New forest occupation against nuclear destruction at Bure [France]
Wanneer: 22/06/2016 - 10:30
Sunday, June 19, 2016, about 200 people, including villagers, visited the forest of Mandres-en-Barrois, a few km from Bure, in the Meuse, and converged on the platform of the new construction site by Andra.
After a great friendly picnic in a joyful atmosphere, double fences that surround the construction site were removed, barricades were built on the path to the site. A large wooden playground was erected on the platform installed by Andra cleared of the fences. Fifteen guards present were invited to leave by the protesters, and a gendarmerie commander stated “he would let the picnic happen, provided there is no damage to persons” .
A callout to resist, written collectively was read locally by various persons involved. Sixty people will spend the night and invite everyone to join them as soon as possible. For the protesters, the goal is clear: “Cigéo begins the constructions brutally and illegally, the mobilization came out of the woods and will intensify in the coming weeks to block this mega nuclear waste project!”.
Indeed, the proposed nuclear waste burial center Cigéo, in the region of Bure (Meuse), is currently going through a new stage of implementation deemed illegal by local residents and associations. Since 15 days, Cigéo installed a platform and undertakes a major land clearing, apparently without authorization, on the edge of the forest. The double fences insinuates other preparatory work, like the previous ones, it anchors the project even more in the local landscape. These works do not fit in a construction preperation step, but much akin to a dangerous annexation of the territory.
This forest of 220 ha is strategically important because it is attached to the 300 km of underground tunnels for the storage of radioactive waste. The plans of ANDRA includes the construction of two access shafts to the galleries, vents for radioactive gases and the storing thousands of cubic meters of excavated earth.
The people and organizations denounce the total illegality of the construction work while an administrative appeal was filed by villagers in 2015 and that ANDRA has no building permission for Cigéo. As for the legislative process defined by the law in 2006, they are fighting to get it sidesteped by the Bill Longuet law proposel which aims to hasten the definition of reversibility of storage and install a so-called “pilot phase” which is none other than the start of the nuclear waste landfill.
Contact: sauvonslaforet(at)riseup.net
News: vmc.camp
Documentation on CIGEO: http://burestop.eu – http://pandor.at – http://burezonelibre.noblogs.org
Forest occupation against it destruction - help us to pay the legal and logistic needs for the forest occupation near to Bure
Today, on Sunday, 19th, 2016, we have temporarily freed the communal woods of Mandres-en Barrois from Andra’s yoke with its CIGEO nuclear garbage dump. In front of our great wooden pavilion, assembled where the first steps of deforestation were taken, we, resisting inhabitants from here and other places, NGOs, collectives, declare the Woods of Mandres occupied !
We are engaging into a new step for resistance : we are opposing the beginning of works with our tenacious joy and hopefulness. We do not want any « wells area » here, connected to thousands of tons of offall dug deep into the ground to be forgotten : we are going to physically defend this forest, which belongs to all. What is at play behind those oak-and-beech thickets is a symbol of our struggle against ANDRA’s1 arrogance and violence. Under the canopy, our weed-like will shall not be drowned in concrete.
In 2013, the agency set down millions of euros and promises of work to get a hold of these woods.As they were consulted, the majority of Mandres’ inhabitants voted « No », because they use these woods to gather estovers of woods for heating, to stroll around, to hunt, to wander : it is a part of our lives. The inhabitants said « No » because they have here 300 years of memories, customs and secrets that cannot be traded off or compensated. We prefer earth paths to a financial « godsend », and a slowly aging oaktree to fake promises of employment.
In the summer 2015, ANDRA came back with a vengeance : at 6 a.m., the town council voted for the exchange of this forest for another with 7 in favor and 4 against. This time, their strategy wasn’t sham democracy or « consultation », but posting there two private watchmen to block the entrance to the townhall.
Throughout this last year, the inhabitants multiplied court appeals to get theses woods back and stop the atomic dump from being started. From public meetings to appeals for arbitration or appeals to the administrative tribunal against the undemocratic exchange of the woods, a local resistance found its ways through the area again, but this resistance did not prevent the beginning of works. We are not so easy to fool : such a crucially strategic project as CIGEO is for the French state and its nuclear business, will not be stopped just by going to court.
#OCCUPYBURE
Today we are occupying this forest to physically oppose ourselves to its being annexed by ANDRA. We are occupying it because we cannot stand to hear the crash of trees being uprooted, because their rasor blade wire fences, their mercenaries and big dogs will not stop us from resisting. We are occupying it to stop the territory from being stolen away from the people by the hungry hands of nuclear industry.
We are occupying this forest in order to prevent the beginning of works for CIGEO. We know that nothing in the shiny corridors of Parliament can stop the dump being dug, that only a territorial struggle can do it. From the right and the left, politicians applaud loud as they can when the atomic bugle rings, and even more so when they can say that they are « doing it for future generations ». Occupying now means getting again a hold on this project that has been refused for over 20 years by the population, it means that we can get a grip on an ennemy that has already made sure it was invincible in all other places under its control.
We are occupying this forest with another type of life, joyful, inventive, collective, against nuclear society and its world of military and private security guards, of smiling experts and quiet dosimeters, a world set to exploit the ground and its people as much as possible. Where they want to deforest, we are building shelters. Where they raise wire fences, we open paths. Where they are manufacturing a desert of solitude and resignation, we are claiming our joy together, while resisting. So now, all summer, everyone must come to Bure to stop CIGEO!
The pillars of our pavilion are set on 30 years of struggle against territorial colonisation by ANDRA here and in other places. The cabins built today and tomorrow are accomplices of our rebel potatoes which occupy illegally a piece of land owned by the Agency. They are allied with the large inclusive marches that we made against the nuclear dump, the comrades of resistance camps against CIGEO and its world.
This beginning of an occupation cannot be the high point of two weeks of action, but the prelude of a summer of determined resistance. Our pavilion is an invitation to an endless picnic, a place to meet other people and to come by and maybe stay against ANDRA’s will to make this place a desert. It is a solid wood call to converge on Bure to support the occupation and prevent the destruction of these woods and the beginning of CIGEO’s « construction » by all means. We are thinking in terms of picnics, direct actions and inclusive demonstrations. We are imagining blockades, wanderings and decentralised actions.
From the peoples surviving in and around Arlit’s uranium mining sites to the rebel bocage of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, from the steep slopes of Val de Susa and the anti-nuclear camp at Pyhajöki, Finand, we are holding together as one chain of resistance against those who want to redesign our lives !
WE SHALL NOT BE ATOMISED! ANDRA, GO HOME!
Contact: sauvonslaforet@riseup.net // 0033 7 58 65 48 89
Info: en.vmc.camp
Info on CIGEO’s project: burestop.eu; pandor.at; burezonelibre.noblogs.org; @vmc #OCCUPYBURE; #antinuke; #nuclear
Source: https://www.helloasso.com/associations/les-amis-du-bocage/collectes/bure...
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