Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

30th Jan­u­ary 2010
Yes­ter­day was the fifth and final day of the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp – the last two arrests as the final occu­piers were dragged out of the rapid­ly shrink­ing Wood. A total of 45 arrests were made over the course of the evic­tion with close to 70 peo­ple tak­ing part and sup­port­ing the camp.

All five days saw the vio­lence inflict­ed by the state on those who try to cre­ate pos­i­tive change, and the col­lu­sion between the courts, police and cor­po­ra­tions. But they also saw hero­ic acts of defi­ance, with peo­ple fight­ing off bailiffs until hav­ing their hands and feet cable-tied togeth­er and sup­port­ers main­tain­ing a 24-hour vig­il through­out the evic­tion.

This evic­tion is not an end, but the begin­ning of a cam­paign of com­mu­ni­ty-based rad­i­cal direct action sweep­ing Scotland’s cen­tral belt which can only grow in strength. From actions to stop work on open­cast sites and the shut­ting down of a major coal rail ter­mi­nal for a day (which hap­pened for a third time on Wednes­day), to com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and sol­i­dar­i­ty result­ing in a sev­en-month occu­pa­tion and a pos­i­tive change in direc­tion for rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ism in Scot­land.

But where can we go next? We’ve hit these cap­i­tal­ists and mon­ey-grab­bers where it hurts most – in the pock­et – and we can’t wait to hear how much it has cost them in total. Over 30 direct actions have tak­en place over the past 12 months, and that’s not includ­ing the evic­tion. Machines have been trashed, health stud­ies pub­lished and bonds been made with those affect­ed by heavy indus­try and the caus­es of cli­mate change. We’ve dug tun­nels, defend­ed trees and climbed onto dig­gers.

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has now been evict­ed, but the strug­gle con­tin­ues!

mainshill@riseup.net
http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

Update, 6pm, Tues­day 26th:

This morn­ing the tun­nel team suc­ceed­ed in clear­ing the expand­ing foam blockad­ing the first door, insert­ed a cam­era into the tun­nel, and removed one per­son.
A pro­tes­tor out­side site was arrest­ed for breach of the peace.
The mul­ti­lay­ered defence known as ‘the fort’ took all day to evict, with climbers bring­ing down the final two occu­pants as dusk fell.
Three more pro­tes­tors held a pine plan­ta­tion all day before being removed, with one man still occu­py­ing a tree there as the climb­ing team left for the night.
Although exact num­bers aren’t avail­able, there are still many pro­tes­tors locked-on in the canopy.
The tun­nel team will be work­ing through the night again, but there are plen­ty of ways on to site for those wish­ing to help resist the evic­tion from the inside, and oth­er roles for any­one want­i­ng to sup­port site from the out­side. A total of 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed today.

Update, 9am, Tues­day 26th:
Bailiffs & police worked through the night with only a two hour break — get up there today if you can.

Update, 4pm, Mon­day 25th:
19 arrests so far, of 60 peo­ple stay­ing on site over week­end. Flood­lights up around site, though camp is not secure.
The two main bar­ri­cades, the bunker, and the ‘buck­fast’ com­mu­nal were JCB-ed, with the under­ground lock-ons in the bunker prov­ing a chal­lenge for the bailiffs.
Three tree­hous­es at ‘buck­fast’ gave the climb­ing team a run for their mon­ey, as pro­tes­tors occu­pied walk­ways and climbed into the very high­est branch­es of the trees.
Behind one of the bar­ri­cades a dou­ble-lay­ered tri­pod with a prism shaped skyraft hang­ing from its apex cost the NET anoth­er three or four hours. It was even­tu­al­ly defeat­ed when they built their own walk­way above the raft, attached ropes around it, cut the ropes which were sus­pend­ing it, and low­ered it to the ground. In a spec­tac­u­lar fit of risky behav­iour, the NET then took down the dou­ble-lay­ered tri­pod struc­ture by kick­ing it.
A tree­house above a bunker, and the bunker itself (posi­tioned above a tun­nel) last­ed anoth­er three hours. The tun­nel team worked all night but only man­aged to expose the entrance to the tun­nel.

Twit­ter
The peo­ple car­ry­ing out the evic­tion — the ‘nation­al evic­tion team’.
Oth­er con­trac­tors at Main­shill — dirty hands list
—-
25.1.2010
This morn­ing at 08:30am around 25 pri­vate bailiffs, sup­port­ed by 10 police, began their dawn assault to evict the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in South Lanark­shire.

The bailiffs are act­ing on behalf of landown­er Lord Home (1) who is set to prof­it from allow­ing Scot­tish Coal to extract 1.7 mil­lion tonnes of coal from Main­shill Wood near the vil­lage of Dou­glas. Despite the for­mi­da­ble police and bailiff oper­a­tion, camp mem­bers are stay­ing put down their tun­nels and behind their bar­ri­cades, for­ti­fied tow­ers and tree hous­es. Num­bers at the camp have swelled over the week­end with peo­ple arriv­ing from across the coun­try. The evic­tion could take weeks and cost the land own­er mil­lions (2) and it is hoped that the delay to the mine and the price of evic­tion will deter those who want to devel­op new coal projects in the UK.

The camp was occu­pied 7 months ago in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the Dou­glas Val­ley who have been fight­ing the plans for ten years. As such it was well received with many sup­plies donat­ed by the camp’s neigh­bours includ­ing a full Christ­mas din­ner. The set­ting up of the camp has her­ald­ed a cam­paign of direct action against the min­ing of Main­shill, a nec­es­sary step after the 650 let­ters of objec­tion to the mine were dis­re­gard­ed when South Lanark­shire Coun­cil which grant­ed per­mis­sion to the appli­ca­tion.

The com­mu­ni­ties have been blight­ed by the detri­men­tal health impacts of the 4 exist­ing open casts in the imme­di­ate area (3). Har­ry Thomp­son, for­mer chair­man of the Dou­glas Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil (4), said:
“Despite mas­sive com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to the mine at Main­shill, Scot­tish Coal and South Lanark­shire Coun­cil con­tin­ue to dis­re­gard the inter­ests of those liv­ing in prox­im­i­ty to the mines. The par­tic­u­late mat­ter released in the open cast min­ing process in this area has caused unusu­al­ly high rates of can­cer and lung dis­ease. Grant­i­ng per­mis­sion to a new mine 1000 metres from the local hos­pi­tal is the final straw”.

Min­ing in the Dou­glas Val­ley is intend­ed to feed Britain’s increas­ing reliance on coal as an ener­gy source. Coal tak­en from the pro­posed mine at Main­shill will result in the release of 3.4 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere if burned. If this and the oth­er 18 pro­posed mines in Scot­land go ahead it will be a mas­sive con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change, and pre­vent Scotland’s cli­mate bill from suc­ceed­ing.

With the recent fail­ure of the UN Frame­work on Cli­mate Change in Copen­hagen to reach a deal, com­mu­ni­ties world­wide will con­tin­ue to be dis­placed and suf­fer from the min­ing and com­bus­tion of coal. One camper, Anna Key, expressed her deter­mi­na­tion to cre­ate pos­i­tive change in the face of redun­dant polit­i­cal process­es:
“I can’t do any­thing direct­ly about the ocean becom­ing more acidic or melt­ing ice­bergs but those things will only con­tin­ue if we keep burn­ing fos­sil fuels and accept­ing a cul­ture that insists on the pur­suit of prof­it through the exploita­tion of peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. By act­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles we can stop this — there’s noth­ing else to be doing but dig­ging up roads and build­ing bar­ri­cades.”

Those occu­py­ing the site have vowed to stay as long as pos­si­ble, and resist any attempts to remove them. Doug Well, who is resist­ing evic­tion in a for­ti­fied tun­nel, said:
“We’ve been here for so long now, and we real­ly don’t want to leave. If this mine goes ahead it real­ly will be a tragedy for the local peo­ple and for the cli­mate. I’m going to do every­thing I can to make it as hard as pos­si­ble for them to remove me.”

The evic­tion will take a few days, and there is still lots to do. The camp still needs your sup­port, so try and make it to Main­shill if you can. Con­tact site phone 07806926040 .

For inter­views from the camp includ­ing peo­ple in defences please ring: 07500163480
Web­site: http://www.mainshill.noflag.net

Notes:

(1) Lord Home is Chair­man of Coutt’s bank, the cor­po­rate wing of RBS, and is cur­rent­ly being inves­ti­gat­ed for alleged fraud. See http://www.nowpublic.com/world/coutts-bank-chairman-lord-home-named-carr…
(2) A protest camp at Dalkei­th in 2006 cost £1.9 mil­lion and took 11 days to evict.
(3) Infor­ma­tion on the health impacts of open cast mines can be found in the Dou­glas­dale Edi­tion of the Coal Health Study online: http://coalhealthstudy.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/douglasdale_v42.pdf
(4) The Dou­glas Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil has been staunch­ly against the open cast and has sup­port­ed the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp since the start, http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info.

http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=415
http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info/index.asp?pageid=60854 (includ­ing maps of Main­shill mine pro­pos­al and oth­er open­cast sites near­by)