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| Newsletter | April 2002 |
If one looked at the official definition of terrorism, it would be identical to the official definition of US foreign policy. -- Noam Chomsky
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We are all interconnected. What we do effects others around us and the effect ripples out to infinity. What others do ultimately effects those around us and ourselves. In other words don't be a selfish bastard as what goes around comes around. A bit like AIDS really.
Apology: The last newsletter went out late. It was actually ready last week of February unfortunately the files were corrupted and we were unable to fix until March.
Apology: The mailing of the last newsletter was intermittent, some people got it, some did not. Unfortunately we do not know the reason.
Apology: The web site was out of action for a short period earlier in the year. It should now be functional. We hope to have all newsletters available as web pages soon. We will work backwards from the latest newsletters.
In the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor we are ill-served by brain-dead councillors who don't give a shit about the local community. Due to boundary changes every council seat is up for grabs. This gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity to kick a large number of the shits out of office. We can only do this if a large number of people turn out to vote and we have some decent candidates to vote for.
We hope to find in Aldershot a number of Greens will by standing, in Farnborough Independents - local people to represent the local community.
At the moment Patrick Kirby is one of the few councillors who is working on behalf of the local community. He can achieve very little working on his own. Every time he tries to raise an important issue he is abused by the zombies on the council (the same abuse as is hurled at members of the public who dare challenge the zombies). We can only move forward if we get Patrick re-elected together with other community-minded councillors who are prepared to work with him and the community.
We can only affect change if we get these people elected. Therefore please get out and vote, and before the election, please help in the canvassing.
We have to have accountability in Rushmoor, but we will only get this if we elect people from the local community, who are willing to work with the local community, who will encourage participatory democracy, to put in place reforms that will encourage accountability no matter who is in power.
If you want to stop Farnborough Airport, the destruction of Farnborough town centre, stop the takeover by big business, then please give these guys your help and support.
Put people before developers!
If you want to help, if you wish to stand, or in some way feel you can contribute to the people's revolution in Rushmoor then please contact:
Peter Barnett 01252 653144 {Aldershot}
Gwilym Anthony 01252 517623 {Farnborough}
Next issue, after we have seen the list of candidates and we know who is standing for election to Rushmoor, we will produce a list of who we wish to see elected and who we wish to see kicked out.
Why not stand yourself. We wish to see more members of the local community standing. It is only by standing we can get rid of the dross.
Put people before profit!
Local Tories seem to be getting ever more desperate. We have reported in the past their scurrilous attacks on Patrick Kirby in the sad leaflet In Touch - scaring old ladies and other witless comments. What still sticks in the crawl of the local Tories is that Patrick Kirby stood in a safe Tory seat and kicked out their leader Geoff Woolger. All Patrick has done is to raise issues of concern to local people, especially the airport and town centre - issues that the local community have asked him to raise, issues that no one else will raise.
Attacks on Patrick Kirby are attacks on the local community who elected him to represent their interests.
Not satisfied with attacking a councillor, an independent councillor at that, the Tories have now resorted to attacking members of the public.
For weeks the local Tories have been attacking Keith Parkins in the local press - 'time-waster', 'vandal', 'saboteur'. What has so got up their nose? Keith Parkins has had the audacity to challenge the council, to raise important issues such as airfield safety, an issue dismissed by the Tories as a 'frivolous' matter, to try and safeguard Farnborough town centre from destruction by property developers KPI. Why are the Tories so reluctant to commission a safety study for the airfield, what are they so frightened it will reveal, what many of us already know, that the airfield is unsafe? Why are the Tories so gung-ho about the town centre redevelopment, a redevelopment no-one wants?
Not satisfied with attacks in the press, Knellwood Tories have published an In Touch (February 2002) attacking members of the public - Keith Parkins for forcing the council into an out-of-court settlement on airfield safety, and Keith Parkins and Gwilym Anthony for having the gall to try and safeguard Farnborough town centre. Even worse, both members of the community are charged with being 'known associates of Patrick Kirby'!!!!
From the ferocity of the attacks these guys must be doing something useful.
Mayor Choudhary has gone on a semi-official visit to Kashmir. Semi-official as the Foreign Office would not sanction an official visit to war-torn Kashmir, which is not recognised by the UK, or any one else bar Muslim fundamentalists in Pakistan, as an independent state.
Mayor Choudhary has gone back home to demonstrate how local boy has done good for himself in the white man land.
Who paid for Mayor Choudhary's ego trip? Was it necessary for Tory councillor David Clifford to go along to hold his hand?
Local Tories were only too pleased to see Clifford out of the country for a while as he was proving to be too much of a bloody embarrassment with his childish spat with the local community. Tory party gossip is that the only reason Clifford is in the cabinet is to railroad his campaign to be Rushmoor's first and only elected mayor.
KPI, the developer which owns Farnborough, has been and remains under enormous pressure from us to urgently progress development. -- Councillor David Clifford
The Rotten Borough of Rushmoor has suddenly woken up to the parlous state of Farnborough town centre. Nothing of course to do with the bad press they have recently been receiving or that May local elections are rapidly approaching.
Simon Rutter (KPI) was hauled before a council committee meeting to explain why in four years he had managed to achieve a grand zilch. Councillors lined up to put the boot in. Rutter was unable to give any plausible account of the town centre and where it was going. As one councillor remarked we have heard it all before and don't believe a word of it.
Following the council meeting with Rutter, retailers had a private meeting with Andrew Lloyd (Rushmoor chief executive) a few days later. A meeting to which councillor David Clifford had the gall to show his face. Retailers were asked to keep the problems out of the press. We wonder why?
Andrew Lloyd assured the retailers the issues they had raised would be taken up the next day. He forgot to mention he would be out on business, then would be taking a few days leave, or at least that was excuse three weeks later when he had failed to do anything.
Some weeks later retailers having heard nothing, asked what was going on. Realising they were not to be so easily fobbed off this time they got a far cooler reception. A request for a second meeting was turned down, not possible for at least five weeks. What can be more important than Farnborough town centre? The state of the town centre was blamed on two trouble makers, Keith Parkins and Gwilym Anthony, who no matter what they did the council was not going to listen to them. Now what happened to local democracy we wondered? Strange how the same two were attacked in the the local Tory In Touch leaflet (Knellwood, February 2002), even worse charged with the heinous crime of being 'known associates of Patrick Kirby'.
February retailers talked with councillors at the Rushmoor roadshow that was in town. Since then the councillors have done nothing.
Rushmoor are fobbing retailers off and trying to keep them quiet until the local elections are out of the way. In the meantime their businesses are going down the pan.
Councillor David Clifford has once again launched a vicious attack on objectors, this time calling them 'saboteurs'. Obviously he has yet to understand that we are not living in a Fascist state. When GOSE erect a notice inviting objections to a Highway Stopping Order it means, well please lodge your objections. Until such time as an application is made for a Stopping Up Order no objections can be lodged. Clifford went on to claim the 'saboteurs' waited until the last possible moment to object, when they should have participated in the planing process (the fact that objections are dismissed as of no consequence and the local community is never invited to participate is by the by). Maybe Clifford should check the council's own record, where he will find there were objections at the planning stage. One of these objectors, oops sorry 'saboteurs', was Lloyds-TSB!
Clifford was present at the meeting between retailers and Lloyd, even though the retailers had not requested his presence. Why? Clifford represents Aldershot. Clifford's concern for the town was shown by the fact that he had to ask retailers who they were and what shop they represented!
Clifford is an Aldershot councillor. Why is he suddenly taking an interest in Farnborough? Until he started abusing members of the local community no one in Farnborough had heard of him. Could it be he is losing his seat and hopes to carpet-bag John Debenham's seat which he sees as a safe Tory seat? If Clifford continues to speak out of his arse he will be unelectable in Knellwood, especially with such crass comments as airfield safety is a 'frivolous' matter. Tory leader Geoff Woolger thought he had a safe seat in Knellwood until he was kicked out at the last local election by Independent candidate Patrick Kirby. Let's hope Clifford and all those like him get the Woolger treatment at the May local elections.
May local elections: 2 May 2002.
Why is Clifford getting so agitated that KPI's projects are being held up? KPI yes, but why Clifford? Is there something going on here that Clifford should be telling us about?
Clifford has regular meetings with at least one KPI director.
Clifford claims to be a hard working councillor working hard on behalf of the local community. Yeah, it makes us want to throw up too. He also claims he is open to suggestions from the local community. Well always willing to render a public service, here are his contact details:
tel 01252 542412 01252 371111 mob 07802 958020 fax 01252 371112 e-mail david@linkupltd.com david@link-up.demon.co.uk
And if you really want to pay Clifford a visit, his home address is: Wellington House, 40 Avenue Road, Farnborough. He has recently moved from Aldershot to Farnborough so he can claim to be a Farnborough resident.
GOSE have given the go-head for the stopping up of the highway between the Pizza Hut and the old Post Office site. The fact that the loss of public space and green grassy area is a loss to the local community, that the loss is contrary to government planning guidelines was apparently of no consequence to GOSE. Objectors have six weeks from 1 March 2002 to lodge a legal appeal in the High Court. Watch this space.
The battle is not yet lost. KPI have yet to buy the land from Rushmoor. We must stop this happening.
GOSE have yet to give a view on the Stopping-Up Order for The Mead.
TAG director Glossop wrote to the Hon Gerald Howarth MP, asking him to intervene with GOSE to push through the Stopping-Up Orders.
Keith Parkins, who forced Rushmoor into an out-of-court settlement to consider airfield safety, has instructed his lawyers to look into the Stopping-Up Orders.
KPI get ever desperate in their tactics. James Derby (Queensmead Ops Manager) summoned a member of the public up to his office. He didn't like the fact that visits were being made to retailers to discuss the parlous state of the town. He falsely claimed the retailers had asked him to issue a ban from their shops. No such request was ever made.
Farnborough town centre is an election issue. What are the views of the candidates standing in the May election? Force it up the agenda.
[BVEJ newsletters passim]
At a full council meeting Patrick Kirby attempted to raise the issue of the out-of-court settlement on airfield safety and the garbage that had been uttered by councillors and officials. Planning chairman John Debenham was forced to admit that he had not seen or read the Consent Order and hadn't a clue what it contained, ie he had been talking out of his arse when he previously commented on the matter. Other councillors then used the opportunity to abuse Patrick Kirby. Borough solicitor Karen Limmer sat silent and refused to correct or elucidate on the court proceedings.
Gossip in council corridors is that Karen Limmer got the job not through merit but through social connections with chief executive Andrew Lloyd.
It seems few if any councillors apart from Patrick Kirby are aware what was settled in the court or what was agreed. Officials seem to be deliberately keeping councillors in the dark.
At the Environment Panel Patrick Kirby raised the absence of airfield safety. It was pulled for the court case. No reason was given for its continuing absence and the opportunity was used to abuse Patrick Kirby.
It looks increasingly unlikely that Rushmoor has any intention of meeting the out-of-court settlement won by Keith Parkins to seek independent advice on airfield safety. Keith Parkins has indicated that he will not hesitate to go back to court to force compliance.
It is rumoured that Farnborough College of Technology is pulling out as the site is not safe. The site is to be turned into a long-term car park for TAG as part of their expansion plans. Actually our mole in the board of governors told us!
Do you realise that if your house has been devalued by the airfield, and we can assure you it has, you can claim compensation from Rushmoor?
Tests at Heathrow show water runoff is contaminated even though it is going into a holding reservoir and passing through simple filtration. What is the situation at Farnborough Airport where there is no pollution control, where fuel spills, de-icer, aircraft cleaning etc is added to decades of on site dumping of hazardous and toxic waste and flows unimpeded into Cove Brook? [BVEJ newsletter January 2002]
The Heathrow study shows we need sampling of Cove Brook and a detailed on-site investigation.
Two conditions have to be satisfied as part of the outline planning granted to TAG and the piss-poor legal agreement between TAG and Rushmoor:
Condx 23: Surface Water Controls: No development shall take place until surface water control measures have first been agreed in writing by the local authority.
Condx 24: Contamination: No development shall take place until a detailed site investigation has been carried out to establish is the site contaminated, to assess the degree and nature of contamination present and to determine potential for pollution of the water environment. The method and extent of this site investigation shall first be agreed in writing by the Local Planning Authority before any works start on site. Details of appropriate measures to prevent pollution of groundwater and surface water, including provision for monitoring, shall be submitted to and approved by the Local Planning Authority before any works start on site. The development shall then be carried out in accordance with the approved details.
Farnborough Airport is an election issue. What are the views of the candidates standing in the May election? Force it up the agenda.
There is a serious problems with parking on pavements, especially vulnerable are the old, sick and disabled and women with kids in buggies.
The solution of our brain-dead councillors to this problem is to legitimise parking on the pavement. Bays will be marked out on the pavement.
Once cars are encouraged onto the pavement on one street they will want to do it on every street. Vans and lorries will follow.
It is not only the impact on people. It will damage the pavements, leading to costly repairs, higher costs to reinforce the pavements. Damaged pavements cause people to trip and injure themselves.
Car parking on the pavement is an election issue. What are the views of the candidates standing in the May election? Force it up the agenda.
Housing alongside Cove Brook is built on a flood plain. It should not be there but it is and we have to live with it. The housing is at serious risk of flooding.
Rushmoor Environment Panel considered a report on flooding. No mention of the risks of flooding, no mention of Cove Brook. The report was waffle.
Flood prevention is risk management. To reduce the risk you mange the water flow and reduce the rate of runoff.
The main problems for Cove Brook is the rate of runoff from the airfield and the increased rate of runoff being caused by TAG.
No mention of this in the report. Patrick Kirby attempted to raise the matter but was shouted down by his fellow councillors.
The councillors have not only shown they do not understand the problems, they have also once again shown their contempt for the local community as they don't give a damn if the residents alongside Cove Brook are flooded.
Arup Consulting have been engaged to look at the flood risk. This useful item of information was not drawn to the attention of the committee.
Cove Brook is an election issue. What are the views of the candidates standing in the May election? Force it up the agenda.
[BVEJ newsletters passim]
Two greed-driven planning developments are being pushed for South Farnborough. Both are close to the flight path, too close, and on this count alone both should be rejected.
Objections to Keith Holland (Rushmoor Head of Planning):
Last year Hilder the Builder got planning permission for a row of half a dozen houses in the grounds of Knellwood House at the back of properties on Canterbury Road, the road for the development emerging on Canterbury Road opposite Albert Road. Surprise was expressed that planning consent was granted for a development so close to the flight path. A mere coincident that John Debenham, chairman of the Planning Committee, is also on the board of governors for Knellwood.
Hilder the Builder has obviously decided to try his luck. He has now applied for a high density housing estate (ten 3 & 4 bedroom houses, four storey block of 21 two bedroom flats, plus associated garages and parking on the grounds of Knellwood House.
Unspoilt woodland and scrub destroyed, large numbers of trees destroyed, the grounds of Knellwood House destroyed, bad news for wildlife, bad news for neighbours adjoining Knellwood House. The block of flats will dominate the site, one story higher than Knellwood House. The traffic generated requires a mini-roundabout at the junction with Albert Road and Canterbury Road.
To give an idea of the money at stake, Hilder the Builder offered a neighbour œ300,000 for a slice of the bottom of the garden and no objections. In this greed-driven age the neighbour had the integrity to say no. Quality of life and the character of the neighbourhood was more important.
Deadline: 3 April 2002
Plans have been lodged for a plot with a bungalow with a large garden for the bungalow to be demolished and in its place a high-density development of one block of 8 flats and three three-bedroom houses. The development is completely out of character with the neighbourhood - large houses and large gardens. The previous owner, sadly now deceased, must be turning in his grave to see his lifetime's hard work destroyed, as his garden was his pride and joy.
The planning applicant is Pavilion. To introduce social delinquents into a peaceful and quiet area is madness. There are plenty of rough areas and downtrodden areas where the development would not be out of character.
Deadline: 2 April 2002
I support community involvement, but it suggests that communities are going to take a lead and communities are often steadfast in their opposition to development. -- Gary Halman, Institute of Chartered Surveyors
The proposed reforms represent the most significant erosion of civil rights in planning by any Government since the system was introduced in 1947. The measures are an ill-considered recipe for administrative chaos. They would favour big business to the exclusion of individuals and communities fighting to make their voice heard. -- Planning Disaster
Good planning is the unsung hero of environmental protection - it can help to preserve precious countryside and wildlife, encourage urban regeneration and restrain road traffic growth. It's where local people can have their say about the future of their environment. These proposals represent a further weakening of local democracy; they would erode public trust in the planning system. -- Kate Parminter, CPRE
Government proposals to fast-track the planning system are bad for democracy and bad for the environment. If they go-ahead people's right to object to projects that damage their community will be severely reduced. We need a planning system that is more open to people, not one that shuts them out. -- Charles Secrett, FoE
At a time when the roads lobby and regional government in many areas are calling for investment in roads and a major new trunk roads programme is a distinct possibility, the right of people to have their say on development proposals must be protected. -- Stephen Joseph, Transport 2000
The scheme of delegation here at Rushmoor is fairly extensive ... The practise of delegation is common amongst local planning authorities across the country and is encouraged by government. Indeed the new Green Paper suggests that 90% of all applications should be dealt with under delegated powers. -- Keith Holland, Head of Planning, Rushmoor
A broad coalition has been formed, including CPRE, FoE and Transport 2000, to oppose the government's big business planning reforms.
If we are to block the Neo-Labour, big business agenda, then we have to bombard Tony Blair with letters of protest. We also have to ensure the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor is opposed. Already a large number of planning applications are being determined in secret within Rushmoor by planning officials without reference to the planning committee.
The deadline for lodging objections was 18 March 2002, but don't worry, still keep pouring in those objections.
If you've ever been involved in fighting a planning proposal then you'll appreciate how bureaucratic and unfriendly the process is. When Neo-Labour came to power they made vague promises that this would change, which it has. Spurred on by their big business cronies and led by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), they're busy pressing ahead with 'streamlining' the planning system to ensure that in the future planning considerations don't get in the way of making money. The government says these changes are necessary because the pesky public has made the whole process too time consuming, T5 is an oft quoted example. So in a recent Green Paper (put out last year) they laid down plans to scrap public consultation altogether for big projects such as major roads, rail links, airports, power stations and incinerators. Instead decisions will be made in Westminster with only the minimum amount of parliamentary debate. For smaller proposals the process is going to be speeded up in response to 'business need', this may include things like limiting the number of objectors at public enquiries (or excluding them altogether). There's also going to be a relaxation of development controls and the introduction of 'Business Planning Zones' - areas where businesses will have free reign to carry on building without the need for permission (sounds a bit like Rushmoor under the Tories).
Local councils, who according to central government make poor and bureaucratic decisions (and we would not beg to differ with Rushmoor), are also being cut out of the new streamlined process. Councils won't need to produce Local Plans anymore, instead powers are now being handed over to Regional Development Agencies. These have no democratic accountability, and are stuffed full of business representatives that are more interested in new trunk roads and massive office developments and business parks, than sustainable development.
All these changes will add to an already heavily biased system that only allows developers but not objectors to appeal against decisions they don't like. A system that is contrary to the rest of Europe (where both sides can appeal), and the Human Rights Act (denial of a fair hearing).
Attend any Rushmoor planning meeting and you will find a system driven by the developers friend - the planning officials. The government produces on the whole quite good planning guidelines. These are used by the officials to back a developer's projects and bamboozle the councillors, but never mentioned if the development does not square up. The destruction of Farnborough town centre does not meet the guidelines - so don't mention them.
Across the country the situation is no better.
In Brighton the current pace of development is staggering. One of the most controversial schemes in the pipeline is the redevelopment of the Brighton Station site. The story of people's attempts to stop business getting their hands on this land just shows what communities are up against.
The site, one of the largest derelict brownfield areas in the south, was formerly public land owned by British Rail. It was handed over free to Railtrack, when the railways were privatised, who in the interest of their wallets flogged it to the highest bidder, the New England Consortium (NEC) a development group including supermarket giants J. Sainsbury's. In 1997 the consortium put in a planning application which included a Sainsbury's superstore. The local council didn't think that the community would be interested in the application and so didn't arrange a public consultation.
Locals disagreed and formed their own group, BUDD (Brighton Urban Design and Development), who organised their own public meetings and started to draw up plans of what Brighton people wanted the site to be used for. Nobody wanted the supermarket. The Council rejected the NEC application, a decision upheld by a public enquiry, and even went as far as saying they would always reject a supermarket on the site. Unfortunately this didn't put off Sainsbury's and their chums who last year submitted a new 'radical' application, allegedly an 'exemplar of 21st-century urban development'. It is so 'radical' and far out that it includes 2 hotels, a 200 space car park, offices, posh flats, crap bedsits for 'key workers' (nurses, teachers, etc), a language school, and, oh yeah, a supermarket!
Unsurprisingly BUDD are equally opposed to this latest offering, which will do nothing to help the 15,000 odd households in the Brighton area considered in 'housing need', and which will also lead to increased pollution and congestion in the area. Town planning models have predicted that this heavily car dependant development will lead to a 35% rise in pollution in an area of town where nearly half of the people don't have a car, not to mention rises in noise pollution levels.
The destruction of Farnborough town centre has not gone out to consultation with those who live there, shop there, or who run a business there. That would not do as it would give the wrong answer.
In his excellent book, The Captive State, George Monbiot gives several more examples, but it is the same wherever we look across the country - Farnborough and Brighton are not unique.
Right now urban development in this country is on the increase. In Brighton, as in Farnborough, you can hardly pick up the local rag without reading a story about allotments or nature reserves being threatened with concrete, the loss of public open space or green areas. Knellwood, Manor Park are but two examples in Farnborough and Aldershot.
We are under no illusion about local planning authorities, they are not serving the local community as was intended. But the answer is not to hand over the planning system to big business. These new planning laws are going to ensure that communities will become increasingly passive onlookers as PLCs take over, with direct action being the only way left to take a stand. The answer is LPAs which are more accountable to the local community, better consultation, increased public participation.
Put people before profit, community before developers.
The Government must think again - and come up with fresh proposals that give local people, wherever they live and whatever their means, a bigger voice in determining the future of their local environment, so they can help look after it for all of us. Planning is a vital part of local democracy - so let's make it more open to people rather than shutting them out.
Good planning is the unsung hero of environmental protection. Debates about planning lack the glamour of other 'green' issues like climate change and endangered wildlife. But good planning is often the mechanism by which sustainable outcomes are delivered at the local level - protecting threatened wildlife habitats, resisting traffic-generating development, protecting town centres and the local economy, and preserving the beauty and tranquillity of the countryside by encouraging urban regeneration and curbing suburban sprawl.
We want to see a system where we have the right of appeal. A right which the developer currently has but which we lack. Ironically if the developer appeals we can appear, but only in a marginal capacity.
But even more important let's get it right in the first place, then the only people with a need to appeal will be greedy developers.
[BVEJ newsletters passim]
This is superb news - we congratulate AMEC and ask them to follow up by encouraging Spie to withdraw too. But once more the UK Government has been let off the hook from setting robust social and environmental criteria before giving credit guarantee for developments. -- Nick Hildyard, Director of the Ilisu Dam Campaign
We are delighted that AMEC has withdrawn from this project. For minorities on the ground whose homes livelihood and ways of life are threatened by this project this a huge victory. -- Kerim Yildiz, Director of the Kurdish Human Rights Project
People power wins again. Just as the campaign against Amec and the Yusufeli Dam started to build up steam Amec have pulled out. We are now calling on Spie (a French company 46% owned by Amec) to withdraw too.
If built, the Yusufeli Dam would have flooded 18 towns and villages and precious archaeological sites such as churches, fortresses and a citadel. Currently undisturbed habitat - home to endangered species such as the red vulture and brown bear - would also be lost. The project would have drowned the homes of 15,000 people and displaced a further 15,000. Reports from the region suggest that affected communities have not been properly consulted and that adequate plans for resettlement have not been drawn up. Amec had applied to the UK Government for £68 million of public funds to underwrite the project. The Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) was considering the application.
Although good news for the Georgians who were to be displaced by the genocidal Turks, it once again lets the government and ECGD of the hook.
[BVEJ newsletters passim]
Shit isn't just any object - it's related to whether we eat or starve. What really disgusts us is the government, members of congress and all those who think we will continue to eat shit. -- Indymedia Argentina
Argentina continues to be an inspiration to us all.
People gather on the street, bang their pots and pans and the presidency falls.
Now if it was only that easy to get rid of Tony Blair.
Recently around 500 people gathered on the steps of the Argentinian Congress building in Buenos Aires and began throwing carrier bags of their own shit, which they had painstakingly saved for days, against the steps of Congress shouting such inspiring slogans as, 'Put the shit where it belongs' and 'Senators and members of congress - today we shit on you for a change'.
Now why did we not think of doing that to Rushmoor?
[BVEJ newsletters passim]
More national sovereignty given away, anti-globalisation riots on the streets, Blair embracing the far right. What's new?
Why is everyone expressing such surprise that Blair is linking up with neo-Fascists in Italy. Look at the 1930s where it was the norm for charismatic leaders of the left to link up with Fascists. The only difference is that Blair lacks any charisma and he is not on the left.
Workers rights were whittled away. Part of the globalisation race to the bottom. The workers rights Blair is so keen to give away are those given to workers by that bastion of workers rights Margaret Thatcher.
On the streets Spanish thugs, ie the Police, beat the shit out of anything that moved.
Since genetic engineering manipulates the basis of life, the risks involved are more frightening than any other developed so far... We feel it is unjust of the richest of the world to expect us to bear the risks of their experimentation. -- Tewolde Egziabher, Ethiopian Delegate, CBD
This month (April), UN delegates will be yapping about the state of the world's biodiversity resources over two-headed salmon and champagne at the sixth meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Holland. Set up during the UN Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the CBD have only just agreed on the useless Biosafety Protocol and The Law of the Seed. Neither will have the power to stop the legal or illegal spread of GMOs, protect farmers rights or stop finite resources being plundered for profit. This is because these UN organisations didn't have the power or force of will to fight powerful biotech corporations and the World Trade Organisation.
'What's frightening is how fast it has spread' said Yolanda Lara, spokesperson for Oaxaca's non-governmental Rural Development Agency about the spread of GM corn in Capulalpan, a village in the hills of Mexico's Oaxaca State. Normally locals might be thankful for this new source of corn, the staple food of villages in the area. But they now know this corn is GM, which is surprising because GM crops have been banned in Mexico since 1998. Berkeley scientists have confirmed that this new corn is the spawn of Monsanto: it has the same DNA as the biotech giant's commercial GM maize. David Quist, responsible for the study suggests that 'It's more likely that the contamination came from food aid brought into these regions. A lot of it comes from the United States and a lot of it is transgenic.' So under the guise of offering support to poverty stricken villagers in remote parts of Mexico, the US has managed to off-load tonnes of subsidised GM maize on unsuspecting shopkeepers and subsistence farmers. Locals are worried that the GM corn, which they say has been around in their shops for several years, will out-compete native varieties. The Berkeley study confirms their fears, suggesting that GM corn is likely to dominate local corn and may also threaten the research of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre, home to the largest variety of endangered maize in the world. Quist believes a well-enforced ban on imported GM corn and a programme to encourage traditional habits of swapping and testing wild seeds is the way forward.
Brazil is the world's second largest producer of soya. It currently has a commercial advantage in that GM soya is banned. Following hard lobbying by one-time US ambassador to Brazil and now a lobbyist for Monsanto, the Brazilian president is trying to force through GM friendly legislation.
In February this year Greenpeace Asia activists blocked the unloading of 17,000 tonnes of GM soybeans from the United States. The Philippine government buys about 300,000 tonnes of soybeans and over one million tonnes of soymeal annually, mainly from the United States. Last October, Swiss corporation Novartis AG confirmed allegations from Greenpeace that some samples of baby food it sold did contain genetically modified soybean. Beau Baconguis of Greenpeace Asia said, 'We should not be forced to feed our children with food the rest of the world is increasingly rejecting.'
India is the biggest cotton producer in the world so it was big news when, in 1998, 500 farmers committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh because of the failure of their cotton crops. Dr Pushpa Bhargava, an Indian biologist, told the Indian Science Congress that the failure of the cotton seed in Andhra Pradesh in 1997 and 1998 should be investigated since Monsanto could have been using local seed companies to market bad seed in order to destroy the supply system. 'The destruction of the seed supply and Monsanto's purchase of Indian seed companies would have ensured that Indian farmers had no option but to buy Monsanto's Bt cotton and in future Monsanto's terminator crops.' The Indian farmers ain't taking this lying down and in 1998 the Karnatka farmers union occupied and burned down the three fields of GM cotton and 500 farmers occupied Cargill, the biotech multinational offices, throwing loads of their processing kit out of windows. They did loads of other actions too as part of Operation Cremate Monsanto and hundreds of farmers and activists took part in the Intercontinental Caravan, which toured through Europe.
The struggle against biotech giants in India continues today and last month Indian women farmers were in London to challenge British Government aid to the state of Andhra Pradesh's Vision 20\20 programme, which will displace 25 million rural people, and corporatise agriculture in the state. This action opposes the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Chief Minister of AP and Monsanto, which will give the company free rein to plant GM crops throughout Andhra Pradesh. The findings of a Citizen's Jury were presented at the House of Commons.
While 9 EU states have a legal postponement of genetically modified organisms, countries such as Sri Lanka and India have been forced to bow to the 'superior' power of US backed World Trade Organisation and sign the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement which limits their ability to deny access to Monsanto and the like. That said, anti-GM and anti-capitalist actions are growing, so get yer arse in gear and see what you can do to stop the greedy corporate elite (and their government chums) from controlling our food supply.
The first GM crop bashing of the year kicked off in Warwickshire last month (March). Following a procession about 100 people pulled up some plants in a field of GM oil seed rape for half an hour before police made five arrests. Despite the non-violent protest a police spokesman said 'We were treating it as a peaceful protest, but it did go beyond that.' - probably unaware of cops enjoying tea and cakes provided by the local Women's Institute, in the village hall, with the protesters after the event.
Wales is finally GM-free now that a Flintshire farm has not been selected to run a third year of crop trials.
Donnie MacLeod, an organic farmer from Ardesier, near Inverness, has been jailed for 21 days for contempt of court. He admitted that he'd been present at the trashing of a GM farm scale trial at Rives Farm, Munlochy in June last year, but refused to point out anyone else who took part in the action.
The Munlochy Vigil has been watching over a GM field in Scotland since last year. The camp now has planning permission.
After suing Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser for infringing patent rights when his fields were contaminated with GM oil seed rape, even though he was unaware of the contamination and was unable to prevent it Monsanto are now threatening other farmers.
In a separate case two Canadian organic farmers are trying to sue Monsanto and Aventis. They seek compensation for damages caused by GM oilseed rape, and an injunction to prevent Monsanto from introducing GM wheat into the region. The local organic farmers group said 'losing wheat to genetic contamination would devastate organic farming - our very future is at stake.'
Ever wondered why anti-capitalist protesters always get over the top sentences for minor offences? Well, the Legal Defence and Monitoring Group (LDMG) have uncovered secret documents that tell judges to come down hard on activists. These documents were being passed to Crown and Youth Court judges after both May Day 2000 and May Day Monopoly 2001 festivities.
The document titled Mayhem came to the attention of LDMG in June 2001 at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court. The defence barrister Ed Rees QC asked to look at the document, but the court refused this on the grounds that it was secret! Sentencing in England and Wales is supposedly based on individual circumstances and the seriousness of the offence, but clearly in the case of anti-capitalists this is not the case.
Glaring examples of over the top prison terms are Roger Davis who got 3 months for threatening words and behaviour, which results in a fine at worst; Karl Hodgkinson got 15 months for affray; and another person received a £1000 fine for common assault (the lowest form of assault). Paul Jones, spokesperson for LDMG told SchNEWS 'The police have spent millions of pounds preventing the May Day actions from proceeding peacefully and in prosecuting people for minor offences. Now we discover that the judiciary is instructed to send those convicted to prison. Even the pretence of justice has been abandoned. We demand an amnesty for all May Day protestors.'
LDMG 07949 061 333 ldmgmail@yahoo.co.uk
All sorts of pranks and actions are being planned for this year's May Day.
Water pollution from Heathrow flows off site to pollute surrounding water courses. Measures in place by BAA do not work.
Contaminated water from Heathrow flows into three holding reservoirs. Water flows into Princess Lake through a system of booms and reedbeds, These should trap pollutants. Tests by HACAN and FoE have shown the system does not work.
Samples have been taken before and after the pollution control system. The samples have found heavy metal contamination (lead, mercury and cadmium), hydrocarbons, suspended solids and oxygen depletion. Swans and other wildfowl regularly have to be rescued and cleaned of oil.
The last time the Environment Agency carried out tests appears to have been in 1994!
Heavy metals accumulate in organic material and in silts. Does the discharge exceed permitted limits? Does the contamination in the holding ponds exceed permitted limits? Does BAA have a licence for storage of toxic and hazardous waste?
Similar concerns could be raised for the runoff from Farnborough Airfield into Cove Brook. We have previously raised the disposal of hazardous and toxic material on site over decades. This is in addition to fuel spillages, de-icer, cleaning of aircraft etc. At Heathrow the water goes into holding reservoirs and is passed through elementary filtering. At Farnborough the contaminants pass straight into Cove Brook. We urgently need an on-site investigation and sampling of the outflow and discharge into Cove Brook at the point it runs off-site into Southwood Golf Course. [BVEJ newsletter January 2002]
At Heathrow the reedbeds were found to be ineffectual. A point we have been stressing for some time. Reed beds don't work, especially in winter when the reeds are dormant.
If Heathrow cannot cope with the existing water contamination, how can it cope with Terminal 5?
The trial that started in Nottingham Crown Court in January led to hefty sentences of up to five years being handed down to the guilty.
Typical of what the councillors and officials got up to was a trip to the races. Doncaster has a race course, only the trip was not to the Doncaster races but Hong Kong.
Now we remember it was only last year that Rushmoor chief executive and Tory council leader John Marsh went on a trip to the airshow, only the airshow they chose to visit was the Paris Airshow not the Farnborough Airshow. They didn't bother to inform the council as they thought it no big deal. Their excuse was Farnborough has an airshow and they needed to see how they did it in Paris. No doubt a not dissimilar excuse was peddled in Doncaster. [BVEJ newsletter #0015 August 2002]
The only difference between Doncaster and local authorities across the country is that in Doncaster they got caught.
[Private Eye passim]
Congratulations to the Farnborough News for giving Councillor David Clifford such an extensive platform. Every time he opens his mouth we can all see what a prat he is.
The local press has a role to entertain and inform. It has a more important role as guardian of local democracy, what the Yanks call the 'Fourth Estate'. It is in this latter role that the News has until recently failed dismally, but under the new editor although he has a long way to go things are starting to improve. More critical reporting of Rushmoor councillors, not taking what they say on trust, would be a step in the right direction. If we can do it, then so can the News.
Where the News has failed the local community completely is in reporting airfield matters.
It is not our policy to publish letters, nor do we intend to change that policy. But for some time we have been concerned at the manner in which the corporate controlled mainstream media has been reporting TWAT (The War on Terrorism), therefore, as a public service, we are publishing the open letter from Ian Henshall (chair INK, the umbrella organisation for the UK alternative press) to The Observer. Whether it was published in The Observer (not likely) we do not know.
We also recommend the excellent article by Media Lens published in The Ecologist (April 2002).
We also have letters intended for publication by the Farnborough News which have either been edited or not published. These we may publish in a later edition but we will give the News the opportunity to do the decent thing first.
An Open letter to The Observer
An open letter to the Editor of The Observer. If you don't read The Observer, you may not want to bother to read this. If you do and you trust them to tell the truth, you won't by the time you get to the end. For more on this issue go to www.medialens.org, they have excellent critiques of the official media.
19.3.2002
Dear Roger Alton,
I am the chair of INK, the umbrella group for the UK's Alternative Press. Although The Observer has always publicly ignored INK, you might be surprised to hear we have around 2 million readers.
I am increasingly bewildered by some of the things I read in The Observer on the subject of the Bush/Blair war.
At first you appeared to be sceptical of the war. Mary Riddel condemned it with a breathtaking moral clarity. Jason Burke argued that the Taliban could not be defeated, Will Hutton has emphasised the terrifying lurch to the right taken by the US in recent years.
Since then, as public opinion has wavered and now seems to be turning against the war as it is extended to Iraq, the Observer has been moving in the other direction.
Your news pages have published a series of spectacular falsehoods which have been corrected in only the most low profile manner.
First you splashed as an almost unqualified certainty the allegation that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks. Within one week you did a U-turn and were reporting correctly that the source was probably within the US establishment. Since then you seem to have lost interest in the subject. Too hot to handle, perhaps? Dissidents who do not believe the official story of what happened on 9-11 were way ahead of your reporters on this, but you might call them conspiracy theorists, preferring to believe the whole operation was run from a cave in Afghanistan.
Before the ground war began in Afghanistan, you devoted several pages to the story of an allegedly successful US commando raid. Later you had to admit that in fact the raid was a near disaster. The Independent was miles ahead of you with the correct version.
Then you ran an extraordinary piece by Ziaudin Sardar arguing that there was some sort of sickness with Islam because terrorism nowadays is an exclusively Islamic phenomenon - a preposterous untruth (what about the IRA, ETA, Timothy McVeigh, Ruanda etc etc) that could almost have been designed to strengthen the Washington/Israeli hawks who believe we are already in a war against Islam, not to mention promoting racism, something you normally oppose.
Meanwhile Mary Riddell's moral arguments seemed to have been gagged. Jason Burke's prediction of disaster later became grist to the mill of the triumphalists who argued in your pages that because the war apparently ended quickly it was right.
After the `victory` you ran your most extraordinary piece yet. It was by David Rose, who is best known as a crime reporter, not an espionage expert.
It claimed, mainly on the basis of evidence from Iraqi defectors, that Iraq was behind the 9-11 conspiracy. Rose's conclusion was that we had been bombing the wrong country, but for some reason this spectacular possibility was not highlighted.
Crime reporters as you know are skilled at getting, and have to trust, contacts in the police. Rose was completely taken in by the sources for this apparent story, but why did YOU run it as fact when only a few weeks earlier another reporter of yours had been duped over the anthrax conspiracy in much the same way?
The story was soon discredited, and around Christmas Downing Street started to follow the new line from Washington: Iraq's offence was now totally different: they were failing to let in UN arms inspectors.
By January you were writing in a leading article that there was no evidence of Iraqi complicity in 9-11, even though your own columns had presented this evidence a few weeks earlier. This is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.
It reminds me of the issue of the Observer which stated on the front page that Libya was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing while stating with equal certainty in the colour supplement (which had already been printed) that Syria was responsible.
On most issues the Observer has an excellent tradition of seeking truth and justice on domestic issues, but it has always had a schizoid relationship with the truth on matters affecting the security services. It's support for the Vietnam war lasted years. The Observer has stated that it deplores the practice of journalists doubling up as spies, but biographers of Kim Philby record that The Observer employed him as middle east correspondent just before his final defection, on the explicit request of MI6.
No doubt as editor you are too busy to keep a close eye on all these issues, but certainly you will want to instruct you news editor to pay more attention to the reliability of sources offered to your journalists by the security establishment. To paraphrase James Bond, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times would be the Observer acting as willful stooge of the warmongers.
And you do seem to have one surprising warmonger on board. Given his oft stated concern for the oppressed of the world, it was disturbing to read Nick Cohen's recent remarks about Iraq. This is a man who gets screamingly angry over changes in police proceedure or the legal rights of refugees in the UK who are certainly not dying in any numbers from starvation or neglect.
Cohen seems to think it is merely a `claim` of John Pilger that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have died as a result of UK/US enforced sanctions. In fact as many of your readers will be aware this estimate comes from the UN and even Madeleine Albright accepted it in her famous `price worth paying` statement.
Even more oddly, Cohen seemed to imply that it would actually benefit the children of Iraq to face the coming US onslaught. The Washington Post puts the scale at 200,000 ground troops along with 50,000 more from the UK, but so far as I know you haven't allowed your readers this information yet.
Acording to the Post's Walter Pincus the main delay in launching the attacks is that the US has not got enough smart bombs built yet. Has Cohen wondered what might happen if the war gets bogged down and the smart bombs run out? Riddel did months ago.
Cohen has written publicly about his loyalty to his Jewishness, so could I suggest you ask him if there is any connection between this and his apparent support for the coming war which would seem to contradict everything he believes in? As you know, the only country Iraq is currently threatening is nuclear-armed Israel: this is where the war lobby originates.
I have a friend who Mossad attempted to recruit by moral blackmail over his Jewishness. Could this explain Cohen's inconsistency - has he been nobbled? I would be delighted if you would forward this to him. Just before anyone calls me anti-semitic, could I point out that my current hero is Uri Aveney, and the bravest people in the world are the Jews who are resisting the occupation and Sharon's ethnic cleansing. (Incidentally wasn't your vehement support for the bombing of Kossovo because you objected so much to ethnic cleansing, Nick? What is your view on the bulldozing of Palestinian villages prior to expanding illegal settlements?)
Uri Aveney parted company with Zionism in the fifties. Nick, if you were to come out as a Mossad blackmail victim and help to stop the Bush/Blair war, you would gain hugely in stature. If you continue to back the war on Iraq your credibility on the left will never recover, especially after your unpleasant abuse of those who disagreed with you over Kossovo. Of course, like Melanie Phillips, you could easily find a new job in the right wing press, but what about your conscience as a human being?
Similarly, if The Observer could tell its readers frankly that it has been duped twice by the warmongers and doesn't intend to be duped a third time it will maintain its excellent reputation.
I know it's hard for big tough journalists to admit they've been duped. But perhaps for a start, Roger Alton, you could take the gag off Mary Riddel?
Ian Henshall
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