Category: Unnecessary Developments

Indigenous anti-infastructure protesters murdered in crackdown on months-long blockade in Peru

For sev­en weeks tens of thou­sands of Ama­zon­ian Indi­ans blocked roads and rivers across east­ern Peru. They seized hydro­elec­tric plants and pump­ing sta­tions on oil and gas pipelines to try to force the repeal of decrees facil­i­tat­ing oil explo­ration, com­mer­cial farm­ing and log­ging in parts of the jun­gle.

For sev­en weeks tens of thou­sands of Ama­zon­ian Indi­ans blocked roads and rivers across east­ern Peru. They seized hydro­elec­tric plants and pump­ing sta­tions on oil and gas pipelines to try to force the repeal of decrees facil­i­tat­ing oil explo­ration, com­mer­cial farm­ing and log­ging in parts of the jun­gle. Petrope­ru, the state oil com­pa­ny, had to shut a pipeline that car­ries 40,000 bar­rels of oil each day. Amid threats of ener­gy rationing in east­ern towns, the gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cía this month ordered armed police to clear a stretch of road and retake a pump­ing sta­tion near Bagua, in Peru’s north­ern jun­gle

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THE BACKGROUND

Ear­ly this morn­ing (June 5th), Peru­vian police launched a vio­lent attack on a non­vi­o­lent road block­ade held by Ama­zon­ian indige­nous pro­test­ers oppos­ing 10 laws that would open up their ter­ri­to­ry to increased min­er­al, oil, gas and tim­ber exploita­tion. Police opened fire with live ammu­ni­tion, killing at least 28 peo­ple.

FMI:
http://www.rootforce.org/2009/06/05/peruvian-police-murder-indigenous-protesters-take-action/

WHY TAKE ACTION

The first rea­son to take action, of course, is sim­ply out of sol­i­dar­i­ty with our fel­low war­riors in the strug­gle for a just and sus­tain­able world. But why are we send­ing out this action alert as Root Force?

For near­ly two months, thou­sands indige­nous pro­test­ers have near­ly par­a­lyzed Peru’s Ama­zon region with block­ades of crit­i­cal trans­porta­tion and min­ing infra­struc­ture. They have sparked a nation­al dis­course over the lim­its to devel­op­ment and who owns nature, and have made it clear that they will not sur­ren­der any of their ances­tral home­lands.

At the heart of the issue are 10 laws passed by pres­i­den­tial decree that would great­ly facil­i­tate indus­tri­al exploita­tion of the Ama­zon. THIS IS CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE, intend­ed to sup­ply new raw mate­ri­als for the glob­al mar­ket. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE WEAK POINTS OF THE SYSTEM that we are always talk­ing about.

The indige­nous war­riors fight­ing for their lives have pushed this issue into the glob­al eye, and the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment has placed itself in a posi­tion of weak­ness by mur­der­ing unarmed pro­test­ers. Even before the recent killings, a con­gres­sion­al pan­el had already declared 2 of the laws uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, and only through pro­ce­dur­al tricks has the pres­i­den­t’s par­ty been able to stall debate on repeal­ing one of those laws.

This is one of those rare cas­es where SUSTAINED INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE COULD TIP THE SCALES. If these laws are repealed, it will be a major set­back for infra­struc­ture expan­sion plans in a tru­ly crit­i­cal region of the hemi­sphere.

HOW TO TAKE ACTION

You can email crit­i­cal peo­ple in the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment through this link, pro­vid­ed by Ama­zon Watch:

http://amazonwatch.org/peru-action-alert.php

You can also orga­nize protests at Peru­vian embassies or con­sulates, or take oth­er actions that you think stand a good chance of mak­ing it back to the deci­sion mak­ers in Lima.

Make sure to express your out­rage at the gov­ern­men­t’s strong arm tac­tics — even before the mur­ders, the gov­ern­ment had sus­pend­ed civ­il lib­er­ties in 5 provinces and was call­ing indige­nous peo­ple “ter­ror­ists” — and demand the repeal of the Free Trade laws and any law fur­ther open­ing the Ama­zon to min­er­al, oil, gas, tim­ber, hydro­elec­tric or agri­cul­tur­al exploita­tion.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty,
Root Force

—–

Recent reports indi­cate as many as 84 peo­ple killed and 150 arrest­ed in clash­es stem­ming from an ear­ly morn­ing vio­lent raid by police on unarmed pro­test­ers on June 5. Police are report­ed to be burn­ing the bod­ies of the dead and dump­ing them into the riv­er.

Aston­ish­ing­ly — but not sur­pris­ing­ly — the gov­ern­ment is accus­ing the pro­test­ers of using tac­tics rem­i­nis­cent of the 1980s inter­nal con­flict. Deploy­ing racist imagery paint­ing indige­nous pro­test­ers as spear-wield­ing sav­ages, Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia has vowed a tough “response.”

Fol­low­ing the ear­ly-morn­ing mas­sacre, pro­test­ers took 38 police hostage at a pump­ing sta­tion for the nation­al oil com­pa­ny, PetroPe­ru. A police raid to free the offi­cers result­ed in the deaths of nine of them. An Argen­tin­ian oil com­pa­ny, Plus­petrol, has halt­ed oil pump­ing in one unit and will soon halt pump­ing in anoth­er due to the unrest.

The gov­ern­ment has since issued an arrest war­rant for indige­nous leader Alber­to Pizan­go (who was elect­ed to rep­re­sent the indige­nous coali­tion by the lead­ers of 1,200 com­mu­ni­ties), charg­ing him with “sedi­tion.” Pizan­go has gone into hid­ing.

Please take action and urge the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment to halt the vio­lence and repeal the con­tro­ver­sial free trade laws that would open up indige­nous land in the Ama­zon to increased devel­op­ment. Con­tact the US gov­ern­ment and inter­na­tion­al agen­cies as well, and encour­age them to place pres­sure on Peru. The Peru­vian gov­ern­ment is in a seri­ous posi­tion of weak­ness right now and try­ing to cov­er it up with vio­lence, and this is one of those rare cas­es where inter­na­tion­al pres­sure could deal a major set­back to infra­struc­ture expan­sion plans.

Read the full Root Force action alert on this issue here.

——

Indige­nous Lead­ers and Allies Call for an End to Vio­lence on All Sides

BAGUA, Peru — June 8 — In the after­math of Friday’s bloody raid on a peace­ful indige­nous road block­ade near Bagua in the Peru­vian Ama­zon, numer­ous eye­wit­ness­es are report­ing that the Spe­cial Forces of the Peru­vian Police have been dis­pos­ing of the bod­ies of indige­nous pro­test­ers who were killed.

“Today I spoke to many eye­wit­ness­es in Bagua report­ing that they saw police throw the bod­ies of the dead into the Marañon Riv­er from a heli­copter in an appar­ent attempt by the Gov­ern­ment to under­re­port the num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed by police,” said Gre­gor MacLen­nan, spokesper­son for Ama­zon Watch speak­ing.

“Hos­pi­tal work­ers in Bagua Chi­ca and Bagua Grande cor­rob­o­rat­ed that the police took bod­ies of the dead from their premis­es to an undis­closed loca­tion. I spoke to sev­er­al peo­ple who report­ed that there are bod­ies lying at the bot­tom of a deep crevasse up in the hills, about 2 kilo­me­ters from the inci­dent site. When the Church and local lead­ers went to inves­ti­gate, the police stopped them from approach­ing the area,” report­ed MacLen­nan.

Police and gov­ern­ment offi­cials have been con­sis­tent­ly under­re­port­ing the num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed by police gun­fire. Indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions place the num­ber of pro­test­ers killed at least at 40, while Gov­ern­ment offi­cials claim­ing that only a hand­ful of indige­nous peo­ple were killed. Also the Gar­cia Gov­ern­ment claims that 22 police offi­cers were killed and sev­er­al still miss­ing.

“Wit­ness­es say that it was the police who opened fire last Fri­day on the pro­test­ers from heli­copters,” MacLen­nan said. “Now the gov­ern­ment appears to be destroy­ing the bod­ies of slain pro­test­ers and giv­ing very low esti­mates of the casu­al­ty. Giv­en that the demon­stra­tors were unarmed or car­ry­ing only wood­en spears and the police were fir­ing auto­mat­ic weapons, the actu­al num­ber of indige­nous peo­ple killed is like­ly to be much high­er.”

“Anoth­er eye­wit­ness report­ed see­ing the bod­ies of five indige­nous peo­ple that had been burned beyond iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at the morgue. I have lis­tened to tes­ti­mo­ny of peo­ple in tears talk­ing about wit­ness­ing the police burn­ing bod­ies,” con­tin­ued MacLen­nan.

At least 150 peo­ple from the demon­stra­tion on Fri­day are still being detained. Eye-wit­ness reports also con­firm that police forcibly removed some of the wound­ed indige­nous pro­test­ers from hos­pi­tals, tak­ing them to unknown des­ti­na­tions. Their fam­i­lies expressed con­cern for their well being while in deten­tion. There are many peo­ple still report­ed miss­ing and access to med­ical atten­tion in the region is hor­ri­bly inad­e­quate.

The Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee for the Indige­nous Peo­ples of Alto Ama­zonas Province issued this state­ment: “It is appalling that polit­i­cal pow­ers have act­ed in such a cru­el and inhu­man man­ner against Ama­zon­ian Peo­ples, fail­ing to rec­og­nize the fun­da­men­tal rights and pro­tec­tions guar­an­teed to us by the Con­sti­tu­tion. We express deep grief over the death of our indige­nous broth­ers, of civil­ians and the offi­cers of the Nation­al Police.”

The gov­ern­ment expand­ed the State of Emer­gency and estab­lished a cur­few on all traf­fic in the region from 3 pm to 6 am. Indige­nous and inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions are wor­ried about plans of anoth­er Nation­al Police raid on a block­ade in Yurimaguas close to the town of Tara­po­to where thou­sands are block­ing a road.

Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia is being wide­ly crit­i­cized for foment­ing a cli­mate of fear mon­ger­ing against indige­nous peo­ples by draw­ing par­al­lels to the bru­tal Shin­ning Path guer­ril­la move­ment of the 1980s and ear­ly 1990s, and by vague­ly refer­ring to exter­nal and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic threats to the coun­try.

The Ama­zon­ian indige­nous peo­ples’ mobi­liza­tions have been peace­ful, local­ly coor­di­nat­ed, and extreme­ly well orga­nized for near­ly two months. Yet Gar­cia insists on call­ing them ter­ror­ist acts and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic. Gar­cia has even gone so far as to describe the indige­nous mobi­liza­tions as “sav­age and bar­bar­ic.” Gar­cia has made his dis­crim­i­na­tion explic­it, say­ing direct­ly that the Ama­zon­ian indige­nous peo­ple are not first-class cit­i­zens.

“These peo­ple don’t have crowns,” Gar­cia said about the pro­test­ers. “These peo­ple aren’t first-class cit­i­zens who can say — 400,000 natives to 28 mil­lion Peru­vians — ‘You don’t have the right to be here.’ No way. That is a huge error.”
Iron­i­cal­ly, Peru was the coun­try that intro­duced the Unit­ed Nations Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples on the floor of the Gen­er­al Assem­bly when it was adopt­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2007.

A coali­tion of indige­nous and human rights orga­ni­za­tions will protest in front of the Peru­vian Embassy in Wash­ing­ton D.C. on Mon­day, June 8 at 12:30 pm.

Indige­nous peo­ples have vowed to con­tin­ue protests until the Peru­vian Con­gress revokes the “free trade” decrees issued by Pres­i­dent Gar­cia under spe­cial pow­ers grant­ed by Con­gress in the con­text of the Free Trade Agree­ment with the Unit­ed States.

Among the out­pour­ing of state­ments con­demn­ing the vio­lence in Peru were those from Peru’s Ombudsman’s office, the chair of the Unit­ed Nations Per­ma­nent Forum on Indige­nous Issues, a coali­tion of 45 inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tions, Indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions from through­out the Amer­i­c­as, and the Con­fer­ence of Bish­ops of Peru. Also famous per­son­al­i­ties includ­ing Q’orianka Kilch­er, Ben­jamin Bratt, Peter Bratt, and Daryl Han­nah and Bian­ca Jag­ger called on the Peru­vian Gov­ern­ment to cease the vio­lence and seek peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to the con­flict.

AIDESEP, the nation­al indige­nous orga­ni­za­tion of Peru has called for a nation­wide gen­er­al strike start­ing June 11th.

Ama­zon Watch is con­tin­u­al­ly updat­ing pho­tographs, audio tes­ti­mo­ny, and video footage from Bagua on www.amazonwatch.org.

New­ly released b‑roll at http://amazonwatch.org/peru-protests-highres-photos.php

—–

—–

The broad­en­ing influ­ence of the indige­nous move­ment was on dis­play Thurs­day in a gen­er­al strike that drew thou­sands of pro­test­ers here to the streets of Iqui­tos, the largest Peru­vian city in the Ama­zon, and to cities and towns else­where in jun­gle areas. Protests over Mr. Gar­cía’s han­dling of the vio­lence in the north­ern Bagua Province last Fri­day also took place in high­land regions like Puno, near the Boli­vian bor­der, and in Lima and Are­quipa on the Pacif­ic coast.

“The gov­ern­ment made the sit­u­a­tion worse with its con­de­scend­ing depic­tion of us as gangs of sav­ages in the for­est,” said Wag­n­er Muso­line Acho, 24, an Awa­jún Indi­an and an indige­nous leader. “They think we can be tricked by a maneu­ver like sus­pend­ing a cou­ple of decrees for a few weeks and then rein­tro­duc­ing them, and they are wrong.”

The pro­test­ers’ imme­di­ate threat – to cut the sup­ply of oil and nat­ur­al gas to Lima, the cap­i­tal – seems to have sub­sided, with pro­test­ers part­ly with­draw­ing from their occu­pa­tion of oil instal­la­tions in the jun­gle. But as anger fes­ters, indige­nous lead­ers here said they could eas­i­ly try to shut down ener­gy instal­la­tions again to exert pres­sure on Mr. Gar­cía.

Anoth­er wave of protests appears like­ly because indige­nous groups are demand­ing that the decrees be repealed and not just sus­pend­ed. The decrees would open large jun­gle areas to invest­ment and allow com­pa­nies to bypass indige­nous groups to obtain per­mits for petro­le­um explo­ration, log­ging and build­ing hydro­elec­tric dams. A stop­gap attempt to halt ear­li­er indige­nous protests in the Ama­zon last August failed to pre­vent them from being reini­ti­at­ed more force­ful­ly in April.

…

The author­i­ties are strug­gling to under­stand a move­ment that is crys­tal­liz­ing in the Peru­vian Ama­zon among more than 50 indige­nous groups. They include about 300,000 peo­ple, account­ing for only about 1 per­cent of Peru’s pop­u­la­tion, but they live in strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant and resource-rich loca­tions, which are scat­tered through­out jun­gle areas that account for near­ly two-thirds of Peru’s ter­ri­to­ry.

So far, alliances have proved elu­sive between Indi­ans in the Ama­zon and indige­nous groups in high­land areas, rul­ing out, for now, the kind of broad indige­nous protest move­ments that helped oust gov­ern­ments in neigh­bor­ing Ecuador and Bolivia ear­li­er in the decade.

In con­trast to some ear­li­er efforts to orga­nize indige­nous groups, the lead­ers of this new move­ment are them­selves indige­nous, and not white or mes­ti­zo urban intel­lec­tu­als. They are well orga­nized and use a web of radio sta­tions to exchange infor­ma­tion across the jun­gle. After one promi­nent leader, Alber­to Pizan­go [who explic­i­ty links the strug­gles there to glob­al cli­mate change every­where], was grant­ed asy­lum in Nicaragua this week, oth­ers quick­ly emerged to artic­u­late demands.

Philippines: New Peoples Army seizes guns from mining company

On the evening of May 29, 2009, a pla­toon of the 3rd Pulang Bagani Com­pa­ny-NPA dis­armed anoth­er 1102nd Provin­cial Mobile Group-PNP squad assigned as a secu­ri­ty force of the APEX Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion in Barangay Masara, Maco, Com­val.

On the evening of May 29, 2009, a pla­toon of the 3rd Pulang Bagani Com­pa­ny-NPA dis­armed anoth­er 1102nd Provin­cial Mobile Group-PNP squad assigned as a secu­ri­ty force of the APEX Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion in Barangay Masara, Maco, Com­val. Swift­ly seized were five high-pow­ered rifles con­sist­ing of four (4) M16 armalites and one (1) M14 rifle after being sur­prised by the raid­ing NPA unit that entered the com­pa­ny com­pound. Since the tar­get PNP unit did not make any armed resis­tance, they did not have any casu­al­ty.

The min­ing firm which is owned by the Lon­don-based Crew Min­er­als Cor­po­ra­tion was pun­ished for the con­tin­u­ing envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion its oper­a­tion has caused. One such dev­as­ta­tion was the land­slide in Barangay Masara last year that caused deaths and dis­place­ment in two barangays. Also, the 1102nd PMG-PNP in Com­val forms part of the Invest­ment Defense Force (IDF) — the Arroyo regime’s armed com­po­nent that direct­ly pro­tects the inter­ests of large min­ing com­pa­nies and big agribusi­ness, and vio­lates the inher­ent rights of poor peas­ants and lumads to their liveli­hood and ances­tral lands.

from.…

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/cgi-bin/statements/stmts.pl?author=mac;date=090531;lang=eng

Bristol Co-Mutiny 12th — 20th Sept “Social Change Not Climate Change”

Cap­i­tal­ism and its pup­pet de‘mock’cracy are spi­ralling out of control:a self-cre­at­ed reces­sion, rock­et­ing unem­ploy­ment, soar­ing nation­al debt, the ille­gal and unjust occu­pa­tion of Afghanistan & Iraq, apa­thy towards mas­sacres in Pales­tine and Sri Lan­ka, the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of free move­ment, the police assaults and murde

Co-mutiny flyerCap­i­tal­ism and its pup­pet de‘mock’cracy are spi­ralling out of control:a self-cre­at­ed reces­sion, rock­et­ing unem­ploy­ment, soar­ing nation­al debt, the ille­gal and unjust occu­pa­tion of Afghanistan & Iraq, apa­thy towards mas­sacres in Pales­tine and Sri Lan­ka, the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of free move­ment, the police assaults and mur­ders of peo­ple on the streets, the con­struc­tion of larg­er air­ports and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions in the face of dev­as­tat­ing envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, the pri­vati­sa­tion of social hous­ing, the list goes on.

But there is hope. There are anti gov­ern­ment protests from Greece to Paris, and Chi­na to Lon­don, as well as fac­to­ry and school occu­pa­tions across the U.K. World wide there are grow­ing, active, and increas­ing­ly angry rad­i­cal & work­ing class move­ments stand­ing up and resist­ing cli­mate chaos, oppres­sion, pover­ty, inse­cu­ri­ty and state con­trol.

Hand-in-hand with these protests are grass­roots actions to build a new soci­ety and take con­trol of our own lives. Ordi­nary peo­ple are find­ing ways to help each oth­er in the face of the cred­it cri­sis cre­at­ed by the banks and cor­po­ra­tions. We are re-learn­ing old skills and learn­ing new ones for the tran­si­tion to a just soci­ety; enabling us to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens, estab­lish hous­ing, food and worker’s co-ops, and use new eco­nom­ics in the neigh­bour­hoods where we live

In Bris­tol and sur­rounds, a diverse bunch of enraged cre­ative, dream­ers and schemers, builders and gar­den­ers, work­ers, stu­dents and unem­ployed have been drawn togeth­er by the com­mon threads of our indig­na­tion at how a com­bi­na­tion of cor­po­rate greed, social injus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion is lead­ing us all towards cli­mate chaos and finan­cial col­lapse.

We invite you to con­verge on Bris­tol for an upris­ing of autonomous actions and events from 12th – 20th of Sep­tem­ber 2009.

The themes for those events and days of action are:

* Free­dom of move­ment (sur­veil­lance, migra­tion)
* Anti-mil­i­tarism (Sri Lan­ka, Afghanistan, Pales­tine, Fil­ton)
* Cli­mate jus­tice (Just tran­si­tion, financ­ing of cli­mate chaos, coal, air­ports)
* Finan­cial col­lapse / com­mu­ni­ty growth (role of banks, cre­at­ing a new econ­o­my)
* Work (Work­ers’ sol­i­dar­i­ty, co-oper­a­tive work­ing, work­place occu­pa­tions)
* Food (ani­mal rights, sus­tain­able food pro­duc­tion, per­ma­cul­ture)
* Autonomous spaces (gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, hous­ing, squat­ting)

The Co-Muti­neers will be organ­is­ing actions and events but we need you to get involved, wher­ev­er you are from and what­ev­er your expe­ri­ence.

We encour­age autonomous actions. Come on down, join the mutiny, get in touch!

comutiny@riseup.net
http://comutiny.wordpress.com

Dates for your diary:
Sat 12th Sep­tem­ber – Bris­tol Anar­chist Book Fare
Sun 13th – Sun 20th Sep­tem­ber – CoMutiny Action Con­ver­gence – insert your rev­o­lu­tion here!
Fri 18th – Sun 20th Sep­tem­ber – Days of action in defence of squats and autonomous spaces.

Rossport Shell to Sea Gathering, 29th May — 1st June

Every­one is invit­ed to the third annu­al June gath­er­ing here at Ross­port.

Fri­day 29th May — Mon­day 1st June.

The cam­paign has been run­ning for years now, and you can find out more on the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp web­site: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/

Every­one is invit­ed to the third annu­al June gath­er­ing here at Ross­port.

Fri­day 29th May — Mon­day 1st June.

The cam­paign has been run­ning for years now, and you can find out more on the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp web­site: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/

The gath­er­ing is a great chance to see the area (real­ly real­ly beau­ti­ful), find out what’s real­ly going on, and to meet the peo­ple involved — cam­paign­ers, locals, cats.

Also, music, work­shops, surf­ing, kayak­ing, food (includ­ing sea­weed).

Prepa­ra­tion is going on now, and it feels excit­ing.

Last year, when shell tried to lay the RAW gas pipeline, the peo­ple resist­ed all sum­mer. Even­tu­al­ly, the soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) was forced to fuck off, with its tail between its legs.

This year they will try again, and it is the spe­cial blend of locals, and activists, from near and far, that have kept them away so far.

Come and see what it’s like when all types of peo­ple com­ing togeth­er for a com­mon cause. Shell is so pow­er­ful, please come along and help.

ps. if you can’t make it for the gath­er­ing, you are wel­come any time you like through the sum­mer, even if it’s only for a day or two.

pps. please spread the word; email­ing, tex­ting, talk­ing about ross­port and the gath­er­ing.

Hop­ing to see you here!

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Press release:

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign

Thurs­day 30th April 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

—————————————————————————————

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Press release:

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign

Thurs­day 30th April 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

—————————————————————————————

Camp Bling announces ‘the end’ as road scheme stopped.

Long run­ning road protest and counter-cul­tur­al cam­paign site Camp Bling, based in the mid­dle of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, is set to be decom­mis­sioned by the sum­mer, after the long await­ed announce­ment that the con­tro­ver­sial Pri­o­ry Cres­cent road widen­ing has now offi­cial­ly been can­celled. (1)

Mem­bers of the camp met with Coun­cil lead­ers last night with a view to resolv­ing the sit­u­a­tion, after the pub­li­ca­tion of an open let­ter from Trans­port Coun­cil­lor Anna Waite, stat­ing that £5m in cen­tral gov­ern­ment fund­ing would be spent sole­ly on the Cuck­oo Cor­ner round­about, with pos­si­ble junc­tion improve­ments — but no widen­ing — to fol­low at the Prit­tle Brook indus­tri­al site at a lat­er date. (2)

As a result, cam­paign­ers intend to hon­our their pub­lic pledge to clear and vacate the camp, now that their objec­tive to stop the road has been met com­plete­ly. It is expect­ed that it will take a num­ber of weeks to ful­ly return the East Sax­on king’s bur­ial to its for­mer con­di­tion, with all struc­tures and mate­ri­als on the site to be removed by the group, with the objec­tive of incur­ring no cost to the local tax­pay­er.

Speak­ing from the camp Gin­ger said, ‘We would like to thank each and every one of the peo­ple who have been involved, not just with Camp Bling, but also with the ongo­ing cam­paign which ran from 2001 in oppo­si­tion to the scheme. It’s not every day that you get to be part of an effort to stop a £25m road widen­ing, with the added oppor­tu­ni­ty to warn peo­ple of the cul­mi­na­tion of envi­ron­men­tal and social crises that we now all face.’

‘For many of us this has been our first taste of an alter­na­tive, low­er impact, and more com­pas­sion­ate lifestyle. We have shared our expe­ri­ences — both good and bad — along the way, and often got peo­ple to acknowl­edge the real choic­es that we all have. It is time for every­one to con­front real­i­ty, as west­ern indus­tri­al soci­ety con­tin­ues to over­shoot the eco­log­i­cal lim­its of the Earth.’ (3)

Peo­ple are still wel­come to vis­it the camp whilst decom­mis­sion­ing is under­way, and are also encour­aged to check out some of the alter­na­tives at: www.campbling.org

—————————————————————————————

ENDS.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

(1) Camp Bling was first set up by local activists on 23rd Sep­tem­ber 2005. For more info about both the camp, and the long run­ning cam­paign, go to: www.campbling.org

(2) See full con­tents of let­ter at: http://www.southend.gov.uk/news/default.asp?id=2835

(3) Cli­mate, Peak Oil, Over­pop­u­la­tion, Mass Extinc­tion, Over­con­sump­tion, etc.

Camp Bling ‘Save Pri­o­ry Park!’ road cam­paign
www.campbling.org

Con­tact Camp Bling direct­ly on 07866 967601

Or e‑mail camp.bling@yahoo.co.uk

Orissa Tribes stage mass protest against British mining company Vedanta — 25 April 2009

Sev­er­al hun­dred tribes­peo­ple today staged a protest against FTSE-100 com­pa­ny Vedan­ta, as it bids mas­sive­ly to expand its con­tro­ver­sial alu­mini­um refin­ery in Lan­ji­garh, Oris­sa. The refin­ery occu­pies land belong­ing to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyam­giri hills, home of the iso­lat­ed Don­gria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

Sev­er­al hun­dred tribes­peo­ple today staged a protest against FTSE-100 com­pa­ny Vedan­ta, as it bids mas­sive­ly to expand its con­tro­ver­sial alu­mini­um refin­ery in Lan­ji­garh, Oris­sa. The refin­ery occu­pies land belong­ing to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyam­giri hills, home of the iso­lat­ed Don­gria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

Over a hun­dred fam­i­lies lost their homes to their refin­ery. Many more lost their farm land and with it their food-secu­ri­ty and self suf­fi­cien­cy.

Vedanta’s refin­ery expan­sion project is inte­gral­ly linked to its plan to mine the Don­gria Kondh’s moun­tain home. Vedanta’s mine is need­ed to pro­vide the refin­ery with a near­by, and cost effi­cient, source of baux­ite – the raw mate­r­i­al for alu­mini­um.

One Don­gria Kondh man said, ‘Min­ing only makes prof­it for the rich. We will become beg­gars if the com­pa­ny destroys our moun­tain and our for­est so that they can make mon­ey. We can­not give our moun­tain, it is our life. And oth­er tribes will also suf­fer, those who live on the rivers that come from our moun­tain.’

Today’s protest is just the lat­est in a string of demon­stra­tions against Vedanta’s activ­i­ties.

More info: www.survival-international.org/tribes/dongria

3 Lappersfort occupiers released, with deportation notices

Yes­ter­day (fri­day 24th april) the 3 Lap­pers­fort occu­piers arrest­ed on tues­day night were released (orig­i­nal arti­cle about arrest http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22493). Upon sign­ing out of the Brugge prison they were all issued with depor­ta­tion notices, order­ing them to leave the “King­dom of Bel­gium” by mid­night on the 29.04.2009.

Yes­ter­day (fri­day 24th april) the 3 Lap­pers­fort occu­piers arrest­ed on tues­day night were released (orig­i­nal arti­cle about arrest http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22493). Upon sign­ing out of the Brugge prison they were all issued with depor­ta­tion notices, order­ing them to leave the “King­dom of Bel­gium” by mid­night on the 29.04.2009. One of them signed the paper after being threat­ened with being sent back into the cell if refus­ing. The oth­er two refused to sign the paper and were still released, but as yet we’re not sure if the depor­ta­tion notice has any legal grounds or not. Obvi­ous­ly the pigs are using their socalled “posi­tion of author­i­ty” to intim­i­date the occu­piers and those sup­port­ing them, and this attempt­ed depor­ta­tion is sim­ply an extreme and over-the-top expres­sion of their desire to be rid of us before the issues of the lap­pers­fort, of “zonevreemde” forests and police repres­sion get too big for them to han­dle. The notice itself seems extrem­ly dodgy, it has only been signed by the prison direc­tor, refers from a law from 1980, and one is issued with­out the offi­cial name of the per­son to be deport­ed. But these days here in Brugge noth­ing is sur­pris­ing any­more, and the police may take this “chance” to raid the camp to find the “ille­gal” peo­ple there. The facist pig-pro­tec­tors of the “Bel­gian Reich” are again flex­ing their lit­tle mus­cles, and this one case is anoth­er exam­ple of the facism of “fortress Europe” and its pro­tec­tors, and the vio­lent repres­sion prac­tised against those who show any form of resis­tance. Resort­ing to such mea­sures only shows us that the police here feel threat­ened by our pres­ence in the for­est.
Mean­while the pigs still have the ID’s and belong­ings of many peo­ple, and we’re try­ing to find out whether the raid at a local friends house on wen­des­day after­noon was legal or not, and whether or not we have a legal case against the Brugge police. (For orig­i­nal arti­cle about raid http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22512).
Fol­low­ing the release of the 3 we now know more about their arrest on tues­day. At least 6–10 pig­gies had been wait­ing in the bush­es, some dressed in cam­ou­flage and black, some in uni­form, some with bal­a­clavas and at least one dog. They came from behind the bush­es and trees from all direc­tions in a pathet­ic hol­ly­wood-style ambush, vio­lent­ly forc­ing 3 peo­ple to the ground, twist­ing their arms and using pres­sure-points. Fin­ger­prints and pho­tos were tak­en, and after the raid the pigs man­aged to pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy one of the 3. The cop­pers here are using their tac­tics of kid­nap­ping, ambush, vio­lence and lies to crush our camp, our cam­paign, and to make oth­ers afraid of com­ing to vis­it, show sup­port or move in. Spring is hap­pen­ing, and we are try­ing to get ready for a busy sum­mer of cam­paign­ing and actions, despite con­stant police harass­ment. Just last night, while we cel­e­brat­ed the release of our friends, 3 peo­ple were forced to run from police after return­ing to the camp from col­lect­ing bread from a local bak­ery sup­port­ing the occu­piers. The pig­gies, obvi­ous­ly with noth­ing bet­ter to do, wait­ed long in to the night, keep­ing a close eye on the bag of bread dumped in the bush­es by the 3 forced to flee. Upon return­ing to get it lat­er, the sil­ly bug­gers were still wait­ing, but the peo­ple man­aged to get away. Our crim­i­nal bread is now back on site and being enjoyed by all.…
The camp, in this time of police sur­veil­lance and harass­ment and all the rest of it, require a few things which could be very helpful.…Lappersfort wish­list: peo­ple with legal knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly immi­gra­tion law
com­put­er freak to help updat­ing and renew­ing old and neglect­ed web­site
most of all we need more peo­ple in the for­est, to come by and stay as long as they want, to move in and to take part in the camp itself (all peo­ple com­ing over should be aware how­ev­er of strong police pres­ence around the for­est)
please phone for anything.……(++32 741/65.85.44)

Indians blockade main Amazon tributary — 24 April 2009

A large num­ber of Indi­ans have block­ad­ed one of the Amazon’s main trib­u­taries, the Napo Riv­er, in response to the vio­la­tion of their rights by oil com­pa­nies and Peru’s gov­ern­ment.

A large num­ber of Indi­ans have block­ad­ed one of the Amazon’s main trib­u­taries, the Napo Riv­er, in response to the vio­la­tion of their rights by oil com­pa­nies and Peru’s gov­ern­ment.

The pro­test­ers have block­ad­ed the Napo with canoes and a cable to stop oil com­pa­ny ves­sels get­ting upriv­er. Accord­ing to sources, two boats, includ­ing one from the Anglo-French com­pa­ny Peren­co, have man­aged to break through the block­ade. Three shots were alleged­ly fired at the Indi­ans who chased after them.

The block­ade of the Napo Riv­er is just one of many protests cur­rent­ly tak­ing place across the Peru­vian Ama­zon. Coor­di­nat­ed by Peru’s Ama­zon Indi­an organ­i­sa­tion, AIDESEP, the protests are in response to gov­ern­ment poli­cies seen by the Indi­ans as dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and threat­en­ing to their com­mu­nal lands. AIDESEP is lob­by­ing for the repeal of sev­er­al laws they claim vio­late their rights, and for the cre­ation of new reserves for uncon­tact­ed tribes.

The gov­ern­ment has respond­ed by send­ing police and sol­diers to areas where protests are tak­ing place. AIDESEP has crit­i­cised these mea­sures, call­ing them ‘intim­i­da­tion’ and say­ing that the protests are peace­ful.

Peren­co is work­ing in a part of the Ama­zon inhab­it­ed by two of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes. The com­pa­ny does not acknowl­edge the tribes exist.

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘All over the world trib­al peo­ples are being forced to resort to block­ades to try and pro­tect their remain­ing land. We’re see­ing this in India and Malaysia as well as South Amer­i­ca.’

www.survival-international.org

Lappersfort- Police out of control

Fol­low­ing the ambush & arrest of 3 lap­pers­fort occu­piers on the night of 21st April, the Brugge police yes­ter­day con­duct­ed a raid on the house of a local sym­pa­this­er.

Fol­low­ing the ambush & arrest of 3 lap­pers­fort occu­piers on the night of 21st April, the Brugge police yes­ter­day con­duct­ed a raid on the house of a local sym­pa­this­er. Atleast 6 pigs entered the home after show­ing a war­rant, and took with them many per­son­al items from the occu­piers, includ­ing pass­ports, oth­er forms of ID and even per­son­al let­ters and jour­nals. The police are tak­ing every oppor­tu­ni­ty to weak­en local sup­port through the media cir­cus and also to gath­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the occu­piers. The belief is that they are gath­er­ing the id’s in order to be able to charge peo­ple with the costs of the evic­tion (after evic­tion in 2002, 13 occu­pi­er who had giv­en their names were threat­ened with hav­ing to pay the evic­tion costs of 50,000euros if they are caught again in the for­est) . We aren’t sure if this means the evic­tion is com­ing any soon­er now, but the camp is under con­stant evic­tion threat. There is some spec­u­la­tion as to whether or not the police raid yes­ter­day was done legal­ly or not, and also whether or not they will take the next step of raid­ing the camp….

Mean­while 3 of our friends are still sit­ting in prison in brugge and will face the judge tomor­row. They are accused of scrap­ing some words in wet con­crete, which the pigs have decid­ed deserves the offi­cial charge of “destroy­ing the road”. We are obvi­ous­ly hop­ing they will all be released tomor­row, but the cour­t­house here in Brugge has a rep­u­ta­tion for lock­ing up lap­pers­forters for any­thing they pos­si­bly can. One local paper also report­ed that the secu­ri­ty and dogs who ambushed and arrest­ed the 3 on Tues­day night were request­ed by the may­or him­self.

Life in the for­est is get­ting some­times dif­fi­cult, and the pigs are obvi­ous­ly using their tac­tics of intim­i­da­tion, fear and repres­sion to demor­alise the camp and cause divi­sion between the occu­piers and the local com­mu­ni­ty. But the camp and the cam­paign goes on, spring is hap­pen­ing, and more humans are always wished for and welcome….we wont let the pig­gies stop us, or even slow us down…

The Beechwood Hotel/Squat 201 Bristol Road Edgbaston Birmingham B5 7UB

A day of per­ma­cul­ture work­shops, fol­lowed by a BBQ and par­ty. Then stay and help us resist the bailiffs.

Per­ma­cul­ture Day at the Social Jus­tice cen­tre, 201 Bris­tol Road, B5 7UB.

The Social Jus­tice cen­tre at Bris­tol Road is host­ing a per­ma­cul­ture day on Sat­ur­day 25th April.
The event is sched­uled for 11am till late . There will also be a bar­be­cue and music for your plea­sure.

A day of per­ma­cul­ture work­shops, fol­lowed by a BBQ and par­ty. Then stay and help us resist the bailiffs.

Per­ma­cul­ture Day at the Social Jus­tice cen­tre, 201 Bris­tol Road, B5 7UB.

The Social Jus­tice cen­tre at Bris­tol Road is host­ing a per­ma­cul­ture day on Sat­ur­day 25th April.
The event is sched­uled for 11am till late . There will also be a bar­be­cue and music for your plea­sure.

The Cen­tre is a squat­ted for­mer hotel and con­ser­va­tion area, which has been run down by the own­er and for­mer man­agers. The occu­piers are keen to turn this sit­u­a­tion around and restore the grounds to prop­er eco­log­i­cal man­age­ment, and are work­ing with local stake­hold­ers to this end. In the mean­time, prac­ti­cal steps tak­en include the plant­i­ng of a veg­etable plot.

The day on Sat­ur­day will involve vol­un­teers from the neigh­bour­ing Meta­mor­pho­sis at the Mar­tineau Gar­dens. We will be shar­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion skills while doing prac­ti­cal work to restore the con­ser­va­tion area to prop­er envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment to the best of our col­lec­tive abil­i­ties on the day. We will be con­tin­u­ing to lay path­ways too.

Call­ing all per­ma­cul­ture activists and eco-war­riors: come along and share your skills and expe­ri­ence, and of course nat­u­ral­ly please bring any tools or seeds you want to use for a nat­u­ral­ly nat­ur­al expe­ri­ence.

The Beech­wood Hotel/Squat
201 Bris­tol Road
Edg­bas­ton
Birm­ing­ham
B5 7UB

For more infor­ma­tion call Lee 07874 180014