The camp is organized as place for direct action, different talks
on issues related to the mega-projects and for knowing the places
due to be destroyed by the HST works. The camp is in this sense
a self-funded and autonomous initiative where everything is done
collectively. It will happen from 25th July until 5th August and
since it started it has had about 80 people gathering with this
aim. The campsite is placed in Maioa’s mountains in Navarre,
a place that will be highly affected by the HST project. This
is what is called the ‘Y way’ or the Navarran High Speed
Way.
“The usual politicians, blind by development without limits
and following the orders of the multinationals have planned to
trash also Navarre. The different governments are passing one
after the other the legislation required for this project’
says the Assembly in their communiqué. The group also claims
that as well as the environmental damage that a mega-project like
this will produce, there will be more instability in the traditional
ways-of-living
and in the imposition of a rather more hierarchic and authoritarian
society.
The bike march finished in Bilbo after 7 days of crossing the
Basque Country through the places due to be affected by the AAT
(HST). The march started in Gasteiz and went to the French side
of the Basque Country and from there to Bilbo passing trough a
total of 40 municipalities and villages that will be affected.
In their communiqué their criticized that the institutions
preferred to apply their so-called “Sustainability Strategies”
from the perspective of the Capital, of the big multinationals:
‘to sustain the investment in infrastructure projects, to
sustain the environmental, cultural and social impact, to sustain
the instability in our country. This is a project that is only
in the interest of the big multinationals not in the interest
of the majority of the population.
(…) The very institutions acknowledge that the HST is a
project to communicate financial interests leaving the Basque
Country as a passing place as the Basque Regional Government spokesperson
said”.
The CADE (Collectif des Associations de Défense de l´Enverionnenment)
of the French Side took part in the bike march too as the HST
reaches Irun finishing there the route Paris to Spanish border.
The Spanish Government has already given permission for the works
to start and the Transport Ministry has started with all the publicity
needed to justify this mega-project under the previously mentioned
title of ‘Sustainable Transport’. The Assembly also
denies that the government’s argument that the train will
help with the high traffic. According to them this project is
the consolidation of destructive projects, the worsening of metropolization,
the impact in the rural areas, economies and the increment of
consumerism.
email: ahtez@sindominio.net
web: http://www.sindominio.net/ahtez
Court Agrees To Fill The Itoitz Dam
In the other hand, the Spanish High Court has agreed to allow
the filling of the Itoitz dam after 7 years of polemics. Solidari@s
con Itoitz have also been busy organising similar activities to
the AHTAA: mountain-cross march through the villages affected
by the dam.
This march is due for the 28 - 31 of August. This dam will fill
3 different nature reservoirs (1m trees!!) but the government
changed the laws related to these reservoirs so the dam filling
could happen. The filling tests were planned for spring 2003 but
it seems like they want to do them before. More environmental
damage is to be expected from the Navarre Channel (3) and a new
road around the dam. Checked past news(also in Euskalinfo) from
when the dam was declared illegal by the Spanish High Court:
http://www.euskalinfo.org.uk/docs/may1.htm
Iñaki: a year in prison
Iñaki Garcia Koch, activist member of Solidari@s con Itoitz
has already been in prison for a year (he was arrested in June
2001). For all this time he has been in the prison system applied
to those belonging to armed groups. This has been challenged by
a tribunal, so from now onwards he should be moved to a normal
prison wing. His Address is:
Iñaki Garcia Koch
Carcel de Iruña
C/San Roque s/n
31011 Iruña
Euskal Herria (Basque Country)
Spain
