Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Indigenous group occupies Bukidnon ranch in Phillipines

1st Octo­ber 2008
MARAMAG, Bukid­non — Mem­bers of an indige­nous group in the vil­lages of Panal­salan and Dagum­baan in Mara­m­ag, Bukid­non, occu­pied and plant­ed crops on a 520-hectare land that used to be the cat­tle ranch of for­mer Kibawe May­or Ernesto Vil­lalon.

1st Octo­ber 2008
MARAMAG, Bukid­non — Mem­bers of an indige­nous group in the vil­lages of Panal­salan and Dagum­baan in Mara­m­ag, Bukid­non, occu­pied and plant­ed crops on a 520-hectare land that used to be the cat­tle ranch of for­mer Kibawe May­or Ernesto Vil­lalon.

Say­ing they have to avert food short­age in their com­mu­ni­ties, 100 mem­bers of the Panal­salan Dagum­baan Trib­al Asso­ci­a­tion (Pada­ta) plant­ed fruit trees and corn in the ranch pend­ing the approval of their Com­mu­ni­ty-based For­est Man­age­ment (CBFM) appli­ca­tion for prop­er­ty.

Vil­lalon’s For­est Land Graz­ing Lease Agree­ment (FLGLA) No. 1816 expired on Decem­ber 1997. Its con­trol thus tech­ni­cal­ly revert­ed to the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources (DENR). Since the place is moun­tain­ous and is part of the Kulkul Range and clas­si­fied as tim­ber­land, the new set­tlers claimed it is viable for the CBFM pro­gram.

Pada­ta chief Datu Hen­ry Aslag had applied for a CBFM at the office of the DENR but the depart­ment has not act­ed on the mat­ter yet.

CBFM is a strat­e­gy for sus­tain­able for­est devel­op­ment that address­es rur­al pover­ty and pro­mot­ing social jus­tice. Under this pro­gram, the com­mu­ni­ty or actu­al res­i­dents in a pro­duc­tion for­est are the de fac­to man­agers of the land, allow­ing them to devel­op, uti­lize and con­serve spe­cif­ic por­tions of the for­est lands with­in a 25-year pro­duc­tion-shar­ing agree­ment.

The grow­ing pover­ty inci­dence in these two vil­lages caused the indige­nous group to apply for CBFM and occup­py the tim­ber­land that had been under DENR super­vi­sion since 1997.

Aslag jus­ti­fied this, say­ing: “In order to sur­vive, 70 per­cent of our mem­bers eke out a liv­ing as sea­son­al agri-work­ers of a near­by banana plan­ta­tion earn­ing a mea­ger P70-100 dai­ly. We must start plant­i­ng before we run out of bud­get to buy NFA rice.”

DENR data show that the total for­est land area in Bukid­non is 669,576 hectares, com­prised of 187,548 hectares of pro­duc­tion for­est and 481,978 hectares of pro­tec­tion for­est.

To date, only 15 per­cent or 26,977.9 hectares of the total pro­duc­tion for­est has CBFM appli­ca­tion. When approved, Pada­ta would be the 48th CBFM hold­er in the province.

“Embrac­ing the spir­it of CBFM which pro­motes social jus­tice, we appeal to Sec­re­tary Atien­za to grant our CBFM appli­ca­tion the ear­li­est time pos­si­ble,” said Aslag, a leader of the Talaandig tribe.

He also urged the office of the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ple (NCIP) to expe­dite the Free Pri­or Informed Con­sent (FPIC) process which is a require­ment before DENR shall approve their CBFM appli­ca­tion.

Pada­ta also sub­mit­ted to Sec­re­tary Atien­za a peti­tion for denial of Vil­lalon’s lease renew­al after the DENR region­al office endorsed the said appli­ca­tion despite the absence of a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the NCIP.

“We actu­al­ly ques­tion the action of DENR Region­al Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Max­i­mo Dichoso. We do not want to believe that there is a con­nivance between Vil­lalon and the DENR region­al office behind Sec­re­tary Atien­za­’s watch,” said Aslag.

He argued that it will be unrea­son­able for DENR to retain Vil­lalon’s ranch because of his fail­ure to devel­op the land for cat­tle graz­ing by giv­ing up his con­trol over around 150 hectares to farm­ers.

Aslag said that the most effec­tive approach to revive the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the land and con­serve the for­est is to rather dis­trib­ute the land to land­less farm­ers through CBFM

New social centre in camberwell, london

26.9.2008
About a year after the evic­tion of the for­mer New Cam­ber­well Cen­tre, a new social cen­tre has been opened in Cam­ber­well, not far away from where the pre­vi­ous one stood.

The build­ing where the Cam­ber­well Cen­tre stood has been left emp­ty for this entire year, and only last week the boards that were placed out­side were seen with a gap to allow phys­i­cal access through the door.

26.9.2008
About a year after the evic­tion of the for­mer New Cam­ber­well Cen­tre, a new social cen­tre has been opened in Cam­ber­well, not far away from where the pre­vi­ous one stood.

The build­ing where the Cam­ber­well Cen­tre stood has been left emp­ty for this entire year, and only last week the boards that were placed out­side were seen with a gap to allow phys­i­cal access through the door.

Any­way — we have a new social cen­tre! — address is 52 Knatch­bull Road, although the entrance is through the gate on Bur­ton rd, and the build­ing is right behind Minet Library.

Meet­ings are hap­pen­ing week­ly already. Elec­tric­i­ty needs sort­ing out (hence call to all autonomous ener­gy gen­er­a­tor sys­tems) and gar­den needs clear­ing. All wel­come to help, get involved …

The next meet­ing is on Tues­day 30th Sep­tem­ber at 7pm

—

Open­ing Event in New Autonomous Space Cam­ber­well: THE LIBRARY HOUSE

CALLING OUT TO ALL AND EVERYONE A NEW SPACE HAS BEEN OPENED:

THE LIBRARY HOUSE.
52 KNATCHBULL ROAD (behind library, junc­tion with Bur­ton rd)
SE5 9QY
CAMBERWELL

WE ALL HAVE A NEW AUTONOMOUS SPACE IN SOUTH LONDON TO PLAY IN. TOGETHER WITH ALL OUR ENERGY AND IDEAS WE CAN CREATE A NEW AND INSPIRING PLACE EVERYBODY TO EXPERIMENT IN AND ENJOY.

OPENING EVENT
Sat­ur­day 4th of Octo­ber, 3pm onwards, will be our first open day. Food, music, gar­den­ing, work­shops, DIY…

LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOUR KNOWN FACES WITH NEW ONES.

THE LIBRARY HOUSE.

Roof top occupation of Shell offices in Belmullet

18.9.2008
Yes­ter­day after­noon in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof of Shel­l’s offices in bel­mul­let hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing: ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. They were accom­pa­nied by a demo of around 40 peo­ple.

Shell rooftop occupation, Bellmullet18.9.2008
Yes­ter­day after­noon in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof of Shel­l’s offices in bel­mul­let hang­ing a ban­ner read­ing: ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. They were accom­pa­nied by a demo of around 40 peo­ple.

At about 4pm, three Shell to Sea activists occu­pied the roof and dropped a ban­ner read­ing ‘Soli­taire Out Now’. The ban­ner remained there for over an hour and a half, while shell to Sea sup­port­ers protest­ed out­side the front of the Shell offices. More ban­ners were draped across the entrance area, and when the shell employ­ees left work at 5:30 they were hailed with a cho­rus of boos from the assem­bled pro­tes­tors.

Two of the three Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers who had been on the roof were arrest­ed when they descend­ed to the ground. The two arrestees were released quick­ly after­wards.

Out­side the gates of the Shell land­fall site com­pound in Glen­gad, Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s hunger strike entered its ninth day today. She remains in good spir­its, but the strike is slow­ly exact­ing its toll. She remains in her car, under the glare of pow­er­ful arc lights and with a con­stant heavy pres­ence of Gar­daí near­by. The 24-hour pro­tec­tive vig­il of Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers con­tin­ues to watch over her. Mau­ra’s hunger strike will end when the Shell pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire leaves Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. The Soli­taire remains at anchor in St. John’s Bay, Killy­begs, Co. Done­gal at the time of writ­ing.

Updates from Mayo — Shell to sea — London solidarity

15th Sep­tem­ber 2008
Protest at the Shel­l’s Dublin HQ

Activists from dif­fer­ent back­grounds came along to a 1PM protest in sup­port of the actions tak­en in the last week against Shell and the Irish gov­ern­ment.

Dublin Shell to Sea solidarity15th Sep­tem­ber 2008
Protest at the Shel­l’s Dublin HQ

Activists from dif­fer­ent back­grounds came along to a 1PM protest in sup­port of the actions tak­en in the last week against Shell and the Irish gov­ern­ment.

Hun­dreds of leaflets were dis­trib­uted and many pass­ing motorists beeped their horns in sup­port.

As always a large con­tin­gent of gar­daí were on hand to pro­tect the Shell employ­ees and the com­pa­ny’s prop­er­ty from the entire­ly peace­ful and dig­ni­fied protest out­side.

Around 20 peo­ple took park in a sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il at 6pm at Shell HQ in sup­port of shell to sea hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton.

—-

Today Mau­ra Har­ring­ton marked her birth­day with a sev­enth day on hunger strike, while sup­port­ers from the UK & Ire­land demon­strat­ed across Lon­don to bring atten­tion to her protest. Mau­ra, a teacher in NW Mayo, is part of the Shell To Sea Cam­paign which has been active­ly oppos­ing Shel­l’s lat­est attempts to lay an 80 km sea based stretch of gas pipeline.

Mau­ra’s hunger strike began on Tues­day in protest at the arrival of the Soli­taire ship which was to lay the pipeline for Shell. Mau­ra ‘s has declared that her protest will con­tin­ue until the Soli­taire agrees to leave Ire­land with­out lay­ing the pipeline.

Two Irish neigh­bours of Mau­ra pick­et­ed the Shell HQ from mid­night Sun­day until 9am with a can­dle lit vig­il for their friend. At 7am this morn­ing Shell work­ers were greet­ed with leaflets & informed of Mau­ra’s plight.

Next was AllSeas UK Ltd who own the Soli­taire pipe-lay­ing ship. 30 peo­ple banged pans, blew whis­tles & hand­ed out leaflets out­side the reg­is­tered office of AllSeas. A blank stick­er had been placed over their com­pa­ny label & some­one from inside the build­ing claimed that no-one was home. Even­tu­al­ly a secu­ri­ty guard took a let­ter from the pro­test­ers, addressed to the Chief Exec­u­tive, demand­ing that the Soli­taire is removed from Irish waters imme­di­ate­ly.

After an hour at AllSeas the crowd processed to the Irish embassy shout­ing ”Irish woman on hunger strike. No new Shell pipeline”. The Irish embassy refused to take a let­ter from an elder­ly Mayo woman. The pro­test­ers were ask­ing that the Irish embassy pro­tect its cit­i­zens such as Mau­ra who are attempt­ing to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ty from the health and safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal night­mare that the pipeline pos­es, instead of sup­port­ing the Gar­da intim­i­da­tion and bru­tal­i­ty.

The Nor­we­gian embassy was the last to be vis­it­ed. Nor­way is prof­i­teer­ing from the oppres­sion of peo­ple in Ire­land. It’s state oil com­pa­ny, Sta­toil is work­ing in part­ner­ship with Shell. Here a mem­ber of staff did come out to meet us and accept­ed a burn­ing can­dle as a sym­bol of our sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mau­ra and the request of the cam­paign that the Nor­we­gian Gov­ern­ment send the Soli­taire home.

As Mau­ra’s con­di­tion dete­ri­o­rates, the Soli­taire is yet to respond and leave Ire­land. Dai­ly protests con­tin­ue with a inter­na­tion­al day of sol­i­dar­i­ty action planned for this com­ing Sat­ur­day.

——–

Shell Demos from Thur 11th Sept

There were two demon­stra­tions held in Dublin on Thurs­day in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the strug­gle in Ross­port against Shel­l’s activ­i­ties.

One demo was held out­side Shel­l’s head­quar­ters ear­li­er in the evening and lat­er there was a demo out­side the GPO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m84LRWsLUr4

——–

Sep­tem­ber 14th 2008

Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship pre­tends not to lis­ten: mean­while 500+ cars join protest ral­ly in Erris

Hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s daugh­ter Astrid and son Iol­lan trav­elled to Killy­begs Co. Done­gal, today to make a per­son­al plea to the Shell pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire and its cap­tain Mr. Simon van der Plicht to leave Irish waters imme­di­ate­ly, and allow Mau­ra to end her strike. Mean­while, over 500 cars (with their dri­vers and pas­sen­gers) drove around Erris this after­noon in a mas­sive show of sup­port for Ms. Har­ring­ton, who has now entered the sixth day of her hunger strike.

A dep­u­ta­tion from Shell to Sea trav­elled to Killy­begs, Co. Done­gal today to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire and with its cap­tain, Mr. Simon van der Plicht. the dep­u­ta­tion includ­ed two of hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s chil­dren — her daugh­ter Astrid, and her only son Iol­lan, who was bru­tal­ly arrest­ed by Shel­l’s Gar­daí dur­ing yes­ter­day’s beach recla­ma­tion action in Glen­gad, Co. Mayo.

At about lunchtime, soon after the Shell to Sea dep­u­ta­tion arrived in Killy­begs, radio con­tact was estab­lished with the Soli­taire, which replied to ini­tial VHF radio con­tact. Once the dep­u­ta­tion announced their iden­ti­ty and their pur­pose over the radio, all radio con­tact with the Soli­taire ceased, and all com­mu­ni­ca­tions on VHF radio chan­nels were met with silence. Dis­ap­point­ed with the ship’s atti­tude but undaunt­ed, the dep­u­ta­tion kept com­mu­ni­cat­ing their mes­sage to the Soli­taire over the radio, with Astrid and Iol­lan elo­quent­ly explain­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Mayo and why their moth­er has cho­sen to go on hunger strike, and they made dig­ni­fied requests for the Soli­taire to leave Irish waters, so that their moth­er can end her strike. The oth­er ships that were involved in Shel­l’s abortive pipe-lay­ing oper­a­tion in Mayo were sim­i­lar­ly addressed; these com­mu­ni­ca­tions were also met with silence. A fur­ther attempt at com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Shel­l’s ships some two hours lat­er was met with silence again. The Shell to Sea del­e­ga­tion kept try­ing to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion for about a half an hour, but were ulti­mate­ly fruit­less.

Between the com­mu­ni­ca­tion attempts, Astrid board­ed the Irish Naval Ser­vice ship the LÉ Eithne, which was moored in Killy­begs har­bour. She man­aged to encounter its cap­tain, and she began explain­ing to him calm­ly the sit­u­a­tion in her home place in NW Co. Mayo and her dis­gust at the Irish Navy’s role in Shel­l’s attempt to begin pipe-lay­ing in Broad­haven Bay, but he walked away from her with­out com­ment­ing. She was then escort­ed off the ship.

Mean­while back in Co. Mayo a motor car ral­ly of over 500 cars made its way around Erris this after­noon — a sign of the mas­sive sup­port Shell to Sea’s and Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s stand com­mand in the local­i­ty. The ral­ly start­ed at Bar­na­tra at 3:30pm and is con­tin­u­ing at the time of post­ing.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton entered the sixth day of her hunger strike this lunchtime. Her health and spir­its remain strong, as she stays in her car parked before the Shell Glen­gad com­pound gates. The gates area is kept con­stant­ly lit by Shell an an attempt to dis­rupt her sleep­ing pat­tern, and the numer­ous Gar­daí sta­tioned there con­tin­ue to behave in a aggres­sive abu­sive man­ner. A vig­il of sup­port­ers keeps watch on Mau­ra 24 hours a day, and help com­bat the var­i­ous Gar­da ver­bal and phys­i­cal nas­ti­ness­es. Her hunger strike will con­tin­ue until she receives sol­id assur­ances from either the Soli­taire or its own­ers Allseas Group SA that the ship will not be pipe-lay­ing in Broad­haven Bay this year and will be leav­ing Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters with­out delay.

Come to Mayo and see for your­self what Shell and the state have done to a resist­ing uncon­sent­ing com­mu­ni­ty!

Rossport Update on 11th September 2008 & solidarity action in Brighton & upcoming action in London

An update on the sit­u­a­tion as of this morn­ing in occu­pied Erris

After a tru­ly momen­tous day in Erris yesterday,things are much calmer this morn­ing.
The Soli­taire has been con­firmed to be sta­tionery in Killy­begs Co Done­gal.

An update on the sit­u­a­tion as of this morn­ing in occu­pied Erris

SolitaireAfter a tru­ly momen­tous day in Erris yesterday,things are much calmer this morn­ing.
The Soli­taire has been con­firmed to be sta­tionery in Killy­begs Co Done­gal.

Police pres­ence in the area is still very heavy this morn­ing although the gen­er­al atmos­phere (aside from at the com­pound gates) is slight­ly less tense. Mau­ra Har­ring­ton con­tin­ues her coura­geous hunger strike at the com­pound gates with round the clock sol­i­dar­i­ty from both locals and the camp.
Shell to Sea hunger striker

It is still not clear how exact­ly the Soli­taire sus­tained the dam­age to its “stinger”
The stinger is DEFINITELY slight­ly dam­aged in one sec­tion how­ev­er this reporter can con­firm that it was not so dam­aged on Tues­day night when it arrived in Broad­haven Bay and that con­di­tions all through­out Tues­day night were absolute­ly calm both at land and on sea (remem­ber­ing that the Soli­taire can oper­ate in extreme­ly heavy seas unhin­dered due to its size).

The cause of the dam­age is a heav­i­ly spec­u­lat­ed upon mat­ter and I will not add to oth­er than the fact that AllSeas Ltd may be con­trac­tu­al­ly relieved from its oblig­a­tions under a damge clause in the con­tract.

More from yes­ter­day

Lock-on protest

The 5 peo­ple who locked on in atro­cious con­di­tions for 6 and a half hours from 5.30am to mid­day and blocked the road were all released with­out charge from Bel­mul­let Gar­da Sta­tion. 4 were held for 6 and a half hours and 1 was released after 4 hours. They report that they were treat­ed well in Gar­da cus­tody and that their needs were attend­ed to cor­rect­ly.

Up to 15 peo­ple were in atten­dance in sol­i­dar­i­ty at one point or anoth­er dur­ing the day, Shell to Sea lock-on 1Shell to Sea lock-on 2Gar­dai refused to allow any to stay inside the walls of the (pub­lic) station,including a solic­i­tor who is part of the protests. The lock-on par­tic­i­pants are all in good form today and proud of their actions and a good day for the cam­paign.

Pat O’Don­nell and son
Pat O’Don­nell and son as has been pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed were again arrest­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing to pre­vent them exer­cis­ing their legal enti­tle­ment to fish the waters of Broad­haven Bay. The pair were again arrest­ed under the “blank cheque” that is Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act 1994.

This was the sec­ond time the pair were arrest­ed in 24 hours and released with­out charge,a spu­ri­ous use and fla­grant abuse of the law A pos­si­ble route to stem this behav­iour would be to seek an injunc­tion in the High Court to pre­vent the Gar­dai from using the law in this way,this how­ev­er is a very rare achieve­ment and is unlike­ly to be heard.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s hunger­strike
Mau­ra con­tin­ued coura­geous­ly with her refusal to eat until the Soli­taire leaves Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. She has been giv­ing inter­views to media at inter­vals and has been chat­ting with sup­port­ers when the police are at a safe dis­tance. Gar­dai were,at 4am on Wednes­day morn­ing ‚revving their engines extreme­ly loud­ly right in front of Mau­ra’s car in order to dis­turb her sleep as much as pos­si­ble. Sup­port­ers have main­tained a con­stant pres­ence since the begin­ning of the action at 5pm Tues­day.
The hunger strike con­tin­ues

SOLITAIRE
We do not know whether or not the Soli­taire will return. We remain on high alert.

All sol­i­dar­i­ty in what­ev­er form and wher­ev­er is need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed.

—

10th Sep­tem­ber:

Five Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty campers have locked on to a bridge about 100m from the gates of the Shell com­pound in Glen­gad. The campers have been locked on since 4:30am — 5am. Gar­daí have refused to call the fire brigade, but have put a makeshift wee tent over the pro­tes­tors, and have cut a drain in the side of the road to allow lodg­ing rain on the road to drain off.

Two fish­ing boat skip­pers (plus crews) have been arrest­ed after Gar­daí board­ed the ves­sels as they approached the Soli­taire at anchor in Broad­haven Bay. Local on-the-scene reports say that Pat ‘the Chief’ O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan are among those arrest­ed. Gar­daí are alleg­ing pub­lic order offences (I expect to hear they’ll all be released with­out charges soon). Gar­daí are pre­vent­ing access now to the com­pound gates, where Mau­ra Har­ring­ton remains in her car and on hunger strike. Gar­daí are using the lock-on action as a pre­text for stop­ping pub­lic move­ment along that stretch of road.There is only one pro­tes­tor keep­ing watch on Mau­ra with a cam­era, but sup­port­ers can get close to both of them through the fields near­by. Inter­net con­nec­tion has returned to the Camp office, since about an hour before this post­ing.

Wel­come to Ire­land 2008 — Shel­l’s lit­tle police state!

Get up to Mayo now and con­front their vio­lent thiev­ing plans!

Pat O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan were AGAIN arrest­ed this morn­ing as they were attempt­ing to to exer­cise their legal right to be a sea.

The lock-on con­tin­ues to block the road from the Bel­mul­let side and the police have set up a road-block form the oth­er side of the com­pund (Pol­lath­omais side)

The 2–3 mile area in between is a pen where the police are pre­vent­ing peo­ple from walk­ing (although peo­ple are access­ing the road,and Maura,through the fields.

The Police are attempt­ing to begin the cut­ting of the pipes that are being used in the lock-on,this could take quite some time as they are extreme­ly thick.

The lock-on par­tic­i­pants are lying in pud­dles of water at this stage as the rain con­tin­ues to lash down in Erris.

A con­stant vig­il was kept at Mauras side all ngith with at least 5 peo­ple there at all times to ensure the cops did­nt try any­thing.

The Soli­taire is sta­tionery at its anchor loca­tion and there is no activ­i­ty on the com­pound at Glen­gad.

It must be under­lined that the arrests of Pat O’Don­nell and his com­rades are TOTALLY spu­ri­ous ‚a bull­shit appli­ca­tion of Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act 1994 to keep the Chief and his fish­er­men col­leagues off the waters.

An injunc­tion is being sought to pre­vent fur­ther spu­ri­ous arrests.

——-

Brighton solidarity action with Shell to SeaTwo activists are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the roof of the Shell petrol garage on Pre­ston Road, Brighton in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing the Cor­rib gas pipeline devel­op­ment in Ross­port, Ire­land. This action is in response to an urgent call out made by the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp due to the pres­ence of the pipe lay­ing ves­sel, the Soli­taire, in Broad­haven bay and the immi­nent com­mence­ment of the build­ing of the pipeline.

The ship that is to build the pipeline is booked for the next two weeks. If Shell is able to fol­low its timetable to bring the pipeline into land, this will cre­ate mas­sive prob­lems for any resis­tance to the project in the future. Shell will be cre­at­ing ‘facts on the ground’ which will essen­tial­ly make it eas­i­er to push through a deci­sion on the land route, which local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers have been fight­ing against. If work is pre­vent­ed at this time, it is unlike­ly that the ship will be able to return for at least two years as it has already been booked up.

Since 2005 there has been mas­sive resis­tance, includ­ing a strong cam­paign of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, from the local com­mu­ni­ty, around Ire­land and beyond.

Update — 4:30pm

The two pro­test­ers came down some­time after 3–30 and were imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed fol­low­ing an accu­sa­tion by the man­ag­er (a real­ly nasty piece of work) of crim­i­nal dam­age to the roof. Quite how she knew this with­out look­ing can be for the courts to decide (can’t wait). They are now in Holling­bury Cus­tody suite.

—–

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Action
12 noon Mon­day 15th Sep
Allseas UK offices,7 Albe­mar­le St, West­min­ster Lon­don WIS 4HQ

Allseas owns the Soli­taire which tried to lay the gas pipe in Broad­haven Bay, Mayo last Tues­day. It has been dam­aged and may return to Hol­land. A local Woman is on hunger strike until it leaves Irish waters and we in the UK have been asked to demon­strate at the Allseas offices in sup­port of Mau­ra. The offices pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised on this web­site can­not be con­firmed as the Allseas offices so we are going to their reg­is­tered address in West­min­ster. Please show sol­i­dar­i­ty to the peo­ple of Erris if you can.

The Solitaire arrives in Broadhaven Bay

9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Solitaire9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Local peo­ple have been alarmed to see so many police offi­cers, and sin­is­ter fig­ures in green rain­jack­ets, who may be police (although the Irish Police, the Gar­da Siochá­na, usu­al­ly wear blue) or could be Shell secu­ri­ty or even mem­bers of the Irish Army.

Inter­net access in the area near the Shell com­pound has been cut off, and the main road to the beach has been blocked.

Oppo­si­tion to the pipe lay­ing oper­a­tion con­sists of a num­ber off envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal activists based in the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, local fish­er­men who are wor­ried about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the waters they depend on, and many local peo­ple who are con­cerned that the off­shore sec­tion of the Shell scheme is being put in place while no plan­ning per­mis­sion exists for the onshore sec­tion.

A local school prin­ci­pal has vowed to refuse food until the ship leaves the area. She has parked her car in front of the Shell com­pound. A fish­er­man from near­by Por­turlin who refused to move his crab gear from the path of the Soli­taire has been arrest­ed.

In 2005 a num­ber of local peo­ple were jailed for 94 days for oppos­ing the Shell project as it was then con­fig­ured.

Since then, the project has been dogged by con­tro­ver­sy, with many arrests, court cas­es, injuries, com­plaints to the Gar­da Com­plaints Board and Ombuds­man, and polit­i­cal activ­i­ty both in and out­side the Dáil.

In recent weeks there have been 29 sep­a­rate arrests in thee area around Glen­gad beach, where the pipe is due to make land­fall.

Shell spokes­peo­ple have claimed that the project has not been affect­ed by the protests. They say that recent delays to the project have been caused by severe weath­er.

Some news­pa­pers have claimed that the project, which is being car­ried out by a con­sor­tium of com­pa­nies includ­ing Sta­toil from Nor­way and Marathon Oil from Texas in the Unit­ed States, will ben­e­fit the coun­try, even though all of the nat­ur­al gas will belong to the Cor­rib part­ners and no roy­al­ty will be charged. There is no con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tion for Shell, the scheme’s major share­hold­er and oper­a­tor, to sell any of the gas to Bord Gáis Éire­ann, and so the resource will be sold to the high­est bid­der.

The will be no finan­cial ben­e­fit to Irish con­sumers from the Cor­rib gas field.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists have warned that the onshore sec­tion of the scheme, which includes a huge refin­ery being con­struct­ed nine kilo­me­ters inland at Bel­lan­aboy, will be expand­ed and used to process gas from oth­er fields off the west coast in the the future. They also say that Shell will use the prece­dent of an onshore refin­ery to strong arm their way into installing sim­i­lar schemes in oth­er places around the world.

The Irish gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Green Par­ty Min­is­ters of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, has backed Shel­l’s scheme. Last month the Gar­da released fig­ures show­ing that 11 mil­lion euro had been spent polic­ing the project since 2006, more than half the amount the force spent on fight­ing organ­ised crime.

Activists on the ground in Mayo have asked for assis­tance. Those not in a posi­tion to trav­el to Mayo can hold sol­i­dar­i­ty protests (this arti­cle could be used as the basis for leaflets) at the Irish embassy or Shell petrol sta­tions. Green Par­ty politi­cians in Britain may have some influ­ence over their coun­ter­parts in the Irish Green Par­ty.

Shell can only hold onto the rent­ed Soli­taire for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time and all efforts to hin­der its progress will seri­ous­ly dam­age Shel­l’s plans. ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The chop­py waters of Broad­haven Bay will hope­ful­ly aid us in our actions but we need you too!

Come to Erris!

Con­tact: email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com & phone 0851141170
Train + fer­ry from £21 from most cities www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry/rail-and-sail/

Or take action at home

http://www.allseas.com/uk
Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030
(own­ers of the Soli­taire)

Irish Embassy and Shell HQ Lon­don
Shell garages across the coun­try.

For more info see indymedia.ie/mayo

Eight arrested as Shell begin winching operation in Rossport

Late Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea.

Shell winch boatLate Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea. The resis­tance last­ed for 2 hours and was cheered on by a huge local crowd who had gath­ered in sup­port along the cliffs and beach.

Yes­ter­day evening at Glen­gad, eight Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed for oppos­ing the lat­est work being car­ried out by Shell. At approx­i­mate­ly 7pm a barge began work pulling a winch­ing cable into the land­fall area at Glen­gad. This is one of the most cru­cial stages in the off­shore pipeline that can be dis­rupt­ed.

Three squadrons of Shell to Sea ves­sels took to the water to stop the work. They were opposed by fif­teen Shell, Navy and Gar­daí boats. Despite this the winch­ing work was delayed for one and a half hours while Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel worked with Shell secu­ri­ty in arrest­ing sev­en peo­ple from the water. Sub­se­quent­ly an eighth Shell to Sea pro­tes­tor was arrest­ed out­side the gates of the com­pound under the Pub­lic Order Act. All have been released with­out charge.

Dur­ing this action all of the S2S Fleet were rammed by Gar­da or Shell boats, with the excep­tion of the S2S safe­ty boat which was threat­ened with ram­ming by the Gar­daí boats before she with­drew. All of Shel­l’s ‘safe­ty’ boats had Gar­da per­son­nel on board and the Gar­dai, Navy and Shell worked togth­er through­out.

One of those arrest­ed Mary Camp­bell stat­ed “Despite being opposed by 9 Gar­da and Navy boats, we were still able to stop work for one and a half hours. Our com­mu­ni­ty is tak­ing on the might of both Shell and the State but the bat­tle is far from over. We will con­tin­ue to resist this project. There is no con­sent.”

The Shell to Sea ves­sels seized by the Gar­daí and Navy dur­ing the protest were The Niamh Cinn Óir, The Maedbh, The Michael Davitt, The Luke Kel­ly, The Ron­nie Drew, The Robin Hood and The Hypa­tia.

At present, the winch­ing oper­a­tion is only part com­plet­ed. It can’t be pre­dict­ed exact­ly when they will attempt to com­plete the work due to stormy weath­er con­di­tions. Gales are fore­cast for the next few days. How­ev­er, the work WILL hap­pen as soon as the weath­er is fine. There is still time to get to Mayo! Check out www.coribsos.com for more info and www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/ for trav­el and acco­mo­da­tion info

GRASS: The Battle For Wembley Park Sports Ground Video

On Mon­day 4 August 2008 the Grass Roots Alliance for Social Sports (GRASS) was forcibly evict­ed from the Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground in rough scenes and under sketchy legal grounds.

GRASS evictionOn Mon­day 4 August 2008 the Grass Roots Alliance for Social Sports (GRASS) was forcibly evict­ed from the Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground in rough scenes and under sketchy legal grounds.

Using an exist­ing evic­tion order from the Tent City Occu­pa­tion and an evic­tion order on the Sports Ground busi­ness­es, Brent Coun­cil forcibly evict­ed the GRASS pro­tes­tors. Then the coun­cil turned on the four squat­ters in the house on the site, evict­ing them with­out any pri­or notice — some­thing maybe the Brent Squat­ters Asso­ci­a­tion should look into.

A video of the evic­tion from that morn­ing can be found here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mWEt6DUZM

An indepth report is here.

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/09/smash-school-privatisation-battle-for.html

The day panned out caus­ing end­less dis­rup­tion for Brent Coun­cil, as they grew increas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed at the pro­tes­tors con­tin­u­ous actions to halt the start of work on the tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion for the Ark Wem­b­ley Park Acad­e­my, which is due to open at the start of term in Sep­tem­ber.

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk

Irish Navy flees from Shell to Sea inflatable boats

3.09.2008
Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in inflat­able Kayaks braved strong winds and rough seas whilst approach­ing the Irish Navy Gun­boat sta­tioned off the coast, to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with it’s Cap­tain.

Approaching navy boat3.09.2008
Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in inflat­able Kayaks braved strong winds and rough seas whilst approach­ing the Irish Navy Gun­boat sta­tioned off the coast, to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with it’s Cap­tain.

Today at 1.30pm, eight Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in sev­en inflat­able kayaks braved force 5–6 norther­ly winds and 6 foot waves, to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Irish Gun Ship, the Le Orla.

Con­cerned by the arrival of a sec­ond Navy ves­sel into Broad­haven Bay, the Shell to Sea crew of the Gran­u­aile (part of the Emer­ald Squadron), attempt­ed to speak to the Cap­tain of the Le Orla.

Fol­low­ing the Cap­tain’s fail­ure to respond to Shell to Sea’s last attempt to estab­lish con­tact on Sat­ur­day, today’s mes­sage was relayed in both Irish and Eng­lish to ensure it would be under­stood. The Cap­tain was asked to declare the Navy’s inten­tions in the bay and why a sec­ond ship had been deployed.

No response was received, instead, the ship fired up its engines, weighed anchor and fled the area.

Maebh Hall, one of the crew in the Emer­ald Squadron, said ” I could­n’t believe it. We approached this huge mil­i­tary ship in a few inflat­able boats, and they ran scared. Its crazy here, there’s now two navy ships act­ing for Shell in our bay. Will they with­draw the army from Chad and bring them in next?”

ENDS

http://www.corribsos.com/

Direct Action Camp in the squatted forest near Frankfurt/Germany

The for­est of kel­ster­bach near the air­port of frankfurt/main is occu­pied now since three month. Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning frank­furt air­port) is plan­ning to build a new run­way on this place, cut­ting down every tree on 300ha of land.

Kelsterbach tripodsThe for­est of kel­ster­bach near the air­port of frankfurt/main is occu­pied now since three month. Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning frank­furt air­port) is plan­ning to build a new run­way on this place, cut­ting down every tree on 300ha of land. In total some­thing about 100.000 trees would have to fall for the prof­it of an enor­mous inter­na­tion­al act­ing cor­po­ra­tion. For the peo­ple of this region it will mean twice the flight move­ments per year, at least to a lev­el of one move­ment every 45 sec.

In the first week of sep­tem­ber there will be an action camp on the site of occu­pa­tion, from where we´re going to start count­less direct activ­i­ties in the forests, the streets and the ter­mi­nals.

Pro­gramme
the camp will be an DIY camp, we will pro­vide a kitchen, food and all what is nec­es­sary to cook, but we are not enough peo­ple to cook alone, so we will do this alto­geth­er. The action camp starts mon­day 1.9.08 an will end on sun­day 7.9.08.

Mon­day: 10:00–12:00 Prepa­ra­tion of for­est excur­sions
13:00–17:00 For­est excur­sions
17:00 Info meet­ing
20:30 three months of for­est occu­pa­tion, dis­cus­sion
Doc­u­men­ta­tions of the resis­tance against
Start­bahn 18 West in the 1980´s

Tues­day 10:00–12:00 action train­ing:
dif­fer­ent tech­niques and strate­gies
per­for­mance dur­ing actions
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 walk­a­bout in the camp
dis­cus­sion: luxus for every­body
stan­dards of live in a suit­able world
16:00–18:00 direct action plan­ing
dif­fer­ent block­ade tech­niques +
cre­ative activism
19:00–20:30 Cas­tor 2006 (Cine Rebelde)
mobi­liza­tion for Cas­tor 2008
20:30 nasty tricks of police and jus­tice

Wednes­day
10:00–12:00 hut build­ing
cli­mate pro­tec­tion and veg­an­ism
walk­a­bout in the for­est
paint bombs and cre­ative beau­ti­fi­ca­tion
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 direct action train­ing
lock-on´s, tri-pods, radiobal­let, …
16:00–18:00 open street map
19:00–20:30 Kli­macamp 2006 (Cine Rebelde)
20:30 con­cert (?)

Thurs­day 10:00–12:00 inten­si­fi­ca­tion of our action prepa­ra­tions
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 cli­mate pro­tec­tion from below
16:00–18:00 poems
mas­sage
19:00–20:30 anti-gmo field occu­pa­tions
Docu, film, dis­cus­sion
20:30 The fourth world war (big noise)

Fri­day action day meet you at the air­port
20:30 Poet­ry slam (?)
open stage
cin­e­ma

Sat­ur­day 10:00–12:00 local and inter­na­tion­al net­work­ing
ev. found­ing of a rising.tide net­work ger­many
13:00–16:00 drum ses­sion against fra­port
and train­ing at the lake
16:00–18:00 antifas­cists for­est excur­sions
19:00–20:30 Film about Julia But­ter­fly Hill
20:30 con­cert

Sun­day 10:00–12:00 Kli­macamp 2009
info about the prepa­ra­tions
found­ing of a Rhein-Main Group
13:00–15:00 Freiräume
15:00 mil­i­tant resis­tance against big play­ers
with exam­ples from Start­bahn West and Anti AKW
excur­sion to Start­bahn West
19:00–20:30 eval­u­a­tion
20:30 Par­ty

There is a for­est full of room for your work­shops, films, music and for you!

What to bring: Sleep­ing stuff
Tents
climb­ing equip­ment
and all you can´t miss in a for­est

How to find us:

by train
from frank­furt or mainz with the S‑Bahn to kel­ster­bach
out of the rail­way sta­tion you go left fol­low­ing the rüs­selsheimer straße about 2km with the rail­way on your left
at a cross­ing out of the city you go again left and pass under the rail­way, ignore the road on your right and take the next park­ing place on the right, fol­low the signs

by car
Autoroute 3 Kel­ster­bach
Kel­ster­bach Stadt­mitte
pass through town direc­tion Raun­heim
first cross­ing after you´ve left the town you go left and take the first park­ing on your rigtht
fol­low the signs

waldbesetzung@riseup.net
http://www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de