Saving Iceland

Second blockade at Kárahnjúkar :
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1540970,00.html

Second blockade at Kárahnjúkar :
http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=28304&ew_0_a_id=146456

First blockade at Kárahnjúkar :
http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=28304&ew_0_a_id=145277

Gudmundur Gunnarsson, leader of the Icelandic Electrician’s Union and Björk`s dad, attacks state over reaction to protests and lack of action on workers rights:

Iceland Review
8/03/2005

 

Father of Iceland’s most famous citizen criticized the government’s lack of initiative when worker’s rights are violated at Kárahnjúkar, the controversial hydro-electric development in East Iceland.

Impregilo, the Italian construction group building dams and tunnels at Kárahnúkar, has been allowed to break laws, for months at a time, says pop star Björk Gudmundsdóttir’s father, Gudmundur Gunnarsson, leader of the Icelandic Electrician’s Union. He believes that neither the police nor the government act when worker’s rights are violated but resources are always on hand during protests against the government-backed hydro-electric dam.

Gudmundur says that employees at the Kárahnúkar power plant have at times operated equipment without valid licenses, including driving without drivers licenses. Employees have been put in life threatening situations and violated in various ways. Impreglio has gotten away with repeatedly breaking the law which the government has chosen to ignore. Read More

Click here for the First Crack Video!

6 August 2005

7 protesters managed to get into the construction site of the dam despite the fact the authorities had 22 police in 9 cars monitoring the area plus all the security personnel of Impregilo and Landsvirkjun. The protesters put up a banner on the dam wall displaying a massive crack. The first crack of many to come. The Kárahnjúkar dams are being built right on top of a cluster of active geological fissures.

Of course the police got very upset about this and arrested people from the protest camp and kept them at the police station for 12 hours. Yet they didn’t manage to catch anyone during the action, so they couldn’t charge them for anything.

29 July 2005

The people at the international protest camp were forced to find another location as a base, because the landowner of the piece of land the camp was stationed at (the Icelandic national church) gave in from pressure from police and Landsvirkjun and withdrew the permission for the camp to be there. Three local farmers offered the protesters to camp at their land and it goes to show that not all people in the East are pro dam and these farmers have shown great courage to offer us to stay on their land. The new location is at the land of Vad in Skriddalur. If you plan to come, give us a call for direction or if you need to be picked up at Egilsstadir.

The protests will go on, and everyone is welcome to join us.

We have gathered to protest the continuing devastation of global ecology in the interest of corporate profits. We have come here to tip the balance of a struggle portrayed to be national, while actually being much larger: from the Narmada Dams in India, to the proposed Ilisu Dam in Turkey, the story is one of big business and oppressive government. The struggle to save our planet, like the struggle against inhumanity, is global, so we have to be too. We’re here to prevent the Kárahnjúkar Dam project from destroying Western Europe’s last great wilderness.

The industrialization of Iceland’s natural resources will not only devastate vast landscapes of great natural beauty and scientific importance, but impair species such as reindeer, seals and fish, and the already endangered pink-footed goose and several other bird species. Through this mindless vandalism against nature, the Icelandic tourist industry will also be affected and the health and life of the Icelandic people. This industrialization will bring pollution such as Iceland has not seen before. Sulphur dioxide, Nitrogen, and many other chemicals used to process aluminium, are all products of the unnecessary and short-sighted profit-driven environmental barbarism of the aluminium industry. Under the burden of Kárahnjúkar, only one of many dams planned, rivers will choke, and people will choke.

If this dam goes ahead, it will pave the way for similar dams of glacial rivers all over the Icelandic highlands; Thjórsárver (protected by the international treaty of Ramsar!), Langisjór (one of Europe’s most beautiful lakes), the rivers in the Skagafjördur region and Skjálfandafljót. All just to generate energy for aluminium corporations. If this will be allowed to happen Iceland will face the same sad fate as other global communities, which have suffered under similar projects.

Across the world, people are coming together to oppose the blatant lies, corruption and oppression generated by corporations and governments alike. In this spirit, we are asking that all those opposing the Kárahnjúkar Dam organize or partake in solidarity actions globally or locally.

The world isn’t dying, it is being killed – there is no excuse for silence.

The camp is going really well with loads of people turning up from all over the world as well as Iceland.

Today 25 activists from the International Protest Camp locked on to Caterpillar bulldozers and trucks on their way to wreak more devastation at the dam site.

Work was completely halted at the dam which will destroy huge swathes of pristine wilderness – if it ever gets finished, which the protestors vow it will not – just to power one Alcoa aluminium plant, itself an immense ecological disaster which will ruin a beautiful crystal clear fjord – if it gets built….

The protest lasted well over three hours with local police in complete disarray. Read More

Icelandic police order drivers to start machinery risking protestors’ lives.

Police and security guards at the Karahnjukar Dam construction site in Iceland, last night ordered the bulldozers drivers to start their engines and move off, despite there being more than 25 people locked on to the underside of their vehicles.

“It was terrifying, if someone hadn’t jumped up on the front of the truck and pulled out the fuel line then I think people may have been killed last night” said Rob, one of the protesters from the UK. Read More

On Tuesday 19th July 2005 a group of approximately 20 of us hiked to the main junction approaching the site. Four of our group locked on to a pick up truck and a HUGE caterpillar construction vehicle. We managed to block two other access roads and halt work on the site for three hours.

This was a first in Icelandic history: the police had to make up a word for “lock-on”. Thirteen of us were “detained, apparently “arrested”, and later released without charge….with the warning that Impregilo were “looking at this incident with grave eyes” and were likely to make a civil case. Impregilo have since changed their mind. For a change, the media did report that the protesters were “friendly”!

The camp is east of Jökulsá á Brú, just before the bridge, 2 km. south of Kárahnjúkar. It is easily accessible by normal cars, about one and half hours drive from Egilsstaðir. Most of the road is asphalted but soon before you arrive at the camp it turns into a dust road and winds in sharp bends down towards the river. The camp is at the second bend towards the bridge.

Read More