Saving Iceland

We just received a letter from our great friends in Italy who decided to join the fight against heavy industry. Their target was Impregilo which is ,,an old well-known leader in capitalist destruction of earth”. Impregilo is a Italian company who took part in the destruction of the Kárahnjúkar area in the east of Iceland, when a huge dam was built to power an Alcoa’s aluminium smelter in Reyðarfjörður.

Monday July 21st, a demonstration took place in front of the Icelandic embassy in Rome and the next day, two protests happened by the headquarters of Impregilo in Sesto San Giovanni near Milan and by the Icelandic Consulate in Milan. Read More

By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, originally published in Morgunblaðið.

In a brochure named “Norðurál and the Community” [Norðurál is Century Aluminum], published by the company, one can e.g. read about the global process of aluminium production. Century Aluminium has its bauxite mines in Jamaica and now plans to open up one in West Congo, in cooperation with one of the world’s corrupt regimé.

It immediately catch one’s eyes that in Norðurál’s brochure, the word bauxite is not menitoned once and according to an explination picture, which is supposed to show the aluminium process from beginning to end, the production starts when alumina is unshipped in to a huge harbour silo.

How can it be? Is Norðurál such an environmentally friendly company that it does not even have to mine bauxite to be able to smelt aluminium? Does Norðurál have any different methods than other aluminium producers? No, this is what we call greenwashing!

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GRUNDARTANGI – A short while ago 20 activists from Saving Iceland blockaded the single supply road to Century Aluminum’s smelter on Hvalfjordur and Elkem – Icelandic Alloys steel factory. They have chained themselves to each other using arm tubes to form a human blockade as well as using tripod for the first time in Icelandic history. “We protest the environmental and human health hazards Century’s bauxite mining and refining activities in Jamaica, their plans for a new smelter and refinery in West Congo. Both Century’s and Elkem’s expansion plans will also mean destruction of unique geothermal areas in Iceland and produce large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions,” says Miriam Rose of Saving Iceland (1).

UPDATE: The blockade went on for three hours. Nobody was arrested. Read More

By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, originally published in Morgunblaðið

Last Sunday, an anonymous journalist from Morgunblaðið wrote about Saving Iceland under the title “Action Groups and Cells”. He talked about Saving Iceland’s upcoming action camp in Hellisheiði and brougth forward a list of actions that people could anticipate from those attending the camp this summer, i.e. “try to get the police into a fight, chain themselves to whatever is near to them, do minimum sabotage, disturb companies’ legal operations or public traffic”. According to him, this kind of behaviour has characterized Saving Iceland’s activities for the last years.

We at Saving Iceland, use direct action and civil disobedience in our actions against capitalism in the form of Iceland’s heavy industrialization – and we do not deny that. Although we do not chain ourselves to whatever is around us, but to machinery, machinery which is being used to destroy the nature. Thus we stop the destruction for some limited time. One does not lock lock on to a huge machine “just because” – one does it because of ideals and with a spirit of resistance. Read More

Today, Alcoa, the Ministry of Industry and Norðurþing district council signed a research contract for Alcoa’s planned aluminium smelter in Húsavík (Bakki), north Iceland. The contract allows for the furthering of research into the efficiency of the smelter construction and into the energy production capability of the geothermal areas in the north. The smelter is supposed to be run on geothermal energy only. Read More

By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, originally published in Morgunblaðið – Erna Indriðadóttir, Alcoa’s P.R. manager wrote an article in Morgunblaðið where she intended to answer Björk Guðmundsdóttir’s writings about Alcoa. Indriðadóttir’s answer is pathetic and a reason to write more articles than this one. But what stands out is her quibble about Alcoa’s weapon production and human right abuses. Indriðadóttir reckons that Guðmundsdóttir is talking about the fact that “aluminium is used in almost all vehicles under the sun, incl. fighting jets, space shuttles and missiles.” And the whitewash continues when she talks about Alcoa’s social responsability and its sustainability projects. 

Using the same words as Indriðadóttir, this has been said before. This same quibble has always been used when Alcoa has been accused of links with the war industry and weapon production. The company’s principals here in Iceland repeatedly try to make it look like Alcoa only produces aluminium and sells it, but does not have anything to say about the future life of is produce. This myth should have been destroyed long time ago.

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