[Imc-radio] g8 july 2001 / the lost genona tapes

[eirene at telerama.com]

streaming URL# >>> http://orelha2.radiolivre.org:8080/bfr.m3u

for the next few days over 30 hours of radio shows will be re-broadcast
from the uprising against g8 from july 2001. forgive us here at the blast
furnace radio studio's for the live365 commmercials.


vincent
blast furnace radio
http://notowar.com



Tens of thousands march against G8 in Italy
Activist fatally shot by police; dozens assaulted in raid on media center



A street medic tries to help Carlo Giuliani, who lies dead on the road
after being shot by Italian police during rioting in central Genoa July
20, 2001.

Compiled by Sean Marquis

July 24 More than 150,000 demonstrated against policies of the G8 (Group
of 8 Leading Industrialized Nations) during a summit meeting in Genoa,
Italy last week. Many clashed with police in the streets, one was left
dead, and during a late night police raid, dozens were hospitalized.

Police raid

Late Saturday night, Italian police clubbed people as they slept, beat
others into unconsciousness, smashed computer equipment and confiscated
film and legal documents in a raid on the offices of the Genoa Social
Forum (GSF) (a group which organized some of last weeks G-8 protests in
Italy), the Independent Media Center (IMC) and an activist legal defense
office.

The police raid began at midnight on Saturday when an estimated 200 police
in 40 vans blocked off Cesari Battisti Street. One group headed for the
Diaz secondary school which had been loaned to the Genoa Social Forum, and
was being used as a dormitory by about 50 people. The other group headed
for the building opposite -- the forums headquarters and administrative
center and offices and work space for the IMC.

Markus, a 25-year-old social worker from Berlin, was asleep on the floor
of the school. He woke, he said, to shouts and screams, doors being broken
down and the police charging in.

They burst into the room wearing black masks, started throwing things at
us. They smashed computers and started beating people in their bags. Five
of us rushed upstairs and climbed out of a window and then down a
drainpipe. But the police were there.

They told us to lie on the ground and then they started beating us with
truncheons and kicking.

Three of them beat me for two, perhaps three, minutes. I thought they were
going to kill us. Two of my friends were very badly hurt in the head;
there was blood everywhere, Markus said.

According to eyewitness accounts, when police arrived they grabbed the
first people they could outside and beat them heavily. British freelance
journalist Mark Covell, 33, was thrown to the ground and held by the neck
while four or five police kicked him and beat him with clubs, witnesses
said, adding that Covell was left lying unconscious in a pool of blood.

Inside the building, when police entered, many people raised their hands
in a gesture of nonviolence, but the police just started smashing windows.

They forced their way in and we lay down on the floor immediately, said
Michael Gieser, a Belgian IMC journalist staying in the school.

They came in, blocked the door and kept beating us with sticks and kicking
us, one after the other. Gieser suffered facial lacerations and a sprained
arm during the raid. He said that about 15 young police continued to club
and kick people on the ground even when an officer shouted at them to
stop.

The police assault lasted 45 minutes resulting in 94 arrests with at least
five brought out unconscious (pictured right) and 61 people taken to area
hospitals -- three required surgery.

Across the street at the same time, organizing offices and workspace for
the IMC, GSF and an activist legal defense team were also raided and
ransacked by the police.

IMC volunteers were made to stand against the wall or lay on the floor
while police confiscated film, minidiscs and one video camera. The police
searched papers and all personal belongings as well.

The carabinieri (Italian paramilitary police) tried to take one of the IMC
people but another journalist with G-8 accreditation stepped in and
although he was pushed back, the carabineraie then left both journalists
alone.

The GSF lawyers office was also ransacked, photos and film were taken, the
computers destroyed, hard drives taken, and the phones smashed. The
computers contained a lare quantity of information relating to legal aid
and evidence of police brutality from the previous few days.

A spokesman for the GSF said, They took away documents, witness statements
of police brutality, lists of lawyers, video evidence collected against
people for the violence in the past few days.

Free Speech Radio news correspondent Patrick Beckett was on the scene
during the raid. He had been reporting all week out of the Genoa IMC.
Police confiscated his recording equipment, his lap-top computer, and all
of the mini-discs that held his recordings from the protests in Genoa and
earlier protests against the World Economic Forum in Salzburg, Austria.

Those in the IMC could only watch the activity at the school building
across the street from third floor windows.

According to US activist/author Starhawk, We watched for a long time out
the windows. They began carrying people out on stretchers. One, two, a
dozen or more. A crowd had gathered and were shouting Assessini!
Assessini! They brought out the walking wounded, arrested them and took
them away. We believe they brought someone out in a body bag.

It wasnt until a Minister of Parliament arrived and ordered police to
depart, that Starhawk and the others were able to fully understand what
had happened in the other building.

We went down to the first floor, outside, heard the story, Starhawk
continued, they had come into the rooms where people were sleeping.
Everyone had raised up their hands, calling out Pacifisti! Pacifist! And
they beat the shit out of every person there. Theres no pretty way to say
it. We went into the other building: there was blood at every sleeping
spot, pools of it in some places, stuff thrown around, computers and
equipment trashed. We all wandered around in shock.

Within an hour of the raid, leaders of the Genoa Social Forum, Ministers
of Parliament, lawyers and doctors had gathered outside the building.

We saw people being led out with broken legs, arms and noses. There was
blood everywhere. One man was lying on the ground in a pool of it. The
protesters, just kids, were trembling in fear, said Francesco Martones,
Green Party senator for Genoa.

Vittorio Agnoletto, head of the Social Forum, said, We went to the
hospital. I am a doctor. I saw injuries consistent with intent to
administer as much pain as possible. The director said that the police had
taken it [the hospital] over. He said two people had traumas and
compression, one man was paralyzed down one side of his body and two men
were still unconscious. The nurses, everyone, were very scared.

But police claim many of those hospitalized had suffered injuries in prior
clashes over the weekend.

Police claimed that the school building had been occupied by the black
bloc of protesters they claim caused much of the damage in Genoa for the
past three days. But at an impromptu press conference they refused to
answer allegations of brutality or illegality. We have no comment, a
spokesman said.

Agnoletto said, We believe that this was a well-organized attempt to
discredit the protests against world leaders. There were clearly two
operations -- one to suggest to the public that they were trying to crack
down on the black bloc, the other to make sure they took away
incriminating evidence against themselves.

The Forum is a large network of people and numerous Italian and
international organizations that came together manifesting against the G8
summit in Genoa and criticizing todays world order as unequal and unjust.

The GSF organized many meetings and educational events in search of
alternatives and was also a major planning base for protests. It was
inspired by the World Social Forum, which met in Porto Alegre, Brazil in
January, a meeting for planning another world through democratic
approaches to global society.

The GSF organized educational forums on various topics early last week,
including Fighting poverty and inequality, Globalization and work, Which
public spaces for knowledge, Which mechanism for global democracy.

Activist killed by police

On Friday afternoon 23 year -- old Carlo Giuliani (pictured left), a Roman
resident who had moved to Genoa, was shot and killed by police on the
streets of Genoa during the G8 summit protests.

Giuliani, the son of a labor organizer, was amongst a group of people
involved in attacking a police jeep at the time of the shooting.

According to a Reuters photographer who witnessed the incident, the youth
had picked up a red fire extinguisher from the ground. He raised the fire
extinguisher with two hands above his head, facing the back of the jeep,
its rear window shattered.

Then two shots rang out from inside the jeep, and the youth fell to the
ground. The jeep drove backwards over the sprawled torso, then changed
gears and sped away, driving over his body a second time as it left the
scene.

He was hit twice, once in the forehead and once on the left cheek, said
Valeria Valerio, a medic with the Genoa Social Forum.

Valerio attempted for some minutes to give Giuliani a heart massage, but
stopped when she knew she could not help him. She said he was most likely,
dead before he hit the ground.

Dr. Saleno, a lawyer for the Genoa Social Forum, said that the police
argument of self defense was poor in this case. Saleno said, According to
the Italian Criminal code, article 52, the defense is only considered
legitimate when proportional to the gravity of the endured offense. In
this casethe police officer could have defended himself easily by simply
shooting in the air, or even aiming at the earth. His choice to shoot
Carlo Giuliani point blank in the face was unjustified considering the
danger in which the police officer was found, and is therefore completely
beyond legal limits.

In another reported incident, a police officer did shoot into the air to
defend himself.

A Reuters reporter saw a policeman fire warning shots in the air as a
crowd of protesters bore down on him. In front of him was a crowd of
protesters, thousands-strong, and they began moving toward him, she said.
He started backing away, then he fired shots into the air from a hand-held
gun. Then he got on his motorcycle and rode off.

A makeshift memorial was made at the site of Giulianis killing. Many
people stopped there over the next two days to share grief and outrage.



The incident sparked solidarity rallies in cities around the world,
including Istanbul, Salzburg, Oslo, Lyon, Bonn, Stockholm, Zurich,
Montreal, Vancouver , Toronto, Athens, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Los
Angeles, New York City, San Francisco/Berkeley and Washington, DC.

Some considered Giuliani to be a martyr to a movement while others saw him
as just one more victim in a long line of oppression.

150,000 march in Genoa


The crowd of protesters was among the largest to date.

For weeks preceding the G-8 meeting, authorities turned Genoa into a
setting its mayor could only describe as surreal  placing 20-foot concrete
and wire fence barricades on the perimeter of a red zone (where free
speech was not allowed), and setting up patrols in the air and on the sea.

As many as 150,000 protesters took part in demonstrations throughout last
week, demanding that the G-8 (United States, Japan, Russia, Germany,
France, Britain, Canada and Italy) use the wealth generated by global
markets to slash Third World debt.

According to a press release from the GSF, people were demonstrating
because, 20% of the worlds population - in countries with advanced
capitalism - wastes 83% of the resources of our planet; 11 million
children die every year of malnutrition and 1.3 billion live on less than
one dollar per day. This situation does not improve: it is worsening
continuously.

On Friday, while over 100,000 people protested, thousands participated in
acts of organized civil disobedience. Headed by the Italian groups Ya
Basta and Tutte Bianchi, activists attempted in various locations to break
through the sealed off Red Zone G8 security barriers.

Running street battles, property destruction and rampant police violence
ensued throughout the day. In some areas of the city, protesters readily
engaged police, throwing molotov cocktails, rocks and bricks, the police
retaliating with clubs and teargas. In other areas police deliberately
assaulted passive, non-violent groups.

Dr. Peter Custers, of Norway, gave an eyewitness report of police clubbing
completely unarmed demonstrators who sat on the road with their hands in
the air, near Piazza Manini.

Custers said, Police also brutally beat journalists who attempted to
record the mauling, and smashed their cameras. This isolation of groups
and mass beatings formed a pattern that occurred throughout the city.

An Italian nurse and Associated Press television news producer Sam Cole
were among those clubbed by police, witnesses said. Associated Press
photographer Jerome Delay sustained a fractured rib when he was hit from
behind by a metal bar wielded by one of the demonstrators.

Activists had set up different zones for varying levels of participation.
The pink zone was completely passive, the yellow zone would engage in
varying types of civil disobedience, and the black zone, where anything
goes.

A police tactic was to hit different groups early and heavily and to use
blocked off streets to channel different groups into each other to create
conflict and confusion.

I saw that all groups, even though there were hugely diverse protest
tactics, were initially quite respectful of each others intentions, a
street medic said. It was only when there was a large number of people
from distinctly different groups cornered into Piazza Manini that
protesters were forced into conflict with each other and their separate
tactics became ineffective.

Barely 500 yards away from the clashes, at a round table in a vaulted hall
of the palace, the leaders of the G8 defied the demonstrators with a
fierce defense of free markets.

The besieged leaders said market forces were the only sure way to deliver
people from poverty.

We have said together that globalization is good, globalization is an
advantage for all, there is a need for more globalization to ensure more
democracy, more freedom, more well-being and jobs for all of the people of
this earth, said Silvio Berlusconi, the right-wing Italian prime minister.

President Bush says the protesters are wrong to reject trade and
capitalism, criticizing some who will try to disrupt the meetings,
claiming they represent the poor.

To those folks, I say, instead of addressing policies that represent the
poor, you embrace policies that lock poor people into poverty, and thats
unacceptable to the United States, Bush said. Trade has been the best
avenue for economic growth for all countries and I reject the isolationism
and protectionism that dominates those who will try to disrupt the
meetings in Genoa.

Thousands of protesters -- representing trade unions, environmental
groups, farmers, anarchists and the unemployed -- descended on Genoa
because they are troubled by the direction that globalization is taking.
Multinational corporations, they claim, are exploiting this new economy
and need to be held in check.

French President Jacques Chirac said the violence was evidence that
leaders should listen more closely to the demonstrators call for reduced
globalization of trade.

Infiltration and provocateurs

Many protest groups and individual protesters gave testimony to police
infiltration and provocateurs used to give police an excuse to beat
demonstrators and to isolate more militant and aggressive groups, namely
anarchists and the Black Bloc.

At a press conference, a spokesman for the GSF said there were several
ways in which the Italian state as well as other states sought to disrupt
the mass protest. One was through the deployment of foreign plainclothes
policemen, some dressed in black with masks, speaking foreign languages
and being seen via video evidence to coordinate their activities with
Carabinieri.

The spokesman said that police did nothing to hinder those dressed in
black who roamed freely as they destroyed property, until those in black
ran into isolated, non-aggressive protest groups, when the police took the
opportunity to maul indiscriminately. He said the police used a
combination of indiscriminate violence, provocation, and
counter-provocation, to create an upward spiral of confrontation.

Jose Bove, a spokesman for the French peasants union, said police from
England, Switzerland and Germany were in Genoa.

Bove also said that during the peaceful, permitted sit-in of ATTAC (an
international nonviolent organization lobbying for a tax on currency
speculation), official ambulances showed up before any police or trouble
arrived. He says the police violence was not necessary self-defense, but a
planned campaign.

A group of German anarchists of the Schwartze Bloc hit such precise
targets as banks and big corporate offices. They had no intention to
attack other demonstrators. On Saturday a Dutch journalist of Vrij
Neederland magazine met them while they were packing and maybe going back
to Germany.

They told him they were pissed-off because of what other men in black had
done. The other men in black, were being referred to by other
demonstrators as trashers.

On Friday, carabinieri escorted the trashers all day long, and never
charged them, witnesses said. The carabinieri waited in the street for
them while they trashed small businesses and cars, then the whole group
would continue down the street.

According to witnesses, the carabinieri quietly accompanied the trashers
to the places where many other people were demonstrating in other ways.
Then the trashers were hemmed into the square where hundreds of members of
the Lilliput network were doing a sit-in.

The carabinieri followed, and beat up women and children, boy scouts, and
peaceful demonstrators. Then the carabinieri and trashers left again and
continued the pattern throughout the day, the witnesses said.

According to a statement from members of the New York City Direct Action
Network, who were in Genoa, This has nothing to do with the praxis of the
Black Bloc. In fact, many people saw these fake black blocsters coming out
of carabinieri vans, putting on the balaklava and starting to raise hell,
trashers discussing plans with marshalls and carabinieri giving crowbars
to fake black blocsters.

Many activists felt this was a deliberate attempt by police to create a
premise in order to beat people and to create distrust and dissension
among activists.

The aftermath

A few hours after the summit leaders left town, workers began dismantling
miles of tall steel-mesh barricades surrounding Genoas medieval center and
part of its old port.

In street after street along and near the routes taken by marchers,
windows of businesses were smashed, with banks and car dealerships favored
targets.

In one part of downtown, it was impossible to find a working
automatic-teller machine; all had been vandalized. Road signs were torn
from their posts, used as shields by the demonstrators. The carcasses of
torched cars dotted thoroughfares.

Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, has pledged $6 million in
government funding for the city of Genoa to make repairs.

The mayor of Genoa says thats not enough and that damages may be as high
as $45-60 million.

Berlusconi has said that such gatherings of world leaders, now constantly
assailed by ever more determined pro-democracy demonstrators, should be
re-thought.

This one could be the last, he told trade union leaders. He said the next
G8 meeting, if there is another G8, should be more open and provide the
chance for meetings with trade unions and other social groups.

Sources: ABC, CBS, CNN, Indymedia , Reuters, Associated Press, The
Gaurdian Observer (UK), The Independent (UK), A-Infos, New York Times.

Poor nations demand fair globalization

July 22 Officials from the worlds 49 poorest countries have started talks
in Zanzibar to try to shape any further liberalization in the World Trade
Organization in their own interests.

They are concerned that they are being forced to open up their markets
while the West is not opening up to them.

They will consider a proposal that they should not enter new rounds of
trade negotiations until the commitments made by the developed world to
them in the past are honored.

Tanzanias Trade Minister, Idi Simba, told the BBC that Europe and the US
subsidize their agricultural sectors, while lecturing poor countries not
to do the same.

We know we are not getting a fair deal, he said, pointing out that Europe
had previously promised to reduce its agricultural subsidies by 2000.

Agriculture is the biggest employer and earner in many African countries
and economists say that exporting food could be one of the fastest ways to
boost living standards.

The worlds poorest 49 countries account for less than 1% of world exports
and they think the developed world should be able to afford their demands.

They may not have much money but they do have votes and Simba told the
BBCs David Loyn that they will block the next trade round unless earlier
promises made to them are kept.

He says he is not opposed to the principle of globalization, provided
everybody sticks to the rules - but the rules are not yet kept.

After talks stalled in Seattle in 1999, the WTO is meeting again this
November in Doha, Qatar.

Simba is confident that the 49 countries will agree on a joint negotiating
strategy: We have not come all the way to Zanzibar to end up with a
fiasco.

The least developed countries are defined by the UN as countries with an
average per capita income of less than $900 a year.

Haiti is the only country in this category in the western hemisphere.

There are also a number of Pacific islands represented but apart from
Bangladesh, the poorest countries with the largest populations are all in
Africa.

Asked whether the Genoa protesters had the interests of poor countries at
heart, Simba replied: The system as it is now is not fair to us and those
fellows in the streets are telling that story.

Source: BBC News

World leaders ignore US, reach climate accord in Bonn

By Beth Fogleman

Bonn, Germany, July 23 [In Bonn today, delegates from 180 nations reached
a broad political agreement on the operational rule book for the 1997
Kyoto Protocol. The treaty will limit the emission of greenhouse gases
linked to global warming.

[The meeting will now continue through Friday and start the process of
translating this agreement into more detailed legal decisions.

[After all night negotiations on how to enforce compliance with the
protocol, agreement was reached this morning. The draft decision,
contained in two informal documents, sets out a political text outlining
core elements of the agreement and the compromise on compliance.

[Todays agreement will keep up the pressure for early emissions reductions
by governments and the private sector in the developed world, said Michael
Zammit Cutajar, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC). It should also strengthen financial and
technological support to developing countries to enable them to take
action on climate change. The next step is for developed country
governments to ratify the Protocol so that it can enter into force as
quickly as possible - preferably by 2002.

[While UN leaders and ambassadors spoke of a renewed optimism to advance
the Kyoto mechanisms and keep the process alive, Chief US negotiator Paula
Dobriansky reaffirmed the Bush administrations view that the protocol is
not sound policy, although the US did not seek to block consensus in
Bonn.]

President Bushs March 2001 decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on
global warming severely hampered the progress of the meetings in Bonn.
Although Bushs delegation was noticeably quiet in text negotiation, their
voice was heard clearly through the obstructionist tactics of Canada,
Australia, and Iceland who have also decided not to ratify the protocol in
their own governments.

A recent ABC News poll (April 11-15) found that 61% of Americans thought
the United States should join the Kyoto Protocol. In addition, a June 21
poll from the New York Times/CBS found that 72% of Americans say it is
necessary to take immediate action to counter the effects of global
warming. In reply, US ambassador to the conference and senior state
department scientific advisor, Mark Hambly, commented on the variable
nature of polls and stated that the outcome of the next election will
determine true public opinion.

Lee Hayes Byron, a Duke University graduate student and member of the
thirty-member US Student Climate Summit here in Bonn said, A mobilization
of grassroots climate change activism across the US is needed to fill the
gap our government has left by rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.

Despite domestic public support, the Bush administration is determined to
undermine years of international progress on the treaty and sent us
hurtling back to 1990, further delaying these desperately needed
reductions in greenhouse gases says Greenpeace International news
correspondent, Dan Jones.

As seen by the actions of the US delegates in Bonn, Bush is clearly
listening to climate skeptics and industry lobbyists in private meetings
here in the conference center. Leading industry lobbyist for utilities and
fossil fuel corporations, Don Pearlman, was seen, escorted by Hambly,
hugging Paula Dobriansky, the head of the US delegation as they got off of
an elevator from a restricted area of the convention center.

Despite Bushs stance in Bonn, progress on global warming is being made in
the US legislature. Currently there are at least five bills on the
congressional floor addressing global warming, clean power, US energy
self-sufficiency, and carbon conservation. In addition, the Menendez
Resolution, currently in the House of Representatives, states that the US
should continue to participate in international negotiations with the
objective of complying with the rules and guidelines for the Kyoto
Protocol

By offering little alternative energy, increasing their emissions, and
blaming developing countries for climate change, the US delegation has had
the most influential part in creating and wrecking the Kyoto Protocol for
the rest of the world, and now they pull out, said Christine Lottje, a
conference NGO delegate from Germany.

Bushs foolishness makes it easier for European Union politicians to appear
more environmentally friendly says Gregor Jack, the European Coordinator
for The Bet, an environmental campaign. Since the Kyoto meetings in the
Hague in November, Bet campuses are very close to beating the 8% cuts in
greenhouse gases required in the European Union, reductions that the EU
has yet to meet.

The secrecy of the negotiations is more pronounced in Bonn than in any
previous climate negotiation. Industry and the U.S. delegation were
virtually sleeping together, occupying adjacent hotel rooms guarded by
police. Almost no information from negotiations was shared with the press
or NGOs; this behavior has been unheard of in previous meetings.

In response to this secrecy, Europes radical global warming coalition,
Risingtide, held demonstrations Thursday to demand a transparent process
and more effective protocol, in which 123 protesters were detained by
police. Risingtide demands 60% reductions in greenhouse gases, reductions
scientists say are required to stabilize global warming effects.

A Risingtide Dutch student in Environmental Management who wants to remain
anonymous states this is the opportunity for Europe and the rest of the
world to ignore the hegemonic position of the States for once and show
that the earth needs a climate treaty that puts ecological integrity over
economic benefits. We know it. They know it. Its now or never. Ignore the
US and start saving this planet.

Additional reporting by Environment News Service.

ELF continues sabotage, faces investigation

Compiled by Sachie Godwin

July 25 Despite an investigation by the FBI, the US District Attorneys
Office, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and multiple
Oregon State police forces, actions by the underground Earth Liberation
Front (ELF) continue throughout the country. According to ELF spokesperson
Craig Rosebraugh, there is an inherent misperception by law enforcement
agencies of how the group operates and what its mission is.

The government at all levels is trying to stop individuals who are trying
to protect life -- life ahead of profits, said Rosebraugh. My initial
response is that I was amazed at the ignorance that continues to be
displayed by law enforcement in their thinking that the ELF movement has
any sort of hierarchy, which it clearly does not, he said.

The movement instead is based around an ideology, and so it doesnt matter
how many people they lock up whether its one or multiple individuals, he
said. It is not going to stop the work of the Earth Liberation Front.

The ELF has officially claimed responsibility for three actions in the
Detroit, Michigan area during June and early July targeting McDonalds,
SUVs at a Ford dealership, and an office of Weyerhaeuser.

According to the ELF communiqu, a newly built McDonalds was vandalized.
Also in June, four incendiary devices were placed amongst eight Ford
Expeditions at a Ford dealership, causing an unknown amount of damage.

Regarding the fire at Weyerhaeuser on July 4th, the ELF communiqu stated,
This action was taken in protest of the companys part in funding Oregon
State University and the University of Washingtons poplar and cottonwood
genetic engineering (GE) research. We are striking the financiers and
supporters of GE testing in support of and in solidarity with all
nighttime gardeners and eco-warriors everywhere - we cannot be stopped.

The ELF previously struck in Michigan on New Years Eve 1999, when the
offices of Catherine Vies, a GE researcher at Michigan State University,
were burned causing an estimated $900,000 in damages.

The ELF has also officially claimed responsibility for sabotaging vehicles
at the Dynegy power plant in LaGrange, KY in the early morning hours of
Saturday, July 21.

A communiqu sent by the ELF stated, Fifteen vehicles designed to rape the
earth had their tires slashed and flattened.

The communiqu continued, We wanted to send a clear message to Dynegy that
the people will not sit around idly while our earth and health is put into
jeopardy for the sake of a few wallets in Houston. While it is true that
Dynegys natural gas-powered plants may be cleaner than coal burning
plants, they still release nitrous oxide, one of the main ingredients in
ground level ozone and smog. Dynegy also states they intend to follow all
laws in relation to the release of emissions. Yet just last year in the
State of Texas, Dynegy faced penalties for violating Texas air quality
standards in four counties. Chevron is one of Dynegys main investors.

It was clear that the citizens of the community did not want this in their
backyard, and that they were spoon-fed lies by corrupt politicians, the
communiqu stated.

The power is in our hands to take direct action against the power plant
and other forms of corporate imperialism, said the ELF communiqu. It is
the last means to take, for all other options (legal and peaceful) have
been exhausted.

Meanwhile in Oregon, investigators claim to have identified at least three
people they believe are suspects in five Northwest arsons during the past
10 months.

The arsons, including a Sept. 6 fire at the West University Police
Substation and a March 30 fire at the Romania Chevrolet dealership, both
in Eugene, caused $7.4 million in damage, police said.

Police did not release the suspects names or where they think the suspects
are staying.

Eugene police Capt. Thad Buchanan said Saturday that more than three
people are being investigated in the string of arsons but that the
investigation by a multiagency task force has pinpointed three individuals
as part of a core group connected to the ELF.

The task force, which includes detectives from the Eugene Police
Department, Lane County sheriffs office, Oregon State Police, the state
Department of Justice, federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys Office, has established that the same type
of inexpensive, clock-like timers and similar fuels were used in each of
the fires.

FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said Saturday that a task force similar
to the one in Eugene has been established in Portland. The Eugene-area
task force will continue investigating before making any arrests, said
Buchanan.

Were not ready to present a case to the prosecutors at this time, he said.

Buchanan also said the task force continues to seek information from
people who have been involved in various actions, hoping to base their
prosecution of ELF members on informants testimony.

We know there are people out there that are less involved (in the arsons)
than others, and were hoping some of those people are willing to come
forward and help make this case, he said.

The Earth Liberation Front is an international anonymous organization that
uses direct action in the form of economic sabotage to stop the
destruction of the natural environment and exploitation of life. Since
1997 in North America alone, the ELF have caused over $40 million in
damages to entities profiting from the destruction of life.

Sources: Frontline Information Service, Eugene Register-Guard

For more information contact :North American Earth Liberation Front Press
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