Attention This article was published on September 8th. The situation has changed, go for the last news to the blog, please. But the rest of this article is still actual.
Day X is here! How do I become active?
Day X is here! The soil structures of the forest occupation have already been destroyed, the first tree houses too and the FIRST TREE IS FALLEN. Eviction always means felling as well, which means, at the latest now we must become active and try to prevent and to disturb the evictions and deforesting in various ways. (For more information and suggestions see DAY X
Come into the forest, whether alone or with your affinity group, carrying out solidarity actions (climbing actions, painting banners, hanging up posters, sabotage, demos, lectures… whatever, everything goes!) And spread the word of the destruction of the Hambach Forest – a 12,000 year old Forest and place of resistance to lignite and the capitalist system, which is a thorn in the money-hungry eye of the German constitutional state.
How do I get into the wood?
At present, the large police force around the forest makes it difficult for people to get in. By detours and in the shelter of the night, it is still possible.
In addition, there is the player Aktion Unterholz, which plans to go daily into the forest with a large mass of people from Day X + 1 (the first day after Day X was called) and to try to block the eviction tanks and forest machinery. Here you can join in and spontaneously join the resistance. There will also be more general actions. More information below and here: Aktion Unterholz
Solidarity actions
Write us if you are planning a solidarity action or send us your photos so that we can publish events and photos on the blog. Please also use the hashtags #hambibleibt #hambacherforst when sharing photos or tweets on Twitter.
What do I need?
A current packing list:
We are not willing to accept without resistance, what is happening in the forest now. If the occupation is not being continued, the gates are wide open to RWE to destroy and extinguish this unique forest and the creatures living there, in the name of greed, to dig up and sacrifice it to the lignite.
Meanwhile, this forest has become the focal point of a whole movement and by the occupation and all its associated actors, a public debate has been initiated on various political and social levels. Let us fight together, show our indignation and our solidarity, form gangs, and not leave our wild, woody and wonderful Earth to the capitalist rulers without fighting for her!
The local initiative Buirer für Buir, activists of the occupation in the Hambach Forest, Ende Gelände and the Aktion Unterholz invite today to a joint press conference. It will take place at 3:00 pm in the Protestant Gemeindehaus (parish hall), Bahnstraße 42 in 50170 Kerpen-Buir. Then we drive together to the Hambach Forest, where we are available for interviews.
Today’s clearing work again sharpen the conflict over the Hambach Forest. The Federal Environment Ministry, the unions of police (GdP) and services (Ver.di), local residents and environmentalists demanded in recent weeks a coal moratorium and a deforesting stop. The Berlin coal commission threatens to fail, several members announced in the event of cuttings their exit from the panel. Nevertheless Mr. Reul, Minister of the Interior, ordered on behalf of the state government a large-scale police campaign, in order to enforce tree felling for RWE.
On Sunday, September 9, the initiative Buirer for Buir is calling for a demonstration in connection with a walk in the forest.
The occupiers of the forest are preparing to prevent the evacuation of over 60 tree houses during several weeks.
Ende Gelände announces blockades of coal infrastructure at the Hambach opencast mine on October 06 and October 25-29.
Aktion Unterholz will stop the destruction of the forest from tomorrow, Friday, 07-09-2018, with civil disobedience.
Representatives of the broad spectrum of protests comment on today’s developments as follows: “The escalation of the conflict by RWE represents a deep cut in our quality of life for the village of Buir. In addition to the forest and our neighboring villages, we also lose our peace. The Hambach Forest, for us a symbol of a future-oriented society, now threatens to become a memorial to the destruction of our future. We feel left alone by those responsible in the federal and state governments – forgotten,” says Andreas Büttgen of the local initiative Buirers for Buir.
“We defend the forest against RWE and Minister of the Interior Reul. In the trees we fight for climate justice and against capitalism. It will not be easy to get out of the forest,” says activist Momo of the occupations in the Hambach Forest.
“With the evictions and the felling, RWE clearly transgresses a red line for the climate. It is a scandal that the state government protects this way corporate profits and not the climate. We call for the carbon phase out, as an immediate measure of global climate justice,” said Karolina Drzewo, press officer of the alliance Ende Gelände.
“The destruction of the Hambach Forest is intolerable. We will therefore prevent the eviction and clearance of police and RWE from tomorrow on with actions of mass civil disobedience. By this form of action, we take our future into our own hands”, says Anna Schönberg of Aktion Unterholz.
Contact:
For background discussions, interviews or any questions, we are always happy to help.
Buirer für Buir: Andreas Büttgen, +49 173 5146141, info@nullbuirerfuerbuir.de
Waldbesetzung: Momo, press_hambachforest@nullriseup.net
Ende Gelände: Karolina Drzewo, +49 152 04560800, presse@nullende-gelaende.org, ende-gelaende.org
Aktion Unterholz: Anna Schönberg, +49 1775944678, presse_unterholz@nullriseup.net, aktion-unterholz.org
“If this unilateral escalation continues, it will end bitterly.”
We are surprised that Robert H., a contact cop, so realistically assesses the current tactics of the police. Because with “unilateral escalation” he can only have meant this. This quote is from the evening of August 25th, so it’s one week old. The first part of this text is just as old. The events of the last week, however, confirmed many times the statement “If this unilateral escalation continues, it will end bitterly.”.
On Wednesday, 8/22, a minibus was checked, the police approached the car only with their firearms aiming from only a few meters away on the heads of the people involved, as well as on passengers of another stopped car.
Two days later, there was a major police operation in the forest. Only one day later, the police returned, under the pretext of wanting to remove an art installation of fire extinguishers within hours after their discovery. This is remarkable, because in the spring they took note over many weeks of a very similar installation with just one fire extinguisher, but ignored it.
The operation was announced by Robert H. by saying “some officers” would come into the forest. With “some officers” he obviously means several hundred, because a police operation with less than 3-4 hundreds seems to be impossible. One and a half hours after they retreated early in the evening, they moved back in and surrounded the tree houses, while at the same time others filmed the meadow.
Meanwhile, a loudspeaker car drove up at Lollytrap (eastern entrance of the forest), just to play the Ride of the Valkyries and chainsaw noises once and then drive off again.
Remark: Hitler was known to be a great Wagner fanatic. The Valkyrie Ride was one of his favorite pieces. In the German weekly newsreel (Deutsche Wochenschau) on May 30, 1941, the Valkyrie Ride was played as background music to recordings of the airborne battle over Crete, as well as to the report of the bombing of the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway line. Coincidence?
One day later the same game. Several hundreds besiege tree houses in the west of the forest because they apparently could not complete on Saturday. Some of them seem to be enjoying spraying pepper spray on activists’ toilet paper, others are destroying paths out of boredom (so much for the “escape routes”) and soil structures.
The walk to the prison in Cologne-Ossendorf, where UPIII (Samantha) has been sitting since March (and according to judgment until just before Christmas) because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, is completely arrested.
Monday morning, the meadow is completely surrounded, for several hours people can not go to the toilet, because members of parliament and government officials want to look at the forest.
In Chemnitz, the police are completely overrun by Nazis on the same evening, who hunt down anyone who does not look German enough or whose opinion does not suit them. Tuesday morning we know why: just as many police as in Chemnitz faced thousands of Nazis storm the meadow, where 40 people are found. For every activist came almost 15 cops. Allegedly, they were searching for Molotov cocktails, but they preferred to destroy buildings, arbitrarily taking away phones, legal defense documents, ID cards, canisters, timber and heating wood, all tools, but also e.g. stuff for knitting, soap and two full beer crates.
Since Friday, the police have been checking every one who is leaving Buir towards the north, where the forest is. At times, water was not allowed to be taken, mostly climbing equipment and tools of all kinds are seized. Only after hours of discussion on several days (because “brushes can also be used as spears.”!), two artists finally were allowed to take their approx. 1000 Euros expensive painting equipment into the forest. The repression thus reached a new level of ridicule.
In the Hambi things seem to be normal, for which the Saxon police was rightly reprimanded by their superiors.
The statement of the police that “things of daily needs” may be taken into the forest, is probably interpreted as “what cops use every day”. However, in the armoury of the police we would probably not walk very far…
The police even trample on the right of assembly, which is above the police law, by searching people on the way to the registered vigil and even at the vigil itself.
I think it’s clear who is escalating here unilaterally.