Welcome to Newsletter Xtra where all the wonderful rebel actions we couldn’t fit into the main Global Newsletter come to stay. This month Newsletter Xtra brings you reports from West Papua, Russia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, New Zealand, Washington DC, the French Alps, and many more…
A rally in West Papua in support of the Green State Vision
NOV | West Papua: The West Papuan independence movement wants to make ecocide a crime and is calling for international help to save its rainforest.
The interim president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua Provisional Government (ULMWP), said: “Indonesia tried to build development on the bones of our people. The international community must stop the genocide and ecocide of my people in order to protect planet earth. If not, the rainforest will be destroyed by Indonesia.”
He was launching the independence movement’s plan for a ‘green state’, where ecocide is a crime and indigenous people have guardianship of natural resources.
West Papuan leaders are in exile from their homeland, which is half the island of New Guinea, home to the world’s third largest rainforest after the Amazon and the Congo. The Indonesian military seized West Papua in 1963. The indigenous people are Melanesian and are ethnically distinct from the people of Indonesia
3 DEC | Brussels, Belgium. In a landmark event the Belgian parliament voted by a huge majority (96 to 39) to recognise Ecocide as an international crime. The resolution - proposed by a Green member of parliament (above) - calls on the Belgian government to initiate a treaty of countries willing to prosecute ecocide and to propose an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of The Hague to include the new crime.
27 NOV | Russia. Two friends and climate activists from Moscow held their own climate strike against the Russian government for continuing to develop its oil, gas and coal industry, risking people’s well-being and ignoring the climate crisis.
9 NOV | Rutshuru, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Activists from XR Rutshuru, a town in the east of the DRC near the border with Uganda and Rwanda, demonstrated against drilling by French oil giant Total in the Virunga National Park, a world heritage site. They said: “Beyond the war, the threats linked to the exploitation of natural resources in Virunga constitute another ordeal on the lives of local residents.”
19 NOV | Kenya. A marine scientist (left) on week 52 of her climate strike.
4 DEC | Dunedin, New Zealand. Rebels blockaded and climbed onto the roof of a train carrying coal from a local mine. After six hours the line was cleared. Eight were arrested.
16 NOV | Colombian embassies in France, Italy, Spain, Germany. Rebels demonstrated outside the Colombian embassy in several European cities to denounce the Colombian government’s failure to oppose the Drummond open-pit coal mine on the ancestral territory of the Yupka people. In January both the current and the former president of the Colombian subsidiary of the American coal giant Drummond were charged with complicity in gross human rights violations.
19 NOV | Lake Victoria, Uganda. "A climate crisis is a water crisis," say the rebels from XR Uganda Great Lakes as they stand in the waters of Lake Victoria.
19-20 NOV | Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. Plans to drill for oil off South Africa’s Wild Coast in KwaZulu-Natal led to demonstrations against the Shell oil company in Cape Town (top) and the South African energy and oil company Sasol in Johannesburg.
The Cape Town protesters, including local rebels, Oceans Not Oil, and the Green Connection, were there to meet the Amazon Warrior, a seismic blasting vessel hired by Shell to carry out a seismic assessment in search of oil and gas off the Wild Coast.
21-22 NOV | Berlin, Germany, and Toulouse, France. As part of the worldwide Collapse Total campaign (see story in main Newsletter), rebels rallied outside the Total headquarters in Berlin (top) and demonstrated outside the Court of Appeal in Toulouse (above).
19 NOV | Washington DC, USA. That pink boat keeps getting in the way! Rebels blocked a main highway into the centre of the US capital “because the government is blocking climate progress”. The placard in the photo above refers to Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia who has millions of dollars invested in the coal industry and who has blocked real progress on Biden’s climate plans.
22 NOV | London, UK. Ocean Rebellion took action at the headquarters of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) as delegates arrived for a Marine Environment Protection Committee meeting. 'Oil heads' representing oil industry lobbyists vomited ‘oil’ and threw ‘dirty money’ outside the entrance.
30 NOV | Haute-Savoie, France. Rebels from Annecy camped day and night for two weeks in the Bois de la Colombière at La Clusaz. They were trying to halt construction of a giant hill reservoir largely intended for making artificial snow.
30 NOV | Truro, UK. Cornish rebels protested Cornwall Council’s plan to subsidise internal flights to Newquay Airport instead of 5 community leisure centres and their swimming pools which are likely to close because of pandemic-induced financial problems. The ‘Earth not Space’ placard refers to Richard Branson’s intention to turn Newquay Airport into a spaceport. Photo: Ilya Fisher
3 DEC | The Netherlands. Dutch rebels occupied the headquarters of the country’s second largest pension fund, PFWZ,, to demand that it stops investing 4 billion euros in fossil fuels. The action follows the announcement in October that Holland’s largest pension fund, ABP, would no longer invest in the sector and would sell €15bn of holdings by first quarter of 2023.
26 NOV | Berlin, Germany. The banner says it all!
