On Tuesday, the 29th June, 2005, in Dublin, Ireland, 5 farmers from Rossport, Co. Mayo,Ireland were sent to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, for violating an order imposed by the High Court to stop blocking Shell access to their lands to constuct the onshore section of the Corrib Gas Field pipeline.
The men have appeared in Court several times since that date and have been asked whether or not they wish to purge their contempt and agree to obeying the injunction,a request the have flatly refused on each occasion.
A Nationwide campaign of Boycotts,Blockades,Pickets,Fundraisers,Large -Scale Demos,Occupations and sit-ins, Solidarity gatherings as well as a permanent activist camp and blockade at the remote site of the proposed pipeline has exploded in Ireland since the men’s jailing.
The Irish Government has given Shell carte blanche with Ireland’s energy resources. Shell and statoil plan to build the world’s first-ever onshore gas processing plant in Mayo, and can now have the courts imprison anyone who tries to get in their way.
The High Court has jailed five people at the request of Shell for attempting to stop the multinational from laying a controversial, high-pressure, “offshore” gas pipeline through their land in Rossport, Co Mayo. The judge ordered that the five men – four small landowners and a local supporter – be imprisoned “until they purge their contempt”, meaning they will not be released until they have promised to allow Shell to dig up their land.
The pipeline is proposed to run alongside the men’s homes as well as those of many other local residents at several times the normal pressure of such operations due to the distance thegas must travel form the sea-source to the onshore refinery.Shell have built 3km of the pipeline without planning permission and have told the Minister they are reporting to-Mr Noel Dempsey,of the right wing Fianna Fail party,that they will be “more careful@ in future”
The jailing comes 10 years after the execution of nine Ogoni activists for their opposition to Shell’s operation in Nigeria.
The supply pipeline will be carrying raw, unprocessed gas at high pressure, in close proximity to houses and through a protected estuary. The processing plant will burn waste oil on site and discharge it into the atmosphere, and will dump toxic waste directly into the estuary, which is a habitat for rare marine life. The Co. Mayo coastal area itself is a Whale and Dolphin sanctuary.
This issue raises again the incredible situation whereby the fabulous gas wealth off the coast of Co. Mayo has been given by the Government to Shell and Statoil for not a penny in royalties to the Irish people and with huge tax write offs against the cost of exploiting it. The alternative is that the gas would be treated and purified in a completely different way to the present proposals by Shell and Statoil. The fact is that the intense pressure of raw gas mixed with condensate oil and water, which is proposed to be brought through the disputed pipeline, is unprecedented by world standards and gives rise to potential unprecedented risks for the local community. To have residents exposed to this kind of pressure to facilitate a multinational corporation is intolerable.
The Irish people are rising up against these corporate thiefs and the corrupt government that gifted them our natural resources!
Like so many other issues we stuggle on,this is and has become more so an Internationational issue of corporate repression with state assistance!
The campaign is escalating and shall do so until the 5 men are released and receive justice for themselves and their families and until Shell have been stripped of the resources they have stolen from the Iirsh people!
BOYCOTT SHELL AND STATOIL!
More info,statistics,campaigns,how to get involved—
www.shelltosea.com
www.indymedia.ie
www.indymedia.ie/mayo