Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Community Day at Bellanaboy

Sun­day Decem­ber 16, 2007

A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held today at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.

Bellanboy carols 2007 1
Bellanboy carols 2007 2Sun­day Decem­ber 16, 2007

A spe­cial prayer and car­ol ser­vice was held today at Bel­lan­aboy, Coun­ty Mayo, mark­ing the end of anoth­er year of com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Shel­l’s pro­posed raw gas pipeline and inland refin­ery.

A good humoured gath­er­ing of more than 150 local peo­ple braved the bit­ter­ly cold east wind to take part in the occa­sion, which was presided over by local priests Fr. Michael Nallen PP and Fr. Sean Noone.

A ban­ner declar­ing “Gan Cead an Phobail” (No Com­mu­ni­ty Con­sent) was draped over the main gates while peo­ple sang Christ­mas Car­ols to wel­come in the fes­tive sea­son.

Also present was Lelia Doolin, a high pro­file cam­paign­er and mem­ber of the Bur­ren Action Group, who trav­elled from Gal­way espe­cial­ly for the day. Ms Doolin spoke of the sim­i­lar­i­ties between the Clare and Mayo cam­paigns, and how the deter­mi­na­tion of ordi­nary peo­ple can bring about real change.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.shelltosea.com/

Strike, demonstrations, clashes (Athens-Thessaloniki-Larissa) — luxury cars, cash machines, CCTV & McD all trashed or burned

12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

CCTV camera bagged12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

One-day long gen­er­al strike was called by fed­er­a­tions, labor unions and syn­di­cates that belong to the GSEE (gen­er­al syn­di­cal­ist union), PAME (tied to the Com­mu­nist Par­ty) but also inde­pen­dent syn­di­cates and oth­er groups, against gov­ern­ment plans to over­haul the pen­sion sys­tem (rais­ing retire­ment ages, cut­ting ben­e­fits etc).

Athens: The police repeat­ed­ly attacked with tear gas and flash light and sting ball grenades in order to tear apart the anarchist/antiautoritarian blocs (more than 1.500 per­sons) from the oth­er demon­stra­tors (more than 150.000) while the demon­stra­tors fought back with stones and sticks. A lux­u­rius car had its win­dows bro­ken and was set on fire, togeth­er with a bank’s ATM and a police sur­veil­lance cam­era. Near Great Britain hotel, the cops attacked again the demon­stra­tion but were held back by the peo­ple. In Omonoia Square, the cops attacked once again the demo and cut back the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs. In Panepis­timiou street, some demon­stra­tors attacked the cops and set free 2 per­sons that were hand­cuffed by the cops, in a pre­vi­ous police attack. Then, there was a con­stant tear gas attack and police strik­ing the demo in order to sep­a­rate the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs from the rest of the demon­stra­tors, though they nev­er man­age to do so, thanks to the strong self-defence of the anarchists/antiautoritarians and the sup­port of the rest of the demon­stra­tors that did n’t run away, regard­less the amounts of tear gas and police attacks. In the same time, employ­ees of “Olympic Air­ways” some of them protest­ing with greek flags against the bunk­rupt­sy of this state-spon­sored com­pa­ny, were offer­ing flow­ers to the police­men ouside the par­lia­ment house… Dur­ing the demon­stra­tions, bank ATMs and sur­veil­lance cam­eras were destroyed, and 2 line­men of the Pub­lic Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion got arrest­ed a few hours after the demon­stra­tions, for cov­er­ing up police sur­veil­lance cam­eras with bags. In total, there were dozens of arrests, and 4 of them are pros­e­cut­ed under mis­de­meanours (dis­rup­tion of pub­lic order, dam­ag­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty).

Thes­sa­loni­ki: Demon­stra­tors broke down the McDon­alds at Lagka­da street and bank win­dows, and burnt up pow­er sup­ply box­es of police sur­veil­lance cam­eras. In total, more than 30.000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in the demon­stra­tions.

Laris­sa: Paint bombs and eggs were thrown at banks and par­ty offices.

March­es and open gath­er­ing were organ­ised in most cities and towns of the coun­try.

French activist Bove to go on anti-GMO hunger strike

REUTERS, Dec 10 2007

TOULOUSE (Reuters) — French rad­i­cal farmer Jose Bove, who became a world­wide celebri­ty for his fight against junk food, said on Mon­day he would go on a hunger strike to win a one-year ban on genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GMO) crops.

REUTERS, Dec 10 2007

TOULOUSE (Reuters) — French rad­i­cal farmer Jose Bove, who became a world­wide celebri­ty for his fight against junk food, said on Mon­day he would go on a hunger strike to win a one-year ban on genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GMO) crops.

Speak­ing at the Mil­lau Court of Jus­tice in south­ern France, where his four-month jail sen­tence for trash­ing a GMO field in 2004 was com­mut­ed to a fine, Bove said he would start his unlim­it­ed strike on Jan­u­ary 3, along with 10 to 15 oth­er activists.

The wal­rus-mus­ta­chioed, pipe-smok­ing Bove, some­times dubbed France’s Robin Hood, spent six weeks in jail in 2003 for smash­ing up a McDon­ald’s restau­rant in protest at tar­iffs imposed by the Unit­ed States in retal­i­a­tion for a Euro­pean Union ban on imports of North Amer­i­can hor­mone-treat­ed beef.

While GMO crops are com­mon in the Unit­ed States, France — Europe’s biggest grain pro­duc­er — along with oth­er Euro­pean nations remain high­ly sus­pi­cious of them.

Sup­port­ers say it could lead to hardy strains to help feed the world’s poor. Oppo­nents, which polls say include a major­i­ty of French peo­ple, fear they could harm humans and wildlife by trig­ger­ing an uncon­trolled spread of mod­i­fied genes.

In an attempt to calm these con­cerns, France last week for­mal­ly sus­pend­ed the com­mer­cial use of GMO seeds until Feb­ru­ary 9 and ordered a biotech safe­ty study.

It also set up a com­mit­tee charged with assess­ing the health and envi­ron­men­tal impli­ca­tions of using the only GMO seeds used in Europe, which are reliant on the MON 810 tech­nol­o­gy devel­oped by U.S. biotech giant Mon­san­to.

‘This decree is ridicu­lous. It is a scare­crow,’ Bove said.

‘Every­one knows that there are no sow­ings dur­ing win­ter. We demand a real pause in GMO use in 2008. It must be a year with­out GMOs and we are stat­ing this hunger strike to show our deter­mi­na­tion,’ he added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL1011368420071210

EarthFirst! blockade at coal-fired power plant in Rotterdam, NL

8.12.2007
On Sat­ur­day morn­ing a col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam. This day, Decem­ber 8, has been announced as an inter­na­tion­al action­day in the protest against the coal indus­try. The grow­ing num­ber of coal-fired pow­er plants world­wide and in the Nether­lands at the moment is the biggest threath to the cli­mate. Sec­ond­ly, this action is part of the protest against the plans for a new E.on coal-fired plant, right next to the exist­ing one on the Maasvlak­te.

Maasvlakte lock-ons 2

8.12.2007
On Sat­ur­day morn­ing a col­lec­tive of twen­ty Dutch Earth­First! activists blocked the coal con­vey­or- belt to a plant owned by the Ger­man ener­gy giant E.on on the Maasvlak­te near Rot­ter­dam. This day, Decem­ber 8, has been announced as an inter­na­tion­al action­day in the protest against the coal indus­try. The grow­ing num­ber of coal-fired pow­er plants world­wide and in the Nether­lands at the moment is the biggest threath to the cli­mate. Sec­ond­ly, this action is part of the protest against the plans for a new E.on coal-fired plant, right next to the exist­ing one on the Maasvlak­te.

Sev­er­al activists have locked them­selves to the con­vey­or-belt which trans­ports the coals to the pow­er­plant. ‘Unfor­tu­nate­ly that won’t mean they’ll shut down the entire pow­er plant. There’s enough sup­ply at the fur­nace to keep it run­ning for a while. If we real­ly man­age to shut down the plant there’ll be enough oth­er plants to cov­er the short­age’, accord­ing to Flip, one of the par­tic­i­pat­ing activists. The activists plan to stay as long as pos­si­ble. They demand the can­cel­la­tion of the con­struc­tion plans for the new E.on coalpow­er­plant.

In the Nether­lands five new coal-fired pow­er plants are planned to be built. E.on is mak­ing a con­cert­ed effort to be the first com­pa­ny to start build­ing next spring. E.on is also plan­ning to build a coal-fired plant in Antwer­pen, Bel­gium. These new pow­er plants do not cor­re­spond at all with the cli­mate-ambi­tions of the Nether­lands and specif­i­cal­ly Rot­ter­dam to reduce CO2 emis­sions. Coals are the most pol­lut­ing ener­gy source pos­si­ble, because apart from CO2, the emis­sions also include heavy met­als, radioac­tive par­ti­cles and oth­er green­house gas­es. Because of this, build­ing a new pow­er plant makes sure any attempt to solve the cli­mate cri­sis will nev­er suc­ceed. Besides, the build­ing of new coal-fired plants inter­feres with the devel­op­ment of sus­tain­able ener­gy. The pol­lut­ing sources fill the ener­gy grid and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment invest­ments will only be used for car­bon cap­ture and stor­age.

The com­pa­ny E.on is run­ning a PR cam­paign, using pret­ty words like ‘Clean Coals’ and ‘the Cap­ture Ready prepa­ra­tion’ of the new plant to defend them­selves. Both these terms have been proved to be based on noth­ing. The min­ing of coals is extreme­ly pol­lut­ing; so there is no such thing as ‘Clean Coals’. Large part­sof the Earth are being destroyed; there is severe pol­lu­tion of water and soil in the min­ing areas of the Unit­ed States, Colum­bia, Indone­sia and South Africa. In the coalmines, min­ers are being exploit­ed and annu­al­ly thou­sands of peo­ple die as a result of dis­as­ters.

The term ‘Cap­ture Ready prepa­ra­tion’ used by E.on is a fraud. A car­bon-cap­tur­ing pow­er plant will use between 24 and 40 per­cent of its pro­duced ener­gy on the cap­ture process. It must there­fore burn more coal to pro­vide the same amount of out­put ener­gy as a non car­bon-cap­tur­ing pow­er plant.

The type of plant E.on is about to build has proven to be extreme­ly unsuit­able for car­bon stor­age. The fumes released by this spe­cif­ic type of plant con­tain many pol­lu­tants and thus are com­pli­cat­ed and expen­sive to treat. E.on’s promise to start cap­tur­ing car­bon ‘as soon as it is tech­ni­cal­ly and com­mer­cial­ly viable’ is there­fore com­plete­ly point­less and has only result­ed in an emp­ty spot on the blue­prints, reserved for a future cap­tur­ing instal­la­tion.

So what if you can­not burn coals as an ener­gy source? Flip: ‘Besides the pos­si­bil­i­ty of decen­tralised and actu­al sus­tain­able ener­gy, it is most of all nec­es­sary to use less pow­er. Sus­tain­able pow­er has its lim­its as well. If we real­ly want to antic­i­pate the deple­tion of nat­ur­al resources and the ensu­ing cli­mat­ic dis­as­ter, we’ll some­how have to find a dif­fer­ent way of liv­ing that won’t include dog­mat­ic eco­nom­ic growth. Play more with less’.

The Dutch Earth­First! action is part of the ‘Shrink or Sink’ cam­paign, fight­ing both the cli­mate and ener­gy cri­sis and rapid­ly decreas­ing biover­si­ty. Direct action against the con­struc­tion of new coal-fired plants is one of the main top­ics of the cam­paign.

Maasvlakte lock-ons locations
Maasvlakte banner

Fossil Fools Day, April 1st 2008

Ris­ing Tide Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for a day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try on April 1st 2008…

Fossil Fools Day advance flierRis­ing Tide Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for a day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try on April 1st 2008…
FOSSIL FOOLS DAY!

Roll up, roll up! The cli­mate cir­cus is in town. Cli­mate change threat­ens our very sur­vival, but the fools at the head of the fos­sil fuel empire con­tin­ue to plun­der the earth, with gov­ern­ments the will­ing court jesters at their side.

They would have us believe that we can escape cli­mate change with tech­no-fix­es, mar­ket mech­a­nisms and off­set schemes – all tech­no­crat­ic acro­bat­ics that dis­tract us from the truth: the only real solu­tion to cli­mate change is to keep fos­sil fuels in the ground.

For over a cen­tu­ry the fos­sil fuel indus­try has been fool­ing with our lives. From extrac­tion to com­bus­tion they have poi­soned our air, pol­lut­ed our water and ruined our cli­mate. On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are.

Find a local fos­sil fool – the coal-min­ing clown, the off­set con­tor­tion­ist, the avi­a­tor trip­ping on the high wire, the super­mar­ket food mile freak show, the oily strong man, or any oth­er fool that deserves your atten­tion – and join with thou­sands around the world in tak­ing one step clos­er to dis­man­tling the fos­sil fuel indus­try.

On Fos­sil Fools Day, bring the spir­it of car­ni­val and mis­chief to the fight for cli­mate jus­tice.

www.fossilfoolsday.org
www.risingtide.org.uk

(More info and resources com­ing soon… for now, put the date in your diary, spread the call-out above far and wide, and start schem­ing!)

300 on the streets of Helsinki for squat Elimäki — International Days Of Action For Squats & Autonomous Spaces — April 08

Helsin­ki, Fin­land: We get more time – 300 on the streets of Helsin­ki for squat Elimä­ki

Thurs­day was a day of vic­to­ry for the squat­ting scene in Helsin­ki. 300 peo­ple defied the real­ly shit­ty weath­er and gath­ered to demon­strate at the Youth Depart­ment of the city to show their sup­port to the social cen­tre Elimä­ki, aka squat E15.

Helsin­ki, Fin­land: We get more time – 300 on the streets of Helsin­ki for squat Elimä­ki

Thurs­day was a day of vic­to­ry for the squat­ting scene in Helsin­ki. 300 peo­ple defied the real­ly shit­ty weath­er and gath­ered to demon­strate at the Youth Depart­ment of the city to show their sup­port to the social cen­tre Elimä­ki, aka squat E15.

The Youth Depart­ment of Helsin­ki had gath­ered to decide on whether to rent the squat­ted house on Elimäenkatu (Elimäk­istreet) to be used as a social cen­tre for the youth of the city. This was the sec­ond time offi­cials from the city came togeth­er to decide on the issue. After post­pon­ing the deci­sion at their first meet­ing a month ago the board now unan­i­mous­ly decid­ed to inves­ti­gate the real con­di­tion of our house. The deci­sion can be under­stood as an offi­cial recog­ni­tion of the impor­tance to have an autonomous space in Helsin­ki.

The house on Elimäenkatu has been deemed in very bad con­di­tion by the offi­cials of the city. The state­ment has been sup­port­ed by no real mea­sure­ments or data what­so­ev­er and on the con­trary been proved wrong by the inves­ti­ga­tions we our­selves have made. This fact got rec­og­nized by the board of the Youth Depart­ment in their deci­sion to appoint a pri­vate con­struc­tion firm to inves­ti­gate fur­ther on the mat­ter.

The solu­tion that the squat­ters and some peo­ple from the city have been work­ing on is to have the house rent­ed by the Youth Depart­ment to be used as an autonomous social cen­tre. The house has been in this use since it was squat­ted in the begin­ning of August. After a long peri­od of bad events on our issue the out­look is now bet­ter. But it would be overt­ly opti­mistic to say that if the inves­ti­ga­tions on our house turn out to be good the city would sup­port us. Dur­ing the last months the politi­cians and offi­cials of the city have been chang­ing their state­ments on whether to legalise the house or not on a dai­ly basis. The Finnish media does not fol­low the game in the side-scenes where politi­cians and offi­cials are manip­u­lat­ing each oth­er to top­ple our project. We are far from secur­ing the only social cen­tre in Helsin­ki but much clos­er than before.

How­ev­er the sit­u­a­tion of Squat E15 devel­ops the squat­ting scene in Helsin­ki and oth­er Finnish cities is now stronger than ever before. We are con­stant­ly grow­ing in num­bers and a sup­port demo of 300 peo­ple (or more) is more than we ever could have mus­tered half a year ago. We now have recog­ni­tion for our needs and will not give up until we have this house or an equal­ly good place guar­an­teed to us. Last but not least the inter­na­tion­al sup­port we have been get­ting (Ghent, Copen­hagen, Ams­ter­dam, Tallinn and Malmö as far as we know) means a lot to a small
but grow­ing scene like ours. The strug­gle for free spaces con­tin­ues!

Love and sol­i­dar­i­ty
Social cen­tre Elimä­ki
www.valtaus.org

—————————-

Squat action days flierOn Fri­day the 4th and Sat­ur­day the 5th of April 2008, we call for two days of demon­stra­tion, direct action, pub­lic infor­ma­tion, street-par­ty, squat­ting… in defence of free spaces and for an anti-cap­i­tal­ist pop­u­lar cul­ture. Through these two days, we want to help cre­ate more vis­i­bil­i­ty of autonomous spaces and squats as a european/global polit­i­cal move­ment. We want to devel­op inter­con­nec­tions and sol­i­dar­i­ty between squats and autonomous spaces. We want to keep link­ing our spaces with new peo­ple and new strug­gles, and sup­port the cre­ation of autonomous spaces in places where there has not been a his­to­ry of this kind of action. We want to build, step by step, our abil­i­ty to over­come the wave of repres­sion falling on us.

We call for decen­tralised and autonomous actions of all kinds, depend­ing on what peo­ple feel to be the most appro­pri­ate to their local con­text. You’ll find below the polit­i­cal con­tent we wish to give to these two days.

= We are every­where…

For cen­turies, peo­ple have used squats and autonomous spaces, either urban or rur­al, to take con­trol of their own lives. They are a tool, a tac­tic, a prac­tice, and a way for peo­ple to live out their strug­gles. For decades, squat move­ments across Europe and beyond have fought cap­i­tal­ist devel­op­ment, con­tribut­ing to local strug­gles against destruc­tion; pro­vid­ing alter­na­tives to prof­it-mak­ing and con­sumer cul­ture; run­ning social cen­tres and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry activ­i­ties out­side of the main­stream econ­o­my. Demon­strat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties for self-organ­is­ing with­out hier­ar­chy; cre­at­ing inter­na­tion­al net­works of exchange and sol­i­dar­i­ty. These net­works have changed many lives, break­ing out of social con­trol and pro­vid­ing free spaces where peo­ple can live out­side the norm.

Among oth­er things, these places pro­vide bases for meet­ings and projects, for the cre­ation and dis­tri­b­u­tion of sub­ver­sive cul­ture, for the non-mon­e­tary based exchange of goods, resources and knowl­edge, for exper­i­men­tat­ing with new ways of liv­ing, for col­lec­tive debates, for recy­cling and con­struc­tion, for agri­cul­tur­al activ­i­ties, for the pro­duc­tion of inde­pen­dant media.

Whether we speak of urban squats or of pur­chased land, of nego­ti­at­ed or re-appro­pri­at­ed rur­al land, of restored fac­to­ries or self-built build­ings, these spaces are refuges for rebels and out­laws, poor and home­less peo­ple, rad­i­cal activists, ille­gal immi­grants. Social cen­tres are cru­cial to us as part of a move­ment for social change.

= All over Europe, repres­sive agen­das are being pushed by gov­ern­ments

They are attack­ing long-stand­ing autonomous spaces such as the Ung­domshuset in Copen­hagen, Koepi and Rigaer Straße in Berlin, EKH in Vien­na and Les Tan­ner­ies in Dijon, squat­ted social cen­tres in Lon­don and Ams­ter­dam, Ifanet in Thes­sa­loni­ki, etc. In France, squats have become a pri­or­i­ty tar­get for the police after the anti-CPE move­ment and the wave of actions and riots that hap­pened dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions peri­od. In Ger­many, many autonomous spaces have been searched and attacked before the G8 sum­mit. In Gene­va and Barcelona, two old and big squat­ting “fortress­es”, the author­i­ties have decid­ed to try to put an end to the move­ment. Where­as it is still pos­si­ble to occu­py emp­ty build­ings in some coun­tries, it has already become a crime in some oth­ers. In the coun­try­side, access to land is becom­ing hard­er and com­munes face increas­ing prob­lems from leg­is­la­tion on hygiene, secu­ri­ty and gen­tri­fi­ca­tion by the bour­geoisie and tourists. All over Europe, inde­pen­dent cul­tures are being threat­ened.

Sev­er­al months ago we saw run­ning bat­tles in the streets of Copen­hagen and actions every­where in Europe in an explo­sion of anger at the evic­tion of the Ung­domshuset social cen­tre. Since then, and with a few oth­er big resis­tance sto­ries that hap­pened over the last months, we’ve man­aged to renew the mean­ing of inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty.

We are moti­vat­ed by the same pas­sions, we feel the same deter­mi­na­tion, face a com­mon ene­my in repres­sion, and are unit­ed across bor­ders by our desire to build a world of equal­i­ty and self-deter­mi­na­tion. As unaligned and ungovern­able islands of uncon­trolled free­dom we want to con­tin­ue to act in sol­i­dar­i­ty, and strength­en our inter­na­tion­al links, no mat­ter how many kilo­me­tres there are between us.

= Issues beyond the actions

We also would like these days of actions to enable and inspire dis­cus­sion, to demon­strate var­i­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties & strate­gies, to be an occa­sion to share skills. These are some of the issues we would like to push:
* what do we expect from and under­stand by autonomous spaces?
* What is their role in the pur­suit of rad­i­cal social change?
* Where do they lie on the scale of’al­ter­na­tive’ to ‘con­fronta­tion­al’?
* share infor­ma­tion on the range of activ­i­ties that take place in autonomous social spaces along with ideas for how to make them work;
*ques­tion the pro­duc­tion of goods and ser­vices; and encour­age the exchange of knowl­edge par­tic­u­lar­ly between the town and the coun­try­side.
* share expe­ri­ences, inspire each oth­er, find out how oth­ers live col­lec­tive­ly, and their activ­i­ties, alter­na­tive eco­nom­ic exchange sys­tems…
* share var­i­ous ways of get­ting spaces all over europe: ille­gal occu­pa­tions, Do It Your­self con­struc­tions, wagen­burgs, buy­ing col­lec­tive­ly, free con­tracts…
* share prac­ti­cal resources and a feel­ing of sol­i­dar­i­ty between:
dif­fer­ent users of autonomous spaces (either cur­rent or poten­tial): co-oper­a­tives, peo­ple with­out papers, activists, trav­ellers, immi­grants, urban­ites, rur­al dwellers, small farms;
dif­fer­ent ways of using spaces; activ­i­ties for the com­mu­ni­ty, meet­ing area for groups, liv­ing spaces;
* enable the form­ing of com­mon strate­gies when faced with state repres­sion or evic­tion;

= Who are we, how can we col­lab­o­rate on this project, and make it hap­pen?

At the moment, we are a group of peo­ple involved with var­i­ous autonomous spaces around Europe, who decid­ed to start dis­cussing this call. We’ll meet var­i­ous col­lec­tives in the com­ing months and see how peo­ple feel about this pro­pos­al for euro­pean days of action, and how they want to get involved. Its suc­cess depends a lot on our capac­i­ty to cre­ate a big­ger inter­na­tion­al work­ing group. This would mean every­body who want­ed to take part into it would try to start disc­ss­ing the idea in var­i­ous spaces, cre­at­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing some pro­pa­gan­da mate­ri­als and net­work­ing infor­ma­tion about what’s going on near them dur­ing those days. We would also like to orga­nize a phys­i­cal meet­ing about all this in the upcom­ing months. Get in touch!

= Mate­ri­als

Fly­ers etc can be found on our web­site. Please down­load the PDF file, print it and spread it around squats and autonomous spaces in your area.

= Prepa­ra­tion meet­ing

The suc­cess of this call now depends upon our capac­i­ty to cre­ate a big­ger inter­na­tion­al work­ing group. The whole event will hap­pen with­out any “cen­tral com­mi­tee”, and will be made of a var­i­ous autonomous decen­tralised actions. Still, we think it is impor­tant to have a phys­i­cal meet­ing, in order to exchange ideas and strate­gies, dis­cuss the con­tents of the call, see how to cre­ate com­mon infor­ma­tion tools around that project, how to con­nect and help the var­i­ous local ini­tia­tives.
Thus, we’re call­ing for an inter­na­tion­al prepa­ra­tion & coor­di­na­tion meet­ing on Novem­ber 24th & 25th 2007, in the autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies”, locat­ed in Dijon, France. It is a squat­ted social cen­tre in a post-indus­tri­al envi­ron­ment, occu­pied since 1998. Thanks to years of strug­gle against the city coun­cil own­ing the build­ings, the project has reached a cer­tain degree of sta­bil­i­ty. It hosts a col­lec­tive house, a gig room, a hack­lab, a free shop, an infos­hop, a col­lec­tive gar­den, a library…

We hope that many of you will be able to join. Please tell us a bit in advance if you’re plan­ning to come, so that we get an idea of the num­ber of peo­ple we have to acco­mo­date and plan food for. You’re very wel­come to pass this invi­ta­tion to squats and autonomous spaces that you know.

= Get­ting in touch & help­ing out

Please get in touch, by writ­ing to april2008 at squat dot net. Any help with trans­la­tions in what­ev­er lan­guages is great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.
http://april2008.squat.net/

Privatisation planning barbed wire destroyed (Athens, 11/11/2007)

After an open assem­bly of the dis­trict res­i­dents, with an atten­dance of more than 300 per­sons, that focused on the mat­ters of the pri­vati­sa­tion of the Filopap­pou hills, the tress­pass­ing, the fences and the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the area (check out the sources for more infor­ma­tion), it was decid­ed that the fences and wires should be brought down by the res­i­dents their­selves, as it was realised despite the police pres­ence.

Filopappou demoFilopappou fence downedFilopappou gate pushed downAfter an open assem­bly of the dis­trict res­i­dents, with an atten­dance of more than 300 per­sons, that focused on the mat­ters of the pri­vati­sa­tion of the Filopap­pou hills, the tress­pass­ing, the fences and the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the area (check out the sources for more infor­ma­tion), it was decid­ed that the fences and wires should be brought down by the res­i­dents their­selves, as it was realised despite the police pres­ence.

Sources (Greek only) — pho­tos: http://militant-entertainment.blogspot.com
http://filopappou.wordpress.com
http://www.indy.gr/newswire/oi-katoikoi-kslosan-perifraksi-stoy-filopappoy

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).

Road builders raided, Digger diving done at Tara, Ireland

Novem­ber 9th

Dig­gers Ahoy!

Road builders offices raid­ed by cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists.

TARA CAMPAIGN LATEST!

THE TARA cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists halt­ed work on a con­tro­ver­sial sec­tion of the pro­posed new M3 on Thurs­day.

Novem­ber 9th

Dig­gers Ahoy!

Road builders offices raid­ed by cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists.

TARA CAMPAIGN LATEST!

THE TARA cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists halt­ed work on a con­tro­ver­sial sec­tion of the pro­posed new M3 on Thurs­day.
Twen­ty-one cam­paign­ers stormed the admin­is­tra­tive com­plex (Dunshaughlin)of the site con­trac­tors (SIAC, Fer­rovial and Eurolink.)near Tara Hill, occu­py­ing offices and film­ing sur­prised staff.

Then they went to a near­by con­struc­tion site and climbed on to bull­doz­ers, stop­ping road­mak­ing for an hour-and-a-half.

It was a sig­nif­i­cant esca­la­tion of the long protest, timed to coin­cide the old Celtic New Year’s Day.

One of the rea­sons for the action was the EU’s recent court rul­ing on con­trac­tors to stop, in view of the con­tin­u­ing dam­age to Ire­land’s World Her­itage Site.

A spokesman for the con­ser­va­tion­ists said: “This direct action has been tak­en by con­cerned cit­i­zens of the EU because the Irish gov­ern­ment is ignor­ing Euro­pean law.”
“Con­tin­ued attempts have been made to per­suade the gov­ern­ment to stop the work on this sec­tion of the M3 while a deci­sion is reached by the Euro­pean com­mis­sion.
“It was a very suc­cess­ful action and many mes­sages of con­cern were con­veyed to the senior man­age­ment at the admin­is­tra­tive site.
Con­nor McDer­mot, tech­ni­cal man­ag­er, when asked why the graves of our ances­tors had been des­e­crat­ed gave us no com­ment.
“Infor­ma­tion was gath­ered on ille­gal road build­ing activ­i­ties.
“It has come to light that fur­ther destruc­tion of this his­toric val­ley will be caused by 129 kilo­me­tres of slip roads as well as 79 km of motor­way and the fur­ther devel­op­ment that will inevitably hap­pen if this destruc­tion is allowed.

Cam­paign­ers call on all Irish net­works to acti­vate and sup­port the Save Tara Val­ley campaign,help urgent­ly need­ed.

More reports on front­line action soon.
Video link soon Tech sup­port need­ed.

http://www.tarapixie.net

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”