Workers Solidarity Movement

The Shell to Sea Campaign organised a day of support on the 16th February at Bellanaboy to give people from around the country the opportunity to show their support and solidarity with the community of Erris in their struggle against Shell. After the official protest had ended around 100 people crossed the bog to gain access to the refinery and suceeed in halting work there.

The Cork branch of the Workers’ Solidarity Movement Thuesday 28 Feb held a public meeting in the Quality Hotel, Shandon, Cork, which was attended by about twenty people. There was a high number of familiar faces from the Shell to Sea campaign, and a couple of new (well, not-quite-so-new) faces, all of whom came to hear comrade Fin Dwyer give a loosely-structured talk covering his observations as an anarchist active in the Mayo end of the campaign.

A consortium of Shell, Statoil, and Marathon do a deal with the government allowing them exclusive exploitation rights to the Corrib gas field, off Mayo. Not only that, but they are allowed to write off their costs against taxes, meaning that the whole project is being funded by the PAYE taxpayer, who will receive nothing, not even lower gas prices. It may sound a bit iffy but there is no garda investigation into possible bribery or corruption.

The month of October saw the community of Rossport occupied by the Gardai Siochana. This occupation is the State response to a community trying to protect themselves against Shell: a multinational with a track record for maltreating communities which they operate in.

Last Friday's events in Rossport were a clear example of the brutality of the state; non-violent protesters were viciously assaulted with fists, boots and batons. It is important to remember however, that these events are part of the same logic that saw five men imprisoned for 92 days last year for refusing to allow Shell to construct a dangerous pipeline through their land.

This is the account of James - a WSM member from Cork - of what happened to him at the November 10th day of action in Rossport. James was the person with the bloody face whose image was featured on indymedia and the TV3 footage of the event.

We have produced two posters expressing solidaity with the community struggle in Rossport and opposition of state suppression of that poster. You can download the PDF files of the posters and print out and distribute as many as you like.

WSM members are present at the Rossport Solidarity Camp and are taking place in solidarity actions elsewhere around the country. This is a complication of reports, audio, video from these actions - many from WSM members - and also fragments from discussions we are involved in online.

Interview about National Day of Action in Rossport which saw repeated attempts to blockade the road to the refinery and Gardai (police) attacks on those doing the blockading. "The struggle against Shell's attempt to impose a dangerous gas pipeline on a local community in Rossport (in the West of Ireland) continued today with a national mobilisation, called for by the locals, where people travelled from around the country to go down and support them. "

The Irish government’s explicit support for Shell’s proposed development in Rossport, against the demands and wishes of a large proportion of the locally affected community, exemplifies not only the highly organised and funded public relation strategy that Shell and its partners have used. It also highlights the massive democratic deficit in this country. In a broader sense corporate Public Relations, and it’s close links to government, is perhaps one of the most potent factors in curtailing meaningful democracy.