when you have read this report please consider the following ways that you might help:
1 volunteer as a Human Rights Monitor
2 protest to doug.smith ( a t ) basildon.gov.uk
3 provide material support (list on request)
4 attend one of the regular Tuesday meetings at Dale Farm (12 noon onwards)
The "human shield" in defence of homes and human rights will be conducted LEGALLY on parts of the Dale Farm/Oak Lane complex which are NOT subject to the direct action eviction operation - but which bailiffs Constant & Co will have to cross in order to reach those plots/yards they are authorised to bulldoze.
WARNINGS OF VIOLENCE AS MASS EVICTION VOTED
By Grattan Puxon
An unprecedented mass eviction of a whole community, inevitably involving injuries and trauma to women and children; that's how a Labour Party councillor described the "direct action" operation voted through by Tory die-hards at a Basildon council meeting last night (l4 July)
By the narrowest majority, after a heated two-hour debate, Malcolm Buckley's boast to rid the district of over 220 "unauthorised" caravans got the backing he wanted. The price-tag of five million euro, plus incalculable legal costs, appeared to be no deterent
The Tory block, sitting block-faced and largely silent, chose to ignore the dire warnings of the Wickford Primary Care Trust that a violent eviction by the notorious "Gypsy specialists" Constant & Co. must leave a trial of trauma and destruction unprecendented in UK local authority history.
"By this callous decision," said Cllr Sultan Nandanwar, "you are letting lose your bullyboy bailiffs to intimidate women and children."
Describing this as the darkest day since the creation of Basildon Newtown, another Labour member said the council needed instead to do what was morally right and provide an alternative for the 120 families at Dale Farm. He reminded all present that the Government had offered at the eleventh hour to provide funding for the acquisition of alternative land.
Instead the Tory party, following the lead of Michael Howard, was pushing through against the will of the majority of the tax-payers of the district, "an obscene" expenditure on an eviction which was to be placed in the hands of a cowboy oufit called Constant & co. "I have seen the videos of this crew at work and they will not give Basildon the national profile we want."
He then asked if Constant employees had been checked through police records for any previous convictions for violence.
Dale Farm residents crowded the limited public seating and overflowed into an adjoining room as Buckley swept aside twenty questions put by Travellers and supporters. One local resident said there could be a council-tax strike if Buckley went ahead and squandered millions on an eviction which was unlikely to have the result he wanted.
Buckley admitted he had been turned down flat in his last-minute attempts to get the Government to foot the bill. "They are washing their hands of this," he commented.
However, it was revealed that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was offering funding and help with a land search through the English Partnership.
Cllr Geoff Williams (Lib-Dem) said only that morning a human rights group in Washington had issued a statement condemning the threatened destruction of Dale Farm. He branded Buckley's methods as something from a"Lewis Carol world" and his wasting of resources the economics of a madhouse.
"We stood up just now to remember the victims of terrorism," commented another Labour member. "Yet within the same breath you are asking us to vote to destroy people's lives."