Victory Over Mexico’s La Parota Dam

Inter­view: June 30, 2009
From June 2009 World Rivers Review

Inter­view: June 30, 2009
From June 2009 World Rivers Review

Since 2004, thou­sands of Mex­i­can farm­ers have been fight­ing the con­struc­tion of La Paro­ta Dam in the state of Guer­rero. They have staged block­ades, protests and legal actions and have faced vio­lent police repres­sion in return. In May, the Mex­i­can press report­ed that the gov­ern­ment would post­pone La Paro­ta Dam until after 2018. World Rivers Review inter­viewed Rodol­fo Chavez Galin­do, a leader of the vibrant move­ment to stop the dams, about the bat­tle over La Paro­ta.

WRR: How is the local move­ment orga­nized?
RCG: The Coun­cil of Com­mu­nal Lands and Com­mu­ni­ties Opposed to La Paro­ta Dam (CECOP) was cre­at­ed by farm­ers and indige­nous peo­ples to defend their lives, land, water and nat­ur­al resources. It is com­posed of more than 5,000 men and women from 39 vil­lages. Its prin­ci­pal strength is that deci­sions are made in a com­mu­nal way, in assem­blies that have been held every Sun­day with­out fail dur­ing the six years we have been fight­ing the project.

The move­ment began on July 28, 2003, when the peas­ants of three vil­lages blocked engi­neers with the Fed­er­al Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (CFE) from enter­ing com­mu­ni­ty lands. The CFE had ille­gal­ly entered the com­mu­ni­ty’s land with­out peo­ple’s per­mis­sion. The land com­pen­sa­tion process had not start­ed, nor the envi­ron­men­tal licens­ing process. The CFE cleared thou­sands of trees — which is a fed­er­al crime — opened roads, and brought in heavy machin­ery to begin con­struc­tion. Peo­ple got angry when they cut trees, fences and crops.

WRR: What was the reac­tion of the gov­ern­ment?
RCG: The CFE removed the machin­ery from the peas­ants’ lands. The com­mu­ni­ty set up guard posts to ensure the CFE would not return. The CFE has not been able to re-enter these lands since 2003. The resis­tance was strength­ened by law­suits, which have sus­pend­ed the project until now.

The CFE tried oth­er tac­tics, pay­ing off gov­ern­ment offi­cials to try and expro­pri­ate the land. They con­vened fraud­u­lent assem­blies. When the farm­ers who were the own­ers of the lands tried to enter these assem­blies, the CFE imped­ed their entry with 1,500 police that repelled the farm­ers with tear gas. Instead, the CFE filled the meet­ings with peo­ple they brought from the cities who were not farm­ers, a move that was total­ly ille­gal.

WRR: Besides road blocks, what oth­er tac­tics have you used to fight the project?
RCG: Faced with these seri­ous vio­la­tions, the move­ment turned to the law. They asked the courts to nul­li­fy the assem­blies and after three years won a court order. In 2008, the CFE admit­ted that it could not begin work on the dam because it had not obtained the required per­mis­sions, and it had been defeat­ed in the courts.

Law­suits were also brought on envi­ron­men­tal grounds based upon CFE’s ille­gal defor­esta­tion and on crim­i­nal grounds based upon forged sig­na­tures used by CFE to legit­imize the fraud­u­lent assem­blies. Using the law has been one of the move­men­t’s strongest weapons, but the most impor­tant has been the strength and deter­mi­na­tion of the move­ment itself.

WRR: Has CECOP pre­sent­ed its case at an inter­na­tion­al lev­el?
RCG: We pre­sent­ed the case of La Paro­ta to the Unit­ed Nations Depart­ment of Eco­nom­ic and Social Affairs (DESA) through a peti­tion signed by 102 Mex­i­can orga­ni­za­tions. The DESA Com­mit­tee issued a rec­om­men­da­tion that the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment respect the deci­sions won by the farm­ers in the courts, that they respect their legit­i­mate prop­er­ty rights and that any deci­sion be based on a process of free, pri­or and informed con­sent by the farm­ers.

Oth­er UN offi­cials vis­it­ed the area and rec­og­nized the farm­ers’ rights to defend their land. They also con­firmed vio­la­tions of the rights of indige­nous peo­ples and the right to infor­ma­tion and con­sul­ta­tion.

WRR: How did farm­ers react when the Mex­i­can press report­ed that the gov­ern­ment is post­pon­ing La Paro­ta until 2018? Is this true?
RCG: We have received no offi­cial infor­ma­tion about this from the CFE. And, our demand is that the project be can­celled once and for all, not post­poned!

After deliv­er­ing a peti­tion to Pres­i­dent Calderón demand­ing a meet­ing with the CFE, we met with them on May 21, 2009. Our posi­tion is that La Paro­ta Dam in Guer­rero state, the Paso de la Rey­na Dam in Oax­a­ca, and the Arce­di­ano and El Zapotil­lo dams in Jalis­co must be can­celled, and that those dis­placed by El Cajón Dam in Nayarit must receive just com­pen­sa­tion.

To win, we will need uni­ty among diverse move­ments, begin­ning with dam-affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties. We must inte­grate our strug­gle with oth­ers suf­fer­ing from envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion in Mex­i­co and in oth­er coun­tries. And, we must strength­en the strug­gle for an alter­na­tive ener­gy pol­i­cy.

More infor­ma­tion:

Inter­na­tion­al Rivers’ La Paro­ta Cam­paign

Solidarity for Happy Valley in Tauranga

7 May 2009
Ban­ner Hung to High­light Cli­mate Crimes

Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis con­tin­ue to prof­it from coal min­ing in New Zealand despite their “mil­lion dol­lar” green­wash mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

Hap­py Val­ley is a pris­tene native wet­land near West­port, on the west coast of the South Island. Sol­id Ener­gy plan to extend their already mas­sive open-cast coal mine at Stock­ton into Hap­py Val­ley.

7 May 2009
Ban­ner Hung to High­light Cli­mate Crimes

Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis con­tin­ue to prof­it from coal min­ing in New Zealand despite their “mil­lion dol­lar” green­wash mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

Hap­py Val­ley is a pris­tene native wet­land near West­port, on the west coast of the South Island. Sol­id Ener­gy plan to extend their already mas­sive open-cast coal mine at Stock­ton into Hap­py Val­ley.

Two years ago a group of peo­ple con­cerned about cli­mate change and the native ecosys­tems set up an occu­pa­tion camp to pro­tect Hap­py Val­ley. On the 21st April this year the camp was forcibly removed by Sol­id Ener­gy.

Tau­ran­ga port is a key loca­tion for the traf­fick­ing of coal in and out of New Zealand by Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis. This ban­ner was hung on a mega bill­board (bear­ing a poignant mes­sage!) along a major road and rail­way used for trans­port­ing coal, in order to high­light the con­tin­ued cli­mate crimes com­mit­ted by Sol­id Ener­gy and Gen­e­sis in this time of glob­al and eco­log­i­cal emer­gency.

http://www.savehappyvalley.org.nz/

Anti-airport bomb hoaxer jailed

6th July 2009
An anti-air­port pro­test­er who sent a series of bomb hoax­es and threats to Gatwick Air­port in West Sus­sex over five-years has been jailed.

Gary Collins, from Craw­ley, took direct action against air­craft noise after suf­fer­ing from noise dis­tur­bance as a young child, Lewes Crown Court heard.

6th July 2009
An anti-air­port pro­test­er who sent a series of bomb hoax­es and threats to Gatwick Air­port in West Sus­sex over five-years has been jailed.

Gary Collins, from Craw­ley, took direct action against air­craft noise after suf­fer­ing from noise dis­tur­bance as a young child, Lewes Crown Court heard.

He admit­ted 34 counts of com­mu­ni­cat­ing false infor­ma­tion and three counts of send­ing hoax nox­ious sub­stances.

The 57-year-old was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Judge Michael Law­son QC told Collins he remained a dan­ger, and said: “Air­ports are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to that sort of attack because they are respon­si­ble for the safe­ty of thou­sands of peo­ple at any one time.

“There­fore, mem­bers of the staff, the police and oth­er enforce­ment agen­cies are respon­si­ble for inves­ti­gat­ing every one of those warn­ings.”

He added: “You, in your inter­view with the pro­ba­tion ser­vice, indi­cat­ed that it was delib­er­ate and that you were not sor­ry for what you had done.

“You were sor­ry that you got caught and that if you could do it again with­out being caught, you would.”

The court heard his cam­paign was car­ried out dur­ing the Lon­don ter­ror attacks in 2005, dur­ing height­ened secu­ri­ty at air­ports in 2006, and the attack at Glas­gow Air­port in 2007.

Pros­e­cut­ing, Dale Sul­li­van said his let­ters and pack­ages were sent marked as anthrax or bio­log­i­cal mate­r­i­al.

Oth­ers stat­ed there were bombs in air­craft toi­lets or build­ings.

‘Air­port fix­a­tion’

Mr Sul­li­van said: “The impact on [air­port oper­a­tor] BAA was a seri­ous one as they were not threats they could sim­ply brush off.”

Defence coun­sel Andrew Stephens said Collins had lit­tle to do with his fam­i­ly and had only ever had spo­radic peri­ods of employ­ment.

He said: “He fix­at­ed upon Gatwick Air­port. He suf­fers from noise, noise at Gatwick in par­tic­u­lar became too much for him to bear.

“He should have sought oth­er avenues, like peti­tion­ing his MP. He chose to take a direct stance.

“Although an extreme­ly long-stand­ing cam­paign, it was a naive and unso­phis­ti­cat­ed cam­paign.”

He added: “This is a 57-year-old man who has led a dif­fi­cult life, a life which from the very out­set has gone against him.”

After the hear­ing, Det Sgt Steve Lux­ford said the term reflect­ed “the sever­i­ty and poten­tial impact this had on the air­port”.

He said the threats con­tin­ued dur­ing a time of sig­nif­i­cant ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty.

“This was a long-run­ning cam­paign by an indi­vid­ual against the run­ning of Gatwick Air­port with an inten­tion to dis­rupt and ter­rorise peo­ple,” he added.

Mainshill Solidarity Camp Update: Final eviction notice issued, Lord Home investigated for fraud & tell Apex to stop drilling

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Updates:

The Camp was vis­it­ed by a Sher­iff Offi­cer today who issued occu­piers with a notice declar­ing that Scot­tish Coal and Dou­glas & Angus Estates have incurred sub­stan­tial finan­cial loss­es becuase of the occu­pa­tion, and that if occu­piers do not leave by 10:00am tomor­row (Tues­day 7th) morn­ing they will be removed by force.

Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Updates:

The Camp was vis­it­ed by a Sher­iff Offi­cer today who issued occu­piers with a notice declar­ing that Scot­tish Coal and Dou­glas & Angus Estates have incurred sub­stan­tial finan­cial loss­es becuase of the occu­pa­tion, and that if occu­piers do not leave by 10:00am tomor­row (Tues­day 7th) morn­ing they will be removed by force.

There is no indi­ca­tion as to when the evic­tion will begin, but the camp is prepar­ing for it to start tomor­row, so we are call­ing for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to come to the camp to defend it against any attempt by court bailiffs or police to evict the site!

Please join us, see http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/ for direc­tions.

The site is now well defend­ed and the camp and local com­mu­ni­ties are as deter­mined as ever that coal will not be mined here! Join us at the camp to build and dig, and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle against Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home. For direc­tions, reg­u­lar updates and more infor­ma­tion go to: mainshill.noflag.org.uk

We want democ­ra­cy, not cor­rupt aris­toc­ra­cy! Lord Home, the land own­er, is being inves­ti­gat­ed by the FBI and Scot­land Yard for fraud (http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/?p=542)

Tell Apex to stop drilling at Main­shill Wood (http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/?p=547)Net

Activists strike at Chorlton Tesco, Manchester

4.7.2009
Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Tesco is a virus4.7.2009
Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Those who graf­fi­tied the super­mar­ket say they did so because they are con­cerned about the effect of stores such as this on the local area. They are also angry about Tesco’s record on work­ers rights, both abroad and at home, and their mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

The new Tesco is prov­ing dam­ag­ing to small local busi­ness­es, many of which have been around for many decades. Far from increas­ing choice, the intro­duc­tion of Tesco has just added to Tesco’s stran­gle­hold and is push­ing out all of the area’s vari­ety and vital­i­ty.

Dan, one of those involved in last night’s activ­i­ty said, “It’s pret­ty hor­ri­fy­ing that 1 out of every 3 pounds spent on gro­ceries in Britain is spent in Tesco. This kind of uni­for­mi­ty is not what we want, it’s destroy­ing the vibran­cy of local com­mu­ni­ties.”

The planned open­ing of the Tesco was the sub­ject of much anger in the local area and kick-start­ed a cam­paign against its con­struc­tion called Keep Chorl­ton Inter­est­ing (It should be stressed that none of those involved in this cam­paign were respon­si­ble for this action). Despite oppo­si­tion from hun­dreds of local res­i­dents, inde­pen­dent retail­ers, coun­cil­lors and the local MP, the nation­al plan­ning inspec­torate over­turned the deci­sion by the Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to refuse the appli­ca­tion.

Tesco’s record on work­ers rights is shock­ing. War on Want, the anti-pover­ty char­i­ty, showed last year that work­ers in one of Tesco’s fac­to­ries in India were being payed £1.50 a day and forced to work 60 hour weeks.

Barak Oba­ma recent­ly weighed into the debate and attacked Tesco for refus­ing to allow work­ers to unionise in its stores in a let­ter to its boss Ter­ry Leahy.

On top of all this Tesco is a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change: its shops are ener­gy-inten­sive, food is flown in from thou­sands of miles away, and the com­pa­ny’s demand for prod­ucts like palm oil is destroy­ing vast tracts of the rain­for­est.

“Tesco will tram­ple on any­one or any­thing for a quick buck. All they care about is their prof­it mar­gins. Well, we say, it’s time we fought back and that’s just what we’ve start­ed to do here,” said activist, Dan.

The group say they will be will­ing to act in a sim­i­lar way in the future if it helps to high­light the true nature of Tesco. Man­ches­ter res­i­dents con­cerned about the pres­ence of a Tesco store in Chorl­ton cov­ered the shop in a hard hit­ting mes­sage to locals and the com­pa­ny late last night. They sprayed “Tesco is a virus” and “Tesco destroys places” in large let­ters across the front of the busi­ness.

Those who graf­fi­tied the super­mar­ket say they did so because they are con­cerned about the effect of stores such as this on the local area. They are also angry about Tesco’s record on work­ers rights, both abroad and at home, and their mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change.

The new Tesco is prov­ing dam­ag­ing to small local busi­ness­es, many of which have been around for many decades. Far from increas­ing choice, the intro­duc­tion of Tesco has just added to Tesco’s stran­gle­hold and is push­ing out all of the area’s vari­ety and vital­i­ty.

Dan, one of those involved in last night’s activ­i­ty said, “It’s pret­ty hor­ri­fy­ing that 1 out of every 3 pounds spent on gro­ceries in Britain is spent in Tesco. This kind of uni­for­mi­ty is not what we want, it’s destroy­ing the vibran­cy of local com­mu­ni­ties.”

The planned open­ing of the Tesco was the sub­ject of much anger in the local area and kick-start­ed a cam­paign against its con­struc­tion called Keep Chorl­ton Inter­est­ing (It should be stressed that none of those involved in this cam­paign were respon­si­ble for this action). Despite oppo­si­tion from hun­dreds of local res­i­dents, inde­pen­dent retail­ers, coun­cil­lors and the local MP, the nation­al plan­ning inspec­torate over­turned the deci­sion by the Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to refuse the appli­ca­tion.

Tesco’s record on work­ers rights is shock­ing. War on Want, the anti-pover­ty char­i­ty, showed last year that work­ers in one of Tesco’s fac­to­ries in India were being payed £1.50 a day and forced to work 60 hour weeks.

Barak Oba­ma recent­ly weighed into the debate and attacked Tesco for refus­ing to allow work­ers to unionise in its stores in a let­ter to its boss Ter­ry Leahy.

On top of all this Tesco is a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change: its shops are ener­gy-inten­sive, food is flown in from thou­sands of miles away, and the com­pa­ny’s demand for prod­ucts like palm oil is destroy­ing vast tracts of the rain­for­est.

“Tesco will tram­ple on any­one or any­thing for a quick buck. All they care about is their prof­it mar­gins. Well, we say, it’s time we fought back and that’s just what we’ve start­ed to do here,” said activist, Dan.

The group say they will be will­ing to act in a sim­i­lar way in the future if it helps to high­light the true nature of Tesco.

Rossport solidarity demo at Irish Embassy

2nd July 2009

2nd July 2009
Peo­ple gath­ered in Lon­don out­side the Irish Embassy at 1pm yes­ter­day to protest at the dra­con­ian jail­ing of 7 Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors in Co. Mayo, Ire­land. The 4 women and 2 men were arrest­ed on Sun­day June 28th for their part in the ongo­ing cam­paign against the con­struc­tion of the Shell Cor­rib gas pipeline in Erris, Mayo. They were remand­ed on Mon June 29th to appear at court this Fri­day, 3rd July at 10.30am. Those being held on remand were all charged with minor pub­lic order offences (sec­tion 6: breach of the peace, sec­tion 8: refus­ing instruc­tions of a guard and sec­tion 9: will­ful obstruc­tion of a high­way — 3 of them were arrest­ed for sim­ply walk­ing across the road). None of these offences would usu­al­ly result in some­one being put on remand. We are con­cerned that the treat­ment of the pro­tes­tors has been unjust for the fol­low­ing rea­sons;

- None of the pro­tes­tors had pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, yet they were refused nor­mal bail con­di­tions
— Judge Devins denied and/or deferred deci­sions on their kegal aid, although it was evi­dent that some of the pro­tes­tors are not able to afford their legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.
— Judge Devins has shown her dis­dain and bias against Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors. Send­ing peo­ple to jail whose first offence is to be arrest­ed for not obey­ing the direc­tions of a guard is ridicu­lous and unprece­dent­ed.

We deliv­ered a let­ter to the Irish Ambas­sador call­ing for him to ensure that the pro­tes­tors are treat­ed fair­ly, released from remand, and are allowed access to the legal aid to which they are enti­tled. It also express­es gen­er­al con­cerns regard­ing the recent treat­ment of pro­tes­tors by the Gar­dai and by the secu­ri­ty that Shell have employed have employed to pro­tect their gas project — Inte­grat­ed Risk Man­age­ment Ser­vices. I‑RMS have been con­tin­u­al­ly accused of using exces­sive force against the pro­tes­tors. The let­ter also calls for a fair and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the recent alle­ga­tions and for assur­ances that cam­paign­ers who are car­ry­ing out their demo­c­ra­t­ic right to protest are treat­ed fair­ly and their human rights upheld.

* The protest also hoped to raise aware­ness of events in Co. Mayo by hold­ing ban­ners and giv­ing out leaflets ask­ing peo­ple to sup­port the sev­en on remand, and to make their protest against the actions of Shell and the Irish Gov­ern­ment.

For fur­ther info­ma­tiona and updates: www.indymedia.ie and www.corribos.com
Email: info@corribos.com

Shell to Sea spokesper­sons: Ms Mau­ra Har­ring­ton (T.087 9591474) an Mr Ter­rence Con­way (T.086 0866264). Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp media co-ordi­na­tor: Mr Niall Har­nett (T. 086 8444966)

Palm Oil Gala Dinner & Dance pictures

The Cli­mate Rush held a Gala Din­ner and Dance out­side the Mil­len­ni­um Hotel in Grosvenor Square, May­fair, Lon­don last night (1 July 2009) as a protest against the defor­esta­tion of trop­i­cal forests to grow bio­fu­el crops.

Palm Oil protestThe Cli­mate Rush held a Gala Din­ner and Dance out­side the Mil­len­ni­um Hotel in Grosvenor Square, May­fair, Lon­don last night (1 July 2009) as a protest against the defor­esta­tion of trop­i­cal forests to grow bio­fu­el crops.

A jazz band played, and suf­fragettes and orang-utans danced in the street out­side the Mil­len­ni­um Hotel in May­fair as prof­i­teers from glob­al despo­li­a­tion were hav­ing their own par­ty inside.

Trop­i­cal forests are being felled, releas­ing vast amounts of car­bon diox­ide, to grow bio­fu­el crops such as palm oil. Glob­al cor­po­ra­tions are mak­ing huge prof­its, indige­nous peo­ples are ille­gal­ly forced off their land and wildlife in these areas is large­ly elim­i­nat­ed.

As the Cli­mate Rush fly­er states, “90% of orang­utans have dis­ap­peared since the Suf­fragettes first appeared 100 years ago.

The event start­ed with a pic­nic in the park, the gar­den of Grosvenor Square oppo­site the hotel. Then the jazz band began to play and peo­ple moved out onto half of the street, reject­ing the pen police had cre­at­ed “for your safe­ty”. Many demon­stra­tors waved and posed and shout­ed greet­ings to Neil, the police pho­tog­ra­ph­er who was pho­tograph­ing and film­ing the event.

After danc­ing on the street for around half an hour there was a “rush” across the street to the hotel door­way, which made lit­tle impres­sion on the row of police across its front. Many of the police seemed rather amused through­out the event, although there were one or two who slight­ly lost their tem­per in the rush itself, and at one point two peo­ple were rather rough­ly thrown to the ground by a small police charge. Nei­ther seemed bad­ly injured.

Fol­low­ing this, a num­ber of the demon­stra­tors sat down on the road for a while. Half of the police then with­drew and watched from around 100 yards down the road. Even­tu­al­ly peo­ple got up and briefly danced a con­ga, then decid­ed to go back into the park to con­tin­ue their pic­nic, and I went home for din­ner.

Palo Gordo does not want trash from San Marcos, Guatemala

Neigh­bours of Pajopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do don´t want trash from San Mar­cos any­more. From June 15th 2009 they have pre­vent the dis­charge of garbage in an ille­gal garbage dump in their com­mu­ni­ty by hav­ing a pacif­ic protest in front of the com­mu­ni­ty saloon. Adults, young peo­ple and even chil­dren had been rotat­ing since ear­ly in the morn­ing until the sun­set, in order to fight for their lives and a safe envi­ron­ment.

illegal dumpNeigh­bours of Pajopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do don´t want trash from San Mar­cos any­more. From June 15th 2009 they have pre­vent the dis­charge of garbage in an ille­gal garbage dump in their com­mu­ni­ty by hav­ing a pacif­ic protest in front of the com­mu­ni­ty saloon. Adults, young peo­ple and even chil­dren had been rotat­ing since ear­ly in the morn­ing until the sun­set, in order to fight for their lives and a safe envi­ron­ment.

In the after­noon on Fri­day, June 5, a group of neigh­bours rep­re­sent­ing Pojopom Vil­lage from Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do filed a com­plaint against the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ments of San Mar­cos and Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do, because of the ille­gal dump in their com­mu­ni­ty, in the assis­tance office of the Pub­lic Min­istry in the munic­i­pal head, San Mar­cos.
The neigh­bours decid­ed to use said means alter hav­ing exhaust­ed three years of dia­logu­ing with the may­or of San Mar­cos, Mr. Car­los Enrique Bar­rios Sach­er and the may­or of Esquip­u­las Palo Gor­do, Mr. Fran­cis­co Roge­lio San­doval. The talks, since Decem­ber 2008, were medi­at­ed by the San Mar­cos’ Human Rights Ombuds­man office. Thanks to the medi­a­tion process an agree­ment had been reached, but which was not act­ed upon by the may­ors, even though they were giv­en an exten­sion.

The com­mu­ni­ty spokesman declared, “We are not in agree­ment that the trash of anoth­er munic­i­pal­i­ty con­tin­ues con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing our land. We will defend the earth that belongs to every­one. We do not want to be accom­plices in the irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty of our igno­rant, lying and neg­li­gent offi­cials, who are paid with our tax mon­ey.”
Gra­cias al pron­to actu­ar de los fun­cionar­ios del Min­is­te­rio Pub­li­co se ele­vo la denun­cia a la Fis­calía de Deli­tos con­tra el Ambi­ente en la ciu­dad de Guatemala.

The offi­cials of the Pub­lic Min­istry brought the com­plaint to the Dis­trict Attor­ney of Crimes against the Envi­ron­ment in Guatemala City. An ocu­lar inspec­tion was request­ed to the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al resources, on Mon­day June 15th.
On Tues­day June 23 mem­bers of the Nation­al Civ­il Police, specif­i­cal­ly the Divi­sion for Envi­ron­ment Pro­tec­tion got to the place to inves­ti­gate about dam­aged hous­es, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed rivers and bad odours in the place, caused by the ille­gal dump.

Mean­while, the neigh­bors from Palo Gor­do had been pre­vent­ing more trash dis­charges in the men­tioned area.

Drax29 — climate activists on trial

Last June, 29 peo­ple stopped a train loaded with coal that was head­ing for Drax pow­er sta­tion. Today their tri­al began at Leeds Crown Court.

Drax 29 arrive at courtLast June, 29 peo­ple stopped a train loaded with coal that was head­ing for Drax pow­er sta­tion. Today their tri­al began at Leeds Crown Court.

Drax pow­er sta­tion is the largest sin­gle source of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions in the British Isles. There is over­whelm­ing evi­dence that car­bon diox­ide emis­sions are the cause of cli­mate change which is already caus­ing envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion across the globe [0]. Unless car­bon diox­ide emis­sions are mas­sive­ly and urgent­ly reduced, cli­mate chaos is like­ly to lead to an irre­versible col­lapse of the Earth­’s ecosys­tem.

Today emer­gency health warn­ings were being broad­cast about the lat­est poten­tial­ly fatal heat­wave to hit the UK [1].

The UK gov­ern­ment and pow­er indus­try have dragged their feet through­out efforts to bring emis­sions down to safe lev­els, or even to reduce their rate of growth. Despite decades of reas­sur­ances from gov­ern­ment and indus­try, the UK is pro­duc­ing more emis­sions now than ever. In the face of this glob­al emer­gency, it’s a source of great hope (per­haps our only hope) that a small but grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple are will­ing to take mat­ters into their own hands at great per­son­al risk.

The “Drax 29” are twen­ty-nine ordi­nary peo­ple who took direct action against the fos­sil fuel mad­ness last sum­mer. As was wide­ly-report­ed at the time [2] [3] [4] [5], they stopped a train-load of coal on its way to the pow­er sta­tion.

The defen­dants are unable to dis­cuss the bizarre stric­tures imposed on their defense until after the tri­al. They arrived by bicy­cle at Leeds Crown Court today. A large crowd gath­ered out­side to show their sup­port, with ban­ners say­ing, “Burn­ing coal is killing us,” “Stop­ping cli­mate change is not a crime,” and “Drax pow­er sta­tion kills 180 peo­ple per year.”

One of the peo­ple who came to show their sup­port said, “Direct action is the only option left, every­thing else has been tried and failed. What peo­ple need to under­stand is that this is an emer­gency.”

The tri­al is expect­ed to last up to two weeks.

[0] Unit­ed Nations’ Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change
http://www.ipcc.ch/

[1] NHS: Heat­wave amber alert
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Summerhealth/Pages/Heatwaveamberalert.aspx

[2] Leave it in the Ground: Drax Coal Train Halt­ed
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2008/06/401022.html

[3] Pic­tures from Drax train action
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/leedsbradford/2008/06/401011.html

[4] Guardian: Cli­mate change pro­test­ers hijack coal train
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/13/activists.climatechange

[5] BBC: Cli­mate protest halts coal train
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/7452395.stm

Call-out for support: Mainshill Solidarity Camp eviction granted!

Come resist Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home, and defend com­mu­ni­ties and the cli­mate!

Come resist Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home, and defend com­mu­ni­ties and the cli­mate!Net
Come visit!

In a far­ci­cal court hear­ing this morn­ing in Lanark Sher­iff Court the evic­tion order brought by Lord Home, the landown­er (and chief exec of RBS pri­vate bank­ing firm) and Scot­tish Coal, the UK’s largest open cast pro­duc­er against the occu­piers at Main­shill Wood was grant­ed. Despite hav­ing just two work­ing days to seek legal advice and work on a defence the Sher­iff refused to allow the occu­piers more time.

The evic­tion order comes into effect imme­di­ate­ly owing to the “vast costs being incurred” by the con­tract drilling work being pre­vent­ed at the site by campers, accord­ing to Lord Home­’s solic­i­tors.

The Chair­per­son of Dou­glas and Gle­spin Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil had pre­pared a state­ment to present to the court in sup­port of the occu­piers and rais­ing seri­ous con­cerns about the timescale of the evic­tion order. The Sher­iff, how­ev­er, would not even allow the state­ment to be heard, say­ing only: “Giv­en that you’re a lay per­son, I’ll cast my eyes over it”.

Tracey Mitchell from Dou­glas said of the pro­ceed­ings: “It was damned ridicu­lous and mon­ey talks”. John Brozy, a for­mer min­er and for­mer jus­tice of the peace also from Dou­glas said: “the occu­piers have giv­en us new heart and made locals under­stand that they’re not alone”.

The Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is deter­mined to stop this coal mine from going ahead. We knew all along that this would be Lord Home­’s response – not engag­ing with us or the com­mu­ni­ty, but using his mon­ey and court bailiffs to remove us with­out get­ting his hands dirty. We will not go until we are force­ful­ly removed or until we have won.

Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home are on the back foot – the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has brought a huge amount of atten­tion to what they’re doing in South Lanark­shire, and what they’ve been get­ting way with for years. The com­mu­ni­ty is fired up and even more deter­mined to stop this project. We can win this! The last thing Scot­tish Coal and Lord Home need is an expen­sive and drawn-out evic­tion – what we need is for as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to join us and come to the camp.

The site is beau­ti­ful, full of wildlife and well defend­ed, with unprece­dent­ed lev­els of com­mu­ni­ty sup­port. This is the front line in the strug­gle against new coal and for com­mu­ni­ty self-deter­mi­na­tion over the inter­ests of big busi­ness and wealthy land own­ers.

Join us! See http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk for infor­ma­tion about the camp and how to get here, and http://coalactionedinburgh.noflag.org.uk/ for reg­u­lar updates.
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