Security at Bellanaboy

mayo | environment | opinion/analysis Tuesday November 13, 2007 11:24 by Margaretta D'Arcy

Para-constabulary personnel employed against demonstrators

Questions must be asked about the State's attitude to the use of a security firm at Shell's Bellanaboy site.

SECURITY AT BELLANABOY
by Margaretta D’Arcy

The EPA giving the licence to Shell was a foregone conclusion, a stitchup. It seems that the government is willing at all hazards to take on the Erris community and its hostility to Shell on Land. One can only speculate as to the official scenario for the future protection of Shell against its opponents. I was part of the Shell to Sea demonstration at Bellanaboy on Friday (Nov 9th). In the afternoon about twenty of us went onto the site and occupied it. We evaded the Gardaí, who (to begin with) failed to cop on to what we were up to; but what happened in their absence gave me an indication of what the future tactics of the state might be – i.e. the private security firm will become even more of a para-constabulary than it already is, and will be given more and more rope in its handling of demonstrators. Has anyone any information on the legal standing of security firms? My understanding is that they are there to protect sites, supermarkets and so forth: if there is trouble they call the Garda Síochána to evict or arrest intruders. But now at Bellanaboy the security personnel are allowed to rough us up without any supervision. One of them tried to break my camera. A piece of barricade fencing was deliberately crashed down on a woman’s leg. Injuries which happen before the Gardaí arrive, don’t happen. Last Friday it took them a surprisingly long time to arrive, considering that there were 300 hundred of them milling around. But if they arrive after the mayhem, their sheet of course is clean and their hands have not been ‘heavy.’ But in that case, who is responsible for the civilian security team and who will stand over its conduct? Inside the site it is partly recruited from Fás workers, who work part-time and sign-on as well, a legitimate arrangement, but it means that we (as taxpayers) are subsidizing Shell against ourselves. There is also a new type of motley crew appearing at Bellanaboy, Poles and Russians. I am not xenophobic so much as realistic here: is there any check on what these characters’ history may be in their own countries? I definitely had the feeling that they were totally alienated from us, from the motives of our protest and from the culture of the area. They seemed not to speak English so there could be no dialogue. If in the end the site security is to be entirely in the hands of people from eastern Europe, I can foresee a species of replay of the black-and-tans or the use of loyalists against nationalists in the North, or the 'contractors' in Iraq. The Garda keeps its pristine sweet smell, the government likewise smells sweet: no one is responsible. And suppose one day a dead protestor, with a steel fence on her neck instead of her leg? Neither the State nor the State’s police need carry the can: cast all the blame on some anonymous security goon, not speaking the language, not under anyone’s orders, and who cares? The security firm employed at Bellanaboy has its offices in Longford, I have been told. Has anyone got any info about it?