Saving Iceland

From NoSmelterTNT
5 September 2005

US Aluminum Giant Alcoa is facing massive criticism over a proposed 340,000 metric ton smelter plant in Cap De Ville in the Caribbean Island of Trinidad. The country of Trinidad is one of the most densely populated places on earth with 249 persons per sq. kilometer and also already ranks very high in pollution levels due to ongoing industrialization. According to world bank statistics, Trinidad is #5 in the world when it comes to Carbon Dioxide Pollution. Read More

Corporate Watch
Newsletter 25

Direct action against the Karahnjukar hydro-electric dam project in Iceland has started in earnest. The dam will devastate Western Europe’s last pristine wilderness, solely to power an Alcoa aluminium smelter (see Corporate Watch number 23, April May 2005, page 9)

In June, three activists invaded the 10th World Aluminium Conference, Reykjavik, covering speakers from Alcoa and Bechtel (who are building the smelter) in green yoghurt during their talk on ‘sustainable’ aluminium. All three were charged with causing up to £50,000 of damage. British activist Paul Gill was held for four days. With the construction of the dam now more than half complete, an international protest camp has been set up near to the site. Over 30 people have gathered to organise direct action against the continuing devastation of global ecology in the interest of corporate profits. The 19th July saw Iceland’s first ever lock on blockade, when 25 activists shut down the site for three hours, locking on to a Caterpillar construction vehicle and a pick up truck at the main junction in the site and blocking two other access roads. Fifteen were arrested and later released without charge. Impreglio, the Italian construction firm building the dam, threatened to take civil charges against the activists but has since backtracked. Experts concur that 90% of the irreversible environmental damage will be done only when the water floods the land, so its not too late to protect Iceland’s ecology, and with Smyril Line offering a round trip on the ferry for £49 from Shetland, what better place is there to spend the rest of your summer?

ANARCHY IN ICELAND

Iceland was under attack. Violent international protestors were arriving on its shores, fresh from the G8 and bent on futher destruction. The Icelandic police were calling for the urgent tightening of border controls. Laws had just been passed allowing foreigners to have their phones tapped, their houses searched, and their possessions confiscated, all without warrants. News presenters were emitting warning gouts of Icelandic, spattered with the word ‘Anarkisti!’, alongside blown-up images of figures in IRA balaclavas. There was muttered talk, on all sides, of terrorism. Read More

 

With the growing awareness of climate change, carbon emission restrictions may not be too far off. Because countries that pollute the most may well get the heaviest restrictions, rather than seeking to reduce their emissions many industrial corporations are looking to move operations abroad.
Iceland, despite modern European levels of education, welfare and wealth, has almost no heavy industry. Their carbon rations will be up for grabs. Seeing the extra pollution coming, in 2001 Iceland got a 10% increase on the CO2 limits imposed by the Kyoto treaty. The problem is that the lack of heavy industry means a lack of the major power supply needed for such things. But Iceland has glacial rivers in vast areas unpopulated by humans; land for hydroelectric dams that can be seen as carbon-neutral. Read More

Did the Icelandic authorities think that their terrorizing of legitimate international protesters would stamp out all resistance against their criminal destruction of the last great European wilderness?! If so, they were wrong!

Saving Iceland are delighted to report that at noon on Friday 26. August three courageous Icelandic demonstrators climbed the roof of the head offices of the Icelandic Government and tore down the cloven flag of the Icelandic state, replacing it with a banner saying in Icelandic “NO DAMNED ALUMINIUM FACTORIES”. They then proceeded to have coffee and cakes on the roof. The demonstrators are not linked with the protests in the East and in Reykjavík this summer. Read More

Diary of actions in Reykjavik in August 2005

 

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Deportation papers have been issued for 21 people involved in the blockade at the Karahnjukar dam construction site on the 19th July and an action at the Alcoa alluminium smelter plant in the Reyðarfjörður on the 4th August.

 

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On Saturday 13th August a fun and peaceful picnic was held in Parliament Square. There was street theatre including clowns and a giant evil octopus with blue hands to symbolize the web of corruption in Iceland. We shared cake and played games with the Icelandic people. Our fun was disrupted when the forces of evil came and snatched an Icelandic street performer wearing a police jacket. They also tried to take someone wearing a home-made Alcoa jacket but he was successfully de-arrested.

On Friday 12th August a fund-raising dinner was held by people involved with the Saving Iceland Protest Camp at Kárahnjúkar in Snarrot Information Centre.

A slideshow showed images of areas of wilderness that are going to be destroyed because of the Kárahnjúkar and other dam projects. Video footage of our direct actions at Kárahnjúkar and the Alcoa factory was shown to re-inspire Reykjavikian resistance.

Iceland Review
08/18/2005

In its Tuesday daily bulletin, KB-bank says that the benefit that Iceland derives from aluminium smelters is small. The bank supports this view by claiming that the electricity is sold at close to cost and the rate of return for hydroelectric dams is low. It also says that the economical impact is overstated in the local discourse.

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Saving Iceland

Reykjavík

We who have been protesting against heavy industry and the devastating destruction of Iceland’s natural environment at Kárahnjúkar in the Eastern highlands of Iceland and in other parts of the country in recent months would like to take the opportunity to make the following statement:

During our protests we have used methods which may not have a long tradition in Iceland but which do not constitute a breach of the law. We are a broad-based group of Icelanders and people of many other nationalities united by our respect for the natural environment and our intolerance of repression, the misuse of power and the violation of human rights. Read More