Protests in Nigeria After Mobil Spills 600,000 Barrels of Oil

oil_theft_7-300x1991st July Youths in Eket and Esit Eket in Akwa Ibom on Mon­day staged peace­ful protests against fresh oil spills in Nkpana com­mu­ni­ty from a Mobil facil­i­ty i

oil_theft_7-300x1991st July Youths in Eket and Esit Eket in Akwa Ibom on Mon­day staged peace­ful protests against fresh oil spills in Nkpana com­mu­ni­ty from a Mobil facil­i­ty in Ibeno.

The youths num­ber­ing more than 500 protest­ed on major streets in Eket, includ­ing the Mari­na and Ter­mi­nal roads.

The pro­test­ers, under the ages of Core Youth Forum, car­ried plac­ards with inscrip­tions: “Oil spill is killing our aquat­ic life’’, “No com­pen­sa­tion for oil spill” and “Enough of this oil spillage,’’ among oth­ers.

Mr God­win Peter, the spokesman of the pro­test­ers, said the spill occurred on Sat­ur­day and occu­pied com­mu­ni­ties along the spill line on Sun­day.

He said the spill had dev­as­tat­ed aquat­ic life and destroyed fish­ing equip­ment, among oth­ers.
Peter appealed to Mobil to urgent­ly clean up the envi­ron­ment.

The youths threat­ened to dis­rupt Mobil activ­i­ties if their demands, which includ­ed imme­di­ate clean up and com­pen­sa­tion, were not met.

Also react­ing, Mr Inyang Ekong, the Sec­re­tary of the Arti­sanal Fish­er­men Asso­ci­a­tion of Nige­ria, Akwa Ibom Branch, not­ed that fish­ing had been sus­pend­ed in the area as a result of the spill.

He said that fish would be scarce in the state and appealed to Mobil to replace its old pipes to fore­stall fur­ther occur­rence.

Ekong said the spill would cause untold hard­ships to the peo­ple of Ibeno.

When con­tact­ed, Mr Akaninyene Esiere, the Man­ag­er of Pub­lic and Gov­ern­ment Affairs at the Qua Iboe Ter­mi­nal of Mobil, con­firmed the inci­dent.

“We have con­firmed a liq­uid release from our Qua Iboe ter­mi­nal on Sun­day, June 29, fol­low­ing seri­ous weath­er con­di­tions and light­ning strikes over the area at the week­end. We have acti­vat­ed our emer­gency response sys­tems to con­tain the release. All rel­e­vant reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers have been notified.We will con­tin­ue to work with the com­mu­ni­ty to allow progress in the effort by Mobil to con­tain the spill,’’ he said.

Esiere said that Mobil was com­mit­ted to safe envi­ron­ment dur­ing its oper­a­tions.

Minks released from cages, vehicles demaged at two fur farms in Czech Republic

Anony­mous report from GreenAction.cz

Anony­mous report from GreenAction.cz

„We vis­it­ed two fur farms in the last two weeks. At first were released approx­i­mate­ly 50 minks from cages on the farm in Dol­ní Cerekev (farm is cur­rent­ly almost emp­ty). Dur­ing the sec­ond vis­it were dam­aged two cars and trac­tor, also with using pyrotech­nic mix­ture – ther­mite. On the oth­er farm in Velký Rat­mírov were dam­aged truck, exca­va­tor and next things for man­ag­ing the farm.

ARM, 20.6.2014″

Earth First! Summer Gathering 2014 — exact location & other practicalities added

Updates: Exact loca­tion has been releas­es — see here

Trav­el - book your trav­el to Cas­tle Cary or Bru­ton train sta­tion, then it’s a bus jour­ney and 20 minute walk.

Updates: Exact loca­tion has been releas­es — see here

Trav­el - book your trav­el to Cas­tle Cary or Bru­ton train sta­tion, then it’s a bus jour­ney and 20 minute walk.

Bus times are : 8.14am — 9.44am — 11.44am — 12.33pm — 2.14pm — 4.33pm (last bus).  There’s no Sun­day ser­vice so we will timetable a shut­tle bus to return.

Cycling: Bru­ton is bet­ter if you are cycling as it is a mile short­er, and there is also a bus from there too. The last bus from here leaves lat­er.  (Bus times from Bru­ton are: 9:09am — 10:39am — 12:12pm — 1:39pm — 3:54pm — 5:39pm)

We will post the exact address three weeks before the gath­er­ing.

Refresh­ments — ‘This year there is no bar on site. Peo­ple are wel­come to bring their own but we ask that there’s no drink­ing before dinner/7pm. Any­one caus­ing a nui­sance or break­ing our Safer Spaces pol­i­cy will be asked to stop and/or leave. There will be a cafe & snack bar on site.’

Dogs — ‘This year dogs are wel­come, but please get in touch in advance, and keep them on a lead at all times on the site.’  Fur­ther info

—————-

28th-31st August 2014, in the South West.…

A place for peo­ple involved in rad­i­cal green direct action to come togeth­er.…
to talk.…share skills.…learn.…listen.…play.…rant.… find out whats going on.…
scheme.…live outdoors.…hang out.…laugh.…
expe­ri­ence non hier­ar­chi­cal, low impact, fam­i­ly friend­ly liv­ing.

An activist camp that spans 5 days and con­sists of a pro­gramme of work­shops through­out each day facil­i­tat­ed by peo­ple like you and me who think they have a skill or a lev­el of knowl­edge in a sub­ject that is valu­able to share with oth­ers to improve their activism.

Is this camp for you?  Whether you’re just start­ing out in the world of direct action or you’re an old (glued and paint-stained) hand at it, you’re wel­come here.

More info here

Action dates & gatherings now working again!

The action dates and protest gath­er­ings page is once again work­ing!  Apolo­gies, we acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed it!

If there’s any eco­log­i­cal actions that are open­ly adver­tised, protest camps or cam­paign gath­er­ings, that you want to add to it, do it through the sub­mit report link and in the sub­ject, make it clear it’s to add to the cal­en­dar.  Thanks.

The action dates and protest gath­er­ings page is once again work­ing!  Apolo­gies, we acci­den­tal­ly delet­ed it!

If there’s any eco­log­i­cal actions that are open­ly adver­tised, protest camps or cam­paign gath­er­ings, that you want to add to it, do it through the sub­mit report link and in the sub­ject, make it clear it’s to add to the cal­en­dar.  Thanks.

anarchists claim string of fires in east bristol

Just before sun­rise this morn­ing we launched a tar­get­ed arson spree along Glebe Road — which meets the main east Bris­tol thor­ough­fare of Church Road — and burned out cor­po­rate, lux­u­ry, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and hunt-scum vehi­cles.

Just before sun­rise this morn­ing we launched a tar­get­ed arson spree along Glebe Road — which meets the main east Bris­tol thor­ough­fare of Church Road — and burned out cor­po­rate, lux­u­ry, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and hunt-scum vehi­cles. Wild­fire in the arter­ies of the city-prison! To break the lie of social peace and inten­si­fy the hos­til­i­ties!

Emer­gency ser­vices were too slow to catch the respon­si­ble as the emp­ty street was bright­ened from end to end as by torch­es. In a few words, the select­ed vans and cars were active com­po­nents of the life they rep­re­sent and also enforce.

Vir­gin Media sup­ply tele­vi­sion and also inter­net, and a nation­al fibre optic cable net­work. To keep us enmeshed in the mod­ern infor­ma­tion econ­o­my and the spec­ta­cle of celebri­ties, video games and adver­tis­ing is their busi­ness. Destroy what domes­ti­cates and stu­pe­fies us!

A car as fan­cy as a Quat­tro is an extra spit in the face for the prop­er­ty-less as well as the earth. In wealthy areas or parts under­go­ing gen­tri­fi­ca­tion they’re com­mon­place, in Eng­land as in Argenti­na, Syd­ney as in Berlin, and there to be picked off at our leisure.

BWS’s secu­ri­ty vehi­cle in ash­es is one less to aid their task across the UK of keep­ing the haves from the have-nots by threat or force and of expand­ing the matrix of sur­veil­lance cam­eras we pass under hun­dreds of times in a day. Min­ions of the estab­lished order have cho­sen their side! Insur­rec­tion­al action against the con­structs of author­i­ty above us, around us, with­in us.

Either an active fox hunter or a sup­port­er and pro­mot­er of killing wild ani­mals sole­ly for enter­tain­ment — either way, own­er of a heavy-duty 4x4 bear­ing pro-hunt stick­ers — got their incen­di­ary gift too. Some call blood­sport uncivilised, but it’s real­ly per­fect­ly reflec­tive of the dis­dain for the non­hu­man, upper class enti­tle­ment and also cross-class col­lab­o­ra­tion which is the basis and con­tent of civil­i­sa­tion. Let’s make the rich and their ter­ri­er-boys the hunt­ed, let’s harass them in city or coun­try­side.

This deed coin­cid­ed with the call for col­lec­tive action in sup­port of our caged broth­er G. Pom­bo da Sil­va (Spain), who’s resist­ing his forced trans­fer to a max­i­mum secu­ri­ty mod­ule. Hope­ful­ly our flam­ing regards will also make it through the prison bars to the wan­der­ing she-wolves A. Trudeau and F. Rouiller along with com­pa C. ‘Chi­vo’ López (Mex­i­co) — they all face charges over Molo­tov attacks against State and Cap­i­tal­ism. We’re also think­ing of the unnamed ani­mal lib­er­a­tion fight­er who pros­e­cu­tors have tried to link to the anar­chist paper Upprors­Bladet (Swe­den) and the co-con­vict­ed who also had the sense to stay silent before the cops. While A. Cospi­to and N. Gai, G. Iaco­v­ac­ci and A. Antonac­ci will all be tried next on July 4th, we take aim to light up their jail cells with the warmth of our sol­i­dar­i­ty. Pris­on­ers to the streets, run­ning wild and free!

ABOUT THE ACCUSED IN BRISTOL
We learned from the scum-press news­pa­pers that ear­ly on June 12th an indi­vid­ual was stopped in their vehi­cle by police in the Bradley Stoke area and sus­pect­ed of going equipped to com­mit a crime, then arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of four counts of arson. This was in the con­text of four coor­di­nat­ed sab­o­tages in the days before which took down many phone sig­nals and also radio ser­vices — all of which had already been claimed by Live Wires, FAI/ELF, as report­ed in the scum-press and car­ried by anar­chist counter-infor­ma­tion pages (although hid­den once again by the mod­er­a­tors of Bris­tol Indy­media).

After the resound­ing silence so far from the local anar­chist move­ment, the first thing we want to state is that — although none of our­selves, our wider net­work or fleet­ing affini­ties know who this per­son is or any­thing about their sym­pa­thies or com­plic­i­ties — the repres­sive move by the State aims to dis­cour­age sim­i­lar actions and we will not stand com­pla­cent. Either police made an uncon­nect­ed arrest in efforts to shed some of the crit­i­cism they’ve come under in the region­al and nation­al media for fail­ing to stem the flow of anar­chist attacks in their area, in which case it was a fruit­less provo­ca­tion as action con­tin­ues, or that indi­vid­ual real­ly did set out to some­how fight the sys­tem that night — sin­gu­lar­ly, in the con­text of decen­tralised infor­mal groups open to any­one such as FAI or ELF, or anony­mous — in which case they’re a poten­tial com­rade and we would defend them as such.

It seems for now that police have lit­tle inter­est in the arrest­ed indi­vid­ual as accord­ing to the scum-press they’re out on bail after ques­tion­ing, but we call on any­one with more infor­ma­tion to release it if they see fit. Mean­while, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the live wires and who­ev­er shares their moti­va­tions to do the same!

Infor­mal anar­chist federation/Earth lib­er­a­tion front
Rogue fire brigade.

Summary of Repression from ZAD

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 12.46.24 PM 30th June Sum­ma­ry of arrests and tri­als since the demo in Nantes, Feb­ru­ary 22nd, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion found by the anti-repres­sion com­mit­tee (CARILA)

Screen shot 2014-06-30 at 12.46.24 PM 30th June Sum­ma­ry of arrests and tri­als since the demo in Nantes, Feb­ru­ary 22nd, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion found by the anti-repres­sion com­mit­tee (CARILA)

Feb­ru­ary 22nd: 14 arrests, two released with­out charge. Of the 12 peo­ple charged, 5 had imme­di­ate tri­als the next day, and the 7 oth­ers will have tri­als lat­er (3 on June 19th, 2 minors in children’s court, and no news for the 2 oth­ers).

Feb­ru­ary 24th: 5 imme­di­ate tri­als, 4 of them judged for “vio­lence against some­one with pub­lic author­i­ty”, and “par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group”. They were all con­vict­ed.
- 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice
- 5 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence
- 5 months of prison
- 5 months of prison and 1 month pro­ba­tion
- 6 months of prison and 6 months of pro­ba­tion + 500 euros for the under­cov­er cops sup­pos­ed­ly injured

Of all those con­vict­ed this day, no one went direct­ly to prison. This means that they can nego­ti­ate a lighter sen­tence.

March 31st: First wave of arrests after the demo: 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed at home (in Car­que­fou, St. Herblain, Nantes, and Ille-et-Vilaine).

- 2 were released with­out charges
- 4 were judged the next day in imme­di­ate tri­als
- 2 minors: one accused of throw­ing fire­works at the police judged in juve­nile court, placed under house arrest until their tri­al in 2015, the oth­er we don’t think they were charged but we have no con­fir­ma­tion
- 1 per­son had a tri­al lat­er but we don’t have con­tact with them

April 1st: Imme­di­ate tri­als for those arrest­ed the day before

- P: 4 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence, for­bid­den to car­ry weapons for a year, for­bid­den to protest in Notre Dame des Lan­des and Nantes for a year
- J: 5 months of prison, for­bid­den to car­ry weapons for 2 years, for­bid­den to protest in Nantes for 2 years
- G: 2 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 2 months prison (sus­pend­ed sen­tence from last arrest), aquit­ted for van­dal­ism
- E: 1 year of prison, start­ing imme­di­ate­ly after the tri­al, for­bid­den to protest for 3 years, for­bid­den to have explo­sives or flam­ma­ble mate­ri­als for 3 years. The judge dou­bled the sen­tence that the DA asked for!

May 14th: G arrest­ed in Paris under a war­rant for van­dal­ism Feb­ru­ary 22nd. He refused an imme­di­ate tri­al, fuzzy pho­tos were the only evi­dence. He was placed in pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion, but got out a month lat­er because of a pro­ce­dur­al error. His tri­al is July 16th.

May 27th: R. arrest­ed in the street in Rennes by under­cov­er cops, trans­ferred to Nantes. He refused imme­di­ate tri­al, and was put under house arrest, and for­bid­den from the Loire-Atlan­tique region until his tri­al, June 19th.

June 13th: Addi­tion­al tri­al for some­one con­vict­ed Feb­ru­ary 24th to decide how much they should pay in dam­ages to the under­cov­er cops. No infor­ma­tion on the ver­dict for the moment.

June 18th:
- O. arrest­ed at home in Rennes, accused of van­dal­ism, he has an imme­di­ate tri­al the next day.
- Some­one from the ZAD arrest­ed in Nantes, who had a war­rant out for vio­lence against the police and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group.

June 19th:
- Tri­al for 3 peo­ple arrest­ed dur­ing the demo ‑K: con­vict­ed of throw­ing paving stones towards the police and arrest­ed in pos­ses­sion of a ham­mer and an iron bar, 4 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence, 18 months pro­ba­tion (forced to find a job or go to voca­tion­al school, and for­bid­den to car­ry weapons) + 105 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice ‑C: con­vict­ed of par­tic­i­pa­tion in an armed group and throw­ing a beer can at the police, sen­tenced to 2 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence ‑G: arrest­ed in pos­ses­sion of a ham­mer, sen­tenced to 1 month sus­pend­ed sen­tence
- Hear­ing for O. (arrest­ed in Rennes the day before): he refus­es his tri­al and is put under house arrest until his tri­al, July 10th
- Tri­al of R. (arrest­ed in Rennes, May 27) for van­dal­ism and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an armed group. Sen­tenced to 8 months sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 1 month sus­pend­ed sen­tence + 5218 euros in dam­ages for the city of Nantes+ for­bid­den from Loire-Atlan­tique region for 2 years.
- Hear­ing for 5 peo­ple arrest­ed 2 days before by under­cov­er cops while dri­ving: ‑one per­son (a hitch-hik­er) accept­ed the imme­di­ate tri­al, con­vict­ed to pos­ses­sion of 1 gram of hash + refus­ing fin­ger­prints and DNA. No sen­tence 3 peo­ple refused imme­di­ate tri­als and are put under house arrest until their tri­al, July 18th 1 per­son refused an imme­di­ate tri­al and is in prison await­ing tri­al (July 18th)

“They were arrest­ed tues­day after a “ran­dom” iden­ti­ty con­trol by under­cov­er cops on the ring road in Nantes. Amoung them was R., who had a tri­al Thurs­day and was on their way to Nantes to see their lawyer with their friends. After 48 hours of police cus­tody, 4 of them were charged with “pos­ses­sion of stolen goods”, sus­pect­ed of hav­ing stolen… a head lamp. Also they refused to give fin­ger­prints and DNA. More seri­ous­ly, they are accused, based on some fly­ers in their car and a tool­box, of “asso­ci­a­tion of wrong-doers”, and “intent to com­mit an armed assem­bly in front of the cour­t­house in Nantes”. They risk up to 5 years in prison.”

June 20th: Hear­ing for S., who lives on the ZAD. He was arrest­ed 2 days before in Orvault, accused of hav­ing stolen 2 books. He had a war­rant out for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Feb­ru­ary 22nd demo. He is accused of theft (with pri­or con­vic­tions), refus­ing fin­ger­prints and DNA (with pri­or con­vic­tions), and par­tic­i­pat­ing with a weapon in an armed group, and vio­lence against the police. He refused an imme­di­ate tri­al and has been put in jail await­ing his tri­al on July 7th.

2 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly in pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion, await­ing tri­al.

Climate Activists Blockade Oil Terminal, Demand Halt to Crude-by-Rail Traffic in Pacific Northwest

10501739_771642884850_4820811503256859328_n 30th June This morn­ing, cli­mate jus­tice activists with Port­land Ris­ing Tide shut down the ArcLo­gist

10501739_771642884850_4820811503256859328_n 30th June This morn­ing, cli­mate jus­tice activists with Port­land Ris­ing Tide shut down the ArcLo­gis­tics crude oil ter­mi­nal in North­west Port­land.
Port­land res­i­dent Irene Majorie, 22, locked her­self to a 55-gal­lon bar­rel filled with con­crete that was placed on the rail­road track lead­ing into the facil­i­ty.

Train cars enter from a near­by yard to offload oil into 84 stor­age tanks, before it is piped onto ocean­go­ing ships bound for West Coast refiner­ies. Majorie’s arm was locked to a piece of met­al rebar embed­ded in the con­crete, stop­ping trains for four hours before being cut out by police.

Attempts by law enforce­ment to move her and the bar­rel simul­ta­ne­ous­ly risked grave injury; like­wise, any train traf­fic threat­ened her life.

“This is about stop­ping the oil trains,” said Majorie. “But beyond that, it is about an indus­try and an eco­nom­ic sys­tem that places the pur­suit of prof­it before the lives and rela­tion­ships of human beings seek­ing sur­vival and nour­ish­ment, and before the com­mu­ni­ties, ecosys­tems, and plan­et of which we are a part.”

Oil trains are com­ing under increas­ing scruti­ny recent­ly owing to their propen­si­ty to derail in fiery explo­sions. Port­land Ris­ing Tide, how­ev­er, dis­putes the notion that an oil train is ever safe, since crude oil is only trans­port­ed to be burned. What­ev­er the risk of explo­sion, the guar­an­teed result is a wors­en­ing of the cli­mate cri­sis, which is already wreak­ing eco­log­i­cal hav­oc and claim­ing human lives.

10435835_754308524591923_4842444232067517220_n

US crude oil pro­duc­tion has risen from ~5 mil­lion bar­rels per day in the late 2000s to ~7 mil­lion bar­rels per day cur­rent­ly. Increased extrac­tion is North Dakota’s Bakken Shale has result­ed in a dra­mat­ic rise in oil train traf­fic, with 250 per­cent more oil trains trav­el­ing Ore­gon rail lines in 2013 than in the pre­vi­ous year.

Gov­er­nor Kitzhaber has expressed “deep con­cern” about oil trains but thus far done noth­ing to stop them. “Soci­ety should be engaged in a rapid, rad­i­cal decline in fos­sil fuel use,” said David Ben­nett. “Instead, policymakers—even those who claim to under­stand the mag­ni­tude of the cli­mate crisis—are forc­ing us to engage in an absurd con­ver­sa­tion about cre­at­ing ‘safe’ oil trains and build­ing more fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture.”

The ArcLo­gis­tics ter­mi­nal, which began oper­a­tion in Jan­u­ary, is one piece of infra­struc­ture facil­i­tat­ing increased oil pro­duc­tion. When ongo­ing con­struc­tion is com­plet­ed, the facil­i­ty will have the capac­i­ty to trans­port 16,250 bar­rels of oil per day.

In April, Port­land Ris­ing Tide entered the Ore­gon Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Quality’s offices in down­town Port­land, issued ter­mi­na­tion let­ters to employ­ees at their desks, and announced the for­ma­tion of a new People’s Agency, which would car­ry out DEQ’s man­date free of cor­po­rate influ­ence. This is the first enforce­ment action of the nascent agency.

“If our pol­i­cy­mak­ers lis­tened, we would demand an imme­di­ate halt to oil train traf­fic in Ore­gon and the clo­sure of all crude oil ter­mi­nals,” said Emma Gould. “Since they don’t, we’re halt­ing oil trains our­selves.” High res­o­lu­tion pho­tos are avail­able for down­load and may be used with attri­bu­tion

Today’s action saw activists from across the con­ti­nent join­ing togeth­er to say no to oil trains, show­ing that oil trains are an inter­na­tion­al issue of con­cern for peo­ple and non­hu­man ani­mals every­where.

Blockade Halts Old-Growth Logging in Mattole Forest

10496184_1431644777121536_4907229880304137323_o30th June A for­est defend­er has tak­en to the trees to defend an impor­tant area of the Mat­tole Riv

10496184_1431644777121536_4907229880304137323_o30th June A for­est defend­er has tak­en to the trees to defend an impor­tant area of the Mat­tole Riv­er water­shed in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Going by the name “Skunk,” the block­ad­er is stop­ping the con­struc­tion of a new log­ging road into old-growth for­est.

Skunk is sup­port­ed by res­i­dents of Hum­boldt coun­ty and allies who have worked for months to stop Hum­boldt Red­wood Company’s plan for 1,000 acres of log­ging in the Mat­tole For­est.

10428646_1431644520454895_1206681976091967028_n

In April, activists hung a ban­ner across from Hum­boldt Red­woods State Park to protest the log­ging in the Mat­tole.

While Hum­boldt Red­wood Com­pa­ny claims they are not log­ging old-growth, their def­i­n­i­tion restricts log­ging only areas with more than 8 old-growth trees in the span of an acre. They also define old-growth as exist­ing in the year 1800, cut­ting out any trees younger than exact­ly 214 years.

Skunk insists, “Our main demands to Hum­boldt Red­wood Com­pa­ny are very simple—don’t cut unlogged for­est, and don’t cut old-growth. This road threat­ens to destroy for­est that has nev­er been logged before, and will pave the way for log­ging even more impor­tant habi­tat if the com­mu­ni­ty does not rise up to stop it.” 

The Mat­tole pro­vides shel­ter to Gold­en Eagles and Spot­ted Owls, among oth­er rare species, and has long been the home of old-growth Big Leaf Maple, Dou­glas Fir, Tanoak, and Madrone.

This area of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia has a long his­to­ry of for­est defense against Maxxam/Pacific Lum­ber through­out the 1990s. What we are per­haps see­ing is just the begin­ning of a new chap­ter.

 

Karawang Farmers Defend Land From Corporate Eviction

jjjj2 28th June About 1200 peas­ant farm­ers of the vil­lage of Karawang, Indone­sia pre­pared to defend 350 hectares of farm lands that they have tend­ed and sur­vived off of for gen­er­a­tions.

jjjj2 28th June About 1200 peas­ant farm­ers of the vil­lage of Karawang, Indone­sia pre­pared to defend 350 hectares of farm lands that they have tend­ed and sur­vived off of for gen­er­a­tions.  The land in dis­pute has been des­ig­nat­ed by local Indone­sian gov­ern­ment for the expan­sion of a fac­to­ry owned by Agung Podomoro and the peo­ple of Karawang seem to have no recourse except to resist.

On Tues­day the 24th, about 7000 ful­ly equipped riot police forces descend­ed on the vil­lage with two water can­non vehi­cles to enforce the land rul­ing. The local res­i­dents had pre­pared tire bar­ri­cades and hand weapons yet tried first to non-vio­lent­ly resist the encroach­ing forces.

This agrar­i­an con­flict has led to the evic­tion of the 1,200 res­i­dents. It has become evi­dent that the coun­try is in favor to the own­ers of cap­i­tal and indif­fer­ent to ordi­nary peo­ple, such as farm­ers. The proof is the ver­dict of PK No. 160 PK/PDT/2011 des­ig­nat­ing the Pri­ma­ry Water Source (PT SAMP) on land owned by res­i­dents of three vil­lages in the Dis­trict Teluk­jambe.

Based on the deci­sion of the PT SAMP the land has been pur­chased by the Agung Podomoro group and Falkirk Dis­trict Court forced the evic­tion on June 24, 2014, requir­ing 7,000 riot forces.

Results of the inci­dent report­ed by the Con­sor­tium for Agrar­i­an Reform there were 10 work­ers who were assault­ed and one farmer who was shot by riot police and there are 13 peo­ple who were arrest­ed.

The pitch today is still tense as Riot police have set up com­mand posts in dit­i­ga, Marga­mulya and Wanasari Wanaker­ta vil­liages. They also put up a barbed wire fence in the con­flict area, cov­er­ing an area of ​​350 ha. Cur­rent­ly elec­tric­i­ty have been cut into the homes of res­i­dents who inhab­it the land dis­pute.

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So far there has been no response or attempts to pro­vide tem­po­rary hous­ing by the evic­tion com­pa­ny. But offi­cials Falkirk Farm­ers Union (patch) said that the res­i­dents will sur­vive even if the com­pa­ny and Riot police evic­tion use heavy equip­ment.

The Karawang peo­ple demand:
1. Stop the dis­place­ment towards the peas­ants man­dat­ed by state court of Karawang since the land has been plowed and owned legal­ly by the peas­ants who pay tax­es reg­u­lar­ly and obe­di­ent­ly to the states for tens of years.
2. Pull sev­en thou­sands armed mobile brigade back from agrar­i­an con­flict area in Karawang because they intim­i­date and pro­voke the peo­ple.
3. Sol­i­dar­i­ty from all Indone­sians and com­rades in strug­gle who sup­ports the agrar­i­an reform to con­demn the injus­tice suf­fered by the peas­ants.

aSALT COURSE for NUTURUNG ACTIVISTS

In Sep­tem­ber a once a month activists nur­ture course starts, last­ing a year. The pur­pose is to become more effec­tive in our change work, sus­tain­ing it through inner joy and self-aware­ness

In Sep­tem­ber a once a month activists nur­ture course starts, last­ing a year. The pur­pose is to become more effec­tive in our change work, sus­tain­ing it through inner joy and self-aware­ness

the aSALT course (Spir­i­tu­al Activist Lead­er­ship Train­ing) val­ues under­ly­ing lov­ing con­nect­ed­ness and mean­ing beyond indi­vid­ual human life (spir­i­tu­al), activism in all its forms as effort to bring greater jus­tice into  the world, the lead­er­ship of all for all, train­ing as learn­ers and teach­ers togeth­er.

Our base will  be the Pales­tine muse­um in Bris­tol. We’ll have var­ied activ­i­ties includ­ing shared allot­ment work, shared food, body-work as we look  for a self-care/spir­i­tu­al prac­tice to sus­tain us, crit­i­cal think­ing, learn­ing about non­vi­o­lent the­o­ry and the grow­ing of social  change move­ments.

The course requires com­mit­ment and is designed to work along­side an exisit­ing engage­ment. There are things that won’t appeal to all: the phi­los­o­phy is def­i­nite­ly non­vi­o­lent (though not nec­es­sar­i­ly ‘legal’). The group will be diverse and include activists you dis­sagree with. There is a fee though there is also a bur­sary.

The course leader has not been a direct action activist often. He’s an active sup­port­er of Abol­ish Emp­ty Office Blocks, house peo­ple. He fell ill in Pales­tine as a human rights mon­i­tor (which part­ly inspired this course).He’s a men­tor and expe­ri­enced train­er

More details includ­ing con­tact details are on www.schumacherinstitute.org.uk/aSALT