Anti- Starbucks Picket in Cardiff, sat 31st March

On Sat­ur­day March 31st after­noon, South Wales Anar­chists set up a stall on Cardif­f’s Queen Street to give­away free, fresh­ly made Zap­atista cof­fee. Which hap­pened to be right out­side a Star­bucks out­let.

Cardiff anti-Starbucks stallOn Sat­ur­day March 31st after­noon, South Wales Anar­chists set up a stall on Cardif­f’s Queen Street to give­away free, fresh­ly made Zap­atista cof­fee. Which hap­pened to be right out­side a Star­bucks out­let.

Free infor­ma­tion was giv­en out about the Zap­atis­tas’ strug­gle and how Star­bucks’ busi­ness prac­tices exploit cof­fee farm­ers, its own employ­ees and the envi­ron­ment.

With a most­ly pos­tive reac­tion from passers by, 15 litres of Zap­atista cof­fee was giv­en away.

Deli­cious!

http://www.southwalesanarchists.org

Latest on police appeal against London’s Critical Mass

What if the police win their appeal? Could it be the end of this Crit­i­cal Mass, after 12 years of month­ly rides, or the begin­ning of a strate­gic rebel­lion?

At the start of last night’s ride Des Kay, who orig­i­nal­ly took the Met police to court, report­ed on the progress of their appeal. He said it is not look­ing good as the police are using a high pow­ered lawyer. The police want the ride to be treat­ed as a reg­u­lar pub­lic protest with a fixed route and organ­is­ers. Of course, cyclists are not going to stand for this and Des asked for dis­cus­sions on pos­si­ble strate­gies in the event of the appeal suc­ceed­ing. The result of the appeal could be soon or take sev­er­al weeks more.

What if the police win their appeal? Could it be the end of this Crit­i­cal Mass, after 12 years of month­ly rides, or the begin­ning of a strate­gic rebel­lion?

At the start of last night’s ride Des Kay, who orig­i­nal­ly took the Met police to court, report­ed on the progress of their appeal. He said it is not look­ing good as the police are using a high pow­ered lawyer. The police want the ride to be treat­ed as a reg­u­lar pub­lic protest with a fixed route and organ­is­ers. Of course, cyclists are not going to stand for this and Des asked for dis­cus­sions on pos­si­ble strate­gies in the event of the appeal suc­ceed­ing. The result of the appeal could be soon or take sev­er­al weeks more.

Police are still warn­ing rid­ers with sound sys­tems not to play them with­in the SOCPA zone and are ask­ing for their names and address­es but take no action when this request is refused. They also video the sound sys­tem peo­ple.

Pre­vi­ous court deci­sion http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/2006/sedley.html

Web­site http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/

Legal com­ment below:

Its not unlaw­ful to go on a bike ride!

If a group of peo­ple decide to go for a bike ride for leisure pur­pos­es only, it is not unlaw­ful.

The bike ride can only be sub­ject to require­ments of writ­ten notice and pos­si­ble restric­tions if it falls with­in Sec­tion 11 of Part II of the Pub­lic Order Act 1986, which deals with pro­ces­sions and assem­blies. It states:

“11. Advance notice of pub­lic pro­ces­sions

(1) Writ­ten notice shall be giv­en in accor­dance with this sec­tion of any pro­pos­al to hold a
pub­lic pro­ces­sion intend­ed:

(a) to demon­strate sup­port for or oppo­si­tion to the views or actions of any per­son or body
of per­sons,

(b) to pub­li­cise a cause or cam­paign, or

© to mark or com­mem­o­rate an event,

unless it is not rea­son­ably prac­ti­ca­ble to give any advance notice of the pro­ces­sion.”

The police would have to show that there is a ‘col­lec­tive inten­tion’ to the bike ride which brings it with­in the cat­e­gories (a), (b) and © of Sec­tion 11 (1).

A reg­u­lar bike ride for ‘leisure pur­pos­es’ only, tak­ing a vari­able route, would not fall with­in those cat­e­gories. If an iso­lat­ed indi­vid­ual or num­ber of indi­vid­u­als decid­ed spon­ta­neous­ly and sep­a­rate­ly to dec­o­rate their bike or bod­ies to make any spe­cif­ic point falling with­in the above cat­e­gories, so long as it was not the ‘col­lec­tive inten­tion’ of the group as a whole to do so, the ride would not be brought with­in the require­ments of Sec­tion 11 (1).

So the ‘South Bank Cycling Club’ or who­ev­er, just needs to make it clear in any pub­lic­i­ty or in any com­mu­ni­ca­tion that the inten­tion of the ride is for leisure pur­pos­es and not for demon­stra­tion, pub­lic­i­ty or com­mem­o­ra­tive pur­pos­es.

Camberwell Squatted Centre holds it down!!!

Hold­ing it down since 10th March, the Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre unleash­es a new wave of activ­i­ty. Upcom­ing events include cafes, bar-socials, films and a sec­ond­hand book­sale.

We have made amaz­ing leaps and bounds with a very trashed build­ing — you can see a pic­ture gallery of this work in progress at our web­site.

Hold­ing it down since 10th March, the Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre unleash­es a new wave of activ­i­ty. Upcom­ing events include cafes, bar-socials, films and a sec­ond­hand book­sale.

We have made amaz­ing leaps and bounds with a very trashed build­ing — you can see a pic­ture gallery of this work in progress at our web­site.

Full pro­gramme of events at
http://www.56a.org.uk/warham.html

Come and down and get involved. Want to use the space — mail us with your ideas. The more days we can open the bet­ter…

Some bod­ies at
Cam­ber­well Squat­ted Cen­tre

blackfrog@alphabetthreat.co.uk

Polar bear faces off against Bradford Climate Criminals

31.03.2007- Today Brad­ford wit­nessed the unusu­al sight of a plac­ard-wav­ing polar bear. The plac­ard, with the sim­ple mes­sage; “You fly, I die”, was aimed at the self­ish minor­i­ty who con­tin­ue to fly despite this being a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change – and the fastest ris­ing source of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions in West­ern Europe.

Bear and banner31.03.2007- Today Brad­ford wit­nessed the unusu­al sight of a plac­ard-wav­ing polar bear. The plac­ard, with the sim­ple mes­sage; “You fly, I die”, was aimed at the self­ish minor­i­ty who con­tin­ue to fly despite this being a major con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change – and the fastest ris­ing source of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions in West­ern Europe.

The bear and his human friends vis­it­ed a vari­ety of trav­el agents in the city cen­tre with a let­ter ask­ing that the cli­mate crim­i­nals stop destroy­ing the Arc­tic. After that, he made his way to the Tomas Cook call cen­tre on God­win Street, where sev­er­al local res­i­dents had erect­ed a ban­ner and were busy post­ing the win­dows with “You Fly, They Die” stick­ers (see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/2283 for order­ing infor­ma­tion)

The local cit­i­zens – inspired by the excel­lent Camp For Cli­mate Action last sum­mer — were dis­mayed that the cli­mate crimes of this firm seem to be going unno­ticed. A spokes­woman for the group point­ed out that there were two great lies about fly­ing which need­ed to be chal­lenged. The first is that fly­ing is a small con­trib­u­tor to green house gas­es; the peo­ple who say this rely on fig­ures which don’t include return flights or flights to and from Britain made by for­eign­ers, and ignore the extra dam­age done by emit­ting pol­lu­tants high in the atmos­phere. The oth­er lie is that fly­ing is a com­mon activ­i­ty for ordi­nary peo­ple. Stud­ies clear­ly show that fly­ing is over­whelm­ing­ly an activ­i­ty for the rich to take part in, at great cost to the rest of us. The aver­age income of pas­sen­gers using Stanst­ed — sup­pos­ed­ly Britain’s “low cost” air­port – was recent­ly found to be £48,000!

With­out imme­di­ate action it is like­ly that sum­mer sea ice in the Arc­tic will be total­ly absent with­in 30 to 70 years – this would spell extinc­tion in the wild for the Polar Bear, which relies on sea ice for hunt­ing. The Arc­tic is already one of the fast­ed warm­ing parts of the world.

In the face of the reck­less, crim­i­nal and self­ish actions of a minor­i­ty of peo­ple that threat­en us all, sure­ly the time has come for sane and mod­er­ate peo­ple to stand up and say that enough is enough. The prof­it ter­ror­ists and cli­mate crim­i­nals must stop before they kill us all.

The police rather polite­ly asked who want­ed to be arrest­ed, and five peo­ple decid­ed to attempt to con­tin­ue their impor­tant pub­lic-spir­it­ed work through the courts. The bear went home for tea and bis­cuits.

———–

The text of the bear’s let­ter:

Dear Trav­el Indus­try peo­ple,

Air flights are the fastest grow­ing source of UK car­bon emis­sions, which lead to cli­mate change. When the unique­ly dam­ag­ing effects of emit­ting CO2 at high alti­tude are tak­en into account, the avi­a­tion indus­try already emits the equiv­a­lent of 10–15% of UK car­bon emis­sions, and the lev­el of pol­lu­tion increas­es with every pass­ing year. If avi­a­tion con­tin­ues to expand in line with gov­ern­ment plans to 2030, emis­sions from air­craft will increase by between 156% and 191% from a 2000 base­line. This growth would coun­ter­act CO2 reduc­tions made in oth­er sec­tors of the econ­o­my, and destroy any chance to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic glob­al warm­ing.

With­out urgent action it is like­ly that sum­mer sea ice in the Arc­tic will be total­ly absent with­in 30 to 70 years, and it will not just be us polar bears who feel the effects:-
The addi­tion of melt water to the ocean may have cat­a­stroph­ic con­se­quences for Britain, because it is slow­ing ocean cur­rents that have kept our cli­mate clement for thou­sands of years. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, glob­al warm­ing could make the UK cold­er, by “turn­ing off” the Gulf stream.
A three degree tem­per­a­ture rise over the next cen­tu­ry could lead to the col­lapse of the Green­land ice sheet, ulti­mate­ly result­ing in a 7 metre sea lev­el rise.

It is time for a big change. We are call­ing on you lot to act as respon­si­ble glob­al cit­i­zens by reduc­ing the num­ber of flights you sell, and switch­ing your busi­ness to con­cen­trate on less envi­ron­men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing forms of trans­port such as coach, fer­ry and rail. Instead of cook­ing the plan­et by encour­ag­ing peo­ple to take huge­ly pol­lut­ing long-dis­tance flights, we ask you to put more effort into pro­mot­ing the many attrac­tions of hol­i­days here in the UK.

Thanks for your help and co-oper­a­tion.

Sam Bear

Environmentalist bloc at Faslane 365 — 26.04.07

CHERNOBYL DAY AT FASLANE 26th April 2007

Can you see the con­nec­tion between more nuclear weapons, more nuclear pow­er sta­tions, war for oil and cli­mate change?
— Or that replac­ing Tri­dent will mean more dan­ger­ous nuclear pow­ered sub­marines based on the Clyde and more nuclear waste…
— And that nuclear weapons are an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter and radioac­tive pol­lu­tion is caused by their use, test­ing, waste, acci­dents or by ter­ror­ist attack.
— Or that envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion caused by nuclear weapon­ry affects peo­ple and their envi­ron­ments across bound­aries and down the gen­er­a­tions…

Then join the envi­ron­men­tal­ist block at Faslane on Cher­nobyl Day!

CHERNOBYL DAY AT FASLANE 26th April 2007

Can you see the con­nec­tion between more nuclear weapons, more nuclear pow­er sta­tions, war for oil and cli­mate change?
— Or that replac­ing Tri­dent will mean more dan­ger­ous nuclear pow­ered sub­marines based on the Clyde and more nuclear waste…
— And that nuclear weapons are an envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter and radioac­tive pol­lu­tion is caused by their use, test­ing, waste, acci­dents or by ter­ror­ist attack.
— Or that envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion caused by nuclear weapon­ry affects peo­ple and their envi­ron­ments across bound­aries and down the gen­er­a­tions…

Then join the envi­ron­men­tal­ist block at Faslane on Cher­nobyl Day!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 26th 2007 will be the 21st anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl Dis­as­ter. At least 9,000 peo­ple are expect­ed to die in Belarus, Ukraine and Rus­sia from the nuclear fall-out from the acci­dent, whilst across Europe the num­ber of deaths from can­cers caused by radi­a­tion from the acci­dent could be as high as 60,000. Amongst peo­ple who were chil­dren at the time of the acci­dent there has been a sig­nif­i­cant increase in thy­roid can­cers – over 4,000 cas­es were diag­nosed in the Ukraine between 1992 – 2002.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On the 21st anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl Dis­as­ter, activists and sup­port­ers from Scot­tish envi­ron­men­tal groups and net­works will be hold­ing a series of events out­side the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base to protest against the gov­ern­men­t’s plans to build more nuclear pow­er sta­tions and Tri­dent replace­ment.

Among the dif­fer­ent events planned for the day Friends of the Earth Scot­land will be ral­ly­ing from 8am to mid­day at the main gate with their huge inflat­able white ele­phant to high­light that new nuclear pow­er sta­tions are unsafe, unwant­ed and unnec­es­sary.

Plans also include a die-in and block­ade of the gates lat­er in the day.

Groups involved include: Friends of the Earth Scot­land, Scot­tish local Green­peace groups, Scot­tish Peo­ple and Plan­et net­work, Ris­ing Tide Scot­land.

GET INVOLVED!
Non­vi­o­lent action train­ing day: Sat­ur­day 31st March, 10.30am-4pm, Lam­b’s House, Burgess Street, Edin­burgh, EH6 6RD_map and direc­tions:
http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/about/getting_to_FoE_office.html

Prop and ban­ner mak­ing day — all day from 10.30am Wednes­day 25th April, Lambs House, Burgess Street, Edin­burgh, EH6 6RD. Bring card­board, paint, mate­ri­als, fall-out suits and cos­tumes to dec­o­rate!

Trans­port:
There will be a 50 seater coach eav­ing Water­loo Place, Edin­burgh at
4am — Yes! Four in the morn­ing! (Map here:
www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=55.9538&lon=-3.186&scale=10000&icon=x

Price £10 waged or £6 unwaged.
Please book your seat first by call­ing 0131 554 9977 or email­ing
environmentalists@faslane365.org
Return time: Leav­ing Faslane around 5.30pm and arriv­ing Edin­burgh at
about 8pm.

Pos­si­ble pick ups also in Glas­gow — con­tact us for more infor­ma­tion

There are also good pub­lic trans­port links to Faslane from Glas­gow using the Low Lev­el trains from Glas­gow Queen Street and Partick sta­tions every half hour to Helens­burgh Cen­tral and then the Coul­port or Gare­lochhead bus­es to Faslane Peace Camp or the Faslane Ceme­tery (oppo­site the North Gate.) There is also a train ser­vice from Queen Street (main lev­el: des­ti­na­tion Mallaig/Oban) which stops at Gare­lochhead (about a mile walk from Faslane north gate)

A cycle path runs all the way from Helens­burgh to Faslane along the A814.
There is lim­it­ed park­ing close to the Faslane North Gate in the Faslane ceme­tery car-park just past the North Gate on the right. Lim­it­ed car park­ing is also avail­able at Faslane Peace Camp at the south of the base.

Lim­it­ed accom­mo­da­tion the night is avail­able in Edin­burgh — please bring a sleep­ing bag. We can also help you find accom­mo­da­tion in Glas­gow the night before.

For more infor­ma­tion or to book places please con­tact
envi­ron­men­tal­ists [at] faslane365.org or phone 0131 554 9977

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

ANTI GM RALLY — HULL, 21 APRIL, 2007

BASF (“THE Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny” accord­ing to their lit­er­a­ture) are devel­op­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­toes. They start this year with a five year pro­gramme of tests involv­ing plant­i­ng them at sev­er­al sites around the Unit­ed King­dom. To date the UK is free of com­mer­cial­ly plant­ed GM crops; it is our inten­tion to keep it that way. There are many rea­sons why GM food is bad for our plan­et, for farm­ers and for our health. We need to act now before they get a foothold — once estab­lished there will be no going back, as the Amer­i­c­as and the Far East have already found out to their cost.

Spud u hateBASF (“THE Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny” accord­ing to their lit­er­a­ture) are devel­op­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­toes. They start this year with a five year pro­gramme of tests involv­ing plant­i­ng them at sev­er­al sites around the Unit­ed King­dom. To date the UK is free of com­mer­cial­ly plant­ed GM crops; it is our inten­tion to keep it that way. There are many rea­sons why GM food is bad for our plan­et, for farm­ers and for our health. We need to act now before they get a foothold — once estab­lished there will be no going back, as the Amer­i­c­as and the Far East have already found out to their cost.

ANTI GM RALLY — HULL, 21 APRIL, 2007

On 21st April there is a ral­ly in Hull against the plant­i­ng of GM crops in East York­shire. If you care about the plan­et, our food or sim­ply your health, then be there to make you voice heard. For more details con­tact us at gmfreepotatoes@kaleton.com

http://myspace.com/gmfreepotatoes

SPREAD THE WORD

Cambridge GM Crop Trial — meeting (2nd April) & protest walk (14th April)

7.30 pm Mon­day 2nd April
Emmanuel Unit­ed Reform Church, Trump­ing­ton St.

Speak­ers:
Michael Anto­niou, read­er in Mol­e­c­u­lar Genet­ics at Guy’s Hos­pi­tal Med­ical School

GM free Britain - now or never7.30 pm Mon­day 2nd April
Emmanuel Unit­ed Reform Church, Trump­ing­ton St.

Speak­ers:
Michael Anto­niou, read­er in Mol­e­c­u­lar Genet­ics at Guy’s Hos­pi­tal Med­ical School
Hele­na Paul, chair of GM Freeze
Clare Oxbor­row, Real Food Cam­paign, Nation­al Friends of the Earth

Tri­als of GM pota­toes have been giv­en the go-ahead to be plant­ed from March 30th, at the Nation­al Insti­tute of Agri­cul­tur­al Botany (NIAB) in North Cam­bridge, on behalf of multi­na­tion­al firm BASF.

These are the first GM crop tri­al in Eng­land in the last three years.
If they go ahead unop­posed it gives a green light to the biotech indus­try to push for fur­ther tri­als.

Sim­i­lar tri­als in The Nether­lands were recent­ly stopped in the courts due to a lack of con­trolled test­ing and
envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ments. A recent appli­ca­tion for tri­als in Ire­land was can­celled after a pub­lic cam­paign
and the set­ting of strict con­di­tions by the Irish gov­ern­ment.

This meet­ing aims to empow­er peo­ple with more knowl­edge of the GM debate.

Organ­ised by Cam­bridge GM Con­cern
e‑mail gmfreecambridge@lists.riseup.net

A fur­ther date for your diary: there will be a Protest Walk on Sat­ur­day 14th April at the site of the tri­als. Details will be post­ed on Cam­bridge Indy­media short­ly.

Bath Climate Camp — info and wish list

Between late after­noon on thurs­day 19th of April and sun­day 22nd April, there is going to be a cli­mate camp just out­side of Bath focus­ing on Land and Marines offices (the com­pa­ny build­ing the gas pipeline smash­ing through Wales).

Between late after­noon on thurs­day 19th of April and sun­day 22nd April, there is going to be a cli­mate camp just out­side of Bath focus­ing on Land and Marines offices (the com­pa­ny build­ing the gas pipeline smash­ing through Wales).

The camp is shap­ing up to be a real­ly good event. We have most things up togeth­er such as bands, a veg­an field kitchen, a com­post toi­let, mar­quees etc, but there are a few things we could do with more of includ­ing

- Mate­ri­als for ban­ner mak­ing, car­ni­val props etc
— vegetables/spices/pulses — we have got food sort­ed out, but could always do with some more
— reclaimed wood for fires and con­struc­tion

Most impor­tant­ly, we need peo­ple to attend the camp, as this is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to take the fight over the pipeline to the front door of those build­ing it.

as well as bands, food, work­shops, DIY ses­sions and kids activ­i­ties, we have two demos planned -

*fri­day 20th of April — All day — Shut down Land and Marine — a day of autonomous actions against Land and Marines offices. Wether you want to block­ade, make music, ban­ner drop, leaflet, or any­thing else you can think of, all non vio­lent actions and all non-vio­lent peo­ple are very wel­come!

*Sat­ur­day 21st April — Par­ty against Petrol — Meet at 11 at Bath Cli­mate Camp or 12 at Bath Abbey — A col­or­ful, noisy car­ni­val against car cul­ture and fos­sil fuels, roam­ing around Bath and stop­ping to par­ty and high­light some local cli­mate crim­i­nals!

we hold week­ly plan­ning meet­ings on Thurs­days in the hob­gob­lin (47 st. James Parade) at 7.30 in the down­stairs room, all are wel­come.

For more info, to request posters/booklets etc or to ask any ques­tions, please e‑mail bathclimatecamp@yahoo.co.uk or check out www.myspace.com/bathclimatecamp

See you in the fields!

bathclimatecamp@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/bathclimatecamp

EXPOSE EXXON DAY 5–6th April

24 hours of protest at Exxon (Esso) HQ,
5.00 pm Thurs­day 5th April to 5.00 pm Good Fri­day, April 6th.

Mass Action 2.00 pm Fri­day

esso logo 1 subvert24 hours of protest at Exxon (Esso) HQ,
5.00 pm Thurs­day 5th April to 5.00 pm Good Fri­day, April 6th.

Mass Action 2.00 pm Fri­day

FAT CAT’S PARTY
CLIMATE VICTIMS’ VIGIL

Music, Street The­atre, Work­shops, Speak­ers

Come and tar­get the ulti­mate Glob­al Warm­ing Vil­lain More info on Exxon here.

Exxon HQ is South of Lon­don on the North­ern out­skirts of Leather­head, about 20 min­utes walk from Leather­head Rail­way Sta­tion (45 min­utes by train from Water­loo). See map here or close-up here

Floor­space avail­able overnight (details here): if you would like acco­mo­da­tion overnight for the 5th-6th, it will help to email us at info@campaigncc.org with “OVERNIGHT EXXON” in the sub­ject line. Please indi­cate, also, whether you would like to vol­un­teer for a shift at the overnight vig­il out­side Exxon HQ. A minibus will pick peo­ple up from Exxon HQ on Thurs­day evening and take them to the acco­mo­da­tion (and back in the morn­ing).

Cycle against Exxon : a cycle protest will leave from under Water­loo bridge on the South Bank at 100.am, Fri­day (from there it is 20 miles to join the protest at Exxon­Mo­bil HQ).

»> Draft Sched­ule with more details here.

Niger Delta Women shut down Agip Oil Facility

March 23, 2007

A group of women from the Idheze com­mu­ni­ty in Isokoland have once again shut down oil facil­i­ties of the Nige­ria Agip Oil Com­pa­ny (NAOC) because have failed to pay promised com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages caused by chemical/waste flu­id of the firm flushed into the com­mu­ni­ty. The peo­ple of Isokoland have expe­ri­enced con­tin­ued series of cri­sis over the past 15 years. (There are about 27 oil wells in the area). Many inci­dents have been a result of divide and rule tac­tics by the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment between and with­in eth­nic minori­ties in Delta State and oth­er states in the region. When there have been clash­es the gov­ern­ment has sent in mobile police result­ing in death, injury and destruc­tion of people’s prop­er­ties. The last time I vist­ed Oleh Town (the head­quar­ters of Isoko South Local Gov­ern­ment Area in 2000 women spoke of the bru­tal­li­ty of the mobile poli­cie (MOPO) and how many of them lost their homes. I saw homes burnt down to the ground by the MOPO. Each time they come into the area peo­ple are afraid and run away and then their homes are loot­ed and often burned to the ground.

Agip logo subvertMarch 23, 2007

A group of women from the Idheze com­mu­ni­ty in Isokoland have once again shut down oil facil­i­ties of the Nige­ria Agip Oil Com­pa­ny (NAOC) because have failed to pay promised com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages caused by chemical/waste flu­id of the firm flushed into the com­mu­ni­ty. The peo­ple of Isokoland have expe­ri­enced con­tin­ued series of cri­sis over the past 15 years. (There are about 27 oil wells in the area). Many inci­dents have been a result of divide and rule tac­tics by the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment between and with­in eth­nic minori­ties in Delta State and oth­er states in the region. When there have been clash­es the gov­ern­ment has sent in mobile police result­ing in death, injury and destruc­tion of people’s prop­er­ties. The last time I vist­ed Oleh Town (the head­quar­ters of Isoko South Local Gov­ern­ment Area in 2000 women spoke of the bru­tal­li­ty of the mobile poli­cie (MOPO) and how many of them lost their homes. I saw homes burnt down to the ground by the MOPO. Each time they come into the area peo­ple are afraid and run away and then their homes are loot­ed and often burned to the ground.

“Many hous­es were burned down, many things destroyed, we loose all our prop­er­ty. Some peo­ple loose their mon­ey, every­thing con­cern­ing trad­ing mate­r­i­al many things lost. Some peo­ple now are not even stay­ing in this town because all their house all their prop­er­ty has burned down. There is a lot of suf­fer­ing. Both men and women they are suf­fer­ing in this town. Up till now there are some­thing chil­dren who are lost (miss­ing) up till now we have nev­er seen any cer­tifi­cate of chil­dren born.”

Now we have to wait and see how the gov­ern­ment will respond to the women’s protest and hope that this time Obasan­jo does not send in his army to pro­tect the oil com­pa­ny and attack Niger­ian women who are protest­ing against the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age to their com­mu­ni­ty by Agip which is is nor­mal reac­tion to any protests against oil com­pa­nies and facil­i­ties.

Recent­ly, chemical/waste from the rig site was dis­charged into the swamp of Idheze lead­ing to the death and destruc­tion of aquat­ic life. Many dead aquat­ic ani­mals were still afloat in the ponds yes­ter­day. The women had ear­ly in Decem­ber 2006 seized oil facil­i­ties belong­ing to Agip, owing to the fail­ure of the com­pa­ny to imple­ment an ear­li­er agree­ment signed with the com­mu­ni­ty on their entrance into their land. They revealed that a spill led to the death of sev­en adults and three chil­dren and also destroyed eco­nom­ic trees and crops in 1982.

The women car­ried plac­ards, bar­ri­cad­ed the main entrance of the company’s facil­i­ties and turned back all work­ers. Some of the plac­ards bore inscrip­tions such as: “We are tired of the inhu­man treat­ment of NAOC”, “We will con­tin­ue to dis­rupt your activ­i­ties until you meet our demands”, “Pay com­pen­sa­tion for the chemical/waste flu­id you have used to pol­lute our land.”

The women came to the premis­es with their uten­sils and food items, includ­ing bags of rice, yams, gar­ri as well as canopies with which they erect­ed makeshift tents. They vowed not to vacate the yard until their demands were met. Accord­ing to them, after all that the com­mu­ni­ty suf­fered as a result of the spill, Agip has refused to heed the advice of the inspec­torate body of the Nige­ria Nation­al Petro­le­um Com­pa­ny (NNPC) which ordered Agip to com­pen­sate the com­mu­ni­ty.

Leader of the pro­test­ers, Mrs. Mer­cy Okun­wa, who spoke on behalf of the community’s Pres­i­dent-Gen­er­al, Joel Ogbru, accused the com­pa­ny of insen­si­tiv­i­ty to the plight of the locals as well as reneg­ing on agree­ment reached with the com­mu­ni­ty in Port Har­court last Decem­ber.

She said the non-chal­lant atti­tude of NAOC to the issues of their com­mu­ni­ty, led to a protest by the com­mu­ni­ty on the Decem­ber 19, 2006 to reg­is­ter their “vex­a­tion but until now none of the promis­es made by NAOC when they invit­ed the com­mu­ni­ty peo­ple has been imple­ment­ed”.

She dis­closed that many of the ser­vic­ing com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the rigs were “car­ry­ing out the job with the knowl­edge of Agip but detri­men­tal to the com­mu­ni­ty because none of them pays roy­al­ty to the com­mu­ni­ty.”

They accused ser­vic­ing firms such as SERIC, IMPEANTI, and KCA Deu­tage for flout­ing out­right­ly, agree­ments reached with the com­mu­ni­ty, say­ing that Agip con­spired with some of the ser­vic­ing firms to rob the com­mu­ni­ty of their enti­tle­ments. She lament­ed that con­tracts that should have been giv­en to the indi­genes were exe­cut­ed by out­siders.

“We are peace-lov­ing peo­ple and know­ing that Agip has been deceiv­ing us, we wouldn’t want any­thing that will be detri­men­tal this time to our peo­ple and so until the company’s man­age­ment responds to our demand, we will not vacate the premis­es,” the aggriev­ed women declared.

Sol­diers barred jour­nal­ists from reach­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty Rela­tions Offi­cer in charge of the Kwale Gas Plant of Agip, Prince Obi, who was at the premis­es address­ing the pro­test­ers.