Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Indigenous anti-infastructure protesters murdered in crackdown on months-long blockade in Peru

For sev­en weeks tens of thou­sands of Ama­zon­ian Indi­ans blocked roads and rivers across east­ern Peru. They seized hydro­elec­tric plants and pump­ing sta­tions on oil and gas pipelines to try to force the repeal of decrees facil­i­tat­ing oil explo­ration, com­mer­cial farm­ing and log­ging in parts of the jun­gle.

For sev­en weeks tens of thou­sands of Ama­zon­ian Indi­ans blocked roads and rivers across east­ern Peru. They seized hydro­elec­tric plants and pump­ing sta­tions on oil and gas pipelines to try to force the repeal of decrees facil­i­tat­ing oil explo­ration, com­mer­cial farm­ing and log­ging in parts of the jun­gle. Petrope­ru, the state oil com­pa­ny, had to shut a pipeline that car­ries 40,000 bar­rels of oil each day. Amid threats of ener­gy rationing in east­ern towns, the gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cía this month ordered armed police to clear a stretch of road and retake a pump­ing sta­tion near Bagua, in Peru’s north­ern jun­gle

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THE BACKGROUND

Ear­ly this morn­ing (June 5th), Peru­vian police launched a vio­lent attack on a non­vi­o­lent road block­ade held by Ama­zon­ian indige­nous pro­test­ers oppos­ing 10 laws that would open up their ter­ri­to­ry to increased min­er­al, oil, gas and tim­ber exploita­tion. Police opened fire with live ammu­ni­tion, killing at least 28 peo­ple.

FMI:
http://www.rootforce.org/2009/06/05/peruvian-police-murder-indigenous-protesters-take-action/

WHY TAKE ACTION

The first rea­son to take action, of course, is sim­ply out of sol­i­dar­i­ty with our fel­low war­riors in the strug­gle for a just and sus­tain­able world. But why are we send­ing out this action alert as Root Force?

For near­ly two months, thou­sands indige­nous pro­test­ers have near­ly par­a­lyzed Peru’s Ama­zon region with block­ades of crit­i­cal trans­porta­tion and min­ing infra­struc­ture. They have sparked a nation­al dis­course over the lim­its to devel­op­ment and who owns nature, and have made it clear that they will not sur­ren­der any of their ances­tral home­lands.

At the heart of the issue are 10 laws passed by pres­i­den­tial decree that would great­ly facil­i­tate indus­tri­al exploita­tion of the Ama­zon. THIS IS CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE, intend­ed to sup­ply new raw mate­ri­als for the glob­al mar­ket. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE WEAK POINTS OF THE SYSTEM that we are always talk­ing about.

The indige­nous war­riors fight­ing for their lives have pushed this issue into the glob­al eye, and the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment has placed itself in a posi­tion of weak­ness by mur­der­ing unarmed pro­test­ers. Even before the recent killings, a con­gres­sion­al pan­el had already declared 2 of the laws uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and only through pro­ce­dur­al tricks has the pres­i­den­t’s par­ty been able to stall debate on repeal­ing one of those laws.

This is one of those rare cas­es where SUSTAINED INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE COULD TIP THE SCALES. If these laws are repealed, it will be a major set­back for infra­struc­ture expan­sion plans in a tru­ly crit­i­cal region of the hemi­sphere.

HOW TO TAKE ACTION

You can email crit­i­cal peo­ple in the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment through this link, pro­vid­ed by Ama­zon Watch:

http://amazonwatch.org/peru-action-alert.php

You can also orga­nize protests at Peru­vian embassies or con­sulates, or take oth­er actions that you think stand a good chance of mak­ing it back to the deci­sion mak­ers in Lima.

Make sure to express your out­rage at the gov­ern­men­t’s strong arm tac­tics — even before the mur­ders, the gov­ern­ment had sus­pend­ed civ­il lib­er­ties in 5 provinces and was call­ing indige­nous peo­ple “ter­ror­ists” — and demand the repeal of the Free Trade laws and any law fur­ther open­ing the Ama­zon to min­er­al, oil, gas, tim­ber, hydro­elec­tric or agri­cul­tur­al exploita­tion.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty,
Root Force

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Recent reports indi­cate as many as 84 peo­ple killed and 150 arrest­ed in clash­es stem­ming from an ear­ly morn­ing vio­lent raid by police on unarmed pro­test­ers on June 5. Police are report­ed to be burn­ing the bod­ies of the dead and dump­ing them into the riv­er.

Aston­ish­ing­ly — but not sur­pris­ing­ly — the gov­ern­ment is accus­ing the pro­test­ers of using tac­tics rem­i­nis­cent of the 1980s inter­nal con­flict. Deploy­ing racist imagery paint­ing indige­nous pro­test­ers as spear-wield­ing sav­ages, Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia has vowed a tough “response.”

Fol­low­ing the ear­ly-morn­ing mas­sacre, pro­test­ers took 38 police hostage at a pump­ing sta­tion for the nation­al oil com­pa­ny, PetroPe­ru. A police raid to free the offi­cers result­ed in the deaths of nine of them. An Argen­tin­ian oil com­pa­ny, Plus­petrol, has halt­ed oil pump­ing in one unit and will soon halt pump­ing in anoth­er due to the unrest.

The gov­ern­ment has since issued an arrest war­rant for indige­nous leader Alber­to Pizan­go (who was elect­ed to rep­re­sent the indige­nous coali­tion by the lead­ers of 1,200 com­mu­ni­ties), charg­ing him with “sedi­tion.” Pizan­go has gone into hid­ing.

Please take action and urge the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment to halt the vio­lence and repeal the con­tro­ver­sial free trade laws that would open up indige­nous land in the Ama­zon to increased devel­op­ment. Con­tact the US gov­ern­ment and inter­na­tion­al agen­cies as well, and encour­age them to place pres­sure on Peru. The Peru­vian gov­ern­ment is in a seri­ous posi­tion of weak­ness right now and try­ing to cov­er it up with vio­lence, and this is one of those rare cas­es where inter­na­tion­al pres­sure could deal a major set­back to infra­struc­ture expan­sion plans.

Read the full Root Force action alert on this issue here.

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Indige­nous Lead­ers and Allies Call for an End to Vio­lence on All Sides

BAGUA, Peru — June 8 — In the after­math of Friday’s bloody raid on a peace­ful indige­nous road block­ade near Bagua in the Peru­vian Ama­zon, numer­ous eye­wit­ness­es are report­ing that the Spe­cial Forces of the Peru­vian Police have been dis­pos­ing of the bod­ies of indige­nous pro­test­ers who were killed.

“Today I spoke to many eye­wit­ness­es in Bagua report­ing that they saw police throw the bod­ies of the dead into the Marañon Riv­er from a heli­copter in an appar­ent attempt by the Gov­ern­ment to under­re­port the num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed by police,” said Gre­gor MacLen­nan, spokesper­son for Ama­zon Watch speak­ing.

“Hos­pi­tal work­ers in Bagua Chi­ca and Bagua Grande cor­rob­o­rat­ed that the police took bod­ies of the dead from their premis­es to an undis­closed loca­tion. I spoke to sev­er­al peo­ple who report­ed that there are bod­ies lying at the bot­tom of a deep crevasse up in the hills, about 2 kilo­me­ters from the inci­dent site. When the Church and local lead­ers went to inves­ti­gate, the police stopped them from approach­ing the area,” report­ed MacLen­nan.

Police and gov­ern­ment offi­cials have been con­sis­tent­ly under­re­port­ing the num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed by police gun­fire. Indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions place the num­ber of pro­test­ers killed at least at 40, while Gov­ern­ment offi­cials claim­ing that only a hand­ful of indige­nous peo­ple were killed. Also the Gar­cia Gov­ern­ment claims that 22 police offi­cers were killed and sev­er­al still miss­ing.

“Wit­ness­es say that it was the police who opened fire last Fri­day on the pro­test­ers from heli­copters,” MacLen­nan said. “Now the gov­ern­ment appears to be destroy­ing the bod­ies of slain pro­test­ers and giv­ing very low esti­mates of the casu­al­ty. Giv­en that the demon­stra­tors were unarmed or car­ry­ing only wood­en spears and the police were fir­ing auto­mat­ic weapons, the actu­al num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed is like­ly to be much high­er.”

“Anoth­er eye­wit­ness report­ed see­ing the bod­ies of five indige­nous peo­ple that had been burned beyond iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at the morgue. I have lis­tened to tes­ti­mo­ny of peo­ple in tears talk­ing about wit­ness­ing the police burn­ing bod­ies,” con­tin­ued MacLen­nan.

At least 150 peo­ple from the demon­stra­tion on Fri­day are still being detained. Eye-wit­ness reports also con­firm that police forcibly removed some of the wound­ed indige­nous pro­test­ers from hos­pi­tals, tak­ing them to unknown des­ti­na­tions. Their fam­i­lies expressed con­cern for their well being while in deten­tion. There are many peo­ple still report­ed miss­ing and access to med­ical atten­tion in the region is hor­ri­bly inad­e­quate.

The Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee for the Indige­nous Peo­ples of Alto Ama­zonas Province issued this state­ment: “It is appalling that polit­i­cal pow­ers have act­ed in such a cru­el and inhu­man man­ner against Ama­zon­ian Peo­ples, fail­ing to rec­og­nize the fun­da­men­tal rights and pro­tec­tions guar­an­teed to us by the Con­sti­tu­tion. We express deep grief over the death of our indige­nous broth­ers, of civil­ians and the offi­cers of the Nation­al Police.”

The gov­ern­ment expand­ed the State of Emer­gency and estab­lished a cur­few on all traf­fic in the region from 3 pm to 6 am. Indige­nous and inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions are wor­ried about plans of anoth­er Nation­al Police raid on a block­ade in Yurimaguas close to the town of Tara­po­to where thou­sands are block­ing a road.

Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia is being wide­ly crit­i­cized for foment­ing a cli­mate of fear mon­ger­ing against indige­nous peo­ples by draw­ing par­al­lels to the bru­tal Shin­ning Path guer­ril­la move­ment of the 1980s and ear­ly 1990s, and by vague­ly refer­ring to exter­nal and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic threats to the coun­try.

The Ama­zon­ian indige­nous peo­ples’ mobi­liza­tions have been peace­ful, local­ly coor­di­nat­ed, and extreme­ly well orga­nized for near­ly two months. Yet Gar­cia insists on call­ing them ter­ror­ist acts and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic. Gar­cia has even gone so far as to describe the indige­nous mobi­liza­tions as “sav­age and bar­bar­ic.” Gar­cia has made his dis­crim­i­na­tion explic­it, say­ing direct­ly that the Ama­zon­ian indige­nous peo­ple are not first-class cit­i­zens.

“These peo­ple don’t have crowns,” Gar­cia said about the pro­test­ers. “These peo­ple aren’t first-class cit­i­zens who can say — 400,000 natives to 28 mil­lion Peru­vians — ‘You don’t have the right to be here.’ No way. That is a huge error.”
Iron­i­cal­ly, Peru was the coun­try that intro­duced the Unit­ed Nations Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples on the floor of the Gen­er­al Assem­bly when it was adopt­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2007.

A coali­tion of indige­nous and human rights orga­ni­za­tions will protest in front of the Peru­vian Embassy in Wash­ing­ton D.C. on Mon­day, June 8 at 12:30 pm.

Indige­nous peo­ples have vowed to con­tin­ue protests until the Peru­vian Con­gress revokes the “free trade” decrees issued by Pres­i­dent Gar­cia under spe­cial pow­ers grant­ed by Con­gress in the con­text of the Free Trade Agree­ment with the Unit­ed States.

Among the out­pour­ing of state­ments con­demn­ing the vio­lence in Peru were those from Peru’s Ombudsman’s office, the chair of the Unit­ed Nations Per­ma­nent Forum on Indige­nous Issues, a coali­tion of 45 inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions, Indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions from through­out the Amer­i­c­as, and the Con­fer­ence of Bish­ops of Peru. Also famous per­son­al­i­ties includ­ing Q’orianka Kilch­er, Ben­jamin Bratt, Peter Bratt, and Daryl Han­nah and Bian­ca Jag­ger called on the Peru­vian Gov­ern­ment to cease the vio­lence and seek peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the con­flict.

AIDESEP, the nation­al indige­nous orga­ni­za­tion of Peru has called for a nation­wide gen­er­al strike start­ing June 11th.

Ama­zon Watch is con­tin­u­al­ly updat­ing pho­tographs, audio tes­ti­mo­ny, and video footage from Bagua on www.amazonwatch.org.

New­ly released b‑roll at http://amazonwatch.org/peru-protests-highres-photos.php

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The broad­en­ing influ­ence of the indige­nous move­ment was on dis­play Thurs­day in a gen­er­al strike that drew thou­sands of pro­test­ers here to the streets of Iqui­tos, the largest Peru­vian city in the Ama­zon, and to cities and towns else­where in jun­gle areas. Protests over Mr. Gar­cía’s han­dling of the vio­lence in the north­ern Bagua Province last Fri­day also took place in high­land regions like Puno, near the Boli­vian bor­der, and in Lima and Are­quipa on the Pacif­ic coast.

“The gov­ern­ment made the sit­u­a­tion worse with its con­de­scend­ing depic­tion of us as gangs of sav­ages in the for­est,” said Wag­n­er Muso­line Acho, 24, an Awa­jún Indi­an and an indige­nous leader. “They think we can be tricked by a maneu­ver like sus­pend­ing a cou­ple of decrees for a few weeks and then rein­tro­duc­ing them, and they are wrong.”

The pro­test­ers’ imme­di­ate threat – to cut the sup­ply of oil and nat­ur­al gas to Lima, the cap­i­tal – seems to have sub­sided, with pro­test­ers part­ly with­draw­ing from their occu­pa­tion of oil instal­la­tions in the jun­gle. But as anger fes­ters, indige­nous lead­ers here said they could eas­i­ly try to shut down ener­gy instal­la­tions again to exert pres­sure on Mr. Gar­cía.

Anoth­er wave of protests appears like­ly because indige­nous groups are demand­ing that the decrees be repealed and not just sus­pend­ed. The decrees would open large jun­gle areas to invest­ment and allow com­pa­nies to bypass indige­nous groups to obtain per­mits for petro­le­um explo­ration, log­ging and build­ing hydro­elec­tric dams. A stop­gap attempt to halt ear­li­er indige­nous protests in the Ama­zon last August failed to pre­vent them from being reini­ti­at­ed more force­ful­ly in April.

…

The author­i­ties are strug­gling to under­stand a move­ment that is crys­tal­liz­ing in the Peru­vian Ama­zon among more than 50 indige­nous groups. They include about 300,000 peo­ple, account­ing for only about 1 per­cent of Peru’s pop­u­la­tion, but they live in strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant and resource-rich loca­tions, which are scat­tered through­out jun­gle areas that account for near­ly two-thirds of Peru’s ter­ri­to­ry.

So far, alliances have proved elu­sive between Indi­ans in the Ama­zon and indige­nous groups in high­land areas, rul­ing out, for now, the kind of broad indige­nous protest move­ments that helped oust gov­ern­ments in neigh­bor­ing Ecuador and Bolivia ear­li­er in the decade.

In con­trast to some ear­li­er efforts to orga­nize indige­nous groups, the lead­ers of this new move­ment are them­selves indige­nous, and not white or mes­ti­zo urban intel­lec­tu­als. They are well orga­nized and use a web of radio sta­tions to exchange infor­ma­tion across the jun­gle. After one promi­nent leader, Alber­to Pizan­go [who explic­i­ty links the strug­gles there to glob­al cli­mate change every­where], was grant­ed asy­lum in Nicaragua this week, oth­ers quick­ly emerged to artic­u­late demands.

Two Fishermen in Hospital After Boat Boarded and Sunk by Masked Men in Ireland

The sit­u­a­tion in Erris Co. Mayo has esca­lat­ed into a sor­did state of affairs, with two fish­er­men being held by force by two men in bal­a­clavas at 2am on Thurs­day the 11th of June. The fish­er­men, Pat O’Donnell and Mar­tin McDon­nell, are both locals opposed to the con­tro­ver­sial Cor­rib gas project which is cur­rent­ly being over­seen by The Roy­al Dutch Shell Com­pa­ny.

The sit­u­a­tion in Erris Co. Mayo has esca­lat­ed into a sor­did state of affairs, with two fish­er­men being held by force by two men in bal­a­clavas at 2am on Thurs­day the 11th of June. The fish­er­men, Pat O’Donnell and Mar­tin McDon­nell, are both locals opposed to the con­tro­ver­sial Cor­rib gas project which is cur­rent­ly being over­seen by The Roy­al Dutch Shell Com­pa­ny.
The two fish­er­men were return­ing to Bal­ly­glass pier, hav­ing been fish­ing out at sea, when their boat was board­ed by four masked men. When Mr. O’Donnell and Mr. McDon­nell had been ren­dered help­less, the board­ers pro­ceed­ed to move below decks and sink the ‘Iona Isle’, the trawler belong­ing to Mr. O’Donnell. Both men are now being tend­ed to in Castle­bar gen­er­al hos­pi­tal.

These attacks come short­ly after rough­ly thir­ty Shell to Sea activists appeared in Bell­mul­let dis­trict court yes­ter­day for assort­ed acts of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence relat­ing to the pro­posed pipeline project. How­ev­er a num­ber of mem­bers of An Gar­da Síochan­na were also sum­moned by the judge for pos­si­ble acts of mis­con­duct, mis­use of author­i­ty and ille­gal behav­iour relat­ing to Shell to Sea protests.

The assaults car­ried out on the fish­er­men bear an uncan­ny resem­blance to that which occurred almost a month and a half ago on local farmer and Gold­man envi­ron­men­tal prize win­ner Willie Cor­duff.

The recent devel­op­ments here in Erris are becom­ing an increas­ing cause for con­cern for local peo­ple attempt­ing to halt Shell’s work in order to defend their own liveli­hoods. Many fam­i­lies here are com­plete­ly depen­dent on the local envi­ron­ment to pro­duce a source of income. Hav­ing fish­ing grounds pol­lut­ed by dredg­ing work, or pipelines dragged through one’s fields is like­ly to evoke strong protest. Albeit most local peo­ple who oppose the project ini­tial­ly felt that there was lit­tle or no chance of the sit­u­a­tion unrav­el­ling to the extent it would be so effort­less­ly com­pa­ra­ble to the Ogo­ni saga in Nige­ria.

More activists were arrest­ed yes­ter­day evening after they had assist­ed local men in bar­ri­cad­ing nar­row choke points of road which lead to the Shell com­pound at Glen­gad, which is still devoid of the suf­fi­cient plan­ning per­mis­sion. One man had hoist­ed him­self up onto the cab of a truck in an attempt to halt the ille­gal work, much to the sur­prise of local peo­ple and Gar­da present at the scene. The dri­ver elect­ed to accel­er­ate down a steep hill with the man still on top of the vehi­cle. Two Shell to Sea activists were vio­lent­ly appre­hend­ed on the road and brought to Bell­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion where they’ve been held all night. They have been brought to court this morn­ing with­out legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and the state is attempt­ing to put them on remand. This means they will be held in jail until the next court hear­ing in July.

Also at half four ear­li­er this morn­ing four­teen peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp dis­rupt­ed work whilst kayak­ing in bay where Shell are cur­rent­ly dredg­ing. This result­ed in the arrest of six peo­ple and police also slashed kayaks. Over the past ten days dredgers have been board­ed on two occa­sions where activists climbed on top of dig­gers and stopped work. A num­ber of injuries have been sus­tained dur­ing water actions injuries at the hands of the IRMS secu­ri­ty, employed by Shell to trit­u­rate the cam­paign oppos­ing the theft of bil­lions of euro worth of gas.

The glob­al pres­sure has been mount­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly on Shell in recent times, with much media focus sur­round­ing the Wiwa fam­i­ly law­suits against them in New York. Shell was being sued for human rights abus­es in the Ogo­ni region of Nige­ria dat­ing back to the ear­ly nineties, how­ev­er Shell decid­ed to set­tle out of court to the sum of $15.5 mil­lion dol­lars.

In the face of one of the world’s biggest multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions backed by the state and a team of secu­ri­ty, many of whom are known fas­cists and mer­ce­nar­ies, the com­mu­ni­ty still stand strong in defence of their envi­ron­ment and liveli­hoods. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is pro­vid­ing active sup­port to the com­mu­ni­ty, please come and help!

New Social Centre/Ecovillage To Be Occupied In Suffolk/Essex Area

Want to get involved?

This week­end we will be occu­py­ing a prop­er­ty in the Suffolk/Essex area in order to start an ecov­il­lage. It’s got many acres of land attached, and var­i­ous groups will hope­ful­ly be com­ing to give work­shops on cli­mate change, shar­ing var­i­ous skills and activism.

Want to get involved?

This week­end we will be occu­py­ing a prop­er­ty in the Suffolk/Essex area in order to start an ecov­il­lage. It’s got many acres of land attached, and var­i­ous groups will hope­ful­ly be com­ing to give work­shops on cli­mate change, shar­ing var­i­ous skills and activism.

If you want to get involved in the occu­pa­tion, would like to come and live there, get in any of the activ­i­ties, or have some­thing you would like to teach, please email cocklehorsecrab@googlemail.com

London eco-village occupation — wish-list, directions, & film

Around 70 pro­test­ers have occu­pied an emp­ty plot of land next to Kew Bridge in Brent­ford, Lon­don (TW8 0EW). They’ve set up an eco-vil­lage.

London Eco-VillageAround 70 pro­test­ers have occu­pied an emp­ty plot of land next to Kew Bridge in Brent­ford, Lon­don (TW8 0EW). They’ve set up an eco-vil­lage.

This will show­case com­mu­ni­ty based sus­tain­able meth­ods of liv­ing such as veg­etable grow­ing, com­post toi­lets. They in the process of set­ting up tents and are clean­ing the site of rub­bish.

Lon­don eco-camp: Day One — video/quicktime 13M

We could do with the more of the fol­low­ing if you are think­ing of vis­it­ing:

>Big water con­tain­ers (>10ltrs)
>Oil for bolts
>Screws, bolts, coach bolts.
>Sta­tion­ary: paper, pens, sticky tape, etc.,
>Ban­ner mak­ing material/paints.
>Tarps
>String and Rope
>Spades shov­els and forks
>Lots of hose for mov­ing water.

We have a real­ly awe­some and secure site, it looks like we are stay­ing we have one large issue. Most of the site is heav­i­ly over­looked so we need to keep things tidy, make things visu­al­ly inter­est­ing and have banners/posters so peo­ple know what we are up to. The local have been very sup­port­ive so far due to the pro­posed use of the site we are occu­py­ing. Lets keep it that way…any help much appre­ci­at­ed.

If you would like to join our autonomous space in west lon­don then how do you get there?

1. Cycle; from cen­tral lon­don there is one road with no change. The A315, it changes names to many things but starts south of Hyde Park (as Knights­bridge and Kens­ing­ton Road) and con­tin­ues through Chisick (Chiswick High Street) right untill the round about where the camp is set­up. From kew bridge the camp can be clear­ly seen.

2. Take a train: from south east lon­don this is the best option. Train are reg­u­lar out of water­loo and take about 25 min­utes to get to Kew Bridge sta­tion. You can take your bike on these trains.

3. Get dad­dy to give you a lift in his heli­copter: you may get thrown out.

We are at Kew Bridge
Map: http://tinyurl.com/n7ny33

Anti-Shell actions at Rossport, Eire

2nd June 2009

Ross­port: Cause­way at Shell com­pound ‘washed away’ by Shell to Sea action

2nd June 2009
Removing Shell's causeway at Glengad
Ross­port: Cause­way at Shell com­pound ‘washed away’ by Shell to Sea action

Part of the Shell cause­way extend­ing into the sea at Glen­gad was yes­ter­day evening removed by Shell to Sea pro­test­ers. This was in protest at the ille­gal block­ing of access to the pub­lic beach and to oppose the forc­ing of this unsafe project on the local com­mu­ni­ty and the give­away of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources.

A group of about 30–40 peo­ple wad­ed into the sea to gain access to the cause­way, and pro­ceed­ed to remove a large amount of the stone which makes it up. They were con­front­ed by a 70 Shell secu­ri­ty after about half an hour of the action, at which point the peo­ple left. An upbeat and play­ful mood pre­vailed over a beau­ti­ful evening.

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has again tak­en up res­i­dence in Glen­gad, and after a very suc­cess­ful week­end, includ­ing a num­ber of actions, will build up the resis­tance to Shell over the com­ing weeks and months.

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Anti-Shell inflatable protest
Mon­day the 1st of June saw the arrival of a mul­ti­tude of assort­ed ves­sels to Broad­haven bay. The boats, which are sub­con­tract­ed by The Roy­al Dutch Shell com­pa­ny (Shell), are attempt­ing to pre­pare for works on the con­tro­ver­sial Cor­rib gas project.

Today how­ev­er, their progress has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly impaired by res­i­dent Shell to Sea activists that had already gath­ered a small, albeit for­mi­da­ble, fleet of kayaks, ready to deploy with­in short notice. The Kayaks were birthed from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, which direct­ly over­looks the vicin­i­ty that the Shell boats have been oper­at­ing in the past twen­ty-four hours.

Cur­rent­ly there are diverse assort­ments of ves­sels con­verg­ing in the once pris­tine bay; the major­i­ty of these are either car­ry­ing out, or assist­ing, dredg­ing and sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions. An Gar­da Siochana, have also been sight­ed patrolling the work zone, along with two black ribs; The Lau­ra Emi­ly accom­pa­nied by its twin the Gall­tee, which are both brim­ming with men dressed in black mil­i­tary fatigues.

Works, tak­ing place ear­li­er this after­noon, came grind­ing to a com­plete halt when twelve activists in kayaks broke through the secu­ri­ty line that con­sist­ed of nine high speed secu­ri­ty boats. The activists man­aged to tact­ful­ly cir­cum­nav­i­gate secu­ri­ty boats for approx­i­mate­ly two and a half hours, which effec­tive­ly halt­ed Shell dredg­ing works for a con­sid­er­able peri­od of time.

After numer­ous attempts by Gar­dai to secure an arrest, they even­tu­al­ly man­aged to drag one man from his inflat­able Kayak. The man, in his fifties, is report­ed to have been halt­ing a dredger con­vey­ing silt into a barge, and thus stop­ping after­noon work.

This cur­rent work being car­ried out by Shell is like­ly to sig­ni­fy the imped­ing arrival of the Soli­taire; at over 400 meters long the Soli­taire is the largest pipe lay­ing ves­sel in the world, and its expect­ed pres­ence in Co. Mayo will undoubt­ed­ly pro­voke for­mi­da­ble resis­tance.

At this point in the project, all dredg­ing works car­ried out in Ross­port are like­ly to be held as sacro­sanct by Shell’s board of direc­tors, and con­verse­ly seen as detri­men­tal by the Irish pub­lic.

Eco-VIllage Occupation London 6th June Update + Other News.

Hel­lo friends,

In this report:

News of the upcom­ing Eco-Vil­lage occu­pa­tion tak­ing place on a dis­used piece of land near Ham­mer­smith start­ing on Sat­ur­day, 6th June (see attached e‑flyer for details).

Eco flyerHel­lo friends,

In this report:

News of the upcom­ing Eco-Vil­lage occu­pa­tion tak­ing place on a dis­used piece of land near Ham­mer­smith start­ing on Sat­ur­day, 6th June (see attached e‑flyer for details).

The lat­est from the Tyt­ing com­mu­ni­ty farm occu­pa­tion — infor­ma­tion on how you can get involved and sup­port the action.

And some inter­est­ing facts about the land in Britain.

ECO-VILLAGE OCCUPATION

The Eco vil­lage occu­pa­tion begins on the 6th June. Meet at Water­loo Sta­tion at 10AM under the clock. Please try to be on time.

********Please Note**********

If you are com­ing for the open­ing stage of the eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion, you will need to bring a tent, water and food sup­plies. If you have access to kitchen equip­ment and oth­er use­ful tat that you would be OK to loan, please bring it along too.

***************************

The Eco-Vil­lage Occu­pa­tion is about to begin. Infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties lie ahead; what will hap­pen depends on what we make it. By cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty in the heart of the urban jun­gle, we have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to raise the con­scious­ness of urban dwellers all around and shine a light on a way of liv­ing that goes far to solv­ing the prob­lem of the destruc­tion of peo­ple and plan­et.

Dur­ing the last pub­lic plan­ning meet­ing, we had con­sen­sus on the fol­low­ing issues:

- A no vehi­cle on site pol­i­cy. In order to max­i­mize liv­ing space and encour­age peo­ple to come to the vil­lage via sus­tain­able means.

- Acoustic music only. So that we don’t make ene­mies of the neigh­bours.

- All major deci­sions in the eco-vil­lage to be decid­ed via the con­sen­su­al deci­sion mak­ing of all the peo­ple in the eco-vil­lage.

Please come along and join us. Ide­al­ly, we are look­ing for com­mit­ted peo­ple who share in the vision of the eco-vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty and who are able to com­mit for an indef­i­nite peri­od, how­ev­er if you sim­ply want to stay for a night or two or even vis­it for a day, please feel free to come along.

This eco-vil­lage occu­pa­tion is inspired by The Land is Ours which cam­paigns peace­ful­ly for access to the land, its resources, and the deci­sion-mak­ing process­es affect­ing them, for every­one, irre­spec­tive of race, gen­der or age. for more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it:

www.tlio.org.uk

con­tact Car­olyn on: 01727 812369 or Gareth on: 07515 166011 or

diggers360@yahoo.co.uk

Tyt­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Farm Occu­pa­tion.

Six weeks ago a group of peo­ple (some fresh from the Raven’s Ait occu­pa­tion in Kingston) assert­ing their com­mon law right to live and grow food, com­menced the occu­pa­tion of Tyt­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Farm in Half Pen­ny Lane Guild­ford. (a pub­licly owned site which has been vacant for sev­er­al years).

Guild­ford coun­cil (the own­er of the prop­er­ty) has been try­ing with­out suc­cess and with much local oppo­si­tion to sell the com­mu­ni­ty farm off by divid­ing it into small­er lots.

The coun­cil were grant­ed an ‘inter­im pos­ses­sion order’ last Wednes­day (27th May) and threat­ened to send in the police to remove any­one still on the site. On Fri­day morn­ing, var­i­ous con­trac­tors arrived and board­ed up the farm­house (but no police).

Far from dent­ing their morale, the threat of force­ful evic­tion has sim­ply made those enjoy­ing life at the farm more deter­mined to stay their ground.

To see a video of what’s been hap­pen­ing at the farm please click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKe_uCHpokU

This occu­pa­tion is open to any­one who would like to be part of the com­mu­ni­ty, grow veg­eta­bles and live in a sus­tain­able way, whilst help­ing to retain com­mon rights to a valu­able and beau­ti­ful piece of com­mon land. If you want to get involved, sim­ply grab a tent and some food (plus some seeds if you have them) and come along. Here is a map of the loca­tion of the farm.

Facts about the land in Britain

did you know that.…

In Britain 70% of land is still owned by less than 1% of the pop­u­la­tion
Less than 8% of the coun­try is under con­crete
50% of the land in Eng­land and Wales remains unreg­is­tered
the Church of Eng­land has ‘mis­laid’ 1.5 mil­lion acres it owned 100 years ago
the Roy­al Fam­i­ly now own or con­trol the equiv­a­lent of an aver­age-sized coun­ty in Eng­land.

* infor­ma­tion cour­tesy of www.who-owns-britain.com

Shell compound breached in Glengad during RSC gathering

May 31, 2009
This after­noon at 5pm, over 200 peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Sum­mer Gath­er­ing attempt­ed to dis­man­tle Shel­l’s ille­gal com­pound at Glen­gad.

Trying to breach Shell compound at GlengadMay 31, 2009
This after­noon at 5pm, over 200 peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Sum­mer Gath­er­ing attempt­ed to dis­man­tle Shel­l’s ille­gal com­pound at Glen­gad.

After a day of direct action train­ing, local peo­ple and their sup­port­ers walked to the south side of the com­pound where they attempt­ed to breach the fence in two places. They were met by strong oppo­si­tion from over six­ty Gar­dai, includ­ing many from the Pub­lic Order Unit.

At least five peo­ple who scaled the fence into the com­pound were held by secu­ri­ty guards and lat­er arrest­ed.

Lat­er in the after­noon, as the crowd were leav­ing, a fur­ther arrest was made when the Gar­dai tar­get­ed a promi­nent cam­paign­er and forcibly detained him for speak­ing out against the actions of the Gar­dai.

Today’s action comes the day after Mau­ra Har­ring­ton was released after 13 days in Mount Joy prison, Dublin for non-pay­ment of fines, includ­ing a one thou­sand euro con­tri­bu­tion to the Gar­da Benev­o­lent Fund.

Around 200 peo­ple are attend­ing the RSC sum­mer gath­er­ing. It’s a beau­ti­ful­ly sun­ny week­end and preper­a­tions are now well under way for anoth­er sum­mer of action against Shell in Mayo, on land and sea. Come and be part of it!

Bristol Co-Mutiny 12th — 20th Sept “Social Change Not Climate Change”

Cap­i­tal­ism and its pup­pet de‘mock’cracy are spi­ralling out of control:a self-cre­at­ed reces­sion, rock­et­ing unem­ploy­ment, soar­ing nation­al debt, the ille­gal and unjust occu­pa­tion of Afghanistan & Iraq, apa­thy towards mas­sacres in Pales­tine and Sri Lan­ka, the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of free move­ment, the police assaults and murde

Co-mutiny flyerCap­i­tal­ism and its pup­pet de‘mock’cracy are spi­ralling out of control:a self-cre­at­ed reces­sion, rock­et­ing unem­ploy­ment, soar­ing nation­al debt, the ille­gal and unjust occu­pa­tion of Afghanistan & Iraq, apa­thy towards mas­sacres in Pales­tine and Sri Lan­ka, the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of free move­ment, the police assaults and mur­ders of peo­ple on the streets, the con­struc­tion of larg­er air­ports and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions in the face of dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, the pri­vati­sa­tion of social hous­ing, the list goes on.

But there is hope. There are anti gov­ern­ment protests from Greece to Paris, and Chi­na to Lon­don, as well as fac­to­ry and school occu­pa­tions across the U.K. World wide there are grow­ing, active, and increas­ing­ly angry rad­i­cal & work­ing class move­ments stand­ing up and resist­ing cli­mate chaos, oppres­sion, pover­ty, inse­cu­ri­ty and state con­trol.

Hand-in-hand with these protests are grass­roots actions to build a new soci­ety and take con­trol of our own lives. Ordi­nary peo­ple are find­ing ways to help each oth­er in the face of the cred­it cri­sis cre­at­ed by the banks and cor­po­ra­tions. We are re-learn­ing old skills and learn­ing new ones for the tran­si­tion to a just soci­ety; enabling us to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens, estab­lish hous­ing, food and worker’s co-ops, and use new eco­nom­ics in the neigh­bour­hoods where we live

In Bris­tol and sur­rounds, a diverse bunch of enraged cre­ative, dream­ers and schemers, builders and gar­den­ers, work­ers, stu­dents and unem­ployed have been drawn togeth­er by the com­mon threads of our indig­na­tion at how a com­bi­na­tion of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion is lead­ing us all towards cli­mate chaos and finan­cial col­lapse.

We invite you to con­verge on Bris­tol for an upris­ing of autonomous actions and events from 12th – 20th of Sep­tem­ber 2009.

The themes for those events and days of action are:

* Free­dom of move­ment (sur­veil­lance, migra­tion)
* Anti-mil­i­tarism (Sri Lan­ka, Afghanistan, Pales­tine, Fil­ton)
* Cli­mate jus­tice (Just tran­si­tion, financ­ing of cli­mate chaos, coal, air­ports)
* Finan­cial col­lapse / com­mu­ni­ty growth (role of banks, cre­at­ing a new econ­o­my)
* Work (Work­ers’ sol­i­dar­i­ty, co-oper­a­tive work­ing, work­place occu­pa­tions)
* Food (ani­mal rights, sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion, per­ma­cul­ture)
* Autonomous spaces (gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, hous­ing, squat­ting)

The Co-Muti­neers will be organ­is­ing actions and events but we need you to get involved, wher­ev­er you are from and what­ev­er your expe­ri­ence.

We encour­age autonomous actions. Come on down, join the mutiny, get in touch!

comutiny@riseup.net
http://comutiny.wordpress.com

Dates for your diary:
Sat 12th Sep­tem­ber – Bris­tol Anar­chist Book Fare
Sun 13th – Sun 20th Sep­tem­ber – CoMutiny Action Con­ver­gence – insert your rev­o­lu­tion here!
Fri 18th – Sun 20th Sep­tem­ber – Days of action in defence of squats and autonomous spaces.

Calais No Border Camp Call-Out 23–29 June 2009

The Calais No Bor­der camp is a joint ven­ture between French and Bel­gian activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

Calais No Borders campThe Calais No Bor­der camp is a joint ven­ture between French and Bel­gian activists and migrant sup­port groups and the UK No Bor­ders Net­work.

It aims to high­light the real­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion in Calais and North­ern France; to build links with the migrant com­mu­ni­ties; to help build links between migrants sup­port groups; and last­ly, but not least, to chal­lenge the author­i­ties on the ground, to protest against increased repres­sion of migrants and local activists alike.

This camp calls for the free­dom of move­ment for all, an end to bor­ders and to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tems of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens, into the doc­u­ment­ed and the undoc­u­ment­ed.

Why Calais?

We have cho­sen Calais for two main rea­sons; it is an impor­tant loca­tion in the his­to­ry, devel­op­ment and prac­tice of Euro­pean migra­tion con­trols and has long been a major bot­tle­neck for those seek­ing to get to Britain. But more impor­tant­ly, it is also a focus of the strug­gle between those who would see an end to all migra­tion into the EU, and those try­ing to break down the bar­ri­ers between peo­ples, the bor­ders that pre­vent the free­dom of move­ment for all, not just the priv­i­leged few.

Since the mid-nineties tens of thou­sands have lived in des­ti­tu­tion, sleep­ing rough in Calais, wait­ing for their chance to cross the chan­nel to Eng­land. Between 1999 and 2002 the Red Cross ran a cen­tre at neigh­bour­ing San­gat­te but this was forced to close after polit­i­cal pres­sure from France and Britain. Since then, the mas­sive police pres­ence and repres­sion in Calais has forced thou­sands of men woman and chil­dren to wan­der the Calais region and all along the North coast of France, Bel­gium and Hol­land. They are rou­tine­ly bru­talised by the police; tear-gassed, beat­en, arrest­ed and repeat­ed­ly interned at the near­by Coquelles deten­tion cen­tre. The police reg­u­lar­ly burn their shel­ters and the few mea­gre pos­ses­sions that they con­tain. The local groups that sup­port the migrants by pro­vid­ing food and oth­er human­i­tar­i­an aid are com­ing under increas­ing attack from the police and a num­ber of activists have been arrest­ed in recent months. Mean­while British Immi­gra­tion Min­is­ter Phil Woolas has been call­ing for the con­struc­tion of a per­ma­nent holding/detention cen­tre for migrants in Calais docks.

The Big­ger Pic­ture

Calais how­ev­er remains only one small part of the over­all pic­ture of Euro­pean migra­tion con­trols, a major inter­nal bor­der with­in the hi-tech EU bor­ders regime. Since the begin­ning of the decade, the EU been attempt­ing to build ‘Fortress Europe’; exter­nal­is­ing EU bor­ders into Africa and Asia with EU bor­der guards patrolling the Mediter­ranean, in Libya and off the West Coast of Africa cour­tesy of the Fron­tex bor­ders agency; and via the Euro­pean Neigh­bour­hood Pol­i­cy, where coun­tries from the Ukraine all the way round the Mediter­ranean to Moroc­co are now paid by the EU to do its migra­tion pre­ven­tion work for it.

Migrants’ Rights Are Work­ers’ Rights

Through this sys­tem of bor­der con­trols, author­i­ties cre­ate two kinds of migrants: a small num­ber of ‘skilled’ migrants, who are des­ig­nat­ed as ‘use­ful’ to the state; and a mas­sive num­ber of undoc­u­ment­ed work­ers who have no rights and are there­fore exploitable as cheap labour. Thus is our fight for free­dom of move­ment also a fight for the rights of all work­ers.

Transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty works!

Build­ing links and work­ing togeth­er allows us to share infor­ma­tion between us on a transna­tion­al lev­el. It also allows us to exploit the fault-lines and cracks in Fortress Europe. Last Novem­ber, transna­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty helped to pre­vent the planned depor­ta­tion of Afghans from Calais to Kab­ul.

Cam­paign­ing Against Bor­ders

This camp will con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of the No Bor­der camps across the world since the late 1990s and, like the camp tak­ing place this year in Lesvos in August, it will be a space to share infor­ma­tion, skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ences; a place to plan and take action togeth­er against the sys­tem of bor­ders which divides us all. For cen­turies Euro­pean impe­r­i­al pow­ers have exploit­ed the land, resources and peo­ple of the major­i­ty world to become wealthy and pow­er­ful, leav­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and mas­sive inequal­i­ty in their wake. Those who attempt the jour­ney to the UK or else­where in Europe are chal­leng­ing this injus­tice by their move­ment. The sit­u­a­tion in Calais is a result of the com­pro­mise and con­flict of inter­est between French and UK immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy and we call on groups, net­works and indi­vid­u­als here to take action across Europe and to become part of a glob­al move­ment of sol­i­dar­i­ty that defends their right to choose where they move .

Equal rights for all !!

*No One Is Ille­gal. Free­dom Of Move­ment And The Right To Stay For All*

http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/

http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

Saving Iceland Summer Mobilisation 2009!

Join us from 18th July to resist the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness and take direct action against heavy indus­try!

The Strug­gle So Far

Join us from 18th July to resist the indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion of Europe’s last remain­ing great wilder­ness and take direct action against heavy indus­try!

The Strug­gle So Far

The cam­paign to defend Europe’s great­est remain­ing wilder­ness con­tin­ues. For the past four years direct action camps in Ice­land dur­ing the sum­mer have tar­get­ed alu­mini­um smelters, mega-dams and geot­her­mal pow­er plants.

After the ter­ri­ble destruc­tion caused at Kárah­n­júkar and Hengill, it is time to crush the ‘mas­ter plan’ that would have seen every sin­gle major glacial riv­er dammed, every sub­stan­tial geot­her­mal field exploit­ed and the con­struc­tion of alu­mini­um smelters, oil refiner­ies and sil­i­con fac­to­ries, as well as a sig­nif­i­cant increase in Iceland’s green­house gas emis­sions.

The Sit­u­a­tion Now

Despite opti­mism fol­low­ing the ‘cut­lery rev­o­lu­tion’ where mass street protests and direct action brought down the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment and forced the issue of heavy indus­try back onto the polit­i­cal agen­da, the bat­tle is far from over.

The fall of alu­mini­um prices on the world mar­ket and the glob­al eco­nom­ic cri­sis has tak­en its toll on heavy indus­try projects and alu­mini­um com­pa­nies in Ice­land, putting many of the plans for alu­mini­um smelters, mega-dams and geot­her­mal pow­er plants on hold, or ruled out com­plete­ly. The heavy indus­try machine is far from hav­ing been defeat­ed but recent upris­ings show the deep impact Sav­ing Ice­land has had on the grass­roots and the polit­i­cal land­scape.

Polit­i­cal Changes

The recent elec­tions are a major blow for the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in Ice­land, with the ‘Left Greens’ boot­ing the min­is­ter of the envi­ron­ment out for being too much of a gen­uine envi­ron­men­tal­ist. We are look­ing at a heav­i­ly for­ti­fied pro-heavy indus­try gov­ern­ment, doing away with any pre­tence of the gov­ern­ment being ‘Green’ or even remote­ly Left wing. On top of this, nation­al ener­gy com­pa­nies have already start­ed nego­ti­a­tions with oth­er types of indus­try in the North, where some politi­cians ruled out a new smelter.

Anar­chy in Ice­land

Years of work by Sav­ing Ice­land to intro­duce the ideas of direct action and anar­chy into main­stream soci­ety, cou­pled with a rad­i­calised pop­u­la­tion fol­low­ing the down­fall of the gov­ern­ment, has result­ed in a con­stant­ly grow­ing move­ment of rad­i­cal activists and anar­chists in Ice­land.

Over the past few months squat­ters have twice tak­en a social cen­tre and defend­ed it from evic­tion, refugee and no bor­ders activism is going strong, Food Not Bombs hit the streets every week and actions such as the four “skyr attacks” (where green yoghurt is thrown all over dis­plays, com­put­ers and suits) in two months have tar­get­ed politi­cians and nature killers.

The mutu­al sup­port between the Ice­landic rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty and Sav­ing Ice­land this sum­mer will make for a very excit­ing and action-filled mobil­i­sa­tion!

Tar­gets this Sum­mer

The Hel­gu­vík alu­mini­um smelter, tar­get­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land last sum­mer with an action that stopped con­struc­tion for a whole day after 40 activists invad­ed the site, is still being built. Pow­er­ing the smelter will mean eight new pow­er plants, at least sev­en of which will be geot­her­mal from the Reyk­janes Penin­su­la, dry­ing it up, and Hell­isheiði – also tar­get­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land last sum­mer that saw a drill rig shut down cost­ing thou­sands of pounds. One of the geot­her­mal plants pow­er­ing Cen­tu­ry’s smelter could be in Bitra, close to Hengill, where a local cam­paign last win­ter stopped con­struc­tion from tak­ing place. The eighth pow­er plant will prob­a­bly be a mega-dam on the beau­ti­ful Þjórsá Riv­er.

If ever there was a build­ing site and “test drilling sites” destroy­ing unique and frag­ile ecosys­tems and vul­ner­a­ble to direct action this sum­mer they are on the Reyk­janes penin­su­la, South West Ice­land!

Get involved!

Come to Ice­land from the 18th July and join us for a sum­mer of resis­tance and direct action. Check www.savingiceland.org for reg­u­lar updates and infor­ma­tion for peo­ple join­ing us, or email us on savingiceland@riseup.net to let us know when you’re arriv­ing.

Help sup­port our strug­gle with dona­tions, trans­la­tions, sol­i­dar­i­ty actions and by spread­ing the word.