Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

All Shell Deliveries Halted for the Morning

Week­ly Tues­day morn­ing protest turns into a sucess­ful block­ade

Out­side the gates of Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery in Mayo on Tues­day 18th Octo­ber, some­one got on top of a trac­tor, block­ing all Shell deliv­er­ies for the morn­ing.

Week­ly Tues­day morn­ing protest turns into a sucess­ful block­ade

Out­side the gates of Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery in Mayo on Tues­day 18th Octo­ber, some­one got on top of a trac­tor, block­ing all Shell deliv­er­ies for the morn­ing.

At 8am on Tues­day, about 15 peo­ple gath­ered at the gates of Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery for the week­ly local protest that has been hap­pen­ing the last cou­ple months.

The first trac­tor that Shell tried to bring out was stopped by the pro­test­ers, and one per­son got onto the cab. This blocked all Shell traf­fic but local traf­fic was still able to squeeze by, as guards and pro­test­ers direct­ed them around the stopped trac­tor. All the trucks of stone which Shell have begun bring­ing to the Augh­oose com­pound were also stopped and turned back in the direc­tion they came.

Even­tu­al­ly the per­son on the trac­tor got down and was not arrest­ed. Peo­ple stayed in the road block­ing the trac­tor for the rest of the morn­ing protest, until 10:30am.

There haven’t been as many actions com­ing from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp late­ly, as there has been so much work to do mov­ing the camp from the field it has been in for the sum­mer and set­ting up the win­ter camp down the road. How­ev­er Shell has said it expects to begin peat removal from the tun­nelling com­pound at the end of Octo­ber, which will mean up to 475 truck move­ments a day (so stay tuned).

Come up and see the cozy new win­ter camp, vis­i­tors are always wel­come! We are still locat­ed in Augh­oose but fur­ther down the road towards Pul­lath­omas, near Augh­oose church. There is still plen­ty of work build­ing the new camp to be done along with actions.

On the Hal­loween week­end, there will be a week­end of direct action themed work­shops at the new Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.  If you are inter­est­ed in com­ing down or even run­ning a work­shop, let us know by email on rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com

Also there will be a Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty on Fri­day, the 11th of Novem­ber to mark 5 years since the baton charge and the major cam­paign of Gar­da vio­lence began here in Mayo. Please come and show your sup­port.

Spanish farmers sab GM maize

5.10.11

The fol­low­ing is a com­mu­nique cross post­ed from Afi­la­do Nues­tras Vidas:

Trans­la­tion by Lilac

5.10.11

The fol­low­ing is a com­mu­nique cross post­ed from Afi­la­do Nues­tras Vidas:

Trans­la­tion by Lilac

Dur­ing the sec­ond week of August 2011 an unknown num­ber of peo­ple have destroyed part of an exper­i­men­tal field of GM maize seeds owned by Pio­neer. The area locat­ed between the towns of Val­divia and Zur­baran had been request­ed by the com­pa­ny to be opened to the fol­low­ing GMO maize vari­eties: 1057, 59122 maize, NK603. This field is one of the three request­ed this year by Mon­san­to and Pio­neer com­pa­nies to exper­i­ment with trans­genic corn.

This action is a small response to the impo­si­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­isms (GMOs) by biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and the state. Since GM began to be exper­i­ment­ed, approved and mar­ket­ed heav­i­ly, its cre­ators and pro­mot­ers have stat­ed that GM would be able to end hunger or to safe­guard human health and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a clean­er and more effi­cient agri­cul­ture. Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth.

These GMOs are imposed in a con­text of: large cor­po­ra­tions fight­ing for monop­oly con­trol of seeds and chem­i­cals, mono­cul­tures, genet­ic pol­lu­tion, the dis­ap­pear­ance of small and medi­um farm­ers, liq­ui­da­tion of local economies, the dis­ap­pear­ance of indige­nous vari­eties, large dis­tri­b­u­tion net­works, waste and water pol­lu­tion, the expul­sion of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

These GMOs are not com­pat­i­ble with oth­er forms of pro­duc­tion and social orga­ni­za­tion based on the recov­ery of tra­di­tion­al agri­cul­ture that meet the needs of the peo­ple, not mar­kets, and do not over­flow the bound­aries of ecosys­tems, cou­pled with the will to escape the illu­so­ry link between hap­pi­ness and con­sump­tion.

Mod­els are clear­ly need­ed in a hun­gry and warm­ing world due to the sub­mis­sion to the mar­ket and total­i­tar­i­an states. There­fore these GMOs do not come to ful­fill the ben­e­fits, but rep­re­sent anoth­er twist to the agro-indus­tri­al mod­el, which will, among oth­er things, com­plete­ly expro­pri­ate the people’s their abil­i­ty to feed them­selves. For the final deci­sion of the approval and mar­ket­ing of GMOs, the state cre­at­ed the Nation­al Biosafe­ty Com­mit­tee (NBC). 

    Inside there are sev­en rep­re­sen­ta­tive NBC sci­en­tists, many of them linked to the biotech indus­try and pro-GM lob­by. This body is for the indus­try, not biose­cu­ri­ty, as evi­denced by the grow­ing num­ber of genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in wheat and corn crops. In whole regions of the state, genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in crops such as the above named is inevitable.

    Out­side our bor­ders, these GMOs have been respon­si­ble for all types of dis­as­ters such as famine, defor­esta­tion, poi­son­ing, aller­gies and oth­er ill­ness­es due to con­sump­tion as well as a myr­i­ad of con­straints to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and farm­ers by biotech com­pa­nies, not to men­tion real mas­sacres caused by the man­u­fac­ture and use of chem­i­cals need­ed for this agro-indus­tri­al mod­el, of which GM is its ulti­mate expres­sion. To say GM is not say­ing “no!” to the evils and injus­tices that we have cit­ed;  “no!” to impos­ing: “no!” to the arti­fi­cial­i­ty of life; “no!” to the mad­ness of progress.

   The take action against GMOs is a legit­i­mate strug­gle of all peo­ple, symp­toms of com­mon sense and the need for pro­found social change, the result of being aware of the dan­ger to the Earth (and every­thing that gets penal­ized) in the hands of cap­i­tal­ism. Those who sow and reap trans­genic pro­motes resis­tance.

Farm­ers (campesin@s*) in Extremadu­ra in the strug­gle.
Extremadu­ra, Sep­tem­ber 2011
Indi­vid­ual farm­ers (campesin@s) in Extremadurs

*Translator’s note: Campesin@ is an untrans­lat­able word in Span­ish, which usu­al­ly con­notes small, com­mu­ni­ty based, sus­tain­able and sub­sis­tence farm­ers, although it can also be used in ref­er­ence to field work­ers under a giant cor­po­ra­tion like Chiq­ui­ta or Dole.

 

Call from France to all UK anti-nuclear Activists

Update: One thing is that the dates have changed and the camp will be on from 22nd of Novem­ber to 24th of Novem­ber

Update: One thing is that the dates have changed and the camp will be on from 22nd of Novem­ber to 24th of Novem­ber

INVITATION FOR A BIG CAMP AND MASS ACTION AGAINST THE NUCLEAR TRANSPORT CASTOR IN VALOGNES (FRANCE) ON THE 24TH AND 25TH OF NOVEMBER 2011, JUST ACROSS THE CHANNEL The french and the eng­lish gov­ern­ment have this com­mon fea­ture of being mad about nuclear pow­er. Where­as Ger­many, Switzer­land and Italy are step­ping out of the nuclear ener­gy, France and Great-Britain are doing as if Fukushi­ma nev­er hap­pened. If we refuse to let Fukushi­ma become, like Tch­er­nobyl before, an acci­dent with­out con­se­quence, it is time to take action, NOW. Please, spread this call to all your friends, com­rades, net­works in the UK. It will be a mas­sive thing!! If any­one could print this and give it out at the hink­ley protest, that would be won­der­ful. INVITATION FOR A BIG CAMP AND MASS ACTION AGAINST THE NUCLEAR TRANSPORT CASTOR IN VALOGNES (FRANCE) ON THE 22ND AND 24TH OF NOVEMBER 2011, JUST ACROSS THE CHANNEL The french and the eng­lish gov­ern­ment have this com­mon fea­ture of being mad about nuclear pow­er. Where­as Ger­many, Switzer­land and Italy are step­ping out of the nuclear ener­gy, France and Great-Britain are doing as if Fukushi­ma nev­er hap­pened. If we refuse to let Fukushi­ma become, like Tch­er­nobyl before, an acci­dent with­out con­se­quence, it is time to take action, NOW. More than ever, it is obvi­ous that it is only on an inter­na­tion­al lev­el that we can think the strug­gle against nuclear pow­er, because it is on this lev­el that the con­tra­dic­tion between the states that step out of it and those who don’t becomes explo­sive. As our aim — to free our­selves of those who destroy our lives and every­thing alive for the last mon­ey left to make — can in no way be achieved by them, as all the gov­ern­ments can do is green­wash their tools of destruc­tion, we should use this moment to make it clear that we still envi­sion a future. For it is not only the ques­tion of ener­gy that we are deter­mined to take back in our own hands but our lives. That is why we invite all british com­rades to join our ini­tia­tive right on the oth­er side of the Chan­nel, in Val­ognes (near Cher­bourg) on the 24th and 25th of novem­ber 2011. On these dates starts the CASTOR trans­port of high­ly radioac­tive refutes that goes from La Hague to Gor­leben (Ger­many). This year for the first time, in coor­di­na­tion with the Ger­man com­rades, there will be a camp and mass action in order to block this trans­port at its very start­ing point, in Val­ognes, just like the Ger­mans do it in Gor­leben. LET’S MEET THERE AND DISTURB LIKE NEVER BEFORE THE QUIET ROUTINE OF THIS DEADLY INDUSTRY! SOLIDARITY WITH THE BLOCKADE OF THE HINCKLEY POWERPLANT! valognesstopcastor@riseup.net

60 international activists occupy Gold Corporation headquarters in Rosia Montana, Romania

Today, Sep­tem­ber 28th, at 12:00 o’clock, approx­i­mate­ly 60 inter­na­tion­al activists tak­ing part in the Reclaim the Fields camp [1], togeth­er with the local asso­ci­a­tion Albur­nus Maior [2], from Rosia Mon­tana, Roma­nia, occu­pied and blocked the entrance to the Rosia Mon­tana Gold Cor­po­ra­tions [3] head­quar­ters in the vil­lage’s Ol

Today, Sep­tem­ber 28th, at 12:00 o’clock, approx­i­mate­ly 60 inter­na­tion­al activists tak­ing part in the Reclaim the Fields camp [1], togeth­er with the local asso­ci­a­tion Albur­nus Maior [2], from Rosia Mon­tana, Roma­nia, occu­pied and blocked the entrance to the Rosia Mon­tana Gold Cor­po­ra­tions [3] head­quar­ters in the vil­lage’s Old Square. This action was in defi­ance of the com­pa­nies con­tin­u­ing attempt to expro­pri­ate locals and destroy an area pro­tect­ed by Roman­ian con­ser­va­tion law.

Local and inter­na­tion­al peo­ple are oppos­ing plans to open Europe’s largest open cast gold mine, which would dis­place hun­dreds of fam­i­lies and result in wide­spread eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and cyanide con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the pro­tect­ed land­scape. The peace­ful occu­pa­tion and block­ade last­ed for two hours and the com­pa­ny decid­ed to leave the pub­lic infor­ma­tion point closed for the rest of the day.

The pro­posed mine would destroy the vil­lage of Rosia Mon­tana and intro­duce dan­ger­ous cyanide leach­ing tech­nol­o­gy, threat­en­ing water sys­tems in Roma­nia and beyond with the poten­tial of dev­as­tat­ing acci­dents. Strong local oppo­si­tion to the gold min­ing project emerged almost imme­di­ate­ly in the year 2000 when the project was announced by Cana­di­an com­pa­ny Gabriel Resources. Resis­tance to the plan has since spread across Roma­nia and beyond. Dur­ing the last 10 years, Albur­nus Maior, through the Save Rosia Mon­tana Cam­paign has suc­cess­ful­ly mobi­lized thou­sands of peo­ple and has so far kept the plans from being car­ried out.

The Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment pro­ce­dure for the min­ing project was sus­pend­ed in 2008 by the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment, due to the dis­cov­ery of ille­gal­i­ties com­mit­ted by the com­pa­ny. Fur­ther­more, civ­il soci­ety has won sev­er­al court cas­es against the Gold Cor­po­ra­tion, where it was proved that the min­ing project was ini­ti­at­ed in ille­gal con­di­tions and involved high lev­els of cor­rup­tion, coer­cion and abuse of the local pop­u­la­tion.

Accord­ing to the law, the min­ing project has to restart from point zero, but the new Roman­ian Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter wants to pro­ceed with a polit­i­cal deci­sion in favour of the min­ing project, in a clear vio­la­tion of the court deci­sions, as well as of Roman­ian and EU laws on Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment pro­ce­dures.

The Roman­ian gov­ern­ment seems keen to sup­port cor­po­rate inter­ests in the face of local oppo­si­tion. A new law on expro­pri­a­tion has been recent­ly pro­posed in the Roman­ian par­lia­ment and is expect­ed to be vot­ed on dur­ing the next month. The law would enable pri­vate com­pa­nies, instead of the Roman­ian state and judi­cial sys­tem, to car­ry out forced expro­pri­a­tion of res­i­dents, in a clear vio­la­tion of human rights.

In dia­logue with the occu­py­ing activists, the com­pa­ny spokesper­son, Catal­in Hosu, reject­ed any rela­tion between the Gold Cor­po­ra­tion and this law and stat­ed that they would not resort to using it if it is passed. In reply, the activists promised to tar­get the cor­po­ra­tion with fur­ther actions if the promise is not kept.

At the EU lev­el, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion has been refus­ing to fol­low up on a May 2010 Euro­pean Par­lia­ment res­o­lu­tion requir­ing it to make a leg­isla­tive pro­pos­al to ban the use of cyanide in min­ing. While the Gold Cor­po­ra­tion has expressed the inten­tion to adopt cyanide reduc­tion tech­nol­o­gy in Rosia Mon­tana, recent news exposed that the use of such tech­nol­o­gy will be much more expen­sive than orig­i­nal­ly planned [4]. In response to this, Catal­in Hosu replied that the Gold Cor­po­ra­tion is com­mit­ted to respect all Roman­ian and EU leg­is­la­tion, but did not state whether this tech­nol­o­gy will be adopt­ed or dropped in face of the costs.

NOTES:

[1] The Reclaim the Fields move­ment (www.reclaimthefields.org) brings togeth­er food grow­ers and farm­ers around Europe that are con­nect­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles. Reclaim the Fields stands against cor­po­rate inter­ests and any projects which reduce the access and right to land for food pro­duc­tion, abuse local com­mu­ni­ties and destroy cul­tur­al and envi­ron­men­tal val­ues. Between 21–30 of Sep­tem­ber, 2011, sev­er­al hun­dred activists from all over Europe and Roma­nia are par­tic­i­pat­ing in an unprece­dent­ed sol­i­dar­i­ty camp in Rosia Mon­tana – Roma­nia. The event is orga­nized by Reclaim the Fields togeth­er with the Albur­nus Maior Asso­ci­a­tion (www.rosiamontana.org), with strong sup­port from the Roman­ian peas­ant asso­ci­a­tion Eco Ruralis (www.ecoruralis.ro) and numer­ous orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als from across geo­graph­i­cal Europe.

[2] Albur­nus Maior asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sents the local oppo­si­tion from Rosia Mon­tana against the largest gold mine pro­pos­al in Europe which entails the destruc­tion of Rosia Mon­tana and a large area of the Apuseni Moun­tains in Roma­nia. www.rosiamontana.org

[3] Rosia Mon­tana Gold Cor­po­ra­tion is 19.31 per­cent owned by the Roman­ian state with the remain­ing share­hold­ers includ­ing Gabriel Resources, New­mont and Bar­rick Gold.

[4] AFP, Low­er cyanide lev­el in Roman­ian gold mine to cost mil­lions, 23.09.2011, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hXIMBYPJT-sYBLCZhIWJfy-sp_oQ?docId=CNG.eca6a9ad91bdb5676908fa2ea3090890.e1

new EF! Action Update

In an end of the sum­mer com­pact EF!AU, find news about kick­ing shell in the teeth in Ross­port again and then some more, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty at Dale Farm, and anti-GM resis­tance — Spuds you Don’t Like demo in Eng­land, sab­o­tage in Ger­many, France and Scot­land.

In an end of the sum­mer com­pact EF!AU, find news about kick­ing shell in the teeth in Ross­port again and then some more, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty at Dale Farm, and anti-GM resis­tance — Spuds you Don’t Like demo in Eng­land, sab­o­tage in Ger­many, France and Scot­land.

On top of the usu­al con­tacts and dates, read about sol­i­dar­i­ty with jailed Swiss nan­otech activists, resis­tance against steel plants, mobile phone masts, min­ing and ener­gy projects here & across the world — stay angry and don’t car­ry on as usu­al!

The quar­ter­ly EF!AU, August 2011

ESB powerline work stopped at Clonmore

“I’ll nev­er purge my con­tempt, and I want the ESB stopped. I most cer­tain­ly do!” — mes­sage from Tere­sa Trea­cy, 65 years old, in Moun­tjoy Wom­ens’ Prison.

“I’ll nev­er purge my con­tempt, and I want the ESB stopped. I most cer­tain­ly do!” — mes­sage from Tere­sa Trea­cy, 65 years old, in Moun­tjoy Wom­ens’ Prison.

On Wednes­day the 14th of Sep­tem­ber, con­cerned indi­vid­u­als wish­ing to sup­port Tere­sa Trea­cy arrived at Clon­more, Tul­lam­ore. The fol­low­ing morn­ing the sup­port­ers learned that no tree felling would be car­ried out that week and ESB work­ers had been instruct­ed to leave the site.

On the morn­ing of Sat­ur­day the 17th of Sep­tem­ber, Tere­sa rang from the prison to say that her spir­its had been lift­ed by the news. She has her own cell in the prison thanks to the good graces of the prison staff. After her ini­tial shock she is set­tling in. She said she has no inten­tion of ‘purg­ing her con­tempt’ and is call­ing out for sup­port.

It is the ESB’s intent to fell trees cov­er­ing a total 12 acres of land and amount­ing to 12,000 trees in all, many of which are native species and were hand plant­ed and main­tained by Tere­sa over the years. The end result being a 50m wide cor­ri­dor per­ma­nent­ly sev­er­ing her wood­lands in two for well over one kilo­me­ter. It is the inten­tion of the ESB to fill the felling zone with one 20 metre high met­al tow­er, five dou­ble wood­en poles, a 110Kv sin­gle trans­mis­sion line, and five con­tin­u­ous wires.

Tere­sa has been attempt­ing to nego­ti­ate with the ESB since 2006. She has reluc­tant­ly offered a com­pro­mise of sit­ing the line under­ground to no avail. Hav­ing spent her entire life as a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen, she has tak­en the path of peace­ful direct resis­tance as a course of last resort.

In a call from the prison, Tere­sa has asked for sup­port­ers to become active­ly involved in her strug­gle to pro­tect her land and trees. Tere­sa is com­mit­ted and remains defi­ant. She has no inten­tion of ‘purg­ing her con­tempt’.

Let­ters of sup­port can be sent to: Tere­sa Treacy/ Dochas/ Mon­thjoy Wom­ens’ Prison/ North Cir­cu­lar RD/ Dublin 7/ Eire

To become involved, call Niall on 086 8444966.

For MEDIA, email Sean Ryan at: 2seanryan2@gmail.com
__________________________________________________________

Notes to Edi­tors

1. Both mag­net­ic fields and elec­tri­cal fields are sep­a­rate enti­ties with regard to the health ques­tion, even though they often may well work togeth­er to cause the risks.

2. A lot of argu­ments asso­ci­at­ed with mag­net­ic field expo­sure are
con­tra­dict­ed by the fact that peo­ple who work in this par­tic­u­lar area don’t seem to suf­fer from many of the ill­ness­es asso­ci­at­ed with these fields. The counter argu­ment advances that this is because the brain secretes par­tic­u­lar secre­tions when a per­son is asleep that are not secret­ed when one is awake. Most folks who work in this area are assumed not to be asleep on the job!

3. Mag­net­ic fields can strip radioac­tive par­ti­cles from the atmos­phere and con­cen­trate them in the areas around over­head lines.

4. Elec­tri­cal fields asso­ci­at­ed with high volt­age cre­ate a coro­na that can ionise a very large area (mea­sured in kilo­me­tres) around the con­duc­tors. The body is a con­duc­tor and radioac­tive par­ti­cles can actu­al­ly stick to the body due to this effect.

The fol­low­ing are asso­ci­at­ed with high volt­age over­head lines:
Depression/suicide, child­hood leukaemia, skin can­cer, lung can­cer,
mis­car­riages and many more.

More infor­ma­tion here
http://www.feb.se/emfguru/Elf/calif-power.html
http://www.feb.se/emfguru/Elf/elf-contents.html

—

Tere­sa Trea­cy Ordered to Jail over ESB Pow­er­lines

“You picked the wrong place here” — Tere­sa Trea­cy to ESB con­sul­tant Shane McLough­ney, April 2007.

ere­sa Trea­cy, a 65 year old woman from Tul­lam­ore, Co Offaly has been ordered to jail by High Court Judge Daniel Her­bert at the request of the ESB.

Ms Trea­cy, who shares the fam­i­ly farm with her sis­ter Mary at Wood­field House, Clon­more, Tul­lam­ore, Co Offaly has refused the ESB access to her lands in order to pro­tect the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and the native trees that she has man­aged there for many years.

In Feb­ru­ary 2006 the ESB began plans to con­struct a 110kV trans­mis­sion pow­er­line from Cushal­ing to Thorns­bury. The plans spec­i­fy that dou­ble wood­pole struc­tures and steel tow­ers accom­mo­dat­ing over­head pow­er­lines be built at 200 metre inter­vals over a total dis­tance of 32 kilo­me­tres through the lands of local landown­ers.

Ms Trea­cy out­lined her objec­tions in a num­ber of let­ters to the ESB and arranged a num­ber of meet­ings with them to request that the pow­er­lines be con­struct­ed under­ground for the fol­low­ing rea­sons.

1) The Health & Safe­ty risks, includ­ing can­cer risks which are increas­ing­ly asso­ci­at­ed with over­head pow­er­lines as a result of Elec­tro Mag­net­ic Fields (EMF).

2) The fact that she has always main­tained and improved her land as a nat­ur­al habi­tat which includes native trees, old and new, cared for and/or plant­ed by her­self for future gen­er­a­tions as a sus­tain­able nat­ur­al resource, through which the ESB want to smash.

3) The fact that the under­ground­ing of pow­er­lines is now con­sid­ered to be best prac­tice across Europe. Ire­land and the ESB are at the bot­tom of the league in terms of catch­ing up with inter­na­tion­al stan­dards and the progress which has been made to ensure that under­ground pow­er­lines are the pro­gres­sive way for­ward.

The ESB were also point­ed to a recent deci­sion in 2006 to under­ground the Bantry (Colo­mane — Bal­lylick­ey) 38kV pow­er­line, which arose out of intense local protest oppos­ing the over­ground­ing of that line. The ESB were con­tract­ed to that project by a pri­vate wind­farm devel­op­er who suc­ceed­ed in get­ting injunc­tions against local farm­ers but decid­ed not to enforce them. He aban­doned over­ground­ing in favour of under­ground­ing the pow­er­line. See here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77007

When the Cushal­ing – Thorns­bury project was pro­posed for Tul­lam­ore in ear­ly 2006 it appeared that there was stiff oppo­si­tion to the project among the affect­ed 90 landown­ers in Offaly. Under­ground­ing options were dis­cussed as tech­ni­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties and Euro­pean best prac­tice had come to the atten­tion of the pub­lic.

It’s one thing to have a pri­vate devel­op­er opt for under­ground­ing but the ESB, fear­ing that a prece­dent may be set, were clever enough to use the Irish Farm­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (IFA) to nego­ti­ate a com­pen­sa­tion pack­age with the landown­ers, most of them farm­ers.

Tere­sa Trea­cy stood to gain up to approx­i­mate­ly 150,000 euro in 3 staged pay­ments if she agreed to the project and on con­di­tion that no legal costs were incurred by the ESB if they had to go to court, in which case the last 2 pay­ments would be ‘for­feit­ed’.

This deal, nego­ti­at­ed by the IFA over the course of 2 years, seemed to appease most of the landown­ers so by the time a pub­lic meet­ing was called to organ­ise the landown­ers, by Ms Trea­cy in March 2009, less than a dozen peo­ple showed up.

By the sum­mer of 2011 Tere­sa Trea­cy was the only one refus­ing access to the ESB.

The ESB has made a num­ber of appli­ca­tions to the High Court over the sum­mer, includ­ing orders for Ms Trea­cy to unlock her gates and let them in and sub­se­quent­ly an order empow­er­ing the ESB to break the locks after Ms Trea­cy refused to obey the first order. The ESB told the court that Ms Trea­cy “has an emo­tion­al attach­ment to her trees”. When Ms Trea­cy obstruct­ed them from break­ing the locks the ESB decid­ed to go back to court to issue con­tempt pro­ceed­ings against Ms Trea­cy.

Today, Mon­day 12th Sep­tem­ber 2011, Judge Daniel Her­bert told Ms Trea­cy that he had no choice but to uphold the law and ordered that she be jailed for con­tempt of the court orders.

“I’m beg­ging them for years” said Ms Trea­cy today. “5½ years, what a waste of time it was try­ing to talk to them”. Fac­ing jail she said “I feel good, I real­ly do. I just could­n’t let them in to do that. It’s just not right”.

“The route is cut­ting through our for­est and the old Whitethorn hedgerows. For over 25 years I have used all my time and ener­gy get­ting our lands into a place of nat­ur­al beau­ty and overnight it can be destroyed with high pow­ered lines going through forests beside the old bridge, the old laneway and through the new Oak and Ash woods I plant­ed over 20 years ago. I have spent many years replac­ing dead trees and cut­ting gorse with my hands. I filled con­tain­ers with water from the riv­er so that my for­est is a mod­el. All my trees have been pruned indi­vid­u­al­ly by me to pro­mote their growth”

“My heart is bro­ken by the thought that they may be uproot­ed and thrown away. I know I will nev­er see them in their full glo­ry but was sat­is­fied know­ing that oth­ers would enjoy them long into the future”

“We already have 10 ESB poles on our land and feel that we have already done enough for the com­mon good. Our farm is our life’s blood, its scenic beau­ty from the untouched fields to the riv­er and through the bog, all of it nat­ur­al flo­ra and fau­na”.

Ear­li­er court pro­ceed­ings were heard by Judge Mary Laf­foy who grant­ed orders to the ESB. I’m won­der­ing did Judge Laf­foy decide not to be avail­able to the ESB to hear con­tempt pro­ceed­ings. Who would want to send an elder­ly woman to jail in these cir­cum­stances? When judge­ments are made in the High Court they are usu­al­ly pre­sent­ed as ’ … the High Court has ruled such a way …’, and the name of the judge is under­stood to be irrel­e­vant for the pur­pos­es of law. A judge is sim­ply an instru­ment of the law and the law must be applied regard­less of the per­son­al­i­ty or opin­ion of the judge. It is legal­ly cor­rect for a judge to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for ‘dif­fi­cult cas­es’ because that’s their job, and regard­less of good rea­son, and the 3 rea­sons out­lined above, the law must be applied, must­n’t it?!

Ms Trea­cy will remain in jail until she ‘purges her con­tempt’ by agree­ing to com­ply with the court orders. The ESB, how­ev­er, are in a posi­tion to make an appli­ca­tion to the court for her release, but this is unlike­ly, at least until they’ve smashed the trees and con­struct­ed their out­dat­ed pow­er­lines. Her incar­cer­a­tion is in their hands.

Bury the pow­er­lines, not the peo­ple!

Rossport roundup

Gar­daí look on as Shell secu­ri­ty con­tin­ue to use unlaw­ful force on peace­ful pro­tes­tors

Gar­daí look on as Shell secu­ri­ty con­tin­ue to use unlaw­ful force on peace­ful pro­tes­tors

On Thurs­day last, the 15th Sep­tem­ber, Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty force, IRMS con­tin­ued their prac­tice of using force on the pub­lic road as they see fit. Once again the Gar­daí sat close by and wit­nessed this unlaw­ful use of force by IRMS and allowed it to con­tin­ue unim­ped­ed.

At approx­i­mate­ly 2:30pm last Thurs­day, a small num­ber of cam­paign­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp went down to the entrance of the Shell com­pound in Augh­oose to peace­ful­ly protest. Work­ers at the com­pound were attempt­ing to lay tar­mac at the entrace to the com­pound, so the cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to sit down on the edge of the road. How­ev­er the cam­paign­ers were pre­vent­ed from sit­ting down at the edge of the road by IRMS and were pushed, kicked, punched, pulled and car­ried away from sit­ting down at the edge of the road. This con­tin­ued for over 45 min­utes dur­ing which Gar­daí watched the whole sit­u­a­tion from Gar­da vans parked no more than 50 metres away.

Com­ment­ing on the lat­est inci­dent Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way stat­ed “Let’s be clear about this: Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty — IRMS — have absolute­ly no right to use any force on cam­paign­ers who are peace­ful­ly protest­ing on a pub­lic road. The fact that Gar­daí would watch IRMS assault cam­paign­ers for near­ly an hour on a pub­lic road is anoth­er clear exam­ple of the total sus­pen­sion of the rule of law in rela­tion to protest­ing against Shell.”

“In Octo­ber in Gene­va, the UN Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Review will review Ire­land’s human rights record, and while the Irish Gov­ern­ment give great lip-ser­vice to human rights abus­es in far-away places, they are let­ting Shell and the Gar­daí here in Mayo do what­ev­er they wish to peace­ful pro­tes­tors”. [1][2]

NOTES

[1] UN urged to exam­ine Irish human rights laps­es – Irish Times — 13th August 2011
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0813/1224302379794.html

[2] Shell to Sea high­lights human rights abus­es to UN
http://www.shelltosea.com/content/shell-sea-highlights-human-rights-abuses-un

—

Fence climb­ing, tres­pass­ing, trac­tor climb­ing and more dis­rup­tion of work in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo

Tues­day 13th Sep­tem­ber six peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp went down to Shel­l’s tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo to dis­rupt work. Work was slowed from three sep­a­rate actions spread over 2 hours as peo­ple inter­fered with fenc­ing work and then two peo­ple got up on a trac­tor mak­ing a deliv­ery to the com­pound.

Over the past cou­ple days Shel­l’s com­pound in Augh­oose has seen some major dam­age to the perime­ter fenc­ing. The heavy duty pal­isade fenc­ing (the green spiky one) is still in place, but a lot of the flim­sy sil­ver har­ris fenc­ing is down, con­crete bol­lards hold­ing oth­er fenc­ing was smashed, and the green fenc­ing pan­els (which is in piles along the road in the pho­tos) came down. As a result of this destruc­tion, Shell has all but stopped mak­ing deliv­er­ies to the com­pound.

On Tues­day after­noon as Shell work­ers were try­ing to repair some of the dam­age done, six peo­ple went down to dis­rupt them. Green fenc­ing pan­els were in piles along the road­side of the com­pound, and peo­ple sat on the piles to pre­vent the work­ers from putting them back up. A dig­ger on the inside of the com­pound was wait­ing to re-erect the pan­els, but the pro­test­ers made this dif­fi­cult and the dig­ger dri­ver gave up.

Shel­l’s secu­ri­ty (IRMS) even­tu­al­ly came over and dragged peo­ple off of the pan­els. This was not on Shel­l’s prop­er­ty but the road verge, so the pri­vate secu­ri­ty had no right to use force on the pub­lic road. Gar­dai were present but did­n’t seem to mind pri­vate secu­ri­ty assault­ing peo­ple on the pub­lic road and at one point even did some labour for Shell, mov­ing fenc­ing pan­els back into place.

After awhile peo­ple went around the side of the com­pound and tres­passed onto Shel­l’s land where work­ers were try­ing to fin­ish the last bit of the heavy duty pal­isade fenc­ing. As soon as peo­ple showed up the work­ers gave up and packed away their tools, the dri­vers got out of the dig­gers and walked away. This last­ed for about an hour until Shell secu­ri­ty dragged and car­ried peo­ple off the land.

One pro­test­er was sex­u­al­ly assault­ed as they were being car­ried by IRMS. Their pants were falling down and they asked secu­ri­ty to put them down so they could pull their clothes back on, but IRMS refused. The secu­ri­ty mem­ber (pic­tured below) who was car­ry­ing the per­son­’s legs shoved both of his hands up into the per­son­’s crotch. He refused to show his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion badge fol­low­ing the assault.

After this a trac­tor car­ry­ing some sort of bog-drainage equip­ment was com­ing down the road towards the com­pound. Peo­ple ran towards it and despite attempts by Gar­dai to keep them off the trac­tor two peo­ple climbed up on top of it. One per­son was dragged down from a con­sid­er­able height, and the oth­er came down after being giv­en a warn­ing under the Pub­lic Order Act. Nei­ther per­son was arrest­ed.

Actions against Shell are pret­ty much con­stant at the moment, with some­times 3 or 4 sep­a­rate actions in a day. Morale is high, and any­time is a good time to vis­it if you’d like to see the area and find out more about what is hap­pen­ing. There is a week­ly protest out­side Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery, with lots of locals and peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. And there’s plen­ty to do aside from protest­ing, includ­ing cook­ing, tend­ing to the three gar­dens, meet­ing locals and loads of building/site main­te­nance!

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, between Bal­linaboy and Pul­lath­omas. To con­tact the camp, rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com or 085 114 1170

More pho­tos — http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100512

CONSTRUCTION COMPANY VAN TORCHED, SPAIN

13.9.11

anony­mous com­mu­nique, trans­la­tion from This Is Our Job:

13.9.11

anony­mous com­mu­nique, trans­la­tion from This Is Our Job:

“This morn­ing, a van belong­ing to the multi­na­tion­al ‘con­struc­tion com­pa­ny’ PERI was torched. PERI is one of the most pow­er­ful com­pa­nies in the con­struc­tion indus­try, which is ded­i­cat­ed to destroy­ing the Earth through the build­ing of high­ways, pow­er sta­tions, etc.

We no longer rec­og­nize life, col­o­nized as it is by sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. Nor can we talk about life skills, as the dead have replaced the liv­ing. In this tomb of cement and sug­ar, we are sur­round­ed by mil­lions of dead objects. The nan­otech­nol­o­gy and biotech­nol­o­gy indus­tries are the new dic­ta­tor­ships to be top­pled. They are the new mas­ters of the world, patent­ing life and impos­ing a form of non­life devoid of any kind of auton­o­my. In the war against them, we must arm our­selves with every pos­si­ble method and attack inces­sant­ly. We rec­og­nize a part of nature in our­selves, and we fight against whomev­er would take away and destroy that nature. There is no time to lose. Our desire and pas­sion will put an end to every­thing that dom­i­nates us.

Civ­i­liza­tion (not anar­chy!!!!) is the high­est expres­sion of order. There­fore, instead of the order and con­trol that dri­ve us to mad­ness, we embrace chaos, indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, and the unique­ness of every liv­ing thing.

Who­ev­er talks about rev­o­lu­tion and class strug­gle with­out cri­tiquing sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy has a corpse in their mouth.

For Bil­ly, Sil­via, Cos­ta, Mar­co, and our insur­gent broth­ers and sis­ters in Chile, Greece, Mex­i­co, etc.

‘And if your heart isn’t bro­ken by the knowl­edge of what they are doing to the world we love, then I feel sor­ry for you. Maybe you’re no longer alive. But if the death of the plan­et we love makes you cry, then take those tears and turn them into action.’
—Rod Coro­n­a­do”

Span­ish:
“Esta madru­ga­da fue incen­di­a­da una fur­gone­ta de la multi­na­cional ‘con­struc­to­ra’ PERI, una de la empre­sas más fuertes en el sec­tor de la con­struc­ción, que se ded­i­ca a destru­ir la tier­ra medi­ante obras de autopis­tas, cen­trales elelctri­c­as…..

Ya no recono­ce­mos la vida, col­o­niza­da por la cien­cia y la tec­nolo­gia, más bien podri­amos hablar de la tec­ni­ca de la vida, donde lo muer­to ha susti­tu­i­do a lo vivo, rodea­d­os de mil­lones de obje­tos muer­tos, en esta tum­ba de cemen­to y azu­car. Las empre­sas de nano y biotec­nolo­gia son las nuevas dic­taduras a las que der­rib­ar, son ellas las nuevas amas del mun­do, quienes paten­tan la vida y quienes nos impo­nen una for­ma de no-vida en la que desa­parece cualquier for­ma de autonomía, es en la guer­ra con­tra ellas en la que debe­mos armarnos de todos los medios posi­bles y atacar sin cesar, recono­cer­nos una parte de la nat­u­raleza y luchar con­tra quién nos ale­ja de ella y la destruye. No hay tiem­po que esper­ar es nue­stro deseo y pasión acabar con­tra todo lo que nos dom­i­na.

La civ­i­lización (y no la anar­quia!!!!) es la máx­i­ma expre­sión del orden, por eso abrazamos el caos, la indi­vid­u­al­i­dad y la pecu­liari­dad de cada ser vivo, con­tra el orden y el con­trol que nos lle­van a la locu­ra.

Quien habla de rev­olu­ción y de lucha de clases sin criticar la cien­cia y la tec­nolo­gia tiene un cadav­er en la boca.
A Bil­ly, Sil­via, Cos­ta, Mar­co, a nues­tras her­manxs insur­rec­txs en Chile, Gre­cia, Mex­i­co……

‘Y si no se te parte el corazón al saber lo que le están hacien­do al mun­do que amamos, sien­to lás­ti­ma por ti, quizás ya no estés vivx. Pero si la muerte del plan­e­ta que amamos te hace llo­rar, entonces toma esas lágri­mas y con­viérte­las en acción.‘
Rod Coro­n­a­do.”

German coal blockade during climate camp

30.08.2011
Since 10.30 this morn­ing a group of over 50 activists have been blockad­ing a coal trans­port rail­way in the Cologne area. The action takes place at the same time as the near­by inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Camp, protest­ing the open-cast min­ing of brown coal (www.klimacamp2011.de)

30.08.2011
Since 10.30 this morn­ing a group of over 50 activists have been blockad­ing a coal trans­port rail­way in the Cologne area. The action takes place at the same time as the near­by inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Camp, protest­ing the open-cast min­ing of brown coal (www.klimacamp2011.de)

The activists peace­ful­ly blocked the line ear­ly this morn­ing, erect­ing ban­ners and green­wash­ing the rail­way tracks. The protest is aimed at ener­gy giant RWE, which oper­ates a num­ber of pow­er sta­tions in the area and is respon­si­ble for about 10% of Ger­many’s car­bon diox­ide emis­sions.

The protest is being kept well-sup­plied with blan­kets and food by mem­bers of the cli­mate camp, and is cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for a night on the tracks.

The inter­na­tion­al cli­mate camp is sit­u­at­ed in the vil­lage of Man­heim which is sched­uled to be destroyed in order to enlarge a brown coal strip mine. Brown coal, or lig­nite, is a less pure form of coal and is there­fore much less ener­gy-effi­cient and cre­ates greater emis­sions than reg­u­lar coal.

The inter­na­tion­al cli­mate camp includes guests from as far afield as Colom­bia and Azer­bai­jan and aims to build links with­in the inter­na­tion­al cli­mate jus­tice move­ment, call­ing for urgent sys­tem change, not cli­mate change.

Workshop for Actions and Alternatives — all-year-climate-camp

There’s some­thing strange about cli­mate change: It’s well-known, there’s no need for gen­er­al edu­ca­tion. Every­body sup­ports approach­ing the prob­lem and stop­ping human-caused cli­mate change.

There’s some­thing strange about cli­mate change: It’s well-known, there’s no need for gen­er­al edu­ca­tion. Every­body sup­ports approach­ing the prob­lem and stop­ping human-caused cli­mate change.
Although gov­ern­ments promise answers and solu­tions, we’re just watch­ing a rapid increase of the cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe. Thus the sus­pi­cion comes to mind, that the right solu­tions haven’t been found – or rather that they’re not accept­able for econ­o­my and gov­ern­ments.
The ques­tion aris­es, if our world can wait for a solu­tion. Peo­ple in regions, where it comes to food short­age, scer­tain­ly not. At first, peo­ple in poor regions won’t be able to adapt to changes. Droughts or floods will force them to flee. Most­ly var­i­ous rea­sons urge peo­ple to flight, yet cli­mate change will play an increas­ing­ly impor­tant role.
This fact by itself ques­tions the dis­tri­b­u­tion of raw mate­ri­als and food on this world – or why the poor­est, who con­tributed the small­est part of cli­mate-rel­e­vant green­house-gas­es so far, shall bear most of the dam­age.
Europe guards itself: Legal bar­ri­ers for flee­ing per­sons are intol­er­a­bly high and on the Mediter­ranean Sea, the Euro­pean police force “fron­tex” pro­vides a hard­ly pass­able block­ade. We see this sit­u­a­tion as cyn­i­cal and dis­sat­is­fy­ing – for the flee­ing it’s rather fatal. On the basis of this exam­ple we want to illus­trate that it’s about more than ener­gy-sav­ing lamps and recy­cled paper. Nei­ther do we see the nuclear phase­out in Ger­many, linked to a half-heart­ed ener­gy tran­si­tion, as a solu­tion. There’s a lot to do…

This fly­er address­es to all per­sons, who are not will­ing to wait for a solu­tion “from above” any­more. The aim shall be to take the ini­tia­tive your­self, to see your­self as an active per­son in this “polit­i­cal pow­er game”, in which we usu­al­ly just should move as con­sumers. Let’s cre­ate deter­mined, pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics togeth­er from below – for an entire­ly dif­fer­ent cli­mate.

Why in the Rhen­ish brown coal-min­ing region?
In this region, brown coal is mined in three open­cast mines, main­ly for six gigan­tic coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, where­by the vast bulk of CO2 in Europe is emit­ted. What “Wend­land” is for nuclear ener­gy, the Rhen­ish brown coal-min­ing region has to become for car­bon ener­gy. We want to work togeth­er with con­cerned locals – whole vil­lages are forced to reset­tle – in sol­i­dar­i­ty against destruc­tion.
We want to present a live­ly counter-image to cap­i­tal­ist destruc­tive­ness! Here, exper­i­men­tal liv­ing of a cli­mate-neu­tral future, over there the tear-off edge, the hole – square-kilo­me­tres of destruc­tion. Decide now!

Space for learn­ing
Cours­es and sem­i­nars shall be pro­vid­ed in a Do-It-Your­self cul­ture. Themes turn around cli­mate-neu­tral life, non-hier­ar­chi­cal meth­ods and forms of organ­i­sa­tion, diverse kinds of the­o­ret­i­cal stuff and meth­ods of resis­tance. And since we nei­ther belief in homo­ge­neous con­cepts from above against cli­mate change, nor find them desir­able, we con­sid­er a debate from below nec­es­sary. A debate, in which every­one is invit­ed to take part, which isn’t build up on expert’s hier­ar­chies, which doesn’t seek uni­fi­ca­tion, but which can stand dif­fer­ent posi­tions, in hope that there will arise syn­the­ses out of ten­sions in between.

And action…
The work­shop shall serve as a plat­form for dif­fer­ent actions against destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment and liv­ing space. There­by we focus on devel­op­ing putting into prac­tice meth­ods of actions, which we togeth­er do with per­sons from there and else­where, which aim at the eman­ci­pa­tion of the sin­gle indi­vid­u­als.

The Work­shop for Actions and Alter­na­tives is being built up from Sep­tem­ber (2011) on in
52355 Düren, Kalls­gasse 20

How to get there and lat­est infos:
waa.blogsport.de

If you feel appealed by this text, there are diverse pos­si­bil­i­ties how you can take part:
— Come and see what we’re doing
— Con­tribute your ideas and tal­ents (of organ­i­sa­tion for exam­ple)
— Get in touch if you want to teach or learn some­thing
— Dis­trib­ute this fly­er
— Offer your abil­i­ties: Lay-out­ing, writ­ing, do research
— Dona­tions of mon­ey would also help:
account of dona­tion: