Multiple Arsons: Olympic torch returns to Bristol

On Mon­day 31st we lit up the open­ing week of the Olympics with an attack on two vehi­cles (and all the equip­ment they con­tained) belong­ing to British Tele­com (BT), an “offi­cial Olympic part­ner”.  It’s a small reply to the height­ened repres­sion in Lon­don. 

On Mon­day 31st we lit up the open­ing week of the Olympics with an attack on two vehi­cles (and all the equip­ment they con­tained) belong­ing to British Tele­com (BT), an “offi­cial Olympic part­ner”.  It’s a small reply to the height­ened repres­sion in Lon­don. 

In Long­well Green this week we then sab­o­taged a mast owned by BT’s par­ent com­pa­ny, O2, the mobile phone net­work.  We burnt out the mast by set­ting fire to the cables at the bot­tom.

While the thou­sands who can afford to swell the econ­o­my are wel­comed by the state for the Olympics, O2 prof­its from the exploita­tion of a lit­er­al cap­tive audi­ence of “ille­gal” migrants who are forced to use O2 phones with extor­tion­ate pric­ing in a pilot scheme at Yarl’s Wood “Immi­gra­tion Removal Cen­tre” (prison) which is run by Ser­co.  The author­i­ties can mon­i­tor calls with ease, and the net­work is eas­i­er to shut down in the event of a dis­tur­bance or as pun­ish­ment for rule break­ing.  There are cur­rent­ly mass hunger strikes in Ger­many and the UK (in ?Mor­ton Hall, a for­mer open prison now specif­i­cal­ly des­ig­nat­ed for “for­eign nation­als”), these hunger strikes are an expres­sion against deten­tion, con­trol and iso­la­tion. 

While O2 prof­it from their deal­ings in deten­tion they are also fur­ther­ing the encroach­ment of the mar­ket into the fab­ric of our social lives.  “Giff Gaff” is a mobile phone net­work owned by O2 and a brain­child of their head of brand strat­e­gy.  Their mod­el of oper­at­ing encour­ages con­sumers (or “mem­bers) to par­tic­i­pate in aspects of run­ning the ser­vice such as cus­tomer sup­port, mar­ket­ing and sales in return for mea­gre incen­tives and forms their “hor­i­zon­tal­ly run” busi­ness image.  Under this mod­el your friends become mar­ket­ing tar­gets and your rela­tions are degrad­ed in their val­ue as com­modi­ties, bring­ing us even clos­er to a world where every human inter­ac­tion con­sists of buy­ing and sell­ing.

O2 also sup­ply radio and phone sys­tems for the UK police through a net­work of TETRA masts.  G4S also use O2 sim cards to run their elec­tron­ic tag­ging sys­tems.

BT sup­ply the UK pris­ons (as well as invest­ing mil­lions in the arms trade).  Inmates are charged upto 7 times the aver­age call rate, pay­ing for the priv­i­lege to be spied on.  In BT’s words, “pay­ing for the lev­el of ongo­ing invest­ment in secu­ri­ty”.  BT now run com­put­erise infor­ma­tion points on prison wings, “aid­ing the pris­on­er dur­ing set­tle­ment”.  There’s even employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties upload­ing infor­ma­tion and per­for­mance sta­tis­tics.

Behind the scenes of Olympic grandeur, our dai­ly expe­ri­ence is that mod­ern life becomes more and more like a cage.  Britain jails more adults than any oth­er Euro­pean coun­try, and comes 3rd for jailed young peo­ple, but it’s gold medal is in extend­ing the author­i­tar­i­an man­age­ment of the “inside” to the “out­side” with its induced cul­ture of cow­ardice, con­for­mi­ty and snitch­ing.  The devel­op­ing social con­trol struc­ture has many ten­ta­cles and is always deep­en­ing them through tech­nol­o­gy, psy­chol­o­gy, sur­veil­lance, polic­ing and archi­tec­ture.  In short, the mech­a­nism of jail dif­fused through­out the urban envi­ron­ment.  This soci­ety is already one giant prison for all but a priv­i­leged few and the mod­ern cit­i­zen is already being trained to be the mod­el pris­on­er.

But some cells are still more con­crete than oth­ers.  In April this year Car­la Ver­dugo and Iván Sil­va were arrest­ed in Santi­gao trans­port­ing an explo­sive the night before their com­rade Juan Alistes tri­al prepa­ra­tion hear­ing.  We want to con­tin­ue what they start­ed.  Yes­ter­day the “secu­ri­ty case” tri­al against Juan, Fred­dy and Mar­cel­lo began in Chile. 

Strength to all unpaci­fied cap­tives from last sum­mers riots.  Sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those resist­ing the depor­ta­tion machine.  None of these hostages are for­got­ten.  Sol­i­dar­i­ty is our weapon and we can use it.

We also take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to wel­come ELF Switzer­land pris­on­er Sylvio Guerin back to the streets.

Attacks on com­mu­ni­ca­tion struc­tures are a nec­es­sary part of the mul­ti-formed strug­gle towards the col­lapse of cap­i­tal­ism.  Where soci­ety means mis­ery we chose rebel­lion.  Fire to the pris­ons, bor­ders and deten­tion estate.

Update in tunnel boring machine saga — community resistance strong

4.8.12 update: 150 Gar­dai to move TBM 5km; Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil begin cov­er-up

4.8.12 update: 150 Gar­dai to move TBM 5km; Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil begin cov­er-up

As those fol­low­ing the sto­ry may have heard by now, the TBM was moved yes­ter­day.

Aware that some­thing was going to hap­pen, cam­paign­ers spent the night at Gle­n­amoy sleep­ing in cars and vans, aware that some­thing was going to hap­pen. Two slept under the bridge. Local res­i­dents near­by told us how the road had sunk 4 inch­es in the last few days, while oth­er parts were ruined from the excep­tion­al traf­fic. We’re sure the Coun­cil will not be so quick to do those repairs…

At 4am, gar­dai began to swarm into the area. 150 IRMS secu­ri­ty also marched up the road. We ran up, but the sheer weight of num­bers kept us back. Ten man­aged to get into the field on the side where the truck was list­ing. Sud­den­ly, 40 IRMS came in and set up a fence. Dig­gers and trucks of stone came in and for the next ten hours, Shell filled in ditch­es and built up a road around the col­lapsed bank. The crane plan had been aban­doned and its seemed the field own­er had giv­en per­mis­sion. Thus, with­out warn­ing the cross­roads were closed to all traf­fic, caus­ing chaos yet again. Shell only lat­er offered its usu­al bland, ‘sor­ry for the incon­ve­nience’ shite.

Rumour is it that the crane stopped the pre­vi­ous day sim­ply turned around and went home after being stopped. And that Shell were des­per­ate­ly try­ing to find a replace­ment – offer­ing 15K for a crane dri­ver alone to do the job, and anoth­er 50K for a crane itself.

Those in the field, hav­ing been giv­en direc­tions to go there when the road was being cleared were told they were being detained there and phys­i­cal­ly pre­vent­ed from leav­ing by gar­dai. After watch­ing the spec­ta­cle close up for a cou­ple of hours, they made their way through oth­er fields to get out.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s van was stopped at Bel­linaboy by Gar­dai and had its back win­dow delib­er­ate­ly smashed by Sgt Der­mot But­ler, the well known bul­ly of the pub­lic order unit – his for­mer part­ner now has a restrain­ing order against them, but in the dubi­ous ranks of May­o’s police, that prob­a­bly puts him in line for a pro­mo­tion. Mau­ra was arrest­ed and charged, though sub­se­quent­ly released and the van returned in what was a bla­tant occa­sion of pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion.

Anoth­er cam­paign­er also had their car impound­ed; while a third per­son was told their van could only leave the area if a gar­da drove it back to camp. There was quite a pat­tern were known pro­test­ers were being denied right of pas­sage along the road, while oth­er were stopped out­right or repeat­ed­ly harassed and searched. Those walk­ing had their own per­son­al gar­da escort, and every fifty meters from Gle­n­amoy to Bel­linaboy there was at least one gar­da stand­ing – some­one count­ed them and the total there alone came to 80. We heard of check­points set up as far as Ban­gor Erris.

But­ler con­tin­ued his cus­tom­ary inci­vil­i­ty when a local res­i­dent went to Bel­mul­let gar­da sta­tion to have his tax return signed – But­ler opened the hatch and said I’m not sign­ing that for the likes of you, before slam­ming the hatch shut.

Bet­ty Schults, a well known local cam­paign­er, and oth­ers were fol­low­ing the trail of who had giv­en per­mis­sion for the TBM trucks to go up to Gle­n­amoy in the first place. Hav­ing been told that doc­u­men­ta­tion was at the Castle­bar head­quar­ters of Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil, she made the 100km round trip only to receive a phonecall telling her that it was miss­ing from the file just as she arrived.

At 2pm we had news the TBM was mov­ing so we head­ed down to Ballyscel­ly junc­tion to wit­ness it. Vehi­cles were backed up all along it, one local res­i­dent unable to get to her elder­ly moth­er who was at home alone. As usu­al, gar­dai were hap­py to block the road entire­ly for Shell, caus­ing mas­sive dis­rup­tion as even the back­roads were closed off this time.

The twitch­i­ness of An Gar­dai Síochá­na was appar­ent. They were des­per­ate to see this go off with­out any hitch­es. As the tun­nel bor­ing machine came up the road, 38 gar­dai walk­ing in front of the truck alone. IRMS secu­ri­ty were also float­ing around. With such num­bers there was lit­tle that could be done. Punc­tu­at­ing all this was a thun­der­storm right over­head.

The sub­ject of such mas­sive oper­a­tion, which under­lines its impor­tance, it was clear that the TBM would be deliv­ered back to Bel­linaboy. Yet for five days it was stuck at Gle­n­amoy, a nation­al news sto­ry and galviniz­ing the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. Shell was at the cen­tre of the embar­rass­ment; An Gar­dai Síochá­na left red-faced, their abil­i­ty to respond reduced to sim­ple thug­gery; and the bla­tant crim­i­nal col­lu­sion of Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil becom­ing appar­ent once more. Iron­ic, as Fri­day was elven years to the very day that Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil signed their first agree­ment with Shell.

As we sat in a local pub, swap­ping sto­ries of the week, it was clear that there is hard­ly a local who does not believe Mayo coun­ty man­ag­er, Peter Hynes, has not sold his soul to Shell. The ques­tion is for how much. Cer­tain­ly he does not have the trust or respect of any­one up here.

The bat­tle is not over yet. The TBM has not got to where it is meant to, Aghoos. Before that can hap­pen, the road at Ballyscel­ly junc­tion has to be built up so it can turn. More pieces of it have still to arrive. Aghoos is not yet ready for it either, being plagued by flood­ing, while the weight of the TBM is not going to do the frac­tur­ing ground at Bel­linaboy refin­ery any good either.

Shell have shot them­selves in the foot sev­er­al times; not only a huge embar­rass­ment that made nation­al head­lines, it showed the ongo­ing strength of resis­tance com­ing from the com­mu­ni­ty here. As we sat in the pub last night we could hear the buzz of a peo­ple fight­ing back.

As ever the camp is open to all who want to come and sup­port, though you might have to mind the moat and draw­bridge…

Car­toon in Irish News on the sto­ry — http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/notanumber/irishnews030812-p16.jpg

———

2nd August 2012

Day three and things are still look­ing bad for Shell. Pro­test­ers and the Irish bog have the upper hand, with Shell receiv­ing flack and Gar­dai hum­bled as crane sent pack­ing.

Day Three in the TBM House
Some­where in Erris idiots at are work…

Most of the day was qui­et around the TBM itself. Fenc­ing was put up and IMRS formed a cor­don around it. We are able to walk up and around the TBM — in places you can reach out and touch the Fion­nu­ala. The turn­ing wheels have caused the tar­mac to scrunch up in quite a few places. The front of the truck has pushed the ditch out two foot, the back axles sit­ting in a pool of water and looks like one of them has buck­led. The road is pret­ty bad­ly dam­aged and it is easy to see why the dri­ver was not going any fur­ther. The load on the back is also push­ing the frame of the trail­er down onto the tires.

Most work was on fin­ish­ing bypass­es around the TBM so vehi­cles could get in and out of Ross­port. Cars are able to get to Ross­port, but the direct route is still not pos­si­ble, mean­ing the road through Gle­n­amoy vil­lage is still being used, caus­ing dam­age to locals gar­dens and the road sur­face is being destroyed by turn­ing lor­ries from Bar­retts & Lennons. Local coun­cil­lors moaned about it and asked for reports from Shel­l’s pet Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil.

How­ev­er, one of the Ross­port 5 and Gold­man Prize win­ner Willie Cor­duff did some­thing about the haulage trucks com­ing through the vil­lage, stand­ing in front of one truck com­ing through. Unfor­tu­nate­ly arrest­ed, but released with­out charge two hours lat­er.

Locals and campers mon­i­tored the sit­u­a­tion all day, every­one in good spir­its enjoy­ing the sight. Even though it under­lines Shel­l’s idio­cy in attempt­ing the whole project in the first place, it is awe­some to see the unbe­lie­ve­able.

Else­where, the two arrest­ed for the Cross­moli­na lock-on plead­ed guilty in Bal­li­na court. One was fined 200 euros on the spot and the oth­er had their pun­ish­ment deferred to the Sep­tem­ber hear­ing in Bel­mul­let, when many oth­ers arrest­ed on pre­vi­ous protests are also hav­ing their cas­es heard.

Gar­dai were around all day, but in small num­bers. Amaz­ing giv­en how much was spent on escort­ing it a day or so ago that they’ve pret­ty much aban­doned it now. Def­i­nite­ly a ques­tion or two to be asked there about a colos­sal waste of mon­ey. Maybe they were get­ting the bol­lock­ing they tru­ely deserved as the trucks could only have been on that road with their per­mis­sion.

Some peo­ple did a bit of dig­ging and it turns out that not only was there a major fail­ure of judge­ment among expe­ri­enced peo­ple who should have known bet­ter about tak­ing a heavy load up a rur­al road through bog­land, but it may also been ille­gal. Accord­ing to the road traf­fic man­ag­ment plan, the approved haulage route ends at the Ballyscal­ly junc­tion to Aghoos. Peter Hynes, the Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil Direc­tor of Ser­vices / Coun­ty Man­ag­er who always bends over back­wards to help Shell, has said that Shell had all the nec­es­sary per­mis­sions, which, to put it polite­ly is dis­as­sem­bling some­what. Did he real­ly give per­mis­sion for Shell to go up to Gle­n­amoy? Maybe peo­ple should ring his office ((094) 90 24444) and ask to see the doc­u­ments. Heads need to roll on this one.

In answer to some­one’s ques­tion, the trucks came the des­ig­nat­ed route, on the main route past Bal­linaboy to the Aghoos com­pound. They failed to make the turn­ing at the Ballyscal­ly turn­ing where the ani­mal labs are, so con­tin­ued up to Gle­n­amoy / Ross­port junc­tion — to turn around and try from the oth­er direc­tion.

But back to the direct action bit. In the evening reports start­ed com­ing in (and this is the beau­ty of a com­mu­ni­ty wide cam­paign — eyes and ears every­where) that a crane was on its way. Shell were say­ing that the TBM was going to be moved. Mmmh, a lot of peo­ple thought oth­er­wise. Infact, some turned thought into action. Mau­ra was there with her car across the road at Bel­linaboy bridge, hold­ing it up. More sped down there to give sup­port, and before you could blink anoth­er pro­test­er was up on the crane.

The whole road was blocked. Shell work­ers from the refin­ery had to go the long way around, grid­lock­ing the road out from Pul­lath­omas — and, we are told, made to wait by some local res­i­dents none too hap­py at the sight of them.

Mau­ra’s car was pulled out of the way, but the gar­dai end­ed up crash­ing it into the side of the bridge, caus­ing them to aban­don the effort. After a while it was back in place, mak­ing sure the cher­ryp­ick­er to take down the per­son on the crane could not reach them.

Sev­er­al hours lat­er some­where between six­ty and hun­dred peo­ple came to enjoy the sight of the the crane stuck in the mid­dle of the road. While some might moan about the block­age or emer­gency ser­vices, the fact remains that these are the roads of the local com­mu­ni­ty and it is they who are mak­ing the deci­sions that Shell needs to be kicked out — and tak­ing action. This was not a local com­mu­ni­ty annoyed by the road being blocked, but hap­py to see Shell tak­ing anoth­er poke in the eye.

Gar­dai arrived — then called for back­up as they realised they were strug­gling to con­tain the sit­u­a­tion. You could see they were loos­ing it, drag­ging out var­i­ous old faces includ­ing Brett and oth­er faces famil­iar from baton charges sev­er­al years ago; some even thought push­ing young girls around with their heavy hands was appro­pri­ate. They were met with fury.

There was a stand-off, with the gar­dai iso­lat­ing Mau­ra and the crane. More scuf­fles. The cher­ryp­ick­er was tem­porar­i­ly occu­pied with the Gar­dai assault­ing a num­ber of peo­ple to get it back, includ­ing pres­sure-point­ing — the usu­al over-reac­tion from the likes of But­ler and Gill from the Pub­lic Order Cut­ting Team. At least one gar­dai had his pep­per spray out and Brett was try­ing to use his torch as a baton.

For pic­tures, see here http://shelltosea.com/content/pictures-last-night-blocking-tbm-crane

Mau­ra’s car was toed out of the way once more and the per­son from the crane arrest­ed — and giv­en a cheer. The cher­ryp­ick­er itself start­ed list­ing dan­ger­ous­ly as one of its tires deflat­ed.

Then as we read­ied our­selves for the crane to come through, it reversed and dis­ap­peared into the night, last seen some­where beyond Ban­gor… They gar­dai had lost the stom­ach for the fight, it seems. You could hear the hap­pi­ness in the voic­es of the peo­ple all around us. Eleven years on in this long fight, vic­to­ries were still pos­si­ble in the face of Shel­l’s inva­sion. This part of Erris remains free in the hearts of the peo­ple there.

After­wards, peo­ple went back up to Gle­n­amoy to keep vig­il there. Peo­ple con­tin­ue to arrive at camp. This is not over yet.

For a good video of some of the resis­tance of pre­vi­ous nights see http://shelltosea.com/content/youtube-videos-shell-sea-resists-shells-attempt-move-tunnel-boring-machine-rossport-31–7‑201

Some oth­er reports
http://shelltosea.com/content/councillor-appalled-over-shell-truck-blockage-glenamoy
http://shelltosea.com/content/rossport-farmer-arrested-jack-knifed-lorry

Shell humbled as protestors disrupt arrival of the Tunnel Boring Machine

31st July 2012

31st July 2012

The last twelve plus hours saw pro­test­ers in Erris take on one of the largest Gar­dai oper­a­tions Ire­land has seen in some time – and ran rings around it. The mam­moth oper­a­tion saw hun­dreds of Gar­dai and IRMS secu­ri­ty try­ing to escort the tun­nel bor­ing machine [TBM] to Aghoos. Yet Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers man­aged, in sep­a­rate inci­dents, two lock-ons and used a car to block­ade a bridge on the route of the TBM.

Fol­low­ing on from Sun­day night’s dis­cov­ery of the arrival of the TBM into Dublin Port (see http://www.indymedia.ie/article/102198 & http://www.wsm.ie/c/garda-deployed-protect-shells-machine-people-ireland ), pro­test­ers from Sli­go met it at its overnight rest­ing place, while oth­ers mobilised with peo­ple com­ing from across the coun­try. We were told that there would be an armed response unit and oth­er pieces would be join­ing the con­vey, hav­ing come in from Killy­begs and Belfast.

Despite short notice a call out for a protest at Bal­li­na 9pm, Mon­day night, was quick­ly picked up and spread. Local radio sta­tions spread the word, and the six­ty or so pro­test­ers were joined by many from Bal­li­na and sur­round­ing areas – some to see the TBM itself, but often offer­ing sup­port as well.

Ban­ners were held call­ing for an end to Shel­l’s occu­py­ing army, point­ing out that not only were Shell col­o­niz­ing Erris for its own needs, not and they were doing it with the con­nivance of the Irish state – who had sup­plied armed Gar­dai to add to their many insults. There were many plain-clothes cops cir­cling around, some of them dis­play­ing remark­able faith­ful­ness to 1970s stereo­types…

Just after mid­night the first of the lock-ons went into place out­side of Cross­moli­na. Despite a strong Gar­dai pres­ence in this town, it caught them com­plete­ly on the hop. The con­voy was halt­ed on the out­skirts of Bal­li­na, with the Sli­go road being blocked by Gar­dai, while the pub­lic order team raced to deal with the lock-on. Pro­test­ers and oth­ers from Bal­li­na attempt­ed to reach the con­voy but were turned back.

The lock-on last­ed a lit­tle under an hour with two arrest­ed. Reac­tion from the Gar­dai, nev­er the most pleas­ant from the pub­lic order unit’s cut­ting team of But­ler and Gill was sour­er than usu­al.

Pro­test­ers, unde­terred, left Bal­li­na and regrouped at Bel­la­cor­rick. After a few hours wait, top­ping our­selves up with refresh­ments, the con­voy came into sight (4.30am). One well known local cam­paign­er prompt­ly blocked the bridge with her van, park­ing it diag­o­nal­ly across a nar­row spot bring­ing things once again to a halt. Yet again despite there being sev­er­al van loads of Gar­dai with us.

A trac­tor from Carey’s Tool and Plant Hire of Ban­gor (097–83018 / 086–8236018) was brought up to haul it out – the com­pa­ny are well known for doing this for Shell over the years. Resis­tance was put up by the 30 or so pro­test­ers there, lead­ing to a bat­tle for the bridge. Though over­whelmed sev­er­al times over by Gar­dai num­bers, it took them time to clear us out of the way, ket­tling us next to the old pub. It was easy to see that it was start­ing to affect them.

Just as that was fin­ish­ing and the con­voy was on its way again, lat­er than ever, news came through that a sec­ond lock-on was in place on the Ban­gor road (6am). Cue enraged Gar­dai as the care­ful­ly planned oper­a­tion to move the TBM became far­ci­cal. Anoth­er hours worth of delay with anoth­er two arrests.

The whole of the sur­round­ing area was sealed off, though some pro­test­er vehi­cles man­aged to get back to camp to the great irri­ta­tion of local Gar­dai. To top it off, the TBM, now many hours lat­er than it should have been, was unable to make the turn­ing at Aghoos which would take it down to its final rest­ing place. Thus forc­ing it to go to Gle­n­amoy in order to turn and try again.

Where it prompt­ly got stuck at 8am. One local cou­ple were told to park their van up in a spe­cif­ic place by Gar­dai. Who then said they that was wrong and dragged it away to a new place. Where the turn­ing truck crashed into it… adding insult to all of this, the l van dri­ver was assault­ed by Gar­dai. Then got stuck as the road began to cave in under the weight of the 162 ton seg­ment; the dri­ver refused to get back into the truck in case it top­pled down the side of the embank­ment.

Mean­while the tail­backs grew. Dri­vers, under­stand­ably irate irate dri­vers were threat­ened with arrest­ed; an indi­vid­ual on McGrath’s truck on their way to dial­y­sis was sent home.

As it stands, the trucks are still there, one tied to the oth­er to stop it slip­ping more. For a good image see http://www.shelltosea.com/sites/default/files/images/TBM_truck_stuck_at_Glenamoy.jpg Thhe main road to Ross­port is cut off and might be for the fore­see­able future as they try to find solu­tions. Word is that cranes might be brought in, but they come with their own sets of prob­lems. The rain has final­ly start­ed. We will wait and see, and prob­a­bly have a few good laughs. The TBM, offen­sive­ly, has been named Fion­nu­ala from the Chil­dren of Lir, and like that leg­end may it be stuck there for 300 years…

It is fair to say peo­ple here are pleased. At short notice as great response was organ­ised and the mul­ti-mil­lion euro oper­a­tion made a mock­ery off. Shell and the Irish state thought they were going to sneak the TBM in under every­one’s noses. Instead they got a rapid­ly mobilised set of protests that used it to bring the cam­paign mes­sage to peo­ple who had not encoun­tered it before. The farce it became was giv­en the air­time it deserved, Shel­l’s dirty secret­ly received a pub­lic wash­ing. It was real­ly spir­it­ing to learn that a group of young lads had come down from Sli­go to oppose it, hav­ing only just heard about it on the radio.

We thought that at best it would be high­ly sym­bol­ic, we nev­er thought that we could make such a laugh­ing stock of a mul­ti-mil­lion euro oper­a­tion. The icing on the cake though, came from Shell. The farce at Gle­n­amoy shows them up for what they were. If they cant, with all that plan­ning, get the TBM in, how can there be any trust that they can run the pipeline safe­ly. As one sleep-deprived but cheer­ful camper said, if they cant even get the tun­nel bor­ing machine turned on the road, how the hell are they going to get it up the estu­ary…

Update: Right, a quick update from camp. The Tun­nel Bor­ing Machine is still stuck. Shel­l’s con­trac­tors Road­bridge have been try­ing sev­er­al dif­fer­ent meth­ods, but none work­ing. Cur­rent­ly, it is believed the plan is to build up the road so local res­i­dents can get past, then use the main road to bring in cranes that can lift the truck in sec­tions. How­ev­er, there is resis­tance in the air…

Fol­low­ing on from pre­vi­ous sto­ries…

Ini­tial­ly the Gar­dai closed off the entire road, mak­ing local res­i­dents and tourists sit in their cars with­out infor­ma­tion — reach­ing us many tales of out­right lies being told to peo­ple by Gar­dai who refuse to acknowl­edge it was any­thing to do with Shell. The peo­ple of Erris are not stu­pid.

The vast Gar­dai num­bers which had been escort­ing the TBM van­ished entire­ly from the area, pre­sum­ably utter­ly exhaust­ed from a whole night of being giv­en the run around. They left four of their num­ber to try and man­age the traf­fic, which was by the after­noon slow and backed up, most­ly as lor­ries from Lennon and Bar­retts quar­ries had start­ed turn­ing up with stone for the road build­ing. Locals res­i­dents, already furi­ous at the dis­rup­tion and gar­dai rude­ness towards them, came out of their hous­es and stopped the trucks, say­ing the TBM was sim­ply not want­ed.

The four Gar­dai were not up to the job, and most­ly did what Road­bridge told them to — so when Road­bridge’s fore­man demand­ed the lor­ries come through side by side, grid­lock ensued. Res­i­dents had to sort the Gar­dai’s mess, redi­rect­ing traf­fic and lor­ries to clear the block­age.

More and more peo­ple start­ed com­ing as radio and word of mouth car­ried the sto­ry, with peo­ple com­ing from across Mayo to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with friends and fam­i­ly. Doors were opened by the peo­ple of Gle­n­amoy to those who came to stand in the rain against Shell.

Mean­while, Mayo coun­ty coun­cil is bend­ing over back­wards to help Shell clear up their mess — all those grants seem to be com­ing use­ful after all. Coun­ty man­ag­er Peter Hynes is not going to hold Shell respon­si­ble, so yet again the peo­ple are pick­ing up Shel­l’s bill. How­ev­er, Shell did have to eat hum­ble pie as the sto­ry spread, with the head of Shell Ire­land hav­ing to issue an apol­o­gy, or rather regret­ting the incon­ve­nience. Not as much as the res­i­dents do.

Shel­l’s secu­ri­ty IRMS are now con­trol­ling a pub­lic road and decid­ing where res­i­dents can walk. This was chal­lenged lead­ing to some peo­ple being put in the ditch. Of course the Gar­dai stood in line with IRMS — real­ly was impos­si­ble to tell them apart, but res­i­dents made it very clear that the road did not belong to Shell or its lack­eys.

As ever, with these things, it is great to be in the midst of such com­mu­ni­ty spir­it and resis­tance.

It appears that Road­bridge are going to resume work after mid­night, with the aim of shift­ing the list­ing truck tomor­row and tak­ing it to Bel­linaboy refin­ery (a change from going direct to the Aghoos com­pound), until more work can be done to strenght­en the roads. We think the mighty Irish bog may be a bit trick­er than that…

Camp is tak­ing a rest — its been a long 36 hours for many peo­ple, though some are going to main­tain a pres­ence at the site of the fias­co. Oth­er good news is that the two peo­ple arrest­ed for the sec­ond lock-on have been released with­out charge. The first two are up in court in Bal­li­na tomor­row.

One twit­ter cap­tured it:  http://pic.twitter.com/55lYSNpB

For images see  http://www.shelltosea.com/content/pictures-tunnelling-machine-stuck-glenamoy and http://photos.independent.ie/gallery/Shell_to_Sea_protest/slideshow/Shell_to_Sea_activists_protest/05mI7xq7Oxakf

Daring Protesters Shut Down Strip Mine In West Virginia; 500,000 in Bail Needed!!!!

29.7.12

29.7.12

Ramp­ing up renewed efforts to end moun­tain­top removal min­ing in cen­tral Appalachia, scores of pro­test­ers staged a dar­ing action at the con­tro­ver­sial Hobet strip mine today in Boone Coun­ty, West Vir­ginia, shut­ting down oper­a­tions through a series of coor­di­nat­ed lock downs, tree-sits and ban­ner drops. In a sym­bol­ic chal­lenge to the Oba­ma administration’s failed reg­u­la­to­ry poli­cies, the protest tar­get­ed the Hobet 45 moun­tain­top removal mine, which had been grant­ed a wide­ly denounced per­mit over two years ago.

Accord­ing to RAMPS, a West Vir­ginia-based grass­roots groups that orga­nized the “moun­tain mobi­liza­tion” protest as part of a nation­wide sum­mer of actions against dev­as­tat­ing extrac­tion indus­try oper­a­tions, St. Louis-based mine own­er Patri­ot Coal has left behind a lega­cy of destruc­tion in coal coun­try for both area res­i­dents and min­ers. Patri­ot filed for bank­rupt­cy ear­li­er this month, which could also affect pen­sion and Unit­ed Mine Work­ers of Amer­i­ca union con­tracts.

“The gov­ern­ment has aid­ed and abet­ted the coal indus­try in evad­ing envi­ron­men­tal and mine safe­ty reg­u­la­tions. We are here today to demand that the gov­ern­ment and coal indus­try end strip min­ing, repay their debt to Appalachia, and secure a just tran­si­tion for this region,” said Dustin Steele of Mate­wan, West Vir­ginia, in a released state­ment. The son and grand­son of union coal min­ers, Steele took part in one of the truck lock­downs.

Cit­ing the mount­ing evi­dence of the health and human­i­tar­i­an crises in the coal­fields from tox­ic min­ing fall­out, includ­ing a rise in black lung dis­ease and links to birth defects and can­cer, the pro­test­ers also sta­tioned ban­ners on the mine site: “Coal Leaves, Can­cer Stays.”

“The coal com­pa­nies are poi­son­ing our water and air, and they’re treat­ing the work­ers no bet­ter than the land — fight­ing work­place health and safe­ty pro­tec­tions to get the most out of labor as they can,” said Junior Walk, a for­mer coal com­pa­ny employ­ee from near­by Whitesville, West Vir­ginia, who won the 2011 Brow­er Youth Award for his envi­ron­men­tal activism.

Pro­test­ers also called on the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion and region­al politi­cians to launch more sus­tain­able job train­ing and coal­field regen­er­a­tion projects.

Coal min­ing res­i­dents have plead­ed for basic civ­il rights and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion for years, with more than 20 peer-reviewed stud­ies sug­gest­ing high­er risks and links between reck­less strip min­ing and dev­as­tat­ing health impacts, includ­ing birth defects, can­cer and chron­ic heart, lung and kid­ney dis­ease. (A recent report not­ed that strip min­ers are even sub­ject­ed to unac­cept­able lev­els of black lung dis­ease.)

A bill, the ACHE Act, call­ing for an emer­gency mora­to­ri­um on moun­tain­top removal min­ing was recent­ly intro­duced into Con­gress.

For updates on the protests and arrests, fol­low RAMPS cam­paign.

Video

Donate to the Legal Fund here. Help any way you can.

Dam construction site destroyed in the Kurdish East of Turkey!

On the 25th July, Wednes­day, more than 500 protest­ing peo­ple in the Kur­dish province Der­sim have destroyed the con­struc­tion site of the high­ly crit­i­cized Pem­be­lik Dam on the Peri Riv­er.

Since Sep­tem­ber 2012 local affect­ed peo­ple along the Peri Riv­er, a bor­der Riv­er of the two provinces Der­sim (Tunceli) and Elazig protest con­ti­nous­ly against the con­struc­tion of the 77 m high and 125 MW Pem­be­lik Dam on the Peri Riv­er. Since then they have pitched protest tents close to the con­struc­tion site of the dam which they refuse cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly. The affect­ed peo­ple crit­i­cize the state for destroy­ing the liveli­hoods of thou­sands of peo­ple through the con­struc­tion of the Pem­be­lik and oth­er dams on the Peri Riv­er and for exclud­ing them from any dam con­struc­tion activ­i­ties. Two oth­er dams have been built in the past and have result­ed in neg­a­tive impacts for peo­ple and nature in the whole val­ley. Although the protest con­tin­ues for so long and there is a big region­al and nation­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, no state offi­cial took into con­sid­er­a­tion the local peo­ple.

More than 500 peo­ple, affect­ed peo­ple and peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with them, gath­ered close to the dam in order to start a protest demon­stra­tion. It was one day before the start of the annu­al big Mun­zur Cul­ture and Nature Fes­ti­val which is the biggest cul­tur­al event in the province of Der­sim. After march­ing some kilo­me­ters they decid­ed to occu­py the dam con­struct­ing site although it is pro­tect­ed by many secu­ri­ty guards. These guards and dozens of sol­diers could not stopped the peo­ple although they fired in the air. The pro­test­ers over­came the gates and fences and then destroyed sev­er­al con­struc­tion machines and some build­ings by fire.

To date this protest is the most rad­i­cal one in the Kur­dish region of the Repub­lic of Turkey. In Der­sim for more than ten years there are protests by peo­ple against dams which are refused by more than 90% of the pop­u­la­tion. It con­sid­ers the dams as tools to destroy the wild nature, to dis­place peo­ple and to “paci­fy” the rebel­lious province Der­sim.

See one video of the protest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xcx01ZFg7M

Angry Environmental Protesters Occupy Government Office, Smash Computers in China

28.7.12

Angry demon­stra­tors occu­pied a gov­ern­ment office in east­ern Chi­na on Sat­ur­day, destroy­ing com­put­ers and over­turn­ing cars in a vio­lent protest against an indus­tri­al waste pipeline they said would poi­son their coastal waters.

28.7.12

Angry demon­stra­tors occu­pied a gov­ern­ment office in east­ern Chi­na on Sat­ur­day, destroy­ing com­put­ers and over­turn­ing cars in a vio­lent protest against an indus­tri­al waste pipeline they said would poi­son their coastal waters.

The demon­stra­tion was the lat­est in a string of protests sparked by fears of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and high­lights the social ten­sions the gov­ern­ment in Bei­jing faces as it approach­es a lead­er­ship tran­si­tion this year.

About 1,000 pro­test­ers marched through the coastal city of Qidong, about one hour north of Shang­hai by car, shout­ing slo­gans against the plan pipeline that would emp­ty waste from a paper fac­to­ry in a near­by town into the sea.

 

Demon­stra­tors reject­ed the government’s stand that waste from the fac­to­ry would not pol­lute the coastal waters.

“The gov­ern­ment says the waste will not pol­lute the sea, but if that’s true, then why don’t they dump it into Yangtze Riv­er?” said Lu Shuai, a 25-year-old pro­test­er who works in logis­tics.

“It is because if they dump it into the riv­er, it will have an impact on peo­ple in Shang­hai and peo­ple in Shang­hai will oppose it.”

Sev­er­al pro­test­ers entered the city government’s main build­ing and were seen smash­ing com­put­ers, over­turn­ing desks and throw­ing doc­u­ments out the win­dows to loud cheers from the crowd.

Reuters wit­nessed five cars and one minibus being over­turned. Over 1,000 police – some para­mil­i­tary – guard­ed the city gov­ern­ment office com­pound in lines.

At least two police offi­cers were dragged into the crowd at the gov­ern­ment office and punched and beat­en enough to make them bleed.

On Fri­day, in an effort to stave off the protest, the Qidong city gov­ern­ment announced it would sus­pend the project for fur­ther research.

But many pro­test­ers said on Sat­ur­day that post­pone­ment was not enough.

“If the gov­ern­ment real­ly want­ed to stop this project, they should have done it right from the begin­ning. At this point they are too late,” said Xi Feng, a 17-year-old pro­test­er.

Local offi­cials took steps to ward off the demon­stra­tion and res­i­dents received text mes­sages and let­ters warn­ing that any pub­lic demon­stra­tion would be ille­gal.

Envi­ron­men­tal wor­ries have stoked calls for expand­ed rights for cit­i­zens and greater con­sul­ta­tion in the tight­ly con­trolled one-par­ty state.

The out­pour­ing of pub­lic anger is emblem­at­ic of the ris­ing dis­con­tent fac­ing Chi­nese lead­ers, who are obsessed with main­tain­ing sta­bil­i­ty and strug­gling to bal­ance growth with ris­ing pub­lic anger over envi­ron­men­tal threats.

The protest fol­lowed sim­i­lar demon­stra­tions against projects the Sichuan town of Shi­fang ear­li­er this month and in the cities of Dalian in the north­east and Haimen in south­ern Guang­dong province in the past year.

In Shi­fang, the gov­ern­ment halt­ed con­struc­tion of a cop­per refin­ery fol­low­ing protests by res­i­dents that it would poi­son them. It also freed most of the peo­ple who were detained after a clash with police.

The lead­er­ship has vowed to clean up China’s skies and water­ways and increas­ing­ly tried to appear respon­sive to com­plaints about pol­lu­tion. But envi­ron­men­tal dis­putes pit cit­i­zens against local offi­cials whose aim is to lure fresh invest­ment and rev­enue into their areas.

London Critical Mass kettled and arrested

27.7.12

27.7.12

Coin­cid­ing with the Olympics open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, peo­ple are tweet­ing that over 100 cyclists are being put on coach­es and arrest­ed, after being ket­tled and some CS/pepper sprayed for cycling in Olympic-only lanes and break­ing an imposed Sec­tion 12 for­bid­ding going north of the riv­er.  Cops ensured David Beck­ham could get through at one point by punch­ing cyclists. 

Video (dur­ing).  Video (arrest­ed onto bus­es after).  2 reports below, and pre-CM ‘why I’m going’ (& this link to updat­ed report):

More than 100 cyclists were arrest­ed by police close to the Olympic Sta­di­um on the open­ing night of the Games.

There were scuf­fles between police and cyclists on the out­skirts of the Olympic Park, at about 22:30 BST.

Peo­ple tak­ing part in a month­ly mass bike ride held in Lon­don said they were “ket­tled” near the sta­di­um.

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police said they had made arrests for Pub­lic Order offences but have not respond­ed to the ket­tling claim.

The force said two groups had been detained — the first on Bow Fly­over and the oth­er in Warton Road, Strat­ford.

A spokesman for Scot­land Yard said: “A num­ber of peo­ple in breach of reg­u­la­tions imposed on a month­ly cycling event have been arrest­ed.”

In a state­ment, the force said the con­di­tions on the cycle ride had been put in place “to pre­vent seri­ous dis­rup­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty and the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Olympic Games”.

Ker­ry-Anne Men­doza, 31, who describes her­self as a cam­paign­er and writer, said: “We were cycling down the Bow Road [in Strat­ford] and the police direct­ed us down a cul-de-sac.

“Then they ket­tled us in there. There is a line of police cars and vans behind that.”

She added: “They have not com­mu­ni­cat­ed with us or told us why we are being held here or when they will let us out.”

The reg­u­lar Crit­i­cal Mass ride is a pro-cycling event.

Joel Ben­jamin, who has been on a num­ber of Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides pre­vi­ous­ly, said there were 400–500 cyclists who met on the south side of Water­loo Bridge.

“Usu­al­ly there is a light police pres­ence,” he said. “Today there were far more police than I’ve seen before.”

‘Cel­e­bra­tion of cycling’

He said police used a sound sys­tem to tell cyclists there were restric­tions placed on the ride but not what it meant.

“Basi­cal­ly, they did­n’t want us to go north of the riv­er. The police had put a road­block stop­ping all traf­fic going north.”

He said police took a “heavy-hand­ed stance”.

Scene close to Olympic Park
“I saw sev­er­al cas­es of the police being aggres­sive and phys­i­cal, drag­ging peo­ple off their bikes to the ground.

“I did­n’t see any arrests, but my friend, a solic­i­tor was arrest­ed.

“I left at about 8.30pm and man­aged to not get arrest­ed, but I think around 100 peo­ple have been arrest­ed.

“I guess there were peo­ple there who are against the Olympics, but Crit­i­cal Mass is real­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of cycling, there was no need to get so heavy hand­ed. ”

The Met Police said a num­ber of the arrest­ed cyclists had been removed from the area near the Olympic Park.

The arrest­ed cyclists have been detained under Sec­tion 12 of the Pub­lic Order Act.

———————–

The Olympics has start­ed and it seems cycling has become a crim­i­nal offence, wor­thy of police bru­tal­i­ty – I hope the Olympic cyclists are okay tomor­row.

Hang on a minute: this is the same Olympics that politi­cians have been try­ing to brand as the green­est Olympics ever? Also, they did say how this would encour­age peo­ple to get fit and into sport, didn’t they?

Crit­i­cal mass met as it does on a month­ly basis to cycle as a swarm, for com­mu­ni­ty reclaim­ing of streets in Lon­don. It met near Water­loo Bridge, at the South­bank Cen­tre. From reg­u­lars’ accounts, as it is not a “protest”, this is nor­mal­ly free from police sup­pres­sion and it fol­lows the whims of the mass, with no clear direc­tion end­ing its route on the Roy­al Mall.

On this gath­er­ing, the police were there on mass too: an author­i­tar­i­an mass. They announced that under a sec­tion 12 no cyclists were allowed to cross the rivers and go to any of North Lon­don. Like oth­ers there, this was where I live, and haven’t I been bom­bard­ed with Olympics posters encour­ag­ing me to get on my bike.

The over a thou­sand peo­ple assem­bled, did not move for a while. Then we set off first try­ing to cross Water­loo Bridge. The police blocked this route.I moved with the mass and we had sim­i­lar prob­lems at Black­fri­ars, our way blocked by a police line, which was also block­ing the traf­fic. Then we head­ed to try South­wark Bridge, again this was blocked.

Inci­den­tal­ly, it was noticed amongst the crowd that David Beck­ham was stuck the oth­er side of the road­block in a dark SUV head­ing south. His pres­ence stirred rip­ples of excite­ment, although the focus was more about how to head over the riv­er.

As passers­by start­ed to pay a bit more atten­tion, to take pic­tures and look at him, the police react­ed. Or in my inter­pre­ta­tion, unlaw­ful­ly over­re­act­ed a lit­tle like the impo­si­tion of the Sec­tion 12. I saw cyclists thrown off their bikes, hit and man­han­dled for stand­ing still. If the police had not blocked the road, this would not have hap­pened. I report­ed this, moments lat­er, to a senior offi­cer; explain­ing that one of the offi­cers had com­mit­ted assault – he was not inter­est­ed.

I even­tu­al­ly crossed a bridge, as many oth­ers did, and made my way towards Strat­ford; fol­low­ing a pro­ces­sion of riot vans. In Strat­ford, these vans were lined the streets, with offi­cers ket­tling a group of cyclists who had done bet­ter exer­cis­ing their rights to free move­ment.

When I arrived the police had ket­tled around one hun­dred cyclists, also I heard there were oth­er ket­tles else­where and fur­ther arrests and assaults by police offi­cers. These cyclists were tak­en away by the bus load, hand­cuffed with an offi­cer per per­son. I over­heard a senior police­man remark that they were going to var­i­ous police sta­tions, and their bike tagged and tak­en to a depot.

———————–

Why I’m going to the Crit­i­cal Mass this fri­day

Here’s my rea­son why; back in 2005, we found out the news that Lon­don was going to host the Olympic games, lots of peo­ple in the media make com­ments about how much of a shit hole Strat­ford is, but truth is, its not real­ly that shit, it’s just an easy tar­get for the devel­op­ers, there’s no one to defend it. Any­way since 2005 the amount of rede­vel­op­ment with yup­py flats and Tescos pop­ping up all over the town is out of con­trol, the locals have been pushed to once side. I’m mates with a local Tory cam­paign, fun­ny cause he’s a tory, and all his con­stituents hate the Olympics, and he agrees. I’m assum­ing that after the Olympics like the Mil­le­ni­um Dome and Iraq, the top politi­cians will admit it was a bit of sham. Every­where I go I hear peo­ple moan­ing about the Olympics, and then when I turn on the TV, I see noth­ing but smil­ing faces. Even my par­ents who are mis­er­able, Dai­ly Mail types want to see the VIP lanes blocked. We got taxis dri­vers moan­ing, dairy farm­ers out on strike, now its times for the oppo­site end of the spec­trum to join in with the crit­i­cal mass. When I heard about the crit­i­cal mass, I thought it was time to give ‘them’ a her­nia with stress. 130 quid fine for cycling in the VIP lane? that’s an insult to the nor­mal peo­ple who are stuck in Lon­don. Any­way over the years I’ve was part of the Sum­mit Hop­ping move­ment, but no-one in Lon­don has realised all the Olympics is anoth­er polit­i­cal sum­mit, and it should of been treat­ed as such, with mas­sive direct action, ban­ner drops, etc etc. Any­way if your com­ing to the mass on fri­day, expect the police, GCHQ and they’re oth­er resources to real­ly treat us like shit. On sat­ur­day a face­book event was blocked with in one-hour of its cre­ation, I hope the girl who made the event does­n’t use her own ip address. GCHQ are def­i­nite­ly going to watch this one. Prob­a­bly a mas­sive Copen­hagen ket­tle on one of the bridges, or south­bank, so keep your wits about you, ride a blue bar­clays bike, and ditch it if shit gets heavy lets not for­get, the psy­cos of our Armed Forces are in Lon­don in num­bers, and they can’t tell the dif­fer­ence between an Afghan wed­ding and ter­ror­ist camp. Keep telling your mates, and invite them along. See you in the streets.

sabotage to save Khimki forest, Russia

report­ed by activists in Rus­sia:

“Rus­sia. Khim­ki for­est (north of Moscow). Con­struc­tion vehi­cles torched, tree-cut­ter assault­ed, his arm bro­ken.

report­ed by activists in Rus­sia:

“Rus­sia. Khim­ki for­est (north of Moscow). Con­struc­tion vehi­cles torched, tree-cut­ter assault­ed, his arm bro­ken.

Unknown activists have torched sev­er­al con­struc­tion vehi­cles and assault­ed tree-cut­ter at the new toll high­way con­struc­tion site in Khim­ki for­est. These news appeared in joint dec­la­ra­tion, pub­lished by state enter­prise “Avtodor” and “North-East­ern con­ces­sion” (sub­sidiary of Vin­ci). The acci­dents hap­pened on nights of 19.07 and 21.07.
“Avtodor” rep­re­sen­ta­tives stat­ed that an assault on tree-cut­ters took place on 19.07: one of the work­ers tried to pre­vent eco-activists from enter­ing the con­struc­tion site. In the fol­low­ing fight his arm broke.
On the night of 21.07 spe­cial con­struc­tion vehi­cles were torched: sev­er­al brand new har­vesters and hydraulic exca­va­tor were com­plete­ly destroyed by fire. Mate­r­i­al dam­age is esti­mat­ed to be over $ 2 000 000.
Ear­li­er the same com­pa­nies filed a com­plaint about unknown peo­ple open­ing fire on con­struc­tion vehi­cles (sup­pos­ed­ly from “Saiga”, a civ­il 12-mm car­bine) and torch­ing work­ers sheds with molo­tovs.
Eco-activists present at the site of eco-camp near the con­struc­tion failed to pro­vide police with evi­dence or ideas about the nature of per­pe­tra­tors.”

report­ed on From Rus­sia With Love:

“On the night of 20–21 july, after hav­ing received news of new tree-cut­ting activ­i­ty in Khim­ki for­est, we decid­ed to vis­it the work­ers. We aimed for 2 trucks and exca­va­tor parked on the clear cut. They were com­plete­ly destroyed.

Our sol­i­dar­i­ty goes out to eco-activists who broke the arm of pri­vate guard who was guard­ing the clear cut (this piece we learned from news).

Enough of pseu­do-legal­ism!

Do like us, do bet­ter than us.
- Autonomous autonoms

video footage of the action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P51k3CrtF20&feature=youtu.be”

Aristocrat landlord’s garden opencasted!

18.07.2012 Ear­li­er today activists from Take Back the Land! vis­it­ed Lord Home’s man­sion in the Dou­glas Val­ley and open­cast­ed his gar­den, hop­ing to bring the issues clos­er to home for him.

18.07.2012 Ear­li­er today activists from Take Back the Land! vis­it­ed Lord Home’s man­sion in the Dou­glas Val­ley and open­cast­ed his gar­den, hop­ing to bring the issues clos­er to home for him. Lord Home owns Main­shill and all of Glen­tag­gart East which is cur­rent­ly being occu­pied by an action camp. Of course only some of the things that impact com­mu­ni­ties so much would have been felt because of this open­cast, such as see­ing a big mess. He won’t have to put up with the health impacts from dust and diesel fumes, the dan­ger on the roads, the noise, con­tempt from South Lanark­shire Coun­cil – the list goes on.

COAL ACTION SCOTLAND MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE USE 18th July

Lord Home’s gar­den open­cast­ed by anti-coal activists

At 10:30 this morn­ing 20 envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice pro­test­ers entered the grounds of Lord Home’s state­ly home at Castle­mains in the Dou­glas Val­ley and began dig­ging up his front gar­den. The protest brought home to Lord Home how much of an eye sore an open cast next to your res­i­dence is. A ban­ner held up in front of his home which read “Com­mu­ni­ty Health not Lord Home’s Wealth!” Police attend­ed the scene but no arrests were made.

Rob Hearne, one of the activists dig­ging up the Lord’s gar­den said: “Lord Home is mak­ing mil­lions off open­cast coal min­ing in the Dou­glas Val­ley. He owns land cur­rent­ly being mined at Main­shill, and owns the entire Glen­tag­gart East site, next on the list to be mined. There is no com­mu­ni­ty con­sent for open­cast in this area, with 70% of peo­ple in Dou­glas oppos­ing Main­shill and over 650 let­ters of objec­tion sent to the coun­cil against it. Yet because of his aris­to­crat­ic and hered­i­tary priv­i­lege, he can do what he wants and walk all over the wish­es of the com­mu­ni­ty. We’re dig­ging up his gar­den to bring the issues clos­er to home.”

Local res­i­dent David Grey said: “The Lord owns every­thing around here and makes loads of mon­ey but gives vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty. He gets mil­lions but we get can­cers, asth­ma and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases. He is essen­tial­ly a par­a­site, suck­ing the wealth out of the area and con­sol­i­dat­ing it into his pri­vate estate.”

Clare Reed, anoth­er of the dig­gers at Castle­mains, added: “Lord Home doesn’t even live in the val­ley despite his mas­sive house and huge land own­er­ship. He lives in Lon­don, sits in the House of Lords and is Chair­per­son of Coutts Bank. He is total­ly com­plic­it in the destruc­tion caused by open­cast min­ing in the val­ley and all the health impacts inflict­ed on com­mu­ni­ties, but suf­fers none of the impacts him­self. In fact, he makes a killing – we esti­mate he’ll make up to £7 mil­lion off Glen­tag­gart East alone.”

Today’s protest fol­lows Monday’s block­ade of Bro­ken Cross Open Cast Coal Site and Saturday’s inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day. These actions are part of a week-long action camp and occu­pa­tion of Scot­tish Coal’s intend­ed new mine in the area, Glen­tag­gart East. The camp called “Take Back the Land!” has attract­ed activists from across Scot­land, the UK and Europe to take direct action against the blight of open­cast coal min­ing.

Coal Action Scot­land
contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk
http://takebacktheland.org.uk/

Broken Cross Open Cast Site blockaded – police act as Scottish Coal security

This morn­ing Bro­ken Cross open­cast site in the Dou­glas Val­ley was block­ad­ed for an hour and a half before Scot­tish Coal work­ers lift­ed three peo­ple in heavy con­crete lock-ons out of the road, all over­seen by Inspec­tor Whip (pho­tographed) of Strath­clyde Police. This isn’t the first time that Inspec­tor Whip has hurt peo­ple by lift­ing them out of the road. He’s reck­less and delib­er­ate­ly put people’s safe­ty at risk, all to pro­tect the prof­its of Scot­tish Coal.

COAL ACTION SCOTLAND MEDIA RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE USE 16th July 2012

Activists dis­rupt coal haulage and police take unac­cept­able risks of injury at Lanark­shire mine

At 6:00 this morn­ing a group of 20 envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice activists block­ad­ed the only entrance to Scot­tish Coal’s Bro­ken Cross Open Cast Coal Site [1] in the Dou­glas Val­ley. This pre­vent­ed all access to the site by coal lor­ries for one and a half hours before police ordered work­ers to dan­ger­ous­ly car­ry activists out of the road. Con­crete “lock-on tubes” were used to pre­vent three activists from being removed.

In an act of extreme reck­less­ness, Inspec­tor Whip of Strath­clyde Police ordered Scot­tish Coal employ­ees to drag pro­test­ers out of the access road, while they were still attached to their lock-on tubes, each weigh­ing around 50kg. One of those moved was injured in this inci­dent. The three have been arrest­ed and are cur­rent­ly being held in cus­tody.

Rob Hearne, one of the activists sup­port­ing the protest at the mine said: “This is not the first time that Inspec­tor Whip and Strath­clyde Police have shown such utter dis­re­gard for the safe­ty of anti-coal activists. This kind of behav­iour is total­ly unac­cept­able, where untrained work­ers are allowed to assault peo­ple in such a way, break­ing all health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and com­mit­ting crim­i­nal offences. Strath­clyde Police are act­ing as Scot­tish Coal’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty.”

The protest was intend­ed to stop coal from being trans­port­ed from the mine to rail­heads and to oppose Scot­tish Coal’s exten­sion to the mine as part of their “for­ward strat­e­gy” [2]. In par­tic­u­lar, it aimed to stop coal HGVs from being rout­ed through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, an issue of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance for local com­mu­ni­ties.

Gle­spin res­i­dent David Grey said: “A top traf­fic police offi­cer has been quot­ed in the past as say­ing that some­one will have to be killed on Lanarkshire’s roads before some­thing is done about the haulage of coal in this area. HGVs pass right through Dou­glas and Gle­spin, past two pri­ma­ry schools with no lev­el cross­ings, some­thing that Scot­tish Coal, South Lanark­shire Coun­cil and Scot­tish Min­is­ters all said would nev­er hap­pen. And now Inspec­tor Whip endan­gers the lives of peo­ple try­ing to make the roads safer for local res­i­dents! It’s out­ra­geous. Inspec­tor Whip should be ashamed for putting the prof­its of coal above the safe­ty of peo­ple in the val­ley.”

Today´s protest fol­lows Saturday’s inva­sion of Main­shill Open Cast Coal Site [3] where 45 activists stopped work on the site for the day. This is part of a week-long action camp and occu­pa­tion of Scot­tish Coal’s intend­ed new mine in the area, Glen­tag­gart East [4]. The camp called “Take Back the Land!” [5] has attract­ed activists from across Scot­land, the UK and Europe to take direct action against the blight of open­cast coal min­ing.

Coal Action Scot­land are prepar­ing a for­mal com­plaint to Strath­clyde Police about this inci­dent.

For inter­views and com­ment please con­tact:

Roger Wilkins on 07917141720 or email  contact@coalactionscotland.org.uk

Pho­tos can be emailed upon request.

Notes to edi­tors:

[1] Bro­ken Cross is the larg­er of Scot­tish Coal’s two oper­at­ing open cast coal mines in the Dou­glas Val­ley, South Lanark­shire, pro­duc­ing around 15,000 tonnes of coal a week

[2] South Lanark­shire Coun­cil approved Scot­tish Coal’s North (East) Exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross, the third such exten­sion, despite huge com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to it. The exten­sion will see the life of the mine extend­ed until 2024, way beyond what Scot­tish Plan­ning Pol­i­cy con­sid­ers an accept­able cumu­la­tive impact and some­thing that local res­i­dents find total­ly unac­cept­able.

[3] Main­shill Wood was occu­pied by the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp on 12th June 2009. It was even­tu­al­ly evict­ed on 25th Jan­u­ary 2010 in an evic­tion that last­ed 5 days. It involved 45 arrests and was the largest protest site evic­tion in the UK since Man­ches­ter Air­port 11 years pre­vi­ous­ly. There was huge com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion to the mine local­ly, with 654 objec­tions being lodged against the appli­ca­tion. Despite Lord Home, the land own­er, telling local res­i­dents that he’d safe­guard the area from min­ing, he did the oppo­site and is now being paid by Scot­tish Coal for lease of the land. Since the start of coal­ing oper­a­tions at the site in Feb­ru­ary 2010 local res­i­dents have com­plained of noise and dust impacts and dan­ger on the roads as coal HGVs are rout­ed through Dou­glas and Gle­spin.

Lord Home owns Dou­glas & Angus Estates. He is the son of the for­mer prime min­is­ter Alec Home, a peer in the House of Lords and chair­per­son of Coutts Bank. He lives in Lon­don but has a state­ly home at Castle­mains in the Dou­glas Val­ley.

Scot­tish Coal cur­rent­ly have two oper­a­tional sites in the val­ley, Main­shill and Glen­tag­gart, down from 5 in 2010.

[4] Scot­tish Coal have been giv­en approval by South Lanark­shire Coun­cil despite 232 let­ters of objec­tion to mine 4 mil­lion tonnes of coal from the Glen­tag­gart East site, adja­cent to the exist­ing Glen­tag­gart site which was in oper­a­tion between 2001 and 2011. RSPB object­ed to the appli­ca­tion because of the eco­log­i­cal­ly impor­tant blan­ket bog and pro­tect­ed bird breed­ing habi­tats on the 350 hectare site. The mine will be 1.5km away from two pri­ma­ry schools and con­tin­ue the encir­clement of Dou­glas Val­ley vil­lages with open­cast mines.

Glen­tag­gart East is part of Scot­tish Coal’s “For­ward Strat­e­gy”, unveiled in Sep­tem­ber 2011. It includ­ed 3 new open­cast mine appli­ca­tions. One of these, Auld­ton Heights, was with­drawn fol­low­ing a sub­stan­tial cam­paign against it. A fur­ther exten­sion to Bro­ken Cross, an exist­ing site, was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the coun­cil, despite oppo­si­tion from local res­i­dents.

[5] for more infor­ma­tion about Take Back the Land! please see the fol­low­ing web­site:  http://takebacktheland.org.uk/