The action camp against the heavy industrialisation of iceland has moved from the highlands to the town of Reyðarfjordur, home to Alcoas new aluminium smelting pollution machine. Successful direct action have already been carried out at Eyjabakkar and Karahnjukar, sites of the environmentally disasterous hydro-electric schemes. now its Alcoa's turn to feel the heat...
So, the story so far...
In contrast to last year's action camp in the Icelandic Highlands, this year
there was a plan to combine it with a 'Family Camp' to appeal to more
mainstream Icelanders. This was held at an official campsite at Snaefell
mountain hut and scheduled to last from 21st -31st July. There was a
protest walk around the affected area on the 22nd July which attracted about
150-200 people, about half icelanders and half foreigners. This protest walk
ended with everyone holding hands in a symbolic action forming a line
opposite the construction site at the level where the water will rise to.
Before the official beginning of the 'Family Camp' the weather at Snaefell
had been very bad with extremely strong winds demolishing almost everything.
Some campers who had arrived early decided to relocate away from Snaefell
for this reason and also because of its distance from any of the main action
targets. For the period of the actual 'Family Camp' however, the weather was
mostly hot and sunny, reverting towards the end to extremely strong winds,
making everything very difficult. Bands played and there were workshops and
other activites at the 'Family Camp'.
Special mention should go to the Belgian kitchen Kokerellen who managed to
uncomplainingly provide us with three hot meals a day plus tea and coffee
despite severe obstacles (a van which could barely get down the rough road
to the site, their entire kitchen getting blown away by the wind, everything
being incredibly expensive in Iceland...)
During the period of the 'Family Camp' there was an action at one of the dam
construction sites at Eyjabakkar on the 26th July. 40 people hiked overnight
around the mountain and then emerged the next day to blockade the road
leading to the construction site. This was apparantly a big media coup as it
alerted people to the existence of the Eyjabakkar dams which are very little
known of.
When the 'Family Camp' was over on the 31st July everyone relocated to
Lindur - which is not an official campsite, but is much closer to the main
Karahnjukar work sites. People must have got wind of our intention to move
as the hut at Lindur was burnt down two days before we moved. People the
used the wreckage of the burnt hut to barricade the camp with to keep the
cops at bay and built lock-ons to defend the camp. The police blocked the
roads leading to the site and stopped our vehicles going to the site. They
were open with us about their plan to 'starve us out' by denying us food.
Despite this, we managed to get food in and to stay put at Lindur.
Four people (I think) got arrested quite violently running on to site on
about the 3rd or 4th. There was also a police raid on the camp about the
same time when they brought in sniffer dogs and 'arrested' one person on
suspicion of possession of drugs, which turned out to be tobacco. The
suspicion has to be that they did this in order to have it all over the
media that 'one protester has been held on suspicion of drugs'. At about the
same time it was reported in the media that one of the dynamite sheds had
been broken into. It was all over the media that we had drugs and
explosives.
There was a blockade action of one of the secondary dams at Karahnjukar on
(I think) the 4th with 4 people D-locking themselves to machinery. This
lasted about 3 hours. The police removed the D-locks by using giant
bolt-croppers right next to people's necks. 17 people were arrested on this
action I think. The cops got caught out in the media claiming that they
hadn't used batons on people right below a picture of a protester pinned to
the ground by a cop's baton.
There was a whole lot of confusion about whether or not Sigur Ros (very
famous Icelandic band for those who don't know) would play at the protest
site. They said they would but then we relocated to Lindur, which seemed to
cause some problems. There were lots of communication difficulties involving
going through several intermediaries and their management. In the end, they
played an acoustic gig at Snaefell after we had left when none of us were
there.
Very early on Monday (the 7th) morning there were two simultaneous blockades
at the Karahnjukar site - a blockade of arm tubes blocking the main tunnel
entrance and the other of people D-locking themselves to earth-movers on one
of the secondary dams. Each of these lasted a couple of hours. The police
removed people from the arm tubes by pulling their arms until the carabiners
connecting them gave way. After arresting 14 people for these blockades, the
police evicted the camp Monday afternoon when there were few people there.
People locked on to resist the eviction but were removed in a similar
fashion. Everyone was a little scattered and dispersed for a bit, but have
now relocated the camp to another location, which perhaps i shouldn't name.
Following the eviction of the camp, Iceland's top lawyer Ragnar
A?alsteinsson has been all over the TV and radio saying the police's actions
have breached our human rights and are illegal. Hopefully we will be able to
sue them for both last year's and this year's illegalities.
There have been huge amounts of logistical and technical problems (all our
vehicles breaking, all our phones breaking etc etc) - including the ability
to update the website and get info out. if people who have access to the
website can add some of this news (maybe appropriately edited) to the
website that would be great.
Everyone arrested so far has been released without charge.
In contrast to last year's action camp in the Icelandic Highlands, this year
there was a plan to combine it with a 'Family Camp' to appeal to more
mainstream Icelanders. This was held at an official campsite at Snaefell
mountain hut and scheduled to last from 21st -31st July. There was a
protest walk around the affected area on the 22nd July which attracted about
150-200 people, about half icelanders and half foreigners. This protest walk
ended with everyone holding hands in a symbolic action forming a line
opposite the construction site at the level where the water will rise to.
Before the official beginning of the 'Family Camp' the weather at Snaefell
had been very bad with extremely strong winds demolishing almost everything.
Some campers who had arrived early decided to relocate away from Snaefell
for this reason and also because of its distance from any of the main action
targets. For the period of the actual 'Family Camp' however, the weather was
mostly hot and sunny, reverting towards the end to extremely strong winds,
making everything very difficult. Bands played and there were workshops and
other activites at the 'Family Camp'.
Special mention should go to the Belgian kitchen Kokerellen who managed to
uncomplainingly provide us with three hot meals a day plus tea and coffee
despite severe obstacles (a van which could barely get down the rough road
to the site, their entire kitchen getting blown away by the wind, everything
being incredibly expensive in Iceland...)
During the period of the 'Family Camp' there was an action at one of the dam
construction sites at Eyjabakkar on the 26th July. 40 people hiked overnight
around the mountain and then emerged the next day to blockade the road
leading to the construction site. This was apparantly a big media coup as it
alerted people to the existence of the Eyjabakkar dams which are very little
known of.
When the 'Family Camp' was over on the 31st July everyone relocated to
Lindur - which is not an official campsite, but is much closer to the main
Karahnjukar work sites. People must have got wind of our intention to move
as the hut at Lindur was burnt down two days before we moved. People the
used the wreckage of the burnt hut to barricade the camp with to keep the
cops at bay and built lock-ons to defend the camp. The police blocked the
roads leading to the site and stopped our vehicles going to the site. They
were open with us about their plan to 'starve us out' by denying us food.
Despite this, we managed to get food in and to stay put at Lindur.
Four people (I think) got arrested quite violently running on to site on
about the 3rd or 4th. There was also a police raid on the camp about the
same time when they brought in sniffer dogs and 'arrested' one person on
suspicion of possession of drugs, which turned out to be tobacco. The
suspicion has to be that they did this in order to have it all over the
media that 'one protester has been held on suspicion of drugs'. At about the
same time it was reported in the media that one of the dynamite sheds had
been broken into. It was all over the media that we had drugs and
explosives.
There was a blockade action of one of the secondary dams at Karahnjukar on
(I think) the 4th with 4 people D-locking themselves to machinery. This
lasted about 3 hours. The police removed the D-locks by using giant
bolt-croppers right next to people's necks. 17 people were arrested on this
action I think. The cops got caught out in the media claiming that they
hadn't used batons on people right below a picture of a protester pinned to
the ground by a cop's baton.
There was a whole lot of confusion about whether or not Sigur Ros (very
famous Icelandic band for those who don't know) would play at the protest
site. They said they would but then we relocated to Lindur, which seemed to
cause some problems. There were lots of communication difficulties involving
going through several intermediaries and their management. In the end, they
played an acoustic gig at Snaefell after we had left when none of us were
there.
Very early on Monday (the 7th) morning there were two simultaneous blockades
at the Karahnjukar site - a blockade of arm tubes blocking the main tunnel
entrance and the other of people D-locking themselves to earth-movers on one
of the secondary dams. Each of these lasted a couple of hours. The police
removed people from the arm tubes by pulling their arms until the carabiners
connecting them gave way. After arresting 14 people for these blockades, the
police evicted the camp Monday afternoon when there were few people there.
People locked on to resist the eviction but were removed in a similar
fashion. Everyone was a little scattered and dispersed for a bit, but have
now relocated the camp to another location, which perhaps i shouldn't name.
Following the eviction of the camp, Iceland's top lawyer Ragnar
A?alsteinsson has been all over the TV and radio saying the police's actions
have breached our human rights and are illegal. Hopefully we will be able to
sue them for both last year's and this year's illegalities.
There have been huge amounts of logistical and technical problems (all our
vehicles breaking, all our phones breaking etc etc) - including the ability
to update the website and get info out. if people who have access to the
website can add some of this news (maybe appropriately edited) to the
website that would be great.
Everyone arrested so far has been released without charge.
