Earlier this year, Amplifier Films was invited by Shanipiap, a courageous Innu land defender, to help share her story and amplify the call for action from the heart of her ancestral territory near Lac St-Jean, Quebec.
This video captures the poignant moment Shanipiap stopped a massive logging truck to make a powerful statement: her people are still here, still protecting the land that has always been theirs. With a sacred fire burning in the background, a symbol of hope and resistance, Shanipiap and her community are standing firm against relentless industrial encroachment by forestry, mining, and oil companies, which have devastated vast parts of their homeland.
For generations, the Innu have honored their duty as protectors of the forest, water, and wildlife, fostering a deep connection to Mother Earth. But with the exploitation of Quebec’s natural resources accelerating since the James Bay Agreement, the stakes have never been higher. The sacred fire in Dolbeau/Mistassini is not just a call for help—it’s a declaration of survival and resilience.
Through this film, we hope to amplify the voices of those on the frontlines of this struggle and inspire action. Learn more about the Petapan Treaty, the Innu’s ongoing fight, and how you can stand in solidarity to protect the future of these lands and their people.
Comments Off on Yintah Film Review: Anarchists in the Blind Spot, or the Necessity to Write Our Own Histories
Jan072025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Yintah is the latest installment of a long tradition of indigenous documentaries speaking truth to power against colonial violence in so-called Canada. The story told is of an anti-pipeline struggle to protect the richness of life that the Wedzin kwa river offers, a decade long fight that involved not only the Wet’suwet’en peoples of northern British-Columbia, but also hundreds of dedicated non-indigenous comrades who fought valiantly alongside them. Except the film chose to cast them aside.
The documentary portrays land reoccupation through the personal projects of Freda Huson and Molly Wickham over the course of ten years, but also makes a point to frame those individual stories in a more expansive and continual relationship of the Wet’suwet’en people to the land. The conflict over industrial and otherwise settler-colonial exploitation of the land is part of the present, past, and future of the territory, and the film does a good job situating the latest struggle against Coastal Gaslink on a longer timeline. The film ends with a strong position of indigenous resilience in the face of lost battles, and should inspire many that the fight is never over as long as we are alive.
A central argument Yintah makes is one most indigenous social movements have been pushing forward in North America, which is that the land should be under local and traditional jurisdiction of its original peoples. This framework opens the door to a legalistic approach to anticolonial discourse (« Who is the rightful decider? »), which Yintah gives legitimacy to for example by recounting the Delgamuukw case as a historical win for the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxan nations. Referring to or using the western legal system is neither revolutionary nor anarchist, and comrades involved in indigenous solidarity work have highlighted this point of tension before. Yintah‘s non-critical approach to legalistic tactics distances its narrative from an uncompromising and feral position against the colonial state. But I guess it also paints a truthful depiction of how unfortunately many activists end up wasting their time and energy in lawsuits and legal cases. If we can briefly hear Freda say Delgamuukw hasn’t changed anything, then why waste precious screening minutes showcasing the legal fight in a positive light beforehand? It only reinforces reformist aspirations to pursue court battles. Relying on the judicial system to recognize indigenous governance also contributes to creating a new class of indigenous elite deciders (sellouts) that move on to exploit the land at the expense of ecosystems. This is happening right now as the Nisga’a Nation, an indigenous political entity legitimized by a treaty signed in 1998, has welcomed and invested in the construction of the PRGT pipeline, northwest of the CGL line.
The question of jurisdiction is not where anarchists and indigenous land defenders share the most affinity. Indigenous jurisdiction, even put through the lens of a pre-colonial political system, opens the door to legitimizing forms of authority that, in a decolonized future, would pit anarchists against indigenous figures of power, and is also today encouraging power imbalance on current shared sites of struggle. Thankfully Yintah does not shy away from including one scene that recounts one of the most discordant moments of the struggle when chief Namoks decided on his own, in fear of police use of force, to open the Unist’ot’en gates to pipeline workers, against the will of companions on site and Freda herself. This was not the only moment when power was yielded in the name of Wets’uwet’en traditional governance and at the expense of the fight against police and CGL. But it was maybe the most impactful one, and I am thankful this movie scene offers a brief moment of nuance in an otherwise sugarcoated version of the power dynamics on the frontline.
Land is of course absolutely central to anti-colonialism. During the struggle against the Northern Gateway project, the Coastal Gaslink construction and the RCMP’s heightened presence (roughly the 2012-2022 decade), the backroads territory has been the site of an impressive game of snakes and ladders to control the access to isolated valleys. Yintah chose to dedicate a lot of its screening time to traditional uses of the land. We are shown many scenes of harvesting game and berries, the importance of transferring wet’suwet’en knowledges and values to younger generations and the relationship between traditional ways of life and health. Crucial to the #LandBack movement and Indigenous resurgence, I understand why these themes are explored as an exclusively wet’suwet’en story. But the story of confrontation with pipeline projects was not exclusively wet’suwet’en, and Yintah turned a blind eye to the central role anarchists playedin defending the land against industrial invasion. This is what every comrade has been whispering about since the film came out. Over the decade, there has been hundreds of anarchists who, from far away and traveling onsite, dedicated their hearts and their time and sometimes took immense risk to defend wet’suwet’en land. Anarchists organized solidarity actions in both affinity based models and in larger scale social contexts across the country, expanding all the way to Europe and the Pacific Northwest of the US for years, and insurgent tactics have flourished during #ShutDownCanada. According to many first hand accounts, the frontline camps could not have survived without anarchists’ contributions. The struggle was huge and has changed many non-wet’suwet’en people’s lives, many anarchists, and many others as well. Including the solidarity from non-Indigenous peoples would only have strengthened the Wet’suwet’en story of resistance, not diluted it. Do we have the audacity to bring this up as a grievance to our Indigenous friends? Is it totally misplaced to critique an indigenous film that makes no place for non-indigenous peoples? Not PC for sure.
The narrative choice of Yintah to focus on Molly and Freda also sometimes feels almost claustrophobic, and we lose a sense of the scale of the movement that involved thousands. There is a risk that countless people will watch Yintah and think that such a large scale moment of rupture rests on the shoulders of a few key figures, or that indigenous resistance can make do without the solidarity of allies and accomplices across all social identities. Leadership is a natural human dynamic that can organically move people to act, and can shift depending on the relationships in a said group. But there is a fine line between recognizing leadership qualities as natural and beneficial, and the development of a cult of personality that can be created by certain media deformations. The image of Gidimt’en Checkpoint portrayed through its media channels (instagram and youtube) has misled many folks who have unfortunately showed up to camp with unrealistic expectations such as finding a space that is constantly active in preparing confrontation or occupied and maintained mainly by Indigenous peoples. The mediatic focus of the struggle might also have put too much weight on our heroines, and health and the need for a sustainable involvement has been deprioritized. One of my concerns for upcoming struggles is that the film could embolden identity politicians to recreate a social hierarchy that enables abuse of power on future frontlines.
What I find unfortunate is that there is the propensity in activist discourse to constantly portray oneself as a victim. Yintah is unfortunately no exception. The 1h45 minutes of the documentary painfully recounts all the possible events and situations under which the state, the police or extractive industries have oppressed the Wet’suwet’en peoples. Not that we must shy away from truth speaking, or that the string of events of the struggle should be manipulated or distorted (blockades were dismantled, cabins destroyed, people arrested, and so on), but every publication whether it be book, artwork or film, makes choices in the words used, the scenes that are shown and the potential scenes that are left out. The History we remember is the one some chose to write how they saw fit. There are ways to speak of and against domination that are unapologetically defiant, with our sight set on the target. CGL might have completed its construction, but it took them extra billions and a couple years more than anticipated, because a handful of strong hearts were barricading roads, scaring away pipeline workers and sabotaging their equipment. There were countless confrontational moments on the territory that were (maybe, maybe not filmed) left out of the editing. With its narrative constructed around resilience instead of resistance, Yintah might not be able to inspire others to draw their daggers.
It might not be our Wet’suwet’en companions’ responsibility to tell our side of the story, but our complete invisibilisation from the struggle is basically dishonest. If we take a step back, we can see this situation is not new in the historiography of anarchism. Unpleasant to the general opinion and defiant to the leftist movements, anarchist action and involvement in historical events has always been undermined, evacuated, or falsified when it was time to write down a page of History. In some ways the film continues the legacy of writing off anarchists as outside agitators. Instead of recounting how anarchists have been invited to come to the frontlines and have engaged with land defense in a sustained way for years, Yintah litteraly places anarchists outside of the frame of legitimate participants in the struggle, and leaves room for the liberal media narrative of violent hijackers to step forward. This is hard to digest, when we know in reality that there were moments when only masked white anarchists were present and they were asked to pose with warrior flags for a good photo op. As I write this, land defense in northern BC has already kicked off a new chapter of resistance, this time against the PRGT pipeline. When non-Indigenous anarchists show up, they might be once again be met with confusion from Indigenous peoples, just as they were at times during the wet’suwet’en struggle, faced with questions like “why are you here ?” rather than being understood as part of a larger fabric of anti-industiral actors in the region.
Yintah has only received positive public feedback. What is the point of yet another text doing the devil’s work at pointing at the problems? While I wanted to share what I think is valuable criticism that was discussed amongst friends and companions around me, I still think Yintah tells a beautiful story of two exceptional women that is worth sharing, and a story that hopefully inspires other Indigenous peoples to reoccupy their land and defend it against industrial destruction. What I take away from watching the film is the motivation to support and contribute to anarchists telling their own histories. In a world of overlapping truths, different layers of experiences and their takeaways can compliment and contradict each other. We do not need one official History of the past decade of struggle on the yintah.
“If anarchists don’t make their own History, their enemies will. […] Should we not wish that our stories end up in the hands of those who could only write them to suit their own needs” (Plain Words, Roofdruk/Compass editions, 2024).
In an anarchist history of the struggle on the yintah, the question of jurisdiction and other legal approaches would be presented as hindrances to the liberation of land and life. In an anarchist history of the struggle on the yintah, internal conflict would not be shoved under the rug but taken as an opportunity to try to draw lessons from, so we can continue to deconstruct how we relate to each other outside of civilization’s dogmas. In an anarchist history of the struggle on the yintah, we would recount the dozens of barricades on fire, cop attacks and destroyed machinery to remind us we are truly alive and free in the blissful moment of action. And there would probably be many more anarchist histories of the struggle on the yintah, I am after all just one amongst many anarchists.
Comments Off on How We Stormed Concordia University: De-arresting, Painting, Shutting Down Classes and Exams
Jan062025
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Strategic takeaways TLDR:
1) It does not take many people to change the course of a protest.
2) When the police are busy defending a fixed point it opens possibilities for exciting action in other places.
3) Our comrades can be de-arrested, and doing this against security officers is good, lower-stakes practice for doing it against the police
The takeover of Concordia’s Hall building was yet another instance of the slow building militancy in the Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) solidarity movement for Palestine.
On November 21st, over 85,000 students across Quebec were on strike demanding their academic institutions align with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, drop the political suspensions of student activists, and against police on campus — making it possibly one of the biggest strikes for Palestine, outside of the occupied territories, in world history.
Committed to swinging the protest into a more combative stance, the rough idea was to make the Concordia rally on the first day of the province-wide student strike for Palestine militant enough to force the university to shut down for the day, thereby enforcing the strike mandate and causing maximum disruption. The primary proposal for doing so was to take over a building.
On the day of the rally organized and publicized by Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) Concordia, a few anarchists from all over the city (collaborating across Francophone and Anglophone milieus) found each other and shared ideas for ways to make the rally more interesting and disruptive. To avoid another ritualistic demonstration of the same chants and speeches, they decided they would try to enter Concordia’s Hall Building: the center of the University’s student activity, and known target to the broader Tiohtià:ke anarchist community that was hit several times in the fall 2024 semester, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage.
The building was being guarded by a line of private security mercenaries — not exaggeration, everyone would soon find out that these goons were hired by the university from “Perceptage,” a security firm whose CEO advertises his IDF training. After some comrades grabbed hold of the door and held them open, a first group of brave protestors pushed through the security line yelling “move” and beckoning for the crowd outside to join them in storming the Hall lobby. The crowd reacted quickly and did just that. Security also reacted quickly and violenty grabbed the first few comrades pushing through, putting them in head locks and ripping their clothes, but other protesters fought back, grabbing onto their comrades’ bodies and tearing them out of security’s grasp. These were the first sucessful de-arrests since Concordia security began their practice of “citizen’s arrests” at protests, and it showed that our comrades can be snatched back if we move fast. Doing so aginast unarmed security can be good, lower-stakes practice for doing so against the police
Security soon realized they were totally overpowered and outnumbered and stepped aside, defeated. They could only watch as hundreds of students and “outside agitators” stormed the Hall building lobby.
Meanwhile, the riot police – who are often a significant factor at protests in Tiohtia:ke due to being highly equipped (tear gas, pepper spray, etc.) and trained more specifically for “crowd control” than riot cops in other cities, were busy forming a barrier around a small group of zionist counter-protestors. As was seen a number of times over the summer, when the SPVM have a fixed point they must defend, it can open up possibilties for protesters.
Having flooded the Hall building lobby, pacifying speeches on a megaphone began once again, and anarchists were seen continuously beckoning the crowd to remain dynamic and to begin going upstairs by chanting “Who’s school? Our school!” Some protesters spoke to the people giving speeches, who then announced to the crowd that people were moving upstairs. A critical mass began to move and a snake-demo through every floor of the Hall building ensued. Protesters were seen spray painting, disabling security cameras, tossing garbage cans onto the floor, creating chair barricades outside classrooms, even expropriating expensive university equipment, all as security just sat back and watched helplessly.
The dynamic movement created a real feeling of empowerment, and hopefully will encourage more serious attempts to liberate space and resources from the university. What felt powerful to see on this day was that it only took a handful of protesters to secure the doors, and with 15-20 militants on hand the protest shifted from a standard rally on the street, to a disruptive snake demo through a 12 story building. This taking of the school by force was something the secuirty was clearly desperate to avoid, and they responded by sending out an emergency alert encouraging people to avoid the area, as well as a message to professors that resulted in some classes and exams being cancelled into the evening. The day’s success was made possible partly due to activists at Concordia continuously organizing and trying to increase militancy and build relationships; there had been many previous unsuccessful attempts to escalate.
Surely thanks to a large portion of the crowd being in full kuffiyeh, black or student bloc, and totally concealed, as of this day, no one has faced legal or academic consequences for Thursday, November 21st actions.
There were also reports that an hour earlier, at McGill university, fire alarms were simultaneously triggered in every building on campus, forcing students out into the lawn where they could join the walkout happening at the same time.
The strikes served their function very well in this case, freeing up student time and energy and creating the conditions for an action that otherwise hasn’t been pulled off.
The 21st was unequivocally a success, yet there were a few things which could have made it even better and more impactful:
It became very clear that, once the snake-demo up the Hall building had begun, very few people had made plans for such a successful scenario, perhaps this comes from anarchists’ unfamiliarity with success in attempted manoeuvres, or the amount of work militants put into planning to enforce the strike instead of the possibility of other actions. Regardless of reasons, strategic or symbolic targets could have been plotted out beforehand, and further plans beyond just “getting into the building” could have been executed.
While people were beginning to flood into the Hall Building, one protestor who remained outside put up a nazi salute towards the zionist counter-protestors and shouted “The final solution is coming for you”. Regrettably, no one in the demonstration intervened when they saw this happening. While student associations, the Concordia Student Union, and community groups across the city denounced it after the fact, there needs to be a strong, shared understanding that nazis be immediately and physically confronted, and are in no way welcome in the movement for a liberated Palestine.
There is very little shared analysis that “If we desire an end to this world of genocide the university, too, must be destroyed.” Few students, or even non-students, understand the university as a location of social reproduction that enables capitalism and genocide and that must be attacked. This was seen in the general lack of antagonistic behavior on the 21st, in a scenario of possibility and freedom.
Despite having full access to the building, the intense repression students have faced from the university in recent months likely led them to police their own actions on that day, despite not having anyone physically stopping them. This self-policing could be counteracted by encouraging more non-students to join university actions, and encouraging students to be disruptive at each other’s schools. In addition, hopefully actions on the 21st can spread confidence and the skills to de-arrest and protect each other at our own schools.
Despite there being room for improvement, we can still celebrate and try to reproduce the palbable feeling of liberation, freedom and empowerment that filled the hallways of the university that day.
We wish to share our story, we, the guardians of the land. We are Innu, allies of nature, the first inhabitants of the forests of North America. Today, we are the Indigenous communities who have always occupied the territories of Kupek (Quebec), as our mothers called it.
Our ancestors have passed down the responsibility, generation after generation, to uphold the belief that Mother Earth is a living spirit who takes care of all humanity. Throughout time, we have been people who know how to share among ourselves. We are not perfect, but we are curious beings.
Nearly 500 years ago, our ancestor woke up next to a new neighbor and wondered, “Who is he?” This marked the beginning of an unspoken welcome in our land. From treaty to treaty, we were pushed further and further into the forest, trying to survive in the face of waves of new arrivals. Until the 1970s, northern Quebec was still well-protected for our hunters by governments. But since the signing of the James Bay Agreement, the province of Quebec has been exploited by forestry, mining, and oil companies all the way to the Far North.
Because we are who we are—bound to our natural values as protectors of the land—we want to continue safeguarding what little remains. Currently, we are on Territory 59 in Dolbeau/Mistassini in Saguenay. We have lit a sacred fire as a symbol of hope. We want our voices to be heard for the survival of this forest.
Learn about the Petapan Treaty; there is information available online.
As for us, it is certain that we will continue this ancestral struggle. “It is our vital duty,” as the firekeeper says in the film.
We need help to continue working faithfully as guardians of life on this territory. Right now, the urgency of defending this forest, its water, its animals, its vegetation, and the well-being of future generations is alarming. So, if you wish to help us, you can support us with donations so this struggle is not in vain.
Comments Off on Open Letter From The Estamos Aquí Collective
Nov292024
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
In response to the media’s attitude towards the demonstration of Friday, November 22, 2024 in Montreal
If we are writing these lines today, it is because for several days, the media have been endlessly focusing on broken windows and spilled paint following last Friday’s anti-NATO demonstration. This obsession with the destruction of material goods, however, obscures a much more fundamental question: why is anger exploding in this way?
Where the media focuses on inanimate objects, they neglect a much more complex emotional response: this violence is not gratuitous. It symbolizes a cry of helplessness in the face of destroyed human lives, erased memories, and persistent pain that, far from being heard, is reduced to statistics or isolated facts. The debate should not be limited to broken windows, but should ask what motivates this desperate gesture: a distress, a cry of revolt in the face of insidious and omnipresent violence.
We, members of the Colectivo Estamos Aquí, went to this demonstration to express a legitimate anger: that of the survivors of a military dictatorship in Guatemala, which caused more than 250,000 deaths, 45,000 disappearances, and destroyed hundreds of Indigenous communities. This is the memory that we came to defend. A memory that the authorities of the Americas and Europe seem to want to relegate to the background, under the pretext of political and international issues that are too complex for the populace. But what about the integrity of the colonized, displaced, and killed people? Their emotions and traumas, their own issues? This violence, that of the oppressed, seems to have been normalized, even forgotten.
Anticolonial struggles, whether in Latin America or elsewhere, are all linked by common roots: exploitation, domination, and dehumanization. These struggles, despite the diversity of their forms and contexts, all attack a global system of injustice and repression.
However, the media prefer to divert attention from the root causes and focus on the material damage. In doing so, they minimize the violence of a system that destroys human lives in favor of commodities. It is as if, somewhere, the roles have been reversed and that it is now objects—and not human beings—that embody the soul of the world.
In this hierarchy of values, where possessions are elevated to the highest rank, human beings are gradually reduced to simple functions: those of producers, consumers, tools of capitalism. The real violence here is not the breaking of windows, but the systematic disregard for human lives.
Everywhere, Indigenous peoples are reduced to exotic symbols or exploitable resources. Their lands are plundered, their cultures marginalized, and their voices stifled. This dehumanizing treatment reflects a persistent colonial vision, where the dignity of human beings is denied to justify the exploitation of resources.
We are told that violence has no place. Yet, faced with institutional violence of monstrous force and magnitude, the question deserves to be asked: is violence not sometimes the only possible response?
Comments Off on Fire to Kaefer! Let’s Sabotage the Armaments Industry (Germany)
Nov292024
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Kaefer is a multinational industrial service contractor working with the armaments industry, the oil and gas industry (including the extraction of tar sands and fracking in canada), and the nuclear industry. The following communique was first published in german on tumulte.org.
The destructive must be destroyed.
On the night of November 9th to 10th, 2024, we set fire to two company vehicles at the KAEFER Group’s branch in Bremen-Walle. The vehicles were parked a long way away from the building and other vehicles, so there was no danger to people.
Kaefer is a global group with headquarters in Bremen. According to its own information, Kaefer is primarily active in the areas of insulation of industrial plants, access technology, surface protection, fire protection, electrical and mechanical services, interior fittings for the marine, offshore industry and the construction sector.
The Kaefer Group
In 1918, a peat merchant from Bremen founded a company for cooling technology. Around a hundred years later, Kaefer is one of the leading industrial service companies and not only has 25 locations in Germany, but also employs around 33,000 people in a total of 30 countries and recently achieved a turnover of 2.3 billion euros. How did a Bremen craft business become a global corporation? Well, Kaefer has very successfully specialized in industrial technology and focused on two aspects of the capitalist economy that are inextricably linked: the destruction of the earth and the war industry.
But what does that mean in concrete terms? Let us go into a little more detail:
If we look at the arms sector, for example, it quickly becomes clear that Kaefer is not just a small supplier: KAEFER has a long-term contract with the multinational British arms company BAE Systems. BAE is one of the top ten global arms companies and is one of the largest contract partners of the US military, but also supplies Turkey (e.g. BAE is involved in the construction of the Turkish TF-X fighter jet), Israel (e.g. components for F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighter jets with which the Israeli army terrorizes the civilian population of Palestine), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India and several other countries. At BAE Systems, Kaefer is responsible for insulation technology on Type 26 frigates. In addition, Kaefer is responsible for specialised insulation on the hull, cabins and cold rooms as well as piping, heating and ventilation of S-83 and S-82 submarines of the Spanish state-owned shipbuilder Navantia. Also on behalf of Navantia, the Spanish subsidiary KAEFER Servicios Industriales has installed structural insulation on at least 5 Avante 2000 corvettes for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces. Navantia itself is one of the largest shipbuilders in the world.
Kaefer, global arms race and the armaments sites in Bremen
A good example of KAEFER’s armaments activities and indicative of the connections at the Bremen armaments site is the work on the A400M transport aircraft: KAEFER Aerospace was involved in the construction of the insulation and the air conditioning system right from the development phase: “We are responsible for the design, production and delivery of the primary insulation and the air conditioning pipes,” says Daniel Max from the A400M program management, “In addition, the installation of the primary insulation and the delivery of spare parts are also in KAEFER’s hands.” The A400M is not only the current transport aircraft of the German Armed Forces, but an international armaments project involving numerous companies and countries. The development was commissioned by Germany, France, the UK, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, Turkey, South Africa and Malaysia. Responsibility for the project lay primarily with Airbus Defence and Space. Partners in addition to Kaefer included Turkish Aerospace Industries, Thales, Liebherr, Avia, BAE Systems and Europrop (which in turn is an international consortium including Rolls Royce, Safran and the German MTU Group). In addition to Airbus and Kaefer, Rheinmetall is also involved in production at the Bremen site.
At least 10 A400Ms were delivered to Turkey and are an important part of the Turkish military’s logistics apparatus. Responsibility for the Erdogan government’s massacres of the Kurdish population also lies with arms companies such as Kaefer, which can mostly produce undisturbed here on our doorstep. We can see without a doubt that Kaefer is not only an important supplier to the arms industry worldwide, but is also closely interwoven with the military-industrial complex in Bremen, as well as being directly involved internationally in the development of military equipment.
The Space Tech Expo Bremen, which is taking place next weekend, should be seen in this context. Space Tech is not a civil aerospace trade fair. This is not only evident from the fact that numerous arms companies are represented there (e.g. OHB, Honeywell, Airbus, Safran, and many more), but rather the hype surrounding the commercial space industry is inextricably linked to armament and surveillance in space. Last year the trade fair was attacked for precisely this reason; burning barricades blocked the street and employees of arms companies were briefly frightened when stones and paint rained down on the windows while the trade fair was in full swing.
Kaefer as a global player in nuclear energy, oil and gas production
In the following, we will use a few examples to show that, in addition to armaments, Kaefer is also an important player in the global exploitation of resources. We must necessarily limit ourselves to a few particularly blatant examples, simply because Kaefer seems to have its fingers in everything.
Kaefer and the tar sands mining
Tar sands are a relatively new, unconventional oil source. To put it simply, oil is pumped from deep wells in a liquid state in conventional extraction and then processed in refineries. Oil sands, on the other hand, are, as the name suggests, a mixture of sand and oil, or bitumen, and must be processed using very high energy expenditure, producing unimaginable amounts of toxic waste products. The CO2 emissions from the use of oil sands are around 31% higher than those from conventional heavy oil. In addition, some of the largest mines are extracted above ground, which means that huge areas of forest are cleared and turned into toxic wastelands. Oil sands extraction was long considered unprofitable, but in the last 20 years it has become interesting for corporations due to massive government subsidies and the desire for North American self-sufficiency in gasoline.
Kaefer has installed 17 kilometers of pipeline insulation for a small Canadian company called Cenovus Energy (with an annual turnover of just around 47 billion Canadian dollars). The pipeline was part of an expansion project for the Christina Lake oil sands mine. The Christina Lake Mine has been producing 62,000,000 (yes, 62 million!) liters of bitumen a day since 2002. Kaefer is not only proud of this project, but also points to a long-standing good relationship with Cenovus Energy – a probably good economic decision, as Cenovus has applied to continue operating the mine until 2079. The Christina Lake Mine is located in the Athabasca region. The oil produced here in several oil sands deposits is transported to the west coast of Canada via the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline (Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project, TMX for short, completion in May 2024); with the expansion of the TMPL, Canada’s oil export capacity has been increased several times over.
Kaefer cooperation with LNG Canada
Kaefer also participated in the construction of an LNG terminal for LNG Canada. LNG Canada is a consortium of the companies Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Korea Gas, led by Shell Canada. In detail, Kaefer (Kaefer China & Kaefer Australia) insulated the pipeline that transports the LNG gas from the storage facilities via the piers to transport ships. The terminal is being built on the Canadian Pacific coast in Kitimat and is primarily intended to supply the Asian market. The gas itself comes to Kitimat via the Coastal Gas Link Pipeline (CGL) and comes from the deposits in Montney where the gas is extracted by fracking. The CGL crosses the Rocky Mountains for 670 km and runs 100% over stolen land and through the territory of the Wet’suwet’en. Insulation work may sound unimportant, but LNG (liquefied natural gas) is natural gas that is cooled to a temperature of −161 to −164 °C, so the insulation of the pipelines and tanks is extremely important throughout the entire transport chain. This process is extremely energy-intensive, but reduces the volume of the gas by six hundred times, which makes the transport of relevant quantities economically “sensible”. To illustrate the scale and the crucial importance of this project and thus of Kaefer’s work, a few figures are worth mentioning: the terminal in Kitimat alone costs 40 billion dollars, the construction of the Coastal Gas Link Pipeline cost over 11 billion dollars, and there are other gigantic investments for the gas liquefaction plants.
The Wet’suwet’en and their allies have aggressively opposed the construction of the Coastal Gas Link Pipeline because the pipeline threatens life in and around the Wedzin Kwa River with its salmon and eel stocks, endangers water supplies and destroys fragile ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains. The Coastal Gas Link Pipeline has been built, but there is determined resistance to many other destructive industrial projects such as the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Pipeline (also LNG) or the Northvolt battery plant in the Montérégie region.
Other LNG projects supported by Kaefer (that we know of) are in Indonesia (Tangguh, West Papua), Qatar, Kuwait, Peru, Australia and Bahrain. It is absolutely safe to assume that Kaefer is involved in numerous other LNG projects. The ones mentioned are just those that Kaefer cites as references. Kaefer will also have a stand at the Canada Gas trade fair in Vancouver in 2025, which indicates a deep involvement in the LNG business. In addition, Kaefer is involved in numerous projects in the field of oil and gas production globally, for example offshore production in Brazil and Norway, pipeline construction, surface and insulation technology for refineries, terminals and oil fields … and all of this is just a fraction of the involvement.
Kaefer and the Nuclear Industry
Kaefer describes itself as a major player in the global nuclear industry. We know, for example, that Kaefer has carried out major contracts at the Ringhals (Sweden), Sellafield (UK), Hinkley Point (Ireland), EDF Gravelines and various other nuclear power plants in France, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and Switzerland. The group boasts an excellent reputation among nuclear power plant operators worldwide and is responsible for the insulation of the pressurized water reactors that the French Framatome group exports all over the world. In France, Kaefer also works for EDF, Orano, and the Naval Group. The group also has a factory in Pompignac to manufacture components for the nuclear industry and a research facility for the nuclear division in Saint-Cyr-sur-le-Rhône. One of Kaefer’s products is Reflective Metal Insulation, a modern reactor insulation that is marketed internationally in cooperation between Kaefer France and the Bremen site.
The entire chain of nuclear energy use, from extraction, enrichment, use for energy production, not to mention military use, to final storage, is highly destructive and has terrible consequences. The fact that a company from Bremen is involved in the development of the nuclear industry shows that a local “exit” from nuclear energy is of little importance; the know-how from the German nuclear industry is simply exported and can now be used elsewhere. An attack on Kaefer is therefore also an attack on the French nuclear industry. Many people in the north of France near Bure are currently fighting with impressive determination against a final storage facility planned there.
The core aspects we have mentioned, armaments and fossil fuels, cannot be understood separately. Of course, all militaries in the world rely on gigantic quantities of uranium, oil and gas (for example, the US military is by far the largest consumer of oil in the world) and control over these resources is the trigger for many military conflicts. In view of the globally escalating military violence, we can and must act here and now. Because the war machine that is killing in other places in the world is being set in motion in the industrial areas of this city. The armies mentioned as examples for which Kaefer produces here, i.e. Germany, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain and Spain, are among the countries that are most active in the current global arms race. These are not empty phrases; in 2023 alone, around 2.5 trillion euros were invested globally in armaments, more than ever before. In addition to Kaefer, companies such as Rheinmetall, Atlas Elektronik, OHB, Airbus, Lürssen and Thyssen are profiting from these trillions in Bremen.
The example of Kaefer’s involvement in the A400M shows that modern armaments projects depend on a highly diversified and specialized supply chain. No tank, aircraft, fighter jet or satellite is produced at a single location or planned by a single corporation. We should take advantage of this fact and identify and attack the weak points in these supply chains.
This incomplete list clearly shows that although the company appears to be based in a small house in the port of Bremen, the corporation is active worldwide wherever money can be made from the destruction of the earth and the war industry.
We want to show with our research and sabotage that the destruction and exploitation of the earth is inextricably linked to the destruction and exploitation of people. The pursuit of power, control, resources, economic growth and national greatness finds its expression in the global trend towards armaments, war and fascism. The election of Trump, the rise of fascism in Germany and many other countries is an expression of this, but the same tendencies are also reflected in the policies of “liberal” governments. Even if who holds parliamentary power has many practical consequences for our lives, it is important that we recognize and attack these tendencies.
We therefore focus on those, like Kaefer, who profit from warlike politics and enrich themselves through militarism and racist oppression. We have the greatest possible empathy for the pain of people who have to live under constant war. And we are always on the side of those who fight for freedom. Everywhere, beyond state, nation and religion.
Against war, fascism and the destruction of the earth, for social revolution!
Our thoughts are with the grieving, injured and fugitive companions in Greece. We send you love and strength!
Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and all those who resist the destruction!
Switch off the system of destruction – Switch off KAEFER!
Comments Off on About Violence: A Communiqué on the Block NATO Demonstration*
Nov252024
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
*This release is based on the journal Block NATO, organised by CLAC and D4P, but it is independent. We will explain here the reasoning behind our actions of the evening of Friday, November 22nd, because we know why we do these things and we believe very strongly in what we do.
Let’s put things first in context : Friday marked the start of NATO’s parliamentary assembly in Montreal. NATO represents the military apparatus of the global north, it’s the biggest military alliance in history. While our governments are already making the life of the excluded and exploited a death circus, NATO pressures Canada to invest 50% more of its GDP into the military. That represents 55 billion dollars. NATO is a major decision-making body that embodies militarist and imperialist interests. It’s also an accomplice in the genocide happening in Palestine.
NATO includes the richest countries in the world, namely Canada, Germany, the United States, France, Italy and the UK, but it also conspires with non-member allies such as Japan and the Zionist entity (Israel). It protects the capitalist interests of the global north, with the United States as a semi-formal secretary. NATO organises the threat and capacity to act in devastating ways to counter any initiative of liberation of the global south. Its interests are imperialist: the States formed and governed by capital aspire to extend their power by exploiting external territories where they steal resources, destroy nature and enslave people through political, economic and/or military domination. It normalises the horror of its crimes against humanity by camouflaging them as humanitarian missions and by splitting the political costs between different countries, maintaining their democratic bases in ignorance or illusion.
The military interventions supported by NATO protect governments aligned with American interests and crush any alternative, keeping the global south under capitalist constraints. NATO’s alliance with the zionist entity is ideologically coherent, as a colonial enterprise, but Israel also provides technologies of control and weapons that NATO states use throughout the world, in their imperialist missions and on their own populations.
And oh by the way, no we don’t support Russia or prefer it to NATO, people typically think NATO is about defending against Russia, but we don’t even care, every fucking colonizer of this world has to be taken down, we hate this capitalist system and its extensions from the bottom of our heart.
The problem we’re fighting here isn’t specifically NATO’s assembly, nor the actions of the CDPQ (which requires every public employee to fund the Palestinian genocide), but they are symptoms of that problem. What the problem really is, is the dominant system which causes all these horrors : capitalism. There is no more time for calm and asking nicely. Resistance is legitimate, the State and the police can no longer have a monopoly on violence – if it’s the only language they’ll hear. We want the illusion to stop and we want to draw light, in the streets and in the media, to the horrors deployed right under our noses. We attack capital, materialised most densely downtown, to oppose symbolically and materially the most odious crimes committed for capitalism:
The windows of the Palais des Congrès, where the NATO summit is happening
A car set on fire
Riot police covered in paint
Businesses’ windows smashed
Our acts are charged with rage born from the horrors we witness and denounce here, but also from our own grief: between climate collapse and housing crisis, inflation and shit jobs, health and education systems in ruins, xenophobia, transphobia, covid and depression, profiling and repression, the rise of fascism, etc. All of which answer to the same system. We have had enough and we are horrified, so we gather and we show our refusal. Our actions have had a symbolic and material impact: they have imposed costs financially, have disrupted and disturbed, have propagated our ideals and made visible this very legitimate and necessary struggle.
Before anything was even attacked, the police charged, pepper-sprayed and hit us. In our fight, we have seen the complicit posture of our governments : police violence is an obvious manifestation of it. To repress our actions, the police, the state’s guard dogs, have used weapons and tactics developed by the zionist entity and other NATO investments. The police have again and always defended the interests of the rich and the State: pepper-spraying, beating, breaking ribs, gassing, poisoning. It tries to choke hopes of freedom for human lives and nature, currently massacred, but we are still standing. We denounce the arrests and many injuries (cracked skull, broken arm, projectiles in the eyes, etc.), but we are still standing. The Fall was warm and winter will burn hotter, because the struggle is all we have left, because we need to do everything we can, because we love our revolutions deeply, because we love our comrades and what we know we can do together.
The media will focus on our violence, they will manipulate our messages, our messages confronting the atrocities perpetrated by Israel and NATO – responsible for millions of deaths. So it is crucial to say again that it is the brutality of the oppressive structures governing us that we fight, that the worst violence is the State’s and that that violence is a direct consequence of capitalism.
[I am writing as an insurrectionary anarchist in the u$a and speaking to that context]
Unity Of Fields is a counter-info project that emerged in August of 2024. They describe their project as “a militant propaganda front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of imperialism.” It used to be Palestine Action US and has since changed its orientation. It has a website and some social media accounts, some of which have are banned at the time of this writing, they seem to be most popular on Telegram. Although it links to mostly anarchist sources for technical knowledge, Unity Of Fields does not seem to be an anarchist project and their political reading and media suggestions are all over the map. They suggest classic decolonial texts by Fanon and Cesaire, Black liberation writings from the BLA and BPP, texts from various Palestinian resistance factions, as well as authoritarian communists like Lenin and Mao among others.
Mostly their website is a clearing house for news, action analysis, and communiques. Many of the communiques posted are original submissions though they also repost from other counter-info projects and from social media. They also post some of their own original writings to their website. The fact that they post sketchy criminal stuff and link to technical advice on how to better carry out insurrectionary forms of struggle is probably a large part of why they are discussed in anarchist circles at all.
What does the emergence of a project like Unity Of Fields mean for us as anarchists? For one thing Unity Of Fields expands some spaces we occupy as anarchists — the combative struggle space and the digital counter-info space. We are clearly not the only ones re-coloring walls, opening windows, and carrying out our little sabotages and then writing about it, though at least for now others seem to look to our collective knowledge and experience for technical guidance. We are sharing a struggle space, one which is not limited to riotous moments and combative demonstrations, with other rebels who have made themselves visible to us. We are being included (at least some of the time) in a dialogue with other rebels through the sharing of our words and news of our actions, and anarchists have shared writings from Unity Of Fields on our own websites.
Local struggles against zionism, imperialism, and colonialism are visibly taking on more destructive, decentralized, anonymous, and autonomous approaches, a long-term dream of insurrectionary anarchists, yet new questions arise for us. How do we want to contend with other rebels with whom we have ideological differences and tactical similarities? How do we avoid getting lost in the vanguardist, unifying, nationalist tendencies that often accompany revolutionary leftist approaches to combative struggle? Are we interested in conspiring with these others outside the spontaneity of spiky demonstrations, occupations (and potentially riots), and if so how?
As anarchists we both seek to expand and connect anarchic forms of struggle yet also hold a healthy skepticism of unity with people who don’t hold anti-authoritarian views of freedom. Our history includes many betrayals by the left and progressives, from peace policing at demonstrations to executions and imprisonment from newly established revolutionary governments. The question of who to coalesce with and why is not an easy one, and one that is best addressed on a case by case basis. The appearance of Unity Of Fields potentially facilitates the dialogues and understanding that can help us better decide if and how we want to team up. As anarchists can often find ourselves isolated from others who we may have some political parallels with, the opening up of a “militant propaganda front” is a bridge to dialogue and learn across. This is not a call to join forces with anyone on the basis of being anti-zionist or anti-amerikkkan, it’s simply a reminder to always be analyzing the changing terrain around us and to think critically as we carry forward our struggles.
“Towards The Last Intifada” and “Towards Another Uprising” seem to be the beginnings of a dialogue among anarchists that address some of these questions. I look forward to more.
Many if not most of the actions posted to Unity Of Fields are accompanied by some visual media, usually photos, sometimes videos. I want rebels to consider some pitfalls of spectacularizing our struggles. Every photo or video is another crumb for the state to eat up as part of their investigations. Digital media can offer up metadata about where and when and what kind of device it was recorded on if not properly removed. Footage that shows rebels gives the state valuable information, such as number of participants, approximate time of day, whether any passersby were present, as well as biometric data even when a person is masked. Height, skin tone, gait, approximate weight, and other information can be determined from even grainy footage.
Additionally there are the downsides of understanding our struggles in a quantitative way. This approach may blunt the qualitative changes that participating in struggle can bring us individually and collectively. Of course propaganda is useful, the seductive appeal of revolt is made easier with imagery, and these things must be weighted out, no struggle will be pure. I want to remind us that though this is the path that is being worn into the ground, it is not the only one, and should we choose it let us choose it intentionally.
Earlier this week a group of people sabotaged Gastops’ factory in Ottawa, the only place in the world where engine sensors are produced for Lockheed’s F-35 combat jets — including the ones dropping 2,000 pound bombs on Gaza. We cut the wiring inside all of the heat pumps on the Gastops roof, locked them out with official Ministry of Health and Safety lock-out tags, shut off the gas, broke the handles for their systems, and cut the lines to their backup communication system on the way out.
The following letter and photos were left on site:
It’s worth noting that we disabled their heat pumps as it begins to get cold here in Ottawa and as displaced people in Gaza and Lebanon plead with us to help them secure shelter, blankets, clothing, as they freeze in displacement camps. Earlier this month an Ottawa neighbour lost her uncle while he returned to his home in Gaza attempting to bring back blankets for the children so they would not freeze to death. He was murdered by air strike while doing so, likely by an F-35 that Gastops supplies parts to.
People growing tired of politicians continuing to support the slaughter of civilians in Palestine and Lebanon will continue to escalate actions seeking peace and an end to these war crimes.
As of August 2024, construction work has started on the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline. The project is owned by Western LNG and the Nisgaa Nation, the latter which has allowed for construction to start on their land first, the rural Nass river valley that sits adjacent to the Pacific ocean. State and industry are committed to developing an “energy corridor” through the remote region. The nearly completed and fiercely contested Coastal Gas Link pipeline was the first pipeline in the southern energy corridor, and PRGT is the first pipeline projected for the northern energy corridor. The line is set to end at Ksi Lisims LNG terminal (Nisgaa owned as well) where liquid and natural gas would be stored and prepared for export to international markets by tankers. LNG is being sold as a green alternative for those looking to shift away from coal. But the green transition is a lie. We know that energy, and its current reorganization, is inseparable from domination, capitalist exploitation and the extractivist logic that devastates the land. We propose attack.
Social tension is rising against PRGT. Multiple sites of resistance have been brewing across North-Central BC. In 2016, during the first attempts at construction, the Madii Lii camp was set up to blockade access to the pipeline right of way in the Suskwa valley in Gitxan territory. The camp remains to this day. Northwest of there, another Gitxsan blockade has been set up on the Cranberry Connector, the northern of the two roads into the Nass valley. Gitxsan people have a long history of defending their land, notably some anti-logging struggles in the 80-90’s, and expressing their solidarity with their Wet’swuwet’en neighbors by blockading railways. We stand in solidarity with native resistance, which will likely snowball into more blockades in key areas of the project. Conjointly, as anarchists we have our own projects of destruction. Autonomous attacks allow us to expand the methods of struggle, to engage in conflict at our own pace, how and where we sit fit, and to not compromise our visions and values. We propose an offensive struggle of diffuse blows carried out by affinity groups in dispersed formation, as others have said, to act without forming compact columns, without building permanent indefensible encampments. Instead, we seek to extend diffuse hostilities over a large terrain.
An autonomous struggle against the PRGT pipeline project begins by looking at the tool and capacities we currently have, identifying what we need to learn and acting from that without delay. The project spans thousands of kilometers, the offices, homes and interests of the companies behind it are spread throughout Canada and beyond. An expansive practice of attack can identify and target these diverse sites. Below are lists of companies involved in the project as well as links to a map of the project’s right of way. More work should be done to identify additional companies involved and the findings should be shared via counter info sites.
Companies involved in PRGT project
Ledcor – Is a construction company operating primarily in Canada and United States. Ledcor operates in a wide range of industries, including the construction of buildings and civil infrastructure, technical services such as communication networks, forestry, mining, property development and management, transportation, marine operations, and several energy projects, including oil, gas, and Liquefied Natural Gas. Ledcor is leading the current phase of infrastructure upgrades necessary to begin pipeline construction. Ledcor is currently upgrading or maintaining roads, bridges, man camp sites etc.
Bechtel– Is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company. Bechtel is managing the construction of the PRGT pipeline.
McElhanney – provides surveying, engineering, GIS & remote sensing, community & transportation planning, landscape architecture, environmental services, and more. McElhanney has been and continues to be responsible for surveying and monitoring of environment for the PRGT project. They have over 30+ locations across Western Canada. A McElhanney office near the PRGT project was the target of an anonymous arson in late September: https://bccounterinfo.org/2024/10/12/arson-attack-in-terrace-bc/
