Clearance for coal mining: demolition excavators in Lützerath – resistance is crumbling

Clearance for coal mining
Demolition excavator in Lützerath – resistance is crumbling

An excavator loads the remains of huts onto a truck in Lützerath. Photo

© Henning Kaiser/dpa

The Lützerath occupation is a stress test for the opponents of coal. Wind and weather bother the activists, and the police are making rapid progress with the evacuation. But there is still resistance.

The police made good progress with the evacuation of the Rhenish lignite town of Lützerath on the second day. Numerous wooden huts and barricades belonging to the activists were razed to the ground by excavators. The squatters were usually carried away without much resistance. Some were close to tears.

However, the forces encountered underground passages in which activists holed up. Aachen police chief Dirk Weinspach told WDR how long it would take to get people outside.

Two symbolic houses of the former residents of Lützerath were also cleared. There, fireworks flew in the direction of the emergency services, as a dpa reporter reported. One officer was slightly injured, according to police. On the political stage, the evacuation of Lützerath continues to put the Greens to the test.

“The clearing of the above-ground structures is largely complete,” said Weinspach on WDR. “We have cleared almost all the houses except for one. The meadow has been cleared, most of the tree houses have been cleared. In this respect, there is not much left.” The problem now is the passages under the ground. “We don’t know how stable these underground soil structures are. We also don’t know how the air supply is there,” said Weinspach. Special forces from RWE and the technical relief organization are now concerned with “how the rescue can be carried out in a suitable manner”.

Demonstrators circled on access road

The RWE energy company, which now owns Lützerath and wants to extract the lignite from under the site for power generation, built a massive fence around the entire site. This was to prevent further demonstrators from arriving. Nevertheless, a demonstration march made its way from the neighboring town of Keyenberg to Lützerath. The police spoke of about 800 participants.

Some demonstrators were stopped and surrounded by the police, including climate activist Luisa Neubauer and Greenpeace board member Martin Kaiser. They were eventually carried away by police officers. The demonstrators want to prevent the mining of coal under Lützerath and warn of the consequences of coal combustion for the climate.

Former farms cleared

On Thursday morning, the squatters had to give up the symbolic Duisserner Hof, which the owner, who became known as the “last farmer of Lützerath”, had defended against expropriation to the last. The building had become a powerful symbol of resistance to the Garzweiler lignite opencast mine.

The evacuation also began in a second building, the so-called Paulahof with a painted rainbow flag on the facade. As the police advanced, smoke bombs and rockets flew in the officers’ direction. However, according to observers, attacks on police officers remain the exception. By and large, the protest was non-violent. Some activists had stuck themselves in their wooden huts with glue. Officials were able to solve them quickly. Others chained themselves or concreted their arms to make evacuation more difficult. “We have experience with lock-ons of all kinds,” said a police spokesman.

Eviction continues

Even from the tree houses erected at a height of up to ten meters, squatters could be brought down by rescuers without much resistance. Police officers then cut the tethers so that tree houses crashed down and broke into many pieces, as a dpa reporter reported.

The stormy and rainy weather made things difficult for the activists. “We hope that the storm won’t get any stronger,” said a spokeswoman for the “Lützerath is alive” initiative.

On Thursday evening, the evacuation continued in the dark. “Objects that have been addressed are still being processed,” said a police spokesman. Activists who had cemented themselves in or chained themselves were also freed despite the darkness. “In such cases we have to provide help,” said the spokesman.

Activists occupy the Green party headquarters in Düsseldorf

For the Greens, the eviction is becoming more and more of a burden: the party is involved in the governing coalition both in the federal government and in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and is supporting the expansion of the Garzweiler opencast lignite mine. Around 30 activists occupied the party headquarters of the NRW Greens in Düsseldorf in protest, as a party spokesman confirmed. The party leadership emphasizes that in return the coal phase-out in NRW has been brought forward by eight years to 2030.

On the edge of the operation, a civilian police vehicle went up in flames. “We are definitely assuming arson,” said a spokesman. The civil emergency vehicle was clearly recognizable as a police car by a blue light on the roof.

dpa

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