Urgent Update — Navy arrive to protect Shell — Beach on lockdown illegaly

August 29, 2008
Urgent call­out for sup­port

In the past two hours a mass of State and Shell secu­ri­ty has assem­bled in Broad­haven bay includ­ing a heav­i­ly armed navy ves­sel.

This is to pro­tect the first attempt at lay­ing the off­shore sec­tion of pipe.

The Gar­dai sealed a sec­tion of beach beside the camp ille­gal­ly for an hour before retreat­ing and now rear­riv­ing.

The bay is awash with secu­ri­ty ves­sels, gar­dai water units and also a large Navy ves­sel, pos­si­bly “The Orla” which is armed with a canon and small­er guns.

This is the largest recent attempt at crush­ing any resis­tance to the Shell project.
There is also a heavy Gar­da pres­ence on land with pro­test­ers being intimidated,filmed and harassed.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty need­ed!

—

Today’s activ­i­ty off Glen­gad marks yet anoth­er esca­la­tion of the state’s response to protests against the destruc­tion of Erris and the Great Gas Rob­bery. The arrival in the bay of the LE Orla about 12 pm today with her 39 crew onboard may be intend­ed to show the Irish peo­ple that the state will tol­er­ate no protest or action by any­body, not least Ireland’s cit­i­zens, against Shell’s plans.

The involve­ment of the Naval Ser­vice in the ‘polic­ing’ of Broad­haven Bay for Shell is a first for Ireland’s navy – the first time one of their ships has been called upon by the Gar­dai as ‘back-up’ for a police oper­a­tion against protests.

Accord­ing to a Defence Forces spokesman, the LE Orla (which was for­mer­ly a British naval gun­ship patrolling Hong Kong) ‘was request­ed by Gar­daí as back-up at Broad­haven Bay, Co Mayo. It is there as an aid to the civ­il pow­er. It was request­ed to assist Gar­dai and pro­vide them with a plat­form at sea.’

When asked if an Irish naval ship had been involved in a sim­i­lar oper­a­tion before, he replied: ‘Not to my imme­di­ate knowl­edge.’

He added: “The Naval Ser­vice has been in dis­cus­sions with the Gar­dai about this oper­a­tion. Any oper­a­tion we under­take will be with the Gar­dai. We will not be involved in any oper­a­tion inde­pen­dent­ly of the Gar­dai.’

Shell sub­con­trac­tor activ­i­ty in the bay has increased today, espe­cial­ly with the deploy­ment of the winch­ing barge today to some­where near its oper­at­ing posi­tion when the Soli­taire comes. News this morn­ing is that the Soli­taire has left Killy­begs har­bour and is some­where on the high seas between there and Broad­haven Bay. Its arrival there is expect­ed tomor­row at the lat­est. Locals and Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp res­i­dents are on high alert, and if peo­ple can come over the next 24 hours to help peo­ple in the effort to stop Shell on the beach and in the bay they will meet with a very big wel­come indeed!

Defence Forces spokesman quotes via www.breakingnews.ie

—–

So heres the lat­est after a long and tense day here in the wild west from today.

The police pres­ence was increased this morn­ing in the area,both on land and water,that was the indi­ca­tion that some­thing was about to hap­pen

At around mid­day the dredger plat­form was towed in.

Peo­ple then start­ed to assem­ble from the var­i­ous points in the area and about 40 cops then went onto the beach and said noone was allowed to go there as it was a\ “restrict­ed area”.
The legal­i­ty of this move was chal­lenged in front of the TG4 cam­era and after half an hour the cops fucked off.and loi­tered there­after for a few hours

The winch ves­sel was then towed across the bay

Just as they were about to go in the winch ves­sel turned around and head­ed back to the pier at Ballin­glass — seem­ing­ly just a prac­tice run who knows.

All this time there were about 5–7 secu­ri­ty and Gar­da water unit boats patrolling the bay as well as the L.E Orla ‚a Navy bat­tle­ship with a big fuck off can­non on the front as well as small­er weapon­ry.

This is a full scale state and cor­po­rate assault on the bay,make no mis­take.
The Solitaire,the main pipe-lay­ing ship which Shell only have for a lim­it­ed peri­od etc is still in Killybegs,but is rumoured by both TG4 and RTE to be leav­ing Sat­ur­day morn­ing.
Sev­er­al Erris fish­er­men are still at sea stand­ing guard over their lob­ster pots which Shell must remove to com­mence work.

They are fac­ing extreme intim­i­da­tion.

Hope some of ye can make it down or maybe do an action where ye are.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty.