Category: Global

Glob­al

SHAC DEMO

Sat­ur­day saw 700 peo­ple from all over this island, as well as many oth­er parts of the world, gath­er in Huntiung­don for a march and demo against the con­cen­tra­tion camp that is Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. The peo­ple of Hunt­ing­don showed much sup­port for the march, which was the first in the town for over four years, fol­low­ing changes to the exist­ing injunc­tion. Fol­low­ing the march we all moved on to the lab itself, which with its rows of fences and razor wire looks like the death camp that it is. Var­i­ous speak­ers gave mov­ing and pas­sion­ate speech­es, vow­ing to con­tin­ue the cam­paign until this bar­bar­ic, abhor­rent facil­i­ty is closed. Despite the jail­ing of the three lead­ing activists in SHAC, polit­i­cal pris­on­ers of a gov­ern­ment only inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing vest­ed fina­cial inter­est no mat­ter the cru­el­ty, this demo showed that the cam­paign is stronger than ever. We will nev­er give up our action in defence of the Earth and all Life.

Sat­ur­day saw 700 peo­ple from all over this island, as well as many oth­er parts of the world, gath­er in Huntiung­don for a march and demo against the con­cen­tra­tion camp that is Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. The peo­ple of Hunt­ing­don showed much sup­port for the march, which was the first in the town for over four years, fol­low­ing changes to the exist­ing injunc­tion. Fol­low­ing the march we all moved on to the lab itself, which with its rows of fences and razor wire looks like the death camp that it is. Var­i­ous speak­ers gave mov­ing and pas­sion­ate speech­es, vow­ing to con­tin­ue the cam­paign until this bar­bar­ic, abhor­rent facil­i­ty is closed. Despite the jail­ing of the three lead­ing activists in SHAC, polit­i­cal pris­on­ers of a gov­ern­ment only inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing vest­ed fina­cial inter­est no mat­ter the cru­el­ty, this demo showed that the cam­paign is stronger than ever. We will nev­er give up our action in defence of the Earth and all Life.

Climate Action News Sheet, 73 November 2007

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07

CONTENTS:
———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07
2) FREE FILM SCREENING OF ‘THE WARNING’ — LONDON, 12.11.07
3) TOTTERDOWN ART TRAIL — BRISTOL, 16–18.11.07
4) OXFORDSHIRE ECO-HOUSE OPEN DAYS — 24–25.11.07
5) BANNER PROTEST AT BIOFUELS CONFERENCE — LONDON, 27.11.07
6) CRITICAL MASS DATES AND UPDATES – OCT/NOV 2007
7) CLIMATE CHANGE BIKE RIDE / NATIONAL MARCH — LONDON, 8.12.07
8) BEYONDTV FESTIVAL — SWANSEA, 28.11.07–2.12.07
9) CLIMATE CAMP EXHIBITION ON TOUR — WINTER 2007
10) LOW-IMPACT LIVING INITIATIVE COURSES — WINTER 2007
11) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE ART EXHIBITION – NOV/DEC 2007
12) EARTHFIRST MOOT / NEW ACTION UPDATE — WINTER 2007
13) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) SONGS OF FREEDOM AT OPENING OF SHELL’S WILD LIE EXHIBITION — 27.10.07
2) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
3) PEOPLE’S BLOCKADE OF WORLD’S BIGGEST COAL PORT — AUSTRALIA, 3.11.07
4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS DISRUPT “CARBON TRAITORS” IN NEW YORK — 30.10.07
5) BP EXECUTIVE PIED AT EUROPE’S LARGEST BIOFUELS EVENT — 17.10.07
6) CAMP HOPE, GLOUCESTER — 20–21.10.07
7) PLANE STUPID AT MANCHESTER AIRPORT — 8.10.2007
8) GREENPEACE PROTESTORS SHUT DOWN POWER PLANT — 8.10.07
9) TOTAL BLOCKADES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
10) NUFFGLOBAL FILMS — NOVEMBER 2007
11) ESCALATING DEFLATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST 4X4S IN SWEDEN – OCT ‘07
12) DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — 7–15.10.07
13) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 4 — NOVEMBER 2007

———————————————-
UPCOMING ACTIONS AND EVENTS:
———————————————-
1) WILD LIE EXHIBITION PURSUES SHELL TO ABERYSTWYTH — 10–17.11.07
Imme­di­ate­ly after host­ing the 2006 Shell Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er exhi­bi­tion (organ­ised by the Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um and BBC Wildlife mag­a­zine) Aberys­t­wyth Arts Cen­tre is show­ing our counter-exhi­bi­tion; ‘Shel­l’s Wild Lie’. http://www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk/whatson/exhibitions/
‘Shel­l’s Wild Lie’, has been put togeth­er as part of Lon­don Ris­ing Tide’s ‘Art Not Oil’ cam­paign, and fea­tures pho­tographs and illus­tra­tions that we con­sid­er give a truer snap­shot of the dis­as­trous effects that Shell and the whole fos­sil fuel indus­try have on our plan­et:
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/Shell/
Book it your­self, and tell the Muse­um and BBC Wildlife what you think:
m.dixon@nhm.ac.uk, cc’ing to feedback@nhm.ac.uk,
wildlifeletters@bbcmagazinesbristol.com & info@artnotoil.org.uk

2) FREE FILM SCREENING, THE WARNING — LONDON, 12.11.07
The first UK screen­ing of the award-win­ning film “The Warn­ing” will be on 12th Novem­ber, 8pm at Pass­ing Clouds Works in Dal­ston, east Lon­don. This doc­u­men­tary charts the strug­gle of Siber­ian com­mu­ni­ties to pro­tect their sacred lands from preda­to­ry oil com­pa­nies. Pass­ing Clouds is behind ‘Uncle Sam’s’, which is on 438 Kings­land Road. Get there from Shored­itch /Old Street on the 242, 243, 67 or 149 bus­es.

3) TOTTERDOWN ART TRAIL — BRISTOL, 16–18.11.07
Includ­ing art, films and exhi­bi­tions con­nect­ed with cli­mate change and peak oil. www.frontroom.org.uk

4) OXFORDSHIRE ECO-HOUSE OPEN DAYS — 24–25.11.07
Are you plan­ning to ren­o­vate your house in the most envi­ron­men­tal way pos­si­ble? Do you want to slash ener­gy bills and make your house warmer and health­i­er? Are you sell­ing your house and want to improve its poor ener­gy rat­ing? Do you want to pre­pare for life in the cli­mate change cen­tu­ry? 18 eco-hous­es in Oxford­shire are open­ing their doors to the pub­lic to share the tech­niques, prod­ucts and pos­si­bil­i­ties of eco-ren­o­va­tion. This is a superb oppor­tu­ni­ty to see a wide range of approach­es and talk to the house own­ers direct­ly about their expe­ri­ences.
www.ecovation.org.uk
www.coinet.org.uk

5) BANNER PROTEST AT BIOFUELS CONFERENCE — LONDON, 27.11.07
This will take place out­side the Bio­fu­el Finance and Invest­ment World Con­fer­ence at Roy­al Gar­den Hotel, Kens­ing­ton High Street (near High Street Kens­ing­ton tube sta­tion) on Tues­day, 27th Novem­ber, 12 noon to 2pm.
Bio­fu­el invest­ment means more glob­al warm­ing, more defor­esta­tion, more peo­ple going hun­gry because of high­er food prices and food short­ages, and more human rights abus­es and refugees as agribusi­ness­es take con­trol over ever larg­er areas of land.
www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

6) CRITICAL MASS DATES AND UPDATES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
Sheffield; last Fri­day of the month, 5:30pm at the Uni­ver­si­ty Con­course.
Lon­don; last Fri­day of the month, 6:00pm under Water­loo Bridge by the NFT, South Bank. Next ride Novem­ber 23rd 2007.
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/main.html
For reports on the Octo­ber rides see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/6274

7) CLIMATE CHANGE BIKE RIDE / NATIONAL MARCH — LONDON, 8.12.07
Sat­ur­day 8 Decem­ber, Cyclists assem­ble 10am Lin­col­n’s Inn Fields. Cycling to Par­lia­ment Square to link up with main march to US Embassy, (timed to coin­cide with the UN cli­mate talks in Bali). Marchers assem­ble 12 noon Mill­bank for main march. [West­min­ster Tube]
2.30 pm Ral­ly at US embassy. Speak­ers include Chris Huhne MP, Michael Meach­er MP, Car­o­line Lucas MEP, Zac Gold­smith, George Mon­biot. The Nation­al Demo in Lon­don will be one of many glob­al cli­mate demon­stra­tions tak­ing place on the 8th.
http://www.campaigncc.org

8) BEYONDTV FESTIVAL — SWANSEA, 28.11.07–2.12.07
Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors. All films will have a theme of social or envi­ron­men­tal activism. Host­ed in the very heart of Swansea, BeyondTV promis­es to be an enter­tain­ing week with all pro­ceeds going to to sup­port the char­i­ty work of under­cur­rents.
http://beyondtvfestival.clearerchannel.org/whatisbtv

9) CLIMATE CAMP EXHIBITION ON TOUR — WINTER 2007
The Cli­mate Camp exhi­bi­tion doc­u­ments in sound, words, instal­la­tions and images the life, work­shops and direct action of those ten busy days in August. It exam­ines the issues and think­ing of peo­ple who seek to stop the world sleep­walk­ing into a dis­as­ter that is man­i­fest­ly pre­ventable, but huge­ly prof­itable for a pow­er­ful few. This exhi­bi­tion will be tour­ing UK cities threat­ened by region­al air­port expan­sion.
Work­shops, talks and film screen­ings will appear at http://www.minimouse.me.uk/show as they are con­firmed.
Pho­tographs from the show are a selec­tion from those to be seen at
http://www.minimouse.me.uk/photographers.html

10) LOW-IMPACT LIVING INITIATIVE COURSES — WINTER 2007
LILI will be run­ning 10 cours­es at a new venue called Unstone Grange (nr. Sheffield) and 28 one day cours­es at Hack­ney City Farm in Lon­don. For the full range of cours­es for 2007–2008, see;
http://www.lowimpact.org/courses.htm

11) PLYMOUTH ENVIRONMENT CENTRE ART EXHIBITION – NOV-DEC 2007
Ply­mouth Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre is hold­ing a fund-rais­ing art exhi­bi­tion and auc­tion at the B‑bar in the Bar­bi­can The­atre, Ply­mouth.
Exhi­bi­tion — Fri­day 23rd Novem­ber to Thurs­day 13th Decem­ber 2007
Auc­tion — Thurs­day 13th Decem­ber 2007 start­ing at 7pm
http://plymouthenvironmentcentre.org.uk/art_auction.php

12) EARTHFIRST MOOT / NEW ACTION UPDATE — WINTER 2007
To down­load the EF! Action Update and for advance notice of the Win­ter Moot (Feb­ru­ary gath­er­ing of eco-activists) see;
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/6347

13) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY — 1.4.08
The site is now run­ning and will be fill­ing up with images, ideas, graph­ics, posters, links…
Check for updates on what promis­es to be a mem­o­rable day of action.
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org

———————————————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
———————————————-
1) SONGS OF FREEDOM AT OPENING OF SHELL’S WILD LIE EXHIBITION — 27.10.07
15 or so folk from all over Car­bon Town gath­ered today to sing a new hymn of hope to an oil-free future in the co-opt­ed cathe­dral that is the Unnat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, where the heart­break­ing­ly beau­ti­ful Shell Wildlife Pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the Year exhi­bi­tion has just opened. Grad­u­al­ly the singers were removed, gath­er­ing again on the pave­ment out­side with
images from the Shel­l’s Wild Lie exhi­bi­tion and more songs. Spir­its were high, and respons­es from the pub­lic love­ly and heart-warm­ing. No police were present. It still looks as if the cam­paign to get Shell kicked out as spon­sor might bear fruit — we’ll find out very soon if its 2 year con­tract will be renewed. Let’s keep the pres­sure up!
For a full report and what you can do to help, see;
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/231
http://www.artnotoil.org.uk//content/view/39/1/
For a short film of the action, see;
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384607.html

2) NATIONAL DAY OF LOCAL ACTION VS. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND — 15.10.07
From Edin­burgh to Corn­wall, block­ades to invis­i­ble the­atre, polar bears to trea­cle tarts; RBS felt the sting today. All in all there were 32 actions across the coun­try includ­ing firsts for sev­er­al groups. Every­one is delight­ed with the phe­nom­e­nal response to the day of action…except RBS of course! The actions high­light­ed their role as one of the world’s
largest fun­ders of cli­mate-wreck­ing oil and gas extrac­tion. For full reports on the var­i­ous fan­tas­tic protests see;
http://risingtide.org.uk/node/230
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/383812.html
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5176

3) THE PEOPLE’S BLOCKADE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST COAL PORT — AUSTRALIA,
3.11.07
Ris­ing Tide Aus­tralia esti­mate that about 400 peo­ple came to Horse­shoe Beach, New­cas­tle and that about 250 entered the ship­ping chan­nel to block­ade the world’s biggest coal port with canoes, kayaks and inner tubes. This was a fan­tas­tic show of com­mu­ni­ty deter­mi­na­tion to take action against Aus­trali­a’s biggest con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change, despite
resis­tance from gov­ern­ment and indus­try. As well as being a pow­er­ful and sym­bol­ic action, the protest suc­ceed­ed in dis­rupt­ing coal exports from New­cas­tle Har­bour.
http://www.risingtide.org.au/peoplesblockadereport

4) GREENWASH GUERILLAS DISRUPT “CARBON TRAITORS” IN NEW YORK — 30.10.07
Ris­ing Tide North America’s Green­wash Guer­ril­las paid a sur­prise Hal­loween vis­it to the Car­bon Mar­ket Insights con­fer­ence in New York City. Pos­ing as del­e­gates, two pro­test­ers took the stage at the exclu­sive event and pre­sent­ed the 700 atten­dees with a “Deed to the Atmos­phere” denounc­ing Car­bon Trad­ing as a sham approach to the fos­sil fuels cri­sis. The action was the first in the US to tar­get the grow­ing Car­bon Trad­ing indus­try.
http://risingtidenorthamerica.org/wordpress/category/front-page/

5) BP EXECUTIVE PIED AT EUROPE’S LARGEST BIOFUELS EVENT — 17.10.07
A stunned audi­ence gasped as a cream-pie was launched at BP Bio­fu­els’ Europe & Africa Direc­tor Oliv­er Mace, while activists swarmed the stage and hand­ed out leaflets to atten­dees. One of the pro­test­ers D‑locked him­self to the podi­um, telling del­e­gates “we need to reduce our con­sump­tion now – tech­no­log­i­cal fix­es are not the answer.” Pan­ic alarms
were then set off around the room and the con­fer­ence was halt­ed.
There was also a demo out­side the event and a lock on block­ade at a D1 refin­ery. D1 are one of the biggest traders in bio­fu­el spe­cif­ic crops.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384123.html
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5205
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/expoprotests.php

6) CAMP HOPE, GLOUCESTER — 20–21.10.07
Camp Hope took place in a field oppo­site the entrance to Glouces­ter­shire Air­port on the week­end of 20/21 Octo­ber 2007. Activists set up the camp in protest at the pro­posed expan­sion and increased avi­a­tion at Staver­ton in Glouces­ter. Work­shops and dis­cus­sions includ­ed those giv­en by; Bicy­col­o­gy, Plane Stu­pid, Seeds For Change, Stop Bris­tol Air­port Expan­sion and Bio­fu­el­watch.
http://www.myspace.com/campofhope

7) PLANE STUPID AT MANCHESTER AIRPORT — 8.10.2007
Activists from Man­ches­ter Cli­mate Action and Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid block­ad­ed the secu­ri­ty check-in of ter­mi­nal 3 of Man­ches­ter Air­port. Pas­sen­gers were denied access to the depar­ture lounge by sev­en activists locked togeth­er using arm-tube devices. Leaflets and train timeta­bles were hand­ed out. Two ban­ners were unfurled read­ing, Man­ches­ter City Council…supporting cli­mate chaos and Domes­tic flights cost the Earth. The action was inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action.
http://www.planestupid.com/?q=content/climate-change-activists-blockade-domestic-flights

8) GREENPEACE PROTESTORS SHUT DOWN POWER PLANT — 8.10.07
Green­peace cam­paign­ers staged a dawn raid at a pow­er plant which could be the site of Britain’s first new coal-fired sta­tion for 20 years. More than 50 activists said they want­ed Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown to reject the pro­pos­al for the Kingsnorth site, on the Hoo Penin­su­la, in Kent. After enter­ing the site, one team locked on to con­vey­or belts while anoth­er team climbed to the top of the chim­ney.
http://greenpeace.org.uk/tags/kingsnorth

9) TOTAL BLOCKADES — OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2007
A wave of demon­stra­tions against the oil giant Total and its role in sup­port­ing the bru­tal regime in Bur­ma have tak­en place in Lon­don, Brad­ford, Cardiff and Oxford. While not strict­ly cli­mate-based, these protests keep the spot­light on crim­i­nals like Total. Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democ­ra­cy leader, said that “Total has become the main sup­port­er of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime.” She told the French week­ly Le Nou­v­el Obser­va­teur that “Total knew what it was doing when it invest­ed mas­sive­ly in Bur­ma while oth­ers with­drew from the mar­ket for eth­i­cal rea­sons”.
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5122 & 5137, 5204, 5207 & 6346

10) NUFFGLOBAL FILMS — NOVEMBER 2007
NUF­F­glob­al film fes­ti­val sup­port­ed a project to pro­duce 25 short films on dif­fer­ent aspects of cli­mate change made by young film-mak­ers from around the world. For more info and to watch the clips online see;
http://nuffglobal.net/

11) ESCALATING DEFLATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST 4X4S IN SWEDEN – OCT ‘07
One thou­sand 4x4s have now been dis­armed by The Indi­ans of the Con­crete Jun­gle! The cam­paign is spread­ing like wild­fire, prompt­ing nation­al debate and furi­ous aggres­sion among SUV-own­ers.
http://asfaltsdjungelnsindianer.wordpress.com/

12) DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — 7–15 OCTOBER 2007
http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

13) BATH BOMB, ISSUE 4 — NOVEMBER 2007
For the 4th edi­tion of Bath’s pre­miere rad­i­cal tabloid see; http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385124.html

Com­piled and sent out by Ris­ing Tide UK: info at risingtide.org.uk
To receive this News Sheet month­ly, email news-sub­scribe at risingtide.org.uk
with the sub­ject line ‘sub­scribe’ (with­out the quotes).

Ogoni 9 Day — Rossport Endures to Prevail; Today Smelt Like Victory (photos)

Novem­ber 9th 2007
Not in our name !

Mayo Ogoni solidarity 1

Mayo Ogoni solidarity 3Novem­ber 9th 2007
Not in our name !

Today, to com­mem­o­rate Shel­l’s judi­cial mur­der of the Ogo­ni 9 and a look back in anger at the Gar­da baton-fest a year ago, some 400 activists jour­neyed from all reach­es of Ire­land to voice our out­rage out­side and inside Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy site, I was with the sec­tion of pro­tes­tors that first manned the front line at Bel­lan­aboy bridge at 6AM at the request of S2S when it was right­ly sur­mised that Shell and the Guards would attempt to steal a march by bring­ing the work­ers in ear­ly — for a while, before Gar­da weight of num­bers pre­vailed, we were effec­tive in blockad­ing and pre­vent­ing them from earn­ing their 30 pieces of Mam­mon sil­ver inside.

After being pre­vent­ed from join­ing the main group by a two deep line of Guards, we suc­cess­ful­ly scaled the gates of the refin­ery to be greet­ed inside with wan­ton vio­lence and rough han­dling by Shel­l’s thugs dressed in secu­ri­ty uni­forms.

What stim­u­lat­ed the title was an encounter with a Ger­man from Riegen and a cou­ple from the UK Mid­lands who had spent the pre­vi­ous 48 hours trav­el­ling over­land from main­land Europe and Eng­land just to attend today’s protest, what com­mit­ment?, even so, the peo­ple of Erris match it and, fur­ther afield, activists, who with a gran­ite sense of con­science turn up again and again in Bel­lan­aboy to bear wit­ness against a rogue cor­po­ra­tion and their shoe shine boys in gov­ern­ment who pave and grease their way?

Updates received via Text Mes­sage from Pro­tes­tors

6.47: Gate 2 blocked since 6am

7.10: Sit­u­a­tion tense for a group from Cork hemmed in near Gate 2 (gate near­est the bridge). On the road but the guards have half of it.

7.35: The refin­ery site has been occu­pied. One group of 30 peo­ple have entered and are now occu­py­ing the site com­pound. Mean­while on the road between the bridge and Gate 2, a group of 90 pro­test­ers pre­vent­ed a truck from from enter­ing the site for about 20 min­utes. The truck drove over one per­son­’s foot and an ambu­lance is on its way. One of the block­aders was arrest­ed around the same time.

8:08: The same truck that drove over the pro­test­er’s foot is still being block­ad­ed from enter­ing the quar­ry (around 40 min­utes at this stage).

8:35: There are cur­rent­ly two dif­fer­ent groups on the build­ing site and anoth­er two groups of block­aders at Gate 1 and Gate 2.

The pro­test­er whose foot was dri­ven over has been tak­en to hos­pi­tal. Guards were report­ed as being very rough while remov­ing peo­ple from the road at Gate 2 — stand­ing on peo­ple’s arms and chests and pulling them off the road by their necks. Local, John Mon­aghan had his cam­era pulled off him and thrown into the ditch by gar­dai.

8:57: The truck has since got past the block­ade of Gate 2 (leav­ing it blocked for just over an hour). 30/40 local peo­ple were active­ly involved in the block­ade. Guards report­ed as vio­lent­ly drag­ging peo­ple away — punch­ing peo­ple in back and stom­ach. Many guards report­ed as not wear­ing their iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers.

The block­aders have now joined the group at the main gate to the site and there is a line of gar­dai (now includ­ing the pub­lic order unit) between them and the com­pound gate. Two oth­er arrests have been con­firmed aside from the pro­test­er blockad­ing Gate 2. Fur­ther details on these two arrests to be con­firmed.

9:05: One group of about 20 pro­test­ers on the site attempt­ed to get past the inner gate (with spikes on top) to the site but suf­fered minor injuries (cut hands) as well as ripped and torn cloth­ing as the site secu­ri­ty pre­vent­ed them from get­ting across by push­ing them back against the spikes at the top of the gate. Two of the peo­ple who suc­ceed­ed in get­ting to the inner site were eject­ed from the site by site secu­ri­ty need­ed first aid but are now on their way up to join the group on the road by the main gate.

10:26: Six peo­ple have been escort­ed out of the com­pound after breach­ing it via a back entrance. The group man­aged to breach the inner perime­ter and stop work tem­porar­i­ly. There were minor scuf­fles but secu­ri­ty were ‘gen­er­al­ly nice’.

14:56: 16 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly on site. There are secu­ri­ty present but no gar­dai as of yet. The group is a mix of locals and sup­port­ers.

15:01: “Secu­ri­ty guards assault­ing pro­test­ers, grab­bing cam­eras, work con­tin­u­ing”

Activist killed on GM action in Brazil — call to action for 8th November

Call for day of action on 8th Novem­ber in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Brazil­ian GM activists after shoot­ings on anti-GM land squat in Brazil

On Octo­ber 21 at 1:30 p.m., gun­men attacked a Via Campesina encamp­ment locat­ed at Syngenta’s 127-hectare farm used for field tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in San­ta Tereza do Oeste, in Paraná, Brazil. Dur­ing the attack, Valmir Mota de Oliveira, 42 years old (known as “Keno,”) activist and leader of the of the Movi­men­to Sem Ter­ra (the Brazil­ian Land­less Rur­al Work­ers Move­ment), was killed at point-blank range by two shots to the chest. Two oth­er MST lead­ers, Cel­so Bar­bosa and Célia Apare­ci­da Lourenço, were pur­sued by the gun­men but man­aged to escape. Work­ers Gen­til Couto Viera, Jonas Gomes de Queiroz, Domin­gos Bar­retos, Izabel Nasci­men­to de Souza, and Hud­son Cardin were seri­ous­ly injured.

Call for day of action on 8th Novem­ber in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Brazil­ian GM activists after shoot­ings on anti-GM land squat in Brazil

On Octo­ber 21 at 1:30 p.m., gun­men attacked a Via Campesina encamp­ment locat­ed at Syngenta’s 127-hectare farm used for field tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops in San­ta Tereza do Oeste, in Paraná, Brazil. Dur­ing the attack, Valmir Mota de Oliveira, 42 years old (known as “Keno,”) activist and leader of the of the Movi­men­to Sem Ter­ra (the Brazil­ian Land­less Rur­al Work­ers Move­ment), was killed at point-blank range by two shots to the chest. Two oth­er MST lead­ers, Cel­so Bar­bosa and Célia Apare­ci­da Lourenço, were pur­sued by the gun­men but man­aged to escape. Work­ers Gen­til Couto Viera, Jonas Gomes de Queiroz, Domin­gos Bar­retos, Izabel Nasci­men­to de Souza, and Hud­son Cardin were seri­ous­ly injured.

To any­one who has been part of the fight against GM crops and cor­po­rate con­trol of our lives in the UK, from stick­ing “GM” labels on a pack­et of bean feast to sneak­ing through the fields at the dead of night to destroy the crops and sab­o­tage the test-sites: Keno and his com­pan­ions are us. It is an acci­dent of class pol­i­tics and geog­ra­phy we are not (yet) receiv­ing death threats.

Via Campesina had pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied the site in Brazil because of Syn­gen­ta’s ille­gal devel­op­ment of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) seeds. Syn­gen­ta is the world’s largest pro­duc­er of agro­chem­i­cals and the third largest com­mer­cial seed pro­duc­er. They pulled out of the GM in the UK after their last attempt at a field tri­al was destroyed.

At dawn on Octo­ber 21st, about 150 mem­bers of Via Campesina reoc­cu­pied Syn­gen­ta’s site, where they encoun­tered four armed secu­ri­ty guards, who were dis­armed and left the site. At about 1 in the after­noon, Via Campesina reports, “a bus stopped in front of the entry gate and about forty armed gun­men got out, fir­ing machine guns at the peo­ple that they saw in the encamp­ment. They broke down the gate, then shot [Mota].

Mota, Lourenço and Bar­bosa had been receiv­ing death threats and intim­i­da­tion since the begin­ning of the year. They still con­tin­ued to take action.

We need to act in sol­i­dar­i­ty, because this is the panora­ma, and it is only going to get worse. Sick though it is, respons­es from ‘con­cerned cit­i­zens’ in coun­tries like ours can help pro­tect activists like Keno and have an impact on com­pa­nies like Syn­gen­ta.

La Via Campesina are call­ing on all orga­ni­za­tions and move­ments to orga­nize protest actions at Syn­gen­ta offices on the 8th Novem­ber in the coun­tries where they are based, and to hand deliv­er let­ters to the Brazil­ian and Swiss embassies, with the fol­low­ing demands:

1. The pun­ish­ment of the mate­r­i­al per­pe­tra­tors and intel­lec­tu­al authors of this crime.
2. Expro­pri­a­tion of Syn­gen­ta lands, to be used for the pro­duc­tion of native seeds, and that these lands be admin­is­tered by rur­al peas­ants and farm work­ers.
3. The expul­sion of Syn­gen­ta from Brazil.
4. That the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment head­ed by Pres­i­dent Luis Igna­cio Lula da Sil­va adopt mea­sures to ensure the phys­i­cal integri­ty of the rur­al farm work­ers who are threat­ened by the armed men con­tract­ed by Syn­gen­ta.
5. That all organ­i­sa­tions back up the ini­tia­tives of Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al in their call to repu­di­ate and con­demn the actions of Syn­gen­ta.
6. That all organ­i­sa­tions of Via Campesina in all coun­tries orga­nize days of action and protest in the Swiss and Brazil­ian Embassies, as well as at the offices of Syn­gen­ta this Thurs­day 8th Novem­ber and on the 10th of Decem­ber con­demn­ing this crim­i­nal act.
7. To send let­ters of protest to the fol­low­ing address­es:

Gov­er­nador do Esta­do do Paraná
Exmo Gov­er­nador do Esta­do do Paraná
Sr. Rober­to Requião de Mel­lo e Sil­va
Palá­cio Iguaçu
Praça Nos­sa Sen­ho­ra de Salete, s/nº, 3º andar
Cen­tro Cívi­co 80.530–909
Curitiba/PR — Brasil
Fax: + 55 41 3350 2935
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Min­istro da Justiça
Exmo Min­istro da Justiça
Sr. Tar­so Gen­ro
Esplana­da dos Min­istérios, Blo­co “T”
70712–902 — Brasília/DF — Brasil
Fax: + 55 61 3322–6817
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Cópias para:
Sec­re­taria Espe­cial de Dire­itos Humanos
Exmo. Secretário Espe­cial
Sr. Paulo de Tar­so Van­nuchi
Esplana­da dos Min­istérios — Blo­co “T” — 4º andar
70.064–900 — Brasília/DF — Brasil
Fax: + 55 61 3226 7980
Saudação: Vos­sa Excelência/ Your Excel­len­cy

Copia al MST Brasil y Via Campesina : mst­pr [NOSPAM] mst.org.br
via­cam­pesina [NOSPAM] viacampesina.org
Send us a short report and pho­tos of the actions orga­nized to:
via­cam­pesina [NOSPAM} viacampesina.org

SAMPLE LETTER –
Dear Sir:
I, [YOUR NAME / NAME OF ORGANIZATION] am writ­ing to express my grave con­cern with regard to the Octo­ber 21 mur­der of Valmir Mota de Oliveira, also known as Keno, of the Move­ment of Land­less Work­ers (MST) and Via Campesina, in the Brazil­ian state of Paraná, who was shot twice and killed by armed gun­men on an exper­i­men­tal GMO farm of Syn­gen­ta Seeds in San­ta Tereza do Oeste Paraná, Brazil. Keno’s death is a tremen­dous loss for his fam­i­ly, for those strug­gling for social jus­tice and human rights in Brazil, and for the inter­na­tion­al net­work of friends and allies who con­tin­ue to be shocked by the bru­tal­i­ty of agribusi­ness expan­sion in Brazil.
It has been doc­u­ment­ed that at 1:30 p.m. of the day of the attack, a bus stopped in front of the entrance gate to the farm and an armed mili­tia of approx­i­mate­ly 40 heav­i­ly armed gun­men got out, fir­ing at the peo­ple in the encamp­ment. They broke down the gate, pur­sued and killed activist Keno with two shots to the chest, attempt­ed to kill two oth­er lead­ers, shot five oth­er land­less work­ers, and severe­ly beat Isabel do Nasci­men­to de Souza, who remains in seri­ous con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal.
In addi­tion, it has been not­ed that Syn­gen­ta was using the ser­vices of an armed mili­tia which was act­ing through a front com­pa­ny, NF Secu­ri­ty, in con­junc­tion with the Rur­al Soci­ety of the West­ern Region (SRO) and the Move­ment of Rur­al Pro­duc­ers (MPR), which are tied to agribusi­ness.
While an inquiry has been opened in order to inves­ti­gate these denun­ci­a­tions against your com­pa­ny and NF Secu­ri­ty, we insist that you imme­di­ate­ly sus­pend all con­tract­ing of pri­vate mili­tias in Brazil to avoid any fur­ther vio­la­tions of human rights.
Please see to it that the indi­vid­u­als involved in this attack, who are inti­mate­ly linked to and paid by your com­pa­ny, are brought to jus­tice. Also, please ensure that your com­pa­ny avoids fur­ther alter­ca­tions with Brazil’s human rights and social jus­tice move­ments, and that the right of Brazil’s peo­ple to peace­ful­ly orga­nize be respect­ed by your Brazil-based employ­ees and func­tionar­ies.
Respect­ful­ly,
[YOUR NAME / NAME OF ORGANIZATION]
[LOCATION]

25,000 blockade world’s longest dam in India

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa, which will mean the death of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty would be huge­ly appre­ci­at­ed as Indi­a’s Supreme Court looks like it is going to rule in favour of min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta to be able to mine the Niyami­giri Hills in Oris­sa, which will mean the death of thou­sands of peo­ple and will set a prece­dent for the min­ing of all of Indi­a’s forests.

25,000 farm­ers are to form a human chain around one of the worlds largest dams in protest against devel­op­ment by British min­ing cor­po­ra­tion Vedan­ta Resources PLC. Cen­tral to the con­flict are issues over water allo­ca­tion to the alu­mini­um indus­try and a baux­ite min­ing project whose effects Indi­a’s Supreme Court have been warned by its own inves­ti­ga­to­ry com­mit­tee would lead to “cul­tur­al geno­cide.” [1]

Farm­ers in Indi­a’s poor­est state, Oris­sa, have grad­u­al­ly been los­ing the right to water from the Hirakud dam since it began to irri­gate and pro­duce ener­gy for the region in 1947. Whilst they claim that today only 25% of their fields receive any irri­ga­tion, allo­ca­tion of water to heavy indus­try has increased by over 27 times with­in the past ten years. [2] The major bene­fac­tor of this is the alu­mini­um indus­try, Hin­dal­co and Vedan­ta, present in Oris­sa due to its rich baux­ite deposits [alu­mini­um ore] and the huge amount of water avail­able from the Hirakud dam. [3]

Vedan­ta is cur­rent­ly on the crux of win­ning a legal bat­tle grant­i­ng it the right to mine three mil­lion tonnes of baux­ite from the most bio­di­verse for­est region in Oris­sa, the Niyam­giri hills. The min­ing threat­ens many rare species of ani­mals and plants which inhab­it the region, as well as the exis­tence of an entire trib­al pop­u­la­tion, the Don­garia Kondhs.

Today is the lat­est con­fronta­tion between dif­fer­ent inter­est groups in a ‘water war’ which reflects grow­ing glob­al con­flicts over water short­ages in a dry­ing plan­et. Police have fired on and killed demon­stra­tors in pre­vi­ous mass protests in Oris­sa and it is like­ly that fol­low­ing the recent con­tentious pro-Vedan­ta deci­sions of Indi­a’s Supreme Court, con­flicts may well become more heat­ed.

Feel like ring­ing up Vedan­ta to tell them to screw them­selves? Good!

investorrelations@vedantaresources.com

Sumanth Cidambi
Asso­ciate Direc­tor Investor Rela­tions
Tele­phone: +91 22 6646 1444

Vedan­ta Resources plc
16 Berke­ley Street
Lon­don W1J 8DZ

Robin Walk­er & Faeth Birch

Fins­bury Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
52–58 Taber­na­cle Street
Lon­don
EC2A 4NJ

Tele­phone: +44 (0) 20 7251 3801

tak­en from http://www.vedantaresources.com/contactus.htm

Autumn EF! Action Update out — and advance notice of the Winter Moot, 22–24 February (gathering of eco-activists), Nottingham

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

The lat­est issue of the quar­ter­ly EF!AU was dished up at the Anar­chist Book­fair — burst­ing at the seams, it had to be turned into a bumper issue, with a round-up of the actions around the time of the Camp for Cli­mate Action, plus loads of action reports from around the world since then — from pieing oil exec­u­tives, blockad­ing garages & air­ports, polar bears lock­ing-on, sab­o­tage, pris­on­ers, occu­pied spaces, dig­ger-div­ing, GM crop-trash­ing, to cake and the cun­ning use of mung beans (oh, and of course, much much more).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here

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The EF! Win­ter Moot will hap­pen from 22nd — 24th Feb­ru­ary 2008, in Not­ting­ham — more details near­er the time, as this is just advance notice.

It’s a gath­er­ing for envi­ron­men­tal activists — in the past, it’s been a chance for peo­ple involved in all kinds of eco­log­i­cal direct action to get togeth­er for a week­end indoors to chat about where things are at in the UK, and so improve all aspects of how we work togeth­er, in order to take direct action in defence of the earth.

Con­tact 0845–0223 5254 for more info

Protest shackles Total Oil petrol station (& 7th November action call-out)

On 1st Novem­ber pro­tes­tors gath­ered at the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in cen­tral Lon­don. They were call­ing for Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma due to their fund­ing of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. The protest began at 5pm to coin­cide with rush hour.

London Total shackled protestOn 1st Novem­ber pro­tes­tors gath­ered at the 24-hour Total petrol sta­tion on Maryle­bone Road in cen­tral Lon­don. They were call­ing for Total Oil to pull out of Bur­ma due to their fund­ing of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime. The protest began at 5pm to coin­cide with rush hour.

The protest con­sist­ed of ban­ners, plac­ards, leaflets and a peti­tion. One pro­tes­tor wore shack­les to sig­ni­fy the oppres­sion of the Burmese peo­ple.

With­in 10 min­utes of the protest begin­ning staff closed the sta­tion, block­ing off the fore­court and switch­ing off the lights. Even the accom­pa­ny­ing shop was shut. When it became appar­ent that the protest was con­tin­u­ing the police were con­tact­ed. One offi­cer arrived and after con­sult­ing the staff told the demon­stra­tors that there were not allowed onto the fore­court and risked arrest if they “inter­fered” with the busi­ness’s trade by block­ing the entrance or lock­ing onto any of the pumps. (It should be not­ed that none of the pro­tes­tors had entered the fore­court or caused any “inter­fer­ence”.)

After an hour the sta­tion re-opened. The protest con­tin­ued until 7.00pm.

http://www.totaloutofburma.blogspot.com

A world­wide day of action against French oil giant Total’s invest­ment in Bur­ma has been called for Wednes­day 7th Novem­ber, the day the com­pa­ny’s quar­ter­ly results are pub­lished. Total’s con­tin­ued involve­ment in the oper­a­tion of the Yadana gas pipeline in the south of the coun­try, in part­ner­ship with Chevron-Tex­a­co, is opposed by the coun­try’s demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-elect­ed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest or deten­tion for 12 years. The pipeline earns the regime hun­dreds of mil­lions of pounds in rev­enue every year, with only a tiny frac­tion reach­ing the Burmese peo­ple. The main cus­tomer for the pipeline is Thai­land.

Three arrested in GM crop protest

ABC News, Oct 23 2007

Three Green­peace activists have been arrest­ed dur­ing a protest at Mur­ray Goul­burn’s Mel­bourne head­quar­ters.

Pro­test­ers went into the build­ing demand­ing the co-oper­a­tive sup­port bans on genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered food crops.

ABC News, Oct 23 2007

Three Green­peace activists have been arrest­ed dur­ing a protest at Mur­ray Goul­burn’s Mel­bourne head­quar­ters.

Pro­test­ers went into the build­ing demand­ing the co-oper­a­tive sup­port bans on genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered food crops.

Police had to forcibly remove three cam­paign­ers from the premis­es, but sev­er­al pro­test­ers remain out­side.

Cam­paign­er, Louise Sales, says the dairy giant sup­ports the rein­tro­duc­tion of GE crops for use in stock feed.

‘Mur­ray Goul­burn play a piv­otal role in the dairy indus­try not only in Vic­to­ria but also in all of Aus­tralia,’ she said.

‘We think its impor­tant that they sup­port clean healthy food for con­sumers and stand up for farm­ers and pro­tect our GE free sta­tus,’ she said.

‘So I had a brief inter­change with the man­ag­ing direc­tor but he was fair­ly hos­tile and was­n’t real­ly ready to engage,’ Ms Sales said.

‘So we will con­tin­ue to pur­sue a meet­ing with Mur­ray Goul­burn to talk about their pol­i­cy,’ she said.

http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/23/2067318.htm?section=justin

—

Green­peace tar­gets dairy giant over GM

Green­peace activists are tar­get­ting a major milk proces­sor in Mel­bourne, try­ing to halt the dairy indus­try’s sup­port of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops.

Mur­ray Goul­burn, pro­duces milk, but­ter and cheese, and is one of the largest proces­sors in the coun­try.

Ear­li­er this year the dairy indus­try reversed its posi­tion on the intro­duc­tion of GM crops.

Louise Sales from Green­peace says today’s protest at Mur­ray Goul­burn’s head­quar­ters is an attempt to secure a meet­ing with man­age­ment.

‘We believe they should be rep­re­sent­ing con­sumers, and con­sumers have made it clear they don’t want to eat GE food,’ she says.

‘Opin­ion polls con­sis­tent­ly show that and Mur­ray Goul­burn should be respect­ing the wish­es of its con­sumers and keep­ing its Devon­dale prod­ucts GE free, and sup­port­ing the exten­sion of the food crop bans.’

No-one from Mur­ray Goul­burn has been avail­able for com­ment.

ABC Rur­al, 23/10/2007 http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/2007/s2067586.htm

Norwegian Whaling Vessel’s Career is Finished

Sea Shep­herd News Releas­es 10/16/2007

Nor­we­gian Whal­ing Ves­sel’s Career is Fin­ished

The Willassen Senior, the Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on August 30, 2007 in the north­ern city of Svolvaer in the Lofoten Islands, will not be killing any more whales—ever again. The dam­age sus­tained by the ves­sel that was delib­er­ate­ly sunk by whale defend­ers exceed­ed $22 mil­lion kro­ner (over US $2 mil­lion). Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety was pleased to learn that the Willassen Senior was not insured. The own­ers of the ves­sel have decid­ed to scrap the ship, because they can­not afford to pay to repair the exten­sive dam­age caused to the elec­tri­cal and mechan­i­cal sys­tems by salt water. A group called Agen­da 21 has tak­en cred­it for scut­tling the whal­ing ship.

Sea Shep­herd News Releas­es 10/16/2007

Nor­we­gian Whal­ing Ves­sel’s Career is Fin­ished

The Willassen Senior, the Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on August 30, 2007 in the north­ern city of Svolvaer in the Lofoten Islands, will not be killing any more whales—ever again. The dam­age sus­tained by the ves­sel that was delib­er­ate­ly sunk by whale defend­ers exceed­ed $22 mil­lion kro­ner (over US $2 mil­lion). Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety was pleased to learn that the Willassen Senior was not insured. The own­ers of the ves­sel have decid­ed to scrap the ship, because they can­not afford to pay to repair the exten­sive dam­age caused to the elec­tri­cal and mechan­i­cal sys­tems by salt water. A group called Agen­da 21 has tak­en cred­it for scut­tling the whal­ing ship.

“One less whal­ing ship on the water trans­lates into few­er whales being killed by these crim­i­nal whalers,” said Sea Shep­herd Founder and Pres­i­dent Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “The Agen­da 21 team did an excel­lent job: no injuries, no evi­dence, no mis­takes, and no more whal­ing. These are results that we can appre­ci­ate and admire.”

Imme­di­ate­ly after the whaler was scut­tled, the own­ers of oth­er whal­ing ves­sels in Nor­way placed their ships under 24-hour guard. This trans­lates into increased secu­ri­ty costs for whal­ing ships, which cuts into whal­ing prof­its. “The whalers should be afraid of being scut­tled,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “A ves­sel that is being oper­at­ed in clear defi­ance of inter­na­tion­al con­ser­va­tion law and is involved with the ille­gal slaugh­ter of these intel­li­gent and gen­tle crea­tures has only one place—on the bot­tom of the sea!”

Nor­we­gian police have been unsuc­cess­ful in iden­ti­fy­ing the Agen­da 21 team mem­bers. All they have done so far is to seize a hard dri­ve from an inter­net cafe in Svolvaer, based on a report that one of the sab­o­tage team mem­bers may have been using a com­put­er there. Police have con­firmed that the Willassen Senior was delib­er­ate­ly sunk by a sabo­teur (or sabo­teurs) unknown. The ship was sunk when a pipe used to pro­vide salt water cool­ing to the engine was removed. It took four hours for the ship to sink, allow­ing the whale defend­ers plen­ty of time to leave the area.

“This was not a crime,” said Cap­tain Wat­son. “The Willassen Senior was a ship engaged in crim­i­nal activ­i­ty specif­i­cal­ly vio­lat­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion’s glob­al mora­to­ri­um on com­mer­cial whal­ing activ­i­ties. Sink­ing this whaler was an act of law enforce­ment, and we applaud this suc­cess­ful retire­ment of an ille­gal killing machine.”

www.seashepherd.org

Burma activists ‘lock on’ to Total

16.10.2007
Three direct activists have today shut down a busy Total fill­ing sta­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma’s non­vi­o­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy.

London Total 116.10.2007
Three direct activists have today shut down a busy Total fill­ing sta­tion in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma’s non­vi­o­lent strug­gle for democ­ra­cy.

Under a ban­ner say­ing “May all beings be hap­py – Free Bur­ma ” the activists have locked them­selves togeth­er and begun to med­i­tate, lock­ing togeth­er the hoses, turn­ing off the pow­er and block­ing the entrance to the premis­es in Lon­don’s Maryle­bone Road.

The group have tar­get­ed Total to high­light the com­pa­ny’s role in prop­ping up one of the world’s most bru­tal dic­ta­tor­ships. The Burmese mil­i­tary rulers rou­tine­ly tor­ture pris­on­ers, use rape as a weapon of war, and have forcibly dis­placed almost one mil­lion peo­ple from their land – includ­ing to make way for a 63 kilo­me­tre gas pipeline built by Total.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democ­ra­cy leader, has said that “Total has become the main sup­port­er of the Burmese mil­i­tary regime.” She told the French week­ly Le Nou­v­el Obser­va­teur that “Total knew what it was doing when it invest­ed mas­sive­ly in Bur­ma while oth­ers with­drew from the mar­ket for eth­i­cal rea­sons”. She added, “the com­pa­ny must accept the con­se­quences. The coun­try will not always be gov­erned by dic­ta­tors.”

Matthew Her­bert, one of the activists, said: “All the peo­ples of Bur­ma will be free. There is no force as pow­er­ful as the non­vi­o­lent resis­tance of a unit­ed peo­ple, espe­cial­ly when the cause is as just and urgent as this. As Aung San Suu Kyi says, Total will be held account­able. Today’s action plays just one small part in that reck­on­ing.”

A fel­low activist, added: “The author­i­ty to rule comes from the peo­ple them­selves, the peo­ple of Bur­ma have had enough, they are with­draw­ing their con­sent to be con­trolled. This action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Bur­ma strug­gle for free­dom and a mes­sage to Total to with­draw from Bur­ma now.”

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact 07796 430141