Category: Global

Glob­al

Activists Occupy Downtown West Palm Beach Billboard protesting Florida Power and Light

West Palm Beach, May 14 — This morn­ing local activists from Project Aware­ness and Ever­glades Earth First! hung ban­ners and locked them­selves to a down­town rooftop bill­board to call for a sus­tain­able future for west­ern Palm Beach Coun­ty. They oppose FPL’s pro­posed West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter, cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing, Ever­glades pol­lu­tion, and overde­vel­op­ment; and the Callery-Judge “Town Devel­op­ment,” which would jump­start urban sprawl in the Lox­a­hatch­ee area. Their mes­sages high­light the enor­mous water con­sump­tion cllowances already approved for each project, and pro­mote pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in two forums ñ tomorrow’s 2pm coun­ty com­mis­sion meet­ing and the FPL’s Share­hold­ers meet­ing to take place at FPL’s Juno Beach head­quar­ters on May 25.

West Palm billboard actionWest Palm Beach, May 14 — This morn­ing local activists from Project Aware­ness and Ever­glades Earth First! hung ban­ners and locked them­selves to a down­town rooftop bill­board to call for a sus­tain­able future for west­ern Palm Beach Coun­ty. They oppose FPL’s pro­posed West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter, cit­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing, Ever­glades pol­lu­tion, and overde­vel­op­ment; and the Callery-Judge “Town Devel­op­ment,” which would jump­start urban sprawl in the Lox­a­hatch­ee area. Their mes­sages high­light the enor­mous water con­sump­tion cllowances already approved for each project, and pro­mote pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in two forums ñ tomorrow’s 2pm coun­ty com­mis­sion meet­ing and the FPL’s Share­hold­ers meet­ing to take place at FPL’s Juno Beach head­quar­ters on May 25.

Their col­or­ful ban­ners showed an alli­ga­tor chomp­ing a pow­er plant and read:

“Got Water? They would: FPL’s West Coun­ty Plant ->18 mil­lion gal­lons a Day;

“Callery-Judge Town -> 5 mil­lion gal­lons a day. Keep it Rur­al, Keep it Wild. No new FPL Plant”

For over a year envi­ron­men­tal groups have been fight­ing the West Coun­ty Ener­gy Cen­ter (WCEC), a nat­ur­al gas plant that FPL hopes to con­struct 1000 feet away from the Arthur R. Mar­shall Nation­al Wildlife Refuge in Lox­a­hatch­ee. As the alter­na­tive to fos­sil fuel plans, activists are pro­mot­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy & renew­able ener­gy, which FPL claims is imprac­ti­cal, despite the Amer­i­can Coun­cil for Ener­gy Efficiency’s recent report on the poten­tial for effi­cien­cy and renew­able sources to meet Florida’s ener­gy demands.

“When it comes to renew­able ener­gy, the sci­ence has been there for years,” says local activist & physi­cist Lynne Purvis. “Why does FPL con­tin­ue to use old, dirty tech­nolo­gies? The answer can only be greed.”

The cur­rent drought and water short­ages spawn fur­ther con­cerns about FPL’s pro­posed WCEC water require­ments of 18 mil­lion gal­lons a day and the unknown water con­sump­tion of the hun­dreds of thou­sands of units of devel­op­ment enabled by the project, includ­ing Callery-Judge’s 5 mil­lion gal­lons a day.

“These projects are direct threats to Ever­glades Restora­tion,” declared Ever­glades Earth First! mem­ber Peter Shultz. “What we need is con­ser­va­tion, not more con­struc­tion.”

End of the line for coal: Protestors blockade coal trains, New Zealand/Aotearoa

Press release: Save hap­py Val­ley Christchurch
Sun­day 29th April 2007

Save Hap­py Val­ley mem­bers have locked onto the train tracks near Christchurch to call for an end to new coal mines in New Zealand. Oth­er mem­bers have hung a twen­ty-two metre ban­ner – ‘Sol­id Ener­gy: Govt Spon­sored Cli­mate Chaos – along two of the coal wag­ons. They are on Kirk Road, Tem­ple­ton.

Press release: Save hap­py Val­ley Christchurch
Sun­day 29th April 2007

Save Hap­py Val­ley mem­bers have locked onto the train tracks near Christchurch to call for an end to new coal mines in New Zealand. Oth­er mem­bers have hung a twen­ty-two metre ban­ner – ‘Sol­id Ener­gy: Govt Spon­sored Cli­mate Chaos – along two of the coal wag­ons. They are on Kirk Road, Tem­ple­ton.

“Cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mat­ic events are already occur­ring; cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing now,” said Gra­ham Jury, Save Hap­py Val­ley Christchurch spokesper­son. “Ear­li­er this year New Zealand final­ly reached the end of the line for coal fired pow­er sta­tions. It must also be the end of the line for coal min­ing.”

Two activists are locked onto the tracks, while a fur­ther twen­ty are on the tracks by the train. Save Hap­py Val­ley works for the pro­tec­tion of Hap­py Val­ley, pro­posed site of Sol­id Ener­gy’s next open­cast mine on the West Coast of the South Island. The group also cam­paigns for a just and swift tran­si­tion away from coal min­ing.

“Sol­id Ener­gy is ever increas­ing its pro­duc­tion, leav­ing dec­i­mat­ed ecosys­tems and water­ways in its wake. Already, they are respon­si­ble for annu­al car­bon diox­ide emis­sions approx­i­mate­ly equiv­a­lent to New Zealand’s entire trans­port fleet. Say­ing “no” to new coal mines would be an easy first step in actu­al­ly address­ing cli­mate change,” said Simon Rid­del, one of the activists locked to the tracks.

“The world’s cli­mate is becom­ing increas­ing­ly unpre­dictable and human-induced green­house gas emis­sions are evi­dent­ly respon­si­ble. The fos­sil fuel indus­try is a pre­ventable cause,” said Gre­go­ry Curline, the sec­ond activist ‘on the line.’

“Half of the coal extract­ed is sent off shore, gen­er­at­ing emis­sions out­side of our Kyoto Pro­to­col oblig­a­tions. How­ev­er, New Zealand is respon­si­ble for the coal it exports. The Gov­ern­ment must pull its state owned enter­prise back under con­trol,” said Mr Jury.

// ENDS

Media Con­tact
Gra­ham Jury, Save Hap­py Val­ley Christchurch spokesper­son, 0273070448

Notes
In March 2007, Mighty Riv­er Pow­er, anoth­er SOE, announced that it had dis­card­ed its plans to turn Mars­den B into an oper­a­tional coal fired pow­er sta­tion.

http://savehappyvalley.org.nz

Call for Submissions: Zine on Property Destruction

Enter­ing the rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty, many quick­ly find them­selves con­stant­ly hear­ing about debate over prop­er­ty destruc­tion. Is it vio­lence? Does it mat­ter if it’s vio­lence? Is it effec­tive? Is it alien­at­ing? And on and on. I’ve been hear­ing this argu­ment pret­ty much since I reg­u­lar­ly start­ed attend­ing protests. At this point, I almost don’t want to deal with the sub­ject. Nat­u­ral­ly, you’re ask­ing, “Then why the hell do you want to make a zine about it?”

Enter­ing the rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty, many quick­ly find them­selves con­stant­ly hear­ing about debate over prop­er­ty destruc­tion. Is it vio­lence? Does it mat­ter if it’s vio­lence? Is it effec­tive? Is it alien­at­ing? And on and on. I’ve been hear­ing this argu­ment pret­ty much since I reg­u­lar­ly start­ed attend­ing protests. At this point, I almost don’t want to deal with the sub­ject. Nat­u­ral­ly, you’re ask­ing, “Then why the hell do you want to make a zine about it?”

The answer is sim­ple: I may be sick of the debate, but that’s just me. As the war in Iraq drags on (drag­ging blood­ied Iraqi corpse upon blood­ied Iraqi corpse with it) and dis­con­tent and dis­il­lu­sion­ment with this whole socio-polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic sys­tem increas­es, more peo­ple are get­ting involved in the fight against cap­i­tal­ism and its machines of war (both the armies abroad and the police at home). For many, when they start going to protests and demon­stra­tions, they have at best mixed feel­ings about things like prop­er­ty destruc­tion, vio­lent­ly resist­ing the police, or even just march­ing in the street with­out a per­mit. And some appre­hen­sion about these tac­tics is com­plete­ly under­stand­able. After all, every­thing in this sys­tem is designed to teach us that prop­er­ty (or per­haps more accu­rate­ly, cor­po­rate prop­er­ty) is sacred, that police should always be obeyed (or else) and that break­ing the law, even small laws, is moral­ly and eth­i­cal­ly wrong and can nev­er be jus­ti­fi­able.

And so, this is a call for arti­cles, sto­ries, art, or any­thing else about the tac­tic of prop­er­ty destruc­tion and its mer­its for a zine that seeks to give those on the fence about this issue a gen­tle nudge (and maybe con­vince them to rip down the fence!). Since this is meant to be a zine for peo­ple new to social move­ments, I respect­ful­ly ask that the tone of the arti­cles keep that in mind when choos­ing their words. To put it plain­ly, please no anti-lib­er­al rants–they piss me off too, but this is sup­posed to be the case for prop­er­ty destruc­tion, not the case against lib­er­als (maybe next time!).

When I say arti­cles, I mean pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished or unpub­lished arti­cles argu­ing for the valid­i­ty or effec­tive­ness of prop­er­ty destruc­tion. It does­n’t even have to be some­thing you wrote. If there’s an arti­cle that you think is real­ly great and think that it should be includ­ed, tell me about it (things like, where I can find it, who wrote it, and how I can get ahold of them). There’s two kinds of sto­ries that would be real­ly great to have for this zine: per­son­al accounts and “his­tor­i­cal” accounts. Per­son­al accounts would be some­thing talk­ing about wit­ness­ing or even com­mit­ting an act of prop­er­ty destruc­tion, how it made you feel, what impact it had, etc. Obvi­ous­ly this is very sen­si­tive, so try­ing to be rel­a­tive­ly vague is best (and also see the next para­graph for the best way to sub­mit things like that). A “his­tor­i­cal” account would be more of a gen­er­al sto­ry (prefer­ably con­tem­po­rary) of how prop­er­ty destruc­tion put pres­sure on an insti­tu­tion to win a con­crete goal. Art would be any­thing that would be an image. A car­toon, a cool draw­ing, what­ev­er.

If you have any­thing to con­tribute, please send an email to tacticaldiversity@gmail.com. I may want to edit some of your sub­mis­sion for var­i­ous rea­sons (most like­ly space). Any edits or cuts will be run by you first. If for some rea­son you can’t or don’t want to sub­mit some­thing online, send an email and we can dis­cuss oth­er meth­ods of sub­mis­sion. As was said above, send­ing per­son­al accounts about prop­er­ty destruc­tion over email is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a good idea. In fact, for both our sakes, it’s a bad idea. Any per­son­al accounts should be sub­mit­ted will an anony­mous email ser­vice like www.willselfdestruct.com (be sure to make it at least 1 view). If you want me to respond some­how, you can leave an email address in the will­selfde­struct mes­sage and I can respond in kind. If you don’t leave a way to respond to you, I may make edits with­out run­ning them by you first. Also, a major goal is to make sure that every piece pub­lished is pub­lished with the cre­ator’s per­mis­sion. This zine isn’t going to be sold any­where and will be dis­trib­uted for free, but I still don’t want to use oth­er peo­ple’s stuff in this zine with­out their express per­mis­sion. So yeah, don’t sub­mit oth­er peo­ple’s work act­ing like it’s your’s and get peo­ple pissed at me. If you run an infos­hop or any oth­er rad­i­cal space that could dis­trib­ute this zine upon com­ple­tion and are inter­est­ed in receiv­ing copies, drop a line and you’ll be kept in the loop when it comes time to pub­lish.

In love and rage,
Casey Ford

Anti Gold Mining Conflicts Spreading — 2 May global day of action

Once iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties around the world are sud­den­ly unit­ing and strength­en­ing in their actions to halt transna­tion­al Big Min­ing projects. On May 2, 2007 com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal groups around the world will unite is strug­gle on the Glob­al Day Of Action Against Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion.

Once iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties around the world are sud­den­ly unit­ing and strength­en­ing in their actions to halt transna­tion­al Big Min­ing projects. On May 2, 2007 com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal groups around the world will unite is strug­gle on the Glob­al Day Of Action Against Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion.

Anti-Gold Min­ing Con­flicts Spread­ing Through­out the Amer­i­c­as

Glob­al Day of Action Against Bar­rick Gold, May 2, 2007

Big Min­ing Investors Fear Big Loss­es

In almost every Latin Amer­i­can coun­try, transna­tion­al met­als min­ing firms are explor­ing, build­ing and oper­at­ing huge, open-pit gold mines which extract and con­t­a­m­i­nate using tremen­dous amounts of water. These new “mod­ern min­ing” projects leave thou­sand-year lega­cies of acid mine drainage, destruc­tion of ecosys­tems, dis­ease, and region­al cli­mate change. Rich­es in the form of gold, sil­ver and cop­per are export­ed to first world share­hold­ers, leav­ing behind pover­ty, depen­den­cy and pol­lu­tion.

How­ev­er, once-iso­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ties are sud­den­ly unit­ing and strength­en­ing in their actions to halt Big Min­ing projects.

Today there are more than a hun­dred min­ing-relat­ed local con­flicts, in every Latin Amer­i­can coun­try (www.minesandcommunities.org) Campesinos, indige­nous and com­mu­ni­ty groups in vil­lages and cities are fight­ing Big Min­ing inser­tion. In coun­tries such as Peru, Ecuador and Colom­bia, multi­na­tion­al min­ing firms are respond­ing by arm­ing para­mil­i­tary groups to meet com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance with mur­der, threats and vio­lence. In every instance, min­ing firms attempt to “pur­chase” social license with bribes, hand­outs, media cam­paigns and cor­rupt local politi­cians, to sell “sus­tain­able gold min­ing.”

The tremen­dous over con­sump­tion of water resources is the key issue in mod­ern met­als min­ing projects. Big mines change region­al cli­mate pat­terns, dry up ecosys­tems, cause the deser­ti­fi­ca­tion of agri­cul­tur­al lands, com­mu­ni­ties are dried out. Big min­ing projects are being locat­ed pri­mar­i­ly in sen­si­tive riv­er head­wa­ters of vul­ner­a­ble arid regions upon which mil­lions of human and eco­log­i­cal com­mu­ni­ties depend. Big min­ing, through its inten­sive use of ener­gy and destruc­tion of habi­tat, glac­i­ers, aquifers, cli­mate pat­terns and water resources, is a huge fac­tor in glob­al cli­mate change. Appro­pri­ate inter­na­tion­al and nation­al reg­u­la­tion of Big Min­ing projects is almost non-exis­tent.

On May 2, 2007, com­mu­ni­ties around the world affect­ed by Big Min­ing projects are going to car­ry out simul­ta­ne­ous demon­stra­tions against the Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion. Simul­ta­ne­ous actions will be held in Chile, Argenti­na, Peru, Aus­tralia, Cana­da, the Philip­pines, Tan­za­nia, and Europe.

Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion, the world’s largest gold min­ing firm, is spear­head­ing the transna­tion­al met­als min­ing firms inva­sion of Latin Amer­i­ca. In the past few years, com­mu­ni­ty groups strug­gling against projects of Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion on five con­ti­nents began com­mu­ni­cat­ing togeth­er, and this year they have joined togeth­er for the first time to call for this Glob­al Day of Action Against Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion.

• In Argenti­na, com­mu­ni­ty activists forced Bar­rick Gold to sus­pend oper­a­tions in the province of La Rio­ja, the gov­er­nor oust­ed due to his cor­rupt rela­tions with the min­ing firm, and a state ref­er­en­dum to pro­hib­it open-pit min­ing is to be vot­ed by the pop­u­la­tion.

• Chilean and Argen­tine com­mu­ni­ties are fight­ing tooth and nail against the con­struc­tion of one of the world’s largest gold mines in the heart of a UNESCO World Her­itage Wilder­ness Area, in the del­i­cate glac­i­er peaks of the Andes along the Chile-Argenti­na Bor­der. This is Barrick’s infa­mous Pas­cua-Lama/Ve­ladero project. http://projectcensored.org/censored_2007/index.htm#21

• In Ancash, Peru, fierce com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance has been answered with the mur­ders of pro­tes­tors by para­mil­i­tary and state forces work­ing for the Bar­rick Gold Cor­po­ra­tion.

• In Aus­tralia, a series of pow­er­ful direct actions car­ried out by local Abo­rig­i­nal lead­ers, indige­nous and com­mu­ni­ty activists has tied up and cast grave doubts on Bar­rick Gold’s huge Lake Cow­al project.

On May 2, A Glob­al Day of Action Against Bar­rick Gold will be car­ried out. We invite all neigh­bors, activists and ecol­o­gists to join or form the many local-scale actions to be car­ried out simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and autonomous­ly through­out the world, on the five con­ti­nents in which Bar­rick Gold oper­ates.

We hope that through vis­i­ble and spir­it­ed actions, we can join togeth­er to draw atten­tion to the grave threat brought upon our world by these transna­tion­al large-scale open-pit met­als min­ing projects using cyanide. Our world does not need more gold and sil­ver! We must fight to pre­serve this world for our chil­dren and their chil­dren.

We hope to send a mes­sage to Bar­rick Share­hold­ers that their invest­ments are high­ly risky: Through­out the world, com­mu­ni­ties are reject­ing and shall put an end to these shame­ful met­als min­ing oper­a­tions.

For More Infor­ma­tion:

Mines and Com­mu­ni­ties www.minesandcommunities.org
Cor­p­Watch www.corpwatch.org
Latin Amer­i­can Obser­va­to­ry of Min­ing Con­flicts www.conflictosmineros.net
www.noalamina.org (Argenti­na)
www.noalapascualama.org (chile)

On how to block just about everything

The upcom­ing actions against the G8 sum­mit in Heili­gen­damm will present con­sid­er­able chal­lenges for the cre­ativ­i­ty and sta­mi­na of activists. After all, the idea is to effec­tive­ly block all the entry points. The prob­lem is that an enor­mous army of secu­ri­ty and pub­lic order forces will be present and try to pre­vent the same. But his­to­ry has shown that every­thing can be blocked. Below you will find some use­ful sto­ries about the prac­tice of block­ades. This text will be updat­ed as new ideas pour in.

The upcom­ing actions against the G8 sum­mit in Heili­gen­damm will present con­sid­er­able chal­lenges for the cre­ativ­i­ty and sta­mi­na of activists. After all, the idea is to effec­tive­ly block all the entry points. The prob­lem is that an enor­mous army of secu­ri­ty and pub­lic order forces will be present and try to pre­vent the same. But his­to­ry has shown that every­thing can be blocked. Below you will find some use­ful sto­ries about the prac­tice of block­ades. This text will be updat­ed as new ideas pour in.

Orig­i­nal ver­sion of the arti­cle, with many illus­tra­tions, can be found here: http://www.globalinfo.nl/content/view/1200/30/

Also writ­ten by the affin­i­ty group Wil­nis: 8 good rea­sons to block the G8 sum­mit ( http://www.globalinfo.nl/content/view/1209/30/)

——————————-

The roads to Heili­gen­damm come in all shapes and sizes. Except to the air­port, there are no big motor­ways, which require their own expert approach to block­ing. Most of the roads that will be used to trans­port peo­ple and goods to the G8 sum­mit are dual car­riage­ways, some­times with a crash bar­ri­er inbe­tween the lanes, often with crash bar­ri­ers (and cycle paths) along the sides of the road.

To begin an effec­tive block­ade is not that dif­fi­cult, but the skill lies in keep­ing it going. Good prepa­ra­tion is half the work. You can start with prepar­ing a few days before in the action camps, but it will be even eas­i­er if you have made plans before and have organ­ised your­selves in a so-called affin­i­ty group. Then you can think before­hand about how you want to do actions, what you need for it, you can also prac­tice already before­hand, etc. Dur­ing the prepa­ra­tions, you can ask oth­ers for advice, learn cer­tain tech­niques, etc. It is impor­tant to form a group of peo­ple who more or less agree on the man­ner in which they want to do actions, so that not too much time goes into dis­cus­sions or dis­agree­ments. If you have not organ­ised your­self in a group yet, or if you have ques­tions, you can always try and find con­tact through activist meet­ings. Con­ver­gence cen­tres, for exam­ple, are going to be set up in Berlin, Ham­burg and Ros­tock, amongst oth­ers for this pur­pose. In the Nether­lands, you can find fel­low activists at the dis­sent meet­ings.

More­over, dur­ing the prepa­ra­tions as well as the imple­men­ta­tion of the actions you should expect that the block­ade is going to be suc­cess­ful and that it will last long. The G8 sum­mit goes on for 3 days, and the block­ades will be imple­ment­ed for that peri­od of time. Make sure, there­fore, that at least for the first hours you have enough to eat and drink and some form of enter­tain­ment. Bore­dom is often one of the biggest prob­lems with suc­cess­ful block­ades and occu­pa­tions.

Inbe­tween block­ades, you can hold sports com­pe­ti­tions, lec­tures, teach-ins, etc. Or you can think about which new func­tion Hotel Kempin­s­ki will have after­wards… Also, make sure (espe­cial­ly if you’re in a big group) that you are accom­pa­nied by activist first aid and legal observers, activist media, etc. Make sure you have com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels with oth­er block­ades and action camps so that you know what’s going on. If the block­ade per­se­veres, bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion and sup­ply struc­tures can be start­ed lat­er and you can com­mu­ni­cate to oth­ers that the block­ade has start­ed and that oth­er peo­ple can help to secure it.

It can be use­ful to have (in a side street near­by?) one or more cars so that peo­ple can get mate­ri­als there and back.

Make sure you have nice dec­o­ra­tions for the block­ade, ban­ners, flags and, for exam­ple, these things (link to demo units: http://www.demotech.org/d‑design/d‑construct.php?p=69), so that it is clear to the view­er what it’s all about.

The most sim­ple way to block­ade is to just sit on the street with a few peo­ple. This is already enough to stop car traf­fic and if there’s a lot of it, the result­ing traf­fic jam will cre­ate even more prob­lems for mobil­i­ty in the sur­round­ings. The more peo­ple take part in the block­ade, the more dif­fi­cult it will be to break it. How­ev­er, past expe­ri­ences have shown that if the police real­ly want to, they can chase away the block­ade fair­ly eas­i­ly. There are meth­ods to make the block­ade some­what stronger. For exam­ple, by link­ing arms or by prac­tic­ing resis­tance meth­ods against being dragged away. This will delay the evic­tion. But keep in mind that the police can apply force­ful mea­sures: water can­nons, tear gas, hors­es and even dogs. More­over, it often uses vio­lence when drag­ging peo­ple away (twist­ing of arms, fin­gers in the nose, bat­ter­ing with the stick, etc.) Make sure cam­eras are direct­ed towards the police, that might restrain them in their vio­lence.

On a (hope­ful­ly unnec­es­sary) side note: before you sit on the street, the traf­fic has to have stopped. You also have to make sure that new­ly arriv­ing cars can­not dri­ve into the block­ade. There are many ways to stop traf­fic, you can also decide to choose a spot near traf­fic lights. Make sure you have a group of peo­ple warn­ing the traf­fic some hun­dred metres before the block­ade that they have to stop. If blockad­ing roads at night, make sure there is suf­fi­cient light­ing. Nev­er block a road with traf­fic on it or if you are not sure that the traf­fic has been stopped, and nev­er block a road just after a curve. Also, do not just throw things on the road and walk away, this can cause acci­dents. Once the road is out of use, by police or activist inter­ven­tion, then throw­ing things on the roads is, of course, pos­si­ble. In prac­tice, how­ev­er, a block­ade that is defend­ed by peo­ple is much more effec­tive than just some objects left behind.

Using lock-ons is anoth­er way to make your block­ade stronger. You can get them in all shapes and sizes. (link: http://www.eco-action.org/rr/ch12.html) Most often they are met­al pipes in which you can stick your arm in one side and anoth­er per­son in the oth­er, this way you can make human chains. You can, for exam­ple, make a cir­cle of peo­ple and link this to anoth­er cir­cle, etc. By mak­ing bar­rels with con­crete short­ly before blockad­ing you can link the lock-ons to heavy objects. Remem­ber though that the police does not shy away from being heavy-hand­ed against you in this sit­u­a­tion either. Make sure that you can always free your­self and that there are oth­er ‘unlocked’ peo­ple around you (who can also bring food, scratch your back, etc.)

The more mate­r­i­al you have, the more sta­ble the block­ade. You can use mate­ri­als you find in the area around you (wood, stones, con­tain­ers, etc.) or by plan­ning the block­ade in areas where you have a lot of mate­r­i­al at your dis­pos­al. You can also bring your own.

A famous exam­ple is the tri­pod. (pic­ture)

The high­er it is the more dif­fi­cult it is for police to break it down. You can make it from tree trunks, met­al pipes, etc. But tripods can cause acci­dents; you have to know what you’re doing, first prac­tice and ask advice from peo­ple who have used them before. Also keep in mind that some­times the police is will­ing to let peo­ple fall, as was the case dur­ing the G8 sum­mit protests in Lau­sanne.

It is eas­i­er to strength­en the block­ade with dif­fer­ent kinds of mate­r­i­al. First make sure the block­ade is erect­ed, then you can make it stronger. Speed is essen­tial, if the block­ade has been secured well before the police arrives, it will be more dif­fi­cult to push it to the side. Organ­ise groups of peo­ple to get mate­ri­als and make sure there are always enough peo­ple left over to form the block­ade. Some­times it is use­ful to have thought in advance about what you need to get the mate­ri­als there: ropes, if objects have to be towed, or saws if you want to cut bits of woods loose. Depend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion, you can also fix cables inbe­tween the crash bar­ri­ers or trees. Make sure, how­ev­er, that you make them clear­ly vis­i­ble with flags and keep in mind they can be a hin­drance for you, too, if you need to get away.

Always try and stay friends with peo­ple liv­ing in the neigh­bour­hood. Do not use their front gar­den fence for you bar­ri­cade and explain to peo­ple what the block­ade is about. Invite them to have a look at the action camps. Be pre­pared that not all of them will be friend­ly. The same applies to car dri­vers. It can be use­ful to decide before­hand who will act as a spokesper­son (cer­tain­ly for the media). It can also be use­ful to have one or more person(s) act­ing as a con­tact per­son to the police.

The response of the police will depend on the cir­cum­stances and the time they have at their dis­pos­al. If there are block­ades every­where, they will not able to tack­le them all at the same time. In any case though, you have to expect an attack by the police at some point in time.

They can arrive with vehi­cles to push aside the block­ades (armoured cars, pic­ture), with water can­nons to attack groups of peo­ple or with groups of police offi­cers wear­ing pro­tec­tive gear to attack peo­ple with batons, etc.

It is impor­tant to have dis­cussed in advanced about how you want to defend the block­ade. In Seat­tle, it appeared that a big group of deter­mined peo­ple can be much more effec­tive than strong mate­ri­als. Make sure the atmos­phere on the block­ade is good. Pre­vent peo­ple being sur­prised by fel­low activists using meth­ods that not every­one sup­ports. But also pre­vent peo­ple from being intim­i­dat­ed and leave the block­ade soon­er than nec­es­sary. It often takes hours before police takes heavy hand­ed action and most of the time you can pre­dict their actions by watch­ing their moves close­ly. For exam­ple, you only have to start wor­ry­ing about tear gas when they put on their gas masks. Keep in mind that the police that is keep­ing you busy can­not be deployed else­where.

Anoth­er strat­e­gy to delay the break­ing of a block­ade is to sit down and link arms. But be pre­pared for police being heavy hand­ed in haul­ing you away. The fact that you do not use vio­lence is not a guar­an­tee that they will not use it either (in fact, often the oppo­site seems to be the case). There are, of course, oth­er and more mil­i­tant ways to keep the police at bay. A sud­den attack by clowns can also con­sid­er­ably dis­turb the plans of the pub­lic order troops. There is lit­tle you can do against armoured police vehi­cles (unless the bar­ri­cade is very sta­ble indeed) but they do, for exam­ple, hate paint on the wind­screen. In fact this applies to all police vehi­cles. And it has been proven that even armoured cars and water can­nons can get stuck in a ditch.

Set­ting a bar­ri­cade on fire helps also dur­ing a ‘man­u­al’ evic­tion by the police, that is with­out vehi­cles. Do con­sid­er that after a while the bar­ri­cade will be gone. Also make sure the fire can­not spread to near­by objects or areas such as a for­est. This would be the last effect you would want your ‘protest’ to have. If locat­ed near build­ings, make sure they are not endan­gered. Do not leave bot­tles with inflam­ma­ble flu­ids lying around, they can cause nasty acci­dents.

There are ways of mak­ing a road unus­able for longer term, but that often takes a lot of time and/or spe­cif­ic hard­ware. Dur­ing the anti-nuclear protests in Gor­leben, for exam­ple, local inhab­i­tants and activist dug tun­nels under­neath the roads so that trucks could no longer pass. If you want to stop reg­u­lar cars, you will have to take off the top lay­er of asphalt or con­crete as well, for which you need a jack-ham­mer, pick­axe and shov­els. Nat­u­ral­ly, if the road is not asphalt­ed you can dig holes in it. Non-asphalt­ed roads some­times lead to big­ger roads that you might want to block and they are often used by police as access road to the block­ade. If you dig a hole, pile up the sand on ‘your’ side, if it lies on the side of the police they sim­ply shov­el it back in. Dur­ing evic­tions in Ams­ter­dam some peo­ple even man­aged to get a dragline exca­va­tion machine going which was parked in the neigh­bour­hood…

Until now, we dis­cussed the tra­di­tion­al road block/blockade. There are many more ways to inter­vene in road traf­fic. Keep in mind that the police also knows them and under­goes train­ing pro­grammes to deal with them, so be cre­ative and invent new meth­ods! Sit in a tree next to the road, that’s dif­fi­cult for police to evict and often they do not dare to con­tin­ue let traf­fic go through, at least not their high­er vehi­cles. Even bet­ter: choose two trees stand­ing across the road from each oth­er, tie a rope between them high above the street and hang in them, that’s a so-called walk­way. The idea is that police and oth­er road users will not risk dri­ving under­neath the rope as they fear the peo­ple hang­ing in it will drop some­thing or jump down onto the street. This meth­ods requires a lot of expe­ri­ence. Make sure you have a good accom­pa­ny­ing group with you and stop the traf­fic dur­ing the set­ting up. Do not start hang­ing in the ropes before the traf­fic has been stopped!

You can also park one or sev­er­al cars on a cross­ing and lock your­self to them (pic­ture Gle­nea­gles). Again, take all the above-named pre­cau­tion­ary meth­ods. You can also secure the bar­ri­cades with turned over cars (for exam­ple old cars you took with you).

Most action meth­ods are crim­i­nalised and made ille­gal in order to make it dif­fi­cult for activists and be able to dish out pun­ish­ments after­wards. But it is, of course, not explic­it­ly ille­gal to dri­ve real­ly slow­ly with your car. Or to have a break-down in the mid­dle of the road some­where…

The expe­ri­ence from Gle­nea­gles has shown that a block­ades that uses dif­fer­ent meth­ods in one is the most dif­fi­cult to break. One road, 3 km from the sum­mit, was cho­sen because it passed a small bridge. On both sides of the bridge peo­ple built bar­ri­cades from mate­ri­als they found in the for­est (tree trunks, car tires, etc.). Inbe­tween, two groups used lock-ons and just after the bridge peo­ple had start­ed tree-sit­ting. When the police rushed to the scene, five min­utes after the start of the block­ade at 6 am in the morn­ing, we heard them dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion and they esti­mat­ed they need­ed “at least 80 men and a crane” to get rid off the block­ade, which they sim­ply did not have at their dis­pos­al. The road block last­ed the whole day and peo­ple even left to secure anoth­er block­ade a few streets fur­ther which had been bro­ken off and was tak­en up again.(pictures here: http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2005/07/29208.shtml)

If the block­ade is bro­ken up by police, those that have not been arrest­ed should swarm out (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_Intelligence) (look out for each oth­er, try not to pan­ic, try and make sure each group that swarms out has peo­ple who know the way or have a map, accom­pa­ni­ment by mem­bers of first aid and legal teams, etc…). You can swarm out to new places to con­tin­ue block­ing. Small groups of peo­ple can also be dis­rup­tive. It also helps to ran­dom­ly block police cars, even if they use roads not used for the sum­mit. You there­by stop them from break­ing up block­ades else­where or trans­port­ing arrestees.

——————

There are, of course, oth­er means of trans­port that will be used for the sum­mit. These are main­ly heli­copters and ships. They are more dif­fi­cult to block, but also for the author­i­ties more dif­fi­cult to use. Only a small num­ber of peo­ple can be trans­port­ed by heli­copter. Heli­copters can also be blocked; espe­cial­ly take-off and land­ing spots, but also in mid-air: in Gor­leben, for exam­ple, peo­ple used sky rock­ets and some peo­ple flew around with hang glid­ers which forced heli­copters to leave. You can also think about tak­ing with you heli­um bal­loons on very long ropes so that heli­copters do not dare come clos­er. The sea can also be blocked, even though you need boats, which are expen­sive when they get dam­aged or con­fis­cat­ed. But you can always block the entrances to the har­bour, so that peo­ple can­not be trans­port­ed to the ships to leave.

In short: we will win this bat­tle, if every­one joins in!

(Affin­i­ty Group Wil­nis, Dutch Pold­er)

Web­sites with more infor­ma­tion on meth­ods and tech­niques:

ENGLISH:
http://www.uhc-collective.org.uk/webpages/toolbox/index.htm
Delia Smiths basic blockad­ing guide (pdf): http://www.sprayism.com/dawiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?id=guides&cache=cache&media=guides:basic_blockading.pdf
Every­thing about doing direct action: http://www.sprayism.com/dawiki/doku.php?id=guides

On Affin­i­ty Groups: http://www.rantcollective.net/article.php?id=30
(Noam Chom­sky: “If you assume cor­rect­ly that what­ev­er group you are in is being pen­e­trat­ed by the FBI, when some­thing seri­ous is hap­pen­ing, you don’t do it in a meet­ing. You do it with some peo­ple you know and trust, an affin­i­ty group and then it does­n’t get pen­e­trat­ed. That’s one of the rea­sons why the FBI has nev­er been able to fig­ure out what’s going on in any of the pop­u­lar move­ments.”)

DUTCH
dissent.nl and dissent.be
http://www.directe-actie.nl
Arti­cle on the his­to­ry of direct action: http://www.globalinfo.nl/content/view/1068/41/

SWEDISH AIRPORT RUNWAY SEIZED BY CLIMATE ACTIVISTS

>
> On 14 April, activists broke into Brom­ma Air­port in Stock­holm to
> occu­py the run­way for half an hour. The sched­uled flight to Gothen­burg
> – a short dis­tance indeed – was delayed, and some planes had to divert

>
> On 14 April, activists broke into Brom­ma Air­port in Stock­holm to
> occu­py the run­way for half an hour. The sched­uled flight to Gothen­burg
> – a short dis­tance indeed – was delayed, and some planes had to divert
> their land­ing. The ten activists, linked by chains and car­ry­ing a huge
> ban­ner which read “Stop domes­tic flights”, man­aged to enter the
> air­port and run­way with­out being detect­ed. After some five min­utes,
> police arrived to the scene, but refrained from vio­lent inter­ven­tion.
> When the block­ade had been car­ried to its planned end, the activists
> were arrest­ed and informed of the for­mal charge of aggra­vat­ed
> tres­pass. The most like­ly pun­ish­ment is some heavy fines, but prison
> terms are pos­si­ble.
>
> The action was car­ried out by Cli­max, a group in Stock­holm formed two
> weeks ago. It is the seed of a direct action-move­ment against the root
> caus­es of cli­mate change in a coun­try which has just recent­ly wok­en up
> to the facts of ongo­ing glob­al warm­ing. Cli­max is inspired by Plane
> Stu­pid and Ris­ing Tide. The action of 14 April, coin­cid­ing with the
> enor­mous Nation­al Day of Cli­mate Action in the U.S., was the first of
> its kind to occur in Swe­den. More is bound to fol­low soon. Check for
> updates (and pic­tures of the recent action) at www.klimatet.org.
>
> Glob­al action against glob­al warm­ing!
>
> Kli­max-Stock­holm
>
> 2007-04-15

Support the Eco-Prisoners, Easter 2007

Spir­it of Free­dom (East­er 2007)
Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“I thank you all dear­ly for writ­ing” (Jon Able­white, Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Spir­it of Free­dom (East­er 2007)
Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“I thank you all dear­ly for writ­ing” (Jon Able­white, Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the East­er 2007 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. First off I’d like to apol­o­gise in the delay in pub­lish­ing this edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom.
A lot of things have been hap­pen­ing recent­ly for ELP’s vol­un­teers and a delay was inevitable. How­ev­er, despite the delay in pub­li­ca­tion ELP has some fan­tas­tic news. For the first time in ages ELP is able to bring some good news! A lot of the ‘Il Sil­vestre’ pris­on­ers have been released! Mar­co Camenisch has had his sen­tence reduced at appeal! Jeff Luers may have his sen­tenced reduced! Rod Coro­n­a­do has been released! Garfield Gab­bard has been released! And long-term pris­on­er Dave Blenk­in­sop has been released!!!
This is all bril­liant news. How­ev­er despite our cel­e­bra­tions, ELP has also seen a num­ber of new pris­on­ers added to our list. So lets cel­e­brate the good news of our friends and then lets sup­port the news pris­on­ers. Also before we end this edi­to­r­i­al we’ve been asked by Joy­an­na Zach­er to remind every­one on ELP’s pol­i­cy towards police infor­mants. We do not sup­port them! Regard­less of how long they are jailed for, we do not sup­port them. Regard­less of who they are, we do not sup­port them. A police infor­mant relin­quish­es their right to be regard­ed as an eco-pris­on­er as soon as they inform. ELP sup­ports eco-pris­on­ers, not police infor­mants. But remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the real eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

COURT REPORTS & LEGAL UPDATES

MARCO CAMENISCH APPEAL NEWS
In mid March 2007 ELP received some news from Switzer­land that at his appeal, Mar­co Camenisch, has had his 17-year prison sen­tence, for alleged­ly killing a Swiss board­er guard, reduced to 8 years. The Appeal Court ruled that the orig­i­nal Judge had not tak­en into account Mar­co’s time spent in prison in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons, nor had the Judge ful­ly con­sid­ered the out­stand­ing prison sen­tence Mar­co had to serve for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Switzer­land. Added alto­geth­er (39 years), the prison sen­tence was exces­sive­ly long and so was reduced so now Mar­co is serv­ing an 18-year sen­tence.

JEFF LUERS APPEAL UPDATE
On Valen­tines Day (Feb 14th) the Amer­i­can media announced that the Court of Appeal has declared Jeff ‘Free’ Luers, 22+ years prison sen­tence is too long and sug­gest­ed it should be reduced to between 11+ to 13+ years. ELP will bring you more news as we get it.

ARRESTS IN MEXICO
On the 30th of Novem­ber 2006 two Mex­i­can anar­chists, Oscar San­ta Maria Caro and Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, were arrest­ed for as yet unknown rea­sons. Oscar is a well known ani­mal rights activist who is involved with RATA (Resis­tance Against Ani­mal Tor­ture). Reports are com­ing out of Mex­i­co alleg­ing that both Oscar and Sacra­men­to have been tor­tured whilst inside. There are also reports alleg­ing that their inter­roga­tors have threat­ened to rape female polit­i­cal pris­on­ers if the two men do not con­fess to their alleged crimes. ELP is try­ing to obtain more infor­ma­tion about these arrests and will bring you more news as we get it.

ROD CORONADO UPDATE
In late March, Amer­i­can Earth First! activist, Rod Coro­n­a­do, was released from prison hav­ing served his sen­tence for sab­o­tag­ing a moun­tain lion hunt. ELP has learnt that Rod’s tri­al for “demon­strat­ing the use of a destruc­tive device,” relat­ing to a speech he gave in San Diego in 2003, is sched­uled to begin in June.

FINNISH ‘GREEN SCARE’
ELP has learnt that the author­i­ties in Fin­land appear to be copy­ing Amer­i­can tac­tics and are tar­get­ing known ani­mal rights and envi­ron­men­tal activists. No mat­ter how minor the ‘offence’ the Finnish police seem deter­mined to pros­e­cute. One per­son end­ed up in court for ring­ing the door­bell of an ani­mal abuser whilst on a demo. The activist was fined for “dis­turb­ing home peace”. Anoth­er activist was ques­tioned for ‘crim­i­nal dam­age’ after they alleged­ly spat on a fur shop win­dow! Two more activists were raid­ed and ques­tioned for alleged­ly putting a leaflet through a post box and putting a stick­er on the win­dow of a fur shop. The police accused them of ‘crim­i­nal dam­age’.
ELP’s Finnish friends, who wish to remain anony­mous for obvi­ous rea­sons, say these are just a few exam­ples of the types of police activ­i­ty hap­pen­ing in Fin­land at the moment.
ELP is informed that the police have set up a spe­cial unit to inves­ti­gate ani­mal rights activists and the unit has said intend to get activists involved in the ear­ly stages of activism ‘before it gets more seri­ous’. Trans­la­tion, the police want to intim­i­date peo­ple away from activism.

SERIOUS ORGANISED CRIME!
Every so often ELP brings you sto­ries of ridicu­lous pros­e­cu­tions of non-vio­lent activists under Britain’s new ‘Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime’ leg­is­la­tion. Who can for­get the fines imposed on two peace activists for read­ing out the names of the British war dead, killed in Iraq, whilst stand­ing next to Britain’s main war memo­r­i­al! Sad­ly the courts have now moved beyond just fin­ing peo­ple and have start­ed to hand out prison sen­tences to activists under this new law. In ear­ly March three British ani­mal rights activists were jailed for between 15 months to 4 years for their part in a non-vio­lent cam­paign against Huntin­don Life Sci­ences.
Accord­ing to the BBC, the three were accused of being key fig­ures in a cam­paign against com­pa­nies with links to HLS. They were accused of enter­ing the offices of the com­pa­nies and demand­ing that those com­pa­nies cut their links to HLS. They were also accused of organ­is­ing loud demon­stra­tions against the com­pa­nies build­ings. Plus they were accused of tak­ing pho­tos of the peo­ple who worked for the com­pa­nies.

MAN ARRESTED IN AMERICA
At the end of March the Amer­i­can media report­ed that a 24-year old man, Grant Barnes, had been arrest­ed accused of set­ting fire to SUVs in Den­ver, CO. The media quot­ed the cops as say­ing incen­di­ary devices were used to dam­age the vehi­cles and one of the vehi­cles had ELF spray paint­ed on it. The police also stat­ed they did not believe that Grant Barnes was a mem­ber of the ELF.

IL SILVESTRE UPDATE
At the end of Feb­ru­ary 2007 the Ital­ian courts ruled that Sil­via Gueri­ni and Fed­eri­co Bonam­i­ci should be released under house arrest. This means that only three Il Sil­vestre mem­bers are cur­rent­ly impris­oned. They are Benedet­ta Galante, Francesco Gioia and Costan­ti­no Ragusa.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Fadal­la Idris Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Mohamed Ahmed Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Grant Barnes #1533241, PO Box 1108, Den­ver, CO 80201, USA. On remand accused of set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

Nathan Block, #1663667, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave., Eugene, OR 97401, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing admit­ted involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Benedet­ta Galante, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Con­tra­da Capo di Monte, 82100 — Ben­even­to (BN), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 3 years 6 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Francesco Gioia, Via Maiano, 10, 06049 Spo­le­to, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 5 years 2 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al for escap­ing from house arrest.

Jef­frey Luers, #13797671, OSP, 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310, USA. Serv­ing 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Ali Mohamed Alhas­sen Mas­sad (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. On Remand accused of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 7½ years. 1) Five years for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. 2) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 3) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

John Wade #38548–083, FCI Peters­burg Low, Satel­lite Camp, PO Box 90027, Peters­burg, VA 23804, USA. Serv­ing 37 months for a series of ELF actions against a num­ber of tar­gets includ­ing McDon­alds & Burg­er King; urban sprawl; the con­struc­tion indus­try; and an SUV deal­er­ship.

Joy­an­na Zach­er #1662550, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing admit­ted involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Made­line Buck­ler PR7492, HMP Mor­ton Hall, Swinder­by, Lin­coln, LN6 9PT, Eng­land. Serv­ing 2 years for send­ing hate mail to a fam­i­ly who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Don­ald Cur­rie TN4593, HMP White­moor, Longhill Road, March, Cambs, PE15 OPR, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Josh Dem­mitt 12314–081, FCI Saf­ford, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 9000, Saf­ford, AZ 85548, USA. Serv­ing 30 months for an ALF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty ani­mal test­ing facil­i­ty.

Dar­ius Fullmer #26397–050, FCI Fort Dix Satel­lite Camp, P.O. Box 1000, Fort Dix, NJ 08640 USA. Serv­ing 12 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury Route #37, 33 1/2 Pem­broke Road, Dan­bury, CT 06811 USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Joseph Har­ris TN5728, HMP Bulling­don, Patrick Haugh Road, Arn­cott, Nr. Bices­ter, Oxon, OX25 1WD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 2 years for dam­ag­ing the prop­er­ty of peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (His orig­i­nal sen­tence was reduced on appeal).

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Josephine Mayo PR6508, HMP Drake Hall, Eccle­shall, Stafford­shire, ST21 6LQ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 4 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Trish Portwine, TM7153, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing fif­teen months for her role in loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Mark Tay­lor TT6636, HMP Bel­marsh, West­ern Way, Thames­mead, Lon­don, SE28 0UB, Eng­land. Serv­ing four years for organ­is­ing loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

Suzanne Tay­lor, TM7154, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing two and a half years for help­ing organ­ise loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials.

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Bren­dan Walsh, 12473–052, FCI Allen­wood Low, PO Box 1000, White Deer, PA 17887, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for an arson on an army recruit­ment office in protest at the War on Iraq.

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with ‘sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion’ accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion which turned into a riot.

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack.

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic. Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish.

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland. Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self.

PARTY & PROTEST
Around the world there have been sev­er­al mas­sive protests against glob­al cap­i­tal­ism and its envi­ron­men­tal impact. The fol­low­ing have all been jailed in con­nec­tion with the protests.

Jonathan Philip Robert, Crisp Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 197 Ga. Hwy. 300 South, Cordele, GA 31015, USA (12 months)

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009.

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA. Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grate­ford, PO Box 244, Grate­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

MAPUCHE PRISONERS & OTHER LAND RIGHTS PRISONERS
Due to space lim­i­ta­tion we can­not pub­lish the names & address­es of the Mapuche & Land Rights pris­on­ers in this edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom, how­ev­er if you would like a list please con­tact Spir­it of Free­dom.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to
sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al bimonth­ly pub­li­ca­tion (avail­able via e‑mail or in a paper ver­sion). If you would like to receive a copy con­tact Spir­it of Free­dom, BM Box 2407, Lon­don, WC1N 3XX, Eng­land. Or e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters – ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Pris­on­er Fund. The North Amer­i­can ELP group has set up a fund where peo­ple can pay mon­ey, for North Amer­i­can Eco-Defence and Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers, which will then be dis­trib­uted to the North Amer­i­can pris­on­ers. For infor­ma­tion about the Fund and how to make a dona­tion please con­tact naelpsn@mutualaid.org

DEDICATION
This Edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom is ded­i­cat­ed to Russ­ian antifa activist, Stanislav Korepanov, who died in hos­pi­tal on the 31st of March 2007, hav­ing been attacked a few days ear­li­er by an armed gang of neo-nazis. Stanislav is the sec­ond Russ­ian antifa activist to have been bru­tal­ly attacked in recent months. On the 14th of Jan­u­ary 2007 veg­an ani­mal rights activist, Ivan Elin, was sur­round­ed and attacked by ten neo-nazis in St. Peters­burg after he had tak­en part in a week­ly “Food not bombs” peace ral­ly. Ivan suf­fered 21 stab wounds and was rushed to hos­pi­tal where he is mak­ing his recov­ery. Fol­low­ing on from the knife attack on Ivan, on the 4th of Feb­ru­ary, with a small bomb explod­ed in Vladimirskaya Square of St. Peters­burg, near to where Food Not Bombs organ­ise their week­ly protests. The bomb was hid­den in a kiosk sell­ing flow­ers. Luck­i­ly the bomb only dam­aged the kiosk and did not injure any­one.
This is not the first time neo-nazis have used knives or explo­sives to tar­get Russ­ian activists. On the 22nd of Decem­ber 2006 a num­ber of police were injured whilst try­ing to defuse a device, which set to mur­der antifa activists in Moscow. In August 2006 eleven peo­ple were killed in Moscow when a neo-nazi bomb explod­ed in Cherk­isovs­ki mar­ket­place. The bru­tal mur­der of Stanislav Korepanov and the attack against Ivan are a remind­ed of why fas­cism must nev­er be allowed to go unchal­lenged. ELP wish­es Ivan Elin a speedy recov­ery from his injuries and we con­grat­u­late the Russ­ian ‘Food Not Bombs’ move­ment for not giv­ing into this neo-nazi intim­i­da­tion.
Our thoughts and sor­row are with the fam­i­ly and friends of Stanislav Korepanov who was only 18 years old when he died.

Environmentalist bloc at Faslane 365 — 26.04.07

CHERNOBYL DAY AT FASLANE 26th April 2007

Can you see the con­nec­tion between more nuclear weapons, more nuclear pow­er sta­tions, war for oil and cli­mate change?
— Or that replac­ing Tri­dent will mean more dan­ger­ous nuclear pow­ered sub­marines based on the Clyde and more nuclear waste…
— And that nuclear weapons are an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter and radioac­tive pol­lu­tion is caused by their use, test­ing, waste, acci­dents or by ter­ror­ist attack.
— Or that envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion caused by nuclear weapon­ry affects peo­ple and their envi­ron­ments across bound­aries and down the gen­er­a­tions…

Then join the envi­ron­men­tal­ist block at Faslane on Cher­nobyl Day!

CHERNOBYL DAY AT FASLANE 26th April 2007

Can you see the con­nec­tion between more nuclear weapons, more nuclear pow­er sta­tions, war for oil and cli­mate change?
— Or that replac­ing Tri­dent will mean more dan­ger­ous nuclear pow­ered sub­marines based on the Clyde and more nuclear waste…
— And that nuclear weapons are an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter and radioac­tive pol­lu­tion is caused by their use, test­ing, waste, acci­dents or by ter­ror­ist attack.
— Or that envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion caused by nuclear weapon­ry affects peo­ple and their envi­ron­ments across bound­aries and down the gen­er­a­tions…

Then join the envi­ron­men­tal­ist block at Faslane on Cher­nobyl Day!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 26th 2007 will be the 21st anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl Dis­as­ter. At least 9,000 peo­ple are expect­ed to die in Belarus, Ukraine and Rus­sia from the nuclear fall-out from the acci­dent, whilst across Europe the num­ber of deaths from can­cers caused by radi­a­tion from the acci­dent could be as high as 60,000. Amongst peo­ple who were chil­dren at the time of the acci­dent there has been a sig­nif­i­cant increase in thy­roid can­cers – over 4,000 cas­es were diag­nosed in the Ukraine between 1992 – 2002.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On the 21st anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl Dis­as­ter, activists and sup­port­ers from Scot­tish envi­ron­men­tal groups and net­works will be hold­ing a series of events out­side the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base to protest against the gov­ern­men­t’s plans to build more nuclear pow­er sta­tions and Tri­dent replace­ment.

Among the dif­fer­ent events planned for the day Friends of the Earth Scot­land will be ral­ly­ing from 8am to mid­day at the main gate with their huge inflat­able white ele­phant to high­light that new nuclear pow­er sta­tions are unsafe, unwant­ed and unnec­es­sary.

Plans also include a die-in and block­ade of the gates lat­er in the day.

Groups involved include: Friends of the Earth Scot­land, Scot­tish local Green­peace groups, Scot­tish Peo­ple and Plan­et net­work, Ris­ing Tide Scot­land.

GET INVOLVED!
Non­vi­o­lent action train­ing day: Sat­ur­day 31st March, 10.30am-4pm, Lam­b’s House, Burgess Street, Edin­burgh, EH6 6RD_map and direc­tions:
http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/about/getting_to_FoE_office.html

Prop and ban­ner mak­ing day — all day from 10.30am Wednes­day 25th April, Lambs House, Burgess Street, Edin­burgh, EH6 6RD. Bring card­board, paint, mate­ri­als, fall-out suits and cos­tumes to dec­o­rate!

Trans­port:
There will be a 50 seater coach eav­ing Water­loo Place, Edin­burgh at
4am — Yes! Four in the morn­ing! (Map here:
www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=55.9538&lon=-3.186&scale=10000&icon=x

Price £10 waged or £6 unwaged.
Please book your seat first by call­ing 0131 554 9977 or email­ing
environmentalists@faslane365.org
Return time: Leav­ing Faslane around 5.30pm and arriv­ing Edin­burgh at
about 8pm.

Pos­si­ble pick ups also in Glas­gow — con­tact us for more infor­ma­tion

There are also good pub­lic trans­port links to Faslane from Glas­gow using the Low Lev­el trains from Glas­gow Queen Street and Partick sta­tions every half hour to Helens­burgh Cen­tral and then the Coul­port or Gare­lochhead bus­es to Faslane Peace Camp or the Faslane Ceme­tery (oppo­site the North Gate.) There is also a train ser­vice from Queen Street (main lev­el: des­ti­na­tion Mallaig/Oban) which stops at Gare­lochhead (about a mile walk from Faslane north gate)

A cycle path runs all the way from Helens­burgh to Faslane along the A814.
There is lim­it­ed park­ing close to the Faslane North Gate in the Faslane ceme­tery car-park just past the North Gate on the right. Lim­it­ed car park­ing is also avail­able at Faslane Peace Camp at the south of the base.

Lim­it­ed accom­mo­da­tion the night is avail­able in Edin­burgh — please bring a sleep­ing bag. We can also help you find accom­mo­da­tion in Glas­gow the night before.

For more infor­ma­tion or to book places please con­tact
envi­ron­men­tal­ists [at] faslane365.org or phone 0131 554 9977

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Niger Delta Women shut down Agip Oil Facility

March 23, 2007

A group of women from the Idheze com­mu­ni­ty in Isokoland have once again shut down oil facil­i­ties of the Nige­ria Agip Oil Com­pa­ny (NAOC) because have failed to pay promised com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages caused by chemical/waste flu­id of the firm flushed into the com­mu­ni­ty. The peo­ple of Isokoland have expe­ri­enced con­tin­ued series of cri­sis over the past 15 years. (There are about 27 oil wells in the area). Many inci­dents have been a result of divide and rule tac­tics by the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment between and with­in eth­nic minori­ties in Delta State and oth­er states in the region. When there have been clash­es the gov­ern­ment has sent in mobile police result­ing in death, injury and destruc­tion of people’s prop­er­ties. The last time I vist­ed Oleh Town (the head­quar­ters of Isoko South Local Gov­ern­ment Area in 2000 women spoke of the bru­tal­li­ty of the mobile poli­cie (MOPO) and how many of them lost their homes. I saw homes burnt down to the ground by the MOPO. Each time they come into the area peo­ple are afraid and run away and then their homes are loot­ed and often burned to the ground.

Agip logo subvertMarch 23, 2007

A group of women from the Idheze com­mu­ni­ty in Isokoland have once again shut down oil facil­i­ties of the Nige­ria Agip Oil Com­pa­ny (NAOC) because have failed to pay promised com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages caused by chemical/waste flu­id of the firm flushed into the com­mu­ni­ty. The peo­ple of Isokoland have expe­ri­enced con­tin­ued series of cri­sis over the past 15 years. (There are about 27 oil wells in the area). Many inci­dents have been a result of divide and rule tac­tics by the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment between and with­in eth­nic minori­ties in Delta State and oth­er states in the region. When there have been clash­es the gov­ern­ment has sent in mobile police result­ing in death, injury and destruc­tion of people’s prop­er­ties. The last time I vist­ed Oleh Town (the head­quar­ters of Isoko South Local Gov­ern­ment Area in 2000 women spoke of the bru­tal­li­ty of the mobile poli­cie (MOPO) and how many of them lost their homes. I saw homes burnt down to the ground by the MOPO. Each time they come into the area peo­ple are afraid and run away and then their homes are loot­ed and often burned to the ground.

“Many hous­es were burned down, many things destroyed, we loose all our prop­er­ty. Some peo­ple loose their mon­ey, every­thing con­cern­ing trad­ing mate­r­i­al many things lost. Some peo­ple now are not even stay­ing in this town because all their house all their prop­er­ty has burned down. There is a lot of suf­fer­ing. Both men and women they are suf­fer­ing in this town. Up till now there are some­thing chil­dren who are lost (miss­ing) up till now we have nev­er seen any cer­tifi­cate of chil­dren born.”

Now we have to wait and see how the gov­ern­ment will respond to the women’s protest and hope that this time Obasan­jo does not send in his army to pro­tect the oil com­pa­ny and attack Niger­ian women who are protest­ing against the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age to their com­mu­ni­ty by Agip which is is nor­mal reac­tion to any protests against oil com­pa­nies and facil­i­ties.

Recent­ly, chemical/waste from the rig site was dis­charged into the swamp of Idheze lead­ing to the death and destruc­tion of aquat­ic life. Many dead aquat­ic ani­mals were still afloat in the ponds yes­ter­day. The women had ear­ly in Decem­ber 2006 seized oil facil­i­ties belong­ing to Agip, owing to the fail­ure of the com­pa­ny to imple­ment an ear­li­er agree­ment signed with the com­mu­ni­ty on their entrance into their land. They revealed that a spill led to the death of sev­en adults and three chil­dren and also destroyed eco­nom­ic trees and crops in 1982.

The women car­ried plac­ards, bar­ri­cad­ed the main entrance of the company’s facil­i­ties and turned back all work­ers. Some of the plac­ards bore inscrip­tions such as: “We are tired of the inhu­man treat­ment of NAOC”, “We will con­tin­ue to dis­rupt your activ­i­ties until you meet our demands”, “Pay com­pen­sa­tion for the chemical/waste flu­id you have used to pol­lute our land.”

The women came to the premis­es with their uten­sils and food items, includ­ing bags of rice, yams, gar­ri as well as canopies with which they erect­ed makeshift tents. They vowed not to vacate the yard until their demands were met. Accord­ing to them, after all that the com­mu­ni­ty suf­fered as a result of the spill, Agip has refused to heed the advice of the inspec­torate body of the Nige­ria Nation­al Petro­le­um Com­pa­ny (NNPC) which ordered Agip to com­pen­sate the com­mu­ni­ty.

Leader of the pro­test­ers, Mrs. Mer­cy Okun­wa, who spoke on behalf of the community’s Pres­i­dent-Gen­er­al, Joel Ogbru, accused the com­pa­ny of insen­si­tiv­i­ty to the plight of the locals as well as reneg­ing on agree­ment reached with the com­mu­ni­ty in Port Har­court last Decem­ber.

She said the non-chal­lant atti­tude of NAOC to the issues of their com­mu­ni­ty, led to a protest by the com­mu­ni­ty on the Decem­ber 19, 2006 to reg­is­ter their “vex­a­tion but until now none of the promis­es made by NAOC when they invit­ed the com­mu­ni­ty peo­ple has been imple­ment­ed”.

She dis­closed that many of the ser­vic­ing com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the rigs were “car­ry­ing out the job with the knowl­edge of Agip but detri­men­tal to the com­mu­ni­ty because none of them pays roy­al­ty to the com­mu­ni­ty.”

They accused ser­vic­ing firms such as SERIC, IMPEANTI, and KCA Deu­tage for flout­ing out­right­ly, agree­ments reached with the com­mu­ni­ty, say­ing that Agip con­spired with some of the ser­vic­ing firms to rob the com­mu­ni­ty of their enti­tle­ments. She lament­ed that con­tracts that should have been giv­en to the indi­genes were exe­cut­ed by out­siders.

“We are peace-lov­ing peo­ple and know­ing that Agip has been deceiv­ing us, we wouldn’t want any­thing that will be detri­men­tal this time to our peo­ple and so until the company’s man­age­ment responds to our demand, we will not vacate the premis­es,” the aggriev­ed women declared.

Sol­diers barred jour­nal­ists from reach­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty Rela­tions Offi­cer in charge of the Kwale Gas Plant of Agip, Prince Obi, who was at the premis­es address­ing the pro­test­ers.

New ‘Writing To Prisoners’ Leaflet

Leeds ABC have pro­duced a new ‘Writ­ing To Pris­on­ers’ laflet. Basic text fol­lows, and it can also be down­loaded as a PDF, or a hard copy can be obtained by send­ing an SAE to Leeds ABC at the address below.

Leeds ABC have pro­duced a new ‘Writ­ing To Pris­on­ers’ laflet. Basic text fol­lows, and it can also be down­loaded as a PDF, or a hard copy can be obtained by send­ing an SAE to Leeds ABC at the address below.

Leaflet — pdf 109K

WRITING TO PRISONERS

Prob­a­bly the eas­i­est and arguably most impor­tant aspect of sup­port­ing pris­on­ers is writ­ing to them. One of the hard­est things for many pris­on­ers to cope with is the feel­ing of iso­la­tion – being cut off from friends and fam­i­ly and every­thing they know in their nor­mal lives. A let­ter or post­card from the real world, even from a com­plete stranger, helps to main­tain a con­nec­tion with the out­side, relieves the infer­nal tedi­um of a regime that often involves spend­ing 23 hours of the day in the same cell. For a first-time pris­on­er, espe­cial­ly in the ear­ly stages of a sen­tence, this type of sup­port can make a huge dif­fer­ence, help­ing them cope with the unfa­mil­iar and often intim­i­dat­ing sur­round­ings. For polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, vic­tims of mis­car­riages of jus­tice and those fight­ing back from with­in, it’s a sim­ple mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty – you’re not on your own.

In many cas­es, con­tact from the out­side lets the prison author­i­ties know that there are peo­ple on the out­side who care and are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion. For exam­ple, spe­cial dietary require­ments (veg­an etc) are more like­ly to be adhered to if an inmate is obvi­ous­ly not for­got­ten.

Please be aware that this isn’t meant to be a list of rules – we’re just try­ing to hon­est­ly answer some of the queries we get asked. And of course, the com­ments about prison pro­ce­dure only apply to UK pris­ons.

WHERE DO I FIND A PRISONER FROM?

Well, there’s cur­rent­ly around 80,000 to choose from in the UK alone but if you want to nar­row that down slight­ly the eas­i­est way is to con­tact one of the many anar­chist / ani­mal rights / pris­on­er sup­port groups you can find online. Be aware that pris­on­ers are often moved and mail not always for­ward­ed so if in doubt email or write to check details are up to date. You can con­tact Leeds ABC at the address below for a list of the pris­on­ers we cur­rent­ly sup­port both in the UK and fur­ther afield.

SO WHAT DO I WRITE THEN?

Ok this is the bit that trips most peo­ple up. You’re wor­ried about what you write might sound stu­pid, or make the pris­on­er feel worse or you sim­ply can’t think of any­thing. Of course if the pris­on­er is your mate then this bit is easy but what about a total stranger, some­one you know noth­ing about apart from their names, charges and sen­tence? Well, there’s no for­mu­la here but for the first let­ter you should intro­duce your­self. Tell them about your­self, what you do, what you’re into, where you got their address and so on. This breaks the ice and also makes a reply eas­i­er. Apart from that, just fill a side of A4 of what­ev­er you can think of – crap jokes, rem­i­nis­cences, what you did last Fri­day night after 10 pints etcetera. One for­mer inmate com­ment­ed to us that some of the best let­ters he received were an ongo­ing debate about the mer­its of var­i­ous Iron Maid­en songs which might seem inane but put a great big smile on his face once a week! Here’s a few point­ers that we’d like to remind you of:

1. Every let­ter is read by screws (the­o­ret­i­cal­ly at least) so don’t write any­thing that might incrim­i­nate your­self or oth­ers in any­thing dubi­ous. The rule of thumb here is don’t put any­thing in a let­ter that you would­n’t say to a cop­per’s face.

2. If the pris­on­er is in for a polit­i­cal charge you should obvi­ous­ly let them know you sup­port their actions but don’t start prais­ing them as some sort of hero to the cause. Rhetoric to the effect of “I’m in awe of your great sac­ri­fice blah, blah…” is frankly cringe­wor­thy. If some­one is banged up for a polit­i­cal action they don’t (or should­n’t!) want to be seen as mar­tyrs – they’re just nor­mal peo­ple unlucky enough to get caught, so write to them like nor­mal peo­ple rather than fawn­ing!

3. A lot of peo­ple seem wary of telling pris­on­ers about ‘fun’ stuff, think­ing it will depress them or make them feel home­sick hear­ing about peo­ple hav­ing a laugh on the out­side. This is rub­bish! They’ll already be home­sick and it’s just reas­sur­ing to hear nor­mal life is going on so don’t feel coy about men­tion­ing gigs, par­ties and rau­cous nights down the booz­er.

4. Always ask a few ques­tions like how they’re doing, plans they have for the future, what their inter­ests are, etc. but try to keep it gen­er­al and don’t make it sound like you’re being nosey. Bear­ing in mind that they might be reply­ing to a total stranger, it makes writ­ing a response a lot eas­i­er.

5. Sim­i­lar­ly, some back­ground about your­self, even seem­ing­ly triv­ial things like favourite bands, foot­ball teams etc, can make writ­ing a reply that bit eas­i­er…

6. Don’t EVER promise things you can’t deliv­er. If you build some­one’s hopes up about say vis­it­ing them, send­ing things into them, etc then you let them down, that’s well out of order and hard­ly con­sis­tent with sup­port­ing them.

7. Polit­i­cal lit­er­a­ture – be care­ful! Unless the pris­on­er asks for it avoid send­ing any over­ly con­tentious polit­i­cal mate­r­i­al in as it can poten­tial­ly cause them grief. Depend­ing on the pris­on­er’s sit­u­a­tion and how they “choose to do their time” unso­licit­ed sub­scrip­tions to lefty news­pa­pers for instance may cause unwant­ed has­sle with prison author­i­ties and oth­er inmates. In some cas­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly abroad, polit­i­cal lit­er­a­ture to remand­ed pris­on­ers may even be used against them at tri­al. There’s no prob­lem send­ing this kind of thing as long as you ask the pris­on­er first and always respect their wish­es.

8. Avoid turgid left­ie-isms! Phras­es like “my com­rades and I have resolved to pass a motion of sol­i­dar­i­ty” sound pompous and imper­son­al how­ev­er well mean­ing they might be. “We hope you’re doing ok” is a lot more friend­ly!

I’M NOT SURE I CAN MANAGE A FULL LETTER…

That’s fine. A quick mes­sage of sup­port on a post­card can still real­ly bright­en up some­one’s day or what about tak­ing a card to a gig or the pub and get­ting a few peo­ple to sign it?

HOW DO I MAKE SURE MY LETTER GETS IN?

Well the cor­rect postage would be a start (you’d be sur­prised!) and the cor­rect address ensur­ing the pris­on­er’s full name and prison num­ber are includ­ed. Put your name and address at the top of the let­ter and on the back of the enve­lope. These don’t have to be ‘real’ if you’ve got any reser­va­tions but bear in mind this is what the pris­on­er will see if they’re going to write you a reply. Some pris­ons will refuse to accept let­ters with ‘care of’ or PO Box address­es so it’s best to use a street address. Some pris­ons have rules for­bid­ding cer­tain imagery (e.g. gang sym­bols being banned from U.S pris­ons) and this may encom­pass polit­i­cal sym­bols as well so cir­cled A’s, scrawled all over the enve­lope may not be a good idea! Some­times hand-made cards with a pic­ture glued to the front may be refused or defaced in case any­thing’s con­cealed under­neath. If you want to make sure a pris­on­er gets a let­ter, you can send it by record­ed deliv­ery – then you can check with the Post Office whether the prison received it; and all record­ed mail is only sup­posed to be opened in the pris­on­er’s pres­ence.

WHAT ABOUT GETTING A REPLY?

Bear in mind that you’re doing this to sup­port the pris­on­er not to acquire a new pen-pal although the two might go hand in hand. You may not get a reply for sev­er­al rea­sons: obvi­ous­ly the pris­on­er might not have received your let­ter or they might be get­ting a lot of post if they’re for­tu­nate enough so might not have time to reply to all cor­re­spon­dence. They may be lim­it­ed in the num­ber of let­ters they can write by the prison author­i­ties and pre­fer to pri­ori­tise friends and fam­i­ly. They may not have access to suf­fi­cient writ­ing mate­ri­als or stamps, they may have been moved, or they may sim­ply not be very good at writ­ing let­ters. Regard­less, don’t be put out if there’s no reply and don’t let this deter you from con­tin­u­ing to write.

CAN I SEND ANYTHING ELSE IN?

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the file in a choco­late cake rou­tine isn’t going to work. The gold­en rule here is to ask the pris­on­er if you’ve got any doubts. You can always try con­tact­ing the prison, but they are noto­ri­ous­ly elu­sive, so you could spend ages try­ing to get through – for instance HMP Arm­ley has one phone line to cov­er 1250+ inmates. More to the point, screws have a habit of lying through their teeth, so don’t assume that the first answer you get will be any­thing close to the truth! The rules vary wide­ly between dif­fer­ent pris­ons and are some­times baf­fling. Food and toi­letries are not per­mit­ted in any pris­ons for obvi­ous rea­sons but some­times appar­ent­ly innocu­ous items are denied, for instance pho­tographs with the pris­on­ers face on them (actu­al­ly to stop pris­on­ers forg­ing ID cards!). If you send any­thing in, clear­ly write at the top of your let­ter what you’ve enclosed as this lessens the chances of light-fin­gered screws hav­ing off with it. Some things you might con­sid­er send­ing in are:

Books – you may be able to send used copies in but many pris­ons will only accept books from a recog­nised shop, dis­trib­u­tor or pub­lish­er so check first. It’s pos­si­ble to get round this in some cas­es if you know a sym­pa­thet­ic sec­ond-hand book­shop who will pack­age a used book with an offi­cial look­ingre­ceipt.. Screws may with­hold some lit­er­a­ture on the grounds of con­tent but this can gen­er­al­ly be dis­put­ed by the pris­on­er, cit­ing Human Rights leg­is­la­tion. Books and mag­a­zines are only meant to be cen­sored or refused if they’re racial­ly abu­sive, iden­ti­fy indi­vid­ual screws by name, or threat­en “good order and dis­ci­pline” (how­ev­er you choose to inter­pret that!). If you’ve any doubts again ask the pris­on­er.

Mag­a­zines – again the pol­i­cy varies so as above check first. Sur­pris­ing­ly, wide­ly avail­able pub­li­ca­tions are more like­ly to be refused while obscure zines may get through okay. This is because most pris­ons have an appoint­ed local newsagent which you have to use for ‘off the shelf’ pub­li­ca­tions. You pay for a mag­a­zine, news­pa­per or puz­zle book at the shop and give them the inmate’s prison num­ber and this is for­ward­ed to them. It’s even pos­si­ble to set up a sub­scrip­tion to a dai­ly news­pa­per this way.

Stamps – pol­i­cy varies (can you spot a pat­tern here?). Stamps are gold dust for pris­on­ers, if they can receive them, not only for send­ing let­ters but also as cur­ren­cy. Many pris­ons will not allow stamps and obvi­ous­ly screws will often pock­et them. UK pris­ons should all allow stamped-addressed envelopes in, which obvi­ous­ly makes it eas­i­er for a pris­on­er to reply. These are the safest bet (after all it’s hard­ly a huge out­lay) but write your address in pen­cil so the pris­on­er can remove it if they have a more impor­tant let­ter to send. If you want a reply, an SAE is real­ly a mat­ter of cour­tesy.

Cash – while the amount most pris­on­ers can spend on a week­ly basis is lim­it­ed, their actu­al income to spend on “lux­u­ries” such as usable razors, tobac­co, paper, phone cards etc is often micro­scop­ic, par­tic­u­lar­ly if they are refus­ing work. On top of this, Ara­mark, the pri­vate com­pa­ny who run prison can­teens, only sell expen­sive brand-named prod­ucts, and incred­i­bly get away with sell­ing it at more than high-street prices! Funds from the out­side can there­fore be vital, but cash is not used in pris­ons and inmates have an ‘account’ with a cer­tain amount freed up each week as ‘spends’. Obvi­ous­ly if you’re send­ing more than a cou­ple of quid it’s worth check­ing first, but as a gen­er­al guide funds should only be sent as postal orders made payable to “The Gov­er­nor, HMP [prison name]”. It is imper­a­tive that the pris­on­er’s full name and prison num­ber is writ­ten clear­ly on the back, or they won’t get it.

Phone cards – a myth. Not that you can buy them now any­way but even when you could, phone cards from the out­side did­n’t work on prison phones! If you want to help some­one with the cost of calls to friends and fam­i­ly send them a postal order as they’ll have to buy cred­it inside.

Music, footwear, radios and oth­er mis­cel­la­neous goods – this varies so wide­ly that you have to check. Some pris­ons will accept almost any­thing, oth­ers will flat­ly refuse every­thing, often because pris­on­ers are made to save up their spends and buy goods from ‘approved’ mail-order retail­ers such as Argos instead.

BUT… THEY’RE CRIMINALS!

One con­cern that is often voiced to us is that that the peo­ple you are writ­ing to will be ‘dodgy’ in some way. After all, the media bom­bards us with the notion that every­one in prison is a smack-addict­ed, child-molest­ing ben­e­fit-scroung­ing can­ni­bal, and it’s only to be expect­ed that many peo­ple who have no per­son­al expe­ri­ence of prison are wary of con­tact­ing those inside. The sim­ple answer is that pris­on­ers are human, and of course there may be a small chance of encoun­ter­ing idiots – about the same sta­tis­ti­cal chance of encoun­ter­ing idiots any­where! If you are not com­fort­able about writ­ing to a par­tic­u­lar pris­on­er for what­ev­er rea­son, sim­ply end con­tact – we have heard of iso­lat­ed cas­es of peo­ple pos­ing as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers to draw in sup­port and let­ters, but these instances are so scarce that it real­ly is not worth wor­ry­ing about, and you can be assured that any pris­on­ers sup­port­ed by organ­i­sa­tions like the ABC would be dropped like hot bricks if there was any con­cern about their integri­ty.

USEFUL CONTACTS

The inter­net is a gold-mine of infor­ma­tion about prison resis­tance, but be aware that many sites aren’t updat­ed very reg­u­lar­ly, so some details can be inac­cu­rate. We’d rec­om­mend the fol­low­ing sites as good places to start:

BRIGHTON ABC — www.brightonabc.org.uk

Brighton’s Anar­chist Black Cross group keep a good web­site with up-to-date news and details of pris­on­ers, as well as links to oth­er groups.

NO MORE PRISONS — www.alternatives2prison.ik.com

This infor­ma­tive site cam­paigns for prison abo­li­tion.

HAVEN DISTRIBUTION — www.havendistribution.org.uk

Haven is a reg­is­tered char­i­ty who run an invalu­able ser­vice pro­vid­ing UK pris­on­ers with free books and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als.

GET IN TOUCH WITH US

If you want any fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact us. We do a reg­u­lar e‑mail bul­letin with updates on prison issues and a list of anar­chist pris­on­ers – let us know if you want to be added to this. We also do a dis­tro and pub­lish pam­phlets relat­ing to the prison strug­gle – get in touch for a full list. If you are writ­ing to us, please try to enclose a stamped addressed enve­lope or Inter­na­tion­al Reply Coupon if you want a reply.

Leeds ABC, PO Box 53, Leeds, LS8 4WP, Eng­land
LeedsABC@riseup.net
http://www.myspace.com/leedsabc