Wrecker of the Year more like it

As a Traveller, I am sickened by the nomination of Tory council leader Tony Ball for the "Leader of the Year" award organised by the Local Government Information Unit and investment advisors CCLA.

Ball, the leader of Basildon council, is being cheered on for masterminding the brutal mass evictions from the Dale Farm Travellers’ site in Essex last October at the cost of some £7m taxpayers’ money.

I was an eye-witness to the military-style assault. Police infantry attacked the back fence while their brass hats spoke to Traveller reps at the front gate. Wielding iron bars and Tasers, they broke through the fence, and smashed their way through men, women and children to link up with officers who attacked from the front. Then they brought in reinforcements to allow bailiffs to enter the site for the first time.

Bailiffs soon set to removing those people who had locked on to cars, trucks and concrete blocks to try delay the now inevitable. They did this with a screen raised around the people to hide their rough handling of protesters. The residents and their supporters, in an attempt to avoid more violence, left the site within 24 hours, marching arm in arm as a police helicopter hovered, all under the eyes of world’s press.

Within days, the fences separating the pitches were gone despite the court order that they were to remain. Chalets and caravans were demolished by diggers and bulldozers and deep craters hollowed out in the pitches people still had a legal right to access, while those that those deemed illegal were barely touched!

Water and sewer pipes were deliberately smashed. People who had the right to be still on site were intimidated off while the police stood idly by and only acted if a bailiff was resisted in their bullying! The world media watched as Essex police tarnished the name of Britain while acting as agents of the council!

Just what was it all for and about?

Well, in a nutshell, people bought an old scrap yard which was next to a Traveller site. They were led to believe by council officials, who have since denied it, that any planning application would be received favourably. But it was not.

So, after striving for a decade to remain in their homes, they were finally told to leave by the High Court. That was only after a huge effort to try convince the law that Dale Farm residents needed a home. Children were born, people passed away and life went on there until that day in October.

This was and remains a complex matter: Does a scrap yard on land suddenly became important Green Belt land when Travellers move onto it! Wrecker of the year Ball has never answered this issue, although it has emerged that council was drawing up a list of Green Belt land that could be developed in the Basildon area before, during and after the eviction of Dale Farm!

And indeed, soon after the eviction, the council okayed an application to build a dogs’ home with two houses on Green Belt land a mile or so away from Dale Farm! Prime Green Belt land is okay for a dogs’ home, but disputed Green Belt land which once housed a scrap yard is not suitable for Travellers!

The issue of Dale Farm has proved divisive. But the question people might ask themselves is: Do planning laws supersede basic human rights? Think about that when Ball is sitting amongst local government bigwigs next week, hoping he will be crowned “Leader of the Year”.

Phien O'Reachtigan
Traveller Solidarity Network member and national spokesperson of the Irish Traveller group Pavee Advise Assist Direct (PAAD)

Travellers are calling on supporters to join them to protest against Ball’s nomination at 7pm, Monday, February 27 outside Westminster City Hall. More details.

Police provocateurs are par for the course

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Police has cancelled publication of a report into undercover operations initiated when spies in environmental campaigns, including Mark Kennedy, were exposed. No doubt they were planning the usual 'one rogue operation gone wrong' cover up.

But another operations has just come to light. Officer Jim Boyling, working undercover in Reclaim the Streets as Jim Sutton, was allowed to use his cover name in court. Police, prosecutors and others must have known. Lying about your name under oath? That's definitely against the law.

The convictions of twenty environmental campaigners were recently overturned in light of the Mark Kennedy revelations; lots of Reclaim the Streeters will be on the phone to their lawyers today.

The reality is that state does not hesitate to use violence, undercover agents, bugging, provocations, and other ruthless and illegal methods to enforce the rule of the few over the many and to selectively defend the laws of private property and state power as and when it chooses.

And the ongoing police-bailiff operation to evict travellers at the Dale Farm site in Essex also reveals the twisting of the law, the use of informers combined with brute force against anyone who resists the inhuman activities of bailiffs who are “only doing their job”.

Police say they came armed with tasers because intelligence from within the camp told them there were weapons hidden there. Of course there were no weapons, but who on the inside supplied police that provocative piece of disinformation?

No one could fail to feel a chill at the statement by Essex County leader Tony Ball. Ball, who could easily serve as Minister of Truth in the coalition, when he stated: "I hope that there are no repeats of yesterday's scenes of premeditated violence and disorder from the protestors on the site, and that we can get on with the job of upholding the law, and clearing the site in a safe, professional and dignified way." Yes, professional beatings, “dignified” taserings, and illegal upholdings of some laws.

Police came armed with tasers, which they used, it isn't clear yet how often but more than once. They beat people. There have been at least two serious head injuries. They smashed in the sides of people's vans, making them unusable, and the electricity has been cut off on a freezing cold night. Generator fuel ran out in the early hours of this morning. Helicopters circle continuously. Now the Bailiffs have moved in behind police.

As traveller Mary Sheridan said: "The only premeditated violence has come from the police - they knew exactly what they were doing when they started beating and tazering people. This is not how a community should be treated by its own Council. It’s illegal for us to travel, but illegal for us to settle down here. We’re getting hit by the police but we’ve got nowhere else to go.”

Another Dale Farm resident Kathleen McCarthy said: "The way in which the police are acting has shocked and outraged everyone here. We hope the world is watching.” We are, Kathleen: from Cairo, to New York, to London, to Madrid to Athens, we are watching and learning.

As the occupation outside St Paul’s, Dale Farm, the death of newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson and the anti-cuts protests have all shown – a key role of police operations has been to instigate violence, not prevent it and, secretly, to set others up for arrest.

Mass action is needed to abolish the laws that enforce the rights of private property and profit over all other human and social rights, including the right to travel and to have a place to stay. Organised in a network of People's Assemblies across the globe, we will develop a democratic framework of rights and rule of law. This will involve a Charter of Rights under a new constitution.

Penny Cole

Environment editor

Essex council set for ethnic cleansing at Dale Farm

Tensions are mounting as the August 31 deadline for the forced eviction of up to 400 Travelling people from their homes in Basildon, Essex draws near. Campaigners are appealing for a mass attendance at Camp Constant from tomorrow.

The aim is to show support for the 86 beleaguered families, with 100 children between them, who have been living there peacefully for many years. Ranged against them are Tony Ball, Conservative leader of Basildon Council in Essex, communities minister Eric Pickles, the Essex police and notorious bailiffs Constant & Co. In a joint council and police eviction, the Home Office will be paying half the £9.5m bill.

On the other side of the divide are the nearly 400 Gypsies who have the support of the Gypsy Council, human rights campaigners including Liberal peer Lord Avebury, Amnesty International, as well as many other groups and organisations.

The entire area is due to be sealed off while the police-backed bailiffs do their worst. Oak Road, which runs through the Dale Farm site is to be sealed off at both ends except for access to travellers’ homes. Further closures and no-stopping zones are being introduced. Speed restrictions are planned for the adjacent A127 for up to 18 months while the eviction operation takes place.

There are clear signs that Constant & Co, backed by the Essex constabulary and cheered on by local racists and British National Party members, will have their gloves off during the operation. As Gypsy rights activist Grattan Puxon has warned in the Travellers’ Times:

“A dirty, neo-fascist wave, a tsunami of social exclusion is to break over the peaceful Dale Farm community, smashing up lives and drowning the hopes of another generation of Traveller children, presently attending local schools... the ugliest yet act of ethnic-cleansing by a British local authority against an outpost of Europe's nascent Roma nation.”

At a time of huge cuts, when Essex county council is axing 450 jobs and 12 youth centres, why has this council chosen to spend an astronomical £18 million to evict the Gypsy families who have lived peacefully on their site for many years?

It’s clear that Conservatives in Essex feel challenged by rising support for the British National Party shown in recent elections. In Basildon alone 4,000 voters backed the BNP in the last election. You only need to read the comments on the local paper’s website to get a feel for the racist hatred for travelling people. There are those who think that the council’s draconian measures are not extreme enough: “Half a dozen large army bulldozers and a platoon of SAS and it will all be over in half hour”, says one reader.

Last-ditch efforts are being made to avoid the rapidly looming confrontation. Jerzerca Tigani from Amnesty International has pleaded that “the authorities must ensure that their actions do not break international law. They should instead talk to the residents at Dale Farm and reach a negotiated solution.”

Some are taking heart from a victory by a Gypsy who has just won a planning appeal by Basildon. The government inspector reminded the council that it had a duty to provide 62 new pitches for homeless Travellers by the end of this year. But council leader Ball has already shrugged off the inspector’s recommendations in anticipation of the Coalition’s Localism Bill coming into force.

There can be no doubt that the confrontation at Dale Farm, which has been years in the making, is more than an nasty squabble between a Conservative local council and travelling people. It has the makings of a major, military-style, operation backed by local and national state forces against a vulnerable group of people who seek only to live in their traditional way.

We have been here before! Mainstream political leaders of all parties seeking to outflank their rivals on the right in ethnic cleansing will stop at nothing. By doing so, they will open the door to even more sinister forces.

Corinna Lotz

AWTW secretary

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Essex Travellers call for support

Being able to afford a home has become more difficult than ever for countless people as the credit crunch continues to bite. In a home-ownership obsessed country the dream has turned into a nightmare.

But quite apart from those struggling to pay their mortgages, there is another group of people who are suffering even greater insecurity. In addition to eviction, they are now in danger of being made scapegoats for countryside blight and local and national government failure.

Up to 1,000 travellers at Dale Farm, Essex, the UK’s largest Gypsy village could be faced with eviction if Basildon District Council wins its appeal against a High Court Ruling preventing demolition of the site at a hearing on December 5.

Richard Sheridan, president of the Gypsy Council, who is speaker for the site, says that travellers at Dale Farm are suffering a gross miscarriage of justice: “The Conservative government took away the rights to remain on public land in 1994 when it repealed the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, so Travellers purchased their own. Now we are faced with eviction from land that we have purchased ourselves,” he said in a statement to A World to Win.

“The Council has breached the Data Protection Act by putting personal and medical details of 86 Dale Farm families on a public website. They are prepared to spend £3m to evict us, including nearly a million in estimated legal costs, on top of £1.9m to throw us off our site. It could cost the taxpayer up to £30 million to comply with the law if they keep us on the road – a huge waste of money.”

Sheridan will be attending an EU-sponsored Roma summit in Brussels on September 16 where he will put the case for Dale Farm’s continued existence. The gathering has been called as the Italian government criminalised its own Roma citzens. The Berlusconi government authorised dawn raids, evictions and dismantling of camps, including 40 caravans and tents near Rome.

Under Conservative leader Malcolm Buckley, Basildon council has set aside £3 million to bulldoze the 132 homes and evict travellers from their site at Crays Hill. It failed to carry out its plans in May this year, when High Court Judge Andrew Collins ordered a stay of execution for 40 families. One Labour councillor has described the threatened eviction as “an outrageous amount of money to set aside, to enforce planning laws at a former scrapyard in an anonymous country lane."

But a Basildon council development control meeting this month is likely to vote through measures which could include demolition of a small wooden school, chapel and meeting place called St Christopher’s. Martina McCarthy, who is the wife of site spokesman Richard Sheridan, has been served an enforcement notice, despite the fact that the building was built with an Essex County Council arranged grant.

The far-right British National Party is gearing up for a vicious racist campaign to out-do the Conservatives who at present control Basildon council in a hotly-contested by-election on September 18. The long-running dispute over Dale Farm is being made into a rallying cry by the BNP which is contesting all 14 local government seats.

The far right is using immigration and urban development issues to stoke up support in an area which has seen industrial development come and go, with the decline Ford’s tractor plant (now owned by Case New Holland) and the Standard Telephone Company. Since Basildon is considered a barometer of public opinion in General Elections, the issues there are more than local.

A World to Win salutes Dale Farm organisers, Gipsy Council leaders, Richard Sheridan, Joseph G Jones and Grattan Puxon in their campaign for basic rights, to life, land, health, education and data privacy. They are calling on supporters to attend a rally on September 16 and for human rights monitors in the event of an eviction attempt after the December High Court Hearing.

Corinna Lotz
Secretary, A World to Win