Iceland’s recent general election shows that the country’s neoliberal consensus is over. What happens next?

When the Icelandic parliament assembled in fall of 2010, tens of thousands gathered to throw eggs and rotten tomatoes at the politicians. The MPs were participating in a traditional march between the cathedral and the parliament building that marks the beginning of each legislative setting. Protesters repeated their performance exactly a year later, now with an even larger crowd.

These events marked the midpoint of Iceland’s anti-neoliberal rebellion, which had started in the fall of 2008 at the time of the financial collapse. The mass actions represented a definitive break with the neoliberal consensus the country had sustained since 1984.

Any government will now have to understand — and then accept — this popular revolt if it wants to credibly hold power. Old alliances and structures have collapsed, and new ones must be built.

This October’s elections reflected the changed political atmosphere. On the one hand, the results were inconclusive, failing to produce a clear majority that could form a government. On the other hand, they decisively showed the fate of the sitting government, made up of the centrist Progressive Party (FSF) and the right-wing Independence Party (XD). In 2013, they had received a clear majority of votes — each winning nineteen parliamentary seats out of a total of sixty-three — despite their direct responsibility for a number of bank collapses in 2008.

Between 1991 and 2008, XD enacted a unrelenting series of ultra-neoliberal and right-wing policies that led to the financial crisis. The basis for this neoliberal turn, however, was laid in the eighties, when an earlier Progressive-Independence coalition government held power.

How these parties returned to power in 2013 can only be explained by the events between the financial crisis and that election. Their fate in this October’s election gives us a sense of what might come next.

A Disgraced Left

When the Icelandic banks collapsed on October 6, 2008, a powerful mass movement appeared out of nowhere. By late November, it had become a grave threat to the government.

The movement was organized on several levels and had several centers of operations, which were mostly uncoordinated. All of them coalesced, however, in weekly meetings in the center of Reykjavík. On December 1, protesters convened a meeting at Arnarhóll, after which the more radical wing attacked and occupied the Central Bank of Iceland. A full-scale uprising — which many expected — did not materialize.

The movement, however, successfully removed the sitting government and forced a new general election in April 2009. The Social Democratic Alliance (XS, which had also been in the government at the time of the collapse) and the socialist Left-Greens (VG) formed a government.

They inherited de facto IMF rule, which had been imposed right after the collapse. But the government did not need the IMF’s help in becoming extremely unpopular, extremely quickly.

It embarked on a very dubious mission to enter the European Union against the population’s wishes. To do so, it would have to agree to pay all the debts incurred during the Landsbankinn’s Icesave operation.

Before the crash, the bank had launched online operations in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to allow foreign investors to take advantage of Iceland’s higher interest rates. Money poured into the Icesave accounts, but the collapse wiped it all out. The British and Dutch governments demanded that Iceland reimburse these customers before it could enter the European Union, and the government agreed to the deal.

Icelanders rightly understood that their government had chosen to take on odious debts. A strong movement against this agreement gathered steam, and it was supported by a sector of the Left-Greens in parliament. They were joined by the Movement (the Hreyfingin), a party formed out of the 2008 protests that had received some 7 percent of the vote and won four parliamentary seats.

The two parties successfully demanded a referendum on the plan, which was overwhelmingly rejected in 2010. A second proposal was rejected with a smaller majority in 2011.

The Icesave maneuver cost the government all its credibility. It floundered through the last two years of its term without trying to restore legitimacy.

In spring 2013, the final nail was put in the coffin: an international court ruled the Icesave agreement illegal and declared the Icelandic government under no obligation to repay the British and Dutch citizens who lost money.

This decision not only electorally decimated the left parties, but took the Independence Party with it. The Progressive Party — which had opposed the Icesave agreement — could portray itself as the redeemer of the protesting masses. It received one of the highest vote counts in its history.

Neither of the discredited parties had any chance of entering government. XD meekly accepted FSF leadership and appeared to take the backseat in a government supposedly in tune with the people’s rebellious spirit.

However, it took very little time for this government to become just as unpopular as the last one. Its scheming, wheeling, and dealing to benefit the Icelandic elite was far too transparent.

The Panama Papers finally blew it out of power. The revelation that the prime minister held off-shore, tax-free accounts contradicted his persona as the representative of the protesting masses. On April 4, thirty thousand people rallied to demand his resignation and new general elections. Both demands were met.

Both post-crisis governments fell apart because they could not create a new social consensus to replace the neoliberal contract shattered by the bank collapses.

Representing Rebellion

The neoliberal consensus began in 1984, as certain discourses — like class conflict, solidarity, or the notion the state was responsible for the well-being of its citizens — were suppressed. By 1990, the Contract of National Reconciliation — an agreement signed by government and labor to ensure economic stability — completed this task.

In Iceland, as elsewhere, parties that were built on the idea of opposing capital with working-class interests also supported the pact. By 2007, the the Social Democrats had entered an extremely right-wing government and watched the crisis unfold.

The neoliberal consensus was sustained by widespread prosperity. But when the economy fell apart in 2008, it left the social peace in tatters. The ban on discussions of class and exploitation evaporated.

Thus, the real issue in the recent elections became who could carry the torch of popular rebellion. In 2013, the Progressive Party was temporarily able to present itself as the party of the social movement. When it failed, the Pirate Party stepped in.

After the Progressive-Independence government fell out of favor in early 2015 — primarily by refusing to fulfill its promised referendum on European Union membership — the Pirate Party benefited. It approached 30 percent support between February 2015 and April 2016. The Greens whittled away some of the Pirate Party’s base, but it stayed around 20 percent in the polls. In the end, the Pirates received only about 15 percent, and the Greens around 16 percent.

The Pirates’ rise in the polls can be attributed, to a large degree, to protest votes; the traditional left and right had lost all credibility, and this upstart party seemed like the only option.

But eight years of protests were also a decisive factor. The size of this movement cannot be overstated: Between 2008 and 2011, the police counted over 1,300 protest meetings of various sizes and shapes — close to one every day. The Pirates appeared as a direct, organized, and electoral representation of these protests, presaging a renewed social contract based on the enormous political activity after the collapse.

An attempt to realize this new consensus materialized two weeks before the election. The Pirates invited three other parties — the Social Democrats, the Greens, and another new party called Bright Future — to create an electoral bloc. Voters would know that if they voted for any of these parties, they would form a government.

The media, controlled by moneyed interests, immediately branded this as an attempt to create another government like the disastrous leftist coalition elected in 2009. Many, especially the corporate-controlled media, viewed the Pirates’ suggestion as a desperate, misguided move on the political chessboard.

A Far Too Successful Party

By October 2016, the establishment was out of tricks. The bloc proposed by the Pirates received 43 percent of the vote, not quite a majority. Its loss is, to some extent, beside the point. In fact, we might even see it as a preferable result; had it received a mandate, the media would have immediately labelled it the new left government and started predicting the economic ruin it would bring. The resulting impasse is far more revealing, uncovering the old system’s complete impotence.

The Independence Party, which earned 29 percent of the vote, now stands alone, naked in its class arrogance. With such a large vote share, it cannot hide behind another party as it wages a class war on behalf of the 1 percent.

The party built on the idea of class struggle — the Social Democrat Alliance —forgot everything about its foundations during the neoliberal consensus. It received around 30 percent of the vote in 2006. Ten years later, it got only 5.7 percent. Throughout Europe, social-democratic parties served as essential props to capital’s power. The Social Democrats’ collapse in Iceland shows the power of the country’s anti-neoliberal revolt.

Meanwhile, a proliferation of new parties are attempting to capture the street movement’s momentum with little success. The Pirate Party hasn’t been able to present a solid social or economic analysis. Instead, it relies on a visceral opposition to the elite, which, on its own, does not equip it to govern. The party’s main plank — a basic income guarantee — reveals a neoliberal influence, as Milton Friedman originally proposed the idea in opposition to generalized social security.

From this perspective, the street rebellion has only created a vaguely anti-establishment party with an equally vague reformist agenda, shot through with half-baked neoliberal ideas.

Two other such parties in parliament — Resurrection and Bright Future — are hollow replicas of the people’s voice, without much conviction or moral power. They are are even more consciously neoliberal than the Pirates, calling for a sanitized neoliberalism that is of course impossible.

That said, their dealings with XD since the election show how far the anti-neoliberal movement has gone. In coalition discussions, these upstart parties tried to force the Independence Party to agree to a major reorganization of the fishery quota system, still a central element in the Icelandic economy. XD’s refusal exposed it as a party for the elite. They also tried (and also failed) to call a vote on European Union membership. These demands — and the parties’ willingness to leave the coalition as a result — highlights how differently political lines are drawn today.

Already it is clear that the Independence Party is unlikely to remain in government. Its only hope is that the Left-Greens — the second largest party in parliament — will turn to it after failing to to establish a center-left government. XD has repeatedly, but so far unsuccessfully, tried to woo the Greens into some kind of all-national government. That the right-wing party’s best partner is now the most left-wing party epitomizes how strange Icelandic politics have become.

The proposed left-wing alliance between the Left-Greens, Bright Future, Resurrection, the Pirate Party, and what’s left of the Social Democratic Alliance doesn’t seem plausible either. But how can three social-democratic parties, one newborn neoliberal party, and one indescribable mess of a party come together to govern?

But they have reached consensus on some major policy changes: strengthening the health and education system and redistributing profits from the fisheries. The question remains whether internal squabbling will prevent this consensus being realized.

Although the previous neoliberal consensus has been decisively shattered, a new one — already present as a mass movement — is struggling to articulate itself as a coherent political project.

Iceland’s circumstances are different enough that this may still come together. Unlike Greece at the time of Syriza’s rise to power, Iceland is not and does not want to join Europe and the eurozone. Further, the broad participation in the anti-neoliberal protests of the past eight years means that nativist or right-wing populist movements have no chance of gaining ground.

These developments have created an atmosphere where five parties on the left and in the middle of the political spectrum could conceivably create an anti-neoliberal alliance despite themselves. At the very least, the neoliberal consensus that existed between 1984 and 2008 has been irrevocably disrupted. A new, reformist hegemony seems likely to take its place in the near future, but it will have to deal with all the pitfalls and dangers of broad coalitions and the burden of governance.

Árni Daníel Júlíusson is a historian in Reykjavík and a member of the board of Attac Iceland.

This article was first published by the Jacobin.

See also Inspired By Iceland… No, really! by Árni Daníel Júlíusson.

By Evi Papada

Occupied London – From the Greek Streets

Mining conflicts are increasingly surfacing globally due to complains over mines and pollution of water, soil and land occupied as well as over transport and waste disposal. The Skouries forest in Halkidiki has been at the center of a hot dispute between the mining company, Hellas Gold, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining giant Eldorado Gold and local communities. The company claims that an ambitious plan for mining of gold and copper in the area- including deforestation and open pit mining with excavation and everyday use of explosives- will benefit the region through the creation of some 5,000 direct and indirect jobs, while local residents argue that the planned investment will cause considerable damage to the environment  and livelihoods, resulting to many more jobs losses in the existing sectors of the local economy (farming, pasture land, fisheries, beekeeping, food processing and tourism).  The residents’ claims are supported by research conducted by various independent scientific institutions including the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Technical Chamber of Macedonia. In addition to legitimacy questions underpinning the transfer of mining rights from the Greek state to the aforementioned company[1],  the Environmental Impact Assessment produced by El Dorado has been found to contain gross methodological discrepancies and whilst the public consultation process could be at best described as cosmetic[2].

Local communities have been mobilizing against the expansion of mining activities long before El Dorado was given the green light to begin works on site. Small scale mining had been taking place almost uninterrupted since the end of Second World War and residents have had first experience of its impact on their livelihoods and the  environment. During the 90’s the Greek government had made several attempts at reviving mining activity in the region but following an appeal by the people the State Council decided that the potential risks of the proposed investment were higher than the potential benefits for the community and the environment and operations came to a halt in 2002 . The case of mining in Halkdiki took a definite political dimension owing to the following events. In December 2003 the mines were transferred to the Greek state through a law ratified by the Greek Parliament for 11 million euros and were sold the same day and for the same price to Mr George Bololas, owner of Hellas Gold S.A for the same  price and  without an open procurement process.  The concessions relieve the company in advance from any tax transfers and from any financial obligation concerning environmental damage resulting from previous operation of the mines. It also stipulates that the mining company has possession of all minerals in the concession granted and there are no royalties for the state.

When it comes to mining conflicts, issues of distribution of resources extracted, recognition of the community’s relationship to natural  resources at stake as well as their meaningful participation in the decision making processes determine the  sense of injustice, or environmental injustice[3].  In political ecology thus, mobilizations can be understood as a response to a series of disruptions in the course of ‘procedural justice’. [4] In the years to come, local village communities set up local committees and met in their homes, organized information seminars  and succeeded in engaging and mobilizing the wider scientific community of Northen Greece in an attempt to collect data and exert pressure against the expansion of mining in the region. A space has been created where communities and individuals live and develop political strategies. The documentary ‘Gold in the time of crisis: the treasure of Cassandra’ released in 2012 is a rare in depth investigation of the resistance movement and offers an eloquent account of everyday resistance in praxis.[5]

Further parliamentary pressure lead to the European Commissions’ decision that the terms of the contract amount to an illegal State aid in favor of he company and ruled that the Greek government should collect 15.3 million Euros, plus interest.  In addition, the EU Court of Justice decide that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) produced by the company failed to meet any of the goals of the Framework Directive 60/2000/EK regarding  community action in water policy and ruled it out as inadequate[6].  From the same Directive follows that mining activity can be sustainable only if it does not alter the character of a region, and developmental if it is carried out in the overall interest of society.  The Greek government has appealed the decision and  the case is still pending.  Despite a court decision and the strong criticism it received, the EIA was finally approved and in March 2012, 4.1 square kilometers of public forest was conceded for the company to begin the implementation of the mining projects.

The way an environmental conflict fleshes out is determined by the language of valuation used by the different actors involved. The impact on the surrounding environment and livelihoods of current and future generations may be evaluated in physical or monetary terms or ‘strong’ versus ‘weak’ sustainability respectively.  For the residents of Halkidiki, collective memory of village life, loss of livelihoods and the future of the coming generations are values that surpass monetary valuations of cost and benefit analysis.  On the other hand, scientific valuations typically exert a cost benefit analysis monetizing environmental externalities using basic economic theory.  Such externalities include social, environmental and policy impacts and data should be selected during the initial stages of the project. In the absence of original data selection, as is the case in the Halkdiki mines, a ‘benefit transfer’ methodology has been used as a ‘second to best’ approach to estimating benefits and costs of projects or policies. A robust Environmental Impact Assessment is deemed essential for such a method to be scientifically sound and it is, regrettably, absent given it has been ruled by the European Commission as not meeting set standards. The concept  of ‘ecological distribution conflicts’ is often used to illustrate the incommensurable values pertained in any such conflict , while dynamics of power regarding the prevailing language of such valuations may bare significant consequences on how the conflict is negotiated in the public domain. According to a study recently conducted by a consortium of Greek universities using the aforementioned methodology, the annual environmental externalities of the mining activity in the area are estimated at 1.3M while the mining project will increase GDP by 40% and national income by 66% and will create 880 indirect and induced jobs. The benefit-cost ration is found to be 3.13 for the Greek economy[7].

A golden opportunity for growth

Regional competition for resources and pressure to curb high unemployment rates are pushing a gradual shift in European attitudes and policies towards mining. In an article published on the Reuters on line edition on July the 4^th2013 titled ‘mining revival offers hope in crisis hit Europe’  an analyst of Raw Materials Group explains that growing resource nationalism in many parts of the world makes Europe more attractive from a political risk point perspective[8]. Canadian investors clearly encountered no resource nationalism  when they knocked on Greece’s door: the concessions mentioned above (full possession/no royalties for the state) were granted based on a law that dates back to the Greek military Junta, and which the current government did not bother to amend.

Since 2009, Greece has been operating under the auspices of financial recovery plan, designed collectively by the IMF, European Central Bank and the European Commission. According to the signed Memorandum, the country has agreed to a multi billion bailout on the condition of implementation of structural adjustment programmes and the attraction of investment is seen the only road to growth and job creation. Given the pressures inherent in any IMF structural adjustment programmes to allow Foreign Direct Investment, it come to no surprise that the Greek government approved the questionable terms of the Environmental Impact Assessment. The paradox however still remains as the terms of the concessions made to the company leave little room for the Greek state to profit out of this investment. The scale of environmental damage and the circumstances under which this project has been licensed bare striking resemblance to many post colonial modernization projects widespread in the developing world.[9]

It is not the first time that the economic crisis is used as a pretext for the sacrifice of the environment and basic rights. So eager was the then Minister of Finance to approve the Environmental Impact Assessment and sign the investment agreement with Hellas Gold (the Greek subsidiary of Canadian based El Dorado) and so determined to follow it through, that practically no one could stand in his way.  Certainly not protesting local residents, who were soon to be accused of forming and participating in a terrorist organization.

The turning point came on Oct. 21 2012 when about 2,500 protesters fought a pitched battle with more than 200 police along the forest road leading to Eldorado’s Skouries gold-and-copper deposit, arresting 14 people. Retribution came on the night of Feb. 16, when about 40 masked men invaded a Skouries work site in the forest, set fire to machinery and vehicles, and doused three security guards with fuel, threatening to burn them alive. Eldorado put the damage of the arson attack at $1-million (U.S.). Two men were arrested and another 18 are under investigation.

Evoking concerns over terrorist activity and threat to social order, police forces imposed a regime of occupation in Ierissos, conducting continuous house searches, interrogations, arrests including 16 DNA samples taken by force and without consent as well as arbitrary detentions, an Orwellian reality that residents of Ierissos and the neighboring areas were forced to experience. A 76 year old was called to testify at the local police station under accusations of ‘use of illegal violence’ during her participation at the June demonstration June 2013 blockade of the road leading to the worksite in Skouries. 35 more local residents are facing identical charges, for protests and blockades in April 2013. To make matters worst,  on October 23, 2013  the National Federation of Editors Union released a statement condemning the surveillance activities of the National Intelligence Service for secretly recording conversations with national and international media regarding the events in Skouries, for the purpose of using them as evidence in court against those accused.

The local mobilization and unprecedented repression that ensued quickly found an international platform for support and solidarity through social and critical media platforms. The ‘battlefield’ ceased to be the central stage for mobilization and resistance welcomed new actors. More hybrid forms of resistance emerged, local, national and global, local protests continued along with international  advocacy, lobbying etc. Consequently, police presence has been gradually withdrawing and the North Star ascended, a by private security firm guarding the site and equipment. On December 16^th, 2013, 150 employees of the aforementioned security firm were fired and came to protest  at the village square of Stratoni as El Dorado Gold decided to change their security provider to ‘Blackwater’, the notorious international private army known to the public through its involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Protesters were carrying a placard writing ‘murderers of nations out of here’.

Corruption and the mainstream media

An open letter addressed to the National Federation of Editor Unions from the Coordinating Committee of affected communities wrote:

“During the last few days…..the residents of our towns and villages have been targeted by a certain part of the Media, which systematically present us as “terrorists”. Not only is televised time split unequally, but we also often see a television “reality” that is manufactured for the needs of the 8pm news. On the pulpit of tele- democracy and the government affiliated news papers, there is no mention of the repetitive violations of our human and constitutional rights, the continuous police surveillance of our personal lives, the violation of our lawyers’ rights, the abductions/citizens’ disappearance for hours at a time, the unbearable pressure to give DNA samples. The rule of law is abolished everyday in our towns and the journalists pretend they see nothing”.(sos.halkidiki fact sheet,2012)

The mainstream media tactic concerning the events and issues surrounding the investment in Skouries has been two fold. First, the vast majority of TV and written press failed to report on the organisation of events and demonstration in area or surrounding cities, which were often attended by tens of thousands, making them the largest demonstation during the histroy of austerity in Greece.

A characteristic example is the newspaper ‘Kathimerini’ reporting of the demonstration of the 9^th of September 2012 and the police repression. In an article under the heading ‘Determination in the face of extremities’, the unknown author argued that the struggle against the expansion of mining activities is equivalent to the action of far right groups, characterizing protesters as’ leftist assault battalions.

Not a single journalistic account had been published or braodcasted on the greviances put forward by residents of nearby villages regarding the illicit activities of the company. Reporting has been scarce if not absent, rendering the importance of the events not news worthy. Second, mainstream media outlets have used the method of selective reporting of events, broadcasting exclusively the opinions of government and company representatives, allowing it to be adopted as the ‘dominant truth’.  A reference by representatives of the Ministry of Environment about a similar mining project of El Dorado S.A in environmentally sound Finland has been continuously reported whereas reports from national and international scientific bodies regarding the devastating effects on the environment are silenced is an illustrative example of the mainstream media serving particular interests. In this way, the ‘dominant truth’ is established as the single means of interpreting events, and succeeds in presenting such an investment activity as devoid of environmental risks, safe and necessary.

The political economy of the Greek media is of great interest and relevance and it has been further scrutinized both nationally and internationally, following Greece’s financial downturn in 2009. A gradual death of mainstream Greek media that positioned critically against the Memorandum singed between Greece and the Troika (IMF, ECB, EU) gave space for the emergence of a ‘memorandum of consensus’. Not only is there greater pressure on journalists to promote austerity measures, but there has also been a massive reduction of voices diversity: 63% of political parties TV air time goes to government, while Troika representatives or journalistic accounts about them account for 57% of TV news (June-December 2013). And another astonishing figure: Greece fell from the 35^th place to the 84 in Press Freedom between 2009-2013 (Smyrnaios, 2013). The attitude and stand of the Greek mainstream mass media points to interwoven relations of corruption[10]. Incidentally the owner of the biggest Media Group, DOL is Mr George Bobolas, the same person who owns Hellas Gold S.A.

Local Community strikes back

The liberal peace project of post dictatorship Greece is broken. It is beyond the scope of this document to analyze the current democratic deficit, however rampant police violence and arbitrary arrests are reported nearly on a daily basis on the few media that survived the angry grip of the establishment. All these, coupled with prohibition of assembly on major streets, marshaling of state employees, neo-nazi ressurgence and corruption at the heart of the very institutions that guarantee democratic and transparent processes are pointers to a fragile post 1974 social and political consensus.  The terms for the new social contract will have to be negotiated again as the country is struggling to cope with the social and financial wreckage of austerity. The events in Skouries are but only one example of how state and media power as technology of power is creating ruptures with the everyday lives of people.

The presence and scale of activities of the mining company constitute a challenge to customary forms of community organizing and local state institutions. Local authority representatives are divided between those who support the project and sign agreements with the company and those who oppose it and join the resistance network. Land disputes and environmental hazards pose a threat to traditional forms of employment (farming, fishing etc) and different forms of popular mobilization against the mining giant as well as the decision or not to opt for employment in the mines are challenging the main constitutes of the village community, traditionally based on family and work relations. Institutional power revealed itself as  ideology, under the mask of growth and the local struggle at safeguarding the environment against the activities of El Dorado transfuses itself with a struggle against an ideology that places the doctrine of ‘growth at whatever cost’ at the center of the new financial liberation dogma for debt ridden Greece.

The tactic of ‘divide and rule’, so carefully put in place by both the government and a large section of the mainstream media has not yield the expected results. The community’s response to the harassment, violations and serious  legal allegations has been dynamic and continues; their everyday mobilization and repoliticization denotes resistance. When the governmental, judicial and Media institutions stand so firmly against a community then autonomous agency reclaims that vacant institutional space and introduce processes that resonate with the local experience and satisfy the needs of that particular community. The different tactics the communities use are flexible, resourceful and able to adapt against the institutionalized forms of control and coercion. On Sunday 19^th of January 2014, in advance of the local election due to take place in May this year,  over 3000 voters from five villages of the Aristotelis Municipality, under the banner of ‘ An initiative of Unity’ organized a secret ballot for the purpose of selecting one out of the three candidates, all active members in the movement against mining in the region, who will represent the anti mining block in the local elections. This is where autonomous agency meets with the liberal paradigm and creates what Oliver Richmond refers to as places of hybridity.[11]In other words, this is an example of a creation of a space for political emancipation.

Original Page: http://blog.occupiedlondon.org/2014/01/30/skouries-a-story-of-political-emancipation/

After being hailed as the world’s radical wunderkind for a few years, Iceland left observers perplexed when the parties evidently responsible for its failed neoliberal experiment were voted back in 2013. Who or what runs this shop, really?

You “want to move outside the herd and be independent” because you are “different from the ‘ordinary’ tourist.” You “have above average education” and you “have above average income,” says the Icelandic Tourist Industry Association’s report from last year, defining their target group, ‘the enlightened tourist.’ And boy, are you targeted.

Since 2010, the local population has been thoroughly informed about the importance of proper social media utilisation. In its 2012 annual report, the national branding bureau known as Promote Iceland states that the general public is being ‘harvested’ for this purpose. That year, Promote Iceland also ‘assisted’ some 600 foreign journalists in organising their visits to the country. Journalists and bloggers coming specifically for events sponsored by Promote Iceland wrote 1,400 articles, including pieces in The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Guardian and so on. Sponsored events included music festivals, food festivals, dance, theatre and design festivals. And a marathon.

Meanwhile, a few Hollywood film productions were funded directly through Iceland’s state budget, using Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller and Ridley Scott and their fine productions for the promotion of Icelandic landscapes. If no such subtle methods of nation-branding get to you, of course some good old advertising is also involved.

Bad breath, meet white teeth

In late 2007, in response to what was locally perceived as an image-crisis, mainly that some foreigners were sceptical about the growth of Icelandic banks, the Prime Ministry formed a committee on the Image of Iceland. A few months later, in April 2008, the committee published its findings in a report. The report’s main proposal was that various institutes dealing with exports, culture and diplomacy, should be put under the control of one bureau to unify broadcast messages. One correspondent quoted in the report explained that we must “walk in unison and speak with one voice.” The report suggested that institute be called Promote Iceland. Then came October, the boom went bust, and mass protests were followed by a change of government—making the need for image-management plain for all to see. As stated in the report, “future orientation must be long-term, and must not change along with changes in government every few years and the nation must agree on it.”

In 2010, the marketers faced a unique challenge, an unforeseen national branding emergency, as Eyjafjallajökull erupted, disrupting the flight schedules of millions. As if stories of crooked bankers, political incompetence and violent riots were not enough, travellers all over now cursed Iceland for its geo-historically bad breath. Thank god work on Promote Iceland was already well under way. The necessary legislation was hastened and before the eruption was over, Parliament passed the Promote Iceland Law (38-2010). This sputnik institute whipped up the social media-based campaign ‘Inspired by Iceland’ and before anyone knew how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, Icelanders appeared on YouTube, dancing to Emiliana Torrini’s “Jungle Drum” in the seemingly eternal sunshine of spotless fun. Post the video, spread the message, officials urged their compatriots: show people everything is alright, invite friends over. And tourism went up. Solid nation-branding, Promote Iceland’s unified message was obviously a winner.

After being hailed as the world’s radical wunderkind for a few years, Iceland left observers perplexed when the parties evidently responsible for its failed neoliberal experiment were voted back in 2013. The right-wing coalition government just published its first annual budget proposals, for 2014. Schools, hospitals, welfare, culture, arts and sciences face the world’s most terrifying euphemism: austerity. One single item in the whole budget, however, is explicitly declared ‘exempt from budget cuts’: Promote Iceland. The law passed through Alþingi without debate in 2010 established an institute funded by taxes, but run by a board majority appointed by the Confederation of Icelandic Employers (CIE). Yes, there is such a thing. And yes, it is what it proclaims to be: the national capitalists’ union. One lobby to rule them all. The confederation negotiates salaries nation-wide. It directly funds research in Bifröst University’s business department. It does all sorts of clever things to secure its members’ interests. And now they have this new central bureau. Obviously, Promote Iceland is not a propaganda ministry. Ministers are elected officials; their policies are debated in public and subject to change. Promote Iceland is something much handier.

The value of our values

Apparently some U.S. schools teach, as fact, that ‘the Vikings’ gave Iceland its name to keep strangers away from the place, using the even more dishonest name ‘Greenland’ as bait to misdirect them towards a glacier. This remains speculative. What is true is that local attitudes towards foreigners have long been selective. In 1936, Iceland chose not to join the League of Nations because the members’ countries condemned Mussolini’s Italy for using chemical weapons against the population of Abyssinia. At the time, Italy imported fish from Iceland. After Iceland’s polite gesture, Mussolini showed his appreciation by signing an import agreement with Iceland in his own hand. Another example of Iceland’s selective foreign policy is the country’s request that the US armed forces would not send any black soldiers to its Keflavík military base. The US agreed until the 1970s when the policy became a scandal in American newspapers. In an early display of intuition for nation-branding, Icelandic officials responded kindly: Send a few so you can call it mixed. The soldiers were then kept under curfew, only allowed to Reykjavík on Wednesdays, during which, idiosyncratically, the selling and consumption of alcohol was forbidden.

Nowadays, the most striking display of Iceland’s implicitly selective foreigners policy is its preference not to grant refugees asylum. The 2009–2010 record of thirteen individual refugees receiving full asylum in two years was set by a left-wing government under heavy scrutiny from activist groups. Otherwise the number is mostly zero. The presence of Roma communities is not debated in Iceland. If any arrive at all, the media declare them a threat before the police swiftly throw them out. And so on. Those excluded are obviously not just any foreigners. They are vulnerable, poor people. You are probably somewhat better off and you are very welcome. As Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð phrased it last September, addressing financiers in London: “We want you and your money in Iceland!”

The original 2008 report on the Image of Iceland showed awareness that socially oriented projects can make useful marketing ploys. The report acknowledged the value of artists: “Positive success stories are considered one of the most successful marketing tools today. […] One option is constructing stories of the success of Icelandic companies and individuals in all fields of enterprise, culture, arts and business. It is necessary to use poets, writers, photographers and sound engineers to deliver these stories convincingly.” It also recognised the value of communal ties, suggesting that “key people from certain market zones should be invited to visit Iceland once a year.” It showed appreciation of the value of education and cultural heritage, proposing special projects like, “The Saga-nation exterminates illiteracy, a global effort to teach reading. Each year the nation provides financial and educational support to teach as many people to read as the number of the nation’s members. […] Thus the heritage of the sagas can be intertwined with the global problem of illiteracy, emphasizing the nation’s high levels of education and enlightenment.” It valued peace: “Iceland – the World Peace Camp: Iceland will be leading in connecting children and youth from all over the world – especially from conflict zones – who will come to Iceland for a week to participate in a peace camp, subsequently becoming peace ambassadors of Iceland.” Oh, and: “Iceland will be the world’s first country to offer all its subjects [!] to invest in businesses in Africa.” And, sadly, cynically, ruthlessly, so on.

This broadcast will not be revolutionised

The long-term challenge faced by Promote Iceland was not Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption but the financial crisis and its aftermath—the ‘kitchenware revolution.’ In 2009, Icelanders voted left. It made good spin material. The recently elected President Obama signified change in people’s mind. Through a sustained effort, Iceland broadcast a clear message about radical change. And so you heard about Iceland’s new crowd-sourced constitution, the prosecution of evil bankers and the president who refused to let the people pay the crazy bankers’ bills. These fine stories are not true, as in what actually happened, because that’s not what they are for. These are convincing success-stories, vital elements of any ambitious nation-branding project.

The truth is that after a grand democratic theatre performance, involving the country’s whole population, the new constitution was, with somewhat less fanfare, simply cancelled. The president made his operatic gestures, swiping away Iceland’s burden of reimbursing German and Dutch savings accounts, while securing his own re-election. Most of the banks’ staggering debts were nonetheless absorbed through the devaluation of Iceland’s currency, leaving wages, pensions and savings worth only half of what they were before. They remain so. Export industries are booming, while wages stay far below the EU average. Every working person who stays in Iceland pays the infamous bankers’ debts. And most stay. Most of them owe their homes to a bank. Most would sell at a loss. Those who could turn a profit cannot bring that profit out of Iceland, due to currency restrictions. Yes, this is somewhat Berlin Wall-ish. Luckily, however, being an island, Iceland needs no such eyesore. Cheap labour makes Iceland an increasingly popular tourist destination, they stay and pay their dues serving foreign visitors—enlightened tourists like you.

“Iceland got back on its feet and is now thriving” because that is what you wanted to hear. If there is anything you like more than a winner, it is a sympathetic, quirky, leftist kind of winner. Promote Iceland’s original 2010 campaign got Icelanders dancing in front of cameras all around the country, to soothe you, show that we’re all right and you will be safe here. The 2011 ‘invite a tourist home’ campaign showed a cosy little place where the minister of finance will give you a foot massage. The most recent effort is the ‘Share Your Iceland Secret’ campaign, encouraging locals to reveal their ‘secret places’ to you, hidden gems of city life or nature, to be crowd-sourced into an accessible app. Meanwhile, one by one, Reykjavík concert venues, parks and such disappear to make way for hotels. The whole post-lapsic process, however, does not feel like Naomi Klein’s shock doctrine tactics. Partly due to IMF’s plan to ease the country in. Partly due to four years of some actual socialist policies. Partly because so far, foreign investors are neither eager to buy the country’s natural resources nor infrastructure. And to a large extent because of Promote Iceland’s unified message, our success-story. Currently, exploitation remains focused on harvesting human resources, utilising people’s spare-time and private lives for the greater good, formerly known as GDP. Polls reveal the locals to be happier now than before 2008. Consuming less alcohol, less sugar and less tobacco, they tend more to what really matters. You.

Live happily ever after!

Summarising this article’s hypothesis runs the risk of caricature but let’s do it anyway: In Iceland, the logic of marketing and branding has been permanently institutionalised to minimalise the damage done by democratic processes, against which it currently has the upper hand. Meaning: Promote Iceland runs this shop. Iceland is a billboard. Some still hope that this is a case of double-bluff: that underneath the presently exposed layer of all-encompassing business logic runs another current, the cunning logic of history, a wisdom revealed through the ballot box.

Such a hypothesis would claim that the current coalition was tricked into power, maneuvered into overbidding the all-too compromising left-wing parties in a blackjack game of socialist promises: we will annul your private debts, PM Sigmundur Davíð promised, because they are unfair. We will fight the evil venture-capitalists and justice will prevail. If the coalition runs out of revolutionary steam or fails to deliver on its socialism, this hypothetical hypothesis would hold; they will be ousted once more. The third option is that the world, including Iceland, is an obscure and chaotic place and there is no underlying logic. And then there is the Prime Minister’s hypothesis. In the opening speech of the current parliamentary session, Sigmundur stated that, so long as the general public works in confident unison towards a shared vision of the future, so long as we do not let ourselves be influenced by ‘extremist ideologues,’ aiming at ‘disintegration and subversion,’ this country can be an exemplar, where “a cohesive and happy people live in safety to the end of their days.” For the sake of brevity, however, this article will make do with one speculative hypothesis at a time.

This simply means that until spring last year, the police literally had a carte blanche regarding whom to spy on and for whatever reasons they chose. Unbeknownst the public, the instructions allowed unrestricted espionage.

“Good things happen slowly,” Björn Bjarnason, Iceland’s former Minister of Justice, wrote on his blog in March of last year when his successor in office, Minister of the Interior Ögmundur Jónasson, called for a press conference to announce that the police would soon be granted proactive investigation powers.

While Ögmundur and other Left Green MPs often criticised Björn for his aggressive efforts to increase police powers during the latter’s six years in office, he is now advocating for increased police powers as part of The State’s crusade against purported organised crime, which is believed to be predominantly manifested in a number of motorcycle gangs, including the Hells Angels.

A bill that he proposed to parliament last month does not contain the infinite investigation powers that the police have openly asked for, but does nevertheless allow them to start investigating people who they believe are planning acts that would fall under the category of organised crime and are punishable by at least four years of imprisonment.

While the case is usually presented as the police’s struggle to gain greater justifiable investigative powers — in which they have supposedly not fully succeeded — the fact is that, from at least July 1999 to May 2011, the police had unrestricted authority to monitor whomever they wanted due to poorly defined regulations.

THE HEADLINE THAT NEVER WAS

“UNRESTRICTED SPYING WAS PERMITTED!” should have appeared as a headline all over the Icelandic media last year. Yet it was strangely absent, despite an official acknowledgement from the Minister of Interior that this was indeed the case that unrestricted spying on Icelandic citizens had been tolerated and allowed. The matter concerned Mark Kennedy, the British police spy whose seven-year long undercover operations were exposed and reported in the international media last year. Disguised as activist ‘Mark Stone,’ he travelled through Europe collecting intelligence about anarchists, environmentalist and animal rights activists. He was for instance stationed in Iceland’s eastern highlands in 2005, where environmentalist network Saving Iceland was protesting the construction of the Kárahnjúkar dams.

In most of the countries where Kennedy operated — short of Ireland and Germany — the authorities have remained silent about the matter. But a newly released report on police units providing intelligence in the UK, carried out by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), clearly outlines the aim of the National Police Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), for which Kennedy worked: “the main objective of the NPOIU has been gathering intelligence” such as “knowledge about the infiltrated protest groups, their aims and links with other groups, their plans and methods, and the people involved in suspected serious crime.”

In other words, using proactive investigations to collect information so as to prevent possible action.

As Minister of Foreign Affairs Össur Skarphéðinsson remarked during a parliamentary discussion about Mark Kennedy last year, the Icelandic police did not have such powers in 2005 and still do not. That should have made any co-operation with the British spy illegal, just as any other proactive spying initiative would have been.

SO MANY MEN SO MANY MINDS

Following Kennedy’s exposé, Ögmundur called for an investigation of the Icelandic police authorities’ possible knowledge or collaboration with the British spy, which resulted in a report conducted by the National Police Commissioner’s National Security Unit (NSU). The report acknowledged that information regarding the protest camp at Kárahnjúkar, its organisers and participants, was passed to the Icelandic authorities. According to the report, this information then lead to a “collaboration with foreign police authorities concerning protest groups abroad and the intended protests under the banner of Saving Iceland.”

“This is the big news,” Ögmundur declared on his blog in May 2011, after the report was published. “Espionage was employed with the Icelandic authorities’ knowledge and will.” He emphasised this point in parliament last March, stating: “The infiltrator [Kennedy] was able to operate at Kárahnjúkar because of very unclear regulations regarding the police’s investigation methods. The legislation was far from strong enough, as well as there were rules in force that never appeared in front of the public.”

The rules he mentioned are instructions by the State Prosecutor from 1999. For some background: according to laws on criminal proceedings, the respective minister — Minister of Justice until 2010, Minister of the Interior since — should pass regulations regarding specific police protocols such as the use of informers and infiltrators. But these regulations did not exist until last May following a request by the National Security Unit. Instead they were substituted by those State Prosecutor’s instructions which, due to their less formal status (compared with laws and regulations) were not published in a conspicuous manner but rather filed away in drawers and cabinets, so to speak.

Although these instructions are hard too find, they still are accessible and, according to the document, their purpose was simply to “prevent criminal activities,” for instance with the use of an informer “who supplies the police with information about criminal activities or people linked with criminal activities.” Most notably, the document’s eleven pages are free of a single definition of what criminal activities the instructions concern, unlike the regulations created last spring, which are confined to “well-founded suspicion” of acts or plans of acts that are punishable by at least eight years of imprisonment.

This simply means that until spring last year, the police literally had a carte blanche regarding whom to spy on and for whatever reasons they chose. Unbeknownst the public, the instructions allowed unrestricted espionage. These powers are now partly lost due to Mark Kennedy’s exposé and the following the NSU investigation.

THE PERMISSIONS TO COME

While admitting that he had not even seen the bill submitted by Ögmundur last month, Snorri Magnússon, Chairperson of the Police Federation of Iceland, still maintained to newspaper Fréttablaðið that the proposed permissions were too limited. Snorri explained that the police want permissions similar to what their colleagues in Scandinavia work with which allow them, as he noted, to “lawfully monitor certain groups in society though they are not necessarily about to commit crimes today or tomorrow, and collect intelligence on them, which then might lead to official cases.”

This is not included in Ögmundur’s bill, which states that in order to justify the use of proactive investigation powers, the police has to know or suspect the planning of a violation of penal code article 175a, punishable with at least four years of imprisonment. Its execution has to be an operation of an “organised crime association” defined as a “companionship of three or more persons with the main objective to systematically commit criminal acts, directly or indirectly for profit.”

The bill has only been briefly debated in parliament and has yet to go through second and third discussion before undergoing voting. But judging on the discussion in parliament last month, it will receive majority support — only members of The Movement have seriously criticised the proactive investigation powers.

One of them, Margrét Tryggvadóttir, recently pointed out that the police seem to have quite a decent overview of the given crime groups, even claiming to know their exact number of members. Along with recent admissions that for the last couple of years the police has received judicial permissions for wire-tapping in more than 99% of requested instances, this got her to question the real need for increased powers. Author and film-maker Haukur Már Helgason echoed this criticism in a series of blog posts last year, nominating “the brand name Hell’s Angels” as “the biggest favour done to expansion-greedy police force.”

Nonetheless, the police and members of three parties who together make up two thirds of parliament are asking for more. In a parliamentary proposition submitted last year they ask the Minister of the Interior to prepare another bill, this time regarding the aforementioned Scandinavian investigation powers. The proposition is currently in the midst of parliamentary process and though Ögmundur might claim he does not like it, it is questionable if he could actually resist such a majority will. Additionally, recent polls suggest that the right wing conservative Independence Party will gain a majority in the coming 2013 parliamentary elections, in which case it is certain that the police will not have to wait too long for the “good things” to happen.

Despite what has been presented by official police statements and through most media coverage, this would certainly not be an indicative of a new period of increased investigation powers. It would be a step backwards into an already realised future.

These news echo the many warnings made by the opponents of the cluster of five dams at Kárahnjúkar and nearby Eyjabakkar, who repeatedly stated that the project’s alleged profitability was nothing but an illusion, but were systematically silenced by Iceland’s authorities.

Now, as these facts finally become established in the media—this time straight from the horse’s mouth—similarly bad news has arrived regarding another big Icelandic energy company. Reykjavík Energy has failed to make a profit from their 2007 and 2008 investments, effectively making them lose money. At the same time, new research shows that the environmental impacts of the Kárahnjúkar dams are exactly as vast and serious as environmentalists and scientists feared.

And yet, more dams, geothermal power-plants and aluminium smelters are on the drawing table—presented as the only viable way out of the current economic crisis.

Dividend: Close to Zero

During the last half century, Landsvirkjun has paid its owner—the Icelandic nation—only 7,8 billion Icelandic Krónur (66 million USD at present value) as dividend, which according to Hörður Arnarson is way too low and in fact almost equivalent to zero. While it would be fair to expect around eleven percent dividend from the company’s own equity, it has been at an average of two percent since Landsvirkjun was founded. The income from the Kárahnjúkar plant has been about 6 percent of its book value, which again is too low, as according to normal standards the income should be 9 percent of the book value.

At present, Landvirkjun’s total earnings have been 73 million US dollars at most, whereas it should be closer to 180 million USD, considering the owner’s 1,6 billion USD equity. It was made clear by Arnarson that the price of energy purchased by large-scale energy consumers plays a major role herein—a price that obviously has been far below any rational logic and standards.

Same Old, Same Old

In 2003, British newspaper The Guardian published “Power Driven”, Susan De Muth’s exclusive report about the Kárahnjúkar power plant, which at that point was already under construction. Among many critiques made in the article, De Muth questioned Kárahnjúkar’s allegeded profitability. She wrote:

Thorsteinn Siglaugsson, a risk specialist, prepared a recent independent economic report on Karahnjukar for the Icelandic Nature Conservation Association. “Landsvirkjun’s figures do not comprise adequate cost and risk analysis,” he says, “nor realistic contingencies for overruns.” Had the state not guaranteed the loans for the project, Siglaugsson adds, it would never have attracted private finance. “Karahnjukar will never make a profit, and the Icelandic taxpayer may well end up subsidising Alcoa.”

Siglaugsson is just one of many who critically analysed the economics of the Kárahnjúkar project, concluding that its contribution to Iceland’s economy would be about none—or in fact negative. But just as many geologists who cautioned against the risks of locating the dams in a highly geologically seismic area were dismissed by Valgerður Sverrisdóttir, then Minister of Industry, as “politically motivated and not to be listened to”, so were the skeptical economists.

De Muth’s article caused a real stir in Iceland, manifest for instance in the fact that Landsvirkjun and Iceland’s Embassy in London contacted The Guardian in a complaint about “so much space […] used for promoting factual errors and misconceptions of the project and Icelandic society as a whole.” Friðrik Sophusson, Landsvirkjun’s director at that time—who in the article is quoted calling all of Kárahnjúkar’s opponents “romantics”—actually offered The Guardian to send another journalist over to Iceland in order to do “a proper report on issues in Iceland”, this time with his “assistance.” ALCOA also sent a barrage of objections to the Guardian. All the facts presented in the article were double checked by the Guardian’s legal team and confirmed to be accurate.

This volatile response from the authorities and corporates only strengthened the article’s points on the Icelandic tradition of suppressing criticism. This was confirmed in a letter to The Guardian by Icelandic environmentalist and commentator Lára Hanna Einarsdóttir, who suggested that “an Icelandic journalist would have lost [his or her] job if he or she had been so outspoken.”

The Coming Recession

And no wonder, as the article pinpointed serious flaws in the whole rhetoric surrounding the plans to heavily industrialize Iceland, plans that would be nothing without the construction of a series of mega hydro dams and geothermal power plants. Whereas these plans were presented as a path to an increased economical prosperity, De Muth quoted aforementioned economist Siglaugsson, who voiced his fear “that a boom during the construction period, with attendant high interest rates, will be followed by a recession.”

And as time told, this was indeed what happened. In an article published in the early days of Iceland’s current financial crisis, Jaap Krater, ecological economist and spokesperson of Saving Iceland, gave it a thorough explanation:

These mega-projects in a small economy have been compared to a ‘heroin addiction’. Short-term ‘shots’ lead to a long-term collapse. The choice is between a short-term infuse or long-term sustainable economic development. The ‘shot’ of Fjardaal [Alcoa’s aluminium smelter in Iceland, powered by the Kárahnjúkar power plant] overheated the Icelandic economy.

Recognizing the dangers of overheating the economy—a point also made clear in Charles Ferguson’s recent documentary, Inside Job—leaves us with two options. As Krater pointed out:

There has been a lot of critique on the proposed plans to develop Iceland’s unique energy resources. Those in favour of it have generally argued that it is good for the economy. Anyone who gives it a moment of thought can conclude that that is a myth. Supposed economic benefits from new power plants and industrial plants need to be assessed and discussed critically and realistically. Iceland is coming down from a high. Will it have another shot, or go cold turkey?

Another Shot, Please

This spring, Landsvirkjun stated that if the company was to start its operations from scratch the aluminium industry would be its prime costumer. This particular paradox—as the aluminium industry is already its biggest energy purchaser—was just one of Landsvirkjun’s many. Another one is their suggestion that Icelanders should “settle upon” plans to build 14 new power plants in the next 15 years. And the third one is the company’s plans to sell more energy to aluminium companies—costumers who, in Landsvirkjun’s own words, do not pay a fair amount for what they get.

But Arnarson has said that the future looks better, referring for instance to the fact that the price for Kárahnjúkar’s energy is directly connected to world-wide aluminium prices, which Arnarson says are getting higher. Herein is the fourth paradox, as linking energy prices with aluminium prices has so far been disastrous for Iceland’s economy—most recently acknowledged in an official report regarding the profitability of selling energy to heavy industry. According to the report, commissioned by the Ministry of Finance and published last Friday, December 2nd, the total profitability has been an average 5% from 1990 until today, which is far below the profitability of other industries in Iceland, and much lower than the profitability of similar industries in Iceland’s neighbouring countries. The year 1990 is crucial here, as since then, Landsvirkjun’s energy prices to heavy industry have been directly linked to global aluminium prices.

It is worth quoting Jaap Krater again here, where he explains the dangers of interlinking these two prices, and describes how increased aluminium supply will lower the price of aluminium and decrease revenue for Iceland:

One might think that a few hundred thousand tons of aluminium more or less will not impact the global market. The reality is that it is not the sum of production that determines the price but rather the friction between supply and demand. A small amount of difference can have a significant effect in terms of pricing.

High Costs, Low Production

On top of this, recent calculations revealed in newspaper Fréttablaðið, show that Kárahnjúkar is Landsvirkjun’s proportionally most expensive construction. When the production of each of the company’s power plants is compared with the production of Landsvirkjun’s property as a whole, as a proportion of their construction costs, it becomes clear that Kárahnjúkar—with its 2.3 billion USD initial cost—is the most economically unviable plant.

Another Energy Company in Crisis

At the same time that Icelanders face Landsvirkjun’s confession to it’s virtually zero profitability, a damning report on another big energy company, Reykjavík Energy (OR), has been made public. It was originally published at the beginning of this year but wasn’t supposed to enter the public sphere, which it indeed didn’t until in late November. Reykjavík Energy’s biggest shareholder is the city of Reykjavík, meaning the inhabitants of Reykjavík.

As already documented thoroughly, the company—which operates several geothermal power plants, including Hellisheiðarvirkjun, largely built to fuel Century Aluminum’s production—is in pretty deep water. But the newly leaked report proves that it has sunk even deeper than generally considered. The report is a literal condemnation of the company, its board and its highest ranking managers, who get a grade F for their job. A good part of Reykjavík Energy’s investments from 2007 and 2008 are now considered as lost money.

The report also reveals that when energy contracts between OR and Norðurál (Century Aluminum) were made, for the latter’s planned fantasy-of-a-smelter in Helguvík, Reykjavík Energy’s directors completely ignored the very visible economic collapse confronting them.

Recently it has been reported that Reykjavík Energy owes 200 billion Icelandic ISK in foreign currency, which is two thirds of all foreign debts owed by Icelandic companies, whose income is not in foreign currency.

What we see here are two of Iceland’s largest energy companies, both of them public property, both having spent hugely excessive amounts of money—or more precisely, collected gigantic debts—struggling to continue to build power plants in order to feed the highly energy intensive aluminium industry with dirt cheap and allegedly “green” energy. As a result, they have ended up without profit and in a deep pool of debt.

And who is to pay for their gambling risks? As Thorsteinn Siglaugsson stated in 2003: the Icelandic taxpayer.

“No Impacts” Become Huge Impacts

To make bad news even worse, the irreversibly destructive ecological impacts of the Kárahnjúkar dams have, in the last months, become more and more visible. To quote “Power Driven” once again (as simply one of a good number of warnings on the dams’ environmental impacts):

The hydro-project will also divert Jokulsa a Dal at the main dam, hurtling the river through tunnels into the slow-moving Jokulsa i Fljotsdal, which feeds Iceland’s longest lake, Lagarfljot. The calm, silver surface of this tourist attraction will become muddy, turbulent and unnavigable.

This was written in 2003. Today, this is what is happening: because of the river’s glacial turbidity Lagarfljót has changed colour, which according to Guðni Guðbergsson, ichthyologist at the Institute of Freshwater Fisheries (IFF), means that light doesn’t reach as deep into the water as before (see photos aside and below). Photosynthesis, which is the fundamental basis for organic production, decreases due to limited light, its domino effects being the constant reduction of food for the fish. IFF’s researches show that near Egilsstaðir, where visibility in Lagarfljót was 60 cm before the dams were built, it is now only 17 cm. They also show that there are not only less fish in the river, but that the fish are much smaller than before.

In addition to this, residents by Lagarfljót have faced serious land erosion due to the river’s increased water content and strength.

This effect was warned of in an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the project by the Iceland National Planning Agency (INPA), purposely ignored and overruled by Siv Friðleifsdóttir, then Minister of Environment. Landsvirkjun had complained to the Ministry of the Environment, and the EIA ended up on Friðleifsdóttir’s table, who nevertheless issued a permit for the construction, stating that the dams would have no significant impact on Lagarfljót.

In response of the news on Lagarfljót’s current condition, Svandís Svavarsdóttir, Minister of the Environment, said during parliamentary discussion last September, that her Ministry’s over-all administration regarding the Kárahnjúkar decision-process will be examined in detail. She should demand a similar investigation into the decision making of the Ministry of Industry, whose Minister, Valgerður Sverissdóttir has, along with Landsvirkjun’s Friðrik Sophusson, openly admitted while joking on film with the US ambassador in Iceland, how they enjoyed “bending all the rules, just for Alcoa.”

All the Old Dogs

Despite all of this, Iceland’s energy companies, hand in hand with the aluminium industry, some of the biggest labour unions and industry-related associations—not to mention a majority of parliamentarians, including those of government-member social-democratic Samfylkingin—are still in heavy industry mode, campaigning for the construction of more dams, geothermal power plants and aluminium smelters. Ironically, but still deadly serious, smelter projects such as Century Alumium’s Helguvík, which is at a standstill, unable to guarantee both necessary energy and financing, continue to be presented as profitable solutions to the current crisis.

Met with little resistance in parliament, most of these plans are still considered to be on the drawing table, though most of them seem to be on hold when looked at closely. The latter is mostly thanks to grassroots activists, bloggers and commentators who have systematically reminded the public of the reality, while the bulk of journalists seem to be unable to stick to facts—being extraordinarily co-dependent with those in favour of further heavy-industrialization.

Under the banner of “solving the crisis”, “creating jobs”, and most recently “getting the wheels of work to spin again”, the heavy industry-favoured parties seem to simply refuse to listen to hard facts, even their very own. This attitude is probably best summed up in the recent words of Valgerður Sverrisdóttir, responsible as Minister of Industry, for the building of the dams at Kárahnjúkar, who in response to the news about the power plant’s close-to-zero profitability, said that she wouldn’t want to imagine how the current financial situation would be, if the dams hadn’t been built.

It is said that an old dog will not learn new tricks. And to be honest, ‘old dogs’ pretty accurately describes those making decisions on Iceland’s energy and industry affairs. In order to learn from mistakes and prevent even bigger catastrophes, it wouldn’t be unfair to ask for a new generation—would it?
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More photos of Lagarfljót’s turbid condition

These photos are from 2008, which suggests that the current condition is even worse.

Those who are yet to give up on Icelandic media cannot have avoided noticing one Kristján Már Unnarsson, a news director and journalist at TV station Stöð 2. Kristján, who in 2007 received the Icelandic Press Awards for his coverage of “everyday countryside life”, is a peculiar fan of manful and mighty constructions and loves to tell good news to and about all the “good heavy industry guys” that Iceland has to offer.

To be more precise, Kristján has, for at least a decade (and I say “at least” just because my memory and research doesn’t take me further back), gone on a rampage each and every time he gets the chance to tell his audience about the newest of news in Iceland’s heavy industry and energy affairs. He talks about gold-mills when referring to dams built to power aluminium production; and when preparing an evening news item on, say, plans regarding energy and aluminium production, he usually doesn’t see a reason for talking to more than one person – a person who, almost without exception, is in favour of whatever project is being discussed.

After witnessing Kristján’s latest contribution to the ongoing development of heavy industry and large-scale energy production, i.e. his coverage of Alcoa’s recently announced decision not to continue with its plan of building a new aluminium smelter in Húsavík, wherein he managed to blame just anything but Alcoa itself for the company’s decisions, I couldn’t resist asking (and, really, not for the first time): What can really explain this way too obvious one-sidedness, manifest not only in this one journalist’s work but seemingly the majority of news coverage concerning heavy industry?

“Lack of professionalism,” someone might say. Professionalism would thus imply allowing more than one single voice to be heard, letting one argument meet another, allowing conflicts to take place and thereby giving the audience a chance to critically make up its mind. This lack of professionalism actually applies to such a huge quantity of all news material produced. Indeed, the constant recycling of content – of interviews, press-releases, photos etc. – and the manufacture of single-perspective news content often seems to be the mainstream media’s predominant modus operandi.

“Co-dependency,” could be another suggestion. And a good one, as it often seems that the bulk of journalists are seriously co-dependant with the ruling political and economical order. Take, for instance, the mantra of the never-questioned importance of non-stop economic growth, or the commonly heard phrase that during a protest “the police needed to use teargas” – as the decision to spray isn’t fuelled by a precise political will, but rather of a simple need.

These two are good answers, but definitely not good enough when standing on their own. To get the full picture, lets look into the relationship between mainstream journalism on the one hand, and public relations on the other. How, for instance, are the tops of the aluminium and energy companies’ PR departments staffed?

At Reykjavík Energy we have Eiríkur Hjálmarsson, former journalist and program maker at state TV station RÚV, whereas at Landsvirkjun we find one Ragna Sara Jónsdóttir, former journalist at RÚV and newspaper Morgunblaðið. Alcoa prides itself of Erna Indriðadóttir, long-time journalist at RÚV, while Rio Tinto Alcan sports Ólafur Teitur Guðnason, former journalist at RÚV, DV and business paper Viðskiptablaðið (it is worth noting that Ólafur is also known for his aonce-annual books analysing and criticising the mdia, not from the usual Chomsky-alike left-wing but rather a right-wing perspective). At last but not least, the only employee of Samál (or The Icelandic Association of Aluminium Producers), is Þorsteinn Víglundsson who, along with a few jobs in the financial sector, used to write news for Morgunblaðið.

Quite an impressive list, isn’t? And where does it bring us? Possibly to the assumption that the first-mentioned Kristján Már Unnarsson must be doing his entrance examination, or even an on-the-job-training. But that would be a bit too simplistic because practically, Kristján Már might well be preparing for a better paid PR job, whereas theoretically it really doesn’t mater if that is the case or not.

What matters is the ever impenetrable handshake between those two industries: Public Relations and The Media. What, in fact, is one medium’s coverage of a company but a conversation between the two parties? A pre-designed and post-edited conversation, for sure, but a conversation nevertheless. And the conversation element is crucial as a journalist’s co-dependency and lack of professionalism (deliberate or not) are of no use if the Holy Trinity’s most important link is missing. And vice versa: Without beneficial journalists, a PR stunt is likely to end up dead in the water.

The stunt’s key moment, as Spice Girls realised and told us, is “when two become one.”

It is funny how things can turn around. For decades, Iceland languished in neoliberal hell, with signs of opposition few and far between. Meanwhile the opposition to the neoliberal order of things grew all over the world—with massive protests in Seattle, Genoa and elsewhere—and the beginnings of a world-wide anti-globalisation movement represented by the World Social Forum, first held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001. Almost nobody in Iceland did or said anything to support these powerful movements against the neoliberal order, with the exception of the brave Saving Iceland organisation. Even the considerable activism surrounding the anti-imperialist campaigns against American military presence in Iceland seemed to die completely down in around 1990. Neoliberalism reigned, Iceland supported the Iraq invasion in 2003 and nobody said or did anything.

Everything changes

In 2008, everything suddenly changed. The Icelandic banks collapsed, and out of nothing there grew an immensely powerful protest movement, leading to the collapse of the ideological hegemony of neoliberal order in Iceland. It was symbolised by the January events of 2009, when saucepans and pots were taken into use by protesters, who drummed the right wing neoliberal government out of office in the last week of January.

Suddenly everyone and her brother was involved in organising some sort of protest, with many thousands turning up at rallies in the centre of town on a regular basis, and hundreds or thousands of people involved in organising alternatives to the prevailing neoliberal order.

Even the president of the country, who had been one of the cheerleaders of neoliberalism, suddenly turned into an invaluable ally of the protest movement against the financial system, enabling two national referendums on the Icesave issue. Under the leadership of Eva Joly a criminal investigation into the whole neoliberal financial scam of the nineties and noughties was organised, and a very thorough investigation on the causes of the collapse was initiated by the Icelandic parliament. There was even a Constitutional Assembly, which was meant to write a new constitution for the country.

Right wing, left wing: both neoliberals

To be sure, instead of the rightwing neoliberal government a leftwing neoliberal government ascended to power after parliamentary elections in April 2009. That was surely not the intention of the saucepan revolutionary movement, and the situation in Iceland has been tense since. An important part of the original protest movement has been paralysed, as it has seen it as its duty to defend the “left” government against what it sees as attacks organised by the right. So the most radical part of the original saucepan protesters, those who are of the opinion that the “left” government is just another neoliberal government, has found tactical allies among the right wing parties, and this alliance has had some victories, like the rejection of the Icesave treaties.

But the Icelandic protest movement against neoliberalism has been powerful enough to inspire people outside Iceland. Yes, indeed, people abroad have really been inspired by Iceland! This was first evident around the Icesave referendum on March 6, 2010. The international anti-globalisation movement followed it closely, for example the Jubilee movement, the international Attac movement and the Tax Justice Network.

Congratulations rained on Icelandic activists after the Icesave treaty was rejected, the so-called Icesave II treaty, wherein Icelandic taxpayers were supposed to pay large sums of money to the citizens of the Netherlands and the UK because of the collapse of the Icelandic bank Landsbankinn. Icelandic taxpayers refused to take responsibility for the wheelings and dealings of the international financial oligarchs, and this was widely admired by anti-neoliberal activists everywhere.

Rumours

But there was more to come. In 2010, rumours started to circulate on the Internet among activists, especially in those former provinces of the Roman Empire comprising the present day lands of Spain, Portugal and France, that there had been some sort of a quiet revolution in Iceland. This revolution was supposed to have been almost systematically shut out of the world media, in order not to present a possible model for revolution in other countries. These rumours appeared on French and Spanish websites, and at last they acquired some sort of critical mass. In December 2010 and January 2011, Attac Iceland started to receive a lot of questions about the quiet revolution in Iceland from members of Attac France and Attac Spain. Activists even started to visit Iceland to find out about the quiet revolution.

When Attac Iceland was slow to respond—and when it did it would not be ready to agree that there had been any sort of revolution in Iceland—it was pointed out by the international activists that the Icelandic banks had been nationalised, that the government had been forced from power, that the governors of the Central Bank of Iceland had been replaced, that Iceland had shown true grit by the rejection of the Icesave treaty. All of which was true, but Attac Iceland has not interpreted this as a revolution, even if it certainly can be viewed as a very powerful and successful protest movement, one of the most powerful popular responses to the collapse of the neoliberal order, and up until 2011 certainly the most powerful. And quiet it was not, as those activists who have come from Spain, Portugal and France to Iceland to investigate have found out.

Iceland as a model of revolt

Then in December 2010, Tunisia erupted in revolt. Egypt followed, and the world watched in amazement as country after country in the Arab world arose in revolution against the established order of American imperialist rule and the rule of US supported despots. There were certainly some references to the Icelandic revolt in these movements. And in May 2011 Spain erupted, with the M-15 movement and the Indignados movement forming as a powerful protest wave against the neoliberal order. Here the references to the Icelandic movement were numerous and quite visible, with public squares in Palma, Mallorca, renamed after Iceland in honour of the quiet revolution, the Icelandic flag being waved on numerous occasions and Facebook groups organised in honour of the Icelandic movement.

This was certainly a rather dramatic turnaround in the position of Iceland in relation to the neoliberal world order. Suddenly Iceland had turned from a model of the quiet, obedient neoliberal outpost, to become a model of protest movements around the world against this same neoliberalism.

The revolution that nobody wants to talk about

Then in the summer of 2011 the indignados started coming to Iceland themselves, organising TV-crews in order to document the Icelandic revolution. And, indeed, they did not find a quiet revolution: In the words of Portuguese document film maker Miguel Marques, who was here in August and extensively documented the activities of the Icelandic movement, the Icelandic revolution was anything but quiet. Another crew came from Spain and interviewed the Icelandic activists, and in October there will be a Venezuelan crew documenting Icelandic activism for the big South American TV network teleSUR.

So, for the Icelandic activists and anti-neoliberalist, the situation is a bit awkward. When finally Iceland produces something worthy of admiration of the international activist community, the activist groups in Iceland have been reluctant to admit to it being what the foreigners perceive it to be. Why is this? Why is the powerful protest movement in Iceland not lauded or presented in a positive light by the Icelandic activists? This is mostly because of the political situation in Iceland.

On one hand, the media, mostly right wing, the academics, mostly right wing or centre left neoliberals, and others of the talking and writing classes have very limited interest in promoting the Icelandic saucepan revolution. On the other hand many in the protest movement now support a neoliberal “left” government in the vain hope that it will eventually, in the distant future, maybe deliver on something of value, and this supports hinders any positive evaluation of the protest movement after the ascend of the “left” government. The radical parts of the protest movement do not have a positive evaluation of the results of the movement, exactly because the results of the parliamentary elections in April 2009 were that the neoliberal dominance in politics continued. So nobody seems interested in taking credit for the very real and positive results of the Icelandic protest movement 2008–2011.

Originally published in the Reykjavík Grapevine.

The companies behind the co-operating forum include energy companies Landsvirkjun, Reykjavík Energy, HS Orka and its owning company Alterra Power Corporation (former Magma Energy), as well as aluminium companies ALCOA and Norðurál, owned by Century Aluminum. Banks Íslandsbanki, Landsbanki and Arion banki are also all involved, the last-mentioned being the forum’s main sponsor. Amongst other parties involved are the Universities of Reykjavík and the University of Iceland, the Federation of Icelandic Industries (SI) and the Confederation of Icelandic Employees (SA), the ministries of environment, of industry, of trade and of foreign affairs, and Mannvit, Iceland’s biggest engineering firm, responsible for both the design and the making of Environmental Impact Assessments for most of the country’s biggest heavy-industry and large-scale energy projects.

To recap, the newly formed co-operating forum manifests that all major parties with direct links and financial interests in the further heavy-industrialization of Iceland and its parallel destruction of the country’s wilderness, have joined forces. And the aim: To increase the competitiveness of Iceland’s geothermal energy industry and its making of capital goods, facilitate the capitalization of geothermal projects, contribute to technological advances and reinforce Iceland’s image.

A Follow-Up of the Plan to Heavy-Industrialize Iceland

During the forum’s establishing meeting, which took place in the headquarters of Arion bank, a new report, titled “The Icelandic Geothermal Cluster – Mapping and Mobilization”, was published, covering “the analysis and the collaboration-formation of the the Icelandic geothermal cluster.” The term business cluster was originally introduced and popularised by the aforementioned Michael Porter, and is, to quote Porter’s own words, a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions in a particular field. According to the idea, the formation of a cluster creates a certain entity, which is supposed to be much stronger than many individual parties each operating separately.

The report – starting with the words of Henry Ford: “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, working together is success” – lays out what it calls “three big growth opportunities”, as the results of the analysis of Iceland’s geothermal cluster. To nobody’s surprise these so-called opportunities consist of bringing energy-intensive industries to Iceland, exporting geothermal energy to Europe through a marine cable, and exporting Iceland’s geothermal expertise. These suggestions are of course no novelty in Iceland but rather a predictable follow-up of the plan to heavy-industrialize Iceland and fully exploit the country’s natural resources – a plan that was well documented in an infamous booklet, titled “Lowest Energy Prices!!”, which was made in 1995 by Landsvirkjun and the ministry of industry, and sent to international energy-intensive heavy industries, offering them cheap energy and “minimum environmental red tape”.

Carefully Chosen Rhetoric and a Private Speech on State Television

Michael Porter has carefully adapted his rhetoric to the current political atmosphere, obviously aware of many Icelanders’ increased doubt and decreased trust towards corporations due to the 2008 economic collapse and many of its following exposures of corruption, as well as the enhanced discussion about the importance of keeping the ownership of natural resources away from private parties. In his forewords to the aforementioned report, he and his co-author, Dr. Christian Ketels, also from Harvard Business School, state that though the “economy has [since the collapse] stabilized at a lower level, and the government has gotten its budget balance so much under control that it is expected to return to the global financial markets later this year […] stabilization is necessary and not sufficient.” And they continue:

Iceland needs to lay the foundations for a new, more sustainable economic growth path. In February 2009, we published an article in the Icelandic press that set out an action agenda for the country. One of its key elements was cluster mobilization as a critical step to build on Iceland’s unique assets and capabilities. We stressed that Iceland had to move beyond a backward looking debate about who was to blame for the crisis to a forward-looking collaboration to improve competitiveness. Clusters are a powerful vehicle to mobilize the private sector and guide the policy choices of government.

The Icelandic geothermal cluster program puts this vision into practice. It builds on Iceland’s unique assets and capabilities in geothermal energy with a clear focus on creating greater value for the Icelandic economy, rather than simply selling power. The geothermal program is grounded in the realization that progress towards this goal will only materialize through collaboration.

Interviewed in Kastljós, a daily news-report show on state-owned TV station RÚV, last night, Porter spoke in a similar way, reminiscent of a memorable Kastljós interview with Ross Beaty, the CEO of Magma Energy (now Alterra Power Corporation), in August 2009. When asked if he understood the public opposition towards privatization after the economic collapse, Beaty said, as reported by Saving Iceland, that he was aware of this but added that Icelanders would have to understand what kind of company he was leading. “We are not a scary company, we want to work with H.S. Orka in building up a stronger company, for the good of Icelanders, ourselves, and actually the whole world,” said Beaty to newspaper Fréttablaðið that same day.

During the TV interview last night, Michael Porter said that he finds Icelanders are “too cautious” when it comes to “using the opportunities that consist in geothermal energy,” and added that there is need for more innovating spirit, aggressiveness and risk-taking. Asked the same the question as Ross Beaty was, a little less than two years ago, Porter answered that the country’s natural resources could still be “owned by the nation” while the utilization rights could be lent to private companies. He also said that though he preferred a mixture of privately and state run businesses, the state-owned energy companies would still have to be run like private companies. This idealisation of privatizing energy companies perfectly resonates a recent encouragement from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), set fourth in the institution’s 2011 Economic Survey of Iceland. The interview would better be described as a speech-like monologue as the questioner mostly nodded and occasionally said things like “yes”, “absolutely” and “indeed”. After Porter had described his utopian corporate vision for large-scale geothermal energy production in Iceland, he ended the interview by saying: “Let’s do it!” – followed with an end-note from the presenter: “Let’s hope!”

Fearing Overexploitation of Geothermal Resources

Contrary to the statements about the need for large-scale exploitation of geothermal energy, as mentioned by Porter and the parties of the co-operating forum, environmentalists and Iceland’s National Energy Authority (INEA) fear overexploitation of the geothermal areas that are planned to be exploited to produce energy for aluminium smelter, which in fact constitute all major geothermal areas in Iceland. Recently INEA decided that HS Orka/Alterra Power would have to widen its planned drilling area for the planned enlargement of Reykjanes geothermal power plant and that they would have to supply proof that enough energy can be found on a larger area than already arranged for. The enlargement is meant to provide energy for a planned aluminium smelter in Helguvík, owned by Norðurál/Century Aluminum.

“It is possible to get all this energy on the current construction area, there is no doubt about that,” said energy director Guðni Jóhannesson to newspaper Morgunblaðið in March 2011. But he continued: “But we know it from geothermal areas abroad that if too much construction has taken place in too short time, the capacity of the area can decrease, resulting in the need for reducing the production again.”

Hence, we have it from the horse’s mouth that geothermal energy on a large-scale industrial level is not sustainable.

The Saving Iceland network has spent some time examining the report authored  by the National Commissioner’s ‘National Security Unit’ published on May 17. Already at this stage we would like to make a considerable number of remarks.

First of all we have to express our astonishment if Ögmundur Jónasson, the Minister of the Interior is going to accept as valid the poorly reasoned cover-ups that are resorted to by the report’s authors. It is also remarkable how superficial and simply untrue the Minister’s own interpretation of the report has been so far. Unfortunately the same is true of the coverage of the report made by some of the Icelandic corporate media.

The report’s most serious flaw is of course the fact that it completely evades the responsibility that it was officially intended to assume. The only de facto information about the report’s actual subject is on page 12,  where it is stated that the police received “confidential information” concerning the intended protests against the Kárahnjúkar dam from both domestic and foreign “informers”, and that this information was used to organize the police’s reaction.

On page 18 it says that “during an overhaul of data at the National Commissioner office, no information came to light that makes it possible to ascertain if this British police spy [Mark Kennedy] was here in Iceland with the knowledge of the police or with their collaboration in 2005”. This is obviously an attempt to avoid giving a clear answer to the question of whether the police were aware of Kennedy’s presence here in Iceland, by referring to the supposed non-existence of “data”. According to this, all authorities could always avoid all official obligation to inform simply by deleting or not entering data about certain events. This is a completely unacceptable conclusion.

It is important to note that neither the Interior Minister nor the National Commissioner have answered a list of questions from our lawyer, formally requesting further information about the Icelandic police’s surveillance of individuals within the Saving Iceland network, and, no less importantly, the actual wording of the query made by the Minister of the Interior to the National Commissioner’s National Security Unit. Since the Minister and the National Commissioner do not provide precise answers about the specific stipulations to the enquiry, it is hard to make a clear estimate of the precise extent to which the report avoids giving answers, although it becomes clear, from reading the report, that its authors entirely avoid answering the questions about Saving Iceland and Mark Kennedy that it was reportedly supposed to answer.

It is also unbelievable, in accordance with general research methods, that the report’s authors did not contact individuals who have been active with the Saving Iceland movement, but instead based the chapter about Mark Kennedy on reports from the British newspaper Guardian, which are full of inaccuracies repeatedly corrected by Saving Iceland.

Criminalizing Resistance Constitutes an Assault on Democracy

The report is a textbook example of the violently hostile attitude of the Icelandic authorities’ against political dissidents and groups using civil disobedience, treating them as if they were dealing with criminal organizations. Immediately on the first page of the report the National Commissioner makes himself guilty of criminalizing our movement. As a whole the report partners us, environmentalists, up with the “criminal organization Hells Angels”, which has recently become in Iceland a sort of a cloak for any kind of State intervention that entails curtailing constitutional human rights.

In this context it is very important to be able to know the details of the Interior Minister’s original query (as a matter of fact, it is strange that this is not clearly explained in the report), as it is especially odd to ask for an investigation into two such fundamentally unrelated associations in the same report. Of course it gives a completely wrong picture of the topics that need to be cleared up concerning Saving Iceland, a nature conservation organization, whose actions hardly justify that it be referred to at the same instance as the Hells Angels. This has to be explained by the authorities.

The National Commissioner is even so unfortunate as to blurt out that his office has performed its duties “… concerning the fight against organized crime and direct action-groups like the Saving Iceland organization.” This is an explicit acknowledgement that the National Commissioner considers one of his duties to “fight against” environmentalist groups such as Saving Iceland.

It is very difficult to see where these duties are called upon, in the quoted police law, whose 5th article addresses the Commissioner’s duty to coordinate his operations but says nothing about an obligation to fight against voluntary organizations any more than what can be expected. There is only a description of the Commissioner’s variety of administrative duties, i.e. “… to operate a police investigative department and a national security unit that investigates high treason and the violation of the cabinet government and its supreme authorities, and estimates the threat of terrorism and organized crime.”

It is not in the hands of a police force, in a state that wants to pride itself on upholding democracy, to “fight against” political dissidence. Hence we find ourselves moved to ask if the National Commissioner has completely lost himself in the high jinks and really considers himself to officiate duties in a fascist state like the ones for example under which the people of South-America have often had to live?

In the above-mentioned reference on page 1 it says that the department in question “investigates treason and the violation of the cabinet government and its supreme authorities, and estimates the threat of terrorism and organized crime.” According to this definition it is difficult to see that the National Security Unit had any legal authority to interfere with Saving Iceland, but if deemed so, it would be intriguing to know under which of these topics Saving Iceland has been categorized.

Obvious Evasions

The section of the report relating to Saving Iceland is completely consistent with the previous report about the police’s interference into the affairs of Saving Iceland, written by the director of Iceland’s police academy at the request of the Minister of Justice in 2009. Paragraphs of laws and the police’s modus operandi are patronisingly detailed, but the hoped for analysis is nowhere to be found. (The said report is, incidentally, printed with double-spacing and contains long references to articles of law, possibly in an attempt to conceal how little meaningful analysis it contains. It would be interesting to see what would remain if the long quotes on articles of law are removed and the text printed with single-spacing.)

On page 2 there is a long list of the particular tasks that are in the hands of the National Commissioner’s National Security Unit. Despite of a list in 12 separate parts, there is no mention of which of these tasks concern the topics that were to be investigated in the report.

On page 15 it is stated that the police acted in accordance with information that they received from abroad, as well as from within Iceland. What foreign agency is responsible for informing the Icelandic police? How can it be argued that the police’s response was based on the information they received when the actual information has not been specified? The fact that the protests “might proliferate” is not a valid reason for preventative police actions. The likelihood of sabotage taking place is an unreasoned assertion. The police might have received information saying that very “determined activists” would be likely to join Saving Iceland, but it does not follow that protest is necessarily illegal, and the existence of “activists” does not legitimize the use of police force.

The reports’ authors attempt to convince the Minister, and other readers, with peculiar meticulousness, that according to international police agreements neither the Minister, nor those whose rights the police have violated, should be given access to the evidence. The efforts of the National Commissioner to hide behind confidentiality towards foreign police-spies does little to convince, but rather reveals a determination to avoid exposing the Commissioner’s own involvement in violations of human rights against individuals who have been active with Saving Iceland.

On page 3 there is a chapter about the so-called “third-party-rule”, which the report’s authors attempt to stretch by applying its confidentiality stipulation to include the very same Interior Minister who actually commissioned the report. The Minister is the supreme authority of the Icelandic police, hence it is incomprehensible how he can be considered a “third party” by the report’s authors.

It is worth noting that on page 15, the above-mentioned report by the Police Academy director is quoted as stating that the police did not use eavesdropping in connection with the protests. It may be worth considering if the reason for quoting the 2009 report on this issue is an attempt to avoid exposing the electronic spying that took place. If the National Commissioner considered Saving Iceland to be a great terrorist threat, it is extremely strange if our communications were not tapped. If it really was the case that the National Commissioner had reason to believe that we posed a terrorist threat, and yet he did not order that we were electronically spied on, it is fair to say that he seriously failed his duties.

The 15th article of administration laws nr. 37/1993 deals with information rights and says that “a person or party connected to a particular case has the right to see the relevant documents and other data. The data has to be made available to this person or party, with the only exception if the case is of that essence, or the amount of documents is so high, that it makes revealing data very problematic.” Articles of law about secrecy stipulations do not have limiting effects on the duty to provide documents concerning this article of law.

It is clear that the National Commissioner admits to have worked closely with the British authorities concerning the surveillance of Saving Iceland. He also admits to have received information not only from abroad but also from within Iceland. This information has been gathered by spying, in other words: By violating the privacy of our personal lives. To state that no recorded documents can be found in the offices of the National Commissioner about this co-operation with the British authorities is nothing but obvious evasions.

Independent Investigation

The Minister of the Interior is now issuing the police with expanded proactive investigation permits. In the discussion in parliament following the publication of this report the Minister has been at particular pains that the focus on the issue should be on preventing the police from using these new powers of proactive investigation to violate the rights of political dissident groups. Although the minister has announced in connection with this report, that he thinks that “the authorities’ interference of this sort against politically motivated protest is a direct assault on democracy,” there does not seem to be any real intent behind his words to deal with the Icelandic and British police respective forces documented violations against Saving Iceland.

Thus we ask: Is the Minister of the Interior really condoning the police’s violations, clearly confirmed in the report, of our constitutional right to privacy, and by planting an agent provocateur in our movement for several years, who did his best to entrap us (nota bene, without success!) into major acts of terrorism? Has the Minister, in his fascination with proactive investigation permits, reached the conclusion that the significance and seriousness of law-violations that have already been committed are less serious than those being planned or which have never been committed?

If the Interior Minister considers this report satisfactory we cannot help seriously doubting that while he is in charge of this Ministry the task of tailoring laws and regulations, which he claims to want to promote in order to defend political resistance groups in Iceland from Big Brother’s human rights violations, is in the right hands.

Saving Iceland request that Ögmundur Jónasson send this report back to the National Commissioner on the basis that it simply is unsatisfactory. Otherwise we believe there is a pressing need for an independent investigation to be carried out under the auspices of parties with no obvious interests to protect such as the National Commissioner.

See also:

New Photographic Evidence Shows that the Icelandic Police Lied About their Dealings with Mark Kennedy

In one of the most controversial trials in Iceland, four of a group popularly known as the “Reykjavik 9” have been sentenced. A most fascinating, and what many have also termed “absurd” case in the country’s recent history has seen nine peaceful protesters accused of threatening the sovereignty of the Parliament; being charged with article 100 of the country’s penal code which deals with acts of terrorism– one that carries a sentence from a year to life in prison.

Reykjavik District Court announced its ruling of the case on February 16, amidst tremendous national furore, as the Reykjavik 9 waited for their verdict on “attacking” the Icelandic Parliament, Althingi, in December 2008. All nine defendants were acquitted of their initial charges. However, four were found guilty of rioting and were slapped with sentences ranging from fines to conditional prison sentences up to 4 months.

However, allegations of “politically motivated charges” to “reaction [from the government] stemming from the threat of popular uprisings” still continue to echo within the citizens of Iceland and it seems a long way to go before the dust settles on this particular case. In an exclusive, Managing Editor of The Fresh Outlook, Shayoni Sarkar, speaks to a few key people involved with the Reykjavik 9 to understand the case and the traces it leaves behind.

Charged While Enacting a Constitutional Right?

It started in October 2008, as the fall of the banking sector and currency collapse in Iceland had triggered unhappiness and the cause for protest in the hearts of the citizens. On December 8, around 30 demonstrators entered the Icelandic Parliament through the visitor’s entrance and made their way to the public benches. Nine of these protesters were arrested.

However, it was only a year later that the Reykjavik 9, as they came to be popularly known, were charged under article 100 of the penal code, a most serious charge, and one that had been used only one time before in the country’s history – in 1949, when anti-NATO protesters were charged of threatening the government.

Magnus Sveinn Helgason, historian, activist and husband of Solveig Anna Jonsdottir of the Reykjavik 9, says: “The back story is that a group of 20-30 people wanted to enter the public benches of the Parliament to essentially deliver the message that the people of Iceland were fed up with the inaction and incompetence of the political elite. Parliament had yet to address the collapse of the economy and society in any meaningful way. Aside from propping up the banks and guaranteeing 100% of domestic bank deposits, something that primarily benefited a handful of wealthy Icelanders, they simply went along as if nothing had happened. This enraged many people who were witnessing it: The economy had collapsed, the currency had collapsed, people were losing their jobs and the entire social contract was torn asunder. But the political elite appeared to be completely asleep.

“Some in the group had intended to read a declaration from the public benches – there is a long tradition of this kind of protest in Iceland, where large groups of people gather in the public gallery, and many such groups have read declarations. The Icelandic constitution states specifically that the public has a right to observe the meetings of Parliament. But, on this particular day, the parliamentary guards in the house decided that the group posed a grave danger to Althingi, closed the house and sent an emergency “attack alarm” to the police, which resulted in all available officers in the greater Reykjavik area being summoned to Parliament to defend it against what they thought was a violent attack which threatened the members of parliament and the very institution.”

He continues: “But there had never been any such attack. It was a massive overreaction, and when the dust settled and the police investigation was finished, the detective who investigated the matter felt that the whole hullabaloo had been blown out of proportion and that this had been a rather insignificant event. However, the Bureau Chief of Parliament, chief civil servant and a bureaucratic officer of the parliament, requested that the people be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including, under article 100 of the penal code, which deals with acts of terrorism, attacks against the state and attempts to overthrow the government; the people were found guilty of violating this article it , would have resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in jail. The maximum sentence is life in prison.”.

Lara V Juliusdottir, prosecuting attorney for the state, responds: “What they [Rvk9] did was exactly what is described in article 100 of the penal code. They attacked the staff of parliament, forced their way into the parliament building and beat up the staff, some of whom got hurt. There was fighting.”

Almost 30 years ago, the current Foreign Minister of Iceland, Össur Skarphéðinsson, along with a large group of students had walked into the gallery of the Parliament and, protected by his fellow university students, recited a long speech protesting a proposed cut in student loans.

Dropping Charges Establishes “Absurdity”

Solveig Anna Jonsdottir was among the four sentenced. She, along with Steinunn Gunnlaugsdottir of the Reykjavik 9, received a fine of ISK 100,000 (£534). Andri Leo Lemarquis received a four month conditional prison sentence while Thor Sigurdsson received a 60-day conditional prison sentence, as well.

However, acquitting five and reducing the charges on the other four are not enough for the Icelandic population to let this case pass. A very serious “threat” to the freedom of expression has been made by a country that prides itself on its ideals of free speech.

Einar Steingrimsson is a mathematician who has lived and worked in Iceland, the US and Sweden, and is now a professor at the University of Strathclyde. He has written several opinion pieces and blogs in the Icelandic media about the Reykjavik 9. He says: “First of all, the court threw out the very serious charge of a threat to the “sovereignty” of the Parliament and essentially deemed it absurd; even though the court, in my opinion, otherwise used very narrow legalistic reasoning. The same happened with the charge of “breaking and entering”.I think it is fair to say that this shows that the prosecution overreacted in a very grave way, and that it therefore is guilty of a serious attack on the right to free speech, since false charges of this gravity, carrying a minimum of one year in prison, are in themselves enough to prevent people from exercising their constitutional rights. This is especially serious in light of the fact that the prosecution never had any evidence that even made it debatable whether the nine had tried to do anything other than enter the gallery of the Parliament to utter a few words.

Ms Juliusdottir, when asked what the dismissal of article 100 charges to the accused signify, said: “It is described in the court’s decision. Not to express my views, but I personally feel that the article 100 charges [against the accused] were proper.”

In spite of reduced sentences and serious charges against them dropped, Mr Steingrimsson feels that the punishment meted out to the four who were not acquitted on all charges shows “that the justice system in Iceland still gives the police and other authorities unlimited rights to violence without any regard to what sort of civil rights people are trying to exercise”.

“The four were variously convicted of “holding” and “pushing” people, as all claims of violence or harm that were previously alleged were dismissed by the court,” he says. “[They were convicted of] holding open a door that a staff member tried to close, and one of the four was convicted for biting two policemen. In that last case, the two policemen had the defendant pinned down to the floor with their body weight, and he had a hard time breathing and was in a state of panic.” Ms Juliusdottir maintains that the “violence” resorted to by the nine should be penalised, saying: “He [Andri Leo Lemarquis] was biting people. There was fighting and he bit two police officers. That is proven in the case.”

It is perhaps such adamant nature, even after a judgement has been delivered that makes Einar Steingrimsson believe that the convictions serve to “cement the attitude that the state may use force where it sees fit, but the citizens are required to show complete submission and obeisance, even when the authorities are depriving them of constitutional rights”, such as observing Parliament in session.

“[This] is what the police and staff were trying to prevent the nine from doing”.

A Compromised Prosecutor?

According Mr Steingrimsson, the prosecutor for the case was not “qualified” to handle the case. The source claims that in email exchanges with her, it has come to light, albeit after the case has been closed, that she was aware of a close relationship between her and a defendant. This would inherently compromise her position as a prosecutor, however, it is alleged that she took no action to rectify her position in the trial.

“She knew, well before the main court proceedings in January, that she is related to one of the defendants, as her father had been married to that defendant’s grandmother,” reveals Mr Steingrimsson . “According to Icelandic law, this leads to automatic disqualification. She should have announced this and withdrawn from her role as prosecutor. The judge, had he found out, would have been obliged to remove her. However, she remained silent, which clearly is against the law.”

Ms Juliusdottir defiantly responds: “I am not related. It is true that my father married one of the defendant’s grand mother but my father and mother are divorced. After their divorce, my father’s new wife had two children with him. The defendant is the son of one of those two children. I am definitely not related to them.”

She continues: “I feel drawing attention to this point is completely irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the case. The lawyers did not bring this up and this goes on to prove some ridiculous these accusations are.”

However, Mr Steingrimsson believes that the defendants, although aware of this, chose not to push it.

“They didn’t want the case to be pushed back to the starting point, which is what would have happened with a new prosecutor.”

Increasing “Paranoia” Within the Political Elite

Not just suspicions over the motives of the prosecutor, it is widely believed that the trial was “politically motivated”. This political motivation is alleged to have been fed off by “paranoia”, a looming sentiment within the elite, who were alleged to be “scared” of the demonstrators and their calls for accountability. The charges that the Reykjavik 9 had faced was deemed “absurd” by most. Einar Steingrimsson had earlier told The Fresh Outlook: “I am not aware of anybody, even among those who feel that the protesters did something wrong, who has tried to justify prosecuting the Rvk9 on these grounds – that is, for having threatened the “sovereignty” of the Parliament.

“One can speculate about paranoia among those responsible for the charge, namely the Speaker of the Parliament, its administrative chief, and the prosecutor. The prosecutor and the Chair are political allies and personal acquaintances, and the prosecutor, in fact, has strong ties to the Parliament, since she served as a substitute MP for a few years twenty years ago, in addition to being the current chairman of the board of the Central Bank, elected by Parliament. In many people’s opinion, this should disqualify her as a prosecutor here, since Parliament is, in part, a party to the case. The judge, however, dismissed that objection when it was raised by the defendants.”

And the speculations of “paranoia” and “political motive” behind the charges don’t seem unfounded for most, especially those deeply entrenched in the case. Magnus Helgason says: “It has emerged that the bureau chief was behind the charges, but it is difficult to believe that he was acting alone, and that the decision was not made in consultation with or on the behest of the office of the speaker of parliament. The charges are obviously political, and it is clear the highest levels of the bureaucracy and political elite wanted to send a clear message to protesters. They understood that the corrupt world of nepotism, good-old boys networks and back-room deals, built up over decades of conservative rule had collapsed as the financial bubble popped, and that the people wanted change. Those who were invested in the corrupt old order were understandably afraid and shocked .”

Ms Juliusdottir defends: “I am surprised by these accusations from their very start! In my mind there has been no political pressure towards this case, either to direct it or to bring it up.”

Whether the claims of “political motivation” can be validated or not, there is widespread opinion that the decision handed down by the District Court was hardly a victory. Mr Helgason, who was present during the verdict, recounts: “The court ruling was strangely anti-climactic. The judge read the ruling fast while mumbling and those present did not even fully realize that he was reading the ruling. Then he rushed off. It was very surreal.”

“On the surface it might appear as a victory – that the nine are all found innocent of the most serious charges, and that only four are sentenced for what are, for the most part, very innocent charges. However, this is at best a partial victory. The court found it necessary to sentence some of the accused of some offences, rather than simply dismiss the entire case. This seems to be so that the prosecution can save face and does not need to admit that its case was, at the core, built on sand.”

Article 100 – Used After 50 years

Inspite of the serious charges of article 100 being dropped, it does not seem to have curbed sentiments against the government for not undertaking appropriate action during the financial storm of 2008. If nothing, the Reykjavik 9 case seems to have fuelled such sentiments. Such a serious charge against peaceful protesters undertaking an action guaranteed by their constitution has been met with stern condemnation from the masses.

Mr Steingrimsson says: “One significant difference is that in 1949 [when article 100 was used to charge] the proposed participation by Iceland in NATO polarized the nation, which would last for decades to come, whereas in 2008-9, people of all political persuasions were thoroughly dismayed and disgusted by the entire political establishment.

Mr Helgason explains: “Another difference is that in 1949, the government had organized, deputized and armed with batons, a group of young conservatives who assisted the police in dispersing the crowd. The crowd reacted by throwing cobblestones. Some of the protesters were later convicted under the article 100 for “attacking parliament” as this was interpreted as an attack with a deadly weapon: The protesters had taken up arms against the Parliament and its defenders.”

Mr Steingrimsson feels that this makes for an important difference between the two cases: “As one of the defence lawyers in the case of the Rvk9 pointed out, not only did the Rvk9 not act violently, they were not armed and carried nothing that could be construed as a weapon”.

Many have also found it strange that the events of December 8th are by no means the only serious confrontation of the protests during the winter of 2008-9. It angered the people further when it came to light that the December 8 protests of the Reykjavik 9 was a protest on a much smaller level as compared to many more. “For example, on November 22 2008, a group of several hundred protesters had gathered in front of the headquarters of the Reykjavik Police,” recounts Mr Helgason . “A protester, who during one of the large mass demonstrations the week before, hoisted the flag of “Bonus” a discount grocery stores on the flagpole of Althingi. Bonus is owned by Jón Ásgeir Jóhannesson, one of the most infamous corporate “vikings.” This protester was not arrested for the act of hoisting this flag, as the police could not prove that he had hoisted the flag because the crowd had helped him get away. He was however arrested for not paying an unrelated fine, but nonetheless, people saw it as a retribution for the flag incidence He later won a court ruling court ruling that proved that his arrest had been illegal, further strengthening the suspicion that this was an act of retribution.”

Further, he explains that the demonstration in front of the police station “got very agitated” and a part of the group “managed tobreak through the front doors of the station”. The police were able to gain control of the situation, but nobody was arrested.

“The most significant protests took place during January 19-21, 2009,” explains Mr Steingrimsson. “They started when Parliament reconvened after the winter break, with people assembling outside the parliament building when the MPs entered. This then continued throughout the day, and the following night, and didn’t stop until it became clear that the government would resign. In fact, the centre of Reykjavik was taken over by protesters, who lit bonfires that were kept alive throughout.”

“Although several people were arrested during the protests in January, no charges [were made against these protesters] with a crime, which makes the case of Rvk9 stand out in even starker contrast, because it’s become abundantly clear that their protest was very peaceful in the sense that they did not resort to any violence, whereas there were many other situations where violence, even if minor, broke out, without anybody being charged.”

A spokesperson from the Althingi refused comment, stating: “People are still waiting to see if there will be an appeal. The Speaker at the time [2008] and his successors have refrained comment on this situation. The latest news is that the defendants’ lawyers are waiting to judge whether they would appeal to the Supreme Court.”

Rvk9 Verdict Clouds ‘New Iceland’

After the financial collapse in Iceland, there has been sufficient debate about the need for a ‘New Iceland'; one free from corruption and “incompetence” that caused the collapse.

“Sadly, apart from the scathing, but extremely thorough and convincing report of the parliamentary commission charged with investigating the causes of the crash, not much has changed for the better in Icelandic government and business dealings,” Mr Steingrimsson explains regretfully. “In particular, we can see with the case of the Rvk9, the ugly side of power. This brings back memories of the deeply divisive and oppressive political climate during much of the latter half of the last century.”

He believes that to many people, this is one more sign that “there will be no ‘New Iceland’”. “Although the state, through the prosecutor, had its most outrageous charges thrown out, it [has] still succeeded in what seems to have been the goal; namely to show the citizens that they can’t exercise with impunity the rights they are supposedly accorded in the constitution,” states Mr Steingrimsson

“It is hard to say whether the general public will be engaged in this in the future, but it is clear that many of those who have been most vocal in voicing their demands, and hopes, for a “New Iceland” have seen them dashed by how the establishment closes ranks against those who want to see substantial change in how the country is run by cliques of power and money.  This is just one of many signs that the old elite’s grip on power and money is not loosening at all, but rather being fiercely defended.”

However, Ms Juliusdottir disagrees: “Of course I don’t think that this case could dampen the country’s future. However, I do think that the publicity of the case has been out of proportion. People were angry and were attacking the parliament building. This needs to go to the courts to be tried.”

Disagreeing that the Reykjavik 9 have many supporters, she maintains that the “main reason” that the population were “upset” was because the Reykjavik 9 case “was the first to be tried after the fall of the banks”.

“People were angry that this case went the furthest. They were waiting for bigger cases to appear in court but the process is lengthy and many have had to wait. I feel that with the people, I feel their anger.”

It’s not simply lengthy waiting periods that have troubled the people of Iceland, especially the nine accused. It needs to be brought to light that those fined and sentenced to suspended jail terms have to pay for a large amount of their own defence, if not all. This roughly translates into almost two months of pay for each.

“We are not talking about people with high paying jobs at investment banks, but students and ordinary people working low paying jobs,” explains Magnus Helgason. “Furthermore, the time that has gone into attending drawn out court hearings; all of the accused have had to spend countless hours defending themselves in court and the media , time that they could then not spend on other things, be it their families or on other work.”

At the same time, it is interesting to note that the trial of the Reykjavik 9 has served to “energize” Icelandic activists and “engage very diverse groups”. “There has formed a large, but loosely organized and connected support group around the Rvk9, encompassing people from very different backgrounds,” say Mr Helgason “This group would never have formed had it not been for the prosecution”

Mr Steingrimsson reaffirms, “In the beginning, the Rvk9 saw little sympathy, and there was not much concern among the general public. This changed, slowly but surely, throughout the process, with the government steadily losing ground as it became clear how absurd the charges were, and how the Speaker, Bureau Chief and even the prosecutor lied outright about their part in the case.”

“The head of the Social Democratic Alliance had famously remarked that those unhappy with the government were “not the people”. But gradually it has dawned on the government that they could not hang onto power and that the protests were not going away,” concludes Mr Steingrimsson.

The Reykjavik 9 have drawn intense national media coverage. Unfortunately, it didn’t draw the same amount of coverage outside of the country and many feel that the lack of reportage on this case perpetrated the trial. However, it is hoped that future attempts against constitutional rights, not just in Iceland but elsewhere, should receive the importance that it deserves, in order to call governments to accountability.

For more details, please visit: www.rvk9.org/in-english/

TheFreshOutlook.Com

Since the verdict declared on February 16, support for the Reykjavik 9 has been growing, and the case seems far from over; the question now remains whether the four who have been sentenced will appeal to the Supreme Court of Iceland against the judgement by the Reykjavik District Court.

The Fresh Outlook’s Managing Editor, Shayoni Sarkar, continues to speak to key figures surrounding the Reykjavik 9. In an exclusive interview, Saving Iceland, a network of people from different nationalities championing the causes of the country, speaks about the Reykjavik 9.

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Shayoni: Can you explain Reykjavik 9? How do peaceful protests end up facing charges of ‘threatening the government’?

SI: Reykjavik 9 is a group of nine people that took part in one action together with 20 other people on December 8, 2008. That action was entering the Parliament. That might sound like a big deal but it is not in Iceland because it is a constitutional right that every citizen can go to the public gallery of the Parliament and listen to the members of it. The action was, as I understand, totally unorganised, but people seem to have heard about it by word of mouth. The reason why nine of the 30 people ended up being charged for “attacking” the Parliament amongst other accusations is that the government had to punish someone for what happened that winter [after the country faced a banking collapse in 2008] and these 9 people were the perfect culprits. The case stinks of political persecution.

Shayoni: These accusations have been alleged to stem from ‘paranoia’ amongst those in charge. What is your comment on this? There are speculations that the Speaker and prosecutor are ‘political allies’, so-to-speak, how does this affect the case?

SI: In Iceland, the people in power are all connected: friends, political allies, blood related, or all of it. So relations like the one you mention is nothing that we are not used to. But of course, it is obvious that the whole case is a revenge of the power elite that want to give the people here in Iceland an example as to how they will be punished in the future for protests and actions against the structures of the government.

Shayoni: This wasn’t the only protest, several others also protested about the 2008 financial crisis. There have also been significant protests in January 2009. How is it that none of the other protests face such charges while the RVK9 do?

SI: It was easy in the RVK9 case to pick out 9 people and say that they took part in something violent since there were so few witnesses of the action, except the ones that took part in it themselves and the police and the guards of the parliament. So, the RVK9 were perfect to punish for the whole uprising of thousands of people in the winter 2008 and 2009. No one else has faced charges.

Shayoni: Can you explain the mood of Iceland’s citizens after the banking sector collapsed? How did the government react?

SI: It seems like the government was in a total panic after the economic collapse. They were also desperate to save their asses, personally and politically. The image that the government had been feeding its citizens had collapsed with the economic collapse. So, the government were facing very angry people that had realized that they had been lied to for a long time. Many people were afraid and didn’t know what to believe and what to do. That made the situation unpredictable.

Shayoni: Considering that the Reykjavik 9 were informed a year later that they were to be charged according to Article 100; how did this news go down with not just the accused but the Icelandic population in general?

SI: The Icelandic government’s tactic to uncomfortable situations, questions or issues is silence. The government did not properly answer who, inside of the Parliament, was responsible for [instigating] the charge. A lot of people in Iceland were sure that RVK9 must have committed a crime since they were being accused of one. Even though the power structures have shown how they [laws and legal charges] are a tool used against the lower classes, even then most people still believe that some of it must work properly. But after this case, I think many have changed their minds about it.

Shayoni: The Speaker, in a letter, condemned the ‘violent’ nature of the protests. Subsequently, the evidence did not portray any scenes of violence, particularly camera phone footage. How did the Speaker try to justify her position?

SI: Silence is her answer.

Shayoni: What controversies surround the situation at the moment (i.e. security footage, police brutality, etc)? Are there any specific angles you feel have not been represented enough? Is there anything of interest that might not have been reported in the media or escaped proper reportage which would lend the story a different perspective?

SI: For this question, I would direct you to the English blog from the trial: www.rvk9.org/tag/trial/

Shayoni: Do you feel that if there had been enough media force, both in Iceland and internationally, this trial wouldn’t have gone ahead as it did and would the government have been held further to account for its actions?

SI: There are two big newspapers in Iceland; the editors of both wrote editorials against the accused. According to that, they intended to steer the discussion to the direction of condemnation towards this political judgement, not only by the courts, but also by the society.

Shayoni: The Prime Minister has expressed ‘sadness’ that this was the only trial even remotely connected to the economic climate in the country and although condemned the violence, has also made it very clear that it was in no way a ‘threat to the nation’. How did the rest of the government react and what were their reasons for continuing proceedings?

SI: The government claim that they can not interfere with any court cases. A lot of members of the parliament were pro the court case. There were only a few that were not. But that changed after the first days in the court as proceedings took place; because then it was obvious that the case was shameful for the state. After abstaining from comment about it for a whole year, the prime minister gave some populist comment about how sad it was that those nine people were the only ones that have been taken to court since the collapse but not any one of the bankers or politicians at that time.

Shayoni: What are your comments on the prosecution’s allegations that say the Rvk9 had pre-meditated ‘forced attacks’ on Parliament?

SI: In the winter of 2008-2009, a lot of spontaneous actions took place. It is a big misunderstanding that this was an organized attack on the Parliament. Most of these people didn’t even know each other.

Shayoni: How have international organizations and other countries reacted to the Rvk9 case as it surely exemplifies the suppression of democratic free speech?

SI: Mostly, alternative websites and papers abroad have talked about the case. It has been hard work to get any of the big media to show it with the slightest interest. But anarchistic web sites reacted immediately.

Shayoni: The Rvk9 have been praised for their political activism. It was the protests during that time that toppled the conservative government embroiled in the banking collapse. With protesters working towards democratic processes of election and political consciousness, it is unfair to think that they are being accused in such a manner. What is your view on this as someone who has witnessed the situation and is well-versed in it? Were the Rvk9 were targeted simply to serve as a ‘warning’ to future protesters?

SI: Yes, the RVK9 were supposed to be a warning to future protesters for sure. But the action itself, when 30 people went in the Parliament, is far from being the most daring and powerful action made that winter. The action itself also failed. The people in RVK9 claim that they would hardly remember it if they had not been charged for it.

Shayoni: How does the verdict, that has dismissed charges of article 100, affect the supporters of the Rvk9?

SI: The few people that saw something wrong with the case managed to push the truth about the case forward to the rest of the society and that changed the general attitude towards it. In the end, so many people were angry because of it that it would have probably ended up as another uprising if the RVK9 had been found guilty of attacking the Parliament.

Shayoni: After the financial storm there was to be undertaken a concept of a ‘New Iceland'; is this not a complete irony considering how the Rvk9 are being charged?

SI: The concept of a ‘New Iceland’ does not exist as a result of a revolution in spirit or structures; it is just one more attempt of the Icelandic government to hide the truth from its citizens and keep on doing their business in their same old way but under a new, but false, flag.

See also the SI analysis and declaration of solidarity with the RVK: A Spade is a Spade, Repression is Repression

The Social Forum Journey

Is there a possibility that we can see a new era in the struggle against repression? While repression according to many reports are growing in Europe and the world with widening social gaps there are also some changes in the way repression is organized and counteracted. Rightly addressed the situation gives new possibilities for solidarity and uniting movements that hitherto were kept separate thus building a base for democratizing society.

The 18th of January a trial starts in Reykjavik against 9 activists accused of crimes against a law protecting the parliament. The crimes can give maximum life sentences which on Iceland in practice is 16 years in prison. At minimum this crime will give 1 year in prison. In reaction to the trial 705 persons have claimed guilty to the same act. As Iceland is a small country with 320 000 inhabitants this means that if the same mass protest would occur in Germany 200 000 people would have signed a statement that they also deserve to be put to trial threatened by at least one year or a life sentence.

The scale of this mass protest should not be underestimated, nor the political situation in which it takes place. It can tell us something about the nature of the present parliamentarian system, the relation to economy and the way to organize movements and solidarity today. The action inside the parliament took place at the beginning of popular protests on Iceland against the economic crisis. Every week there were the so called casserole actions were at most 8 000 people participated. The police used tear gas against the protesters for the first time since 1949 when the Icelandic politicians allowed the US to establish a military base on Iceland and then the country joined NATO. On 8th of December 2008 some 30 people went to the parliament in an attempt to make an action on the balcony. The parliamentary guards and one policemen on duty stopped them but two were able to get up to the balcony making a statement in a hurry that they did not trust the parliament saying quickly: “Get the fuck out! This house no longer serves its purpose!”

In a very well documented brochure about the case and the political and economic situation on Iceland made by a Icelandic solidarity committee with the Reykjavik 9 the content of the shouting is commented laconically: ”Even those who might have disagreed at the time, have since been forced to concede that this analysis was quite correct. Forty days later, in January 2009, mass protests succeeded in ousting the right-wing Social Democratic-Conservative government and forcing a new election. That was the first time in Icelandic history that public protests actually achieving something as dramatic”.

During the action the police arrested some of the people in the hallway and outside the building with some minor scuffles and nothing more dramatic happened. The defendants have been accused of causing harm to one guard in the back but the security cameras shows that it was another guard who was clumsily shoving demonstrators around who caused the problem so the charge was dropped. No violent attempt can be shown – on the video cameras not even one raised fist can be seen. The action was a peaceful protest.

The attempt at criminalizing a peaceful protest comes timely as many parts of Europe and the world are hit by an economic crisis while those countries that seem to escape from problems have postponed the real contradictions by in practice putting all tax payers money into a guarantee for bankers to keep on speculating. It is in the interest of every undemocratic government that want to suppress questioning of their way of handling the economic crisis to criminalize and divide any opposition instead of allowing protests to politicize questions.

The economic crisis was most dramatic on Iceland and so were the way of protesting. It built on a modern combination of mass participation and smaller activists circles formulating more forward looking demands while the different strands of the movement both had the capacity of arguing and organizing emotional activities combining what is necessary to win a struggle at two times. First by ousting the parliament and then by protesting against a bad deal made by the new left wing government enabling somewhat better conditions for Iceland.

On the other hand if the repression becomes to dramatically in conflict with juridical norms and common sense the legitimacy not only of the Icelandic political system but also of all similar European states will be in danger. This we have already seen in the case of the climate summit protests were the political parties and media competed with each other to to stamp all protests and especially those at the UN conference building as violent causing the mass arrest of two thousand innocent people and a trial against preventively arrested spokes persons of Climate Justice Alliance. The trials turned out into tragicomic farce until the last trial resulting in 4 months prison for spokespersons arrested at the spot for the action. But the struggle is not necessarily over and the result all in all so far is a loss of legitimacy for the state. The climate summit case can be used to step up struggle against repression if different strands of the movement find ways to use the loss of legitimacy caused by the court decision that the mass arrests were illegal and the preventive arrests were aquitted.

In the Icelandic case the spiral downwards for the political system is much worse and the case is developing into the end of all basis for the legitimacy of the present political system and its capacity to maintain trust in the country and among people. In short the combination of the most dramatic economic crisis with a small society lacking possibility to professionalize and formalize a conflict means that the very basis of common sense necessary for every society and its relations with others is rapidly brought to the forefront by the way different actors relate to the trial. The trial is thus turning into a story possible to understand for everyone and thus it becomes a night mare for all the professionals trying the administrate society from privileged positions in the courts, parliament, mass media or business or other organizational head quarters. A modern Icelandic Saga is developing in front of our eyes and so far they are doing nothing more than make the story better for every turn of events, in such a speed that hopefully a tragic outcome for the accused can be avoided.

Maximum in total 144 years against maximum 2 years

There are of course the more obvious contradictions between how those who caused and made profit out of the crisis and those that protested to stop it are treated in the courts. The tragedy caused to many that had to pay for the profits made by the few have so far not resulted in one single trial. A special commission have been set up by the parliament and finally it has been decided to press charges to only one public official Geir Haarde, Iceland’s prime minister before and during the collapse, for incompetence and negligence in public Office. If found guilty, the maximum sentence Haarde faces is two years jail. Bankers might be charged later.

A country that has caused severe damage not only to its own citizens but also to many foreigners by allowing its parliament to elect public officials that allowed the bank system to run wild has to watch out. It is not clever if it threatens those that started stopping the corrupt economic system which the politicians allowed or even worse promoted with in total 144 years in prison at maximum and minimum 16 years while one the side of those responsible for allowing the damage in total maximum 2 years in prison is asked for. Such a country is a shame to itself and the world.

So the politicians have built a trap to themselves, if they continue as they have done so far insisting on the the need to see that what the activists did as a severe threat they will come in conflict with how Iceland is seen as a nation not taking its responsibility for the economic damage they have caused severely while instead blaming the victim, those wanting to stop the damage. If they give in they will get the opposite problems showing that they cannot be trusted as they have been pushing the wrong arguments to long. In a domestic situation this might be possible to handle but in the present economic crisis what happens on Iceland has international implications both on the economic field as well as the field of political culture and repression. As Iceland is not scrutinized regularly abroad the politicians can get away for a long time as if their acts are of no great concerns but when they become more obvious to the rest of the world which will happen during the trial then the situation will rapidly change. This makes the situation out of control and who will be able to tell the best story then have the chance to get support.

Defendant not allowed to participate in the hearing

Then we have the judicial system. This issue places Iceland outside any civilized country. The judge cannot even see to that defendants are allowed to participate in the hearing against themselves as the police without the judge interfering stopped them from participating one time and continue to make problems for them to enter the hearing. The defense lawyer Aðalsteinsson has pointed at this stating the severe consequences for the trial. The judge can not be considered impartial – by handing all authority in the case to the police, by not attempting to keep the police in line, by not reacting to incidents where the police stopped defendants from entering the courtroom and by not taking any measure to keeping it from happening again the judge has shown that he considers the defendants dangerous and violent criminals who do not deserve a fair hearing in an open court of law. Aðalsteinsson has made repeated formal complaints which the judge has refused to hear – he has also appealed these to the supreme court, which has similarly dismissed them.

Media full of lies about non-existing violence

The media have also been mass producing stories about violence and then refusing to tell the truth when they were exposed as lies. The police and guards claimed that the demonstrators were violent and the media was full of such stories causing a climate around the trial which asks for strong verdicts. The problem was that the claims were false from the very beginning. The violence that the guard accused the demonstrators for was caused by themselves which could be seen on the video tapes from the parliament and the demonstrators were not intenting any violence. These facts were silenced in the media as the Icelandic massmedia have lost its interest in spreading news and instead chose to spread false rumours. Journalist on Iceland are as much a joke as the professionals in the juridical system.

A political system dismantling itself

A key to the modern state is the hierarchic order of those organisations that are supposed to be responsible for its functioning like political parties or the government or the secretariat of the speaker of the parliament. The head of an organization is responsible for what the organization does, that is self evident and if not so, then the whole idea of the present political system dismantles itself. There are of course other responsible models for organizing but also in another more horizontal system there is a clear responsibility shared and if not so there is no horizontal organisation either. Above all whether we have a formal hierarchic democratic order or an informal horizontal democratic order, in both cases there has to be respect for democracy as the overarching value meaning that in principle all men are equal and thus those acting in any democratic order are doing this to serve, not to be above the people. On Iceland that by some measures can be seen as having among the longest lasting democratic traditions on earth with the parliament Alþingi that have been existing for a thousand year putting the basis of the democratic order in jeopardy is a serious matter. This can be caused from the outside, but also from the inside.

The highest democratic post in Iceland, the speaker of the parliament Ásta Ragnheiður have caused a rupture in the core of the heart of formal democracy in Iceland. She claims on the one hand that she and the parliament have nothing to do with the trial. This in response to the petition made by 705 people claiming that there is something wrong when they have done the same thing inside or outside the parliament as those accused but on other dates and then only nine are selected as scapegoats. Ragnheiður gives the general answer that should be given by a speaker of parliament in any country with division of power between the judicial system and the political. There are only some problems. The judicial system did not make anything out of the action were the nine participated. It was first when the general secretary of the parliament told them to do so and even pointed at what paragraph to chose including the one with extreme penalties of minimum 1 year in prison that the prosecutor started to open the case.

But this is not the only way Ragnheiður causes problem to herself and the parliament. She is also among those that have accused the defendants for many things. In response to a parliamentary inquiry, she stated that the Reykjavík Nine, and the other protesters who entered the house of parliament that day had “forced their way into the house of parliament,” that they “overpowered” staff and guards and generally behaved in a “violent” and “threatening” manner. According to her, it was “obvious” that the group had “no compunction about using force to get into contact with members of parliament.” She stated further that this was caught on the surveillance camera giving her statement a more sense of objectiveness.

The problem here are twofold. On the one hand she states mainly things she has not seen, or at least at the occasion when she made the statement could not be controlled by others as the surveillances tapes not yet were public. Once they became public it was clear that the kind of claims made by her and many others were false. Both our judicial system and the bible claims you should not bear false witness against your neighbour. By using her powerful position as speaker of the parliament interpreting the surveillance tapes in such a distorting manner due to inability to judge them properly or listening to others false version she has dishonoured her post as Speaker of the parliament and given a view from the side of the organisations that supposedly have been under such heavy attack according to the general secretary that at least one year in prison should be the punishment, which with the false statement about what happened made by the speaker becomes more underpinned on loose ground.

Ragnheiður also stressed that the protesters had entered Alþingi through “the back door.” This especially interesting as it puts in question whether the speaker of parliament respects the people she represents and if she bear false witness also on this point. From the perspective of the MPs the notion back door is understandable, as they can use what they call the front door. The problem here is that the only way citizens can enter the parliamentary building is through what the MPs call the back door but for the people electing the parliament is the only front door. By using the word back door about the only door that those the MPs are supposed to serve can enter also in public addressing the people shows disrespect. Furthermore the concept back door have the general connotation that one goes there to sneak in rather than going proudly through the public entrance. The way the Speaker of the parliament uses the term back door shows disrespect for the public and the serving role of the parliament as well as intended or unwillingly questioning in a false way the openness in the way the demonstrators entered the building.

Thus have the speaker of the parliament put herself and her institution in a downward spiral going against its own principles, the bible and the trust in democracy serving the people. As there are so many contradictions her the way out is problematic without a clear commitment to the basic principles of maintaining a society, tell the truth.

To make it simple she could say: ”It is of importance that the parliament is separate from the judicial system and this is why I am correct when I do not accept an appeal about the courts made to me or the parliament. But as  the main responsible for the parliament I should have known that it is we ourselves that have broken against this principle and I shall immediately see to that we apologize for this to restore the trust in our democratic system. As this already has caused a possibility for damage to the judicial system by making people unequal to the law and those committing the same crime or worse at other occasions get free while those making the action on December 8 are targeted as the only ones to be put on trial I can only state that I recognize this as an unwanted problem possibly due to our interference against our democratic principles.

In general I also want to add that this is of utmost importance to Iceland as a small country. There are the risk in such a country that politicians or others might influence the judicial system in an informal way which is a threat to the integrity of the judicial system and thus to democracy. This makes it so more important to avoid the kind of formal request made by functionaries of the parliament to the prosecutor which now happened. We cannot allow this in the future as it makes the trust uncertain in our capacity to keep not only the judicial and political system separate but also other systems as the economical.

Concerning my statement in the parliament I claim that I felt threatened during the action. But the facts about acts made by the demonstrators as violent with reference to the surveillance tape were wrong. It was bad that I in this way was spreading false witnesses about other people and I have no excuse for this. As politicians we were and are still under big stress but so were also others in Iceland and those effected abroad. I felt threatened at the time of the action which might have carried me away when I heard about what the surveillance tape showed. It is of importance to differ between what you feel and how you act. This is precisely what we demand from people in a democracy when they protest. It is the content which should be important and if necessary sharp, not the way you act. When I allowed my feelings to give a false view on how the demonstrators acted I lacked the disciple which I demand from those protesting against the parliament. To regain the needed respect for each other in a democracy I see it as important to explain to each other why we act as we do and I am willing to sit down and discuss this matters with all concerned to rebuilt trust. I will also propose a change of the use of the word back door to public entrance.”

1976

Other politicians are also deeply involved making the down ward spiral a strong possibility. It is only a minority in the social democratic and redgreen party that have opposed the kind of version of what happened that the Speaker of the parliament presented. What politicians and media alike is claiming is that nothing of this magnitude ever happened before in Iceland except for the last and then the only time when the law was used in 1949 four years after Iceland was liberated after Danish rule against those protesting at the parliament against membership in NATO.

But the same kind of action as that made by the Reykjavik 9 and their fellow demonstrators took place in 1976 inside the parliament through the same entrance as this time. People then were storming the bench for visitors and making a human shield around one person who read a statement protesting against a change in students loan to the assembled and thus disrupted MPs. They refused the orders of both guards and policemen resulting in some minor scuffles. The student reading the speech became a leading social democratic politician and is today foreign minister. In January 1993 the same thing happened again, this time against membership of EU.

By claiming that nothing similar ever happened in Iceland and this makes the extreme possible punishment necessary and a hard verdict understandable of no concern for those not understanding this uniqueness in the Icelandic tradition many politicians runs into a problem. The actions 1976 and 1993 are documented and for an outside observer fully possible to compare. As the surveillance cameras has been looked at and the stories told about violence by many have been proven to be false the situation is now drastically changed. The level of violence during the action is not existing or so low that there is no way to present to outsiders that the actions 1976 and 1993 not are similar. It is only compared to the false rumours about the action 2008 that there are some difference.

The problem here also becomes twofold. On the one hand many politicians will get the same problem as the speaker of the parliament as their story about earlier actions are not correct. They can as the speaker is advised by me to do openly state that they were mistaken or the modern saga gets one more chapter to present to the world about lying and telling the truth o Iceland. But there is also the problem of the destruction of trust on each other if the only way to stand up for truth today is that what happened by chance got caught on a video camera. A society needs to be built on trusting each other. The kind of very strong statement about the lack of any similarity with what happened now with what happened earlier or the use of violence by the Reykjavik 9 when it was not the case becomes a way were the whole basis for our society is cracking. Already in the first case it is a problem when the guards and the police have lost so much control of their ability to observe what happens that they claim that the demonstrators is causing the violence when it actually is one in their own ranks who in spite of being a professional is using so much excessive force that he hurts his colleague. When many starts to believe this story and then the video shows that it is not correct this puts in question not only the version from the police and guards this time but also when the camera is not there. If they cannot make a correct observation when the camera is on, what are their inability when it is not there. But in the case of the politicians claiming that what happened earlier is totally different the case is worth. They have not been in the middle of the confrontation which sometimes can be an excuse for the police and guards making it harder to make an unbiased description. When they build their view on totally difference between earlier actions and now on the false witnesses and not the new version after the videos became public they can maybe survive this when the media do not present the new facts to the Icelandic public but they cannot tell the rest of the world their view as observers from the outside tend to look at facts.

Nordic law 1243: Truth! 2011: Power?

Iceland has the same base as other Nordic countries were the law is considered by people in common as important to follow and at the same time is supposed to be understandable and built on a higher value. This higher value was formulated already in 1243 in the Code of Jutland, a province in Denmark. This law is still used in juridical argumentation and known by people in common in Denmark. Iceland is building on the very same tradition. The law has two essential parts. The first being ”By law shall the land be built.”. Here comes the strong arguments for extreme punishment against anyone breaking the peace in the parliament which was also a reason for the very strong reaction among many Danish organizations against protesting against the UN conference by any non-violent action at the conference centre during the climate summit COP15. The second is equally important – ” There is no law to follow as good as truth”.

The speaker of the parliament and many other politicians have completely lost this second tier underpinning both the judicial system and the whole society. By neglecting 750 years of traditions that have kept the Nordic societies together they are on the brink of destroying the core of society which is the trust built when telling truth to each other.

The upward spiral

There is also an upward spiral, a hopeful one were we all can participate. The good spiral of telling the truth and acting together in solidarity. The key here is presence, being by the side of the accused at the hearings and then organizing and action telling the truth that also you and other made the same act. Documenting all aspects and make it know to the world. I have seldom seen such a well documented and well organized solidarity campaign as the one organized in Iceland. The repression of the solidarity have caused the upward spiral to get even stronger. When the police did not allow interested to come into the room of the hearing this caused only more protests. When media first told about the use of violence and then not about the video showing this was not true, this became one more argument for continuing the fight. Organizing that mix of activities necessary for an upward movement, concerts outside the parliament, art exhibitions, own media, contacts with other movements and supporting the families that have been put under pressure by the accusations of heavy crimes.

Here everyone outside Iceland also can contribute. Iceland is a small country dependent on the rest of the world. But it is important in the development of the economic crisis and the only country in Europe were the people have been able to change government after strong protests. When the politicians, media and courts try to create extreme punishment for some activists it is not only an attempt at criminalizing a whole Icelandic movement. It is also an attack en every one questioning the present economic model were the Icelandic movement have showed us all that there are possibilities to win some victories in this fight.

They need our support because their struggle is ours. You can find ways to do something on the link below to Icelandic websites with information in English. Actions at Icelandic embassies or spreading information about the trial are welcome as well as any other support. Below you also find extract of the solidarity statement made by the Icelandic environmental movement Saving Iceland, one of the strongest supporters of the Reykjavik 9.

The author is active in friends of the Earth, Sweden

Follow the protests on the Reykjavik 9 website:. http://www.rvk9.org

See also Saving Iceland. http://www.savingiceland.org/tag/rvk9

Read the well documented »Support the Reykjavík Nine Brochure« (PDF). http://www.savingiceland.org/2010/10/support-the-reykjavik-nine-brochure/

Read the article »Attacks On Alþingi Are Of No Concern To Alþingi« at The Reykjavik Grapevine. http://www.grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/Articles-Attacks-On-Althingi-Are-Of-No-Concern-To-Althingi

http://www.savingiceland.org/2010/06/a-spade-is-a-spade-repression-is-repression/

Sections of a statement by Saving Iceland:

A Spade is a Spade, Repression is Repression

Environmental network Saving Iceland declares full solidarity with the Reykjavik Nine defendants (RVK9), who face between one and sixteen years in prison for exercising their democratic right to peacefully protest against a disgraced parliament, on 8 December 2008.

These nine people have been picked out of the thousands whose protests brought down the previous government, whose corruption and ineptitude was responsible for the historical crisis Icelandic society is still being torn up by. This same government has now been confirmed by the Special Investigation Committee report (SIC – an apt acronym) as instrumental in the abuse that lead to the complete crash of the Icelandic economy; and as a major force in the severe corruption, democracy deficit and ethical crisis which have since emerged as the underlying reasons for the total failure of Icelandic democracy.

Criminalizing political opponents, even those who use non-violent civil disobedience, is an old diversion tactic used by states worldwide. This act of political repression is in glaring contradiction to the sanctimonious declarations of ‘shouldering responsibility’ and ‘taking heed of lessons’ paid by the parties responsible for the crisis. …

The case against the RVK9 is a blatant diversion tactic executed by an utterly irresponsible power community in complete denial of the disgraceful scenario that Icelandic democracy has found itself in. We are witnessing a discredited establishment attempting to scapegoat people for protesting against a parliament that has been universally condemned as corrupt, inept and disqualified. Saving Iceland questions whether the Icelandic State will reclaim any respect for its institutions, particularly by destroying the lives of these nine individuals and their families?

The severe irregularities in Icelandic society are no news to the Saving Iceland network. When Icelandic society was in the grip of the greed frenzy that lead to the collapse, we were among the very few who stepped forward to expose and challenge these developments. As a result we experienced both vilification by the Icelandic corporate media and political persecution by the Icelandic courts and police.

The present ‘left wing’ government is not only continuing the culture of political repression, but is actually significantly increasing it. Now the state intends to take revenge with hefty prison sentences. This is in retaliation for what really only amounts to a benign act of non-violent civil disobedience. The underlying justification of this repression is that of a deterrent against further civil disobedience.

Saving Iceland would like to call the urgent attention of international human rights and civil liberties NGOs to the attack on the legislated rights of protesters in Iceland. These rights are both constitutionally and internationally legislated.

….

In other articles that are concerned with Mark Kennedy’s involvement with British groups the Guardian several times quotes British activists in saying that Kennedy did not act as a strategist or decision maker in their movement, but that he made him himself useful as a driver and an energetic facilitator in day to day logistics. One source is reported by the Guardian in even going so far to say that Kennedy was not considered the sharpest knife in the box. This would make the Guardians’ claims about his supposed vital role in Saving Iceland surprising to say the least.

We have written this further detailed statement to discuss the various claims made in relation to Kennedy’s role in Iceland. These claims include: that Kennedy was pivotal in the birth of Iceland’s environmental movement; that he was instrumental in training Icelanders in direct action; that he was a key figure in various protests in the east of the country; and that he was a key decision maker within Saving Iceland.

Kennedy had no role in the birth of Icelandic environmentalism
Mark Kennedy did not return to Iceland for the 2006 protest camps at Karahnjukar, Snaefell and Reydarfjordur. Although he continued attending some of our gatherings for a while, his activities within the campaign gradually diminished, and finally ceased in 2007.

It appears the Guardian reporters are quite ignorant of Icelandic environmentalism in claiming that Kennedy “played a key role” in forming it. Saving Iceland is by no means the only nature protection group in Iceland. There are several other Icelandic environmentalist groups and NGOs, some older than the Saving Iceland network. Kennedy was also not instrumental in founding Saving Iceland in 2005 as the Guardian claims, as SI was in fact formed in 2004.

Kennedy did not provide training to Icelandic protesters and did not play an important role in actions
Mark Kennedy was never a trainer for Saving Iceland nor did he train any Icelanders. The only training he may have taken part in is training Icelandic policemen during their self confessed “collaboration” with the UK police, in 2005-2006. The purpose of this collaboration was to help Icelandic police to deal with SI activists.

Kennedy did not play a major role in actions in Iceland in 2005. He had already left the protest camp before it was evicted from Karahnjukar, and was not present when we relocated at Vad Farm in Skriddal. Kennedy only participated in two mass lock-ons at the Karahnjukar dam site, prior to the eviction, and consequently he played no part in a number of actions we carried out following the eviction later that summer, both at Karahnjukar and at the construction site of the ALCOA smelter in Reydarfjordur, or the actions we carried out in the Reykjavik area in August. Kennedy also never ran errands to Reykjavik on behalf of SI; as far as we know, he never set foot in the capital.

Thus the following statements published in the Guardian are nonsense: “It was during this campaign that Kennedy showed the Icelandic activists the techniques of ‘lock down’ – when protesters attach themselves to an immobile object – and how to block roads by constructing tripods from scaffolding, placing a protester at the apex” and “Undercover police officer made himself indispensable to the movement, activist claims”. It is worth noting that a reporter who uses the words ‘lock-down’ for a practice that is generally referred to by activists as ‘lock-on’, clearly does not know much about direct action protests.

None of the activists in the first two lock-ons at Karahnjukar in 2005 were actually Icelandic; these were the only actions Kennedy was part of in Iceland. All the people involved apart from Kennedy were highly experienced activists from different countries who had no need of any training or introduction to such methods, by Kennedy or anyone else. Furthermore, road blocks and tripods were not even employed that summer. SI did not use tripods as means of protest until in the summer of 2008 at the site of a Century Aluminum smelter in Hvalfjordur, near Reykjavik, several years after Kennedy had come to Iceland.

Saving Iceland founder Olafur Pall Sigurdsson had already organized several direct action workshops for several days for Icelandic activists in Reykjavik, in collaboration with the Icelandic peace movement in the spring of 2004 and again under the banner of SI in June 2005. These workshops were given by other foreign trainers. Both courses were publicised openly and reported on by the Icelandic media with a certain amount of puzzled amusement.

It is possible that Mark Kennedy exaggerated his importance to Jason Kirkpatrick, one of the Guardian’s sources. Also, the so-called ‘training videos’ Kennedy showed to Kirkpatrick were in fact footage from the real actions at Karahnjukar. DVDs with this footage were in circulation amongst activist and media all over Europe. There have never been any training videos of SI activists, let alone any with Mark Kennedy as a trainer.
The actual direct action training courses in Iceland took place in May 2004 and June 2005, while Kennedy did not come to Iceland until July 2005, after the protests at the G8 summit in Gleneagles. Consequently, Kirkpatrick’s testimony is founded on the boasting claims of a professional liar, i.e. Kennedy.

As regards Kennedy’s involvement in SI info tours and his supposedly vital role in linking Sigurdsson with other European activists. Kennedy’s role was limited to driving and carrying out some of the logistics for a few of the many trips Sigurdsson and others undertook to publicize the struggle to save the Icelandic highlands. To say that Kennedy was vital in introducing SI to foreign activists or that he introduced direct action to Iceland is therefore utterly false.

Kennedy was never a key decision-maker in Saving Iceland
Likewise, the claim that “Kennedy quickly became a […] key decision-maker” in Saving Iceland is completely erroneous. Saving Iceland is not a hierarchical organisation but a loose campaign, we have no leaders and important roles are shared and rotated. We count on a fluid group of inspired and dedicated people contributing from time to time to the best of their capacity and interests. The emphasis on ‘key-decision makers’ is a form of dramatisation that may help sell newspapers, but shows a lack of understanding of the basic mode of organisation of most of the networks that are written about in the Kennedy case. Besides, if most of the British activists did not find Kennedy to be the sharpest knife in the box, why should SI have found him to be any sharper? Several other people were much more capable and dedicated than he was when it came to strategy and decision-making.

During the few years Mark Kennedy was involved with SI, he was simply one of a large and very active group of foreigners who contributed their efforts to the organization. Indeed, the only remarkable thing about Kennedy’s involvement in Saving Iceland is the fact that he was a police spy.

The reports of the Guardian are misleading, they misrepresent the true context of Kennedy’s involvement and are not in keeping with the integrity that the Guardian journalists at first wished to project in their communications with Saving Iceland. Saving Iceland demands to see the real truth that lies behind Kennedy’s heinous personal betrayals in the name of state-sanctioned violations of basic human rights.

Kennedy did act as an agent-provocateur
Saving Iceland can now confirm that Mark Kennedy did certainly act as an agent provocateur within our network, regularly calling for more extreme forms of protest, and that he abused trust in clearly an illegal manner, even using sex as a means to gain access.

We want to see that the truth about his betrayals while under the command of the British authorities, and possibly in collaboration with the Icelandic authorities, be exposed and that those responsible be made to answer for their actions. The British and Icelandic police and governments, for whom Kennedy seems to have gathered information, must end their silence about which agencies and authorities were aware of his undercover work in Iceland.

Kennedy himself has now confirmed, in an interview with the Daily Mail, that when operating in Germany he was always in direct contact with the German authorities and personally passed on information to the German police. This has been confirmed in the Bundestag by high-ranking German police officers. The Daily Mail reports that “Kennedy says he would travel abroad with fellow activists, and feed information back to his British superiors to share with other nations. ‘Activism has no borders,’ he says. ‘I would never go abroad without authority from my superiors and the local police.’” Why should the case be any different when it comes to Icelandic authorities?

Illegal Icelandic collaboration with British services?
Saving Iceland will in the next few days publish evidence that shows that the police in Seydisfjordur and Eskifjordur did not tell the truth in their statement to the Icelandic National Broadcaster by stating that they did not have any “dealings” with Mark Stone/Kennedy in 2005. Later, after a lengthy delay in answering, the Icelandic State Police, “refused to comment” on the National Broadcasters’ question if the State Police was aware of a British police spy in SI. Saving Iceland asks: What are the State Police hiding?

Finally, on 2 February, Haraldur Johannesen, head of the Icelandic State Police, asserted in a meeting with Ögmundur Jonasson, the Icelandic Minister of Internal Affairs, that the State Police had no idea that the British agent was operating in Icelandic jurisdiction. (Update.) Apparently the Minister ordered the police officer to submit a report about this.

Icelandic legislation does not allow pre-emptive investigations. If the British police was operating without the knowledge of Icelandic authorities they were clearly violating Icelandic jurisdiction. If the Icelandic police received any of the information gathered by Mark Kennedy they broke the law.

The published confirmation [in the Police Magazine] of close collaboration between British and Icelandic authorities on the issue of Saving Iceland in the winter of 2005-2006 together with the statements of the police in Seydisfjordur and Eskifjordur, that contradict the evidence that Saving Iceland is in possession of, gives ample grounds to assume that the Icelandic authorities were in the know about Mark Kennedy’s infiltration of Saving Iceland.

Instead of reporting made-up spectacle, the Guardian and other media should now focus on breaking open the silence of the British and Icelandic governments as regards to whom Kennedy’s information was passed on and which agencies/authorities were aware of his undercover work in Iceland.

Environmental network Saving Iceland declares full solidarity with the Reykjavik Nine defendants (RVK9), who face between one and sixteen years in prison for exercising their democratic right to peacefully protest against a disgraced parliament, on 8 December 2008.

These nine people have been picked out of the thousands whose protests brought down the previous government, whose corruption and ineptitude was responsible for the historical crisis Icelandic society is still being torn up by. This same government has now been confirmed by the Special Investigation Committee report (SIC – an apt acronym) as instrumental in the abuse that lead to the complete crash of the Icelandic economy; and as a major force in the severe corruption, democracy deficit and ethical crisis which have since emerged as the underlying reasons for the total failure of Icelandic democracy.

Criminalizing political opponents, even those who use non-violent civil disobedience, is an old diversion tactic used by states worldwide. This act of political repression is in glaring contradiction to the sanctimonious declarations of ‘shouldering responsibility’ and ‘taking heed of lessons’ paid by the parties responsible for the crisis. Icelanders should take seriously the systematic abuse of power which has been uncovered in the Icelandic establishment.

So far not one individual from the political or financial community, many of whom have been identified from all sides as the culprits of the crisis, has been tried in Icelandic courts. That the young people of the RVK9 are to be the first individuals to be tried as a result of the crisis speaks clearly for the climate of denial that now pervades the atmosphere in Icelandic society, and for the scandalous reluctance of the Icelandic state and its political class to take responsibility or draw lessons from the crisis.

The case against the RVK9 is a blatant diversion tactic executed by an utterly irresponsible power community in complete denial of the disgraceful scenario that Icelandic democracy has found itself in. We are witnessing a discredited establishment attempting to scapegoat people for protesting against a parliament that has been universally condemned as corrupt, inept and disqualified. Saving Iceland questions whether the Icelandic State will reclaim any respect for its institutions, particularly by destroying the lives of these nine individuals and their families?

The severe irregularities in Icelandic society are no news to the Saving Iceland network. When Icelandic society was in the grip of the greed frenzy that lead to the collapse, we were among the very few who stepped forward to expose and challenge these developments. As a result we experienced both vilification by the Icelandic corporate media and political persecution by the Icelandic courts and police.

The present ‘left wing’ government is not only continuing the culture of political repression, but is actually significantly increasing it. Now the state intends to take revenge with hefty prison sentences. This is in retaliation for what really only amounts to a benign act of non-violent civil disobedience. The underlying justification of this repression is that of a deterrent against further civil disobedience.

Saving Iceland would like to call the urgent attention of international human rights and civil liberties NGOs to the attack on the legislated rights of protestors in Iceland. These rights are both constitutionally and internationally legislated.

Even though the offices of parliament were recently discovered responsible for pursuing and pressing charges against the RVK9, the president of the parliament has claimed that the RVK9 case is out of the hands of the executive power and now in the ‘safe’ hands of the legislative power. What irony! Every Icelander knows that in Iceland there is still no clear division between the executive and legislative power. This is in keeping with the frequent accusations that Iceland is but a ‘banana republic’. It is still the case that the Icelandic courts (municipal and high) have been rigged systematically by cronies of the Conservative party. The legislative system in Iceland is just as discredited as the political establishment and financial sectors.

One must deduce that the chaos that has so far followed each RVK9 hearing, including even a riot scenario, has been allowed to escalate to such an extent as part of a deliberate and cynical attempt by the establishment to provide a politically destabilizing and unfavorable presentation of the defendants. The extensive errors of judgement displayed by the judge have simply increased tensions and further contributed to the farcical nature of the proceedings.

This is evident in the way that the still neoliberal media has persistently presented the case. The Icelandic media has repeatedly called for heavy sentences of the defendants and consistently declared their guilt as self evident. This has gone so far that one lawyer, Ragnar Adalsteinsson, has declared that the RVK9 have no chance of receiving a fair trial.

When the national broadcasting agency finally gained access to and televised CCTV footage of the defendants entering parliament, it became clear that the charges of violence and bodily harm to parliament staff were entirely unfounded.

One of the main arguments that the Icelandic media has pursued against the defendants was that they had introduced a culture of violence into Icelandic protests and therefore had to be dealt with in a severe manner. In spite of the case’s high prominence, the presentation on national TV of irrefutable evidence which exposes the charges of violence as base lies, was met with stony silence by the rest of the Icelandic media. This is a glaring example of the reluctance of Iceland’s media (itself severely reprimanded by the SIC as willing servants of those responsible for the crisis) to learn its lessons and shoulder responsibility for years of negating the democratic ethos of journalism.

We would also call to attention the vindictive motivation of the charges against the RVK9. It is reinforced by the fact that the supposedly centre-left Peoples Alliance party, which leads the present government, shared power with the Conservative party in the government which was overthrown by the protest movement. Within the present ‘left wing’ government, the vindictiveness of the previous two parties is catered for by the persistence of charges against the RVK9.

Clearly the Left-Green party, which attained power as a consequence of the protest movement and now shares leadership with PA, will not seriously pressurize their coalition partner to withdraw the charges. It looks as if the protestors are being sacrificed in order to pacify those squirming in the international spotlight for their responsibility in generating the crisis. This amounts to a total betrayal of the call for greater democracy and ethical politics whose demand swept the Left-Greens to power in 2009.

As stated, Saving Iceland are in complete solidarity with the RVK9, and also their families. Individuals in the Saving Iceland network are no strangers to the feelings of criminalization and being dragged through the courts, on trumped up charges, for acts of non-violent civil disobedience. We have learned that it is one of the underlying aims of the state to use such court cases to disrupt our lives and those of our loved ones by maintaining an extended shadow on our future. This is a deliberate and systematically employed tactic aimed at choking our voices and spirits. It is crucial that society identifies this state tactic of persecuting political opponents through criminalization as the cynical political repression that it truly is.

The act of the RVK9 against the parliament of Iceland on 8 December 2008 focused the public protests against the corrupt government and significantly contributed to its downfall. This fact alone should persuade the Icelandic people that they ought to be grateful for the courage displayed by the RVK9; that they should oppose the RVK9’s being dragged through lengthy court cases and possible prison sentences. Thus we call on the people in Iceland to actively support the defendants and to stop the disgraceful violation of justice that this case constitutes.

Saving Iceland is also compelled to call for urgent scrutiny and intervention into Icelandic affairs by the international community and NGOs concerned with civil liberties and human rights.

Finally, Saving Iceland demands the immediate withdrawal of the charges against the RVK9 and, further, that the Icelandic parliament and State should issue an official apology to the defendants and their families for this act of sheer political repression.

Ólafur Páll Sigurdsson is a poet, film-maker and literary scholar. He founded the Saving Iceland network in 2004.

www.rvk9.org

‘We have before us a wonderful opportunity to deliver mutual benefit to the people of Greenland and to Alcoa as we continue to work toward our common objective of building a world-class, sustainable aluminum smelter, powered by renewable hydroelectric energy in Greenland.’

” aluminium made in Greenland will benefit our global climate if replacing aluminium produced elsewhere in the world where renewable energy sources are not available for the production. This will raise Greenland’s emissions, but on a global scale the emissions will have gone down.”

Greenland is moving along a development path calling for new industries to be introduced to increase our economic independence. Like other countries at the bridge of industrial development, Greenland will travel to Copenhagen to draft a new agreement that will reduce emissions while at the same time taking into account the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities of countries and OCT’s.

For generations we have lived off nature. My ancestors have survived by constantly adapting to changes in nature. Today we still live off nature. Fishery is the single most important industry in Greenland, making up 80 per cent of our exports. As stocks are likely to undergo changes as a result of the changing climate, a restructuring of the fisheries sector is vital in the coming year. Also the development of new sectors, mainly hydrocarbons and energy intensive industries, are expected within the next decade. Development of new sectors is vital if Greenland is to prosper under Self-Government.
On June 21 2009 Greenland took a historic step towards independence as the new Self-Government status was introduced. The new Act on Greenland Self-Government consolidates the status of the Greenlandic people as a people pursuant to international law with the right to self determination.

A country of only 56.000 people, living in small towns and settlements along a coastline that compares to the distance from Casablanca to Copenhagen, brings challenges. And adding to these challenges an Arctic climate with extreme temperatures and dark winters makes the challenges of binding the country together even greater.
Greenland is a modern country with communication technology connecting our communities and connecting our country to the world around us. But as inland production is limited and distances between towns and settlements are vast we still rely on sea and air transportation for a wide range of commodities. As the basic need for heating and transportation is comparatively large, Greenland has a high basic emission level per capita even if only little industrial production is taking place.

To cut emissions of greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels we have invested 1 per cent of our GDP annually in the development of sustainable energy since the 1990’s. The introduction of hydropower plants in Greenland is a success as 43 per cent of electricity supply today is covered by energy from three hydropower plants, and in 2010 the share of sustainable energy will climb to more than 60 per cent as a new hydropower plant is opened. Furthermore, my government invests in the research and development of small scale energy systems suitable for use in the Arctic.

New industries
Greenland is moving along a development path calling for new industries to be introduced in order to develop our society and in order to increase our economic independence.
The development of mineral and oil activities are some of the few realistic possibilities towards a self-sustainable economy in Greenland.

Within the last 3-4 years four new licences for mine production have been issued. Several other mineral projects are reaching the final stages before mining licences can be issued. This is the case for projects comprising zirconium, diamond, iron, lead and zinc, and the group of platinum metals. It is a realistic expectation that approximately 10 mines will be in operation within the next 5 to 10 years.

In the last couple of years Greenland has experienced an unprecedented international interest in the oil and gas potential in its underground and the area covered by exploration and exploitation licences have increase to approx. 130,000 sq km. The next exploration wells are planned to commence offshore West Greenland in 2011.
It is a clear political condition that all activities are carried out in accordance with best international standards in relation to safety, environment and climate. But even if the best environmental standards are being used these activities will increase Greenland’s emissions of greenhouse gasses from a very low 1990 starting point. The challenge for Greenland as for many other countries at the bridge of industrial development is to balance the need for new industries, the need to develop our society with a responsible policy on mitigation and adaptation to climate changes.
Another resource is our vast potentials for hydropower energy. The large inland lakes of melt water are energy resources that I hope will be used for the benefit of both Greenland and the global climate as we plan to introduce energy intensive industries within the next decade. As an example, any aluminium made in Greenland will benefit our global climate if replacing aluminium produced elsewhere in the world where renewable energy sources are not available for the production. This will raise Greenland’s emissions, but on a global scale the emissions will have gone down.

Common but differentiated responsibilities
We all inhabit the same globe, and we all must make an effort to curb climate change now.
Reducing global emissions of greenhouse gasses and leaving a green planet for future generations is one of the biggest challenges faced by world leaders today. But while facing the challenges of global warming we must also see that countries at the bridge of industrial development find room to meet the needs and aspirations of their populations bringing them at level with people in the industrialised countries.
In December 2009 the world meets in Copenhagen to draft a new agreement that hopefully will lead to a reduction in global emissions of greenhouse gasses, while at the same time taking into account the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

Kuupik Kleist is the Prime Minister of Greenland

Yesterday, Friday August 7th, Saving Iceland protested by the Ministry of Industry. At the same time inside the building, a financial contract was signed between the government and Norðurál/Century Aluminum, concerning the latter’s smelter in Helguvík. When the protest was about to end, the police showed up, arrested 5 individuals and aggressively roughed up one of them. Most of the media has spoken about the event but not mentioned the police brutality at all. Instead, the media has unsparingly published the police’s smear about us: that a policeman was kicked in the head and that we threatened the police with iron sticks, without any evidence showing that anything like this ever took place. Saving Iceland rejects these accusations and renounces the media’s one-sided reports.

The contract that was signed today includes state support for the aluminium smelters in the form of a tax discount that amounts to 16,2 million US dollars – two billion Icelandic krónur – and gives Norðurál/Century exemptions from paying industry fees, market fees and electricity safety fees. Special rules will also apply concerning stamp duty and planning fees, and about new taxes. The emission permits that are now valid permit a 150 thousand ton smelter in Helguvík; the Environmental Impact Assessment permits 250 thousand tons, but Century/Norðurál plans to build a 360 thousand ton smelter and today’s contract gives the company the right to do so. (1) The energy for the smelter has not been found and Svandís Svarvarsdóttir, the minister of environment has officially said that enough energy to run the smelter does not exist in the Reykjanes peninsula. (2) At the same time, Katrín Júlíusdóttir, the minister of industry, has agreed with ideas about Landsvirkjun selling energy from the planned dams in Þjórsá river to Helguvík. (3)

Aluminium production is polluting, it destroys ecosystems and kills human and non-human societies. Apart from that, aluminium production is completely unnecessary, since there is already plenty of recyclable aluminium in this world. The aluminium companies that are here in Iceland are saturated with unceasing greed and ruthlessness towards everything or everybody that could possibly stand in the way of financial growth. They are guilty of serious human rights abuses and environmental crimes worldwide. Politicians have systematically dropped their ideals (if they ever had them) for the votes of those who have been deceived by the aluminium industry’s lie-machine and the hope for continuing paychecks.

Therefore, we marched to the Ministry of Industry with green skyr (traditional dairy product used repeatedly in protests) in buckets and a banner that says: “Heavy Industry Profits – Iceland Bleeds”. The skyr was thrown on the minister’s lexus car and on the walls of the building. The banner was put up in front of the ministry. For these actions, people from the group were assaulted; 5 people deprived of their freedom and taken to the police station. A policeman repeatedly roughed up one of those arrested, causing her to have problems breathing, threw her to the ground and, in the end, stood on her. The reaction of those who were there – an attempt to stop the police brutality – evoked in plenty of baton beatings by the police. The media has then actively taken part in the propaganda machine of those who have vested interests in the contract, by putting forth made up accusations. Most of the media has stated that we kicked a policeman’s head and attacked the police with iron sticks and other weapons. Both accusations are are pure lies and expose once again the myth about neutral media in Iceland.

No footage or other types of evidence prove that Saving Iceland did what the media states. It seem like the police’s words – plus a very easily desputed report from a “bystander” – about todays events, are enough for the media to publish what they see as fair coverage about what happened. It is understandable that the media would talk to all those who took part in what happened, but when the police’s words are taken as holy truth, one has to ask for whose interests the media works. The webpage of Morgunblaðið (Iceland’s biggest printed newspaper) e.g. published a news article titled “A policeman kicked in the head”, quoted directly from a police officer, but that shows no evidence to back up these words. A similar story can be told about most of the media.

While working on this kind of biased journalism, the media uses the technique of searching for interlocutors who will tell the story that the media wants, and then edit it for their own convenience. We, Saving Iceland, have in our hands a lot of photos and videos that show clearly that the before mentioned accusations are based on no real arguments. The footage shows a group of people, reacting to their ethical duty to protect a person that is being roughed up.

The truth is that quite a lot of violence took place by the Ministry of Industry today: firstly the way the police handled those arrested and secondly the contract that was signed, which is much more serious than the violence that is wrongfully attributed to us. With this kind of journalism, the media is willfully hiding the real violence. At the same time, it tries to bring out disunion and a lack of solidarity amongst those who have fought with diverse tactics against the heavy industrialization of Iceland. The media has e.g. published news about Ómar Ragnarsson (a well known environmentalist) renouncing the violence which is said to have happened – once again without publishing any evidence proving it took place.

This is certainly not the first time when the media tries to bring up this image of Saving Iceland and others who use direct action in their resistance against the destruction of this planet and capital’s and government’s aggression. In July 2007, RÚV (national TV station) stated that those who took part in Saving Iceland’s actions were getting paid for their participation, even getting bonuses for being arrested. No evidence was used to back it up and even though Saving Iceland’s spokespeople repeatedly denounced RÚV’s lies, the news article was kept unchanged. When Saving Iceland then sued RÚV to the Ethics Committee of the Journalists Association, the committee came to the conclusion that nothing was wrong with this type of journalism. It is highly unlikely that the committee would come to a different conclusion if we would get the idea to take today’s journalism the same direction.

With this letter we upload photos and videos that prove the lies of the police and media. It is not an unfair demand on our behalf that our words and footage gets to the public and will be used in upcoming coverage on the issue. It is our minimum demand to the institution that calls itself the media.

We will upload more videos later.

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Resources:

(1) News article on Smugan, http://www.smugan.is/frettir/frettir/nr/2258

(2) News article on Mbl.is, http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2009/06/16/ekki_til_orka_fyrir_helguvik

(3) News article on Mbl.is, http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2009/07/21/selur_landsvirkjun_orku_til_helguvikur

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A video from the scene:

Though Alcoa’s aluminium smelter in Reyðarfjörður (east of Iceland) is now working with full force, driven on by the highly critical Kárahnjúkar Dam, there is still a fair reason for attacking the company. The smelter in Reyðarfjörður was the beginning of the heavy industry madness, the first sign of how effect the government’s advertisement campaign about the country’s cheap energy and people’s little as no resistance, was. (1) The smelter in Reyðarfjörður was the ball the pushed forward the idea that aluminium production is the premise for life. After the construction of the Kárahnjúkar Dam, all other energy projects look so small that only very few people seem to see a reason for fighting against them. And the police’s mistreatment towards those who dared to put their feet in between the construction, did for sure not encourage many to continue the resistance. 

Now, Alcoa controls the east. Nothing remarkable seems to take place there without the aluminium producer taking part in it. And that is precisely how corporations gather trust and popularity. In the name of increased population and welfare as well as more flowering cultural life, the people in the east were convinced that the society needed the Kárahnjúkar Dam and the smelter. And the same tricks were used when the people of Húsavík (in the north) were convinced to bring a smelter down on themselves, with free assistance from the media, which systematically displayed the image that not a single person in Húsavík had anything against the planned construction. (2) Recent news prove the opposite: Plenty of people are opposed to the construction of the smelter and the parallel energy projects, which will completely destroy  geothermal fields or glacial rivers in the north-east – most likely both! (3, 4)

Alcoa’s leash on the society in the East is not different from anywhere else here in Iceland or in the western world in general, where corporations have fundamentally taken over human societies and the natural environment. Corporations have become bigger and often way more powerful than governments. We chose to attack Alcoa because of how obvious Alcoa’s takeover of the society is; how obviously dependent on aluminium the arms industry and war institutions are; how obvious it is that aluminium production is one of the roots of the ecological crisis we are facing on this planet.

The newest issue of Fjarðarálsfréttir, Alcoa’s newsletter in Iceland, which was published last June shows Alcoa’s extreme authority  in the society. One example after another is mentioned to prove the so-called positive impacts of the aluminium smelter. Worker’s charity, social funding, increased service, knowledge and cultural life, better transportations, increased population, the country’s biggest theater festival, wally-ball field on the beach, public meetings about environmental issues, gender equality and no thrash – everything sponsored by Alcoa! And still there are people who are surprised and angry about how the recent documentary Draumalandið (The Dreamland) displays the society’s image. Well, Alcoa can be proud of one of its works: Giving the people living in the east of Iceland the idea that without the smelter, there would be no life around there. (5)

Alcoa’s spokespersons in Iceland have systematically tried to hide the fact that the company is one of the foundations of modern wars. They have officially claimed that Alcoa only produces aluminium but has nothing to say about what than happens; what will be made out of it. (6) Saving Iceland has pointed out the opposite and asked how Alcoa in Iceland could think of lying straight forward when all facts are up on the table. (7) Alcoa Defense, the company’s weapon department, is one of the company´s biggest prides according to Alcoa´s website. The company signs – and brags about it each time – one contract after another with some of the world’s biggest weapon producers and military institutions, concerning designing, repairing and producing all types of weapons for ground, sea and air. Alcoa’s plan to try to keep the truth away from people here in Iceland was doomed from the beginning. (8)

Another of Alcoa’s image campaigns – and this time on a global scale – is the greenwash. The company’s propaganda makes it clear that Alcoa is a part of the solution, always and everywhere. It does not matter if it has to do with sustainability, saving endangered animal species, clean drinking water, decreasing and even stopping further greenhouse effects – Alcoa squeezes itself into everything. With the help of a crew of people getting paid for creating and sustaining Alcoa’s image and even volunteers, who according to Alcoa “take on the most challenging environmental issues” of the planet, Alcoa has created an green and environmentally friendly image. (9)

But there is nothing green and environmentally friendly about aluminium. There is nothing environmental about bauxite mining, alumina refining, transportation of raw materials between continents, aluminium production and the final production of an aluminium based product. There is nothing green about the damming of glacial rivers and geothermal areas. There is nothing socially positive about aluminium production. All this only serves one goal: To create and increase few individuals’ economical growth and to hold up an unsustainable economy system. The aluminium companies’ image is false from the beginning to the end. 

Our action is small and we realize it. But it can have much more powerful impact if we make it clear to Alcoa that the company will be attacked again and again if it will not stop further construction. Few splashes of green skyr are not enough on their own and indeed it is not only in our responsibility to fight against the monster that the heavy industry machine is.

There is little as no tradition of resistance here in Iceland but the january insurrection was a good warmup. People learned how to raise their fists against the authorities – even with full force. We hope that actions like our also works as an encouragement to people, so they realize the the january insurrection did not come to an end with parliamentary elections. The protests were only the taste of what is about to come if we really want to enforce real changes. Real changes do not consist in changing a government, but to completely revolt the whole world that we live in, stop seeing it as the human’s sacred right to destroy the planet for financial growth and to fulfill this consumer society’s fake needs.

In Alcoa’s newsletter, Tómas Már Sigurðsson, the company’s director in Iceland, says: “Iceland’s strength lies in the harnessing of natural resources.” i.e. creating more energy for aluminium production.  We renounce this stupidity and say instead: The only way to real changes lies in the protection of nature!

Resources:

(1) An Agency of the Ministry of Industry and Energy and the National Power Company (1995). Lowest Energy Prices!! In Europe For New Contracts
(2) Mikil ánægja á Húsavík með ákvörðun Alcoa, news article Mbl.is, http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2006/03…
(3) Hvað er þetta hitt?, news article Mbl.is, http://www.savingiceland.org/?p=2959&amp…
(5) Fjarðarálsfréttir, http://www.alcoa.com/iceland/ic/pdf/2009…
(6) Erna Indriðadóttir, Álið, Björk og Alcoa, an article in Morgunblaðið, http://www.alcoa.com/iceland/ic/news/wha…
(7) Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, Lygar og útúrsnúningar, an article in Morgunblaðið, http://www.savingiceland.org/?p=1543&amp…)
(8) The webpage of Alcoa Defense, http://www.alcoa.com/defense/en/home.asp
(9) Alcoa’s webpage, http://www.savingiceland.org/?p=3874 Olafur Pall Sigurdsson

“Do you know that your wheelchair is made out of aluminium?” said a police officer to one of those who stopped work in Helguvík this summer. Thereby he swamped all the arguments of the opposition to aluminium for good, didn’t he? Shortly after the publication of Jakob Björnsson’s (former director of energy affairs) article about the singer Björk Guðmundsdóttir and her usage of aluminium, the editors of Morgunblaðið got ready and wrote an editorial where it says that the opposers of aluminium are probably not self-consistent most of the time. Most of them use aluminium everyday and even Saving Iceland cooks in aluminium pots and uses aluminium polse to hold up their tents. “Hypocrisy” said Morgunblaðið.

This critique is far from being new. It has systematically been used against those who object to the further build-up of heavy industry here in Iceland, the destruction of Iceland’s nature for energy production, the destruction of ecosystems worldwide because of bauxite mining, and energy realization to a company that prides itself of its collaboration with the U.S. millitary. In addition to when aluminium opposers are all said to be wanting to move the Icelandic society back to the turf huts and build the country’s economy on picking mountain grass, this has been the main criticism.

No matter how many times it has been pointed out that at least 30% of all produced aluminium is used for the arms industry; no matter how many times it has been pointed out how much aluminium ends as a land-filling after having functions as single use drinking facilities; no matter that the context between low energy prices and the fact how easy it is for us to produce aluminium, use it once, throw it away and produce more – still we are being told that we are not self-consistent.

Then it is hammered in, most recently in the editorial of DV (one of Iceland’s biggest newspapers), that it is our ethical duty to drown the highlands and annihilate geothermal areas for energy consuming aluminium production; that is our environmental input. If the aluminium companies are not permitted to build smelters here in Iceland, they will just do it somewhere else in the world where the smelting will be powered in a less environmentally way. What a rubbish! Alcan wants to increase its production in Straumsvík (Iceland), preferably enlarge the smelter and build more smelter here. At the same time Alcan plans to build a smelter on a tax-free industrial zone in South-Africa, which suprisingly is going to be powered by coal and nuclear energy. The only thing that matters to them is the energy price, not the natural environment. Aluminium production will never become environmentally friendly or humane.

In Orissa, India, live indigenous tribes who have always lived in harmony with their natural environment. Their ecological footprint is hardly visible, at the same time as the lifestyle of the “developed” people in the western world are so destructive that we would not few extra planets if all humans on earth should be allowed to enjoy these “qualities of life”. The above-mentioned tribes live by and in the mountains and are so “unlucky” to literally live on the aluminium industry’s raw material paradise. Their struggle against the destruction of their lands for bauxite mining has lasted for quite a while and has most of the time been peaceful, even inside the framework of laws. However, the reaction of the authorities and other interested parties have been extremely violent, e.g. lead to deaths. Recently the highest court of India judged with the benefits of the British mining company Vedanta. Cultural genocides are one their way.

Author Andri Snær Magnason (e.g. The Dreamland) answered the above-mentioned articles of Jakob Björnsson and the editors of Morgunblaðið, where he asked: “When is there enough?” And Björnsson answered quickly: “When the majority of voters in Iceland has with its votes in parliamentary elections, decided that there is enough. Not until that happens.”

But the fact is different. The global process and impacts of aluminium production extend far away from Iceland. It is not the private business of Icelanders to decide if aluminium should be produces, bauxite mined, societys wiped out and ecosystems dismantled. And even if it would be so we can just remind ourselves about what happened right before and after the parliamentary elections in the spring of 2007. Samfylkingin (the Social Democratic Alliance) showed up with an environmental policy titled “Beautiful Iceland” and announced a heavy industry stop for at least five years. Now, c.a. one and a half year later, the party’s ministers have officially announced their support of two new smelters and the parallel harnessing of geothermal zones and glacial rivers; broken the ground for new smelters and signed contracts behind closed doors. All on the offer of democracy!

It is time to say that there is enough! More aluminium does not have to be produced! Bauxite does not have to be mined and more indidgenous societies do not have to be exterminated. More “green” bombs do not have to be produced, not more light millitary equipment that still kills as well as the heavy one, not more “eco-friendly” cars, not more recyclable beer cans. It is not needed to dam more rivers, drown more waterfalls, reindeer’s habitats and protected areas. There is no need print and send out more “Lowest Energy Prices” brochures, write more reports about the creation of the image of Iceland, or organize more “Pure Energy” tourist and business promotion festivals outside of Iceland. The only thing that has to be done is to push stop!

This article was written in a computer. Hypocrisy? Shold I maybe rather than writing articles about the harmfulness of aluminium production, move to the mountains of Orissa and fight against corporations and state armies with sticks and stones?Then be murdered for the guilt of wanting a healthy society; for wanting to protect the planet and its inhabitants?

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