Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

The new EF! Action Update — bursting onto the seams…

In the Spring edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being con­front­ed — chim­neys climbed, con­vey­ors locked-on to, mines invad­ed, machin­ery occu­pied, eco­tage, and more.

EF! AU logo 1In the Spring edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being con­front­ed — chim­neys climbed, con­vey­ors locked-on to, mines invad­ed, machin­ery occu­pied, eco­tage, and more.

Mar­vel at the Main­shill strat­e­gy of con­tin­u­ous action, look with awe at the range of tac­tics they used in the many months before eviction…and then think about what you can do, with who, where and when.

“If not you, who? If not now, when?”

The Main­shill fea­ture includes an action time­line, local com­mu­ni­ty links and ideas for the future.

The Nuclear New Build CON­sul­ta­tion is over on 22nd Feb­ru­ary — read about what hap­pens next, who’s involved, and an anti-nuclear camp in April.

“in the end we just need rebel­lion. Every­where.” — what was your response to the Copen­hagen cli­mate chaos, whether you went or stayed at home?

Be inspired by an inter­view with “D Lock,our mys­tery dig­ger div­ing activist” — get out there, bicy­cle lock in hand. In Jan­u­ary, one per­son so-armed brought a whole coal ter­mi­nal to a halt for many hours.

And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against high-speed train destruc­tion in Italy, high-volt­age pow­er lines in Cat­alo­nia, and whale hunt­ing on the High Seas.

And if you don’t get high on all that, try not to be inspired by con­fer­ences block­ad­ed, dams delayed, earth-trash­ing machin­ery sab­o­taged, trees hugged, archi­tects impost­ed, genet­ics roofed, bio­mess bio­massed and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10.pdf

Reclaim the Fields Gathering, Barcelona

Invi­ta­tion to the Reclaim the Fields gath­er­ing
13th 14th and 15th Feb­ru­ary, Can Mas­deu, Barcelona

http://www.reclaimthefields.org/
http://www.canmasdeu.net/

Invi­ta­tion to the Reclaim the Fields gath­er­ing
13th 14th and 15th Feb­ru­ary, Can Mas­deu, Barcelona

http://www.reclaimthefields.org/
http://www.canmasdeu.net/

The Euro­pean Coor­di­na­tion « Reclaim the Fields » (RtF) was born of the gath­er­ings and ini­tia­tive of a small group of young farm­ers and land­less peo­ple linked to Via Campesina, the RtF coor­di­na­tion met last Octo­ber at a Euro­pean camp of over 400 peo­ple involved in many dif­fer­ent small agri­cul­ture and col­lec­tive ini­tia­tive projects. After the camp, new peo­ple were moti­vat­ed to con­tin­ue the process, propos­ing anoth­er meet­ing in Cat­alo­nia, to bring togeth­er peo­ple already involved here in out-of-the-ordi­nary agri­cul­ture and self-pro­duc­tion ini­tia­tives such as col­lec­tive agri­cul­ture and the occu­pa­tion of land and aban­doned vil­lages, pro­duc­ers and con­sumer coop­er­a­tives, the fight against genet­ic engi­neer­ing and for eco­log­i­cal agri­cul­ture, etc.

Aware that net­works already exist around Can Mas­deu and beyond, we invite you to come and meet with us and com­pare expe­ri­ences, and
per­haps cre­ate con­nec­tions that will go beyond this gath­er­ing…

For more infor­ma­tion write to: reclamem-els-camps@pimienta.org.

We will send you more infor­ma­tion about the polit­i­cal con­tent and logis­ti­cal details of the gath­er­ing. You can also sign up on the doo­dle
http://www.doodle.com/avyaivy5a6dy8ug4. We need you to do this to plan for accom­mo­da­tion and food.
The pro­gramme for the gath­er­ing is still being writ­ten.

–
Euro­pean Coor­di­na­tion Reclaim the Fields

Mainshill Solidarity Camp evicted – not an end, but a beginning

30th Jan­u­ary 2010
Yes­ter­day was the fifth and final day of the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp – the last two arrests as the final occu­piers were dragged out of the rapid­ly shrink­ing Wood. A total of 45 arrests were made over the course of the evic­tion with close to 70 peo­ple tak­ing part and sup­port­ing the camp.

30th Jan­u­ary 2010
Yes­ter­day was the fifth and final day of the evic­tion of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp – the last two arrests as the final occu­piers were dragged out of the rapid­ly shrink­ing Wood. A total of 45 arrests were made over the course of the evic­tion with close to 70 peo­ple tak­ing part and sup­port­ing the camp.

All five days saw the vio­lence inflict­ed by the state on those who try to cre­ate pos­i­tive change, and the col­lu­sion between the courts, police and cor­po­ra­tions. But they also saw hero­ic acts of defi­ance, with peo­ple fight­ing off bailiffs until hav­ing their hands and feet cable-tied togeth­er and sup­port­ers main­tain­ing a 24-hour vig­il through­out the evic­tion.

This evic­tion is not an end, but the begin­ning of a cam­paign of com­mu­ni­ty-based rad­i­cal direct action sweep­ing Scotland’s cen­tral belt which can only grow in strength. From actions to stop work on open­cast sites and the shut­ting down of a major coal rail ter­mi­nal for a day (which hap­pened for a third time on Wednes­day), to com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and sol­i­dar­i­ty result­ing in a sev­en-month occu­pa­tion and a pos­i­tive change in direc­tion for rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ism in Scot­land.

But where can we go next? We’ve hit these cap­i­tal­ists and mon­ey-grab­bers where it hurts most – in the pock­et – and we can’t wait to hear how much it has cost them in total. Over 30 direct actions have tak­en place over the past 12 months, and that’s not includ­ing the evic­tion. Machines have been trashed, health stud­ies pub­lished and bonds been made with those affect­ed by heavy indus­try and the caus­es of cli­mate change. We’ve dug tun­nels, defend­ed trees and climbed onto dig­gers.

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has now been evict­ed, but the strug­gle con­tin­ues!

mainshill@riseup.net
http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

Update from the ongoing Mainshill eviction, day 4

The ongo­ing evic­tion of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered its fourth day with the strug­gle to clear the sycamores con­tin­u­ing.

Yes­ter­day the bat­tle for the sycamores had start­ed with the removal of the skyraft, and one pro­tes­tor being hauled out of a tree.

Snow and Anarchy at MainshillThe ongo­ing evic­tion of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered its fourth day with the strug­gle to clear the sycamores con­tin­u­ing.

Yes­ter­day the bat­tle for the sycamores had start­ed with the removal of the skyraft, and one pro­tes­tor being hauled out of a tree.

Tree­hous­es were destroyed and the remain­ing anti-coal activists were left with­out tarps, bed­ding or in some cas­es, a way down the tree.

Dur­ing the course of today, five oth­er peo­ple were evict­ed from the sycamores.

The hid­den tree­top camp known as ‘Ewok Vil­lage’ was cleared as well with climbers tack­ling some tough defences.

In all, there were nine arrests.

A huge amount of heavy machin­ery has been moved onto site, so oppor­tu­ni­ties for actions to stop work on site are lit­er­al­ly every­where.

“The fight isn’t over yet”, said the almost infa­mous Bar­ry Cad­er, recent­ly released on bail.

Update from day 3 Mainshill eviction

Sev­en more pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed today, Wednes­day 27th Jan­u­ary, in the third day of resis­tance against the evic­tion of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

Up a tree at MainshillSev­en more pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed today, Wednes­day 27th Jan­u­ary, in the third day of resis­tance against the evic­tion of Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

As the tac­tics of the Nation­al Evic­tion Team grew increas­ing­ly aggres­sive and cav­a­lier, spir­its on site remained strong. Climbers attempt­ed to evict the stand of sycamores but were met with deter­mined resis­tance and suc­ceed­ed in only remov­ing one pro­tes­tor. Branch­es have been stripped from the remain­ing trees and tree­hous­es destroyed. The coal activists have been left with­out bed­ding or tarps for the night.

Bull­doz­ers destroyed trees with­in 50metres of a hid­den tree­top camp as the locked-on pro­tes­tors screamed and whis­tled to try and reveal them­selves and stop work. The dis­cov­ery of this fur­ther site has delayed the end of the evic­tion and rais­es doubts about the com­pe­ten­cy of the NET. A search heli­copter had made sev­er­al pass­es over the area but seem­ing­ly failed to find any­thing, despite hov­er­ing over their exact loca­tion for sev­er­al min­utes. As the bull­doz­ers neared the tree­hous­es, sup­port folk out­side site begged the NET to stop the work to secure the area and ensure the safe­ty of those locked-on. Their whis­tles could clear­ly be heard from the front of site but the NET were stub­born in their refusal to accept the pos­si­ble pres­ence of anoth­er occu­pa­tion. Work was final­ly stopped metres from the tree­hous­es. The climb­ing team expect to start try­ing to clear the area, known as ‘Ewok Vil­lage’ tomor­row.

A tree­house, the net, and a skyraft were cleared of occu­pants. Tun­nel teams con­tin­ue to work through the night to clear the under­ground defences.

The 26 peo­ple held and charged over the last two days have all been released on bail, and are charged with either breach of the peace or sec­tion 68(1) of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994.

In sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, Raven­struther coal rail ter­mi­nal was shut down for up to five hours this morn­ing as a pro­tes­tor locked on to a dig­ger.

It is still easy to get onto site so come down and sup­port the Main­shill crew from the inside or do some sup­port work from the out­side.

For info about the cam­paign see www.mainshill.noflag.org.uk

European protests to stop bulldozers on uncontacted tribe’s land

26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Pro­tes­tors gath­ered in Lon­don, Madrid and Paris today to oppose the destruc­tion of land belong­ing to one of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes.

26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Pro­tes­tors gath­ered in Lon­don, Madrid and Paris today to oppose the destruc­tion of land belong­ing to one of the world’s last uncon­tact­ed tribes.

The pro­tes­tors stood out­side the Paraguayan embassies in Madrid and Lon­don hold­ing plac­ards read­ing, ‘Save the Ayoreo.’ The Ayoreo-Toto­biegosode are los­ing their for­est to a Brazil­ian com­pa­ny bull­doz­ing it to graze cat­tle for beef.

In Paris, a let­ter was hand­ed in to UNESCO’s head office express­ing their con­cern for the Toto­biegosode. The for­est being destroyed by the cat­tle-ranch­ers is part of a UNESCO ‘bios­phere reserve’, but despite pleas from the Toto­biegosode to stop the destruc­tion UNESCO has yet to respond.

The com­pa­ny, Yaguarete Pora S.A., recent­ly won Survival’s ‘Green­wash­ing Award 2010’ for its deci­sion to cre­ate a ‘nature reserve’ on the Totobiegosode’s land while destroy­ing thou­sands of hectares of their for­est. Yaguarete denies it is act­ing ille­gal­ly and claims the land it is destroy­ing does not belong to the Toto­biegosode, despite the fact that many stud­ies prove it belongs to them and a legal claim made by the Toto­biegosode is based on one of those stud­ies.

See the company’s defor­esta­tion plans.

Satel­lite pho­tos clear­ly show the destruc­tion of the Totobiegosode’s for­est. They are the only uncon­tact­ed tribe in the world los­ing their land to beef.

Sur­vival direc­tor, Stephen Cor­ry, said today, ‘Peo­ple all over the world are begin­ning to wake up to what is hap­pen­ing to the Toto­biegosode. Paraguay risks being more famous for this tragedy than any­thing else.’

Ravenstruther coal rail terminal shut down + Mainshill eviction continues, 3rd day…

A coal ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire was brought to a stand­still this morn­ing when a pro­tes­tor locked him­self to a piece of machin­ery.

At 9am this morn­ing (Wed 27th) a man climbed to the top of a dig­ger and locked him­self to it by his leg, effec­tive­ly shut­ting down Raven­struther coal rail ter­mi­nal.

Ravenstruther coal rail terminal shut downA coal ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire was brought to a stand­still this morn­ing when a pro­tes­tor locked him­self to a piece of machin­ery.

At 9am this morn­ing (Wed 27th) a man climbed to the top of a dig­ger and locked him­self to it by his leg, effec­tive­ly shut­ting down Raven­struther coal rail ter­mi­nal.

About 15 trucks full of coal are unable to access the ter­mi­nal and have been forced to dump their load, and the coal train that was being loaded has been stopped.

Raven­struther is where coal from the open-cast mines in South Lanark­shire is loaded onto trains and sent south to pow­er sta­tions such as Drax.

An hour after the action start­ed NETCU and 6 police offi­cers arrived.

This action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp which is in the third day of resist­ing evic­tion.

The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is approv­ing up to 33 new open cast coal sites. A pro­tes­tor from Main­shill said: “As Cli­mate Chaos grows expo­nen­tial­ly worse, it is becom­ing more and more impor­tant to resist and obstruct the ever enlarg­ing fos­sil fuel indus­try. We will do every­thing in our pow­er to make the extrac­tion, trans­port, and burn­ing of coal as finan­cial­ly unvi­able as pos­si­ble by con­tin­u­ing to fight against it at every step of the way, from the mines to the pow­er sta­tions.”

——–
Resisting bailiffs climbing into top branches at Mainshill
Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp:

The evic­tion is still ongo­ing. The site perime­ter can­not be secured so there is still mas­sive scope for resist­ing this evic­tion and Scot­tish Coals activ­i­ties gen­er­al­ly, get your­self up to Lanark­shire and get stuck in. Four peo­ple were arrest­ed from the camp this morn­ing (27th).

More infor­ma­tion about the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and how to get there is avail­able at www.mainshill.noflag.org.uk

First Nation pushes back against ‘Ring of Fire’ mine, rail project

26th Jan­u­ary 2010
A Thun­der Bay min­er­al sym­po­sium of the Matawa First Nations trib­al coun­cil in Feb­ru­ary could be a rau­cous affair.

Matawa camp26th Jan­u­ary 2010
A Thun­der Bay min­er­al sym­po­sium of the Matawa First Nations trib­al coun­cil in Feb­ru­ary could be a rau­cous affair.

The aggres­sive push by Cliffs Nat­ur­al Resources and Cana­da Chrome to devel­op a $1.5 bil­lion chromite deposit in the James Bay ‘Ring of Fire’ and ore haul rail­road has drawn heat from one remote com­mu­ni­ty.

Last week about 15 pro­test­ers from Marten Falls First Nation pitched tents last week at Kop­per and McFauld’s Lakes near the explo­ration camps of Noront Resources and Freewest Resources.

“We’re pre­pared to stay there as long as pos­si­ble,” said Chief Eli Moo­nias, who isn’t pleased that Cana­da Chrome has staked min­er­al claims along a 350-kilo­me­tre long pro­posed rail cor­ri­dor between McFauld’s Lake and the Town of Naki­na in north­west­ern, Ontario.

He’s angry the stak­ing was done in advance of the imple­men­ta­tion of the Ontar­i­o’s Far North Plan­ning Act and wants North­ern Devel­op­ment, Mines and Forestry Min­is­ter Michael Grav­elle to “claw back” those claims.

Moo­nias said his com­mu­ni­ty of 300 was not con­sult­ed by Cana­da Chrome and claims the McFauld’s Lake deposits and most of the pro­posed rail­road cor­ri­dor falls with­in Marten Falls’ tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry.

We don’t like this under­hand­ed busi­ness,” said Moo­nias. “They should have come to the com­mu­ni­ty to do that.”

Moo­nias said he told min­istry offi­cials in Decem­ber he want­ed a com­mu­ni­ty-based land use plan that will include their 10-year-old strat­e­gy for an access road run­ning into the James Bay Low­lands and even­tu­al­ly link­ing up with Attawapiskat on the coast.

Moo­nias said his com­mu­ni­ty’s posi­tion is to sup­port the mine pro­vid­ed their cor­ri­dor plan is adopt­ed, but Cana­da Chrome has large­ly ignored this.

He said the min­ing com­pa­nies and Queen’s Park must address a list of con­cerns and wants an agree­ment signed with the min­ing com­pa­nies before the protest camps are pulled out.

Cana­da Chrome, a sub­sidiary of KWG Resources has been deal­ing with the Matawa First Nation, a trib­al coun­cil rep­re­sent­ing nine area com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing Marten Falls.

But Moo­nias said the coun­cil does­n’t speak for his com­mu­ni­ty.
“They’ve got noth­ing to do with tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries. What hap­pens there is our busi­ness.”
KWG Resources and Cana­da Chrome pres­i­dent and CEO Frank Smeenk chalked up the protest to an inter­nal squab­ble inside the coun­cil.

“We were giv­en to under­stand that we were to fol­low a pro­to­col by the nine mem­bers of Matawa Coun­cil,” said Smeenk, refer­ring to the Matawa Inter­im Min­er­al Mea­sures pro­to­col. “Now we are to under­stand that’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly the case.”

Moo­nias said he nev­er agreed to any such pro­to­col.

“I nev­er heard of it. I’ve got noth­ing to do with that.”

Smeenk said it’s obvi­ous Marten Falls wants to be con­sult­ed with sep­a­rate­ly.

“Eli’s try­ing to get atten­tion to a cause and one of those is one that pre-dates all of us, a plan for a win­ter road.”

Smeenk said he met Moo­nias in Thun­der Bay this month after hear­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty’s plan to block­ade of airstrips at McFauld’s and Kop­per Lakes.

He said the protest may be a nego­ti­at­ing ploy to force the gov­ern­ment to re-open an ille­gal airstrip in the Ring of Fire along the Muketei Riv­er closed down last Novem­ber by the Min­istry of Nat­ur­al Resources.

Marten Falls had part­nered with Wilder­ness North Air to pro­vide a logis­tic sup­port base for the explo­ration efforts.

The MNR said the devel­op­ment of this airstrip was not autho­rized and a war­rant was autho­rized under the Pub­lic Lands Act pro­hibit­ing the use and occu­pa­tion of this airstrip. A restric­tion remains in place until a final deci­sion is made by the MNR regard­ing an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion and review of the airstrip pro­pos­al.

Smeenk said his com­pa­ny has no objec­tions to the airstrip being per­mit­ted for use.

Cana­da Chrome’s pro­posed rail route fol­lows glac­i­er eskers that run north-south through the swampy ter­rain between Naki­na and McFauld’s Lake.

“If God had a place for a rail­road to go that would be it,” said Smeenk.

With an adjoin­ing ser­vice road, Smeenk said near­by com­mu­ni­ties could access it with branch roads as well as run fibre optics and pow­er lines.

Moo­nias said he met pri­vate­ly with Smeenk in Thun­der Bay before Christ­mas to dis­cuss the trans­porta­tion cor­ri­dor and said the com­pa­ny pres­i­dent “made some over­tures.”

Last Sep­tem­ber, Marten Falls signed a com­pen­sa­tion agree­ment with Noront Resources for past explo­ration work already per­formed at their explo­ration camp. Moo­nias said it amount­ed to $2 per metre for holes already drilled, but added no agree­ments for future explo­ration work has been signed with Noront or any oth­er com­pa­ny.

Noront said in a Jan. 18 statement,despite the incon­ve­nience of a “logis­tics halt” at their ice airstrip” it was sup­port­ing the actions of Marten Falls.

Moo­nias said a meet­ing is sched­uled next week with gov­ern­ment offi­cials and some min­ing play­ers in Marten Falls.

He wants the min­ing com­pa­nies to use their win­ter toll roads to haul fuel and bulk items, and for the gov­ern­ment to allow them to fin­ish con­struc­tion of an airstrip to cre­ate a ser­vice hub for McFauld’s Lake.

“We’re say­ing let’s build this strip where the ground is good for the envi­ron­ment and let us build the camps there and do busi­ness.”

Moo­nias said some com­pa­nies had been land­ing on the par­tial­ly-com­plet­ed airstrip last fall. “We told the MNR about it and they shut it down. We’re try­ing to fin­ish that so we can start build­ing our camps there to do busi­ness.”
He also wants jobs and con­tracts to ser­vice these camps instead of the com­pa­nies bring­ing in out­side sup­pli­ers and sup­port per­son­nel.

Moo­nias also wants an envi­ron­men­tal clean-up and com­pen­sa­tion at McFauld’s Lake for raw sewage, grey water, fuel and chem­i­cal spills dumped by explo­ration com­pa­nies in the sum­mer of 2007.

Smeenk expressed con­fi­dence the issue could be resolved to ben­e­fit all and does­n’t sus­pect the protest will raise any red flags with Cliffs Nat­ur­al Resources.

“The First Nations just want to fig­ure out how to get our atten­tion.”

He said it may involve com­mu­ni­ty own­er­ship of the enter­prise and did­n’t rule out a First Nation equi­ty stake in the project.

When asked if the Ontario gov­ern­ment was active­ly involved help­ing in medi­at­ing the dis­pute, Smeenk paused and said he found he found MNDMF and MNR staff to be “exceed­ing­ly help­ful and care­ful of every­one’s rights.”

Anne-Marie Flana­gan, spokes­woman for Michael Grav­elle, said the min­istry is talk­ing with all the par­ties toward resolv­ing a “com­pli­cat­ed sit­u­a­tion” that involves the MNR, the air strip and how peo­ple in the Far North can all ben­e­fit.

“We’re look­ing into the whole sit­u­a­tion because this is some­thing that’s going to have to be sort­ed out big time and rather quick­ly when you look at what Cliffs is doing.

“There has to be rea­son­able deci­sions by the First Nation about what they want to go ahead with and how they want to do it.”

Grav­elle is sched­uled to deliv­er a speech Feb. 10 at the sym­po­sium.

Ontar­i­o’s new­ly revised Min­ing Act includes a dis­pute res­o­lu­tion mech­a­nism for issues between First Nations and min­ing com­pa­nies, but the details of how it is sup­posed to work has yet to be defined since the gov­ern­ment is con­duct­ing anoth­er round of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion.

Police clash with protesters in China in land dispute

26th Jan­u­ary 2010
Author­i­ties in the south­west­ern Chi­nese region of Guangxi have sealed off a vil­lage and ordered a news black­out fol­low­ing vio­lent clash­es between local res­i­dents and police in a land dis­pute.

Land protesters in Pingle26th Jan­u­ary 2010
Author­i­ties in the south­west­ern Chi­nese region of Guangxi have sealed off a vil­lage and ordered a news black­out fol­low­ing vio­lent clash­es between local res­i­dents and police in a land dis­pute.

“The vil­lagers put up some reports about what hap­pened on the Inter­net, but they were tak­en down by the author­i­ties very quick­ly,” said a res­i­dent of Ton­gle town­ship near the scenic tourist city of Guilin.

“Right now the author­i­ties have total­ly sealed off the area. The vil­lagers are using text mes­sag­ing to exchange news,” said Zhang, adding that he had been warned by oth­er vil­lagers that the police were still detain­ing peo­ple.

Zhang said riot police fired tear gas and used elec­tric shock batons on elder­ly pro­test­ers try­ing to pre­vent the takeover of their farm­land for devel­op­ment.

“Things got very seri­ous at the scene,” he said. “The peo­ple try­ing to pro­tect the land were all elder­ly, women, and chil­dren. How could they resist?”

“They were attacked by the riot police first, and a lot of those injured were then tak­en away by police.”

Pho­tos post­ed online of the clash­es showed crowds of peo­ple, many of them elder­ly, some of whom had sus­tained injuries to their arms and legs. Some showed peo­ple ban­daged, and still bleed­ing from head injuries.

‘Han­dled accord­ing to law’

An employ­ee who answered the phone at the Pin­gle coun­ty gov­ern­ment, which over­sees Ton­gle vil­lage, said the author­i­ties had already issued the legal­ly required amount of com­pen­sa­tion to the vil­lagers.

“Our lead­ers here have already dealt with this sit­u­a­tion,” the employ­ee said. “Every­thing we did went through the munic­i­pal lev­el author­i­ties for approval, and the entire affair was han­dled accord­ing to law.”

An offi­cial who answered the phone at the Guilin munic­i­pal pol­i­tics and law com­mit­tee con­firmed the clash­es had tak­en place as part of a land dis­pute.

“There was a land dis­pute there. But I haven’t got time to explain the details to you.”

An offi­cial who answered the phone at the Guilin munic­i­pal pub­lic secu­ri­ty depart­ment declined to com­ment on the inci­dent.

How­ev­er, an offi­cer at the Ton­gle vil­lage police sta­tion said: “We are cur­rent­ly deal­ing with this issue. If you want to know more, you’ll have to go to the [coun­ty lev­el] pub­lic secu­ri­ty depart­ment.”

Cut off

Local res­i­dents said around 700 riot police were dis­patched to the vil­lage, and that the com­mu­ni­ty was still cut off from the out­side world.

An engi­neer sur­named Li at the Ton­gle Vil­lage Trans­former Sta­tion said police had sealed off sev­er­al entrances to the vil­lage, and blocked roads in the area.

“Right now, vehi­cles from out­side can’t get into Ton­gle vil­lage. The roads have all been sealed off by the author­i­ties,” Li said.

“They have blocked the exit for the vil­lage on the Cha­jiang Bridge high­way.”

The dis­pute flared after vil­lagers saw offi­cials begin to move in to begin work last Tues­day on a plot of around 1,000 mu (67 hectares) of land in the vil­lage, which was req­ui­si­tioned more than two years ago by the Pin­gle coun­ty gov­ern­ment for rede­vel­op­ment.

Local res­i­dents were angry because the author­i­ties had sold the land for 10 times the amount of the com­pen­sa­tion doled out to vil­lagers, and because they have been promised 20,000–30,000 yuan (U.S. $4,394) per mu but have yet to receive it.

An open let­ter post­ed online by vil­lagers cit­ed guide­lines issued by the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, which “states clear­ly that it is not per­mit­ted to take pos­ses­sion of the land before the com­pen­sa­tion has been paid.”

Rur­al com­mu­ni­ties ‘dis­em­pow­ered’

Yao Lifa, a civ­il rights activist from the cen­tral province of Hubei, said such land dis­putes involv­ing vio­lence between police and local res­i­dents are increas­ing­ly com­mon.

“Chi­na rur­al com­mu­ni­ties have been a dis­em­pow­ered seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion all through the past 60 years of Com­mu­nist Par­ty rule in Chi­na,” Yao said.

He cit­ed com­ments made pub­licly by cab­i­net-lev­el offi­cial Cheng Xiwen, who said that around 80 per­cent of land dis­putes across Chi­na were the result of ille­gal actions by gov­ern­ment offi­cials.

“The peo­ple have no pow­er to over­see the gov­ern­ment,” Yao said.

“Offi­cial and com­mer­cial inter­ests nowa­days are the same thing, com­bin­ing forces in an alliance which has a huge amount of pow­er.”

“There is no evil that they will not stoop to.”

He called on cen­tral gov­ern­ment offi­cials to take note of events in Guilin and help pro­tect the vil­lagers’ rights and inter­ests.

Land dis­putes have spread across Chi­na in recent years, with local peo­ple often com­plain­ing that they receive only min­i­mal com­pen­sa­tion when the gov­ern­ment sells tracts to devel­op­ers in lucra­tive prop­er­ty deals.

Attempts to occu­py dis­put­ed land fre­quent­ly result in vio­lent clash­es, as police and armed gangs are brought in to enforce the will of local offi­cials.

Forced eviction of Mainshill Solidarity Camp under way — updates

Update, 6pm, Tues­day 26th:

This morn­ing the tun­nel team suc­ceed­ed in clear­ing the expand­ing foam blockad­ing the first door, insert­ed a cam­era into the tun­nel, and removed one per­son.

Update, 6pm, Tues­day 26th:

This morn­ing the tun­nel team suc­ceed­ed in clear­ing the expand­ing foam blockad­ing the first door, insert­ed a cam­era into the tun­nel, and removed one per­son.
A pro­tes­tor out­side site was arrest­ed for breach of the peace.
The mul­ti­lay­ered defence known as ‘the fort’ took all day to evict, with climbers bring­ing down the final two occu­pants as dusk fell.
Three more pro­tes­tors held a pine plan­ta­tion all day before being removed, with one man still occu­py­ing a tree there as the climb­ing team left for the night.
Although exact num­bers aren’t avail­able, there are still many pro­tes­tors locked-on in the canopy.
The tun­nel team will be work­ing through the night again, but there are plen­ty of ways on to site for those wish­ing to help resist the evic­tion from the inside, and oth­er roles for any­one want­i­ng to sup­port site from the out­side. A total of 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed today.

Update, 9am, Tues­day 26th:
Bailiffs & police worked through the night with only a two hour break — get up there today if you can.

Update, 4pm, Mon­day 25th:
19 arrests so far, of 60 peo­ple stay­ing on site over week­end. Flood­lights up around site, though camp is not secure.
The two main bar­ri­cades, the bunker, and the ‘buck­fast’ com­mu­nal were JCB-ed, with the under­ground lock-ons in the bunker prov­ing a chal­lenge for the bailiffs.
Three tree­hous­es at ‘buck­fast’ gave the climb­ing team a run for their mon­ey, as pro­tes­tors occu­pied walk­ways and climbed into the very high­est branch­es of the trees.
Behind one of the bar­ri­cades a dou­ble-lay­ered tri­pod with a prism shaped skyraft hang­ing from its apex cost the NET anoth­er three or four hours. It was even­tu­al­ly defeat­ed when they built their own walk­way above the raft, attached ropes around it, cut the ropes which were sus­pend­ing it, and low­ered it to the ground. In a spec­tac­u­lar fit of risky behav­iour, the NET then took down the dou­ble-lay­ered tri­pod struc­ture by kick­ing it.
A tree­house above a bunker, and the bunker itself (posi­tioned above a tun­nel) last­ed anoth­er three hours. The tun­nel team worked all night but only man­aged to expose the entrance to the tun­nel.

Twit­ter
The peo­ple car­ry­ing out the evic­tion — the ‘nation­al evic­tion team’.
Oth­er con­trac­tors at Main­shill — dirty hands list
—-
25.1.2010
This morn­ing at 08:30am around 25 pri­vate bailiffs, sup­port­ed by 10 police, began their dawn assault to evict the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in South Lanark­shire.

The bailiffs are act­ing on behalf of landown­er Lord Home (1) who is set to prof­it from allow­ing Scot­tish Coal to extract 1.7 mil­lion tonnes of coal from Main­shill Wood near the vil­lage of Dou­glas. Despite the for­mi­da­ble police and bailiff oper­a­tion, camp mem­bers are stay­ing put down their tun­nels and behind their bar­ri­cades, for­ti­fied tow­ers and tree hous­es. Num­bers at the camp have swelled over the week­end with peo­ple arriv­ing from across the coun­try. The evic­tion could take weeks and cost the land own­er mil­lions (2) and it is hoped that the delay to the mine and the price of evic­tion will deter those who want to devel­op new coal projects in the UK.

The camp was occu­pied 7 months ago in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties in the Dou­glas Val­ley who have been fight­ing the plans for ten years. As such it was well received with many sup­plies donat­ed by the camp’s neigh­bours includ­ing a full Christ­mas din­ner. The set­ting up of the camp has her­ald­ed a cam­paign of direct action against the min­ing of Main­shill, a nec­es­sary step after the 650 let­ters of objec­tion to the mine were dis­re­gard­ed when South Lanark­shire Coun­cil which grant­ed per­mis­sion to the appli­ca­tion.

The com­mu­ni­ties have been blight­ed by the detri­men­tal health impacts of the 4 exist­ing open casts in the imme­di­ate area (3). Har­ry Thomp­son, for­mer chair­man of the Dou­glas Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil (4), said:
“Despite mas­sive com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to the mine at Main­shill, Scot­tish Coal and South Lanark­shire Coun­cil con­tin­ue to dis­re­gard the inter­ests of those liv­ing in prox­im­i­ty to the mines. The par­tic­u­late mat­ter released in the open cast min­ing process in this area has caused unusu­al­ly high rates of can­cer and lung dis­ease. Grant­i­ng per­mis­sion to a new mine 1000 metres from the local hos­pi­tal is the final straw”.

Min­ing in the Dou­glas Val­ley is intend­ed to feed Britain’s increas­ing reliance on coal as an ener­gy source. Coal tak­en from the pro­posed mine at Main­shill will result in the release of 3.4 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere if burned. If this and the oth­er 18 pro­posed mines in Scot­land go ahead it will be a mas­sive con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change, and pre­vent Scotland’s cli­mate bill from suc­ceed­ing.

With the recent fail­ure of the UN Frame­work on Cli­mate Change in Copen­hagen to reach a deal, com­mu­ni­ties world­wide will con­tin­ue to be dis­placed and suf­fer from the min­ing and com­bus­tion of coal. One camper, Anna Key, expressed her deter­mi­na­tion to cre­ate pos­i­tive change in the face of redun­dant polit­i­cal process­es:
“I can’t do any­thing direct­ly about the ocean becom­ing more acidic or melt­ing ice­bergs but those things will only con­tin­ue if we keep burn­ing fos­sil fuels and accept­ing a cul­ture that insists on the pur­suit of prof­it through the exploita­tion of peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment. By act­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles we can stop this — there’s noth­ing else to be doing but dig­ging up roads and build­ing bar­ri­cades.”

Those occu­py­ing the site have vowed to stay as long as pos­si­ble, and resist any attempts to remove them. Doug Well, who is resist­ing evic­tion in a for­ti­fied tun­nel, said:
“We’ve been here for so long now, and we real­ly don’t want to leave. If this mine goes ahead it real­ly will be a tragedy for the local peo­ple and for the cli­mate. I’m going to do every­thing I can to make it as hard as pos­si­ble for them to remove me.”

The evic­tion will take a few days, and there is still lots to do. The camp still needs your sup­port, so try and make it to Main­shill if you can. Con­tact site phone 07806926040 .

For inter­views from the camp includ­ing peo­ple in defences please ring: 07500163480
Web­site: http://www.mainshill.noflag.net

Notes:

(1) Lord Home is Chair­man of Coutt’s bank, the cor­po­rate wing of RBS, and is cur­rent­ly being inves­ti­gat­ed for alleged fraud. See http://www.nowpublic.com/world/coutts-bank-chairman-lord-home-named-carr…
(2) A protest camp at Dalkei­th in 2006 cost £1.9 mil­lion and took 11 days to evict.
(3) Infor­ma­tion on the health impacts of open cast mines can be found in the Dou­glas­dale Edi­tion of the Coal Health Study online: http://coalhealthstudy.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/douglasdale_v42.pdf
(4) The Dou­glas Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil has been staunch­ly against the open cast and has sup­port­ed the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp since the start, http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info.

http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?page_id=415
http://www.douglascommunitycouncil.info/index.asp?pageid=60854 (includ­ing maps of Main­shill mine pro­pos­al and oth­er open­cast sites near­by)