As the US/UK occupation of Iraq descends further into chaos, the recently reorganised Irish Anti-War Movement has announced a blockade of Shannon Airport to take place on Saturday 6th December. The Blockade is in protest at the ongoing use of the airport by the US Military. Almost 100,000 US Troops have passed through the airport on their way to the Middle-East since the beginning of the year.

Other Developments:

A group of peace activists have called a meeting in Limerick on Saturday 1st November aimed at establishing a non-party political group focusing on the use of non-violent direct action tactics to halt the use of the Airport by the US Military.

The IAWM have also issued an invitation to Legal Professionals to attend a meeting on 8th November in Dublin with a view to establishing an expert legal committee.

The Catholic Worker Five are due to appear in court in the very near future and activists in Galway and elsewhere are preparing solidarity actions for the occasion.

Useful Offsite Links:
Global Indymedia Feature on Iraq
Iraq Occupation Watch
Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq
Human Rights Watch on situation for civilians in Iraq

Mainstream News Commentary:
Robert Fisk in Counterpunch notes the high suicide rate among the troops, lack of official investigations and body counts of murdered Iraqi civilians, the sustained level of attacks and the schizophrenic perception of the situation by US officers. George Monbiot in the Guardian dismisses the three ostensible reasons for which Bliar and Co. went to war and points out the especial hypocrisy of US support for Uzbekistan's current regime. Meanwhile Bush is quoted on CNN as inadvertently linking "our progress" with civilian deaths:

"`There are terrorists in Iraq who are willing to kill anybody in order to stop our progress,' Bush said. `The more success we have on the ground, the more these killers will react -- and our job is to find them and bring them to justice.'"

The Socialist Workers Party is running a candidate for the post of Vice-President of SIPTU. The Election is to take place in January 04. Des Derwin, an unaligned socialist (and a previous election candidate for the position of General Secretary of SIPTU) who announced in October that he was running for the position published his reaction on Indymedia. Follow the link below the excerpt for the full text of his reaction.

"In over thirty years of political activity I cannot recall a more astonishing act of pure sectarianism on the socialist far left. They are running a candidate with no surface difference of policies to mine. As it is a trade union election they cannot run as an organisation. There can be no defensible reason for them standing a candidate against me. Not only have I worked with them in SIPTU and actively supported their member Carolann Duggan in four successive SIPTU elections, but also, as I detail below, they were instrumental in persuading me to run for General Secretary just last year. I might add that not only have I worked with the SWP in various campaigns and bodies, trade union and other, including the recent Socialist Alliance, down the years, but that I have been in recent times an increasingly isolated voice on the rest of the far left for working with and not writing off the SWP.

Now, when I am actually in a better position to run, having stood last year, I am not good enough and they put up a virtual unknown. The effect will be (particularly in the absence of a soft left candidate - though there's a whisper of one emerging) to split the left vote. To run against a radical socialist candidate in a general election (which the SWP did once against the Socialist Party) is bad enough. Seemingly identical organisations vying for votes is a scandal to ordinary workers. But to run a candidate against a long established, independent oppositional activist, with a thirty-year history of exactly similar ‘Rank and File-ist’ policies (i.e. myself) in a trade union election, where candidates are standing on trade union issues and trade union records, is sectarianism and sectism without any cover."

''What I am fighting here is a criminal government that has been involved in an illegal war. We have facilitated more than half the US troops that went to fight in an illegal war. Also they've turned our Constitution to shreds. They've not allowed our Gardai and security forces in Shannon to go on board these planes and even find out what was [in] them. They have had no regard for the safety of the citizens living [near] Shannon and it's been reported that there is a huge arsenal of weapons flying over at least Shannon and there is no concern for the safety of the citizens in that area.

So, I will be fighting this case vigorously, but as I say, I need support, very strongly I need support, and I call on anybody who might be free next Tuesday or whatever court dates are set in the future, to come and support, to come and picket outside, to write about it, to do media interviews, and to put the word [out] that Ireland has been complicit in an illegal war, despite the will of the Irish people.''
- Mary Kelly, 17 October 2003
MP3 interview streamed / download (2.8megs - 4:09 mins)

UPDATE: ReTrial date set for early February, 2004 (new photos)

Past Features on Civil Disobedience at Shannon Airport:
· Mary Kelly Trial: Hung Jury, Re-Trial Possible in October (Jul 4 2003)
· Good Friday Resistance at Shannon Airport (Apr 18 2003)
· Pit Stop Ploughshares 5 action at Shannon Airport (Feb 3 2003)
· Peace Activist vs. US Military Jet (Jan 29 2003)

After a long period of preparation conducted in a refreshingly open and transparent manner, a diverse range of up to 40 citizens groups, organisations and NGOs are preparing to meet in Dublin for the Irish Social Forum Summit of Co-Operation and Solidarity.

The Irish Social Forum is affiliated to the World Social Forum, a Civil Society initiative which developed in opposition to the World Economic Forum. The WSF meets each year at the same time as the WEF and poses an increseangly coherent civil society alternative to the neoliberal economic agenda which holds sway in Davos.

The Co-operation and Solidatity summit was planned as an Irish civil society response to a WEF summit on the theme of Competition, which had been planned to take place in Dublin this October, but which was subsequently cancelled.

The Irish Social Forum website has full details of workshops and plenary sessions which are taking place from 17th - 19th October in and around UCD. UCD coincidentally had a recent eventful visit from a leading Irish cheearleader for the WEF economic agenda - Mary Harney.

- Full ISF Programme

- Indymedia interview with ISF activist

- Significance of Irish Social Forum for NGO's

- Previous Indymedia Feature

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Globalisation And The Media, the award winning Undercurrents documentary will be screened in DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology) School of Architecture on Bolton St. next Thursday @ 6.00 16th Oct 2003.

Globalisation And The Media, an award winning documentary explores how the United States has spend the last fifty years constructing the present New World Order. Aided by its powerful military resources, alongside the IMF, World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, the rules of global trade have been largely imposed to serve its own interests. Globalisation and The Media explores the role of the media in this corporate led takeover of global resources.

More info on this video:
Oxdox.com and Antville.org
Video Activism Links:
Undercurrents Documentaries
v2v: Peer-to-Peer Video Syndication
DemandMedia.net
Dublin Community Television (DCTV) Content Workshop ( Wed. 22nd October )