A photo essay and commentary on derelict buildings in Dublin 7 near the LUAS line.

As anyone who has faced the daily banal work torture of the water-cooler/canteen "chat" will know, the two hot topics that people love talking endless guff about are the traffic chaos in Dublin, and how much it costs to buy/rent a house here. But admittedly for once the chattering classes do have a point - in many areas which would previously have been considered accessible for low-income earners to live in, they are now priced out entirely.

In other European cities where a new rail line is completed, and even in Dublin with the construction of the DART, property values usually go up and it becomes desirable to live close to the line for convenience and hassle-free commuting....

In August 2002 Indymedia Ireland carried a letter to the EZLN and Mexican civil society entitled "In Ireland Marcos is a Traveller".. The previous month the above poster had appeared campaigning against the trespass laws that had recently been passed. In the two years since that article Ireland passed the Nice treaty and built an Anti-War movement. Indymedia published 75,000 articles or comments and the Public Order Act sprang to prominence used against RTS'ers, Bin Tax campaigners and others. Of course some of those 75,000 articles also mentioned the trespass aspect and it's use against travellers. But since the DoJ decided to cancel the Citizen Traveller campaign, somehow the issue faded from the view of many.

The stories from Cork should surely be told. Last summer, we saw why this county leads the league table of evictions with 138 evictions taking place under the new act in the first 12 months of its operation. An eviction in May 2003 (with more details and loads of debate) and another this summer (more coverage here). Indeed the last two years have seen the TASS initiative and — on Indymedia at least — an attempt to increase traveller visibility by telling the stories, following the cases and discussing the issues.

An Indymedia editor suggested an update to 'Marcos is a Traveller' and contact was made with the Traveller Visibility Group. We got sent a set of pictures with asides and an invitation to tell the big story, do a feature and say what was happening. But when you look at the pictures, see what Ireland demands of her citizens, even those who qualify under the proposed new restrictions, its very hard to improve on the words that were published here two years ago.

This war is happening everywhere including Ireland. The Irish government is at present using draconian new laws to move Indigenous Irish Travellers from anywhere that they attempt to camp. They are the Irish equivalent to the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico and they are being described openly by members of the establishment in Ireland as 'Terrorists'. They, unlike the EZLN, have never taken up arms to fight for Justice, Peace and Dignity. They have done nothing except live their lives as their ancestors have for generations. They are a nomadic people. Just today I read of 30 families who had moved their caravans to an unused portion of land near the city of Dublin (our capital) being driven from this land by the Irish Police.

So why am I telling this to the Zapatistas and Mexican Civil Society? To point out that in the Fourth World War things are becoming the same everywhere. And to point out that the resistance everywhere finally can realise this through channels of authentic speech and authentic tellings of the truth.

And to show the pictures of the welcome that Citizen Traveller receives this summer.

Javier Correa, President of Sinaltrainal (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos-Colombia), gives an evaluation of the Coca Cola Boycott campaign one year after the beginning of the boycott.

Discussing the growing boycott he states.."The campaign is increasingly welcomed and as we meet new organizations in different countries we have become aware of other things that the company has done. The most recent example is India where there is a large movement. It is not the workers, though, that are protesting but the community that has been affected because the company has taken control of the underground water and also because of the dumping of industrial waste that has contaminated the water that the farmers use and something which is worrying, in the case of India, is that according to the farmers the company has distributed industrial waste to the farmers telling them that it was fertilizer for their crops. In the same way we have also come across the case of Venezuela where there is a movement of ex employees of Coca Cola that were sacked that are today organizing themselves and have begun legal action."

Those International trade deal-making privateers who orbit silently around the Article 133 Committee in Brussels have suffered a couple of serious setbacks in recent weeks. Firstly there was a conditional restoration of the Member States national veto on the privatisation / liberalisation of health and education in the final draft of the proposed EU constitution. Admittedly it is with the weasly insertion of a get out clause if a trade deal looks like it will cause a 'risk to the delivery of public services' in a member state.

We in our innocence had all thought semi-secret EU / WTO trade deals were not going to harm or affect our control over our public services one little iota. Mary Harney had 'reassured' us all on this front in 2002 and Ruairi Quinn backed Bertie up repeating the same line in the Dail in the days immediately preceding the Nice II referendum. Indymedia reported on their barefaced lies at the time. No-one else in the Irish mainstream media seemed to even notice or give a damn that this was happening.

Secondly, the Article 133 Committee which the privateers use as their in to the EU Commission, and which became the bete-noir of the left campaign against the Nice Treaty (II) might just turn out to be a legal black hole and is due a trip to the courts courtesy of the World Wildlife Fund over its legal standing / existence.

We knew already that the 133 Committee wouldn't say anything whatsoever about what they talk about in their meetings - even to the Parliamentarians of Member States - as 19 TD's, 2 MEPs and 5 MLA's found out last February. Their basic role is to negotiate between EU Member States on who will offer what for privatisation (cough) liberalisation in trade deals such as GATS between the EU and the World Trade Organisation. The price of the Bus Service, or Aer Lingus is commercially sensitive and so won't be released -at least not to us who own the things. Those who know what is good for the populations of EU member states are most likely also concerned at the reactions they might get if it came out in the open that they are trading away publicly owned services in secret closed door deals without a whiff of democratic oversight. A fait-accompli works better and the role of the 133 Committee is and was basically to do the groundwork for a never-ending series of such fait-accomplis.

The People in Government, in Corporate Lobby Groups such as LOTIS (Liberalisation Of Trade in Services) , and even in the Irish Civil Service who are trying to hand the Public Services owned by the citizenry of Ireland surreptitiously over wholesale to the Private Sector have the time to dot their i's and cross their t's and to follow the labyrinthine processes of International Trade Negotiations to their bitter ends. They also have names and addresses.

If Irish and European Activists are going to have any chance of effectively opposing them when they come gunning for the privatisation of Health, Education and Water then they need to get to grips with these complex issues and oppose the privateers at every junction in the labyrinth. Boredom is not an option. These people want our eyes to glaze over when we hear 'Lisbon' or 'liberalisation' or 'Article 133' or ‘GATS’. Let’s not give them what they want.

What they want is EVERYTHING which is why the anti-capitalist movement has since it’s inception consistently targeted the WTO and affiliated trade deals such as NAFTA and GATS in an attempt to bring such machinations out of the shadows where they thrive and into the light.

1.Detailed Background Information on Article 133 and GATS from the Article 133 Information Group. Includes the Phone Numbers of Irish Representatives on the Article 133 Committee. Give them a ring and let them know that just because you can’t look them in the eye does not mean you don’t see them.
2.More background from DAPSE: Health and Education as a Business Opportunity
3.More on the WWF / Article 133 Committee Legal Challenge

Sutherland: Uruguay round GATT and WTO, 88-95. Aherne, Eu Constitution 04. 0.02 Mb Outside Mountjoy Jail - two SP public representatives inside 0.06 Mb

From The Newswire:

In Genoa we sprayed the Carabineri vans with the slogan “We are Winning”. But increasingly it seems like we’re not winning. Where next?

"Its been five years since the global street party in London on June 18th 1999 brought the fight to where it mattered – the square mile, the heart of the City. Much as North American activists would like you to believe that the “Battle of Seattle” was the first major anti-capitalist street demonstration to hit the western/northern world, they’re just practising their usual cultural imperialism again (presumably they’re blinded to the reality of it with an inflated impression of their own self-importance) – now all the world can share in Michael Moore, Eric Schlosser, Greg Palast, Naomi Klein, etc, instead of hearing a range of global voices fighting against capitalism (someone referred to it as “McActivism” the other day)."

Related Links/Materials
Photograps from the June 18th action in London
Why London Mayday was cancelled this year
Reclaim The Commons in San Franscisco
G8 Fix Shit Up!
Another article on the possible end of the anti-capitalist movement
Discussion thread of the article on Urban75