FAI/ELF COMMUNIQUE FOR TV & RADIO BLACKOUT

As part of the ongo­ing anar­chist war for total lib­er­a­tion, we car­ried out a hit on the Bathamp­ton radio and TV relay sta­tion. Fires were set at four points of the struc­tures, and we left undis­turbed. As a result of the sab­o­tage, on top of caus­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of pounds worth of dam­age, we region­al­ly shut down all TV chan­nels on Free­view as well as all nation­al ana­logue and dig­i­tal radio sta­tions. Addi­tion­al­ly it took down Voda­phone and oth­er mobile net­works, dam­ag­ing police com­mu­ni­ca­tions and oth­er dig­i­tal ser­vices. 80,000 homes and busi­ness­es in the area were affect­ed.

 

The enter­tain­ment indus­try is an impor­tant tool to manip­u­late human behav­iour. With­out a steady sup­ply of dis­trac­tions it would be much hard­er to per­suade peo­ple that their lives are sat­is­fac­to­ry, to con­vince them to keep going to work or in what­ev­er way to repro­duce the sys­tem. So to deprive the net­work of the abil­i­ty to offer this essen­tial means of escape from chron­ic mod­ern stress, anx­i­ety, frus­tra­tion and dis­sat­is­fac­tion is to under­mine the smooth run­ning of soci­ety, how­ev­er tem­porar­i­ly.

 

There are many soft tar­gets and many lo-tech meth­ods avail­able for us mal­con­tents who glad­ly choose con­flict over dis­pair. This gives rise to the prospect of rebel­lion with thou­sands of faces, with infi­nite rea­sons to block­ade and destroy what­ev­er stands between us and our goals. We want to expe­ri­ence har­mo­ny as a liv­ing plan­et, face to face encounter as inti­mate cir­cles of proud and free-think­ing indi­vid­u­als, and a chance to mould an exis­tence filled with wild play and fierce joy. Our first response when faced with today’s crush­ing dom­i­na­tion and a sub­servient soci­ety will always be out­breaks of dis­or­der, refusal and beau­ty.

 

Our com­rades from far and wide who also car­ry this fight share our thoughts so close­ly that often their words could be ours. So when they are kid­napped and held far away from us our deter­mi­na­tion is only fur­ther fuelled. Fol­low­ing many actions in Italy the state has unleashed a wave of repres­sion against anar­chists and their projects (Oper­a­tions Ardire, Man­gia­fuo­co, Ixo­di­dae, Thor…), some across bor­ders, accus­ing some of attacks of the FAI (Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion) and rais­ing a tro­phy for the media-judi­cial cir­cus: Nico­la Gai and Alfre­do Cospi­to, who they claim are FAI / Olga Cell. But if the pros­e­cu­tors thought for one minute that they had dis­man­tled the group even in Italy with their oper­a­tions, anoth­er cell soon proved them wrong with an attack on the bank­ing sys­tem in the cap­i­tal, fol­lowed by grid sab­o­tage in Indone­sia, gun­shots in Mex­i­co, lib­er­a­tions in Rus­sia, bomb­ing in Greece, mass arson in Argenti­na, to name but a few. The new anar­chist guer­ril­las laugh in the faces of the pow­er­ful because the repres­sion is only throw­ing petrol on the fires of the open lead­er­less resis­tance.

 

We are on the side of every­one who has burnt stuffy text­books and tak­en the offen­sive to rean­i­mate an anar­chy that had turned to dust in so many throats. Any rebel’s cap­ture becomes yet anoth­er motive to strike, as we have before and will again, as a reminder of the social cost of their impris­on­ment.

 

This action car­ried out eight years to the day since Xosé Tar­rio (a dig­ni­fied pris­on­er of Spain’s FIES iso­la­tion units, against which a series of attacks last decade were lat­er claimed by the first gen­er­a­tion of the FAI) died in the cells, leav­ing his blood on the hands of the jail­ers, courts and cops.

 

FAI / ELF,

New Hori­zons of Burn­ing Rage

 

report in main­stream media:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256525/Bathampton-arson-attack-transmitter-site-leaves-80–000-homes-TV-radio.html

New Keystone XL Aerial Tree Blockade Halts Construction in Diboll, TX, 3rd Jan

Unprecedented “dump platforms” protected by intricate 100 ft perimeter web of safety lines to protect sitters; action declared in solidarity with “Idle No More” in Canada

From a TSB state­ment released at 9:00AM this morn­ing — Late last night, block­aders set up two &ldqu

Unprecedented “dump platforms” protected by intricate 100 ft perimeter web of safety lines to protect sitters; action declared in solidarity with “Idle No More” in Canada

From a TSB state­ment released at 9:00AM this morn­ing — Late last night, block­aders set up two “dump plat­forms” in trees out­side of Diboll, Texas which would oth­er­wise be cleared to make way for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tox­ic tar sands pipeline. These spe­cial “dump plat­forms” are shield­ed by an unprece­dent­ed 80–100 ft perime­ter of life-lines arranged, which if dis­turbed would cer­tain­ly dump the two block­aders nest­ed in them rough­ly 50–60 ft in the air. The Block­aders are sit­ting in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the now glob­al “Idle No More” cam­paign for First Nation’s human rights and trib­al sov­er­eign­ty that very recent­ly start­ed in Cana­da.

This new tree block­ade comes just a cou­ple weeks after the end of Tar Sands Blockade’s 85-day tree-sit near Winns­boro, TX. Tran­sCana­da rerout­ed the tar sands pipeline to go around the Winns­boro tree-sit, despite hav­ing told count­less landown­ers, includ­ing Dou­glass res­i­dent Mike Bish­op, that the route was set in stone and could not be altered to avoid bull­doz­ing their crop­land, or to go around schools, neigh­bor­hoods, or eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive areas.

This new site is sur­round­ed by bar­ri­ers like High­way 59, rail­road tracks, and Ryan Lake. With these near­by, block­aders have found a loca­tion around which the pipe can­not eas­i­ly be rerout­ed.

The via­bil­i­ty of this block­ade depends entire­ly on the safe con­duct of Tran­sCana­da and local police forces. They could eas­i­ly end it by cut­ting ropes and seri­ous­ly injur­ing or killing the tree sit­ters. Block­aders Audrey and Mike know the risks. They are pre­pared to stay on their plat­forms, just big enough to lie down on, indef­i­nite­ly, to defend their col­lec­tive home from the expan­sion of tar sands exploita­tion that Key­stone XL would ush­er in.

“Pro­tect­ing the liv­ing sys­tems which we’re a part of is a moral neces­si­ty,” shared Audrey, who is sit­ting in a sin­gu­lar tree left in a new­ly-cleared field. “Extrac­tion of the tar sands is the most destruc­tive project on the con­ti­nent. It threat­ens the integri­ty of the entire bios­phere, not to men­tion the First Nations depen­dent upon access to clean water, land, and air for the health and food for their trib­al com­mu­ni­ties.”

Mike, the oth­er sit­ter sus­pend­ed in a 50 ft sky­pod between two trees, agreed, “That their plight has been so long ignored by indus­try and pol­i­cy-mak­ers is a clear vio­la­tion of their human rights and a crime of con­science. That’s why we are enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sup­port­ing the Idle No More move­ment!”

Tar Sands Block­ade is a coali­tion of Texas and Okla­homa landown­ers and cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­ers using peace­ful and sus­tained civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop the con­struc­tion of TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.

“Insti­tu­tion­al meth­ods of address­ing cli­mate change have failed us,” explained Ron Seifert, a Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­on. “Ris­ing up to defend our homes against cor­po­rate exploita­tion is our best and only hope to pre­serve life on this plan­et. We must nor­mal­ize and embrace direct, orga­nized resis­tance to the death machine of indus­tri­al extrac­tion and stand with those like Idle No More who take extra­or­di­nary risk to defend their fam­i­lies and liveli­hoods.”

Pho­tos of the action are avail­able on Tar Sands Blockade’s Flickr account here: http://flickr.com/photos/tarsandsblockade/

[Block­ade is locat­ed two miles south of Diboll, TX on north­bound High­way 59, a mas­sive ban­ner deployed there is high­ly vis­i­ble to high­way traf­fic.]
See TarSandsBlockade.org for more info.

Idle No More — First Nation blockade of Sarnia CN Rail track

Dec 25th, 2012

A south­west­ern Ontario First Nation is plan­ning a ral­ly in Sar­nia today — the fourth day of its block­ade of a CN Rail line in the city.

Dec 25th, 2012

A south­west­ern Ontario First Nation is plan­ning a ral­ly in Sar­nia today — the fourth day of its block­ade of a CN Rail line in the city.

The Aamji­w­naang (AWN’-ja-nong) First Nation says both the demon­stra­tion at Sar­nia city hall this morn­ing and the ongo­ing block­ade are part of the nation­al Idle No More protests.

The may­or of Sar­nia, Ont., says city police do not plan to shut down a CN Rail block­ade by First Nations activists as long as no one is hurt in the protest.

Mike Bradley says CN obtained a court injunc­tion that leaves it to police in the south­west­ern Ontario city to decide whether to end the three-day-old block­ade.

Block­ade spokesman Ron Plain says the protests are being led by young Aamji­w­naang First Nation mem­bers, who met Sun­day with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from CN, as well as Bradley and Sarnia’s police chief.

Dozens of demon­stra­tors set up tables, tents and vehi­cles on and around the track Fri­day as part of the nation­al Idle No More protests.

Orga­niz­er Vanes­sa Gray says the ral­ly aims to bring the com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er “to stand up for what your rights are and what you believe in.”

Mean­while, there’s no indi­ca­tion when the block­ade will come to an end.

They say the block­ade of the com­mer­cial-rail cor­ri­dor will con­tin­ue until Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er meets with Atti­wapiskat Chief There­sa Spence, who is on a hunger strike to bring atten­tion to abo­rig­i­nal issues.

CN Rail spokesman Jim Fee­ny says the rail com­pa­ny is urg­ing gov­ern­ments and police to step up nego­ti­a­tions to come up with a peace­ful set­tle­ment.

He says the stop­page is start­ing to affect CN cus­tomers, for exam­ple it’s pre­vent­ing propane ship­ments from get­ting to Cana­di­an con­sumers.

Freedom and Solidarity to Marie Mason on her 51st Birthday (USA)

Marie Mason is an eco-pris­on­er con­demned with a long prison pun­ish­ment by the Amer­i­can regime.

Marie Mason’s 51st birth­day is com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 26, 2013. We are ask­ing that folks hold events for Marie around her birth­day as part of what will be an annu­al time to cel­e­brate her life and keep her spir­its up while she remains impris­oned.

Marie Mason is an eco-pris­on­er con­demned with a long prison pun­ish­ment by the Amer­i­can regime.

Marie Mason’s 51st birth­day is com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 26, 2013. We are ask­ing that folks hold events for Marie around her birth­day as part of what will be an annu­al time to cel­e­brate her life and keep her spir­its up while she remains impris­oned.

We know that the mid-win­ter hol­i­days are a busy time for every­one, but they are a sad time for the pris­on­ers who remain inside – and every­one wants some cheer on their birth­day! So we hope that folks can find time to plan a small event for Marie, such as a let­ter-writ­ing or birth­day par­ty. (If time per­mits, we rec­om­mend that you might want to hold let­ter writ­ings a week or more ear­li­er so the cards can reach her before the 26th.)

Some peo­ple are con­fused about Marie’s mail sit­u­a­tion. It is true that she can only send let­ters to a pre-approved list of 100 peo­ple. How­ev­er, she can receive let­ters from any­one and so she will be able to receive all these birth­day wish­es. (Please be sure that the sender’s first and last name are on the enve­lope, that let­ters are all in Eng­lish – she can receive let­ters in oth­er lan­guages but will be delayed – and that cards do not have glit­ter or oth­er things added to them.)

Last, if you are plan­ning a pub­lic event for her birth­day, please tell us and we’ll include the infor­ma­tion on the web­site.

Sup­port Marie Mason
www.supportmariemason.org

Marie Mason #04672–061
FMC Car­swell
Fed­er­al Med­ical Cen­ter
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TX 76127

Source: Sup­port Marie Mason

Defend the trees at Adam’s farm! (Sat 22 Dec & beyond)

The trees at Adam’s Farm were suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ed all day Fri­day (21 Dec), and the plan is now to hold and secure them over the week­end and beyond. Please con­sid­er doing a stint at the camp over the next few days. It is locat­ed on the dis­used rail­way: please respect the pri­va­cy of the res­i­dents of the farm­house and access down the dis­used rail­way track, not the Adams Farm track. Please don’t bring vehi­cles in. More folk are need­ed to camp out dur­ing the day & overnight, and to sup­port with wood, tools, car­pen­try, climb­ing skills, dri­ving, and food. All wel­come!

For more info call 07926 423 033. Map below: the camp is at the end of the old rail­way, in and around the trees at risk. Google map here.


View BHLR road protest map in a larg­er map

Combe Haven Week 1: Summary, reports and pictures December 22, 2012

Clear­ly try­ing to get the jump on the Link Road’s oppo­nents, con­trac­tors start­ed work on the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) prop­er on Fri­day 14 Decem­ber with a move to cut down the trees near Adam’s farm in Crowhurst (“clear­ance” work like this was not sched­uled to begin until next year). The resis­tance over the next week was some­times sham­bol­ic, always peace­ful, and occa­sion­al­ly hero­ic. Six tree defend­ers were arrest­ed (2 on Sat­ur­day, 4 on Mon­day), and Day 8 closed with activists camp­ing overnight in the trees near Adam’s farm.

Activists are now call­ing on peo­ple to help them hold the site near Adam’s farm.

What fol­lows is a brief sum­ma­ry of the sto­ry so far.

Fri­day 14 Decem­ber 2012

Anti-road pro­tes­tors from Hast­ings, St Leonards and Bex­hill were joined by oth­ers from East­bourne, Brighton and Lon­don at dawn in the Combe Val­ley today to stop attempts to begin tree-felling for the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road. On a day of heavy rain and high winds, around 30 pro­tes­tors suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ed any sig­nif­i­cant work tak­ing place despite the pres­ence in the val­ley of over 100 secu­ri­ty guards, chain­saw oper­a­tives and oth­er con­trac­tors.

The cam­paign­ers ini­tial­ly occu­pied trees at Adams Farm and suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the access track for over 2 hours. The main con­trac­tors’ con­voy from Sid­ley arrived en masse at Upper Wilt­ing Farm mid-morn­ing, and they pro­ceed­ed on foot to attempt tree-cut­ting near Lit­tle Bog Wood. Pro­tes­tors prompt­ly moved into the wood­land to min­gle with the work­ers, mak­ing it impos­si­ble for any felling to occur.

The con­trac­tors then relo­cat­ed by vehi­cle to Adams Farm and were again meet by pro­tes­tors, some still occu­py­ing trees and oth­ers on the ground. There were lengthy peri­ods of inac­tiv­i­ty with the work crews and secu­ri­ty seem­ing unclear what tac­tics to adopt. On only a few occa­sions were chain­saws or strim­mers start­ed but pro­tes­tors imme­di­ate­ly placed them­selves in posi­tions to stop them being used. The con­trac­tors and secu­ri­ty guards retreat­ed to their vans for lunch and at around 12.30 made a deci­sion to aban­don work for the day. Pro­tes­tors remained on alert in the val­ley for a fur­ther 2 hours to ensure no fur­ther attempts were made.

Sat­ur­day 15 Decem­ber 2012

Activists were able to stop some of the trees in Bex­hill from being chopped down, though con­trac­tors were able to chain­saw quite a large a num­ber there. There were two arrests – one for “aggra­vat­ed tres­pass” (now charged and released), the sec­ond for not giv­ing their name and address to a police offi­cer (which they have no legal right to demand under most cir­cum­stances).  No trees were felled at Adam’s farm how­ev­er, which was also being defend­ed.

Sun­day 16 Decem­ber

Trees con­tin­ued to be felled in Bex­hill at the back of the Leisure Cen­tre (TN39 4HS), despite attempts to defend the trees. Chain­saws and secu­ri­ty guards moved-in on trees nr Adam’s Farm with climbers, and one per­son locked-on to a con­trac­tors vehi­cle, sig­nif­i­cant­ly imped­ing their activ­i­ties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mon­day 17 Decem­ber

Tree-felling con­tin­ued in Bex­hill, with four activists occu­py­ing the trees in the morn­ing / after­noon. All four were even­tu­al­ly removed from the trees and arrest­ed. They were all released, the last one at 2am the next day! Fel­low activists were out­side Hast­ings police sta­tion to greet them, and the CHD are now arrang­ing court sup­port for them where appro­pri­ate.

 

 

 

 

 

Tues­day 18 Decem­ber 2012

Tree-defend­ers were in action in Bex­hill again where chain­saw-wield­ing con­trac­tors con­tin­ued to fell trees. They attempt­ed to enter the area but were eject­ed by secu­ri­ty guards. Oth­er sites have been mon­i­tored and do not appear to have been attacked yet.

Wednes­day 19 Decem­ber 2012

Work began in Sid­ley again on Wednes­day (19.12.12) as secu­ri­ty guards and their ubiq­ui­tous Har­ris fenc­ing crept north­wards up the dis­used rail­way, giv­ing the chain­saw crews space to do their dirty work unob­struct­ed by the small num­bers of pro­tes­tors present. One ear­ly bird pro­tes­tor dropped by on the way to work and put anti-road posters up all along the hoard­ings by the A269 bridge.

Tree defend­ers main­tained a pres­ence across the val­ley, mon­i­tor­ing for signs of activ­i­ty in the vicin­i­ty of Upper Wilt­ing Farm, Adams Farm (where a small num­ber of Envi­ron­ment Agency peo­ple were again at work on what’s believed to water­course main­te­nance not relat­ed to road build­ing), Acton’s Farm and Glover’s Farm. The val­ley remained just about pass­able on foot, with about 30 cm of stand­ing water along the foot­path in the val­ley bot­tom near Adam’s Farm.

Sad­ly, recon­nais­sance revealed exten­sive tree-felling in the copse between Acton’s Farm and Glover’s Farm at map ref TQ748099, about 100m to the left of the foot­path as you walk towards Acton’s Farm from Sid­ley. This work looked like it was done a few days ear­li­er. The con­trac­tors cut down around 30 larg­er trees with­in the copse but left a screen of sur­round­ing small­er trees to shield their work from view. A few larg­er trees still remained in the copse on the North side.

Thurs­day 20 Decem­ber 2012

Tree defend­ers were out again in Sid­ley on Thurs­day and man­aged to halt the felling of a num­ber of trees along the dis­used rail­way near Glovers bridge. In the ear­ly hours two pro­tes­tors with climb­ing gear scaled 20ft into an over­hang­ing ash tree and hasti­ly erect­ed a tar­pau­lin to pro­vide shel­ter from the rain. Local sup­port­ers were also present on the bridge and even­tu­al­ly man­aged to get choco­lates and hot water to the tree-sit­ters.

The occu­pied tree and a num­ber of oth­ers sur­round­ing it were spared the teeth of the chain­saws, although many sig­nif­i­cant trees fur­ther along the route were felled as the chain­saw gangs and their secu­ri­ty detail moved North into the Combe Haven val­ley. The pro­tes­tors out­last­ed the work crews and even man­aged to rus­tle up a hot meal at lunch – some­thing the secu­ri­ty guard stand­ing on guard near­by for 3 hours in the pour­ing rain could only envy.

Fri­day 21 Decem­ber

The day began with the re-occu­pa­tion of the trees in Sid­ley that were suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ed the pre­vi­ous day. Secu­ri­ty and police then made a major move on the trees near Adam’s farm in Crowhurst, felling some near the barns there, and report­ed­ly pre­vent­ing access along the foot­paths.

How­ev­er, tree defend­ers were still able to occu­py key trees along the line of the old dis­used rail­way cut­ting there, build­ing tree hous­es. Police tell one of those occu­py­ing the trees that they will bring him mince pies if he’s still there in the morn­ing. The day end­ed with secu­ri­ty guards leav­ing, amid rumors that they may have knocked off now until the New Year, and activists camp­ing out overnight in and around the trees.

Resis­tance to the road also made the front pages of the three local papers:

First Nations blockade Alberta tarsands highway near Fort McMurray

Decem­ber 21, 2012. FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The leader of an abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty near the Alber­ta tarsands says the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is clear­ing the way for devel­op­ment on tra­di­tion­al land.

Chief Alan Adam of the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation says Ottawa’s omnibus bud­get leg­is­la­tion weak­ens envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in Cana­da.

Decem­ber 21, 2012. FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The leader of an abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty near the Alber­ta tarsands says the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is clear­ing the way for devel­op­ment on tra­di­tion­al land.

Chief Alan Adam of the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation says Ottawa’s omnibus bud­get leg­is­la­tion weak­ens envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion in Cana­da.

He says tarsands projects have already sul­lied rivers and lakes in the area and the bud­get bill — quote — “gives the green light to destroy the rest.”

Adam’s com­ments came as he joined a high­way block­ade north of Fort McMur­ray that was part of the abo­rig­i­nal Idle No More move­ment.

Protests and march­es have been held coun­try-wide in recent weeks to demand the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment reverse the leg­is­la­tion that First Nations say will affect treaties and tra­di­tion­al land use.

A nation­al protest is planned for Fri­day.

“The peo­ple are stand­ing up and say­ing enough is enough,” Adam said Thurs­day. “The Harp­er gov­ern­ment is cre­at­ing leg­is­la­tion that aims to weak­en our rights and pave the way for indus­try on our lands.

“As a leader I plan to stand with my peo­ple and reject this bill and any oth­er bill that does not have our con­sent and any such law will not apply on our reserve lands and tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries,” he added.

The Athabas­ca Chipewyan band has been rais­ing con­cerns for years about the impact of the oil­sands on the envi­ron­ment and on the health of peo­ple liv­ing in the area.

“Our Nation has been fight­ing for bet­ter pro­tec­tion of rights and lands right here in Alber­ta for over a decade. Instead of lis­ten­ing to us, they have cre­at­ed laws to try and silence us,” Adam said.

“We will not be silent any longer.”

Band mem­ber Les Car­di­nal said the issue goes beyond abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple.

“This is not just for First Nations peo­ple, Metis peo­ple, indige­nous peo­ple,” he said. “This is all of Cana­da. The gov­ern­ment is lit­er­al­ly sell­ing your democ­ra­cy away to the cor­po­ra­tions.

“And this is only the start. They’re doing what they want to do.”

Bangladesh mine activists dump coal outside GCM meeting in London

21 Decem­ber 2012. Pro­test­er dressed as San­ta Claus deliv­ers sack in row over plans for mine in Phul­bari, Bangladesh

 

21 Decem­ber 2012. Pro­test­er dressed as San­ta Claus deliv­ers sack in row over plans for mine in Phul­bari, Bangladesh

 

Activists dumped coal out­side the annu­al meet­ing of min­ing firm GCM Resources in Lon­don on Thurs­day in protest at the com­pa­ny’s plans for a con­tro­ver­sial mine in Bangladesh.

The meet­ing at the Insti­tute of Direc­tors was brought to an end after a pro­test­er dressed as San­ta Claus deliv­ered a sack of coal to the GCM chair­man, Ger­ard How­ell. Two pro­test­ers were arrest­ed for breach of the peace but released with­out charge.

The firm, list­ed on Lon­don’s junior Aim mar­ket, wants to run an open pit coal mine in the Phul­bari town­ship in the north of the coun­try, despite claims that up to 130,000 peo­ple could be dis­placed and warn­ings by the UN that human rights could be vio­lat­ed.

An offi­cial com­plaint to the Organ­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-oper­a­tion and Devel­op­ment has been made by the World Devel­op­ment Move­ment and the Inter­na­tion­al Account­abil­i­ty Project, say­ing the com­pa­ny would forcibly evict up to 130,000 peo­ple if the project went ahead. The com­plaint men­tions a UN report from ear­li­er this year warn­ing that “access to safe drink­ing water for some 220,000 peo­ple is at stake”.

The com­pa­ny claims the mine will dis­place 40,000 peo­ple but cre­ate 17,000 jobs.

The 1,000ft-deep mine, which could stretch across 14,500 acres has been put on hold since 2006 after local oppo­si­tion.

Accord­ing to doc­u­ments released under the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act, GCM boss­es have approached Britain’s Depart­ment of Trade and Indus­try to soothe rela­tions between the com­pa­ny and the Bangladeshi gov­ern­ment.

In 2006, three peo­ple were killed and 800 injured at the mine dur­ing protests about the pos­si­ble evic­tions. GCM said devel­op­ment of the mine was essen­tial for meet­ing Bangladesh’s ener­gy needs by pro­vid­ing about 114m tonnes of coal for domes­tic con­sump­tion with the remain­ing 458m tonnes sold abroad.

 

Defend the trees at Adams Farm! December 21, 2012

HELP NEEDED NOW TO DEFEND THE TREES! Con­trac­tors, sup­port­ed by secu­ri­ty and police, have start­ed felling trees today at Adams Farm (TN33 9AY). This is one of the last remain­ing areas with sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of large trees on the route of the road.

HELP NEEDED NOW TO DEFEND THE TREES! Con­trac­tors, sup­port­ed by secu­ri­ty and police, have start­ed felling trees today at Adams Farm (TN33 9AY). This is one of the last remain­ing areas with sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of large trees on the route of the road.

Secu­ri­ty and police report­ed at the top of the access track, and the foot­path from Crowhurst play­ing field car park was closed ear­li­er in the morn­ing. Police are in the car park. Oth­er more imag­i­na­tive routes in to Adams Farm exist: cross-coun­try, from the Upper Wilt­ing Farm direc­tion, even across the par­tial­ly flood­ed val­ley from the Bex­hill end.

Note also a sig­nif­i­cant pock­et of trees at risk locat­ed near Decoy Pond, half way between Adams Farm and Upper Wilt­ing Farm. To receive info and action reports through­out the day text 07926 423033.

Stop the tree destruction! December 20, 2012

Update at 10am, Thurs­day 20 Decem­ber: Tree defend­ers are now high in trees just north of Glover’s Farm Bridge TN39 5AJ, in Bex­hill. Secu­ri­ty present. Any sup­port appre­ci­at­ed!

Update at 10am, Thurs­day 20 Decem­ber: Tree defend­ers are now high in trees just north of Glover’s Farm Bridge TN39 5AJ, in Bex­hill. Secu­ri­ty present. Any sup­port appre­ci­at­ed!

Tree-felling is con­tin­u­ing at the Bex­hill end (see report from today below), and pro­tes­tors are encour­aged to gath­er tomor­row, Thurs­day, from 7am in Sid­ley TN40 2LH, near Glover’s Farm, to keep peace­ful­ly resist­ing. How­ev­er tree defend­ers should also be aware of trees at risk near Adam’s Farm and Decoy Pond in Crowhurst, and hence try and keep a watch through­out the val­ley. If you want to receive info and action updates through the day tomor­row (Thurs­day) text us on 07926423033.

Work began in Sid­ley again today, Wednes­day 19th Dec, as secu­ri­ty guards and their ubiq­ui­tous Har­ris fenc­ing crept north­wards up the dis­used rail­way, giv­ing the chain­saw crews space to do their dirty work unob­struct­ed by the small num­bers of pro­tes­tors present.

One ear­ly bird pro­tes­tor dropped by on the way to work and put anti-road posters up all along the hoard­ings by the A269 bridge.

Tree defend­ers main­tained a pres­ence across the val­ley, mon­i­tor­ing for signs of activ­i­ty in the vicin­i­ty of Upper Wilt­ing Farm, Adams Farm (where a small num­ber of Envi­ron­ment Agency peo­ple were again at work on what’s believed to water­course main­te­nance not relat­ed to road build­ing), Acton’s Farm and Glover’s Farm. The val­ley remains just about pass­able on foot, with about 30 cm of stand­ing water along the foot­path in the val­ley bot­tom near Adam’s Farm.

Sad­ly, recon­nais­sance revealed exten­sive tree-felling in the copse between Acton’s Farm and Glover’s Farm at map ref TQ748099, about 100m to the left of the foot­path as you walk towards Acton’s Farm from Sid­ley. This work looks like it was done a few days ago. The con­trac­tors cut down around 30 larg­er trees with­in the copse but left a screen of sur­round­ing small­er trees to shield their work from view. A few larg­er trees still remain in the copse on the North side.