The Whalers Head Home!

March 8 2012

The Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet Leaves the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary

Oper­a­tion Divine Wind is over! The Japan­ese whalers are going home!

March 8 2012

The Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet Leaves the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary

Oper­a­tion Divine Wind is over! The Japan­ese whalers are going home!

The Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has left the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary and they are head­ing home.  “Once Cap­tain Peter Ham­mer­st­edt and his crew on the Bob Bark­er closed in on the Nis­shin Maru on March 5th, the whal­ing sea­son was effec­tive­ly over for the sea­son,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son on the Sea Shep­herd flag­ship Steve Irwin recent­ly returned and now berthed in Williamstown, Vic­to­ria, Aus­tralia.

Since March 1st, the Bob Bark­er has fol­lowed the Nis­shin Maru as they head­ed steadi­ly north­west­ward. The Japan­ese har­poon ves­sels have stopped tail­ing the Bob Bark­er. The fleet has left the waters of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary, accord­ing to Cap­tain Peter Ham­marst­edt. The Japan­ese gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ty ves­sel, Shonan Maru #2, has been spot­ted by fish­ing ves­sels at thir­ty degrees South, which is due east of Bris­bane, Aus­tralia indi­cat­ing that the ves­sel is well on its way back to Japan.

It has been a long and dif­fi­cult cam­paign and although hand­i­capped by the tem­po­rary loss of the scout ves­sel the Brigitte Bar­dot, the Steve Irwin and the Bob Bark­er were able to chase the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet for more than 17,000 miles, giv­ing them lit­tle time to kill whales. In addi­tion, two of the three har­poon ves­sels spent more time tail­ing the two Sea Shep­herd ships than killing whales.

“The kill fig­ures will not be released by Japan until April, but in my opin­ion they will not get over 50% for cer­tain and my pre­dic­tion is it will not be above 30%. Not as good as last sea­son, but much bet­ter than all the pre­vi­ous years.”  Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “It has been a suc­cess­ful cam­paign. There are hun­dreds of whales swim­ming free in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary that would now be dead if we had not been down there for the last three months. That makes us very hap­py indeed.”

The Bob Bark­er will return to Hobart, Tas­ma­nia, the Brigitte Bar­dot is com­plet­ing repairs in Fre­man­tle, and the Steve Irwin is now berthed in Williamstown.

In Decem­ber 2012, if the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet returns to the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety will launch Oper­a­tion Cetacean Jus­tice with four ships, two heli­copters, four UAV (drones), and 120 vol­un­teers.

“If the Japan­ese whalers return, Sea Shep­herd will return. We are com­mit­ted to the defense of the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary.” Said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “No mat­ter how long it takes, no mat­ter how risky or expen­sive. The word “sanc­tu­ary” actu­al­ly means some­thing to us and that some­thing is worth fight­ing for.”

Five Lakota Arrested for Forming Blockade on Pine Ridge Reservation

7 March 2012

Five Lako­ta were arrest­ed Mon­day evening in Wan­blee, South Dako­ta when they formed a block­ade to halt a con­voy of trucks going through the Pine Ridge Indi­an Reser­va­tion.

7 March 2012

Five Lako­ta were arrest­ed Mon­day evening in Wan­blee, South Dako­ta when they formed a block­ade to halt a con­voy of trucks going through the Pine Ridge Indi­an Reser­va­tion.

At issue was there were two trucks that appeared to be haul­ing pipes through the reser­va­tion on their way to Cana­da. The new trucks that were deliv­ered in Texas from South Korea were car­ry­ing pipes used for tar sands pipeline. Totran Trans­porta­tion Ser­vices, Inc., a Cana­di­an com­pa­ny appar­ent­ly want­ed to avoid pay­ing the state of South Dako­ta $50,000 per truck or $100,000 to use its state high­ways. Instead Totran Trans­porta­tion thought they would use the roads on the reser­va­tion. Some 75 Lako­ta thought oth­er­wise.

The two trucks marked “over­size load” on them had in its con­voy sev­er­al pick up vehi­cles that were first spot­ted on the reser­va­tion in the late after­noon.

Once alert­ed about the con­voy and its where­abouts, Alex and Debra White Plume decid­ed to go and stop it. They were joined by oth­ers who formed a human block­ade.

The human block­age halt­ed the trucks. The White Plumes were told by the truck­ers that they had cor­po­rate author­i­ty to uti­lize the BIA roads.

“There are actu­al­ly a num­ber of laws that should pro­tect Indi­an tribes from those who cite cor­po­rate author­i­ty,”

said Char­lotte Black Elk, a well known attor­ney activist from Man­der­son, South Dako­ta.

“I told them nice­ly we did not want any trou­ble,”

Alex White Plume told the Native News Net­work late Mon­day night.

“But we were deter­mined not to let them use our roads. The chief of police for the tribe told me that he was told that the FBI was pre­pared to arrest me and pick me up and take me to jail in two white vans.”

White Plume and his wife, Debra and three oth­ers were arrest­ed and charged with dis­or­der­ly con­duct and tak­en to jail in Kyle, South Dako­ta. The oth­ers arrest­ed were: Sam Long Black Cat, Andrew Iron­shells and Ter­rel Iron­shells. Sev­er­al reports on social media report­ed that Tom Poor Bear, vice pres­i­dent of the Oglala Sioux Tribe was arrest­ed. This proved to be not true.

The five arrest­ed were released on the per­son­al recog­ni­zance bond.

“I was the voice for my grand­chil­dren,”

said an exhaust­ed Debra White Plume from home after being released from jail. White Plume was arrest­ed last sum­mer in front of the White House while protest­ing the Key­stone XL pipeline.

The Oglala Nation and all Amer­i­can Indi­an tribes in South Dako­ta have adamant­ly opposed the Key­stone XL pipeline that was rout­ed through the Pine Ridge and Rose­bud Indi­an Reser­va­tions that would cross the Oglala Sioux Rur­al Water Sup­ply Sys­tem in two places.

Late Mon­day, it was report­ed the Eagle Butte Indi­an trib­al coun­cil met to decide to form a human block­ade on their reser­va­tions if the Tro­tran con­voy attempts to come through their reser­va­tion which is north of the Pine Ridge Indi­an Reser­va­tion.

 

Victory Against UK Coal

The Pont Val­ley Net­work and Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil have suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ed UK Coal min­ing half a mil­lion tonnes of Coal from Bradley when UK Coal appealed the deci­sion made last year.

The Pont Val­ley Net­work and Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil have suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ed UK Coal min­ing half a mil­lion tonnes of Coal from Bradley when UK Coal appealed the deci­sion made last year.

The inspec­tors report was pub­lished on Thurs­day 23rd Feb­ru­ary which rejects the appeal, by UK Coal. Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil unan­i­mous­ly reject­ed the appli­ca­tion a year ago. The appeal took three weeks and end­ed in Novem­ber last year. There were excel­lent con­tri­bu­tions from the coun­cil’s speak­ers and a large num­ber of peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty.


The inspec­tor wrote,

155 … [T]here is a strong and unequiv­o­cal con­clu­sion that the win­ning
of coal by sur­face work­ing at Bradley would have a mate­r­i­al and detri­men­tal
effect on the set­tled envi­ron­ment of the Pont Val­ley and the wider Der­went
Val­ley.’

‘159. The com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fits are not suf­fi­cient to out­weigh the harm and, in the
case where this accords with the local view, this must car­ry extra weight…In a nut­shell, approach­ing a 15-year peri­od to achieve what UK Coal con­tend would be equiv­a­lent sta­tus, would
deliv­er a mere 3‑days nation­al coal sup­ply. This does not seem to be a fair
bal­ance of harm to need, where no nation­al pol­i­cy need is iden­ti­fied.’

It was felt that if this appli­ca­tion were to have been suc­cess­ful then there would have been a con­tin­u­ous cycle of exten­sions and fur­ther mines sought in the area. The area con­tains impor­tant ecosys­tems and is well used by local peo­ple, includ­ing those study­ing his­toric min­ing meth­ods. Local young peo­ple added to the debate, point­ing out that this coal would pro­vide the UK grid with 3 days worth of coal which could be obtained from sus­tain­able sources or proved unnec­es­sary by ener­gy effi­cien­cy. A local farmer showed how areas which were open cast were seri­ous­ly deplet­ed, as the soil ecosys­tems were destroyed, when com­pared to areas which have not been mined. The Coal Action Net­work also con­tributed to the voic­es against the mine with expe­ri­ences of how coal com­pa­nies real­ly act once min­ing has been approved. The Pont Val­ley Net­work and local peo­ple were suc­cess­ful in prov­ing that the val­ley has far more to offer, to locals and tourists alike, as it is rather than the ‘restora­tion’ offered by UK Coal.

Well done to those who fought this case.

The arti­cle about the orig­i­nal rejec­tion of the mine by Durham Coun­ty Coun­cil can be seen at http://northern-indymedia.org/articles/1389

Latest Updates from Protect the Wilderness & Reclaim the Fields

The Pro­tect the Wilder­ness cam­paign attend­ed a court hear­ing on Mon­day 5th brought by Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil. This morn­ing, the Judge gave pos­ses­sion to the coun­cil. An evic­tion is very like­ly in the imme­di­ate days.

The Pro­tect the Wilder­ness cam­paign attend­ed a court hear­ing on Mon­day 5th brought by Glouces­ter­shire Coun­ty Coun­cil. This morn­ing, the Judge gave pos­ses­sion to the coun­cil. An evic­tion is very like­ly in the imme­di­ate days.

How­ev­er Pro­tect the Wilder­ness would like to con­firm that the Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing hap­pen­ing this week will still be going ahead with a whole three days of work­shops, activ­i­ties and actions as pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised.

For any­one attend­ing:

    *You will be fed, warm, com­fort­able & inspired!
    *You will be able to camp safe­ly in the for­est, please bring a tent & bed­ding if pos­si­ble oth­er­wise there is a large com­mu­nal yurt pro­vid­ed with bed­ding & blan­kets avail­able
    *There will be enough food for every­one
    *There will be a fire-pit & warm spaces to be

And final­ly, you will be free to choose your involve­ment with the evic­tion & any sol­i­dar­i­ty need­ed with the Wilder­ness Cen­tre. There are safe spaces as well as oppor­tu­ni­ties to become involved in defend­ing the space — it is com­plete­ly your choice! This is a great chance to learn about your rights and see the results of our work here at the wilder­ness cen­tre.

So please join Pro­tect the Wilder­ness & Reclaim the Fields in cel­e­brat­ing our shared strug­gles for access­ing land to grow food for our com­mu­ni­ties & to live land-based lives.

As a reminder, here is a taster of what will be hap­pen­ing the next few days:

     *Intro­duc­tions to land rights, Reclaim the Fields UK & Euro­pean con­stel­la­tions, Seed Sov­er­eign­ty, WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
    *Work­shops includ­ing com­post­ing gen­der, occu­py­ing land, pro­tect­ing bee pop­u­la­tions, food sov­er­eign­ty and more.
    *Skill­shares, guer­ril­la gar­den­ing, music & feast­ing!

For more infor­ma­tion about the gath­er­ing please see:
http://www.reclaimthefields.org.uk/spring-gathering-2012/

More info about the Wilder­ness Cen­tre: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064

Who to con­tact if need­ed: 07811 726 372

Direc­tions: Bus/train to Glouces­ter then get the 24/24a to Mitcheldean (takes about 30 mins) get off when you see the church (near the hair­dressers) and ask some­one for direc­tions or notice oth­er RTFers. Oth­er­wise call the num­ber above & you will be col­lect­ed.

Resis­tance is Fer­tile!

Eureka! The Whaling Fleet Has Been Found and Shut Down!

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son received a Sat phone call from Cap­tain Peter Ham­marst­edt, on the Bob Bark­er, at 2200 Hours (AEST) on March 5th.

“Eure­ka, Paul, we have the Nis­shin Maru in our sights!”

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son received a Sat phone call from Cap­tain Peter Ham­marst­edt, on the Bob Bark­er, at 2200 Hours (AEST) on March 5th.

“Eure­ka, Paul, we have the Nis­shin Maru in our sights!”

The Nis­shin Maru and her three dead­ly har­poon boats were found at 64 Degrees 59 Min­utes South and 130 Degrees 51 Min­utes East at Com­mon­wealth Bay, six­ty miles off the Antarc­tic Coast, inside the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone.

The Yushin Maru No. 3 had just arrived from tail­ing the Steve Irwin. Despite the three har­poon ves­sels deployed to inter­cept the Bob Bark­er, Cap­tain Ham­marst­edt slipped through their web and gained a visu­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion on the pri­ma­ry tar­get.

Two of the har­poon ves­sels were in pur­suit of whales. All whal­ing activ­i­ty stopped as the Nis­shin Maru began run­ning but the Bob Bark­er is faster and is gain­ing steadi­ly on the hat­ed fac­to­ry ship.

“We have her in our sights and she will not be able to out­run us,” said Bob Bark­er third mate, Vin­cent Burke, of Mel­bourne.

“We have kept them run­ning for two months and that has dis­rupt­ed their oper­a­tions con­sid­er­ably but now with the Bob Bark­er on their stern slip­way, whal­ing is effec­tive­ly shut down for 2012,” said Cap­tain Ham­marst­edt (27) from Swe­den.

The Japan­ese secu­ri­ty ship, Shonan Maru No. 2, is still tail­ing the Steve Irwin present­ly one day from the Bass Strait and is now 1600 nau­ti­cal miles away from the whal­ing fleet. The Steve Irwin suc­cess­ful­ly led the Shonan Maru No. 2 and the Yushin Maru No. 3 away from the Bob Bark­er to allow the Bob Bark­er to lose a tail­ing ves­sel. The key to find­ing the Nis­shin Maru was los­ing the tail­ing ship, and it worked.

“This has been a long and tough cam­paign, with the worst weath­er and ice con­di­tions that we have expe­ri­enced in the entire eight sea­sons we have ven­tured into the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “But despite the tem­po­rary loss of our scout ship, the Brigitte Bar­dot, and our con­stant dogged pur­suit of the Nis­shin Maru, we have kept them on the run, tak­en two of their three har­poon ves­sels off the hunt for two months, severe­ly crip­pled their killing capa­bil­i­ties and now once again we have shut them down 100%. Oper­a­tion Divine Wind has been enor­mous­ly suc­cess­ful.”

Insurrectionary ecological struggle continues (Papua)

News update from the strug­gle against the Indone­sian state, min­ing and log­ging com­pa­nies by Papuan peo­ple.
- a drilling rig is set afire in kam­pung Tabla­su­pa
- five log­ging camps burned by Arso vil­lagers

News update from the strug­gle against the Indone­sian state, min­ing and log­ging com­pa­nies by Papuan peo­ple.
- a drilling rig is set afire in kam­pung Tabla­su­pa
- five log­ging camps burned by Arso vil­lagers

TABLASUPA NICKEL MINING RIG BURNED, THREE ARRESTED

On the morn­ing of 8th Feb­ru­ary 2012, local peo­ple from kam­pung Tabla­su­pa, near to the Papuan cap­i­tal Jaya­pu­ra, burned a drilling rig belong­ing to the min­ing com­pa­ny PT Tabla­su­pa Nikel Min­ing. The action was con­nect­ed to an ongo­ing con­flict between local peo­ple and the com­pa­ny, which plans to mine nick­el on 9629 hectares of land, and is cur­rent­ly car­ry­ing out explo­ration activ­i­ties. Although the com­pa­ny has been giv­en a per­mit by the local Jaya­pu­ra Bupati’s office, the peo­ple of Tabla­su­pa feel that their rights as the hold­ers of cus­tom­ary rights over the land have not been respect­ed.

Two weeks after the machine was burnt, on Feb­ru­ary 20th, police arrest­ed three vil­lagers. Saul Soron­touw, Lam­ber­tus Sei­bo and Kani­sius Kromisian. They have been charged under arti­cle 170 of the Indone­sian penal code, and are being held in Jaya­pu­ra police head­quar­ters. While in prison Saul Soron­touw has been ill with gout, which has caused swellings in his knees. On Feb­ru­ary 28th police demand­ed state­ments from anoth­er six vil­lagers, but they were allowed to go home that evening.

The fol­low­ing state­ment was released by vil­lagers of Tabla­su­pa the day before the action:

State­ment of opin­ion of the Soron­tou-Okoser­ay-Kiswait­ou Eth­nic Group

As hold­ers of rights to cus­tom­ary lands on the area cov­ered by PT Tabla­su­pa Nick­el Min­ing’s Mine Enter­prise Per­mit (IUP), Min­ing Rights (KP) and the Bupati’s rec­om­men­da­tion that allows explo­ration in Kam­pung Tabla­su­pa, Jaya­pu­ra Regency

Regard­ing the as yet unre­solved prob­lems around PT Tabla­su­pa Nick­el Min­ing com­menc­ing explo­ration activites on cus­tom­ary land belong­ing to the peo­ple of kam­pung Tabla­su­pa, the Soron­tou- Okoser­ay- Kiswait­ou eth­nic group wish­es to make the fol­low­ing dec­la­ra­tion:

“Reject PT Tabla­su­pa Nick­el Min­ing”
con­duct­ing explo­ration and min­er­al exploita­tion activ­i­ties with­in the cus­tom­ary bound­aries of the Soron­tou- Okoser­ay- Kiswait­ou eth­nic group.

The rea­sons for our rejec­tion of min­ing activ­i­ties are as fol­lows:
1. The whole ter­ri­to­ry of kam­pung Tabla­su­pa is unsuit­able for min­ing activ­i­ties.
2. The impact of min­ing activ­i­ties would also dam­age the envi­ron­ment of areas that fall with­in the ter­ri­to­ry of neigh­bour­ing vil­lages.
3 To avoid min­ing activ­i­ties caus­ing con­flict with the peo­ple and near­by vil­lages.
4. The effect of min­ing activ­i­ties will dam­age and des­e­crate the envi­ron­ment, and indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion from the mine will con­tribute to glob­al warm­ing and affect the sources of clean water from the Cyclop moun­tains.
5. No con­sen­sus has been reached through a musyawarah sys­tem that would rep­re­sent an agree­ment between the peo­ple of Tabla­su­pa and neigh­bour­ing vil­lages.
6. The hold­ers of cus­tom­ary rights to the land have not giv­en their approval (under the Law on Min­er­al and Coal Min­ing 4/2009 arti­cle 135, com­pa­nies hol­ing a Mine Enter­prise Per­mit can only com­mence activ­i­ties if they have obtained agree­ment from the hold­ers of cus­tom­ary rights on that land).
7. The cus­tom­ary and human rights of the Soron­tou- Okoser­ay- Kiswait­ou eth­nic group must be respect­ed and val­ued by all.

A solu­tion to the devel­op­ment of kam­pung Tabla­su­pa which sup­ports the social econ­o­my and also con­tributes to local busi­ness could include:
-build­ing beach tourism and hotels
-devel­op­ing fish­ing
-sell­ing fresh water.

Such devel­op­ment would involve all the peo­ple of Tablsu­pa either as work­ers or tak­ing roles in a man­age­ment struc­ture and could take the form of an enter­prise or foun­da­tion that was formed by the peo­ple of kam­pung Tabla­su­pa.

This is the mes­sage that the Soron­tou- Okoser­ay- Kiswait­ou eth­nic group wish­es to be known by the gen­er­al pub­lic.

Tabla­su­pa, 07 Feb­ru­ary 2012 .

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WEST PAPUAN COMMUNITY ECOLOGICAL STRUGGLE

On the side­lines of the Papuan Peo­ple’s strug­gle for self-deter­mi­na­tion, at a local lev­el Papuan com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to resist the log­ging and min­ing indus­tries that are destroy­ing their forests. Here are two sto­ries of recent com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance from areas close to the Papuan cap­i­tal Jaya­pu­ra, trans­lat­ed from the Alliance for Democ­ra­cy in Papua web­site www.aldepe.com.

See­ing their for­est destroyed, Arso Vil­lagers Burn Five Log­ging Camps.

Annoyed by hear­ing the sound of chain­saws almost every day, and in addi­tion the reports of vil­lagers who reg­u­lar­ly enter the for­est telling of find­ing log­gers’ camps there, around 20 peo­ple from Arso, both young and old, agreed to check the for­est for them­selves.

This area of for­est is com­mon­ly called the ‘Gold­en Tri­an­gle’, and is divid­ed between the ter­ri­to­ry of three vil­lages, Arso, Work­wana and Wambes.

As they had guessed they would, once inside the for­est they found two sites used by log­gers, which had been con­nect­ed with a track made from off­cuts of wood which the log­gers would use, drag­ging the wood from behind a vehi­cle.

At the first site there was only one camp. At this camp they con­fis­cat­ed two chain­saws and took state­ments from three log­gers who were at the loca­tion. They then forced the log­gers to leave.

The group con­tin­ued to the next loca­tion. Pos­si­bly because the log­gers had received infor­ma­tion from their friends at the first site, there was only one per­son left, and they did­n’t find any chain­saws.

As their emo­tions rose some peo­ple almost hit out at the log­ger, but were held back by oth­ers. At this sec­ond loca­tion, four camps were found, com­plete with tele­vi­sions, speak­ers, sup­plies of food and cloth­ing and so on. Two vehi­cles used for drag­ging wood were also found. In their emo­tion­al state, the peo­ple destroyed and burned the camps and every­thing they found there, along with the camp at the first loca­tion. The two vehi­cles were also burnt.

Accord­ing to state­ments from the log­gers, they had been giv­en per­mis­sion by the cus­tom­ary chief of kam­pung Work­wana, although the Arso vil­lagers felt that they had been cut­ting trees far inside the Arso ter­ri­to­ry.

Sev­er­al peo­ple inter­viewed in kam­pung Arso on Tues­day 6th March explained that they were still angry “It’s so sad to look at that for­est, they even cut very small iron­wood trees.” said Wen­der­li­nus Tuamis, a youth who had par­tic­i­pat­ed that day.

Mean­while, accord­ing to Franky Borot­ian, they had been allow­ing the log­ging to con­tin­ue because pre­vi­ous­ly a vil­lager from Work­wana had asked to use wood to build her house “a sis­ter had asked for per­mis­sion to build a house, but then it turned out some­one used that per­mis­sion for busi­ness pur­pos­es”, he said.

The prob­lem has been passed over to the Cus­tom­ary Coun­cil (Dewan Adat). Vil­lagers asked the Cus­tom­ary Coun­cil to use their wis­dom to resolve the sit­u­a­tion so that con­flicts between the peo­ple would not emerge. Espe­cial­ly since the Gold­en Tri­an­gle had become the area which peo­ple rely on for food, as oth­er areas have been tak­en over by two big oil palm plan­ta­tions, state-owned PTPN II and PT Tan­dan Sawi­ta Papua (Part of Peter Son­dakh’s Rajawali Group)

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RE-POSTED FROM INDONESIAN ANARCHIST WEBSITE  http://hidupbiasa.blogspot.co.uk/

Two arrested for blocking tar sands megaloads in USA

News from Moscow Ida­ho, two arrest­ed blockad­ing Exxon’s mega­load trucks bound with tar sands equip­ment for Alber­ta.

News from Moscow Ida­ho, two arrest­ed blockad­ing Exxon’s mega­load trucks bound with tar sands equip­ment for Alber­ta.

Ear­ly News: More Pro­test­ers Arrest­ed for Block­ing Tar Sands “Mega­loads” in Moscow, Ida­ho

PRELIMINARY NEWS RELEASE

March 5, 2012

Four remark­ably brave activists elud­ed the bar­ri­cades and put their bod­ies between enor­mous Alber­ta tar sands upgrad­er parts and the eco­log­i­cal and cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion they will vis­it on us all.  As three of the last five of 78 ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil mega­loads moved through down­town Moscow, Ida­ho, two pro­test­ers were arrest­ed for link­ing arms and sit­ting down in Wash­ing­ton Street late Sun­day night, March 4.  Police arrest­ed two men but pulled two women to the side and detained and released them when the con­voy passed.  The women did not appre­ci­ate the dis­crim­i­na­tion.

In a video by Joshua Yei­del of a KRFP Radio Free Moscow inter­view, We Won’t Be Acces­sories to Geno­cide: Moscow ID, March 4, 2012, one of the dis­missed women explained her and her many allies’ moti­va­tions for march­ing, chant­i­ng, and even obstruct­ing mega­loads and risk­ing arrest in cold and dark win­ter con­di­tions.  “We’re not going to be acces­sories to geno­cide and cli­mate change and increased can­cer rates and all the oth­er eco­log­i­cal dam­ages that the tar sands intends to cause…”

Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide (WIRT) and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have gath­ered along Moscow streets to raise their voic­es in protest more than forty times since July 15, 2011, when the first trans­ports of out­sourced equip­ment rum­bled up to 425,000 pounds on High­way 95 from the Port of Lewis­ton to the cli­mate-wreck­ing tar sands.  Despite heavy, indus­try-spon­sored police pres­ence and clo­sure of entire rights-of-way, some cit­i­zens have entered the cross­walks and streets to briefly block the ship­ments and halt their eco­log­i­cal death march, before state, coun­ty, and city police offi­cers sur­round, harass, and drag them away and/or arrest them.

For a video shot by Joshua Yei­del of Sun­day night’s action, Mega­loads and Arrests, Moscow, Ida­ho, March 4, 2012, please see this video.

Fifty-one of Zachary Johnson’s pho­tos of the March 4 demon­stra­tion are avail­able on the Wild Ida­ho Ris­ing Tide Face­book page

WIRT mem­bers extend our grat­i­tude, love, and high­est esteem to the four good souls who sac­ri­ficed their free­dom to stand up for what’s right last night and to all of the sup­port­ive cit­i­zens on the streets and side­walks, who spoke out and bore wit­ness for a green­er plan­et, health­i­er human­i­ty, and a liv­able, worth­while future for everyone’s descen­dants.  Please join friends and activists at 9 am on Mon­day, March 5, at the Latah Coun­ty Cour­t­house for the arraign­ments of Cass Davis and Jim Prall.  One of their spous­es report­ed that they are doing well in jail.  Besides this brief press release com­piled from WIRT activists’ input, we will send a more com­pre­hen­sive, cam­paign-inclu­sive sto­ry lat­er today.

Mean­while, for more news, pho­tos, videos, and inter­views, please see the WIRT Face­book page and web site/blog and lis­ten to the Cli­mate Jus­tice Forum radio pro­gram on Mon­days at 7:30 to 9:00 pm PST on KRFP Radio Free Moscow.

More info, pho­tos and past protests at http://wildidahorisingtide.org/

Oglala Nationals Roadblock Oil Pipeline Trucks On Pine Ridge Rez

March 5th, 2012, every­one had their ear to the new moc­casin tele­graph. Social net­works, tele­phones, and word of mouth net­works were abuzz with reports of Oglala Lako­ta Nation­als pre­vent­ing oil pipeline mate­ri­als, des­tined for Cana­di­an Tar sands and/or Key­stone XL infra­struc­ture locales or some unknown des­ti­na­tion, from being trans­port­ed across the Pine Ridge Reservation’s Treaty ter­ri­to­ry. Infor­ma­tion trav­elled to Debra and Alex White Plume (Owe Aku, Inc. “Bring Back the Way) and Olowan Mar­tinez that semi-trucks loaded with enor­mous oil pipeline com­po­nents were set to cross Oglala ter­ri­to­ry some­time dur­ing the after­noon on March 5th, 2012; “We did not know where the equip­ment was going, but we knew that these trucks were too huge, too heavy, and too dan­ger­ous to pass our roads. We thought the equip­ment may be going to the Tarsands oil mine, or oth­er oil mines in Cana­da,” Debra White Plume explained.

A call went out via dig­i­tal media and oth­er sources for all able bod­ied and will­ing par­tic­i­pants to mobi­lize and report to Wan­blee, South Dako­ta, for an impromp­tu gath­er­ing of scores of activists ready to block the road with their bod­ies to pre­vent semi-trucks and pipeline com­po­nents from cross­ing Oglala Ter­ri­to­ry. With­in min­utes the con­fronta­tion hap­pened as sev­er­al State and Trib­al police offi­cers and oth­er offi­cials respond­ed to the tense scene. Oglala Trib­al police arrived imme­di­ate­ly with one Sergeant telling the road-block­ers that the South Dako­ta High­way Patrol was parked a few miles down the road at the bor­der between Oglala Coun­try and the State of South Dako­ta but that the SD High­way Patrol would not pro­ceed onto the reser­va­tion. Notably, this Sergeant also advised those present that the FBI (Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion) was en route to the reser­va­tion in two vans from Rapid City, SD. How­ev­er, at the con­clu­sion of the day there were no signs of such FBI pres­ence.

The Texas semi-trucks, trans­port­ing 1.25 Mil­lion-dol­lar “Treater Ves­sels” used in oil, gas and ele­ment sep­a­ra­tion, were stopped in their tracks as they approached the human road­block. The human road­block that fea­tured two Lako­ta grand­moth­ers: Ren­abelle Bad Cob Stand­ing Bear (in her wheel­chair) and Marie Ran­dal (in her 90s). The dri­vers were ques­tioned by those form­ing the block­ade as to why they were cross­ing Oglala lands. One of the dri­vers respond­ed that they did not know they were cross­ing Indi­an land, only that they were fol­low­ing com­pa­ny direc­tives regard­ing their assigned routes and that their Cana­di­an Cor­po­ra­tion had received this par­tic­u­lar route infor­ma­tion as a result of a part­ner­ship with the State of South Dako­ta, whose elect­ed offi­cials have always sup­port­ed the Key­stone XL pipeline. This infor­ma­tion prompt­ed Tom Poor Bear (Vice Pres­i­dent of the Oglala Lako­ta Nation) to phone South Dako­ta State offi­cials in Pierre, SD, inquir­ing as to the nature and ori­gin of the route of the stopped truck­ers. South Dako­ta affirmed to Oglala Vice Pres­i­dent Tom Poor Bear that indeed the State was involved with plan­ning such route, osten­si­bly with­out con­sult­ing the Oglala Lako­ta Nation. The heavy-haul­ing trucks were alleged­ly cut­ting through Oglala coun­try in attempts to avoid a $50,000.00 per-truck-fee to pass through using State of South Dako­ta road­ways.

Dur­ing the road­block, police ordered all those form­ing the road block to dis­perse. This com­mand was heed­ed by most except those will­ing to sac­ri­fice per­son­al free­doms to make their state­ments against big oil and the con­tin­ued mind­less con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of moth­er earth. The fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als were ulti­mate­ly arrest­ed by Pine Ridge author­i­ties for fail­ing to obey com­mands: Debra White Plume, Alex White Plume, Sam Long Black Cat, Andrew Iron Shell, and Tyrel Iron Shell. The arrests were not with­out effect as the semi-trucks and their pay­loads were rerout­ed and escort­ed off by sev­er­al Oglala sen­tries.

The pro­tec­tors of the earth, all those present who suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing a bold state­ment were backed by stand­ing res­o­lu­tions adopt­ed by the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Coun­cil incor­po­rat­ing the terms of the Moth­er Earth Accord. Addi­tion­al­ly, those stand­ing res­o­lu­tions for­bid any for­mal inter­ac­tion with Tran­sCana­da and/or Key­stone XL or oth­er oil pipelines mak­ing over­tures to the Oglala Lako­ta Nation and oth­er landown­ers through­out the cen­ter of Tur­tle Island (North Amer­i­ca).

Las­tre­alin­di­ans was able to catch up with Olowan Sara Mar­tinez and Debra White Plume to piece togeth­er the days hap­pen­ing for our read­ers’ ben­e­fit. Olowan Sara Mar­tinez recalled the stead­fast man­ner in which the mod­ern war­riors of the Oglala Lako­ta respond­ed “it’s clear that our peo­ple will stand by each oth­er when our land is threat­ened”, said Mar­tinez.

Debra White Plume of Owe Aku, Inc. summed up the peo­ples’ sen­ti­ment when she said “It is always good to see that we’re still Indige­nous. We will nev­er stop car­ing for moth­er earth. When the call went out ask­ing for help, the response was imme­di­ate. Peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty of Wan­blee – [a major tra­di­tion­al strong­hold dur­ing the ten­sion and vio­lent filled 1970s between the fed­er­al­ly backed goon squads and the Amer­i­can Indi­an Move­ment backed tra­di­tion­als *con­text pro­vid­ed by Las­tre­alin­di­ans ] poured out in num­bers offer­ing huge pots of soup, cof­fee, and oth­er pro­vi­sions for any­one will­ing to take a stand. The peo­ple will always help each oth­er.”

Las­tre­alin­di­ans was advised that since Oglala Pres­i­dent Steele is cur­rent­ly in Wash­ing­ton, DC on offi­cial busi­ness, Oglala Vice Pres­i­dent, Tom Poor Bear, is call­ing a meet­ing of the Trib­al Coun­cil, today March, 6, 2012, to address the road­block cir­cum­stances and any future occur­rences of this sort. The Oglala Trib­al Coun­cil and In-house attor­neys are draft­ing leg­is­la­tion to pro­hib­it heavy trucks from com­ing onto the reser­va­tion as this writ­ing hap­pens; “It does not mat­ter what trucks are car­ry­ing, if they are this big and heavy they are too dan­ger­ous for our roads”, Debra White Plume reit­er­at­ed. Last­ly, the Oglala Trib­al Coun­cil will con­sid­er leg­is­la­tion pro­hibit­ing any ves­sels or equip­ment to be used in Tarsands oil devel­op­ment from cross­ing Oglala Ter­ri­to­ry.

Super Quarry Sabotaged

Super Quar­ry Sab­o­taged

Super Quar­ry Sab­o­taged

Towards the end of last year the super quar­ry at Bar­don Hill in Leicter­shire was sab­o­taged. This is the flag­ship quar­ry of Bar­don Aggri­gates, sub­sid­uary of Aggri­gate Indus­tries, the com­pa­ny remov­ing moun­tain tops for road­stone in Glen­san­da Scot­land. Bar­don Hill Quar­ry is a mile across and over quar­ter of a mile deep, and is remov­ing a hill­side that is des­ig­nat­ed as a SSSI. They are plan­ning to extend this quar­ry to new areas using over three miles of con­vey­ers to trans­port the stone. Dur­ing the week bore holes were dug for the new expan­sion vis­i­tors climbed down into the quar­ry over night destroy­ing engines and hydrulics, glu­ing locks, and drilling tires. You could stand in the buck­ets of the exca­va­tors and the wheels of the trucks were over eight feet tall. 3 excav­tors, 1 bull­doz­er, and 4 dumper trucks were sab­o­taged.

No TAV — Val de Susa latest news

A sum­ma­ry of the lat­est events — Bai­ta Clarea is an area in Val Susa where works for the imple­men­ta­tion of the TAV were due to start soon.

On Mon­day 27th Feb­ru­ary the forces of order pro­ceed­ed to evict and expro­pri­ate the land in Bai­ta Clarea in order to clear the way for the dev­as­tat­ing high speed rail­way works.

A sum­ma­ry of the lat­est events — Bai­ta Clarea is an area in Val Susa where works for the imple­men­ta­tion of the TAV were due to start soon.

On Mon­day 27th Feb­ru­ary the forces of order pro­ceed­ed to evict and expro­pri­ate the land in Bai­ta Clarea in order to clear the way for the dev­as­tat­ing high speed rail­way works.

On the same day Luca Abba’, a res­i­dent of the Val Susa whose land was also expro­pri­at­ed, climbed a pylon in an attempt to block the ongo­ing mil­i­tary oper­a­tion. The cops ordered Luca to come down with­out tak­ing pre­cau­tions for his safe­ty, push­ing him even high­er and fail­ing to cut off the elec­tric­i­ty of the pylon.

As a result, Luca was elec­tro­cut­ed and fell sev­er­al metres below. Res­cue was delayed by cor­dons of antiri­ot cops but final­ly Luca was tak­en to hos­pi­tal by heli­copter. He is now out of dan­ger although his con­di­tions remain very seri­ous.

Bar­ri­cades were set up by NO TAV peo­ple in the area, which has been declared a ‘strate­gic site of nation­al inter­est’.

Protests and block­ages are being orga­nized all over Italy.

The fac­ul­ty of Polit­i­cal Sci­ences of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bologna has been occu­pied in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the strug­gle in Val Susa. Here is the com­mu­niqué of the occu­piers:

LET’S STOP THEIR PROFITS, LET’S BLOCK THEIR DEVASTATION.
COMMUNIQUE BY OCCUPIED POLITICAL SCIENCES

On 27th Feb­ru­ary 2012 the mil­i­tary machin­ery of the State attacked the peo­ple of Val Susa, by expro­pri­at­ing and destroy­ing lands with bull­doz­ers and trun­cheons, in order to car­ry on the insane project for the con­struc­tion of the TAV.

Among the NO TAV activists who opposed the inva­sion Luca, a com­rade whose land was expro­pri­at­ed by the CMC Com­pa­ny, climbed a pylon to block the advance of the bull­doz­ers.

As cops tried to pull him down, Luca con­tin­ued to climb the pylon until he was elec­tro­cut­ed by a 15,000 volts elec­tric shock and fell down to the ground.

In spite of the fact that res­cue was ham­pered for almost an hour by cor­dons of antiri­ot cops, Luca is now out of dan­ger, even if his con­di­tions remain very seri­ous. 

But this is not enough to pla­cate our anger!!! That pylon should have been insu­lat­ed, police knew this but didn’t do any­thing, on the con­trary they pushed Luca even high­er.

IT WAS ONLY BY PURE CHANCE THAT THE STATE DIDN’T KILL ONE OF OUR COMRADES!

It is there­fore clear how chief police Man­ganel­li declared war to the val­ley and to all the peo­ple who are resist­ing, when a few days ago, plain­ly speak­ing, he said there would be a dead in Val Susa.

The area of the yard has been declared ‘strate­gic site of nation­al inter­est’, which means mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion and legit­imizes uncon­di­tion­al recourse to the vio­lence of the State.

The peo­ple of the val­ley and oth­ers in sol­i­dar­i­ty have imme­di­ate­ly occu­pied the high­way close to the yard in dif­fer­ent spots, so as to block the access of both the forces of order and the TAV work­ers.

Since the first hours a great num­ber of diver­si­fied actions of sol­i­dar­i­ty have been car­ried out in 26 cities [around 80 by now], thus pro­vok­ing dam­ages and dis­rup­tions to the TAV traf­fic all over the coun­try.

More­over the sol­i­dar­i­ty attack went beyond the sec­tor of trans­port, like all the work­ers who went on strike on the same morn­ing.

We are aware of the fact that the high speed rail­way goes across the entire coun­try and that the NO TAV is not con­fined to the Val Susa and to a sin­gle project.

THEREFORE WE HAVE OCCUPIED THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SICENCES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA IN SOLIDARITY WITH LUCA AND THE NO TAV ARRESTED.

WE WANT TO CREATE AN OPEN SPACE WHERE WE CAN DISCUSS IDEAS AND PROPOSALS AGAINST THE ADVANCE OF THIS NTH WORK OF DEVASTATION AND TO ORGANIZE OURSELVES EVEN IN THIS CITY.

NO TAV sol­i­dar­i­ty from Bologna, Tues­day 28th Feb­ru­ary 2012.