Category: Capitalism / Globalisation

Dodgy deals and corporate collusion: SNP still selling communities out to Scottish Coal

inc002Whilst a lot has hap­pened in the past few days –

inc002Whilst a lot has hap­pened in the past few days – secret meet­ings for MSPs, the liq­ui­da­tion of the UK’s largest open­cast oper­a­tor – a pic­ture of the deal that Fer­gus Ewing and Rus­sel Grig­gs are try­ing to strike to save the open­cast indus­try is increas­ing­ly com­ing to light. Announce­ments of a new trust for restora­tion make clear our sus­pi­cions that there isn’t any­where near enough mon­ey for restora­tion, or even the will to use any of it. Rum­blings from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and min­ing com­pa­nies such as Har­greves indi­cate that poten­tial­ly prof­itable mines will be sold, whilst spent ones lie unre­stored and for­got­ten. The ques­tion is: what deal will be struck that will allow oth­er min­ing com­pa­nies to oper­ate these mines prof­itably? And more impor­tant­ly in the grand scheme of things, what lengths will this SNP gov­ern­ment go to save one of the most despised com­pa­nies in the cen­tral belt?

 

We don’t need anoth­er trust – restora­tion bonds and more bro­ken promis­es

Some­thing fun­ny has hap­pened since Scot­tish Coal announced they’d gone bel­ly up – a new Trust to restore open­cast sites mate­ri­alised seem­ing­ly out of nowhere. Ewing and Grig­gs must have been think­ing on their feet, because there was no men­tion what­so­ev­er of a new trust at the “pri­vate” brief­ing to MSPs on the future of the coal indus­try last Wednes­day, 17th April. Sure­ly that was the oppor­tune moment to announce the new plans? Obvi­ous­ly, the brief­ing was a cha­rade. But what else were they keep­ing from MSPs and there­fore the rest of us?

Ques­tions need answer­ing about this new trust: Where will the mon­ey come from? Which sites will be restored and when will restora­tion start? Will com­mu­ni­ties have any con­trol over it? But the biggest of all: what about the bonds that were in place for each site? Open­casts gain plan­ning per­mis­sion on the con­di­tion that (and this is bound by a legal agree­ment) sites will be ful­ly restored after­wards. Sure­ly there­fore there’s insur­ance mon­ey wait­ing to be accessed. Bonds can be called in either by the local author­i­ty, or by the devel­op­er in the instance that they go bust. Sure­ly now is exact­ly the time that they should be called in, and if they’re not, then was it all a hoax in the first place?

The announce­ment of a new trust reveals oth­er truths too. The insur­ance com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for the bonds appar­ent­ly con­sid­er them high-risk now that the min­ing com­pa­nies have gone under, and won’t issue any more bonds. There­fore, for min­ing oper­a­tions to resume in the future, a new sys­tem for restora­tion needs to be cre­at­ed. This new trust isn’t some benev­o­lent act to help the envi­ron­ment or give com­mu­ni­ties what they want, it’s about cov­er­ing the backs of the min­ing com­pa­nies in the future, and just anoth­er dirty trick.

Fer­gus Ewing had this to say: “We have been work­ing close­ly with the key stake­hold­ers over the past six months to address the issues fac­ing the coal indus­try in Scot­land and we share the con­cerns raised by local com­mu­ni­ties around the respon­si­ble restora­tion of open cast coal sites.” We’d like to know who these key stake­hold­ers are, and why com­mu­ni­ties liv­ing next to sites and ulti­mate­ly bear­ing all the neg­a­tive impacts of them aren’t con­sid­ered “key stake­hold­ers”.

He also said: “I am, there­fore, pleased to announce that we are set­ting up a new trust to help facil­i­tate the restora­tion of old open cast coal mines across Scot­land.” Yes, but what about the bonds, and the fact that they were a con­di­tion of approval for every sin­gle mine appli­ca­tion?

He then said: “…the restora­tion process itself is expect­ed, over time, to cre­ate hun­dreds of jobs across the coun­try – as well as restor­ing the local envi­ron­ment.” Well we won­der where he got that idea from.

Last minute exten­sions

Scot­tish Coal boss­es were up to their usu­al tricks right up until the last minute. At two sites in par­tic­u­lar, Main­shill in South Lanark­shire and St Nin­ni­ans in Fife, Scot­tish Coal applied for wee exten­sions by extend­ing exca­va­tion areas slight­ly and into bits not men­tioned in orig­i­nal appli­ca­tions. The ton­nage in both cas­es was 70,000. Main­shill was all but exhaust­ed of its reserve, and St Nin­ni­ans was fin­ished apart from the con­sent­ed exten­sion. These tiny exten­sions aren’t worth anoth­er min­ing com­pa­ny buy­ing the site, but are worth at least a year in terms of restora­tion com­mit­ments. With these exten­sions the sites aren’t fin­ished any more, so there’s no require­ment to begin restora­tion until the exten­sions are worked. Smooth. Look­ing at the state that Main­shill and St Nin­ni­ans are cur­rent­ly in one won­ders whether they’ll ever get restored.

Worse still, the local author­i­ties must have known that Scot­tish Coal wouldn’t sur­vive, as they’d sup­pos­ed­ly been involved in the nego­ti­a­tions for months now. What local author­i­ty would accept an appli­ca­tion that they knew would delib­er­ate­ly delay restora­tion oblig­a­tions? Ah wait – local author­i­ties that have been col­lud­ing with Scot­tish Coal since day one would do that.

The future for open­cast sites

And then there’s the real­ly mas­sive holes in the ground, such as at Bro­ken Cross, in South Lanark­shire. Whilst it might be worth­while for anoth­er com­pa­ny to buy the site – there’s at least 2 mil­lion tonnes of coal left and most of the earth mov­ing has been done – there’s no way that the pits at Bro­ken Cross will get filled in with trust mon­ey or bond mon­ey, if it even exists that is. What do we think will hap­pen to Bro­ken Cross? Land­fill site – the tax­es will gen­er­ate income to even­tu­al­ly restore once the hole has been filled in with rub­bish, and South Lanark­shire has a solu­tion to its waste prob­lems. This could very well be the fate of most open­cast sites, and a final injus­tice imposed on near-by com­mu­ni­ties.

Who is this Grig­gs char­ac­ter any­way?

Chair of the “Reg­u­la­to­ry Review Group”, and chair of the new Restora­tion Trust appar­ent­ly. He’s the go-to guy for dereg­u­lat­ing indus­try. He’s also refused to meet with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers (so much for “rep­re­sent­ing each com­mu­ni­ty”). Grig­gs said: “I am grate­ful for the sup­port and con­struc­tive engage­ment I have had from local coun­cils, landown­ers and the coal oper­a­tors over the last few months in devel­op­ing the new Trust. I look for­ward to work­ing with them to launch the Trust and be ready to help with a fresh approach to restor­ing old mines.” Here he admits that they’ve been cook­ing up these new plans for months, but still not engaged with com­mu­ni­ties, and didn’t think it appro­pri­ate to men­tion this at his brief­ing to MSPs.

The scan­dal here is that a “fresh approach” and “new trust” is need­ed to restore old mines. How long have they known that exist­ing mea­sures wouldn’t be suf­fi­cient? Did they not think it impor­tant to men­tion to com­mu­ni­ties that, “by the way, you know the promis­es of restora­tion? Well, they’re not going to hap­pen”. This means that either the bonds were nev­er real or suf­fi­cient in the first place, or that local author­i­ties have been fail­ing in their oblig­a­tions to mon­i­tor restora­tion progress. More like­ly though, it means both, and that we’ve been duped by the min­ing com­pa­nies, local author­i­ties and gov­ern­ment for some time.

Put your mon­ey where your mouth is: call in the bonds

Maybe this is just flog­ging a dead horse now, but sure­ly, sure­ly some effort should be made to call in these restora­tion bonds. No one has even men­tioned it! There must be at least a few of them that could make some mon­ey avail­able? In the­o­ry there’s mil­lions in them. Sure­ly then, the equi­table thing to do is to keep as many of the open­cast work­ers on as pos­si­ble to see the restora­tion of the sites, or at least as much as the finance will allow. The fact that no moves are being made to see to it that this is what hap­pens just shows that there’s a big­ger and worse announce­ment still to come, about a deal being struck between the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, local author­i­ties and whichev­er min­ing com­pa­nies have their eyes on Scotland’s open­cast sites.

 

Tsleil-Waututh First Nation Sign International Treaty to Oppose Tar Sands Development 21st April

In the lat­est step toward oppos­ing oil pipelines at every port in Cana­da, the Tsleil-Wau­tuth Nation of Bur­rard Inlet signed on to the Inter­na­tion­al Treaty to Pro­tect the Sacred yes­ter­day. The nation held a press con­fer­ence at the Sher­a­ton Wall Cen­tre where new­ly elect­ed Chief Mau­reen Thomas signed the doc­u­ment, wit­nessed by the pres­i­dent of the BC Union of Indi­an Chiefs Stew­art Phillip and nation­al chief of the Assem­bly of First Nations Shawn Atleo.

The West Coast Oil Pipeline Sum­mit fol­lowed the sign­ing.  The theme of the event was urgency, with sev­er­al lead­ers touch­ing on the need to oppose devel­op­ment at a grass­roots lev­el.

Stew­art Phillip told reporters and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers assem­bled that the First Nations of BC are com­mit­ted to using the legal sys­tem to defend their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, but that’s not the only strat­e­gy they’re using.

“More impor­tant­ly, we have com­mit­ted to stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der on the land itself.”

Atleo echoed Phillip’s fatigue with the jus­tice sys­tem and spoke to the urgent nature of the strug­gle not just for Abo­rig­i­nal land rights, but also for envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion for every­one.

“This is not just a North Amer­i­can moment you’re wit­ness­ing,” he said. “The tip­ping point we have reached is glob­al.” He also spoke to the inad­e­qua­cy of the legal avenues avail­able to First Nations to set­tle land claims and hold the gov­ern­ment account­able. He said he doesn’t want to see the courts clogged with cas­es.

“We don’t need to be pulled down into the weeds of whether con­sul­ta­tion has hap­pened.”

Tsleil-Wau­tuth is the first nation whose ter­ri­to­ries are direct­ly in the path of one of the pro­posed pipeline projects to sign the treaty. Phil Lane Jr., hered­i­tary chief of the Yank­ton Sioux nation from South Dako­ta, said one of the key goals of the treaty is get sig­na­tures from all of the nations whose ter­ri­to­ries are direct­ly affect­ed.

The West Coast Oil Pipeline Sum­mit brought togeth­er First Nations lead­ers from across the province as well as activists and busi­ness peo­ple from a hand­ful of dif­fer­ent alter­na­tive ener­gy sec­tors.

The event was host­ed by 2G Group of Com­pa­nies, a con­sult­ing firm whose man­date is to help devel­op equi­table rela­tion­ships between Abo­rig­i­nal and non-Abo­rig­i­nal busi­ness ven­tures.

Econ­o­mist Robyn Allan gave a keynote speech high­light­ing the Harp­er government’s extreme shifts in ener­gy pol­i­cy from the Kyoto Pro­to­col and plans to lim­it bitu­men exports to the cur­rent push to expand tar sands devel­op­ment. She crit­i­cized the mes­sage that the econ­o­my and the envi­ron­ment are on oppo­site sides of the debate.

“This is a fab­ri­cat­ed trade-off designed to put ordi­nary Cana­di­ans against ordi­nary Cana­di­ans,” she said.  

A pan­elist of five speak­ers dis­cussed dif­fer­ent facets of the tar sands debate from the eco­nom­ics of renew­able ener­gy devel­op­ment to the effects of cli­mate change around the world.

Ben West, direc­tor of the tar sands cam­paign for For­est Ethics Advo­ca­cy, dis­cussed the via­bil­i­ty of alter­na­tive ener­gy sources and the ways in which con­ven­tion­al meth­ods of development—such as the con­struc­tion of the Port Mann Bridge to relieve congestion—are often counter intu­itive.

“If we could build our way out of con­ges­tions, LA would be the best city in the world to dri­ve in,” he quipped. For the cost of the $3 bil­lion bridge, he said, Van­cou­ver could build street­car infra­struc­ture to serve the bet­ter part of the city.

“We’re talk­ing about very real tech­nol­o­gy, very real solu­tions.”

Also in atten­dance was Green Par­ty leader Eliz­a­beth May, who stood up to talk about Monday’s vote in the House of Com­mons that will deter­mine whether the Cana­da-Chi­na For­eign Invest­ment Pro­mo­tion and Pro­tec­tion Act (FIPA) will go through.

She said she was impressed by the breadth of infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed through­out the evening par­tic­u­lar­ly fact about how Cana­da imports the con­den­sate required to trans­port bitu­men.

“I don’t think we’re hear­ing about it near­ly enough that we’re cre­at­ing depen­den­cy on Mid­dle East­ern fos­sil fuels rather than upgrade it in Alber­ta and refine it in Alber­ta,” she said, adding that she’s not see­ing the response she’d like from BC politi­cians.

“Where is Adri­an Dix on this project? It does not seem that provin­cial NDP is opposed to this project and that’s a big prob­lem.”

Protesting for Human Rights, Environmental Abuses of Mining in London 20th April

Cam­paign­ers from four over­seas coun­tries vis­it­ed Lon­don to protest alleged human rights and envi­ron­men­tal abus­es at the annu­al meet­ings of min­ing com­pa­nies Rio Tin­to and Anglo Amer­i­can which was held at The Queen Eliz­a­beth Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. Here are some pho­tos:

Cam­paign­ers from four over­seas coun­tries vis­it­ed Lon­don to protest alleged human rights and envi­ron­men­tal abus­es at the annu­al meet­ings of min­ing com­pa­nies Rio Tin­to and Anglo Amer­i­can which was held at The Queen Eliz­a­beth Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. Here are some pho­tos:

2000 March Against Taitung Miramar Resort 20th April

More than 2,000 peo­ple, includ­ing many dressed in tra­di­tion­al Abo­rig­i­nal garb, marched through the streets of Taipei yes­ter­day after­noon protest­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage con­struc­tion project on Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘).

More than 2,000 peo­ple, includ­ing many dressed in tra­di­tion­al Abo­rig­i­nal garb, marched through the streets of Taipei yes­ter­day after­noon protest­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage con­struc­tion project on Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘).

The parade, ini­ti­at­ed by an alliance of more than 40 civic groups and Abo­rig­i­nal tribes from across the nation, was held to protest the devel­op­ment project, which has been ruled invalid more than once by the Supreme Admin­is­tra­tive Court, but still gained approval at a local envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment meet­ing last year and is sched­uled to go into oper­a­tion this year.

The march was titled “Don’t say good­bye to the east­ern coast­line,” and the pro­test­ers expressed con­cern that the Mira­mar case would set an exam­ple for oth­er devel­op­ment projects along the east­ern coast­line and cause irre­versible dam­age to the envi­ron­ment.

The crowd in Taipei was joined by a group of peo­ple that had marched for 17 days from Taitung to Taipei.

At the head of the parade was an Amis bam­boo raft with a ban­ner that read “Return our domain to us,” car­ried by 20 men, to express their hope to live in har­mo­ny with nature.

The pro­test­ers said the hand-made raft rep­re­sents the idea of tak­ing “just enough” from nature instead of abus­ing and exhaust­ing nat­ur­al resources.

“Abo­rig­ines do not have a spe­cif­ic life phi­los­o­phy, but they do feel strong­ly con­nect­ed to the land,” Abo­rig­i­nal folk singer Panai said. “Please feel our affec­tion for the land. This is what res­i­dents in Taipei have lost.”

The parade marched through the streets of Taipei, singing an Abo­rig­i­nal verse sig­ni­fy­ing waves and the ocean in response to the chant­i­ng of Abo­rig­i­nal folk singer Nabu.

They shout­ed demands such as “tear down the Mira­mar, pro­tect the east­ern coast­line,” “pro­tect our home­land” and “we don’t want cement dumped on the beach.”

The pro­test­ers arrived at the Mira­mar Gar­den Taipei (美麗信花園酒店), a hotel owned by the same cor­po­ra­tion as the Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage in Taitung, and the crowd waved sil­ver grass, mim­ic­k­ing a rit­u­al aimed at expelling evil spir­its and puri­fy­ing the heart.

Reach­ing Keta­galan Boule­vard in front of the Pres­i­den­tial Office, the pro­test­ers held hands and per­formed an Amis har­vest fes­ti­val dance.

The leader of the walk­ing group, Lai Ching-lung (賴進龍), born in the Malan Tribe of Taitung, walked the whole jour­ney to Taipei bare­foot.

He said the jour­ney had been exhaust­ing, but while walk­ing through the many tribes along the way, he felt the sig­nif­i­cance of bring­ing their mes­sage of pro­tect­ing tra­di­tions and the envi­ron­ment to the Pres­i­den­tial Office.

“I hate that the gov­ern­ment is treat­ing us like this. It is using inap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures to take our land and ocean from us.” Lai said, adding: “The coast is where the Amis used to col­lect food and live. Now we are con­cerned that the ocean will be pol­lut­ed and destroyed by devel­op­ment projects.”

For whom the bell tolls: Scottish Coal go into Liquidation

“In light of Scot­tish Coal’s poor trad­ing and finan­cial posi­tion, we have had to cease trad­ing with imme­di­ate effect,”
-Blair Nim­mo, joint pro­vi­sion­al liq­uida­tor and head of restruc­tur­ing at KPMG in Scot­land.

“In light of Scot­tish Coal’s poor trad­ing and finan­cial posi­tion, we have had to cease trad­ing with imme­di­ate effect,”
-Blair Nim­mo, joint pro­vi­sion­al liq­uida­tor and head of restruc­tur­ing at KPMG in Scot­land.

Scot­tish Coal, the UK’s biggest coal pro­duc­er, has announced today that they are enter­ing admin­is­tra­tion. Due to recent “sig­nif­i­cant cash flow pres­sures” they have laid-off 600 work­ers and stopped all pro­duc­tion at their six open cast sites.

New open cast sites are unlike­ly to hap­pen, and this is some­thing to be hap­py about. How­ev­er, 600 peo­ple have lost their jobs, and they won’t be the mon­ey­men at the top, but the work­ers with lit­tle safe­ty net. They have also had their last week of wages stolen, as this won’t be paid. For those liv­ing next to exist­ing or unre­stored sites this means scars on the land­scape that are unlike­ly to be fixed any time soon. It’s time to get angry, and take back the land and wages that Scot­tish Coal boss­es have stolen.

Riot Police Attack Villagers During Mining Conflict 17th April

In the small vil­lage of Buzhe, in Guizhou Province, around 600 vil­lagers were beat­en and dis­persed with tear­gas by about 300 riot police on April 11. The vil­lagers had come to assist a young cou­ple being abused by police dur­ing a min­ing-relat­ed dis­pute.

In the small vil­lage of Buzhe, in Guizhou Province, around 600 vil­lagers were beat­en and dis­persed with tear­gas by about 300 riot police on April 11. The vil­lagers had come to assist a young cou­ple being abused by police dur­ing a min­ing-relat­ed dis­pute.

Along­side agri­cul­ture, coal min­ing is the main source of income in this moun­tain­ous vil­lage, but it is caus­ing seri­ous dam­age to the envi­ron­ment. 

A res­i­dent called Mr. Han said that six or sev­en peo­ple were quite seri­ous­ly injured dur­ing the clash, includ­ing an 80-year-old woman, and four peo­ple were sent to hos­pi­tal to receive treat­ment for dam­age to their eyes from the gas.

Local author­i­ties and the min­ing com­pa­ny made a reset­tle­ment agree­ment with the vil­lagers nine years ago, but have not pro­vid­ed ade­quate com­pen­sa­tion for the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age to the area, accord­ing to Mr. Han.

“Land­slides, ground sub­si­dence, a large sec­tion of the mine is crack­ing and sink­ing, this can be seen every­where,” he said. “Some of the sink­holes are almost 10 meters deep, and span more than 10 square meters.”

“No water can be stored in the ground, and over 300 Chi­nese acres of farm­land can’t be cul­ti­vat­ed any­more,” Mr. Han added.

“There are more than 200 house­holds in the vil­lage, but only 26 were relo­cat­ed last year.”

As a last resort, the vil­lagers built shacks in front of the mine to block the entrance in protest, and pre­vent min­ing activ­i­ties.

On April 11, police came to the shacks and took away an old man liv­ing in one of them. They then bashed up the fur­ni­ture inside, and set fire to his place. A cou­ple in their thir­ties rushed over to try and put out the fire, but were hand­cuffed and tak­en into a work shed, where they were appar­ent­ly beat­en by nine police offi­cers.

As soon as locals heard about this inci­dent, around 600 vil­lagers quick­ly sur­round­ed the work shed. 

“Vil­lagers had pieces of wood and fought with the police. They man­aged to free the cou­ple in the end,” Mr. Han said, although they were still wear­ing hand­cuffs.

Soon after, about 300 riot police arrived at the scene, and began attack­ing the vil­lagers, using tear­gas to dis­perse the crowd.

The next day, a large crowd came to protest out­side the town hall, which was heav­i­ly guard­ed by riot police. Mr. Han said they would con­tin­ue to protest as the lives of around 1,000 vil­lagers are at stake.

Two Lifelong Oklahomans Halt Construction of Keystone XL Work Site 16th April

BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

–>

BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

Eric Whe­lan, 26, who grew up in McLoud, Okla., has ascend­ed 40 feet into the air in an aer­i­al block­ade that began at dawn this morn­ing.

Gwen Ingram of Luther, Okla., 56, has locked her­self to heavy machin­ery and shut down the con­struc­tion site.

Today’s event marks the fourth act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence by Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance and comes in the wake of the dis­as­trous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas.  For the last three weeks, over 300,000 gal­lons of tar sands dilut­ed bitu­men have spil –>led into a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood and local water­ways.

“Key­stone XL sound­ed like a bad idea from the begin­ning,” explained Whe­lan. “The Mayflower spill proves that we shouldn’t be trust­ing these mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions, like Exxon or Tran­sCana­da, because every spill fur­ther expos­es their crim­i­nal incom­pe­tence. Now, Tran­sCana­da wants to build a tox­ic pipeline through the cen­ter of the coun­try.

“I’m tak­ing action to pre­vent a tragedy like that from hap­pen­ing in Okla­homa.”

The tar sands’ cor­ro­sive nature makes pipelines more prone to leaks than trans­port­ing crude oil, as evi­denced by the Exxon’s Pega­sus pipeline burst in Mayflower, Ark.

When spills inevitably do occur, the heav­ier dilut­ed bitu­men sinks in water and into the water table. Key­stone XL’s pro­posed route cuts through the heart­land of North Amer­i­ca, cross­ing the Arbuck­le Simp­son and Edwards Trin­i­ty Aquifer in Okla­homa.

“The Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline would car­ry the dirt­i­est fuel on the plan­et from Cana­da to America’s Gulf Coast’s refiner­ies and ports, and then over­seas for export,” said Gwen Ingram, before lock­ing her­self to TransCanada’s heavy machin­ery.

“I sim­ply won’t allow this pipeline to cross our pre­cious rivers; the North and South Cana­di­an, The Red Riv­er, The Cim­maron and threat­en our drink­ing water.”

UPDATE 9:00 AM — Eric is hold­ing strong on a tow­er 40 feet off the ground in the mid­dle of the Key­stone XL con­struc­tion site

UPDATE 11:15 AM- Fire­fight­ers have extract­ed Gwen Ingram from the con­struc­tion machin­ery.  Gwen held strong in her non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence act for sev­er­al hours.

Fol­low more of our actions live on our Face­book and Twit­ter. Sign up to join the resis­tance.

See more high res pho­tos on our Flickr account.

 

Halkidiki Gold Mine Protesters Lift Roadblocks 16th April

Road trans­port in the broad­er region of Mount Athos, Halkidi­ki, was large­ly restored on Mon­day after res­i­dents of Ieris­sos lift­ed road­blocks they had set up last week to protest the deten­tion of two fel­low vil­lagers in con­nec­tion with an arson attack in Feb­ru­ary on the offices of a gold-min­ing com­pa­ny.

Despite lift­ing the block­ades, the res­i­dents pledged to con­tin­ue their oppo­si­tion to the ven­ture by Hel­las Gold in near­by Skouries which they claim will dam­age the envi­ron­ment and impov­er­ish locals.

Two local men who have denied any part in a bru­tal arson attack on Hel­las Gold’s premis­es in Feb­ru­ary, where assailants tied up secu­ri­ty guards and doused them with petrol, were remand­ed in cus­tody on Mon­day.

The men, aged 33 and 44, sub­mit­ted depo­si­tions on Sun­day in which they denied any part in the raid.

The 33-year-old said that a woolen hat found near the scene with his DNA had been lost on anoth­er day when he was cut­ting wood in the for­est. The 44-year-old was linked to the attack via a shot­gun found in his house. He said he used the gun to hunt in Skouries for­est.

Odd Alliance of Anarchists & Farmers Takes on French Gov’t in Airport Battle 16th April

They hurl sticks, stones and gaso­line bombs. They have spent bru­tal win­ter months for­ti­fy­ing mud­dy encamp­ments. And now they’re ready to ramp up their fight against the prime min­is­ter and his pet project — a mas­sive new air­port in west­ern France.

An unlike­ly alliance of anar­chists and beret-wear­ing farm­ers is cre­at­ing a headache for Pres­i­dent Fran­cois Hollande’s belea­guered gov­ern­ment by mount­ing an esca­lat­ing Occu­py Wall Street-style bat­tle that has delayed con­struc­tion on the ambi­tious air­port near the city of Nantes for months. The con­flict has flared anew at a par­tic­u­lar­ly tricky time for the Social­ist gov­ern­ment, amid a grow­ing scan­dal over tax-dodg­ing rev­e­la­tions that forced the bud­get min­is­ter to resign, and ever-wors­en­ing news about the French econ­o­my.

A protest held over the week­end is like­ly to trig­ger a new round of demon­stra­tions like those that drew thou­sands of pro­test­ers to the remote wood­lands of Brit­tany in the fall. In those ear­li­er protests, heav­i­ly armored riot police bat­tled young anar­chists and farm­ers, caus­ing injuries on both sides. On Mon­day, sim­i­lar clash­es erupt­ed, with three demon­stra­tors injured, accord­ing to the rad­i­cals’ web­site.

The fight has brought togeth­er odd bed­fel­lows: Local farm­ers who rep­re­sent tra­di­tion­al French con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues are col­lab­o­rat­ing with anar­chists, rad­i­cal eco-fem­i­nists and drifters from around Europe — who see the anti-air­port move­ment as a flash­point against glob­al­iza­tion and cap­i­tal­ism. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists and the far-left Green Par­ty also oppose the air­port, argu­ing that it will bring pol­lu­tion.

The clash has been par­tic­u­lar­ly dam­ag­ing for Prime Min­is­ter Jean-Marc Ayrault, Nantes’ long­time may­or and the airport’s high­est-pro­file cham­pi­on. He and the project’s sup­port­ers say the air­port will attract busi­ness at a time when France sore­ly needs an eco­nom­ic boost and job cre­ation. The Aero­port du Grand Ouest is intend­ed to replace the exist­ing Nantes Atlan­tique air­port, with run­ways able to han­dle larg­er air­craft such as the A380 super­jum­bo and room to expand from 4.5 mil­lion pas­sen­gers a year at the open to 9 mil­lion in the longer term.

With an approval rat­ing at his­toric lows, Ayrault’s lever­age to push through the project is shrink­ing. Mean­while the oppo­nents’ threat to remo­bi­lize is lead­ing to new fears of vio­lent clash­es.

Pro­test­ers have spent months ille­gal­ly occu­py­ing the site of the planned Notre-Dame-Des-Lan­des air­port, which is set to start oper­at­ing in 2017. In Novem­ber, more than 500 riot police tried to remove thou­sands of squat­ters in the wood­ed area near this vil­lage 15 miles (24 kilo­me­ters) north of Nantes. Pro­test­ers respond­ed by hurl­ing rocks and Molo­tov cock­tails. Police fired back with tear gas in clash­es that dom­i­nat­ed the nation­al news.

For the farm­ers, it’s all about pro­tect­ing the land.

“This will be a run­way,” says Syl­vain Fres­neau, ges­tur­ing toward the two-sto­ry house built by his grand­fa­ther and the dairy farm that has been in his fam­i­ly for five gen­er­a­tions.

Fres­neau and his cousin Dominique are among the local farm­ers who are hold­ing out, refus­ing to sell up and clear off the land where they have lived and worked their entire lives. Sylvain’s 88 cows pro­duce 550,000 liters (580,000 quarts) of milk a year. “Since Jan­u­ary,” Fres­neau says, “we are squat­ters and so are the cows.”

While some local farm­ers have accept­ed buy­outs from Vin­ci, the giant con­struc­tion firm that was select­ed to build and run the air­port, the Fres­neaus and many of their neigh­bors have fought the project for years.

“It’s not a ques­tion of mon­ey,” Syl­vain Fres­neau says. “You can’t put a price on five gen­er­a­tions of peas­ants. It’s my duty not to accept that mon­ey from any builder.”

He says his 80-year-old father was one of the first to resist the air­port project when the idea sur­faced 40 years ago. Long-moth­balled, the air­port plan gained fresh impe­tus when Ayrault’s Social­ist Par­ty came to pow­er nation­al­ly in the late 1990s. The plan then wound its way through a slow and tor­tur­ous­ly com­plex process of stud­ies, com­mis­sions and advi­so­ry com­mit­tees.

Although Syl­vain Fres­neau claims the farm­ers “could make one call and block Nantes with our trac­tors in half a day,” the real­i­ty is that the farm­ers alone could not have delayed the project as long as they have with­out help from a sur­pris­ing quar­ter: the main­ly 20-some­thing rad­i­cals who call them­selves “ZADists.”

Their name derives from the French acronym for “devel­op­ment zone,” the gener­ic name giv­en to the area where the air­port is to be built. The ZADists have delight­ed in appro­pri­at­ing the acronym for their own use, but with var­i­ous new takes: Zone To Defend, or Zone of Defin­i­tive Auton­o­my, among oth­ers.

Since 2009, the activists have been occu­py­ing the fields where the air­port is to be built. Some squat in aban­doned farm­hous­es or homes opened up to them by locals who refuse to sell. Oth­ers spent the win­ter in inge­nious­ly con­struct­ed cab­ins set up deep in the wood­ed and mud­dy scrub­land out­side the vil­lage.

“With­out the ZADists we wouldn’t have kept the land,” admits Syl­vain Fres­neau.

Up to sev­er­al hun­dred ZADists live on the site at any giv­en time. Police con­trol access to the zone with check­points at road cross­ings, but the ZADists avoid them by sim­ply cut­ting across fields to their camp­sites.

ZADists have also built their own for­ti­fi­ca­tions, ram­shackle assem­blages of wood, wire, mat­tress­es and hay bales. The entrance is con­trolled by ZADists who cov­er their faces with scarves and hoods, not only to ward off the cold but also to hide their iden­ti­ties from the police post­ed at the road cross­ing bare­ly 100 yards (meters) away.

Clash­es between the two sides are com­mon. On a recent vis­it, ZADists who all iden­ti­fied them­selves by the pseu­do­nym “Camille” described an expe­di­tion the night before in which they suc­ceed­ed in splash­ing some police with paint, traces of which were still vis­i­ble on the road.

For the farm­ers, the fight is most­ly a mat­ter of keep­ing their land. The ZADists, on the oth­er hand, say they have wider, lofti­er goals. “Against the Air­port … and its World” is one of the slo­gans spray-paint­ed on signs around the zone.

Some of the ZADists have tak­en part in anti-glob­al­iza­tion and Occu­py move­ments across Europe. They see the move­ment to sup­port the farm­ers of Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des as an exten­sion of their goal of “learn­ing to live togeth­er, cul­ti­vate the land, and increase our auton­o­my from the cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem,” as their web­site explains.

“It’s a bit utopi­an, but some­times you need some utopia,” said Dominique Fres­neau. The farm­ers’ appre­ci­a­tion for the ZADists’ ener­gy and the atten­tion they’ve brought to their fight against the air­port is mixed with bemuse­ment at some of their rad­i­cal posi­tions.

At meet­ings between the two groups of allies, Fres­neau admit­ted that “we clash” some­times. But more often they find ways to work togeth­er. Some farm­ers have used their trac­tors to set up a pro­tec­tive bar­ri­cade around one of the encamp­ments. A ZADist who was also a grad­u­ate stu­dent in agri­cul­tur­al stud­ies helped a farmer com­plete a geo­log­i­cal sur­vey of his land. Farm­ers bring in food and build­ing sup­plies for the ZADists.

In ear­ly April, a com­mis­sion set up by Ayrault to try to calm the debate over the air­port deliv­ered its report. It rec­om­mend­ed fur­ther eval­u­a­tion of the cost of expand­ing the Nantes Atlan­tique air­port instead of build­ing a new one at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, and sug­gest­ed that addi­tion­al noise, traf­fic and envi­ron­men­tal stud­ies be car­ried out.

The gov­ern­ment wel­comed the commission’s report, say­ing it under­scored the need for the new air­port. Oppo­nents, mean­while, said that on the con­trary it bol­stered their case that the new air­port should be scrapped. In any event, the activists said, all the new stud­ies will delay the start of work on the air­port, like­ly push­ing back its open­ing from the orig­i­nal­ly planned 2017 date.

Ecol­o­gists went as far as to cry vic­to­ry.

“As it stands, car­ry­ing out all the rec­om­men­da­tions called for in these reports amounts to a ‘mis­sion impos­si­ble’ and post­pone the project indef­i­nite­ly,” the Green Par­ty said in a state­ment.

Mean­while in the fields around Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, farm­ers and activists are not going away.

Their next action is Sat­ur­day, when they plan a day of plant­i­ng, clear­ing and repair work at their camp across the site of the future air­port.

Indigenous Hawaiian’s Take on Monsanto and GMOs 15th April

At 9 am on an over­cast morn­ing in par­adise, hun­dreds of pro­test­ers gath­ered in tra­di­tion­al Hawai­ian chant and prayer. Upon hear­ing the sound of the conch shell, known here as Pū, the pro­test­ers fol­lowed a group of women towards Monsanto’s grounds.

“A’ole GMO,” cried the moth­ers as they marched along­side Monsanto’s corn­fields, locat­ed only feet from their homes on Molokai, one of the small­est of Hawaii’s main islands. In a tiny, trop­i­cal cor­ner of the Pacif­ic that has ward­ed off tourism and devel­op­ment, Monsanto’s fields are one of only a few cor­po­rate enti­ties that sep­a­rates the bare ter­rain of the moun­tains and oceans.

This spir­it­ed march was the last of a series of protests on the five Hawai­ian islands that Mon­san­to and oth­er biotech com­pa­nies have turned into the world’s ground zero for chem­i­cal test­ing and food engi­neer­ing. Hawaii is cur­rent­ly at the epi­cen­ter of the debate over genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms, gen­er­al­ly short­ened to GMOs. Because Hawaii is geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed from the broad­er pub­lic, it is an ide­al loca­tion for con­duct­ing chem­i­cal exper­i­ments. The island chain’s cli­mate and abun­dant nat­ur­al resources have lured five of the world’s largest biotech chem­i­cal cor­po­ra­tions: Mon­san­to, Syn­gen­ta, Dow Agro­Sciences, DuPont Pio­neer and BASF. In the past 20 years, these chem­i­cal com­pa­nies have per­formed over 5,000 open-field-test exper­i­ments of pes­ti­cide-resis­tant crops on an esti­mat­ed 40,000 to 60,000 acres of Hawai­ian land with­out any dis­clo­sure, mak­ing the place and its peo­ple a guinea pig for biotech engi­neer­ing.

The pres­ence of these cor­po­ra­tions has pro­pelled one of the largest move­ment mobi­liza­tions in Hawaii in decades. Sim­i­lar to the envi­ron­men­tal and land sov­er­eign­ty protests in Cana­da and the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States, the move­ment is influ­enced by indige­nous cul­ture.

“All of the resources that our kapuna [elders] gave to us, we need to take care of now for the next gen­er­a­tion,” said Wal­ter Ritte, a Hawaii activist, speak­ing in part in the Hawai­ian indige­nous lan­guage.

“That is our kuleana [respon­si­bil­i­ty]. That is everybody’s kuleana.”

In Hawai­ian indige­nous cul­ture, the very idea of GMOs is effec­tive­ly sac­ri­le­gious.

“For Hawaii’s indige­nous peo­ples, the con­cepts under­ly­ing genet­ic manip­u­la­tion of life forms are offen­sive and con­trary to the cul­tur­al val­ues of alo­ha ‘āina [love for the land],” wrote Mililani B. Trask, a native Hawai­ian attor­ney.

Deadly practices

Mon­san­to has a long his­to­ry of mak­ing chem­i­cals that bring about dev­as­ta­tion. The com­pa­ny par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Man­hat­tan Project to help pro­duce the atom­ic bomb dur­ing World War II. It devel­oped the her­bi­cide “Agent Orange” used by U.S. mil­i­tary forces dur­ing the Viet­nam War, which caused an esti­mat­ed half-mil­lion birth defor­mi­ties. Most recent­ly, Mon­san­to has dri­ven thou­sands of farm­ers in India to take their own lives, often by drink­ing chem­i­cal insec­ti­cide, after the high cost of the company’s seeds forced them into unpayable debt.

The impacts of chem­i­cal test­ing and GMOs are imme­di­ate — and, in the long-term, could prove dead­ly. In Hawaii, Mon­san­to and oth­er biotech cor­po­ra­tions have sprayed over 70 dif­fer­ent chem­i­cals dur­ing field tests of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered crops, more chem­i­cal test­ing than in any oth­er place in the world. Human stud­ies have not been con­duct­ed on GMO foods, but ani­mal exper­i­ments show that genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied foods lead to pre-can­cer­ous cell growth, infer­til­i­ty, and severe dam­age to the kid­neys, liv­er and large intestines. Addi­tion­al­ly, the health risks of chem­i­cal her­bi­cides sprayed onto GMO crops cause hor­mone dis­rup­tion, can­cer, neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders and birth defects. In Hawaii, some open-field test­ing sites are near homes and schools. Pre­ma­tu­ri­ty, adult on-set dia­betes and can­cer rates have sig­nif­i­cant­ly increased in Hawaii in the last ten years. Many res­i­dents fear chem­i­cal drift is poi­son­ing them.

Monsanto’s agri­cul­tur­al pro­ce­dures also enable the prac­tice of monocrop­ping, which con­tributes to envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, espe­cial­ly on an island like Hawaii. Monocrop­ping is an agri­cul­tur­al prac­tice where one crop is repeat­ed­ly plant­ed in the same spot, a sys­tem that strips the soil of its nutri­ents and dri­ves farm­ers to use a her­bi­cide called Roundup, which is linked to infer­til­i­ty. Farm­ers are also forced to use pes­ti­cides and fer­til­iz­ers that cause cli­mate change and reef dam­age, and that decrease the bio­di­ver­si­ty of Hawaii.

Food sovereignty as resistance

At the first of the series of march­es against GMOs, orga­niz­ers plant­ed coconut trees in Halei­wa, a com­mu­ni­ty on the north shore of Oahu Island. In the move­ment, protest­ing and act­ing as care­tak­ers of the land are no longer viewed as sep­a­rate actions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a region where Mon­san­to is leas­ing more than 1,000 acres of prime agri­cul­tur­al soil.

Dur­ing the march, peo­ple chant­ed and held signs declar­ing, “Alo­ha ‘āina: De-occu­py Hawaii.”

The phrase Alo­ha ‘āina is reg­u­lar­ly seen and heard at anti-GMO protests. Today the words are defined as “love of the land,” but the phrase has also sig­ni­fied “love for the coun­try.” His­tor­i­cal­ly, it was com­mon­ly used by indi­vid­u­als and groups fight­ing for the restora­tion of the inde­pen­dent Hawai­ian nation, and it is now fre­quent­ly deployed at anti-GMO protests when peo­ple speak of Hawai­ian sov­er­eign­ty and inde­pen­dence.

After the protest, marchers gath­ered in Halei­wa Beach Park, where they per­formed speech­es, music, spo­ken-word poet­ry and dance while shar­ing free local­ly grown food. The strat­e­gy of con­nect­ing with the land was also a fea­ture of the sub­se­quent protest on the Big Island, where peo­ple plant­ed taro before the march, and also at the state capi­tol ral­ly, where hun­dreds par­tic­i­pat­ed in the tra­di­tion­al process of pound­ing taro to make poi, a Poly­ne­sian sta­ple food.

The import econ­o­my is a new real­i­ty for Hawaii, one direct­ly tied to the impo­si­tion of mod­ern food prac­tices on the island. Ancient Hawaii oper­at­ed with­in the Ahupua’a sys­tem, a com­mu­nal mod­el of dis­trib­ut­ing land and work, which allowed the islands to be entire­ly self-suf­fi­cient.

“Pri­vate land own­er­ship was unknown, and pub­lic, com­mon use of the ahupua’a resources demand­ed that bound­aries be drawn to include suf­fi­cient land for res­i­dence and cul­ti­va­tion, fresh­wa­ter sources, shore­line and open ocean access,” explained Car­ol Sil­va, an his­to­ri­an and Hawai­ian lan­guage pro­fes­sor.

Inspired by the Ahupua’a mod­el, the food sov­er­eign­ty move­ment is build­ing an organ­ic local sys­tem that fos­ters the con­nec­tions between com­mu­ni­ties and their food — a way of resist­ing GMOs while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly cre­at­ing alter­na­tives.

Colonial history

The decline of the Ahupua’a sys­tem didn’t only set Hawaii on the path away from food sov­er­eign­ty; it also destroyed the polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence of the now‑U.S. state. And indeed, when pro­test­ers chant “Alo­ha ‘āina” at anti-GMO march­es, they are allud­ing to the fact that this fight isn’t only over com­pet­ing visions of land use and food cre­ation. It’s also a bat­tle for the islands’ polit­i­cal sov­er­eign­ty.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, for­eign cor­po­rate inter­ests have repeat­ed­ly tak­en con­trol of Hawaii — and have exploit­ed and mis­treat­ed the land and its peo­ple in the process.

“It’s a sys­temic prob­lem and the GMO issue just hap­pens to be at the fore­front of pub­lic debate at the moment,” said Keoni Lee of ‘Ōiwi TV. “‘Āina” [land] equals that which pro­vides. Pro­vides for who?”

The pres­ence of Mon­san­to and the oth­er chem­i­cal cor­po­ra­tions is eeri­ly rem­i­nis­cent of the busi­ness inter­ests that led to the over­throw of the Hawai­ian King­dom. Through­out the 19th cen­tu­ry, the Hawai­ian King­dom was rec­og­nized as an inde­pen­dent nation. That real­i­ty changed in 1893, when a group of Amer­i­can busi­ness­men and sug­ar planters orches­trat­ed a U.S. Marine’s armed coup d’etat of the Hawai­ian King­dom gov­ern­ment.

Five years lat­er, the U.S. appre­hend­ed the islands for strate­gic mil­i­tary use dur­ing the Span­ish-Amer­i­can War despite local resis­tance. Even then-Pres­i­dent Grover Cleve­land called the over­throw a “sub­stan­tial wrong” and vowed to restore the Hawai­ian king­dom. But the eco­nom­ic inter­ests over­pow­ered the polit­i­cal will, and Hawaii remained a U.S. colony for the fol­low­ing 60 years.

The annex­a­tion of Hawaii prof­it­ed five sug­ar­cane-man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies com­mon­ly referred to as the Big Five: Alexan­der & Bald­win, Amfac (Amer­i­can Fac­tors), Cas­tle & Cooke, C. Brew­er, and Theo H. Davies. Most of the founders of these com­pa­nies were mis­sion­ar­ies who were active­ly involved in lob­by­ing for the annex­a­tion of the Hawai­ian islands in 1898. After the takeover, the Big Five manip­u­lat­ed great polit­i­cal pow­er and influ­ence in what was then con­sid­ered the “Ter­ri­to­ry of Hawaii,” gain­ing unpar­al­leled con­trol of bank­ing, ship­ping and import­ing on the island chain. The com­pa­nies only spon­sored white repub­li­cans in gov­ern­ment, cre­at­ing an oli­garchy that threat­ened the labor force if it vot­ed against their inter­ests. The com­pa­nies’ envi­ron­men­tal prac­tices, mean­while, caused air and water pol­lu­tion and altered the bio­di­ver­si­ty of the land.

The cur­rent pres­ence of the five-biotech chem­i­cal cor­po­ra­tions in Hawaii mir­rors the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic colo­nial­ism of the Big Five in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry — par­tic­u­lar­ly because Mon­san­to has become the largest employ­er on Molokai.

“There is no dif­fer­ence between the “Big Five” that actu­al­ly ruled Hawaii in the past,” said Wal­ter Ritte. “Now it’s anoth­er “Big Five,” and they’re all chem­i­cal com­pa­nies. So it’s almost like this is the same thing. It’s like déjàvu.”

Rising up

At the open­ing of this year’s leg­isla­tive ses­sion on Jan­u­ary 16, hun­dreds of farm­ers, stu­dents and res­i­dents marched to the state capi­tol for a ral­ly titled “Idle No More: We the Peo­ple.” There, agri­cul­tur­al spe­cial­ist and food sov­er­eign­ty activist Van­dana Shi­va, who trav­eled from India to Hawaii for the event, addressed the crowd.

“I see Hawaii not as a place where I come and peo­ple say, ‘Mon­san­to is the biggest employ­er,’ but peo­ple say, ‘this land, its bio­di­ver­si­ty, our cul­tur­al her­itage is our biggest employ­er,’” she said.

As she allud­ed to, a major obsta­cle fac­ing the anti-GMO move­ment is the per­cep­tion that the chem­i­cal cor­po­ra­tions pro­vide jobs that oth­er­wise might not exist — an eco­nom­ic specter that the sug­ar­cane com­pa­nies also wield­ed to their advan­tage. Anti-GMO orga­niz­ers are aware of how entrenched this pow­er is.