Побуна у Румунији против америчке фирме Шеврон

[Ромејац]

Америчка нафтна компанија  “Шеврон“ има намеру да вади гас из шкрљаца у румунском селу Пунгешти.

 

 

Амерички гигант је најавио да га протести неће зауставити у истраживањима и екплоатацији гасних шкриљаца.

[Ромејац]

Romania villagers brave police and cold in fracking fight

 

Agence France-Presse
December 3, 2013

On a frozen field braving police, Romanian villagers hold vigil in a makeshift camp set up to block US energy giant Chevron from exploring for shale gas.

On Monday, hundreds of Romanian riot police forcibly removed protesters from the camp clearing the way for Chevron's excavators to reach the site where the company intends to drill its first exploration well in Romania.

But some of the villagers from Pungesti, in this impoverished region of North-Eastern Romania, hung on, taking turns to man the camp just adjacent to the Chevron site and despite an imposing police presence.

"We have potatoes to eat, an improvised stove. We protest to protect our way of life and our health," one of the local farmers, Alexandru Focsa, 44, told AFP.

"The authorities do not want to listen to us but we are determined to go on despite the abuses and the fines handed by the police," he said.

Like Focsa, many in this rural region oppose the highly controversial drilling technique used to extract shale gas known as "hydraulic fracturing" or "fracking".

Widely used in some US states like Pennsylvania and North Dakota, it has been banned in France and Bulgaria because of potential pollution to air and water.

Angered, locals have been organising sit-ins and protests since Chevron obtained three permits to drill in the hills around Pungesti earlier this year. Mass rallies also took place in Bucharest.

Their ire has especially turned on the centre-left government of Victor Ponta, who opposed shale gas while in the opposition but became a promoter once in power.

In October, protests in the village forced Chevron to postpone test drilling, but on Monday police were present to intervene.

"Police arrived at night, they beat us up with batons and dragged us away," Focsa told AFP though police said they used force only to clear a public road.

At dawn, an AFP photographer saw a riot police commander arrive at the makeshift camp and order a colleague to begin making arrests.

But when police learned journalists were also present, the arrests did not take place, and a government mediator asked only if protesters needed bread.

Greenpeace on Tuesday slammed the operation as "a serious abuse against the freedom of expression", reminding that the permits are currently being challenged in court.

Following the raid, Chevron said its priority was to "conduct its activities in a safe and environmentally responsible manner".

"We will continue our dialogue with the public, local communities and authorities," the company added.

Despite the protests, Chevron also said its exploration work was able to begin on Monday as planned.

[Ромејац]

Villagers Taken to Police Station so Chevron Can Drill for Oil

 

Oil companies have entirely too much power around the world and harm too many people.  The companies tend to pay off the local governments and then tear into valuable land that could be used to feed millions of people.  After the companies take their oil and their money, they export it all back to rich countries as the local people continue to starve.  This happens all over the globe, especially in places like Nigeria, which has more oil than nearly any country on earth, but a large percentage of its people are in poverty.

This story tells more about how Chevron does business.  If it doesn’t make you angry, then there is something wrong with you.  Read on:

 

A road linking the county town of Vaslui to Pungesti rural town (north-east of the capital) has been blocked since early Monday at the entry to Silistea, where Chevron company has moved several pieces of equipment as it plans to start setting up the first exploration well for shale gas in the eastern Vaslui County, Agerpres reports. The gendarmes have set up guardrails and would not even let the reporters get close to the site where Chevron has kicked off the works. Riot police, gendarmes and firemen have been moved to the area. They surrounded the protesters’ camp and took them to their vans to search for their identity. Some protesters say they were beaten and shoved by the gendarmes, accusations that the Gendarmerie officials deny, as they insist they acted as per the law, given that a more than 100 crowd blocked the access of Chevron machines to the leased site.
Around 12 at noon, approximately 40 Pungesti locals who were protesting against shale gas exploration on the other side of fences put up by the Gendarmerie attempted to block the access of Chevron cars. Several protesters, including one priest, sat down in the middle of the road when they noticed Chevron company cars trying to enter the perimeter secured by the Gendarmerie. Around 80 Gendarmerie officers intervened immediately and removed the protesters from the road, while others were pushed to the side to free access to the highway. A number of Chevron company vehicles were thus able to make their way to the land on which the shale gas exploration probe will be set up.