Category: Action Reports

No Dash For Gas: Campaigners shut down UK’s newest gas plant

Ear­ly on Mon­day 29th Octo­ber, fif­teen peo­ple scaled the chim­neys of West Bur­ton gas-fired pow­er sta­tion, shut­ting it down and halt­ing fur­ther con­struc­tion. West Bur­ton is one of the first of up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions the Gov­ern­ment has planned.

Ear­ly on Mon­day 29th Octo­ber, fif­teen peo­ple scaled the chim­neys of West Bur­ton gas-fired pow­er sta­tion, shut­ting it down and halt­ing fur­ther con­struc­tion. West Bur­ton is one of the first of up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions the Gov­ern­ment has planned.

The new ‘dash for gas’ will leave us depen­dent on a high­ly pol­lut­ing and increas­ing­ly expen­sive fos­sil fuel for decades to come. It would make even our mod­est car­bon reduc­tion tar­gets impos­si­ble to hit, and cause house­hold ener­gy bills to soar even fur­ther. While ener­gy com­pa­nies prof­it, our chances of a secure and sus­tain­able future are slip­ping away.

This action is there­fore in defence of the glob­al com­mons, which are under sus­tained attack by pol­lut­ing fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies. We are here to chal­lenge cor­po­rate pow­er and the rush to fur­ther ingrain an ener­gy sys­tem that puts short term prof­its of the few, above the col­lec­tive needs of the many.

Replac­ing our out­dat­ed ener­gy infra­struc­ture with clean alter­na­tives will gen­er­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs. The tech­nol­o­gy is already pow­er­ing thou­sands of homes across the UK, and enjoys over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port.

This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to wrest pow­er from a car­tel of ener­gy com­pa­nies, and back into the hands of com­mu­ni­ties.   The dash for gas makes no sense for any­one except the big ener­gy com­pa­nies. We need a clean­er, more resilient and eco­nom­i­cal­ly just ener­gy sys­tem — and we’re here to fight for it. This is the new bat­tle­ground for our ener­gy future.

Climbers abseil down inside of chim­neys and halt con­struc­tion

 

This morn­ing, more than twen­ty cli­mate change cam­paign­ers evad­ed secu­ri­ty to shut down the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. They have climbed two smoke­stacks at EDF’s West Bur­ton plant in Not­ting­hamshire and have abseiled down the insides of the chim­neys. They are now set­ting up camp in tents sus­pend­ed from ropes inside the flues. As long as they hold their posi­tion above the fur­naces the plant is unable to oper­ate.

The occu­pa­tion fires the start­ing gun on a huge nation­wide bat­tle over Britain’s ener­gy future, with activists deter­mined to stop gov­ern­ment plans for a new dash for gas. They are call­ing instead for a high-tech car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem.

The night-time incur­sion was launched at 2am when the raiders got through the secu­ri­ty fence. Under cov­er of dark­ness fif­teen of them crossed the expanse to the chim­neys then split into two groups and began the 300ft climb to the top. They are now build­ing bar­ri­cades to defend their posi­tions. They have enough sup­plies with them to last at least a week and say they’re in it for the long haul.

The plant was shut down short­ly after the cam­paign­ers began the ascent. A fur­ther team remained on the ground to liaise with the plant’s man­agers. Before launch­ing the protest they engaged in exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion with an expert engi­neer and each under­went inten­sive safe­ty train­ing.

 

West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion in Not­ting­hamshire is being tar­get­ed because it’s one of the first in a new gen­er­a­tion of high­ly pol­lut­ing gas plants planned for the UK. The Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment recent­ly announced it intends to give the green light to as many as 20 new gas plants – a move that would crash Britain’s car­bon tar­gets, con­tribute to the cli­mate cri­sis and push up bills.

Anneka Kel­ly is one of the activists occu­py­ing the chim­ney. Speak­ing on a mobile phone she said:

“Ener­gy bills are going through the roof, peo­ple are get­ting flood­ed out of their homes, we’re see­ing droughts across the world but the ener­gy com­pa­nies are mak­ing a killing. We’re here because we want an elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem that doesn’t cause our world to warm and our bills to rise ever high­er. Gas is expen­sive and high­ly pol­lut­ing, but if the Gov­ern­ment gets its way we’ll be reliant on it for decades. Instead we should be invest­ing in clean high-tech renew­ables that slash pol­lu­tion and in the long run will cost a lot less.”

Con­trary to claims by min­is­ters and the indus­try, gas is a dirty fuel that pos­es an unac­cept­able threat to the envi­ron­ment. It’s also expen­sive — offi­cial fig­ures from Ofgem show that the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose £150 last year, with £100 of that due to ris­ing whole­sale gas prices. Only last week EDF raised their prices, fol­low­ing most of the oth­er major com­pa­nies and plung­ing even more peo­ple into fuel pover­ty. Mean­while high-tech renew­able sys­tems are rapid­ly com­ing down in price, mean­ing that soon they will be cheap­er, while com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try are turn­ing their back on the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies in favour of coop­er­a­tive com­mu­ni­ty ener­gy schemes.

Ewa Jasiewicz is on top of one of the chim­neys. She said:

“A new dash for gas will leave the UK utter­ly reliant on this dirty expen­sive fuel for decades to come. Our ener­gy sys­tem is being run by a car­tel of cor­po­ra­tions that has this gov­ern­ment in its pock­et. As long as we have an eco­nom­ic sys­tem dri­ven by prof­it, we will have an ener­gy sys­tem that ignores the needs of those suf­fer­ing most from cli­mate change and ris­ing ener­gy bills. With a quar­ter of the UK’s out­dat­ed ener­gy infra­struc­ture need­ing to be replaced, we have a once-in-a-gen­er­a­tion oppor­tu­ni­ty to invest in renew­ables that could gen­er­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs, rad­i­cal­ly cut emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide and sta­bilise ener­gy bills. Clean green tech­nol­o­gy is already pow­er­ing thou­sands of homes across the UK, and enjoys over­whelm­ing pub­lic sup­port.”

Notes to edi­tors: · West Bur­ton gas pow­er sta­tion is a 1,300MW Com­bined Cycle Gas Tur­bine (CCGT) plant, cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion in Not­ting­hamshire. · It is com­prised of three tur­bine hous­es and chim­neys, labelled Units 1, 2 and 3. Unit 2 is com­plete and is oper­at­ing at almost full capac­i­ty. Units 1 and 3 are fur­ther behind, with Unit 1 clos­er to com­ple­tion than 3. · When com­plete, the new CCGT plant will emit approx­i­mate­ly 4.5 mil­lion tonnes CO2 per year when oper­at­ing at full capac­i­ty. This is more than the annu­al emis­sions of Paraguay.[i] · The Gov­ern­men­t’s inde­pen­dent cli­mate advis­ers, the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, have called for our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem to be almost entire­ly car­bon free by 2030.[ii] They have defined this as mean­ing that our elec­tric­i­ty sys­tem should pro­duce no more than 50g of CO2 for every kilo­watt hour of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­at­ed, by 2030. · The Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, John Gum­mer, recent­ly wrote to the Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, to warn that George Osborne’s plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of gas pow­er could be ille­gal: “exten­sive use of unabat­ed gas-fired capac­i­ty… in 2030 and beyond would be incom­pat­i­ble with meet­ing leg­is­lat­ed car­bon budgets.”[iii] · Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change Sec­re­tary, Ed Dav­ey, has called for 20GW of gas pow­er sta­tions to be built by 2030, approx­i­mate­ly 20 new pow­er sta­tions. [iv] · He has also guar­an­teed that gas pow­er sta­tions that already have plan­ning con­sent can, if built, con­tin­ue emit­ting CO2 unabat­ed until 2045, i.e. their full life-span, by exempt­ing them from emis­sions regulations.[v] There is cur­rent­ly 13GW of gas that has either recent­ly been com­plet­ed, is in con­struc­tion, or has been grant­ed plan­ning consent.[vi] · Lord Turn­er, in his for­mer role as Chair of the Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, wrote to the Ener­gy Sec­re­tary to warn this would lead to “the risk that there will be too much gas-fired gen­er­a­tion instead of low car­bon invest­ment” and that the pol­i­cy could take emis­sions “beyond the lim­its implied by car­bon budgets.”[vii] · Fig­ures from Ofgem show that in 2011 the aver­age UK ener­gy bill rose by £150, with £100 of this due to the ris­ing cost of gas. [viii] · Last week, EDF hiked their ener­gy prices by 10.8%, the high­est of any of the big six ener­gy com­pa­nies so far this win­ter. · Recent polling by YouGov found that 55% of peo­ple want more wind­farms, com­pared to just 17% who want more gas pow­er sta­tions. [ix] · An ICM poll found that more than two-thirds of peo­ple would rather have a wind tur­bine than a shale gas well near their home. [x] · The Off­shore Wind Val­u­a­tion Group found that har­ness­ing just 29% of the prac­ti­cal off­shore renew­able resource by 2050 would gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty equiv­a­lent of 1 bil­lion bar­rels of oil annu­al­ly, match­ing North Sea oil and gas pro­duc­tion and mak­ing Britain a net elec­tric­i­ty exporter. [xi] [i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2012/jun/21/world-carbon-emissions-league-table-country [ii] http://www.theccc.org.uk/pdf/7980-TSO%20Book%20Chap%205.pdf and http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cc7ad3ee-fd8d-11e1-8e36-00144feabdc0.html#axzz27O6cJ1io [iii] http://hmccc.s3.amazonaws.com/EMR%20letter%20-%20September%2012.pdf [iv] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/28/gas-fired-power-stations-uk?INTCMP=SRCH [v] http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_025/pn12_025.aspx [vi] http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/meeting-energy-demand/energy-security/3425-statutory-security-of-supply-report-2011.pdf [vii] http://downloads.theccc.org.uk.s3.amazonaws.com/Letters/EdwardDaveyMP_Letter270312.pdf [viii] http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Markets/RetMkts/rmr/smr/Documents1/SMR%20update%2028–03-12.pdf [ix] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/30/germany-renewable-energy-revolution [x] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/23/wind-shale-gas-icm-poll [xi] http://offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_valuation_full.pdf

(France) La ZAD prepares for another week of eviction NON A LA AEROPORT

In La ZAD, a zone occu­pied to stop the con­struc­tion of a new air­port for Nantes, the evic­tion looks set to con­tin­ue from tomor­row. La Saulce is now evictable and it is pos­si­ble the police will also tar­get some of the places that require spe­cial forces to evict tree­hous­es and such. Call­out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against VINCI, the com­pa­ny who will be con­struct­ing. Call­out for peo­ple here to help. All means to increase aware­ness.

The police have been evict­ing la ZAD for two weeks now, only stop­ping for lunch­break and the week­ends. and the nights.
We are still expect­ing them to return tomor­row to con­tin­ue. Theyve been pass­ing by with the heli­copter today, hav­ing a look around. Since Sat­ur­day night la saulce has become legal­ly evictable. La secherie won an appeal in court, and is now not evictable till decem­ber, and la rosier also is not evictable til the mid­dle of novem­ber.
But it seems like­ly they will come next week for the places they can already evict, and havent already, most­ly la saulce, sabot, and the oth­er cab­ins that dont have a real ‘house’ on the prop­er­ty.
There is a lot more info on the web­site  http://www.zad.nadir.org if you dont read french you can change the langue to eng­lish.
get in con­tact if you want to come over, or just arrive
or do some­thing in your place, the com­pa­ny which build the aero­port is called VINCI (  http://stopvinci.noblogs.org/ ) and they have many things every­where. They are also respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the khim­ki for­est (  http://www.khimkiforest.org/ ) in rus­sia for the con­struc­tion of a high­way and the evic­tion of the protest camp there. There has already been a lot of stuff done to humil­i­ate them in the last weeks it is very cheer­ing.
Let every­one know.
The resis­tance wont end with evic­tion.
Need peo­ple to help with reoc­cu­pa­tion.
Peace and love.

(USA) LOGGING COMPANY HIT AGAIN

anony­mous report:

“Gilliar­di Log­ging and Con­struc­tion have not got­ten the mes­sage. so we poi­soned one of their semi-trucks, car­ry­ing a vicious wood-chip­per. the evict­ed hawks and owls will be pleased.”

anony­mous report:

“Gilliar­di Log­ging and Con­struc­tion have not got­ten the mes­sage. so we poi­soned one of their semi-trucks, car­ry­ing a vicious wood-chip­per. the evict­ed hawks and owls will be pleased.”

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

Read more

(USA) LOGGING COMPANY TARGETED

anony­mous report:

“puyallup wet­lands are under attack by a pri­vate log­ging com­pa­ny that I and oth­ers have yet to iden­ti­fy. this attack was car­ried out on canyon rd. short-term dam­age was done to a hydraulic exca­va­tor, as a warn­ing. if they con­tin­ue — our attacks will increase.”

anony­mous report:

“puyallup wet­lands are under attack by a pri­vate log­ging com­pa­ny that I and oth­ers have yet to iden­ti­fy. this attack was car­ried out on canyon rd. short-term dam­age was done to a hydraulic exca­va­tor, as a warn­ing. if they con­tin­ue — our attacks will increase.”

logging company hit again, USA

Octo­ber 25, 2012
anony­mous report:

“Gilliar­di Log­ging and Con­struc­tion have not got­ten the mes­sage. so we poi­soned one of their semi-trucks, car­ry­ing a vicious wood-chip­per. the evict­ed hawks and owls will be pleased.”

Octo­ber 25, 2012
anony­mous report:

“Gilliar­di Log­ging and Con­struc­tion have not got­ten the mes­sage. so we poi­soned one of their semi-trucks, car­ry­ing a vicious wood-chip­per. the evict­ed hawks and owls will be pleased.”

Wife of Gulf Coast Oilfield Worker Chains Herself to Keystone XL Pipeyard Gate

Draw­ing con­nec­tions to all coastal com­mu­ni­ties threat­ened by tox­ic tar sands devel­op­ment, Cher­ri Foytlin, an indige­nous South Louisiana moth­er of six and wife of a Gulf Coast oil­field work­er, chained her­self to the gate of a Key­stone XL pipeyard. Effec­tive­ly block­ing pipe from being shipped to con­struc­tion sites along the con­tro­ver­sial pipeline’s route, Foytlin’s action coin­cides with the Defend Our Coast activ­i­ties in British Colum­bia, where more than 60 Cana­di­an com­mu­ni­ties are protest­ing a pro­posed tar sands pipeline through their region.

Yes­ter­day the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation filed a legal chal­lenge to Shell’s pro­posed expan­sion of the Jack­pine Tar Sands Mine in Alber­ta, Cana­da. From It’s Get­ting Hot in Here:

“Fol­low­ing these projects, Coun­cil will con­tin­ue on its six-day No Pipelines, No Tankers Speak­ing Tour, stop­ping in com­mu­ni­ties on or near the routes of the Pacif­ic Trails, Enbridge North­ern Gate­way, and Kinder Mor­gan Trans Moun­tain Pipelines.

” ‘The idea is to build sol­i­dar­i­ty between the dif­fer­ent pipeline cam­paigns,’ says Har­jap Gre­w­al, Pacif­ic Region­al Orga­niz­er of the Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans. This includes cam­paigns to stop the pipelines at their source—in the Alber­ta Tar Sands and Frack­ing region in north­east­ern BC.”

Occu­py the Pipeline activists in New York have been strug­gling against the Spec­tra Pipeline which will pump fuel hydrauli­cal­ly-fracked from Pennsylvania’s gas fields into New York City

Foytlin’s arrest is the 32nd arrest since Tar Sands Block­ade‘s actions began more than two months ago and today marks the 31st day of sus­tained protest at the Winns­boro tree block­ade.

“This pipeline is a project of death. From destruc­tive tar sands devel­op­ment that destroy indige­nous sov­er­eign­ty and health at the route’s start to the tox­ic emis­sions that will lay fur­ther bur­den on envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice com­mu­ni­ties along the Gulf of Mex­i­co, this pipeline not only dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affects indige­nous front­line com­mu­ni­ties but its clear that it will bring death and dis­ease to all in its path,” Foytlin declared.

Refus­ing to accept the Gulf Coast’s des­ig­na­tion as the Nation’s Ener­gy Sac­ri­fice Zone, Foytlin, along with many Gulf Coast res­i­dents and indige­nous activists are dis­mayed but not sur­prised to find the con­ver­sa­tions regard­ing Key­stone XL as a whole from nation­al envi­ron­men­tal groups to the Pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns have made lit­tle to no men­tion of the dam­age TransCanada’s Key­stone XL Pipeline will heap upon Gulf Coast com­mu­ni­ties like Hous­ton and Port Arthur, TX, where Key­stone XL will ter­mi­nate. Already over­bur­dened with oil refiner­ies and oth­er dirty ener­gy relat­ed indus­try, this neglect­ful atti­tude dove­tails neat­ly with TransCanada’s reck­less dis­re­gard for the health and safe­ty of fam­i­lies in the refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties and else­where along the pipeline’s route.

The Rayne, Louisiana res­i­dent, who in the Spring of 2011 walked 1,243 miles from New Orleans to Wash­ing­ton DC as a call for action to stop the BP Drilling Dis­as­ter, has been a con­stant voice speak­ing out for the health and ecosys­tems of Gulf Coast com­mu­ni­ties.

She con­tin­ued, “This fight is also about the per­son­al free­doms giv­en to us through the blood of all of our com­bined ances­try. Con­ser­v­a­tives believe gov­ern­ment is too big, that they are chok­ing out our free­doms. The Occu­py Move­ment believes cor­po­ra­tions have kid­napped those same rights in the pur­suit of prof­it over human­i­ty. I believe both groups are right, and this pipeline and the use of emi­nent domain by a for­eign com­pa­ny to seize and lay claim to Amer­i­can land, aid­ed by the silence of the gov­ern­ment, is an epic exam­ple of those truths.”

Tar Sands Block­ade is a coali­tion of Texas and Okla­homa landown­ers and cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­ers using peace­ful and sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

“From the Pacif­ic Coast to the Gulf Coast, Tar Sands Block­ade acts in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all com­mu­ni­ties and indige­nous peo­ple ris­ing up to defend their homes from tox­ic tar sands pipelines. The refin­ery com­mu­ni­ties of the Gulf Coast have his­tor­i­cal­ly been and con­tin­ue to be treat­ed as col­lat­er­al dam­age by indus­try and now landown­ers from Cana­da to Texas are learn­ing that real­i­ty, too,” stat­ed Ram­sey Sprague, a Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son born in Houma, Louisiana to a Chiti­macha fam­i­ly. “From start to fin­ish, tar sands devel­op­ment only fur­ther endan­gers com­mu­ni­ties already at far greater risk for death and dis­ease from tox­ic envi­ron­men­tal expo­sure to human-made chem­i­cal pol­lu­tants than com­mu­ni­ties fur­ther away from the petro­le­um refiner­ies and the uncon­scionable min­ing oper­a­tions that define their ori­gins.”

(Belgium) Brussels – Top executive ExxonMobil Nicholas Mockford shot dead

15/10/2012: BRUSSELS – Sun­day night a top exec­u­tive of the petro-chem­i­cal com­pa­ny Exxon­Mo­bil was shot dead in the street in Ned­er-over-Heem­beek, near Brus­sels. Nicholas Mock­ford was shot in the head twice, when he and his wife were leav­ing an Ital­ian restau­rant around 22h. Wit­ness­es saw two men run­ning away car­ry­ing a motor­cy­cle hel­met.

The man died on the way to the hos­pi­tal. His wife Mary was beat­en and cov­ered in blood. Police and DA’s office are say­ing that at this point they aren’t exclud­ing any pos­si­bil­i­ties, from a hit to a car­jack­ing gone wrong. Although the vio­lence used appears to be dis­pro­por­tion­ate for a car­jack­ing, espe­cial­ly know­ing that the killers left the Lexus ATV behind.
Inves­ti­ga­tors are doing every­thing they can to locate the per­pe­tra­tors. They are going through his work at his firm in the hope of find­ing a clue. Exxon­Mo­bil is the com­pa­ny that owns Esso, Mobil and Exxon gas sta­tions.

Indigenous Communities Rise Up in Mexico

For the sec­ond time in less than two years, an indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in the south­west­ern Mex­i­can state of Michoa­can has erect­ed bar­ri­cades and seized con­trol of secu­ri­ty mat­ters. Locat­ed in the Purepecha high­lands of the Pacif­ic coast state, the small com­mu­ni­ty of Urapi­cho in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Para­cho has been under the self-declared con­trol of the peo­ple for about a month now.

For the sec­ond time in less than two years, an indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in the south­west­ern Mex­i­can state of Michoa­can has erect­ed bar­ri­cades and seized con­trol of secu­ri­ty mat­ters. Locat­ed in the Purepecha high­lands of the Pacif­ic coast state, the small com­mu­ni­ty of Urapi­cho in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Para­cho has been under the self-declared con­trol of the peo­ple for about a month now.

The news was pub­li­cized this week with the post­ing of a video on YouTube that shows armed and masked men, some clothed in mil­i­tary-style cam­ou­flage cloth­ing, attend­ing a sand-bagged check­point, where motorists are searched. Two anony­mous, masked spokesper­sons explain the rea­sons behind the upris­ing and the goals of their move­ment.

Res­i­dents say they have been under assault from crim­i­nal bands which have a strong foothold in the region. The Span­ish-speak­ing spokesman men­tions four peo­ple who were forcibly dis­ap­peared in 2009 and 2010, includ­ing a woman named Bautista. “We don’t know her where­abouts,” he says.

The Purepecha com­mu­ni­ty is locat­ed between the towns of Para­cho, long known for its local­ly pro­duced gui­tars, and Cher­an, a larg­er indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty that rose up in April 2011 and seized con­trol of the local gov­ern­ment. Still bar­ri­cad­ed and under com­mu­ni­ty guard, the Cher­an rebel­lion broke out after locals grew frus­trat­ed by vio­lence and gov­ern­ment inac­tion in stop­ping the clear-cut­ting of the area’s remain­ing forests. Like Urapi­cho, numer­ous deaths and dis­ap­pear­ances blamed on orga­nized crime have been report­ed in Cher­an.

The Urapi­cho upris­ing occurs amid esca­lat­ing social con­flicts that have polit­i­cal tem­per­a­tures at the boil­ing point in Michoa­can. In dif­fer­ent parts of the state, mul­ti­ple con­flicts pit stu­dent, teacher and indige­nous groups against the Insti­tu­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Par­ty (PRI)-led state gov­ern­ment, as well as leg­is­la­tors from the PRI and allied Green Par­ty against the cen­ter-left PRD, PT and MC par­ties.

On Sun­day, Octo­ber 14, ten­sions explod­ed when the Fed­er­al Police recov­ered bus­es that had been seized by protest­ing stu­dents from three rur­al teach­ers’ col­leges. In the raid, scores of stu­dents were detained, bus­es burned and sev­er­al offi­cers injured.

In response, any­where between 15,000 and 40,000 demon­stra­tors, the esti­mates depend­ing on the source, crowd­ed the state cap­i­tal of More­lia Octo­ber 17 denounc­ing Pres­i­dent Calderon and demand­ing the res­ig­na­tions of state Gov­ern­ment Sec­re­tary Jesus Rey­na Gar­cia and PRI Gov­er­nor Faus­to Valle­jo, who was elect­ed to office in a con­tro­ver­sial Novem­ber 2011 elec­tion.

Con­tin­gents rep­re­sent­ing the Nation­al Coor­di­na­tor of Edu­ca­tion Work­ers (CNTE), the Purepecha Nation and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions par­tic­i­pat­ed in the mobi­liza­tion. A large group of stu­dents encir­cled the state attor­ney general’s office, while a sec­ond group num­ber­ing in the hun­dreds blocked one of Morelia’s high­way exits.

As the week end­ed, the CNTE vowed to con­tin­ue protest­ing in More­lia until the remain­ing 8 stu­dents detained on Octo­ber 14 were released. Out­side the state cap­i­tal, pro­test­ers report­ed­ly occu­pied the town hall of Para­cho and threat­ened to block­ade access to oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties.

 

more ingo at http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/2012/10/19/indigenous-communities-rise-up-in-mexico/

Under the watchful eye of engaged youth, Pangea and the PLA’s “City Concept” plan was halted by tribal council

Saca­ton, AZ- At the Octo­ber 17, 2012 Gila Riv­er Indi­an Com­mu­ni­ty (GRIC) Trib­al Coun­cil ses­sion, Pangea, LLC and the Pecos Landown­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (PLA) attempt­ed to rush for­ward their plans per­tain­ing to the con­struc­tion of a city and free­way with­in the reser­va­tion. Pangea sought the trib­al council’s approval for a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) which grant­ed Pangea and its investors exclu­sive rights to devel­op over 5500 acres of trib­al land on the reservation’s west­ern end along the route of the pro­posed Loop 202 free­way, which GRIC vot­ed against last Feb­ru­ary. The PLA attempt­ed to pres­sure trib­al coun­cil to approve the Pangea corporation’s ini­tia­tive for yet anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty vote on the Loop 202.

But to their sur­prise, Pangea and the PLA were con­front­ed by young peo­ple wear­ing breath­ing masks and No Build 202 shirts who sought to hold both Pangea and the PLA account­able to last February’s Loop 202 vote. In that vote, GRIC vot­ers vot­ed in favor of the No Build option for the free­way. The Gila Riv­er youth, whose breath­ing masks sym­bol­ized the envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins that free­ways bring to the land and air, were at the trib­al coun­cil meet­ing to demand that their elect­ed offi­cials uphold the No Build voice of the peo­ple.

“I can’t vote yet, but if I could, I would have vot­ed No Build too. The peo­ple who want the free­way should think about what my gen­er­a­tion will go through if all we have to inher­it is free­way pollution”said 14 year old Lily Miles, of Komatke and Vah-ki, who was one of the twelve who wore med­ical breath­ing masks and No Build shirts in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the community’s No Build voice.

Since the his­toric Loop 202 vote, many GRIC mem­bers, espe­cial­ly the youth, have felt their trib­al lead­er­ship has not ful­ly upheld the community’s No Build stance. This sus­pi­cion is height­ened since GRIC Gov­er­nor Men­doza allowed Pangea to con­sult with GRIC’s Office of Gen­er­al Coun­sel for their City Con­cept and free­way plans. In addi­tion, Gov­er­nor Men­doza pre­sent­ed the PLA ini­tia­tive that calls for anoth­er Loop 202 vote at the Sep­tem­ber 26th GRIC Leg­isla­tive Stand­ing Com­mit­tee (LSC).

If approved by the GRIC Trib­al Coun­cil, the mas­sive Pangea City Con­cept, the size of over 5000 foot­ball fields, would be the largest con­struc­tion project in the his­to­ry of the Bureau of Indi­an Affairs (BIA) and the Gila Riv­er Indi­an Com­mu­ni­ty. The GRIC No Build sup­port­ers who attend­ed the Wednes­day coun­cil ses­sion were com­pelled to raise their voic­es against Pangea and the PLA in the trib­al coun­cil cham­bers with­out say­ing one word. Their breath­ing masks and No Build 202 shirts, stat­ing “Bio­haz­ard 202” spoke to the loom­ing des­e­cra­tion of Muhadag Do’ag (South Moun­tain) and to the neg­a­tive impacts the pro­posed free­way would bring to the envi­ron­ment and over­all com­mu­ni­ty health.

“Our trib­al lead­ers must be held account­able for where their alle­giances lie,” said Renee Jack­son of Vah-ki, who was one of the No Build sup­port­ers who wore breath­ing masks and Bio­haz­ard 202 shirts dur­ing the meet­ing. “Our rep­re­sen­ta­tives must be trans­par­ent in where they stand on the issue of the free­way”.

While coun­cil went to exec­u­tive ses­sion to decide the mer­it of Pangea’s MOU and the PLA vot­ing ini­tia­tive, the twelve youth engaged pro-free­way Gila Riv­er landown­ers in the hall­ways out­side coun­cil cham­bers. The youth shared their con­cerns regard­ing the envi­ron­men­tal, health and cul­tur­al impacts the City Con­cept would bring to their future while coun­cil was in exec­u­tive ses­sion and closed to the pub­lic. The mere pres­ence of these twelve helped give a voice to the 720 GRIC mem­bers who vot­ed for No Build, and their breath­ing masks showed the poten­tial dan­ger the free­way would bring.

“Today we showed where the youth stand and we showed that there are youth who care. Pangea and the PLA’s city con­cept is a dan­ger to our future and both are bio­haz­ards to the land and to the moun­tain,” said Andrew Pedro, 18 years old, from Saca­ton, who print­ed the Bio­haz­ard shirts. “Peo­ple were ask­ing me for more t‑shirts, and I believe that this is the first of more visu­al demon­stra­tions to come.”

“I felt like it was my respon­si­bil­i­ty to be here and get informed about what is hap­pen­ing around me and in my com­mu­ni­ty because I will be inher­it­ing this land too.” said Kar­ma Miles, 11 years old, from Komatke and Vah-ki.

Despite the dif­fer­ences the youth had with fel­low GRIC landown­ers, the youth pre­sent­ed them­selves in a respect­ful mat­ter, and even helped PLA elders by set­ting up chairs dur­ing exec­u­tive ses­sion.

After near­ly an hour in exec­u­tive ses­sion, Trib­al Coun­cil decid­ed that eleven key points need­ed to be met before any MOU regard­ing Pangea’s land use plans could be approved. The eleven points cen­ter around pub­lic safe­ty, bud­get­ing, juris­dic­tion, and land man­age­ment issues that were not addressed with­in the MOU sub­mit­ted by Pangea. Coun­cil clear­ly declared that all points must be met before Pangea’s MOU could be brought back before the coun­cil. Addi­tion­al­ly, the mis­lead­ing Save the Moun­tain ini­tia­tive was held to stan­dard GRIC Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Secretary’s Office (CCSO) pro­ce­dure regard­ing sig­na­tures ver­i­fi­ca­tion. The PLA sub­mit­ted their Pangea-backed ini­tia­tive to the GRIC Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Secretary’s Office (CCSO) on Sep­tem­ber 27 with the back­ing of 1,527 landown­er sig­na­tures. Trib­al coun­cil declared that each sig­na­ture must be ver­i­fied first before coun­cil would con­sid­er the ini­tia­tive. As with the per capi­ta ini­tia­tive, a pre­vi­ous people’s ini­tia­tive in Gila Riv­er, the sig­na­tures could take the CCSO four to six months to ver­i­fy, espe­cial­ly with reports of miss­ing trib­al enroll­ment num­bers with the sig­na­tures sub­mit­ted, as report­ed by Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil Sec­re­tary Lin­da Andrews at the coun­cil meet­ing. The Save the Moun­tain ini­tia­tive, which Pangea and PLA deemed” first ever Peo­ples Ini­tia­tive through the People’s rights under the GRIC Trib­al Con­sti­tu­tion”, does not save the moun­tain because it calls for the reject­ed free­way to be con­struct­ed on trib­al lands along the foothills of Muhadag Do’ag (South Moun­tain).

Despite the steps that are legal­ly required to approve a vot­er ini­tia­tive, a Pangea rep­re­sen­ta­tive pres­sured coun­cil to move for­ward and approve the pro-free­way ini­tia­tive. GRIC mem­ber Joey Perez of Pangea attempt­ed to have coun­cil set a much short­er time frame for approval, by cit­ing the 14th amend­ment of the GRIC con­sti­tu­tion, which declares coun­cil has 60 days to make a deci­sion on any ini­tia­tive bought forth to them. The Pangea corporation’s inter­pre­ta­tion, as stat­ed by Perez, was that the 60 days start­ed on Sep­tem­ber 27, when the sig­na­tures were sub­mit­ted, which would force coun­cil to pos­si­bly recon­sid­er anoth­er Loop 202 vote by the end of the year. But Perez, Pangea and the PLA were soon con­front­ed with stan­dard GRIC pro­ce­dures regard­ing ini­tia­tives: sig­na­tures must be ver­i­fied before the ini­tia­tive can be con­sid­ered by the coun­cil.

The rea­son why the Pangea cor­po­ra­tion and pro-build sup­port­ers dis­re­gard the No Build vic­to­ry and are attempt­ing to rush the trib­al coun­cil to sched­ule anoth­er vote on the pro­posed free­way is because in 2013 fed­er­al land leas­ing reg­u­la­tions for trib­al allot­ted lands become much more restric­tive. Changes to Title 25 of the BIA’s Code of Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­tions will require 100 per­cent of landown­er con­sents before the BIA will approve any new leas­es per­tain­ing to the use of trib­al allot­ted lands for busi­ness­es. This would make the Pangea City Con­cept, which is cen­tered around the con­struc­tion of the Loop 202, sub­ject to height­ened fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions.

The deci­sion by Coun­cil to hold Pangea and the PLA trans­par­ent and account­able to the process was a long over­due first step in revers­ing its nine months of inac­tion regard­ing the No Build vote. Pangea and the PLA were expect­ing to walk out of the trib­al coun­cil meet­ing with anoth­er Loop 202 vote sched­uled, and their land devel­op­ment plans to be unop­posed. But Pangea and the PLA left the Octo­ber trib­al coun­cil ses­sion in defeat when con­front­ed with the gap­ing holes of their fraud­u­lent cam­paign to bull­doze over 5500 acres for a Pangea city, and by the faces of the young peo­ple whose future health depends on the preser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of Muhadag Do’ag, and their lands.

“It was a won­der­ful day, a small vic­to­ry once again,” said Lori Thomas, of Gila Riv­er Alliance for a Clean Envi­ron­ment. “The youth who were present were awe­some. It was good to see them engage in the issue. A small bat­tle was won but the fight still rages on.”

For the youth who attend­ed this round of the big­ger fight to com­plete­ly stop the Loop 202, it showed that their involve­ment will be cru­cial for the future of the com­mu­ni­ty, and that a new form of expres­sion is need­ed so that their voic­es can be heard by the Pangea cor­po­ra­tion, the PLA, as well as by the GRIC trib­al coun­cil and Gov­er­nor Men­doza.

“We made an impact by rep­re­sent­ing all the No Build sup­port­ers who can’t be here, to go to these meet­ings and be heard,” said Ana Mor­a­go, 18 years old, of Sto­ton­ic. “We aren’t bused in, like the way Pangea brings in their peo­ple. And even though we didn’t speak, our actions and how we pre­sent­ed our­selves spoke loud­er”.

For more infor­ma­tion regard­ing the strug­gle against the Loop 202, please con­tact us at: gricagainst202(at)gmail.com or at our Face­book page: Gila Riv­er Against the Loop 202