Category: Global

Glob­al

Anti-Oil Activists in Ecuador Stand Up To Protect Yasuni National Park

YasuniProtest

YasuniProtest

23rd Sep­tem­ber, The world’s most bio­di­verse area risks being exploit­ed for its oil by the “rev­o­lu­tion­ary” gov­ern­ment of Rafael Cor­rea. But he faces strong resis­tance.

The script of this sto­ry is almost too obvi­ous. The most bio­di­verse spot on the plan­et, the Yasuní Nation­al Park in Ecuador — and in par­tic­u­lar an area called ITT — lays on top of pre­cious oil. A poor country’s greedy gov­ern­ment threat­ens to exploit it. Vol­un­tar­i­ly iso­lat­ed indige­nous peo­ple who have nev­er been con­tact­ed also live in this region. Those indige­nous peo­ple are war­riors and would fight for their ter­ri­to­ry to death. As I am writ­ing this I am think­ing that all the ele­ments in this sto­ry might remind us of the film Avatar. But in that sto­ry it was much eas­i­er to iden­ti­fy the bad guys rid­ing super­son­ic space­ships and fight­ing against those blue gigan­tic indige­nous who would use drag­ons to fly. This sto­ry is a bit more com­pli­cat­ed.

Rafael Cor­rea has been Ecuador’s Pres­i­dent since 2007, with at least 4 more years ahead of him. Pri­or to Cor­rea, Ecuador expe­ri­enced over 10 years of intense polit­i­cal insta­bil­i­ty, which includ­ed more than 6 pres­i­dents oust­ed over that peri­od. But what start­ed as a “rev­o­lu­tion­ary” left­ist gov­ern­ment which has per­ma­nent­ly claimed rights and respect in the name of sov­er­eign­ty, has recent­ly start­ed to sig­nal author­i­tar­i­an­ism, cor­rup­tion, nepo­tism as well as oth­er typ­i­cal signs of a pow­er-hun­gry gov­ern­ment. Late­ly, the Ecuado­ri­an gov­ern­ment, with Rafael Cor­rea as its main fig­ure, keep say­ing that “every­body who is not with me, is against me and the rev­o­lu­tion.”

yasuni2

Com­ing back to the stage where this sto­ry takes place, it is impor­tant to men­tion that ecol­o­gy and respect for the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties do not go togeth­er with oil drilling. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly clear in Ecuador. Ecuador’s rela­tion with oil drilling start­ed over 40 years ago. Just one exam­ple of the what has hap­pened in the Ama­zon­ian region in the East of the coun­try since then is Chevron’s sys­tem­at­ic dump­ing of more than 18 bil­lion gal­lons of oil into the rain­for­est, in what has been called the worst eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ter in his­to­ry, with thou­sands of peo­ple left dead and thou­sands more sick due to pol­lut­ed water. The destruc­tion of the for­est has left very lit­tle rev­enue to Ecuador and even less to its peo­ple. Petroa­ma­zonas, the Ecuado­ri­an pub­lic enter­prise in charge of oil explo­ration and drilling, admit­ted that one spill occurs every week. After 40 years of oil exploita­tion, Ecuador is still a poor coun­try.

What makes the char­ac­ters in this sto­ry par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult to define as the “bad guys”, is that not all of them were always will­ing to inter­vene in this high­ly sen­si­tive area in exchange for mon­ey. Pres­i­dent Cor­rea him­self devot­ed his first inter­ven­tion to the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly in 2007 to this top­ic. Using the same charm as years ago in New York or Rio de Janeiro dur­ing the Rio+20 glob­al con­fer­ence, Pres­i­dent Cor­rea announced on August 15 this year that he has been forced to start drilling oil in the most sen­si­tive zone of the Yasuní Nation­al Park, claim­ing that “the world has failed us.” As a mat­ter of fact the ini­tia­tive was pret­ty much boy­cotted by the gov­ern­ment itself.

"The Tagaeri and Taronenane, the last peoples in voluntary isolation in Ecuador" [google translate]

“The Tagaeri and Taro­ne­nane, the last peo­ples in vol­un­tary iso­la­tion in Ecuador” [google trans­late]

Through­out the years, con­tra­dic­to­ry sig­nals were sent, a low-skilled team was appoint­ed, min­ing projects all over the coun­try were giv­en to Chi­nese and Cana­di­an com­pa­nies, Ecuador par­tic­i­pat­ed in oil-pro­mot­ing inter­na­tion­al nego­ti­a­tion rounds. This, among oth­er things, weak­ened the verac­i­ty of the ini­tia­tive. Fol­low­ing the announce­ment, Cor­rea and some of his gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have stat­ed that those indige­nous vol­un­tar­i­ly iso­lat­ed have actu­al­ly dis­ap­peared, tak­ing off the table the fact that an eth­no­cide is immi­nent once the oil drilling starts. All of the argu­ments pre­sent­ed to pro­mote the ini­tia­tive ini­tial­ly were tak­en back, includ­ing mod­i­fy­ing offi­cial maps.

As expect­ed, a mas­sive pro­pa­gan­da cam­paign fol­lowed Correa’s announce­ment. Claim­ing that oil drilling will only affect 0.1% of the Yasuní area, TV spots and radio com­mer­cials are broad­cast every day on prime-time, fol­lowed by a strong social media cam­paign. One of the sev­er­al spots shows a baby hand­ed by its moth­er to be vac­ci­nat­ed. The Ecuado­ri­an gov­ern­ment actu­al­ly com­pares a tod­dler being vac­ci­nat­ed to oil drilling. In the Ama­zon­ian provinces, where entire com­mu­ni­ties have paid the price of oil drilling with their health and life — includ­ing those impact­ed by Chevron’s oil dam­ages — have been put up with the slo­gan “oil builds a bet­ter future.” The gov­ern­ment is actu­al­ly try­ing to con­vince us that those (sup­pos­ed­ly) 18 bil­lion dol­lars will con­tribute enor­mous­ly to erad­i­cate pover­ty. How is it that since Cor­rea came to pow­er the nation­al bud­get has been over US$150 bil­lion and peo­ple in Ecuador are still poor?

yasuni4In Quito and many oth­er cities across the coun­try, young­sters, artists, civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions and indige­nous groups have orga­nized demon­stra­tions against the inter­ven­tion in Yasuní. This social move­ment has been fight­ing for the rights of nature and against trans­genic food, neolib­er­al­ism, impe­ri­al­ism and oth­ers, and is now stand­ing up to defend the park. The gov­ern­ment has react­ed furi­ous­ly against the pro­test­ers, even resort­ing to vio­lent police repres­sion. All sorts of threats have been announced includ­ing con­trol­ling social media and leav­ing stu­dents out of school if they dare to par­tic­i­pate in demon­stra­tions. Pres­i­dent Cor­rea even react­ed through his Twit­ter account against inter­na­tion­al com­men­ta­tors who showed their dis­ap­proval. Every­body who is not with the gov­ern­ment is auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­sid­ered its ene­my.

And so, with­out blue indige­nous peo­ple rid­ing drag­ons to stop the destruc­tion of the most bio-diverse spot of plan­et Earth, we stand up. We stand up to say that we won’t allow an eth­no­cide to hap­pen in front of our eyes. We stand up to tell Pres­i­dent Cor­rea that even if the world failed Yasuní, he is respon­si­ble for the impact that oil drilling will have on this area and the plan­et. We stand up to those who have his­tor­i­cal­ly betrayed our con­sti­tu­tion. We stand up for a ref­er­en­dum where the peo­ple of Ecuador will say “no!” to the destruc­tion of nature and the habi­tat and liveli­hoods of indige­nous peo­ples. Because we believe that a dif­fer­ent Ecuador and a dif­fer­ent world are pos­si­ble; a plan­et where nature doesn’t need to be destroyed and peo­ple don’t have to die so oth­ers can dri­ve. We believe in a post-oil plan­et.

Brazil: Another Belo Monte Occupation; Teles Pires Dam Suspended

Indigenous warriors occupying the construction site of the Belo Monte dam in Brazil, May 2013

20th Sep­tem­ber, Two bits of good news from anti-dam strug­gles in Brazil:

Indigenous warriors occupying the construction site of the Belo Monte dam in Brazil, May 2013

20th Sep­tem­ber, Two bits of good news from anti-dam strug­gles in Brazil:

• On Sep­tem­ber 16, 150 indige­nous peo­ple affect­ed by the con­struc­tion of the Belo Monte Dam com­plex in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon occu­pied one of the project’s prin­ci­ple work camps, halt­ing con­struc­tion activ­i­ties on a sec­tion of the world’s third largest dam. Mem­bers of the local Parakanã and Juruna indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties blocked a main access road to demand that the dam-build­ing con­sor­tium Norte Ener­gia respect its oblig­a­tion to remove land invaders from local indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries. The mobi­liza­tion marks the eighth time Belo Monte has been occu­pied since 2012. Read more.

• The same day, a fed­er­al judge ordered the imme­di­ate sus­pen­sion of con­struc­tion on the Teles Pires hydro­elec­tric project – one of five large dams planned for the Teles Pires Riv­er, a major trib­u­tary of the Tapa­jós Riv­er in the heart of the Brazil­ian Ama­zon. In response to a civ­il law­suit filed by Brazil’s Fed­er­al Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tors’ Office (MPF), the deci­sion cites “unfor­giv­able fail­ures” in the envi­ron­men­tal licens­ing of the dam, espe­cial­ly in terms of pri­or analy­sis of impacts on the Kayabi, Munduruku and Api­a­ka indige­nous peo­ple and their ter­ri­to­ries. Accord­ing to the deci­sion of Judge Souza Pru­dente, con­struc­tion of the Teles Pires Dam con­sor­tium must be halt­ed until the indige­nous com­po­nent of the EIA is com­plet­ed and for­mal­ly approved by FUNAI. Ana­lysts expect the Brazil­ian President’s admin­is­tra­tion to appeal the rul­ing. Read more.

Peruvian Police Fire on Minas Conga Opponents AGAIN

Police protect equipment to be used for the planned Minas Conga gold mine in Cajamarca, Peru

20th Sep­tem­ber 2013, Two pieces from the ongo­ing strug­gle to stop the Minas Con­ga gold mine in Peru.

Police protect equipment to be used for the planned Minas Conga gold mine in Cajamarca, Peru

20th Sep­tem­ber 2013, Two pieces from the ongo­ing strug­gle to stop the Minas Con­ga gold mine in Peru.

First, from World War 4 Report:

Nation­al Police troops in Peru’s north­ern Caja­mar­ca province on Sept. 17 clashed with res­i­dents of Quishuar Cor­ral ham­let who were con­duct­ing reconas­siance of moun­tain trails on their com­mu­nal lands, which they sus­pect­ed the Yana­cocha min­ing com­pa­ny of ille­gal­ly clos­ing to facil­i­tate expan­sion of its oper­a­tions. Four of the vil­lagers were injured, and two hos­pi­tal­ized. Wit­ness­es said the police troops opened fire with­out warn­ing with rub­ber bul­lets and tear-gas can­nis­ters. (RPP, Sept. 17)

The clash took place as a nation­al Sum­mit of Peo­ples Affect­ed by Min­ing opened in the south­ern city of Are­quipa, attend­ed by over 200 rep­re­sen­ta­tives of campesino com­mu­ni­ties through­out Peru’s sier­ras. Among the head­lin­ing speak­ers was Wil­fre­do Saave­dra, leader of the Caja­mar­ca Envi­ron­men­tal Defense Front, who told a ral­ly gath­ered in the city’s Plaza de Armas: “Enough with our nat­ur­al resources being preyed upon and the envi­ron­ment of the coun­try being con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed!”  (La Repub­li­ca, Sept. 16)

Sec­ond, Upside Down World has pub­lished an arti­cle review­ing the his­to­ry of the fight against the mine, includ­ing an analy­sis of the ways in which Peru’s big min­ing push is intrin­si­cal­ly inter­twined with Peru and Brazil’s con­cur­rent push for more big hydro­elec­tric dams in the Ama­zon basin.

Underreported Indigenous Struggles

A drilling site run by Fortune Minerals is shut down by Tahltan, Sept 10, 2013. 18th Sep­tem­ber 2013 Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Cry has released

A drilling site run by Fortune Minerals is shut down by Tahltan, Sept 10, 2013. 18th Sep­tem­ber 2013 Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Cry has released Under­re­port­ed Strug­gles #77.

• Two Maya Q’eqchi chil­dren from Monte Oli­vo com­mu­ni­ty, in Alta Ver­a­paz depart­ment, Guatemala, died from bul­let injuries after being shot by a “hit­man” that was report­ed­ly hired by the com­pa­ny Hidro San­ta Rita SA. Accord­ing to Real World Radio, the two chil­dren, aged 11 and 13, were shot dur­ing the attempt­ed mur­der of David Chen, leader of the resis­tance to the company’s hydro­elec­tric project. No one has been arrest­ed from mur­der of the two chil­dren, David Eduar­do Pacay Maas and Hageo Isaac Gui­tz.

• Three Indige­nous Tolu­pan from Yoro dis­trict in Hon­duras, were mur­dered while car­ry­ing out peace­ful actions to pre­vent ille­gal for­est clear­ing and exploita­tion of nat­ur­al resources in their ter­ri­to­ry. Accord­ing to The Broad Move­ment for Dig­ni­ty and Jus­tice (Movimien­to Amplio por la Dig­nidad y Jus­ti­cia, MADJ), the Tolu­pan had been receiv­ing death threats from indi­vid­u­als who were brazen­ly walk­ing around the com­mu­ni­ty ful­ly armed, pro­vok­ing fear in the res­i­dents of the area. The Nation­al Pre­ven­tive Police Force and var­i­ous gov­ern­ment offi­cials, despite being warned of the threats, failed to take any kind of action to pro­tect the Tolu­pan.

• In British Colom­bia, Cana­da, mem­bers of the well-known Klabona Keep­ers served For­tune Min­er­als Lim­it­ed with a “24-hour evic­tion notice” inform­ing the com­pa­ny that it must vacate the Tahltan’s unced­ed tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry. For­tune Min­er­als ignored the dead­line, lead­ing the Tahltan activists to block the road lead­ing to the site of the company’s pro­posed open pit coal mine. The pro­test­ers then pro­ceed­ed to occu­py some of the company’s drills.

• The Black­feet Trib­al Busi­ness Coun­cil unex­pect­ed­ly can­celled pro­posed oil and gas devel­op­ments near Chief Moun­tain . The moun­tain, locat­ed near the Cana­di­an bor­der and on the bound­ary between the Black­feet Indi­an Reser­va­tion and Glac­i­er Nation­al Park, is con­sid­ered sacred by many of the Black­feet peo­ple; how­ev­er, some mem­bers of the Black­feet busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty (like Ron Cross­guns of the Black­feet Oil and Gas Depart­ment), have deri­sive­ly dis­missed any­thing sacred about the Moun­tain.

• The Oglala Lako­ta passed a res­o­lu­tion oppos­ing the pro­posed Otter Creek coal mine and Tongue Riv­er Rail­road in their his­tor­i­cal home­lands of south­east­ern Mon­tana. The Oglala Lako­ta have thus far been exclud­ed from any con­sul­ta­tions despite the fact that the pro­posed mine site is an area of great cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance con­tain­ing count­less bur­ial sites, human remains, bat­tle sites, stone fea­tures and arti­facts. In addi­tion to call­ing for prop­er con­sul­ta­tion, the Oglala Lako­ta have called on all Trib­al Nations who signed the Fort Laramie Treaty to stand with them in oppos­ing the mine and rail­road.

• The Buf­fa­lo Riv­er Dene Nation is mov­ing for­ward with a plan to reclaim a vast area of tra­di­tion­al land that was seized by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment in 1953. As report­ed by the Domin­ion, the area–Spanning 11,700 square kilo­me­tres along the Alber­ta-Saskatchewan border–has been used for the past 60 years as a tac­ti­cal bomb­ing range; how­ev­er, it is now being opened up to oil and gas extrac­tion activ­i­ties and an Enbridge pipeline. The Buf­fa­lo Riv­er Dene, who were evict­ed from the area, have sim­ply had enough.

• The Nahua Peo­ples in the Peru­vian Ama­zon announced that they will refuse to allow a gas con­sor­tium led by Plus­petrol to oper­ate in their ter­ri­to­ry. In a let­ter that was deliv­ered to the Min­istry of Cul­ture in Lima, the Nahua stat­ed that, “Giv­en the repeat­ed bro­ken promis­es by the com­pa­ny Plus­petrol, our peo­ple have decid­ed to pro­hib­it it from oper­at­ing in our ances­tral ter­ri­to­ry in the head­wa­ters of the Riv­er Ser­jali.” Plus­petrol is cur­rent­ly wait­ing for gov­ern­ment per­mis­sion from the Min­istry of Ener­gy and Mines to explore for deposits by drilling 18 wells and con­duct­ing inten­sive seis­mic tests in the head­wa­ters region of the Riv­er Ser­jali, which the Nahua con­sid­er to be their ter­ri­to­ry.

Read all of Under­re­port­ed Strug­gles #77

Manual for Sabotaging Wolf Hunts Released

“And in that case, we choose to be sabo­teurs for the wild.”

The fol­low­ing text is from a press release of the Earth First! Media office, which pro­vides cor­re­spon­dence to news out­lets around the world.

“And in that case, we choose to be sabo­teurs for the wild.”

The fol­low­ing text is from a press release of the Earth First! Media office, which pro­vides cor­re­spon­dence to news out­lets around the world.

Download the Earth First! Wolf Hunt Sabotage Manual Here

Down­load the Earth First! Wolf Hunt Sab­o­tage Man­u­al Here

by Earth First! News

Earth First! Media has released a man­u­al which pro­vides detailed infor­ma­tion for dis­rupt­ing wolf hunt­ing in those states that allow it. Titled The Earth First! Wolf Hunt­ing Sab­o­tage Man­u­al, the text, com­plete with step-by-step graph­ics, explains how to find and destroy wolf traps, han­dle live trapped wolves in order to release them, and var­i­ous meth­ods, includ­ing the use of air-com­pressed horns and smoke-bombs, for stop­ping wolf hunts.

The authors of the man­u­al describe them­selves as,  “hunters and proud of it,” adding, “But we aren’t proud of what pass­es for hunt­ing these days and espe­cial­ly for what pass­es as ‘sports­man’ hunt­ing. Some­how, the Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion, yup­pie tro­phy hunters, cat­tle barons, and the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion are in cahoots in an effort that promis­es to wipe wolves clean off the plan­et. And in that case, we choose to be sabo­teurs for the wild.”   

The man­u­al, which was sent to Earth First! Media by unknown per­sons call­ing them­selves “the Red­neck Wolf Lovin’ Brigade,” is being pub­lished elec­tron­i­cal­ly at Earth First! News and is being offered for oth­ers to print and dis­trib­ute.

Pana­gi­oti Tsolkas, a cor­re­spon­dent with Earth First! Media, says the man­u­al is being pub­lished in light of region­al delist­ings of wolves in the Great Lakes region and the North­ern Rock­ies since 2011 where sub­se­quent wolf hunts have account­ed for over 1,500 wolves hunt­ed or trapped. “Accord­ing to sev­er­al wildlife agen­cies’ reports, there are few­er than 6,000 wolves left in the low­er 48 states where wolves once num­bered in the hun­dreds of thou­sands,” Tsolkas added.

In June of this year, the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion announced that it plans to push for near­ly all wolves, except­ing those in the U.S. South­west, to be stripped of Endan­gered Species Act pro­tec­tions despite com­pelling evi­dence from numer­ous sci­en­tists that wolves have not recov­ered as a species. “We are com­ing into a new era of wolf geno­cide,” said Tsolkas, adding, “It will be impor­tant for indi­vid­u­als and groups with a pas­sion to pro­tect wolves to take this man­u­al into con­sid­er­a­tion. It will sure­ly save lives, but it is also a very dan­ger­ous under­tak­ing. Wolf hunters have guns and obvi­ous­ly lit­tle morals when it comes to what they shoot.”

Over its 33-year his­to­ry, Earth First! activists have used hunt sab­o­tage to dis­rupt hunts across the coun­try. “This wolf hunt­ing man­u­al could very well spark a new ver­sion of Whale Wars. It’ll be called Wolf Wars.”

Earth First! is an inter­na­tion­al rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ment which began in 1979. The move­ment also pub­lish­es a quar­ter­ly mag­a­zine and online newswire.

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Message To Supporters From Imprisoned Anarchist Hacker Jeremy Hammond

Orig­i­nal­ly Pub­lished August 20, 2013

Rebel greet­ing!

I hope this evening finds you all in the best of health and high­est of spir­it. Thanks for com­ing out to show sup­port for me and Bar­rett Brown.

Orig­i­nal­ly Pub­lished August 20, 2013

Rebel greet­ing!

I hope this evening finds you all in the best of health and high­est of spir­it. Thanks for com­ing out to show sup­port for me and Bar­rett Brown.

I want to shout out to all my broth­ers and sis­ters locked down, here at New York Met­ro­pol­i­tan Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­ter, at Brook­lyn MDC, at Rik­ers Island, in the Tombs, at Cook Coun­ty Jail in Chica­go, and to all those on hunger strikes in Cal­i­for­nia pris­ons and Guan­tanamo Bay.

And to Bradley Man­ning, Bar­rett Brown, Julian Assange, the Tin­ley Park Five, the NATO Five, Jer­ry Koch, and my won­der­ful twin broth­er, Jason Ham­mond.

Also thanks to the folks who put this event togeth­er, who have attend­ed my court dates, who have writ­ten let­ters and sent books, and who went to the noise demon­stra­tions out­side the jail here. Your acts of sol­i­dar­i­ty bring us all great encour­age­ment, inspi­ra­tion, and strength dur­ing these harsh times.

Com­rades, we are up against a racist cap­i­tal­ist pow­er struc­ture that wages wars, destroys the envi­ron­ment and spies on our every move! They lock up mil­lions of peo­ple in cages for “crimes” that cor­rupt gov­ern­ments and mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions also com­mit on an every­day basis and on a greater mag­ni­tude, yet we are the crim­i­nals.

They lock us up for guns and drugs when defense con­trac­tors and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies are the top traffickers.They call us thieves when it’s Wall Street 1%ers who rob us blind, exploit our labor, evict us out of our homes, and get bil­lion dol­lar bailouts.

They con­demn hack­ers and leak­ers when the NSA, CIA, and FBI ille­gal­ly spy on every­body, and wage cyber espi­onage through virus­es and hack­ing for for­eign gov­ern­ment sys­tems.

They put signs every­where that say “If you see some­thing, say some­thing” as if their exten­sive sur­veil­lance cam­era sys­tems aren’t enough, they also want us to become addi­tion­al eyes and ears for the police against our own neigh­bors.

But if you point out sus­pi­cious activ­i­ties of our own gov­ern­ment, if you leak infor­ma­tion that should be free and pub­lic any­way, then they will fol­low you to the ends of the Earth to put you in prison.

Even if you sim­ply report on these leaks, they will dis­cred­it you, sub­poe­na you for your sources, or just put you in prison on a bunch of trumped up charges like they did Bar­rett Brown.

They repress us, infil­trate us, entrap us, harass our fam­i­lies and friends, and call us crim­i­nals, ter­ror­ists, and trai­tors, and break their own laws to try to stop us because we work to expose the truth.

They are scared that if peo­ple know the truth, the day will come when they will have to answer for their own crimes.But can we trust what­ev­er “inde­pen­dent review pan­el” they put togeth­er to inves­ti­gate the NSA? After all the lies and egre­gious ille­gal­i­ty, do you think any of them will be charged or do time? Will we ever be sat­is­fied with any reforms they promise?

The answer is obvi­ous­ly no.

Jus­tice can nev­er be found in their court­rooms.

Yes, we need to elim­i­nate manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tences, but Attor­ney Gen­er­al Eric Hold­er doesn’t give a damn about prison over­crowd­ing.

The Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion is not inter­est­ed in any such debate about “the bal­ance of pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty” because they will keep spy­ing on every­one, regard­less of pub­lic opin­ion, until we stop them.

The time for talk is over, it’s time for col­lec­tive refusal, civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, and direct action. We must sup­port all those who risked their free­dom and lives to expose and con­front the pow­er struc­ture, and con­tin­ue the strug­gle until we stop these wars and the prison walls come crum­bling down and we can all be togeth­er again free and equal!

Yours for the rev­o­lu­tion, Jere­my Ham­mond.

http://www.freehammond.org
http://freeanons.org/
https://www.wepay.com/donations/jeremy-hammond-defense

Peruvian Campesinos Tear Down Mining Gate

A gath­er­ing of campesin@s tore down a gate at the site of the con­tro­ver­sial Con­ga Cop­per Mine in Peru on August 20. The farm­ers claim that Yana­cocha, the com­pa­ny in charge of the mine, built the gate ille­gal­ly in the first place, so there’s real­ly no need to have it there.

A gath­er­ing of campesin@s tore down a gate at the site of the con­tro­ver­sial Con­ga Cop­per Mine in Peru on August 20. The farm­ers claim that Yana­cocha, the com­pa­ny in charge of the mine, built the gate ille­gal­ly in the first place, so there’s real­ly no need to have it there.

The gate would impede a tra­di­tion­al path used by locals to access the impor­tant Lagu­na Namo­co­ha, so campesin@s took up their farm imple­ments and dug it out. Nation­al Police did not inter­vene. If a meet­ing is not held with campesinos, they have promised to tear down two oth­er gates access­ing lagu­nas Azul and Cor­ta­da

The Yana­cocha min­ing com­pa­ny is actu­al­ly a front for the New­mont Min­ing Com­pa­ny based in Den­ver, and they have a ter­ri­ble rep­u­ta­tion in Peru. In 2011, their exist­ing gold mine was halt­ed by a block­ade, dur­ing which time eight machines were torched cost­ing 2 mil­lion dol­lars and kneecap­ping their stock for some time.

The start of the new Con­ga Cop­per Mine has been halt­ed for for over a year by local direct action, includ­ing large block­ades. As recent­ly as June, thou­sands of farm­ers and min­ers gath­ered at El Per­ol Lake to demon­strate against the oblit­er­a­tion of local fresh water.

This from Cli­mate Con­nec­tions:

“Over the course of the ongo­ing occu­pa­tion of the Con­ga site, police have some­times used vio­lence but most­ly sought to avoid con­fronta­tions that could win sym­pa­thy for the pro­test­ers. Qui­et harass­ment of project oppo­nents has con­tin­ued unabat­ed, how­ev­er. On July 28, jour­nal­ist César Estra­da, who has doc­u­ment­ed the occu­pa­tion for local media, was detained near the Con­ga site by agents of the Nation­al Police Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Diec­torate (DINOES) and men in orange safe­ty vests who appeared to be Yana­cocha workers—but, like the police agents, in ski masks. The men con­fis­cat­ed his cam­era, cell phone and wire­less modem before releas­ing him. (Celendin Libre, Aug. 3)

Mobi­liza­tions against oth­er min­er­al and ener­gy develpo­ment projects in Caja­mar­ca are gain­ing ground. Ear­li­er this month, hun­dreds of campesino res­i­dents of San Mar­cos and Cajabam­ba provinces held a five-day cross-coun­try march, dubbed the “March in Defense of the Con­de­bam­ba Val­ley,” to oppose the oper­a­tions of the Sul­li­den Shahuin­do min­ing com­pa­ny, as well as unli­censed “infor­mal” min­ing in the area, which they charge is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing local waters. (Servin­di, Aug. 9 via Con­sul­ta Pre­via)

On Aug. 17, a pub­lic forum was held in the town of Celendín enti­tled “Hydro-elec­tic­i­ty in the Ama­zon: Rivers, Life and Extrac­tive Indus­tries,” ana­lyz­ing the dan­gers posed by 24 new dams planned for the water­shed of the Río Marañón, and espe­cial­ly the Chadín 2 project, intend­ed to spur fur­ther min­er­al devel­op­ment in Caja­mar­ca. Researcher Anto­nio Zam­bra­no Allende of Forum Sol­i­dari­dad Perú said the new thrust of hydro devel­op­ment would result in “thou­sands of forced dis­place­ments” in the regions of Caja­mar­ca and Ama­zonas. The high­land region of Caja­mar­ca strad­dles the con­ti­nen­tal divide that sep­a­rates waters bound for the Pacif­ic from those flow­ing into the Marañón, a major trib­u­tary of the Ama­zon. (Aler­ta­Pe­ru, Aug. 21 via Celendin Libre)

A new report by Peru Top Pub­li­ca­tions finds that min­ing invest­ment in Peru in 2013 has reached a record $9.9 bil­lion, a 15% increase over last year, with 54 major projects planned or already under­way. Peru now ranks eighth in glob­al min­ing invest­ment, and its rank­ing will like­ly advance in the next two years. How­ev­er, the report notes that the coun­try cur­rent­ly lacks the ener­gy capac­i­ty to meet the demands of the new min­ing projects, and a major expan­sion of the elec­tric­i­ty sec­tor will be nec­es­sary for the pro­ject­ed growth in the min­er­al sec­tor. (La Repub­li­ca, June 27)”

www.youtube.com/embed/0bxeWZPRQ7c

Activists Boat onto Sludge Pond; Confront politician on Dangers of Coal Sludge

21 August 2013 – This morn­ing at 7:30 a.m. two activists pad­dled out onto the 2.8 bil­lion gal­lon Shu­mate slur­ry impound­ment in Raleigh Coun­ty with ban­ners read­ing, “Slur­ry Poi­sons Appalachia” and “Gov.

21 August 2013 – This morn­ing at 7:30 a.m. two activists pad­dled out onto the 2.8 bil­lion gal­lon Shu­mate slur­ry impound­ment in Raleigh Coun­ty with ban­ners read­ing, “Slur­ry Poi­sons Appalachia” and “Gov. Tomblin, Put Health Over Prof­it.”  Lat­er this morn­ing, one activist locked him­self to a bar­rel of black water in front of Gov. Tomblin’s man­sion in a Tyvek suit read­ing “Locked to Dirty Water”.   Activists are call­ing atten­tion to the fail­ure of the state gov­ern­ment to pro­tect its cit­i­zens from the abus­es of the coal indus­try and the threats posed by coal slur­ry dis­pos­al.

 

“I grew up in Eunice drink­ing water poi­soned by coal slur­ry, went to Marsh Fork Ele­men­tary under that dam, breathed the dust from that prep plant, and I’ve suf­fered the life­long health con­se­quences of that.  These same abus­es are tak­ing place today across our great state, and the blame for that lies square­ly at the feet of Gov. Tomblin,” said Junior Walk of Rock Creek, W.Va. who attend­ed today’s protest at the Governor’s man­sion.

Coal slur­ry, the tox­ic byprod­uct of “wash­ing” impu­ri­ties out of coal before it is sold, has long been a mat­ter of deep con­cern for area res­i­dents.  Its com­mon dis­pos­al meth­ods have cre­at­ed trag­ic dis­as­ters such as poi­son­ing the pub­lic water sup­plies of Prenter and Eunice, W.Va., and slur­ry floods in Mar­tin Coun­ty, Ky., and Buf­fa­lo Creek, W.Va..  Despite this, evi­dence mounts that West Vir­ginia reg­u­la­tors con­tin­ue to fail at ade­quate­ly reg­u­lat­ing impound­ments.

Just this year, two Office of Sur­face Min­ing (OSM) inves­ti­ga­tions found seri­ous prob­lems with the WV Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Protection’s (DEP) over­sight, both in pre­vent­ing impound­ments from break­ing through into under­ground mines and ensur­ing prop­er com­paction, a key mea­sure of impounde­ment safe­ty.  The com­paction report revealed that over 75 per­cent of tests of coal slur­ry impound­ments in West Vir­ginia failed.  In Feb­ru­ary, the U.S. Depart­ment of Labor asked a fed­er­al judge to order the imme­di­ate shut­down of an impound­ment in Bar­bour Coun­ty that had not been cer­ti­fied by an engi­neer for two years, because mine oper­a­tors were “flout­ing fed­er­al law, ignor­ing vio­la­tions and fines, and putting the pub­lic at risk.” WVDEP had the abil­i­ty to shut down this impound­ment, but it didn’t until weeks after the Dept. of Labor took action.

DEP’s finances reveal its pri­or­i­ties.  Dur­ing its 2011 study of the water and health cri­sis in Prenter, W.Va., the DEP spent over 6 times as much mon­ey hir­ing a pri­vate law firm to sue EPA on behalf of the coal indus­try as it spent on that study.  Mean­while, Dr. Yorem Eck­stein of Kent State Uni­ver­si­ty con­firmed long held com­mu­ni­ty sus­pi­cions that the well water in Prenter had been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with coal slur­ry based on years of water qual­i­ty data.  Despite this evi­dence and exten­sive­ly doc­u­ment­ed health prob­lems includ­ing high inci­dence of brain tumors, DEP’s study on Prenter’s water released last year con­clud­ed that water was uncon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.

“Our politi­cians and reg­u­la­tors say that it’s safe to dump slur­ry in our com­mu­ni­ties, but they don’t want it on their doorstep.  Gov. Tomblin could order to coal indus­try to install fil­ter press­es that would elim­i­nate slur­ry while cre­at­ing jobs for less than a dol­lar a ton,” said Chuck Nel­son, retired UWMA coal min­er of Glen Daniel, W.Va.  “That’s the way it also goes.  Our Gov­er­nor puts the inter­ests of the coal indus­try above the health of our com­mu­ni­ties.”

There is mount­ing evi­dence that coal’s impacts on West Vir­ginia go far beyond coal slur­ry.  New stud­ies con­tin­ue to doc­u­ment the dam­age to com­mu­ni­ty health and water qual­i­ty from out of con­trol min­ing, but Gov. Tomblin con­tin­ues to blind­ly defend the indus­try.  Gov. Tomblin has not only ignored the evi­dence of the coal industry’s impacts on the health of West Vir­ginia com­mu­ni­ties, he has also reject­ed calls for alter­na­tive eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in the face of a declin­ing coal indus­try.  Cen­tral Appalachia is in the midst of a steep decline as pre­dict­ed by many indus­try ana­lysts.

“I was scared on the impound­ment, but I am more ter­ri­fied of the coal industry’s con­tin­ued dis­re­gard for human life and land. After tak­ing all of the coal, Alpha will aban­don Appalachia in order to find oth­er resources and com­mu­ni­ties to extract,” said Ric­ki Drap­er, one of the two activists that boat­ed onto the sludge impound­ment.

ELF fight to save Moscow park

August 20, 2013 — Rus­sia

anony­mous report, from From Rus­sia With Love:

August 20, 2013 — Rus­sia

anony­mous report, from From Rus­sia With Love:

“About two weeks ago we torched a tracked exca­va­tor at the place where work­ers were destroy­ing Ismailo­vo park. The vehi­cle was parked on the side of the high­way, where they were adding more lanes to the road. It took us 3–4 min­utes to do the job. We approached. We set up our load of rags, no rush (we tar­get­ed spots between the cock­pit, engine room and hydraulics in the arm). Added some gaso­line and set it on fire. Quick­ly ran to the oppo­site side of the street, took our bot­tles of beer from bags and head­ed towards the near­by sub­way sta­tion. After about 10 min­utes of walk­ing we saw a fire­fight­er brigade (all noisy and flashy) dri­ving to the place of recent eco­tage (they would be just in time to save the smok­ing remains).

Words of encour­age­ment to our Ukran­ian com­rades who for rea­sons unknown sus­pend­ed all activ­i­ty. We would also like to men­tion our rage at the sen­tence of Igor ‘Squash’ Kharchenko: http://grani.ru/Society/Law/m.217970.html [antifas­cist from Moscow, sen­tenced to prison after a con­tro­ver­sial tri­al despite all evi­dence prov­ing his inno­cence]

Have no doubt, we will avenge him.

- ELF-Moscow”

Tense Situation in Tibet After Crackdown on Mine Protests

Tibet-Mining-Dzatoe

Tibet-Mining-Dzatoe

20th August 2013

Emerg­ing reports from Tibet say over hun­dred Tibetans were injured and one man com­mit­ted sui­cide in Yul­shul Coun­ty, Kham region of east­ern Tibet, after a mas­sive crack­down car­ried out by armed Chi­nese mil­i­tary forces to dis­perse Tibetans peace­ful­ly protest­ing against dia­mond min­ing in the region.

“The pro­tes­tors were severe­ly beat­en by Chi­nese secu­ri­ty forces with gun butts and hurl­ing tear gas to dis­perse the peace­ful protest­ing against dia­mond min­ing in Yul­shul Coun­ty in east­ern Tibet. The sit­u­a­tion remains tense in the coun­ty, as there is a grow­ing anger over the severe crack­down,” sources said.

“Local Tibetans are con­cerned that the min­ing activ­i­ties are not sanc­tioned by the Cen­tral gov­ern­ment offi­cials and that they could trig­ger envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems, includ­ing pol­lu­tion. Pro­test­ers raised their hands and shout­ed slo­gans such as “stop the destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment”, while putting up large ban­ners dis­play­ing Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping and his recent envi­ron­ment speech,” Ven Kon­chok told The Tibet Post Inter­na­tion­al (TPI), cit­ing sources in the region.

“Over hun­dred Tibetans were wound­ed in the Chi­nese crack­down, while at least eight Tibetans were arrest­ed and 15 oth­ers tak­en to a hos­pi­tal. The total num­bers of injured and arrest­ed still can­not be con­firmed, this hos­pi­tal alone treat­ing 15 pro­test­ers,” said Kon­chok Dhondup, Tibetan monk cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Dharamsha­la, cit­ing local con­tacts.

“Over 1,000 Tibetans gath­ered to protest against the min­ing activ­i­ties in each of the three sacred Bud­dhist sites in Yul­shul Coun­ty. The mas­sive crack­down fol­lowed a tense con­fronta­tion between local Tibetan pro­tes­tors and Chi­nese min­er work­ers at three sacred Bud­dhist sites hav­ing dia­mond reserves in Dza­toe in Yul­shul Coun­ty (Chi­nese: Yushu Pre­fec­ture in Qing­hai Province) since August 13.

“A Tibetan man iden­ti­fied as Sokpo Choedup was seri­ous­ly injured after what appears to be a self-inflict­ed knife wounds and was tak­en away by Chi­nese police,” Ven Kon­chok said.

China-Army-Tibet“Hun­dreds of armed mil­i­tary forces imme­di­ate­ly arrived at the holy sites,” said Kon­chok. “Over 500 armed police stormed holy sites in Atod Yult­so and Zachen Yult­so and fired tear­gas to dis­perse the pro­tes­tors. The pro­tes­tors were tor­tured, severe­ly beat­en with gun butts, threat­ened with being shot if they don’t end their protests,” he added.

“The local Tibetans how­ev­er com­plained that the min­ing work­ers increase envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion in the coun­ty, that against China’s envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion law and are car­ried out by the work­ers in coor­di­na­tion with cor­rupt state and local offi­cials, with­out sanc­tions from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment,” he fur­ther added.

Kon­chok stat­ed that the Chi­nese secu­ri­ty forces have planned a major crack­down on those sit­ting in protest at Chi-dza holy site on August 17.

“China’s large-scale exploita­tion of min­er­al resources in Tibet has led to sus­tained socio-eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems. Mas­sive influx of Chi­nese migrant work­ers into Tibetan areas deprives Tibetans of employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties,” said the Cen­tral Tibetan Admin­is­tra­tion (CTA) baed in Dharam­sala-India after the inci­dent.

The CTA said it has “repeat­ed­ly called on Chi­na to ensure active par­tic­i­pa­tion of Tibetan peo­ple in all deci­sion mak­ing process and that social, envi­ron­men­tal and cul­tur­al impacts assess­ment are car­ried out.”