Category: Transport

ZAD — Reoccupation Demonstration November 17th. (France)

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

To rebuild — against the air­port!

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

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

To rebuild — against the air­port!

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

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

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

When Cae­sar is floun­der­ing…

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

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

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

We keep on fight­ing, we are still here!

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

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

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

—- Addi­tion­al and prac­ti­cal infos —-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 7: Update and photos from No Dash for Gas

 

 

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

They are sav­ing over 2300 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions every day

 

 

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

They are sav­ing over 2300 tonnes of CO2 emis­sions every day

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

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

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

 

Zombie Roads — Hastings

A Combe Haven Defend­ers protest against not only the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road, but all the ‘zom­bie road’ plans pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

A Combe Haven Defend­ers protest against not only the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road, but all the ‘zom­bie road’ plans pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

Combe Haven Defend­ers protest­ed in the streets of Hast­ings today, cul­mi­nat­ing in a die-in out­side the offices of local MP Amber Rudd, who is fer­vent­ly in favour of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road which will destroy the beau­ti­ful Combe Haven Val­ley if it is built next year.

The Zom­bie Roads, pre­vi­ous­ly believed to be dead and buried but res­ur­rect­ed by the UK coali­tion gov­ern­ment, did meet with some resis­tance, how­ev­er.…

(France) La ZAD prepares for another week of eviction NON A LA AEROPORT

In La ZAD, a zone occu­pied to stop the con­struc­tion of a new air­port for Nantes, the evic­tion looks set to con­tin­ue from tomor­row. La Saulce is now evictable and it is pos­si­ble the police will also tar­get some of the places that require spe­cial forces to evict tree­hous­es and such. Call­out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against VINCI, the com­pa­ny who will be con­struct­ing. Call­out for peo­ple here to help. All means to increase aware­ness.

The police have been evict­ing la ZAD for two weeks now, only stop­ping for lunch­break and the week­ends. and the nights.
We are still expect­ing them to return tomor­row to con­tin­ue. Theyve been pass­ing by with the heli­copter today, hav­ing a look around. Since Sat­ur­day night la saulce has become legal­ly evictable. La secherie won an appeal in court, and is now not evictable till decem­ber, and la rosier also is not evictable til the mid­dle of novem­ber.
But it seems like­ly they will come next week for the places they can already evict, and havent already, most­ly la saulce, sabot, and the oth­er cab­ins that dont have a real ‘house’ on the prop­er­ty.
There is a lot more info on the web­site  http://www.zad.nadir.org if you dont read french you can change the langue to eng­lish.
get in con­tact if you want to come over, or just arrive
or do some­thing in your place, the com­pa­ny which build the aero­port is called VINCI (  http://stopvinci.noblogs.org/ ) and they have many things every­where. They are also respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the khim­ki for­est (  http://www.khimkiforest.org/ ) in rus­sia for the con­struc­tion of a high­way and the evic­tion of the protest camp there. There has already been a lot of stuff done to humil­i­ate them in the last weeks it is very cheer­ing.
Let every­one know.
The resis­tance wont end with evic­tion.
Need peo­ple to help with reoc­cu­pa­tion.
Peace and love.

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

Read more

La ZAD- Largest Protest Zone in Europe Being Evicted

Europes largest protest zone is going through mul­ti­ple evic­tions — all through much media silence! Over the past four days La ZAD, an anti-air­port protest zone, com­pos­ing of over 20 occu­pied sites has been putting up the bar­ri­cades, oppos­ing and protest­ing against the harass­ment and the evic­tions by a troop of police over a 1000 strong.

Largest Protest Zone in Europe Being Evict­ed

La ZAD (La Zone A Défendre)

Europes largest protest zone is going through mul­ti­ple evic­tions (because there are numer­ous sites) — all through much media silence! Over the past four days La ZAD, an anti-air­port protest zone, com­pos­ing of over 20 occu­pied sites has been putting up the bar­ri­cades, oppos­ing and protest­ing against the harass­ment and the evic­tions by a troop of police over a 1000 strong. La ZAD is in the area of Notre Dame de Lande, just north of the city of Nantes, in the north-west of France.

Video of one of the ear­li­er Police mobil­i­sa­tions:

Resis­tance aux expul­sions from Résis­tances nddl on Vimeo.

 

Sit down protest in Bel Air:  http://zebuzzeo.blogspot.fr/2012/10/a‑notre-dames-des-landes-l-etat-ps.html

Good series of pic­tures of bar­ri­cades and resis­tance:  https://picasaweb.google.com/113382718807039752437/Expulsions#slideshow/5799932948346626882

Good info in Eng­lish: http://en.squat.net/tag/zad/

Tear gas has been used against the bar­ri­cades and the mil­i­tary have been mobilised to sup­port the evic­tions.

Below are sum­maries and trans­la­tions of their FLASH INFO / UPDATES (please excuse the bad eng­lish).

 

THEIR MESSAGE: And most impor­tant­ly: there is plen­ty of places occu­pied (land and three hous­es with evic­tion dead­line until Octo­ber 27), and the the occu­pant-es are always on site, with lots of oth­er peo­ple com­ing to defend the area, and full of mes­sages and actions of sol­i­dar­i­ty every­where! It is not their police pres­sure which make our protests impo­tent acts of resis­tance will con­tin­ue until the project will not be removed.

Octo­ber 16th

[Places evict­ed : la Bel­lich’, Bel Air, la Gaité, les Planchettes, le Tertre, le Pré Fail­li, la Pré Fail­lite et St Jean du Tertre.]

11h18 : // in his speech, the pre­fect declared that the oper­a­tion is fin­ished for today, that all went fine, with­out arresta­tions and that the mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion will con­tin­ue for sev­er­al days to secure the destruc­tion of the hous­es

13h15 : charge et tirs de lacry­mo vers le Sabot ; arrivée de nom­breux four­gons de CRS // Tear gas bee­ing shot around the Sabot, arrival of numer­ous riot cop cars

15:10 : les gens dans le Sabot se font gaz­er, dépan­neuse et trac­topelle en vue, 3 camions de CRS et 10 de gen­darmes se diri­gent vers le Sabot // peo­ple at the Sabot get­ting tear­gased, break­down lor­ry and dig­gers been seen, 3 cop vans of riot cops and 10 mil­i­tary vans head­ing towards Sabot

15h20 : // bar­ri­cade burn­ing at the Sabot. It’s seems to get­ting hot for them

15h40 : // fol­low­ing a exterieur infor­ma­tion, the Mil­i­tary are being mobi­lized for more 48h to pre­vent new occu­pa­tions

 18h15 : // a dig­ger is arriv­ing at the way to the Sabot to enter in the gar­den by the side, 40 peo­ple are still at the Sabot

Octo­ber 17th

[Places evict­ed: les Planchettes, le Tertre.]

8h20 : // a con­voy with a rub­bish truck, dig­ger and a road semi-trail­er are arriv­ing at the Planchettes, under a big escort, big spots light­ing on the Planchettes

10:05 : // there is the propo­si­tion to meet up in the Sabot to dis­cuss, bring water and food, 10 cop vans seen dri­ving to the north direc­tion Fos­se noires/ Planchettes, medias say­ing that the destruc­tion of the hous­es start­ed 🙁 , there is demo in Paris in front of the min­is­tery of envi­ron­ment

11h12 : // there are 30 cop vans in the region around the Tertre where they actu­al­ly destroy the house :(, there are posi­tioned at the end of the Chemin de sueze and at Chênes de Per­rières, the destruc­tion of the Planchettes got con­firmed by the medias :(, at the Sabot it seems qui­et but the heli­copter is turn­ing over the Phare Ouest

12h20 : la destruc­tion de Planchettes dans les medias 🙁 sad­ness and rage…

14h48 : // there are cops arriv­ing in front of the Phare Ouest vers the Chêvrerie
14h58 : // the cops stopped to go for­ward, peo­ple are behind the bar­ri­cades
15h17 : // peo­ple juste got charged by cops vers the Planchettes

15h45 : // some 20 cop vans are in front of the Sabot, the cops came out run­ning

15h50 : // call­out for sup­port at Phare Ouest, the cops tak­ing off the tree block­ing the road

16h15 : // the con­voy which cut the tree is leav­ing, anoth­er one seems to arriv­ing quick­ly from direc­tion Ardil­lières

18h55 : // the cops broke down the bar­ri­cade of the Sabot, they entered but they don’t charge yet

19h11 : pigs got charged by the peo­ple south of Sabot, defend­ing their home, brave friends of us, keep on rock­ing against this ter­ror­istes…

20h04 : // the mil­i­tarys start back shoot­ing tear­gas

20h22 : // It seems the fuck­ers are win­ning some ter­rain on the field on the south, there are also hid­ing behind the chick­ens, fuck­ing lame

MESSAGE TO THE PORCS : if you hurt the chick­ens, we’ll call the ani­mal pro­tec­tion !!!

21h35 : // the Man­i­tou ’ some destruc­tion machine ) is head­ing in the direc­tion of Phare Ouest, the Sabot still keeps resisit­ing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we love you.……

22h07 : // 10 riot cop vans part vers les Ardil­lières, around the Sabot, they gas a lot, lot, lot..BUT THE SABOT IS STILL RESISTING !!! fuck you cops, fuck you ayrault, you dont get your air­port !!

22h06 : // the work­ing machine left with the con­voi. We got con­firmed that the cries we heard are not at all cries of fear but of rage and deter­mi­na­tion!

23h00 : // cops came back to the entry of the Sabot, they get stoned and leave…

Octo­ber 18th

[Places evict­ed: la Pointe, la cabane col­lec­tive de la forêt de Rohanne.]

9:05 : // the cops go into the Saulce, riot cops come clos­er to the bar­ri­cade of the Sabot

9h12 : // cops con­tin­ue to det­stroy the bar­ri­cade of the Saulce. 3 cop vans going towards the chemin de suez from the Saulce bar­ri­cade

[The rest done with inter­net trans­late]

9h37 : it is report­ed to the police that there are peo­ple in the tree-tops of la Saulce. Cloud of tear gas.

10h25 : begin­ning of the expul­sion of the great for­est (Foret Rohanne) they are destroy­ing the house col­lec­tive. peo­ple in the trees/ cab­ins.

10h32 : they emp­ty the house of the col­lec­tive for­est. They have a team of climb­ing.

11h22 : WE CALL ON ALL AND ALL TO MANIFEST THEIR SOLIDARITY WITH WHAT HAPPENS HERE AND SPREAD THE NEWS MOST WIDELY AVAILABLE Local­ly: 19h call to ral­ly out­side the pre­fec­ture of Nantes tonight / at 18.30 in front of the town hall of Rennes Fri­day evening.

12h00 : Rohanne in the for­est: the exca­va­tor work­ing and almost fin­ished destroy­ing the com­mu­nal house, the per­son in the tree where the climbers are mount­ed refus­es to go down, it is cov­ered by a rub­ber bul­lets.

12h14 : From the online press, the pre­fec­ture announced the evac­u­a­tion of the place called Point and Heath Rohanne, and men­tions three arrests. To be con­firmed.

13h10 : there are still many peo­ple in the trees in the for­est. The cops are not climb­ing. There would be three arrest­ed alleged­ly released. We hear again the heli­copter.

16h01 : the GIGN has left the for­est, they could not evict peo­ple still in the trees.

17h 34 : Lande de Rohanne: since this morn­ing, destroy­ing the col­lec­tive hut sur­round­ed by a hand­ful of Gen­darmes Mobiles. Some peo­ple in trees, oth­ers ground sup­port. 4 peo­ple were descend­ed from the trees GIPN. The remains of the hut were tak­en by a marabout. 17h cops to head fur­ther north to a sec­ond cab­in floor, releas­ing those who were on their way, but regard­less of at least 3 com­rades still in the trees.

20h08 : We have infor­ma­tion that a per­son is detained in police cus­tody in La Chapelle sur Erdre from 4:20 p.m. for refus­ing to give his name. She was arrest­ed on the road near Ardil­lères.

23h23 : The per­son arrest­ed was released this morn­ing, she has a meet­ing for Jan­u­ary 22 at St Nazaire 14h (It is not the per­son arrest­ed at 16.20, who is still in GAV.)

We learn that 500 peo­ple gath­ered at Nantes tonight in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Zad. Peo­ple’s will!

19th Octo­ber

8h53 : Noth­ing to report except a few patrols run­ning on the Zad, Fil­ter and road­blocks at cer­tain points, this morn­ing. The cops have mas­sive­ly left the area last night. We remain vig­i­lant but it could be that it is the end of the first “wave” of oper­a­tion here. It may resume in the com­ing days, and last …

10h30 : the oper­a­tion is per­haps not fin­ished for this phase … they expelled L’Iso­lette, and cur­rent­ly runs around the Fos­s­es Noires.

10h35 : evac­u­a­tion of the pile of rub­ble that became Le Tertre.

10h40 : Evic­tion of Coin en Cours under­way, thir­ty peo­ple are around.

14h12 : We hope that our friends in the for­est are doing well. The area is expelled and destroyed. Thank you Le Coin, we will miss you!

Received by mail: For tonight ral­ly out­side the pre­fec­ture of Nantes in 19h! It is pro­posed that we find in red and black! It brings songs, then bring your vocal cords! Song for all print here:  http://www.deljehier.levillage.org/ … Oth­er­wise, it also offers a meet­ing point for you to car­pool mor­bi­han­nais … Vis­it the Rond-Point du Petit Molac Questem­bert at 17:30. Will print some of the world! El pueblo unido, Lalalalalala .……

15h43 : dif­fi­cult time to live with­out news of our friends in places man­age­ment, we are still try­ing to get out, but our com­mu­ni­ca­tion is dif­fi­cult KLAXON!

 

 

 

(France) Communique from the ZAD

We live here, we’ll stay here!

We live here, we’ll stay here!

After two days of resis­tance and sol­i­dar­i­ty, only sev­en hous­es and one plot were evict­ed at the ZAD, a threat­ened area meant to make place to an air­port in Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des. Every­where police forces met deter­mi­nat­ed oppo­nents, inhab­i­tants refus­ing to leave their hous­es, their roofs. Demon­stra­tions. direct actions took place around sev­er­al loca­tions, roads we bar­ri­cad­ed, activists keep­ing join­ing the ZAD area, etc…

Since hours, oppo­nents are defend­ing sev­er­al plots, the Far West, the Sabot, a cul­tivable land back in use since May 2011. Right now, the Sabot in drowned under a cloud of tear gas, with a drum­ming sam­ba band. Out­side the ZAD, many sol­i­dar­i­ty actions took place, such a demon­stra­tion in front of the main state build­ing in Nantes tonight.

Con­trary to what was announced by the high­est state rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the region tues­day morn­ing, the area is far from being emp­ty. Around 20 hous­es remain occu­pied, this is even not includ­ing house own­ers, renters and farm­ers still liv­ing in the area. The pres­sure and acts from the police, such as the destruc­tion by fire from one wood hut, with­out check­ing if it was still occu­pied, won’t silent dis­sent.

With­out try­ing to com­pete with the mil­i­tary arse­nal deployed by a state to pro­tect its projects of “pub­lic util­i­ty”, acts of resis­tance will go on as long as the project isn’t aban­doned.

Not only here, but from Aten­co to Val de Susa, to Chéfresne, every­where peo­ple are strug­gling. We’ll refuse to con­form to what is forced on us!

Com­ing on the agen­da :

- Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 20th, mid­day, meet­ing point at la Pointe (le Tem­ple de Bre­tagne): gath­er­ing with oppo­nents to the air­port project.

- in the com­ing months, demon­stra­tion to re-occu­py the ZAD, date to be announced on the ZAD web­site.

More Infor­ma­tion: http://zad.nadir.org

A259 Link Road one hour from London help us now

The Combe Haven val­ley is a unique habi­tat which was once the port of Hast­ings (pre 1066). Evi­dence is now being obtained from a small group of entu­si­asts which proves this unique val­ley, which is in the Parish of Crowhurst Sus­sex, was the site of the Nor­man Inva­sion and also the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066.

The Combe Haven val­ley is a unique habi­tat which was once the port of Hast­ings (pre 1066). Evi­dence is now being obtained from a small group of entu­si­asts which proves this unique val­ley, which is in the Parish of Crowhurst Sus­sex, was the site of the Nor­man Inva­sion and also the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066. Our group is fight­ing a bat­tle with East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil to stop the A259 Link Road cut­ting through one of the most impor­tant her­itage sites in the land and also an invalu­able envi­ro­men­tal reserve.

Bull­doz­ers are already on the site dig­ging trench­es. An ini­tial road protest is organ­ised this week­end. Please famil­iarise your­self with the her­itage sto­ry because this is impor­tant. 5000 Eng­lish­men gave their blood in this val­ley and it should be pre­served and not des­e­crat­ed with a road that goes through open coun­try­side — see the videos on our web site — see why we are fight­ing to save this place one hours dri­ve from cen­tral Lon­don

http://secretsofthenormaninvasion.wordpress.com/2012/09/24/stop-the-road-camp-this-saturday-29th-september-2012/

 

Local residents camp & rally against Bexhill-Hastings link road

Local res­i­dents have released fur­ther details of the two-day pro­gramme of events- includ­ing a camp and ral­ly — in Combe Haven Val­ley this week­end, 29/30 Sep­tem­ber, to protest against con­tro­ver­sial plans to build a £100m link road between Hast­ings and Bex­hill. The group Combe Haven Defend­ers have gath­ered experts and enter­tain­ers from across Sus­sex and beyond to join their ‘Stop the Road’ event.

 

Fol­low­ing a lunch and ral­ly around 1pm, renowned trans­port cam­paign­er John Stew­art will lead a work­shop on ‘How to stop a road’, draw­ing lessons from the suc­cess­ful ’90s anti-roads move­ment [1]. Local peo­ple will also be able to attend an’In­tro­duc­tion to Direct Action with nation­al group Seeds for Change, as they plan the next steps of the cam­paign.

Fam­i­lies will also be catered for with a work­shop and play from envi­ron­men­tal youth group The Ote­sha Project UK, shad­ow pup­petry and sto­ry-telling. Local botany expert Judy Clark will be on hand and in the evening par­tic­i­pants will be able to stargaze with a pro­fes­sion­al astronomer.

Local musi­cians have also ral­lied to sup­port the cam­paign, with evening per­for­mances promised from Tim Hoyte, Eleanor Lynn, Ani­ta Jar­dine, Las Pasion­aras, Will Davis and Krysia Mans­field. The group have stat­ed that there will be no ampli­fied music and the event will be alco­hol-free.

Guid­ed walks to the Camp site will depart on Sat­ur­day 29 Sep­tem­ber from Bex­hill Sta­tion and Bul­ver­hythe (Sheep Wash bridge) at 11am, and from Crowhurst Sta­tion at 12 noon. Details of the Cam­p’s loca­tion will also be avail­able on the Combe Haven Defend­ers’ web-site on Sat­ur­day morn­ing: www.combehavendefenders.org.uk.

Spokesper­son Abby Nicol said: ‘We urge peo­ple to join us this week­end to see the amaz­ing area that will be destroyed unless we take action to stop it, and to learn about prac­ti­cal ways in which we can all peace­ful­ly and effec­tive­ly resist the con­struc­tion of this road. The appalling traf­fic prob­lems along the Bex­hill Road need to be alle­vi­at­ed, but the build­ing of a new road — which accord­ing to the Coun­ty Council’s own fig­ures will increase over­all traf­fic by 14 per cent — is not a sus­tain­able or finan­cial­ly viable solu­tion. We have to look to more cre­ative and sus­tain­able solu­tions to traf­fic prob­lems: the link road is not the answer. ’

NOTES
[1] John Stew­art was named “Britain’s most effec­tive rad­i­cal green activist” in the first com­pre­hen­sive list of the country’s most effec­tive greens, com­piled by The Inde­pen­dent on Sun­day – in part for his role in “co-ordinat[ing] protests that brought Tory plans for ‘the great­est road-build­ing pro­gramme since the Romans’ to a screech­ing halt in the 1990s.” For more info see www.airportwatch.org.uk/?p=2244 Combe Haven Defend­ers

Twyford Down anti-road protests gathering, September

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There is going to be a Twyford Down anti-roads protest reunion to mark that it is 20 years since the protests start­ed.  It’s on 29–30 Sept, when it’ll be the Har­vest Moon.  

There will be a camp run along the same lines as 20 years ago (bring what you expect to find… water butts, tents, food, etc).  That said, there will be some domes and the @ teapot are going to be doing cater­ing (Sat din­ner and Sun break­fast) — hur­rah!  Camp loca­tion to be on top of St Cather­ine’s Hill, near Win­ches­ter.

There will also be a protest / pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ty about this cur­rent Gov­ern­men­t’s mania of road­build­ing. 

 Please spread this amongst your con­tacts who you think may be inter­estd.  There is a Face­book page if you do such things called Twen­ty Years Since Twyford: http://www.facebook.com/events/344190508996315/

More details and fly­er down­load­able at http://bettertransport.org.uk/blogs/roads/100912-twyford-20