Category: Other

Oth­er

Rossport: A Tripod, A Lock-On And A Compound Infiltration

Sun­day June 28th saw the most intense burst of direct action against Shell in Erris so far in this phase of the cam­paign to thwart the Great Gas Rob­bery and the destruc­tion of Erris along with its com­mu­ni­ty.

Rossport tripod in roadSun­day June 28th saw the most intense burst of direct action against Shell in Erris so far in this phase of the cam­paign to thwart the Great Gas Rob­bery and the destruc­tion of Erris along with its com­mu­ni­ty. A tri­pod on a road bridge near McGrath’s Bar held up vital repair gear for the pipeline winch­ing oper­a­tion for over four hours. This was fol­lowed up by a five-per­son lock-on on the same road a bit near­er the Shell com­pound. Togeth­er, they delayed winch­ing oper­a­tions for twelve hours, and there were nine arrests in all. Mean­while, three Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers man­aged to sneak into the Shell com­pound at Glen­gad and get out with­out being arrest­ed.

At about two o’clock Sun­day lunchtime a Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp action team erect­ed a tri­pod on the road to Shel­l’s Glen­gad com­pound, upon a bridge near McGrath’s Bar in Pul­lath­omas. This action was exe­cut­ed on foot of infor­ma­tion received that the winch gear in Shel­l’s com­pound had bro­ken down and need­ed replace­ment parts and extra gear, all of which was to arrive on a truck con­voy trav­el­ling the Pul­lath­omas road to Glen­gad. The first Gar­da car on the scene revved up attempt­ed to ram the tri­pod, and this reck­less endan­ger­ment of the tri­pod occu­pi­er was pre­vent­ed only by a brave camper stand­ing before the appa­ra­tus and com­pelling the Gar­da car to stop. The car touched against the shins of the camper as it stopped, once again illus­trat­ing the mad­ness of a mur­der-mind­ed police force drunk on impuni­ty.

Hav­ing cau­tioned the tri­pod occu­pi­er under the pub­lic order act, the Gar­dai then went on to declare an ‘exclu­sion zone’ and then rough­ly pushed out his com­pan­ions off the road under threat of arrest. They found refuge from Gar­da harass­ment in an adja­cent field, and from there kept vig­il over their col­league, who was being con­tin­u­al­ly endan­gered by igno­rant med­dling by the Gar­dai on the scene with the tri­pod appa­ra­tus. Local peo­ple and campers began to arrive to sup­port the tri­pod occu­pi­er, get­ting as close to him as they could in the fields at either side of the road.

One Gar­da com­mit­ted an unpro­voked assault on a Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camper on the road about 100m away from the tri­pod, trip­ping him, gash­ing his hand bad­ly and also leav­ing him with a bad chest injury. Gar­dai began attempt­ing to arrest any­one who entered the road any­where near the tri­pod, arrest­ing three peo­ple with­out giv­ing them any chance to leave vol­un­tar­i­ly. One of the arrestees was act­ing as a recorder of inci­dents; his log book was seized by the cops in anoth­er act of cyn­i­cal impuni­ty. The arrests were con­duct­ed with no lit­tle vio­lence on the part of the Gar­dai.

In a bizarre inter­lude dur­ing this action, a table and desk was pro­duced from a horse­box-type trail­er the Gar­dai brought to the scene, and four cops in blue hard-hats pro­ceed­ed to fill in forms on the table. Screens were then erect­ed around the tri­pod area in a futile attempt to pre­vent pho­tograph­ing or film­ing of Gar­da activ­i­ty. The Gar­dai present attempt­ed to ques­tion the tri­pod occu­pi­er as if he were already arrest­ed and in cus­tody in a Gar­da sta­tion, which struck many wit­ness­es as an abuse of pro­ce­dure.

An hour-and-a-half after the tri­pod was erect­ed, a truck from AGS Scaf­fold­ing Ltd. from Cross­moli­na arrived at the McGrath’s Bar side of the tri­pod. Not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the AGS stands for Antho­ny Gill Scaf­fold­ing, and Antho­ny Gill is the broth­er of Gar­da Sgt James Gill, an ever-present men­ace to the cit­i­zens of Erris. Fur­ther­more, from the nature of the equip­ment the scaf­fold­ers brought with them and the man­ner in which the scaf­fold­ers worked with the cops, it can be rea­son­ably sus­pect­ed that this com­pa­ny’s per­son­nel have trained along­side Gar­dai for this kind of ‘work’.

After two hours or so of plat­form build­ing by the scaf­fold­ers two Gar­da detec­tives climbed up and began to remove the tri­pod occu­pi­er. The man­ner in which they effect­ed the arrest was cal­cu­lat­ed to inflict injury and dis­played a lev­el of petu­lant spite­ful­ness that the peo­ple of Kil­com­mon and sur­round­ing parish­es have endured for far too long. The tri­pod suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the road for near­ly four hours and the dis­man­tling of the scaf­fold­ing plat­form must have added anoth­er 90 min­utes of road block­age to this.

With­in an hour of the tri­pod being dis­man­tled and before the truck con­voy could get any far­ther, a lock-on team from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp got into posi­tion on the road only 300m or so from the gates of the Shell com­pound. Even though it was rain­ing steadi­ly in the evening gloom, the Gar­dai sup­plied only an insuf­fi­cient quan­ti­ty of cov­er for the pro­tes­tors, who were soaked to the skin with­in min­utes of lock­ing-on. Sup­port­ers from the camp and the local area began to gath­er at the site, and then about an hour into the action, the num­ber of Gar­dai began increas­ing. The Gar­dai used their num­bers to begin pro­gres­sive­ly push­ing peo­ple back using threats of arrest under the pub­lic order act, and once again erect­ed screens and tents to block the view of peo­ple sup­port­ing the lock-on team, and to frus­trate film­ing and pho­tograph­ing of their actions.

The Gar­dai assent­ed to allow­ing an observ­er to remain with the lock-on team, but then cyn­i­cal­ly removed her under the pre­tence of arrest­ing her for the ‘crime’ of hav­ing a mobile phone passed to her from an out­side sup­port­er. She was searched (no doubt ille­gal­ly), dragged out and put into a Gar­da van for almost a quar­ter of an hour, and was then released from Gar­da cap­tiv­i­ty. The cops then pro­ceed­ed to begin cut­ting out the lock-on team.

The lock-on was dis­as­sem­bled final­ly only at around a quar­ter to two on Mon­day morn­ing. By this time, the two actions on the road had delayed Shell by a full twelve hours. It had also spoiled the plans and pricked the arro­gance of Shel­l’s cops, who were seri­al­ly out­wit­ted by brave and com­mit­ted Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers. The tri­pod action arrestees and two of the five lock-on arrestees were brought to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion, and the oth­er three lock-on arrestees were brought to Castle­bar Gar­da sta­tion. At the time of writ­ing the four tri­pod arrestees have been remand­ed in Gar­da cus­tody and will be up in West­port dis­trict court lat­er today. It is not yet known whether the oth­er five have been remand­ed or released.

Mean­while on Sun­day evening as the lock-on action was hap­pen­ing, three Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers drove into the Shell com­pound when the met­al front gates were opened for oth­er traf­fic, util­is­ing the tech­nique of ‘social cam­ou­flage’ to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed. The campers got to the sec­ond inter­nal set of gates and were about to have them opened for them when they were recog­nised. Gar­dai threat­ened to tow the car out, but even­tu­al­ly the campers were allowed to dri­ve out and were not arrest­ed. With the kayak team mak­ing the Soli­taire run away on Thurs­day evening and now this pen­e­tra­tion of the Glen­gad Shell com­pound, not only are the mer­ce­nary ‘secu­ri­ty firm’ IRMS fas­cist scum, they are crap fas­cist scum too!

Maya Villagers Burn Mine Equipment

A group of Mayan Mam vil­lagers torched the equip­ment of a com­pa­ny attempt­ing to set up a mine on their land with­out per­mis­sion on June 12.

A group of Mayan Mam vil­lagers torched the equip­ment of a com­pa­ny attempt­ing to set up a mine on their land with­out per­mis­sion on June 12. Explo­rado­ra de Guatemala, a sub­sidiary of the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny Gold­corp, had been pres­sur­ing 20 fam­i­lies in the San Miguel Ixz­tahua­can munic­i­pal­i­ty to sell their land, but the vil­lagers had con­sis­tent­ly refused. When the com­pa­ny began mov­ing min­ing equip­ment onto their land any­way, the vil­lagers demand­ed its removal.

The com­pa­ny promised to remove all equip­ment by June 10, then failed to do so. It promised again to remove the equip­ment by June 12, even as it request­ed police and army assis­tance — receiv­ing 8 police units (2 of them anti-riot) and 4 vehi­cles full of sol­diers.

On June 12, see­ing that the com­pa­ny was not going to remove the equip­ment, vil­lagers set fire to an explo­ration drill rig and pick­up truck, while police and sol­diers stood by and watched.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, due to com­pa­ny pres­sure, the police filed charges against 7 vil­lagers for the action on June 19.

Mayo update — resisting Shell on Wednesday & Thursday

25.6.09
Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

Shell2Sea David vs Goliath25.6.09
Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

The Soli­taire, the huge pipe lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

As the Soli­taires arrival looms large, the state ups the pres­sure with more friv­o­lous arrests.

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force, for oppos­ing Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project. Both were quite a dis­tance out­side of Shel­l’s so-called ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the Bay when they were arrest­ed by Gar­dai jump­ing towards them from RIBs (Rigid Inflat­able Boats). The protest was against prepara­to­ry cable work being done before the arrival of the Soli­taire. Nei­ther pro­test­er was close to any machin­ery, or stop­ping any work from tak­ing place. This brings to 22 the num­ber of peo­ple arrest­ed this month for oppos­ing Shell.

This forms part of a larg­er pat­tern of arbi­trary arrest, through which Gar­dai are seek­ing to repress peace­ful protest against Shel­l’s dis­as­trous Cor­rib Gas Project. Recent weeks have seen dra­con­ian attempts to remand first-time offend­ers to cus­tody for rel­a­tive­ly minor offences, along with very high bail mon­ey being demand­ed for pro­test­ers. The attempt­ed crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cam­paign­ers rais­es very seri­ous ques­tions about civ­il lib­er­ties and the infring­ing on the right to protest.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Mau­ra Har­ring­ton said: “The hun­dreds of Gar­dai and Naval per­son­nel draft­ed into the area in the last 48 hours shows just how far the gov­ern­ment will go to facil­i­tate Shell, despite the fact that this project is com­plete­ly against the inter­ests of the peo­ple of this coun­try. These lat­est arrests are mere­ly the Gar­daí and Navy try­ing to jus­ti­fy the immense and total­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate force that has been sent down by the State to force this project through”

LE Emer is cur­rent­ly sta­tioned in Broad­haven Bay and Navy RIBs crewed by Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel are cur­rent­ly being used against pro­tes­tors.

.…

The 24th of June began with an oppres­sive Gar­da pres­ence in the Glen­gad area and end­ed with two swim­mers from the camp being arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay this evening. Shel­l’s con­tract­ed pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire began its jour­ney to Glen­gad this after­noon and is expect­ed to be in the bay by morn­ing.

At lunchtime two squadrons of kayak­ers set out into Broad­haven bay as a prac­tise run for actions when the Solitare arrives. Kayak­ers were con­front­ed by a heavy Gar­da and navy pres­ence sup­port­ed by Shell secu­ri­ty in rigid inflat­able boats (ribs). Two kayak­ers were rough­ly han­dled, being dragged at speed by Gar­da ribs while Gar­dai hung on to their craft. All kayak­ers man­aged to return safe­ly to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. At the same time the Irish naval ves­sel the LE Emer entered Broad­haven Bay, cir­cled the bay and dropped anchor near Baly­glass pier. This war­ship remains at anchor tonight in the bay.

In prepa­ra­tion for attach­ing the pulling cable to the Solitare one of Shel­l’s tug boats drew a small­er cable from the Glen­gad com­pound to one of the dredg­ing plat­forms in the bay at aprox­i­mate­ly 5:30pm. Two swim­mers set out to inves­ti­gage what was hap­pen­ing, sup­port­ed by two kayak­ers. They were imme­di­ate­ly met by Gar­dai, navy per­son­nel and Shell secu­ri­ty in a total of 18 ribs. Even though the swim­mers did not enter the exclu­sion area they were sur­round­ed by ribs and arrest­ed at about 6 pm. The swim­mers were put at some dan­ger dur­ing the arrests by Gar­dai because of the lack of pro­peller guards on the ribs while they sur­round­ed the swim­mers. They also denied the swim­mers the pos­si­bil­i­ty of swim­ming back to shore by sur­round­ing them with ribs before they arrest­ed them. They were then tak­en to the Shell Glen­gad com­pound where they were held by Gar­dai for over 2 hours before being tak­en to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion for pro­cess­ing. One of the arrestees has since returned to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp but the oth­er per­son is being detained in a care home in Gal­way because they are 2 months short of their 18th birth­day.

In a fur­ther inci­dent lat­er on Gar­da park­ing cones were removed by locals and campers after it was dis­cov­ered that Gar­dai had no legal basis for putting them there. Soon after, two van loads of Gar­dai arrived at the road out­side the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, claim­ing that campers and locals were block­ing the road. A stand-off devel­oped which last­ed for over a half an hour. Dur­ing this inci­dent sev­er­al local peo­ple iden­ti­fied a man dri­ving a four wheel dri­ve jeep on the road as the dri­ver of the dig­ger involved in the incin­dent at Pul­lath­omas pier on the 11th of June, 2007; this was when numer­ous peo­ple were injured after a dig­ger was dri­ven through a crowd of local pro­tes­tors. This was brought to the atten­tion of the Gar­dai present but they chose to ignore this com­plaint, instead claim­ing that the assem­bled locals and campers were block­ing the road.

There has been a heavy Gar­dai pres­ence in the area through­out the area, includ­ing a pub­lic order unit sta­tioned inside the Shell Glen­gad com­pound. Gar­dai have also been stop­ping traf­ic on the roads around Glen­gad check­ing for insur­ance, tax, etc. A mys­te­ri­ous white van with Mayo plates has been parked on the road­side dur­ing the day­time, adja­cent to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp with the side door open, with some­one in there tak­ing pho­tographs or car­ry­ing out some oth­er type of espi­onage activ­i­ty. The occu­pants of this van are remark­ably cam­era-shy. Gar­da num­bers in ribs on the bay have also increased marked­ly in the last 24 hours. All in all, the state is mak­ing an extra-spe­cial effort on Shel­l’s behalf here in Co. Mayo.

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Pat & Jonathan O’Don­nell Arrest­ed and Boats Com­man­deered by Gar­dai As Soli­taire’s Arrival Immi­nent

June 25 2009

Fish­er­men arrest­ed for the crime of fish­ing in Broad­haven Bay

In a reprise of last year’s repeat­ed arrests on the waters of Broad­haven Bay, Shel­l’s Gar­dai have arrest­ed Pat ‘the Chief’ O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan while they were fish­ing in Broad­haven Bay this morn­ing. Their two boats were com­man­deered by Gar­dai and brought to Bal­ly­glass pier under tow and naval escort. Gar­dai claim that the two boats were ‘loi­ter­ing’, the new term for crim­i­nal­is­ing fish­er­men exer­cis­ing their rights to fish in their native waters. Pat’s broth­er Mar­tin is cur­rent­ly still on the water in the bay fish­ing in his boat. Mean­while the Soli­taire is less than an hour away from arriv­ing off Glen­gad.

Ear­li­er this morn­ing Pat and Jonathan O’Don­nell were arrest­ed by Gar­dai while exer­cis­ing their right to fish in Broad­haven Bay, waters that Pat and his fam­i­ly have fished for five gen­er­a­tions. Gar­dai board­ed the O’Don­nells’ two ves­sels, arrest­ed the men for ‘loi­ter­ing’, and brought their ves­sels under tow and naval escort to the near­by pier at Bal­ly­glass. All this hap­pened while Pat and his boat was under Gar­da ‘pro­tec­tion’. Jonathan has been tak­en to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion, but there is no word as yet of where Pat is detained. Pat’s broth­er Mar­tin is still fish­ing in the bay at the time of writ­ing.

In anoth­er devel­op­ment, a mixed group of thir­ty-five reg­u­lar and pub­lic order Gar­dai have tak­en up a posi­tion on the beach adja­cent to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, pre­sum­ably in an attempt to pre­vent actions hap­pen­ing on the water today. When the Gar­dai were asked by campers and locals what law­ful author­i­ty they had to do this they were not answered by any Gar­da.

The pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire is due to arrive in Broad­haven Bay in an hour or so, as of the time of writ­ing. The arrest of the fish­er­men and their pro­cess­ing by Gar­dai in dis­tant sta­tions is a bla­tant attempt to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project works in the bay with every under­hand­ed method at their dis­pos­al. If there ever was a time to get to Mayo to sup­port this com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing back against state cor­rup­tion and cor­po­rate greed it is now!

Solitaire Arrives in Rossport

25.6.2009
The Soli­taire, the huge pip lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

25.6.2009
The Soli­taire, the huge pip lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force

As the Soli­taires arrival looms large,the state ups the pres­sure with more friv­o­lous arrests

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force, for oppos­ing Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project. Both were quite a dis­tance out­side of Shel­l’s so-called ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the Bay when they were arrest­ed by Gar­dai jump­ing towards them from RIBs (Rigid Inflat­able Boats). The protest was against prepara­to­ry cable work being done before the arrival of the Soli­taire. Nei­ther pro­test­er was close to any machin­ery, or stop­ping any work from tak­ing place. This brings to 22 the num­ber of peo­ple arrest­ed this month for oppos­ing Shell.

This forms part of a larg­er pat­tern of arbi­trary arrest, through which Gar­dai are seek­ing to repress peace­ful protest against Shel­l’s dis­as­trous Cor­rib Gas Project. Recent weeks have seen dra­con­ian attempts to remand first-time offend­ers to cus­tody for rel­a­tive­ly minor offences, along with very high bail mon­ey being demand­ed for pro­test­ers. The attempt­ed crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cam­paign­ers rais­es very seri­ous ques­tions about civ­il lib­er­ties and the infring­ing on the right to protest.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Mau­ra Har­ring­ton said: “The hun­dreds of Gar­dai and Naval per­son­nel draft­ed into the area in the last 48 hours shows just how far the gov­ern­ment will go to facil­i­tate Shell, despite the fact that this project is com­plete­ly against the inter­ests of the peo­ple of this coun­try. These lat­est arrests are mere­ly the Gar­daí and Navy try­ing to jus­ti­fy the immense and total­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate force that has been sent down by the State to force this project through”

LE Emer is cur­rent­ly sta­tioned in Broad­haven Bay and Navy RIBs crewed by Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel are cur­rent­ly being used against pro­tes­tors.

http://shelltosea.com

Peru Mine Blockade Enters 10th Day

Attract­ing less atten­tion in light of the full-fledged upris­ing that has con­sumed Peru’s Ama­zon region for 70 days, a mine block­ade is ongo­ing in the country’s high­lands.

Attract­ing less atten­tion in light of the full-fledged upris­ing that has con­sumed Peru’s Ama­zon region for 70 days, a mine block­ade is ongo­ing in the country’s high­lands. On June 10th, min­ers launched road­blocks at the Bue­naven­tu­ra min­ing company’s Orco­pam­pa gold mine in Peru, in protest of poor labor con­di­tions and the mine’s impact on local com­mu­ni­ties. The block­ades are still halt­ing work at the mine, and the work­ers have ten­ta­tive­ly called for a strike for June 24th.

Peru Indigenous Holding Strong in Standoff

June 3rd 2009
A mas­sive indige­nous mobi­liza­tion in the Peru­vian Ama­zon is near­ing its sec­ond month, with no sign that the native pro­test­ers will allow them­selves to be intim­i­dat­ed into giv­ing up on their demands.

Peru oil boat occupationJune 3rd 2009
A mas­sive indige­nous mobi­liza­tion in the Peru­vian Ama­zon is near­ing its sec­ond month, with no sign that the native pro­test­ers will allow them­selves to be intim­i­dat­ed into giv­ing up on their demands.

Thou­sands of indige­nous pro­test­ers have block­ad­ed crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture in Peru’s Ama­zon region since April 9, when they declared a nation­al strike in protest of new laws that would facil­i­tate increased indus­tri­al exploita­tion of their ter­ri­to­ries for tim­ber, oil and gas. The laws were passed by decree under pow­ers grant­ed to Pres­i­dent Alan Gar­cia to bring to coun­try into com­pli­ance with a US-Peru free trade agree­ment. The 10 laws that pro­test­ers are demand­ing repealed were not part of the trade agree­ment, how­ev­er, and were declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by a con­gres­sion­al com­mis­sion in Decem­ber.

So far, indige­nous pro­test­ers have block­ad­ed roads and water­ways, forced a shut­down to the only crude oil pipeline in Peru, forced two oil com­pa­nies to cease oper­a­tion, blocked tourist access to the ruins of Machu Pic­chu (twice), and held protests that par­a­lyzed the region’s biggest city, Iqui­tos. On May 31, sev­er­al hun­dred pro­test­ers took over two valve sta­tions on the only pipeline that trans­ports nat­ur­al gas from the con­tro­ver­sial Camisea gas fields.

The protests are orga­nized under the aus­pices of the Intereth­nic Devel­op­ment Asso­ci­a­tion of the Peru­vian Rain­for­est (AIDESP), which rep­re­sents 1,200 dif­fer­ent native com­mu­ni­ties. AIDESP’s elect­ed leader, Alber­to Pizan­go, insists that the mobi­liza­tion will not end until Con­gress repeals the 10 objec­tion­able laws, declares the state of emer­gency (mar­tial law) declared in 5 Ama­zon­ian provinces since May 9, and enters a good-faith dis­cus­sion with native com­mu­ni­ties over a dif­fer­ent mod­el for devel­op­ing the Ama­zon.

One of the 10 laws has been ten­ta­tive­ly repealed, but this action must be approved by the full Con­gress. The oth­er 9 laws remain on the books.

Anti-Shell actions at Rossport, Eire

2nd June 2009

Ross­port: Cause­way at Shell com­pound ‘washed away’ by Shell to Sea action

2nd June 2009
Removing Shell's causeway at Glengad
Ross­port: Cause­way at Shell com­pound ‘washed away’ by Shell to Sea action

Part of the Shell cause­way extend­ing into the sea at Glen­gad was yes­ter­day evening removed by Shell to Sea pro­test­ers. This was in protest at the ille­gal block­ing of access to the pub­lic beach and to oppose the forc­ing of this unsafe project on the local com­mu­ni­ty and the give­away of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources.

A group of about 30–40 peo­ple wad­ed into the sea to gain access to the cause­way, and pro­ceed­ed to remove a large amount of the stone which makes it up. They were con­front­ed by a 70 Shell secu­ri­ty after about half an hour of the action, at which point the peo­ple left. An upbeat and play­ful mood pre­vailed over a beau­ti­ful evening.

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has again tak­en up res­i­dence in Glen­gad, and after a very suc­cess­ful week­end, includ­ing a num­ber of actions, will build up the resis­tance to Shell over the com­ing weeks and months.

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Anti-Shell inflatable protest
Mon­day the 1st of June saw the arrival of a mul­ti­tude of assort­ed ves­sels to Broad­haven bay. The boats, which are sub­con­tract­ed by The Roy­al Dutch Shell com­pa­ny (Shell), are attempt­ing to pre­pare for works on the con­tro­ver­sial Cor­rib gas project.

Today how­ev­er, their progress has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly impaired by res­i­dent Shell to Sea activists that had already gath­ered a small, albeit for­mi­da­ble, fleet of kayaks, ready to deploy with­in short notice. The Kayaks were birthed from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, which direct­ly over­looks the vicin­i­ty that the Shell boats have been oper­at­ing in the past twen­ty-four hours.

Cur­rent­ly there are diverse assort­ments of ves­sels con­verg­ing in the once pris­tine bay; the major­i­ty of these are either car­ry­ing out, or assist­ing, dredg­ing and sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions. An Gar­da Siochana, have also been sight­ed patrolling the work zone, along with two black ribs; The Lau­ra Emi­ly accom­pa­nied by its twin the Gall­tee, which are both brim­ming with men dressed in black mil­i­tary fatigues.

Works, tak­ing place ear­li­er this after­noon, came grind­ing to a com­plete halt when twelve activists in kayaks broke through the secu­ri­ty line that con­sist­ed of nine high speed secu­ri­ty boats. The activists man­aged to tact­ful­ly cir­cum­nav­i­gate secu­ri­ty boats for approx­i­mate­ly two and a half hours, which effec­tive­ly halt­ed Shell dredg­ing works for a con­sid­er­able peri­od of time.

After numer­ous attempts by Gar­dai to secure an arrest, they even­tu­al­ly man­aged to drag one man from his inflat­able Kayak. The man, in his fifties, is report­ed to have been halt­ing a dredger con­vey­ing silt into a barge, and thus stop­ping after­noon work.

This cur­rent work being car­ried out by Shell is like­ly to sig­ni­fy the imped­ing arrival of the Soli­taire; at over 400 meters long the Soli­taire is the largest pipe lay­ing ves­sel in the world, and its expect­ed pres­ence in Co. Mayo will undoubt­ed­ly pro­voke for­mi­da­ble resis­tance.

At this point in the project, all dredg­ing works car­ried out in Ross­port are like­ly to be held as sacro­sanct by Shell’s board of direc­tors, and con­verse­ly seen as detri­men­tal by the Irish pub­lic.

Climate Rush Pedal Power

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Mon­day 1st June the UK Par­lia­ment returns from recess for the sum­mer sit­ting.
We want to give them a warm wel­come and remind them of the heat they can expect if they con­tin­ue to ignore cli­mate change.

…A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED START-OF-SUMMER BIKE RIDE!

On Mon­day 1st June the UK Par­lia­ment returns from recess for the sum­mer sit­ting.
We want to give them a warm wel­come and remind them of the heat they can expect if they con­tin­ue to ignore cli­mate change.

Ed Miliband (Sec­re­tary of State Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change) is in Bonn that evening, dis­cussing with oth­er ‘world lead­ers’ the agen­da for the UN Cli­mate Sum­mit in Copen­hagen. Let’s give our ‘lead­ers’ a taste of the civ­il dis­obe­di­ence they can expect if real cli­mate jus­tice fails to mate­ri­alise.

It is also the first evening of a coal con­fer­ence at the illus­tri­ous ‘Chatham House’. Every­one who’s any­one, at least in the coal world, will be there.

We’ll begin our bike-ride out­side their con­fer­ence before wind­ing our way through town.

Meet us from 5pm on St James Square, SW1Y 4LE. We’ll then move off at 6pm and take our bikes for a relaxed tour through Lon­don. Labour might think that invest­ing in elec­tric cars is the solu­tion to cli­mate change but we know that cars using elec­tric­i­ty from coal-fired pow­er sta­tions is yet anoth­er red-her­ring.

‘Mother Earth in climate crisis’ say indigenous people

12 May 2009
A state­ment by indige­nous rep­re­sen­ta­tives from around the world describes ‘Moth­er Earth (as) no longer in a peri­od of cli­mate change, but cli­mate cri­sis.’

12 May 2009
A state­ment by indige­nous rep­re­sen­ta­tives from around the world describes ‘Moth­er Earth (as) no longer in a peri­od of cli­mate change, but cli­mate cri­sis.’

The state­ment, known as the Anchor­age Dec­la­ra­tion, was released after indige­nous peo­ple from the Arc­tic, North Amer­i­ca, Asia, the Pacif­ic, Latin Amer­i­ca, Africa, the Caribbean and Rus­sia met in Anchor­age, Alas­ka for the ‘Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Glob­al Sum­mit on Cli­mate Change’.

‘We are deeply alarmed by the accel­er­at­ing cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion brought about by unsus­tain­able devel­op­ment,’ the Dec­la­ra­tion says. ‘We are expe­ri­enc­ing pro­found and dis­pro­por­tion­ate adverse impacts on our cul­tures, human and envi­ron­men­tal health, human rights, well-being, tra­di­tion­al liveli­hoods, food sys­tems and food sov­er­eign­ty, local infra­struc­ture, eco­nom­ic via­bil­i­ty, and our very sur­vival as Indige­nous Peo­ples.

‘Moth­er Earth is no longer in a peri­od of cli­mate change, but in cli­mate cri­sis. We there­fore insist on an imme­di­ate end to the destruc­tion and des­e­cra­tion of the ele­ments of life.’

The Dec­la­ra­tion lists four­teen spe­cif­ic calls for action. These include reduc­ing lev­els of glob­al car­bon emis­sions; indige­nous par­tic­i­pa­tion in cli­mate change debate; the recog­ni­tion of indige­nous peo­ples’ rights in schemes to ‘Reduce Emis­sions from Defor­esta­tion and Degra­da­tion’ (REDD); the aban­don­ment of ‘false solu­tions’ to cli­mate change such as nuclear ener­gy, ‘clean coal’ and agro­fu­els; the recog­ni­tion by gov­ern­ments of indige­nous peo­ples’ rights; and the return and restora­tion of ‘lands, ter­ri­to­ries, waters, forests, sea ice and sacred sites’ tak­en from indige­nous peo­ples by gov­ern­ments in the past.

The Dec­la­ra­tion ends with an offer to ‘share with human­i­ty our tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge… rel­e­vant to cli­mate change, pro­vid­ed our fun­da­men­tal rights… are ful­ly rec­og­nized and respect­ed. We reit­er­ate the urgent need for col­lec­tive action.’

Read the Anchor­age Dec­la­ra­tion

Wonthaggi Protest highlights Desalination Issue for Melbourne, Australia

One per­son was arrest­ed when pro­test­ers car­ry­ing two ban­ners walked onto the Desali­na­tion Plant pro­posed site near Won­thag­gi on May 9. The occa­sion was a ral­ly at the gates of the pro­posed site organ­ised by Water­shed Vic­to­ria and Mel­bourne sup­port­ers.

Wonthaggi protest

One per­son was arrest­ed when pro­test­ers car­ry­ing two ban­ners walked onto the Desali­na­tion Plant pro­posed site near Won­thag­gi on May 9. The occa­sion was a ral­ly at the gates of the pro­posed site organ­ised by Water­shed Vic­to­ria and Mel­bourne sup­port­ers.

Pho­tos on Flickr | Action: Get Real on Cli­mate Change | FoE

“Last chance to have your say – if you build it, we won’t pay”

For over two years, anti-desal cam­paign­ers have organ­ised ral­lies, meet­ings, film show­ings, debates and brief­in­gs, out­lin­ing the real costs of this project and putting for­ward the prac­ti­cal alter­na­tives to an ener­gy guz­zling desali­na­tion plant on the Bass Coast. Despite the spi­ralling costs of the pilot plant itself, the scarci­ty of data, crit­i­cism of the project from experts inside and out­side the gov­ern­ment, as well as doubts about financ­ing the project, the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to push ahead.

The Desali­na­tion Plant is beng designed to sup­ply 150 Gigal­itres per year for the Mel­bourne water sup­ply and will be man­aged and oper­at­ed through a pub­lic ‑pri­vate part­ner­ship (PPP) being extoled by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment. But many experts say deslaina­tion should be the solu­tion of last resort as it involves huge amount of (CO2 pol­lut­ng) pow­er, and gen­er­ates tonnes of sol­id waste and brine sludge which is pumped back out to sea where it can affect the coastal marine envi­ron­ment.

Alter­na­tive sources for water include recy­cled puri­fied water from treat­ment plants (110 GL/y), stormwa­ter cap­ture (50 GL/y), rain­wa­ter tanks (25 GL/y), Flood Diver­sion (20 GL/y), and instal­la­tion of dual flush cis­terns (15 GL/y) all of which could be done for a frac­tion of the cost of a desali­na­tion plant.

The pro­posed Desal plant at Won­thag­gi will cause 1.18 — 1.57 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon emis­sion equiv­a­lent to 365,000 extra cars on the road, dis­charge 8,800 litres of brine per sec­ond just 500 metres off the beau­ti­ful Bass coast, suck in and kill 380,000 small organ­isms per sec­ond into the plant. Oper­a­tion of the plant will be for prof­it by a multi­na­tion­al infra­struc­ture com­pa­ny, most like­ly Veo­lia who already run the Mel­bourne train sys­tem as Con­nex. The cost (and prof­its) of the plant will be passed on to con­sumers through increas­es in water rates. The peo­ple of Mel­bourne will pay!

In March Fed­er­al Evi­ron­ment min­is­ter Peter Gar­rett gave con­di­tion­al approval of the desali­na­tion plant in Vic­to­ria. Cam Walk­er from Fiends of the Earth crit­i­cised the min­is­te­r­i­al deci­sion say­ing “we believe that his assess­ment is flawed because it is based on infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the pro­jec­t’s pro­po­nent rather than inde­pen­dent stud­ies,” he said. He also raised that the deci­sion does not relate to or con­sid­er the full impacts on species that are not fed­er­al­ly list­ed. “In par­tic­u­lar there are seri­ous con­cerns about the impacts on marine life posed by the plant, includ­ing to whale pop­u­la­tions, which are not addressed in the Minister’s deci­sion. Cam Walk­er said in a news release: Gar­rett fails Vic­to­ria on desali­na­tion plant approval.

The coastal zone and beach­es near­by are a pop­u­lar fish­ing spot that will be effectve­ly ruined. The efflu­ent pipe for the con­cen­trat­ed brine will only take the sludge 500 metres out to sea to destroy the ecol­o­gy of the rocky reef envi­ron­ment, when it should be extend­ed 2 to 3 kilo­me­tres out to sea where the brine can be ade­quate­ly dis­persed by the cur­rents in Bass Strait.

The Bunurong Land Coun­cil is con­cerned over the destrac­tion of abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al sites. Steve Comp­ton, Cul­tur­al Offi­cer with the Bunurong Land Coun­cil told the ral­ly “Some of those sites on the prop­er­ty are the largest sites in the Bass Coast region … So basi­cal­ly the Bunurong com­mu­ni­ty have asked me to say to you guys that they’re dead against the Desal. There is bet­ter options for get­ting water like putting rain­wa­ter tanks in Mel­bourne. Basi­cal­ly bug­ger off and leave the coast alone and stop try­ing to dish out big loads of mon­ey to for­eign multi­na­tion­als.” (Youtube Video Report: Bunurong peo­ple Oppose Desali­na­tion Plant)

Gareth Bar­low, a coun­cil­lor from Bass Coast Shire Coun­cil spoke about the coun­cil’s long stand­ing oppo­si­tion to the devel­op­ment. Bass Coast State MP for the Lib­er­al Par­ty spoke of his oppo­si­tion to the plant, while acknowl­edg­ing that the Lib­er­als had pro­posed a small­er State owned Desali­na­tion plant at the last elec­tion which he had sup­port­ed.

Anton from the Clean Ocean Foun­da­tion high­light­ed the amount of water wast­ed in Mel­bourne from the East­ern Treat­ment Plant and Gun­na­mat­ta out­fall and from stormwa­ter runoff. (Youtube Video Report: Desal plant for Mel­bourne what a Waste)

Cam Walk­er from Friends of the Earth came down from Mel­bourne and spoke about the grow­ing dis­qui­et in the Mel­bourne sub­urbs on the Desali­na­tion Plant being pushed by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment, and the need for more grass­roots activism on water issues in Mel­bourne.

There were also speak­ers who out­lined the rea­sons for oppo­si­tion to the Desali­na­tion Plant for Mel­bourne and its sit­ng near Won­thag­gi. (Youtube Video Report: Why you should oppose a Desali­na­tion plant for Mel­bourne)

A speak­er also cov­ered the prospects and back­ground of Infra­struc­ture com­pa­ny Veo­lia who looks like­ly to be the only pri­vate con­tender for man­ag­ing the plant under a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship. Veo­li­a’s record in water man­age­ment (they are also known as Viven­di) leaves much to be desired with com­mu­ni­ty protests and out­rage for their water man­age­ment and pric­ing prac­tices. (Youtube Video Report: Veo­lia set to run the Won­thag­gi Desali­na­tion Plant sup­ply­ing water to Mel­bourne)

Just as the speak­ers were fin­ish­ing two groups of peo­ple entered the exclu­sion zone of the pilot plant near the dunes to dis­play ban­ners. (Youtube Video report — Pro­tes­tors enter Desal plant exclu­sion zone) One per­son was arrest­ed in the walkon, and was escort­ed back to the ral­ly where he was released after show­ing the police iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. The ban­ners said “Fuck off Brum­by” and “Desal Costs the Earth”.

Songs were sun to pop­u­lar tunes at the ral­ly Oppos­ing the Desali­na­tion plant near Won­thag­gi. (Youtube Video Report: Desal Song: We don’t want to swim in your chem­i­cals)

Lots of police were brought from around the region to “pro­tect” the pilot plant, as well as the pres­ence of pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny employ­ees, but in con­trast to Mel­bourne protests the police were pret­ty friend­ly. I guess they are part of the local com­mu­ni­ty and prob­a­bly know many of the peo­ple opposed to the plant. Indeed, some of the police prob­a­bly also dis­agree with the plant being built.