DOVER AND OUT
They Think It's All Dover... It Is Now...

One of the most sustained and successful direct actions in the 90s, the campaign against live exports looks set to kick off again. In response to attempts to export calves destined for continental veal crates through British ports and airports, thousands joined demos round the clock and physically prevented transports from boarding ferries. The anti-live exports campaigns saw animal rights move out of the anarcho-punk ghetto and become a street movement which ranged across generations (the so-called granarchists with their eldritch scream of “Eeeevil”). Hundreds of police were drafted in across to keep ports open but eventually the tenacity of protesters exhausted police budgets and in some places such as Shoreham Docks transports ceased altogether. (See way back to SchNEWS 6, 7, 12) The struggle was brought to an end with the BSE crisis where due to abuses suffered by animals in industrialised agriculture in the UK (such as enforced cannibalism), EU countries refused to take UK cattle.

Ten years later and the UK Government is celebrating the resumption of this cruel trade as the EU beef ban expires. Before the trade ban, male dairy calves were taken from their mothers at just a few days old and shipped to the Continent in veal crates. These crates are so cruel that their use has been banned in Britain since 1990. This time exporters are hoping to use Dover as the gateway to the continent.

Animal Aid campaigner Kate Fowler told SchNEWS. “Calves suffer when separated from their mothers, during livestock sales and transport, and then are incarcerated for the rest of their short lives. We are appalled that the government supports the shipping of British calves overseas where they will endure such cruelty. As well as attending the demonstration in Dover on May 6th, there is something every person can do on an individual level. To save these calves from ending up in veal crates, people should stop eating dairy products. These young calves are, after all, ‘waste products’ of the dairy industry. Without milk, there would be no veal.”

The calves are a surplus ‘by-product’ of the dairy industry – because their mothers’ milk is bottled off for people. Whilst some female calves will enter the UK dairy herd, many of the males - being too scrawny for beef production - are currently shot at birth. Up to half a million of these unwanted animals will now be shipped abroad each year. Young calves are known to fare particularly badly during the long, traumatic journey by road and sea in contraptions which are so cruel that most British consumers have shunned veal for years.

TRUCK STOP

Activists from Viva, Animal Aid and Kent Against Live Exports are calling for a mass demonstration on Saturday 6th May - the day transports resume. Meet at 11am on Dover’s seafront, near the shelter/toilets on the approach road to the Eastern Docks. Stalls and food will be on site with speakers at 12pm & march at 1pm.

* See also Viva! www.viva.org.uk
* Kent Against Live Exports www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~kale
* Animal Aid www.animalaid.org.uk


For the rest of this week's SchNEWS issue see www.schnews.org.uk