Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

London Rising Tide disrupts Caspian oil & gas conference, 27.1.04

Rob Kelly | 27.01.2004 15:17 | Ecology | Globalisation | Social Struggles | London

Activists this morning disrupted a London conference dedicated in part to 'overcoming ecological and environmental concerns' about the pipelines that are beginning to criss-cross the Caucasus with Big Oil and US military backing.

‘Risks & Opportunities in Caspian and Central Asian Oil & Gas’, held at the Paddington Hilton, boasted the participation of many Caspian region energy ministers, as well as oil representatives and investors. Just as a session on BP's highly controversial BTC pipeline was due to begin, activists entered the room and attached themselves to the furniture using bicycle locks, explaining in some detail their opposition to BTC as well as the oil industry in general. Other unattached activists added their point of view and distributed leaflets to bemused conference-goers.

The BTC session was adjourned as security waited for the police to arrive, the activists using this time to brief journalists present about their concerns about the impact of oil and gas development on the climate, on affected communities and the local environment, not to mention the dangerous powers handed to corporations as part of the Host Government Agreement with Turkey.

Eventually, police, bolt-croppers at the ready, agreed that those who were locked-on would not be detained for a breach of the peace if they unlocked themselves there and then. This they did, as well as providing their names and addresses reluctantly, as the alternative was 4-6 hours in Paddington police station.

London Rising Tide has been taking direct action against BP and the BTC pipeline for 18 months now, and has no plans to stop. For example, 2004 is likely to see a Fossil Fuel Free Award for artists, set to run alongside the BP-sponsored National Portrait Award.

Find the (shocking) conference preamble here:
 http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:IyEQpbmPMzMJ:www.thecwcgroup.com/UserFiles%255CCon_PDF%255CCaspian%2520Final%2520PDF.pdf+Pipeline+Partnerships&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Here below is the text of the leaflet handed to conference-goers, Paddington Hilton guests and passers-by.

Cut to the chase: how much are we talking here? 

Let’s deconstruct the title of the conference currently taking place in the Paddington Hilton, (January 26-27th 2004). The organisers are calling it ‘Risks & Opportunities in Caspian and Central Asian Oil & Gas’. Pretty dry you might think. But what’s the title really saying to the politicians, investors and oilmen (and they are mostly men) attending?

‘Risks’: no, this isn’t a reference to the enormous damage that burning the Caspian’s huge reserves of oil and gas will do to the climate (and therefore to the world’s poorest and least to blame people), it means the negative publicity that might ensue from human rights abuses, high profile protests, US military occupation to protect US ‘energy security’, legal actions from affected communities or NGO campaigns. It also means the risk of not securing public or private funding, not to mention unplanned revolutions sweeping a Caspian Chavez to power. And beneath all these factors lies the terrifying possibility of less or even no profit.

‘Opportunities’: this event is for internal consumption only, so no, they don’t have to spin the line that building pipelines across people’s land will benefit those people and the economy is general, since oil development is known to plunge poor countries into greater poverty. (‘Pumping oil has led to greater poverty, a high likelihood of war and massive corruption - rather than bringing peace, wealth and prosperity for poor people, says a new report from Christian Aid’: www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/0305cawreport/fuellingpoverty.htm) What event organisers really mean here is $$$$££££, and plenty of it - for corrupt politicians, corrupt investors, corrupt Western oil companies and their corrupt shareholders, (just to avoid accusations of prejudice against the ruling elites of any particular country.)

After all, what could this quote from the conference text mean: ‘Discuss tactics to overcome political, regulatory, technical and environmental barriers to successful commercial project viability’? We can only applaud such visionary frankness in exposing capitalism’s true triple bottom line: profit, profit and profit. Nevertheless, it has to stop, for the sake of justice, for the sake of the environment, and for the sake of the long-term future of the planet.

London Rising Tide (LRT) is taking action today to disrupt this conference and to bring the issues under discussion to a wider audience. LRT aims to meet the system's violence with creative defiance, taking direct action to confront the root causes of climate chaos, and to promote local, community-run solutions to our energy needs.
Email:  london@risingtide.org.uk
Address: 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES
Rising Tide UK: www.risingtide.org.uk

Rob Kelly
- e-mail: london@risingtide.org.uk
- Homepage: http://www.risingtide.org.uk

Comments

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech