Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Hambach Forest: Day 3 of Eviction

Today is the third day of the evic­tion at the Ham­bach For­est, which is occu­pied against the biggest cli­mate killer in Europe, the Rhen­ish brown coal-min­ing dis­trict (Rheinis­ches Braunkohlere­vi­er).

Today is the third day of the evic­tion at the Ham­bach For­est, which is occu­pied against the biggest cli­mate killer in Europe, the Rhen­ish brown coal-min­ing dis­trict (Rheinis­ches Braunkohlere­vi­er).

After three days of evic­tion one activist is left, who’s inside a tun­nel sys­tem under the ground. As this is the first tun­nel block­ade action Police don’t have a clue how to han­dle this. They ordered dif­fer­ent tech­ni­cal teams, who also did­n’t have an idea.

Now police want to dig down from the top, which is high­ly dan­ger­ous. They have been told that there is an evic­tion team with­in UK police who know how to evict a tun­nel-sys­tem.

Resis­tance will not be over after this evic­tion. The for­est is not lost yet to be res­cued. Every­body is wel­come to help. Next sum­mer there will be anoth­er cli­mate camp in the area, and a Europe wide Reclaim the fields camp in this region…

Day 2 of eviction Hambach Forest / tunnel-system

 

 

At the sec­ond day of evic­tion the cops evict­ed every­body from the trees. On the evening of the first day they evict­ed every­body in con­crete-lock-ons. Now there’s one activist in a block­ade-tun­nel. And police don’t have any idea how to evict that. So it still could still take a few days. Police that went down just said: “there’s a huge tun­nel-sys­tem, we don’t know wich direc­tion we have to go”

The occu­pa­tion of the for­est is against a coal open-cast-mine, that is togeth­er with two more sites, the biggest pro­duc­er of CO2 in Europe. The dust from the pit is radioac­tive.

Police said, that there were hun­dred crimes count­ed from the occu­pa­tion, but don’t have proof of any of them. There have been a lot of sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in lot of citys against the evic­tion of the for­est.
The for­est is one of the old­est in Mid­dle-Europe. There’s a type of bat, that will not exi­ct any­more any­where after the for­est is  cleared. They will com­plet­lyey clear the for­est in the next 5 to 10 years.

Next sum­mer there will be the europe wide “reclaim the field” camp in the region and the ger­man-wide cli­mate-camp. But also before this there will be more activ­i­ties. So come over and help fight RWE, the enery-giant, if you can. N‑Power is part of RWE. Would be also cool to vis­it them.

Eviction of the Hambach Forest (Germany)

The evic­tion of the squat­ted ham­bach For­est begun this morn­ing. The for­est which is in the rheinisch brown­coal region (close to col­logne) has been squat­ted since April to stop the defor­esta­tion. RWE is cut­ting the trees to expand the largest open cast mine in europe where they extract brown coal.The rhein­ish Brown Coal area is the largest CO2 source in europe.

Sev­er­al hun­dred police forces are in the area and activists are locked-on in the trees and on the ground. They cut the walk­ways to stop the police from enter­ing the tree hous­es. The police removed an occu­pied tri­pod on the road to the squat and they have a spe­cial force for tree climb­ing in the for­est. A few activists on the ground already been arrest­ed and the main bridge to the for­est is closed. In many cities around ger­many there will be sol­i­dar­i­ty actions today. Organ­ise oth­er action in your city to sup­port the resis­tance against brown coal and for the ham­bach for­est. Look out for offices of RWE or sub­sidary com­pa­nys.

Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Yet Another Forest Eviction

We live in the Rohanne For­est. Over the last two years the many peo­ple who lived and passed by here built sev­en high tree hous­es and a beau­ti­ful three storey col­lec­tive house. On Thurs­day 19th Octo­ber the police came with bull­doz­ers and destroyed and removed the house.

We live in the Rohanne For­est. Over the last two years the many peo­ple who lived and passed by here built sev­en high tree hous­es and a beau­ti­ful three storey col­lec­tive house. On Thurs­day 19th Octo­ber the police came with bull­doz­ers and destroyed and removed the house.

Start­ing the next day, and with lots of moti­vat­ed helpers, we built a new kitchen six metres up in the trees, and a new com­mu­nal sleep­ing area a bit high­er. On Tues­day 30th Octo­ber and Wednes­day 31st Octo­ber they returned with bull­doz­ers and cher­ry pick­ers to destroy the two new­ly fin­ished cab­ins, plus all of the sev­en high tree hous­es.

Dur­ing the week­end we built a quick tem­po­rary shel­ter on the ground with palettes and tarps so we could sleep there while we rebuilt tree hous­es. It was basi­cal­ly a few mat­tress­es on palettes, with beams lashed in the trees and cov­ered with tarps.

Ear­ly in the morn­ing on Mon­day 5th Novem­ber around twen­ty vans of police blocked the roads around the Rohanne For­est. They entered on foot, and at half eight in the morn­ing six sleep­ing peo­ple were sur­round­ed by about thir­ty cops with shields, full riot gear and loud walkie-talkies, and shout­ed at to take what they could car­ry and get out of the for­est. The cops start­ed tak­ing the shel­ter apart and cut­ting the tarps into small pieces while we were still inside. After forc­ing us out­side and push­ing us to the ground they slashed the mat­tress­es and pulled every­thing apart, includ­ing cut­ting the polyprop into lit­tle tiny bits so it couldn’t be used again. If I didn’t know bet­ter I’d say we’re real­ly start­ing to piss them off.

They tipped a first aid kit out onto the wet mud­dy for­est floor and stamped on it, and did the same with a box of mues­li and the whole con­tents of the bike pan­niers. They destroyed the two bikes despite our hand on heart promise from the head of oper­a­tions that we could keep our bikes and they wouldn’t be touched. They pushed us, threat­ened us and forced us out of the for­est. They tried to march us through a huge pud­dle near the entrance which we know to be knee-deep, but we sug­gest­ed they instead fol­low us along the path which they did.

All the male bod­ied peo­ple were searched by the cops, and one had an iden­ti­ty card with them. The oth­er two were tak­en to the police sta­tion for an iden­ti­ty con­trol. The three female bod­ied peo­ple were asked to wait for a female cop to search them. And wait. And wait. And wait. It seems that there are not so many female bod­ied cops around and after about an hour they just asked for our names and places of birth. When they had no joy extract­ing per­son­al infor­ma­tion there was a small cop hud­dle, after which they came and told us we could just go. Why? We were told they’re sick of us, and that they didn’t want to waste time in the police sta­tion, again, if we weren’t going to give our names, again.

It was a pret­ty unpleas­ant way to wake up, all told, and it is get­ting slight­ly tedious hav­ing our hous­es destroyed every week. Hav­ing had some time to reflect though, I can’t help but see a fun­ny side to all this. When we asked why we were being tak­en the police told us it was ille­gal to free camp in the for­est. So around two hun­dred riot police sur­round­ed the for­est and spent almost an entire day scour­ing through every inch of it just to find six free campers. Twen­ty vans full of high­ly equipped cops just to take down a few beams and tarps put up in a week­end. We might have had enough of cops but it’s clear that we are annoy­ing the shit out of them. To the next for­est cab­in!

Notre-Dame-des-Landes (France): Operation Obelix, a menhir in your face, Ayrault!

Sto­ry of the assaults and loot­ing of the ZAD — Europe’s biggest anti-air­port protest camp by the forces of cap­i­tal­ist destruc­tion. Writ­ten thanks to the tes­ti­mo­ny of many friends.

*Le Sabot* —  Tues­day,

Sto­ry of the assaults and loot­ing of the ZAD — Europe’s biggest anti-air­port protest camp by the forces of cap­i­tal­ist destruc­tion. Writ­ten thanks to the tes­ti­mo­ny of many friends.

*Le Sabot* —  Tues­day,

We woke up at 5:00am and had cof­fee togeth­er. The cops showed up by the Paque­lais road around 7:00am at day­break. We got the info that the cops had attacked the south bar­ri­cade. They moved with­out the usu­al three warn­ings, they spent thir­ty sec­onds at the burn­ing bar­ri­cade before get­ting some paint-eggs in their faces. They secured the whole road from the Far Ouezt to Sabot. Clash­es occured at the first bar­ri­cades of the Sabot. Cops man­aged to bypass the bar­ri­cades through the fields and make us move back by copi­ous­ly spray­ing tear gas in our faces. Six­ty of us charged the cops. An exchange of var­i­ous colour­ful pro­jec­tiles and col­or­ful shots against their tear gas. Cops and offi­cials are forced to retreat, suf­fo­cat­ed by their own tear gas, those big ass­holes. We spend all the after­noon in a tense face off. In the after­noon, the cops man­age to secure the Sabot. Any resis­tance becomes impos­si­ble. The Zadists can no longer defend them­self once the bull­doz­er has destroyed all the bar­ri­cades and opened a trench along the Paque­lais road.

Thir­ty peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the strug­gle sit in front of the gap­ing hole left on the road, pre­vent­ing the bull­doz­er to enter the com­mu­ni­ty gar­den. The pigs take a lot of shit. Their eyes, with­out a shred of human­i­ty and gray mat­ter, remain unmoved despite the relent­less jokes that from all sides. The night cops and the Depart­men­tal Direc­torate of Equip­ment col­lab­o­ra­tors who are work­ing with them go away booed.

Wednes­day

A small gath­er­ing in the Sabot fol­lowed by break­fast. The day before, Caesar’s legions destroyed all the bar­ri­cades and pro­jec­tiles (5 bar­ri­cades smashed the shov­el, paint-eggs, rot­ten veg­eta­bles, bot­tles of paint, stones, shield to pro­tect from tear gas and rack­ets to throw it back to the pigs). In the ear­ly-morn­ing, only one bar­ri­cade pro­tects us from the cops, built in the night by new­ly arrived com­rades, farm­ers and sup­port­ers that came on the spot. Cops sur­prise us by very quick­ly spread­ing out in the field. They keep their posi­tion thir­ty meters from us. The cops shoot us with tear gas from behind then gas the road of the Sabot where we are. It quick­ly becomes impos­si­ble to stay there, the atmos­phere is unbreath­able and we are a bit help­less in front of the robo­cops. We move back they advance, gas mask on the snout, and they quick­ly enter and block off the Sabot (west side). The cops also take the East side of Bel­ish­root bar­ri­cades, bar­ri­cades of Pimky (north) and con­tain peo­ple at the Far West (south). Speed con­fronta­tion, which leaves us with a bad taste of pow­er­less­ness. Dif­fer­ent groups are try­ing to focus on the machin­ery to slow down their work, but the con­voy is well pro­tect­ed, foot patrols, escorts and all the trim­mings. Result of the day of destruc­tion: the com­mon house of the Sabot is down, the col­lec­tive gar­den is dev­as­tat­ed, home of the Cent Chênes (for­mer bak­ery from ZAD, bread is excel­lent, thank you) is also destroyed. Three oth­er hous­es we built on the Sabot zone are also down the ground. Cop climbers tack­le the tree­hous­es.

*Rohanne **For­est *

Tues­day, around 3:00pm, cops charge Rohanne for­est with the aim to destroy the huts in the trees. Cops make use of many rub­ber bul­lets. The bas­tards aim for the head. A friend tes­ti­fies that he took a flash­ball shot in the neck. Sev­er­al friends were injured by shrap­nel of con­cus­sion grenades. Oth­ers are wound­ed by rub­ber bul­lets.

On Wednes­day morn­ing, the police sur­round­ed the for­est and secured every­thing. Police trained for moun­tain res­cue begin to fetch activists still perched in the trees to pro­tect the huts. A cher­ry pick­er destroyed a hut under heavy pro­tec­tion of the cops.

The cops destroyed sev­er­al huts with cher­ry pick­ers dur­ing the day. The zadists on the spot remain pow­er­less in front of insur­mount­able repres­sion.

*Bar­ri­cades north and south on the Vigneux **road *

Tues­day morn­ing, 7:30am, the cops take the cen­tral bar­ri­cade run­ning through the Suez road. Some of the activists go back to the south bar­ri­cade and end up in the fields of the right to pass through the Rohanne for­est and defend the north bar­ri­cade block­ing the road that leads to the Vache Rit. At the inter­sec­tion of the Fos­s­es-Noires and Vigneux road a bat­tuca­da enters the cow field in front of the Saulce. Bull­doz­ers and trucks full of rub­ble come and go and begin their death bal­let. The house will final­ly be razed to the ground, the tree hous­es destroyed and also all the build­ings on the ground. Cops that pro­tect bull­doz­ers and trucks receive paint-eggs. The cops, already ridicu­lous, are the laugh­ing stock of the peo­ple there. Fierce Zadists resist on the north bar­ri­cade all day long. The cops sprayed the activists on site with tear gas and con­cus­sion grenades. The bar­ri­cade with­stands the onslaught of hel­met­ed fren­zy until 5:00pm.

*Pimky Road*

The cops were in front of the Pimky on Tues­day after­noon. The demo which start­ed from Notre Dame at 10:00am is just on the left side after the Fos­s­es-Noires road. Many zadists and sup­port­ers make a human chain to pre­vent cops from access­ing to the road to the cab­in. The next morn­ing, two friends hid­den in the bush­es for an hour and a half hear the cops make bad jokes. These brain­washed idiots fin­ished by tak­ing apart the four tents on site in the midst of filthy laughs.

*Search at the Secherie*

Wednes­day after­noon, sev­er­al police vans sur­round­ed the Secherie mak­ing it impos­si­ble for inhab­i­tants to enter or exit. Two offi­cers of the Judi­cial Police are look­ing for a trans­mit­ter, cer­tain­ly annoyed by the con­tin­u­ous emis­sion of Radio Klax­on mak­ing the social­ist state, cops and Vin­ci look ridicu­lous for the past two weeks. After an unsuc­cess­ful search of two long hours, the whole ridicu­lous troop go back, tails between their legs, hands emp­ty. A bull­doz­er pulls up a tree on the site of the for­mer house of the Coin, under heavy police escort along the the Fos­s­es-Noires road. Our com­rades has­sle the pigs until they leave.

Thurs­day

The cops block the round­about of Ardil­lères and Paque­lais and search all vehi­cles. It seems that we expect a new wave of repres­sion tomor­row “par Tou­tatis” !

AND for more … Obelix oper­a­tion is launched !

The strug­gle will con­tin­ue until the total defeat of the ene­my forces and the with­draw­al of social­ist occu­pa­tion army from the ZAD.

In the end, Vin­ci and the Left Gov­ern­ment must not mis­un­der­stand ! The fact that near­ly all of our liv­ing places are destroyed will not make us renounce. Quite the oppo­site. We will rebuild on the ruins that Caesar’s legions have left. We will now be more mobile and reac­tive to future attacks of the French state, of Vin­ci and its sub­sidiary AGO.

The State lies ! The ZAD is absolute­ly not evac­u­at­ed ! We are all there and ready for any­thing ! This place will not be con­cret­ed !

Oper­a­tion Obelix : A men­hir in your face, Ayrault ! Vin­ci, out of our lives!

Hambach Forest anti-open cast camp prepares for eviction (Germany)

The Ham­bach For­est has been occu­pied for half an year now. The for­est will get cleared to make way for the coal-open-cast-mine “Ham­bach­er Tage­bau”. This is togeth­er with two more open-cast-mines in the region and the pow­er plants that burns the coal, europes biggest pro­duc­er of CO2. They have already start­ed to cut the for­est, and the evic­tion of the camp can hap­pen any day. So read this anti-evic­tion-guide and see what you can do!

 

Before the evic­tion

The clear­ing of the Ham­bach­er For­est hast already start­ed. The for­est is evic­tion threat. If you have time, it makes sense to come to the for­est and sup­port the activists local­ly in the pro­tec­tion of the for­est
Think about whether you and your group can spend a cou­ple of days in the for­est to sup­port the Hambach180 cam­paign. If you know when you come write an email to  hambacherforst@riseup.net You find the the fly­er of the cam­paign here
Use the Ushahi­di-Apps (Android/iPhone) for our Stop-RWE-Crowdmap, to keep you up to date and report of sol­i­dar­i­ty actions or the evic­tion of the spot!
Send your mobile phone num­ber to  hambacherforst@riseup.net to get on the sms evic­tion list. In case of exi­c­tion you will be informed direct­ly.
Pre­pare before­hand when and where you want to do sol­idary actions. Seek out places of RWE in you region, as on this map, which is still upgrad­ed piece by piece. Make a research by your­self!
Draw a ban­ner before­hand. Here are some items you can use on the ban­ner: Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt
There is a design for fly­ers you can spread on a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion: Demo-Infofly­er_Rück­seite

Maybe you make it to orga­nize an infor­ma­tion ses­sion in the short term. There is an ODP pre­sen­ta­tion Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt.odp or as PDF: Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt.pdf Here are some videos
At the end of the week there is most like­ly print­ed stick­ers and posters. There is a b/w mas­ter copy: Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt
Dis­trib­ute stick­ers and posters in your city!

Sol­i­dar­i­ty actions

Fol­low­ing is a list of planned sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on Day X:

Berlin:

14 clock, ral­ly in front of the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Cen­tre Berlin (S+U Friedrich­straße)
19 clock, spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion, meet­ing place in front of the church at Lausitzer Platz (U
Gör­l­itzer Bahn­hof)
Ham­burg:

17 clock, spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion in front of Café Knall­hart on Uni­ver­si­ty Cam­pus (Van Melle Park 9)
Cologne:

14 clock, cen­tral of RWE Pow­er AG, Stüttgen­weg 2, 50935 Cologne
Essen:

18 clock, Front-exit Cen­tral sta­tion Essen

more to fol­low! Orga­nize your­selves and inform us about it:  info@ausgeco2hlt.de

Dur­ing the evic­tion

Think about whether you can come as fast as pos­si­ble in the for­est. Find out about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion:  http://hambacherforst.blogsport.de,  https://stopprwe.crowdmap.com or phone: 01577–5440595
If you can‘t come into the for­est or the dis­tance is too large decen­tral­izes sol­i­dar­i­ty actions are impor­tant. Now it’s time for your pre­pared actions. Take pic­tures and write arti­cles on  http://de.indymedia.org,  http://linksunten.indymedia.org and  https://stopprwe.crowdmap.com , and send them to aus­ge­co2hlt-press coor­di­na­tion:  presse@ausgeco2hlt.de
If you use Twit­ter to report use the hash­tag #hfb
If you have rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion on the evic­tion dur­ing the evic­tion, such as Police clo­sures, spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tions etc, post them on  https://stopptrwe.crowdmap.com

After a sol­i­dar­i­ty action try as fast as pos­si­ble to come in the for­est or get informed what makes sense

In gen­er­al

In case you still get your pow­er from RWE or its sub­sidiaries: pow­er switch see i.e.  http://www.atomausstieg-selber-machen.de/
Orga­nize local events.
Estab­lish a local group which work on the top­ic coal, a decen­tral­ized, eco­log­i­cal and social ener­gy tran­si­tion or cli­mate jus­tice
Come to our meet­ings, see  http://ausgeco2hlt.de
Vis­it the Ham­bach­er Forst, i.e. with your polit­i­cal group
Orga­nize sol­i­dar­i­ty par­ties to raise mon­ey for anti-repres­sion costs. ausgeco2hlt will soon like­ly estab­lish a flow-bor­der legal sup­port fund for cli­mate jus­tice activists.
Donate to the for­est, the WAA or ausgeCO2hlt, or ask wealthy peo­ple you know.
Talk about the cam­paign, the for­rest, the move­ment etc. in your social media chan­nels and with your friends
Dis­trib­ute posters, stick­ers and more in your city. There are mas­ter copies: Ham­bach­er Forst bleibt
Link  http://hambacherforst.blogsport.de and  http://ausgeco2hlt.de

ZAD — Reoccupation Demonstration November 17th. (France)

Notre Dame des Lan­des
Fac­ing the evic­tions:
Demon­stra­tion of reoc­cu­pa­tion !

To rebuild — against the air­port!

Pitch­forks, wood­en beams, planks, nails and tools in hand…
Meet­ing Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 17th in the morn­ing.

Notre Dame des Lan­des
Fac­ing the evic­tions:
Demon­stra­tion of reoc­cu­pa­tion !

To rebuild — against the air­port!

Pitch­forks, wood­en beams, planks, nails and tools in hand…
Meet­ing Sat­ur­day Novem­ber 17th in the morn­ing.

To read the call online or dowload posters, fly­ers… http://zad.nadir.org/

The strug­gle against the air­port project of Notre-Dame des Lan­des kept on grow­ing in the last years. Among oth­er ini­tia­tives, an occu­pa­tion move­ment has spread on the hous­es and farm­land threat­ened. A year ago, fac­ing
increas­ing threats on the dif­fer­ent hous­es, huts and gar­dens, inhab­i­tants of the ZAD and sol­i­dar­i­ty col­lec­tives called for a mass demon­stra­tion of
reoc­cu­pa­tion in case of evic­tions.

When Cae­sar is floun­der­ing…

On Tues­day, Octo­ber 16th the dread­ed evic­tion offen­sive start­ed.  1,200 police­men invad­ed the 1,800 hectares of the ZAD. They attacked grad­u­al­ly occu­pied hous­es and huts, destroy­ing them and wash­ing away every garbage
pieces out of the area, leav­ing noth­ing that could be used to rebuild. Occu­piers and all those who joined them on the spot resist­ed, bar­ri­cad­ed, reoc­cu­pied. Togeth­er, we have done every­thing to stop the destruc­tion machin­ery and block police move­ments … We’re still here!

Our deter­mi­na­tion was strength­ened by a great wave of sol­i­dar­i­ty com­ing from the entire coun­try and beyond: dai­ly demon­stra­tions in Nantes and in var­i­ous cities, sup­plies and mate­ri­als, sup­port actions on rep­re­sen­ta­tion
of social­ist par­ty, Vin­ci, air­port man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er crush­ers of our lives…

While most homes have already been evict­ed as well as some huts, many oth­er occu­piers remain in the woods, in the fields, in the trees. New con­struc­tions are already under­way. In addi­tion to the occu­piers, « legal » inhab­i­tants and local peas­ants are also threat­ened to have to leave the ZAD in the com­ing months. This is to say that this XXL evic­tion attempt is going to last. Wise guys from the depart­men­tal author­i­ty offi­cial­ly called their mil­i­tary oper­a­tion: “Cae­sar.” It is up to us show them how the resis­tance against the air­port is actu­al­ly relent­less, they will final­ly be defeat­ed and ridicu­lous.

We keep on fight­ing, we are still here!

Beyond the call to join the area and con­tin­ue the sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in the com­ing weeks, we con­firm today that a mass demon­stra­tion of reoc­cu­pa­tion will take place on Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 17th 2012, start­ing
from one of the vil­lages near the ZAD.

After this first evic­tion round, we are look­ing for­ward to a time of broad, con­struc­tive and offen­sive mobi­liza­tion, shared by the var­i­ous parts of the strug­gle: occu­piers, peas­ants, inhab­i­tants, local peo­ple and from else­where, asso­ci­a­tions and sol­i­dar­i­ty groups… The objec­tive is to recon­struct an open col­lec­tive place on threat­ened lands, meant for
strug­gle orga­ni­za­tion. We want to make this place a hub for occu­piers and peo­ple strug­gling against the air­port, a start­ing point for new hous­ing con­struc­tions, an anten­na to orga­nize resis­tance to future works: those of
the air­port and its high­way (which is the first stage of the project, meant to begin in Jan­u­ary). They well may mil­i­ta­rize the area; they will not pre­vent us from reset­tling here.

Ayrault, Vin­ci and oth­ers — the mes­sage is clear: Fuck off the land!

—- Addi­tion­al and prac­ti­cal infos —-

- Occu­piers from the ZAD and peo­ple from the net­work Reclaim The Fields launched this call for reoc­cu­pa­tion. They pre­vi­ous­ly had occu­pied waste­land with more than a thou­sand peo­ple in May 2012 in order to set­tle the veg­etable farm “Le Sabot”. Today we invite all peo­ple and groups to spread infor­ma­tion on this ini­tia­tive and to join Novem­ber 17th orga­ni­za­tion.

- Beyond a demon­stra­tion, this is above all about a col­lec­tive action that will gain pow­er from a long and active pres­ence of the great­est num­ber of per­sons. Plan to be there for the week­end and more if you can: to begin the occu­pa­tion, to con­tin­ue con­struc­tions, to defend, and to gen­er­ate ideas for the future.

- Bring diverse and var­ied tools and mate­ri­als, over­alls, sound, wacky cre­ations, portable radios, pies to share and unfail­ing deter­mi­na­tion.

- It is pos­si­ble to arrive the day before. Meet­ing and camp­ing spots will be announced in the days before the event.

- Giv­en the ener­gy required to resist against evic­tions by then, and the con­se­quent exhaus­tion of occu­piers, suc­cess of this event depends cru­cial­ly on the involve­ment of sol­idary indi­vid­u­als and col­lec­tives
every­where. We call for pub­lic meet­ings, relay­ing infor­ma­tion and car shar­ing in each vil­lage for Novem­ber 17th.

- Posters and fly­ers to print and pho­to­copy are avail­able on the web­site, and on paper in nantes (B17) or in the ZAD (Vache-Rit). Any finan­cial sup­port is wel­come (check payable to « Vivre sans aéro­port » (“Liv­ing with­out an air­port ?), La Pri­maudière — Notre-Dame des Lan­des 44130 ; bank trans­fer: 20041 01011 1162852D32 36)

As the sit­u­a­tion changes every day, check infor­ma­tion reg­u­lar­ly on:http://zad.nadir.org/

For Novem­ber 17th, we are look­ing for wood­en beams, con­struc­tion and climb­ing mate­ri­als, kitchens, tents, musi­cians, batukadas, huts kits, tools, trac­tors…

For any exchange, help, relays, and pro­pos­als:  reclaimthezad@riseup.net

— Why do we strug­gle? For the resis­tance to the air­port and it?s world. —

At Notre-Dame des Lan­des, pol­i­cy mak­ers and con­creters are work­ing on anew air­port to ful­fil their dreams of vora­cious metrop­o­lis and eco­nom­ic expan­sion. For 40 years they have been want­i­ng to destroy under con­crete
2,000 hectares of agri­cul­tur­al land and habi­tats sit­u­at­ed on the north of Nantes. The con­cerned area is called ZAD, orig­i­nal­ly named ?Zone d?Aménagement Dif­féré? (Deferred Devel­op­ment Zone) by air­port stake­hold­ers is now ?Zone A Défendre? (Zone To Defend).

Since the begin­nings of this project, resis­tances are orga­niz­ing. This strug­gle is at the cross­roads of issues on which unite and think of com­mon strate­gies. Through it, we are fight­ing feed­ing on a drip, indus­tri­al
soci­ety and glob­al warm­ing, ter­ri­to­ry con­trol and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment poli­cies, cities and ways of life stan­dard­iza­tion, pri­va­ti­za­tion of the com­mons, myths of growth and the illu­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion…

Today as yes­ter­day, the oppo­nents are far from giv­ing up and keep on strug­gling via: demon­stra­tions, legal actions, links with oth­er strug­gles, hunger strikes, cir­cu­la­tion of news­pa­pers, free tolls oper­a­tions,
oppo­si­tions to drillings, sab­o­tages, dis­tur­bance of impact stud­ies and archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions, office and build­ing sites occu­pa­tions, etc.

To the detri­ment of the state and Vin­ci who buy and destroy to clear the ZAD, life and activ­i­ty den­si­fied and diver­si­fied in the zone over more than three years. Many aban­doned hous­es have been reha­bil­i­tat­ed and
occu­pied, huts were built on the ground and in the trees, col­lec­tives occu­py land to pro­duce veg­eta­bles. Meet­ing spaces, a bak­ery, a library, homes, were open to all. More than a hun­dred per­sons were con­stant­ly liv­ing in the ZAD, sup­port­ed by many oth­er peo­ple, local and from else­where, who met and organ­ised there. This pres­ence on the ground has allowed rapid reac­tions against the works? process under­tak­en by Vin­ci. It is this cre­ative and sub­ver­sive pack that they seek to erad­i­cate today in order to start the build­ing sites.

We keep in mind the past vic­to­ries against mega­lo­ma­ni­ac projects, from the nuclear indus­try to the mil­i­tary. As in the Car­net, in Plo­goff or in the Larzac, we know that this air­port can still be stopped. We look at the oth­er side of the Alps where oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of the high-speed train line Lyon-Turin mobi­lizes the entire Susa val­ley, where tens of thou­sands of peo­ple pre­vent the works. Here as well, any attempt to con­crete the land will cost them dear­ly.

Campaigners from No Dash for Gas abseil 90m down power station chimney to end 7 day occupation

This morn­ing the last two cam­paign­ers from No Dash for Gas abseiled down the side of one of the chim­neys they have been occu­py­ing at EDF’s West Bur­ton pow­er sta­tion for the past 7 days to end the most auda­cious and high pro­file direct action in recent years. Four cam­paign­ers had left yes­ter­day, all have hand­ed them­selves in to the police.

Total occu­pa­tion time: 7 days
Total CO2 saved: 19117 tonnes

The sev­en day protest saw 16 activists occu­py the flues of two of the chim­neys at the UK’s newest gas-fired pow­er sta­tion. Whilst up there, they rigged a rope between the two chim­neys and peo­ple were able to trav­el across. The group, No Dash for Gas, were there to stop emis­sions, halt con­struc­tion of the pow­er sta­tion and high­light the sense­less­ness of the gov­ern­men­t’s pro­posed ‘dash for gas’ in the upcom­ing Ener­gy Bill. In a move that the gov­ern­men­t’s own Select Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change has said might be ille­gal, the gov­ern­ment wants to build up to 20 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions. This would lock us into rely­ing on fos­sil fuels for anoth­er 30 years, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to hit emis­sions reduc­tions tar­gets, and ensur­ing house­hold ener­gy bills con­tin­ue to rise.

Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the cam­paign­ers and the last per­son com­ing down from the chim­ney, said:
 

“This was the first time activists have man­aged to suc­cess­ful­ly shut down a pow­er sta­tion, and the longest occu­pa­tion of a pow­er sta­tion the UK has ever seen. We stopped 20,000 tonnes of CO2 being emit­ted, pre­vent­ed any con­struc­tion work on the site for a week and got our mes­sage about how reck­less and ridicu­lous, let alone prob­a­bly ille­gal, George Osborne’s pro­posed ‘dash for gas’ is out to thou­sands of peo­ple. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved – but it’s only the start of the bat­tle for our ener­gy future.”

Dur­ing the week-long occu­pa­tion, Ener­gy Min­is­ter John Hayes’ anti-wind­farm out­burst demon­strat­ed that the Coali­tion’s ener­gy pol­i­cy is in utter dis­ar­ray. We also wit­nessed Hur­ri­cane Sandy wreak unprece­dent­ed dam­age in one of the most severe warn­ings of the effects of cli­mate change the world has seen. By shut­ting down West Bur­ton for a week, No Dash for Gas have demon­strat­ed the need to make the tran­si­tion away from a fos­sil-fuel-depen­dent ener­gy infra­struc­ture. Dan­ny Chivers, one of the cam­paign­ers who occu­pied the cen­tral chim­ney, said:

“Hur­ri­cane Sandy demon­strat­ed all too clear­ly that cli­mate change is already seri­ous — and it’s only get­ting more so each month it gets ignored. Com­pa­nies like EDF are get­ting away with mur­der, for the sake of some short-term prof­it. They are burn­ing more and more fos­sil fuels, like gas, when we des­per­ate­ly need a sus­tain­able and fair ener­gy sys­tem. The tech­nol­o­gy to sup­ply our ener­gy needs through renew­able ener­gy sources already exists, but the peo­ple with the pow­er are reck­less­ly and irre­spon­si­bly ignor­ing this.”

Day 7: Update and photos from No Dash for Gas

 

 

No Dash for Gas activists have now pre­vent­ed over 14,500 tonnes of CO2 from being emit­ted, as the chim­ney they are occu­py­ing had to be shut down

They are sav­ing over 2300 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions every day

 

 

No Dash for Gas activists have now pre­vent­ed over 14,500 tonnes of CO2 from being emit­ted, as the chim­ney they are occu­py­ing had to be shut down

They are sav­ing over 2300 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions every day

The Goven­men­t’s dash 4 gas is ille­gal because it will make it impos­si­ble 2 meet legal­ly-bind­ing emis­sions reduc­tions tar­gets under Cli­mate Act

Just 2 activists left occu­py­ing the chim­ney as they head into day 8. Longest-run­ning pow­er sta­tion occu­pa­tion ever!

They’ve had work­ers con­tact­ing them in pri­vate giv­ing their sup­port. Can’t speak open­ly, fear for of jobs

 

(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.