Category: Unnecessary Developments

Police say camps to be evicted this week, as 400-year-old oak felled

Con­trac­tors moved in in force on Mon­day (14 Jan­u­ary) to evict the “Three Oaks” camp near the rail­way line opp.

Con­trac­tors moved in in force on Mon­day (14 Jan­u­ary) to evict the “Three Oaks” camp near the rail­way line opp. Upper Wilt­ing Farm in Crowhurst (see press release below), and police have told activists that they plan to evict the remain­ing two camps (“Decoy Pond Wood” and “Base Camp” – see map below) this week.

So if you want to come and help peace­ful­ly stop the felling (whether in an arrestable or non-arrestable role): now’s the time! See here for more info re. the Camp.

[Update at 12.30pm: Despite being heav­i­ly out­num­bered by secu­ri­ty and con­trac­tors, activists at the “Three Oaks” protest camp were able to delay the felling of the 400-year-old oak by 3–4 hours this morn­ing. Two peo­ple were final­ly evict­ed from high-up in the oak, and a third per­son, locked-on near the base, was also removed. No arrests were made, and the trees in ques­tion are now being felled.]

Press Release
14 Jan­u­ary 2013
Combe Haven Defend­ers

CHAINSAWS MOVED IN TO FELL 400-YEAR-OLD OAK AT HASTINGS TREE PROTEST

9am, Mon­day 14 Jan­u­ary, Crowhurst:  Con­trac­tors prepar­ing the way for the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) are believed to be felling a 400-year-old Oak Tree as they evict the “Three Oaks” protest Camp near the rail­way line opp. Upper Wilt­ing Farm (TN38 8EG) in Crowhurst (see map below).

Police, secu­ri­ty, chain­saw oper­a­tives, and a dig­ger moved in on the tree-protest Camp (one of three along the route of the BHLR) this morn­ing, short­ly after 7am. Despite being heav­i­ly out­num­bered by police and secu­ri­ty, as at 8.30am sev­er­al activists were in the trees and at least one was locked-on.

Accord­ing to a recent report in the Guardian: “When the landown­er signed the com­pul­so­ry pur­chase order for the land at Three Oaks, where a fly­over is to be built above the rail­way, he per­suad­ed the coun­cil to spare one tree thought to be 450 years old (not a promise the pro­test­ers expect to be kept).” [3]

Two more protest camps (“Decoy Pond Wood Camp” and “Base Camp”) have not yet been evict­ed.

The BHLR is one of over forty “zom­bie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resus­ci­tat­ed as part of Britain’s largest road-build­ing pro­gramme in 25 years [4].

[2] See map here: www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[3] “Road protests return: a new gen­er­a­tion takes on the bypass builders”, Guardian, 12 Jan­u­ary 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/12/combe-haven-green-protesters-trees
[4] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report

Self-Determination and Self-Defense in Cherán, Michoacán

On Decem­ber 11, 2012, the US Jus­tice Depart­ment announced that bank­ing giant HSBC was immune from pros­e­cu­tion despite over­whelm­ing evi­dence that they con­sis­tent­ly failed to imple­ment con­trols against mon­ey-laun­der­ing. Assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al Lan­ny Breuer said: “Had the US author­i­ties decid­ed to press crim­i­nal charges, HSBC would almost cer­tain­ly have lost its bank­ing license in the US, the future of the insti­tu­tion would have been under threat and the entire bank­ing sys­tem would have been desta­bi­lized.”

The entire bank­ing sys­tem would have been desta­bi­lized?

 

The Depart­ment of Jus­tice opt­ed rather to charge HSBC a record-break­ing 1.9 bil­lion dol­lar fine, and ordered the bank’s activ­i­ties mon­i­tored for five years. The 1.9 bil­lion is equiv­a­lent to five weeks’ worth of HSBC earn­ings, in oth­er words, a drop in the buck­et. The sad­dest part of the sto­ry in the main­stream media, is the focus on mon­ey laun­dered and mon­ey fined, as opposed to lives lost and crime legit­imized in one of the most grotesque admis­sions of com­plic­i­ty with orga­nized crime in the so-called war on drugs. Basi­cal­ly what was announced to the world by the US Jus­tice Depart­ment was that the mon­ey ran too thick, and the crim­i­nals were too pow­er­ful. The glob­al eco­nom­ic impact of pros­e­cut­ing a bank where the dirty mon­ey has been going, was too dan­ger­ous to risk. “Sor­ry kids, but we guess the bad guys win.”

In Cher­an, Michoa­can, Mex­i­co the news of HSBC’s immu­ni­ty from crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion and US sanc­tions comes as no sur­prise. Orga­nized crime has been preva­lent in the com­mu­ni­ty since 2000. After a 2008 may­oral race that left a PRI (Insti­tu­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Par­ty) can­di­date in office, illic­it activ­i­ty increased sub­stan­tial­ly. The com­mu­ni­ty learned that orga­nized crime is an inte­gral part of local pol­i­tics and eco­nom­ics every­where. Cher­an is a beau­ti­ful small indige­nous Purepecha moun­tain com­mu­ni­ty sur­round­ed by pre­cious forests, that knows the true cost of those prof­its laun­dered. Imme­di­ate­ly after the 2008 may­oral race the com­mu­ni­ty began expe­ri­enc­ing the dev­as­tat­ing effects of dog eat dog cap­i­tal­ism of which orga­nized crime is only anoth­er part.

The ille­gal log­ging indus­try began to rav­age the community’s most pre­cious forests, which have been tra­di­tion­al­ly respect­ed as a spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion by the Indige­nous Purepecha peo­ple to their ter­ri­to­ry. The log­ging began to look a lot more like pil­lag­ing and when com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers began to attempt to defend their forests, they were met with a real life night­mare: the log­gers were not only aid­ed and pro­tect­ed by gov­ern­ment agen­cies and local police, the entire log­ging oper­a­tion was being coor­di­nat­ed by mem­bers of a major orga­nized crime syn­di­cate. [To this day I am told by com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers not to name the actu­al syn­di­cate in any­thing I write or say, or risk an almost cer­tain death.]

The first com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who began to defend their for­est were sim­ply and quick­ly assas­si­nat­ed. From 2008–2011 the sit­u­a­tion only became worse. Crim­i­nals charged pro­tec­tion to run even a small busi­ness in the com­mu­ni­ty of Cher­an. The for­est was raped and ter­ror reigned as any­one felt at risk. The city would become a ghost town by sun­set. This is a real­i­ty con­front­ed by too many com­mu­ni­ties in Mex­i­co every day.

Mur­ders, dis­ap­pear­ances, kid­nap­pings, the crim­i­nal amounts of ille­gal log­ging and the reign of ter­ror came to a head on the ear­ly morn­ing of April 15th, 2011. A group of women had begun qui­et­ly orga­niz­ing in the days before an action to bring the rav­aging of their town to a halt. On April 15th, with chil­dren and youth at their sides, the women rose up and attempt­ed to detain log­gers trav­el­ing through town. The log­gers tried to run the women over and in response the com­mu­ni­ty react­ed as a whole, and began burn­ing the log­gers’ vehi­cles and began detain­ing the log­gers them­selves.

It is at this point that the com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized the com­plic­i­ty of the local police when it was police offi­cers who guid­ed orga­nized crime thugs to the place where the log­gers were being held, in an attempt to vio­lent­ly release them. The com­mu­ni­ty erect­ed “fogatas” or bon­fire bar­ri­cades through­out town in order to pre­vent vio­lence against com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. With­in days the com­mu­ni­ty decid­ed that it no longer trust­ed any politi­cians from any polit­i­cal par­ty or any of the local and state police. They began to orga­nize for self-deter­mi­na­tion and self-defense and chose to return to their tra­di­tion­al Purepecha forms of self gov­er­nance.

A gen­er­al coun­cil of com­mu­ni­ty elders was elect­ed and com­mis­sions were formed in order to car­ry out the community’s logis­ti­cal, social, eco­nom­ic, and polit­i­cal needs. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers sim­ply say that they referred to their his­to­ry and referred to their elders in order to return to the way the com­mu­ni­ty was orga­nized before polit­i­cal par­ties, police, and orga­nized crime exist­ed. The gen­er­al coun­cil is legal­ly rec­og­nized as the gov­ern­ing body of Cher­an, Michoa­can today.

The com­mu­ni­ty has main­tained that they only have three demands: safe­ty, jus­tice, and the refor­esta­tion of their ter­ri­to­ry. They have active­ly been refor­est­ing the entire region and take that aspect of their strug­gle very seri­ous­ly, and remind us that for them pro­tect­ing the for­est is both a tra­di­tion­al and a spir­i­tu­al oblig­a­tion. Cher­an does not believe that any­body will ever be able to bring them jus­tice for their dead, dis­ap­peared, and dis­placed as a result of the con­flict, nor do they expect any­one in pow­er to under­stand the jus­tice they seek for the for­est. Today Cher­an knows that jus­tice is some­thing that they will have to take care of obtain­ing on their own from now on. When it comes to safe­ty, the world is able to see what it looks like for a com­mu­ni­ty to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for its own safe­ty through tra­di­tion­al indige­nous forms of self gov­er­nance and self-defense.

Short­ly after the 2011 upris­ing began, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers state that the local politi­cians and the police sim­ply exiled them­selves in fear from the com­mu­ni­ty, war­rant­i­ng no need to run them out of town. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers took the local gov­ern­ment offices, took police trucks, took the polices’ weapons, and put them all to use. His­tor­i­cal­ly, Cher­an had tra­di­tion­al­ly been “policed” or defend­ed by mem­bers from the com­mu­ni­ty. In a vol­un­tary rota­tion mem­bers from each of the four “bar­rios” or neigh­bor­hoods would patrol the com­mu­ni­ty for self-defense in what is known as the “com­mu­ni­ty ron­da.” After the upris­ing the gen­er­al coun­cil made a call out for vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in the com­mu­ni­ty “ron­da”, or com­mu­ni­ty guard. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers main­tain that police are imposed by the gov­ern­ment, but the “ron­da” is a tra­di­tion­al way in which com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers pro­tect them­selves and their com­mu­ni­ty. Today the “ron­da” is sep­a­rat­ed into two parts. The “ron­da comu­ni­taria” which is respon­si­ble for patrolling and pro­tect­ing the com­mu­ni­ty from with­in its bor­ders and the “guard­a­bosques” or for­est defend­ers, which patrol the out­skirts of town and deep into the forests in order to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers liv­ing in those more rur­al areas and in order to pro­tect the for­est itself.

Cher­an is not the first com­mu­ni­ty in Mex­i­co to return to their tra­di­tion­al means of com­mu­ni­ty self-defense, nor is it the first place in the state of Michoa­can, nor in the indige­nous Purepecha region. Oth­er com­mu­ni­ties have engaged in sim­i­lar prac­tices of self gov­er­nance and self-defense, and lit­tle by lit­tle more and more com­mu­ni­ties are see­ing tra­di­tion­al self gov­er­nance and self-defense as a viable alter­na­tive to cor­rupt pol­i­tics and sub­mis­sion to orga­nized crime. Recent­ly coun­cil mem­bers from Nurio, Michoa­can, a larg­er com­mu­ni­ty and long time prac­ti­tion­er of self gov­er­nance and self-defense, sug­gest­ed that the entire Purepecha region should begin to orga­nize a region­al “ron­da” that could poten­tial­ly coor­di­nate self-defense patrols on a region­al lev­el for the indige­nous Purepecha peo­ple liv­ing through­out the state of Michoa­can.

It is hard not to throw your hands up in the air in res­ig­na­tion when you hear about crim­i­nals such as HSBC being grant­ed immu­ni­ty from pros­e­cu­tion and sanc­tions, but it is even hard­er not to throw a fist in the air when you see indige­nous Purepe­chas suc­cess­ful­ly over­com­ing orga­nized crime, cor­rupt politi­cians, and big busi­ness by estab­lish­ing mod­els for self-deter­mi­na­tion and self-defense, on a com­mu­ni­ty lev­el.

Simòn Sedil­lo

Idle No More International Day of Action – January 28, 2013

14th Jan 2012.

14th Jan 2012. Indige­nous Resur­gence Explodes with Idle No More Day of Action

Idle No More grass­roots founders and orga­niz­ers from across Cana­da, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mon caus­es – a new ini­tia­tive bring­ing togeth­er social jus­tice, envi­ron­men­tal, labour and oth­er Activist Groups…

- UNITED we are plan­ning IDLE NO MORE WORLD DAY OF ACTION on Jan­u­ary 28th, 2013 #J28.

This day of action will peace­ful­ly protest attacks on Democ­ra­cy, Indige­nous Sov­er­eign­ty, Human Rights and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tions when Cana­di­an MPs return to the House of Com­mons on Jan­u­ary 28th. As a grass­roots move­ment, clear­ly no polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion speaks for Idle No More. This move­ment is of the peo­ple… For The Peo­ple! #IDLENOMOREFTP

The Vision of IDLE NO MORE revolves around Indige­nous Ways of Know­ing root­ed in Indige­nous Sov­er­eign­ty to pro­tect water, air, land and all cre­ation for future gen­er­a­tions.

The Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment bills begin­ning with Bill C‑45 threat­en Treaties and this Indige­nous Vision of Sov­er­eign­ty.

The Goal of the move­ment is edu­ca­tion and the revi­tal­iza­tion of Indige­nous peo­ples through Aware­ness and Empow­er­ment.  IDLE NO MORE has suc­cess­ful­ly encour­aged knowl­edge shar­ing of Indige­nous Sov­er­eign­ty and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tions. 

This mes­sage has been heard around the world and the world is watch­ing how Cana­da responds to the mes­sage sent by many INM Sup­port­ers.

INM urges the gov­ern­ment of Cana­da to repeal all leg­is­la­tion; which vio­lates Treaties, Indige­nous Sov­er­eign­ty and sub­se­quent­ly Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tions of land and water.

INM is grate­ful to many lead­ers who have sup­port­ed this vision and the move­ment of the grass­roots peo­ple.

“The Treaties are the last line of defense to pro­tect water and lands from destruc­tion,” stat­ed Oren Lyons, Faith­keep­er Tur­tle Clan, Ononda­ga Nation Coun­cil of Chiefs.

Please watch and share this video of the Idle No More action in Toron­to, and orga­nize events in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Idle No More with­in your local col­lec­tives:

Letter of solidarity with tree-occupations against road-buildings

Dur­ing the last weeks, at two dif­fer­ent loca­tions in Europe, trees have been squat­ted that would fall prey to the con­struc­tion of motor­ways. On Decem­ber 22nd, activists in Bex­hill, Eng­land occu­pied trees against the con­struc­tion of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road and have erect­ed an entire camp now.

Dur­ing the last weeks, at two dif­fer­ent loca­tions in Europe, trees have been squat­ted that would fall prey to the con­struc­tion of motor­ways. On Decem­ber 22nd, activists in Bex­hill, Eng­land occu­pied trees against the con­struc­tion of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road and have erect­ed an entire camp now. In Berlin, free-spaces-activists, togeth­er with envi­ron­men­tal-activists occu­pied trees against the A100 that is to be built through the mid­dle of Berlin. We, the squat­ters from the Ham­bach For­est stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with these strug­gles and call for a prac­ti­cal sup­port and for the cre­ation of a net­work of these emerg­ing spaces of resis­tance with each oth­er and the cre­ation of many new spaces like these.

 

The anti-road move­ment in the UK in the 90s, which fol­lowed in response to the neolib­er­al infra­struc­ture poli­cies of Mar­garet Thatch­er („there is no alter­na­tive“), was one of the strongest social and envi­ron­men­tal move­ments of recent decades in Europe. Out of it many new forms of action devel­oped: The tree house vil­lages, with spe­cial­ized blockad­ing tech­niques at the sites where the roads should be built, the „crit­i­cal mass­es“ and „reclaim the streets“ par­ties as reclaim­ing the cities against the car craze, and a gen­er­al polit­i­cal under­stand­ing of „direct action“ as a self-empow­er­ing, dynam­ic form of pol­i­tics from below. Even the rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ment in Britain, that spread after the turn of the mil­len­ni­um and inspired cli­mate move­ments all over Europe, had its roots in the anti-road move­ment.

Now, over 20 years lat­er, the gov­ern­ment in the UK is plan­ning a new com­pre­hen­sive road-build­ing pro­gram (while mas­sive social cuts were pushed through). 1,244 km of new roads are planned. Through the con­struc­tions, as well as improved infra­struc­ture, they hope to push the econ­o­my out of the cri­sis. At the same time new roads also bring more and more traf­fic with it and so it’s projects like these which also push the glob­al cli­mate clos­er to the „tip­ping points“. For this rea­son, on Decem­ber 22nd, activists hung plat­forms in trees to be felled for the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road. Bex­hill is locat­ed between Dover and Brighton. There is even a „ful­ly oper­a­tional“ block­ade tun­nel!

Two weeks lat­er activists occu­pied trees in Berlin, Neukölln, in order to resist the con­struc­tion of the A100. We think the inter­est­ing thing about this action is that it was car­ried out by free-spaces-activists togeth­er with envi­ron­men­tal-activists. Far too rarely the resis­tance against the var­i­ous antag­o­nisms of cap­i­tal­ism – social and envi­ron­men­tal – com­bines in joint oper­a­tions. Exact­ly where it would be need­ed urgent­ly: The dom­i­nant dis­course wants us to believe that cli­mate or envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion is only to achieve with renun­ci­a­tion and per­son­al con­sumer choic­es. The oppo­site is the case: By over­com­ing the cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem, much of the sense­less con­sump­tion of resources would dis­ap­pear, while a self-deter­mined life and a free devel­op­ment would become pos­si­ble. Let’s take Fordism as a tri­umph of the cars in the cities: Not a demand for auto­mo­biles was the begin­ning of mass con­sump­tion of the like, but a car favour­ing urban plan­ning, that accord­ing to the con­cepts of the Hitler­friend Ford, con­scious­ly put the dif­fer­ent areas of work, hous­ing and con­sump­tion so far apart that a life with­out a car has been more and more dif­fi­cult . So the time that the peo­ple had to use for chang­ing loca­tions wasn‘t get­ting short­er, but at once the cities were filled with this stink­ing met­al box­es which affect­ed the lives in the city fun­da­men­tal­ly – a dete­ri­o­ra­tion of life with high­er ener­gy con­sump­tion was the result. An oppo­site trend should be the goal of eman­ci­pa­to­ry envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles, the same as that of social strug­gles, that don‘t close their eyes in front of the acute cli­mate prob­lem we are fac­ing.

We urgent­ly need a rad­i­cal and pow­er­ful cli­mate move­ment all over the world. We see some pos­i­tive signs. For exam­ple, the con­flicts of the last months in La ZAD/France against a ‚green‘ air­port to be built. In mobi­liza­tions tem­porar­i­ly 40 000 activists par­tic­i­pat­ed. We need such cristal­liza­tion places where we can expe­ri­ence what’s pos­si­ble – and then we have to spread this resis­tance and hun­dreds of oth­er crys­tal­liza­tion places must sprout from the ground, which in turn inspire oth­ers.

We appeal to sup­port these new occu­pa­tions in Bex­hill and Berlin with prac­ti­cal help, just as we call to sup­port our occu­pa­tion at the edge of the Ham­bach for­est with prac­ti­cal assis­tance. But we also call out to you, to cre­ate many new such places your­self, that it takes as focal sites of resis­tance. Places where peo­ple can come togeth­er, are able to plan things, but also to guess what kind of world would be pos­si­ble in the new way of life and orga­ni­za­tion, beyond cap­i­tal­ism and dom­i­na­tion sys­tems.
And we call out to link those places of resis­tance – because the straw fires that cur­rent­ly flare up here and there have to con­nect to a wild­fire – a wild­fire of the unen­force­abil­i­ty of all these destruc­tive projects, whether roads, pipelines or open cast mines.

act – before it’s too late!

 https://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/
 http://www.robinwood.de/Newsdetails.13+M5d5007d0da9.0.html
 http://wirbleibenalle.org/
 http://hambacherforst.blogsport.de/

Sol­i­dar­ität­serk­lärung mit Baumbe­set­zun­gen gegen Auto­bahn-wahn

In den let­zten Wochen wur­den gle­ich an zwei ver­schiede­nen Orten in Europa Bäume beset­zt, die dem Bau von Auto­bah­nen zum Opfer fall­en sollen. Am 22. Dezem­ber beset­zten Aktivist_innen in Bex­hill, Eng­land Bäume gegen den Bau der Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road und haben nun schon ein ganzes Camp errichtet. In Berlin beset­zten Freiraumaktivist_innen gemein­sam mit Umweltaktivist_innen Bäume gegen die A100 die mit­ten durch Berlin gebaut wer­den soll. Wir, die Besetzer_innen vom Ham­bach­er Forst sol­i­darisieren uns mit diesen Kämpfen und rufen zu ein­er prak­tis­chen Unter­stützung auf, zu ein­er Ver­net­zung der entste­hen­den Wider­stand­sorte untere­inan­der und dazu viele neue solch­er Orte zu schaf­fen.

Die Anti-Road Bewe­gung in Großbrit­tanien in den 90er Jahren, die als Antwort auf die neolib­erale Infra­struk­tur-Poli­tik von Marg­eret Thatch­er („there is no alter­na­tive“) fol­gte, war eine der stärk­sten sozialen Umwelt­be­we­gun­gen der let­zten Jahrzehnte in Europa. Aus ihr her­aus entwick­el­ten sich viele neue Aktions­for­men: Die Baumhaus­dör­fer, mit spezial­isierten Block­ade­tech­niken an den Orten wo die Straßen gebaut wer­den soll­ten, die „crit­i­cal mass­es“ und „reclaim the streets“-Partys als Rücker­oberung der Städte gegen den Autowahn, und generell ein Poli­tikver­ständ­nis der „direct action“ als selb­ster­mächti­gende, dynamis­che Poli­tik­form von unten. Auch die radikale Klimabe­we­gung in Großbri­tanien, die sich nach der Jahrtausendwende aus­bre­it­ete und Klimabe­we­gun­gen in ganz Europa inspiri­erte, hat­te ihre Wurzeln in dieser Anti-Road-Bewe­gung.

Nun, über 20 Jahre später, plant die Regierung in Großbrit­tanien ein neues umfassendes Straßen­baupro­gramm (während gle­ichzeit­ig mas­sive Sozialkürzun­gen durchgepeitscht wur­den). 1244 Kilo­me­ter neue Straßen sind geplant. Durch die Bauaufträge, sowie die verbesserte Infra­struk­tur wird erhofft die Wirtschaft aus der Krise zu stoßen. Gle­ichzeit­ig brin­gen neue Straßen aber auch immer mehr Autoverkehr mit sich, und so sind es Pro­jek­te wie dieses, die auch das glob­ale Kli­ma immer näher an die „tip­ping points“ stoßen. Aus diesem Grunde haben Aktivist_innen am 22. Dezem­ber Plat­tfor­men in Bäume gehängt, die für die Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road gerodet wer­den sollen. Bex­hill befind­et sich zwis­chen Dover und Brighton. Inzwis­chen gibt es sog­ar einen „ful­ly oper­a­tional“ Block­ade­tun­nel!

Zwei Wochen später, macht­en es Aktivist_innen in Berlin nach, und beset­zen Bäume in Neukölln um Wider­stand gegen den Bau der A100 zu leis­ten. Inter­es­sant an dieser Aktion find­en wir, dass sie von Freiraumaktivist_innen zusam­men mit Umweltaktivist_innen durchge­führt wurde. Viel zu sel­ten verbindet sich der Wider­stand gegen die ver­schiede­nen Antag­o­nis­men des Kap­i­tal­is­mus – den sozialen und den ökol­o­gis­chen – in gemein­samen Aktio­nen. Wobei genau das drin­gend notwendig wäre: Der herrschende Diskurs will uns weis machen, dass Kli­ma- oder Umweltschutz nur mit Verzicht zu haben sei. Das Gegen­teil ist der Fall: Durch die Über­win­dung der kap­i­tal­is­tis­chen Wirtschaftsweise würde gle­ichzeit­ig sehr viel unsin­niger Ressourcenver­brauch weg­fall­en, während ein selb­st­bes­timmtes Leben und eine freie Ent­fal­tung erst möglich würde. Nehmen wir nur ein­mal den Fordis­mus als Siegeszug des Autos in den Städten: Nicht ein Bedürf­nis nach Auto­mo­bilen war der Beginn des Massenkon­sums der­gle­ichen, son­dern eine Auto-ritäre Stadt­pla­nung, die nach den Konzepten des Hitler-Fre­un­des Ford, bewusst die ver­schiede­nen Bere­iche Arbeit, Wohnen und Kon­sum soweit auseinan­der­legte, dass ein Leben ohne Auto immer schw­er­er wurde. So wurde zwar nicht die Zeit kürz­er, die Men­schen täglich für Ortswech­sel auf­brin­gen mussten, aber die Städte waren auf ein­mal voll mit diesen stink­enden Blechk­isten und beein­trächtigten das Leben in der Stadt fun­da­men­tal – eine Beein­träch­ti­gung des Lebens bei höherem Energie­ver­brauch war das Ergeb­nis. Eine ent­ge­genge­set­zte Entwick­lung muss das Ziel emanzi­pa­torisch­er Umweltkämpfe sein, genau­so wie das­jenige sozialer Kämpfe, die das akute Klimaprob­lem vor dem wir ste­hen nicht ein­fach aus­blenden.

Wir brauchen drin­gend eine radikale und schlagkräftige Klimabe­we­gung und zwar weltweit. Wir sehen dabei einige pos­i­tive Ansätze. So zum Beispiel die Auseinan­der­set­zun­gen der let­zten Monate in La ZAD gegen einen „grü­nen“ Flughafen, der gebaut wer­den soll. An den Mobil­isierun­gen beteiligten sich zeitweise 40 000 Aktive. Wir brauchen solche Kristalli­sa­tion­sorte, an denen erfahrbar wird, was alles möglich ist – und dann muss dieser Wider­stand in die Fläche getra­gen wer­den und hun­derte weit­ere Kristalli­sa­tion­sorte müssen aus dem Boden sprießen, die wiederum andere inspiri­eren u.s.w.

Wir rufen dazu auf diese neuen Beset­zun­gen in Bex­hill und Berlin mit prak­tis­ch­er Hil­fe zu unter­stützen, genau­so wie wir dazu aufrufen unsere Beset­zung am Rande des Ham­bach­er Forstes mit prak­tis­ch­er Hil­fe zu unter­stützen. Wir rufen aber auch dazu auf sel­ber viele neue solch­er Orte zu schaf­fen, die es braucht als Kristalli­sa­tion­sorte des Wider­standes. Orte an denen Men­schen zusam­menkom­men kön­nen, Dinge pla­nen kön­nen, aber auch schon in der Art und Weise des Lebens und der neuen Organ­isierung erah­nen kön­nen, was für eine Welt möglich wäre jen­seits von Kap­i­tal­is­mus und Herrschaftssys­te­men.
Und wir rufen dazu auf sich unter diesen Orten stärk­er zu ver­net­zten – denn die Stro­hfeuer die derzeit hier und dort auflodern müssen sich verbinden zu einem Flächen­brand – ein Flächen­brand der Undurch­set­zbarkeit all dieser Pro­jek­te.

act – before it’s too late!

Ham­bach­er Forst
 e‑mail: hambacheforst@eiseup.net
 Home­page: http://hambacherforst.blogsport.de/

World’s Longest Treesit Campaign, Update from Bilston Glen

Yes­ter­day, peo­ple involved in the cam­paign to save Bil­ston Glen sent an update stat­ing, “We have new infor­ma­tion from the Mid­loth­i­an Coun­cil and it would seem like­ly that the road is being redi­rect­ed along a dif­fer­ent route, one that does not go through Bil­ston Glen.

Yes­ter­day, peo­ple involved in the cam­paign to save Bil­ston Glen sent an update stat­ing, “We have new infor­ma­tion from the Mid­loth­i­an Coun­cil and it would seem like­ly that the road is being redi­rect­ed along a dif­fer­ent route, one that does not go through Bil­ston Glen. We have a map of the alter­na­tive route and it makes a lot more sense than any of the plans that we had seen before. We will not know until the spring what plan has been final­ized for the road. They are also plan­ning a lot of oth­er devel­op­ment in the area so it is pos­si­ble that the glen might still be under threat even if the pro­posed devel­op­ment is not the road.

We should have a lot more infor­ma­tion in the spring. They are also con­sid­er­ing build­ing a new open cast coal mine some­where near Rosewell, so depend­ing on what is going on we may be join­ing in with that cam­paign as well. Keep in touch and we’ll let every­one know what is going on.”

The tree vil­lage is open for vis­it­ing and stay­ing. Help is always need­ed in a vari­ety of ways, from donat­ing funds and sup­plies to attend­ing Sun­day Free Cafes in the glen and par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pub­lic out­reach, edu­ca­tion and demon­stra­tions against the devel­op­ment in Mid­loth­i­an Scot­land.

Campaign History

Since June 2002 Bil­ston Glen, locat­ed near Penicuik, Scot­land about eight miles from the city of Edin­burgh,  has been occu­pied and for­ti­fied by an ever-expand­ing group of multi­na­tion­al envi­ron­men­tal activists. The Bil­ston Glen Anti-Bypass Protest Site began when a pro­pos­al to build a road through the glen was put on the table by biotech giant Bay­er. At the time, Bay­er was build­ing big dreams around com­mer­cial farm­ing of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied foods (GMOs) in the UK. While Bay­er was dream­ing, we were schem­ing. A strong anti-GMO move­ment in the UK attacked the biotech indus­try from every angle – slash­ing crop fields and test sights, protest­ing uni­ver­si­ties fund­ing the research for fur­ther devel­op­ment, stag­ing large pub­lic demon­stra­tions out­side gro­cery stores demand­ing the label­ing of GMOs on con­sumer prod­ucts, and last but not least – attack­ing the infra­struc­ture of indus­tri­al devel­op­ment – the roads that would lead to com­mer­cial farm lands.

So far the activism expos­ing GMOs for the evils they are has worked in many parts of the world. To this day, com­mer­cial farm­ing of GMOs is ille­gal in the UK, and by Euro­pean law, food prod­ucts con­tain­ing more than .9% of a GM or GE ingre­di­ent must be labeled as con­tain­ing GMOs. How­ev­er, these vic­to­ries did not get the pro­pos­al for the road off the Mid­loth­i­an coun­cil agen­da. After Bay­er was no longer fund­ing the road, a large “indus­tri­al estate” near to the glen where Ikea and oth­er large “box” stores and pack­ag­ing facil­i­ties reside took up the bid to fund the road. The new investors meet uproars from the com­mu­ni­ty, who for many rea­sons feel that the road is need­less and are opposed to indus­tri­al devel­op­ment through the ancient wood­land. Bil­ston Glen is not only a des­ig­nat­ed “Sight of Sci­en­tif­ic Spe­cial Inter­est” (SSSI) – a con­ser­va­tion des­ig­na­tion denot­ing a pro­tect­ed area in the UK – it is also apart of the Green Belt. The Green Belt was des­ig­nat­ed as a coori­dor for wildlife in the Mid­loth­i­an area of Scot­land, it’s pur­pose is to pre­vent devel­op­ment along the belt line. With bla­tent dis­re­gard to these already pro­tect­ed areas, the local coun­cil itself became the face of the road expan­sion.

Luck­i­ly, Earth war­riors, for­est squat­ters, world trav­el­ers, Earth First!ers and the like have done an amaz­ing job at pre­vent­ing road expan­sion through Bil­ston Glen for over 10 years! The tree-sit is the one of the longest stand­ing peace and sol­i­dar­i­ty projects in the world, along side The Fasland Peace Camp, which is also locat­ed in Scot­land. Intent on block­ing any attempts to build a road through Bil­ston Glen, res­i­dents are also doing a alter­na­tive lifestyle project. Liv­ing and work­ing togeth­er, organ­is­ing our­selves and co-oper­a­tive­ly help­ing each oth­er.

Battle of Hastings

As pre­dict­ed, Mon­day 7 Jan­u­ary saw the chain­saws back in force on the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Rd being built smack through the mid­dle of tran­quil Combe Haven.

As pre­dict­ed, Mon­day 7 Jan­u­ary saw the chain­saws back in force on the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Rd being built smack through the mid­dle of tran­quil Combe Haven. Despite the fact that the fund­ing for the road isn’t yet in place East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil seem deter­mined to fell all the trees along the route. With most activ­i­ty focussed on the area near the rail­way, just oppo­site Upper Wilt­ing Farm (TN38 8EG). Activists rapid­ly occu­pied trees in the area, and then one of the exca­va­tors, also stag­ing a sit-down protest in front of the lat­ter.

“We were up and ready for them at six this morn­ing, before it got light. They were try­ing to cut trees to the north of the sec­ond camp. There are three big oaks there that they clear­ly want­ed to fell but we pushed through the lines of secu­ri­ty and got peo­ple into the trees”

Two peo­ple were arrest­ed and sub­se­quent­ly released: one charged, one cau­tioned (both for “aggra­vat­ed tres­pass”).

“We obvi­ous­ly stopped a lot of what they were plan­ning to do. They were most­ly just brush-cut­ting all day. We were with them until it got dark. I’m not entire­ly sure what they brought a dig­ger along for but they did­n’t real­ly get to use it”

Fur­ther action – by both road con­trac­tors & oppo­nents of the road – is expect­ed to begin ear­ly Tues­day (8 Jan­u­ary) & more peo­ple are need­ed for both arrestable and non-arrestable roles! And don’t for­get the ongo­ing Camp, not far away, near Adam’s Farm.

Mass Action Targets TransCanada Offices

Jan­u­ary 7th, 2013

What: Tar Sands Block­ade pro­test­ers take over Tran­sCana­da Key­stone XL offices in Hous­ton, demand­ing account­abil­i­ty for abus­es by Tran­sCana­da

Jan­u­ary 7th, 2013

What: Tar Sands Block­ade pro­test­ers take over Tran­sCana­da Key­stone XL offices in Hous­ton, demand­ing account­abil­i­ty for abus­es by Tran­sCana­da

Where: 2700 Post Oak Blvd, Suite 400, Hous­ton TX 77056 (next to the Hous­ton Gal­le­ria)

When: Under­way now!

Who: 100+ pro­test­ers gath­ered to con­front pipeline com­pa­ny over land abus­es, tox­ic lega­cy and cli­mate change con­nect­ed to TransCanada’s Key­stone XL pipeline.

The Tar Sands Block­ade is a group of envi­ron­men­tal­ists and landown­ers work­ing to stop the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline through direct action.

Why: This action kicks off a new phase of the Tar Sands Block­ade tar­get­ing the cor­po­rate and finan­cial infra­struc­ture behind the Key­stone XL pipeline. TransCanada’s pipeline uses seized land to trans­port tox­ic tar sands oil through Texas and Okla­homa com­mu­ni­ties, in order to export it from Hous­ton ports. These dan­ger­ous busi­ness prac­tices and the back­lash from com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try make this pipeline a tox­ic invest­ment for our state and TransCanada’s cor­po­rate lenders.

Come to Camp, Defend the Trees, Celebrate 12th Night (6/7 Jan)!

[Please note: There is a replace­ment bus ser­vice for the train between Bat­tle and Hast­ings all week­end (6 & 7 Jan­u­ary), so check the times before you leave.]

[Please note: There is a replace­ment bus ser­vice for the train between Bat­tle and Hast­ings all week­end (6 & 7 Jan­u­ary), so check the times before you leave.]

The chain­saws have been silent over Christ­mas but they’ll soon be back. And when they come, they’ll come ear­ly. So: come and defend the trees, and cel­e­brate 12th night (the evening of Sun­day 6 Jan­u­ary), all in one place!

Bring a dish to share, a song to sing, and be ready to defend the trees ear­ly the next morn­ing (Mon­day 7 Jan­u­ary – which also hap­pens to be our best guest of when the con­trac­tors will be return­ing in force). (See here for direc­tions to – and groundrules for – the Camp). Prac­ti­cal work­shops – focussing on putting up struc­tures to help with the peace­ful defence of the trees – will also be tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 5 Jan­u­ary.

Whether or not you plan to stay overnight you’ll prob­a­bly want to bring a torch, wellies and some eat­ing uten­sils. If you are going to stay over then you’ll also need to bring water, snacks, bed­ding and – ide­al­ly – a tent. If you haven’t got a tent, let us know, as there may be some spare tent space. The camp is near Adam’s Farm, Crowhurst: see here.

Final­ly, whether or not you’re able to make any of this weekend’s events, please try and come to the Camp as ear­ly as pos­si­ble on the morn­ing of Mon­day 7th Jan­u­ary (when we antic­i­pate the chain­saws will be back in force). We may be able to offer lifts at 5.45am from Crowhurst. If you require or can offer a lift please let us know – 07926 423 033

First Nations may engage in economic blockades if Canada refuses treaty talks

First Nations lead­ers have dis­cussed plans to launch coun­try-wide eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions by the mid­dle of Jan­u­ary if Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er doesn’t agree to hunger-strik­ing Attawapiskat Chief There­sa Spence’s demand for a treaty meet­ing

First Nations lead­ers have dis­cussed plans to launch coun­try-wide eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions by the mid­dle of Jan­u­ary if Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er doesn’t agree to hunger-strik­ing Attawapiskat Chief There­sa Spence’s demand for a treaty meet­ing

Dur­ing three days of meet­ings and tele­con­fer­ences, chiefs from across the coun­try dis­cussed a plan set­ting Jan. 16 as the day to launch a cam­paign of indef­i­nite eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions, includ­ing rail­way and high­way block­ades, accord­ing to two chiefs who were involved in the talks who request­ed anonymi­ty.

“The peo­ple are rest­less, they are say­ing enough is enough,” said one chief, who was involved in the dis­cus­sions. “Eco­nom­ic impacts are immi­nent if there is no response.”

Chiefs were still final­iz­ing details of their plans Mon­day evening and it remained unclear to what extent their dis­cussed options would trans­late into the offi­cial posi­tion.

Assem­bly of First Nations Nation­al Chief Shawn Atleo is expect­ed to write Harp­er a let­ter out­lin­ing the chiefs’ posi­tion.

Spence launched her hunger strike on Dec. 11 to force a meet­ing between Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er, Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al David John­ston and First Nations lead­ers to dis­cuss the state of the treaties. Spence said in a state­ment issued Mon­day that the aim of the meet­ing was to “re-estab­lish” the treaty rela­tion­ship and final­ly put First Nations peo­ple in their “right­ful place back here in our home­lands that we all call Cana­da.”

The plan of action comes as the Idle No More move­ment con­tin­ues to sweep across the coun­try through round dances, ral­lies along with high­way and rail block­ades.

The Tyen­d­i­na­ga Mohawks briefly block­ad­ed a main CN rail line between Toron­to and Mon­tre­al Sun­day, strand­ing about 2,000 Via Rail pas­sen­gers. The Mi’kmaq from the Lis­tuguj First Nation, Que., con­tin­ue to hold a rail block­ade on a CN line along with mem­bers of the Aamji­w­naang First Nation who have shut a CN line in Sar­nia, Ont. In British Colum­bia, the Seton Lake Indi­an Band end­ed a rail block­ade on Sun­day.

How the chiefs’ action plan will mesh with the Idle No More move­ment remains to be seen. Idle No More orga­niz­ers issued a state­ment Mon­day that dis­tanced the move­ment from the chiefs.

“The chiefs have called for action and any­one who choos­es can join with them, how­ev­er, this is not part of the Idle No More move­ment as the vision of this grass­roots move­ment does not coin­cide with the visions of the lead­er­ship,” said the state­ment, post­ed on the Idle No More Face­book page. “While we appre­ci­ate the indi­vid­ual sup­port we have received from chiefs and coun­cil­lors, we have been giv­en a clear man­date by the grass­roots to work out­side the sys­tems of gov­ern­ment and that is what we will con­tin­ue to do.”

One of the chiefs involved in action plan dis­cus­sion said the lead­er­ship want­ed to be sen­si­tive to the grass­roots-dri­ven move­ment and make clear that their plans are being devel­oped in sup­port and as a response to Idle No More.

“Chiefs are stand­ing firm in sup­port of Idle No More and grass­roots cit­i­zens,” said the chief. “We now need to uni­fy.”

Camp: wish list, tunnel(s), and groundrules January 4, 2013

The Camp in Crowhurst has been in place con­tin­u­ous­ly since 21 Decem­ber, and now con­sists of sev­er­al tree hous­es and at least one “ful­ly oper­a­tional tun­nel”!

Cur­rent wish list (as at 8am on Fri 4 Jan): per­son­al head torch (dona­tion offered); cook­ing pot; blan­kets (esp. ones made of wool or cot­ton). More info: 07926 423 033.

GROUNDRULES FOR THE CAMP

Please note that the Camp has agreed the fol­low­ing groundrules which it is ask­ing par­tic­i­pants to abide by:

1. Peace­ful resis­tance
This Camp is about peace­ful resis­tance to the con­struc­tion of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR). By “peace­ful resis­tance” we mean actions that: (1) do not harm or dehu­man­ise any human being; and (2) Do not threat­en to harm or dehu­man­ise any human being. Campers need not sub­scribe to non­vi­o­lence as a life-phi­los­o­phy, but we do ask that they restrict their activ­i­ties to peace­ful resis­tance while they are asso­ci­at­ed with the Camp. Because of the poten­tial risk it pos­es to chain­saw oper­a­tors, we do not con­sid­er tree spik­ing to be a form of “peace­ful resis­tance”, and ask that Campers not engage in this prac­tice.

2. Alco­hol & drugs pol­i­cy
We want to make this Camp as safe a space as pos­si­ble. We have there­fore agreed a pol­i­cy that there be no alco­hol and no ille­gal drugs on site. If you want a drink then go to the pub in Crowhurst and mix with the locals!

3. Anti-oppres­sion
We want the Camp to be a wel­com­ing, engag­ing and sup­port­ive space. Dis­crim­i­na­tion and oppres­sive behav­iour (eg. racism, sex­ism, homo­pho­bia, prej­u­dice based on dis­abil­i­ty, class etc…) are unac­cept­able and will be chal­lenged. We also ask that campers respect each other’s phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al bound­aries and try to fos­ter a spir­it of mutu­al respect.

4. Gen­er­al safe­ty
Tree protests are inher­ent­ly unsafe, and all par­tic­i­pants are respon­si­ble for their own safe­ty. If you’re going to be climb­ing high into trees then best prac­tice is to have your own har­ness and climb­ing rope, and to rig it up your­self. Do not assume that peo­ple know what they’re doing just because they project an air of con­fi­dence!

We are also ask­ing par­tic­i­pants to please respect the pri­va­cy of the res­i­dents of the farm­house, not bring vehi­cles on-site (tat can be fer­ried from a near-by drop-off point) and to only use the access down the dis­used rail­way track, not the Adams Farm track.