Update Mainshill protest camp (Scotland)
Fred Forrest spokesman EarthFirst! - 25.01.2010 22:33
Police and a specialist evictions team have begun a major operation to end a six-month occupation of an opencast mine site in Scotland, arresting more than 10 protesters chained to tree houses and make-shift forts.
Fred Forrest doing a Peter Polder
The police, supported by the national evictions team, raided the Mainshill protest camp near Douglas in Lanarkshire at 8.30am this morning, to start clearing about 40 climate campaigners now occupying tunnels, tree houses, and homemade, barricaded huts.
By 3pm today 11 protesters had been removed, and were charged with offences including aggravated trespass and breach of the peace.
Some were forcibly taken down from platforms erected roughly 100ft high in nearby trees by a specialist civilian eviction company from Wales now routinely used across the UK by police, bailiffs and, in Scotland, sheriff's officers, to combat environmental protests.
Campers at Mainshill claimed heavy vehicles were used to partly demolish a large temporary building at the site being occupied by protesters and the eviction team pulled down "tripods" using tree trunks with protesters still chained to them. There have been no reported injuries.
At least 15 activists are believed to be in tree houses, and an unspecified number in tunnels, clustered around three locations in the surrounding forest, where the temperature is still close to freezing.
Many are understood to have slept in these tree houses during the recent snow and intense cold, where the temperature locally dropped to –20C, leading to fears for the health of campaigners.
The site of a proposed 1.7m tonne opencast mine owned by the Earl of Home, Mainshill, has been the focus of a sporadic series of protests across central Scotland against opencast mining. There are four other opencast mines in the immediate area around Mainshill.
Three Mainshill campaigners were charged with breach of the peace last year after confronting a local councillor closely linked to the developer, Scottish Coal, but charges were later dropped. Protesters also cut through a crucial conveyor belt at a neighbouring opencast site, delaying coal transport to a nearby railhead.
The eviction was authorised by the courts on 29 June 2009 after the protesters first occupied the site, supported by many local residents and members of Douglas community council, many of whom believe the opencast sites are causing serious ill health in the area.
In a statement released as the eviction started, Doug Well, a protester now locked to a fortified tunnel, said: "If this mine goes ahead it really will be a tragedy for the local people and for the climate. I'm going to do everything I can to make it as hard as possible for them to remove me."
The national eviction team operation, said to involve 30 specialist climbers, is being funded by Home, the 15th earl, chairman of Coutts bank and son of the Tory prime minister Alex Douglas Home.
Activists arrested today were surprised at the speed with which the first phase of the eviction took place. The police and eviction company have been planning the operation since July, using aerial photographs, site visits and surveillance to build up an accurate map of the site and the tree houses.
Richard, a spokesman for the campaigners, said: "We had a tip-off last week that the eviction was going to happen, so we had a big gathering over the weekend when 60 people came up and stayed. We're occupying the woods and we're going to stay here."
Fears of a major confrontation similar to clashes involving English forces were played down. Chief inspector Colin Murphy, of Strathclyde police, said they expected to complete the eviction peacefully and using minimum force. The protesters were "part of our community as well," he said.
"We treat this as a community policing operation, with my local officers and myself coming in daily to talk with these people, to find out what they're intentions are. This is a very straightforward environmental protest: they're protesting about the use of fossil fuel. They've been, from day one, co-operative with us to a certain extent."
Because of the recent extreme weather, each protester was being medically examined, he said, to ensure they were fit enough to be taken into police custody. So far, all were declared well.
"They were staying here in conditions which were harsh, to say the least, so one of the precautions is to make sure that they were well enough to be arrested," he said.
 E-Mail: fredforrest@mi15.co.uk
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