London CW Reports on Dale Farm Eviction

LONDON--A Catholic Worker and several people associated with the London Catholic Worker were present on Monday for the peaceful resistance of the eviction of Dale Farm. After a tense stand off the second court hearing to take place that day passed an injunction that the eviction should be stopped until a hearing on Friday as Basildon Council had not made clear which structures could be destroyed. There was great rejoicing but the future is not at all certain.

The Area, now home to about 50 families (the number varies as the Travelers count families as multi generational not just nuclear) was a scrap yard for vehicles, which the Travelers bought and cleaned up and where they have built a community over 10 years where they look after and out for one another. The sick and elderly have been able to access health services and the children have been going to school. Basildon Council the local authority have refused to grant planning permission for the site on the grounds that it is "Green Belt" protected land, despite the fact that the council itself put hard core down and used the scrap yard.

A varied group of supporters some of whom have been camping at Dale Farm for weeks to build up understanding, and plan defenses grew on Sunday and on Monday by 8 am when the council planned to evict dale Farm and remove caravans and structures, many strong and imaginative defenses were in place. Lock-ons to the gate that shut across the entrance at 11.30 pm Sunday night, and underneath cars pulled across the road and all round the perimeter were activated. The atmosphere was tense. There are people at Dale farm with respiratory diseases who need nebulisers which run on electricity which would be cut off when the eviction began, someone suffering from cancer (see photo for how homes of the most vulnerable were marked) and a mother with a tiny baby as well as children and old people.

In a nearby field were metal structures holding numbers of bailiffs, huge machines, diggers etc, police to back them up and security.There were crowds of press and media on the approach road. Travelers seeing the supporters locked on to barricades expressed great concern because many had suffered previous violent evictions. We tried to reassure them that it was less likely that the bailiffs would be so violent as the world was watching through the press, our own media and legal observers. What ever happens things will never be the same again people have said.

Travelers have suffered centuries of prejudice and ill treatment in England and have survived in part by keeping to themselves. It has been amazing to see their pleasure to find out that so many from the settled community will go to such lengths to support them. The supporters have enjoyed the opportunity to get to know people and taste Traveler culture. The people at Dale Farm are mostly of Irish descent and Catholic, rosaries are hung on barricades alongside anarchist slogans.

This story was submitted by London Catholic Worker Zelda Jeffers zeidyj@hotmail.com

Dale Farm web page:

http://dalefarm.wordpress.com/contact/

Below is a response to the postponed eviction and the injunction

 Dale Farm Solidarity statement on Basildon’s botching of the eviction
Posted on September 20, 2011 by dalefarmsupport Basildon Council must take this time to fulfill its responsibility to find and approve a legal and culturally suitable site for the Dale Farm community. Dale Farm residents and supporters urge Basildon to take up the offer made by the Homes and Communities Agency for land and funding in the Basildon area. It is imperative that the Council engages in a meaningful and appropriate way with residents in fulfilling the injunction. A leaked source has revealed that the Council intends to communicate with the residents via email. The Council is aware of the fact that due to limited opportunities for schooling for most Travelers, a large proportion of the Dale Farm residents are illiterate, and have virtually no access to email. Once again, Basildon Council is putting its over-eagerness to evict Dale Farm over following due process.  

It’s clear that Tony Balls’ (leader of the Council) obsession with bulldozing Dale Farm has got in the way of common sense. Basildon Council’s incompetence stems directly from their intolerance of the Traveler community, and their refusal to work with the residents to locate alternative sites. They were so determined to drive the Dale Farm community from the Basildon area, that they didn’t follow the rules and procedures that they claim to hold in such high esteem. The judge expressed the widely held concern that the eviction would go beyond what was lawful. We urge Basildon Council to take this opportunity to negotiate an alternative site for the Dale Farm community that is legal and culturally appropriate. On the date of yesterday’s attempted eviction, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance noted the “rising tide” of intolerance and bigotry against Travelers, Roma and Gypsies, and have advised that providing adequate sites is crucial to avoiding racism. They urged local government to give legal status to sites “once the situation has been tolerated for a long period of time by the public authorities.” We hope Basildon will achieve a sense of perspective.  

More information from Dale Farm Solidarity 

The eviction plans, fought for ten years in numerous legal battles, have been widely condemned, including by the United Nations, Amnesty International and an all party parliamentary group. The plans are considered a breach of multiple rights of the families involved including the failure of authorities to find the community appropriate alternative accommodation. 

Kathryn Flynn, mother of three and resident at Dale Farm for ten years said “I’m moving on to my uncle’s yard on the other side for tonight because I don’t want my children to go through this. (there is another part to Dale Farm that does have planning permission) I’m scared of what the bailiffs will do. They smash up our trailers – our homes. I don’t want my children to be in danger, so we’re moving them. But we’ve got nowhere to go after Monday. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us. Our children went to school for the last day on Friday.  I don’t know what to tell them about tomorrow.” 

Fears of the conduct of bailiffs are not unfounded. Video footage showing the bailiffs aggressively removing Travelers from their homes and destroying their possessions were highlighted by the Judge in the 2008 legal case [1]. On Saturday 17 September the Council admitted that it was aware that Constant and Co were using the word ‘pikey’, classed as a racist term of abuse since 2007, to attract people to the company’s website [2]. 

Activists and residents have been preparing defenses to hold the site. Many have a sense of wider responsibility to defend the rights of Travelers who have been consistently discriminated against for centuries. John McCarthy, a Dale Farm resident for ten years said: “I’m standing here for the rights of Travelers. I’m here baring my heart to the press every day because this has got to change. My children can’t go through what we went through. We’re treated worse than any other community. They think it’s ok to break up a whole community and to throw us all on the roadside. To tell us we can’t come into shops, to pick on our kids, to treat us like we’re hardly human. We need to stand up against this prejudice. We need the right to live in peace. It’s not much to ask, to be allowed to live on an old scrap yard as a community.”