Category: Unnecessary Developments

Corrib campaigner released from Castlerea prison

21st June 2013

Cor­rib cam­paign­er released from Castlerea prison

21st June 2013

Cor­rib cam­paign­er released from Castlerea prison

Liam Hef­fer­nan released after 10 days impris­on­ment and 5 days on hunger strike
 
Today at Har­ris­town court, Castl­rea Co. Roscom­mon, Liam Walsh Hef­fer­nan (28) of Castle­bar Co. Mayo, was released from Castlerea prison after 10 days in cus­tody. For the last 5 days of his impris­on­ment he had been on hunger strike protest­ing against his deten­tion and the extra­or­di­nary con­di­tions of the bail terms that he had thus far refused.
 
Mr Hef­fer­nan was arrest­ed on the 12th of June while protest­ing against the Shell Cor­rib gas project at Augh­oose Co. Mayo. At Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion he was charged under sec­tions 8 and 9 of the Pub­lic Order Act. He was offered bail, with the extra­or­di­nary con­di­tion that he stay away from Augh­oose, site of the Shell tun­nelling works for the Cor­rib gas project. Augh­oose is also the loca­tion of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and is a cen­tral focus of protest against the project. Mr Hef­fer­nan refused the bail con­di­tions, and has been held on remand until his release today.
 
On the 17th of June Mr Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike against his extra­or­di­nary bail terms and his con­tin­ued deten­tion. This morn­ing at a bail hear­ing in Har­ris­town court, Mr Hef­fer­nan, rep­re­sent­ing him­self, made an appli­ca­tion to the Judge Browne to change the terms of the bond, in order to per­mit him to return to Augh­oose. The Judge said that he was unable to alter the bail terms in that court. Mr Hef­fer­nan then signed the bail bond, stat­ing that he would chal­lenge the bail terms and con­test the pub­lic order charges. Mr Hef­fer­nan’s first appear­ance in rela­tion to the charges is on the 10th of July, Bel­mul­let dis­trict court.
 
Upon his release Mr Hef­fer­nan said: “The state has attempt­ed to lim­it my free­dom of speech and move­ment, by apply­ing these extra­or­di­nary con­di­tions on my bail. Peo­ple in Mayo have suf­fered decades of injus­tice because of the impo­si­tion of the Cor­rib gas project. What we do with our nat­ur­al resources should be open to nation­al debate, and for any project to pro­ceed, the con­sent of the peo­ple must be sought.”
 
 

Corrib campaigner on hunger strike in Castlerea prison

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On Mon­day 17th of June Cor­rib cam­paign­er Liam Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike in protest against his con­tin­ued deten­tion in Castlerea prison.

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On Mon­day 17th of June Cor­rib cam­paign­er Liam Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike in protest against his con­tin­ued deten­tion in Castlerea prison.

On Wednes­day morn­ing the 12th of June Liam Hef­fer­nan — a cam­paign­er from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp — was arrest­ed at Augh­oose, Coun­ty Mayo under sec­tions 8 and 9 of the Pub­lic Order Act for alleged­ly obstruct­ing Shell con­struc­tion vehi­cles with­out law­ful author­i­ty or rea­son­able excuse.

At Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion Mr. Hef­fer­nan was offered to enter into a bail bond with the con­di­tion that he stay away from the Shell tun­nelling com­pound at Augh­oose. After refus­ing this extra­or­di­nary con­di­tion, he was remand­ed to Catlerea prison, Co. Roscom­mon for two days until the court sat on Fri­day morn­ing last.

In Har­ris­town Court, Castlerea, Mr. Hef­fer­nan, defend­ing him­self, read a state­ment to the court say­ing that he believed he was being ille­gal­ly detained and informed the Judge of some of the his­to­ry of the Cor­rib gas project and his rea­sons for protest­ing at Augh­oose. The Judge replied that he should take up these issues with the High Court and/or the Gov­ern­ment. At this point Mr. Hef­fer­nan accept­ed to enter into the bail con­di­tions set out by the Judge and to appear before Bel­mul­let Dis­trict Court on the 10th of July.

The Judge how­ev­er found prob­lems with Mr. Hef­fer­nan’s sig­na­ture and remand­ed the cam­paign­er in cus­tody until the next sit­ting of Har­ris­town court.

Today, Thurs­day the 20th of June, marks Liam’s ninth day in prison and fourth day on hunger strike. Sup­port­ers of Liam are invit­ed to attend Har­ris­town Court, Castlerea, tomor­row,  Fri­day the 21st of June at 10.30am

 

Shell speedboats ram and sink kayaker for Corrib gas project

19 June 2013. On Sun­day Shell began lay­ing the off­shore umbil­i­cal pipeline for the Cor­rib Gas Project. Kayak­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Broad­haven Bay to protest against the con­tin­ued impo­si­tion of the dis­as­trous project.

19 June 2013. On Sun­day Shell began lay­ing the off­shore umbil­i­cal pipeline for the Cor­rib Gas Project. Kayak­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Broad­haven Bay to protest against the con­tin­ued impo­si­tion of the dis­as­trous project.

The Gar­dai are allow­ing Shell increas­ing­ly to police the protests them­selves, by using their pri­vate secu­ri­ty force — IRMS, and at sea, so called extra “safe­ty” boats.

Do you want pri­vate mili­tias oper­at­ing in Ire­land at the behest of the most pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions in the world?

If not you are wel­come to come to Mayo, check out the sit­u­a­tion for your­self, and if you like add your skill, cre­ativ­i­ty and time to the resis­tance.

Keystone XL Activists Labeled Possible Eco-Terrorists

17/06/13. Doc­u­ments recent­ly obtained by Bold Nebras­ka [1] show that Tran­sCana­da – own­er of the hot­ly-con­test­ed Key­stone XL (KXL) [2] tar sands pipeline – has col­lud­ed with an FBI/DHS Fusion Cen­ter in Nebras­ka [3], label­ing non-vio­lent activists as pos­si­ble can­di­dates for “ter­ror­ism” charges and oth­er seri­ous crim­i­nal charges.

Fur­ther, the lan­guage in some of the doc­u­ments is so vague that it could also ensnare jour­nal­ists, researchers and aca­d­e­mics, as well.

Tran­sCana­da also built a ros­ter of names and pho­tos of spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als involved in orga­niz­ing against the pipeline, includ­ing 350.org‘s Rae Breaux, Rain­for­est Action Net­work‘s Scott Parkin and Tar Sands Block­ade‘s Ron Seifert. Fur­ther, every activist ever arrest­ed protest­ing the pipeline’s south­ern half is list­ed by name with their respec­tive pho­to shown, along with the date of arrest.


It’s PSY­OPs-gate and “frack­tivists” as “an insur­gency” [4] all over again, but this time it’s anoth­er cen­tral bat­tle­ground that’s in play: the north­ern half of KXL, a pro­posed bor­der-cross­ing pipeline whose final fate lies in the hands of Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma.

The south­ern half of the pipeline was approved by the Oba­ma Admin. via a March 2013 Exec­u­tive Order [5]. Togeth­er, the two pipeline halves would pump dilut­ed bitu­men (“dil­bit”) [6] south from the Alber­ta tar sands toward Port Arthur, TX, where it will be refined and shipped to the glob­al export mar­ket [7].

Activists across North Amer­i­ca have put up a for­mi­da­ble fight against both halves of the pipeline, rang­ing from the sum­mer 2011 Tar Sands Action [8] to the ongo­ing Tar Sands Block­ade [9]. Appar­ent­ly, Tran­sCana­da has fol­lowed the action close­ly, giv­en the lev­el of detail in the doc­u­ments.

Anoth­er Piece of the Puz­zle

Unhap­py with the protest efforts that would ulti­mate­ly hurt their bot­tom-line prof­its, Tran­sCana­da has already filed a s [10]trate­gic law­suit against pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion [10] (SLAPP) against Tar Sands Block­ade, which was even­tu­al­ly set­tled out of court in Jan. 2013 [11]. That was just one small piece of the repres­sive puz­zle, though it sent a rever­ber­at­ing mes­sage to eco-activists: they’re being watched [12].
In May 2013, Hot Springs School Dis­trict in South Dako­ta held a mock bomb drill, with the mock “domes­tic ter­ror­ists” none oth­er than anti-Key­stone XL activists [13].

“The Hot Springs School Dis­trict prac­ticed a lock­down pro­ce­dure after pre­tend­ing to receive a let­ter from a group that wrote ‘things dear to every­one will be destroyed unless con­tin­u­a­tion of the Key­stone pipeline and ura­ni­um min­ing is stopped imme­di­ate­ly,” explained the Rapid City Jour­nal [13]. “As part of the drill, the district’s 800 stu­dents locked class­room doors, pulled down win­dow shades and remained qui­et.”

This lat­est rev­e­la­tion, then, is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the trou­bling trend pro­filed in inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Will Potter’s book “Green Is the New Red [14].” That is, eco-activists are increas­ing­ly being treat­ed as domes­tic eco-ter­ror­ists both by cor­po­ra­tions and by law enforce­ment.

Tran­sCana­da Docs: “Attack­ing Crit­i­cal Infra­struc­ture” = “Ter­ror­ism”

The doc­u­ments demon­strate a clear fish­ing expe­di­tion by Tran­sCana­da. For exam­ple, TransCanada’s Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion from Dec. 2012 on cor­po­rate secu­ri­ty allege that Bold Nebras­ka had “sus­pi­cious vehicles/photography [15]” out­side of its Oma­ha office.

That same pre­sen­ta­tion also says Tran­sCana­da has received “aggressive/abusive email and voice­mail,” vague­ly cit­ing an inci­dent in which some­one said the words “blow up,” with no addi­tion­al con­text offered. It also states the Tar Sands Block­ade is “well-fund­ed,” an iron­ic state­ment about a shoe-string oper­a­tion com­ing from one of the rich­est and most pow­er­ful indus­tries in human his­to­ry.

Anoth­er por­tion of TransCanada’s Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion dis­cuss­es the var­i­ous crim­i­nal and anti-ter­ror­ism statutes that could be deployed[16] to deter grass­roots efforts to stop KXL. The charge options Tran­sCana­da pre­sent­ed includ­ed crim­i­nal tres­pass, crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy, and most promi­nent­ly and alarm­ing­ly: fed­er­al and state anti-ter­ror­ism statutes.

Jour­nal­ism Could be Terrorism/Criminal Accord­ing to FBI/DHS Fusion Cen­ter Pre­sen­ta­tion

An April 2013 pre­sen­ta­tion giv­en by John McDer­mott [17] – a Crime Ana­lyst at the Nebras­ka Infor­ma­tion Analy­sis Cen­ter (NIAC) [18], the name of the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) and Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) fund­ed Nebras­ka-based Fusion Cen­ter [19] – details all of the var­i­ous “sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties” that could alleged­ly prove a “domes­tic ter­ror­ism” plot in-the-make.

NAIC says its mis­sion is to [19] “[c]ollect, eval­u­ate, ana­lyze, and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and intel­li­gence data regard­ing crim­i­nal and ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty to fed­er­al, state, local and trib­al law enforce­ment agen­cies, oth­er Fusion Cen­ters and to the pub­lic and pri­vate enti­ties as appro­pri­ate.”

Among the “observed behav­iors and inci­dents rea­son­ably indica­tive of pre­op­er­a­tions plan­ning relat­ed to ter­ror­ism or oth­er crim­i­nal activ­i­ty” is “pho­tog­ra­phy, obser­va­tion, or sur­veil­lance of facil­i­ties, build­ings, or crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and key resources.” A slip­pery slope, to say the least, which could ensnare jour­nal­ists and pho­to-jour­nal­ists out in the field doing their First Amend­ment-pro­tect­ed work.

Anoth­er so-called “sus­pi­cious activ­i­ty” that could eas­i­ly ensnare jour­nal­ists, researchers and aca­d­e­mics: “Elic­it­ing infor­ma­tion beyond curios­i­ty about a facility’s or building’s pur­pose, oper­a­tions, or secu­ri­ty.”

Melis­sa Trout­man [20] and Joshua Prib­an­ic [21] – pro­duc­ers of the doc­u­men­tary film “Triple Divide [22]” and co-edi­tors of the inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism web­site Pub­lic Her­ald – are an impor­tant case in point. While in the Tio­ga State For­est (pub­lic land) film­ing a Seneca Resources frack­ing site in Troy, Penn­syl­va­nia, they were detained by a Seneca con­trac­tor and lat­er labeled pos­si­ble “eco-ter­ror­ists.”

“In dis­cus­sions between the Seneca Resources and Chief Cald­well, we were made out to be con­sid­ered ‘eco-ter­ror­ists’ who attempt­ed to tres­pass and poten­tial­ly van­dal­ize Seneca’s drill sites, even though the audio record­ing of this inci­dent is clear that we iden­ti­fied our­selves as inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists in con­ver­sa­tion with the sec­ond truck dri­ver,”they explained in a post about the encounter [23], which can also be heard in their film.

“We were exer­cis­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al right as mem­bers of the free press to doc­u­ment and record events of inter­est to the pub­lic on pub­lic prop­er­ty when stripped of that right by con­trac­tors of Seneca.”

Activists protest­ing against the Amer­i­can Leg­isla­tive Exchange Coun­cil (ALEC) dur­ing its April 2013 meet­ing in Ari­zona were also labeled as pos­si­ble “domes­tic ter­ror­ists” by the Ari­zona  [24]FBI/DHS Fusion Cen­ter [24], as detailed in a recent inves­ti­ga­tion by the Cen­ter for Media and Democ­ra­cy [25].

“Not Just Emp­ty Rhetoric”

It’d be easy to write off Tran­sCana­da and law enforcement’s antics as absurd. Will Pot­ter, in an arti­cle about the doc­u­ments, warned against such a men­tal­i­ty.

“This isn’t emp­ty rhetoric,” he wrote [3]. “In Texas, a ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tion entrapped activists for using sim­i­lar civ­il dis­obe­di­ence tac­tics [26]. And as I report­ed recent­ly for VICE [27], Ore­gon con­sid­ered leg­is­la­tion to crim­i­nal­ize tree sits. Tran­sCana­da has beenusing sim­i­lar tac­tics in [Cana­da] as well [28].”

And this lat­est inci­dent is mere­ly the icing on the cake of the recent explo­sive find­ings by Glenn Green­wald of The Guardian [29] about theNation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency’s (NSA) spy­ing [30] on the com­munca­tions records of every U.S. cit­i­zen [31].

“Many ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tions (and a great many con­vic­tions) are polit­i­cal­ly con­trived to suit the ends of cor­po­ra­tions, offer­ing a stark reminder of how the expan­sion of exec­u­tive pow­er — whether in the con­text of drag­net NSA sur­veil­lance, or the FBI treat­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as ter­ror­ism — pos­es a threat to democ­ra­cy,” Shahid But­tar, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Bill of Rights Defense Com­mit­teetold DeSmog­Blog.

 

Berlin-Kreuzberg: Soli-demo for the revolt in Turkey (Germany)

15/06/13

Berlin-Kreuzberg salutes the peo­ple revolt­ing in Turkey

15/06/13

Berlin-Kreuzberg salutes the peo­ple revolt­ing in Turkey

Every­day since the begin­ning of the revolt about two weeks ago, peo­ple went on the streets in Berlin to show their sol­i­dar­i­ty with the ongo­ing fights in Turkey. Anoth­er short and wild demon­stra­tion took place in the cen­ter of Kreuzberg yes­ter­day evening, the 7th of June, where around 50 peo­ple marched towards Kot­tbusser Tor, shout­ing slo­gans and light­ing fire­works.

Mate­r­i­al from a con­struc­tion site got pulled on the street, so after a short while the traf­fic was blocked in every direc­tion. The cops, that were mak­ing a dru­graid at this moment, got attacked with stones, paint­bombs and fire. After that the mob dis­persed.

Short­ly before the demon­stra­tors reached Kot­tbusser Tor, leaflets were spread in the close area. The text was writ­ten in turk­ish and ger­man and cir­cu­lat­ed some days before fri­days action. Ban­ners were hung up as well say­ing „Berlin salutes Istan­bul-for social revolt world­wide“ and „Özgür­lük için omuz omuza!“ („Side by side towards free­dom“). As was writ­ten in the news­pa­pers two peo­ple got arrest­ed by the cops and released the next day.

We send our sol­i­dar­i­ty to them as well, since they are fac­ing the repres­sion of the police and the state jus­tice sys­tem.

We will be back again, where, when and how we want. Take part in the demon­stra­tions, pre­pare actions and show the rebels that we are fight­ing on their side, just in a dif­fer­ent city.

Our thoughts are with the fam­i­lies, friends and com­rades of Mehmet Ayvalı­taş, Abdul­lah Cömert and Ethem Sarısülük, that got killed dur­ing the revolt.

Free­dom for the pris­on­ers!

Side by side towards free­dom!

The leaflet that was hand­ed out:

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the revolt­ing peo­ple

Peo­ple flock the streets, bar­ri­cades are set up, cars are burn­ing and every­thing thats not fixed gets thrown at the police. The sky is cloud­ed by tear­gas and a scream for free­dom makes its way through the dust.
The planned destruc­tion of one of the last green spots in Istan­bul, to have a shop­ping mall instead, was the spark that brought thou­sand of peo­ple on the streets for resis­tance. Until now the revolt spread like a wild­fire all over the coun­try.

No mat­ter how dif­fer­ent the moti­va­tions and rea­sons of every­one involved may be, they open new spaces of self-orga­ni­za­tion, sol­i­dar­i­ty and con­tro­ver­sy by burst­ing the exis­tent.
All these things that are rarely hap­pen­ing in this world as we know it. Between school, work, pay­ing your rent, feed­ing your fam­i­ly and so on, it looks like there is no time to dis­pute with the destruc­tion of our envi­ron­ment.
We like the fact, that there are peo­ple that still doing exact­ly that. As we can see, the small fights in your dai­ly life can be the trig­ger of a gen­er­al upris­ing.
We are rec­og­niz­ing the smoke sig­nals of the cities and we see these fights match­ing up with our own ones- against dis­place­ment, degra­da­tion and police vio­lence.
That’s why we call out for sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of the upris­ing. Let them see the sig­nals on Bosporus as well, so that they are not all one.

Side by side towards free­dom! (A)

Riot Police Raid Gezi Gardens and Evict Treesits

Police removing tree-sitter.

14/06/13.

Police removing tree-sitter.

14/06/13. Police remov­ing tree-sit­ter.

As police in Turkey con­tin­ue to try and remove peo­ple from Gezi Park in Istan­bul, last night over 100 riot police raid­ed the encamp­ment at Fell and Lagu­na, arrest­ing 7 peo­ple, removed tree sit­ters, and destroyed crops and struc­tures. A seen in one video, one tree-sit­ter fell from their tree while being removed, although it is unclear if they have any seri­ous injuries.

Accord­ing to Lib­er­ate the Land, “Folks are gath­er­ing at Patricia’s Green on Octavia Street between Hayes Street and Fell Street now after a night time light­ning raid by SFPD on #Gezi­Gar­dens, the for­mer site of Hayes Val­ley Farm on Oak and Lagu­na Streets, with guns drawn. Folks who just went through the raid and sup­port­ers need food, a kitchen, sleep­ing bags, ban­ner mak­ing mate­ri­als, paint, etc. Come gath­er with us today, meet up for a dis­cus­sion at 6pm, and def­i­nite­ly plan to come here Fri­day at 6pm for a recon­ver­gence. Let it build.”

 

Police blocking of street in front of garden

Police block­ing of street in front of gar­den

Police appear to have the area around the gar­den blocked off while they destroy the rest of the encamp­ment. As was planned, peo­ple will con­tin­ue to gath­er at Octavia and Fell Streets to pre­pare to retake the land on Fri­day at 6pm. Peo­ple are encour­aged to take part in the mobi­liza­tion and bring sup­plies if they are not able to make it out. Occu­piers have planned a week­end long fes­ti­val from Sat­ur­day to Mon­day, to coin­cide with the con­struc­tion of the new devel­op­ment on the site of the gar­den.

Protester received a black eye from SFPD

Pro­test­er received a black eye from SFPD

As usu­al, most main­stream media reports are now herald­ing the raid, por­tray­ing pro­test­ers as out of town idiot hip­pies with no com­mu­ni­ty sup­port what-so-ever. Inter­est­ing how when hun­dreds, includ­ing many locals came through the gates for a fes­ti­val last Sat­ur­day, most media was remark­ably absent. The media loves a good protest sto­ry, but they love the hap­py end­ing of the gov­ern­ment com­ing in, crack­ing skulls, and send­ing those that would dare resist to jail. It’s a tale that they con­stant­ly repeat and it serves as a warn­ing to any­one else that would dare stand up to the forces of the state and busi­ness as to where strug­gling will get you.

The lux­u­ry con­do devel­op­ment which is slat­ed to take place where the gar­den now stands will be part of an onslaught of devel­op­ments which will add to the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of San Fran­cis­co and the con­tin­ued dis­place­ment of many of the cur­rent res­i­dents. As the Guardian recent­ly wrote: “Region­al plan­ners want to put 280,000 more peo­ple into San Fran­cis­co — and they admit that many cur­rent res­i­dents will have to leave.”

Police and protesters outside of Gezi Gardens

Police and pro­test­ers out­side of Gezi Gar­dens

While the con­struc­tion plans call for half of the site to be “afford­able hous­ing,” this is based on half of the medi­an income of the city, which is around $60,000, still much more than many peo­ple, includ­ing many fam­i­lies are able to make in the city. Trust me, if some Hayes Val­ley Res­i­dents are uncom­fort­able rub­bing elbows with Occu­py pro­tes­tors work­ing a toma­to plant, they aren’t going to allow a fam­i­ly from the Ten­der­loin or Hunter’s Point to move in next door.

San Fran­cis­co is still a city swim­ming with thou­sands of vacant prop­er­ties. Accord­ing to the San Fran­cis­co Busi­ness Times, “[The city] has more than 30,000 emp­ty homes accord­ing to 2010 U.S. Cen­sus data. That means about 8.3 per­cent or about one in every dozen homes is vacant — more than any oth­er sur­round­ing coun­ty.” There is a rea­son for all the vacant homes as many are tak­en off the mar­ket by land­lords so they will not be rent con­trolled or pur­pose­ly made emp­ty so they can be con­vert­ed into con­dos through the Ellis Act. As in Turkey, the strug­gle at Gezi Gar­dens is not just over green space or a few trees, but a class strug­gle over the pow­er of wealthy and pow­er­ful peo­ple to con­trol and exploit our lives.   

The strug­gle at Gezi Gar­dens is still far from over. See you on the streets Fri­day!

gezigardens5

 

Eco-warriors Raid Exploratory Iron Mine Site in Wisconsin!

14/06/13. On June 11, masked eco-war­riors car­ried out a day­light raid on the explorato­ry drill site for a pro­posed iron mine in Wisconsin’s Peno­kee Hills.  Read on below for the anony­mous com­mu­nique.

14/06/13. On June 11, masked eco-war­riors car­ried out a day­light raid on the explorato­ry drill site for a pro­posed iron mine in Wisconsin’s Peno­kee Hills.  Read on below for the anony­mous com­mu­nique.

On Tues­day, June 11th, some wild ones awoke to the sound of a drill rig and flatbed trucks dri­ving up the ridge of the Peno­kee Hills in the North­woods of Wis­con­sin. Idea Drilling LLC were attempt­ing to drill the first of eight core sam­ples that would be used to deter­mine the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of iron ore in a 22-mile long stretch of the Peno­kee Hills, slat­ed for open-pit min­ing destruc­tion by Goge­bic Taconite. Forty per­cent of Lake Superior’s wet­lands lie down­stream from the Peno­kee Hills, as does the Bad Riv­er Ojib­we Reser­va­tion, whose mem­bers depend on healthy water­ways for their wild rice and fish. Sure­ly, the amount of waste rock present in this type of min­ing would result in sul­fides and heavy met­al pol­lu­tants being exposed to these pre­cious water­ways down­stream and would change the land that human and non-human lives depend on for sur­vival for­ev­er. Mak­ing the pre­lim­i­nary stages of this mine as expen­sive as pos­si­ble to send a clear mes­sage to financiers that this is an extreme­ly risky invest­ment is one strat­e­gy that was being pur­sued in the fol­low­ing action.

Wear­ing t‑shirts and ban­dan­nas for masks, about fif­teen wild ones sprang into action, added their own lock and chain to the gat­ed entrance and built sev­er­al bar­ri­cades out of small boul­ders and downed trees. This was done on the access road in order to delay the antic­i­pat­ed police response for what was to hap­pen. Once arriv­ing to the site where the drill work­ers and man­ag­ing geol­o­gist were, folks took the space over for about an hour. They jumped on trucks and the col­lec­tion tank and threw pieces of equip­ment like pick­ax­es, fire extin­guish­ers, and shov­els down the hill­side into the thick of the woods. Fences were knocked over and bro­ken and per­son­al cig­a­rettes were raid­ed out of one of the com­pa­ny vehi­cles as work­ers and the man­ag­er stood in awe. When it was dis­cov­ered that the man­ag­er was tap­ing all of this for evi­dence, their cam­era was snatched, bro­ken, and thrown into the woods. Min­utes lat­er, a smart phone was snatched for the same rea­son and it met a sim­i­lar fate.

At this point, some of the work­ers escaped the site in a com­pa­ny vehi­cle in order to find recep­tion to call the police, because cell phones and CB radios do not work once you are on top of the ridge. We stayed about 10–15 min­utes longer, but then decid­ed to leave in order to avoid arrests. We dis­ap­peared into the woods and were able to out­wit and out­run sher­iff deputies on ATV’s because we know the ter­rain bet­ter than they do. We were able to inflict dam­ages upon the com­pa­ny in the form of an entire day of labor costs through the dis­tur­bance and sub­se­quent police reports that their work­ers had to spend their shift doing, as well as shat­ter their sense of secu­ri­ty.

Anoth­er out­come of the protest is that Goge­bic Taconite will be forced to hire pri­vate secu­ri­ty for the com­pa­ny con­tract­ed to do explorato­ry drilling in the Peno­kee Range. Ash­land and Iron Coun­ty sheriff’s deputies were on the scene Tues­day, but Ash­land Coun­ty Sher­iff Mick Bren­nan said they can’t afford to staff the drill site 24/7, so that kind of secu­ri­ty is up to the min­ing com­pa­ny.

May the costs con­tin­ue to be imposed and may the secu­ri­ty guards and min­ing man­agers cow­er in fear.

-some wild coy­otes

Elsipogtog First Nation Arrested Blocking Shale Trucks During Sacred Fire

Twelve peo­ple were arrest­ed Fri­day morn­ing by the RCMP [Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police] at the site of a sacred fire as part of an on-going protest in New Brunswick over seis­mic test­ing in the area.

RCMP spokes­woman Cpl. Chan­tal Far­rah said the arrests were made because peo­ple were attempt­ing to block trucks and work­ers.

Far­rah said sev­en men and five women were tak­en into cus­tody on Route 126 out­side Monc­ton near Elsi­pog­tog First Nation.

The sacred fire was lit by mem­bers of Elsi­pog­tog on June 11 beside a high­way where seis­mic test­ing vehi­cles are search­ing for shale gas deposits.

Oppo­nents of the explo­ration fear that once the com­pa­ny, SWN Resources Cana­da, finds shale gas, it won’t be long before it employs a con­tro­ver­sial drilling tech­nique called hydraulic frac­tur­ing, bet­ter known as frack­ing, to get at it.

Pho­tos on social media show some of the arrests, includ­ing one that appears to be a man hold­ing a sacred pipe, with his hands in plas­tic cuffs.

Indigenous Resistance, Arrests Continue Against Fracking in New Brunswick

10/06/13 Susanne Patles in prayer, as New Brunswick RCMP con­fer. (Pho­to: M. Howe)

10/06/13 Susanne Patles in prayer, as New Brunswick RCMP con­fer. (Pho­to: M. Howe)

ELSIPOGTOG, NEW BRUNSWICK – About 25 RCMP offi­cers in uni­form, along with about a dozen police cruis­ers, today con­tin­ued to flank equip­ment owned by gas explo­ration com­pa­ny SWN Resources Cana­da as they pro­ceed­ed with their seis­mic test­ing of high­way 126 in Kent Coun­ty, New Brunswick.   

Push­ing the scat­tered crowd of Indige­nous and non-Indige­nous peo­ple back “50 metres dis­tance” from the south­ward approach­ing seis­mic trucks – or ‘thumpers’ – the RCMP first arrest­ed one demon­stra­tor and chased anoth­er into the woods before arrest­ing Susanne Patles.

Patles, a Mi’kmaq woman, had scat­tered a line of tobac­co between her­self and the approach­ing police, then pro­ceed­ed to draw a cir­cle of tobac­co in the high­way, where she then knelt and began to pray. After about two min­utes, the police pro­ceed­ed to arrest Patles. An offi­cer Bernard not­ed that she was being charged with mis­chief.

Today’s two arrests fol­low anoth­er three made last Wednes­day, when peo­ple again placed them­selves in the path of SWN’s thumpers. Res­i­dents fear that the tests will lead to hydraulic frac­tur­ing – or frack­ing – of the area.

Lor­raine Clair, arrest­ed on Wednes­day, con­tin­ues to recov­er from nerve dam­age suf­fered from the rough treat­ment hand­ed down on her by RCMP offi­cers.

Resis­tance to SWN’s pres­ence, which is locat­ed in a part of tra­di­tion­al Mi’kma’ki ter­ri­to­ry known as Sig­nig­tog – or dis­trict 6 – has so far been strong. Thumper trucks have for days now been met with peo­ple who object to frack­ing from the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties, as well as sup­port­ers from around the Mar­itimes who are now begin­ning to flock towards the focal point of the high­way. 

Patles taken into custody. (Photo: M. Howe)

Patles tak­en into cus­tody. (Pho­to: M. Howe)

 

Colombian Guerilla Group Holding Canadian Mining Executive Hostage Takes Aim at Ottawa

Guerrilla fighters from ELN in Colombia.10/06/13, A Colom­bia gueril­la group is try­ing to draw Ottawa into its bat­tle with a Toron­to-based min­ing com­pa­ny which is qui­etl

Guerrilla fighters from ELN in Colombia.10/06/13, A Colom­bia gueril­la group is try­ing to draw Ottawa into its bat­tle with a Toron­to-based min­ing com­pa­ny which is qui­et­ly try­ing to secure the release of one of its exec­u­tives who has been held hostage since Jan­u­ary.

The Ejerci­to de Lib­era­cion Nacional (ELN) kid­napped Ger­not Wober, 47, on Jan. 18, dur­ing an attack on the Snow Mine camp in Boli­var state, which sits in the north­ern part of the coun­try. The gueril­la group kid­napped five oth­er peo­ple, includ­ing three Colom­bians and two Peru­vians, who have all since been released.

The gueril­la group says that Wober, the vice-pres­i­dent of Toron­to-based Brae­val Min­ing Corp, won’t be released until the com­pa­ny gives up gold min­ing con­ces­sions in the San Lucas moun­tain range which the ELN claims were ini­tial­ly giv­en to local min­ers who live in the area.

In a state­ment issued Wednes­day and post­ed on the gueril­la group’s web­site, the ELN took aim at the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment.

“The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment should at least be con­cerned about whether its anti-cor­rup­tion laws are being fol­lowed by Cana­di­an com­pa­nies in their for­eign oper­a­tions,” said the ELN. “Nei­ther the Colom­bian nor Cana­di­an gov­ern­ments have both­ered to inves­ti­gate our accu­sa­tions about the dis­pos­ses­sion of four min­ing con­ces­sions held by com­mu­ni­ties in the south­ern part of Boliv­er (state) by the North­ern Amer­i­can com­pa­ny Brae­val Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion.”

The ELN claimed the Colom­bian gov­ern­ment was increas­ing mil­i­tary oper­a­tions against the group to secure Wober’s release.

The ELN is the small­er of Colombia’s main gueril­la groups. It’s esti­mat­ed the ELN has between 2,000 to 3,000 gueril­la fight­ers.

A spokesper­son for Brae­val said the com­pa­ny has been advised not to com­ment on the kid­nap­ping.

For­eign Affairs emailed a state­ment to APTN Nation­al News say­ing fed­er­al gov­ern­ment “offi­cials con­tin­ue to work close­ly with our part­ners on the ground.” The state­ment said offi­cials are also in con­tact with Wober’s fam­i­ly.

“The gov­ern­ment of Cana­da will not com­ment on efforts to secure the hostage’s release,” said the state­ment. “Due to pri­va­cy con­sid­er­a­tions, we can­not pro­vide addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about the sit­u­a­tion.”

Accord­ing to his on-line work his­to­ry, Wober has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the min­ing sec­tor, includ­ing involve­ment in projects in the Yukon, the North­west Ter­ri­to­ries, British Colum­bia and Man­i­to­ba.

The activ­i­ties of for­eign min­ing com­pa­nies, includ­ing those based in Cana­da, have long been a point of con­tention among Indige­nous and local com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia.

Under Canada’s free trade agree­ment with Colom­bia, Ottawa is required to present an annu­al report on human rights in Colom­bia every year. Last year’s report failed to report on human rights in the coun­try.

The Nation­al Indige­nous Orga­ni­za­tion of Colom­bia (NIOC) has called on Cana­da to pres­sure the Colom­bian gov­ern­ment to respect Indige­nous rights in its min­ing laws.

In a recent inter­view with Maria Patri­cia Tobon Yagari, a lawyer with the NIOC said that min­ing com­pa­nies present a big­ger threat than the armed groups because the firms fuel the vio­lence.

“The pres­ence of these min­ers have rein­forced (the vio­lence) because they have ben­e­fit­ed from it. By using pri­vate secu­ri­ty they have forced these Indige­nous groups and Colom­bian campesinos to resist and it has increased the vio­lence in the ter­ri­to­ries,” said Tobon Yagari.

Tobon Yagari was sched­uled to appear on Par­lia­ment Hill on May 22 but her visa was ini­tial­ly denied by Ottawa.

Tobon Yagari said for­eign min­ing firms have put pres­sure on the Colom­bian gov­ern­ment to pass min­ing laws tai­lored in the inter­est of devel­op­ment.

“Of course Cana­di­an min­ers have a large inter­est in get­ting leg­is­la­tion in their favour,” she said. “That is what is hap­pen­ing with­out our min­ing code and our sit­u­a­tion in Colom­bia.”

Many Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Colom­bia are cling­ing pre­car­i­ous­ly on the edge of extinc­tion.

Of the 102 doc­u­ment­ed Indige­nous nations in Colom­bia, 32 have pop­u­la­tions under 500, 18 have pop­u­la­tions of 200, while 10 have less than 100.

Tens of thou­sands of Indige­nous peo­ple have been dis­placed from their ter­ri­to­ries which are often rich in min­er­als and hydro­car­bons eyed by for­eign min­ing firms.

Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al has said it’s con­cerned about deep­en­ing ties between Cana­da and Colombia’s mil­i­tary as a result of the free trade deal.

“And recent changes to export con­trols in Cana­da to allow for the sale of auto­mat­ic firearms to Colom­bia,” have added to list of prob­lem­at­ic issues, said the inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tion.

The sit­u­a­tion of Indige­nous peo­ples in Colom­bia is so dire that the UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Indige­nous Peo­ples James Anaya has called for the UN spe­cial advi­sor on geno­cide to vis­it Colom­bia.