Category: Action Reports

When you threaten One you threaten All: Eviction Succesfully Resisted in Bristol

An attempt­ed ille­gal evic­tion occurred this after­noon at Uni­ty Home, num­ber 87 Ash­ley Road, St Pauls, Bris­tol. IT WAS RESISTED

Unity Home eviction resistance 1Unity Home eviction resistance 2Unity Home eviction resistance 3An attempt­ed ille­gal evic­tion occurred this after­noon at Uni­ty Home, num­ber 87 Ash­ley Road, St Pauls, Bris­tol. IT WAS RESISTED

Own­er­ship of the house is claimed by Places for Peo­ple, Britain’s largest hous­ing asso­ci­a­tion. Its chief exec­u­tive, David Cow­ans, topped the list of rich­est “social” hous­ing providers with a salary of £257,928 in 2007 (Every sin­gle pen­ny on the backs of the poor). Instead of pro­vid­ing ade­quate social hous­ing they work for cor­po­rate gain and through spec­u­la­tion with our mon­ey are feel­ing the pinch of the prop­er­ty mar­ket crash. This is a social hous­ing provider play­ing with pub­lic mon­ey.

Num­ber 87 is actu­al­ly owned by Places for People’s char­i­ta­ble arm (Places for Peo­ple Indi­vid­ual Sup­port), which is sup­posed to pro­vide hous­ing for home­less and the elder­ly. They plan to turn the major­i­ty of the house into pri­vate owned apart­ments. It cur­rent­ly is hous­ing 20+ peo­ple.

It has been emp­ty for over 3 years and squat­ted by a large num­ber of oth­er­wise home­less peo­ple since April 2008.

At 12.00pm today (28 Oct 2008), bailiffs act­ing for Places for Peo­ple arrived – short­ly to be accom­pa­nied by the police – demand­ing that the res­i­dents be out by 12.30pm. They claimed paper­work had been sent through to the occu­pants, but in fact no notice of evic­tion had come through. This was an ille­gal attempt at mak­ing peo­ple home­less and was answered with sol­i­dar­i­ty.

A crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple began to build in response to those resist­ing the ille­gal evic­tion and by about 1.30pm there were between 30–50 peo­ple out­side the gates on Ash­ley Road, with many many more inside, ready to resist what the bailiffs and police were prepar­ing.

Peo­ple took to the roof, occu­pied spaces in win­dows, defend­ed the doors – for­ti­fy­ing the build­ing. A ban­ner was dropped explain­ing: WHEN YOU THREATEN ONE YOU THREATEN ALL – for the defence of squats and autonomous spaces. Against com­pa­nies like Places for Peo­ple – Britain’s most com­mer­cialised, cor­rupt land­lord.

A stand off ensued and even­tu­al­ly by around 2.00pm the bailiffs and police depart­ed the scene. A beau­ti­ful vic­to­ry for sol­i­dar­i­ty in resist­ing the cor­po­rate takeover of our city.

This evic­tion threat is immi­nent and all sup­port is need­ed.

The res­i­dents of the build­ing have made repeat­ed attempts to nego­ti­ate a set­tle­ment with P4P but com­mer­cial gain seems their only aim. The res­i­dents ask all those who believe in hous­ing for all and the stand against gen­tri­fi­ca­tion to join them.

Squat­ters and res­i­dents togeth­er against cor­rupt land­lords!

Greece and the growing re-appropriation attacks against Super Markets

Attacks in Cap­i­tal cir­cu­la­tion and rev­enue
Greece and the grow­ing re-appro­pri­a­tion attacks against Super Mar­kets

Greek supermarket re-distributionAttacks in Cap­i­tal cir­cu­la­tion and rev­enue
Greece and the grow­ing re-appro­pri­a­tion attacks against Super Mar­kets

Τhe sat­ur­day of May 31st 2008 was a beau­ti­ful day for the greek move­ment of insur­rec­tion. One action organ­ised by a small group of com­rades caused a frac­ture in the greek social process. On the last days a big debate was goin’ on in the streets, in the work­ing places, cafes, hous­es and ‑in appear­ance only- on the tv screen. Basic prod­ucts (milk,rice etc.) were becom­ing more and more expen­sive, a process which start­ed since the intro­duc­tion of the Euro cur­ren­cy, Jan­u­ary 2002 and by the last months prices kept rais­ing steeply. Peo­ples’ resent­ment con­ce­trat­ed dur­ing all these years of price stag­na­tion, was so big that although gross­ly medi­at­ed by the TV news, forced final­ly the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce mea­sures that were , sup­posed , to con­trol the ris­ing of the prices, but whose actu­al tar­get was to calm peo­ples anger down. (It is inter­est­ing to add that infla­tion rate was steady and did not rise, prob­a­bly because of “cre­ative” tricks due to Eu rules that oblige mem­ber-states to keep a low infla­tion rate)

Super Mar­ket brand own­ers were prof­i­teer­ing in a real­ly high grade in expense of the peo­ples pock­ets and the actu­al resis­tance and pres­sure was rather low. Con­sumer unions, some news­pa­per arti­cles, calls for low­er­ing the prices, one day boy­cotts. But what to do?People are depen­dent from big Super Mar­kets that con­trol most of the food mar­ket and wages in Greece are rather low for eu stan­dards (Pen­sions are worse) and prices were among the high­er in EU. Old peo­ple, low income and the unem­ployed were affect­ed most but we can say that almost all work­ing class peo­ple and even low­er mid­dle class (petit bour­geois) were hav­ing a hard time to get around . So the gov­ern­ment announces on the 28 of May “41 mea­sures against price stag­na­tion”.

True is the politi­cians did not real­ly cared. “So what are they going to do,anyway?”. Oppo­si­tion par­ties do noth­ing but talk, and peo­ple rely on the media “appar­ent” oppo­si­tion. But it is in these times were noth­ing seem to hap­pen, when the forces of insur­rec­tion that are exor­cised to stay away from the fight, make their sud­den and unex­pect­ed appear­ance in the scene. And noth­ing is the same as before..

On Sat­ur­day May 31st 2008 a group of com­rades, wear­ing their masks entered a big Super Mar­ket in the city cen­ter of Athens, re-appro­pri­at­ed prod­ucts, car­ried them to a street fruit-mar­ket near­by (most­ly old and low­er-income peo­ple go there) and dis­trib­uted the prod­ucts to them. Oil, cheese, milk, detergents,shampoos … The action met great cor­re­spon­dence from the peo­ple. Clap­ping applaus­es, excla­ma­tions, whis­tles. The prod­ucts dis­ap­peared with­in sec­onds. The man­i­festo of the action said : “The game is set. We don’t want to be a part of this fake game, with the gov­ern­ments’ com­mu­ni­ca­tion tricks, the oppo­si­tions’ abstract talk­ing about some “bad” peo­ple mak­ing prof­it and the shit of the media. We put into prac­tice our own mea­sures against price stag­na­tion. Re-appro­pri­a­tion now. Every­thing is stolen from us, Every­thing belongs to us… That was it…

The attacks start to spread wide­ly. In June three more actions against Super Mar­kets took place in Athens. One more in July. Then came the sum­mer (move­ments have hol­i­days?) and on Sep­tem­ber actions start­ed again. Two hap­pened in Thes­sa­loni­ki , the sec­ond biggest city in Greece. One attack was planned on the day when the Prime Min­is­ter tra­di­tion­al­ly address­es the nation , from the Inter­na­tion­al Expo of Thes­sa­loni­ki and speaks about the gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of the year to come. Last week three such actions took place (15,16,18 Octo­ber). In most of the attacks prod­ucts are dis­trib­uted among peo­ple in street mar­kets, to peo­ple pass­ing-by and on one action the loot was left on a cen­tral Athens square where many immi­grants live and at the exits of the metro sta­tion there.
These actions are real­ly pop­u­lar among peo­ple. It would not be an exag­ger­a­tion to say that peo­ple wish every time they go to a street mar­ket for an action like that to take place. Media can’t hide the facts , but try to dis­tort them. They like to call us “Robin Hoods”. We are not at all “Robin Hoods”, it is not about char­i­ty. The issue at stake here is the dif­fu­sion of such “ille­gal” prac­tices among the soci­ety, so that oth­er social groups adopt such prac­tices to defend social auton­o­my and inter­ests. To debunk the nor­mal­i­ty that orders “Work-Buy-Pay-Sleep-Shut Up”. To make peo­ple col­lab­o­ra­tors in “ille­gal” attacks against cap­i­tal­ist order. To pro­mote Mutu­al Aid.

The Police is real­ly con­fused. Cashiers have a short work-break. Super Mar­ket own­ers feel anx­ious about the sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple have fun.

So what about us Com­rades. In Balka­ns, East and West Europe, States, Latin Amer­i­ca, Ocea­nia, every­where? Can we plan some­thing? What are we wait­ing for? Cap­i­tal­ist cri­sis is already here and we are the ones to pay again for the fuck­ing banks and their tricks. The plan is sim­ple, believe us. Two douzins of com­rades, masks , sun­glass­es, an appoint­ment. You con­verge sud­den­ly and you attack. Some peo­ple watch­ing, some oth­ers fill­ing the trol­leys, every­body dis­trib­ut­ing them. It is sim­ple, it is direct, dan­ger­ous for the ene­my and real­ly amuz­ing. We wish you nice actions and lot of suc­cess.

Make Plans
Be Ready

Rampart — police break down door

28 Octo­ber 2008
A small num­ber of police broke down the front door and entered the Ram­part today. They searched peo­ple for drugs and pho­tographed them as well as the bar­ri­cades and the build­ing itself. They explained their actions say­ing that it is because the area is a high-risk drugs area. This is unfor­tu­nate­ly true of the street but we are con­cerned that this may be relat­ed to our evic­tion as well. They entered the Ram­part with­out a war­rant and then left after they had pho­tographed. This was NOT an evic­tion attempt.

28 Octo­ber 2008
A small num­ber of police broke down the front door and entered the Ram­part today. They searched peo­ple for drugs and pho­tographed them as well as the bar­ri­cades and the build­ing itself. They explained their actions say­ing that it is because the area is a high-risk drugs area. This is unfor­tu­nate­ly true of the street but we are con­cerned that this may be relat­ed to our evic­tion as well. They entered the Ram­part with­out a war­rant and then left after they had pho­tographed. This was NOT an evic­tion attempt.

Dif­fi­cult right now to say what it means in rela­tion to an evic­tion, but on the side of cau­tion, we are ask­ing peo­ple to come to the Ram­part tonight (Tues 28th) to stay over to defend the build­ing and help with bar­ri­cades for what might be an ear­ly morn­ing evic­tion. We will also need peo­ple to assist out­side if the time comes so send us your mobile num­ber to be informed. There will be a hearty break­fast for the brave.

–

28th octo­ber 2008, lon­don, whitechapel, lunchtime:

the police unex­pect­ed­ly intrud­ed the ram­pART social cen­tre in their lunchtime. they must have been starv­ing, because they felt like break­ing the doors. we won­der if it was appetite, that made them force their way in, or curios­i­ty, to see the progress of our efforts to bar­ri­cade the ram­pART. still, we art not amused of offi­cers on the scrounge…

… although we are gen­er­al­ly open for peo­ple to come by to wine and dine with us, but we’d like to invite peo­ple to knock on the doors, rather than knock­ing them down. and we don’t sup­port glut­tony of greedy devel­op­pers, grop­ing hous­es to con­vert them to lux­u­ry flats, because they want to bite more than they can chew…

… as you might know, the ram­pART is under threat of imma­nent evic­tion, so these three cop­pers might have been the van­guard of the 80 riot cops that are expect­ed to come by with the high court bailiffs to evict the space. so we are think­ing how many peo­ple we will have to cater for break­fast. need­less to say, we’d pre­fer to pam­per our friends and sup­port­ers. so feel wel­come to join the feast & fight the beast and defend your favourite social cen­tre…

please con­tact us via email: rampart@mutualaid.org or phone: 07852657501

48hrs of Action against E.ON and New Coal

Fri­day 28th and Sat­ur­day 29th Novem­ber 2008

The UK Gov­ern­ment is call­ing for an 80% reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions by 2050, we are call­ing for 48 hours of action against E.ON and new coal NOW.

E.on F.off logoFri­day 28th and Sat­ur­day 29th Novem­ber 2008

The UK Gov­ern­ment is call­ing for an 80% reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions by 2050, we are call­ing for 48 hours of action against E.ON and new coal NOW.

It’s easy enough to set a tar­get that’s 42 years away, but we don’t stand a rapid­ly melt­ing snow­bal­l’s chance of achiev­ing it if the gov­ern­ment give the green light to new coal fired pow­er sta­tions (7 are in the plan­ning stages, with E.ON’s new Kingsnorth being first up) and keep dish­ing out sub­si­dies to new coal mines. Coal is the dirt­i­est fuel there is, so while the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues with busi­ness-as-usu­al through the last 100 months we have to make a dif­fer­ence on cli­mate change, we call for 48 hours of action against new coal – now!

Join us in say­ing ‘No to New Coal’: get your friends togeth­er and plan an action for your area. Go stick­er­ing, blockad­ing, serv­ing direct action warn­ing notices at sup­ply chain premis­es, organ­ise an aware­ness rais­ing talk, hang a ban­ner, get cre­ative on the streets, the options are end­less. Get togeth­er, get cre­ative, and plan an action!

On Fri­day you could vis­it the Coal Author­i­ty, E.ON offices, UK Coal offices or Glob­al Coal Man­age­ment offices, to name but a few. Or take aim at their investors or parts of their sup­ply chain. On the Sat­ur­day you could take action at 2nd round FA Cup match­es spon­sored by E.ON. Togeth­er, we’ll raise aware­ness about killer coal, and we’ll say loud and clear that we won’t stand for new coal — at Kingsnorth or any­where else.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it — http://www.e‑onf-off.org.uk/ — where a list of poten­tial tar­gets, action ideas and plen­ty of resources will fol­low short­ly.

This day of action is sup­port­ed by The Camp for Cli­mate Action, Ris­ing Tide, Plane Stu­pid and Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change.

Paraguan resistance to GM soya plantings — evictions & violence

28 Octo­ber 2008
Peas­ant organ­i­sa­tions are resist­ing against the begin­ning of the GM soya sea­son all over the coun­try of Paraguay. They demand access to land, land reform and the stop of the pes­ti­cide spray­ing which impacts on their com­mu­ni­ties. Despite the new gov­ern­ment, many camps have been evict­ed and vio­lence has tak­en place: 2 lead­ers have been mur­dered and hun­dreds of peas­ants have been arrest­ed. Please sign the let­ter below to put pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment and put a stop to vio­lence!

San Marco eviction28 Octo­ber 2008
Peas­ant organ­i­sa­tions are resist­ing against the begin­ning of the GM soya sea­son all over the coun­try of Paraguay. They demand access to land, land reform and the stop of the pes­ti­cide spray­ing which impacts on their com­mu­ni­ties. Despite the new gov­ern­ment, many camps have been evict­ed and vio­lence has tak­en place: 2 lead­ers have been mur­dered and hun­dreds of peas­ants have been arrest­ed. Please sign the let­ter below to put pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment and put a stop to vio­lence!

San Mar­co evic­tion & video­clip show­ing what hap­pened when a large group of campesinos halt­ed fumi­ga­tion trac­tors of Brazil­ian soy pro­duc­ers. Paraguay, com­mu­ni­ty of Yvypé all at http://www.lasojamata.org/en/node/230

In Paraguay, GM soya mono­cul­tures are today the main cause of defor­esta­tion, the destruc­tion and pol­lu­tion of oth­er ecosys­tems, of vio­lence and the evic­tion of small farm­ers and indige­nous peo­ples. Paraguay has near­ly 2,6 mil­lion hectares of soy plan­ta­tions for ani­mal feed exports and, more recent­ly, for agro­fu­el. A jour­nal­ist who vis­it­ed the coun­try in 2007 described the impact of soya mono­cul­tures as fol­lows:
“Rur­al east­ern Paraguay used to be full of jun­gle, small farms, schools and wildlife. Now it is a green sea of soy­beans. The fam­i­lies, trees and birds are gone. The schools are emp­ty. The air is filled with the tox­ic stench of the pes­ti­cides like paraquat and 2,4‑D used to pro­tect the soy crops” [http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3093].

The rem­nants of Paraguay’s Atlantic For­est and of the Alto Parana for­est, as well as wet­lands, grass­lands and rivers are being destroyed and pol­lut­ed by the expan­sion of immense RR soya fields. Defor­esta­tion is wors­en­ing glob­al warm­ing and also caus­ing severe region­al warm­ing and droughts. It has con­tributed to the worst fire sea­son ever record­ed in Paraguay last year, and prob­a­bly to the severe drought which is cur­rent­ly affect­ing the south of the coun­try. More than 100,000 small peas­ant fam­i­lies have been evict­ed for soya plan­ta­tions and over 100 peas­ant lead­ers have been mur­dered since the late 1990s in con­flicts over access to land. Agro-chem­i­cal (glyphosate, 2,4D, and oth­ers) spray­ing of soya plan­ta­tions severe­ly affects the health of peo­ple liv­ing in soy region, in some cas­es lead­ing even to deaths, and also destroys people´s food crops. Hunger and mal­nu­tri­tion are increas­ing as less and less land is avail­able to farm­ers for grow­ing food.

In August this year, a new gov­ern­ment took office and the new pres­i­dent, Fer­nan­do Lugo, promised to sup­port small farm­ers against pes­ti­cide poi­son­ing and soya expan­sion. How­ev­er, the gov­ern­ment has giv­en con­flict­ing sig­nals by also sup­port­ing increased soya exports at the same time. Also, the police and juridi­cal forces have been sup­port­ing soya busi­ness­es in sup­press­ing the peas­ant move­ment in their fight against pes­ti­cide spray­ing and the expan­sion of soy mono­cul­tures.

This month, at the start of the new soya plant­i­ng sea­son, small farm­ers’ organ­i­sa­tions have mobilised to stop pes­ti­cide spray­ing and to pro­tect peas­ant agri­cul­ture and the envi­ron­ment against fur­ther destruc­tion. They have set up around 130 law­ful camps at the mar­gins of soya ‘lat­i­fun­dios’ (large estates). In recent weeks, they have been increas­ing­ly sub­ject­ed to vio­lence, with two mur­ders of peas­ant lead­ers, unlaw­ful arrests and deten­tions. Also, var­i­ous camps have been vio­lent­ly evict­ed, with use of increas­ing num­bers of para­mil­i­taries. Many peas­ant lead­ers are receiv­ing death threats. The civ­il secu­ri­ty guards that for­mer gov­ern­ment organ­ised ‘Comi­sion Gar­rote’ are the main actors behind this threats.

The ten­den­cy seems to be that the vio­lence and repres­sion against the peas­ant move­ment will inten­si­fy. For many in the move­ment, this year is their last chance to stop soya expan­sion and to pro­tect what remains of Paraguays’ forests and wet­lands, sus­tain­able peas­ant agri­cul­ture, and small farm­ers and indige­nous people?s future.

Please write to the author­i­ties in Paraguay and urge them to ful­ly sup­port small farm­ers and their demands for pro­tec­tion from pes­ti­cide spray­ing, from evic­tions, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and pol­lu­tion, for food sov­er­eign­ty and land reform.

See last action report — farms occu­pied — at http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21753/

See also:
Video about the 2 evic­tions in Alto Parana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYEBsk0jtG4
Video about the camp against the pes­ti­cide spray­ing in Caaguazú
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4xnXaZGjS8
Peas­ant com­mu­ni­ty in San Pedro against the pes­ti­cide spray­ing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfLEXvipkJw

Arti­cles about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Paraguay:
http://www.lasojamata.org/

LETTER (send the Span­ish ver­sion that is below)

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re: Please pro­tect Paraguay’s com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ment against soya
mono­cul­tures

I was very pleased to hear about Pres­i­den­t’s Lugo’s stat­ed com­mit­ment to
pro­tect small farm­ers against soya plan­ta­tions, includ­ing against
pes­ti­cide spray­ing and to stop defor­esta­tion. How­ev­er, I am deeply
con­cerned to hear about the increas­ing vio­lence against peas­ant
organ­i­sa­tions that are mobil­is­ing against pes­ti­cide spray­ing in the soya
mono­cul­tures, while argu­ing for a new agri­cul­tur­al pol­i­cy that pro­tects
small farm­ers and food sov­er­eign­ty as well as the envi­ron­ment.

Two peas­ant lead­ers ? Sin­dul­fo­Martínez mem­ber of the organ­i­sa­tion MCP and
Bien­venido Mel­gar­e­jo of the organ­i­sa­tion ASAGRAPA have recent­ly been
mur­dered. There are reports of a ‘hit list’ with the names of fifty
peas­ant lead­ers who fear that they could be mur­dered next. In the past
weeks, the courts and the police have been involved in the evic­tion of
peas­ant camps which have been law­ful­ly set up on the mar­gins of, not on,
soya plan­ta­tions, resort­ing to laws which exist to pre­vent crim­i­nal
offences. Peo­ple have been unlaw­ful­ly evict­ed, detained, crim­i­nalised and
tor­tured.

With this let­ter, I want to show my strong sup­port to the main demands of
peas­ant move­ments and civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions in Paraguay: that
pes­ti­cide spray­ing of soy mono­cul­tures must be banned and effec­tive­ly
stopped. The lands ille­gal­ly sold to agribusi­ness com­pa­nies must be
returned to the land­less Paraguayan peas­ants.

I urge you to stop the evic­tion orders and repres­sion against peas­ant
mobil­i­sa­tion. The two recent mur­ders and all reports of police vio­lence
and tor­ture must be ful­ly inves­ti­gat­ed and those respon­si­ble must be held
to account. The fam­i­lies of those who have been mur­dered must receive
finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion.

The gov­ern­ment must take imme­di­ate action and inves­ti­gate the death
threats against peas­ant lead­ers. The first step for this is to dis­solve
the so called ?Cit­i­zen Secu­ri­ty Com­mis­sions?, com­mon­ly called ?Gar­rote
Com­mis­sions?. These groups are the main actors of the para-police vio­lence
against social organ­i­sa­tions in the rur­al areas.

In front of the urgent sit­u­a­tion of pover­ty and envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion
in Paraguay, the gov­ern­ment must ini­ti­ate a pro­gramme to sup­port peas­ant
farm­ing and food sov­er­eign­ty, rather than fur­ther sac­ri­fic­ing Paraguay’s
com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ment to pro­duce ani­mal feed and agro­fu­els for
export.

Please let me know what your plans are for address­ing this urgent
sit­u­a­tion, in order to avoid more vio­lence and human rights vio­la­tions,
includ­ing more killings of peas­ants, and to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties and the
envi­ron­ment from soya mono­cul­tures.

Thank you,

Yours faith­ful­ly,
Asun­to: Por favor, pro­te­ja a las comu­nidades paraguayas y al medio
ambi­ente de los monocul­tivos de soja

Esti­ma­da Sra., Esti­ma­do Sr.,

Ha sido muy sat­is­fac­to­rio para mí, saber acer­ca del com­pro­miso del
Pres­i­dente Lugo para pro­te­ger a los pequeños campesinos en con­tra de las
planta­ciones de soja, así como de las fumi­ga­ciones con pes­ti­ci­das y la
defor­estación. Sin embar­go, me pre­ocu­pa seri­amente cuan­do escu­cho acer­ca
de la escal­a­da de vio­len­cia dirigi­da hacia las orga­ni­za­ciones campesinas
que se mov­i­lizan en con­tra de las fumi­ga­ciones de pes­ti­ci­das sobre las
pobla­ciones y a favor de una nue­va políti­ca agraria que pro­te­ja a los
pequeños campesinos, la sober­anía ali­men­ta­ria y el medio ambi­ente.

Dos líderes campesinos ‑Sin­dul­fo­Martínez de la orga­ni­zación, Movimien­to
Campesino Paraguayo- MCP (Vía Campesina-PY) y Bien­venido Mel­gar­e­jo de la
orga­ni­zación Aso­ciación de Agricul­tores de Alto Paraná- ASAGRAPA han
sido recien­te­mente asesina­dos. Hemos tenido noti­cias acer­ca de una ?lista
negra? con nom­bres de unos cin­cuen­ta líderes campesinos que temen ser los
próx­i­mos asesina­dos. Jue­ces y la policía han esta­do en estas últi­mas
sem­anas impli­ca­dos en el des­man­te­lamien­to de cam­pa­men­tos campesinos
estable­ci­dos legal­mente en las már­genes, y no den­tro, de las planta­ciones
de soja, amparán­dose en leyes de pre­ven­ción del crimen. Los campesinos han
sido ile­gal­mente expul­sa­dos, detenidos, crim­i­nal­iza­dos y tor­tu­ra­dos.

Con esta car­ta quiero demostrar mi enér­gi­co apoyo a las dos prin­ci­pales
deman­das de los campesinos y las orga­ni­za­ciones de la sociedad civ­il de
Paraguay: Las fumi­ga­ciones con agrotóx­i­cos de los monocul­tivos de soja
deben ser pro­hibidas y detenidas de man­era efec­ti­va. Las tier­ras ven­di­das
irreg­u­lar­mente a los agroem­pre­sar­ios deben ser devueltas a los campesinos
sin­tier­ras paraguayos.

Exi­jo fre­nar la actu­al ola de desa­lo­jos y repre­sión a las mov­i­liza­ciones
campesinas. El desa­lo­jo por recur­sos de amparo pre­ven­ti­vo es una medi­da
jurídi­ca irreg­u­lar. Los dos recientes asesinatos y todos los reportes de
vio­len­cia poli­cial y tor­tu­ra deben ser inves­ti­ga­dos a fon­do, y sus
respon­s­ables deben ser penal­iza­dos. Las famil­ias de los asesina­dos deben
ser com­pen­sadas económi­ca­mente.

Así tam­bién el gob­ier­no debe actu­ar de for­ma inmedi­a­ta y fre­nar las
ame­nazas de muerte que pen­den sobre los diri­gentes campesinos. El primer
paso para ello es aten­der a las deman­das de las orga­ni­za­ciones de
desar­tic­u­lación de las ?Comi­siones de Seguri­dad Ciu­dadana?, común­mente
denom­i­nadas ?Comisión gar­rote?. Estos gru­pos son los prin­ci­pales
pro­tag­o­nistas de vio­len­cia para­poli­cial con­tra las orga­ni­za­ciones sociales
en el cam­po.

Frente la urgente situación de pobreza y dev­astación ambi­en­tal del cam­po
paraguayo, el gob­ier­no debe ini­ciar inmedi­ata­mente un pro­gra­ma de apoyo a
la agri­cul­tura campesina y la sober­anía ali­men­ta­ria. Bas­ta ya del
sac­ri­fi­cio de las comu­nidades campesinas e indí­ge­nas del Paraguay y del
medio ambi­ente para man­ten­er un mod­e­lo agroex­por­ta­dor sojero que sólo
pro­duce ali­men­to para ani­males y agro­com­bustibles.

Por favor, deme a cono­cer sus planes para con­tener esta urgente situación
y para evi­tar más vio­len­cia y vio­la­ciones de dere­chos humanos, incluyen­do
más asesinatos de campesinos en su país, y para pro­te­ger a las comu­nidades
y al medio ambi­ente de los monocul­tivos de la soja.

Muchas gra­cias por ade­lan­ta­do y un aten­to salu­do.

ADDRESSES / DIRECCIONES

1. Pres­i­den­cia de la Repúbli­ca del Paraguay
Exce­len­tísi­mo Don Fer­nan­do Lugo Mén­dez, Pres­i­dente de la Repúbli­ca del
Paraguay
Pala­cio de Gob­ier­no
El Paraguayo Inde­pen­di­ente e/Ayolas y O´leary
Cen­tral tele­fóni­ca 4140000 (RA)
web­site: www.presidencia.gov.py
e‑mail: presidente@presidencia.gov.py
webmaster@presidencia.gov.py

Sec­re­taria Gen­er­al
S. E. Miguel Angel López Per­i­to
Min­istro, Sec­re­tario Gen­er­al y Jefe del Gabi­nete Civ­il de la Pres­i­den­cia
de la Repúbli­ca
Tel 4140288, fax 4140310

2. Sec­re­taria del Ambi­ente (SEAM)
S. E. José Luís Casac­cia , Min­istro, Sec­re­tario Ejec­u­ti­vo
Avda. Madan Lynch 3500 y Reservista de la Guer­ra del Cha­co.
Tel + 595 21 615803/4, fax + 595 21 615807
casac­cia jcasaccia@hotmail.com

3. SENAVE, Ser­vi­cio Nacional de Cal­i­dad y Sanidad Veg­e­tal y de Semi­l­las
Ing. Agr. Luis Llano Imas , pres­i­dente
Ofic­i­na cen­tral del SENAVE: Edif. PLANETA I. Humaitá Nº 145 c/ Ntra. Sra.
de la Asun­ción. Tele­fax: + 595 21 445 769 /+ 595 21 441 549, Asun­ción -
Paraguay
presidencia@senave.gov.py
secretaria_general@senave.gov.py

S. E. Rafael Fil­iz­zo­la, Min­istro
Chile y Man­du­virá
Tel + 595 21 493 661, fax: + 595 21 450.027
ministro@mdi.gov.py
vmseguridad@mdi.gov.py
sgeneral@mdi.gov.py
5. Min­is­te­rio de Jus­ti­cia y Tra­ba­jo
S. E. Blas Llano, Min­istro
Gas­par Rodríguez de Fran­cia y Esta­dos Unidos
Tel + 595 21 447010, + 595 21 493209, fax + 595 21 208469
mjt@mjt.gov.py

6. Min­is­te­rio de Agri­cul­tura y Ganade­ria
S. E. Can­di­do Vera Bejara­no, Min­istro
Pres­i­dente Fran­co 479
Tel + 595 21 441036, cen­tral + 595 21 451316/ 447304
Vicem­i­nis­te­rio de Agri­cul­tura: vagricultura@mag.gov.py
Sec­re­taría Gen­er­al: secretariagral@mag.gov.py

7. Fis­calía Gral. del Esta­do
Dr. Rubén Can­dia Amar­il­la
fiscaliageneral@ministeriopublico.gov.py

Protestors stop work at Shipley open-cast

27th Octo­ber 2008: today pro­tes­tors from Earth First! stopped work at an open-cast coal site for over two hours – they ran onto the site and clam­bered on dig­gers & dumpers and held out ban­ners stop­ping the work safe­ly. Some of the dig­ger dri­vers were very friend­ly and were glad to have a break as they work very long shifts, from 7am‑6:30 with only lunch & half hour breaks at 10 & 3. Today work had not been able to start till 10 as nature was fight­ing it’s own cor­ner, with rain drown­ing the site, and it was stopped again at 1 for 3 hours due to the protest.

Lodge House coal site
Climbing a digger
Shipley coal protest 1
Shipley coal protest 2
27th Octo­ber 2008: today pro­tes­tors from Earth First! stopped work at an open-cast coal site for over two hours – they ran onto the site and clam­bered on dig­gers & dumpers and held out ban­ners stop­ping the work safe­ly. Some of the dig­ger dri­vers were very friend­ly and were glad to have a break as they work very long shifts, from 7am‑6:30 with only lunch & half hour breaks at 10 & 3. Today work had not been able to start till 10 as nature was fight­ing it’s own cor­ner, with rain drown­ing the site, and it was stopped again at 1 for 3 hours due to the protest.

There are 2 sec­tions of work being done at the moment – in sec­tion K5 the top­soil is being removed, and clos­er towards Smal­l­ey, near the new access road that is under con­struc­tion, coal is being dug up.

After about an hour, a few police turned up (the whole of the local police sta­tion, bless) though they did­n’t have the vehi­cles to get over the mud to the pro­tes­tors! After hitch­ing a lift from UK Coal work­ers across the mud, they tried var­i­ous rus­es to get the EF!ers’ names (PACE s.25 even though they had­n’t yet fig­ured out what sub­stan­tive offence had been com­mit­ted), and back-up arriv­ing, the police were set to start arrests for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

Even­tu­al­ly, peo­ple decid­ed to leave, though they were forced to give their details and pho­tos for lat­er cross-ref­er­enc­ing. The cops quot­ed sec­tion 68 of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act mean­ing that if those same pro­tes­tors return with­in 3 months they risk arrest.

A dead easy fun day out, just armed with a press release, ban­ners and a desire to see a just sus­tain­able world in the future.

See you down in the woods at Lodge House, Der­byshire…

——-

Press release:

Work stopped at open cast coal mine site

Today activists from Earth First! (1) halt­ed the con­tin­u­ing destruc­tion of coun­try­side at Ship­ley in Der­byshire by UK Coal. The action is part of an ongo­ing cam­paign against UK Coal’s plans to open mine 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the site, over the next five years. They plan to release 3.5 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 into the atmos­phere over this peri­od.

The pro­test­ers entered the site around 1pm this after­noon and brought work to an end whilst they peace­ful­ly occu­pied machin­ery. They intend to stay for as long as pos­si­ble.

Cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us, and burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Every day more coal is burned, yet indus­try and gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

Jim Hansen, direc­tor of the NASA God­dard Insti­tute for Space Stud­ies and emi­nent cli­mate sci­en­tist, wrote in a let­ter (2) to Gor­don Brown “The sin­gle great­est threat to the cli­mate comes from burn­ing coal. Coal-fired gen­er­a­tion is his­tor­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble for most of the CO2 in the air today — respon­si­ble for about half of all car­bon diox­ide emis­sions glob­al­ly”

Dave Porter, a pro­test­er at the site said ‘All over the coun­try groups are emerg­ing as part of a grow­ing, inter­na­tion­al move­ment defend­ing com­mu­ni­ties and the cli­mate from new coal. We’re faced with a sys­tem that’s not lis­ten­ing to the peo­ple — a sys­tem that dis­re­gards the sci­ence in the face of the sin­gle biggest threat to our plan­et. If the gov­ern­ment won’t save the coun­try then it’s down to all of us to take action!”

Today’s action fol­lows a mass tres­pass at the site on Sat­ur­day 25th Octo­ber, when peo­ple from around the coun­try gath­ered at the site in Der­byshire to show the strength of oppo­si­tion to plans for devel­op­ments in the coal indus­try.

In August activists squat­ted a derelict house (3) on the site of the pro­posed open cast mine, the evic­tion last­ed for nine days and raised the pro­file of UK Coal’s activ­i­ties in Der­byshire as well as their project costs.

Peo­ple across the coun­try are pledg­ing to con­tin­ue resis­tance to all devel­op­ments of the UK coal indus­try.

Press phone 07722 727 064
Phone on Site 07900 028 306

Notes to the edi­tor

(1)The prin­ci­ples behind Earth First! are non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. EF! is not a cohe­sive group or cam­paign, but a ban­ner for peo­ple who share sim­i­lar philoso­phies to work under.

(2) Jim Hansen is the direc­tor of NASA God­dard Insti­tute for Space Stud­ies and an increas­ing­ly renowned cli­mate sci­en­tist. He wrote an open let­ter to Gor­don Brown on the 19th Decem­ber 2007 call­ing on him to lead the way with renew­able tech­nolo­gies and not renew coal. More recent­ly he has giv­en evi­dence to the
crown court in defence of 6 Green­peace activist charged with crim­i­nal dam­age at Kingsnorth Pow­er sta­tion in Kent.

(3)In June 2008,activists squat an aban­doned farm at the Lodge House planned open­cast site near Ship­ley in Der­byshire. The farm was about to be demol­ished, work was held up. The evic­tion cost the local police force £58,000 and UK coal will be billed for some of the expens­es. The full cost of the evic­tion to UK coal who hired bailiffs and equip­ment, is expect­ed to be much high­er.

Oth­er past actions on site: tres­pass, 2 at UK Coal, dig­ger div­ing, squat.
Future action: 1 novem­ber — Res­i­dents’ demo at Lodge House, Der­byshire.
Meet at the entrance to the site on Heanor Road, the A6O8, by Smal­l­ey vil­lage. See http://www.multimap.com/s/xHBDydN0
eaven.umbrella@yahoo.co.uk
www.eavengreen.wordpress.com

Picnic in the Park — Photos Shipley Open Cast Site, Derbyshire & Shipley Bodge court case collapses

25 Octo­ber 2008
Pro­test­ers went to have their pic­nic.

Picnic 1Picnic 2Picnic 3
25 Octo­ber 2008
Pro­test­ers went to have their pic­nic.

This was rude­ly inter­rupt­ed as a per­son from the high court tried to get them to move, and seized the Veg­gies cater­ing trol­ley and escort­ed some pro­test­ers off.

The police looked on in a hun­gry man­ner at the protests organ­i­sa­tion to have a pic­nic with good healthy food.

After they went up to the entrance of what used to be Prospect farm aka Bodge House, now demol­ished.

—-
Bodge House barricadeBodge House climbing netBodge House with tripod on top
27 Octo­ber 2008
The first court case aris­ing from the evic­tion of Bodge House, Ship­ley, where pro­test­ers occu­pied the site of the pro­posed open cast coal mine from June until August, col­lapsed today. Case dis­missed.

One of those evict­ed in August was in Der­by Youth Court today fac­ing a charge of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass:

“at Smal­l­ey in the coun­ty of Der­byshire, hav­ing tres­passed on land, name­ly Lodge House, Smal­l­ey, and in rela­tion to a law­ful activ­i­ty, name­ly open cast min­ing, did an act, name­ly sus­pend your­self in net­ting between a build­ing and a tree, which you intend­ed to have the effect of obstruct­ing or dis­rupt­ing that activ­i­ty…”

The police wit­ness­es all turned up to do their bit, but the tri­al col­lapsed after the pros­e­cu­tion admit­ted that it did­n’t have the evi­dence to sup­port its case. The crown pros­e­cu­tor asked for an adjourn­ment, the defence object­ed, the dis­trict judge agreed with the defence and dis­missed the case.

Let’s hope the oth­ers go the same way.

Ship­ley Bodge was evict­ed in August, an extreme­ly lengthy and cost­ly exer­cise for UK Coal who, three months on, are still fac­ing deter­mined oppo­si­tion to their min­ing plans.

Manchester students flashmob the RBS and E‑On Recruitment Stalls + follow-up demo (update)

A busy careers fair at Man­ches­ter’s GMex was inter­errupt­ed yes­ter­day by sev­er­al long whis­tle blasts. 30 or so pro­tes­tors sud­den­ly revealed their yel­low ‘Leave it in the Ground’ t‑shirts and sur­round­ed the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land stall, hold­ing ban­ners and chant­i­ng ‘leave it in the ground!’.

E.on RBS flashmobE.on stall covered with coalA busy careers fair at Man­ches­ter’s GMex was inter­errupt­ed yes­ter­day by sev­er­al long whis­tle blasts. 30 or so pro­tes­tors sud­den­ly revealed their yel­low ‘Leave it in the Ground’ t‑shirts and sur­round­ed the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land stall, hold­ing ban­ners and chant­i­ng ‘leave it in the ground!’.

A pro­test­er then read some extracts from the excel­lent report “Cash­ing in on Coal”, which shows that RBS is a cli­mate crim­i­nal, pour­ing mon­ey into new fos­sil fuel extrac­tion projects. The pro­test­er had his loud­hail­er tak­en away by secu­ri­ty, but anoth­er pro­test­er (with a loud voice!) con­tin­ued read­ing from the report. The secu­ri­ty guards even­tu­al­ly began drag­ging pro­test­ers out so they did­n’t get a chance to vis­it the E.ON stall. How­ev­er the protest con­tin­ued out­side where peo­ple hand­ed out leaflets explain­ing how E.ON (with a fat loan from RBS) plans to build the first new coal pow­er sta­tion in the UK in 30 years, while secu­ri­ty guards repeat­ed­ly threat­ened to have them arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing.

E.ON fly­er — application/pdf 287K
—

Over 50 Man­ches­ter stu­dents staged a flash mob demon­stra­tion at the RBS and E.On Recruit­ments stalls on Thurs­day 23rd Octo­ber 2008. The group were protest­ing against the banks fund­ing of cli­mate chaos and against E.On’s plans to build a new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth.

At pre­cise­ly 1pm, loose coal was dumped on the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land and E‑On recruit­ment stalls. Mean­while, around 50 demon­stra­tors stripped off their jack­ets to reveal bright yel­low t‑shirts with the words, “LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND” embla­zoned across their chests.

A list of RBS’ envi­ron­men­tal crimes was then read out to prospec­tive employ­ees attend­ing the recruit­ment fair at Man­ches­ter Cen­tral (GMEX) con­ven­tion cen­tre. [4]

Some of the group were then forcibly eject­ed by secu­ri­ty guards whilst oth­ers moved on to pay a vis­it to the E‑On recruit­ment stall. E‑On were ques­tioned as to how their plans for a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion squared with our com­mit­ment to reduce CO2 lev­els.

Toby Brett, 19, physics stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter says, “RBS, for­mer­ly prid­ing itself on being “the oil and gas bank”, vast­ly out­strips all oth­er UK banks in terms of fund­ing cli­mate change. In fact RBS invest­ments emit more car­bon diox­ide per year than the whole of Scotland.”[6]

“Whilst I com­mend them for invest­ing in renew­able forms of ener­gy as well as fos­sil fuels the two sim­ply do not can­cel out.”

“We are call­ing for an imme­di­ate halt to high­ly destruc­tive invest­ment such as in tar sands extrac­tion and a swift switch to renew­ables. Quite frankly the world can­not wait.”

Mari­na Gern­er, 20, Pol­i­tics, Phi­los­o­phy and Eco­nom­ics stu­dent and cam­paigns sec­re­tary at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Manchester’s Stu­dents Union says, “Coal is the dirt­i­est, most emis­sions inten­sive of fos­sil fuels and it is out­ra­geous to see how our banks invest in it.”

This action is part of a series of actions by stu­dents from the cam­paign­ing groups Peo­ple and Plan­et and Cam­paigns Col­lec­tive against RBS and E‑On. [5]

It formed part of Cli­mate Action Week at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents’ Union.

Notes:
——————————

1) “A flash mob is a large group of peo­ple who assem­ble sud­den­ly in a pub­lic place, per­form an unusu­al action for a brief time, then quick­ly dis­perse.” – Wikipedia

2) Cli­mate change is the biggest threat to a secure future cur­rent­ly fac­ing human­i­ty. If cur­rent trends con­tin­ue, aver­age glob­al tem­per­a­tures could rise by 6.4˚C by the end of the cen­tu­ry with dev­as­tat­ing and per­ma­nent results for the plan­et. — “Sum­ma­ry for Pol­i­cy­mak­ers”, Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change, 2007

3) E‑On plans to build the con­tentious new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth along with 17 oth­er coal and gas pow­er plants across Europe and Rus­sia by 2010. RBS played a part in the $22 bil­lion loan to E‑On required to build these plants. http://www.oyalbankofscotland.com/cioc/pdf/cashinginoncoal.pdf

4) RBS is respon­si­ble for $15.93 bil­lion worth of loans to com­pa­nies engaged in loans to com­pa­nies engaged in the extrac­tion and/or com­bus­tion of coal. — http://www.oyalbankofscotland.com/cioc/pdf/cashinginoncoal.pdf

5) Oth­er actions against RBS and E‑On by Peo­ple and Plan­et include a sim­i­lar action at a careers fair in Lon­don on the 10th Oct. http://peopleandplanet.org/navid6525
An action against Edin­burgh University’s invest­ment in RBS at the university’s fresher’s fair.
http://peopleandplanet.org/navid6381
A “die-in” out­side RBS head­quar­ters in Lon­don as part of this years Camp for Cli­mate Action.
http://peopleandplanet.org/navid6278
Peo­ple and Plan­et and Cam­paigns Col­lec­tive mem­bers attend­ed the Camp for Cli­mate Action against E‑On’s pro­posed new coal pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/home
On Mon­day 20th Octo­ber stu­dents at Not­ting­ham tar­get­ed amongst oth­ers the RBS and E.On stalls at a careers fair for their dubi­ous eth­i­cal cre­den­tials. Dressed as Grim Reapers they explained that as a mem­ber of an organ­i­sa­tion the employ­ees are direct­ly sup­port­ing and help­ing the actions of the organ­i­sa­tion.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/10/411386.html

6) In 2007 RBS’ embed­ded emis­sions (emis­sion due to its invest­ments) was over 43 mil­lion tonnes, more than Scot­land — PLATFORM, ‘The Oil and Gas Bank – RBS & the financ­ing of cli­mate change’, http://www.carbonweb.org/documents/Oil_&_Gas_Bank.pdf

——

Fol­low-up demo a week lat­er:

Stu­dents ques­tion RBS at Man­ches­ter Uni recruit­ment dri­ve

2.11.2008
The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land were forced to change the sched­ule of their recruit­ment evening at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter due to the pres­ence of some polite but well informed envi­ron­men­tal activists.

Stu­dents, thin­ly dis­guised as poten­tial RBS employ­ees, paid a vis­it to the RBS grad­u­ate recruit­ment evening held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter.

RBS hired extra secu­ri­ty to deal with the poten­tial threat fol­low­ing last weeks flash mob http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/10/411541.html and tried to check entrants for the infa­mous yel­low ‘LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND’ T‑shirts.

RBS recruit­ment staff found them­selves answer­ing more ques­tions about their financ­ing of the fos­sil fuel indus­try than about poten­tial grad­u­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Pro­tes­tors employed the silent the­atre tech­nique where­by RBS did not know who was a gen­uine recruit and who was just pre­tend­ing.

RBS insist­ed that they do hold a con­cern for the envi­ron­ment as shown by their invest­ment in renew­able tech­nol­o­gy. How­ev­er, the Leave it in the Ground crew respond­ed that this was mas­sive­ly coun­ter­bal­anced by their active encour­age­ment and financ­ing of fos­sil fuel explo­ration. For exam­ple, RBS client E‑On’s invest­ment in renew­ables accounts for just 2% of their port­fo­lio whilst coal accounts for 61%. (www.eon-uk.com/generation/191.aspx)

After 30 min­utes of back and forth debate those poten­tial recruits who remained were large­ly wear­ing yel­low t‑shirts. Secu­ri­ty looked on ner­vous­ly.

It seems where ever RBS go, their reck­less and short-sight­ed financ­ing of car­bon inten­sive mis­de­vel­op­ments such as the new coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth, will con­tin­ue to haunt them.

The demo was held by Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter and Man­ches­ter Met Peo­ple and Plan­et groups.

http://www.peopleandplanet.org

Exeter’s first Critical Mass! Nov 1st 12.00

Come and join Exeter Crit­i­cal Mass, Novem­ber 1st. First Sat­ur­day of every month, meet out­side Exeter Cathe­dral

Exeter’s first Crit­i­cal Mass is tak­ing place on Novem­ber 1st and the first Sat­ur­day of every month- meet mid­day on Cathe­dral Green. Come and join in!

Critical Mass Ride Daily Celebrate MonthlyCome and join Exeter Crit­i­cal Mass, Novem­ber 1st. First Sat­ur­day of every month, meet out­side Exeter Cathe­dral

Exeter’s first Crit­i­cal Mass is tak­ing place on Novem­ber 1st and the first Sat­ur­day of every month- meet mid­day on Cathe­dral Green. Come and join in!

WHAT’S IS ALL ABOUT?
Crit­i­cal Mass is a cel­e­bra­tion of cycling, often described as an ‘unor­gan­ised coin­ci­dence’. It hap­pens when a lot of cyclists hap­pen to be in the same place at the same time and decide to cycle the same way togeth­er for a while

WHAT’S THE PURPOSE?
“Every­day, all over the world, peo­ple are resist­ing the prob­lem cul­ture of the car by get­ting on their bikes and rid­ing, instead of dri­ving.

Crit­i­cal Mass is a cel­e­bra­tion of the alter­na­tives to cars, pol­lu­tion, acci­dents and the loss of pub­lic spaces and free­doms.

Not an organ­i­sa­tion or group, but an idea or tac­tic, Crit­i­cal Mass allows peo­ple to reclaim cities with their bikes, just by get­ting togeth­er and out-num­ber­ing the cars on the road”

WHAT HAPPENS ON A CRITICAL MASS?
Each one is dif­fer­ent and they fol­low no set route, with the direc­tion being spon­ta­neous­ly cho­sen as peo­ple cycle along. Any­one is free to join or leave the ride as it ped­als along.

The ride lasts no more than a cou­ple of hours (depend­ing on the weath­er!) and usu­al­ly ends in a con­ve­nient­ly placed pub for more drinks.

Most all, they are peace­ful, safe and fun!

DO I NEED A BIKE?
Nope! Crit­i­cal Mass is not just for bikes — skate­boards, roller blades, wheel­chairs, pogo sticks — in fact any form of non-motorised, non-pol­lut­ing are all very wel­come!

Tasmanian Forest Activists Twice Violently Attacked by Loggers — solution to whole conflict proposed by activists

For­est activists attacked in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley, Tassie
22 Octo­ber 2008
On Mon­day morn­ing a for­est activist was repeat­ed­ly kicked in the head by vio­lent, out of con­trol log­gers in the Flo­ren­tine Val­ley, the site of a protest against old-growth log­ging.

Still Wild tree sit & banner blockadeFor­est activists attacked in the Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­ley, Tassie
22 Octo­ber 2008
On Mon­day morn­ing a for­est activist was repeat­ed­ly kicked in the head by vio­lent, out of con­trol log­gers in the Flo­ren­tine Val­ley, the site of a protest against old-growth log­ging.

A peace­ful action by con­ser­va­tion­ists in the Upper Flo­ren­tine was tar­get­ed by vio­lent log­ging con­trac­tors, with one activist kicked in the head and block­ade infra­struc­ture attacked with a sledge­ham­mer, seri­ous­ly endan­ger­ing two activists. This occurred while a Forestry Tas­ma­nia employ­ee watched on.

The group blocked the road for three hours until about 9.30am (AEDT) when a con­trac­tor attacked the vehi­cle with a sledge­ham­mer, she said.

“The con­trac­tor set upon the car with a sledge­ham­mer and then dragged the activist out from the car and kicked him in the head while he was lying on the ground,” Ms Majew­s­ki said.

She said the vic­tim, who escaped seri­ous injury, was a 22-year-old male activist who unlocked his arm from the road dur­ing the sledge­ham­mer attack.

“Mem­bers of the Tas­man­ian com­mu­ni­ty engaged in legit­i­mate peace­ful protest in defence of ancient forests should not be sub­ject­ed to this kind of vio­lence, nor should it be con­doned by Forestry Tas­ma­nia employ­ees” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokeper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“Due to the car­bon-stor­age val­ue of this for­est, the con­tentious nature of this log­ging oper­a­tion and today’s vio­lence, Still Wild Still Threat­ened requests an imme­di­ate ces­sa­tion of log­ging in coupe FO042E” Ula Majew­s­ki said.

“Vio­lence of this kind is per­pe­trat­ed by a small minor­i­ty of log­ging con­trac­tors. Con­trac­tors such as Howell’s Log­ging should focus their anger on those who are endan­ger­ing their liveli­hoods, such as Forestry Tas­ma­nia and Gunns Lim­it­ed, who con­tin­ue to dam­age Tas­man­ian com­mu­ni­ties and forests with an unsus­tain­able, wood­chip based indus­try” Ula Majew­s­ki said.

“Activists will be pur­su­ing this mat­ter with the police” said Miss Majew­s­ki.

On Sat­ur­day the camp will cel­e­brate their sec­ond year try­ing to halt log­ging of old-growth forests in the Upper Flo­ren­tine val­ley, about 120 kilo­me­tres west of Hobart.

The rain­for­est val­ley is sur­round­ed on three sides by the Tas­man­ian Wilder­ness World Her­itage Area. The Inter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature has iden­ti­fied the Upper Flo­ren­tine as hav­ing poten­tial World Her­itage val­ue.

Ula Majew­s­ki, a spokes­woman for the group Still Wild, Still Threat­ened, said attempts to save the for­est were reach­ing a crit­i­cal point, with plans to dri­ve a 10-kilo­me­tre log­ging road into the val­ley this sum­mer.

“That would open the entire area up for log­ging,” Ms Majew­s­ki said.

Video (same video also here)

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Camp­site fire­bombed by log­gers

24 Octo­ber 2008
Three car loads of men arrived at the group’s camp­site late last night, Still Wild Still Threat­ened mem­ber Ula Majew­s­ki said. “A num­ber of unknown indi­vid­u­als arrived at Camp Flo­ren­tine around 11.30pm and used jer­ry cans of petrol to set the two vehi­cles on fire,” Ms Majew­s­ki said today. “A for­est activist who was sleep­ing in the vicin­i­ty of the vehi­cles was wok­en by shout­ing and loud smash­ing.

“A for­est infor­ma­tion booth pro­vid­ed for tourists was also set on fire and a gas cook­er inside explod­ed,” she said.

The inci­dent was report­ed to police after some of the activists had to walk out of the for­est because their cars had been destroyed in the attack. Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokes­woman Ula Majew­s­ki said her group had used a “drag­on” to block a road used by log truck dri­vers and forestry work­ers. With a “drag­on” a car is dri­ven over a device dug into the road and an activist, using a hole in the floor of the vehi­cle, locks an arm onto the device, she said.

The attack in the Flo­ren­tine Val­ley, 120km west of Hobart, fol­lows a vio­lent clash between forestry work­ers and activists at a road block in the same area on Tues­day. Activists had dis­rupt­ed log­ging in the area for a day last week using a tree-sit­ter, alleged­ly cost­ing con­trac­tors an esti­mat­ed $10,000 in lost rev­enue.

The camp has swelled with sup­port­ers to the Strath­gor­don Rd site in sol­i­dar­i­ty the pro­test­ers. The camp­site, where five peo­ple were sleep­ing, blocks a for­est road to an area marked for log­ging.

http://www.myspace.com/stillwildstillthreatened

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Tas­man­ian for­est activists pro­pose a solu­tion

Still Wild Still Threat­ened and the Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre are propos­ing a solu­tion to the pro­tract­ed debate over con­tentious forestry oper­a­tions in old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue areas of the South­ern Forests.

“Still Wild Still Threat­ened and the Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre are propos­ing a Tas­man­ian and Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment dri­ven solu­tion to con­tentious log­ging and road­ing oper­a­tions in the South­ern Forests. We are call­ing on all stake­hold­ers to adopt a con­sid­ered and ratio­nal approach to bring­ing this pro­longed for­est debate to a fair and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble con­clu­sion,” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened Spokesper­son Ula Majew­s­ki.

“Our organ­i­sa­tions are pre­pared to cease all in-for­est peace­ful direct action that restricts log­ging and road­ing oper­a­tions, con­tin­gent on a mora­to­ri­um on all forestry oper­a­tions in old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue areas of the South­ern Forests, and the cre­ation of an inde­pen­dent­ly medi­at­ed dia­logue that aims to resolve the for­est issue,” said Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre Spokesper­son Adam Burl­ing.

The con­di­tions of this pro­posed solu­tion are:

1. SWST and the HVEC will com­mit to a ces­sa­tion of all in-for­est peace­ful direct action that restricts

log­ging and road­ing oper­a­tions in the South­ern Forests

2. The Tas­man­ian and Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ments will com­mit to a mora­to­ri­um on all forestry, log­ging and road­ing oper­a­tions in old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue areas of the South­ern Forests;^1

3. An inde­pen­dent­ly medi­at­ed dia­logue will be under­tak­en, dri­ven by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Depart­ment of Pre­mier and Cab­i­net and the Office of the Prime Min­is­ter, and attend­ed by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the rel­e­vant min­istries, includ­ing cli­mate change, and rel­e­vant con­ser­va­tion groups and indus­try stake­hold­ers. This dia­logue will aim to resolve the long run­ning for­est debate in Tas­ma­nia in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly sus­tain­able man­ner;

4. That the above com­mit­ments remain in force for a peri­od of six months, with exten­sions grant­ed if dia­logue is ongo­ing;

5. That com­mu­ni­ty events con­tin­ue unhin­dered in the South­ern Forests, and for­est activists are able to main­tain a pres­ence in areas such as the site of Camp Flo­ren­tine.

“The Tas­man­ian com­mu­ni­ty deserves bet­ter than to see the con­tin­ued log­ging of our pre­cious remain­ing car­bon dense ancient forests, such as the Styx, Weld, and Upper Flo­ren­tine. And it deserves bet­ter than to see a for­est indus­try that exists on gov­ern­ment hand­outs and mar­gin­alis­es local oper­a­tors. We urge pol­i­cy mak­ers to con­sid­er this unique pro­pos­al,” Adam Burl­ing said.

“We will be for­mal­ly con­tact­ing Pre­mier Bartlett and Prime Min­is­ter Rudd about this today and are seek­ing a response by Tues­day 11^th Novem­ber,” said Ula Majew­s­ki.

UNITED ENVIRONMENT GROUPS TAKE TASMANIAN FOREST SOLUTION TO THE FEDERAL CABINET

Envi­ron­ment groups work­ing towards an end to the con­flict over for­est man­age­ment in Tas­ma­nia took a unit­ed posi­tion to meet­ings with four Fed­er­al Cab­i­net min­is­ters last night in Launce­s­ton.
Meet­ings were pos­i­tive and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers are con­fi­dent this will mark the start of a con­struc­tive work­ing rela­tion­ship that could see the long-over­due deliv­ery of envi­ron­men­tal, social and eco­nom­ic via­bil­i­ty to the strug­gling Tas­man­ian tim­ber indus­try.
“We are hope­ful requests to the Fed­er­al Cab­i­net and Tas­man­ian Pre­mier Bartlett to engage in mean­ing­ful dia­logue and par­tic­i­pate in the solu­tion to this long-run­ning dis­pute will bear fruit” said Dr Phill Pullinger, Direc­tor of Envi­ron­ment Tas­ma­nia.
“Col­lec­tive­ly, we call on Tas­man­ian Min­is­ter David Llewellyn to take a more open and con­struc­tive approach than that so far dis­played, and help bring the Pre­mier to the table and start talk­ing about a pos­i­tive way for­ward,” said Vica Bay­ley, spokesper­son for The Wilder­ness Soci­ety.

Recent rev­e­la­tions that for­est con­trac­tors want assis­tance to exit the indus­try, and that sawlogs are in over-sup­ply, show that now is the time for a res­o­lu­tion to this con­flict.
The Aus­tralian (4/11/08) reports, “In Tas­ma­nia, hard-hit for­est con­trac­tors are seek­ing a fed­er­al­ly fund­ed exit pack­age to allow them to leave the indus­try “with dig­ni­ty”.

“Forestry Tas­ma­nia is not the appro­pri­ate body to nego­ti­ate this con­flict. Only Pre­mier Bartlett can, by join­ing with fed­er­al lead­ers and help­ing to steer for­est con­flict to an ami­ca­ble clo­sure” said Jen­ny Weber, spokesper­son for the Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre.

“Envi­ron­ment groups sup­port a respon­si­ble for­est indus­try in Tas­ma­nia and are unit­ed in the belief that there can be a res­o­lu­tion to the debate that could deliv­er win-win out­comes for our forests and for­est-depen­dent com­mu­ni­ties,” said Ula Majew­s­ki, spokesper­son for Still Wild Still Threat­ened.