Overview of last week’s events in Rossport

This sum­mer has seen the Shell to Sea cam­paign gain increas­ing momen­tum as con­struc­tion of the pro­posed onshore gas refin­ery in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land begins. The planned refin­ery and the high pres­sure pipeline, which would sup­ply it with unprocessed gas from the off­shore Cor­rib gas field, have been bit­ter­ly opposed by local res­i­dents and their many nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sup­port­ers, since it was first pro­posed in 2000. Shell and their part­ners Sta­toil and Marathon had hoped to have the facil­i­ty in oper­a­tion by 2003, but mas­sive local resis­tance has meant that four years on, the devel­op­ment is still in its infan­cy.

This week resis­tance was stepped up fol­low­ing the jail­ing of three local fish­er­men accused of assault­ing Gar­dai (Police) dur­ing a Shell to Sea pick­et last year. On Wednes­day 11th July, two years on from the jail­ing of the Ross­port 5, these men became Coun­ty Mayo’s lat­est polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. The judge’s ver­dict was met with dis­be­lief by all involved in the cam­paign. The pros­e­cu­tions case was based sole­ly on con­tra­dic­to­ry tes­ti­monies from mem­bers of the Gar­dai. Before sen­tenc­ing the Judge stat­ed that she had reser­va­tions about this evi­dence. In par­tic­u­lar, that one Guard claimed he did not know if he had been hit by ’a car or a per­son’, and anoth­er claimed to have been punched with the left arm of a right hand­ed man. She also stat­ed that the injuries detailed by the Gar­dai were not seri­ous enough to war­rant a sec­tion three assault charge. Despite this, she found the three men guilty of this charge. Pat O’Donnell and Enda Carey were sen­tenced to three months in prison, Jonathan O Don­nell, four months. All also received a 500 Euro (rough­ly £330) fine. Expe­ri­ence of state and cor­po­rate cor­rup­tion is now com­mon­place for this small com­mu­ni­ty, but this overt com­plic­i­ty of the judi­cia­ry has still come as a shock. The injus­tice of the incar­cer­a­tion of three men with no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, based on a pros­e­cu­tion case with no evi­dence, has seen the Shell to Sea cam­paign once again revi­tal­ized.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing the com­mu­ni­ty respond­ed with a show of strength at the dai­ly pick­et out­side the pro­posed refin­ery at Bel­lan­aboy. Over 100 peo­ple came to demon­strate both their sol­i­dar­i­ty with the three men and their res­olute oppo­si­tion to Shell‘s project. As peo­ple attempt­ed to use their bod­ies to block con­struc­tion vehi­cles on route to the site the police respond­ed with bru­tal­i­ty. One woman was thrown across the road, injur­ing her hip, leg and arm, and a fif­teen year old lad was injured when a police­man gouged his eye.

After the pick­et sup­port­ers drove to the fishermen’s bail hear­ing. Analy­sis that the ver­dict and sen­tence had been prej­u­diced, hand­ed out by a Judge with a clear polit­i­cal agen­da, was con­firmed when she denied each of the men bail for var­i­ous arbi­trary rea­sons. She refused to accept cash as a bond, nor would she accept proof of sav­ings from a joint bank account state­ment with­out both par­ties present (the per­son unable to attend was one of the impris­oned men!). Final­ly, she refused the lat­est state­ment from an indi­vid­u­als account for not being recent enough, despite the pro­vi­sion of a sup­port­ing receipt tak­en that day from an ATM machine.

The next day the con­se­quences of the Judge’s deci­sion were played out on the ground at Bel­lan­aboy. The morn­ing pick­et was well attend­ed and clown army activists pro­vid­ed the pick­et with amuse­ment while they held the Gar­dai’ atten­tion. At 9.20am a local res­i­dent and some­one from the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp locked-on to a car, block­ing a bridge on the main haulage route to the refin­ery site. Sur­round­ed by around 40 sup­port­ers (held behind police lines) they main­tained the block­ade for around 6 hours. Mean­while, oth­er groups of local peo­ple set up spon­ta­neous block­ades on the alter­na­tive routes to the site. They used their bod­ies to obstruct the road, pre­vent­ing Shell vehi­cles from pass­ing but allow­ing free move­ment of oth­er traf­fic. Con­struc­tion lor­ries returned to their quar­ries with full loads as the haulage routes were blocked for most of the work­ing day. At 15.20 the fire brigade cut the locked-on men free and they were arrest­ed. The men were charged with sev­er­al offences and released sev­er­al hours lat­er.

In the evening around 100 cars drove to meet the three fish­er­men who had been grant­ed bail that morn­ing. In an inspir­ing act of sol­i­dar­i­ty they were wel­comed home by a vehi­cle pro­ces­sion through near­by towns with horns blar­ing and haz­ard lights flash­ing. When the pro­ces­sion reached the pro­posed refin­ery site it stopped. Around 200 peo­ple massed at the main entrance and peo­ple at the front of the crowd began to kick in the gates. Some peo­ple scaled the gates and undid the bolts on the oth­er side enabling the final pad­lock to be eas­i­ly forced open by the crowd out­side. Around 100 peo­ple entered and marched through the site for around 20 min­utes. Tak­ing con­trol of the Shell site was a fit­ting end to a high­ly suc­cess­ful day. The com­mu­ni­ty here are clear­ly demon­strat­ing that in the face cor­po­rate impe­ri­al­ism, con­tin­ued Gar­dai vio­lence and a biased judi­cia­ry, their dis­sent is unwa­ver­ing.

More about recent events can be found at :

Check out: www.shelltosea.com www.indymedia.ie/mayo

What you can do

* Vis­it the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp. Vis­i­tors are always wel­come. The camp is set in a beau­ti­ful loca­tion and a vis­it pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about the cam­paign and to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty direct­ly through join­ing the pick­et and tak­ing part in action. Sup­port roles are diverse and the func­tion­ing of the camp depends on this diver­si­ty. Among oth­er things peo­ple are need­ed for ‘camp-sit­ting’, DIY and to take part in action. If you are think­ing of com­ing to take action try com­ing with ideas and, if pos­si­ble, a crew! For more info and trav­el direc­tions: www.rossportsolidaritycamp.com

* Spread aware­ness of the cam­paign in your local area. E‑mail the camp for pro­pa­gan­da (it should be down­load­able online soon) rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com

* Organ­ise a sol­i­dar­i­ty action at your local Shell garage or dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tre ‑see www.shell.com for address­es.

* Organ­ise an action or pick­et at the Irish embassy or Shell HQ (both in Lon­don)