[On Sunday night, July 29, a double sabotage of cables along railroad lines in Bremen and Hamburg paralyzed some of Germany’s high-speed trains. This attack was already published about here, to which we must now add another identical sabotage in Berlin on Thursday night, August 1, at around 3 a.m., in the Charlottenburg district. According to the German railway company Deutsche Bahn, several switches and signals are out of order between Berlin’s main station and Berlin-Spandau, following the arson of several meters of cable on a bridge, causing hundreds of cancellations and delays to both regional and high-speed trains, which will last at least through the weekend.
On August 2, a communiqué was published on de.indymedia claiming responsibility for the attacks on the railway network in Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin, which we translate from the German here, and which sends greetings to the unexpected delegation and saboteurs who successively lit the Olympic flame in the cable shafts of the SNCF, then in those of the internet network and cell towers…
Attacking Deutsche Bahn infrastructure – sabotaging war and colonialism
This week, incendiary attacks on the infrastructure of Deutsche Bahn took place in Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin. The breakdowns caused by these attacks will hopefully create effective interruptions in the capitalist routine. Like no other company, the state-owned railway corporation is the backbone and vital arteries of the German economy, providing the fuel that feeds and drives it: every day, tons of raw materials plundered from all over the world are transported by rail via its freight branch, DB Cargo, to the workshops and factories of the major steel, chemical and automotive industries, to satisfy this society’s insatiable appetite for consumer goods and construction materials.
At the same time, we are in the midst of a vast process of transformation, from the age of fossil fuels to a highly technological, electrified world, which the Federal Government is selling to us under the misleading term “energy transition”. Deutsche Bahn logistics plays a key role in this process. For example, it is currently developing transport solutions for hydrogen and lithium batteries to stimulate the development of a “green” economy in Germany, and make the country attractive to companies wishing to locate and invest in new technologies. Tesla’s gigafactory in Berlin-Grünheide is perhaps the best-known and most controversial example to date of this deceptive folly. It goes hand in hand with the emergence and expansion of extractivist projects and new transport routes for coveted resources such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, copper or silicon – essential for supposedly sustainable technologies – from mines to processing plants and production sites. While politics and industry hope for new markets and lucrative business, this development means one thing above all for the planet: progress towards its widespread destruction. Now, with its green label and in the name of climate protection, Deutsche Bahn is at the forefront of this movement.
When the trains stop, the finely-programmed processes of this system of exploitation and destruction are interrupted and slowed down.
But Deutsche Bahn is much more than a civilian company that simply transports commodities and manpower from point A to point B. DB’s rail network is also a central part of the military infrastructure used by the German army (Bundeswehr) and NATO to move their troops. Together with the highways, it forms the core infrastructure for transporting armaments such as tanks and heavy military equipment around the world and to active theaters of war.
This year, Germany is the starting point for several NATO military exercises. These are mainly aimed at moving tens of thousands of NATO soldiers and their war materiel to the “eastern flank”. The German Bundeswehr is leading several of these large-scale military exercises, making Germany a hub for the transfer of troops and military equipment from the North Sea and Western Europe to Scandinavia, the Baltic states and the Balkans. With these exercises, NATO and Sweden want to play out the scenario of a Russian attack and assert “a clear demonstration of our unity, strength and determination to defend each other” (Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Christopher Cavoli).
Deutsche Bahn’s rail network is part of NATO’s military infrastructure. When DB is attacked, the infrastructure of war and arms production is attacked.
However, Deutsche Bahn is not only a player in war here: it also profits from colonial and environmentally destructive projects in the global South. Its DB Consulting & Engineering branch advised the Mexican Ministry of Tourism on the “Tren Maya” project, and acts as a shadow operator in the background. The Tren Maya is a 1,500-kilometer rail and highway project in southeastern Mexico, linking several federal states to the tourist hell of Cancún, for which many hectares of virgin forest have already been razed to the ground. In addition, many cenotes – interconnected caves containing enormous reserves of fresh water – will be destroyed and literally dynamited for this construction project. These cenotes are not only important for the water supply, but also have great cultural significance for the local indigenous population. The project aims to attract tourists to areas that haven’t yet been exploited with a tourism industry, to open up the region to mass tourism and new investment. The Tren Maya is also managed by the Mexican army and serves to further militarize the region and the country’s southern border.
In Brazil, Deutsche Bahn is also involved in numerous colonial projects: a huge deep-water export port is to be built on the island of Cajual, in the eastern Amazon, including a new 520 km-long private railroad line (EF-317). This will be used to transport raw materials mined in the interior of the country, such as copper, iron ore, soy and hydrogen, to the Atlantic coast for faster export to the global North. Deutsche Bahn’s “DB E.C.O. Group” is involved in the project, which it describes as “sustainable”. What is sustainable is, at most, the environmental destruction caused by the project. Deutsche Bahn is profiting from the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and the resulting brutal expulsion of indigenous communities. The export port also threatens the immense biodiversity of the surrounding mangroves. The planned rail line passes through various indigenous communities, some of which are isolated. The Maranhão region, through which the railroad will pass, is the area with the highest rate of violence against indigenous populations, and this construction project will intensify this violence and land grabbing.
Deutsche Bahn profits from colonial projects and the destruction of the global environment. These colonial projects are synonymous with militarization and land grabbing, in other words, war.
This is why DB is not only a military player in Europe, insofar as it transports troops, war materiel and arms exports, and thus profits from current and future wars, but it is also a global player in environmental destruction and colonial exploitation, land grabbing and militarization through its projects in the countries of the global South.
Let’s sabotage military and colonialist infrastructures worldwide!
AGAINST CAPITALIST PEACE – AGAINST CAPITALIST WAR!
Greetings to France, to the unexpected delegation and to the other saboteurs who lit the Olympic flame in the cable shafts of the SNCF and Internet Service Providers.
via: sansnom
Translated by Act for freedom now!