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CALL TO ACTION

AUGUST 11th – 17th 2024

WORLDWIDE WEEK OF ACTION

AGAINST THE NORTH BOTHNIA LINE IN SÁPMI

Why aiming at this beast?

This is a call to action against the North Bothnia Line, a railway just beginning to be built along the coast of Swedish-occupied Sápmi. This project is a continuation of several hundred years of brutal colonization of the peoples and lands in Sápmi. Extractive industries are thriving on the increased demand for raw materials following the so-called “green transition”. This makes them continually stress the importance and urgency of the train line. So do the Swedish State and the European Union.

The track will be used for both passenger and freight trains. But the true reasons behind the project becomes quite obvious when reading the list of financiers, and also by reading the North Bothnia Line Group’s project leader Elisabeth Sinclair’s statement that “[a]lthough the passenger traffic between the coastal cities is important, it is the goods that are the basis of the North Bothnia Line”.

In the same fashion The Swedish Transport Administration proudly announced that “every day, steel equivalent to an Eiffel Tower is shipped from northern Sweden to Europe. With the North Bothnia Line, we will be able to transport more”. Thus, the “signal is clear”, as Tomas Eneroth, Swedish infrastructure minister says: “The North Bothnia Line is one of the country’s most important investments”.

This last quote is not surprising at all, since LKAB, SSAB, Boliden and Sveaskog have jointly written a letter to the Swedish Transport Administration and the government in which the companies emphasize that “the creation of continued capacity and the construction of a modern coastal railway is urgent for their operations”.

With these examples, we can clearly see that the North Bothnia Line is an essential and urgently needed component for accelerated extraction that the Swedish state and big companies are trying to implement in the north for the sake of “green” capitalism. This high-speed railway could provide a missing link to the colonial infrastructure in the North and therefore drastically increase the capacity to transport ever larger and heavier amounts of materials and goods at a faster pace towards Continental/Western Europe.

Until now, the construction process has been slow and halted several times, among others because there have been difficulties to fully finance it. But if implemented, the North Bothnia Line could be an important facilitator for the wave of green colonialism happening in Sápmi and all around the globe. Therefore, any action aimed at this railway is an attack on the entire colonial green-washed machinery.

Take action

We believe that there is a possibility to win this fight if we broaden our ways of attack and internationalize the struggle. We do not want to define your means or your targets.
Do whatever feels in line with your way of acting. Are you and your group confident in organizing sit-ins and blockades? There is plenty of corporate offices all around!
How about banner drops, zine tables and solidarity photos to broaden the reach of our efforts? We welcome your creativity and experience, and hope to see many different approaches on all kinds of platforms.

Of course, we also have to speak of attack. Simply taking actions for optics and making demands to the powerful to take ‘morally’ right decisions leaves us dependent on their institutions and lip service. We have come to see mass mobilizing in the same way, where a game of quantity aims to only reform a tiny piece of the machinery. Attack offers more: a qualitative approach undertaken by a few committed people that is able to have rippling effects. We invite you to entertain this idea and refer to links further along for inspiration.

We send out our special solidarity and warmth towards the inspiring struggle against the Tren Maya – and all those who struggle against domination and colonization all over the planet!

GENERAL CONTEXT

Green colonialism and accelerated exploitation in Swedish-occupied Sápmi
The land through which this railway will penetrate is called by many names. One name is the colonial name “Norrland” which is claimed to be a part of the colonizing state Sweden. Another name is “Sápmi” used by the Sámi. The Sámi are the traditionally Sámi-speaking indigenous peoples that, together with other minorities, has been inhabiting the region of Sápmi for a long time. Today Sápmi encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Kola Peninsula in Russia.

Over the past hundreds of years settlers have violently fought Sámi and other minorities’ traditional ways of life by way of religious indoctrination, forced settlements, child theft, enslavement, installing capitalist economies, inviting multinational cooperations, starting “democratic processes” and of course extracting material goods from the land. The oppression is multi-facetted and has many layers worth attention, but here we will mainly focus on the material aspect of the colonial structure and the accelerated exploitation that is about to unfold itself.

The industrial developments in Swedish-occupied Sápmi must be every technocrats wet dream. This area is already being announced as the “New Green Silicon Valley”, ripe with all the necessary investments and resources for the so-called “green transition” to manifest. It is hard to find anywhere else in this world where investments of this scope are being made in this kind of so called “green” infrastructure. Over a hundred billion euros are estimated to be invested in this area in the next few decades to facilitate an explosion of new infrastructure. This will facilitate more mines, wind turbines, mega-factories and power lines, faster train lines and bigger roads throughout the entire region.

We hope it comes to no surprise that so-called renewable energy technologies are actually made of something. We refuse to call them wind or solar ‘farms’. We refuse to call them ‘forests’. They are industries, factories and plantations. Wind, solar, biomass, are all just new ways to maintain the grasp on the world of industrial civilization. They are made of concrete, steel, copper, lithium and many more precious metals from around the globe. Workers toil to exploit resources using high-powered fossil fuel machines and factories to then produce a slick and well-marketed product that gives the illusion of change.

Material extraction in some cases has to rise by thousands of percent in the few upcoming years if the global demand for ‘green energy’ is to be met. It is a race to the top, and therefore the “green transition” is a militarized proxy war of influence fought between powerful nation states for control of the world infrastructure and economy.

Swedish society stands as an exceptional example for cover-ups and marketing success (right behind the Norwegians). Most of Sweden’s forests are plantations, the human landscapes are ruled by strip malls, and consumer individualism has become a part of national pride. Shit, the famous red paint-job of Swedish houses is made of a by-product from iron mines, many of them colonial and genocidal projects in Sápmi.

The so-called “green transition” is merely the continuation of an age-old story of colonialism wrapped in a cloak of green lies, pushing the pedal to the metal.

WHO ARE “WE” EVEN?

This communique has been authored by a loose group of people as a result of a larger conversation. Most of us who decided to write this are non-indigenous. Some of us identify as anarchists. We all share the desire to dismantle systems of domination and destruction, like those we can see currently enforcing colonial plunder in Sápmi.

We have found our own reasons to act and invite the reader to do the same. Find out who you are, why you are doing this and don’t come running here to be a saviour.

We do not wish to speak on behalf of Sámi people, to romanticize indigenous lifeways, or to tokenize their struggles for ours. We support Sámi claims of autonomy and freedom, and aim to understand and recognize their history that has been erased or attempted to be erased. We hope and strive for collaboration and crossing paths, however we have no doubt in our own reasons to oppose this ongoing violent extractivism and insatiable destruction as (non-indigenous) accomplices. We believe, simply said, that we should all work together because everyones liberation is entangled.

Please consider this very short notice, and do read more about indigenous and anarchist critique of activism in our resource section.

MORE INFO ABOUT THE TRAIN LINE

General: The North Bothnia Line is a planned 270 kilometer coastal high-speed railway line between Umeå and Luleå. It is the Swedish Transport Administration “Trafikverket” which will be responsible for making it happen. Work also includes the construction of 550 kilometers of road, including both public and service roads, and approximately 250 bridges. Travel centers are planned in Skellefteå, Piteå and Luleå, and regional train stations in Sävar, Robertsfors, Bureå and Byske.

Effects on reindeer herding: The railway will plow through the reindeer herding areas of 15 Sámi villages and thereby cut off and disrupt important winter grazing lands. This combined with all the other industrial encroachments on their lands would be devastating for the reindeer herders.

Construction start: 2018. In January 2024 all appeals issued by some of the affected Sámi villages against the North Bothnia Line’s section between Dåva and Skellefteå have unsurprisingly been rejected by the government. The building of this section started in spring 2024.

Finished: The section Umeå–Dåva is finished and will open for traffic in 2024. The extension from Dåva to Skellefteå is expected to open for traffic in 2030.

Cost: The cost of the project is estimated at approximately SEK 40 billion (3.84 billion euros) at 2021 price levels.

Direct financiers of the train line:
• SSAB: a Swedish steel producer, also active in the so-called US as SSAB Americas and as Rautaruukki in Finland. Its largest shareholders are the Finnish government and LKAB.
• LKAB: a state-owned Swedish mining company providing 80% of Europe’s iron ore with many susidiaries and processing plants around and outside of Europe.
• Boliden AB: a Swedish multinational metals, mining, and smelting company known for causing environmental disasters in Spain and Chile, and for intimidating protestors.
• SCA: a Swedish timber, pulp and paper manufacturer exporting wood pulp to Europe and North America.
• Smurfit Kappa: an Irish packaging company with subsidiaries all over Europe.
• Northvolt: a Swedish battery developer and manufacturer specializing in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, founded by two Tesla executives. Northvolt owns a battery factory in Skellefteå, planned to be connected to the new train line. A big part of the lithium is planned to be mined in Portugal, which would be devastating for many local communities on the country side there.
• Billerud: a Swedish pulp and paper manufacturer with mills in Sweden, Finland and US.
• the Swedish state, local municipalities and the European Union.

Other (transnational) corporations involved:
• AECOM: A global infrastructure consulting business responsible for the detailed design for the 30 kilometres of rail link which runs from Gryssjön to Robertsfors.
• AFRY & WSP: Engineering consultants producing a railway plan for the Skellefteå – Degerbyn section. https://afry.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/afry-in-new-assignment-north-bothnia-line
• Sweco: An engineering consultancy company based in Sweden, was awarded two contracts worth Skr200m to plan two 33 km sections between Sundback and Gryssjön, and Bureå and Södra Tuvan.
• Tyrens: Swedish consultancy, was entrusted with the task of preparing a railway plan and associated project documents for the initial section of the railway line.
• FOLKBRO: An independent, multidisciplinary engineering business, will oversee the cost estimation and life cycle cost analysis.
• Implenia AG: construction of the Ersmark Tunnel (1.6km) between Fäboberget and Ersmarksberget, as well as a service tunnel, concrete structures, wastewater management systems, and drainage mats. Located in Switzerland.
• Sveaskog: Swedens largest forest owner. Sells sawlogs, pulpwood and biofuel and would profit from the train line (as they stated in the joint letter).

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES & LINKS
    
STRATEGIC DISCUSSIONS ON ATTACK
• Targets that exist Everywhere https://ia903104.us.archive.org/24/items/ZineArchive/Targets_That_Exist_Everywhere-Read.pdf
• Zündlappen, Targets that do not exist anywhere else https://archive.org/download/ZineArchive/zundlappen-README.pdf

INSPIRING STRUGGLES
Swedish Northvolt in Montérégie (German)
https://switchoff.noblogs.org/post/2024/05/07/doppelter-angriff-auf-geplante-batteriefabrik/#more-940
https://switchoff.noblogs.org/post/2024/01/29/sabotage-auf-dem-northvolt-gelaende-bewaffnung-des-waldes/

Againt the Lithium mines in Barroso (Portuguese)
• https://www.jornalmapa.pt/2023/11/20/desastres-ambientais-conflitos-e-corrupcao-minas-nao/
• https://barrososemminas.org/

NO TAV
https://www.infoaut.org/english/a-short-intro-to-the-no-tav-movement
https://www.notav.info/ (Italian)

No Al Tren Maya solidarity action in Berlin
https://actforfree.noblogs.org/2022/04/01/berlin-germany-sabotage-of-rail-traffic-against-tesla-the-war-and-the-tren-maya/
• https://actforfree.noblogs.org/2024/03/14/berlin-germany-sabotage-of-a-high-voltage-pylon-brings-tesla-factory-to-a-standstill/
• https://actforfree.noblogs.org/2022/11/23/athensgreece-taking-responsibility-against-the-war-industry-by-anarchists/

ON BEING A NON-INDIGENOUS ACCOMPLICE
• Settlers on the red road, Tawinikay https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tawinikay-settlers-on-the-red-road
• Accomplices Not Allies, Indigenous Action
• https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/indigenous-action-accomplices-not-allies
• Water falling on Granite
• https://archive.org/download/zines-eco-defense/Water_Falling_on_Granite.pdf

ON THE CURRENT STRUGGLES OF SÁMI PEOPLE
• Liberating Sápmi: Indigenous Resistance in Europe’s Far North, Gabriel Kuhn PM Press 2020
• No mine in Gállok: Ecocide and colonialism in Swedish-occupied Sápmi, Kolonierna.se 2023
• https://kolonierna.se/gallokbooklet/
• Decolonizing Sápmi Info Tour https://decolonizingsapmitour.blackblogs.org/resourcen/

ON GREEN LIES AND ACTIVISM
• Kolonial Infrastruktur (website with information about many of the colonial projects in Swedish-occupied Sápmi) https://kolonialinfrastruktur-noblogs-org.translate.goog/norrbotniabanan/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
• The ‘Green’ Farce- Everywhere and Nowhere Else, Anonymous & Return Fire https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-return-fire-the-green-farce-everywhere-nowhere-else
• Give Up Activism Zine https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/andrew-x-give-up-activism