Friday 14th September : Day of action in solidarity with Rossport community resisting Shell.

On the 14th of September a mass blockading action has been called for at Shell’s proposed refinery site at Bellanaboy in County Mayo, Ireland. Solidarity actions are also called for. (To make life super easy a leaflet that can be adapted and used is attached)

Over the past five years the rural community around Rossport have been resisting Shell’s attempts to build a gas refinery and high pressure pipeline. If the development goes ahead it will have devastating social and environmental consequences for the region (for detailed info see www.corribs2s.org). Recently, state repression against the community has been stepped up. The latest tactic to try and silence opposition is an attempt to create a culture of fear through the use of malicious prosecutions. Key campaigners, including the head of the Fishermen (a strong lobby group against the development) and the local campaign spokesperson, have been targeted and falsely charged with assaults on Gardai (see  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/world/actions/2006/mayo/). There are several cases coming up over the next few months and the defendants are almost certainly looking at serving time. In 2005, when the ‘Rossport 5’ were jailed for refusing to allow Shell access to their land, the struggle here became a national issue and support was widespread nationally and internationally. Across Ireland there were daily pickets of Shell garages and other solidarity actions, the boost this gave to the community was huge. Over the past year, although resistance here continues as before, outside support has become less obvious. The region is remote, without overt external support its easy for people to feel isolated and that their struggle has been forgotten. The strength of resistance here is a massive inspiration and the community deserve support, especially at time when a significant number of campaigners are facing losing their liberty.

Solidarity actions could involve going to the Irish Embassy, visiting a Shell office or simply blockading or leafleting a Shell garage. The major purpose for taking solidarity action is to boost the campaign here by making the community aware that they haven’t been forgotten. So, while it’d be great if people got together a huge spectacular action, if you’ve not much time, spending an hour with a banner and leaflets at a Shell garage is super easy and totally valuable. For example, last Autumn, people organized a Rossport solidarity action in Brighton that took fuck-all organisation and went really well. People were rung the night before, there was a meeting at lunchtime, a banner quickly painted, some leaflets made and then about 20 people shut down the garage for the afternoon. The fuel was turned off and people got on the roof with the banner. It was proper old-skool fun, no one got nicked, and it was really cool to get a bunch of people together so quickly and take action together.

So, if you can find a spare hour or two next Friday, it‘d be great if u could do a quick (or long!) anti-shell action, and post it on Indymedia after… It’d probably even be fun. Also, if anyone fancies a visit to Ireland, there’s stuff happening regularly over here and places to stay and its beautiful…

xx