Category: Tribal Solidarity

Trib­al & indige­nous sol­i­dar­i­ty

Earth First! Winter Moot (Bristol): 20th-22nd February 2015 /full programme

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want­i­ng to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Shar­ing sto­ries, skills, tac­tics, updates & analy­ses of the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal move­ment

Cost scale £20 to £30 . This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion. Arrive Fri­day evening (pro­gramme starts at 7pm), leave Sun­day (ends by 4pm). It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat to…

Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre 14 Robert­son Road Eas­t­on Bris­tol BS5 6JY
Train—To Sta­ple­ton rd , two stops from Bris­tol TM then 7min walk —

Earth First! is a net­work of peo­ple and cam­paigns who fight eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and the forces dri­ving it. We believe in non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing of Direct Action, to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. EF! is not a cohe­sive group or cam­paign, but a con­ve­nient ban­ner for peo­ple who share sim­i­lar philoso­phies to work under and doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on gov­ern­ments or indus­try.

For info or offers southwest.earthfirst@riseup.net www.earth­first.org.uk

Down­load the (ready-to-print) fly­er

 

Pro­gramme sub­ject to change:

Starts 7pm Fri­day with din­ner, fol­lowed by films & an intro to EF!

On Sat­ur­day, break­fast is before the 9:30am start with cam­paigns round-ups and legal & secu­ri­ty work­shops.  After lunch we’ll be look­ing at strate­gic think­ing (see below) and at 5 explor­ing the rela­tion­ship between Reclaim the Pow­er and EF!

On Sun­day we’ll con­tin­ue those explo­rations from 10am.  After lunch, there’ll be a work­shop on sus­tain­able activism, and a chance to get involved in organ­is­ing the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing.  Please stay for that if you can and get involved. 

 

Work­shops include:

“Intel­li­gent Resis­tance: strat­e­gy and its imple­men­ta­tion in the mod­ern world”

Sum­ma­ry: Strong strat­e­gy has always been a key ele­ment of suc­cess­ful resis­tance move­ments. Whether it be the anar­chist move­ments of rev­o­lu­tion­ary Spain, or the con­tem­po­rary fight against frack­ing, a sol­id strat­e­gy is proven to be indis­pens­able.‘Intel­li­gent Resis­tance’ is a basic intro­duc­tion to strate­gic thought and action and looks to pro­vide those in atten­dance with a prac­ti­cal set of the­o­ret­i­cal tools to take away and apply to their own move­ments and prac­tice.

“Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance: avoid­ing ‘Burn out”

This is a taster work­shop from a much longer ten day work­shop and offers a range of tools, col­lec­tive and per­son­al, which can make our activism more effec­tive and help us avoid burn out stay­ing in for the long haul.

Reclaim the Pow­er meets Earth First!”

How can Earth First! and Reclaim the pow­er coex­ist in the future strug­gles and is there a need for col­lab­o­ra­tion between oth­er camps or a con­sol­i­da­tion of resources?

Legal Defence Mon­i­tor­ing:

A taster ses­sion in how to be an effec­tive LDM on actions and demos.

Cam­paigns go-round:

Dates for your diary and what resis­tance is going on around the world and your back yard..

Zapatistas: Government Kidnapped Defenders Against Highway Destruction

Screenshot 2014-11-05 at 8.20.38 AM

Novem­ber 6th, 2014

Screenshot 2014-11-05 at 8.20.38 AM

Novem­ber 6th, 2014

Joint Dec­la­ra­tion from the Nation­al Indige­nous Con­gress and the EZLN on the Cow­ard­ly Attack by Gov­ern­ment forces against the Ñatho Indige­nous Com­mu­ni­ty of San Fran­cis­co Xochicuaut­la on Novem­ber 3, 2014:

To the Ñatho Indige­nous Com­mu­ni­ty of San Fran­cis­co Xochicuaut­la
To the Nation­al and Inter­na­tion­al Sixth
To the Peo­ples of the World
Today once again, our broth­ers and sis­ters of the Ñatho Indige­nous Com­mu­ni­ty of San Fran­cis­co Xochicuaut­la have defend­ed their ter­ri­to­ry against the destruc­tion and vora­cious ambi­tion of those above who want to impose their high­way project at any cost and in vio­la­tion of Mex­i­can and inter­na­tion­al law.

 

Not con­tent with hav­ing laid waste to the forests, the bad gov­ern­ments of Enrique Peña Nieto and Eru­viel Ávi­la Vil­le­gas have kid­napped our sis­ters Feli­pa Gutiér­rez Petra (67 years old), Rosa Saave­dra Men­doza (54 years old), and Fran­cis­ca Reyes Flo­res (28 years old), and our broth­ers Arman­do Gar­cía Salazar (50 years old), Venan­cio Hernán­dez Ramírez (57 years old), Domin­go Hernán­dez Ramírez (57 years old), Mauri­cio Reyes Flo­res (28 years old) and Jerón­i­mo Flo­res Arceli­no (73 years old).
We warn those above, in case they have for­got­ten, that as peo­ples and com­mu­ni­ties who have walked a long jour­ney of resis­tance in defense of what we are, what we were, and what we will be, we will not tire of plant­i­ng rebel­lion where they cut the flow­ers, oaks, and firs; we will not tire of build­ing resis­tance where they impose the machin­ery of destruc­tion.
The roots of Xochicuaut­la and the oth­er orig­i­nary peo­ples and indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties reach deep into our hills and coun­try­sides, far deep­er than their high­ways, and they are far stronger than attempts to uproot us from this Mex­i­co that today cries for its young peo­ple, mur­dered and dis­ap­peared by the Bad Gov­ern­ment.
This gov­ern­ment, which is not sati­at­ed by fill­ing the pris­ons with rebel­lious men, women, chil­dren, and elder­ly, has again tak­en by force the free­dom of indige­nous broth­ers and sis­ters. They have done this to our Yaqui broth­ers and our Nahua broth­ers from the vol­cano region, and to so many oth­ers whose pain we also share. To all of these broth­ers and sis­ters we want to say that we walk in the same strug­gle, as peo­ples and com­mu­ni­ties who call our­selves the Nation­al Indige­nous Con­gress.
And to the deaf ears of the bad gov­ern­ments, we say that we know they are scared. They demon­strat­ed this with the 500 riot cops and police heli­copters they brought today to Xochicuaut­la, where next Decem­ber we as indige­nous peo­ples and com­mu­ni­ties will con­verge to share our rebel­lion, our strug­gle, and our seeds of resis­tance.
Their pain is our pain, their rage is our rage!
Novem­ber 3, 2014.
Nev­er Again a Mex­i­co With­out Us
Nation­al Indige­nous Con­gress
Indige­nous Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Clan­des­tine Committee—General Com­mand of the Zap­atista Army for Nation­al Lib­er­a­tion.
 

Argentina: Quechua Community Members Occupy Airport During Second Day of Protest Against Plupetrol

Octo­ber 29th, 2014

Inhab­i­tants inform the author­i­ties that, if their requests are not respect­ed, they will be tak­ing more direct mea­sures, such as man­u­al­ly clos­ing pipeline valves.  They ask that DINOES (Spe­cial Oper­a­tion Divi­sion) does not inter­vene. 

Octo­ber 29th, 2014

Inhab­i­tants inform the author­i­ties that, if their requests are not respect­ed, they will be tak­ing more direct mea­sures, such as man­u­al­ly clos­ing pipeline valves.  They ask that DINOES (Spe­cial Oper­a­tion Divi­sion) does not inter­vene. 

On the sec­ond day of protest­ing against the neg­li­gent deci­sions of Plus­petrol, a dom­i­nat­ing E&P pri­vate com­pa­ny orig­i­nat­ing from Argenti­na, Quechua inhab­i­tants took their retal­i­a­tion to the air­port.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence, Aure­lio Chi­no Dahua, pres­i­dent of Fediquep (Indige­nous Quechua Fed­er­a­tion of the Pas­taza), explained that the peo­ple feel deceived by both the cor­po­ra­tion and the state.  He relates such uneasi­ness to the the state’s dis­en­gage­ment from alle­vi­at­ing Pluspetrol’s social-envi­ron­men­tal impacts on the com­mu­ni­ty, even in the face of raw evi­dence.

The indige­nous leader also projects his indig­na­tion towards the government’s lack of com­mit­ment, stat­ing that, although the Quechua peo­ple have fos­tered active dia­logue with the author­i­ties since 2011, not one pro­gram has been imple­ment­ed with the sole pur­pose of meet­ing their demands.

Dahua reit­er­at­ed that, dur­ing the last months, Plus­petrol Norte has been erod­ing and divid­ing the com­mu­ni­ties, and that Fediquep has been bla­tant­ly ignor­ing the inhab­i­tants’ rights.  For such rea­sons, he pro­pos­es that the com­pa­ny retreats from the area and, if they wish to resume the oper­a­tion, heeds to the community’s direct par­tic­i­pa­tion.  It is also being demand­ed that fam­i­lies are con­nect­ed to the elec­tric­i­ty that is pro­vid­ed by Lore­to Region­al Gov­ern­ment and Plust­petrol.

Mean­while in Nue­vo Andeos, the peo­ple hold their grounds in hopes that atten­tion will final­ly be brought to their demands.

Not too long ego, it was them who request­ed a reme­di­a­tion process of Shan­shococha Lagoon, as well as ade­quate com­pen­sa­tion for Pluspetrol’s exper­i­men­ta­tion through­out the past 15 years.

As the con­ver­sta­tion moves, it is evi­dent that yesterday’s demon­stra­tion in Nue­vo Andoas is being vig­or­ous­ly sup­port­ed by sur­round­ing areas with­in the Pas­taza and that will sure­ly res­onate beyond.

[EF!  Newswire Note:  The fol­low­ing post is a loose trans­la­tion of an arti­cle first pub­lished by Servin­di.]

Construction of Areng Dam Continues Despite Natives Protests

Regardless of the dam's progression, Chong inhabitants continue to express their discontent.

Regardless of the dam's progression, Chong inhabitants continue to express their discontent.

Octo­ber 21st, 2014

Regard­less of the dam’s pro­gres­sion, Chong inhab­i­tants con­tin­ue to express their dis­con­tent.

The deten­tion and release of 11 envi­ron­men­tal activists in Cambodia’s Areng Val­ley in mid-Sep­tem­ber end­ed the last major protests of the con­tro­ver­sial Stung Cheay Areng hydro dam project.

Activists had been detain­ing and block­ing con­voys of vehi­cles into the val­ley since March of this year, but their makeshift road­block has since been com­man­deered by the country’s Roy­al Cam­bo­di­an Armed Forces.

The valley’s native Chong inhab­i­tants have watched the dam project grow with a mix­ture of fear and bit­ter­ness. The Chong have dwelt along the Areng for over 600 years but soon, if the dam is com­plet­ed, it will flood at least 26,000 acres of land. Moth­er Jones writes that the esti­mates range between 40 and 77 square miles.

This will dis­place more than 1,500 peo­ple, and is already invit­ing the rape of the Cen­tral Car­damom Pro­tect­ed For­est. To begin the dam project, new roads had to be built to trans­port equip­ment back and forth, pro­vid­ing free access to unscrupu­lous tim­ber com­pa­nies. At least 20,000 cubic yards of rose­wood (worth an esti­mat­ed $220 mil­lion in tim­ber) have been ille­gal­ly logged since the dam project began.

The dam itself is being con­struct­ed by Sino­hy­dro Resources, China’s largest dam-build­ing con­trac­tor and its third firm to take on the task. Ini­tial­ly, Chi­na South­ern Pow­er Grid was to build the dam, but relin­quished its con­tract with the Cam­bo­di­an gov­ern­ment in 2010 on pur­port­ed­ly “moral” grounds.

A report from the Japan­ese Inter­na­tion­al Coop­er­a­tion Agency on the project lat­er point­ed out that the dam would only gen­er­ate an out­put of 108 megawatts – too lit­tle for so high a mon­e­tary and envi­ron­men­tal cost.

Chi­na Guo­di­an Cor­po­ra­tion was the next firm to take up the project, but pulled out in 2013. They, too, found the dam to be eco­nom­i­cal­ly unvi­able.

Though the dam would be hypo­thet­i­cal­ly capa­ble of gen­er­at­ing enough pow­er for 87,000 homes, Inter­na­tion­al Rivers argues that “the dam will only oper­ate at 46 per­cent capac­i­ty dur­ing the dry sea­son, pre­cise­ly when Cam­bo­dia most needs the elec­tric­i­ty.”

In addi­tion to this low ener­gy out­put, the dam is pro­ject­ed to be more of a bur­den to Cam­bo­dia than a bless­ing – even with­out tak­ing the valley’s 31 endan­gered ani­mals into account. Areng is just one of 17 dams the coun­try wants to build over the next two decades, but most of their pow­er will be export­ed to neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. What’s worse, Sino­hy­dro will own the dam for the next 40 years before turn­ing it over to the Cam­bo­di­an gov­ern­ment, at which time the dam’s main­te­nance costs and envi­ron­men­tal impacts will poten­tial­ly make it worth­less to the coun­try.

Despite all this, Cambodia’s Min­is­ter of Mines and Ener­gy and Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment have both stat­ed that the Areng dam is on sched­ule for com­ple­tion by 2020.

But that hasn’t stopped natives from protest­ing.

“Even if they piled mon­ey one meter above my head, I don’t want their Chi­nese mon­ey,” one vil­lager told Moth­er Jones’ Kalya­nee Mam. “I want to stay in my vil­lage. Even with all this mon­ey, I could only spend it in this life. I wouldn’t be able to pass it on to my grand­chil­dren. I just want my vil­lage and my land for the future of my grand­chil­dren.”

by Plan­et Experts

Manitoba Hydro Evicted from Northern Dam Station by Protesters

pimicikamak-first-nation-protest-2

Octo­ber 17th, 2014

Pro­test­ers have forced employ­ees of Man­i­to­ba Hydro out of the Jen­peg gen­er­at­ing sta­tion in north­ern Man­i­to­ba.

The pro­test­ers, from Pimi­cika­mak Cree Nation, deliv­ered an over­sized evict­ed notice on Fri­day to staff at the sta­tion and the employ­ee hous­ing com­plex, both of which are locat­ed on the Nel­son Riv­er in Pimi­cika­mak ter­ri­to­ry.

“The build­ing is emp­ty, locked, undam­aged and under the Pimi­cika­mak flag,” states a release from the Cree Nation, which is locat­ed approx­i­mate­ly 525 kilo­me­tres by air north of Win­nipeg.

A few hydro per­son­nel remain inside the dam itself to mon­i­tor the facil­i­ty. Pimi­cika­mak guar­an­tees the safe­ty and well-being of these peo­ple, and ensures that hydro facil­i­ties will not be dam­aged.”

The pro­test­ers want com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages caused by flood­ing from the dam, which opened in 1979.

“The hydro sys­tem floods 65 square kilo­me­tres of Pimi­cika­mak land and caus­es severe dam­age to thou­sands of kilo­me­tres of shore­line,” Chief Cathy Mer­rick stat­ed in the press release. “Out­ly­ing grave sites have been washed away; Pimi­cika­mak peo­ple have died as a result of semi-sub­merged debris from erod­ing shore­lines and unsafe ice con­di­tions caused by hydro.

“The project has turned a once boun­ti­ful and inti­mate­ly known home­land into a dan­ger­ous and despoiled pow­er cor­ri­dor.”

Jen­peg, which Man­i­to­ba Hydro uses to con­trol out­flows from Lake Win­nipeg into the Nel­son Riv­er sys­tem, is locat­ed about 20 kilo­me­tres from Cross Lake, which is the main Pimi­cika­mak set­tle­ment with some 8,000 res­i­dents.

“This is our home; we will not let it be tram­pled,” said Mer­rick. “This dam has been great for the south but for us it is a man-made cat­a­stro­phe. Hydro needs to clean up the mess it has cre­at­ed in our home­land. Hydro needs to treat us fair­ly.”

She said the provin­cial gov­ern­ment has spo­ken about rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with all hydro-affect­ed peo­ples, and a “new era” of “part­ner­ship” but so far none of that has hap­pened.

The hydro sys­tem pro­duces $3.8 mil­lion worth of pow­er on its five Nel­son Riv­er dams every day, accord­ing to Mer­rick, who not­ed it “has not con­tributed to ‘the erad­i­ca­tion of mass pover­ty and mass unem­ploy­ment’ as was con­tem­plat­ed in the 1977 North­ern Flood Agree­ment.

“The NFA says affect­ed peo­ple will be dealt with fair­ly and equi­tably,” she said, adding, “In many parts of Cana­da, gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies are real­iz­ing that every­one ben­e­fits when the tremen­dous wealth and oppor­tu­ni­ty of the land is shared fair­ly.”

Pimicikamak’s road map to pos­i­tive change includes:

  • A pub­lic apol­o­gy from Pre­mier Greg Selinger for past and present harms suffered​ by all hydro-affect­ed peo­ples and their lands.
  • A com­mit­ment from Man­i­to­ba and Man­i­to­ba Hydro to engage in a good-faith process to ful­fill promis­es in the NFA, includ­ing mea­sures relat­ed to com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal mit­i­ga­tion and max­i­mum employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties.
  • A rev­enue shar­ing agree­ment and/or water rental arrange­ment with Pimi­cika­mak.

“​The Pimi­cika­mak peo­ple will not leave Jen­peg until Man­i­to­ba and Hydro make sub­stan­tive com­mit­ments to fol­low the course out­lined above,” Mer­rick said.

The chief and coun­cil will be meet­ing with provin­cial and hydro offi­cials at the Jen­peg sta­tion on Fri­day.

Kinder Morgan Surveyor Office Blocked by ‘Pipeline’, Canada

mappipe2

Octo­ber 7th, 2014

mappipe2

Octo­ber 7th, 2014

Activists installed a “pipeline” ear­ly this mor­ing in front of the down­town offices of McEl­han­ney map­ping. The adhoc group says the com­pa­ny was taget­ed for its part in sur­vey­ing for the con­tro­ver­sial Kinder Mor­gan pipeline expan­sion plan on Burn­a­by Moun­tain.

The group erect­ed a pvc pipeline, com­plete with drip­ping ‘bitu­men’ and notices to “Get off Burn­a­by Moun­tain.”

From the group’s release:

“Ear­ly this morn­ing the entrance to McElhanney’s down­town Van­cou­ver office was block­ad­ed. The doors were locked, a “bitu­men pipeline” blocked the stairs and posters were past­ed. The action is in response to McElhanney’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in sur­vey­ing for the Kinder Mor­gan pipeline expan­sion project in Burn­a­by .

 

mappipe6_0

“The pro­pos­al aims to increase the num­ber of bar­rels of Alber­ta bitu­men deliv­ered to Burn­a­by and the Sal­ish Sea from 300,000 bar­rels a day to 890,000 a day. This would result in an astro­nom­i­cal and dan­ger­ous increase in tanker traf­fic through the Bur­rard Inlet. The expan­sion cross­es the unced­ed ter­ri­to­ry of many Indige­nous nations and is evi­dence of con­tin­ued oppres­sive col­o­niza­tion and ram­pant cap­i­tal­ist greed.  Resis­tance to this project is strong and unwa­ver­ing!

“The Secwepemc Women War­rior Soci­ety has been vocal­ly opposed to the projects’ intru­sion through the heart of their ter­ri­to­ry, the Tsleil-Wau­tuth Nation has launched a legal bat­tle as well as cre­at­ed a treaty with sur­round­ing nations vow­ing to pro­tect the Sal­ish Sea, even local may­ors are stand­ing up in oppo­si­tion. Despite the resound­ing no from affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties, Kinder Mor­gan is con­tin­u­ing with the project and hir­ing com­pa­nies to do inva­sive stud­ies that are against Coast Sal­ish law and even “Cana­di­an” colo­nial bylaws. No means no and the peo­ple, led by Indige­nous resis­tance are not back­ing down to cor­po­ra­tions!

“This dis­rup­tion has been brought to you by a group of friends who refuse to accept, and are com­mit­ted to resist­ing, the con­tin­ued col­o­niza­tion of indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries by cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ment.  We oppose the oppres­sive nature of the oil and gas indus­try in our fight for cli­mate and social jus­tice. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with front­line com­mu­ni­ties who are fight­ing destruc­tive and oppres­sive resource extrac­tion projects.”

The office entrance has now been blocked off by Van­cou­ver police.

mappipe1

 

Anti-industrial Sabotage in Southern Quebec in Solidarity with Evicted Algonquin Protesters

Octo­ber 1st, 2014

by King Ludd and his army of Feni­ans / Anar­chist News

Octo­ber 1st, 2014

by King Ludd and his army of Feni­ans / Anar­chist News

Brief resume of this com­mu­nique: A rail­road tele­com was burned and three res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment pan­els van­dalised in response to an evic­tion of Native resisters in Gatineau and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the 5E3, some­where in south­ern K‑bekk.

Full ver­sion:

So the oth­er night on Sep­tem­ber 21, we’ve set fire to a rail­road telecomm cable link­ing Brigham to Sher­brooke (Qc) to the US, think­ing about the Algo­nquins peo­ple recent­ly evict­ed from a resis­tance camp and detained in Gatineau. We took the time to select a rail­way bridge in the mid­dle of nowhere near Water­loo, so we’d not have to dig to get to the cables or attract too much atten­tion. Some fuel was dropped through an open­ing in the steel cas­ing of the cables, then set on fire. Noth­ing fan­cy. It worked bet­ter as we’d guessed, as a few sec­onds lat­er it already smelled burn­ing rub­ber a few meters away. The enclosed air in the con­duct appar­ent­ly turned the fire into some­thing like a blow torch. Kind of easy game to be repro­duced else­where by oth­ers, we told our­selves… so that’s a rea­son to let oth­ers know.

Of course it didn’t cause the whole tech­no-indus­tri­al sys­tem to col­lapse! Soci­ety is still pret­ty much func­tion­al today. But you got­ta start attack­ing it some­where. Though it did feel as if an impor­tant nerve deep below soci­ety had been sev­ered. And this felt good get­ting off our ass­es in the mid­dle of the night for this.

It is note­wor­thy that this rail­way line is the exact same on which the tar sands train used to pass, tak­ing the lives of a hun­dred peo­ple last year. It is again used to trans­port oil from the West to the US, though at much small­er rate. Soon it will be replaced by the equal­ly par­a­sitic and dev­as­tat­ing pipelines, unless a seri­ous oppo­si­tion to it ris­es out from the cur­rent apa­thy so wide­spread in south­ern Que­bec these days. As the sheep put their trust in the bureau­crats and the “experts” with all their “mora­to­ri­ums”, legal chal­lenges and “envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments”, the pop­u­lar beast is tamed and kept in line, the same line that led us to a dis­as­ter last year, and keeps destroy­ing the wild life around…

Hence, as bonus, dur­ing the fol­low­ing days, pan­els for rur­al res­i­den­tial devel­op­ments were van­dal­ized, each in the name of pris­on­ers Amélie, Fal­lon and Car­los impris­oned in Mex­i­co, two of which are from Mon­tre­al.

Two pan­els were spray-paint­ed in Sainte-Eti­enne-de-Bolton (not very far from that sab­o­tage) where “Eco­cide” was writ­ten, and a large pan­el by the high­way 10 that ties Mon­tre­al to Sher­brooke.

Those ges­tures are far from the inten­si­ty of the attacks those three per­sons are accused of, but they tar­get anoth­er end of the same same social machine that destroys and rapes the liv­ing, here as in north­ern Alber­ta, Mex­i­co and else­where.

We take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pass on our shared view on fight­ing the progress of tech­no-civ­i­liza­tion: This fast-grow­ing type of visu­al pol­lu­tion plays a key role in the destruc­tion process paving way to the inva­sion of tech­no-indus­tri­al soci­ety, but also are very wor­thy alter­na­tives to the clas­sic urban van­dal­ism. There’s no geopol­i­tics of van­dal­ism, what mat­ters being just the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the tar­get to the infra­struc­ture behind, and this one is sen­si­tive as fuck. Though as count­less graf­fi­ti in the City will at least express a cri­tique and give a vir­tu­al impres­sion of dis­or­der, at best defame the fas­cists and the cops and cap­i­tal; sub­ur­ban sprawl can be stopped or slowed down in direct result from van­dal­ism against those spec­tac­u­lar out­lets of cap­i­tal (in this case, the gang­ster con­struc­tion indus­try and all its par­a­sites who just wan­na pay them­selves a yatch with easy mon­ey out the sale and destruc­tion of fic­tion­al­ly-owned land, who’re pret­ty much the same fuck­ers who pay them­selves sum­mer res­i­dences here with gen­tri­fi­ca­tion mon­ey in the city. Get the pic­ture?). We have proof of this, by expe­ri­ence… we have seen major real-estate cor­po­ra­tions with­draw­ing from devel­op­ments, just because of pan­els being recur­sive­ly van­dal­ized. We fought this kind of tac­tic, no mat­ter how low-scale or bor­ing it may look like, deserves to be brought back in the attack menu, at least as appe­tiz­ers. So, tons of oppor­tu­ni­ties for sub­vertive art at the tip of the civ­i­liza­tion­al spear­head. A good field for spread­ing anti-civ memes too!

For all the crea­tures killed or evict­ed by the death machine of soci­ety that keeps spawl­ing.

For the wild!

– King Ludd and his army of Feni­ans, from the dark­ness of the for­est

Coalition Block Highway Construction on Back-to-Back Days

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Tribal Pomo Representatives, AIM elders and Environmentalists Block Filling of Wetlands

[Today (Sep­tem­ber 28th, 2014) , rough­ly 30 peo­ple block­ad­ed dump trucks at both entrance gates to the Willits Bypass north­ern inter­change con­struc­tion zone, halt­ing near­ly all soil dump­ing for the day.  At rough­ly 11 a.m., the dump trucks went home for the day. The Cal­i­for­nia High­way Patrol took a light approach to polic­ing the demon­stra­tion, mak­ing no arrests.  We are gath­er­ing again tomor­row at 7 a.m. at The Tipi! Only seri­ous rain will pre­vent us from gath­er­ing. Check out the KMUD News report filed by Annie Espos­i­to, which begins at 6:00 into the broad­cast.]

Native Amer­i­can Trib­al mem­bers, includ­ing direct descen­dants of the Pomo peo­ples who once pop­u­lat­ed the Lit­tle Lake Val­ley where Cal­trans is cur­rent­ly build­ing an over­sized free­way Bypass, will join envi­ron­men­tal groups in a mass protest on the north end of the project today. Pro­tes­tors will enter the con­struc­tion zone north of town in the ear­ly morn­ing hours, slow­ing and stop­ping the fast and furi­ous flow of dirt-filled, dou­ble-bel­ly dump trucks work­ing from dawn to dusk to cov­er the wet­lands and arche­o­log­i­cal sites the activists seek to pro­tect.
Elders and spir­i­tu­al lead­ers from local Pomo Indi­an Bands and the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment (AIM) will lead the way to threat­ened cul­tur­al sites where prayers will be offered for the ances­tors. The AIM flag and drum will be present near the con­struc­tion area where Native Amer­i­can cul­tur­al arti­facts have been dis­cov­ered. The sites have been doc­u­ment­ed and fenced off by Cal­trans, but are still slat­ed to be destroyed by being per­ma­nent­ly grad­ed and buried under the Bypass as cur­rent­ly designed.

“I hear and feel our ances­tors cry to save our vil­lages from destruc­tion. The white man’s his­to­ry repeats itself. We pray that the Cre­ator will hear our prayers”, said Priscil­la Hunter, trib­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Coy­ote Val­ley Band of Pomo Indi­ans. “Cal­trans pla­cat­ed the inter­ests of local ranch­ers by giv­ing them per­ma­nent graz­ing rights on the mit­i­ga­tion lands and built the viaduct over the rail­road track to pre­serve it, but yet they don’t lis­ten to the Indi­ans’ con­cerns for pro­tec­tion of our ances­tors’ cul­ture or to our call for down­siz­ing the north­ern inter­change to avoid a large vil­lage site.”

The Coy­ote Val­ley Tribe request­ed gov­ern­ment to gov­ern­ment con­sul­ta­tions with the Army Corps of Engi­neers in June, but to date has received no response. Hunter stat­ed that Cal­trans was like­ly in vio­la­tion of the Clean Water Act 404 Per­mit Gen­er­al Con­di­tion # 3 which specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­ences the pro­tec­tion of arche­o­log­i­cal sites and Sec­tion 106 of the Nation­al His­toric Preser­va­tion Act. At this time, Cal­trans has refused to pro­vide any fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the recent cul­tur­al find­ings to Hunter.

The Coy­ote Val­ley Band of Pomo Indi­ans let­ter to the Army Corps of Engi­neers and their Res­o­lu­tion for Gov­ern­ment to Gov­ern­ment con­sul­ta­tion can be found here.

Over thir­ty addi­tion­al sites and more than one hun­dred arti­facts have been iden­ti­fied since Bypass con­struc­tion in the val­ley began. One site is thought to be the ancient vil­lage site of Yami. After ini­tial­ly assur­ing the Sher­wood Val­ley Band of Pomo that con­struc­tion on this large, known site would be avoid­ed, Cal­trans destroyed the vil­lage com­plete­ly in the sum­mer of 2013. Equip­ment oper­a­tors did not stop work and did not noti­fy the Tribes, as required. Cal­trans admit­ted the destruc­tion months lat­er, call­ing it “acci­den­tal” and blam­ing faulty maps. Arti­facts in Lit­tle Lake Val­ley are so plen­ti­ful it has been described by arche­ol­o­gists as an Arche­o­log­i­cal Dis­trict.

Some of the cul­tur­al sites being “dis­cov­ered by bull­doz­er” are on the so-called mit­i­ga­tion lands, acres Cal­trans is rely­ing upon to com­pen­sate for envi­ron­men­tal dam­age to pub­lic val­ues, called “tem­po­ral loss”. When cul­tur­al sites are iden­ti­fied, the area is set aside, reduc­ing the acreage avail­able for mit­i­ga­tions. Cal­trans needs every acre of scarce mit­i­ga­tion land to make up for the tem­po­ral loss­es already incurred by its chron­ic fail­ure to per­form mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures now two years over­due.

Bypass oppo­nents have pro­posed a small­er, low­er impact design to reduce the amount of mit­i­ga­tion lands need­ed to sat­is­fy require­ments that would also save time mon­ey as well as some 30 acres of wet­lands while avoid­ing cul­tur­al sites. Cal­trans had com­mit­ted to find­ing ways to reduce the amount of fill used on the north­ern inter­change as one of the con­di­tions of rein­stat­ing its pre­vi­ous­ly sus­pend­ed 404 Oper­at­ing Per­mit under lead agency Army Corps of Engi­neers. Cal­trans has pro­posed only a min­i­mal 3.5 acre reduc­tion carved from minor design adjust­ments, with­out eval­u­at­ing oth­er, less destruc­tive options.

The Coali­tion to Save Lit­tle Lake Val­ley and oth­ers includ­ing Save Our Lit­tle Lake Val­ley, Earth First!, the Willits Envi­ron­men­tal Cen­ter and Bay Area Coali­tion for Head­wa­ters are demand­ing an imme­di­ate halt to all fill activ­i­ties on the north­ern inter­change pend­ing a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion of impacts to pro­tect both wet­lands and cul­tur­al sites.

9/24 Protesters Come Back!

Despite impend­ing rain, activists returned today for a sec­ond day of protest against the bit­ter­ly con­test­ed Cal­trans’ Bypass, after shut­ting down fill oper­a­tions on the north­ern inter­change all day yes­ter­day. On Tues­day, two groups of activists held long cloth ban­ners with the mes­sages: ”Cal­trans Kills Wet­lands” and “Cal­trans: Paving the Road to Extinc­tion” stretched across the entrance to two haul roads off high­way 101, block­ing ingress and egress from the con­struc­tion zone.

A third group, includ­ing Priscil­la Hunter, Trib­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Coy­ote Val­ley Band of Pomo Indi­ans and oth­er Native Amer­i­cans of lin­eal descent to the area’s Pomo ances­tors, suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing the ances­tral cul­tur­al site they want to pro­tect, remain­ing there for some time with the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment (AIM) flag, to drum and pray. The activists then blocked a third stream of dirt-filled trucks, effec­tive­ly stop­ping work.

Pro­test­ers’ num­bers have increased late­ly due to the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Native Amer­i­can Pomo Tribes, includ­ing those from Coy­ote Val­ley, Sher­wood Rancheria, Pot­ter and Red­wood Val­ley, all of whom were rep­re­sent­ed at the protest.

There were no arrests on Tues­day. CHP offi­cers were present in one squad car and one van, but did not tell pro­test­ers they were tres­pass­ing and did not ask them to leave, as erro­neous­ly stat­ed by Cal­trans Pub­lic Rela­tions offi­cial, Phil Fris­bee in the San­ta Rosa Press Demo­c­rat on Tues. Sept. 23.

 “We came back again today to insist on our demand for a less destruc­tive, less expen­sive design for the north­ern inter­change to pro­tect cul­tur­al sites and wet­lands”, said Nao­mi Wag­n­er of Red­wood Nation Earth First!

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from Save Little Lake Valley

Workers evicted in protest against tar sands, USA

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July 17th, 2014 — from Swamp Line 9

Indi­vid­u­als from Six Nations and their allies have inter­rupt­ed work on a sec­tion of Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline. The work stop­page began around 10am this morn­ing. Indi­vid­u­als involved asked work­ers to leave, assert­ing that the land is Hau­denosaunee ter­ri­to­ry guar­an­teed under the Haldimand deed, and that Enbridge’s work­ers were present with­out con­sent or con­sul­ta­tion.

“Mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion isn’t just pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion and going ahead with­out dis­cus­sion – it’s giv­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to say no and hav­ing a will­ing­ness to accom­mo­date.” says Mis­sy Elliot.

“Enbridge left a voice mes­sage on a machine with one per­son. That’s not mean­ing­ful – it’s not even con­sul­ta­tion.” Emi­lie Cor­beau, there in sup­port of Six Nations points out.

Those involved intend to host an action camp, fill­ing the time with teach-ins about Six Nations his­to­ry, indige­nous sol­i­dar­i­ty and skill shares cen­ter­ing on direct action.

The group states that they’ve tried the oth­er process­es avail­able to them and here out of neces­si­ty. “We’ve tried pur­su­ing avenues with the NEB, the town­ship and the Grand Riv­er Con­ser­va­tion Author­i­ty. Our con­cerns were dis­missed. What oth­er choice do we have if we want to pro­tect our land, water and chil­dren?” Mis­sy Elliot of Six Nations asks.

Under bill C‑45 the sec­tion of the Grand Riv­er adja­cent to the Enbridge work site and pipeline is no longer pro­tect­ed. Approx­i­mate­ly half a mil­lion peo­ple rely on drink­ing water pro­vid­ed by the Grand Riv­er.

“This isn’t just about line 9 – or North­ern Gate­way, Ener­gy East or Key­stone XL. This is about pipelines – all of them.” Daniell Boissineau, of Tur­tle Clan, asserts. “This is about the tarsands and how destruc­tive they are to expand, extract and trans­port.”

“This is a con­ti­nen­tal con­cern. It’s not just a Six Nations issue or an indige­nous issue. We share the respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect our land and water as human beings.” Elliot states.

South American tribe sues over historic genocide

1st July The sur­vivors of a South Amer­i­can tribe which was dec­i­mat­ed dur­ing the 1950s and 60s are tak­ing Paraguay’s gov­ern­ment to court over the geno­cide they suf­fered.

1st July The sur­vivors of a South Amer­i­can tribe which was dec­i­mat­ed dur­ing the 1950s and 60s are tak­ing Paraguay’s gov­ern­ment to court over the geno­cide they suf­fered.

The case of the hunter-gath­er­er Aché tribe, who roamed the hilly forests of east­ern Paraguay until being bru­tal­ly forced out, became noto­ri­ous in the 1970s.

As the agri­cul­tur­al expan­sion into east­ern Paraguay gath­ered pace from the 1950s, the Aché found them­selves forced to defend their land from an ever-increas­ing colonist pop­u­la­tion. These colonists soon start­ed to mount raid­ing par­ties to kill the male Aché: women and chil­dren were usu­al­ly cap­tured and sold as slaves.

One of the most noto­ri­ous hunters of the Aché was Manuel Jesús Pereira, a local landown­er. He was an employ­ee of Paraguay’s Native Affairs Depart­ment, and his farm was turned into an Aché “reser­va­tion”, to which cap­tured Aché were trans­port­ed. Beat­ings and rape were com­mon. Count­less oth­ers died of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases. The Direc­tor of the Native Affairs Depart­ment was a fre­quent vis­i­tor, and also sold Aché slaves him­self.

This sit­u­a­tion was denounced by sev­er­al anthro­pol­o­gists in Paraguay, many of whom were deport­ed, or lost their jobs, as a result. It was brought to inter­na­tion­al atten­tion by Ger­man anthro­pol­o­gist Mark Münzel. His 1973 report Geno­cide in Paraguay, pub­lished by the Dan­ish orga­ni­za­tion IWGIA, doc­u­ment­ed many of the atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted against the Aché.

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al pub­li­cized Münzel’s account, and spon­sored an inves­ti­ga­tion by lead­ing inter­na­tion­al lawyer Pro­fes­sor Richard Arens, who found the sit­u­a­tion as bad as oth­ers had report­ed. Many oth­er inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions, aca­d­e­mics and activists denounced the atroc­i­ties and called for Paraguay’s gov­ern­ment to be held to account, which curbed some of the worst excess­es.

How­ev­er, Paraguay’s then-Pres­i­dent, Gen­er­al Alfre­do Stroess­ner, was viewed as a key West­ern ally in the region. The British, US and West Ger­man gov­ern­ments denied that geno­cide was tak­ing place, and the US author­i­ties spon­sored the Har­vard-based orga­ni­za­tion Cul­tur­al Sur­vival (CS) to “review the sta­tus of indige­nous peo­ples in Paraguay”. Their report to the gov­ern­ment was con­fi­den­tial, but a copy was obtained under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act. CS then pub­lished an amend­ed ver­sion.

Rely­ing part­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of Peace Corps vol­un­teer, Kim Hill, it denied that geno­cide had tak­en place, and crit­i­cized many of those, such as Münzel and Arens, who had brought the Aché’s plight to glob­al atten­tion. US aid to Stroessner’s bru­tal regime con­tin­ued.

Now, the sur­vivors of the geno­cide and their descen­dants are seek­ing redress. An Aché orga­ni­za­tion, the Nation­al Aché Fed­er­a­tion, has launched a court case in Argenti­na, with advice from lead­ing human rights lawyer Bal­tasar Garzón. The Aché are using the legal prin­ci­ple of “uni­ver­sal juris­dic­tion”, under which the most seri­ous crimes such as geno­cide and crimes against human­i­ty can be tried and pun­ished in a dif­fer­ent coun­try to that in which they occurred, if the vic­tims can­not secure jus­tice in their own coun­try.

Ceferi­no Krei­gi, an Aché rep­re­sen­ta­tive, said, “We’re ask­ing for jus­tice – there was tor­ture, rape, beat­ings. We can no longer bear the pain we have suf­fered.”

The Aché’s lawyer, Juan Maira, said, “[The Aché] were hunt­ed as though they were ani­mals, because they want­ed to con­fine them to a ghet­to. Once in the reserve, they weren’t allowed to leave. They sold not only the chil­dren, but some­times the women too, as slaves. Per­haps 60% of the pop­u­la­tion could have been wiped out.”

The Aché’s pop­u­la­tion is now increas­ing once more, though their forests have been stolen for cat­tle ranch­ing and farm­ing, and almost total­ly destroyed.