Day of the Broken Promise

Ben­ny Wen­da, West Papuan inde­pen­dence leader and chair­man of the Kote­ka Trib­al Assem­bly, and most of the rest of the small hand­ful of West Papuans liv­ing in Britain demon­strat­ed oppo­site the Nether­lands Embassy in Lon­don on Fri 14 Aug, to mark the anniver­sary of the ‘Day of the Bro­ken Promise’, 15 August 1962.

West Papuan Broken Promise Day demoBen­ny Wen­da, West Papuan inde­pen­dence leader and chair­man of the Kote­ka Trib­al Assem­bly, and most of the rest of the small hand­ful of West Papuans liv­ing in Britain demon­strat­ed oppo­site the Nether­lands Embassy in Lon­don on Fri 14 Aug, to mark the anniver­sary of the ‘Day of the Bro­ken Promise’, 15 August 1962.

The west­ern half of New Guinea became a Dutch colony in the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, but by the 1950s they were mov­ing towards giv­ing it inde­pen­dence. How­ev­er the Indone­sian gov­er­ment claimed the coun­try and threat­ened inva­sion after then Dutch set up an elect­ed gov­ern­ment of West Papua in 1961.

Indone­sia was backed by mil­i­tary aid from the Sovi­et Union, and the Kennedy admin­is­tra­tion in the USA want­ed to pre­vent fur­ther move­ment of the coun­try towards the Sovi­et bloc, so pres­sured the Nether­lands into sign­ing the ‘New York Agree­ment’ with Indone­sia in August 1962. This allowed Indone­sia to take over the admin­is­tra­tion of the coun­try but pro­vid­ed for all the adult pop­u­la­tion of West Papua to vote at a lat­er date on whether they wished to become inde­pen­dent.

The Indone­sian army moved in on 1 May 1963 and began a pro­gramme of repres­sion and human rights abuse against the peo­ple. In 1969 they round­ed up and detained just over a thou­sand West Papuans as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the peo­ple and enusured that they vot­ed for rule by Indone­sia by threats, includ­ing at least in some cas­es that they and their fam­i­lies would be killed unless they did so.

The Indone­sian gov­ern­ment made it impos­si­ble for the UN rep­re­se­n­ata­tive who was sup­posed to over­see the elec­tion to oper­ate prop­er­ly, and banned most for­eign reporters. Although it was clear that the vote did not reflect the will of the West Papuan peo­ple — and had failed to meet the terms of the agree­ment — which had been rat­i­fied by the UN — it was approved by the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly.

Since then there have been many reports of repres­sion by Indone­sia in the coun­try, includ­ing mur­der, polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions, tor­ture, rapes, dis­s­a­pear­ances and bomb­ing. The gov­ern­ment also had a pro­gramme of reset­tling migrants from Indone­sia in the coun­try, appar­ent­ly aimed at pro­duc­ing an Indone­sian major­i­ty pop­u­la­tion.

West Papuans have engaged in both civ­il dis­obe­di­ence — par­tic­u­lar­ly around cer­mo­ni­al rais­ing of the West Papua flag (the Morn­ing Star) as well as armed resis­tance.

Wen­da was jailed for dis­play­ing the West Papuan flag (on his chest and at top right of pic­ture) but man­aged to escape and gain asy­lum in the UK. Esti­mates of the num­ber of West Papuans killed by Indone­sian repres­sion are in the hun­dreds of thou­sands (400,000 accord­ing to the Free West Papua Cam­paign), and in 2006, 43 refugees land­ed in a tra­di­tion­al canoe in Aus­tralia, claim­ing the Indone­sian mil­i­tary was car­ry­ing out a pro­gramme of geno­cide.

Despite a wide­spread recog­ni­tion of what has been hap­pen­ing, there is lit­tle inter­na­tion­al sup­port for West Papua. The coun­try has the world’s largest cop­per and gold mines, large­ly owned by US Comp­nay Freeport-McMoRan with UK based Rio Tin­to Group also involved.

Today’s demon­stra­tion was peace­ful and tune­ful, with Ben­ny and Maria Wen­da and oth­ers play­ing instru­ments and singing tra­di­tion­al West Papuan songs oppo­site the embassy.

A Dutch diplo­mat came across the road to talk to the demon­stra­tors and receive a let­ter demand­ing that the Nether­lands and oth­er gov­ern­ments insist on the prop­er imple­men­ta­tion of the 1962 agree­ment, with a free and fair inde­pen­dence ref­er­en­dum involv­ing all West Papuans over­seen by the UN. Papuans feel they were let down by every­one involved, but par­tic­u­lar­ly by the Dutch; “We trust­ed you and we believed in you. But you betrayed us.”

The diplo­mat spoke for a few min­utes with the demon­stra­tors and was inter­est­ed to see a fea­ture on the rebel army there which appeared in today’s Inde­pen­dent on dis­play.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/bows-arrows-and-a-dream-of-liberation-1771884.html

After the demon­stra­tion at the Nether­lands Embassy the protest was mov­ing to the Indone­sian Embassy in Grosvenor Square, where the West Papuans hold reg­u­lar protests.

Climate campers stroll to Ffos-y-fran opencast mine

August 15th 2009

Cli­mate campers reclaim Ffos-y-fran

Campers at Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru near Merthyr Tyd­fil have upped the ante and have set off to enter Ffros-y-fran open cast coal mine, just yards from the camp.

Jill Lloyd said,

Ffros-y-fran first invasion from climate campFfros-y-franAugust 15th 2009

Cli­mate campers reclaim Ffos-y-fran

Campers at Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru near Merthyr Tyd­fil have upped the ante and have set off to enter Ffros-y-fran open cast coal mine, just yards from the camp.

Jill Lloyd said,

“We have been talk­ing to local peo­ple at the camp, in the town and on the hous­ing estates. The sto­ry is the same every­where — peo­ple feel aban­doned and used. Their hill­side is being ripped apart, a mas­sive incin­er­a­tor is pro­posed and a third phase of this mon­strous coal mine is now on the hori­zon, with plans to destroy the peace­ful wood­ed hill­side oppo­site.

“This action wasn’t planned at the start of the camp, but we feel it is impor­tant to show our oppo­si­tion to the mine with a ‘cli­mate stroll’ to sym­bol­i­cal­ly reclaim the land for the com­mu­ni­ty

“We have been hear­ing about peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry con­di­tions such as asth­ma which have start­ed or wors­ened since the mine opened, peo­ple unable to put their wash­ing out because it gets black, veg­eta­bles coat­ed in filthy dust.”

Wales could soon be self-suf­fi­cient in clean ener­gy but is still gen­er­at­ing fos­sil fuels for Eng­land. The coal from Ffos y Fran will gen­er­ate the same amount of CO2 per year as Mozam­bique. We have to stop cli­mate change, not make it worse. Coal is near­ly all car­bon and must be left in the ground.

Ang­harad Jones said:

“Reclaim­ing the land is a sym­bol­ic act. Com­ing here has been a real les­son for us, and we feel priv­i­leged to be part of the resis­tance to this mine. We have had talks from sci­en­tists and ecol­o­gists, but the most mem­o­rable lessons came from the local res­i­dents.

His­to­ry has shown that changes can be made by ordi­nary peo­ple doing extra­or­di­nary things. The suf­fragettes and the civ­il rights move­ment took action that was often ille­gal but very nec­es­sary. As our politi­cians fail us, we need deeds and not words.”

Between now and the Copen­hagen cli­mate sum­mit in Decem­ber, activists will take decen­tralised or col­lec­tive action in Wales against the root caus­es of cli­mate change.

Con­tact

* 07780914369 or 07875 868232 for Welsh lan­guage inter­views
* 07789898374 for Eng­lish lan­guage inter­views
* 07973298359 for video footage

Notes for edi­tors

Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is being held in a green field near Merthyr Tyd­fil between 13 – 16 August. For maps and site infor­ma­tion, go to www.climatecampcymru.org

Access for jour­nal­ists is restrict­ed to the hours of 11am – 1pm on Sat­ur­day, but there is an edge of site media area where film­ing can take place at any time.

—–

Stroll pho­to essay

Get Your Selves Down to Climate Camp

The site was tak­en on Wednesday.Kitchens, com­post loos, wind and solar ener­gy and kids spaces are all up and run­ning; work­shops are go and we’ll soon have a cin­e­ma. The sun’s been shin­ing all day. Friend­ly locals!

Climate Camp Cymru welcome bannerClimate Camp Cymru 'clean coal: dirty joke' bannerThe site was tak­en on Wednesday.Kitchens, com­post loos, wind and solar ener­gy and kids spaces are all up and run­ning; work­shops are go and we’ll soon have a cin­e­ma. The sun’s been shin­ing all day. Friend­ly locals!

We’re rough­ly the same dis­tance from Ffos y Fran, the UK’s largest open-cast coal mine, as the near­est hous­es (36 metres!) — that’s so close the mar­quee pegs are hit­ting coal. Good to know, con­sid­er­ing how much dust and air pol­lu­tion is emit­ted by the mine, the coal from which will gen­er­ate as much CO2 per year as the whole of Mozam­bique.

Come and join us for four days of sus­tain­able liv­ing, edu­ca­tion, move­ment build­ing, and build­ing the capac­i­ty for action.

200+ peo­ple at camp now, with lots still arriv­ing. 2 kitchens run­ning, 2.5 wind tur­bines up (pos­si­ble?) & the wel­come space is all go!

The Res­i­dents Against Ffos-y-fran (RAFF) work­shop was very pop­u­lar & went down well, no sur­pris­es! http://stopffosyfran.co.uk

Fol­low updates at
http://twitter.com/CampCymru09

See: http://www.climatecampcymru.org for direc­tions etc.

Vestas Rooftop protesters to head down to NIMBY MP’s office

Ves­tas Rooftop protest to move to local MP con­stituen­cy offices on Fri­day morn­ing

Press state­ment- Thurs­day 13th August 4.30pm

After being on the roof for eleven nights, rooftop pro­test­ers will descend from the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in East Cowes tomor­row morn­ing (Fri­day) at 11am. They will then take the protest to the local MP Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy office in New­port.

Ves­tas Rooftop protest to move to local MP con­stituen­cy offices on Fri­day morn­ing

Press state­ment- Thurs­day 13th August 4.30pm

After being on the roof for eleven nights, rooftop pro­test­ers will descend from the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in East Cowes tomor­row morn­ing (Fri­day) at 11am. They will then take the protest to the local MP Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy office in New­port.

They say: ‘Despite the green rhetoric from the main polit­i­cal par­ties, the truth of their atti­tude is appar­ent where green jobs are allowed to be lost and local MP Andrew Turn­er active­ly oppos­es a wind farm on the Isle of Wight. This typ­i­fies the NIMBY atti­tude which is block­ing the pro­gres­sion of on-shore wind in the UK.’

‘Andrew Turn­er’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the oppo­si­tion to Wind pow­er on the Island includes a state­ment that hav­ing a wind­farm on the Isle of Wight would have no effect on the Ves­tas work force,(1) when in fact it is the cumu­la­tive effect of deci­sions like these which effects demand for wind pow­er in the UK and has direct­ly let to the clo­sure of Ves­tas with the loss of over 600 jobs.’

Tim­ings for pho­to and inter­view oppor­tu­ni­ties;

7.30 am We will be avail­able for inter­views over the phone from this time Tele­phone 07944 744922.

11am Pro­test­ers will abseil down from the side of the Ves­tas build­ing, Columbine Road, Ven­ture Quays, East Cowes, Isle of Wight and, along­side ves­tas work­ers, will be avail­able for media inter­views.

1pm — We will be at Andrew Turn­er’s con­stituen­cy surgery request­ing to talk to him on cam­era, to dis­cuss his objec­tions to Wind pow­er on the Isle Of Wight, and his stance on NIM­BY­ism

There will be a pho­to and inter­view oppor­tu­ni­ty at this time.
Address: 24 The Mall, Caris­brooke, P030 1BW
tel. 01983 530808

Rooftop­pers Email address: vestasrooftop@googlemail.com
Tele­phone on the roof: Mar­tin: 07944744922

Notes to edi­tors:

1) Based on Andrew Turn­ers response to wind­farm appli­ca­tion: ref. TCP/27774,P/01400/06)
para­graph begin­ing: ‘I do not accept that a con­vinc­ing…’
Copies of which will be avail­able tomorow.

London climate camp summer swoop update 1

Dear Campers,

*IF YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN THE SWOOP – SIGN UP TO THE TEXT MESSAGING
SERVICE ON THE WEBSITE NOW !!*
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/swoop-update

Over 900 peo­ple have signed up for the Sum­mer Swoop in the first 2 weeks,
which is a bril­liant start. If every sin­gle one of you is in Lon­don by 12
noon on Wed 26th August, we’ll be an unstop­pable swoop­ing force! But the

Dear Campers,

*IF YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN THE SWOOP – SIGN UP TO THE TEXT MESSAGING
SERVICE ON THE WEBSITE NOW !!*
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/swoop-update

Over 900 peo­ple have signed up for the Sum­mer Swoop in the first 2 weeks,
which is a bril­liant start. If every sin­gle one of you is in Lon­don by 12
noon on Wed 26th August, we’ll be an unstop­pable swoop­ing force! But the
swoop is now ONLY TWO WEEKS AWAY today, and we still need more peo­ple, so
please keep invit­ing your friends.

(1) HERE’S THE PLAN…
(2) CHOOSE YOUR COLOUR
(3) BE PREPARED TO SWOOP AND STAY
(4) WHAT TO BRING

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(1) HERE’S THE PLAN…
Every­one needs to be in Lon­don and pre­pared to swoop from 12 noon on
Wednes­day 26 August. Swoop start­ing posi­tions will be announced online -
keep your eye on the web­site in the pre­ced­ing 48 hours… !

Every­one needs to sign up to be in one of the coloured groups detailed on
the web­site. Each of these will have a dif­fer­ent meet-up point on the day.
After that the fun will begin.

(2) CHOOSE YOUR COLOUR
If you want to be in the same group as your friends, you’ll need to sign
up for the same group. Get chat­ting now and then all sign up for the SMS
updates on the web­site. This is the pri­ma­ry way that we will know that
we’ve got enough peo­ple in each group and everything’s on track. The 10
colours are:

Green – Acces­si­ble and child friend­ly group
White — North Bike group (Cyclists only!)
Brown — South Bike group (Cyclists only!)
Pink — North (On foot/public trans­port)
Blue — South (On foot/public trans­port)
Pur­ple — West (On foot/public trans­port)
Red — West (On foot/public trans­port)
Yel­low — East (On foot/public trans­port)
Sil­ver — East (On foot/public trans­port)
Orange/Invisible — not meet­ing up in a pub­lic place (On foot/public
trans­port)

Some of you may pre­fer to choose your own meet­ing point in Lon­don — one
that won’t be pub­licly announced. If you’d like to choose your own
meet­ing spot, sign up for the Orange/Invisible swoop group!

You can sign up to your cho­sen colour here:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/swoop-update

If you don’t have a mobile phone, it’s prob­a­bly best to pair up with
some­one who does. Once you’ve cho­sen your colour, get cre­ative! Wear
some­thing in your cho­sen colour on the day. There may be loads to do in
your swoop group, so get involved.

(3) BE PREPARED TO SWOOP AND STAY
The cru­cial thing about the swoop is that we get large num­bers of peo­ple
to take part, and that we all stay to set up and defend the Camp until
every­one else starts arriv­ing. This means it’s a 24 hour thing, so you
need to bring your stuff for the Camp, take the day off if you need to,
and bring food to feed your­self until the kitchens are up and run­ning. If
every­one thinks they’re com­ing for an hour and then goes home we won’t
have a defend­able site.

(4) WHAT TO BRING
— A one-day Zone 1–6 Trav­el Card (you may be required to trav­el on all
forms of pub­lic trans­port)
— Water
— Snacks/food
— Sleep­ing stuff
— Your tent
— All weath­er cloth­ing
— A lug­gage label in case you get sep­a­rat­ed from your stuff
— Any­thing else you want to bring to Camp

That’s it for now. As we say, the start­ing points for the Swoop will be
announced clos­er to the time, and the loca­tion of the Camp itself won’t be
announced until the moment of the Swoop! But make sure you’re signed up to
as may meth­ods of com­mu­ni­ca­tion as pos­si­ble so you receive the news as
soon as we have it:

SMS updates: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/swoop-update
Face­book group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=238893455547
Cli­mate Camp Newslet­ter: https://lists.riseup.net/www/subrequest/climatecamp
Twit­ter: http://www.twitter.com/climatecamp

If you’ve got any ques­tions for us, drop us a line via
summerswoop@googlemail.com

Hap­py swoop­ing,
Sum­mer Swoop

ps. We know, we know, swoops are like bus­es – you wait all sum­mer for one
and then two come along at once. For any­one con­fused, the Great Cli­mate
Swoop is a mass action to shut down Drax or Rat­cliffe-on-Soar on 17–18
Octo­ber — see http://www.thegreatclimateswoop.org/ to vote for which one
to shut down. It’s also going to be incred­i­ble! But first things first…

Protesters seize site of Wales’ first Climate Camp

12.8.2009
At 7.30am this morn­ing, around 60 pro­test­ers set up the site of Wales’ first Cli­mate Camp on the edge of Merthyr Tyd­fil, next to the con­tro­ver­sial Ffos-y-Fran open­cast coal mine.

Climate Camp Cymru logo12.8.2009
At 7.30am this morn­ing, around 60 pro­test­ers set up the site of Wales’ first Cli­mate Camp on the edge of Merthyr Tyd­fil, next to the con­tro­ver­sial Ffos-y-Fran open­cast coal mine.

The Camp, which runs until 16 August, aims to high­light the hypocrisy in gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of claim­ing to act on cli­mate change while expand­ing coal min­ing. Coal is the most car­bon-inten­sive fuel, and campers argue it should be left in the ground to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

Campers also aim to build a strong grass­roots move­ment against the caus­es of cli­mate change in Wales. They are invit­ing any­one con­cerned about cli­mate change to come for sev­er­al days of fam­i­ly-friend­ly dis­cus­sions, work­shops and sus­tain­able liv­ing.

The protest site is only 36 metres away from the edge of the mine – the same dis­tance as sev­er­al homes. This prox­im­i­ty is despite con­tin­u­ing local oppo­si­tion to the noise, dust and fumes from the 1,000 acre site. A report fund­ed by the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment in June 2007 [1] expressed con­cern about the health effects of air pol­lu­tion and dust par­ti­cles.

Local cam­paign groups such as Res­i­dents Against Ffos-y-Fran (RAFF) have long been ignored by plan­ners and gov­ern­ment.

Camper Jill Lloyd said: “We need work that does not destroy lives or trash the plan­et, and we urgent­ly need green-col­lar jobs for Merthyr. Wales could soon be self-suf­fi­cient in clean ener­gy but if we keep min­ing fos­sil fuels such as coal, we will cause death and hard­ship for mil­lions of peo­ple around the world. To stop dev­as­tat­ing cli­mate change we must leave coal in the ground.”

————————————————————————————————————————

[1] The 2007 Health Impact Report can be found at http://www.stopffosyfran.co.uk/files/Final%20report%20June%2007.pdf

A map to the site is avail­able at www.climatecampcymru.org

3 tonne boulders to sabotage fishing trawlers

Green­peace are sink­ing 150 boul­ders, weigh­ing up to three tonnes off the Danish/Swedish coasts to stop fish­ing trawlers oper­at­ing in the area by ensnaring/damaging nets.

“Green­peace has begun sink­ing boul­ders in EU-pro­tect­ed cod fish­ing grounds to pre­vent what it says are destruc­tive forms of fish­ing in the area.

Green­peace are sink­ing 150 boul­ders, weigh­ing up to three tonnes off the Danish/Swedish coasts to stop fish­ing trawlers oper­at­ing in the area by ensnaring/damaging nets.

“Green­peace has begun sink­ing boul­ders in EU-pro­tect­ed cod fish­ing grounds to pre­vent what it says are destruc­tive forms of fish­ing in the area.

The envi­ron­men­tal group says it will drop 180 boul­ders off the Swedish and Dan­ish coasts to pre­vent fish­ing boats from drag­ging nets along the sea bed.

Green­peace says the bot­tom-trawl­ing fish­ing method destroys both the sea bed and the marine envi­ron­ment.

Green­peace spokesman Staffan Daniels­son told AFP news agency that the gran­ite boul­ders, weigh­ing as much as three tonnes, would be sunk over the next week.

They would have “no neg­a­tive impact on the envi­ron­ment”, he said.”

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8194105.stm

EF! summer gathering — exact location, travel info & updated workshop programme announced; coal-blighted communities visit

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, 18th-24th August 2009, Cum­bria

Nev­er has halt­ing the destruc­tion of our plan­et been so impor­tant… Learn how to make them stop!

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Seath­waite in the beau­ti­ful Bor­row­dale. The site is right in the heart of the Lake Dis­trict and sur­round­ed by moun­tains, streams and tarns. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith. More detailed direc­tions, pub­lic trans­port, walks & cycle rides to the site

Work­shop pro­gramme in a vari­ety of for­mats

EF!-rabbit-in-canoeEarth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, 18th-24th August 2009, Cum­bria

Nev­er has halt­ing the destruc­tion of our plan­et been so impor­tant… Learn how to make them stop!

The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Seath­waite in the beau­ti­ful Bor­row­dale. The site is right in the heart of the Lake Dis­trict and sur­round­ed by moun­tains, streams and tarns. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith. More detailed direc­tions, pub­lic trans­port, walks & cycle rides to the site

Work­shop pro­gramme in a vari­ety of for­mats

WHO
Earth First! is a net­work of peo­ple and cam­paigns who fight eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and the forces dri­ving it. We believe in doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of what we do, whether we’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open­cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions at a low impact eco-liv­ing camp organ­ised non-hier­ar­chi­cal­ly

WHAT
Plan­ning actions and cam­paigns, meet­ing and shar­ing skills with oth­ers who care. Over 80 train­ing work­shops plus games and evening fun:
• Learn skills for direct action. Tree Climb­ing, Ori­en­teer­ing, Secu­ri­ty for activists, Legal brief­ing, Escap­ing pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions, street medics – first aid, self defence, Boat blockad­ing using kayaks, radio pro­ce­dures and rock abseil­ing.
• Net­work your cam­paign against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion. open­cast min­ing, genet­ic engi­neer­ing, agro­fu­els, dam-build­ing, hunt-sab­bing, cli­mate actions, oil pipeline resis­tance, road stop­ping, anti-whal­ing, squat­ting, rain­for­est pro­tec­tion.
• Learn about ecol­o­gy, eco­cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tives to the cor­po­rate world of exploita­tion.
• Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing, field trips and hands-on work.

YOU
We are all crew! This is your gath­er­ing come pre­pared to help run the camp and con­tribute to the pro­gramme. Con­tact us in advance with ideas for work­shops, help with organ­is­ing the gath­er­ing, come ear­ly to help set­up the site or stay on for a cou­ple of days for take­down.
If you can help get in touch!

BRING
Bring tent and sleep­ing bag. You can either cook food for your­self or for £4 per day chip in with col­lec­tive cook­ing of deli­cious veg­an organ­ic food. There’ll be qui­et sleep­ing areas, toi­lets and run­ning water, a children’s space and spaces for work­shops and info stalls.
Veg­gies will pro­vide veg­an cake and snacks. Chil­dren and young adults wel­come with sub­si­dized meals.

Arrive Tues pm. Work­shops from Wed am until Sun pm.

Loads of cam­paigns are tak­ing to the water in defence of the plan­et, like at Ross­port where Shell are try­ing to lay onshore pipelines and the Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta at last sum­mers cli­mate camp. This sum­mer’s EF! gath­er­ing will be build­ing on these tac­tics with train­ing in water based actions.

An excur­sion to vis­it com­mu­ni­ties in the North East threat­ened by an expan­sion of coal min­ing on Mon­day 24th August. Vis­it beau­ti­ful val­leys and strong spir­it­ed com­mu­ni­ties and make links for ongo­ing resis­tance.

We aim to make the site as acces­si­ble as we can please con­tact us in advance if you have spe­cial needs, ques­tions or con­cerns.

WHERE
The site is near in the Lake Dis­trict, Cum­bria. The near­est train sta­tion is Pen­rith and there is a bus ser­vice to the site, there are car and liv­ing vehi­cle spaces out­side the camp.

Dogs: We are for­tu­nate this year to be able to accom­mo­date well behaved own­ers with dogs on leads but think about whether your dog will feel com­fort­able in work­shops. Please call before­hand so we know num­bers.

Cost: £20 — £30 accord­ing to what you can afford. We are not for prof­it all extra cash goes to help fund next year. Under 14’s free.

For more info con­tact us at :
summergathering@earthfirst.org.uk
www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk

South Lanarkshire Locals And Climate Campers Confront Council

10.8.2009
Scot­land’s first Camp for Cli­mate Action cul­mi­nat­ed today by direct­ly con­fronting South Lanark­shire Coun­cil whose mem­bers have approved new open cast coal extrac­tion despite mas­sive local oppo­si­tion. They were protest­ing about the seri­ous health impacts of this kind of ‘min­ing on the cheap’ and con­cerns about coal’s con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

10.8.2009
Scot­land’s first Camp for Cli­mate Action cul­mi­nat­ed today by direct­ly con­fronting South Lanark­shire Coun­cil whose mem­bers have approved new open cast coal extrac­tion despite mas­sive local oppo­si­tion. They were protest­ing about the seri­ous health impacts of this kind of ‘min­ing on the cheap’ and con­cerns about coal’s con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

A group held a cer­e­mo­ny out­side the offices to give out awards such as ‘worst con­flict of inter­est’ to peo­ple wear­ing masks of the indi­vid­u­als they accuse of putting Scot­tish Coal before the inter­ests of their con­stituents. These include local Coun­cil­lor Daniel Meik­le, the Earl of Home, Karen Gillon MSP and Jim Hood MP.

Mar­ty Sheal from Dou­glas said, “The coun­cil have con­sis­tent­ly put the prof­it of Scot­tish Coal and the com­pa­nies they work with before the health of the peo­ple of Dou­glas­dale. Some coun­cil­lors have appar­ent con­flicts of inter­est, which some peo­ple believe may have been behind these deci­sions.”

The Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land has also released a dossier of the health impacts of open cast­ing enti­tled Adverse Effects of Open­cast Min­ing which paints an alarm­ing pic­ture of a whole host of effects from can­cers, to asth­ma and depres­sion caused not just by the coal dust, but by noise and increas­es in heavy goods traf­fic. Burn­ing coal has also been respon­si­ble for most of the car­bon diox­ide in the atmos­phere that is push­ing us towards run­away cli­mate change, In cli­mate terms it is also the dirt­i­est fuel by far.

Anna Craig of The Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land added, “Coal means mis­ery and death, not just for the thou­sands of peo­ple seri­ous­ly affect­ed by min­ing in South Lanark­shire but also in oth­er dis­ad­van­taged com­mu­ni­ties around the world who are being hit first and hard­est by cli­mate change – the death toll is already at 300,000 peo­ple every year.”

Cam­paign­ers are par­tic­u­lar­ly angry at local Coun­cil­lor Daniel Meik­le, and are con­cerned about con­flicts of inter­est pre­sent­ed by his fam­i­ly busi­ness, Meik­le Con­struc­tion, and his posi­tion in the coun­cil, which, for many years includ­ed being chair of the plan­ning com­mit­tee. Cllr Meik­le rep­re­sents the area where Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home­’s plans to cre­ate a new open­cast mine are being frus­trat­ed by a coali­tion of local peo­ple and the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

Ear­li­er today there was an unsuc­cess­ful attempt by media activists to con­front him with ques­tion being asked by the local com­mu­ni­ty with three peo­ple being detained.

http://www.climatecampscotland.org.uk

Update

Coun­cil­lor Daniel Meik­le of South Lanark­shire has arrived at the protest by anti-open cast cam­paign­ers where he abused and threat­ened the pro­test­ers. Police have now escort­ed him inside the Coun­cil Offices. In a sep­a­rate devel­op­ment a load of coal has been dumped out­side the front of the offices to high­light the strength of local oppo­si­tion to a pro­posed new open cast mine at Main­shill near Dou­glas.

Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land

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News from Cli­mate Camp Scot­land

Thir­ty or so Scot­tish Cli­mate Camp activists and res­i­dents of Dou­glas vis­it­ed South Lanark­shire Coun­cil offices in Hamil­ton at 11am today to fur­ther high­light health risks asso­ci­at­ed with open cast min­ing and cli­mate change in gen­er­al. ‘Think glob­al­ly, act local­ly’ one of them said. They held ban­ners say­ing ‘coal kills’ and ‘com­mu­ni­ty health not Lord Home­’s wealth’. Police, how­ev­er, pre­vent­ed them from enter­ing the build­ing.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists staged street the­atre in sev­er­al parts of Hamil­ton ‘award­ing’ coal crim­i­nals for their involve­ment in let­ting Main­sh­hill Wood (South Lanark­shire) open cast mine go ahead. These shamed indi­vid­u­als were: Mr Dan­ny Meik­le Cllr, Ms Karen Gillon MSP, Mr Jim Hood MP and Mr David Alexan­der Cospatrick Dou­glas-Home.

Kirstie Stram­ler, Ph.D. atmos­pher­ic sci­en­tist and researcher called for an inde­pen­dent study to inves­ti­gate the health effects of open cast min­ing on local res­i­dents. Ms Stram­ler has just writ­ten a pre­lim­i­nary report ‘Adverse effects of open cast coal min­ing. Health Stats.’ Pub­licly avail­able NHS sta­tis­tics indi­cate a high­er rate of Chron­ic Obstruc­tive Pul­monary Dis­ease (COPD) amongst peo­ple of Dou­glas vil­lage com­pared to the UK aver­age or the coastal town of Prest­wick, upwind from the mines.

Three inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists were detained by the police in a sep­a­rate inci­dent near Mr Meik­le’s home. This coun­cil­lor tried to enter his office build­ing unno­ticed and was heard say­ing ‘Stay away from my f****** house’ to the pro­test­ers.

Cli­mate Camp in Main­shill Woods near Dou­glas is the first event of this kind in Scot­land fea­tur­ing a 320W solar pan­el, com­post­ing toi­lets and grey water sys­tems. Activists received a warm wel­come from local res­i­dents who hope to stop the extrac­tion of 1.7 mil­lion tonnes of coal. Burn­ing of fos­sil fuels adds more green­house gas­es to the atmos­phere.