Category: Action Reports

(Malaysia) Indigenous blockade expands against massive dam in Sarawak

Indige­nous peo­ple have expand­ed their block­ade against the Murum dam in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, tak­ing over an addi­tion­al road to pre­vent con­struc­tion mate­ri­als from reach­ing the dam site. Begin­ning on Sep­tem­ber 26th with 200 Penan peo­ple, the block­ade has boomed to well over 300. Groups now occu­py not just the main route to the dam site, but an alter­na­tive route that the dam’s con­trac­tor, the Chi­na-locat­ed Three Gorges Project Cor­po­ra­tion, had begun to use.

“The major works on the con­struc­tion of the dam have been par­a­lyzed over the last one week. The dri­vers have left home and let their cement tankers, lor­ry trucks and trail­ers with build­ing mate­ri­als had been hauled over and park at the road side near the block­ade site,” the Sarawak Con­ser­va­tion Alliance for Nat­ur­al Envi­ron­ment (SCANE) said in an update on the block­ade. “The access to the con­struc­tion site of Murum hydro­elec­tric dam project is total­ly blocked on all direc­tions with the set­ting-up of sec­ond road block­ade by the Penans.”

The Penan are protest­ing what they say has been dis­dain­ful treat­ment from the gov­ern­ment-owned cor­po­ra­tion over­see­ing the 900 megawatt dam project, Sarawak Ener­gy Berhad (SEB). The dams con­struc­tion, which will inun­date 24,500 hectares of native land, will lead to the invol­un­tary reset­tle­ment of sev­en indig­neous com­mu­ni­ties, who still remain in the dark about many of the details of the reset­tle­ment plan. In addi­tion, the tribe alleges that SEB has been inten­tion­al­ly destroy­ing impor­tant sacred and his­tor­i­cal sites.

“We will not remove the block­ade or move out of here until our demands are resolved and ful­filled by the gov­ern­ment,” Labang Paneh, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Long Wat vil­lage, said in a state­ment.

Fam­i­lies, includ­ing elder­ly and chil­dren, have set up makeshift camps near the block­ade and appear to be in it for the long haul.

A gov­ern­ment min­is­ter spent two days with the Penan inves­ti­gat­ing the block­ade and speak­ing with them about their griev­ances.

“I went in and I saw the sit­u­a­tion from the view of these Penans whose lives are being uproot­ed and whose future looks so uncer­tain,” Liwan Lagang, Sarawak Assis­tant Min­is­ter for Cul­ture and Her­itage, told The Star. “I found out that indeed, they had not been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed and their con­cerns not addressed by those han­dling the con­struc­tion of the project.”

For decades the Penan peo­ple have seen their cus­tom­ary forests felled for log­ging, plan­ta­tions, dams, roads, and oth­er big infra­struc­ture projects with the Sarawak gov­ern­ment refus­ing to rec­og­nize their land rights. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the Penan were nomadic hunter-and-gath­er­ers, but today most live in set­tled vil­lages, but still depend on the forests for their liveli­hood.

Assis­tant Min­is­ter Lagang added that “con­trac­tors involved in the dam project are mak­ing mil­lions of ring­git in the project. They must be con­sid­er­ate and exer­cise bet­ter social cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty and good pub­lic rela­tions with the local affect­ed natives.”

Sarawak already pro­duces far more ener­gy than the state uses lead­ing crit­ics to allege that numer­ous mas­sive dam projects are mere­ly means for cor­rupt offi­cials to siphon off state funds and col­lect bribes. The state recent­ly com­plet­ed the 2,400 megawatt Bakun Dam, which pro­duces dou­ble the ener­gy con­sumed by Sarawak dur­ing peak times. Bakun result­ed in the forced reset­tle­ment of 10,000 peo­ple.

 

 

(USA) Lummi and Allies Unite Against Coal Exports

Lum­mi trib­al lead­ers burned a mock cheque from coal com­pa­nies dur­ing a protest at Cher­ry Point, Wa., Oct 2012 (Pho­to by: Alan Bern­er / The Seat­tle Times)

Lum­mi trib­al lead­ers burned a mock cheque from coal com­pa­nies dur­ing a protest at Cher­ry Point, Wa., Oct 2012 (Pho­to by: Alan Bern­er / The Seat­tle Times)

LUMMI INDIAN RESERVATION, BELLINGHAM, Wash.—A fleet of boats pilot­ed by Native and non-Native fish­ers gath­ered today in the waters off Xwe’chi’eXen (Cher­ry Point, Wash.) to stand with the Lum­mi Nation in oppo­si­tion to the pro­posed Gate­way Pacif­ic coal ter­mi­nal at Xwe’chi’eXen.

“We have to say ‘no’ to the coal ter­mi­nal project,” said Cliff Cul­tee, Chair­man of the Lum­mi Nation. “It is our Xw’ xalh Xech­ng­ing (sacred duty) to pre­serve and pro­tect all of Xwe’chi’eXen.”

A cer­e­mo­ny of thank­ful­ness, remem­brance and uni­ty was held on the beach dur­ing the event. Lum­mi Indi­ans main­tain the largest Native fish­ing fleet in the Unit­ed States, and Lum­mi fish­ers have worked in the Cher­ry Point fish­ery for thou­sands of years.

If con­struct­ed, the ter­mi­nal would be the largest coal ter­mi­nal on the West Coast of North Amer­i­ca. It would sig­nif­i­cant­ly degrade an already frag­ile and vul­ner­a­ble crab, her­ring and salmon fish­ery, deal­ing a dev­as­tat­ing blow to the econ­o­my of the fish­er com­mu­ni­ty.

“This is not about jobs ver­sus the envi­ron­ment,” said Jew­ell James of the Lum­mi Nation’s Sov­er­eign­ty and Treaty Pro­tec­tion Office. “It is about what type of jobs are best for the peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment.”

Anoth­er gath­er­ing of Lum­mi Indi­ans and non-Indi­an res­i­dents from the local and region­al com­mu­ni­ty was held at Xwe’chi’eXen on Sept. 21 to call for the pro­tec­tion and preser­va­tion of Xwe’chi’eXen, which is the loca­tion of a 3,500 year old vil­lage site, and a land­scape that is eli­gi­ble for reg­istry on the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places.

A Lum­mi Nation Busi­ness Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion declared Lum­mi “will con­tin­ue to safe­guard our ances­tral and his­tor­i­cal areas” and the abil­i­ty of its mem­bers to “exer­cise treaty, inher­ent and inher­it­ed rights.”

The Lum­mi Nation is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a broad inter­trib­al coali­tion to defeat the project and to ensure that the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al lega­cy of Xwe’chi’eXen is pro­tect­ed in per­pe­tu­ity.

This arti­cle orig­i­nal­ly appeared on Ter­ri Hansen’s web­site, Moth­er Earth Jour­nal

(Brazil) Indigenous Dam Resisters Launch New Belo Monte Occupation

Con­struc­tion on Brazil’s megadam, Belo Monte, has been halt­ed again as around 150 demon­stra­tors, most of them from near­by indige­nous tribes, have occu­pied the main con­struc­tion site at Pimen­tal. Over a hun­dred indige­nous peo­ple joined local fish­er­men who had been protest­ing the dam for 24 days straight. Indige­nous peo­ple and local fish­er­men say the dam will dev­as­tate the Xin­gu Riv­er, upend­ing their way of life.

“The renewed occu­pa­tion of the project’s earth­en cof­fer­dams par­a­lyzed con­struc­tion works, while indige­nous pro­tes­tors seized the keys of trucks and trac­tors forc­ing work­ers to leave the strate­gic Pimen­tal work camp on foot,” reads a press release from the NGO Ama­zon Watch. Around 900 work­ers were sent home.

This is the sec­ond occu­pa­tion attempt in less than six months. Over the sum­mer some 300 indige­nous peo­ple sus­tained an occu­pa­tion of the dam for 21 days, before break­ing it off though lit­tle head­way was made in talks with con­sor­tium build­ing the dam, Norte Ener­gia.

The Belo Monte dam, which would be the world’s third largest, has been plagued by con­tro­ver­sy from its ori­gin decades ago; the bat­tle for the dam has been fought both in Brazil’s courts and on the inter­na­tion­al stage. If built, the dam will flood an esti­mat­ed 40,000 hectares of present rain­for­est and could push some fish species to extinc­tion. In addi­tion, 16,000 peo­ple will be dis­placed accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, though some NGOs say the num­ber is more like­ly dou­ble that.

Despite the impacts, the dam has been strong­ly sup­port­ed by Brazil­ian Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff, and every legal injunc­tion against the dam has been over­turned. Norte Ener­gia has filed with a local court for repos­ses­sion of the con­struc­tion sties.

Indige­nous groups say the con­struc­tion of the dam is already imper­il­ing their way of life, as the Xin­gu riv­er becomes more dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate. They have also said they have no inten­tion of leav­ing until Norte Ener­gia meets their demands.

“We are wit­ness­ing the dev­as­ta­tion of this land. The island of Pimen­tal was com­plete­ly destroyed, with a sole tree left stand­ing, and the water is putrid. It is very shock­ing,” an pro­tes­tor told Ama­zon Watch.

Dams are often described as ‘green’ ener­gy source, how­ev­er in the trop­ics they actu­al­ly release sig­nif­i­cant methane emis­sions due to rot­ting veg­e­ta­tion. Although it has a short­er life than car­bon, methane is a far more potent green­house gas.

(USA) Updates from Ongoing Tar Sands Blockade

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

A sec­ond treesit has been set up at the site of the Tar Sands Block­ade in Texas; both sits are ongo­ing. In oth­er news:

  • The tar sands block­ade has suc­cess­ful­ly delayed con­struc­tion of the pipeline for two days by lock­ing them­selves to con­struc­tion machin­ery and shut­ting down the con­struc­tion sites. There have been two suc­cess­ful block­ades at con­struc­tion sites in Liv­ingston and Saltil­lo, Texas.
  • Tran­scana­da sur­vey­ors were also pre­vent­ed from prepar­ing for con­struc­tion when landown­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers turned them away north of Winns­boro at an ongo­ing vig­il to pro­tect a local vine­yard which will be destroyed if con­struc­tion begins.
  • Two jour­nal­ists work­ing for the New York Times were hand­cuffed, detained and then turned away from pri­vate prop­er­ty by local law enforce­ment employed as pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards for Tran­sCana­da.
  • Nev­er­the­less, the New York Times still ran a front-page arti­cle about the Tar Sands Block­ade, includ­ing the first tree block­ade in Texas his­to­ry.
  • On August 19th the Tran­scana­da cor­po­ra­tion offi­cial­ly began con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline which will car­ry poi­so­nous tar sands from Alber­ta Cana­da to the Gulf of Mex­i­co despite over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion from landown­ers and con­cerned res­i­dents, but a broad coali­tion called the Tar Sands Block­ade is orga­niz­ing to stop it.

 

 

Tar Sands Street Theatre Pictures

cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work staged a dra­mat­ic piece of street the­atre out­side Chatham House. Con­fer­ence atten­dees, includ­ing Peter Kent him­self, were greet­ed by the dis­turb­ing spec­ta­cle of black-clad masked fig­ures rep­re­sent­ing Cana­da and Shell lit­er­al­ly ‘stran­gling’ cli­mate activists. The cam­paign­ers hand­ed out fly­ers and spoke to the con­fer­ence atten­dees, ques­tion­ing whether gen­uine solu­tions to cli­mate change that would end our depen­dence on fos­sil fuels, pro­mote cli­mate jus­tice and penalise high­ly-car­bon-inten­sive com­pa­nies could real­ly be on the table for dis­cus­sion at an event spon­sored by Shell and fea­tur­ing Peter Kent as a keynote speak­er.

Activists disrupt speeches by Canadian Minister and Shell Chairman

Today at a high-lev­el con­fer­ence on cli­mate change at Chatham House, Lon­don, two activists inter­rupt­ed first Peter Kent, Canada’s Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, then Shell’s UK Chair­man Gra­ham van’t Hoff, as they got up to make speech­es.

Today at a high-lev­el con­fer­ence on cli­mate change at Chatham House, Lon­don, two activists inter­rupt­ed first Peter Kent, Canada’s Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter, then Shell’s UK Chair­man Gra­ham van’t Hoff, as they got up to make speech­es.

The first activist, Dan­ny Chivers, accused Peter Kent of being a ‘dan­ger­ous rad­i­cal’ and asked for him to be removed from the stage. The audi­ence respond­ed to the tongue-in-cheek speech – in which Kent was also referred to as an ‘agent from a rogue petro-state’ – with a mix­ture of laugh­ter and heck­ling, and the pro­test­er was able to speak for sev­er­al min­utes before being removed by secu­ri­ty.

Dur­ing the inter­ven­tion, Mr Chivers explained that Kent had clear­ly got into this cli­mate change con­fer­ence under false pre­tences. Far from being a leader on the issue, Kent is ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing the high­ly destruc­tive tar sands – despite the industry’s neg­a­tive impact on local indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, and its poten­tial to emit enough green­house gas to tip the world over the edge into run­away cli­mate change. Kent also pulled Cana­da out of the Kyoto Pro­to­col and his coun­try con­tin­ues to lob­by fierce­ly against the inclu­sion of tar sands in the EU Fuel Qual­i­ty Direc­tive, which aims to reduce emis­sions from trans­port and has stalled as a result of Canada’s inter­fer­ence.

The sec­ond activist, Sophie Pre­ston, then rose as Gra­ham van’t Hoff was about to speak. She accused Shell – the spon­sor of the event – of being a ‘world-class green­wash­er’ whilst ener­get­i­cal­ly lob­by­ing against gen­uine nation­al and inter­na­tion­al cli­mate action. Shell is one of the largest oper­a­tors in the tar sands and plans to dou­ble its pro­duc­tion despite a legal chal­lenge from the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation who claim their treaty rights have been vio­lat­ed. She too was removed by secu­ri­ty.

Ear­li­er that morn­ing, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work staged a dra­mat­ic piece of street the­atre out­side Chatham House. Con­fer­ence atten­dees, includ­ing Peter Kent him­self, were greet­ed by the dis­turb­ing spec­ta­cle of black-clad masked fig­ures rep­re­sent­ing Cana­da and Shell lit­er­al­ly ‘stran­gling’ cli­mate activists. The cam­paign­ers hand­ed out fly­ers and spoke to the con­fer­ence atten­dees, ques­tion­ing whether gen­uine solu­tions to cli­mate change that would end our depen­dence on fos­sil fuels, pro­mote cli­mate jus­tice and penalise high­ly-car­bon-inten­sive com­pa­nies could real­ly be on the table for dis­cus­sion at an event spon­sored by Shell and fea­tur­ing Peter Kent as a keynote speak­er.

The protest fol­lows a series of dam­ag­ing rev­e­la­tions about how close­ly the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment, oil com­pa­nies such as Shell and BP, and some British politi­cians are work­ing togeth­er to fur­ther the high­ly-pol­lut­ing tar sands industry’s aims. Ear­li­er this year the Fuel Qual­i­ty Direc­tive – a key piece of EU cli­mate leg­is­la­tion that would dis­cour­age tar sands imports to Europe – stalled after inten­sive lob­by­ing by Cana­da and the oil indus­try result­ed in key mem­ber states, includ­ing the UK, not sup­port­ing it. Two weeks ago, Vince Cable, for­mer­ly Shell’s chief econ­o­mist, was revealed to be ‘Con­tact Min­is­ter for Shell’ with­in the UK Coali­tion Gov­ern­ment, fol­low­ing a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Request.

Dan­ny Chivers, said ‘Invit­ing Peter Kent and Shell to speak at a cli­mate change event is like ask­ing the Cook­ie Mon­ster and Homer Simp­son to address a con­fer­ence on healthy eat­ing. We know that in order to have a chance of pre­vent­ing run­away cli­mate change, we need to leave the tar sands in the ground, yet Cana­da and Shell are intent on heav­i­ly pro­mot­ing this insane­ly destruc­tive indus­try. They are part of the prob­lem and cer­tain­ly should not be held up as experts in a dis­cus­sion about effec­tive cli­mate solu­tions.’

Sophie Pre­ston, who is a Cli­mate Change and Pol­i­cy stu­dent, said: ‘I have been to Cana­da and seen first-hand the dev­as­tat­ing effects of tar sands oil extrac­tion on the local envi­ron­ment and Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties whose rights are being vio­lat­ed. So I am very dis­tressed to find that lob­by­ing by Cana­da and Shell is now also scup­per­ing attempts to make effec­tive cli­mate pol­i­cy in the EU and inter­na­tion­al­ly. Until it has halt­ed all plans to expand the tar sands, Cana­da should be treat­ed as a cli­mate pari­ah, not invit­ed to the table to skew the debate.’

Shell’s Tunnel Boring Machine parts delayed by lock-on

First seg­ments even­tu­al­ly deliv­ered to tun­nelling compound,11 seg­ments to come

On Thurs­day night Shel­l’s efforts to move parts of a Tun­nel Bor­ing Machine (TBM) crit­i­cal to the Cor­rib gas project hit anoth­er delay as pro­test­ers blocked the main gate of the refin­ery site with a con­crete lock-on.

First seg­ments even­tu­al­ly deliv­ered to tun­nelling compound,11 seg­ments to come

On Thurs­day night Shel­l’s efforts to move parts of a Tun­nel Bor­ing Machine (TBM) crit­i­cal to the Cor­rib gas project hit anoth­er delay as pro­test­ers blocked the main gate of the refin­ery site with a con­crete lock-on.

Two pro­test­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp locked them­selves into a 400kg rein­forced con­crete bar­rel from 7.30pm until the Gar­da protest removal team fin­ished cut­ting them out at about mid­night. By this stage about 20 peo­ple had gath­ered at the gates in sup­port, but this was out-num­bered by a force of about 50 to 60 Gar­daí which was clear­ly already planned to mobilise to move the TBM.

For the hour or two before the Gar­dai cor­doned off the area around the lock-on, cam­paign­ers chat­ted drink­ing tea and eat­ing scones. It was sat­is­fy­ing to hear that as the lock on was being set up at Shel­l’s main refin­ery gate, Gar­daí were search­ing the ditch­es on the Augh­oose road (where most of the recent lock-ons have hap­pened).

After the lock-on had been dealt with the Gar­daí swept up its remains to clear the way for the TBM parts, then pro­ceed­ed to clear the sec­tion of road out­side the refin­ery with the usu­al law­less push­ing and shov­ing. After a delay of over 2 months since the first deliv­ery was attempt­ed, Shell and the Gar­daí final­ly man­aged to deliv­er some of the TBM parts to the Augh­oose tun­nelling com­pound two miles away.

The two lock-on pro­test­ers were released from Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion at about 4am this morn­ing each charged with sec­tions 8&9 (obstruc­tion and refus­ing to obey the direc­tions of a Gar­da when sus­pect­ed of com­mit­ting a crime) of the pub­lic order act, and join 5 more cam­paign­ers due to appear in court in Bel­mul­let on Novem­ber 14th.

In a recent let­ter to local res­i­dents Shell have said that they intend to start tun­nelling in the com­ing weeks, but it is thought that there are still 11 sec­tions of the TBM yet to be deliv­ered before they can begin. There are signs that delays will con­tin­ue — with­out any help yet anoth­er lor­ry deliv­er­ing TBM parts went off road ear­li­er in the week out­side Ban­gor — after mak­ing its deliv­ery how­ev­er.

After a lie in today we head­ed down to remove the wind­mill — last ves­tige of the sum­mer camp 2012. The pre­vi­ous week had been a mas­sive mov­ing effort to clear out the field and pack the camp infra­struc­ture away for the win­ter. The house up the hill at Barr na Coil­leadh Pul­lath­omas is now the main camp base again for the win­ter. Come vis­it and check out the view for your­self!

See rossportsolidaritycamp.org for info about stay­ing at the camp,
email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com or
ring 085 1141170 to let us know you’re com­ing or for oth­er info.
 

Relat­ed Link: http://www.shelltosea.com

(Ukraine) Excavator torched

report­ed by activists in Ukraine:

report­ed by activists in Ukraine:

“Ukraine, Kiev. In the night of 02/10/2012 anony­mous activists attacked a clearcut site on the ‘Bald Moun­tain’. A LIEBHERR exca­va­tor fell vic­tim to their arson. Clearcut coor­di­nates: http://wikimapia.org/#lat=50.3891043&lon=30.5495088&z=16&l=0&m=b
We take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to report about a sim­i­lar action at the same loca­tion on the 20/03/2012 (http://nature-first.info/2012/03/20/forest-svyatoshyno/).”

—

report­ed on http://vk.com/anarcho.ecoline:

“Tree spik­ing in Ternopol munic­i­pal park. Ukraine.

This act of eco­tage is in response to devel­op­ment plans of a local con­struc­tion com­pa­ny: it intends to destroy a pub­lic park to make room for pri­vate liv­ing blocks.

We spiked trees with huge nails, so the devel­op­er will have to bring in heavy equip­ment in order to destroy those trees. But con­struc­tion vehi­cles can be tak­en care of as well!”

(India) Anti-Nuclear Fishermen

 

On 22nd Sep­tem­ber 3,000 fish­er­men and anti-nuclear activists aboard 500 boats attempt­ed to block­ade a port to pre­vent the unload­ing of nuclear fuel into the recent­ly con­struct­ed Kudanku­lam nuclear pow­er plant locat­ed on the Tamil Nadu coast in south­ern India.

 

On 22nd Sep­tem­ber 3,000 fish­er­men and anti-nuclear activists aboard 500 boats attempt­ed to block­ade a port to pre­vent the unload­ing of nuclear fuel into the recent­ly con­struct­ed Kudanku­lam nuclear pow­er plant locat­ed on the Tamil Nadu coast in south­ern India.

This mas­sive pow­er plant is a joint ven­ture between India and Rus­sia and hous­es two nuclear pres­sur­ized water reac­tors (PWR) reac­tors, with future plans to con­struct four addi­tion­al reac­tors at the site.

This has result­ed in a peri­od of sus­tained direct action by local res­i­dents, strong­ly opposed to the plan­t’s con­struc­tion. Over a mil­lion peo­ple live with­in 30 km of the pro­posed plant. Over the last year demon­stra­tors have endured severe repres­sion as over 10,000 police and para­mil­i­tary forces have been deployed in the area. Vil­lagers have been beat­en, hun­dreds have been arrest­ed and some activists face charges of sedi­tion and even of wag­ing war against the gov­ern­ment. In April the police cut off the water, food and pow­er-sup­ply to protest­ing vil­lagers and imposed a cur­few in the vil­lages at the heart of the resis­tance.

At this point the Peo­ples Move­ment Against Nuclear Ene­gy (PMANE) called off their protests hop­ing for some respite for the peo­ple. They filed a pub­lic inter­est lit­i­ga­tion against the gov­ern­ments civ­il nuclear pro­gram com­plain­ing that the plant itself was unsafe, that there has not been a pub­lic hear­ing and thus it is an author­i­tar­i­an project imposed upon the peo­ple. Unfor­tu­nate­ly their pleas were ignored and when the Indi­an gov­ern­ment announced that the load­ing of fuel into the plant would begin on or around 11th Sep­tem­ber the peo­ple imme­di­ate­ly sprung into action.

CHAIN REACTION

On 10th Sep­tem­ber thou­sands of anti-nuclear pro­test­ers marched towards the pow­er plant, many were injured by the police who lobbed tear-gas shells into the crowd, while at Man­ap­padu police fired into the crowd and a fish­er­man was shot and killed. On the 13th hun­dreds of pro­test­ers formed a human chain in the sea to protest at the load­ing of the fuel, stay­ing in for two hour inter­vals in shifts. They demand­ed the release of all arrestees, com­pen­sa­tion for those injured by the police and an end to the police repres­sion.

One major fact is that there are more than one mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing with­in a 30km radius of the plant, which in the event of a dis­as­ter would make the evac­u­a­tion of the pop­u­la­tion impos­si­ble. This far exceeds the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Atom­ic Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Board and so the plant should nev­er have been built there. Not that this will wor­ry the Russ­ian firm that sup­plied and built the reac­tor as the Indi­an gov­ern­ment agreed that they will have zero lia­bil­i­ty in the event of an acci­dent. (Sim­i­lar con­di­tions apply to pow­er com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for major civic emer­gen­cies in the UK)

Beyond their legit­i­mate safe­ty con­cerns, vil­lagers have oth­er rea­sons to be angry. The gov­ern­ment has invest­ed mil­lions on a new hos­pi­tal and oth­er facil­i­ties exclu­sive­ly for plant empoy­ees, mean­while the rest of the locals live in squalor lack­ing even basic facil­i­ties such as run­ning water.

The Indi­an gov­ern­ment has attempt­ed to dis­cred­it the move­ment com­plain­ing that for­eign organ­i­sa­tions are agi­tat­ing the local peo­ple and that this should not be allowed. Despite all of this fur­ther demon­stra­tions are planned for the com­ing weeks and they are not giv­ing up.

Anti-nuclear activists claims major victory in mass trespass

8 Octo­ber 2012

At least eight pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed dur­ing a mass tres­pass at the Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

More than 50 peo­ple swooped on the perime­ter fence of the land ear­marked for two new EPR mega-reac­tors next to the exist­ing pow­er plant just after dawn.

8 Octo­ber 2012

At least eight pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed dur­ing a mass tres­pass at the Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion in Som­er­set.

More than 50 peo­ple swooped on the perime­ter fence of the land ear­marked for two new EPR mega-reac­tors next to the exist­ing pow­er plant just after dawn.

Dozens fanned out around the 5‑miles long fence while oth­ers held ban­ners and plac­ards out­side the main secu­ri­ty gate. A 14-foot ban­ner read­ing, “Nuclear dis­as­ter zone. Boy­cott EDF” was hung across the gate.

At 11am a total of 577 seed balls were thrown over the fence onto the con­struc­tion area in a sym­bol­ic attempt to repair the dam­age already caused to the land. The seed balls rep­re­sent the num­ber of days since the Fukushi­ma nuclear dis­as­ter in Japan.

Around 10 peo­ple are known to be still on the land owned by EDF Ener­gy. Many oth­ers are expect­ed to join them lat­er on today.

The mood has been relaxed and cel­e­bra­to­ry. “This is a major vic­to­ry for the anti-nuclear move­ment,” said Camil­la Berens, spokesper­son for the Stop New Nuclear Alliance. ‘Because the gov­ern­ment has refused to lis­ten to us and we have been forced to raise the game. We have suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the main entrance to Hink­ley Point on two occa­sion in the last year and now we have accom­plished a mass tres­pass. Our mes­sage today is that we will con­tin­ue to raise the game with peace­ful protest until our voice in heard.”

More info at Stop New Nuclear and Stop Hink­ley