ELF hits Rio Tinto Alcan in Essex in solidarity with Saving Iceland

In the ear­ly hours of 30/07/07, sabo­teurs struck at Smur­fit Kap­pa, a plas­tics fac­to­ry owned by Rio Tin­to Alcan in Chelms­ford, Essex. The gates were locked shut, office doors and load­ing bays were sab­o­taged with glue and a mes­sage left paint­ed on the wall. Vehi­cles belong­ing to Rio Tin­to were also sab­o­taged.

In the ear­ly hours of 30/07/07, sabo­teurs struck at Smur­fit Kap­pa, a plas­tics fac­to­ry owned by Rio Tin­to Alcan in Chelms­ford, Essex. The gates were locked shut, office doors and load­ing bays were sab­o­taged with glue and a mes­sage left paint­ed on the wall. Vehi­cles belong­ing to Rio Tin­to were also sab­o­taged.

Rio Tin­to, who have recent­ly acquired the busi­ness have arguably the worse record of any cor­po­ra­tion for abuse of the earth and its peo­ple. Whether they’re spon­sor­ing and train­ing para­mil­i­taries com­mit­ting geno­cide in the South Pacif­ic, remov­ing entire moun­tain tops in Africa or strip min­ing vir­gin rain­for­est that belongs to indige­nous tribes, they must be stopped.

Rio Tin­to’s recent acqui­si­tion of Alcan makes them par­ty to the great­est eco­log­i­cal crime cur­rent­ly being com­mit­ted in Europe. They are look­ing to turn Ice­land’s great wilder­ness­es into a series of mono­lith­ic pow­er sta­tions to pow­er alu­mini­um smelters; one of the most pol­lut­ing and ener­gy inten­sive indus­tries in the world. Rio Tin­to bring repres­sion wher­ev­er they go, in Bouganville in the South Pacif­ic they hired mer­ce­nar­ies to rape and mur­der all who opposed their mas­sive cop­per mine, Pan­gu­na. Their inva­sion into Ice­land is no dif­fer­ent and protests against heavy indus­try are being met with police vio­lence and activists are fit­ted up and sub­ject to state spon­sored slan­der.

It’s nec­es­sary to hit Rio Tin­to where it hurts, on the bot­tom line, the bal­ance sheet. Where it mat­ters.

EARTH LIBERATION FRONT