Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Bloody report from Ballinaboy/ Rossport, Ireland

Fri­day 19th Jan­u­ary 2007.
Today a good crowd of pro­tes­tors gath­ered at the usu­al ren­dezvous, approx 60+ peo­ple. The crowd was buoyed by the pres­ence of a mem­ber of Glob­al Com­mu­ni­ty Mon­i­tor, over from the states, and a film crew trav­el­ling with him. At 7.30 peo­ple pro­ceed­ed up the road, some wear­ing white jump suits with chem­i­cal con­t­a­m­i­nants inscribed on the front, poi­sons which the Bal­linaboy ter­mi­nal would pol­lute the local area, fresh water and sea with. The crowd was lead with a large ban­ner read­ing Cor­rib Ter­mi­nal Ill­ness.

Fri­day 19th Jan­u­ary 2007.
Today a good crowd of pro­tes­tors gath­ered at the usu­al ren­dezvous, approx 60+ peo­ple. The crowd was buoyed by the pres­ence of a mem­ber of Glob­al Com­mu­ni­ty Mon­i­tor, over from the states, and a film crew trav­el­ling with him. At 7.30 peo­ple pro­ceed­ed up the road, some wear­ing white jump suits with chem­i­cal con­t­a­m­i­nants inscribed on the front, poi­sons which the Bal­linaboy ter­mi­nal would pol­lute the local area, fresh water and sea with. The crowd was lead with a large ban­ner read­ing Cor­rib Ter­mi­nal Ill­ness.

As the crowd passed over the nar­row bridge tem­pers frayed and to nobod­ies sur­prise the Gar­dai ploughed into the pro­tes­tors, shov­ing them every which way. At this point two Gar­dai held Pat’s arms while anoth­er punched him in the face sev­er­al times. Sim­i­lar­ly his broth­er Mar­tin was seri­ous­ly assault­ed, suf­fer­ing cut­ting and bruis­ing to face and eye. But as the dawn has not yet bro­ken cap­tur­ing any image of this is vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble, espe­cial­ly giv­en the num­ber of Gar­dai there to hide each oth­ers activ­i­ties and deny same.
It’s very hard to ascer­tain if there is any log­i­cal point to the Gar­dai activ­i­ties with regard to wad­ing in and assault­ing all around them as oth­er than to bul­ly and injure peo­ple it serves no prac­ti­cal pur­pose. Usu­al­ly their excuse for push­ing and shov­ing is to ensure your safe­ty and make sure you are on the oth­er side of the white line so none of Shells work­ers or trucks can pos­si­bly be delayed for even a sec­ond. How­ev­er as can be seen in the first pho­to some Gar­dai are near­ly on the oth­er side of the road, where there is no hard shoul­der as this is on the bridge, and still they are push­ing, shov­ing and assault­ing peo­ple.

Yes­ter­day after the Gar­dai head­ed off for their break­fasts, leav­ing the trucks to fend for them­selves, local res­i­dents blocked access to the site, hold­ing up stone trucks for a peri­od of time. Secu­ri­ty appeared to pan­ic some­what clos­ing and lock­ing the site gates before Gar­dai with out a com­mand­ing offi­cer appeared on the scene to ush­er in the stalled trucks.

Water qual­i­ty con­tin­ues to be a seri­ous issue, despite Co.Co. assur­ances that it is fine. Images below show water leav­ing the Bal­linaboy site, some clear­ly untreat­ed and look­ing very sim­i­lar to last year, sil­ver grey, when it was found to be heav­i­ly con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with alu­mini­um. The main out­fall area from the site looks mar­gin­al­ly bet­ter, where the water is at least sup­posed to have been treat­ed by this point, how­ev­er it is also clear­ly looks noth­ing like drink­ing water qual­i­ty and exhibits some sil­ver grey colour­ing. Despite the fact that all water leav­ing the site is sup­posed to be treat­ed before leav­ing site you can clear­ly see the water from the truck wash at Gate 3 being pumped straight into exit­ing drains.
The past 3 days have seen mem­bers of Shell to Sea hand­ing out leaflets at the Shell green­wash events in Castle­bar and Bal­li­na. Very few peo­ple attend­ed these events, and num­bers must have been dou­bled or even tre­bled by the atten­dance of 2 school groups, 1 from sec­ondary school and 1 from pri­ma­ry school, nev­er to ear­ly to start brain wash­ing.

Our own pres­ence was wel­comed by many peo­ple pass­ing by and many who did go in to see Shells expen­sive PR work were firm­ly behind the stance of Shell to Sea. As we hand­ed out infor­ma­tion leaflets and chat­ted to peo­ple 1 passer­by even went into the hotel and brought out a tray of steam­ing hot whiskeys!

March on Worthing Police Station in support of Titnore, 17th Feb

A PROTEST march on Wor­thing Police Sta­tion has been called for Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 17 in the face of police intim­i­da­tion of Tit­nore Woods cam­paign­ers.

A state­ment from Tit­nore Emer­gency Action (TEA), released on Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 18, said:

A PROTEST march on Wor­thing Police Sta­tion has been called for Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 17 in the face of police intim­i­da­tion of Tit­nore Woods cam­paign­ers.

A state­ment from Tit­nore Emer­gency Action (TEA), released on Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 18, said:
“In the run-up to Christ­mas, sup­port­ers of the Tit­nore Woods cam­paign were try­ing to bring in food and cash dona­tions to the camp, for obvi­ous rea­sons.

“How­ev­er as you may have heard, on no less than two occa­sions Wor­thing Police offi­cers attend­ed the stall and threat­ened with arrest our friends mak­ing the col­lec­tions.

“This is noth­ing short of polit­i­cal harass­ment of Tit­nore sup­port­ers and flies in the face of local democ­ra­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly the fact that the cam­paign has won the sup­port of thou­sands of local peo­ple, who vis­it the stall to make their con­tri­bu­tion to the tree house heroes.

“In protest at this dra­con­ian and unnec­es­sary action, which has stopped vital fund-rais­ing at a vital time, we call for a MARCH ON WORTHING POLICE STATION on Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 17, head­ing off at 2pm from Hold­ers Cor­ner, Mon­tague Place [near Mac­Don­ald’s], Wor­thing.

“This will also be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to express ongo­ing sup­port for the camp and the fight to Save Tit­nore Woods.

“We hope as many of you as pos­si­ble will be there to lend your sup­port for the efforts of our our friends on the stall and in the woods.

Tit­nore Emer­gency Action (TEA)”

Mean­while, cam­paign­ers say they have received some infor­ma­tion sug­gest­ing that an attempt­ed evic­tion of the Tit­nore camp might be very immi­nent. The source also sug­gest­ed that Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Army per­son­nel would be involved.

Wor­thing eco-action added: “While we do not want to “cry wolf” by sound­ing the alarm bells too often, we thought peo­ple should be aware of this. If any­one has any oth­er infor­ma­tion either sup­port­ing or con­tra­dict­ing this rumour, please get in touch with us, Pro­tect Our Wood­land or the camp. Or come to Thurs­day night’s Wor­thing Alliance meet­ing (Jan­u­ary 25). If there are plans to evict soon, there may be a con­nec­tion with the recent heavy-hand­ed treat­ment of Tit­nore sup­port­ers.

New Year Destruction at the Hill of Tara, Ireland

In fla­grent con­tempt of best archae­o­log­i­cal and eco­log­i­cal prac­tice, a sys­tem­at­ic cam­paign of tree felling, earth clear­ance and mon­u­ment removal has begun at the Hill of Tara. This is even before the Pub­lic Pri­vate Part­ner­ship (PPP) con­tract for the M3 Motor­way, through the Tara / Skryne Val­ley, has even been signed. Dai­ly protests are tak­ing place, every 7am in the morn­ing at the Hill of Tara car park.

In fla­grent con­tempt of best archae­o­log­i­cal and eco­log­i­cal prac­tice, a sys­tem­at­ic cam­paign of tree felling, earth clear­ance and mon­u­ment removal has begun at the Hill of Tara. This is even before the Pub­lic Pri­vate Part­ner­ship (PPP) con­tract for the M3 Motor­way, through the Tara / Skryne Val­ley, has even been signed. Dai­ly protests are tak­ing place, every 7am in the morn­ing at the Hill of Tara car park.

The sit­u­a­tion at Rath Lugh: Rath Lugh is “ownedâ€? by Coillte, the State Forestry Board. Native trees are being sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly felled, even though Rath Lugh is a des­ig­nat­ed nation­al mon­u­ment, and strate­gi­cal­ly placed as part of the defen­sive for­ti­fi­ca­tions at Tara, on the north­ern slope of the Skyrne Val­ley. A new area is being worked just behind Lis­mullen. There are oth­er wood­ed areas between Rath Lugh and Blun­del­stown. It is vital that these be pre­served from the van­dal­ism that has already been per­pe­trat­ed. Coillte is legal­ly oblig­ed to pro­tect nation­al mon­u­ments on land in its care.  http://tarawatch.org/?p=234 Coillte’s con­tempt for the archae­o­log­i­cal sites on the land it over­sees has already been dis­played in the case of the Mooghaun hill­fort, which has been dam­aged by Coillte’s plant­i­ng of conifer trees there. Mooghaun hill­fort (Moghane in Irish), locat­ed in Co. Clare, is thought to be the largest hill­fort in Ire­land. Built c.1260–930 B.C., it is sit­u­at­ed “on a low hillock in a fair­ly gen­tly undu­lat­ing land­scape of good agri­cul­tur­al land dot­ted with many small lakesâ€? Gro­gan 1993: 39  http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0392/D.0392.198910240071.html

Coillte is a state body; it is, how­ev­er, behav­ing as if it were a pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion, enti­tled to dis­pose of its “propertyâ€? as it sees fit. Again, Coillte’s record speaks for itself. In March 2001, Coillte approved the sale of 250 acres of land at Bel­lan­aboy, Co Mayo for the Cor­rib Gas Ter­mi­nal. In Decem­ber of 2004 the remain­ing area of 160 hectares was sold by Coillte to Shell for €2.75 mil­lion. Sub­se­quent­ly Coillte grant­ed Shell “wayleaveâ€? per­mis­sion to build a high-pres­sure raw gas pipeline through 3km of adja­cent Coillte land at Augh­oose, Co Mayo.  http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=439
Coillte over­sees more than 1.5 mil­lion acres on behalf of the State, so the stakes are high.

The sit­u­a­tion at Baron­stown:
Baron­stown lies in the heart of the Tara-Skyrne Val­ley, and has been described by the Archae­ol­o­gists who under­took the Dis­cov­ery Pro­gramme sur­vey at Tara as a Nation­al Mon­u­ment. It was how­ev­er, exclud­ed from the Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment (EIS). There is grow­ing evi­dence of improp­er exca­va­tion meth­ods by the pri­vate archae­o­log­i­cal com­pa­nies over­seen by the Nation­al Roads Author­i­ty. Plas­tic bags con­tain­ing bones, lack­ing num­bers or mark­ings, are being found lying in ran­dom places. This in itself is proof of inad­e­quate archae­o­log­i­cal super­vi­sion.  http://tarawatch.org/?p=289

The sit­u­a­tion at Col­lier­stown: Again this was not­ed by the Dis­cov­ery Pro­gramme as being wor­thy of des­ig­na­tion as a Nation­al Mon­u­ment, but was exclud­ed from the EIS. It is a bur­ial site, with many graves of rec­tan­gu­lar shape, edged with stone slabs. These appear to be children’s graves.  http://tarawatch.org/?p=273

The sit­u­a­tion at Roestown:
Here, a com­plex of bee­hive souter­rains has been removed. Anoth­er has been new­ly dis­cov­ered, yet is short­ly to be removed. Tree felling has already occurred.  http://tarawatch.org/?p=304
All of this van­dal­ism is pos­si­ble because the Min­is­ter for the Envi­ron­ment has scrapped the her­itage pro­tec­tion pro­vi­sions in Irish law, and sub­sti­tut­ed an Act grant­i­ng him the pow­er to issue licens­es for unsu­per­vised archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tion of des­ig­nat­ed sites. Under this con­ven­tion, a host of licens­es have been issued for exca­va­tions in the Tara / Skryne Val­ley.  http://www.sacredireland.org/gallery.html These pic­tures give an indi­ca­tion of the dam­age that occurred in 2005:
The dig­gers move in:  http://www.sacredireland.org/12don.html
Earth Removal:  http://www.sacredireland.org/22don.html
 http://www.sacredireland.org/27don.html
 http://www.sacredireland.org/28don.html  http://www.sacredireland.org/24don.html
The bones of the dead:  http://www.sacredireland.org/bone.html
More exca­va­tor activ­i­ty:  http://www.sacredireland.org/12.html  http://www.sacredireland.org/13.html
Top­soil exca­va­tions:  http://www.sacredireland.org/3.html  http://www.sacredireland.org/18.html  http://www.sacredireland.org/digger.html

Thrupp Lake (Radley Oxfordshire) update

There were once nine lakes…

Local peo­ple have joined forces with ecol­o­gists and envi­ron­men­tal activists in a pledge to save Thrupp Lake (at Radley, near Oxford), fol­low­ing a deci­sion by Npow­er boss­es to dump 500,000 tonnes of fly-ash on to the site.

There were once nine lakes…

Local peo­ple have joined forces with ecol­o­gists and envi­ron­men­tal activists in a pledge to save Thrupp Lake (at Radley, near Oxford), fol­low­ing a deci­sion by Npow­er boss­es to dump 500,000 tonnes of fly-ash on to the site.

Thrupp lake is a nature reserve as des­ig­nat­ed by Oxford­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil, with many rare plants, insects and ani­mals includ­ing water voles and otters.

The plan is to cut down over 1,000 trees so that Npow­er can drain then fill the lake with 500,000 tonnes of tox­ic waste ash from the near­by Did­cot Pow­er Sta­tion. The waste ash is pul­verised fly-ash which can be recy­cled and used in var­i­ous build­ing prod­ucts such as cement and breeze blocks. Past study found traces of many nas­ties includ­ing Polo­ni­um 210!

Npow­er have already destroyed sev­en oth­er lakes in the imme­di­ate area. The locals have been try­ing to save the lakes for many years using all legal means and have failed. Their lat­est chal­lenge is to get the lake des­ig­nat­ed to vil­lage green sta­tus, which would save the lake. How­ev­er, Npow­er have said they will begin work BEFORE this appli­ca­tion will even be heard in court! The locals have wel­comed us with open arms to fight this along­side them.

As part of this, our group occu­pied an emp­ty prop­er­ty on the shore of the lake on Decem­ber 28th with a view to pro­tect the lake and using all non-vio­lent means to resist evic­tion (Lock-on’s and bar­ri­cades etc), whilst also open­ing the build­ing up (com­pul­sary pur­chased by Npow­er) as a field cen­ter for the study of the local ecol­o­gy.

Recent News: Npow­er took us to Coun­ty Court on 10th Jan­u­ary to gain a repos­ses­sion order to evict us, how­ev­er, they did not expect us to have such a great legal team behind us. The order for repos­ses­sion was thrown out as the papers were ille­gal­ly served to us by Npow­er! Local press
head­line was “Squatters win first roundâ€?. We are in court again Weds. 24th Jan. at the Coun­ty Court in Oxford. We have a bar­ris­ter work­ing on the case and are putting up a stiff legal defense.

At present: We are work­ing on defend­ing the build­ing and record­ing and pho­tograph­ing the local ecol­o­gy (we need proof that cer­tain species inhab­it the area as part of the defense). We are still in LEGAL pos­ses­sion of the build­ing and we have mas­sive local sup­port. The house is mas­sive and the lake is absolute­ly beau­ti­ful.

HOW YOU CAN HELP : Vis­it us! Remem­ber we are in legal pos­ses­sion and you are allowed to stay. Stay with us to defend the build­ing if we get evict­ed, or come to do some ecol­o­gy work. Bring your friends! (You may even see the Radley Lake Pen­guin!). Bring us things we need off our ‘Wish
List’. Come and sup­port us in court on the 24th – bring ban­ners etc.

Catch the train to Radley sta­tion (one stop from Oxford), and it is about a fif­teen minute walk to the site. For direc­tions ring the site mobile.
SITE MOBILE NUMBER IS: 07772 0553 384

For more infor­ma­tion see www.saveradleylakes.org.uk or check out our progress on UK Indy­media or Indy­media Oxford.

Watch the video (video/x‑msvideo 34MB)

WISH LIST
Food, Fur­ni­ture, Blan­kets, Duvets, Sleep­ing Bags, Water­proofs, Lad­ders,
Buck­ets, Kitchen knives and cut­lery, plates etc., Rope and Polyprop, Nuts,
bolts, Nails, Screws, Wire mesh, Tools, Span­ners, wrench­es, Sock­et sets,
Bot­tled Water (1 ltr), Ban­ners, Paint, Shov­el, Tim­ber for build­ing, Cable
ties, Climb­ing Carib­i­neers for lock-on’s, Chains, 45 gal­lon oil drums,
Fake ani­mal Fur (Yes thats right),Cash, YOU!

Activists stop work on gas pipe line Alltwen, Wales

16th Jan ’07 — At 9am this morn­ing a con­struc­tion site in Alltwen was stormed by activists, climb­ing cranes and lock­ing-on with d‑locks by their necks. Work was stopped on the con­tro­ver­sial LNG pipeline for five and a half hours, adding to the list of recent delays.

Alltwen pipeline protest16th Jan ’07 — At 9am this morn­ing a con­struc­tion site in Alltwen was stormed by activists, climb­ing cranes and lock­ing-on with d‑locks by their necks. Work was stopped on the con­tro­ver­sial LNG pipeline for five and a half hours, adding to the list of recent delays.
The pro­test­ers this morn­ing were met with aggres­sion, one had her cam­era snatched and dam­aged, whilst oth­ers were threat­ened with vio­lence. After one activist climbed a crane, locked on by his neck, the oper­a­tor of the crane then decid­ed to move the crane about, seri­ous­ly endan­ger­ing the activist’s life — watch the video (video/x‑ms-wmv 4.3MB).
Also con­struc­tion work­ers ini­tial­ly kept on using heavy machin­ery on the site despite being advised not to due to health and safe­ty rea­sons.

It is the eighth day that work has been stopped at the Tre­banos camp across the val­ley. Sup­port con­tin­ues to grow for the cam­paign with more num­bers get­ting involved dai­ly.
The pipe, to be 115 miles long rips right through wales, hav­ing dev­as­tat­ing effects on the welsh coun­try­side.
This action is just a small part of a big cam­paign to fight the pipe!
Cur­rent­ly we are occu­py­ing a pub­lic foot­path stop­ping access to the con­struc­tion site in the vil­lage of Tre­banos. We also have a house which is a safe base to do actions from.
Come to wales and be at the front line of britain’s eco-defence! Loads more actions
are planned and more sites too.
con­tact num­bers
07790450747
07733190958

Pipeline protests gather strength

15.01.2007

Active oppo­si­tion is under­way against the South Wales LNG pipeline in three sep­a­rate loca­tions. Objec­tions to Nation­al Grid’s con­tro­ver­sial project are spurred by lack of con­su­la­tion, safe­ty fears, envi­ron­menal issues and cli­mate change con­cerns. Protests grow stronger day by day, sup­port­ed by long term cam­paign­ing, cre­at­ing a spir­it­ed and uni­fied resis­tance.

Pipeline flier15.01.2007

Active oppo­si­tion is under­way against the South Wales LNG pipeline in three sep­a­rate loca­tions. Objec­tions to Nation­al Grid’s con­tro­ver­sial project are spurred by lack of con­su­la­tion, safe­ty fears, envi­ron­menal issues and cli­mate change con­cerns. Protests grow stronger day by day, sup­port­ed by long term cam­paign­ing, cre­at­ing a spir­it­ed and uni­fied resis­tance.

SLOW WALKING

Today saw set­backs to the progress of the South Wales LNG Pipeline for the sec­ond week run­ning. Work was delayed at three sep­a­rate sites along the gigan­tic 115 mile route way, by a grow­ing anti-pipe move­ment. The pipeline is part of a mas­sive Nation­al Grid project to lay a 115-mile pipeline from Mil­ford Haven to Tire­ly in Glouces­ter­shire. The project has sparked con­tro­ver­sy and oppo­si­tion from the onset.

Machin­ery at Tre­banos is denied access by a protest camp upon a pub­lic foot­path. Cur­rent­ly going strong, this has halt­ed work for eight days in a row, much to the ongo­ing frus­tra­tion of Nation­al Grid offi­cials. Active oppo­si­tion first began in Tre­banos last Novem­ber with an occu­pa­tion with­in the pipe itself.

Inspired by this pro­tes­tors in Mil­ford Haven have been camped on a pub­lic foot­path right in the path of the pipe since last Novem­ber.

Mean­while at Cil­frew, res­i­dents are using a walk­ing block­ade along the access road to the site, joined by vol­un­teers from across Britain. This, backed up by a detailed knowl­edge of reg­u­la­tions and the area is prov­ing most effec­tive. Actions are con­tin­u­ing as they have every­day since Thurs­day.

Sup­port­ing writ­ten cam­paigns are at con­stant work to back up the direct actions.

Oppo­nents say their inves­ti­ga­tions have led them to the con­clu­sion that it’s pure­ly prof­it led and dan­ger­ous­ly hasty. By the Health and Safe­ty Exec­u­tive’s own admis­sion there will be a hole in this pipeline dur­ing its life­time. The volatile safe­ty risks, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate chaos are the price of Nation­al Grid being left unchecked to line their pock­ets. Cause for a sig­nif­i­cant and ever increas­ing num­ber of cit­i­zens to take action. These include local com­mu­ni­ties the length of the route, cam­paign group Safe Haven Net­work, cli­mate change groups such as Ris­ing Tide and those con­cerned with the des­e­cra­tion of mile after mile of beau­ti­ful land.

This wan­ton destruc­tion of our envi­ron­ment and our basic human rights can­not and will not be allowed to con­tin­ue. The local coun­cil turns a blind eye, hav­ing rid­den roughshod over the very peo­ple who vot­ed them in. Democ­ra­cy has van­ished into the mists. The police have become like Nation­al Grids own secu­ri­ty guards.

This is a bat­tle cry from the val­leys of Wales, come and join us, show the estab­lish­ment they can­not con­tin­ue to ignore us.

These voic­es will not die down. We grow stronger day by day, moral is high and the atmos­phere is over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ive. The local com­mu­ni­ty are keep­ing a very warm wel­come in the hill­sides!

Save Radley Lakes Occupation update

12.01.2007

Activists are occu­py­ing and intend to defend a squat­ted lake­side prop­er­ty in order to pre­vent the infill­ing of Radley Lakes with tox­ic ash from the burn­ing of coal at the near­by npow­er owned Did­cot pow­er sta­tion.

Radley Lakes - toxic ash infill12.01.2007

Activists are occu­py­ing and intend to defend a squat­ted lake­side prop­er­ty in order to pre­vent the infill­ing of Radley Lakes with tox­ic ash from the burn­ing of coal at the near­by npow­er owned Did­cot pow­er sta­tion.

The occu­pants intend­ed to use the prop­er­ty as envi­ron­men­tal field cen­tre with the sup­port of the local com­mu­ni­ty, where there is mas­sive local oppo­si­tion to the destruc­tion of the last two remain­ing lakes at Radley.

The lakes are unusu­al in their clar­i­ty and the area con­tains local and nation­al rare and threat­ened species, with 115 species of birds record­ed and over1000 trees sur­round­ing the lake which will be felled. How­ev­er this has been ignored by pow­er com­pa­ny RWE npow­er, and has been rail-road­ed through by Oxford­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil.

Npow­er took the group to court last Wednes­day but failed to get them evict­ed, but will they try again this Wednes­day 17th and are like­ly to be suc­cess­ful.

But unde­terred the group are lock­ing on and dig­ging in prepa­ra­tion to defend the field cen­tre and pre­vent the destruc­tion of the lakes.

How­ev­er they are bad­ly in need of peo­ple and equip­ment to help with the defence. If you can sup­port the group or donate equip­ment such as wood, ply board, plas­tic sheet­ing, elec­tri­cal tools, build­ing sand, bal­last, shov­els, spades, chain, locks car­bines, poly-prop rope, cable ties, nuts, bolts screws, nails, con­tact adhe­sive, fake fur? and oh yea food con­tact the site on 07772055384, loca­tion OX14 3NG, a 15 minute walk from Radley Sta­tion.
 http://www.saveradleylakes.org.uk/index.htm

Reports from Shell to Sea, Ballinaboy, Mayo

11.01.2007

Reports from Mon­day , Tues­day and Thurs­day at pro­posed Shell refin­ery site, of Shell to Sea pro­test­ers and pho­tos of same.

11.01.2007

Reports from Mon­day , Tues­day and Thurs­day at pro­posed Shell refin­ery site, of Shell to Sea pro­test­ers and pho­tos of same.

Back to work for Shell to Sea

Mon­day the 8th saw a return to work for Shell and its con­trac­tors at the pro­posed Bal­linaboy ter­mi­nal site. Shell to Sea pro­test­ers turned out in force to wel­come them back, as the Gar­dai wel­comed us back. A group of about 70 locals assem­bled as they have every work­ing day predawn at 7 am to protest against the ter­mi­nal and shell. The Gar­dai turned out in force(no pun intend­ed). There was a chang­ing of the Gar­dai, the grunts at least but most of the senior offi­cers were the same tired, aggres­sive, drink smelling clowns that we have been deal­ing with, and assault­ed by, for months.

Peo­ple attempt­ed to block trucks with new enthu­si­asm by stand­ing in front of them. This was soon fol­lowed by the usu­al assaults tak­ing place with Gar­dai fling­ing peo­ple in the drains and ditch­es, shov­ing peo­ple to the ground etc.

Appar­ent­ly the Gar­dai are unfa­mil­iar with the process of arrest­ing some­one if they break the law, but then per­haps there is no law being bro­ken? Supt Joe Gan­non explained in the Gar­da Review that the polit­i­cal deci­sion has been tak­en to not arrest pro­test­ers, so as not to cre­ate “martyrsâ€?. This stand­ing deci­sion has result­ed in Gar­dai using oth­er means to dom­i­nate the sit­u­a­tion, name­ly assault­ing and intim­i­dat­ing peo­ple.

After iso­lat­ing one indi­vid­ual, Gar­da GW 65 Sean Coller­an took his gui­tar and case, took out the gui­tar and threat­ened to break it before leav­ing it on the wet road, who said school yard bul­lies grow up?
Approx­i­mate­ly 40 Gar­dai were deployed on the ground with a sim­i­lar num­ber retained on a bus on stand by.
Mon­day evening Shell to Sea attend­ed the month­ly Mayo Co. Co. meet­ing in Castle­bar to protest against Mayo Co. Co. col­lu­sion with Shell in rela­tion to the EIS, the plan­ning per­mis­sion and the cold vent­ing. About 30 pro­test­ers attend­ed this, hav­ing watched and lis­tened to over 2 1/2 hours of Coun­cil­lors’ moan­ing about the hedge trim­ming oper­a­tion s and oth­er road relat­ed issues, the month­ly meet­ing final­ly com­menced prop­er­ly, and pro­test­ers had to briefly inter­rupt the meet­ing to demand a legit­i­mate response to ongo­ing issues which the Co. Co. has tried to brush under the car­pet. On receiv­ing assur­ances that these issues would be replied to all pro­test­ers exit­ed the meet­ing.

Tues­day 9th

The morn­ing of Tues­day 9th saw sim­i­lar scenes, with an attempt by Mr.Corduff to edu­cate the Gar­dai as to what their actions were facil­i­tat­ing, name­ly prof­its of big busi­ness and the local pop­u­la­tions death, be it from a sud­den explo­sion or slow­ly from var­i­ous forms of pol­lu­tion to the whole area, land, water and air. Below are images from today, apolo­gies for lack of clar­i­ty, its still dark in the morn­ing and the Gar­dai jack­ets reflect the flash and obscure the pho­tos. My cam­era also received a punch from Sgt. Robin­son, pos­si­bly as “revengeâ€? because some­one dared to step out over the white line and block a truck for approx 5 sec­onds before being rug­by tack­led by him­self and thrown at the ditch.

For any­one who read the Gar­da review mag­a­zine which had a spe­cial on the issue, you may remem­ber how the Gar­dai are feel­ing hard done by because they do not receive the Irish speak­ing bonus when sta­tioned in Bel­mul­let, yet appar­ent­ly speak Irish every­day at the ser­vice hatch in the sta­tion. One might then think that some mem­ber of the force can speak Irish, flu­ent­ly or oth­er­wise but I have yet to see a Gar­da who can even take a name or address in Irish let alone speak Irish, despite being required to do so when addressed in Irish as many peo­ple do so when demon­strat­ing each day at Bal­linaboy.

Thurs­day 11th Jan­u­ary 2007.
Day 100 of a com­mu­ni­ty under siege

A storm con­tin­ued to rage from the night before as demon­stra­tors gath­ered at 7am. As the time came to move at 7.30 the deci­sion was tak­en to dri­ve up the road to the ter­mi­nal in front of the Shell con­voy as opposed to the nor­mal walk. Every­one hopped into their vehi­cles and drove slow­ly up the road, the Gar­dai being caught off guard didn’t know how to respond or deal with the sit­u­a­tion effec­tive­ly. Even­tu­al­ly they man­aged to stop most of the pro­test­er con­voy and waved on the Shell traf­fic. Demon­stra­tors parked at HQ out­side the pro­posed Bal­linaboy ter­mi­nal and gath­ered at the entrance gates.
Attempt­ing to appeal to the morals and con­science of the Gar­dai proved futile as they kept peo­ple back to escort the Shell stone trucks on site.

Then a grin­ning Super­in­ten­dent Joe Gan­non, who has until recent­ly played a more low key role strut­ted up behind the Gar­da line as he draft­ed up more and more Gar­dai until they had approx 40–50 there and then gave the order to dri­ve the pro­test­ers back, despite the fact that the trucks where get­ting in. With out warn­ing the Gar­dai as a whole charged for­ward and pro­ceed­ed to shove, push or wal­lop all in front of them ‚dri­ving all before them. Mary Cor­duff, Ross­port 5 Willie Corduff’s wife, was knocked to the ground and then dragged by the Gar­dai as they con­tin­ued to charge for­ward. They kept shov­ing peo­ple back until the entire area in front of Shells site was clear and every­one was removed form the road also. Sgt But­ler MY28 was clear­ly delight­ed at his chance to once again bul­ly and harass peo­ple, grin­ning, laugh­ing and taunt­ing after the charge.
Amaz­ing­ly the largest sin­gle Gar­da oper­a­tion in the coun­try, exe­cut­ed every day one way or the oth­er, failed to make any news.

tree clearance starts at Tara — help please

6.1.07

Tara digger protest
Tara beehive archaelogyTara M3 route map6.1.07
Oppo­nents of the new M3 motor­way in Co Meath have mount­ed a demon­stra­tion in the Tara-Skryne val­ley today to protest at the felling of trees along the route of the pro­posed road.

The pro­tes­tors are accus­ing the Nation­al Roads Author­i­ty of tear­ing down mature trees at sev­er­al sites on the route, includ­ing the his­toric Rath Lugh area.

——————>

” in the Tara-Skryne war­zone. Seri­ous dam­age has been done to Rath Lugh, Ard­sal­lagh and Sol­diers’ Hill (Blundlestown). But we were able to slow down ongo­ing destruc­tion work to a cer­tain degree with “direct action ” mes­sures.

The dam­age to Rath Lugh is the heav­i­est loss we had to accept. And I have the feel­ing tree felling and earth-removal from around Rath Lugh has not been con­clud­ed yet.

The only area still undam­aged so far is a Coillte plan­ta­tion known is Lis­mullin Woods near Rath Lugh. The Gabhra runs through those woods, and a base camp is under in the plan­ta­tion to serve as last line of defence for our archae­o­log­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal her­itage with­in the Tara — Skryne Val­ley.

Please, if you got the time, head out to this camp, or the nerve cen­tre of the Vig­il on Tara Hill, and play your role in our defen­sive war for our her­itage and cul­ture. Basic food sup­plies are always need­ed and wel­come. ”

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/

See also:

Irish Times: Pro­test­ers bring tem­po­rary halt to work on new M3 motor­way (4 Jan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/message/2097

Irish Inde­pen­dent: Tara pro­test­ers dis­rupt work on M3 (4 Jan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/message/2100

Irish News: M‑way pro­tes­tors vow to save Tara her­itage site (4 Jan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hilloftara/message/2102

Irish Times: Call for an end to clear­ing of trees near Tara (6 Jan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/taralitigation/message/533

activists lock down Alcoas’ London offices

Late on New Years Day activists tar­get­ed 2 Alcoa front com­pa­nies, (Kawneer in cen­tral Lon­don and ASA in North Lon­don.) Both com­pa­nies had their front access doors locked shut with D‑locks and chains, and were left grafit­ti mes­sages that they should leave Ice­land straight away.

Alcoa graffiti
Alcoa London lockedLate on New Years Day activists tar­get­ed 2 Alcoa front com­pa­nies, (Kawneer in cen­tral Lon­don and ASA in North Lon­don.) Both com­pa­nies had their front access doors locked shut with D‑locks and chains, and were left grafit­ti mes­sages that they should leave Ice­land straight away.
They are destroy­ing the last pris­tine wilder­ness in Europe right now, as well as trash­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems all over the world.
See www.savingiceland.org for a mas­sive amount of resources and infor­ma­tion.

This is a clear mes­sage to all heavy indus­tries — this year, 2007 will be a year of dis­sent and rev­o­lu­tion­ary change. We will no longer hold back, the future of our world and our peo­ples is at enor­mous risk and the time to act is now!
No longer will we allow these multi­na­tion­als to destroy with impuni­ty, hid­ing behind the anonymi­ty of glob­al cap­i­tal­ism.
These are the first drops of a storm that you have reaped and which will inten­si­fy! We will tar­get you every­where and at any time. You will pay for your dirty dol­lars with inse­cu­ri­ty. We are com­mit­ted to shut you down!

It is also a mes­sage to our move­ments. We have been warn­ing of hav­ing lit­tle time left to make change, for too long. That time has run out and the time to act is NOW
We see noth­ing to cel­e­brate in the pass­ing and start­ing of anoth­er year unless it is to her­ald a year of mon­u­men­tal, rev­o­lu­tion­ary change; where a sys­tem based on sense­less, self­ish, greed is destroyed and sys­tems based on respect, respon­si­bil­i­ty and coop­er­a­tion are sup­port­ed to flour­ish.

we are all ‘the peo­ple’
where is every­where
and
now is the time

LOVE+RAGE