Shell to Sea protest at Bellanaboy and Belmullet

mayo | environment | news report

Saturday February 02, 2008 09:09

by Rudiger

Short summary of yesterdays Day of Solidarity in Erris.

The hail showers did nothing to dampen spirits

To coincide with Shell announcing their annual profits (of around €18 billion), yesterday morning around 80 people gathered at Bellanaboy to show their continued opposition to Shell's plans for Mayo. Facing a biting wind and showers of hail and snow, the protestors highlighted the fact that even with all this profit, Shell still haven't clean up their act. As if the elements weren't bad enough, the protestors also had to contend with being outnumbered by about 2 to 1 by the heroic guardians of the State. This local day of protest against Shell was met with a excessive Garda presence of at least a 150 to act as private security for Shell. Of course the whole Corrib project fails to benefit the people of Ireland and all Shell's construction costs are written off against tax.

At around 9.30am a section of the protestors went in to Belmullet to continue their protest and to hand out leaflets regarding Shell's deadly record. Around 30 people stood around the main roundabout and received a very positive response. They waited until all their leaflets were handed out, before retiring for some well earned warm tea & coffee around 12.30pm. At first, the Gardai continued to use overkill tactics but soon realised they can't get away with this in the full view of Belmullet. Despite the bitter weather, there was lots of support and it felt a good success.

One distasteful aspect to the day was the fact that, for the first time, members of the Rossport Solidarity Camp were prevented from making their way to Bellanaboy gates. On 3 separate routes the camp van was blocked from making their way to the picket. Initially the gardaí sought to open up the back of the camp van without quoting a necessary section of law. Under the Road Traffic Act, the guards don't have authority to search a vehicle even though this hasn't stopped them doing it on many occasions around the Bellanaboy area. At the initial road block, the guard also opened both the drivers and a side door before he was told that this behaviour was not allowed. When questionned, the gardaí kept on quoting the Road Traffic Act and gave the driver of the van the choice of either turning around or allowing the gardaí to search the vehicle. The driver refused both these options and stayed where he was for a considerable time on each occasion. As a matter of principle, the driver refused to allow a vehicle search unless they quoted a sufficient law. On numerous occasions the gardaí directed the driver to leave. However it shows the shaky ground that the gardaí knew they were on as they never cautioned the driver that he would be arrested.
Overall the 6 camp members in the van tried for over 2 hours (from around 7-9am) to try to get to the gates during which time many cars were simply waved through without being searched. They were stopped on 5 different occasions and on each occasion anything from 3 to 6 garda vans and squads were around the van. At the Bellanaboy bridge car park, passengers in the van questioned both one of the gardaí who stopped them and an Inspector in charge. At one stage the garda stated the "Offences against the State" gave them authority to search the vehicle, while the Inspector stated that 'Common Law' gave them the authority. The driver confirmed that the only law quoted at him was the Road Traffic Act which the Inspector basically admitted didn't give them the authority to search.

The gardaí often claim that they are there to uphold the right to peacefully protest but this event clearly showed a complete misuse of power. However this failed to distract protestors from highlighting Shell's €18bn profit at the expense of community's worldwide. Overall it was a very positive day and a nice start to the spring.

Corruption !!!!!!