Local residents protest at Lodge Farm open cast site

At noon on Sat­ur­day 1st Novem­ber, around 40 peo­ple braved rain and cold winds to protest out­side the new open cast min­ing site at Lodge Farm, in Smal­l­ey Der­byshire.

Lodge House residents' demo 1Lodge House residents' demo 4

At noon on Sat­ur­day 1st Novem­ber, around 40 peo­ple braved rain and cold winds to protest out­side the new open cast min­ing site at Lodge Farm, in Smal­l­ey Der­byshire.

UK Coal, which owns the site, plans to extract one mil­lion tonnes of coal from the 300 acre site over the next four years.

From the out­set, UK Coal’s plans were opposed by local res­i­dents, sev­er­al MPs and Amber Val­ley dis­trict coun­cil, and Der­byshire Coun­ty Coun­cil refused plan­ning per­mis­sion for the open cast site. How­ev­er UK Coal appealed the deci­sion and fol­low­ing an appeal hear­ing, com­mu­ni­ties sec­re­tary Ruth Kel­ly over­rode ordi­nary people’s con­cerns in favour of UK Coal’s inter­ests and agreed that the scheme could go ahead.

Saturday’s protest was organ­ised by Ere­wash and Amber Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Net­work, EAVON, and was just the lat­est in a long series of protests and direct actions by peo­ple con­cerned at the local and glob­al effects of coal.

Speak­ing to the Ilke­ston Adver­tis­er, pri­or to the protest, Neil Pad­get, from The Smal­l­ey Action Group, said: “Open­cast min­ing at Lodge House is bad enough, and the nation­al prece­dent that has been set by the gov­ern­ment, in allow­ing this, is appalling.

Many locals also fear, and with good rea­son, that UK Coal will be giv­en per­mis­sion to extend the site, and that min­ing in the local area may go on for decades.”

While there are jus­ti­fi­able fears for the impact on the local com­mu­ni­ty, many of Saturday’s plac­ards demon­strat­ed that pro­test­ers were equal­ly con­cerned with the wider effects on cli­mate chaos of coal burn­ing.

Grass Roots Gathering in Cork in November

The next Grass Roots Gath­er­ing will take place in Cork on the week­end of the 14th, 15th and 16th of Novem­ber.

Grassroots Gathering Cork posterThe next Grass Roots Gath­er­ing will take place in Cork on the week­end of the 14th, 15th and 16th of Novem­ber.

This Gath­er­ing will have the twin themes of Inclu­sion and Com­mu­ni­ty Build­ing — Sur­viv­ing the ’ Reces­sion’ . Dur­ing the ear­ly plan­ning stages we spent some time think­ing about who comes to these gath­er­ings and how we could encour­age and enable more diverse par­tic­i­pa­tion, espe­cial­ly for peo­ple who have found it dif­fi­cult to attend pre­vi­ous gath­er­ings. To facil­i­tate this we are hold­ing the event in city cen­tre venues with full acces­si­bil­i­ty, mak­ing it child, par­ent, teenag­er and elder friend­ly and ask­ing as many groups and com­mu­ni­ties as pos­si­ble what we need to do to make them feel wel­come ( Basi­cal­ly try­ing to let go of think­ing that we have all the answers and doing a bit more lis­ten­ing ! ) If you are plan­ning on attend­ing we hope you will try step­ping out­side your com­fort zone and invite or enable a friend you may not have approached due to shy­ness or stereo­typ­ing to join you.

Work­shops, activ­i­ties and events being planned so far include : The present legal sit­u­a­tion for les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al and trans-gen­der peo­ple, Trav­ellers and set­tled peo­ple work­ing togeth­er, Telling sto­ries, shar­ing expe­ri­ence look­ing at exclu­sion. Hous­ing coops, food secu­ri­ty, tack­ling racism in times of unem­ploy­ment, repro­duc­tive rights, wom­en’s right to choose, con­flict res­o­lu­tion, social cen­tres, recent expe­ri­ence, L.E.T.S. , reclaim­ing our nat­ur­al resources, ener­gy secu­ri­ty,

+ Film show­ings, crimes of the built envi­ron­ment, swap shop, cre­ative cor­ner, activist well being, art activism, wel­com­ing area for peo­ple drop­ping by and the shy among us, and dis­plays by var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty groups and cam­paigns. Also expect some sur­pris­es we want to keep peo­ple awake at this gath­er­ing !

On Sat­ur­day night there will be a tra­di­tion­al Cork cabaret. We are invit­ing some clas­sic local acts but leav­ing plen­ty of time free to show case your tal­ents so come pre­pared ! music , dance , poet­ry , inter­ven­tions , com­e­dy ‚read­ings , cir­cus or what­ev­er you fan­cy all wel­come.

–

I’m organ­is­ing accom­mo­da­tion for peo­ple who are com­ing to the Grass­roots Gath­er­ing 14th 15th and 16th Novem­ber, Cork City, so if any­one in Cork can put peo­ple up for the week­end, or any­one trav­el­ling to Cork needs accom­mo­da­tion please email me at:
tracywall@email.com
or text me on:
085 7560078

–

Email address for get­ting in touch with gg organ­is­ing group as fol­lows:
ggcork08@gmail.com

NPA rebels to continue anti-biofuels campaign

The com­mu­nist New Peo­ple’s Army (NPA) in Negros vowed Sat­ur­day to sus­tain its cam­paign against bio­fu­els and to raid plan­ta­tions ded­i­cat­ed to jathropa, a source of bio­fu­el.

NPA South­east­ern Negros spokesman Dom Pan­ta­le­on said the NPA will imple­ment more “pre­ven­tive mea­sures” against pri­vate agri-busi­ness cor­po­ra­tions for aggra­vat­ing food sup­ply prob­lem by plant­i­ng non-food crops.

The com­mu­nist New Peo­ple’s Army (NPA) in Negros vowed Sat­ur­day to sus­tain its cam­paign against bio­fu­els and to raid plan­ta­tions ded­i­cat­ed to jathropa, a source of bio­fu­el.

NPA South­east­ern Negros spokesman Dom Pan­ta­le­on said the NPA will imple­ment more “pre­ven­tive mea­sures” against pri­vate agri-busi­ness cor­po­ra­tions for aggra­vat­ing food sup­ply prob­lem by plant­i­ng non-food crops.

In an arti­cle on the Com­mu­nist Par­ty of the Philip­pines web­site, he cit­ed the Tam­lang Val­ley Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (TVADC) as caus­ing wors­en­ing food sup­ply prob­lem and height­en­ing mil­i­tary abus­es in south­east Negros.

He said the NPA recent­ly con­duct­ed anoth­er “puni­tive action” against the TVADC bio­fu­els com­pa­ny main­ly based in the vil­lage of Casalaan, Sia­ton, Ori­en­tal Negros.

Pan­ta­le­on said an NPA team last Oct. 3 was ordered to con­fis­cate and burn two TVADC-owned trac­tors in Sitio Tam­lang, Talalak vil­lage in Sta. Catali­na town.

No one was harmed in the inci­dent, he added.

“It was the sec­ond such oper­a­tion in as many months by the Red army to pro­tect upland peas­ants from the intru­sive and harm­ful bio­fu­els com­pa­ny co-owned by the fam­i­ly of ex-Con­gress­man Her­minio Teves and their Kore­an busi­ness part­ners. Last Sep­tem­ber 9, a sep­a­rate NPA team seized and burned three trac­tors owned by the same com­pa­ny in sityo Cuadra, barangay Man­tik­il, in Sta. Catali­na town,” the NPA said.

Pan­ta­le­on added the NPA will con­tin­ue imple­ment­ing sim­i­lar orders for puni­tive actions to block the wide­spread grow­ing of jathropa and cas­sa­va in and around the vast Sta. Catali­na-Sia­ton-Valen­cia-Pam­plona bor­der vil­lages of Ori­en­tal Negros.

He said the NPA will also impose armed puni­tive actions against the Army’s 302nd Brigade for “pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tion and even col­lud­ing with TVADC in forc­ing ordi­nary farm­ers to plant jatrhopa and cas­sa­va, instead of their tra­di­tion­al food crops like upland rice and corn.”

Pan­ta­le­on said the mer­ce­nary AFP has become the bio­fu­els cam­paign’s most vis­i­ble “errand boys” for the agri-busi­ness com­pa­ny and the Teves fam­i­ly in south­east Negros.

============

For pre­vi­ous NPA protest against bio­fu­els in the Philip­pines, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21752

Fighting Climate Crime — Activists Lock Down Logging for Dairy Operation in New Zealand

29 Octo­ber 2008
Ear­ly this morn­ing Green­peace activists took action to stop cor­po­rate dairy’s assault on New Zealand forests and the cli­mate.

In the cen­tral North Island huge swathes of for­est are being cleared to make way for indus­tri­al dairy mega farms.

Dairy logging NZ lock-on29 Octo­ber 2008
Ear­ly this morn­ing Green­peace activists took action to stop cor­po­rate dairy’s assault on New Zealand forests and the cli­mate.

In the cen­tral North Island huge swathes of for­est are being cleared to make way for indus­tri­al dairy mega farms.

Well before dawn this morn­ing, in the for­est near Toko­roa, sev­er­al activists halt­ed the sharp end of the log­ging oper­a­tion by lock­ing them­selves to heavy equip­ment.

Mean­while, on near­by land recent­ly con­vert­ed from for­est to dairy pas­ture, anoth­er team have used rotary hoes to write CLIMATE CRIME in 5m-high let­ters into the fresh pas­ture.

We are call­ing for the main polit­i­cal par­ties to com­mit to an imme­di­ate halt to for­est con­ver­sion for inten­sive dairy in the face of the wors­en­ing glob­al cli­mate cri­sis.

New Zealand’s agri­cul­ture sec­tor already emits 50 per cent of our green­house gas emis­sions — more than dou­ble the emis­sions of all trans­port com­bined. Defor­esta­tion releas­es huge amounts of green­house gas. We esti­mate that annu­al emis­sions from the two largest cor­po­rate con­ver­sion projects in the Cen­tral North Island alone equate to the annu­al emis­sions from the Hunt­ly coal fired pow­er sta­tion.

Forests trap car­bon beneath the soil and in trees. Like a sponge, they soak up car­bon diox­ide gas from the atmos­phere — the main green­house gas con­tribut­ing to cli­mate change.

Dairy con­ver­sion of forestry land func­tions as a ‘dou­ble wham­my’ on the cli­mate destroy­ing forests and replac­ing them with one of the most green­house gas inten­sive forms of land use.

This chain­saw mas­sacre and the ongo­ing expan­sion of cor­po­rate, inten­sive dairy farm­ing in New Zealand has got to stop.

The press release and relat­ed doc­u­ments are here
NZ MP dairy conversion
UPDATE: The, the fol­low­ing day as the sun rose over sleepy Helensville, we unfurled a truck­load of Ready-Lawn around the out­side of Nation­al Par­ty leader John Key’s elec­torate office. Then came some pine trees, some two-dimen­sion­al cows and a smat­ter­ing of stumps. Final­ly a bill­board went up say­ing: “Would John solve this cli­mate crime?” See the video and blog.

When you threaten One you threaten All: Eviction Succesfully Resisted in Bristol

An attempt­ed ille­gal evic­tion occurred this after­noon at Uni­ty Home, num­ber 87 Ash­ley Road, St Pauls, Bris­tol. IT WAS RESISTED

Unity Home eviction resistance 1Unity Home eviction resistance 2Unity Home eviction resistance 3An attempt­ed ille­gal evic­tion occurred this after­noon at Uni­ty Home, num­ber 87 Ash­ley Road, St Pauls, Bris­tol. IT WAS RESISTED

Own­er­ship of the house is claimed by Places for Peo­ple, Britain’s largest hous­ing asso­ci­a­tion. Its chief exec­u­tive, David Cow­ans, topped the list of rich­est “social” hous­ing providers with a salary of £257,928 in 2007 (Every sin­gle pen­ny on the backs of the poor). Instead of pro­vid­ing ade­quate social hous­ing they work for cor­po­rate gain and through spec­u­la­tion with our mon­ey are feel­ing the pinch of the prop­er­ty mar­ket crash. This is a social hous­ing provider play­ing with pub­lic mon­ey.

Num­ber 87 is actu­al­ly owned by Places for People’s char­i­ta­ble arm (Places for Peo­ple Indi­vid­ual Sup­port), which is sup­posed to pro­vide hous­ing for home­less and the elder­ly. They plan to turn the major­i­ty of the house into pri­vate owned apart­ments. It cur­rent­ly is hous­ing 20+ peo­ple.

It has been emp­ty for over 3 years and squat­ted by a large num­ber of oth­er­wise home­less peo­ple since April 2008.

At 12.00pm today (28 Oct 2008), bailiffs act­ing for Places for Peo­ple arrived – short­ly to be accom­pa­nied by the police – demand­ing that the res­i­dents be out by 12.30pm. They claimed paper­work had been sent through to the occu­pants, but in fact no notice of evic­tion had come through. This was an ille­gal attempt at mak­ing peo­ple home­less and was answered with sol­i­dar­i­ty.

A crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple began to build in response to those resist­ing the ille­gal evic­tion and by about 1.30pm there were between 30–50 peo­ple out­side the gates on Ash­ley Road, with many many more inside, ready to resist what the bailiffs and police were prepar­ing.

Peo­ple took to the roof, occu­pied spaces in win­dows, defend­ed the doors – for­ti­fy­ing the build­ing. A ban­ner was dropped explain­ing: WHEN YOU THREATEN ONE YOU THREATEN ALL – for the defence of squats and autonomous spaces. Against com­pa­nies like Places for Peo­ple – Britain’s most com­mer­cialised, cor­rupt land­lord.

A stand off ensued and even­tu­al­ly by around 2.00pm the bailiffs and police depart­ed the scene. A beau­ti­ful vic­to­ry for sol­i­dar­i­ty in resist­ing the cor­po­rate takeover of our city.

This evic­tion threat is immi­nent and all sup­port is need­ed.

The res­i­dents of the build­ing have made repeat­ed attempts to nego­ti­ate a set­tle­ment with P4P but com­mer­cial gain seems their only aim. The res­i­dents ask all those who believe in hous­ing for all and the stand against gen­tri­fi­ca­tion to join them.

Squat­ters and res­i­dents togeth­er against cor­rupt land­lords!

Greece and the growing re-appropriation attacks against Super Markets

Attacks in Cap­i­tal cir­cu­la­tion and rev­enue
Greece and the grow­ing re-appro­pri­a­tion attacks against Super Mar­kets

Greek supermarket re-distributionAttacks in Cap­i­tal cir­cu­la­tion and rev­enue
Greece and the grow­ing re-appro­pri­a­tion attacks against Super Mar­kets

Τhe sat­ur­day of May 31st 2008 was a beau­ti­ful day for the greek move­ment of insur­rec­tion. One action organ­ised by a small group of com­rades caused a frac­ture in the greek social process. On the last days a big debate was goin’ on in the streets, in the work­ing places, cafes, hous­es and ‑in appear­ance only- on the tv screen. Basic prod­ucts (milk,rice etc.) were becom­ing more and more expen­sive, a process which start­ed since the intro­duc­tion of the Euro cur­ren­cy, Jan­u­ary 2002 and by the last months prices kept rais­ing steeply. Peo­ples’ resent­ment con­ce­trat­ed dur­ing all these years of price stag­na­tion, was so big that although gross­ly medi­at­ed by the TV news, forced final­ly the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce mea­sures that were , sup­posed , to con­trol the ris­ing of the prices, but whose actu­al tar­get was to calm peo­ples anger down. (It is inter­est­ing to add that infla­tion rate was steady and did not rise, prob­a­bly because of “cre­ative” tricks due to Eu rules that oblige mem­ber-states to keep a low infla­tion rate)

Super Mar­ket brand own­ers were prof­i­teer­ing in a real­ly high grade in expense of the peo­ples pock­ets and the actu­al resis­tance and pres­sure was rather low. Con­sumer unions, some news­pa­per arti­cles, calls for low­er­ing the prices, one day boy­cotts. But what to do?People are depen­dent from big Super Mar­kets that con­trol most of the food mar­ket and wages in Greece are rather low for eu stan­dards (Pen­sions are worse) and prices were among the high­er in EU. Old peo­ple, low income and the unem­ployed were affect­ed most but we can say that almost all work­ing class peo­ple and even low­er mid­dle class (petit bour­geois) were hav­ing a hard time to get around . So the gov­ern­ment announces on the 28 of May “41 mea­sures against price stag­na­tion”.

True is the politi­cians did not real­ly cared. “So what are they going to do,anyway?”. Oppo­si­tion par­ties do noth­ing but talk, and peo­ple rely on the media “appar­ent” oppo­si­tion. But it is in these times were noth­ing seem to hap­pen, when the forces of insur­rec­tion that are exor­cised to stay away from the fight, make their sud­den and unex­pect­ed appear­ance in the scene. And noth­ing is the same as before..

On Sat­ur­day May 31st 2008 a group of com­rades, wear­ing their masks entered a big Super Mar­ket in the city cen­ter of Athens, re-appro­pri­at­ed prod­ucts, car­ried them to a street fruit-mar­ket near­by (most­ly old and low­er-income peo­ple go there) and dis­trib­uted the prod­ucts to them. Oil, cheese, milk, detergents,shampoos … The action met great cor­re­spon­dence from the peo­ple. Clap­ping applaus­es, excla­ma­tions, whis­tles. The prod­ucts dis­ap­peared with­in sec­onds. The man­i­festo of the action said : “The game is set. We don’t want to be a part of this fake game, with the gov­ern­ments’ com­mu­ni­ca­tion tricks, the oppo­si­tions’ abstract talk­ing about some “bad” peo­ple mak­ing prof­it and the shit of the media. We put into prac­tice our own mea­sures against price stag­na­tion. Re-appro­pri­a­tion now. Every­thing is stolen from us, Every­thing belongs to us… That was it…

The attacks start to spread wide­ly. In June three more actions against Super Mar­kets took place in Athens. One more in July. Then came the sum­mer (move­ments have hol­i­days?) and on Sep­tem­ber actions start­ed again. Two hap­pened in Thes­sa­loni­ki , the sec­ond biggest city in Greece. One attack was planned on the day when the Prime Min­is­ter tra­di­tion­al­ly address­es the nation , from the Inter­na­tion­al Expo of Thes­sa­loni­ki and speaks about the gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of the year to come. Last week three such actions took place (15,16,18 Octo­ber). In most of the attacks prod­ucts are dis­trib­uted among peo­ple in street mar­kets, to peo­ple pass­ing-by and on one action the loot was left on a cen­tral Athens square where many immi­grants live and at the exits of the metro sta­tion there.
These actions are real­ly pop­u­lar among peo­ple. It would not be an exag­ger­a­tion to say that peo­ple wish every time they go to a street mar­ket for an action like that to take place. Media can’t hide the facts , but try to dis­tort them. They like to call us “Robin Hoods”. We are not at all “Robin Hoods”, it is not about char­i­ty. The issue at stake here is the dif­fu­sion of such “ille­gal” prac­tices among the soci­ety, so that oth­er social groups adopt such prac­tices to defend social auton­o­my and inter­ests. To debunk the nor­mal­i­ty that orders “Work-Buy-Pay-Sleep-Shut Up”. To make peo­ple col­lab­o­ra­tors in “ille­gal” attacks against cap­i­tal­ist order. To pro­mote Mutu­al Aid.

The Police is real­ly con­fused. Cashiers have a short work-break. Super Mar­ket own­ers feel anx­ious about the sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple have fun.

So what about us Com­rades. In Balka­ns, East and West Europe, States, Latin Amer­i­ca, Ocea­nia, every­where? Can we plan some­thing? What are we wait­ing for? Cap­i­tal­ist cri­sis is already here and we are the ones to pay again for the fuck­ing banks and their tricks. The plan is sim­ple, believe us. Two douzins of com­rades, masks , sun­glass­es, an appoint­ment. You con­verge sud­den­ly and you attack. Some peo­ple watch­ing, some oth­ers fill­ing the trol­leys, every­body dis­trib­ut­ing them. It is sim­ple, it is direct, dan­ger­ous for the ene­my and real­ly amuz­ing. We wish you nice actions and lot of suc­cess.

Make Plans
Be Ready

Rampart — police break down door

28 Octo­ber 2008
A small num­ber of police broke down the front door and entered the Ram­part today. They searched peo­ple for drugs and pho­tographed them as well as the bar­ri­cades and the build­ing itself. They explained their actions say­ing that it is because the area is a high-risk drugs area. This is unfor­tu­nate­ly true of the street but we are con­cerned that this may be relat­ed to our evic­tion as well. They entered the Ram­part with­out a war­rant and then left after they had pho­tographed. This was NOT an evic­tion attempt.

28 Octo­ber 2008
A small num­ber of police broke down the front door and entered the Ram­part today. They searched peo­ple for drugs and pho­tographed them as well as the bar­ri­cades and the build­ing itself. They explained their actions say­ing that it is because the area is a high-risk drugs area. This is unfor­tu­nate­ly true of the street but we are con­cerned that this may be relat­ed to our evic­tion as well. They entered the Ram­part with­out a war­rant and then left after they had pho­tographed. This was NOT an evic­tion attempt.

Dif­fi­cult right now to say what it means in rela­tion to an evic­tion, but on the side of cau­tion, we are ask­ing peo­ple to come to the Ram­part tonight (Tues 28th) to stay over to defend the build­ing and help with bar­ri­cades for what might be an ear­ly morn­ing evic­tion. We will also need peo­ple to assist out­side if the time comes so send us your mobile num­ber to be informed. There will be a hearty break­fast for the brave.

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28th octo­ber 2008, lon­don, whitechapel, lunchtime:

the police unex­pect­ed­ly intrud­ed the ram­pART social cen­tre in their lunchtime. they must have been starv­ing, because they felt like break­ing the doors. we won­der if it was appetite, that made them force their way in, or curios­i­ty, to see the progress of our efforts to bar­ri­cade the ram­pART. still, we art not amused of offi­cers on the scrounge…

… although we are gen­er­al­ly open for peo­ple to come by to wine and dine with us, but we’d like to invite peo­ple to knock on the doors, rather than knock­ing them down. and we don’t sup­port glut­tony of greedy devel­op­pers, grop­ing hous­es to con­vert them to lux­u­ry flats, because they want to bite more than they can chew…

… as you might know, the ram­pART is under threat of imma­nent evic­tion, so these three cop­pers might have been the van­guard of the 80 riot cops that are expect­ed to come by with the high court bailiffs to evict the space. so we are think­ing how many peo­ple we will have to cater for break­fast. need­less to say, we’d pre­fer to pam­per our friends and sup­port­ers. so feel wel­come to join the feast & fight the beast and defend your favourite social cen­tre…

please con­tact us via email: rampart@mutualaid.org or phone: 07852657501

48hrs of Action against E.ON and New Coal

Fri­day 28th and Sat­ur­day 29th Novem­ber 2008

The UK Gov­ern­ment is call­ing for an 80% reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions by 2050, we are call­ing for 48 hours of action against E.ON and new coal NOW.

E.on F.off logoFri­day 28th and Sat­ur­day 29th Novem­ber 2008

The UK Gov­ern­ment is call­ing for an 80% reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions by 2050, we are call­ing for 48 hours of action against E.ON and new coal NOW.

It’s easy enough to set a tar­get that’s 42 years away, but we don’t stand a rapid­ly melt­ing snow­bal­l’s chance of achiev­ing it if the gov­ern­ment give the green light to new coal fired pow­er sta­tions (7 are in the plan­ning stages, with E.ON’s new Kingsnorth being first up) and keep dish­ing out sub­si­dies to new coal mines. Coal is the dirt­i­est fuel there is, so while the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues with busi­ness-as-usu­al through the last 100 months we have to make a dif­fer­ence on cli­mate change, we call for 48 hours of action against new coal – now!

Join us in say­ing ‘No to New Coal’: get your friends togeth­er and plan an action for your area. Go stick­er­ing, blockad­ing, serv­ing direct action warn­ing notices at sup­ply chain premis­es, organ­ise an aware­ness rais­ing talk, hang a ban­ner, get cre­ative on the streets, the options are end­less. Get togeth­er, get cre­ative, and plan an action!

On Fri­day you could vis­it the Coal Author­i­ty, E.ON offices, UK Coal offices or Glob­al Coal Man­age­ment offices, to name but a few. Or take aim at their investors or parts of their sup­ply chain. On the Sat­ur­day you could take action at 2nd round FA Cup match­es spon­sored by E.ON. Togeth­er, we’ll raise aware­ness about killer coal, and we’ll say loud and clear that we won’t stand for new coal — at Kingsnorth or any­where else.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it — http://www.e‑onf-off.org.uk/ — where a list of poten­tial tar­gets, action ideas and plen­ty of resources will fol­low short­ly.

This day of action is sup­port­ed by The Camp for Cli­mate Action, Ris­ing Tide, Plane Stu­pid and Cam­paign against Cli­mate Change.

Paraguan resistance to GM soya plantings — evictions & violence

28 Octo­ber 2008
Peas­ant organ­i­sa­tions are resist­ing against the begin­ning of the GM soya sea­son all over the coun­try of Paraguay. They demand access to land, land reform and the stop of the pes­ti­cide spray­ing which impacts on their com­mu­ni­ties. Despite the new gov­ern­ment, many camps have been evict­ed and vio­lence has tak­en place: 2 lead­ers have been mur­dered and hun­dreds of peas­ants have been arrest­ed. Please sign the let­ter below to put pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment and put a stop to vio­lence!

San Marco eviction28 Octo­ber 2008
Peas­ant organ­i­sa­tions are resist­ing against the begin­ning of the GM soya sea­son all over the coun­try of Paraguay. They demand access to land, land reform and the stop of the pes­ti­cide spray­ing which impacts on their com­mu­ni­ties. Despite the new gov­ern­ment, many camps have been evict­ed and vio­lence has tak­en place: 2 lead­ers have been mur­dered and hun­dreds of peas­ants have been arrest­ed. Please sign the let­ter below to put pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment and put a stop to vio­lence!

San Mar­co evic­tion & video­clip show­ing what hap­pened when a large group of campesinos halt­ed fumi­ga­tion trac­tors of Brazil­ian soy pro­duc­ers. Paraguay, com­mu­ni­ty of Yvypé all at http://www.lasojamata.org/en/node/230

In Paraguay, GM soya mono­cul­tures are today the main cause of defor­esta­tion, the destruc­tion and pol­lu­tion of oth­er ecosys­tems, of vio­lence and the evic­tion of small farm­ers and indige­nous peo­ples. Paraguay has near­ly 2,6 mil­lion hectares of soy plan­ta­tions for ani­mal feed exports and, more recent­ly, for agro­fu­el. A jour­nal­ist who vis­it­ed the coun­try in 2007 described the impact of soya mono­cul­tures as fol­lows:
“Rur­al east­ern Paraguay used to be full of jun­gle, small farms, schools and wildlife. Now it is a green sea of soy­beans. The fam­i­lies, trees and birds are gone. The schools are emp­ty. The air is filled with the tox­ic stench of the pes­ti­cides like paraquat and 2,4‑D used to pro­tect the soy crops” [http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3093].

The rem­nants of Paraguay’s Atlantic For­est and of the Alto Parana for­est, as well as wet­lands, grass­lands and rivers are being destroyed and pol­lut­ed by the expan­sion of immense RR soya fields. Defor­esta­tion is wors­en­ing glob­al warm­ing and also caus­ing severe region­al warm­ing and droughts. It has con­tributed to the worst fire sea­son ever record­ed in Paraguay last year, and prob­a­bly to the severe drought which is cur­rent­ly affect­ing the south of the coun­try. More than 100,000 small peas­ant fam­i­lies have been evict­ed for soya plan­ta­tions and over 100 peas­ant lead­ers have been mur­dered since the late 1990s in con­flicts over access to land. Agro-chem­i­cal (glyphosate, 2,4D, and oth­ers) spray­ing of soya plan­ta­tions severe­ly affects the health of peo­ple liv­ing in soy region, in some cas­es lead­ing even to deaths, and also destroys people´s food crops. Hunger and mal­nu­tri­tion are increas­ing as less and less land is avail­able to farm­ers for grow­ing food.

In August this year, a new gov­ern­ment took office and the new pres­i­dent, Fer­nan­do Lugo, promised to sup­port small farm­ers against pes­ti­cide poi­son­ing and soya expan­sion. How­ev­er, the gov­ern­ment has giv­en con­flict­ing sig­nals by also sup­port­ing increased soya exports at the same time. Also, the police and juridi­cal forces have been sup­port­ing soya busi­ness­es in sup­press­ing the peas­ant move­ment in their fight against pes­ti­cide spray­ing and the expan­sion of soy mono­cul­tures.

This month, at the start of the new soya plant­i­ng sea­son, small farm­ers’ organ­i­sa­tions have mobilised to stop pes­ti­cide spray­ing and to pro­tect peas­ant agri­cul­ture and the envi­ron­ment against fur­ther destruc­tion. They have set up around 130 law­ful camps at the mar­gins of soya ‘lat­i­fun­dios’ (large estates). In recent weeks, they have been increas­ing­ly sub­ject­ed to vio­lence, with two mur­ders of peas­ant lead­ers, unlaw­ful arrests and deten­tions. Also, var­i­ous camps have been vio­lent­ly evict­ed, with use of increas­ing num­bers of para­mil­i­taries. Many peas­ant lead­ers are receiv­ing death threats. The civ­il secu­ri­ty guards that for­mer gov­ern­ment organ­ised ‘Comi­sion Gar­rote’ are the main actors behind this threats.

The ten­den­cy seems to be that the vio­lence and repres­sion against the peas­ant move­ment will inten­si­fy. For many in the move­ment, this year is their last chance to stop soya expan­sion and to pro­tect what remains of Paraguays’ forests and wet­lands, sus­tain­able peas­ant agri­cul­ture, and small farm­ers and indige­nous people?s future.

Please write to the author­i­ties in Paraguay and urge them to ful­ly sup­port small farm­ers and their demands for pro­tec­tion from pes­ti­cide spray­ing, from evic­tions, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and pol­lu­tion, for food sov­er­eign­ty and land reform.

See last action report — farms occu­pied — at http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21753/

See also:
Video about the 2 evic­tions in Alto Parana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYEBsk0jtG4
Video about the camp against the pes­ti­cide spray­ing in Caaguazú
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4xnXaZGjS8
Peas­ant com­mu­ni­ty in San Pedro against the pes­ti­cide spray­ing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfLEXvipkJw

Arti­cles about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Paraguay:
http://www.lasojamata.org/

LETTER (send the Span­ish ver­sion that is below)

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re: Please pro­tect Paraguay’s com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ment against soya
mono­cul­tures

I was very pleased to hear about Pres­i­den­t’s Lugo’s stat­ed com­mit­ment to
pro­tect small farm­ers against soya plan­ta­tions, includ­ing against
pes­ti­cide spray­ing and to stop defor­esta­tion. How­ev­er, I am deeply
con­cerned to hear about the increas­ing vio­lence against peas­ant
organ­i­sa­tions that are mobil­is­ing against pes­ti­cide spray­ing in the soya
mono­cul­tures, while argu­ing for a new agri­cul­tur­al pol­i­cy that pro­tects
small farm­ers and food sov­er­eign­ty as well as the envi­ron­ment.

Two peas­ant lead­ers ? Sin­dul­fo­Martínez mem­ber of the organ­i­sa­tion MCP and
Bien­venido Mel­gar­e­jo of the organ­i­sa­tion ASAGRAPA have recent­ly been
mur­dered. There are reports of a ‘hit list’ with the names of fifty
peas­ant lead­ers who fear that they could be mur­dered next. In the past
weeks, the courts and the police have been involved in the evic­tion of
peas­ant camps which have been law­ful­ly set up on the mar­gins of, not on,
soya plan­ta­tions, resort­ing to laws which exist to pre­vent crim­i­nal
offences. Peo­ple have been unlaw­ful­ly evict­ed, detained, crim­i­nalised and
tor­tured.

With this let­ter, I want to show my strong sup­port to the main demands of
peas­ant move­ments and civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions in Paraguay: that
pes­ti­cide spray­ing of soy mono­cul­tures must be banned and effec­tive­ly
stopped. The lands ille­gal­ly sold to agribusi­ness com­pa­nies must be
returned to the land­less Paraguayan peas­ants.

I urge you to stop the evic­tion orders and repres­sion against peas­ant
mobil­i­sa­tion. The two recent mur­ders and all reports of police vio­lence
and tor­ture must be ful­ly inves­ti­gat­ed and those respon­si­ble must be held
to account. The fam­i­lies of those who have been mur­dered must receive
finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion.

The gov­ern­ment must take imme­di­ate action and inves­ti­gate the death
threats against peas­ant lead­ers. The first step for this is to dis­solve
the so called ?Cit­i­zen Secu­ri­ty Com­mis­sions?, com­mon­ly called ?Gar­rote
Com­mis­sions?. These groups are the main actors of the para-police vio­lence
against social organ­i­sa­tions in the rur­al areas.

In front of the urgent sit­u­a­tion of pover­ty and envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion
in Paraguay, the gov­ern­ment must ini­ti­ate a pro­gramme to sup­port peas­ant
farm­ing and food sov­er­eign­ty, rather than fur­ther sac­ri­fic­ing Paraguay’s
com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ment to pro­duce ani­mal feed and agro­fu­els for
export.

Please let me know what your plans are for address­ing this urgent
sit­u­a­tion, in order to avoid more vio­lence and human rights vio­la­tions,
includ­ing more killings of peas­ants, and to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties and the
envi­ron­ment from soya mono­cul­tures.

Thank you,

Yours faith­ful­ly,
Asun­to: Por favor, pro­te­ja a las comu­nidades paraguayas y al medio
ambi­ente de los monocul­tivos de soja

Esti­ma­da Sra., Esti­ma­do Sr.,

Ha sido muy sat­is­fac­to­rio para mí, saber acer­ca del com­pro­miso del
Pres­i­dente Lugo para pro­te­ger a los pequeños campesinos en con­tra de las
planta­ciones de soja, así como de las fumi­ga­ciones con pes­ti­ci­das y la
defor­estación. Sin embar­go, me pre­ocu­pa seri­amente cuan­do escu­cho acer­ca
de la escal­a­da de vio­len­cia dirigi­da hacia las orga­ni­za­ciones campesinas
que se mov­i­lizan en con­tra de las fumi­ga­ciones de pes­ti­ci­das sobre las
pobla­ciones y a favor de una nue­va políti­ca agraria que pro­te­ja a los
pequeños campesinos, la sober­anía ali­men­ta­ria y el medio ambi­ente.

Dos líderes campesinos ‑Sin­dul­fo­Martínez de la orga­ni­zación, Movimien­to
Campesino Paraguayo- MCP (Vía Campesina-PY) y Bien­venido Mel­gar­e­jo de la
orga­ni­zación Aso­ciación de Agricul­tores de Alto Paraná- ASAGRAPA han
sido recien­te­mente asesina­dos. Hemos tenido noti­cias acer­ca de una ?lista
negra? con nom­bres de unos cin­cuen­ta líderes campesinos que temen ser los
próx­i­mos asesina­dos. Jue­ces y la policía han esta­do en estas últi­mas
sem­anas impli­ca­dos en el des­man­te­lamien­to de cam­pa­men­tos campesinos
estable­ci­dos legal­mente en las már­genes, y no den­tro, de las planta­ciones
de soja, amparán­dose en leyes de pre­ven­ción del crimen. Los campesinos han
sido ile­gal­mente expul­sa­dos, detenidos, crim­i­nal­iza­dos y tor­tu­ra­dos.

Con esta car­ta quiero demostrar mi enér­gi­co apoyo a las dos prin­ci­pales
deman­das de los campesinos y las orga­ni­za­ciones de la sociedad civ­il de
Paraguay: Las fumi­ga­ciones con agrotóx­i­cos de los monocul­tivos de soja
deben ser pro­hibidas y detenidas de man­era efec­ti­va. Las tier­ras ven­di­das
irreg­u­lar­mente a los agroem­pre­sar­ios deben ser devueltas a los campesinos
sin­tier­ras paraguayos.

Exi­jo fre­nar la actu­al ola de desa­lo­jos y repre­sión a las mov­i­liza­ciones
campesinas. El desa­lo­jo por recur­sos de amparo pre­ven­ti­vo es una medi­da
jurídi­ca irreg­u­lar. Los dos recientes asesinatos y todos los reportes de
vio­len­cia poli­cial y tor­tu­ra deben ser inves­ti­ga­dos a fon­do, y sus
respon­s­ables deben ser penal­iza­dos. Las famil­ias de los asesina­dos deben
ser com­pen­sadas económi­ca­mente.

Así tam­bién el gob­ier­no debe actu­ar de for­ma inmedi­a­ta y fre­nar las
ame­nazas de muerte que pen­den sobre los diri­gentes campesinos. El primer
paso para ello es aten­der a las deman­das de las orga­ni­za­ciones de
desar­tic­u­lación de las ?Comi­siones de Seguri­dad Ciu­dadana?, común­mente
denom­i­nadas ?Comisión gar­rote?. Estos gru­pos son los prin­ci­pales
pro­tag­o­nistas de vio­len­cia para­poli­cial con­tra las orga­ni­za­ciones sociales
en el cam­po.

Frente la urgente situación de pobreza y dev­astación ambi­en­tal del cam­po
paraguayo, el gob­ier­no debe ini­ciar inmedi­ata­mente un pro­gra­ma de apoyo a
la agri­cul­tura campesina y la sober­anía ali­men­ta­ria. Bas­ta ya del
sac­ri­fi­cio de las comu­nidades campesinas e indí­ge­nas del Paraguay y del
medio ambi­ente para man­ten­er un mod­e­lo agroex­por­ta­dor sojero que sólo
pro­duce ali­men­to para ani­males y agro­com­bustibles.

Por favor, deme a cono­cer sus planes para con­tener esta urgente situación
y para evi­tar más vio­len­cia y vio­la­ciones de dere­chos humanos, incluyen­do
más asesinatos de campesinos en su país, y para pro­te­ger a las comu­nidades
y al medio ambi­ente de los monocul­tivos de la soja.

Muchas gra­cias por ade­lan­ta­do y un aten­to salu­do.

ADDRESSES / DIRECCIONES

1. Pres­i­den­cia de la Repúbli­ca del Paraguay
Exce­len­tísi­mo Don Fer­nan­do Lugo Mén­dez, Pres­i­dente de la Repúbli­ca del
Paraguay
Pala­cio de Gob­ier­no
El Paraguayo Inde­pen­di­ente e/Ayolas y O´leary
Cen­tral tele­fóni­ca 4140000 (RA)
web­site: www.presidencia.gov.py
e‑mail: presidente@presidencia.gov.py
webmaster@presidencia.gov.py

Sec­re­taria Gen­er­al
S. E. Miguel Angel López Per­i­to
Min­istro, Sec­re­tario Gen­er­al y Jefe del Gabi­nete Civ­il de la Pres­i­den­cia
de la Repúbli­ca
Tel 4140288, fax 4140310

2. Sec­re­taria del Ambi­ente (SEAM)
S. E. José Luís Casac­cia , Min­istro, Sec­re­tario Ejec­u­ti­vo
Avda. Madan Lynch 3500 y Reservista de la Guer­ra del Cha­co.
Tel + 595 21 615803/4, fax + 595 21 615807
casac­cia jcasaccia@hotmail.com

3. SENAVE, Ser­vi­cio Nacional de Cal­i­dad y Sanidad Veg­e­tal y de Semi­l­las
Ing. Agr. Luis Llano Imas , pres­i­dente
Ofic­i­na cen­tral del SENAVE: Edif. PLANETA I. Humaitá Nº 145 c/ Ntra. Sra.
de la Asun­ción. Tele­fax: + 595 21 445 769 /+ 595 21 441 549, Asun­ción -
Paraguay
presidencia@senave.gov.py
secretaria_general@senave.gov.py

S. E. Rafael Fil­iz­zo­la, Min­istro
Chile y Man­du­virá
Tel + 595 21 493 661, fax: + 595 21 450.027
ministro@mdi.gov.py
vmseguridad@mdi.gov.py
sgeneral@mdi.gov.py
5. Min­is­te­rio de Jus­ti­cia y Tra­ba­jo
S. E. Blas Llano, Min­istro
Gas­par Rodríguez de Fran­cia y Esta­dos Unidos
Tel + 595 21 447010, + 595 21 493209, fax + 595 21 208469
mjt@mjt.gov.py

6. Min­is­te­rio de Agri­cul­tura y Ganade­ria
S. E. Can­di­do Vera Bejara­no, Min­istro
Pres­i­dente Fran­co 479
Tel + 595 21 441036, cen­tral + 595 21 451316/ 447304
Vicem­i­nis­te­rio de Agri­cul­tura: vagricultura@mag.gov.py
Sec­re­taría Gen­er­al: secretariagral@mag.gov.py

7. Fis­calía Gral. del Esta­do
Dr. Rubén Can­dia Amar­il­la
fiscaliageneral@ministeriopublico.gov.py

Protestors stop work at Shipley open-cast

27th Octo­ber 2008: today pro­tes­tors from Earth First! stopped work at an open-cast coal site for over two hours – they ran onto the site and clam­bered on dig­gers & dumpers and held out ban­ners stop­ping the work safe­ly. Some of the dig­ger dri­vers were very friend­ly and were glad to have a break as they work very long shifts, from 7am‑6:30 with only lunch & half hour breaks at 10 & 3. Today work had not been able to start till 10 as nature was fight­ing it’s own cor­ner, with rain drown­ing the site, and it was stopped again at 1 for 3 hours due to the protest.

Lodge House coal site
Climbing a digger
Shipley coal protest 1
Shipley coal protest 2
27th Octo­ber 2008: today pro­tes­tors from Earth First! stopped work at an open-cast coal site for over two hours – they ran onto the site and clam­bered on dig­gers & dumpers and held out ban­ners stop­ping the work safe­ly. Some of the dig­ger dri­vers were very friend­ly and were glad to have a break as they work very long shifts, from 7am‑6:30 with only lunch & half hour breaks at 10 & 3. Today work had not been able to start till 10 as nature was fight­ing it’s own cor­ner, with rain drown­ing the site, and it was stopped again at 1 for 3 hours due to the protest.

There are 2 sec­tions of work being done at the moment – in sec­tion K5 the top­soil is being removed, and clos­er towards Smal­l­ey, near the new access road that is under con­struc­tion, coal is being dug up.

After about an hour, a few police turned up (the whole of the local police sta­tion, bless) though they did­n’t have the vehi­cles to get over the mud to the pro­tes­tors! After hitch­ing a lift from UK Coal work­ers across the mud, they tried var­i­ous rus­es to get the EF!ers’ names (PACE s.25 even though they had­n’t yet fig­ured out what sub­stan­tive offence had been com­mit­ted), and back-up arriv­ing, the police were set to start arrests for aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

Even­tu­al­ly, peo­ple decid­ed to leave, though they were forced to give their details and pho­tos for lat­er cross-ref­er­enc­ing. The cops quot­ed sec­tion 68 of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act mean­ing that if those same pro­tes­tors return with­in 3 months they risk arrest.

A dead easy fun day out, just armed with a press release, ban­ners and a desire to see a just sus­tain­able world in the future.

See you down in the woods at Lodge House, Der­byshire…

——-

Press release:

Work stopped at open cast coal mine site

Today activists from Earth First! (1) halt­ed the con­tin­u­ing destruc­tion of coun­try­side at Ship­ley in Der­byshire by UK Coal. The action is part of an ongo­ing cam­paign against UK Coal’s plans to open mine 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the site, over the next five years. They plan to release 3.5 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 into the atmos­phere over this peri­od.

The pro­test­ers entered the site around 1pm this after­noon and brought work to an end whilst they peace­ful­ly occu­pied machin­ery. They intend to stay for as long as pos­si­ble.

Cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us, and burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Every day more coal is burned, yet indus­try and gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

Jim Hansen, direc­tor of the NASA God­dard Insti­tute for Space Stud­ies and emi­nent cli­mate sci­en­tist, wrote in a let­ter (2) to Gor­don Brown “The sin­gle great­est threat to the cli­mate comes from burn­ing coal. Coal-fired gen­er­a­tion is his­tor­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble for most of the CO2 in the air today — respon­si­ble for about half of all car­bon diox­ide emis­sions glob­al­ly”

Dave Porter, a pro­test­er at the site said ‘All over the coun­try groups are emerg­ing as part of a grow­ing, inter­na­tion­al move­ment defend­ing com­mu­ni­ties and the cli­mate from new coal. We’re faced with a sys­tem that’s not lis­ten­ing to the peo­ple — a sys­tem that dis­re­gards the sci­ence in the face of the sin­gle biggest threat to our plan­et. If the gov­ern­ment won’t save the coun­try then it’s down to all of us to take action!”

Today’s action fol­lows a mass tres­pass at the site on Sat­ur­day 25th Octo­ber, when peo­ple from around the coun­try gath­ered at the site in Der­byshire to show the strength of oppo­si­tion to plans for devel­op­ments in the coal indus­try.

In August activists squat­ted a derelict house (3) on the site of the pro­posed open cast mine, the evic­tion last­ed for nine days and raised the pro­file of UK Coal’s activ­i­ties in Der­byshire as well as their project costs.

Peo­ple across the coun­try are pledg­ing to con­tin­ue resis­tance to all devel­op­ments of the UK coal indus­try.

Press phone 07722 727 064
Phone on Site 07900 028 306

Notes to the edi­tor

(1)The prin­ci­ples behind Earth First! are non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. EF! is not a cohe­sive group or cam­paign, but a ban­ner for peo­ple who share sim­i­lar philoso­phies to work under.

(2) Jim Hansen is the direc­tor of NASA God­dard Insti­tute for Space Stud­ies and an increas­ing­ly renowned cli­mate sci­en­tist. He wrote an open let­ter to Gor­don Brown on the 19th Decem­ber 2007 call­ing on him to lead the way with renew­able tech­nolo­gies and not renew coal. More recent­ly he has giv­en evi­dence to the
crown court in defence of 6 Green­peace activist charged with crim­i­nal dam­age at Kingsnorth Pow­er sta­tion in Kent.

(3)In June 2008,activists squat an aban­doned farm at the Lodge House planned open­cast site near Ship­ley in Der­byshire. The farm was about to be demol­ished, work was held up. The evic­tion cost the local police force £58,000 and UK coal will be billed for some of the expens­es. The full cost of the evic­tion to UK coal who hired bailiffs and equip­ment, is expect­ed to be much high­er.

Oth­er past actions on site: tres­pass, 2 at UK Coal, dig­ger div­ing, squat.
Future action: 1 novem­ber — Res­i­dents’ demo at Lodge House, Der­byshire.
Meet at the entrance to the site on Heanor Road, the A6O8, by Smal­l­ey vil­lage. See http://www.multimap.com/s/xHBDydN0
eaven.umbrella@yahoo.co.uk
www.eavengreen.wordpress.com