Category: Action Reports

Reclaim the Fields International Gathering 2015

Reclaim the Fields

About the camp

Reclaim the Fields (or RTF) UK was born in 2011, as a star in a wider con­stel­la­tion of food and land strug­gles that reach­es around the globe. Since 2011, camps and oth­er RTF gath­er­ings have helped sup­port local com­mu­ni­ties in strug­gle, share skills, devel­oped net­works, and strength­ened the resis­tance to exploita­tion, in Bris­tol, west Lon­don, Glouces­ter­shire, Not­ting­ham and Fife among oth­er loca­tions.

Every two years there is also an inter­na­tion­al camp, where peo­ple from around Europe and beyond meet togeth­er to sup­port a local strug­gle (from gold min­ing in Roma­nia to open cast coal min­ing in Ger­many, for exam­ple). Peo­ple share share sto­ries and ideas about resis­tance and reclaim­ing our food sys­tem beyond nation­al bor­ders. This year, an inter­na­tion­al gath­er­ing will be held in the UK, in Dudle­ston, Shrop­shire, on the Welsh/English bor­der.

The aims of the camp are:

  • To sup­port local com­mu­ni­ties in the west and north west of Eng­land, and the north of Wales with their strug­gles against frack­ing
  • To increase par­tic­i­pa­tion in Reclaim the Fields
  • To demon­strate vis­i­ble, active oppo­si­tion to prison con­struc­tion
  • To sup­port Dudle­ston Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp build a gar­den and infra­struc­ture to become more self-reliant
  • To demon­strate the inter­con­nec­tion between these strug­gles
  • To inspire and rad­i­calise every­one involved

What’s taking place?

  • Two days of Action – Tues­day 1st & Wednes­day 2nd Sep­tem­ber – demon­stra­tions & actions against com­pa­nies involved in the con­struc­tion of the North Wales prison, as well as local frack­ing-relat­ed tar­gets.
  • Work­shops & Skill­shares – Over the bank hol­i­day week­end there will be abun­dant oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn, share, dis­cuss and con­nect with oth­er peo­ple.
  • Build­ing & Grow­ing on the site – Be part of installing gar­dens & low impact infra­struc­ture at the com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion camp. Learn about per­ma­cul­ture, agroe­col­o­gy, for­est gar­den­ing, mush­room grow­ing, pal­let con­struc­tion, com­post toi­let mak­ing, off-grid electrics and more.

Why this camp? Why now?

  • This camp has been organ­ised to sup­port the local com­mu­ni­ty in Dudle­ston to resist frack­ing in their area (as well as work­ing with oth­er local anti-frack­ing groups & pro­tec­tion camps in the North West who have been resist­ing extreme ener­gy devel­op­ments for a num­ber of years). To find out more about their strug­gle vis­it: http://frack-off.org.uk/blockade/dudleston-community-protection-camp/

Practical Information about the Camp

Click on the links below to find more prac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion about the camp and how to get involved:

Getting involved

This is a DIY camp and every­one is need­ed to get stuck in to make it hap­pen. Peo­ple are need­ed to:

  • Sup­port with pub­lic­i­ty before the event – shar­ing the gath­er­ing online, putting posters up, encour­ag­ing your local group to get involved. Peo­ple are also need­ed to help design the pro­gramme, respond to emails & plan facil­i­ta­tion.
  • Help­ing with site set up & build­ing infra­struc­ture (plan­ning this in advance & being on site a few days before the gath­er­ing)
  • Sign­ing up to a shift over the week­end to help with cook­ing, site set up & safe­ty, being on the wel­come tent & so forth
  • Sup­port­ing local groups to organ­ise actions

If you can help with any of these tasks please email info@reclaimthefields.noflag.org.uk

Who are Reclaim the Fields?

We are a group of peas­ants, land­less and prospec­tive peas­ants, as well as peo­ple who are tak­ing back con­trol over food pro­duc­tion.

We under­stand “peas­ants” as peo­ple who pro­duce food on a small scale, for them­selves or for the com­mu­ni­ty, pos­si­bly sell­ing a part of it. This also includes agri­cul­tur­al work­ers.

We sup­port and encour­age peo­ple to stay on the land and go back to the coun­try­side. We pro­mote food sov­er­eign­ty (as defined in the Nyéléni dec­la­ra­tion) and peas­ant agri­cul­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly among young peo­ple and urban dwellers, as well as alter­na­tive ways of life. In Europe, the con­cept ‘food sov­er­eign­ty’ is not very com­mon and could be clar­i­fied with ideas such as ‘food auton­o­my’ and con­trol over food sys­tems by inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ties, not only nations or states. We are deter­mined to cre­ate alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism through coop­er­a­tive, col­lec­tive, autonomous, real-needs-ori­ent­ed, small-scale pro­duc­tion and ini­tia­tives. We are putting the­o­ry into prac­tice and link­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles.

In order to achieve this, we par­tic­i­pate in local actions through activist groups and coop­er­ate with exist­ing ini­tia­tives. This is why we choose not to be a homo­ge­neous group, but to open up to the diver­si­ty of actors fight­ing the cap­i­tal­ist food pro­duc­tion mod­el. We address the issues of access to land, col­lec­tive farm­ing, seed rights and seed exchange. We strength­en the impact of our work through coop­er­a­tion with activists who focus on dif­fer­ent tasks but who share the same vision.

Nev­er­the­less, our open­ness has some lim­its. We are deter­mined to take back con­trol over our lives and refuse any form of author­i­tar­i­an­ism and hier­ar­chy. We respect nature and liv­ing beings, but will nei­ther accept nor tol­er­ate any form of dis­crim­i­na­tion, be it based on race, reli­gion, gen­der, nation­al­i­ty, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or social sta­tus. We refuse and will active­ly oppose every form of exploita­tion of oth­er peo­ple. With the same force and ener­gy, we act with kind­ness and con­vivi­al­i­ty, mak­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty a con­crete prac­tice of our dai­ly life.

We sup­port the strug­gles and visions of la Via Campesina, and work to strength­en them. We wish to share the knowl­edge and the expe­ri­ence from years of strug­gle and peas­ant life and enrich it with the per­spec­tives and strength of those of us who are not peas­ants, or not yet peas­ants. We all suf­fer the con­se­quences of the same poli­cies, and are all part of the same fight.

Read this in: French, Ger­man, Span­ish

 

Grow Heathrow — bailiffs resisted

At 10:00 this morn­ing the land own­er plus 5/6 bailiffs arrived to evict the res­i­dents of Grow Heathrow, threat­en­ing to break entry. Res­i­dents locked-on and climbed to high­er ground. The police arrived, explain­ing to the bailiffs they were woe­ful­ly unequipped to enforce an evic­tion. Indeed they were.

At 10:00 this morn­ing the land own­er plus 5/6 bailiffs arrived to evict the res­i­dents of Grow Heathrow, threat­en­ing to break entry. Res­i­dents locked-on and climbed to high­er ground. The police arrived, explain­ing to the bailiffs they were woe­ful­ly unequipped to enforce an evic­tion. Indeed they were.

This suc­cess has proved to be use­ful prac­tise for our call-out response, with many locals and indi­vid­u­als in the Grow Heathrow fam­i­ly arriv­ing this morn­ing.

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO CAME DOWN!

If you’d like to be added to the evic­tion call-out phone tree, email us at info@transitionheathrow.com with your phone num­ber, or text us on 07706602284.

HAYES CARNIVAL HERE WE COME!

Roundup of Actions Against Fossil Fuel Infrastructure in Vermont and NY (PHOTOS)

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July 7th, 2015

from Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont

* 150+ w/dozens occu­py­ing the tracks in Ticon­dero­ga to ‪#‎StopOil­Trains‬.
* Four arrest­ed blockad­ing VT fracked gas pipeline con­struc­tion.
* TWAC still locked down to CNG truck on way to IP mill.

Disrupting Vermont Gas Systems

from Burling­ton Free Press

About 30 pro­test­ers dis­rupt­ed work at a Ver­mont Gas Sys­tems con­struc­tion site in Willis­ton on Tues­day morn­ing.

Four pro­test­ers were arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion that they unlaw­ful­ly tres­passed to stop work at the con­struc­tion site, said Willis­ton police Chief Todd Shep­ard. Willis­ton police had giv­en pro­test­ers until 7 a.m. to move.

Ver­mont State Police, Essex police and South Burling­ton police were also on scene. Shep­ard said about 14 law enforce­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives had arrived by the end of the protest.

Thomas Buck­ley, 34, of West­ford and Martha Water­man, 25, of Char­lotte chained them­selves togeth­er across a ditch dig­ging machine. Avery Pittman, 25, of Burling­ton was lat­er also chained to Water­man.

Buck­ley, Water­man and Pittman were tak­en into cus­tody before 9 a.m. Grayson Flo­ry, 28, of Los Ange­les was also arrest­ed after refus­ing to leave the site at 310 Hur­ri­cane Lane.

All pro­test­ers arrest­ed were car­ried from the site by law enforce­ment, but they did not active­ly resist arrest oth­er­wise, Shep­ard said.

Each pro­test­er has been released from police cus­tody and issued a cita­tion to appear on Thurs­day in Ver­mont Supe­ri­or Court in Burling­ton, Shep­ard said.

Occupation of the Tracks


 

Flotilla

from Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont: More than a hun­dred peo­ple con­verged in Ticon­dero­ga, NY today for a flotil­la and sym­bol­ic block­ade to ‪#StopOil­Trains.

Yes­ter­day marked the sec­ond anniver­sary of the Lac-Megan­tic oil train dis­as­ter, in which a train car­ry­ing fracked oil explod­ed and lev­eled the small Que­bec town, killing 47 peo­ple.

In the so-called Cham­plain val­ley, tens of mil­lions of gal­lons of fracked oil are trans­port­ed annu­al­ly along the lake, and indus­try is mak­ing plans to start bring­ing tar sands through.

TWAC Throws Down

from Ris­ing Tide Ver­mont: “Our friends at the Trans and/or Women’s Action Camp (TWAC) also stopped a truck on its way to deliv­er com­pressed fracked nat­ur­al gas to Inter­na­tion­al Paper. One per­son has locked their body to the back of the truck pre­vent­ing it from mak­ing a deliv­ery. Fracked gas by truck is just as dirty and dan­ger­ous as fracked gas in a pipeline!”


 

(TWAC is a group of activists who iden­ti­fy as Trans*, Trans­gen­der, Gen­derqueer, and Gen­der non-con­form­ing as well as any­one who iden­ti­fies as a woman regard­less of whether they were assigned female at birth)

Released from Jail!!!

The four peo­ple who were arrest­ed this morn­ing block­ing the con­struc­tion of the fracked gas pipeline have all been released. Please share and donate to our legal fund to sup­port this fierce esca­la­tion of resis­tance against extreme ener­gy! Donate to our legal fund at: http://bit.ly/J7legal

Turkey: Environmentalists Block Road to Mining Company

A group of locals and envi­ron­men­tal­ist activists blocked the road to an untouched forest­ed area in the Black Sea province of Artvin to pre­vent the activ­i­ties of a min­ing firm.

Activists and locals guard the moun­tain­ous forests of Artvin in sep­a­rate loca­tions to pre­vent Forestry Min­istry offi­cials from enter­ing the area.

Artvin Forestry Min­istry offi­cials, how­ev­er, aim to enter the area in order to make cal­cu­la­tions to com­plete the pro­ce­dures for the firm to start its work in the area. Min­istry offi­cials attempt­ed to enter the area from a dif­fer­ent path, after their pre­vi­ous attempt was stopped by the activists’ road block.

Local activists, who orga­nized them­selves via social media in a short time, gath­ered in the Cer­at­te­pe neigh­bor­hood, which is locat­ed at an alti­tude of 1,800 meters. They moved trees cut by the forestry offi­cials to the road and blocked traf­fic, stop­ping the entry of the offi­cials. They have tak­en pic­tures with the tree bar­ri­cades they have made and shared them via social media. The group called itself “300 Cer­at­te­peli” in ref­er­ence to the leg­end of 300 Spar­tans who stood their ground against the Per­sians, immor­tal­ized in the movie “300.” They are deter­mined at all costs to block any pos­si­ble con­struc­tion and min­ing work in the area. 

Green Artvin Association’s head Nur Neşe Kara­han said they had to walk the whole way to the forest­ed area, as it was blocked in sev­er­al loca­tions. “The road was blocked due to a col­lapse in the tun­nel. We had to walk 3 kilo­me­ters around it. We came across with the firm’s vehi­cle, as they are not using the well-known road any­more. They said offi­cials from the firm will come here and we are deter­mined to wait here to talk to them,” said Kara­han.

Hakan Akın, a shop keep­er in Artvin, said it is a promis­ing devel­op­ment for him to see many peo­ple could gath­er in the area min­utes after they heard rumors the firm would start work there.

“The experts said this area is not suit­able for min­ing. We are locals here. We already told them that it is not pos­si­ble for them to oper­ate here. This place is our green, this is where we live. We have giv­en enough to the dams; we will no longer allow any more con­struc­tion,” said Akın, among the group.

Hasan Yük­sel, a mem­ber of Green Arvin Asso­ci­a­tion, said they will con­tin­ue to hold their posts on mul­ti­ple roads in the Cer­at­te­pe neigh­bor­hood to pre­vent the entry of min­ing firms.

“They are wrong if they think we will give up.  They will come across an Artvin local on every cor­ner of these trees when­ev­er they come here,” said Yük­sel.

Main oppo­si­tion Repub­li­can People’s Par­ty (CHP) provin­cial branch head Ali Yücel Kurt also held a meet­ing in the area. He claimed that some peo­ple are also burn­ing the vehi­cles in order to pro­voke locals by blam­ing the locals for the arson. “We com­plete­ly deny such claims,” said Kurt.

Armed attack on Ilisu construction workers – Dam construction halted

Fol­low­ing a series of events includ­ing dis­mals, an armed assault, injuries and arson, work­ers have left the Ilisu Dam and Hydro­elec­tric Pow­er Plant con­struc­tion site, thus bring­ing work to a halt. These events show how dan­ger­ous, risky and destruc­tive a project we are con­fronting.

On 19 June (Fri­day), 5 work­ers were dis­missed from work by the Malami­ra com­pa­ny. Malami­ra (based in Ankara with roots in Diyarbakır) employs most of the work­ers at the con­struc­tion site. It replaced oth­er com­pa­nies at the Ilı­su Project when con­struc­tion resumed in Decem­ber 2014 at Ilı­su vil­lage in Dargeçit dis­trict in Mardin province. While meet­ing with Mala Mira Com­pa­ny man­agers on behalf of the dis­missed work­ers and to present demands for union­iza­tion, work­ers were fired upon by the body­guards of the employ­ers and the project direc­tor. The injured work­ers (Ali İnan, 27; Ömer Ekin­ci, 26; and Ömer Erol, 19) are still receiv­ing treat­ment hos­pi­tals.

In response to this, oth­er work­ers and rel­a­tives of the injured – some of whom live in vil­lages close to the Ilı­su Dam – pro­ceed­ed to the scene. Pro­test­ers set fire to offices, heavy equip­ment and vehi­cles belong­ing to the com­pa­ny. As the protest grew, a large num­ber of armored vehi­cles, spe­cial forces, riot police, water canons and sol­diers were dis­patched to the Ilı­su Dam con­struc­tion site.

Because of these events, approx­i­mate­ly 1000 work­ers did not work and returned to their places of res­i­dence with their lug­gage. Thus con­struc­tion work at the Ilisu Dam has been halt­ed.

In and of itself, the halt­ing of the Ilisu Project, which rep­re­sents a huge social, cul­tur­al and eco­log­i­cal cat­a­stro­phe for a greater region, is a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment. How­ev­er, the events wit­nessed over the past three days show how prob­lem­at­ic the Ilisu Project is for region­al peace and tran­quil­i­ty.

The Ilisu Project was halt­ed in the sum­mer of 2014 fol­low­ing the inter­ven­tion of PKK (HPG) guer­ril­las, and con­struc­tion began again with the engage­ment of Malami­ra com­pa­ny in Decem­ber 2014. Malamira’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Ilı­su con­sor­tium despite the ongo­ing high poten­tial for local con­flicts, shows that in pur­suit of prof­it this com­pa­ny did not take into con­sid­er­a­tion the social, eco­log­i­cal and polit­i­cal risks of the project.

Not only those who fired weapons, but the com­pa­ny man­agers be held account­able for this armed attack.

The Ilisu Project, which is a sym­bol of unfair­ness, injus­tice and social-cul­tur­al destruc­tion, must halt­ed as soon as pos­si­ble and debat­ed thor­ough­ly.

Note: You may use attached pho­tographs by acknowl­edg­ing that they were tak­en by DIHA (Dicle Haber Ajan­si /Tigris News Agency)

 Ini­tia­tive to Keep Hasankeyf Alive (www.hasankeyfgirisimi.net)

Mexico: Explosive Attack Against Ministry of Agrarian Territorial and Urban Development

from Insur­rec­tion News / Con­tra Info

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT…

Black June. On June 6 at about 3AM we suc­cess­ful­ly det­o­nat­ed  an explo­sive device made of dyna­mite that was placed inside the offices of SEDATU (Min­istry of Agrar­i­an Ter­ri­to­r­i­al and Urban Devel­op­ment) locat­ed on Rev­o­lu­tion Avenue near the cor­ner of Rio Mix­coac in Mex­i­co City, Mex­i­co. The det­o­na­tion destroyed the glass front of the build­ing.

In Mex­i­co, this sec­re­tari­at – using dif­fer­ent names – has been respon­si­ble for putting an offi­cial stamp on the turn­ing of nature and the earth into com­modi­ties and of nor­mal­iz­ing the dis­pos­ses­sion and vio­lence that the state uses in it’s accu­mu­la­tion of cap­i­tal.

We are a group of insur­rec­tionary anar­chist fem­i­nist witch­es who have gath­ered in a cell of affin­i­ty. Our group was born on August 25 2014 when we det­o­nat­ed an explo­sive device in a PAN (Nation­al Action Par­ty) office in the Mex­i­co City and placed anoth­er device in the Lore­to church in the his­toric cen­ter of the same city.

June is a month of thir­ty days…

We also denounce the vile way in which the mass media hides the news of the attacks and the resis­tance.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the impris­oned com­rades in Chile, Italy, Greece and Spain. We are with you com­rades.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­rades Mario López and Car­los López. We are with you com­rades.

NO VOTES. KILL THEM ALL

Mex­i­co City, June 7, 2015

Lupe la cameli­na
Por la célu­la de difusión del
Coman­do fem­i­nista infor­mal de acción anti­au­tori­taria (Infor­mal Fem­i­nist Com­man­do Of Anti-author­i­tar­i­an Action) 
(COFIAA)

(via con­tra info, trans­lat­ed by Insur­rec­tion News)

Milan (Italy): Incendiary Sabotage Against high-speed TAV trains

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from cettesemaine.info /trans­lat­ed Act for free­dom now!

The night of May 25 to 26, the offices of Italferr(Italian nation­al rail­ways) locat­ed in Via Tor­cel­lo, close to the goods sta­tion of Gre­co Pirelli, were delib­er­ate­ly set on fire. This com­pa­ny is the engi­neer­ing branch that deals with research and devel­op­ment for the Ital­ian nation­al rail­way com­pa­ny, and is par­tic­u­lar­ly involved in stud­ies for the devel­op­ment of the high speed rail (TAV) between Turin and Pad­ua.

Accord­ing to recon­struc­tions of the cops, the fire was start­ed by pour­ing inflam­ma­ble liq­uid through a pre­vi­ous­ly bro­ken win­dow, then light­ing it with a smoke bomb. With­in min­utes, the fire had devoured the fur­ni­ture, com­put­ers and all the paper­work piled there by hard­work­ing engi­neers. Fire­fight­ers who inter­vened around 3:45 am took almost two hours to extin­guish the fire.

Germany: Giant Coal Excavator Occupied 145315

from Ham­bach For­est and here (Ger­man Lan­guage link)

June 6th, 2015
(The occu­pa­tion is ongo­ing)
Last night at 1 am, four activists occu­pied a large buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the Inden open­cast mine. They climbed to the top of the exca­va­tor about 70m high. The machine halt­ed is one of the largest machines in the world that nor­mal­ly destroys 24/7, lit­er­al­ly churn­ing the land­scape. In Inden lig­nite is pro­mot­ed for RhenAish min­ing area above ground, that is: Every­thing is about being in the way and will be destroyed; who lives about is expro­pri­at­ed and expelled.  Where vil­lages, fields, mead­ows and woods once stood incon­ceiv­ably huge holes appear in the land­scape, an indus­tri­al waste­land to the hori­zon. Of all of the ener­gy sources, lig­nite, is ridicu­lous­ly inef­fi­cient, releas­ing huge loads of CO2 and par­tic­u­late emis­sions, and the con­ver­sion of pow­er sup­ply to renew­ables sab­o­taged with inflex­i­ble “base­load plants”.
The event is also a sol­i­dar­i­ty greet­ing from the resis­tance against the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area to the resis­tance against the meet­ing of the G7 in Elmau. There is a pre­sump­tion that this polit­i­cal elite of glob­alised cap­i­tal­ism wants to define the solu­tions to the prob­lems that they them­selves have cre­at­ed , The G7 did not even have the decen­cy to pre­tend to demo­c­ra­t­ic legit­i­ma­cy – they coor­di­nate as the oli­garchic gov­ern­ment of the world, sim­ply because they can. This meet­ing of glob­al pow­er elite has no oth­er aim than solid­i­fy­ing their dom­i­nance.
It remains in the sep­a­ra­tion between indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and those that may be exploit­ed as sources of raw mate­ri­als and for­eign mar­kets. The G7 bear most of the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the glob­al cli­mate col­lapse, but the con­se­quences are so far main­ly to oth­er parts of the world, and the cli­mate refugees left behind – which unfor­tu­nate­ly is ter­ri­bly often fatal by the inhu­mane bor­der poli­cies of the indus­tri­alised coun­tries. This meet­ing is noth­ing more than the most pow­er­ful crim­i­nal car­tel of the world – so stop  the G7!
“If four peo­ple can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours in such a gen­tle way …”
“… What might hap­pen if only a small part of all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of the soci­ety were pulled in the same direc­tion?” – From the Action State­ment
It was often said that it is when it comes to cli­mate pro­tec­tion, it is “11:55″, and that the world must act. But the world is not still, and some­one has to start some­where times. In the Rhen­ish lig­nite min­ing area was also often try­ing to stop through the legal and demo­c­ra­t­ic influ­ence on pol­i­tics, the dis­place­ment of peo­ple and the destruc­tion of the Ham­bach for­est. These expe­ri­ences have shown that the deci­sion-mak­ers from the social pow­er elites will always give pri­or­i­ty to prof­it inter­ests – as long as we give them the choice.
This block­ade is not a fur­ther appeal to the politi­cians, to final­ly use their pow­er for good, because we do not trust the pol­i­cy mak­ers any­way. The weapon­ry of the block­ade draws a clear bound­ary: thus far and no fur­ther – Respect exis­tence or expect resis­tance! This action is an appeal to all those who are ready to assume their respon­si­bil­i­ties: Desert­ing from this sys­tem of indus­tri­al destruc­tion, you defied him, the match­ing of forms of resis­tance against it – and then let it decompose.Together we will replace it with some­thing bet­ter! If four peo­ple in such a gen­tle way, can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours – what might hap­pen if only a small part of all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of this soci­ety pulls togeth­er? If we want to bequeath a hab­it­able plan­et, there must be a thor­ough change from below. This occu­pa­tion can only be the start.
Even a small reminder: For the begin­ning of August, the Alliance mobi­lizes “end area” to a mass block­ade of an open pit in Rhineland. Here should be made pos­si­ble to low thresh­old lev­el a broad mass of peo­ple, access to civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and resis­tance. In addi­tion, each of the four for­est occu­pa­tions in Ham­bach for­est clear­ance is con­stant­ly under threat, and also on the cur­rent­ly rel­a­tive­ly safe occu­pa­tion mead­ow near the for­est there are many points of con­tact for moti­vat­ed peo­ple …
Togeth­er we can make the cap­i­tal­ist lig­nite mad­ness put an end!
The hab­it­abil­i­ty of the plan­et is at stake, pre­cise­ly now.
So Let’s do it!
PRESS RELEASE
Buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the brown coal mine Inden occu­pied
Dis­trict of Düren. In the night from Fri­day to Sat­ur­day, a buck­et wheel exca­va­tor in the open-cast min­ing inden was occu­pied. Four peo­ple climbed at 1am to the top of the engine at an alti­tude of about 70m. One aim of the cam­paign is to bring the progress of the mine for a few hours to a halt. Sec­ond­ly, the occu­piers explain in their action state­ment sol­i­dar­i­ty with the protests in Elmau against the meet­ing of the G7.
“For the three lig­nite mines in the Rhineland are entire vil­lages and forests per­ma­nent­ly destroyed for­ev­er,” says one par­tic­i­pant action. “We have a respon­si­bil­i­ty for future gen­er­a­tions. Sim­ply ask to politi­cians, and then com­plain that there is no change, is not enough. “As ear­ly as on 15 March, there had been in a sim­i­lar Inden open­cast mine exca­va­tors occu­pa­tion by six peo­ple, inter­rupt­ed in the course of the oper­a­tion of the exca­va­tor for twelve hours.
Today’s block­ade will also release a sign of protest against the meet­ing of the lead­ers of the sev­en largest indus­tri­al nations in Elmau. “There is a pre­sump­tion that this polit­i­cal elite of glob­alised cap­i­tal­ism wants to define the solu­tions to the prob­lems that they them­selves have cre­at­ed,” it says in the action state­ment. “If we want to bequeath a hab­it­able plan­et, there must be a thor­ough change from below. This occu­pa­tion can this be just an impulse. ”
The action is still ongo­ing.
They can be reached under the num­ber 0157 32 48 23 40 and are O‑tones are avail­able. (In regard to the cell phone bat­tery but only to a lim­it­ed extent.) You can also reach activists, the direct con­tact with the exca­va­tors occu­pa­tion hold, on the mead­ow occu­pa­tion under 0157 541 36 100th
16:30 rest. Exca­va­tors eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.
Peo­ple from the area are wel­come to come to the open pit edge.
“It is pos­si­ble to get pret­ty close here.”, Said grade with an activist by tele­phone, who grew up in the vicin­i­ty of the open pit. “From the vil­lage Schophoven there are only a few dirt roads until man stands in front of our exca­va­tors.”
Exca­va­tor in 70m height
14:15 A fire truck arrived.
Some peo­ple climb fur­ther down the exca­va­tor around and to get an idea of ​​the sit­u­a­tion. The police can not see them.
Morn­ing
13:00 twelve hours are man­aged.
The machine stands still; “We are now the only ones here on the exca­va­tor!”
Morn­ing
12:00 loca­tion qui­et. Clothes dry again
Still no police. The clothes are now again most­ly dry. “We hav­ing quite cozy here. Ear­li­er a dog-walk­er wave­dat us. “
Morn­ing
7:00 No more police
The day dawns. Anoth­er pho­to in bright­ness reach us via MMS.
Still no police. Only an ambu­lance is around.
3:00 Police sniffs
Less than 10 Polizist_innen appear, climb up a piece and try to com­mu­ni­cate.
“We’re fine!”, The activists call back.
After some time, the police dis­ap­pear
If four peo­ple can par­a­lyze a giant exca­va­tor for sev­er­al hours in such a gen­tle way … … what might hap­pen if only a small part of pulling all the frus­trat­ed peo­ple of the soci­ety in the same direc­tion? – From the Action State­ment
Staffed 1:00 exca­va­tor
Peo­ple arrive at the open pit and climb the buck­et wheel.
Some were lying down in the ear­ly evening with blan­kets in the woods and a lit­tle pre-sleep.
Now they are drenched by thun­der­storms and full of oil from the exca­va­tors to 70m height and try to curl up under a tarp.

Peterborough Squatters Autonomy Updates

Peter­bor­ough Squat­ters Auton­o­my (PSA) is a Peter­bor­ough Col­lec­tive of Squat­ter & Activists work­ing to com­bat the state and high­light home­less in the city.

Here are some recent updates:

June 6:

Peter­bor­ough squat­ters auton­o­my are still occu­py­ing with­in the city at an unknown loca­tion, the crew are just hav­ing a rest for a few days after a stress­ful day yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the unlaw­ful evic­tion. PSA will con­tin­ue the fight against this unjust sys­tem and pro­vide shel­ter and safe­ty for home­less and vul­ner­a­ble of the city that the coun­cil and social ser­vices don’t care about.

Keep a look out for a ban­ner drop com­ing soon in the city, Peter­bor­ough squat­ters auton­o­my is here to stay until real change is made by this sys­tem. We aint going nowhere as promised we are here to stay.

June 5:

Hired thugs yes­ter­day vio­lent­ly evict­ed peace­ful occu­piers who are most­ly home­less and have nowhere else to go and no court signed war­rant was pre­sent­ed. The thugs broke in and assault­ed the peace­ful occu­piers min­utes after the coun­ty court grant­ed a IPO to the own­ers of the build­ing even though the law­ful own­ers are not based in this coun­try and hide behind a tri­al of deceit and tax dodge weird­ness.

June 4:

We are going to be in Peter­bor­ough court tomor­row fight­ing to keep this build­ing our home and for­mer job cen­tre that has been vacant since it was sold over ten years ago. We have been shel­ter­ing the home­less and vul­ner­a­ble and we have pre­vent­ed a ter­ri­ble tragedy when we helped a man through his seizures this week.

We are mak­ing head­way here for these guys and we real­ly need your sup­port.

Peace and love

 

Wrong Decision — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspector

On Wednes­day (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal’s appli­ca­tion to mine 520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site is cur­rent­ly agri­cul­tur­al land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a high­ly con­test­ed site with real­ly strong and well orches­trat­ed oppo­si­tion from local peo­ple. Why is this a bad deci­sion? … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Wrong Deci­sion — Bradley Mine Approved by Inspec­tor”

On Wednesday (3/6/15) it was announced that UK Coal's application to mine
520,561 tonnes of coal from a site called Bradley, was approved. The site
is currently agricultural land in Leadgate, Durham, UK. This is a highly
contested site with really strong and well orchestrated opposition from
local people.


Why is this a bad decision?



* The community were so very clear that there was NO COMMUNITY CONSENT
* One woman (the planning inspector) thinks she can decide whether a mine
would offer 'national, local or community benefits which would clearly
outweigh the remaining adverse impacts.' How can she possibly say yes when
the community SAYS NO.
* We are moving away from a reliance on coal (but not quickly enough) with
two coal fired power stations announcing closures next year
* The company pursuing the application will not directly operate the site
as they have serious financial difficulties and had to be helped by the
government in closing their last remaining deep mines and were order to
sell off their remaining opencast mines



As the following history of the application shows, the coal company
refused to take no for an answer being determined to sell on the mine with
planning permission. This is not the end of the battle. We need you to
think about what you are going to do to ensure that this piece of rural
Britain is never dug up. We need to stand together to protect the
livelihoods, families, local history, quality of life, homes, air quality,
tranquillity, health, wildlife and ecosystems in this area. Even if the
legal battle is over the fight is not. Get in touch with your suggestions
info@coalaction.org.uk



History of the application.



UK Coal’s first application was rejected by planners in 1986. In 2001 a
second application was rejected.



In February 2011 the planning hearing of Durham Council unanimously
rejected the application, councillors called UK Coal "thugs," "vandals"
and said they were trying to bribe them.



In Autumn 2011 there was a three week appeal which UK Coal lost.



The coal company took this to the High Court in London who said that the
decision was perverse and ordered another appeal.



The second appeal happened in Autumn 2014 and lasted three weeks. It was
well attended by local people, tens of whom spoke out against the mine
with incredible passion, dedication and knowledge.
From the team at The Coal Action Network

For more info on sim­i­lar issues check out 

http://www.coalaction.org.uk 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Coal-Action-Network/429163990497895