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Straight from the digger

On Saturday, the 27th of October 2018, around 40 people occupied a digger on the 3rd level of the “Hambach Tagebau”, from 7am till 15pm.

This action happened in the context of the action days from Ende Gelände (orientated on its action consesus), but was run autonomously. After the evicitons and police operations in the last weeks, in and around the Hambach Forst, was Ende Gelände a good opportunity for decentral actions, in small affinity groups, and made it even possible not to be noticed with a bigger crowd.

This action was run hierarchyfree, because we were individuals organised in small affinity groups, to make fast decisions and include everybodies needs and wishes. We decided to make a digger occupation, because it gives the option to have a big effect and blockade the coal-infrastructre with not that many people and effort and of course because we simply felt like it. The giant energy-company “RWE Power AG” is with its projects responsible for the suffering of uncountable lifes everywhere in the world – especially the global south – through the destruction of nature and the desastrous consequences of climate change. Though the action was targeting RWE-infrastructure, our critisism is directed at capitalistic logic, the concept of private property and the political and economic system that puts profit before the lifes of people and nature.

Since we are facing the violent destruction of the foundation of all our lifes and futures and that its even called “legal”, we consider the resistance against it as a duty and a legitimate way to react on this exploitation. Therefore we do not only question but also dismiss this juristical system that calles our resistance “illegal”. Furthermore we would like to ask everyone, that still, despite the experiences of the last weeks, has doubts about the necessity of civil disobedience: “Are you actually dopey?” This question is also directed at the securities, the police and RWE-workers that have been present at the eviction of the digger. Even though activists told them, that the action is not directed against them, but for defendig our planet for all of us, and that we do not intend to harm anyone personally, they reacted very violently.

While activists approached and climbed the digger, they were using high-pressure waterhoses, at 4°C outside temperature, to spray and stop us. This is not only a crime that injures people, but also extremly dangerous since everything was wet, slippery and cold, while we had to climb around the safe ways. The RWE-security arrived 5 minutes after we did and violently made their way through the sitting blockade, kicking backs and heads of some activists.

On the digger they were trying to stop us by pinning poeple against the digger and holding us painfully thight. Their behaviour was dangerous, not only for us , but for themselves, because they did super risky climbing maneuvers. Their exagerated violence even had to be stopped by the police when they arrived.

The cops also broke a lot of laws, by ignoring our claims of wanting to put charges on the securities, that we identified to them.

Also they arrested a journalist and confiscated his equipment after he had presented his Press-ID to stop him documenting the occupation and its brutal eviction. He got isolated and put into the RWE vehicle as first person, that the cops used to transport us into custody. Despite showing his identity he was kept in custody for 10 hours and until now did not get back his work equipment or a receipt of its confiscation.

For more information check his Twitter-Account – https://twitter.com/revomage As usual there have been many cases of police violence during the eviction, including two snapped fingers, pressing pain points and holding or thightening them even if people already followed their instructions and kicking and hitting people that kept holding on to people next to them.

Despite all this repression, we now enjoy reunion in freedom, which we got back at the same evening. All in all we still had a lot of fun, especially while sloping down the cliffs, robbing underneath the conveyor belts and all this completely soaked in mud. Everything worked out much better as we expected it to, not to be seen and that all the people reach the aim without any trouble. We hope this text empowers people to do autonomous actions like this as well, that you wont be afraid of the repression or self-organisation. Always keep in your minds: Solidarity is stronger than repression!

solidaric greets

auto[no]mous finger