Category: Climate Chaos

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.

Unist’ot’en Camp Site of Late Night Bombing

Banners at the Unist’ot’en camp, 2012.

29th Octo­ber

Banners at the Unist’ot’en camp, 2012.

29th Octo­ber

An attempt to destroy the main Unist’ot’en sign with a home-made explo­sive accel­er­ant occurred last night at approx­i­mate­ly 10:20 p.m.

The Unist’ot’en camp locat­ed around 70 kilo­me­tres south of Hous­ton has been in place since 2010 in response to pro­posed pipelines such as Enbridge’s North­ern Gate­way and Pacif­ic Trails’ liq­uid nat­ur­al gas line.

Last night indi­vid­u­als liv­ing at the camp heard what sound­ed like a gun­shot and they imme­di­ate­ly took steps to make sure they were pro­tect­ing them­selves.

“We were in the main cab­in and a soon as we heard the bang we shut off our lights, grabbed firearms, went out­side and fired a warn­ing shot,” Togh­estiy (Warn­er Naziel) said.

Togh­estiy inves­ti­gat­ed the scene on the north side of the bridge where he could see fire burn­ing. He found a few can­is­ters of ‘accel­er­ant’ bound togeth­er with bright green sur­vey­or tape and a long trail of ‘accel­er­ant’ lead­ing north along the road away from the bridge, which was used to reach the can­is­ters, he said.

 

“When I was approach­ing the site I could see head­lights head­ing away from the bridge,” Togh­estiy said.

The Unist’ot’en have renewed the tra­di­tion­al pro­to­col of free, pri­or and informed con­sent in regards to access­ing Unist’ot’en ter­ri­to­ry for any rea­son.

To accom­plish the pro­to­col a soft block­ade has been employed on a bridge cross­ing the Morice Riv­er, where every per­son wish­ing to enter Unist’ot’en land has to answer ques­tions. One such ques­tion is: How will your vis­it ben­e­fit the Unist’ot’en? Fail­ure to give sat­is­fac­to­ry answers gives the Unist’ot’en grounds to pre­vent access for what­ev­er pur­pose sought.

One group of young men from the Hous­ton area have report­ed­ly tak­en issue with the Unist’ot’en pro­to­col, Fre­da Huson, Unist’ot’en mem­ber and res­i­dent of the camp, said.

“A group com­plained to the RCMP about our pro­to­col,” Huson said, but she’s not sure if it’s the same group respon­si­ble for last night’s event.

RCMP have yet to inves­ti­gate the scene.

A hunter from the Tum­bler Ridge area, who answered the pro­to­col ques­tions prop­er­ly, shared that he heard a group of young men were angri­ly talk­ing about the Unist’ot’en and the group claimed they were going to ‘do some­thing about it’, Huson said.

“It may have been the peo­ple who honked at the bridge but didn’t wait for us to come ask the pro­to­col ques­tions,” Huson said. “I believe it’s the same group that destroyed our sign at the 44 kilo­me­tre mark.”

The Unist’ot’en are ask­ing any­one with infor­ma­tion about who is respon­si­ble for last nights events to please con­tact the Hous­ton RCMP at 250–845-2204.

Mi’kmaq Anti-Fracking Update: Two Warriors Released on Bail, Four Others Remain in Jail

One of some 40 peo­ple arrest­ed b

One of some 40 peo­ple arrest­ed by RCMP on Oct 17, 2013. CBC News,Oct 25, 2013

Bail hearings for 3 others continue; 1 denied bail Thursday

Two of six pro­test­ers who were held in cus­tody fol­low­ing the shale-gas protest con­fronta­tion near Rex­ton, N.B., last week have been released on bail.

Jason Augus­tine and David Maze­rolle were released on a num­ber of con­di­tions and will be back in court next month to enter a plea. The pair face var­i­ous charges, includ­ing mis­chief, unlaw­ful con­fine­ment, escap­ing law­ful cus­tody, obstruct­ing a peace offi­cer and assault­ing a peace offi­cer.

Thurs­day anoth­er pro­test­er, Coady Stevens, was denied bail. He remains in cus­tody and is to enter a plea on Novem­ber 1.

The six men — Stevens, Augus­tine, Maze­rolle, Aaron Fran­cis, Ger­main Junior Breau, and James Sylvester Pic­tou — face 37 charges in all.

Bail hear­ings are con­tin­u­ing for the oth­er three jailed pro­test­ers. They’ve been in cus­tody since their arrest eight days ago.

The six were among 40 peo­ple arrest­ed when RCMP broke up a weeks-long protest against shale gas explo­ration on Route 134 in Rex­ton. The pro­test­ers were pre­vent­ing SWN from access­ing seis­mic-test­ing vehi­cles and equip­ment in its com­pound in the area. The explo­ration com­pa­ny had obtained a court injunc­tion order­ing that it be allowed access to its vehi­cles and be allowed to car­ry out explo­ration work with­out harass­ment.

‘No means no’

After being released, Augus­tine hugged his wife and moth­er out­side the Monc­ton Law Courts.

“It’s good to be out,” he said. “It’s not good to see my bros that are still in there be incar­cer­at­ed for some­thing that we believe is right to save.”

Augus­tine said he and his fel­low war­riors were arrest­ed try­ing to save the province from the dan­gers of shale gas devel­op­ment.

“We are there for our Moth­er Earth. We’re not there to uphold pol­i­tics. Pol­i­tics this, pol­i­tics that. No way. Just say no, and no means no.”

Abo­rig­i­nal lead­ers have not said they are absolute­ly against shale gas devel­op­ment, how­ev­er.

“They’re not say­ing no to all resource devel­op­ment,” Assem­bly of First Nations Nation­al Chief Shawn Atleo said dur­ing a vis­it to Elsi­pog­tog First Nation on Thurs­day. “Just say­ing not yes at all costs.”

Mean­while, Elis­pog­tog Chief Aaron Sock said the issue of resource devel­op­ment should be dealt with after going to court to deal with abo­rig­i­nal land claims.

Augus­tine said his opin­ion hasn’t changed.

“Shawn Atleo and Aaron Sock have to under­stand — this is a Mi’kmaq ter­ri­to­ry land. You can’t destroy our Mi’kmaq ter­ri­to­ry land, no mat­ter how much peo­ple are try­ing.”

Malaysia: Sarawak Dam Protest Intensifies with Blockades, Confrontations

Baram_blockade_23.10.201326th Octo­ber Anti-dam pro­tes­tors, who on Wednes­day put up block­ades at two roads lead­ing to Sarawak’s next hydro­elec­tric dam near Long Lama in Baram, have warned sta

Baram_blockade_23.10.201326th Octo­ber Anti-dam pro­tes­tors, who on Wednes­day put up block­ades at two roads lead­ing to Sarawak’s next hydro­elec­tric dam near Long Lama in Baram, have warned state elec­tric­i­ty provider Sarawak Ener­gy Bhd (SEB) to remove its con­struc­tion machin­ery from near­by Long Naah with­in three days.

The pro­tes­tors claimed that the pro­posed site for the dam was on their native cus­tom­ary rights (NCR) land.

The machin­ery had been trans­port­ed to the area to pre­pare the con­struc­tion of a 1200 megawatt (MW) dam that would dis­place up to 20,000 indige­nous Kenyah, Kayan and Penans. The dam will also flood a rain­for­est area of 400sq km.

Envi­ron­men­tal group Save Rivers Net­work and pro­tes­tors con­front­ed a group of 30 work­ers who were con­duct­ing rock test­ing activ­i­ties at Long Naah.

The group said the work­ers were told to pack up and leave the native land imme­di­ate­ly.

“The work­ers tried to nego­ti­ate but were told in no uncer­tain terms that there was no need for fur­ther nego­ti­a­tions as the com­mu­ni­ties reject­ed the dam project.”

Save also said that a group of vil­lagers had set up camp at the pro­posed dam site to mon­i­tor the with­draw­al of the work­ers.

The lat­est block­ades added pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment ahead of a key UN meet­ing in Gene­va on Malaysia’s human rights record where UN mem­ber states urged Putra­jaya to respect the rights of the natives.

The UPR process pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty for all UN mem­ber states to state what action they have tak­en to improve the human rights sit­u­a­tions in their coun­tries and to ful­fil their human rights oblig­a­tions. Yesterday’s ses­sion rep­re­sent­ed the sec­ond review of Malaysia, the first being in 2009.

Sarawak deputy state sec­re­tary Datuk Ose Murang was in the Malaysian del­e­ga­tion to Gene­va, Switzer­land.

Mean­while, SEB chief exec­u­tive offi­cer Datuk Torstein Dale Sjotveit, has said he would now like to hear from the “very vocal NGOs and action groups cur­rent­ly in Gene­va, and the organ­i­sa­tion that nom­i­nat­ed Sarawak Ener­gy for the Pub­lic Eye award”.

The NGO that nom­i­nat­ed SEB for the Pub­lic Eye award is the Swiss envi­ron­men­tal group, the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF).

The award hon­ours the most despi­ca­ble and shame­ful com­pa­ny of the year – com­pa­nies with a track record of human rights vio­la­tions, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and exploita­tion of their work­ers or involve­ment in cor­rup­tion.

BMF said they nom­i­nat­ed SEB due to its gross dis­re­gard for the envi­ron­ment, the indige­nous peo­ple and mas­sive cor­rup­tion linked to the project.

The win­ner would be picked dur­ing the 2014 World Eco­nom­ic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzer­land in Jan­u­ary.

“We would love to hear from the NGOs on how they pro­pose the state deploy trans­for­ma­tion­al projects that can ele­vate all Sarawakians and lift per capi­ta income across the board if not through hydro­elec­tric projects,” Sjotveit said. – Octo­ber 25, 2013.

New Protest Camp at Wisborough Green and Kirdford Proposed Drill Site

253091804226th Octo­ber A small band of anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers who wished to be known as ‘pro­tec­tors’ have set up camp on land adja­cent to Cel­tique Energie’s pro­posed drill site.

253091804226th Octo­ber A small band of anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers who wished to be known as ‘pro­tec­tors’ have set up camp on land adja­cent to Cel­tique Energie’s pro­posed drill site.

Many of them have spent time in Bal­combe, protest­ing against Cuadrilla’s drilling activ­i­ties.

Talk­ing from their camp, where they have per­mis­sion from the land own­er to tem­porar­i­ly reside, one of the group said: “I’m here because the coun­try is on the brink of what could pos­si­bly be the most intense envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe that we have ever known, and that its sneaked in under the radar of good sense, under the radar of democ­ra­cy, and peo­ple aren’t aware just how dan­ger­ous frack­ing can be, par­tic­u­lar­ly in this coun­try where we are rid­dled with fault lines.”

Tim, who pre­ferred not to give his sur­name and age, added: “It is a mat­ter of great urgency that every body stands up and gets active now.

“We’re all activists now and that is how it is – one way or anoth­er the coun­try is being indus­tri­alised, and it is time for every­body to stand up.”

Fel­low ‘pro­tec­tor’ Pra­j­na spoke of one of our ‘exis­ten­tial rights’ – water, say­ing it is under threat by the process of hydraulic frac­tur­ing which uses high pres­sure water laced with chem­i­cals to stim­u­late oil and gas reserves trapped in rock beneath the ground.

The 53 year old, who trav­els with his 46 year part­ner Kali, spent two months at Bal­combe before arriv­ing in Kird­ford about two weeks ago.

“If frack­ing were to take place in Wis­bor­ough Green and Kird­ford it would be dis­as­trous for this local envi­ron­ment,” said Kali. “But equal­ly it is going to be dis­as­trous for the whole island – poi­soned water sup­plies.

“It is going to affect absolute­ly every indi­vid­ual and if the water is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed than we shall be depen­dent on cor­po­ra­tions who bring it in from else­where.”

1017374225

A 27 year old called Dominic added: “I’ve come here to raise aware­ness among local peo­ple about frack­ing – it is an attack on the nat­ur­al ecosys­tems of the area.”

Kris, sport­ing an impres­sive gin­ger mous­tache, said he had been brought up in the oil indus­try and had lived all around the world, but was now total­ly dis­il­lu­sioned with the sec­tor for many rea­sons.

But chief amongst these, he said: “There is a very sub­stan­tial risk of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the water table.”

Asked why those we spoke to were ret­i­cent to give their full names, they said it could give the author­i­ties and cor­po­ra­tions a hold over them, and raised con­cerns about the might of the organ­i­sa­tions against which they are cam­paign­ing.

———————————————————————————–

One of the most colour­ful char­ac­ters we spoke to at the Kird­ford camp called him­self Bro Rain­bow. What fol­lows is a direct tran­script of the inter­view with Bro.

How old are you Bro?

Eter­nal

Where’s home?

Where the heart is.

Is that right here now?

Always, hope so, oth­er­wise get an ambu­lance.

Why here right now?

Why right here and now, it’s the only place you can be – here and now – they call it the present – it’s a gift, make the most of it.

Why have you come here?

Because it real­ly actu­al­ly mat­ters. We are one nation, one tribe, liv­ing on a very beau­ti­ful space-ship – they call it Earth, but I call it Plan­et Heart which is just a respelling of Earth.

But actu­al­ly it is not earth, it is two thirds water and so it is plan­et Heart, and she is spin­ning 1,800 mph – can you feel it?

The most amaz­ing life sup­port sys­tem that I am aware of in the moment, and what’s going on? Just delu­sion, tru­ly, and mad­ness. And the future gen­er­a­tions are going to look back and they will just be incred­u­lous at what has been hap­pen­ing up until this point.

Basi­cal­ly, do we tru­ly need it? This gas, this frack­ing, this des­e­cra­tion of the Moth­er, this ruina­tion of our water, our air, our soil – is it need­ed?

Yes, because we need to change our con­scious­ness and we need to rise above, that’s from my heart to yours, that we all might live true.

And here’s a poem:

“Listen’t to the mustn’ts child

Lis­ten to the don’ts

Lis­ten to the wouldn’ts, couldn’ts, shouldn’ts and the won’ts,

Lis­ten very close­ly,

Then lis­ten close to me,

Any­thing can hap­pen,

And any­thing can be,

And in the poten­tial real­i­ty that I want to exist in, this is not hap­pen­ing – ok.

They say that an Eng­lish woman’s home is her cas­tle, I say women because we’re women and man, we’re two sided,

We’re not all right, we’re half right, half left.”

That’s the truth of it, oth­er­wise we’d fall over, and hope­ful­ly, straight up the mid­dle,

Straight up, frack­ing is wrong and that is why I am here because I feel it intense­ly with­in me, and I am vot­ing with my feet and my whole being, to be here to say please, let’s go in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion.

Bless

Remove Your Machinery Within Three Days, Baram Natives Warn Dam Builders

Baram_blockade_23.10.201325th Octo­ber Native com­mu­ni­ties from Malaysia’s remote Baram dis­trict on the island of Bor­neo have warned state-owned elec­tric­i­ty provider Sarawak Ener­gy t

Baram_blockade_23.10.201325th Octo­ber Native com­mu­ni­ties from Malaysia’s remote Baram dis­trict on the island of Bor­neo have warned state-owned elec­tric­i­ty provider Sarawak Ener­gy today to remove its con­struc­tion machin­ery from their lands with­in three days. The machin­ery had been trans­port­ed to the Baram region in order to pre­pare the con­struc­tion of a 1200 MW dam that would dis­place up to 20’000 natives and flood a rain­for­est area of 400 km².

Accord­ing to Sarawak’s Save Rivers net­work, a group of 30 work­ers had been found to con­duct rock test­ing activ­i­ties at the planned dam site at Long Naah. The work­ers were told to pack up and leave the native lands imme­di­ate­ly. “The work­ers tried to nego­ti­ate but were told in no uncer­tain terms that there was no need for fur­ther nego­ti­a­tions as the com­mu­ni­ties reject­ed the dam project.”

Sarawak Ener­gy was giv­en a three-day ulti­ma­tum to remove its machin­ery from the native lands. A group of vil­lagers set up a camp at the planned dam site to mon­i­tor the imple­men­ta­tion of their demands.

Vil­lagers uphold­ing a sec­ond road block­ade site near Long Lama today informed that their block­ade was suc­cess­ful and no new con­struc­tion equip­ment had been trans­port­ed into the inte­ri­or.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the dam protest would be released by Radio Free Sarawak (www.radiofreesarawak.org) on SW 15420 KHZ between 7 pm and 8.30 pm local time.

The Bruno Manser Fund calls on the Malaysian gov­ern­ment and on Sarawak Ener­gy to halt all works on the planned Baram dam and to cre­ate full trans­paren­cy on the costs and con­tracts relat­ed to the con­struc­tion of the Murum dam.

Nigeria: Coordinated Mass Protests Shut Down ExxonMobil

pic824th Octo­ber The peo­ple of Eket fed­er­al con­stituen­cy in Akwa Ibom State yes­ter­day embarked on a mass protest shut­ting

pic824th Octo­ber The peo­ple of Eket fed­er­al con­stituen­cy in Akwa Ibom State yes­ter­day embarked on a mass protest shut­ting down the oper­a­tions of Mobil Pro­duc­ing Nige­ria Unlim­it­ed, a sub­sidiary of Exxon­Mo­bil in Ibeno and Eket, in the state

The mass protest was staged simul­ta­ne­ous­ly around Mobil facil­i­ties, the Airstrip in Eket, Mobil Ter­mi­nal in Ibeno and Mobil Hous­ing Estate in Eket.

The protest was in respect of the sum of N26.5 bil­lion oil spill fund report­ed­ly released by Exxon­Mo­bil through the state gov­ern­ment to the four oil pro­duc­ing local gov­ern­ment areas.

The pro­test­ers who chant­ed slo­gans with plac­ards and trum­pets, bar­ri­cad­ed the oil company’s  access gates, while a cof­fin with the inscrip­tion ‘RIP Mark Ward’ was kept at the gates of Mobil Ter­mi­nal in Ibeno, amidst oth­er ban­ners and plac­ards.

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At the Mobil airstrip in Eket, plan­tain suck­ers where plant­ed at the gates while the youths locked the gate with pad­lock in the full glare of a detach­ment of police­men who watched to pre­vent a degen­er­a­tion of the crises.

Also seen at one of the desert­ed gates of the Mobil Ter­mi­nal was a canoe, wrapped with tra­di­tion­al palm leaves and a white fowl, which the Ibeno pro­test­ers claimed found itself to the gate of the ter­mi­nal from the riv­er on its own, and dared author­i­ties of the oil firm to remove the canoe if they had the guts.

The com­mu­ni­ties lament­ed that Mobil was insen­si­tive to their plight, as evi­dent by its refusal to pay the com­pen­sa­tion for the 2012 oil spill inci­dent that result­ed in the dis­charge of more than 300 bar­rels of crude oil into the aquat­ic envi­ron­ment of the oil pro­duc­ing areas.

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Dur­ing the protest march, some promi­nent youth lead­ers under the aegis of Eket Fed­er­al Con­stituen­cy Van­guard led by Mr. Isa­iah Abia and Mr. William Mkpa, strong­ly scold­ed Exxon­Mo­bil for being insen­si­tive to their plight of its host com­mu­ni­ties.

Exxon­Mo­bil, they said, lacked employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for the peo­ple of the com­mu­ni­ty, oper­ate on a deplorable con­di­tion of social infra­struc­ture in the host com­mu­ni­ties, as well as haz­ards result­ing from the exploita­tion by the oil firm.

They warned that fail­ure of Mobil to address the ugly trend would leave them with no option than to put final­i­ty on their oper­a­tion in their land.

The demon­stra­tors also called for the imme­di­ate rede­ploy­ment of the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Exxon­Mo­bil, Mr. Mark Ward, over his per­sis­tent snub of all the over­tures from the com­mu­ni­ties.

Address­ing the protest at the company’s ter­mi­nal in Ibeno, Mr. Isa­iah Abia said there was no going back in call­ing Mobil to order.

He said the protest march came at the expi­ra­tion of the sev­en-day ulti­ma­tum ear­li­er issued to the author­i­ties of the com­pa­ny last week.

Abia said the peo­ple of the areas where total­ly against the notion that Exxon­Mo­bil want­ed to use the oil spill com­pen­sa­tion fund to exe­cute projects in the com­mu­ni­ties, main­tain­ing that such a notion was an attes­ta­tion to the non­cha­lant atti­tude of Mobil.

Burma: Village Protests Shut Down Coal Mine

Coal-mine-300x19924th Octo­ber The Karen Nation­al Union (KNU) in South­ern Bur­ma has sus­pend­ed a coalmine from oper­at­ing in the Pawk­lo area, east of Dawei.

Coal-mine-300x19924th Octo­ber The Karen Nation­al Union (KNU) in South­ern Bur­ma has sus­pend­ed a coalmine from oper­at­ing in the Pawk­lo area, east of Dawei.

The KNU stopped the mine after lis­ten­ing to the demands local vil­lagers made to the polit­i­cal organ­i­sa­tions dis­trict lead­ers.

The KNU Mer­gui-Tavoy Dis­trict 16th Con­gress that fin­ished on the 19 Octo­ber decid­ed that the coal mine in Tha Nay Kler vil­lage area should stop oper­at­ing after KNU town­ship rep­re­sen­ta­tives pushed for its clo­sure.

P’doh Saw Beel­er, chair­man of KNU Mer­gui-Tavoy Dis­trict told Karen News.

“We con­sid­er the vil­lagers demands request­ing the sus­pen­sion of coal min­ing in the Paw Klo area. We will time to inves­ti­gate the issue and talk and lis­ten to local peo­ple about their con­cerns.”

The KNU per­mit grant­ed to a Thai com­pa­ny East Star has been sus­pend­ed, but sources claim the com­pa­ny still has a grant issued by the Myan­mar gov­ern­ment.

East Star is a joint ven­ture with May Flower, a Burmese owned com­pa­ny, that was grant­ed a 25-year con­ces­sion by the gov­ern­ment to mine for coal in the Paw Klo area.

Until the recent cease­fire between the Bur­ma Army and the KNU, the Paw Klo area was a con­flict zone – it is still under the con­trol of the KNU. The com­pa­ny received per­mis­sion from the KNU to mine in 2011. The KNU agree­ment states the com­pa­ny must renew its per­mit every year.

The KNU per­mit lim­its large-scale coal min­ing to a 60-acre area and states that the com­pa­ny is only allowed to mine out­side vil­lage areas to avoid dam­age to farm­land, water­ways and the envi­ron­ment.

Vil­lagers in the Paw Klo area protest­ed against the com­pa­ny and alleged that the min­ing has destroyed their land and has had adverse impacts on vil­lage water sources. Vil­lagers claim that they fear the pol­lut­ed drink­ing water could have a neg­a­tive impact on their future health.

Vil­lagers in Paw Klo, sub­mit­ted a let­ter of com­plaint on Sep­tem­ber 2 urg­ing the KNU to stop coal min­ing in Tha Nay Kler vil­lage.

The let­ter sub­mit­ted on Sep­tem­ber 2 to the KNU Mer­gui-Tavoy dis­trict office states that, “The East Star Com­pa­ny has failed to fol­low the agree­ment made between the KNU and vil­lagers that it [com­pa­ny] will pro­tect against dam­age of the envi­ron­ment and would not harm local lands and peo­ples’ liveli­hoods.”