Shell construction halted, Shell to Sea construction continues…

mayo | environment | news report

Saturday September 16, 2006 12:27

by Terry - Rossport Solidarity Camp

Report on the last week in Erris, expected Shell/Roadbridge entry attempt to Ballinaboy repulsed.
The photos are from the picketlines and from a spurt of building on the camp, see: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/78162

High Noon, But Where Are They?

There is an old saying: ‘if you think you are too small and powerless to do anything try sleeping with a mosquito’, perhaps the midges clustered around Shell’s would be refinery site have imparted this message into us, as the picket now into its 14th month shows no sign of losing any vibrancy.

Each morning this past week saw an extra mobilisation as Shell have claimed they will resume work this month.
Well over one hundred people were present on Tuesday morning, as we had some indications they would attempt to enter the site on that day. It was a no show. Contractors’ trucks came to a voluntary halt several miles away.

Many people at the picket this week had been people who had not been there since the previous year or indeed ever.

People start to gather at 6.30 a.m. with the bulk of folk there until 9.00 a.m..
A presence is maintained until around 6 to 7 p.m.. This is from Monday to Friday.
The centre of the picket is a horsebox trailer with tea, coffee and a variety of lovely snacks. The trailer is bedecked with press cuttings and photos and notices.
The trailer is also there on Sundays (though not this coming one!), as one of its important functions is as a place people can drop by to learn about what is going on. Tourists and visitors often stop – this is on the main road from Ceide fields to Belmullet.

All of the development, and the bulk of active local opposition, is based in Kilcommon parish, which straddles the coastline.
Kilcommon has a population of just over 2,000 (adults and children), a figure which makes you really appreciate what level of mobilisation is represented by the couple of hundred residents available to be ‘at the gates’.

If that is the first trench in our fortifications, after that is the solidarity camp, which has seen hundreds of people pass through its gates this year; people from Canada, Israel, Greece, Poland, Bolivia, Slovakia, New Zealand, Italy, Belgium, the United States, Sweden, Germany, and from every nook and cranny of Britain and Ireland. Further ramparts are the Shell to Sea groups, and other bodies and individuals, engaged in the campaign in their own local areas, here and abroad, as well as the interest and sympathy of a broad mass of ordinary decent Irish people.

At the moment a door-to-door petition is being carried out in the local area, which, along with July’s canvassing of the whole of Erris, shows an overwhelming opposition to Shell’s planned development. Watching a community take control of its destiny and defend its beautiful landscape from despoliation is both a joy and an honour to witness.

Obviously Shell have yet again miscalculated in their lack of understanding of how much resistance they face, and how deep it is.
Most likely they believed their own propaganda and thought that the hiring of native public figures, the Advantica report, and the Cassels report, would appease those with ‘genuine concerns’ and isolate the ‘ringleaders’ and ‘extremists’.
Well they were wrong, very wrong.

The Minister in Bertie Ahern’s cabinet with responsibility for this assault is Noel Dempsey. He was recently quoted in the press to the effect that Ballinaboy is Shell’s site and they have the right to enter it and the law is there to deal with the protesters.

Apart from the occasional passing squad car there has been no police presence.
Pro-shell politicians are largely quiet. A Fianna Fail ‘energy conference’ in Westport at the start of September saw no mention of the gas project one hour’s drive north of conference hall. It is unlikely this will change until after the election.

As we come to the seventh year of the Corrib gas conflict the enemy is fast running out of options. Their intimidation and paltry carrots are not working.
Any state prefers to rule by fraud rather than force, but without any local consent, instead an utter determination to repel the attack on people’s lives and environment, force is the last weapon in their arsenal.
This means they face the prospect of rekindling the sort of popular mood that existed at the time of the imprisonment of the Rossport Five. This will not be good for the state, which will lose legitimacy as a result, or for Shell and Statoil, who will gain grievously bad international pr out of it.

However we shouldn’t have a space for complacency.
Not only have they consistently underestimated the opposition they will meet, but this is also the big time, a seriously big time development.
Not only the Corrib gas project itself – worth billions and in the hands of a massive multi-national, but also the other oil and gas off Ireland’s coast, such as the fields owned jointly by Tony O’Reilly and Exxon-Mobil.
Energy is a major component of the global capitalist economy. Cities are flattened for the profits from oil production and the political advantage accruing from its control.
The history of the wars of the last one hundred years could almost be re-written as the history of oil.
Oil and gas in Ireland would be a new European Union source, which would make for more wealth remaining within the E.U., and less leaching out to Russia and the Middle East. As it stands the E.U. is heavily dependant on imports of both oil and gas, a fact which has both political and economic ramifications.

Just as the Met were sent into to crush mining villages, or just as German provinces were put under occupation to facilitate the building of nuclear power plants, Erris can once again be under a jackboot as it was in 1798. Then we needed more of the armies of the French Republic to triumph, today we need you.
When we win, the victory will significantly bolster the forces of popular resistance in this country. People will say, if they did it, we can do it.
If they win the state will be more stronger and resolute when dealing with protests over incineration, military bases, GM crop fields, etc.. and flickers of hope will be extinguished.
Turn the strong possibility of a Shell to Sea victory into a certainty. Join us.