Resistance to Shell in Galway City
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news report
Monday March 11, 2013 18:45
by Rossport Solidarity Camp
Galway S2S and Rossport Solidarity Camp members challenged the head of SEPIL, Michael Crothers, to answer for the crimes Shell has commited.
The Managing Director of Shell E&P Ireland, Michael Crothers, came to the NUI Galway Energy Night on the evening of Feb 28th. He was part of a PR delegation that promoted Shell's progress in attempting to bring the Corrib Gas Project on-stream. A group of local Galway Shelltosea activists and Rossport Solidarity Camp members with ethical objections to the Gas Project staged a peaceful protest to express their concerns. Shell has been allowed to remove 125,000 tonnes of peat bog from an area directly including, and surrounded by, EU Special Areas of Conservation. The Irish government has failed in its legal duty to protect the natural habitats upon which Shell are currently working. In relation to the negative environmental consequences of the CGP, Crother's response was to praise Shell's environmental record as "exemplary".
Protesters raised their banners in solidarity with all of the global communities that have been, and still are, subject to Shell's immoral and illegal activities, be they environmental, social or economic. Shell and partners have been subjecting the community of Erris, North County Mayo, to the building of an experimental & highly dangerous gas pipeline for the past 13 year experimental.
During a Q&A session, one person asked Crother's about Shell's activities in Nigeria. It has been well documented that in the mid 1990's Shell colluded with the Nigerian Military in the murder of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists? Crothers was asked to comment on a 2009 court settlement in New York; relating to the murder of the Saro-Wiwa, in which Shell agreed to pay $15.5m in compensation to the relatives of Ken Saro-Wiwa. To many objective observers, this was a clear admission by the Shell corporation that it is guilty of murder and human right violations? Crothers claimed to be unaware of what has happened to Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria and wouldn't, even though the case made international headlines at the time. The protest was successful because it prevented SEPIL from presenting an inaccurate and in many cases, totally untrue, account of Shell's activities in Ireland and in other parts of the world.
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Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5Hey well done to everyone , from all your supporters in the U.K
4 lives have been lost due to shell setting up in Erris, how many more ! the Garda racing to work has crash with local hotel worker coming home, Irish shell security worker dies in south America and local woman run down by fast driving uncaring shell worker, that's FOUR DEATHS SO FAR !! That would never of happened if shell did this project the right way at sea. Never mind all the dirt and what not that shell are digging up from thousands and millions of years of sediment that contains all sorts of bacteria an toxins, they, then drive the trucks though a lot of towns and villages all the way to Foxford and dumping it there, where are the safety officers cheeking the levels of dirt and dust all over our roads and at what level will they stop this Experiment on the communities that are suffering long chest infections due to dust on the streets . It's a god dam shame the Irish State will not finally stand with it's own Irish people and say enough, and take measures that no more loss of life or the shit that shell are digging up from 100 s of meters next to the bay and dusting the roads. Oh ! almost forgot the god dam dangerous gas pipeline that if that goes shell will just say it was an accident, like they always say, it should never of happened, but the pipelines do rupture all over the world, and Thousands are killed, so why are shell lying and say it can not happen here, when will enough be enough:
great job guys! Thanks for representing us little people at this cynical PR event. I can't believe he claimed he didn't hear about the Saro-Wiwa payout. What a lying money driven sociopathic corporate mouthpiece!
Doesn't this guy have children who live on the same earth as we do? Does he not care what corporations like shell are doing to it. How they are corrupting democracies worldwide including our own. How do people like him sleep at night?
I'd imagine he sleeps very well in a Mcmansion or possibly full mansion somewhere and gets saluted in the road by his neighbours and is spoken of as a decent fella and a job creator. We need to keep turning the screw on these people , fair play to the protestors.
Crothers is up to his eyes in trouble in Erris. His tunnel has gone 60 metres in 3 months and people are openly laughing about Shell's predicament, because they were shown, very clearly, at the last EPA hearing that they would encounter problems like they'd never had before. But they got their way and now the T.B.M is moving slower than a snail with a hernia