Ham­bach fo­rest (Germany): New forest under direct threat of eviction

10/10/2013 Ham­ba­cher Forst – For the se­cond time in one month the po­li­ce has been at­ta­cking the camp. Guar­ded by riot cops a fly­ing squat of RWE wor­kers equip­ped with chain­saws and a bull­do­zer en­t­e­red the pro­test site. Wi­thout ques­tio­ning the order that had been given to them they pus­hed for­ward the de­struc­tion of the pla­net we‘re all li­ving on, hel­ping to erase one of the ol­dest fo­rests in Eu­ro­pe. The huge bull­do­zer just squee­zed ever­y­thing in front of it: young trees, an­thills and wasp’s nests as well as rare blue shi­ning mushrooms which have been growing on some bar­ri­ca­des were de­s­troy­ed by this huge tech­no­lo­gi­cal mons­ter. Ever­y­thing re­sis­ting was chop­ped to pie­ces. They left not­hing but an aisle of de­struc­tion be­hind.
At the same place where they had en­t­e­red last time in an at­tempt to pro­hi­bit this year’s third fo­rest oc­cupa­ti­on there was a more than two meter high wall, built from the fal­len trees of the aut­ho­ri­ties last at­tack, en­forced by metal, soil and a crone of bar­b­wire. The other ways to the site are na­tu­ral­ly pro­tec­ted by beech thi­cket and up to 20 meter high oak trees.
The po­li­ce sur­roun­ding the camp is of cour­se doing their dirty job for RWE. Wor­kers dres­sed in oran­ge vests star­ted ope­ning the mesh of wire with bolt cut­ters. As soon as they undid the knot­ting they star­ted to chop the stilts with their chain­saws. Then there was a low noise co­ming from the bull­do­zer’s en­gi­ne when tons of steel were cra­shing into the bar­ri­ca­de se­ver­al times. Fi­nal­ly the bar­ri­ca­de broke and fi­nal­ly they en­t­e­red to de­s­troy ever­y­thing they were able to find on the ground.
After the bai­liffs loa­ded ever­y­thing up and ex­chan­ged some shake-​hands for an ob­vious­ly suc­cess­ful ope­ra­ti­on they left with the haul. What was left were some piles of soil, some stumps and ac­tivists ut­ter­ly de­ter­mined to strugg­le on.
The dis­re­spect for the eco­lo­gi­cal sys­tem of the wood­land ex­pres­ses the be­lief of RWE that the Ham­bach fo­rest is just pro­per­ty and not­hing more than an pre-​open-​cast-​mi­ne-​si­te. They sure would like to clear cut as fast as pos­si­ble, turning ever­y­thing into a dead and moon­like land­scape to dig for li­gni­te as well as hin­der any more pro­tests against their de­vious plans.
It is not pos­si­ble to blind us by the so cal­led re-​cul­ti­va­ti­on on the So­phi­en­hö­he which ob­vious­ly will never be able to com­pen­sa­te at all the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact of de­s­troy­ing life, soil and plants which had cen­tu­ries time to grow and form a uni­que eco-​sys­tem.
Win­ter is co­ming and evic­tion is pret­ty li­kely
Since 18 month we are re­sis­ting from dif­fe­rent sites at the Ham­bach fo­rest. 547 days of crea­ti­ve and de­ter­mined strugg­ling as well as the at­tempt to live a ra­di­cal and self-​or­ga­ni­zed life full of so­li­da­ri­ty, au­to­no­my and mu­tu­al aid.
We`d like to in­vi­te you to visit us and help us to pre­pa­re the two sites (the pro­test camp on the mea­dow, lo­ca­ted at the fo­rest’s edge and the oc­cupa­ti­on in the fo­rest) for the fast ap­proaching win­ter and the an­ti­ci­pa­ted evic­tion as well and to share our fight against the on­go­ing clear cut­ting bet­ween Oc­to­ber and March.
You would like to come and join for one day? One week or lon­ger? To cook collec­tive­ly (vegan)? Build things? Make music? Oc­cu­py trees? Build bar­ri­ca­des and fight against the har­vesters?
Just come over!
You can help us with what is going on al­re­a­dy or es­ta­blish your own ideas. There are ple­nty of ways to sup­port the strugg­le. It doesn’t mind whe­ther you can climb or not, al­most every day we do have all kinds of skill sharing – and we‘d like to share all your dif­fe­rent in­te­rests and ex­pe­ri­en­ces too! And there’s al­ways en­ough things to do, to enjoy and to gain know­ledge about – on and above ground!
The raid yes­ter­day con­firms us to re­main at least the ne­cessa­ry thorn in the paw of RWE and the exis­ting and rot­ten sys­tem. We want to un­plug ca­pi­ta­lism in ge­ne­ral, to deny the logic of grow­th and to stop the ex­ploi­ta­ti­on of the earth through all sorts of means, amons­gt them fac­to­ries and power plants.
Let`s op­po­se RWE and po­li­ce relent­less­ly.
We don’t stand by and watch big com­pa­nies, po­li­cies and other struc­tu­res of power to de­s­troy ever­yo­ne’s and ever­y­thing’s means of li­ving. Life is not for sale! We want to live and we want the whole frea­king bake­ry.
So we fight every struc­tu­re threa­te­ning a good and free life. It doesn’t mat­ter if it’s RWE or ano­ther cor­po­ra­ti­on, po­li­ti­ci­ans, po­li­ce, mi­li­ta­ry, courts, the fa­scists next door or the daily se­xism, ra­cism, ho­mo­pho­bia, etc.
For an on­go­ing life- strugg­le in love and so­li­da­ri­ty!
For life its­elf!
For an­ar­chy!
Pi­ra­tes of Hambi
By the way:
There’s al­ways a need for do­na­ti­ons of (pre­ser­ved) food, clim­bing gear, con­struc­tion and fire wood, tar­pau­lin, iso­la­ti­on, tools, nails, string,rope, etc.

http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/2013/10/14/new-forest-under-direct-threat-of-eviction/