Anticapitalism and Work

Fire to Kaefer! Let’s Sabotage the Armaments Industry (Germany)

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Nov 292024

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!

About Violence: A Communiqué on the Block NATO Demonstration*

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Nov 252024

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.

LOVE AND RAGE.

-THE BLACK BLOC

Reportback on the Disruption of Fierté Montréal’s Corporate Parade

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Aug 172024

From the F.A.G.S.

On Sunday, the F.A.G.S. and its queer and trans accomplices disrupted Fierté Montréal’s corporate, Zionist, colonialist pride parade.

We gathered at 1pm in drag bloc outfits and makeup in the spectator zone at Place Ville Marie. Nearly a dozen cops with SIS armbands mobilized to surveil our gathering, as clearly a group of queers at pride protecting each other from COVID is cause for suspicion. At around 1:30pm, towards the beginning of the parade, we took to the street as Helem, Mubaadarat, and Independent Jewish Voices’ Queer for Palestine float passed by. By marching behind their float as part of the parade for a short while, we managed to sooth the fears of the anxious piggies.

After briefly marching, we stood in place and deployed an extra-long banner to begin dispersing and disrupting the parade and deliver a speech on Fierté Montréal’s corporate pinkwashing. After this, we communicated with the members of the AGIR float behind us, allowing them and several other community floats pass and continue parading, before blocking the Bubly sparkling water float.

We continued marching and zig-zagging backwards through the parade, largely evading police intervention and briefly blocking various floats tied to Zionist corporate interests. Floats and contingents in solidarity cheered us on and raised their fists as we passed. A small contingent carrying Zionist flags approached. We attempted to block them by rapidly deploying a second extra-long banner, but police brutally pushed us to the side of the road and stole our banner.

As cop presence began to escalate, we decided to switch directions and march back towards the front of the parade, following and protesting the Zionist contingent. After halting the parade several times on our way back towards the front, we stopped at Jeanne-Mance and René Levesque. Here, we blocked the entire back portion of the parade, where almost all complicit floats were located.

During this time, police, Zionists, private security and Fierté marshals attacked and insulted us while bystanders cheered us on and chanted with us. Autonomous members of the Helem, Mubaadarat, and IJV contingent came back to join us after their successful and poignant die-in disruption. Other members of the community responded to our public call for support. Our numbers were boosted to around 150 demonstrators.

As pigs multiplied and donned their riot gear, as prisoner transport vehicles arrived, as Fierté begged us to allow their corporate parade to continue, as Zionists threw projectiles at us, as the hot August sun beat down on us, we stood our ground.

As cops shoved us, pulled us, hit us with batons, tried to steal our materials, threatened us, and brutalized us in front of a crowd of our fellow queers, we remained steadfast and defiant.

We blocked the parade at Jeanne Mance for nearly an hour before police and class traitor Fierté marshals worked together to redirect the parade to the other side of the median.

After the parade went by on the other side of the road, we marched down René Levesque chanting slogans against pinkwashing and police. The vast majority of bystanders cheered us on, while certain bystanders shouted racist vitriol at us, showing their true colours as Zionist, capitalist, colonialist white cis men. We eventually dispersed into the Metro. No arrests were made.

Though we didn’t manage to cancel the parade outright, we consider this action successful.

We blocked corporate floats long enough that many of their potential spectators further along the parade route left out of boredom. We showed queer bystanders and the media that police are not afraid to brutalize queers during a pride parade. We reminded the world that pride started as a riot against the police, not as a parade sponsored by corporate interests. We showed that as queers of conscience in Tio’tià:ke, like in Tkaronto, the Coast Salish territories colonially known as Vancouver, and elsewhere across Turtle Island and around the world, we will not accept a genocide in our names.

Fuck pinkwashing
Fuck Fierté Montréal
Fuck the police
No justice
No peace

Photo: @the_purple_line

War on Landlords

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Aug 132024

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Those who make a profit off misery deserve nothing less than an open war.

War on landlords, power to tenants.

Seen in Sillery (Quebec City).

Union Action at the Head Office of Renaud-Bray

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Jun 292024

Soumission anonyme à MTL Contre-info

La famille Renaud sont des trous de cul notoires de père en fils. Il sont les ennemis de la classe ouvrière et le seront toujours.

Leurs positions et propos anti-syndicaux briment les droits fondamentaux de nous, travailleurs et travailleuses, depuis trop longtemps.

Les affiches, c’est comme un syndicat : « C’est fâchant, parce qu’une fois que c’est arrivé, c’est bien difficile de s’en séparer. »

Maintenant, allez-vous commenter, ou ça aussi, c’est des affaires internes?

Un affront à l’un-e est toujours l’affaire de tou-tes. La classe ouvrière ne vous oubliera pas!

Northvolt: the poison-tree will fall

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May 152024

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Let the axe
Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall

On Sunday, May 5th, five incendiary devices were placed at the Northvolt construction site in Quebec. This action was taken to damage machinery and reduce the project’s ability to continue. Unfortunately, these devices failed to ignite. If there is one takeaway to share, when choosing materials consider how weather (high humidity or rain) might decrease the chances of a device igniting. The longer the timer, the longer the device will be exposed to environmental factors thereby decreasing the window of success.

Why choosing to attack and damage property? While Northvolt, a transnational corporation, sells themselves as the leader of the green transition, they are in fact its headstone. The electric vehicles the company plans to provide with their batteries are a false solution to the environmental destruction caused by industrial society; rather this expension of the automotive industry is only allowing the devastating impact of car infrastructure to continue. With this project, Canada’s insatiable appetite for natural resources will only grow. Lithium mining, which is essential in the process of producing Northvolt’s “green” Lithium Ion batteries, is poisoning human communities and entire ecosystems across the land. Lithium is already being extracted from unceded Indigenous territories here in “Quebec”, with many new mines planning to start operating in the next few years. With this kind of mega project, lakes, forests and wetlands will disappear under new roads and pit mines. First Nations will loose access to their traditional territories and with that loss, the ability to practice and sustain their ancestral ways of living and relating to the land. They will be surveilled and harassed by workers and security. The animals of these territories will die or will have to migrate elsewhere as their homes are destroyed.

Has anyone else noticed how quiet the land around Northvolt has become since they chopped down the trees and destroyed the wetlands? It’s eerily silent.

Capitalism and the State are in league, dumping public funds into private corporations that will only worsen the ecological crisis across the globe. This is why we must act, and more often than not, we must act beyond the laws imposed on these lands by governments. The Quebec government has already dropped regulations put in place to protect the environment and looked the other way while Northvolt violates numerous laws and codes. This is because Legault’s government (like any colonial gorvernment), is politically invested in making this project happen. However, the future remains to be written. We still have choices to make. We still can act! We must not be guided by crooked laws, but by the love and care we and others have for the collective health of all beings, the land, the water and the desire for a better world through struggle against colonial structures. Armed with our convictions, let us go into the night and choose to take the necessary risks to fight for a livable future.

Tire Fire for Palestine

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May 022024

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

In the night of the 29th of April anarchists started a tire fire on the train tracks in St-Henri. The action was done to disrupt train traffic momentarily in solidarity with Palestine and the anti-capitalist 1st of May. We hope this action inspires others to disrupt the economy and the flow of capital across the world.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Tenants Raging Against Airbnb

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Apr 252024

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Tenant rage strikes again!

In view of tenants’ day, we decided to answer the call for the creation of collaborative art on Airbnbs, because we’re sick and tired of passing by housing that serves above all to enrich shitty fucking landlords rather than house our neighbors. We will never any longer ignore these new buildings destined only for short-term rentals, while we struggle to put a roof over our heads.

According to the platform, the building we redecorated belongs to the Airbnb host “Carli”, who claims to live in Vancouver and uses the same license number for 24 units. Still, beyond the legal issues, this situation sheds light on the persistent control of a minority over our housing and our (historically) popular neighborhoods, denying tenants their fundamental right to the city.

Fuck Airbnb, fuck landlords, and long live alternative decoration!

New Sabotage Against Northvolt – No Capitalist is Safe

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Mar 082024

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

This week marked the return of migratory birds to the Montérégie region and the start of nesting season for several species. The Northvolt worksite is now racing against the clock to fill in as many wetlands as possible by March 10, before being prevented from doing so by federal regulations protecting migratory birds. While deforestation work has been completed on the Saint-Basile-le-Grand side (8700 trees cut down), similar work is now underway in the eastern part of the land owned by McMasterville. This section contains the last remaining intact woodland, perhaps preserved from felling by the repeated spiking that took place there.

To stop the destruction of natural habitats, activists have targeted the Michaudville group’s Mont-St-Hilaire quarry, which to date has been responsible for filling in over ten hectares of marshland essential to the survival of vulnerable species such as the least bittern, the spiny softshell turtle and the eastern red bat. As a result of land artificialisation and urban sprawl, only 5% of wetlands remain in the watershed today. Not only will this industrial project do nothing to decarbonize our economy (as our ministers claim), it will also be carried out at the expense of local biodiversity. Let’s not forget that the ecological crisis is not just a climate crisis, but also an equally threatening biodiversity crisis. It’s thanks to our relationships with other species that we live, eat and breathe. We are entirely dependent on these ecosystems.

At the beginning of the week, around a hundred studded devices were spread along the road leading to the quarry to target the trucks transporting the earth and gravel used for backfilling. Over the past few weeks, more than a hundred return trips have been made daily, with a truck passing every 3 minutes. Any action that disrupts traffic and obstructs the only access road to the quarry will cause financial losses and affect the profitability of the project. Every hour of work lost is a victory for Northvolt’s opponents.

The Northvolt project will never be green. With the battery industry, the CAQ government is taking advantage of climate change to do business. While the government is currently injecting billions of dollars to save the automotive industry, these investments force us to ensure, for decades to come, the growth of an economic sector just as destructive as the fossil fuel economy. The massive electrification of transport and the car-centric model require the multiplication of mines in the Global South and on First Nations territory. Everywhere, farmland, waterways and the populations that depend on them will be poisoned by toxic waste. Entire forests will be laid waste, mountains torn open. The ecological crisis is insoluble under capitalism: our only way out is through mutual aid, the creation of resilient communities and degrowth.

To the companies that work with Northvolt: no one is safe!

Let’s Attack Northvolt, Always, Everywhere

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Feb 282024

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Anarchists again attacked the capitalist machine of destruction at the Northvolt site. Steel spikes were placed on the various paths used by the machinery. In addition, new nails were put into trees, this time without identifying them, to maximize the potential for destruction on the ecocidal machinery. The people who did the action are not afraid of getting caught. Even if they did, they would ask to be judged by their peers. By the spiny softshell turtles, little bitterns and copper redhorses. By all the species that die because the destruction of the planet is profitable as hell.

Indeed, to maintain capitalist economic growth, it takes bigger and bigger pitiful suburban bungalows and bigger and bigger cars. Meanwhile, we close our eyes and let ourselves be lulled by the nursery rhymes of capitalists who claim that electric cars reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under the hypocritical pretext of environmental protection, the State and its friends of industry are attempting a desperate rescue of the automobile industry. For it to survive after 2035, the time when the feds will ban the sale of gas cars, they are replacing gas cars with electric cars. Governments then manage to reduce the price of electric cars, through direct and indirect subsidies, so that they remain accessible to the middle class. In short, the battery sector is the plundering of green funds by governments to finance economic growth, to allow the automobile industry to survive the climate changes it has caused. The development of the battery sector is so that we continue to live in noisy, unpleasant, dangerous cities, where city centers have been transformed into highways and parking lots. Anarchists want no part of this world, and that’s why they wanted to grind an extra shovelful of sand into its gears.

And we must remember that it is only in the city that the electric car can claim to be green. All around, there are mines, always on indigenous lands, all over the world. It’s the toxic Rouyn-Noranda refinery. It’s the extensions of ports along the St. Lawrence River. From Africa to South America, it’s executions of trade unionists and defenders of nature carried out in the name of Canadian mining companies. By defending nature here, we do not risk death. Using our privileges to defend the most vulnerable means taking action here. This is a problem caused by white people, and it’s about time we took responsibility.

It was a sad time to take action. At the Northvolt site, barely a few trees remain, including those that were identified as having been the target of spiking last time. This shows that direct action works. Indeed, these nails have probably done more for the protection of biodiversity than COP15, and the whole string of other COPs. We clearly see in action the ridiculous compensation mechanisms for biodiversity: on the one hand, mass deforestation, while in 4-5-6 years, or when they have time, they’ll plant a monoculture of black spruce on 20 hectares, an army of small trees in rows that will be cut down – enough to make toilet paper barely strong enough to wipe yourself with — don’t ask why your fingers go right through it. On the one hand, backfilling wetlands, while in 4-5-6 years, or when they have time, they’ll dig a hole in a patch of sand and put two or three fish and algae there, and give themselves a pat on the back. They’ll create a pond somewhere else for the animals that have already been lost. Dead animals in a puddle are a soup at best and can never compensate for a living ecosystem. And that is if there is actually compensation, because it is the first thing that will be cut if profitability is threatened.

The fight against Northvolt has only just begun. There are still 2 years left before the plant enters service. The profit margins will not be extravagant. Security, public relations and crisis management costs are already starting to pile up. Already, the company’s image is seriously damaged, and it’s a safe bet that investors will become disillusioned. There are still 2 years left to fight, and the enemy is vulnerable. We can still enter the property like a sieve: they cannot protect over a square kilometer with some rusty fences and a stationary security guard playing 2048 and sleeping in his car. Subcontractors risk reconsidering their relationships given the dangers involved. We must not let them go. The Northvolt site had been ransacked for the CIL factory, but nature took back its rights. Let’s continue the fight until life returns.

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