Category: Global

Glob­al

ELF Mexico Torch More Earth Destroying Machine

“Urban expan­sion is one of the biggest eco­log­i­cal prob­lems, with roads being built over fer­tile land comes loads of con­se­quences such as pol­lu­tion, warm­ing of the ground with exces­sive heat, mas­sive felling of trees, etc. The expan­sion of civ­i­liza­tion and its unnec­es­sary tech­nol­o­gy leaves the world in the hands of the pow­er­ful who con­trol the repres­sive state appa­ra­tus ready to stop any kind of resis­tance that is put in front of them to halt their run of destruc­tion.

“Urban expan­sion is one of the biggest eco­log­i­cal prob­lems, with roads being built over fer­tile land comes loads of con­se­quences such as pol­lu­tion, warm­ing of the ground with exces­sive heat, mas­sive felling of trees, etc. The expan­sion of civ­i­liza­tion and its unnec­es­sary tech­nol­o­gy leaves the world in the hands of the pow­er­ful who con­trol the repres­sive state appa­ra­tus ready to stop any kind of resis­tance that is put in front of them to halt their run of destruc­tion.

It is for this rea­son that on the night of Feb­ru­ary 22 we of the ELF decid­ed to go out at night in Mex­i­co State and set fire to a machine that destroys the earth and a truck owned by the dom­i­na­tors.

We say it once again, there will be no mer­cy until the abo­li­tion of all that oppress­es us.

F.L.T/E.L.F”

received anony­mous­ly from Bite Back: http://www.directaction.info

Anti-Coal Protesters Blockade Washington Power Station (U$A)

2nd March 2009
Thou­sands of demon­stra­tors braved icy winds and snow to march on the US capi­tol’s coal-fired pow­er plant on Mon­day to demand a more sane approach to ener­gy pol­i­cy. Orga­nized by Capi­tol Cli­mate Action thou­sand block­ade the five main gates to the Capi­tol Pow­er Plant in south-east Wash­ing­ton, not far from Capi­tol Hill.

Capitol coal power station blocked2nd March 2009
Thou­sands of demon­stra­tors braved icy winds and snow to march on the US capi­tol’s coal-fired pow­er plant on Mon­day to demand a more sane approach to ener­gy pol­i­cy. Orga­nized by Capi­tol Cli­mate Action thou­sand block­ade the five main gates to the Capi­tol Pow­er Plant in south-east Wash­ing­ton, not far from Capi­tol Hill.

The block­ade last­ed near­ly four hours, form­ing what orga­niz­ers called the largest dis­play of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence on the cli­mate cri­sis in U.S. his­to­ry. Police were out in force, but no one was arrest­ed.

The 99-year-old coal fired pow­er sta­tion is respon­si­ble for an esti­mat­ed one-third of the leg­isla­tive branch’s green­house gas emis­sions. It is no longer even used to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty but instead acts as a glo­ri­fied boil­er pro­vid­ing steam for heat­ing and chilled water for cool­ing build­ings for the leg­isla­tive build­ings of the Capi­tol Com­plex.

Envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate celebri­ties led the protest action, includ­ing NASA cli­ma­tol­o­gist Dr. James Hansen, who released a video on You Tube in Feb­ru­ary urg­ing peo­ple to join him March 2 at the demon­stra­tion to send a mes­sage to Con­gress and the Pres­i­dent that, “We want them to take the actions that are need­ed to pre­serve cli­mate for young peo­ple and future gen­er­a­tions and all life on the plan­et.”

“What has become clear from the sci­ence is that we can­not burn all of the fos­sil fuels with­out cre­at­ing a very dif­fer­ent plan­et,” Hansen said. “The only prac­ti­cal way to solve the prob­lem is to phase out the biggest source of car­bon and that is coal.”

Con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats have already moved to con­vert the Capi­tol Pow­er Plant to clean­er-burn­ing nat­ur­al gas. On Thurs­day, House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi and Sen­ate Leader Har­ry Reid released a let­ter ask­ing the Capi­tol Archi­tect to switch the Capi­tol Pow­er Plant from coal to 100 per­cent nat­ur­al gas by the end of 2009.

“The switch to nat­ur­al gas will allow the CPP to dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce car­bon and cri­te­ria pol­lu­tant emis­sions, elim­i­nat­ing more than 95 per­cent of sul­phur oxides and at least 50 per­cent of car­bon monox­ide,” wrote Pelosi and Reid in their let­ter to Act­ing Archi­tect of the Capi­tol Stephen Ayers.

“We strong­ly encour­age you to move for­ward aggres­sive­ly with us on a com­pre­hen­sive set of poli­cies for the entire Capi­tol com­plex and the entire Leg­isla­tive Branch to quick­ly reduce emis­sions and petro­le­um con­sump­tion through ener­gy effi­cien­cy, renew­able ener­gy, and clean alter­na­tive fuels,” they wrote.

“While the costs asso­ci­at­ed with pur­chas­ing addi­tion­al nat­ur­al gas will cer­tain­ly be high­er, the invest­ment will far out­weigh its cost,” wrote Pelosi and Reid. “The con­ver­sion will also reduce the cost of stor­ing and trans­port­ing coal as well as the costs asso­ci­at­ed with clean­ing up the fly ash and waste.”

“Elim­i­nat­ing coal from the fuel mix­ture should also assist the City of Wash­ing­ton, D.C., in meet­ing and com­ply­ing with nation­al air qual­i­ty stan­dards, and demon­strate that Con­gress can be a good and con­sci­en­tious neigh­bour by mit­i­gat­ing health con­cerns for res­i­dents and work­ers around Capi­tol Hill,” the lead­ers wrote.

“We’ve been fight­ing to clean up the Capi­tol for years — it’s an impor­tant sym­bol for the whole nation,” said Friends of the Earth Pres­i­dent Brent Black­welder on Thurs­day.

Last week, Black­welder and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Earth­jus­tice and the Sier­ra Club sent let­ters to Reid and Pelosi ask­ing that they stop using coal at the Capi­tol pow­er plant.

“Dirty coal plants all over the coun­try con­tin­ue to release heat-trap­ping gas­es and pol­lute the air we breathe, so there remains much work to be done, but today’s announce­ment is a sig­nal of a major change in direc­tion,” Black­welder said.

“Peo­ple in D.C. have been fight­ing against the plant for years, it is very dirty and locat­ed in a poor neigh­bour­hood. They haven’t had much suc­cess until now,” said Adri­an Wil­son, a San Fran­cis­co-based envi­ron­men­tal orga­niz­er with the Capi­tol Cli­mate Action coali­tion. “The fact that three days before the action, Nan­cy Pelosi and Har­ry Reid wrote let­ter for plant to be switched from coal to nat­ur­al gas shows the pow­er of direct action to make change quick­ly.”

Bruce Nilles, direc­tor of the Sier­ra Club’s Beyond Coal Cam­paign, said, “Stop­ping the use of coal at the Capi­tol Pow­er Plant will help local res­i­dents breathe eas­i­er, but the pos­i­tive impacts will stretch far beyond the Dis­trict. Bold mea­sures are need­ed right now to reduce glob­al warm­ing emis­sions and we look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to work with Con­gress and the new admin­is­tra­tion to send a clear sig­nal to cities and states across the coun­try that after eight long years, Amer­i­ca is seri­ous about clean ener­gy and green jobs.”

The Capi­tol Pow­er Plant demon­stra­tion was part of a larg­er move­ment in the nation’s cap­i­tal on the week­end that last­ed through this evening — Pow­er Shift 2009. Some 12,000 col­lege and high school stu­dents trav­elled to DC for the sec­ond Pow­er Shift con­fer­ence, a meet­ing of stu­dents con­fronting cli­mate change, and busi­ness-as-usu­al atti­tudes in Wash­ing­ton.

Ener­gy Action, a coali­tion of 50 envi­ron­men­tal groups, orga­nized the Pow­er Shift week­end con­fer­ence and lob­by day. For three days, stu­dents attend­ed sem­i­nars on the his­to­ries of coal pow­er, direct action and ura­ni­um min­ing, media and lead­er­ship train­ing ses­sions, grass­roots orga­niz­ing and anti-oppres­sion work­shops.

For video, links to lots of pho­tos and more, http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 86, February 2009

————————————
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————————

1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09

————————————
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————————

1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09
4. Earth First! & Treespon­si­bil­i­ty Tree Plant­i­ng week­end – Heb­den Bridge – 13–15.03.09
5. Peo­ple’s Block­ade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port – New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia — 21.03.09
6. Direct action and car­bon trad­ing edu­ca­tion week­end – Lon­don and Brighton – 21–22.03.09
7. Fos­sil Fools Day – all over – 01.04.09
8. Coal Car­a­van – Mid­lands, York­shire and North East – 24.04.09–04.05.09

——————
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
——————

1. Bio­fu­elled attacks in Suma­tra, Indone­sia – 18.12.08
2. Plane Stu­pid turns Southamp­ton air­port into a refugee camp — 17.01.09
3. Cli­mate Rush activists lock on to Par­lia­ment — 20.01.01
4. E.On Ref Off! – 24.01.09
5. A not-so-Roy­al wel­come for the nuclear indus­try — 09.02.09
6. Man­ches­ter RBS branch roof occu­pa­tion — 11.02.09
7. Occu­pa­tion of Kel­ster­back For­est, Frank­furt Air­port, Ger­many — Ongo­ing
8. New report – Cater­ing for the Coal Indus­try

————————————
UPCOMING/ONGOING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————————

1. ARTIVISM, Smash EDO’s week of anti-war cre­ativ­i­ty — Brighton – 24.02.09–01.03.09
Includ­ing an Art Exhi­bi­tion, Music & Voic­es in Exile, Peace Choir, Images from the Smash EDO cam­paign and the world events that inspired the resis­tance to Brighton’s local bomb builders. Events include Guy Small­man, inter­na­tion­al pho­to-jour­nal­ist; on the ground pho­tog­ra­phy from Israel’s inva­sion of Lebanon in 2006; the clas­sic draw­ings of John Catt, vet­er­an anti-war activist; pho­tog­ra­phy by Medyan Dairieh, Al-Jazeera jour­nal­ist; ‘On the Verge’ the film they tried to ban; Clan­des­tine Rebel Clown Train­ing; Rad­i­cal Cheer­lead­ing: make pom-poms, write cheers and prac­tice your moves; car­ni­val cre­ations and mask mak­ing; and Ben­e­fit Finale at the Albert Pub.
www.smashedo.org.uk

2. Cli­mate Rush – Lon­don and Man­ches­ter – 26.02.09
Cli­mate Rush cor­dial­ly invites you to an awards cer­e­mo­ny for the coal indus­try, to hon­our the world’s great­est emit­ters of CO2, on THURSDAY 26TH FEBRUARY at THE LANDMARK HOTEL. Dress for­mal­ly for cock­tails in the Win­ter Gar­den at 6.30 prompt.
www.climaterush.co.uk

And in Man­ches­ter, North­ern Cli­mate Rush will be pay­ing a vis­it to the UK’s largest coal com­pa­ny – UK Coal. Meet in front of the Stu­dent Union build­ing at 1pm.
www.northernclimaterush.wordpress.com

3. Camp for Cli­mate Action Gath­er­ing – Not­ting­ham – 7–8.03.09
With the G20, cli­mate crim­i­nals and COP 15 in mind, be part of the gath­er­ing – inspi­ra­tion, action and sol­i­dar­i­ty guar­an­teed.
www.climatecamp.org.uk/?q=node/468

4. Earth First & Treespon­si­bil­i­ty Tree Plant­i­ng week­end – Heb­den Bridge – 13–15.03.09
The annu­al and socia­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to plant thou­sands of native trees on a eco­log­i­cal­ly degrad­ed hill­side is hap­pen­ing in March. Organ­ised by Earth First! activists in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Calderdale com­mu­ni­ty group Treespon­si­bil­i­ty. Based in Heb­den Bridge in Calderdale. A week­end of hard but sat­is­fy­ing work plant­i­ng native wood­land com­bined with good food and social­is­ing.
More info: treesponsibility@yahoo.co.uk or 07983743894

5. Peo­ple’s Block­ade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port – New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia — 21.03.09
Coal exports are Aus­trali­a’s sin­gle biggest con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al cli­mate change, and the fastest grow­ing. In New­cas­tle, the world’s biggest coal port, com­mu­ni­ty groups have been cam­paign­ing against the dou­bling of coal exports from New­cas­tle Har­bour. There have been three com­mu­ni­ty block­ades of New­cas­tle Har­bour now, and each of them has man­aged to keep coal ships from enter­ing or leav­ing for most of the day. The next one is on Sat­ur­day 21 March 2009.
www.risingtide.org.au

6. Direct action and car­bon trad­ing edu­ca­tion week­end – Lon­don and Brighton – 21–22.03.09
Cli­mate Camp Car­bon Trad­ing Edu­ca­tion Week­end, Lon­don. With Cli­mate Camp tar­get­ing car­bon mar­kets this year, find out every­thing you ever want­ed to know about car­bon trad­ing and more but were afraid to ask! More info:international@climatecamp.org.uk

Also this week­end, a two-day direct action train­ing at the Cow­ley Club, Brighton. 10 AM start.
www.cowleyclub.org.uk

7. Fos­sil Fools Day – all over – 01.04.09
Cli­mate Camp at the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, fol­lowed by a “cel­e­bra­tion” of BP’s cen­te­nary at the British Muse­um; inter­spersed with local actions all over the coun­try and the world!

Cli­mate camp hits the city: stop­ping car­bon mar­kets // because nature doesn’t do bailouts
On April 1st the G20 lead­ers arrive in Lon­don. At a time of cli­mate cri­sis their response to the mar­ket melt­down is emer­gency loans to car man­u­fac­tur­ers, increased spend­ing to encour­age con­sump­tion, and bailouts for the very peo­ple who got us into this mess — just the thing that will make the cli­mate cri­sis worse. Don’t let them get away with it: join our camp in the Square Mile! Gath­er at noon, April 1st, at the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, Hasil­wood House, 62 Bish­ops­gate, EC2N 4AW.
www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

“Cel­e­brate” BP’s cen­te­nary: Tell them the party’s over!
For rea­sons unfath­omable yet deeply pleas­ing, BP has cho­sen Fos­sil Fools to cel­e­brate its cen­te­nary. This will take place at the British Muse­um, where the not-so-great and the far-from-good will quaff cock­tails, snaf­fle canapes and watch a cel­e­bra­to­ry film. Join us between 6–7pm, to say ‘Your party’s over!’ Bring ban­ners, musi­cal instru­ments, a sense of cli­mate jus­tice and a non­sense of fool­ery. Meet at 6pm at the British Museum’s Gt. Rus­sell St. gate.
www.fossilfoolsday.org
www.artnotoil.org.uk

8. Coal Car­a­van – Mid­lands, York­shire and North East – 24.04.09–04.05.09
The fab­u­lous cli­mate car­a­van lives on, as the COAL CARAVAN, walk­ing and cycling between the sites for pro­posed open cast mines and new pow­er sta­tions in the Mid­lands, York­shire and North East. On our route we’ll be talk­ing to local peo­ple, organ­is­ing bicy­cled pow­er films and events, hold­ing pub­lic dis­cus­sions and dis­plays, and link­ing groups from dif­fer­ent areas to help strength­en iso­lat­ed cam­paigns. For route details see:
www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21915
More info or to get involved: caravan@climatecamp.org.uk.

——————
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
——————

1. Bio­fu­elled attacks in Suma­tra, Indone­sia – 18.12.08
In the rush to clear sub­sis­tence farms and for­est for agro-fuel plan­ta­tion, local vil­lages in the glob­al South are suf­fer­ing. On 18th Decem­ber 2008 the vil­lage of Suluk Bongkal in Suma­tra, Indone­sia was attacked by hun­dreds of armed police and para­mil­i­taries with fire-arms and tear­gas and was also fire-bombed from a heli­copter. Hun­dreds of hous­es were burned down and lat­er bull­dozed. Most of the vil­lagers fled into the forests and oth­ers were arrest­ed. The attack is linked to a sub­sidiary com­pa­ny of Sinar Mas, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) which is clear­ing land for pulp and paper tree plan­ta­tions. Sinar Mas is one of the biggest own­ers of palm oil and pulp and paper plan­ta­tions in Indone­sia. A protest let­ter is col­lect­ing sig­na­to­ries to send to the Indone­sian author­i­ties.
To sign and for more info: www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/index.php

2. Plane Stu­pid turns Southamp­ton air­port into a refugee camp — 17.01.09
Activists chained them­selves to the entrance of Southamp­ton air­port and erect­ed tents at the main entrance in a bid turn the region­al air­port into a cli­mate refugee camp. In addi­tion to set­ting up camp, activists for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted a plan­ning appli­ca­tion with East­leigh Bor­ough Coun­cil to turn the air­port into refugee hous­ing.
www.planestupid.com

3. Cli­mate Rush activists lock on to Par­lia­ment — 20.01.01
On the day that Par­lia­ment vot­ed about the third run­way, nine Cli­mate Rush activists high­light­ed the high farce that is UK democ­ra­cy by chain­ing them­selves to the gates of Par­lia­ment. Despite stay­ing for hours and enter­tain­ing tourists and the press, when the police final­ly cut them out, the activists walked away scot free.
www.climaterush.co.uk

4. E.On Ref Off! – 24.01.09
On Sat­ur­day 24th Jan­u­ary a group of Lon­don Cli­mate Camp activists turned up at Stam­ford Bridge dressed as foot­ball ref­er­ees to show E.ON the red card. Over 40,000 Chelsea and Ipswich fans arriv­ing for the game heard us blow­ing the whis­tle on E.ON’s dirty FA Cup spon­sor­ship mon­ey, and thou­sands of them were per­son­al­ly hand­ed an “E.ON F.OFF” red card explain­ing how the com­pa­ny is mak­ing foul prof­its from the cli­mate cri­sis. It was all good fun and reac­tions were pret­ty pos­i­tive — E.ON them­selves would have paid tens of thou­sands to get the oppo­site pub­lic­i­ty for their brand!
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/420346.html

5. A not-so-Roy­al wel­come for the nuclear indus­try — 09.02.09
Hun­dreds of tourists, vis­it­ing the Palace for the Chang­ing of the Guard, were amused to see “nuclear guards” tak­ing their place at the gates. They held up a large ban­ner read­ing “Nuclear Pow­er is Not the Answer to Cli­mate Chaos!” and a plac­ard read­ing “Roy­al Nuclear Fam­i­ly? No Thanks!”, draw­ing atten­tion to the fact that Prince Andrew, the UK’s Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Inter­na­tion­al Trade and Invest­ment, was host­ing a gala lunch at the Palace for the nuclear indus­try, pre­sum­ably to plot how best to pro­mote their tox­ic green­wash agen­da at home and abroad.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/421693.html

6. Man­ches­ter RBS branch roof occu­pa­tion — 11.02.09
Around 35 stu­dents held a cli­mate change ‘Evic­tion Demon­stra­tion’ out­side (and on top of) a Roy­al Bank of Scot­land branch at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter Stu­dents Union. The group from Peo­ple and Plan­et also sub­mit­ted a motion to the Union Gen­er­al Meet­ing propos­ing that the Union does not renew the lease for RBS’ branch when it expires in Jan­u­ary 2010. Stu­dents climbed up on to the roof of the branch, and dropped ban­ners adver­tis­ing RBS’ fos­sil fuel invest­ments. Oth­ers engaged in ‘rapid infor­ma­tion dessim­i­na­tion’, rac­ing off to speak to as many peo­ple as they could in 20 min­utes before return­ing back to the RBS branch to com­pare scores.
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22169

7. Occu­pa­tion of Kel­ster­back For­est, Frank­furt Air­port, Ger­many — Ongo­ing The occu­pa­tion of the threat­ened Kel­ster­back For­est con­tin­ues. This is a large and beau­ti­ful for­est that has already been encroached upon for exist­ing air­port infra­struc­ture and is “in the way” of a planned, addi­tion­al run­way.
http://waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

8. New report – Cater­ing for the Coal Indus­try A per­son­al account from an activist on the ground in Columbia,documenting resis­tance to exploita­tion in Columbia’s’ coal industry.The report is focused on the lives of those who pre­pare and serve the food nec­es­sary for the mine to func­tion. They want peo­ple out­side of La Loma to hear of their inhu­mane, dan­ger­ous and humil­i­at­ing work­ing con­di­tions. Read­ing and shar­ing this report helps to break the invis­i­bil­i­ty of the exploita­tion with­in the glob­al coal infra­struc­ture.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/01/419675.html

———-

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Insurgents blockade highway with flaming barricade in Mexico

“We have blocked a major high­way in Mex­i­co State with a bar­ri­cade made by the Lud­dites Against Domes­ti­ca­tion of Wild Nature. The fire lit up the dark night of peace and tran­quil­i­ty for those peo­ple who car­ry in large trucks ‘raw mate­ri­als’ extract­ed direct­ly from the earth. The chaos was again before the eyes of the police who arrived on the scene to put out the incen­di­ary fies­ta.

“We have blocked a major high­way in Mex­i­co State with a bar­ri­cade made by the Lud­dites Against Domes­ti­ca­tion of Wild Nature. The fire lit up the dark night of peace and tran­quil­i­ty for those peo­ple who car­ry in large trucks ‘raw mate­ri­als’ extract­ed direct­ly from the earth. The chaos was again before the eyes of the police who arrived on the scene to put out the incen­di­ary fies­ta.

We break their pre­cious social order with our wild, insur­gent and rad­i­cal meth­ods of strug­gle.”

anony­mous report — http://directaction.info

Demonstrators target Graff Diamonds in Solidarity with Kahlahari Bushmen (11.2.09)

Survival’s cam­paign tar­get­ing Graff Dia­monds over its involve­ment in a dia­mond mine planned on the land of Kala­hari Bush­men in Botswana has stepped up a gear.

Bushmen Demo- London 11.2.09Survival’s cam­paign tar­get­ing Graff Dia­monds over its involve­ment in a dia­mond mine planned on the land of Kala­hari Bush­men in Botswana has stepped up a gear. Thir­ty pro­test­ers gath­ered on the 11.2.09 out­side Graff’s flag­ship Lon­don store hold­ing plac­ards say­ing ‘Boy­cott Graff’ and ‘Botswana dia­monds: Bush­men despair’.

The store is based in the fash­ion epi­cen­tre of Lon­don sur­round­ed by shops from Yves San Lau­ren, Chanel etc. The dia­mond indus­tries main prod­uct is high image and thus has shown itself to be some­times more sus­cep­ti­ble to pres­sure than oth­er resource sec­tors such as min­ing and oil. Pre­vi­ous pick­ets by Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al and pub­lic sham­ing of fash­ion hous­es and top mod­els result­ed in De Beers pulling out of the planned dia­mond min­ing in the Kala­hari.

There are 100,000 Bush­men in Botswana, Namib­ia, South Africa and Ango­la. They are the indige­nous peo­ple of south­ern Africa, and have lived there for tens of thou­sands of years.

In the mid­dle of Botswana lies the Cen­tral Kala­hari Game Reserve, a reserve cre­at­ed both to pro­tect the tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry of the 5,000 Gana, Gwi and Tsi­la Bush­men (and their neigh­bours the Bak­gala­ga­di), and the wildlife and ecosys­tem of which are a part.

In the ear­ly 1980s, dia­monds were dis­cov­ered in the reserve. Soon after, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters went into the reserve to tell the Bush­men liv­ing there that they would have to leave because of the dia­mond finds.

In three big clear­ances, in 1997, 2002 and 2005, vir­tu­al­ly all the Bush­men were forced out. Their homes were dis­man­tled, their school and health post were closed, their water sup­ply was destroyed and the peo­ple were threat­ened and trucked away.

They now live in reset­tle­ment camps out­side the reserve. Rarely able to hunt, and arrest­ed and beat­en when they do, they are depen­dent on gov­ern­ment hand­outs. They are now gripped by alco­holism, bore­dom, depres­sion, and ill­ness­es such as TB and HIV/AIDS.

Unless they can return to their ances­tral lands, their unique soci­eties and way of life will be destroyed, and many of them will die.

Although the Bush­men won the right in court to go back to their lands in 2006, the gov­ern­ment has done every­thing it can to make their return impos­si­ble. It has:

Banned them from using their water bore­hole,
Refused to issue a sin­gle per­mit to hunt on their land (despite Botswana’s High Court rul­ing in Decem­ber that its refusal to issue per­mits was unlaw­ful),
Arrest­ed more than 50 Bush­men for hunt­ing to feed their fam­i­lies,
Banned them from tak­ing their small herds of goats back to the reserve.

Its pol­i­cy is clear­ly to intim­i­date and fright­en the Bush­men into stay­ing in the reset­tle­ment camps, and mak­ing the lives of those who have gone back to their ances­tral land impos­si­ble.

More infor­ma­tion on the Kala­hari Bush­men can be found on their own web­site : www.iwant2gohome.org or the web­site of Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al (which is updat­ed more often): www.survival-international.org/tribes/bushmen

Philippines: with 5 Members Missing, the Mamanwa Hold Strong

Feb­ru­ary 12, 2009
At least 400 mem­bers of the Maman­wa tribe in Suri­gao del Sur, north­west­ern Min­danao, are in their sec­ond week of a block­ade against four min­ing com­pa­nies: Tagan­i­to Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (TMC), Ori­en­tal Syn­er­gy Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (OSMC), Case Min­ing Com­pa­ny (CMC) and Plat­inum Group Min­ing Com­pa­ny (PGMC).

Feb­ru­ary 12, 2009
At least 400 mem­bers of the Maman­wa tribe in Suri­gao del Sur, north­west­ern Min­danao, are in their sec­ond week of a block­ade against four min­ing com­pa­nies: Tagan­i­to Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (TMC), Ori­en­tal Syn­er­gy Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (OSMC), Case Min­ing Com­pa­ny (CMC) and Plat­inum Group Min­ing Com­pa­ny (PGMC).

The Maman­wa pre­vi­ous­ly sent notices of ter­mi­na­tion to the com­pa­nies, inform­ing them that they will longer be per­mit­ted to mine their ances­tral ter­ri­to­ries because the com­pa­nies have nev­er paid them any roy­al­ty fees.

Under the Indige­nous Peo­ples Rights Act (IPRA), Indige­nous Peo­ple in the Philip­pines are enti­tled to “a roy­al­ty pay­ment… which shall not be less than 1% of the Gross Out­put of the min­ing oper­a­tions in the area.”

Only recent­ly has the Maman­wa learned of this.

In a state­ment dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 4, day sev­en of the bar­ri­cade, Datu Joel Buk­las from the Tagan­i­to Maman­wa Asso­ci­a­tion, notes that TMC has been oper­at­ing in the region since the 1960s, and recent­ly “got a new con­tract to oper­ate for anoth­er 25 years in the red moun­tain of Suri­gao del Sur.”

“The mov­ing truck loads of nick­el ore is a reg­u­lar scene for motorist pass­ing along the Claver high­way.”

“Lit­er­al­ly, the red moun­tain of Claver is mov­ing inch by inch every day. Sum­it­o­mo Met­al Min­ing Com­pa­ny togeth­er with TMC planned to start this year the con­struc­tion of a 30,000 ton-a-year smelt­ing plant which would start its oper­a­tion by 2012.” Mean­while, Sum­it­o­mo is “deter­mined to start the con­struc­tion this year of the one-bil­lion dol­lar project.”

“This is our land even before these min­ing com­pa­nies came, we were already here, we were forcibly oust­ed from these lands against our will and we hope con­cerned gov­ern­ment agen­cies whom we have been ask­ing for years will wake up.”

“Today, 4 Feb­ru­ary 2009, is our sev­enth day of human bar­ri­cade along the high­way of Tagan­i­to, Claver, Suri­gao del Norte to demand before the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ples (NCIP) on our share agreed for allow­ing the min­ing com­pa­nies to ruin our lives and our ances­tral domain.”
SURFACE THE MAMANWA FIVE

With the block­ade still stand­ing, the Maman­wa report that five of their car­pen­ters, who helped put the block­ade togeth­er, have been miss­ing since they left the site to har­vest food for the pro­test­ers on Jan­u­ary 29.

Nobody knows what hap­pened to them, how­ev­er the Maman­wa point out that in Decem­ber they informed the Philip­pine Nation­al Police, the local gov­ern­ment and the NCIP that a block­ade was in the works – “after repeat­ed attempts of send­ing out notices of ter­mi­na­tion of min­ing oper­a­tions as well as demands for just com­pen­sa­tion proved futile,” says a Feb­ru­ary 12 state­ment from the Legal Rights and Nat­ur­al Resources Cen­ter – Kasama sa Kalikasan/­FOE- Philip­pines (LRC-KsK).

The LRC-KsK is call­ing upon the Arroyo gov­ern­ment “to exert all its efforts in locat­ing the five IP pro­test­ers and put to jus­tice who­ev­er caused their dis­ap­pear­ance,” and that “the Arroyo gov­ern­ment do away with its obses­sion for min­ing gen­er­at­ed rev­enues in the face of over­whelm­ing rejec­tion of IP com­mu­ni­ties who have long borne the brunt of the destruc­tion, dis­place­ment, dis­crim­i­na­tion and dis­em­pow­er­ment that min­ing oper­a­tions bring with it.”

They also request that peo­ple take a moment to Call on the gov­ern­ment:

* To sur­face the five miss­ing Maman­was;
* To respect and pro­tect the bar­ri­cade of the Mamanwt;
* To scrap the Philip­pine Min­ing Act of 1995; and
* To make sure that min­ing com­pa­nies in Maman­wa ances­tral domain respect indige­nous peo­ples rights, give just com­pen­sa­tion to the Maman­wa com­mu­ni­ty and stop all min­ing oper­a­tion.

You can send your appeals to:

The Chief of Police
Chief Direc­tor Gen­er­al Jesus Ver­zosa
Philip­pine Nation­al Police
Email: pio@pnp.gov

The Chief of Staff (Armed Forces)
Gen. Alexan­der B. Yano
Chief of Staff, Armed Forces of the Philip­pines
Email: via web­site: http://www.afp.mil.ph/ghq/csafp/index.htm (fol­low link on left-hand side to guest­book)

The Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources
Jose “Lito” L. Atien­za, Jr
Email: web@denr.gov
Email add: osec@denr.gov

The Mines and Gosciences Bureau Region­al Direc­tor – Region 13
ALILO C. ENSOMO, JR.
e‑mail: mgbrxiii@philcom. ph

With copies to:

The Chair­per­son of the Philip­pines Com­mis­sion on Human Rights
Email: drpvq@chr.gov, atty_delima@yahoo.com

The Chair­per­son of the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ples
Atty. Euge­nio A. Insigne
Email: resource@ncip. gov.ph

“Car-lofts” attacked, porsche, bmw & upperclass cars torched, Germany

07/02/09: Attempt­ed arson on cars
01/02/09: „Car-Lofts“ attacked with stones and col­or
31/01/09: Again two arsons against upper­class cars
30/01/09: Porsche torched
28/01/09: BMW burned

Direct Action: 27th Jan-7th FebDirect Action: 27th Jan-7th Feb07/02/09: Attempt­ed arson on cars
01/02/09: „Car-Lofts“ attacked with stones and col­or
31/01/09: Again two arsons against upper­class cars
30/01/09: Porsche torched
28/01/09: BMW burned
27/01/09: Again a car burned in Berlin: state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates

Attempt­ed arson on cars

Berlin, 7 of Feb­ru­ary 2009
Unknown per­sons tried again to burn sev­er­al cars in Kreuzberg.
The fire device, placed under a car in the Sebas­tianstraße, could be stopped by pass­er-byers, declared the police.
One found three device more under three oth­er cars which did not burn.

Source: Mor­gen­post

——————————-

„Car-Lofts“ attacked with stones and col­or

Berlin, 1 of Feb­ru­ary 2009
Unknown authors demol­ished the win­dows of a build­ing in Kreuzberg.
After the first inves­ti­ga­tions, one attack must have hap­pened already in the night to Sat­ur­day, with bot­tles full of col­or.
Since a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion can not be exclud­ed, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Polizei Tick­er

note for eng­lish-speak­ing read­er: the build­ing is the noto­ri­ous „car-lofts“, a yup­pie project build­ed in Kreuzberg, vic­tim of sev­er­al mil­i­tant attacks since its begin­ning.

——————————-

Again two arsons against upper­class cars

Berlin, 31 of Jan­u­ary 2009

Arson­ists under­took again two arsons on upper­class cars in Friedrichshain and Pren­zlauer­berg.
Police­men could pre­vent high­er dam­ages on a BMW, by extin­guish­ing the fire with antifire pow­der they had with them.
A Mer­cedes CLK got instead com­plete­ly dam­aged.
Already 26 cars have been burned fol­low­ing 18 arsons attacks under­tak­en by unknown per­sons.

Source: Mor­gen­post

——————————-

Porsche torched

Berlin, 30 of Jan­u­ary 2009

On fri­day morn­ing peo­ple torched anoth­er cars, prob­a­bly out of polit­i­cal rea­sons.
This was a Porsche Cayenne parked in the Choriner­straße cor­ner Zehdenick­er­straße, Mitte.
Pass­er-byers noticed the flames and alarmed the fire brigade.
The car got com­plet­ly dam­aged, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Mor­gen­post

——————————-

BMW burned

Berlin, 28 of Jan­u­ary 2009

A car got burned today ear­ly in the morn­ing in Mitte.
Inhab­i­tants noticed a „BMW“ going on fire in the Fehrber­lin­er­straße around 3.30am and called the fire brigade.
A car parked next to it got also dam­aged.
Since a polit­i­cal moti­va­tion is not exclud­ed, state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates.

Source: Polizei Pressemel­dung

——————————-

Again a car burned in Berlin: state secu­ri­ty inves­ti­gates

Berlin, 27 of Jan­u­ary 2009

In Berlin anoth­er car got set on fire, prob­a­bly out of polit­i­cal rea­sons.
An inhab­i­tant dis­cov­ered the fire in the Net­zes­traße, Neukölln, in the ear­ly hours of tues­day and called the fire brigade, as the police reports.
It is already the num­ber 22 car burned in Berlin this year.

——————————-

direct action news from greece
http://directactionde.blogspot.com

Whaling Opponents Collide at Sea

Sea Shep­herd Crew Remain On Guard Behind the Nis­shin Maru

Sea Shep­herd Oper­a­tion Musashi
Update from the Ross Sea

Feb­ru­ary 7th, 2009
0700 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
1200 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 57 Min­utes South and 164 Degrees 53 Min­utes West

Sea Shepherd rotten butter & collisionSea Shep­herd Crew Remain On Guard Behind the Nis­shin Maru

Sea Shep­herd Oper­a­tion Musashi
Update from the Ross Sea

Feb­ru­ary 7th, 2009
0700 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
1200 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 57 Min­utes South and 164 Degrees 53 Min­utes West
Despite repeat­ed assaults by frus­trat­ed and increas­ing­ly vio­lent Japan­ese whalers, the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin con­tin­ues to stand guard behind the Japan­ese float­ing abat­toir called the Nis­shin Maru. The three Japan­ese har­poon boats are not in the area but the Sea Shep­herd crew is pre­pared to obstruct them should they return.

The Japan­ese have been accus­ing Sea Shep­herd of try­ing to obstruct their props with ropes yet the whalers have been try­ing to do the same thing to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin. They are accus­ing the Sea Shep­herd crew of throw­ing rot­ten but­ter (which the Japan­ese refer to as “acid”) at them yet the whalers are throw­ing golf balls and chunks of met­al at the Steve Irwin crew. In addi­tion, the Japan­ese are blast­ing the Sea Shep­herd crew with water can­nons and Long Range Acousti­cal weapons — a son­ic gun that caus­es dis­ori­en­ta­tion, nau­sea and deaf­ness.

“I find it inter­est­ing that so called experts and politi­cians are quick to con­demn Sea Shep­herd’s tac­tics for uphold­ing con­ser­va­tion law yet say not a word about the esca­lat­ing phys­i­cal vio­lence direct­ed at us by the whalers who are break­ing the law,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Their posi­tion of sid­ing with the poach­ers seems to be that if we did not put our­selves in this sit­u­a­tion we would not be expe­ri­enc­ing such vio­lence. The same could be said for any police­man and Sea Shep­herd is not down here to protest whal­ing, we are down here to obstruct ille­gal whal­ing as defined under inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law. We are down here to enforce the law, not to break it.”

There is a legal prece­dent for Sea Shep­herd’s inter­ven­tion and that is the Unit­ed Nation World Char­ter for Nature that allows for non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions to uphold inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and in Sec­tion 21(e) specif­i­cal­ly in areas beyond nation­al juris­dic­tions.

The Japan­ese whale poach­ers have the advan­tage of supe­ri­or ships, faster, more pow­er­ful ships, they have weapons and they have the sup­port of their gov­ern­ment that will defend what­ev­er actions they take includ­ing the killing of our crew if that should occur.
On Feb­ru­ary 6th, two inci­dents occurred where the Steve Irwin col­lid­ed with har­poon ves­sels as they forced their way past the Steve Irwin’s block­ade in their pur­suit of their poach­ing activ­i­ties. These col­li­sions were not inten­tion­al on the part of Sea Shep­herd.

“Ear­li­er we filmed a whale being ille­gal­ly killed and we watched as that whale endured an ago­niz­ing death, thrash­ing about in its own blood for twen­ty-five min­utes,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “We view the killing of that whale as cold blood­ed mur­der and we are com­mit­ted to doing every­thing we can, short of inflict­ing injuries our­selves, to pro­tect these defence­less, gen­tle, intel­li­gent and social­ly com­plex sen­tient beings.”

The har­poon boats have not returned to the Nis­shin Maru since the last inci­dent occurred at 1800 Hours on Feb­ru­ary 6th.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has made it clear to the gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia that our inter­ven­tions which are becom­ing increas­ing­ly more dan­ger­ous because of Japan­ese aggres­sion can be avoid­ed by Peter Gar­rett and Kevin Rudd sim­ply mak­ing good on their pre-elec­tion promise to take the Japan­ese whalers to court.

“Because Gar­rett and Rudd have reneged on their promis­es to us, the peo­ple of Aus­tralia, we have been forced to defend these whales as Aus­tralian cit­i­zens in these hos­tile and remote waters sim­ply because some­one has to,” said Andrew Per­ry of Hobart, Tas­ma­nia.

—–

Steve Irwin Suf­fers Sec­ond Col­li­sion with the Japan­ese Fleet

Oper­a­tion Musashi
Update from the Ross Sea

Feb­ru­ary 6th, 2009, 1830 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
2330 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 52 Min­utes South and 165 Degrees 18 Min­utes West

At 1800 Hours the har­poon ves­sels Yushin Maru No. 1 and the Yushin Maru No.3 decid­ed to run the Sea Shep­herd block­ade to trans­fer two dead whales to the flens­ing deck of the Nis­shin Maru. The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin was block­ing the slip­way to pre­vent the trans­fer in order to shut down the ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing oper­a­tions.

As the Nis­shin Maru attempt­ed to hook onto the dead whale, the Steve Irwin and the Yushin Maru No.3 col­lid­ed with the for­ward star­board side of the Steve Irwin and the port stern side of the har­poon ves­sel com­ing togeth­er.

“We told them to not con­tin­ue their ille­gal whal­ing oper­a­tions and that we would be block­ing the stern slip­way of the fac­to­ry ship,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “They decid­ed to test our resolve and appar­ent­ly expect­ed us to retreat when they charged in ahead of us to make the trans­fer.”

Cap­tain Wat­son said that the Steve Irwin became dif­fi­cult to con­trol under a bar­rage of met­al objects, blasts from the water can­nons, and the dis­ori­en­ta­tion caused by the LRAD acoustic weapons that the whalers were using on the con­ser­va­tion­ists.

“I was dazed by the son­ic blasts being used on us at close range.” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I have to admit it was dif­fi­cult to con­cen­trate with that devise being focused on us.”

“I’ve nev­er felt any­thing quite like it,” said Emi­ly Hunter from Toron­to, Cana­da. “It pen­e­trates the body and you can feel your mus­cles vibrat­ing. It made me dizzy and left me some­what dazed.”

The Steve Irwin suf­fered no notice­able dam­age from the col­li­sion and no one was seri­ous­ly injured. A few of the Sea Shep­herd crew were struck by golf balls and pieces of met­al. The crew of the Steve Irwin were unable to deter­mine if there was any dam­age done to the har­poon hunter killer boat.

The two whales were trans­ferred after the Steve Irwin shut down the oper­a­tions of the fleet for twelve hours.

“We are try­ing to make this as dif­fi­cult as pos­si­ble for them to con­tin­ue their ille­gal activ­i­ties, “said Mol­ly Kendall from Ade­laide, South Aus­tralia. “It is dif­fi­cult to see them mur­der­ing these whales and we are deter­mined to do every­thing we pos­si­bly can to stop this hor­rif­ic slaugh­ter.”

The Steve Irwin remains on the tail of the Nis­shin Maru to attempt to obstruct any fur­ther trans­fers in an effort to stop the unlaw­ful poach­ing of the whales by the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.

“I wish we did not have to be down here in this dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I’ve said repeat­ed­ly that if Aus­tralia or New Zealand would agree to take Japan to the inter­na­tion­al court on this than we would back off. Because inter­na­tion­al law is not being enforced, we have no choice but to do what we can with the resources avail­able to us to defend these endan­gered whales in this estab­lished inter­na­tion­al whale sanc­tu­ary.”

—–

Update from the Ross Sea
Sea Shep­herd’s Oper­a­tion Musashi

Feb­ru­ary 6th, 2009
0800 Hours (Syd­ney Time)
1300 Hours (PST) (Feb­ru­ary 5th)
75 Degrees 44 Min­utes South and 165 Degrees 39 Min­utes West
The Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin col­lid­ed with the Yushin Maru #2 this morn­ing as the har­poon ves­sel moved in to block the Steve Irwin’s attempt to pre­vent the trans­fer of a dead whale up the slip­way of the Nis­shin Maru.

“We were in the process of block­ing the trans­fer from the Yushin Maru #2 when the Yushin Maru #1 moved direct­ly in front of the bow to block us,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “I could not turn to star­board with­out hit­ting the Yushin Maru #1. I tried to back down but the move­ment of the Yushin Maru #2 made the col­li­sion unavoid­able.”

The Yushin Maru #2 was trans­fer­ring a 2nd whale killed this morn­ing.

“The whalers have decid­ed to test our resolve,” said 1st Offi­cer Peter Ham­marst­edt. “They have esca­lat­ed this bat­tle to see just how deter­mined we are to pro­tect these whales. We’re shep­herds and we will do what we can to pro­tect our flock from these mur­der­ous poach­ers.”

The Yushin Maru #3 has also killed a whale but is unable to approach the fac­to­ry ship because the Steve Irwin is now guard­ing the slip­way.

The Sea Shep­herd crew intend to hold this posi­tion to pre­vent the trans­fer.

Communique released from ELF action at university

“Com­plete com­mu­nique of the action of Jan­u­ary 29:

Full communique released from ELF action at university“Com­plete com­mu­nique of the action of Jan­u­ary 29:

In the ear­ly morn­ing of Jan­u­ary 29, the sub­mis­sive fire­fight­ers in Mex­i­co City (D.F.) quelled a fire with­in the premis­es of the Col­lege of Sci­ences and Human­i­ties south cam­pus (CCH Sur) of the Uni­ver­si­dad Nacional Autóno­ma de Méx­i­co (UNAM). There a machine which destroys the Earth was left for­ev­er unus­able, and the admin­is­tra­tion offices of the cam­pus were burned.

The Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra (ELF) claimed this attack through a con­tact; we were informed that the uni­ver­si­ty had been destroy­ing a large part of the eco­log­i­cal reserve where a so-called ‘edu­ca­tion’ cen­ter is being built, sev­er­al vari­eties of trees and diverse plants were cut down, con­sid­ered to be in the way of their abil­i­ty to expand their facil­i­ties, and their mas­tery over nature; the progress and edu­ca­tion that they extol in their class­rooms is always based on dom­i­na­tion and anthro­pocen­trism. In this act by the UNAM, it is more than clear that not only do they wish to dom­i­nate and mold the minds of stu­dents, they also seek to expand the same con­trol over the land and the ani­mals that inhab­it her. That’s why the destruc­tive machine was burned, and why we also decid­ed to set a fire on cam­pus, now an indis­putable part of the eco­cide that edu­ca­tion imple­ments, which only wants to pro­duce peo­ple who are sub­mis­sive to author­i­ty and pow­er; they cre­ate beings who are unable to think and act for them­selves and are only edu­cat­ed to pro­duce and con­sume.

The mass media of mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, which hid the machine which had been burned, only now announced that part of the admin­is­tra­tive offices had been burned, and that this had been caused by Por­ro (shock groups) [groups orga­nized to dis­cred­it stu­dent move­ments]; we want to make clear that the ELF/FLT is not com­posed of such peo­ple, who are sent by their boss­es to do absurd and mean­ing­less things; our rea­sons are clear, as we strug­gle for total lib­er­a­tion (ani­mal, land and human), and if any­thing blocks us we will face it until its com­plete destruc­tion and elim­i­na­tion.

We know that the esti­mat­ed dam­age of this action was thou­sands of pesos, but still we are not sat­is­fied with that, and we will con­tin­ue mak­ing war on all that oppress­es us and will not allow us all to be hap­py– us, ani­mals and the land.

This was just a lit­tle mes­sage, for those who prof­it at the expense of the destruc­tion and dom­i­na­tion of the ecosys­tem.

ELF/FLT Méx­i­co”

anony­mous com­mu­nique (trans­la­tion) from http://directaction.info

Call out for solidarity anti-nuke actions on 26th April (Chernobyl Day)

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion

A call out for com­mon actions against the con­struc­tion of a new nuclear pow­er sta­tion

Present-day Belarus is a post sovi­et coun­try, on which ter­ri­to­ry a regime, police state in form and neolib­er­al in essence, for­ti­fied its posi­tion. For already 14 years the coun­try is run by one and the same per­son Alexan­der Lukashenko, a pop­ulist at the begin­ning of his gov­ern­ing and open­ly pur­su­ing anti­so­cial reforms now. The free­dom of speech, free­dom of the press, free­dom of assem­bly is not about our coun­try. These basic val­ues as well as the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion are sup­pressed. Peace­ful gath­er­ings dis­per­sions, polit­i­cal tri­als, pre­ven­tive deten­tions all this has become a norm of polit­i­cal prac­tice in Belarus.

A few years ago the rul­ing top start­ed to con­sid­er anoth­er ven­ture­some project the con­struc­tion of a nuclear pow­er sta­tion (NPS). Lukashenko took a deci­sion regard­less of the pub­lic wish­es and com­mon sense. The deci­sion was made with the active sup­port of the inter­na­tion­al nuclear lob­by. The con­struc­tion is to be under­tak­en by a Russ­ian cor­po­ra­tion Rosatom. It is to be held in a seis­mi­cal­ly active zone, in a dozen kilo­me­ters away from Lake Naroch the largest lake in Belarus, which is eco­log­i­cal­ly unique for our coun­try and is a tourists and hol­i­day-mak­ers attrac­tion. On the con­struc­tion will be spent $4 bil­lion, which oth­er­wise could be out­laid for alter­na­tive ener­gy means devel­op­ment.

But the above-list­ed points pale before the fact that Belarus shared 70% of radioac­tive con­t­a­m­i­na­tion after Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent. But the gov­ern­ment and the pres­i­dent are absolute­ly not con­cerned about that. They want to cre­ate a delayed-action bomb in the coun­try, where one third of the ter­ri­to­ry is unfit for farm­ing and berries/mushrooms gath­er­ing.

We, Anti­nu­clear resis­tance, an anar­chy group, come out against nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing on the whole and against the NPS con­struc­tion specif­i­cal­ly in Belarus. A part of polit­i­cal forces in Belarus, includ­ing oppo­si­tion, sup­port­ed the NPS con­struc­tion. Unlike them we do not believe in NPS safe­ty irre­spec­tive of the polit­i­cal regime, with­in which it is func­tion­ing and being con­struct­ed. Our activ­i­ty is based upon non-author­i­tar­i­an prin­ci­ples, we do not coop­er­ate with any polit­i­cal par­ties on a reg­u­lar base, but with eco­log­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and grass­roots ini­tia­tives.

On 26 April, the anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl nuclear acci­dent, an annu­al demon­stra­tion Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path) takes place in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the acci­dent and the peo­ple who fell the imme­di­ate and lin­ger­ing vic­tims of it. Start­ing with the year of 1996 anar­chists take part in the demo with eco­log­i­cal and anti­nu­clear slo­gans. But nowa­days the demon­stra­tion, instead of just mourn­ing and com­mem­o­ra­tive event, is
gain­ing a protest mood: in the coun­try, where dozens of thou­sands peo­ple have died as a result of the nuclear acci­dent after­maths and hun­dreds of thou­sands have acquired acci­dent-caused ill­ness­es or become hand­i­capped, a new NPS is to be con­struct­ed! And that is done accord­ing to the com­mon reg­u­la­tions of an author­i­tar­i­an police state not ask­ing the peo­ples opin­ion, but just con­fronting them with the fact.

On 26 April we will again take a most active part in the Charnobyl­s­ki Shlah (The Cher­nobyl Path), well try to pass along to every­one our clear anti­nu­clear posi­tion, will inform as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble of the approach­ing dan­ger. But now it is not enough! As an instru­ment of strug­gle against the state law­less­ness we rely on the inter­na­tion­al sup­port. We urge anar­chists, envi­ron­men­tal­ists, anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­ans of the world to car­ry out sol­i­dar­i­ty actions on 26 April 2009. We call for a decen­tral­ized day of action of any form, which could help peo­ple learn some­thing about our prob­lem and stop the impu­dent author­i­ty and their spon­sors from IAEA.

If you already take actions on 26 April on your local prob­lems con­cern­ing nuclear pow­er engi­neer­ing, please put on your list the demand for abo­li­tion of the NSP con­struc­tion in Belarus. You are also wel­come to par­tic­i­pate in The Cher­nobyl Path in Min­sk and oth­er actions in Belarus.

Togeth­er we will be able to stand up for the right for life on a clean and eco­log­i­cal­ly safe plan­et!

If you have any inten­tion to make sol­i­dar­i­ty actions with the Belaruss­ian anti­nu­clear move­ment or par­tic­i­pate in the demon­stra­tion in Belarus please con­tact us:

antiatombel@riseup.net

Spread out the call out through any acces­si­ble for you infor­ma­tion chan­nels

belarus anar­chists
http://belarus.avtonom.org