Author: earthfirst

Rising Tide Takes on Fossil Fuel Transport

tar sands megaload 13th Novem­ber

tar sands megaload 13th Novem­ber

Rising Tide Disrupts Coal Luncheon

On the heels of shut­ting down the Port of Van­cou­ver to protest the ille­gal approval of a mas­sive oil ter­mi­nal, today Port­land Ris­ing Tide dis­rupt­ed a Mil­len­ni­um Bulk Ter­mi­nals pre­sen­ta­tion and lun­cheon with Portland’s Mar­itime Com­merce Club.

40 activists with Port­land Ris­ing Tide entered the Dou­ble­tree Hotel in the Lloyd Dis­trict and dis­rupt­ed a Mil­len­ni­um Bulk Ter­mi­nals pre­sen­ta­tion on their pro­posed 50-mil­lion ton coal export facil­i­ty in Longview, WA. Mil­len­ni­um Bulk Ter­mi­nals, owned by Ambre Ener­gy and Arch Coal, was pre­sent­ing to the Mar­itime Com­merce Club.

Rising Tide Monitors and Protests US-95’s Largest OmegaLoad

On Sun­day night, Novem­ber 10 … Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide (WIRT) mon­i­tored and protest­ed the heav­i­est and longest mega­load of tar sands extrac­tion equip­ment to recent­ly tra­verse U.S. High­way 95 and Inter­state 90 in Ida­ho …. anoth­er mega­load builder of the largest indus­tri­al project on Earth!

Support Spied Upon, a vital expose film telling the story of activists targeted by secret police

Dear Earth First!ers,

 

Dear Earth First!ers,

 

Due to its effec­tive use of cre­ative direct action tac­tics in recent decades, Earth First! has con­sis­tent­ly been a tar­get of state repres­sion and exces­sive police tac­tics. Now we are mak­ing a film with oth­er envi­ron­men­tal activists who have been tar­get­ed by under­cov­er police, with the goal of expos­ing these abu­sive repres­sion tac­tics.

 

“Spied Upon” is an inter­na­tion­al­ly made full-length doc­u­men­tary that uses the out­ing of for­mer UK under­cov­er cop Mark Kennedy as it’s start­ing point. Kennedy had begun his inter­na­tion­al oper­a­tion by tar­get­ing Earth First! in the UK in 2003, and had worked across Europe as well as for the FBI for sev­en-years before being out­ed by his unknow­ing activist girl­friend and her cir­cle of Not­ting­ham friends in 2010. Now this woman and a num­ber of oth­er women are suing police boss­es in the UK for what has been exposed as a reg­u­lar under­cov­er police tac­tic of dup­ing activist women into long-term rela­tion­ships. Spied Upon is work­ing with some of these women to sup­port them and help them have their sto­ry told.

 

Mark Kennedy turned pri­vate in 2010 and start­ed his own secu­ri­ty firm as well as say­ing that he was work­ing for Glob­al Open, a pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm known to tar­get ani­mal rights activists on behalf of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny clients. It appears as though that is exact­ly what Kennedy was doing when he went to Italy to spy on an ani­mal lib­er­a­tion gath­er­ing in the sum­mer of 2010. He even tried to strength­en his cred­i­bil­i­ty by say­ing he was an impor­tant Earth First! activist, see the video clip here we shot with Ital­ian activists who tell about when they were unknow­ing tar­gets of Kennedy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx38iZ14nc

 

State repres­sion has long fea­tured the use of under­cov­er police, but a less­er known use of under­cov­er tac­tics has been those used by pri­vate secu­ri­ty firms on behalf of pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions. These prac­tices con­strue an intense inva­sion of pri­va­cy that is not even allowed for state under­cov­er police, and this scan­dal needs to be exposed! We have also uncov­ered ille­gal col­lu­sion between pri­vate and state secu­ri­ty forces. This col­lu­sion is a key focus of the film Spied Upon, which we are also mak­ing as a tool that activists can use to high­light the cur­rent prob­lems envi­ron­men­tal groups face today.

 

We plan to release Spied Upon inter­na­tion­al­ly in 2014. How­ev­er, to do this, we need your sup­port to make this film hap­pen. Our film crew comes from grass­roots activism, and we are turn­ing to the grass­roots, mean­ing you, to seek fund­ing. Please take a look at our crowd­fund­ing web-site and teas­er video at Indiegogo, and take action to help us please by mak­ing a dona­tion if you sup­port our work: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/spied-upon

 

In sol­i­dar­i­ty,
The crew at Spied Upon

 

PS. Lots more info at: www.spiedupon.com

Indigenous Petro-Struggles

stop fracking indigenous 12th Novem­ber

stop fracking indigenous 12th Novem­ber

Another Elsipogtog Showdown Brewing

SWN Resources Cana­da is plan­ning to resume its con­tro­ver­sial shale gas seis­mic explo­ration work on Wednes­day, accord­ing to Elsi­pog­tog War Chief John Levi. …

Levi said Con­nors told the peo­ple that SWN would with­draw a law­suit against sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers if the Hous­ton-based firm was allowed to fin­ish its explo­ration work unim­ped­ed.

“We said no, we are going to be there,” said Levi, in an inter­view with APTN Nation­al News. “What we told him was we are going to be there Wednes­day.”

Ponca Families Challenge TransCanada

Key­stone XL pipeline oppo­nents took to a Neligh rancher’s land Sat­ur­day, protest­ing the pro­pos­al they say cuts through the his­toric Pon­ca Trail of Tears and pos­es a steep envi­ron­men­tal risk. Pon­ca trib­al fam­i­lies, Oceti Sakowin tribes, Brave Heart Soci­ety, Bold Nebras­ka, and oth­ers — host­ed the Pon­ca Trail of Tears Spir­i­tu­al Camp, the first in a series of trib­al events aimed at show­cas­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty among ranch­ers and Native Amer­i­cans against TransCanada’s project.

Mining Resistance Stories

Anti-fracking protesters on the Seaway International Bridge at Akwesasne, Mohawk territory, Nov 9, 2013.

Anti

Anti-fracking protesters on the Seaway International Bridge at Akwesasne, Mohawk territory, Nov 9, 2013.

Anti-frack­ing pro­test­ers on the Sea­way Inter­na­tion­al Bridge at Akwe­sasne, Mohawk ter­ri­to­ry, Nov 9, 2013.

Akwesasne Anti-fracking Protest Briefly Closes Seaway International Bridge

OTTAWA — The Sea­way Inter­na­tion­al Bridge between Corn­wall and the U.S. was closed for about an hour Sat­ur­day as First Nations pro­test­ers staged an “infor­ma­tion march” in oppo­si­tion to hydraulic frack­ing gas extrac­tion process­es.

First Nations Granted Delay On Shell’s Tar Sands Project

Ear­li­er this week  the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment Agency (CEAA) announced that a fed­er­al deci­sion on Shell Oil’s Jack­pine Mine Expan­sion, a 100,000 bar­rel per day open pit tar sands mine expan­sion, would be delayed an addi­tion­al 35 days.  At the heart of this deci­sion is the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation who has been speak­ing out against the project since day one cit­ing a vari­ety of con­cerns relat­ing to treaty and abo­rig­i­nal rights as well as  direct and cumu­la­tive envi­ron­men­tal impacts.

Colombia: Mine Opponents Assassinated

Cesar Gar­cía, a campesino leader who opposed the min­ing oper­a­tions of Angl­o­Gold Ashan­ti at La Colosa in the cen­tral Colom­bian depart­ment of Toli­ma, was assas­si­nat­ed Nov. 2 by an unknown gun­man as he worked his small farm at the vere­da (ham­let) of Cajón la Leona. Sup­port­ers said he had been tar­get­ed for his work with the Envi­ron­men­tal Campesino Com­mit­tee of Caja­mar­ca, the local munic­i­pal­i­ty. In a state­ment, the Net­work of Toli­ma Envi­ron­men­tal and Campesino Com­mit­tees said the Caja­mar­ca group had been “stig­ma­tized as ene­mies of progress in the region,” and false­ly linked to the gueril­la move­ment.

 

Pipeline Solidarity: Informal Anarchist Front Attacks Bank of Canada, Chevron

a random smashed window11th Novem­ber

a random smashed window11th Novem­ber

Ear­ly morn­ing, on Wednes­day Novem­ber 6th a Roy­al Bank Of Cana­da had all 2 of their ATMs smashed and 4 of their win­dows. This was an easy tar­get as it was far on East Hast­ings in Burn­a­by. The RBC was attacked because they help fund the most destruc­tive project on earth, the Alber­ta Tar Sands.

The next ear­ly morn­ing, a Chevron on 1st and Nanaimo had 9 of its 12 pumps smashed, effec­tive­ly shut­ting it the fuck down. This has no doubt cost Chevron tens of thou­sands of dol­lars due to dam­ages and lost rev­enue. It was eas­i­ly done with a ham­mer and took about 1–3 swings each pump. Chevron was attacked because it is a major­i­ty share­hold­er of the Pacif­ic Trail Pipeline. The Pacif­ic Trail Pipeline (PTP) is an already approved Nat­ur­al Gas pipeline but the Unist’ot’en have built a block­ade right on the path of this pipeline. As anar­chists we have noth­ing but sol­i­dar­i­ty for the Unist‘oten and will do every­thing we can to assist them in their strug­gle against all cor­po­ra­tions who wish to destroy their land and the colo­nial gov­ern­ments who wish to assist the cor­po­ra­tions as it runs par­al­lel with the anar­chist strug­gle.

To oth­er activists and envi­ron­men­tal groups[:] this anti-pipelines move­ment will either be anti-cap­i­tal­ist or noth­ing. It will either be a mix of vio­lent tac­tics and peace­ful ones or it will be inef­fec­tive. It will either be against this colo­nial gov­ern­ment or unsuc­cess­ful. We under­stand the mis­ery and despair of this soci­ety and cap­i­tal­ism can be very unin­spir­ing and depress­ing but there is noth­ing more lib­er­at­ing, while this soci­ety exists, than to smash, burn, loot and bomb some­thing that is smash­ing your life everyday.We hope these actions inspires you to take some risks. Find your com­fort zone and then chal­lenge it.

We under­stand that it can be scary to com­mit ille­gal acts so its best to start small and gain your con­fi­dence and skills. Try pos­tur­ing around your city and move on to paint bomb­ing to tar­get­ed graf­fi­ti. So on and so forth. The best way to break a win­dow is on the cor­ner where there is less flex. An ATM takes one or two strikes with an hard object. Be care­ful with ATMs through they usu­al have high def­i­n­i­tion cam­eras so cov­er your whole face. Glass­es or snow gog­gles would work great. Dress is loose black cloth­ing bear­ing no log[o]s. If you use oth­er cloth­ing ditch it right after. Black shoes work great. You can also wear dif­fer­ent colour shoes and wear socks over them and ditch the socks after you caused some hav­oc.

FUCK PACIFIC TRAIL PIPELINE! FUCK THE NORTHERN GATEWAY PROJECT!

DESTROY WHAT DESTROYS YOU!

NO PIPELINES ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND!

FAI – Infor­mal Anar­chist Front

LONG LIVE ANARCHY!
SOLIDARITY FROM OCCUPIED COAST SALISH TERRITORY TO COMRADES WORLDWIDE

 

La Parota Opponent Charged With Terrorism

The Land is Not for Sale! A community in resistance to La Parota dam.

The Land is Not for Sale!

The Land is Not for Sale! A community in resistance to La Parota dam.

The Land is Not for Sale! A com­mu­ni­ty in resis­tance to La Paro­ta dam.

11th Novem­ber

In line with recent state­ments indi­cat­ing a resump­tion of efforts to force through the con­struc­tion of La Paro­ta Dam, the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment has also launched a new cam­paign of repres­sion against the dam’s oppo­nents.

First, dam oppo­nents warned of increas­ing para­mil­i­tary activ­i­ty in the region. Then came word that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to relo­cate entire vil­lages to ham­string the oppo­si­tion to the dam. Now Mar­co Anto­nio Suástegui Muñoz, spokesper­son for the Coun­cil of Eji­dos and Com­mu­ni­ties in Oppo­si­tion to La Paro­ta Dam (CECOP), said the state gov­ern­ment of Guer­rero has issued a war­rant for his arrest on false charges of ter­ror­ism, kid­nap­ping and “attacks on fed­er­al roads.” He denounced these as bla­tant acts of repres­sion relat­ed to his orga­niz­ing work against La Paro­ta.

Suástegui told a CECOP assem­bly that police set up three sep­a­rate road­blocks in an attempt to detain him, with orders to imme­di­ate­ly trans­port him to the max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison in Tepic, Nayarit. Suástegui was forced to change vehi­cles to evade the road­blocks and reach the assem­bly.

In recent months, Suástegui said, he has been threat­ened by rank­ing state offi­cial Hum­ber­to Sal­ga­do Gómez. “Sal­ga­do Gómez told me: calm your­self, or we’ll put you in jail. Bad peo­ple are watch­ing you. Either we put you in jail, or your life ends,” he said.

Suástegui accused Guer­rero Gov­er­nor Ángel Aguirre Rivero of vio­lat­ing the 2012 Cac­ahu­ate­pec Agree­ment, which com­mit­ted him to cease crim­i­nal­iz­ing or using force against oppo­nents of La Paro­ta dam, and to seek a meet­ing with Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent Enrique Peña Nieto and inform him that La Paro­ta dam will not be approved.

Suástegui also said that in spite of the war­rant, he will remain in his home vil­lage. “If the gov­ern­ment wants to come for me, I will not leave my pueblo [village/community/people]. We will wait for them, ladies and gen­tle­men.”

 

Fierce Infrastructure Battles in Peru

 Indigenous protesters march against Minas Conga mine in defense of their water and lands8th Novem­ber Indige­nous pro­test­ers m
 Indigenous protesters march against Minas Conga mine in defense of their water and lands8th Novem­ber Indige­nous pro­test­ers march against Minas Con­ga mine in defense of their water and lands

Cajamarca: Conga occupation not moved

Campesinos from some 40 pueb­los across Celendín province, in Peru’s north­ern region of Caja­mar­ca, held a meet­ing at Huas­mín vil­lage Oct. 23 to announce a cross-coun­try march that would arrive in mid-Novem­ber at the planned site of the Con­ga gold mine, where marchers would join the encamp­ment that has been estab­lished there [for almost two years]. … (Servin­di, Oct. 25; Celendin Libre, Oct. 23)

Comuneros (com­mu­nal peas­ants) in Celendín’s Yagén pueblo, Corte­gana dis­trict, weeks ear­li­er announced their readi­ness to resist the Chadín II hydro-elec­tric project, to be built by Brazil­ian firm Ode­brecht in the head­wa­ters of the Río Marañón, a major trib­u­tary of the Amazon—with much of of the ener­gy gen­er­at­ed slat­ed for local min­ing oper­a­tions. In a state­ment, the Defense Front for the Inter­ests of Pueblo Yagén said they would reject the “canon” of funds offered to local com­mu­ni­ties for devel­op­ment of the project in their area. The state­ment also reject­ed offers of new roads for local com­mu­ni­ties, say­ing they would only facil­i­tate  the despoil­ing of their lands by Odebrecht’s heavy equip­ment. … The state­ment closed with the slo­gan: “Nei­ther Con­ga nor Chadín! Respect the peo­ple!” (Celendin Libre, Sept. 30)

Read the full sto­ry.

Cuzco: unrest over water mega-diversion

In a pop­u­lar assem­bly Nov. 6, res­i­dents of Espinar vil­lage in Peru’s Cuz­co region declared them­selves on a “war foot­ing,” pledigng to resist immi­nent con­struc­tion of the Majes Siguas II irri­ga­tion mega-project, which would divert water from indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in the high­lands to agribusi­ness inter­ests on the coast. … Lat­er that day, Espinar’s may­or Oscar Mol­lo­huan­ca announced that some 100 police troops had attacked local vil­lagers at Urin­saya in Copo­raque dis­trict, beat­ing five. The where­abouts of one vil­lager has been unknown since the attack. … (Radio Uni­ver­sal, RPP, Nov. 6)

Read the full sto­ry.

Peru: government ultimatum to illegal miners

Peru’s gov­ern­ment has issued an “ulti­ma­tum” to small-scale arti­sanal min­ers in south­ern Puno region, say­ing that if they do not remove their dredges and oth­er equip­ment from the water­sheds of the Ramis and Such­es rivers (which both flow into Lake Tit­i­ca­ca), they will be dyna­mit­ed. …

The state­ment fol­lows weeks of protests by infor­mal min­ers in sev­er­al regions of the coun­try, demand­ing “for­mal­iza­tion” of their claims. A clash with Nation­al Police troops was report­ed Oct. 2 from a min­er road­block at Hua­machu­co, La Lib­er­tad region. The Region­al Fed­er­a­tion of Arti­sanal Min­ers and Small Pro­duc­ers of La Lib­er­atd (FREMARLIB) said two min­ers were killed in the con­fronta­tion, and sev­er­al wound­ed and detained.

Read the full sto­ry.

 

Mi’kmaq Warrior Society Members Beaten in Jail

1378041_10151948903995923_196279515_n1st Novem­ber

1378041_10151948903995923_196279515_n1st Novem­ber

Two mem­bers of the Mi’kmaq War­rior Soci­ety say they were roughed up and beat­en by RCMP offi­cers and jail guards after they were arrest­ed fol­low­ing a heav­i­ly-armed raid on a Mi’kmaq led anti-frack­ing camp in New Brunswick ear­li­er this month.

Jason Augus­tine, War­rior Soci­ety dis­trict chief, said he was kicked in the head by an RCMP offi­cer after he was cuffed and arrest­ed dur­ing the Oct. 17 raid.

Augus­tine said he was lat­er diag­nosed with a con­cus­sion at the hos­pi­tal in Monc­ton, NB.

“I was kicked in the head three times when I was tak­en down,” said Augus­tine. “I wasn’t resist­ing arrest, I had my hands behind my back, and this one RCMP start­ed bash­ing my head in.”

Augus­tine said he was nod­ding-off while he was held in one of the cells with oth­er war­riors at the Codi­ac RCMP detach­ment in Monc­ton. He claimed his head was hit against the wall as he was being tak­en to the ambu­lance.

“One of the guys called the guards up and said I need­ed an ambu­lance,” said Augus­tine. “The RCMP picked me up, they roughed me up and hit my head against the wall when they were tak­ing me to the hos­pi­tal.”

 

David Maze­rolle, anoth­er War­rior Soci­ety mem­ber, claimed in a YouTube video that Aaron Fran­cis was beat­en while hand­cuffed as he was being tak­en to a cell at the South East Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­tre in She­di­ac, NB.

Augus­tine and Maze­rolle, who were released from cus­tody last Fri­day, both said they were denied use of the tele­phone.

Augus­tine said all six of the war­riors kept in cus­tody fol­low­ing the raid were put into soli­tary con­fine­ment.

An offi­cial at the cor­rec­tion cen­tre referred queries on the alle­ga­tions to New Brunswick’s Pub­lic Safe­ty depart­ment. The depart­ment did not return tele­phoned and emailed requests for com­ment.

RCMP spokesper­son Con­st. Jul­lie Rogers-Marsh said she would look into the issue before pro­vid­ing a response.

A total of 40 peo­ple were arrest­ed the day of the raid which spi­ralled into chaos after mem­bers of the Elsi­pog­tog First Nation clashed with police.

The RCMP raid, which includ­ed tac­ti­cal unit mem­bers wear­ing cam­ou­flage and wield­ing assault weapons, freed sev­er­al vehi­cles owned by a Hous­ton-based com­pa­ny doing shale gas explo­ration work in the region. The anti-frack­ing camp was block­ing SWN Resources Canada’s trucks from leav­ing a com­pound in Rex­ton, NB.

Augus­tine and Maze­rolle face sev­er­al charges includ­ing forcible con­fine­ment, mis­chief, assault­ing a peace offi­cer and escap­ing law­ful cus­tody.

Augus­tine also denied RCMP alle­ga­tions that the war­riors forcibly con­fined secu­ri­ty guards employed by Indus­tri­al Secu­ri­ties Ltd in the com­pound hold­ing SWN’s vehi­cles.

Augus­tine said the secu­ri­ty guards were escort­ed by the RCMP at the begin­ning and end of their shifts.

“They were not held unlaw­ful­ly,” he said. “They stayed there until their shift changes.”

Augus­tine also denied RCMP alle­ga­tions that the war­riors uttered death threats or bran­dished weapons at the secu­ri­ty guards.

“There were no death threats, we had nobody in con­fine­ment and we had no weapons,” he said.

The RCMP held a press con­fer­ence fol­low­ing the raid where they dis­played three rifles and ammu­ni­tion seized dur­ing the raid. The RCMP said offi­cers also found crude explo­sive devices.

Augus­tine claimed the guns and explo­sives were plant­ed after the raid.

“I do believe they were plant­ed, they knew we want­ed peace,” said Augus­tine. “They had a one track mind to hurt the war­rior soci­ety.”

Augus­tine said the war­riors were pre­pared to nego­ti­ate the release of SWN’s vehi­cles.

“They kept telling me, ‘we just want the trucks out’ and I said I was going to our War Chief to tell him to get the trucks out,” said Augus­tine.

Augus­tine said he was shot four times by RCMP offi­cers using bean-bag rounds.

He said two RCMP offi­cers pre­sent­ed the war­riors with tobac­co bun­dles the night before the raid.

Augus­tine said his main defence against the charges will be to demand a hear­ing before an inter­na­tion­al court.

“Under our treaty laws we have to go to inter­na­tion­al court,” said Augus­tine. “We can’t be under the Crown because we are not under the Indi­an Act, we are treaty peo­ple.”

Since spring 2013, RCMP in New Brunswick arrest­ed 82 peo­ple in con­nec­tion with anti-frack­ing relat­ed protests

Rising Tide Protests TD Bank in Seattle

1422435_727576977270701_442586150_n31st Octo­ber Our friends with Ris­ing Tide Seat­tle and South Soun

1422435_727576977270701_442586150_n31st Octo­ber Our friends with Ris­ing Tide Seat­tle and South Sound Ris­ing Tide arrived at a TD Bank office with a 35-foot-long mock pipeline and a funer­al pro­ces­sion to demand they stop bankrolling the Key­stone XL and tar sands extrac­tion.

TD Bank is one of the largest share­hold­ers in the Alber­ta Tar Sands, and was also protest­ed by Ris­ing Tide Philly ear­li­er this year.

After the TD Bank office, they marched to the fed­er­al build­ing to put Pres­i­dent Oba­ma on notice; they have pledged to resist along with over 80,000 peo­ple orga­nized by The Oth­er 98%,CREDO Mobile and Rain­for­est Action Net­work.

Protesters Block Miners from Coromandel Harbour

6n_coromandel_301013

6n_coromandel_301013

30th Octo­ber New Zealand – A group of Coro­man­del pro­test­ers are cur­rent­ly blockad­ing the town’s har­bour in an attempt to stop Sea Hold­ings from tak­ing sam­ples.

The area is part of Sched­ule 4, where the Gov­ern­ment gave con­sent for min­er­al prospect­ing ear­li­er this year, despite promis­ing in 2010 no min­ing would be allowed.

Green MP Cather­ine Delahunty is at the “peace­ful protest”, tweet­ing: “Min­ers have head­ed back to motel try­ing to work how to get around Coro­man­del com­mu­ni­ty but it’s not work­ing!”.

The Gov­ern­ment had orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed min­er­al explo­ration in 7000ha of con­ser­va­tion land in the Coro­man­del, Great Bar­ri­er Island and Paparoa Nation­al Park.

How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment did a U‑turn in 2010 and said it will not remove any land from Sched­ule 4 for min­ing pur­pos­es.

But, in March this year it issued eight con­sents to prospect and explore for coal and oth­er min­er­als in Coro­man­del and Paparoa Nation­al Park.