Bellanaboy battle

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Bellanaboy battle

Tuesday, 18 September 2007

Familiar Scenes?A garda walks the line behind the Garda blockade at BellanaboyNo winners in battle of BellanaboyOVERVIEWÁine RyanIT’S shortly after dawn in one of the most isolated and beautiful areas in the country and once again gardaí are stopping cars at the Bellanaboy Bridge junction, on the Belmullet side of the proposed Corrib gas refinery. This reporter flashes a smile, and when that doesn’t work, her NUJ card, as a group of dread-locked protesters are pulled to one side and quizzed. Up at the main gate people – protesters and gardaí – are in relaxed huddles. The generator that powers the overworked Burko boiler in the sheep-trailer is spluttering and chugging like a geriatric train. There is a palpable sense of fatigue – of going through the motions – among all parties. The low-key Garda presence remains to one side of the wide gateway. Everyone knows it won’t be simply a sit-down protest. Long gone are the days when there was a shock-value to Gandhi-style tactics. Of course, that doesn’t mean this reporter isn’t caught on the hop. I was literally asking one of the organisers were there ‘any surprises planned’ when members of the group suddenly rushed the gate. It’s 8.30am. Shell workers had reportedly entered the site much earlier to avoid a stand-off. Someone shouts: “This is what you get when you confuse corporate greed with democracy.” A hard-hatted female security guard lops a protester back over the fence with the apparent strength of a sumo wrestler. Next thing, the gate is forced open. Gardaí stand by until they get the official order. It later emerges the real force - there’s over 150 in total from all over the west – are ready to enter by Gate Three. Paddy Wagons are also revved up.A Scottish woman, Winifred Macklin, a long-term resident in the area, is explaining that Shell to Sea is not against domestic gas. “Bring it in processed,” she says. “This is about the possible incineration of a whole valley. I witnessed the Clarkston explosion [in a shopping mall near Glasgow] in 1971. There were 21 people killed and 110 injured and that was only domestic gas. And the bar was only between four and nine. They wanted it to be 350 here until we managed to bring it down to 155.“We’ve no rescue services up here, only two ambulances,” she says sincerely.The Rossport Five’s Vincent McGrath is also on the sidelines. He warns: “There’s a long way to go yet before Shell realises this won’t work. They still have to try to force a new pipeline though private lands and a hostile community.”RTÉ’s recently-appointed Western Correspondent, Teresa Mannion, is verbally accosted by a protester. “I’m just a reporter trying to do my job,” she retorts. She is trying to interview Willie Corduff. Minutes later she’s in the sheep-trailer, ordering three coffees. Her cameraman is badly in need of a hot beverage. “How much is that?” she asks. Of course, there’s no charge. A photo of a beaming Willie Corduff – among the dozens of press pieces on the tin walls of the trailer – is underlined with a Fianna Fáil slogan: “A lot done, more to do.” Such shards of ironic humour are most welcome in a situation that is – certainly outside the gates – more frustrated than fractious, notwithstanding the odd, relatively harmless, scuffle. Apparently, however, interactions aren’t quite so restrained inside the gates, where about half the 100 protesters, who entered the site, have breached a second security gate. At about 9.15am the second group of protesters is escorted out by over 100 gardaí, some in part riot uniform; no helmets but they are carrying batons on their belts. It emerges there have been a number of arrests as a Paddy Wagon speeds off; a garda may have a broken nose, a protester may have been kicked while lying on the ground.Outside again, the Gardaí corral the protesters – partly to allow traffic to pass. They sit down en masse. There’s a spontaneous: “Shell to Sea. Shell to Sea.” “Whose cops? Shell’s cops.” Belmullet secondary school teacher, Ed Moran, delivers the only formal talk of the day. He assures the group the campaign is ‘very upbeat’.“The EPA decision is imminent [to grant the refinery an IPPC operating licence] and we are very confident that we will have very solid ground to go to the High Court regarding the manner in which the licence is issued,” said Mr Moran. He added that Ms Justice Laffoy’s decision to vacate the Compulsory Acquisition Orders regarding the original pipeline had also opened other significant legal avenues.It’s after 11am and some of the protesters begin to filter away. Their gesture of moral support, of solidarity, has been made. Undoubtedly, they will return in the coming months, as will the Gardaí. Unless, of course there is an inspired intervention to resolve an issue which is slowly, but surely, destroying a community.