For more than a year, a piece of land has been torn from the concrete. The former Schoppach sandpit, where wild animals and plants used to coexist with Sunday walks, is threatened by a zoning project for businesses including offices and parking lots, and this since it was bought from the municipality by Idelux-Aive.
Some people decided to occupy this forest in order to defend it against this threat, responding to a call from local residents desperate for attention to their voice. This year was an opportunity to bring about another turning point in the struggle “for the climate” by making it take a real ecological and social turn; from the occupation of roundabouts by yellow vests to a forest occupation by Zadists. In this way, the tree houses made it possible to hear the cries of the birds.
For a year, the winter, police and mafia threats did not succeed in lowering the mood of the Zablière’s occupants, not even a few slanderous opponents. From this impulse of resistance were born direct actions, a book of photos and poetry, a film, a free university, friendships and a lot of other things impossible to describe without being there.
A political-police pressure (here we are aware of the pleonasm) that has put Arlon into a state of siege on October 29 2019, has already shown us the means they are willing to put into the repression of the area. The events of January 13 in Brussels prove to us that the violent and organized defense of the old world is ready for war. They are not bloodthirsty madmen, but people who have understood that in the defense of an ideology, the end justifies all the means.
This piece of forest is today threatened by the criminal association which is trying to take back what it considers to be its rights. Let us oppose them the right to life and democracy.
LET US DEFEND THIS PRECIOUS NATURE.
LET US FIGHT BACK ON JANUARY 26TH.
Eviction threat?
Schoppach sandpit : The mayor of Arlon, Vincent Magnus, says that there is no eviction planned for this Tuesday, January 26, 2021 !
Let us recall that since its creation, the ZAD of Arlon has faced several threats of eviction. Confirmed by a bailiff or relayed by various sources, they finally did not take place despite the will of the mayor to evict the area at all costs.
While the lack of police resources is brought up by some media, Idelux and the Commune, it must be noted that after more than a year of land occupation by the protesters, the lack of police personnel is not the only reason for the success of the occupation.
Indeed, it is undeniably also the political context of the ZAD settlement that transforms here careerist politicians and entrepreneurs with long arms into cold-blooded traders. For more than a year, the ZAD served as a relay and put forward the completely unfavorable policy in terms of ecology reserved for the last green spaces of so-called “wild” nature in the city of Arlon!
In this context, would public opinion have its share of importance? What do voters think now? In any case, Vincent Magnus and Idelux have never communicated as much about ecology as they did this year, they who, until now, seemed to swim in concrete like fish in water!
Read the mayor’s press release.
ZAD d’Arlon
Avenue du Bois d’Arlon 160
6700 Arlon, Belgium
zad-arlon [at] protonmail [dot] com
https://squ.at/r/7xhx
https://zabliere.noblogs.org/
Some squats in Belgium: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/BE/squated/squat
Groups (social center, collective, squat) in Belgium: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/BE
Events in Belgium: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/BE
sources: Radar https://squ.at/r/86jk
Indymedia Bruxelles https://bxl.indymedia.org/ZAD-Arlon-Appel-a-Resister-Menace-d-expulsion-le-26-janvier-A-faire-tourner.html
Zad d’Arlon https://zabliere.noblogs.org/menace-dexpulsion/
