Category: Global

Glob­al

Two emails re US evidence Cherney Bari bomb

Dar­ryl Cher­ney and Judi Bari were both mem­bers of the IWW at the time.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_16025546

SAN FRANCISCO — The sur­vivor of an Oak­land car bomb­ing reopened a 20-year-old case Wednes­day when he asked a fed­er­al judge to bar the FBI from destroy­ing bomb frag­ments he argued could con­tain evi­dence.

Dar­ryl Cher­ney and Judi Bari were both mem­bers of the IWW at the time.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_16025546

SAN FRANCISCO — The sur­vivor of an Oak­land car bomb­ing reopened a 20-year-old case Wednes­day when he asked a fed­er­al judge to bar the FBI from destroy­ing bomb frag­ments he argued could con­tain evi­dence.

Author­i­ties this week said they exhaust­ed all leads and noti­fied the lawyers that evi­dence from the bomb­ing would be destroyed. Judge James Larsen ordered the FBI to pre­serve the evi­dence until the court decides how to resolve the issue.

The Earth First activist, Dar­ryl Cher­ney, claimed the FBI still has two sets of bomb rem­nants that could con­tain DNA evi­dence, as well as a hand-let­tered sign and duct tape. The evi­dence could lead author­i­ties to the iden­ti­ty of the per­son who plant­ed a bomb in Cher­ney’s car, which explod­ed in Oak­land two decades ago.

Lawyers for Cher­ney filed the motion Wednes­day before U.S. Dis­trict Judge James Larsen.

Cher­ney won a $4.4 mil­lion law­suit against the FBI and Oak­land police for civ­il rights vio­la­tions com­mit­ted against him and fel­low Earth First orga­niz­er Judi Bari relat­ed to the bomb­ing.

The two were on their way to a Save the Red­woods Fes­ti­val in San­ta Cruz when the bomb explod­ed May 24, 1990.

The blast ripped through the floor­board, seri­ous­ly injur­ing Bari. Cher­ney suf­fered minor injuries.

Oak­land police and the FBI claimed the cou­ple made the bomb. They said the bomb explod­ed acci­den­tal­ly and arrest­ed Cher­ney and Bari on felony explo­sive charges. The FBI lat­er admit­ted the bomb was not in the back seat as agents pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed but that it was placed under the dri­ver’s seat, accord­ing to a KGO Radio report.

Also, the nails in the bomb did not match oth­ers found in oth­er parts of the car.

The charges against Bari and Cher­ney were lat­er dropped by the Alame­da Coun­ty dis­trict attor­ney, who cit­ed insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to pro­ceed fur­ther. Bari died of can­cer in 1997.

Both charged that the FBI and Oak­land police nev­er con­duct­ed a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion, tar­get­ing only Bari and Cher­ney as sus­pects. A fed­er­al jury award­ed $4.4 mil­lion to Cher­ney and Bar­i’s estate in 2002. Jury mem­bers said their civ­il rights were vio­lat­ed when the FBI and Oak­land police arrest­ed them and ille­gal­ly searched their homes.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/08/BANR1FAM6L.DTL

(09–08) 16:54 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — It’s an infa­mous case that nev­er seems to go away, even after mil­lions of dol­lars have been paid out in civ­il set­tle­ments and police say the trail has gone cold.

The case is the 1990 bomb­ing in Oak­land of Earth First envi­ron­men­tal activists Judi Bari and Dar­ryl Cher­ney, who were near­ly killed when a nail-stud­ded explo­sive device blew up in their car.

Nobody was ever charged with the attack, and now, two decades lat­er, the FBI wants to destroy the last bits of evi­dence it has been stor­ing ever since the inves­ti­ga­tion drib­bled dry — rem­nants of the bomb and one like it that blew up in a North Bay town a few days ear­li­er.

Not so fast, says Cher­ney, 54, who has nev­er giv­en up try­ing to solve the case him­self.

Say­ing in court briefs that the evi­dence “pro­vides the last best hope for learn­ing who bombed Judi Bari,” Cher­ney and his lawyers were in fed­er­al court Wednes­day in San Fran­cis­co to try to force the FBI to turn the evi­dence over to them so they can run DNA and oth­er tests on it.

They man­aged to get U.S. Mag­is­trate Judge James Lar­son to order the evi­dence pre­served for 30 days while he decides its fate, but the judge indi­cat­ed the clock is tick­ing fast — and not in Cher­ney’s favor.
Main­tain­ing inter­est

“Frankly, I think it would behoove your side to talk to some­one in the attor­ney gen­er­al’s office to see if they can get inter­est­ed in this,” Lar­son told Cher­ney’s attor­ney, Den­nis Cun­ning­ham, refer­ring to the U.S. attor­ney gen­er­al’s office.

The idea would be for fed­er­al author­i­ties — or any­one involved in inves­ti­gat­ing the bomb­ing two decades ago — to reopen the case, or at least indi­cate enough inter­est to want to hang on to the FBI’s evi­dence.

Fail­ing that, the judge seemed inclined to let the agency go ahead and destroy the pieces of the explo­sives. He did say, how­ev­er, that he would do more research and con­sult with those who pre­vi­ous­ly dealt with the issue in court before he makes his deci­sion.
‘Hard to accept’

That gave Cher­ney’s back­ers hope, and they said Wednes­day they would be check­ing with inves­ti­ga­tors and pros­e­cu­tors to see if any­one wants to take pos­ses­sion of the bomb bits.

“There’s no rea­son they can’t keep these two box­es,” Cun­ning­ham said. “It’s hard to accept that these things have no more use when the bomber or bombers have nev­er been found.”

At issue are the rem­nants of the bomb that blew up in Bar­i’s car on May 24, 1990, on Park Boule­vard, and of a sim­i­lar device that par­tial­ly explod­ed in Cloverdale on May 9. The Cloverdale bomb explod­ed at the Louisiana-Pacif­ic Corp. mill, caus­ing min­i­mal dam­age, and was accom­pa­nied by a card­board sign read­ing, “LP screws mill work­ers.”

Both bombs are pre­sumed to have been made by the same per­son — some­one who sent a let­ter to the San­ta Rosa Press Demo­c­rat, sign­ing it as “the Lord’s Avenger” and giv­ing details that law enforce­ment said only the bomber would know. The evi­dence is being kept in two box­es in an FBI stor­age room in San Fran­cis­co.
Fin­ger­prints sought

“We need to be able to look at these bomb parts, do DNA test­ing on them, use them to try to find out who bombed us,” Cher­ney, who lives in Gar­berville (Hum­boldt Coun­ty), said after the hear­ing. By try­ing to destroy the parts, he said, “the FBI is run­ning cov­er for the bomber.”

He said he also wants copies of two fin­ger­prints lift­ed from evi­dence in the case that inves­ti­ga­tors said nev­er yield­ed a sol­id lead.

The like­li­hood that anoth­er agency will want to take over the evi­dence or reopen the case seems slim. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Oak­land Police Depart­ment and FBI said they con­sid­er the case closed, as did Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Joseph Sher when he argued on the FBI’s behalf Wednes­day in court.

“We see no rea­son for this evi­dence to be retained,” Sher said after the hear­ing. “The inves­ti­ga­tion is done.”

The FBI, he added, does­n’t rou­tine­ly hand over evi­dence to pri­vate cit­i­zens, espe­cial­ly not bombs.

Cher­ney and Bari were injured when the bomb, locat­ed on the floor behind the dri­ver’s seat of her Sub­aru sta­tion wag­on, explod­ed as the two were head­ed to a ral­ly to begin a cam­paign of protests to pro­tect old-growth forests, called Red­wood Sum­mer.

Inves­ti­ga­tors prompt­ly brand­ed the two as eco-ter­ror­ists, and Cher­ney and Bari were soon arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of hav­ing cob­bled up the bomb them­selves. But pros­e­cu­tors dropped the case weeks lat­er.
Suc­cess­ful civ­il law­suit

The pair filed a civ­il law­suit against the FBI and the Oak­land Police Depart­ment for false arrest and slan­der. Although Bari died of can­cer in 1997, Cher­ney pur­sued the case until he won a $4 mil­lion set­tle­ment in 2004 from the agen­cies. He split the mon­ey with Bar­i’s estate.

“I want to make it clear,” said Cher­ney, who is still with Earth First. “We are going to get those bomb com­po­nents. If they’re done, hand them over.”

E‑mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan@sfchronicle.com.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/08/BANR1FAM6L.DTL#ixzz0z0xTGRxF

Solidarity needed for russian anarchist forest defenders

The Russ­ian move­ment to defend the Khim­ki for­est is a move­ment defend­ing all forests. If cor­po­ra­tions and politi­cians work­ing in the inter­est of a glob­al neolib­er­al and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive mod­el is able to exploit the Khim­ki for­est and con­tin­ue repress­ing the activists in spite of a his­tor­i­cal­ly broad and strong move­ment in Rus­sia defend­ing the for­est, than it can be done any­where.

The Russ­ian move­ment to defend the Khim­ki for­est is a move­ment defend­ing all forests. If cor­po­ra­tions and politi­cians work­ing in the inter­est of a glob­al neolib­er­al and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive mod­el is able to exploit the Khim­ki for­est and con­tin­ue repress­ing the activists in spite of a his­tor­i­cal­ly broad and strong move­ment in Rus­sia defend­ing the for­est, than it can be done any­where. Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the activists is the only way to both stop repres­sion and to save the Khim­ki for­est more per­ma­nent­ly. Please join the action called for by our Russ­ian friends!

Patrick Bond, Cen­tre for Civ­il Soci­ety Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Project, Dur­ban, South Africa

Mark Brown, Art Not Oil/Rising Tide, UK

Car­men Buer­ba de Comite de Defen­sa Eco­log­i­ca Michoa­cana, Mex­i­co

Nico­la Bullard, Focus on the Glob­al South, Thai­land

Ellie Cij­vat, Friends of the Earth Swe­den

Joshua Kahn Rus­sell, Ruckus Soci­ety, USA

Tom Kucharz, Ecol­o­gis­tas en Acción, Spain

Maduresh Kumar, Nation­al Alliance of Peo­ple’s Move­ments, India

Marea Cre­ciente Mex­i­co

Adri­ana Mat­a­lon­ga, Miguel Valen­cia y Mauri­cio Vil­le­gas from Eco­mu­nidades and Klimaforum10, Mex­i­co

Uddhab Pyakurel, South Asian Dia­logue on Eco­log­i­cal Democ­ra­cy, India

Josie Rif­faud, Via Campesina, France

Marko Ulvi­la and Thomas Wall­gren, Democ­ra­cy Forum Vasud­hai­va Kutum­bakam, Fin­land

You find infor­ma­tion and the call for action Sep­tem­ber 17–20 issued by Cam­paign for the Release of the Khim­ki Hostages in many lan­guages at www.khimkibattle.org. Below you find the text in Eng­lish, Span­ish, and French and more links on the issue.

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A Call for Inter­na­tion­al Days of Action in Sup­port of Alex­ei Gaskarov and Max­im Solopov

Sep­tem­ber 17­20, 2010

On July 28, 2010, more than two hun­dred young antifas­cists and anar­chists car­ried out a spon­ta­neous demon­stra­tion out­side the town admin­is­tra­tion build­ing in Khim­ki, a sub­urb of Moscow. They demon­strat­ed in defence of the Khim­ki For­est, which was at that time in the process of beings cut­ting down
for the needs of big busi­ness. The demon­stra­tion, dur­ing which sev­er­al win­dows were bro­ken, received a great deal of pub­lic atten­tion. The author­i­ties respond­ed with a wave of repres­sions. The day after the demon­stra­tion, two well-known social activists, Alex­ei Gaskarov and Max­im Solopov, were arrest­ed. They are now threat­ened with up to sev­en years in
prison for dis­or­der­ly con­duct, although there is no evi­dence of their com­plic­i­ty in ille­gal activ­i­ties. Mean­while, the police con­tin­ue to hunt down and harass oth­er activists, espe­cial­ly those involved in the antifas­cist move­ment.

The cam­paign to save the Khim­ki For­est has been going on for the past three years. The author­i­ties had decid­ed to build a seg­ment of a planned Moscow­Saint Peters­burg toll high­way, the first of its kind in Rus­sia, through the for­est. This would lead to the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions in the region, and local res­i­dents and Mus­covites would be deprived of yet anoth­er recre­ation zone. Despite the avail­abil­i­ty of alter­na­tive routes that would not require clear-cut­ting the for­est and
vig­or­ous protests by envi­ron­men­tal­ists and ordi­nary cit­i­zens against the planned route, the author­i­ties f0r a long time ignored the voice of soci­ety and on sev­er­al occa­sions took mea­sures to sup­press their crit­ics.

Khim­ki author­i­ties and the high­way project con­trac­tor have used vio­lence and oth­er tac­tics against Khim­ki For­est defend­ers. They refused to give per­mis­sion for protest demon­stra­tions, recruit­ed nation­al­ist thugs to break
up a peace­ful protest camp orga­nized by envi­ron­men­tal­ists and local res­i­dents, and ille­gal­ly arrest­ed and beat up jour­nal­ists cov­er­ing the sto­ry. Near­ly two years ago, Mikhail Beke­tov, edi­tor-in-chief of the news­pa­per Khimkin­skaya Prav­da and a crit­ic of the local admin­is­tra­tion, was severe­ly beat­en by per­sons unknown; the attack left Beke­tov per­ma­nent­ly
dis­abled. Sergei Pro­tozanov, the lay­out design­er of anoth­er local oppo­si­tion paper, was mur­dered in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances six months lat­er.

After the July 28 demon­stra­tion, the Russ­ian police and secret ser­vices unleashed an unprece­dent­ed drag­net against antifas­cists. Peo­ple who had even just once come to the atten­tion of the Cen­ter for Extrem­ism Pre­ven­tion and
FSB for their involve­ment with the antifas­cist move­ment have been forcibly tak­en in for ques­tion­ing. In sev­er­al cas­es they have been sub­ject­ed to harsh phys­i­cal coer­cion in order to com­pel them to give the tes­ti­mo­ny required by inves­ti­ga­tors. In addi­tion, ille­gal search­es have been car­ried out in their apart­ments. All these actions on the part of law enforce­ment
author­i­ties are vio­la­tions of Russ­ian and inter­na­tion­al law.

Fright­ened by the numer­ous and grow­ing protests against the clear-cut­ting of the Khim­ki For­est, the author­i­ties have final­ly made con­ces­sions by agree­ing to review the advis­abil­i­ty of the planned route for the toll high­way. But this does not mean vic­to­ry. Alex­ei Gaskarov and Max­im Solopov are still in
police cus­tody for no rea­son at all. They are hostages of the author­i­ties.

In late Sep­tem­ber, the next hear­ing in their case will take place. The judge will decide whether to keep them in police cus­tody pend­ing com­ple­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion and tri­al. Every­one who cares about the fate of these two young men must do every­thing in their pow­er to see that they are set free.
The Cam­paign for the Release of the Khim­ki Hostages calls on peo­ple around the world to orga­nize days of action on Sep­tem­ber 17, 18, 19, and 20 to pres­sure the Russ­ian author­i­ties to release Alex­ei and Max­im.

We ask you to hold protests out­side of Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion embassies, con­sulates, trade mis­sions, and cul­tur­al cen­ters, as well as at pub­lic events and con­certs con­nect­ed to Rus­sia. We also ask you to send faxes,e‑mails, and protest let­ters to the court, the pros­e­cu­tor¹s office, and the coun­try¹s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship. In the very near­future we will inform you of
address­es where you can send these protests as well as more details about the ongo­ing repres­sions in Rus­sia. Look for this infor­ma­tion on our web­site

http://khimkibattle.org in Eng­lish, Ger­man, Russ­ian, and French.

Join our cam­paign!

Cam­paign for the Release of the Khim­ki Hostages

+7 (915) 053‑5912 * info@khimkibattle.org * http://khimkibattle.org

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Back ground infor­ma­tion:

Chtode­lat news, Khim­ki Ter­ri­to­ry of Law­less­ness
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/khimki-territory-of-lawlessness/

Why we need sol­i­dar­i­ty with Russ­ian envi­ron­men­tal­ists and antifas­cists
http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1748

Website Revamp

May 2011
We are real­ly very sor­ry for the extra­or­di­nary hic­cough with this site — this is the first time we’ve been able to even edit this mes­sage — it’s been so frus­trat­ing for every­one!

May 2011
We are real­ly very sor­ry for the extra­or­di­nary hic­cough with this site — this is the first time we’ve been able to even edit this mes­sage — it’s been so frus­trat­ing for every­one!

It’s work­ing now (apart from old images not being acces­si­ble), and being grad­u­al­ly repop­u­lat­ed with the news we’ve missed. There’s a new Resources sec­tion too. Let us know (via sub­mit sto­ry) any­thing that could be bet­ter.

We hope by the end of the process you’ll feel wel­comed back with open arms, with new bells and whis­tles on their way. Thank you for bear­ing with us, and we look for­ward to your sto­ries again mak­ing this a valu­able resource for all.

Trashing, dashing, bashing, mashing: the new EF! Action Update

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

So what have you been up to the last few months? Just hang­ing around?
Maybe you’ve been part of human wheel-clamp­ing aero­planes, climb­ing up scaf­fold­ing tripods incon­ve­nient­ly placed in the road, smash­ing machines at open-cast mines, play­ing nuked-dead in the street, kayak­ing against bore­hole drill rigs in Ire­land, burn­ing mobile phone masts, resist­ing Tesco, camp­ing against trash­ing of wood­land, with some suc­cess at Tit­nore (& oth­er protest camp updates), or get­ting in on BP’s act, spilling oil in pub­lic places.

Or have you been on hol­i­day, tak­ing part in indige­nous block­ades against log­ging, dams and min­ing, spilunk­ing against high speed trains, slash­ing tuna cages, blockad­ing Mon­san­to HQ, trash­ing GM fields, and more?

Maybe you’re in need of a break. But if you’re not, and are just champ­ing at the bit, the return of AUn­tie MIffy’s prob­lem page might help, address­ing what to do if there’s no local group near you. There’s an arti­cle about the begin­nings of EF! in this coun­try, look­ing for­wards to the next 20 years, to help inspire. If you need sup­port to get things going where you live, do get in touch. And if all that’s not enough, here’s a quo­ta­tion, from Paul Wat­son, the Sea Shep­herd cap­tain:

“Future gen­er­a­tions will not have the chance and those that came before us did not have the vision nor the knowl­edge. It is up to us — you and I.”

Print ver­sion
Oth­er issues and extra info

Protesters attack Russian town hall to save forest

2010-07-29
A band of 100 masked peo­ple staged a vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal protest in a qui­et Moscow sub­urb, hurl­ing Molo­tov cock­tails and fire­works at city hall while object­ing to plans for clear­ing a local for­est for high­way con­struc­tion, Russ­ian police said.

2010-07-29
A band of 100 masked peo­ple staged a vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal protest in a qui­et Moscow sub­urb, hurl­ing Molo­tov cock­tails and fire­works at city hall while object­ing to plans for clear­ing a local for­est for high­way con­struc­tion, Russ­ian police said.

The cen­turies-old oak for­est in Khim­ki has been a focus of con­tro­ver­sy for years, as author­i­ties plan to cut down much of the woods to make way for a major high­way along the increas­ing­ly jammed route from Moscow to Shereme­tye­vo Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. In 2008, a local jour­nal­ist who report­ed on the issue was bru­tal­ly beat­en and left crip­pled and brain-dam­aged.

Late Wednes­day about 90 uniden­ti­fied peo­ple attacked Khim­ki city hall, Moscow region­al police said.

Russ­ian tele­vi­sion broad­cast ama­teur video footage show­ing masked attack­ers throw­ing fire­works and bot­tles at the build­ing, on which they had spray-paint­ed “Save Russ­ian forests” and “No to Khim­ki for­est clear­ing.” Khim­ki offi­cials said the attack­ers also threw Molo­tov cock­tails.

City hall secu­ri­ty offi­cers stayed inside the build­ing, and called police after the assailants had left, Khim­ki police chief Vik­tor Tanasiy­chuk said.

“Nat­u­ral­ly, police squads did not find any­one at the scene when they arrived,” he said. Police said the attack­ers then left on a sub­ur­ban train to Moscow.

No one was arrest­ed at the scene, but police lat­er detained nine envi­ron­men­tal­ists who have lived in the for­est to stop log­gers from clear­ing the trees. The activists denied any involve­ment in Wednes­day’s attack, and a police spokesman con­firmed they were not sus­pect­ed in the attack. The spokesman said the activists instead are sus­pect­ed of dis­turb­ing pub­lic order and resist­ing police, but he did not elab­o­rate.

The head of the coun­try’s Union of Envi­ron­men­tal Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Orga­ni­za­tions, Andrey Morgu­ly­ov, accused police of detain­ing the activists to derail their plans to meet Thurs­day with the Russ­ian deputy nat­ur­al resources min­is­ter and to attend a ses­sion Fri­day of the Pub­lic Cham­ber on the Khim­ki for­est.

Envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­ers have become increas­ing­ly vocal in Rus­sia in the recent years.

Thou­sands of peo­ple took to Moscow’s streets after Prime Min­is­ter Vladimir Putin signed an order this year to reopen a paper mill on Lake Baikal, the world’s old­est and deep­est lake now believed to be under seri­ous threat from indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion and devel­op­ment. The lake holds an esti­mat­ed 1,500 unique species of plants and ani­mals.

Bruised over Teghut: Environmental pressure group defiant after protest breakup, Armenia

29.07.10
Police used force on Wednes­day to break up a protest in Yere­van near a com­mer­cial bank that intends to loan a con­tro­ver­sial min­ing project in north­ern Arme­nia. Activists were at VTB bank to protest its financ­ing of Armen­ian Cop­per Programme’s (ACP) devel­op­ment of a mine in Teghut.

Teghu protest29.07.10
Police used force on Wednes­day to break up a protest in Yere­van near a com­mer­cial bank that intends to loan a con­tro­ver­sial min­ing project in north­ern Arme­nia. Activists were at VTB bank to protest its financ­ing of Armen­ian Cop­per Programme’s (ACP) devel­op­ment of a mine in Teghut.

The activists demand­ed that VTB should stop the fund­ing of the “anti-eco­log­i­cal and ille­gal Teghut project”, pub­li­cize the Bank’s envi­ron­men­tal cri­te­ria [for loan pro­grams] and the names of those who have devel­oped these cri­te­ria. The pro­test­ers fur­ther called for an end to what they call a con­temp­tu­ous atti­tude towards soci­ety, for hon­or­ing the prin­ci­ples of trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty and also demand­ed that clear answers be giv­en to let­ters of envi­ron­men­tal and human rights orga­ni­za­tions.

The Gov­ern­ment made the deci­sion on devel­op­ing the cop­per and molyb­de­num mine in Teghut in Novem­ber 2007, giv­ing ACP a license for 25 years. This is the first case when the gov­ern­ment allows min­ing amid a for­est site. The Teghut mine – in the lush province of Lori – is the sec­ond largest in Arme­nia, after the cop­per and molyb­de­num mine in Kajaran in south­ern Arme­nia. Experts esti­mate that the mine in Teghut con­tains more than 1.6 mil­lion tons of cop­per and 100,000 tons of molyb­de­num.

From the very out­set envi­ron­men­tal­ists in Arme­nia care­ful­ly mon­i­tored the government’s deci­sion to devel­op the mine, con­stant­ly voic­ing con­cerns about pos­si­ble irrepara­ble loss to the envi­ron­ment (dam­age to the eco sys­tem, dis­ap­pear­ance of some of the rare species of flo­ra and fau­na, threats to pub­lic health because of tail­ings, etc.). ACP offi­cials, mean­while, argue that the min­ing indus­try will cre­ate new jobs for the local pop­u­la­tion and will con­sid­er­ably improve the social con­di­tions in the province and gen­er­al­ly will con­tribute to the country’s eco­nom­ic growth. Despite the per­ceived ben­e­fits, how­ev­er, ACP seemed to be expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in find­ing a finan­cial part­ner for the Teghut mine oper­a­tion.

Russ­ian-owned VTB has decid­ed this year to pro­vide ACP with a promised sum of about $300 mil­lion. So far only a small part of the loan has been pro­vid­ed, and the pro­vi­sion of the basic sum has been delayed because of the finan­cial cri­sis.

At first, the activists demand­ed to see VTB man­age­ment, but when nobody approached them, they sat on the bank steps, hin­der­ing cus­tomers and employ­ees from enter­ing. The demon­stra­tors demand­ed that the bank cus­tomers should not use the ser­vices of a bank that pro­motes “the destruc­tion of Arme­nia”.

Police arrived to dis­perse the pro­test­ers. In the ensu­ing scuf­fle, chair­man of the Green Par­ty of Arme­nia Armen Dovlatyan was among those who suf­fered minor scrapes.

The activists also turned to the Ombudsman’s office, whose rep­re­sen­ta­tive heard them and said: “We will decide what to do” – and then left.

Ecol­o­gist Karine Danielyan, who in the end also joined the demon­stra­tors, says that the eco­nom­ic prof­it from the oper­a­tion of the mine will nev­er be near enough to off­set the envi­ron­men­tal dam­ages caused by it. Accord­ing to her, it will take years to com­pen­sate for the forests now being destroyed.

“And forests not only in the ter­ri­to­ry of the mine oper­a­tion will be destroyed, but also upper forests, because water will descend into that cav­i­ty and the upper forests will dry out,” says Danielyan, adding that the local water resources also get con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and the bio­di­ver­si­ty of the for­est is van­ish­ing.

Urban development in Mexico attacked by elves

On the night of July 27 we made a bon­fire with prop­er­ty belong­ing to destroy­ers of the Earth.

Mexico ELF attackOn the night of July 27 we made a bon­fire with prop­er­ty belong­ing to destroy­ers of the Earth.

In the Dinamos woods in the Mag­dale­na Con­tr­eras sec­tion of Mex­i­co City, there is an urban expan­sion project that is still in the ear­ly stages of con­struc­tion. It involves the cre­ation of deep wells that would take water from the riv­er with the goal of urban expan­sion and anthro­pocen­tric progress.

For that rea­son veg­an elves are respon­si­ble for the fol­low­ing sab­o­tages:
‑We blocked the wells with stones, bricks, blocks and rub­ble, pre­vent­ing the riv­er water from flow­ing through its pipes.
‑We graf­fi­tied the machines and the con­struc­tion mate­r­i­al with slo­gans such as ‘Stop urban expan­sion’, ‘No more civ­i­liza­tion of wild envi­ron­ments’ and ‘Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra’
‑We burned three machines using incen­di­ary devices, includ­ing: two bull­doz­ers and a small machine that removes rub­ble; the small­est device was placed in the first one at the ped­als, in the sec­ond one the win­dow was shat­tered with rocks and the device was put in the cab­in and in the third machine the device was placed on the cables.

We fled into the night with­out a trace. The dam­age was in the thou­sands of pesos. We want to make it clear that what we did was in defense of the earth, which is destroyed every day by ego-cen­trism and author­i­tar­i­an­ism, but for every wild or semi-wild envi­ron­ment destroyed, hun­dreds of their machines and prop­er­ties will be destroyed and left unus­able. Let this serve as a les­son to the exploiters of the earth!

This action ded­i­cat­ed to the ani­mal lib­er­a­tion war­rior in the Unit­ed States, Wal­ter Bond, recent­ly jailed for three fires against ani­mal exploita­tion com­pa­nies. Ded­i­cat­ed as well in sup­port of Leo in Italy, and to Adri­an and Abra­ham.

Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra /Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front

Last resort?: Gegharkunik residents turn into live shield to protect their river, Armenia

A live shield appeared yes­ter­day, July 19, on the Yere­van-Sevan high­way, when the res­i­dents of the Gegharku­nik province blocked the road to express their protest against the con­struc­tion of a hydropow­er plant on the Gay­lad­zor stream of the Argitchi Riv­er.

River ArgitchiA live shield appeared yes­ter­day, July 19, on the Yere­van-Sevan high­way, when the res­i­dents of the Gegharku­nik province blocked the road to express their protest against the con­struc­tion of a hydropow­er plant on the Gay­lad­zor stream of the Argitchi Riv­er.

Since the morn­ing about 500 res­i­dents from six vil­lages blocked the Yere­van-Mar­touni sec­tion of the Sevan high­way for about five hours par­a­lyz­ing traf­fic for more than 1,000 cars. Lat­er on, Gegharku­nik marzpetaran (local admin­is­tra­tion body) employ­ees arrived, and asked for ten days to set­tle the issue.

“Res­i­dents turned to all com­pe­tent gov­ern­ment bod­ies, and they had noth­ing else left to do in this respect. They are ready to repeat the same step in ten days unless some­thing is changed for the bet­ter,” Lian­na Asoy­an, coor­di­na­tor of the Aarhus Cen­ter in Armenia’s Gegharku­nik province, told Arme­ni­aNow.

The riv­er Argitchi is the biggest among 28 rivers flow­ing into Lake Sevan. It secures 12 cen­time­ters for the rise of the lake lev­el annu­al­ly. The riv­er pro­vides irri­ga­tion water for more than 30,000 res­i­dents of six vil­lages in Geghark­ounik province. If the project of chang­ing the course of the Gay­lad­zor stream flow­ing to the riv­er Argitchi is imple­ment­ed, about 40 per­cent of Argirchi water will be direct­ed to Vay­ots Dzor province, which is in the oppo­site side of Lake Sevan.

Asoy­an says that Zange­zour Eximp LLC is ille­gal­ly con­duct­ing the con­struc­tion of a small hydropow­er plant on the Argitchi Riv­er though the per­mit issued to this com­pa­ny says it is enti­tled to car­ry out con­struc­tion only on the trib­u­tary of the Eghegis Riv­er in Kapuyt Berd, while con­struc­tion works on the riv­er Argitchi are ille­gal.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists are sure that by means of chang­ing the course of the riv­er, the lev­el of Lake Sevan – the largest sweet water basin in Arme­nia – will be dropped. The rise of Lake Sevan’s lev­el influ­enced the lucra­tive busi­ness­es found­ed along the lakeshore dur­ing recent years. Besides, the abrupt rise of Lake Sevan’s lev­el is con­sid­ered to be one of the most impor­tant envi­ron­men­tal issues for Arme­nia, where Lake Sevan is the main ele­ment of the whole ecosys­tem.

The RA Law on Lake Sevan, which pro­hibits the use of the lake’s basin water for oth­er pur­pos­es, be it a hydro-pow­er plant, irri­ga­tion or some oth­er pur­pose, is being vio­lat­ed because of the con­struc­tion of the hydropow­er plant. Besides, it is also dan­ger­ous for fish, espe­cial­ly trout, since they spawn at the source of the riv­er Argitchi.

ELF BATTLE DEFORESTATION

received anony­mous­ly:

“On July 17 2010 a tracked tree trans­porter was torched by a group of elf activists. The action took place at the road con­struc­tion site near

ELF Russia protecting forestsreceived anony­mous­ly:

“On July 17 2010 a tracked tree trans­porter was torched by a group of elf activists. The action took place at the road con­struc­tion site near
Sheremet­je­vo air­port in Him­ki for­est, North of Moscow, Rus­sia. We sup­port local activists in their fight against defor­esta­tion cam­paign of Moscow author­i­ties, although we dis­ap­prove of their half-heart­ed lib­er­al tac­tics.

ELF-Rus­sia”

Russian Activists set up Barricade, then Camp Out As Battle For Khimki Forest Heats Up

July 17, 2010
Envi­ron­men­tal­ists opposed to plans to raze a Khim­ki for­est to make way for an $8 bil­lion high­way raised a bar­ri­cade to keep out log­gers Mon­day, Inter­fax report­ed.

Khimki forestKhimki protest campJuly 17, 2010
Envi­ron­men­tal­ists opposed to plans to raze a Khim­ki for­est to make way for an $8 bil­lion high­way raised a bar­ri­cade to keep out log­gers Mon­day, Inter­fax report­ed.

On the side of the road to Moscow’s Shereme­tye­vo Air­port, which runs along a pris­tine expanse of old-growth trees, a ban­ner urges dri­vers to help “Stop the felling of the for­est.”

Behind the sign, the for­est is marred by a gap­ing hole the size of three foot­ball fields.

This is where activists from the Ecode­fense envi­ron­men­tal group have camped out in a des­per­ate bid to save the Khim­ki for­est from destruc­tion.

Russ­ian author­i­ties want to clear large swathes of for­est to make way for an $8 bil­lion high­way con­nect­ing Moscow and St. Peters­burg. They say the pro­posed route through Khim­ki, a small town on Moscow’s north­ern out­skirts, will help ease traf­fic con­ges­tion by offer­ing an alter­na­tive road to the air­port.

But envi­ron­men­tal­ists say build­ing the high­way in Khim­ki would deprive Moscow of yet anoth­er chunk of its fast-dwin­dling green belt, designed in the 1930s to con­tain pol­lu­tion and pre­serve wildlife.

Ecode­fense suc­ceed­ed in halt­ing the first felling works on July 15, because the work­ers showed up with­out defor­esta­tion per­mits, accord­ing to activist Sergei Ageyev.

“There were about six work­ers cut­ting down trees and two secu­ri­ty guards. There were more at the oth­er loca­tion, which had the bulk of the equip­ment, includ­ing an exca­va­tor. We demand­ed that they stop work,” Ageyev says. “We asked to see doc­u­ments. They did­n’t know any­thing; there were no doc­u­ments at the site. It is a bla­tant vio­la­tion; there must be doc­u­ments.”

Ecode­fense leader Yevgenya Chiriko­va says a small fight erupt­ed between activists and secu­ri­ty guards of the French com­pa­ny in charge of the felling, Vin­ci Con­ces­sions.

“We won,” she adds with a smile.

The com­pa­ny could not imme­di­ate­ly be reached for com­ment.

Short­ly after speak­ing to RFE/RL, Chiriko­va was attacked by an uniden­ti­fied man, who struck her before ram­ming his car into her. She escaped unhurt.

She said the police were slow to respond when she report­ed the inci­dent. “I don’t under­stand why it took them so long to find me,” she told RFE/RL’s Russ­ian Ser­vice. “The day before a detach­ment of police was ordered to our camp and they had found us quite eas­i­ly.”

Chiriko­va said the the attack was a form of “psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure” and just one in a series of inci­dents meant to intim­i­date her.

Pol­lu­tion And Ill­ness

At the activists’ makeshift camp, fresh­ly cut birch trees are piled up close to an aban­doned bull­doz­er. Oth­er piles of felled trees near­by sug­gest clear­ing has been going on for some time.

Despite the swel­ter­ing heat, the activists are deter­mined to stay here round-the-clock until all felling equip­ment has left the for­est.

Ecol­o­gists and Khim­ki res­i­dents have been fight­ing plans to build the high­way for years, say­ing it will have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the local envi­ron­ment.

Andrei Mar­gulev, the coor­di­na­tor of the union of eco­log­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions, was the one who raised the alarm about this week’s felling at Khim­ki for­est.

“The eco­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tion here in the north of Moscow is very dire due to the huge num­ber of vehi­cles and enter­pris­es, includ­ing garbage incin­er­a­tion plants and a famous garbage dump that con­stant­ly sends out smoke on that side of the canal,” Mar­gulev says. “The for­est fil­ters the air and the dust that can car­ry pol­lu­tion all the way to our lungs. All this dust remains here. If there were no for­est, hun­dreds more peo­ple would die of can­cer­ous dis­eases.”

Chiriko­va, a busi­ness­woman, moved to Khim­ki with her fam­i­ly to live clos­er to the for­est. She began cam­paign­ing to save the for­est after she noticed red paint on trees near her home in Khim­ki mark­ing the high­way’s pro­posed route.

“The for­est is impor­tant to us not only as a source of oxy­gen, but also for its bio­di­ver­si­ty, which is unique for the Moscow region,” she says. “There are few­er and few­er such places, and we under­stand that if we don’t pre­serve this for­est, we won’t sur­vive next sum­mer when tem­per­a­tures reach 36 degrees Cel­sius.”

Charges Of Cor­rup­tion

Crit­ics of the high­way accuse the gov­ern­ment of ignor­ing protests, manip­u­lat­ing laws, and mod­i­fy­ing the forest’s sta­tus to allow its defor­esta­tion.

The group filed a com­plaint to the Euro­pean Court of Human Rights after Rus­si­a’s Supreme Court reject­ed its appeal in April.

Ecode­fense also accus­es author­i­ties of delib­er­ate­ly engi­neer­ing a recent four-day traf­fic jam on the road lead­ing to the air­port to gain sup­port for the high­way.

Activists say the project is mired in cor­rup­tion, stress­ing that one of the dri­ving forces behind the pro­posed route is Trans­port Min­is­ter Igor Lev­itin, who also sits on the air­port’s board of direc­tors.

Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al has report­ed there was a “poten­tial cor­rup­tion risk” in the project.

Ecode­fense activists say they recent­ly met with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Euro­pean Bank for Recon­struc­tion and Devel­op­ment to per­suade them not to invest in the road.

Experts say the planned route through the for­est will actu­al­ly slow down a road that is sup­posed to be about speed­ing up traf­fic.

The cam­paign has become a cause célèbre in Rus­sia, par­tic­u­lar­ly after Mikhail Beke­tov, the edi­tor of the local news­pa­per “Khimkin­skaya Prav­da,” was vicious­ly beat­en two years ago in what many see as retal­i­a­tion for his bat­tle to save the Khim­ki for­est.

One of Beke­tov’s legs had to be ampu­tat­ed fol­low­ing the attack, and he suf­fered severe brain dam­age.

Ecode­fense has col­lect­ed 20,000 sig­na­tures against the destruc­tion of the for­est. In anoth­er sign of the group’s mount­ing clout, Chiriko­va won 16 per­cent of the vote in last year’s elec­tion for may­or of Khim­ki — a high result for a first-time, inde­pen­dent can­di­date.

Despite the start of tree felling this week, Chiriko­va is not los­ing hope. But she says more peo­ple need to join the cause.

“We see a real chance to stop the felling,” she says. “The only thing we lack is help from active peo­ple who could come here…to bring water, food, and tents to our won­der­ful camp. That’s the only way we can stop any­thing.”

“We have no hope in the police, who sim­ply sit in the bush­es shrug­ging their shoul­ders and say­ing they don’t know what to do,” she says.

—

Defor­esta­tion Starts, and Stops, in Khim­ki

16.7.10
A French com­pa­ny start­ed clear­ing a Khim­ki for­est for an $8 bil­lion high­way con­nect­ing Moscow and St. Peters­burg, but its work was halt­ed Thurs­day by envi­ron­men­tal­ists.

France’s Vin­ci Con­ces­sions cut down trees in an area equal to two foot­ball fields near the Novo­tel Shereme­tye­vo Moscow hotel on Wednes­day before the envi­ron­men­tal­ists showed up Thurs­day morn­ing and demand­ed to see defor­esta­tion per­mits, which the work­ers were unable to pro­vide, the pub­lic group In Defense of the Khim­ki For­est said.

The activists put up tents near the defor­esta­tion site in Khim­ki, a town on Moscow’s north­ern out­skirts, for 10 peo­ple to mon­i­tor the area around the clock to make sure work did not resume with­out the per­mits.

The work­ers promised to show the per­mits Mon­day, said Yev­ge­nia Chiriko­va, head of In Defense of the Khim­ki For­est. “They promised to pro­vide every­thing, but on Mon­day at 2 p.m.,” she said, Inter­fax report­ed.

Green­peace Rus­sia asked the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office to check “with­out delay” whether the work­ers had per­mits for the defor­esta­tion, the envi­ron­men­tal watch­dog said in a state­ment.

Offi­cials with Vin­ci Con­ces­sions, which leads the North-West Con­ces­sion Com­pa­ny, a con­sor­tium build­ing the road, could not imme­di­ate­ly be reached for com­ment.

Ecode­fense, an envi­ron­men­tal group, linked a four-day traf­fic jam on Leningrad­skoye Shosse in late June and ear­ly July to the defor­esta­tion in Khim­ki, say­ing it was “engi­neered delib­er­ate­ly to get a green light for the con­struc­tion” of the Khim­ki road.

In Defense of the Khim­ki For­est togeth­er with the Fed­er­a­tion of Car Own­ers of Rus­sia appealed to the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office this week to inves­ti­gate the rea­sons for the snarled traf­fic, which city author­i­ties have blamed on con­struc­tion work on a small bridge in Khim­ki.

In late April, the Supreme Court brushed aside envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns over the defor­esta­tion of the old oak for­est, allow­ing work on the high­way to pro­ceed.

The for­est has become a sym­bol of grass­roots activism in Rus­sia over the past two years. In Novem­ber 2008, Mikhail Beke­tov, one of the forest’s staunchest defend­ers and the edi­tor of the local news­pa­per Khimkin­skaya Prav­da, was bad­ly beat­en after he crit­i­cized the Khim­ki admin­is­tra­tion for sup­port­ing the defor­esta­tion. The attack, which remains unsolved, left Beke­tov brain dam­aged, and one of his legs had to be ampu­tat­ed.
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