Category: Action Reports

community of resistance reclaims unused land in Leeds

On 13th April 2015, there was a failed evic­tion attempt of Leeds Com­mu­ni­ty Project.

The for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of Leeds research site, a unique space of near­ly one acre, con­tains sev­en glasshous­es and many estab­lished plants, includ­ing rare species. It now holds many future pos­si­bil­i­ties for sus­tain­able food grow­ing and can be envi­sioned as a space for edu­ca­tion and social events, as well as a space for nature and wildlife1. Since its clo­sure in 2011, North Hyde Park Res­i­dents Asso­ci­a­tion tried to des­ig­nate 6 Grosvenor Mount as a ‘com­mu­ni­ty asset’ and took this to Leeds City Coun­cil in an attempt to halt plans. The des­ig­na­tion was not suc­cess­ful because the Coun­cil argued that the space was not being utilised by the local com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, use of the space by the local com­mu­ni­ty has not been pos­si­ble due to the site being closed off.

The Uni­ver­si­ty has been grant­ed detailed plan­ning per­mis­sion to ren­o­vate the cur­rent res­i­den­tial build­ing and to build sev­en new hous­es where the out­build­ings, glasshous­es and gar­dens now stand. It is cur­rent­ly in the process of sell­ing the space to a pri­vate investor.

On 4th March 2015 Leeds Com­mu­ni­ty project (LCP) re-occu­pied the non-res­i­den­tial areas of 6 Grosvenor Mount, LS6, after an unlaw­ful evic­tion.

On 19th Feb­ru­ary LCP was unlaw­ful­ly evict­ed and three of its mem­bers were arrest­ed before being released with­out charge.

http://leedscp.noblogs.org

Hundreds of anti-Trident protesters descend on Faslane for blockade

13 April 2015

Hun­dreds of anti-nuclear activists have descend­ed on Faslane naval base to take part in a block­ade to protest against Tri­dent.

The Bairns Not Bombs demon­stra­tion from Scrap Tri­dent Coali­tion aims to see the clo­sure of the base, home to the UK’s nuclear weapons sys­tem.

Pro­test­ers began gath­er­ing out­side gates at the base from 7am on Mon­day in an attempt to stop work­ers from enter­ing, with the block­ade due to last until 3pm.

Patrick Harvie, co-con­ven­er of the Scot­tish Greens and MSP for Glas­gow, is among those tak­ing part.

He said: “Tri­dent is an obscen­i­ty. Through direct action and through the bal­lot box we can make the case for the UK to play a new role on the world stage.

“By pur­su­ing peace, a glob­al deal on cli­mate change and end­ing the arms trade we can stand tall rather than cling­ing to out­dat­ed and dan­ger­ous sta­tus sym­bols.

“By choos­ing to dis­arm Tri­dent we can re-skill work­ers on the Clyde to pro­vide defence of the strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant north­ern seas, and diver­si­fy our econ­o­my for social good.”

The group met with police on April 1 to ask them to not make arrests in what they argued would be a “peace­ful and law­ful” protest.

How­ev­er a few hours into the demon­stra­tion police offi­cers began mak­ing arrests of those in the block­ade, with a spokes­woman con­firm­ing 15 pro­test­ers had been appre­hend­ed.

A Faslane spokesman added: “The MoD recog­nis­es the demo­c­ra­t­ic right of indi­vid­u­als to par­tic­i­pate in law­ful and peace­ful protest activ­i­ties.

“The MoD police and Police Scot­land are seek­ing to facil­i­tate safe and peace­ful protest activ­i­ty but any breach­es of crim­i­nal law will be dealt with in an appro­pri­ate man­ner.”

He also said the oper­a­tional out­put of the base was not orig­i­nal­ly affect­ed by the protest activ­i­ty with con­tin­gency plans in place, how­ev­er some staff were lat­er sent home.

Let­ter

The block­ade comes after a large ral­ly in Glas­gow’s George Square on Sat­ur­day April 4, which was attend­ed by around 5000 peo­ple, at which First Min­is­ter Nico­la Stur­geon spoke.

In a nation­al news­pa­per on Sun­day, come­di­an Frankie Boyle and Nobel prize win­ner Pro­fes­sor Peter Hig­gs were among lead­ing fig­ures who have made a new call for the nuclear deter­rent to be scrapped.

 

Artists and scientists in joint call for Trident to be scrapped

Read More

Launched by polit­i­cal group Com­pass, the let­ter claimed polling data sug­gest­ed nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment is a “major­i­ty pop­u­lar demand” across the coun­try.

For­mer Roy­al Soci­ety pres­i­dent Sir Michael Atiyah, design­er Dame Vivi­enne West­wood, Mas­sive Attack and US lin­guist Noam Chom­sky were also among the 70 sig­na­to­ries to the let­ter.

 

‘Civil war’ Brewing Over Disputed Greek Goldmine

A police bus blocks a road as gold mine work­ers protest against the government’s plan to scrap a gold mine project in the Halkidi­ki penin­su­la, north­ern Greece, in Skouries on Feb­ru­ary 15, 2015

April 12th, 2015

Scrawled on the homes of the vil­lage of Mega­li Pana­gia in north­ern Greece are slo­gans emblem­at­ic of the deep rift caused in this soci­ety by a con­tro­ver­sial Cana­di­an gold min­ing project.

“Gold­mines are a curse for every nation,” reads one — oth­ers are more pro­fane.

For the past three years, the invest­ment of Hel­lenic Gold — a sub­sidiary of Cana­di­an firm Eldo­ra­do Gold — has deeply divid­ed the local com­mu­ni­ties of the Halkidi­ki penin­su­la, even set­ting fam­i­ly mem­bers at each oth­ers’ throats.

In Mega­li Pana­gia itself, tit-for-tat attacks on shops and cars belong­ing to rival fac­tions have been going on for years.

Until now, most of the demon­stra­tions were by res­i­dents fear­ing that the project will cause irre­versible harm to the forest­ed Halkidi­ki penin­su­la, one of Greece’s most pop­u­lar tourist areas.

But the arrival in Jan­u­ary of a new left­ist gov­ern­ment that oppos­es the invest­ment has sparked a mobil­i­sa­tion among Hel­lenic Gold employ­ees afraid of los­ing their jobs.

“A civ­il war is unfold­ing and the gov­ern­ment must clear this sit­u­a­tion up imme­di­ate­ly,” says Yior­gos Kyrit­sis, a legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the anti-min­ing fac­tion.

“I know of one pend­ing law­suit con­cern­ing a beat­ing between two broth­ers,” he told AFP.

Ear­li­er this month, riot police were sent in when the rival groups came close to clash­ing in an oak for­est between the vil­lages of Stra­toni, where Hel­lenic Gold has its base, and Ieris­sos, which oppos­es the project.

– ‘There will be blood’ –

Police min­is­ter Yian­nis Panousis lat­er said some of the pro­test­ers were fir­ing bolts from sling­shots.

Panousis warned “there will be casu­al­ties” unless the sit­u­a­tion is resolved.

The new left­ist gov­ern­ment has clear­ly declared its oppo­si­tion to the project, with Ener­gy and Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Pana­gi­o­tis Lafaza­nis recent­ly pledg­ing to “employ all pos­si­ble legal means” to halt it.

After the lat­est protest Lafaza­nis went fur­ther, accus­ing the com­pa­ny of act­ing “as a state with­in a state” and mobil­is­ing its staff to cause vio­lence.

“Nobody can black­mail the gov­ern­ment… Greece is not a banana repub­lic,” Lafaza­nis’ min­istry said in a state­ment.

In a sim­i­lar vein, the dai­ly news­pa­per of the rul­ing Syriza par­ty, Avgi, brand­ed the protest­ing min­ers “mer­ce­nar­ies”.

The mine employ­ees, who plan to protest in Athens on April 16, counter that it is they who have faced intim­i­da­tion and vio­lence from the so-called envi­ron­men­tal fac­tion since the project was first announced in 2011.

In the town of Ieris­sos, where most res­i­dents oppose the project, fam­i­lies of min­ers live in a “cli­mate of ter­ror”, says their union rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris­tos Zafeiroudas.

“What is dan­ger­ous is that this hatred has even passed to the chil­dren in the local schools. The com­pa­ny may leave one day, but we still live here,” he told AFP.

In 2012, dozens of min­ers trashed an obser­va­tion post manned by anti-mine activists in the moun­tain of Skouries, near a planned expan­sion site of the mine project.

In turn, in a pre-dawn raid in 2013, hood­ed mil­i­tants threw Molo­tov cock­tails at the mine work­site, wound­ing a guard and dam­ag­ing equip­ment.

The police sta­tion of Ieris­sos was lat­er ran­sacked after two local men were arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of par­tic­i­pat­ing in that attack.

The min­is­ter in charge at the time said the anti-mine pro­test­ers saw them­selves as real-life ver­sions of the feisty Gauls that take on the Roman Empire in the Aster­ix com­ic books.

“We are fac­ing oppo­si­tion from a sec­tion of the local com­mu­ni­ty that wants to impose its own law and oper­ate like a Gaul­ish vil­lage,” then pub­lic order min­is­ter Nikos Den­dias said.

Hel­lenic Gold says it plans to invest 1.3 bil­lion euros ($1.38 bil­lion) in the area over­all, and extract 9.6 mil­lion ounces of gold.

Its oper­a­tions, it says, have been repeat­ed­ly vet­ted and cleared by the author­i­ties.

Anti-mine pro­test­ers claim the project will cause irre­versible harm to the envi­ron­ment, drain­ing and con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing local water reserves and fill­ing the air with haz­ardous chem­i­cals includ­ing lead, cad­mi­um, arsenic and mer­cury.

It is like­ly to also affect the area’s agri­cul­tur­al and tourism econ­o­my, they say.

The pre­vi­ous con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment had sup­port­ed the invest­ment, argu­ing that it would cre­ate hun­dreds of jobs in the reces­sion-hit coun­try where the unem­ploy­ment rate now stands at over 25 per­cent.

Anoth­er Cana­di­an com­pa­ny, TVX, began an oper­a­tion in Halkidi­ki near­ly two decades ago before pulling out in 2003.

London: Siege of Aylesbury estate security thugs against St James Square ANAL squat

The squat­ter crew Autonomous Nation of Anar­chist Lib­er­tar­i­ans (A.N.A.L.) have occu­pied a num­ber of high pro­file build­ings in cen­tral Lon­don in recent weeks. These have includ­ed the for­mer Insti­tute of Direc­tors (cor­po­rate fat­cat club) HQ, Admi­ral­ty Arch (state pow­er icon due to be turned into hotel), and now 24 St James’ Square, a flash office build­ing on one of London’s most expen­sive squares, emp­ty for ten years. They have been get­ting big pic­ture splash­es in cor­po­rate media rags like the Evening Stan­dard and Dai­ly Mail.

On Fri­day evening (10 April) the St James’ Sq squat came under siege by a mini-army of secu­ri­ty guards. The heav­ies used sim­i­lar tac­tics to those seen recent­ly on the Ayles­bury Estate and oth­er squat clash­es recent­ly: unable to retake the build­ing, they forcibly block entrances and exits to lock down the occu­pa­tion, keep­ing out sup­port­ers and sup­plies.

This tac­tic is not usu­al­ly suc­cess­ful, as many times our side can mobilise big­ger num­bers to come down and break the siege. Sev­er­al dozen peo­ple respond­ed to a call for back-up from ANAL on Fri­day evening, and the secu­ri­ty thugs were forced to back down, after a few scuf­fles.

Police also came along, and in this case didn’t give the secu­ri­ty any sup­port, but instead warned them for not dis­play­ing their SIA (Secu­ri­ty Indus­try Author­i­ty) reg­is­tra­tion badges, as her majesty’s law demands.

A num­ber of the secu­ri­ty guards present on Fri­day are reg­u­lars from South­wark Council’s secu­ri­ty oper­a­tion at the Ayles­bury Estate. As a mat­ter of course they do not wear any com­pa­ny insignia or reg­is­tra­tion num­bers. They have been repeat­ed­ly vio­lent and offen­sive to occu­piers, estate res­i­dents and passers by.

We post below some pho­tos from Fri­day. If you have any fur­ther infor­ma­tion on these char­ac­ters and their employ­ers, please share it. Email to rabble(at)autistici.org, and/or to the Ayles­bury Estate occu­piers at aylesbury(at)riseup.net. Or you can con­tact ANAL via their face­book page, where there are also some more pho­tos.

via Rab­ble Ldn

ANAL squat at form Insti­tute of Direc­tors build­ing

Denmark: protest camp against French Shale Gas Company

April 10th, 2015

[ from US EF! Newswire: Editor’s note:  The fol­low­ing piece has been com­posed from words sent our way as well as from var­i­ous arti­cles.  As the oppo­si­tion con­tin­ues, how­ev­er, there will be more updates and rebel­lious cries.  For hin­der­ing Total until its con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed shad­ow retreats from Den­mark and trips on its own grimy machin­ery! ]

Denmark—On June 25 of last year, after many hours of debate and gath­er­ing votes amid the cries of anti-frack­ing pro­test­ers, Denmark’s first drilling license for shale gas was approved in Fred­erik­shavn, a munic­i­pal­i­ty locat­ed in north­ern Den­mark.  The warped deci­sion will enable Total—a French oil and gas com­pa­ny and fifth largest inter­na­tion­al ener­gy com­pa­ny— to begin its degrad­ing explo­ration and estab­lish a well in near­by Dyb­vad.

“We had a good and fac­tu­al debate,” Bir­git Sten­bak Hansen, Frederikshavn’s may­or, told Jyl­lands-Posten news­pa­per. “I am pleased that we can move on in this case after prepar­ing metic­u­lous­ly for the coun­cil.”
Although the Dan­ish Gov­ern­ment has expressed plans to divert from fos­sil fuels and has gained an inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion for “green ener­gy”, its sur­ren­der­ing to Total for the sake of sup­port­ing Denmark’s wel­fare state, as well as its empha­sis on rip­ping through the land in a “respon­si­ble man­ner”, speaks oth­er­wise.

In order for exter­nal indus­tries to oper­ate legal­ly with­in Denmark’s beau­ti­ful land­scape, they have to be approved by the the Dan­ish Sub­soil Act and the Envi­ron­men­tal Committee—the enti­ties in place to autho­rize which com­pa­nies can spit on them. Through such over­sight, Total and North Sea Fund (a state-owned oil and gas co.) were grant­ed two licens­es back in 2010, allow­ing for shale gas poten­tial to be inves­ti­gat­ed in two areas of Den­mark.

Just days ago, we received news that Total is prepar­ing its numb machin­ery to drill the first test well and locals are retal­i­at­ing. A protest camp has been estab­lished on-site and has been active since the per­mits began to be exer­cised.

The atmos­phere of the encamp­ment is quite live­ly with defi­ant song and the num­bers of war­riors becom­ing inte­grat­ed in the fight is grow­ing.

Through­out the last few days, road block­ades have been formed and sus­tained for 2–3 hours by locals and allies to hin­der Total’s truck con­voys from enter­ing the site. While the first bar­ri­cade was dis­persed after a brief debate with police, the most recent end­ed with folks being phys­i­cal­ly dragged from the scene by cops. As sol­i­dar­i­ty is fos­tered between locals and their allies, there will most like­ly be more block­ades and orga­nized revolts to come.

This is the first envi­ron­men­tal­ly-based direct action that is unrav­el­ing in Den­mark since COP15 , as well as the first against the shale gas indus­try. Region­al mobi­liza­tion is gain­ing momen­tum and voic­es of those open­ly oppos­ing Total’ʹs invest­ments are wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ing.  Orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing Green­peace and the Dan­ish Soci­ety of Nature Con­ser­va­tion (Dan­marks Naturfred­nings­foren­ing – DN), have also been broad­cast­ing state­ments of dis­ap­proval.


With Alum Shale’s recov­er­able nat­ur­al gas deposits being esti­mat­ed to con­tain over 6.9 tril­lion cubic feet, there is quite the bun­dle of incen­tive to invite more com­pa­nies like Total to strut through the land­scape. It becomes even more vital, there­fore, for orga­nized upris­ings, such as the cur­rent encamp­ment, to take place.

For Com­mu­ni­ty Auton­o­my and Earth Lib­er­a­tion!

Upton anti-fracking camp 1st birthday, Cheshire

10th April 2015

Anti-frack­ing activists are cel­e­brat­ing the Upton Pro­tec­tion Camp’s first birth­day with a par­ty open to the com­mu­ni­ty.

The camp was set up last April off Dut­tons Lane, Upton, to pre­vent an ener­gy firm drilling an explorato­ry bore­hole in the mid­dle of a field.

IGas is scour­ing the coun­try look­ing for methane in the under­ground lay­ers of coal and shale but one poten­tial extrac­tion method, known as frack­ing, is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­tro­ver­sial.

Cam­paign­ers fear air and water pol­lu­tion as well as earth­quakes. They also wor­ry it will delay the switch to renew­ables, like solar pow­er, giv­en cli­mate change.

 

The party

This Sat­ur­day (April 11), start­ing from 2pm, there will be a fam­i­ly pic­nic and trea­sure hunt at the site. Then around 3pm there will be a pre-elec­tion aware­ness update with a progress report on how the anti-frack­ing cam­paign is going in Upton and West Cheshire.

At 5pm is a bar­be­cue with burg­ers and sausages avail­able. How­ev­er, guests are asked to bring their own food and drink or food and drink to share. Home baked cakes or bis­cuits are ‘very wel­come’ as are camp­ing chairs.

From 7pm onwards there will be music and a sing-along. Par­ty-goers are request­ed to bring acoustic instru­ments, warm clothes and lanterns or torch­es.

Anti-frack­ers feel the camp has been a suc­cess in pre­vent­ing IGas drilling on the field, rais­ing aware­ness in the com­mu­ni­ty and help­ing to per­suade local politi­cians to side with them pub­licly.

Arti­cle con­tin­ued plus pho­tos

Guardian arti­cle

 

China: Violent Protest Halts Waste Incinerator Project

8.4.2015

A west­ern Guang­dong city has can­celled a plan to build an incin­er­a­tor that prompt­ed two days of protests that esca­lat­ed up to around 10,000 peo­ple, dur­ing which sev­er­al police cars were either smashed or flipped and a Police office destroyed. Luod­ing city gov­ern­ment post­ed two let­ters on its web­site on Wednes­day announc­ing the deci­sion. One informed the Lang­tang town­ship gov­ern­ment that it had decid­ed to can­cel the project, which Lang­tang had bro­kered with Chi­na Resources Cement Hold­ings. The sec­ond urged res­i­dents to stop block­ing roads, van­dal­is­ing prop­er­ty or dis­turb­ing pub­lic order.

“Peo­ple are angry with the site selec­tion of the incin­er­a­tor as it is with­in a 1km radius of people’s homes,” said one young res­i­dent. “The cement fac­to­ry is pro­duc­ing enough pol­lu­tion, we don’t need anoth­er pol­luter.”

Res­i­dents of Long Town in Luod­ing City, held a sit-in protest com­bined with local schools on full strike and a march on Mon­day April 6th in protest against the local gov­ern­ment and Chi­na Resources Cement’s pri­vate con­struc­tion of a  waste incin­er­a­tion plant.

Res­i­dents com­plain that the ground water and air are already heav­i­ly pol­lut­ed, they fear for the health of their fam­i­lies con­sid­er­ing the new waste incin­er­a­tor would bring 100’s of ton’s of garbage dai­ly from neigh­bour­ing cities to be burned. Res­i­dents said about 1,000 locals turned up to Monday’s sit-in, which took place out­side a cement fac­to­ry owned by Chi­na Resources. Dozens were beat­en by around 100 a mix of police­men and secu­ri­ty guards dressed in black and armed with batons, hel­mets and shields. At least 20 peo­ple were arrest­ed.

“My nephew is only 14 and is suf­fer­ing from con­cus­sion after he was beat­en by the men with batons,” said one res­i­dent.

“It was very bru­tal and total­ly unnec­es­sary to use such force against unarmed civil­ians dur­ing a peace­ful and ratio­nal demon­stra­tion, espe­cial­ly as they attacked chil­dren too.”

A rough trans­la­tion of a state­ment post­ed on line con­veys the con­cerns of the Long Town res­i­dents.

Dear May­or, we are Long Town vil­lagers. April 6 we are lov­ing home, love the moth­er­land enthu­si­as­tic vil­lagers. We have always love the Long Pond, because here is our roots. Our gen­er­a­tions grow here, we love the moun­tains, green water, air. No mat­ter where we are will­ing to give up our home …… Long Pond! But the qui­et beau­ti­ful day in the pres­ence of Chi­na Resources Cement moment com­plete­ly changed that way …… Chi­na Resources Cement just came in so we did not real­ize the seri­ous pol­lu­tion dam­age, this year we have had enough of mouthful’s of dust. All the pol­lu­tion prob­lems have yet to be resolved, and now you do not lis­ten to pub­lic opin­ion on Gaoge incin­er­a­tion plant, waste incin­er­a­tion gas pro­duced even a child knows that the gas pro­duced will affect a ten-mile radius, the air peo­ple breathe every day will be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. Long Tong town will become tox­ic, can­cer vil­lage. We will nev­er allow Long Tong to be destroyed by the hands of our gen­er­a­tion. If you insist, we do not mind to do the same as the peo­ple in Hong Kong who occu­pied the gov­ern­ment. Count­ing resources and the destruc­tion vehi­cles every day, Mr. may­or, I believe you will not call hun­dreds of armed police to accom­pa­ny work every day, we are not afraid to make big things. We are not mil­i­tants, we only pur­sue the fun­da­men­tal rights of human exis­tence.

The bru­tal police repres­sion at Monday’s sit-in protest trig­gered the larg­er vio­lent resis­tance that last­ed into Tues­day, which res­i­dents say involved about 10,000 locals.

More on Incin­er­a­tor – pol­lu­tion protests in Chi­na

Guang­dong in Sep­tem­ber 2014 – 20,000 Protest Waste Incin­er­a­tor Project in Chi­na

Hangzhou in May 2014: Bru­tal Crack­down on Hangzhou Waste Incin­er­a­tor Protest Leaves 3 Dead, Sparks Riot

Maom­ing in March 2014:

Chi­na: Dozens Beat­en Bloody, up to Ten Pos­si­ble Deaths at Maom­ing Anti-PX Protests

Maom­ing Chi­na Day 3 of Anti-PX Protests Esca­late After Deaths and Vio­lence
 

blockade (AKA aloha safety check) against Hawaiian telescope development

A small group of activists start­ed a block­ade against con­struc­tion of the Thir­ty Meter Tele­scope atop Mau­na Kea.

April 5th, 2015

A Day After Arrests, Mauna Kea Telescope Protest Grows

A small group of activists start­ed a block­ade against con­struc­tion of the Thir­ty Meter Tele­scope atop Mau­na Kea ten days ago. Now, its a grow­ing encamp­ment.

Orga­niz­ers esti­mate as many as 300 peo­ple lined the sum­mit access road Fri­day, show­ing their oppo­si­tion to the con­tro­ver­sial $1.4 bil­lion tele­scope.

“To see just so many peo­ple gath­ered, it was so uplift­ing,” said orga­niz­er Lanaki­la Man­gauil. “It looked like there was a whole Mau­na Kea fes­ti­val going on.”

There was also added star pow­er, as Hawaii native and Hol­ly­wood actor Jason Momoa flew in and met with pro­test­ers, and also made his way up to the sum­mit to learn more about the sit­u­a­tion.

The protest is now attract­ing Native Hawai­ian lead­ers from all over the state.

“The move­ment of our broth­ers and sis­ters here on Hawaii island had put the call out to all of our islands, and so I came from Oahu to sup­port this,” said cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­er Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu.

“That’s due to this, it’s due to the peo­ple,” said pro­test­er Kahookahi Kanuha. “This is not only a Mau­na Kea thing any­more, this is not only a Hawaii island thing any more. In fact, this is not even a Ko Hawai‘i Pae ‘Aina thing. It’s not an all Hawai­ian islands issue, this is a world­wide issue.”

Kanuha was one of the 31 peo­ple arrest­ed Thurs­day for block­ing con­struc­tion crews head­ing to the sum­mit, dis­obey­ing police orders, or tres­pass­ing at the work site.

“The arrests that are being made is real­ly, in my judg­ment, a kind of an ‘in your face’ provo­ca­tion to Native Hawai­ians, that a con­struc­tion sched­ule is more impor­tant than peo­ple,” said Office of Hawai­ian Affairs Trustee Peter Apo.

Apo is call­ing for con­struc­tion on the tele­scope to be halt­ed for 30 days. If con­struc­tion con­tin­ues, protest orga­niz­ers pre­dict even more peo­ple will join the ral­ly next week, when Hilo fills up with Native Hawai­ians for the Mer­rie Monarch Fes­ti­val.

“You have a whole bunch of natives and peo­ple ral­ly­ing against your con­struc­tion,” said Man­gauil. “It would be sil­ly to do it when you have a gath­er­ing that mass­es the natives. You know, like Mer­rie Monarch.”

Thirty Meter Telescope Crews Blocked by Hawaiian Protestors

31.3.15

Con­struc­tion of the Thir­ty Meter Tele­scope ground to a halt Mon­day as more than 50 pro­test­ers formed a road­block out­side the Mau­na Kea vis­i­tor cen­ter.

Call­ing the $1.4 bil­lion project a des­e­cra­tion of the moun­tain, the activists marched back and forth across the Mau­na Kea Access Road, mak­ing sure to stay with­in the cross­walk.

About 15 vehi­cles trans­port­ing work­ers up the moun­tain were blocked as a result, though the pro­test­ers allowed vis­i­tors and oth­er tele­scope oper­a­tors through.

The mood at the protest was upbeat, with con­tem­po­rary and tra­di­tion­al Hawai­ian songs fill­ing the moun­tain air. More than a dozen police offi­cers looked on but took no action against the demon­stra­tion.

Pro­test­ers, who were most­ly Native Hawai­ian, said their mes­sage was about alo­ha and not anger toward the work­ers.

“Our stance is not against the sci­ence,” said Lanaki­la Man­gauil, 27, of Hon­okaa. “It’s not against the sci­ence. It’s not against the TMT itself. It’s against their choice of place.”

The TMT, sched­uled to achieve first light in 2024, will be the 13th obser­va­to­ry on the moun­tain and one of three next-gen­er­a­tion tele­scopes under devel­op­ment. Two oth­ers will be built in Chile.

Astronomers say the tele­scope will allow them to peer clos­er to the start of the uni­verse and answer more of its great mys­ter­ies.

TMT is expect­ed to cre­ate 300 full-time con­struc­tion jobs and 120 to 140 per­ma­nent jobs, but pro­test­ers said there already has been too much devel­op­ment on Mau­na Kea.

Ruth Aloua, 26, of Kailua-Kona, said they were stand­ing up for their ances­tors and the mountain’s sacred sta­tus.

“We have an ances­tral, a genealog­i­cal rela­tion­ship to this place,” she said. “And that is what we are pro­tect­ing. We are pro­tect­ing our kupuna through alo­ha aina.”

TMT Project Man­ag­er Gary Sanders said work­ers wait­ed for more than eight hours at the road­block before head­ing back down the moun­tain.

“TMT, its con­trac­tors and their union employ­ees have been denied access to our project site by a block­ad­ed road,” he said in a state­ment. “Our access via a pub­lic road has been blocked by pro­test­ers, and we have patient­ly wait­ed for law enforce­ment to allow our work­ers the access to which they are enti­tled.”

He said state offi­cials approved the project after a “lengthy sev­en-year pub­lic process.”

The pro­test­ers said some of them have kept a near­ly 24-hour pres­ence out­side the vis­i­tor cen­ter, locat­ed at about 9,200 feet, since Wednes­day fol­low­ing the arrival of con­struc­tion equip­ment the day before.

Wal­lace Ishibashi, the project’s con­struc­tion mon­i­tor, esti­mat­ed about two days worth of work occurred last week at the site locat­ed at the 13,150-foot ele­va­tion. That work is cur­rent­ly focused on site clear­ing and prepar­ing the loca­tion for the obser­va­to­ry.

Pro­test­ers also dis­rupt­ed a ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny at that site last Octo­ber.

Ishibashi, who also sits on the Hawai­ian Home Lands Com­mis­sion, not­ed the project has all of the per­mits and approvals it needs from the state. He said he didn’t see spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and sci­ence as being in con­flict on the moun­tain.

“I love the sci­ence,” he said. “It’s the sacred sci­ence of astron­o­my here on the moun­tain. … We aren’t human beings hav­ing a spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence; we’re spir­i­tu­al beings hav­ing a human expe­ri­ence. So this is just part of our jour­ney of return­ing back home to Akua.”

TMT won a legal chal­lenge of its con­ser­va­tion dis­trict use per­mit, ini­tial­ly grant­ed after a con­test­ed case hear­ing, last year. Appeals of that deci­sion and the grant­i­ng of a sub­lease remain pend­ing, accord­ing to the plain­tiffs.

A con­struc­tion work­er, who declined to give his name, said they were about four weeks away from mov­ing earth at the site. He esti­mat­ed it would take anoth­er year to begin to build the large struc­ture.

Build­ing per­mits for the obser­va­to­ry are expect­ed to be filed this sum­mer, said Neil Erick­son, Hawaii Coun­ty build­ing divi­sion plans exam­in­ing man­ag­er. He also didn’t expect to see any major con­struc­tion begin until next year.

Since the state Depart­ment of Land and Nat­ur­al Resources approved a sub­lease for the project last June, the TMT Inter­na­tion­al Obser­va­to­ry has made $300,000 in lease pay­ments, said Dan Meisen­zahl, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii spokesman. UH oper­ates the Mau­na Kea Sci­ence Reserve.

Eighty per­cent of those funds goes to the Office of Mau­na Kea Management’s land man­age­ment spe­cial fund, he said. The oth­er 20 per­cent goes to the Office of Hawai­ian Affairs.

The lease pay­ments will increase grad­u­al­ly until they reach $1.08 mil­lion after 11 years.

TMT also is donat­ing $1 mil­lion a year to ben­e­fit sci­ence, math and tech­nol­o­gy edu­ca­tion on Hawaii Island.

Pro­test­ers said the jobs and fund­ing don’t jus­ti­fy the project.

“It’s not about the instant pay­check,” said Man­gauil. “We are look­ing fur­ther; we are look­ing far­ther than that. We need to get our­selves out of those shack­les in which we are forced to do what we know in our heart is not pono and what is not good for our envi­ron­ment.”

Pro­test­ers said part of their mis­sion was to edu­cate vis­i­tors, who most­ly looked on with curios­i­ty, about the mountain’s sacred­ness and cul­tur­al impor­tance.

“I’m just enjoy­ing their singing,” said Johanne Brideau of Swe­den. “They sing very upbeat.”

A mix­ture of state con­ser­va­tion offi­cers and Hawaii Coun­ty police watched the pro­test­ers.

Capt. Richard Sher­lock, with the Hawaii Police Depart­ment, said its focus was on mak­ing sure peo­ple stayed safe.

Asked if a res­o­lu­tion can be found, he said, “I don’t know. We’ll see. It’s a day-to-day basis. We’re try­ing to make sure things don’t get out of hand and nobody gets hurt.”

Man­gauil said pro­test­ers will try to main­tain the road­block, referred to as an “alo­ha safe­ty check,” as long as they can.

“That is real­ly going to be up to the peo­ple, to all peo­ple,” he said. “If they love this moun­tain, they will come.”