Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

Shell pipeline construction preparations destroyed in direct action in Erris

22 June 2013 This morn­ing around 50 Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers kicked off the Week of Action against Shel­l’s exper­i­men­tal high pres­sure gas pipe in Erris by tear­ing up the bog road Shell has laid as part of its attempt to fin­ish the pipeline.  They also destroyed the sand­bag dam that Shell were attempt­ing to build across part of the estu­ary in order to be able to work on the pipelin

22 June 2013 This morn­ing around 50 Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers kicked off the Week of Action against Shel­l’s exper­i­men­tal high pres­sure gas pipe in Erris by tear­ing up the bog road Shell has laid as part of its attempt to fin­ish the pipeline.  They also destroyed the sand­bag dam that Shell were attempt­ing to build across part of the estu­ary in order to be able to work on the pipeline route regard­less of the tides.  This was accom­plished in full view of about 15 secu­ri­ty from IRMS — the secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny hired by Shell to repress protest.

The camp has been set up at Argoose over the last cou­ple of weeks and from Fri­day  num­bers here more than dou­bled as peo­ple start­ed to arrive from all over Ire­land and beyond.    Shell have con­struct­ed a giant for­ti­fied com­pound at Argoose about 150m from the loca­tion of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.  The com­pound is ringed by a 3m spiked met­al fence on which remote con­trol video cam­eras are mount­ed to mon­i­tor the sur­round­ing land­scape.  Even when no work is in progress the com­pound is staffed by a cou­ple of dozen secu­ri­ty guards, many of them equipped with hand held video cam­eras.

Two fur­ther com­pounds are in the imme­di­ate area on the route to the refin­ery Shell have built at Bellnaboy.  The refin­ery & pipeline have met con­stant oppo­si­tion from peo­ple liv­ing in the area for over a decade and since 2005 that oppo­si­tion has involved hun­dreds of direct actions intend­ed to slow down con­struc­tion.  Because of these the costs of the project has esca­lat­ed from the ini­tial esti­mate of 600 mil­lion to a cur­rent esti­mate of over 3 bil­lion.

In their attempts to force the project on the local pop­u­la­tion Shell has had the full back­ing of the Irish state.  Thou­sands of Gar­da have been deployed as well as Naval gun­boats and the air­force at key moments of the project.  Dozens of peo­ple have been arrest­ed and over a dozen jailed for at least a peri­od.  Hun­dreds of Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers have been bru­talised by Gar­da and pri­vate secu­ri­ty, sev­er­al being left with per­ma­nent injuries.  The polit­i­cal par­ties in gov­ern­ment respon­si­ble for this have includ­ed Fian­na Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour Par­ty & the Green Par­ty.

Nation­al oppo­si­tion to the project has grown as the extent of human rights abus­es direct­ed at Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers have become known.  The cam­paign has also suc­ceed­ed in reveal­ing the Great Oil & Gas Give­away to the extent that men­tion­ing it has become a com­mon fea­ture of any phone in dis­cus­sion of the econ­o­my.  Under the give­away oil cor­po­ra­tions are giv­en any Oil or Gas they find and are only expect­ed to pay a minis­cule 25% tax rate on the prof­its of their sales after they have been allowed to write off all costs asso­ci­at­ed with oper­at­ing in Ire­land.  The typ­i­cal cre­ative account­ing & tax avoid­ance of mega cor­po­ra­tions means that in real­i­ty they may pay noth­ing at all.  Oil indus­try experts have stat­ed that they expect Shell will pay no tax in rela­tion to exploit­ing the Cor­rib field.  The terms under which the Irish state gives away Oil & Gas found in and around Ire­land are amongst the worst in the world, worse even that those imposed on Amer­i­can occu­pied Iraq or Nige­ria.

The Week of Action organ­ised from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp will run all through next week and over the week­end.  Any­one con­cerned with Shel­l’s abus­es in Erris or with the nation­al give­away of oil & gas is encour­aged to come to Erris and stay at the camp or one of the near by bed & break­fasts.  You don’t need to be will­ing to risk arrest in car­ry­ing out an action to be use­ful down here.  There are loads of sup­port roles peo­ple are also need­ed to help with from doc­u­ment­ing what is hap­pen­ing with cam­eras to chop­ping the car­rots and doing the dish­es for the col­lec­tive meals.  Many of those here now have been to Erris sev­er­al times but there are also quite a few peo­ple for whom this is their first time and you will cer­tain­ly be made wel­come.

 

Update on Belo Monte Dam Struggle

In the late morn­ing of June 4th, two air force planes descend­ed upon the cap­i­tal city of Brasília, car­ry­ing aboard an unusu­al group of pas­sen­gers: over 140 indige­nous peo­ple, ma

In the late morn­ing of June 4th, two air force planes descend­ed upon the cap­i­tal city of Brasília, car­ry­ing aboard an unusu­al group of pas­sen­gers: over 140 indige­nous peo­ple, main­ly mem­bers of the Munduruku tribe from the Tapa­jós Riv­er – includ­ing lead­ers, war­riors, women and chil­dren – along with a small num­ber of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Xin­gu tribes – Xikrin, Arara, Kayapó. For the indige­nous del­e­ga­tion, the pur­pose of the trip, nego­ti­at­ed dur­ing the lat­est occu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte Dam site, was to meet with Min­is­ter Gilber­to Car­val­ho, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the President’s Office, to dis­cuss their demands for con­sul­ta­tions and con­sent regard­ing a series of mega-dams on the Tapa­jós, Teles Pires and Xin­gu rivers, planned and, in some cas­es, under (ille­gal) con­struc­tion.

Munduruku child
Munduruku child
By Jam­i­lye Salles

Dur­ing a four-hour meet­ing held the same day, the Munduruku voiced their con­cerns and out­rage over threats posed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s ambi­tious dam-build­ing spree in the Xin­gu and Tapa­jós basins, autho­rized with­out any process of free, pri­or and informed con­sul­ta­tions and con­sent, as man­dat­ed by the Brazil­ian Con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al agree­ments such as ILO Con­ven­tion 169. At the end of the meet­ing, the main pro­pos­al put for­ward by Min­is­ter Car­val­ho was to orga­nize anoth­er meet­ing in a Munduruku vil­lage after a peri­od of 30 days. As Car­val­ho left the meet­ing, he stat­ed unequiv­o­cal­ly to a group of reporters that while open to dia­logue with indige­nous peo­ples, the “gov­ern­ment is not going to give up on its projects.” Inter­est­ing­ly, the Min­is­ter was refer­ring to pro­posed mega-dams such as São Luiz do Tapa­jós whose envi­ron­men­tal impact and eco­nom­ic via­bil­i­ty stud­ies have yet to be final­ized and approved.

“What the gov­ern­ment wants, we do not want. They want to say that they will build dams on our land and then see what we want in return. And we do not want any­thing in return. We want our riv­er free and our nature pre­served” stat­ed indige­nous leader Valdenir Mundurukú.“The Min­is­ter says he wants to con­sult with indige­nous peo­ples, but that the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion to build the dams has already been made. What kind of con­sul­ta­tion is that?”

Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of Brazil, Gilberto Carvalho, speaks to Munduruku Indians during a meeting at the Planalto Palace
Min­is­ter of the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at of the Pres­i­den­cy of Brazil, Gilber­to Car­val­ho, speaks to Munduruku Indi­ans dur­ing a meet­ing at the Planal­to Palace
REUTERS/Ueslei Marceli­no

Car­val­ho’s advi­sors attempt­ed to con­vince the indige­nous del­e­ga­tion to return home to the state of Pará the fol­low­ing morn­ing, argu­ing that this was part of the agree­ment around their trip to Brasília and that planes were await­ing them at a near­by air force base. Munduruku and Xin­gu lead­ers respond­ed that there had been no such agree­ment, and they did not intend to return to their vil­lages with­out con­crete results from their time in Brasília.

The next morn­ing, the Munduruku and Xin­gu rep­re­sen­ta­tives assem­bled in the Praça dos Três Poderes, adja­cent to the Pres­i­den­tial Palace, Brazil­ian Con­gress and Supreme Court. There, they were greet­ed by lead­ers of the Ter­e­na peo­ple, who had trav­eled to Brasília to demand the demar­ca­tion of their lands and a full inves­ti­ga­tion into the killing of Osiel Gabriel, a Ter­e­na killed by the fed­er­al police in a land con­flict involv­ing ranch­ers in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. As the Ter­e­na lead­ers depart­ed for a meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice, the Munduruku and Xin­gu rep­re­sen­ta­tives pro­ceed­ed in the direc­tion of the Pres­i­den­tial Palace with the goal of deliv­er­ing a let­ter to Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff that includ­ed a request for a meet­ing. How­ev­er, a large secu­ri­ty force assem­bled a bar­ri­cade, phys­i­cal­ly pre­vent­ing the indige­nous peo­ple from reach­ing the entrance to the palace. The let­ter to Dil­ma was nev­er deliv­ered. The del­e­ga­tion then walked to the main entrance of the Brazil­ian Con­gress where they per­son­al­ly deliv­ered a let­ter to Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Padre Ton, chair­man of a con­gres­sion­al cau­cus in sup­port of indige­nous peo­ples.

Munduruku child at demonstration in front of Presidential Palace
Munduruku child at demon­stra­tion in front of Pres­i­den­tial Palace
By Brent Mil­likan

Fol­low­ing the deci­sion to extend their stay in Brasília, the indige­nous del­e­ga­tion was informed by Min­is­ter Car­val­ho’s staff that his office would not pro­vide addi­tion­al lodg­ing, food or trans­porta­tion in Brasília. As a result, the del­e­ga­tion moved to a com­pound on the out­skirts of Brasília oper­at­ed by CIMI, one of the pro­gres­sive arms of the Catholic Church that sup­ports indige­nous peo­ples. After a few days, they need­ed to find anoth­er place to stay because the CIMI com­pound was already reserved for a large event. The new Pres­i­dent of FUNAI (the gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tion tasked with indige­nous affairs), Maria Augus­ta Assir­ati, told CIMI and the indige­nous del­e­ga­tion that her agency would resolve the prob­lem. When a solu­tion failed to mate­ri­al­ize, the Munduruku and Xin­gu rep­re­sen­ta­tives decid­ed to occu­py FUNAI head­quar­ters in the cen­ter of Brasília.

The Munduruku and their Xingu allies staged a protest outside the Ministry of Mines and Energy
Munduruku protest out­side the Min­istry of Mines and Ener­gy
By Brent Mil­likan

The Munduruku and their Xin­gu allies sub­se­quent­ly staged an impres­sive protest at the entrance of the Min­istry of Mines and Ener­gy – de-fac­to head­quar­ters of the Brazil­ian dam indus­try – that includ­ed singing and danc­ing. The del­e­ga­tion for­mal­ly request­ed meet­ings with Joaquim Bar­bosa and Felix Fis­ch­er, chief jus­tices of the Fed­er­al Supreme Court (STF) and Supe­ri­or Court of Jus­tice (STJ), respec­tive­ly, to dis­cuss out­stand­ing law­suits regard­ing lack of pri­or con­sul­ta­tions in the cas­es of Belo Monte and the Tapa­jos dams. Nei­ther request was grant­ed.

On June 12th, Brazil’s most well-known indige­nous leader,Chief Raoni, trav­eled to Brasília to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Mundurukú, one of the main out­comes of a meet­ing just orga­nized among the Kayapó of the Xin­gu Basin. In the past, the Kayapó and Mundurukú occa­sion­al­ly engaged in con­flicts, which made Chief Raoni’s pres­ence an even more his­toric event, unit­ing com­mu­nites with a com­mon goal of defend­ing their ter­ri­to­ries and rights against destruc­tive dam projects.

Munduruku warrior in front of Brazilian Congress
Munduruku war­rior in front of Brazil­ian Con­gress
By Brent Mil­likan

Through­out their stay in Brasil­ia, the Munduruku and Xin­gu rep­re­sen­ta­tives insist­ed that the gov­ern­ment hon­or the issue of con­sent: i.e. that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment should lis­ten to indige­nous peo­ples and respect their deci­sion. This is pre­cise­ly what the admin­is­tra­tions of Lula and Dil­ma Rouss­eff have not done, bla­tant­ly flout­ing the Brazil­ian Con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al agree­ments regard­ing indige­nous peo­ples’ rights while inter­ven­ing in fed­er­al courts to ensure the rule of law is not upheld.

Last Thurs­day, the Munduruku and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Xin­gu returned to the state of Pará after nine days in Brasil­ia, vow­ing to con­tin­ue the strug­gle. “Our fight has just begun. We’re return­ing to our com­mu­ni­ties where we will strength­en our­selves and cre­ate alliances with oth­er indige­nous peo­ples so that, togeth­er, we can fight this desre­spect of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for our cul­ture, our beliefs and our rights” stat­ed Valdenir Mundurukú, short­ly before the group embarked on air force planes for the long voy­age home.

Honduras Targeting Indigenous Dam Opponents

21 June 2013, On Fri­day, May 24, Berta Cac­eres, the Gen­er­al Coor­di­na­tor of the Indige­nous Lenca orga­ni­za­tion COPINH, and Tomas Gomez of COPINH’s com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion, were trav­el­ing on rur­al dirt roads to reach the Indige­nous Lenca com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co when they were stopped by 15–20 sol­diers. The whole area had been mil­i­ta­rized just two weeks before in response to the area-wide mobi­liza­tion against a hydro­elec­tric dam being ille­gal­ly built in the Indige­nous Lenca com­mu­ni­ty of Rio Blan­co. The First Bat­tal­ion of Engi­neers, com­mand­ed by an SOA grad­u­ate, occu­pied the area to pro­tect the inter­ests of the com­pa­ny and enable dam con­struc­tion to con­tin­ue in direct vio­la­tion of ILO Con­ven­tion 169 and the will of the com­mu­ni­ties in the area.

Despite the military’s pres­ence, evic­tions, sab­o­tage to COPINH’s vehi­cle, death threats against com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, and intim­i­da­tion, the resis­tance to the dam con­tin­ued to grow as the Rio Blan­co com­mu­ni­ty neared 2 months of block­ing the dam entrance. When Berta and Tomas drove the wind­ing dirt roads to Rio Blan­co on May 24, as they had many times before in COPINH’s now well-rec­og­nized vehi­cle, the mil­i­tary was wait­ing for them. They were on an iso­lat­ed dirt road, where any­thing that occurred would be the word of at least 15 sol­diers against that of Berta and Tomas. The COPINH lead­ers were ordered to stop and get out of the car. The sol­diers pro­ceed­ed to search their vehi­cle in detail, even pok­ing their fin­gers in the engine, and found noth­ing. How­ev­er, that did not mat­ter in their pre-planned oper­a­tion to crim­i­nal­ize Berta and weak­en the strug­gle against the Agua Zarca dam: they sim­ply claimed to have found a gun and then called the police, who took Berta and Tomas to jail. Berta was arrest­ed and kept in jail overnight, final­ly being con­di­tion­al­ly released after dozens of inter­na­tion­al phone calls inquir­ing for her safe­ty. But first, she was charged with “ille­gal­ly car­ry­ing weapons,” a charge that can result in time in prison. Sub­se­quent­ly, she was also charged with attempt­ing against the inter­nal secu­ri­ty of the state of Hon­duras.

Two-time SOA grad­u­ate Col. Mil­ton Amaya, the Com­man­der of the First Bat­tal­ion of Engi­neers, made accu­sa­tions about Berta Cac­eres to the press, result­ing in sev­er­al news arti­cles that claim the well-known social move­ment leader was ille­gal­ly armed. This is part of a broad­er strat­e­gy by the mil­i­tary and Hon­duran oli­garchy to crim­i­nal­ize and defame social move­ments by paint­ing them as armed or oper­at­ing out­side the law.

In the case of COPINH, the crim­i­nal­iza­tion and defama­tion of Berta Cac­eres by the mil­i­tary was aimed at break­ing the community’s resis­tance to the hydro­elec­tric dam – thus enabling pow­er­ful multi­na­tion­al inter­ests to prof­it from the Rio Blan­co community’s care­ful­ly stew­ard­ed nat­ur­al resources.  Con­fi­den­tial sources report­ed that the com­pa­ny felt that by “tak­ing her (Berta) down, the oth­ers will break.” In a telling indi­ca­tion of the true motives behind Berta’s arrest, the Hon­duran dai­ly news­pa­per El Tiem­po report­ed that Col. Amaya “accused Cac­eres of ral­ly­ing the Indige­nous pop­u­la­tion of the area known as Rio Blan­co… to reject the con­struc­tion of the Agua Zarca hydro­elec­tric dam.”

The pow­er­ful inter­ests behind the project and their influ­ence in the Hon­duran gov­ern­ment was evi­dent when the pros­e­cu­tor against Berta was changed from the local office in San­ta Bar­bara to the Nation­al Procu­raduria Gen­er­al de la Repub­li­ca, which request­ed that Berta be impris­oned while await­ing tri­al. How­ev­er, what the pow­ers at be did­n’t count on was the wide­spread sup­port for Berta Cac­eres by Hon­duran social move­ments and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions. On June 13, out­side the cour­t­house where a hear­ing against Berta held, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from over 40 orga­ni­za­tions gath­ered to demand an end to the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of Berta and COPINH. Nobel Peace Prize win­ner Adol­fo Pérez Esquiv­el held a press con­fer­ence in Argenti­na and orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als from across the Amer­i­c­as con­tact­ed the Hon­duran gov­ern­ment and released state­ments call­ing for Berta’s free­dom.

On June 13, the hear­ing dragged on, with two recess­es, the sec­ond post­pon­ing the res­o­lu­tion to the end of the day. How­ev­er, those gath­ered out­side the cour­t­house to demand Berta’s free­dom refused to leave. It was report­ed that rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the com­pa­nies build­ing the hydro­elec­tric dam had gone drink­ing with the judge in the days pri­or to the hear­ing, but this time their efforts to sway the eas­i­ly cor­rupt­ible Hon­duran jus­tice sys­tem were not enough. There was no evi­dence against Berta, numer­ous irreg­u­lar­i­ties in her arrest, and the two sol­diers who tes­ti­fied about sup­pos­ed­ly find­ing a weapon con­tra­dict­ed each oth­er sev­er­al times in their tes­ti­mo­ny.

In the Hon­duran judi­cial sys­tem, lack of evi­dence isn’t a prob­lem when there is a polit­i­cal motive for a con­vic­tion, but this time it seems the polit­i­cal cost of lock­ing up a wide­ly known and respect­ed leader with sup­port from across the con­ti­nent was too much. After tak­ing recess­es to sure­ly con­sult with the pow­ers at be, instead of order­ing a tri­al and send­ing Berta to prison in the mean­time, the judge “pro­vi­sion­al­ly dis­missed” the charges. Those stand­ing vig­il out­side the cour­t­house cel­e­brat­ed the news of Berta’s free­dom and the fail­ure of the mil­i­tary’s efforts to jail her. The pro­vi­sion­al part means that the pros­e­cu­tor has 5 years to present new evi­dence but is clear to all involved there will be nation­al and inter­na­tion­al push­back to any attempt to fab­ri­cate charges.

How­ev­er, the pow­er­ful inter­ests behind the project are not giv­ing up. Fol­low­ing the court’s deci­sion not to jail Berta, there were new death threats against her and oth­er COPINH and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers. It is report­ed that some­one was paid to mur­der Berta this week and there are indi­ca­tions they may try to crim­i­nal­ize oth­er lead­ers. The First Bat­tal­ion of Engi­neers con­tin­ues to occu­py the zone, lit­er­al­ly pro­tect­ing cor­po­rate inter­ests rather than the pop­u­la­tion. COPINH has denounced that sol­diers have even dri­ven com­pa­ny machin­ery to try to cus­to­di­an the machin­ery past the Indige­nous Lenca com­mu­ni­ty’s block­ade. On June 11, when many in the com­mu­ni­ty were away for a mobi­liza­tion, sol­diers and police phys­i­cal­ly destroyed the road­block. They then attempt­ed to accom­pa­ny employ­ees of DESA and SINOHYDRO past the block­ade but the small group of women and chil­dren present refused to let the com­pa­ny in. On June 16, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers report that 150 sol­diers and police arrived at the Rio Blan­co block­ade, sev­er­al trav­el­ing in com­pa­ny vehi­cles as they often do. Again the com­mu­ni­ty refused to move, refus­ing to let the com­pa­ny advance in ille­gal­ly build­ing a dam in their ter­ri­to­ry.

The Indige­nous Lenca com­mu­ni­ties are up against very pow­er­ful inter­ests who want their ter­ri­to­ry – in vio­la­tion of their right to the land that has belonged to their com­mu­ni­ty for cen­turies, which they have care­ful­ly stew­ard­ed and plan to pass onto their chil­dren. One of the prin­ci­pal investors in the dam is the Hon­duran Bank FICOHSA, whose pres­i­dent is Cami­lo Ata­la, is an extreme­ly pow­er­ful busi­ness­man iden­ti­fied as one of the “intel­lec­tu­al authors and financers of the coup d’etat.” FICOHSA also exer­cis­es sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal pow­er because they pur­chased Hon­duras’ inter­nal debt after the 2009 mil­i­tary coup. The World Bank and Cen­tral Amer­i­can Bank for Eco­nom­ic Inte­gra­tion are also key investors. A Chi­nese state com­pa­ny, SINOHYDRO, which is the largest hydropow­er com­pa­ny in the world is work­ing on the project. As Berta Cac­eres explains, “we are con­fronting an oli­garchic, bank­ing, finan­cial, and transna­tion­al pow­er, as well as the State of Hon­duras itself and its repres­sive forces, which have his­tor­i­cal­ly aligned them­selves with the inter­ests of multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions.”

The crim­i­nal­iza­tion and mil­i­ta­riza­tion faced by COPINH and the Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties of Rio Blan­co takes place in the con­text of increas­ing crim­i­nal­iza­tion of Hon­duran social move­ments, espe­cial­ly those who are defend­ing their nat­ur­al resources as the right-wing gov­ern­ment ush­ered in by the mil­i­tary coup lit­er­al­ly sells off the coun­try to multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and the Hon­duran oli­garchy.

Take action: Click here to e‑mail the World Bank, the US Embassy in Hon­duras, and the Hon­duran author­i­ties, urg­ing them to end the mil­i­ta­riza­tion and crim­i­nal­iza­tion of the Rio Blan­co strug­gle and respect for ILO Con­ven­tion 169 and the right of the Indige­nous Lenca com­mu­ni­ties of Rio Blan­co to decide whether or not they want a hydro­elec­tric dam built on their ter­ri­to­ry.

Corrib campaigner released from Castlerea prison

21st June 2013

Cor­rib cam­paign­er released from Castlerea prison

21st June 2013

Cor­rib cam­paign­er released from Castlerea prison

Liam Hef­fer­nan released after 10 days impris­on­ment and 5 days on hunger strike
 
Today at Har­ris­town court, Castl­rea Co. Roscom­mon, Liam Walsh Hef­fer­nan (28) of Castle­bar Co. Mayo, was released from Castlerea prison after 10 days in cus­tody. For the last 5 days of his impris­on­ment he had been on hunger strike protest­ing against his deten­tion and the extra­or­di­nary con­di­tions of the bail terms that he had thus far refused.
 
Mr Hef­fer­nan was arrest­ed on the 12th of June while protest­ing against the Shell Cor­rib gas project at Augh­oose Co. Mayo. At Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion he was charged under sec­tions 8 and 9 of the Pub­lic Order Act. He was offered bail, with the extra­or­di­nary con­di­tion that he stay away from Augh­oose, site of the Shell tun­nelling works for the Cor­rib gas project. Augh­oose is also the loca­tion of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and is a cen­tral focus of protest against the project. Mr Hef­fer­nan refused the bail con­di­tions, and has been held on remand until his release today.
 
On the 17th of June Mr Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike against his extra­or­di­nary bail terms and his con­tin­ued deten­tion. This morn­ing at a bail hear­ing in Har­ris­town court, Mr Hef­fer­nan, rep­re­sent­ing him­self, made an appli­ca­tion to the Judge Browne to change the terms of the bond, in order to per­mit him to return to Augh­oose. The Judge said that he was unable to alter the bail terms in that court. Mr Hef­fer­nan then signed the bail bond, stat­ing that he would chal­lenge the bail terms and con­test the pub­lic order charges. Mr Hef­fer­nan’s first appear­ance in rela­tion to the charges is on the 10th of July, Bel­mul­let dis­trict court.
 
Upon his release Mr Hef­fer­nan said: “The state has attempt­ed to lim­it my free­dom of speech and move­ment, by apply­ing these extra­or­di­nary con­di­tions on my bail. Peo­ple in Mayo have suf­fered decades of injus­tice because of the impo­si­tion of the Cor­rib gas project. What we do with our nat­ur­al resources should be open to nation­al debate, and for any project to pro­ceed, the con­sent of the peo­ple must be sought.”
 
 

Corrib campaigner on hunger strike in Castlerea prison

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On Mon­day 17th of June Cor­rib cam­paign­er Liam Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike in protest against his con­tin­ued deten­tion in Castlerea prison.

View image on Twitter

On Mon­day 17th of June Cor­rib cam­paign­er Liam Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike in protest against his con­tin­ued deten­tion in Castlerea prison.

On Wednes­day morn­ing the 12th of June Liam Hef­fer­nan — a cam­paign­er from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp — was arrest­ed at Augh­oose, Coun­ty Mayo under sec­tions 8 and 9 of the Pub­lic Order Act for alleged­ly obstruct­ing Shell con­struc­tion vehi­cles with­out law­ful author­i­ty or rea­son­able excuse.

At Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion Mr. Hef­fer­nan was offered to enter into a bail bond with the con­di­tion that he stay away from the Shell tun­nelling com­pound at Augh­oose. After refus­ing this extra­or­di­nary con­di­tion, he was remand­ed to Catlerea prison, Co. Roscom­mon for two days until the court sat on Fri­day morn­ing last.

In Har­ris­town Court, Castlerea, Mr. Hef­fer­nan, defend­ing him­self, read a state­ment to the court say­ing that he believed he was being ille­gal­ly detained and informed the Judge of some of the his­to­ry of the Cor­rib gas project and his rea­sons for protest­ing at Augh­oose. The Judge replied that he should take up these issues with the High Court and/or the Gov­ern­ment. At this point Mr. Hef­fer­nan accept­ed to enter into the bail con­di­tions set out by the Judge and to appear before Bel­mul­let Dis­trict Court on the 10th of July.

The Judge how­ev­er found prob­lems with Mr. Hef­fer­nan’s sig­na­ture and remand­ed the cam­paign­er in cus­tody until the next sit­ting of Har­ris­town court.

Today, Thurs­day the 20th of June, marks Liam’s ninth day in prison and fourth day on hunger strike. Sup­port­ers of Liam are invit­ed to attend Har­ris­town Court, Castlerea, tomor­row,  Fri­day the 21st of June at 10.30am

 

Shell speedboats ram and sink kayaker for Corrib gas project

19 June 2013. On Sun­day Shell began lay­ing the off­shore umbil­i­cal pipeline for the Cor­rib Gas Project. Kayak­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Broad­haven Bay to protest against the con­tin­ued impo­si­tion of the dis­as­trous project.

19 June 2013. On Sun­day Shell began lay­ing the off­shore umbil­i­cal pipeline for the Cor­rib Gas Project. Kayak­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Broad­haven Bay to protest against the con­tin­ued impo­si­tion of the dis­as­trous project.

The Gar­dai are allow­ing Shell increas­ing­ly to police the protests them­selves, by using their pri­vate secu­ri­ty force — IRMS, and at sea, so called extra “safe­ty” boats.

Do you want pri­vate mili­tias oper­at­ing in Ire­land at the behest of the most pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions in the world?

If not you are wel­come to come to Mayo, check out the sit­u­a­tion for your­self, and if you like add your skill, cre­ativ­i­ty and time to the resis­tance.

Keystone Pipeline Protesters Block Chicago Federal Building

Pro­test­ers block­ade Chicago’s Met­calfe Fed­er­al Build­ing in the first action of the No KXL cam­paign, Jun 17, 2013..

Pro­test­ers block­ade Chicago’s Met­calfe Fed­er­al Build­ing in the first action of the No KXL cam­paign, Jun 17, 2013.. (Pho­to: @whitjones via Twit­ter)

Jun 18th, 2013

Over 20 anti-Key­stone pro­test­ers were arrest­ed Mon­day morn­ing for blockad­ing the doors to a Chica­go fed­er­al build­ing as part of new­ly launched call to action that declares “if you don’t act, I will.”

The demon­stra­tion was the first action orga­nized by the group No KXL who are launch­ing a civ­il dis­obe­di­ence cam­paign aimed direct­ly at Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and his pend­ing deci­sion to per­mit con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline. …

Accord­ing to the NOKXL web­site, over 60,000 activists have pledged to par­tic­i­pate in sim­i­lar actions intend­ed to pres­sure Oba­ma into block­ing the pipeline.

The protest came just days after the Globe and Mail report­ed that at least 2.5 mil­lion gal­lons of tox­ic flu­id have spilled from an oil and gas oper­a­tion in North­ern Alber­ta. The drill site in ques­tion is oper­at­ed by Hous­ton-based Apache Corp.

 

Keystone XL Activists Labeled Possible Eco-Terrorists

17/06/13. Doc­u­ments recent­ly obtained by Bold Nebras­ka [1] show that Tran­sCana­da – own­er of the hot­ly-con­test­ed Key­stone XL (KXL) [2] tar sands pipeline – has col­lud­ed with an FBI/DHS Fusion Cen­ter in Nebras­ka [3], label­ing non-vio­lent activists as pos­si­ble can­di­dates for “ter­ror­ism” charges and oth­er seri­ous crim­i­nal charges.

Fur­ther, the lan­guage in some of the doc­u­ments is so vague that it could also ensnare jour­nal­ists, researchers and aca­d­e­mics, as well.

Tran­sCana­da also built a ros­ter of names and pho­tos of spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als involved in orga­niz­ing against the pipeline, includ­ing 350.org‘s Rae Breaux, Rain­for­est Action Net­work‘s Scott Parkin and Tar Sands Block­ade‘s Ron Seifert. Fur­ther, every activist ever arrest­ed protest­ing the pipeline’s south­ern half is list­ed by name with their respec­tive pho­to shown, along with the date of arrest.


It’s PSY­OPs-gate and “frack­tivists” as “an insur­gency” [4] all over again, but this time it’s anoth­er cen­tral bat­tle­ground that’s in play: the north­ern half of KXL, a pro­posed bor­der-cross­ing pipeline whose final fate lies in the hands of Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma.

The south­ern half of the pipeline was approved by the Oba­ma Admin. via a March 2013 Exec­u­tive Order [5]. Togeth­er, the two pipeline halves would pump dilut­ed bitu­men (“dil­bit”) [6] south from the Alber­ta tar sands toward Port Arthur, TX, where it will be refined and shipped to the glob­al export mar­ket [7].

Activists across North Amer­i­ca have put up a for­mi­da­ble fight against both halves of the pipeline, rang­ing from the sum­mer 2011 Tar Sands Action [8] to the ongo­ing Tar Sands Block­ade [9]. Appar­ent­ly, Tran­sCana­da has fol­lowed the action close­ly, giv­en the lev­el of detail in the doc­u­ments.

Anoth­er Piece of the Puz­zle

Unhap­py with the protest efforts that would ulti­mate­ly hurt their bot­tom-line prof­its, Tran­sCana­da has already filed a s [10]trate­gic law­suit against pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion [10] (SLAPP) against Tar Sands Block­ade, which was even­tu­al­ly set­tled out of court in Jan. 2013 [11]. That was just one small piece of the repres­sive puz­zle, though it sent a rever­ber­at­ing mes­sage to eco-activists: they’re being watched [12].
In May 2013, Hot Springs School Dis­trict in South Dako­ta held a mock bomb drill, with the mock “domes­tic ter­ror­ists” none oth­er than anti-Key­stone XL activists [13].

“The Hot Springs School Dis­trict prac­ticed a lock­down pro­ce­dure after pre­tend­ing to receive a let­ter from a group that wrote ‘things dear to every­one will be destroyed unless con­tin­u­a­tion of the Key­stone pipeline and ura­ni­um min­ing is stopped imme­di­ate­ly,” explained the Rapid City Jour­nal [13]. “As part of the drill, the district’s 800 stu­dents locked class­room doors, pulled down win­dow shades and remained qui­et.”

This lat­est rev­e­la­tion, then, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the trou­bling trend pro­filed in inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Will Potter’s book “Green Is the New Red [14].” That is, eco-activists are increas­ing­ly being treat­ed as domes­tic eco-ter­ror­ists both by cor­po­ra­tions and by law enforce­ment.

Tran­sCana­da Docs: “Attack­ing Crit­i­cal Infra­struc­ture” = “Ter­ror­ism”

The doc­u­ments demon­strate a clear fish­ing expe­di­tion by Tran­sCana­da. For exam­ple, TransCanada’s Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion from Dec. 2012 on cor­po­rate secu­ri­ty allege that Bold Nebras­ka had “sus­pi­cious vehicles/photography [15]” out­side of its Oma­ha office.

That same pre­sen­ta­tion also says Tran­sCana­da has received “aggressive/abusive email and voice­mail,” vague­ly cit­ing an inci­dent in which some­one said the words “blow up,” with no addi­tion­al con­text offered. It also states the Tar Sands Block­ade is “well-fund­ed,” an iron­ic state­ment about a shoe-string oper­a­tion com­ing from one of the rich­est and most pow­er­ful indus­tries in human his­to­ry.

Anoth­er por­tion of TransCanada’s Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion dis­cuss­es the var­i­ous crim­i­nal and anti-ter­ror­ism statutes that could be deployed[16] to deter grass­roots efforts to stop KXL. The charge options Tran­sCana­da pre­sent­ed includ­ed crim­i­nal tres­pass, crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy, and most promi­nent­ly and alarm­ing­ly: fed­er­al and state anti-ter­ror­ism statutes.

Jour­nal­ism Could be Terrorism/Criminal Accord­ing to FBI/DHS Fusion Cen­ter Pre­sen­ta­tion

An April 2013 pre­sen­ta­tion giv­en by John McDer­mott [17] – a Crime Ana­lyst at the Nebras­ka Infor­ma­tion Analy­sis Cen­ter (NIAC) [18], the name of the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) and Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) fund­ed Nebras­ka-based Fusion Cen­ter [19] – details all of the var­i­ous “sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties” that could alleged­ly prove a “domes­tic ter­ror­ism” plot in-the-make.

NAIC says its mis­sion is to [19] “[c]ollect, eval­u­ate, ana­lyze, and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and intel­li­gence data regard­ing crim­i­nal and ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty to fed­er­al, state, local and trib­al law enforce­ment agen­cies, oth­er Fusion Cen­ters and to the pub­lic and pri­vate enti­ties as appro­pri­ate.”

Among the “observed behav­iors and inci­dents rea­son­ably indica­tive of pre­op­er­a­tions plan­ning relat­ed to ter­ror­ism or oth­er crim­i­nal activ­i­ty” is “pho­tog­ra­phy, obser­va­tion, or sur­veil­lance of facil­i­ties, build­ings, or crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and key resources.” A slip­pery slope, to say the least, which could ensnare jour­nal­ists and pho­to-jour­nal­ists out in the field doing their First Amend­ment-pro­tect­ed work.

Anoth­er so-called “sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty” that could eas­i­ly ensnare jour­nal­ists, researchers and aca­d­e­mics: “Elic­it­ing infor­ma­tion beyond curios­i­ty about a facility’s or building’s pur­pose, oper­a­tions, or secu­ri­ty.”

Melis­sa Trout­man [20] and Joshua Prib­an­ic [21] – pro­duc­ers of the doc­u­men­tary film “Triple Divide [22]” and co-edi­tors of the inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism web­site Pub­lic Her­ald – are an impor­tant case in point. While in the Tio­ga State For­est (pub­lic land) film­ing a Seneca Resources frack­ing site in Troy, Penn­syl­va­nia, they were detained by a Seneca con­trac­tor and lat­er labeled pos­si­ble “eco-ter­ror­ists.”

“In dis­cus­sions between the Seneca Resources and Chief Cald­well, we were made out to be con­sid­ered ‘eco-ter­ror­ists’ who attempt­ed to tres­pass and poten­tial­ly van­dal­ize Seneca’s drill sites, even though the audio record­ing of this inci­dent is clear that we iden­ti­fied our­selves as inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists in con­ver­sa­tion with the sec­ond truck dri­ver,”they explained in a post about the encounter [23], which can also be heard in their film.

“We were exer­cis­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al right as mem­bers of the free press to doc­u­ment and record events of inter­est to the pub­lic on pub­lic prop­er­ty when stripped of that right by con­trac­tors of Seneca.”

Activists protest­ing against the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Coun­cil (ALEC) dur­ing its April 2013 meet­ing in Ari­zona were also labeled as pos­si­ble “domes­tic ter­ror­ists” by the Ari­zona  [24]FBI/DHS Fusion Cen­ter [24], as detailed in a recent inves­ti­ga­tion by the Cen­ter for Media and Democ­ra­cy [25].

“Not Just Emp­ty Rhetoric”

It’d be easy to write off Tran­sCana­da and law enforcement’s antics as absurd. Will Pot­ter, in an arti­cle about the doc­u­ments, warned against such a men­tal­i­ty.

“This isn’t emp­ty rhetoric,” he wrote [3]. “In Texas, a ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tion entrapped activists for using sim­i­lar civ­il dis­obe­di­ence tac­tics [26]. And as I report­ed recent­ly for VICE [27], Ore­gon con­sid­ered leg­is­la­tion to crim­i­nal­ize tree sits. Tran­sCana­da has beenusing sim­i­lar tac­tics in [Cana­da] as well [28].”

And this lat­est inci­dent is mere­ly the icing on the cake of the recent explo­sive find­ings by Glenn Green­wald of The Guardian [29] about theNation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency’s (NSA) spy­ing [30] on the com­munca­tions records of every U.S. cit­i­zen [31].

“Many ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tions (and a great many con­vic­tions) are polit­i­cal­ly con­trived to suit the ends of cor­po­ra­tions, offer­ing a stark reminder of how the expan­sion of exec­u­tive pow­er — whether in the con­text of drag­net NSA sur­veil­lance, or the FBI treat­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as ter­ror­ism — pos­es a threat to democ­ra­cy,” Shahid But­tar, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Bill of Rights Defense Com­mit­teetold DeSmog­Blog.

 

Nate Ebert Takes Plea Deal, Vows to Continue Fight Against Fracking

15/06/13. Nate Ebert, who, on Feb­ru­ary 19th climbed a 30 foot pole anchored to a frack waste truck and shut down Green­Hunter Water’s frack waste trans­fer facil­i­ty in New Mata­moras, Ohio for most of a busi­ness day, took a plea deal this morn­ing in the Mari­et­ta Munic­i­pal Court in Mari­et­ta, OH.  He pled to charges of tres­pass­ing and resist­ing arrest.  He received a sus­pend­ed sen­tence and will serve no jail time. 

Upon leav­ing the cour­t­house, Ebert, 33, who lives in Athens Coun­ty, Ohio, said, “Green­Hunter is mak­ing mil­lions of dol­lars from stor­ing and dump­ing tox­ic radioac­tive waste in Ohio. For the sake of prof­it that is chan­neled out of state, they are threat­en­ing the health and safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ties up and down the Ohio Riv­er.  The state of Ohio should make it a pri­or­i­ty to block GreenHunter’s unscrupu­lous activ­i­ties, and pro­tect Ohio res­i­dents instead of pro­tect­ing indus­try.”  He called for a ban of injec­tion wells in the state of Ohio.  If passed, House Bill 148, recent­ly pro­posed by Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Denise Driehaus and Bob Hagan, and backed by more than 40 Ohio com­mu­ni­ty groups, would ban injec­tion wells statewide.

On Feb­ru­ary 19th, Ohio res­i­dents and allies from numer­ous envi­ron­men­tal groups includ­ing Earth First! dis­rupt­ed oper­a­tions at Green­Hunter Water’s frack-waste stor­age site along the Ohio Riv­er in Wash­ing­ton Coun­ty. Ebert, a mem­ber of Appalachia Resist!, ascend­ed a 30 foot pole anchored to a brine truck in the process of unload­ing frack waste, pre­vent­ing all trucks car­ry­ing frack waste from enter­ing the site.

Over one hun­dred sup­port­ers gath­ered at the facil­i­ty, protest­ing GreenHunter’s plans to increase capac­i­ty for tox­ic frack waste dump­ing in Ohio. Green­Hunter has sought approval from the Coast Guard to ship frack waste across the Ohio Riv­er via barge at a rate of up to half a mil­lion gal­lons per load. The Ohio Riv­er is a drink­ing source for more than 5 mil­lion peo­ple. Test results from mul­ti­ple frack waste sam­ples reveal high lev­els of ben­zene, toluene, arsenic, bar­i­um, and radi­um, among oth­er car­cino­genic and radioac­tive chem­i­cals.

While at the top of the pole, Ebert said,  “We are here to send a mes­sage that the peo­ple of Ohio and Appalachia will not sit idly by and watch our homes be turned into a sac­ri­fice zone!”

Ten peo­ple were arrest­ed at the Feb­ru­ary 19th demon­stra­tion.  Nine of them took plea deals.  The tenth arrestee was a mem­ber of the media. Last week, all charges against that indi­vid­ual were dropped.

Since the Feb­ru­ary 19th protest, Green­Hunter has announced its inten­tions to open numer­ous frack waste stor­age and trans­fer facil­i­ties up and down the Ohio Riv­er, includ­ing a new­ly pro­posed site in Wheel­ing, West Vir­ginia. The Wheel­ing pro­pos­al is the tar­get of emphat­ic oppo­si­tion from many Wheel­ing res­i­dents, who gath­ered at a May 22nd pub­lic meet­ing to let Green­Hunter CEO John Jack know that they dis­trust GreenHunter’s motives and meth­ods, cit­ing wor­ries about radioac­tive waste.  Despite USGS reports of dan­ger­ous radioac­tiv­i­ty lev­els in frack waste, Jack refused to answer any ques­tions about radioac­tiv­i­ty.

Berlin-Kreuzberg: Soli-demo for the revolt in Turkey (Germany)

15/06/13

Berlin-Kreuzberg salutes the peo­ple revolt­ing in Turkey

15/06/13

Berlin-Kreuzberg salutes the peo­ple revolt­ing in Turkey

Every­day since the begin­ning of the revolt about two weeks ago, peo­ple went on the streets in Berlin to show their sol­i­dar­i­ty with the ongo­ing fights in Turkey. Anoth­er short and wild demon­stra­tion took place in the cen­ter of Kreuzberg yes­ter­day evening, the 7th of June, where around 50 peo­ple marched towards Kot­tbusser Tor, shout­ing slo­gans and light­ing fire­works.

Mate­r­i­al from a con­struc­tion site got pulled on the street, so after a short while the traf­fic was blocked in every direc­tion. The cops, that were mak­ing a dru­graid at this moment, got attacked with stones, paint­bombs and fire. After that the mob dis­persed.

Short­ly before the demon­stra­tors reached Kot­tbusser Tor, leaflets were spread in the close area. The text was writ­ten in turk­ish and ger­man and cir­cu­lat­ed some days before fri­days action. Ban­ners were hung up as well say­ing „Berlin salutes Istan­bul-for social revolt world­wide“ and „Özgür­lük için omuz omuza!“ („Side by side towards free­dom“). As was writ­ten in the news­pa­pers two peo­ple got arrest­ed by the cops and released the next day.

We send our sol­i­dar­i­ty to them as well, since they are fac­ing the repres­sion of the police and the state jus­tice sys­tem.

We will be back again, where, when and how we want. Take part in the demon­stra­tions, pre­pare actions and show the rebels that we are fight­ing on their side, just in a dif­fer­ent city.

Our thoughts are with the fam­i­lies, friends and com­rades of Mehmet Ayvalı­taş, Abdul­lah Cömert and Ethem Sarısülük, that got killed dur­ing the revolt.

Free­dom for the pris­on­ers!

Side by side towards free­dom!

The leaflet that was hand­ed out:

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the revolt­ing peo­ple

Peo­ple flock the streets, bar­ri­cades are set up, cars are burn­ing and every­thing thats not fixed gets thrown at the police. The sky is cloud­ed by tear­gas and a scream for free­dom makes its way through the dust.
The planned destruc­tion of one of the last green spots in Istan­bul, to have a shop­ping mall instead, was the spark that brought thou­sand of peo­ple on the streets for resis­tance. Until now the revolt spread like a wild­fire all over the coun­try.

No mat­ter how dif­fer­ent the moti­va­tions and rea­sons of every­one involved may be, they open new spaces of self-orga­ni­za­tion, sol­i­dar­i­ty and con­tro­ver­sy by burst­ing the exis­tent.
All these things that are rarely hap­pen­ing in this world as we know it. Between school, work, pay­ing your rent, feed­ing your fam­i­ly and so on, it looks like there is no time to dis­pute with the destruc­tion of our envi­ron­ment.
We like the fact, that there are peo­ple that still doing exact­ly that. As we can see, the small fights in your dai­ly life can be the trig­ger of a gen­er­al upris­ing.
We are rec­og­niz­ing the smoke sig­nals of the cities and we see these fights match­ing up with our own ones- against dis­place­ment, degra­da­tion and police vio­lence.
That’s why we call out for sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of the upris­ing. Let them see the sig­nals on Bosporus as well, so that they are not all one.

Side by side towards free­dom! (A)