Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Solitaire due in Broadhaven Bay, Mayo tomorrow

23.6.2009

23.6.2009
If you’ve been wait­ing for the most impor­tant time to come to Mayo: this is it. The camp real­ly needs peo­ple here to con­tin­ue last year’s bril­liant resis­tance. The Soli­taire will be here any day, so we need you here now! This is a cru­cial stage in the cam­paign: the time frame for work is very lim­it­ed by good weath­er and action now against the Soli­taire can real­ly help put a stop to Shell’s project!

The pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire has declared itself that it intends to be in Broad­haven Bay at 12pm tomor­row. It is now urgent that peo­ple get to Mayo to stop Shell lay­ing the off­shore sec­tion of pipe to the Cor­rib gas­field well-head from the Glen­gad com­pound.

The Soli­taire’s own AIS (Auto­mat­ic Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at Sea) bea­con is now giv­ing the ship’s des­ti­na­tion as Broad Haven Bay (sic) with an esti­mat­ed time of arrival of 12:00pm on the 24th of June, that is tomor­row noon. This infor­ma­tion was picked up by the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp at 10:30 this morn­ing. It is now urgent that peo­ple get to Mayo to help stop the Soli­taire lay­ing the off­shore sec­tion of pipe to the Cor­rib gas­field well-head from Shel­l’s com­pound at Glen­gad. The Soli­taire is cur­rent­ly at anchor, but it will prob­a­bly set sail in the next six to eight hours. This infor­ma­tion can be checked on www.shipais.com, and the Soli­taire can be tracked on this site as it leaves port to head for Erris.

rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com
http://www.shelltosea.com

bikesnotcars am*dam july3,4,5

In the week­end of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this week­end there will be a bike fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam. On dif­fer­ent loca­tions events, work­shops, info stands, fun & games, par­ties, and direct actions to block and frus­trate the traf­fic will be held. Cars lead to pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, deaths and injuries.

In the week­end of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this week­end there will be a bike fes­ti­val in Ams­ter­dam. On dif­fer­ent loca­tions events, work­shops, info stands, fun & games, par­ties, and direct actions to block and frus­trate the traf­fic will be held. Cars lead to pol­lu­tion, cli­mate change, deaths and injuries. They are a nui­sance, and are dom­i­nat­ing the pub­lic space.Where the pub­lic space is not designed to facil­i­tate the ever con­sum­ing shop­ping fren­zy and indus­try it is designed to please fos­sil-fuel-traf­fic.

The pro­gram of the bike fest in ams­ter­dam july 3rd, 4th and 5th is out…

Fri­day, ijs­baan­pad 12, ams­ter­dam
— oppor­tu­ni­ty for those with­out a bike to fix one
— ban­ner paint­ing
in the evening soup and a band

sat­ur­day
— 14.00h crit­i­cal mass, muse­um square, sith bike­po­lo and slow­bik­ing on the way
— 19.00h ijs­baan­pad, voku, folowed by bands:
de fat­was
de reclasser­ing
hys­te­ria
and one more band

sun­day
— info­mar­ket
— work­shops
— car­go bike race
— tall bike joust­ing

please dont bring your dogs to ijs­baan­pad

there is a place for sleep­ing but bring a matres and sleep­ing­bag

to bring list:
bed + sleep­ing­bag
bike(s)
basic repairk­it
ban­ners
no id
no dogs

see you there

bikesnotcars@gmail.com
http://bikesnotcars.wordpress.com

ELF sabotage digger & arson solidarity with Peru

ELF SABOTAGE DIGGER (Italy)

anony­mous report:

“ROME ITALY We cut wires and the oil tube of a dig­ger used to defor­est. unfor­tu­nate­ly there were men at work so we could not destroy the cab Earth lib­er­a­tion front”

»

ARSON ATTACK AGAINST POLICE VEHICLE IN SOLIDARITY WITH INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE IN PERU (Mex­i­co)

anony­mous com­mu­nique (trans­la­tion):

ELF SABOTAGE DIGGER (Italy)

anony­mous report:

“ROME ITALY We cut wires and the oil tube of a dig­ger used to defor­est. unfor­tu­nate­ly there were men at work so we could not destroy the cab Earth lib­er­a­tion front”

»

ARSON ATTACK AGAINST POLICE VEHICLE IN SOLIDARITY WITH INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE IN PERU (Mex­i­co)

anony­mous com­mu­nique (trans­la­tion):

“On the night of June 8, we, the Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra, along with some anar­cho-Insur­rec­tion­al indi­vid­u­als who are com­mit­ted to con­stant con­flict with the state and its insti­tu­tions, decid­ed to car­ry out an action togeth­er in the city of Ecate­pec in Mex­i­co State. This time our main objec­tive was the machines that belong to author­i­ties in that city that are used to rip up trees from their roots and to cov­er the earth with con­crete; the machines were hid­den under the bridge over Aveni­da More­los and López Por­tillo.

When we arrived there we real­ized that the earth-destroy­ing own­ers’ slaves were inside the machines, and that they sure­ly would­n’t be leav­ing until the fol­low­ing day, to work and to be exploit­ed to earn a few coins for their sub­sis­tence. Why is it that peo­ple are watch­ing the machines? Is it that the own­ers fear leav­ing them alone and the next morn­ing find­ing them unus­able, that their urban­ist project be delayed and thou­sands of pesos lost in dam­ages, like they have seen hap­pen in oth­er munic­i­pal­i­ties in Mex­i­co State?

This objec­tive was aban­doned and we decid­ed to car­ry out anoth­er; in front of the exca­va­tors, bull­doz­ers and oth­er machines was a large com­mand head­quar­ters of state police tor­tur­ers, the ASE (Agency of State Secu­ri­ty), vio­la­tors of the pris­on­ers in Aten­co, accom­plices in the killing of ani­mals in Jal­tenco, pro­tec­tors of the inter­ests of the multi­na­tion­als, killers of the earth, liv­ing with the impuni­ty that Mex­i­can jus­tice gives them, laugh­ing with their machine guns on their backs and con­fi­dant that they can destroy any protest with their repres­sion. They were there; maybe they did­n’t know that all vio­lence cre­ates counter vio­lence and for all who are struck down, soon­er or lat­er there will be a response.

Ded­i­cat­ed like wild wolves who have left their dens under the full moon, we placed an incen­di­ary device in one of the trucks, a small flame ignit­ed the engine and burnt the truck.

Our sab­o­tage was fast and effec­tive, the destruc­tion of social peace was immi­nent. What police would be expect­ing an arson attack in front of their very noses? How do those com­man­ders feel who boast of the fast effec­tive­ness of their sub­or­di­nates now that a group of eco-anar­chists have attacked their facil­i­ties? Do they feel hor­ri­ble because the raid they car­ried out after the fire was use­less; they could not catch those respon­si­ble who now write these lines of revenge against the anthro­pocen­tric state and its insti­tu­tions?

The war against this sys­tem is dead­ly seri­ous, if they order their police to sup­press, incen­di­ary self-defense will rise up.

We ded­i­cate this action to the fierce defense that is car­ried out in the Ama­zon in Peru; the peas­ants killed by the anthro­pocen­trist state have been avenged by their nat­ur­al instinct to defend the wilder­ness, killing, kid­nap­ping and also injur­ing the police.

Let’s defend the plan­et where we live!

Show your teeth!

Now no more pas­siv­i­ty!

ELF/FLT”

Rossport Solidarity Group Take Action at Van Oord’s UK Offices

An account of todays (16/06/2009) action against Van Oord UK, own­ers of the dredgers oper­at­ing in Broad­haven Bay, and in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Erris in their 10 year strug­gle.

ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY GROUP TAKE ACTION AT VAN OORD’S UK OFFICES

Van Oord protestAn account of todays (16/06/2009) action against Van Oord UK, own­ers of the dredgers oper­at­ing in Broad­haven Bay, and in Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Erris in their 10 year strug­gle.

ROSSPORT SOLIDARITY GROUP TAKE ACTION AT VAN OORD’S UK OFFICES

Today (16/06/2009) at 2.30pm a group of ten activists arrived at the UK offices of Van Oord, in New­bury, Berk­shire. Van Oord own the dredg­ing ves­sels oper­at­ing in Broad­haven Bay, as part of the Cor­rib Gas Project.

Our inten­tion was to occu­py the offices and to deliv­er a let­ter to and speak with the UK head of oper­a­tions, explain­ing our sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Erris and our objec­tions to Van Oord’s involve­ment in the project and demand­ing that they stop their oper­a­tions there imme­di­ate­ly.

We were met out­side by police; a local woman told us that they had been there, out­side Van Oord’s offices since 11am, with rein­force­ments arriv­ing at 2pm; at least half an hour before we arrived in the area. It was obvi­ous from the actions of the Police Offi­cers in ques­tion that they knew we were com­ing and had briefed Van Oord.

They refused to let us on to the fore­court and carpark, but were will­ing, how­ev­er, for us to stand and sit on the wall and pave­ment out­side.

We unfurled our ban­ners and demand­ed to speak to high­est rank­ing man­ag­er on the premis­es.

One of our group was allowed to approach the offices and even­tu­al­ly some­one claim­ing to be Van Oord’s UK Man­ag­er in charge of Irish oper­a­tions emerged to speak to her.

A let­ter and port­fo­lio of pho­tographs was then deliv­ered to him out­lin­ing the his­to­ry of the Cor­rib Gas Project, the oppo­si­tion of local res­i­dents, and includ­ing our demands.

Press releas­es were sent, a local paper inter­viewed some of the group, and at 4.pm we left peace­ful­ly.
Part of the let­ter deliv­ered to Van Oord UK

For the atten­tion of Van Oord direc­tors:

We are here today to demand that Van Oord stop all work on the Cor­rib Gas project imme­di­ate­ly. We have come in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land.

Van Oord are cur­rent­ly car­ry­ing out dredg­ing works in Broad­haven Bay, Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC), in prepa­ra­tion for the lay­ing of the off-shore sec­tion of the gas pipeline.

The devel­op­ment has no con­sent from the local com­mu­ni­ty and the neg­a­tive impacts the project has made on their lives and envi­ron­ment are already huge.

In the last few months the sit­u­a­tion in the Ross­port area has become increas­ing­ly seri­ous. There have been sev­er­al major attacks on promi­nent cam­paign­ers against the project; these are almost cer­tain­ly linked to the secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny con­tract­ed by Shell, IRMS.

Van Oord state that “Safe­ty is a key indi­ca­tor of our suc­cess”. Recent events in Mayo demon­strate a com­plete dis­re­gard for safe work­ing prac­tise.

Van Oord must end its oper­a­tion in Mayo imme­di­ate­ly.

A busy week here in Mayo

Work con­tin­ues in Glen­gad, but so does action resist­ing the pipeline. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is active and run­ning, so please come and vis­it! Come and see what is hap­pen­ing with your own eyes, and bring what­ev­er skills and tal­ents you would like to share. Here is a five day update.

Wednes­day 10 June

Rossport Solidarity Camp 2009Work con­tin­ues in Glen­gad, but so does action resist­ing the pipeline. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is active and run­ning, so please come and vis­it! Come and see what is hap­pen­ing with your own eyes, and bring what­ev­er skills and tal­ents you would like to share. Here is a five day update.

Wednes­day 10 June

Bel­mul­let Cour­t­house:
There was a packed cour­t­house in Bel­mul­let on Wednes­day with 31 Shell to Sea peo­ple up in court. The tim­ing of this court date is unde­ni­ably polit­i­cal, con­sid­er­ing 13 of the charges were from Sep­tem­ber 2008. Pre­sum­ably court has been timed to coin­cide with the immi­nent arrival of the Soli­taire. There was a new judge in place of Mary Devins, judge Denis Mclaugh­lan. Only one case was heard that day, and the rest of them had their cas­es adjourned until the 8th of July. The num­bers on camp grew on Wednes­day as many peo­ple who had to return for court remained on camp.

Truck action at GlengadTruck block­ade:
Around 5:30pm on Wednes­day, locals and sup­port­ers attempt­ed to block a con­voy of four trucks along the road to the Shell com­pound. Peo­ple moved plas­tic bar­ri­cades into the road by the grave­yard in Glen­gad, leav­ing enough room for cars but caus­ing the Shell trucks to have to stop in the road up by Kil­com­mon Lodge. The trucks were car­ry­ing grav­el and hard­core for build­ing the cause­way at the Shell com­pound on the beach in Glen­gad where the pipeline is pro­posed to come ashore. While the trucks were stopped, one per­son attempt­ed to speak with the dri­vers, engag­ing in heat­ed but civilised con­ver­sa­tion with one of them. The main argu­ment was that when peo­ple’s lives are at risk, it is no longer ‘just a job’. As this con­ver­sa­tion was going on, the truck at the front of the queue start­ed to move, and a pro­tes­tor jumped onto the back of it and climbed into the bed of the truck. After the dri­ver was informed that a pro­tes­tor was aboard the truck he slowed down a bit but con­tin­ued to dri­ve until final­ly com­ing to a stop after about 100 metres. The pro­test­er sat on top of the cab of the truck until the gar­dai arrived and after about 10–15 min­utes began to force­ful­ly remove the pro­test­er.

As this was hap­pen­ing on top of the truck two peo­ple climbed under­neath it. The gar­dai moved in and wres­tled one pro­tes­tor out from under the truck. As he was on the ground guards grabbed one of his feet and raised it above waist height, he was then dragged across the road in this posi­tion caus­ing a con­sid­er­able amount of pain. Sev­er­al gar­da then climbed under­neath the truck and vio­lent­ly dragged the oth­er per­son out. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly four gar­dai were remov­ing the per­son from the top of the truck, lift­ing him over their heads and slid­ing him down the side onto the road. Offi­cer MY2 made a ver­bal promise to the pro­test­er that he would take down the details of the truck dri­ver because of his reck­less dri­ving. Final­ly after 10–15 min­utes of being pinned to the ground with his arm twist­ed behind his back, the per­son on the ground was brought to a stand­ing posi­tion and arrest­ed, though none of the gar­dai would explain what he was being arrest­ed for when asked. He fell to the ground as he was being put into the police van, and had to be lift­ed into the van by sev­er­al gar­da.

Though the per­son who had been on top of the truck was not imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed, soon after­wards he was arrest­ed under three charges: obstruct­ing traf­fic, breach of the peace, and refus­ing to obey the orders of a gar­da. Both arrestees were held in cus­tody overnight and brought to court in West­port the next morn­ing before they’d recieved legal aid. The gar­dai attempt­ed to have them both put on remand, which means they’d be put in jail until the next court date on 8 July. They also have begun ask­ing for bail, from 100 euro to 500 euro, some­thing which has­n’t been done at all in the past sev­er­al years of the cam­paign. This seems to be a polit­i­cal move by An Gar­da Síochá­na in an attempt to repress the cam­paign. There is no rea­son to sus­pect peo­ple of flight risk, as there has nev­er been a prob­lem with peo­ple show­ing up to court in the past. When asked why they are doing this, the only expla­na­tion is that ‘this is the new pol­i­cy’. How­ev­er it is not clear whether this is the new pol­i­cy for any­one arrest­ed in Ire­land, or whether it is some­thing put in place strate­gi­cal­ly to deal with polit­i­cal pro­tes­tors. The two truck-block­ers were held until the next morn­ing, and brought to court the next day. One of them was forced to go to Cas­tle Rea prison to sign his 500 euro bail. He was released at 6pm on Thurs­day after being held for 24 hours for a sim­ple breach of the peace.

Thurs­day 11 June

Sink­ing of the Chief’s boat- Defin­i­tive account from Pat him­self:

Pat O’Don­nel­l’s fish­ing boat was board­ed by four masked men, two of whom were armed with guns, at approx­i­mate­ly 2am on 11 June whilst out at sea lay­ing pots. The two armed men held Mr O’Don­nell and his crew­man Mar­tin McDon­nell in the wheel­house of the boat while anoth­er two went below deck for 20 min­utes. These men returned to the deck and the two crew mem­bers were held for one and a half hours until the engine went out. At this point the masked men alight­ed onto an unknown ves­sel that took them away. None of the men spoke good Eng­lish. Mr O’Don­nell went down to the engine room and realised that the boat was sinking.The two fish­er­men put out a may­day sig­nal and attempt­ed to inflate their lifeboat. The infla­tion mech­a­nism failed a num­ber of times but even­tu­al­ly worked with only moments left to spare. Once onboard the lifeboat Mr O’Don­nell and Mr McDon­nell sent out a dis­tress flare. They were res­cued at 4.30am by the ‘Rachel Mary’, anoth­er boat owned by Pat O’Donnell and oper­at­ed by his son, fish­er­man, Jonathan O’Donnell. He then rang the Gar­dai at around 6am to inform them of the inci­dent.

Pat said “I was in fear for my life, is there no end to what these thugs will try to do? AIl I am try­ing to do is pro­tect my fam­i­ly and the seas that are our liveli­hood. I told Min­ster O’Cuiv in April that I need­ed pro­tec­tion by the state, but he would­n’t give it — now its time for the gov­ern­ment to pro­tect its peo­ple. I won’t be intim­i­dat­ed by this.”

Pat O’Donnell is a local fish­er­man with over thir­ty years expe­ri­ence in the waters off the coast of Ire­land. It is assumed that Pat O’Don­nell was tar­get­ed as he is one of the loud­est objec­tors to Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project. As a fifth gen­er­a­tion fish­er­man his liveli­hood will be severe­ly affect­ed by pol­lu­tion from the cor­rib project into Broad­haven bay. Deter­mined to pro­tect the waters for future gen­er­a­tions of fish­er­men, Mr. O’Don­nell has con­sis­tent­ly refused to be paid off by Shell.

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92657

Ear­ly morn­ing water action:

At 4:30am, 14 kayak­ers set out to try and dis­rupt the works being car­ried out in prepa­ra­tion for the lay­ing of the off­shore pipeline in Broad­haven Bay. The gar­dai were quick­ly on the scene, and began arrest­ing peo­ple under pub­lic order charges, fail­ure to obey the instruc­tions of a gar­da. Over the course of an hour, work was sucess­ful­ly dis­rupt­ed and six peo­ple were arrest­ed. The gar­dai con­fis­cat­ed the six kayaks of the arrestees, slash­ing five of the inflat­able kayaks with knives. The gards have height­ened their intim­i­da­tion tac­tics, telling first offense arrestees that they may have to spend a week in prison sim­ply for a breach of the peace vio­la­tion. They are doing what­ev­er they can to dis­cour­age peo­ple from doing fur­ther actions against Shell, attempt­ing to put peo­ple on remand, charg­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate amounts for unnec­es­sary bail, and arbi­trar­i­ly attempt­ing to get peo­ple ‘banned’ from Broad­haven Bay. Alle­ga­tions that this ear­ly morn­ing action kept res­cue teams from respond­ing to Pat O’Don­nel­l’s dis­tress sig­nal are unfound­ed. The kayak action was unre­lat­ed to that inci­dent, and is fair­ly unim­por­tant com­pared to the seri­ous­ness of the attack on Pat and Mar­tin.

Fri­day 12 June

Ear­ly Fri­day morn­ing, a local bus dri­ver was fol­lowed by the gar­dai on his bus route, then arrest­ed in his own home after he had dropped the bus full of kids off at school. The gar­dai claimed to have video footage of him tak­ing part in the removal of nets. The ind­ci­dent hap­pened in April when near­ly 200 local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers went to take the nets down from the spe­cial area of con­ser­va­tion where the endan­gered sand mar­tins nest. How­ev­er the footage was unre­li­able and accord­ing to the per­son he was not even at the protest that day, so the gar­dai let him go with­out charg­ing him. To arbi­trar­i­ly arrest a per­son in their home near­ly two months after an event with­out sub­stan­tial evi­dence is plain ter­ror­ism.

At 10am Fri­day morn­ing, a local res­i­dent blocked Shell trucks from pass­ing his house by park­ing his car in the road. His house has been dam­aged due to the heavy traf­fic from Shel­l’s trucks on a road unsuit­able for haulage and after reciev­ing no response from the Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil, he took action. The trucks turned around, promis­ing that there would be no traf­fic for ‘a few days.’ The gar­dai were informed that this action was going to take place before­hand, and they did not try to arrest him. The local com­mu­ni­ty has vowed to con­tin­ue the block­ade once the trucks start up again.

Sun­day 14 June
Late Sun­day night a group of 7 kayak­ers set out to dis­rupt the dredg­ing going on in Broad­haven Bay, but were instant­ly met with a fleet of 9 motor­boats. Work was stopped for about 15 min­utes, and one kayak­er was cap­sized by one of the secu­ri­ty boats. They took the inflat­able kayak into their motor­boat and left the per­son swim­ming in the water. One of the secu­ri­ty guards grabbed hold of the per­son by the neck of his life­jack­et and dragged him through the water. When oth­er kayak­ers tried to inter­vene, they were vio­lent­ly dealt with by the secu­ri­ty boat who pro­ceed­ed to take one kayak­er’s pad­dle and aban­don her there. Despite this aggres­sive behav­ior on the part of the Shell secu­ri­ty, every­one made it back to shore safe­ly. Peo­ple are in high spir­its here at the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, and the resis­tance will con­tin­ue as long as the work on this project does!

Happy J18 — Ten Year Anniversary — Pics + Links

June 18th 2009
Ten year’s ago today and a glob­al Car­ni­val Against Cap­i­tal was erupt­ing across the world with co-ordi­nat­ed protests tak­ing place in over 40 coun­tries on June 18th 1999.

J18 flier frontJ18 crowd meets at Liverpool Street stationJune 18th 2009
Ten year’s ago today and a glob­al Car­ni­val Against Cap­i­tal was erupt­ing across the world with co-ordi­nat­ed protests tak­ing place in over 40 coun­tries on June 18th 1999.

Direct­ly tar­get­ing finan­cial cen­tres the J18 day of Inter­na­tion­al Action was stun­ning in its scale and ran along­side the G7/G8 meet­ing in Koln Ger­many. It fol­lowed the Glob­al Street Par­ty that had been held along­side the G7/G8 meet­ing in Birm­ing­ham in 1998 and co-ordi­nat­ed through Reclaim The Streets.

To remem­ber it, here’s a set of 23 pic­tures from Lon­don J18 cour­tesy of a pho­tog­ra­ph­er who was there for the morn­ing and the par­ty, but who missed the ensu­ing riot as police fought to regain con­trol of the City of Lon­don.

The rea­sons for strug­gle are greater now than then, and cli­mate change and eco­nom­ic melt­downs threat­en the lives and liveli­hoods of us all.

There’s too much to men­tion about J18, from the sheer joy of tak­ing the City to the full-on bat­tles, from the danc­ing and the masks to the spoof FT paper to pirate radio broad­casts, from the brick­ing up and storm­ing of the Lon­don Inter­na­tion­al Finan­cial Futures Exchange to the knock­ing out of CCTV cam­eras, from the elec­tron­ic dis­tur­bance actions to the begin­nings of Indy­media, from the exhaus­tion to the recrim­i­na­tions and the state back­lash against RTS and every­one else protest­ing for a bet­ter world.

But most of all it was GLOBAL: “Our Resis­tance is as Transna­tion­al as Cap­i­tal”

See this col­lec­tion of 2 pages of web links to orig­i­nal reports, web­sites, analy­sis, pic­tures and video:

http://www.delicious.com/directmedia/j18

Enjoy.

Thugs Seek Jobs at Shell HQ

The main doors at Shells head­quar­ters were closed to staff at 9am today, 12 June as pro­test­ers dressed as ‘thugs’ turned up for a job inter­view. Shell secu­ri­ty locked all doors as pro­test­ers tried to enter the build­ing for what they said was a job inter­view “we hear Shell are hir­ing thugs to sink ships in Ire­land”.

Shell Thugs 4 HireThe main doors at Shells head­quar­ters were closed to staff at 9am today, 12 June as pro­test­ers dressed as ‘thugs’ turned up for a job inter­view. Shell secu­ri­ty locked all doors as pro­test­ers tried to enter the build­ing for what they said was a job inter­view “we hear Shell are hir­ing thugs to sink ships in Ire­land”.

Pro­test­ers tried to enter the Head­quar­ters but the doors were locked as they went in. The doors remained locked for about an hour and a half, despite the var­i­ous demon­stra­tions the pro­test­ers gave of their ‘thugery’ skills even sim­u­lat­ing how they coud hold a fish­er­man cap­tive why sink­ing his boat.

One of the pro­test­ers Saman­tha John­son said “Shell have been hir­ing hit squads to ter­rorise local pro­test­ers at their activ­i­ties abroad, as with the Ogo­ni peo­ple in the Niger Delta. Now, they have import­ed these meth­ods to Ire­land. Indeed, last month a for­mer Shell secu­ri­ty guard was iden­ti­fied as one of the mer­ce­nar­ies employed in an assas­si­na­tion plot in Bolivia”.

This protest is in response to an inci­dent in Ross­port, Ire­land at 2am yes­ter­day morn­ing where 4 masked men sunk a local fisherman’s boat, with the own­er and a crewmem­ber still on it. 2 of the men were armed and held the fish­er­men while the oth­ers went below deck to sink the boat.

One of the pro­test­ers today Sean Reil­ly said “This shows the extremes Shell go to, to get what they want. They are will­ing to put 2 men in hos­pi­tal for vocal­ly express­ing oppo­si­tion.

Two Fishermen in Hospital After Boat Boarded and Sunk by Masked Men in Ireland

The sit­u­a­tion in Erris Co. Mayo has esca­lat­ed into a sor­did state of affairs, with two fish­er­men being held by force by two men in bal­a­clavas at 2am on Thurs­day the 11th of June. The fish­er­men, Pat O’Donnell and Mar­tin McDon­nell, are both locals opposed to the con­tro­ver­sial Cor­rib gas project which is cur­rent­ly being over­seen by The Roy­al Dutch Shell Com­pa­ny.

The sit­u­a­tion in Erris Co. Mayo has esca­lat­ed into a sor­did state of affairs, with two fish­er­men being held by force by two men in bal­a­clavas at 2am on Thurs­day the 11th of June. The fish­er­men, Pat O’Donnell and Mar­tin McDon­nell, are both locals opposed to the con­tro­ver­sial Cor­rib gas project which is cur­rent­ly being over­seen by The Roy­al Dutch Shell Com­pa­ny.
The two fish­er­men were return­ing to Bal­ly­glass pier, hav­ing been fish­ing out at sea, when their boat was board­ed by four masked men. When Mr. O’Donnell and Mr. McDon­nell had been ren­dered help­less, the board­ers pro­ceed­ed to move below decks and sink the ‘Iona Isle’, the trawler belong­ing to Mr. O’Donnell. Both men are now being tend­ed to in Castle­bar gen­er­al hos­pi­tal.

These attacks come short­ly after rough­ly thir­ty Shell to Sea activists appeared in Bell­mul­let dis­trict court yes­ter­day for assort­ed acts of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence relat­ing to the pro­posed pipeline project. How­ev­er a num­ber of mem­bers of An Gar­da Síochan­na were also sum­moned by the judge for pos­si­ble acts of mis­con­duct, mis­use of author­i­ty and ille­gal behav­iour relat­ing to Shell to Sea protests.

The assaults car­ried out on the fish­er­men bear an uncan­ny resem­blance to that which occurred almost a month and a half ago on local farmer and Gold­man envi­ron­men­tal prize win­ner Willie Cor­duff.

The recent devel­op­ments here in Erris are becom­ing an increas­ing cause for con­cern for local peo­ple attempt­ing to halt Shell’s work in order to defend their own liveli­hoods. Many fam­i­lies here are com­plete­ly depen­dent on the local envi­ron­ment to pro­duce a source of income. Hav­ing fish­ing grounds pol­lut­ed by dredg­ing work, or pipelines dragged through one’s fields is like­ly to evoke strong protest. Albeit most local peo­ple who oppose the project ini­tial­ly felt that there was lit­tle or no chance of the sit­u­a­tion unrav­el­ling to the extent it would be so effort­less­ly com­pa­ra­ble to the Ogo­ni saga in Nige­ria.

More activists were arrest­ed yes­ter­day evening after they had assist­ed local men in bar­ri­cad­ing nar­row choke points of road which lead to the Shell com­pound at Glen­gad, which is still devoid of the suf­fi­cient plan­ning per­mis­sion. One man had hoist­ed him­self up onto the cab of a truck in an attempt to halt the ille­gal work, much to the sur­prise of local peo­ple and Gar­da present at the scene. The dri­ver elect­ed to accel­er­ate down a steep hill with the man still on top of the vehi­cle. Two Shell to Sea activists were vio­lent­ly appre­hend­ed on the road and brought to Bell­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion where they’ve been held all night. They have been brought to court this morn­ing with­out legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and the state is attempt­ing to put them on remand. This means they will be held in jail until the next court hear­ing in July.

Also at half four ear­li­er this morn­ing four­teen peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp dis­rupt­ed work whilst kayak­ing in bay where Shell are cur­rent­ly dredg­ing. This result­ed in the arrest of six peo­ple and police also slashed kayaks. Over the past ten days dredgers have been board­ed on two occa­sions where activists climbed on top of dig­gers and stopped work. A num­ber of injuries have been sus­tained dur­ing water actions injuries at the hands of the IRMS secu­ri­ty, employed by Shell to trit­u­rate the cam­paign oppos­ing the theft of bil­lions of euro worth of gas.

The glob­al pres­sure has been mount­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly on Shell in recent times, with much media focus sur­round­ing the Wiwa fam­i­ly law­suits against them in New York. Shell was being sued for human rights abus­es in the Ogo­ni region of Nige­ria dat­ing back to the ear­ly nineties, how­ev­er Shell decid­ed to set­tle out of court to the sum of $15.5 mil­lion dol­lars.

In the face of one of the world’s biggest multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions backed by the state and a team of secu­ri­ty, many of whom are known fas­cists and mer­ce­nar­ies, the com­mu­ni­ty still stand strong in defence of their envi­ron­ment and liveli­hoods. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is pro­vid­ing active sup­port to the com­mu­ni­ty, please come and help!

The Pirates of Broadhaven Defeat Shell’s Armada (& contractor’s addresses)

For the sec­ond time in three days a Shell dredger has been board­ed and occu­pied by a Shell to Sea pro­test­er. As a result all the ships work­ing in the bay have ceased work and returned to har­bour. Reports con­firm that work has been aban­doned due to the action of the pro­test­ers!

Dredger occupation the second!For the sec­ond time in three days a Shell dredger has been board­ed and occu­pied by a Shell to Sea pro­test­er. As a result all the ships work­ing in the bay have ceased work and returned to har­bour. Reports con­firm that work has been aban­doned due to the action of the pro­test­ers!

A group of 11 kayak­ers set out at 5:30am on Fri­day, meet­ing instant resis­tance on the water from Shell secu­ri­ty boats and safe­ty boats. After avoid­ing the Shell pri­vate secu­ri­ty boats that were attempt­ing to cap­size the kayaks, one pro­test­er man­aged to board the dredger ‘Rezende Bol’ owned by Van Oord, who is sub­con­tract­ed by Shell to do the dredg­ing. This ves­sel along with anoth­er and mul­ti­ple sup­port and secu­ri­ty boats were dig­ging a trench in the seabed in prepa­ra­tion for the gas pipe-lay­ing ship Soli­taire. Work in the bay has been con­tin­u­ous 24 hours a day since Mon­day evening only stop­ping due to the pre­vi­ous dredger occu­pa­tion by Shell to Sea pro­test­ers which last­ed 10 hours. Dur­ing the attempts to board the dredger sev­er­al pro­test­ers were able to climb onto the side of the ves­sel. Exces­sive force was used to pre­vent them from board­ing; one pro­test­er had his thumb bent back­wards by a secu­ri­ty guard and lat­er was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where tests revealed dam­aged lig­a­ments. Anoth­er pro­test­er who got on board the ship was vio­lent­ly pushed from the deck by two secu­ri­ty guards injur­ing his back, and fell over six feet from the deck into the water. Shell secu­ri­ty were kick­ing and stamp­ing fin­gers of pro­test­ers on the near side of the ves­sel, all the while one pro­test­er man­aged to board the ship on the oth­er side and climb up onto the same crane his friends had pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied just three days ear­li­er.

The kayak sup­port team pre­pared for sim­i­lar shifts as Tues­day, antic­i­pat­ing a long-term occu­pa­tion. Four kayak­ers remained on the water to keep an eye on the pro­test­er while the rest went in to regain ener­gy. The reac­tion of the secu­ri­ty and safe­ty boats was very hos­tile, attempt­ing to cap­size kayaks and sep­a­rate peo­ple from each oth­er. The dri­ver of the Gall­tee (Shell’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty boat) repeat­ed his threat to sink kayaks, dri­ving extreme­ly aggres­sive­ly with no regard for the safe­ty of the kayak­ers.

After the dredgers were towed away, the Gar­da arrived and board­ed the ship in addi­tion to the Shell secu­ri­ty already on the ship. They threat­ened the pro­test­er on the crane arm with forced phys­i­cal removal. Fear­ing for his own safe­ty the pro­test­er jumped from the dredger arm onto the deck and dived into the water. The two sup­port­ing kayak­ers who were still in the water were arrest­ed despite their efforts to com­ply with the Gardai’s instruc­tions. In the water the crane pro­test­er man­aged to avoid cap­ture by the Gar­dai and Shell secu­ri­ty and get to the shore where he scaled a cliff to evade cap­ture. His where­abouts are now unknown but he is safe and well!

Shell claimed that they stopped work­ing in the bay due to a ‘swell’ but sources at Bal­ly­glass pier con­firmed that Van Oord, the sub­con­trac­tor run­ning the dredgers were unwill­ing to work with ongo­ing protest activ­i­ty and the exces­sive use of force by the IRMS (Inte­grat­ed Risk Man­age­ment Ser­vices) .

Today’s actions are proof that resis­tance rocks!

Come to Mayo!

—-

Van Oord are involved as a main con­trac­tor on the Lim­er­ick Tun­nel project, which they’re hap­py to tell you about on their web­site, but there’s no men­tion at all of their involve­ment with the Cor­rib Gas Project. Maybe their green­wash is impor­tant to them some­how, and maybe they don’t fan­cy neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty. Why don’t we give them some then, eh?

Van Oord’s web­site home­page:
http://www.vanoord.com/gb-en/index.php

Head office postal address for gen­er­al mail:
Van Oord Dredg­ing and Marine Con­trac­tors BV
PO Box 8574
3009 AN Rot­ter­dam
The Nether­lands

Vis­it­ing address:
Van Oord Dredg­ing and Marine Con­trac­tors BV
Water­man­weg 64
3067 GG Rot­ter­dam
The Nether­lands
T 31 10 447844
F 31 10 4478100
E info@vanoord.com

This is a con­tact for their ‘news­room’, i.e. Media and PR:
A.G.M. (Bert) Groothuizen
Man­ag­er Mar­ket­ing & Pub­lic Rela­tions
T 31 10 4478234
F 31 10 4478100
E info@vanoord.com

On their ‘agen­da’ page there is men­tion of this fol­low­ing event. Maybe they are keynote speak­ers at this con­fer­ence, or that they will have a large trade exhi­bi­tion pres­ence there. Details from the con­fer­ence web­site are sketchy, so more research is need­ed. There are oth­er events for lat­er in the year at which they’ll either attend or par­tic­i­pate in, but I think the event at the end of this month may be a place where Van Oord can be shamed pub­licly about its involve­ment in Shel­l’s destruc­tion of Broad­haven Bay.

The Flood and Coastal Risk Man­age­ment Con­fer­ence 2009 — 30 June 2009 — 02 July 2009
The Inter­na­tion­al Cen­tre, Telford, UK
(Telford is in Shrop­shire, west-cen­tral Eng­land, I think. Near­ish to Birm­ing­ham any­way. The risks in coastal man­age­ment must be enor­mous these days, if this con­fer­ence has to be held in a place as far from the sea as you can get on the island of Britain!)
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/102626.aspx

Allseas are the com­pa­ny that own the Soli­taire. The Soli­taire is expect­ed to arrive with­in the next month. It would be good if peo­ple could also put pres­sure on them before they get here:

http://www.allseas.com/uk

Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030

Shell security breached and work stopped in successful action at sea

On Tues­day, after the after­noon con­fronta­tion in Broad­haven Bay which result­ed in one man’s arrest and a cou­ple hours of halt­ed work for the dredgers, the Shell to Sea fleet of kayaks head­ed out on the water a sec­ond time around 6pm and two pro­test­ers man­aged to board one of the dredgers, climb­ing on to the neck of the c

Shell crane occupation in Broadhaven BayOn Tues­day, after the after­noon con­fronta­tion in Broad­haven Bay which result­ed in one man’s arrest and a cou­ple hours of halt­ed work for the dredgers, the Shell to Sea fleet of kayaks head­ed out on the water a sec­ond time around 6pm and two pro­test­ers man­aged to board one of the dredgers, climb­ing on to the neck of the crane, occu­py­ing it and halt­ing work for 10 hours.

Shell has been con­tin­u­ous­ly dredg­ing in the area since Mon­day evening, inter­fer­ing with pro­tect­ed fish­ing areas for local fish­er­men, defil­ing what was once a pris­tine marine habi­tat full of dol­phins, whales and oth­er marine life, and dis­turb­ing sleep for local res­i­dents. They have buoyed off an ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the pub­lic waters, with boats patrolling the area to make sure no one cross­es into it. There is a diverse assort­ment of ves­sels occu­py­ing the once pris­tine bay; the major­i­ty of these are either car­ry­ing out or assist­ing in the cur­rent dredg­ing and sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions. An Gar­da Siochana (police boat) have also been patrolling the work zone along with two black RIBs; The Lau­ra Emi­ly accom­pa­nied by its twin the Gall­tee, both brim­ming with men dressed in black mil­i­tary fatigues and video cam­eras for film­ing pro­test­ers. Oth­er small­er motor­boats accom­pa­nied the Shell crew, includ­ing ‘safe­ty boats’ and a large white motor launch. There were tug­boats for mov­ing the dredgers, barges for hold­ing the sand being removed from the seabed and, of course, the mas­sive dredgers them­selves.

A group of twelve Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in eight inflat­able kayaks, two hard kayaks, and two rub­ber dingys set out on the water at 6pm for the sec­ond time in one day on Tues­day 2nd June. Three of the kayaks man­aged to evade the secu­ri­ty boats and get close enough to board one of the dredgers. One pro­test­er began to climb the lad­der from her boat while anoth­er kayak­er blocked a secu­ri­ty boat from grab­bing her. The oth­er pro­test­er used the tires on the side of the dredger to board the deck. Once on the boat, both pro­test­ers were climb­ing onto the crane with­in sec­onds. They slid down into the neck of the crane mak­ing it impos­si­ble for the crew to remove them.

Loud cheers were heard from ashore where peo­ple were gath­ered at the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, and the mood on the water was extreme­ly pos­i­tive. ‘Shell to hell’ chants were abound­ing, and there were even some play­ful exchanges between Shell to Sea kayak­ers and a cou­ple of motor­boats. There were vary­ing atti­tudes on dif­fer­ent boats, but not all of the gar­dai or safe­ty boats were unfriend­ly. Both inflat­able kayaks which had been left in the water where the two pro­test­ers had board­ed the dredger were quick­ly recov­ered. One was towed out of the ‘exclu­sion zone’ by a Shell to Sea pro­test­er, and one was brought on board the gar­dai boat and placed back in the water out­side of the exclu­sion zone. The rest of the Shell to Sea kayak­ers remained on the water to ensure the pro­test­ers were not going to be dan­ger­ous­ly removed, then began tak­ing shifts to stay close to them and pro­vide sup­port.

In a sur­pris­ing­ly hon­est con­ver­sa­tion between the kayak pro­test­ers and a work­er on one of the boats, the work­er stat­ed that he ‘admired the per­sis­tence’ of the local com­mu­ni­ty and sup­port­ers who are resist­ing the pipeline. He also said he thought the pipeline plan was ‘rel­a­tive­ly safe’ and assert­ed that some­times risks have to be tak­en. Unfor­tu­nate­ly with a kill zone of up to 200 meters and the uncer­tain­ty of nev­er hav­ing built such a high pres­sure pipeline through a res­i­den­tial area, the risk is high. This is why resis­tance to the pipeline is so strong; as one of the two pro­test­ers who occu­pied the dredger lat­er stat­ed, “Today we took this action in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty and to try to pro­tect this beau­ti­ful area from being rav­aged by Shell.”

The rotat­ing shifts of sup­port con­tin­ued on through the night, with small groups of kayak­ers keep­ing an eye on their friends long after the gar­dai had left around 12am. Once it was dark and the gar­dai had left, the mood at sea changed. The Shell secu­ri­ty and the safe­ty boat for the dredger were the only ones left. The Shell secu­ri­ty RIBs became increas­ing­ly aggres­sive towards the kayak­ers. They made mul­ti­ple attempts to cap­size them, and used intim­i­da­tion tech­niques such as turn­ing their lights off until they were up close then sud­den­ly shin­ing flood­lights, dis­ori­ent­ing and fright­en­ing them. One of the kayak crew report­ed feel­ing seri­ous­ly con­cerned that the sit­u­a­tion would esca­late. A secu­ri­ty guard even stat­ed his inten­tion was to sink the boats, a plau­si­ble threat giv­en the recent vicious attack by IRMS on Willie Cor­duff. It was report­ed that the ‘safe­ty boat’ also seemed con­cerned for the safe­ty of the kayak­ers, and may have been their only pro­tec­tion in the sit­u­a­tion.

By 4am, the two pro­test­ers on the dredger were feel­ing very cold and tired, and felt as if they had achieved a sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry. They vol­un­tar­i­ly climbed down from the crane, and were ille­gal­ly detained by IRMS secu­ri­ty and brought to Bal­ly­glass pier where they were arrest­ed and charged with loi­ter­ing in a pub­lic place.

Despite the severe dif­fi­cul­ties encoun­tered through­out the night the mood across the camp from the kayak­ing teams and all the sup­port crews was jubi­lant. Hav­ing breached Shell’s secu­ri­ty and made such a sig­nif­i­cant stop to dredg­ing work peo­ple at the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp remain in a defi­ant mood: watch this space for more resis­tance to the dev­as­ta­tion at sea and on the land.