is hap­pen­ing,” says Partho Sarathi Ray, in Sanhati.com. “Noth­ing like this has been wit­nessed in West Ben­gal in liv­ing mem­o­ry.”

The upris­ing report­ed­ly began fol­low­ing a land mine explo­sion on Novem­ber 2, which tar­get­ed the state’s chief min­is­ter as well as the union steel and mines min­is­ter.

The two men were return­ing from the inau­gu­ra­tion of the Jin­dal Steel Works (JSW) spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone (SEZ) in West Mid­na­pore dis­trict. Approx­i­mate­ly 5000 acres of land had been acquired for JSW, the vast major­i­ty of which was sup­posed to be dis­trib­uted amongst the land­less Adi­va­sis (indige­nous peo­ple) in the region. The gov­ern­ment hand­ed it over to the com­pa­ny instead.

The explo­sion was prompt­ly blamed on the Maoist guer­ril­las — how­ev­er, in what has become a com­mon prac­tice in West Ben­gal, the police turned all of their atten­tion to the local indige­nous pop­u­la­tion for being “com­plic­it” in the attack.

Over the next few days, the police set out on a cam­paign to assault, harass and ran­dom­ly arrest any trib­al per­son they want­ed.

But it just wasn’t enough for the police, who hadn’t the slight­est clue who was behind the explo­sion. So, on Novem­ber 6 the police “… led by the offi­cer in charge of Lal­garh police sta­tion… unleashed a reign of ter­ror in 35 vil­lages encom­pass­ing the entire trib­al belt of Lal­garh,” explains Ray. “In raids through­out the night of Novem­ber 6th, women were bru­tal­ly kicked and beat­en up with lath­is and butts of guns. Among the injured, Chi­ta­mani Mur­mu, one of whose eyes was hit by a gun butt, and Pana­mani Hans­da, who was kicked on her chest and suf­fered mul­ti­ple frac­tures, had to [be] hos­pi­tal­ized. Chitamani’s lost her eye because of the injury. Eight oth­er women were bad­ly wound­ed. These police bru­tal­i­ties soon reached a point where the adi­va­sis had no oth­er option but to rise up in revolt,” Ray con­tin­ues.

The next day, “what began as rum­blings of protest took the shape of a spon­ta­neous mass upris­ing [of] ten thou­sand San­thal men and women, armed with tra­di­tion­al weapons, [who] came out and obstruct­ed the roads lead­ing to Lal­garh, dis­con­nect­ing it from Mid­na­pur and Banku­ra. Roads were dug up and tree trunks were placed on the road to obstruct the entry of police vehi­cles, in the same way as it had been done in Nandi­gram.”

Dur­ing the night, “peo­ple also dis­con­nect­ed tele­phone and elec­tric­i­ty lines, vir­tu­al­ly con­vert­ing a vast area into a lib­er­at­ed zone. The apex social orga­ni­za­tion of the San­thals, the Bharat Jakat Majhi Mad­wa Juan Gaon­ta took up the lead­er­ship of the strug­gle, although the leader of the orga­ni­za­tion, the “Disham Majhi” Nityanan­da Hem­bram has him­self admit­ted that the orga­ni­za­tion has no con­trol over the move­ment; rather the move­ment is con­trol­ling the orga­ni­za­tion.”

As for the gov­ern­ment, which has “not dared to respond with overt vio­lence yet”, is help­less in the face of this upsurge. They’ve been try­ing to nego­ti­ate, but the effort has so far been fruit­less due to the demo­c­ra­t­ic and decen­tral­ized nature of the upris­ing. They sim­ply can’t exert any influ­ence over the indige­nous peo­ple.

They way things look right now, the gov­ern­ment may have no choice but to con­cede.

Reports on Sanhati

Mainstream Reports

2 weeks of Rooftop Occupation. Public Meeting Called with P4P

ROOFTOP OCCUPIERS CALL FOR PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF 87 ASHLEY ROAD, ST PAUL’S, BRISTOL

10.00am today (Wednes­day) marked 2 weeks of the rooftop occu­pa­tion — WE’RE STILL HERE!

Ashley Road bannerROOFTOP OCCUPIERS CALL FOR PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF 87 ASHLEY ROAD, ST PAUL’S, BRISTOL

10.00am today (Wednes­day) marked 2 weeks of the rooftop occu­pa­tion — WE’RE STILL HERE!

On Thurs­day 27th of Novem­ber an open pub­lic meet­ing is being held in The St Pauls Learn­ing Cen­tre at 6.30pm to dis­cuss this sit­u­a­tion. Sup­port­ers of the rooftop pro­test­ers will be in atten­dance to answer ques­tions, respond to local con­cerns and open a dia­logue with PfP.

Places for Peo­ple are pub­licly invit­ed to state and open­ly dis­cuss what their inten­tions for 87 Ash­ley Road are. This will help assure every­one that they are in fact going to rehouse peo­ple on the hous­ing wait­ing list.

We hope you can attend.
For fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact:
Email: 87AshleyRoad@gmail.com
Phone:07722 786 379

Back­ground:

On Novem­ber 12th 2008 Places for Peo­ple (PfP) exe­cut­ed an evic­tion order on 87 Ash­ley Road, a squat­ted build­ing occu­pied by 20 peo­ple who have been made home­less by this action. This build­ing was unused by PfP for four years and left emp­ty until May 2008 when squat­ters work­ing to house as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble moved in.
PfP have refused all attempts to nego­ti­ate a mutu­al­ly benif­i­cal agree­ment, repeat­ed­ly sub­mit­ted incor­rect pos­ses­sion claims to Bris­tol Mag­is­trates courts and threat­ened ille­gal evic­tion. At one stage the sit­ting mag­is­trate called PfPs rep­re­sen­ta­tion “a right dog’s break­fast.”

As bailif­f’s and builders work­ing on behalf of Places for Peo­ple entered the prop­er­ty sev­er­al squat­ters moved onto the roof to resist evic­tion and have been there ever since.
As far as the courts are con­cerned the evic­tion has been served despite pro­test­ers being on the roof.

This press release is being writ­ten on the 14th day of con­tin­u­al rooftop occu­pa­tion and is being sent to com­mu­ni­ty groups and indi­vid­u­als in the St. Pauls area, and Places for Peo­ple.

Builders have board­ed up all nor­mal exit points from the roof, leav­ing the roof pro­test­ers no safe, imme­di­ate access. PfP have instruct­ed builders to ren­der the prop­er­ty unin­hab­it­able by remov­ing ALL fix­tures and fit­tings.

There are no plan­ning appli­ca­tions cur­rent­ly under con­sid­er­a­tion by Bris­tol City Coun­cil for 87 Ash­ley Road. PfP have been vague about their inten­tions for the prop­er­ty, how­ev­er they have men­tioned plans that would not ben­e­fit any­one on the hous­ing list.

The protest is part of a con­tin­u­ing con­cern over Places for Peo­ple’s treat­ment of emp­ty prop­er­ties and it’s sell­ing off of rental stock on the open mar­ket. PfP are sell­ing prop­er­ties via the “shared own­er­ship” scheme while not replac­ing rental prop­er­ties for those most in need. This will lead to an even­tu­al return to the unaf­ford­able rental mar­ket and a worse deal for low-income fam­i­lies seek­ing decent acco­mo­da­tion.

—

1 week: rooftop Occu­pa­tion of Ash­ley Road update

Update: Dai­ly sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tions will take place from 4–6pm out­side the house. All are wel­come —-
Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 15, 2008
The rooftop occu­pa­tion has now been going for 81 hours. Morale is high, sup­port has been con­stant and much appre­ci­at­ed. Thank you. There are health and safe­ty ques­tions about Places for Peo­ple bar­ri­cad­ing them up there. Any sup­port, noise or pro­vi­sions is very wel­come! Come and say hel­lo to the 87 crew, still going!

Res­i­dents and squat­ters togeth­er against cor­rupt land­lords!

Vedanta chased away by threatened Villagers in Orissa

14th Novem­ber 2008

Last week, a group of more than 500 vil­lagers set up road­blocks in Orissa’s Puri dis­trict to protest the con­struc­tion of “Dev San­skrati Vish­wavidyalaya” (Divine Cul­ture Uni­ver­si­ty) a project fund­ed by the rather-unen­light­ened com­pa­ny we know as Vedan­ta Resources.

14th Novem­ber 2008
Orissa villagers

Last week, a group of more than 500 vil­lagers set up road­blocks in Orissa’s Puri dis­trict to protest the con­struc­tion of “Dev San­skrati Vish­wavidyalaya” (Divine Cul­ture Uni­ver­si­ty) a project fund­ed by the rather-unen­light­ened com­pa­ny we know as Vedan­ta Resources.

The vil­lagers are angry that the insti­tu­tion, which will apparently”>http://intercontinentalcry.org/vedanta-chased-away-by-threatened-villagers/’);”>apparently estab­lish “a Cul­tur­al Renais­sance” in India, is sit­u­at­ed on agri­cul­tur­al land that the Oris­sa gov­ern­ment ‘acquired’ with­out the peo­ples con­sent. The gov­ern­ment then donat­ed the land to Vedan­ta for free (Wikipedia).

The com­pa­ny defends the gov­ern­ments actions by claim­ing the land isn’t fer­tile and of no real use to the vil­lagers. It’s a thor­ough­ly absurd claim, see­ing as how the vil­lagers are active in grow­ing rice, man­go, cashew, papaya, betel, pump­kin, and coconut, etc. through­out the region.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Vedan­ta claims that the land is only sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed and that only a hun­dred or so peo­ple will be dis­placed for the project. Activists say it’s more like 1,000 — on top of anoth­er 20,000 to 50,000 who will be indi­rect­ly effect­ed.

What­ev­er the actu­al num­ber is, no vil­lager has giv­en their con­sent to be dis­placed. That was made clear dur­ing last week’s protest, which took place at the ground-break­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the insti­tu­tion. The pro­test­ers rushed it, some of them car­ry­ing lath­is, and forced the offi­cials to with­draw by police escort. There were no injuries report­ed.

Fol­low­ing the protest a com­pa­ny offi­cial stat­ed that, “in view of the vio­lent sit­u­a­tion… we have stopped the work of the uni­ver­si­ty and intend to resume the con­struc­tion work soon.”

It would seem the offi­cial also tried to demean the vil­lagers’ strug­gle, by claim­ing it’s lit­tle more than a few peo­ple “cre­at­ing dis­tur­bances.”

An insult to say the least, the official’s state­ment is also a far stretch from what the pro­test­ers were told. Accord­ing to Uma­ballav Rath, leader of the Vedan­ta Vish­wavidyalaya Virod­hi Sami­ti, the orga­ni­za­tion head­ing the move­ment against the project, “offi­cials of the Vedan­ta Group have assured us in the pres­ence of the dis­trict admin­is­tra­tion that they are not going to start work on the project with­out our con­sent.”

In light of recent his­to­ry — name­ly, the strug­gle of the Don­gria Kondh, who are fac­ing sim­i­lar dis­place­ment (as well as the destruc­tion of their cul­ture) at the hands of Vedan­ta — the for­mer state­ment is prob­a­bly the most accu­rate.

The com­pa­ny doesn’t seem to care one way anoth­er how must destruc­tion it caus­es. Just as long as it main­tains the good face of enlight­en­ment for its share­hold­ers.

For­tu­nate­ly, the villagers—and of course the Don­gria Kondh—are not so will­ing to play make believe.

pho­to: http://nazaronline.net

KELSTERBACH FOREST OCCUPATION CAMP AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION CALLS FOR SOLIDARITY & UNRÄUMBAR FESTIVAL 28–30TH NOVEMBER

Waldbe­set­zung Kel­ster­bach (Kel­ster­bach For­est Occu­pa­tion Camp)

Big parts of the beau­ti­ful for­est of Kel­ster­bach near the air­port of Frankfurt/Main (Ger­many) are in dan­ger of being destroyed.

Kelsterbach tripodsWaldbe­set­zung Kel­ster­bach (Kel­ster­bach For­est Occu­pa­tion Camp)

Big parts of the beau­ti­ful for­est of Kel­ster­bach near the air­port of Frankfurt/Main (Ger­many) are in dan­ger of being destroyed.

It has been well known for about 10 years that Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning Frank­furt Air­port) plan to build a new run­way on this place by the end of 2011, cut­ting down every tree on 300 hectares of land (about 100,000 trees), dou­bling the air­ports flight move­ments per year to a lev­el of at least one every 45 sec­onds. About 50 ini­tia­tives and near­ly all com­mu­ni­ties around the air­port are against the expan­sion because of the expect­ed rise of fly-over noise.

Fra­port plan to fin­ish the run­way by the end of 2011 and is already tak­ing so-called “prepar­ing mea­sures” in the for­est, cut­ting brush­woods to make way for their machines to cut the trees and cap­tur­ing sev­er­al ani­mal species includ­ing frogs and bats to relo­cate.

Almost all forms of protest have not suc­ceed­ed to stop the prepa­ra­tions of the build­ing of a new run­way. Activists have occu­pied a small area of the for­est since May 2008 to stop the exten­sion plans and a tent and hut vil­lage has emerged. About 30–50 peo­ple now reg­u­lar­ly live in the for­est vil­lage and wel­come every help, may it be dona­tions, new inhab­i­tants or just peo­ple pass­ing by and show­ing their sol­i­dar­i­ty.

The may­or of Kel­ster­bach has threat­ened to evict the camp as of 30th Novem­ber 2008, claim­ing he can­not accept the huts in the for­est for legal rea­sons, although it seems unlike­ly the evic­tion will actu­al­ly be attempt­ed then or any time soon.

Unräum­bar Fes­ti­val

The Waldbe­set­zung Kel­ster­bach (Kel­ster­bach For­est Occu­pa­tion Camp) invite you to the Unräum­bar Fes­ti­val, a week­end of live music, art, danc­ing, cin­e­ma, work­shops, playshops, info meet­ings, cre­ative actions, good food, and much more, on 28–30th Novem­ber. The whole fes­ti­val will be non com­mer­cial, every­thing runs on dona­tion basis. Bring a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat. Bring musi­cal instru­ments, toys, good ener­gy and food to share.

Oth­er Ways to Sup­port the Kel­ster­bach For­est Occu­pa­tion

Spread the news about what is hap­pen­ing in Kel­ster­bach For­est. Tell peo­ple, jour­nal­ists and politi­cians.

Dona­tions are very wel­come. Use­ful things include veg­an and veg­e­tar­i­an food, build­ing mate­ri­als (a lot of con­struc­tion wood, nails), old bed­sheets (for ban­ners), writ­ing mate­ri­als, polypropy­lene rope (10 or 14 mm), bicy­cles, tools (saws and ham­mers), wood stoves and oth­er stuff for the win­ter, a cheap way to make fly­ers.
Vis­it or join Kel­ster­bach For­est Occu­pa­tion. Bring a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat, warm clothes, a flash­light. Musi­cal instru­ments and toys are nice! Dish­es, fork, knives and spoons are already here.

Direc­tions

from Kel­ster­bach cen­tre:

By train (S‑Bahn) from Frank­furt or Wies­baden to sta­tion Kel­ster­bach.
Out­side the sta­tion to the left (in the direc­tion of Wies­baden (south-west) at the right side from the track). Then with the track left from you, you fol­low Rüs­selsheimer Straße for about 1,5 km. After you’ve seen an exit-way, you’ll see a traf­fic light. There you turn in the Okriftel­er Strasse (not indi­cat­ed) in the direc­tion of Wall­dorf. You under­pass a train track, ignore the first street (right) and take the sec­ond pos­si­bil­i­ty, a park­ing bay. Walk into the for­est.

by car:
From Köln to Frank­furt A3/E35, exit Raun­heim #48, then to the north, direc­tion of Kel­ster­bach (Rüs­sel­heimer Straße / 43). Right at the traf­fic lights (not indi­cat­ed: Okriftel­er Straße, K152), under by a viaduct. Ignore the first street at the right and take the sec­ond pos­si­bil­i­ty (150 meters fur­ther), a park­ing bay (see pic­ture) and park your car there.
Behind the bar­ri­er you walk straight on, fol­low­ing the way and peace-signs. You’ll come by a lake (on your right) and find the camp a lit­tle fur­ther (after a cross­road) on your left.

Hitch­hik­ing direc­tions:
A3, from Köln direc­tion Frank­furt, exit 48 — Raun­heim, ask the dri­ver to go north direc­tion Kel­ster­bach to let you out after sev­er­al 100 meters ‑where its pos­si­ble to turn… go on till you find the first hard way (ignore the 1. earthy path) to the right… fol­low the signs of lib­er­a­tion.
or go under the train, turn left, go right under the tube, over the street and straight… along a lake after it turn right.

Con­tact

Address:
Baumbe­set­zung neben dem Pflanz­garten
Gelbe Grund­schneise
65451 Kel­ster­bach
GERMANY
Phone: (+49)0175 833 59 58 (German/English)
e‑mail: waldbesetzung@riseup.net
Web­site: http://www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de
Coor­di­nates: 50.038999, 8.504019

Heathrow Decision Day Flashmob

12 noon (on the dot), Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 5 Depar­tures (‘Secu­ri­ty North’ sec­tion)
on the first Sat­ur­day after the Gov­ern­ment makes its deci­sion on Heathrow expan­sion
(unless all forms of expan­sion are ruled out – see below).

Reveal your t‑shirt and then pelt Trans­port Sec­re­tary Geoff Hoon with red sponges.

THE STORY SO FAR …

12 noon (on the dot), Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 5 Depar­tures (‘Secu­ri­ty North’ sec­tion)
on the first Sat­ur­day after the Gov­ern­ment makes its deci­sion on Heathrow expan­sion
(unless all forms of expan­sion are ruled out – see below).

Reveal your t‑shirt and then pelt Trans­port Sec­re­tary Geoff Hoon with red sponges.

THE STORY SO FAR …

Before the end of 2008, the Gov­ern­ment will announce whether or not to give the green light to expand Heathrow, by allow­ing a third run­way and / or a big increase in planes on the exist­ing run­ways. The deci­sion is expect­ed in Decem­ber.

Either option will cause mis­ery for tens of thou­sands of local res­i­dents, and help make dev­as­tat­ing cli­mate change inevitable.

The Gov­ern­ment is under real pres­sure on the third run­way and may decide to drop it. Their way out may be to allow flight num­bers on the exist­ing run­ways to rise by near­ly 50%, to 650,000 a year!

Unless ALL the pro­pos­als are dropped the Deci­sion Day Flash Mob will go ahead. Togeth­er we can win!

www.stopairportexpansion.org
stopairportexpansion@gmail.com

Climate suffragettes storm municipal city council! Stop the motorway!

On Novem­ber 12th, 2008 at 5.15 pm. six cli­mate activists dressed in peri­od cos­tumes as suf­fragettes com­plete with big hats, marched into a munic­i­pal city coun­cil meet­ing in Gothen­burg, the sec­ond largest city of Swe­den.

Swedish suffragettes 1Swedish suffragettes 2On Novem­ber 12th, 2008 at 5.15 pm. six cli­mate activists dressed in peri­od cos­tumes as suf­fragettes com­plete with big hats, marched into a munic­i­pal city coun­cil meet­ing in Gothen­burg, the sec­ond largest city of Swe­den.

The politi­cians were debat­ing a new six-lane motor­way, called the Marieholm tun­nel, planned to be built under the riv­er that runs through the city. The six women, activists from the cli­mate net­work Kli­max, stormed in to the meet­ing blow­ing whis­tles. A ban­ner was unfold­ed with the text: “No more tun­nel vision – cli­mate smart pol­i­tics now!” The activists voiced two demands:

Stop Marieholm tun­nel, no more motor­ways.
Local pol­i­tics in accor­dance with the lat­est cli­mate sci­ence.

From the stand oth­er activists and mem­bers of the pub­lic cheered. Leaflets explain­ing the action were hand­ed out. The action com­mem­o­rat­ed the 100 years anniver­sary of the Suf­fragettes burst­ing into the British Par­lia­ment to demand women’s suf­frage.
The offi­cial cli­mate goal of Gothen­burg is to sta­bi­lize the emis­sions caused by the city to a glob­al­ly sus­tain­able and fair lev­el by 2050. Still the politi­cians (con­ser­v­a­tives, lib­er­als and social democ­rats) are cook­ing up plans for a new six-lane motor­way under the riv­er, even though they know that new roads lead to more traf­fic. To build a new motor­way is insan­i­ty. Its the abso­lut last thing we need in these times of cli­mate change!
As did the Suf­fragettes 100 years ago, we are fac­ing an urgent prob­lem of huge injus­tice. It is women all over the world who will suf­fer the worst con­se­quences of cli­mate change, even though it isn’t women who are respon­si­ble for the largest sources of emis­sions. With this action we cel­e­brate the strong women before us who fought for a bet­ter world. We have picked up the torch the suf­fragettes car­ried and we will pass it on!

green­gote­borg at yahoo.se
http://www.klimatet.org

Bath Bomb #16 out now

The Bath Bomb
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #16
free/donation
Nov 08

Because now it’s okay to love Amer­i­ca

We Won’t Pay For Their Cri­sis

The Bath Bomb
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #16
free/donation
Nov 08

Because now it’s okay to love Amer­i­ca

We Won’t Pay For Their Cri­sis

Sat­ur­day the 22nd of Novem­ber sees a new cam­paign tak­ing to the streets of Bath. Going under the slo­gans ‘Can’t pay, Won’t pay’ and ‘We won’t pay for their cri­sis!’, the cam­paign will be tak­ing the fight to the greedy politi­cians, bankers and boss­es who are behind this finan­cial cri­sis. The cam­paign will also focus on pro­tect­ing the rights of aver­age peo­ple and will cen­tre around five key demands – 1) decent coun­cil sub­si­dies on gas and elec­tric bills, 2) afford­able food and hous­ing, 3) bailiffs and repos­ses­sion men out of our com­mu­ni­ties, 4) pro­tec­tion of jobs and ben­e­fits, and 5) full con­trol over the banks that our mon­ey has bailed out. These demands, and the cam­paign itself, are time­ly. Already, in the ear­ly stages of the cri­sis, unem­ploy­ment is up 20%, gas and elec­tric bill prices are up over 40% and home repos­ses­sions are up 70% on last year’s fig­ures. Now more than ever, we need to group togeth­er to pro­tect our­selves against the cal­lous greed of the wealthy. We need to be ready to fight against bailiffs who for too many years have strode unop­posed into our homes. We need to be ready to fight against the ener­gy com­pa­nies who increase our bills, leav­ing thou­sands to freeze while con­tin­u­ing to rake in prof­its. We need to be ready to fight against the gov­ern­ment who cut our ben­e­fits and use our mon­ey to bail out their big busi­ness bud­dies and we need to be ready to fight against the boss­es, who think noth­ing of mak­ing ded­i­cat­ed work­ers redun­dant to keep their own wal­lets fat. We have not caused this cri­sis, nei­ther have we asked for it. It has been caused by greedy politi­cians, bankers and boss­es, chas­ing after the big bucks, not wor­ry­ing about who they crush to get there. Yet who is expect­ed to pay when their shit hits the fan? Us. We are expect­ed to pay with our tax­es, with our jobs and with soar­ing food, rent and gas and elec­tric­i­ty costs. Well no more! This cam­paign is not just about wav­ing plac­ards or ‘mak­ing a point’, it is about win­ning. It is about tak­ing back what is ours from the greedy and wealthy who work so hard to take it from us, and it is a cam­paign that we can win togeth­er. If we are unit­ed in a belief that ‘enough is enough’, and a deter­mi­na­tion not to let them get rich from our labour while we strug­gle to make ends meet, we can and will win this cam­paign. So, to get involved, and wrench con­trol of our lives back from the greedy bas­tards at the top, meet at 12.30pm in the Abbey court­yard on Sat­ur­day the 22nd of Novem­ber.

Nude Girls Do It Togeth­er…

…Union­iz­ing to improve their work­ing con­di­tions, that is. Screen­ing on Sun­day Novem­ber the 30th as part of the month­ly Bub­bling Under rad­i­cal cin­e­ma, from 1 til 4pm, get an eye­ful of ‘Live Nude Girls Unite’, a doc­u­men­tary about the for­ma­tion of the first union of strip­pers in the US. This rau­cous film is to be pre­sent­ed by Bris­tol Indy­media, who are sure to come back with future offer­ings. Entry is free, and the Porter veg­gie lunch is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed. Get your plac­ards out for the lads!

Mini­bar — 0 Mega­BAN — 1

In the lat­est of a long line of foie gras vic­to­ries, Mini­bar have pulled the del­i­ca­cy from their menu after just two demos. At the end of the sec­ond 14 strong-protest, mem­bers of Bath Ani­mal Action and Bath Activist Net­work reached an ami­ca­ble agree­ment with the own­er that foie gras would be removed from the restau­rant with imme­di­ate effect. After this demo, activists paid a short and sharp vis­it to an emi­nent­ly less sen­si­ble foie gras pur­vey­or, Christophe LeCroix, own­er of The Pinch in St Margaret’s build­ings. Start­ing at 9pm, the demo last­ed only 10 min­utes, dur­ing which time the let­ter­box was flood­ed with leaflets, din­ers’ con­ver­sa­tions were drowned out with a bar­rage of noise, leaflets lit­tered the out­side of the build­ing and Christophe, seen cow­er­ing at the back of the restau­rant, brave­ly sent a wait­ress to lock the doors and draw the blinds. Christophe has twice removed and replaced foie gras from his menu, and is now sell­ing again, and despite his macho image, and a his­to­ry of punch­ing and sex­u­al­ly assault­ing both male and female activists, has twice been seen beg­ging pro­test­ers to leave him alone. Well, not any­more. BAA and BAN are back out­side The Pinch until foie gras comes off the menu for good. The protests could come at any time, but for now, we will leave Christophe to pon­der the fact that Hallowe’en is not the only time of year when things go ‘smash’ in the night! All foie gras-relat­ed com­plaints to:

Christophe LeCroix

The Pinch
11 St Margaret’s Build­ings
Bath, BA1 2LP
01225 421251
info@thepinch.biz

Tofu Sal­ad­fest Ahoy!

Sat­ur­day the 22nd Novem­ber is promis­ing to be a busy day for Batho­ni­ans, as we also have the Bath Veg­an Fayre! Run­ning at the Per­cy Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on New King Street from 12 til 3.30pm, all are wel­come to come along and sam­ple the deli­cious food, and find out how those pale and sick­ly lentil-eaters can still scrape up pro­tein enough to draw breath with­out a nice slab of steak or ched­dar. As well as infor­ma­tion on veg­gie health, nutri­tion, envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits, com­pas­sion­ate liv­ing, and veg­an-cater­ing eater­ies in the city, GeneWatch will also be there to talk about genet­ic mod­i­fi­ca­tion of ani­mals in sci­en­tif­ic research, just like the franken-doc­tors do up at Bath Uni­ver­si­ty – such as poten­tial­ly high-risk tam­per­ing with the genes of insects to con­trol food sup­plies. Con­tro­ver­sial? Con­tact eatoutveganbath@yahoo.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion.

www.vegansociety.com/
www.genewatch.org/

EVENTS

Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs meet­ings, 2nd and 4th Mon­day of the month, 8pm, The Bell, Wal­cot Street

Lon­don Road Food Co-op, Wednes­days, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road

Bath Stop The War Coali­tion vig­il, Sat­ur­days, 11.30am-12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

‘Baked Alas­ka’ film screen­ing, Mon­day 17th Novem­ber, 7.30pm, upstairs at the Rum­mer, Grand Parade

‘We Won’t Pay For Their Cri­sis’ march, Sat­ur­day 22nd Novem­ber, meet­ing 12.30, Bath Abbey Court­yard

Bath Veg­an Fayre, Sat­ur­day 22nd Novem­ber, 12–3.30pm, Per­cy Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, New King Street

Green Light lec­ture: the Sev­ern Bar­rage, Tues­day 25th Novem­ber, 7.30pm, BRLSI, Queen Square

Anti-foie gras demo, Fri­day 28th Novem­ber, meet­ing 7pm, the Cir­cus

‘Open­ing the doors to auton­o­my’: a day of work­shops, activ­i­ties and art­work on urban sur­vival – cred­it crunch­ing strate­gies for get­ting through hard times; from the legal­i­ties and prac­ti­cal­i­ties of squat­ting and resist­ing repossession/eviction & gen­tri­fi­ca­tion to urban for­ag­ing, a bike work­shop, tai chi & self-defence, screen­print­ing and DIY wire­less inter­net – this will be a day of shar­ing skills and build­ing the net­works to not only sur­vive the eco­nom­ic cri­sis but to begin to col­lec­tive­ly shape what may replace it; Sat­ur­day 29th Novem­ber, 11–6pm, the Red Fac­to­ry, Cave Street, St Pauls, Bris­tol

Bub­bling Under, Sun­day 30th Novem­ber, 1–4pm, Porter Cel­lar bar, George Street

Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, Wednes­day 3rd Decem­ber, 7.30–8.30pm, back room of The Bell

Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Thurs­day 4th Decem­ber, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs Hob­gob­lin

Bath Green­peace meet­ing, Mon­day 8th Decem­ber, 7.30–9pm, Still­point, Broad Street Place

Tran­si­tion Bath Forum, Tues­day 9th Decem­ber, 7pm, Wid­combe Social Club

Bath Green Drinks, Wednes­day 10th Decem­ber, 8.30pm, the Rum­mer, Grand Parade

Bath FreeShop, Sat­ur­day 13th Decem­ber, 12–3pm, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street

Tal­ly Ho-peless

Well, it’s Novem­ber again, so that means hunt­ing season’s back on, and anoth­er 3 or 4 months of pompous red-coat­ed throw­backs and legal grey areas. Although hunt­ing was offi­cial­ly banned in Feb­ru­ary 2005, it turned out to be the one law police chose not to enforce, and a law fraught with so many loop­holes that most hunts could car­ry on just like as they like – pre­tend­ing to fol­low a trail set by a scent­ed rag rather than a fox, when they’re being watched. And so the fine tra­di­tion of hunt sab­o­tage can’t hang up its mud-crust­ed wellies, just yet. On Sat­ur­day the 1st Novem­ber, a small group from Bath, Bris­tol, Pewsey and New­port kept an eye on the Mon­mouthshire Hunt, fol­low­ing leaked info about their meet­ing point. Using cit­ronel­la spray to mask fox scent, cam­eras to mon­i­tor activ­i­ty, and a com­bi­na­tion of hunt­ing horns, voice calls and whips (crack­ing the air, not phys­i­cal­ly strik­ing) to call off or con­fuse the hounds, a crisp autumn day out in the Welsh coun­try­side was enjoyed by all, espe­cial­ly the two pur­sued fox­es that we helped escape. If you want to help save inno­cent lives and reclaim rur­al space from arro­gant thugs, then become an Anti: ring Bath Hunt Sabo­teurs on 07854 062336.

http://hsa.enviroweb.org/hsa.shtml

Green Space: Going, Going, Gone?

Res­i­dents and greens held a protest in Bath on Sat­ur­day the 8th Novem­ber out­side the Guild­hall, hop­ing to save Bathamp­ton Mead­ows from unnec­es­sary devel­op­ment. Poten­tial­ly a vic­tim of yet anoth­er B&NES Coun­cil jobsworth’s twist­ed log­ic, the idea is we can save nature by killing it; in this case, the ancient mead­ow will make way for a 1,400 space Park and Ride con­crete job to abate traf­fic con­ges­tion and pol­lu­tion in the city cen­tre. The prob­lem here is that the main cause of con­ges­tion in Bath is the flow of east to west and west to east through traf­fic, rather than that of dri­vers com­ing into the city, so the Park & Ride will be bare­ly used and what­ev­er slack is saved will just be tak­en up by sup­pressed demand. The con­sul­ta­tion ends after the 14th Novem­ber and the con­sul­ta­tion form can be down­loaded from the Save Bathamp­ton Mead­ows’ site: http://www.savebathamptonmeadows.org.uk. Why not sign up today? It can’t hurt.

Alder-Nasty Antics

One activist from BAN joined 300 oth­ers from around the UK to block­ade the Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment on Mon­day the 27th Octo­ber, part of the ongo­ing cam­paign to kick weapons of mass destruc­tion out of the UK. AWE Alder­mas­ton is the site where exper­i­ments for the next gen­er­a­tion of unpop­u­lar ‘Tri­dent’ nuclear sub­ma­rine arma­ments will be designed. A major part in this cost­ly scheme is expect­ed to be the ‘Ori­on’ laser facil­i­ty, cur­rent­ly being built. The MoD has also recent­ly applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion to car­ry out ura­ni­um enrich­ment there, too. Pro­test­ers from as far afield as Scot­land, Lon­don, Nor­folk, Ply­mouth and Yeovil took part, meet­ing to plan actions the day before. At 5.30am, activists locked on to bar­rels of con­crete and blocked the first gate, caus­ing police to prompt­ly close the road. Anoth­er group of Green­ham women (Green­ham Com­mon being a famous and long-lived peace camp, run­ning 1981–2000) took a sec­ond, while sev­er­al oth­er groups locked and super­glued them­selves to Tadley gate, the main entrance for fac­tor work­ers. The main gate itself was also held for a short time. Both the Rinky Dink ped­al-pow­ered sound sys­tem and band Seize The Day also showed up. Work at the fac­to­ry was shut down most of the morn­ing, and 33 were charged with Obstruc­tion of the High­way. As usu­al, the state refus­es to heed pub­lic oppo­si­tion to Tri­dent: the cam­paign to shut them down con­tin­ues!

www.tridentploughshares.org

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When You Threat­en One, You Threat­en All!

So read the ban­ner flut­ter­ing from the win­dow of the 89 Ash­ley Road squat in Bris­tol as bailiffs last week clam­oured at the door to evict the 20 res­i­dents who call the long dis­used build­ing ‘home’. This came as a sur­prise to res­i­dents who had not been served the manda­to­ry 7‑day notice of evic­tion a land­lord is required to pro­vide. What hap­pened next, and what of the sen­ti­men­tal mes­sage adorn­ing the front of the build­ing? Before we find out, a lit­tle look into the his­to­ry, and intend­ed future of the build­ing, those inside, and those who hope to get rich off it. Owned by prop­er­ty devel­op­ers ‘Places for Peo­ple’, the build­ing has been ear­marked for ‘regen­er­a­tion’ (read — gen­tri­fi­ca­tion) along with the sur­round­ing area. Despite the group’s claims that they are pri­mar­i­ly con­vert­ing homes into assist­ed accom­mo­da­tion for the home­less and elder­ly, Ash­ley Road is ear­marked to be turned into lucra­tive pri­vate flats, while the ‘char­i­ta­ble’ group is hap­py to allow oth­er­wise home­less peo­ple to be turfed out into the street at the begin­ning of win­ter. After res­i­dents saw the bailiffs, a call for sup­port was put out, and with­in an hour, around 50 activists, some from Bath, had descend­ed on Ash­ley Road, mak­ing the ille­gal evic­tion a logis­ti­cal impos­si­bil­i­ty. After a tense stand­off, the bailiffs and their police mates left, deject­ed. A vic­to­ry for sol­i­dar­i­ty, and a reprieve for the inhab­i­tants of Ash­ley Road. While the bailiffs will cer­tain­ly return soon, and may in the future be suc­cess­ful in their evic­tion attempts, the response of peo­ple to the fate of the squat demon­strates the pow­er of sol­i­dar­i­ty and col­lec­tive action over the often over­whelm­ing seem­ing forces of author­i­ty and pow­er.

Uncle Bul­gar­ia Weeps

Regret­tably, the Bath Bomb has just learnt about the demise of yet anoth­er of Bath’s great­est insti­tu­tions: Envolve. Who? Under the mot­to ‘Part­ner­ships in Sus­tain­abil­i­ty’, the for­mer envi­ron­men­tal char­i­ty start­ed out 14 years ago as the Bath Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre on Mil­som Street, and did exact­ly what it said on the recy­cled and biodegrad­able tin. Orig­i­nal­ly a resource for green activists and curi­ous passers­by, the cen­tre got too big for its boots, and moved to larg­er premis­es in the sub­ter­ranean tun­nel com­plex beneath Green Park Sta­tion – now depen­dent not just on its bene­fac­tors but also on state fund­ing. But such pay­outs rarely come with­out strings, and that proved the centre’s down­fall. Becom­ing more and more cor­po­rate, Envolve began a cam­paign of ostracism towards its more prag­mat­ic sup­port­ers, who recog­nise that ‘green cap­i­tal­ism’ is a con­tra­dic­tion in terms – they let go of staff and vol­un­teers deemed too rad­i­cal; arbi­trar­i­ly chose between which local cam­paigns have a right to be adver­tised or not; and then, one-by-one, kicked out use­ful but unprof­itable ini­tia­tives, like the green library, farm­ers’ mar­ket offices, meet­ing spaces for local greens, alter­na­tive trans­port offices, car-free schemes and food co-ops – after all, it doesn’t pay to be green. All that remained in the end was busi­ness con­sul­tants, edu­ca­tion offi­cers and a string of com­mu­ni­ty schemes they didn’t quite have the heart to grind out: a text­book exam­ple of state co-option. Hav­ing com­man­deered and neutered yet anoth­er group of poten­tial world-chang­ers, they then cut the fund­ing alto­geth­er – and that was that. The irony is that Envolve was held up entire­ly by com­pas­sion­ate peo­ple ham­strung by the restric­tive con­di­tions of their fund­ing, danc­ing to the master’s tune… but the road to hell is paved with good inten­tions. We here at the Bath Bomb hate to say I told you so, but… Let’s hope their suc­ces­sors, the Eth­i­cal Prop­er­ty Com­pa­ny, don’t go the same way.

Bath Activist Net­work are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

Danc­ing On The Grave Of Cap­i­tal­ism

It is not just in Bath that peo­ple are get­ting angry about hav­ing to pay for a cri­sis caused by politi­cians and big busi­ness. Cardiff, Bris­tol, Edin­burgh and Lon­don have also already seen mass action against the finan­cial cri­sis. In Lon­don, the finan­cial dis­trict has twice been invad­ed by hun­dreds of angry peo­ple demand­ing that the gov­ern­ment stops using our mon­ey to bail out fail­ing big busi­ness. The first Lon­don demo saw the police tak­en by sur­prise as hun­dreds showed their anger in the finan­cial dis­trict, attempt­ing, and only nar­row­ly fail­ing, to occu­py the Bank of Eng­land. The sec­ond demo, called on Hallowe’en and billed as a chance to ‘dance on the grave of cap­i­tal­ism’ saw a larg­er turnout of both police and pro­test­ers and end­ed in clash­es as peo­ple tried to make their way to the offices of recent­ly bank­rupt­ed firm Lehman Broth­ers. Up and down the coun­try, peo­ple are show­ing their dis­gust about a sys­tem that has failed us, and leaves us poor­er and poor­er while the rich con­tin­ue to get rich­er. At both Lon­don demos, stock­bro­kers promised to vio­lent­ly con­front pro­test­ers who dared to speak out about the sys­tem that keeps them rich and us poor, but, on both occa­sions, failed to mate­ri­alise. We can only imag­ine they are flick­ing the last of the white pow­der from their nos­trils, wip­ing a tear from their eyes, push­ing the ‘top floor’ but­ton on the lift and won­der­ing how their lit­tle game has gone so bad­ly wrong.

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.myspace.com/bathbomb

Remember remember, action security in November… [update: Observer article withdrawn]

Remem­ber to think about secu­ri­ty when plan­ning actions & cam­paigns, every month — there’s been a help­ful reminder in a Sun­day news­pa­per that our aims and the aims of the state are some­what dif­fer­ent!

Though the arti­cle can be tak­en to be a police unit safe­guard­ing their ongo­ing bud­gets and employ­ment — as has hap­pened in the past with sim­i­lar scare arti­cles (from the police & the secu­ri­ty ser­vices) — it’s also a handy reminder of the secu­ri­ty issues we should think about to ensure that our cam­paign­ing remains effec­tive. Check out the back­ground dirt on the journos below…

It Came From the Black Swampy - Eco-Terror!!CCTV camera 1Remem­ber to think about secu­ri­ty when plan­ning actions & cam­paigns, every month — there’s been a help­ful reminder in a Sun­day news­pa­per that our aims and the aims of the state are some­what dif­fer­ent!

Though the arti­cle can be tak­en to be a police unit safe­guard­ing their ongo­ing bud­gets and employ­ment — as has hap­pened in the past with sim­i­lar scare arti­cles (from the police & the secu­ri­ty ser­vices) — it’s also a handy reminder of the secu­ri­ty issues we should think about to ensure that our cam­paign­ing remains effec­tive. Check out the back­ground dirt on the journos below…

See the Activist Secu­ri­ty web­site for a full down­load­able book­let.

Also, try out this selec­tion of links:

Secu­ri­ty, Pri­va­cy, & Anonymi­ty for Auton­o­my…
ELF Press Office’s secu­ri­ty page
Top 100 Net­work Secu­ri­ty Tools

The orig­i­nal news­pa­per arti­cle:

Police warn of grow­ing threat from eco-ter­ror­ists

Fear of dead­ly attack by lone mav­er­ick as offi­cers alert major firms to dan­ger of green extrem­ism

Mark Townsend and Nick Den­ning,
The Observ­er, Sun­day Novem­ber 9 2008

Police have warned of the grow­ing threat of eco-ter­ror­ism after reveal­ing they are inves­ti­gat­ing a group which has sup­port­ers who believe that reduc­ing the Earth­’s pop­u­la­tion by four-fifths will help to pro­tect the plan­et.

Offi­cers from a spe­cial­ist unit ded­i­cat­ed to tack­ling domes­tic ter­ror­ism are mon­i­tor­ing an eco-move­ment called Earth First! which has advo­cates who state that cut­ting the Earth­’s pop­u­la­tion by 80 per cent will ease pres­sure on oth­er species. Offi­cers are con­cerned a ‘lone mav­er­ick’ eco-extrem­ist may attempt a ter­ror­ist attack aimed at killing large num­bers of Britons.

The Nation­al Extrem­ism Tac­ti­cal Co-ordi­na­tion Unit, which col­lates intel­li­gence and advice to police forces, has revealed that eco-activists are research­ing a list of tar­get com­pa­nies which they believe are major pol­luters or are exac­er­bat­ing the threat of cli­mate change.

The unit is cur­rent­ly mon­i­tor­ing blogs and inter­net traf­fic con­nect­ed to a net­work of UK cli­mate camps and rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ments under the umbrel­la of Earth First!, which has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for a series of crim­i­nal acts in recent months.

A senior source at the unit said it had grow­ing evi­dence of a threat from eco-activists. ‘We have found state­ments that four-fifths of the human pop­u­la­tion has to die for oth­er species in the world to sur­vive.

‘There are a num­ber of very ded­i­cat­ed indi­vid­u­als out there and they could be dan­ger­ous to oth­er peo­ple.’

Earth First! says its mis­sion is ‘about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth’ and advo­cates ‘civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and mon­key­wrench­ing’, tac­tics that include sab­o­tage and dis­rup­tive behav­iour. The move­ment has links to US envi­ron­men­tal extrem­ists which have waged a cam­paign of vio­lence in Amer­i­ca, includ­ing the fire­bomb­ing of a string of 4x4 car deal­er­ships in Cal­i­for­nia in 2003 and alleged arson attacks on oth­er prop­er­ty.

The anti-extrem­ist unit has already alert­ed a num­ber of major com­pa­nies which have been accused of being car­bon pol­luters with advice on how they can with­stand being tar­get­ed by eco-ter­ror­ists. Com­pa­nies are thought to include air­port oper­a­tor BAA, an inter­na­tion­al min­ing con­glom­er­ate BHP Bil­li­ton and firms con­nect­ed to UK coal-fired pow­er sta­tions.

‘They are doing research of pos­si­ble tar­gets, look­ing at share­hold­ers and financiers. For exam­ple, they could research an air­line and see how many of its air­craft are not envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly,’ said the NETCU source.

Although green extrem­ists have yet to embark on an orches­trat­ed cam­paign of vio­lence in the UK, offi­cers warn that they may be about to launch a cam­paign of intim­i­da­tion and fear aimed at dis­rupt­ing busi­ness­es. ‘For some peo­ple, if they can jus­ti­fy it in their minds, then it’s a noble cause even if it’s a crim­i­nal action. They haven’t start­ed yet, but we believe they will come up with a strat­e­gy and tac­tics,’ said the source at the unit, who described the move­ment as well-fund­ed and organ­ised.

A spate of recent attacks, for which Earth First! sup­port­ers have claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty, has includ­ed van­dal­ism of branch­es of sev­en Ger­man banks such as Deutsche Bank and Allianz AG. The actions were appar­ent­ly because the banks hold shares in UK Coal, which plans to build new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions.

A state­ment on the Earth First! web­site explains the attacks by say­ing: ‘Exploita­tion of the envi­ron­ment and peo­ple by the state and indus­try go hand in hand. They can­not be sep­a­rat­ed and both must be attacked. Social war, not cli­mate chaos.’

Anoth­er attack hit a quar­ry in Stafford­shire which belongs to Bar­don Aggre­gates, a com­pa­ny hat also owns a con­tro­ver­sial quar­ry at Glen­san­da on the north-west coast of Scot­land. The Scot­tish quar­ry is accused of spoil­ing the High­lands envi­ron­ment. The Earth First! web­site states: ‘We slashed tyres, stripped paint jobs, glued locks and trashed con­vey­or belts. All the earth movers were hit and many of the cement and aggre­gate trucks. This action cost us very lit­tle but should cost Bar­don thou­sands.’

Among the net­work of groups under the Earth First! umbrel­la are var­i­ous cli­mate camps. Last August police found a stash of knives and weapons beside one such camp in Kent. Pro­test­ers, how­ev­er, said they had noth­ing to do with the weapons and accused police of launch­ing a ‘smear cam­paign’.

A spokesman for Der­by Earth First! said the move­ment was strict­ly non-vio­lent, if not always law-abid­ing. He said: ‘If some­one does eco­log­i­cal dam­age we would per­haps break the law and pro­tect the ecol­o­gy, but the ecol­o­gy also includes humans.

‘We’re all about com­mu­ni­ties. Cap­i­tal­ism is the prob­lem and we want to return to a more sus­tain­able time. But we are not about reduc­ing the pop­u­la­tion, that is just scare­mon­ger­ing by the police.’

The rise of eco-extrem­ism coin­cides with the fall of the ani­mal rights activist move­ment. Police said the ani­mal rights move­ment was in ‘dis­ar­ray’ and that its ring­lead­ers had either been pros­e­cut­ed or were await­ing pros­e­cu­tion, adding that its ‘crit­i­cal mass’ of hard­core extrem­ists was suf­fi­cient­ly deplet­ed to have halt­ed its effec­tive­ness. Last Thurs­day a promi­nent ani­mal rights activist accused of plant­i­ng petrol bombs at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty was cleared of pos­sess­ing an explo­sive sub­stance with intent.

Reports on the Earth First! Jour­nal web­site, which tells users how to send encrypt­ed emails, reveals con­nec­tions to the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front (ELF) which has been linked to a series of vio­lent attacks in the US. ELF was clas­si­fied as the top domes­tic ter­ror­ism threat in the US by the FBI in March 2001.

The ELF was found­ed in 1992 in Brighton by mem­bers of the Earth First! move­ment who want­ed to form a break­away group that would use more extreme tac­tics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/eco-terrorism-earth-first-elf

Dirt dug on arti­cle writ­ers:

From: http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/the-guardian-eco-terrorism-and-the-armyexclusive/

THE GUARDIAN ECO-TERRORIST JOURNO IS ARMY INTELLIGENCE OFFICER……..EXCLUSIVE!

Curios­er and Curiouser……I’m check­ing for Nick Den­ning — co-author with Mark Townsend of yesterday’s hilarous Observ­er piece on eco ‑ter­ror­ism. He doesn’t appear to have any pre­vi­ous as a jour­nal­ist. But what’s this?? A piece writ­ten by Townsend in Afghanistan in August 2007 where he’s embed­ded with the Roy­al Anglian Reg­i­ment in Sangin………and shar­ing a heli­copter ride with NICK DENNING — COMMANDER OF 1 PLATOON A COMPANY in the Roy­al Anglian reg­i­ment!!! And less than a year lat­er this Den­ning is pro­vid­ing intel­li­gence to his mate on The Guardian on eco — teror­ism!!! Some expla­na­tions from The Guardian reqired on this one methinks! Watch this space…………

Also see http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/guardian-journalists-police-patsies-yet-again/
And http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/god-bone-youre-a-cunt-the-observer-replies/

Fun­ny & infor­ma­tive.

—OR—

This ‘Nick Den­ning’ is clear­ly not the crick­eter and Ian Bone’s sug­ges­tion that he is an army offi­cer is unlike­ly. It is more like­ly to be the ND who worked at the BBC as a researcher and a bit of work on Google pulls up a num­ber of requests that he has made for infor­ma­tion.

For instance:

http://www.stewartbyfc.co.uk/fusionnews/archive.php?show=month&month=July&year=2004

The most like­ly expla­na­tion is that this is the per­son – that he is a researcher who wants to break into nation­al jour­nal­ism.

——

Schnews arti­cle & quotes from the journo

——

The Observer/Guardian blog on the sub­ject if you want to post some­thing there is http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2008/nov/10/activists-kingsnorth

——
Update:
The read­ers’ edi­tor on … anony­mous sources and claims of eco-ter­ror­ism

The Observ­er, Sun­day Novem­ber 23 2008

You might think The Observer’s con­cern for the envi­ron­ment arose only in the past 20 years as glob­al warm­ing became appar­ent, but it has actu­al­ly been read­ing the signs since 1925. Wal­dorf Astor, then the paper’s for­ward-think­ing own­er, took a keen inter­est in all things envi­ron­men­tal and urged his edi­tor, JL Garvin, to appoint a cor­re­spon­dent to cov­er ecol­o­gy and agri­cul­ture. Step for­ward Sir William Beach Thomas, who became, in effect, the first envi­ron­ment cor­re­spon­dent.

Much lat­er, The Observ­er was to inves­ti­gate and reveal the ‘green­house effect’ and to warn of its pos­si­ble con­se­quences. Thou­sands of words have been devot­ed to the sub­ject ever since, win­ning a loy­al audi­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly among those who are active in the envi­ron­ment move­ment. So there was under­stand­able dis­may at a recent sto­ry which told of a ‘grow­ing threat from eco-ter­ror­ists’.

Police were said to be inves­ti­gat­ing the eco-move­ment Earth First! which, they claimed, had sup­port­ers who believed that reduc­ing the Earth­’s pop­u­la­tion by four-fifths would help pro­tect the plan­et. The Nation­al Extrem­ism Tac­ti­cal Co-ordi­na­tion Unit was con­cerned that a lone mav­er­ick might attempt a ter­ror­ist attack. It had also warned sev­er­al com­pa­nies they were being tar­get­ed as major pol­luters by the group and had offered them advice on how to with­stand attack.

It’s per­fect­ly legit­i­mate to report police secu­ri­ty con­cerns, but none of the state­ments were sub­stan­ti­at­ed. No web­site links were offered, no names were men­tioned, no com­pa­nies iden­ti­fied and no police source would go on the record.

The arti­cle linked Earth First! to cli­mate camps estab­lished last sum­mer, includ­ing one at Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion, Kent, and at Heathrow.

While the paper had no inten­tion of sug­gest­ing that every activist was a poten­tial ter­ror­ist, sev­er­al cli­mate campers wrote to protest. ‘If a jour­nal­ist is told by a sin­gle anony­mous source that a move­ment of peo­ple has among it indi­vid­u­als who would take the lives of men, women and chil­dren in a ter­ror attack, what stan­dard of evi­dence does that jour­nal­ist require? In this case: no evi­dence what­so­ev­er. The claim itself was the sto­ry.’

We’ve been here before. Oth­er news­pa­pers report­ed on a pre­dict­ed ‘sum­mer of hate’ at cli­mate camps that nev­er mate­ri­alised and the Press Com­plaints Com­mis­sion found against the Evening Stan­dard at cli­mate campers were plan­ning attacks at Heathrow.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ist Kei­th Met­calf explained that Earth First! sup­port­ed direct action against prop­er­ty, but not against peo­ple. He believed that the debate around sus­tain­able pop­u­la­tion size had been twist­ed to imply that envi­ron­men­tal­ists wished to kill peo­ple.

He also repeat­ed the belief of sev­er­al oth­ers that Nec­tu was brief­ing in this man­ner in order to make pros­e­cu­tions eas­i­er and to boost its fund­ing, which is at risk owing to the decline in ani­mal rights cam­paigns. I can’t ver­i­fy that or the fears about mass mur­der because, despite repeat­ed requests, Nec­tu won’t respond. Accord­ing­ly, The Observ­er has decid­ed to with­draw the sto­ry.

Activists in Dublin renamed the street where the Shell office is after Ken Saro Wiwa

Sur­pris­ing­ly, many streets in Dublin, cap­i­tal of the Repub­lic of Ire­land, are still named after heroes of monar­chy and colo­nial­ism.

Ken Saro-Wiwa Street sign replacement, DublinSur­pris­ing­ly, many streets in Dublin, cap­i­tal of the Repub­lic of Ire­land, are still named after heroes of monar­chy and colo­nial­ism.

Ade­laide Road, which is home to the main entrance of Shel­l’s Irish head office as well as the gov­ern­ment depart­ment which hands out licences for the exploita­tion of Irish gas and oil reserves, is named after Queen Ade­laide, the unfor­tu­nate Ger­man princess who mar­ried the Eng­lish King William IV (he already had a mis­tress and ten chil­dren).

At the week­end, oppo­nents of Shel­l’s activ­i­ties in Ire­land and around the world took the deci­sion to rename the street after Ken Saro-Wiwa. He was the leader, until his death, of the Move­ment for the Sur­vival of the Ogo­ni Peo­ple and a fierce crit­ic of Shel­l’s destruc­tion of the Niger Delta and its peo­ple.

Ken Saro Wiwa and eight oth­ers were exe­cut­ed by hang­ing in Port Har­court prison on Novem­ber 10th 1995. The Niger­ian gov­ern­ment claimed he was guilty of con­spir­a­cy to mur­der, but exec­u­tives from Shell pri­vate­ly admit­ted that they were behind the pros­e­cu­tion, tri­al and exe­cu­tion of Saro-Wiwa and the oth­ers.

You can see a short video of the chang­ing of the signs here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBHp–u4QVk

and a few more pic­tures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24935400@N06/sets/72157608792269359/

rememberkensarowiwa@gmail.com
http://www.remembersarowiwa.com