Second Day of ZAD under Police Attack

For the second day ZAD NDDL came under police attack this Tuesday.  Beginning at 5am over 2000 of cops with at least two tanks started trying to breach the barricades on the West End of the Zad.  Yet with the whole day of massive amounts of tear gas and flash bangs being used the day was mostly stellmate as cops stood in one place holding people back as the equipment cleared out 4 locations: No Name, Chèvrerie, Port and Tower that were already overrun by the cops on Monday as they finished destroying the structures and taking out the remnants of structures destroyed Monday.

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RWE Clears out lumber from last Fall 2 day cutting season

Today at the end of the secu road and along the old A4 RWE has been loading the cut trees that have been there since the end of last year’s stopped 2 day cutting season.  That stoppage has been one of the celebrated points of Hambi Forest occupation.  Since then the District Government of Arnsberg has declared that the forest will not be preserved and cutting of the last portion of the forest will continue from 2018 to 2020. (In Northrine-Westphalia this District Government is responsible for approving any mining activities. This authority is subordinate to the state government of RWE, so their position was to be expected. See also our article District Government Arnsberg approves deforestation from October on. This decision will certainly be appealed in court.)

RWE showing up to pick up couple hundred tons of wood is in effect preparation and clearing of the way for the next cutting season.  This action was not guarded by the cops but by only RWE private security.   It is also symbolic how the financial value put on ecosystems in the capitalist context results in destroying precious ecosystems like Hambi.  Lets not make this privatize life and nature as it vanishes in the name of profit too easy for them,

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Call for Action in Response to ZAD Expulsions

Last night at 3:00 am at night The French Military Police entered the ZAD de Notre Dam and begun a violent eviction of the Zone.  Barricades were lit on fire and resistance put up, slowing up the destruction of many spaces that started early in the morning and continues as this is being written.  The response has been swift in France and around the world spontaneous demonstrations took place all over the country with the fiercest street battles taking place in Nantes.

The call for support and solidarity continues for the ZAD solidarity actions and demonstrations in front of French Consulates and Embassies.

A large demo is scheduled today at 6 PM in front of the prefecture in Nantes and at French Consulate in South Kensington. Two among countless demos and actions that will be taking place at this time.

Big Thank You to all the members of the resistance for making ZAD a reality, an inspiration, connection and nexus with numerous other struggles and a historical mark on our times.  Being an anarchist and an ecological activists today continues a long tradition of many fighters and revolutionaries helping with countless other and regional struggles world wide while fighting margilization, criminalization and repression at home.  ZAD has been that home for many of us through out the years.

They can try to take out large portions of the ZAD but they will never take the ZAD out of us!!!

 

 

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Reflection and Call for Action Following Skill-Shares Camp

This weekend on Saturday and Sunday another successful Skill-share Camp concluded with full days of workshops and on a lighter note concerts on Saturday and Sunday. Both of the last 2 days also were full of political discourse, DiY, Media workshops and numerous activities such a piercing and tatoo workshops. The Meadow and the Forest filled with circles of groups sitting on the ground, walking through out the forest occupation, learning climbing and many other skills, all of this to a beautiful background sounds of birds serenading, sharing their happiness of first warm and sunny weather of this spring. Birds and other organisms that in a year or two will be deprived of their habitat like many of those living in the forest after the sure to come evictions. Like birds the forest activists continue to build a new and rebuild after the storms of repression and after the waves RWE Social and Climate Chaos. Continuing to expand and rebuild knowing very well that that all our and our animal comrades’ habitats are shrinking and that after 2018-20 cutting season the whole ancient Hambacher Forest will seize to exist. That’s why a call goes out to all who attended the Skill-shares and to others who are not at Hambi that in case of Forest Evictions if you are not able to come and help rebuild and re-occupy please consider doing a banner action in front of your local coal power station if there is one close by or by RWE offices which there should be one, or a German consulate or embassy if you are outside of KohleAusstieg(Coal Exit) Land. Let’s point out the price of Climate and Ecological destruction is not just destroying the Planet and habitats but also communities and cultural and protest spaces such as Hambacher Forest Occupation. That is the true price of Carbon and Coal, so please help us bring that message home and deal with numerous disconnects on which Climate Disaster Capitalism is based.

Saturday also ended on a more playfull twist: a Quiz Show on Radical People’s history with prizes took place. In case you have not been there here are some of the questions that were asked to test your knowledge of our collective past: (with answers on the bottom of this article):
1.What revolution took place in 1918.
2.What happened during Shah’s visit to Berin?
3.Which revolution was named after a flower. With extra point for the year it took place.
4.List 3 ways of blockading a road. With extra point if anybody in the quiz group was arrested for using that method.
5. What tropical plant was the revolution in Bougaville named after with a documentary of that same time.

On Sunday the final “workshop” was a day long session dealing with the realities of cleaning up the theory and praxis aftermath of the skillshares in the Meadow, aka[d1]: “Meadow Clean Up Workshop”.

Selected quiz answers.
1. German Sailors rebell after the end of WWI and form workers councils inspired by the Bolshevik revolution. The revolution was know as November Revolution, Kiel Revolt, or also by their participant name of Red Sailors.
2. During the Shahs visit to Berlin a West German policeman Karl-Heinz Kurras shot the student Benno Ohnesormore sparking the beginning of student radicalization, resulting also in formation of RAF. Interesting sidenote: once STASI archives were opened it turned out that Kurras was a paid East German spy. It is not possible to say if him shooting Benno was an intentional attempt to radicalize the West German student movement, however without doubt the resulting political polarization benefited the East German State greatly, even though most students in the West were inspired more by Maoist example than by the existing models of Socialism in the Eastern Bloc.
3 . Carnation Revolution took place in Portugal on 25 April 1974. Initiated by a non-violent military coup it overthrew the authoritarian regime of the Estado Novo, and was overtaken by civil resistance and protest to the fallen dictatorship. Also known as Revoluo dos Cravos.
4.This is an open list as there is multiplicity of methods, and anything that is effective counts just as it counts whther it was and it is possible to put this theory into practice
5. Coconut Revolution. Named as the Bougaville rebels utilized the plant for food, fiber, oil and even fuel.

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